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Tinted Venus

<h2>DENOUNCED</h2> <h3>XI.</h3> "There's a new foot on the floor, my friend; And a new face at the door, my friend; A new face at the door." Leander sat at the head of the table as carver, having Mrs. Collum and Bella on his left, and James and Matilda opposite to them. James was the first to open conversation, by the remark to Mrs. Collum, across the table, that they were "having another dull Sunday." "That," rejoined the uncompromising lady, "seems to me a highly improper remark, sir." "My friend Jauncy," explained Leander, in defence of his abashed companion, "was not alluding to present company, I'm sure. He meant the dulness outside—the fog, and so on." "I knew it," she said; "and I repeat that it is improper and irreverent to speak of a dull Sunday in that tone of complaint. Haven't we all the week to be lively in?" "And I'm sure, ma'am," said Jauncy, recovering himself, "you make the most of your time. Talking of fog, Tweddle, did you see those lines on it in to-day's Umpire? Very smart, I call them; regular witty." "And do you both read a paper on Sunday mornings[Pg 199] with 'smart' and 'witty' lines in it?" demanded Mrs. Collum. "I—I hadn't time this morning," said the unregenerate Leander; "but I do occasionally cast an eye over it before I get up." Mrs. Collum groaned, and looked at her daughter reproachfully. "I see by the Weekly News," said Jauncy, "you've had a burglary in your neighbourhood." Leander let the carving-knife slip. "A burglary! What! in my neighbourhood? When?" "Well, p'r'aps not a burglary; but a capture of two that were 'wanted' for it. It's all in to-day's News." "I—I haven't seen a paper for the last two days," said Leander, his heart beating with hope. "Tell us about it!" "Why, it isn't much to tell; but it seems that last Friday night, or early on Saturday morning, the constable on duty came upon two suspicious-looking chaps, propped up insensible against the railings in Queen Square, covered with blood, and unable to account for themselves. Whether they'd been trying to break in somewhere and been beaten off, or had quarrelled, or met with some accident, doesn't seem to be known for certain. But, anyway, they were arrested for loitering at night with housebreaking things about them; and, when they were got to the station, recognized as the men 'wanted' for shooting a policeman down at Camberwell some time back, and if it is proved against them they'll be hung, for certain." "What were they called? Did it say?" asked Leander, eagerly. "I forget one—something like Bradawl, I believe; the other had a lot of aliases, but he was best known as[Pg 200] the 'Count,' from having lived a good deal abroad, and speaking broken English like a native." Leander's spirits rose, in spite of his present anxieties. He had been going in fear and dread of the revenge of these ruffians, and they were safely locked up; they could trouble him no more. Small wonder, then, that his security in this respect made him better able to cope with minor dangers; and Bella's animosity seemed lulled, too—at least, she had not opened her mouth, except for food, since she sat down. In his expansion, he gave himself the airs of a host. "I hope," he said, "I've served you all to your likings? Miss Parkinson, you're not getting on; allow me to offer you a little more pork." "Thank you, Mr. Tweddle," said the implacable Bella, "but I won't trouble you. I haven't an appetite to-day—like I had at those gardens." There was a challenge in this answer—not only to him, but to general curiosity—which, to her evident disappointment, was not taken up. Leander turned to Jauncy. "I—I suppose you had no trouble in finding your way here?" he said. "No," said Jauncy, "not more than usual; the streets were pretty full, and that makes it harder to get along." "We met such quantities of soldiers," put in Bella. "Do you remember those two soldiers at Rosherwich, Mr. Tweddle? How funny they did look, dancing; didn't they? But I suppose I mustn't say anything about the dancing here, must I?" "Since," said the poor badgered man, "you put it to me, Miss Parkinson, I must say that, considering the day, you know——" "Yes," continued Mrs. Collum, severely; "surely[Pg 201] there are better topics for the Sabbath than—than a dancing soldier!" "Mr. Tweddle knows why I stopped myself," said Bella. "But there, I won't tell of you—not now, at