“Do you think we are playing for life and death?” he exclaimed, with a wild laugh. “Come, Mr. Pelham, two thousand on this throw!”
With glittering eyes and teeth firmly set, Mr. Pelham assented, and won.
“Five thousand!” cried Sydney, and threw fourteen. “Ten to one in hundreds you do not beat it.”
“Done!” said Mr. Pelham, and threw sixteen.
“You must be most unfortunate in your love affairs, Mr. Pelham,” said Sydney. “How do we stand now?”
Mr. Pelham passed over to his opponent a sheet of paper with figures on it.
“Twenty-four thousand,” cried Sydney. “Enough to set up a house in Belgravia. I am weary of this work. One throw for the last – double or quits. Your last chance, and mine. Done?”
“Done!” said Mr. Pelham, with white lips.
Every man in the room suspended his game, and rose to witness this mad play.
“I protest!” said Sydney, turning almost savagely upon his friends. “Go to your tables, and concern yourself with your own counters. We can settle our affair without witnesses. Grace, a glass of champagne.”
He drank three glasses in succession, and said to Mr. Pelham, with only myself and Adolph standing by the small table,
“This is a moment to remember. Fortune! be kind! I throw first. Fifteen! I am a free man. Now, Mr. Pelham.”
“Sixteen!” said Mr. Pelham, raising his box.
The word had no sooner passed his lips than his wrist was seized with a grasp of iron by Sydney, and taking up this unrehearsed cue, I pinned the cheat to his chair. He uttered a cry of rage, but he could neither rise nor release his wrist from Sydney’s hold. This incident brought all the players to their feet.
“Gentlemen,” said Sydney, calmly, “this man and I have been playing for something more than money, but it is simply a question of honour in which money is involved that I ask you to decide. Here are my dice, and here my throw. There are Mr. Pelham’s dice, and there his throw. I call upon you to constitute yourselves a committee of honour, and examine the dice we each used in the last throw.”
They removed the dice, and discovered those used by Mr. Pelham to be loaded. It would have gone hard with him if Sydney had not interfered.
“Hold!” he cried. “Fair play for rogue and gentleman! Release him, Fred.” I released the blackleg, and he sat helpless in his chair, and glared at us. But he saw that his fate was in our hands, and he submitted. Sydney continued: “Mr. Pelham, these dice I have thrown with are fair dice, such as are used by gentlemen. My throw is fifteen. Take them, and throw against it. On my honour, if you beat my cast, I will endeavour to pay you what I owe you, despite the fact that the I O U’s you hold of mine have been unfairly won.”
The blackleg took the box, and rattled the dice in it, gazing upon us with a ghastly smile, and then deliberately replaced the box on the table, mouth upwards.
“What guarantee have I,” he asked, “that in the event of my throwing higher than fifteen, these gentlemen friends of yours will not set upon me, and murder me?”
“I answer for them,” replied Sydney; “it is my honour that is concerned, not theirs, and they are, in some measure, guests in my house. You will be allowed to depart unmolested, and to-morrow I will receive you in my rooms, and endeavour to come to a settlement with you.”
“I take your word,” said the blackleg, and he raised the box from the table, and rattled the dice again.
CHAPTER XXVII
FREDERICK HOLDFAST’S STATEMENT (CONTINUED)
DURING the interval that elapsed between the acts of raising the box from the table and throwing out the dice, my observation was drawn to Grace. She stood at a little distance from the men, bending forward, her eyes fixed upon the box, her lips parted, her hands clasped, and a bright colour in her cheeks. She held her breath suspended, as it were, as though her fate hung upon the issue of the throw.
The dice rolled out of the box, and three single black dots lay exposed. Mr. Pelham had lost. He had thrown three aces.
He flung the box from him with a shocking oath. It struck a man in the face, and he stepped towards Mr. Pelham, with the evident intention of striking him in return, when Sydney interposed.
“It was an accident,” he said. “It is for me alone to settle this affair.”
Grace did not move, but her eyes were now fixed upon Sydney.
“I owe you nothing in the shape of money,” said Sydney to Mr. Pelham. “I will trouble you for my bits of paper.”
