LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2038, 4 September 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A JUNE LOVE STORY. [From “London Society.”] ( Continued.) In the meantime Miss Carlyle had rejoined young An«dell in the garden. She looked wonderfully charming in her dress of cream-coloured serge, with a broad black sash tied round her slender waist; a garden hat of what, I believe, is called the Mother Hubbard shape, on her bright ha’r ; and with the flush the perusal of Gerald Calthorp’s letter had called np still lingering on her cheek.

She was very angry with him, partly because she felt she had laid harself open to his strictures, partly beoanse she was indignant at the line of conduct he hinted at his being likely to pursue when they were mar-ied.

When they were married ! Till about a week ago Nina had fancied she had grown quite accustomed to the idea of being Mr v'althorp’s wife; to-day she simply felt an intense repugnance to it. She thought to herself it was only because of the letter, and the persistent way in which her mother, and now Cicely, referred her every action to the test of ‘Would Gerald like it.’ In her secret soul she chafed at the certain lordliness which she had began to perceive through the unexceptional and affectionate bearing of her lover towards her. Would this have been the ease had she real’y been in love with him ? If he had really loved her, would aught have appeared in his bearing that could have irked a girl who loved him ? Nina had never asked herself either of these questions, but since she had come to stay with her newly-married sister she had vaguely wondered if she would ever feel as free and confident from misconstruction with Gerald Calthorp as Cicely did with Arthur Hilton.

At this moment she only felt that she hated the idea of ever yielding herself and her freedom to a man who spoke of her with the critically patronising tone of Mr Calthorp’s epletle to Cicely, and she turned with relief to the person in whose eyes all she did seemed right, the young man waiting for her on the lawn with eyes that brightened at the sound of her step. ‘ldon’t think I want to play tennis this morning,’she said to him. ‘Let’s go and eat strawberries.’

Sidney assented readily'enough. Even an ardent devotee of lawn-tennis,' who is also three-and-twenty and in love, may prefer picking and eating strawberries with his lady to playing tennis with her. At tennis one is forced to keep a certain distance from the adversary, who bits abont the ball and the heart at the same time ; while in strawberry-gathering a delicious proximity to fruit and mistress seems part of the situation.

Such was somewhat the current of Sidney Anadell’s ideas on this June morning j and perhaps his pleasure was sweeter becanse of its utter foolishness.

He chose to forget that the girl he loved was engaged to another man, and, as he thought, heedless of him and bis passion, and to enjoy the present as he knelt among the strawberry beds by Nina’s side. ‘ Doubtless God might have made a better berry, but doubtless he never did,’ said Nina, as when they had feasted royally and made fearful havoc among the British Queens, she rose from her stooping posture with fingers as rosy as those of Eos herself. ‘Mr Ansdell, have you had enough ? I haven’t. I propose we gather some in a cabbage leaf and eat them under the ash at the top of the knoll; but we shan’t have any appetite left for lunch. ’

Of course Sidney was agreeable, and when they had collected enough fruit, they rambled up the little grassy assent at the end of tho garden, and sitting down under the great cool boughs of the ash tree, took their ease in the jammer noon. Above their heads there was heard the trembling ripple and glad gush of a thrush’s note, and as they listened to that song, fresher and more gladsome, if less passionfraught, than the nightingale’s, their eyes looked far away at the silvery seas of the unraown hay fields, seen through the limpid shivering haze of June. Neither Nina nor Sidney spoke much : he had given himself np to the charm of the present, and she would have done the same, had not a vague trouble weighed on her and dulled her enj 'yment. ‘Mr Ansdell,’ said Nina at last, * I wonder— ’

‘Yes?’ Sidney’s bright earnest face turned to hers. There was some force in his look which made her shrink and hesitate.

‘ Nothing,’ she said ; then added recklessly in a rather unreal tone, wnich, if any one who accused her of flirting had been present, would have confirmed his opinion, ‘lf yon were married, would you want obedience from your wife V He looked puxzled. She was anxious to learn his answer ; it came slowly. ‘I don’t know.’

