_J. Sh._--Forbear, my lord! here let me rather die,
And end my sorrows and my shame for ever.
_East_.--Away with this perverseness--‘tis too much.
Nay, if you strive--‘tis monstrous affectation!
_J. Sh_.--Retire! I beg you leave me--
_East_.--Thus to coy it!
With one who knows you too.
_J. Sh_.--Help, oh, gracious Heaven!
Help! Save me! Help!
[Enter Dumont.
_East_.--Avaunt! base groom--
At distance wait, and know thy office better.
Rowe.
Lotte Clinton, when she beheld a young man dressed in the height
of fashion at her room-door, although startled by the sudden fright
exhibited by Helen Grahame, felt assured that the smartly attired
apparition had made a mistake in the room he intended to visit.
She rose hastily, and advanced towards him, to prevent his entering
further into the room, and acquainted him with the conclusion at which
she arrived.
He shook his head and laughed.
“No,” he returned, “oh no, my dear madam; I have made no mistake; I came
to see you.”
“Me!--I do not know you,” she replied, quietly.
“I suppose not. We have met before, though!” he exclaimed.
“I have no recollection of you,” she said, with an inquiring look at his
face.
“I dare say not,” he answered, with an undisguised stare of admiration.
“My countenance possesses no such points of attraction as yours. Your
charming features struck me forcibly when I first beheld them; I have
not been able to get them out of my head since. I have had a great deal
of difficulty in discovering you, but I have at last succeeded, and I
have now come to improve our friendship, and make you love me if I can.”
It flashed across the mind of Lotte that this was Bantom’s benevolent
hero, who was anxious to present her with a fortune. Her face and neck
instantly became of the hue of scarlet.
“You have come here to insult me!” she cried, indignantly, “and unless
you immediately depart, I will summon assistance. Leave my room, sir!”
She uttered this in a loud tone of voice. The young man, with an alarmed
aspect, raised both his hands deprecatingly.
“Hush! hush! don’t make such a noise,” he cried; “I have not come here
to insult you; I like you too much for that, upon my honour and soul I
do. Now sit down, and let me talk quietly to you. I am wealthy, and----”
Lotte stamped her foot passionately.
“Quit this room, sir! Quit this house this instant, sir, or I’ll scream
for help.”
With a hurried gesture, the intruder closed the door, and said,
hastily--
“I tell you I don’t want in any way to offend you; I came here, if
possible, to make you think well of me, and look kindly upon me, as I do
on you. Consider, I am a gentleman born, I don’t mind telling you that;
I am a Grahame, I don’t mind telling you that, too.”
Lotte started as she heard the name, and, with distended eyelids, looked
again at his face.
“What--what name?” she inquired.
“Grahame,” he answered, “Grahame. We’ve a place in the Regent’s Park and
one in Scotland. My name is Malcolm--Malcolm Grahame. I saw you in the
garden at Mr. Wilton’s--don’t you recollect?”
Lotte did, indeed.
This, then, was Helen’s brother, all unconscious that a thin partition
alone divided him from his missing sister.
Lotte reflected for a moment. He had certainly seen his sister--had
he recognised her? This she had to learn. Perhaps he had come with the
purpose of endeavouring to discover and take her away. She determined he
should not succeed, unless with Helen’s own consent. She felt that she
had a difficult task to play, and one likely to be, in all respects,
unpleasant. She was, however, equally conscious that she had undertaken,
as a duty, the office of protecting and assisting Helen, with the
object, if possible, of preserving her fair fame through the present
terrible phase of her existence. She would not, therefore, permit the
fear of personal insult or threatened dangers of other kinds to make her
shrink from the responsibility she had so nobly self-imposed.
“Come, now,” said Malcolm, coaxingly, on observing her muse, “you will
let me sit down for a few minutes--won’t you? I do want to set myself
right with you.”
Lotte trembled and looked very pale, and then red. She would then and
there have ended the interview if she had given way to her natural
impulse, but she knew how earnestly Helen wished to learn what had
followed her departure from home; and so, for her sake, she said--
“Sir, it may appear strange, after what has just passed, that I should
seem to desire to prolong this interview, but I have a question or two
to ask of you.”
