MARIETTA'S MARRIAGE

Evening Star, Issue 10435, 2 October 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

MARIETTA'S MARRIAGE

W. E. Noebk.3

i[COPVRIGfiT.] ’ 'CHAPTER XXXV. A FOE IK NEED. Vigne sat on the grassy bank Vhere he had been left, with his elbows upon *his knees and his chin supported by his ’folded hands. He said to himself that this da a poor sort of world, that a plain man, who would fain do his duty, has not much ■chance in it against the rascals who form the majority of its inhabitants, and that the 'ways of Providence always supposing ■Providence to take more interest than is apparent in a planet so insignificant und so ‘iniquitous ara past comprehension. It would be so simple and so manifestly just to .-■nUow each poor mortal a fair start! Equipped with a conscience and a will of moderate strength, who can say that most •of us would not be in a position to resist the aery darts of mankind’s enemy ? What ■reasonable explanation can there be of the ■enigma of heredity ? Why are the sins of the fathers (and the mothers} tt> be visited mpon their unoffending children? The 'Colonel scratched his ear and muttered that dw was hanged if he knew. He added that ithis sort of thing was enough to make a man •doubt the truth of everything that he had ■been taught. But as he was a sensible, practical old tellow he soon recognised the inutility of vexing his brains over problems which never mave been and never can be solved, and turned hia nttvmtion to the question of what wn circumstances could be done. course, he could speak to Lionel «nd to&e his chance of Slrahau’s threatened •retaliation. He might even forestall Strahan honestly confessing what he had hitherto 'shrunk from revealing. But there were several strong objections to that straightforward course. To begin with, he owed something to the memory of his dead wife ; ’ then, too, he could not bear the thought of affixing a stigma to his innocent daughter ; dually, he felt a not unnatural reluctance to •avow that he had withheld a statement aVhioh certainly ought to have been made 'before Marietta’s marriage. “•It just comes to this,” he concluded (ruefully, “ that I am absolutely helpless ! •Short of shooting the fellow there’s no getting rid of him—and he evidently don’t •mean to-let me have a shot at him. Upon •my word and honor I’ve more than half a oniad to put a bullet into my own head ! ” The sound of an approaching footfall broke ■the thread of these dismal meditations, and be glanced up with some impatience at the ’intruder, a email, aeedy-looking man in a ■threadbare «oat, who presently came to a ‘Standstill in front of him and said, in hesitating, deprecating accents: “ I beg your kpardon, sir.”

What for ? ” asked the Colonel curtly. !?or taking the liberty of addressing replied the stranger, with disarming meekness. “But I had sat down to rest in the wood a short distance above you, and I saw—l could not help seeing—the—er— inter—view which took place just now between you and Mr Strahan. And something of what you said—which was spoken rather loudly—came to my ears.” The devil it did ! ” thought the Colonel. ‘Here’s a nice complication !” He knitted his brows and stared at the eavesdropper who had probably heard him own that Strahan had it in his power to do him a great injury. “ Well, sir, what then?” ibe asked, in a stern tone of voice.

The man’s red eyelids blinked rapidly and His nose also was red, and he ‘had the unhealthy complexion of a confirmed tippler. The ragged beard and moustache •which'concealed the lower part of his face ■were streaked with grey hairs which had 'evidently arrived before they were due, ***!_ he wore that indescribable air of having been repeatedly kicked which lends pathos to the aspect of many a vagrant mongrel. “ Oh, nothing,” he made haste to reply—“nothing at all, I assure you! I merely gathered from your manner and from your shaking your fist in his face that—that—in short that he is not a friend of yours.” The Colonel laughed. “One doesn’t usually shake one’s fist in the face of one’s friend,” he agreed. “No; Mr Strahan is not a friend of mine ; I make you welcome to that piece of information. Perhaps you are going to inform me in return that he isn’t a friend of yours?” “ Sir,” replied the stranger, with a good deal of tremulous earnestness, “ I can only tell you that if there is a muu on earth whom J shill rejoice to see in hell that man is Boland Strahan.”

’‘l should think you might count upon meeting him there,” observed the Colonel, Who was not greatly fascinated with hia interlocutor ; “ but the ohances are that you will have to wait a good many years. You don't appear to mo to have taken as much oare of your health as he has of his.” "It is he,” replied the other, spreading out his hands tragically, “ he, and nobody else, who has made me what I am ! Can you wonder that my heart warms to any enemy of hia?” He added, presently, as the old gentleman displayed no symptom of reciprocal warmth; “My name is Brydon.”

“I am sorry to tell you,” returned Colonel Vigne, “ that that says nothing to me.”

