The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood Part 82

"Take him to the library; I'll come."

Jillingham's face was rather pale, and his lips were set firm when he met his visitor.

"What the mischief do you want?"

"Five thou--ten--what you please. I know of a splendid investment."

"In soap?"

He was the dirtiest creature that ever was seen. He wore a full suit of black, but the coat and trousers were white with age and dust-stains; an open waistcoat, exposing an embroidered s.h.i.+rt which could not have been washed for months; his hat was napless, and had a limp brim; no gloves, and the grimiest of hands. But he was decorated, and wore a ribbon, probably of St. Lucifer.

"In soap, or shavings, or shoddy; what does it matter to you? When can I have the money?"

"Never; not another sixpence."

"Then I shall publish all I know."

"No one will believe you."

"I have proofs."

"Which are forged. I tell you I'm too strong for you: you will find yourself in the wrong box. I am sick of this; and I mean to put an end to your extortion."

"You dare me. You know the consequences."

"The first consequence will be that I shall give you in charge. Be off!"

"You shall have a week to think better of it."

Gilly rang the bell.

"Shall I send for a policeman, or will you go?"

He went, muttering imprecations intermixed with threats; but Gilly Jillingham, quite proud of his courage, seemed for the moment callous to both. He little dreamt how soon the latter would be put into effect.

Within a few days of this interview the greatest event of Mrs.

Purling's whole social career was due; she was to entertain royalty beneath her own roof. This crowning of the edifice of her ambition filled her with solemn awe; the preparations for the coming ball were stupendous, her own magnificent costume seemed made up of diamonds and bullion and five-pound notes.

Long before the hour of reception she might have been seen pacing to and fro with stately splendour, contemplating the das erected for royalty at one end of the room, and thinking with a glow of satisfaction that the representative of the Purlings had at last come to her own. At this supreme moment she was grateful to dear Phillipa and to Gilbert little less dear.

Then guests began to pour in. Where was Phillipa? Very late; she might have dressed earlier. A servant was sent to call her, and Phillipa, hurrying down, met Gilly on the upper floor coming out of Mrs.

Purling's bedroom.

"What have you been doing there?" she asked.

"Mrs. Purling wanted a fan," said Gilly readily.

She might want one fan, but hardly two; and had Phillipa been less flurried she might have noticed that Mrs. Purling had one already in her hand. But then their Royal Highnesses arrived; the heiress made her curtsey for the first time in her life, was graciously received, and the hour of her apotheosis had actually come. Presently the crowd became so dense that every inch of s.p.a.ce was covered; people overflowed on to the landings, and sat four or five deep upon the stairs. Dancing was simply impossible; however, hundreds of couples went through the form. Phillipa, as in duty bound, remained in the thick of the _melee_, but Gilly had very early disappeared. He preferred the card-room; his waltzing days were over, he said. He was playing; it was not very good taste, but there were some men who preferred a quiet rubber to looking at princes or the antics of boys and girls, and he wished to oblige his friends.

"Can you give me a moment, Le Grice?" said Lord Camberwell, coming into the card-room. "I have had a most extraordinary letter. It accuses Gilly Jillingham--"

"G.o.d bless my soul," cried old Colonel Le Grice, "a letter of the same sort has been sent to me!"

"Have you had any suspicion that he played unfairly?"

"Not the slightest; I know he always holds the most surprising hands, that he plays for very high stakes, that he nearly always wins--"

"Is he winning now?"

Of course. Mr. Jillingham's luck never deserted him. He was trying now perhaps to make at one coup sufficient to silence for a further s.p.a.ce his enemy's tongue; the bets upon the odd trick alone amounted to a thousand or more. But he was too late. His hour had come.

Suddenly Lord Camberwell spoke in a loud peremptory voice:

"Stop! Mr. Jillingham is cheating. He does it in the deal. I have watched him now for three rounds."

"And so have I," added Colonel Le Grice.

Gilly sprang to his feet. For a moment he seemed disposed to brazen it out; then he read his sentence in the face of those who had detected and now judged him. There was no appeal: he was doomed. From henceforth he was socially and morally dead, and, without a word, he slunk away from the house.

The buzz of the ball-room soon caught up the ugly scandal, and tossed it wildly from lip to lip. "Mr. Jillingham caught cheating at cards!"

Everyone said, of course, they had suspected it all along; now every one knew it as a fact, except those most nearly concerned. To them it came last. To Phillipa, whose heart it stabbed as with a knife, cut through and through; then to Mrs. Purling, who, a little taken aback by the sudden exodus of her guests, asked innocently what it meant, upon which some one, without knowing who she was, told her the exact truth.

Quite stunned by the terrible shock, dazed, terrified, was the heiress, scarcely capable of comprehending what had occurred. Then with a sad, scared face, motioning Phillipa on one side, who, equally white and grief-stricken, would have helped her, she crept slowly upstairs, feeling that at one blow the whole fabric of her social repute was tumbled in the dust.

The lights were out, the play was over, the house still and silent, when, with loud shrieks, Mrs. Purling's maid rushed to Phillipa's room.

"Mrs. Purling, ma'am!--my mistress, she is dying! Come to her! She is nearly gone!"

In truth, the poor old woman was in the extremest agony; it was quite terrible to see her. She gasped as if for air; her whole frame jerked and twitched with the violence of her convulsions; gradually her body was drawn in a curve, like that of a tensely-strung bow.

The spasms abated, then recommenced; abated, then raged with increased fury. But through it all she was conscious; she had even the power of speech, and cried aloud again and again, with a bitter heart-wrung cry, for "Harold! Harold!" the absent much-wronged son.

"The symptoms are those of teta.n.u.s," said the nearest medical pract.i.tioner, who had been called in. He seemed fairly puzzled.

"Teta.n.u.s or--" He did not finish the sentence, because the single word that was on his lips formed a serious charge against a person or persons unknown. "But there is nothing to explain lock-jaw; while the abatement of the symptoms points to--" Again he paused.

The muscles of the mouth, which had been the last attacked, gradually resumed their normal condition. The patient appeared altogether more easy, the writhings subsided; presently, as if utterly exhausted, she sank off to sleep.

Harold Purling had come up post-haste from Harbridge; and when the mother opened her eyes they rested upon her son.

A hurried consultation pa.s.sed in whispers between the two doctors.

Phillipa was present; she and the maid had not left Mrs. Purling all night.

"Mother," said Harold, "you are out of all danger. Tell me--do you recollect taking anything likely to make you ill?"

"Only the pills." She pointed to the family medicine--a box of which stood always by her bedside. She had some curious notion that it was her duty to show belief in the Primeval Pills, and she made a practice of swallowing two morning and night.

Harold opened the box; examined the pills; finally put one into his mouth and bit it through. Bitter as gall.