Читать книгу: «Sir Hilton's Sin», страница 11

Chapter Twenty Three.
Further In

The sound of his wife’s voice had a wonderful effect upon Sir Hilton for the moment, and, turning sharply, he rushed out of the drawing-room and down the passage leading to the servants’ portion of the house.

“Here, Sam,” cried Syd, “come on and stop him. He’s going into another fit.”

The boy dashed after his uncle, closely followed by the trainer, and they overtook him in the pale light of the kitchen, whose window faced the east, standing, panting hard, with his hand upon the table, where he was collared by one on each side.

“What are you doing that for?” he cried.

“Never you mind, Sir Hilton. You’ve got to stop here.”

“That’s right, uncle. Come, steady! No larks.”

“Larks, sir? Let go. I insist. Let go, I tell you. I’m going to meet your aunt, Syd. I must have some explanation with her about all this.”

“Well, if you come to that, Sir Hilton, that’s what I want too about my gal. If it’s all the same, I’ll go back first.”

“That you don’t,” cried Syd, shifting his hold from uncle to father-in-law. “There’ll be row enough without having that in the mess. Hark! Can’t you hear talking?” he whispered. “Aunt’s having it over with Molly. Let them settle it before we go in.”

“Look here, don’t you talk like that, my boy, to one old enough to be your grandfather,” protested the trainer. “You’re not standing up for my gal’s rights as you should do, and if you don’t I must.”

“But one thing at a time, old man. Let’s get uncle quieted down first.”

“Quieted down?” cried Sir Hilton. “What do you mean? Here, Syd, my throat’s on fire. Fill that jug at the tap.”

“Won’t hurt him, will it?” whispered Syd.

“I d’know, my lad; I’d charnsh it now.”

The jug was filled at the tap over the sink and handed to Sir Hilton, who drank long and deeply, setting it down with a loud “Ha!” just as a familiar voice rang out loudly —

“Hilton! Hilton! Are you there?”

For as the pair dashed out after Sir Hilton the door through which they passed closed with a dull, jarring thud, which seemed to bring down another flower-pot in the conservatory; but this was not heard by Lady Lisle, who entered the drawing-room excitedly, closely followed by Lady Tilborough and the doctor, all looking pallid and all-nightish in the yellow light of the candles mingled with the pale grey dawn stealing in.

“Now, pray listen to me, my dear Lady Lisle,” said Lady Tilborough, in a soothing voice. “Do be reasonable.”

“I will not listen to you, madam,” cried Lady Lisle, passionately.

“Pray do now. For your own sake as well as your husband’s.”

“He is no husband of mine,” cried Lady Lisle, excitedly.

“Be reasonable. Come, think, my dear madam. You cannot wish to have a scandal. Your servants are in the hall. You cannot want them to hear.”

“They must hear – the whole world will hear. Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful!”

“Say a word to her, for heaven’s sake, Jack!” whispered Lady Tilborough; and the doctor stepped forward.

“Yes, Lady Lisle,” he said firmly, “I am bound to speak – as, temporarily, your medical attendant.”

“Wretched man, why did you not let me die?” cried Lady Lisle, pacing up and down and wringing her hands.

“Because I wished to save an estimable lady for a reconciliation with an old friend; for really, my dear madam, when you calm down, you will see that you have been most unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable? Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the unhappy woman, hysterically.

“Yes, my dear madam; most unreasonable. First in insisting upon leaving Oakleigh at this extremely early hour in the morning, after you had been suffering from a congeries of hysterical fits. Recollect what you promised me.”

“I recollect nothing but my wrongs,” cried Lady Lisle.

“Then as your medical attendant, called in upon this emergency by my friend, Lady Tilborough, it is my duty to tell you that you gave me your word that you would be calm if I allowed you to return.”

“Yes,” said the suffering woman, bitterly. “I promised because I could not bear to stay longer in that hateful woman’s house.”

“It seemed to me, madam, that the lady whom you so wrong, behaved in a very loving and sisterly way to you in an emergency.”

“Yes; brought about by her machinations.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Lady Tilborough. “What an unreasonable darling it is! Machinations! Why, I only asked a dear old friend to help me and save me from ruin, and he responded nobly.”

