"That's it!" he said aloud, "that's the line of country! Fancy my never having given a thought to where this fellow was going so often, never wondering at the sudden fancy he had taken to his aunt's society; and then discovering from his own lips that he has been paying visits to my wife! More than that--that he is confoundedly in love with her, and wants to marry her! Wants to marry my wife! There's something deuced funny in that. I wonder whether any other fellow ever had a man come to him and tell him he wanted to marry his wife. I should think not! Not that I should care in the least if anyone married Gertrude--anyone, that is to say, except this youth downstairs. I have not done with him yet, and a wife would interfere horribly with me and my plans. Yes, that's the right notion. There is no reason why Etchingham should not be encouraged in this new fancy. It will keep him from dangling after any other woman, and it can come to nothing. I know her ladyship of Carabas rather too well to credit her with any desire for Miss Lambert the opera-singer as a relative; as a plaything, an amusement, she's well enough: but Lady Carabas cries 'Halte là!' and a hint from me to her would make her speak the word. Besides, I am not dead yet, and I might have something to say about my wife's second marriage--that is, of course, supposing that second marriage did not suit my views. But there will be no question of that for some time. Now that I know the state of affairs, I can keep myself au courant to all that goes on through Lady Carabas; I shall make her ladyship induce her charming nephew to moderate his transports so far as any question of proposing is concerned; but he may be 'awful spoons,' as he charmingly phrases it, as long as he pleases. As for this Windsor notion, that must be knocked on the head at once. I don't intend to give up the Cup-day at Ascot myself, and I certainly could not well be there, if Gertrude were to be of the party. I'll settle that with Lady Carabas."
Here behold Gilbert Lloyd's philosophy and views of life. Affection for the woman whom he had wedded, and from whom he had separated, he had not one scrap; nor even care as to what she did, what course of life she pursued, whence she obtained the means of livelihood. Any interest in that he had abnegated when he accepted the terms which she dictated for their separation,--terms which meant oblivion of the past and insouciance for the future, terms which he had indorsed when they were proposed, and which he was ready to hold to still. But when his knowledge of his wife's previous life--of the thrall from which she had actually, but not legally, escaped--gave him the mastery over her actions, or the actions of those in relation with her, he was prepared Halteto twist the screw to its tightest, if by so twisting it he could aid in the development of his own plans.
Had Gilbert Lloyd no remnant of love for Gertrude, no lingering reminiscence of the time when, a trusting school-girl, she placed her future in his hands, gave up her whole life to him, and fled away from the only semblance of home which she had known at his suggestion? Had he no thought of the time immediately succeeding that, when for those few happy weeks, ere the pleasant dream was dispelled, she lay nestling in his bosom, building O such castles in the air, such impossible pictures, prompted by girlish romantic fancies of the future? Had Gilbert Lloyd any such reminiscences as these? Truth to tell, not in the smallest degree. He had passed the wet sponge over the slate containing any records of his early life, and all trace of Gertrude had been effectually erased. When he heard of her now, when it became necessary for him to give a certain number of moments to thinking of her in connection with business matters, he treated the affair simply from a business point of view. To him she was as dead "as nail in door," as immaterial as the first woman he might brush against in the street; she might be turned to serve certain ends which he had in view; but he regarded her simply as one of the puppets in the little life-drama of which he acted as showman. The pleasant gathering which Lord Ticehurst had looked forward to on the Cup-day at Ascot did not come off. Gilbert Lloyd had five minutes' interview with Lady Carabas on the subject; and two days afterwards Mr. Boulderson Munns announced the impossibility of his sparing Miss Grace Lambert's services for that evening. Not that Miss Lambert would have accepted Lord Ticehurst's hospitality if her services could have been spared, but it was best to put the refusal on a strictly professional footing. Mr. Lloyd did not in the least care about absenting himself from that pleasant gathering on the Heath, and it was of course impossible for him to be brought face to face with Lord Ticehurst's intended guest. So the recipients of his lordship's hospitality in the cottage at Windsor were Lady Carabas and Miss Macivor, a sprightly elderly spinster, who was as well known in society as the clock at St. James's Palace, and who was always ready to play what she imagined to be propriety in any fast party. The ladies enjoyed themselves immensely, they said; but their host's gratification was not so keen. He was bored and ruffled, and he did not care to disguise it.
