CHAPTER LXXI. WHAT ELSE COULD A GENTLEMAN DO ?

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 243, 25 February 1888, Page 2

CHAPTER LXXI. WHAT ELSE COULD A GENTLEMAN DO ?

Loft alone with tho earliest loved, . With hor, who in young ohildhood and npo Was evw-hW-with whoge adrancing thought She had Krown entwined— who in time would yield , . ... And bi*Ml hoiuelf to him, one heart, one life Blended together, in the innermost soul. H. Alford. Colonbx Fitzgerald returned to Wildo country to spend the laet month of his ludve, before joining his regiment, to start for California on August Ist. On arriving at home, ho learned that neither Adam Lackland nor Magdala had been heard from in response to the many advertisements for them. He learned further that Mies Fitegerald had taken possession of hor own home, the Mountain Manor House, whoso estate joined his own, and had originally made part of it ; also, that Mrs Doy was living with her as a chaperon, and Patricia as companion. Knowing that his stay in the neighbourhood must be so short, and that he was so soon to go away to a distant post of duty, for many years of absence, Colonel Fitzgerald relaxed a little from the severe regime of conduct he had prescribed for himself. . He visited freely among the *e\r friends death and disaster had left him. He called often at Greenwood to see Roy and Sue Greenleaf. •He dropped in frequently for & chat with good Dr. Goodwin. And he went almost daily over to the Mountain Manor House to spend a few hours with his neighbours and cousins, Geraldine, Patricia, and Mrs' Dpy Fitzgerald. He could not but perceive thot Goraldine still loved him. And even while ho was firmly resolved 1 never to admit any other woman to Gertrude's place in his-heart arid; home, he grew daily and almosb tjneon-: eciously more and more kindly affectionate in his manner to his old sweetheart, and thus, involuntarily* encouraged J her hopes. As for Geraldine, her wholo moral character was made up of pride, passion and selfwill * She loved herself first and best of all beings, and next she loved Gerald-^bub. lpveahim'for her own fake, hot for his. He -was, ' besides," the most 'distill guislied match m'the'tfoUntryi'aridkhetMiiSs'li'HoNvin to

— _______ — — _____ _______ . have been long betrothed to her before his hasty marriage with the humble maiden he had since lost ; therefore, Geraldine's selfißh pride, as well as her selfish love, was interested in her re-capfcure of Gerald. Six months had now elapsed since that fatal night of the burning of the Messenger, in which Geitrude was supposed to have been lost — time enough, Geraldine thought, for Gerald to get over the shock of his bereavement, and to think of his future life. She did not know that he bad been reinstated in the army, and that his regiment had been ordered to California. Colonel Fitzgerald was very roticent about his own personal affairs. She noticed that he came to see her more frequently, and that his manner toward her was" more tender than foimerly. And she judged from these circumstances that he was preparing the way — when the proper time should come — to renew their old relations as a beti othed pair. The first of August was near at hand, and Geraldino was almost daily expecting some word or sign from Gerald to expi ess some wish or hope for a full restoration of their former relations, when one morning Colonel Fitzgerald called eailier than usual at the Mountain Manor Hoube, and asked to bee Mies Fitzgerald alone. Geraldine felt that purely now the longwished for explanation betsvecn them was to come oil", and that when they next parted they would part as betrothed lovcis, who were to become husband and wife, just as j soon as theconventonial year of mourning for Gertrude should have elapsed. She paused long enough to add a few re- ; fining touches to her elegant morning toilet of richly-embioidored Indian muslin — to put a cluster of scarlet geraniums in the meshes of her raven black hair and among the laco folds of her bodice, and then bhe went down into the moming-room to receive Gerald. This morning-room uas on ne octagonal tower of the Manor House, and occupied the whole floor, having one door, communicating with the main building, and seven Gothic windows around it, looking down upon all sides of the wooded mountain as itdescended to the Valley of the Wilde. It was furnished very simply, with Indian matting on thp floor, India shades at the windows, cane chairs around the walls and a marble table, supporting a great China va?e of fragrant tioweife, in the midst. Gerald was standing at one of the windows, looking down upon the valley with its winding rivers, when Geraldine entered the room, and greeted him with a simple : 11 Good morning, cousin." Gerald turned quickly, responded to her greeting, and placed a chair for her ; and. as she tank into it, ho brought another, set it by her side, and seated himself, saytog : " I <im a very early visitor this morning, Geraldine, but I have a fair excuse—" " Do you really need an excuse to call here at any hour, Gerald ?" she inquired. - " Well, no ; but one may happen to have what they do nob need. And so I have a good excuse for breaking in upon your privacy at so unusual an hour." Geraldine looked at him with curiosity and interest, but as she did not speak, Gerald continued : "My dear cousin, I have come to take a long lea^-e of you." "' A long leave '.' Oh, Gerald ! where