The Yoke of Steel. A novel

Front matter

NEW NOVELS AT ALL THE LIBRARIES. OF THE DEEPEST DIE. By COLONEL CTJTHBERT LARKING, Author of 'With Everything AgainBt Her,' &c. 1vol. Us. AFTER LONG WAITING. By JESSIE L. NICHOLSON, Author of ' Twixt Will and Will Not' 2 vols. A LEDDY IN HER AIN RIGHT. By Mrs. TOM KELLY, Author of 1 Time and Chance.' With Frontispiece. 1 vol. 'is. SIN FOR A SEASON. By VERE CLAVERENG, Author of 'Barcaldine,' &c. 1 voL 6b. THE ONE ALTERNATIVE. By REGINALD E. SALWEY, Author of 'The Finger of Scorn,' 'Ventured in Vain,' &c. 2 vols. LONDON: HURST & BLACKETT, LIMITED. A NOVEL BY C. J. WILLS AUTHOR OF* 'THE PIT TOWN CORONET,' 'AN EASY-GOING FELLOW,' 'BEHIND AN EASTERN VEIL,' ETC. AND GODFREY BURCHETT AUTHOR OF ' DOMINIC PENTERNE,' ' ONE OF THE WICKED,' ETC. IN ONE VOLUME LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1897.

All Rights Reserved. CONTENTS. PAGE I. At Lady Penneeel's ...... 1 II. A Parenthesis 11 III. The Little Rift 20 IV. A Ball 29 V. Winifred makes a Promise .... 39 VI. Man and Wife 48 VII. The old Earl 59 VIII. Amantium Irae 69 IX. Process of Development 77 X. Mother and Daughter 90 XL The Subject of a Wager 107 XII. Blind Eros ....... 114 XIII. Two Views of a Transaction .... 12b XIV. The Storm Bursts 136 XV. The Wife's Mistake 149 XVI. Christine's Conquest 15o CONTENTS. XVII. A Little Flutter 176 XVIII. Coute que Coute 189 XIX. The Last Sitting 199 XX. What it led to 209 XXI. In Bloomsbury 220 XXII. What will Mrs. Grundy say ? . . . 235 XXIII. Winifred's Ordeal 246 XXIV. Between the Wronged and the Guilty . . 255 XXV. A Lunch at Richmond 266 XXVI. Strephon and Phyllis 276 XXVII. The Joy, the Ease, and the Felicity 292 XXVIII. A Lover's Quest 303 XXIX. At Barmouth 312 XXX. The Shadow of Death 319 XXXI. Conclusion

Chapter I. At Lady Pennerel's

The clear, pleasant evening of June 13tb, 188 — , was turning decidedly into night. It was ten o'clock. A few wayward puffs of wind, repressed during the day by the sun's power, were chasing each other round the corners and about the squares. Just where the short stretch of Hanover Street leads into Hanover Square from Regent Street, a young man was vainly attempting to light a cigarette, in the shelter of a lamp-post, with a wax vesta. He was dressed with the habitual care which shows the custom of society : a light, black cloak protected the coat and shirt-front of his upper man ; it was tbrown open, and little opal studs were visible ; he wore an opera-hat, and his shoes shone brilliantly in the lamp- B rays. He threw away tbe second vesta ; in spito of the waxed threads carefully turned over its head, like an inside-out umbrella, it had failed completely.

Love's labour lost ! The door of a neighbouring public-house was swung open. The quick rattle of a banjo and the sound of a woman's shrill voice drowned his male diction. The woman was delivering a nigger melody with the full noise of forced robustness. Then there slid out one of those little old men in a besmeared tall hat, dented just under the crown — one of those whose feet are always flat with what they tread on, and whose knees are ever bent a little — a homunculus juniperi of the make peculiar to London. He shuffled off, and the door swung to again. The young man prepared a third vesta. ' That comes of having no fusees. You can't put a bought box in a dress-waistcoat pocket,' he said ; adding dejectedly, ' Misfortunes never come alone. She's given me the chuck; and now this infernal thing won't light !' He tried the third passionately.

