The Master of the Ceremonies
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The truth, so long in coming to the surface, prevailed at last, and Stuart Denville, broken and prostrated, found himself the idol of the crowd from Saltinville, who collected to see him freed from the county gaol.
“To the barracks, Claire,” he whispered. “Let us get away from here.”
They were at the principal hotel, and Claire was standing before him, pale and trembling with emotion.
“Your blessing and forgiveness first,” she murmured. “Oh, father, that I could be so blind!”
“So blind?” he said tenderly, as he took her in his arms. “No: say so noble and so true. Did you not stand by me when you could not help believing me guilty, and I could not speak? But we are wasting time. I have sent word to poor Fred. My child, I have his forgiveness to ask for all the past.”
They met the regimental surgeon as they drove up.
“You have come quickly,” he said. “Did you get my message?”
“Your message?” cried Claire, turning pale. “Is – is he worse?”
The surgeon bowed his head.
“I had hopes when you were here last,” he said gently; “but there has been an unfavourable turn. The poor fellow has been asking for you, Miss Denville; you had better come at once.”
He led the way to the infirmary, where the finely-built, strong man lay on the simple pallet, his face telling its own tale more eloquently than words could have spoken it.
“Ah, little sister,” he said feebly, as his face lit up with a happy smile. “I wanted you. You will not mind staying with me and talking. Tell me,” he continued, as Claire knelt down by his bed’s head, “is it all true, or have they been saying I am innocent to make it easier – now I am going away?”
“No, no, Fred,” said Claire; “it is true that you are quite innocent.”
“Is this the truth?” he said feebly.
“The truth,” whispered Claire; “and you must live – my brother – to help and protect me.”
“No,” he said sadly; “it is too late. I’m glad though that I did not kill the old woman. It seemed all a muddle. I was drunk that night. Poor old dad! Can’t they set him free?”
“My boy! – Fred! – can you forgive me?” cried Denville, bending over the face that gazed up vacantly in his.
“Who’s that?” said the dying man sharply. “I can’t see. Only you, Clairy – who’s that? Father?”
“My son! – my boy! Fred, speak to me – forgive – ”
There was a terrible silence in the room as the old man’s piteous cry died out, and he sank upon his knees on the other side of the narrow bed, and laid his wrinkled forehead upon his son’s breast.
“Forgive? – you, father?” said Fred at last, in tones that told how rapidly the little life remaining was ebbing away. “It’s all right, sir – all a mistake – my life – one long blunder. Take care of Clairy here – and poor little May.”
“My boy – the mistake has been mine,” groaned Denville, “and I am punished for it now.”
“No, no – old father – take care – Clairy here.”
He seemed to doze for a few minutes, and Denville rose to go and ask the surgeon if anything could be done.
“Nothing but make his end as peaceful as you can. Ah, my lad, you here?”
“Yes,” said Morton. “How is he?”
“Alive,” said the surgeon bluntly; and he turned away.
Fred Denville seemed to revive as soon as he was left alone with his sister; and, looking at her fixedly, he seemed to be struggling to make out whose was the face that bent over him.
“Claire – little sister,” he said at last, with a smile of rest and content. “Clairy – Richard Linnell? Tell me.”
“Oh, Fred, Fred, hush!” she whispered.
“No, no! Tell me. I can see you clearly now. It would make me happier. I’m going, dear. A fine, true-hearted fellow; and he loves you. Don’t let yours be a wrecked life too.”
“Fred! dear Fred!”
“Let it all be cleared up now – you two. You do love him, sis?”
“Fred! dear Fred!” she sobbed; “with all my heart.”
“Ah!” he said softly, with a sigh of satisfaction. “Ask him to come here. No; bring the old man back – and Morton. Don’t cry, my little one; it’s – it’s nothing now, only the long watch ended, and the time for rest.”
In another hour he had fallen asleep as calmly as a weary child – sister, father, and brother at his side; and it seemed but a few hours later to Morton Denville that he was marching behind the bearers with the funeral march ringing in his ears, and the muffled drums awaking echoes in his heart – a heart that throbbed painfully as the farewell volley was fired across the grave.
For Fred Denville’s sin against his officers was forgiven, and Colonel Lascelles was one of the first to follow him to the grave.
Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Eve of the Finish
“A letter, Claire, so painful that I shrank from reading it to you, only that I have no secrets from my promised wife.”
“Does it give you pain?” said Claire, as she looked up in Richard Linnell’s face, where they sat in the half-light of evening, with the sea spread before them – placid and serene as their life had been during the past few weeks.
“Bitter pain,” he said sadly, as he gazed at the saddened face, set off by the simple black in which she was clothed.
“Then why not let me share it? Is pain so new a thing to me?”
“So old that I would spare you more; and yet you ought to know my family cares, as I have known yours.”
