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As he turned away, he added, "By the way, perhaps you'd like to know I'm going to take Mr. Clendon with me. I beg his lordship's pardon I mean, the Marquess." Celia looked bewildered for a moment; then she sighed. "Yes. I am rather confused. I am glad you are going to take him with you; very glad." "So am I," said Mr. Jacobs, with his bland, innocent smile.
I dare say it was foolish; there have been times when I have been tempted to to accept help throw up the sponge," she smiled; "but well, Mr. Clendon, most of us dislike charity, I suppose." "Some of us," he admitted, dryly. "You found it hard work at first?
"So I was, madam; to the world; but I have returned from the grave to find my son," said Mr. Clendon. "Well, I am glad!" cried Lady Gridborough. "You must both come and stay with me. Now, you won't refuse, Mr. Dene, will you?" She looked at Mr. Clendon pleadingly, and then with confusion and embarrassment, as they both remained silent.
Clendon, who played in the orchestra at the Hilarity Theatre of Varieties, just below Brown's Buildings, being a gentleman as well as a broken-down fiddler, was conscious of, and appreciated, the subtle manner. He sat quite silent for a time, then, as his eyes wandered to the violets, he said: "They smell of the country." Celia nodded. "Yes; that is why I bought them.
Clendon, I have been living in a dream since this letter came. I've read it fifty oh, a hundred times! Sometimes I've held it tightly in both hands, afraid that it should turn to a withered leaf, as the paper did in the fairy story, or that I should wake up from my dream and find my hands empty. Do you know Thexford Hall?" "It is a large place, I believe quite a famous one," he said.
He stretched out his hands with a gesture of renunciation, almost an eager, anticipatory relief. Mr. Clendon shook his head. "No," he said, resolutely, "you must continue to bear the burden I have imposed upon you, Talbot; and I beg you to believe me, fully and undoubtingly, that I shall never relieve you of your responsibilities, which you have borne so well. Oh, of course, I have watched.
"You have no father and mother?" he said, after a pause, during which he was trying to remember what Mr. Clendon had told him of her. "No, my lord," said Celia. "I have no one belonging to me." "That is sad," he said, more to himself than to her. "Mrs. Dexter looks after you, I suppose? I must tell her to see that you do not work too hard." "She is more than kind to me," said Celia, warmly.
Now his face was working, his eyes were moist as he breathed, "My God!" and there was remorse, as well as a kind of solemn joy in the cry. "You do not guess the truth contained in these papers?" he asked, in a very low voice, as his gaze met Derrick's. "No, sir," said Derrick. Mr. Clendon turned his eyes to Mr. Jacobs, but Derrick felt that the old man was addressing him.
I know how admirably you have filled your place, and where I should have failed. Fate, Providence knew better than I what was best for me, for all of us, when it drove me out of the world." "Tell me, why can't you tell me, why you disappeared?" demanded the Marquess. "Surely you owe it to me!" "No, I have buried the past," said Mr. Clendon. "Let it lie.
All the same, we poor people have our little pride; the girl of whom I speak well, I found her starving in her miserable little room, because she was too proud to descend a flight of steps to mine, to ask for the bread for which she was dying." The Marquess stared. "Is it possible that such cases can exist?" "Oh, yes, my dear Talbot," responded Mr. Clendon, with grim irony.
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