“Ruin? You helped to ruin him by luring him back to the diabolical horrors of the Turf.”

“There, there, my dear; I won’t argue with you, certainly not quarrel. Pray, pray try and calm yourself, or you’ll be having another of those terrible hysterical fits.”

“Yes,” said Granton, “and worse than the last.”

“I am glad. It will be my last. Infamous woman, why did you drag me to your house?”

“Because, my dear, I didn’t like to see a lady in your position ill and suffering in such a place as the Tilborough Arms.”

“And because, my dear madam, when I found how bad you were I begged Lady Tilborough to save you from a long hour’s drive home when your coachman was not to be found.”

“But you lured my husband away, woman.”

“Well, I have confessed to that, my dear madam, and I am sorry that you should look upon it with different eyes from mine. I don’t think I have been such a terrible sinner, do you, doctor?” she added, with a look which made the gentleman addressed flutter as regarded his nerves.

But he had the medical man’s command over self, and he said quietly: “I think when Lady Lisle has grown calmer she will look a little more leniently upon her neighbour’s actions. Now, pray, my dear madam, let me beg of you to – Ah! that’s better. Don’t try to restrain your tears. They are the greatest anodyne for an overwrought mind. Now, remember your promise. Let me ring for your maid. A cup of tea and a good long sleep, and the racing escapade will wear a different aspect by the light of noon.”

“Oh, doctor, doctor!” sobbed the poor woman, passionately, as she yielded to Granton’s pressure, and sank into a lounge; “you do not know – you do not know!”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know; but pray think. I grant that racing is gambling, but I really believe my dear old friend Hilton Lisle will for the future yield to your wishes and fight shy – I beg your pardon – religiously abstain from attending Turf meetings.”

“Oh, oh, oh, doctor!” sobbed the patient, who was at her weakest in the weakest hour of the twenty-four. “You do not know all. I could have forgiven that; but when I discovered the base disloyalty of the man in whom I had always the most perfect faith – ”

“Dear me! Ahem!” coughed the doctor. “I – ” and he glanced at Lady Tilborough.

“Oh, hang it, no!” cried the latter, firing up. “Surely, madam, you don’t think that! Oh, absurd! Poor old Hilton! Oh, nonsense, nonsense! Why, the woman is jealous of me!”

“No, no, no!” cried Lady Lisle, excitedly. “I did not think – Oh, no, Lady Tilborough, I do not think that.”

“Ha! That’s some comfort,” sighed the lady addressed; but she frowned angrily, and the look she darted at the doctor was by no means like the last, though his was of the most abject, imploring kind.

“I can’t explain – I can’t explain,” sobbed Lady Lisle in her handkerchief. “I would sooner die, for it is all over now.”

The others exchanged looks and a whisper or two, as they drew aside from the weeping woman.

“Oh, I don’t believe it of poor old Hilt,” said Lady Tilborough.

“Neither do I,” cried the doctor.

“There is no one,” said Lady Tilborough. “Unless – ” she added, as a sudden thought struck her. “No, no, no; he’s too loyal to go running after a pretty little commonplace doll like that, Jack.”

“I hope so,” said the doctor, shaking his head. “Well, here he is to answer for himself,” he added quickly, for the farther door was opened, and, clad in slippers and dressing-gown, and carrying a flat candlestick, whose light was not wanted, and looking quite himself mentally, but ghastly pale, Sir Hilton briskly entered the room.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he cried, stopping short, and looking from one to the other.

“Oh-h-h-h!” exclaimed Lady Lisle, in a long-drawn utterance expressive of her anger and disgust.

“Why, Hilt, old fellow,” cried Granton, “I thought you were ill in bed?”

“What brings you here, sir?” cried Sir Hilton. “But stop; I’ll talk to you afterwards,” he added fiercely. “Now, madam, will you have the goodness to explain what this means?”

“Oh-h-h-h!” ejaculated Lady Lisle again, in tones more long-drawn and suggestive of the rage boiling up within, her darting and flashing eyes telling their own tale of the storm about to burst.