And now a change came over Gilbert Lloyd, which was to him unaccountable, and against which he struggled with all the power of his strong will, but struggled in vain. This change came about, as frequently happens with such matters by which our whole future is influenced, in an unforeseen manner, and by the merest accident. The Ascot settling-day had not passed off very comfortably. Several heavy bookmakers were absent; among them one who had lost a large sum of money to the Ticehurst party. This man was known to have won hugely on the Derby a fortnight before, and to have had a capital account at his banker's a few days previously. It seemed therefore clear to Gilbert Lloyd, with whom the management of the matter rested, that the money was still in the possession of the absconding bookmaker, who would, in all probability, take an opportunity of leaving the country with the sum thus accumulated. Gilbert Lloyd put himself in communication with the police authorities, furnished a correct description of the defaulter, and caused a strict watch to be kept at the various principal ports. One morning he received a telegram from Liverpool, announcing that the offender had been seen there. It had been ascertained that he was about to leave by the Cunard boat for Boston the next morning; but that, as he had committed no criminal offence, it was impossible for the police to detain him. This news made Gilbert Lloyd furious; that he should have his prey under his hand, and yet be unable to close that hand upon him, was maddening. He thought some good might be effected by his hurrying to Liverpool by the afternoon express, finding the defaulter, and frightening him out of at least a portion of the money due. The more he turned this plan in his mind, the more feasible it seemed to him, and the more he was determined to carry it into effect. There were, however, certain affairs to be transacted that day upon which it was most necessary he should, before starting, communicate personally with Lord Ticehurst; and Gilbert, from recent experience, knew that he should have considerable difficulty in tracing that young nobleman's whereabouts. He made inquiries at all the various haunts, but without any success; at length, at the club someone said that Ticehurst had offered to drive him down to the Crystal Palace, for which place he had started a couple of hours--ago. The Crystal Palace! What on earth could take him there? Gilbert Lloyd, who saw fewer "sights" than almost any man in London, had been there once, but brought away a dazed recollection of fountains and Egyptian idols, and statues and tropical trees, none of which he thought would have any interest for his pupil. But his wonderment was at an end when, taking up the newspaper and looking for the advertisement, he saw announced that a grand concert, by the principal singers of the Scandinavian Opera, would take place at the Crystal Palace that afternoon, and that the chief attraction of the concert was to be Miss Grace Lambert.
A swift hansom bore him to Victoria, and a tedious train landed him at the Crystal Palace, just in time to hear the opening notes of Herr Boreas' solo on the ophicleide. A charming performance that of Herr Boreas, but one to which Mr. Lloyd gave no attention. He hurried through the crowd, looking eagerly right and left; and at last his eyes fell upon a group, where they remained.
Lord Ticehurst, Mr. Munns, and two or three others were component parts of this little knot; but Gilbert Lloyd saw but one person--Gertrude. How marvellously she had improved during the time that had elapsed since they parted! She had been pretty as a girl; she was lovely as a woman. How lovely she looked in her simple morning dress and coquettish little bonnet! With what a perfect air of easy grace she listened to the men bending before her, and how quietly she received the homage which they were evidently paying! An angry flush rose on Gilbert's pale cheeks, and his heart beat quickly as he witnessed this manifest adoration. What right had anyone but he to approach her, to--It stung him like a cut from a whip, it flared like a train of gunpowder. He knew what it was in an instant: mad, raging, ungovernable jealousy--nothing else. He had thrown off all love for her--all thought of her; and now, the first time they met, the passion which struck him when he first saw her, years before, looking out of the window of the Vale House, sprung up with renewed fury within him, and he raged and chafed as he recognised the obstacles which kept him from her, but which were no barriers to other men. She seemed utterly indifferent to them, though, he was glad to see--no! her face lights up, she smiles and bends forward; and when she looks up again there is a blush upon her cheek. Who has been speaking to her--the tall handsome man with the brown beard--Miles Challoner! And Gilbert Lloyd swore a deep oath of revenge--revenge of which his wife and his brother should each bear their share.
[CHAPTER III.]
At the Crystal Palace.