“ Ah 1 I thought you might possibly have heard. But no doubt it has become an old and forgotten story, and I dare say Lord Middlewood, who always made much of Strahan, doesn’t often care to allude to what took place during their last term at Oxford. A scapegoat was found—l was the scapeboab —and nobody can have expected that my turn would ever come. It has come now, though,” concluded the stranger, slapping his breast pocket significantly and exultantly. Upon this the Colonel pricked up his ears. “ I know who you are now,” said he ; “ you are the ex-undergraduate who was believed to have been the cause of that unfortunate girl’s suicide, and who disappeared rather than give evidence at the inquest. Am Ito understand that you can now prove your innocence?”

The man nodded. “ More than that, sir, I can prove Strahan’s guilt. I have in my pocket letters from him to Maggie Field which place the matter beyond a doubt. Even at the time I had suspicions of him—very strong suspicions.” “ Then why the dickens did you run away, man?” the Colonel asked bluntly. “ Becauselmigbthavebeenguilty—several people, I believe, might have been guilty—and because that devil frightened the life out of me. He pretended to advise measafriend; he said there was evidence against me and none against anybody else, and that I had better be off, unless I wanted to be put upon my trial for manslaughter. I have heard since that such a charge couldn’t have been made ; but he assured me that it could, and he seemed to know all about it. Sol believed him, and rushed upon my own ruin. I should tell you that I have no near relations, and only a very small fortune of my own to live up. My uncle, who is a clergyman, and who meant me to take orders, paid my university expenses, but that scandal gave him an excuse for washing his hands of me, wmch I don’t suppose he was very sorry to have. Anyhow, when 1 thought it safe to write to him, his reply was that I had exhausted his benevolence, and must take the consequences of my actions. That meant ruin—neither more nor less. What hope could there be for such a man as I am, without ono single friend to lend him a helping hand, and scarcely enough money to keep him in—in ” “In liquor?” suggested the Colonel. He could not help despising this trembling, prematurely old creature, who certainly did not look like a man for whom, under any circumstances, there could have been very much hope. The unfortunate Brydon exhibited no resentment. “ Oh, I’m a drunkard,” he confessed. “ I don’t deny it; there would be very little use in my denying it, I suppose. Besides, I don’t care who knows what I am. There is only one thing in the world that I do care for now,” he continued, fn more resolute accents, “and that is to pay out the man who has driven me to drink and beggary.” “ Ah! and you think you can pay”him out?” “ It’s no question of thinking, sir; I know I can. These letters which I have in my pocket would be enough to damn him in any court of law. Of course I know now that that talk about a trial for manslaughter was

tetltiOhsenso, and that he isn’t open to any legal form of punishment; but I take it that he can be ruined, nevertheless. Once let him be dropped by his aristocratic friends, who would be obliged to drop him if the 1 truth came out, and you may be sure that it won't be very long before he has to resign his secretaryship and all his ambitions frith it. If you’ll allow me I'll sit dofrxt, for 1 arti not in very good health, and it rhakeh my head swim to”talk While I arti,standing.” Seating himself upoi the bank, he proceeded With his revelations, which were of ttn interesting charhcter. He knew quite well, ’it, appeared, who Colonel Vigne was, and ho allowed it to be inferred that he also kftofr why Lady Middlewood’s f vthcr would ‘hot be sorry to be provided with the means of crushing Strahan. Such mn&hfcv he said, existed, and wero obtainable Upon easy terras.

“You must Understand,” he explained, “ that I realised long ago how 1 had been fooled, and that I have been hungering and thirsting for revenge all this time. But what hope could I have ? I had done for myself by absconding, and to prove that that villain ought to have absconded, instead of me, seemed the wildcat of impossibilities. A 11*1 could do was to keep a constant eye upon him, trusting that he might end by committing some other infamy which I should be able to discover and expose. But one morning what should I see in the papers but an advertisement imploring W.B. to communicate at once with Bessie F., who was dying, and who wished to put him in the way of clearing his character of an unfounded charge, 1 could not doubt that this was a message to William Brydon from Bessie Field-, Maggie’s elder sister, and I reached OxYotd just iu time to see the poor girl before she died. What she told me was Very much what I had expected to hear, 'except that her motive for having kept Silence and indeed perjured herself at the Inquest, was rather an odd one. She was a great deal older than Maggie—more than ten years, I believe—and not at all goodlooking ; bo one would scarcely have conjectured that she would have fallen in love with Strahan. However, there is no accounting for the eccentricities of women or what they will lead to, and it seems that, in spite of all she knew and could have proved, she preferred letting an innocent man suffer to injuring a scoundrel who had never looked twice at her. It was only when she found herself at the point of death that she was seized with pangs of remorse and put that advertisement into the papers. Even then she begged me to be generous and not to use the letters which she felt bound to hand over to me in such a way as to blight Strahan’s career. I said I would be as generous to him as he had been to me.”

