Playing on the Brink. A novel

Front matter

NOW READY. In One Vol., Imperial 8vo. Price 21s. A NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO MOROCCO, BY THE LATE THOMAS HODGKIN, M.D., F.R.G.S., &c, &c. Illustrated (from his Drawings taken on the spot) with Chromo- Lithographs, in the best style of the Art ; together with a medallion portrait of the much-lamented and talented Author, a photograph of his tomb, and a portrait of Sir Moses Montefiore, to whom (with his kind permission) the Narrative will be dedicated. By DAY and SON (Limited). T. C. NEWBY, Publisher, 30, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square. "Dr. Hodgkin's account of the journey and its incidents, is very well told, and is valuable in a scientific and antiquarian light. The work is equally worthy of a place in the library or drawing-room."— Court Journal. Extract from the Morning Post, Feb. 16th, 1866.

A very ingenious invention has lately been patented by Messrs. Jay, of Begent Street, — " THE EUTHEIMA." It is nothing less than a self-fit ting and adjustable bodice, possessing the power of expanding to accommodate any variation of the figure, to obviate all undue pressure and necessity for alteration, and therefore expressly suited to the requirements of ladies in a delicate state of health. " The Euthcima" is made in black silk, elegantly trimmed ; it is tight to the bust, with bands and epaulettes of crepe or of silk gimp and jet beads, but it can be made in any material. The elasticity is contrived by the insertion of welts of elastic webbing under the braces, from the shoulder to the waist, beneath the arms and down the shoulders under the brace ornaments. The set and style are excellent.

The ladies appear to be quite ready to appreciate the peculiar merits and conveniences of the new patent, for, though but very recently introduced to the public, the -Queen (the Lady's Newspaper) and Court Journal state that considerable numbers have already been sold. PLAYING ON THE BRINK. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY J. FRAZER COEKEAN, Author of " East and West," " Bertha's Repentance," &c. VOL. I. Sowbntt : T. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1867. [all eights reserved.] PLATING ON THE BBINK.

Chapter I

The appearance of a gentleman's carriage, although only a simple brougham, in the neighbourhood of Union Street, Shoreditch, was a sight of so unusual a kind as to excite curiositv in that unaristocratic localitv. When it drew up at the entrance of Deloile Court, formerly Timmins Tenements, curiosity swelled into wonder. Although No vember had set in the morning was fine — a very Saint Martin's little summer morning. VOL. J. B The sun shone with gentle brightness and genial warmth, the few yellow leaves, with tips of green, that remained upon the one tree in the confined court yard, fluttered in the autumnal breeze. Like a caged bird, that single tree seemed to thrive bravely, repaying human care, too, by becoming a connecting bond of union between broad, bountiful nature and the contracted hive of human beings there girt round with busy, bustling streets.

The fine morning had allured out of doors a set of ragged urchins, and wonderfully hale and ruddy they looked, despite the contempt of sanitary conditions in which, without any rearing, they seemed to fight their way into a sort of savage independence. How they did cluster about the clean, bright, glancing carriage, as it drew up at the head of Deloile Court ! How they did gaze open-mouthed at the man in livery upon the box! How very golden they thought his buttons ! "What a sight of money must not such brass buttons and the gold lace band of his hat have cost ! And what could so well dressed a fellow, and a shining horse and coach, want with Mrs. Deloile, for whom he asked ? and he held a letter in his hand for the proper delivery of which the whole score of shoeless boys and girls stood the test of a voluntary competitive examination.

Mrs. Deloile being very rich (for did she not own the whole Court Yard, full of houses, which went by her name, and sundry other dwellings here and there ?) it became a strug gle amongst the candidates for the honour of delivering to so important a lady, a letter from so important a gentleman, as one with all that gold upon his person must surely be, and if Mr. John Jones had not himself peremptorily decided the question, by point ing his whip significantly at the oldest and least ill-dressed of the lot, it is not impossible that the billet, if not torn into fragments, B might have reached its destination, a crum pled, if not illegible, mass. Disappointed in their ambitious aim, the baffled candidates darted off, in advance of the accredited messenger, and rushing head loDg into the lady's room, shouted into her bewildered ears, " Mrs. Deloile, there's a carriage below."

