LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2689, 20 November 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

ONLY A SUMMER VISIT : A GENUINE LOVE STORY. CContinued.) • Whan a fellow says ho is in Scotland shooting grouse, why cannot he stay there, and ho hanged to him !’ ■’ What brought him down,’ said Gerard ; ‘ did you hear ?’ i ‘ Ho said he came as soon as he heal’d Lady Violet settled to stay on,’ said Lionel ; ‘ does ho think no one is fit to entertain her but himself ? She has done very well without him, it strikes me.’ •’ She would make just the kind of wife Howard is looking out for,’ remarked Gerard coolly; * it is not impossible you may have her as a sister-in-law, if that will please yon. You had better bear it in mind, and as for Howard he has only acted very naturally, and much as you or I might have done in his place. There goes the dressing gong. We are just in time ; cheer up, Lionel, my hoy, all is not over yet.’ ‘ G erard,’ said Lionel, throwing an impulsive hand on his brother’s shoulder as they turned into the house, * I’ll he hanged if I do not think you are the best fellow in the world. You make me friends with myself and everyone else when I would defy the Archbishop of Canterbury to do it otherwise. Here, Judson,’ to the butler in the hall, officiating at the gong, ‘ stop that old tom-tom of yours this minute, or I’ll ,’ and as a finish to the sentence he threatened the man with his cricketing cap just taken off and rolled into a ball. For all reply, Judson bestowed on him a fatherly smile of indulgence, and looked affectionately after the two fine young men as they mounted the staircase, for while be believed greatly in all the house of Danby, Gerard and Lionel were his special favorites. Hard it is to stay the fleeting perfume of a violet, and not less difficult to keep an atmosphere serene into which a disturbing element has entered. It avas even as Lionel had feared, and Lady Violet Kneller’s visit did not go on as brightly nor give such universal satisfaction as before the arrival of Howard. It seemed to Howard only in the right and natural order of things that the best of everything should be’ the undisputed, aye, and the undivided, portion of Howard Danby, Esquire, and that with second fiddles and half loaves his brothers should be more than content. Gerard had quickly divined that Howard’s eagerness to return home ere Lady Violet’s visit should progress farther held a meaning within it, and the hours were not slow in confirming his opinion. Whatever was going forward. Ivy Cross Abbey, or tennis, or dance, Howard’s place was ever at Lady Violet’s side, and his most dazzling gifts and graces displayed for her edification. It is not easy to decline the attentions of a host, and a lover has a trump card put into his hand when he wooes in that capacity. Courtesy laid its trammels on Lady Violet, and made her Howard’s companion in drag, or dance, or dinner, when choice would have led her far a-field ; and it was the less easy to escape from the trap gathering round her that from force of family tradition or other causes none of the other brothers came forward to interfere with Howard’s right. There was one who feared not Howard one iota, and felt that power within him that justifies courage and arms for any combat, but Gerard was deterred by other motives from seeking Lady Violet’s preference for himself. That malady which had haunted all his previous career stood nnw like a barrier between him and the path that inclination would have made him follow. Even now, and as it seemed to him, accelerated by Howard’s return, some premonitory symptoms he had learned well to understand were warning him that another struggle for life might not unlikely he at hand, whose issue no one could forseo. The alight estimation in which he held his own powers of attraction made him singularly blind to the danger he ran, while concealing his own love, of cruelly wounding that of another; and so as the days went on, he refrained more and more from joining what was going forward, or seeking Lady Violet as he had done at first. One day, at luncheon, an expedition for the afternoon was being discussed, and a difficulty arose to find seats in the carriages for all the party. ‘ Put mo out of your calculations,’ said Howard, ‘ that will simplify matters. I must stay at home to-day.’ i Ah, that will set it all straight,’ said Howard, ‘ I suppose you have been overdoing yourself, Gerard, and are seedy again. So you are quite right, old fellow, to stay where you are.’ ‘ I have letters to see to,’ replied Gerard, going on with his task of balancing biscuits with great nicety on his setter’s nose ; hut one at the table noticed with a yearning at her heart not easily endured that there was unwonted pallor to-day in Gerard’s face. His speech she observed was not frequent, for all that he kept up his usual bantering tone towards Lionel and others, and he strolled away out of doors by himself as soon as the meal was over. Lady Violet felt ready to do some desperate thing. Let a noble-hearted woman see the man she loves in physical suffering, and she longs at once to assert her right to he at his side, and minister to and sustain him. She, too, wandered out alone in hopes that some chance meeting might give her an opportunity of easing the weight at her heart by some word of spoken sympathy ; and while