LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1563, 21 February 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LADY CHAEMEIGH’S DIAMONDS. L“ London Society.”] Chapter I. Sir Peter Charmeigh had warned his wife more than once that she would be robbed of her diamonds if she was not more careful to lock them up, The newspapers were chronicling great jewel robberies at this time; and Sir Peter one day emphasised his warnings by bringing home from London a fine ebony strong-box, with the most adorable of gold keys attached as a pendant to a bracelet, This pretty gift quite delighted Lady Charmeigh, who convoked all her acquaintances lo the Hall fosieher wonderful antiburglar. A description of it somehow got into the county papers. It was of globular shape, about the size of a big schoolroom globe, and mounted in the same fa-hion on a stand with a pivot. An ingenious mechanism, which had to be wound up every morning, kept it spinning round all day at the rate of thirty revolutions a minute, and any attempt to cheik it in its course resulted in the ringing of a loud alarum. The way to stop it was to press with the foot a nob on one of the legs of the stand, and when it had ceased revolving, to form a word with some movable letters set in a circular plate at the top of the globe. After th's it was all plain sailing You had only to insert the gold key in a cavby of the middle letter, which formed a keyhole to give one turn to the right, and two to the left, and then the box opened of itself into two ha’ves, each forming a receptacle fall of compartments lined with blue velvet There was a place for rings, another for bracelet*, a third for tiaras, one for money and so forth ; and all were perfectly adapted to their special uses. In fact, it ■was a beautiful box, and Lady Charmeigh spent a most amusing week in experimenting on it before her friends, who knew not whether to admire it most when it spun round snd round, making its steel incrustations flash in the light, or when it stood open revealing a wealth of trinkets almost unmatched, for the ‘ Charme'gh diamonds’ were fam uis from London to Amsterdam. Unfortunately I ady Charmeigh was one of those persons who soon tire of a new toy. A pretty littlo woman with large earnest blue eyes and a smiling month, she had in many things the ways of a petted child, and could not hear tr üble nor contradiction. So long as her ssfe gave her amusement, she scrupulously locked up her jewels in it; hut when the novelty had worn off and it be came a question of touching a nob, forming a word, and turning a key once to the right and twice to the left every time she wanted to get out a ring or a locket, she began to find the process troublesome. Sir Peter made things worse by solemnly winding up the mechanism himself every morning and lecturing upon its perfections, He was as proud of the safe as if he was the inventor, and took an altogether professional pleasure in polishing its steel work with a piece of wash leather and explaining how the key should be turned, with a little push forward to start some hidden spring about which he was very learned. Sir Peter was a rather fidg- ty middle-aged gentleman, with a fat face, and there were times when, hearing him prose about the bemti-s of machinery, Lady Charmeigh felt inclined to sit down and scream. Be ides, there was another cause of irritation. The talisrnanic word necessary to open this precious strong box altered every day of the week, so that Lady Charmeigh, who had a defective memory, was constantly making mistakes. She spelt ‘ Jupiter’ when it ought to have been ‘ Mercury. ’ and finding the box would not cease its spinning, tried to stop it with her small hands ; whereupon it would set up a yelling with its alarum frke that of a peevish beast molested. Any one who knows what a pretty woman’s nerves are will quite understand how, at the end of a fortnight Lady Charmeigh came to hate her strong box with an intense and unquenchable loathing. The very sound it made in revolving, a well-oiled purring sound, w as odious to her ; and if it had not been for her maid, who took as great a delight in the instrument as Sir Peter did, ladyCha r meigh w uld have left off locking up her jewelry in it. and practised somelittle deceit towards her husband ; but every time she forgot to lock up a trinket, Martha (or Patty) Baggies, her maid, would exclaim, ‘ 0. my lady, think of what Sir Peter would say if he knew you left those jools a lyin’ about, and he so afeared of burglera 0, my goodness!’ Patty was herself very much afraid of thieves. She was a simp’e good-natured country wench, who had lived a little while with Lady Charmeigh before the latter's marriage: and who, having spent five years in her service since, had become expert at hair-dressing, lace-ironing, and dress-making — more bo than at speaking elegant English. Her colloquiali ms were vulgar, but her heart was sound, and her mistress was very fond of her ; for, indeed, Lady Charmeigh liked all people who were good natur d and did not tease her, and b >re her occasional outbreaks of bad temper with philosophy. However, there were some tiffs between her ladyship and the maid respecting that strong-box. Lady Chrrmeigh thought Patty too officious about it, and reminded her rather tartly that when the box had first come into the house she—Patty had been horribly r.fraid of it as of a live thing. This was perf ctlv true; but we grow accustomed to Drugs we had at first disliked ; and Patty had made friends with the ‘Jive’ box, as she might with a snappish d g who had proved tractable on closer acquaintance There was even something pathetic in her artless ao miration of its strength and heantms ; and as the girl was right to advise her mi-tress to be cautious about jewels of so gr at price, ( ady Charmeigh gave up quarrelling about tho matter. Only it so chanceo that Patty went home for a month’s holiday to keep house for a married sister who was ill ; and then Lady Charmeigh took an easy opportunity of removing all her trinkets from the safe, unknown to her husband, aud restoring them to her drawers,

Sir Peter continued to wind up the safe gravely every morning; but there was nothing in it. Mow: i 5 was about a week after this little daily farce had begun to be enacte 1 —a week, that is. after Patty Vdeparture—when Charmeigh Hall became the aeon® of a memorable burglary which furnished a month’o tabletalk to every mansion in England. One November evening, while Sir Peter was entertaining twine of his brother mag'strates and their wives at dinner, Lady Charrneigh s dressing r -om was entered by means of a ladder placed under a window that h'okei into the garden, and tFe safe, the furious safe, was broken open like a walnut. The burg’ars must have commenced opeMtiona very s .on after the company sat clown to dinner, and they must have been amazingly quick about tlu-ir work; for it was no later than eight when a housemaid entering the room surprised them, and gave instant alarm by screaming and falling down in hysterics. The burglars decamped with alacrity ; and the company, at racted by the.noise, hurried upstairs, preceded by Sir Peter, with his mouth fall and a napkin in one hand. It was a singular sight Ladies shivering in their dinner dresses, and huddling close to gentlemen in evening cio lies ; Lady Charmeigh herself, pale with terror, and crossing her hands over the low body of her cerise dress, as if afraid that some robbers would snatch at the lovely pea l l necklace which she wore round her throat; and then fat Sir Peter, who looked as if he wished he had brought a poker with him instead of the napkin, which was not much of a weapon to tight with in case of assault. There was a moment’s anxious silence when the door of the dressing-room was reached ; and then a very shout of anguish escaped from Sir Peter, who tottered with sudden faintness : ‘Gn at heavens, the safe Ins been ransacked, and all the jewels have been stolen ! ’ ‘The Charmeigh diamonds stolen ! ’ This dismayed cry was echoed by the entire company, including footmen, butler, cook, and housemaids, grouped at the top of the staircase in attitudes expressive of consternation. The butler felt so had that he sat down on the stairs to compose himself, and the tallest of the pair of housemaids tried to soothe him. * O dear, dear 1 * cried Lady Charmeigh ; and she too being overcome, staggered into the room, and sank on an ottoman. ‘ Poor thing ! ’ exclaimed a certain Lady Vi ions, who was her best friend, and had had a'waya envied her the possession of these diamonds. ‘Poor dear! perhaps the thieves will be caught with their plunder. Let us hope so ! ’ ‘ Never ! ’ yelled Sir Peter, mopping the dew of emotion off his face with the napkin. ‘ Those are never caught; they got clean away, and have the diamonds recat in Holland. Think of that! Diamonds which have been in my family for two centuries, and worth a hundred thousand pounds at least! ’ Something like a sob accompanied these words,

