The day following his visit to Branksome-street, Charley made his way to
Crescent Villas, and sent up his card to Mrs Marter.
The footman returned at the end of a few minutes to say that Mrs Marter
was not at home.
Was Miss Bedford at home?
Thomas did not know, but he would go and see; which he did, to return
shaking his head.
Charley said he would call again, which he did, with precisely the same
result.
Nothing daunted, he repeated his calls, till it was perfectly evident
that neither Mrs Marter nor Ella would see him; and he was coming away
knit of brow one day, when he started with anger on seeing a cab trundle
by with Max Bray as its occupant.
It was most repugnant to his feelings to play the spy; but in despite of
himself he followed the cab till he saw it stop at Crescent Villas, and
Max spring out, run up the steps and ring, to be the next minute
admitted, the cab being driven off.
One hour, two hours, three hours, did Charley Vining wait, when, it
being evident that Max was dining there, he returned to his hotel; and
then, in a state of mental anguish that he could not control, he wrote a
long and earnest letter to Ella, imploring her to see him, telling of
his sufferings, and of how he had been refused entrance again and again.
He waited three days and there was no response, when he wrote again--a
bitter angry letter this time, to have it returned to him unopened by
the next post, the direction, he felt sure, being in Max Bray's
handwriting.
Maddened now by the jealous feelings that assailed him, he watched the
house till he saw that Max Bray was a constant visitor. Then came a
night when a brougham was at the door, and he saw Max hand down two
ladies, one of whom was Ella. Then taking his place, the door of the
brougham was closed, and it was driven off.
"Follow that fly," said Charley to a cabman; and the man drew up at last
by the Piazza in the Haymarket, and Charley leaped out just in time to
see Max disappearing in the stall-entrance of Her Majesty's Theatre,
Mrs Marter upon one arm, Ella upon the other.
Dressed as he was, it was with some difficulty that Charley secured a
place where he could, unobserved, watch the movements of the party.
Max's quiet gentlemanly attentions were directed to both alike, the
passing of the book of the words, the seeking places, and lastly the
replacing of the opera-cloak upon Ella's gracefully rounded shoulders.
They passed close to him where he stood muffled up and with flashing
eyes, Ella's cloak brushing his coat on the way to the brougham; and
then they were driven off.
He wrote again after a sleepless night, telling of what he had seen, and
imploring Ella to send him if but a line to assure him that his
suspicions were false. "I have fought against them till it seems to me
that it would require more than human strength," he said naively, "while
now I feel almost driven to believe."
The same result: the letter returned unopened, and redirected in a hand
that he was certain was Max Bray's.
Furious now with rage, he took a cab and drove to Max's lodgings in
Bury-street, Saint James's, to arrive in time to see two ladies descend
the steps--one of whom was Ella--Max handing them into a waiting
brougham, and kissing his hand as they were driven off.
"Ah, Charley Vining, how do?" he exclaimed, smiling pleasantly as he
encountered the fierce angry face at his side. "Bai Jove, what a
stranger you are! Haven't set eyes on you for months."
"I want a few words with you, Max," said Charley harshly.
"Many as you like. Bai Jove, I don't care how much any one talks to me,
so long as they don't want me to talk to them! Come upstairs."
Charley followed him into his sybaritish bachelor rooms, where Max threw
himself on a couch.
"Cigar or pipe, Vining--which will you have? I've some capital Saint
Julien, and a decent bottle or two of hock. Which shall it be? Bai
Jove, man, what's the matter? Anything upset you?"
"Max Bray," said Charley, striding up to the sofa and towering over its
occupant, "I want to know who those ladies were that you handed into
that brougham."
"Bai Jove, mai dear fellow, what an uncouth kind of catechism! And
suppose I don't choose to tell you?"
"Curse you! I'll wring it out of you!" cried Charley fiercely.
"No, bai Jove, you won't do anything of the kind," said Max coolly.
"Gentlemen don't act like confounded cads. Why, man alive, I did not
say I would not tell you. I'm open as the day. Do you want to know?"
Charley made an impatient gesture.
"Well, bai Jove, if you must know, one is a friend of mine, Mrs Marter,
of Regent's-park."
"And the other?" said Charley hoarsely.
