The Project Gutenberg eBook of Proper pride, Volume 1 (of 3)
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Title: Proper pride, Volume 1 (of 3)
A novel
Author: B. M. Croker
Release date: December 16, 2023 [eBook #72433]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Tinsley Brothers, 1882
Credits: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROPER PRIDE, VOLUME 1 (OF 3) ***
PROPER PRIDE.
A Novel.
Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth,
Love repulsed--but it returneth.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1882.
[_All rights reserved._]
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
MALTA 1
CHAPTER II.
ALICE SAVILLE 11
CHAPTER III.
LOOTON PARK 48
CHAPTER IV.
A PRACTICAL JOKE 54
CHAPTER V.
THE THUNDERBOLT 74
CHAPTER VI.
“A WELCOME HOME” 109
CHAPTER VII.
WESSEX GARDENS 130
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. MAYHEW’S LITTLE SCHEME 148
CHAPTER IX.
THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 177
CHAPTER X.
GEOFFREY SPEAKS HIS MIND 192
CHAPTER XI.
“EASTWARD HO!” 211
PROPER PRIDE.
CHAPTER I.
MALTA.
December in Malta is very different from that month in England. There
is no snow, no black frost, no fog; a bright, turquoise-blue sky, and
deep indigo sea, smooth as glass, and dotted here and there with the
white sails of fishing-boats, make a becoming background for this
buff-coloured island. The air is soft, yet exhilarating; a perfume of
oranges, cheroots, and flowers pervades the atmosphere. Little boys,
with superb dark eyes, are thrusting delicious bunches of roses and
heliotrope into the hands of passers-by, and demanding “sixpence.” The
new piano-organs are grinding away mercilessly at the corner of every
street. A trooper, a Peninsular and Oriental, and a vicious-looking
ironclad are all in simultaneously, and Valetta is crammed. Such,
at least, was the scene one December afternoon, not many years ago.
It was the fashionable hour; the Strada Reale was full of shoppers,
sightseers, and loungers; half the garrison were strolling up and down.
Fat monks in brown, thin nuns in black, fruitsellers, Maltese women in
their picturesque faldettas, soldiers, sailors, rich men, poor men,
beggar men, and no doubt thieves, thronged the hot white pavement.
Outside Marîche’s, the well-known tobacconist, two young men, bearing
the unmistakable stamp of the British warrior of the period, were
smoking the inevitable weed.
Cox, “the horsey,” with hands in pockets, was holding forth at
intervals, to Brown, “the _blasé_,” and ladies’ man _par excellence_,
of the gallant smashers.
“Never saw such a hole as this is in my life--_never_! No hunting, no
shooting, no sport of any kind. Think of all the tiptop runs they are
having at home now! If _The Field_ is to be believed, there never was
such going; nor, for the matter of that, such grief. Here we are--stuck
on an island; water wherever you look; not a horse worth twenty pounds
in the place!”
“Oh come, my dear fellow,” remonstrated his friend, “what about the
Colonel’s barb, and half-a-dozen others I could mention?”
“Well, not a _hunter_, at any rate, and that’s all the same. If we
are left here another year, I believe I shall cut my throat--or get
_married_.”
Looking at his companion with critical gravity, to see how he took this
tremendous alternative, but observing no wonderful expression of alarm
or anxiety depicted on his face, he continued to puff furiously at the
cigar, which he held almost savagely between his set teeth. Suddenly he
exclaimed:
“By Jove, there’s that Miss Saville that all the fellows are talking
about! Why she’s nothing but a schoolgirl after all.”
“Nevertheless, she is the prettiest girl in Valetta,” replied Mr.
Brown, taking his cheroot out of his mouth and gazing with an air of
languid approval after a tall slight figure, in a well-cut blue serge
costume, that, in company with an elderly lady, was crossing the Palace
Square.
“By the way, Brown, who _is_ this Miss Saville when she is at home?”
“Miss Saville,” replied Brown, propping himself against the doorway,
and evidently preparing for a narrative, “is----In the first place, an
heiress, four thousand a-year, my dear boy--think of that.”
* * * * *
Encouraged by a nod from Cox, he proceeded:
“She is also an orphan.”
“Good!” quoth Cox emphatically.
“But you need not run away with the idea that she is an unprotected
female. She has a guardian,” continued his friend impressively.
“It seems that her father, General Saville, saved or made a lot of
money out in India, and this girl was his only child. Her mother died
when she was a baby, and she was sent home and received a first-class
education, including _all_ the extras. Are you listening?”
“Of course I am; get on with the story.”
“Well, old Saville, who had always meant to come home and live on his
fortune and repose on his laurels, trusted too long to the climate, and
left his bones in the cemetery at Lahore, and his daughter to his great
chum, Sir Greville Fairfax, with her fortune and her hand, both tightly
tied up, not to marry without his full consent, not to come of age till
she was five-and-twenty, and all that sort of thing, you know.”
“Yes, yes; go on.”
“Hurry no man’s cattle, the day is young,” said Brown, removing his
cheroot after two or three puffs, and contemplating it with apparent
interest.
“About six months later,” he proceeded oracularly, “Sir Greville died
suddenly of heart disease, and it was found by his will that he had
passed on the guardianship of the fair Alice to his son--to his _son_,
a young fellow of four-and-twenty, a captain in the Fifth Hussars, and
now with his regiment in India. What do you think of that?”
“Think!” returned his friend, with emphasis; “I think it was meant as
an uncommonly strong hint for the son to marry her.”
“And so he will, be sure. A pretty girl, with four thousand pounds
a-year and no relations, is not to be had every day. I only wish I had
such a chance. But I am afraid that a sub in a marching regiment, with
a pittance of a hundred pounds a year and his pay, would be rather out
of the running.”
“You may say so,” replied Cox candidly, plunging his hands still deeper
into his pockets. “That old dowager would make short work of ‘the likes
of you,’ as they say in the Green Isle.”
“No doubt she would. She is a Miss Fane, an aunt of Fairfax’s, and has
been all autumn at Nice; and is now here on a visit to the Lee-Dormers.
Of course she will keep the fair Alice for her nephew.”
“How do you know all this? How do you know her name is Alice?” inquired
Captain Cox.
“Oh, I know a good many things,” returned his friend, with careless
complacency, resuming his cheroot and a critical inspection of all
passers-by.
His companion gazed at him for some moments with a kind of sleepy
admiration, and then suddenly burst out:
“Is this Fairfax a dark, slim, good-looking fellow? for I recollect a
Fairfax, an A1 rider, winning the Grand Military at Punchestown some
three years ago; he was in the cavalry, I know.”
“Yes, that’s he--Reginald Fairfax. Since then he has been improving
the shining hour in the gorgeous East, tiger-shooting, pig-sticking,
polo-playing, and so on. His regiment is in this season’s reliefs, and,
very likely, on its way home now.”
“But the Fairfax I knew had lots of coin, never went near a lady, and
would be the last man in the world to settle down and get married. He
cared for nothing but sport of all kinds--hunting, racing, shooting,
and so on; and if he is the identical guardian, Miss Saville is likely
to remain Miss Saville as far as he is concerned. Money would be no
temptation to him,” he concluded triumphantly.
“Well,” rejoined Mr. Brown, “if he won’t marry her, someone else will;
it will be all the same to you and me. Here, my cheroot is out; come
along and take a turn in the Strada, and give the natives a treat.”
_Exeunt_, arm-in-arm.
CHAPTER II.
ALICE SAVILLE.
Among the passengers who landed at Southampton from the Peninsular and
Oriental _Rosetta_, one warm August afternoon in the year 1858, was a
stout well-to-do Bengali ayah. Her stoutness spoke for itself, her gold
nose-jewel, heavy seed-pearl earrings, massive necklet, bangles, and
toe-rings amply vouched for her monetary ease. She carried on one arm
a thick black-and-red plaid shawl (her own property), and on the other
a pale, fragile, wistful-looking infant, dressed in a short white
embroidered pelisse, white bonnet, and enormous black sash.
This miserable puny little orphan had lived and thriven, and developed
into the beauty and heiress alluded to by Captains Brown and Cox.
* * * * *
All through her early childhood she had been the care, no less than
the idol, of her grand aunt and uncle Saville, an old maid and an
old bachelor, who resided in an imposing but slightly dilapidated
mansion in the centre of a large wild-looking demesne, near some
unpronounceable village in the south of Ireland.
Here, for nearly ten years, little Alice--thanks to a supposed delicate
constitution--was allowed unlimited freedom from lessons, lectures,
punishments, and all the restraints that young people of her years
specially detest. It was true that her fond aunt made a valiant
attempt to “do lessons” with her for one hour daily; but how often was
that hour curtailed in deference to the pleading of a jovial, indulgent
old grand-uncle?
Allowed her own way almost entirely, she brooked no constraint; for she
had a fine spirit, as her relations complacently remarked. Her violent
bursts of passion were passed by unchecked. It was merely the Saville
temper, as much hereditary, and seemingly as much to be proud of, as
her violet eyes and the far-famed Saville nose. Mounted on her chestnut
pony she would accompany her uncle in his rides or scour solus round
the fields, with her long golden hair streaming in the wind, looking
far more like a spirit than an ordinary Christian child.
“Ay, but isn’t she the beautiful fair creature to be born in that black
country?” the servants and retainers would observe to each other, with
mingled admiration and amazement.
At ten years of age Alice Saville could barely read; wrote large
intoxicated-looking round-hand; knew nought of arithmetic, sewing, or
spelling; and was, without doubt, as pretty and complete a little dunce
as could be found in the whole province of Munster.
Nevertheless, she had _some_ accomplishments. She was a wonderful rider
for her years, and could and would ride any colt on the premises; gaily
careering round and round the lawn, and sticking on as if she were part
and parcel of the animal, to the pride and delight of all beholders.
Moreover, she could jabber Irish, and was well versed in all the old
lore, legends, fairy-tales, and superstitions current within the four
adjoining counties.
Alice had ten years of boundless liberty, and at the end of that time
her uncle died, his estate passed to the next heir, and his sister,
finding herself no longer the mistress of a large liberally-kept
establishment, but, on the contrary, an old maid in straitened
circumstances, removed to a small house in the suburbs of Dublin, and
talked of sending her niece to school.
* * * * *
Alarming rumours now began to reach Sir Greville Fairfax. His ward
was an unkempt, uneducated, bare-legged little wretch, running wild
among the bogs of Ireland. What a terrible picture was conjured up
before his mental vision. He became at once alive to a sense of his
responsibilities, and sought the advice of his most immediate matronly
neighbours without a day’s delay.
“She must be sent abroad!” this was the universal opinion, that rather
disappointed her guardian; for, to tell the truth, he had had hopes
of keeping her under his own roof, with a governess to look after her
manners and education. Since his son had gone to Sandhurst the house
seemed remarkably lonely and silent, and he would have liked the child
of his old friend Maurice Saville to have made her home with him. He
had been her guardian now for more than a year, and he had actually
never seen her. But when he had taken the suffrages of his most
intimate lady-friends this hope was quenched.
“She must be sent abroad” was their verdict; nothing else could
possibly counteract that odious Irish accent. Lady Bertram knew of such
a charming establishment where two of her nieces had been for years.
Three miles from the city of Tours, and within sight of the village of
Roche-Corbon, stood an old gray château, almost buried in woods. The
Revolution of ’92 had most effectually dispersed its former owners,
who surely in their wildest flight of imagination never dreamt that
their venerable roof-tree would become one day a boarding-school for
the English “Mees”--“Not a school,” Madame Daverne affirmed, merely a
few young friends, whose education she undertook to superintend for
the consideration of three hundred pounds per annum; and a very good
investment Madame found that old château, and its rickety obsolete
furniture. It is true that she kept _char à banc_ and a pair of fat
white horses for the use of her young friends. How otherwise could
they go to Tours thrice a-week to receive lessons in music, singing,
painting, riding, fencing, and dancing? How otherwise attend the
English church once a-day on Sunday? But Jules and his horses were not
an expensive item--rent and living were cheap; Madame was a manager, a
strict disciplinarian, and a most excellent teacher.
The château at Rougemont was a delightful place to its young English
inmates, entirely different to a great, formal, stiff house at home,
with so many rooms on each floor, all the same size, and nothing
interesting or unusual from garret to cellar. Here in the château, with
its little pepper-castor towers and corkscrew staircases, they were
constantly making some novel discovery, whether of a secret panel, or
a secret stair, a well, a picture, or a grave. It had even been hinted
that an _oubliette_ was somewhere on the premises. Rougemont far more
resembled the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty, with its large kitchen
and hall, long stone passages and spacious courtyard, than the orthodox
establishment for young ladies. It was surrounded by a garden laid out
in terraces, connected by flights of shallow steps, and ornamented
with clipped yew-trees, closely resembling in shape the toy-trees of
the sheepfolds of our youth, and a wonderful and varied collection of
stone, plaster, and even coloured wooden statues, which burst upon the
eye in the most unlooked-for and surprising manner.
Madame Daverne, the English widow of a French _avocat_, was a little,
thin, middle-aged woman, invariably dressed in gray, and never seen
without her spectacles. She wore her still abundant dark hair in plain
bandeaux--a long-exploded fashion--and no cap. Although her domestic
arrangements were managed on a liberal English scale, and she believed
in plenty of cold water, open windows, and _tea_, still she had lived
sufficiently long in the country of her adoption to have imbibed a very
strong prejudice in favour of _surveillance_, especially as regarded
the young friends under her care. No idle chatter about the boys at
the Lycée, of love, of lovers, was ever permitted; novels and romances
were unknown and unread. The great outside world, with its sayings
and doings, was an unexplored region to Madame Daverne’s pupils.
Nevertheless, her six young friends found a good deal of happiness in
each other’s society; they spent a very busy, healthy life--rambles
in the forest, tennis, _la grâce_, and gardening were their usual
amusements, and every Thursday during summer and autumn they made
expeditions to Loches, Blois, Chinonceaux, Plessis les Tours, Amboise,
or other places of, as Madame observed, “well-known historical
interest.”
More than six years had passed since the wild little Irish imp had
arrived at Rougemont; and in those years what a change had come over
her! How marvellously she had improved! Her gusts of passion were
among the things of the past, her goat-like impulses had been subdued,
her craving to ride every horse she met had long been curbed, her
ignorance--who dares to talk of ignorance in connection with Madame
Daverne’s most brilliant and most accomplished pupil?
Few girls take leave of school and schoolfellows with as much regret
as Alice Saville. Rougemont has been her home, and she has no desire
to leave the shelter of its gray walls and venture out into the world
alone among strangers. She loves every stick and stone about the old
place; every feature in the landscape she looks out on is a dear
familiar friend; from the “Lanterne” itself to venerable Marmoutier,
from Marmoutier to the Cathedral, whence comes the _Angelus_, faintly
audible across the waters of the swiftly-rolling, poplar-fringed Loire.
To-morrow Alice is to leave Rougemont for ever. Miss Fane, her
guardian’s aunt, is at this instant in the city of Tours. To-morrow she
comes to fetch her away; and no child at the zenith of her enjoyment
at a children’s party ever heard the terrible words: “Your nurse has
come,” with a chillier thrill of dismay than did Alice when Madame
Daverne announced to her that her future protector was about to remove
her from her care.
Alice and her friends are sitting on some broken stone steps; she in
the middle, of course, for is not this their last evening together?
and are they not all very fond of Alice, and very very sorry that
she is leaving them? They may well be fond of Alice, for she is the
brightest creature that ever lived, and the life and soul of the
little community; a favourite with everyone, from Madame herself down
to an old lame _femme de ménage_ occasionally called in on domestic
emergencies. Who could sing, and dance, and tell ghost-stories like
her? Who dressed up and acted with the inimitable talent of their
fair-haired schoolfellow? Who was as generous, as unselfish, as ready
to help, to give, or to lend, as Alice? Bright and gay, warm-hearted
and clever, all the inmates of Rougemont know that when she departs she
will leave a blank behind her impossible to fill.
Think of the prettiest girl you ever saw, and it may give you some
faint idea of Alice Saville, as she sat on the topmost step but
one, with her hands locked round her knees (an easy if not graceful
attitude), and her eyes gazing down on the valley of the Loire for the
last time. Had your beauty mischievous violet eyes--eyes whose colour
was a mystery to many, owing to their rapid change of expression and
their sweeping black lashes; quantities of golden-brown wavy hair
rippling and curling away from her forehead, a roseleaf complexion, a
purely Grecian profile, and seventeen summers?
* * * * *
The farewells have been said three months ago; many tears were
shed--and dried; and now the curtain rises upon new scenes. Touraine
and its picturesque old châteaux and dim green woods fades away, to
give place to the narrow, sun-scorched, steppy streets of Valetta.
In a cool spacious apartment, overlooking a Moorish courtyard, filled
with orange-trees in green tubs and various semi-tropical plants, Alice
and Miss Fane are sitting reading. The post has just come in, and Miss
Fane is revelling in an abundant supply of letters, which flutter
and rustle in an aggravating manner as the cool sea-breeze steals in
and plays with them, and seems to try to snatch from their recipient
the full enjoyment of their contents. The breeze plays tenderly and
lovingly with Alice Saville’s stray little curls, but she reads on and
takes no notice. Nothing short of a “Levanter” would rouse her from
her study--“Ivanhoe.” The world of fiction has been opened to her at
last! Miss Fane thinks that “there is no harm in the Waverley novels,
with the exception of the ‘Heart of Midlothian;’” _that_ is carefully
put aside; any of the others Alice may read; and Alice is rapidly
devouring them. Her crewel-work lies neglected on the floor; her cup
of tea stands at her elbow untasted; and all her thoughts are entirely
engrossed in the storming of Torquilstone Castle.
Miss Fane and Alice had spent the autumn in visiting Rome, Florence,
and Nice, and were spending a few weeks in Malta before returning
to London, where they were to reside together; and Alice was to
make her _début_ the ensuing season. She found Valetta altogether
delightful. Fresh from her studies, with the history of the Crusades,
and of the Knights of Rhodes and Malta still green in her memory, the
half-mediæval half-oriental aspect of the place fascinated her beyond
measure. Many an hour did she spend in the old Cathedral of St. John,
endeavouring to decipher the tombs with which its numerous chapels
are paved. Her knowledge of French and Italian helped her to find out
the meaning of their Latin inscriptions, and many and various were
the stories she mentally wove about those valiant, war-worn, monkish
soldiers lying beneath her feet. “Exploring” was Alice’s favourite
recreation, as she was not, strictly speaking, “out” as yet; and balls,
dancelettes, and yachting picnics were unknown pleasures. The long
narrow streets, the “Nix Mangiare” stairs, the odd steep ascents, were
an amusing and delightful novelty to her light active feet, but a sore
detested pilgrimage to Miss Fane’s gaunt old bones. The mysterious
little shops that line these queer streets of stairs were another
perennial source of interest, including the sleek cats that sat sentry
in almost every doorway. The Maltese themselves were capital subjects
for sketches or study; whether they lay flat on their backs, basking in
the sun, with their caps pulled over their faces, or lounged in lazy
groups about the corners of picturesque old houses, or drove their
huge betasselled mules up and down the steep stradas, they were ever
and always a fresh novelty to Alice. She little knew that she herself
outrivalled the “fried monks” as one of the “sights of Malta;” or that
she was the object of general interest and admiration, as, escorted
by her austere-looking chaperon, she roamed about, satisfying the
curiosity of youth and the craving of a highly imaginative mind.
Miss Fane had been working steadily through her correspondence. Long
crossed letters, resembling lattice-work, occupied her for the best
part of an hour. At length she came to one in a bold, black, manly
hand, not crossed, not even filling two pages. She knit her brows more
than once as she perused it, then slowly folded it, put it in its
envelope, and fastened a look that a basilisk might have envied, on her
companion.
Glancing up from her novel with a frank fearless countenance, she
encountered Miss Fane’s cold gray eyes critically surveying her, over
the top of her tortoiseshell pince-nez. To describe Miss Fane more
particularly, she was a prim, dignified, elderly lady, seated bolt
upright on the most uncompromising chair in the room. She had well-cut
aristocratic features; a high arrogant-looking nose; rather a spiteful
mouth; iron-gray sausage curls, carefully arranged on either temple,
and surmounted by a sensibly sedate cap. A very handsome brown silk
dress, as stiff as herself, completed her costume.
Not being overburdened with this world’s goods, owing to the failure of
a bank in which most of her fortune had been invested, she had accepted
a very handsome allowance and the post of chaperon to her nephew’s
ward. If she could have had this immense increase to her income
without the ward, so much the better; girls were not to her taste, but
though narrow-minded, frigid, and intensely selfish, she was strictly
conscientious, according to her lights, and was thoroughly prepared to
do her duty by her young companion.
“Alice,” she said, glancing from Alice to the note she held in her
hand, and then back again with an air of hesitation, “I have just heard
from my nephew, your guardian, you know. He expects to leave India
immediately; and if the _Euphrates_ stops here for coaling, he says he
will come and look us up. Would you like to read his letter? Perhaps I
ought not to show it to you; but it will give you some idea of the kind
of young man he is.”
