The Master of the Ceremonies

Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.

“Surrender!”

“No, Mr Denville, I am a soldier, and yours is a terrible crime against discipline, but I can’t say a word in condemnation of your act.”

“Thank you, Colonel. Will you give me a few words here with Mr Linnell?”

“Yes; but I should advise you to be quick,” said Mellersh. “Hang it, man, they’ll shoot you for this. What’s to be done, Dick? Look here, Denville, can’t you knock one of us down, take a suit of plain clothes and make off. There’s twenty pounds on the chimney-piece yonder.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you,” said Fred, smiling sadly; “but I’m not going to run. I shall give myself up.”

“No, no,” cried Linnell excitedly. “For heaven’s sake don’t do that, man. There’s trouble enough in your home. You’ll break her heart.”

Fred Denville swung round in an instant, and caught Linnell’s hands in a strong grip.

“Then you do love her,” he cried, his voice quivering. “My little true-hearted, suffering darling. Oh, man, man, man, don’t let wretched shadows stand between you now. I know everything, and how you have been ready to believe all kinds of unhappy scandals about the best girl who ever lived. Look here – no, don’t go, Colonel; you’ve heard the beginning, you may as well hear the rest. It came out like a flash. Stop now, and hear me, both of you. Ours is an unhappy family; I’ve been a wild, foolish scamp: my father lies in prison under a false charge; he is innocent. I know that such a family is not one that a gentleman would seek to enter, save under exceptional circumstances; but I’ve watched you, Richard Linnell, and I know you loved my sister, and I know that she never had a thought save for you.”

Linnell clenched his hands, compressed his lips, and began to pace the room.

“You, Colonel Mellersh, are a bit of a cynic; you don’t believe in women, but you are mistaken here.”

“What do you wish me to do?” said Linnell hoarsely.

“To do? She is almost friendless, broken-hearted, and has not a strong true hand to take hers, a loyal heart who will stand by her against the world. Richard Linnell, my poor sister is suffering and in pain, and a great trouble is coming upon her that will not balance the joyful news she will soon hear.”

“Then, why not make a dash for it, man, while you have time?” cried Mellersh.

“Because I shall give myself up to the civil authorities, sir; that is all. Mr Linnell, remember what I have said. Good-bye.”

“Too late!” cried Mellersh, as a tramping was heard, and Sir Matthew Bray, a sergeant, and half a dozen dragoons marched quickly up.

Fred Denville’s whole manner had changed.

He dashed to the front. There was no escape there, and the soldiers were already in the hall.

Rushing to the back window he threw it up, but it moved stiffly, and before he had it well raised, the picket was in the room.

“Surrender!” cried the sergeant. “Halt, or I fire.”

For answer Fred Denville rose on the sill and leaped down into the garden, a good dozen feet, and ran swiftly for the wall at the bottom.

“Halt!” roared Sir Matthew; but the fugitive paid no heed, and in response to rapid orders four carbines were raised, there was a ringing little volley, and, to Linnell’s horror, Fred Denville made a bound, and fell upon his face.

“Oh, this is too bad, sir!” roared Mellersh fiercely.

“Mind your own affairs, sir,” said Sir Matthew sharply. “Saved him from being shot after a court-martial.”

In a few minutes the wounded man was borne in and laid in the hall, where Cora Dean was one of the first to fetch restoratives, while her mother brought a pillow and placed beneath his head, for a couple of the dragoons had been sent to fetch the means to transport him to the barracks.

It seemed at first that the one bullet which had struck him had been aimed too truly; but after a few minutes the poor fellow opened his eyes, looked wildly round, and then recognised Linnell.

“Ah!” he ejaculated, “you! Look here. I was on the way – to give myself up – civil authorities – my father – in prison – innocent – Lady Teigne – murder – in a fit of drunkenness – I climbed up – to get the diamonds – save the poor old man – I – I – did the deed.”

Volume Three – Chapter Eighteen.

Morton Denville Becomes a Man

“You here, Morton?”

“Yes. Don’t look at me like that, Claire, pray don’t. You can’t think what I’ve suffered.”

