Thelma Part 73

"We hear on excellent authority that the Norwegian 'beauty,' Lady Bruce-Errington, wife of Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, is about to sue for a divorce on the ground of infidelity. The offending dama in the question is an admired actress, well-known to the frequenters of the Brilliant Theatre. But there are always two sides to these affairs, and it is rumored that the fair Norwegian (who before her marriage, we understand, was a great adept in the art of milking reindeer on the sh.o.r.es of her native Fjord) has private reasons of her own for desiring the divorce, not altogether in keeping with her stated reasons or her apparent reserve. We are, however, always on the side of the fair s.e.x, and, as the faithless husband has made no secret of his new liaison, we do not hesitate to at once p.r.o.nounce in the lady's favor. The case is likely to prove interesting to believers in wedded happiness, combined with the strictest moral and religious sentiments."

Quite by accident this piece of would-be "smartness" was seen by Beau Lovelace. He had a wholesome contempt for the _Snake_--and all its cla.s.s,--he would never have looked at it, or known of the paragraph, had not a friend of his at the Garrick pointed it out to him with half a smile and half a sneer.

"It's a d.a.m.ned lie!" said Beau briefly.

"That remains to be proved!" answered his friend, and went away laughing.

Beau read it over and over again, his blood firing with honest indignation. Thelma! Thelma--that pure white lily of womanhood,--was she to have her stainless life blurred by the trail of such a thing as the _Snake_?--and was Errington's honor to be attainted in his absence, and he condemned without a word uttered in his defence?

"Detestable blackguard!" muttered Lovelace, reverting in his mind to the editor of the journal in question. "What's his name I wonder?" He searched and found it at the top of a column-"Sole Editor and Proprietor, C. Snawley-Grubbs, to whom all checks and post-office orders should be made payable. The Editor cannot be responsible for the return of rejected MSS."

Beau noted the name, and wrote the address of the office in his pocket-book, smiling curiously to himself the while.

"I'm almost glad Errington's out of the way," he said half aloud. "He shan't see this thing if I can help it, though I dare say some particularly affectionate friend will send it to him, carefully marked.

At any rate, he needn't know it just yet--and as for Lorimer--shall I tell him! No, I won't. I'll have the game all to myself--and--by Jove!

how I _shall_ enjoy it!"

An hour later he stood in the office of the _Snake_, courteously inquiring for Mr. Snawley-Grubbs. Apparently he had come on horseback, for he held a riding-whip in his hand,--the very whip Errington had left with him the previous day. The inky, dirty, towzle-headed boy who presided in solitary grandeur over the _Snake's_ dingy premises, stared at him inquiringly,--visitors of his distinguished appearance and manner being rather uncommon. Those who usually had business with the great Grubbs were of a different type altogether,--some of them discarded valets or footmen, who came to gain half a crown or five s.h.i.+llings by offering information as to the doings of their late masters and mistresses,--shabby "supers" from the theatres, who had secured the last bit of scandal concerning some celebrated stage or professional "beauty"--sporting men and turf gamblers of the lowest cla.s.s,-- unsuccessful dramatists and small verse writers--these, with now and then a few "ladies"--ladies of the bar-room, ballet, and demi-monde, were the sort, of persons who daily sought private converse with Grubbs--and Beau Lovelace, with his ma.s.sive head, fine muscular figure, keen eyes, and self-a.s.sertive mien, was quite a novel specimen of manhood for the wondering observation of the office-boy, who scrambled off his high chair with haste and something of respect as he said--

"What name, sir, please?"

"Beaufort Lovelace," said the gentleman, with a bland smile. "Here is my card. Ask Mr. Grubbs whether he can see me for a few minutes. If he is engaged--editors generally are engaged--tell him I'll wait."

