Volume One—Chapter Twenty Five.
A Revelation.
“Oh, May, May! As if I had not care and pain enough without this. Surely it cannot be true.”
“Hush! don’t make a fuss like that, you silly thing. You’ll have the people hearing you down in the street. How could I help it?”
“Help it? May, you must have been mad.”
“Oh! no, I wasn’t,” said Mrs Burnett, nestling into a corner of the couch in her father’s drawing-room. “I believe he was, though, poor fellow.”
She gazed up at her portrait with her pretty girlish face wrinkling up, and these wrinkles seeming to have had work to get the better of the dimples in her baby cheeks and chin.
“He was dreadfully fond of me, Claire,” she continued, “and I was very fond of him. And then, you see, we were both so young.”
Claire clasped her hands together and gazed at her sister with a face full of wonder, she seemed so calm and unconcerned, as if it were some one else’s trouble and not her own that had brought the tears into her eyes.
“But, May, why did not you confide in me?”
“Likely! You were always scolding and snubbing me, as it was. I don’t know what you would have said if you had known. Besides, I was afraid of you in those days.”
“May, you will drive me mad,” said Claire, pacing the room.
“Nonsense; and don’t go on running up and down the room like that. Be sensible, and help me.”
“Why have you not told me before?”
“I’ve been going to tell you heaps of times, but you’ve always had something or other to worry about, and I’ve been put off.”
“Till you knew that detection was inevitable; and now you come to me,” cried Claire reproachfully.
“Look here, Claire, are you going to talk sensibly, or am I to go to some lady friend to help me? There’s Mrs Pontardent.”
“No, no,” cried Claire excitedly. “You must not take anyone else into your confidence. Tell me all. But May, May, is this really true, or is it some miserable invention of your own?”
“Oh, it’s true enough,” said May sharply, as she arranged her bonnet strings, and bent forward to catch a glimpse of her great ostrich feather.
Claire looked at her with her face drawn with care and horror, while she wondered at the indifference of the little wife, and the easy way in which she was trying to shift the trouble and responsibility of her weakness and folly upon her sister.
“Why, May, you could not have been seventeen.”
“Sixteen and a half,” said May. “Heigho! I begin to feel quite an old woman now.”
“But, Frank? Do you ever think of the consequences if he were to know?”
“Why, of course I do, you silly thing. Haven’t I lain in bed and quaked hundreds of times for fear he should ever find out? How can you talk so? Why do you suppose I came to you, if it was not that I was afraid of his getting to know?”
“May, it would drive our father mad if all came out.”
“Of course it would. Now you are beginning to wake up and understand why I have come.”
“How could you accept Frank Burnett, and deceive him so?”
“How could I marry him? What would papa have said if I had refused? Don’t talk stuff.”
Claire’s brow knit more and more, as she realised her sister’s utter want of principle, and her heart seemed rent by anger, pity, and grief.
“Besides, do you suppose I wanted to stop here and pinch and starve when a rich husband and home were waiting for me? Poor Louis was dead, and if I’d cried my eyes out every week and said I’d be a widow for ever and ever, it would not have brought him to life.”
Claire did not speak. Her words would not come, and she gazed in utter perplexity, struggling to realise the fact that the girlish little thing before her could possibly have been a widow and mother before she became Mrs Burnett.
“When—when did this begin?” said Claire at last.
“Now, don’t talk to me like that, Claire, or you’ll set me off crying my eyes blind, and I shall go home red and miserable, and Frank will find it all out.”
“He must be told.”
“Told?” cried May, starting up. “Told? If he is told, I’ll go right down to the end of the pier and drown myself. He must never know, and papa must never know. Do you think I’ve kept this a secret for more than two years for them to be told?”
“They will be sure to know.”
“Yes, if you tell them. Oh, Claire, Claire, I did think I could find help in my sister, now that I am in such terrible trouble.”
“I will help you all I can, May,” said Claire sadly; “but they must know.”
“I tell you they must not,” cried May angrily, and speaking like a spoiled child. “Frank would kill me, and as for poor, dear, darling papa, with all his troubles about getting you married and Morton settled, and Fred turning out so badly, it would kill him, and then you’d have a nice time of it, far worse than poor old mummy Teigne being killed.”
“Oh, hush, May!” said Claire, with a horrified look.
“That moves you, does it, miss? Well, then, be reasonable. I don’t know what to make of you of late, Claire; you seem to be so changed. Ah, you’ll find the difference when you’re a married woman.”
Claire gazed down at her, with the trouble and perplexity seeming to increase, while May Burnett arranged the folds of her dress, as she once more nestled in the corner of the old sofa, and seemed as if she were posing herself to be pitied and helped.
Then she lifted her eyes towards the florid portrait on the wall, and sighed.
“Poor Louis! How he did flatter me. But he always did that, and I suppose it was his flattering words made me love him so. I was very fond of him.”
“May,” said Claire excitedly, “when was it you were married?”
“Oh, it was such fun. It was while I was staying at Aunt Jerdein’s, and taking the music lessons. I went out as usual, to go to Golden Square for my lesson as aunt thought, and Louis was waiting for me, and he took me in a hackney coach with straw at the bottom and mouldy old cushions, and one of the windows broken. And we went to such a queer old church somewhere in the city, and were married—a little old church that smelt as mouldy as the hackney coach; and the funny old clergyman took snuff all over his surplice, and he did mumble so.”
“And then?”
“Oh, Louis left Saltinville, you know, when I went up to London, and gave lessons at Aunt Jerdein’s, and we used to see as much of each other as we could, till he had to go back to Rome, and there, poor boy, you know he died of fever.”
Claire did not speak, but stood with her hands clasped before her, listening to the calm, cool, selfish words that seemed to come rippling out from the prettily-curved mouth as if it were one of the simplest and most matter-of-fact things in the world.
