Checkmate Part 35

And here they are! White, crimson, pink, black, yellow--the silk jackets quivering like pennons in a storm--the jockeys tossing their arms madly about, the horses seeming actually to fly; swaying, reeling, whirring, the whole thing pa.s.ses in a beautiful drift of a moment, and is gone!

Lord Wynderbroke is standing on tip-toe, trying to catch a glimpse of the caps as they show at the opening nearer the winning-post. Vivian Darnley is away in search of La Esmeralda. Miss Arden has seen the first race of the day, the first she has ever seen, and is amazed and delighted. The intruders who had been clinging to the carriage now jump down, and join the crowd that crush on towards the winning-post, or break in on the course. But there rises at the point next her a figure she little expected to see so near that day. Mr. Longcluse has swung himself up, and stands upon the wheel. He is bare-headed, his hat is in the hand he clings by. In the other hand he holds up a small glove--a lady's glove. His face is very pale. He is not smiling; he looks with an expression of pain, on the contrary, and very great respect.

"Miss Arden, will you forgive my venturing to restore this glove, which I happened to see you drop as the horses pa.s.sed?"

She looked at him with something of surprise and fear, and drew back a little instead of taking the proffered glove.

"I find I have been too presumptuous," he said gently. "I place it there. I see, Miss Arden, I have been maligned. Some one has wronged me cruelly. I plead only for a fair chance--for G.o.d's sake, give me a chance. I don't say hear me now, only say you won't condemn me utterly unheard."

He spoke vehemently, but so low that, amid the hubbub of other voices, no one but Miss Arden, on whom his eyes were fixed, could hear him.

"I take my leave, Miss Arden, and may G.o.d bless you. But I rest in the hope that your n.o.ble nature will refuse to treat any creature as my enemies would have you treat me."

His looks were so sad and even reverential, and his voice, though low, so full of agony, that no one could suppose the speaker had the least idea of forcing his presence upon the lady a moment longer than sufficed to ascertain that it was not welcome. He was about to step to the ground, when he saw Richard Arden striding rapidly up with a very angry countenance. Then and there seemed likely to occur what the newspapers term an ungentlemanlike fracas. Richard Arden caught him, and pulled him roughly to the ground. Mr. Longcluse staggered back a step or two, and recovered himself. His pale face glared wickedly, for a moment or two, on the flushed and haughty young man; his arm was a little raised, and his fist clenched. I daresay it was just the turn of a die, at that moment, whether he struck him or not.

These two bosom friends, and sworn brothers, of a week or two ago, were confronted now with strange looks, and in threatening att.i.tude. How frail a thing is the worldly man's friendship, hanging on flatteries and community of interest! A word or two of truth, and a conflict or even a divergence of interest, and where is the liking, the friendship, the intimacy?

A sudden change marked the face of Mr. Longcluse. The vivid fires that gleamed for a moment from his eyes sunk in their dark sockets, the intense look changed to one of sullen gloom. He beckoned, and said coldly, "Please follow me;" and then turned and walked, at a leisurely pace, a little way inward from the course.

Richard Arden, perhaps, felt that had he hesitated it would have reflected on his courage. He therefore disregarded the pride that would have scorned even a seeming compliance with that rather haughty summons, and he followed him with something of the odd dreamy feeling which men experience when they are stepping, consciously, into a risk of life. He thought that Mr. Longcluse was inviting the interview for the purpose of arranging the preliminaries of who were to act as their "friends," and where each gentleman was to be heard of that evening. He followed, with oddly conflicting feelings, to a place in the rear of some tents. Here was a sort of booth. Two doors admitted to it--one to the longer room, where was whirling that roulette round which men who, like Richard Arden, could not deny themselves, even on the meanest scale, the excitement of chance gain and loss, were betting and bawling. Into the smaller room of plank, which was now empty, they stepped.