" Aye, ma'am, a real carriage." " And a gent with a gold ribband round his hat." " And a horse that's a regular good un to go. " And you're wanted down at once, ma'am." " And the horse, and the coach, and the gent are standing out in the street, at the top of the court." " And here's a letter for you, ma'am." She tore it open impatiently, and read to herself: — " Mr. Hercules Cramer's compliments to Mrs. Deloile, requests that she will, without a moment's delay, come to his chambers in Gray's Inn. His servant has orders to take her in his own carriage." At the foot of the page, left corner, was a postscriptum : " He is very ill." " Very ill," muttered the little woman to herself, and her large, bright, intense eyes, in their gloomy satisfaction of expression, im posed silence about her. Recovering her presence of mind, her thin tenacious lips re laxed, and to the surprise of the group, who one and all feared and hated her, because of her exactions and her avarice, she emptied her pocket of some loose change, which she desired them to share amongst themselves.

" But it was I who fetched the letter from the gentleman's carriage," remonstrated the biggest and best dressed, and remonstrated not in vain, for to universal astonishment she bestowed upon him a silver sixpence. Yes, she did feel flattered by the coach and the wonder it excited, and her own advance in respectability in the eyes of her admirers, ragged as they were, and she acted with the liberality becoming a gentlewoman of property and position. Besides she wanted to free herself promptly from her intruders, as she was in a hurry to dress, while she had much serious matter to cogitate upon. Mrs. Deloile, now in the meridian of life, was a small, neat-looking little woman, who, when young, must have had the childish, winning air attributed to her, for there would at times, even now, when she was verging upon forty, break out flashes of winningness, in spite of the hardness which might he called her characteristic expression of face.

In reality, she never failed at any time to exer cise a strange fascination over anyone whom it was her interest to subdue. Intensity of will and tenacity of purpose glowed in her large, fearless eyes, and settled upon her rigid lips, so long as they were not withheld from relaxing purposely into most alluring smiles. ;' He is very ill," she repeated to herself — " that means, he is dying; and he wishes to see me once more before he dies. Well, I will see him — not for his sake, but my own. Did he not cast me off? Did he not cause the thickest veil of oblivion to fall between me and my child ? — and wherefore ? Be cause, forsooth, 1 had to stand my trial for what was called a forgery, which others persuaded me into — as if that was a low act like common stealing ; and who was to have gained by it, I should like to know?

He has been very hard upon me, the cruel man. He might have over looked much, for the love I bore him. Well, if he is going out of the world, I suppose he will give me a kind word." And, really, she felt, for a moment, a touch of that humanity which, never very strong within her, had long since seemed to have merged, with all other faculties and qualities, into the one absorbing idea of money making, without the least scruple of conscience as to ways and means. When Mrs. Deloile was shown into the private office of Mr. Hercules Cramer, she found that gentleman seated before his desk, busily examining documents of which her keen eye slily tried to discover the general tenor. Now, whatever may have been the solicitor's private character, it was hardly to be discovered from his professional bearing.

In his office he was simply the man of business — a machine, which went passively and deliberately through its appointed work. Mrs. DeloiJe felt her keen anxiety dulled into re pression of the enquiry she fain would make, by the sheer professional indifference of the man of business, who would attend to her in FLAYING ON THE BRINK. due turn, neither sooner or later ; for had not all claimants upon his attention equal rights to his consideration? " Pray be seated, Mrs. Deloile ; I will at tend to you directly." This was said in a voice so little indicative of any importance being attached to her visit, that she began to question whether she had not been putting too strong a construction upon his note, and attaching too much meaning to the fact of the carriage being sent for her. Yet the postscript, " He is very ill," and the u Lose not a moment," under-lined, meant something more than ordinary.

Yet, bold as she was, not being in her accustomed element, she did not venture to remonstrate. Several minute? elapsed, and Mr- Cramet appeared so completely to have forgotten her presence, that she did not know whether to be vexed and speak out, or restrain her im patience as prudence suggested, and prudence gained the mastery. B While this troublesome debate was going on in her ever busy little head, Mr. Cramer gave signs that some movement was about to take place, by touching a little bell, without, how ever, having raised his eyes until a clerk ap peared with a written paper in his hand, which having handed in, and received a nod of approbation, he withdrew. " Now, Mrs. Deloile," he suddenly said, as he wheeled round his chair, " I am ready for you." " What is the matter, Mr. Cramer ? Is he so very ill?"

" Very ; but let us to business ; he has given me instructions to prepare a codicil to his will, and before he executes it he desires to see yourself." " To see me ? with what view, Mr. Cramer, after his having repudiated me?'' " It is not for me to enter into private motives. His instructions to me are — that in case you are ready to renew your promise PLAYING OX THE BRINK. 11 in the most solemn manner, by the side of his death bed, he signs this codicil to his will. Allow me to read it." " Do not read it, sir ; my mind could not at present follow, in its disturbed state, that sort of law language, word for word. Please tell me the substance first." " As the will must be read by and bye, in your own presence, I comply with your re quest. He leaves his fortune, amounting to thirty thousand pounds, invested in consols, in trust to myself, to pay to the two young ladies — you know whom I mean — upon their leaving school."