“May I read?” said Claire softly, as she laid her thin white hand upon the letter.
He resigned it to her without a word; but as she opened the folds:
“Yes; read it,” he said. “It concerns you as much as it does me, and you shall be the judge as to whether the secret shall be kept.”
Claire looked up at him wonderingly, and then read the letter aloud.
It was a passionate appeal, and at the same time a confession and a farewell; and, as Claire read on, she grew the more confused and wondering.
For the letter was addressed to Richard Linnell, asking his forgiveness for the many ways in which the writer, in her tender love and earnest desire for his happiness, had stood between him and Claire, ready to spread reports against her fame, and contrive that Linnell should hear them, since the writer had never thoroughly known Claire Denville’s heart, but had judged her from the standpoint of her sister. It had been agony to the writer to see Linnell’s devotion to a woman whom she believed to be unworthy of his love; and as his father’s life had been wrecked by a woman’s deceit, the writer had sworn to leave no stone unturned to save the son.
At times the letter grew sadly incoherent, and the tears with which it had been blotted showed its truthfulness, as the writer prayed Richard’s forgiveness for fighting against his love and giving him such cruel pain.
“Colonel Mellersh will explain all to you,” the letter went on, “for he has known everything. It was he who saved me from further degradation, and found the money to buy this business, where I thought to live out my remaining span of life unknown, and only soothed by seeing you at times – you whom I loved so dearly and so well.”
Claire looked up from the letter wonderingly, but Linnell bade her read on.
“Colonel Mellersh fought hard against my wishes at first, but he yielded at last out of pity. I promised him that I would never make myself known – never approach your father’s home – and I have kept my word. Mellersh has absolved me now that I am leaving here for ever, and I go asking your forgiveness as your wretched mother, and begging you to ask for that of Claire Denville, the sweet, true, faithful woman whom you will soon, I hope, make your wife.
“Lastly, I pray and charge you not to break the simple, calm happiness of your father’s life by letting him know that his unhappy wife has for years been living so near at hand.”
“But, Richard,” cried Claire, “I always thought that – that she was dead.”
“He told me so,” replied Linnell sadly. “She was dead to him. There, you have read all. It was right that you should know. Colonel Mellersh has told me the rest.”
Linnell crumpled up the letter, and then smoothed it out, and folded and placed it in his breast.
“It is right,” he said again, “that you should know the truth. Mellersh is my father’s oldest friend. They were youths together. When the terrible shock came upon my father that he was alone, and that his wife had fled with a man whom he had made his companion after Mellersh had gone upon foreign service, his whole life was changed, and he became the quiet, subdued recluse you see.”
Linnell paused for a few minutes, and then went on:
“Mellersh had idolised my mother when she was a bright fashion-loving girl; but he accepted his fate when she gave the preference to my father. When he came home from India and found what had happened, and that this wretch had cast her off, he shot the betrayer of my father’s name, and then sought out and rescued my mother, placing her as you have read, at her desire, here.”
“But, Richard dear, I am so dull and foolish – I can only think of one person that this could possibly have been; and it could not be – ”
“Miss Clode? Yes, that was the name she took. My mother, Claire. What do you say to me now?”
Claire rose from her seat gently, and laid her hand upon her arm.
“We must keep her secret, Richard,” she said; “but let us go to her together now.”
“Then you forgive her the injury she did you?”
“It was out of love for you; and she did not know me then. Let us go.”
“Impossible,” he said, taking her in his arms. “She has left here for ever. Some day we may see her, but the proposal is to come from her.”
They did not hear the door open as they stood clasped in each other’s arms, nor hear it softly closed, nor the whispers on the landing, as one of the visitors half sobbed:
“Ain’t it lovely, Jo-si-ah? Did you see ’em? If it wasn’t rude and wrong, I could stand and watch ’em for hours. It do put one in mind of the days when – ”
“Hold your tongue, you stupid old woman,” was the gruff reply. “It’s quite disgusting. A woman at your time of life wanting to watch a pair of young people there, and no candles lit.”
“Hush! Don’t talk so loud, or they’ll hear us; and now, Jo-si-ah, as it’s in my mind, I may as well say it to you at once.”
“Now, look here,” said Barclay in a low voice, in obedience to his wife’s request, but speaking quickly, “I’ve been bitten pretty heavily by the fellows in the regiment that has just gone, so if it’s any new plan of yours that means money, you may stop it, for not a shilling do you get from me. There!”