“What you’ve suffered?” said Claire coldly, as she recalled how she had taken a mother’s place to this boy for so many years till he had obtained his advancement in life, when he had turned from her. He had made some amends on the night of Mrs Pontardent’s party; but after that he had heard some whispered scandal, and had kept aloof more and more till the great trouble had fallen, and their father had been arrested, when he had stayed away and made no sign.

It had seemed so hard. When a few words on paper would have been so consolatory and have helped Claire in her agony and distress, Morton had not even written; and now he came to her at last to tell her she did not know what he had suffered.

“You don’t know,” he continued, with the tears in his eyes. “It was bad enough to be in the regiment with Payne and Bray, always ready to chaff me and begin imitating the old man, and that beast Rockley sneering at me; but when people began to talk as they did about you, Clairy – ”

“Silence!” cried Claire, flashing up as she rose from her seat, and darted an indignant glance at the boy. “If you have come only to insult your sister – go.”

“Don’t talk like that, Clairy dear,” cried the boy. “Don’t be so hard upon a fellow. I suffered horribly, for they did talk about you shamefully, and I was very nearly calling Sir Harry out, only the Colonel wouldn’t let me fight. I’m sure I behaved well enough. Every one said I did.”

“Why have you come this morning?” said Claire coldly.

“Why have I come? Hark at her!” said Morton piteously. “Oh, dear, I wish I were a boy again, instead of an officer and a gentleman, and could go down and catch dabs with Dick Miggles off the pier.”

“Officer – gentleman? Morton, is it the act of a gentleman to side with the wretched people who made sport of your sister’s fame? To stand aloof when she is almost alone and unfriended, and this dreadful calamity has befallen us? Oh, Morton, are you my brother to act like this? Is it your manliness of which you made a point?”

“Claire – sis – dear sis,” he cried, throwing himself on his knees, and clasping her waist as he burst into a boyish fit of passionate weeping. “Don’t be so cruel to me. I have fought so hard. I have struggled against the pride, and shame, and misery of it all. You don’t know what a position mine has been, and I know now I ought to have taken your part and my father’s part against all the world. But I’ve been a coward – a miserable, pitiful, weak coward, and it’s a punishment to me. You, even you, hate me for it, and – and I wish I were dead.”

Claire’s face softened as she looked down upon the lad in his misery and abasement, and after a momentary struggle to free herself from him she stood with her hands stretched out over the head that was buried in the folds of her dress, and a tender yearning look took the place of the hard angry glance that she had directed at him.

“I have fought, God knows how hard,” he went on between his sobs, “but I’m only a boy after all, sis, and I hadn’t the strength and manliness to stand up against the fellows at the mess. I’ve shut myself up because I’ve been ashamed to be seen, and I’ve felt sometimes as if I could run right away and go somewhere, so that I could be where I should not be known.”

Claire’s hands trembled as they were very near his head now – as if they longed to clasp the lad’s neck and hold him to her breast.

“I’ve been coming to you a hundred times, but my cursed cowardice has kept me back, and everything has been against me. There has been your trouble.”

Claire’s hands shrank from him again.

“Then it was bad enough about father without this horrible charge.”

Claire’s face grew hard and cold, and in a moment she seemed ten years older.

“Then there was poor Fred: Rockley’s servant in my regiment. You don’t know what a position mine has been.”

Claire made no movement now. Her heart seemed to be hardening against the lad, and she shrank from him a little, but he clung to her tightly with his face hidden, and went on in the same piteous, boyish wail.

“I’ve been half mad sometimes about you and your troubles – ”

Claire’s hands began to rise again and tremble over his head.

“Sometimes about myself, and I’ve felt as if I was the most unlucky fellow in the world.”

There was a pause here, broken by the lad’s passionate sobs.

