SHORT STORY

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 389, 22 October 1903, Page 7

SHORT STORY

(Continue 1 from last week.) 'My good Hepburn, there ie none so blind as the man who will not see. Ycu Barely know what I find ia the common gossip of the place—that this girl has been meeting Marshlands day after day, and she has entrapped hira into what he ia foolish enough to consider an engagement, S dry boy! As to her, it is plain she ia aa adventuress.* ' But is it not possible,' pleaded the old man feebly,' that your ladyship has been misinformed.?^ 'MMaformed!' rejoined L3dy Fenborough sharply. ' I till you I have it all from Marshlands himself—he saya ha will marry her/ Then, as Dr. Hepburn himself afterwards expressed it, ycu might have knocked him down with a feather. It seemed iaopciaible that this story should be true. ' Would yen like to see her ?' he asked, speaking at random In his first diemay. 'To Bee her! No, thank you! I wish none of us ever had seen her. The object of my visit it to make perfectly clear to you that the girl must go from here. Must, you understand—there is no alternative.*

Dr. Hepburn fancies to this day he was about to take np the challenge thus imperiously thrown down; that he was about to refuse to banish from her only home the child he had learnt to love. But bs fore he had found words forcible enough to express his open revolt against the irate sovereign lady of Fenborough, the study door opened, and Joyce—her pale face a little flashed and her eyes bright with excitement —stood before them.

' I beg your pardon for intruding,' she said in her clear, steady voice, ' but they told me that lady Fenborough was here. I can guess the object of her visit, and I am come to speak a very important word in the matter under discussion.' She spoke with a graceful self-possession which the great lady even in her anger could net help admiring. ' Lord Marshlands has no doubt told you,' she went on, turning to Lady Fenborough, 'what I had not mentioned to Dt. Hepburn—that he has done me the honour of asking me lo beHrie wife. Of course, I can understand that you are very angry about his offer, and still more angry that I accepted him. You have come here to say that the marriage ia impossible. You are quite right—it is impossible, but' and Joyce smiled bitterly,' not because you say so, not because of any barrier you would put between us. The fact is, I thought the matter seriously 07erlast night, probably while Marshlands was talking of it to yon. and the result of my thinking was that I Bat down and wrote a letter to him, which he must have had before you left home this morning. In my letter I told him thai, eves at the risk of giving him great pain, I must take back my hasty promise. You undo; stand, there is no engagement between me and my cousin—positively none. I would not marry him if you wished me to.' Lady Fenborough had listened in mute astonishment to Joyce's impetuous speech, her cold, grey eyes fixed on the girl's animated face, and a feeling of intense relief in her heart. Marshlands would, she reflected, make an outrageous scene, but he war not a strong-minded' personage, he would yield to the force of circumstances after the first moment of fierce rebellion. * heard the girl to the end, then she with a contemptuous gesture. 'Your behaviour,' she said, 'is most incomprehensibly disgraceful. No niceminded young woman would do what you have done.'

' I dare say not,' replied Joyce wearily; but then I don't pretend to be a niceminded young woman.' In the course of the day a messenger from Fenborough Towers brought a letter to Dr. Hepburn's for Miss Melhuish—a letter which had cost poor Lard Marshlands a long and bitter hour to indite; a letter in which he pleaded and threatened, and despaired and hoped, through threj sheets of closely-written paper; a letter which he felt sure would move the heart of the only woman in the world who ever was so tenderly loved. But the appeal had no effect, because Joyce never broke the big seal with the Fenborough arms which gave the missive such an aristocratic air.

When it was brought to her in her room, where she sat, feeling more unhappy than she had ever imagined she could have felt, she gave it back with orders that some one should run after the messenger and bid him return it into Lord Marshlands' own bands} Late that afternoon another messenger front the great house came riding wildly into Feabcrough. He gallcped past Dr. Hepburn's, down over the bridge, and into the less aristocratic part of the town, where the exigencies of the practice compelled the junior partner t* live. Shortly after, the news had spread far and wide that Lord Marshlands had bad a terrible accident while cleaning his pistol, that he lay in danger of his life, and that an eminent London surgeon had been telegraphed fox on Dt, Lang's recommendation.