are you going ?" burst impulsively from the lips of Geraldino, with more real emotion than she meant to betray, and, therefore, had more real effect on Fitzgerald thin any — even the most skilfully acted part — could have produced, "My dear cousin, I am going to California." "To California? Oh, Gerald! What takes you so far from home ?" " I go in command of a regiment of cavalry ordered thither." " Oh, Gerald ! I did not know—l did nob know. This is so sudden !" she exclaimed, with difficulty. She had grown deadly pale, and she pressed her hand upon her bosom, for her heart was boating wildly and her breath was coming and going in gasps. Gorald Fitzgerald saw that her emotion was genuine and exceeding grievous. He pitied her from the depths of his heart. He took her cold hand in his own as he gently replied : "My dearest Geraldine, my dearest \ cousin, surely this lias not taken y6u so much by surpriso ? You know — " 11 You never told me! You never told me !" she oxclaimed, impetuously inter- • rupting him. " This has taken me most completely by surprise ! ' Taken me by surprise ?' — It has fallen upon me like a thunderbolt i" " My dearest girl," said Gerald, growing more sympathetic as he 6aw her more grieved ; "my dearest Geraldine, do you net remember I told you, long ago, that I intended to ask to be reinstated in the army, and to be sent upon some distant and active service ?" u Yea ; but I hoped— that is, I thought— you had got over all bhab feeling and abandoned that- project It was five or six months ago that you mentioned it to me. Oh ! I felt sure that you had given it up. " ' "My dearest cousin, you know that I. - havo suffered an awful bereavement— a j heavy and bitter affliction. I cannot rally . from it here, my dear. I must go far away, and amid distant scenes ana harassing duties try to recoror my lost manhood. Therefore I have applied to be reinstated in the army, and tenb on active service along the Western frontier. My application has been acted upon, and I nave been lately commissioned as colonel of the regiment of cavalry, now under orders to start for San Francisco on the first of August. I am sorry to leave you now, dear Geraldine. And lam sorry my departure gives l you so much pain." I She did not reply to him. She was woeping bitterly — weeping from disappointed hopes, wounded affection- and humbled pride— yes, most of all from humbled pride. She was weeping more in rage than in grief, for she was more angry with him for having, by the suddenness of his announcement, betrayed her into this display of feeling than she vras sorry for his departure. Yet Gerald thought that she was weeping only with sorrow for their impending separation, and so his heart bled with compassion for her. His loyalty to the memory of his loved and lost young wife was for the first time endangered. How he might have, essayed to comfort his weeping cousin at that moment, he did not himself know, for before he could utter another word Miss Fitzgerald had recovered some of her natural self-control and dignity, and she arose and said, with Borne stateliness : "1 have been behaving very badly, Gerald ; but— this has taken, me entirely by surprise, and — we are but two, you and I, the last of our respective houses ; quite like brother and sister, indeed. Yet, notwithstanding all that has come and gone k between us, we are like an only brother and an only sister, we two. - u And it is hard to be divided ; hard, Ido believe, even for you to go and leave me, though you, go to ( new scenes and *acfci) y e ' duties'; harder still for ■me to remain 1 ' 'alone- in' the' old- familiar haunts. . But, go doubt, -.you 1 Jknow What is best, for you, • Gerald., j and as for myself, I should bid you Qod^speecl, my cousin, and IMb" stfwith att 'hiy* heart.' Bid, me goodbye nowV'GreraUJv^lJd not-let 1 uV prolong

this scene." And she placed both hands in his, and? rai«ed her glorious dark eyes, now humid with unrushed tears. He draw her to his bosom, murmuring: : " Geraldine, my couein, my long ago child friend, good-bye ! good-bye ! God bless you !' (iod forever bless you, my dear !" And he strained her to h*is heart and pressed hislips to hers in a long, last embrace and kiss. Then he released her and suddenly left the house. Ho had intended to take leave of Mies Greenleaf and Mrs JDoy Fitzgerald, but hefelt that ho could not linger longer near Geraldine, and he resolved to write them a farewell letter from the Summit. Pie mounted his horse, which had remained saddled and waiting at the gate, and be rode slowly down the bridle-path leading through the thickly wooded pass to the Summit Manor Hou&e, thinking : " Gertrude, my little Gertrude, my little, unselfish, loving angel, did you see that?' And do you think X love you les>s for all that, my little lbvcV You will know that I can never love you lefcs, when I meet you inheaven, my angel !" The next morning Colonel Fitzgerald seb out for Washington, where, three days later, he arrived and reported. Jle took command of his regiment and* began to make arrangements for departure. But, ah ! the mutability of administrative ail'airs ! Cabinet ministers are just as changeable as the wind really is, and a&> women are falsely represented to be. On the very last day of embarkation, for some inscrutable reason best known to the War Department, the secretary changed his mind about the destination of Colonel Fitzgerald's regiment, and instead of