“And at your time of life, too! To tell such fibs, Jo-si-ah! Just as if I didn’t know that you’ve made a profit of Sir Harry Payne alone, enough to cover all your losses. Now, look here: I don’t like little Mrs Burnett, or Gravani, or whatever her name is, but seeing how she’s left alone in the world, and nobody’s wife after all, and poor Mr Denville is poor Mr Denville, and it’s a tax upon him, and you’re out so much, I’ve been thinking, I say – ”
“Wouldn’t do, old lady. She’s not the woman who would make our home comfortable; and besides – ”
“But she’s so different, Jo-si-ah, since she has been getting nearly well.”
“Glad of it, old lady. Hope she’ll keep so. But you forget that Claire will soon be leaving home, and – ”
“What a stupid old woman I am, Jo-si-ah! Why, of course! Her place is there along with her father; and it’s wonderful how he pets that little child. There now, I’m sure they’ve had long enough. Let’s go in and tell them the news.”
This time Mrs Barclay tapped at the door softly, before opening it half an inch and saying:
“May we come in?”
Her answer was the door flung wide, and Claire’s arms round her neck.
“We’ve come to tell you that we’ve just seen Lord Carboro’, my dear, and he told us that he’d heard about your brother from the Colonel of his new regiment, out in Gibraltar, and that he’s getting on as well as can be.”
Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Nine.
A Tale that is Told
It was just such a visit that Mrs Barclay paid Claire Denville about a fortnight later; and after one of her extremely warm embraces, she exclaimed: “Guess.”
“Guess what, Mrs Barclay?”
“Who’s married. There, you needn’t blush, my dear, because yours is fixed all right at last, but you’ll never guess who.”
“Then tell me,” said Claire, smiling. “No, guess.”
“I cannot. There are so many.”
“Then I will tell you. No, no: you’re too late,” she cried, as Richard Linnell hurriedly entered; “I’ve brought the news.”
“You’ve told her then that Cora Dean is married?”
“Now what a shame, Mr Richard,” cried Mrs Barclay. “I hadn’t time to say it, but I was just going to tell her. But she doesn’t know who to, and I will tell her that. Colonel Mellersh, my dear.”
“Colonel Mellersh!” cried Claire.
“Yes,” said Richard Linnell. “I have just received this from him. A message from them both.”
Claire opened her lips to speak, but her eyes fell upon Richard Linnell’s thoughtful face, and it was he who spoke next, and said slowly:
“No: now I come to think of it all, I am not surprised.”
Of course, Saltinville talked a great deal about this match, but the worthies of the place talked more about another wedding that took place six months later – a wedding at which Lord Carboro’ insisted upon being the bridegroom’s best man.
It was upon that occasion, after returning from the church, that Lord Carboro’ took a casket from his pocket and placed it in Claire’s hands.
“The old jewels, my dear, that I have prized because you refused them once before. God bless you! and I know He will.”
The old man turned quickly away with his face working, and crossed to the Master of the Ceremonies, who was looking very much his old self, in his meagrely furnished drawing-room, and tapped him half angrily upon the shoulder.
“Hang it all, Denville,” he cried, “can’t you see I’ve forgotten my snuff-box, and am dying for a pinch? The old box, sir – His Royal Highness’s box. Hah! That’s better,” he ejaculated, after dipping his thin white finger and thumb in the chased gold box, “a friend at a pinch, eh, Denville, eh? Damme, sir, your young wits and beaux don’t often beat that, eh? The old school’s passing away, Denville, eh? passing away.”
“With the noblemen who are your lordship’s contemporaries.”
“Tut-tut-tut! Denville, don’t. Never mind the lordship. We must be better friends, man – better friends for our little fag ends of troubled lives. Hush! No more now. This is the bride and bridegroom’s day.”
There were many strangers who, visiting Saltinville, were ready to smile at the tottering white-haired beau, so elaborately dressed, and who, not from need, but from custom, clung to his old habits and received visitors as Master of the Ceremonies still. It was a quaint old fiction, and he used to glory in his fees, now they were only wanted for a purpose he had in view.
There were other laughs too ready to be bestowed upon the palsied old nobleman in the dark wig, who met the Master of the Ceremonies every morning on the Parade, and took snuff with him as they flourished their canes, and flicked away fancied spots of dust. Their high collars and pantaloons and Hessian boots, all came in for notice. So did those wonderful beaver hats, black for winter, white for summer, which were lifted with such a display of deportment, in return to the salutes of those who were taking the air. It was always the same: they met at the same hour, at the same spot, took snuff, chatted upon the same themes, and then strolled down to the end of the pier talking of how “times have changed, sir: times have changed.”
“Who’s him, sir – old chap in the black wig, and a face like a wooden nut-cracker? Oh, he’s old Lord Carboro’.”
“And the other?” said the stranger, who had been questioning Fisherman Dick, as the old men passed them by.
“T’other, sir? Ah, I could tell you a deal about him. That’s the Master o’ the Ceremonies, that is. I could tell you a long story about he.”
And so he did.
The End