" Share and share alike, of course." '* No ! To Amelia Bruton twenty thousand pounds ; to Agatha, ten thousand pounds." " Agatha shall be equal to her. I have the means to make good my word, and I believe you know it, Mr. Cramer." Without noticing the lady's allusion to her own wealth, the solicitor, turning over the page of which he had summed up the con tents, proceeded in the same business manner to describe the conditions imposed upon her self. " Conditions," she muttered, bitterly. "Am I not to see him ? and can we not settle that matter between us ? He has yet to hear what I have got to say, and he shall hear it." " You are, undoubtedly, to be allowed to see him ; but I must warn you that, before he signs this paper, he will require, from your own lips, a solemn renewal of your pro mise. ' "Which, if I withhold?"

" The whole sum in that case reverts to his own daughter Amelia." "Well, what are these conditions, sir?" "They may be summed up in the one, confirming an already existing agreement be tween you, according to which you are never to reveal to Agatha the circumstance of your mutual relationship." PLAYING OX THE BRINK. 13 " Out with it plainly ; that I am never to see my child, or she me." " More than that ; she is not to be dis turbed in her belief that she is the sister of Amelia." " When am I to see Edgar ?'' she asked abruptly. " My carriage is waiting to take you, in company with myself.'' Saying which, he rose, and politely point ing the way, followed her out, and both pro ceeded to Edgar Bruton's residence in Russell Square. Introduced into the chamber of the dying man, she started back with surprise, at see ing him sitting up in a large fauteuil ; him, whom she expected to find lying in bed at the point of death.

He was even dressed, wearing a dressing robe of rich Indian pattern. His once luxuriant dark, curling hair, was, in deed, thinned, and although unchanged in colour, lay darkly upon his sallow forehead. His ej'es shone with their old fire, but not tempered by the old softness, for they were glassy ; and the appeai-ance of Mrs. Deloile gave a deeper and more burning glow to the hectic flush, which had settled upon his cheek. Still, it was the ruin of a grand man, that upon which the mild sun of this Saint Mar tin's summer day shone fully, for he loved light, and fain would take it all in. Mrs. Deloile gazed upon the wreck before her, with such feelings as she thought never to have experienced again. A Saint Martin's little summer burst suddenly into her heart's November, not to remain there long.

Her face lightened up with a return of the once youthful fascination. She dared not, before the severity of the look that rebuked her impul sive advance, cast herself into his arms. Still she would, if authorised by the slightest sign of even sorrow or regret upon his part, have sank upon her knees and craved his forgiveness. She, who a moment before fancied herself prepared to brave his wrath, and capable of not shrinking from the harsh task of embittering his last moments. With a commanding wave of his hand, Edgar indicated that she was to sit down opposite to him. " Lucy,'' he began, in a calm, and not un friendly tone, " be not deceived by my ap pearance. I am dying. To-day I look better, but it is because the sudden return of this beautiful weather affects me divinely. Like one of those leaves without, I am ready to fall with the first frost.

Time is not to be counted upon, so let us make the most of the present moments, by settling seriously, once for all, this contract which it will soon be no longer in my power to see enforced. I want to have your promise renewed in the most solemn manner, before Him in whose presence I am about to appear, as you will have in due time to appear, that you will allow these two poor girls to remain for ever under the conviction that they are sisters, as they are orphans.'' " Say that you forgive me. Say that still you love me, and I will sign any promise you ask, and keep it ; aye, on my soul, and keep it." " Forgive you, Lucy, yes ; but you must ask no more." " I believed that he was dead." " You know," he said, without taking up her allusion, " how I came to be drawn to wards you; how upon my return from India, a heart broken widower, with my orphan child, my poor Amelia, how, wishing to pro cure for her health and strength, I came down to that watering place, where you kept a lodging house."

" And I recollect, as if it were yester day, how you saved the life of my child, of my Agatha, from that rabid dog which flew at her, and which you killed, risking your own life to save my little one's. It is all before my eyes, and your little one run ning and clinging to mine. Oh ! no wonder the two children should have grown up so passionately fond of each other." "Truly I came to love that child as much as my own." " And you ceased to love her mother." "I did not cease to love you on account of the deception only, because, although you did deceive me by representing yourself a widow, yet there were mitigating circumstances which, not enough to save from wretchedness, might have prevented utter disgrace.'' " I believed him dead — upon my soul I did." "But you know that is not the worst.

