LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 371, 20 August 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THE ATHELSTON’S OF MORTE d’ ATHELSTON. (From the Dublin University Magazine .) ( Concluded.') ‘ I don’t mind,’ said the girl, wearily. ‘Well, but you will mind, dear, in a little time; you are very young, and it is not natural that your whole life should be blighted for ever by one sorrow, however great that one may have been. ’ Rowena’s brow contracted as if in pain, but she answered coldly, ‘My sorrow has been such that I never expect my life for ever more to be anything but one long hopeless pain. ’ , . . ‘ My poor child, do not speak or think so despondingly; time is a great healer and curer, ’ Lady Eleanor felt that, as a clergyman’s wife, it was her duty now to say some word in-season to this sorely afflicted girl, but the poor lady found it very difficult to offer any consolation, spiritual or otherwise, to one who seemed so utterly cold, calm, and almost repellant in her manner ; more especially as she herself felt somewhat like a traitor, for strangely enough it was the fact of Lord Athelston’s delinquency to his cousin which kept running through her mind, and she feared more the shock of hearing that he was alive, butfaithless to her. for Rowena, than even the great bereavemont which she had sustained in his supposed death. ‘ What are your plans for the future, dear ?’ she asked, hesitatingly; * do not think that it is mere curiosity makes me ask you, but you have been ill and delirous so long that perhaps you do not know all that "ho a nppnrrpfl * ‘Yes, Lady Eleanor, I do, or at least I know that my cousin is alive.’ Lady Eleanor gave a little jump and a suppressed scream, Lady Rowena watching her keenly from her half-closed eyes, waiting to see how much of all that had occurred her aunt knew. That Lord Athelston had never betrayed that last fatal scene, that had raised a barrier of blood between them, she never doubted, but why had he sent Lady Eleanor to her ? What story had he told Sybil’s mother of what had parted him from his once engaged wife for ever ? ‘ Lord Athelston i did not know ; he was afraid that you might hear he was alive in some sudden way that might startle you.’ ‘Lord Athelston is very kind, but I thought he would have known from our last meeting that he was personally a subject of indifference to me, and that he never could expect to have any revival of acquaintance between us. I am rather tired, Lady Elenor, I hope you will excuse my retiring to rest so early ;’ and the girl rose with a majestic air, and a scornful curl upon her haughty lips. Lady Eleanor was petrified ; here was the whole affair taken out of her hands in a way that proved clearly that she might have spared herself a long journey and a great deal of mental anxiety, in so far as her niece was concerned. Nevertheless, she could not help giving a great sigh of relief that the worst was over, and certainly much more satisfactorily so than she had dared to anticipate. All the next day Lady Rowena avoided all approach to the subject of her cousin. However, Lady Eleanor did manage to say a word before parting for the night. Lady Rowena winced slightly when she heard that her father had made no will albeit she said calmly,' * It does not much signify, but I hope Lord Athelston will excuse my not having entered into business matters before this, but I really was not equal to the exertion. However, I shall see papa’s lawyer as soon as possible, and get him to communicate with my cousin.’ ‘ Lord Athelston will do everything, dear, that is kind and generous by you ; he desired me to say that he would make over two thousand a year to you. ’ Lady Rowena waved her hand haughtily. ‘ X do not understand business matters, aunt,’ she said coldly. ‘My lawyer shall, write to Lord Athelston ; it is his duty to look after my interests. I shall accept of nothing but what I have a legal right to.’ Lady Eleanor was silenced, this young person was altogether too much for her ; and so they parted with decidedly colder feelings on the aunt’s part than she had been inclined to entertain for her desolate niece when they had first met. It was Lady Eleanor’s intention to return home the next day, and as she would have to start by an early train, when parting for the night she wished Lady Rowena goodbye. ‘And remember, dear,’ she said, ‘we shall always be glad to welcome you at Pockley, and you can make it your home for any length of time that may suit your convenience.’ Lady Rowena thanked her, and almost warmly, for her offer, and for a moment the poor isolated heart yearned for the love and peace of the quiet country home ; but the weakness was only momentary, and the parting kiss she gave her aunt was cold and uncordial as ca er. Lady Eleanor went downstairs to talk a little over old times to the housekeeper. That good woman mourned, and puzzled her her kindly old heart a good deal at the change that had taken place in Lady Rowena, and what had become of Lord Athelston, but not even to her old friend did Lady Eleanor tell of his engagement to her own daughter, Sybil; she felt as if it would have been almost cruel to refer to such an event under the same roof with Rowena. And Lady Rowena, the proud, cold woman, in the privacy of her chamber, when Mademoiselle Auralie had been dismissed for the night, lay like some stricken animal writhing in its death throes, clenching her hands in her agony till the nails cut the tender skin. Surely, if deadly hate could kill, there would have been wild woe and wailing teat night in the Rectory of Pockley-iu-the-Marsh. Lady Rowena, through her lawyer, firmly refused to accept the two thousand a year urged upon her by her cousin. ‘ She would have nothing,’ she said, ‘ that she had not a legal right to. Whatever ready money her father left, and all his personal property, she felt justified in taking.’ The valuator, who was no less a person than Lord Athelston himself, took a very liberal view of the late lord’s personalities, and the Lady Rowena, none the wiser, found herself the possessor of fifty thousand pounds. One fine morning, early in spring, with little fuss, and without one outward token of the wild grief raging within, the girl left the stately home of her ancestors, never to set her foot within its walls again. Late in the summer Lord Athelston and Sybil were married, and after a pleasant tour through foreign lands, settled down at Morte

