THE FATE OF FENELLA
THE FATE OF FENELLA
_A NOVEL_
BY
HELEN MATHERS A. CONAN DOYLE
JUSTIN H. McCARTHY, M. P. MAY CROMMELIN
FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE F. C. PHILLIPS
“RITA” BRAM STOKER
JOSEPH HATTON FLORENCE MARRYAT
MRS. LOVETT CAMERON FRANK DANBY
MRS. EDWARD KENNARD ARTHUR A’BECKETT
RICHARD DOWLING JEAN MIDDLEMASS
MRS. HUNGERFORD CLEMENT SCOTT
CLO. GRAVES G. MANVILLE FENN
H. W. LUCY “TASMA”
ADELINE SERGEANT F. ANSTEY
NEW YORK
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER AUTHOR PAGE
I HELEN MATHERS “FENELLA” 1
II JUSTIN H. McCARTHY, M. P. KISMET 15
III FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 25
IV A. CONAN DOYLE “BETWEEN TWO FIRES” 41
V MAY CROMMELIN 51
VI F. C. PHILLIPS 63
VII “RITA” SO NEAR--SO FAR AWAY 72
VIII JOSEPH HATTON 83
IX MRS. LOVETT CAMERON 98
X BRAM STOKER 111
XI FLORENCE MARRYAT MME. DE VIGNY’S REVENGE 124
XII FRANK DANBY 143
XIII MRS. EDWARD KENNARD “THE SCARS REMAINED” 154
XIV RICHARD DOWLING DERELICT 163
XV MRS. HUNGERFORD 174
XVI ARTHUR A’BECKETT IN NEW YORK 191
XVII JEAN MIDDLEMASS 210
XVIII CLEMENT SCOTT “WITHIN SIGHT OF HOME” 221
XIX CLO. GRAVES 232
XX H. W. LUCY THROUGH FIRE AND WATER 244
XXI ADELINE SERGEANT “ALIVE OR DEAD” 262
XXII GEORGE MANVILLE FENN 273
XXIII “TASMA” 287
XXIV F. ANSTEY “WHOM THE GODS HATE DIE HARD” 305
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.
The publishers claim with no little satisfaction that in this book they
offer the reading public a genuine novelty. The idea of a novel written
by twenty-four popular writers is certainly an original one. The ladies
and gentlemen who have written “The Fate of Fenella” have done their
work quite independently of each other. There has been collaboration
but not consultation. As each one wrote a chapter it was passed on to
the next, and so on until it reached the hands of Mr. F. Anstey, whose
peculiar and delightful humor made him a fitting choice for bringing
the story to a satisfactory close.
THE FATE OF FENELLA.
CHAPTER I.
BY HELEN MATHERS.
“FENELLA.”
And dinna ye mind, love Gregory,
As we twa sate at dine,
How we changed the rings frae our fingers,
And I can show thee thine?
Her hair, gloves, and shoes were tan-color, and closely allied to
tan, too, was the tawny, true tiger tint of her hazel eyes. For the
rest, she was entirely white save for her dark lashes and brows, the
faint tint of rose in her small cheeks, and a deeper red in her lips
that were parted just then in a spasm of silent, delighted mirth. She
stood on the top steps of the Prospect Hotel, Harrogate, waiting for
the coach to come round, and looking across the hotel gardens to the
picturesque Stray beyond, upon which a unique game of cricket was just
then going forward, to the intense diversion of all beholders. Two
little boys had evidently started it on their own hook, and a variety
of casuals had dropped in to bear a hand, the most distinguished of
these being a nigger minstrel, who, in full war-paint, and with deep
lace ruffles falling over his sooty hands, was showing all his white
teeth, and batting with a prowess that kept the whole field in action.
“I hope Ronny won’t get his pate cracked,” said the girl, half aloud,
as the four grays drew up with a flourish, and the usual bustle on the
steps began. “Good-morning, George!” and she nodded brightly to the
good-looking driver, who beamed all over, and touched his hat, for the
girl had clambered to many a pleasant drive beside him during the past
fortnight.
“Box-seat again!” snapped a spiteful female voice behind her. “I
_wonder_ she is allowed to monopolize the best seat as she does, day
after day!”
The girl laughed, as, giving a brief glimpse of a soft mass of
whiteness above silken hose, she swung lightly up to the perch that was
indeed wide enough to accommodate three persons, though the privilege
of occupying the third lay entirely within George’s jurisdiction, and
was never, save to an old favorite, accorded.
“Where are we going to-day?” she said, as she settled herself
comfortably, and unfurled a big tan-color sunshade. “Not to any of
those tiresome show-places, I hope? I’m so tired of them!”
