“I do not understand you,” exclaimed Marie.
“Bah! That you do, and I know it. I am not so mad as to believe in your smooth ways and sham fondness for that old man.”
“Clotilde, I will not sit and listen to you,” cried Marie. “Your words are disgraceful.”
“Better speak plain than be smug and smooth and secretive, you handsome hypocrite! There, it won’t do, Rie. You may as well drop the veil before me. All this wonderful show of modesty and mock devotion is thrown away.”
“Are you going out of your senses?” said Marie hoarsely.
“Half-way,” was the reply. “It is enough to madden any woman, to be sold as I was.”
“You accepted Mr Elbraham of your own free will,” said Marie indignantly, “and it is your duty to remember that you are his wife.”
“Is it?” cried Clotilde angrily, and speaking as if she were fanning her temper to raging point. “I know what my duty is to my slave-owner better than you can tell me, madam; but, clever as you are, you did not keep out of the marriage mess.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” cried Clotilde, who was excited with the wine she had drunk, and her desire to sting her sister to the quick. “Why, you did not suppose I was going to sell myself for a position and let you hang back and marry the man I loved.”
“The man you loved?” said Marie, turning very pale.
“Yes, the man I loved – Marcus Glen. He loved me, and you knew it, and hung back always, with your soft, cat-like ways, trying to win him from me.”
“It is not true,” cried Marie.
“Yes, it is, and you know it is true. That’s why you refused Lord Henry at first, so that you might win Marcus, as you thought. Do you think I was blind?”
“Clotilde,” said Marie, “this is terrible to me! Did you ask me here to-night to insult me?”
“Not I, my dear, only to congratulate you on being such a good, dutiful girl, and obeying our sweetly-affectionate, care-taking, washed-out old aunts. It is so pleasant to see you like I am, and well out in society. I meant that you should be, and so you are. Why, you are ever so much better off than I am – Lady Henry Moorpark. I ought to rise and make obeisance to you, but I am too lazy. But to set aside joking, you ought to be highly grateful, and kiss me for what I have done.”
“I do not understand you,” said Marie, unconsciously playing with her wedding-ring.
“Why, I brought you to your senses, silly child!”
“Brought me to my senses!” exclaimed Marie, fighting down an intense desire to rise and leave the room.
“To be sure, my dear; I have quite taken to dear aunts’ worldly ideas of what is right for girls to do. You know I did my duty, as they laid it out for me; and then, when I saw my silly sister hang back and spend her time in making eyes at the penniless officer I could not afford to marry, I said. ‘This will not do. I love dear Marie too well to let her make a fool of herself. She shall marry Lord Henry Moorpark, or I’ll know the reason why.’”
“You are talking folly,” said Marie huskily.
“Perhaps so, Rie; but you did not marry my Marcus, and you did marry Lord Henry. Yes, that’s the golden link of your slavery, sweet sister,” she said as she saw Marie touch her wedding-ring; “but how dutiful you must feel! Haven’t seen Marcus lately, have you?”
Marie made no reply.
“You don’t believe me,” continued Clotilde maliciously. “It was very funny how it all turned out. Do you remember the night of our party?”
Did she remember it! The recollection was burned into her brain.
“Poor Marcus!” continued Clotilde, “he is a great goose of a fellow. How astonished he looked!”
Marie was white and red by turns, and the place seemed to swim round before her; but she fought hard to hide her feelings from her sister’s malicious eyes.
“I must do him the justice to say that he behaved very well on the whole.”
“Clotilde, you must be mad,” said Marie hoarsely. “If you were in your right senses, you would not speak like this.”
“Oh yes, I would, my dear,” laughed Clotilde. “I am no more mad than you are; but I was determined that you should never marry Marcus Glen, and I kept you apart.”
“It is false,” cried Marie excitedly. “I threw him over for his reckless conduct with you.”
“You threw him over because I made you, my dear,” said Clotilde contemptuously. “Do you think, Rie, I was going to sit still here as Elbraham’s wife, and see you marry Marcus! No, my dear, that I would not do.”
Marie was like stone now, and she remained motionless, while Clotilde lay back in her lounge and continued her shameless avowals.
“I wanted to spite you a little, darling, in a kindly sort of way, and I could not have behaved better to you than to help you do your duty to our dear aunts and win a rich husband and a title.”
