Jack Allyn's Friends. A novel

Front matter

JACK ALLYNS FRIENDS 31 Hcbcl. BV G. WEBB APPLETON, Al'THOR OF ' FROZEN HEARTS,' AND 'CATCHING A TARTAR.' ' I am vext. I can hold ne'er a bone of me still. Heart, I think they menn to build and breed here. His friends ! his fiends. Well, by this light, a little thing would make me play the devil with some of them. I'd make the house too hot for the best on 'em.' Ben Jonson {Every Man in his Humour). IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. HP-mitm : SAMUEL TINSLEY & CO., 31, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND i88o. [All Rights Reserved.] CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER PAG I. A CONFESSION I II. IN WHICH THE SQUIRE IS UPSET - - 30 III. THE FIRST SUSPICION - - - 54 IV. SERGEANT WATERS - 58 V. UNCLE AND NIECE - - - 76 VI. MERE AVANT TOUT - - - - 97 VII. IN WHICH THE SQUIRE'S TEMPER NEARLY GETS THE BETTER OF HIM - - - 1 24 VIII.

ET TU BRUTE ... - - 137 IX. IN WHICH MR. SANDFORD FINDS HIMSELF PLACED IN A DILEMMA - - - 163 X. THE INQUEST BEGINS - - - l8l XI. MR. HOOKER'S TESTIMONY _ - - 208 XII. WHAT MR. SANDFORD HAD TO SAY ABOUT IT 2 20 XIII. A CONFERENCE AND AN ARRIVAL - - JACK ALLYN'S FRIENDS.

Chapter I

A CONFESSION. " Now, Ethel, you shall unburden your heart to me. To begin with, show me that letter." Ethel had risen upon Nellie's entrance, and now stood with a tear-stained face before her cousin. " Sit down, Ethel, and let me wipe your eyes. There, that is better ! Don't smile, it is too distressing to see you. Don't do it again — your heart is breaking, my dear child. Don't shake your head, I know it is. Now give me that letter." For a moment — only a moment — Ethel VOL. II. I^ hesitated. Her heart was sore indeed. Never had woman more need of a friend and a counsellor than had she at this moment. She did not resist when Nellie gently removed the letter from her hand. " Have courage, dear. You should have confided in me long ago. It is time, I think, that I broke like "a burglar into the secret that is sapping your very life.

Shall I find it here, Ethel ?" " No, not there — not there ; but read it, Nell." When Nellie had perused the letter to the end, she dropped into a chair and reflected. " Poor fellow !" she said at last, with a sigh. " It is very sad. Of course you will write to him at once." " I don't know what to do." '' Why, Ethel, how absurd ! he loves you fondly, and you worship the very ground he walks upon. He wishes to make you his wife — why do you not say 'yes' at once, and make the poor fellow happy ?" " But I cannot— you do not understand ;" and Ethel shuddered. " You will frighten me if you talk in that manner. You are not engaged to anybody else, are you ?" " No, Nell ; no. " You are not already married ?" Ethel smiled in a way distressing to see, and slowly shook her head ; then a look of helpless misery came into her eyes, as she raised them again and said : " If you only knew ! if you only knew !

Oh, Nellie ! I am so unhappy !" Then Nellie stroked back the golden hair, and gently caressed the dainty head that now nestled upon her bosom ; but she said not a word. Her heart was full of wondering pity. " They love each other," she thought, *' and yet she weeps. Ethel," she said at last, " Ethel dear, look up ! Something is killing you, you must tell me what it is. It cannot be Fred's letter, though. Perhaps his allusion to his poor mother may have affected you." 18—2 " That is it," said Ethel, with sudden vehe mence. " How he loves his mother, Nellie !' How much he must respect her ! What a good woman she must be !" Nellie clasped her hands tightly to her heart. " She knows," she thought ; " she has found it out. Now I comprehend all her misery, poor child !" There was a long silence, broken only by Ethel's sobs.

At last she lifted her head, brushed away her tears, and looked into her cousin's face. Nellie dropped her eyes. " I see ; you already know." Nellie kissed her, but said not a word. " Nellie, have you known it long ?" Yes, dear." Jack knows it too ?" Yes." " And you have always kept it from me — have never by a sign betrayed it ! How good and noble of you both !" " We never intended that you should learn it. How did such a thing come to pass ? Your mother's name is never mentioned. I have never heard you speak of her but once, when you found a portrait all gashed and torn in the garret, and a servant told you it was a portrait of your mother. Why, even then you asked no questions, and that was years and years ago. How is it possible, Ethel, that you could have learned Stop ! I am going too fast.