Mr. Pelham, with trembling fingers, opened his pocket-book. His agitation was very great, but I have never been able to decide whether it was by accident or design that he pulled out, with Sydney’s I O U’s, a number of letters and papers, and with them a photograph. It was a photograph of Grace. We all saw it, and I was not the only one who waited apprehensively for Sydney’s next move.
He took up the picture; there was writing on the back, which he read. There was breathless silence in the room. For a moment Sydney’s eyes rested upon Grace. She smiled wistfully, as a child might smile who had been detected in a trifling fault. Sydney did not respond to her smile. He handed the picture back to Mr. Pelham without a word.
Receiving his I O U’s he burnt them, one by one, in the flame of a candle, calling out the sums, which two or three of the men pencilled down.
“Is that all?” he demanded of Mr. Pelham, as the discomfited gambler paused.
“That is all,” replied Mr. Pelham.
“Your sight or your memory is short,” said Sydney. “I am not accounted an expert at figures, but you will find an I O U for three thousand, which you have overlooked. Ah! I was right, I see. You are but a clumsy scoundrel after all.”
“You shall answer to me for this,” said Mr. Pelham, with an attempt at bravado.
“I will consider,” said Sydney, “whether it is necessary to chastise you. But not to-night, nor in this house. We must not forget that a lady is present.”
He bowed with exquisite politeness to Grace, and then addressed his friends.
“I requested you,” he said, “to constitute yourselves a committee of honour, to examine the dice this person used against me. I ask you now to examine the roulette wheel, and to say whether there is any indication that the numbers 5 and 24 have been tampered with.”
The wheel was examined, and my suspicions were confirmed. Upon the verdict being given, Sydney said,
“The person to whom I lost fourteen thousand pounds last night upon number 24 must be accomplished in many ways; for it is only by breaking into the house when its inmates were asleep that he could so skilfully have dealt with the wheel for his own purpose. I cannot congratulate you upon your cousin, Adolph.”
The lad, with burning blushes, turned his face away, and Sydney, advancing courteously to Grace, offered her his hand. Wondering, and with a look of mingled apprehension and admiration, she placed her hand in his. He led her to Mr. Pelham’s side.
“I made a bitter mistake,” he said to the blackleg. “I believed myself to be the possessor of a jewel to which I had no claim. I resign her; although I believe at this moment” – and here he looked her direct in the face – “that she would follow me, and prove false to you, if I invited her by a word. I withstand the temptation; I will not rob you of her.”
“Sydney!” cried Grace, holding out her hands to him.
“Did I not tell you?” he asked of Mr. Pelham; and then, turning to Grace, he said, “Rest content. You have broken my heart. Either I was not worthy of you, or you were not worthy of me. It matters not, now that our eyes are opened. Mr. Pelham, I was guilty of an error to-night when I said you were unfortunate in your love affairs. Many men would envy you. Come, gentlemen, enough of this. The play is over; drop the curtain! Adolph, my lad, I am sorry for you, but it is the way of life.”
What followed was so bewildering and unexpected that I cannot clearly recall it. There was a sudden movement, some passionately tender words from Grace, some furious ones from Mr. Pelham. I cannot say whether there was a struggle; my only clear remembrance is that, after a lapse of a few moments, during which we were all in a state of inexplicable excitement and confusion, I saw Grace’s arms round Sydney’s neck, that Sydney, struggling to release himself, uttered a cry and slipped to the ground, with blood rushing from his mouth. He had broken a blood-vessel, and before a doctor arrived he was dead. He died in the presence of the woman who had betrayed him, and almost his last look was one of mingled horror and anguish as she leant over him in affright. Thus ended the life of my chivalrous, rash, and noble-hearted friend.
Such an affair as this could not be hushed up. There were an inquiry and an inquest, but there was no room for suspicion of foul play. The medical evidence proved that Sydney died from the bursting of a blood vessel; but in my mind there was no shadow of a doubt that Grace was the indirect cause of his death. In my eyes she was a murderess.
She disappeared from the place, and Mr. Pelham with her. I visited the cottage a fortnight after Sydney was buried. All the furniture had been removed, and the cottage was empty.
The tragic termination of this ill-fated connection produced a great impression upon many of our set. For myself I can say that it made me more permanently serious in my thoughts; from that time I have never played for money.
