The Master of the Ceremonies

“It was, my dear madam; and if some enterprising party would come and kill off Lady Drelincourt and your humble servant, and a few more of that stamp, it would be a blessing to society. What do you think?”

“I think that a poor old man is lying in prison,” said Cora Dean, tightening her reins; “that his broken-hearted child is tending a sick sister, and that the world of society talks about it all as if it were stuff sent on purpose to supply them with news. Lord Carboro’, I used to wish I were well in society. I don’t wish it now. Good morning.”

“One moment,” said the old man hastily. “You’ll shake hands?”

He held out his, but Cora gave it a tap with her whip handle, and her ponies went off at a canter, leaving his lordship hat in hand.

“And looking dooced ridiculous,” he said angrily. And then, “Confound the jade!” he muttered. “How dare she!”

Then his wrinkled countenance changed, and a pleasant smile took the place of the angry look.

“Confound her! What a dig to give me with her sharp tongue. Well, it’s true enough, and I like her for it. Does she like Claire, or does she hate her and pretend to feel all this? Who can say? The more you know of a woman, the greater mystery she seems. Poor old Denville! The place doesn’t seem natural without him and his snuff-box. I miss him horribly. Now I wonder whether they’d miss me if I were to go – as I shall go – soon.”

He walked thoughtfully on.

“Yes; they’d miss me, and talk about me as if I were a confounded old curiosity, and make jocular remarks about my donkey – by George, how my corns shoot, I wish he were here. But no one will care when I’m gone – not one; and no one will be the better for my having lived.”

He walked on slowly, thinking of the last time he had seen Claire, and of the troubles that had fallen to her share, and then he muttered:

“Yes! something must be done.”

Volume Three – Chapter Twelve.

From Parade to Prison

Sunken of eye, hollow of cheek, with the silvery stubble of many days’ growth upon his chin, glistening in the bar of light that came through the grated window, Stuart Denville, Master of the Ceremonies at Saltinville, high-priest to the votaries of fashion who worshipped at that seaside shrine, sat upon his truckle bed, his head down upon his hands, his elbows on his knees, gazing apparently at the dancing motes in the well-defined ray of sunshine that illumined his cell.

It seemed as if he saw in those tiny motes that danced and rose and fell, the fashionable people who had so influenced his career; but hour after hour, as he sat there motionless, thinking of his arrest, his examination, the fashionable world was to him something that had never existed: he could see only the terminative.

On first picturing that terrible end, when, with hideous exactness, the scaffold, the hangman, and the chaplain whispering words of hope and comfort to the thin, grey-haired, pinioned figure moving on in the slow procession had loomed up before him in all their terrible minutiae, he had shivered and shrunk away; but, after a few repetitions of this horrible waking dream, he had grown so accustomed to it that he found himself conjuring up the scene, and gazing at it mentally with a curious kind of interest that gradually became fascination.

As to the final stage, it would not be so painful as many pangs, mental and bodily, which he had suffered; and, as to the future, that troubled him but little. He saw no terrors there, only a long restful sleep, freed from the cares and sufferings that had for long past fallen to his lot.

There were no shudders now, but only a sad wistful smile and a sigh almost of content, the rest of the future seemed so welcome.

“Yes,” he said at last, as he pressed his trembling white hands to his lips, and left his seat to pace the cell, falling for the moment involuntarily into his old mincing pace, but stopping short and gazing up at the little patch of blue sky he could see; “yes – rest – sleep – Oh, God, I am so weary. Let it end!”

He stood with his hands clasped before him, and now a cloud came over his countenance, almost the only cloud that troubled him now. Claire; if she only could know – if he could tell her all – his temptations – his struggles – the long fight he had passed through.

Then he thought over his past – the mistakes of his life. How much happier he might have been if he had chosen differently. How piteous had been all this sham and pretence, what a weary existence it had been – what insults he had suffered for the sake of keeping up his miserable position, and obtaining a few guineas.

May!

