THE IMPOSTOR

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1907, Page 11

THE IMPOSTOR

[ALL BIGHTS BBSEB.VED.]

TSOPSIS OF INSTALMENTS I. and IL

Jolie de la Villemarque, whilst travelling Aim to Troutdale to act as French governess to the Vale-Mellor children, drops the mrtrait'-of ncr father iv the train. The .locket is picked up by a pale-faced young man who, after having engaged moms at the local hotel, feets a young woman in a lonely wood and. during th? progress of the nuarrei, bus her. In the ine.-uiume, Julie, on her way to the Manor, meets Harry Vale-JleTlor with his pact of harriers, and him proceeds to the house, wlere she is met by Mrs Vale-Mellor. and Is pot in charge of the old family nurse, ■wio is strangely affected at the sight of iter. Her fellow passenger has now returned to the hotel, where he gives his name _j Archibald Edmund Vale-MJellor, and is recognised by the landlady- as Bearing jotne resemblance to the family. After having destroyed a telegram taken from tie body of the murdered woman, who appears to have been his wife, the stranger meets an older man in the hotel, who apparently shares his secret, and who is much perturbed at the sight of the locket found in the train, and alarmed at hearing of Julie's arrival at Vale-Mellor.

CHAPTER V. HIS SISTER'S GOVERNESS. We left Nurse and Julie de la Villejnarqnee facing each other in the little liedroom. For a moment Nurse did not speak. She still looked at Julie, and, to the girl's surprise, the keen old eyes •were blinded with tears. Then she ad:dressed the'new French governess with ;:gtran cr e .half-frightened kindness. "Take off those wet things," she said," ♦Til oet my own dressing-gown for you." She left the room quickly, and, when -she returned. Her face had lost its beTriiaerment, and wore an air of determination. "Mademoiselle," she said, as she helped Julie into the dressing-gown, "'Will yoirtell mc your name?" < r De la, yillemarquee,"' Julie told her, pmhhg. :• '?[t's an outlandish name enough," Etrrse looked at the young girl intentJy; "It's the name you were born to?" 'Of course," said Julie, amazed. ■"Then it was your father's name?" •- "M certainly." -"""Andhe xas born ie it?" .'-'Me'gazed at her with some pride. •OSaihrally- he was born to it. How else EbouM it have come into his possession ?"' A "Sate ehanse their names sometimes," perastel the old woman." You speak : JED_fehr-3'bit queerly, perhaps, but still iftHiigM. Was your father a Frenchinaa*" •Strives," said Julie. "Of course." ftiirse shook her head. Julie had iaiea down her lons dark wet hair, . ani was shaking it dry unon her should- -• ere. Nurse brought her a brush, and offered to bind the h*air up again. . y"And, you will excuse mc, ma--5 iSemoiselle," she said, "but I don't think ' the mistress wonld like to see your hair ,-dbne all over your ears in that funny 1 fashion. And parted on the side, too. llt makes you look like a boy. I'll twist ,it up for you more comifo." She smiled iiddly. "That's the only bit of French al know, mademoiselle —comifo." |. Julie submitted. She had come to •fitDutdale. prepared to suppress a natur- ': s'lTry, gay and whimsical spirit, and to ,';iehave as "instructresses" were expected 7to behave in Great Britain. But she f wondered why Nurse should take such -•singular trouble over her hair, and try . -'the effect first one way. and then another, finally piling it high upon her -head in a fashion that Julie admitted was becoming, but felt to be "fine-lady-ish" in the extreme. When she inquired "whether the mode were not too fashionable for Mrs. Vale-Mellor. Nurse reassured her hurriedly. "No, no. The mistress likes folks to look nice. Its only that you mustn't look as you did—not like a young lad." She paused, and muttered under her 'hreath- "Slebbe its no bad thing that . the old Master is nearly blind." She went on helping Julie to unpack when, by-and-by the girl's luggage arrived. Jimmy's assertion that there "were no thieves i' Troutdale" had been justified. Old Nurse took out the dainty beautifully sewn garments approvingly. When the box was emptied she asked -Julie a question. j