‘That is frank, at all events,’ she ssid with a jarring laugh, *lt means you would. Men are all alike. They make laws for us women, and then call us unwomanly if we refuse to obey them.’ ‘I think you are wrong,’ he answered quietly. ‘No man worth anything would want obedience to himself as himself. ’ *

‘Oh!’ answered Nina ironically, yet in. terosted. ‘ What would he want, then ?’

‘ Obedience to right as right, both for him self and her.’

‘ T don’t quite understand.’ The girl’s face softened, and she leant a Little forward.

She had affected to speak of Sidney as a hoy to Cicely, but she had never thought of him as one.

She knew him to be simple and unselfish strong and tender and true; bnt she had never respected him quite aa much as she did now, never felt the strange submission and stranger rebellion that now were warring in her heart. ‘ I think, ho tried to explain, * that they would both try to yield obedience to right, aad try to help each other to yield it. I’m awfully bad at expressing it, but surely you know what I mean.’ ‘Ah, yea,’ said Nina, trying to be sarcastic, and failing woefully. ‘ Like the end of the “ Princess. ” ’

Sidney had not quite passed the stage when clever young men are apt to quote poetry. ‘ Do you remember the last lines ? be said. She made no answer, and he repeated gravely, his eyes fixed on the shining fields,

• " In true marriage lies Nor equal nor unequal : each fulfils Defe -t in each; and always thought in thought, Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow The single pure and perfect animal. The two-celled heart beating, with one full stroke, Life.' ”

Nina was silent; the beauty of the words, the tones of the speaker’s voice, had thrilled and vibrated through her. Yes. she could understand the loveliness of such marriage as this ; but would her and Gerald Calthorp’s future rea’iae it ?

For a moment she felt sick and stunned as the whole truth burst upon her : she did not love the man she had promised to marry, and—

Sidney’s voice broke npon her thought, as it were answering It. * Miss Carlyle—Nina—can you recollect the words that end the poem ? May I say them ?’ Yes, she remembered them :

‘lndeed I love thee; come Yield thyself up ; my hopes and thine are

one : Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself ; Lay thy sweet hands in mine, and trust to me.’

But he must not say them ; she was bound to Gerald Calthorp. She turned to Sidney ; she saw his face transformed by the might of a yonng man’s love, reverent, e’ger, passionate with hope and fear. She was angry with the world and herself, so turned fiercely on him. ‘ How can yon ?’ she said. ‘ How can you ? You know I am not free.’

Her voice quivered; she rose and passed swiftly down the green turf path leading to the house, trembling and wretched, and yet with a thrill of wild passionate happiness at her heart, snch as she had never known before and did not care to analyse, Sidney did not follow her. Perhaps, If he had understood the feeling which prompted the indignant reproach of her words he would not have let them pass without a reply. But ho did not feel himself free from blame, and so be sat there, when Nina had gone, thinking he knew his fate at last, and that he had been a fool from the first.

Chapter 111. ‘O, I wish—l wish I knew what to do!’ Nina was sitting alone in’her room by the side of her bed. The late afternoon sunshine shone in through the creeper-framed window of the pretty, purely fresh, little chamber, and fell on the girl’s fair face and white dressing gown and the bright hair which lay on her shoulders in shining ripples. Miss Carlyle ought to have been dressing for dinner; but she had for the moment forgotten that duty of civilised life in the doubt and distress which filled her mind. It was the first moment she had had to herself since Sidney had tried to tell her of his love. All the afternoon Cicely had monopolised her, and now she was trying to collect her thoughts and recover from the stunned feeling of everything being a dream. It seemed such a long time since she had left Sidney that morning in the garden. Was he unhappy ? she wondered He could not be more so than she was. What was she to do ? She could not leave Parley ; if she did, it would attract so much remark that she would be sure to let out the truth. Yet how could she go on meeting him and talking to him with the memory of those minutes under the ash tree in both their minds ?

She could not break her wprd to Mr Caltborp—that would be wrong and dishonourable ; but as matters now stood, she was deceiving him. Could she tell him all the truth and let him decide ? Oh no ; anything were better than that.