Before the occurrence of the events I have described my mother had died. Up to this time, and for a little while afterwards, my father and I had corresponded regularly, but I did not make him acquainted with the details of the story of Sydney’s career. Incidentally, at the time of Sydney’s death, I mentioned that I had lost a dear friend, and that was all my father knew of the affair.
A break occurred in our correspondence – not on my part; on my father’s. For three weeks or a month I did not hear from him, until I wrote and asked him if he was well. He replied in a very few words; he was quite well, he said, but he was engaged in affairs so momentous and engrossing that he could not find time to write at length. I surmised that he was speculating largely, and I wrote to him telling him not to harass himself by writing me long letters; all I wanted was to know that he was in good health. For three or four months I heard from him but rarely; then, one day came a letter with the astonishing intelligence that he had married again.
“You will be surprised at the news,” wrote my father, “but I feel you will rejoice when you know that this step, which I have taken almost in secret, will contribute to my happiness. Your second mother is a most charming young lady, and I am sure you will have a great affection for her. I shall presently ask you to come to London to make her acquaintance, when we can discuss another matter more important to yourself. It is time you commenced a career. Be assured of this – that my marriage will make no difference in your prospects.”
I had no just cause for anger or uneasiness in the circumstance of my father marrying again, but I was hurt at the secrecy of the proceeding. He spoke of his wife as “a charming young lady,” and it was clear from the tone of his letter that his heart was engaged. My father possessed sterling qualities, but I could not help confessing to myself that he was scarcely the kind of man to win the love of a charming young lady. Who was she, and why had I not been informed of the engagement or invited to the wedding? My father stood in no fear of me; he was a man who stepped onward in his own path, and who had been all his life in the habit of judging and deciding for himself. Thinking of him alone I could find absolutely no reason why he should not have confided in me, but when my thoughts turned in the direction of the young lady an explanation presented itself. That it was not complimentary to her made me all the more anxious for my father. But upon deliberation I withheld my final judgment until I had seen my mother-in-law. The invitation to London arrived, and I waited first upon my father in his city office. He received me with abundant love; I had written him a letter, wishing him every happiness, and it had given him great gratification. He confessed to me that it was not in accordance with his desire that I had not been informed of the engagement. “It was a young lady’s whim,” he said, “and I was bound in gallantry to yield.”
“You are happy?” I asked, evading the point. The situation as between father and son was particularly awkward to him, and my wish was to set him as much as possible at his ease.
“I am very happy,” he replied. “Let me anticipate your questions, and give you some information about her. The young lady is poor and an orphan. Her name was Lydia Wilson. She was without family, without friends, and without money. I made her acquaintance accidentally a few months ago in the course of business, and was attracted to her. She was in a dependent and cruel position, and I made her an offer of marriage which she accepted. There is no need for us to go into further particulars. I thought much of you, and your manner of receiving the news of this unexpected step has delighted me. All that remains for you to do is to make the acquaintance of a lady who I feel is too young to be my wife, but who has done me infinite honour by assuming my name – who is too young to be a second mother to you, but whom you will find a charming and true friend. Numbers of persons will say that it is an imprudent step for a man of my age to marry a mere child; I must confess it is likely I should pass that judgment upon another man in my position; but I was unable to resist her, and I am happy in the assurance that, despite the disparity in our ages, she loves me. You will find in her, Frederick, a singular mixture of simplicity, shrewdness, and innocence. And now, my dear boy, we will go home to her; she is anxiously awaiting us.”
My father’s wife was not visible when we reached home, and my father told me she was dressing, and would not come down till dinner was on the table.
“I did not know,” he said, “that friends were to dine with us to-night. I should have liked the three of us to spend the evening together, but there will be plenty of opportunities.”
We both retired to dress for dinner, and upon my re-entering the room the guests were arriving – fifteen or sixteen of them. They were all strangers to me, and as I was introduced to them by my father an uncomfortable impression forced itself upon me that they were not persons who moved in the first class. There were two foreign noblemen among them whose titles I doubted, and an American upon whose shirt-front was stamped Shoddy. Scarcely a moment before dinner was announced, my father’s wife entered.
“Frederick,” said my father, “this is my wife. My dear, this is my son, of whom I have spoken so much.”
Then dinner was announced, and my father said:
“Frederick, you will take in Mrs. Holdfast.”
