George Manville Fenn

“ Speak.”
“Morton!” gasped Claire, staggering to him, and throwing herself on his breast. “I cannot bear it. For God’s sake, stop!”
“No,” cried the lad; “for my father’s sake I’ll have the truth. You, Dick Miggles, I order you to speak.”
For the first time in his life, as Morton Denville stood there erect and stern, he looked a man.
“Can’t,” said Dick Miggles. “Don’t know.”
“You do, you coward!” cried Morton. “You will not speak for fear of getting into trouble. Look at the trouble we are in, and you might clear us.”
“Morton, dear Morton!” moaned Claire, with horror-stricken face. ”

“ The next minute he was standing in the whitewashed cell with the door closed behind him, locked in with the prisoner and half choked with emotion, gazing down at the bent grey head.
For the Master of Ceremonies was seated upon a low stool, his arms resting upon his knees, and his hands clasped between them, probably asleep. He had not heard the opening and closing of the door, and if not asleep, was so deaf to all but his own misery that Fred Denville felt that he must go and touch him before he would move. ”

“ He felt as a man smarting from the blows he had received. The service, the penalty for striking an officer, were as nothing to him then; he saw only the big, pompous, insolent bully of his regiment, Sir Matthew Bray, and the man who had insulted him a thousand times, which he could have forgiven, and his sister again and again, which he could not forgive.
With one bound he was upon Sir Matthew Bray, whom he struck full in the chest, so that he staggered back, tripped his heels on the front wheel of Lady Drelincourt’s bath-chair, and fell heavily into the road. ”

“ Shame!”
“Oh, Denville, Denville,” said Barclay softly, as he laid his hand upon the old man’s shoulder.
“Ah!” he cried, “even you pity me for this. Dear Mrs Barclay, I ought to be angry with you: but no, I will not. You mean so well. But it is all I have—in a life so full of pain and suffering that I wonder how I live—the love of my daughters—them to defend against the world. Madam, you are mistaken. My daughter—an English lady—as pure as heaven. But I thank you—I am not angry—you mean well. Always kind and helpful to my dear child, Claire. ”

“ To you, in your sweet spring of life, it is the black pit of horror. To me, in the bitter winter of my life, there is no horror there: it is but the calm, silent resting-place where tired nature sleeps and life’s troubles end. There, there, my little one, to whose sweet virtues and truth I have been blind, I am almost content with my fate for the reason that you have awakened me from a trance into which I had fallen. Claire, my child, can you forgive this weak, vain, old man? ”

“ These matters did not interest Major Rockley any more than the grey gulls that wheeled overhead and descended, to drop with a querulous cry upon a low spit of shingle where the sea was retiring fast.
For the fluttering white dress took up all his attention, and now that they were well beyond the promenaders, he was about to hasten his steps—too impatient to wait until she turned—when he uttered an impatient oath, for Claire suddenly stopped by a cottage where a woman was sitting knitting a coarse blue garment and nursing a little child. ”

“ Claire caught at the back of a chair, and stood gazing wildly at her sister, utterly stunned by her childish unthinking manner.
“May—May!” she cried bitterly; “your sin is finding you out.”
“Sin? How absurd you are! Why, what sin have I committed?”
“That clandestine marriage, May.”
“Now what nonsense, dear. It wasn’t my fault, as I told you before. You don’t know what love is. I do, and I loved poor, dear little Louis. I couldn’t help it, and he made me marry him.”
“Oh, May, May!”
“I tell you, I was obliged to marry him. One can’t do as one likes, when one loves. You’ll know that some day. ”

“ Fred Denville seemed to revive as soon as he was left alone with his sister; and, looking at her fixedly, he seemed to be struggling to make out whose was the face that bent over him.
“Claire—little sister,” he said at last, with a smile of rest and content. “Clairy—Richard Linnell? Tell me.”
“Oh, Fred, Fred, hush!” she whispered.
“No, no! Tell me. I can see you clearly now. It would make me happier. I’m going, dear. A fine, true-hearted fellow; and he loves you. Don’t let yours be a wrecked life too.”
“Fred! dear Fred!” ”

“ For you are in trouble, my dear—dreadful trouble, and it hurts me to see you so—hurts me, my dear, more than you think for, so what I say is—If it does you good to come and sit with me and be comforted by having a good cry over me, just as if you were my little girl, why you shall, and I shan’t ask you a single question; but if you think such a silly stout old woman can do you any good by giving you advice, or—now don’t be offended—finding you money; or by asking my Jo-si-ah what to do—”
“Mrs Barclay!” cried Claire in tones of dismay, and with her cheeks flushing. ”

“ How can you—you who are so true and tender-hearted—let yourself be the mouthpiece of this wretched crew?”
“But indeed, Mr Denville—”
“Oh, hush, ma’am, hush! You, who know the people so well. Mrs Burnett—my dear sweet child, May—the idol of my very life—to be made the butt now at which these wretches shoot their venomous shafts. Scandals, madam; scandals, Barclay. Coinages from the very pit. A true, sweet lady, sir. Bright as a bird. Sweet as some opening flower. And they dare to malign her with her bright, merry, innocent ways—that sweet young girl wife. ”

“ May stood with the pretty smile upon her face, a strange contrast to the pained classic sorrow upon her sister’s better-formed features, amid perfect silence, till the front door closed, and Frank Burnett’s strutting step was heard on the shingle walk leading to the gate, when a change came over the bright, flower-like countenance, which was convulsed with anger in miniature.
“Ugh! Little contemptible wretch!” she exclaimed. “How I do hate you! Claire, I shall end by running away from the little miserable ape, if I don’t make up my mind to kill him. Ah!” ”