“Thank you,” replied his ward, stretching out a slim ready hand; “if
you really think I _may_, Miss Fane,” she added interrogatively,
whereupon Miss Fane handed her her nephew’s effusion, which ran as
follows:
“Cheetapore.
“MY DEAR AUNT MARY,
“I got your last letter all right. I did not answer it at once as I
had nothing to say, and am no scribe at the best of times. I quite
agree with you, that you had much better take entire charge of Miss
Saville now she has left school; but why not have kept her there
another year or two? Your suggestion is excellent, and you will
make a much more fitting guardian than my unworthy self. I do not
know what on earth I should have done with her if you had not come
to the rescue. I cannot imagine what possessed my father to leave
me, of all people, guardian to a girl. Of course I shall look after
her money affairs, etc., but I hope you will take her off my hands
completely. No doubt she will marry soon, as you say she is pretty,
and if the _parti_ is anything like a decent fellow, and comes up
to the mark in the way of settlements, you may take my consent
for granted--I shall say: ‘Bless you, my children,’ with unmixed
satisfaction. I am bringing you some shawls, curios, etc., to make
amends for my shortcomings as a correspondent. We sail from Bombay on
the twenty-second, and if we coal at Malta I shall look you up. What
in the world took you there? It strikes me you are becoming a regular
‘globetrotter’ in your old age.
“Your affectionate Nephew,
“R. M. FAIRFAX.”
“What a funny letter, or note rather!” exclaimed Alice; “only two sides
of the paper. The Fifth Hussars have a very pretty crest; and what a
good hand he writes! He certainly seems very anxious to get rid of
_me_, does he not, Miss Fane? I am afraid I am a great infliction,” she
added, colouring, “but I will do my best to trouble him as little as
possible.”
“I will make you a much more suitable guardian,” returned Miss Fane
complacently. “I do not know what my brother-in-law could have been
dreaming about when he made his will. Poor man! he naturally thought he
had yet many years to live, and never contemplated your having such
a preposterously young guardian. Reginald cares for nothing beyond
his profession--horses, racing, and men’s society. My brother-in-law
spoiled him as a boy, and allowed him his own way completely, though
I believe he was a good son and very much attached to his father.
Greville was a weak-minded man,” she pursued, shaking her head
reflectively, “governed first by his wife and then by his son. Reginald
has always been his own master, and is headstrong and overbearing to
the last degree.”
“You don’t like him, Miss Fane?” inquired Alice, slightly raising her
eyebrows.
“Ah well!” hesitatingly, “I don’t exactly say that; I have seen so
little of him since he was a boy; and then he was, without exception,
the most troublesome, mischievous, impudent urchin I ever came across;
always in trouble, falling out of trees, or downstairs, or off his
pony, playing practical jokes, fighting the gardener’s big boys, riding
his father’s hunters on the sly. He kept everyone in hot water. I spent
six _months_ at Looton, and added six _years_ to my life,” concluded
Miss Fane, nodding her head with much solemnity.
The truth was, Miss Fane had gone to Looton on a very long visit,
with the intention of remaining permanently as virtual mistress.
Her easy-going brother-in-law would have made no objection, but her
impish nephew immediately saw through her object, and made her life
unbearable. His practical jokes were chiefly at her expense, and the
way in which he teased her beloved poodle was simply intolerable. She
had to give up her intention of remaining, and leave what she had
fully intended to have been a most luxurious home.
This she had never forgotten, nor forgiven; her feelings on the
subject had been stifled, but they smouldered. She never cared for
her nephew--never would; he was far too like his mother--her handsome
stepsister--whom she had detested with all her heart. Nevertheless,
she found it to her advantage to be on apparently good terms with her
liberal and wealthy relative, who had not the remotest idea of the real
feelings his aunt secretly cherished towards him.
* * * * *
About a week later the _Euphrates_ came into Malta, late one evening.
Miss Fane and the Lee-Dormers were dining at the Governor’s; Alice, not
being “out,” had tea _solus_ at home.
Time hung heavily on her hands; her book was stupid, she was not in
the humour for music, and it was too early to go to bed. Opening the
window, she stepped out on the balcony that ran all round the house and
overlooked the courtyard. Here she remained for a long time, her chin
resting on her hand, indulging in a day-dream--“in maiden meditation,
fancy free.” The air was laden with the perfume of twenty different
flowers; but the fragrant orange-trees in their tubs down below
overpowered all.
“How delicious!” said Alice to herself, sniffing the air. “If I am
ever married--which is not very likely--I shall have a wreath of real
orange-blossoms, always supposing I can get them.”
Presently she turned her attention to the stars, and endeavoured to
make out some of the constellations, not very successfully, it must be
confessed. She listened to the distant driving through Valetta.
“Belated sightseers returning to their steamers,” she thought.
Just then a carriage drove rapidly into their quiet street, and seemed
to stop close by.
“It can’t be Miss Fane come home already; they are barely at coffee
yet,” she mentally remarked, as she settled herself for another reverie.
After a while, feeling rather chilly, she pushed open the window and
stepped back into the sitting-room. For a moment the light dazzled her
eyes. That moment past, what was her amazement to find a handsome young
man, in undress cavalry uniform, standing on the rug with his back to
the fire!
The surprise was apparently mutual. However, he at once came forward
and said:
“Miss Saville, I am sure. The servant said my aunt was out, but that
you were at home. As the room was empty, I concluded you had gone to
bed.”
“When did you arrive?” she asked, offering her hand.
“We came in about two hours ago, and are going to coal all night--a
most detestable but necessary performance.”
“Have you been here long?” was her next question, as she seated herself
near the table.
“About twenty minutes. I have been enjoying this English-looking fire
immensely. You must have found it rather chilly in the verandah, I
should say.”
A thought flitted through his mind--“Was there a Romeo to this lovely
Juliet?” He looked down at her with a quick keen glance. No; the idea
was absurd.
“What were you doing out there this cool evening?” he added.
“Nothing,” she replied shyly. She could not bring herself to tell this
brilliant stranger that she had been simply star-gazing.
“A regular bread-and-butter miss,” he thought, as he pulled his
moustache with a leisurely patronising look.
Bread-and-butter or not, she was an extremely pretty girl, and his
ward. The idea tickled him immensely. He put his hand before his mouth
to conceal an involuntary smile.
“Vernon or Harcourt would give a good deal to be in my shoes, I fancy,”
he said to himself, as he took a seat at the opposite side of the table
from his charge.
Alice having mastered her first astonishment, felt that it behoved her
to make some attempt at conversation, and to endeavour to entertain
this unexpected guest, pending Miss Fane’s return. She offered
him refreshments, coffee, etc., which he declined, having dined
previously to coming on shore. With small-talk, Maltese curios, and
the never-failing topic--weather, she managed to while away the time.
At first her voice was very low, as it always was when she was nervous
or embarrassed, but she soon recovered herself, and played the part of
hostess in a manner that astonished the man who, half-an-hour before,
had called her (mentally) “a bread-and-butter miss.” Seven years on the
Continent had given her at least easy polished manners. She had none of
the _gaucherie_ so common to an English girl of her own age, brought up
exclusively at home. It seemed to her that Sir Reginald was _shy!_--he
sat opposite to her playing with a paperknife, and by no means
properly supporting his share of the conversation. Her good-natured
efforts amused him prodigiously. He was sufficiently sharp to see that
she thought him bashful and diffident, whereas he was only lazy; he
preferred to allow ladies, whenever they were good enough to talk to
him, to carry on the most of the conversation, a few monosyllables, and
his eloquent dark eyes, contributing his share. Poor deluded Alice! she
little knew that the apparently diffident young man was the life and
soul of his mess, and that shyness was unknown to him (except by name)
since he had been out of his nurse’s arms.
Conversation presently became somewhat brisker; they exchanged
experiences of Germany and India. They discussed books, horses, and
music, and at the end of an hour Alice felt as if she had known him
for at least a year. Certainly they had made as much progress in
each other’s confidence as if they had gone through a London season
together, when a few brief utterances are gasped between the pauses in
a waltz, or whispered on the stairs, or interrupted by some spoil-sport
in the Row.
As for Reginald, he not only felt completely at home, but, what was
worse, most thoroughly bewitched.
“I’m never going to be so mad as to lose my head about this grown-up
child, am I?” he indignantly asked himself. “I who have hitherto been
invulnerable, as far as the tender passion is concerned. No! not
likely. If I can’t face a pretty girl without immediately feeling
smitten, the sooner I renounce the whole sex the better.”
Whilst he was thinking thus, he was to all appearance immersed in a
series of views of Rome and Florence, and listening to a description of
palaces, churches, and tombs.
There was not the slightest _soupçon_ of a flirtation between this
couple. Sir Reginald talked to his ward as he would to his grandmother,
and there was a look in her clear deep gray eyes that would have
abashed the most thorough-paced male flirt in Christendom--which he
was very far from being--a look half of childish innocence, half of
newly-awakened maiden dignity--
Standing where the rivers meet,
Womanhood and childhood sweet.
Miss Fane duly returned, and accorded her nephew a warm welcome
and a kiss, which he very reluctantly received, for she had also a
_moustache_! She treated him besides to a most _recherché_ little
supper, and at twelve o’clock he took his departure, faithfully
promising to look them out a suitable house in London, and with an
uneasy conviction that he had met his fate.
* * * * *
I need scarcely tell the astute reader that the acquaintance thus
formed shortly ripened into something else: a few dances--a few rides
in the Row--a water-party--the Cup-day at Ascot--finally a moonlight
picnic, and the thing was settled.
Before the end of the season the following announcement appeared in
_The Times_:
“On the 25th inst., at St. George’s, Hanover Square, by the Lord
Bishop of Bermuda, assisted by the Rev. H. Fane, Sir Reginald Mostyn
Fairfax, Bart., Captain Fifth Hussars, of Looton Park, Bordershire,
to Alice Eveleen, only child of the late Major-General Saville.”
Sir Reginald expressed his intention of retiring, much to the disgust
of his brother-officers, who said they thought Fairfax was the last
man who would have married and left them. “You of all people too!
After the way you used to be down on other fellows who fell in love,
or got married--it’s perfectly shameful! You were actually the means
of nipping several very promising affairs in the bud, and now you are
going to get married yourself. What excuse have you to make?” cried an
indignant hussar.
“I say,” replied Sir Reginald complacently, “‘that he jests at
scars who never felt a wound.’ That was my case. Now I’m a reformed
character.”
But when at the drawing-room, the opera, and elsewhere, the Fifth saw
the future Lady Fairfax, even the most hardened bachelor among them
frankly admitted that “Rex,” as they called him, had a very fair excuse.
After their honeymoon the Fairfaxes went down to Looton, where they
were considered the handsomest and happiest couple within three
counties.
CHAPTER III.
LOOTON PARK.
Looton is a large, ugly, uncomfortable old place, similar to hundreds
of others scattered over the British isles. No one knows exactly when
it was built, but everyone is aware that it is surrounded by the very
best land in Bordershire. The house stands in a large well-timbered
park, and is approached by two avenues from opposite directions.
Seated at the library-table, with his elbows well squared, a young
man of about one-and-twenty is dashing off a letter. He is Geoffrey
Saville, first cousin to Lady Fairfax, and has lately joined the Fifth
Hussars--so lately that he is still doing riding-school, from which a
fortnight’s visit to Looton has afforded him temporary emancipation.
He is a slim, bright-eyed, loose-limbed boy, with small impudent hazel
eyes, an aristocratic nose, and light-brown hair, of which one utterly
unreasonable lock always sticks up on the top of his head, cut, and
comb, and oil as he will. He is possessed of the highest of spirits,
the best of appetites, and unlimited assurance. He is gay, gentlemanly,
and generous, and swears by his new cousin, but old friend, Sir
Reginald Fairfax.
Here is his letter:
“MY DEAR NOBBS,
“I promised to send you a line to let you know how I was getting on.
Rex and Alice make no end of a good host and hostess; the feeding is
superior, and as to horses, I am ‘all found.’ Rex mounts me as he
mounts himself, and I take it out of his cattle fairly.
“We have had two or three good runs with the R. B. H. and Overstones,
especially last Tuesday; found at Heplow--(you don’t know where
that is, but never mind)--and ran to Clumber, a distance of eight
miles as the crow flies, with only one slight check. The pace was
prime, the grief awful. The fields were large and airy, but some of
the fences, notably the bullfinches, were real raspers. The finish
was highly select--Alice, Reginald, two cavalry men, a parson, the
huntsman, and yours obediently. Alice goes like a bird; and in a neat
double-breasted brown habit and pot-hat to match, and mounted on a
clipping bay thoroughbred, looks very ‘fit’ indeed. Rex pilots her,
and they make a very fair average example of the field. You know what
a customer he is. She follows him as if she had a spare neck in her
pocket, and charges wood and water as boldly as he does himself.
“Talking of water, there is a brute of a river here, called the Swale,
which winds about in the most mysterious manner. You come across it
when you least expect it. I have already been in twice! I paid my
second visit last Friday. I was steaming along close to the pack, when
what should I see in front of me but this sneak of a river. I rammed
in the spurs, and thundered down to it as hard as I could go, but I
had already bucketed the old horse too freely: he bore down as if he
meant business, stopped short, and shot me over his head into about
seven feet of muddy water. I’ll leave you to imagine the figure I was
when I picked myself out!
“I created a fine sensation all along the Queen’s highway _en route_
home. Alice and Reginald have never stopped chaffing me ever since.
You ask me how he plays the _rôle_ of married man? Capitally, my dear
fellow; and as to your unkind insinuation that I must be rather in
the way, considering they are so recently married, you never were
more mistaken in your life. They are not a bit a spooney couple; at
least I never see any billing or cooing, thank goodness, and I favour
them with a good deal of my society; but anyone can see with half an
eye that each thinks the other perfection, and that they suit down to
the ground. He has got a fortnight’s domestic privilege leave to go
and see poor Maitland of the Blues, who is dying at Cannes; they were
great chums always, and at Eton together. Meanwhile I remain here and
help old Miss Fane (a bitter specimen of the unappropriated blessing)
to take care of the fair châtelaine; and as I am to exercise the
hunters, and have the run of the stable, I am promising myself five
days a week between the two packs, and the very cream of hunting. I
wish you would go to Thomas and hurry him with my tops, and run me in
for another fortnight’s leave, as enclosed. If the chief looks grumpy,
say I have broken my collarbone. I’ll do as much for you another time.
“Yours in clover,
“GEOFFREY SAVILLE.”
CHAPTER IV.
A PRACTICAL JOKE.
Sir Reginald left for Cannes the end of November, intending to spend
a week there, and to be home, of course, long before Christmas.
Meanwhile, a plot he little dreamt of had been hatched for his benefit.
A storm was brewing; in fact, a regular cyclone threatened his domestic
atmosphere.
When he was in India with the Fifth Hussars, among his few lady
acquaintances outside the regiment there was one who had taken an
immense fancy to him--a fancy he by no means reciprocated. She was
the daughter of an old Commissariat officer, who had survived to enjoy
his off-reckonings and settled down at Cheetapore. “After thirty-eight
years of India, he could not stand England,” he said; “one winter there
would finish him.”
Miss Mason had been already four seasons on the plains. The climate was
beginning to tarnish her beauty--the dark Italian style, her friends
declared. Her foes, on the other hand, did not scruple to accuse
her of “four annas in the rupee”--native blood, in fact. She was,
nevertheless, one of the belles of the station. Time was flying, as
I have said before, her good looks were waning, and she was becoming
extremely anxious to be settled. Fully determined to marry well,
thoroughly bold and unscrupulous, and believing firmly in Thackeray’s
dictum, “that any woman who has not positively a hump can marry any man
she pleases,” she looked about her, to see whom she would have.
One of the Fifth Hussars for choice; they were mostly well-born, and
all rich. After some hesitation, she made up her mind that Captain
Fairfax (as he then was) was perhaps the most desirable of the lot. A
future baronet, of distinguished appearance, young, rich, and extremely
popular, what more could she wish for? Not much, indeed.
But he rarely mixed in ladies’ society; and there was a certain
_hauteur_ about him--a kind of “touch-me-not” air--that inclined her
to think he might give her some trouble. But then he was worth it. How
good-looking he was--his keen dark eyes, regular features, and thick
moustache, together with his slight well-knit figure, quite fulfilled
her beau-ideal of a handsome, gallant hussar.
So she prepared to lay siege to him, and at once commenced to bring her
heavy guns into action. But it was in vain--all in vain. It was useless
to waylay him in the ride of a morning; with a hurried bow he cantered
on. It was equally futile to get a friendly chaperon to escort her to
cavalry parades on Wednesday mornings, for after drill he invariably
went off to stables. Polo, at which he was a great performer, was also
a blank, as whenever it was over, instead of lounging and talking to
the lady spectators, he mounted his hack and disappeared. At the races
she was more successful, and began to think she was making way at last.
The Hussars had a tent, and, being one of the hosts, Sir Reginald was
brought in contact with her repeatedly. But what she attributed to
special attention was merely the courtesy with which he treated all the
sex.
At balls she danced with him several times; but she could see that
he much preferred dancing to talking, and grudged every moment that
she wasted in conversation. However, “Rome was not built in a day.”
“Patience,” she thought, “and I shall be Lady Fairfax yet. He is no
flirt, and does not devote himself to any lady here, married or single.
All this is a point in _my_ favour,” she reflected. “He only wants
drawing out; he is reserved and cold, but never fear, I shall thaw
him.” She invited him repeatedly to her father’s house, invitations
which he steadily and politely declined, and still not discouraged,
made a point of stopping and accosting him wherever they met, were it
on the road, coming out of church, or at the band. She endeavoured to
arrange playful bets on trifling subjects, and made frequent allusions
to the language of flowers; forced button-holes on him, and finally
calling him to her carriage as he was riding past at the band, one
evening--it was dark, and he fondly hoped to disappear unnoticed--she
entreated him to dismount and have a chat.
“I cannot--very many thanks--as this is guest-night, and I have some
fellows coming to dinner, and it is now”--looking at his watch--“a
quarter to seven.”
“And what of that?” she returned playfully; “surely you can spare _me_
a few minutes?”
Dead silence, during which her victim was revolving in his brain his
chances of escape.
“Have you any sisters, Captain Fairfax?” she inquired, apropos of
nothing.
“No; I wish I had.”
“You would be very fond of them, I am sure”--effusively.
“I daresay I would.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed, leaning over and patting his horse’s back
caressingly, and looking up into his face with her bold black
eyes--“ah, Captain Fairfax, how I should like to be your sister!”
With an imperceptible shudder he replied in his most frosty tone:
“You do me far too much honour, Miss Mason.”
“Not at all,” she said impressively; “_nothing_ is too good for you, in
my opinion.”
“You are very kind to say so, I am sure,” he replied, much embarrassed.
“I must really be off,” gathering up his reins.
“Stay, stay--one second,” she entreated. “You remember the cracker we
pulled together at the General’s on Monday, and I would not show you
the motto? I was ashamed.”
“No doubt you were; some wretched, vulgar rubbish”--preparing to depart.
“No, no, not that,” she cried eagerly, “only--only--you will understand
all when I give it to you--when _I_ give it to _you_, you understand. I
know you will not think it either wretched or vulgar when you read it.
Do not look at it till you get home and are quite--quite _alone_,” she
added, pressing an envelope into his most reluctant hand.
“All right,” he replied, taking off his hat and rapidly riding away,
only too glad to escape.
In the privacy of his own room he opened the mysterious envelope, and
held its contents--a narrow slip of paper--to the lamp. It ran as
follows:
My hand, my heart, my life, are thine;
Thy hand, thy heart, thy life, are mine.
“Not that I know of,” he exclaimed fiercely, and colouring to the roots
of his hair. “The woman must be insane,” he muttered, tearing the motto
into fragments and scattering them on the floor. “She could not really
think I cared two straws about her. If it is a joke, as of course
it is,” he proceeded, “it is by no means a nice one, or one that a
thoroughly lady-like girl would ever dream of practising. If she _were_
my sister,” he continued, with a grim smile, “I would give her a piece
of my mind that would astonish her weak nerves. God forbid she was any
relation to me!” he added fervently. “I’ll give her an uncommonly wide
berth for the future.”
This mental resolve of his was most rigidly carried out. He avoided
Miss Mason in an unmistakable manner, and held aloof from society on
her account. It took her some time to realise this painful fact, but
when she did grasp it her whole soul rose in arms; and hearing about
the same period a remark he had made about her--viz. “that she might
be considered a fine-looking woman, but was not at all his style,
and that he thought her awfully bad form.” This, though breathed in
confidence over a midnight cheroot, _en route_ from a dance where Miss
Mason had been making herself more than usually conspicuous--came
round to her ears, and acted like a match in gunpowder, oil in flame.
The most venomous hatred took the place of her former admiration, and
an insatiate craving for revenge filled her fair bosom--a revenge she
fully determined to gratify on the earliest possible occasion.