“It was a great trouble to me, of course, dear,” May continued; and she raised herself a little, to spread her handsome dress, so that it should fall in graceful folds. “I used to cry my eyes out, and I don’t know what I should have done if it had not been for Anne Brown.”
“Anne Brown? Aunt Jerdein’s servant?” said Claire bitterly. “You trusted her, then, in preference to your own sister.”
“No, I didn’t, baby. She found me out. And besides, I daren’t have told you. How you would have scolded me, you know,” continued May. “Anne was very good to me, and I went and stayed with her mother when baby was born, and then Anne left aunt soon after. Aunt thought, you know, that I’d come down home, and, of course, you all thought I was still at aunt’s. Anne Brown managed about the letters.”
“Go on,” said Claire, who listened as if this were all some horrible fiction that she was forced to hear.
“Then I did come home, and Anne Brown took care of poor baby with her mother, and it was terribly hard work to get money to send them, but somehow I did it; and then you know about Frank Burnett, how poor dear papa brought all that on.”
Claire uttered a sigh that was almost a groan, but the pretty little rosebud of a wife went prattling on, in selfish ignorance of the agony she was inflicting, dividing her attention between her dress and the picture of herself that was smiling down at her from the wall.
“I suffered very much all that time, Claire dear, and, whenever I could, I used to go upstairs, lock myself in my room, and put on a little widow’s cap I had—a very small one, dear, of white crape—and have a good cry about poor Louis. It was the only mourning I ever could wear for him, and it was nearly always locked up in the bottom drawer; but I used to carry a bit of black crape in my dress pocket, and touch that now and then. It was a little strip put through my wedding ring and tied in a knot. There it is,” she said, fishing it out of her dress pocket; “but the strip of crape only looks like a bit of black rag now.”
She held out a tiny, plain gold ring for her sister to see, and it looked so small that it seemed as if it had been used sometime when a little girl had been playing at being married with some little boy, or at one of the child weddings that history records.
“Poor Louis!” sighed May. “I was very fond of him. Then, when I was married again, of course I was able to send money up every week easily enough till Frank began to grow so stingy, when I’ve often had no end of trouble to get it together. But I always have managed somehow. Oh, dear me! This is a wearisome place, this world.”
Claire stood gazing down at her, and May went on:
“Then all went smoothly enough till that stupid Anne’s mother took a cold or something, and died; then Anne sent me word that she was going to be married, and I must fetch poor baby away.”
The sisters’ eyes now met as May continued:
“So, as I didn’t know anyone else, I went to Mrs Miggles out there on the cliff, and told her how I was situated. She wouldn’t help me at first. She said I was to tell you; but when I told her I dared not, and promised her I’d pay her very regularly, she came round, and she went up to London by the coach and fetched baby, and a great expense it was to me, for she had to come back inside. Do open the window, Claire; this room is stifling.”
Claire slowly crossed the room and threw open the window and then returned to stand gazing at her sister.
“And your little innocent child is there at that fisherman’s hut on the cliff?”
“Yes, dear,” said May calmly; and then, for the first time, her face lit up, and she showed some trace of feeling as she exclaimed:
“And, oh, Claire dear, she is such a little darling.”
Claire looked at her in a strangely impassive way. It was as if the story she had heard of her sister’s weakness and deception had stunned her, and, instead of looking at her, she gazed right away with wistful eyes at the past troubles culminating in Fred’s enlistment, and then that horror, the very thought of which sent a shudder through her frame.
And now this new trouble had come, one that might prove a terrible disgrace, while the future looked so black that she dared not turn her mental gaze in that direction.
“Well,” said May, at last, “why don’t you speak—though you need not, if you are only going to scold.”
“Why have you come to tell me this now—this disgraceful story of deceit and shame?”
“Do you wish to send me back broken-hearted, Claire—crying my eyes out so that Frank is sure to know?”
“I say, why have you come to me, May?”
“Because I am in dreadful trouble at last, and don’t know what to do. I daren’t communicate with those people or go near the cottage, for I’m sure Frank is watching me and suspecting something.”
“You will have to confess everything, May; he loves you and will forgive you.”
“But he doesn’t love me, and he never would forgive me,” cried May excitedly. “You can’t think how we quarrel. He’s a horribly jealous little monster, and I hate him.”
“May!”
“I don’t care: I do. Now, look here, Claire, it’s of no use for you to boggle about it, because you must help me. If it were to come out it would be social ruin for us all, and I’ve had quite enough poverty, thank you. I dare not go and see the little thing again, and if some one does not take the Miggleses some money regularly, likely as not they’ll turn disagreeable and begin to talk. I shall bring you money, of course, and as some one must go and see that my poor darling is properly cared for, why you must.”
“I?”
“Yes, dear, you. The poor little thing shall not be neglected, I’m determined upon that; and as my situation prevents me, why it is your duty, Claire.”
“Who knows that this is your little girl, May?” said Claire coldly.
“Nobody.”
“Not even the fisherman’s wife?”
“Well, I dare say she thinks something; but those people never say anything so long as you pay them regularly. But there, I dare not stay any longer. There’s a guinea, Claire; it’s all I have to-day. Take that to Mrs Miggles, and see how the darling is. I must be off. I’ll come in to-morrow and hear.”
“May, I cannot—I dare not—try to cloak this shameful story.”
“But you must, I tell you. Now, don’t be so silly. Why, I’d do as much for you.”
“I tell you I dare not do this. I must tell papa—or, there, I’ll be your help in this; I’ll come with you, and you shall confess to Frank.”
“Why, he’d kill me. I know it has been a surprise to you, and you are a bit taken aback, but think about it, and you will see that it is your duty to help me now. Good-bye, Claire dear,” she continued, as she kissed her sister. “Nobody knows anything about this but you, and it is our secret, mind. Good-bye.”
