Kitabı oku: «The Master of the Ceremonies», sayfa 10

Volume One – Chapter Twenty One.
Dick Catches Shrimps

There was quite a little crowd at the end of the pier to see Fisherman Dick and some others busy with boathooks searching for the fragments of Cora Dean’s pony carriage, and for want of something better to stare at, the fastening of a rope to first one pair of wheels and then to the other, and the hauling ashore, formed thrilling incidents.

Two rich carriage-cloaks were cast ashore by the tide, miles away, and the rug was found right under the pier, but there were several articles still missing. Cora’s reticule, containing her purse and cut-glass scent-bottle; a little carriage-clock used by Mrs Dean, who was always very particular about the lapse of time, and that lady’s reticule and purse.

It was Fisherman Dick’s special task to search for them when the tide was low, and this he did by going to work as a setter does in a field, quartering the ground and hunting it all over to and fro.

But Fisherman Dick did his work with a shrimping-net, and one day he took home the little carriage-clock and showed it to his wife.

Another day he found Mrs Dean’s reticule, and caught a great many shrimps as well.

Then the tide did not serve for several days, and he had to wait, shaking his head and telling Mrs Miggles he was afraid the sand would have covered everything.

“Then give it up,” said Mrs Miggles, who was trying to sew with the little girl in her lap, but was prevented by the tiny thing making dashes at her broad-brimmed silver spectacles, which it kept taking off and flourishing in one little plump hand.

“Well done, little ’un,” cried the fisherman, grinning. “No, missus, I don’t like being beat.”

He went off, looking very serious, with his net over one shoulder, the creel over the other, and after going to and fro patiently waist and often breast deep, he was successful in finding Cora Dean’s reticule, with its purse and cut-glass bottle; and that night he went home amply rewarded, Cora having been very generous, and Mrs Dean saying several times over that she wouldn’t have believed that a great rough man like that would have been so honest.

“I declare, Betsy, he’s just like a man in a play – the good man who finds the treasure and gives it up. Why, he might have kep’ your puss, and my puss too, and nobody been a bit the wiser.”

That was all that was missing; but every day for a week, during the times that the tide was low, Fisherman Dick was busy, pushing his shrimping-net before him, and stopping every now and then to raise it, throw out the rubbish, and transfer the few shrimps he caught to his creel.

It was not a good place for shrimping – it was too deep; but he kept on with his laborious task, wading out as far as ever he could go; and more than one of his fellow-mermen grinned at his empty creel.

“Why don’t you try the shallows, Dick?” said one of the blue-jerseyed fellows, who seemed to be trying to grow a hump on his back by leaning over the rail at the edge of the cliff.

“’Cause I like to try the deeps,” growled Fisherman Dick.

“Ah, you want to make your fortune too quick, my lad; that’s plain.”

Dick winked, and went home; and the next day he winked, and went out shrimping again, and caught very few, and went home again, put on his dry clothes, and said:

“Give us the babby.”

Mrs Miggles gave him the “babby,” and Dick took her and nursed her, smiling down at the little thing as she climbed up his chest, and tangled her little fingers in his great beard; while Mrs Miggles gave the few shrimps a pick over and a shake up before she consigned the hopping unfortunates to the boiling bath that should turn them from blackish grey to red.

“What is it, old man?” said Mrs Miggles; “sperrits?”

Fisherman Dick shook his head, and began to sing gruffly to the child about a “galliant” maiden who went to sea in search of her true “lovy-er along of a British crew.”

“What is it, then – lace?”

Fisherman Dick shook his head again, and bellowed out the word “crew,” the little child looking at him wonderingly, but not in the least alarmed.

“I never did see such an oyster as you are, old man,” said Mrs Miggles. “You’re the closest chap in the place.”

“Ay!” said Fisherman Dick; and he went on with his song.

He went shrimping off the end of the pier for the delectation of the mincing crowd of promenaders twice more. Lord Carboro’ saw him; so did Major Rockley and Sir Harry Payne. Sir Matthew Bray was too busy dancing attendance upon Lady Drelincourt to pay any attention.

The Master of the Ceremonies saw him too, as he bowed to one, smiled upon a second, and took snuff with a third; and several times, as he watched the fisherman wading out there, he followed his movements attentively, and appeared to be gazing without his mask of artificiality.

The man’s calm, dreamy ways seemed to have an attraction, as if he were wishing that he could change places with him, and lead so simple and peaceful a life. And as he watched him, very far out now, Dick raised his net, emptied it, shook it with his back to the people, and then began to wade in quite another direction, going back no more to the ground off the pier.

The Master of the Ceremonies did not look himself that day, and twice over he found himself on the edge of the pier gazing out to sea, where everything seemed so peaceful and still.

