The Master of the Ceremonies

This narrator went off in high dudgeon on being openly contradicted, and told that she was entirely wrong, for the fact was that young Cornet Morton Denville, who saved Lady Drelincourt’s pet dog, and for whom her ladyship had bought a commission, had challenged Sir Matthew Bray to fight with swords at the cross-roads. They had met, but Lady Drelincourt, in alarm, had gone and told Morton Denville’s sisters, and they had all three gone up together in a post-chaise with Sir Harry Payne on horseback. They had come up just in the heat of the fight, and Sir Harry and Mrs Burnett had rushed between them, and both been wounded; and in her horror at being the cause of such bloodshed, Lady Drelincourt had exclaimed, “I would give my diamonds and everything I possess to be able to undo this terrible night’s work.”

Such minute knowledge carried all before it, and for quite an hour this was the accepted version.

Somehow, Louis Gravani, save with three or four of the witnesses of the tragedy, dropped entirely out of the affair, going as suddenly as he had come, though he seemed always present in the little bedchamber on the Parade, where May lay almost at the point of death, muttering feebly, and appealing to him not to be so cruel as to kill her, because she always thought that he was dead.

The surgeon had done all that was possible, and he had consulted with the principal physician as to the course to be pursued; and then, in the face of two grave wounds in the neck and breast of the frail, childish little creature, they had left her to the wild delirium that had set in – one whose fever was burning away rapidly the flickering life that was left.

The window was wide open, and the soft, low rush of the water upon the shingle floated in like soft, murmurous music through the flowers that it had always been Claire’s pleasure to tend. Then a faint, querulous cry, oft repeated, came from seaward, where the soft grey-plumaged gulls swept here and there, and dipped down at the shelly shoals laid bare as the tide ebbed and flowed. It was a weird, uneasy sound, that accorded well with the painful scene in the chamber given up to the sick girl, by whose side stood Claire, pale and anxious, ready to fan the burning face, or rearrange the bedclothes tossed uneasily away.

Near the foot of the bed sat the Master of the Ceremonies, grey, hollow-cheeked, and with a wild look of despairing horror in his eyes, as he gazed at his little fallen idol, for whom he had fought and schemed, and whom he had so obstinately held aloft in his own heart, to the disparagement of her patient, forbearing sister.

“Is it true, Claire?” he murmured at last; “is it true, or some dreadful dream? My child! My child!”

Then his face grew convulsed with horror, as May turned her face towards him, and began speaking rapidly:

“Don’t, Louis – pray: don’t. – No: I am afraid. – Take me away quickly, dear. – No one will know, and I hate him so. – Little mean wretch! – They made me marry him, and I hate him more and more. – Hush!”

Denville groaned, and, as his head drooped upon his breast, Claire heard him murmur:

“Is it a judgment – is it a judgment for the past?”

She shivered as she listened to his words, but a quick movement and a low cry of pain made her bend over her sister again.

“Take me away,” she said, after a few moments; and her pinched face bore a look of terror that stabbed those who watched with an agonising pain. “I tell you I hate Frank, and I dare not meet poor Louis now. It is not he, but something from the dead. Claire – Claire – hold me. Sister, help! Don’t let me go. Am I going to die?”

“May, May!” whispered Claire soothingly, as she laid her cheek against the burning face; and the sick girl sighed, and made an effort to cling to her, but her feeble arm dropped heavily upon the coverlid.

“Don’t let Louis come now. Is that Frank? Is that – ”

She wandered off, muttering quickly and incoherently as she threw her head from side to side for a time; and then, utterly exhausted, seemed to sleep.

“Has – has Frank Burnett been?” whispered her father, looking timidly at Claire.

She shook her head sadly.

“No,” said Denville; “he will not come. He would not even if she were to die. She must get better; and we will do as you have often said: go right away, where we are not known, and where we shall be safe.”

In spite of herself, Claire darted at him a horrified look, which he saw and winced at, as he rose feebly, and began to pace the room, stopping at length before the window to gaze out at the sunlit sea.

“Strange!” he murmured; “the world so beautiful, and my life one dreary course of agony and pain. Claire, what do the doctors really think – that she will live?”

“I pray God they do!” said Claire solemnly.

