“Tchh, my dear, rubbish! Why, I would not see anyone I cared for in such a dress as that. I like things rich and good, and the best money can buy.”
“Do you?” said Clotilde innocently; but her cheeks began to burn.
“Do I? Yes; I should just think I do. Look here! What do you think of that?”
He took out and opened the little case, breathed on the diamonds, and then held them in a good light.
“Oh, how lovely!” said Clotilde softly.
“Ain’t they?” said Elbraham. “They’re the best they’d got at Hancock’s, in Bond Street. Pretty stiff figure, too, I can tell you.”
“Are you fond of diamonds, Mr Elbraham?” she said, with a peculiar look at him from beneath her darkly fringed lids – a strange look for one so innocent and young.
“Yes, on some people,” he said. “Are you?”
“Oh yes; I love them,” she said eagerly.
“All right, then. Look here, Clotilde; say the word, and you can have diamonds till you are sick of them, and everything else. I – hang it all! I’m not used to this sort of thing,” he said, dabbing his moist face with his handkerchief; “but I said to myself, when I came to-night, ‘I won’t shilly-shally, but ask her out plain.’ So look here, my dear, may I put this diamond ring on the finger of the lady that’s to be Mrs Elbraham as soon as she likes?”
Clotilde darted one luminous look at him which took in his squat, vulgar figure and red face, and then her eyes half-closed, and she saw tall, manly, handsome Marcus Glen look appealingly in her eyes, and telling her he loved her with all his heart.
She loved him – she told herself she loved him very dearly; but he was poor, and on the one side was life in lodgings in provincial towns wherever the regiment was stationed; on the other side, horses and carriages and servants, a splendid town mansion, diamonds, dresses, the opera, every luxury and gaiety that money could command.
“Poor Marcus!” she sighed to herself. “He’s very nice!”
“Come,” said Mr Elbraham; “I don’t suppose you want me to go down on my knees and propose, do you? I want to do the thing right, but I’m a business man, you know; and, I say, Clotilde, you’re the most beautiful gal I ever saw in my life.”
She slowly raised her eyes to his, and there was a wicked, mocking laugh in her look as she said in a low tone:
“Am I?”
“Yes, that you are,” he whispered in a low, passionate tone.
“You are laughing at me,” she said softly.
“’Pon my soul I’m not,” he whispered again; “I swear I’m not; and I love you – there, I can’t tell you how much. I say, don’t play with me. I’ll do anything you like – give you anything you like. I’ll make the princesses bite their lips with jealousy to see your jewels. I will, honour! May I? Yes? Slip it on? I say, my beautiful darling, when may I put on the plain gold one?”
“Oh, hush!” she whispered softly, as she surrendered her hand, and fixed her eyes in what he told himself was a loving, rapturous gaze upon his; “be content now.”
“But no games,” he whispered; “you’ll be my wife?”
“Yes,” she said in the same low tone, and he raised the beringed hand to his lips, while the Honourable Isabella uttered a little faint sigh, and her book trembled visibly in her attenuated hands.
“Hah!” ejaculated Mr Elbraham; and then to himself: “What things diamonds are!”
Perhaps he would have felt less satisfied if he had known that, when Clotilde fixed her eyes upon his, she was looking down a long vista of pleasure stretched out in the future.
At the same moment the face of Marcus Glen seemed to rise up before her, but she put it aside as she lifted the hand that Elbraham had just kissed.
“He could not have brought me such a ring as that,” she said to herself; and then, “Heigho! poor fellow; but it isn’t my fault. I must tell him I am only doing what my dear aunts wish.”
She placed the ring against her deep-red lips and kissed it very softly, her beautiful eyes with their long fringed lids looking dark and dewy, and full of a delicious languor that made Mr Elbraham sit with his arms resting upon his knees, and gaze at her with half-open mouth, while he felt a strange feeling of triumph at his power as a man of the world, and thought of how he would show off his young wife to all he knew, and gloat over their envy.
Then a sense of satisfaction and love of self came over him, and he indulged in a little glorification of Mr Elbraham.
“Litton’s a humbug,” he said to himself; “I can get on better without his advice than with it. Women like a fellow to be downright with them, and say what he means.”
Volume Two – Chapter Ten.
Glen Declares War
Dick Millet placed a note in his friend’s hand one day during parade, and Glen thrust it out of sight on the instant, glancing sidewise to see if Major Malpas had noticed the act, and then biting his lip with vexation at Dick being so foolish.
