The Master of the Ceremonies

Early morning at Saltinville, with the tide down, and the calm sea shimmering like damasked and deadened silver in the sunshine. Here and there a lugger was ashore, delivering i...

"Ah, my child, you are late," said the Master of the Ceremonies, as Claire ran to meet him and kissed his cheek. "`Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, a...

It was a mumbling noise that seemed to come out of a cap-border lying on a pillow, for there was no face visible; but a long thin elevation of the bedclothes, showing that some...

Lady Teigne's drawing-room was in full progress, and Claire was working hard at her tambour frame, earning money respectably, and listening to the coming and going of the visito...

There was a flush on Claire Denville's cheek as she turned restlessly upon her pillow. Her dreams were of pain and trouble, and from time to time a sigh escaped her lips.

"Gentlemen," said Colonel Lascelles, "I am an old fogey, and I never break my rules. At my time of life a man wants plenty of sleep, so I must ask you to excuse me. Rockley shal...

That night Richard Linnell was standing with his teeth set, his throat dry, and a feeling of despair making his heart seem to sink, watching the white hand that was waved as soo...

It was the next morning that the Master of the Ceremonies made his effort, and went down to the breakfast-room, where he sat by the table, playing with the newspaper that he dar...

"No, miss; if it comes to that, I won't! Speaking like that to your own mother, who's always working for you as I am, right out here on the open cliff, where goodness knows who...

Small matters make great excitements among idle seaside people, and as Denville gracefully helped Lady Drelincourt to a chair, and stepped mincingly to the side of the pier, he...

"Well, young Denville," said Dick Miggles, the great swarthy fisherman, whose black hair, dark eyes, and aquiline features told that his name was a corruption of Miguel, and tha...

"Yes," said Sir Harry Payne, who was lolling against the railings that guarded promenaders from a fall over the cliff; and he joined his friend in gazing at an elegantly-appoint...

It was, as Morton Denville said, cold and cheerless at his home, and the proceedings that night endorsed his words, as at half-past ten, after the servants had been dismissed, h...

"Did you think some one had come to run away with my sister, Mr Linnell?" said the lad with a sneering laugh. "Ah, well, you needn't have been alarmed, and if they had it would...

Miss Clode's library and fancy bazaar stood facing the sea--so near, indeed, that on stormy days she was occasionally compelled to have the green shutters up to protect the wind...

May Burnett, with her little palpitating heart full of trouble, pretty butterfly of fashion that she was, was flitting through the sunshine one afternoon for the second time to...

Richard Linnell was very blind as he walked down the pier, stopping here and there to lay his hand upon the slight rail, and watch the changing colours on the sea, which was her...

Pale and very anxious of aspect, Claire hurried down from her room, to find her father, in his elaborate costume, standing in an attitude before one of the mirrors, not heeding...

No one would have called Miss Clode pretty, "but there were traces," as the Master of the Ceremonies said. She was thin and middle-aged now, but she had once been a very charmin...

But she did: a handsome little carriage that came down from Long Acre, and was sent round to the stables, where Cora Dean's ponies were put up and kept now on a shorter allowanc...

There was quite a little crowd at the end of the pier to see Fisherman Dick and some others busy with boathooks searching for the fragments of Cora Dean's pony carriage, and for...

It was four o'clock, and the promenade on cliff and pier in full swing. Her father would not be back for two hours, Morton was away somewhere, and it was so dreadful--so degradi...

"Strike! Kill me! Add parricide to your other crimes, dog, and set me free of this weary life," cried the old man wildly, as he glared in the fierce, distorted face of the sturd...

As a rule, a tailor is one who will give unlimited credit so long as his client is a man of society, with expectations, and the maker of garments can charge his own prices; but...

She gazed up at her portrait with her pretty girlish face wrinkling up, and these wrinkles seeming to have had work to get the better of the dimples in her baby cheeks and chin.

"I can't help it, Jo-si-ah. That man, whenever I meet him, makes me begin to boil. So smooth, and polite, and smiling, and squeeze-your-handy, while all the while he's laughing...

Major Rockley had counted upon getting a hundred pounds from Barclay, and the refusal annoyed him to so great an extent that he determined upon having a sharp walk to calm himse...

With anyone else Rockley would have felt bound to retire, but he only laughed. Claire was the daughter of the poor minister of fashion, who lived by the fees and offerings he re...

She bent down, covered her face with her hands, and the tears came now in a passionate burst, while he went down on his knee beside her, laid one hand upon her arm, and, his dou...