'Have you no photogra-phs of your own people to put about your room, 1 'Miss?' Julie shook her head- Her eyes filled ■■with tears. "I had only a little miniature of my . lather in a locket. I lost it this after- , noon in the train." Nurse looked disappointed. And she ■went on murmuring under her breath ,as she went about the room. Downstairs in the drawing-room Mrs. ivale-Mellor conversed with Rose Hunt, who sat with her book in her lap, and ' glanced quickly towards the door whenever a footstep sounded upon the black .and white tiles of the hall. "It was unfortunate that Harry should have had to act as escort to Mademoiselle, all that way in the rain," the elder lady was saying-. 'Young goverBesses are better kept strictly apart from the young men of a house."' "I don't think Harry would be likely : "to bse his heart to that little drowned rat, do you?" responded the girl, with scornfuL'.eyebrows. "Besides, he is surely too proud to think of flirting with her.* 3 Mre. glanced towards her •fmtor amused. ■ - - ", was not thinking of anything so serious, my dear. But any establish°t intimacy between them would be Unwise. Young girls in her position save often foolish romantic fancies about life. They picture themselves as - the beautiful downtrodden heroines of r the .novelist, who must necessarily be rescued by the adoring sons of hard r employers. No, I am not a hard-hearted employer, but little Madem.orselle has her living to earn, and must f3f to kee P her girlhood in hand as ?Z~ * s she ca rt. Poor child!" and Mrs. • .vaie-Mellor sighed a little. "It is hard ■i ° a her, I admit. She would have been as the wife of a Parisian shop- ; Keeper, probably, than she will be fight»gher own battles over here." 7r o - OT? . (T^ d you hear of ie r?" inquired know fatoer would not have "ought a foreigner into his house. How *a_y°u get her character?" 'tl, f^ 5 * something almost cruel in -.-«* cold with which this joung giri spoke of another .j as 1 hereeff: aS soft - na y> softer—than fro£ h ' my friend ' Mrs - Ames got her ram a convent in Brittany," responded , gs. Vale-Mellor, briskly. "She was ' nnn* ™ Tphan < and elated by the "■teg"- B were seve ral English sis<»nvent, who, I suppose, »tler their language. She speaks

By ROMA WHITE (Author of " The Testimony of Esther Sandys," &c.J

"Oh, yes. Only I hate that little jer.ky affected accent."

"That is only natural to her. However. I shall tell her always to talk French to the girls, except when my father-in-law is present." Mrs. Yale-Mellor's brows contracted again slightly. She remembered the quiet, though deep disagreements she had with her father-in-law, master still in the home of his ancestors, when she had announced that she intended her daughters to learn French from a native governess. The two wills, each equally cool .an inflexibled, had met and struggled almost for mastery. Mr. ValeMellor declared that no "foreign hussy should find a home under his roof." His daughter-in-law had insisted that she intended her children to have a modern education. Finally the old man gave in. Mrs. Vale-Mellor never knew that a few words of intreaty from Harry, who could not bear disputes, had saved the situation.

