Only a clod
the little ovation that came with the close of the drama, he followed
Maude Hillary into the ante-room, where the rest of the amateurs were
discussing the night’s business, and flirting with the splendid Julia,
and thence to an inner room, less brilliantly lighted, and quite
unoccupied. Beyond this inner room there was another apartment--the
study in which Francis had fallen an easy victim to the wiles of the
Hibernian enchantress--and it was to this room that Maude hurried, still
followed by Mr. Tredethlyn.
He had no business to follow her. He knew that very well. His business
was with Julia, who had acted _Madame Deschappelles_ with wonderful
spirit, and for whom the evening had been one long triumph, inasmuch as
her lace, and diamonds, and brocade, and dark eyes, and white teeth, had
been the subjects of universal admiration. Mr. Tredethlyn’s business lay
in that brilliantly-lighted ante-chamber where Julia sat amongst the
government clerks, and barristers, and grand military dandies, while an
accompaniment of perpetually popping champagne-corks mingled pleasantly
with the noise of their laughter. He knew this, and yet he followed
Maude to the dimly-lighted study, where the red glow of the fire
flickered on the bindings of the books and the frames of the pictures.
He could not leave off being _Claude Melnotte_ all in a moment. The
exaltation of the mimic scene was still upon him. Just now he had been
carried quite away by the influence of the poetic situation; and when he
flung down the sham money, which was to release the merchant’s daughter
from her hated suitor, a warmer thrill of triumph had stirred his breast
than had ever been engendered by the possession of Oliver Tredethlyn’s
thousands.
And now he could not fall back to his old position all at once. Only a
minute or two ago Maude Hillary had been sobbing on his breast,--his
bride, his wife; and he half fancied he had some kind of right to
sympathize with her emotion. He stopped suddenly on the threshold of the
study, quite unmanned by the sight of Mr. Hillary’s daughter, half
kneeling, half lying on the ground, with her face buried in the cushions
of a sofa, and her hands clasped in a despairing attitude above the fair
tangled hair that had so lately lain upon his breast. Her whole frame
was shaken by the vehemence of her sobs; and before such a picture as
this it was scarcely strange if poor country-bred Francis Tredethlyn
quite forgot that he was _not_ Claude Melnotte. He bent over the
prostrate girl, and laid his big fingers gently upon one of those little
bejewelled hands clasped so convulsively above the fair head.
“Miss Hillary,” he exclaimed, “dear Miss Hillary, for pity’s sake, tell
me what distresses you--what has happened--what is wrong--or--I--I beg
your pardon--you have over-fatigued yourself, and you are hysterical;
let me send for your maid.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” cried the girl, rising to her feet, and standing
before him, but with her face still hidden from him, hidden by her
outspread hands and her dishevelled hair.
“Shall I call Julia? she is in the room yonder.”
“Oh, no! I--I want to speak to you, Mr. Tredethlyn; stay just a little,
please. Ah! it is so hard, so cruel, but the last chance! In all the
world there is no one else who can save me--and my father--my poor,
miserable, bankrupt father!”
Francis looked at Miss Hillary in complete bewilderment. Her father--her
bankrupt father! Why, then she was still thinking of the scene that was
just finished, and the commercial troubles of Monsieur Deschappelles;
which character, by the way, had been enacted by a very young man of a
sickly cast of countenance, and an inclination to hang his head
dejectedly throughout the performance of the drama. It is a rule amongst
amateurs to assign the elderly and ineligible characters to the youngest
and meekest members of the company; whereby Monsieur Deschappelles is
usually represented as a young person of some nineteen summers, with
flour in his hair, dirty streaks, supposed to represent wrinkles, upon
his face, and a tendency to squeakiness in his voice.
“I am sure you are over-fatigued, over-excited by the play,” urged
Francis; “do let me call Julia.”
“No!” cried Miss Hillary, dropping her hands from before her face. “Oh,
Mr. Tredethlyn,” she exclaimed, almost passionately, “can’t you
understand--can’t you see that I am in earnest? Do you think that scene
just now would have made me cry as it did, if it had not reminded me of
my own sorrow? Mr. Tredethlyn--I--I know you are a good man, that you
would not be slow to do a kindness for anyone who needed your help; I
know that; and I--I thought I should have courage to speak to you, but
now the words won’t come--I----”
Her dry lips moved, but made no sound. She clasped her hands once more
before her face. Heaven knows how desperate was the effort that she
made. It is not such an easy matter to borrow twenty thousand pounds;
even though the borrower may be young and beautiful, and accustomed to
perpetual adoration.
“Miss Hillary, you speak of help--needing help--from _me_. For mercy’s
sake, tell me how I can help you. Do you think there is anything upon
earth that would give me such pride and delight as to be of service to
you?”
The enthusiasm of the moment lighted up Francis Tredethlyn’s countenance
like a sudden glow of summer sunshine. Maude uncovered her face and
looked at him, and saw at once that her cause was gained; her father’s
preserver was found. She had not counted in vain upon Francis
Tredethlyn.
“I want you to lend papa twenty thousand pounds,” she said; “I know that
he will repay you honourably. He has some difficulties--terrible
difficulties in his business,--but the loan of twenty thousand pounds
would smooth them all away. I know that you are very, very rich, Mr.
