The Master of the Ceremonies

He looked at his sister with a quick intelligent gaze, full of conviction; but as he met her full in the eyes, and saw the change that came over her countenance, the conviction seemed blunted, and he shuddered.

“She believes it!” he muttered. Then aloud: “Why, Claire!”

“Hush – don’t – don’t speak to me – don’t say anything,” she panted. “Fred, shall I be dragged before the judge and be forced to answer questions – horrible questions?”

He was silent.

“You believe I shall. You think I shall,” she panted. “Oh, Fred, Fred, I would sooner die.”

He drew a long breath, and looked at her in a horrified way, while she seemed to be growing wild with dread.

“I could not bear it,” she cried, “to go up before those people and condemn my own father. It would be too horrible. It would be against nature. I could not, I would not speak.”

“Hush, little sister,” said Fred tenderly. “You are growing wild. Perhaps you will not have to go. Perhaps they will find out the right man before the time – hush! – hush!”

Claire had uttered a piteous cry full of despair, as she buried her face in her hands.

“I cannot bear it – I cannot bear it,” she cried. “There, go – go and see him,” she said quickly. “You must go. It would be too cruel to stay away from him now he is so low in spirit. Be gentle with him, Fred, if he says hard things to you; and pray – pray don’t resent them. You will bear everything for my sake – say that you will.”

“Of course, of course.”

“Trouble and misery have made him irritable, and so that he hardly knows what he says at times.”

“Poor old fellow!” said the dragoon sadly. “Ah, Claire, my little girl, it did not want this trouble in our unhappy home.”

He kissed her very tenderly, and then, as if moved by some sudden impulse, he took her in his arms again and held her to his breast, whilst she clung to him as if he were her only hope, and so they remained in silence for a time.

At last he loosed himself from her embrace, and stood over her as she crouched down upon the sofa.

“I’m going there now, Claire,” he said, “but before I go, have you anything to say to me about that night of the murder? Is there anything I ought to know, so as to be able to talk to the old man about his defence? Will he tell me all he knows about the affair – why, Claire, child, what is the matter – are you going wild?”

He caught her two hands, and held her, startled by the change which had come over her, as she shrank from him in horror, with eyes dilated, face drawn and lips apart.

“There, my little girl,” he said, with rough tenderness, “I ought to have known better than to talk to you about it. Perhaps all will come right yet after all.”

Claire seemed to be so prostrated that it was some time before he attempted to leave her, and then it was upon her urging, for she seemed at last to rouse herself to action, and with feverish haste bade him go.

“It is your duty, Fred,” she said agitatedly, “but – but don’t question him – don’t say a word to him. Only go to him as the son to the father in terrible distress. Let him speak to you if he will.”

“But his defence, girl, his defence. Something must be done, and I am without a guinea in the world.”

“Mr Barclay – Mr Linnell are arranging that without his knowledge,” said Claire. “I had forgotten to tell you, Fred: my head seems confused and strange.”

“No wonder, little one,” he said. “Ah, I like that Barclay. One never knows who are our friends until trouble comes – and young Linnell. It isn’t a time to talk about such things now, Clairy; but young Linnell’s a good fellow, and he thinks a great deal of you.”

Claire joined her hands as if begging him to be silent, and he once more kissed her, and after begging Mrs Barclay to watch over her, hurried away.

Volume Three – Chapter Fifteen.

Father and Son

James Bell, dragoon, otherwise Fred Denville, the disgraced prodigal of the Master of the Ceremonies’ home, had a couple of shillings in his pocket as he strode towards the prison; and as he was on his way, low-spirited and despondent at the troubles of his house, a great thirst came upon him, and he felt that he could never go through the scene he had to encounter without a stimulant in some form.

Then he thought of what a curse drink was to him, and how he could not take one glass without wanting another, and many others, and with this thought he manfully passed the first public-house.

But, as he passed, the door was swung open, and the hot, spiritous odour of strong drinks floated out and half maddened him.

“Just one glass would tighten me up,” he muttered, “and I could go through with it better.”

He thought of his last interview with his father, their struggle, and how he had nearly struck him, and he shrank from what was to come.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “I must have a drop. It will steady a fellow’s nerves. Good God! how horrible to go and see that old man charged with murder.”