“I shall be delighted to answer any questions you may put to me, if I
can do so.”
She made a brave effort to seem collected, while he was admiring the
graceful line from her head to her shoulder, as her face was averted,
and then she turned to him and said--
“I have no desire to be improperly inquisitive, sir, nor to wound your
feelings by the questions I may put to you; but I have a good motive,
and no injury to you or your family can result from your answering me
freely.”
“Very nice,” answered Malcolm--“pray go on.”
“You have no member of your family ill, I believe?” commenced Lotte,
with a beating heart, for she knew there was another ear beside her own
who would greedily drink in all his replies.
“No--no,” he returned, unsuspiciously. “No; I don’t often see the
governor, for he is much engaged; and when he is not, he is something
like a porcupine--not to be too closely approached. As for ma, I never
knew her to be ill. It is undignified, so she don’t condescend to have
an ailment; and my sister Margaret thinks as she does--ha! ha! No, they
are well enough,” he concluded.
“But,” said Lotte, pursuing her point, “you have other sisters.”
“Ah! yes--oh, ay!” he responded; “there is little Eva. Upon my honour, I
had forgotten her, really--how droll! Well, she is not, I think, in good
health--she is white-faced; she frets a great deal--goes into corners,
and cries; walks into the garden, and cries; wanders over the house,
and cries. She’s a regular little pump--a fountain’s nothing to her--ha!
ha!”
“Why does she fret?” inquired Lotte, with hesitation.
A slight colour came into Malcolm’s face.
“I can’t tell,” he returned; “nobody can tell. I hardly think she knows
herself, excepting that she has lost a pet and favourite, and she is
mourning for that. Stupid, isn’t it?”
“There was, I think, an elder sister to those you have named.”
Malcolm coughed, and grew red in the face.
“You have not mentioned Miss Helen Grahame--what of her?”
Malcolm appeared unpleasantly disconcerted; presently he said--
“Dead!”
Lotte started back astounded, and echoed the word in such an incredulous
tone that Mr. Malcolm added--
“That is, to us. Excuse me, but you are touching on a tender point--a
family matter.”
But Malcolm and Lotte started as he concluded; for, at this instant,
a sharp cry of acute pain rang in their ears; it was followed by a low
wailing sob, and then all was silent again. Lotte pressed her hand upon
her heart, for that burst of agony from the inner room made it ache. She
knew whence the sound proceeded, and from whom.
Malcolm was sufficiently well-bred not to make any remark respecting the
sound he had heard, but he thought it strange, and wondered much what
it meant. Lotte recalled his straying thoughts by asking if his sister
Evangeline spoke thus of her sister Helen?
“No,” he returned; “but she is nobody. She is so unlike all the family.
Mamma told her that she must consider Helen as dead, and that is why
she frets and whines about the place so much. However, the topic is
disagreeable; pray let us say no more about it.”
“I have ended, sir,” returned Lotte, quietly, but dreading what was to
come.
“No more questions to ask?” he cried.
She shook her head.
“Well, then,” he said, “look here. You are very pretty. I never saw a
face I like so much as yours. I am anxious that you should understand
that, because it is my wish to have the opportunity of gazing upon it as
often as possible. Now you are perpetually drawing that infernal needle
backwards and forwards, from morning until night, making your pretty
face pale and ‘eyelids weary and worn,’ and all that sort of thing. Now
my notion is----”
“To compliment me----” interposed Lotte.
“Yes,” interrupted Malcolm, eagerly, in his turn, “to take you away from
this place, throw the needle to the devil, place you in a pretty country
house, own servants, brougham----”
“And convert me from a humble, virtuous needlewoman into a shameless and
an abandoned outcast,” cried Lotte, firmly, and in clear tones.
“No, upon my honour----” he cried.
“Mr. Grahame, I have not spoken to you previous to this hour; but if
I had proposed as soon as we met, that you should become a thief, a
degraded and criminal rogue, you would consider that I had inflicted an
insulting outrage upon your honour, and you would ask me indignantly,
what there was in your conduct and your appearance that called forth so
great and undeserved an affront.”
