Ruby. A novel. Founded on the life of a circus girl

Front matter

RUBY A NOVEL. A TENTH THOUSAND. RUBY; OR, HOW GIRLS ARE TRAINED FOR CIRCUS LIFE. FOUNDED ON FACT. BY MISS AM YE READE. ILLUSTRATED BY TALBOT HUGHES. REVISED EDITION. Conbon : TRISCHLER AND COMPANY, 1 8, NEW BRIDGE STREET, E.C. 1890. \All rights reserved!] DEDICATION. This volume is dedicated to those ladies and gentlemen who by their practical sympathy and support have encouraged the author to persevere in her task. Amongst these may be mentioned the following : — GAINSFORD BRUCE, Esq., Q.C., M.P JACOB BRIGHT, Esq., M.P. SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, M.P. JOSHUA ROWNTREE, Esq., M.P. WALTER McLAREN, Esq., M.P. JOHN W. ROWNTREE, Esq. R. MANUEL, Esq., M.A. Colonel D'OTLET BATTLEY, Rev. ALFRED NORRIS. Rev. R. MACBETH, M.A. Rev. F. A WALKER, M.A., D.D. H. H. RAPHAEL, Esq., London School Board. High Sheriff, County Wicklow.

Mrs. ANNIE JARVIS, School Board, Edinburgh. Mrs. F. MORRISON, Farmwood, Ascot. Mrs. S. BENNETT, Richmond. CONTENTS. CHAP. pag» I. Home ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... i II. Weald Farm ... .. ... ... ... ... ... * III. Weald Rectory ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 14 IV. Cynthia's First Meeting with Hayward... ... ... ... 21 V. Aunt Pamela Speaks her Mind ... ... ... ... ... 26 VI. Mrs. Perry... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 35 VII. The Chart ... .„ ... ... ... ... ... ... 43 VIII. Cynthia says Good-bye to the Old Farm ... ... ... 59 IX. He shall be my Husband... ... ... ... ... ... 66 X. Hayward Visits Scotland ... ... ... ... ... 74 XI. In the Lone Bothy ... ... ... ... ••■ ... 85 XII. Cynthia Forces Jack's Hand ... ... ... ... ... 96 XIII. Hayward Produces a Gold Riis'G... ... ... ... ... 108 XIV.

Cynthia Declines to Marry ... ... ... ... ... 118 XV. Retrenchment ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 13° XVI. Eagle and the Lamb ... ... ... ... ... ••• 144 XVII. Plucked 152 XVIII. Cynthia and Hayward Part ... ... ... ... ... 161 XIX. Ruby's New Home ... ... ... ... ... ••• ■•• 176 XX. The Burlesque Actress ... ... ... ... «■ ... 192 XXI. At School 202 XXII. Cynthia Resolves to Sacrifice her Child to become a Countess 216 XXIII. Countess of Dunhoe Objects ... ... ... ... ... 233 XXIV. Signor Enrico ... ... ... ... ... ••• — 249 XXV. Ruby is Introduced to a New Life and a New Friend ... 259 XXVI. In the Circus 2?2 XXVII. A Murder in Pimlico ... ... ... ... ... ■■• 285 XXV1II. Ruby Receives Degrading Punishment ... ... ... ... 295 XXIX. An Old Friend of Cynthia's Turns Up ... ... ... ••• 3°7 XXX.

Chapter I

, HOME. A SEPTEMBER day in the country, a day when nature seems resting after the heat and glare of the summer-tide — such a day must touch, with its peace, the hearts of those who never see beauty in the wayside flowers, or care to watch the dying sunset, or grieve because the hand of autumn is just beginning to rob the trees and fields of their glorious beauty. There are many such, many who live out their lives with out feeling the exquisite pleasures which arise from the adoration of nature, many who only use flowers to adorn their inartistic persons just to please the passing eye of fashion, and then fling them away to die uncared for. They forget that the rose, the pale lily, the blue-eyed veronica have bloomed in their sweet country homes, happy in the sunlit summer days, happy in the golden sunrise with the cool dew-drops for their crowns, happy until men had plucked them from their tender stems — plucked them to die in the heat and glare of the great cities.

