LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2123, 13 December 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MYSTBET OF LORD BRACKBNBTJRY: Will be continued on Wednesday. LOVE IN A LIFT. [From “ London Society.”] Love pervades everything. It is omnipresent. Places and conditions absolutely fatal to every human experience do not affect la grande passion. There is printed record of love in a balloon; and the scientific gentleman at the Polytechnic Institution will bear credible witness that love has not been found impossible even in a diving-bell. Much sweet courtship has been conducted in railway carriages; and the present writer, who has never tasted the honeyed sweets of ‘ spooning’ himself, once knew, however, an amiable gentleman who positively proposed, and was accepted, amid the awful gloom and roar of the Mont Cents tnnnel, and survived the strange sensation, and was married and happy ever afterwards, as the old story-books say. ; There is a farce, too, called ‘ Love in a Fix bat love in an boteLelevator! Why, the same hotel actually advertised that identical lift in ‘ Bradshaw’s Railway Guide’ , as having been constructed upon an altoi gether Improved principle, and furnished i with a patent safety-break which tendered , accidents quite impossible. Bnt love has i laughed at locksmiths and patent safetybreaks from the time of dangerous Helen ■ and heroic Paris of Troy to that of Miss Blanche Whitney and Mr Frank Fairlie. > staying at the Cavendish Grand Hotel at Bpaville the other day. The Cavendish seemed altogether too

immense and splendid for love, which demands, as yon know, my dear madam, cosl- ! ness and freedom from the scrutiny of unsympathetic eyes. There Cupid was exposed to public observation in the greatest caravansary of a notoriously scandal-loving and fashionable sanatorium. Love seemed impossible In the grand drawing-room, where dowdy dowagers and highly-acidnlated spinsters stabbed reputations with their knitting-needles ; utterly impracticable in the noisy salle a manger, with the everlasting * Xes, sab! ’ of the German waiters. In the conservatory there were always some gouty old men, scandalously wealthy, talking about the virtues of the medicinal waters which they had come to Spavllle to drink ; too late, in many instances, to dilate the numerous bottles of rich Begina they imbibed yeare agone. Even the hall porter was a magnificent personage, with a marvellous expanse of shirt front. Ho bore a semi- ecclesiastical, semi aristooratioal, appearance. You hardly knew whether to regard him as a duke or a bishop. Yon felt constrained to address him respectfully as ‘Sir,’ and wondered, with great fear and trembling at the heart, whether such a superior being would not regard your modest honorarium of half-a-crown with lofty disdain. One lost one’s name and became a numeral inside Bach an establishment. I never heard Miss Blanche Whitney’s nnmber, but Mr Frank Fairlie was, I know, ‘ skied, ’ as they say at the Royal Academy, in * No. 693.’ The figures, however, do not affect the story. If the stately interior and sense of general splendour of the Cavendish was fatal to aentpnent, not so Spaville itself. Spavillois the home of romance. The neighbourhood might have been specially invented for lovers. The shady pine woods, which clothe the bold hills that close round the wateringplace, like investing lines on every side, have serpentine walks; and even such a stern political economist as Mr John Buskin has written in ‘Fors Clavigera’ of the deep, secluded, stream-silvered valleys of Spaville that In them ‘ you might expect to catch sight of Pan, Apollo, and the Museswhile, in addition to all this, there are beautiful gardens, such as that emotional impostor, Claude Melnotte, might have painted to the confiding Pauline, and asked, ‘Dost thon like _ the picture ? ’ together with a Dome musical with Mendelssohn’s melodies and fragrant with flower?. So fatal, indeed, is the spirit of flirtation in these Hesperidean Gardens that the Dome grows its own orange blossoms for the nnmerona betrothals that are here brought about each season. Miss Blanche Whitney and Mr Frank Fairlie did not escape these facilities for flirtation. The young people were thrown into each other’s society at the Cavendish. He had come down from chambers in town to kill a few days with his nnole, a wealthy silk-spinner of Manchester, who rolled in riches and a bath-chair, and whom Frank irreverently styled • the Cooooon’ when 1 speaking 'of his avuncular relative to Mias Blanche, Her papa was having the racking pains of rheumatic gout washed out of him 1 at the hot baths, for which fipaville has been famous ever since the Roman occupation, , ar 'd > he hoped to leave hla crutches behind him as a practical testimonial of the healing qualities of the thermal springs. Prank Fairlie was a good-look-ing, athletic, clever young fellow, broad of shoulder, blue of eye, blonde of beard, just a girl's ideal of a brave Englishman. Blanche Whitney, although she had not, perhaps, I what a painter would consider a single per- < feet feature In her face, set it off with such bonny brown wavy hair, such animated < hazel eyes, such a vivacious little month, 1 such a winsome charm of expression, that she became absolutely beantifnl, especially < when she smiled, and smiling she nearly always was. No wonder that Frank Farlie, who had in his time run unscathed the gauntlet of 1 much female fascination, and had declared himself to be invulnerable to attack, was mortally wounded in the heart by Blanche. It was altogether done by her indefinable, but irresistible witchery of manner, i And now how leaden seemed the hoars j when they