CHAPTER XXII.
A DAUGHTER OF EVE
After Sal had gone, Brian sank into a chair beside Madge with a weary sigh. He was in riding dress, which became his stalwart figure well, and he looked remarkably handsome but ill and worried.
"What on earth were you questioning that girl about?" he said abruptly, taking his hat off, and tossing it and his gloves on to the floor.
Madge flushed crimson for a moment, and then taking Brian's two strong hands in her own, looked steadily into his frowning face.
"Why don't you trust me?" she asked, in a quiet tone.
"It is not necessary that I should," he answered moodily. "The secret that Rosanna Moore told me on her death-bed is nothing that would benefit you to know."
"Is it about me?" she persisted.
"It is, and it is not," he answered, epigrammatically.
"I suppose that means that it is about a third person, and concerns me," she said calmly, releasing his hands.
"Well, yes," impatiently striking his boot with his riding whip. "But it is nothing that can harm you so long as you do not know it; but God help you should anyone tell it to you, for it would embitter your life."
"My life being so very sweet now," answered Madge, with a slight sneer. "You are trying to put out a fire by pouring oil on it, and what you say only makes me more determined to learn what it is."
"Madge, I implore you not to persist in this foolish curiosity," he said, almost fiercely, "it will bring you only misery."
"If it concerns me I have a right to know it," she answered curtly. "When I marry you how can we be happy together, with the shadow of a secret between us?"
Brian rose, and leaned against the verandah post with a dark frown on his face.
"Do you remember that verse of Browning's," he said, coolly —
'Where the apple reddens Never pry, Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I.'
"Singularly applicable to our present conversation, I think."
"Ah," she said, her pale face flushing with anger, "you want me to live in a fool's paradise, which may end at any moment."
"That depends upon yourself," he answered coldly. "I never roused your curiosity by telling you that there was a secret, but betrayed it inadvertently to Calton's cross-questioning. I tell you candidly that I did learn something from Rosanna Moore, and it concerns you, though only indirectly through a third person. But it would do no good to reveal it, and would ruin both our lives."
She did not answer, but looked straight before her into the glowing sunshine.
Brian fell on his knees beside her, and stretched out his hands with an entreating gesture.
"Oh, my darling," he cried sadly, "cannot you trust me? The love which has stood such a test as yours cannot fail like this. Let me bear the misery of knowing it alone, without blighting your young life with the knowledge of it. I would tell you if I could, but, God help me, I cannot – I cannot," and he buried his face in his hands.
Madge closed her mouth firmly, and touched his comely head with her cool, white fingers. There was a struggle going on in her breast between her feminine curiosity and her love for the man at her feet – the latter conquered, and she bowed her head over his.
"Brian," she whispered softly, "let it be as you wish. I will never again try to learn this secret, since you do not desire it."
He arose to his feet, and caught her in his strong arms, with a glad smile.
"My dearest," he said, kissing her passionately, and then for a few moments neither of them spoke. "We will begin a new life," he said, at length. "We will put the sad past away from us, and think of it only as a dream."
"But this secret will still fret you," she murmured.
"It will wear away with time and with change of scene," he answered sadly.
"Change of scene!" she repeated in a startled tone. "Are you going away?"
"Yes; I have sold my station, and intend leaving Australia for ever during the next three months."
"And where are you going?" asked the girl, rather bewildered.
"Anywhere," he said a little bitterly. "I am going to follow the example of Cain, and be a wanderer on the face of the earth!"
"Alone!"
"That is what I have come to see you about," said Brian, looking steadily at her. "I have come to ask you if you will marry me at once, and we will leave Australia together."
She hesitated.
"I know it is asking a great deal," he said, hurriedly, "to leave your friends, your position, and" – with hesitation – "your father; but think of my life without you – think how lonely I shall be, wandering round the world by myself; but you will not desert me now I have so much need of you – you will come with me and be my good angel in the future as you have been in the past?"
She put her hand on his arm, and looking at him with her clear, grey eyes, said – "Yes!"
"Thank God for that," said Brian, reverently, and there was again a silence.
Then they sat down and talked about their plans, and built castles in the air, after the fashion of lovers.
"I wonder what papa will say?" observed Madge, idly twisting her engagement ring round and round.
Brian frowned, and a dark look passed over his face.
"I suppose I must speak to him about it?" he said at length, reluctantly.
