Produced by Al Haines.
STAND FAST, CRAIG-ROYSTON!
A Novel
BY
WILLIAM BLACK,
AUTHOR OF
"A DAUGHTER OF HETH," "MACLEOD OF DARE," ETC.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. III.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, LIMITED
St. Dunstan's House
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1891.
[_All rights reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER
I. In Vain--in Vain
II. Beyond Seas
III. West and East
IV. Enlightenment
V. Marriage not a la Mode
VI. A Split at Last
VII. New Ways of Life
VIII. In a Northern Village
IX. A Babble o' Green Fields: the End
STAND FAST, CRAIG-ROYSTON!
CHAPTER I.
IN VAIN--IN VAIN.
One evening Mr. Courtnay Fox, the London correspondent of the Edinburgh
_Chronicle_, was as usual in his own room in the office in Fleet-street,
when a card was brought to him.
"Show the gentleman up," said he to the boy.
A couple of seconds thereafter Vincent Harris made his appearance.
"Mr. Fox?" said he, inquiringly.
The heavy-built journalist did not rise to receive his visitor; he
merely said--
"Take a chair. What can I do for you?"
"No, thanks," said Vincent, "I don't wish to detain you more than a
moment. I only wanted to see if you could give me any information about
Mr. George Bethune."
"Well, that would be only fair," said the big, ungainly man, with the
small, keen blue eyes glinting behind spectacles; "that would be only a
fair exchange, considering I remember how Mr. Bethune came down here one
night and asked for information about you."
Vincent looked astonished.
"And I was able," continued Mr. Fox, "to give him all the information he
cared for--namely, that you were the son of a very rich man. I presume
that was all he wanted to know."
There was something in the tone of this speech--a familiarity bordering
on insolence--that Vincent angrily resented; but he was wise enough to
show nothing: his sole anxiety was to have news of Maisrie and her
grandfather; this man's manner did not concern him much.
"I do not ask for information about Mr. Bethune himself; I dare say I
know him as well as most do," said he with perfect calmness. "I only
wish to know where he is."
"I don't know where he is," said the burly correspondent, examining the
stranger with his small shrewd eyes, "but I guarantee that, wherever he
is, he is living on the best. Shooting stags in Scotland most likely--"
"They don't shoot stags in December," said Vincent, briefly.
"Or careering down the Mediterranean in a yacht--gad, an auxiliary screw
would come in handy for the old man," continued Mr. Fox, grinning at his
own gay facetiousness; "anyhow, wherever he is, I'll bet he's enjoying
himself and living on the fat of the land. Merry as a cricket--bawling
away at his Scotch songs: I suppose that was how he amused himself when
he was in Sing Sing--perhaps he learnt it there--"
"I thought you would probably know where he is," said Vincent, not
paying much heed to these little jocosities, "if he happened to be
sending in to you those articles on the Scotch ballads--"
"Articles on Scotch ballads!" said Mr. Fox, with a bit of a derisive
laugh. "Yes, I know. A collation of the various versions: a cold
collation, I should say, by the time he has got done with them. Why, my
dear sir, have you never heard of Professor Childs, of Harvard College?"
"I have heard of Professor Child," said Vincent.
"Well, well, well, well, what is the difference?" said the ponderous
correspondent, who rolled from side to side in his easy-chair as if he
were in a bath, and peered with his minute, twinkling eyes. "And indeed
it matters little to me what kind of rubbish is pitchforked into the
_Weekly_. If my boss cares to do that kind of thing, for the sake of a
'brother Scot,' that's his own look-out. All I know is that not a scrap
of the cold collation has come here, or has appeared in the _Weekly_ as
yet; so there is no clue that way to the whereabouts of old Father
Christmas, old Santa Claus, the Wandering Scotch Jew--if that is what
you want."
"I am sorry to have troubled you," said Vincent, with his hand on the
door.
"Stop a bit," said Mr. Fox, in his blunt and rather impertinent fashion.