Perhaps the flowers breathe out longings, and cries of anguish for the homes of their birth before they droop and die. Man can never fathom the mysteries of the pure world which belongs exclusively to the flowers ; so they know not A HOME. Cynthia Dawson, the farmer's only daughter, was struck by the beauty of the early autumn day ; and as she sat by her father's side in the old clumsy gig, drawn by the patient plodding grey mare, she had plenty of time to admire the glorious panorama before her. It 'was two long years since she had gazed at the familiar fields and lanes, and the old homestead which she had always known as home. Those two years had been spent in a fashionable school in Paris, for Farmer Dawson was very proud of his girl, the child of his dead wife, and nothing was spared in order that she should be educated like a lady.

" If her father is a farmer, the girl shall be as good as the rest." That theory he had carried out to the best of his knowledge. Knowledge, such as possessed by Farmer Dawson, is not always the best guide, and others may suffer for the want of wiser counsel. In the present instance the results of that lack in the future years were the reverse of salutary. Two years had elapsed since she had seen the home of her baby days, two long years since she had picked the early primrose in the shady lanes, or gathered the purple eyed, spring-scented violets ; two years since she had seen the lambs frisk and play in the golden sunset hour. But the young count not time as the aged ; and to Cynthia Dawson the two years at Paris appeared an almost in definite period, time seems so long to those who are away from home and kindred.

Home ! the golden word which was born with the world, and will only die when time is no more. Home ! she could see it now, for they had reached the hill-crest, and before her lay a magnificent expanse of country, broken up into delicate traceries by hedgerows that were already rich in clusters of luscious hips and haws, which made the hearts of the fluffy, chatty sparrows grow light in anticipation Then there were the gorgeous patches of colour which stood out from the woodland, the dark conifers looking HOME 3 bright side by side with the hues of crimson and brown which autumn was dispensing with lavish hand. Below the shady woods, the corn-fields were dotted, looking like old dead gold ; and men — men she had known from child hood — were placing the stooks in the waggons, whilst the sun shone on the sleek well-fed horses — the team of which the farmer was so proud.

And adjoining the corn-fields, the turk's head clover reared its bunches of brilliant crimson making, as it were, an army of red-coated field soldiers ; and the hedges which surrounded them were low and bushy, the home of the bramble whose berries were only russet on this early September day. A few more days of bright sunshine and they would hang in rich, heavy clusters, and the village children would go out to fill their baskets and tins with the autumn treasures. The eyes of the fair young girl wandered with a lingering love over the beauties of the woods, the fields, and the rustic perfection which is born of nature alone. But they rested more especially upon the farm which stood on the southern slope of the North Downs, overlooking the vast expanse of the Weald of Kent. There was the dear old home once more, with its tiled, irregular roof under whose eaves the swallows had, year after year, brought up their baby broods.

At the rear stood the great barn, the barn where she had played through many a long summer day, and where the cow-boy had put her up a swing. How often she had tried to touch with her feet the great beam which ran along the very top of the barn. Cynthia almost smiled at these recollections, for she remembered how she used to sit on the heaps of unthrashed corn and watch the sleek, gentle mice peep out from their wee holes, and how she would tap her foot down hastily to warn them when the grave, grey cat and her playful kitten were watching an opportunity to enjoy a meal at the expense of a pretty life. HOME. As they neared the valley, she could discern the cow sheds where, some years ago, her favourite cow " Straw berry" was wont to feed from her hand, looking at her lovingly with great, gentle eyes as she munched the luscious clover.