Claire hardly heard the door close as May rustled out of the room, hot and excited by the confidence she had had to make, but evidently quite at her ease, as her bright eyes and smile showed, when she looked up from her carriage and nodded at her sister.
Claire looked down at her, drawn involuntarily to the window; and as the carriage drove off, and she still remained gazing straight before her, an officer passed and raised his hat.
Claire had an instinctive feeling that it was Major Rockley, but she neither looked nor moved, for the face of a tiny child seemed to be looking up at her, smiling, and asking her sympathy.
Then she started into life as there was another footstep on the boulder path, and another hat was raised, and an eager appealing look met hers, making her shrink hastily away, with her erst blank face growing agitated as she drew back trembling and fighting hard to keep down the sobs that rose.
For all that was past now for her. With the secrets she had held within her breast before, how dared she to think of his love? Now there was another—a secret so fraught with future trouble that she hardly dared dwell upon all that she had heard. It had come upon her that morning like a thunderclap—this new trouble, known only to herself and the fisherman’s wife. So May had said: for she had gone to her sister to demand her aid in happy ignorance of this part of her miserable story being known, beside much more, to little library-keeping Miss Clode.
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Six.
The Money-Lender at Home.
“Who is it?”
“It’s that Major Rockley, Jo-si-ah, and he’s walking up and down, switching his riding-whip about, and he’ll be knocking down some of the chimney if you don’t make haste.”
“Let him wait a minute,” said Barclay, finishing a letter.
“I do ’ate that man, Jo-si-ah—that I do,” said Mrs Barclay.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk so, old lady, when I’m writing.”
“I can’t help it, Jo-si-ah. That man, whenever I meet him, makes me begin to boil. So smooth, and polite, and smiling, and squeeze-your-handy, while all the while he’s laughing at you for being so fat.”
“Laughing at me for being so fat?”
“No, no. You know what I mean—laughing at me myself for being so fat. I ’ate him.”
“Well, I don’t want you to love him, old lady.”
“I should think not, indeed, with his nasty dark eyes and his long black mustarchers. Ugh! the monster. I ’ate him.”
“Handsomest man in Saltinville, my dear.”
“Handsome is as handsome does, Jo-si-ah. He’s a black-hearted one, if ever there was one, I know.”
“Now, you don’t know anything of the kind, old girl.”
“Oh, yes, I do, Jo-si-ah. I always feel it whenever he comes anigh one, and if I had a child of my own, and that man had come and wanted to marry her, I’d have cut her up in little pieces and scattered them all about the garden first.”
“Well, then, I suppose I ought to be very, very glad that we never had any little ones, for, though I should be very glad to get rid of you—”
“No, you wouldn’t, Jo-si-ah,” said Mrs Barclay, showing her white teeth.
“Yes, I should, but I shouldn’t have liked to see you hung for murder.”
“Don’t talk like that, Jo-si-ah. It gives me the shivers. That word makes me think about old Lady Teigne, and not being safe in my bed.”
“Stuff and nonsense!”
“It isn’t stuff and nonsense, Jo-si-ah. I declare, ever since that dreadful affair, I never see a bolster without turning cold all down my back; and I feel as if it wasn’t safe to put my head upon my pillow of a night. There: he’s ringing because you’re so long.”
“Then I shall be longer,” growled Barclay, putting a wafer in his mouth.
“How that poor Claire Denville can stop in that house of a night I don’t know.”
“Ah, that puts me in mind of something: I wish you wouldn’t be so fond of that Claire Denville.”
“Why not? I must be fond of somebody.”
“Be fond of me, then, I’m ugly enough.”
“So I am fond of you, Jo-si-ah, and you are not ugly, and I should like to hear anyone say you were to my face.”
“I don’t like that Denville lot.”
“No more do I, Jo-si-ah, only poor dear Claire. Her father ain’t bad, but she’s as good as gold.”
“I don’t know so much about that,” muttered Barclay.
“And now, Jo-si-ah, just you be careful with that Major Rockley. He owes you a lot now.”
“Yes, but I’ve got him tight enough.”
“And if you let him have more you get him tighter. He’s a bold, bad man, always gambling and drinking, and doing worse.”
“Oh, I’m very fond of him, old lady,” said Barclay, chuckling. “I love him like a son, and—there he is again. I must go now.”
It was only into the next room, but there were double doors, and as Barclay entered the Major’s countenance did not look at all handsome, but very black and forbidding.
“Come, Barclay,” he cried, with a smile; “I thought you were going to put me off. Here, I’ve been hard hit again. I’m as poor as Job, and I must have a hundred.”
For answer Barclay shrugged his shoulders, took out a fat pocket-book, and began to draw out the tuck.
“Put that away,” cried the Major impatiently; and he gave the book a flick with his riding-whip, but not without cutting right across Barclay’s fingers, and making a red mark.
The money-lender did not even wince, but he mentally made a mark against his client’s name, intimating that the cut would have to be paid for some day or another.
“I know all about that. I’ve had five hundred of you during the past two months. Never mind that; the luck must turn sometime. Cards have been dead against me lately. That Mellersh has the most extraordinary luck; but I shall have him yet, and we’ll soon be square again. Come, I want a hundred.”
“When?”
“Now, man, now.”
“Can’t be done, Major, really.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, man. I tell you I must have it.”
“Your paper’s getting bad, Major. Too much of it in the market.”
“Look here, Barclay; do you want to insult me?”
“Not I, sir; never thought of such a thing.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean? Only that you’ve had five hundred pounds of my money during these last three months.”
“For which you hold bills for seven hundred and fifty.”
“You put down five hundred pounds now in Bank of England notes, Major Rockley, and you shall have the lot.”
“Then you do mean to insult me, sir?”
“No, Major.”
“What do you mean, then?”
“Only that I won’t part with another five-pound note till I get some of that money back.”