Pcor Joyce was is deep disgrace. It Wre an open secretin Fenboxough that her ladyship had interfered with a high hand in Lord Marshlands' iove-making, and that the story of the accident vita the pistol was merely a polite fiction to screen a far mote serious truth. Luckily, under the combined skill of Dr. Lang and the London surgeon the fiißt imminent danger was soon over, but it still remained to be Eeen whether the patient had strength to combat with the terrible fever which had set m when the ball tad been extracted from that pait of hia anatomy in which his unskilful hand, had lodged it Her ladship, as she kept watch beside hex delirious son and heir, heard a great deal that was very grievous to her. Night and day one name, coupled with every term of endearment, rose to his lips —Joyce, sweet Joyce, incomparable Jojee. No mother, however hard-hearted, should part him from hia Joyce. Would not Joyce revoke his words ot that awful letter, cr should he have to shoot himself because he could not live without her P LadjiFenborough clenched her teeth and

Joyce Melhuish's Misdoings-

bore it until she could bear it no longer. ' Give him something to calm him,' she said imperiously to Dr. Kang. • I am giving him all I can,' was Dr. Lang's reply. •Joyce, Joyce!' came the agonised voice from the bed. 'My mother has sent her away/ ' Let her come to him,' cried her ladyBhip. '1 had rather she had him than th>t he died. Go to her and explain, and say I have forgiven her.' There was no reason why Gabriel Lang should have accepted such a commission. Joyce's summons to her lover's side need not have come tlrough him, but he took a grim pleasure in being the bearer of the olive-branch which cut him off from the last semblance of hope. He had .not seen Jojcae Bince that memorable evening in the park, when she had hurrud past him with that other man'd kisses still burning on her face. Ha almost exclaimed when she came to hun now, eo pale and worn she looked. 'I hope,' he began bravely, 'thatthe message I bring you will cheer you a little. Lady Penborough wants you to ro and help her to nurse Lord Marshlands, who lies in a most critical etate. She wished me to Bay she forgave everything.' Tho tears rose into Joyce's eyeß. ' I am very Borry for poor Marsblande,' she eaid,' but I shall not go to him.' ' You will not go !' exclaimed Dr. Lang. ' Sorely it is your duty to go to him in his hour of need ?'

•You muet give him a strong opiate,' said Joyce, unmoved! ' that will be far better tor him than to see me again,' •My dear Mies Melhuish,' he began again, 'you do not understand. Lidy Fenborough is ready to consent to your engagement. You .fill be received on a proper footing.' Joyce smiled bitterly. * Her ladyship is very condescending,' she said,' but 1 will not go. There is no engagement to recognise j I cannot hold myself bound by a promise which Marshlands forced out of me, and which I regretted the moment I had given,'; ( Ib that what I am to say to Lady Fenborough?' he asked, steadying his voice with difficulty. 'ltis a cruel answer.'

«It is all 1 can send,' she said simply 'Why should I pretend to love Lord Marshlands when I—when I don't ?'

• Miss Melhuish,' said Dr. Lang gravely, * you must see that '

But to his astonishment Joyce lifted a pair of blazing eyes to his face. • There, there,' she cried, • perhaps I see more than you fancy, and I don't want to know how bad you think me. But you can tell Lsdy Fenborough that this horrid affair is all her own fault. If she had behaved properly to me I shouldn't have tried to defy her. If she had not bullied Marshlands he wouldn't have wanted to make love to me. He never made love to me abroad; he used to fall in love with other girls. He's as shallow as,a street gutter. I'm not behaving a bit worse than all the rest of them.'

