MR. SHARPE MAKES A MISTAKE.
Maude, though she knew not then the reason, had seen how Hester
Maule, after coming from the conservatory, with a kind of good-night
bow to Skene, had abruptly quitted the dancers, and looking pale,
ill, and utterly out of spirits, had retired to her own room, whither
she soon accompanied her; but failing to learn the reason of her
discomposure, was returning downstairs to have one last turn with
Jack Elliot, when she suddenly met Mr. Hawkey Sharpe, the result of
whose attentions to the wine in the refreshment-room was pretty
apparent in his face and watery gray eyes, and he paused unsteadily
with a hand on the great oaken banisters.
As Maude came tripping down the broad stone staircase with leisurely
grace and clad in a soft and most becoming dress, one of those 'whose
apparently inexpensive simplicity men innocently admire, and over the
bills for which husbands and fathers wag their heads aghast,' he
glanced appreciatively at her snowy neck and shoulders, where her
girlish plumpness hid even the small collar-bones; at her beautiful,
blooming face, her sunny hair; her petulant, scornful mouth, and
delicate profile; while she, with some remembrance of how he had
acquitted himself among the dancers, and when waltzing, in attempting
to reverse, had spread dismay around him, for a moment felt inclined
to smile.
Wine gave Hawkey Sharpe fresh courage, and just then some new
thoughts had begun to occur to him.
He had seen that--unlike young Malcolm Skene, who hovered about
Hester like her shadow, and unlike Roland, who was never absent from
the side of Annot--Captain Elliot and Maude were not apparently
overmuch together; for in the assured position of their love and
engagement they seemed in society very much like other persons. He
was ignorant of the mystery that there could be
'Sighs the deeper for suppression,
And stolen glances sweeter for the theft,'
and in the coarseness of his nature and lack of fine perception he
mistook the situation, and began to think that, notwithstanding all
he heard mooted, and notwithstanding the fact of seeing a letter
addressed in Maude's handwriting to the gentleman in question, there
might be 'nothing in it,' but perhaps an incipient flirtation; and he
had resolved on the first opportune occasion to renew his
pretensions, as the Captain had evidently danced much with other
girls--perhaps, he thought, had preferred them--during the past night.
And now it seemed the time had come; and, over and above all his
extreme assurance, he thought to win through her terror and necessity
of temporizing for appearance' sake what she never might yield to any
regard for himself; and even now, as he prepared to address her,
anger, fear, and a sickly sense of humiliation suddenly came into the
heart of Maude, though a moment before it had been beating happily
with thoughts that were all her own.
'I hope,' said he, with what he meant for a smile, but was more like
a grimace, 'that you enjoyed the dancing to-night, Miss Lindsay?'
'Thanks,' replied Maude curtly. 'I hope you, too, have been amused,'
she added, making a side step to pass, but, as on a previous
occasion, he barred the way, and said:
'I did not venture to ask you for one dance, even.'
Maude, who deemed his presence there, though at the invitation most
probably of her stepmother, presumption enough, smiled coldly and
haughtily, and was about to pass down with a bow, which might mean
anything, when, still opposing her progress, he said, while eyeing
her fair beauty with undisguised admiration, and with a would-be soft
voice, which, however, was rather 'feathery':
'Have you quite forgotten the subject on which I last addressed you?'
'The subject!'
'Yes.'
'I have not forgotten your profound presumption, Mr. Sharpe, as I
then called it, if it is to that you refer,' replied Maude, trembling
with anger.
'Presumption! You so style my veneration--my regard--my----'
'Take care what you say, sir, and how you may provoke my extreme
patience too far,' interrupted Maude, her face now blanched and pale.
'Your patience! _that_ for it!' said he, suddenly snapping his
fingers, and giving way to a sudden gust of coarse anger that caused
his cheeks to redden and his eyes to gleam. 'It is your fear of
me--your fear of me for your brother and his popinjay friends that
gives you what you pretend to call patience, Maude Lindsay, and by
the heavens above us,' he continued, wine and rage mounting into his
brain together, 'by the heavens above us, I say, if that fellow
Elliot--
What he was about to say remains unknown, as it was suddenly cut
short. A hand from behind was laid firmly on his right ear, and by
that he was twisted round, flaming with rage, fury, and no small
amount of pain, to find himself confronted by the calm, stern, and
inquiring face of the very person he referred to--Captain Elliot.
There was a half-minute's pause after the latter flung Hawkey Sharpe
aside.
The steward glared at his assailant, who scarcely knew what to make
of the situation, a sound like a hiss escaping through his teeth in
his speechless rage and sense of affront, he clenched his hands till
the spiky nails pierced his flesh. He grew deadly pale, and, with an
almost grotesque expression of hate there is no describing in his
pale, shifty, and watery eyes, he turned away muttering something
deeply and huskily; while with a smile of disdain Jack Elliot drew
the trembling girl's arm through his own and led her downstairs; but
her dancing was over for that night.