“Yes, clearly, but----”
“May I ask of what I have been guilty, that you should so--so insult
me?”
She could not keep down the tears which would spring into her eyes. He
perceived them, and said excitedly----
“I don’t want to make you cry. I don’t upon my--upon my--by heaven! I
don’t want to insult you.”
“You must quit this place this moment, sir, and return to it no more. I
caution you, out of considerations which you cannot surmise, though you
may some day know them, not to repeat this visit, for it will be at a
risk which, knowingly, you would fly from incurring--go!”
Malcolm took up his hat and stick. He would have spoken, but Lotte
walked out of the room and left him, So he descended the stairs, feeling
that he had not been anything like so successful as he had hoped.
“I have broken the ice, though,” he muttered, with a half-satisfied nod
of the head, “that is something She is very pretty, and very scornful,
by Jove! but then, girls are always coy at first. What’s the next
step?--capital idea--I’ll go and see Lester Vane, and get his advice.
Strange that she should ask about the people at home--odd thing
that--what did it mean?”
He had not much brains to puzzle, so he soon gave up speculating upon
what he could find no clue to.
He had not long to wait for the return of Lester Vane to town, for,
after the incident which had occurred at Harleydale Manor, and which
had ended as it were in the expulsion of young Vivian, old Wilton had an
interview with him, and suggested that, under existing circumstances,
it would be the best policy for him to take his leave, and return when
Flora’s mind was more calm, and he would have the field to himself.
Lester Vane the more readily assented to this proposition, as a glance
at Mark Wilton’s form, and the sound of his voice, told him he had
somewhere met him under disagreeable circumstances, although his memory
would not furnish him with the details, and, for the present, is would
be politic to avoid him. He, therefore, acted upon the suggestion, and
disappeared from Harleydale.
He had not been many days in London before Malcolm Grahame called on
him, and after some desultory conversation, in the course of which
Helen’s name arose, and he had to repress further questioning by
declaring that she was on a visit to a branch of the family in the wilds
of Scotland--he stated his own case, his design, and the difficulties
which hitherto had prevented him from carrying it into execution.
Vane regarded him with a smile of contempt, even as he pricked up his
ears at Malcolm’s glowing description of the beauty of the girl of whom
he spoke. Malcolm was cunning enough to conceal that she was the heroine
of the adventure in Hyde Park, but all else he knew respecting her he
made a clean breast of.
Vane lay back in his chair, and smoked his cigar in deep thought.
He fixed his eyes upon Malcolm, and said, in a decided manner--
“I tell you what, Grahame, you have gone the wrong way to work with this
girl. She has got some lofty notions about the church and the ring, and
you at once kicked the two out of your offer. I wonder she did not bring
in some tall lout of a brother to beat you unmercifully for your cool
audacity. I tell you, Grahame, your chance with her is over, unless your
proceeding is explained as a mistake. I will see her, assure her that an
error or a misconception has sprung up between you, and prevail upon her
to give you another hearing.”
“Now, really, this is kind of you,” said Malcolm, shaking his hand
heartily.
A few evenings afterwards, Lester Vane presented himself at the door of
the house in which Lotte dwelt. A child opened the door, and he, having
had a full description from Malcolm of the part of the building in which
Lotte was located, ascended the stairs with a noiseless footstep, and
paused before her room-door.
He listened; all was quiet within. He opened the door, and entered--to
find himself suddenly face to face with Helen Grahame.
Both started, and uttered an exclamation of astonishment.
Perhaps the intensity of surprise was exhibited in a greater degree by
Lester Vane than by Helen; yet it flashed through his mind that
Malcolm Grahame had appeared fidgetty and uneasy while being questioned
respecting his sister, and the place where he said she had gone to pay
a visit. A glance at Helen told him that something grave had happened,
that she had quitted home under circumstances of an unfavourable kind,
though what they could be he was wholly at a loss to divine. He felt,
too, that at that moment he was master of the situation, and the revenge
he had promised himself was within his reach. How did she feel? She,
who had contemplated leading this man on by the small stratagems of a
heartless coquette to become her adoring slave, that she might, at
an instant, turn on him and crush him with her scorn. Oh! she was
humiliated indeed; never did she feel the beauty and the value of
truthfulness so much as now.
