The Master of the Ceremonies

“Fred! Brother!” wailed Claire.

He smiled at her, and tried to raise her hand to his cheek.

“Yes, little girl!” he said tenderly. “It’s quite right. Cuts the knot – the hangman’s knot.”

There was a bitter, decisive tone in these last words, but he changed his manner again directly, and spoke gently and tenderly.

“It is no use to hide it, dear sis,” he said. “I can’t live above a day or two. I know I shall not, and you see it is for the best. It saves the old man, and much of the disgrace to you two. Poor old fellow! I never understood him, Clairy, as I should. Under all that sham and fashionable show he tried hard for us. God bless him! he’s a hero.”

“Fred, Fred, you are breaking my heart,” wailed Claire.

“No, no, little one,” said Fred, a nervous accession of strength enabling him to speak out clearly and firmly now. “You must be strong and brave. You will see afterwards that it was all for the best, and that I am of some good to you all at last. Try and be strong and look at it all as a blessing. Can you bring the old man here? Morton, lad, with my last breath I’ll pray that you may grow up as true and brave a fellow. Just think of it, you two – that night. He saw me in the room and escape, and he held his tongue to save me! Do you remember that day, Clairy, when he found me with you and attacked me as he did? I couldn’t understand it, then. Ah! it’s all plain enough, now. No wonder he hated me.”

“Fred, you must not talk,” said Morton.

“Not talk, lad?” said Fred with a sad smile. “I’ve not much more chance. Let me say a few words now.”

He lay silent though for a few moments, and his eyes closed as if glad of the rest; but at the end of a short space he began again in a half-wandering manner.

“Brave old fellow! Not a word. Even when they took him. Wouldn’t betray me because I was his own son. Tell Claire to tell him – some one tell him – I know why. It was because I was poor mother’s favourite – poor mother! How fond she was of me! The scapegrace. They always love the black sheep. Claire – fetch Claire.”

He uttered this wildly, and she bent over him, trembling.

“I am here, dear Fred.”

He stared at her without recognition for a few minutes, and then smiled at her lovingly.

“Only a bad headache, mother,” he said. “Better soon. Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mean to kill the old woman. I can’t remember doing it. What a time it is since I’ve seen you. But look here, mother. Mind Claire. That scoundrel Rockley! I know him. Stand at nothing. Mind poor Claire, and – ”

A spasm seemed to shoot through him, and he uttered a faint cry of agony as he knit his brow.

“Did you speak, dear?” he said huskily. “Have I been asleep?”

“I – I think so,” faltered Claire.

“Yes, I fell asleep. I was dreaming of the poor mother. Claire dear, it would have killed her to see me here like this. There, there, it’s all for the best. I want to sleep. Tell the old man he must come and forgive me before I go. Bring him, Morton, lad. No: you bring him, Claire. It will be pain to you, my child, but it is to help me. He will forgive me – brave, noble old fellow that he is – if you are standing by.”

The door opened, and the military nurse appeared.

“The doctor says that you must not stay longer now, ma’am,” he whispered.

“Quite right,” said Fred softly, and with the manner of one accustomed to yield to discipline. “Come again to-morrow – bring the old man to me – good-bye, dear, good-bye.”

He hardly turned his head to Morton, but feebly pressed the hand that held his. His eyes were fixed with a wild yearning on the sweet, tender face that bent over him, and then closed as he uttered a sigh of content with the long loving embrace that ensued.

Then, utterly prostrate, Morton led his sister from the room used as an infirmary, and across the barrack-yard to the gates where a carriage was in waiting.

Morton Denville was half stunned by the scene he had just witnessed, and moved as if mechanically, for he, young as he was, had read the truth in his brother’s face and felt that even if it were possible to obtain leave, he would not probably be able to get his father to the barracks in time.

It seemed quite a matter of course that a footman should be holding the door of this carriage open, and that the servant should draw back for them to enter, close it, and then mount behind, to shout over the roof, “Mr Barclay’s,” when the carriage was driven off. Morton Denville said little, and did not realise the chivalrous kindness of Lord Carboro’, in sending his carriage to fetch Claire back after her painful visit.

