Only a clod
But amidst such perpetual hurry and excitement it was only natural that
some things should be almost entirely forgotten by Francis Tredethlyn,
and amongst these forgotten things were the sorrows of his missing
cousin. The Gray’s-Inn lawyers had _carte blanche_, and could have
employed all the detective machinery in London in a search for Susan
Tredethlyn, _alias_ Susan Lesley, had they so chosen; but your intensely
respectable family solicitor is the slowest of slow coaches, and Messrs.
Kursdale and Scardon contented themselves with the insertion of an
occasional advertisement in the second column of the “Times” supplement,
informing Susan Lesley that she might hear of something to her advantage
on applying at their office; and further offering a liberal reward for
any information respecting the above-mentioned lady.
The advertisement did not entirely escape notice. A good many Susan
Lesleys presented themselves:--one a fat old woman of seventy, who kept
a tobacconist’s shop in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials; another a bony
and pugnacious-looking person, with fiery red hair, and a fine
South-of-Ireland brogue, who threatened dire vengeance on the quiet
lawyer when he refused to recognize her pretensions to hear of something
to her advantage. All the Susan Lesleys were ready to swear anything in
order to establish their claims to that unknown advantage--which might
be anything from a five-pound note to a million of money, or a dormant
peerage,--but they all broke down lamentably under Mr. Kursdale’s
cross-questioning, and he did not even trouble Francis Tredethlyn to
confront the false syrens.
So, amid Newmarket meetings and Greenwich dinners, chicken-hazard,
billiards, and unlimited loo, poor Susan’s rustic image melted quite
away; and Francis forgot the solemn promise he had made, and the sacred
duty he had set himself to do when his Uncle Oliver’s heritage first
fell into his hands. And Francis Tredethlyn’s forgetfulness might have
lasted very long, if an accident had not awakened him to a most vivid
recollection of the past.
It was the May-time saturnalia of the turf, the Epsom week, and Mr.
Tredethlyn’s drag had been to and fro upon the dusty roads carrying a
heavy load of Bohemianism under convoy of the indefatigable Harcourt
Lowther. Francis had been rather unlucky, and a good deal of money had
changed hands after the Derby, the larger part of it finding its way
into the pockets of Mr. Tredethlyn’s obliging friend. The Oaks day was
to have redeemed his fortunes, but the day was over, and Francis drove
home amongst the noisy ruck of landaus and waggonettes, ponderous double
dog-carts, and heavily-laden sociables, tax-carts and costermongers’
barrows, with the outer leaves of an attenuated cheque-book peeping from
his breast-pocket, and the dim consciousness that he had distributed
hastily-scribbled cheques to the amount of some thousands, floating
confusedly in his brain. He drove to town through the spring twilight,
with Dutch dolls in his hat, and a heavy pain in his heart. The _papier
mâché_ noses of his companions were scarcely more false and hollow than
their gaiety.
Of course it would be impossible to conclude such a day without a
dinner. The sort of people amongst whom Francis Tredethlyn lived are
perpetually dining and giving dinners; only the dinner-givers are as one
to twenty of the diners; so, at some time between nine and ten o’clock,
Maude’s husband found himself in his usual place at the head of a
glittering table, in an odorous atmosphere of asparagus soup and fried
mullet, and with a racking headache, that was intensified by every
jingle of glasses and rattle of knives and forks.
He had lost heavily, and had drunk deeply under the warm May sunshine on
the Downs. To lose cheerfully is given to many men, but how very few
have the power to lose quietly! Francis had taken his disappointment in
a rather uproarious spirit; slapping his companions on the shoulder, and
making new engagements right and left; backing the same horses by whose
shortcomings he had just lost his money; and huskily protesting the
soundness of his own judgment in despite of the misfortunes of to-day.
He went on talking now at the head of the dinner-table, though the sound
of his own voice by no means improved the splitting pain in his head. He
went on talking amidst a clamour of many voices, through which one sober
and silent toady, sitting next Mr. Tredethlyn, made a vain effort to
understand his discourse. He poured forth misty vaticinations on coming
events, gave general invitations for a great dinner at Virginia Water on
the Ascot cup day, and galloped noisily along the road to ruin in which
Harcourt Lowther had set him going. That splitting headache of his was
getting worse every minute, when some one proposed an adjournment to an
adjacent theatre.
There had been counsel taken with a waiter. A West-end waiter is no mean
dramatic critic, though he never sees a play; the opinions of playgoers
percolating perpetually through his ears must leave some residuum in the
shape of knowledge. The waiter opined that the best entertainment in
London was to be had at Drury Lane, where a melodramatic spectacle of
some celebrity was being played that evening for the last time but one.
Inspired by the waiter, Mr. Tredethlyn’s party made their way to the
theatre, bearing Mr. Tredethlyn along with them, indifferent where he
went, and carrying his headache with him everywhere.
It was past ten o’clock, and the last scene of the great spectacle was
on. The house was full, and the audience were chiefly of that restless
and vociferous order who drop into a theatre at half-price on great
race-nights. Mr. Tredethlyn and his party could only find standing-room
at the back of the dress-circle, and from this position Francis beheld
the grand final _tableau_.