“Is this talk for some purpose?” said Marie at last, angrily.
“Yes, my dear, of course it is; but you must be very smooth-faced and quiet now, and not let the gentlemen see that we have been talking about our old beaux. But seriously, Rie, you never thought I should sit down quietly and let you carry off Marcus Glen?”
Marie began to tremble, for a horrible suspicion had assailed her, one which moment by moment grew more strong; while, seeing the effect of her words, Clotilde went on with malicious glee:
“It would not do at any cost, my dear, so I carried off poor stupid Marcus that night.”
“This was your doing, Clotilde,” said Marie at last, panting as if for breath.
“To be sure it was. Poor old fellow! He behaved very nicely by holding his tongue and taking all the blame, when he was as innocent as a lamb.”
“Innocent!” exclaimed Marie involuntarily.
“To be sure he was, my dear. Why, he was as fond of you as could be, only I led him into that scrape so that he would not be able – ”
Clotilde got no farther, for even she was startled at the effect of her words upon her sister, who sprang from her seat and caught her by the hands.
“Clotilde!” she exclaimed hoarsely, “this is all a lie! Tell me it is all a lie, and I will forgive you.”
“Do as you like, only don’t squeeze diamond rings into my fingers. All true enough: Marcus held his tongue, as I tell you, like a lamb, to save my credit. What fools men are!”
“Then – then,” wailed Marie, “he was true?”
“Why, my sentimental sister! You ought to bless me instead of looking like that.”
For a moment, though, in spite of her forced mirth, Clotilde shrank from her sister’s wild gaze, but only to put on an air of bravado as she exclaimed:
“There, Rie, I made up my mind to serve you out, and I did.”
Marie drew away from her, gazing in her false, handsome face the while, and sank back in the nearest chair, holding her hands pressed against her side as if she were in terrible pain, while her face worked as a convulsive sob escaped from her breast.
“What does it matter now? You are looking as if – as if – Rie! Here, take my salts.”
“Keep back, woman – don’t touch me!” cried Marie, in a low voice. “Sister? No, you must be a demon, and – oh! God help me! God help me!” she wailed; “what have I done?”
Clotilde rushed at her with an imperious “Hush!” but her sister avoided her grasp, and fled to the bell, rang it furiously, and startled Clotilde into silence, as a servant hurried up.
“Quick! I am ill. Fetch Lord Henry,” gasped Marie; and as the butler hurried out, she followed him downstairs, leaving her sister too much startled by the effects of her revelation to do more than listen at the half-opened door.
“What do I care!” she said at last. “She is ill, and she is gone. She will not dare to say a word, and I can live down any nonsense on the part of Rie.”
The front door closed as she uttered these words, after which she turned back into the room, and threw herself upon a couch.
“I wish someone would come, if it was only stupid little Dick,” she said pettishly. “Poor old Rie! But she did not marry Marcus Glen.”
Clotilde’s white teeth closed with a snap, and she lay perfectly still, gazing at her handsome face in the nearest glass.
Volume Three – Chapter Eight.
Gertrude Takes Sanctuary
Valentine Vidler and Salome his wife chirped about the gloomy house in Wimpole Street like a pair of exceedingly happy crickets. Vidler used to kiss Mrs V. and say she was a “dear little woman,” and Mrs V. would always, when they were downstairs amongst the shining coppers and tins, call Vidler “love.” They were quaint to look at, but their blood circulated just as did that of other specimens of humanity; their nerves grew tense or slack in the same way; and in their fashion they thoroughly enjoyed life.
Certainly no children were born unto them, a fact due, perhaps, to the absence of light; but somehow the little couple were very happy without, and so their life glided on as they placidly thought of other people’s troubles, talked of how the Captain took this or that, wondered when Sir Humphrey would come and see him again; if Lady Millet would ever get over the snubbing she had had, for wanting to interfere during a visit, and let in light, which she declared she could not exist without, and Captain Millet had told her she could get plenty out of doors.
Dull as the house seemed, it was never dull to Salome, with her dusting, cleaning, cooking, and cutting-up little squares and diamonds of cotton print for her master’s needle, and afterwards lining and quilting the counterpanes, which were in great request for charitable affairs and fancy bazaars.
