Volume Three—Chapter Four.
Glen’s Defender.
Marcus Glen could hardly recall exactly what happened upon that unlucky night; but Clotilde’s words rang still in his ears, and even as they seemed to throb in his brain, there was a burst of light that seemed to cut the semi-darkness where they stood—the boudoir doors being thrown open—and with the light came a burst of conversation and music from the inner rooms.
Those sounds seemed to be mingled with the furious oath uttered by Elbraham, who was upon the step with Lord Henry Moorpark, and Marie close behind.
It was like some situation in a comedy drama, and before he could recover from his surprise he felt a sharp blow across his face, and a tiny jet of blood spurting from the puncture made by the point of a brilliant where it had entered his temple.
“How dare you! Elbraham! Husband! Protect me from this man.”
“Protect you? By Gad I will,” roared the financier, throwing his arm round his wife’s waist, whilst, flushed and angry, she began to sob.
“That man—that wicked man! Oh, it is shameful!”
“Look here, Moorpark,” cried Elbraham savagely, as Clotilde, after gazing furiously at Glen, hid her face upon her husband’s shoulder, “you are a witness. By Gad I’ll have an action against him—I’ll have him in the Divorce Court. I’ll—”
“Hush, hush, my good sir!” whispered Lord Henry, who looked for the moment horror-stricken, but recovered directly sufficiently to close the door leading into the great conservatory.
“But I’ll—but I’ll—” cried Elbraham, foaming at the mouth with rage and jealousy.
“Hush, sir, pray: for your wife and her sister’s sake,” said Lord Henry, with dignity.
“But,” panted Elbraham, struggling to speak, and shaking his fist at Glen, who stood there biting his lip, and frowning.
“Silence, sir!” cried Lord Henry with authority; “recollect you are a gentleman. Captain Glen, I beg and desire that you leave this house at once.”
“Gentlemen!” exclaimed Glen, flushing with excitement; and the words of explanation were upon his lips, but he stopped short and took a step as if to go, but turned back. “Look here, Lord Henry,” he said.
Then he stopped short, choking, sickened with disgust. He could not—he would not speak.
“You had better leave at once, Captain Glen,” said Lord Henry haughtily. “There must be no scandal here. You have insulted—”
“Insulted!” panted Elbraham; “by Gad, sir—”
“Mr Elbraham, for your own and your lady’s sake be silent and calm yourself, or the guests will learn what has occurred. If you demand satisfaction afterwards, sir, you can do so, though duels are out of fashion.”
“Satisfaction!” cried Elbraham. “By Gad I’ll have heavy damages—heavy damages!” he reiterated, with the foggy notion still in his brain that this was a case in which he could proceed against Glen in the Divorce Court.
“We will discuss that afterwards, sir,” said Lord Henry coldly. “Mrs Elbraham, there are some of your guests approaching. Marie, my child, lead your sister into the next room; she has been a little faint. Elbraham, recollect yourself.”
“All right, my lord; I’m calm enough. But let this blackguard go at once.”
Glen started, and he was turning furiously upon the financier, when he saw Marie slowly approaching her sister with a look almost of loathing in her countenance, and he took a couple of steps towards her.
“Marie, for heaven’s sake hear me!” he whispered; but even as he spoke he saw Clotilde turn and glare at him with so fierce a look that he was again silenced.
Then Lord Henry threw open the door, the strains of music and the brilliant light flashed into the conservatory, and Clotilde seemed to recover herself, and laid her hand upon her husband’s arm.
“Take me away,” she said hoarsely; but, seeing that Marie did not move, she restrained her lord, whose face was just turning back from purple to red, and seemed to be waiting for her sister to leave.
“Will you take me back into the drawing-room, Lord Henry?” said a voice then that sounded quite strange to all present, and mastering her emotion, but looking deadly pale, Marie suffered Lord Henry to lead her away without one glance at Glen, who stood there feeling as if a hand were constricting his throat.
The next moment Elbraham favoured him with a melodramatic scowl, and marched out with Clotilde’s white arm resting, laden with glittering bracelets, upon his black coat-sleeve, and her face fixed, as if of marble, as she gazed straight before her.
