TALES OF TO – DAY. A SERIES OF SHORT STORIES, BY GEORGE R. SIMS,

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 374, 5 June 1889, Page 3

TALES OF TO - DAY. A SERIES OF SHORT STORIES, BY GEORGE R. SIMS,

Author of ' Koguos and Vagabonds, * Throe Brass Balls,' 'How the Poor Live,' * The Lights o' London,' &c, &c.

X. THE LOST BRIDE. 'Mv dear, this is Calais— we are i use in. My dear, don't you hear mo— are you ill. Why don't you open tho door ?' Mr Tobias Jonos rapped and rapport again at the door of tho privato cabin which he had scoured for his nowly- married wife on the Calais night bout, but still received no answer. Ho fancied the young lady might have fallen asleop, so he banned the door harder, and this time to his intense astonishment it flow open, showing, that it was not fastened, and behold the cabin was porfectly empty. 'Dear mo!' exclaimed Mr Jones, who was past sixty and wore gold glasses, and way fussy with the fussinoss of age, * dear mo, that is very extraordinary now. Leonora must havo felt study in tho cabin and gone out on deck.' The old gonbloman ran about theslippory dock as well as he could under tho circumstances — the ship was rolling heavily - and he peered into bho faces ot all tho female passengers, but nowhere could he discover hid lost Leonora, his beautiful and blushing bride. Thon Tobias became anMOus. It was his wedding night. At noon that very day he had been united in the bond.- of holy matrimony to Leonora Dalrymplo, aged 22, spitihtor, father dead (see certificate), by the Registrar of tho L'arish of Bloomsbury, at his (tha Registrar's) office, in the presence of two clerks belonging to the same office, who received live shillings each for their services Ib was not a romantic or a dignified ceremony, but it suited Tobias, and the fair Leonora had not in the slightest way objected. Mr Jones had beon a widower for ten years, ho had grown-up sons, and he was highly respected in chapel circles at Clapham, and when he fell madly in Lave with a beautiful young woman, whom he met for tho first time reading ono of Ouida'a no\els on a seat in Kensington Gardens, and who artlos=ly informed him that such was her custom always of an afternoon, he didn't like to confess the soft impeachment e\ en to himself; and as the acquaintance ripened and the charming creature in the third afternoon confided to Tobias that sho was an orphan of good family, her papa having been an oflicer in the army and her mamma a clergyman's daughter, and that sho lived with an aunt of independent means in St. Mary Abbotts Terrace, what more natural than that one day when it rained Mr Jones should escort her as far as the door with his umbrolla? And the next day it was decidedly not unnatural that he should call and , inquire after Miss Ddlrymple's health, fearing lest she might have cauyhc cold through beine exposed to the inclemency of the elements. He was leaving his card with tho sorvants when Leonora herself came tripping downstairs and insisted that he should como into the drawing room and see aunt. Aunt — a venerable and sovero-looking duenna—received her niece's admirer fiigidly at first, but gradually unbent, and from that day Tobias was a constant visitor, and becamo at last so desperately enamoured that he took the fatal plunge and tremblingly asked Miss Leoonra if she would overlook his ago in GQnaideration of his wealth and lii^ sincere affection for her, and become his wife. Leonora broke fiom Tobias with a pretty biush as he tiied to sei/.e her hand, and tremulously whispered that ho must ask ' Auntie.' Auntie was more business-like. Sho explained that her niece's beauty and birth and breeding entitled her to look forward to a first-class position as a wire. What were Mr Jones's ciicumstances ? Mr Jones explained that he was a business man, but that his sons took all tho worry off his shoulders. He had plenty^of money, and would make a good settlement and a good husband. Auntie professed herself satisfied, and allowed the lovers to become engaged on the understanding that as she was compelled to leave London shortly for her usual autumn visit to Carlsbad, the marriage should take place within a month, and as there had recently been a death in tho family, that it should be quite private. Tobias readily consented, and when ho explained to Leonora that he didn't want his family to know anything about ib till it was over, he was delighted to .find th,at the dear girl was quito agreeable to a private marriage by license before the superintendent registrar. By living fifteen day's at an hotel in Bloomsbury Mr Jones qualified for 1 that parish — a parish in which he