A gust of air car ried the lighted head through the wax protection, and blew it on to his cheek, where it left an aggra vating stinging sensation, and, being hastily wiped off, the apprehension of a black mark. Next it fell on his shirt-front, extinguishing itself. He flung the cigarette into the gutter, and pro- AT LADY PENNEREL 'S. 3 ceeded across the square towards Bond Street; be stopped where the temple of fashionable Hymen rears itself bard by in rather gloomy impressiveness. ' Having an aunt like mine's just as bad as having a guv'nor like so many fellows, only you can't say so much about it; it sounds ridiculous, since she's a woman and an aunt. That's the oppression of wo men, you can't grumble about them if you're a male person. I wish I were a girl. I'd make my chaperons and the other tea-table elderlies that bad me squirm with my pretty little tongue.

Some do, but it's not common. I suppose I'd better go to this dance.' The young man explored the recesses where cash might lurk, and concluded, 'Not even cab-fares to rely on, unless one denies oneself everything, and spends the rest of the evening dry ... A beastly institution, the racing season ! . . . And she's given me the chuck ! Well, one ought to be content with one mash.' Debouching sombrely upon Bond Street, be nearly overthrew a hastening passenger. This also was a young man, and similarly costumed, but he was taller than the first, some two or three years older, and sported a slight moustache and whiskers. Suddenly suppressing the anger he would have vented on a stranger, he began, while the other was leisurely col lecting an apology, ' What the doose, Luxmore, prompts you to hurl B people about this evening?

Been studying bruising? I'm your man, you know . . . Where are you going to-night? Going to Lady Pennerel's dance?' ' Yas,' responded the other, with that nameless intonation of the little word which announces both apathy and unwillingness. As they commenced strolling amicably in the op posite direction to that in which Luxmore had been making his way, he asked in turn, ' Are you ?' ' No,' replied his friend. ' Never go to dances.' ' Where are you going, then ?' enquired Ned Lux> more, with a faint awakening of interest. His friend smiled astutely. ' You go and whirl the indicated maidens,' he said. ' I'm off on affairs of my own.' ' Pretty tol-lol affairs!' rejoined the younger. He paused ; it would be the moment for the elder, Denver Laughton by name, to proffer an invitation, but he passed it over.

Possibly he was aware that his friend lacked liberty, and cash. 'It's the same old story, you know,' continued Luxmore, in a voice of discontent. ' Auntie keeps me so close — drives me to this sort of thing, as a kind of business ; sees career in it. Awfully dull, too I Says I'm making my way.' ' By the by,' remarked the other, ' I hear ' Oh, yes,' admitted Luxmore, intuitively taking up AT LADY PENNEREL'S. 5 his theme, ' that's true. She's given me the chuck. Rather shabby thing to do, too, I think. But, of course, coin, coin, coin — Lupersteith has a heap more than I, and a handle on his name to boot. And I never set up for an Adonis. I could thrash him at the 'Varsity, and could now if I cared, only he's always doosid civil to me.' ' He's not a bad sort, I should think,' rejoined Laughton. ' I don't know him.' ' No,' answered the younger, consentingly (Laugh ton had more money than anything else), and added, ' He isn't a bad kind of fellow.' 'Besides,' pursued the elder, 'you were rather lucky to have a look-in at all.

She's ' ' Particular. Yes,' observed Luxmore, compli mented. ' But, fact is, I'm poor, on an allowance, and perhaps I'm just as well out of it. Besides, I've got another adoration ; that's partly why I'm going to the Pennerels' dance — on the chance. I always like to keep up an adoration ; it's something, when there's nothing else to do.' 'Married?' 'No, a girl; but she's awfully nice. In society this time ; dances beautifully.' 'Name?' ventured the other. 'No, thank you, dear boy,' answered his friend, drily. ' Well, I must be getting on my way. Ta-ta !' ' Pleasant evening, old man.' It had occurred to Luxmore that he was impart ing in the interview rather more than he received. He had also seen the figure of a man he wanted advancing from the opposite end of Regent Street, for they had gone up Conduit Street, and were in the main thoroughfare.