Time went on, the Hussars left for England, and the wedding of Alice
and Reginald found its way into the _Home News_. “Now,” thought she,
“I will have my innings. I will drop a shell into his camp that will
astonish him, to say the least of it, and I’ll light the match at once.”
* * * * *
Miss Mason’s dearest friend and inveterate ally was spending the day
with her. It was October, and although the hot weather was a thing
of the past, yet it was still warm, and occasionally muggy. Tiffin
concluded, the two ladies retired, Indian fashion, to Miss Mason’s
room, and there donned cool white dressing-gowns, and subsided into
long cane-lounges. For some time the monotonous creaking of the
punkah-rope alone broke the silence.
Presently Miss Mason said: “Harriet Chambers, I have been a good
friend to you. Have I not stood by you through thick and thin, and
helped you out of one or two nasty scrapes?”
“You have indeed, dear Charlotte,” replied Mrs. Chambers in grateful
accents, and with a visibly heightened colour.
“Well now, I want you to do something for me--only a trifle after all,
but still I would rather trust you than anyone.”
“What can I do? Whatever it is, I shall be only too glad,” returned
Mrs. Chambers effusively.
“Well, my dear, I’ll soon tell you. You recollect Captain Fairfax of
the Hussars?”
“Yes, of course I do; a dark young man, who won the Arconum cup, and
spent all his time out shikarring.”
“Exactly! but he found time enough to be very rude to me and I wish to
pay him off somehow.”
“But what did he do?” asked Mrs. Chambers, her curiosity aroused.
“Never mind what he did--he treated me shamefully, cruelly,
abominably,” returned Miss Mason with venomous _empressement_ and a
noble indifference to facts.
“Well, at any rate, he has left the country now,” put in Mrs. Chambers
soothingly.
“But a letter can always reach him. I know his address at home. He
is just married, and I was thinking of giving them a little bone
of contention to amuse themselves with--something to ruffle up the
dead, flat monotony of the honeymoon. For instance, a sham marriage
certificate would give her a good fright.”
“Oh! but, my dear Charlotte,” gasped her friend, raising herself to a
sitting posture, “you are joking. You would not think of such a thing.”
“Would I not?” replied Charlotte, with an unpleasant laugh and shake of
her head. “I have thought of it, and, what is more, I mean to do it.”
“But you might cause fearful mischief; and, besides, I am sure it’s
forgery,” Mrs. Chambers added with an awe-struck voice.
“Not a bit of it,” said Miss Mason lightly. “I have laid all my plans.
Listen,” she continued, sitting up. “Oh, bother these mosquitoes,”
waving her handkerchief to and fro. “Now attend to me. You know the
clerk of All Saints’, a stupid, drunken old wretch, who would sell
his soul for ten rupees. I have bribed him to let me have the church
register and a lot of spare printed copies of certificates--blank
forms, you know. I pretend I want to look out something for a friend.
He brought the register here this morning, and I am to have it ready
for him when he calls after dark; for, although there are very few
weddings--more’s the pity--and no one troubles about the register at
All Saints’, yet such books are not supposed to go travelling about in
this style. Here it is,” and from beneath the mattress of her bed she
produced a thick calf-bound volume. “Here are the printed forms,” she
continued, getting up and busying herself arranging a writing-table,
which she pushed towards her friend, whose eyes followed her movements
in dumb amazement. “Now,” she said, “Harriet, you are to copy a
certificate of marriage on one of these blank strips, do you see.”
“I!” cried Mrs. Chambers. “Good heavens, Charlotte, you are out of your
mind! It would be downright forgery. You are mad to think of it.”
“Forgery! Folly--it’s only a joke. After the first glance, no woman in
her senses would see it in any other light. It’s a joke, I tell you--a
_joke_, and I know,” she added, looking her friend straight in the
face, “that for several _reasons_ you will not refuse me.”
“Oh, but really--really,” faltered her victim.
“Yes, but really you will do it. Do you think I would ask you to do
anything that was not right--that was illegal? Come, come, Harriet,
here is a chair. You imitate writing so splendidly, you will have to
oblige me, and I’ll give you my gold swami earrings into the bargain,
besides all the good offices I have already done for you.”
Finding herself in the presence of a vigorous will, Mrs. Chambers,
who was weak-minded and indolent, eventually succumbed, and very
reluctantly settled to her task. The last marriage certificate was
used as a copy, and splendidly imitated by Mrs. Chambers; the name of
Reginald Fairfax was substituted for the man, and Fanny Cole for the
spinster. The witnesses’ and the clergyman’s signatures were added. The
only name that was really forged was the clergyman’s: “A correct copy
of certificate of marriage as signed and attested by me.--HUGH PARRY.”
This was a facsimile; the remaining part of the certificate was in a
round clerkly hand, as if copied by that functionary. It was finished,
and, villanous document as it was, was in every respect to all
appearance an authorised and legal copy of a certificate of marriage.
Miss Mason having quieted her friend’s scruples by assuring her
over and over again that it was “only a joke,” and having refreshed
her with five-o’clock tea and half a brandy-and-soda, and sworn her
to profoundest secrecy, dismissed her tool with much affectionate
demonstration. She then locked up the book and papers and went for a
drive, with the calm conviction that she had done a good afternoon’s
work. The following day an anonymous letter containing the mock
certificate was despatched to Lady Fairfax.
I should here mention that when the old clerk called for the register
and his ten rupees, and got them, he hastened to the Bazaar and laid in
a fine supply of arrack, which he conveyed to his solitary “go down.”
His orgie was on such an extensive scale that when he upset a lighted
kerosine lamp he was perfectly incapable of stirring or extinguishing
it, so he and his house and the marriage register were all consumed
together. This occurrence was related to Miss Mason a few evenings
afterwards at the band, as one of the items of local “gup;” also
that the church register was missing--had recently and mysteriously
disappeared; and that the general belief was that the defunct clerk had
made away with it.
Miss Mason received the intelligence as a polite but totally
disinterested listener; but as she rolled along the dusty roads in her
carriage, on her way home, she thought all the time of her little joke
and its probable consequences.
“‘Sweet is revenge, especially to women.’ I forget who wrote that;
but it’s true,” she murmured. “Mine is even more complete than I had
expected. Mr. Parry is dead; the clerk and the register burnt; the
witnesses, John and Jane Fox, gone to Australia nearly two years ago.
Clear yourself if you can, Sir Reginald Fairfax; I’ll not help you; and
I think you will find that I have given you a difficult task.”
Such were Miss Mason’s reflections, and her amiability for the next
two or three days was as surprising as it was unbounded. Occasionally
she would lean back in her low capacious Singapore chair, drop her book
in her lap, and indulge in a long and evidently delightful reverie,
bewildering her foolish old father by sundry fits of wholly unexplained
suppressed laughter.
“What ails you, Charlotte, my girl? What’s the matter?” he asked once,
somewhat timidly.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing that would interest you, daddy; only a little bit
of a practical joke that I have played on somebody.”
CHAPTER V.
THE THUNDERBOLT.
Alice, Miss Fane, and Geoffrey were seated at the breakfast-table one
drizzling December morning. The post had just come in. Geoffrey, having
unlocked the bag, was distributing the letters.
“One for you, Miss Fane; looks like a bill,” said he mischievously.
“Two young-lady letters for you, Alice, and one from Fairfax, of
course. I wonder he does not write thrice a day, and telegraph at
intervals: ‘How are you, my darling? Are you thinking of me, my
treasure?’ What will you give for it? It’s a pretty thick one,”
feeling it critically. “See what it is to be a bride,” and he chanted:
“They were never weary; they seemed each day
Fresh ecstasy to imbibe;
And they gazed in each other’s eyes in a way
That I really can’t describe.
And once it was my lot to see
What shocked my sensitive taste:
They were sitting as close as wax, and he
Had his arm about her waist.”
“That you never did, you rude boy. Here, give me my letter at once,
sir!” cried Alice, half rising.
“Madam, take it. You need not be blushing like that; it makes me quite
hot to look at you. After all, you never did shock my sensitive taste
as yet, and I hope you never will. Now for the newspapers,” diving
again into the bag. “Halloa! here’s another letter, Alice--from India,
I declare, and a good fat one too. Who is your correspondent--a former
disconsolate admirer, writing from the East to upbraid you with your
perfidy?”
“Nonsense, Geoff; how can you talk such utter rubbish? I’m sure I don’t
know who it can be from,” turning the letter over. “Cheetapore! I know
no one there.”
“Well, look sharp and open it, and you’ll soon see. Most likely a bill
of Reginald’s. I thought he was a ready-money man,” said Geoffrey
austerely.
Alice cut the envelope cautiously, and drew out a thin note and a long
slip of paper. The note ran as follows:
“MADAM,
“The enclosed will show you that Sir Reginald Fairfax is not _your_
husband. He has deceived you as he has deceived others. His quiet
exterior conceals his real disposition. He is a wolf in sheep’s
clothing.
“ONE WHO KNOWS HIM WELL.”
Greatly bewildered, and with trembling hands, Alice unfolded the
enclosure, and gazed at it for some time before she exactly understood
what she was looking at.
Copy of Certificate of Marriage, All Saints’ Church, Cheetapore.
Reginald Mostyn Fairfax, Bachelor--Fanny Cole, Spinster.
Hugh Parry, Clerk.
Marie Fox and John Fox, Witnesses.
White as a sheet, and trembling like a leaf, Alice handed this, along
with the letter, to Miss Fane.
“What does it mean, Miss Fane?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
Miss Fane, having adjusted her pince-nez carefully, took both and read
them, and as she read her countenance changed from purple to yellow,
from yellow to purple, Alice meanwhile devouring her with her eyes.
“I cannot make it out,” she said at last. “It seems to be a perfectly
correct copy of a certificate of marriage, does it not, Geoffrey?”
Geoffrey stretched out a ready hand for the letter and certificate; but
the first glance at the letter had the same appalling effect on him
as on the two ladies. After a dead silence, during which the ticking
of the clock and falling of the cinders were distinctly audible, he
plucked up courage to say:
“A hoax, of course.”
“How are we to know that?” asked Miss Fane, drawing herself up.
“I’ll take it up to London and show it to some first-rate solicitor and
ask his opinion; it’s only four hours by rail. Will that do?” pushing
back his chair and looking at Alice interrogatively.
“Yes, do, my dear Geoff; and go at once,” she cried eagerly; “for
though I know it is a ridiculous mistake, still I feel quite odd and
frightened. But perhaps,” she added, after a moment’s pause, “we should
wait till Reginald comes home the day after to-morrow; he will clear it
up. Yes, second thoughts are best; we will wait, thank you, Geoff, all
the same.”
“No, no, my dear!” said Miss Fane, emphatically, “the sooner the
matter is cleared up the better. I must beg you to take my advice on
the subject as a person much older and more experienced than either
of you. Geoffrey can easily catch the ten-o’clock train. It is now,”
looking at the clock, “a quarter-past nine.”
After a short discussion, during which the elder lady carried all
before her, it was settled that Geoffrey was to start at once; so he
quickly bolted his breakfast, and within half-an-hour was speeding up
to London as fast as an express could take him. Thinking it better
to consult some older head, he drove from Waterloo Station to Wessex
Gardens, where Mr. and Mrs. Mayhew, Sir Reginald’s first cousins,
lived. The Honorable Mark and his wife were at luncheon when Geoffrey
entered, and without any beating about the bush bluntly told his
errand. They examined the certificate with the greatest incredulity,
and laughed at the idea of “Rex” of all people committing bigamy, “he
so upright, so honourable, a man of stainless character, who had never
been known to make a love affair in his life till he met Alice,” they
chimed alternately. “The idea was really too absurd; they wondered
Geoffrey could lend himself to such a wild-goose chase.” Nevertheless
there was the certificate, “and just to show that it is a forgery
and to relieve Miss Fane’s mind, you and Geoff will take it to some
respectable solicitors and quietly ask their opinion,” said Mr. Mayhew.
So they took it to Bagge and Keepe, an intensely correct firm; and Mr.
Bagge, after carefully scrutinising the certificate for some seconds,
unhesitatingly pronounced it to be a genuine copy, and swore to the
handwriting of the Rev. Hugh Parry, who had been one of their clients
for years. “I can show you any number of his letters, and you can
judge for yourselves, gentlemen,” he added, preparing to open a brown
japanned box, on which “R. and H. Parry” was emblazoned in large white
characters.
The little hatchet-faced lawyer, with his penetrating gray eyes and
mutton-chop whiskers, seemed so perfectly confident of the identity
of the signature and the truth of the certificate, that Mr. Mayhew’s
breath was, metaphorically speaking, quite taken away, and he gazed
from him to Geoffrey--whose visage had visibly lengthened--with an air
of utter stupefaction. His moral equilibrium was completely shaken,
as he glanced from Mr. Bagge to the deed-box, from the deed-box to
Geoffrey, from Geoffrey to the long slip of white paper--the cause of
all the mischief--that lay on the green baize table before his eyes.
He pushed his hat well to the back of his head, scratched his grizzly
locks, and obviously obtained some kind of mental inspiration, for at
last he found words:
“It is of no consequence at present, Mr. Bagge. I’m much obliged to you
all the same. And--a--you are quite certain of this”--flourishing the
certificate--“being Mr. Parry’s signature?”
“Quite certain. You can compare it yourself. Hancock,”--to a
clerk--“just reach down----”
“Never mind--not to-day--another time. Thank you; a--good morning. Come
along, Geoffrey,” said the Honorable Mark, backing himself through a
swing-door, and effecting his exit with extraordinary promptitude,
leaving Mr. Bagge under an impression that he had been visited by a
gentleman who ought to be carefully looked after by his friends, if not
immediately consigned to a lunatic asylum.
“It is a queer business, Geoff,” exclaimed Mr. Mayhew, once they found
themselves in the street, “a very queer business!” striding along at
a tremendous pace, and looking very red in the face; “but Reginald’s
sure to make it all right, you may take your oath of that. Just leave
it to him to settle. He’ll be back in a couple of days. Mind you don’t
miss the train--it’s now a quarter-past five. Here’s a hansom. Hop in,
or you’ll be late. Give Alice my love, and tell her it’s all right; it
will be all cleared up when Rex comes home. Waterloo,” to the driver.
“All very fine,” muttered Geoffrey to himself as he was rattled over
the pavement; “I wish he had to face Miss Fane, with Bagge’s opinion,
instead of me. She’ll get it out of me before she sleeps to-night, so I
suppose I had better make a virtue of necessity and tell the truth at
once. Won’t she just make a row!”
Alice having despatched Geoffrey, and seen him fairly off to the
station, as fast as the fastest harness hack could take him, went
up to her own room, and there read her husband’s letter, from which
her attention had been so rudely diverted. It was a nice letter for
a young wife to get--not a spooney, love-lorn effusion, but a good,
rational, amusing letter, that had evidently given as much pleasure to
the writer to write as to Alice to receive, and that, without fulsome
extravagance, breathed a spirit of true, proud, tender love from the
first page to the last. Till now, yesterday’s had been to Alice the
best and most precious of letters; now to-day’s came to put it aside,
and would in turn give place to to-morrow’s, for the last was always
the most prized.
Having read and re-read her letter, Alice felt a double reliance on her
husband and a sovereign contempt for the marriage certificate, which
must be either someone else’s or intended for a shameful hoax. Much
emboldened and encouraged by these reflections, Alice ran downstairs in
search of Miss Fane, whom she found knitting in the morning-room, with
an ominous purse on her lips and a frown on her brow.
She was sitting in the window, and merely raised her eyes for a
second as Alice entered. Alice approached her, and, leaning against
the window--with one hand in her pocket surreptitiously grasping her
precious letter--plunged boldly into conversation.
“Miss Fane, I want to talk to you about this dreadful certificate.
What do you think about it? For my own part, I most certainly will
never believe that Reginald was ever married to anyone but me. It is
some excessively bad joke that he and I will be laughing over together
before the end of the week. Don’t you think so?”
“My dear, if you have fully made up your mind, why ask me?” returned
Miss Fane coldly.
“Because I have no one else to talk to about it. You are his aunt--his
mother’s sister. You would not believe such a thing of him, I know.”
Miss Fane drew in her lips and knitted faster and more fiercely than
ever.
Alice, kneeling beside her, softly laid her hand on her arm and said:
“You know I have no mother to advise me, or think for me; and I am so
dreadfully young, and foolish, even for my age. Don’t you think, if my
mother were alive, she would say, ‘Trust your husband?’ In my heart I
do sincerely trust him. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Miss Fane; and then, after a pause, added: “That is
to say, as much as _any_ young man can be trusted. His mother was
certainly my sister, but we were very little together, as I lived
chiefly at my grandfather’s. She was a handsome headstrong girl.
Reginald has his mother’s eyes and his mother’s temper, or I am much
mistaken. You would not have found her very easy to get on with, had
she been spared,” observed Miss Fane charitably; “but she died, poor
thing, when she was two-and-twenty. My brother-in-law was inconsolable;
he adored her, and spoiled her, and did the same for her son.”
“Do not say that, Miss Fane. If Reginald had been spoiled he could
never have grown up as he has done--so good, so honourable, so----”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Miss Fane irritably. “All brides of two or
three months say the same.”
“There are very few like Reginald, nevertheless,” said Alice warmly. “I
know him, of course, better than anyone now.”
“Or you think you do,” interrupted Miss Fane, “which comes to the same
thing.”
“I _know_ I do! I don’t believe he has a thought that I might not
share; he is true, upright, unselfish. Self he never thinks of; I am
his first thought in everything. He loves me far too dearly to bring
any such dreadful grief near me as this certificate hints at. I will
put all thoughts of it out of my head till he comes home. Don’t you
think I am wise?” she asked earnestly.
“Yes; in a certain sense you are; but if it is not cleared up you will
be all the more unprepared to receive the shock. My motto is, ‘Prepare
for the worst, hope for the best, and take what comes.’ This is a very
serious matter, and requires serious thought. I have been turning it
over in my mind for the last hour. Shall I tell you what I think?”
gazing solemnly over her glasses at Alice, who was still kneeling at
her side.
“Oh yes, of course. Please do,” she replied eagerly.
“I think that you are by no means the first girl Reginald was in love
with, or that was in love with him.”
“Oh, but I know I was,” cried Alice with assured confidence; “he told
me so, over and over again,” she added with a lovely blush.
“Stuff!” replied Miss Fane, viciously spearing her ball of worsted
with a knitting-needle. “And you believed him, you little goose! Do
you think,” she proceeded in a cool ironical tone, “that an extremely
handsome young man like him has lived seven years in the army without
as many love affairs to match? I tell you--and I am an experienced old
woman--I tell you no, ten thousand times no. I can’t say that I ever
heard of any special affair. I did hear a whisper that when he joined
he was one of the wildest of wild boys; but I believe, thanks to his
father, he soon steadied down. But take my word for it, young men in
the cavalry are a wild, bad lot.”
“Do you mean--that--Reginald----?” cried Alice, struggling to rise.
“No, no, no,” replied Miss Fane, keeping her down by laying her hand
heavily on her shoulder. “Be patient, and hear what I have to say.
I only mean taking them generally--no one in particular. Reginald,”
she resumed, “has spent a great deal of time abroad. Who knows,” she
proceeded mysteriously, and dropping her voice to a whisper, “but he
may in some mad moment have married a half-caste girl; and then, tired
of her, and ashamed of his folly, have bribed her to silence and left
her in India; and she, finding his second marriage too much for her
fortitude, has sent you this certificate! What do you think of that
idea?”
“Think of it!” cried Alice, jumping to her feet, and almost
inarticulate with passion. “I think it a very wicked, horrible idea to
entertain of your own nephew, and you ought to be ashamed of it!”
“So I will if this certificate proves a false one; but if not, have you
thought, my poor girl, since I must speak plainly, of the position in
which it places _you_?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if Reginald was married more than two years ago, as shown
by the certificate, _you_ are not his wife; you are nothing but Miss
Saville once more, with your name and fame for ever blighted.”
“How dare you say so?” cried Alice, crimson to the roots of her hair.
“How cruel, how unkind of you to talk to me like this! I will never,
never speak to you again as long as I live. You have a bad uncharitable
heart,” she added, moving rapidly towards the door. “What you say
never, _never_ could be true.”
“Stay, stay,” cried Miss Fane, following her briskly; “I would not
have said all this if I had not--if I did not _love_ you, and if I had
not altogether your good at heart. You surely do not think it can be
pleasant for me to doubt my own nephew?”--but it was very pleasant--“I
only want to open your eyes, my poor dear child, in case of the worst.
There is no one to perform this very disagreeable, thankless duty,
except myself. I mean all for the best, I do indeed,” taking Alice into
her bony embrace and kissing her effusively. Alice, on the verge of
hysterics, her brain reeling, gladly escaped upstairs, to lock herself
into her own room for the remainder of the day, where she had ample
leisure to digest and understand Miss Fane’s ideas.