was not likely to be known —and on the appointed day the ceremony took place. Auntie was not present, as, owing to an unexpected ciicumsbance, sho had to leave that very morning for Carlsbad. It is needless to say that the old gentleman had behaved gallantly in the -matter of presents. To atone for tho secrecy of the proceedings he had loaded his young bride with all that is supposed to appoal to a young and pretty woman's heart. He had, even on the eve of the wedding, taken his first wife's jewels from the bank, and presented her with abeautitul diamond necklace, a costly sapphire and a diamond ring, and a sot of diamond star;? for the hair, giving her at tho same time a beautiful -Jewel case and a diessing bag with her initials on, in which to place her valuables, and so have them in her own custody while travelling. 'They are very beautiful, dear,' said Leonora, And so they were. Tobias rather proudly let out that his denr little sweetheart was the happy possessor of quite £5,000 worth of jewellery all told. She kissed him and said he was a • pet,' and she should never bf» able to love him enough, and the next day when they left the registry office, both radiant with smiles, and drove to an hotel for luncheon, Leonora had all her presents in her dressing bag. They left bjr the ovening mail, at the bride's desire, for Paris ; and the poor little bride, upset by the roughness of the sea, begged Tobias to leave her alone for a while in the private deck cabin. 'I'm going to be ill,' dear,' she said, 'and I don't want you to see me ill ; it isn't romantic' Tobias also felt ill, and he didn't think he ehould appear at} his best to his young bride under the oircumstances, so he loft his darling and went and leant over the side of the vessel and contemplated the ocean. But as tho lights of Calais came in eight he went to see how his young wife was getting on, and found the cabin empty. When he failed to find her on deck ; when he failed to find her below ; when he failed to find her among fche crowd on the landing stage, or in the buffet, his heart sank down within him. How could sho havo missed him — where could she be? There were plenty of ladies, young and | old, among the passengers, but no Leonora. Possibly she had come up from below as the

boat go'fc alongside, and, miesing him, had gone to the hotel in Calais wheve she knew rooms had been reserved, as they had determined to break the journey there. Ho went to the hotel, but nothing had beon soon there of a young English lady. j When he roturned to the station the rest of the passengers had all gone on by the Paris or the Brussels express, and at last, after vainly interviewing all tho officials at tho stution and at the boat, Tobias returned broken-hearted to wliab should havo been tho nuptial chamber, and passed the night a prey to grief and terror at the mysterious disappearance of his nowly-made bride — and hor dressing bag. That was a peculiar feature of tho mystery. Leonora couldn't have dropped overboard ; if she had, she would have left her dressing bag behind hen Then a horriblo thought occurred to him. That dressing bag contained £5,000 of jewellery. Leonora had insisted on bringing all ' his lovely prosonts ' with her to wear in Pariß, where she had rolabions who wpuld ask thorn to balls and parties. Tho horrible idea which struck the olderly and disconsolate bridegroom was this : London thieves are very export and very daring. Had some terrible tr.an fe of malefactors found out the value of Leonora and hor jowel case, and had she been kidnapped, jewel case and all ? It was such a torrihle wedding night that once or twice Tobias imagined that he wa<? dreaming — that he had only married a beautiful girl in a dream, and that she had disappeared in a nijrhbmaro. Thinking over everything, in order to convince himself of tho reality ot the situation, he suddenly remembered that Leonora had informed him that she had engaged a new maid, and that this maid had been pent on to Paris with the ' heavy luggage' by the ten o'clock train in the morning, ,all this boing the result of Leonora's capital Arrangements. Directly it was morning, Tobias rushed tw tho telograph ofhee, and sent a telegram, paying the roply, to the Paris Hotel. A faint hopo that the maid might bo able to give a cluo to the mystery had entered his tortured breast. When tho reply came it was to the eflecb that no lady's maid with luggage had arrived in tho hotel on tho previous clay. That was the final blow. The fact that his brid.o had not arrived at Calais with him, and that hor maid had not gone on to Paris with the boxes as arranged, was. sufficient to