Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/422

414 they sat silent and embarrassed, wondering what they should say to her next.

“My father committed suicide!” she said, in a strangely quiet voice.

The Signora started and rose suddenly, as if she would have gone to Eleanor. Richard grew very pale, but sat looking down at the litter upon the table, with one hand trifling nervously amongst the scraps of card-board and wet paint-brushes.

“Yes,” cried Eleanor Vane, “you have deceived me from first to last. You told me first that he was not dead; but when you could no longer keep my misery a secret from me, you only told me half the truth—you only told me half the cruel truth. And even now, when I have suffered so much that it seems as if no further suffering could touch me, you still deceive me, you still try to keep the truth from me. My father parted from me in health and spirits. Don’t trifle with me, Signora; I am not a child any longer, I am not a foolish school-girl, whom you can deceive as you like. I am a woman, and will know the worst. My father killed himself!”

She had risen in her excitement, but clung with one hand to the back of her chair, as if too weak to stand without that support.

The Signora went to her, and wound her arms about the slight trembling figure; but Eleanor seemed almost unconscious of that motherly caress.

“Tell me the truth,” she cried vehemently, “did my father kill himself?”

“It is feared that he did, Eleanor.”

The pale face grew a shade whiter, and the trembling frame became suddenly rigid.

“It is feared that he did!” Eleanor Vane repeated. “It is not certain then?”

“Not quite certain.”

“Why don’t you tell me the truth?” cried the girl, passionately. “Do you think you can make my misery less to me by dropping out your words one by one? Tell me the worst. What can there be worse than my father’s death; his unhappy death; killed by his own hand, his poor desperate hand? Tell me the truth. If you don’t wish me to go mad, tell me the truth at once.”

“I will, Eleanor, I will,” the Signora answered gently. “I wish to tell you all. I wish that you should know the truth, sad as it may be to hear. This is the great sorrow of your life, my dear, and it has fallen upon you very early. I hope you will try and bear it like a Christian.”

Eleanor Vane shook her head with an impatient gesture.

“Don’t talk to me of my sorrow,” she cried, “what does it matter what I suffer? My father, my poor father, what must he have suffered before he did this dreadful act? Don’t talk about me; tell me of him, and tell me the worst.”

“I will, my darling, I will; but sit down, sit down, and try to compose yourself.”

“No, I’ll stand here till you have told me the truth. I’ll not stir from this spot till I know all.”

She disengaged herself from the Signora’s supporting arm, and with her hand still resting on the chair, stood resolute, and almost defiant, before the old music-mistress and her nephew. I think the Signora and the scene-painter were both afraid of her, she looked so grand in her beauty and despair.

She seemed indeed, as she had said, no longer a child or a school-girl, but a woman, desperate and almost terrible in the intensity of her despair.

“Let me tell Eleanor the truth of this sad story,” Richard said, “it may be told very briefly. When your father parted with you, Nelly, on the night of the 11th of August, he and the two men who were with him went at once to an obscure café in one of the streets near the Barrière Saint Antoine. They were in the habit of going there, it seems, sometimes playing billiards in the large open room on the ground floor, sometimes playing cards in a cabinet particulier on the entresol. Upon this night they went straight to the private room. It was about half-past nine when they went in. The waiter who attended upon them took them three bottles of Chambertin and a good deal of seltzer-water. Your father seemed in high spirits at first. He and the dark Englishman were playing écarté, their usual game; and the Frenchman was looking over your father’s hand, now and then advising his play, now and then applauding and encouraging him. All this came out upon inquiry. The Frenchman quitted the café at a little before twelve; your father and the young Englishman stayed till long after midnight, and towards one o’clock they were heard at high words, and almost immediately after one the Englishman went away, leaving your father, who sent the waiter for some brandy and writing materials. He wanted to write a letter before he left, he said.”

The scene-painter paused, looking anxiously at the face of his listener. The rigid intensity of that pale young face had undergone no change; the grey eyes, fixed and dilated, were turned steadily towards him.

“When the waiter took your father the things he had asked for, he found him sitting at the table with his face hidden in his hands. The man placed the brandy and writing materials upon the table, and then went away, but not before he had noticed a strange faint smell—the smell of some drug, he thought; but he had no idea then what drug. The waiter went down stairs; all the ordinary frequenters of the place were gone, and the lights were out. The man waited up to let your father out, expecting him to come down stairs every moment. Three o’clock struck, and the waiter went up-stairs upon the pretence of asking if anything was wanted. He found your father sitting very much as he had left him, except that this time his head was resting upon the table, which was scattered with torn scraps of paper. He was dead, Eleanor. The man gave the alarm directly, and a doctor came to give assistance, if any could have been given; but the drug which the waiter had smelt was opium, and your father had taken a quantity which would have killed the strongest man in Paris.”

“Why did he do this?”

“I can scarcely tell you, my dear; but your poor father left, among the scraps of paper upon