Only a clod
CAUGHT IN THE TOILS.
Francis Tredethlyn spent the bright summer Sunday afternoon and evening
at the Cedars. Mr. Hillary generally filled his house with company on
the day of rest; and hard-working commercial magnates, and lazy West-end
loungers, were alike glad to spend their Sabbath amongst the flower-beds
and trellised walks, under the shadow of black spreading cedars, or on
the terrace by the river. The merchant’s house was only another
Star-and-Garter, where the _menu_ was always irreproachable, and where
one escaped that little bugbear so common to the close of all social
entertainments, and known by the vulgar name of “Bill.” Mr. Tredethlyn
found the house full of strangers, and Miss Hillary very difficult of
approach. He was not allowed to feel embarrassed, however; for Julia
Desmond always happened to be in his neighbourhood, and he found her
society as charming as on the previous occasion. She was so very
handsome, and there was really something so bewildering about her dark
eyes, and white teeth, and fluent talk upon every possible subject, that
the young man--who had never been accustomed to the society of
well-educated women--may be forgiven if he admired her. He admired her,
but not as he admired Maude Hillary. No thrill of half-fearful rapture
stirred his pulses as he stood by Julia’s side upon the moonlit terrace,
looking down at the rippling water, darkened by the tremulous shadows of
the trees; but the faintest flutter of Maude’s airy flounces stirred his
soul like a burst of music.
But she was only a beautiful, far-away creature, who never could have
any part in his destiny. He acknowledged this in a half-despairing way;
and then resigned himself to look at her only now and then from a
distance, and to behold her always surrounded by those elegant
amber-whiskered loungers, whose admiration of her loveliness never made
them awkward in her presence; who could approach her without suffering
from a sudden determination of blood to the head; who could hover near
her without trampling half-a-yard of her lace flounce to destruction
under the savage tread of a clumsy foot.
“Those fellows are fit to talk to her,” he thought; “they’ve been
brought up to it, I suppose: but I’m better out of her way; for even if
she speaks to me, I make a fool of myself somehow, and feel as if I
couldn’t answer her. I get on better with Miss Desmond; she’s so kind,
and she doesn’t seem to mind my being awkward and stupid.”
Yes, Miss Desmond was very kind to the simple-hearted Cornishman. So
kind is Madame Arachne to a big blundering blue-bottle fly that hovers
ignorantly about the net she has spread for him. Julia had angled very
patiently for the last two years in the great matrimonial fisheries, and
had brought several fish to land, only to lose her hook and leave them
to gasp and perish on the bank when she discovered their quality. But
now, for the first time, she knew she had a prey worthy her skill and
patience. She had taken good care to ascertain that Francis Tredethlyn’s
thirty thousand a year was no mere figment of a gossip’s brain, and she
set herself deliberately to work to win this prize so newly offered for
competition in the matrimonial market. Mr. Hillary interested himself in
the young man’s fortunes, and gave him some advice about the management
of some of his Uncle Oliver’s numerous investments. This, of course,
necessitated interviews at the merchant’s offices in Moorgate Street;
and no interview ever came to a close until Francis had received
hospitable Mr. Hillary’s invitation to “run down” to Twickenham.
The young man seemed always running down to the Cedars. He slept there
sometimes, in a pretty chintz-curtained chamber, all rosebuds and
maplewood, and from whose jasmine-festooned windows he looked out upon
the river--the perpetual river, now shimmering in the moonlight, now
twinkling and glancing in the sunshine, but always “a thing of beauty
and a joy” for the people who dwell upon its banks.
Yes, he was always riding down to the Cedars. He had departed very
little from his simple habits; but he had bought a couple of horses at
Tattersall’s--such horses as a man who has been used to ride across wild
moorland districts without saddle or stirrups from his earliest boyhood
knows how to choose. He kept the horses at livery near his hotel, and he
hired a smart young groom to attend to them, and even to ride behind him
on occasions.
Miss Hillary grew accustomed to the young man’s presence, and greeted
him kindly when he came; but then she had so many friends, such
enthusiastic female adorers in crisp muslins, who found the
millionaire’s daughter the dearest darling in the world, and were always
eager to pour some new confidence into her willing ears. She had so many
friends, so many admirers, that Francis Tredethlyn always found her more
or less difficult of approach. And in the meanwhile there was Miss
Desmond perpetually smiling upon him, and talking to him, and listening
to him.
So things went on very pleasantly for Mr. Tredethlyn, until one day his
eyes were very suddenly opened to a fact that well-nigh overpowered him.
He was lounging on the terrace one sunny afternoon, and, for a wonder,
Julia Desmond was not by his side. She had been summoned into the midst
of a conclave of pretty girls holding solemn discussion with Maude
Hillary on the lawn. Francis was looking down at the water, as it was
his habit to do, and thinking. He was leaning against the balustrade of
the terrace, all amongst the foliage which had been so bright when he
had first come to the Cedars, but which was brown and withered now: he
was watching the dead leaves slowly drifting in the wind, and dropping
one by one into the water; and he was thinking of his cousin Susan.
