Charles Garvice - The Spider and the Fly

"That is a pretty plain hint that I am to avoid that favorite walk of yours for the future, and beware how I interrupt your cliff reveries."

Violet flushed.

"Indeed, no. It is not a favorite walk – at least, not particularly so – and I am sure you are welcome to come. What nonsense. It is as much yours as mine, and I seem to be making you a present of it," and she laughed.

Then the "Battle of Prague" came to an end, and the captain led Mrs. Tonson to a seat with profuse compliments upon her style and touch.

"Are you fond of music, Captain Murpoint?" asked Violet.

"I adore it," said the captain, seating himself by her side, and looking, with a smile, at Leicester, who regarded him with his usual grim reserve. "Music is the language of women and angels. Are you not going to sing?"

Violet shook her head at first.

"Will you not?" said Leicester, earnestly, bending the regard of his dark eyes on her.

Then she changed her mind, and, placing her hand upon the captain's arm, allowed him to take her to the piano.

Leicester remained where he was, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, stretched out his long legs, and watched her beneath his dark, heavy eyebrows.

He had seen beautiful women of all countries – Circassians with pearly skin and rosebud lips, Spanish señoras with almond eyes and passionate, low-strung voices, Italians with fire-lit laughter and lithe grace – but none whose beauty touched and warmed him as the pure, sweet, loveliness of this willful English rose did.

Beautiful! The word was poor, tame, commonplace for such a face. Call it loveable, bewitching, which is far better than beautiful, and you were still far from a satisfactory adjective, Leicester thought; and as he sat and listened, his gaze alternating between the fair, young face and the dark, sinister one of the man by her side, he felt her heart slipping away from him.

The song finished, there arose a commotion at the whist table.

The vicar, in nervous, jerky sentences, was calling Mr. Dodson over the coals for bad play.

Mr. Dodson, with a bewildered air, was vainly endeavoring to explain, and at last managed to persuade the captain, who had stood smilingly listening to the dispute, to take his place.

The captain sat down, asserting, with a good-natured shrug of his shoulders, that he had not taken a hand at whist for a twelvemonth – which was indeed solemn truth – and the game commenced, the vicar and Mrs. Giles being partners against the captain and Mrs. Dodson.

"What are the stakes?" said the captain.

"Er – er – " stammered the vicar, in his shrill falsetto, "what you please."

"Half-crown points?" said the captain, carelessly, and the rest agreeing, the captain and Mrs. Dodson lost the first game.

Now the vicar was fond of cards, and was still more fond of winning a little money at them. The captain made one or two gross blunders, and clearly proved that he was out of practice. The vicar was but human and suggested that they should raise the stakes.

Alas, the next game was scored to the captain's side. So, also, was the next, and Mrs. Dodson, with many blushes and exclamations of comic alarm at the amount, shared ten pounds with her lucky partner.

Then the party broke up.

Leicester Dodson, who had been talking to Violet during the whole of the card playing, bowed over her small white hand with his usual gravity, wrapped his mother in her China crèpe shawl, and took her to the carriage.

The vicarage party and the Giles' followed quickly, and the captain was left alone with his old friend's daughter and her aunt.

"Captain Murpoint, I have given you rooms in the south wing. If they are not to your liking I hope you will let me change them," said Mrs. Mildmay.

"They will seem palatial apartments after Indian mud huts, my dear madam, and only too luxurious," said the captain.

"Good-night," said Violet, giving him her hand. "I hope you will sleep soundly and not dream. There are ghosts near you."

The captain laughed.

"You mean in those old ruins at the side," he said.

"Yes," said Violet. "The park was all ruins when papa bought it, but he pulled down all the old walls, excepting the tower and old chapel that adjoins the south wing, and they are fearfully haunted."

"I am not afraid," said the captain, and with another good-night he ascended the broad staircase to the apartments allotted to him.

Captain Murpoint was evidently an honored guest. The suite of rooms was of the best in the house, and beautifully furnished, the small dressing-room or boudoir exquisitely so.

As the captain opened the door of the dainty little nest a sturdy figure rose from the satin-covered couch and saluted him with a grin.

The captain set the candle down upon the unlaid table and walked to the window, which he threw open, then he turned to the sturdy figure and smiled.

"You don't look so ridiculous in your swallow tails as I should have thought, Jem – no, Starling I meant; but I'm afraid appearance is the least important attribute of a gentleman's servant. Help me off with this coat."

Mr. Starling, with a grave face, tugged at the coat rather clumsily.

"Gently," said the captain, "I don't want you to take my arms with it. That will do," and he sank into the chair before the glass and stared at the reflection of his face absorbed in thought.

Starling watched him in silence for a minute or two, then fidgeted restlessly, and at last spoke out:

"Well, captain, ain't you got a word for your humble pal? How's things going? Does the plant look well?"

"Hush!" said the captain, arousing, with a start. "The window is open, doors and walls have ears. You must drop that slang and talk like the character you assume, even when we are alone, for practice. Tell me what you have seen. Is the house large?"

"Enormous!" replied Starling, sinking his voice to a disagreeable hoarseness. "It is a reg'lar palace. Bigger than the pris – "

The captain sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing, and his face white.

"Idiot! keep that word between your teeth! We're working over a powder mine, and such a word as that means destruction. Forget the past; forget that you were ever anything else than my servant – Captain Murpoint's valet. If you don't, that idiot's tongue of yours will blab and spoil the whole."

He sat down again with something of his old coolness, but his hand, as it toyed with an ivory-backed brush, trembled, and his eyes still flashed evilly.

"All right, captain," pleaded Starling, humbly. "It was a slip," he laughed, "but it shan't occur again. Cuss me for an idiot. But I never can play a close game like this right away at first. It requires genius, and I ain't that, and you are, capt'n; and that's where the difference is – "

"Answer my question," said the captain, interrupting him with a gesture of weariness.

"The place is a regular gold mine," said Starling. "Heaps o' servants and cartloads o' plate. I never see such swag. Great, big plates and basins and ornaments and spoons and forks enough to set us up for life – "

The captain interrupted him with a contemptuous:

"Pshaw! Do you think I am going to steal the plate, idiot?"

"Well, you might do wus," said Starling, scratching his head with a puzzled air. "O' course I don't know what game you're playing, captain; how should I? You're such a deep 'un. But some games want capital, and where are we going to get that?"

"Capital," repeated the captain, more to himself than in answer to the expressed doubt of his companion. "My capital is here," and he knocked his snow-white forehead with his forefinger.

Then, with a short, dry laugh, he pulled the five sovereigns out of his pocket and flung them on the table.

"Capital? You're right, my friend. Five pounds is not much to start a big thing on, but it's enough when Captain Murpoint has the undertaking in hand!"