A good deal of the foolishness was on his own side, for had he taken the letter in a matter-of-fact manner, no one would have paid the slightest heed, or fancied that it came from a lady in a clandestine way.
But, as is generally the case in such matters, the person most anxious to keep his correspondence a secret is one of the first to betray himself, and, feeling this, Glen was in no very good humour.
The secret correspondence he had been carrying on with Clotilde was very sweet; but it annoyed him sadly, for his was not a nature to like the constant subterfuge. By nature frank and open, there was to him something exceedingly degrading in the fact that servants were bribed and the aunts deceived; and with a stern determination to put an end to it all, and frankly speak to the Honourable Misses Dymcox concerning his attachment to Clotilde, he went on with his duties till the men were dismissed.
“How could you be so stupid, Dick!” he exclaimed, as soon as they were clinking back, sabre and spur, to their quarters.
“Foolish!” said the little fellow, with a melodramatic laugh; “I thought you would like to get your letter. I don’t care about keeping all the fun to myself.”
“What’s the matter?” said Glen, smiling. “Has the fair Marie been snubbing you?”
“No. Look at your letter,” said the little fellow tragically.
Glen placed his hand in his breast, but, altering his mind, he walked on to his room before taking out the letter and glancing at it; then leaping up, he strode out into the passage and across to Dick’s quarters, to find that gentleman looking the very image of despair.
“Here, what does this mean?” exclaimed Glen. “Why did you not send my note with yours?”
“Did!”
“Then how is it you have brought it back?”
“That scoundrel Joseph!” exclaimed Dick. “I won’t believe but that it’s some trick on his part, for I don’t trust a word he says.”
“What does he say, then?”
“That they returned the notes unopened, and that – can you bear it?”
“Bear it! Bear what? Of course – yes; go on.”
“I’ve heard that Clotilde has accepted Mr Elbraham, and they are going to be married directly.”
Glen stood and glared at him for a moment, and then burst into a hearty laugh.
“Absurd! nonsense! Why, who told you this?”
“Joseph.”
“Rubbish! Joseph is an ass. The fellow forgot to deliver the letters.”
Dick spoke to him again, but Glen did not hear his words in the anger that had taken possession of him. He had, against his will, allowed himself to be swayed by Clotilde, and carried on the clandestine correspondence that was repugnant to his frank nature; and now he blamed himself for his conduct.
“Look here, Dick,” he cried at last, “we have been behaving like a couple of foolish boys ashamed of their feelings, and the consequence is we have been unable to take the part of those two when they have been urged to accept proposals by their aunts.”
“Don’t say they; it is only Clotilde.”
“I’ll wager it is Marie as well, my boy; else why did you get your note back?”
Dick looked staggered, and gazed in his friend’s face.
“I say, you know, what are you going to do?” he said it last.
“Going straight to the private apartments to see the aunts. Come with me?”
“What, to meet the old dragons, and talk about it?”
“Yes, of course. It is cowardly to hold back.”
“That’s – er – a matter of opinion,” said Dick, who looked uneasy. “I – er – don’t think it would be quite wise to go.”
“As you like!” said Glen shortly; and before the boy could quite realise the position the door swung back heavily and his visitor was gone.
“Well,” said Dick thoughtfully, “I could go through a good deal for Marie’s sake, and would give a good deal to see her now, but face those two old Gorgons? No, not this time; I’d rather take a header into the Thames any day, and I don’t believe Glen has gone, after all.”
But he had gone straight to the private apartments, rung, and sent in his card to where the Honourable Misses Dymcox were discussing preparations for the marriage, with their nieces in the room.
“Captain Glen!” exclaimed the Honourable Philippa, starting as she read the card; “so early! What can he want?”
Marie glanced at her sister, and saw that she looked flushed and excited; but as soon as Clotilde found that she was observed, she returned a fierce, defiant glance at Marie’s inquisitive eyes.
“Had – hadn’t we better say ‘Not at home’?” whispered the Honourable Isabella.
“No: it would be cowardly,” replied her sister. “Joseph, you can show up Captain Glen.”
Clotilde rose and left the room, and Marie was following, but her aunt arrested her.
“No, my dear, I would rather you would stay,” she exclaimed; and full of sympathy, but at the same time unable to control a sense of gladness at her heart, Marie resumed her seat just as Ruth entered the room.
The next moment Glen was shown in, and after the customary salutations and commonplace remarks asked for a few minutes’ conversation with the ladies alone.