"Now, Sir, you'll be so good as to observe that you have taken upon you a rather serious responsibility in laying your hand on me," said Longcluse, in a very low tone, coldly and gently. "In France, such a profanation would be followed by an exchange of shots, and here, under other circ.u.mstances, I should exact the same chance of retaliation. I mean to deal differently--quite differently. I have fought too many duels, as you know, to be the least apprehensive of being misunderstood or my courage questioned. For your sister's sake, not yours, I take a peculiar course with you. I offer you an alternative; you may have reconciliation--here is my hand" (he extended it)--"or you may abide the other consequence, at which I sha'n't hint, in pretty near futurity. You don't accept my hand?"

"No, Sir," said Arden haughtily--more than haughtily, insolently. "I can have no desire to renew an acquaintance with you. I sha'n't do that.

I'll fight you, if you like it. I'll go to Boulogne, or wherever you like, and we can have our shot, Sir, whenever you please."

"No, if you please--not so fast. You decline my friendship--that offer is over," said Longcluse, lowering his hand resolutely. "I am not going to shoot you--I have not the least notion of that. I shall take, let me see, a different course with you, and I shall obtain on reflection your entire concurrence with the hopes I have no idea of relinquishing. You will probably understand me pretty clearly by-and-by."

Richard Arden was angry; he was puzzled; he wished to speak, but could not light quickly on a suitable answer. Longcluse stood for some seconds, smiling his pale sinister smile upon him, and then turned on his heel, and walked quietly out upon the gra.s.s, and disappeared in the crowd.

Richard Arden was irresolute. He threw open the door, and entered the roulette-room--looked round on all the strange faces, that did not mind him, or seem to see that he was there--then, with a sudden change of mind, he retraced his steps more quickly, and followed Longcluse through the other door. But there he could not trace him. He had quite vanished.

Perhaps, next morning, he was glad that he had missed him, and had been compelled to "sleep upon it."

Now and then, with a sense of disagreeable uncertainty, recurred to his mind the mysterious intimation, or rather menace, with which he had taken his departure. It was not, however, his business to look up Longcluse. He had himself seemed to intimate that the balance of insult was the other way. If "satisfaction," in the slang of the duellist, was to be looked for, the initiative devolved undoubtedly upon Longcluse.

Alice was so placed on the carriage, that she did not see what pa.s.sed immediately beside it, between Longcluse and her brother. Still, the appearance of this man, and his having accosted her, had agitated her a good deal, and for some hours the unpleasant effect of the little scene spoiled her enjoyment of this day of wonders.

Very gaily, notwithstanding, the party returned--except, perhaps, one person who had reason to remember that day.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

DINNER AT MORTLAKE.

Lady May's party from the Derby dined together late, that evening, at Mortlake. Lord Wynderbroke, of course, was included. He was very happy, and extremely agreeable. When Alice, and Lady May, who was to stay that night at Mortlake, and Miss Maubray, who had come with Uncle David, took their departure for the drawing-room, the four gentlemen who remained over their claret drew more together, and chatted at their ease.

Lord Wynderbroke was in high spirits. He admired Alice more than ever.

He admired everything. A faint rumour had got about that something was not very unlikely to be. It did not displease him. He had been looking at diamonds the day before; he was not vexed when that amusing wag, Pokely, who had surprised him in the act, asked him that day, on the Downs, some sly questions on the subject, with an arch glance at beautiful Miss Arden. Lord Wynderbroke pooh-pooh'd this impertinence very radiantly. And now this happy peer, pleased with himself, pleased with everybody, with the flush of a complacent elation on his thin cheeks, was simpering and chatting most agreeably, and commending everything to which his attention was drawn.

In very marked contrast with this happy man was Richard Arden, who talked but little, was absent, utterly out of spirits, and smiled with a palpable effort when he did smile. His conversation with Lady May showed the same uncomfortable peculiarities. It was intermittent and bewildered. It saddened the good lady. Was he ill? or in some difficulty?

