Puck — January 30, 1878 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

12 : PUCK. “fe fast in foras ffeod, Extracted, with permission, from “ The Case of Mr. Lionel Varleigh.” BY WILKIE COLLINS. (Continved.) ALF angry, half frightened, I tried to speak in my turn, My aunt signed to me to be silent. The Captain drew back a sep as if he felt her reproof. But his eyes, still fixed on me, were as fiercely bright as ever. here the gentleman’s superficial good-breeding failed to hide the natural man beneath. “T will leave you in undisturbed possession of the room,” he said to my aunt with bitter politeness. ‘ Before I go, permit me to give your niece an opportunity of reconsidering her conduct before it is too late.” My aunt drew back, leaving him free to speak to me. After considering a moment, he laid his hand firmly, but not roughly, on my arm. “ You have ac- cepted Lionel Varleigh’s invitation to visit him to-day,’ he said, “ under pretense of seeing his curiosities. Think again before you decide on keeping that engagement. If you go to Var- leigh to-morrow, you will repent it to the last day of your life.” Saying those words in a tone which made me tremble in spite of my- self, he walked to the door. As he laid his hand on the lock, he turned towards me for the last time. ‘I forbid you to go to Var- leigh's lodgings,” he. said very distinctly and quietly. ‘* Understand what I tell you. I for- bid it.” With those words he left us. My aunt sat down by me and took my hand kindly. ‘ There is only one thing to be done,” she said; ‘‘ we must return at once to Nettle- grove. If Captain Stanwick attempts to annoy you in your own house, we have neighbors who | will protect us, and we have Mr. Loring, our rector, to appeal to for advice. As for Mr. Varleigh, I will write our excuses myself before we go away.” . She put out her hand to ring the bell and order the carriage. I stopped her. My child- ish pride urged me to assert myself in some way, after the passive position that I h:d been * forced to occupy during the interview with Captain Stanwick. ‘ No,” I said, ‘it is not acting fairly towards Mr. Varleigh to break our engagement with him. Let us return to Net- tlegrove by all means, but let us first call on Mr. Varleigh and take our leave. Are we to behave rudely to a gentleman who has always treated us with the utmost consideration, be- cause Captain Stanwick has tried to frighten us by cowardly threats? The commonest feel- ing of self-respect forbids it.” My aunt protested against -this outbreak of folly with perfect temper and good sense. But my obstinacy (my firmness as | thought it!) was immovable. I left her to choose between go- ing with me to Mr. Varleigh or letting me go to him by mysélf. Finding it useless to resist, she decided, it is needless to say, on going with me. We found Mr. Varleigh very courteous, but more than usually grave and quiet. Our visit only lasted for a few minutes; my aunt used the influence of her age and her -position to shorten it. She mentioned family affairs as the motive which recalled us to Nettlegrove. I took it on myself to invite Mr. Varleigh to visit me at my own house. He bowed and thanked me, without engaging himself to ac- cept the invitation. When I offered him my hand at parting, he raised it to his lips, and kissed it with a fervor that agitated me. His eyes looked into mine with a sorrowful admira- tion, with a lingering regret, as if they were taking their leave of me for a long while. “ Don't forget me!” he whispered, as he stood at the “door, while I followed my aunt out. “Come to Nettlegrove,” I whispered back. ground; he let me go His eyes dropped to the without a word more. This, I declare solemnly, was all that passed at our visit. By so.ae unexpressed consent among us, no allusion whatever was made to Captain Stanwick; not even his name was men- tioned. I never knew that the two men had met just before we called on Mr. Varleigh. Nothing was said which could suggest to me the slightest suspicion of any arrangement for another meeting later in the day. Beyond the vague threats which had escaped Captain Stan- wick's lips—threats which 1 own I was rash enough to despise—I had no warning whatever of the dreadful events which happened at Maplesworth on the day after our return to Nettlegrove Hall. * I can only add that I am ready to submit to any questions that may be put to me. Pray do-not think me a heartless woman. At that time I knew so little of the world—I was so ig- norant of the false pretenses under which men hide what is selfish and savage in their natures from the women whom it is their interest to de- ceive. No. 2.