The Honourable Philippa was a good deal fluttered, but she preserved her dignity, and signed to Marie and Ruth to withdraw, the former darting a look full of meaning as she passed Marcus, who hastened to open the door, the latter glancing up at him for a moment, and he smiled back in her face, which was full of sympathy for him in his pain.
Glen closed the door in the midst of a chilling silence, and returned to his seat facing the thin sisters, feeling that the task he had undertaken was anything but the most pleasant under the sun.
He was, however, too much stirred to hesitate, and he began in so downright a manner that he completely overset the balance – already tottering – of the Honourable Isabella, who felt so sympathetic that she was affected to tears.
“I wished to have a few minutes’ conversation, ladies,” he said, in rather a quick, peremptory tone, “respecting a question very near to my heart, and concerning my future happiness. Let me say, then, plainly, in what is meant to be a manly, straightforward fashion, that I love your niece Clotilde, and I have come to ask your consent to my being a constant visitor here.”
The Honourable Isabella could not suppress it: a faint sigh struggled to her lips, and floated away upon the chilly air of that dismal room, like the precursor of the shower that trembled upon the lashes of her eyes.
“Captain Glen!” cried the Honourable Philippa, making an effort to overcome her own nervousness, and dreading a scene on the part of this downright young man, “you astound me!”
“I am very sorry I should take you so by surprise,” he said quietly. “I hoped that you would have seen what my feelings were.”
“Oh, indeed no!” cried the Honourable Philippa mendaciously, “nothing of the kind – did we, sister?”
The Honourable Isabella’s hands shook a great deal, but she did not speak – only looked piteously at their visitor.
“Perhaps I ought to have made my feelings known sooner,” said Glen. “However, I have spoken now, Miss Dymcox, and – ”
“But, Captain Glen, pray spare us, and spare yourself what must be a very painful declaration, when I tell you that our niece is engaged to be married to Mr Elbraham.”
“Then it is true?”
“Oh yes, perfectly true,” said the Honourable Philippa.
Glen drew a long breath, and sat for some moments silently gazing down at the carpet as if he could not trust himself to speak. When he opened his lips again his voice was changed.
“Am I to understand, madam, that Miss Clotilde Dymcox accepts this Mr – Mr Elbraham of her own free choice and will?”
It required a tremendous effort to get out that name “Elbraham,” but he forced it from his lips at last.
“Captain Glen,” said the Honourable Philippa, rising and darting a very severe glance at her sister because she did not rise as well, “this is presuming upon your position here as an acquaintance – a very casual acquaintance. I cannot discuss this matter with you.”
“As you will, madam,” replied Glen, who felt hot with indignant rage. “May I ask your permission to see Clotilde?”
“To see Miss Clotilde Dymcox?” said the Honourable Philippa, with dignity. “Under the circumstances, I think, sister, certainly not.”
She darted another fierce look at the Honourable Isabella, who was growing weaker and more agitated moment by moment, as she asked herself whether it was possible that, in spite of the disparity of their ages, she might yet try to soothe Marcus Glen’s wounded spirit, and offer him the sympathy of her virgin heart.
“I ask it in justice to myself, madam,” cried Glen, “for your niece – ”
He was going to say more, but he checked himself, and bit his lips. “Of course, ladies, you would be present.”
“Impossible!” said the Honourable Philippa grimly.
“Don’t – don’t you think, sister,” faltered the Honourable Isabella, “that – that – Captain Glen might – might just see – just see Clotilde – for a few moments?”
“No!” said the Honourable Philippa, with quite a snap of her artificial teeth, and the Honourable Isabella seemed to shrink back into herself, quite dismayed by her sister’s almost ferocious way.
“I thank you, Miss Isabella,” said Glen, so warmly that the poor old lady’s heart began to palpitate at an unwonted rate, and she trembled and her hands were agitated, as if she would gladly have laid them in their visitor’s broad palms. – “You decline, then, to allow me to see Miss Clotilde?”
The Honourable Philippa bowed, and turned to her sister to see if she made as dignified a response to his appeal; but to her horror she saw her sister shaking her head violently as Glen now appealed to her in turn.
“Then, madam,” cried Glen angrily, “I give you fair warning that I shall spare no pains to gain an interview with your niece, for I do not, I will not believe that this is honest. It cannot be, and I am certain that the poor girl has been forced into this engagement. Ladies, I will say no more, for I fear that if I do I shall lose my temper. Miss Dymcox, good-morning. Miss Isabella, I thank you for your show of sympathy; good-bye.”