all events; so don't look like that at me!" "There, Bella, that'll do," said her fiancé, suddenly awakening to the fact that she was trying to make herself disagreeable, and perhaps feeling slightly ashamed of her. "James! I know what to say and what to leave unsaid, without tellings from you; thanks all the same. You needn't fear my saying a word about Mr. Tweddle and Ada—la, now, if I haven't gone and said it! What a stupid I am to run on so!" "Drop it, Bella! Do you hear? That's enough," growled Jauncy. Leander sat silent; he did not attempt again to turn the conversation: he knew better. Matilda seemed perfectly calm, and certainly showed no surface curiosity; but he feared that her mother intended to require explanations. Miss Tweddle came in here with the original remark that winter had begun now in good earnest. "Yes," said Bella. "Why, as we came along, there wasn't hardly a leaf on the trees in the squares; and yet only yesterday week, at the gardens, the trees hadn't begun to shed. Had they, Mr. Tweddle? Oh, but I forgot; you were so taken up with paying attention to Ada——(Well, James! I suppose I can make a remark!)" "I'll never take you out again, if you don't hold that tongue," he whispered savagely. Mrs. Collum fixed her eyes on Leander, as he sat cowering on her right. "Leander Tweddle," she said, in a hissing whisper, "what is that young person talking[Pg 202] about? Who—who is this 'Ada'? I insist upon being told." "If you want to know, ask her," he retorted desperately. All this by-play passed unnoticed by Miss Tweddle, who was probably too full of the cares of a hostess to pay attention to it; and, accordingly, she judged the pause that followed the fitting opportunity for a little speech. "Mrs. Collum, ma'am," she began; "and my dearest Miss Matilda, the flower of all my lady lodgers; and you, Leandy; and Mr. Jauncy; and, though last mentioned, not intentionally so, I assure you, Miss Parkinson, my dear—I couldn't tell you how honoured I feel to see you all sitting, so friendly and cheerful, round my humble table. I hope this will be only the beginning of many more so; and I wish you all your very good healths!" "Which, if I may answer for self and present company," said Mr. Jauncy, nobody else being able to utter a word, "we drink and reciprocate." Leander was saved for the moment, and the dinner passed without further incident. But his aunt's vein of sentiment had been opened, and could not be staunched all at once; for when the cloth was removed, and the decanters and dishes of oranges placed upon the table, she gave a little preparatory cough and began again. "I'm sure it isn't my wish to be ceremonial," she said; "but we're all among friends—for I should like to look upon you as a friend, if you'll let me," she added rather dubiously, to Bella. "And I don't really think there could be a better occasion for a sort of little ceremony that I've quite set my heart on. Leandy, you know what I mean; and you've got it with you, I know, because you were told to bring it with you." "Miss Tweddle," interrupted Matilda, hurriedly, "not[Pg 203] now. I—I don't think Vidler has sent it back yet. I told you, you know——" "That's all you know about it, young lady," she said, archly; "for I stepped in there yesterday and asked him about it, to make sure, and he told me it was delivered over the very Saturday afternoon before. So, Leandy, oblige me for once, and put it on the dear girl's finger before us all; you needn't be bashful with us, I'm sure, either of you." "What is all this?" asked Mrs. Collum. "Why, it's a ring, Mrs. Collum, ma'am, that belonged to my own dear aunt, though she never wore it; and her grandfather had the posy engraved on the inside of it. And I remember her telling me, before she was taken, that she'd left it to me in her will, but I wasn't to let it go out of the family. So I gave it to Leandy, to be his engagement ring; but it's had to be altered, because it was ever so much too large as it was." "I always thought," said Mrs. Collum, "that it was the gentleman's duty to provide the ring." "So Leandy wanted to; but I said, 'You can pay for the altering; but I'm fanciful about this, and I want to see dearest Miss Collum with my aunt's ring on.'" "Oh, but, Miss Tweddle, can't you see?" said Matilda. "He's forgotten it; don't—don't tease him about it.... It must be for some other time, that's all!" "Matilda, I'm surprised at you," said her mother. "To forget such a thing as that would be unpardonable in any young man. Leander Tweddle, you cannot have forgotten it." "No," he said, "I've not forgotten it; but—but I haven't it about me, and I don't know as I could lay my hand on it, just at present, and that's the truth."