Tredethlyn, and that you can afford to lend such a sum of money, or I
should never have dared----”
“You would not have dared, Miss Hillary? Oh, can you doubt that I would
give the last sixpence I have in the world, the last drop of my
heart’s-blood, to save you from one pang? Twenty thousand pounds! Take
forty--fifty thousand--the utmost farthing of my fortune, if you will;
squander it--throw it into the river yonder, if the waste of it can give
you a moment’s pleasure. Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know how I love
you!”
He had been acting _Claude Melnotte_, and the intoxication of the sweet
sentimental poetry was strong upon him; beyond which it is just possible
that he may have taken a little more sparkling Moselle in the course of
his dramatic exertions than can safely be taken by a young man of
sanguine temperament. All prudence, all power of reticence, left him in
that moment, and he dropped on his knees at Miss Hillary’s feet, like a
lover in a stage-play. She was so beautiful--she seemed so far away from
him even now, when her distress had brought her a little nearer than of
old,--that this attitude of adoration seemed quite natural to him,
almost the only attitude in which he dared address her.
“Oh, if you knew how I love you,” he cried, passionately,--“if you could
only believe or understand! But I am so ignorant--so unworthy--so far
beneath you!”
Miss Hillary drew herself away from him with a gesture of mingled
surprise and disgust.
“You dare to talk to me like this, and you are the affianced husband of
my friend!” she cried. “O, Mr. Tredethlyn, you take a very mean
advantage of my father’s difficulties and my distress.”
“Yes!” answered Julia Desmond from the doorway. She had been standing on
the threshold for the last few moments, watching this interview behind
the scenes. “Yes! it is altogether mean and shameful, Maude Hillary. You
have taken a noble course, I think, when you fling your father’s debts
upon the man who was to be my husband, and coolly ask him for the
trifling loan of twenty thousand pounds.” She laughed bitterly as she
named the sum. “Twenty thousand pounds--and you ask your friend’s lover
to turn money-lender; and you bring your tears and hysterical sobs, and
a thousand pretty amateur dramatic devices to bear, in order to obtain
what you want, and all in the most childish innocence, of course. And
then you turn upon the man whom you have lured to your feet by a hundred
tricks and artifices, and make a charming show of surprise and
indignation. Ah! it is shameful, Maude Hillary--mean and cruel and
false; and bitter shame shall come to you for this night’s work.”
The Irishwoman was superb in her indignation. Those flashing eyes and
glittering teeth, hereditary in the race of the Desmonds, seemed to
light her face with an infernal kind of splendour: such a splendour had
many a fated victim seen upon the countenance of the duelling Irish
colonel, just before he fell prone on some lonely field beside the
Shannon. It was against Maude that the fuller fury of Julia Desmond’s
rage was directed,--against Maude, of whom she had always been jealous,
in whom she had continually found a triumphant rival. It was only after
that outburst of jealous rage that Julia turned upon her recreant lover.
Francis had risen from his knees, and stood a little way from the two
girls, with a dogged moodiness upon his face: he was sobered by Maude’s
indignation and Julia’s passion, and he was dimly aware that he had
acted like a scoundrel.
“As for you, Mr. Francis Tredethlyn,” Miss Desmond said presently, “I
suppose I have no need to tell you that all is over between us, and that
I bitterly repent the humiliation my own folly has brought upon me. I
should have known how much I risked when I stooped to regard a person
whose code of honour belongs to a different world from that in which I
have been reared. I suppose amongst _your_ people it is the fashion for
a man to pledge himself to one woman and then make love to another; but
such is _not_ the custom in the circles where the Desmonds have been
used to be welcome. I should have known what I had to expect when I came
into this house. I should have known what I had to anticipate when I
trusted in the truth and loyalty of a man who is not a gentleman.”
Throughout this speech Julia’s hands had been moving rapidly, but with
unfailing purpose, though they trembled a little all the while. One by
one she had unfastened the diamond ornaments that had glittered upon her
head and wrists, her throat and bosom; and now the jewels lay in a
little heap at the feet of Francis Tredethlyn. One by one she had thrown
them there during that passionate speech. She _could_ not act her play
out. She had been unable to support the character she had undertaken.
The fiery blood of the Ryan O’Brien Desmond had asserted itself in spite
of all the promptings of prudence, all the bitter schooling of
experience. It was very dreadful to be poor and dependent; it would have
been delightful to be mistress of thirty thousand a year: but Julia
Desmond, coming to the threshold of the study, had heard Maude’s appeal
for the twenty thousand pounds, and Francis Tredethlyn’s impassioned
avowal; and patience and policy had alike deserted her. Carried away by
the impulse of the moment, she renounced everything. At last Francis
Tredethlyn spoke for himself.
“I know that I have acted very badly,” he said. “I had no right to
speak; I never should have spoken but for that play. I think I must have
almost fancied myself that poor gardener’s son, who dared to worship the
brightest creature that ever crossed his pathway, and in an evil hour
told her of his madness. Ah, forgive me, Miss Hillary; do not hate or
despise me for what I said just now; let it pass like the play in which
we acted to-night. And you, Julia--Miss Desmond, I am not too proud to
ask your forgiveness for the wrong I have done you. I have been very