THE DOWNWARD PATH. A PROPOSAL.
Frank Derison looked forward to the arrival of his cousin with much
disfavor. Under any circumstances it would have seemed to him bad
enough that his future should be cut-and-dried for him as if he were
still a child in leading-strings, and that a bride should be thrust on
him without as much as a "by your leave," but, as the case stood, it
was rendered still more obnoxious by the fact that Fate had chosen for
him a wife for whom he could never feel even that tepid amount of
affection which seems to be found an amply sufficient capital in the
majority of matrimonial ventures. As a cousin Miss Dixon might be
everything one could wish, but as a wife he felt that before long he
should positively hate her. Frank's affections, fleeting and shallow
as they were, could only be captured by youth and good looks, and
unfortunately Miss Dixon could boast of neither. When he compared her
in his thoughts with sweet Hermia Rivers, and called to mind all that
he had flung away, his heart grew very bitter within him, and he often
felt that he would gladly cast behind him all his chances of worldly
advancement if, by so doing, he could bring back those pleasant
evenings of six months ago when he was a welcome visitant at Nairn
Cottage, and when Hermia ever greeted his coming with a smile, the
like of which for him the world did not hold. Oh, fool--fool that he
had been!
But Frank was a man of many moods, and there were times when the cold
whispers of worldly prudence fell soothingly on his ear. Twenty
thousand pounds! It was a large sum, but, large as it was, it was only
intended by those who had taken his future into their charge as the
stepping-stone to something larger still. He was as fully assured as
if his mother had told him in so many words, that his marriage with
Miss Dixon was looked upon as a necessary condition, and that, unless
he acceded to it, he need look for no further advancement at the Bank.
The price demanded was a heavy one, or so it seemed to him. He knew
fully a dozen girls, any one of whom (his lingering love for Hermia
notwithstanding) he would willingly have married, even with half of
twenty thousand pounds for a dowry. But Mildred Dixon, with her six
years' seniority, her freckles, her spectacles, and her squat figure!
Poor Frank could not help feeling that fate was treating him very
hardly indeed.
But there came a reprieve for him almost at the last moment. A couple
of days before Miss Dixon was due to arrive, Mrs. Derison received a
note from her in which she stated that, owing to her mother having
been suddenly attacked with illness, her visit would have to be
deferred. Frank's spirits rose as if by magic.
"Her visit is only put off for a little while," said Mrs. Derison
coldly, as she refolded the note after reading it aloud. "Nothing is
altered."
But a respite is a respite all the world over, and Frank's was one of
those mercurial natures which, while they are easily depressed, are
just as easily elated, and have no inclination to meet trouble half
way. He wished old Mrs. Dixon no harm; still, if her illness should
prove to be a lingering one, any profession of sorrow on his part
would be the merest hypocrisy.
"You never seem to take into account the fact that Mildred might not
care to accept my humble and unworthy self as a partner for life," he
said, with a quizzical smile, to his mother.
"Mildred is a sensible young woman, and knows what is expected of
her," was the only reply vouchsafed him.
When Mr. Avison gave Frank plainly to understand that he must turn
over a fresh leaf, and cease frequenting the billiard-room of the
"Crown and Cushion," and such-like places, he at the same time
intimated to him that for some time past his movements after office
hours had been watched by a person who had been employed for that
purpose, and it was the fear lest this secret spy might still be
similarly engaged that kept his footsteps so straight from that time
forward. He had insensibly got into the habit of spending so many of
his spare hours in the billiard-room that he was at a loss how to get
through his evenings with satisfaction to himself now that he no
longer dared be seen there. Now that his fortunes at the Bank were
rising so rapidly, he began to have plenty of invitations to the
houses of well-to-do people, where he met a sufficiency of pleasant
society of both sexes, but where everything was conducted with an
amount of propriety and decorum which to Frank became at times
absolutely depressing. He hated negus and sandwiches, and having to
invent polite nothings for the benefit of a pack of scandal-loving
dowagers. He hated having to dance attendance on a crowd of girls, for
not one of whom he cared a jot. He was a man who loved men's society,
but men out of their evening clothes. He liked the freedom and abandon
of the smoking-room and the tavern parlor. His pipe was dear to him,
and already he had a taste for cold grog, which in the course of time
might develop into a confirmed habit. Thus it will be readily
understood that to Frank Derison, life of late had seemed a somewhat
tame affair.
It was just about this time that he made the acquaintance of a young
fellow of his own age of the name of Crofts, who was in business with
his father as a solicitor at Dulminster. Mr. Crofts was engaged to an
Ashdown young lady, and used to go over two or three times a week to
see her, and enjoy himself generally at this party, or the other
dance.
"Beastly poky little hole, Ashdown," said Mr. Crofts one evening, as
he and Frank were indulging in a cigarette in the balcony of a house
where they had happened to meet. "Dulminster is bad enough in all
conscience, but this place is a dozen times worse."
"What can a fellow do when hard necessity ties one to it?"
"What, indeed! You haven't even a club in the place, I presume?"
"Not the ghost of one."
"Why don't you join ours at Dulminster? Very small and select, and all
that. Say the word, and I'll propose you at the next meeting."
"Awfully good of you, but this is the first word I've heard about it."
"Why not run over by the five-thirty train on Friday next, and pick a
bit of dinner with me? We'll go on to the club afterwards, where I'll
introduce you to half a score 'Bons Frères'--that's what we call
ourselves--jolly good fellows one and all!"
The invitation so frankly given was as frankly accepted. Frank was
introduced to the Club in due course, and was presently proposed and
elected.