The kitchen at Wimpole Street was very cosy in its way – a good fire always burned in the glistening grate, a cricket or two chirped in warm corners; there was a very white hearthstone, a very bright steel fender, and a very thick warm hearthrug, composed of cloth shreds, in front of the little round table drawn up pretty close; for absence of light meant apparently absence of heat.
The tea-things were out, it being eight o’clock; the Captain’s dinner over, Renée seated by the panel reading to him in a low voice, and the Vidlers’ duties done for the day. Hence, then, they had their tea punctually at eight o’clock, making it their supper as well.
Vidler was busy, with a white napkin spread over his knees, making toast, which Mrs V. buttered liberally, and then placed round after round upon the plate, which just fitted the steel disc in the fender.
The kettle was sending out its column of steam, the hot toast looked buttery and brown, and a fragrant scent arose from the teapot, the infusion being strong and good, consequent upon the Captain’s having one cup directly after his dinner, and the pot being kept afterwards to draw.
The meal over and the tea-things washed up – Salome doing the washing, finishing off with that special rinse round of the tray with hot water and the pouring out of the rinsings at one corner, just as a photographer used to cover his plate with collodion – the table was cleared, aprons folded and put away by Vidler in the dresser drawer, while his wife brushed up the hearth, and then came the event of the day – that is to say, the work being done, came the play.
It was the Vidlers’ sole amusement, and it was entered into with a kind of solemn unction in accordance with the gloom of the place. Some learned people would have been of opinion that a light gymnastic kind of sport would have been that most suited for such a life as the Vidlers led, and would have liked to see hooks in the ceiling, and Valentine and his little wife swinging by ropes and turning head over heels on bars for the bringing into play of unused muscles. They might have introduced, too, that pleasing occupation of turning one’s self into a human quintain, with a couple of clubs swung round and round over the head to the great endangerment of the rows of plates and tureens upon the dresser, but they would have been wrong: the stairs gave both an abundance of gymnastic exercise, and their ordinary work brought their other muscles into play. Hence, then, they disported themselves over a pleasant pastime which combined skill, the elements of chance, and mental and arithmetical calculation – the Vidlers’ pastime was cribbage.
The cards taken from the box which opened out into a board were tolerably clean, though faded, it being Salome’s custom to rub them once a week with bread-crumbs, and upon the couple taking their places, with a vast amount of solemnity, spectacles were mounted, and the game began.
Old-fashioned six-card cribbage was their favourite, because, as Vidler said, he didn’t care twopence for a game where there wasn’t plenty of pegging; so the cards were cut. Salome won the deal; they were cut again, and she began.
It was a sight to see Salome deal the cards. Had they been hundred-pound notes she could not have been more particular; wetting her thumb, and taking the greatest care she could to deliver only one at a time, while Vidler looked calmly on, then took up his, smiled at them, selected two for the crib, frowned over them, counted how many he should hold, tried another way, seemed satisfied, and then as he threw out, having thoroughly instructed his partner – now his opponent – in all the technicalities and time-honoured sayings of the game, he informed Salome that he had contrived a “regular bilk.”
“Have you?” said Salome, nodding and throwing out her own couple. “Cut up.”
Vidler “cut up,” and Salome took the card upon the top, exclaimed “Two for his heels,” scored them, and Vidler frowned, for his “bilk” accorded wonderfully well with the turned-up card. “Master didn’t seem to relish that cutlet,” said Vidler, playing first – “six.”
“No,” said Salome, “he has been too much bothered lately – fifteen,” and she scored a second “two.”
“More trouble coming,” said Vidler – “twenty-two.”
“And nine’s a screw,” said Salome seriously, taking another couple for thirty-one.
Then the played cards were solemnly turned down and the game went on.
“Eight,” said Vidler. “How ill Miss Renée looks!”
“Fourteen,” said Salome, playing a six. “Yes, poor girl! she’s brought her pigs to a bad market.”
“Got you this time,” said Vidler, smiling, as he played an ace – “fifteen” – and scored his two.
“Twenty,” said Salome; and so the game went on, the little woman playing with all the serious precision of an old stager, calling thirty-one “eleven,” informing Vidler when she was well ahead that it was “all Leadenhall Street to a China orange,” and proving herself such an adept that the little man was thoroughly beaten.