d’Athelston. Once again gay voices were he rd in the old park, and the merry laugh of young children sounded through hall and corridor. Some few years afterwards, Lord and Lady Athelston, travelling abroad, and seeing everything that was to bo seen, made their way into one of the many gaminghouses of Baken. The crowd was great, the heat intense, and the eager, unholy faces of the players a sight so sickening to Sybil that she turned away her head, and begged of her husband to bring her out, which he Mid quickly, for in that motley throng he had seen one face, that of a woman, wild and distorted in its lust for gold, and their eyes had met. “I saw you playing like a good one today, Fred,’said Lord Athelston to a friend that evening, ‘ Who was the lady on your right ?’ ‘On my right ? Let me see. Oh ! the little woman who is always so beautifully dressed, only a trifle over-roughed and belladonnaed; not unlike yourself either, old fellow, if some female Mephistopheles had taken possession of you, and turned you into a woman. ’ Lord Athelston winced, ‘ What is her name, do you know ?’ ‘Well, it is doubtful.’ replied Captain Frederick Ward, with a short laugh. ‘Just at present she passes as the Baroness Bloomburgh, and is the property of that wretchedlooking cripple that you meet everywhere wheeled about in a chair. He is very rich, and they say once had the use of his legs, but used them once too often running away with the said lady, when they were neatly picked from under him by the outraged bullet of a Russian Prince, or the bullet of an outraged Russian, whichever way you like to put it. I am inclined to think if the Baron does not look sharp that he will lose his money as well as his legs. She had an awful run of bad luck after you left to-day.’ The Athelstons left Baden rather hurriedly, but Lord Athelston never told his wife what he had seen or heard. That secret was laid beside the one he still carried, hid even from the wife of his love, of what had passed between Rowena and himself on that fatal day in the ruined tower of Morte d’Athelston. Long years afterwards, when one day Lord Athelston was looking over The Times in his usual lazy fashion, he was startled into an amount of life and activity that was perfectly new and unaccountable to his wife, who would have seen nothing in the paper, even if he had shown it to her, jto account for such unwonted energy on his part. But he did not do so, and Lady Athelston watched him pacing up and down the terrace outside the window of their little morning room, without even the usual solace of men’s trouble, a cigar, and with a very unusual look of trouble and perplexity upon his brow. Of course Lady Athelston took up the paper, scanning it from beginning to end. She read many curious announcements and pathetic appeals—lost wives and husbands, sons and daughters, called upon to return to their disconsolate friends; and she read, ‘ Mysterious Occurrence in Paris,’ a young woman’s body recovered from the Seine, and now lying for identification in that hideous receptacle of those who die in sin and misery, ‘The Morgue.’ The paragraph went on to say that the wretched woman, judging by her appearance, was evidently a lady, and that it could hardly have been poverty that had reduced her to commit the rash act, as her dress was of the richest material, and her fingers covered with rings, and that round her neck she wore a blue ribbon with a diamond ring attached to it. Somehow Lady Athelston read this paragraph twice, but still she never connected it with her husband’s mysterious conduct until that gentleman came in and announced to her that he started that evening for Paris. Lady Athelston asked no questions, only a pained anxious look came into the great dark eyes, which Lord Athelston saw, and turning from the door which he was just opening, he came back and took his wife in his arms. ‘ Sybil,’ he said, ‘ trust me ; I cannot tell you now, but some day I shall tell you all.’ And Lady Athhlston did trust him, wholly and entirely, until the day came at last when her husband did tell her everything, from the day when Rowena and he stood alone on the ruined tower, to the day when she was buried out of his sight. And Lord Athelston was glad in his heart he had waited until then, when the fair friend who had wrought such wicked wrong had passed away from the earth, and Sybil knew she could forgive the evil that had brought her so much good. In the meantime, Lord Athelston journeyed to Paris, and there found what he expected to see—the proud Rowena, proud and beautiful no more, a loathsome object to look on, in a vile and loathsome place. He could find out nothing about her, and, truth to say, he did not take much trouble to do so. By money and interest he accomplished all he wanted, and the poor remains were spared the ignominy of a suicide’s grave. In a remote corner, all alone, away from stately mausoleums that testify to the virtues of the rich, and baby graves covered with stiff wreaths of hideous immortelles that tell of the French mother’s love for the baby form that lies smouldering there, stands one grave. No hand comes on fete days to lay a flower on it, nor an everlasting wreath; but in process of time there was put a small white cross, with the single letter R., and the lady who in life had been proud as an empress lies unhonoured and unknown in a lonely grave, in a corner of the great French Garden of Death, Pere-la-Chaise.