He felt that there could be no excuse for a longer stay, and strode angrily from the room; but he had hardly reached the foot of the stairs before he became aware of the fact that Marie was coming out of the schoolroom, where Ruth was now alone and a witness of what passed.
“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Glen joyously, as he sprang forward and caught both Marie’s hands in his, making her flush and tremble with the warmth of his greeting. “Tell me, dear Marie, the meaning of all this dreadful news.”
She did not speak, but, giving herself up to the joy of the situation, she let her hands rest in his and gazed wistfully in his face, while Ruth sat in her place in the schoolroom and trembled, she knew not why.
“You do not speak,” said Glen. “Tell me, for heaven’s sake tell me, that this is all in opposition to your sister’s wishes.”
Marie still gazed wistfully in his face, and her hands, in spite of herself, returned the warm pressure of his.
“Surely – oh no; I will not believe it!” cried Glen. “It cannot be so. Marie, dear Marie, pray have compassion on me and tell me the truth.”
“Do – you wish me to tell you?” she said in a low voice that trembled with suppressed emotion.
“Yes, everything. If you have any feeling for me, tell me honestly all.”
Marie’s hands trembled more and more, and her colour went and came as she spoke.
“I will tell you what you wish, Captain Glen,” she said, in her low rich tones; “but do not blame me if it gives you pain.”
“I will not; only pray put an end to this terrible anxiety.”
There was a few moments’ silence, and then Glen said huskily:
“You know how Clotilde loved me, Marie?”
Marie’s dark eyes gazed fully, pityingly into his, but there was a slight curl of scorn upon her upper lip as she remained silent.
“No,” she said slowly, as she shook her head; “no, I do not.”
“You – do not!”
Marie hesitated to plant so sharp a sting in his heart, but, still, she panted to speak – to tell him that he had wasted his honest love upon one who did not value it, in the hope that he might turn to her; but at the same time she feared to overstep the mark, and her compunction to hurt the man she loved came and went.
“Why do you not tell me what you mean?” he said, pressing one of her hands so that he caused her intense pain.
“Because I shrink from telling you that Clotilde never cared for you in the least,” she said bitterly.
“How dare you say that?” he cried.
“If she had loved you, Captain Glen, would she have accepted Mr Elbraham for the sake of his wealth?”
He would have dropped her hand, but she held fast, full of passionate grief for him as she saw how deadly pale he had turned, and had they been in a less public place she would have clung to him, and told him how her heart bled for his pain.
“You are her sister, and could not say that which was false,” he said simply. “Tell me, then, is this all true?”
“Do you doubt me?” she asked, looking full in his eyes.
He held her hands, and looked down in the dark, handsome face that gazed so unflinchingly in his.
“No,” he said softly, “no;” and raising one of her hands to his lips, he kissed it, and then turned and left the place.
Marie’s reverie, as she stood there holding one soft hand pressed over the back of the other, where Marcus Glen’s lips had been, was interrupted by the voice of Clotilde.
“Rie: has he gone?”
“Yes,” said her sister, with a look of disgust, almost loathing, in her face.
“Poor boy! I hope he won’t mind much. I say, Rie, you can have him now. I’ll make you a present of his love. No, I won’t,” she said, flashing into life. “You shan’t look at him. If you do, I’ll tell him such things about you as shall drive him away.”
The sisters stood there upon the stairs gazing angrily one at the other, and Ruth, whose heart felt very sore, watched them in turn, and thought how hard all this was for Captain Glen, and also, with a sigh, how weak he must be.
“But they are both so handsome,” she said to herself half aloud; and then, with a kind of shiver, she began to think about Mr Montaigne.
Volume Two – Chapter Eleven.
Lady Littletown’s Diplomacy
Mr Elbraham had not been long making up his mind to eschew shilly-shallying, and to propose at once. He was a clever man of business, and no one knew better than he how to work a few shares upon the Stock Exchange, and float a company so as to pour thousands into the laps of its promoters; but he had a weak side, and his late action was taken a good deal on account of the opposition he met with from his private secretary.
“Going to dine with ‘the maids of honour’ at Hampton Court!” said this latter gentleman, looking up in astonishment as his principal announced his intention; “why, you grumbled at having to go to Lady Littletown’s the other day, and she does give good dinners.”
“Capital,” said the financier, smacking his lips.
