TWELVE SILVER SPOONS.

Lady Alice was not long in finding out that Maurice Kenyon, her husband's chief friend, was the man of whom Lesley had spoken in her letters, and also the doctor who had interested her at the hospital. She did not speak to Lesley about him: she took a little time to accustom herself to her husband's circle before she made any remarks upon its members. But she was shrewd enough to see very quickly that Mr. Kenyon took even more interest in her daughter than in her husband, and from Lesley's shy looks she fancied that the interest was reciprocated. She had a twinge of regret for her favorite, Harry Duchesne, and then consoled herself by saying that after all Lesley was too young to know her own mind, and that probably she would change before she was twenty-one.

She did not come particularly into contact with Maurice, however, until the Sunday after she had taken up her abode in Woburn Place. And then she saw a good deal of him. For Lesley went to sit with Ethel as was her wont, and Maurice came to dine at Mr. Brooke's. After the early dinner, Lady Alice noticed that there was some parleying between the guest and his host.

"I am going," said Maurice in an urgent undertone. To which Caspar returned a cheerful answer.

"All right, old man; but I am going too." And then Mr. Kenyon knitted his brows and looked vexed.

Caspar at once noted his wife's glance of inquiry. "Has Lesley told you nothing about our Sunday meetings at the Club? We generally betake ourselves to North London on a Sunday afternoon. Mr. Kenyon thinks I had better stay with you, and—I don't."

From Maurice's uncomfortable looks, Lady Alice gathered that there was something doubtful in the proceeding. "Will you let me go with you?" she said, by way of experiment.

There was an exchange of astonished and rather embarrassed looks all round. Caspar elevated his eyebrows and clutched his beard: Miss Brooke made a curious sound, something like a snort; and Maurice flushed a deep and dusky red; indications which all annoyed Lady Alice, although she did not quite know what they signified. She rose from her chair and took the matter into her own hands; but all without the slightest change in the manner of graceful indifference which had grown natural to her of late years.

"That is the place where Lesley used to go," she said. "She tells me she sings to the people sometimes. I cannot sing, but I can play the piano a little, if that is any good. Sophy is going, is she not? And I should like to go too."

"There is no reason why you should not," said Mr. Brooke rather abruptly. But the gleam in his eye told of pleasure. "There are some very rough characters at the club sometimes, you know. And perhaps the reception they give me to-day will not be of the pleasantest."

Lady Alice looked at her husband with a mixture of wonder and admiration. The calm way in which he sometimes alluded to his present circumstances, without a trace of bitterness or fretfulness, amazed her. In old days she would have put it down to "good breeding—good manners," some superficial veneer of good society of which she thoroughly approved; but she had seen too much of the seamy side of "good society" now to be able to accept this explanation of his calmness. It was not want of sensitiveness, she was sure of that: he was by no means obtuse: it was simply that his large, strong nature rose above the pettiness of resentment and complaint. The suspicion under which he labored was a grave thing—a trouble, a blow; but it had not made him sour, nor borne him to the earth with a conviction of the injustice of mankind.

His wife looked and marveled, but recollected herself in time to say after only a minute's hesitation:

"I know a little more about rough characters than I once did. We saw a good many at the East End hospital, did we not, Mr. Kenyon?"

It was the first time that she had shown that she remembered Maurice's face. Caspar pricked up his ears.

"You at a hospital, Alice? Why, what were you doing there?"

"Visiting some of the patients," she answered, with a little blush.

"Visits which were much appreciated," put in Maurice, "although we found that Lady Alice was too generous."

"Until I was warned by one of the patients that the others abused my kindness and traded on it," said Lady Alice, laughing rather nervously, "and then I drew in a little."

"What patient was that?"

"The name I think was Smith—the man who lost his memory in that curious way."

"Ah yes, I remember." And then Maurice knitted his brows and became very thoughtful: he looked as if a thoroughly new idea had been suggested to him.

