King of the Castle

“Quite, sir: a mere nothing. Great pity it happened. Why, ladies, it must have regularly startled you. Miss Gartram, I am very sorry. You look pale.”

“Enough to startle any woman, Glyddyr. But there, it’s all over for the present. You had better leave us now, girls.”

“No, no,” cried Glyddyr, “don’t let me drive them away, sir.”

“It is not driving them away, Mr Glyddyr,” said Gartram shortly. “I wish them to go.”

“I beg pardon, I am sure.”

“Granted, sir; but I like to be master in my own house.”

“Papa, dear, pray, pray be calm,” whispered Claude, who had crept to his side.

“Calm! Of course. I am calm. There, there, there; don’t talk to me, but go, and I said ring for the spirit stand.”

“Yes, papa, I did. I’ll go and send it in.”

“Yes, quickly. You are sure you would not like the doctor fetched, Glyddyr?”

“Oh, certain, sir. There, let it pass now. A mere nothing.”

“Oh, my poor darling Claude,” whispered Mary, taking her cousin’s hand as they went out, and kissing her pale face as the large dark eyes gazed pitifully down in hers.

“Do you understand what it all means, Mary?”

“Only too well, coz: poor Chris has been telling uncle he loved you, and that put our dear tyrant in a passion. Then Mr Glyddyr came, and poor Chris got in a passion too, and knocked him down.”

“Yes,” sighed Claude; “I’m afraid that must be it.”

“Yes, my dear, it’s all cut and dried. You are to be Mrs Glyddyr as soon as they have settled it all.”

“Never,” said Claude, frowning and looking like a softened edition of her father.

“And as that sets poor Chris at liberty,” continued Mary, with one of her mischievous looks, “and you don’t want him, there may be a bit of a chance for poor little me.”

“Mary, dear!” said Claude, in a voice full of remonstrance.

“It’s rather bad taste of you, for though Mr Glyddyr is very handsome, I think Chris is the better man. Mr Glyddyr seems to me quite a coward making all that fuss, so that we might sympathise with him. Better have had poor Chris.”

“Mary, dear, how can you make fun of everything when I am in such terrible trouble?”

“It’s because I can’t help it, Claude, I suppose. But oh, I am sorry for you if uncle makes you marry handsome Mr Glyddyr.”

“Mary!”

“I cannot help it, dear; I must say it. He’s a coward. He was hurt, of course, but not so much as he pretended. Chris Lisle knocked him right down, and he wouldn’t get up for fear he should get knocked down again. Didn’t Chris look like a lion?”

“It is all very, very terrible, Mary, and I want your help and sympathy so badly.”

“I can’t help you, coz; I’m too bad. And all this was my fault.”

“No; not all,” said Claude sadly. “Papa has been thinking about Mr Glyddyr for a long time, and dropping hints to me about him.”

“Yes; and you’ll have to take him.”

“No,” said Claude, with quiet firmness; and her father’s stern, determined look came into her eyes. “No, I will never be Mr Glyddyr’s wife.”

“But uncle will never forgive poor Mr Lisle.”

“Don’t say that, Mary. Never is a terrible word. Papa loves me, and he would like to see me happy.”

“And shall you tell him you love Chris?”

“No,” said Claude sternly.

“If you please, ma’am, Mrs Woodham is here,” said one of the servants; and Claude’s face grew more troubled as she asked herself what her father would say to the step she had taken, in bidding the unhappy woman come and resume her old position in the house.

She had not long to wait.

As she rose to cross the room she caught sight of Glyddyr looking back at the windows on leaving the house, and heard the study bell ring furiously.

“Quick, Mary!” she cried, as she rushed through the door, being under the impression that her father had had another seizure.

The relief was so great as she entered the study and found him standing in the middle of the room, that she threw herself in his arms.

“I thought you were taken ill again,” she gasped, as she clung, to him, trembling.

He was evidently in a fury, but his child’s words were like oil upon the tempestuous waves.

“You – you thought that?” he said, holding her to his breast and patting her cheek tenderly. “You thought that, eh? And they say in Danmouth that everybody hates me. That there isn’t a soul here who wouldn’t like to dance upon my grave.”

“Papa, dear, don’t talk like that.”

“Why not? the ungrateful wretches! I’ve made Danmouth a prosperous place. I spend thousands a year in wages, and the dogs all turn upon me and are ready to rend the hand that feeds them. If they are not satisfied with their wages, they wait till I have some important contract on the way, and then they strike. I haven’t patience with them.”