“No, miss,” said George, who refused, even in the teeth of Ronny,
to recognize her as anything but a slip of a girl, “we’re going for
a drive of my own; just dawdling about a bit like, and nowhere in
particular.”
“Jolly!” she said, sniffing up the pure air as if she loved it, and
with that delightful quality of enjoyment in her voice which acts like
an elixir on surrounding company. “Do you know, I mean to come up here
every year to drink the waters, for I’ve got to _love_ the place!”
George looked delighted as he glanced round to see if all his cargo was
aboard, but as usual everyone was waiting for the inevitable person who
is _always_ late, and who will probably be late for his own funeral if
he can possibly manage it.
“Most people who come here once, come again, miss,” said George,
twisting the lash of his whip into a knot. “There’s one gentleman who
never misses a season, and I was going to ask you, as a favor, if you’d
mind his coming on the box-seat this morning? He ’most always had it
last year. I told him I must ask a lady’s consent, so we’re to pick him
up outside the Pump-room if you’re quite agreeable.”
“Is he fat?” said the girl dubiously, and feeling that her drive would
be quite spoiled.
“He’s as slight as a poplar,” said George, his face lightening up, “and
he’s a gentleman, miss, and you can’t say more than that. There’s so
few of ’em about nowadays!”
The cargo was now complete. The miscellaneous crowd that daily
assembled to witness the departure of the coach fell back, the horses
stretched out into a gallop, and skirting the hotel garden, with
its lounging seats, and cheerful awnings, rounded the corner with a
flourish, emerging on the Stray with a musical horn-blowing that made
Ronny, in the distance, hold up his little flushed face to his mother,
and wave the bat he was so very seldom allowed to use.
The girl waved and kissed her hand lovingly to the boy, and the nigger
appropriating the compliment to himself, and promptly returning the
same, while he also tried to combine business and pleasure by hitting
a ball, lost his balance, and sat down in a large puddle. Quaint and
varied were the aspects of life afforded by the Stray, that curious
piece of ground secured to the townspeople forever, that in some parts
almost resembles a fair; while in others, ancient trees shut in stately
houses that have all the dignity and peace of a cathedral close.
In the open a band was playing, nigger minstrels were performing,
children played, old maids cackled, pigeons flocked, fortune-tellers
plied their craft, and old couples sat side by side like puffins,
warming themselves in the sun. Even in this inevitable groaning
Salvation Army lasses and lads were there, combining piety and wealth
with that astuteness which is so distinguishing a feature of their
peculiar religion.
And the thoroughly English scene, so full of human life, and steeped
through and through with such a glory of September air and sunshine as
even summer had not dared to promise, or even tried to fulfill, gave
extraordinary pleasure to the heart, making one feel, with Lucretius,
that “he who has grown weary of remaining at home often goes forth, and
suddenly returns, inasmuch as he perceived he is nothing better for
being abroad.”
Down the steep incline in George’s smartest style, past the Crown
Hotel, that should surely be at the top of the hill, not the bottom,
and so to the Pump-room, where with a clash and a clatter he draws up,
scanning the crowd of people, who, having drunk their nauseous doses
inside, are dawdling and gossiping in true Harrogate fashion before
they disperse.
The girl does not take the trouble to look at any of them, not even
when George touches his hat, and says, “Here, my lord.” Then there is
the sensation as of a person ascending the coach, on _her_ side, she
indignantly notes, so that she hastily whispers:
“Couldn’t he go on your other side, George?”
“Very sorry, miss, but couldn’t drive that way,” and then she draws
her skirts close to her with head turned aside, as her unwelcome
coach-fellow swings himself into the seat beside her.
She is so slight, so small, that after all there is ample room and to
spare, especially as he answers to the graceful description of him
furnished by the driver.
“Do you call this a new drive?” she says to George, as they rattle past
the lovely Bogs Valley Gardens, and up the steep ascent to the Spa.
“Why----”
“_Fenella!_” breathlessly exclaimed a voice beside her.
“_Frank._”
Two aghast, petrified young faces looked into each other; then the
girl, recovering herself first, said:
“Pray, how do _you_ come here?”
“And what brings you?” he retorted.
“Gout. What are you laughing at?” she said airily; “haven’t I got
ancestors? Didn’t they drink October ale by the hogshead, and old port
by the gallon? And _I’ve_ got to pay the piper, for I never heard of
the liquor hurting _them_. But talking of ancestors, I’ve got such a
lovely story to tell you. There is a frightfully fat, vulgar woman at
our hotel, and you know there are only two things in this sinful world
that give me real fits--humbug and vulgarity. Well, this woman never
for one single meal lets anybody forget her progenitors, and bawls
out at the top of her dreadful voice, ‘_All_ my people are cavalry
people!’ And what do you think? Her uncle keeps a pork shop not far
from here, so after all she’s perfectly right in her boast, only the
cavalry are--Pigs!”