—Julius Bender, fencing-master, writes and says:— I am of German nationality; established in England as teacher of the use of the sword and the pistol since the beginning of the present year. . + Finding business slack in London, it unfor- tunately occurred to me to try what I could do in the country. I had heard of Maplesworth as a place largely frequented. by visitors on ac- count of the scenery, as well as by invalids in need of taking the waters, and I opened a gal- lery there at the beginning of the season of 1817, for fencing and pistol practice. About the visitors I had not been deceived; there were plenty of idle young gentlemen among them who might have been expected to patron- ize my establishment. They showed the most barbarous indifference to the noble art of at- tack and defense—came by twos and threes, looked at my gallery, and never returned. My small means began to fail me. After paying my expenses, I was really at my wits’ end to find a few pounds to go on with, in the hope of better days. One gentleman I remember, who came to see me, and who behaved most liberally. He described himself as an American, and said he had traveled a great deal. As my ill luck would have it, he stood in no need of my in- structions, On the two or three occasions when he amused himself with my foils and my pistols, he proved to be one of the most expert swords- men and one of the finest shots that I ever met with, It was not wonderful: he had by nature cool nerves and a quick eye; and he had been taught by the masters of the art in Vienna and Paris, Early in July —the gth or 10th of the month, I think—I was sitting alone in my gallery, looking ruefully enough at the last two sove- reigns in my purse, when a gentleman was an- nounced who wanted a lesson. “A private lesson,” he said with emphasis, looking at the man who cleaned and took care of my wea- pons. I sent the man out of the room. The stranger’ (an Englishman, and, as I fancied, judging by. outward appeatances, a military man as weil) took from his pocket-book a fifty- pound bank-note, and ‘held it up before me. “I am not a very practiced swordsman,” he said “and I have no time to ‘improve myself. Teach me a trick which will make me a match for a good fencer, and keep the secret, and there are fifty pounds for you.” LT hesitated. I did indeed hesitate, poor as I was. But this devil of a man held. his bank- note before me whichever way I looked, and I had only two pounds left in the world! “ Are you going to fight a duel ?” I asked. “That's no business of yours,” he answered. I waited a little, with the infernal bank-note tempting me, and then tried him again. “If teach you the trick," I said, “ will you give me your word of honor that you will make- no bad use of your lesson ?” “Yes,” he said, impatiently enough. I was not quite satisfied yet. “Will you swear it ?” I asked. “Of course I will,” he answered. ‘Take the money, and don’t keep me waiting any any longer!” I-took the money, and I taught him the trick—and I regretted it almost as soon as it was done. Not that I knew, mind, of any se- rious consequences that followed; for I re- turned to London the next morning. My sen- timents were those of a man of honor, who felt that he he had degraded his art, and who could not be quite sure that he might not have armed the hand of an assassin as well. I have no more to say. No. 3.—Zhomas Outwater, servant to Cap- tain Stanwick, writes and says:— If I did not firmly believe my master to be out of his senses, no punishment that I could receive would prevail upon me to write of him what I am going to write now. But I say he is mad, and therefore not ac- countable for what he has done— mad for love of a young woman. If I could have my way, I should like to twist her neck, though she és a lady, and a great heiress into the bargain. Be- fore she came between them, my master and Mr. Varleigh were more like brothers than any- thing else. She set them at variance, and whether she meant to do it or not is all the same to me. I own I took a dislike to her when I first saw her. She was one of the light- haired, blue-eyed sort, with an innocert look and a snaky waist—a bad sort, all the world over, as I have found them. I hear I am not expected to write the ac- count of the disagreements between the two entlemen, of which this lady was the cause. tan to state what I did in Maplesworth, and what I saw afterwards in Herne Wood. Poor as I am, I would give a five-pound note to any- body who could do it for me. Unfortunately, I must do it for myself. On the roth’ of July, in the evening, my master went, for the second time that day, to Mr. Varleigh’s lodgings, I am certain of the date, because it was the day of publication of the town neswpaper, and there was a law report in it which set every- body talking. ‘There had been a duel with pistols a day or two before, between a resident in the town and a vistor, on account of some dispute at cards. Nothing very serious came of the meeting. One of the men only was hurt, and the wound proved to be of no great im- portance. The awkward part of the matter was that the constables appeared on the ground before the wounded man had been removed. He and his two seconds were caught, and the prisoners were committed for trial. Dueling (the magistrates said) was an inhuman and unchristian practice, and they were determined to put the law in force and stop it. This sen- tence made a great stir in the town, and fixed the date, as I have just said, in my mind. Having been accidentally within hearing of some‘of the -disputes concerning Miss Duval between my master and Mr. Varleigh, 1 had my misgivings about the Captain’s second visit to the friend with whom he had quarreled al- ready. A gentleman called on him, soon after he had gone out, on important business. ‘This icomicbooks.com