LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2232, 23 April 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MYSTERY OF LORD BRACKENBURY: A NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. EDWABDS, Author of "Barbara's History," ''Debenham's Vow." &c. (CbntinvedA 'And then, in an unluoky moment for him, he got his teeth upon my forefinger and bit it to the bone. Till now, I had tried only to disarm him ; but when I found him hanging on like a bulldog, I confess I lost my temper. * ' Oh, Cexare I what did you do ?' 'Do ? I will tell you what I did,' says Donato, with grim humour. ' I put my arm affeotionatcly round his neck, wrenched all that was left of my finger out of his mouth, and pounded him over the head and face til I was ont of breath. When at length I let him go, he fell like a log, face downwards. That frightened me. go I hauled up a bccketfull of water from the well; gave him a drenching ; and got him out into the street. The poor devil could hardly speak (I believe bis teeth were all down his throat!) but he contrived to make me understand where he wanted to gi ; to I half-dragged, half-carried him to the corner of the Via Stella, where at his own request I propped him against the wall and left him. Ho may be there to this moment, for aught I know l' ' He would have murdered you!' ' Instead of which I very nearly murdered him I But what childishness is this ? Yon tremble—yonr hands are like ice! My Giuliotta— my darling 1' He takes her in his arms. He soothes her as one might soothe a frightened child. It was her book, she mutt remember—lt was ber dear old Luigida Porta, that turned the knife aside! Only to think of that! Was he not, therefore, bonnd to love her, if possible, ten times more than ever ? —to dedicate his life to her twice over? Ah, how happy he would try to made her 1 And what an eathly Paradise they two would make of that little white house npon the hill-side at Bari !

'Did the knife really strike the book?' she asks shudderingly, her thoughts still dwelling on the one theme. ' I am sorry to say it has made a silt an inch long in the parchment cover, carina. But we will have it rebound in Morocco—or, if yon like, in velvet. And now let us hnve done with the past. It is dead and buried, and not wcrth remembering. The present is our own, and the future lies fair before ns.'

I would not have the book rebound for all the world !' {she cries passionately.' That cat is sacred. It saved your life ... oh my love 1 my love !' The shining water is all around them now. Venice, with its domes and towers, is left behind ; and the long, low, amber line of the lido is yet distant. Donato took out his purse, and from his purse, a ring. 'lt is not so plain, dear, as the one I put upon your finger this morning.' ' Oh, Cesare! —it Is a ring for a Queen 1'

'ltis a ring for my Queen. Now let us see wbioh little finger it fits beat.' And with a kiss to each in succession, he tries it first upon one and then upon another.

' But these, surely, are diamonds!—and this beautiful little portrait . , , It Is not meant for you,'

1 They are • diamonds, carina ; but they are neither large nor valuable. And as for the portrait'—(here he cannot help smiling)—'well, I should have been dead some sixty or seventy years ago, if it were mine. And although that stately gentleman in the star and ribbon was a king in his day, I would rather be myself, and your husband.' 'A king?' 'Ay; Charles the Thir.l of Spain. Ido not suppose my little Giulietta ever heard of him.' • Never. Was he a great kin gt' 'No; but he »fi« a fairly good one, which is quite as rare, and infinitely more respectable. It is even said that he never forgot past services; but that, of course, is incredible. The portrait, yon see, is surmounted by the Imperial crown of Spain in small diamonds,'

' I never saw anything bo beautiful! Bub I shall be afraid to wear it.'

' Nay child ; wear it, break it, lose it. It is your own, and when it ia gone I will buy you another. The silver collar round your neck, though but a piece of peasant jewellery, is of more intrinsic value. The ring is only a curious trifle.'

' It is a royal ring, and you bought it for me!'

'No,' he answers carelessly, ' I bought it with some other things years ago, when I did not know of your existence; and then, not at all wanted to possess it, but because it went with the lot. It was a mere chance that I had not thrown it away before now—wedded the sea with it, as the Doges of old time used to do here in Venice. But it is well for your sake, oarlna, that the fishes did not get it.' By this time the amber ridge has apparently uplifted Itself from the placid level of the Lagune. It assumes a broken outline. It resolves itself into a long stretch of hillocks and hollows of tawny tand, darkened here and there by patches of parched grass. 1 Are you still irclined for a glimpse of the Adriatic ?' asks Donato, as their gondolier runs the boat (aground in the shallow. 'lt is getting dusk, yon know ; and these sands are not pleasant to walk on.' But she minds neither the sands nor the dusk. So they land ; but as they climb the desolate ridge, threading their way among pools and brambles, the lover is careful not to tell his young bride that this place was once the oemetery of the Jews of Venice ; or that-yonder shattered fragments of lichengrown granite, which lie half buried here and there in the drifted sands, are the desecrated graves of Shylock and his people. And now they stand on the summit of the ridge, and the view lies open to them on both sides—on the one hand, the plac.'d Lagune; on the other, stealing up In long, lazy folds and creaming listlessly against the shore, the dark blue Adriatic

The girl clings bilently to Donato's arm. It is the first time she has seen the sea.