You look frightened. What have you heard ? Little things are often exaggerated in this world, dear. You have listened to some silly innuendoes. You take too much to heart what I have been saying. Pshaw ! poor, impulsive old pa is always quarrelling with his relations, and somebody, I suppose, has told you how badly he treated your mother — and so he did, shamefully — and, indeed, for poor, guilty old pa's sake we never mentioned it — Jack and I — ■ to you, dear. 'Pa really was very, very cruel ; but never speak to him about it ! for our sakes don't, Ethel. He is sorry enough now, I dare say. She was his only sister, and he FRIENDS. 6 almost worshipped her, I've been told. Jack says that you are the very image of her. He got it from old Major Saville, who was out in India with your father."

Ethel gave a sudden gasp, and would have spoken ; but the words faltered upon her tongue, and died away upon ashen lips. Nellie wondered at this, but she went on : " Yes, dear, you know that he was killed in a duel in Paris." Ethel's breath came and went in a some what alarming manner, suggestive of hysterics, for a moment or two ; then she got a firm grip upon her faculties, bit her lips, and answered : " Yes, Nellie, I know perfectly well that Colonel Leighton was killed in a duel in the Bois de Boulogne ; but Colonel Leighton was not my father. Had he been, there would have been no duel fought ; and he and my mother might at this moment have been living peaceably together, perhaps — who knows ? — under this very roof." Nellie was too much astonished for the moment to answer, and Ethel went on : " Yes, yes ; too well I know the story of my mother's shame — of the brave man, whom the law says I may still speak of as father, stretched stark and cold upon the sod, with a bullet in his heart — of the curses heaped upon my mother's head by a brother, whose pride and joy she had always been — of her sad, sad death, and the adoption by the brother of the child of shame."

"* Ethel dear, don't cry — don't cry ; lay your head upon my bosom. Poor dear ! poor dear ! you are not to blame. It was not your fault. Pa loves you dearly — so do I — so does Jack. Cheer up ! dry your tears ! Another, and a still dearer one, loves you too, Ethel, and this is why you are so foolishly unhappy. You love Fred, oh, so dearly ! and you would not say him nay, but that you are afraid he would think ill of you were he to learn the truth. You shrink from telling him that truth ; you fancy that when it had been told he would turn his face from you and say, ' I am sorry, but this must be the end.' Now, Ethel, I am only a girl like yourself ; but I have gone through the world with my eyes open, and I will tell you this : a man, unless he be a fortune hunter, loves a woman simply because he loves her; his thoughts do not go beyond that simple and adorable cause.

He loves her, and, if such a thing were possible in this clear-starched and whale-boned society of ours, would marry her first and inquire who her father was when the honeymoon was in its last quarter. You may say, ' And then ?' My reply is, that a true love is never put out or disturbed except by the undertaker, and that to a true lover ' How came she into the world ?' is merged and overwhelmed in the song of thanksgiving and praise, ' How came she to these unworthy arms ?' Do not despair, Ethel : when Fred knows the truth he will love you all the more. Sympathy will only add fuel to the flame. Tell him all, and he will drop upon his knees the moment he sees you again." A flickering light had come in Ethel's eyes as she listened. Brave, inspiring words were these ; but her hopes at the outset had been weighted with lead, and now refused to rise like thistle-down upon a single breath of encouragement.

A moment longer she nestled upon Nellie's bosom ; then she rose. Her face was white, her features tense and hard, her eyes red and unlovely with over-much weeping, but her voice was full of resolution as she spoke : " It is impossible. I can never tell him." Nellie began to feel secretly annoyed. " Why ?" " There are reasons — and serious ones." " You, at least, have given him no cause of offence." " He thinks so. In his heart he believes so. " No, no ; you are mistaken. Read his letter again, Ethel. Why, what is the matter ? Are you faint ? You are faint — let me open the window. Shall I run and bring my smelling-salts ?" " No, no ; I am better now. What were you saying ? Fred thinks ill of me ? Oh yes ! very ill of me. But the Count will trouble me no longer; he will never come between us again."

