LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1453, 12 October 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

DE. CAKRICK. By M. E. Braddon. [Prom “All the Year Round.”] {Continued.)

Chapter 111. — hester finds a friend. The best rooms in St. Hildred House were swept and garnished for Squire Tregonnell. Hester Rushton, who had a natural womanly love of household duty, was in her element while she bustled about, polishing, dusting, and arranging things for the reoeption of an honoured inmate. She caught herself singing at her work that busy morning, with a sense of pleasant expectation that was new and sweet It was a relief to think of a stranger coming to live in that big empty house. Dr Garrick was of so reserved a temper, that Hester seemed no more intimate with him now, after three years’ domestic companionship, than on the day of her aunt’s funeral. She could complain of no unkindness. He never spoke harshly to, even when most troubled in mind. He thanked her courteously for all her attentions ; praised her economies and clever management of his house ; but he gave her none of his confidence. She felt that she knew no more of his heart and mind than if he had been a man of stone. About his new patient Dr Garrick had told his cousin only that ho was a man of wealth and position; that ho was to have the best rooms in the house ; and that his valet was to be made comfortable in the servants’ offices, Hester was more frightened at the idea of the valet than at the grandeur of the master. Happily, Mr Tregonnell’s body servant was not a pampered cockney, corrupted by the luxurious idleness of chambers in the Albany, but a clever handy fellow, used to roughing it on board his master’s yacht, and with a genius for every art that can make the wheels of daily life go smoothly. He was a first rate cook, and an accomplished butler; and took upon himself all those delicate labors which were beyond the power of Dr. Garrick’s maid-of all-work, Mr Tregonnell stayed out the week, and looked considerably better and brighter at the end of it. He spent his mornings in roaming about the cliffs, or riding in the Cornish lanes ; his afternoons in reading; his evenings in the society of Dr. Garrick and Miss Rushton. Hq was a man who had seen men and cities, and read much. His conversation, therefore, was full of interest; and Hester, to whom all intellectual con-ve-sation was new, listened with unvarying delight. It was to be observed, however, that he never talked of himself. The week ended, and Mr Tregonnell had no wish to return to the manor. He now firmly believed in the power of animal magnetism. Nightly, in the silence of his bedchamber, the doctor exercised his potent, but seeming simple art. A steady pressure of his hands upon the shoulders of the patient, a series of mystic passes before the dreamy eyes, and the charm worked. First a new sense of warmth, comfort, and lightness stole through the frame ; then the heavy eyelids drooped involuntarily, the will lost its waking power ; then came deep, prolonged, and restful sleep, bribing healing and regeneration to mind and body. This treatment was known to none save the patient and the physician. David Skelter, the valet, had never been in very close attendance upon his master, who was a man of independent habits, Hia bedroom was on an upper finor, remote from Mr Tregonnell’s apartment, apd the valet saw nothing of his master after ho had arranged his room for the night. Hester Rushton’s idea as to the treatment of the patient were of the vaguest. Dr, Garrick had told her only that Mr Tregonnell required rest and retirement. So the days went on, and Hester’s life took a new color from the presence of a man of intellect and refinement, who treated her as a being of equal intelligence, and opened his mind to her freely on all subjects that were not personal. Of his opinions she knew much, of hinqself very little.

Spring advanced. The blusterous March winds softened into, the gentle breezes of April. St. Bildred house had a good oldfashioned garden, a garden where departed generations had planted homely flowers, which blossomed year after year, unaided by the gardener’s art. Everything about the place had been sorely neglected till Hester came, but this garden was her chief delight. Her household duties occupied her all the morning, but she spent every fine afternoon in the garden—her bright young head bayed to the spring breeze, her clover little bands encased in thick gardening transplanting, weeding, pipping, pruning, with skill that would done credit to a professed gardener. Labor was cheap at St. Bildred,, amt for sixpence a day she could gs;!j a boy to mow the grass and roll the gravel walks once a week or so ; an extravagance which the doctor hardly approvedMr Tregmnell’s sitting • roejn looked into the garden. One wasta afternoon, towards the close of May, he threw aside his book, and wanii downstairs to join Hester, who, waa budding a rose on the lawp. ‘How fond you seem to be of this garden of yours, Miss Rushton,’ he said at her elbow. His footfall had been noiseless on thick soft grass, and his speech startled-'mr. The cheek —turned a little from him but not so far but that ho o.culd see its <hange of color—flushed crimson, and the scissors shook in her Wfd. ‘ How yep, startled me ! ? she rxclaimod. ‘You' clon’t knpw what a critic*! business buddipg is.’ ‘lt looks rather like a surgi a - operation. Did Dr. Carrick teach ‘ Dr. Carrick 1’ launheci pester. * I don’t think he knows, a rose rom a dandelion, except when h* uses theiriu medicine. No ; it WO». « dear, deaf old gardener in Heriwho taught ne, years and years a p).' ‘Years and years ago,’ echoed Mr Trcgonuell, ‘ What a« eternity of time you seem to express by that phrase. Pray how many ccntmjieq old, may you be,, Miss. Kushton V