Bose Hunt lifted her book again. She had caught the sound of a well-known step in the hall—a light springy step, with vigour in its very echo. The door opened and Harry Vale-Mellor, fresh, mirthful, and well-set-up in his grey tweed suit, entered the room. "Such a run, mother," he exclaimed. "And. fancy killing under Jimmy Turner's cab. But it was really too wet to east about for another hare. I had to change every rag the minute I got in. Well?" looking round, "What have you done with little Mademoiselle?" "She is upstairs," said his mother, looking at him pleasantly, but a trifle critically, as she looked at everything, her own offspring included. "Upstairs. Is she?" Harry spoke carelessly, almost absently. His thoughts were much more occupied with the run than with Mademoiselle. But Bose Hunt glanced up, I and spoke with a touch of something unpleasant. '•She seems a harmless little thing. i I have no donbt they will like hei in the I nursery and schoolroom." Harry looked at her. His wandering thoughts were recalled from the ! day's sport to the memory of the girl who had walked so soberly in the rain, j for more than a mile, beside him. He j remembered her pure skin, her soft voice, her delicate decorous dignity. A chivalrous feeling flamed up in him at the faint note of contempt and insolence in Rose Hunt's tones. Impulsively he turned to his mother, almost in remonstrance. "I say, mother, the girl's lady." "Naturally, Harry," came his mother's calm reply. "If she were not a lady she would not be entrusted with your sisters." Harry felt baffled. A lady was a lady, and why should Bose Hunt speak of Mademoiselle as if she belonged to a different world from theirs? "It must be jolly hard lines to be a governess," was the outcome of his meditations as he sat down." "Not in this house," was Mrs. ValeMellor's assurance, given smiling but resolutely, as she left the room. Harry looked after her. It never occurred to him that -she often left the room when he and Rose Hunt were in it. He had no idea of making love to Rose. She would have a hundred thousand pounds, his mother had told him impressively one day; and he had laughed and said that he know a good many fellows who would like to have the handling of that. But it never occurred to him that he might he included among the "fellows" himself. He had known Rose in her perambulator, an imperious, insolent young lady even then, with a jealous eye for perambulators more gorgeous than her own.

"What are yon reading, Bose?" he asked, from the chair into which he had so comfortably subsided. "Tennyson?" Rose looked up with a laugh. "No. Certainly not," she answered. "I thought all young ladies read Tennyson."

"I don't," said Rose. And somehow the possibilities of anybody ever reading, or having read Tennyson, appeared to dwindle into nothingness. Rose often unconsciously put the closure on conversation in this way. Harry was sensitive to it, but could never explain why it fretted him. Tactlessly, he blundered out something of the -chivalry towards little Mademoiselle that had just fired his mind. "1 say, Rose," he began, "you're at home here—like one of ourselves, you know. Do you think you can see your way towards making friends with that poor girl who came this afternoon. Girls understand each other. And you might be able to give her a helping hand." Rose looked at him coldly, combatively, without any response. "1 don't see what I can do," she said. "She is only your sister's governess." Harry bit his Up. The inherent vulgarity in the nature of the girl before '' him hit him almost like a blow. He rose to his feet quickly. "Oh, very well," be said. "I suppose you know best. I'll go and see how the old grandfather is." He walked from the_ room, while Rose looked after him with'hard, yet hungry, eyes. She was sometimes cruelly conscious of the lack of power to attract i Harry Vale-Mellor. Yet he was the only person in the entire world who could make her heart beat the faster for his coming, the more languidly for his departure. CHAPTER VI. THE OMEN OF THE DEVIL'S POOL. Harry went out into the hall. As he crossed it old Nurse was coming down the stairs. She paused and looked at him oddly. V "A capital run, Nurse," he said, speaking with ready kindliness to the old woman, a fifty years' inmate of ValeMellor. "Only a very wet one." Nurse did not respond quickly. "Aye, the rain's heavy —heavy, Mr Harry," she said vaguely. "I don't often remember it like this in Troutdale." "It's been at it for so long, too," pursued the young man." Ten days of downpour one on the top of another. They say the Devil's Cliff will slide if it goes on." "The Devil's Cliff! Slide!" I Nurse drew nearer to Harry Vale-Mel-lor, dismay in her eyes. "Well, Nurse! It won't slide down on the top of Vale-Mellor, if it does!" he said laughing. "If the cliff slides it will he through her —through her upstairs!"""murmured Nurse. "God works bis wonders V His ,j>53.-S"*Zv , j< -' • • -- -

Harry did not hear her. He had passed on, whistling. H he had caught her words he would have thought tSat the poor old lady was losing her brain. He opened a door at the far-end of the hall, and entered a room like a library, lined from ceiling to floor with books. Tbe windows of this room looked out far down the valley of Troutdale, almost to where it narrowed into a mere gorge between wild overifanging rocks. A portion of these rocks went by the name of the Devil's Cliff; and a deep, still-looking pool below was called the Devil's Pool. Well might it bear the name, for below the apparent calmness of the shadowed waters the current of the stream ran swift and strong; and many a stranger, unwarily bathing in the cool, deep, wide water, had been swept to his death down the fall a quarter of a mile below.