Major Rockley’s dark brows came down over his eyes as he glared at Barclay with a peculiarly vindictive expression, while the money-lender thrust his hands deep down into his drab breeches’ pockets, and whistled softly.
“I shall not forget this, Barclay,” he said slowly, and, turning upon his heels, he walked out of the place beating his boot viciously with his whip.
“Oh, the monster!” cried Mrs Barclay, entering the room.
“Why, you’ve been listening.”
“Well, didn’t you leave the door open on purpose for me to listen, Jo-si-ah? Oh, what a bad, evil-looking man, Jo-si-ah. I believe he wouldn’t stop at anything to get money from you now.”
“Black mask and a pair of pistols, on a dark night in a country road, eh, old lady? Stand and deliver; money or your life, eh?”
“Well, you may laugh, Jo-si-ah; but he looks just the sort of man who wouldn’t stop at anything. I am glad you wouldn’t let him have any money, for I’m sure you’d never get it back.”
“I don’t know so much about that, old lady, but whether or no, I wasn’t going to let him have any this morning. He has been short lately, and no mistake. Some one I know’s making a nice thing out of them at the mess.”
“Colonel Mellersh?”
“Mum!”
“Oh, there’s no one to hear us now. But, I say, Jo-si-ah, why is he so friendly with Miss Clode?”
“Because she sells packs of cards, old girl.”
“Ah, but there’s something more than that. I went in there one day, and he had hold of her hand across the counter; and I could see, though she turned it off, that she had been crying.”
“Asking her to wed, and let him succeed to the business,” said Barclay, with a chuckle.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Jo-si-ah. I wish I had a good, clear head like you, and was as clever, and then perhaps I could make this out.”
“What?”
“About Miss Clode. I’m sure she has seen better days.”
“That she has,” said Barclay, chuckling. “She looks pretty shabby now, a newsy, gossiping old hag!”
“I don’t dislike Miss Clode,” said Mrs Barclay thoughtfully. “There’s much worse in Saltinville.”
“I dare say,” he said, laughing. “I’ve only one thing against her.”
“What’s that?”
“She hates poor Claire Denville like poison.”
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Seven.
Fisherman Dick Stares.
Major Rockley had counted upon getting a hundred pounds from Barclay, and the refusal annoyed him to so great an extent that he determined upon having a sharp walk to calm himself. So setting off at a good rate towards the main cliff to reach the downs beyond the town, he had not gone far before he saw a graceful figure, in a white dress, with black scarf and plain straw bonnet going in the same direction.
“Claire Denville as I’m a sinner!” he cried, his pale cheeks flushing, and a curious light shining in his dark eyes.
“Yes, without doubt,” he muttered. “Off for a walk to the downs. Lucky accident. At last!”
He checked himself, walking slowly, so as not to overtake her until she was well out of the town, and thinking that perhaps it would be as well to keep back until she turned, and then meet her face to face.
“The jade! How she has kept me at a distance. Refused my notes, and coquetted with me to make me more eager for the pursuit. The old man’s lessons have not been thrown away. I’m to approach in due form, I suppose. Well, we shall see.”
Claire went straight on, walking pretty quickly, and without turning her head to right or left. The streets were left behind; the row of houses facing the sea had come to an end; and she was getting amongst the fishermen’s cottages, while below the cliff the fishing boats were drawn high up on the shingle, and long, brown filmy nets spread out to dry, looking like square shadows cast by invisible sails, and mingled with piles of tarred barrels, lobster baskets, and brown ropes, bladders and corks.
Every here and there, on the railing at the cliff edge, hung oilskins to soften in the sunshine, and in one place a giant appeared to be sitting astride the rail, with nothing to be seen of him but a huge pair of boots. Farther on fish were drying in the air, and farther still there came up a filmy cloud of grey smoke from the shingle, along with a pleasant smell of Stockholm tar, for Fisherman Dick was busy paying the bottom of a boat turned upside down below the cliff.
These matters did not interest Major Rockley any more than the grey gulls that wheeled overhead and descended, to drop with a querulous cry upon a low spit of shingle where the sea was retiring fast.
For the fluttering white dress took up all his attention, and now that they were well beyond the promenaders, he was about to hasten his steps—too impatient to wait until she turned—when he uttered an impatient oath, for Claire suddenly stopped by a cottage where a woman was sitting knitting a coarse blue garment and nursing a little child.
It was all so sudden that it took the officer by surprise. The woman jumped up hastily on being spoken to, and curtseyed, and they went in at once, leaving the Major by the rails.
“Well, I can wait,” he said, smiling and taking out his cigar-case. “I can study the tarring of boats till her ladyship appears.”
He slowly chose and lit a cigar, and then, going close to the edge of the cliff, leaned upon the rails and gazed down at Fisherman Dick, who was working away busily, dipping his brush in a little three-legged iron pot, and carefully spreading the dark-brown odorous tar.
He was about forty feet below the Major, and for some time he went on steadily with his work, but all at once he stopped short, and turned his face upwards as if he felt that he was being watched; and as he did so his straw hat fell off and he stood fixed by the Major’s eyes as if unable to move.
The sensation was mutual, for Major Rockley felt attracted by the dark, Spanish-looking face, and the keen eyes so intently fixed upon his.
“Confound the fellow! how he stares,” said the Major, at last, as he seemed to wrench himself away, and turned his back.
As he did so, leaning against the rail, Dick Miggles drew a long breath, stared now at his iron tar-kettle, and carried it to the fire of old wreck-wood to re-heat it, as he stood by and thoughtfully scratched his head.
He looked up for a moment, and saw that the Major’s back was towards him, and then bent over his kettle again, and began pushing half-burned scraps of wood beneath, making the fire roar and the pitch heat quickly, and he did not look up again till the Major had walked away, when he began to brush again at the boat as if relieved, ending by giving one leg a tremendous slap, and stopping short as if to think.