What with the ceremonious bow with which my father’s wife received me, and the bustle occasioned by the announcement of dinner, I had not time to look into the lady’s face until her hand was on my arm. When I did look at her I uttered a smothered cry, for the woman I was escorting to dinner was no other than Grace, through whose abominable treachery my friend Sydney Campbell had met his death.
The shock of the discovery was so overwhelming that I lost my self-possession. I felt as if the scene on that dreadful night were being enacted over again, and as we moved onwards to the dining-room I repeated the words uttered by Sydney to Grace, which had rang in my ears again and again, “Rest content. You have broken my heart. Either I was not worthy of you, or you were not worthy of me. The play is over; drop the curtain!”
The voice of my father’s wife recalled me to myself.
“What strange words you are muttering!” she exclaimed, in a sweet voice. “Are they from a book you are writing? Mr. Holdfast tells me you are very clever, Frederick.”
“They are words spoken by a dear friend,” I said, “at a tragic period in his life – a few moments, indeed, before he died.”
“How shocking,” she said, “to think of them now when you and I meet for the first time! A dear friend of yours? You shall tell me all about it, Frederick. You do not mind my calling you Frederick, do you? I have been thinking for days, and days, and days, what I should call you. Not Mr. Holdfast – that is my husband; nor Master Frederick.” She laughed heartily at this notion. “No, it shall be Frederick. And you musn’t call me mother; that would be too ridiculous. Nor madam; that would be too distant. You must call me Lydia.”
“It is a pretty name,” I said, summoning all my fortitude and composure; “is it your only one?”
“Of course it is,” she replied. “Is not one enough for such a little creature as me? I hope,” she whispered, “you are not angry with me for marrying your father. I could not help it, indeed, indeed I could not! He loved me so much – better even than he loves you, I believe, and his nature is so great and noble that I would not for the world give him the slightest pain. He feels so deeply! I have found that out already, and he is ready to make any sacrifice for me. We are both very, very happy!”
She had succeeded in making me more clearly understand the extraordinary difficulty of my position. Whether she did this designedly or not was not so clear, for every word she spoke might have been spoken by a simple innocent woman, or by a woman who was playing a double part. I could not discover whether she recognised me. She exhibited no sign of it. During the dinner she was in the highest spirits, and my father’s eyes followed her in admiration. Knowing his character, and seeing how deeply he was enamoured of this false and fascinating woman, I trembled perhaps more than she did at the consequences of an exposure.
But was it possible, after all, that I could be mistaken? Were there two women so marvellously alike in their features, in manner, in the colour of their hair and eyes, and could it have been my fate to meet them in positions so strange and close to me?
I observed her with the closest attention. Not a word, not a tone, not a gesture, escaped me; and she, every now and then, apparently unconscious of what was in my mind, addressed me and drew me into conversation in the most artless manner. She demanded attention from me with the usual licence of beauty, and later on in the evening my father, linking his arm in mine, said,
“My mind is relieved of a great anxiety. I am glad you like Lydia; she is delighted with you, and says she cannot look upon you with a mother’s eyes. She will be your sister, she says, and the best friend you have in the world. Our home will once more be happy, as in your mother’s days.”
I slept but little during the night, and the following day and for days afterwards devoted myself to the task of confirming or destroying the horrible suspicion which haunted me. I saw enough to convince me, but I would make assurance doubly sure, and I laid a trap for her. I had in my possession a photograph of Sydney, admirably executed and handsomely framed, and I determined to bring it before her notice suddenly, and when she supposed herself to be alone. Winter was drawing near, and the weather was chilly. There were fires in every room. We were to go to the theatre, she, my father, and I. Dressing quickly I went into our ordinary sitting-room, where a large fire was burning. I turned the gas low, placed the photograph on the table so that it was likely to attract observation, and threw myself into an arm chair in a corner of the room which was in deep shadow. I heard the woman’s step upon the stairs, and presently she entered the room, and stood by the table, fastening a glove. While thus employed, her eyes fell upon the photograph. I could not see the expression on her face, but I saw her take the picture in her hand and look at it for a moment; then she stepped swiftly to the fireplace, and kneeling down, gazed intently at the photograph. For quite two minutes did she so kneel and gaze upon the picture, without stirring. I rose from my chair, and turned up the gas. She started to her feet, and confronted me; her face was white, her eyes were wild.