“Oh, indeed, madam!” cried Sir Hilton, mockingly. “Really, I am very sorry to have to make a display of the soiled laundry of our establishment before our visitors, but I must demand an explanation. Here am I, called suddenly away upon very important business respecting monetary matters, and I return home late, to find that you have taken advantage of my absence to – to – to – to – there, I will not give utterance to my thoughts, but ask you, madam, to explain why I find you away, even at midnight, and not putting in an appearance till nearly four in the morning – four in the morning, and in a state that – Good heavens, madam! have you looked at yourself in the glass?”

Lady Lisle had not looked at herself in the glass, and her husband’s words came so aptly, rousing such a feeling of wonder in her that she involuntarily turned sharply to glance in one of the long mirrors and see a reflection in the crossed light of the artificial and the real coming from candle and break of day, that she felt horrified, and once more ejaculated “Oh!”

“Yes. Oh, indeed!” cried Sir Hilton, grasping at his advantage. “Pray, madam, will you be good enough to explain.”

Lady Tilborough, who had drawn back behind the couch to give the principals in this domestic scene room to develop their quarrel, exchanged mirthful glances with the doctor.

“Taking the bull by the horns,” whispered Granton.

“Cow!” whispered back Lady Tilborough, correctively, and she laid her hands upon the piled-up Polar bear skin to support herself, but snatched them away with a look of alarm at the doctor, one which changed to a glance full of inquiry, his answer from a yard or so away being a gesture with the hands which, being interpreted, meant, Haven’t the least idea. But he moved a little nearer, touched the skin, and then whispered the one word: “Dog!”

Lady Tilborough felt comforted, nodded her head and turned her eyes from the doctor to watch the domestic scene, and then felt uncomfortable, for she found that Lady Lisle’s attention had been drawn to what was going on between her and the doctor concerning the strangely piled-up hill of white fur, and her dark eyes were now fixed upon her uninvited visitor with a furious look of suspiciously jealous rage.

Lady Lisle saw in all this a means of making a counter attack upon her husband’s desperate assault, and she seized upon the weapon proffered by fate at once.

“Don’t add insult to injury before these friends of yours, sir,” she cried, fully equipped now for the counter attack; “and pray do not imagine that you have blinded me by this contemptible dust you are trying to throw in my eyes.”

“Dust, madam?” cried Sir Hilton, some what staggered by the reaction that had taken place.

“Yes, sir – dust. You forget that I was a witness to your appearance in that den of infamy.”

“Den of infamy, madam?”

“Yes, sir; den of infamy – disgracefully inebriated.”

“Oh, poor old Hilton!” whispered Granton. “I must – ”

“Silence!” cried Lady Lisle, turning upon the speaker, in the tones and with the air of a tragedy queen, her eyes flashing again as she saw a peculiar movement beneath the Polar bear skin, from the bottom of which there was the sudden protrusion of a very prettily-booted little foot.

“Yes, Sir Hilton,” continued Lady Lisle, pressing her hands upon her heaving bosom to keep down the seething passion. “I repeat, disgracefully inebriated, dressed in the low, flaunting guise of a jockey.”

“Oh, dear,” groaned Sir Hilton, completely taken aback.

“And forgetting the wife who rescued you from ruin – home – position – even yourself, as a man bearing an honoured title in the country, stooping to toy and play with that – abandoned creature.”

“What!”

“Whom you have had the audacity to bring with you into this – my house.”

“My dear madam!” cried Lady Tilborough, indignantly.

“Silence, woman!” shouted the furious wife. “Do you think me blind? Did I not see you and your confederate plotting together just now to try and hide his shame?”

“No,” cried Granton; “nothing of the kind.”

“Laura!” roared Sir Hilton. “You must be mad!”

“Mad? Ha, ha!” cried Lady Lisle, hysterically, and covering three yards in a gliding rush that would have been a triumph upon the stage she seized the Polar bear skin with both hands, whisked it off, and displayed the sleeping figure of poor little Molly, flushed, dishevelled, not to say touzled, by the heavy covering from which she had been freed, and just aroused sufficiently to open a pair of pretty red lips and say drowsily —

“Kiss me, dear.”