framing in her mind how this was to happen, she ’suddenly came upon the object of her solicitude seated on a garden bench in a hollow of rhododendrons. He was looking away from her towards the distant hills, his arm thrown across the rustic back of the seat, and his hand slightly supporting his head ; but he turned on hearing her footstep. His face was calm and selfcontained as over ; but his solitary reverie had left on it an elevation such as she had never seen there before, as the light lingers in the west, although for us the sun has set. Her heart sank within her. The immortals seemed to her already claiming him for those higher regions where human love and sympathy may not follow until their resurrection into feelings purer and less passion-tossed than those of earth. Not one word of the speeches she had rehearsed came to her now. He rose up with his usual smile of greeting, and would have had her join him on the rustic seat, and when she declined, saying she must prepare for the drive, he walked beside her towards the house. She knew it was useless to remonstrate, that his good breeding would not permit her to return alone, &he felt humiliated, annoyed, disappointed, and to nothing hut the merest trivialties could she give utterance. How different to that day on the hillside, when grave and gay topics had mingled so easily, and they had jested of another meeting at Glanirwon ! She could scarcely have named the place to-day to save her life, and felt, with every stop she took, how enforced was the escort on his part. He gave her little cause to think so, for he kept the conversation up far better than she, and walked with deliberate steps when once he had ascertained the time fixed on for the expedition would not oblige her to hurry. It was only when they reached the terrace, and saw Howard standing outside the house looking towards them, that she found courage to say —‘ I hope it is really letters that keep you at home to-day, not auy indisposition ?’ ‘ No, thank you, I am all right,’ said Gerard, ‘and the letters are not a poetical fiction, for once. You will see some country in your drive to-day more like your Welsh scenery than is usual with us, so I hope it will get the seal of your approbation.’ Howard was waiting for them, watch in hand, and challenged Lady Violet’s punctuality to be ready at the given time. She promised compliance, and left them with an aching heart, both brothers turning to watch her graceful figure as she passed into the hall Do what he would, Howard could not fail to recognise Gerard as an equal, and that he felt his brother in reality his superior was perhaps the reason ho did not oftener seek his society and confidence. Now, however, he was just enough provoked at Lady Violet’s delay to hazard a remark which might or might not be welcome to the hearer. That leisurely walk along the terrace had looked more satisfactory than it really had been. ‘ Shall you congratulate me, Gerard ?’

he asked, twirling a geranium leaf between I his fingers, to affect indifference, ’if I prove I successful in that fair quarter, and present yon all with a sister-in-law ?’ ' You would certainly bo in a position to merit much congratulation,’ said Gerard, coolly; ‘do you think your chances then so good ?’ ‘Well, perhaps, it is premature as yet to talk of them,’ with the manner and smile that insinuate much, ‘ but I grant that I am not quite hopeless.’ The two men faced and eyed each other without flinching, and a handsomer pair of brothers could rarely be seen, although those who once staked their faith for the blue eyes would never condescend again to the black. ‘ You have made a choice that would do auy man credit,’ said Gerard, ‘ whatever the result maybe. Perhaps, as you say, it would be premature yet to prophesy about that.’ They parted, and Howard was soon urging his pretty horses along the park, with Lady Violet at his side, while Gerard sat at his desk and steadily wrote a letter that did indeed savour loss of fiction than of fact. Once he paused in his writing, and while he caressed that heavy moustache of his unconsciously with his hand, gazed out of the window and dreamed and hoped and wooed and won in fancy all against his better judgment and conscious intention. Along a distant stretch of that road commanded by his window the carriages went gaily on their way. Howard’s tandem led the way, on the seat beside him was a lady. G erard bent his head over his desk again, and wrote his letter to the end without a second pause. Two evenings later, the family had dispersed for the night, and when Judson came to barricade the hall door, on the steps outside were Gerard and Lionel, and the former taking on himself to fulfil that office, dismissed the old man with a kindly good-night. Gerard leant against a pillar whilst Lionel measured his length in an easy attitude across the steps, and the perfume of their cigars made the night fragrant. The day had been unusually warm for September, making the cool darkness the more refreshing now, and the sky was thickly studded with stars. When earth fails, it naturally draws us to look to heaven. The brothers gazed upwards as intently as any saint or astronomer could have done, and as they looked, a shooting-star—that most pathetic break in the calm and majesty of the heavens—passed half across the sky before them, and melted-into the blue. I To be continued.