The Major had some time to wait, and he passed a good deal of it walking up and down, as if watching a sail in the offing, till fortune favoured him; so that as he was approaching the cottage again, Claire came out quickly, and, seeing him, started and turned to walk in the other direction, out on the downs and round by the London Road into the town.
She repented on the instant, and wished that she had faced him boldly and passed on. But she was excited and confused by her visit, which had to her a curious suggestion of wrong-doing in it; and she was leaving the place, feeling agitated and guilty, when, seeing the Major, she had turned sharply to walk on, trembling, and hoping that he had not seen her. The hope died out on the instant, for she heard his steps, with the soft clink, clink of the rowels of his spurs; but he kept his distance till they were well beyond the cottages, and then rapidly closed up.
What would he think of her visit there? What would he say? were the questions Claire asked herself as she walked rapidly on to reach the stile that bounded the cornfield she would have to turn into and cross to get into the London Road; and all the time, clink, clink—clink, clink, those spurs rang on her ears, and came nearer and nearer.
The stile at last; and, trembling with eagerness, she was about to cross, when the Major passed her quickly, leaped over, and turned smilingly to face her with:
“Allow me, my dear Miss Denville. We meet at last.” ~C End of Volume One.
Volume Two—Chapter One.
An Officer and a Gentleman.
Claire shrank back for a moment, and her natural womanly timidity urged her to turn and hurry home by the way she had come.
But that would be showing Major Rockley that she was afraid of him, and this she wished to keep a secret in her own breast.
Bowing slightly, then, she declined the offer of his hand, stepped over the stile, and went on.
With anyone else Rockley would have felt bound to retire, but he only laughed. Claire was the daughter of the poor minister of fashion, who lived by the fees and offerings he received from new-comers; and he did not feel himself called upon to treat her as a lady.
“Why, my dear Miss Denville,” he said, laughing, “what have I done that you should try to cut me like this? I am ignorant. Come, shake hands.”
He held his out, as he walked by her side, and she turned upon him a look full of indignation.
“Are you not making a mistake, sir?” she said coldly.
“Mistake? No. My dear Claire, why do you treat me like this? How absurd it is to refuse my letters, and play coquette when we meet. Here have I been watching for such an opportunity as this for weeks.”
Claire’s eyes flashed at his assumption, but she made no reply, and walked on.
“How can you be so absurd,” he whispered, as he kept pace with her step for step, “when you know how I love you?”
“Major Rockley!” she cried, stopping short and facing him, “by what right do you insult me like this?”
“How beautiful she is!” he said in a low tone.
Claire bit her lips, and, divining that he was disposed to treat her as one in an entirely different rank of life, she hurried on along the path, with the tall corn waving on either side, trembling with dread and indignation, as she realised that he was behaving to her as he might to some servant-girl.
“Say what you like to me. Be angry. Punish me. I cannot help it,” he whispered. “Your beauty maddens me, as it has done all these weary months, and I must speak to you now.”
“Major Rockley, I am alone and unprotected. I ask you, as a gentleman, to leave me.”
“And as an officer and a gentleman I would leave you, but my passion masters me. Sweet Claire, whom I love so dearly, how can you be so cruel and so hard?”
He tried to take her hand, but she shrank from him and turned back.
“No, no, little one, you are not going to serve me like that!” he cried, darting before her. “Come, how can you be so absurd?” he whispered. “We are quite alone. No one can see our meeting, and yet you are trifling with me, and wasting golden moments. You know I love you.”
“Once more, Major Rockley, will you leave me? You insult me by staying.”
“No, I will not leave you,” he whispered excitedly; “and I do not insult you.”
“I am alone now, sir, but I have a father—brothers, who shall call you to account for this!” she cried, with her eyes full of indignation.
“Don’t,” he whispered imploringly. “You make your eyes flash and your face light up in a way that drives me frantic. Claire, if you speak to me like that again, I shall risk being seen, and take you to my heart to cover those lips with kisses. No, no; don’t shrink away; only be gentle with me, and talk sensibly. Let us be closer friends, dear. Come, let there be an end to all this coy nonsense. There, we understand one another now. That’s better.”
He seized her hand, and drew it through his arm; but, with a display of strength that he had not expected, she snatched it away, and stood pale with anger and indignation.
She hurried forward the next moment, but he laughingly kept at her side.
Claire turned and retreated, but he was still there; and, choking down her sobs, she walked as fast as she could towards the stile she had crossed.
It seemed evident to her that the Major must know the reason for her visit to the fisherman’s cottage, or he would never have dared to treat her with such bold insolence; and as she walked on he kept close beside her, pressing his suit in the most daringly insulting manner, while she ceased her protests now, and walked on in silence.
“It is the only way to deal with her,” he said to himself; “and, after this outburst to keep up appearances, we shall be on the best of terms.”
Claire had gone farther in her excitement than she had thought possible, and it seemed now that she would never reach the stile. Beyond that, there might be people who would help her; and in any case, the fishermen’s cottages were not many hundred yards away.
In spite of her silence, the Major kept on his passionate addresses and protestations, pleading his inability to obtain a hearing from her before; and at last, irritated by her silence, he caught her by the arm and held it fast.
“No, no; you are not going yet,” he said, speaking angrily. “What sort of a man do you take me for, that you play with me like this?”
“Major Rockley, will you loose my arm?”
“Claire Denville, will you promise to meet me to-night where I will name?”
“I am a defenceless woman, sir, and this is an insult—an outrage. Will you loose my arm?”
“You are a cruel coquette,” he cried passionately. “Is this your treatment, after the months of glances you have given me to lure me on?”
“Will you loose my arm, sir?”
“Will you be a sensible girl?” he whispered. “How can you be so absurd? Look about you: we are too far off for anyone to see who we are, and if they could see us, why should we care? What is the world to us? Come, Claire, my darling.”
