Fenn George Manville
Sir Hilton's Sin

Chapter Nine.
Syd Plays Trumps – and Wins

As Sir Hilton entered, Syd started from the window, whistling loudly to drown the click, click, click, clack of the swing gate, shuffled his creel round to his back, and seized the fly-rod, wincing though, and bracing himself up as he saw his uncle staring after the flying figure.

“Here, you, sir,” he cried; “what chap’s that?”

“Schoolfellow of mine, uncle.”

“You fibbing young dog, how dare you tell me that lie! Why, it’s a girl, and I’ve seen her before somewhere.”

“A girl, uncle, in knickerbockers?”

“Yes, sir, a girl in knickerbockers. None of your sham innocency with me. Here, I know; it’s La Sylphide.”

“La what, uncle?”

“Mary Ann – old Simpkins’s daughter. That Tilborough barmaid girl. Here, speak up. What does this mean? Never mind; I can’t stop to talk to you now, but – go and slip that bag into the dogcart, Mark, and see that it’s ready.”

“All ready, Sir Hilton. I told Jim to be sharp, and I heard the wheels.”

“That’s right. But you saw, Mark. Wasn’t that Miss Simpkins?”

“Didn’t see her face, Sir Hilton; only her back.”

“Well, never mind now, I’ve no time. But look here, sir, I’ll have this over when I come back, and if I find that you – you shrimp of a boy – have been carrying on a flirtation with that saucy music-hall hussy, I’ll wale your jacket with one of the joints of that fishing-rod. A boy like you! What’s that you say?”

“No, you won’t, uncle.”

“What!” roared Sir Hilton.

“If you touch me I’ll tell aunt of the game you’re carrying on with Lady Tilborough.”

Mark said afterwards to Jane that the guv’nor looked as if you could have knocked him down with a feather.

But the baronet recovered himself.

“What!” he cried. “Lady Tilborough? Because that lady happens to call here when your aunt is out, you dare to – to insinuate – you vile young viper – that – that – ”

“Here, tit for tat, uncle. I’m not a baby,” said the boy. “I know. Gammon! Lady T. don’t visit with aunt, and I can see your little game.”

“My little game, sir!” stuttered Sir Hilton.

“Yes; you’re carrying on some game with her ladyship about the races. You told aunt you’d given up all racing.”

“Of course, sir!” cried Sir Hilton.

“Yes, and Dr Jack Granton’s been here to take your instructions this morning; Lady Tilborough rides over to see you on the sly as soon as auntie’s out; and Marky’s had orders to get the dogcart ready and pack your traps. Why, uncle,” shouted the boy as a sudden idea glanced through his sharp young mind, “you’re going to ride!”

“Hush!” shouted the guilty man, seizing the boy and clapping a hand over his mouth. “Silence, you wicked young scoundrel!”

Mark rushed out with the bag to hide the guffaw ready to burst forth.

Then there was a short struggle, and the boy got his mouth free and began to roar with laughter, as he gazed merrily in his uncle’s face.

“Here’s a game!” he cried. “Bowled out, nunky. Look here, I won’t split. I want to go to the races too.”

“How dare you say anything about races, sir!”

“There, chuck it up, uncle. I’m a man of the world too. Give me a lift to the race, and shut your eyes and I’ll shut mine.”

“You treacherous young viper!”

“Oh, no, I’m not. Don’t you tell about Molly Simpkins – ahem! – coming here, and I won’t say a word to auntie about Lady T. and the races.”

“I’ll make no such bond with you, you dog!”

“Oh, yes, you will, uncle; and, look here, I haven’t done yet. You’re going to give me a fiver.”

“Money to bribe you? No!” pried Sir Hilton, firmly.

“No, to put on the winning horse. I want the right tip. What is it?”

“I’ll make no such infamous contracts with you, sir,” cried Sir Hilton, furiously, “and I’m going out on business – business of vital importance.”

“Of course, uncle. I understand,” said the boy, mockingly.

“And I’m not going to leave you behind to make mischief between me and your aunt. Come along; I shall take you with me in the dogcart I have waiting.”

“All right, uncle. I know.”

“And as a prisoner, sir.”

“That’s your sort, uncle.”

“You wicked young wretch! Come along, quick!”

“Quick as quicksilver, uncle,” cried the boy, grinning, as, evading his uncle’s clutch, he thrust his hand through his elder’s arm. “Here, I may as well put the pot on as it seems to be something extra good, so you’ll have to make it two fivers, uncle, and two make ten.”

Sir Hilton uttered a wicked word totally unfitted for the ears of youth standing in such close relationship to him, and a few minutes later the dogcart – with uncle and nephew in front, and Mark grinning to himself as he sat behind pressing the bag so that it could not drop off – spun out of the yard gate, and off and away by the back lanes for the Tilborough road, now pretty lively with vehicles of all sorts, all bound in the same direction.