"You and I might chance to be of use to each other some day. I like to
know the young men in politics. If I can do you a good turn, you'll
remember it; or rather you won't remember it, but I can recall it to
you, when I want you to do me one. Take a seat. Let's make a compact.
When you are in the House, you'll want the judicious little paragraph
sent through the provinces now and again: I can manage all that for you.
Then you can give me an occasional tip: you're in ----'s confidence,
people say--as much as any one can expect to be, that is. Won't you take
a seat?--thanks, that will be better. I want to know you. I've already
made one important acquaintanceship through your friend Mr. Bethune: it
was quite an event when the great George Morris condescended to visit
this humble office----"
"George Morris!" said Vincent.
"Perhaps you know him personally?" Mr. Fox said, and he went on in the
most easy and affable fashion: "I may say without boasting that I am
acquainted with most people--most people of any consequence: it is part
of my business. But George Morris, somehow, I had never met. You may
imagine, then, that when he came down here, to ask a few questions, I
was precious glad to be of such service as I could; for I said to myself
that here was just the man for me. Take a great scandal, for
example--they do happen sometimes, don't they?--even in this virtuous
land of England: very well--I go to George Morris--a hint from him--and
there I am first in the field: before the old mummies of the London
press have had time to open their eyes and stare."
Vincent had brought a chair from the side of the room, and was now
seated: there was only the table, littered with telegrams and proofs,
between those two.
"Did I understand you to say," he asked, with his eyes fixed on this
man, "that George Morris had come to you to make inquiries about Mr.
Bethune?"
"You understood aright."
"Who sent him?" demanded Vincent, abruptly--for there were strange
fancies and still darker suspicions flying through his head.
But Courtnay Fox smiled.
"George Morris, you may have heard, was not born yesterday. His
business is to get out of you what he can, and to take care you get
nothing out of him. It was not likely he would tell me why he came
making these inquiries--even if I had cared to ask, which I did not."
"You told him all you knew, of course, about Mr. Bethune?" Vincent went
on, with a certain cold austerity.
"I did."
"And how much more?"
"Ah, very good--very neat," the spacious-waisted journalist exclaimed
with a noisy laugh. "Very good indeed. But look here, Mr. Harris, if
the great solicitor was not born yesterday, you were--in a way; and so I
venture to ask you why you should take such an interest in Mr. Bethune's
affairs?"
Vincent answered him without flinching.
"Because, amongst other things, certain lies have been put in
circulation about Mr. Bethune, and I wished to know where they arose.
Now I am beginning to guess."
For an instant Mr. Courtnay Fox seemed somewhat disconcerted; but he
betrayed no anger.
"Come, come," said he, with an affectation of good humour, "that is a
strong word. Morris heard no lies from me, I can assure you. Why,
don't we all of us know who and what old George Bethune is! He may
flourish and vapour successfully enough elsewhere; but he doesn't impose
on Fleet-street; we know him too well. And don't imagine I have any
dislike towards your venerable friend; not the slightest; in fact, I
rather admire the jovial old mountebank. You see, he doesn't treat me
to too much of his Scotch _blague_; I'm not to the manner born; and he
knows it. Oh, he's skilful enough in adapting himself to his
surroundings--like a trout, that takes the colour of the pool he finds
himself in; and when he gets hold of a Scotchman, I am told his acting
of the rugged and manly independence of the Scot--of the Drury Lane
Scot, I mean--is splendid. I wonder he doesn't go and live in
Edinburgh. They take things seriously there. They might elevate him
into a great position--make a great writer of him--they're in sore need
of one or two; and then every now and again he could step out of his
cloud of metaphysics, and fall on something. That's the way the
Scotchmen get hold of a subject; they don't take it up as an ordinary
Christian would; they fall on it. We once had an English poet called
Milton; but Masson fell on him, and crushed him, and didn't even leave
us an index by which to identify the remains. Old Bethune should go
back to Scotland, and become the Grand Lama of Edinburgh letters: it
would be a more dignified position than cadging about for a precarious
living among us poor southrons."
