CHAPTER XLVI.
MAUDE'S VISITOR.
'The lives of some families,' it is said, 'are exactly like a pool in which—without being exactly stagnant—nothing occurs to ruffle the surface of the water from year's end to year's end, and then come a series of tremendous splashes, like naughty boys throwing stones.'
So it was with the Lindsays of Earlshaugh latterly, as we will soon have to show.
The few weeks of his leave of absence that intervened before Jack Elliot would have inexorably to start for Egypt, glided happily and all too swiftly away, when he and Maude took up their residence at the pretty villa in the southern quarter of Edinburgh, near the ancient Grange Loan; and often if they sat silent, or lingered hand in hand amid the faded flower-beds of the garden, they seemed to be only listening—if one may say so—to the silent responses of their own hearts, and that language of instinct understood only by kindred souls.
'We have not exactly Aladdin's lamp in the house, Maude,' said Jack laughingly, 'nor have we all the luxuries of our future home at Braidielee, where now conservatories are springing up, a billiard-room being built, and gardens laid out, all for you; but we are happy as people can be——'
'Who have a coming separation to face and to endure, Jack,' she interrupted, with a break in her voice.
In the newspapers they read the announcement of the marriage, at Earlshaugh, of 'Hawkey Sharpe, Esq., to Miss Annot Drummond, of South Belgravia,' at which Jack laughed loud and long.
'Well, Roland is lucky to be out of the running there!—Sharpe, Esq.—I wonder he did not add "of Earlshaugh," and doubtless the creature would figure in all Roland's splendid jewels and gifts. Pah!' said he; but the gentle Maude had a kind of pity for the girl, and her views of the matter were somewhat mingled.
Annot's mother had toiled always in the matrimonial market—long unaided by the young lady herself—and now the latter had landed a golden fish at last, as she thought, in the future heir of Earlshaugh—Mr. Hawkey Sharpe!
No longer was she to be perplexed by questions how few or how many thousand a year had such as Bob Hoyle, and on other delicate matters dear to the Belgravian mater, and concerning 'detrimentals.' After more than one season spent in the chase, after dinners that were too costly for a limited exchequer, handsome dresses and much showy appearance, laborious days and watchful nights, snubs and disappointments—homme propose, femme dispose—Annot was fairly off her hands, and to be a 'Lady of that Ilk.'
She had played her cards in Scotland beautifully!
And now came to pass the event which ruffled the calm pool of Maude's existence, when within three days of Elliot's departure to rejoin the army in Egypt. The crisis from which she ever shrank seemed now to have come!
Oftentimes before this had she wondered whether it were possible such unbroken happiness as her present life would ever come again, despite the tender, earnest, and trusting love that glowed in her breast; and on one particular evening, when Jack Elliot was absent making some final preparations, and would not be home till late, she sat alone, striving to prepare herself for the change, the solitude and anxiety that were to come, and praying tearfully for strength to pass the bitter ordeal—the wrench that was before them both.
This happy, happy honeymoon of a few weeks was drawing to its close, and her soft blue eyes grew very full as she thought over the whole situation, when a visitor was suddenly announced.
A showily-dressed and smart-looking little woman, about thirty years of age apparently, rather pretty, but flippant and nervous in manner, and having a slight soupçon of 'making-up' about her cheeks and eyelashes, was ushered in, and eyed, with some boldness and effrontery (to conceal the nervousness referred to), Maude, who, by force of habit, bowed and indicated a seat, which her visitor at once took, and threw up her veil.
Maude saw that her features were good, but this colouring and expression made them cunning and daring, if somewhat remarkable and attractive.
Maude then remembering that this person had not sent in a card or announced herself, inquired to what she owed the occasion of her visit.
'The occasion—you'll soon know that—too soon for your own peace of mind, poor girl! You are—Miss Lindsay?'
'I was Miss Lindsay,' replied Maude.
'And who are you now?'
Maude stared at her visitor with some alarm.
'If you take an interest in Captain Elliot, it is a pity,' continued the latter.
'Interest—pity?' questioned Maude, rising now, and drawing near to the handle of the bell.
'Take my advice in time, and don't touch that!' said her strange visitor with sudden insolence of manner, while something of malevolence and triumph sparkled in her dark eyes.
'You must be mad, or——'
'Tipsy, you would say—I am neither; but I have that to say which you may not wish to furnish gossip for your servants, so do not summon them until I am gone.'
'Will you be so kind as to state at once the object of your visit?' said Maude, with as much hauteur as she could summon to her aid.
'So you are his wife—a doll like you! Mrs. Elliot of Braidielee, you think yourself!' said the woman mockingly; 'I fear I have that to tell which your dainty ears will not find very pleasant. But "gather ye rosebuds while ye may;" for ere long only the leaves, dead and without fragrance, will be left you!'
Maude felt herself grow pale and tremble; she knew that there was a great lunatic asylum somewhere in that quarter of the city, and began to fear that her visitor was an escaped patient. She moved a step towards the bell again, and cast a lingering, longing glance at it, on which the woman again said sharply:
'Don't! Listen to me, I tell you!'