Vane was the first to speak; he fastened his eye upon her with the
insulting gaze of an impudent libertine.
“Miss Grahame,” he said, “this is a pleasure wholly unexpected. My star
is indeed in the ascendant.”
Helen drew herself up to her full height. She felt the whole force of
the insult conveyed by his eyes, his voice, and his words.
She responded with a stern, haughty gaze.
“Mr Vane,” she replied, “I am at a loss to account for your presence
here; it is unbidden and unwished for, no less than it is intrusive. I
request that you will retire.”
“Excuse me, Helen----”
“Sir----”
“Well, if you prefer it, Miss Grahame, Has Miss Grahame so soon
forgotten the language her eyes have at times addressed to me beneath
her father’s roof? Does she expect that she is to spread her wiles with
a result satisfactory only to herself, that she is to ensnare the eagle,
and that act is to suffice to tame him too? She tried to take captive my
poor susceptible heart; and if she has succeeded, should she wonder and
feel insulted that I desire some return----”
“You are unmanly--you are contemptibly base. You would not dare thus
to insult me, but that you, coward-like, see that I am alone and
unprotected. Leave me instantly,” she cried, with a proud, impatient,
passionate gesture of her hand.
“No,” he answered, coolly; “not until we have come to a better
understanding with each other. It is easy for me to comprehend--indeed,
I am partly acquainted with the fact--that you have left home for ever;
that you are here residing in humble obscurity, for which you were never
destined. In the person of your haughty father and your ridiculously
proud mother, the world has turned its back upon you. It is for you to
do the same upon it.”
Helen frantically motioned to him to leave the room. Her whole frame was
convulsed with violent emotion.
“Go!” she cried, hoarsely; “go, insulting villain, go, or your continued
presence will slay me! Oh, is there no help near to save me?”
As if in answer to her appeal, the door opened, and Mr. Bantom, with a
slightly excited manner, looked in.
He had visited his friend in “pupple,” who had been the medium of
Malcolm Grahame’s offer to Lotte. After shaking the man’s senses almost
out of him, he extorted from him that the “gent” who had made a tool of
him lived next door to Mr. Wilton’s residence. Bantom went there,
and had an interview with Whelks, who, finding that Bantom intended
mischief, transferred to Vane’s shoulders the responsibility of having
insulted Lotte, believing that Mr. Bantom would never find him, and if
he did, he would not dare to touch him. He had mistaken his man. Bantom
had hunted Vane down, and had caught him here.
“Beg your pardon, mum,” he said to Helen, with a bow, “but I wants a
word with this feller here.”
Lester Vane turned fiercely towards him.
“You dirty ruffian!” he exclaimed, “how dare you intrude here? Leave the
room this instant!”
Mr. Bantom knitted his brows.
“Your name’s Mr. Lister Wane, ain’t it?” he said, with a growl that
meant mischief.
Lester started.
“If you wish to speak to me, fellow, wait until I leave here,” he
answered, hastily.
“But your name is Mr. Lister Wane, ain’t it? I ask you that,” persisted
Bantom.
“It is, fool! Go out of the room.”
“I shall, an’ you with me.”
“What do you mean, scoundrel?”
“That I don’t talk to you here, but where you’ll feel every word I sez,”
responded Bantom.
With a giant’s grip, he caught Vane by the collar and wrist, and dragged
him out of the room with rough violence, but with as much ease as if he
had been a child.
Helen Grahame, with hysteric joy, saw herself thus unexpectedly relieved
from the presence of the base and heartless villain who had taken
advantage of her defenceless position to so basely insult her. But the
scene had been too severe in the emotions it occasioned, and she had
a gradually fading sense that there was a violent dashing and crashing
down the staircase, a terrible disturbance in the street, which died
away, leaving her in a swoon.