“Better luck next time,” said Vidler, giving the Cards a good shuffle; and then the pair stopped to listen, for faint and low, like a melody from another land, came the sad sweet voice of Renée, singing that wonderful old Irish air, “Grammachree,” putting an end to the play, for the couple sat and listened, Vidler nodding his head gently, and waving a card to the melancholy cadence till it ended, when the game once more began.
Pop!
“Bless us and save us?” cried Salome, dropping her Cribbage-peg as she was in the act of scoring three for a run; “is it a purse or a coffin?”
Vidler rose, and, taking the tongs, carefully picked up the cinder which had flown from the fire, and was now making an unpleasant savour of burning woollen fabric to arise from the hearthrug. He laid it solemnly upon the table to cool, and then it was shaken by Salome, but gave forth no answering tinkle.
“It isn’t a purse,” she said, holding it to the light. “It’s a coffin!”
She handed the little hollow bubble of cindery coal-tar to her husband, and he laid it down, took off and wiped his perfectly clean spectacles, and replaced them before carefully examining the portent by the light.
“It’s a coffin for somebody,” he said solemnly; and then, as he carefully cremated the cinder in the most glowing portion of the fire, the couple sighed, resumed their places, and sat listening as the voice of Renée singing to Captain Millet once more came down to where they sat.
It was “Ye banks and braes” this time, and when the pathetic old air was ended Salome sighed.
“Ah, poor dear, yes – ‘My false lu-huv has plu-ucked the ro-az, and le-heft the the – horn be-hi-hind with me,’” said and sang Salome, in a little piping plaintive voice. “I hope it isn’t for her!”
“It may mean only trouble,” said Vidler, with his head on one side. “I have known coffins pop out of the fire and no one die.”
“Oh dear no,” said Salome. “There’s not a minute passes but someone dies.”
“No,” said Vidler slowly, as if the great problem propounded required much consideration; “but so long as it isn’t anyone here, why, it don’t matter.”
“Quite so much,” said Salome correctively. “Let me see; it was three for a run. I shall beat you this time. You want fourteen.”
“Yes,” said Vidler, chuckling; “but it’s my first show. You want sixteen.”
“Yes,” said Salome, pegging one for a “go,” “but I’ve got hand and crib. Now then.”
“Sixteen,” said Vidler triumphantly, as he threw down his cards and stuck a peg in the winning hole.
“Think of that now,” said Salome, as she gathered up the cards for what she called a good shuffle, which was performed by dividing the pack in two equal portions and holding them as if about to build a card house, allowing them to fall alternately one over the other. Then they were knocked together hard and square, and handed to Vidler, who gave them what he termed “a Canterbury poke,” which consisted in rapidly thrusting his forefinger right to the centre of the pack and driving out a large portion of the cards, which were afterwards placed upon the top. Then the pack was cut once more, and game after game followed till suddenly there was a loud ring at the bell.
“What was that?” cried Salome.
“The coffin,” said Vidler solemnly.
“Bless us and save us, man, don’t look like that!” cried Salome; “it turns me cold all down my back;” and then, with a shiver, and very wide-open eyes, she followed her little lord up to the front door, where Huish’s maid was waiting with a note and a cab to take Renée away.
This caused a little flutter upstairs, and a greater one down, where Jane, with a few additions of her own, related the arrest of her master.
“It was trouble, then, and not death,” said Vidler sagely to his wife, who then had to answer the bell, and assist Renée, who, after a short conference with Captain Millet, dressed and hurried off to join her sister.
“Good-bye, my dear,” said the Captain, sighing. “I shall not go to bed. You may return.”
Renée was seen into the cab, and the Vidlers, upon receiving an intimation from their master, made up the kitchen fire and sat before it, as if cooking, to see if Mrs Morrison came back, which she did in about an hour, on finding from the cook that Huish had been and taken her sister away, the same personage informing her that Sir Humphrey and Mr Millet had not returned.
Renée hesitated for a time as to whether she should stay or go to Grosvenor Square to make inquiries; but this last she was averse to doing; and, with a full conviction upon her that Huish and Gertrude would be sure to call at Wimpole Street, even if she had not already missed them, she hurried back.
“They may come yet,” said Captain Millet quietly. “We will wait and see.”