There was a buzz of voices going on about him, but he heard nothing, till all at once a voice, quite familiar to him, exclaimed sharply:

“Well, what is it?”

“Message from Mr Barclay, sir.”

“Well?”

“I took your note, sir, and he’ll be glad to see you to-morrow morning at twelve.”

“That will do. Now take the other.”

Stuart Denville could not restrain himself as he heard those voices just behind, and it was as if some power had turned him sharply round to see Major Rockley in conversation with one of the private dragoons of his regiment.

The man had delivered his message to his master, and then turned stiffly to go, coming face to face with Denville, whose whole manner changed. He turned deadly pale, of an unwholesome pallor, and then the blood seemed to flush to his face and head. His eyes flashed and his lips parted as if to speak, but the dragoon saluted, turned upon his heel, and strode away.

“Anything the matter, Denville?” said the Major, who had seen something of the encounter.

“Matter, matter,” said the old man hoarsely, and he now began to tremble violently. “No – no, – a little faint. You’ll pardon me, – a chair, – a – ”

The old man would have fallen, but the Major caught his arm and helped him to a seat, where a crowd of fashionables surrounded him, and did all they possibly could to prevent his recovery from his fit by keeping away every breath of air, and thrusting at him bottles of salts, vinaigrettes, and scents of every fashionable kind.

“What’s the matter with the old fellow?” said the Major, as he twirled his moustache. “Could he have known about the note? Impossible; and if he had known, why should he turn faint? Bah! Absurd! The heat. He’s little better than a shadow, after all.”

Volume One – Chapter Twenty Two.
A Surreptitious Visitor

“Major Rockley’s servant to see you, miss.”

Claire started from her seat and looked at Footman Isaac with a troubled expression that was full of shame and dread.

She dropped her eyes on the instant as she thought of her position.

It was four o’clock, and the promenade on cliff and pier in full swing. Her father would not be back for two hours, Morton was away somewhere, and it was so dreadful – so degrading – to be obliged to see her brother, the prodigal, in the servants’ part of the house.

For herself she would not have cared, but it was lowering her brother; and, trying to be calm and firm, she said:

“Show him in here, Isaac.”

“In here, miss?”

“Yes.”

“Please ma’am, master said – ”

“Show him in here, Isaac,” said Claire, drawing herself up with her eyes flashing, and the colour returning to her cheeks.

The footman backed out quickly, and directly after there was the clink of spurs, and a heavy tread. Then the door opened and closed, and Major Hockley’s servant, James Bell, otherwise Fred Denville, strode into the room; and Isaac’s retreating steps were heard.

“Fred!” cried Claire, throwing her arms round his neck, and kissing the handsome bronzed face again and again.

“My darling girl!” he cried, holding her tightly to his breast, while his face lit up as he returned her caresses.

“Oh, Fred!” she said, as she laid her hands then upon his shoulders and gazed at him at arm’s length, “you’ve been drinking.”

“One half-pint of ale. That’s all: upon my soul,” he said. “I say, I wish it were not wicked to commit murder.”

If he had by some blow paralysed her he could not have produced a greater change in her aspect, for her eyes grew wild and the colour faded out of her cheeks and lips.

“Don’t look like that,” he said, smiling. “I shan’t do it – at least, not while I’m sober; but I should like to wring that supercilious scoundrel’s neck. He looks down upon me in a way that is quite comical.”

“Why did you come, dear?” said Claire sadly. “Oh, Fred, if I could but buy you out, so that you could begin life again.”

“No good, my dear little girl,” he said tenderly. “There’s something wrong in my works. I’ve no stability, and I should only go wrong again.”

“But, if you would try, Fred.”

“Try, my pet!” he said fiercely; “Heaven knows how I did try, but the drink was too much for me. If we had been brought up to some honest way of making a living, and away from this sham, I might have been different, but it drove me to drink, and I never had any self-command. I’m best where I am; obliged to be sober as the Major’s servant.”

There was a contemptuous look in his eyes as he said this last.

“And that makes it so much worse,” sighed Claire with a sad smile. “If you were only the King’s servant – a soldier – I would not so much mind.”

“Perhaps it is best as it is,” he said sternly.

“Don’t say that, Fred dear.”

“But I do say it, girl. If I had been brought up differently – Bah! I didn’t come here to grumble about the old man.”

“No, no, pray, pray don’t. And, Fred dear, you must not stop. Do you want a little money?”

“Yes!” he cried eagerly. “No! Curse it all, girl, I wish you would not tempt me. So you are not glad to see me?”

“Indeed, yes, Fred; but you must not stay. If our father were to return there would be such a scene.”