Vincent paid but small heed to all this farrago: he was busily thinking
how certain undoubted features and circumstances of old George Bethune's
life might appear when viewed through the belittling and sardonic
scepticism of this man's mind; and then again, having had that hue and
shape conferred upon them, how would they look when presented to the
professional judgment of such a person as Mr. George Morris?
"The Scotch are the very oddest people in all the world," Mr. Fox
continued, for he seemed to enjoy his own merry tirade. "They'll clasp
a stranger to their bosom, and share their last bawbee with him, if only
he can prove to them that he, too, was born within sight of
MacGillicuddy's Reeks----"
"MacGillicuddy's Reeks are in Ireland," said Vincent.
"Well, MacGillicuddy's Breeks--no, that won't do; they don't wear such
things in the north. Any unpronounceable place--any kind of puddle or
barren rock: to be born within sight of that means that you own
everything of honesty, and manliness, and worth that's going--yes,
worth--worth is a sweet word--manly worth--it is the prerogative of
persons who have secured the greatest blessing on earth, that of being
born north of the Tweed. Now, why doesn't old George Bethune go away
back there; and wave his tartan plaid, and stamp, and howl balderdash,
and have monuments put up to him as the White-haired Bard of Glen-Toddy?
That surely would be better than hawking bogus books about London and
getting subscriptions for things that never appear; though he manages to
do pretty well. Oh, yes, he does pretty well, one way and another. The
cunning old cockroach--to take that girl around with him, and get her to
make eyes at tradesmen, so as to swindle them out of pounds of tea!"
But at this a sudden flame seemed to go through the young man's
brain--and unhappily he had his stick quite close by. In an instant he
was on his feet, his right hand grasping the cane, his left fixed in the
coat-collar of the luckless journalist, whose inert bulk he was
attempting to drag from the chair.
"You vile hound!" Vincent said with set teeth--and his nostrils were
dilated and his eyes afire, "I have allowed you to insult an old
man--but now--now you have gone too far. Come out of that--and I will
break every bone in your body----!"
Down came the stick; but by a fortunate accident it caught on the back
of the chair, and the force of the blow sent it flying in two.
"For God's sake--stop!" the other cried--but in a terrified whisper--and
his face was as white as death. "What are you doing!--are you mad!--I
beg your pardon--can I do more? I beg your pardon--for God's sake, have
a little common sense!"
Vincent looked at the man: more abject cowardice he had never beheld
than was displayed in every trembling limb of his huge carcase, in every
feature of the blanched face. He flung him from him--in disdain.
"Yes," said Mr. Fox, with a desperate effort at composure, and he even
tried to put his coat collar to rights, though his fingers were all
shaking, and himself panting and breathless. "You--you may thank
me--for--for having saved you. If--I had touched that bell--if I had
called out--you would have been ruined--ruined for life--a pretty story
for ---- to hear--about his favourite protege--increase your chances of
getting into Parliament, wouldn't it? Can't you take a bit of a
joke?--you're not a Scotchman!"
Vincent was still standing there, with louring brow.
"When you are busy with your jokes," said he, "I would advise you to
keep any friends of mine out of them--especially a girl who has no one
to defend her. But I am glad I came here to-night. I begin to
understand in whose foul mind arose those distortions, and
misrepresentations, and lies. So it was to you George Morris came when
he wanted to know about Mr. Bethune and his granddaughter? An excellent
authority! And it was straight from you, I suppose, that George Morris
went to my father with his wonderful tale----"
"One moment," said Courtnay Fox--and he appeared to speak with a little
difficulty: perhaps he still felt the pressure of knuckles at his neck.