Charles Llewellyn Leighton Pawler, with whom he almost instantly came up, was verging upon six and-forty ; he himself said forty, very pardonably. He was an intensely comfortable man, both hj nature and election ; comfortable as to his income ; of a comfortable descent, not born at a pitch which is exacting, but able to go everywhere ; comfortable in life and digestion, and perchance a shade, just a thought, uncomfortably comfortable in those em bodied measurements of him which were suspended like an ex-voto in the vestiarium of his tailor. A little rubicund of visage, with a pointed moustache and beard of the Charles I. cut, and merry, twinkling blue eyes — carefully preserved, and carrying off just an inception of baldness cleverly on an excellent, almost Shakespearian forehead — he could count still upon being a good-looking man ; an advantage not wasted on him, for he lived on it, and the skilled craftsman who constructed all that he appeared in was an experienced artist.

The younger man stopped him with, ' How d'ye do, dear boy ?' AT LADY PENNEREL' S. 7 ' Hallo, Ned, is it you ?' he answered. ' I hadn't seen you.' ' Thought you might be going to the same shop as myself,' explained Luxmore, ' the Penuerels' dance. I know you don't despise dances. Dare say you'll be going down in a cab. I'm getting down afoot.' But this struck him as too suggestive, so he subjoined, ' My aunt, you know, is rather stingy in the temsport estimates.' ' I'm going there presently,' replied Pawler. ' To my own den first. Come with me?' he inquired, good-humouredly, and added, 'At my age, foolish is he who sits after dinner, except for tbe half-hour of coffee and cigar. " Si noles sanus, curres hydropicus." " If you won't exercise yourself, your stomach will exercise you." That's a fair rendering of the poet, isn't it ?' 'Ah !' commented the younger man, rather vacantly. ' Lady Pennerel's dances are always Avorth going to,' continued the elder. ' I came up, as it happens, from Lymington yesterday.' 'Yachting?' ' Yes.' ' Jolly !' ' And you find me wralking in the evening,' Pawler kept on, for the sake of saying something. ' Always will.

For a man who dines and wishes to live, it's essential — to avoid the fiend, gout by name, and the . treatment, and the golden fees of tbe physician. Dinner is part of the morality which keeps the human race up ; wherever there's merely food, it's a return to savagery. Frankly, a spread napkin, an easy posture, and I've a strong desire to remain glued over the " 0 nata mecum consule Manlio." ' Bother the ancients !' interrupted the younger man, rather rudely and ill-humouredly, for he had turned rusty, thinking over his allowance. 'Why don't they teach us figures at the other place, like they do at Cambridge ? To see how many stars can get round the sun in two hours aud three-quarters, and which is past the post first — something positive in that. Your own boat down at Lymington ?' 'No. Young Clement Ardagh's. Smoke?' in quired Pawler, good-naturedly. ' Thanks.' ' Well,' pursued the senior, ' have you any par ticular attraction at the Pennerels' ?

Of course I have. I'm never without twenty, named on mutable tablets in my pocket-book or elsewhere, so that you can never be certain of getting me caught upon the score of one.' ' Yes,' Luxmore allowed, removing his cigarette to meet Pawler's first question. ' Ah,' said Pawler. ' You will see her to-night ?' Ned nodded his assent. ' Right ! ' pursued the other. ' Youth should be A T LADY PENNEREUS. 9 spent in love, it's wasted else. You remember the Sapphic line ? " He seems to me an equal of the gods who " But I forget you detest the Ancient Great Ones. I'll get in a hansom, after all.' For the scent of the shag from a passing labour er's clay had invaded Pawler's nostrils, and they were preceded by an urchin turning somersaults and imploring halfpence. Pawler's den was a small flat close to Whitehall, a carefully weeded, carefully planted garden of luxury, worthy of the man who had learned what a fine and delicate art it is to keep on enjoying oneself.

Over excellent whisky, just dashed with Apollinaris, the pleasantries in Gyp's latest novel, and Pawler's brand of cigarettes, Ned spent an approved half-hour, while his senior was refitted for the night. Then they started. They drew up at a large house in a south-western square. People were dropping in, and Pawler stopped to speak to some of them; at Admiral Sir George Pennerel's, he was likely to know everybody. Lux more moved upstairs. It was a gap between two of the early dances. When he had passed his hostess, he threaded his passage among the groups, substan tial already, towards a graceful figure he had recognised. He was lucky enough, he told himself, as he covered the distance, to be a friend of hers. She was the wife of Captain Everest. Winifred Everest was just twenty-two. Tallish. blonde, of firm and lissom shape, with white skin ot the softest lustre, and the shoulders of an Artemis ; she had, too, the delicately-cut features of her race, and of a temperament sensitively proud, dashed with a considerable amount of hauteur.