"Yes, of course!" she replied, lightly. "It is merely a formality; still, one that must be observed."
"And where is Mr. Frettlby?" asked Fitzgerald, rising.
"In the billiard-room," she answered, as she followed his example. "No!" she continued, as she saw her father step on to the verandah. "Here he is."
Brian had not seen Mark Frettlby for some time, and was astonished at the change which had taken place in his appearance. Formerly, he had been as straight as an arrow, with a stern, fresh-coloured face; but now he had a slight stoop, and his face looked old and withered. His thick, black hair was streaked here and there with white. His eyes alone were unchanged. They were as keen and bright as ever. Brian knew full well how he himself had altered. He knew, too, that Madge was not the same, and now he could not but wonder whether the great change that was apparent in her father was attributable to the same source – to the murder of Oliver Whyte.
Sad and thoughtful as Mr. Frettlby looked, as he came along, a smile broke over his face as he caught sight of his daughter.
"My dear Fitzgerald," he said, holding out his hand, "this is indeed a surprise! When did you come over?"
"About half-an-hour ago," replied Brian, reluctantly, taking the extended hand of the millionaire. "I came to see Madge, and have a talk with you."
"Ah! that's right," said the other, putting his arm round his daughter's waist. "So that's what has brought the roses to your face, young lady?" he went on, pinching her cheek playfully. "You will stay to dinner, of course, Fitzgerald?"
"Thank you, no!" answered Brian, hastily, "my dress – "
"Nonsense," interrupted Frettlby, hospitably; "we are not in Melbourne, and I am sure Madge will excuse your dress. You must stay."
"Yes, do," said Madge, in a beseeching tone, touching his hand lightly. "I don't see so much of you that I can let you off with half-an-hour's conversation."
Brian seemed to be making a violent effort.
"Very well," he said in a low voice; "I shall stay."
"And now," said Frettlby, in a brisk tone, as he sat down; "the important question of dinner being settled, what is it you want to see me about? – Your station?"
"No," answered Brian, leaning against the verandah post, while Madge slipped her hand through his arm. "I have sold it."
"Sold it!" echoed Frettlby, aghast. "What for?"
"I felt restless, and wanted a change."
"Ah! a rolling stone," said the millionaire, shaking his head, "gathers no moss, you know."
"Stones don't roll of their own accord," replied Brian, in a gloomy tone. "They are impelled by a force over which they have no control."
"Oh, indeed!" said the millionaire, in a joking tone. "And may I ask what is your propelling force?"
Brian looked at the man's face with such a steady gaze that the latter's eyes dropped after an uneasy attempt to return it.
"Well," he said impatiently, looking at the two tall young people standing before him, "what do you want to see me about?"
"Madge has agreed to marry me at once, and I want your consent."
"Impossible!" said Frettlby, curtly.
"There is no such a word as impossible," retorted Brian, coolly, thinking of the famous remark in RICHELIEU, "Why should you refuse? I am rich now."
"Pshaw!" said Frettlby, rising impatiently. "It's not money I'm thinking about – I've got enough for both of you; but I cannot live without Madge."
"Then come with us," said his daughter, kissing him.
Her lover, however, did not second the invitation, but stood moodily twisting his tawny moustache, and staring out into the garden in an absent sort of manner.
"What do you say, Fitzgerald?" said Frettlby, who was eyeing him keenly.
"Oh, delighted, of course," answered Brian, confusedly.
"In that case," returned the other, coolly, "I will tell you what we will do. I have bought a steam yacht, and she will be ready for sea about the end of January. You will marry my daughter at once, and go round New Zealand for your honeymoon. When you return, if I feel inclined, and you two turtle-doves don't object, I will join you, and we will make a tour of the world."
"Oh, how delightful," cried Madge, clasping her hands. "I am so fond of the ocean with a companion, of course," she added, with a saucy glance at her lover.
Brian's face had brightened considerably, for he was a born sailor, and a pleasant yachting voyage in the blue waters of the Pacific, with Madge as his companion, was, to his mind, as near Paradise as any mortal could get.
"And what is, the name of the yacht?" he asked, with deep interest.
"Her name?" repeated Mr. Frettlby, hastily. "Oh, a very ugly name, and one which I intend to change. At present she is called the 'Rosanna.'"
"Rosanna!"