' Very well,' he Baid. rising and speaking rather stiffly. ♦ I will do my best to explain to Lady Fenborough. Good morning.'

She let him cross the room, her eyes still fixed on him; he had turned the latch and opened the door when he heard her say faintly: ' Dr. Lang.' He turned.

' It was your fault partly, too,' Bhe said, with a desperate effort. • Don't you remember how you began to talk to me for my good in the garden that afternoon ? Why did you stop in the middle ?'

' I stopped because,' he replied grimly, ' because I was going to say something very foolish.' 'How do you know I should have thought it foolish ?' she asked. *On the contrary, I believe if you had said that say out you would have saved all this trouble and worry to Lady Fenborough, and Marshlands, and me.'

Whereupon Gabriel Lang shut the half-opened door, and sweeping back all his doubts and hesitations, recrossed the room, and the long-suspended sentence was finished very elaborately. •And you can make Marshlands well again,' said Joyce after a while, when Dr. Lang had found that time did not stand still even on the happiest day. • He's an awfully silly boy, you know, but he really has a sensible constitution.'

'Yes, darling,' said Dr. Lang confiaently. ' I and his sensible constitution will pull him through, and as soon as he iB well, he shall go oft on a little cruise rcund the world to ses if he can't find another Joyce at the Antipodes.* • He'll find Joyces everywhere,' replied Lord Marshlands' pearl among women. • I doubt it,' was Dr. Lang's response. • Ah, well,' said her ladyship, wlien Dr. Lang had carefully unfolded the result of hiß embassy,' it ia just as well. Maishlands has been much calmer since you went. Those last powdjers seem really quite the right thing.' Of course no one in Fenborough was surprised when, as soon as Joyce's mourning permitted, her wedding was merrily celebrated at the church where her ladyship had enca upon a time taken her measure so disdainfully. Every one who came to look at Dr. Hepburn's granddaughter adorned as a bride knew that she had been setting her cap at Dr. Lang from the very first, and that she had succeeded in entrapping hija by wiles which no well-brougbt-up girl would have stooped to practise. When Dr. Lang proclaims himself the happiest husband of the most charming wire alive, Mies Stow raises her hands and wonders to Mrs Wyetfh how long that state ofc foolish blindness will last. It has lasted undisturbed for some time now, and shows no sign of change. Lord Marshlands sent the happy couple a magnificent wedding present from Japau, and shortly afterwards cast his noble family into tne deenest tribulation by announcing from Now York that he had just married the widow of a Chicago millionaire, with whom ho had travelled irom Nagasaki to San Francisco.

I was threading its way amoagst the draya and trams. Presently a veil fluttered j from the window, a head nodded to him, and a hand waved a deprecatory good-by, i as if the dangers into which the incau. tious young man waß marching were easily apparent from within tho coach. fle drew back from the jaws of a nervous horse, the carriage slipped from H3 sight, and he made bis way now with better attention to his steps. It was just at dußk of an October evening, the pleasantest time in the world to arrive home after an ocean passage. The city had a picturesque look iu the cool light, and every heme which threw out gas or fire light from its windows seemed to offer a welcome. A warm welcome this young man was sure to find at his mother's, where he was expected, and the door at the head of the stone steps stood open wide as he sprang lightly up. The lively little lady in snowy cap who was compromising, in the shadow, between dignity and affection, went over bodily to affection when her son was once inside the doorway, and bustled with him into the library, with her cap cicked jauntily on one aide, where his last embrace had left it.

•Well, this is jolly,' said the young man, keeping off the fire with his hands while he surveyed the lady. 'Mother, I'd rather see you than the Jungfrau. Your cap just now makes me think of that girl. I suppose after dinner we are to sit before this fire, and I am to tell you all about it?'

' Yes; I have already sacrificed society to this evening. Just before you came in I burned an invitation for this evening.' 'Bless you, mother, I've not forgotten how dearly you love parties, and how coidially I hated them. You are a devoted mother.'