Her eyes, in spite of their soft and limpid beauty, seemed cold as those of the divine huntress ; above the cloud-bank of their dark lashes were marked, not heavy, brows ; her massive hair was of a flaxen gold. ' Chivalrous and high-spirited,' one would have said of her, looking at the lips and chin ; they showed pearly teeth with the charm of nature's most careful placing. Young Mrs. Everest, clad in an accord of faint shell-pink and delicate wisteria mauve, with knots of soft pink blossoms caught into the gown, looked, in Luxmore's eyes, divine as she turned to greet him. Her gaze bad been following her husband as he chanced to be moving to a little group of figures near the door. Some gleam of pride might well have illumined the sparkling eyes, for he was nearly. if not quite, the most handsome man in the room.

But the listless, half-melancholy regard of them, the lax, apathetic pose for the instant of her arm bang ing nervelessly beside her, her bearing without ani mation — though merely for a second — seemed to tell a tale, surely such a tale as needs an explanation.

Chapter II

A PARENTHESIS. Winifred Meresburne was the daughter of a Shrop shire baronet. His coat of arms was distinguished, his income sufficient. Besides this girl, he had one other child, a son, younger than Winifred by a year and two months. His pride and his affection were centred rather in tbe male descendant, the hope of his line, than in his daughter, and this added some thing to the liberty in which she had been brought up. Her mother, too, had set more of her heart upon the boy. Winifred, in her childhood, had scarcely known restraints, except those which her own character imposed. To ride when she would, or scamper afoot through the garden and the avenues of the park, compelling the gardener and his underlings, tbe grooms and the gamekeeper, to her will ; to toss aside books whenever they wearied her, making a kiss and a promise suffice writh her governess for a lesson : this bad been her early education.

Her mother, Lady Meresburne, thought too much know ledge in one of her sex nonsensical. When Winifred was in a romantic mood, she resorted chiefly to her pony's friendship, and with her cheek close to an inquiring, affectionate nostril uttered her dreams and her aspirations. The patient comradeship of the listener never wearied, though it must be owned that Winifred, child-like, would repeat herself a great deal. The dogs, too, had their share of her confi dences, but they did not behave so well ; the younger animals after awhile would bark, making a tactless suggestion about joyousness, when tbe story they were hearing was a tender one, and the elder ones had an uninterested way after a little time ; they even went to sleep. She had tried her father, too, as a confidant, but he had not proved a success.

He was kind, but he was prosaic ; either he was inattentive, or he roused himself with an effort evidently painful to tack on inappropriate morals. Also, he had not such a de lightfully smooth-haired chin as little Fuego, nor such an amusing trick with his lips. And he had the misfortune to be tailless, and a tail can express any amount of sympathy. He lived a life that was hardly likely to stamp by example any vivid or ex traordinary idea upon the mind of his daughter, unless it were that of maintaining a resolute inde pendence in thought and action. Sir George was essentially a self-willed man. Winifred Meresburne grew up as a child of nature under his care, and it was the easier for her to so absorb the love of liberty. It became a part of herself. The baronet cared little for town. He lived almost exclusively upon his land.

Parliament he despised as a mill into which words were carried and from which words came forth ; to do was his motto. As to the rest which London could offer, he held the pleasures of the gun and the saddle too dear to be quitted for one instant for those of the pavement. He had married a Miss Gertrude Kingsreeve, the daughter of a neighbour, when he was thirty-four, making a match which was never a glowing satisfac tion to him, but one that he never regretted — unless it were in the privacy of his brain's chamber. That much he may have done, for a short experience taught him that in his marriage two people were mated who wanted their own way and meant to have it. Once in a hundred times the way might be the same. Such an existence affords scant harmony. His mind had centred itself more and more upon that which could bring real geniality into it.