Fate plays strange pranks!

Chapter Ten.
How Jane Listened and Told

Just at the same time Lady Lisle’s barouche was getting very close to the swing gates and the carriage drive of the Denes, with her ladyship leaning back.

“Was not that a vehicle of some kind leaving the stable yard, Thomas?” she said to the coachman.

“Yes, my lady.”

“Could you see what it was?”

“Not quite, my lady, but I think it was ours, with Black Nelly in the sharps, for I heard one of the clicks she gives when she oversteps with her off hind hoof.”

Lady Lisle wondered, and started the next minute when she heard another click.

But this time it was the latch of the swing gate, half-drowned by the carriage wheels on the drive leading to the front door.

Then she fell to wondering again, and alighted to enter the house.

Just as she stepped down, a telegraph-boy came up on his bicycle, smiling, and ready to touch his cap, as he held out to her one of the familiar tinted envelopes, with prophetic notions about Christmas-boxes in the future.

“A message!” she said, changing colour for the moment, as thoughts of the possibilities so often hidden beneath one of those official envelopes crossed her mind.

“Yes, m’lady. Any answer?”

As head of the establishment of the Denes, bought and paid for with the money which formed her dowry, she took the message as a matter of course, and opened it without glancing at the direction, dropped the envelope on to the stone steps, and the pleasant breeze whisked it in among the shrubs.

She had turned pale on receiving the telegram. As she read it she turned pink on finding it was a private communication not intended for her eyes, and then scarlet with indignation and wrath.

“Why, this is dated yesterday,” she cried angrily.

“Yes, m’lady. We had such a lot o’ racing messages, my Gee couldn’t get ’em all through. But we’ve got a special gal on, and it’ll be all right now.”

“No answer!” said Lady Lisle, sharply, and she hurried into the hall, and from thence into the breakfast-room, to stand with temples throbbing, reading the message again —

“All found out at last. Do pray tell her ladyship. She won’t be very hard upon us if you confess everything. Not sorry, after all, for it must have been known soon. Do, do come over, and face it out with me. Pray, pray come. – La Sylphide.”

“Oh-h-h-h!” moaned the poor woman, in a quivering sob; and she stood rigid for a few minutes, crushing the message in her hand, suffering agonies from the awakening for the first time in her life of the passion known as jealousy. It filled her, so to speak, and overmastered everything. There could be no other possibility – no doubt – the demon had her in its grasp, and everything now had some bearing upon the message. All passages in her life during the past few months tended towards proving that she had been basely, cruelly deceived.

Hilton had gradually been growing colder and more indifferent; he had grown moody and thoughtful. It had struck her that he was careless about the Parliamentary business, and had not seemed to be grateful when, in a mingled spirit of generosity and vanity, she, the wife to whom he had sworn fidelity, had placed four thousand pounds to his credit in the bank.

Here was the reason.

“Stop!” she cried mentally. “I will not be rash.”

She looked at the telegram again, read it, and then noted that the postmark was Tilborough; and she turned it over to examine the envelope, which she had dropped – she did not recall in her half-crazy state when or where.

But it was enough – the boy had given it to her, and it could be for no one else.

“Oh, Hilton, Hilton!” she groaned. “Has it come to this? A liaison with some low-born, base creature. Kept with my money. This is why you have always been so short; this is why you have always been degrading yourself by asking for more. ‘All found out at last. Do pray tell her ladyship. She won’t be very hard upon us!’ Indeed!” she said, half-aloud, and through her hard-set teeth. “Of course not. Oh-h-h! I could have overlooked a relapse into his old gambling vice, but this – this baseness! The villain – the villain!”

“Who is it?” she muttered, reading again, “La Sylphide. Some French creature, dwelling in that nest of infamy, Tilborough. Why! Oh, great heavens! That wretched racing woman – that widow! She must have been coming here to see him this morning when we passed. Oh, I see it all now. The telegram – dated yesterday – he did not join her according to her request, and she had the daring effrontery to come after him here. That is it. ‘All found out at last!’ What could be all found out at last? Oh – oh – oh!”

Lady Lisle covered her face with her hands, the coloured paper crackling softly as it touched her temples, making her start as if it had stung her burning skin, and dash it down upon the carpet and stamp upon it in disgust.

But it was a proof of her husband’s infidelity, she thought, and she stooped and picked it up, wishing her fingers were the tongs, as she smoothed it out, doubled it, and held it ready for the interview about to take place.

“And so I am not to be very hard I am to condone everything. Well,” she added, with a bitter laugh which seemed to tear itself from her throbbing breast, “we shall see.”

She paused again, with her poor brain seeming to seethe with wildly jealous thoughts, every one garnished with cruel suspicions, and seeming to tell more and more against the culprit, till everything was in a whirl. But all the time she was suffering from the belief that she was seeing more and more clearly as the cruel moments glided on.