“Ha!” ejaculated Lady Lisle, with her eyes darting daggers, and her fingers playing instinctively the part of a savage barbarian-woman face to face with the rival who has supplanted her with the man she loved – they crooked themselves into claws.

“Well, I am blowed!” exclaimed Sir Hilton, with a puzzled look of horror and despair so wildly comical, aided as it was by his making a drag with both hands at his already too thin hair.

“Now, sir,” cried Lady Lisle, “what have you to say to that?”

Crash!

Chapter Twenty Four.
The Tout’s Final

That crash was not a human utterance proceeding from the lips of Sir Hilton Lisle, but a sudden shivering of glass, followed closely by the falling of big flower-pots in the conservatory, amidst the breaking of woodwork and rustling twigs and leaves.

But a human utterance followed in an angry, raucous voice which shouted —

“Oh, murder! I’ve done it now; I’ve broke my blooming leg.”

While faintly heard from somewhere outside there was the yelping, barking, howling whine of a dog.

The effect was magical.

The ladies shrieked, the sleeper awakened, and sat up, frightened and wondering, rubbing her eyes, and, as the two gentlemen rushed into the conservatory, the two doors of the drawing-room were thrown open, for Mark and Jane to enter by one, Syd and Sam Simpkins by the other.

“Oh, Syd!” sobbed Molly, holding out her arms.

“Oh, dear!” sighed the boy, after a glance at the great skin upon the floor; “the cat’s out of the bag now.”

“Yes, reg’lar,” growled the trainer. “There, don’t you squeal, my gal. There’s enough to do the high strikes without you, and I’m going to see as you have your rights.”

“Syd, my darling, come here,” cried Lady Lisle. “What does all this mean?”

The boy was saved from answering by the action of Mark, who had darted into the conservatory, dog-like, on hearing a scuffle going on, and more breaking of glass, so as to be in the fight, and he now backed in, dragging at the dilapidated legs of the race-tout, helped by Sir Hilton and Granton, each of whom had hold of an arm, as they deposited their capture on the carpet. “Gently, Marky Willows,” said the prisoner, coolly; “one of them legs is broke.”

“Broken! Which?” cried the doctor, the natural instinct of his craft rising above the feeling of triumph over the capture. In an instant he was upon one knee, feeling for the fracture, “Why, they’re both right enough.”

“Air they?” said the tout, coolly. “A blooming good job too! I thought one was gone. Here, Marky, would you mind getting me my boots?”

“Your boots?” cried the groom, looking with disgust, in the broadening daylight, at a pair of very dirty, stockingless feet.

“Yes, lad; they’re jus’ behind that there spiky plant in the big tub.”

“There, Mark!” cried Jane, triumphantly. “Burglars! What did I say?”

“Burglars, be hanged!”

“You scoundrel!” cried Sir Hilton. “What were you doing there?” and, as if answering, the piteous wailing of a dog came from outside.

“Trying to get out to my poor little dawg, Sir Rilton, on’y my foot slipped just as I was opening that top light. You oughter be ashamed of yourself, you ought!”

“Well, of all the effrontery!” cried Granton.

“So he oughter, doctor. That there flower-stand’s painted up ter rights, but it’s rotten as touchwood.”

“You ruffian! You broke in, and have been hidden there all the time.”

“Broke in, Sir Rilton. Nay, I wouldn’t do sech a thing. I come in at that glass door right and proper enough, to try and see her ladyship about that pretty little dawg, but she and you was so busy having a row over the family washing that I says to myself, ‘The best thing you can do, Dinny’s to call again,’ and I was going to call again, as I says, when that beggarly rotten old flower-stand give way. Hark at the pretty little dear asking for his master.”

For the puppy whined again.

“Well, you’re a pretty scoundrel!” cried the doctor. “You dirty brute! Here, Hilt, old fellow, I should have him locked-up in a horse-box while you send for the police.”

“What!” shouted the tout, struggling up into a sitting position. “What for?”

“Burgling,” cried Sir Hilton.

“Not me, sir. I ain’t no burglar. Where’s my jemmies and dark lanthorns, and where’s the swag? I swear I ain’t touched a thing.”