“Yes; she must live and repent. There is pardon for those who suffer and repent, my child. Don’t look at me like that; you do not know. Claire, is this my punishment? Surely no worse suffering can befall me now.”

“Dear father,” whispered Claire; “let the past be dead.”

“Hush!” he cried, grasping her hand; “Don’t talk of death, girl – here. She must live, and we will go away before – before it is too late. Has Morton been?”

Claire shook her head mournfully.

“No; he would not come. He must not come,” said the old man quickly. “He is well placed, and he must not come near such pariahs as we are. No, no; don’t look like that,” he whispered passionately. “Why should he drag himself down? It is too much to ask of the boy.”

He went on tip-toe to the bed, and took the little feverish hand that lay outside the coverlid, and kissed and stroked it as he muttered to himself:

“Poor little wandering lamb! So weak and timid, and ready to go astray; but you are safe here with me. Oh, how wrong everything is!”

Claire glanced at him, half stunned by this new trouble; and, as her father talked of punishment, and the impossibility of a greater trouble than this befalling them, a cold hand seemed to clutch her heart, and a vague, black shadow of another horror came back with double force, she shuddered, and devoted herself more and more to her task of attending the sister sick apparently unto death.

As she sat there, with the shadow of death impending, after the first shock, it seemed to lose its terrors, and she found herself looking upon it as less dreadful than she had been wont to do. There was rest in it, and a cessation from the pain and suffering that had so long been her portion; and, as the hours rolled on, her throbbing brain grew dull and heavy, her own suffering lighter, and she seemed better able to attend to the sufferer at her side.

Towards noon there was a soft knock at the front door, and Isaac – who had been planning with Eliza an immediate flight from the grief-stricken house, on the ground that, even if they lost their wages, it was no longer a place for them to stay at – opened it, and told the visitor that Miss Denville could see no one.

“But me, young man,” said the caller, quietly entering. “You need not say I’m here. I shall go up soon, and you have got to go on to my house for another basket like this, only bigger.”

She patted the one she carried – one which she had crammed with such things as she thought would be useful at such a time.

Isaac gave way, allowed Mrs Barclay to go up to the drawing-room, and directly after called Eliza into his pantry to tell her that his mind was made up, and that they must go at once.

Mrs Barclay did not hesitate for a moment, but went softly up to the bedroom, tapped gently, and turned the handle to enter on tip-toe.

“I’ve only come to help, my dear,” she said softly, as she clasped Claire in her arms. “We weren’t quick enough, my dear,” she whispered, “or we might have saved all this.”

There was no reply, and after a time, in respect to Claire’s wishes, Mrs Barclay went downstairs.

“I shall be there if you want me, my dear. Don’t you go and think that you are left alone.”

Mrs Barclay had hardly seated herself in the dining-room, and taken some rather grubby work from her pocket, when she heard a peculiar noise, and the bump of something being placed heavily upon the floor.

She listened, and heard some one ascend the stairs again, and there was a whispering, which ceased as the whisperers ascended, and then there was silence, and Mrs Barclay took a stitch, and thought and wondered whether Cora Dean would come, or whether the Denvilles would be cut by everyone now.

Then she took another stitch, and nibbed her nose, which itched.

“Poor little soul!” she said to herself, “it’s come home to her at last. I never thought any good of her, but I’m not one to go on punishing those who’ve done wrong.”

Mrs Barclay took another stitch and began to think again.

“Jo-si-ah says if they catch the little Italian fellow, he’ll be transported for life, and if poor little Mrs Burnett dies, they’ll hang him. Well, I don’t hold with hanging people, so I hope she won’t die.”

She took another stitch and drew the thread through very slowly.

“Jo-si-ah says Sir Harry isn’t very bad, and the constable and a magistrate have been to see him, but he says he knows nothing hardly about it. Poor Claire! What a house this is! What trouble!”

She took another stitch.

“I wonder whether Richard Linnell will come. I shall begin to hate him if he doesn’t stand by the poor girl in her distress. He’s a poor shilly-shally sort of a fellow, or he’d believe in her as I do.”

There was quite a vicious stitch here.

“Perhaps, it isn’t his fault. She kept him at a distance terribly, and no wonder with the troubles she’s had; but of course he can’t understand all that, being impetuous, like my Jo-si-ah was, and I dessay it will all come right at last. Now, what are they lumping down the stairs, making a noise, and that poor child so ill?”