[Pg 204] "Part of the truth," said Bella. "Oh, what deceitful things you men are! Leave me alone, James; I will speak. I won't sit by and hear poor dear Miss Collum deceived in this way. Miss Collum, ask him if that is all he knows about it. Ask him, and see what he says." "I'm quite satisfied with what he has chosen to say already, Miss Parkinson; thank you," said Matilda. "Then permit me to say, Miss Collum, that I'm truly sorry for you," said Bella. "If you think so, Miss Parkinson, I suppose you must say so." "I do say it," said Bella; "for it's a sorrowful sight to see meekness all run to poorness of spirit. You have a right to an explanation from Mr. Tweddle there; and you would insist on it, if you wasn't afraid (and with good reason) of the answer you'd get!" At the beginning of this short colloquy Miss Tweddle, after growing very red and restless for some moments, had slipped out of the room, and came in now, trembling and out of breath, with a bonnet in her hand and a cloak over her arm. "Miss Parkinson," she said, speaking very rapidly, "when I asked you to come here with my good friend and former lodger, I little thought that anything but friendship would come of it; and sorry I am that it has turned out otherwise. And my feelings to Mr. Jauncy are the same as ever; but—this is your bonnet, Miss Parkinson, and your cloak. And this is my house; and I shall be obliged if you'll kindly put on the ones, and walk out of the other at once!" Bella burst into tears, and demanded from Mr. Jauncy why he had brought her there to be insulted. "You brought it all on yourself," he said, gloomily; "you should have behaved!"[Pg 205] "What have I done," cried Bella, "to be told to go, as if I wasn't fit to stay?" "I'll tell you what you've done," said Miss Tweddle. "You were asked here with Mr. Jauncy to meet my dear Leandy and his young lady, and get all four of you to know one another, and lay foundations for Friendship's flowery bonds. And from the moment you came in, though I paid no attention to it at first, you've done nothing but insinuate and hint, and try all you could to set my dear Miss Collum and her ma against my poor unoffending nephew; and I won't sit by any longer and hear it. Put on your bonnet and cloak, Miss Parkinson, and Mr. Jauncy (who knows I don't bear him any ill-feeling, whatever happens) will go home with you." "I've said nothing," repeated Bella, "but what I'd a right to say, and what I'll stand to." "If you don't put on those things," said Jauncy, "I shall go away myself, and leave you to follow as best you can." "I'm putting them on," said Bella; and her hands were unsteady with passion as she tied her bonnet-strings. "Don't bully me, James, because I won't bear it! Mr. Tweddle, if you're a man, will you sit there and tell me you don't know that that ring is on a certain person's finger? Will you do that?" <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/ill-p199.jpg" width-obs="349" height-obs="500" alt="HER HANDS WERE UNSTEADY WITH PASSION AS SHE TIED HER BONNET-STRINGS." title="" /> HER HANDS WERE UNSTEADY WITH PASSION AS SHE TIED HER BONNET-STRINGS.</div> The miserable man concluded that Ada had disregarded his entreaties, and told her sister all about the ring and the accursed statue. He could not see why the story should have so inflamed Bella; but her temper was always uncertain. Everybody was looking at him, and he was expected to say something. His main idea was, that he would see how much Bella knew before committing himself. "What have I ever done to offend you," he asked,[Pg 208][Pg 207][Pg 206] "that you turn on me in this downright vixenish manner? I scorn to reply to your insinuations!" "Do you want me to speak out plain? James, stand away, if you please. You may all think what you choose of me. I don't care! Perhaps if you were to come in and find the man who, only a week ago, had offered marriage to your youngest sister, figuring away as engaged to quite another lady, you wouldn't be all milk and honey, either. I'm doing right to expose him. The man who'd deceive one would deceive many, and so you'll find, Miss Collum, little as you think it." "That's