" I hope not ; but do not be too sanguine. I begin to dislike him very much. He is a dangerous man." " Nellie !" The tone was short, sharp, and imperative, " Yes, Ethel." " Do you know the name of the man who killed Colonel Leighton ?" " No." " Reflect a moment." " No, Ethel ; we often endeavoured to ascertain. Pa even does not know. He was a Frenchman, and, I believe, a gentleman of rank ; that is the extent of our knowledge upon the subject." " Then I have a surprise in store for you ; but not a word to uncle, to Jack, or to any body else in the world." " Ethel !" A CONFESSLON. 11 " Promise ! you must promise, or not another syllable." " Very well, I promise. " You are sure you will never tell ?" Nellie made a gesture of impatience. " I have given my word." " But will you swear — here's a Bible — will you swear upon it never " " Stop !" said Nellie, peremptorily ; " you are becoming theatrical.

My word gene rally suffices. Why do you ask such a thing ? Have you lost confidence in mer Ethel ?" "No, dear; no. But swear: I'd much rather you would. You will be surprised. I must tell somebody ; I'd much rather it were you : but it must go no further. I be lieve you, Nellie. Yes, indeed I believe you ; but swear !" " Your head has turned, Ethel. I should much prefer to hear nothing ; I dislike melo drama. Be silent if you will. Guard your own secrets. I have never yet told a lie : I never shall ; but I take no oaths." FRIENDS. 12 She was moving away. Ethel detained her. You truly will never, never tell ?" I have promised ; I can do no more." " Then sit down and listen ; and don't be cross with me, Nell. You really must not be cross with me : I could stand anything but that. I found it all out while I was in Paris: you guessed that much, of course.

Well, after all, it was only by accident. You remember the pensionnat in the Rue Babylone, and dear old Madame Cœille, and those queer sisters of hers I have so often talked about ? Well, it was the Marquise who told me. She was not bien cossu, as the French say. She lived in apartments over a draper's shop in the Rue de Bourgogne ; but she was as proud as Lucifer. Madame Cœille told me that she once returned the Due de Morny's card — think of that ! and I know that she had never set her foot inside the Tuileries since King Charles quitted France. A funny old soul she was : fat — oh, so fat, Nellie ! with an immense wig, and such a moustache ! and A CONFESSION. 13 she took snuff — just fancy ! but the wittiest, brightest, dearest old lady in the whole world : un ami jusqiiaux autels — for she would have quarrelled with her best friend, had that friend said an unkind word of the Pope, or hinted that Lourdes was not a place of miracles.

She was a De Rauville, dear ; and was once, Madame Cœille told me, in love with a handsome young cousin — a viscount, and lieutenant in the King's bodyguard — who quarrelled with his family, obtained a month's conge from the Due de Grammont, his captain, and went to America, where he died only a short time ago, known simply as Robinson, a homœopathic doctor. Talk about romance — think of that, Nellie I She used to meet him at her uncle's — the great Chateaubriand, who lived in the Rue du Bac ; and there, too, she often saw and talked with the beautiful Madame Recamier, and — well, never mind ; I must not be tedious. One day, a few weeks before I left Paris, Madame Cœille came to me and said, ' My sister, la Marquise, wishes me to bring you to dine with her to-night. Would you like to go ?' I desired nothing better, and went.

There were about half a dozen other guests present : among them a young gentleman who paid me many compliments at the dinner-table. When coffee had been served in the drawing-room, I was asked to sing, and this young gentleman kindly turned the music for me. I sang * Kathleen Mavourneen '■ — -you know how I murder it, dear, but the company appeared to like it : it was new to them, I suppose ; and he professed to be in rhapsodies over it. He could speak a little English ; he had been in London ; he had travelled in Italy for a time with an Englishman — whose name I afterwards learned. He made himself very agreeable to me, and I was pleased at first ; but very soon there grew something in his manner that plainly told me he would have been bolder but for the presence of the Marquise. After the music, there was piquet and baccarat, in which everybody joined but our selves.

I could not play ; and he preferred A CONFESSLON. 15 to talk, he said, and was becoming somewhat effusive in his compliments, when the Mar quise, who had been watching us out of the corners of her eyes as she played, suddenly threw down her cards, crossed the room, took the young gentleman by the arm, led him to the place she had just vacated, and bade him finish the game. " Then she returned, and took a chair by my side. " ' I must play the dragon over you, mam'selle,' she said : ' I am ugly enough to frighten away a score of lovers, am I not ?' and as I stammered out something in reply, she chuckled and laughed, and took a great pinch of snuff out of a box set with diamonds, then bent down and whispered in my ear : " ' The De Brissacs are bad, root and branch, my dear ; and they have a weakness for Englishwomen.