Miss Brooke remarked that it was almost time to set out if they were to go to the club that afternoon, and Lady Alice went to her room for her cloak. She was before the looking-glass, apparently studying the reflection of her own face, when a knock at the door, to which she absently said "Come in," was followed by Caspar's entrance. She, thinking that it was her maid, did not look round, and he came behind her without being perceived. The first token of his presence was received by her when his arm was slipped round her waist, and his voice said caressingly and almost playfully in her ear, "I don't know that I want my dainty piece of china carried down into the slums."

"Am I nothing more to you than that?" said Lady Alice reproachfully.

He made no answer, but as he looked at the fair face in the glass, and as their eyes met, she thought that she read a reply in his glance.

"I have been nothing more—I know," she said, with sudden humbleness, "but if it is not too late—if I can make up now for the time I have lost——"

The tears trembled in her eyes, but he kissed them away with new tenderness, saying in a soothing tone—

"We will see, my dear, we will see. I was only in jest."

And she felt that he was thinking not only of the lost years, but of the possible gulf before him—that horror of darkness and disgrace which they might yet have to face.

She went downstairs to the cab that was waiting, with a new and subduing sensation very present to her mind: a sense of something missed out of her own life, a sense of having failed in the duty that had once been given her to do. Hitherto she had been buoyed up by a certain confidence in her own conscientiousness and power of judgment, as most rather narrow-minded women are; but it now occurred to her that she might have been wrong—not only in a few details, as she had consented to admit—but wrong from beginning to end. She had marred not only her own life but the lives of her husband and her child.

This consciousness kept her very quiet during the drive to Macclesfield Buildings. But nobody spoke much, except Doctor Sophy, who made interjectional remarks, half lost in the rattling of the cab, by way of trying to keep up everybody's spirits. Caspar sitting opposite his wife, with his arms folded and his long legs carefully tucked out of the way, had an unusually serious and even anxious expression. Indeed it struck Lady Alice for the first time that he was looking haggard and ill. The burden was weighing upon him even more than he knew. Maurice, too, seemed absorbed in thought, so that the drive was not a particularly lively one.

They got out at the block of buildings which had once struck Lesley as so particularly ugly. Perhaps their ugliness did not impress Lady Alice so much. At any rate she made no remark upon it. Her fingers were lightly pressed upon Caspar's arm: her thoughts were occupied by him.

At the door of the block in which the club-rooms were situated, a little group of men were standing in somewhat aimless fashion, smoking and talking among themselves. Caspar recognized several of the club members in this group. "Ah," he said quietly to his wife, "they thought that I should not come." She made no answer: as a matter of fact she began to feel a trifle frightened. These rough-looking men, with their pipes, who nudged each other and laughed as she passed, were of a kind unknown to her. But Caspar walked through them easily, nodding here and there, with a cheery "Good-afternoon."

Lady Alice did not know it, but the room presented an unusual sight to her husband's eyes that afternoon. The fire was burning, and the gas was lighted, for the day was cold and damp: the comfortable red-seated chairs were as inviting as ever, and the magazines and newspapers lay in rows upon the scarlet table-cloth. There were flowers in the vases, and a piece of music on the open piano. Lady Alice exclaimed in her pleasure, "How pretty it is! how cosy!" and wondered at the gloom that sat upon her husband's brow.

The room was cosy and pretty enough—but it was empty.

Caspar looked round mutely, then glanced at his companions. Miss Brooke paused in the act of taking off one woollen glove, and opened her mouth and forgot to shut it again. Maurice stood frowning, twitching his brows and biting his lips in the effort to subdue a torrent of rage that was surging up in his heart. He would have sworn, he said afterwards, if Lady Alice had not been there—he did not mind Doctor Sophy so much. All that he did now, however, was to mutter "Ungrateful rascals," and make as if he would turn to flee.

But he was stopped by Caspar's clutch at his arm. Maurice saw that his purpose—that of haranguing the men outside—had been divined and arrested. He turned to his friend and saw for the first time on Caspar's face that the shaft had gone home. He had shown scarcely any sign of suffering before.