"The other," said Max, quietly lighting a cigar, "is another lady friend
of mine--one Miss Bedford."
Max must have seen those clutching fingers that moved as if about to
seize him by the throat; but he did not shrink, he did not waver for an
instant, but lit his cigar unmoved, and then sank luxuriously back upon
the couch to smoke and stare nonchalantly in his visitor's face.
That cool matter-of-fact way staggered and disarmed Charley. Had he
seen the slightest sign of cowardice, he would have seized Max, and
shaken him savagely; but that cool insolence seemed to the stricken man
to tell of success and safety of position--the sense of being able to
deal pityingly with an unfortunate rival; and it was in altered tones
that Charley tore a letter from his breast, and threw it upon the table.
"Who redirected that letter?" he exclaimed.
Max smoked for a few moments in thoughtful silence, then, casting off
all affectation, he said quietly:
"Would it not be better to change the subject, Vining? It is not every
horse that wins. The favourite is a dangerous nag to place your money
on, as you must know. We are old friends, Vining, and I am sorry to run
counter to you. Say what you will, I shall not quarrel."
"Who redirected that letter?" repeated Charley, again more fiercely.
"Bai Jove, Vining, this is going too far!" said Max in injured tones.
"You have no right to come to a gentleman and ask him such questions."
"Who redirected that letter?" Charley cried for the third time.
"Well there, then, if you will have it--I did," said Max quietly.
"And any others?"
"Yes, all of them."
"And by whose authority?"
"Bai Jove, it's too bad!" exclaimed Max--"I will not say another word.
I will not be cross-examined like this. You've made misery enough,
Vining, bai Jove, you have! You throw over poor Laura in the most
heartless way; you come between me and some one; and now, when matters
are once more running smoothly, you come here more like a mad bull than
anything. I don't care; it's the truth, and you can't deny it!"
The moment was critical again; for blind with rage, Charley Vining
seized Max by the throat, and placed his knee upon his chest as he lay
back on the couch; but again the latter was equal to the position, and
he did not attempt to free himself.
"Don't be a brute, Vining!" he said quietly. "I'm not afraid of you;
but you have double my strength."
Charley started back as he was met by those cool collected words, and
catching up his letter, he tore from the place, leaving Max with a quiet
contented smile upon his face, smoking till he had finished his cigar,
when he threw away the end, rose, rearranged his slightly disordered
shirt-front, and rang for a cab, being driven to Austin's Ticket-Office,
where he secured seats for a concert to be held that night at Saint
James's Hall; returned, made a most elaborate toilet, and then, not
knowing, but careless, whether or not he was watched, he made his way to
Crescent Villas, dined there, and that same evening Charley Vining saw
him seated beside Ella Bedford in the reserved scats at the great hall,
while, pale and careworn in the balcony, the young man again and again
saw Ella smile at something her companion uttered.
"I'll not give up yet," said Charley hoarsely. "I made a vow, and I'll
keep to it!"
Volume 2, Chapter XXI.
(-?-).
"La Donna e Mobile," hummed Charley again and again, as he sat in the
smoking-room of his hotel. He had paid no heed to the concert, his eyes
being fixed all the while upon Max and his two companions; but that air
had been sung by one of the great artistes, and words and music had
forced themselves upon him so that they seemed for hours after to be
ringing in his ears.
"La Donna e Mobile." Yes, it was all plain enough, and it was nothing
new. He had made an impression at first, and she had seemed to love
him--perhaps, after her fashion, had loved him--but woman's love, he
said, required feeding. The fuel absent, the flame must become extinct.
He laughed bitterly, and a waiter came up.
"Did you ask for something, sir?"
"No!" roared Charley savagely; and the man shrunk away.
"I'll pester her no more," he said; "let things take their course. I'll
go down home and see the poor old gentleman to-morrow. I may just as
well, as hang about here torturing myself over a slow fire. I wonder
how the mare looks. A good run or two would do me no end of good. I'll
pack up and run down to-morrow."
Then he laughed bitterly, for he knew that he was playing at
self-deceit; he felt that he could not stir from London--that he was, as
it were, fixed, and without a desire to leave the spot where he could
feel that she was near.
