Of High Descent
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“Stop!” cried Pradelle, as Leslie laid his hand upon the door.
“Yes, stop – pray, pray stop!” cried Louise in agony; and with a wild look of horror, which stung Leslie with jealous rage. “Uncle, you must not do this.”
“I’d do it if it was ten times as hard!” cried the old man.
“What shall I say – what shall I do?” moaned Louise. “Uncle, uncle, pray don’t do this. You must not send for the police. Give me time to explain – to set you right.”
“Shame upon you!” cried the old man fiercely. “Defending such a scoundrel as that!”
“No, no, uncle, I do not defend this man. Listen to me; you do not know what you are doing.”
“Not know what I am doing? Ah!”
He turned from her in disgust, and with a look of agony that thrilled him, she caught Leslie’s arm.
“You will listen to me, Mr Leslie. You must not, you shall not, call in the police.”
He did not speak for the moment, but stood hesitating as if yielding to her prayer; but the frown deepened upon his brow as he loosened her grasp upon his arm.
“It is for your good,” he said coldly, “to save you from a man like that.”
“I must speak, I must speak!” cried Louise, and then she uttered a wail of horror and shrank to her uncle’s side.
For as she clung to Leslie, Pradelle, with a bullying look, planted himself before the door to arrest Leslie’s progress, and then shrank back as he saw the grim smile of satisfaction upon the young Scot’s face.
It was the work of moments, and the action seemed like to that of one of his own country deerhounds, as Leslie clashed at him; there was the dull sound of a heavy blow, and Pradelle went down with a crash in one corner of the room.
“Mr Leslie! Mr Leslie! for pity’s sake stay!” cried Louise as she made for the door; but Uncle Luke caught her hand, and retained it as the door swung to.
“Uncle, uncle!” she moaned, “what have you done?”
“Done?” he cried. “You mad, infatuated girl! My duty to my brother and to you.”
“All right,” said Pradelle, rising slowly. “Let’s have in the police then. I can clear myself, I dare say.”
“Mr Pradelle, if you have a spark of manliness in you, pray say no more,” cried Louise, as, snatching herself free, she ran to him now.
“Oh, I’m not going to be made a scapegoat!” he cried savagely; but as his eyes met hers full of piteous appeal, his whole manner changed, and he caught her hands in his.
“Yes, I will,” he whispered. “I’ll bear it all. It can’t be for long, and I may get off. Promise me – ”
He said the rest of the words with his lips close to her ear.
“Your wife?” she faltered as she shrank away and crossed to her uncle. “No, no, no!”
There was a sharp rap on the panel, the door yielded, and Sergeant Parkins stepped in.
“Mr Pradelle, eh?” he said with a grim smile. “Glad to make your acquaintance, sir, at last. You’ll come quietly?”
“Oh, yes, I’ll come,” said Pradelle. “I’ve got an answer to the charge.”
“Of course you have, sir. Glad to hear it. Sorry to put a stop to your pleasant little game. Shall I?”
“There’s no need,” said Pradelle in answer to a meaning gesticulation toward his wrists. “I know how to behave like a gentleman.”
“That’s right,” said the sergeant, who, with a display of delicacy hardly to have been expected in his triumph at having, as he felt, had his prognostication fulfilled, carefully abstained from even glancing at the trembling girl, who stood there with agony and despair painted on her face.
“It ain’t too late yet, Miss Louie,” said Pradelle, crossing towards her.
“Keep that scoundrel back, Parkins,” cried Uncle Luke.
“Right, sir. Now, Mr Pradelle.”
“Stop a moment, can’t you?” shouted the prisoner. “Miss Louie – to save him you’ll promise, and I’ll be dumb. I swear I will.”
Louise drew herself up as a piteous sigh escaped her breast.
“No,” she said firmly, “I cannot promise that. Uncle dear, I have tried to save him to the last. I can do no more.”
“No,” said the old man, “you can do no more.”
“Mr Pradelle,” she cried, “you will not be so base?”
“Will you promise?” he cried.
“No.”
“Then – here, just a minute. You, Mr Luke Vine, will you give me a word?”
“No,” roared Uncle Luke. “Take him away.”
“Then the sergeant here will,” cried Pradelle savagely. “Look here, sit down and wait for a few minutes, and you can take Harry Vine as well.”
“What do you mean?” cried the sergeant roughly.
“Only that he has gone out to raise the money for a bolt to France, and he’ll be back directly. Two birds with one stone.”
“Only a trick, sir,” said the sergeant grimly. “Now, Mr Pradelle, hansom or four-wheeler? I give you your choice.”
