CHAPTER XXVIII.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 284, 25 July 1888, Page 4

CHAPTER XXVIII.

TWELVE YEARS AFTPK. A long time to contemplate, yet it flips by almost imperceptibly, and growing accustomed to the changes as they come, we scarcely feel or notice them in the retrospect. A dozen years have flown since that summer night when Marguerite, the Countess of Strathspey, was whisked out of time and space, in the June moonlight, at Aukland Oukt, ; and in all these no tidings have been heard of her, no slightest clue to her fate been obtained. The event, living in the minds of the peasantry, has grown into a kind of superstitious legend. In the hush of twilight, and around the winter firesides, they tell it over and over with bated breath. The story of the fair and beautiful countess, the blue eyed Pearl of Kent, as she was called, who proved faithless to her lord, and met with such dire punishment, was spirited away in a phantom coach, drawn by flying steeds, just as the belia tolled the midnight hour, and never heard from afterward. A story doubted by the wise, of course, yet reheai'sed by prudent mothers as a wurning to giddy daughters. Bufc in polite circles, in secret \\ cst-End society, the whole proceeding was ignored and utterly forgotten. Well-bred people hare a knack of forgetting unpleacanb facts, e&pecially when they concern a blooded peer. Lord Strathspey was at home again, after a prolonged tour in the Orient, the same handsome, haughty earl he was twelve yeais before. Time had not changed him, and he appeared to have outlived all bygone sorrows. But he had not always possessed the virtue of self-repression in an eminent degree ; and it was difficult to surmise what might be the state of his hidden heart. At any X'ate, he appeared to be content, and the name of his late countess was a forbidden thing. He had never troubled himself to investigate the proofs of her guilt; he believed her guilty and faithless, and Lord Strathspey was somewhat overwise in his own conceit. He believed his wife guilty of faithlessness to her marriage vows ; he also believed that the boy in the Tyrol was her son, born before he married her. Colonel Gilbert Verney, after declining to fight the duel, had sent a concise statement to the earl, in which his wife's innocence was clearly proved, but his lordship threw ib by unread. He would hear no proofs, no explanations, but only cling to his own belief. In regard to her disappearance he manifested no concern or interest whatever. Lady Neville had made some explanation relative to the matter, which possibly conj tented him. He made no inquiries, and appeared to feel no anxiety, and if ever he thought of his wife at all, it waa with a feeling of insane and bitter jealousy. Meanwhile he began to return to society again, and society received him with open arms. He was looked upon as a single man again, for West End circles, with Lady Neville ab their head, believed in the report that his late countess was dead. And it was such a mercy ! The poor man was free again ! Whereupon bright eyes began to droop, and maiden cheeks fco flush, and young, aspiring hearts to flutter; and manoeuvring dowagers, withmarriageable daughters, to put forth their diplomatic skill, at the sight of this grave British nobleman. What if he had a few silver hairs about his