enough," said Miss Tweddle. "It's all a mistake, I'm sure, and you'll be sorry some day for having made it. Now go, Miss Parkinson, and make no more mischief!" A light had burst in upon Leander's perturbed mind. Ada had not broken faith with him, after all. He remembered Bella's conduct during the return from Rosherwich, and understood at last to what a mistake her present wrath was due. Here, at all events, was an accusation he could repel with dignity, with truth. Foolish and unlucky he had been—and how unlucky he still hoped Matilda might never learn—but false he was not; and she should not be allowed to believe it. "Miss Parkinson," he said, "I've been badgered long enough. What is it you're trying to bring up against me about your sister Ada? Speak it out, and I'm ready to answer you." "Leander," said Matilda, "I don't want to hear it from her. Only you tell me that you've been true to me, and that is quite enough." "Matilda, you're a foolish girl, and don't know what you're talking about," said her mother. "It is not[Pg 209] enough for me; so I beg, young woman, if you've anything to accuse the man who's to be my son-in-law of, you'll say it now, in my presence, and let him contradict it afterwards if he can." "Will he contradict his knowing my sister Ada, who's one of the ladies at Madame Chenille's, in the Edgware Road, more than a twelvemonth since, and paying her attentions?" asked Bella. "I don't deny," said Leander, "meeting her several times, and being considerably struck, in a quiet way. But that was before I met Matilda." "You had met Matilda before last Saturday, I suppose?" sneered Bella, spitefully—"when you laid your plans to join our party to Rosherwich, and trouble my poor sister, who'd given up thinking of you." "There you go, Bella!" said her fiancé. "What do you know about his plans? He'd no idea as Ada and you was to be there; and when I told him, as we were driving down, it was all I could do to prevent him jumping out of the cab." "I'm highly flattered to hear it," said Bella. "But he didn't seem to be so afraid of Ada when they did meet; and you best know, Mr. Tweddle, the things you said to that poor trusting girl all the time you were walking and dancing and talking foolishness to her." "I never said a word that couldn't have been spoke from the top of St. Paul's," protested Leander. "I did dance with her, I own, not to seem uncivil; but we only waltzed round twice." "Then why did you give her a ring—an engagement ring too?" insisted Bella. "Who saw me give her a ring?" he demanded hotly. "Do you dare to say you did? Did she ever tell you I gave her any ring? You know she didn't!"[Pg 210] "If I can't trust my own ears," said Bella, "I should like to know what I can trust. I heard you myself, in that railway carriage, ask my sister Ada not to tell any one about some ring, and I tried to get out of Ada afterwards what the secret was; but she wouldn't treat me as a sister, and be open with me. But any one with eyes in their head could guess what was between you, and all the time you an engaged man!" "See there, now!" cried the injured hairdresser; "there's a thing to go and make all this mischief about! Matilda, Mrs. Collum, aunt, I declare to you I told the—the other young woman everything about my having formed new ties and that. I was very particular not to give rise to hopes which were only doomed to be disappointed. As to what Miss Parkinson says she overheard, why, it's very likely I may have asked her sister to say nothing about a ring, and I won't deny it was the very same ring that I was to have brought here to-day; for the fact was, I had the misfortune to lose it in those very gardens, and naturally did not wish it talked about: and that's the truth, as I stand here. As for giving it away, I swear I never parted with it to no mortal woman!" "After that, Bella," observed Mr. Jauncy, "you'd better say you're sorry you spoke, and come home with me—that's what you'd better do." "I shall say nothing of the sort," she asserted. "I'm too much of a lady to stay where my company is not desired, and I'm ready to go as soon as you please. But if he was to talk his head off, he would never persuade me (whatever he may do other parties) that he's not been playing double; and if Ada were here you would soon see whether he would have the face to deny it. So good-night, Miss Tweddle, and sooner or later you'll find yourself undeceived in your precious