“Four-wheeler,” said Pradelle, with a sneering laugh.
“My poor brother!” moaned Louise, as she made a clutch at the air, and then sank fainting in her uncle’s arms.
“You scoundrel! to speak like that,” cried Uncle Luke fiercely.
“Here, what do you mean?” said the sergeant.
“What I said. He wasn’t drowned. Harry was too clever for that.”
Click – click!
A pair of handcuffs were fastened to his wrists with marvellous celerity, and he was swung into a chair.
“I don’t know whether this is a bit of gammon, Mr Pradelle,” said the sergeant sharply, “but I never lose a chance.”
He paid not the slightest heed to the other occupants of the room, but ran to the window, threw it open, and called to some one below, but only his last words were heard by those inside.
“Quick! first one you see, and I’ll give you a shilling.”
The sergeant closed the window, and crossed to Pradelle.
“If it’s a trick it will do you no good. You see, to begin with, it has brought you those.”
“I don’t care,” said Pradelle, glowering at Uncle Luke. “It will take some of the pride out of him, and I shan’t go alone.”
“It is a trick, sergeant. Take the scoundrel away.”
“Must make sure, sir. Sorry for the lady, but she may have been deceived that horrible night, and there’s more in this than I can understand. Your friend be long, sir?”
“Mr Leslie? I expected him back with you.”
“Mr Leslie went on out into the street, sir. Here, I have it. He has been in hiding down your way, and came up with the lady there.”
“That’s it, sergeant, you’re a ’cute one,” said Pradelle with a laugh.
“Who has been in hiding?”
“Your nephew, sir. I see it all now. What a fool I’ve been.”
“My nephew! – Not dead?”
“Harry – brother!” moaned Louise. “I could do no more. Ah!”
Uncle Luke fell a-trembling as he caught the half-insensible girl’s hand, gazing wildly at the sergeant the while.
“Look here, Pradelle, no more nonsense. Will he come back?”
“If you keep quiet of course. Not if he sees you.”
“All!” ejaculated the sergeant, crossing to the door as he heard a step; and hurrying out he returned directly with a constable in uniform.
“Stop!” he said shortly, and he nodded to the prisoner. “Very sorry, Mr Vine, sir,” he then said; “but you must stay here for a bit. I am going down to wait outside.”
“But, Parkins!” cried Uncle Luke, agitatedly, “I cannot. If this is true – that poor boy – no, no, he must not be taken now.”
“Too late, sir, to talk like that,” cried the sergeant. “You stop there.”
“Yes,” said Pradelle, as the door closed on the sergeant’s retiring figure; “pleasant for you. I always hated you for a sneering old crab. It’s your time to feel now.”
“Silence, you scoundrel!” cried Uncle Luke, fiercely. “She’s coming to.”
Uncle Luke was wrong, for Louise only moaned slightly, and then relapsed into insensibility, from which a doctor who was fetched did not seem to recall her, and hour after hour of patient watching followed, but Harry did not return.
“The bird has been scared, sir,” said Parkins, entering the room at last. “I can’t ask you to stay longer. There’s a cab at the door to take the lady to your hotel.”
“But are you sure – that – my poor boy lives?”
“Certain, sir, now. I’ve had his description from the people down below. I shall have him before to-night.”
“L’homme propose, mais – ”
Five minutes later Louise, quite insensible, was being borne to the hotel; Mr Pradelle, to an establishment offering similar advantages as to bed and board, but with the freedom of ingress and egress left out.
Volume Three – Chapter Nineteen.
Diogenes Discovers
“Blame you, my dear? No, no, of course not. Then you knew nothing about it till that night when he came to the window?”
“Oh no, uncle dear.”
Louise started up excitedly from the couch at the hotel upon which she was lying, while the old man trotted up and down the room.
“Now, now, now,” he cried piteously, but with exceeding tenderness, as he laid his hand upon her brow, and pressed her back till her head rested on the pillow. “Your head’s getting hot again, and the doctor said you were not to be excited in any way. There, let’s talk about fishing, or sea-anemones, or something else.”
“No, no, uncle dear, I must talk about this, or I shall be worse.”
“Then for goodness’ sake let’s talk about it,” he said eagerly, as he took a chair by her side and held her hand.
“You don’t blame me then – very much.”
“Well, say not very much; but it’s not very pleasant to have a nephew who makes one believe he’s dead, and a niece who pretends that she has bolted with a scampish Frenchman.”