temples and crow's-feet under his eyes? His income touched a hundred thousand a year, and the great keeper-ring upon his shapely hand was set with an earl's coronet. Afc the date upon which our chapter opens, the earl was staying: at the Neville Mansion in Grosvenor Square. The London season waß just beginning, and there was a grand ball in embyro, to be given by the dowager Countess of Mortlake, in honour of the d6bub of her godchild, Lady Marguerite j Strathspey. Lady Marguerite had grown up, under Lady Neville's care, a rare and radiant maiden, fulfilling all the promise of her childish beauty. Slender and graceful, with a face like a pearl, blue-bright, bewitching eyes, and a crown of golden tresses that fairly dazzled the beholder. Her mother over again ! But Lady Pearl had no momories of her mother. She was her father's idol. If over man worshipped his child, it was this grave, stern nobleman. The bare sight of her brought a tender smile to his moody eyes, the sound of her sweet voice, the eaieesing touch of her girlish hands, thriUed him into I a passion of tenderness. And Pearl was I her mother's image ! Yet Lord Strathspey would not have confessed, even to his own heart, that he loved his child for her mother's sake. Lady Pearl was Ins idol ; but on the other hand, his son Angus — his heir, who was to inherit all his wealth, and bear his timehonourod title — was his thorn in tho flesh. The boy was a living disgrace and disappointment to his proud father every hour he lived. All that money, and tenderest care and remonstrance could do had been done, but it was like darting straws against the wind. He was deaf to all entreaty, insensible to all kindness ; love had no power to move him, parental authority no control over his low and lawless propensities. He was a handsome youth, growing up strong and broad-chested, with a fierce kind of beauty in his swarthy face ; but from the crown of his head to the aole of his foot, there was not the slightest suggestion of the Strathspey blood that tilled his veins. His love for all that was low and evil, and his mean grasping avarice, seemed to be inborn traits of his very being ; yet never befoie, through all the long lino of haughty earls, had a Strathspey been addicted to vice, or the possessor of bad traits of character. But this only son of Lord Angus was a black sheep, and the blackness seemed bred into his very bones. But he bore the Strathspey birth-mark, the scarlet crops upon his right arm, and the earl never doubted that he was his son. ' The poor boy must not bo blamed,' he said, in one discussion he had with Lady NeA ille in regard to his son. 'He is not accountable for his inherited vices. It was fiom his poor, unfortunate mother he got his stiange nature. Marguerite is a Strathspey, but Angus is an Aukland.' And the earl believed what lie asserted — believed it, and brooded over it in bitterness ot soul. But he was never harsh with his son ; he treated him with the most indulgent kindness, gratifying his every wish, and strhing in every possible way to win him from the bad. At the time when the grand ball to be given by the Countess of Mortlake was under discussion, poor Angus was at his aunt's, labouring under the weight of his last bad acts. He had been expelled from Eton. The earl had contrived to get him into college, despite his stupidity and indolence, and in deference to his father, and to all the clever Strathspey youths who had been there before him, the professors winked at his failings and short comings, and turned a deaf ear to his vices?, and boie with him until patience ceased to be a virtue, and, in justice to the other students, they were forced to expel him in disgrace. Lord Strathspey was cut to the heart ; but his graceless son seemed rather exultant over his escape from such a stupid prison, and proceeded to make himself at home in London, drinking and gambling, and frequenting low haunts of vice, with all the monchalant assurance of a Wasti man of five-and forty. Whereupon the earl proceeded to obtain for him a commission in the army, hoping that active life and variety of scene might change his brutal habits ; but the young gentleman very promptly refused to accept the commission and proved himself to be his father 1-*1 -* son in one respect, at least, in the stubborn strength of his own will. Persuasions' did not move him, and threats only served to strengthen his determination. 'It i» a deuced sight nicer,' a 1 * he expressed ib, ' to lounge about London, with plenty of spate change and bpaie time, than to be marched off to India, and set up for a target. No commisfion in tho army for me !' 'Then, sir, what vill you have? thundered the earl, exasperated for the tirst time beyond all endurance. ' What do you propo=e doing ?' k Nothing,' replied Angus, promptly ; • I shall live on my income.' ' And disgrace your father's tuime by your ignorance and brutality,' cried the mortified father. ' I have borne with votir stubborn temper long enough, sir ' You won'fc be' educated, and you won't be a soldier ! We'll see ! Now take your choice. Accept this commission, and discharge your duty as a gentleman and a Strathspey, or bom this hour I cut oft" your allowance, and leave you to shift for yourself. ' The young man shrugged his shoulders, and half-closed his greenish grey eyes in a manner peculiar to himself, and putting out his hand, he snatched up the commission from the table, where it lay, and dropped it upon the bed of glowing coals that filled the grate. For a moment the earl was utterly confounded by the audacity of the act, and then his hot tempor got the better of him. ' You impudent young scoundrel ! he stormed, ' I have half a mind to disinherit you !' ' You can't so that far, governor,' sneered the youth; 'the Strathspey property is entailed, and falls from father to son.' The enraged father caught the young scapegrace by the collar, and shook him soundly. ' Now dare to give me another word of your insolence,' he thundored, 'and I'll wear out my horse-whip ovcryour shoulders. The Strathspey property does fall from father to son, but when a man is cursed with a degraded offspring, such as you are, there's a provision for cutting oft" tho entail, and leaving the titles and estates in decent hands. And young man, mark my word, it you don't mend your ways, and mend themspeedily, I'll do it !' ' Will you V hissed the boy, coming close to hi* father, his head protruding like that of a serpent about to strike, his greenish eyes blazing, and his whole aspect and attitude one of fiendish rngo. ' Will you, Earl of Strathspey ? Then I'll murder you /' Lord Strathspey reeled back with a gasping cry, and in his ears, as if some voice had uttered it, rang the old, awful prediction which announced a felon'B fate for his beloved son !