This afternoon the view down the valley was wilder than even in the drenching, slanting rain. A little wood fire burnt in the library grate, and over the fire sat an old man, still upright, freshcoloured, and vigorous, with unfaded brilliancy in his almost sightless eyes. His thick hair was rather grey than white; and his firm somewhat grim lips were healthy and ruddy in hue. He looked up as Harry entered, and his harsh features relaxed, as if with the shadow* of an inner smile. Yet he spoke curtly enough. "What sport, Harry?" Harry, standing before the fire, entered into a detailed description of the day. The old man grunted amusement or interest now and then, and gave vent to a short laugh when his grandson reached the incident of the kill beneath the cab. Then he sat silent, staring into ] the fire. "So Ma'amselle has come?" "Yes, sir." "I'd rather she had not. Silly work, this learning to speak a fancy foreign language! English was good enough for i mc, and for my fathers before mc, and, if there was a bit of a Troutdale burr in it —well, we were proud of being natives of Troutdale, and asked nothing better than that folks should know where we came from. Nobody knows or asks where a man comes from nowadays, and everybody clips and minces their speech alike. I'll warrant your mother got this Ma'amselle over from France without asking a- word about her parentage. It hasn't been the way of Vale-Mellor, that hasn't! I've known! all my servants for a matter o' thirty years—known 'em as boys and men. I "don't hold with this new fangled fash-' I ion of bringing strangers round your hearth. No, I don't." j The old man spoke curtly, but- with 1 a touch of the coming garrulousness of extreme old age. Harry cast about for consolation for him. "Well, sir, you see my mother is very anxious to have the girls thoroughly i educated. You know the world alters in its ideas. You wouldn't have it stand still." j "It won't stand still, whether I would' have it or not," said the old man, with a grim flicker of humour. "But you, I Harry? You'll stick to old Troutdale ways and old Troutdale servants, won't you, when I'm gone?" There was a touch of pleading in the harsh voice, with its, rough flavouring of dialect. Harry -answered quietly enough. But the look which he sent down the rain-filled valley was sensitive almost tremulous, with deep young enthusiasm. "Trust mc, sir." he said. "I love Troutdale as much as you do." "Aye, you do. I know you do." Old Mr. Vale-Mellor rested on the words. "And its all left to you. Vale-Mellor and Greykirk in as good a will as was ever made by a lawyer. And tbey reckon they can make a thing fast. They do." There was silence. Harry sat down by the fire, and lit his pipe. His grandfather readied out for the old briar that stood on the table near, and began to stuff it with tobacco. This afternoon smoke was a recognised thing between the old and the young man. In some subtle fashion both derived a peculiar enjoyment from 'it.