But Sidney! She knew now that life spent by his side, for his sake, would have had a new sweetness. She had determined not to think of him ; hut for all her efforts his face was still before her, his voice still rang in her ears, the thought of him was dominant in her mind. Wonld it always be so ? When she was married to Gerald Calthorp. would she still be haunted by the strong idea of Sidney Ansdell, who had loved her, whom she conld have —whom she did love ?

The second bell startled her from her dreary self-questioning. She sprang np twisted her loose hair into a thick coil, hastily donned her evening drees of soft smoke grey muslin, and fastening a cluster of many hned sweet peas at her breast with a knot of black velvet, she ran swiftly down the low stairs to the drawing room, * I . thought Sidney was dining here tonight,’ said Mr Hilton, as he 1 helped the aonp. j ‘ He sent up a note to say he oonld not,’ answered Cicely. * I don’t know why. Rather rude of him, I think.’ As had been hinted, Nina bad a bad trick of blushing, and her brother-in-law saw that her face took a colour as vlvid|as that of the rosy sweet peas on her drees. He drew his own conclusions.

Dinner was less cheerful than it generally was at Farley. Nina seemed either feverishly bright or desponding ; and Cicely was pondering in her brain the idea of a tennisparty she meant to give when Mr Calthorp arrived, so was unusually silent.

By the time coffee and fruit had been discussed in the verandah, to which they always adjourned after dinner, the sunset in the west had paled, and cleared to soft depths of mellow amber, through which shone the first lucent stars.

‘ I shall taka a stroll with my cigar,’ said Mr Hilton at last. ‘ Will either of you accompany me ?’ His wife shook her head.

‘ After such a broiling day as this.’ she said, ‘ one is glad* to rest in peace. Will yon go, Nina ?’ ‘I am tired,’ Miss Carlyle answered, and it was the truth.

Arthur Hilton lit his cigar, and, donning a wideawake, strolled slowly along the garden path, and, opening a white gate, passed into the dewy fields. He had sauntered some way under the shadowy elms in the fast-falling dusk, when he saw, a little way off, a small red spark, it was natural to conjecture came from a cigar. ‘ Hallo, Sid, is it yon ? Why didn’t yon come np to dinner ?’

Young Ausdell murmured something confusedly about a • deuce of a headache, no use to anyone like that,’ and moodily strolled along by Mr Hilton’s side. ‘ Comes of reading too hard, ’ said Arthur laconically. Sidney laughed rather wretchedly. ‘You are wrong there ; I haven’t touched a law book for the last fortnight. ’ ‘So,’ thought Arthur,

‘ “ My only books were women’s looks, And folly all they taught me. ” ’

But he kept his reflections to himseif. * I’m sorry you didn’t put in an appearance/ be said. ‘ You might have brightened ns. As it was, I was like that little boy In the fable, who asked all the animals to play with him, and couldn’t find any who would. ’ ‘ I shouldn't have been very lively/ *At all events you would have been some one to speak to. Cicely is on hospitable thoughts intents, and hasn’t a word to throw to a dog or her husband, and as to Nina—’ ‘ Isn’t Miss Carlyle well ?’ In spite of Sidney’s efforts there was something guilty and conscious in his voice. ‘What has he been up to?’thought Mr Hilton. ‘Hanged if I don’t believe he’s proposed to her!’ ‘ Not very, he answered. ‘ She says it is the heat; but lam inclined to ascribe both yours and her indisposition to the same cause ; a too liberal indulgence in British Queens.’ ‘Ho you object ?’ ‘Not I, my dear boy. Strawberries are plentiful, and I’m not your keeper or Nina’s. The latter individual doesn’t arrive till next week.’ Silence, only broken by the slow regular footfalls of the two men and the rustle of the breeze through the dark leaves above their heads. ‘Hilton, I’m the most miserable beggar on the face of the earth,’ burst out Sidney abruptly. ‘ Is Oalthorp the cause?’ ‘ Yes, confound him, or myself, or—or—he’s not to blame, I suppose. I’ve only myself to thank.’ The tone was so miserable, Arthur felt heartily sorry for the young man by his side. ‘ls it so bad?’ he asked kindly, and the full warm sympathy of bis voice touched Sidney. {To le continued.