Perhaps it tasted sweeter for the touch of the girlish hand. Love can reach deep enough to sweeten the lives even of the grazing cattle. Close to the sheds was the wall-built kennel for " Watch " the house dog, but Watch hated his cosy home, and Cynthia had taken care that he never lived in it, excepting when he choose to sit and watch the callow broods of ducks as they took their first lessons in swimming from the quick-eyed parent birds. A little way from the kennel was the fowl roost, quite a dignified building for the feathered tribe. Cynthia remembered well, too, how "Coachy," her own especial pet, had lived there, and how one night the fox had come and " Coachy " was never seen again. There were only a few torn feathers and marks of Reynard's feet in the soft mud to tell the sad tale.

Remembrances are oftentimes pleasant, oftentimes very bitter, but we cannot help them arising any more than we can prevent the golden sun from going to his rest at the hour of eve. So surely as the night steals over the flowers and the woods, so surely as the rosy tinted morning breaks over the dew-sprinkled flowers, so surely will remembrances cloud the mind like deep shadows, leaving behind some traces of their presence. The old mare jogged on. They were almost at the gate now, and the soft, gentle lowing ofthe cows could be heard, broken now and then by the barking of the shepherd's dog, which was earnestly engaged in scouring the field in search of a straying sheep. It was all so lovely, the scene, the day, the sky, the old home, the dear father by her side ; such a pleasure comes but rarely in a lifetime, and one must be very young to sip the cup of honey to its dregs.

HOME. 5 Cynthia Dawson was young aid full of the soul which the world would say only belongs to the poet's heart and mind. In the after years the picture of the sweet Sep tember day and the old associations came back to her with painful and cruel vividness. The picture, which to her girlish eyes was tender and full of charms and purity, arose then as a curse, too bitter to contemplate, and when long miles and time separated her from the blest and peaceful scene, the forms and faces of the horses and cows came before her, and in her dreams she heard the cock crow out his morning salutations, and sometimes the merry chirp of the sparrows or the call of the plover would reach her. Then she would be wandering down lanes full of the beauti ful gifts of the spring ; and where the voice of the merry cuckoo fell amongst the pale primroses and the early flowers, then she would awaken, only to learn that these sights and sounds which seemed like heaven to her were very far away.

Heaven to the Christian is very far off. It is a dream of something perfect, something which is to be his for ever ; but its walls of pearls and rubies and its streets of gold are yet very far off; and as far as the Christian's Heaven is from earth, so far was Cynthia then from the sights and sounds which had greeted her from the cradle. They were dead, gone ; but they had left an impress of their loveliness on her brain and heart which was not quite erased. Per haps she wished that memory would loose its impression and leave her alone, but that would be impossible.

Chapter II. Weald Farm

The exterior of a place we love may call forth many affectionate remembrances even if they are fraught and tempered with grief; but it is the interior, the rooms, which of themselves comprise home, that touch us the most acutely. We picture in our minds the sitting-room where loved ones used to sit and chat, the round table which held little treasures mostly the gifts of friends long since dead or forgotten. The portraits which looked down upon us when we were children, the portraits which seem part of the family circle. Pictures recall to mind childish days more than anything else ; inanimate as they are, they speak to us for evermore. There are none who cannot think of the picture that was over the mantelpiece in the dining-room in the old home, or the painting which adorned the library, or, perchance, the great staircase.

Pictures form a memory which no amount of rubbing will efface. Then the bedroom with the latticed window, which could hardly be opened in the hot glorious days of July so per sistently did the honeysuckle and the jessamine entwine their strong arms around, above and below. The white curtained bed with its lavender-scented sheets, which made retiring to rest in those days a treat ; and, by the bedside, the small table upon which rested in profusion vases filled from the woods, the primrose, the violet, the yellow-eyed cowslip, each and all had their turn to bloom and die in that room which belongs in mind to " long ago." Cynthia would have smiled had some prophet foretold that such insignificances could ever take a prominent place in a lifetime. What could there be in a picture, a room, a lattice window, a vase of spring flowers ?