* * * * *
Miss Fane, as we have already seen, had no love for her nephew, and,
as far as the certificate was concerned, he was already tried, found
guilty, and condemned, in her opinion. A domestic tragedy, such as
this promised to be, was her glory and delight. Slander and gossip of
all kinds were as the breath of her nostrils; her letters, thoughts,
and conversation all turned in that direction; and she was an adept
at serving up the most delicate dish of scandal, accompanied by sauce
piquante, and followed by entrées of her own suggestions. She had the
worst opinion of the world and everybody in general, an opinion she
prudently kept to herself. An affair in her own little circle, such as
this was likely to be, would afford her materials for conversation and
letters for an indefinite time. It would give her a certain importance,
too, to say: “I was in the house at the time when it all happened; I
saw and heard everything with my own eyes and ears.”
She had no respect for her nephew’s name--_she_ was not a Fairfax--no
pity for his young wife. The excitement of a _cause célèbre_ in
her family caused her neither shame nor horror; quite the reverse.
She knitted the heel of a stocking; made an excellent lunch off
fish cutlets, curried fowl, tarts, and cream; took an airing in the
pony-carriage; and awaited Geoffrey’s return with imperturbable mien.
“Alice would return to live with her,” she reflected, “if this turned
out as she imagined; and she would make her a handsome allowance, say
three thousand pounds a-year, as before. Brighton or Cheltenham would
suit her best; she loathed the country, and would be able to give nice
little dinners, card-parties, and suppers, and keep a brougham and
pair--bays or grays--iron-grays looked dashing; mulberry livery and
silver buttons, and of course a cockade--it looked so smart. Perhaps a
victoria, too, for summer.”
Here her castle-building was interrupted by the entrance of Alice,
watch in hand--Alice, who had not tasted a morsel all day. She had
spent hours alternately pacing the room and reading her husband’s
letter; at one moment revived with hope, at another sickening with
despair, according as her own convictions or Miss Fane’s came
uppermost. Pale, but composed, she drew near the fire, and mechanically
spread her hands towards the blaze. “Have you dined yet, Miss Fane? I
am very sorry to have left you alone, but really my head ached so badly
there was no use in coming down. Geoffrey will be here in ten minutes
if the train is punctual.”
“Then in ten minutes you will know your fate,” said Miss Fane, laying
her knitting down and looking at the clock.
“Oh, it’s sure to be all right,” replied Alice bravely, but white as
ashes to the very lips; as steadying herself by the mantelpiece, she
kept her eyes fixed on the door.
Miss Fane’s favourite motto, “Hope for the best, prepare for the
worst,” was suddenly curtailed by sounds in the hall.
Geoffrey’s face, as he entered with a would-be cheerful look, spoke
volumes, quite sufficient for Alice, who knew every expression of his
familiar features. Her dry lips tried to form a question, but no sound
came from them.
“Alice!” he abruptly blundered forth, “they say it’s a correct copy,
and all that sort of thing. There is no use concealing the truth.
Mark and I are certain that Reginald will clear it all up; it’s some
frightful mistake, but nothing more. I swear it is not,” he said,
taking her icy cold hand. “Don’t you fret yourself about it,” he added
earnestly, for Alice’s white face and stony fixed expression alarmed
him not a little.
“A correct copy did you say?” screamed Miss Fane. “Good heavens, what
an unprincipled wretch Reginald must be! It’s well his father and
mother are in their graves. My _worst_ fears are confirmed.
“Alice, my poor child,” turning towards her with outstretched hands,
“you will always have a friend and guardian in me.” But her future
ward did not hear her; Alice was lying at Geoffrey’s feet insensible.
* * * * *
Next morning Alice had a long interview with Miss Fane, who came to
condole and reason with her. She was in bed, and utterly at Miss Fane’s
mercy. All her hopes were speedily nipped in the bud. Every loophole
of excuse that during the night her busy brain had conjured up was
speedily scattered to the winds by Miss Fane’s common sense.
“There is no doubt about it _now_,” she urged; “none whatever. You must
brace up your courage, and prepare to act as a girl of spirit. No doubt
you have a terribly hard task before you, and you have been cruelly
deceived; but for the honour of your sex--not to speak of your own good
name--be firm. He will declare the whole thing a lie from first to
last, and will try to soothe you down with fond words and caresses, so
as to gain time to act; for doubtless this certificate will give him a
very unpleasant surprise. He will spare no money, you may rest assured,
to silence the other person--Fanny Cole, in short. I daresay he would
bribe her with half his income, so as to keep you as his wife; but do
not listen to him. Be firm; in fact it will be best for you not to
see him, but to leave the house before he arrives. You and I can live
together as before. At first we will go to some quiet spot until this
dreadful affair has blown over, as I suppose you will not wish to take
any legal steps against him?”
“Oh, Miss Fane!” said Alice--who had not heard a quarter of what Miss
Fane had been saying--suddenly sitting up in bed and pushing back her
hair behind her ears, “is it not a bad dream? Have I been a little off
my head? It _can’t_ be true. It _is_ a dream!” she said, administering
a severe pinch to her round white arm, from which she had pulled back
the lace-ruffled sleeve. But as she watched the vivid red mark slowly
dying away, she fell back on her pillow with a gesture of despair. “No
dream--no dream,” she said half to herself; nevertheless, Miss Fane
heard it.
“I am sorry to say it is no dream, but a very sad reality. If you will
take my advice, Alice”--and here Miss Fane paused--“Yes?”
“You will leave this to-day, and not await your hus--I mean,”
correcting herself, “Sir Reginald’s return.”
“Oh, I can’t, I won’t. I must see him once more!” cried Alice
excitedly. “He is so clever, so clear-headed, he is _sure_ to be able
to unravel this horrible mystery.”
“Humph!” said Miss Fane, with a scornful sniff, “it will take a
cleverer man than I take him to be to do _that_. A marriage certificate
is not to be explained away, or what would be the good of one?”
“But someone else may have forged his name,” persisted Alice; “may have
been married in his name two years ago.”
“They could hardly do that, as the chaplain must have known him by
sight. And look at the chaplain’s own signature, recognised and sworn
to by his solicitors.”
“A forgery perhaps.”
“Nonsense. What could be anyone’s object? What would they gain? If you
will persist in shutting your eyes to plain facts, _I_ cannot help you.
I am certain he will declare the whole thing a falsehood, and talk
you over, in which case I must warn you that all respectable society
will drop your acquaintance. This is by no means the first event of
the kind in _my_ experience. The same terrible scandal occurred in the
Loftus family only two years ago. Mr. Rupert Loftus married one of the
Darling girls, and shortly after the marriage another wife, married in
Jersey years before, came on the scene. Quite a parallel case to yours.
I must say I gave you credit for more self-respect than to imagine you
would cling to a man who is another woman’s husband.”
A crimson blush dyed Alice’s throat, face, and ears; indignant tears
started to her eyes; she tried to speak, but no words came, and,
turning her head, she buried her face in the pillow, motioning her
tormentor away with her hand. Miss Fane, finding it impossible to carry
on conversation with the back of a small shapely head and a huge coil
of golden-brown plaits, took her knitting and her departure.
She went, but she left a shaft behind her that rankled deeply. “Another
woman’s husband!” The thought was maddening! Not hers? Nothing to her
any more; and he who had told her over and over again that he had never
loved anyone but her! “You little witch,” he had said, “you made me
break all my resolutions, for I had not meant to marry for years and
years, and, thanks to you, find myself at five-and-twenty a married
man, with the prettiest little wife in England.” How could he--how
dared he talk like this, and he already married?
Towards the afternoon Alice submitted to be dressed, and took some tea
and toast, but remained all day in her own room. She spent a long time
sitting in one of the windows, with her hands listlessly crossed in her
lap, and thinking profoundly. As she watched the gray rain drifting
across the park, uppermost in her thoughts was Miss Fane’s parting
speech.
Over and over again her lips framed the unspoken words, “Another
woman’s husband.”
She paced the room restlessly from end to end. Suddenly a thought
struck her as she arrested herself at the door of her husband’s
dressing-room. She had never been in it. She slowly turned the lock
of the door and entered. It corresponded in size to her own; but oh,
how different to that luxurious apartment! It had a cold unoccupied
feel, and she walked across to the dressing-table on tiptoe, for some
mysterious reason she could not have explained. There was a small photo
of herself in a stand occupying a post of honour; a large old-fashioned
prayer-book, which she opened--“Greville Fairfax, from his wife,”
was written in a faded delicate Italian hand, on the first leaf; a
familiar breast-pin was sticking in the pin-cushion; a familiar coat
was hanging on a peg. How near he seemed to her now!
Her eyes, roving round the room, took in every detail. Two
old-fashioned wardrobes, a battalion of boots, a bear-skin and
two tiger-skins spread on the floor, a couch, a small brass-bound
chest of drawers, and a few chairs. Over the chimney-piece hung his
sabre, surmounting a fantastic arrangement of whips and pipes; the
chimney-board itself bristled with spurs. Above the sabre, spurs, and
whips was a small half-height portrait of his mother, evidently copied
from one in the dining-room--a lovely dark-eyed girl, in a white satin
dress and fur cloak. Alice stood before the picture for a long time.
Reginald had his mother’s eyes, only that his had not such a soft
expression. Yes, certainly his eyes were like his mother’s.
“And what is it to me?” she thought with a sudden pang. “What would his
mother think of him if she could but know?” she said half aloud, fixing
her eyes on the picture as if expecting an answer from those sweet red
lips. “What would _my_ mother think if she knew all?” she said, burying
her face in her hands. Then suddenly raising her eyes, she looked once
more round the room and walked to the door.
“Good-bye,” she said aloud. “Good-bye, the Reginald Fairfax I loved,
that was everything to me in the wide world. Good-bye,” she repeated,
softly shutting the door. “As for the man who is coming to-morrow, he
is nothing to me; he is--oh, shameful, shameful thought!--another
woman’s husband!” and throwing herself on her knees beside her bed, she
sobbed as if her heart would break.
After a while she rose more composed, dried her eyes, stifled her
long-drawn sobs with an enormous effort, and said to herself aloud:
“I have done with tears; I have done with weakness; I have done with
_Alice Fairfax_!”
CHAPTER VI.
“A WELCOME HOME.”
Endued in a decent semblance of composure, but pale and hollow-eyed,
Alice came downstairs the following evening in time to receive
her husband. She, and Miss Fane, and Geoffrey were sitting in the
drawing-room, silent and constrained: Miss Fane bolt upright and
knitting aggressively; Geoffrey making a feint of reading _The Field_,
but in fact merely turning over the paper aimlessly from page to page,
and surreptitiously watching Alice above its margin; Alice, with
her hands clasped listlessly before her, making no pretence of any
employment, but staring intently into the fire with a hard, defiant
expression on her face. Suddenly a loud ring, and a sound of footsteps
and cheerful voices in the hall, announced the return of the master of
the house.
Sir Reginald entered, looking radiant. “You hardly expected me so
soon, did you?” he said, greeting his relations in turn. “I travelled
straight through without stopping, except for a couple of hours in
Paris. I have brought you the most lovely Christmas-box you ever saw!”
he said, turning to Alice.
“Why, what have you been doing to yourself, my dear girl?” he exclaimed
suddenly, struck by her altered appearance. “Have you been ill?” he
asked anxiously.
“No,” she returned shortly.
“Then what is the matter?” he proceeded with a smile, inwardly amazed
at his wife’s strange manner, and at the tepid reception she had
accorded him.
“Has the cook, our priceless treasure, given warning?”
“Something _dreadful_ has happened, Reginald,” replied Alice. “I don’t
know how to tell you,” she added in a low voice.
“I know!” he returned cheerfully, nodding his head towards Geoffrey.
“_He_ has killed one, if not two, of my best hunters?”
“Something far worse than that,” she rejoined, staring glassily at her
husband.
“Can you not guess what it is?” put in Miss Fane with venomous
_empressement_, having hitherto restrained herself by an enormous
effort. “I wonder the roof has not fallen on you,” she continued,
invoking the chandelier with a supplicatory gesture, and casting up her
flint-gray eyes.
“Please leave us, Aunt Harriet,” interrupted Alice, struggling hard for
composure. “I must speak to--to--Reginald alone.” And turning her back
to the company to conceal her emotion, she moved towards the fire.
Sir Reginald gazed from one to the other in speechless amazement, then
walking to the door he flung it open for Miss Fane, who left the room
with ill-disguised though stately reluctance, throwing a warning but
wholly unnoticed glance towards the figure in front of the fire.
Geoffrey, as he passed out, significantly whispered: “Mind, my dear
fellow, I don’t believe a word of it; I stand by _you_, through thick
and thin.”
“Stand by me in what?” muttered Sir Reginald to himself as he closed
the door. “Have they all gone mad?”
“Well, Alice, my darling,” approaching his wife, “what is all this
about?” putting his arm round her waist and drawing her towards him.
“Don’t dare to touch me!” she cried fiercely, pushing him away with
both hands.
“Are you rehearsing for private theatricals?” he said with a laugh;
“and am _I_ to be the villain of the piece?” Then continuing more
seriously, taking his wife’s hands in his and looking straight into her
eyes: “Alice, tell me at once--what is the meaning of this?”
“I’ll tell you,” she replied hysterically, snatching her hands away and
searching in her pocket with nervous haste.
“What is the meaning of this?” producing the anonymous letter. “It
came three days ago.”
He read it slowly, frowned, crushed it into a ball, and flung it into
the fire.
“There! _that_ is my opinion of it,” he said, turning towards her.
“You would not wish me to believe that you could be influenced by
an anonymous letter, written by some crawling reptile too cowardly
to attempt to substantiate his lies. I hold the writer of such a
production” (pointing to the blackened fragments now lazily sailing up
the chimney) “no better than an assassin who stabs in the dark.”
“_This_, at any rate, is not anonymous,” replied Alice, pushing the
certificate towards him.
He took it up, read it, turned it over, and read it again. She observed
that his face was a shade paler, but otherwise he was perfectly
composed, as he said: “_This_ is a most infamous forgery. I know
no one of the name of Fanny Cole, and I need hardly say I never was
married before.”
“And is this _all_ you have to say?” inquired his wife.
“All! Good heavens, Alice! what more can I say? I assure you most
solemnly I was never married to anyone but you; you know it as well
as I do myself. I never met a woman I cared to speak to twice till I
saw you that evening at Malta. What is the good of repeating the same
old story over again--just now, at all events--when we have such heaps
of things to say to each other? As to this infamous certificate, I
will take good care to have it thoroughly investigated, and the whole
thing cleared up, you may rely on that. It is my affair altogether; do
not trouble your little head any more about it.” Drawing her towards
him--“Come, are you not very glad to see me? Have you no better
welcome for me than this? Do you know that I have been counting the
very milestones till I reached home; and now I _am_ here, won’t you say
you are glad to see me, my dearest?”
Alice leant her head against his shoulder; she was weak, she knew it;
he was talking her over, as Miss Fane predicted; every word he uttered
found an echo in her heart--her heart that was beating suffocatingly.
She trembled from head to foot. On one hand was love and everything
that made life dear to her; on the other, honour, duty, pride. She must
make her choice between right and wrong.
“Speak, Alice!” interrupted her husband, getting a little out of
patience at last.
“Yes, I’ll speak,” she returned in a hard mechanical voice, abruptly
releasing herself and standing before him. “Do you know,” she
continued, with slow distinct utterance, “that that certificate”
(pointing to where it lay on the table) “has been shown to a firm of
solicitors?”
“Indeed!” replied Sir Reginald, in a tone of much surprise. “At whose
suggestion?”
“Miss Fane advised me. Geoffrey and Mr. Mayhew took it to a firm they
could rely on.”
“Well, I really think you might all have waited for my return
before taking such an important step,” said Sir Reginald with some
indignation. “I wonder _you_ allowed it, Alice. It did not show much
confidence in me, I must confess. And what did the solicitors say?” he
proceeded, in a cool displeased tone.
“They said----” and she paused; then continued with an effort--“they
said it was a true copy!” raising her eyes to his.
“A true copy!” he echoed. “I never heard such nonsense in all my
life--_never_!” he exclaimed emphatically. “When there is no original,
how can there be a copy?”
“I am not clever enough to argue with you, Reginald; you must ask
the solicitors, they will explain. At any rate, they swore to the
clergyman’s signature; he was a client of theirs, and they knew his
writing well.”
“Mr. Parry’s writing is it?” said her husband, again taking up the
certificate and critically scanning it. “So it is!--an admirable
forgery. Poor old fellow, he was garrison chaplain at Cheetapore. I
knew him well; he has been dead these two years.”
“Probably,” persisted Alice, “the fact of his being dead does not
refute _that_,” pointing to the paper in her husband’s hand.
“According to its testimony it is nearly three years since you were
married.”
“Three _months_, you mean,” he exclaimed with a laugh, making a
desperate effort to throw off a horrible suspicion that was stealing
over him and turning every vein to ice.
“Someone has forged Mr. Parry’s name, that is evident,” he exclaimed;
“but why or wherefore I am at a loss to understand. I wish I had
been here when this precious document arrived,” he continued, pacing
about the room. “It must have given you rather a start getting it in
my absence. No wonder you look pale, my poor little wife,” he said,
pausing opposite her and looking at her steadfastly.
“No wonder, indeed!” she replied significantly.
_Something_ in her look and tone confirmed his former conviction.
Gazing at her fixedly for some seconds, he said:
“It is not possible that you doubt me, Alice?”
Dead silence.
“Answer me at once,” he demanded sternly, as she stood dumb before
him. “Do you hear me, Lady Fairfax?” he persisted, exasperated by her
silence.
“You can hardly expect _Lady Fairfax_ to hear you,” she replied in a
cool, chilly voice. “She is not here.”
“You will drive me mad, Alice,” he cried vehemently; “you could not
in your heart believe this monstrous invention. I solemnly swear to
you--you alone are my wife; you _know_ it is the truth. Why do you
torture me like this? If I thought you really doubted me, as sure as
you are Alice Fairfax I would never forgive you!”
“Then you are taking a very weak oath; for it seems to most people who
have seen that paper that _I_ am not Alice Fairfax. Show it to whom you
will, they will say that _I_ am not your wife.”
“Is that _your_ opinion?” he asked sharply.
“It is,” she replied boldly; “I have no other alternative. I have been
thinking a great deal the last two days--thinking more than I ever did
in all my life before, and I can come to no other conclusion than that
you _were_ married to that woman. Your aunt entertains no doubt of your
infamy, neither do I.”
“Alice, am I mad? am I dreaming? or do I really hear you distinctly
tell me that you are no longer my wife, and that _you_ entertain no
doubt of _my_ infamy? Am I out of my mind, or are you? Am I still
asleep in the train, or am I in my waking senses?” he said, looking at
her fixedly with his keen dark eyes.
“Whether you are mad or not I cannot say,” she retorted scornfully.
“I hope you are sane enough to understand that I leave this house
to-morrow, never to return. For the future, you and I are _strangers_.”
“This is mere childish folly,” returned her husband angrily; “you don’t
know _what_ you are saying. Because Miss Fane has been wicked enough to
put all manner of hideous ideas into your foolish head, you are ready
to run away like the orthodox heroine of a three-volume novel.
“Do you suppose?” he continued very gravely, “that I shall permit you
to take the law into your own hands like this, or suffer you--a girl in
your teens, a three-months’ wife--to leave your home in such a manner?
Is _this_ the way you keep your wedding vows----”
“Wedding vows!” interrupted Alice, hastily pulling off her ring and
tossing it on the table, where it spun for a second, and then collapsed
into silence. “Wedding vows! I’ve none to keep! I am free! Show that
certificate to whom you will, even to the most ignorant, and they
will say, that whoever may be your wife--_I_ am not----” She paused
for a moment, half choked. “And not being your wife, you can scarcely
expect my father’s daughter to remain _here_. You are a hypocrite,”
she continued, speaking rapidly and trembling with excitement. “A
hypocrite! for you appeared to be all that was good; and I know you to
be all that is bad----It _was_ bad, wicked, shameful,” stamping her
foot, “to deceive an orphan confided to your care.”
She paused again, breathless.
“Pray go on, madam--do not spare me,” said her husband hoarsely. He
was leaning one elbow on the chimney-piece. Indignation, horror, and
scorn were chasing each other in his eyes.
“You married me,” resumed Alice, “or rather _pretended_ to marry me,
because I was your ward. It was an easy way to solve _that_ problem,
which must otherwise have been a trouble and a bore. I was young, rich,
and, if _you_ were to be believed, exceedingly pretty--nothing could
be more suitable; but why did you forget that you had a wife in India?
Had you not better bring her home? Her position may not be properly
understood at Cheetapore,” with withering contempt.
Smash went a valuable, a priceless old chimney ornament, thanks to Sir
Reginald’s restless elbow.
“I shall go away to-morrow, say what you will, and never see you again
as long as I live. You may hush the matter up; you may say that I
am dead. You have nothing to fear from me. I have neither father nor
brother. In years to come I may forget you, and I may forgive you; but
should I live to be a hundred, I will never see you or speak to you
again.”