They linger there, listening to the soft monotonous surge, watohing the gathering gloom, till the darkness warns them back to their gondola. And now once more they go upon their noiseless way ; and _the twilight takes them ; and the hush of night falls upon the shining waters ; and the crescent moon rises like a silver sickle in a field of stars.

The same evening, at the self-same hour, the mail train, slowly streaming into the terminus of Munich, brings its first freight of Easter tourists ; most of whom are English, bound for Vienna. For as yet there is no mountain railway over the Brenner ; and at this season the travellers going to Italy take the Riviera ronte, or the post road over the Mont Cenis.

Though it is already summer in "Venice, the evening here in Munich is cold and drizzly ; and, save two ladies who have been walking up and down for the last ten minutes or so, and one or two railway officials in blue and (ilver uniform, the arrival platform is almost empty. As the train creeps in, heavily laden, the taller of these ladies steps somewhat in advance of her companion, and stands alone near the edge of the platform, The next moment, a man's hand and arm are put out of one of the windows ; a door ia opened ; and, contrary to all railway regulations, a gentleman jumpß out while the train is yet moving. 'Lancelot!' 1 You here, Winifred ? This is what I did not expeot 1' He grasps her hands with paesionate eagerness. He all but takeß her in his arms and kisses her. ' What an age it seems since we parted—years instead of months I At every station I longed to get out and thrash the enginedriver. My darling, how well you are looking! Ia that Fraulein Brenda? But stay, I have a surprise for you—a great surprise ! You were to know nothing till tomorrow; but since you are here, there Is no help for it. I am not alone.' _ •Not alone?' Winifred repeats, looking

nervously round. 'What do you mean. . . . Ah!' And with a joyful cry of recognition, she finds herself face to face with Mr and Mrs Pennefeather. Chaftek LVIIL WKDDIKS BKLIS. 'Did I not propheßy that my dearest Winifred would he Lady Brackenbury, after all ? My child, I knew it as well as if I had peeped into the Book of the Future 1* ' How could you know what I did not know myself?' said Winifred, laughing and coloring. * Having eyes, my dear, and not being in the habit of going about with them shut, like the majority of my friends and neighbours, bow could I hflp seeing a drama that was enacted ur>d«r my very nose? And yet, when yon overwhelmed mo with that outburst of v.'rtaoua indignation. . . . Ah, that was the very day when you pinned that five pound note to baby's cot, you darling—as if I could ever forget it! And we thought tome fairy godmother had come down the chimney. Do you remember how angry yon were with poor me, and how I begged for forgiveness: . . . but there—l am too happy to care to tease you. I declare, I waa never half so happy in my life. How good it is to see you again. Missed you ? —to say that I have missed you, is to convey no idea of the gap your absence has made in my little world ; and as for the childrrn. . . . Well, my dear, it has been enough to make any mother jealous. However, hero yon. are—the sums dear Winifred ; and here am I, happier and more prosperous than I ever expected to be in this world. Now I shall tell you when I missed you most dear t—when our great good fortune befel us. After having pelted you for years with all my worries and grievances, it did seem hard not to be able to go to you with my joy and gratitude—not to be able to say to yon, " See all that your noble Lancelot has done for us." And now ho crowns it by bringing us to Munich for your wedding ! Why, my dear, we had no more notion of coming here than you had of seeing ns. But Lord Hrackenbury in-is'od that you would like Derwent to perform the ceremony, and that the change would do us all the good in the world : apd here we are. It couldn't have happened at a bettor moment, yon eee; for wo had done, thank Heaven, with the Caldicotts; and the new church on the moor cannot be opened till the fall of the year; and baby is just weaned; and we have been able to pack off the children 'en masse' to my sister Barbara at Cheater : so we really had our time free for a holiday. And then, there was your trousseau ! I confess I did long to be with yon when you. should open the boxes—five of them, my dear, and full of such beautiful thinge! Nothing ostentatious, yon know—nothing extravagant; but all of the very best. There is a morning robe of pearl grey Indian cashmere lined with salmon pink, and trimmed with old Abrnzzi lace, that brought tears of spite to Mrs Caldicott's eyes when she saw it! And as for the nnderlinen, all marked with your initials in cypher surmounted by an ange'ic little coronet. . . . Well, £ can't trust myself to speak of it in vulgar prose. The Castelroßso herself, at all events, has none more exquisite. The one thing that has grieved me is yonr wedding dress. I had set my heart on white satin—that creamy white which Rubens and Vandyke painted, yon know, with gold colored reflections in the folds ! It was a blow to me to be tied down to plain white gros-grain. But you would have it so ; end I could only submit under protest. Then, to be candid, I must say I think the affair ought to come off at the British Embassy. People in yonr position, yon know. . . . Ah, well, the circumstances, of course, are exceptional; but for all that, I cannot help wishing the marriage wasn't going to he sp dreadfully private 1" 1 Now tell me some of yonr own news,' said Winifred, when Mrs Pennefeather, punctuating her discourse at arbitrary intervals with htjga and kisses, stopped at lart from sheer want of breath.