That is why I am here.' " Nellie gave a start, then slowly nodded her head. " I see," she said, " I understand ; this was your first meeting with the Count. Go on, dear." " Well," resumed Ethel, " I looked up in surprise at this, and the old lady went on. ' Yes,' she said, ' the De Brissacs were always wicked. Even so far back as the time of Louis XIII., they were famous poachers upon matrimonial preserves ' — (it's a shame, Nell, for me to talk to you in this way, but it is exactly what the old lady said) — ' and, but for the influence of De Luynes — whose partisans they were — the De Brissac stock, perhaps, would now be extinct, for they aimed at lofty game in those days, which it was treason to bring down. I mean to talk freely to you,' she went on ; ' you are young, but you are English, I am one of the few in our small French aristocracy who disbelieve in the doctrine that girls, until they are married, should be wax dolls, destitute of thought and feeling, with skulls packed full of anything and everything but the knowledge that should guide them in the narrow path that separates good from evil.

These De Brissacs there- A CONFESSION. 17 fore, I repeat, were always bad. If you read Madame de Lafayette's Memoirs, you will find their name mixed up with a certain Royal Duchess with whom the King was then in love, and a De Brissac thenceforth figures upon the registers of the Bastille for sixteen years. But it was in the blood, my dear,' the old lady went on. ' Pompadour was a clever woman : no De Brissac could wheedle her from the strict path of self-interest. But Du Barry was a hussy : and a De Brissac — probably the handsomest of the whole line — obtained, through her favour, the sequestered estates of one of my ancestors,' — and the old lady's eyes flashed, Nellie ; you should have seen them ! — ' who went into the Bastille, thanks to a lettre-de-cachet procured by Du Barry, and came out again, ten years later, in his coffin.

You see, dear, why the history of this family is so familiar to me. I have made it a study for years. The Count does not know it, though ; and I invite him here for no other reason but to watch him when his hereditary instincts assert themvol. 11. selves, and then quietly checkmate him. I have already saved two women in this way. He would make a victim of you ; I can see it in his manner ; I have been watching him all the evening. The dragon has sharp eyes, and you have nothing, mam'selle, to fear. One Englishwoman has already fallen a victim to the family : you shall not be her successor. But I am going too fast,' and the Marquise reflected half a moment, and then went on. 'Yes,' she said, 'through this intrigue with Du Barry, we lost ten thousand acres of good land in Ardeche. But retri bution was coming fast.

Marie Antoinette had the Count banished from Paris for certain audacities which, my child, I cannot well repeat to you : then the guillotine closed his career, the ten thousand acres were confiscated by the Jacobins, and nothing more was heard of a De Brissac until about twenty years ago, when Paris rang with a terrible scandal.' Now, Nellie, I am coming to the point, so listen attentively." " You need go no further — I understand ;" A CONEESSLON 19 and Nellie's voice shook, and her hand trembled as it sought out Ethel's and clasped it tight. " But you must hear me. You have had but the husks of the story ; we have arrived at the kernel now, and you must listen. ' Yes, a terrible scandal,' the old lady went on. ' The Count de Brissac, this young man's father, was seen almost daily in the Bois with a beautiful woman seated by his side.

She was English, it was said ; she was young ; her hair was golden, like yours ; her eyes were blue, like yours ; her complexion was dazzling. Little was really known about her. It was said that she was English, and one report had it that she was a married woman, whose husband was at that time in some remote quarter of the globe. No serious attempt, however, was made to conceal the nature of their relations. Day after day they drove together in the Bois : night after night they were seen at the theatre and opera. The whole of Paris envied the Count. Then a terrible thing happened. 19— '""They were together in a loge, at the Odeon. Every opera-glass was fixed upon her. She had never appeared more beautiful. Suddenly, toward the end of the second act, a tall grey man, with a face of bronze and the frame of a giant, stood up in a baignoire, levelled his glasses at her, took a long look, stepped out, passed through the corridor, and knocked so loud at the door of the loge that every eye was turned in that direction, and a few hisses from people interested in the play were uttered.

Then everybody saw the tall grey man enter the loge — saw the woman shrink as he pointed to the door — saw her slink away like a guilty creature as she was ; then heard a smack and a thud, as the Count de Brissac fell like a log upon the floor of the loge. " ' At six o'clock the following morning, in the Bois de Boulogne, the meeting took place. The Count de Brissac was the most renowned shot in Paris. He fired, so the ugly story ran about for a time, before the signal was given. The tall grey man fell flat on his face, IA CONFESSLON. 21 with a bullet through his heart. They took his body to England. The woman — they say it was his wife — shortly afterwards had a child ; then I believe she died : at all events she disappeared, and has never been seen since. Her child was claimed by a relative ; it was very young ; it probably died, and let us hope that God, in the exercise of His mercy, willed it so.