"I don't deserve this from them," said Brooke quietly, and Maurice could tell that he had gone rather white about the lips. Then in a still lower voice, "Don't let her know. You were right, Maurice; I had better not have come."

"I'll just go and look outside: I won't speak to them, don't be afraid—you talk to Lady Alice," said Maurice breaking from him. But when he got into the dark little entry, he did not look outside for anything or anybody: he only relieved himself by exclaiming. "Oh, d—n the fools!" and shaking his first in a very reprehensible way at some imaginary crowd of auditors. For Maurice was half an Irishman, and his blood was up, and on his friend's behalf he was, as he would just then have expressed it, "in a devil of a rage." While he was executing a sort of mad war-dance on the jute mat in the passage, relieving his mind by some wild gesticulation and still wilder objurgation of the world, Mr. Brooke had turned back to his wife with a pleasant word and smile.

"I must show you the photographs," he said. "We are very proud of them. There will be plenty of time, for the members seem to be a little late in getting together to-day. Possibly they thought I was not coming."

"It is scarcely time yet," said Miss Brooke heroically. She knew it was ten minutes past, but she was quite prepared to sacrifice truth for the maintenance of her brother's dignity.

"That's a good one of the Parthenon," said Caspar negligently, putting his hand within his wife's arm, and leading her from one picture to another. "The Coliseum you see: not quite so clear as it might be. These frames were made by one of the men in the buildings—given as a present to the club. Not bad taste, are they? And this statuette——".

He broke off suddenly. He had been going on hurriedly and feverishly, filling up the time as best he might, trying to forget the embarrassing situation into which he had brought his wife and himself, when the sound of heavy footsteps fell upon his ear. A sound of shuffling, the creak of men's boots, a little gruff whispering in the doorway—what was it all about? Were the men whom he had helped and guided going to turn against him openly—to give him in his wife's presence some other insult beside the tacit insult of their absence? He turned round sharply, with the feeling that if he was brought to bay the men would have a bad time of it. He certainly looked a formidable antagonist. The hair had fallen over his forehead, his brows were knotted, his eyes gleamed rather fiercely beneath them, his under lip was thrust out aggressively. "As fierce as a lion," said one of the observers, afterwards. But even while his eyes darted flame and fury at the men who had deserted them, his body kept its half-protecting, half-deferential pose with respect to Lady Alice; and the hand that held her arm was studiously gentle in its touch.

Lady Alice turned round, amazed. There was a little crowd in the passage: the room was already half full. Men and women too were there, and more crowded in from behind. There must have been nearly fifty, when all were seen, and there were more men than women. But they did not sit down: they stood, they leaned against the walls; one or two mounted on the benches at the back and stood where they could get a good view of the proceedings. Caspar's scowl remained fixed, but it was a scowl of astonishment. He looked round for Maurice, whom he presently saw beckoning to him to take his usual place near the piano. He said a word to his wife, and brought her round with him towards his sister and his friend. The men still stood, and crowded a little nearer to him as he reached his place. There was very little talking in the room, and the men's faces looked somewhat solemn: it was evidently a serious occasion.

"Is this—this—what usually goes on?" queried the puzzled Lady Alice.

"This? Oh no!" said Maurice, to whom she had addressed herself, with a sudden happy laugh, and a perfectly beaming face. "This is—a demonstration. Here, Caspar, old man, you've got to stand here. Now, Gregson."

Lady Alice accepted the chair offered to her, and Miss Brooke another. Caspar began to look utterly perplexed, but a little relieved also, for his eye, in straying over the crowd, had recognized two or three faces as those of intimate friends who seemed to be mingling with the men, and he felt sure that they had no inimical purpose towards him. All that he could do was to look down and grasp his beard, as usual, while Jim Gregson, the man who had once spoken to Lesley so warmly of her father, being pushed forward by the crowd as their spokesman, addressed himself to Caspar.