The boy went off in a greater hurry than ever. The name of Lovelace was quite familiar to him--he knew him, not as a distinguished novelist, but as "'im who makes such a precious lot of money." And he was breathless with excitement; when he reached the small editorial chamber at the top of a dark, narrow flight of stairs, wherein sat the autocratic Snawley, smiling suavely over a heap of letters and disordered MSS. He glanced at the card which his ink-smeared attendant presented him.

"Ah, indeed!" he said condescendingly. "Lovelace--Lovelace? Oh yes--I suppose it must be the novelist of that name--yes!--show him up."

Shown up he was accordingly. He entered the room with a firm tread, and closed the door behind him!

"How do you do, my dear sir!" exclaimed Grubbs warmly. "You are well known to me by reputation! I am charmed--delighted to make the personal acquaintance of one who is--yes--let me say, who is a brother in literature! Sit down, I beg of you!"

And he waved his hand towards a chair, thereby displaying the great rings that glittered on his podgy fingers.

Beau, however, did not seat himself--he only smiled very coldly and contemptuously.

"We can discuss the fraternal nature of our relations.h.i.+p afterwards," he said satirically, "Business first. Pray, sir,"--here he drew from his pocket the last number of the _Snake_--"are you the writer of this paragraph?"

He pointed to it, as he flattened the journal and laid it in front of the editor on the desk. Mr. Snawley-Grubbs glanced at it and smiled unconcernedly.

"No I am not. But I happen to know it is perfectly correct. I received the information on the highest--the very highest and most credible authority."

"Indeed!" and Beau's lip curled haughtily, while his hand clenched the riding-whip more firmly. "Then allow me to tell you, sir, that it is utterly false in every particular--moreover--that it is a gross libel,--published with deliberate intent to injure those whom it presumes to mention,--and that, whoever wrote it,--you, sir, you alone are responsible for a most mischievous, scandalous, and d.a.m.nable lie!"

Mr. Grubbs was in no wise disconcerted. Honest indignation honestly expressed, always amused him--he was amused now.

"You're unduly excited, Mr. Lovelace," he said with a little laugh.

"Permit me to remark that your language is rather extraordinary--quite too strong under the circ.u.mstances! However, you're a privileged person--genius is always a little mad, or shall we say,--eccentric?--I suppose you are a friend of Sir Philip Errington, and you naturally feel hurt--yes--yes, I quite understand! But the scourge of the press--the wholesome, purifying scourge, cannot be withheld out of consideration for private or personal feelings. No--no! There's a higher duty--the duty we owe to the public!"

"I tell you again," repeated Lovelace firmly--"the whole thing is a lie.

Will you apologize?"

Mr. Grubbs threw himself back in his chair and laughed aloud.

"Apologize? My dear sir, you must be dreaming! Apologize? Certainly not!

I cannot retract the statements I have made--and I firmly believe them to be true. And though there is a saying, 'the greater the truth the greater the libel,' I'm ready, sir, and, always have been ready, to sacrifice myself to the cause of truth. Truth, truth for ever! Tell the truth and shame the devil! You are at liberty to inform Sir Philip Errington from me, that as it is my object--a laudable and praiseworthy one, too, I think--to show up the awful immorality now reigning in our upper cla.s.ses, I do not regret in the least the insertion of the paragraph in question. If it only makes him ashamed of his vices, I shall have done a good deed, and served the interests of society at large. At the same time, if he wishes to bring an action for libel--"

"You dog!" exclaimed Lovelace fiercely, approaching him with such a sudden rapid stride that the astonished editor sprang up and barricaded himself behind his own chair. "You hope for that, do you? An action for libel! nothing would please you better! To bring your scandalous printed trash into notoriety,--to hear your name shouted by dirty hawkers and newsboys--to be sentenced as a first-cla.s.s misdemenent; ah, no such luck for you! I know the tricks of your vile trade! There are other ways of dealing with a vulgar bully and coward!"