“Father!” cried Claude firmly, “Doctor Asher said you were not to excite yourself in any way, or you would be ill.”

“And a good thing, too. Better be ill, and die, and get out of the way. Hated – cursed by every living soul.”

Claude clung more tightly to him, laid her head upon his breast, and placed her hand across his lips as if to keep him from speaking.

A smile came across the grim face, but there was no smile in his words as he went on fiercely, after removing the hand and seeming about to kiss it, but keeping it in his hand without.

“Everything seems to go against me,” he cried. “Mr Glyddyr – just going – I was seeing him to the door, when, like a black ghost, up starts that woman Sarah Woodham. What does she want?”

“I’ll tell you, dear, if you will sit down and be calm.”

“How the devil can I be calm,” he raved, “when I am regularly persecuted by folk like this?”

But he let Claude press him back into an easy chair, while, feeling that she was better away, Mary Dillon crept softly out of the room.

“Well, then,” he said, as if his child’s touch was talismanic, and he lay back and closed his eyes, “I’ll be calm. But you don’t know, Claude, you can’t tell how I’m persecuted. I’m robbed right and left.”

“Papa, my dear father, you are as rich as ever you can be, so what does it matter?”

“Who says I’m rich? Nonsense! Absurd! And then look at the worries I have. All the trouble and inquest over that man’s death, and through his sheer crass obstinacy.”

“Why bring that up again, father, dear?”

“Don’t say father. Call me papa. Whenever you begin fathering me, it means that you are going to preach at me and bully me, and have your own way.”

“Then, papa, dear, why bring that up again?”

“I didn’t. It’s brought up and thrust under my very nose. Why is that woman here?”

“Papa – ”

“Now, it’s of no use. Claude: that man regularly committed suicide out of opposition to me. He destroyed a stone worth at least a hundred pounds by using that tearing dynamite, which smashes everything to pieces; and then, forsooth, he charges me in his dying moments with murdering him, and the wretched pack under him take up the cry and bark as he did. Could anything be more unreasonable?”

“No, dear, of course not. But the poor fellow was mad with agony and despair. It was so horrible for him, a hale, strong man, to be cut down in a moment.”

“He cut himself down. It would not have happened if he had done as I ordered.”

“You must forgive all that now. He knew no better; and as for the workmen, you know how easily they are influenced one way or the other.”

“Oh, yes, I know them. And now this woman’s here begging.”

“No, papa, dear.”

“I say she is. I could see it in her servile, shivering way, as soon as she caught my eye; now, look here, Claude, I shan’t give her a shilling.”

Claude held his hand to her cheek in silence.

“I won’t pay for the man’s funeral. I’m obliged to pay the doctor, because I contracted for him to attend the ungrateful hounds; but I will not help her in the least, and I’ll have no more of your wretched tricks. I’m always finding out that you are helping the people and letting them think it is my doing. Now, then, I’ve done, and I want to be at peace, so go and send that woman away, or I shall be ill.”

Claude clung a little more closely to her father, nestling, as it were, in his breast.

“Well,” he said testily, “why don’t you go?”

“My father is the leading man in this neighbourhood,” said Claude, in a soft, soothing tone, “and the people don’t know the goodness of his heart as I do.”

“Now, Claudie, I won’t have it. You are beginning to preach at me, and give me a dose of morals. My heart has grown as hard as granite.”

“No, it has not,” said Claude, kissing his veined hand. “It is as soft and good as ever, only you try to make it hard, and you say things you do not mean.”

“Ah, now!” he shouted, “you are going to talk about that Lisle, and I will not have his cursed name mentioned in the – ”

“I was not going to talk about Christopher Lisle,” said Claude, in the same gentle, murmuring voice, whose tones seemed to soothe and quiet him down; “I was going on to say that I want the people – the weak, ignorant, easily-led people – about here to love and venerate my dear father’s name.”

“And they will not, do what you will. The more you do for them, the less self-helpful they are, and the more they revile and curse. Why, if I was ruined to-morrow, after they’ve eaten my bread for years, I believe they’d light a bonfire and have a dance.”

“No, no; no, no,” murmured Claude. “You have done too much good for them.”

“I haven’t. You did it all, you hussy, and pretended it was I,” he said grimly, as he played with her glossy hair.

“I did it with your money, dear, and I am your child. I acted as I felt you would act if you thoroughly knew the circumstances, but you had no time. What is the use of having so much money if no good is done?”

“For ungrateful people.”

“We are taught to do good for evil, dear.”

