CHAPTER XVII. THE SUMMONS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 413, 23 October 1889, Page 3

CHAPTER XVII. THE SUMMONS.

The sun was jusfc rising over the million roofs and spires of the great city as Charley's hansom dashed up to the door of Langham's hotel. He ran up to his father's room, and on the threshold encountered Trix, pale and worn with her night's watching, but wearing a peculiarly happy and contented little look despite it all. Charley did not stop to notice the look ; h° asked after his father. 'Pa's asleep,' Trix replied, 'so's ma. It's of no use your disturbing either ot them. Pa's pretty well ; stupid as you left him ; doesn't care to talk, but able to eat and sleep. The doctor saya there is nothing at all to hinder his travelling to Liverpool to-day. And now, Charley,' Trix concluded, looking compassionately at her brother's palo, tired face, 'as you look used up after your day and night's travelling, suppose you go to bed ; I'll wake you in time for breakfast, and you needn't worry, about anything. Captain Hammond has been here,' says Trix, blushing in the wan, morning light, ' and he will attend to everything.' Charley nodded and turned to go, but his sister detained him. 'You — you saw her, I suppose ?' she said, hesitatingly. ' Edith do you mean ?' Charley looks at her full. ' Yes, I saw her. As I went down for the purpose, I was hardly likely to fai}.' * And what did she say for herself V Trix asks, bitterly. * Very little ; we were not together ten minutes in all. She was dressed for a party of some kind, and I did not detain her.' •* A party ?' Trix repeats ; ' and we like this ! Did she send no message at all ?' ' She sent you her dearest love.' ' She may keep it - let her give io to Sir Victor Catheron. I don't want her love, or anything else belonging to her !' Trix cries, explosively. ■ 'Of all the heartless, ungrateful girls ' ' Her brother stops her with a look. Those handsome grey eyes of" Charley's can be very stern eyes when he likes. *Ab I said before, that will do, Trix. Edith is one of the wise virgins we read of — she has chosen by long odds the better part. What could we do with her now ? take her back and return her to her father and step-mother, and the dull life she hated ? as for gratitude, I confess I don't see where the gratitude is to come in. We engaged her at a fixed salary ; so much cleverness, .French, German, and general usefulness on her part ; on ours, several hundred dollars per annum. Let me say this, Trix, once and for good : as you don't seem able to say anything pleasant) of Edith, suppose you don't speak of her at all ?' And then Charley, with that resolute light in his eyes, that resolute compression of his lips, turned and walked upstairs. Jt was an unusually lengthy and unusually grave speech for him, and his volatile sister was duly impressed. Sho shrugged her shoulders, and went back to her pa's room. 'The amount of it is,' she thought, 'he is as fond of her as ever, and can't bear, as he has lost her, to hear her spoken of. The idea of his scampering down into Chester to see her once more ! Ridiculous I She it heartless, and I hate her !' And then Trixy took out her lace pockethandkerchief and suddenly burst out crying. O dear, it was bad enough to lose one's fortune, to have one's European tour nipped in the bud, without losing Edith, just as Edith had wound her way most closely round Trixy's warm little heart. There was but one drop of honey in all the bitter cvp — a drop six feet high and stout in proportion — Captain Angus Hammond. .For Captain Angus Hammond, as though to prove that all the world was not base and mercenary, had come nobly to the front, and proposed to Trixy. And Trixy, surprised and grateful, and liking him very much, had hesitated, and smiled, and dimpled, and blushed, and objected, and finally began to cry, and sobbed out ' yes ' through her tears. Charley slept until twelve — they were to depart for Liverpool by the two. o'clock express. Then his sister, attired for traveling, awoke him, and they all breakfasted together ; Mr Stuart, •, too, looking very limp and miserable, and Captain Hammond, whose state would have been one of idiotic happiness, had not the thought that the ocean to-morrow would roll between him and the object of his young affections, thrown a damper upon him. He was going to Liverpool with them, however ; it would be a mournful consolation to see them off. They travelled second-class. As Charley said, they must let themselves down easily — the sooner they