And before the startled Grubbs could realize his position, Lovelace closed with him, beat him under, and struck the horsewhip smartly cross his back and shoulders. He uttered a yell of pain and fury, and strove vigorously to defend himself, but, owing to his obesity, his muscles were weak and flabby, and he was powerless against the activity and strength of his opponent. Lash after lash descended regularly and mercilessly--his cries, which gradually became like the roarings of a bull of Basban, were unheard, as the office-boy below, profiting by a few idle moments, had run across the street to buy some chestnuts at a stall he particularly patronized. Beau thrashed on with increasing enjoyment--Grubbs resisted him less and less, till finally he slipped feebly down on the floor and grovelled there, gasping and groaning. Beau gave him one or two more artistic cuts, and stood above him, with the serene, triumphant smile of a successful athlete. Suddenly a loud peal of laughter echoed from the doorway,--a woman stood there, richly dressed in silk and fur, with diamonds sparkling in her ears and diamonds clasping the long boa at her throat. It was Violet Vere.

"Why, Snawley!" she cried with cheerful familiarity. "How are you? All broken, and no one to pick up the pieces! Serve you right! Got it at last, eh? Don't get up! You look so comfortable!"

"Bodily a.s.sault," gasped Grubbs. "I'll summons--call the police--call,"

his voice died away in inarticulate gurglings, and raising himself, he sat up on the floor in a sufficiently abject and ludicrous posture, wiping the tears of pain from his eyes. Beau looked at the female intruder and recognized her at once. He saluted her with cold courtesy, and turned again to Grubbs.

"_Will_ you apologize?"

"No--I--I _won't_!"

Beau made another threatening movement--Miss Vere interposed.

"Stop a bit," she said, regarding him with her insolent eyes, in which lurked, however, an approving smile. "I don't know who you are, but you seem a fighting man! Don't go at him again till I've had a word. I say, Grubbs! you've been hitting at me in your trashy paper."

Grubbs still sat on the floor groaning.

"You must eat those words," went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up with sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the Brilliant,' has nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,--not she! He's a duffer, a regular stiff one--no go about him anyhow. And what the deuce do you mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep your oaths to yourself, will you?"

Beau Lovelace was amused. Grubbs turned his watering eye from one to the other in wretched perplexity. He made an effort to stand up and succeeded.

"I'll have you arrested, sir!" he exclaimed shaking his fists at Beau, and quivering with pa.s.sion, "on a charge of bodily a.s.sault--shameful bodily a.s.sault, sir!"

"All right!" returned Beau coolly. "If I were fined a hundred pounds for it, I should think it cheap for the luxury of thras.h.i.+ng such a hound!"

Grubbs quaked at the determined att.i.tude and threatening eye of his a.s.sailant, and turned for relief to Miss Vere whose smile, however, was not sympathetic.

"You'd better cave in!" she remarked airily. "You've got the worst of it, you know!"

She had long been on confidential terms with the _Snake_ proprietor, and she spoke to him now with the candor of an old friend.

"Dear me, what do you expect of me!" he almost whimpered. "I'm not to blame! The paragraph was inserted without my knowledge by my sub-editor--he's away just now, and--there! why?" he cried with sudden defiance, "why don't you ask Sir Francis Lennox about it? He wrote the whole thing."

"Well, he's dead," said Miss Vere with the utmost coolness. "So it wouldn't be much use asking _him_. HE can't answer,--you'll have to answer for him."

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mr. Grubbs. "He can't be dead!"

"Oh, yes, he can, and he _is_," retorted Violet. "And a good job too! He was knocked over by a train at Charing Cross. You'll see it in to-day's paper, if you take the trouble to look. And mind you contradict all that stuff about me in your next number--do you hear? I'm going to America with a Duke next month, and I can't afford to have my reputation injured. And I won't be called a 'dama' for any penny-a-liner living."

She paused, and again broke out laughing, "Poor old Snawley! You do look so sore! Ta-ta!" And she moved towards the door. Lovelace, always courteous, opened it for her. She raised her hard, bright eyes, and smiled.

"Thanks! Hope I shall see you again some day!"