Of High Descent

Madelaine clung to him, with the tears gathering in her eyes. From her earliest childhood she had looked up to him as to some near relative who had treated her as he had treated his own child – her companion, Louise – and now as she saw the agony depicted in his face, she suffered with him, and in her womanly sympathy her tears still fell fast.

“But, dear Mr Vine,” she whispered, “forgive me for pressing you at such a time, but there is some mistake.”

“Yes,” he said sternly; and she shivered as she saw how he was changed, and heard how harsh his voice had grown. “Yes, Madelaine, my child, there has been a terrible mistake made by a weak, infatuated man, who acted on impulse and never let his mind stray from the hobby he pursued – mine.”

“Mr Vine!”

“Hush, my child, I know. You are going to say words that I could not bear to hear now. I know what I have done, I see it too plainly now. In my desire to play a kindly brother’s part, I let that of a father lapse, and my punishment has come – doubly come.”

“If you would only let me speak,” she whispered.

“Not now – not now. I want strength first to bear my punishment, to bear it patiently as a man.”

It seemed to be no time to argue and plead her friend’s cause, but she still clung to him.

“Bear with me,” he whispered. “I am not going to reproach you for what you have said. There, my dear, leave me now.”

Madelaine sighed, and with her brow wrinkled by the lines of care, she stood watching the old man as he bent over his microscope once more, and then softly left the room.

“Well?” said Uncle Luke eagerly, as she joined him in the hall. “What does he say?”

“That he will not see her. That he could not trust himself to meet her now.”

“Ah!”

Madelaine started, and turned sharply round as a piteous wail fell upon her ears.

Aunt Marguerite was standing within the dining-room door, wringing her hands, and looking wild and strange.

“I can’t bear it,” she cried. “I can’t bear it. He thinks it is my fault. Go in and tell him, Luke. He must not, he shall not blame me.”

“Let him alone for a bit,” said Luke coldly.

“But he thinks it is all my fault. I want to tell him – I want him to know that it is no fault of mine.”

“Can’t convince him of impossibilities,” said Uncle Luke coldly.

“And you think it, too!” cried Aunt Marguerite passionately. “I will see him.”

“Go up to your room and wait a bit. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

“But George will – ”

“Say things to you that will be rather startling to your vain old brain, Madge, if you force yourself upon him, and I’ll take care that you do not.”

“And this is my brother!” cried Aunt Marguerite indignantly.

“Uncle Luke is right,” said Madelaine quietly, speaking of him as in the old girlish days. “If I might advise you, Miss Vine.”

“Miss Margue – No, no,” cried the old lady, hastily. “Miss Vine; yes, Miss Vine. You will help me, my child. I want my brother to know that it is not my fault.”

The old contemptuous manner was gone, and she caught Madelaine’s arm and pressed it spasmodically with her bony fingers.

“You could not go to Mr Vine at a worse time,” said Madelaine. “He is suffering acutely.”

“But if you come with me,” whispered Aunt Marguerite. “Oh, my child, I have been very, very hard to you, but you will not turn and trample on me now I am down.”

“I will help you all I can,” said Madelaine gravely; “and I am helping you now in advising you to wait.”

“I – I thought it was for me best,” sobbed the old lady piteously. “Hush! don’t speak to me aloud. Mr Leslie may hear.”

She glanced sharply round to where Leslie was standing with his back to them, gazing moodily from the window.

“Yes; Mr Leslie may hear,” said Madelaine sadly, and then in spite of the long years of dislike engendered by Aunt Marguerite’s treatment, she felt her heart stirred by pity for the lonely, suffering old creature upon whose head was being visited the sufferings of the stricken household.

“Let me go with you to your room,” she said gently.

“No, no!” cried Aunt Marguerite, with a frightened look. “You hate me too, and you will join the others in condemning me. Let me go to my brother now.”

“It would be madness,” said Madelaine gently; and she tried to take the old woman’s hand, but at that last word, Aunt Marguerite started from her, and stretched out her hands to keep her off.

“Don’t say that,” she said in a low voice, and with a quick glance at her brother and at Leslie, to see if they had heard. Then catching Madelaine’s hand, she whispered, “It is such a horrible word. Luke said it to me before you came. He said I must be mad, and George might hear it and think so too.”

“Let me go with you to your room.”

“But – but,” faltered the old woman, with her lips quivering, and a wildly appealing look in her eyes, “you – you don’t think that.”