"No," he said, after a while; "I'll not give up yet. I made a vow, and
I'll keep it. She is not his yet. She may have been--she must have
been--deceived. I have been condemned. No; she would not listen. I
don't know--there, I think I'm half mad!"
Just then his hand came in contact with a couple of letters which had
been awaiting him on his return, and which one of the waiters had handed
to him, to be thrust unnoticed into his pocket.
"Bills," said the waiter, to one of his fellows. "How nice to be
tradesman to those young swells! I s'pose some of them must pay, some
time or other, or else people couldn't live."
"O yes," said the other; "some of them pay, and those who will pay, have
to pay for those who won't."
"Through the nose," said number one with a wink.
"To be sure," said his confrere; and then they laughed at one another,
and winked again.
But the waiter was wrong: those were not bills; one being a long and
affectionate letter from Sir Philip Vining, telling Charley that he
would be in town the next day, and asking if it would be convenient for
his son to meet him at the station. The other was from Laura Bray,
saying that they had heard from Sir Philip that he would be in town the
next day, and asking that he and Charley would dine in Harley-street,
where was the Brays' town house, on the next day but one.
The above was all formal, and written at mamma's command, but Laura had
added a postscript, asking that Charley would come for the sake of the
old times when they were friends. Max would be away, and the party very
small.
Then came a quiet reminder of the encounter, and a word to say that the
writer had looked out day by day, in the expectation of receiving a
call, while poor Nelly was _au desespoir_.
Charley smiled grimly as he read the letter over, and then carelessly
thrust it back into the envelope with the bold address which waiter
number one had kindly taken for a tradesman's hand.
"Take the good the gods provide one," said Charley with a bitter laugh,
as he smoked furiously, and tossed down glass after glass of claret to
allay the fevered rush of thought through his brain.
"I'll go," he said at last, "and see little Nell. Poor little wiry
weedy Nell!--what a genuine, free-hearted, jolly little lass it is! But
there, if I do, shell only make some reference to the past."
Charley Vining's thoughts came so fast that night, that they jostled and
stumbled over one another in the most confused way imaginable, till once
more, shining out like a star amidst the surrounding darkness, the light
of Ella's face seemed to slowly rise, and he sat there thinking of her
till the waiters yawned with misery because he did not retire.
But he went at last; and Ella's name was on his lips as he fell off into
a heavy weary sleep, as it was the first word he uttered when waking.
The next day Sir Philip was in town, surprised and shocked to see the
alteration in his son's face; for Charley looked haggard and worn, and
as if he had been engaged in a long career of dissipation. He laughed,
though, when Sir Philip reverted to it, and seemed most assiduous in his
endeavours to promote the old man's comfort.
"About this dinner at the Brays', Charley: I should like to go," Sir
Philip said--"that is, if you will go with me."
"Do you particularly wish it, sir?" said Charley.
"It would give me much pleasure, if you have no other engagement."
"Engagement!" said Charley, with a bitter laugh that shocked Sir Philip.
"No, father, I have no engagements. I'll go."
"But, my dear boy, what have you been doing with yourself?--how do you
pass your time?"
"Preparing myself for a private lunatic asylum, father," said Charley,
with a cynical laugh; and the old man felt a swelling in his throat as
he thought of the alteration that had taken place since the morning of
the memorable conversation in the library.
There was a something in Charley's looks that troubled Sir Philip more
than he cared to intimate: had the young man sternly refused to visit
the Brays, or to accede to his wishes in any way, he would not have been
surprised; but his strange looks, his bitter words, and ready
acquiescence alarmed Sir Philip; and when, an hour after, Charley left
the room, the old gentleman looked anxiously for his return, till,
unable to bear the suspense any longer, he rang and summoned a waiter.
"Has my son gone out?" he asked.
"Think not, Sir Philip. I'll make inquiry."
Five anxious minutes passed, and then the man returned.
"No, Sir Philip, he went up to his bedroom."
Pale and trembling, Sir Philip rose and hurried upstairs. He knew that
Charley had had some more than usually bitter reverse, and a horrible
dread had invaded the troubled father's breast, so that when he reached
his son's room door, he feared to summon him; but at last he knocked,
and waited for a few moments before he struck again upon the panels,
this time more forcibly.
There was no reply.
Volume 2, Chapter XXII.