Now that she had withdrawn, Richard Arden seemed less attentive to Lord Wynderbroke than to his uncle. In so far as a wight in his melancholy mood could do so, he seemed to have laid himself out to please his uncle in those small ways where, in such situations, an anxiety to please can show itself. Once his father's voice had roused him with the intimation, "Richard, Lord Wynderbroke is speaking to you;" and he saw a very urbane smile on his thin lips, and encountered a very formidable glare from his dark eyes. The only subject on which Richard Arden at all brightened up was the defeat of the favourite. Lord Wynderbroke remarked,--

"It seems to have caused a good deal of observation. I saw Hounsley and Crackham, and they shake their heads at it a good deal, and----"

He paused, thinking that Richard Arden was going to interpose something, but nothing followed, and he continued,--

"And Lord Shillingsworth, he's very well up in all these things, and he seems to think it is a very suspicious affair; and old Sir Thomas Fetlock, who should have known better, has been hit very hard, and says he'll have it before the Jockey Club."

"I don't mind Sir Thomas, he bl.u.s.ters and makes a noise about everything," said Richard Arden; "but it was quite palpable, when the horse showed, he wasn't fit to run. I don't suppose Sir Thomas will do it, but it certainly will be done. I know a dozen men who will sell their horses, if it isn't done. I don't see how any man can take payment of the odds on Dotheboys--I don't, I a.s.sure you--till the affair is cleared up: _gentlemen_, of course, I mean; the other people would like the money all the better if it came to them by a swindle. But it certainly can't rest where it is."

No one disputing this, and none of the other gentlemen being authorities of any value upon turf matters, the subject dropped, and others came on, and Richard Arden was silent again. Lord Wynderbroke, who was to pa.s.s two or three days at Mortlake, and who had made up his mind that he was to leave that interesting place a _promesso sposo_, was restless, and longed to escape to the drawing-room. So the sitting over the wine was not very long.

Richard Arden made an effort, in the drawing-room, to retrieve his character with Lady May and Miss Maubray, who had been rather puzzled by his hang-dog looks and flagging conversation.

"There are times, Lady May," said he, placing himself on the sofa beside her, "when one loses all faith in the future--when everything goes wrong, and happiness becomes incredible. Then one's wisest course seems to be, to take off one's hat to the good people in this planet, and go off to another."

"Only that I know you so well," said Lady May, "I should tell Reginald--I mean your father--what you say; and I think your uncle, there, is a magistrate for the county of Middles.e.x, and could commit you, couldn't he? for any such foolish speech. Did you observe to-day--you saw him, of course--how miserably ill poor Pindled.y.k.es is looking? I don't think, really, he'll be alive in six months."

"Don't throw away your compa.s.sion, dear Lady May. Pindled.y.k.es has always looked dying as long as I can remember, and on his last legs; but those last legs carry some fellows a long way, and I'm very sure he'll outlive me."

"And what pleasure can a person so very ill as he looks take in going to places like that?"

"The pleasure of winning other people's money," laughed Arden sourly.

"Pindled.y.k.es knows very well what he's about. He turns his time to very good account, and wastes very little of it, I a.s.sure you, in pitying other people's misfortunes."

"I'm glad to see that you and Richard are on pleasanter terms," said David Arden to his brother, as he sipped his tea beside him.

"Egad! we are _not_, though. I hate him worse than ever. Would you oblige me by putting a bit of wood on the fire? I told you how he has treated me. I wonder, David, how the devil you could suppose we were on pleasanter terms!"

Sir Reginald was seated with his crutch-handled stick beside him, and an easy fur slipper on his gouty foot, which rested on a stool, and was a great deal better. He leaned back in a cushioned arm-chair, and his fierce prominent eyes glanced across the room, in the direction of his son, with a flash like a scimitar's.

"There's no good, you know, David, in exposing one's ulcers to strangers--there's no use in plaguing one's guests with family quarrels."

"Upon my word, you disguised this one admirably, for I mistook you for two people on tolerably friendly terms."

"I don't want to plague Wynderbroke about the puppy; there is no need to mention that he has made so much unhappiness. _You_ won't, neither will I."

David nodded.

"Something has gone wrong with him," said David Arden, "and I thought you might possibly know."

"Not I."

"I think he has lost money on the races to-day," said David.