"Mr. Brooke—Sir: We have made bold to change the order of the proceedings for this 'ere afternoon. Instead of beginning with the music, we just want to say a few words; and that's why we've come in all at once, so as to show that we are all of one mind. We think, sir, that this is a very suitable opportunity for presenting you with a mark of our—our gratitude and esteem. We have always found you a true friend to us, and an upright man that would never allow the weak to be trampled on, nor the poor to be oppressed, and we wish to show that whatever the newspapers may say, sir, we have got heads on our shoulders and know a good man when we see him." This sentence was uttered with great emphasis, to an accompaniment of "Hear, hear," from the audience, and considerable stamping of feet, umbrellas and sticks. "What we wish to say, sir," and Mr. Gregson became more and more embarrassed as he came to this point, "is that we respect you as a man and as a gentleman, and that we take this opportunity of asking you to accept this small tribute of our feelings towards you, and we wish to say that there's not a member of the club as has not contributed his mite towards it, as well as many poor neighbors in the Buildings. It's a small thing to give, but that you will excuse on account of the shortness of the notice, so to speak: the suggestion having been made amongst ourselves and by ourselves only three days ago. We beg you'll accept it as a token of respect, sir, from the whole of the Macclesfield Buildings Working Men's Club, of which you was the founder, and which we hope you'll continue for many long years to be the president of." And with a resounding emphasis on the preposition, Mr. Gregson finished his speech. A tremendous salvo of applause followed his last word, and before it had died away a woman was hastily dragged to the front, with a child—a blue-eyed fairy of two or three years old—in her arms. The child held a brown paper parcel, and presented it with baby solemnity to Mr. Brooke, who kissed her as he took it from her hands. And then, under cover of more deafening applause, Mr. Brooke turned hurriedly to Maurice and said, in a very unheroic manner—

"I say, I can't stand much more of this. I shall make a fool of myself directly."

"Do: they'll like it, the beggars!" returned Maurice in high glee.

But he had more sympathy in his eyes than his words expressed, and the grip that he gave his friend's hand set the audience once more applauding enthusiastically. An audience of Londoners with whom a speaker is in touch, is one of the most sympathetic and enthusiastic in the world.

While they applauded, the parcel was opened. It contained a morocco case, lined with dark blue satin and velvet—an unromantic and prosaic expression of as truly high and noble feeling as ever found a vent in more poetic ways—and on the velvet cushion lay—twelve silver spoons!

There was an odd little touch of bathos about it, and an outsider might perhaps have smiled at the way in which the British workman and his wife had chosen to manifest their faith in the man who had been in their eyes wrongfully accused; but nobody present in the little assembly saw the humorous side of it at all, not even a young gentleman who was hastily making a sketch of it for the Graphic, for he blew his nose as vigorously as anybody else. And there was a good display of handkerchiefs and some rather troublesome coughing and choking in the course of the afternoon, which showed that the donors of the spoons did not look on the gift exactly in the light of a joke.

Mr. Brooke was a practised speaker; and when he opened his lips to reply, his sister dried her eyes and put down her handkerchief with a gratified smile as much as to say, "Now we shall have a treat." And she settled herself so that she could watch the effect of the speech on Lady Alice, who had forgotten to wipe her tears away, and sat with eyelashes wet and cheeks slightly flushed, looking astoundingly young and pretty in the excitement of the moment. But Miss Brooke was doomed to be disappointed. Caspar began once, twice, thrice—and broke down irrevocably. The only intelligible words he got out were, "My dear friends, I can't tell you how I thank you." And that was quite true: he couldn't.

But there was all the more applause, and all the more kindly feeling for that failure of his to make a speech; and then one or two other men spoke of the good that Mr. Brooke had done in that neighborhood, and of the help that he had given them all in founding the club, and of the brave and encouraging words that he had spoken to them, and so on; and the young artist for the Graphic sketched away faster and faster, and said to himself, "My eye, there'll be a precious row if they try to hang him after this, whatever he's done." But the sensation of the afternoon was yet to come.