“Uncle, uncle,” she cried piteously. “You see it has been a terrible upset for me, while as to your poor father – ”
“But, uncle, dear, what could I do?”
“Well, when you were writing, you might have said a little more.”
“I wrote what poor Harry forced me to write. What else could I say?”
“You see, it has upset us all so terribly. George – I mean your father – will never forgive you.”
“But you do not put yourself in my place, uncle. Think of how Harry was situated; think of his horror of being taken. Indeed, he was half mad.”
“No: quite, Louie; and you seem to have caught the complaint.”
“I hardly knew what I did. It was like some terrible dream. Harry frightened me then.”
“Enough to frighten any one, appearing like a ghost at the window when we believed he was dead.”
“I did not mean that, uncle. I mean that he was in a terrible state of fever, and hardly seemed accountable for his actions. I think I should have felt obliged to go with him, even if he had not been so determined.”
“Ah! well, you’ve talked about it quite enough.”
“No, no; I must talk about it – about Harry. Oh! uncle! uncle! after all this suffering for him to be taken after all! The horror! the shame! the disgrace! You must – you shall save him!”
“I’m going to try all I know, my darling; but when once you have started the police it’s hard work to keep them back.”
“How could you do it?”
“How could I do it?” cried the old man testily. “I didn’t do it to find him, of course, but to try and run you to earth. How could I know that Harry was alive?”
“But you will not let him be imprisoned. Has he not suffered enough?”
“Not more than he deserves to suffer, my child; but we must stop all that judge and jury business somehow. Get Van Heldre not to prosecute.”
“I will go down on my knees to him, and stay at his feet till he promises to spare him – poor foolish boy! But, uncle, what are you going to do? You will not send word down?”
“Not send word? Why, I sent to Madelaine a couple of hours ago, while you lay there insensible.”
“You sent?”
“Yes, a long telegram.”
“Uncle, what have you done?”
“What I ought to do, my child, and bade her tell her father and mother, and then go and break it gently to my brother.”
“Uncle!”
“There, there, my dear, you said I ought to put myself in your place; suppose you put yourself in mine.”
“Yes, yes, uncle, dear; I see now; I see.”
“Then try and be calm. You know how these difficulties sometimes settle themselves.”
“Not such difficulties as these, uncle. Harry! my brother! my poor brother!”
“Louie, my dear child!” said the old man, with a comical look of perplexity in his face, “have some pity on me.”
“My dearest uncle,” she sobbed, as she drew his face down to hers.
“Yes,” he said, kissing her; “that’s all very well, and affectionate, and nice; but do look here. You know how I live, and why I live as I do.”
“Yes, uncle.”
“To save myself from worry and anxiety. I am saving myself from trouble, am I not? Here, let go of my hand, and I’ll send off another message to hasten your father up, so as to set me free.”
“No, uncle, dear, you will not leave me,” she said, with a pleading look in her eyes.
“There you go!” he cried. “I wish you wouldn’t have so much faith in me, Louie. You ought to know better; but you always would believe in me.”
“Yes, uncle, always,” said Louise, as she placed his hand upon her pillow, and her cheek in his palm.
“Well, all I can say is that it’s a great nuisance for me. But I’m glad I’ve found you, my dear, all the same.”
“After believing all manner of evil of me, uncle.”
“No, no, not quite so bad as that. There: never mind what I thought. I found you out, and just in the nick of time. I say, where the dickens can Leslie be?”
“Mr Leslie!”
Louise raised her face, with an excited look in her eyes.
“Well, why are you looking like that?”
“Tell me, uncle – was he very much hurt, that night?”
“Nearly killed,” said the old man grimly, and with a furtive look at his niece.
“Uncle!”
“Well, what of it? He’s nothing to you. Good enough sort of fellow, but there are thousands of better men in the world.”
Louise’s brow grew puckered, and a red spot burned in each of her cheeks.
“Been very good and helped me to find you; paid the detective to hunt you out.”
“Uncle! surely you will not let Mr Leslie pay.”
“Not let him! I did let him. He has plenty of money, and I have none – handy.”
“But, uncle!”
“Oh! it pleased him to pay. I don’t know why, though, unless, like all young men, he wanted to make ducks and drakes of his cash.”
Louise’s brow seemed to grow more contracted.
“Bit of a change for him to run up to town. I suppose that’s what made him come,” continued the old man; “and now I’ve found you, I suppose he feels free to go about where he likes. I never liked him.”
If Uncle Luke expected his niece to make some reply he was mistaken, for Louise lay back with her eyes half-closed, apparently thinking deeply, till there was a tap at the door.