"Queer? You looked queer multiplied ten thousand times. Why, Rockley, one of you with a face like that would scare a regiment of French cuirassiers. I say, what was the row abou...

The reason for Sir Harry Payne's sneering remark was patent to Colonel Mellersh as soon as he opened the door, for from the Linnells' rooms came the sweet harmonies of a couple...

It was a cold grey morning as Colonel Mellersh and Richard Linnell went out on to the parade, quite unaware that a pair of dark eyes were watching from behind an upper blind; bu...

Sir Harry Payne looked at the stony face before him, and read fierce, implacable determination written plainly there. He felt that his companion was a soldier who would face dea...

Sent on a special mission by her aunt that morning, to see whether Mr Miggles had any fish, and with a basket to obtain a small bottle of a peculiar water that Fisherman Dick se...

"Oh, my dear, and do you know how they're all a-talking about you?" cried Mrs Barclay, as she sat panting beneath the florid portrait of May Burnett in the MC's shabby drawing-r...

It was a pleasant thing to be seen walking along the Parade in so familiar a way with Lord Carboro', and to his great delight Denville saw that the Parade was well filled.

"Hah!" ejaculated Lord Carboro', "you are right. Bless her! she is as sweet and true as she is beautiful. She stands alone here in her youthful dignity. Damme, Denville, I alway...

It was in honour of Morton Denville's reception into the regiment that the Master of the Ceremonies received. There had been some difficulty in the matter, but on the very first...

It was a proud time for the MC, and he knew how it would be canvassed in Saltinville. All the principal people would have honoured his little home, and in the future he saw his...

"Now, Barclay, you are a wicked flatterer," said Lady Drelincourt, as she sat out in the balcony, with the money-lender leaning over her after leading her there and placing a ch...

Just then a loud burst of angry voices came from one of the card-tables. It was eleven o'clock; there had been refreshments; the room was very hot, and the play, for ladies, hig...

"Thank you very much for saying so, but it's always the way if I go out, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if there's something else wrong," cried Mrs Barclay piteously. "I'm...

He felt about for the door, but could not find it in his dread and confusion. Only one part of the room could he make out, and that was the window, by which flight was impossibl...

"No, Miss Clode; I can be angry, and I can speak my own mind, but I'm not going to be so mean and shabby as to take my custom somewhere else, though it is so tempting; but what...

"I've never dared to write to you before, Clairy. Frank watches me so; but, though I don't come, I think lots about you, and I shall never forget what a dear, good thing you wer...

"Only this little revelation," he said, as he kissed the soft hand and held it to his cheek, "then the past shall be as dead with us. One night--since that night--I said to myse...

"Weakness, you scoundrel? It's your blackguardly conduct. You have been under arrest so many times for this disgraceful behaviour, and I have such a black list against you, that...

Richard Linnell found a good deal of relief in his restless state of mind in taking long country walks, telling himself that he got away from his thoughts; but, on the contrary,...

"Getting cured then, Dick?" said Colonel Mellersh grimly, as Richard limped into the room after finding a note in his own place, which his father said had been brought by a boy.

Mrs Pontardent was a lady of a class who prospered well in the days when George the Third was king, and fashionable men considered it the correct thing to ruin themselves at car...

"Do you suppose a woman is all evil?" was the retort. "You men make us bad enough, but you cannot kill all the good. I say it is a shame."

"Well, Dick," said Mellersh, as he sought Linnell out, after a stroll round the rooms in search of Cora Dean, "how long are you going to keep yourself on the gridiron?"

Colonel Mellersh was the only one who was likely to ride with a cool head: the others were for racing at the top of the horses' speed. And so it was that before long, as Richard...

For a few moments, in the suddenness of the catastrophe, every one was too much astounded to take any steps. Linnell was the first to recover himself, and, leaping from his hors...

"Yes, dear. Young Cornet Denville has just fetched her to take her round the grounds, which is just as it should be, you know. I'd have gone with them, but I'm afraid of the nig...

That hat which the Master of the Ceremonies raised so frequently to the various visitors looked in its solidity as if it might very well become an heirloom, and descend to his s...

She stood with her hands tightly clasped, gazing straight before her, and then walked quickly to the door, and down into the dining-room, so quietly that the short, slight man g...

What should she do? To whom could she go for help and counsel? Mrs Barclay? Impossible! Cora Dean! No, no: she could not tell her! Her father? She shivered at the thought. It wo...