Mr. Crofts had spoken no more than the truth when he said that the
club was small and select. In point of fact it was neither more nor
less than a little coterie of gamblers. There were the usual reading,
smoking, and billiard-rooms, but the card-room was the real focus of
attraction. Frank, who like his father was a born gambler, entered
heartily into the thing, and before long got into the way of spending
three or four evenings a week at the "Bons Frères." The last train
between Dulminster and Ashdown left the former place a quarter of an
hour before midnight, but when Frank chanced to miss it--which he
usually did at least once a week--there was always a bed for him at
his friend's, while the eight o'clock morning train landed him at
Ashdown in ample time for business.
It was scarcely to be expected that Frank should content himself with
a quiet pool at billiards, while such exciting games as baccarat and
unlimited loo were in progress in the next room. Accordingly his cue
was left to languish on the wall, and he turned his attention wholly
to that other board of green cloth which for him was by far the more
seductive of the two. Occasionally he rose from the table a winner,
but fortune frowned on him far oftener than she smiled. The fact was
that both by nature and disposition Frank was too rash and impulsive
to be evenly matched as against certain cool and cautious habitués of
the club--old hands who look upon the card-table as a regular source
of income, and never throw away a chance. But although he lost and
lost again, his ardor for play in nowise abated; rather, indeed, did
it seem to grow the fiercer with the gradual lightening of his
pockets.
Mrs. Derison had always insisted on Frank's putting aside a certain
portion of his salary, month by month, in the Ashdown Savings' Bank,
and the amount thus laid by had by this time accumulated to something
like a hundred and fifty pounds. On this fund Frank now began to draw,
of course without his mother's knowledge, in order to enable him to
meet his losses at cards, Five or six weeks sufficed to make a big
hole in his small capital, but still, with the gambler's desperate
recklessness, he kept on his course, convinced from day to day that
"luck" must change in his favor, and fatuously failing to recognize
the fact that he was being quietly but effectually fleeced, and that
without any suspicion of cheating on their part, by men far cleverer
than himself.
Now that Edward Hazeldine, urged thereto by his brother, had resolved,
as far as in him lay, to annul the act of wrongdoing to which he had
unwillingly lent himself; now that an intolerable burden had been
lifted off his life and his self-respect had in some measure come back
to him, he resolved, at the earliest opportunity, to carry out his
long-cherished intention of proposing to Miss Winterton. By this time
the family at Seaham Lodge were back from Torquay, but Edward did not
feel that he should be justified in going over there specially and
asking for an interview with Miss Winterton. He must wait till he was
invited by his Lordship, and then make his opportunity as best he
could. As it fell out he had not long to wait. The Earl wanted to see
him on business matters, but being laid up with gout, could not leave
home, consequently Edward must go to the Lodge. It was further
intimated to him that her Ladyship would be pleased for him to stay
and dine.
Having finished his business with the Earl in good time, Edward went
in search of Miss Winterton. There was a chance of securing a quarter
of an hour alone with her before dinner, but not much likelihood of
being able to do so later on. A servant directed him, and he found her
in the terrace garden. They had not met for nearly four months.
Miss Winterton gave him her hand with a smile, but seemed so entirely
unembarrassed that he could not flatter himself with the idea that she
had the least suspicion as to the nature of the errand which had
caused him to seek her out. That, however, in nowise served to turn
him from his purpose; and after a little talk on ordinary topics which
helped, as it were, to break the ice between them, he plunged at once
into the subject which just then was paramount with him. He began his
declaration in manly if somewhat commonplace terms, but had not
proceeded far before the stream of his eloquence was arrested by Miss
Winterton placing one of her hands on his sleeve with a gesture which
he could not mistake.
"Before you say a word more, Mr. Hazeldine, permit me to ask you one
question," she said, speaking with perfect quietude and without a
trace of irritation or annoyance. "Are you, or are you not, aware that
your father was not murdered, as everyone was led to believe, but
that, in point of fact, he put an end to his own existence? Because if
you are aware of it, do you think, taking all the circumstances of the
case into consideration, that, as an honorable man, you are justified
in asking me to become your wife?"
Had the ground opened at Edward Hazeldine's feet he could not have
been more startled and astounded. He knew not what to say, where to
look, what to do. Had his carefully-guarded secret, which he had
flattered himself was known but to four people, or, at the outside, to
five, become public property? If not, how had Miss Winterton become
possessed of it? But these were vain questions, and what he had now to
consider was the answer it behoved him to give to Miss Winterton. A
moment later he had made up his mind. There should be no more
double-dealing, or fencing with the truth on his part; he had
suffered enough from that sort of thing already.
"Yes, I am aware of it," he said, with the desperate calmness of a man
who finds himself in a position from which he sees no way of escape.
"I have known it from the first. But I am a moral coward, Miss
Winterton, and the consequences of telling the world what I knew would
have been so grievous to me and mine that I had not the courage to
avow the truth. You are right. I had no justification in speaking to
you as I did. I can only crave your forgiveness for my offence, and
assure you that you need have no fear of a repetition of it."
He raised his hat, made a more profound bow than ever he had made in
his life, and then turning on his heel, he strode slowly back towards
the house.
On previous occasions when he had dined at the Lodge it had nearly
always been his lot to take down Miss Winterton, but to-day it was a
relief to him to find himself relegated to Mrs. Wiggins, the wife of
the family lawyer, to whom he paid as much attention during the
progress of the meal as the somewhat confused State of his faculties
would allow of his doing.