LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2052, 21 September 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A TALE OF BLOOD. By James Pays. Concluded. ‘My name is Percival Fendall, sir. A man taat boasts better blood than you, inasmuch as ho can coant a generation beyond yon.’ This reply, intended to be satirical, was an inspiration, and had qnito the contrary effect to what he had expected ; he had accidentally protected himself as it were by this interposition of the other’s fetish, «s though it had been a shield. ‘ By Jove, thaft true,’ said Sir Geoffrey, regarding him with undisguised admiration ; ‘ you’re the eleventh of us, though not quite in the direct line ; I am glad you appreciate the circumstance at its full value; I had been told by a mischievous fellow that you had been thinking of spelling our name with a capital F. ’

‘That would be blasphemy indeed,’said Percival, with moving a muscle. ‘Of course it would,’ put in the baronet eagerly ; • I perceive that my informant was a liar; you are worthy of your name, and you were only joking—though let me observe that I don’t like such jokes - when you talked of being engaged to this Miss Lake ’ ‘Blake, sir, is her name,’ continued'Peroival, with unruffled calm. ‘lt is a very decent one, though she doesn’t spell it with two little bs; she Is a delicate minded, honorable gentlewoman, and I mean to marry her. ’ * What, without my consent? ’ * No, Sir Geoffrey ; I hope, with your consent ; yon have only to see her, and I venture to think you will confess that Miss the young lady in blua, whom you were so good as to recommend to me—cannot hold a candie to her.’

‘But her blood, sir? Yon, of all men, should, understand the importance, the necessity, the indispensability -•—’ The baronet supplied in expression and gesture what was wanting to him in words, ‘ldo, Sir Geoffrey. Science has lately corroborated yonr opinion upon that point. To persons about to marry it recommends the microscope. Mary’s blood shall be subjected to investigation.’ ‘What nonsense yoa talk! As if it could be blood like ours! Beware how you trifle —or rather how yc* venture beyond trifling —with persona of this class. Abot on the ’scutcheon, remember, is ineradicable.’

‘lf a Fendall were to break his word. Sir Geoffrey, would not that be a blot on the scutcheon ? ’

It was cruel of Peroival ti place hia kinsman on the horns of such a dilemma. But

there is no fetish so utterly illogical- and, to say the truth, so selfish and egotistical—as that of blood.

* The promise was extracted from yon by passion,’ answered the old man, ‘and is therefore invalid. ’

Then, as if aware of the monstrosity of this position, he went hurriedly on—as after one has skimmed over thin ice—to paint the horrors of an unequal marriage.

‘ Look at young Lascelles; if he had married as bis uncle wished him he might have stood for the county—a man whose ancestry is only second to our own, bat who chose to throw himself away upon a female nobody—respectable I dare say she may be Her father lives in Baker street, and is of the name of Jones. What was the result of it all ? Why, young Lascelles was compelled to walk the hospitals.’ If ho had been made to walk the plank it is impossible that Sir Geoffrey could have spoken of the fact with more sincere compassion for the young man’s unhaapy fate. ‘I know Lascelles,’said Peroival cheerfully ; I he lives close to Blakes ’ ‘Very likely,’ put in Sir Geoffrey, drily. ‘ And has already acquired a good practice, ’ continued the young man. ‘ He told me he is |mnch happier [than when he was rubjected to bis uncle’s whims and caprices.’ This was a home thrust. Sir Geoffrey seized the bell-rope to summon the footman to show bis kinsman the door, but by the time the menial entered his master’s passion had cooled down. He only said, ‘ Make np the fire.’ The fact was that the notion of that extra generation which Peroival had boasted of bad seized on what the old baronet ‘ called his mind,’ and placed the young man in a position of positive superiority. ‘Look here. Peroival,’ he said, ‘just to oblige you I’ll see this young woman, and if I’m dissatisfied with her yon must promise me to break off your engagement.’ *lt is impossible that you should be dissatisfied with her,’ said Feicival gallantly, but evasively. The old gentleman had got an idea—rather an nnusual event with the Feudally—and hence it was the more to be regretted that it was unworthy of them. If he found this Mary Blake so ‘ honorable and delicate-minded’ as Peroival had described, ha might work upon her fee'inga by representing that she was mining the young man’s prospects ; if, on the other hand, she was mercenary he might buy her off. Accordingly, in duo course Sir Geoffrey came np to London, and an interview was arranged between himself and Mary ; after which Percival received the following letter ;

1 My dear Cousin, —Love has not blinded you, for I grant that the young person is very good looking, but it has dulled your sense of hearing. Mies B. drops her h’a—one h I can swear to ; it was in * hospital. ’ This is not her fault, of course, but her mis fortune. It is in the blood. If you marry her—being what she is, and can’t help being —you shall never have one acre of the fiiendell land, nor one shilling of the jffiendell money. * Yours faithfully, ‘ G. ff.’ The old baronet would not have dared to write this but that he had, os ha flitterel himself, won over poor Mary to his side. He had painted to her the splendid prospects that awsited Peroival, but which her marriage with him would dissipate Lr ever ; and had appealed to her love itself to discat d her lover.