She stopped abruptly, and looked at her husband with glowing angry
eyes. She had relieved the pent-up feelings of her heart in a perfect
torrent of reproach. Her utterance was so rapid as to be almost
inarticulate, and the tide of her passion carried all before it. With
a motion to Sir Reginald to permit her to pass, she was preparing to
leave the room.
He by this time was as white as a sheet, otherwise a vein down the
centre of his forehead alone betrayed emotion.
Whilst Alice was shaking with excitement, he was perfectly cool and
self-possessed; but a kind of repressed sound in his voice when he
spoke would have told a bystander that his temper was now thoroughly
roused, and that _he_ was by far the more incensed of the two.
“Lady Fairfax,” he said with emphatic distinctness, “permit me to
delay you for one moment,” interposing himself between her and the
door. “I quite enter into your wishes. The sooner we part the better.
I will have no wife who suspects and despises me. A woman holding such
views of my character I have no desire to see again. A wife who is
ready to cast me off on the smallest and most unfounded suspicion--who
does not even grant me a chance of proving my innocence--but tries,
convicts, and condemns me unheard, is no wife for _me_ except in
name. I shall make all arrangements for your comfort, but I cannot
bring myself to discuss them now. You can remain here till our future
plans are arranged. Your father’s daughter occupies the same position
beneath this roof as did my mother, although you may pretend to think
otherwise. Had I been as wise a year ago as I am _now_, your father’s
daughter would never have been my _wife_.”
Taking up the certificate and the ring, he turned and walked out of the
room without another word.
On his way across the hall he was waylaid by Geoffrey, who sprang on
him from the billiard-room and seized him by the arm, saying:
“Well, Rex, I suppose she has told you?”
“She has,” replied Reginald, shaking him off impatiently as he entered
the library and threw himself into an armchair.
“I don’t believe one word of it, mind you, Rex; and as for Alice, she
is nothing but a silly girl, with a hot temper. It all blows over. I
know her rages well,” he added consolingly.
“Don’t talk to me now, there’s a good fellow,” returned Sir Reginald,
jumping up and pacing the room. “Run down and tell them to bring round
‘Dragon’ and the dog-cart, and to put in my portmanteau just as it
came.”
“Why so, in the name of all that’s mad?”
“I’m off to London by the mail.”
“Are you in your sober senses, Reginald?” exclaimed Geoffrey, looking
at him aghast.
“I scarcely know,” he returned, wearily passing his hand across his
forehead; “but I am quite certain of one thing, and that is, that Alice
and I have parted for ever.”
CHAPTER VII.
WESSEX GARDENS.
It is needless to say that all this excitement upstairs had created no
small stir in the lower regions. The servants held a court of inquiry
on it over their meals, and discussed the subject in all its bearings
and from every point of view. Susan Parker, lady’s-maid, examined and
gave evidence that on Tuesday night she was called to her lady, who
was in a dead faint in the drawing-room; that the two following days
she had kept her room, refusing to eat or drink, save a very little
toast, or tea; and that she sat all day long looking as if she was
crazed, with her hands clasped idly before her, and that she, Susan,
had surprised her more than once reading a letter and crying bitterly.
John Scott, groom, gave evidence that by order of Markham, the
coachman, he had driven the dog-cart over to meet his master by the
eight-o’clock down train. That Sir Reginald was never in better spirits
in his life, asked him how they were all at home, talked of going to
the meet at Copperley Gate next day, and drove along at his usual
spanking pace, smoking a cheroot, as happy as you please.
That an hour after they got home, as he was at his supper in the
servants’-hall, Mr. Geoffrey had come down and beckoned him out, and
told him to be ready with the dog-cart in ten minutes, as Sir Reginald
was going up by the mail. That when he was ready at the side door, his
master had come out, shaken hands with Mr. Geoffrey, and driven away as
if the Old Boy himself was after him.
They were just in time for the train, and Sir Reginald jumped out and
tore off, leaving his portmanteau and rug behind him.
It was agreed on all hands that there had been an awful row between Sir
Reginald and Lady Fairfax, but they were obliged to return a verdict of
“Cause not known.”
The following morning Reginald called at the Mayhews’, and found them
at breakfast.
“By Jove, my dear fellow, how seedy you look!” exclaimed the Honorable
Mark. “I suppose you had it roughish in the Channel?”
“No; I arrived yesterday, and went straight to Looton.”
“Then you had it roughish there instead,” remarked Mr. Mayhew with a
grin.
“Mark, I have come to speak to you about this,” said he, producing the
certificate and handing it over to him. “You don’t believe it, do you?
he asked anxiously.
“Not I; no more than if it were myself,” said Mr. Mayhew, pausing in
the act of voraciously devouring a grill. “I stand by you, Rex.”
“And you, Helen?”
“And I also, Regy. Although appearances are against you, I believe in
you firmly. You need not have asked,” she added, sipping her tea and
speaking between every sip.
“I really wish you would sit down and have some breakfast instead of
standing on the rug in that uncomfortable way. Have a cup of tea at
any rate, and we’ll talk it over together.”
Her woman’s heart was touched by his haggard wan face. He looked as
if he had not slept for nights, and although his “get-up” was as
studiously correct as ever, there was a careless, reckless air about
him that half frightened her. He looked like a man on the brink of a
brain fever.
“Nothing for me, thank you. If I were to swallow a morsel it would
choke me just now. I need not assure you, Mark and Helen, that the
certificate is a most wicked forgery. I never heard of, much less
married, Fanny Cole, nor anyone but Alice Saville. I must unwittingly
have made some bitter enemy to bring down on myself such diabolical
vengeance, uprooting my home and estranging my wife.”
“Alice believes it then?” they cried in one breath.
“Yes, so she has told me. She declares she is no longer my wife,
and will never see me again. She means to leave Looton and live in
remote retirement with Miss Fane, where, reversing the Elizabethan
valediction, she will do her best to forgive and forget me.”
“Reginald!” said Helen with wide-open eyes, “you are joking.”
“Do you think this a subject for jests?” he said sternly.
“Did you not reason with her?” asked his cousin vehemently.
“I did; I assured her of my innocence, on my word of honour. I reasoned
with her as temperately as I could, till she nearly goaded me to
madness. I could not trust myself to tell you what she said; but she
concluded the interview by flinging me her wedding-ring. Here it is,”
said he, taking it out of his waistcoat-pocket and laying it on the
table between them.
At this tangible proof of the rupture they both stared in silent
consternation. Presently Helen said:
“I need not tell you, Regy, how young and inexperienced she is--not yet
eighteen. Make allowances for her, for she naturally received a great
shock, and has been ill-advised by Miss Fane, whom, you know, I never
could bear. Do not be hasty in taking Alice at her word; you know she
is very fond of you.”
“If you had been present last night you would scarcely have said so,”
returned Sir Reginald dryly; “but I have written to her this morning
to say that, if she changes her mind, a line to the Club will find me
for a week. She may have been carried away in the heat of passion to
say more than she thought or meant. After a week it will be too late;
I shall accept the liberty she offers me, and return to my profession.
Fortunately my papers have not gone in yet. Now I must be going. You
shall see me this day week.”
“Nonsense, man, you are coming to stay here.”
“No, Mark; many thanks to you. You would find me a restless, unbearable
inmate. In a week’s time I shall have settled down and grown more
accustomed to my fate--if fate it is to be. Meanwhile, I shall spare
neither time nor money to find out the author of this certificate,
scoundrel that he is!”
“Reginald, I am sure a man never sent it,” said Helen. “I’m sorry to
say it of my own sex, but it’s safe to be a woman.”
“My dear Helen, if you knew how very small my circle of lady
acquaintances in India was you would not say so. I don’t think so badly
of your sex. Good-bye.”
The allotted week having elapsed, Sir Reginald found himself once
more in Wessex Gardens, this time to dinner. He was no longer the
pale half-distracted man we had last seen him. He looked quiet and
self-possessed, as if his fate had overtaken him, and he had submitted
to it without a struggle. There had been no letter from Alice; his
plans were fully formed, and he would unfold them after dinner--this
much he imparted to Helen as he escorted her downstairs.
During dessert the children came in--Hilda, aged six, and Norman,
eight--both delighted to see their special favourite, Uncle Regy. But
Uncle Regy was very slow this evening--no stories, no paper boats, no
rabbits on the wall. True, he took Hilda on his knee, gave her all his
grapes, cracked walnuts for her, with the reckless profusion of a young
man, not an experienced paterfamilias, and finally carried her up to
bed. But even the children could see that something was amiss, and told
their nurse that Uncle Regy never laughed nor showed his nice white
teeth once, and they thought he must be sick, he looked so solemn.
“Now,” said Helen, as she poured out coffee, “let us have it all. What
have you been doing, Regy?--and what are you going to do?”
“I have placed the certificate in the hands of a first-rate detective,
for one thing; I have written to the chaplain at Cheetapore; and I have
effected an exchange from the Fifth to the Seventeenth Hussars--now in
India--and go out with drafts early in February.”
“Oh Regy, to India again so soon?” said Helen with tears in her eyes.
“Yes,” affecting not to observe them. “Is it not a good thing now I
have the Service to fall back on? After all, India is not half a bad
place for soldiering, and we are sure to have a row out there ere long.”
“But why leave this country? Why not stay at home?”
“Because it will the more effectually muzzle Mrs. Grundy. It will be
less marked than if Alice and I both lived in England and kept up
separate establishments.”
“But would you?” asked Helen in an awe-struck tone.
“Certainly. Alice has stood to her guns, and as ‘Trust me all in
all, or not at all,’ is my motto, we should never get on. As a
married couple our career is finished. I remember hearing a cynical
old bachelor say that the marriage service, instead of being the
prelude to happiness and harmony, was almost always the ceremony that
inaugurated a long and arduous campaign, a series of skirmishes, varied
with numerous pitched battles. Alice and I have had one desperate
engagement, and both vacate the field. We live to fight another day,
but not with each other! Our married life was a short one--barely four
months--and I find myself once more a bachelor; for as Alice declares
she is not my wife, and as I equally solemnly declare that the other is
not my wife, I conclude I am single. What do you think, Helen?”
“I think you are talking a great deal of nonsense, my dear Regy, and
though you rail at matrimony _now_, in your heart you know very well
that the last four months were the happiest of your life. You need not
deny it, and if you did it would be useless. Go on,” waving her fan
imperiously, “go on; tell me what you are going to do about Alice.”
“Of course she must bear my name and live in my house, but that will
be the only tie between us. Unfortunately I am her guardian, a post I
would willingly relinquish; but it is out of the question to do so.
However, my solicitor will manage to represent me as much as possible.
I do not intend to be brought personally into contact with Alice, much
less with Miss Fane, who has fanned the flame with all her might,
Geoffrey tells me.”
“And how have you managed?”
“I have opened an account in Alice’s name at Drummond’s, and made her
an allowance of five thousand a-year. Her own money she cannot touch
till she is one-and-twenty, excepting five hundred a-year, which her
father very wisely thought ample for a girl in her teens.”
“Then why increase it?”
“My dear Helen, where is your common sense? Alice will have an
establishment to keep up befitting her position as a married woman. I
intend her to live at Monkswood, which has always been a kind of dower
house. I shall shut up Looton, dismiss most of the servants, and send
all the horses up to Tattersall’s on Saturday. I am going abroad for
a month previous to returning to India, and start for Vienna the day
after to-morrow. Now I think I have told you all my plans; have you any
exception to take to them?” he inquired, drinking off his coffee and
setting down his cup.
“I know you of old, Regy,” replied Mrs. Mayhew with a sigh. “Your
asking me if I take exception to any of your arrangements is only a
Chinese compliment; once you make up your mind nothing will alter it,
so there is no use wasting words. I think you ought to stay at home
instead of going to India. I think you ought to insist on bringing
Alice to her senses; or suppose you allow _me_ to take her in hand?
Let her come here on a visit whilst you go out to Cheetapore and
investigate this horrid business thoroughly.”
“No,” replied Reginald coldly; “Alice and I are strangers for the
future. You will oblige me very much, Helen, by referring to her as
seldom as possible. She thinks me a hypocrite, a deceiver, a thoroughly
bad man. Such were her own words. She could not think worse of me if I
were the greatest scoundrel that ever walked this earth.”
“Reginald, I am sure she does not,” pleaded Helen.
It was in vain she begged him to reconsider his decision. He listened
to all she had to say with a kind of contemptuous tolerance.
“Very kind of you, Helen, to take her part in this way; very good of
you to defend her; but, as you yourself remarked just now, it is only a
waste of words.”
One has a good opportunity of studying Sir Reginald Fairfax as he
stands on the rug looking down on Mrs. Mayhew, who, leaning back in the
easiest of chairs, is slowly fanning herself.
Tall, slender, and graceful, his well-cut evening clothes fit him
and suit him admirably. “Gentleman” is stamped on every line and
lineament, and there is a leisurely ease and deliberation about
everything he says or does; the repose that stamped the line of “Vere
de Vere” is not wanting in the Fairfax family. His eyes are the most
striking feature--so dark, so cool, so keen, they seem to read one’s
thoughts like a book, to penetrate one through and through. His
delicately-chiselled high-bred nose (to particularise each feature
impartially) and proud sensitive nostrils he inherits from a long
line of ancestors. Do not dozens of similar profiles adorn the walls
of the gallery at Looton? There is a certain look about his well-cut
lips--barely to be guessed at beneath his dark moustache--that to a
close observer indicates a resolute, not to say imperious, disposition;
and something altogether intangible in his bearing points out the
soldier. A handsome, dark, daring face one could easily imagine leading
the headlong hurricane of a cavalry charge.
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. MAYHEW’S LITTLE SCHEME.
Mrs. Mayhew was most decidedly the clever woman of the family. Not
only had she brains, but an unusual allowance of common sense, and a
kind heart to boot. She was dark and good-looking, like most of the
Fairfaxes, and inherited no small share of their force of character
and determination. Having no brother of her own, she had always
appropriated her cousin Reginald as such, since he, at the ripe age
of six, had made impassioned love to her, a grown-up young lady of
seventeen. She absolutely ruled all the men of her family (husband
included) with a mild and gracious sway, always with the notable
exception of her cousin “Regy.” His head had never yet bent under
her yoke, and he had the audacity to differ from her on many vital
subjects, and held the heresy that “it was for man to command, woman to
obey, all else confusion.” Nevertheless he possessed a place in Mrs.
Mayhew’s heart second only to that occupied by her husband and children.
Mrs. Mayhew was never happier than when she was managing other people’s
affairs, for which she had a singular aptitude. To do her justice,
she meddled with the very best intentions, and her hands were always
full. She was the confidante of lovers’ quarrels, of matrimonial
differences untold: from the servant out of place to a girl jilted by
her intended, all came to Mrs. Mayhew, and to them she lent a ready
ear, her sympathy, and assistance. Her only serious trouble was her
rapidly-increasing tendency to _embonpoint_, and she sighed when she
ordered each new dress to be made with an increasing width of waist.
Her weakness, her particular pet vanity, were her hands and feet; and
certainly she had every reason to be proud of them.
“Tell Helen she has the prettiest foot in London, and she’ll ask you to
stay for a month,” was one of Geoffrey’s impudent remarks; and he also
declared that knitting, to which she was much addicted, was merely a
framework supplied by her vanity, in order to flourish about and show
off her hands.
She was sitting at the fire one dripping February afternoon knitting
the following thoughts into a stocking:
“This is the 8th. Let me see” (referring to a paper on her knees), “the
_Alligator_ sails on the 26th. Not much time to be lost. I must make
one desperate effort to try to reunite this wretchedly headstrong young
couple. I’ll take Norman down to Southsea next week for change of air
for his cough, and once established in our old lodgings I can easily
carry on operations.”
Here her husband entered, and she laid her plans before him.
“Go to Southsea, my dear, by all means, but whatever it may do for
Norman’s cough, I don’t think it will be of much use as far as Alice
and Reginald are concerned. There is no answer yet from the army
chaplain. The detectives are no wiser than we are ourselves. Besides
which, that old scorpion, Miss Fane, has Alice talked out of all her
senses by this time, be sure.”
“But I anticipate a great deal from an unexpected meeting,
nevertheless. I’ll get Alice over from Sandown to spend a few days, and
‘you shall see what you shall see.’ You know that she and Miss Fane are
there, and have taken a house till April.”
“Please yourself and you please me; but I have a conviction that your
little plot will be no go. Reginald’s temper is like what the Irish
cook said of your own: ‘That you were a good Christian lady, but when
you were riz, you _was_ riz;’ and he is very much _riz_ indeed.”
“Well, I can’t wonder at it, I must say. You would have been, to say
the least of it, _annoyed_ if I had, after being married to you a
few months, called you a hypocrite and deceiver, and left you, after
throwing you my wedding-ring; you knowing yourself to be entirely
innocent of any blame all the time.”
“Yes, very true; but no such volcano as this certificate ever burst
out in your home. Pray what would you have done, or say you would have
done, in such a case?”
“I would have trusted you, Mark.”
“Humph.” What an extraordinary amount of unbelief a grunt can convey.
“Ah well, perhaps you would. Such trust is, however, much easier in
theory than in practice. Make some allowance for Alice, poor girl,
although we all know she is in the wrong. It’s a bad business--a bad
business.”
So saying, he opened his paper with an impressive rustle and buried
himself in the news of the day.
* * * * *
A fortnight had passed. The Mayhews were domiciled at Southsea, and
Alice had come over to stay with them for a few days after an immense
amount of coaxing, and finally being “fetched.” She was as deaf as an
adder to all Helen’s eloquent reasoning and remonstrances, and even
Mark was out of patience with her at last. She had been primed by Miss
Fane with answers to every argument, and had given her her most solemn
promise never to yield an inch until the certificate was thoroughly
disproved. There had been a letter from her husband to Helen, saying
he was coming down on Monday to bid “Good-bye,” as he was to sail
the following Thursday; and he mentioned that he wished to have an
interview with his wife, so that her being on a visit at the Mayhews’
was most convenient. She was not told of his probable arrival, in case
it should scare her away. She knew that he was shortly going to India,
but where he was, or when he was going, she had no means of knowing,
and was too proud to ask, and Helen was far too angry with her to offer
any gratuitous information.
On Monday afternoon Helen and Alice were sitting in the drawing-room,
the latter pouring out tea at a low gipsy table, and looking very fair,
girlish, and lovely in a thick black damassé silk of most artistic cut,
with lace ruffles at her throat and wrists. Helen, lounging opposite in
a capacious armchair, was reading aloud tid-bits from _The World_, and
occasionally glancing towards the door.
Norman and Hilda, with scrambling feet and buttered fingers, were
making Alice’s life a burden to her; and she was by no means so
tolerant of these young aggravations as her husband would have been.
“More sugar; more sugar, Alice!” cried Norman, passing a very sloppy
cup recklessly towards her.
“No, my dear Norman; I gave you two lumps.”
“Give me another two, for I have fished them out and eaten them. Come,
look sharp!”
“Norman!”
“If you don’t I’ll take that arrow out of your hair and pull it all
down, and you’ll see how nice you’ll look if visitors come.”
“If you do----” began Alice indignantly. Just at this crisis the door
opened and admitted Mark, Geoffrey, and Reginald.
The children made a violent charge towards the latter.
“Uncle Regy, Uncle Regy! where have you been all this long time? What
have you brought us?” they cried, leaping and dancing expectantly round
him.
Alice glanced up hastily. He was shaking hands with Helen. What was she
to do? Would he shake hands with her? Yes; in another second she found
her hand in his; and then he turned to the children.
“Give me a cup of tea, Alice,” said Geoffrey, drawing a chair close
to the tea-table, and staring at her with a very unpleasant critical
scrutiny.
Her hands trembled so violently she could hardly hold the teapot; the
colour sank from her cheeks, and her heart beat so fast it seemed as if
it would choke her; but she made a brave struggle for self-command, and
endeavoured to converse easily and indifferently with Geoffrey whilst
her husband was talking to Helen. Presently she stole a look at him; he
was standing on his favourite place--the rug--and she met point-blank
the steady glance of his keen dark eyes, fixed on herself--a look full
of interest, yet grave and stern.
She felt her face becoming crimson, and dived under the table for her
handkerchief, glad of an opportunity of composing her countenance. Dare
she take another look? No, she dare not.
At this moment visitors were announced, and the bustle consequent on
their arrival was the greatest relief.
Enter two fashionable ladies with a cavalier in tow. Reginald evidently
found favour in the eyes of one of them; he had the unmistakable air of
a man of birth and distinction. She therefore proceeded to make herself
most agreeable, and put him through a series of animated questions,
giving him a pretty good benefit of her eyes all the time. Alice,
looking on, felt indignation burn within her; and yet, why should she
mind? he was nothing to her! He had destroyed her life, as far as her
happiness went. All she valued was gone. Bravely indeed did she try
to sustain a share of conversation, and to keep up appearances to the
best of her ability. She knew she was answering the strange young man’s
remarks at random, but she could not help it. He was looking intensely
puzzled, as well he might, when she told him that “she was staying in
_India_, but had come over to Southsea for two or three days.” Oh, if
she could only get out of the room! No sooner thought than done. She
was gliding quietly towards the door, when her husband with two steps
confronted her.