'-Happy is the nation, my dear, that has no history. I have no news of my own, except what you know already; and that is as good as it can well be. Oar troubles are all over, and we have begun to live happy ever after, _ The Hermitage P No—we have not yet given np the "BerToitngn. hnn&ncs we don't know how soon our beautiful new vicarage will be ready for occupation; but we have the house shut up, serenely conscious that there's nothing in it which the least ambitious burglar would care to steal. If only the children keep well, and Barbara will submit to be bored by them for a few weeks longer, I hope to get Der went in the mind to go back by way of the Hhine and Brussels. It has been one of my dreams to see the Bhine—'the castled crag of Draohenfels,' you know, and ' the peasant girls with deep blue eyes,' find all the rest of it. Do for the scene of a novel ? Ah, no! my dear; once settled on Burfield Moor, £ shall have something better to do than to write third-rate novels for second-rate publishers. Oh, I have never deceived myself as to the worth of my own productions ! They are nothing but pot-boilers, my dear—• pot-boilers of the thorny and brambly Bort, crackling dismally under a pot which never had too much in it. Some day, perhaps years to come, when the children are grown up, and I have discovered the true meaning and application of that obscure word, ' Leisure,' I may write one more storyjust to show people that, after all, I am not quite such a fool as they take me for. Bat, for literature, leisure and industry in equal parts is your only genuine prescription. What good book was ever written under pressure of haste and poverty ? It ; e all very well to talk of necessity being the mother of invention ; but' I' never found a sedimentary deposit of pure fiction at the bottom of a file of unpaid bills, or drew deep draughts of romantic inspiration from an empty larder ! No, my dear Winifred, I have done with novel writing as a drudgery; and if evtr I take it up again, it shall be as a luxury. But what were we talking about —news ? Well, I have none of my own, and none of my neighbours; that is to say, none worth repeating. You know, of course, that Viscount Frenohay is dead—the horrid old reprobate! Such a funeral as they gave him, too 1 Flumes and trappings, and all the panoply of humbug, with seventeen private carriages bringing up the rear t But such is fashionable woe. Instead of. shedding tears for you, Society sheds carriages. Then there's Lady Symes, just returned from London, as old - and as young —as ever ; looking as if she might have been bora at any time between the Mammiforous Period and the day before yesterday. She called to congratulate us upon Derwent's preferment; and did it, of course, as spitefully as ever she knew how. " You'll be buried alive, Mrs Pennefeather," she said; "but then, fom. know, the man who wants to live at peace with his neighbors must inhabit a desert island. You'il at all events be out of the way of such tiresome people as myself." To which I replied that even the advantages of premature interment would be dearly purchased at the price of her ladyship's visits. She inquired after you, and I told her you were still in Munich; and then she said that Me Flink and the Countess had last been heard of at Constantinople, and were not expected home before midsummer. Now I think I have told you all the gossip of Langtrey and its neighborhood.' ' This conversation —or, more correctly, this monologue—took place in an upper ohamber of the Hotel Maulick, where Lancelot had retained rooms for his guestß. And his guests Mr and Mrs Pennefeather were to be aB long as they remained in Munich. They stayed just one fortnight; at the end of which time Lancelot Brackenbury and Winifred Savage w«.re married one morning in the Bavarian Protestant Ohapel, then an ugly little red-brick building in a by-street opening from the Schrannen-Platz, in the Old Yuarter of the city. Mr Pennefeather read the service; Pastor Kreutzmann gave the bride away; and Katchen and Brenda did duty as bridesmaids. Guests, musicians, cards, rejoicings, there were none. Not even the marriage of Cesare Donato and Giulietta Beni was more absolutely private. In the meanwhile, carefully as their secret had been guarded by the high con. tracting parties, it leaked out somehow or another, up in the 'North Countree" ; and, despite all Launcolot's precautions the bella of Brackenbury and Singleton rang at joyous intervals throughout his weddingday. {To be continued on Tuesday.)

Miss Bird, a reoent traveller in the Japaii inlands, fell in with an aboriginal race with hair bo abundant over their bodiei as to lendes clothing superfluous.