“He will not betray me,” she thought to herself, “and he will forgive me the next time we meet.”
She might have altered her opinion if she had heard his words, though perhaps they would have made her feel more satisfied as regarded her own position.
“Curse the woman for a Jezebel!” cried Glen between his teeth, as he clutched a handful of the rich leafage of a palm and crushed it in his fingers.
“Was ever poor wretch meshed before in such a net? If ever I forgive her this—Well, what is it?”
“Alone!” cried Dick. “I thought I saw Marie come in here while I was dancing.”
“Yes,” said Glen, trying to crush down his emotion; “she did come here, and she is gone.”
“For a tête-à-tête. Curse it all, Glen! you are too bad. Have some honesty in you!”
“Hold your tongue!” said Glen, bringing his hand down fiercely upon the boy’s shoulder, which he clutched with so tremendous a grip that the lad winced and uttered a cry of pain. “Don’t speak to me. Take me back.”
“Are you ill? What is the matter? There’s blood on your face. Hang it all! you hurt me. What has been wrong? Has Marie refused you?”
“Will you be silent?”
“No,” said the boy with spirit; “I will know. I saw Marie come in here. What has happened? Have you been playing some—”
“Rehearsing only!” cried Glen, with a forced laugh.
“Rehearsing! Are they going to have amateur theatricals?”
“No, no: real—a social comedy,” cried Glen.
“A social comedy! I say, old man, haven’t you had too much champagne? But are they going to act something? I should like to be in it. What is the piece?”
“The scapegoat!” cried Glen, with a laugh; “and I play the goat.”
“Look here, old man, I’ll see you into a cab. Let’s get out this way. I’ve a couple more dances I must have before I go. I wouldn’t go back into the drawing-room if I were you. Come along.”
With his senses seeming to reel, Glen took the arm offered to him, and allowed himself to be led out into the hall, Dick helping him on with his coat and seeing him in a hansom before returning to the drawing-room, where the band was playing another waltz.
He intended to find Marie and secure her for a partner; but the dance was nearly ended before he found her, looking, as he thought, more beautiful than ever, but very strange, standing in a doorway with Lord Henry, who was holding her hand.
Something seemed to check the boy, as a pang of jealousy shot through his fervent young heart. He could not hear what was said, but stood still in mute rage as Lord Henry said:
“Indeed, yes, my dear child; everything. There shall be no hostility. Fighting is a thing of the past. Take my word for it, and be at rest.”
“Thank you, Lord Henry, thank you,” she said, almost passionately. “Good-night. I will go to my room now; I can bear no more.”
“God bless you, my child. It must be hard to bear, but you are noble and good and true enough to master this bitterness. I would I could bear it for your sake. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” she said warmly.
“And you will try to forget it all?”
“I have forgotten it,” she said, flushing and drawing herself up proudly. “It was one of my mistakes.”
She looked full in his eyes as she spoke, and then drew her hand from his, and he stood watching her cross the hall and ascend the staircase till she reached the first landing, where she turned and looked down at him for a moment before passing out of his sight.
Lord Henry Moorpark stood with his eyes half closed, thinking of the bright vision that had just glided from his sight; and his thoughts must have been pleasant, for he smiled once, and stood opening and shutting his crush hat till, becoming aware that someone was near, he raised his eyes, and saw Dick pointing his tiny moustache.
“Ah,” he said, smiling; “there is music yonder, and pretty feet and bright eyes are asking for partners. Why tarryeth the little son of Mars?”
“Look here!” cried the boy fiercely; “if you were a man of my years—oh, this is unbearable?” he cried, and he hurried away.
“Poor boy!” said Lord Henry softly; “and I am spoiling his happy dream. Ah, well, it was one from which he was bound to be rudely awakened, and Marie—” He paused, and his eyes half-closed. Then he said the name softly to himself: “Marie, Marie! Poor child! she looked heartbroken. Am I a doting old fool to ask myself this question—shall I win her yet?”