“Alice,” said he, “I wish to speak to you particularly. Can you come
out with me and take a turn on the pier?”
Alice bowed her head in assent, and passed on. When she came down in
her walking things--close-fitting velvet paletôt trimmed with superb
sable, and cap to match--she found him waiting in the hall. Having
ceremoniously opened the door for her, they set out, and walked on
rapidly, exchanging the veriest commonplaces. The pier was evidently
to be the scene of action, so Alice braced up all her nerve for the
encounter, and firmly determined to abide by Miss Fane’s advice, and
not yield an inch till the certificate was utterly refuted.
No one meeting them would have guessed at the storm that was raging
in their hearts. They did not look like married people, nor lovers
certainly. “A young fellow taking his very pretty sister for a walk,
most likely,” would have been the verdict of a passer-by.
Arrived at the pier, Alice summoned up all her courage, and taking a
good long breath and a firm grasp of her umbrella, said, with apparent
composure: “Now what have you to say to me?”
“Several things as your husband, and a few as your guardian,” he
replied, leaning against the railing and looking at her intently.
“Say nothing to me as my husband, but whatever you have to say as my
guardian I will perhaps attend to.”
“Then you still entertain the monstrous notion--that I am _not_ your
husband?”
To this question Alice made no reply, and he proceeded. “Well, I _am_,
all the same. But I see it would be a waste of time and temper to
endeavour to persuade you otherwise. I have every reason to believe
that within the next two months all will be satisfactorily cleared up.
May I ask what you will do in that case?”
“I will return to you as your wife, of course,” she replied calmly.
“And do you suppose that I will receive you then? Return to me
_now_--show, even at the eleventh hour, that you can trust me--I will
send in my papers and stay at home. I have interest, and it is not yet
too late. I will freely forgive and forget all you thought, all you
said. It shall be as though it had never been spoken.” He paused, and
looked at her eagerly. “I told you,” he proceeded still more earnestly,
“that I had done with you, that I had no desire to see you again, but
I found, on cool reflection, that I loved you far too dearly to give
you up without an effort at reconciliation. I have made _two_--once
in London and once now--but this, I declare to you solemnly, will be
the last. Come back to me, and trust me, my dearest,” he said, laying
his hand entreatingly on her arm. “Trust me only for a little time;
all will, all must come right. You will never again in all your life
have such an opportunity of showing your love, your confidence in me.
Do you think I would not stand by you in a similar case? You know I
would,” he added emphatically. “Come back to me, Alice,” he urged.
“No, I will not,” she replied doggedly leaning both elbows on the
railing of the pier and staring steadily out to sea.
“You will not?” he repeated, in a tone of bitter disappointment. “You
cannot mean it.” After an inward struggle with himself he continued as
before: “Think of what you are doing, Alice. You have broken up our
home and turned me adrift--taken your freedom and your own way. You are
sending me back to India, and God knows if I shall ever return.”
“You need not go,” she replied in a low voice, still looking out to
sea, as if addressing the ocean.
“Of course I must go!” he cried emphatically; “unless you wish to have
the open mouth of scandal busy with our names. If the world knows that
I am engaged in my country’s service it may leave you alone. But I
warn you that society looks coldly on a young and pretty woman living
apart from her husband, and rightly or wrongly, they almost always
throw the blame of the separation on _her_ shoulders. I know you have
been influenced by Miss Fane; I know you have. It was not my generous,
true-hearted Alice that spoke to me that night at Looton. You don’t
know how you pained me, how you nearly maddened me by some of the
things she put into your mouth--things my pure-minded girl-wife would
never have thought of herself. You could not seriously think that I
had another wife living, and that I had dared, nevertheless, to marry
you--an _orphan_, as you justly remarked, committed to my care! Think
of the shameful crime it would be! Look me full in the face, and tell
me candidly, truthfully, and of your own free will, whether you imagine
that I, Reginald Fairfax, could be guilty of such a thing?”
Alice turned round at once and confronted him--his face pale with
emotion. His dark, miserable eyes haunted her painfully afterwards for
many and many a day.
“Clear yourself first,” she exclaimed, “then I will listen to you. As
long as that certificate is unexplained I will never return to you as
your wife; I will never, never see you again, as far as I can help it,
until the whole affair is refuted. I am amazed that you should expect
it.”
Sir Reginald gazed incredulously at his wife for a moment, as if he
thought that his ears must have deceived him.
“Is this your last word?” he said in a voice husky with passion.
She nodded emphatically.
Exasperated beyond endurance, he left her side and walked to the other
end of the pier alone. Presently he returned with firm rapid strides,
and confronted her with a compression of the lips and a flash in his
eyes she had never seen before. Coming to a stop, and standing directly
before her, he said:
“That was _your_ last word; now hear _mine_. I most solemnly take God
to witness”--raising his hat as he spoke--“that I will never receive
you back as my wife until you have made the most humble, abject apology
that ever came from woman’s lips. You shall abase yourself to the very
dust for the shameful injustice you have done _me_.”
“Shall I, indeed?” she exclaimed passionately. “You will never see a
Saville abased to the dust. I will never apologise and never beg your
pardon. Pray do not offer your forgiveness before it is required.”
“Very well,” he replied coldly, “there is no more to be said, as you
declare that you will never apologise, and I have sworn to yield to no
other terms. We shall live for the future as strangers, excepting that
I shall exercise over you--even though at a distance--the authority of
your guardian till you are twenty-five.”
“I shall not submit to your authority!” she interrupted hotly.
“Oh yes, you will,” he returned in a cool unmoved tone. “You have as
yet to learn that I too have a will--that I am your master--no longer
your slave. I am aware I cannot flatter myself that you either love or
honour me,” with ironical emphasis, “but you will certainly _obey_ me.”
“I shall _not_!” she cried indignantly.
“Oh yes, I am quite sure you will,” he replied in the easy
authoritative tone with which one talks to a naughty child. “You will
live at Monkswood,” he proceeded tranquilly. “It is smaller than
Looton, but I hope you will find it as comfortable. Horses, carriages,
and servants will precede you there, and I hope all will be ready for
your reception in a fortnight’s time. In the meanwhile I must beg you
will remain with Helen, as I do not wish you to return to Miss Fane.
I forbid you to see her or to correspond with her.” He paused to see
the effect of his words, then continued: “Your own aunt, Miss Saville,
has been good enough to promise to reside with you permanently, as it
would be out of the question for you to live alone.”
During the above long speech Alice had been gazing at her husband with
amazed indignant eyes. Drawing herself up as he concluded, she said:
“And supposing I decline to leave Miss Fane and to go to Monkswood,
what are to be the dire consequences?”
“You have no other alternative,” he replied with freezing politeness.
“Unfortunately for your independent spirit, all your money is in my
hands.”
“What a shame!” she cried passionately.
“Yes, is it not?” he answered with a satirical smile. “A young lady
with an empty purse, and utterly cut off from her friends, would find
herself rather embarrassed, to say the least of it.”
“Miss Fane will allow me to live with her as before,” she returned
confidently.
“When she finds that you are absolutely penniless, I think you will
discover that her interest in you has ceased,” he replied significantly.
“Must I go to Monkswood? Must I?” she asked passionately.
A bow was her reply.
“I suppose I am completely in your power?”
“I am afraid so,” he answered composedly.
“Oh, if anyone else were only my guardian! If your father had lived, or
if he had chosen Mr. Mayhew.”
“I sincerely echo both your wishes, but I hope you will be able to
reconcile yourself to circumstances. You will go to Monkswood, I am
sure.”
“I suppose I _must_--for a time at least,” looking at him defiantly.
“Very well,” he replied, ignoring her look, “we will consider the
matter settled. Mark Mayhew and my solicitors will look after your
interests. Personally, I will have no communication with you. This
is our last interview; from to-day we are strangers.” After a pause
he went on: “You will hear from Helen whether I am dead or alive; if
the former, you will be freed from every tie--you will be your own
mistress, an exceedingly rich widow, with no one to control you in
any way. Should you marry again, as no doubt you will, I sincerely
hope your second venture in matrimony will be more fortunate than your
first.”
“Reginald!” she exclaimed indignantly.
“He will have to be a different sort of fellow to me,” he continued,
without noticing the interruption; “to have a pretty thick skin;
to give you your own way completely; and to have no self-respect
whatever. Of course _that_ will be a _sine qua non_. He must not
mind your changeful moods, nor be offended, if after telling him he
is dearer to you than words can express, and making an utter fool of
him, you turn on him at the first breath of suspicion and call him a
hypocrite, a deceiver, a ruffian of the deepest dye, and altogether a
most infernal scoundrel.”
“Reginald, I never used such expressions. How _dare_ you speak to me
in such a way! How dare you treat me so!” she exclaimed, raising her
voice, much to the amusement of two sailors, the only other people on
the pier, who were lolling over the railings close by, and had been
watching the scene with unaffected delight.
“She’s giving it to him. By Jove, Bill, that chap has his hands full!”
said one of them, turning his quid. “If he is going to venture out
on the sea of matrimony with that craft, he’ll happen to have heavy
weather frequent and squalls every day.”
“What do you mean by bringing me here to ridicule and insult me?”
repeated Alice in a towering rage. “The marriage certificate is
still unexplained, and you talk to me as if _you_ were the injured
person--_you_!”
“I am glad to see that you have grasped my meaning,” he replied coolly.
“I _am_ the injured person; suspected by you, who should be the last to
doubt me--homeless, wifeless, nevertheless innocent. I am leaving my
native land, this time a voluntary exile. You have destroyed my faith
in womankind: a woman’s word--a woman’s love--a woman’s generosity are
to me now merely so many names for delusions believed in by children
and _fools_. I brought you here to tell you of various arrangements I
had made. I preferred a personal interview to letter-writing; besides
which, I am sure you will be amused to hear that I had a lingering hope
you would have believed me and trusted me, even at the eleventh hour--a
hope I now see,” looking at her steadily, “that I was mad to entertain.”
“You were indeed insane to think it,” exclaimed Alice very
emphatically. “Prove the certificate to be a forgery, and then I will
believe you,” she said abruptly, turning to leave the pier, with a
scarlet flush on either cheek and a general air of outraged dignity.
They walked homewards, that cold, dusky February evening, in solemn
silence. Alice’s conscience was clamouring loudly as she stepped
briskly along, endeavouring to keep up with her husband’s rapid
strides. He seemed totally unconscious of her presence. Buried deep in
his own thoughts, he did not vouchsafe a single remark between the pier
and the Mayhews’ house.
“God forgive you if you have wronged him,” said Alice’s inward monitor.
“He is going away to the other end of the world, and you may never see
him again.”
“But the certificate--the clergyman’s signature so far undenied and
unrefuted,” argued Pride and Propriety.
Helen, who had been expecting great things from this interview, met
her cousins in the hall on their return. One glance at Alice was
sufficient to dash her hopes to the ground--she looked the very picture
of frigid resolution as she placed her umbrella in the stand, and with
some trivial remark about the lateness of the hour walked straight
upstairs to her own room, where she remained all the evening, pleading
a bad headache as an excuse from dinner. Nor was her husband a more
hopeful subject; declining all his cousin’s entreaties and persuasions
to remain, at any rate, till the last train, he took his departure
forthwith, Helen promising him, as she followed him to the door, that
they would _all_ come and see him off the following Thursday. Her
inquiries and hints were in vain; no particulars of the walk to the
pier were vouchsafed to satisfy the cravings of her curiosity. “We are
just where we were before we ever met--we are strangers,” was the only
intelligence gleaned from her cousin as he selected a cigar, buttoned
up his top-coat, and bade her good-night.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM.
The day of embarkation arrived only too speedily. It was a persistently
pouring wet morning, rain descending in torrents. It cleared a little
towards the afternoon, and the Mayhews, accompanied by Alice, started
in a close carriage for Portsmouth Dockyard. They had insisted on her
accompanying them, saying that, if she did not, it would give rise to
a great deal of unpleasant discussion among their friends, several of
whom lived at Southsea.
“It is only fair to Reginald,” urged Helen. “He has not had time to
clear himself yet, and at any rate before the _world_ you will have to
keep up appearances. How you can allow him to go--how you can doubt
him, I cannot imagine. You will be exceedingly sorry for yourself some
day,” she added in a lower voice, accompanied by a look of keen-edged
meaning quite lost upon Alice, who was staring vacantly out of the
window.
They soon arrived at The Hard, Portsea, and descried the huge white
_Alligator_ lying alongside. The most frightful confusion prevailed
on all sides, and the noise and din and pushing and shoving were
beyond description. Baggage bewailed as lost; baggage going on board;
soldiers’ wives, who were being left behind, in loud lamentation;
friends who came to see people off, rather cheery and important
than otherwise; friends who were really sorry, and on the verge of
tears; dogs being smuggled on board; dogs being turned out; wherever
you looked there was bustle and confusion! The Mayhew party gingerly
ascended the long and slippery gangway, and asked for Sir Reginald
Fairfax.
“Yes, he was below, God bless him!” said an Irishwoman, who was wiping
her eyes with the tail of her dress. “It’s many a sore heart he has
lightened this day.”
“How so?” inquired Mrs. Mayhew graciously.
“Hasn’t he given ten pounds to every woman that’s not on the strength,
and is left behind, meeself among them--and me wid three childer? May
the heavens be his bed! may he never know sickness or grief! May he
never know what it is to have as sore a heart as mine is this day! May
the Holy Virgin protect him!”
It was in vain they tried to stem this torrent of blessings; the woman
would not let them out of her sight.
Addressing herself specially to Alice, she said:
“Maybe you’re his sweetheart, or his sister, alannah! His sweetheart,
I’m sure?” she urged insinuatingly.
“No, neither,” replied Alice, blushing furiously, and making a wild and
at last effectual effort to reach the top of the saloon stairs, leaving
the Irishwoman still pouring benedictions on her husband’s head.
The long saloon was full of artillery, cavalry, and infantry officers
and their friends, but Reginald was not there after all; so, under
the escort of a polite naval officer, they again went on deck, where
they found him in the fore part of the ship, giving orders to a smart
saucy-looking sergeant, with his cap on three hairs, who was receiving
his directions with many a “Yes, sir; very well, sir.”
Sir Reginald was now junior major in the Seventeenth Hussars, and
uncommonly well he looked in his new uniform. He received Mark and
Helen warmly, Alice politely, and as though she were some young lady
friend of Helen’s, and nothing more. He offered to show them over the
ship, now they were there, and took them between decks, pointed at the
soldiers’ quarters, the live stock, the engines, etc. Alice, under
convoy of the naval officer, walked behind her husband and the Mayhews,
but her mind was in far too great a ferment to notice or admire the
order, discipline, spotlessness of the magnificent trooper.
She answered her exceedingly smart escort utterly at random as she
mechanically picked her steps along the wet decks, the said young
sailor thinking her the prettiest girl he had seen for many a day, and
that her feet and ankles were the most unexceptionable he had ever come
across. He made a mental note to find out who she was and all about her.
As they passed a group of weeping women, he remarked: “They may well
cry, poor creatures, for many a fine fellow will sail to-day that will
never see his native land again.”
“Oh, please don’t say that,” said Alice, her eyes filling with tears.
“Why not? Are you very much interested in anyone on board?” he asked
with a smile meant to be tender and captivating.
“My husband,” she faltered.
“Your husband!” he cried thunderstruck. “Are you married--you look so
awfully young? Is that your husband--that young hussar fellow ahead
with your friends?”
Alice, whose tears were now quietly coursing down her cheeks, turned
and leant over the side in silence.
“Is he?” he repeated.
She nodded impatiently, still further averting her face.
“Oh, but a strong-looking fellow like that is sure to come back all
right,” said he, offering her the first piece of clumsy comfort that
came into his head, and much distressed at the flow of tears that kept
drip, drip, dripping into the sea.
“By Jove!” he thought, “what an odd couple they are! They have never
spoken to each other yet, for all this grief.”
Meanwhile the Mayhews and Reginald had turned and come back towards
them, and were much edified to find Alice leaning over the side,
apparently studying the sea, and a young sailor seemingly whispering
soft nothings into her ear. _This_ was a phase of her character that
burst upon them for the first time. She remained quite motionless till
they had passed, then dried her eyes and followed them below. They went
down to the main deck and saw Reginald’s cabin, which he shared with
another officer. Some loving hands had done up the stranger’s side with
many a little comfort--a thick quilted crimson counterpane, pockets for
boots, and combs, and brushes against the wall, and the netting over
his berth crammed with new novels. All these caught Alice’s eye, and
she felt a sharp twinge as she turned and saw her husband’s share of
the cabin bare of everything save such luxuries as the ship provided.
“You are all going to stay and dine with me,” he said, “at the ghastly
hour of half-past four, but it will take the place of five-o’clock tea
for once. And if you like to make a toilette,” addressing himself to
Helen, “here are brushes and combs at your service, and I’ll take care
that the other fellow does not intrude.”
“But won’t it seem very odd if we stay?” asked Helen, dying to do so.
“Not at all. About twenty ladies are dining besides yourselves; so look
sharp, the first bugle has gone.”
He treated Alice as an utter stranger; and Alice, now that he was
really and truly going, began to realise what she was losing. Regret,
remorse, and love were getting the better of pride, obstinacy, and
suspicion. Miss Fane’s influence was gradually wearing away in Helen
Mayhew’s society. She choked back the blinding tears that would come
into her eyes, and bit her quivering lips, so that Helen might not see
her tardy sorrow. Helen was calmly titivating herself at the glass, and
did not observe her companion’s emotion.
“Come, Alice, be quick!” she exclaimed at last. “Take off your jacket,
child; your serge will do very nicely. Here, wash your face and brush
your hair; you look quite wild and dishevelled.”
Alice mechanically rose to obey her. “What a dandy Reginald is,”
she proceeded. “I had no idea he was such a fine gentleman:
ivory-backed brushes with monograms, and all his toilet accessories to
correspond--boot-hook, button-hook, shoe-horn, all complete. Let’s see
what his dressing-case is like inside.”
“Oh don’t,” cried Alice piteously; “he hates to have his things
rummaged, I know he does.”
“What nonsense, my dear girl,” opening the case. “Here, have some
white rose--hold out your handkerchief.”
“No, thank you, I would rather not.”
“Ridiculous goose, afraid to have it because it is your husband’s!
Listen to me, Alice,” she said more gravely, putting her hand on
Alice’s shoulder; “he is your husband as sure as Mark is mine. Say
_something_ to him before he goes. Promise me that you will. There!
there’s the dinner-bugle. Now mind,” opening the cabin-door hastily and
speaking to Alice over her shoulder, “it will be your last chance.”
They found Reginald waiting at the foot of the stairs to escort them
to dinner, where he sat between them at the captain’s table. Quite a
number of ladies were present, but not one to compare with Alice in
appearance. Many an admiring eye was turned again and again to the
lovely slight girl sitting next Fairfax. A lisping sub, who was at
the opposite table, after gazing at her for nearly five minutes, gave
utterance to the universal query, “Who is she?”
“I say, who the deuce is that pretty girl sitting next Fairfax? She is
uncommon good-looking.”
“Don’t know, I’m sure,” returned his neighbour; “his sister most
likely. She is downright lovely. Such a nose and chin, and sweet
kissable little mouth!”
“You had better not let Fairfax hear you, my dear boy. Maybe she’s his
wife.”
“Wife! That girl! You can just step upstairs and tell that to the
marines.”
“I would give a trifle to know who she is,” remarked a third, upon whom
a brandy-and-soda had had a most reviving effect.
“I can tell you,” said Alice’s acquaintance, the naval officer, who had
just come down and seated himself at the end of the table; “she is the
wife of that young fellow next her.”
“What nonsense! He is not married.”
“Oh yes, he is,” observed a hitherto silent youth, who had been
devoting himself ardently to his dinner, and who now plunged into the
discussion pending the arrival of the second course. “He _is_ married,
but he and his wife have had no end of a shindy, I hear; that’s the
reason he is going abroad. Just look at them now, as grave and as glum
as if they were at a funeral.”
“What a pity it is that marriage is so often the grave of love,”
remarked a cynical little artilleryman, putting up his eyeglass and
staring across at the other table. “They are an uncommonly good-looking
couple, anyway. The fellow reminds me of Millais’ ‘Black Brunswicker,’
only he is darker.”
So saying, he languidly dropped his glass and resumed his dinner.
The moment of parting came, and the general feeling was that the sooner
it was over the better.
Putting on their hats and jackets, Alice and Helen hastened on deck;
Alice’s heart thumping, her knees trembling, and her face as pale as
death. Here they were joined by Mr. Mayhew and Reginald, who were
having a few last words.
“Come along, Helen,” said Mark, taking her arm and leading her down the
gangway, good-naturedly intending to give the other couple a moment
to themselves; but if it had been to save Alice’s life she could not
have uttered a syllable. She intended to have said something--what,
she scarcely knew--but her dry lips could not frame a sound, and they
reached the carriage in dead silence.