“Hah! that’s Leslie,” cried the old man, rising.
“You will come back and tell me if there is any news of Harry, uncle,” whispered Louise. Then, with an agonised look up at him as she clung to his hands, “He will not help them?”
“What, to capture that poor boy? No, no. Leslie must feel bitter against the man who struck him down, but not so bad as that.”
The knock was repeated before he could free, his hands and cross the room.
“Yes, what is it?”
“That gentleman who has been to see you before, sir,” said the waiter, in a low voice.
“Not Mr Leslie? He has not returned?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll come directly. Where is he?”
“In the coffee-room, sir.”
Uncle Luke closed the door and recrossed the room, to where Louise had half risen and was gazing at him wildly.
“News of Harry, uncle?”
“Don’t know, my dear.”
“You are keeping it from me. That man has taken him, and all this agony of suffering has been in vain.”
“I’d give something if Madelaine were here,” said Uncle Luke. “No, no; I am not keeping back anything. I don’t know anything; I only came back to beg of you to be calm. There, I promise you that you shall know all.”
“Even the worst?”
“Even the worst.”
Louise sank back, and the old man descended to the coffee-room, to find Parkins impatiently walking up and down.
“Well?”
“No, sir; no luck yet,” said that officer.
“What do you mean with your no luck?” cried Uncle Luke angrily. “You don’t suppose I want him found?”
“Perhaps not, sir, but I do. I never like to undertake a job without carrying it through, and I feel over this that I have been regularly tricked.”
“What’s that to me, sir?”
“Nothing, sir; but to a man in my position, with his character as a keen officer at stake, a great deal. Mr Leslie, sir. Has he been back?”
“There, once for all, it’s of no use for you to come and question me, Parkins. I engaged you to track out my niece; you have succeeded, and you may draw what I promised you, and five-and-twenty guineas besides for the sharp way in which you carried it out. You have done your task, and I discharge you. I belong to the enemy now.”
“Yes, sir; but I have the other job to finish, in which you did not instruct me.”
“Look here, Parkins,” said Uncle Luke, taking him by the lapel of his coat, “never mind about the other business.”
“But I do, sir. Every man has some pride, and mine is to succeed in every job I take in hand.”
“Ah! well, look here; you shall succeed. You did your best over it, and we’ll consider it was the last act of the drama when my foolish nephew jumped into the sea.”
“Oh, no, sir. I – ”
“Wait a minute. What a hurry you men are in! Now look here, Parkins. I’m only a poor quiet country person, and I should be sorry for you to think I tried to bribe you; but you’ve done your duty. Now go no farther in this matter, and I’ll sell out stock to a hundred pounds, and you shall transfer it to your name in the bank.”
Parkins shook his head and frowned.
“For a nest egg, man.”
“No, sir.”
“Then look here, my man; this is a painful family scandal, and I don’t want it to go any farther, for the sake of those who are suffering. I’ll make it two hundred.”
“No, sir; no.”
“Then two hundred and fifty; all clean money, Parkins.”
“Dirty money, sir, you mean,” said the sergeant quietly. “Look here, Mr Luke Vine, you are, as you say, a quiet country gentleman, so I won’t be angry with you. You’ll give me five hundred pounds to stop this business and let your nephew get right away?”
Uncle Luke drew a long breath.
“Five hundred!” he muttered. “Well, it will come out of what I meant to leave him, and I suppose he’ll be very glad to give it to escape.”
“Do you understand me, sir? You’ll give me five hundred pounds to stop this search?”
Uncle Luke drew another long breath.
“You’re a dreadful scoundrel, Parkins, and too much for me; but yes: you shall have the money.”
“No, sir, I’m not a dreadful scoundrel, or I should make you pay me a thousand pounds.”
“I wouldn’t pay it – not a penny more than five hundred.”
“Yes, you would, sir; you’d pay me a thousand for the sake of that sweet young lady up-stairs. You’d pay me every shilling you’ve got if I worked you, and in spite of your shabby looks I believe you’re pretty warm.”
“Never you mind my looks, sir, or my warmth,” cried Uncle Luke indignantly. “That matter is settled, then? Five hundred pounds?”
“Thousand would be a nice bit of money for a man like me to have put away against the day I get a crack on the head or am shot by some scoundrel. Nice thing for the wife and my girl. Just about the same age as your niece, sir.”
“That will do; that will do,” said Uncle Luke stiffly. “The business is settled, then.”
“No, sir; not yet. I won’t be gruff with you, sir, because your motive’s honest, and I’m sorry to have to be hard at a time like this.”