“No,” said Madelaine quietly; “I do not think that.”

Aunt Marguerite uttered a sigh full of relief.

“I only think,” continued Madelaine in her matter-of-fact, straightforward way, “that you have been very vain, prejudiced, and foolish, but I am wrong to reproach you now.”

“No, no,” whispered Aunt Marguerite, clinging to her, and looking at her in an abject, piteous way; “you are quite right, my dear. Come with me, talk to me, my child. I deserve what you say, and – and I feel so lonely now.”

She glanced again at her brother and Leslie, and her grasp of Madelaine’s arm grew painful.

“Yes,” she whispered, with an excited look; “you are right, I must not go to him now. Don’t let them think that of me. I know – I’ve been very – very foolish, but don’t – don’t let them think that.”

She drew Madelainc toward the door, and in pursuance of her helpful rôle, the latter went with her patiently, any resentment which she might have felt toward her old enemy, falling away at the pitiful signs of abject misery and dread before her; the reigning idea in the old lady’s mind now being that her brothers would nurture some plan to get rid of her, whose result would be one at which she shuddered, as in her heart of hearts she knew that if such extreme measures were taken, her conduct for years would give plenty of excuse.

Volume Three – Chapter Thirteen.

Half Converted

“Well, Leslie,” said Uncle Luke, as he stood gazing at the closed door through which the two women had passed, “what do you think of that?”

“Think of that?” said Leslie absently.

“Those two. Deadly enemies grown friends. My sister will be adopting you directly, you miserable, low-born Scotch pleb, without a drop of noble French blood in your veins.”

“Poor old woman!” said Leslie absently.

“Ah, poor old woman! Margaret and I ought to be shut up together in some private asylum. Well, you have slept on all that?”

“No,” said Leslie sadly. “I have not slept.”

“You’re – well, I won’t say what you are – well?”

“Well?” said Leslie sadly.

“You have come to your senses I hope.”

“Had I lost them?”

“Pro tem., young man. And it is a usurpation of our rights. One lunatic family is enough in a town. We’re all off our heads, so you had better keep sane.”

Leslie remained silently thinking over Madelaine’s words.

“Look here,” said Uncle Luke, “I have slept upon it, and I am cool.”

“What have you learned, sir?”

“Nothing but what I knew last night – at present.”

“And what do you propose doing?”

“I propose trying to act as nearly like a quite sensible man as one of my family can.”

“And Mr Vine?”

“As much like a lunatic as he can. You had better take his side and leave me alone. He is of your opinion.”

“And you remain steadfast in yours?”

“Of course, sir. I’ve known my niece from a child, as I told you last night; and she could not behave like a weak, foolish, brainless girl, infatuated over some handsome scoundrel.”

“But Miss Marguerite – have you questioned her?”

“Might as well question a weather-cock. Knows nothing, or pretends she knows nothing. There, I’m going to start at once and see if I cannot trace her out. While I’m gone I should feel obliged if you would keep an eye on my cottage; one way and another there are quite a couple of pounds’ worth of things up yonder which I should not like to have stolen. You may as well come down here too, and see how my brother is going on. Now then, I’ll just step down to Van Heldre’s and say a word before I start.”

“By what train shall you go?”

“Train? Oh, yes, I had almost forgotten trains. Hateful way of travelling, but saves time. Must arrange to be driven over to catch one at mid-day. Come and see me off.”

“Yes,” said Leslie, “I’ll come and see you off. What shall you take with you?”

“Tooth-brush and comb,” grunted Uncle Luke. “Dessay I shall find a bit of soap somewhere. Now then, have you anything to say before I go?”

“There is no occasion; we can make our plans as we go up.”

“We?”

“Yes: I am going with you.”

Uncle Luke smiled.

“I knew you would,” he said, quietly chuckling.

“You knew I should? Why did you think that?”

“Because you’re only a big boy after all, Duncan, and show how fond you are of Louie at every turn.”

“I am not ashamed to own that I loved her,” said the young man, bitterly.

“Loved?” said Uncle Luke, quietly. “Wonder what love’s like, to make a man such a goose. Don’t be a sham, Leslie. You always meant to go. You said to yourself, when you thought ill of the poor girl, you would go after her and try and break the man’s neck.”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“Well, something of the kind. And now Maddy Van Heldre has been giving you a good setting down, and showing you what a weak baby you are – ”

“Has Miss Van Heldre – ”

“No, Miss Van Heldre has not said a word; but your face is as plain as a newspaper, and I know what Maddy would say if anybody attacked my niece. There, what’s the use of talking? You will say with your lips that Louise is nothing to you now, and that you believe she has eloped with some French scoundrel.”