“There: you hear me,” he said. “I’m only a boy blubbering like this, but I feel pain as a man. I tell you, Clairy, dear sis, it has driven me nearly mad to know that this false charge was hanging over my father, and that he was in prison. The fellows at the mess have seemed to shrink from me, all but the Colonel, but whenever he has said a kind word to me I’ve known it was because the old man was in prison, and it has been like a knife going into me. I couldn’t bear it. I hated myself, and I fought, I tell you, to do what was right, but I couldn’t. It was as if the devil were dragging at me to draw me away, till this came, and then I felt that I could be a man, and now,” he cried, raising himself, and shaking his hair back, as he threw up his head proudly, “forgive me, sis, or no – Damn my commission! Damn the regiment! Damn the whole world! I’m going down to the prison to stand by my poor old father, come what may.”

“My darling!”

Claire’s arms were round his neck, and for the space of a few minutes she sobbed hysterically, as she strained him to her breast.

“What, sis? You forgive me?” he cried, as her kisses were rained upon his face.

“Forgive you, my own brave, true brother? Yes,” she cried. “Of course I know what you have suffered. I know it all. It was a bitter struggle, dear, but you have conquered, and I never felt so proud of you as I feel now.”

“Sis!”

The tears that stole down from Claire’s eyes seemed to give her the relief her throbbing brain had yearned for all these painful days, and her face lit up with a look of joy to which it had been a stranger for months.

“You will go to him then, dear?” she whispered, with the bright aspect fading out again, to give place to a cold, ashy look of dread, as the horror of their position came back, and the shadow of what seemed to Claire to be inevitable now crossed her spirit.

“Yes, I’m going. Poor old fellow! It will be a horrible shock to him about Fred.”

“About Fred?”

“Yes. Had I better tell him?”

“Tell him?” faltered Claire.

“Yes. I thought not. He has enough to bear. I thought,” said the lad bitterly, “that I was doing a brave thing when they brought him in. I said he was my poor brother: but I found that they all knew. Claire! Sis!”

She had staggered from him, and would have fallen had he not held on to her hand.

“Speak – tell me!” she cried. “No, no! I can’t bear it! Don’t tell me there is some new trouble come.”

“What! Didn’t you know?”

She shook her head wildly, and wrung her hands and tried to speak, while he held her and whispered softly:

“Oh, sis – sis – dear sis!”

“Something has happened to Fred,” she panted at last. “Tell me: I can bear it now. Anything. I am used to trouble, dear.”

“My poor sis!” he whispered.

“Why do you not tell me?” she cried wildly. “Do you not see how you are torturing me? Speak – tell me. What of Fred?”

Her imperious, insistent manner seemed to force the lad to speak, and he said, slowly and unwillingly:

“He was going along the Parade, and ran up against Rockley, and Payne, and Bray; poor chap, he did not salute them, I believe, and Rockley gave him a cut with his whip.”

“Major Rockley!” cried Claire, with ashy lips.

“Yes; and he knocked over Bray and that puppy Payne. Curse them! they were like skittles to him. Fred’s full of pluck; and, sis,” cried Morton excitedly, as his eyes flashed with pleasure, “he took hold of that black-muzzled, blackguard Rockley, snatched his whip from him, and thrashed him till he couldn’t stand.”

“Fred beat Major Rockley?” cried Claire, with a horrified look, as she realised the consequences forgotten for the moment by the boy.

“Yes; thrashed the blackguard soundly; but they followed him with a sergeant and a file or two of men to take him.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“They found him at Linnell’s, talking to Richard Linnell and – ”

Morton stopped with white face, and repented that he had said so much.

“I must know all,” cried Claire, trembling. “I am sure to hear.”

“I can’t tell you,” he said hoarsely.

“Is it not better that it should come from you than from a stranger?”

“It is too horrible, sis,” said the lad.

“Tell me, Morton, at once.”

Her words were cold and strange, and she laid her hands upon his shoulders, and gazed into his eyes.

The boy winced and hung his head as he said slowly:

“They called upon him to surrender, but – ”

The lad raised his head, and tossing it back, his eyes flashed as he cried in a different tone:

“I can’t help being proud of him – he was so full of pluck, sis. He wouldn’t surrender, but made a bold leap out of the window, and made a run for it; but that beast Bray gave the order, and they shot him down.”

“Shot him down!”