“Yes, I see it all now,” she cried passionately; “poor, weak, deluded, loving fool that I have been! Vile, treacherous wretch! Horrible creature! Yes, of course. A woman who is said to have refused offer after offer since her poor husband’s death. La Sylphide – of course, as if I had not heard that she bought a portion of Hilton’s stud when his horses were sold, and one was this Sylphide, whose name she dares to assume in her clandestine communications to him. Oh, how kind to me Fate has been! To think of it! I might have been a trusting victim for years – hoodwinked – blinded to their infamy. Ah! he shall find out what the weak, loving, confiding woman whom he has deceived can be.”

There was a very peculiar smile upon Lady Lisle’s handsome face as she crossed to the fireplace, to be met by Khan, the Persian cat, who descended from his ottoman, stretched himself, and made ready to give himself a comforting electric rub against his mistress’s silk dress, but to his astonishment was – not kicked, but thrust violently aside by a boot, to stand staring, while her ladyship continued her march.

She did not rush, but went to the bell deliberately.

“Yes, I will be firm and calm,” she said, half-aloud, and the smile grew more strained and peculiar. It was such a look as Medea of old might have worn when a certain trouble of classic fame had arisen with a gentleman named Jason; but she dragged at the bell-handle in a way which brought Jane in a hurry to the room.

“I will not seek him in his study,” muttered the poor woman, tragically. “I will have him fetched to me here.”

“Your ladyship rang?” said Jane, looking at her mistress wonderingly.

“Yes. Go and – no, stop. Where is Master Sydney?”

“I think he has gone fishing, my lady. I saw him with his rod and basket. Oh, yes, my lady, I remember, he asked me to cut him some sandwiches.”

Jane’s tongue wanted to say a few words about the flask and sherry, but she had a sort of sneaking liking for the saucy young rascal, and she suppressed that.

“To be sure, I remember,” said Lady Lisle, quite cold and calm now – upon the surface. “Go and ask Sir Hilton to join me here.”

“Sir Hilton, my lady?”

“Yes. Did I not speak plainly?” said her ladyship, cuttingly.

“Yes, my lady, but I thought you had forgotten again. Sir Hilton’s gone out.”

“Gone out?”

This came like a volcanic burst through the calm envelope.

“Yes, my lady.”

The eruption was checked, and the calm aspect closed up, as the bright envelope of the sun eliminates a sun-spot at times.

“Has he – er – gone fishing with Master Sydney?”

“No, my lady; I didn’t see, for I was doing your room. But he ordered the dogcart, Mark said, and they’ve gone together.”

“Where did Mark say they were going?”

Lady Lisle was losing her calmness at this check to her plans.

Jane was silent.

“Why do you not speak, girl?” came in sternly tragic tones.

“Please, my lady, I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to get a fellow-servant into trouble.”

“Speak out at once, girl. No fellow-servant of yours will meet with injustice while I am mistress of the Denes.”

“Of course not, my lady.”

“Tell me then, at once, what more Sir Hilton’s groom and valet said.”

“Well, my lady, if I must I must; but it wasn’t Mark’s fault.”

“Certainly not. Go on.”

“Mark said he thought they were going over to the races, but he was not sure.”

“H’m!” sighed Lady Lisle, and then to herself: “Tilborough – the telegram – an excuse.”

Jane backed towards the door, and had already taken the handle, when, after a fierce internal struggle with the jealous rage within her, Lady Lisle said in a slow, would-be careless way: “Did anyone call while I was out?”

“Yes, my lady; Dr Granton.”

“That was while I was away with the pony-carriage, Jane. I returned and saw him.”

“Of course; so you did, my lady.”

“I meant since.”

“Yes, my lady; after you’d gone in the b’rouche. Lady Tilborough came on horseback.”

“To call on me?”

“She asked for Sir Hilton, my lady.”

“Ha!” ejaculated the jealous woman, through the envelope.

“But she said something, my lady,” cried Jane, womanlike, grasping her mistress’s feelings and eager to put matters right. “Ah, what did she say?” came like lightning.

“She said you wasn’t at home, my lady, for she met you in the road.”

“The brazen deception!” said Lady Lisle to herself. “A cloak of cunning to try and hide her sin.”

“She did not stop very long, my lady, but went off before I could get to the door. I think she wanted to see Dr Granton.”

“Of course,” cried her mistress, with the calm envelope now rent to tatters, and the agony of passion carrying all before it. “And what then?”

Jane was silent.

“I said what then? Speak out, girl; I command you!”

“I beg pardon, my lady,” stammered the girl, growing fluttered before the fierce gaze and losing her presence of mind completely, and wildly misconstruing the stern question.

For maddened by her feelings, Lady Lisle took three or four quick steps towards the girl and caught her by the wrist. “You are keeping something back,” she cried. “How dare you! Answer me at once, and tell me all you know.”