‘lt is indeed a loss!’ ejaculated Lady Vilious, with, a great show of sympathy; but there was a gham in her eyes She was a mincing sort of lady, with thin lips and a cold glance. By this time everybody had crowded into the dressing-room. Tim chill night air blowing through the open window struck upon the bare shoulders of the ladies; the wax-candles flickered; some of the gentlemen craned out of the window, peering through the darkness for sight or sound of of the retreating thieves, One of them hallooed because he espied a cat. Most of those present, however, concentrated their attention upon the impenetrable safe which had yielded so ignominiously to a first attack. It had evidently been burst, and not left open accidentally by Lady Charmeigh, as Sir Peter at first suspected ; for it bore marks of violence, The thieves must have got possession of the secret for stopping its rotation, since the alarum had not been sonnded; but they had faded to form the word which marie the lock act, and so they had simply prised the two halves of the safe apart with their crowbars. There stood the globe open, and void of everything except a small portrait of Sir Peter on enamel, which the thieves had the bad taste not to regard as valuab’e. For the rest, they seemed to have laid hand on every trinket, large or small ; and thus the disaster was revtaled as being so big that Sir Peter’s visitors felt as if common expressions of sympathy would be mockery. Even the plumper and older squires, who were disgusted at having been roused from dinner between the fish and entrees, recognised that there are conjunctures in which a host may be pardoned for forgetting that th‘ re are still two courses t> discuss. They surround, d Lady Charmeigh, whom they naturally imagined to be plunged in an abyss of grief —one of the wor-t griefs that a pretty woman can know ; for diamonds are not only precious in themselves, but they are dewdrops on feminine beauty, and help to make it shine, Judge, then, of the surprise of the assemblage when her ladyship, who appeared to be sobbing with her face buried in her handkerchief, suddenly looked up, her features being aglow with merriment, and burst into an incontrollable fit of Lug ter. The guests glanced at one another, thinking she must have lost her reason; but when peal after p c al had rung out from her pretty mouth, without evoking one responsive smile, she checked herself, aud rose, blushing but still amused.

‘ Excuse me, I know it’s very wrong/ she said ; ‘ but the fact is my jewels have not been stolen at all. See here/ and unlocking the glass door of her wardrobe, she pointed to a multitude of velvet and shagreen cases lyina all unharmed upon the shelves. ‘ What, you had not put them in the safe, them?’ exclaimed Sir Peter, divided between inten e relief and annoyance that his orders had not been obeyed. ‘ No ; I though it would be unsafe to do so/ said Lady Charmaigh, with a fresh laugh. * Everybody has been talking sa much of my strong-box that I felt convinced its secrets must have become matters of notoriety; so I reasoned that if burglars broke into the house they would spend ail their efforts on the safe, without exploring elsewhere. And it seems I was right. ‘ Bravo 1 ’ ejaculated Lady Charmeigh’s cousin, Dick Lester, a Hussar. ‘By Jove, that’s what I call good tactics, cousin.’ And so said all the other gentlemen, with applauding murmurs. ‘ And do you mean to say there was nothing whatever in the box ? ’ asking Sir Peter, who could scarcely believe he had a wife of so much wit ‘ Nothing of consequence ; I had removed all my treasures/ answered my lady. ‘You forget your husband’s portrait, my dear/ remarked LadyYilious, who had been smiling yellow, as the French say. ‘ 0, I left that in the box, so as to be able to say truthfully that it did contain something precious/ replied Lady Oharmeigh, with ready tact; but she mentally scored down her good friend for reprisals on the earliest opportunity. ‘ Well, ail I can say is that you deserve to be made keeper of the Crown jewels, cousin Amy/ cried Captain Dick, with genuine admiration, ‘ You have found out the true uses of safes.’ ‘ Yes, to put nothing in them/ smiled Lady Charmeigh. ‘ And now let us go back to dinner; I am really ashamed that our appetites should have been spoiled for nothing.’ 'I hey did return to dinner, some with appetites rather renovated than impaired ; and the talk at table was all ah rut the ingenuity and sense which the winsome hostess had displaced, not only in taking her measures against burglars, i ut in keeping hi r counsel about them. In the course of the evening fervants we r e despatched to give information to the p lice, and detectives were sent alield, who of course discovered nothing, after the mariner of ihei> kind, though they went to work with sapient looks and handfuls of ‘ clues ’ Daring a whole fortirght however, the papers discussed the great burglary at Charmeigh Hall, and Lady Charmeigh was complimented on her ‘ happy thought ’ She became quite a her due, renowned among fair women as a type of the prudent chatelaine . I To be Continued.)