The Beautiful Wretch - William Black (freda ebook reader .TXT) 📗

There was so much to win; so much to lose. He guessed that sooner or later the vagrant blood in Nan would drive her to seek the solitariness of the high cliffs over the sea.

It turned out differently, however. One squally and stormy morning he saw her leave the house, her ulster buttoned up, her hat well down over her brows. He let her pass the hotel, and slipped out afterwards. By and by she turned up into the town, and finally entered a stationer's shop, where there was a public library. No doubt she had merely come to order some books, he said to himself, downheartedly, and would go straight back again.

However, on coming out, he noticed her glance up at the driven sky, where the clouds were breaking here and there. Then she went down East Street towards the sea. Then she passed the Aquarium by the lower road. This he could not understand at all, as she generally kept to the cliffs.

He soon discovered her intention. There was a heavy sea rolling in; and she had always had a great delight in watching the big waves come swinging past the head of the Chain Pier. That, indeed, turned out to be her destination. When he had seen the slight, girlish-looking figure well away out there, he also went on the Pier, and followed.

It is needless to say that there was not a human being out there at the end. Tags and rags of flying clouds were sending showers of rain spinning across; between them great bursts of sunlight flooded the sea; and the vast green masses of water shone as they broke on the wooden piles and thundered on below. When he reached the head of the Pier, he found that Nan, who fancied herself entirely alone, was resting her two elbows on the bar, and so holding on her hat, as she looked down on the mighty volumes of water that broke and rushed roaring below.

He touched her on the shoulder; she jumped up with a start, and turned, growing a little pale as she confronted him. He, also, had an apprehensive look in his eyes--perhaps it was that that frightened her.

'Nothing has happened to Madge?' she said, quickly.

'No. But come over there to the shelter. I wish to show you a letter she has written.'

A few steps brought them to a sudden silence; it was like stepping from the outer air into a diving-bell.

'Nan, I want you to read this letter, and tell me if it is true.'

He gave it her; she read it; then slowly, very slowly, the one hand holding the letter dropped, and she stood there silent, her eyes downcast.

'Nan, I have loved you since the very first night I ever saw you. I tried to make believe that Madge was you; Madge herself has saved us from what might have happened through that desperate mistake. And you, Nan--you are free now--there is no one in the way--is it true what Edith says?'

'It isn't quite true,' said Nan, in a very low voice; and her fingers were making sad work with Madge's letter. 'I mean--if she means--what you can say--since the very first night that we met. But I think at least--it is true--since'--and here Nan looked up at him with her faithful eyes, and in them there was something that was neither laughing nor crying, but was strangely near to both--'since--since ever we parted at Como!'


CHAPTER XXIV.


'BRING HOME THE BRIDE SO FAIR!'

'Poor Jack!' that was all Madge's cry. She did not care what arrangement was being got up by the parents and guardians interested. She did not want her fortune settled on herself. To her it did not matter whether the brewery was in Southampton or in Jerusalem. All her piteous appeal was that her dear Jack should be got out of prison; and the opinion that she had formed of the gross tyranny, and cruelty, and obstinacy of English law was of a character that dare not be set forth here.

'What is the use of it?' she would say. 'What good can it do except to keep people miserable?'

'My dear child,' the sighing and sorely-troubled mother would answer, 'the Vice-Chancellor has admitted that it can do no good. But the authority of the Court must be vindicated----'

'It is nothing but a mean and contemptible revenge?' exclaimed Madge.

However, Mr. Tom took a much more cool and business-like view of the matter.

'When he is let out,' he remarked, 'I hope the Vice-chancellor will make the other side pay the costs of all these applications and proceedings. I don't see why we should pay, simply because Jack Hanbury went and made an ass of himself.'

'I beg you to remember that you are speaking of my husband?' said Madge, with a sudden fierceness.

'Oh, well, but didn't he?' Mr. Tom said. 'What was the use of bolting like that, when he knew he must be laid by the heels? Why didn't he go to his father and uncle to begin with, and get them to make this arrangement they have now, and then have gone to the chief clerk and showed him that there was no objection anywhere----'

'It was because you were all against him,' said poor Madge, beginning to cry. 'Everybody--everybody. And now he may be shut up there for a whole year--or two years----'

'Oh, but he isn't so badly off,' said Mr. Tom, soothingly. 'You can see they treat him very well. By Jingo, if it was the treadmill, now--that would exercise his toes for him. I tried it once in York Castle; and I can tell you when you find this thing pawing at you over your head it's like an elephant having a game with you. Never mind, Madge. Don't cry. Look here; I'll bet you five sovereigns to one that they let him out on the next application--that's for Thursday. Are you on?'