The twilight fell outside, and shrouded the comers of the room; and presently a man-servant, with the typical Troutdale features, and the look of having grown old alongside his master, which characterised all the' Vale-Mellor dependents, brought in letters on a tray. He set them down, but withdrew without bringing lights. By-and-bye he would carry in the lamps. Harry would read the letters to hi 3 grandfather, and then write such answers as were necessary. The old man's failing sight rendered assistance necessary. Besides, as he said, Harry was heir to Vale-Mellor, and must learn his work, in good time. The evening grew darker, the pipes were nearly finished, when suddenly the door opened, with a swift nervous jerk, and somebody stood on the threshold. Harry turned, and was conscious that a figure in a black dress was waiting there, the door-knob in her hand. "Mrs. Vale-Mellor?" The clear soft foreign voice, with its detached syllables, fell oddly across the old sedate essentially English room. Mr. Vale-Mellor started. Harry rose. "1 think you have mistaken the door," he said. "My mother generally sits in the room opposite." "Oh, thank you." Julie turned and fled. The male figures, the mists of strong tobacco, had startled he codsiderably. Mr. Vale-Mel-lor looked towards the hastily-closed door, his pipe in his hand. "Ma'amselle?" he .inquired. " Yes," said Harry. " She's a nice little tiling." Still the old man paused. Still he gazed in the direction of the door. Still he held his pipe without any attempt to replace it in his mouth. Suddenly there was a little clatter. The pipe had fallen into the fender. '"Hullo, sir! Were you asleep?" Harry stooped to pick up the briar, laughing. His grandfather seemed to pull himself together with efforts. " I must have been," he answered. "It was odd. I suppose I was dreaming." '"' A pleasant dream, I hope, sir." Old Mr. Vale-Mellor shook his head. i A trembling seemed to vibrate through 1 his old gaunt form. " I dreamt I saw your uncle—your : uncle Edmund, standing in the doorj way," he said. " Not as he was when he went away, but as a little lad, run- , ning in to tell mc of his cricket, and of his rabbit-shooting. I dreamt it very I clearly indeed." Harry looked at him amazed. "My uncle Edmund?" he said. "My ! uncle who died more than thirty years ago?" "Yes." The old man spoke in an odd far-away voice. "Your uncle—who died to me—more than thirty years ago." Harry opened his lips as if to ask a question, but at that moment the butler brought in the lamps. The young man rose, and took up the letters. "Are you ready, sir?" he asked. And he sorted them, and began to read them, aloud. The first two or three were unimportant. Harrj; *cea4 them-- an* laid' them

aside. Then he cut open a thin, dirtylooking envelope. "Somebody who writes a very decided sort of hand, sir," he said. And began to read the letter. Coutt's Hotel, Manchester, Nov. 3rd. Sir.— Though well aware of your vow that you would never forgive my father, Edmund Vale-Mellor, for his marriage with my mother, Florence Kemp, I consider that I am warranted in bringing the fact of my existence before you. Edmund Vale-Mellor was your eldest son. I am his only child —your eldest grandson. I ask nothing from you but that I may visit you, and see if some sort of reconciliation between you and mc is possible. My father is dead, and surely it is not in accordance with the dignified traditions of the Vale-Mellor family that this quarrel should be kept up in the third generation. I appeal to your love of kin, and to your respect to your own blood, to permit mc to lay my case before you.

Believe mc, sir, to be, Your respectful grandson, Archibald. Edmund Vale-Mellor. There was a dead silence in the old library, as Harry Vale-Mellor laid down the letter. He looked in silent amazement at his grandfather, and saw that the harsh lines of his face had deepened into rigid anger. Squire Vale-Mellor did not speak, but held out his hand for the letter, and, with a passionate gesture, flung it upon the fire. "Sir!" cried Harry. "It ought not to be destroyed." The old man held up a shaking hand. "It shall be destroyed!" he cried in a terrible voice. "Just as my love for my eldest son Edmund was destroyed in a single flame! " Harry was silent again, greatly bewildered and disturbed. He knew nothing of Edmund Vale-Mellor but that he was long since dead. "I vowed I would never forgive him," went on Mr. Vale-Mellor, the strange terrible note still ringing in his raised voice, "never, until the Devil's Cliff should lie in the Devil's Pool! For when the Devil's Cliff lies in the Devil'si Pool the prophecy that the spawn of strangers and outcasts shall carry on the line of the Vale-Mellor race, is to be fulfilled." Again a dead silence fell upon the old library. The lamp seemed lower, and the fire flickered down to a duller glow. On the windows a sudden gust of rain drummed heavily. The wind was rising, and drew up through the valley, lashing the trees into tempestuous movement as it came. For some reason Harry ValeMellor shivered, as if with a sudden dread.

Then, all at once, there were voices without; the voices of servants, raised in the excitement that sometimes brings master and man into a greater intimacy of relationship. The old butler opened the door, and stood, flushed with his news, in the doorway. "Sir! Squire Vale-Mellor!" he cried. "If you please, sir, the land has slipped at the head of the valley, and the Devil's Cliff has fallen sheer down into the Devil's Pool." (To be continued next Saturday.^