“What! for a race of thieves who are always cursing and reviling us? There, I’m busy and tired, Claudie. I’ve listened to your moral lesson very patiently, and now I want to be at rest. But I forbid you to help that wretched woman. She and her husband always hated me. Confound ’em, they were always insulting me. How dare they – actually publicly insult me – in that miserable little chapel.”

“Insulted you? What do you mean?”

“Why, they prayed for my heart to be softened, hang ’em!”

“Oh, father, dear!”

“There you go again. Papa – papa – papa. Don’t forget that we do belong to the aristocracy after all. Now, go and send that dreadful woman away.”

“I cannot, dear.”

“Cannot?”

“No, papa. She has come to stay.”

“Sarah Woodham? To stay? Here?”

“Yes, dear. Poor thing: she is left penniless, almost, for Woodham did not save.”

“No, of course not. They none of them do.”

“He spent all he had to spare,” continued Claude, in the same gentle, murmuring tone, as she pressed her father’s hand to her cheek. “Everything he could scrape together he gave to the poorer chapel people.”

“Yes, I know; in his bigoted way to teach me what to do. And don’t keep on rubbing your cheek against my hand. Any one who saw you would think you were a cat.”

“So, papa dear, as we want a good, trustworthy woman in the house, and Sarah was with us so long, and knew our ways so well, I arranged for her to come back.”

“Claude!”

“Yes, dear; and these years of her married life, and the sad end, will be to her like a mournful dream.”

“I – ”

Norman Gartram made an angry gesture, but Claude’s arms stole round his neck, her lips pressed his as she half lay upon his breast, and with the tears gently falling and hanging like pearls in his grisly beard, she said in a low, sweet voice, —

“And some day, father dear, at the last, as she thinks of what an asylum this has been to her, she will go down to her grave blessing your name for all the good that you have done, and this will make me very happy, dear, and so it will you.”

There was a long silence in the room, and Norman Gartram’s face began to grow less rugged. It was as if there was something of the same look as that in his child’s, when, with a tender kiss upon his brow, she left his arms and half playfully whispered, —

“Am I to go and send Sarah Woodham away?”

“No,” he said hastily, as his old look returned; “you are as bad as your poor, dear mother, every bit. No,” he cried, with an angry flush. “I won’t do that, though. Not a farthing of my money shall go towards paying for that man’s funeral.”

“Father, dear – ”

“Papa.”

“Then papa, dear,” said Claude quietly, “I have paid everything connected with poor Woodham’s funeral.”

“You have?”

“Yes; you are very generous to me with money, and I had plenty to do that.”

“Yes; and stinted yourself in clothes. You don’t dress half well enough. Well, there, it’s done now, and we can’t alter it. I suppose these people will think it was my doing.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Of course. Well, as to this woman, keep her and nurse and pamper her, and pay her the largest wages you can; and mark my words, my pet, she’ll turn round and worry us for what we have done.”

“I have no fear, dear. I know Sarah Woodham too well, and I can do anything I like with her.”

“Yes, as you can with me, you hussy,” he cried. “Duke – King – why, I’m like water with you, Claude. But,” he cried, shaking a finger at her, “there are things, though, in which I mean to have my way.”

Claude flushed up, and a hard look came into her eyes.

But no more was said then.

Volume One – Chapter Ten.

Denise

“What the deuce brought you here?”

“Train my boy. Saw in the shipping news that The Fair Star was lying in Danmouth. Felt a bit seedy, and knew that you would give me a berth aboard, and here I am.”

“So I see.”

“Well, don’t be so gloriously glad, dear boy. Don’t go out of your mind and embrace me. I hate to be kissed by a man; it’s so horribly French.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“Certainly not; but you seemed to be in such raptures to meet me that I was obliged to protest.”

“Now, look here, Gellow, it’s not of the slightest use for you to hunt me about the country. I have no money, and I can’t pay.”

“I never said a single word about money, dear boy.”

“No; but you look money, and think money, and smell of money. Good heavens, man, why don’t you dress like a gentleman, and not come down to the seaside like the window of a pawnbroker’s shop?”

“Dress like a gentleman, sir? Why, I am dressed like a gentleman. These are real diamond studs, sir. First water. Rings, chain, watch, everything of the very best. Never catch me wearing sham. Look at those cuff studs. As fine emeralds as you’d see.”

“Bah! Why don’t you wear a diamond collar, and a crown. I believe you’d like to hang yourself in chains.”

“My dear Glyddyr, how confoundedly nasty you can be to the best friend you have in the world.”

“Best enemy; you are always hunting me for money.”

“Yes; and going back poorer. You are such a one to wheedle a fresh loan.”