“He will not. He is on the pier, and won’t be back these two hours. Where’s Morton?”

“Out, dear.”

“Then we are all right. Did you expect me?”

“No, dear. Let me make you some tea.”

“No; stop here. Didn’t you expect this?”

He drew a note from his breast.

“That note? No, dear. Who is it from?”

Fred Denville looked his sister searchingly in the face, and its innocent candid expression satisfied him, and he drew a sigh full of relief.

“If it had been May who looked at me like that, I should have said she was telling me a lie.”

“Oh, Fred!”

“Bah! You know it’s true. Little wax-doll imp. But I believe you, Claire. Fate’s playing us strange tricks. I am James Bell, Major Rockley’s servant, and he trusts me with his commissions. This is a billet-doux– a love-letter – to my sister, which my master sends, and I am to wait for an answer.”

Claire drew herself up, and as her brother saw the blood mantle in her face, and the haughty, angry look in her eyes as she took the letter and tore it to pieces, he, too, drew himself up, and there was a proud air in his aspect.

“There is no answer to Major Rockley’s letter,” she said coldly. “How dare he write to me!”

“Claire, old girl, I must hug you,” cried the dragoon. “By George! I feel as if I were not ashamed of the name of Denville after all. I was going to bully you and tell you that my superior officer is as big a scoundrel as ever breathed, and that if you carried on with him I’d shoot you. Now, bully me, my pet, and tell your prodigal drunken dragoon of a brother that he ought to be ashamed of himself for even thinking such a thing. I won’t shrink.”

“My dear brother,” she said tenderly, as she placed her hands in his.

“My dear sister,” he said softly, as he kissed her little white hands in turn, “I need not warn and try to teach you, for I feel that I might come to you for help if I could learn. There – there. Some day you’ll marry some good fellow.”

She shook her head.

“Yes, you will,” he said. “Richard Linnell, perhaps. Don’t let the old man worry you into such a match as May’s.”

“I shall never marry,” said Claire, in a low strange voice; “never.”

“Yes, you will,” he said, smiling; “but what you have to guard against is not the gallantries of the contemptible puppies who haunt this place, but some big match that – Ah! Too late!”

He caught a glimpse of his father’s figure passing the window, and made for the door, but it was only to stand face to face with the old man, who came in hastily, haggard, and wild of eye.

Fred Denville drew back into the room as his father staggered in, and then, as the door swung to and fastened itself, there was a terrible silence, and Claire looked on speechless for the moment, as she saw her brother draw himself up, military fashion, while her father’s face changed in a way that was horrible to behold.

He looked ten years older. His eyes started; his jaw fell, and his hands trembled as he raised them, with the thick cane hanging from one wrist.

He tried to speak, but the words would not come for a few moments.

At last his speech seemed to return, and, in a voice full of rage, hate, and horror combined, he cried furiously:

“You here! – fiend! – wretch! – villain!”

“Oh, father!” cried Claire, darting to his side.

“Hush, Claire! Let him speak,” said Fred.

“Was it not enough that I forbade you the house before; but, now – to come – to dare – villain! – wretch! – coldblooded, miserable wretch! You are no son of mine. Out of my sight! Curse you! I curse you with all the bitterness that – ”

“Father! father!” cried Claire, in horrified tones, as she threw herself between them; but, in his rage, the old man struck her across the face with his arm, sending her tottering back.

“Oh, this is too much,” cried Fred, dropping his stolid manner. “You cowardly – ”

“Cowardly! Ha! ha! ha! Cowardly!” screamed the old man, catching at his stick. “You say that – you?”

As Fred strode towards him, the old man struck him with his cane, a sharp well-directed blow across the left ear, and, stung to madness by the pain, the tall strong man caught the frail-looking old beau by the throat and bore him back into a chair, holding him with one hand while his other was clenched and raised to strike.

Volume One – Chapter Twenty Three.
Father and Daughter

“Strike! Kill me! Add parricide to your other crimes, dog, and set me free of this weary life,” cried the old man wildly, as he glared in the fierce, distorted face of the sturdy soldier who held him back.

But it wanted not Claire’s hand upon Fred Denville’s arm to stay the blow. The passionate rage fled as swiftly as it had flashed up, and he tore himself away.

“You shouldn’t have struck me,” he cried in a voice full of anguish. “I couldn’t master myself. You struck her – the best and truest girl who ever breathed; and I’d rather be what I am – scamp, drunkard, common soldier, and have struck you down, than you, who gave that poor girl a cowardly blow. Claire – my girl – God bless you! I can come here no more.”

He caught her wildly in his arms, kissed her passionately, and then literally staggered out of the house, and they saw him reel by the window.