"Sit down. I wish to explain. Mind you, I could make this a bad
night's work for you, if I chose. But I don't, for reasons that you
would understand if you were a little older and had to earn your own
living, as I have. It is my interest to make friends----"
"And an elegant way you have of making them," said Vincent, scornfully.
"----and I want to assure you that I never said anything to George
Morris about Mr. Bethune that was not quite well-known. Nor had I the
least idea that Morris was going to your father; or that you had the
least interest or concern in the matter. As for a bit of chaff about
Scotland: who would mind that? Many a time I've had it out with Mr.
Bethune himself in this very room; and do you suppose he cared?--his
grandiloquent patriotism soared far away above my little Cockney jests.
So I wish you to perceive that there was no enmity in the affair, no
intention to do harm, and no misrepresentation; and when you see that,
you will see also that you have put yourself in the wrong, and I hope
you will have the grace to apologise."
It was a most creditable effort to escape from a humiliating position
with some semblance of dignity.
"Apologise for what?" said Vincent, staring.
"Why, for your monstrous and outrageous conduct of this evening!"
--"I am to apologise?" said Vincent, with his brows growing dark again.
"You introduce into your scurrilous talk the name of a young lady who is
known to me--you speak of her in the most insulting and gratuitous
fashion--and--and I am to apologise! Yes, I do apologise: I apologise
for having brought such a fool of a stick with me: I hope it will be a
heavier one if I hear you make use of such language again."
"Come, come, threats will not serve," said Mr. Fox--but he was clearly
nervous and apprehensive. "Wouldn't it be better for you, now, to be a
little civil--and--and I could promise to send you Mr. Bethune's address
if I hear of it? Wouldn't that be better--and more reasonable? Yes, I
will--I promise to send you his address if it comes in any way to this
office--isn't that more reasonable?"
"I thank you," said Vincent, with formal politeness; and with an equally
formal 'Good night' the young man took his leave. Mr. Courtnay Fox
instantly hid the broken portions of the cane (until he should have a
chance of burning them), and, ringing the bell, called in a loud and
manly voice for the latest telegrams.
So Vincent was once more thrown back on himself and his own resources.
During these past few days he had sought everywhere for the two lost
ones; and sought in vain. First of all he had made sure they had left
Brighton; then he had come to London; and morning, noon, and night had
visited their accustomed haunts, without finding the least trace of
them. He went from this restaurant to that; in the morning he walked
about the Parks; he called at the libraries where they were known; no
sign of them could be found anywhere. And now, when he thought of
Maisrie, his heart was no longer angry and reproachful: nay, he grew to
think it was in some wild mood of self-sacrifice that she had resolved
to go away, and had persuaded her grandfather to take her. She had got
some notion into her head that she was a degraded person; that his
friends suspected her; that no future as between him and her was
possible; that it was better they should see each other no more. He
remembered how she had drawn up her head in maidenly pride--in
indignation, almost: his relatives might be at peace: they had nothing
to fear from her. And here was the little brooch--with its tiny white
dove, that was to rest on her bosom, as if bringing a message of love
and safety--all ready for her; but her place was empty; she had gone
from him, and perhaps for ever. The very waiters in the restaurants,
when he went there all alone, ventured to express a little discreet
surprise, and make enquiries: he could say nothing. He had the
sandal-wood necklace, to be sure; and sometimes he wore it over his
heart; and on the way home, through the dark thoroughfares, at times a
faint touch of the perfume reached his nostrils--but there was no
Maisrie by his side. And then again, a sudden, marvellous vision would
come before him: of Maisrie, her hair blown by the winds, her eyes
piteous and full of tears, her eyebrows and lashes wet with the flying
spray; and she would say 'Kiss me, Vincent, kiss me!' as if she had
already resolved to go, and knew that this was to be a last, despairing
farewell.