Could you have retained my name, it would have been a disgraced and dishonoured one ; must I recal the fact?" The woman held down her head, for well she understood the allusion to the fraud she had been tried for, found guilty, and sen tenced to six months' imprisonment. " Lucy, remember that it was for your child's sake that I proposed to take her away, and bring up the two infant children, my own and yours, as sisters. Your child could no longer bear the name you were obliged to resume ; her mother's crime would have dogged her through life. Your name would have clung to her, and repelled all respect and sympathy, and you had the grace to accept the proposals I made for her sake, and hitherto I must do you the justice to acknowledge you have firmly withstood the mother's instincts for the child's sake.

She is now the supposed daughter of Edgar Bruton, the sister of Amelia. Here is my will, in which I name her my own, and provide for as my own." . Mrs. Deloile, as soon as the conversation turned upon the will, was brought too directly upon her accustomed way of life, not to have her predominating qualites revived in full play : and although Edgar Bruton had had ample experience of the vulgar nature of the woman, yet, in spite of that and of her insatiable thirst of gain, of which a prison had failed to cure her, he was nevertheless taken by surprise., as she asked in the plainest bar gaining manner, " Why not divide : share and share alike, then?" Mastering his vexation, he answered with as much tranquillity as he could assume, " I must make a distinction between them for justice sake ; the property belonged to her mother.

Yes, she would, I feel persuaded, could she speak from the other world, where I am about to join her, sanction all my con duct in reference to this rescued child." He said this musingly, and the words as they fell upon the ears of Lucy Deloile, burned into hersoul, inflaming her with jealousy and resentment. The tenderness which the touch ing aspect of Edgar Bruton, had for a moment awakened in her, now darkened into deep, bitter suppressed rage. Startled was he, and shocked, as his eye caught the vindictive force of expression which was concentrated upon him. "What ails you, woman?" he added, with a sudden return of disdain which he had pre viously resolved to suppress. " What ails me ? Indeed, you don't know, forsooth ; why did you send for me, if it was to reproach me, and compare me with another whom you remember to my shame ?"

" Let us cut short this interview," exclaimed Mr. Bruton, rising up fiercely from his chair. "What, you think, ten thousand pounds a small sum?" " I don't ; I have got as much of my own." " How earned, Lucy ?" " What is that to you, sir ?" "You recal your promise ?" " No, I don't; I don't; it is all true," she exclaimed, and as if overpowered by a sudden sense of her own degradation, she wept, and sinking on her kness, cried out, " never, never, for her sake, will I ask to speak one word in her ear ; never shall she know who her mother is, and who her father was ; this I promise, for her sake, not for yours, and for her real mother's sake, who, with the miser's joy, will rejoice in secret over the treasure she disavows in her fear. Agatha is beauti ful, and learned, and accomplished, and by heaven ! she shall be rich ; now, sir, are you satisfied?"

She dashed in fury out of the room, and Edgar, exhausted by a scene he was in every way unequal to, fell upon the floor. Mr. Hercules Cramer entered with a look of alarm. Edgar Bruton, with a final effort of self-command, made signs to be lifted up and replaced in his chair. By a further sign, for he did not try to speak, he motioned for the will, which, in presence of the witnesses brought there for the occasion, he signed, squeezed his friend's hand, and by an expres sive look, showed that he wanted to be left alone. Alone he was not left long. As Mr. Cramer was leaving the house, doubting what he had best do for his friend, he met, to his surprise, his nephew, Beginald Damer, who asked him was it true that Mr. Bruton was dying ? " I fear so," answered the uncle. " Little opportunity as I have had of seeing or knowing him," answered Reginald," would not my visit be an intrusion ?"

"Perhaps it might," answered his uncle, with an attempt at dryness which his agita tion overcame. " Can a fellow creature be allowed, dear uncle, to leave this world without — a word — of comfort?" " Reginald, there are secrets which it would not be becoming to pry into." " With . regard to worldly matters, I pro mise you, uncle, not to say a word ; but, sir, let me warn you,'' said the young man, rising to an attitude of solemn superiority, "you take upon yourself an awful responsi bility in the presence of our Common Father, if you stand between a dying fellow creature, and the Word that giveth life." Mr. Cramer stepped abruptly into his carriage. Over what passed in the chamber of the dying man, we draw a veil. A bell chimed pensively as the sun went down, and Edgar's eyes saw no more any other light.