Jane burst out sobbing. “Don’t, my lady; don’t,” she cried. “You hurt my arm.”

“Then speak out – at once.”

“But I don’t like to, my lady. I’m very sorry for you; I am, indeed, but – but – but pr’aps it mayn’t be so bad as you think, and – and – and – I don’t like to make mischief.”

The girl’s genuine suffering had a peculiar effect upon Lady Lisle.

“Thank you, Jane,” she said sadly. “I have always tried to be a good mistress to you.”

“You have, my lady, though you’ve always been a bit ’aughty,” cried Jane, through her sobs and tears, “and I’d do anything to help you now you’re in such grief.”

“Tell me, then, all – all, my good girl.”

“Well, my lady, I was in the room over here – the blue room, my lady.”

“Yes, yes; go on.”

“And I happened to be at the window, when I saw, as I thought, a boy come up quick on his bicycle, slip in through the gate, and come up.”

“To the front door. Yes, yes, with another telegraphic message?”

“No, my lady; that’s what I thought, but he – he only come to the window here, and got in.”

“Got in?”

“Yes, my lady; for I reached out and there was the bicycle leaning up against the creepers and the roses, and I could hear voices, and someone sobbing, and – and – ”

Jane’s mouth shut with a snap.

“Why do you stop?” said Lady Lisle, excitedly.

“I don’t – don’t like to tell you any more, my lady. I don’t – I don’t indeed.”

“Jane!”

“Pray don’t make me tell, my lady,” sobbed the girl; “it will hurt you so.”

“I must bear it, Jane,” said the poor woman, hoarsely. “I must know the truth.”

Jane gave a gulp, as if she was swallowing something, and her voice changed almost to a whisper, as she went on: “I could hear whispering, my lady, and – and – and – Oh! don’t make me tell, my lady.”

“I must know, Jane,” cried the quavering questioner, in a tone which completely mastered all further hesitation.

“There was kissing, my lady, quite plain, and she – ”

“She?”

“Yes, my lady – began sobbing and crying, and him whispering to her not to make such a noise or she’d be heard, and calling her dear and darling, I think, but it was all so low.”

Lady Lisle groaned.

“And it went on ever so long, my lady,” continued Jane, whose hesitation was turned now in her excitement to volubility; “and then, as I stood there at the window listening, she jumped out, and I drew my head in; but I peeped out once more and she – ”

“She?” gasped Lady Lisle, again.

“Oh, yes, my lady, it was a she, of course, for I just caught sight of her face as she turned to hold the gate back when she went through on her bicycle. It was a girl in national costume” – Jane meant rational – “and she was very little and very pretty and one side of her hair had come half down.”

“Oh!” groaned Lady Lisle, closing her eyes and reeling towards the nearest chair; but she would not have reached it if the girl with clever alertness had not caught her round the waist and saved her from a fall.

“Oh, don’t – don’t faint, my lady! – Pray – pray hold up!”

“I shall be better directly, Jane,” said the poor woman, hoarsely. “Let me sit still a few moments. Ha!” she sighed. “I am coming round. That giddiness is passing away.”

“Let me fetch you your salts, my lady.”

“No, Jane; I shall not need them. There, I am growing strong again. Yes, I can go on now.”

“Go on, my lady?”

“Yes, girl. Go into the hall and ring the coachman’s bell.”

“Yes, my lady; but oh! please forgive me – what are you going to do?”

“To do, Jane?”

“Yes, my lady. Don’t do anything rash.”

“Oh, no; I shall do nothing rash, Jane,” said the lady, smiling sadly.

“I mean, don’t you go and run away to your father, because perhaps it ain’t so bad as we think.”

“Not so bad as we think, Jane?” said Lady Lisle, drearily.

“No, my lady. You see, it might all be a mistake.”

“Yes, Jane,” said her mistress, looking desolately in the girl’s eyes, while a piteous smile came upon her lips; “as you say, it might all be a mistake. But go now, and do as I bid you.”

“Ye-e-es, my lady.”

“Ring, and when the coachman comes tell him to bring the carriage round as quickly as he can.”

“But, oh, my lady,” sobbed Jane, and she caught and kissed her mistress’s hands one after the other, “don’t, pray don’t! You are going to run away and leave him, and my mother said a lady ought never to do that unless he’s been very, very bad.”

“I am not going away from my home, Jane,” said Lady Lisle, growing firmer now. “Tell Thomas I want him to drive me over to Tilborough at once.”

“To the races, my lady?”

“No,” was the reply, firmly given; and then, as the girl glided out of the door, rubbing her eyes the while, the stricken woman repeated the word aloud: “No,” and added thoughtfully: “I have been deceived about Lady Tilborough. Now to trace out my husband and that other wretch!”