He had thought a great deal about it before, but now the whole affair struck him as if in a new light, and the examinations, the trial, and the following of that trial came upon him with a terrible force that frightened him. It had never seemed so horrible before, and he burst out in a cold perspiration as in imagination he saw the white bared head of the old man, with wild eyes and ghastly face – saw him in the grey of some chilly morning, pinioned and with the white-robed priest by his side, walking towards —

It was too horrible! A curious feeling of blind terror made him shiver and hurry on, as something seemed to whisper in his ear, “He did murder that wretched old woman, and he must suffer for his crime.”

“Curse me, I must have some brandy, or I shall never be able to face him,” he gasped, as he strode on, no longer the stern, upright, well-built cavalry soldier, but a bent, trembling man, at whom more than one passer-by looked askance. He even reeled, and albeit perfectly sober, he evoked comments upon “these drunken soldiers” in the streets.

“It is too horrible,” he said again. “I never saw it like this before;” and, hurrying on with unsteady step, he was making straight for a public-house he knew, when, on turning a corner, he suddenly encountered Major Rockley.

The meeting was so sudden that he had passed him before he remembered his duty to salute his superior; but the encounter brought with it a flood of recollections of the night of Mrs Pontardent’s party, and the remembrance of his helplessness, and of the pangs he had suffered as he awoke to the fact, as he believed, that the sister he almost worshipped was in the power of a relentless scoundrel. This cleared the mental fumes that were obscuring his intellect, and, drawing himself up, he strode on straight past the public-house door and on to the prison gates.

“It’s time I acted like a man,” he said to himself, “and not like a cowardly brute.”

He was provided with a pass, and, in ignorance of the fact that Rockley had turned and was watching him, following him, and standing at a distance till he saw him enter the gates, he rang, presented his paper, and was ushered along the blank stone passages of the prison till he reached the cell door.

“One minute,” whispered Fred, wiping the drops from his forehead, as a sudden trembling fit came over him. Then, mastering it, and drawing himself up, he breathed heavily and nodded to the gaoler.

“I’m ready,” he said hoarsely: “open.”

The next minute he was standing in the whitewashed cell with the door closed behind him, locked in with the prisoner and half choked with emotion, gazing down at the bent grey head.

For the Master of Ceremonies was seated upon a low stool, his arms resting upon his knees, and his hands clasped between them, probably asleep. He had not heard the opening and closing of the door, and if not asleep, was so deaf to all but his own misery that Fred Denville felt that he must go and touch him before he would move.

The young man’s breast swelled, and there was a catching in his breath as he looked down upon the crushed, despondent figure, and thought of the change that had taken place. The light from the barred window streamed down upon him alone, leaving the rest of the cell in shadow; and as Fred Denville gazed, he saw again the overdressed leader of the fashionable visitors mincing along the Parade, cane in one hand, snuff-box in the other, and the box changed to the hand holding the cane while a few specks of snuff were brushed from the lace of his shirt-front.

Then he looked back farther, and seemed to see the tall, important, aristocratic-looking gentleman, to whom people of quality talked, and of whom he always stood in such awe; and now, with this came the recollection of his boyish wonder how it was that his father should be so grand a man abroad while everything was so pinched and miserable at home.

Back flitted his thoughts as he stood there, looking down at the motionless figure, to the encounter when he had been surprised by his father with Claire. The terrible rage; the fit; the horrible hatred and dislike the old man had shown, and the unforgiving rancour he had displayed.

Fred Denville sighed as it all came back, but he felt no resentment now, for his breast was full of memories of acts of kindness that had been shown him as a boy, before he grew wild and resisted the paternal hand, preferring the reckless soldier’s life to the irksome poverty and pretence of the place-seeker’s home and its pinching and shams.

“Poor old dad!” he said to himself, as the tears stood in his eyes; “he is brought very low. Misery makes friends. God help him now!”

The stalwart dragoon, moved by his emotion, took a couple of quick steps forward and went down upon one knee by the old man’s side, took his hands gently in both of his own, and held them in a firm, strong clasp, as he uttered the one word —

“Father!”