“Good-bye, Mark! Good-bye, Helen! Good-bye, Alice!” said her husband
hurriedly.
Alice turned on him a wistful glance, but a cold farewell was all she
read in his stern dark eyes. In another second he was clanking up the
gangway, a vision of a dark-blue uniform, a close-cropped brown head,
and he was gone; and Alice leant back in her corner of the carriage,
and gave way to a passion of weeping no longer to be restrained.
CHAPTER X.
GEOFFREY SPEAKS HIS MIND.
Alice remained at the Mayhews’ for ten days, previous to going to
Monkswood. She was very quiet and subdued in public, but in private her
feelings were not so well under control. If the walls of her room could
have spoken, the good folks downstairs would have been amazed at some
of their revelations. They could have told how Alice flung herself on
her bed the night the _Alligator_ sailed, and wept the bitterest tears
she ever shed.
“If he _is_ innocent,” she said, “he will never, never forgive me.
What have I done? I have had the happiness of my life in my own
keeping, and thrown it away with both hands.”
Leaving Alice stretched on her bed, perfectly worn out and exhausted
with crying, her face buried in the pillows to stifle her sobs, let us
follow the _Alligator_ and see how her husband is getting on.
They have rounded Finisterre, and are having, if anything, rather worse
than the usual Bay weather. Tremendous Atlantic rollers are tossing
the _Alligator_ about as if she were a huge toy. Now she yaws over,
down, down, down to this side, now she slowly rights herself from an
angle of at least 40°, and goes over to that. They are having a very
bad time of it no doubt, for it has now commenced to blow, not half but
a whole gale. All but those whose duty it is to remain on deck have
gone below--all but one tall figure in a military great-coat, who is
standing under the bridge, and keeping his equilibrium as best he can,
considering that he is a _soldier_.
He seems perfectly insensible to the lurching ship, the torrents
of water sweeping the decks, the whistling of the wind through the
rigging, and the weather-beaten sailors’ anxious faces. _Seems_ so
only; in his heart he is saying:
“If this goes on she will founder. It will be a terrible thing for all
these poor fellows and their friends at home, but a rare piece of good
luck for _me_.”
However, the _Alligator_ did not go to the bottom, thanks to
Providence, rare seamanship, and her own sea-going qualities--but that
she never was out in anything that tried the latter so thoroughly was
admitted by the oldest salt on board.
* * * * *
Geoffrey escorted Alice down to Monkswood about a fortnight after her
husband had sailed. The carriage they occupied was empty; for the
first part of the journey they had it all to themselves. Geoffrey
thought this an excellent opportunity for giving Alice what he called
“a little bit of his mind,” so, having arranged himself and his rug to
his complete satisfaction, in the seat facing hers, and sticking his
eyeglass firmly in his eye, he commenced:
“_You_ are a nice young woman, I must say. I have the worst, the very
worst possible opinion of you.”
“You can’t think how grieved I am to hear you say so,” said Alice,
looking up from _Punch_ with a complacent smile.
“It’s no smiling matter,” he replied angrily, “you heartless,
obstinate little--little--I don’t know what to call you.”
“Don’t hesitate to relieve your mind; you have generally a fine command
of language. Pray don’t let my feelings stand in your way.”
“Well--_vixen_, then--a little vixen!--allowing your _husband_”--with
much emphasis on the word--“to go out of the country in this way: the
very best, the nicest fellow in the whole world. His little finger is
worth ten of you. Letting him go when a word would have stopped him.
The idea of a chit like you”--with scathing contempt--“having it in her
power to control a fellow’s movements! Now you have sent him to that
white man’s grave-yard--India--I hope you are satisfied?”
“There was no occasion for him to go.”
“Every occasion, once you had taken it into your head to leave him.
You could not both live at home, and apart, without no end of a
scandal--a young couple barely out of their honeymoon. Even now there
are whispers, I can tell you; but, as everyone knows Rex to be a
red-hot soldier, the row that they say is going to come off out there
will be sufficient excuse to most; few will guess the real reason of
his leaving England--an obstinate, credulous, heartless wife.”
“Really, Geoffrey, you have the most astounding assurance! What next,
pray?”
“One great comfort to me is,” proceeded Geoffrey, removing his glass
and leaning back with folded hands, “that when this tremendous lie is
found out, and squashed, everyone will be down on you like a thousand
tons of bricks. I am quite looking forward to it, I can tell you,”
rubbing his hands. “Thank goodness you are not _my_ wife, that’s all.”
“To be your wife!” she exclaimed contemptuously, “what an alluring
idea! Why not suggest Norman at once?”
Geoffrey’s youth was his tender point.
“I am glad you are not my wife,” continued Geoffrey, perfectly
unruffled by her interruption. “I remember you as a small child, a
horrid, cross, cantankerous little monkey, flying into awful tantrums
and rages for nothing at all. You bit me once, I recollect, my young
lady.”
“I’m sure I never did,” cried Alice indignantly.
“Pardon me; I have every reason to remember it. Your teeth were as
sharp then as your tongue is now. You asked my pardon, and said you
were very sorry, and all that, and I forgave you. Query, will Reginald
forgive you for the nice trick you have served him? What possessed him
to marry you is a riddle I have given up long ago. However, if anyone
can break you in to trot nicely and quietly in double harness, Reginald
is the man. He stands no nonsense, as I daresay you know by this time,
madam.”
“Have you done, Geoffrey?”
“Not quite yet. Supposing he is killed out there, or is carried off
by fever or cholera, how will you feel? The chances are fifty to one
against his ever coming home. If he does not, his death will lie at
your door as surely as if you had murdered him.”
Now Alice, whatever fear she had of Helen, had no awe of Geoffrey, and
whatever she might suffer from self-reproach, had no idea of being
taken to task in this way by him.
“One would think, to hear you talk, Geoffrey, that you were the
injured party. Pray what business is it of yours, my kind and
complimentary cousin? If you could contrive to mind your own affairs
and leave me to manage mine I should feel obliged,” said Alice with
much dignity, taking up _Punch_ once more from her lap and casting
a look of indignant defiance over the top of its pages at her
irrepressible cousin.
“By rights you ought to be at school; you are barely eighteen--far too
young to know your own mind; not that you have much mind to know,” he
added, crossing his legs and gazing at her dispassionately.
“Much or little, it is made up on one subject most thoroughly,”
returned Alice with an angry spot on either cheek. “If you do not cease
these civilities and leave me in peace, Geoffrey, I shall get out at
the next station, and travel in another carriage.”
“Here you are then!” he returned unabashed, as the slackening pace and
large sheds full of rolling stock and network of lines betokened their
arrival at a junction.
“This will do,” said a high treble voice, and the carriage-door opened
and displayed two very fashionable-looking ladies, a maid, a poodle,
various monstrous wicker travelling cases, a varied assortment of small
parcels, dressing-cases, umbrellas, and other light odds and ends. The
party were under the charge of a stout, red-faced, irascible-looking
old gentleman, who seemed by no means equal to the occasion, and was
soon to be seen coursing up and down the platform, inveighing at
porters, accosting guards, and altogether in a state of excitement
bordering on delirium.
The two ladies, the poodle (smuggled), and many of the smaller packages
found places in the carriage with Alice and Geoffrey; and after a time
were joined by the old gentleman, frightfully out of breath and out of
temper.
The presence of outsiders put an end to hostilities between our young
friends, and their discussion was postponed to a more appropriate
occasion. Alice even vouchsafed to accept a fresh foot-warmer and a cup
of tea from Geoffrey’s hands in token of a truce.
Although the month was March, it was still bitterly cold, and
Alice shivered as they sped along through fields still brown,
past curious old hamlets and farm-houses, with red high-pitched
roofs or quaint black and white timbered walls; past dumpy little
high-shouldered-looking village churches; past gray manorial halls
peeping through their still bare leafless woods; past flaming scarlet
modern erections in the all-prevailing Queen Anne style; past
scattering cattle and galloping long-tailed colts, at thundering
express speed.
Alice saw but little of the landscape; her eyes were dim with unshed
tears, that nearly blinded her.
Was ever any girl so miserably unfortunate, so wretchedly unhappy as
herself? She had had to abide by principle and duty--to hold aloof from
her husband till he could clear himself. But where was Reginald now?
What was he doing? Could he but guess the awful blank he had made in
her life? Supposing that Geoffrey’s prediction came true! she thought,
with a sudden contraction of her heart. What would she not give for
one moment’s glimpse of him now? Query, would she have been happier
had her wish been gratified? The picture would unfold a hazy languid
afternoon, the _Alligator_ steaming down the glassy Red Sea twelve
knots an hour; the passengers enjoying a practical experience of the
_dolce far niente_--some dozing in cane chairs or on the benches, their
caps pulled over their eyes, gracefully nodding and coquetting with
the fickle goddess Sleep; some playing deck-quoits; some endeavouring,
spite of drowsiness, to interest themselves in a yellow-backed novel;
some playing draughts; some smoking; some one or two, “though lost to
sight to memory dear,” beneath a shady umbrella, in company with a lot
of flounces and neat little steel-buckled high-heeled shoes.
Down in the saloon, half-a-dozen kindred spirits are drinking the cup
that cheers etc., dispensed by the pretty little hands of a pretty
little woman, the wife of a colonel returning from a six months’
European tour, charged with quantities of nice new dresses and a
freshly-whetted appetite and zest for flirtation. She has helped to
“get up” theatricals on board, and played her part to admiration; she
sings delightfully piquante French songs to an audience of enthralled
fellow-passengers; she tells amusing little stories about the other
ladies in her cabin to her ravished listeners; she treats everything
as a joke--even Sir Reginald Fairfax amuses her. He avoids all the
ladies, never speaks to them, and keeps aloof from the fair sex in a
manner that stimulates her vanity and her curiosity alike. However, she
has overcome circumstances, and by a propitiously-dropped book made
his acquaintance, and finds that “he is altogether charming, and every
bit as nice as he looks.” This she explains to the lady at the next
washing-stand, as she dresses elaborately for dinner.
Sir Reginald is compelled to come to five o’clock tea--there is no
escape for him--and he submits to circumstances with as good a grace as
he can muster.
Behold the picture Alice would have seen, had second sight been
vouchsafed to her: Pretty, very pretty Mrs. Wynyard, in a dressy pink
cotton, pouring out tea at the end of one of the saloon tables for the
benefit of two ladies and five gentlemen, who are all in the highest
possible spirits, and discussing the lottery that they are getting
up on passing Perim. Her husband is the object of Mrs. Wynyard’s
most marked civilities; he has been deputed to cut the cake, and is
fulfilling the task with wonderful skill and alacrity, and is laughing
and talking with as much animation as anyone else. For the moment he
has cast care behind him and closed his eyes to the past; and, indeed,
care is but a sorry associate for a young man of five-and-twenty.
* * * * *
To leave the tea-party on board the _Alligator_, and return to Alice in
the railway carriage, does not take us more than a second. Whilst her
face is steadfastly turned away from the new arrivals, they have been
regarding her with a long exhaustive stare.
“Who are these young people?” they ask themselves with the intolerance
of people in their own county. “The girl is well dressed, and might be
good-looking if she had more colour and not those dark rings round her
eyes,” was their mental verdict. These ladies themselves, attired in
fashion’s latest _hint_ of fashion, by no means disdained to bring art
(and a good deal of art) to the aid of nature.
One of them was not merely rouged, she was _raddled_; and over her
head fully forty summers had flown. Nevertheless, her sight was still
eagle-keen, and on the strap of a dressing-case she deciphered a card
and the name “Fairfax.” Electrical effect! Yes, “Fairfax” as plain as
a pikestaff. Was this girl the young bride, the beauty, that there had
been so much talk about? She must be.
And the youth. Was he her husband? That boy! Preposterous! If not her
husband, _who_ was he, and where was Sir Reginald Fairfax?
You may rest assured that she did not keep her discovery or her
surmises to herself; and no sooner had Alice and Geoffrey left the
train than she took her companions into her confidence, and pointed
out with emphasis the open carriage and imposing-looking pair of bays
that were visible above the palings outside the station, and into which
Lady Fairfax and her companion had just stepped and driven off.
Why did the bride come thus, alone? Where was her husband? Who was her
escort?
The rosy-cheeked lady lived within an easy distance of Manister, and
she set the ball of rumour and conjecture rolling along so gaily and so
speedily, that all the matrons within miles of Monkswood soon regarded
Alice with feelings bordering on ferocity. In the first place, she had
carried off the best _parti_ in the county. This was bad enough; but
to be separated from him within three months of their marriage, and
to arrive on their hands as a very bad little black sheep, was surely
beyond endurance. She had _nothing_ to expect from their charity or
generosity.
CHAPTER XI.
“EASTWARD HO!”
The _Alligator_ put in at Malta for twenty-four hours, and all the
passengers landed and “did” the sights. Reginald, in company with some
fellow-sightseers, visited the cathedral, the fried monks, and other
noteworthy objects, and, sentimental as it sounds, he strolled past the
house where he had first met Alice.
“Who would have thought,” he said to himself, “that that simple,
unsophisticated girl would have turned out so hard and unyielding? She
had given him a bitter lesson; he had done with her and all womankind,
that was certain;” but before he reached Port Saïd his heart was
considerably softened.
The handsome young second lieutenant and he were constantly thrown
together, and had become capital friends. They were partners at whist,
and frequently played in the same game at deck-quoits. One evening they
were standing in the stern, watching a large steamer passing in the
distance, homeward bound, when the lieutenant abruptly broached the
delicate subject of matrimony.
“No one would think,” he said, critically surveying his companion,
“that _you_ were a married man.”
“Then you are not as clever as a friend of mine, who declares that he
recognises a Benedict at once by the cut of his boots, and could swear
to his umbrella,” said Sir Reginald.
“You haven’t a married look about you,” resumed the sailor, “no, nor
your wife either. I never was more amazed than when she told me she was
married.”
“Indeed!” replied Sir Reginald stiffly.
“Yes, I put my foot in it rather; I _always_ do if there is the
slightest aperture for that extremity. Thinking her a girl come on
board with her friends merely to see off some casual acquaintance,
I told her that the chances were that many of those embarking would
never see England again. A most happy remark, was it not?” observed the
sailor emphatically.
“And what then?” asked his companion with averted eyes, busily
arranging the focus of his opera-glasses.
“Oh!” she said, “don’t, my husband is going;” and then she burst into
floods of tears. Such oceans I never saw; how they poured down into
Portsmouth Dock I shan’t soon forget.
“Did she say that I was her husband?” inquired Sir Reginald, looking at
him searchingly.
“Yes, of course she did. You are, are you not?” returning his gaze with
wide-open curious eyes.
“I am,” very shortly. “After all, that is not a P. and O. boat. Now she
is close, you can easily see that she is one of the Messageries; yes,
you were right after all, and I was wrong,” said Sir Reginald, changing
the conversation and handing the glasses back to the lieutenant.
A few minutes later he moved away, and leaning over the bulwarks in
a secluded spot he finished his cheroot alone. Somehow his heart
felt lighter than it had done for a long time; and when, some hours
later, he went below to his “horse-box,” and found his own particular
fellow-passenger asleep and snoring, he took out a cabinet photo of
Alice, taken shortly after their wedding, and gazed at it long and
earnestly. How happy she looked--how lovely! Infamously as she had
treated him, there was no one like his Alice after all. He had the
weakness to kiss the pasteboard and put it under his pillow, and in a
few minutes was sound asleep.
The _Alligator_ of course stopped at Port Saïd, that perennial abode
of sand, flies, and dogs; full of melancholy-looking empty cafés
chantants, where the performers, ranged on the platforms, and all ready
to strike up, appear to be only waiting for an audience, and audience
there is none. The sandy streets were full of people--Jews, Turks,
infidels, and heretics. The home-coming Anglo-Indian, with stupendous
mushroom topee swathed in a quarter of a mile of white puggaree, and
armed with a large double-covered umbrella, passes the out-going
“Griff,” got up in pot-hat, dogskin gloves, cane, etc., with a stony
stare.
But a very little of Port Saïd goes a long way with most people; and
the _Alligator_ passengers, having laid in a supply of eau-de-cologne,
oranges, and umbrellas, with which to face the Red Sea, were not sorry
to troop back on board to the welcome signal of the “dinner” flag.
They edged their way cautiously through the Canal, and bore down the
Red Sea with wind and weather in their favour. The sky and sea were
like Oxford and Cambridge blue; there was not a ripple in the water.
The far-receding Arabian coast engaged the attention of at least a
dozen deluded opera-glasses looking out for Mount Sinai.
Oddly-shaped islands were passed, including the notorious “Brothers,”
so little above water and so much in the line of traffic, that more
than one ill-fated steamer has borne down on them at full speed and
sunk like a stone. Aden was left behind in due time, and after a
pleasant breezy run across the Indian Ocean, one early morning Colaba
lighthouse was descried in sight, and not long afterwards they were
steaming majestically up Bombay harbour, and anchored off the Apollo
Bund. To a new arrival, how bright and gorgeous and eastern it all
looked!
The long low stretch of land, covered with white and yellow buildings
of all shapes and sizes, set off with a background of green trees;
rising here and there against the turquoise sky were palms lofty and
graceful, which alone made everyone realise that they were actually in
the East at last.
The harbour was crowded with shipping. Steamers and sailing ships at
anchor abounded on all sides; and flitting in every direction were
native bunderboats plying between them and the shore. Fishing-boats,
with enormous lateen-shaped sails, were spread up the harbour towards
Elephanta. Even the grotesque junk was represented; and altogether
the scene was novel and lively. And now for the moment of parting
and disembarking on board the _Alligator_. None of the former were
particularly tender, for there had been no very _prononcé_ flirtations.
In this respect the troopers pale before the P. and O., and those who
were bound for the same station had generally herded together on the
voyage out. There was wild work at the railway station, but after
awhile the _Alligator’s_ late freight were steaming along to their
several destinations in Bengal, Madras, or Bombay.
Sir Reginald Fairfax and Captain Vaughan, Seventeenth Hussars, along
with the draft in their charge, were forwarded to Camelabad; and after
a wearisome three-days’ journey, half-blinded with glare and smothered
with dust, they found themselves (figuratively speaking) in the arms
of their brother “Braves.” The Seventeenth had only recently arrived
in the station, and had barely shaken down into the quarters vacated
by the out-going “Guides,” whose furniture, horses, and traps they had
also succeeded to, after the exchange of sundry bags of rupees, as
horses, traps and furniture, once settled at an Indian station, rarely
leave it. An old _habitué_ will say to a new arrival--a bride most
likely, and vain of her first equipage:
“Oh, I see you have got the Carsons carriage.”
“Oh dear no; it is ours.”
“Yes, I know that, of course; but it was the Carsons’, and before that
it belonged to the Boltons, who got it from the Kennedys, who brought
it from Madras.”
Camelabad was a lively populous station, large and scattered. There
was always something going on. The hospitality of the Anglo-Indian is
proverbial; society, as a rule, pulls well together. The backbiting,
scandal, and cause for scandal, so much attributed to Indian circles,
is no worse out there than it is at home. The fact of being fellow
exiles draws people together, and they are more genial to each other
than in their native land.
But to return to Camelabad. It was certainly a very gay place;
dances, dinners, theatricals, “At homes,” not to speak of polo
matches, sky races, and paper-chases, succeeded each other rapidly.
The Seventeenth Hussars were soon drawn into the giddy vortex; they
set up a weekly “function,” and gave a capital ball, and speedily
ingratiated themselves with their neighbours. They went everywhere
and did everything, “as people always do who have not long come out,”
quoth the Anglo-Indian of thirty years’ standing with lofty contempt.
They all went out with one exception, and he never mixed in society;
for which reason, strange to say, society was most anxious to make his
acquaintance. The Seventeenth were repeatedly asked: “Why does not your
junior major show? Excepting on boards or courts-martial, he is never
to be seen.”
“Why does he not come and call?” a lady of high social position
asked the colonel. “I want to have him to dinner. What makes him so
unsociable? Such a handsome young man too! I saw him at the review on
the Queen’s birthday. You must stir him up!”
“I can’t, my dear madam. I have tried to stir him up, as you call it,
but it was no good. Nevertheless, he is a capital fellow; first-rate
officer; keen sportsman; and awfully popular with men. But I take it he
does not care for ladies; got rather a facer from one of them, I fancy.”
This having transpired, Sir Reginald became more interesting than ever
to the public mind; but as all invitations invariably met the same
fate--a polite refusal--he was in time permitted to “gang his ain
gait,” and relegated to the ranks of the outer barbarians. He played
polo with the regimental team, rode the regimental cracks in the sky
races, and was looked on as an enormous acquisition by the Seventeenth,
who considered him a kind of Admirable Crichton in a small way, his
riding, shooting, and cricketing being much above par. His personal
appearance they regarded with undisguised complacency as a valuable
adjunct to the average good looks of the corps; and he was installed in
their opinion as an out-and-out good fellow and thorough gentleman.