“Yes; at a hundred per cent.”

“Tchah! Nonsense! But, I say, nothing wrong about the lady, is there?”

“Hold your tongue, and mind your own business.”

“Well, that is my business, you reckless young dog. If you don’t make a rich match, where shall I be?”

“Here, what are you doing?”

“Ringing the bell, dear boy.”

“What for?”

“Well, that’s fool. I have come all this way from town, had no end of trouble to run you down at your hotel, and then you think I don’t want any breakfast.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr Glyddyr wants breakfast in directly. Here, what have you got? No, never mind what you’ve got. I’ll have broiled chicken and a sole. A fresh chicken cut up, mind; none of your week-old, cooked stales. Coffee and brandy. Mr Glyddyr’s order, you know.”

The waiter glanced at Glyddyr where he sat pretending to read the paper, and receiving a short nod, he left the room.

“Now, once more, why have you come down?”

“First and foremost, I have picked up three or four good tips for Newmarket. Chances for you to make a pile.”

“You are very generous,” sneered Glyddyr. “Your tips have not turned out so very rosy – so far.”

“Well, of course it’s speculation. Have a cigar?”

Glyddyr made an impatient gesture.

“Then I will. Give me an appetite for the dejooney.”

The speaker lit a strong cigar that had an East London aroma, and went on chatting as he lolled back in his chair, and played with his enormously thick watch-chain.

“A smoke always gives me an appetite; spoils some people’s. Well, you won’t take the tips?”

“No; I’ve no money for betting.”

“Happy to oblige you, dear boy. Eh? No! All right. Glad you are so independent. It’s going on bloomingly, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“The miller’s lovely daughter,” sang the visitor, laughingly. “I mean the stonemason’s.”

Glyddyr muttered an oath between his teeth.

“Hush! Don’t swear, dear boy – the waiter.”

For at that moment the man brought in a tray, busied himself for a time till all was ready, and left the room.

“That’s your sort,” said Glyddyr’s visitor, settling himself at the table. “Won’t join me, I suppose? Won’t have an echo?”

“What do you mean?”

“Second breakfast. Eh? No? All right. Hah! Very appetising after a long journey – confoundedly long journey. You do put up in such out of the way spots. Quite hard to find.”

“Then stop away.”

“No, thanks. Now look here, Glyddyr, dear boy, what’s the use of your cutting up rusty when we are obliged to row so much in the same boat?”

“Curse you! I’d like to throw you overboard.”

“Of course you would, my dear fellow, but you see you can’t. Rather an awkward remark though, that, when I’m coming for a cruise with you in the yacht – my yacht.”

Glyddyr crushed up the newspaper into a ball, and cast it across to the corner of the room.

“What’s the matter, old man? I say, what a delicious sole! Ever catch any on the yacht?”

The sound of Glyddyr’s teeth grating could be plainly heard.

“Be no good to throw me overboard to feed the fishes, my dear boy. I’m thoroughly well insured, both as to money – and protection,” he added meaningly. “Hope this fish was not fed in that peculiar way. Tlat! Capital coffee. Now then, talk. I can eat and listen. How is it going on with the girl?”

“Reuben Gellow, your insolence is insufferable.”

“My dear Gellow, I must have a thou, to-morrow,” said the visitor, mockingly. “Your words, dear boy, when you want money; the other when you don’t want money. What a contrast! Well, I don’t care. Capital butter this! It shows me that everything is progressing well with the pretty heiress, and that Parry Glyddyr, Esquire, will pay his debts like a gentleman. Come, old fellow, don’t twist about in your chair like a skinned eel.”

“Curse you, who skinned me?”

“Not I, dear boy. Half a dozen had had a turn at you, and that lovely epi – what-you-may-call-it of yours was hanging upon you in rags. I only stripped the rest off, so as to give you a chance to grow a new one, and I’m helping you to do it as fast as you can. Come, don’t cut up rough. Be civil, and I’ll keep you going in style so that you can marry her all right, and have two children and live happy ever after.”

“Look here,” said Glyddyr, getting up and pacing the room furiously, while his visitor calmly discussed his breakfast, “you have something under all this, so open it out.”

“No, dear boy, only the natural desire to see how you are getting on. You owe me – ”

“Curse what I owe you!”

“No, no, don’t do that. Pay it.”

“You know I cannot.”

“Till you’ve made a good marriage; and you cannot live in style and make a good marriage without my help, my dear Glyddyr.”

“You and your cursed fraternity hold plenty of security, so leave me in peace.”