The days passed; and ever he continued his diligent search, for he knew
that these two had but little money, and guessed that they had not
departed on any far travel, especially at this time of the year. He
went down to Scotland, and made enquiries among the Edinburgh newspaper
offices--without avail. He advertised in several of the London daily
journals: there was no reply. He told the head-waiter at the Restaurant
Mentavisti, that if Mr. Bethune and his granddaughter--who were
well-known to all in the place--should make their appearance any
evening, and if he, the headwaiter, could manage to send some one to
follow them home and ascertain their address, that would mean a couple
of sovereigns in his pocket; but the opportunity never presented itself.
And meanwhile this young man, taking no care of himself, and fretting
from morning till evening, and often all the sleepless night through as
well, was gradually losing his colour, and becoming like the ghost of
his own natural self.
Christmas came. Harland Harris and Vincent went down to pass the
holidays with Mrs. Ellison, at Brighton; and for the same purpose Lord
Musselburgh returned to the Bedford Hotel. The four of them dined
together on Christmas evening. It was not a very boisterous party,
considering that the pragmatical and pedantic voice of the man of wealth
was heard discoursing on such light and fanciful themes as the payment
of returning officers' expenses, the equalisation of the death duties,
and the establishment of state-assisted intermediate schools; but
Musselburgh threw in a little jest now and again, to mitigate the
ponderosity of the harangue. Vincent was almost silent. Since coming
down from London, he had not said a single word to any one of them about
Mr. Bethune or his granddaughter: no doubt they would have told him--and
perhaps rejoiced to tell him--that he had been betrayed. But Mrs.
Ellison, sitting there, and watching more than listening, was concerned
about the looks of her boy, as she called him; and before she left the
table, she took up her glass, and said--
"I am going to ask you two gentlemen to drink a toast--and it is the
health of the coming member for Mendover. And I'm going to ask him to
pull himself together, and show some good spirits; for there's nothing a
constituency likes so much as a merry and good-humoured candidate."
It was clear moonlight that night: Vin's room faced the sea. Hour after
hour he sate at the window, looking on the wide, grey plain and the
faint blue-grey skies; and getting no good of either; for the
far-searching doves of his thoughts came back to him without a twig of
hope in their bill. The whole world seemed empty--and silent. He began
to recall the time in which he used to think--or to fear--that some day
a vast and solitary sea would come between Maisrie and himself; it was
something he had dreamed or imagined; but this was altogether different
now--this blank ignorance of where she might be was a far more terrible
thing. He went over the different places he had heard her
mention--Omaha, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec: they only
seemed to make the world the wider--to remove her further away from him,
and interpose a veil between. She had vanished like a vision; and yet
it was but the other day that he had found her clinging tight to his
arm, her beautiful brown hair blown wet about her face, her eyes with
love shining through her tears, her lips--when he kissed them--salt with
the flying spray. And no longer--after that first and sudden outburst of
indignant wrath--did he accuse her of any faithlessness or treachery:
rather it was himself whom he reproached. Had he not promised, at the
very moment when she had made her maiden confession to him, and spoken
to him as a girl speaks once only in her life, had he not promised that
always and always he would say to himself 'Wherever Maisrie is--wherever
she may be--she loves me, and is thinking of me?' This was the Mizpah
set up between those two; and he had vowed his vow. What her going away
might mean he could not tell; but at all events it was not permitted him
to doubt--he dared not doubt--her love.
As for these repeated allegations that old George Bethune was nothing
less than a mendicant impostor, what did that matter to him? Even if
these charges could be substantiated, how was that to affect Maisrie or
himself? No association could sully that pure soul. Perhaps it was the
case that Mr. Bethune was not over-scrupulous and careful about money
matters; many otherwise excellent persons had been of like habit. The
band of private inquiry agents had amongst them discovered that the old
man had allowed Vincent to pay the bill at the various restaurants they
frequented. Well, that was true. Among the vague insinuations and
assumptions that had been pieced together to form an indictment, here
was one bit of solid fact. And what of it? Of what importance were
those few trumpery shillings? It was of little moment which paid: here
was an arrangement, become a habit, that had a certain convenience. And
Vincent was proud to set against that, or against any conclusions that
might be drawn from that, the incident of old George Bethune's stopping
the poor woman in Hyde Park, and handing over to her all he
possessed--sovereigns, shillings, and pence--so that he did not even
leave himself the wherewithal to buy a biscuit for his mid-day meal.