began the better— and third-class to start with, might be coming it a little too strong. Let them have a few cushions and comforts still. Mr Stuart kept close to his wife. He seemed to cling to her, and depend upon her, like a child. It was wonderful, it was Ditiful how utterly shattered he had became. His son looked after him with a solicitous tenderness quite new in all their experience of Charley. Captain Hammond and Trixy kept in a corner together, and talked in .saccharine undertones, looking foolish, and guilty, and bappy. They reached Liverpool late in the evening, and drove to the Adelphi. At twelve next day they *rafe to get on board the tender, and be conveyed down the Mersey to their ship. Late that evening, after dinner, and over fcheir cigars, Captain Hammond opened his masculine heart, and, with vast hesitation and much embarasamenb, poured into JCharley'e ear the tale of his love. ' I ought to tell the governor, you know,' fcfce young x officer said, • but he's so deueedly cut up aa it is, you know, that I couldn t fchink of it. And it's no use fidgeting your naother— Trixy, will tell her. 1 love your eister,' Charley, and I believe I've been in love with her ever since that day in Ireland. I ain't a lady's man, and I never cared a fig for a girl before in my life ; but, by George ! I am awfully fond of Trixy. I ain't an elder son and I ain't clever, I know,' cried the poor young gentleman «adly ; ' but if Trix will consenj>, by George ! I'll go with her to .ijhurch to-morrow. There's my pay m y. habits ain't expensive, like some itilOjr* ' — we could get along on that for a -while, and then I have expectations from my grandmother. I've had expectations 'from my. grandmother for the last twelve Wears, sir, and every day of those twelve ' years she's, been dying ; and, by George ! she in'fedead ypt, you know. It's wonderful "— l'eiv*eyovi t my word— it's wonderful, the •away^-grandmothers and maiden aunts money Hold out. As Dundrearys cays,

" It's something no fellow can understand.' But that ain't what I wanted to say — it's this : If you're willing, and Trix is willing, I'll get leave of absence and come over by the next ship, and we'll be married. I — I'll be the happiest fellow alive, Stuart, the day your 3istor becomes my wife.' You are not to suppose that Captain Hammond made this speech fluently and eloquently, as I have reported it. The words are his, but the long pauses, the stammerings, the repetitions, the hesitations I have mercitully withheld. His cigar was quite smoked out by the time he had finished, and with nervous haste he set about lighting another. For Mr Stuart, tilted back in his chair, his shining boots on the window-sill of the drawing-room, gazing out at the gas-lit highways of Liverpool, he I listened in abstracted silence. There was i a long pause after the captain concluded — then Charley opened his lips and spoke : ' This is all nonsense, you know, Hammond,' he said gravely, • folly — madness, on your part. A week ago, when we thought i Trixy an heiress, the case looked very different, you see ; then 1 would have shaken hands with you, and bestowed my blessing upon your virtuous endeavours. But all that is changed now. As far as I can see, we are beggars— literally beggars — without a dollar ; and when we get to New York nothing will remain for Trixy and me but to roll up our sleeves and go to work. "What we are to work at, Heaven knows ; we have come up like the lilies of the field, who toil not, neither do they spin. 16 is rather late in the day bo take lessons in spinning now, but you see there ia no help for it. I don't say much Hammond but I feel this. I hold a man to be something less than a man who will go through life howling over a loss of this kind. There are worse losses than that of fortune in the world. ' He paused a moment, and his dreamy eyes looked "far out over the crowded city street. ' I always thought my father was as rich as a Crow — Crie — the 'rich fellow, you know, they always quote in print. It seemed an impossibility that we could ever be poor. But we are, and there is an end of it. Your family are wealthy, your father has a title ; do you think he would listen to this for a moment ? 