The piece was an adaptation of some great Parisian success--some story
of the Reign of Terror,--and in this last scene the stage was crowded by
a clamorous populace. Upwards of three hundred men, women, and children
were engaged in the scene. Blouses and uniforms, the picturesque
head-dresses of the provincial peasantry, the scarlet cap of liberty,
the cocked hats of the gendarmerie,--all blended in one grand mass of
movement and colour, while the rapid action of the piece drew to its
triumphant close.
Mr. Tredethlyn did not trouble himself to wonder what the piece had been
about. He saw somebody killed--a villain it was to be supposed, since
the crowd set up a well-organized yell of rejoicing; then there was a
reconciliation, an embrace, a young lady in short-waisted white muslin
clasped to the breast of a young man in a long-tailed blue coat and low
top-boots, adorned with many-coloured bunches of riband. Then the band
broke into the stately measure of the “Marseillaise Hymn,” the crowd
clamoured a shrill chorus, and the curtain fell.
It was while the curtain was descending very slowly to that triumphant
music that Francis Tredethlyn saw something which startled him like the
sight of a ghost.
It was a face--a woman’s face in a high Normandy cap, looking out of the
many faces in the crowd, a thin, worn, melancholy countenance, very sad
to look upon, among all those other faces fronting the audience with a
stereotyped smile.
“My God!” cried Mr. Tredethlyn, clasping his two hands upon his hot
forehead, and pushing back the rumpled hair, “who is it? What’s the
matter with me? I feel as if I’d seen a ghost!”
There was a little piece after the melodrama, a slender little
production, popularly known as a “screaming” farce. It was not the most
strikingly original dramatic invention, and its chief point consisted in
one gentleman in tartan trousers being perpetually mistaken for another
gentleman in tartan trousers, whole both gentlemen were alternately
sitting upon bonnet-boxes and dropping trays of crockery.
There was certainly not very much in the farce, but the audience laughed
uproariously, and Francis Tredethlyn’s party joined in the laughter. He
found himself laughing, too, as loudly as the rest of them; but amidst
all that confusion and clamour, the wan, sad face, with two inartistic
patches of rouge upon its hollow cheeks, kept surging up ever and anon
out of the chaos of his brain, and haunting him like the face of a
ghost.
Who was it? What was it? Was it some accidental likeness? Was it a face
that he had seen and known in the past? Alas for the steady,
clear-headed soldier, who had been so prompt to obey military orders, so
strict in the performance of duty! Francis Tredethlyn’s muddled senses
refused to help him to-night. The author of “What will he do with it?”
tells us that light wines are the most treacherous of liquors; “they
inflame the brain like fire, while melting on the palate like ice.” Mr.
Tredethlyn had been drinking a mixture of divers champagnes and Moselles
all day long, and he tried in vain to fix the vague image which floated
amidst the confusion of his brain.
He went home in the early grey of the May morning; but not to sleep. He
lay tossing from side to side, tormented by that preternatural
wakefulness which is apt to succeed a long period of riot and
excitement. The course at Epsom, the gipsy fortune-tellers, the
betting-men in white hats and green veils, the Dutch dolls and pink
calico pincushions, the dust and clamour of the homeward drive, the
jingling of broken glass, the popping of corks, the revolutionary crowd
in the drama, the tartan trousers and broken bandboxes in the
farce,--all mixed themselves in his brain, falling to pieces, and
putting themselves together again like the images in a kaleidoscope.
Mr. Lowther, coming to see his friend at the correct visiting hour,
found Francis still in bed, in a little room behind the library, which
he had fitted up for himself at Harcourt’s instigation, as a bedroom and
dressing-room, a kind of refuge to which he might betake himself when he
was unfit to encounter the calm gaze of Maude’s clear blue eyes fixed
upon him in sorrowful wonder. Her manner to him had never quite
recovered its old kindness since that unlucky encounter on the stairs.
She was still kind to him; but he could see that it was by an effort
only that she retained anything of her old friendliness. He could see
this, and the knowledge of it galled him to the quick. Harcourt
Lowther’s work was more than half done by this time. He had no longer
any difficulty in beguiling Francis abroad, for the Cornishman no longer
cared to remain at home.
Mr. Tredethlyn had not very long fallen into a feverish slumber after
long hours of wakeful weariness, when his friend called upon him.
Harcourt seated himself by the side of the narrow brass bedstead, and
stared contemplatively at the sleeper, while he spoke to the valet who
had admitted him to the darkened chamber.
“You can let your master sleep till four o’clock, Jervois,” he said. “At
four give him some soda and brandy. He has an appointment with me at
half-past five. Take care that he doesn’t oversleep himself. I’ll write
him a line by way of reminder.”
He drew a little writing-table towards him, and wrote a few lines on a
sheet of note-paper:
“DEAR TREDETHLYN,--Remember your engagement at my quarters; 5.30
sharp. You had better bring the mail phaeton, and can give me a
lift to the S. and G.
“Yours faithfully,
“H. L.”
He slipped his note into an envelope, and dipped his pen into the ink;
but before writing the address, he stopped suddenly, and tore the note
into fragments.
“_She_ might see it!” he muttered, thoughtfully, “and that might show
her the nature of my cards. The only wise man is the one who can do his