To Herr Boreas was allotted the pleasing duty of opening the concert. The jolly German gentleman, neatly and seasonably dressed in black, with a large diamond-brooch in his plaited shirt-front, and with stuffy-looking black-cloth boots with shiny tips, opened his big chest, and puffed away at his ophicleide, evoking now the loudest and now the softest notes; while the crowds kept pouring in to the railed-off space, and took their seats, laughing and chattering, and not paying the smallest attention to the performance. It was a great day at the Palace, a day on which great people thought it proper to be seen there. The little public-houses in the neighbourhood were filled with resplendent creatures in gorgeous liveries, whose employers were making their way through nave and transept, looking at nothing save the other people there, and looking at them as though they were singular specimens of humanity specially put out for show. In the matter of staring, it must be confessed that the other people returned the compliment. The regular attendants at the Crystal Palace are, for the most part, resident in the neighbourhood, and the neighbouring residents are, for the most part, of or belonging to the City. The brokers of stocks, shares, and sugar; the owners of Manchester warehouses, the riggers of markets, and the projectors of companies; the directors of banks, and the "floaters" of "concerns," have, many of them, charming villas, magnificent mansions, or delicious snuggeries at Blackheath, Eltham, or Sydenham; and the Palace is the great place of resort for their wives and daughters, and for themselves when the cares of business are laid aside. How many successful matches, in which money has been allied to money, have commenced in flirtations by the side of the plashing fountains, or in the shade of the stunted orange-trees! What execution has not been done by flashing eyes in the central promenade! There, by the Dying Gladiator, Lord Claude Votate proposed for Miss Meggifer, and secured the fortune which rescued the Calfington estates from his lordship's creditors; there, behind the Dancing Faun, Charles Partington, of Partington Nephews, kissed Minnie Black, daughter of Black Brothers--was seen to do it by Mrs. Black, consequently could not escape, and thus cemented an alliance between those hitherto rival houses, considered in Wood-street as the Horatii and Curiatii of the Berlin-wool trade. Pleasant place of decorous festivity and innocent diversion, whence instruction has been completely routed by amusement, and where the Assyrian gods and the Renaissance friezes are deserted for the dancing dogs and the Temple of Momus as constructed by Mr. Nelson Lee!
By the time that Herr Boreas had finished his solo--which was not until he had blown all the breath out of his body, and was apparently on the verge of apoplexy--the audience had taken possession of all the seats; and as the German gentleman bowed himself out of the orchestra, amidst a great deal of applause from people who, indeed, could not help having heard, but had not paid the least attention to him, there was a general reference to the programmes to see what was coming next, then a rustling, a whispering, and that curious settling stir which electrically runs through an audience just before the advent of a favourite artist. Gilbert Lloyd, not insensible to this, involuntarily looked round from behind the pillar by which he was standing to the spot where he had seen Gertrude, but she was no longer there. The next instant thunders of applause rang through the building as she advanced upon the platform. She bowed gracefully but coldly; then the conductor waved his baton, and dead silence fell upon the audience, leaning forward with outstretched necks to catch the first notes of her voice. Soft and sweet, clear and trilling, comes the bird-like song, warbled without the smallest apparent effort, while thrilling the listeners to the heart--thrilling Gilbert Lloyd, who holds his breath, and looks on in rapture. He had heard her before, but in Italian opera; now she is singing an English ballad, of no great musical pretension indeed, but pretty and sympathetic. At the end of the first verse the applause burst out in peals on peals; and so carried away was Gilbert Lloyd, that he found himself joining in the general feeling--he who scarcely knew one note of music from another, and who had come to the place on a matter of important business. That must stand over now, though--he felt that. The absconding turfite might go to America, or to the deuce, for the matter of that; Gilbert Lloyd felt it an impossibility to leave the place where he then was, and tried to cheat himself by pretending that it was expedient for his own interest that he should keep a close watch upon Lord Ticehurst just at that time. That young nobleman certainly took no pains to conceal his warm admiration for Miss Lambert, and his intense delight at her performance. He applauded more loudly than anyone else, and assumed an attitude of rapt attention, which would have been highly interesting if it had not also been slightly comic. When the song ceased, the cries for a repetition were loud and universal. Gertrude, who had retired, again advanced to the front of the orchestra. By an involuntary impulse, Gilbert Lloyd stepped from behind the pillar which had hitherto shielded him, and their eyes met--met for the first time since he left her at the Brighton hotel, on the day of Harvey Gore's death.