nephew, take my[Pg 211] word for it. Good-night, Miss Collum, and I'm only sorry you haven't more spirit than to put up with such treatment. James, are you going to keep me waiting any longer?" Mr. Jauncy, with confused apologies to the company generally, hurried his betrothed off, in no very amiable mood, and showed his sense of her indiscretions by indulging in some very plain speaking on their homeward way. As the street door shut behind them, Leander gave a deep sigh of relief. "Matilda, my own dearest girl," he said, "now that that cockatrice has departed, tell me, you don't doubt your Leander, do you?" "No," said Matilda, judicially, "I don't doubt you, Leander, only I do wish you'd been a little more open with me; you might have told me you had gone to those gardens and lost the ring, instead of leaving me to hear it from that girl." "So I might, darling," he owned; "but I thought you'd disapprove." "And if she's my daughter," observed Mrs. Collum, "she will disapprove." But it was evident from Matilda's manner that the inference was incorrect; the relief of finding Leander guiltless on the main count had blinded her to all minor shortcomings, and he had the happiness of knowing himself fully and freely forgiven. If this could only have been the end! But, while he was still throbbing with bliss, he heard a sound, at which his "bedded hair" started up and stood on end—the ill-omened sound of a slow and heavy footfall. "Leandy," cried his aunt, "how strange you're looking!"[Pg 212] "There's some one in the passage," he said, hoarsely. "I'll go and see her. Don't any of you come out." "Why, it's only our Jane," said his aunt; "she always treads heavy." The steps were heard going up the stairs; then they seemed to pause halfway, and descend again. "I'll be bound she's forgot something," said Miss Tweddle. "I never knew such a head as that girl's;" and Leander began to be almost reassured. The steps were heard in the adjoining room, which was shut off by folding doors from the one they were occupying. "Leander," cried Matilda, "what can there be to look so frightened of?" and as she spoke there came a sounding solemn blow upon the folding-doors. "I never saw the lady before in all my life!" moaned the guilty man, before the doors had time to swing back; for he knew too well who stood behind them. And his foreboding was justified to the full. The doors yielded to the blow, and, opening wide, revealed the tall and commanding figure of the goddess; her face, thanks to Leander's pigments, glowing lifelike under her hood, and the gold ring gleaming on her outstretched hand. "Leander," said the goddess, in her low musical accents, "come away." "Upon my word!" cried Mrs. Collum. "Who is this person?" He could not speak. There seemed to be a hammer beating on his brain, reducing it to a pulp. "Perhaps," said Miss Tweddle—"perhaps, young lady, you'll explain what you've come for?" The statue slowly pointed to Leander. "I come for[Pg 213] him," she said calmly. "He has vowed himself to me; he is mine!" Matilda, after staring, incredulous, for some moments at the intruder, sank with a wild scream upon the sofa, and hid her face. Leander flew to her side. "Matilda, my own," he implored, "don't be alarmed. She won't touch you; it's me she's come after." Matilda rose and repulsed him with a sudden energy. "How dare you!" she cried, hysterically. "I see it all now: the ring, the—the cloak; she has had them all the time!.... Fool that I was—silly, trusting fool!" And she broke out into violent hysterics. "Go away at once, hypocrite!" enjoined her mother, addressing the distracted hairdresser, as he stood, dumb and impotent, before her. "Do you want to kill my poor child? Take yourself off!" "For goodness' sake, go, Leandy," added his aunt. "I can't bear the sight of you!" "Leander, I wait," said the statue. "Come!" He stood there a moment longer, looking blankly at the two elder women as they bustled about the prostrate girl, and then he gave a bitter, defiant laugh. His fate was too strong for him. No one was in the mood to listen to any explanation; it was all over! "I'm coming," he said to the goddess. "I may as well; I'm not wanted here." And, with a smothered curse, he dashed blindly from the room, and out into the foggy street.[Pg 214] <hr style="width: 65%;" />[Pg 215] [Pg 216] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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