“Yes; but he’s not dead, sis – only wounded; but – ”

“But what? Why do you keep anything from me now?” cried Claire piteously.

“It’s court-martial, and – it’s court-martial for striking your officer, Claire, and he knows it; and, poor fellow, in a desperate fit, so as to get into the hands of the magistrates instead of the officers, to be condemned to death, he – he – Claire, I can’t speak if you look at me in that wild way.”

“Go on!” she said hoarsely.

“He said – that it was not father – who killed Lady Teigne – but it was he.”

Volume Three – Chapter Nineteen.

Morton Bears the News Further

“Do all you can to comfort them, Mrs Barclay, please,” said Morton, as he left the house. “It’s all so shocking, I don’t know what to say or do.”

“You’ve done quite right in coming here, my dear,” said Mrs Barclay, whose eyes were red with weeping.

“I’m afraid I’ve done more harm than good,” said Morton dolefully. “Poor Claire, she’s half crazy with what she has to bear.”

“You told her, then, about your brother Fred?” said Mrs Barclay, in a whisper.

The lad nodded.

“It was quite right; she would have heard of it, and it was better it should come from you, my dear. Are you – are you going to see your poor father in prison?”

“Yes,” said Morton firmly. “I’ve got an order to see him, and I’m going at once.”

He turned round sharply, for he had received a hearty clap on the shoulder, and found that Barclay had approached him unperceived; and he now took the young fellow’s hand and shook it warmly.

“Good lad!” he exclaimed. “That’s brave. Go and see him; and if you like you may tell him that Mr Linnell and I have got the best lawyer in London to defend him.”

“You have, Mr Barclay?”

“Yes; we have. There, don’t stare at me like that. Your father once did me a good turn; and do you suppose a money-lender has no bowels? You tell him – no, don’t tell him. He is in a queer, obstinate way just now, and you’ve got your work cut out to tell him about your brother’s trouble. That’s enough for one day, but you may give him a bit of comfort about your sisters. You can tell him that my stupid, obstinate old wife has got ’em in hand, and that as long as there’s a roof over Mrs Barclay’s head, and anything to eat, Miss Denville will share them. No, no; don’t shake hands with me. I’ve nothing to do with it. It’s all her doing.”

Morton could not speak, but gripped the money-lender’s hand tightly before turning to Mrs Barclay. He held out his hand and took hers, his lips trembling as he gazed in the plump, motherly face. Then, with something like a sob of a very unmanly nature, he threw his arms round her and kissed her twice.

“God bless you!” he cried; and he turned and ran out of the room.

Barclay’s face puckered up as his wife sank down in a chair sobbing, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and rocking herself to and fro, but only to start up in alarm as Barclay dashed to the fireplace, and caught up the poker, before running towards the door.

“Jo-si-ah!” she cried, catching his arm.

“Just got away in time, a scoundrel – and before my very face! You suffered it, too, madam.”

“Oh – oh – oh – oh!” sobbed Mrs Barclay hysterically, as she took the poker away, and replaced it in the fender before throwing herself on her husband’s breast. “My own dear old man! I won’t ever say a word again about money. The best and dearest fellow that ever lived!”

Barclay drew her close to him and played the elderly lover very pleasantly and well, leading his plump wife to a sofa, and sitting down by her with her head resting upon his shoulder.

“Hush, old lady, don’t cry so,” he whispered. “What’s the good of having money if you don’t try and do some good with it? I like little Claire; she’s about as near an angel as we find them in Saltinville; and as for poor old Denville, he has been the most unlucky of men. He’s not a bad fellow at heart, and as for that affair about old Lady Teigne – well, there’s no knowing what a man may do when tempted by poverty and with a lot of jewels twinkling before his eyes.”

“Oh, hush, Jo-si-ah, you don’t think – you can’t think – ”

“Hush, old girl! we must not think it of him aloud. We must get him off, but I’m very much afraid.”

“Oh, Jo-si-ah, don’t say it, dear.”

“Only to you, my gal. I’m afraid the poor old fellow was trying to – well, say borrow a few diamonds, and what happened afterwards was an accident.”