Hunt ing acquaintances, farmers' salutations, tales, com plaints and compliments, the parson's last fall, the shining flanks of a cob, the village beauty's scandal, old Pedmore Mumbury's difficulties about the mort gage, above all, the training up of his son to follow in his own steps, — these things formed the circle in which he loved to move. He could recollect better now the names of the horses he had bought or bred for years back, and those of the promising puppies which had died in distemper, than he could recall the brief list of his fugitive amourettes in the old college days, and after, when bachelor excursions to town bad gone pretty merrily. Winifred seemed to herself a little neglected by her father, but she was so more in appearance than in reality. He liked the girl about his home, and watch ed her growth with interest.

So she lived out of doors when it was fine, and roamed from room to room of the old Hall when it rained. Tbe dark oak, the carven panels, tbe stiff-backed chairs in the library, tbe crests and armorial bearings on tbe stain ed glass there, the very lax, or very unbending by gone Meresburnes in the picture-gallery, (they grew more and more stiff and discouraging in expression as the generations receded ;) even the griffins in black wood that mounted guard loftily over the balustrade at the bottom of the big staircase, seemed to her, from familiarity, as much parts of the order of creation, and as essential to nature's scheme, as Mrs. Lamb the housekeeper, or Miss Moddely the gover ness, or Smudge, her mother's priceless pug. She peopled the place, after childhood's fashion, with in habitants of her own imagining.

She wandered in perfect freedom, but not happily altogether, for she often lacked a fit companion. Her one brother was hard and unsympathetic ; he wished to domineer over her, and he preferred his animals to .1 PARENTHESIS. 15 her, nor had he any scruples in saying so. He loved the worst of his ferrets better than his little sister Winifred ; the boy could not rid himself of a tone which made it clear that he thought it rather dis graceful in the sister who played with him to be a girl. So she, though she tried again and again, could not turn him into the companion she longed for. She thought he was brutal to her sometimes, and there were frequent battles between them. In most of their quarrels she was judged by her parents to be in the wrong, and her keen sense of justice often prompted to her that this was the result of the old people's preference for her brother.

She resented it in her childish heart. ' Oh, mother, how can I help being a girl ?' she sobbed one day on Lady Meresburne's lap ; but she would very seldom sup plicate for an equality that wras denied. In the end, rebellion came rather readily to her spirit. In fact, her brother and she were not compatible. More re cently even, since he had treated her with grown-up respect — unless she chanced to break a meerschaum he was colouring, or ask for a horse he wanted to ride — they had seen little of each other. But Winifred was not always destitute of a com rade. Jack Meresburne, her father's younger brother, had been in the army. He married when he was quartered in the north ; then his wife died, leaving to her husband a little son just two hours old. His strength sapped by his grief, he followed her within six months, and bequeathed the duty he was yielding up to his elder brother.

The little orphan's maternal grandmother, however, had requested that the child should be allowed to reside with her, his mother had been her favourite. Sir George was glad to assent. But the boy, Lance, after his uncle's marriage, visited the Hall frequently. He made for Winifred's eyes a pleasant contrast to her brother. Two years older than herself, he represented the same blond type. His deep blue eyes and thickly curling dark-golden hair, his straight-cut features and tall, slimly athletic shape, suited well with the spirit of her girlish dreams. With the wilful temperament of his race, which he possessed in an even more wayward form than she, there alternated in him the languid mobility of an artistic nature. For the boy had well-nigh a genius for art ; when he was but a stripling he could sketch, and could paint in water-colours, exquisitely.

He was a charming playmate for Winifred ; sometimes he would command, sometimes obey, but whether he were her king or her courtier, he was so with a grace that delighted and won his pretty cousin ; and he had so much brilliancy and dash that even young Meres burne admired him, and at times deigned to follow his lead. Winifred's brother had loyalty enough to acknowledge heartily one wbo had leaped his sister's pony where he dared not take his own little cob. Nothing was for Winifred in those days like gallop ing in the sunshine over the short turf, Lance beside her. Lance's frequent and long stays were unwelcome to Lady Meresburne. She saw what an ascendancy this detrimental cousin was likely to acquire, even at an early age, over her daughter, and she opposed his frequent visits. Lance's prospects were not bright, unless his uncle should provide for him at the cost of his own children.