sending it down to the Pacific coa«t, sent it down toWendover in West Virginia, within thirty miles of Wildeviile. Colonol Fitzgerald had nothing to do but obey orders or to resign. He preferred to obey orders, and so immediately set out on his march to his new post of duty,, where, in the course of the week, he found himself uncomfortably settled, in an uncongenial society, and with nothing on, earth to do. He was so vexed at this change in hia orders that he did not even write home tohis friends in Wildeviile to apprise them ot the fact. Ttoyal Grceuleaf re .d of it is n tbenewspapers, and instead of writ-ing to* Colonel Fitzgerald, lie mounted his horse and rode over the hill." to see him in person. Gerald, bored half to death with the dulncsa of his country quarters, was very glad to see his jolly old friend, and pressed him to prolong his vis>it. Itoyal Greenleaf, to whom, on his own. part, any change from the mon ofcony of Greenwood was agreeable, readily accepted the invitation, and promised to remain for a week as the guest of Colonel Fitzgerald. In the cool of the evening the two gentlemen talked over the affairs of their native country. In reply to Colonel Fitzgerald's questions, Mr Greonleaf told him that nonews had yet been heard of either Adam Lackland or Magdala, the gipsy. But that all the people he had left behind him were quite well, with the exception of Miss Fit/gerald. " 1 don't know what is the matter with, our Goraldine, I'm sure," added that artful dodger, for he knew very well, or rather he thought he knew, that she was pining a^ay from tho effects of disappointed love, white in fact, she was also sickened of humble pride. "Is my cousin not well?*', inquired Colonel Fitzgerald. "Well? — 1 should think not! She neither eats nor drinks, nor sleeps, so tospeak ! She has gone away to a mere skeleton, and has no more colour in her cheeks than a white-washed wall ! And she is so nervous withal that she burstsinto tears if one does but crook a finger at) her.' "I am very sorry to hear this," said Colonel Fitzgerald, sincerely. " There's neither consumption no£ madness in the family ; if there was, I should think she was sinking into the one or the other, if not into both. Sue and Doy are trying to persuade her to go travelling; with them. But she won't hear of doing it. Though, if she were a Bister or a daughter of mine, I know what I would do. I would carry her % oS to some gay watering-place, whether or no." Gerald Fitzgerald did not answer, but sighed, and wished in his heart that Geraldine had a lover to her mind. " For I cannot give her your place, my little Gertrude, my little meek darling, my little angel wife. I can give no woman your place in my heart and home," he added mentally. For he had contracted a confirmed habit of speaking to his absent wife as if she were standing by his side, as, perhaps, in the spirit, she often was. Mr Koyal Greenleaf left Wendover at the end of a week, having extracted a promise from Gerald to visit them at Christina's,' if not earlier. Colonel Fitzgerald remained with hi& regiment ab Wendover during the mouths of September, October and November. He received no more visits from Wilde county, but he kept up a regular correspondence with his attorney ab Wildviile, vrilh his overseer at the Summit Manor, and with hia friend. Royal Greenleaf* ab Greenwood. Nowr, Mr Greenleaf was nob a very intellectual ov cultivated person, bub he wrote spicy and interesting letters, full of gossip and dry humour. And the features in this correspondence that most engaged the attention of Fitzgerald were tho paragraphs relating to Geraldine. In one letter, dated October the fifteenth, he wrote "What do you think? Thero has been a. German prince down hero— that sandy-headed behemoth she met at tho French minister's ia Washington three years ago. "He's travelling through the country, it seems. " Ho was staying at Blue Cliffe as the guest of your neighbour, Governor Cavendish, shooting over his grounds', and seeing some Virginian snort, and he came over hero on a visit. "He stoppod at the ' Antlers,' bat rode over to see MB, of all men in the world. "And what do yon think he did then? Wby he up and asked me for the hand of my ward, Mademoiselle Geraldine.' ' " I told him that I had nothing to do with.. 'IMadomoisello* Geraldine's marriage, and didn't want to have, and if I .knew myself, 1 wouldn't hare. That * Mademoiselle Geraldino was her own woman, and a 1 veryseliwillod woman at that. And so I referred .him to "" Geraldine sent him off with a ' flea in hia 1U "I Snnot tisnk e what can be the matter with. Geraldlno. Is tliOre another girl in the length and breadth of tho land who woiild have rei fused to bocomo a' princess it she had the opportunity % And the follow, is not llMopking, noithor. if he is a prince. He is neither old , nor ugly ; ho is only big and boorish,, and that a nothing." % • . ; ; Colonol Fitzgerald sighed over this letter,, and mentally wished thab Geraldine could have responded to the German beheraothJs love. , - v -, , "For I have no love to give her. My little Gerbrudo, my love is yours, and yours only, my little angel wife. It was enough, [ my darling, that I lefb you to perish in the waves while I saved her life. I cannot give her tho heart which' is sacred to you, my little" augel— saored as a shrine." ■• Early in December," Royal .Greenleaf, at ■ I tho end of a long, gossiping letter ,"Svrote : .

