THE LAST.
Gilbert Monckton seconded his wife in all she wished to do. There
was no scandal. All legal formalities were gone through very
quietly. Those troublesome people who require to be informed as to
the business of their neighbours, were told that a codicil had been
found, which revoked the chief clause of Mr. de Crespigny’s will. Mr.
Peter Sedgewick and Mrs. Bannister were ready to perform all acts
required of them; though the lady expressed considerable surprise at
her half-sister’s unexpected accession of wealth. Eleanor Monckton
entered into possession of the estates. The impulsive girl, having once
forgiven her father’s enemy, would fain have surrendered the fortune
to him into the bargain—but practical, matter-of-fact people were at
hand to prevent her being too generous. Mrs. Darrell and her son went
to Italy, and Mrs. Monckton, with her husband’s concurrence, made the
young man a very handsome allowance, which enabled him to pursue his
career as an artist. He worked very hard and with enthusiasm. The shame
of the past gave an impetus to his pencil. His outraged self-esteem
stood him his friend, and he toiled valiantly to redeem himself from
the disgrace that had fallen upon him.
“If I am a great painter, they will remember nothing against me,”
he said to himself; and though it was not in him to become a great
painter, he became a popular painter; a great man for the Royal
Academy, and the West-End engravers, if only a small man for future
generations, who will choose the real gems out of the prodigal wealth
of the present. Mr. Darrell’s first success was a picture which he
called “The Earl’s Death,” from a poem of Tennyson’s, with the motto,
“Oh, the Earl was fair to see,”—a preternaturally ugly man lying at
the feet of a preternaturally hideous woman, in a turret chamber
lighted by lucifer matches—the blue and green light of the lucifers
on the face of the ugly woman, and a pre-Raphaelite cypress seen,
through the window; and I am fain to say that although the picture was
ugly, there was a strange weird attraction in it, and people went
to see it again and again, and liked it, and hankered after it, and
talked of it perpetually all that season; one faction declaring that
the lucifer-match effect was the most delicious moonlight, and the
murderess of the Earl the most lovely of womankind, till the faction
who thought the very reverse of this became afraid to declare their
opinions, and thus everybody was satisfied.
So Launcelot Darrell received a fabulous price for his picture, and,
having lived without reproach during three years of probation, came
home to marry Laura Mason Lennard, who had been true to him all this
time, and who would have rather liked to unite her fortunes with those
of a modern Cartouche or Jack Sheppard for the romance of the thing.
And although the artist did not become a good man all in a moment,
like the repentant villain of a stage play, he did take to heart the
lesson of his youth. He was tenderly affectionate to the mother who had
suffered so much by reason of his errors; and he made a very tolerable
husband to a most devoted little wife.
Monsieur Victor Bourdon was remunerated, and very liberally—for his
_services_, and was told to hold his tongue. He departed for Canada
soon afterwards, in the interests of the patent mustard, and never
reappeared in the neighbourhood of Tolldale Priory.
Eleanor insisted on giving up Woodlands for the use of Mr. Darrell, his
wife, and mother. Signora Picirillo lived with her nephew and his merry
little wife in the pretty house at Brixton; but she paid very frequent
visits to Tolldale Priory, sometimes accompanied by Richard and Mrs.
Richard, sometimes alone. Matrimony has a very good effect upon the
outward seeming of the scene-painter: for his young wife initiated
him in the luxury of shirt-buttons as contrasted with pins; to say
nothing of the delights of a shower-bath, and a pair of ivory-backed
hair-brushes, presented by Eleanor as a birthday present to her old
friend. Richard at first suggested that the ivory-backed brushes
should be used as chimney ornaments in the Brixton drawing-room: but
afterwards submitted to the popular view of the subject, and brushed
his hair. Major and Mrs. Lennard were also visitors at Tolldale, and
Laura knew the happiness of paternal and maternal love—the paternal
affection evincing itself in the presentation of a great deal of
frivolous jewellery, purchased upon credit; the maternal devotion
displaying itself in a wild admiration of Launcelot Darrell’s son
and heir, a pink-faced baby, who made his appearance in the year
1861, and who was in much better drawing than the “Dying Gladiator,”
exhibited by Mr. Darrell in the same year. Little children’s voices
sounded by-and-by in the shady pathways of the old-fashioned Priory
garden, and in all Berkshire there was not a happier woman than Gilbert
Monckton’s beautiful young wife.
And, after all, Eleanor’s Victory was a proper womanly conquest, and
not a stern, classical vengeance. The tender woman’s heart triumphed
over the girl’s rash vow; and poor George Vane’s enemy was left to the
only Judge whose judgments are always righteous.
THE END.
London: Printed by H. BLACKLOCK & CO., Allen Street, Goswell Road, E.C.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 41 Changed: a bottle of Cliquot’s champagne
to: a bottle of Clicquot’s champagne
pg 80 Changed: Signor Picirillo for the first time
to: Signora Picirillo for the first time
pg 86 Changed: Signor Picirillo—who was a teacher
to: Signora Picirillo—who was a teacher
pg 111 Changed: arpeggios, and cinquepated passages
to: arpeggios, and syncopated passages
pg 196 Changed: again and again, in these mercenery days
to: again and again, in these mercenary days
pg 210 Changed: shelter of a great clump of crysanthemums.
to: shelter of a great clump of chrysanthemums.
pg 213 Changed: Veuve Cliquot at the Trois Frères
to: Veuve Clicquot at the Trois Frères
pg 223 Changed: bounded by fragile white pailings
to: bounded by fragile white palings
pg 251 Changed: and Raffaelle Sanzio d’Urbino did something
to: and Raffaello Sanzio d’Urbino did something
pg 329 Changed: who could play cinquapated passages in time
to: who could play syncopated passages in time
pg 368 Changed: a little more St. Jaques
to: a little more St. Jacques