Frank laughed.
“You are as bad as ever, I see,” he said, and then glanced at the
driver, who had averted his head as much as possible.
“George,” said Fenella, putting a coaxing little face round his
shoulder, “could you--_would_ you mind putting a bit of cotton wool in
your ear on this side, because I want to talk to--to Lord Francis? I’ve
got a bit in my pocket somewhere, I know.”
George’s face flickered, as he expressed himself quite agreeable, but
was rather surprised, as blue-blooded people usually talk before their
inferiors as if they had no more hearing and understanding faculties
than tables or chairs. When the wool was produced out of a smart little
pocket, he proceeded to plug his ear gravely, and even rammed it down
hard to show that his intentions were strictly honorable. This business
over, Fenella turned round and showed a little laughing face that
seemed to have caught all the sunshine of the day, aye, and held it
fast.
“I always carry a bit in my pocket for Ronny,” she said, “as he gets
a touch of earache sometimes. What’s that? They can hear us behind?
Oh? no, the trot of the horses’ feet swallows up our voices. Let them
talk. They will say I picked you up!”
“So you did. Do you know any of them?”
“Heaven forbid! A woman, my dear, who _never_ sits in the drawing room
with the other ladies,” said Fenella, adroitly mimicking a sour female
voice, “there _must_ be something wrong about her. And so there is,”
she added, below her breath, and for a moment the little face grew hard.
“How is Ronny?” said Frank.
“He is very well,” she said nonchalantly. “Poor wee man, isn’t it a
good job he isn’t a girl? And he hasn’t begun to grow ugly and horrid
and masculine yet--he is all mine, mine!”
The mother’s love in her rang out triumphantly, and her face grew very
tender.
“We have such good times together, he and I,” she went on happily; “he
is not with me to-day, because he is playing cricket at the present
moment. We go down to the Stray with the bat and stumps, and forage
round for a scratch team. I took a hand myself the other day, and
actually bowled out a butcher’s boy!”
Frank laughed, then shook his head. “You are quite as mad as ever,” he
said. “Where is your companion?”
“I _hope_,” said Fenella calmly, “that she is dead. I didn’t try to
polish off any of the other ones, because they meant well in spite of
their aggravatingness, but she was downright _wicked_. So I led her
a life,” she concluded, looking as triumphantly happy as a child who
plays truant on a glorious day with a pocketful of pennies and burnt
almonds.
Frank shook his head sadly.
“Why won’t you be good, Fenella?” he said. “You could be so easily.”
“I always am,” said Fenella promptly, and nodded her curly head close
to his nose. “I take sulphur baths, and regularly _sneeze_ sulphur. I
get up every morning at half-past seven. Just think of that! It’s a
fearful scramble, because Ronny never will wake up. He sleeps just like
you, for ever and ever.” She stopped, and colored vividly, then dashed
on again breathlessly, “And of course it takes some time to dress him.”
“You have no nurse, no maid!” he exclaimed, in amazement.
“No,” she replied with great _sangfroid_, “I like a free hand, and no
woman can have that, with a female detective tripping up her heels, and
wearing her silk stockings. And I love to wait on Ronny--to wash and
dress him, and make him look sweet. Of course,” she added anxiously,
“he isn’t _always_ clean--the dirtier a boy is, the nicer he is--but
he is _perfectly_ happy! You should see us run down the hill to the
Pump-room, though everyone has done long before we get there! And then
we eat _such_ a breakfast. We’ve got a dear little fat waiter who
simply devotes himself to us, and steals for us all the newest eggs!
But he had an awful accident yesterday,” said Fenella, turning tragic
eyes on Frank, “what do you think it was?”
“He fell in love with you?”
Fenella began to laugh in that low gurgle which was so like the sound
of a cheerful, over-full brook.
“Do you remember you said that about my hairdresser? And how I said I
thought it would really have come cheaper in the end if I _had_ married
him? I always thought that rather neat myself. But I never told you
what the accident was. He broke four hundred plates yesterday!”
“Very greedy of him if he did it all at once.”
“It _was_ all at once. The strap of the lift broke as he was hauling
them up!”
“Poor devil!” said Frank absently.
They were quite away from the houses now, and the brisk, pure air, the
pleasant scents from the hedgerows, and the swift movement to the music
of the horses’ feet, and perhaps some other sources of satisfaction
within, brought a light to Fenella’s eyes, and a rose-soft color to her
cheek that made her altogether enchanting and sweet.