Leslie bit his lip and made an impatient gesture.

“While that noble countenance of yours, of which you are so proud, has painted upon it love and trust and hope, and all the big-boy nonsense in which young men indulge when they think they are only a half, which needs another half to make them complete.”

“I am not going to quarrel with you,” said Leslie, flushing angrily, all the same.

“No, my boy, you are not. You are coming with me, my unfortunate young hemisphere, to try and find that other half to which you shall some day be joined to make you a complete little world of trouble of your own, to roll slowly up the hill of life, hang on the top for a few hours, and then roll rapidly down. There, we have wasted time enough in talking, and I’ll hold off. Thank ye, though, Leslie, you’re a good fellow after all.”

He held out his hand, which Leslie slowly took, and Uncle Luke was shaking it warmly as Madelaine re-entered the room.

“Well,” said the old man grimly, “have you put the baby to bed?”

“Uncle Luke!” said Madelaine imploringly; “pray be serious and help us.”

“Serious, my girl! I was never so serious before. I only called Margaret a baby. So she is in intellect, and a very troublesome and mischievous one. Glad to see though that my little matter-of-fact Dutch doll has got the better of her. Why, Maddy, henceforth you’ll be able to lead her with a silken string.”

“Uncle Luke dear – Louise,” said Madelaine imploringly.

“Ah, to be sure, yes, Louise,” said the old man with his eyes twinkling mischievously. “Circumstances alter cases. Now look here, you two. I’m only an old man, and of course thoroughly in your confidence. Sort of respectable go-between. Why shouldn’t I try and make you two happy?”

Leslie bit his lip, and Madelaine gave the old man an imploring look; but in a mocking way, he went on.

“Now suppose I say to you two, what can be better than for you to join hands – partners for life you know, and – ”

“Mr Luke Vine!” cried Leslie sternly, “setting aside the insult to me, is this gentlemanly, to annoy Miss Van Heldre with your mocking, ill-chosen jokes?”

“Hark at the hot-blooded Scotchman, Maddy; and look here how pleasantly and patiently my little Dutch doll takes it, bless her!”

He put his arm round Madelaine and held her to his side.

“Why, what are you ruffling up for in that fashion? Only a few minutes ago you were swearing that you hated Louie, and that you gave her up to the French nobleman – French nobleman, Maddy! – and I offer you a pleasant anodyne for your sore heart – and a very pleasant anodyne too, eh, Maddy? Ah, don’t – don’t cry – hang it all, girl, don’t. I do hate to see a woman with wet eyes. Now what have you got to sob about?”

“Is this helping us?”

“No. But I’m going to, little one. I was obliged to stick something into Leslie, here. He is such a humbug. Swore he didn’t care a bit for Louie now, and that he believed everything that was bad of her, and yet look at his face.”

“It is impossible to quarrel with you, sir,” said Leslie, with the look of a human mastiff.

“Of course it is,” cried Uncle Luke. “Well, Maddy, I’ve converted him. He sees now that it’s a puzzle we don’t understand, and he is coming up to town with me to solve the problem.”

“I knew he would,” cried Madelaine warmly. “Mr Leslie, I am very, very glad.”

“Of course, you are; and as soon as I bring Louie back, and all is cleared, Leslie shall come and congratulate us. D’ye hear, Leslie? I’m going to marry Madelaine. Marry her and stop up in the churchyard afterwards,” he said with a grim smile full of piteous sadness.

“Uncle Luke!”

“Well, it’s right enough, my dear. At my time of life hardly worth while to make two journeys up to the churchyard. So you could leave me there and go back, and take possession of my estate.”

“Louise.”

“Ah, yes. I mustn’t forget Louise,” said the old man. “Let’s see – about Margaret. Leave her all right?”

“Yes; she is more calm now.”

“Did you question her, and get to know anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the old man. “Close as an oyster, or else she doesn’t know anything.”

“That is what I think,” said Madelaine eagerly.

“Ah, well, we are only wasting time,” said Uncle Luke testily. “So now, Leslie, business. First thing we have to do is to go up to London. No: first thing, Maddy, is to run on to your house, and tell them what we are going to do. You’ll have to stay here, my dear, and look after those two. Comfort George all you can; drive him with that silken thread rein of yours, and keep a good tight curb over Margaret. There, you’ll manage them.”