4My family may qo — hang !' burst forth the captain. ' What the deuce have they got to do with it ? If Trixy is willing — ' 1 Trixy will not be willing to enter any family on those terms,' Trix : s brother said, in that quiet way of his. which could yet be such an obstinate way ; ' and what I mean to say is this : A marriage for the present is totally and absolutely out of the question. You and she may make love to your heart's content — write letters across the ocean by the bushel, be engaged as fast as you please, and remain constant as long as you like. Rut marriage — no, no, no !' That was the end of it. Charley was not to be moved — neither, indeed, on the marriage question., was Trix. ' Did Angus think her a wretch — a monster — to desert her poor pa and ma just now, when they wanted her most, and go off with him ? Not likely. He might take back his ring if he liked — she would not hold him to his engagement — she was ready and willing to set him free — ' 'So Jamie.'an'ye dinna wait Ye canna marry me.' sang Charley, as Trix broke down here and sobbed. Then with a half smile on his face he went out of the room, and Trixy's tears were dried on Angus Hammond's faithful breast. Next day, a grey overcast, gloomy day, the ship sailed. Captain Hammond went with them on board, returning in the tender. Trix, leaning on her father's arm, crying behind her veil ; Charley, by his mother's &ide, stood on deck while the tender steamed back to the dock. And there, under the grey sky, with the bleak wind blowing, and the ship tossing on the ugly short chop of the river, they took their parting look at the English shore, with but one friendly face to watch them away, and that the ginger-whiskered face of Captain Hammond. Edith Darrell left Charley Stuart, and returned to the brilliantly-lit drawing-room, where her lover and Lady Helena and their friends sat waiting the announcement of dinner. Sir Victor's watchful eye saw her enter. Sir Victor's loving glance saw the pallor, like the pallor of death, upon her face. She walked steadily over to a chair in the curtained recess of a window. He was held captive bj T Lady Portia Hampton, and could not join her. A second after there was a sort of sobbing gasp — a heavy fall. Everybody started, and arose in conBternation. Mu>s Darrell had fallen from her chair, and lay on the floor in a dead faint. Her lover, as pale almost as herself, lifted her in his arms, the cold, beautiful facs lying like death on his shoulder. But it was not death They carried her up to her room—restoratives were applied, and presently the great dark eyes opened and looked up into her lover's face. She covered her own with her hands, and turned away from liim, as though the sight was distasteful to her. He bent above her, almost agonised that anything should ail his idol. 'My darling,' he said tremulou&ly. ' What was it ? What can Ido for you ? Tell me.' 'Go away,' was the dull answer ; ' only that — go away everybody, and leave mo alone.' They strove to reason with her — some one sought to stay with her. Lady Helena, Sir Victor — either would give up their place at dinner and remain at the bedside. ' NOi no, no !' was her answering cry, • they must not. She was better again — she needed no one, she wanted nothing, only to be let alone.' They left her alone — she was trembling with nervous excitement, a little more and hysterics would set in — they dared not disobey. They left her alone, with a watchful attendant on the alert in the dressingroom. She lay upon the dainty French bed, her dark hair, from which the flowers had been taken, tossed over the white pillows, her hands clasped above her head, her dark, large eyes fixed on the opposite wall. So she lay motionless, neither speaking nor stirring for hours, with a sort of dull numb aching at her heart. They stole in softly to her bedside many times through the night, always to find her like that, lying with blank, wide-open eyes, never noticing nor speaking to them. When morning broke she awoke from a dull sort of sleep, her head burning, her lips parched, her eye 3 glittering with fever. They sent for the doctor. He felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, asked questions, and shook his head. Over-wrought nerves the whole, of it. Her mind must have been over-excited for some time, and this was the result. No danger was to be apprehended ; careful nursing would restore her in a week or two, combined with perfect quiet. Then a chance of air and scene would be beneficial-r-JBay a. trip to Scarborough or Torquay now. They would give her this saline draught just at present and not' worry about her. The young lady would be all right, on his word and honour, my dear Sir Victor, in a week or two. Sir Victor listened very gloomily. He had heard from the hall porter of Mr Stuart's flying -visit, and .of his brief interview with' Mies' Darrell. . , It . was very