"I can only say once more, my friends," said Caspar, as the hour wore away, "that I thank you for this expression of your confidence in me, and that I have never had a prouder moment in my life than this, in which you tell me of your own accord that you believe in my innocence of the crime attributed to me. Of that, however, I will not speak. I wish only, before we separate, to introduce you to my wife, who has never been here before, and whom I am sure you will welcome for my sake."

There was a moment of astonishment. Every one knew something of the story of Caspar's married life, and was taken aback by the appearance of his wife. But when Maurice Kenyon led the way by clapping his hands vigorously, someone took up the word, and cried, "Three cheers for Mrs. Brooke." And Lady Alice started at the new title, and thought that it sounded much better than the one by which she was usually known.

"Shall I say any more?" said Caspar, smiling as he stooped down to her. But suddenly she rose to her feet and put her hand within his arm. "No," she said, "I am going to do it myself."

The storm of clapping was renewed and died away when it was perceived that Lady Alice was about to speak. She was a little flushed, but perfectly self-possessed, and her clear silvery voice could be heard in every corner of the room.

"I wish to thank you, too," she said, "for your kindness to my husband and myself. I hope I shall know more of his work here by and by, and in the meantime I can only tell you that you are right to trust him and believe in him—as I trust him and believe in him with all my heart and soul!"

She turned to him a little as she spoke, her eyes shining, her face transfigured—the faith in her making itself manifest in feature and in gesture alike. There was not applause so much as a murmur of assent when she had done; and Caspar, laying hold of her hand, looked down at her with a new warmth of tenderness, and said half wonderingly,

"Why, Alice!"

"Do you think I could let them go without telling them what you are to me?" she said, with a kind of passion in her voice which reminded him of Lesley. But there was no time to say more, for every person in the room presented himself or herself to shake hands with Caspar and his wife, and to admire the spoons, which had been purchased only the night before.

"Very glad to see you amongst us, Mrs. Brooke, mum; and hope you'll come again," was heard so often that Lady Alice was quite amazed by the warmth of the greeting. "And the young lady too—where's she? she ought to have been here as well," said one woman; to which Maurice Kenyon responded in a pleased growl—

"Yes, confound your blundering, so she ought; and so she would have been, if you hadn't nearly made such a blessed mull of the whole affair."

He did not think that anybody heard him, and was rather taken aback when Lady Alice smiled at him over her shoulder. "What do you mean, Mr. Kenyon?" she said.

Maurice was on his good behavior immediately. "Oh, nothing, Lady Alice; only that Miss Brooke might have been here if we had only had a hint beforehand, and it is a pity she should have missed it."

"A great pity," said Lesley's mother; and she looked quite complacently at the twelve silver spoons, which she was guarding so jealously, as if she feared they would be taken away from her.

Outside the doors, when the assembly had reluctantly dispersed, after an improvised collation, given by Caspar, of hot drinks and plum cake, a little crowd of men and boys cheered the departing hero of the day so valiantly that Lady Alice was almost glad to find herself once more driving through the dusky London streets with her husband at her side. Miss Brooke and Maurice had elected to walk home.

"There's one thing," said Caspar, rather later in the day, as a history of these experiences was unfolded to Lesley; "we quite, forgot to tell the good folks your mother's name and title. She was applauded to the echo as 'Mrs. Brooke.'"

"Oh, you must never tell them," said Lady Alice, hastily. "I do not want to be anything else, please—now."

"I wish they had let one know beforehand," said Maurice, "they kept it a dead secret—even from me."

"All the greater surprise for us," said Mr. Brooke. Then he looked at Maurice for a moment, and smiled. But it was long before they mentioned to each other what both had thought and felt in that heart-breaking minute of suspense when they believed that Caspar was deserted in the hour of need.

"Well," said Caspar Brooke, at length, "whatever may happen now"—and he made a pause which was fraught with graver meaning than he would have cared to put into words—"I can feel at any rate that 'I have had my say.' And you, Alice—well, my dear, you will always have those silver spoons to look at! So we have not done badly after all."

Like Sir Thomas More, he would have joked when going to the scaffold; but jokes under such circumstances have rather a ghastly sound in the ears of his family.