“You dog!” snarled Uncle Luke; “you have me down. Go on, worry me. There, out with it. I haven’t long to live. Tell me what I am to give you, and you shall have it.”
“Your – hand, sir,” cried the sergeant; and as it was unwillingly extended he gripped it with tremendous force. “Your hand, sir, for that of a fine, true-hearted English gentleman. No, sir: I’m not to be bought at any price. If I could do it I would, for the sake of that poor broken-hearted girl; but it isn’t to be done. I will not insult you, though, by coming here to get information. Good-day, sir; and you can write to me. Good-bye.”
He gave Uncle Luke’s hand a final wring, and then, with a short nod, left the room.
“Diogenes the second,” said Uncle Luke, with a dry, harsh laugh; “and I’ve beaten Diogenes the first, for he took a lantern to find his honest man, and didn’t find him. I have found one without a light.”
Volume Three – Chapter Twenty.
Uncle Luke Turns Prophet
“Why doesn’t Leslie come?” said Uncle Luke impatiently, as he rose from a nearly untasted breakfast the next morning to go to the window of his private room in the hotel and try to look up and down the street. “It’s too bad of him. Here, what in the world have I done to be condemned to such a life as this?”
“Life?” he exclaimed after a contemptuous stare at the grimy houses across the street. “Life? I don’t call this life! What, an existence! Prison would be preferable.”
He winced as the word prison occurred to him, and began to think of Harry.
“I can’t understand it. Well, he’s clever enough at hiding, but it seems very cowardly to leave his sister in the lurch. Thought she was with me, I hope. Confound it, why don’t Leslie come?”
“Bah! want of pluck!” he cried, after another glance from the window. “Tide must be about right this week, and the bass playing in that eddy off the point. Could have fished there again now. Never seemed to fancy it when I thought poor Harry was drowned off it. Confound poor Harry! He has always been a nuisance. Now, I wonder whether it would be possible to get communication with him unknown to these police?”
He took a walk up and down the room for a few minutes.
“Now that’s where Leslie would be so useful; and he keeps away. Because of Louie, I suppose. Well, what is it? Why have you brought the breakfast back?”
“The young lady said she was coming down, sir,” said the chambermaid, who had entered with a tray.
“Stuff and nonsense!” cried the old man angrily. “Go up and tell her she is not to get up till the doctor has seen her, and not then unless he gives her leave.”
The maid gave her shoulders a slight shrug, and turned to go, when the door opened, and, looking very pale and hollow-eyed, Louise entered.
Uncle Luke gave his foot an impatient stamp.
“That’s right,” he cried; “do all you can to make yourself ill, and keep me a prisoner in this black hole. No, no, my darling, I didn’t mean that. So you didn’t like having your breakfast alone? That’ll do; set it down.”
The maid left the room, and Louise stood, with her head resting on the old man’s breast.
“Now tell me, uncle dear,” she said in a low voice, and without looking up, “has poor Harry been taken?”
“No.”
“Hah!”
A long sigh of relief.
“And Mr Leslie? What does he say?”
“I don’t know. He has not been here since he left with me yesterday.”
“And he calls himself our friend!” cried Louise, looking up with flushing face. “Uncle, why does he not try and save Harry instead of joining the cowardly pack who are hunting him down?”
“Come, I like that!” cried Uncle Luke. “I’d rather see you in a passion than down as you were last night.”
“I – I cannot help it, uncle; I can think of only one thing – Harry.”
“And Mr Leslie, and accuse him of hunting Harry down.”
“Well, did he not do so? Did he not come with that dreadful man?”
“To try and save you from the French scoundrel with whom he thought you had eloped.”
“Oh, hush, uncle, dear. Now tell me, what do you propose doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Uncle!”
“That’s the best policy. There, my darling, I have done all I could this morning to help the poor boy, but – I must be plain – the police are in hot pursuit, and if I move a step I am certain to be watched. Look there!”
He pointed down into the street.
“That man on the other side is watching this house, I’m sure, and if I go away I shall be followed.”
“But while we are doing nothing, who knows what may happen, dear?”
“Don’t let’s imagine things. Harry is clever enough perhaps to get away, and now he knows that we have found out the truth, you will see that he is not long before he writes. I want Leslie now. Depend upon it, the poor fellow felt that he would be de trop, and has gone straight back home.”
Louise uttered a sigh full of relief.
“You scared him away, my dear, and perhaps it’s for the best. He’s a very stupid fellow, and as obstinate – well, as a Scot.”