Perhaps there were more sides to George Bethune's character than were
likely to occur to the imagination of Messrs. Harland Harris, Morris,
and Company?
The white moon sailed slowly over to the west; the house was still; the
night outside silent; but there was no peace for him at all. If only he
could get to see Maisrie--for the briefest moment--that he might demand
the reason of her sudden flight! Was it some over-strung sensitiveness
of spirit? Did she fear that no one would understand this carelessness
of her grandfather about money-matters; and that she might be suspected
of complicity, of acquiescence, in certain doubtful ways? Was that the
cause of her strange sadness, her resignation, her hopelessness? Was
that why she had spoken of her 'degradation'--why she had declared she
could never be his wife--why she had begged him piteously to go away,
and leave this bygone friendship to be a memory and nothing more? 'Can
you not understand, Vincent!' she had said to him, in heart-breaking
accents, as though she could not bring herself to the brutality of
plainer speech. Well, he understood this at all events: that in
whatever circumstances Maisrie Bethune may have been placed, no
contamination had touched _her_; white as the white moonlight out there
was that pure soul; he had read her eyes.
The next morning Lord Musselburgh was out walking in the King's Road
with the fair young widow who hoped soon to be re-transformed into a
wife.
"That friend of yours down at Mendover," said she,--"what is his
name?--Gosford?--well, he seems an unconscionable time dying. I wish
he'd hurry up with his Chiltern Hundreds and put an end to himself at
once. That is what is wanted for Vin--the novelty and excitement of
finding himself in the House of Commons. Supposing Mr. Gosford were to
resign at once, how soon could Vin be returned? There's some procedure,
isn't there?--the High Sheriff or somebody, issues a writ, or
something----?"
"I really cannot say," her companion answered blandly. "I belong to a
sphere in which such violent convulsions are unknown."
"At all events, Parliament will meet about the middle of February?" she
demanded.
"I presume so," was the careless answer.
"I wish the middle of February were here now, and Vin all securely
returned," said she. "I suppose that even in the case of a small
borough like Mendover, one's constituents can keep one pretty busy?
They will watch how you vote, won't they?--and remonstrate when you go
wrong; and pass resolutions; and expect you to go down and be
cross-examined. Then there are always public meetings to be addressed;
and petitions to be presented; and people wanting admission to the
Speaker's Gallery----"
"Why, really, Madge, there's a sort of furious activity about you this
morning," said he. "You quite take one's breath away. I shouldn't be
surprised to see you on a platform yourself."
"It's all for Vin's sake I am so anxious," she exclaimed. "I can see
how miserable and sad the poor boy is--though he bears it so
bravely--never a word to one of us, lest we should ask him if he
believes in those people now. I wonder if he can. I wonder if he was so
blinded that even now he will shut his eyes to their true character?"
"They are quite gone away, then?" her companion asked.
"Oh, yes," she made answer. "I hope so. Indeed, I know they are. And
on the whole it was opportune, just as this election was coming on; for
now, if ever, Vin will have a chance of throwing off an infatuation that
seemed likely to be his ruin, and of beginning that career of which we
all hope such great things."
She glanced round, cautiously; and lowered her voice.