Claire saw absolutely nothing, half blind with weeping, her veil down over her face, and a blacker veil of despair closing her in on every side, as she fought and struggled with the thoughts that troubled her. She was utterly incapable of grasping what went on around her.

Now her father seemed to stand before her innocent, and her erring brother, the true culprit, having, as he had told her, committed the crime in a drunken fit. Now a change came over her, and she shuddered with horror as it seemed to her that the author of her being had made his crime hideously worse in trying to escape its consequences by charging his eldest born with the dreadful sin.

Her brain was in a whirl, and she could not think, only pray for oblivion – for rest – since her mental agony was too great to bear.

One minute she had been gazing on the pallid face of the brother whom she had loved so well; the next, darkness had fallen, and she barely realised the fact that she was handed into a carriage and driven off. All she felt was that there was a place against which she could lay her throbbing head, and that Morton was trying to whisper words of comfort in her ear.

Their departure was seen, though, by several.

Rockley, with a singularly uneasy look upon his dark, handsome face – dread, rage, and despairing love, shown there by turns – watched the brother and sister leave the barracks, cross the yard, and enter Lord Carboro’s carriage, and then uttered a furious oath as he saw them driven off.

Lord Carboro’ himself, too, was near at hand to see that his commands were executed without a hitch, and the old man went off thoughtfully down to the pier, to sit and watch the sea, snuff-box in one hand, clouded cane in the other.

“Poor old Denville!” he muttered softly; and then, below his breath, “Poor girl!”

Lastly, Richard Linnell and Mellersh saw Claire enter the old nobleman’s handsome chariot, and a curious grey look came over the younger man’s countenance like a shadow, as he stood watching the departure, motionless till the carriage had disappeared, when Mellersh took him by the arm —

“Come, Dick,” he whispered, “be a man.”

Linnell turned upon him fiercely.

“I do try,” he cried, “but at every turn there is something to tempt me with fresh doubts.”

Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Two.

Nature’s Temptation

Claire Denville sat back in her chair utterly exhausted, and feeling as if her brain was giving way. The news from the prison was as hopeless as ever. Fred lay lingering at the barrack infirmary; and though May was better she was querulous, and in that terribly weak state when life seems to be a burden and thought a weariness and care.

She was asleep now, and Claire had just risen softly so as not to awaken her, and make her resume her complaints and questions as to how soon her father would come back and forgive her, and when her husband would return and take her home, for she was weary of lying there.

Unreasoning in her weakness, she had that afternoon been bitterly reproaching Claire for not fetching her child, that she might nurse and play with it – at a time when she could hardly hold up her arm – and when she had been firmly but kindly refused she had burst into a torrent of feeble, querulous reproaches, which had been maddening to Claire in her excited, overstrained state.

The door opened, and Mrs Barclay’s beaming countenance appeared, and she stood there beckoning with her fat finger.

“Let’s stand outside and talk,” she whispered. “That’s right: close the door. Now then, my dear, I’ll go in and sit with your sister there, for you’re getting overdone; and I tell you what, it’s a fine soft evening, you put on your bonnet and shawl and go and have a walk. I don’t like your going alone, but just take one sharp walk as far as the pier and back, two or three times. It’ll do you good.”

“Have you any news, Mrs Barclay?” said Claire, ignoring the wish expressed.

“Not yet, my dear, but everybody’s working for you. Now, do go.”

Claire hesitated, and then in obedience to the reiterated wish she mechanically did as she was bid, and went out into the cool soft night, the beating of the waves sounding loudly on the shore, while as they broke a glow as of fire ran along their crests, flashing and sparkling with soft radiance along the shore.

But Claire saw nothing, heard nothing – neither the figure that came quickly after her as she left the house, nor the sound of steps.

For all was one weary confused trouble in her brain, and everything seemed forced and unnatural, as if it were the mingling of some dream.