prove to the unhappy Jonos that there was more in his wife's mysterious disappearance than at lirst met the eye. ll© waitod in Calais all day, ho made further inquiries, and then sadly and with nn almost broken heart he returned to London and commenced to put mysterious advertisements in the papors addressed to Leonora, But no Leonora replied, and in the absence of Auntie, who had not sent her addross at Carlsbad as promised, there was nothing more to be,done. One thing he did, ho\ve\er, which had a lesulfc the reverse of comforting. He made inquiries about in the neighbourhood, and discovered that the house had been let to her furnished for a period, and that on tho morning of leaving for foieign parts she had omitted to pay tho tradespeople their bills. And the shook of this discovery was increased when his son sent him up from tho counting-house a number of lebter& marked private, which on opening he found to contain bills for dresses and ornaments nnd female finery generally, which had been supplied to ' Mrs Tobias Jones,' and they amounted to some hundreds of pound*. He paid these bills without a murmur. To dis-pute them would have led to expo sure, atrd he felt he could never survive the shame of letting ib be known that he had married a young girl of great beauty, who had in tome mysterious way eluded him on his wedding day, and taken all his valuable presents with her. Tlio position in which Mr Jones found himself was extremely unplea&ant. He was a married man, and he didn't know whore his wife wa*>.' Ho had read of mortals who had married fairy brides — the said brides' disappearing for ever when the bridegroom asked certain questions, or sought to penetrate their private family secrets, bub here was he, a respectable elderly City, merchant, with a grown-up family, married boa moital who had disappeared with fairy-like ease, and in disappearing had taken some thousands of pounds worth of property with her — a thing that no fairy biide in any story ever written ever bhoughb of doing. Six months after ( his unfortunate marriage, Mr Jones had rebumed tho even tenour of his way. He kept the story a profound secret from s everyone, and was still in the eyes of his family, friends, and neighbours, the steady-going old widower he had been in tho days before he met Leonora Dalrymple and started on a honeymoon tour with her. It was about twelvo months after his unpleasant matrimonial experience that Mr Tobias Jones received a letter from a very old friend of his.— a retirod cloth manufacturer whose name was Oldroyd, was coming to town "on business," and he would be glad if his old friend would call upon him at the Great Northern Hotel, ab King's Cross, on tho following day. Tobias kept the appoinbmenb, and was shocked fo see the change in his friend's appearance. 'He " was only a little r>asb sixty, but he might have been eighty. The hale strong man wns bent and broken as though a whirlwind had passed over him. ' Good heavens, Oldroyd, how ill you look,' exclaimed Tobias, as he clasped his friend's hand. 1 1 am ill, old fellow, dreadfully ill. I've been upsot, worried ! I've had a great trouble lately, and it has shattered me completely. ' Trouble— what sort of trouble V ' Well, it's a very delicate matter ; but I must tell someone, and have advice. Ib isn't a thing to talk about to everybody : but 1 know I can trust you, and it won't go any further.' * Whatever you tell me I shall consider sacred.' The retired cloth manufacturer hesitated for a moment ; then he made a bold plunge 'into the middle of things ' and unburthened himself. ' Tho truth is, my friend, I've been an old fool. Some time ago 1 fell in love with a very beautiful young woman, whom 1 met while I was sbayingin Brussels. We gob to be groat frionds, and she confided bo me the story of her life. Her father had been an officer in the army, and had unfortunately, in his old ago, owing to a l'everse of fortune, become mixed up in a bill transaction. To pub it plainly, he had signed the name of another man to a bill, believing that he would be able to take it up before it became due. 'Unfortunately, he was disappointed in his expectations, and he was compelled to go to the person who had advanced the money, a wealthy but objectionable man, and ask him to be merciful. This man was a money-lender. He had been connected with the old officer in some business transactions, and had visibod at his house. Judgo of the poor old mana horror when tho wretch refused to hold tho bill over, bub threatened to present ib at once and so have the forgery exposed, unless his victim consented to give him his daughter's hand in marriage.