The thought of his child – his favoured one, with her pretty innocent rosebud of a face and its appealing, trusting eyes. How he had worshipped that girl! How she had been his idol. How he had believed in her and sacrificed everything for her sake; and now – he lay in prison, one whom the world called murderer; and she, his idol, to whom he had sacrificed so long, for aught he knew, passing away, and everyone turned from him and his family as if they were lepers.

Well, he was a social leper. He had made no defence. This man had charged him with the crime, and he had not denied it. What wonder that people shrank from him as if he were unclean, and kept away. It was his fate. The world turned from him – son – daughter. They feared the contamination of the gaol.

No suffering that the executioner even could inflict would equal the agony of mind through which he had passed.

He clasped his hands more tightly and gazed fixedly before him, his lips moving at last, as he said in a low husky whisper:

“All forsake me now. The Master of the Ceremonies must prepare for the great ceremony of the law. Oh, that it were over, and the rest were come!”

He was at the lowest ebb of his misery amid his meditations and thoughts of home and the social wreck that was there with her thin baby face, when there was the distant sound of bolts being shot. Then there were steps and the rustle of a dress, the rattle of a great key in the door. Next the bolts of this were shot at top and bottom with a noisy jar; the door was thrust open, and the gaoler ushered in a veiled figure in black. Then the door was closed, the locks and bolts rattled; the heavy steps of the gaoler sounded upon the stone floor, and then the farther door opened and closed.

There was a moment’s silence before, with a quick rustling sound, veil and cloak were thrown aside upon the bed, and Claire’s soft arms clasped the wasted, trembling form, drawing the grey careworn face down upon her breast as she sobbed out:

“Father – father, has it come to this?” Denville remained silent for a few moments, and then with an exceeding bitter cry:

“My child! my child!” he wailed. “I said you had forsaken me in my sore need.”

“Forsaken you, dear? Oh, no, no, no!” whispered Claire, fondling him as if he had been a child, and gently drawing him to the bed, upon which she sank, while he fell upon his knees before her, utterly weak and helpless now, as he yielded to the caresses she lavished upon him, and she whispered words that seemed full of comfort – forerunners of the rest he had prayed for so short a tune before.

“Forsaken you?” she whispered. “Oh, my dear, dear father! How could you think it of your child!”

“The world says I am a murderer, and I am in prison.”

“Hush!” she cried, laying her hand upon his lips. “It was only this morning I could get permission to see you.”

She laid her soft white hand upon his lips as she spoke, and then, seeming to make an effort and check her own emotion, she drew him closer to her.

“Ah!” he sighed as he clung to her; “and I always acted so unfairly to you, my child. But tell me – May?”

“She does not know,” said Claire earnestly. “In her weak state it might kill her.”

“Perhaps better it did,” said Denville solemnly. “Poor, weak, erring girl!”

“Hush! Don’t!” cried Claire. “Father, there is hope – there is forgiveness for us all if we show that we are indeed repentant. May is not like others. Always weak and wilful and easily turned aside from what was right. No: we must not despond. I must take you both far, far away, dear. I have come for that now. You must advise with me and help me,” she said quickly. “Tell me what I am to do – what I am to set about. Come, father, quick!”

“What you are to do?” he said sadly. “Trust in heaven, my child: we cannot shape our own paths in life, and when we do try the end is wreck.”

“Father,” she cried impetuously, “do you think I was speaking of myself? I want you to tell me whom to ask for help.”

“Help, my child?”

“Yes: for money. May I ask the Barclays? They have always been so kind. Surely they will help us now.”

“Help us – money?” he said vacantly.

“Yes, for your defence. We must have counsel, father. You shall be saved – saved that we may go far from here. Father, I cannot bear it. You must be saved.”

He was startled by the wildness of her manner and the fierce energy she threw into her words.

“You do not speak,” she cried imperiously, and she laid her hands upon his shoulders and gazed into his eyes. “You must not, you shall not give up and let yourself drift to destruction. Why do you not tell me? I am only a woman. Father, what shall I do?”

“What shall you do?” he said mournfully.

“Yes, yes. Forgive me for what I say – I, your child, who love you most dearly now that you are in this terrible trouble. Father, we must go away together to some distant place where, in a life of contrition and prayer, we may appeal daily for the forgiveness that is given to those who seek.”