“You are interested in that picture,” I said; “you recognise it.”
The colour returned to her cheeks – it was as though she willed it – her eyes became calm.
“How should I recognise it?” she asked, in a measured tone. “It is the face of a gentleman I have never seen.”
“It is the face of my friend, my dear friend, Sydney Campbell,” I replied, sternly, “who was slain by a heartless, wicked woman. I have not told you his story yet, but perhaps you would scarcely care to hear it.”
Her quick ears had caught the sound of my father’s footsteps. She went to the door, and drew him in with a caressing motion which brought a look of tenderness into his eyes. There was something of triumph in her voice – triumph intended only for my understanding – as she said to her husband,
“Here is a picture of Frederick’s dearest friend, who met with – O! such a dreadful death, through the heartlessness of a wicked woman! What did you say his name was, Frederick?”
Forced to reply, I said, “Sydney Campbell.”
I saw that I had to do with a cunning and clever woman, and that all the powers of my mind would be needed to save my father from shame and dishonour. But I had no idea of the scheme my father’s wife had devised for my discomfiture, and no suspicion of it crossed my mind even when my father said to me, in the course of the night,
“Lydia is charmed with you, Frederick. She says no one in the world has ever been more attentive to her. She loves you with a sister’s love. So all things have turned out happily.”
In this miserable way three weeks passed, without anything further being said, either by her or myself, upon what was uppermost in our minds. Convinced that she was thoroughly on her guard against me, and convinced also of the necessity of my obtaining some kind of evidence before I could broach the subject to my father, I employed a private detective, who, at the end of these three weeks had something to report. The woman, it appears, went out shopping, and as nearly as I can remember I will write the detective’s words:
“The lady did not go in her carriage. She took a hansom, and drove from one shop to another, first to Regent Street, then to Bayswater, then to the Elephant and Castle. A round-about drive, but I did not lose sight of her. At the Elephant and Castle she went into Tarn’s, paying the cabman, who drove off. I have his number and the number of every cab the lady engaged. When she came out of Tarn’s, she looked about her, and went into a confectioner’s shop near at hand, where there were tables for ladies to sit at. There was nothing in that – she must have been pretty tired by that time. Lemonade and cakes were brought to her, and she made short work of them. There was nothing in that – the lady has a sweet tooth; most ladies have; but I fancied that she looked up at the clock once or twice, a little impatiently. She finished her cakes, and called for more, and before she had time to get through the second plateful, a man entered the shop, and in a careless way took his seat at the same table. As I walked up and down past the window – for it wouldn’t have done for me to have stood still staring through it all the time – I saw them talking together, friendly like. There was nothing out-of-the-way in their manner; they were talking quietly, as friends talk. After about a quarter-of-an-hour of this, the man shook hands with her, and came out of the shop. Then, a minute or two afterwards, the lady came out of the shop. She walked about a hundred yards, called a cab, drove to a jeweller’s shop in Piccadilly, discharged the cab, came out of the jeweller’s shop, took another cab, and drove home. Perhaps you can make something out of it. I can’t.”
“Is there nothing strange,” I asked, “in a lady going into a confectioner’s shop at such a distance from home, and there meeting a gentleman, with whom she remains conversing for a quarter of an hour?”
“There’s nothing strange in it to me,” replied the detective. “You don’t know the goings-on of women, sir, nor the artfulness of them. Many a lady will do more than that, just for the purpose of a harmless bit of flirtation; and they like it all the better because of the secresy and the spice of danger. No, sir, I don’t see anything in it.”
“Describe the man to me,” I said.
He did so, and in the description he gave I recognised the scoundrel, Mr. Pelham. Even now this shameful woman, married to my father, was carrying on an intrigue with her infamous lover. There was no time to lose. I must strike at once.
My first business was with the woman. If I could prevail upon her to take the initiative, and leave my father quietly without an open scandal – if I could induce her to set a price upon her absence from the country, I had no doubt that I could secure to her a sufficient sum to enable her to live in comfort, even in affluence, out of England. Then I would trust to time to heal my father’s wounds. It was a cruel blow for a son to inflict upon his father, but it was not to be borne that the matter should be allowed to continue in its present shape. Not only shame and dishonour, but other evils might spring from it.