I strange — his hasty coming, his hasty going* I without seeing any of them, his interview with Edith, and Her fainting-fit immediately after. Why had he come? What had transpired at that interview ? The green-eyed monster took the baronet's heart between his finger and thumb, and gave it a most terrible twinge. Ho watched over her when they let him into that darkened, chamber, as a mother may over an only and darling child. ' If he lost her ! * O Heaven !' he cried passionately, rebelliously, * rather, let me die than that !' He asked her no questions— he was afraid. His heart sank within him, she lay co cold, so white, so utterly indifferent whether he came or went. He was nothing to her — nothing. Would he ever be? Lady Helena, less in love, and consequently less a coward, asked the question her nephew dared pot ask : • What brought Mr Charles Stuart to Powyss Place ? What had made her, Edith, faint?' The dark sombre eyes turned from the j twilight prospect, seen through tho open window, and met her ladyship's suspicious eyes steadily. •Mr Stuart had come down to tell her some very bad news. His father had failed — they were ruined. They had to leave England in two days for home — he had only come to bid her a last farewellr' Then the sombre brown eyes went back to the blue-grey sky, the crystal July moon, the velvet, green grass, the dark, murmuring trees, tho birds twittering in the leafy branches, and all was still again. Lady Helena was shockod, surprised, grieved. But— why had Edith fainted? 'I don't know,' Edith answered. 'I never fainted before in my life. I think I have not been very strong lately. I felt well enough when I returned to the draw-ing-room — a minute after I grew giddy and fell. I remember no more.' ' W e will take you away, my dear,' her ladyship said cheerfully. 'We will take you to Torquay. Changes of air and scene, as the doctor says, are the tonics you need to brace your nerves. Ah ! old or young, all we poor women are martyrs to nerves.' They took her to Torquay in the second week of July. A pretty little villa near Hesketh Crescent had been hired ; four servants from Powyss Place preceded them t Sir Victor escorted them, and saw them duly installed. He returned again — partly because the work going on at Catheron Royals needed his presence, partly because Lady Helena gravely and earnestly urged it. 4My dear Victor,' she said, don't force too much of your society upon Edith. I know girls. Even if she were in love with you ' — the young man winced — c she would grow tired of a lover who never left her sight. All women do. If you want her to grow fond of you, go away, write to her every day — not too lover-like letters ; one may have u surfeit of sweets ; just cheerful, pleasant, sociable letters —as a young man in love can write. Come down this day three weeks, and if we are ready take us home.' The youug man made a wry face — much as he used to do when his good aunt urged him to swallow a dose of nauseous medicine. ' In three weeks ! My dear Lady Helena, what are you thinking of ? We are to be married the first week of September.' ' October, Victor — October — not a day sooner. You must wait until Edith is completely restored. There is no such desperate haste. You are not likely to lose her." • I am not so sure of that,' he said, half I sullenly, under his breath ; • and a postponed marriage is tho most unlucky thing in the world. ' ' I don't believe in luck ; I do in commonsense,' his aunt retorted, rather sharply. ' You are like a spoiled child, Victor, crying for the moon. It ia Edith's own request, if you will have it — this postponement. And , Edith is right. You don't want a limp, ; pallid, half-dying bride, I suppose. Give her time to get strong — give her time to learn to like you — your patient waiting will go far towards it. Take my word, it will be the wiser course.' There was nothing for it but obedience. He took his leave and went back to Cheshire. It was his first parting from Edith. How he felt, no words can tell. But the fact remained — he went. She drew a long, deep breath as she said good-bye, and watched him away. Ah ! what a different farewell to that other only two short weeks ago. She tried not, to think of that — honestly and earnestly ; she tried to forget the face that haunted her, the voice that rang in her ears, the warm hand-clasp, the kisses that sealed their parting. Her love, her duty, her allegiance, her thoughts — all were due to Sir Victor now. In the quiet days that were to be