The Master of the Ceremonies Part 114

"You, Colonel Mellersh, are a bit of a cynic; you don't believe in women, but you are mistaken here."

"What do you wish me to do?" said Linnell hoa.r.s.ely.

"To do? She is almost friendless, broken-hearted, and has not a strong true hand to take hers, a loyal heart who will stand by her against the world. Richard Linnell, my poor sister is suffering and in pain, and a great trouble is coming upon her that will not balance the joyful news she will soon hear."

"Then, why not make a dash for it, man, while you have time?" cried Mellersh.

"Because I shall give myself up to the civil authorities, sir; that is all. Mr Linnell, remember what I have said. Good-bye."

"Too late!" cried Mellersh, as a tramping was heard, and Sir Matthew Bray, a sergeant, and half a dozen dragoons marched quickly up.

Fred Denville's whole manner had changed.

He dashed to the front. There was no escape there, and the soldiers were already in the hall.

Rus.h.i.+ng to the back window he threw it up, but it moved stiffly, and before he had it well raised, the picket was in the room.

"Surrender!" cried the sergeant. "Halt, or I fire."

For answer Fred Denville rose on the sill and leaped down into the garden, a good dozen feet, and ran swiftly for the wall at the bottom.

"Halt!" roared Sir Matthew; but the fugitive paid no heed, and in response to rapid orders four carbines were raised, there was a ringing little volley, and, to Linnell's horror, Fred Denville made a bound, and fell upon his face.

"Oh, this is too bad, sir!" roared Mellersh fiercely.

"Mind your own affairs, sir," said Sir Matthew sharply. "Saved him from being shot after a court-martial."

In a few minutes the wounded man was borne in and laid in the hall, where Cora Dean was one of the first to fetch restoratives, while her mother brought a pillow and placed beneath his head, for a couple of the dragoons had been sent to fetch the means to transport him to the barracks.

It seemed at first that the one bullet which had struck him had been aimed too truly; but after a few minutes the poor fellow opened his eyes, looked wildly round, and then recognised Linnell.

"Ah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "you! Look here. I was on the way--to give myself up--civil authorities--my father--in prison--innocent--Lady Teigne-- murder--in a fit of drunkenness--I climbed up--to get the diamonds--save the poor old man--I--I--did the deed."

Volume Three, Chapter XVIII.

MORTON DENVILLE BECOMES A MAN.

"You here, Morton?"

"Yes. Don't look at me like that, Claire, pray don't. You can't think what I've suffered."

"What you've suffered?" said Claire coldly, as she recalled how she had taken a mother's place to this boy for so many years till he had obtained his advancement in life, when he had turned from her. He had made some amends on the night of Mrs Pontardent's party; but after that he had heard some whispered scandal, and had kept aloof more and more till the great trouble had fallen, and their father had been arrested, when he had stayed away and made no sign.

It had seemed so hard. When a few words on paper would have been so consolatory and have helped Claire in her agony and distress, Morton had not even written; and now he came to her at last to tell her she did not know what he had suffered.

"You don't know," he continued, with the tears in his eyes. "It was bad enough to be in the regiment with Payne and Bray, always ready to chaff me and begin imitating the old man, and that beast Rockley sneering at me; but when people began to talk as they did about you, Clairy--"

"Silence!" cried Claire, flas.h.i.+ng up as she rose from her seat, and darted an indignant glance at the boy. "If you have come only to insult your sister--go."

"Don't talk like that, Clairy dear," cried the boy. "Don't be so hard upon a fellow. I suffered horribly, for they did talk about you shamefully, and I was very nearly calling Sir Harry out, only the Colonel wouldn't let me fight. I'm sure I behaved well enough. Every one said I did."

"Why have you come this morning?" said Claire coldly.

"Why have I come? Hark at her!" said Morton piteously. "Oh, dear, I wish I were a boy again, instead of an officer and a gentleman, and could go down and catch dabs with d.i.c.k Miggles off the pier."

"Officer--gentleman? Morton, is it the act of a gentleman to side with the wretched people who made sport of your sister's fame? To stand aloof when she is almost alone and unfriended, and this dreadful calamity has befallen us? Oh, Morton, are you my brother to act like this? Is it your manliness of which you made a point?"

"Claire--sis--dear sis," he cried, throwing himself on his knees, and clasping her waist as he burst into a boyish fit of pa.s.sionate weeping.

"Don't be so cruel to me. I have fought so hard. I have struggled against the pride, and shame, and misery of it all. You don't know what a position mine has been, and I know now I ought to have taken your part and my father's part against all the world. But I've been a coward--a miserable, pitiful, weak coward, and it's a punishment to me. You, even you, hate me for it, and--and I wish I were dead."

Claire's face softened as she looked down upon the lad in his misery and abas.e.m.e.nt, and after a momentary struggle to free herself from him she stood with her hands stretched out over the head that was buried in the folds of her dress, and a tender yearning look took the place of the hard angry glance that she had directed at him.

"I have fought, G.o.d knows how hard," he went on between his sobs, "but I'm only a boy after all, sis, and I hadn't the strength and manliness to stand up against the fellows at the mess. I've shut myself up because I've been ashamed to be seen, and I've felt sometimes as if I could run right away and go somewhere, so that I could be where I should not be known."

Claire's hands trembled as they were very near his head now--as if they longed to clasp the lad's neck and hold him to her breast.

"I've been coming to you a hundred times, but my cursed cowardice has kept me back, and everything has been against me. There has been your trouble."

Claire's hands shrank from him again.

"Then it was bad enough about father without this horrible charge."

Claire's face grew hard and cold, and in a moment she seemed ten years older.

"Then there was poor Fred: Rockley's servant in my regiment. You don't know what a position mine has been."

Claire made no movement now. Her heart seemed to be hardening against the lad, and she shrank from him a little, but he clung to her tightly with his face hidden, and went on in the same piteous, boyish wail.

"I've been half mad sometimes about you and your troubles--"

Claire's hands began to rise again and tremble over his head.

"Sometimes about myself, and I've felt as if I was the most unlucky fellow in the world."

There was a pause here, broken by the lad's pa.s.sionate sobs.

"There: you hear me," he said. "I'm only a boy blubbering like this, but I feel pain as a man. I tell you, Clairy, dear sis, it has driven me nearly mad to know that this false charge was hanging over my father, and that he was in prison. The fellows at the mess have seemed to shrink from me, all but the Colonel, but whenever he has said a kind word to me I've known it was because the old man was in prison, and it has been like a knife going into me. I couldn't bear it. I hated myself, and I fought, I tell you, to do what was right, but I couldn't.

It was as if the devil were dragging at me to draw me away, till this came, and then I felt that I could be a man, and now," he cried, raising himself, and shaking his hair back, as he threw up his head proudly, "forgive me, sis, or no--d.a.m.n my commission! d.a.m.n the regiment! d.a.m.n the whole world! I'm going down to the prison to stand by my poor old father, come what may."

"My darling!"

Claire's arms were round his neck, and for the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes she sobbed hysterically, as she strained him to her breast.

"What, sis? You forgive me?" he cried, as her kisses were rained upon his face.

"Forgive you, my own brave, true brother? Yes," she cried. "Of course I know what you have suffered. I know it all. It was a bitter struggle, dear, but you have conquered, and I never felt so proud of you as I feel now."

"Sis!"