ANOTHER RECOGNITION.
Lancelot Darrell came to Tolldale Priory upon the day after Richard’s
visit to Windsor, and it was easy for Eleanor, assisted by her
knowledge of what had transpired, to see the change in his manner.
She spent an hour in the drawing-room that morning for the purpose of
seeing this change, and thereby finding confirmation of that which
Richard Thornton had told her. But the alteration in the young man’s
manner must have been very obvious, for even Laura, who was not
particularly observant of any shades of feeling that did not make
themselves manifest by the outward expression of word or gesture,
perceived that there was something amiss with her lover, and drove
Launcelot Darrell well-nigh mad with her childish questionings and
lamentations.
Why was he so quiet? Why was he so much paler than usual? Why did he
sigh sometimes? Why did he laugh in that strange way? Oh, no, not in
his usual way. It was no use saying that it was so. Had he a headache?
Had he been sitting up late at night? Had he been drinking horrid wine
that had disagreed with him? Had he been a naughty, naughty, cruel,
false, treacherous boy, and had he been to some party that he hadn’t
told his poor Laura about, drinking champagne and flirting with girls,
and dancing, and all that? Or had he been working too much at his new
picture?
With such questions as these did the young lady harass and torment her
lover throughout that uncomfortable February morning; until at last Mr.
Darrell turned upon her in a rage, declaring that his head was nearly
split asunder, and plainly telling her to hold her tongue.
Indeed, Mr. Launcelot Darrell made very little effort to disguise his
feelings, but sat over the fire in a low easy chair, with his elbows
resting on his knees, and his handsome dark eyes bent moodily upon the
blaze. He roused himself now and then from a fit of gloomy thought to
snatch up the polished-steel poker, and plunge it savagely amongst the
coals, as if it was some relief to him to punish even them. Another
man might have feared the inferences which spectators might draw from
his conduct, but the principle upon which Launcelot Darrell’s life had
been based involved an utter contempt for almost every living creature
except himself, and he apprehended no danger from the watchfulness of
the inferior beings about him.
Laura Mason, sitting on a low ottoman at his feet, and employed in
working a pair of embroidered slippers—the third pair she had begun
for the use of her future lord and master—thought him more like the
Corsair to-day than ever; but thought at the same time that some
periods of Medora’s existence must have been rather dreary. No doubt it
was Conrad’s habit to sit and stare at the coals, and to poke the fire
savagely when things went amiss with him; when his favourite barque was
scuttled by a mutinous crew, or his cargo confiscated by the minions of
the law.
Launcelot Darrell was engaged to dine at the Priory upon this 16th of
February. Mr. Monckton had invited him, in order that some matters
connected with Laura’s fortune might be discussed.
“It is fully time we should understand each other, Darrell,” the lawyer
said; “so I shall expect you to give me a couple of hours in my study
this evening after dinner, if you’ve no objection.”
Of course Mr. Darrell had no objection, but he had an almost spiteful
manner that day in his intercourse with poor Laura, who was bewildered
by the change in him.
“You think it’s strange that I should dislike all this ceremony about
settlements and allowance. Yes, Laura, _that’s_ a pleasant word,
isn’t it? Your guardian honoured me by telling me he should make us a
handsome allowance for the first few years of our married life. You
think I ought to take kindly to this sort of thing, I dare say, and
drop quietly into my position of genteel pauperism, dependent upon my
pencil, or my wife, for the dinner I eat, and the coat I wear. No,
Laura,” cried the young man, passionately, “I don’t take kindly to it;
I can’t stand it. The thought of my position enrages me against myself,
against you, against everybody and everything in the world.”
Launcelot Darrell talked thus to his betrothed while Richard and
Eleanor were both in the room; the scene-painter sitting in a window
making furtive sketches with a fat little stump of lead pencil upon
the backs of divers letters; Mrs. Monckton standing at another window
looking out at the leafless trees, the black flowerless garden beds,
the rain-drops hanging on the dingy firs and evergreens.
Mr. Darrell knew that he was overheard; but he had no wish that it
should be otherwise. He did not care to keep his grievances a secret.
The egotism of his nature exhibited itself in this. He gave himself
the airs of a victim, and made a show of despising the benefits he was
about to accept from his confiding betrothed. He in a manner proclaimed
himself injured by the existence of his future wife’s fortune; and he
forced her to apologize to him for the prosperity which she was about
to bestow upon him.
“As if it was being a pauper to take my money,” cried Miss Mason, with
great tenderness, albeit in rather obscure English; “as if I grudged
you the horrid money, Launcelot. Why, I don’t even know how much I’m
to have. It may be fifty pounds a-year—that’s what I’ve had to buy my
dresses and things since I was fifteen—or it may be fifty thousand. I
don’t want to know how much it is. If it _is_ fifty thousand a-year,
you’re welcome to it, Launcelot, darling.”
