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Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Nine.
A Tale that is Told
It was just such a visit that Mrs Barclay paid Claire Denville about a fortnight later; and after one of her extremely warm embraces, she exclaimed: “Guess.”
“Guess what, Mrs Barclay?”
“Who’s married. There, you needn’t blush, my dear, because yours is fixed all right at last, but you’ll never guess who.”
“Then tell me,” said Claire, smiling. “No, guess.”
“I cannot. There are so many.”
“Then I will tell you. No, no: you’re too late,” she cried, as Richard Linnell hurriedly entered; “I’ve brought the news.”
“You’ve told her then that Cora Dean is married?”
“Now what a shame, Mr Richard,” cried Mrs Barclay. “I hadn’t time to say it, but I was just going to tell her. But she doesn’t know who to, and I will tell her that. Colonel Mellersh, my dear.”
“Colonel Mellersh!” cried Claire.
“Yes,” said Richard Linnell. “I have just received this from him. A message from them both.”
Claire opened her lips to speak, but her eyes fell upon Richard Linnell’s thoughtful face, and it was he who spoke next, and said slowly:
“No: now I come to think of it all, I am not surprised.”
Of course, Saltinville talked a great deal about this match, but the worthies of the place talked more about another wedding that took place six months later – a wedding at which Lord Carboro’ insisted upon being the bridegroom’s best man.
It was upon that occasion, after returning from the church, that Lord Carboro’ took a casket from his pocket and placed it in Claire’s hands.
“The old jewels, my dear, that I have prized because you refused them once before. God bless you! and I know He will.”
The old man turned quickly away with his face working, and crossed to the Master of the Ceremonies, who was looking very much his old self, in his meagrely furnished drawing-room, and tapped him half angrily upon the shoulder.
“Hang it all, Denville,” he cried, “can’t you see I’ve forgotten my snuff-box, and am dying for a pinch? The old box, sir – His Royal Highness’s box. Hah! That’s better,” he ejaculated, after dipping his thin white finger and thumb in the chased gold box, “a friend at a pinch, eh, Denville, eh? Damme, sir, your young wits and beaux don’t often beat that, eh? The old school’s passing away, Denville, eh? passing away.”
“With the noblemen who are your lordship’s contemporaries.”
“Tut-tut-tut! Denville, don’t. Never mind the lordship. We must be better friends, man – better friends for our little fag ends of troubled lives. Hush! No more now. This is the bride and bridegroom’s day.”
There were many strangers who, visiting Saltinville, were ready to smile at the tottering white-haired beau, so elaborately dressed, and who, not from need, but from custom, clung to his old habits and received visitors as Master of the Ceremonies still. It was a quaint old fiction, and he used to glory in his fees, now they were only wanted for a purpose he had in view.
There were other laughs too ready to be bestowed upon the palsied old nobleman in the dark wig, who met the Master of the Ceremonies every morning on the Parade, and took snuff with him as they flourished their canes, and flicked away fancied spots of dust. Their high collars and pantaloons and Hessian boots, all came in for notice. So did those wonderful beaver hats, black for winter, white for summer, which were lifted with such a display of deportment, in return to the salutes of those who were taking the air. It was always the same: they met at the same hour, at the same spot, took snuff, chatted upon the same themes, and then strolled down to the end of the pier talking of how “times have changed, sir: times have changed.”
“Who’s him, sir – old chap in the black wig, and a face like a wooden nut-cracker? Oh, he’s old Lord Carboro’.”
“And the other?” said the stranger, who had been questioning Fisherman Dick, as the old men passed them by.
“T’other, sir? Ah, I could tell you a deal about him. That’s the Master o’ the Ceremonies, that is. I could tell you a long story about he.”
And so he did.