“ The letters,” said Colonel Vigne, “ are conclusive, I presume ?” “ Absolutely conclusive. The earlier ones contain a promise of marriage, in view of certain contingencies ; the later ones ridicule such an idea, and remind her that she has no character to lose. That was true enough; she hadn’t much character left at the time when he made her acquaintance. All the same, she was true to him, 1 believe, and it was undoubtedly his cruelty that drove her to commit suicide.”

“ It isn’t a very pretty story,” remarked the Colonel, musingly. “Still, I should scarcely like to say that it was Strahan’a duty to marry such a young woman as you describe.”

“ That’s not the question. What I imagine that Strahan would give a good deal to keep dark is the fact that he deliberately got behind another man’s back to screen himself, and that he has ruined that other man quite as effectually as he did poor Maggie Field.” “ I suppose he would.” “Not a doubt of it! And to be quite frank with you, sir, my intention was to intercept him this very afternoon and ask him how much he was prepared to give for the letters which I have in my pocket. As you know, it was impossible to intercept him on this occasion, because he was not alone, and I am glad, upon the whole, that I was prevented from, carrying "out my original design. For more reasons than one, I would rather sell the documents to you than to him.”

“Sell them;” exclaimed the Colonel. “ Do you mean to say that you proposed to simply levy blackmail upon the fellow? But then what becomes of your revenge and your damaged reputation ? ” Brydon smiled. “I assure you,” he replied, “ that I do not care ono solitary curse for my reputation, which is irretrievably damaged. Didn’t I tell you that I am a drunkard, and that my solo remaining pleasure in life is to get drunk ? Beveuge, of course, would bo a pleasure, and I was to a certain extent sure of that; for I don’t supposo he would have enjoyed paying me a thousand pounds, which was the price I meant to ask. Added to which he would always have remained in fear of my having kept back some further documentary evidence. Bub I see now that there is a much more satisfactory plan open to me. You will buy the letters, and you will use them to pulverise him. That way I shall get my revenge and my money into the bargain, you see.”

“You are not a very estimable person, Mr Brydon,” remarked the Colonel drily. “ I don’t pretend to be. Once upon a time I might have been as estimable as other people ; but that time is gone and will never return—thanks to our good friend. Certainly I should like to plant a dagger in bis back, if I could ; I have been dogging his steps ever since he returned to England for no other purpose, and perhaps I might even have stabbed him with an actual dagger before now, if I had had the nerve. But I am not sure that I don’t want almost as much to have a pocket full of sovereigns. Anyhow my luck seems to have turned at last; for lamin a fair way to get my heart’s desire in both respects.” “ H’m ! well, I’m not so sure about that,” said the Colonel, “ I’m sure I can’t afford to give you a thousand pounds, anyhow.” “ In your case, my dear sir, I should be prepared- to accept much lower terms. I regard your intervention in the light of a luxury, which one can’t expect to get for nothing. Let us call it five hundred and say no more about it.”

“ I can make no offer until I know what I am buying,” replied the prudent old warrior. “First of all, let me see these letters ; then I shall be in a position to talk to you.”

Mr Brydon pointed out that, although this sounded only reasonable, it was really demanding a good deal.

“Am I to enable you to steal my thunder?” he asked. “Suppose, after satisfying yourself that proof of Strahan’s guilt exists, you were to decline to pay for that prod? Your object, I imagine, is simply to get rid of the man, and that object might very well be obtained by telling him what you have discovered and threatening to tell others. Oh, I mean no offence,” he added hastily, as the old gentleman grasped his stick ; “ all I want you to understand is that if I submit these papers t*>_ your inspection I shall be giving some evidence of trust in your honor.”

“ Your trust shall not be betrayed, sir,” the Colonel declared. “If those papers prove what you say they prove, I will pay you what I can afford for them as soon as I get the money. That is to say, three hundred pounds in about a week’s time. Very well, then—three hundred and fifty; but beyond that I can’t go. Supposing that they don’t give conclusive proof—well, in that case they wouldn’t be worth three hundred and fifty of any man’s money, would they ? Is it a bargain ?” Not without some further haggling was it so pronounced, but the Colonel was firm, while his opponent was both weak and eager to place in other hands the task of attacking the redoubtable Strahan. He ended, therefore, by giving in, and Colonel Vigne, seated upon the bank, had the pleasure of persuing through his pince-nez a series of missives which, if human justice were not the poor ihakeshift that it is, should have sufficed to hang their writer.