Fresh candles were brought, and tea was made, of which no one partook, and then the occupants of the gloomy house waited hour after hour in full faith of some news coming during the night, with the consequence that everyone was on the alert when the bell rang about four o’clock.
Vidler hastened up to open the door, and uttered a cry of dismay which brought down Renée, for Gertrude Huish fell forward fainting into his arms, to lie where she was carried hour after hour, now awakening to a wild hysterical fit, now sinking back into semi-unconsciousness, and always unable to respond to the eager queries, till at last she started up wildly, and on recognising her sister, flung her arms round her neck, exclaiming:
“Oh, Ren, Ren! is there no more happiness on earth? My poor heart’s broken: I shall die?”
Volume Three – Chapter Nine.
Lady Henry Grows Calm
“Can you not take me into your confidence, Marie?” said Lord Henry, on meeting his wife at the breakfast-table the morning after her sister’s revelation.
She looked at him wildly for a few moments, her large eyes encircled with dark rings, and the traces of terrible emotion in her blanched face.
She had been in a state of mental agony the night through, refusing to retire, and passing much of the time in pacing up and down the room. But towards morning she had grown calmer. Her mental pain was somewhat dulled, and as she perceived the terrible agitation into which she had plunged her husband, she began to feel a kind of remorse and pity for him as well as for herself.
At first she had been half maddened, for she did not for a moment doubt Clotilde’s words. Everything was only too suggestive, and as she felt that she had hastily condemned Marcus Glen, who had been all that was chivalrous and true, there were moments when she told herself that she could not live.
It was so horrible. She had loved Marcus Glen with all the strong passion of her nature. For his sake she would have borne poverty and privation, and been truly happy, believing thoroughly in his love; but when, in place of finding him the true, honest gentleman she had trusted, she believed that he was base, her love had turned to hatred, and she had fled, telling herself that she had nothing to hope for now, and that if she could make others happy she need expect no more.
Awakening at last, after a night of bitter suffering, to the anguish of her husband, she had made a brave effort over self, and turned to him as her refuge from the suffering to which she was reduced.
She clung to him, praying for help and strength to cast out the image of Marcus Glen from her heart and at last she felt that she had the strength, and told herself that she would consider the past as dead.
But even as she lay there with her husband’s hands pressed to her forehead, the thought would come that she ought to tell Marcus Glen that she knew the truth.
A paroxysm of agony followed this thought. What avail would it be now? She felt that he would curse her for her want of faith in him, and, think of it all as she would, she could only come to the conclusion that, in her haste and want of trust in him she loved, she had blasted her future, and must bear it to the end.
Daybreak at last; and with the sun came thoughts of her position, and the necessity for making some effort – an effort which she was now too weak to essay. But at last she rose, and as the time wore on begged Lord Henry to leave her, meeting him again a couple of hours later at breakfast, apparently calm, but with a tempest raging in her breast.
He uttered no word of reproach, but was tenderness itself, and the tears stole more than once down his furrowed cheeks; and when at last he appealed to her as her husband, she broke down, threw herself sobbing upon his breast, and begged him to spare her.
“I will not say another word,” he replied gently. “My wish is to make you happy in my poor way, and I only pressed you for your confidence, so that I might help you to be more at rest.”
“I don’t like to have secrets from you,” she whispered; “dear husband!”
He held her more tightly to his breast as she called him this, and she uttered a low sigh of relief, for it was as though he told her of his trust. It gave her strength to proceed, and she went on:
“My sister quarrelled with me, and said such bitter things that I could not bear them. She brought up the scene upon that terrible night of which you were a witness.”
“Let it be buried with the past,” said Lord Henry gravely. “It should never have been revived, and I see now but too plainly that I was to blame in accepting the invitation.”
“Never accept one again; I could not bear it. Clotilde’s path and mine must be separate through life. I could not meet her now.”
“Are you not too hard upon your sister?”
“Hard?” cried Marie. “Oh no! You do not know all,” she was about to say, but she refrained, and went on: “Clotilde has altered since her marriage. I think we should be happier apart. Help me in this, dear husband. It would be better so.”
He raised her face, and gazed tenderly into her wild eyes, as he said:
“Your happiness is my care, Marie, my child. I promised to try and make your home one of rest and peace. Ask me what you will, and it shall be done.”