“Yes. Tell them at home I think it better to stay here now,” said Madelaine earnestly. “You will send me every scrap of news?”

“Leslie and I are going to secure the wire and ruin ourselves in telegrams. Ready, Miner?”

“Yes.”

“Then come on.”

Madelaine caught Leslie’s extended hand, and leaned towards him.

“My life on it,” she whispered, “Louise is true.”

He wrung her hand and hurried away.

“Good-bye, Uncle Luke. Be happy about them here; and, mind, we are dying for news.”

“Ah! yes; I know,” he said testily; and he walked away – turned back, and caught Madelaine to his breast. “Good-bye, Dutch doll. God bless you, my darling,” he said huskily. “If I could only bring back poor Harry too!”

Madelaine stood wiping the tears from her eyes as the old man hurried off after Leslie, but she wiped another tear away as well, one which rested on her cheek, a big salt tear that ought almost to have been a fossil globule of crystallised water and salt. It was the first Uncle Luke had shed for fifty years.

Volume Three – Chapter Fourteen.

A Hard Test

“Harry, dear Harry!” said Louise, as they stood together in a shabbily-furnished room in one of the streets off Tottenham Court Road, “I feel at times as if it would drive me mad. Pray, pray let me write!”

“Not yet, I tell you; not yet,” he said angrily. “Wait till we are across the Channel, and then you shall.”

“But – ”

“Louie!” he half shouted at her, “have some patience.”

“Patience, dear? Think of our father’s agony of mind. He loves us.”

“Then the joy of finding we are both alive and well must compensate for what he suffers now.”

“But you do not realise what must be thought of me.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” he said bitterly; “but you do not realise what would be thought of me, if it were known that I was alive. I shiver every time I meet a policeman. Can’t you see how I am placed?”

“Yes – yes,” said Louise wearily; “but at times I can only think of our father – of Madelaine – of Uncle Luke.”

“Hush!” he cried with an irritable stamp of the foot. “Have patience. Once we are on the Continent I shall feel as if I could breathe; but this wretched dilatory way of getting money worries me to death.”

“Then why not sell the jewels, and let us go?”

“That’s talking like a woman again. It’s very easy to talk about selling the jewels, and it is easy to sell them if you go to some blackguard who will take advantage of your needs and give you next to nothing for them. But, as Pradelle says – ”

“Pradelle!” ejaculated Louise, with a look of dislike crossing her face.

“Yes, Pradelle. That’s right, speak ill of the only friend we have. Why, we owe everything to him. What could we have done? Where could we have gone if it had not been for him, and my finding out where he was through asking at the old meeting-place?”

“I do not like Mr Pradelle,” said Louise firmly.

“Then you ought to,” said Harry, as he walked up and down the room like some caged animal. “As he says, if you go to sell the things at a respectable place they’ll ask all manner of questions that it is not convenient to answer, and we must not risk detection by doing that.”

“Risk detection?” said Louise, clasping her hands about one knee as she gazed straight before her.

“The people here are as suspicious of us as can be, and the landlady seems ready to ask questions every time we meet on the stairs.”

“Yes,” said Louise in a sad, weary way; “she is always asking questions.”

“But you do not answer them?”

“I – I hardly know what I have said, Harry. She is so pertinacious.”

“We must leave here,” said the young man excitedly. “Why don’t Pradelle come?”

“Do you expect him to-night?”

“Expect him? Yes. I have only half-a-crown left, and he has your gold chain to pledge. He is to bring the money to-night. I expected him before.”

“Harry, dear.”

“Well?”

“Do you think Mr Pradelle is trustworthy?”

“As trustworthy as most people,” said the young man carelessly. “Yes, of course. He is obliged to be.”

“But could you not pledge the things yourself instead of trusting him?”

“No,” he cried, with an impatient stamp. “You know how I tried and how the assistant began to question and stare at me, till I snatched the thing out of his hands and hurried out of the shop. I’d sooner beg than try to do it again.”

Louise was silent for a few moments, and sat gazing thoughtfully before her.

“Let me write Harry, telling everything, and asking my father to send us money.”

“Send for the police at once. There, open the windows, and call the first one up that you see pass. It will be the shortest way.”