'Oh, but you will have to make the party call with me, Edward. You have had jour head abroad, and you must go into scoiety, and I shall be so proud to introduce my great boy. Besides, Mrs Cabot is such a charming hostess.' ♦ Mis Cabot P' 'Yes, you remember I wrote jon that 1 met her at Saratoga/ ' Not Mrs Cabot, of Harlem ?'

• Yes, the very same, What a good memory you have, Edward! Travel has improved you. You used to laugh at your old mother's sudden friendships, and profess to forget the names as soon as you had heard them' ' Mre George Cabot of Harlem ?' • Yrs, Mrs George Cabot. Why not f' ' Wby not ? Certainly there's no reason in the world. Wo'li begin with her. We'll march ißto Society's figure--! trap this evening.' •Oh no, Edward. I declined, positively declined, on account of a previous engagement (my engagement with you, you see—this engagement). I never dreamed you would be willing to go.' • But you see, mother, Europe has done what you asked her to—made a man of the. world of me. We'll get out my dresscoat, and Mrs Cabot will enjoy your coming all the more that, like the sob in the parable, you said, I go not, and went.' •But I can't. Edward. I haven't anything to wear—and my hair, too. Oh, it's impossible, just impossible. Besides, I have a dreadful headache.'

*My poor mother! And you meant to sit here and listen to my dull stories all the evening, and never say a word about it! You shall not go to the party. You shall go to bed. I will go, and give you one evening of peace before I begin my winter's torment.' Mrs Winslow looked at her son in amazement. Europe had indeed transformed him. In what city or village of the Old World had he cast off his old suit of bashfulness and indifference to society ? The young man smiled a good-natured response to.her astonishment, and went to hunt out his dress-coat. Perhaps, too, there was something of disappointment in her look.

Mrs Cabot had expended lass regret oh Mrs Winslow's apologetic note than that lady had expressed, and indeed felt. She liked Mrs Winslow, hut her chief need was young men. It was not so difficult to get very charming widows (she was one herself), and they were often essential as chaperons; but young men! —she would have subscribed liberally to a society for the encouragement of young men to enter society. Her invitations had, like many sent from the suburbs, brought back very very irregular responses, and no mathematical law of chanees had ever enabled her to forecast the size or character of her frequent parties. This evening she stood in the dimly lighted draw-iag-room, before it was quite time to expect her guests, giving a few final touches, and speculating afresh upon the contingencies of her company. She heard a carriage in the street, and detected a hesitation in its movements, as if it were , hunting in the dark for something. One objection to livißg in the suburbs was that people might come very early, and so she always made a point of being well beforehand herself. She stepped now to the window to see if she could make out anything. The carriage had stopped before her house, and the driver was dismounting. He ran up the steps and back again, having made out, apparently, the number on the door. Two large tiunks decorated the rear of the carriage. None of her guests could be coming with such alaborate preparations for a simple evening party; and-as the driver opened the door of the carriage, and a lady descended and began to climb the stone steps, Mrs Cabot herself went to the door, opening it before the new-comer could ring. The light fell on the pretty face and trim figure of a girl in a gray travelling dress, who cameforwardand asked for Mrs White. 'You have made some mistake,' said Mrs Cabot. 'Mrs White does not live here. Mrs White lives a .few doors above here.' • Oh, I beg your pardon, The driver read the number 19, and that was the number I waß looking for/ 1 This is 19. I believs Mrs White's islet me see, one, two, three—it must be 27.' « But is that whero Mrs Cabot lives ?' • No; this is Mrs Cabot's. lam Mrs Cabot.' •It is certainly very strange. I have always sent my letters to Mrs White, in care of Mrs Cabot, 19 Fayette Street.' • This is 19 Payette Street, and I am Mrß Cabot. How extraordinary! Stop! Do you know what Mrs White's first name is ?' ' She is my aunt Mary,' (To be concluded next week,)