Placing her elbows on a small Chippendale table, off which, without ceremony, she thrust a few books, she rested her chin upon her left hand, and looking at the shrinking Maude steadily and defiantly—for the perfect purity of the girl, her position in life, her whole aspect and bearing filled this fallen one—for fallen she was—with rivalry, envy, and hatred, she asked:
'Now, who do you think I am?'
'That I have yet to learn,' replied Maude, who was moving towards the door, when the next words of the woman arrested her steps.
'Learn that I am Captain John Elliot's—lawful wife!'
'Oh—she is mad!' thought Maude, who neither tottered, nor fainted, nor made any outcry, deeming the bold assertion as totally absurd.
'You don't believe me, I suppose?'
'You must hold me excused if I do not,' replied Maude, thinking that she must temporise with a woman who, for all she knew, might bite her like a rabid dog; for poor Maude had very vague ideas of the ways and proclivities of lunatics in general.
She had but one desire, to rush past, to gain the door and escape; but was baffled by the expression of the woman's watchful black eyes. That she was not and never had been a lady was evident; neither did she seem of the servant class; so Maude's inexperienced eye was unable to fix her place in the scale of society, though her costume was good—if showy—even to her well-fitting gloves.
'You would wish to see my marriage-lines, I doubt not,' said the visitor with a smile, drawing a couple of folded papers from her bosom; 'but perhaps you had better read this first. I am a great believer in documentary evidence, and hope you are so too.'
Somewhat ostentatiously she flattened out a letter on the table, but carefully kept her hands thereon, as if in fear that it might be snatched away by Maude; and impelled by an impressible but hideous emotion of curiosity the latter drew near, and the woman with a slender forefinger traced out the lines she wished her to read—lines that seemed to seal the fate of Maude, whose dull eyes wandered over them like one in a dreadful dream—for the letter, if a forgery, was certainly to all appearance in the handwriting of Jack Elliot, and some of its peculiarities in the formation of capitals and certain other letters seemed to her too terribly familiar and indisputable.
They seemed to sear the girl's brain—the words she read—but summoning all her self-control, and seeming scarcely to breathe, she permitted as yet no expression of sorrow, of passion, or emotion of any kind to escape her.
'DEAREST LITTLE WIFE,
'I write you, Maggie, as I promised, as I cannot see you before leaving for Egypt, and fear the sorrow of such another parting as our last may kill me, for you know that all the love of my heart is yours, though I have been entrapped into a marriage with Maude Lindsay—a mad entanglement, for which I ask your forgiveness and pity, that you may not bring me to punishment and shame. I will buy your silence at any price; let me have back the marriage certificate and all letters, and I herewith enclose a blank cheque for you to fill up at your pleasure. This I do, dear little one, for the sake of our old——'
Here Maude reeled, for the room seemed to revolve round her.
'There!' said this odious woman exultingly, as she hastened to refold the letter and replace it in her breast, 'will you deny it longer?'
The speaker showed neither the certificate nor the blank cheque; but poor Maude had seen enough. She fainted, and when she recovered her obnoxious visitor was gone—gone, but had left a dreadful sting behind.
Had her presence and her story been all a dream? No! There was the chair in which she had been seated; there was the little Chippendale table on which she had spread the terrible letter that told of Jack's perfidy; and there on the floor, just where she had thrown or thrust them, lay the scattered books—his presents in the past time.
She cast herself on the sofa—she could neither think nor weep; her heart beat painfully—every pulsation was a pang! What was she to do—whither turn for advice before madness came upon her?
'Well, my old duck, Maggie, you have earned your money fairly, by all accounts—and my wonderful caligraphy was quite a success!' said Hawkey Sharpe, exploding with laughter, when he heard the narration of his 'fair' compatriot or conspirator, as he handed her a twenty-pound note, and drove with her townward in the cab with which he had awaited the termination of her visit at the Grange Loan. 'By Jove! a pleasant home-coming that fellow will have! "All men are brothers," says the minister of Earlshaugh; Cains and Abels, say I.'
'I don't care about him or what he may suffer—you men are all alike, a bad, false, cruel lot,' replied the woman; 'but, with all her airs and graces, her haughtiness and her touch-me-not manner, I am sorry for what that poor girl may be—nay, must be—enduring now.'
'The devil you are! all things are fair in love and war—and this is war!' said Hawkey, still continuing his bursts of malignant laughter; 'would she care for what you might endure?'
'I am sure she would—her face and her voice were so sweet and gentle.'
'For all that she would draw aside her skirt if it touched yours, as though there was a taint in the contact.'
The woman made no reply, but glared at him with defiant malevolence in her bold black eyes, and now seemed shocked at the very act which, a few minutes before, had given her much malignant satisfaction.
But we have not heard the last of Mr. Hawkey Sharpe's skill in caligraphy.