Not much in the present, but acute agonies, perchance, in the dim dark future. Remembrances and the future, are bound together with a link which never can be severed by any earthly locksmith, the grave alone can break them asunder ; but there is no future when the generations are young. Cynthia had paid a visit all round the farm ; she had greeted every living thing, and she tried to believe that they all knew her again. She had breakfasted in the old kitchen with its long, oak-carved table and its large square bricked fireplace, upon which in winter the faggots blazed up right merrily, taking the guest back to the time of our forefathers. She had been shown by Aunt Pamela, who had kept house since her dear mother died so long ago, the huge sides of smoke-dried bacon which adorned the low ceiling.

She had followed Aunt Pamela to the well kept dairy, listened very patiently to that good body's description why one pan of cream was rich and yellow, and why another was white and thick. She had exerted herself to seem interested in the number of fowls which were lay ing, and the price butter was fetching last week. She had duly sympathized with her aunt on the delinquencies of the dairymaid, the over-reaching tradespeople and the fraudulent miller. But Cynthia was changed. That which had been a pleasure had now assumed a totally different aspect ; the little items of news which Aunt Pamela vouchsafed, fell upon ears that paid but little heed, beyond what mere formal politeness required. Auut Pamela had come to keep house for her brother when Cynthia was a pretty toddling baby of three. She had undertaken the charge of the child with the firm intention of " doing her duty by her " conscientiously.

This she had done according to her lights. She prided herself that no child for many a mile round had the care that Cynthia received ; and the neighbours could not but agree with the assertion, for the child looked the picture of health and happiness, with her head one mass of shining golden curls and her little dresses of pure white. There are misguided people who are exceedingly well meaning and intend to do their best for those under their charge ; and Pamela Dawson was one of them. But she had failed, as many others have failed, because the good seed was not sown on the ground of love. Seeds to grow up into sturdy plants and to bring forth fruit must needs be laid in the soft cultured earth and tended by loving hands, or else the weeds will grow apace and choke the tender green stems as they struggle for life and air.

In Aunt Pamela's training the weeds had sprung around the girl she had striven to bring up in the righteous way. No tender hand had guided the fragile stem, or watered the plant from a fountain whose jets were all love. Pamela had seen fifty summers ; she had worked with her hands and her head since she was a mere child. At ten years of age she could fetch the cows up from the field on her father's farm, at twelve she had milked them when the Bowman lay ill from a wound from the fat-sided, sleek, old bull. As time grew on and she became a woman, the men about the farm, the miller from the mill-house on the hill, knew it was no use to play any pranks with Miss Pamela. She knew exactly what every man should do in a day; she could tell almost to a pound the quantity of flour that the miller had kept back.

Nothing escaped the fox-eyed Pamela; even the one servant of all work could never take a morsel of bread or a sip of home-brewed ale without her mistress swooping down upon her as the eagle upon his prey. There came a day when her father's farm was broken up by the death of the dear old master. The men who had worked For him since they were mere youths, brushed their horny Hands across their tear-laden eyes and blest his memory from hearts which were nearly bursting with grief as they said one to another : " We shall never have such a master again," and then they would recall to mind some kind deed of his when they had a child dying, or a wife sick in the cottage home. They followed him to the grave and then returned to the farm and gathered things together ready for the sale, and, weeping in heart, betook themselves off to new homes and fresh work.

But they often thought of the silent farm where the lowing of the cattle was heard no more and where the baying of the sheep dog never sounded on the still, calm air. There is something very sad in a tenantless house, when the master lies beneath the yew in the old-fashioned churchyard hard by. It touches the heart to see the empty stalls, gates never used for the cows and horses to pass through to the cool pond in the fold-yard, and the stillness of the great barn only broken by the scampering of the tender-footed mice, and the solid pacing of the rats who looked very grave when they found all the corn gone, and only the floor trampled about as if many men had been busy removing the great sheaves. They wondered mutely, sadly, not as men. Aunt Pamela was not long dethroned ; she repaired to her brother's and sent the one year housekeeper back to her home.