“You may swear that if you like when you’re brought up before the Bench, where I’m chairman, as it happens.”

“Me – police – brought up before the Bench? You won’t do it, Sir Rilton. I knows too much.”

“What!” cried Sir Hilton and the doctor together, while the ladies exchanged glances.

“You don’t want the dirty linen washed in public,” said the tout, with a chuckle. “Her ladyship there said so.”

“Enough of this,” cried Lady Lisle, who had recovered herself. “Let this man be taken away and secured till the police come.”

The imperious words had their effect upon one who was present, Mark collaring the tout.

“And you – man,” continued Lady Lisle, “are that – person’s father.” She uttered the word “person” in a tone, innocent as the appellation was, so acid that it made, the trainer bristly and Syd more of a man.

“Yes, I’m her father, my lady, but it’s no use to cut up rough.”

“Silence, man!” cried Lady Lisle, indignantly; “take the creature away.”

“Shan’t!” roared the trainer, starting. “She’s my gal, and she shall have her rights.”

“Syd!” cried poor Molly, in a passionate burst of tears, and she turned and flung her arms round the boy’s neck.

“Syd, my child!” wailed Lady Lisle, passionately. “You too? Has it come to this?”

“Yes,” sobbed and wailed the poor, pretty, childish-looking thing, turning now upon Lady Lisle and throwing up her dishevelled head, “of course it has; and he ain’t yours now – he’s mine, ain’t you, Syd dear, and you won’t let your poor little wife be abused like that, will you?”

“No,” cried the boy, stoutly, as Lady Lisle clapped her hands to her temples, and stared as if she could not believe her eyes and ears.

“Yes, auntie dear, it’s all right; this is my darling little wife, and we love one another like – Here, what’s the matter with you?”

This was to the doctor, who suddenly threw up his hands, spun round with his face to Lady Tilborough, and began stamping about, laughing hysterically, seeming moment by moment as if he would choke.

“Here, Lady Tilborough – Hetty darling,” he half sobbed, “take me away. I shall have a fit!”

“Be quiet, dear,” she whispered, catching him by the arm. “I shall break down too. Listen – pray listen! The whitewashing of poor old Hilt.”

Poor old Hilt had also clapped his hands to his head, and looked for a moment as if his horrible fit of semi-delirium was returning and the drug he had taken about to resume its sway.

“Here – water!” he cried. “No – no, I think I understand. Here, Syd, my boy, is this all true?”

“Yes, uncle, it’s true enough; and I’m proud of her.”

“So am I, Syd – so am I. Hooray! Bless you, my boy! Bless you, too, my pretty little darling!” he cried, catching Molly in his arms and kissing her roundly again and again, while the pretty, childish-looking little thing clasped him round the neck, smiled in his face, and replied with a sharp, chirruping smack.

“Hilton!” cried Lady Lisle.

“But it’s Syd’s wife, my dear.”

“Yes, my lady,” cried the trainer, “and she’s got her rights.”

“Rights? Right,” corrected Sir Hilton, taking Molly’s hand, and tucking it under his arm, to drag her shivering before the fierce-looking sharer of his joys.

“Can’t you see, my dear, that it’s all right? Now then, tell the poor little girl that you’re ashamed of what you said.”

Lady Lisle drew herself up, and seemed to be swallowing something that forced its way into her throat. Then, coldly —

“Yes,” she said, “I retract everything that I said – to – Syd’s – Oh, the horror of it!” she gasped. “Syd’s wife. But as for you, sir – yes, I wronged you, too, by those terrible thoughts; but all is at an end between us.”

“Eh?” ejaculated Sir Hilton.

“All is at an end between us. Never can I take the hand of man again who could stoop to playing the part of a common jockey.”

“But it was for the best, my dear.”

“Yes, Lady Lisle,” cried Lady Tilborough, “and to save two very old friends from ruin and despair.”

“Yes, Lady Lisle; that is a fact,” cried Granton.

“Possibly,” said Lady Lisle, coldly.

“And I’ll never do so any more, Laura.”

“Perhaps not,” said the lady, half-hysterically, for something was dragging her hard in her heaving bosom; “but I cannot trust the word of a man who has degraded himself as you did with drink.”