Brian and his betrothed both started at this, and the former stared curiously at the old man, wondering at the coincidence between the name of the yacht and that of the woman who died in the Melbourne slum.
Mr Frettlby flushed a little when he saw Brian's eye fixed on him with such an enquiring gaze, and rose with an embarrassed laugh.
"You are a pair of moon-struck lovers," he said, gaily, taking an arm of each, and leading them into the house "but you forget dinner will soon be ready."
CHAPTER XXIII.
ACROSS THE WALNUTS AND THE WINE
Moore, sweetest of bards, sings —
"Oh, there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream."
But he made this assertion in his callow days, before he had learned the value of a good digestion. To a young and fervid youth, love's young dream is, no doubt, very charming, lovers, as a rule, having a small appetite; but to a man who has seen the world, and drunk deeply of the wine of life, there is nothing half so sweet in the whole of his existence as a good dinner. "A hard heart and a good digestion will make any man happy." So said Talleyrand, a cynic if you like, but a man who knew the temper of his day and generation. Ovid wrote about the art of love – Brillat Savarin, of the art of dining; yet, I warrant you, the gastronomical treatise of the brilliant Frenchman is more widely read than the passionate songs of the Roman poet. Who does not value as the sweetest in the whole twenty-four the hour when, seated at an artistically-laid table, with delicately-cooked viands, good wines, and pleasant company, all the cares and worries of the day give place to a delightful sense of absolute enjoyment? Dinner with the English people is generally a very dreary affair, and there is a heaviness about the whole thing which communicates itself to the guests, who eat and drink with a solemn persistence, as though they were occupied in fulfilling some sacred rite. But there are men – alas! few and far between – who possess the rare art of giving good dinners – good in the sense of sociality as well as in that of cookery.
Mark Frettlby was one of these rare individuals – he had an innate genius for getting pleasant people together – people, who, so to speak, dovetailed into one another. He had an excellent cook, and his wines were irreproachable, so that Brian, in spite of his worries, was glad that he had accepted the invitation. The bright gleam of the silver, the glitter of glass, and the perfume of flowers, all collected under the subdued crimson glow of a pink-shaded lamp, which hung from the ceiling, could not but give him a pleasurable sensation.
On one side of the dining-room were the French windows opening on to the verandah, and beyond appeared the vivid green of the trees, and the dazzling colours of the flowers, somewhat tempered by the soft hazy glow of the twilight.
Brian had made himself as respectable as possible under the odd circumstances of dining in his riding-dress, and sat next to Madge, contentedly sipping his wine, and listening to the pleasant chatter which was going on around him.
Felix Rolleston was in great spirits, the more so as Mrs. Rolleston was at the further end of the table, hidden from his view.
Julia Featherweight sat near Mr. Frettlby, and chatted to him so persistently that he wished she would become possessed of a dumb devil.
Dr. Chinston and Peterson were seated on the other side of the table, and the old colonist, whose name was Valpy, had the post of honour, on Mr. Frettlby's right hand.
The conversation had turned on to the subject, ever green and fascinating, of politics, and Mr. Rolleston thought it a good opportunity to air his views as to the Government of the Colony, and to show his wife that he really meant to obey her wish, and become a power in the political world.
"By Jove, you know," he said, with a wave of his hand, as though he were addressing the House; "the country is going to the dogs, and all that sort of thing. What we want is a man like Beaconsfield."
"Ah! but you can't pick up a man like that every day," said Frettlby, who was listening with an amused smile to Rolleston's disquisitions.
"Rather a good thing, too," observed Dr. Chinston, dryly.
"Genius would become too common."
"Well, when I am elected," said Felix, who had his own views, which modesty forbade him to publish, on the subject of the coming colonial Disraeli, "I probably shall form a party."
"To advocate what?" asked Peterson, curiously.
"Oh, well, you see," hesitated Felix, "I haven't drawn up a programme yet, so can't say at present."
"Yes, you can hardly give a performance without a programme," said the doctor, taking a sip of wine, and then everybody laughed.
"And on what are your political opinions founded?" asked Mr. Frettlby, absently, without looking at Felix.
"Oh, you see, I've read the Parliamentary reports and Constitutional history, and – and Vivian Grey," said Felix, who began to feel himself somewhat at sea.