Had not she the first right there, in her brother's house? So she took up her abode and commenced working as was her wont ; Pamela hated waste, and, therefore, there were no scraps for the poor who had come daily for many a long year. She haied friends, too, because they wasted the time which she needed for her endless patching and turning of the household linen. Hence there was to be no hospitable tea-table spread with farm-house bread and fresh luscious butter. She hated gossip because it was unrighteous ; Aunt Pamela was duly righteous ; the seed time and the harvest depend so much on Providence that it was well to serve the Master of the great Vineyard. So from morning until late at night Pamela Dawson worked on as no slave at the galley has ever toiled. If at the end of the month she had gained more than an extra percentage upon the sale of eggs, buttei and poultry, she was complacently satisfied and thanked the Lord for Plis boundless mercies.

There are some who believe when fraud is successful that Providence has blest their efforts. They forget that fruit may be golden to the eye and lead to the heart. Pamela Dawson had yet to take to her heart a lesson. But matters were not so easy ; for her brother asserted his right to be master. So the poor came as usual to the old ivy-covered back-door, and went away replenished, though not comforted ; and the men still had their abundance of beer, and the servants helped themselves to huge pieces of bread and cheese, and enjoyed the best the farm had to give. Aunt Pamela was first determined, then furious, but all to no purpose. What the child needed, or the servants needed, they should have, as long as he had it to give. So a calm settled down upon the household when the master was at home, and he never knew how weary, and sick at heart the inmates grew with her con tinual bickerings and grievances.

Cynthia had not been many days at home before she learnt that Aunt Pamela had not improved durinoher two years' absence. Formerly this constant grumbling had not been a trouble to the girl, because she had spent her days in roving about the fields, after her short hours of study, with the village curate, were completed. Aunt Pamela had set her face against the child wandering alone in the meads and lanes, but her father had championed her through the battle, and Cynthia was as free as the pigeons which plumed themselves in the summer heat. It was not until Cynthia was fifteen years of age that Aunt Pamela again asserted what she considered were her womanly rights. It occurred when Farmer Dawson announced his intention of sending Cynthia away to a French school. Then the wrath rose in Aunt Pamela's breast, like the foaming sea, and refused to be still.

What ! send the child to a country where they were all papists, which to her mind was worse than being heathens ; a place where they worshipped idols, and never kept the Sabbath ! Why, it was like sending the girl to the bottomless pit at once, in her opinion. Besides, what did a farmer's daughter want with fine French words? In her early days the girls learnt to make butter, and to sew, and were content to sit in the old market-place and sell the produce of the farm. No ; Aunt Pamela did not agree with modern notions of education, and the contention which raged at Weald Farm, in consequence, might have been likened to a disturbed bee-hive. But Cynthia went to Paris all the same. She left her farmhouse home a sweet gentle girl ; she returned sweeter still in face and form ; but something of the poison of the world had become mingled with the healthy sap in the tendrils of her young life, and she never was the same again after those two short years.

Cynthia had not been home long before she recommenced her country strolls. To be away amongst the last gifts of nature before the summer died, was to her sensitive mind, the sweetest balm she could have. But there was another reason why she sought commune with the brown-crested woods, and the tranquil lanes, and that was attributable to Aunt Pamela ; from morning until evening that worthy woman never ceased her tirade of censure and complaints against the hapless girl. All day long greetings made up of satire and sneering, fell upon her ears. She was toe grand to work, too mighty by far ; farmers should not have fine lady daughters who played the piano, and spoke French. In order to avoid these, and such like speeches, Cynthia left the house after the early breakfast hour, and seldom returned until hunger induced her to do so ; and when the soft October rain fell upon the parched-up earth, she repaired to her room and sat looking out upon the far stretching landscape, and watching the trees reviving as each sweet drop fell upon their dusty-tinted leaves.