were teparated; how fleet the time passed when they were together ; how j often they met ‘quite by accident, you know ; ’ what walks and talks they had in shady woody ways; how they whispered sweet confessions and confidences in the sylvan solitude of the limestone dales, with only the silent and listening leaves to hear their story! They had just returned to the Cavendish one evening from one of these romantic rambles, and were as loth to leave each other as lovers generally are, from when a certain young couple in Capnlet's garden wished each other ‘a thousand times goodnight,’ to these steam-engine degenerate days of breaches of promise and divorce courts. They promenaded the deserted corridor of the hotel. That, at least, was better than the frigid society of the drawing-room, the unappreciative atmosphere of the coffeeroom. Both our young people were in a merry mood. They were fall of the light spirits and audacious confidence that belong to youth and hope and love and health. After a few turns along the carpeted passage. Frank remarked, in Us happy careless man- i ner, pausing at the bottom of the hydraulic 1 elevator, ‘ I say, pet, shouldn’t yon like a ride on the lift ? It’s perfectly safe.’ ‘O yes,’ she said, with a gay little laugh. * It would be so awfully adventurous, don’t yon know.’ ‘Then we’ll go up.’ They started, and between the third and fourth station or floor eu route stopped. ‘lt has been the dream of my life —’ What more he said we shall not report. The elevator had paused hardly a minute when the night porter passed along the corridor. He noticed that the lift was not at the bottom as it shonld be. To prevent any accident he fastened it safely and walked away. The occnpanta of the lift, suspended in medio, like Mahomet’s coffin, could move the machine neither one way nor the other. They conldnot alight on any lauding. They were prisoners in a dark funnel. Perhaps they might remain in that terrible predicament all night. The situation, though excruciatingly farcical, did cot present its humorous aspect to Blanche and Frank, The affair was somewhat compromising, too. Frank had placed Mias Whitney and himself in a pretty dilemma. Cool and collected as a rale, in this position he was utterly embarrassed. What oonld be done? Ten minutes afterwards a Scotch gentleman, the director of a bank which was soon afterwards notorious as the scene of a terrible financial tragedy, when passing the lift, beard a piece of money fall. Perhaps it was his thrifty Caledonian love of the * bawbee,’ perhaps it was to avert the pecuniary danger impending, that he dropped on his knees and began to search the carpet diligently. He found the coin, and also one or two others which had doubtless fallen previously. They were two florins and a shilling. The bank director was rising from his devotional attitude when another florin fell down the hoist. Two half-crowns followed in swift succession, and were as quickly appropriated. Then lo! half a sovereign and a sovereign were dropped slowly j and he was greedily awaiting for more auriferous manna falling, when the manager of the Cavendish, a very little man for snob a big building, pat in an appearance. ‘ What Is the matter, Mr MaoClosky ? ’ he inquired. ‘ I hope, sir, you are not unwell ? ’ ‘Ono! lam just engaged in picking np some money some one is kindly dropping down the welL It will he T p to pay my bill, so I am grateful for it,’ be said, with a Scotch effort at * wnt.’ 1 Why, the lift is not in its place,’ exclaimed the manager, startled at the discovery. ‘ Where’s the night porter ? Robinson ! ’ ‘ Here, sir!’ said that functionary, turning up with prompt obedience, i * What abont this li't, Robinson ? ’ ‘ Well, sir, I knows nothing at all about , it, and that’s all I does know. I raw that the lift was not right, air; so I scotches if, ; and meant to ask the day porter about it ’ when he oomes In the morning, sir. I knows nothing, and that’s all 1 does know. 1 During these explanations the ladies and gentlemen issued forth from the coffee-room i and drawing-room close by. A lew, noticing the Scotch gentleman still on his knees, i concluded that ho had been seized with a i sudden spasm of illness. Soon an alarming report was spread. Curiosity and sympathy k were aroused, and a small crowd of spectators, including Mr Whitney, a severe > looking gentleman with no nonsense abont

him, and ‘ the Coooon, ’ were gathered! round the scene of tbia innocent comedy. Only too soon was curiosity gratified. 3 here came from above an earnest entreaty, pathetic in its very humour. ‘.Let ns down now, there’s a good fellow. For Heaven’s sake let us down. I’ll give yon some mere to-morrow.’ The manager ordered the bolt to be removed, and slowly the lift glided down with its confused cargo. Slowly her dainty lottines and his drab gaiters came in view ; there was a glimpse of bronzed velvet dress and light tweed trousers. There was great twittering among the ladies. The gentlemen whispered ominously. Now Miss Blanche Whitney and Mr Frank Fairlie stood revealed : he with a nervosa twitching on a pale face, and she blushing and looking as abashed as does my Lady Teazle when she is discovered behind the screen in Sheridan’s play. Mr Whitney glared ; ‘ the Cocoon’ was white with rage. The angry father, in a paroxysm of passion, accosted Frank ; ‘What the devil do jou mean, air, *>y such conduct? ‘ ! v , nothing,’ he stammered. ‘l’d b-b-better m-m-marry yonr daughter, yon know.’ There was a quiet marriage about a month afterwards, and the sun never shone upon happier bride and bridegroom than Blanche Whitney and Frank Fairlie. Bat that lift is watched like a thief to this hear. Stexphok.