And all this, mademoi selle, came of the wickedness of a De Brissac — so beware !' " Imagine, Nellie, my feelings at that moment : my head swam, the room turned round ; my throat seemed swollen, I could not speak ; my head pained me so across the temples that I thought it would surely burst. She looked at me in surprise and alarm. "'What is it?' she asked; 'what have I said ?' and the poor woman was genuinely distressed. " My heart was beating so violently that I could just say : " ' What was the name of that tall grey man ?' " She reflected a moment. " ' It was Leighton,' she said at length " - And he was an English officer ?' " ' Yes.' "'From India?' " ' Yes ; and oh, mon Dieu ! what have I done ?' she cried, and it all flashed across her in an instant that I now heard, for the first time, the story of my mother's shame.

The poor old soul was overwhelmed with remorse for the cruel part she had so unwittingly played. I was very faint : the life was nearly crushed out of me. I could not speak, but sat and stared in a dumb, helpless fashion, at the man whom I now knew to be my brother. He was staring at me in turn, in a way so strange, so unlike his former manner, that I knew he had overheard our conversation, and had made, equally with myself, an unexpected and startling discovery. The Marquise hurried me from the room, made me drink a glass of wine, overwhelmed herself with reproaches, and asked for pardon so piteously that, in spite of all my misery, I was moved at sight of the poor woman's grief. She would tell me no more, in answer to my further inquiries, except that the seducer of my mother was dead, and that the present Count, the young gentleman in the salon, against whom she had given me such an untimely warning, was beyond any doubt my natural brother.

Then my colour came back, and I determined to screw up my courage to the sticking-place and return to the salon. I had learned the worst ; the cup was bitter — oh, so bitter, Nellie ! — but I had drained it to the very dregs ; and then I remembered that, in spite of all that had happened, I was still my mother's child, and upon me devolved the duty, however painful it might be, of sifting to the very bottom the story of her fall. Perhaps the world had judged her too harshly. Perhaps uncle had been unduly severe in casting her out for ever. Perhaps she had fallen into the toils of an unscrupulous villain, who, with her only possible justification in his possession, withheld it, and left her to the mercy of circumstances, against which she found it impossible to contend. I told the Marquise of my purpose, and at first she would not listen to it ; but when she knew the Count had overheard her account of his father's escapade, she gave way, and brought us at once together.

" His manner had changed toward me : he seemed annoyed : he was cold and abrupt. From that moment I disliked him : I soon began to hate him. Of late, he has stirred every drop of wicked blood in my veins, and made me feel at times as though I was really possessed with a devil." " But, Ethel — you will excuse me for saying so, dear," and Nellie laid her hand gently upon her cousin's arm — " but your actions toward him have been seldom those of an angry woman ; and both Jack and myself have thought that, in view of Mr. Sandford's feelings, you were carrying a flirtation a little too far with the Count." " Nellie, have you forgotten that there be people ' who can smile, and murder while they smile ' ? " and Ethel set her lips firmly, and a look came in her eyes — a hard, steely look — that made Nellie shiver.

" How strangely you talk, dear ! you quite frighten me." A bitter smile flickered an instant over her lips, as she went on : " I had a purpose, Nellie ; I had to humour, to coax, to cajole. A true son of his father, I found that he was already known as a breaker of hearts and a disturber of domestic peace. No young man in Paris has, at this day, a more evil reputation than he." Nellie looked genuinely alarmed. " If pa only knew this !" she exclaimed ; "what could Jack have been thinking about when he invited him here ?" " Heaven only knows, Nellie ! He could not have heard the rumours — Jack is so good natured and thoughtless, and never thinks ill of anybody, you know. They met each other in Naples, and travelled for some time together; and when the Count told me in Paris that he was going to spend a few weeks in England with Jack Allyn, at Mervyn Hall, I was thunderstruck.

I begged him not to go ; I implored him to give me what I wanted and abandon the journey ; I pointed out the false position I should be placed in — of his own meanness in accepting my uncle's hospitality under false pretences, and sleeping beneath a roof where my mother would have been forbidden to enter. It was all in vain. The letters and papers respecting my mother, in which, as he assured me, I should find some thing that would exonerate her from blame — and which I so earnestly desired to possess — he would keep, he said, until he met me at Mervyn Hall. They should be a gage of my silence and discretion. There was no alternative but for me to submit to his cowardly terms. He came, and to guard you, Nellie, from a coup de main " " The Count de Brissac ! Pooh ! ridicu lous !" and Nellie laughed, and then coloured up.