Part 70 (1/2)
And then sweetly swooped the rush of joy to them, and they were dumb, for some one who has read the human heart says, ”The most exquisite of all emotions is utter silence, with a being in whom we feel entire sympathy.”
”Ah, _par ma foi!_ but I am the good fairy, after all!” muttered the chevalier, hugging his fancy little self, and pacing about near them, with a protecting air, as if they were his especial _proteges_. ”I feel like Guardian Angel of their fortunes. Saint Ludovic--_par la messe_, it sounds well!”
”Thank Heaven! Ethel Brand's incomprehensible will has explained itself at last!” mused Davenport, laying down his crumpled _Times_, ”and it has proved itself to be the wisest will ever the Brands made. Married in spite of themselves, and as happy as love can make them in spite of a plain face, on the one side, and a reputation that the dogs wouldn't pick up once, on the other. He's a saved man, and she's a happy woman--dear, faithful Margaret. What glorious news for old Gay.”
When Mrs. St. Udo Brand came home to Seven-Oak Waaste, she found a letter awaiting her, and in its many pages she found at last the true history of the man who had been the Sleuth-Hound of Castle Brand:
CONVICT s.h.i.+P FEARLESS, March --, '63.
”MISS WALSINGHAM:--As you are a remarkably clever woman, and I have always been an admirer of fair play, I will give you your dues, and own that in our little game you had the best of it, and deserved to have.
”I don't bear you malice for this cursed mess which you've pushed me into, although I have you only to blame for it, for perhaps I didn't go the right way to work with you and I was a confounded fool for my pains.
”Yes I've been a lover of fair play all through my dodging life, ever since I was big enough to run at my father with a knife for making my mother cry; and since in our desperate little game together you won, I think it but fair play to own it, and to show you the few trumps with which I fought against your full hand.
”I'm sent back to banishment for life, and you are, I hear, a happy bride, coming home with St. Udo Brand; but if I know the practical good sense you possess, you won't toss this into the fire till you've read it all, and wasted a few good-hearted regrets on the wretch whose luck was so infernally poor.
”Forty years ago, Colonel Cathcart Brand, only son of Ethel Brand, Dowager of Seven-Oak Waaste, went to Cuba, which was a military station then as now, and fell in with a splendid-looking Cuban girl called Zerlini Barelli.
”Of course, the man took her in, and ruined all her worldly prospects through her love of him. In five years he was ordered back to England again, and coolly proceeded to take leave of the girl who had been more to him than many a wife is to her husband, and had nursed him through more than one, almost fatal attack, of fever. In vain she pleaded that he would take her with him, and own her boy as his legal heir. The colonel swore he couldn't, and offered her any money if she would not follow him.
”She agreed to this, and when I was four years old, they parted, never to meet again.
”I inherited all my mother's deep, patient ferocity, added to my father's outward appearance; and was called Brand Bareilli, at St. Kitts, where I was sent to school, I not having the remotest idea of my parentage.
”When I was ten years of age I was sent to England, probably at the colonel's instigation, and I was put into a training academy to fit me for the army.
”At twenty-one I received my commission as lieutenant in the artillery, through the influence of Colonel Brand, who from time to time took a certain care of my fortunes.
”About this time, noticing a great resemblance between the colonel and myself, a suspicion seized me that I had found my father.
”I once hinted as much to him, and was furiously ordered to hold my tongue, and to beware how I insulted my benefactor.
”From that day I lost favor with him; he treated me when we met with such cold contempt that my blood boiled; and all the while he was raising a fiend of hatred in my heart against him, he continued to pay over to me an annuity, which kept my suspicions on the alert.
”At last I wrote to my mother, who sent me the whole story, asking me whether I had ever seen the colonel's son, St. Udo Brand, who was five years younger than I.
”Colonel Brand, upon returning from Cuba to England, had married a lady of birth, whose one son had absorbed all the affection which was truly mine by priority or birth, and from the moment in which I heard of his existence, I hated him with furious hatred, and longed to visit my wrongs upon him.
”Three years after this I first saw St. Udo Brand, then just twenty. He was an ensign in the Guards, and mightily admired for his good humor and wit. He, too, was extremely like his father, which made me chary of his acquaintance for fear he would make me out what I was, and taunt me with it before my companions; so we never knew each other in the slightest.
”But a devil of envy possessed me, for I knew that this chap had no more business to be happy, rich, and respected than I had--nor so much, for I was his elder brother; and I was neither happy, nor rich, nor respected--everybody giving me the name of a sullen dog, etc., which was scarce fair play.
”So I watched my man till I saw an opening for spoiling his smiling fortunes, and then I cut in cleverly.
”I found out that St. Udo was madly in love with a young lady of fas.h.i.+on, and that some had it they were to be married whenever he attained his majority. I knew the girl myself, as luck would have it, and was rather fond of her, too; so, rather than let him, of all others in the world, cut me out of anything more which was mine by rights, I set myself cunningly to winning her affections.
”How often I've watched till the coast was clear of the das.h.i.+ng young ensign, and then got in for my visit to Genevieve Carlisle. So cleverly did I manage the thing, that not once did St. Udo contrive to meet me, although I was there every day as regularly as he himself was.