LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1253, 25 March 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

TAKEN RED-HANDED. {London Society,] Continued. ‘ And a precious address you’d have got,’ answered Royston ruefully. ‘ They’ve got me down in their books as at Lakelands still.’ ‘ Phew ! ’ whistled out the other, then laughed. ‘Jove, wouldn’t your uncle swear I and he, after driving you out of Lakelands and cutting you off with the traditional shilling four years ago for your Spanish—ahem !—fandangoes ! ’ He looked at his watch, then went on, ‘ Gad, though, I shall miss my train. Say, Roys ton, can’t you run down with me to Chislehurst and dine with a fellow ? This man calling himself Gelasco has written me —’ ‘ ' ’id he mention Nella Fitzgibbon ? ’ ‘He did, and very unpleasantly. We must protect her against schemers.’ ‘Then I’m with you. There’s more in this pursuit than I thought.’ ‘ Trot along then, or we shall be late.’ Away they went up to the Charing-cross Terminus, aud Mastfer William put the two sovereigns in his pocket to keep until—they were called for. * * * * Nella Fitzgibbon was a mystery. How she came to be at Lakelands at all was known only to Mr Royston himself—a dry old man, who did things and left things undone without ever dreaming of explaining the why or the wherefore to his three daughters, unmarried ladies who had faded into confirmed celibacy, because, forsooth, they were too dignified aud proud to stoop to those engaging little mannerisms—nay, ‘ arts’ were too harsh a word—which land many a gay young fe’low in the net matrimonial. They had no mother to bring them up in the [modern] way they should go in search of husbands—result, they were still of the sisterhood of Cologne. ‘Papa,’ Matilda the eldest had said one day, three years before this record opened, ‘ Anna Kerdle is actually going to—o, it is shocking I ’ * The dreadful girl! ’ ‘ Really too shocking ! ’ He looked up at the trio testily. He had a bad attack of the gout, and that malady is no improver of the temper. ‘ Going to do what ? What is shocking ?’ ‘ Well, papa, she is going to—’ All three began to reply, and then stopped. ‘Do go on, one of you, and don’t all speak together like a set of parrots. What is it, Matilda ? ’ ‘To be married! ’

‘Deuced sensible girl too,’ He was just a little fond of snubbing these three daughters of his—‘the candlesticks,’ as they were nicknamed in the region of the Lakes, from their tallness, stiffness, and whiteness of appearance—for he he.d that he was hardly used by them in the matter of a total absence of grandchildren ; and the withering tone in which Matilda had said, ‘To be married ! ’ argued an abhorrence on the part of that lady as though the words had been ‘To be hanged! ’ ‘ But you don’t know who to, papa;’ so, Chorus, in the shape of the other two. ‘ Perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me ? ’

‘ To young Howick, the yeoman! ’ That sealed Anna Kerdle’s fate as lady-housekeeper at Lakelands-she was also [a distant relative of the Roystons —for the old Squire was a fanatic in the point of the mingling of high blood with low blood, of the Squirearchy with Yeomahhood and he sent the three fast fading maidens from the study, in which he was nursing his gout, positively amazed with the vindictive feeling he gave utterance to regarding the degraded Anna. Six weeks afterwards —the office of housekeeper having meanwhile been in commission—a hired carriage from the distant railway station at Ambleside drove up the long wooded avenue at Lakelands, and Mr Royston, receiving the sole occupant with all tbe courtesy due to a lady, presented Miss Nella Fitzgibbon to his daughters as their future companion, who would also relieve them of all further anxiety regarding household matters. She had been recommended, he subsequently told them, by an old friend of his ino less than our florid fdend of Chislehurst); she was a perfect gentlewoman in every respect: she had had misfortunes which, for a time, alienated ho? reason, and therefore she was not to be questioned, directly or indirectly, regarding her belongings or her past. That was all he told ; truly, that was all he knew ; but he did not ccawnunicite that absence of further knowledge to the Misses t?oyston, lest those somewhat aust >re damsels ah quid take heart of grace, and resent the intrusion upon them of a young and handsome person whose aqtoc-dcnts were, to say the least, considerably veiled iu myatery. By preserving the reticence to which they were weR accustomed, old M r Riston at the same time preserved himself from the worry of having questions put to him that he would be unable to answer; and Nella Fitzgibbon epterod upon her new life with a c ©aq bil\ of health, so far as the inhabitants of Lakelands were aware. And she had great tact, had Miss Fitz gibbon, as well aa a shrewd natural capability for mauagiog jtlm household, wJjiQfiL

speedily made her as really the mistress ao though she had been born to that position. The servants respected her, for she was firm, though kind ; while she would permit not a shadow of that familiarity wuich the grovelling tastes —so the Misses put it—of poor Anna Kerdle had rather encouraged than otherwise. All went with the regularity of clockwork; the meals were on the table to the moment; the little wants of the three ladies, who were very delicate in health, were most punctiliously attended to; and the Squire, after a remarkably brief time, declared that Nella was a perfect treasure, and moreover—wonderful praise from him, for he was apt to make the most of the weakest point in the characters of all around him—that she was the first lady he had ever known who combined the best business qualifications with a demeanour that would more than pass muster in a palace. The county families in the neighbourhood said he was in love with the creature; and they, in the ‘ d—d good natured’ vein, secretly warned his daughters that they might wake up some fine morning to find their housekeeper transformed into their stepmama. But the Misses Royston coldly smiled at the folly; Nella, they soon caine to say, was a true honest-hearted lady, and they were glad their papa was as fond of her as they had themselves become. Still, she was a mystery, in the sense that they knew nothing whatever about her, except what she chose to tell them, and that was of the scantiest.

‘ I cannot sing it; O, I cannot sing it! ’ she had cried one evening, rising from the piano—she was a glorious musician, and she was wont, at odd times, to fill the halls of lakelands with floods of grand music—as Priscilla Royston had opened the book at a simple little Spanish song, and had asked Nella to try it. The sisters looked at her in astonishment. Her splendid black eyes streaming with tears, and she left the room sobbing as though her heart would break. ‘ Bless my soul 1’ said Royston, who delighted in the girl’s singing, * what can have affected her ?’

No one couH tell him, no one could guess; so he was fain to content himself with the administration of a sharp rebuke to the innocent Priscilla, and with giving directions that in future no one was to ask Nella Fitzgibbon to perform anything unless she had first done so of her own accord. The next morning she was down, as usual, long before breakfast, and there was not the slightest trac of emotion on her rather full features. After luncheon she volunteered an explanation—she had travelled in 5* pain a few years ago with a very dear friend who used to sing that song; they were parted for ever, and the thoughts of those happy, hap y days had upset her last evening—that was all. Various similar circumstances, orincidents rather, had occurred from time to time, always by sheer accident; but the Roystons soon found that if she was left quite alone on such occasions no actual ‘scene’ took place, and with great delicacy they shaped their conduct accordingly. ne point Nella never approached—the season of her temporary insanity : but yet they could not help observing to one another that th re must be some trace of it sti 1 lingering about the hidden chambers of her mind, for the shadow of some abiding Fate was never entirely abs.nt ftom her angularly expressive features. Nor could the sisters mention to her own peculiar sorrow; for on the only occasion when they had, in womanly fashion, commenced in low tones to speak of it am ngst themselves but in her presence, she became fearfully excited, stopped her ears with her fingers, while she almost shrieked out, he continued .)