She threw her work on the table, got up softly, and, just as there was a fresh bump and a whispering, she opened the door to find Isaac and Eliza standing over a box which they had just set down in the passage beside another, while Isaac in plain clothes and Eliza with her bonnet in her hand started at seeing the visitor.

“Why, highty-tighty, who’s going away?” cried Mrs Barclay wonderingly.

Eliza glanced at Isaac, who cleared his throat.

“The fact is, ma’am, this young person and I have come to the conclusion that seeing how we suffered from arrears, and what goings on there are here, Mr Denville’s isn’t the service in which we care to stop any longer.”

“Oh,” said Mrs Barclay; “and have you told Mr Denville you are going?”

“Well, ma’am; no, ma’am. We have thought it is not necessary under the circumstances, and – ”

“Nor yet, Miss Claire?”

“No, ma’am; she is too busy.”

“Then just you take those boxes up again, young man, and take off that finery, and put on your livery,” said Mrs Barclay in a low angry voice. “Now, no words. You do as I say – there take those boxes up.”

The tone of voice, manner, and a hint about the wages had their effect. Isaac and Eliza glanced at each other, and took the boxes away without a word, Isaac coming back in livery a quarter of an hour later to tell Mrs Barclay that “that soldier” was at the back door.

Mrs Barclay started and followed Isaac, to stare in wonder at the fine soldierly young fellow, who eagerly asked her a score of questions about Claire and May, and, declining to be questioned in turn, hurried away with troubled mien.

Volume Three – Chapter Nine.

May Begins to See

“Claire.”

It was the faintest whisper of a call, but she to whom it was addressed heard it, and leaned over the bed to lay a cool hand upon the little wistful face looking up from the pillow.

“How long have I been lying here, Claire?”

“Hush, dear; don’t talk,” said Claire tenderly, “you are still so weak.”

“Yes, but I must know. If you do not answer my questions, I shall fret and die sooner than I should do if you told me.”

“Six weeks, dear.”

“Six weeks!” sighed May; “and it seems like a dream. Since I seemed to wake up the day before yesterday, I have been thinking about it all, and I recollect everything now.”

She spoke with perfect calmness, and as she went on, Claire’s brow wrinkled.

“Poor old dad! How fond he is of me, and how ready to forgive me,” she went on quietly. “Has Frank Burnett been?”

Claire shook her head.

“Not once?”

“No.”

“Ah, well, I suppose he would not come. He felt that I was not his wife, and he was glad to cut himself clear from such an unhappy family. Has Sir Harry sent?”

“May! dear May!”

“I only wanted to know, Claire,” said May quietly. “Don’t be angry with me, dear. It’s all over now. Is he better?”

“I believe so. He has gone away.”

“Thank God!” said May fervently.

Claire turned upon her with wondering eyes.

“Yes,” she said again. “Thank God! I should not have liked to see him again, nor to know that he had been to ask for me. I am so weak, Claire. I always – I was so different to you.”

Claire sighed, and bent down and kissed the white forehead, beneath which the large eyes look unnaturally bright.

“That’s nice,” said May, with a sigh of content. “I wish I had been born such a girl as you. Always so calm and grave. I was so different. I used to feel, and I am sure of it now, that I was like one of the pretty little boats out there at sea, with the great white sails, that are blown over sometimes for want of ballast. I never had any ballast, Claire, and that made me giddy.”

“Had you not better be silent now, May dear?” whispered Claire.

“No. Perhaps I may not be able to talk to you again, and I should like to tell you everything that is in my mind.”

“May, dear!” cried Claire, kissing her lovingly.

“You forgive me, then?” sighed May. “I’m glad of that, for I want a deal of forgiving – here – and there,” she added, after a pause.

“Which may come the easier, dear, for a life spent in repenting what is past.”

“Yes; that would be easy, Claire, easy enough; but it is better as it is with me. I should be so weak and foolish again if I got well. – Claire.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Has poor Louis been seen again?”

“No: not since that night.”

May lay silent for a few minutes, and then said softly:

“It seems very cruel of him to strike me like that, but he had been true to me, Claire, and I was so weak I couldn’t be true to him, and he is not like us; he is foreign, and loves and hates so passionately. It made him angry and mad against me. As soon as I saw him in the street, after I had written to ask Sir Harry to take me away, I knew there was danger, and I tried so hard to escape. I felt obliged then. Sir Harry had often before begged me to go, but I never would.”