But the baronet insisted that he was his brother's son, aud he was dominant enough to secure his point. His wife's fears he pooh-poohed. ' It seems to me an absurd idea,' he said, bluntly, ' that children can't be supposed to see each other without falling in love. I was different when I was a boy. It's only apt to put conceited notions in their heads. Just fancy Winnie, a little trot, with a grande ■passion ! She'll be badgered about all that soon enough. One would think Venus had escaped from the inside of the German mountain, or whatever other part of the infernal regions she inhabits,' (tbe squire disliked Germany), 'to run loose among little innocents that are at their scales, and children at school, who prefer a good bat to all the beauties in existence ... I wish the boy to be here,' he added, quietly; in which, perhaps, he was mistaken.

So Lance's presence continued. Winifred lost her father when she was fifteen. C Under her mother's hand, things took a different turn for her. She was sent to school ; there she was miserable, a wild bird in a cage. The restrictions and the supervision, tbe punctuality, the fixed work, the dry professors and the artificial decorum, all pinched and galled her. Oh, for Moddely, and for Smudge, sitting up on an arithmetic-book with a pen across his ridiculous little nose, and those plaintive eyes of his ! She especially resented being ' looked after.' Winifred meant never to do anything of which one could be ashamed, and she was sure of herself. She was very young ! Only for the sake of the widowed Lady Meresburne did she bear with the unaccustomed restraints. Winifred thought she could at least be silent and uncomplaining always — she was a wise girl.

Lance's stay at the Hall ceased now, and Winifred missed him terribly when she was at home. Some times in town she met him ; she was sent up to stay with relatives there, and he would call at the house. But this only lasted till she was seventeen. Then he elected, with what means he had, to study art seri ously, and by Lady Meresburne's advice he went to Rome. For four years he dropped out of his cousin's life almost completely. It was amidst the really brilliant successes of her first season that Winifred Meresburne met Captain Everest; he was in the navy. His father was a simple country rector, but rector of a parish where those of his blood had ruled for generations, and Deane Everest, this son of his, was heir-presumptive to the title of Earl of Barmouth, held by the rector's elder brother.

On a grey, breezily fresh summer morning, in the crowded Row, where Captain Everest was riding, the earliest glance had passed between the two. He, erect, strong, with piercing dark-grey eyes full of command, with the broad forehead and lightly firm aquiline features, had dwelt in her mind ; she in his. He sought an introduction, and they met fre quently. There was in him, she found, a restrained power, quiet and confident, a composure veiling in tense force, which pleased her then. That extreme courtesy and self-command of his, always gentle and unruffled, as well as the passions of iron and fire which she divined beneath them, roused first curiosity and then sympathy in her kindred nature. His admiration captivated her, and — did she love him ? She herself thought so. He proposed, and she accepted him.

Just after her engagement, her cousin Lance returned. He seemed to avoid her; they scarcely spoke to each other after he had offered his formal phrases of well-wishing. She was grieved at that, but she was too happy to be clouded much ; soon she learned he was at Rome again. c2

Chapter III. The Little Rift

Winifred, girlishly inexperienced, had misjudged a little the extent of the sway she would have over this husband of hers. Deane Everest had been very severely trained ; that Avas one tradition in his family. There were many others, and he had inherited or adopted them all. Each of them sprung from a common origin, from a most stern, unyielding spirit, which had become the token and the pride of his race. The Everests had been fighting men through more than one epoch. If this one's father had in his gener ation chosen to combat the world and the flesh rather than foes in uniform, he had undertaken the task in no less rigorous a mood, and he had transmitted to his son his steelly quality. Everest was of that stuff from which a hero, a stoic, or a martyr can be made, according to the era. He was strict to his own un sparing principles, implacable against his own least weaknesses, rigid in what he exacted from all who would be gentlemen ; and he would have died by inches rather than submit to defeat.

Those keen judges of disposition who, from a man's contour, can infer his character, would have told you as much THE LITTLE RIFT. 21 at a glance ; the build of this Everest, where there was no waste substance, where all was muscle, sinew, and knit vitality, would have said enough. He hated innovation and modern fads as much as he hated cowardice. Deane Everest loved his wife. The entire stake of his life — and there was profound capacity in his heart to feel passion, and his life's fortune would depend on his heart's lot — was involved in his selec tion of this one girl, the only being to whom he had ever uttered the words, ' I love you.' But he meant — it was natural to him to mean — that she should live according to the rules which were his and his kin's : changeless rules, because in his eyes they embodied the right.