“But I am sure, dear – ”

“Once more, so am I. At the present moment I am free. Let me have my liberty to begin life over again honestly, repentantly, and with the earnest desire to redeem the past. Will you let me have that?”

“Of course – of course, dear.”

“Then say no more to me about communicating with home.”

Louise was silent again, beaten once more by her brother’s arguments in her desire to see him redeem the past.

“Harry,” she said at last, after her brother had been standing with his cheek pressed against the window-pane, looking down the street in search of the expected visitor.

“Well?”

“Has it ever occurred to you that Mr Pradelle is trying to keep us here?”

“Absurd!”

“No: I feel sure it is so, and that he does not want us to go away. Let me take my bracelets and necklet to one of those places where they buy jewellery or lend money.”

“You?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Are you mad?”

“No. Why should I not sell what is my own?”

“Can you not understand?” cried Harry, whose voice sounded harsh from the mental irritation which had given him the look of one in constant dread of arrest.

“No, dear, I cannot. I want to help you. I want to get away from here – to remove you from the influence of this man, so that we may, if it must be so, get abroad and then set them at rest.”

“Now you are bringing that up again,” he cried angrily.

“I must, Harry, I must. I have been too weak as it is; but in the excitement of all that trouble I seemed to be influenced by you in all I did.”

“There, there, little sis,” he said more gently. “I ought not to speak so crossly, but I am always on thorns, held back as I am for want of a few paltry pounds.”

“Then let me go and dispose of these things.”

“It is impossible.”

“No, dear, you think of the degradation. I should not be ashamed. We have made a false step, Harry, but if we must go on, let me do what I can to help you. Let me go.”

“But the beggarly disgrace. You don’t know what you are going to undertake.”

She looked at him with her frank, clear eyes.

“I am going to help you. There can be no disgrace in disposing of these trinkets for you to escape.”

“Ah! at last!” cried Harry, leaving the window to hurry to the door, regardless of the look of dislike which came into his sister’s face.

“Is that Mr Pradelle?” she said shrinkingly.

“Yes, at last. No, Louie, I’m bad enough, but I’m not going to send you to the pawnbroker’s while I stop hiding here, and it’s all right now.”

“Ah, Harry! Day, Miss Louie,” said Pradelle, entering, very fashionably dressed, and with a rose in his buttonhole. “Nice weather, isn’t it?”

“Look here, Vic,” cried Harry, catching him by the arm. “How much did you get?”

“Get?”

“Yes; for the chain?”

“Oh, for the chain,” said Pradelle, who kept his eyes fixed on Louise. “Nothing, old fellow.”

“Nothing?”

“Haven’t taken it to the right place yet.”

“And you promised to. Look here, what do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Well, I like that. Hear him, Miss Louie? What a fellow he is! Here have I got him into decent apartments, where he is safe as the bank, when if he had depended upon himself he would have taken you to some slum where you would have been stopped and the police have found you out.”

“You promised to pledge those things for me.”

“Of course I did, and so I will. Why, if you had been left to yourself, who would have taken you in without a reference?”

“Never mind that,” said Harry, so angrily that Louise rose, went to his side, and laid her hand upon his arm. “If you don’t want to help me, say so.”

“If I don’t want to help you! Why, look here, Miss Louie, I appeal to you. Haven’t I helped him again and again? Haven’t I lent him money, and acted as a friend should?”

“Why haven’t you pledged that chain?” said Harry.

“Because people are so suspicious, and I was afraid. There, you have the truth.”

“I don’t believe it,” cried Harry, excitedly.

“Well then, don’t. Your sister will. If you want me to bring the police on your track, say so.”

In a furtive way, he noted Harry’s start of dread, and went on.

“Take the chain or a watch yourself, and if the pawnbroker is suspicious, he’ll either detain it till you can give a good account of how you came by it, or send for a policeman to follow you to your lodgings.”

“But I am quite penniless!” cried Harry.

“Then why didn’t you say so, old fellow? Long as I’ve got a pound you’re welcome to it, and always were. I’m not a fine-weather friend, you know that. There you are, two halves. That’ll keep you going for a week.”

“But I don’t want to keep borrowing of you,” said Harry. “We have enough to do what I want. A sovereign will do little more than pay for these lodgings.”

“Enough for a day or two, old fellow, and do for goodness’ sake have a little more faith in a man you have proved.”

“I have faith in you, Vic, and I’m very grateful; but this existence maddens me. I want enough to get us across the Channel. I must and will go.”