Faithful Margaret Part 70

And then sweetly swooped the rush of joy to them, and they were dumb, for some one who has read the human heart says, "The most exquisite of all emotions is utter silence, with a being in whom we feel entire sympathy."

"Ah, _par ma foi!_ but I am the good fairy, after all!" muttered the chevalier, hugging his fancy little self, and pacing about near them, with a protecting air, as if they were his especial _proteges_. "I feel like Guardian Angel of their fortunes. Saint Ludovic--_par la messe_, it sounds well!"

"Thank Heaven! Ethel Brand's incomprehensible will has explained itself at last!" mused Davenport, laying down his crumpled _Times_, "and it has proved itself to be the wisest will ever the Brands made. Married in spite of themselves, and as happy as love can make them in spite of a plain face, on the one side, and a reputation that the dogs wouldn't pick up once, on the other. He's a saved man, and she's a happy woman--dear, faithful Margaret. What glorious news for old Gay."

When Mrs. St. Udo Brand came home to Seven-Oak Waaste, she found a letter awaiting her, and in its many pages she found at last the true history of the man who had been the Sleuth-Hound of Castle Brand:

CONVICT s.h.i.+P FEARLESS, March --, '63.

"MISS WALSINGHAM:--As you are a remarkably clever woman, and I have always been an admirer of fair play, I will give you your dues, and own that in our little game you had the best of it, and deserved to have.

"I don't bear you malice for this cursed mess which you've pushed me into, although I have you only to blame for it, for perhaps I didn't go the right way to work with you and I was a confounded fool for my pains.

"Yes I've been a lover of fair play all through my dodging life, ever since I was big enough to run at my father with a knife for making my mother cry; and since in our desperate little game together you won, I think it but fair play to own it, and to show you the few trumps with which I fought against your full hand.

"I'm sent back to banishment for life, and you are, I hear, a happy bride, coming home with St. Udo Brand; but if I know the practical good sense you possess, you won't toss this into the fire till you've read it all, and wasted a few good-hearted regrets on the wretch whose luck was so infernally poor.

"Forty years ago, Colonel Cathcart Brand, only son of Ethel Brand, Dowager of Seven-Oak Waaste, went to Cuba, which was a military station then as now, and fell in with a splendid-looking Cuban girl called Zerlini Barelli.

"Of course, the man took her in, and ruined all her worldly prospects through her love of him. In five years he was ordered back to England again, and coolly proceeded to take leave of the girl who had been more to him than many a wife is to her husband, and had nursed him through more than one, almost fatal attack, of fever. In vain she pleaded that he would take her with him, and own her boy as his legal heir. The colonel swore he couldn't, and offered her any money if she would not follow him.

"She agreed to this, and when I was four years old, they parted, never to meet again.

"I inherited all my mother's deep, patient ferocity, added to my father's outward appearance; and was called Brand Bareilli, at St. Kitts, where I was sent to school, I not having the remotest idea of my parentage.

"When I was ten years of age I was sent to England, probably at the colonel's instigation, and I was put into a training academy to fit me for the army.

"At twenty-one I received my commission as lieutenant in the artillery, through the influence of Colonel Brand, who from time to time took a certain care of my fortunes.

"About this time, noticing a great resemblance between the colonel and myself, a suspicion seized me that I had found my father.

"I once hinted as much to him, and was furiously ordered to hold my tongue, and to beware how I insulted my benefactor.

"From that day I lost favor with him; he treated me when we met with such cold contempt that my blood boiled; and all the while he was raising a fiend of hatred in my heart against him, he continued to pay over to me an annuity, which kept my suspicions on the alert.

"At last I wrote to my mother, who sent me the whole story, asking me whether I had ever seen the colonel's son, St. Udo Brand, who was five years younger than I.

"Colonel Brand, upon returning from Cuba to England, had married a lady of birth, whose one son had absorbed all the affection which was truly mine by priority or birth, and from the moment in which I heard of his existence, I hated him with furious hatred, and longed to visit my wrongs upon him.

"Three years after this I first saw St. Udo Brand, then just twenty. He was an ensign in the Guards, and mightily admired for his good humor and wit. He, too, was extremely like his father, which made me chary of his acquaintance for fear he would make me out what I was, and taunt me with it before my companions; so we never knew each other in the slightest.

"But a devil of envy possessed me, for I knew that this chap had no more business to be happy, rich, and respected than I had--nor so much, for I was his elder brother; and I was neither happy, nor rich, nor respected--everybody giving me the name of a sullen dog, etc., which was scarce fair play.

"So I watched my man till I saw an opening for spoiling his smiling fortunes, and then I cut in cleverly.