Nothing had yet come of his search for her. Perhaps he had left the
matter too much in the hands of his lawyers, trusting to their legal
acumen for the unravelment of the tangled skein. It may be that he had
been a little too much at the Cedars, absorbed in the delights of a new
existence. This afternoon, watching the drifting leaves upon the river,
the gold and crimson tints of autumn on the woodland and on the
hill-side, Francis Tredethlyn remembered how the time had slipped by
him, and how little nearer he was to the discovery of Susan Tredethlyn’s
fate than when he had listened to Martha’s story in the dreary Cornish
grange, and had sworn to go to the end of the world in search of his
cousin. There was some feeling of remorse in his mind as he thought of
the past three months, the idle days in that luxurious river-side
retreat, the billiard-playing and cigar-smoking, the pleasant rides to
and fro in the dewy evenings, with genial gentlemanlike companions, who
thought him a good fellow, and very rarely laughed at his ignorant
simplicity.
He was roused from his reverie now by one of these young men, Mr.
Montagu Somerset, of the War-Office, the scion of a noble house, the
presumptive heir to nothing a-year, and one of the most hopelessly
devoted of Maude Hillary’s adorers.
“Why, Tredethlyn,” exclaimed the young man, without removing a gigantic
cigar from between his lips, “how dismally you’re staring at that water!
It looks as if you were contemplating _felo de se_, b’ Jove. What’s the
row, old boy? and how do you happen to be alone? Where’s the _fiancée_?”
“I--I was thinking of some family matters, not very pleasant ones,” Mr.
Tredethlyn answered, simply.
“But where’s the _future_?”
“The what?”
“The _future_--Mrs. Francis Tredethlyn that is to be--the Desmond. Why,
has the lovely Julia deserted her Frank? Why, you dear, simple old baby,
how you blush! Is it a crime to be in love with a handsome girl? I only
wish your young affections had fixed themselves on one of my five
sisters--all most amiable girls, but without so much as a spoonful of
what our lively neighbours call _potage_.”
Francis Tredethlyn stared aghast at the young official.
“Why, you don’t suppose--you don’t think that I--that Miss
Desmond--that----”
“You know those silversmiths on the Boulevards--no, you don’t know
Paris, by the bye. Well, dear boy, there are Parisian silversmiths who
make a great display in their shop windows by means of a concatenation
of table-spoons and a strong flare of gas; but I doubt if in all Paris
there was ever such a notorious case of spoons as the present; and I
don’t blame you, my dear Tredethlyn. If I were not Alexander, I would be
the other person. If I were not madly and hopelessly in love with
blue-eyed Maude, I should fling myself at the feet of dark-eyed Julia:
such teeth, and such a generally regal _tournure_, with thirty-thousand
a-year, ought to make a sensation. Frank, I congratulate you! Bless you,
my boy, and be happy!” Mr. Somerset wrung his friend’s hand with
effusion.
“But, my dear Somerset--but, upon my word and honour,” cried Mr.
Tredethlyn, in extreme terror and perplexity, “Miss Desmond has been
very kind to me; and feeling myself out of place here, I’ve been
grateful for her kindness; but, as I am an honest man, not one word has
ever passed between us upon any but the commonest subjects; and I am
sure that neither she nor I have the slightest idea of----”
“Oh, you haven’t, eh?” asked Montagu Somerset, taking his cigar from his
mouth, and staring at it in a contemplative manner, as he knocked away
the ash; “never mind about Miss Desmond; _you_ haven’t any idea of
making her mistress of yourself and your property, real and personal,
eh? You admire her very much, and are very grateful to her for being
civil to you, and so on, but you have no idea of making her an offer of
marriage?”
“No more than I have of making you such an offer.”
“Then in that case,” replied Mr. Somerset deliberately, “all I have to
say is to this effect: look out for squalls; when you are coasting on a
shore renowned for its quicksands, you’d better beware of any strange
light you may see ahead, for the illumination generally means danger.
When you meet with such a girl as the Desmond, don’t trifle with her. Of
course it’s very pleasant to ride, and drive, and play billiards, and
loiter through a summer month or so with a handsome girl, meaning
nothing serious all the time; and it _is_ to be done with impunity, if
you are careful in your selection of the young lady. But I don’t think
Julia Desmond is exactly the sort of girl you should try it on with.
There are men in our place, apoplectic old fogies in starched neckcloths
and no end of waistcoat, who knew the Desmond’s father; he was a
south-of-Ireland man and a notorious duellist. They say that Julia
inherits his eyes and teeth.”
“But you don’t mean to say that I’ve done Miss Desmond any wrong?” cried
Francis. “How should I be otherwise than grateful to her when she was
kind to me, and set me at my ease somehow, and made me feel a little
less like an Ojibbeway Indian suddenly let loose amongst fashionable
people? How should I imagine that she would think of me except as--as
Miss Hillary thinks of me?” His voice grew low, and an inexpressible
change came over his whole manner as he mentioned Maude Hillary’s name.
“They know my history, and that this time last year I was a private in a
foot regiment, with nothing higher to hope for than an extra stripe upon
my sleeve.”
“Miss Hillary is one person and Miss Desmond is another,” Mr. Somerset
replied, with just the least suspicion of _hauteur_. “The lovely Julia’s
face is her fortune, you know, dear boy. You ask me if you’ve been
wrong; and I tell you frankly, as a gentleman, that I think you have. A
man can’t be exclusive in his attentions to a woman without other people
perceiving the fact, and forming their own conclusions thereupon. I know