“ These,” he remarked, while be removed the glasses from hia nose. “ are the letters of a thorough-paced blackguard ! ” “ They are,” Brydon agreed. “ A thorough-paced blackguard, sir ! I never read anything more brutal and heartless in my life. And with such letters in my possession, it will be odd if I can’t send Mr Strahan back to Australia in doublequick time.” “The thing to do,” observed the other vindictively, “will be to expose and disgrace him publicly here. It won’t matter.whother

he returns to Australia or what becomes of him Afterwards.”

“ That’s as may be { I don't bind myself to create a public scandal \ t haven’t made up my mind yet how t shall afet. Meanwhile, tiWe Is of ithporlance, and I should like to dSe these documents at once, if you Mil trust me with them, I will give you an 10 U for the money, and, as it is invested in consols, I presume that I shall be able to hand it over to you in hard cosh within a week. Will that do S”

The point thus raised brought about another protracted debate, the o.utcome of which was a second success for the Colonel. Brydon, indeed, seemed- to be physically incapable of holding out long against opposition, ana all he finally stipulated for, while the Colonel was writing out a formal I 0 U upon a leaf of hia pocket book, was tho advance of a small sum on account.

“I rely implicitly upon your honor and punctuality, sir,” said he. “I will meet you hero this day week, to receive the amount" owing to me and to hear, I trust, that I have been in some degree avenged. In the meantime, I shall have to pay my score at the ullage alehouse, and I regret to say that lam almost penniless. Consequently, any spare cash that you may have about you ”

The Colonel turned out his waistcoat pocket, which was found to contain a trifle over five pounds. A few minutes later he was marching back towards the great house, with the happy conviction that one who had threatened to bring ruin upon it was himself upon the verge of beinff ruined. Three hundred and fifty pounds is no such insignificant sum for a half-pay Colonel to lay out upon a handful of love-letters; but, “Dear me!” said he to himself, “ what does it matter ? In a few years the money would have gone to Marietta, who will never miss it, and upon my word I don’t know how it could have been employed more advantageously for her than it is going to be. Mr Strahan, my friend, our truce has expired !”

CHAPTER XXXVI. THE COLONEL GIVES BATTLE,

Strahan, after parting with Colonel Vigne in the plantation, as related, stepped briskly forward to catch up his friends. He had ho sort of fear of losing the friendship of these ladies and gentlemen through action on the part of his irate but impotent enemy. He could even afford to laugh good-humoredly and compassionately at the recollection of the latter’s valedictory words. “So you can’t be frightened into doing nothing, eh ?” he muttered. “ Well, you are a plucky old gentleman, and it’s only fair to admit that you aren’t very easily frightened. But you will do nothing, all the same, for the simple reason that there is nothing for you to do. The question, which isn’t a bit simple, is what I am going to do, and I’ll be hanged if I can answer it ! All I know is that interrupted conversation will have to be resumed.”

His conversation with Marietta had, in truth, been broken off at a point which rendered its resumption imperative and inevitable. If she had not actually confessed that she loved him, she had allowed him to speak as only an admitted lover could have spoken, and his passion (which “was real and strong) had become so inflamed that it was all be could do to lend an ear to the whispered counsels of prudence. Prudence, at any rate, could no longer dissaude-him from running risks. As for running away with Lady Middlewood to bear him company, he really did not think that such extreme measures were likely to become obligatory upon him, and it would be time enough to oppose them when they were suggested—as very possibly they would be. So, although he was unable immediately to secure his hostess’s private attention, he found an opportunity of doing this after dinner, when he drew near to her and said, in a low voice: “I must see you alone. Give me a time and place.” She looked troubled and surveyed ' him with large startled eyes (“ How can she be so foolish as to look like that in a room full of people ! ” he wondered, with momentary irritation) ; but she did not dispute his right to demand an appointment. “ I will walk out towards the moor soon after luncheon to-morrow,” she answered hurriedly. “ Perhaps you might give up shooting early in the day. But please don’t think ”

“I think nothing,” he returned, with a smile, “ and I don’t want to think anything. I want to know. Will you tell me what I want to know to-morrow afternoon?”