“I used to be sick of hearing some of the Fifth fellows quoting Fairfax
for this, that, and the other,” remarked one; “but, strange to say,
their swan _is_ a swan after all, and has not turned out to be that
very toothsome but homely bird--a goose!”
With all his popularity, he was the last man with whom any of them
would have taken a liberty. He would have been bold indeed who would
have asked him why he left the Fifth Hussars, not to speak of a fine
country place, magnificent shooting, and ten thousand a-year, to lead
a dull monotonous life on the scorching plains of India? He would
have been bolder still who would have inquired about the fair and
exceedingly pretty girl, that Captain Vaughan had seen sitting next
him at dinner the day of embarkation. Who was she? Was she his sister
or his sweetheart? Someone said he had a vague idea that Fairfax was a
married man; but he was silenced and crushed by general consent.
Fairfax was a bachelor--crossed in love, if you will--but a bachelor
_pur et simple_. Look at his bungalow--rigid simplicity. Look at
his room--not a bit of woman’s work, not a photo, not an ornament.
A perilously narrow camp-bed, a few chairs, a portable kit, a
writing-table, and a squadron of boots, and that was all. There were a
few books, chiefly on cavalry tactics and military history, leavened
with half-a-dozen sporting novels; not a French one among them.
Anything but like the accepted idea of a smart young cavalry officer’s
lair. If, as they say, a man’s room is a type of himself, Fairfax was a
soldier, a rigid moralist, and above all a bachelor, and one who would
no doubt develop into an old bachelor into the bargain.
Captain Campbell and Lieutenant Harvey were sitting in their mutual
verandah, in long chairs, clad in costumes more conspicuous for ease
than elegance, smoking, taking away the characters of their neighbours’
horses, and minutely discussing the approaching big races. From horses
they came to riders, and finally to Fairfax.
“He is one of the best fellows going, but I cannot make him out; he
looks like a man with a story.”
“He does; and he has one you may be sure,” replied Captain Campbell
with conviction, languidly puffing at his cheroot.
“If he was the life and soul of the Fifth, as we have heard, their
ideas of mirth and jollity are more moderate than I could have
imagined. Sometimes, I grant you, he is in fairish spirits, and he can
say very amusing things; but, as a rule, he is silent and _distrait_.
It is certainly in field sports and on parade that he shines most;
brilliant sociability is not his _forte_.”
“No, decidedly not; and yet how all the fellows like him, from the
latest youngster from home upwards; although he is down upon the boys
at times, and has the art of being more politely and unpleasantly
sarcastic than anyone I know. One would think he was forty to hear him
talk, he is so circumspect and staid; and he can’t be more than six or
seven and twenty at the very outside. The youngsters respect him as if
he was the Commander-in-Chief himself; and the remarks at his end of
the table are never so free as elsewhere. There must be some reason
for his premature gravity. There’s a woman in the case, depend upon
it,” said Captain Campbell, tossing away the end of his cigar with an
emphatic gesture. “_Cherchez la femme_, say I.”
“I should not wonder. Probably he has been crossed in love--jilted
perhaps,” suggested Mr. Harvey.
“She must be uncommonly hard to please, whoever she is, for he is one
of the best-looking fellows you could see--well-born and rich.” Captain
Campbell paused for a moment to reflect on these advantages, and then
continued: “It is a curious thing that he never mentions a woman’s
name, and is altogether very close about himself and his family. Do
you remark that he takes tremendously long solitary rides, and gives
his horses the most work of any man in the station, for he gallops
often, he gallops far, and he gallops fast.”
“He never seems to care to ride with anyone, don’t you know.” (Mr.
Harvey put in “don’t you know,” on an average, every three words.) “I
offered my agreeable society at various times, but he always put me
off in that quiet way of his, don’t you know; so I thought: ‘My dear
fellow, _saint_ as we think you, you have some little game up, and I’ll
see what it is, don’t you know.’”
“That will do, my dear fellow; that’s the eleventh ‘don’t you know.’
Stick to Fairfax,” exclaimed his companion impatiently.
“Well, last Saturday evening, about five o’clock, I saw him going out
of his compound on that new black Australian of his; and as I was just
going for a ride myself, I nipped up on ‘Agag,’ and struck out after
him, on the sly naturally; and a nice chase he led me--for nothing too.
He went easy enough till he got well out of sight of the cantonment,
and then, by Jove, didn’t he put the pace on! _Oculus meus!_ how he
took it out of the Waler. He rode slap across country as if he was mad,
clean over every nullah, big or little, that came in his way. I had a
hideous conviction that, if I followed him, especially on ‘Agag,’ I
should come to a violent end, so I stayed in a mango tope, and kept
my ‘cold gray’ on him in the distance. When he had galloped his fill,
and exorcised whatever demon possessed him, he came back after a ring
of seven or eight miles, with the black all in a lather, but looking
as cool as a cucumber himself. I joined him--quite promiscuously of
course--but I fancy that he twigged he had been followed; there was a
look in those keen eyes of his that made me feel deuced uncomfortable.
I’m certain that he has something on his mind. A woman for choice.
Maybe _he_ threw her over, and she went mad, or drowned herself, or
something, don’t you know, and the pangs of remorse are preying on his
soul, eh?” cried Mr. Harvey, having talked himself breathless.
“A lively and cheerful idea truly,” said Captain Campbell, sitting
erect in his chair. “In my opinion it’s far more likely that the girl
of his affections has been faithless. He never talks of a woman, never
gets a letter from one; his correspondents are all of the sterner
sex--_vide_ the letter-rack--and he keeps his own concerns religiously
sealed from every eye, and never talks of himself in connection with
any belongings. He is a mystery, and a most interesting one. Why did
he come out here? Why did he leave his old regiment, where he was so
popular? What makes him so reserved and self-contained? I have watched
him at mess, when all of you were listening open-mouthed to one of
the doctor’s stories. I have seen Fairfax, when he thought no one was
observing him, lean back in his chair, with a sombre weary look, as if
he were sick and tired of life. And that time when Vaughan had fever so
badly, and he nursed him, I sat up with him part of a night. Vaughan
was sleeping, and he remained in the verandah. I fell asleep too,
and when I woke up a couple of hours later there was Fairfax in the
very same attitude as I had left him, still gazing at the stars, and
still apparently thinking profoundly. I watched him for a good while
before I spoke, and there was something indescribable in his face and
attitude that made me feel very sorry for him, and I seemed nearer to
knowing him that night than I had ever done before. Presently I said,
‘A penny for your thoughts, Fairfax,’ and he gave such a start as he
turned round and said, ‘They are not worth it; they are merely about
myself, and not very pleasant ones either,’ and then he got up and went
back to Vaughan and stayed beside him the remainder of the night. He
is one of the best fellows and most gentlemanly men I ever knew. But
as to following him as you have done”--flourishing a fresh cheroot in
the direction of his friend--“or ever trying to force myself into his
confidence, I would as soon think of cutting my throat.”
“Did you remark him on Christmas Day?” asked Mr. Harvey eagerly,
as if struck by a sudden thought. “After dinner, when we all drank
‘Sweethearts and wives,’ how taken aback he looked. I was sitting
opposite him, and he turned as pale as a sheet. He set down his glass
untasted at first, but I remarked that he drank it off afterwards.
There is a woman in the case, that’s certain.--Chokra! bring me a
brandy-and-soda.”
* * * * *
This conversation took place nearly a year after Sir Reginald had
joined the Seventeenth, and during that year two events of importance
had occurred. I will relate them as they came. He had been several
months at Camelabad, and had quite settled down to Indian military
life, and was beginning to look upon the short time he had spent at
home as a sort of fevered vision. He never heard from Alice. His only
correspondents were Mark Mayhew and Geoffrey, with an occasional note
from Helen. He heard from her that his wife had shut herself up at
Monkswood and declined all society, that her answers to their letters
were rare and brief, and that her aunt, Miss Saville, had been laid
up in Ireland with rheumatic fever, and would not be able to join her
niece for some time.
This was all that he had gleaned about Alice since he had left home;
consequently, when carelessly glancing through the _Home News_ one
mail-day his eye was caught by the following, “Fairfax--On the
10th inst., at Monkswood, Lady Fairfax, of a son,” he was simply
thunderstruck. He took the paper over to his own bungalow adjoining the
mess and read the paragraph over and over again--it had an absolute
fascination for him--but read as he would, it came to the same thing.
It could not be her, it was some other Lady Fairfax; but scarcely
of Monkswood also, his common sense urged. He felt a conviction that
it was true, and yet he could not realise it. He a father--Alice a
mother! Well, at any rate, he was glad it was a boy. There was an heir
to Looton now, whatever happened to him. His father would hardly have
rested in his grave if the Fairfax money and acres had gone to the
Serles and the good old name become extinct. Yes, he was glad that
there was no chance of that now; but as for Alice, he thought worse of
her than ever. That he should know of their child’s birth through the
medium of a newspaper showed the contempt in which she held him. His
dark cheek reddened as he angrily flung the paper from him and began
to pace the room rapidly from one end to the other. He would take no
notice whatever of the event, as far as Alice was concerned. No, he
certainly would _not_ write to her. This was the resolution he came to,
as he proceeded hastily to dress for mess, where he was, if anything,
more silent and preoccupied than usual.
As he was going to bed that night he called his servant Cox into his
room--a most exceptional proceeding. Cox was an old retainer, who had
followed him from the Fifth, and believed implicitly that the sun rose
and set entirely and exclusively in the person of his master the major.
He alone was in Sir Reginald’s confidence, and naturally a silent and
taciturn man; touching his master’s private affairs, he was mute as the
grave.
“Here, Cox, I thought I would show you this,” said Sir Reginald,
holding out the paper and pointing to the announcement.
Cox saluted, slowly read the paragraph, and stared blankly at his
master; then recovering his manners and his presence of mind, said
concisely:
“I give you joy, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Sir Reginald, pouring out a tumbler of champagne;
“you are to drink his health and keep the news to yourself.”
“Health and happiness and a long life,” said Cox, quaffing off the
toast as if it was spring water and wiping his mouth with the back of
his hand. After staring expectantly at his master for some seconds, and
finding him evidently buried in his own thoughts, he added gruffly: “I
suppose I may go now, sir.” An eager nod of assent was his only answer,
and he lost no time in backing himself out into the verandah, and
hurrying off to his barrack-room in time to report himself before the
bugles sounded the last post.
The following mail brought a letter from Mrs. Mayhew. She generally
enclosed a little note in her husband’s epistles, but this was a long
effusion for a wonder.
“Monkswood.
“MY DEAR REGINALD,
“You will have already seen the birth of your son and heir in the
paper, and no doubt were as much astonished as everyone else. For the
last six months Alice has lived in the greatest retirement, seeing
no one. Two or three times we have asked her to come up to us, and
she always excused herself with one ridiculous plea after another.
A telegram from the housekeeper last Tuesday brought me down here
the same evening, and I found Alice very, very ill--so ill that for
several days the doctors were afraid to hold out any hopes of her
recovery. I dared not write and tell you this last mail, but waited
till this one, in hopes of sending you better news. Her youth and a
wonderful constitution have pulled her through, and I may say that
she is out of danger, though still extremely weak, and subject to
prolonged fainting fits.
“The life that she has led for the last few months has been the chief
cause of her illness. Morris tells me that she used to walk for hours
through the woods in all weathers, and took so little food that it
is a wonder she did not die of simple inanition. She never dined,
but simply went through the farce of sitting at table breaking up
breadcrumbs, sending away the most tempting delicacies untasted. Poor
motherless girl, angry as I am with her, I cannot help being sorry for
her; she is so innocent, so utterly inexperienced, and so alone in the
world--thanks to herself of course. If she had been a trusting wife,
how happy and proud you would both be now! She is so good and patient
I cannot help loving her, in spite of myself. Her pride in her baby is
simply ridiculous, and very touching to see. To hear her, you would
think it was the first of its species, or at any rate that nothing so
beautiful and so remarkable in every way had ever been born. A mother
at eighteen, and looking even younger, I tell her that no one will
ever believe the child is hers. She has about as much experience of
babies as my Hilda--a baby with a baby. He is a splendid boy, a real
Fairfax. If I were to declare that he is like you, you would say,
‘Rubbish, all babies are exactly alike!’ But he _is_ very like you all
the same. He is to be called Maurice, after her father, and Mark and
I are to be sponsors. I have just asked Alice if she has any message
for you, and she has replied in a very low and subdued voice--_none_.
I have no patience with her. I should like to take her baby out of her
arms and give her _such_ a shaking, only she looks so dreadfully frail
and delicate--I really _would_. I need not tell you that now, more
than ever, it behoves you to trace the false certificate. It is too
provoking that you have not been able to get leave to go to Cheetapore
and search personally. It is really a dreadful misfortune the register
being lost, and the clergyman and clerk both dead; but money can do
a _great deal_, and you are the last man in the world to spare it. I
will write again very shortly, and hope to have good news from you
before long.
“Your affectionate Cousin,
“HELEN MAYHEW.”
Helen kept her promise, and during her stay at Monkswood Reginald heard
from her regularly; but neither line nor message was ever enclosed from
his wife, so neither line nor message was ever sent by him. He did not
even mention her name in his letters--letters which Helen could not
refuse to Alice’s wistful eyes--letters which Alice read with pale face
and trembling lips, and returned without a single observation.
Two months later a bad attack of jungle fever procured Sir Reginald
leave of absence. For months he had been like a bird beating against
the bars of his cage to get away to Cheetapore, as letters, telegrams,
and inquiries of all kinds had been utterly useless in throwing any
light on the mysterious certificate. But the colonel of the Seventeenth
Hussars was rather short of officers, and could not spare his smart
young major, who had no claim whatever to leave, having so recently
arrived from England; besides, his particular motto was, “No leave,”
and as an Irish sub once angrily expressed it, “No leave, and as little
of that as possible.”
At last Sir Reginald reached Cheetapore, very much knocked up by
the long journey, and a mere shadow of the man who had left it two
years previously. The Twenty-ninth Dragoons, who had replaced his
old regiment, hospitably took him in and “put him up.” For two or
three days he was prostrated by a recurrence of the fever, and fit
for nothing. The first evening he was able to go out he went and
called on the chaplain. He was not at home. Leaving a note to make an
appointment, he went on to the band with one of his entertainers. As
they drove round the circle, Miss Mason--still Miss Mason--lolling
back in her carriage, could scarcely believe her eyes, and Mrs.
Chambers, her once firm ally and now implacable enemy, could hardly
trust hers either. She said to one of the Twenty-ninth, who lounged
up to her barouche: “Who is that in the dog-cart with Captain Fox? He
looks frightfully ill.”
“Oh, that’s Fairfax of the Seventeenth Hussars. He has come down here
on some mysterious errand or other. He would be much better on his way
to Europe instead. Looks as if he was going off the hooks, doesn’t he?”
“He looks very ill indeed. What on earth brings him here?”
“Well, if you won’t repeat it, I’ll tell you,” coming closer and
speaking confidentially. “Strictly private, you understand. Mum’s the
word.”
“Oh, of course!”
“Well, I believe it’s about a marriage certificate which someone posted
home from here, and has caused the most frightful unpleasantness in his
family. He has a wife in England, so you may fancy there was rather a
scrimmage. He was only just married, and to a most awfully pretty girl
too, when this particular missive dropped in. She left him at once, and
he came out here with the Seventeenth. He has left no stone unturned to
get the affair cleared up, but he has only managed to come down and see
after it himself now--leave stopped. I fancy he will make it pretty hot
for the forger if he finds him! It’s ten years’ penal servitude, is it
not?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” replied the fair culprit faintly, looking
very white. “But oh! if she could only be the means of getting
Charlotte Mason transferred to Australia at Government expense! How
too delightful it would be!” ignoring her own little share in the
transaction. “Did you say that his wife had left him?” she asked,
looking intently at Sir Reginald, whose dog-cart was drawn up close by.
“So he told me.”
“How ill and worn he looks,” she thought, gazing at him. “Supposing
he should die!--he looked as if he had death in his face. If he did,
she would never know a moment’s peace--never! She would make full
confession and trust to his mercy. He would not be hard upon her, it
was not _her_ fault; it was Charlotte Mason’s scheme, and Charlotte
ought to be shown up, unmasked, and transported.” Being a person who
almost always acted on impulse, she beckoned to Captain Fox as soon
as her former cavalier had sauntered away, and asked him to tell Sir
Reginald Fairfax that she wished to speak to him particularly. Much
bewildered and with great reluctance he slowly followed the messenger
to the carriage, where Mrs. Chambers, with a rather frightened white
face, accosted him:
“I see you do not remember me, Captain Fairfax? It quite shocks me to
see you looking so ill.”
He bowed and muttered inaudibly.
“Won’t you get into my carriage for a little, and we can talk over old
times?” Seeing him hesitate, she bent over the side of the carriage and
whispered in his ear: “It’s about the certificate.”
With an alacrity she was quite unprepared for from his languid and
delicate appearance, he accepted her invitation and took a seat
opposite her, and turning his clear dark eyes upon her, looked as if he
would read her very soul.
Meanwhile Captain Fox sauntered off to join a promenading dandy,
muttering to himself: “That Mrs. Chambers sticks at nothing; she is
becoming faster and more foolish than ever! The idea of her tackling a
strange fellow like that! I had no idea he was such an ass! A regular
case of ‘“Walk into my parlour,” said the spider to the fly.’”
“Sir Reginald,” said the spider to the supposed fly, “I have something
to tell you,” and forthwith she unfolded her tale from beginning to
end. When she came to the part where she mentioned it as a joke his
eyes literally blazed, and he seemed with difficulty to refrain from
some exclamation; but till she concluded he was perfectly silent. When
she stopped to take breath after her hurried confession, he asked, with
pardonable vehemence:
“What have I ever done to Miss Mason or you that you should do me such
a deadly injury? Do you know that the happiness of my life has been
utterly destroyed by your ‘joke,’ as you are pleased to call it? I must
say that your and Miss Mason’s reading of the word is very different
to mine. The least you can do, and _shall_ do,” he said, looking at
her sternly, “will be to make out a written confession of everything,
and send it up to my quarters (Captain Fox’s) to-morrow. I can hardly
believe that you can have been the credulous tool you would appear.
Good evening,” he said, springing out of the carriage and walking over
towards that of her confederate, who had been watching the conference
with the liveliest dismay.
“Miss Mason,” he exclaimed abruptly, perfectly heedless of two of Miss
Mason’s satellites, who, with elbows on the carriage, and got-up with
enormous care, had been regaling the fair Charlotte with scraps of
the latest gossip--“Miss Mason,” he reiterated, “I know _all_!” There
was an indignant tone in his voice and an angry light in his eyes that
absolutely cowed _her_ and astounded her companions. “You have forged
an infamous lie, you have tampered with a church register, you have
caused the greatest misery to a man who never wronged you, and to a
girl whom you have never even seen! You are a forger,” he continued,
almost choked between the two emotions which were struggling in his
breast--joy and rage. “Unless by to-morrow morning you have made a full
and explicit written statement of the whole affair, duly signed and
witnessed, I shall submit the case to the cantonment magistrate, and
you will be prepared to take the consequences. Penal servitude is what
you deserve,” he added with bitter emphasis, as with a parting look of
unspeakable indignation he turned and made his way through the crowd.
His face was livid, his eyes burned like two coals. Captain Fox gazed
at him in undisguised astonishment. “Jove!” he thought, “what a temper
the fellow must have! He looks ready to jump down the throat of all
Cheetapore this instant. He is not a man I should care to trifle with.
The fair Chambers has evidently put him out, to say the least of it.”
Sir Reginald hurriedly took him aside, and in as few words as possible
told him the story; and then Captain Fox’s face was a study. His
indignation knew no bounds. His expressions in connection with Miss
Mason’s name were startlingly strong and vehement, and he laid the whip
about his unlucky harness hack as if he had the fair culprit herself
between the shafts.
Mrs. Chambers’ “letter” arrived the following morning, and although
somewhat more pressure had to be brought to bear on Miss Mason, her
confession was received in due time. Both were enclosed to Mr. Mayhew,
who was to read them and forward them to Monkswood.
“Now she will, she must give in,” thought her husband. “In two months
her letter will be out here, and in three, please goodness, I shall be
in England.”
It is hardly necessary to state that the whole story of the practical
joke was all over Cheetapore in less than two days. Captain Fox was
by no means reticent on the subject, which was soon known to all
the Dragoons, and from them filtered to the cantonment in general.
Sir Reginald was the object of universal sympathy, and interest was
considerably augmented by the rumoured youth and beauty of his wife.
The whole incident had a romantic flavour about it that gratified
the jaded palates of the Cheetapore _monde_, and it afforded them an
universally interesting nine-days’ wonder. As to Miss Mason, the place
was literally too hot to hold her. She and her colleague were put into
“Coventry” forthwith. Finding such a position unbearable, she took
the earliest opportunity of leaving the station and going on a long
visit “up country.” But wherever she went the story was whispered with
various additions, _cela va sans dire_; and to the end of her life she
will have good reason to regret her _practical joke_.
END OF VOL. I.
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