"I found out that St. Udo was madly in love with a young lady of fas.h.i.+on, and that some had it they were to be married whenever he attained his majority. I knew the girl myself, as luck would have it, and was rather fond of her, too; so, rather than let him, of all others in the world, cut me out of anything more which was mine by rights, I set myself cunningly to winning her affections.

"How often I've watched till the coast was clear of the das.h.i.+ng young ensign, and then got in for my visit to Genevieve Carlisle. So cleverly did I manage the thing, that not once did St. Udo contrive to meet me, although I was there every day as regularly as he himself was.

"At last I induced her to fly with me, and we went to Paris, and they lost all trace of us, for I was always good at a dodge, and had been bred to it for many a year.

"She was discontented and moping as might have been expected, after a few months; she had been used to luxury and fas.h.i.+on, and plenty of approving friends, and now she hadn't enough to eat or wear, nor a friend in the world; for, of course, when I was in hiding, my father couldn't send me my annuity; and as for her family, they cut her dead when she eloped with a nameless adventurer, as they were pleased to call me.

"She also took into her head to repent of her bargain, and to take a dislike to me, and I consider that this wasn't exactly fair play, seeing that she had been ready enough to fall in love with me when I was fawning about her in London.

"Well, we got on miserably enough, until her continual reproaches sent me off to hunt up some money, and I had the misfortune to be caught in a forgery, which had it succeeded, might have left me a prosperous man to-day.

"But the sharp dogs detected me, and had me convicted and booked for twelve years penal service in Tasmania, and the news killed the woman; she never held her head up after she found out what company her treachery to St. Udo Brand had brought her into.

"I can't blame myself for anything in the affair; was it my fault that I was born with a wrong to avenge? Was it my fault that my father gave me opportunity to hate him and his, by his unjust treatment of me? And was it my fault that St. Udo chose to fall in love with a girl whom I had my eye on, or that she should be false to him, and prefer me, after all her vows to him?

"As for the forgery business, if either of us were to blame, it was she, who should have stood in my chains, for her eternal harping and carping sent me oft in a fury to do anything I could for funds.

"Still, it was I that suffered, all throughout; strive as I might, my cursed ill-luck met me at every turn, and balked me.

"As we went out in the beastly convict s.h.i.+p, we took on board an old sea-captain and his daughter, who were going part of the way with us.

"I used to see the little girl walking the deck, and peering down into the hatch at us poor devils, each chained like a dog to his log, and her great eyes used to brim over with tears whenever she looked up; and she would sit at the mouth of the hatch, crying for us, till we began to watch for her.

"Do you remember all that, Margaret Walsingham?

"You were the little girl, and I was that half-crazy convict who always tried to drive you away with curses, and to frighten you with beastly threats. But back you would come next day, with your solemn eyes beaming with pity, and drop an apple, or an orange, or even a little book down among us, and sit watching us for hours, like a spirit, as if our misery burdened you so that you could not rest without sharing it with us.

"Once when I took fever, and could not speak for thirst, you climbed down the ladder, and fearlessly approached me with a cup of pure, cold water.

"How eagerly I drank it you may well remember, and also how ill I repaid it by a fierce oath the instant my tongue was loosened.

"But you only flitted away with a sorrowful face, and great tears standing on your lashes; and I felt such a queer, wrenching pain about my heart whenever I thought of it afterward that I vowed I would repay you, if I ever had the chance, for that little act of kindness.

"When I had been ten years out, I and a comrade of mine, O'Grady, got home on a ticket of leave.

"We were bound to have our freedom, and not many months pa.s.sed after our return before we had it. Doubling, and dodging, and slipping through their fingers like eels, at last we slipped the chain, and came out, I as a gentlemanly gambler, he as the keeper of a gambling saloon, and we soon filled our pockets.

"Then I took a trip over the Continent for the purpose of perfecting myself in my profession; and then, coming back to England, circ.u.mstances sent Calembours in my way, and we joined in partners.h.i.+p.

"Then came my good luck, as I thought, and drove me against St.

Udo Brand once more, and I wondered night and day whether I couldn't get any of the fortune which he so confidentially expected from his grandmother.

"The colonel, my father, was dead, so was his wife, and my brother was the only one living to whom I owed a grudge for my downfall: so I soon found out a way to make him pay up old scores.

"No sooner did Calembours suggest to me that I was like enough to St. Udo to pa.s.s for him, than I thought out the whole plot which it has been the business of Margaret Walsingham to explode.

"I compliment you on your infernal cleverness, and only blame myself for giving way to the only weak sentiment I have ever felt in my life, namely, mercy toward you for the sake of your kindness to me twenty years ago. If it hadn't been for that mistaken feeling, I could have wiped you out in the beginning of the game, and not a soul been the wiser.

"But I didn't and I heartily regret it now.