Chapter II

Four years have elapsed since the scene we have described. We have now to introduce the fair reader to an establishment habitually closed to all visitors of the male kind, with certain excep tions, to be noted by-and-bye. It is the board ing school of Mrs. Emerson and Madame Saint Cyran, at thirty miles west from London. The house belonged formerly to a man of taste and wealth, who, dying intestate, left a property to be scrambled for by numerous claimants, amongst whom it was eventually PLAYING OX THE BRINK. divided ; owing to which circumstance it was that " Oak Grove House" fell into the hands of Mrs. Emerson, a dead bargain. It was a solid, substantial mansion of red brick, relieved by stone adornments about and be tween the windows and over the hall door, and thatiiall door was a strong, stately, carved mass of oak, reached by a flight of steps, on either side of which rose a pair of Ionic pillars, supporting the couch of a regal lion, stretched at full length.

An avenue of oaks led, at one time, to this mansion, but they were cut down and sold with other timber, before the house passed into the hands of the present proprietor, and in lieu of the old aerial castle of the crows there was simply a garden walk, pretty in its own way, and if not quite in keeping with the ancestral man sion to which it led, yet not out of har mony with the brass plate upon the hall door, inscribed, partly in capitals and partly in German text, " Mrs. Emerson and Madame VOL. I. c Saint Cyran' s School for Young Ladies-" In order to complete this external description we may be allowed to add that, at the rear of the house was a large garden, which had once been an orchard, and as the fruit trees were spared, it partook of the half-wood, half-flower combination, which blends wild ness with art so very agreeably.

Over Oak Grove House there reigned always a sort of cloistral solemnity. Inside, upon the front windows, hung over impervious curtains, and it could be perceived at a glance that the inmates of the establishment were held under close restraint. It was precisely upon account of the reputation which this school had for severity of discipline, combined with elegant training, that it was chosen by the late Mr. Edgar Bruton for his daughter Amelia, and for Agatha, who passed as Amelia's sister. At the time of his death they had already passed three years at the school, under the belief that they were both the orphan daughters of the same lost mother; only upon stated days did their father come to see them, and by a special regulation, they spent their holidays in the school itself. The fact was that after Mr. Bruton had imposed upon Mrs. Deloile the acceptance of absolute separation, on her part, he likewise, as if partly for example sake to her, and partly out of consideration for the future interests of the children themselves, resolved upon the restricted course of personal communication, such as we have indicated.

Even when he felt death to be approaching he mastered his inclination to summon them to his bed side, and with an effort, cha racteristic of his resolute temper, he saw them for the last time, beneath an apple tree in the garden. As he sat upon a garden chair, the girls at either side standing, their hands in his, there arose a great sigh of the wind, and an apple fell at his feet. Startled by some vague perception of a symbolical coincidence, c he pressed them to his heart, and they never saw him more. About these two young girls there gathered circumstances of mystery, which rendered them objects of curious interest in the eyes of their fellow pupils. Their sudden ap pearance in deep mourning, one morning, with only obscure intimation of their having lost their sole parent, the grave, delicate, dis tinguished-looking gentleman, of whom one or two had only caught glimpses now and then, combined with the absence of all other friends; and, again, their holidays, which to them were days of greater isolation and deeper seclusion, — all this would, in any case, have created tender attention; but there was, in addition, that beauty of face and figure, which is of itself so potent in conquering affection, and which each pos sessed, differing in kind, yet almost equal in degree.

Amelia, born at Calcutta, seemed to combine the best characteristics of the Anglo- Saxon and Indian type. By the mother's side, there was a slight mixture of the native race. Her father or great grandfather, at a time when there existed little prejudice to separate the best classes of both countries, had married an Indian lady of rank, who seemed to have bequeathed to her descendants her own tall, slight, elegant figure, her poeti cally languid air, with her silken, dark hair,and tender, dark eyes, that rather drooped down than gazed upon you. Strengthen up this drooping gracefulness, with inward Anglo- Saxon steadfastness ; let the fairness of the Anglo-Saxon colour absorb, as it were, the southern duskiness, until both blended into an olive paleness, and you have, peradven ture, an idea of the kind of loveliness with which nature had endowed Amelia Bruton.

Agatha, tall, like her, and in complexion not unlike, was different in general expression. Her black hair did not, like Amelia's, shine with the soft gloss of silk, but rather with the undulating light of crispy waves. Her eyes alone recalled those of a woman already introduced in this book ; but they veiled their intensity in a luminous softness, without which the brightest eyes fail to win sympathy. The lowness of forehead — Amelia's was, on the contrary, high — was saved from appearance of intellectual defi ciency, by the richness of her hair, which, in its exuberant abundance, embraced the whole head in a splendid crown. She was a mag nificently vigorous creature, endowed with tropical wealth of vitality ; but she lacked the exquisite air of refinement which marked each look and movement of Amelia.