It would be hard to say who suffered most in the sleepless night which followed, during which Glen paced his bedroom till day, the same daybreak that found Marie, wakeful and feverish, turning upon her weary couch.
That morning a note came for her. Elbraham received it and took it to Clotilde.
“It is from that wretch,” she cried hotly; “burn it.”
Elbraham did so without a moment’s hesitation, and the ashes were still sparkling on the hearth when Marie entered the drawing-room dressed as if for a journey.
“Why, Rie!” exclaimed her sister, as Elbraham recalled the past night’s scene and felt uncomfortable.
“I am going back to Hampton,” said Marie quietly and without heeding her sister’s extended hands; and on reaching home the honourable sisters were loud in their questions, and full of surprise to see her back, but Marie was reticent. She was not quite well; she was tired with the effects of the party; and she did not think Clotilde wished her to stay longer.
“But Clotilde must give way in such cases. It is her duty to study her sister now that she is well married.”
For the first time in her life Marie saw herself as she was, and at night, when the cousins were alone, and Ruth had been helping her to undress, the latter was startled into a belief that Marie was ill and delirious, for soon after she had dropped into her usual calm and peaceful sleep she was awakened by her cousin, looking strange and pale in her long white robe and with her black dishevelled hair about her shoulders.
“Are you ill, dear?” cried Ruth, starting up.
“Yes, so ill—so ill!” moaned Marie; and Ruth clasped her affectionately in her arms, to find her eyes wet with tears, and her hands like ice.
“What is it?” whispered Ruth; “let me call aunts.”
“No, no, let me stay here; lie down again, Ruthy: I want to talk to you.”
“But you are ill, dear!” cried Ruth.
“Only in mind, Ruthy. There, lie still, hold my hands and let me lay my head by yours; I want to talk.”
To Ruth’s surprise, Marie sank upon her knees by the bedside, clasped her in her arms, and laid her cheek upon the pillow.
“There,” continued Marie, “I can talk to you now,” and to the wondering girl’s astonishment she sobbed hysterically, asking for her sympathy and love. “For I have grown to hate myself, Ruth—to be ashamed of what I am. I’d give the world to be like you.”
“Oh, Marie, Marie,” sobbed Ruth, “pray, pray don’t speak of yourself like that! I have tried so hard to love Clotilde, but she has been cruel to me, I never could; but you—you have always been kind, and I do love you. You always took my part.”
“So that I might be a tyrant to you myself, you foolish child,” said Marie bitterly. “Oh, Ruth, Ruth, Ruth! if we had had a mother by our side I should have been a different woman.”
“There is something wrong, Marie; I can see it in your face.” And she hurriedly began to dress.
Then, and then only, did Marie give way to her feelings, sobbing with hysterical rage till Ruth was alarmed, and clung to her, begging her to be calm.
By degrees the whole bitter story came out, Marie keeping nothing back, but pouring forth the tale of her wrong with all an injured woman’s passionate jealousy and despair.
She did not notice how by degrees, as she went on, Ruth had grown white as ashes, and had gradually loosened her arms from round her, edging slowly away till she stood there with her arms hanging listlessly at her side, and in this attitude she listened to the bitter, passionate declarations of her cousin.
“I wish I was dead!” cried Marie. “I thought him so true, and manly, and honest, and yet he could be guilty of so cruel, so foul a wrong; and oh, Ruth, Ruth! I loved with all my heart—loved him as I hate and despise him now.”
She started and looked wonderingly at her cousin, and asked herself whether this was the gentle, yielding girl who had been her and her sister’s butt and victim these many years, for as she finished Ruth’s ashy face became suffused with anger.
“It is false! It is a cruel lie!”
“It is true, you foolish child!” retorted Marie angrily.
“I tell you it is false!” cried Ruth. “Captain Glen is too true and noble to be so wicked as you say. I will not believe it. I do not care; I would not believe it unless he stood here and owned to it himself. I know it is cruel and wicked to say so, but it is Clotilde who is to blame. Marcus Glen loves you, and he would not do you such a wrong.”
“You are too young and innocent, Ruth,” said Marie coldly. “Good-night. It is only the wakening from another dream.”