Cynthia was very dull. Before she left home the boy pupils of the rector had been her staunch allies. But in her absence they had left, and now there were no com panions for her, and so the days hung very heavily. She had called at the Rectory once since her return, and had learnt that there was only one fresh pupil, a John Hayward, and a dreadfully wild young fellow he was, to udge from the account the vicar's wife gave of him ; but as yet they had never met. The Weald farm was not the home it used to be to her in her early days ; a restlessness had taken hold of the girl, its very homeliness became a bore, its sights and sounds wearied her ; at times her dislike to Aunt Pamela grew almost to hatred, and even her father appeared so loud in his manner and so coarse in expression, that her love for him was trembling in the balance.

Perhaps the birds whose homes were in the long, narrow autumn-tinted lanes might have heard her sigh out faint complaints from a heart that was very weary; perhaps they heard her mourn her lot as a farmer's daughter ; perhaps the hedges, crowned with crimson berries, saw her put out her fair small hands to grasp, as it were, a throne where she could reign supreme. But birds never tell what they hear. Discontent, like a fire, is a bad master. If it once can reach the mind and heart of man, it nestles there until life becomes a curse. Never again can happiness dwell where discontent has set its foot ; it makes life one long strife ; it displaces joy and peace without giving anything in its stead. Discontent dethrones and hurls its followers into the mire, and revels in its vile power, gloating even in the inability of its victims to get back that which it has stolen.

Cynthia Dawson was just beginning to taste the first fruits of this curse of discontent ; it was just touching with gentle, but insidious hand her heart, only just the edge of it, but it left a tiny worm there which in time would eat itself into the core and leave its hideous trail to mark the life of its owner with very bitter anguish and despair. Anguish and despair are the offspring of discontent, born from its body, nourished at its breast.

Chapter III. Weald Rectory

WEALD RECTORY lay some little way back from the village highway. It was approached by a drive, on either side of which grew great masses of primroses in the early spring time. As you neared the house, there was a large cluster of lilacs, whose rich, dark, purple blossoms stood out in bold relief from among its fairer and purer neighbour the laburnum. So mingled were the boughs of bloom that it would seem as if they budded from the same stem and not trees side by side. The house itself was a long, red-gabled building, the periods of its structure evidently being varied. Each vicar had in succession probably added a room or two, utterly regardless either of style or taste. The main portion of the building was the original house and that alone could aspire to be called artistic. The drawing and dining rooms both looked out upon a large and not ill-kept lawn, at the bottom of which ran a boundary of rockery work, which was supposed to be the home of the poly podium and other plants suitable for the situation.

On the right lay the kitchen garden which supplied the rector's table with fresh fruit and vegetables. The study — the sanctum of the house — was a corner room overlooking the bower of laburnum from one window, while from the other the arms of a great oak could be seen. So near was it, that on a windy March days it kept tapping on the glass, as if keeping time to the continual scratching of the vicar's ready pen. At the back of the house stood some rather rickety stabling which was seldom used for a horse, save when a neighbouring parson came over to attend a clerical meeting. At other times it was left to the rats and mice and a tricycle. At the extreme end of the house — the one farthest from the road — was a small, red building, ecclesias tical in style, with one small stained glass window repre senting the agonies of Calvary.

This building was erected by the present vicar whose views were of a Romanising turn, and who celebrated, each morning, mass, according to his own creed, and held other services contrary to the Church of England. The interior of Weald Rectory accorded somewhat with the exterior. There was nothing pretty about it ; the long low roofed dining-room, with its high stone mantel-shelf looked the reverse of homely ; the table was of plain unpolished wood, and did not boast of a cloth ; the chairs were rush-bottomed, such as one sees in a London church. The pictures on the grey, sombre-painted walls were all of a religious type, mostly relating to the immaculate Virgin and the dead Christ. The drawing-room was entered by three steps from the dining-room and was on the whole a pleasanter room, for a piano graced with its presence one corner, and the walls were hung with pictures of country scenes, and here and there represented exquisite touches of foreign towns and ancient cathedrals.