'Maudie, darling, is that fellow mad? What the deuce is all this
about?' asked Elliot, full of concern and surprise.
'Jack, dear Jack,' said Maude beseechingly, and in tears now, 'I
implore you not to speak to Roland of this unseemly episode.'
'The fellow seems to have taken too much wine.'
'Yes, Jack, and forgot himself.'
'But he should have remembered you, and who you are.'
'But you don't know--you can't know, how Roland is situated,' said
Maude, in a breathless and broken voice.
'I suspect much; but there--don't weep, Maude; the fellow's whole
existence is not worth one of your tears.'
Maude was full of fear and distress for what might ensue if Roland
knew all. Alas! she could very little foresee what _did_ ensue.
But notwithstanding his promise to Maude, Elliot was too puzzled by
the apparent mystery, and her too evident sense of grief and
mortification, not to make some small reference to the affair when he
and Roland met for a farewell cigar in the smoke-room, after the last
of the guests had driven away. He kept, however, Maude's name out of
the matter.
'I am loth, Roland, to have an unseemly row with one of your
dependents; but, d--n me, if I don't feel inclined to lash that
fellow--Sharpe, I think, his name is!'
'He is certainly an underbred fellow,' said Roland uneasily.
'Then why not send him to the right-about?'
'Easier said than done, Jack--if you knew all,' said Roland, almost
with a groan; 'but has he been rude to you?'
'To me--well--yes, in a way he has.'
'With all his impudent would-be air of ease, it is evident he has
none, as one may see at a glance,' said Skene, who had been smoking
moodily in a corner, 'he is a man who does not know what to do with
his legs and arms, or to seem in any way at ease like a gentleman.'
'I feel at times that I would like to kick the fellow,' said Roland,
with a sudden gush of anger, 'when he sits with that aggravating
smile and see-nothing look on his face, yet "taking stock" of
everyone and everything all round--all the while answering me so
softly, when he knows that I am burning with contempt and dislike of
him. If he would get into a passion and fly out I would respect him
more, but he seems to be for ever biding his time--his time for
what?' added Roland, almost to himself.
'Passion? You should have seen him to-night!' said Elliot, who,
unfortunately for himself, had not yet seen the tail of the storm he
had roused; 'but why give him house-room, I say?'
'He is just now a necessary evil--a little time, Jack, and you shall
know all,' replied Roland in a somewhat dejected voice; so Elliot
said no more.
Meantime the subject of these remarks had betaken him to his own
apartments, and certainly as he had ascended the old hollowed steps
of the turret stair that led thereto they seemed, according to the
Earlshaugh legend, to lead down rather than up.
'I'll be even with you, Miss Maude Lindsay, some fine day--see if I
am not!' he muttered as he went; 'your high and mighty hoity-toity
airs will be the ruin of you and yours. And as for that fellow
Elliot, I'll take change out of him--make cold meat of him, by
heaven, if I can!'
Sobered by rage he reached his peculiar sanctum, and sat down there
to scheme out revenge, through the medium of a briar-root from his
rack of pipes, and brandy and soda from a cellarette he possessed.
'I'll marry that girl Maude--or--by Jove! not a bad idea, the _other_
one, with the golden hair, if old Deb fails me, which I can scarcely
think. The little party with the golden hair seems game for
anything,' he added, showing more acuteness than Roland in the
matter. 'Why shouldn't I? I am going in for respectability now, and
I rather flatter myself I am as good as any of that Brummagem lot
downstairs, for all their coats of arms, pedigrees, and bosh! I'm in
clover here--in society now, and, by Jove, I'll keep to it. But,
Deb,' he continued talking aloud, as the new beverage cast loose his
tongue, 'her heart is in a bad way--devil a doubt of that! The
doctors assure me of it--is breaking up--breaking up--tell more to me
than they have done to her; and that she may go off any time like a
farthing candle! Poor Deb--she is not half a bad sort--yet I wish
she would settle her little affairs and----'
A sound made him look round, and he saw his sister looking
pale--white indeed--and weary, with an unpleasant expression in her
cold, deep eyes, and a palpable knit on her usually smooth and
lineless forehead.
'How much had she overheard?' was Hawkey's first fearful thought.
'My dear Deb,' he stammered, 'I was just thinking that you should
make the whole of that pack clear out of the house--they are too much
for you, and the house is yours! Have a little brandy and water,
Deb--you look so ill! Poor, dear Deb,' he continued in a maudlin
way, 'if anything happened to you, you know how I should sorrow for
it.'
'I have no intention of affording you that opportunity yet,' she
replied, with something of a flash in her eyes.