He tried to draw her towards him, but she struggled to get free and reach the stile in the tall hedge that separated them from the bare downs beyond.
The tears of rage and indignation were in Claire’s eyes as she felt her helplessness, and saw how thoroughly she was in Rockley’s power. There seemed to be nothing she could do but scream for help, and from that she shrank.
Turning suddenly upon him, with her eyes flashing, she exclaimed:
“Major Rockley! as a gentleman I ask you to cease this cowardly pursuit.”
“Claire Denville, as the woman I adore and have set my mind to win, I ask you to cease this silly heroic nonsense. My dear child, is it to make terms?”
She snatched her hand by an angry movement from his grasp, and reached the stile; but he was too quick for her, catching her and drawing her back to clasp her in his arms.
“You shall not say I wasted my opportunity,” he whispered. “If I am to be punished by you, it shall be for something more than words. This kiss is to be the first of millions that you shall pay me back, and—Curse the fellow!”
There was a quick step, a hand was laid on the stile, and Richard Linnell vaulted over, white with jealous anger. For, coming along the downs, he had seen Claire cross the stile, followed by Rockley, and, half mad with rage, he had gazed at them for a moment or two, and then, feeling that all was over, and that there was no more love for him in the world, since the woman he had worshipped could be so light as to make appointments with the greatest libertine in the town, he walked straight back for the parade.
It was all plain enough; there had been an understanding between Claire and the Major, and hence that serenade. But for the horrible accident that night Claire would have come to the window and answered to the musical call.
What a boyish, childish idiot he had been: dreaming always of a vain, weak, frivolous woman, whom he had in his blind idolatry endowed with all the beauties and virtues of her sex.
“Well,” he said with a scornful laugh, “I ought to have known how artificial she would be. Like father, like daughter; but it is cruel, cruel work.”
He laughed bitterly.
“What an idiot I am!” he cried angrily. “A boy in such matters—a child. Well, it is a lesson. I might have known that she would be as ready to receive attentions as her sister, and now I may go, and console myself by making love to the handsome actress who is ready to make love to me.”
“Another actress,” he said aloud, as he strode on with his jealous anger up to boiling-point, his face flushed, and his teeth set fast.
“Liar!” he exclaimed. “Fool! Idiot again! I will not believe it. Claire Denville is too true and sweet to listen to a man like that.”
He turned and went back faster than he had come, but he had walked some distance, and the return journey gave him time to cool a little and to ask himself whether he was going to watch—to act the eavesdropper—and whether this was a manly part to play.
His indecision increased as he approached the down side of the stile, and he was about to turn and retreat when an excited voice, speaking loudly, sent a thrill through him, and running to the opening he leaped over into the cornfield.
At the sight of Linnell, Claire, who had been up to now strong and heroic, grew feeble and helpless.
“Mr Linnell! Help!” she cried, as she struggled to reach him; and as Rockley, white with fury at the interruption, loosed his hold, Richard Linnell was upon him, striking him a blow full in the chest, which sent him staggering back to fall amongst the corn.
Linnell would have followed, but he caught sight of Claire tottering towards the stile, and he turned to help her, but Rockley had sprung up and, with a hoarse cry of rage, struck at Linnell with his riding-whip, the plaited whalebone falling upon his cheek, and making a weal right across his face.
Major Rockley had better have restrained his rage, for in an instant that blow transformed Richard Linnell, the calm and quiet, into a savage.
He turned round with a roar more than a cry, and sprang upon Rockley; there was a fierce struggle, ending in the riding-whip being torn from its owner’s grasp, and for the space of a couple of minutes there was the sound of the lash cutting through the air, and the blows that fell upon the tight undress uniform.
No words were uttered, but there was the scuffling of feet, the hoarse panting of excited men, and the corn was trampled down.
“There,” cried Linnell at last, flinging Rockley from him, and throwing the whip in his face, “dog and coward! You have had the thrashing you deserved. Strike me again if you dare.”
Major Rockley picked up the whip, and brushed the dust from his uniform. He strove hard to make his convulsed face smooth and to force a smile, while he mastered the desire to writhe and utter impatient cries, so keen was the agony he felt.
“No,” he said, in a low hissing whisper, “you are a stronger man than I, and when we meet again it shall be on equal terms.”
He accompanied his words with a vindictive look that told Richard Linnell plainly enough how they would encounter next.
He repressed a shudder, and then a pang that seemed to pierce his heart shot through him, for with a malicious smile Rockley said:
“I did not know the lady had made an appointment with you. Of course, she had to keep up appearances. But there: I’ll say no more.”
He raised his cap mockingly, and went off across the cornfield, leaving Richard Linnell stung to the heart, his brow knit, and his eyes fixed upon Claire, who, white as ashes, and her face convulsed by the agony within her breast, crouched where she had sunk upon the lower steps of the stile.
Volume Two—Chapter Two.
“Impossible!”
“Claire—Miss Denville,” cried Richard Linnell, mastering the cruel thoughts suggested by Rockley’s words, “how dared that scoundrel insult you like this!”
“Hush!” said Claire agitatedly. “Don’t—pray don’t speak to me. I cannot bear it.”
“You are ill. You are faint. Let me help you over these bars and get you to one of the cottages.”
“No; I shall be better directly. Don’t speak to me now.”
She bent down, covered her face with her hands, and the tears came now in a passionate burst, while he went down on his knee beside her, laid one hand upon her arm, and, his doubts and suspicions all driven away by her grief, tried to whisper words of comfort as he bade her be calm.
Major Rockley had walked with jaunty military stride for the first two or three hundred yards with assumed calmness; then he gave vent to his rage in a torrent of oaths, and strode on rapidly out of sight, beating the air fiercely with his whip, and leaving the fields clear of his presence as Richard Linnell knelt by the sobbing girl.