“Hush! May, I beg of you.”

“No: I must talk,” said May. “I will speak softly so that it shall not hurt me much; but I want to be made happy by telling you everything and getting you to freely forgive me.”

“I do – I do freely forgive you, everything, May, dear sister,” whispered Claire, “and you must get well quickly, so that we may go far away from here, and begin life afresh.”

“Yes,” said May, with a peculiar smile, “far away, and begin life afresh.”

Claire saw her peculiar look, and held her tightly to her breast.

“Yes,” said May softly, “it means that, dear. I’ve always been like a spoiled child. Poor papa has made me his idol, and I’ve been so weak and foolish. I can see it all now, since I have been ill. Claire, I hope they will not take poor Louis and punish him for this.”

“No, no, dear; he has gone far away; but pray, pray, say no more.”

“I must,” she said smiling. “I have wasted so much time that I cannot spare a moment now. Ah, Claire, if I had been like you!”

“I wish you had been happier than ever I have been,” said Claire sadly. “Now try and sleep.”

“I want to talk to you about baby, Claire dear,” continued May, without heeding her sister’s words.

She laughed softly, and her sister gazed at her in wonder, thinking that she was wandering again, as in the days of her long delirium.

“I was laughing about baby,” she said. “Such a droll little soft thing. I laughed when I saw it first, for we both seemed to be such bits of girls, and it seemed such nonsense for me to be the poor little tot’s mother. I have never been like a mother to it, though, leaving it always to strangers; but you, Claire, you will see to it, and be a better mother to her than ever I could.”

“You shall get better, May, and make your little one a blessing to you when we are far away from here.”

“Yes,” said May with the same peculiar look, “far away from here. Poor little baby! Does my father know?”

“Yes: everything now, dear.”

“Oh, yes, I had forgotten: he kissed me as if he did, and forgave his weak, wilful child.”

“How is she?” whispered Denville, entering the room softly a few minutes later.

“Asleep,” said Claire in the same tone.

“Is she – do you think she – ”

He trailed off in his speech, and ended by looking imploringly in his daughter’s face.

“I dare not say,” said Claire mournfully. “Father, she is very ill.”

“Then you must nurse her, Claire,” said the old man excitedly, as he caught her hand to hold it tightly. “You must get her well, so that we can go – all go – far away – where we are not known. We cannot stay here in misery and debt and disgrace. Everything is against us now. My old position is gone. I dare not walk to the Assembly-Room, for fear of some insult or slight. I am the Master of the Ceremonies only in name. I am disgraced.”

“Then we will go,” said Claire sadly; “but it cannot be yet. Have patience, dear.”

She laid her hand upon the old man’s shoulder, and bent forward and kissed his cheek.

He caught her in his arms.

“You do not shrink from me?” he said bitterly.

“Shrink? No, father; I am your child. Now, tell me – about money – what are we to do?”

Denville shook his head.

“There is only one way out of the difficulty, Claire.”

“A way, father?”

“Yes; Lord Carboro’ spoke to me again this morning on the Parade. He came up to me like the gentleman he is, and just as I had been openly cut by townsman after townsman. He shook hands with me and took my arm, Claire, and – and – I told him he might come here – to-day – and speak to you.”

“Oh, father, what have you done? You have not taken money from him?”

“No – no – no!” cried the old man indignantly. “I have not sunk so low as that; but it was tempting. That man Isaac has grown insolent, and has twice come home intoxicated. Claire, I am the fellow’s slave while I am in his debt. I want to send him away, but I cannot. Hush!”

There was a double knock at the door, and Denville went softly down, leaving Claire with a fresh agony to battle against, for, few as had been her father’s words, they had been sufficiently plain to make her ask herself whether it was not her duty to give up everything – to sell herself, as it were, to this old nobleman, that her father might be saved from penury, and her sister placed beyond the reach of want; for her home must in future be with them.

“Have we not at last reached the very dregs of bitterness?” she said wildly. “Heaven help me in this cruel strait!”

The door opened softly, and Denville signed to Claire to come to him on the landing.

