Faithful Margaret: A Novel
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 dashing
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 fashion,
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 ship, 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 passed
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, circumstances sent Calembours in my way, and we joined
in partnership.
"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 pass 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.
"With this sincere assertion, I close, remaining yours, humbly,
BRAND BAREILLI."
Before we bid our friends good-by, let us cast a farewell glance on each
whose fortunes yet do hang in the balance.
Do you wish your picture taken?
Step into this magnificent establishment in Picadilly, London, whose
excellencies appeal to you from placards on every wall within three
miles of London Bridge.
You will enter an apartment carpeted with a web of Turkish loom, and
strewn with ottomans of Oriental gorgeousness, and blazing with the
splendid framings of fine paintings.
Ladies of rank and fashion throng here, gentlemen of taste and purse,
artists of cynical aspect, diletantes of enthusiasm, and all the world
wags its tongue about the prodigies of art to be viewed in that salon.
You will presently be conducted by a deferential man in elegant livery
up two flights of marble steps into a studio, where you will meet the
great French artist, Ludovic, the Chevalier de Calembours.
His bright eyes beam pleasantly, his handsome face glows with welcome,
his white, shapely hand waves you gracefully into a velvet chair.
You look at the little man in the black velvet Hungarian dolman,
embellished with those glittering badges, which catch the eye so much;
you mark the glossy beard and mustache, trimmed to the last degree of
Parisian taste, and as retentive memory suggests to you the once
wretched little tailor, toiling over his small clothes on the banks of
the Theiss, you feel that you are in the presence of a great man.
And when he has, with that charming smile of _naivete_ and indifference,
shown you his cases of photographs, and his paintings colored and
executed by ten of the first living artists in the world--all of whom
are in his employ--you follow him into the crystal dome, and are
photographed at eight guineas a dozen, with much the feeling you might
experience were you one of those honored old women who have their feet
washed once a year by the Empress of the French.
"The world likes to be gulled, then let us gull it."
In due time Madame Hesslein, of happy memory, married Vice-Admiral
Oldright, who, as she had shrewdly calculated upon, soon got the post of
admiral, and she was able to take precedence of all haughty ladies of
her set, let them be ever so bitterly proud--she the blacksmith's
daughter, a little tailor's wife.
I do not know whether she has yet quite forgotten that dying
boy in the wretched shed, or those simple happy days by the river
Theiss, but I hear that it is still her favorite waltz:
"Have no heart and a good digestion!"
* * * * *
Knowing the simple soul of my heroine; having a vague conception of the
possible grandeur of my hero, feebly, but earnestly portrayed, need I
assure you that happiness shed its golden light upon their future path,
and that, hand clasped in hand, they paced through each small grief or
joy, fanning in each other that bright and Heaven-born spark which leads
us at last to Heaven?
Thus, gentle companions of these tortuous wanderings. I release you from
your patient chaperonage. I think we part friends, and gratefully I
press your hands, and say _au revoir_!
THE END.