Within a few hours I struck the first blow. I asked her for an interview. She called me into her boudoir. I should have preferred a more open room, but she sent word by a maid as treacherous as herself, whom she doubtless paid well, that if I wished to speak to her on that day it must be where she wished. I presented myself, and closed the door behind me.
“Really!” she said, with her sweetest smile. “This is to be a very, very private conversation! Hand me my smelling bottle, Frederick. Not that one; the diamond and the turquoise one your father gave me yesterday. There are no bounds to my husband’s generosity.”
“It is a pity,” I said, “that such a nature as his should be trifled with.”
“It would be a thousand pities!” she replied. “Who would be so unkind! Not you, I am sure; your heart is too tender; you are too fond of your father. As for me, he knows my feelings for him. He is husband, friend, and father, all in one, to me. His exact words, I assure you. Trifle with such a man! No, indeed; it would be too cruel! Come and sit here, by my side, Frederick. If you refuse, I declare I will ring for my maid, and will not speak to you – no, not another word! Now you are good; but you look too serious. I hate serious people. I love pleasure and excitement. That is because I am young and not bad looking. What do you think? You can’t say I am ugly. But perhaps you have no eyes for me; your heart is elsewhere – in that locket on your chain. I must positively see the picture it contains. No? I must, indeed! – and then I will be quiet, and you shall talk. You have no idea what an obstinate little creature I am when I get an idea into my head, and if you don’t let me see the inside of that locket, I shall ring for my maid. Thank you. Now you are good! It is empty, I declare. It is a pretty locket. You have good taste.”
There was no picture in the locket; it was worn on my chain from harmless vanity. I had disengaged it from the chain, and she held it in her hand. Suddenly she turned her face close to mine, and said, in the same languid tone, but with a certain meaning in it,
“Well?”
“Grace,” I said, “shall I relate to you the story of Sydney Campbell?”
The directness of my attack frightened her. Her hands, her lips, her whole body trembled; tears filled her eyes, and she looked at me so piteously that for a moment I doubted whether I was not sitting by the side of a helpless child instead of a heartless, cruel, wicked woman.
“For shame, to take advantage of a defenceless girl! You don’t know the true story – you don’t, you don’t! What have you seen me do that you come here, because I happen to have married your father, to threaten and frighten me? What can you say against me? That I have been unfortunate. O, Frederick, you don’t know how unfortunate! You don’t know how I have been treated, and how I have suffered! Have you no pity? Even if I have committed an error through ignorance, should I not be allowed an opportunity to reform? Am I to be utterly abandoned – utterly lost? And are you going to crush me, and send me wandering through the world again, with no one to love or sympathise with me? That portrait of mine which was in Mr. Pelham’s pocket-book, and which Sydney saw, was stolen from me, and what was written on the back was forged writing. If a man loves me, can I help it? It is nothing to do with me whether he is a gentleman or a blackguard. Pelham loved me, and he was a cheat. Was that my fault? Have pity, have pity, and do not expose me!”
She had fallen on her knees, and had grasped my hands, which I could not release from her grasp, and as she poured out her piteous appeal I declare I could not then tell whether it was genuine or false. I knew that, if this woman were acting, there is no actress on our stage who could excel her. What a danger was here! Acting thus before me, who was armed against her, how would she act in the presence of my father, who had given her his heart? But soon after she had ceased to speak, my calmer sense returned to me, and I seized the point it was necessary to drive home.
“You ask me,” I said, “what I can say against you? I can say this. Two days before Sydney died in your house, I was witness to a secret meeting between you and your lover, Mr. Pelham. I can repeat, word for word, certain remarks made by you and by him which leave no doubt as to the tie which bound you together. You liked a man with a spice of the devil in him – my poor friend Sydney was too tame a lover for you. Do you not remember those words?”
“You listened,” she exclaimed, scornfully, “and you call yourself a gentleman!”
“I do not seek to save myself from your reproaches. The knowledge was forced upon me, and I could neither advance nor retire without discovering myself, and so affording a scoundrel an opportunity of escape. At that time Sydney was indebted to Mr. Pelham a large sum of money, whether fairly won or not.”