She nodded hastily and moved away, being uncomfortably conscious of her father’s scrutiny. She would have been still more uncomfortable had she been aware that Colonel Vigno had not only taken note of the above brief interchange of words but had divined their import. It was, indeed, tolerably evident to one whose suspicions were so fully aroused that Marietta and Stiahan would have had either more or less to say to, one another if they had not been arranging a future interview. The Colonel therefore kept hia eyes and ears open, and it did not surprise him to hear St rah an remark casually at breakfast the next morning: “I shall have to he satisfied with half a day’s shooting, I’m afraid; I have a horrid lot of letters to write and post before dinner.”

“Yes, my fine fellow,” thought the old gentleman; “ and you’ll have a particularly horrid lot of letters to read, too ! Or rather, you’ll have to hear them read ; because I doubt whether it would be safe to place them in your hands.”

To prevent Marietta from keeping her appointment was a task of no great difficulty. As the Colonel had anticipated, she mentioned shortly after luncheon that she was going out for a walk, and he at once offered to accompany her. To this suggestion she demurred, alleging that he would tire himself out, tramping up hill in such a hot sun; whereupon he returned cheerfully :

“ Not a bit of it, my dear ; old as I am, I’m game to stand as much fatigue as you can. Besides, I meant, anyhow, to go out and meet Mr Strahan, to whom I have a few words to say upon a matter of busi-' ness.”

Marietta understood, and said no mote. Nothing could be less probable than that her. father had business matters to discuss with Mr Strahan, nor could anything be more certain than that he would persist in fulfilling his expressed intention. At the bottom of her heart she was almost grateful to him for compelling her to postpone an encounter of which she could but dimly forecast the results. It is needless to add that the Colonel was not embarrassed by her company when he sallied forth on the road to victory. By that time she had discovered that the weather was unsuitable for exertion, and that a hammock beneath one of the spreading cedars on the lawn would satisfy her immediate desires.

The Colonel went his way with a light step and a light heart. Success in the enterprise which he had taken in hand was assured. Strahan, it was true, held a trump card in his knowledge of Marietta’s illegitimacy. “But I,” reflected the old gentleman, exultantly, “ have a whole handful of trumps. It won’t help him much to bring disgrace upon us after he himself has been so disgraced that he will be practically forced to give up his present position.” To set against that there was the obvious consideration that a ruined man could have no motive for reticence, and, indeed, it was only because he had realised that fact that Colonel Vigne was now about to hold parley with the enemy. It would, of course, have been simpler, and even safer, to exhibit the incriminating documents to Lionel and others; but, for the reason above specified, this plan was inadmissible, and Mr Brydon would have to be satisfied with something short of complete and public revenge. “ Now, I don’t suppose,” said the Colonel to himself, “that be will give in without showing fight. It will be necessary to convince him that he would risk considerably more by refusing to come to terms than we should by telling him to do his worst, and it may even be necessary to stand on one’s guard against physical violence; for, after all, I am an old fellow, and this is a thinlypeopled part of the world. Well, if he tries that game, I flatter myself he will find that I hold a strongish argument in my hand.” The Colonel shook his walking stick, which was in truth a murderous weapon) despite its innocuous aspect, for it was heavily loaded at the head and as supple as a life preserver. He imagined himself breaking an assailant’s arm with it, and almost wished that the luxury of -being assaulted might be in store for him. (That,

however, was not a very probable eontingenoy, nor, Upon the Mblej Bduld it bb deertled a. ohe. For a duel pjenty ot plausible explanations can always be alleged; but,a personal fracas seldom redounds to the credit of those concerned therein.

It was in the larch copse where Strahan had achieved his triumph on the previous day, and where the Colonel had subsequently secured means of rendering that triumph nugatory, that the .two antagonists came face to face. The face of the yoiingSr man, Who was,slowly descending the slope with his gun over his shoulder, wore a grave and thoughtful expression, which changed to one of displeased interrogation when he recognised the intruder upon his solitude; that of the elder was radiant with the joy of approaching .battle. “It is a flue afternoon.for a walk, is it not, Mr Strahan?” he began. “ With your permission I will bear you company for a short distance.” *

Strahan frowned. He perceived, of course, that his appointment with Marietta had been discovered, and that this irrepressible old nuisance had determined to frustrate it. “May I ask,” he inquired, “whether you came out in order to meet me ? ”

The Colonel’s head was bowed in affable assent. “ Perhaps you did not expect me to meet you? Perhaps you Expected someone else to meet you ?” he suggested, Strahan stood still and looked straight into the blue eyes which met his. “ Colonel Vigne,” said he, “ I beg to warn you that it is possible to get to the end of my patience. I certainly did not expect to meet you, and whether I expected to meet anyone else or not is my own affair. Please be so good as to continue your walk and leave me to continue mine. After what passed between us yesterday we really can have nothing further to say to one another.” ( To he continued.)