'Do you mean it?' she said, looking up.

'I do.'

It was wonderful how quickly the light came into her face.

'Then there is a chance?' she said. 'I can't believe the others; for they are only trying to comfort me. But if you would bet on it, Tom--then there's really a chance.'

'Bet's off. You should have snapped at it, Madge. Never mind, you'll have your dear Jack: that'll do instead.'

That afternoon Mary Beresford, now Mrs. Rupert, called, and Mr. Tom, with much dignity of manner, came into the room holding an open letter in his hand,

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'and friends assembled, I have a piece of news for you. Mr. Francis Holford King, late Commander in Her Majesty's Navy, has just contracted a--what d'ye call it?--kind of engagement with Miss Anne Beresford of that ilk. It strikes me this is what is termed consolation-stakes----'

'There you are quite wrong,' said Madge, promptly and cheerfully. 'He meant to make me the consolation-stakes: for it was Nan that he wanted to marry all the way through.'

'Well, I shall be glad to see you all married,' said Tom. 'I've had enough bother with you.'

'You look quite worn out,' his eldest sister remarked.

'At least,' he said, sitting down in an easy-chair and stretching out his legs, 'at least I have gained some wisdom. I see the puzzlement you girls are in who haven't got to earn your own living. You don't know what on earth to do with yourselves. You read Ruskin, and think you should be earnest; but you don't know what to be earnest about. Then you take to improving your mind; and cram your head full of earth-currents, and equinoxes, and eclipses of the moon. But what does it all come to? You can't do anything with it. Even if you could come and tell me that a lime-burner in Jupiter has thrown his wig into the fire, and so altered the spectrum, what's that to me? Then you have a go at philanthropy--that's more practical; Sunday-school teaching, mending children's clothes, doing for other people what they ought to do for themselves, and generally cultivating pauperism. Then, lo and behold! in the middle of all this there comes by a good-looking young fellow; and phew! all your grand ideas are off like smoke; and it's all "Dear Jack!" and "Dear Alfred!" and "I'll go to the ends of the earth with my sodger laddie!" Oh, I know what life is. I see you girls begin with all your fine ideas, and reading up, and earnestness----'

'I suppose, then, there is no such thing as the formation of character,' said his eldest sister, calmly.

'The formation of character!' exclaimed Mr. Tom. 'Out of books? Why, the only one among you who has any character worth mentioning is Nan. Do you think she got it out of books? No, she didn't. She got it--she got it----'

Here Mr. Tom paused for a second; but only to make a wilder dash.

'----out of the sunlight! There's a grand poetical idea for you. Nan has been more in the open than any of you; and the sunlight has filled her brain, and her mind, and her disposition altogether----'

'I presume that also accounts for the redness of her hair?' said Mrs. Rupert.

Tom rose to his feet. There was an air of resignation on his face as he left the room. He said, half to himself,

'Well, Nature was right in making me a man. I couldn't have mustered up half enough spite to make a passable woman.'

Now, the end of the Madge and Jack episode was in this wise. On the second application the Vice-Chancellor flatly refused to release the young man from prison. His gross offence had not yet been purged. It was quite true, his Lordship admitted, that the young lady and the guardians and relatives on both sides were also sharing in this punishment; and it was unfortunate. Moreover, arrangements had now been made which seemed to render the marriage a perfectly eligible one, if only it had been properly brought about. Nevertheless the Court could not overlook the young man's conduct; in prison he was; and in prison he must remain.

More tears on the part of Madge. More advice from Mr. Tom that she should go and plead with the Vice-Chancellor herself; he was sure her pretty, weeping eyes would soften the flintiest heart. Correspondence addressed by Captain Frank King to Admiral Sir George Stratherne, K.C.B., containing suggestions not in consonance with the lofty integrity of British courts of law.

Then, at last, the Vice-chancellor relented. Mr. Hanbury had given an undertaking to execute any settlement the Court might think fit with regard to the young lady's property. Then he must pay all costs of the proceedings, likewise the guardians' costs. This being so, his Lordship was disposed to take a merciful view of the case; and would make an order discharging the young man from prison.

'Oh, Jack,' poor Madge exclaimed, when he was restored to her, 'shall I ever forget what you have suffered for my sake?'

Jack looked rather foolish among all these people; but