"But, oh, my goodness, if ever he should find out the means we took to
persuade them to go, there will be the very mischief to pay: he will
tear us to pieces! You know how impetuous and proud he is; and then
those people have appealed to him in a curious way--their
loneliness--their poverty--and their---- Yes, I will admit it--certain
personal qualities and characteristics. I don't deny it; any more than
I would deny that the girl was extremely pretty, and the old man
picturesque, and even well-mannered and dignified in his way. All the
more dangerous--the pair of them. Well, now they are gone, I breathe
more freely. While they were here, no argument was of any avail. Vin
looked into the girl's appealing face--and everything was refuted. And
at all events we can say this to our own conscience--that we have done
them no harm. We are not mediaeval tyrants; we have not flung the
venerable patriot and the innocent maiden into a dungeon, to say nothing
of breaking their bones on a rack. The venerable patriot and the
innocent maiden, I have no doubt, consider themselves remarkably well
off. And that reminds me that Harland Harris, although he is of opinion
that all property should be under social control----"
"Not all property, my dear Madge," said Lord Musselburgh, politely. "He
would say that all property should be under social control--except his
property."
"At all events, it seems to me that he occasionally finds it pretty
convenient to have plenty of money at his own individual command. Why,
for him to denounce the accumulation of capital," she continued, with a
pretty scorn, "when no one makes more ostentatious use of the power of
money! Is there a single thing he denies himself--one single thing that
is only possible to him through his being a man of great wealth? I
shouldn't wonder if, when he dies, he leaves instructions to have the
electric light turned on into his coffin, just in case he should wake up
and want to press the knob."
"Come, come, Madge," said Musselburgh. "Be generous. A man cannot
always practice what he preaches. You must grant him the privilege of
sighing for an ideal."
"Harland Harris sighing for an ideal," said Mrs. Ellison, with something
of feminine spite, "would make a capital subject for an imaginative
picture by Watts--if my dear brother-in-law weren't rather stout, and
wore a black frock-coat."
Meanwhile, Vincent returned to London, and renewed his solitary search;
it was the only thing he felt fit for; all other employments had no
meaning for him, were impossible. But, as day by day passed, he became
more and more convinced that they must have left London: he knew their
familiar haunts so well, and their habits, that he was certain he must
have encountered them somewhere if they were still within the great
city. And here was the New Year drawing nigh, when friends far
separated recalled themselves to each other's memory, with hopes and
good wishes for the coming time. It seemed to him that he would not
have felt this loneliness so much, if only he had known that Maisrie was
in this or that definite place--in Madrid--in Venice--in Rome--or even
in some huge steamship ploughing its way across the wide Atlantic.
But a startling surprise was at hand. About half-past ten on the last
night of the old year a note was brought upstairs to him by a servant.
His face grew suddenly pale when he saw the handwriting, which he
instantly recognised.
"Who brought this?" he said, breathlessly.
"A man, sir."
"Is he waiting?"
"No, sir; he said there was no answer."
"What sort of man?" asked Vincent, with the same rapidity--and not yet
daring to open the letter.
"A--a common sort of man, sir."
"Very well--you needn't wait."
The moment that the servant had retired, Vincent tore open the envelope;
and the first thing that he noticed, with a sudden sinking of the heart,
was that there was no address at the head of the letter. It ran
thus--the handwriting being a little tremulous here and there--
'DEAR VINCENT,
When you receive this, we shall be far away; but I have arranged that
you shall get it just before the New Year, and it brings my heart-felt
wishes for your happiness, as well as the good-bye that I cannot say to
you personally now. What I foresaw has come to pass; and it will be
better for all of us, I think; though it is not with a very light heart
that I write these few lines to you. Sometimes I wish that we had never
met each other; and then again I should never have known all your
kindness to me and to my grandfather, which will always be something to
look back upon; and also the companionship we had for a time, which was
so pleasant--you would understand how pleasant to me, if you had known
what had gone before, and what is now likely to come after. But do not
think I repine: more has been done for me than ever I can repay; and as
I am the only one to whom my grandfather can look now for help and
sympathy, I should be ungrateful indeed if I grudged it.