"The last of which is what the author called it, a LUSUS NATURAE," observed Chinston. "Don't erect your political schemes on such bubble foundations as are in that novel, for you won't find a Marquis Carabas out here."
"Unfortunately, no!" observed Felix, mournfully; "but we may find a Vivian Grey."
Every one smothered a smile, the allusion was so patent.
"Well, he didn't succeed in the end," cried Peterson.
"Of course he didn't," retorted Felix, disdainfully; "he made an enemy of a woman, and a man who is such a fool as to do that deserves to fall."
"You have an excellent opinion of our sex, Mr. Rolleston," said Madge, with a wicked glance at the wife of that gentleman, who was listening complacently to her husband's aimless chatter.
"No better than they deserve," replied Rolleston, gallantly.
"But you have never gone in for politics, Mr. Frettlby?"
"Who? – I – no," said the host, rousing himself out of the brown study into which he had fallen. "I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently patriotic, and my business did not permit me."
"And now?"
"Now," echoed Mr. Frettlby, glancing at his daughter, "I intend to travel."
"The jolliest thing out," said Peterson, eagerly. "One never gets tired of seeing the queer things that are in the world."
"I've seen queer enough things in Melbourne in the early days," said the old colonist, with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.
"Oh!" cried Julia, putting her hands up to her ears, "don't tell me them, for I'm sure they're naughty."
"We weren't saints then," said old Valpy, with a senile chuckle.
"Ah, then, we haven't changed much in that respect," retorted Frettlby, drily.
"You talk of your theatres now," went on Valpy, with the garrulousness of old age; "why, you haven't got a dancer like Rosanna."
Brian started on hearing this name again, and he felt Madge's cold hand touch his.
"And who was Rosanna?" asked Felix, curiously, looking up.
"A dancer and burlesque actress," replied Valpy, vivaciously, nodding his old head. "Such a beauty; we were all mad about her – such hair and eyes. You remember her, Frettlby?"
"Yes," answered the host, in a curiously dry voice.
But before Mr. Valpy had the opportunity to wax more eloquent, Madge rose from the table, and the other ladies followed. The ever polite Felix held the door open for them, and received a bright smile from his wife for, what she considered, his brilliant talk at the dinner table.
Brian sat still, and wondered why Frettlby changed colour on hearing the name – he supposed that the millionaire had been mixed up with the actress, and did not care about being reminded of his early indiscretions – and, after all, who does?
"She was as light as a fairy," continued Valpy, with wicked chuckle.
"What became of her?" asked Brian, abruptly.
Mark Frettlby looked up suddenly, as Fitzgerald asked this question.
"She went to England in 1858," said the aged one. "I'm not quite sure if it was July or August, but it was in 1858."
"You will excuse me, Valpy, but I hardly think that these reminiscences of a ballet-dancer are amusing," said Frettlby, curtly, pouring himself out a glass of wine. "Let us change the subject."
Notwithstanding the plainly-expressed wish of his host Brian felt strongly inclined to pursue the conversation. Politeness, however, forbade such a thing, and he consoled himself with the reflection that, after dinner, he would ask old Valpy about the ballet-dancer whose name caused Mark Frettlby to exhibit such strong emotion. But, to his annoyance, when the gentlemen went into the drawing-room, Frettlby took the old colonist off to his study, where he sat with him the whole evening talking over old times.
Fitzgerald found Madge seated at the piano in the drawing-room playing one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words.
"What a dismal thing that is you are playing, Madge," he said lightly, as he sank into a seat beside her. "It is more like a funeral march than anything else."
"Gad, so it is," said Felix, who came up at this moment. "I don't care myself about 'Op. 84' and all that classical humbug. Give me something light – 'Belle Helene,' with Emelie Melville, and all that sort of thing."
"Felix!" said his wife, in a stern tone.
"My dear," he answered recklessly, rendered bold by the champagne he had taken, "you observed – "
"Nothing particular," answered Mrs. Rolleston, glancing at him with a stony eye, "except that I consider Offenbach low."
"I don't," said Felix, sitting down to the piano, from which Madge had just risen, "and to prove he ain't, here goes."
He ran his fingers lightly over the keys, and dashed into a brilliant Offenbach galop, which had the effect of waking up the people in the drawing-room, who felt sleepy after dinner, and sent the blood tingling through their veins. When they were thoroughly roused, Felix, now that he had an appreciative audience, for he was by no means an individual who believed in wasting his sweetness on the desert air, prepared to amuse them.