"Geraldino is staying at Greenwood, rho Mountain Manor Houoo is much too blcalc aim «old for her in her delicate state of health. Greenwood is ccmplotely sheltered by hills and trees. So Sue and Doy havo brought Goraldino hero. Yet she grows no better. 1 ennnot think what is the matter with that girl 1 bho wanes «very day, yet utterly refuses to see a physician. Itisstmply Urriblctosoea lino young woman like Geraldinc perishing before ono s very eyes, without any visible disease that ono can take liold of to treat." . All this was very annoying to beruld Fitzgerald. Ho began to feel in some measure responsible for Geraldinc's cotidition. If she wei-o reully clyinjjf of '• mind disease,'' that disease, he had reason to believe, was disappointed affection. Ho never suspected it to be humbled pride. And yet lie might have remembored thivb great heroes and statesmen have been known to pine and die from the effects of a kindred disease — disappointed ambition. It is not only love-sick girls who break their hearts ; office-sick politicians do tho same thing. Colonel Fitzgerald kept his appointment with Mr Greenleaf, and near Christmas obtained leave of absence from his regiment, and rode over to Greenwood to spend the holidays there. He arrived on tho evening of the twentysecond, three days befoie. Christmas. He was most cordially welcomed by every member of the family, except by Miss Fitzgerald, who was still staying at Greenwood, but who did not make her appearance. "She very seldom comes downstairs now, bub I think she will join us at supper to-night," said Royal Greenleaf, in answer to Gerald Fitzgerald's inquiries, as ho attended his guests to the rooms that had • been prepared for him. "Is there no improvement?" inquired Fitzgerald, vciv uneasily. "Nob the least ; quite the contrary— she declines daily. She is dying, sir, andsho knows it. She /ici.s made her will." " Eh !" exclaimed Fitzgerald, aghast. ' " She has made her will. She signed it yesterday. I was one of the witnesses. She has left the Mountain Manor to you, saying expressly in her will that she does Iso because she wishes that the two halves of the old colonial ©state, the Mountain Manor and the Summit Manor, may be united again.'' "Good Heaven, Greenleaf, this is very shocking ! Can nothing be clone ?" " Nothing that I know of. She won't even see a physican for n» ; perhaps she might for you. But if you are ready, come down to suppei\" Colonel Fitzgerald silently followed his ! friend down to the drawing-room, ! Miss Greenleaf, Miss Doy Fitzgerald, saucy \ Pab Fite, and sponging Ben Bowers awaited them. "Come, is supper ready?" briskly inquired Royal Greenleaf. "Yes ; \ve are only waiting for Geraldine, .She has promised to join us this evening," said Miss Sue Greenleaf. At that momeut the door opened and <3eraldine appeared. But, oh, how changed, how deathly ! yet still how beautiful, even in deathliness ! She wore a black velvet ■dress with delicate point lace about her throat and wrists ; her raven black hair carried smoothly back from her forehead, and rolled in a knot at the nape of her neck. This simple black costume brought out into startling effect the marble whiteness of her face, while her large, dilated dark eyes looked larger than ever under their «avernous brows. She entered with weak and hesitating steps. Gerald Fitzgerald started up and hastened to meet her, addressed come agitated words of affectionate greeting to her, drew &er arm within his own, and led her to a seat. She received his attentions with a gentle smile, and thanked him. He seated himself beside her, and looked at her with painf yd interest. Not all Royal •Greenleaf 's letters had prepared him for the change he saw in his once beautiful and arrogant cousin. He was stricken to the heart. He sat by her until supper was ancnounced. Then he gave her his arm and took her to the table, and showed her ©very affectionate attention during the meal. When supper was over he led her back to the drawing-room, and devoted himself to her duriu? the whole evening. And when the hour for retiring came, he gave her his arm again and supported her from the parlour, and did not leave her until he bade her good-night at the door of her own chamber. But that nighfc, when Gerald went to *est, his thoughts were not of Geraldine. ♦'Oh, my little Gertrude! Oh, my little -Gertrude ! My little angel wife, do you see what I am going to do, my little angel ? You see and you forgive ; for no selh'sh thought is in all your gentle spirit, little ■Gertrude ! You love without' self-love, little angel !*' and so murmuring to his loved and lost young wife, he slept. Of course my readers have seen how this must end. Colonel Fitzgerald spent a month at Greenwood, and before he left to rejoin his regiment he proposed to Geraldine and wus •accepted. Under the circumstances, what else could a gentleman do ? ' ( To be Continued)