Somehow, her door opened, and she came rustling down, closing her ears to a petulant call from her mother, and--perhaps it was an accident--so timed her descent that it would be...

"It is for your sake," she whispered. "You do not know what I do. It is my lot to hear and see so much. I only want to take the veil from before your eyes."

"Yes, sir. Professes to have a mystery. He could speak if he liked, and there's a deal he could say if he pleased, and lays his finger on the side of his nose, and all that sort...

Claire winced again, and involuntarily glanced at the door, repenting that she had come, as she saw Mrs Barclay frown and make a series of grimaces at her lord, all of which wer...

"Nonsense, Jo-si-ah! Do you mean to tell me--now, how can you? Why, we've been married over thirty years, and that wicked little hussy isn't above twenty. How can you talk such...

High up on the Downs behind the town lay a patch of wood, dwarfed and stunted in its growth by the sharp breezes that came off the sea. The soil in which they grew, too, was exc...

The words uttered by the first to run to May Burnett's help seemed to paralyse the party instead of evoking aid, while in the horror and confusion there was no attempt made to p...

There was quite a meeting at little Miss Clode's the next morning, after a heavy storm that had set in during the night; but, though the ordinary atmosphere was fresh, clear, co...

It was the faintest whisper of a call, but she to whom it was addressed heard it, and leaned over the bed to lay a cool hand upon the little wistful face looking up from the pil...

That night, as Claire sat by the open window of her bedroom, where May lay sleeping, and the flowers that she had tended so carefully in the past for the most part withered and...

Matters ran their course rapidly during the following days. The black cloud that had so long been threatening had come down lower and nearer, and had at last poured forth its st...

Sunken of eye, hollow of cheek, with the silvery stubble of many days' growth upon his chin, glistening in the bar of light that came through the grated window, Stuart Denville,...

Denville grew composed at once, and taking Claire's hand, stood up facing his visitors with a slight trace of the old manner returning, as he bowed and pointed to the stool and...

"What do you say, my dear--another of those mad fits of excitement as soon as my name's mentioned? Oh, it's too bad. I don't think I've ever been rake enough to deserve it. Well...

James Bell, dragoon, otherwise Fred Denville, the disgraced prodigal of the Master of the Ceremonies' home, had a couple of shillings in his pocket as he strode towards the pris...

"Leave the drink alone. Quite right, Clairy. It was the drink. It makes a man stupid and mad. He doesn't know what he's about when he has taken too much. Remember that, my dear,...

"Yes; but I should advise you to be quick," said Mellersh. "Hang it, man, they'll shoot you for this. What's to be done, Dick? Look here, Denville, can't you knock one of us dow...

"What you've suffered?" said Claire coldly, as she recalled how she had taken a mother's place to this boy for so many years till he had obtained his advancement in life, when h...

"It was quite right; she would have heard of it, and it was better it should come from you, my dear. Are you--are you going to see your poor father in prison?"

"Father, I am nearly mad with grief and horror. I come to you for help--for comfort. What shall I do?" cried Claire, sinking upon her knees before him on her next visit to the p...

Morton felt his heart throb with pleasure. He had expected those who knew them to treat them slightingly, and his sister was being treated with the deference due to a queen, whi...

Claire Denville sat back in her chair utterly exhausted, and feeling as if her brain was giving way. The news from the prison was as hopeless as ever. Fred lay lingering at the...

"Don't, pray don't talk to me, Mrs Barclay," said Claire piteously. "Let me lie back here and think and rest for a few minutes, and then I must go up to May."

"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mrs Barclay. "They're not. Now don't you get letting your poor head run upon them. Whoever did that dreadful deed took them up to London, and sold 'em,...

"Shall I go alone?" said Josiah Barclay, as he stood upon his doorstep. "No, it's wise to keep your own counsel sometimes, but at others it's just as well to have witnesses. Who...

"Gentlemen," said Colonel Lascelles, "I am going to ask you to excuse me. You know my old fashion--bed betimes. Rockley will take the chair, and I hope you will enjoy yourselves...

Major Rockley's tacit acknowledgment of the truth of the charge against him, and the piecing together of the links, showed how, on the night of Lady Teigne's death, he had been...

"Does it give you pain?" said Claire, as she looked up in Richard Linnell's face, where they sat in the half-light of evening, with the sea spread before them--placid and serene...

"Now what a shame, Mr Richard," cried Mrs Barclay. "I hadn't time to say it, but I was just going to tell her. But she doesn't know who to, and I will tell her that. Colonel Mel...