I ' The poor old man in a moment of despair revealed the truth to ,his child, and she, like a noble girl, agreed to sacrifice herself for her parent. 'Tho poor girl told me this portion of her story in the most artless manner, and it was only in answer to my further questions that I ascertained that the marriage was shortly to take place, but the prospect of it had so affected her health that the doctors had ordered her a complete change of Bcono, and she had come to Brussels Lo stay for a few weeks with her father's sister, tin old lady who lived in the Quartier Leopold, and with whom I met her on sevoral occasions. I felt deeply interested in the lovely young croaturo. Her fate was a very sad. one, for she soon let me understand that her affianced husband was in ovory way an- undesirable person. "I tromblo and shudder whenever I boo him," she cried, "aud"l shall have to pass my life with him." I Docs bo love you ?' ' lt ~.ove me!" sho cried, "How could uch a person love ?" ' ' I asked the young lady if nothing could be done. She replied' bhar. she and her father had no friends. I asked her if 1 inicrht see this person on her behalf, and she replied that I might, and told me that I should havo an opportuniy of doing so very soon, as he had written her to say that he was coming to Brussels on business in a day or two and should call to see her. ' A few days afterwards I received a note from the young lady saying that her persecutor was staying at the Hotel de L'Europe, and I let no time s}ip in seeking and obtaining an interview With Mr Julius Moss, the gentloman in question. I 1 found him a handsome, middle-aged, vulgar, overbearing sort of a per&on, a regular type of the lo\v-claa3 Jewish money, lender, and I thought it best to be plain with, him. 'He was exceedingly frank with me. He told me that he thought ib was like ray — impudence to interfere in his private aftairs, but he supposed I was 'spooney' on the girl myself. He'd been thinking the matter over, ho said, and as he wasn't in a particular hurry to get married, if I was such a friend ot the young lady's he would release her on the payment ot £2,000, tho amount of the father's forged acceptance, and £1,000 over for his bargain. 'I attempted to argue the matter, but he cut mo short. He didn't understand sentiment, he said. He'd made a bargain with the girl's father, and he was ready to carry it. " Tho money or the girl," that wat his bargain, and if I liked to pay the money, why, I was welcome to hays tho girl at the price. 'The coarseness of the fellow's proposition shocked me, but I was compelled to return to the young lady and intorm her of the result of my interview. * I found her awaiting me at her relative's house. If I had thought her beautiful before, I thought her still more beautiful now that I saw her flushed with hope, trembling with excitement, awaiting the i-ebult of my mission. I can't tell you how it happened, but before I left the house I had asked her if I freed her from this odious person if she would be my wife, and with tears of gratitude in her eyes she had confessed to me chat she could desire no happier fate. ' To make a long story short, I agreed to pay the £3,000, and on my return to town Mr Moss called at my office by appointment, received my cheque and handed me the acceptance. * The young lady in the meantime had returned to London, and I saw her doily at the hotel where she stayed with her relative,who had accompanied her. Her father was to have joined her in town, but was laid up with a bad attack of the gout ab Penzance, where he had been staying with some friends. 'I found my charmer more beautiful, more amiable every day. A new career seemed opening to me. AH my life 1 had been looked upon as a man who would never marry, and I felt a little ashamed of confessing to my friends that at my age I was about to unite myself to a girl young enough to be my daughter. So I loaded my darling with presents, and asked her if she would mind a quiet wedding and a nice long honeymoon abroad. She expressed herself as quite contented, but when, she found oub how, rioh I was,, she confided to me with a< blush, thab she was afraid she would nob be able to make a very grand appearance al first.- Very prettily, very modestly, she let me know thab she was too poor to buy a suitable trowiseuu, and so I ordered everything for her — gave her caite blanche to obtain all she wanted so thab we might be away six months. ' We were married very quietly ab a little church, and we were bo return to the hotel, where all her trunks, (fee, were packed and ready ; and .after a quiet luncheon, together with the old lady, her relative, and a friend of mine, who had been my best man, we were to start on our trip. * Then there happened the moat astonishing thing. Wo drove back to bho hotel, we were shown into a room where the luncheon was prepared, my bride left us bo give a few directions to her newly-engaged maid who was to accompany us. > { Wo waited half-an-hour, and then 1 began bo geb uneasy. I lang the bell and the sitting-room waiter came. laskod him to send a message up to the young lady by the chambermaid. Presently ho returned bo say thab the young lady was nob in her room. •I was nstonished. 