there, she would try to forget the love of her life — try to remember that of all men on earth Sir Victor Catheron was the only man she had any right to think of. And she succeeded partly. Wandering along the tawny sands, with the blue brieht sea spreading awny before her, drinking in the soft salt air, Edith grew strong in body and mind once more. Charley Stuart had passed for ever out of her life — driven hence by her own acts ; she would be the most drivelling of idiots, the basest of traitors, to pine for him now. Her step grew elastic, her eyes grow bright, her beauty and bloom returned. She met hosts of pleasant people, and her laugh came sweetly to Lady Helena's ears. Since her nephew mint marry — since his heart was set on this girl — Lady Helena wished to see her a healthy and happy wife. Sir Victor's letters came daily ; the girl smiled as she glanced carelessly over them, tore them up, and answered — aboub halfLove him she did not ; but she was learning to think very kindly of him. It is quite in the scope of a woman's complex nature to love one man passionately, and like another very much. It was Edith's case — she liked Sir Victor ; and when, at the end of three weeks, he came to join them, she could approach and givo him her hand with a" frank, glad smile of welcome. The three weeks had been as three centuries'to this ardent young lover. His delight to see his darling blooming, and well, and wholly restored, almost repaid him. And three days after, the trio had returned together to Powyss Place, to part, as he whispered, no more. It was the middle of August now. In spite of Edith's protest, grand preparations were being made for the wedding — a magnificent trousseau having been ordered. ♦ Simplicity is all very well,' Lady Helena answered Miss Darrell, 'but Sir Victor Catheron's bride must dress as becomes Sir Victor Catheron's station. In three years from now, if you prefer white muslin and simplicity, prefer it by all means. About the wedding-dress, you will kindly let me have my own way.' Edith desisted ; she appealed no more ; passive to all changes, she let herself drift along. The third of October waß to be the weddiner day ; my ladies Gwendoline and Laura Drexel, the two chief bridesmaids — then three others, all daughters of old friends of Lady Helena. The pretty, pipturepque town of Carnarvon, \n North Wales, waa to be the rjest of tlje {jurtjedove's during the boneynapon— fchpn away to the, Continent, then back for the Christmap .festivities at Catheron Royals.

Catheron Royals was fast becoming a palace for a princess— its grounds a sorb of enchanted fairy-land. Edith walked through its lofty, echoing halls, its long suites of sumptuous drawing - rooms, libraries, billiard and ball-rooms. The suite fitted up for herself was gorgeous in purple and gold — velvet and bullion fringe— in pictures that were wonders of loveliness — in mirror-lined walls, in all that boundless wealth and love could lavish on its idols, Leaning on her proud and happy bridegroom's arm. she walked through them all, half dazed with all the wealth of colour and splendour, and wondering if 'I be I. ' Was it a tairy tale, or was all this for Edith Darrell ?— Edith Darreil, who such a brief while gone, used to sweep and dust, sew and darn, in dull, unlovely Sandy Point, aiid get a new merino dress twice a year ? No, it could not be— such transformation scenes never took place out of a Christmas pantomime or a Burlesque Arabian Night — it was all a dream— a fairy fortune that, like fairy gold, would change to dull slate stones at light of day. She would never be Lady Catheron, never be mistress of this glittering Aladdin's Palace. It grew upon her day after day, this feeling of vagueness, of unreality. She was just adrift upon a "shining river, and one of these days she would go stranded ashore on hidden quicksands and foul ground. Somethin? would happen. The days went by like dreams — it was the middle of September.' In little more than a fortnight would come the third of October and the wedding day. But eomething would happen. As surely as she lived and saw it all, she felt that something would happen. Something did. On the eighteenth of September there came from London, late in the evening, a telegram for Lady Helena. Sir Victor was with Edich at the piano in the drawing-room. In hot haste his aunt sent for him ; he went at once. He found her pale, terrified, excited ; she held out the tolegram to him without a word. He read it slowly : 'Come at once. Fetch Victor. He is dying.— lnez.'