“Launcelot darling” shrugged his shoulders with a peevish gesture,
which exhibited him rather as a discontented darling.
“You talk like a baby, Laura,” he said, contemptuously; “I suppose the
‘handsome allowance’ Mr. Monckton promises will be about two or three
hundred a year, or so; something that I’m to eke out by my industry.
Heaven knows he has preached to me enough about the necessity of being
industrious. One would think that an artist was a bricklayer or a
stonemason, to hear him talk.”
Eleanor turned away from the window as Launcelot Darrell said this; she
could not suffer her husband to be undefended while she was by.
“I have no doubt whatever Mr. Monckton said was right, Mr. Darrell,”
she exclaimed, lifting her head proudly, as if in defiance of any voice
that should gainsay her husband’s merits.
“No doubt, Mrs. Monckton; but there’s a certain sledgehammer-like way
of propounding that which is right that isn’t always pleasant. I don’t
want to be reminded that an artist’s calling is a trade, and that when
the Graces bless me with a happy thought I must work like a slave until
I’ve hammered it out upon canvas and sent it into the market for sale.”
“Some people think the Graces are propitiated by hard labour,” Richard
Thornton said, quietly, without raising his eyes from his rapid pencil,
“and that the happiest thoughts are apt to come when a man has his
brush in his hand, rather than when he is lying on a sofa reading
French novels; though I have known artists who preferred that method of
waiting for inspiration. For my own part, I believe in the inspiration
that grows out of patient labour.”
“Yes,” Mr. Darrell answered, with an air of lazy indifference,—an
air which plainly expressed that he disdained to discuss art-topics
with a scene-painter, “I dare say you find it answer—in your line.
You must splash over a good deal of canvas before you can produce a
transformation-scene, I suppose?”
“Peter Paul Rubens got over a good deal of canvas,” said Richard, “and
Raffaello Sanzio d’Urbino did something in that way, if we may judge by
the cartoons and a few other trifles.”
“Oh, of course, there were giants in those days. I don’t aspire to
rival any such Patagonians. I don’t see why people should be compelled
to walk through a picture-gallery a mile long before they can pronounce
an opinion upon a painter’s merits. I should be very well contented if
my chance with posterity rested upon half-a-dozen pictures no bigger
than Millais’s ‘Huguenots;’ and as good.”
“And I’m sure you could do dozens and dozens as good as that,” cried
Laura. “Why, it’s only a lady tying a scarf round her lover’s arm, and
a lot of green leaves. Of course it’s very pretty, you know, and one
feels very much for her, poor thing, and one’s afraid that he’ll let
those cruel Catholics kill him, and that she’ll die broken-hearted. But
you could paint lots of pictures like that, Launcelot, if you chose.”
The young man did not condescend to notice his affianced wife’s
art-criticism. He relapsed into gloomy silence, and once more betook
himself to that savage kind of consolation afforded by a sturdy
exercise of the poker.
“But, Launcelot,” pleaded Miss Mason, presently, “I’m sure you needn’t
be unhappy about my having money, and your being poor. There’s Mr. de
Crespigny’s fortune, you know; he can’t be shameful and wicked enough
to leave it to any one but you. My guardian said, only the other day,
that he thought it would be left to you.”
“Oh, ah, to be sure,” muttered Mr. Darrell, moodily; “there’s _that_
chance, of course.”
“He couldn’t leave Woodlands to those two old maids, you know,
Launcelot, could he?”
To the surprise of the two listeners, Richard Thornton and Eleanor, the
young man burst into a harsh disdainful laugh.
“My respected maiden aunts!” he exclaimed; “poor devils, they’ve had a
nice time of it.”
Until this moment Richard and Eleanor had most firmly believed that
the will which disinherited Launcelot Darrell bequeathed the Woodlands
fortune to the two maiden sisters, Lavinia and Sarah de Crespigny;
but the young man’s disdainful laugh, and the contemptuous, yet
half-pitying tone in which he spoke of the two sisters, plainly
revealed that if he knew the secret of the disposal of Maurice de
Crespigny’s fortune, and knew that it was not left to himself, he knew
also that equal disappointment and mortification awaited his aunts.
He had been in the habit of speaking of them with a savage though
suppressed animosity. To-day his tone was utterly changed. He had a
malicious pleasure, no doubt, in thinking of the disappointment in
store for them; and he could afford now to feel a kind of disdainful
compassion for all their wasted labours, their useless patience.
But to whom, then, could the fortune be left?