“It is Lord Carboro’,” he whispered. “You must speak to him.”

Claire shrank back for a moment, but her firmness returned, and she closed the door and followed her father to take his hand.

“I would do everything, now, father, even to this,” she said solemnly; “but it is impossible. Ask yourself.”

“Yes,” he said sadly, “it is impossible. But it is very hard – to see wealth and prosperity for you, my child, and to have to say no. But it is impossible. Speak gently to the old man. He has been a good friend to me.”

It seemed as if a mist was about her as Claire Denville entered the drawing-room, beyond which she could dimly see Lord Carboro’, looking almost grotesque in his quaint costume and careful get-up, fresh from the hands of his valet. He had been labouring hard to appear forty; but anxiety and the inexorable truth made him look at least seventy, as he rose, bowed, and placed a chair for the pale, graceful girl, and then took one near her.

The old man had prepared a set speech of a very florid nature, for, matter-of-fact worldling as he was, he had felt himself weak and helpless before the woman for whom he had quite a doting affection. But the sight of Claire’s grief-stricken face and the recollection of the suffering and mental care through which she must have passed, drove away all thought of his prepared words, and he felt more like a simple-hearted old man full of pity than he had ever been before.

He took her hand, which was given up unresistingly, and after a thoughtful look in the calm clear eyes that met his, he said slowly:

“My dear Miss Denville, I came here to-day, a vain weak man, full of the desire to appear young; but you have driven away all this shallow pretence, for I feel that you can see me clearly as what I am, an old fellow of seventy. Hush! don’t speak my dear child till I have done. I have always admired you as a beautiful girl: I now love you as the sweet, patient, suffering woman who has devoted herself to others.”

“Lord Carboro’ – ”

“No, no; let me try and finish, my dear. I will be very brief. It would be a mockery to speak flattering follies to such a one as you. Tell me first – Did your father give you to understand that I was coming?”

Claire bent her head.

“Then let me say simply, my child, that if you will be my wife and give me such love as your sweet dutiful heart will teach you to give to the doting old man who asks you, I will try all I can to make your young life happy, and place it in your power to make a pleasant home somewhere for poor old Denville, and your sister. We must bring her round. A trip abroad with your father, and – and – dear me – dear me, my child, I am rambling strangely, and hardly know what I say, only that I ask you to be my wife, and in return you shall be mistress of all I possess. I know the difference in our ages, and what the world will say; but I could afford to laugh at the world for the few years I should be likely to stay in it, and afterwards, my child, you would be free and rich, and with no duty left but to think kindly of the old man who was gone.”

Claire listened to the old man’s words with a strange swelling sensation in her breast. The tears gathered slowly in her eyes as she gazed wistfully at him, wondering at the tender respect he paid her, and one by one they brimmed over and trickled down.

She could not speak, but at last in the gratitude of her heart, as she thought of the sacrifice he made in offering her rank and riches, after the miserable scandals of which she had been the victim, she raised his withered hand slowly to her lips.

“No, no,” he cried, “not that. You consent then?”

“No, my lord,” said Claire firmly. “It is impossible.”

“Then – then,” he cried testily. “You do love someone else.”

Claire bowed her head, and her eyes looked resentment for a moment. Then in a low sweet voice she said:

“Even if I could say to you, Lord Carboro’ my heart is free, and I will try to be your loving, dutiful wife, there are reasons which make it impossible.”

“These troubles – that I will not name. I know, I know,” he said hastily; “but they are miserable family troubles, not yours.”

“Troubles that are mine, Lord Carboro’, and which I must share. Forgive me if I give you pain, but I could never be your wife.”

The old man dropped the hand he held, and his face was full of resentment as he replied:

“Do you know what you are throwing away?” Then, checking himself, “No, no, I spoke angrily – like a thoughtless boy. Don’t take any notice of my words, but think – pray think of your father – of your sister. How you could help them in the position you would hold.”

“Lord Carboro’,” said Claire, “I am weak, heart-sick and worn with watching. I can hardly find words to thank you, and I want you to think me grateful, but what you ask is impossible. It can never be.”

The old man rose angrily and took a turn or two about the room, as he strove hard to fight down his bitter mortification.

Twice over he stopped before her, and his lips parted to speak, but he resumed his hurried walk, ending by catching her hands and kissing them.