“Miss Denville—Claire,” he said again, as he now possessed himself of her hand, while in his anger and remorse at having doubted her he poured forth his words in quick, excited tones.
“I had not thought to speak to you like this, and at such a time, but I cannot bear to see you weep—it cuts me to the heart, for I love you—Claire, dear Claire, I love you dearly as man can love.”
“Oh, hush, hush!” she moaned piteously, weak now with her emotion and the scene she had gone through.
“I must speak now,” he went on. “I have no opportunities of seeing you and telling you all I feel. Claire, I would have come and asked permission to address you, but I have been obliged to feel that my presence was not welcome to Mr Denville, and you—you have been so cold and distant to me of late.”
She did not speak, but kept one hand to her bent-down face, while he held the other tightly clasped in his.
“You do not speak,” he whispered. “Claire—you are not angry? I have suffered so—there, I confess—such jealous thoughts, such bitter cruel thoughts, though I had no right—no claim upon your love. But now, forgive me—only tell me—there was nothing between you and that man?”
She raised her head quickly, and dropped her hand.
“You ask me that!” she said proudly.
“Forgive me. You would if you knew all. I felt that you had come to meet him, and I was tortured with these jealous doubts, but I would not believe, and I came, as you saw. And now, Claire, one word—my love!”
Her eyes half closed as he drew her towards him; her lips trembled, and her colour went and came. Then, as if her memory, that had been veiled for the moment, tore aside the film of forgetfulness, she thrust him from her, and, with a look of anguish in her eyes, started to her feet.
“No, no!” she cried with a shiver; “it is impossible!”
“Hush! don’t say that,” he whispered. “Claire, I could not bear it. I know I am not well-to-do, but I love you. I cannot offer you a rich home, but I give you a love that is wholly yours. Don’t—don’t refuse me—don’t make me think that you despise me.”
“No, no, it is not that,” she sobbed wildly. “You must not speak to me. It is impossible.”
“Impossible?” he cried, holding her hands tightly.
“Yes, impossible.”
“No,” he said with a quiet smile, “it is not impossible. You will grow to the knowledge by-and-by that there is one who lives for your sake, whose every thought is yours, and these little obstacles will melt away when you know me as I am. Claire, I only ask for a little hope—to go away with the thought that I have no rival for your love.”
“Don’t speak to me—don’t think of me again!” she cried, with a wild look in her face. “Heaven bless you, Mr Linnell! Think well of me, whatever comes, but all that is over now.”
“Over? No, no; don’t say that. Claire—my love!”
He still held her hands in his, and as their eyes met her lips quivered, and her sweet face was drawn with anguish. It was a hard fight, but she conquered, and tearing herself away, she crossed the stile, and he saw her with bent head hurrying towards her home.
“It is impossible—impossible,” he muttered, as he stood leaning against the stile. “No; she may say that a thousand times, but I shall hold to my faith, and this affair will give me strength.”
He walked slowly homeward, dreaming for a time of Claire’s anguished face, and then the sight of a uniform brought back the thought of the Major, and the punishment he had received.
“Will he resent it?” he asked himself.
The answer was awaiting him later on at home, where he encountered Cora Dean just going out for a drive.
The pony-carriage was at the door, and there was nothing for it but to hand the ladies in, Mrs Dean receiving the attention with a most ungracious look, while Cora smiled and looked flushed and pleased as she drove off, with Sir Harry Payne, in Colonel Mellersh’s room, watching her with admiring eyes.
“Won’t be long, you know. Very kind of you to see me about it; as it’s his father he lives with,” said Sir Harry. “Handsome woman that, Colonel. Precious unfortunate, all this. I say, how lucky you were at the tables last night. Very handsome woman that. Ever act now, do you know?”
“Every day,” said Colonel Mellersh drily. “Here, I’ll ask Linnell to step in.”
Volume Two—Chapter Three.
No Better than a Fiddler.
“But you can’t fight a fellow like that, Rockley,” said Sir Harry, who had been summoned to his brother-officer’s room.
“Not fight him? I’ll fight him, and kill him.”
“But he’s only a fiddler.”
“Enough of the gentleman for my purpose, I tell you,” roared Rockley fiercely. “I’ll kill him.”
“Nonsense, man alive. If you must meet, wing him, or pink him, or spoil the blackguard’s good looks. You can’t kill a man!”
“Can’t kill a man!” said the Major, in a low hissing voice; “can’t kill a man!”
“I say, Rockley! Hang it all, don’t look the diabolical like that: you give me the cold shivers. Why, I wouldn’t be called out by you on any consideration.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Rockley, with a ghastly attempt at mirth. “Did I look queer?”
“Queer? You looked queer multiplied ten thousand times. Why, Rockley, one of you with a face like that would scare a regiment of French cuirassiers. I say, what was the row about—a woman?”
“Curse her!” cried Rockley, flashing out into uncontrolled rage again, as he writhed with mental and bodily pain. “I’ll bring her to her senses for this. Treat me as if I were some gawky boy, to be held off and coaxed on, and then bidden to keep my distance!”
“What girl was it?”
“Curse you! don’t ask questions.”
“Bah! What a fire-eater you are, Rockley. As if I did not know. So the fairy Clairy has been saying, ‘How dare you, sir?’ Ha—ha—ha!”
“Do you want to quarrel, man?” said the Major, with an angry look in his eye.
“Not I, old lad; not with you in that temper. So she has been riding the high horse, and bidding you keep your distance; and, just in the nick of time, she had her dear friend Dick Linnell there, and the strong-armed fool horsewhipped you.”
Rockley turned upon him savagely, and gripped him by the arm so fiercely that Sir Harry Payne involuntarily shrank away.
“Don’t!” cried the Major hoarsely. “Don’t! or I can’t answer for myself.”
“Why, Rockley!”