Eleanor and Richard looked at each other in amazement. It might have
been supposed that the old man had left his wealth to Eleanor herself,
influenced by the caprice that had induced him to attach himself to
her, because of her likeness to his dead friend. But this could not
be, for the invalid had distinctly declared that he should leave
nothing but George Vane’s miniature to his new favourite; and Maurice
de Crespigny was not a man to say one thing and mean another. He had
spoken of a duty to be fulfilled, a duty which he was determined to
perform.
Yet, to whom could he possibly owe any duty, except to his kindred? Had
he any other relations except his three nieces and Launcelot Darrell?
He might have other claims upon him. He might have some poor and
modest kindred who had kept aloof from him, and refrained from paying
court to him, and whose forbearance he might choose to reward in an
unlooked-for, unthought-of manner.
And again, he might have bequeathed his money to some charitable
institution, or in trust for some new scheme of philanthropy. Such
a course would scarcely be strange in a lonely old man, who in his
nearest relations might only recognize eager, expectant harpies keeping
anxious watch for the welcome hour of his death.
Eleanor Monckton did not trouble herself much about this question. She
believed, from Launcelot Darrell’s manner, that Richard Thornton had
drawn the right inference from the meeting of the young man and the
lawyer’s clerk.
She believed implicitly that Launcelot Darrell’s name was omitted from
his great-uncle’s last will, and that he knew it.
This belief inspired her with a new feeling. She could afford to be
patient now. If Maurice de Crespigny should die suddenly, he would not
die leaving his wealth to enrich the traitor who had cheated a helpless
old man. Her only thought now must be to prevent Laura’s marriage; and
for this she must look to her husband, Gilbert Monckton.
“He will never let the girl whose destiny has been confided to him
marry a bad man,” she thought; “I have only to tell him the story of my
father’s death, and to prove to him Launcelot Darrell’s guilt.”
The dinner went off very quietly. Mr. Monckton was reserved and silent,
as it had lately become his habit to be. Launcelot Darrell had still
the gloomy, discontented air that had made him a very unpleasant
companion throughout that day. The young man was not a hypocrite, and
had no power of concealing his feelings. He could tell any number of
lies that might be necessary for his own convenience or safety; but
he was not a hypocrite. Hypocrisy involves a great deal of trouble on
the part of those who practise it: and is, moreover, the vice of a man
who sets no little value upon the opinion of his fellow-creatures. Mr.
Darrell was of a listless and lazy temperament, and nourished in utter
abhorrence of all work, either physical or mental. On the other hand,
he had so good an opinion of himself as to be tolerably indifferent to
the opinions of others.
If he had been accused of a crime he would have denied having committed
it, for his own sake. But he never troubled himself to consider what
other people might think of him, so long as their opinion had no power
to affect his personal comfort or safety.
The cloth had been removed; for old fashions held their ground at
Tolldale Priory, where a dinner _à la Russe_ would have been looked
upon as an absurd institution, more like a child’s feast of fruit
and flowers, cakes and sugar-plums, than a substantial meal intended
for sensible people. The cloth had been removed, and that dreary
ceremonial, a good old English dessert, was in progress, when a servant
brought Launcelot Darrell a card upon a salver, and presented it to him
solemnly, amid the silence of the company.
The young man was sitting next Eleanor Monckton, and she saw that the
card was of a highly glazed and slippery nature and of an abnormal
size, between the ordinary sizes of a gentleman’s and a lady’s card.
The blood rushed to Launcelot Darrell’s forehead as he read the name
upon the card, and Eleanor saw his under lip contract with a sudden
movement, expressive of intense vexation.
“How did this—this gentleman come here?” he asked, turning to the
servant.
“The gentleman has driven over from Hazlewood, sir. Hearing you were
dining here, he came on to see you, he says; is he to be shown into the
drawing-room?”
“Yes—no: I’ll come out and see him. Will you excuse me, Mr.
Monckton: this is an old acquaintance of mine? Rather a pertinacious
acquaintance, as you may perceive by his manner of following me up
to-night.”
Mr. Darrell rose, pushed aside his chair, and went out of the
dining-room, followed by the servant.
The hall was brilliantly lighted, and in the few moments during
which the servant slowly followed Launcelot Darrell, Eleanor had an
opportunity of seeing the stranger who had come to the Priory.
He was standing under the light of the large gas-lamp, shaking
the rain-drops from his hat, and with his face turned towards the
dining-room door.
He was short and stout, smartly dressed, and foppish-looking even
in his travelling costume; and he was no other than the talkative
Frenchman who had persuaded George Vane to leave his daughter alone
upon the Boulevard on the night of August 11th, 1853.