“ Damn Saltinville! I hate it.”
“Oh, Lady Teigne, how can you talk like that!” cried Claire. “It is so shocking.”
“What! to say damn? ’Tisn’t. I’ll say it again. A hundred times if I like;” and she rattled out the condemnatory word a score of times over, as fast as she could utter it, while Claire looked on in a troubled way at the hideous old wretch before her.
“Well, what are you staring at, pink face! Wax-doll! Baby chit! Don’t look at me in that proud way, as if you were rejoicing because you are young, and I am a little old. You’ll be like me some day. If you live—he—he—he! If you live. ”

“ Never mind about the money, my dear: be poor and happy. Love’s better than riches; and the happiness enjoyed by two good people who really care for each other is—well, I don’t want to be single.”
“Mrs Barclay! What do you mean?”
“Why, that with all his doubts and distances, Richard Linnell worships you as much as you love him.”
“Oh, hush, hush, hush!” cried Claire piteously. “Don’t talk about that, Mrs Barclay. It is impossible.”
“It isn’t, my dear, and that’s flat. You’re being cruel to him, and more cruel to your own dear self. Come, now, try and be advised.” ”

“ He kissed her affectionately, and a faint smile came into Claire’s wan face, as it seemed to comfort her in her weary sorrow. Then they parted, and she went to her room, opened the window, and sat with her face among the flowers, watching the sea and thinking of some one whom she had in secret seen pass by there at night.
That was a dream of the past, she told herself now, for it could never be. Love, for her, was dead; no man could call her wife with such a secret as she held in her breast, and as she thought on, her misery seemed greater than she could bear. ”

“ It is impossible,” cried Claire.
“Then there is something that you do not tell me. Speak; you are killing me.”
“She—she—my poor sister—she thought—she heard—she had news, Louis—that you were dead.”
“Dead?—I?—dead? Oh, my poor little flower!” he cried, with a ring of tender pity in his voice, but changing to a fierce burst of anger on the instant. “But who told her? Who sent her those lies?”
“I don’t know—I never knew. But she grieved for you, Louis—because you were dead.”
“My little tender flower! Oh! oh! it is too cruel. But I am here—here, waiting to press her to my heart once more. ”

“ Claire shrank into one corner of the cell, her brow drawn with the pain inflicted upon her as her father kept reverting to his old displays of deportment and mincing ways—ways that had become so habitual that even now, incongruous as they were, he could not quite throw them off.
“You need not go, Mr Linnell,” he continued, “that is if you will bear with the pain of listening to a dying man’s request. We have never been friends, sir, but I am your debtor now for your kindly act. My dear Barclay, the little drama of my poor life is nearly over; the curtain is about to fall. ”

“ I fought against it, for I was enraged with you one minute, trembling with dread of what I dare not see the next; but still your face seemed to be there, my child, and I said at last that I would live it down or face it, if the dread time that haunts me always, as if lying in my path, should at last leap out.”
“Father!”
“My child! There, there; we do not know how much we can bear until the burden is laid upon us; and now let us cleave together like soldiers in the battle of life. Claire, child, we must live.”
She sat holding his hand in hers, with her brow knit, and a far-off look in her eyes. ”

“ To her right, though, there was a cable, curving down into the sea, and rising far out, after nearly touching the sands, to ascend to the deck of a large smack aground on the bank. That rope was one mass of lambent light, a huge chain of pallid gold that glowed all round; and as Claire Denville gazed there was a rift in the clouds overhead, and from far above the rays from a cluster of stars were reflected like a patch of diamonds in the sea, and she turned shudderingly away to gaze down once more at the transparent darkness, where the moving specks seemed to have a peculiar fascination. ”

“ My darling, I am so proud of my beautiful little sister. You will not be frivolous again, and give me so much pain?”
“N-no,” sighed May, with her face buried in her sister’s breast.
“Frank—”
“Don’t—don’t speak of him.”
“Yes, yes; he is your husband, and you must try to win him over to you by gentleness, instead of being a little angry tyrant.”
“Clairy!”
“Yes, but you can be,” said Claire playfully, as she pressed her lips upon the soft, flossy hair. “I can remember how these little hands used to beat at me, and the little tearful eyes flash anger at me in the old times.” ”

“ There was a shriek and then a babble of voices talking, cries for a boat, and a rush to the side, where a lady, who had arrived in a bath-chair, pushed by a tall footman in mourning livery, surmounted by a huge braided half-moon hat, was gesticulating wildly and going to and fro, now fanning herself with a monstrous black fan, now closing it with a snap, and tapping lady bystanders with it on the shoulder or arm.
“He’ll be drowned. I’m sure he’ll be drowned. Why is there no boatman? Why is there no help? Oh, here is dear Mr Denville. Oh! Mr Denville, help, help, help!” ”

“ Be a man.”
“I am a man,” cried Linnell furiously, “too much of a man to see the woman I love suffer for her weakness when I can stretch out a hand to save her. That hand I can stretch out, and I will. Now, will you help me?”
“To the death, Dick. I abhor your folly, but there is so much true chivalry in it that I’ll help you with all my heart.”
“I knew you would,” cried Linnell excitedly. “Write at once and get the invitations.”
“Pish!” said Mellersh contemptuously. “Don’t trouble yourself, my boy. I have only to walk in at Madame Pontardent’s door with any friend I like to take. ”