“Don’t speak to me. Man, I feel as if that Linnell had roused a devil in me, and till I see him on the turf helpless I shall know no rest. Were you ever beaten—cut—and wealed with your own whip?”
“Well, egad, not to put too fine a point on it, old lad, it was not with a whip; it was a walking cane.”
“And did it cut deep down into your very soul, and make you feel as if nothing but blood would heal the pain?”
“Well, egad, no. It hurt a good deal, but I was obliged to pocket it all. Lady’s husband was a bit put out, you see. But that’s a long time ago. And do you really mean to fight?”
“Fight? If I don’t I shall lie in wait for the scoundrel and shoot him like a dog.”
“You couldn’t do that, my dear Rockley. Behaviour unworthy of an officer and a gentleman.”
“And as for that woman,” continued Rockley, striding up and down the room as if he were some savage beast confined in a cage, “my God! she shall smart for this!”
“My dear Rockley,” said Sir Harry, “you went the wrong way to work.”
“Silence, idiot!” roared the Major fiercely. “You would, of course, have won. She would have gone down on her knees to you. You are so handsome—so irresistible. Oh, damn it! No one could withstand you!”
“Sneer away, old fellow. I’m not going to boast,” said Sir Harry with a quiet, self-satisfied smile. “I’m not the man to kiss and tell; but—never mind.”
“Go on and settle that at once. No shirking; no excuses, mind. He shall meet me, and then—”
“Then—poor devil!” murmured Sir Harry Payne, as he sauntered out of the room and away across the parade ground. “What a temper he has! By George! if he were little May’s husband I’m afraid I should be disposed to abdicate in favour of some one, who might flirt to his heart’s content for me.
“Now what’s to be done? Shall I tell the Colonel? No. Wouldn’t do. The matter must go on. He’ll be cooler when they meet, and it will only mean a wing or a leg. That’s all.”
He went jauntily down to the parade, and exchanged pinches of snuff with old Lord Carboro’, who looked after him and muttered, “Fashionable fool! I wonder how much he owes Barclay. I must see. Clode tells me things are going too far, and I’m not going to have some one’s fair fame smirched through that idiot. A few months in a debtor’s prison would do him good.”
In happy ignorance of the remarks made behind his back, Sir Harry Payne went on to the house on the Parade, and Lord Carboro’ trotted off, snuff-box in hand, slightly uneasy in mind, but at rest compared to what he would have been had he known of the encounter that had taken place, and of Sir Harry Payne’s mission.
Richard Linnell had not returned, so Sir Harry bethought himself of Colonel Mellersh, found him at home, began chatting with him concerning cards, and the company staying in the place, firmly resolved not to give the Colonel a hint about his mission—and in ten minutes he had told him all.
“Tut—tut—tut!” ejaculated the Colonel. “I’m very sorry. About Claire Denville, you say?”
“Egad, Mellersh, what a fellow you are! You pump a man dry. Well, yes. Rockley’s dead on her. You remember the serenade?”
“Ah, yes; that horrible night!”
“Well, he’s a close fellow, as a rule, about his amours, but he raves about that girl.”
“Had she gone to meet him?”
“I don’t know; suppose so. Then the other lover comes; and it’s tom-cats.”
“They came to blows!”
“Blows?” said Sir Harry, bending forward and taking the Colonel by a button: “as far as I can make out, Linnell took his riding-whip from him, and he is lashed from head to foot.”
“And all about that girl of Denville’s,” said the Colonel, with a contemptuous look.
“Yes. But, my dear boy, you must own that she is devilishly handsome.”
“Oh yes, she’s handsome enough. Then the affair is serious?”
“Serious?” said Sir Harry, lowering his voice. “Rockley swears he’ll kill him.”
Colonel Mellersh looked very grave.
“They’ll have to meet, then?”
“Meet, my dear sir! Rockley says he’ll lie in wait for him and shoot him like a dog if he doesn’t come out. Fancy, you know, beaten like that before a lady!”
“And such a lady as Claire Denville,” said Colonel Mellersh, with a sneer. “Well,” he added, changing his manner, “I’m very sorry.”
“Yes, so am I. Rockley’s deuced haughty, and bullying, and overbearing, particularly lately—things seem to have gone wrong with him—but he’s not a bad fellow.”
“As men go,” said the Colonel with a sneer.
“Exactly—as men go,” replied Sir Harry, whose brains were not very analytical as regarded double entendre.
Just then Richard Linnell reached the door, encountered Cora Dean, and was finally beckoned into Colonel Mellersh’s room.
“My dear Linnell,” said the Colonel gravely, as the others exchanged distant bows, “Sir Harry Payne has called on behalf of Major Rockley—as his friend.”
He watched Linnell’s face intently, but there was only a slight contraction of the brows.
“Bravo!” said the Colonel to himself. “He’s staunch.”
“Mellersh,” said Linnell gravely, “I have no friend to whom I can appeal but you in a case like this.”
“I would far rather leave it,” said Colonel Mellersh slowly; “but perhaps if you leave the affair in my hands, Sir Harry Payne and I may be able to arrange for a peaceful issue. Major Rockley may be ready to withdraw or apologise.”
“S’death, sir!” cried Sir Harry; “apologise for being horsewhipped!”
“I beg pardon,” said the Colonel. “You see, I am not properly acquainted with the matter.”
“There can be no apology, Colonel Mellersh,” said Linnell, with a grave dignity that made the Colonel’s eyes light up. “I leave myself in your hands, and I shall be most grateful.”
“But—”
“I need say no more,” said the young man. “Of course, I know what Sir Harry Payne’s visit means, and I am ready when and where you will.”
He bowed and left the room with all the formality of the time; and when, about a quarter of an hour later, Sir Harry Payne went away, the young officer uttered a contemptuous sneer.
“’Pon my soul,” he muttered, “it is horribly degrading for Rockley. The fellow really is no better than a fiddler after all.”