“But you won’t get anything fit to eat at the Palace.”
“My object is to get into better society,” said the financier promptly; “and the Dymcoxes are people of position. Of course, you know I met them there.”
“Ah, to be sure; so you did. Well, they certainly belong to a good family.”
“Yes,” said Mr Elbraham, strutting pompously up and down the room. “Lovely girl that Miss Clotilde!”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Arthur Litton; “she is handsome, certainly.”
“Humph! I should think she is, sir.”
“But I’ve seen many finer women,” continued Litton. “Not my style of girl at all.”
“Should think not, indeed,” said Elbraham hotly. “Bah, sir! stuff, sir! rubbish, sir! What do you know about handsome women?”
“Well, certainly,” said Litton humbly, and with a smile, as the financier walked away from him down the room – a smile which was replaced by a look as serious as that of the proverbial judge, when the great man turned; “I suppose my opinion is not worth much.”
“I should think not, indeed. I tell you she is magnificent.”
“Oh, nonsense, my dear sir,” said Litton warmly; “handsome if you like, but magnificent – no! You know dozens of finer women.”
“Maybe, maybe,” said the financier.
Litton paused for a few moments, tapping his teeth as if undecided, till his chief paused and looked at him curiously.
“Well, what is it?” he said.
“Look here, Mr Elbraham,” said Litton, “I suppose we are not very good friends?”
“H’m, I don’t know. You are in my pay,” said the financier coarsely, “so you ought to be one of my best friends.”
“You’ve said too many sharp things to me, Mr Elbraham, to make me feel warmly towards you; but, all the same, I confess that you have done me some very good turns in money matters; and I hope, though I take your pay, that I am too much of a gentleman to stand by and see anyone take a mean advantage of a weakness on your part.”
“Weakness? My part!” said the financier fiercely, as if the very idea of his being weak was absurd.
“Yes, sir, weakness. Look here, Mr Elbraham, I should not like to see you taken in.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Mean?” said Litton. “Well, Mr Elbraham, I’m not afraid of you; so whether you are offended or not, I shall speak out.”
“Then speak out, sir, and don’t shilly-shally.”
“Well, sir, it seems to me that there’s a good deal of fortune-hunting about. Those Dymcox people have good blood, certainly; but they’re as poor as rats, and I’ll be bound to say nothing would please the old aunts better than hooking you, with one of those girls for a bait.”
“Will you have the goodness to reply to that batch of letters, Mr Litton?” said Elbraham haughtily. “I asked your opinion – or, rather, gave you my opinion – of Miss Clotilde Dymcox, and you favour me with a pack of impertinent insinuations regarding the family at Hampton Court.” Mr Elbraham went angrily out into the hall to don his light and tight overcoat and grey hat, and walk down to the station.
As Litton heard the door close he sank back in his chair at the writing-table, and laughed silently and heartily.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he ejaculated; “and this is your clever financier – this is your man far above the ordinary race in shrewdness! Why am I not wealthy, too, when I can turn the scoundrel round my finger, clever as he believes he is? Clever, talented, great! Why, if I metaphorically pull his tail like one would that of a pig, saying, ‘You shan’t go that way!’ he grunts savagely, and makes straight for the hole.”
Arthur Litton took one of Mr Elbraham’s choice cigars from his case, deliberately pitched aside the letters he had to answer, struck a light, placed his heels upon the table, and, balancing his chair upon two legs, began to smoke.
“Well, so far so good,” he said at last, as he watched the aromatic rings of smoke ascend towards the ceiling. “I suppose it is so. Mr Elbraham is one of the cleverest men on ’Change, and he manages the money-making world. I can manage Mr Elbraham. Ergo, I am a cleverer man than the great financier; but he makes his thousands where I make shillings and pence. Why is this?”
The answer was all smoke; and satisfactory as that aromatic, sedative vapour was in the mouth, it was lighter than the air upon which it rose, and Arthur Litton continued his soliloquising.
“I’m afraid that I shall never make any money upon ’Change, or by bolstering up bad companies, and robbing the widow, the orphan, the retired officer, and the poor parson of their savings. It is not my way. I should have no compunction if they were fools enough to throw me their money. I should take it and spend it, as Elbraham and a score more such scoundrels spend theirs. What does it matter? What is the difference to him between having a few hundred pounds more or less in this world? They talk about starvation when their incomes are more than mine. They say they are beggared when they have hundreds left. Genteel poverty is one of the greatest shams under the sun.”