‘ In actual years I believe I am twentyfive/ answered Hester, smiling ; ‘ but I feel dreadfully old. I suppose it is because I have known a great deal of sorrow. I don’t mean to complain. Indeed, I should be very wicked if I did ; for my aunt Hedger and my cousin Garrick have been very good to me ; but it is hard to lose those one fondly loves in the morning of life.’ ‘ It is,’ assented Mr Tregonnell earnestly. ‘ I have known that loss, Miss Eusht m, and it has made me what you see -a man without aim or purpose in life—a mere waif to drift about in a yacht, buffeted by the winds and waves, and caring very little what port I put into, or whether I go down some stormy night in mid ocean, unlamented and unknown. And you, too, have drawn a mournful lot out of the urn, have you, little one ?’ ‘ I lost my father and mother when I was fourteen. They both died in the same week. Dear, dear papa was a curate in a Bedfordshire village. A fever broke out, and he took it, and then mamma. It was all like a dreadful dream. In a week they were gone, and I was alone with two coffins. Then aunt Hedger sent for me, and I iived with her. She was old and ailing when I went to her. Her life seemed like one long illness, and then the end came, and I was alone again. I haven’t the least idea what would have become of me if cousin Garrick had not asked me to come and take care of his house.’ ‘You are very much attached to Dr Garrick, I suppose,’ said Mr Tregonnell, looking at her searchingly. He was wondering whether any hidden evil lurked beneath this outward simplicity ; whether the relations between the doctor and his cousin were pure and free from guile. ‘He has been very good to me,’ answered Hester innocently. ‘ And you like him very much, no doubt. ’ ‘I like him as much as he will let me. He is my benefactor I should be base and ungrateful if I did not honor him. I do, for his kindness to me, and for his patience and fortitude, and skill in his profession. I see how much good he does. But he is as much a stranger to me now as when first I crossed the threshold of his house. It is his nature to live alone. This speech made Mr Tregonnejl thoughtful. He remembered a line of Schiller’s : Fear all things in which there is an unknown depth. Yet what had he to fear from Dr Garrick? All the doctor could possibly desire from him was liberallpayment for service rendered, and to have his praises sounded in the neighborhood by a grateful patient. Mr Tregonnell had already pressed a cheque for a hundred pounds upon the doctor’s acceptance, and he found it difficult to persuade him to receive so large a fee. There was to all appearance no desire to take advantage of his natural recklessness. Henceforward it became quite a usual thing for Mr Mr Tregonnell to loiter in the garden, while Hester worked with her pruning-scissors or trowel. He even volunteered his assistance, but Hester laughed at his offer, and declined such clumsy help. They became very confidential during those sunny afternoons : Hester telling the doctor’s patient all about her happy childhood, and sad girlhood, freely confessing her want of education, and her ardent desire to learn. Mr Tregonnell rode over to the manor one morning to select a heap of volumes for her instruction, and ordered them to be sent to St Hildred House the same day. Ho took as much pains to choose books that would at once arouse her interest as if he had been a father catering for a favorite child. Sometimes, when the fair May afternoons were especially tempting, he insisted upon Hester’s going down to the beach with him ; and they idled together upon the rugged strand, picking up masses of many coloured seaweed, watching the black cormorants perching on the rocky pinnacles, and listening to the great strong voice of the sea. It was altogether a new life for simple Hester Rushton, but the firm fresh young mind was in no wise injured by the association. The clever litde housekeeper performed her daily tasks just as diligently as of old. The eager young student, to whom all the world of intellect was new, only applied herself to her books when her domestic duties were done. (To he continued.)