The Master of the Ceremonies

He did not speak again for a few minutes, and Claire sat holding his hand, looking at him doubtingly, his manner was so strange.

“You think I’ve been drinking,” he cried fiercely. “Give a dog a bad name, and then hang him. I haven’t touched a drop to-day.”

He changed his manner to her directly, and his voice was low and tender as he took her to his breast and kissed her.

“Poor little Clairy,” he said; “you’ve had a rough time. Never mind; brighter days coming. The old man will be found innocent.”

“Innocent, Fred?” she faltered.

“Yes, innocent,” he cried. “Wait: you will see. Clairy, look here. Tell me this. Did I ever talk about Lady Teigne’s jewels when I came to see you?”

“I don’t know, dear. Yes, I remember now, I think you did.”

“Hah!” he ejaculated. “I must go now. Good-bye, little woman. I always loved my little sister, always. You know that, don’t you, Clairy?”

“Yes, dear Fred, always.”

“Bad as I was?”

“Oh, Fred, I never thought you bad,” cried Claire piteously. “I only thought it was a pity you did not try to raise yourself, and – ”

“Leave the drink alone. Quite right, Clairy. It was the drink. It makes a man stupid and mad. He doesn’t know what he’s about when he has taken too much. Remember that, my dear, it was the drink.”

“Fred, how strangely you are talking.”

“Strangely?” he said, clasping her to his breast, “strangely? Well, I meant to be kind and tender to my poor, suffering little sister. I’ve been a bad lot, but I always loved my little Claire.”

She stood gazing wonderingly after him, he seemed so strange in his way, as, after straining her to his breast, he kissed her passionately again and again, and then turned and literally ran from the room, while, as she placed her hand against her face, she found that it was wet.

“Poor Fred,” she said, “if I could only win him from his ways.”

She said no more, for her thoughts were only too ready to turn to their usual theme – her father and his imprisonment, and she sat down to rest her aching head upon her hand, wondering what had passed during the interview within the prison walls.

Fred Denville found Mr and Mrs Barclay below, and in a quick, agitated way he caught Mrs Barclay’s hand.

“It’s very kind of you to let me call upon my sister,” he said, “seeing what I am. I thank you. I am not coming again.”

“Not coming again? Oh, I’m sure you’re welcome enough, Mr Fred, for your sister’s sake,” said Mrs Barclay, “isn’t he, Jo-si-ah?”

“Of course, of course.”

“Thank you – both of you,” cried Fred hastily. “You are very good, and that’s why I say be kind to my poor sisters, and try and comfort both if anything happens.”

“Oh, but we must not let anything happen,” said Barclay. “The poor old gentleman must be saved.”

“Yes, of course,” said Fred dreamily; “he must be saved. He’s innocent enough, poor old fellow. I did not mean that. You’ll take care of the poor girls, won’t you?”

“Why, of course we will, Mr Fred Denville; of course we will. There, don’t you make yourself uneasy about them.”

“I won’t,” said Fred, in his bluff, straightforward way. “I may be quite happy, then, about Claire?”

“To be sure you may.”

“I shouldn’t like her to suffer any more, and it would be terrible for those wretched dandy scoundrels to get hold of her and break her heart.”

“Don’t you fidget yourself about that, young man,” said Mrs Barclay with quite a snort. “Your dear sister’s too proud for any jack-a-dandy fellow to win her heart.”

“You’re a good woman,” said Fred softly. “I’m not much account as a man, but I know a good woman when I meet one, and I wish I’d had such a one as you by me when I was a boy. If I had, I shouldn’t have been a common soldier now. Good-bye, ma’am; good-bye, sir. Heaven bless you both.”

He hurried out, afraid of showing his emotion, and Mrs Barclay turned round wiping her eyes.

“There, Jo-si-ah, you see everybody don’t think ill of us, bad as we are.”

“Humph! no,” said Barclay thoughtfully; “but I don’t understand that chap – he’s so strange. Why, surely, old girl, he had no hand in that murder.”

“Lor’! Jo-si-ah, don’t! You give me the creeps all over. I do wish you wouldn’t think about murders and that sort of thing. You give me quite a turn. I wouldn’t have my dear Claire hear you for the world.”

“All right! I won’t say anything before her; but this young chap has set me thinking; he seemed so strange.”

Other people thought Fred Denville strange, notably Major Rockley, who, in company with Sir Matthew Bray and Sir Harry Payne, was on the Parade, as, with brows knit and eyes bent down, the dragoon came along, walking swiftly.

The three officers were in undress uniform, having just left parade, and each carried his riding-whip.

Fred did not notice them, he was too deep in thought, and walking straight on he went right between them, unintentionally giving Sir Matthew Bray a rough thrust with his shoulder, for of course an officer could not give way to a private.

It was Fred Denville’s duty, in the character of James Bell, private dragoon, to have saluted his officers and given them all the path, if necessary; but at that moment he could see nothing but the grey white-faced old man in the cell at the gaol, in peril of his life and threatened with a felon’s death.

“I must have been drunk,” he was muttering to himself. “Yes: I remember, I was horribly drunk that night, and didn’t know what I was doing. Poor old father! with all your faults you did not deserve this. Yes: I must have been drunk.”

At this point he was brought from his musings to the present by a stinging cut from a riding-whip across the back, his tight uniform being so little protection that the sharp whalebone seemed to divide the flesh.

With a cry of rage he turned round, and flung out his fist, striking Sir Harry Payne, who had given the blow with the whip, full on the nose, and sending him backwards.

“You insolent dog!”

“You scoundrel!”

The epithets were delivered in a breath by Major Rockley and Sir Matthew Bray, just as Lord Carboro’ approached, walking by Lady Drelincourt’s bath-chair.

It was an opportunity for showing how an insolent drunken private should be treated; and as several loungers of society were coming up, the two officers accompanied their words with a couple of blows from their whips.

It is dangerous to play with edged tools, is proverbially said; and, in his then frame of mind, Fred Denville felt no longer that he was James Bell, the disciplined, kept-down servant and private. He felt as a man smarting from the blows he had received. The service, the penalty for striking an officer, were as nothing to him then; he saw only the big, pompous, insolent bully of his regiment, Sir Matthew Bray, and the man who had insulted him a thousand times, which he could have forgiven, and his sister again and again, which he could not forgive.

With one bound he was upon Sir Matthew Bray, whom he struck full in the chest, so that he staggered back, tripped his heels on the front wheel of Lady Drelincourt’s bath-chair, and fell heavily into the road.

With another bound he was upon Rockley, who had followed and struck him again a sharp, stinging cut.

There was a momentary struggle, and then the whip was twisted out of Rockley’s hand, his wrist half dislocated, and for a couple of minutes the thin scourge hissed and whistled through the air as, half mad with rage, Fred lashed the Major across shoulders, back, and legs, and finally dashed him down with a parting cut across the face.