He did not effect what he had hoped, but yet succeeded only too well. The thought that she would be the cause of her Percival’a future being destroyed, preyed on ber mind and produced a dangerous illness. Peroival was heartbroken, and had only just spirit enough left to direct an envelope to Sir Geoffrey, enclosing a piece of his mind. It was an ugly fragment, and thus concluded —* If through your infernal egotism my Mary dies, I will take out lette.s patent and change the idiotic name of ffiendell to Bullock- Smithy. ’ Sir Geoffrey was reduced to despair by this frightful menace. In the meantime poor Mary got weaker and weaker, and nad hemorrhage from the lungs, or more probably the heart. The blood of the Biases, though of an inferior fluid, was necessary to her existence, and she was rapidly sinking. Dr Lascslles, who was called in consultation, said —‘ There i : only one thing that can save this young lady’s life. We must try transfusion.’ The other doctor —who was of the old school—shook his head as only doctors can.

Dr Lasoelles understood at once, from the great significance of the gesture, that he had never so much as heard of the operation. * I felt sure you would agree with me,’ he said, with the sweet smile that had won his way to professional success, for hia practice lay chiefly among the ladies ; ‘ you remember Playfair’s directions, without doubt ?’ And he told him what they were. ‘ One of ns two must sustain this ebbing life. ’ • I think it had better be you,’ returned the other hastily ; * there’s nothing like new blood—l mean young blood.’ * True ; I am young and strong ; I can’t see a beautiful creature like this slipping through our hands.’ And ha bared his arm to the other’s lancet. ’ Two months afterwards Sir Geoffrey received the following letter from Percival, written under compulsion at his wife’s dictation : ‘Dear Cousin, —Actuated by feelings of passion, which, as yon yourself once justly remarked, renders one’s actions invalid, 1 addressed you a communication, some time ago, the terms of which I regret. When the blood of the ffiendells is up they are apt to express themselves strongly - and you are the last man (except me) not to make allowance for the fact. I am thankful to say my dearest Mary has been raised from her bed of sickness, and is now—l had almost written “ herself again; ” but though she Is as well as ever, this is not the case. She has in a ▼try singular, though perfectly scientific manner, become somebody else. She has

undergone the operation of transfusion at the hands -or rather the arm—of Cavendish. Lascdles, whose noble blood, to use the words of the poet, now “cmrses through her veins.” One has so often heard of persona who are ready to shed the last drop of their blood for this or that, and so seldom seen them shed even the first drop, that yo» may have pat them down in the same category with ghosts; but I saw this with my own eyes (for Percival hid been present at the operation;*, and can swear to it. I owe a debt to Lssoelles which I can never repay, for he brought back to life the dear girl I married yesterday. Both she and I are well convinced that oor union will have yenr approbation, since the sole objection you had to it has been removed—by transfusion. By Hrth, it is true, she is still a liUke, bat by blond she is a Lascefies. ‘With our united kind regards, I am, yours truly, ‘ Percival stibkdeil. ’ Poor Bir Geoffrey, thus confronted not only with a dilemma, tut an anomaly, was at his wit’s end —which was at no great distance. In this extremity he ccnsulted his oracle l an ancirnt nurse, who had dwelt in the houtehold almost for thnt term of years scouted by Mr Thoms, and who biliaved in the fliendells first and Providence afterward?. ‘ It’s my opinion. Sir Geoffrey,’said this female saga, ‘ as it’s no use crying over spilt milk.’ The baronet himself was already partly of that opinion, so the reconciliation was effected, and the young couple were invited to the Court.

The bride, less from interested motives than from the cense that the old man had so much to‘get over ’in his welcome to her, devoted herself to her host, and soon surpassed her husband in Sir Geoffrey’s favor. ‘ Son are not only a ffieadel! by name, my dear,’ he once said to her, ‘but, thanks to science, have become worthy of the race by nature. You were always very nice, in yonr way, but there were points before that fortunate operation But there,' he added, patting her little hand, *we will not speak of them now ’ ‘You rrean I used to say “capital” for “hospital,” she answered, ‘hanging her beautiful head.’ like the rnse immortalised by Cowper; ‘bat I was alwrys t night to do that, and also to say “umble ” for “ humble.” ‘ My dear,’ ha said quite gravely, ‘y<nt used to drop all your h’s dreadfully.’ (She spoke as purely as Lindley Murray.) ‘Bat transfusion has picked them up for yon. Depend upon it there is nothing like blood,’ Mrs Percival Fendall was a woman, but she knew when not to have the last word. * What is the nso of arguing with people,’ said she to her husband (when he called her a humbug), ‘ who spell their name with two little f’a V