There was again a terrible silence in that room, where the old man, looking feeble and strange now, lay back in the chair where he had been thrown, staring wildly straight before him as Claire sank upon the carpet, burying her face in her hands and sobbing to herself.

“And this is home! And this is home!”

She tried to restrain her tears, but they burst forth with sobs more wild and uncontrolled; and at last they had their effect upon the old man, whose wild stare passed off, and, rising painfully in his seat, he glared at the door and shuddered.

“How dare he come!” he muttered. “How dare he touch her! How – ”

He stopped as he turned his eyes upon where Claire crouched, as if he had suddenly become aware of her presence, and his face softened into a piteous yearning look as he stretched out his hands towards her, and then slowly rose to his feet.

“I struck her,” he muttered, “I struck her. My child – my darling! I – I – Claire – Claire – ”

His voice was very low as he slowly sank upon his knees, and softly laid one hand upon her dress, raising it to his lips and kissing it with a curiously strange abasement in his manner.

Claire did not move nor seem to hear him, and he crept nearer to her and timidly laid his hand upon her head.

He snatched it away directly, and knelt there gazing at her wildly, for she shuddered, shrank from him, and, starting to her feet, backed towards the door with such a look of repulsion in her face that the old man clasped his hands together, and his lips parted as if to cry to her for mercy.

But no sound left them, and for a full minute they remained gazing the one at the other. Then, with a heartrending sob, Claire drew open the door and hurried from the room.

“What shall I do? What shall I do?” groaned Denville as he rose heavily to his feet. “It is too hard to bear. Better sleep – at once and for ever.”

He sank into his chair with his hands clasped and his elbows resting upon his knees, and he bent lower and lower, as if borne down by the weight of his sorrow; and thus he remained as the minutes glided by, till, hearing a step at last, and the jingle of glass, he rose quickly, smoothed his care-marked face, and thrusting his hand into his breast, began to pace the room, catching up hat and stick, and half closing his eyes, as if in deep thought.

It was a good bit of acting, for when Isaac entered with a tray to lay the dinner cloth, and glanced quickly at his master, it was to see him calm and apparently buried in some plan, with not the slightest trace of domestic care upon his well-masked face.

“Mr Morton at home, Isaac?” he said, with a slightly-affected drawl.

“No, sir; been out hours.”

“Not gone fishing, Isaac?”

“No, sir; I think Mr Morton’s gone up to the barracks, sir. Said he should be back to dinner, sir.”

“That is right, Isaac. That is right. I think I will go for a little promenade before dinner myself.”

“He’s a rum ’un,” muttered the footman as he stood behind the curtain on one side of the window; “anyone would think we were all as happy as the day’s long here, when all the time the place is chock full of horrors, and if I was to speak – ”

Isaac did not finish his sentence, but remained watching the Master of the Ceremonies with his careful mincing step till he was out of sight, when the footman turned from the window to stand tapping the dining-table with his finger tips.

“If I was to go, there’d be a regular wreck, and I shouldn’t get a penny of my back wages. If I stay, he may get them two well married, and then there’d be money in the house. Better stay. Lor’, if people only knew all I could tell ’em about this house, and the scraping, and putting off bills, and the troubles with Miss May and the two boys, and – ”

Isaac drew a long breath and turned rather white.

“I feel sometimes as if I ought to make a clean breast of it, but I don’t like to. He isn’t such a bad sort, when you come to know him, but that – ugh!”

He shuddered, and began to rattle the knives and forks upon the table, giving one a rub now and then on his shabby livery.

“It’s a puzzler,” he said, stopping short, after breathing in a glass, and giving it a rub with a cloth. “Some day, I suppose, there’ll be a difference, and he’ll be flush of money. I suppose he daren’t start yet. Suppose I – No; that wouldn’t do. He’ll pay all the back, then, and I might – ”

Isaac shuddered again, and muttered to himself in a very mysterious way. Then, all at once:

“Why, I might cry halves, and make him set me up for life. Why not? She was good as gone, and – ”

He set down the glass, and wiped the dew that had gathered off his brow, looking whiter than before, for just then a memory had come into Isaac’s mental vision – it was a horrible recollection of having been tempted to go and see the execution of a murderer at the county town, and this man’s accomplice was executed a month later.

“Accomplice” was an ugly word that seemed to force itself into Isaac’s mind, and he shook his head and hurriedly finished laying the cloth.

“Let him pay me my wages, all back arrears,” he said. “Perhaps there is a way of selling a secret without being an accomplice, but I don’t know, and – oh, I couldn’t do it. It would kill that poor girl, who’s about worried to death with the dreadful business, without there being anything else.”