“Haw, haw, haw!” cried Dandy Dinny, in his most raucous tones.

“You hold your row,” said Mark, giving his prisoner a shake.

“Shee – ahn’t!” growled the man.

“Ah, Mr Trimmer, you are there,” cried Lady Lisle, as the door opened and the agent, looking pale, but particularly neat in his dark Oxford mixture suit and white, much-starched cravat, entered, to look wonderingly round at the strange scene, and wince as he caught the trainer’s eyes; but Lady Lisle’s look fascinated him, and he could not retreat.

“Yes, my lady,” he said in his blandest tones. “I heard the noise of breaking glass, and I hurriedly dressed and came down.”

“Come here. I want your assistance badly. I am glad to have someone in whom I can place trust.”

She took a step towards the agent, and raised her hand as if to place it upon Trimmer’s arm, and her lips parted to ask him to lead her from the room, when Dandy Dinny shouted coarsely to Trimmer —

“What, my lovely Methody P.! How much did you lose on the race?”

“Lose – race?” cried Lady Lisle, shrinking away, with white circles seeming to form round her dark, dilating eyes. “Surely, Mr Trimmer, you were not there?”

“Why, of course he was, auntie,” cried Syd. “I saw the old humbug twice.”

“What!” half shrieked Lady Lisle, “is there no one in whom I can trust?”

“Yes, my lady,” cried the tout, harshly. “You trust to me, and buy that little white dawg – no, I’ll make yer a present of it, if you’ll cry quits about me being here. No, you don’t, Marky; I’m going to speak. I’m a-going to give her ladyship the right tip, and my tips are the real square right ’uns.”

There was a bit of a struggle, which was checked by Sir Hilton, who, as if inspired by his thoughts, interfered.

“Yes, my dear,” he said; “hear what the man says.”

“Right you are, Sir Rilton. You always was a gent as I respected. Look here, my lady, don’t you be so hard on a gent as likes to go in for a bit of the real true old English sport. I know, my lady – yes, I’ve jest done, and then I’ll put on my boots. Pricked my foot, I did, with that there spiky plahnt. Here, don’t you think anything o’ that drop o’ fizz he had. Sir Rilton didn’t have enough to make him tight.”

“No – on my soul I didn’t, Laura,” cried Sir Hilton. “The man’s right.”

“Right I am, Sir Rilton,” cried the tout. “No, you don’t, my white-chokered herb!” he shouted, making a dash at Trimmer, who was quietly making for the door. “Got him! You, Mark Willows, you collar old Sam Simpkins. He’s t’other customer in that little game.”

“Here, what do you mean, sir?” said Sir Hilton, sternly.

“Mean, Sir Rilton – mean, Lady Lisle, and my Lady Tilborough – and Heaven bless my lady and the noble man of your chice – why, I mean this, as I see with these here eyes, going about and in and out selling my c’rect cards, all the starters, anceterer – No, you don’t; down you goes on your marrow-bones and makes confession to the lot.”

The tout had tightly hold of Trimmer’s collar as he spoke, and now, by a clever kick, he sent his legs from under him and pressed him down upon his knees, shivering, helpless, and whiter than ever.

“Now, my lady – now, all of you, here’s the real true tip: Sir Rilton here warn’t tight. He was hocussed with a dose o’ powder, so as he shouldn’t be able to ride La Sylphidey, and them’s the two as done it. That’s my tip.”

“A lie! You scoundrel! A lie!”

“I don’t understand him,” panted Lady Lisle.

“Hocussed him instead of the horse, my lady,” said the trainer, coolly. “You see, I couldn’t get at the mare to save myself from a heavy pull. Yes, my lady; yes, doctor, I mixed the dose, and I can assure you, Sir Hilton, that cham was real good.”

“But oh, daddy,” cried poor Molly, bursting into tears, “don’t say you did a thing like that!”

“’Bliged to, my gal; but I should never ha’ thought on it if it had not been for that smooth-tongued Trimmer. There, Sir Hilton. I’m very sorry, but I throw up the sponge.”

“Now, Laura,” cried Sir Hilton; “can’t you forgive me now?”