“I will, dear boy; but I want my trifle of money, and you are not getting on as fast as I could wish, so I’ve come to help you.”

“Come to ruin me, you mean.”

“Wrong. I have my cheque book in my pocket, and if you want a few hundreds to carry on the war, here they are.”

“At the old rate,” sneered Glyddyr.

“No, my dear fellow. I must have a little more. The risk is big.”

“Yes. Might fail, and blow out my brains.”

“Ex-actly! How I do like this country cream.”

Glyddyr threw himself into his seat with a crash.

“That was all a metaphor,” he said bitterly.

“What was, dear boy?”

“About the Devil and Dr Faustus.”

“Of course it was. Why?”

“Faustus was some poor devil hard up, and the other was not a devil at all, but a confounded money-lender. It was a bill Faustus accepted, not a contract.”

“I daresay you are right, Glyddyr. Have a drop of brandy? Eh? No? Well, there’s nothing like a chasse with a good breakfast, and this is really prime.”

“Well, I’ll grin and bear it till I’m free,” said Glyddyr. “You want to know how I am getting on. You need not stay.”

“But I want a change, and I can help you, perhaps.”

“You’ll queer the whole affair if you stay here. Once it is so much as suspected that I am not as well off as I was – ”

“That you are an utter beggar – I mean a rum beggar.”

“Do you want me to wring your neck?”

“The neck of the goose that lays the golden eggs? No. They don’t kill geese that way.”

” – The whole affair will be off.”

“Old man’s a rum one, isn’t he?”

“How do you know?”

“How do I know?” said Gellow, with a quiet chuckle. “That’s my business. I know everything about you, my dear boy. I have a great personal interest in your proceedings, and every move is reported to me.”

“And, to make matters worse, you have yourself come down to play the spy.”

“Not a bit of it, my dear Glyddyr; but you have cursed and bullied me at such a tremendous rate, that, as I have you on the hook, I can’t help playing you a little.”

“Oh!” snarled Glyddyr furiously.

“But, all the same, I am the best friend you have in the world.”

“It’s a lie!”

“Is it? Well, we shall see. I want you to marry King Gartram’s daughter, and I’ll let you have all you want to carry it out. And by the way, here are three letters for you.”

He took the letters out of his pocket-book, and handed them.

“There you are: Parry Glyddyr, Esq, care of Reuben Gellow, Esq, 209 Cecil Street, Strand.”

“Why, they’ve been opened!”

“Yes, all three – and read.”

“You scoundrel!” roared Glyddyr. “Do you dare to sit there and tell me that you have had the effrontery to open my letters and read them?”

“I didn’t tell you so.”

“But you have read them?”

“Every line.”

“Look here, sir,” cried Glyddyr, rising fiercely, “I found it necessary to have my letters sent to an agent.”

“Reuben Gellow.”

“To be forwarded to me where I might be yachting.”

“So as to throw your creditors off the scent.”

“And you, acting as my agent, have read them.”

“In your interest, dear boy.”

“Curse you! I don’t care what happens now. All is at an end between us, you miserable – ”

“Go it, old fellow, if it does you good; but I didn’t open the letters.”

“Then who did?”

“Denise.”

Glyddyr’s jaw dropped.

“Now, then, you volcanic eruption of a man; who’s your friend, eh? I went down to the office yesterday morning. ‘Lady waiting in your room, sir,’ says my clerk. ‘Who is it?’ says I. ‘Wouldn’t give her name,’ says my clerk. ‘Wants money then,’ says I to myself; and goes up, and there was Madame Denise just finishing reading number three.”

“Good heavens!” muttered Glyddyr, blankly.

“‘I came, sare,’ she says, with one of her pretty, mocking laughs, ‘to ask you for ze address of my hosband, but you are absent, it ees no mattair. I find tree of my hosband’s lettaires, and one say he sup-poz my hosband go to Danmout. Dat is all.’”

“Then she’ll find me out, and come down here and spoil all.”

“Divil a doubt of it, me boy, as Paddy says.”

“But you – you left the letters lying about.”

“Not I. They came by the morning’s post. How the deuce could I tell that she would hunt me up, and then open her ‘hosband’s’ letters.”

“I am not her husband;” cried Glyddyr furiously. “That confounded French marriage does not count.”

“That’s what you’ve got to make her believe, my dear boy.”

“And if it did, I’d sooner smother myself than live with the wretched harpy.”

“Yes; I should say she had a temper Glyddyr. So under the circumstances, dear boy, I thought the best thing I could do was to come down fast as I could and put you on your guard.”