"You haven't heard the last new song by Frosti, have you?" he asked, after he had brought his galop to a conclusion.
"Is that the composer of 'Inasmuch' and 'How so?'" asked Julia, clasping her hands. "I do love his music, and the words are so sweetly pretty."
"Infernally stupid, she means," whispered Peterson to Brian. "They've no more meaning in them than the titles."
"Sing us the new song, Felix," commanded his wife, and her obedient husband obeyed her.
It was entitled, "Somewhere," words by Vashti, music by Paola Frosti, and was one of those extraordinary compositions which may mean anything – that is, if the meaning can be discovered. Felix had a pleasant voice, though it was not very strong, and the music was pretty, while the words were mystical. The first verse was as follows: —
"A flying cloud, a breaking wave,
A faint light in a moonless sky:
A voice that from the silent grave
Sounds sad in one long bitter cry.
I know not, sweet, where you may stand,
With shining eyes and golden hair,
Yet I know, I will touch your hand
And kiss your lips somewhere —
Somewhere! Somewhere! —
When the summer sun is fair,
Waiting me, on land or sea,
Somewhere, love, somewhere!"
The second verse was very similar to the first, and when Felix finished a murmur of applause broke from every one of the ladies.
"How sweetly pretty," sighed Julia. "Such a lot in it."
"But what is its meaning?" asked Brian, rather bewildered.
"It hasn't got one," replied Felix, complacently. "Surely you don't want every song to have a moral, like a book of Aesop's Fables?"
Brian shrugged his shoulders, and turned away with Madge.
"I must say I agree with Fitzgerald," said the doctor, quickly. "I like a song with some meaning in it. The poetry of the one you sang is as mystical as Browning, without any of his genius to redeem it."
"Philistine," murmured Felix, under his breath, and then vacated his seat at the piano in favour of Julia, who was about to sing a ballad called, "Going Down the Hill," which had been the rage in Melbourne musical circles during the last two months.
Meanwhile Madge and Brian were walking up and down in the moonlight. It was an exquisite night, with a cloudless blue sky glittering with the stars, and a great yellow moon in the west. Madge seated herself on the side of the marble ledge which girdled the still pool of water in front of the house, and dipped her hand into the cool water. Brian leaned against the trunk of a great magnolia tree, whose glossy green leaves and great creamy blossoms looked fantastic in the moonlight. In front of them was the house, with the ruddy lamplight streaming through the wide windows, and they could see the guests within, excited by the music, waltzing to Rolleston's playing, and their dark figures kept passing and re-passing the windows while the charming music of the waltz mingled with their merry laughter.
"Looks like a haunted house," said Brian, thinking of Poe's weird poem; "but such a thing is impossible out here."
"I don't know so much about that," said Madge, gravely, lifting up some water in the palm of her hand, and letting it stream back like diamonds in the moonlight. "I knew a house in St. Kilda which was haunted."
"By what?" asked Brian, sceptically.
"Noises!" she answered, solemnly.
Brian burst out laughing and startled a bat, which flew round and round in the silver moonlight, and whirred away into the shelter of a witch elm.
"Rats and mice are more common here than ghosts," he said, lightly. "I'm afraid the inhabitants of your haunted house were fanciful."
"So you don't believe in ghosts?"
"There's a Banshee in our family," said Brian, with a gay smile, "who is supposed to cheer our death beds with her howlings; but as I've never seen the lady myself, I'm afraid she's a Mrs. Harris."
"It's aristocratic to have a ghost in a family, I believe," said Madge; "that is the reason we colonials have none."
"Ah, but you will have," he answered with a careless laugh. "There are, no doubt, democratic as well as aristocratic ghosts; but, pshaw!" he went on, impatiently, "what nonsense I talk. There are no ghosts, except of a man's own raising. The ghosts of a dead youth – the ghosts of past follies – the ghosts of what might have been – these are the spectres which are more to be feared than those of the churchyard."
Madge looked at him in silence, for she understood the meaning of that passionate outburst – the secret which the dead woman had told him, and which hung like a shadow over his life. She arose quietly and took his arm. The light touch roused him, and a faint wind sent an eerie rustle through the still leaves of the magnolia, as they walked back in silence to the house.