“And pray,” said Frank, looking at her eagerly, unwillingly, as at
forbidden fruit that sorely tempted him, “do you _talk_ to any of the
fellows at the hotel?”
“No,” she said airily, “they talk to me. You see, they are all so fond
of Ronny.”
“No doubt,” said Frank, curtly and significantly.
“But I pretend not to hear. Stay--there is _one_ man whom I talk to----”
“Who is he?” said Frank grimly, and looking straight between the
horses’ ears.
“Oh, nobody in particular,” said Fenella, rather faintly, “but you
see he has a small nephew here, and it seems he and Ronny met at the
Grandisons’ in the country, and are quite old friends. So the barrister
and I have got quite pally.”
Frank sat mute as a fish.
“He is of the type I rather admire,” she said, with a suspicious note
in her voice. “You know, Frank,” she lifted a naïvely impudent, grave
little face to his, “I always _did_ like a dark, clean-shaven man!”
Frank himself was as dark and clean-shaven as it was possible to be,
and the corners of his mouth trembled at her audacity, as he turned
away.
“He told me such a delicious story yesterday,” she went on, her face
breaking up into dimples. “It was about a little girl upon whose mother
a horrid old woman was calling. When the old woman got up to depart,
she said to the child, ‘You’ll come and see me, my dear, won’t you?’
‘Oh, yes!’ said the child, ‘But you don’t know where I live?’ ‘Yes, I
do,’ said the child, nodding. ‘I know who is your next-door neighbor.’
‘Who is that?’ says the old woman. ‘Why, _mother_ says you are next
door to a fool!’”
But Frank did not smile. It is curious that a man’s sense of humor is
usually entirely in abeyance when matters of stern import engross him,
while a woman’s is usually at its keenest when tragedy is in the air.
“What do people think at the hotel?” he burst out in the undertone both
had maintained throughout the conversation.
“That I am a widow,” she said coolly; “that is to say, if they turn up
the hotel list of visitors.”
“What name have you inscribed?” he said coldly.
“Fenella Ffrench. I suppose I have a right to my own name?”
“And the child’s?”
“Ronny Onslow.”
“What are your trustees about?” he broke out, with subdued passion.
Fenella shrugged her slender shoulders, and laughed. “I was twenty-four
years old yesterday,” she said, with apparent irrelevance; “did you
remember?”
“I remembered,” he said curtly.
“Talking of trustees,” she said, “will you ever forget the talk, and
fuss, and documents that day at Carlton House Terrace? I couldn’t help
thinking of Lady Caroline Lamb, and how, when she and her husband were
required to sign the deed of separation, the pair of them could nowhere
be found! When discovered at last, Lady Caroline was on her husband’s
knee, feeding him with bread and butter! But, though they parted, he
loved her all the time,” went on Fenella, the little mocking voice
grown suddenly wistful; “and it was on _his_ faithful breast that she
pillowed her dying head at last, and his kind voice that sped her on
her way!”
“Yes,” said Frank, in a strained voice; “her faults were more of head
than heart. But some women have not even hearts for faults to be bred
in. Why did you do it?” he said suddenly, with a mist before his own
eyes that hindered him from seeing the tears in hers.
“Hi! Onslow! I say, _Onslow_!” shouted a voice that seemed to come from
beneath the horses’ feet, and both the young people peeped over to see
a fat little man in white linen clothes, standing on tiptoe on the
road, and blowing out his cheeks like a cherub’s.
“Why, Castleton!” cried Frank, “what are you doing there?”
“Walking down my fat, dear boy. I was looking heavenward, and saw
you coming. Where do you hang out? Beastly water, rotten eggs, rusty
iron, and a dash of old Nick. Oh, I say!” (catching sight of Fenella,
not quite hidden by her sunshade) “is that really--well, you know,
really--I _am_ astonished--and delighted, _too_! I always said----”
“Drive on!” roared Frank, and on they went upon the instant, and Frank
turned to look at Fenella. She was very pale, and very angry, with all
the summer gladness gone out of her eyes and lips.
“Frank,” she said, “never, _never_ will I submit to be made ridiculous.
By to-morrow this time, the story will be all over the London clubs.
Drive back to Harrogate with you I will not, and either you get down,
or I will.”
Frank never moved.
“George!”
“Yes, my lady.”
She stamped her little foot.
“How dare you call me that?” she said, in a furious underbreath. “Put
me down!”
George never budged an inch. The trot-trot of the horses’ feet maddened
her, and she sprang up.
“Fenella,” said Frank, winding his arm round her waist, “if you don’t
sit tight, I’ll put you on my knee, and keep you there, and then I’ll
_kiss_ you.”