Forgive me, dear friend, if I speak so much of myself; my thoughts are
far more often concerned about you than with anything that can happen to
me. And I know that this step we are taking, though it may pain you for
a little while, will be salutary in the end. You have a great future
before you; your friends expect much of you; you owe it to yourself not
to disappoint them. And after a little while, you will be able to go
back to the places where we used to go; and there will be nothing but
friendly recollections of pleasant evenings; and I am sure nothing need
ever come between us (as you feared) I mean in the way of having kind
thoughts of each other, always and always; and when you marry no one
will more heartily wish you every happiness and blessing than I shall.
This is to be my last letter to you; I have promised. I wish I could
make it convey to you all I think; but you will understand, dear
Vincent, that there is more in it than appears in these stiff and cold
words. And another kindness I must beg of you, dear friend, before
saying good-bye--and farewell--it is this, Would you try to forget a
_little_ of what I said to you that morning on the pier? If you thought
anything I said was a little more than a girl should have confessed,
would you try to forget it, dear Vincent? I was rather miserable--I
foresaw we should have to say good-bye to each other, when you would not
see it, for you were always so full of courage and confidence; and
perhaps I told you more than I should have done--and you will try to
forgot that. I don't want you to forget it _all_, dear Vincent; only
what you think was said too frankly--or hurriedly--at such a moment.
And now, dearest friend, this is good-bye; and it is good-bye for ever,
as between you and me. I will pray for your happiness always.
MAISRIE.
P.S.--There was one thing I said to you that you _promised_ you would
not forget.
M.'
Was he likely to forget it, or any single word she had uttered, on that
wild, wind-tossed morning? But in the meantime the immediate question
was--How and whence had this letter come? For one thing, it had been
brought by hand; so there was no post-mark. Who, then, had been the
messenger? How had he come to be employed? What might he not know of
Maisrie's whereabouts? Was there a chance of finding a clue to Maisrie,
after all, and just as the glad New Year was coming in?
It was barely eleven o'clock. He went down into the hall, whipped on
overcoat and hat, and the next moment was striding away towards Mayfair;
he judged, and judged rightly, that a boon companion and poet was not
likely to be early abed on such a night. When he reached the
lodging-house in the little thoroughfare off Park-street, he could hear
singing going forward in the subterranean kitchen: nay, he could make
out the raucous chorus--
_Says Wolseley, says he,_
_To Arabi,_
_You can fight other chaps, but you can't fight me._
He rapped at the door; the landlady's daughter answered the summons; she
showed him into a room, and then went below for her father. Presently
Mr. Hobson appeared--quite creditably sober, considering the occasion.
"Did you bring a note down to me to-night, Hobson?" was the young man's
first question.
"I did, sir."
His heart leapt up joyously: his swift surmise had been correct.
"And has Miss Bethune been here recently?" he asked, with the greatest
eagerness.
"No, no, sir," said Hobson, shaking his head. "That was giv me when they
was going away, and says she, 'Hobson,' says she, 'I can trust you; and
there's never a word to be said about this letter--not to hany one
whatever; and the night afore New Year's Day you'll take it down
yourself, and leave it for Mr. Harris.' Which I did, sir; though not
waitin,' as I thought there wasn't a answer; and ope there's nothing
wrong, sir."
Vincent was standing in the middle of the room--not listening.
"You have heard or seen nothing, then, of Mr. Bethune or of Miss
Bethune, since they left?" he asked, absently.
"Nothing, sir--honly that I took notice of some advertisements, sir, in
the papers--"
"I know about those," said Vincent.
So once more, as on many and many a recent occasion, his
swiftly-blossoming hopes had been suddenly blighted; and there was
nothing for him but to wander idly and pensively away back to Grosvenor
Place. The New Year found him in his own room--with Maisrie's letter
before him; while, with rather a careworn look on his face he studied
every line and phrase of her last message to him.
But the New Year had something else in store for him besides that. He
was returned, unopposed, for the borough of Mendover. And about the
first thing that his constituents heard, after the election, was that
their new member proposed to pay a visit to the United States and
Canada, and that at present no date had been fixed for his coming back.