'Further inquiiics were made, and then ib was ascertained that half-an-hour before, which must have been iusb as she left us, my wifo had gone downstairs, through the hall and oub ab the front door. 4 That was a thunderclap, and it was followed by another when we ascertained thab the maid had driven off with the boxes at o,n early hour that morning, the young lady herself scoing them loaded on bo a cab, and giving her some parbing instruction's. • That was a month ago, my dear fellow,' said Mr Oldroyd, wiping bhe perspiration from his forehead ; ' and from that day to this I have heard nothing of my wife or the maid, and I am a married man without a wife, and a loser of ,£4,000 hard cash by the transaction, nob to mention presents, and a trouswau, which means another thousand at bhe least. ' During the whole of this extraordinary narrative Tobias Jones had never once interrupted, but his face had gradually assumed an expression of deeper and deeper interest. When his friend had finished, he said quietly, * Will you describe tho young lady, please ?' Mr Oldroyd described bhe young lady, and there was no longer any doubt in Tobias'^ mind. ' My dear fellow,' he exclaimed, c this is a very extraordinary and a very dreadful affair. The young woman you have married is my wife !' < What !' Mr Oldroyd almost leaped out of his chair with astonishment. Bub when Tobias had confided to hit friend his own strange matrimonial ex I perience, Mr Oldroyd was convinced thai his friend was right, These two old gentlemen had been duped by the same ad venturess. 4 You see,' exclaimed Tobias, * you hay» "this advantage over me. Your raarrogi

( was no marriage, and you are a freo man I sbill ; while ' ! ' Yes,' interrupted his friend, ' I see that — but ib is exbremoly annoying to have lost so much money by the transaction. What had we better do ? Go to the police V Tobias hesitated. He didn't relish the idea of that at all. The adventure which he had so carefully concealed would have to come out. His sons would have to know, and the world would have to know, that he had made a fool of himself, nob only in marrying so young a woman, but in marrying a woman who was simply u female swindler on a large scale. ' We won't decide off-hand,' he said. ' We'll think it over, my friend, we'll think it over.' They did think it over, and as a first step they tried to find Mr Moss, and failed utterly. He, of course, was in the swindle. Ife was a lover invented for the purposes of the comedy, and the forged bill which Mr i Oldroyd had purchased had probably been drawn and accepted by Mr Moss himself or by some confederate. The old friends met again and again and started various little schemes, but none of them were successful in offering an elucidation to the mystery. Still they hesitated to go to the police and tell their story. The dread ot exposure, the fear of making themselves the laughing- stock of their friends and relatives, held them back. ' What they would ultimately have done in order to arrive ab a correcb understanding of their matrimonial predicament ib is impossible tosay. They were saved all further trouble in the matter by someone else taking the initiative. One day Mr Oldroyd drove up in a hansom to Mr Jones's residence, leapt out and demanded to see ' the master ' instantly. He was admitted, and rushed ■into Mr Jones's ebudy, carelully locked the door, and then producing a newspaper from his pocket, flung it down, and cried ' Have you seen it, Jones, have you seen it?' 1 Seen what ?' exclaimed Mr Jones. ' This trial in Paris which is reported in to-day's "Daily Telegraph," read it— read it.' The old gentleman pointed a trembling finger at the porbion he wanted Mr Jones to read, and when he had finished it the two friends looked at each other in blank dismay. What Mr Jones had read at Mr Oldroyd'a roquest was bhis — bhat a young woman of prepossessing appearance had been charged with swindling an elderly French baron by obtaining money and jowelleiy from him on bhe prebence bhab she would become his wife, and had lefb him immediately after the ceremony, taking with her the property ont of which she had swindled the poor old fellow. The Paris police, however, had been on bhe watch for the young lady, having obtained information as to her goings on from a woman with whom she had quarrelled, an elderly person who had assisted her in her nefarious plans and shared in the plunder. The Paris police were able to bring forward evidence bhab bhe young woman was already married, and had been for some years, bo a man who was wanted for criminal transactions, and who from lotters in the lady's possession was presumed also to have acted in concert with her in duping her elderly admirers. It was suggested at the trial bhat the young lady had not confined her field of operations to one country, as lebters were found which related to adventures in England and in Belgium. The French baron's case, however, was sufficient for the purposes of the French police. The swindle in his case was proved to the hilt, and the lair adventuress was on the strength of it sentenced to a long term of impi-i&onmenb. Putting this and that together, Mr Oldroyd and Mr Jones knew beyond bho possibility of a doubt that the French baron's fait- deceiver was the young lady they had both of them married and lost on their wedding-day, and they agreed, after longand earnest conversation, that as nothing was to be gained by their coming forward to advertise themselves as victims, the best thing they could do was to lock up the secret of their extraordinary mabrimonial advenbures within their own breasts, and to bo more careful how they yielded to the blandishments of young females in distross in the future. They have only one regret, which h that the young lady's lawful husband, Mr Julius Moss, has not also been called upun bo answer for his share in the transaction, for they both of thorn feel confident that the bulk of the money of which they were \ exploited had found its way into Mb possession, and that Mrs Mose, when she has finished her term of imprisonment, will have sufficient to live upon comfoitably for 1 [ the reab of her days — that is unless Mr Mots t takes advantage of his good lady's absence and goes off with the lot. In that case, a lady so skilled in the art of leading old ' gen olemen on to pop the question will probably get married a few times more and dis- • appear on each wedding day with what may be vulgarly, but expressively, de- > scribed as ' the awag.'