A Revesion : its Product.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4266, 2 September 1882, Page 1

A Revesion : its Product.

" What do you think of that, Reggie f" says a tall, dark youth to another of the same gilded type, tossing him a letter, as they threw themselves into adjacent teats in the smoking room of the Blenheim. " A woman's evidently," is the answer, as his friend glances at it. " Ah!" he adds a moment later, as he opens it, " I hare had a few billets-doux; bat none quite of this sort. What is the little game?" " Precisely tho question I thought you might answer forme." • .- •. r (

Theodore Innes Montague, called from early Eton days Tim, was the second son of Lord Heighleigh, and he had made life so rapid that his fourth .year in...the Brigade found him in the black books of that irascible, wealthy, but somewhat close-fisted peer. He bad already got through a rerj tidy property which his mother had left him. Thrice had his father paid, under severe protest what other men would consider anything but small fortunes, all of which had gone into the gulf that is surrounded by cards and horses. On the last occasion he had been warned that if his sufficiently handsome allowance was exceeded, he must get himself out of the mess. The note that he and Temperlay had been discussing was curt enough :— " If you wish to avoid unpleasant consequences, don't waste another day, bat go straight to him who has helped you before, the ten thousand will be forthcoming." The envelope bore the Western District postmark. It came from, a stationer in ] May fair. Other clue there was not. : The next day was well on before Tim hailed a " Forder," and found himself en route to the friend of the impecunious but expectant ones of the " upper ten." Familiarly known among his numerous clients and their friends by a scriptural cognomen only, he whom Tim sought in his difficulty had lodg cast off his family name, and with it many of the traditions and prejudices of his race. Nature had greatly assisted him. Fair, and not too markedly nasal, his face might hare been pronounced distinguished. Certainly his manner was as pleasant as hia appearance.. His terms, though sometimes high, were never very hard, aud few, if any, found him exacting as to his pound, of flesh. He wajM banker, in fact,.though not perhaps of the orthodox order, and poi-. Bessedsome of the qualities in which they

as a class, are wanting. Besides, as not a feir of his fair clienSs whispered, he evidently had a history. Tim's not over-pleasant thoughts were recalled by the cab stopping, and, as he Walked up the path in the garden which separates the house from the road in St. John'a Wood, he tried to comfort himself by thinking that possibly the boldness of the step was in his favor. The neat and rather pretty maid who answered his ring was as unlike the attendant of the conventional money*spider as were the surroundings of the bouse, outside and in. Hardly had he time to cast an appreciating glance at the pictures and other evidences of cultured taste in the room, when a tall, well»bred-looking man en tered, and, with an agreeable smile, said, " Ah! Captain Montague, just in time for the best of things, if men would but have the courage of their opinions— luncheon—provided they have time and an appetite. I hope you have both at your disposal."

Now, Tim'i experience of his host was confined to Sharp street; here he evidently placed himself on the lerel of his visitor. It was norel, but necessity is an imperative master, and the answer came readily enough—" You are very good. I hare not long finished the first meal of the day, but—" "A Mayonnaise and a bottle of Dagnoet's brut will do you no harm. Come in. I am quite alone," interrupts the money-lender, as if divining the cause of the soldier's hesitation. The repast and its concomitants might hare tempted a much-jaded appetite. After some talk, " Then," says Tim, rising, " I had better face the only alternative, and tell him the hole lam in. He can't do more than atop my allowance, which won't be much good to me if I don't pay up to* morrow." But this announcement instantly worked an unexpected change in the manner of his host. It seemed as if they were suddenly transported to Sharp street ns the money-lender, with all the profession in his tone, laid:—" My dear sir, yon are too hasty! Businesses business ; and I care no more to send it away than a poorer man. You have something to sell." 111!" ejaculates Tim with astonishment. 11 Yea, a reversionary interest." '•In what?" asks the other, sinking into his chair with an expressive shrug of his shoulders. " Tour father is of a certain age." ••Well?" " Your brother is unmarried; failing him, you are the next heir." "So!" "You shall have what you need t^. morrow for your reversion — and £• promise." "To do whatP" "*• Marry my daughter." The hot blood of the Montagues flushed ill over poor Tim, and for a moment it teemed as if he would forget everything?, I

and hurl something more than "No " at the head of the cool proposer of such an extraordinary bargain. Bat, with all his recklessness, he knew, at time?, the virtue of prudence, which certainly was contained in the reply which was waited for with ill-concealed impatience. " I am afraid that even if you cared for a pauper son-in-law, the young lady would prefer tome one of her own choosing." "All that is my affair," answers the fathr, wtih a grandiose air. Tim weighs rapidly the position. Refusal meant ruin, utter and complete, for eTen if his father paid up, he certainly would fulfil his threat, and cot him off with the proferhial shilling. On the other hand he might hare freedom from a hateful? position for really nothing. His brother was young, strong, and bating only to amuse himself, had not even the contingent risk of being food for powder. And as to matrimony!—but here the sharp pang which shot through him, told him that there was one who might hear of his marrying another with something more than indifference, who might feel that she bad some claim to be be considered in any bargain affecting his j future. He hesitated painfully till he remembered that his now certain porerty prerented eren the hope of his offering her anything, and then, with a look which went to the heart of the other, he gare him his: hand, and said in a firm, but strangely altered roice, " It is a bargain. As to the latter part, I am at your disposal after I am off with the old lore, which won't take long under the circumstances," he added, with the grimmest of smiles./ The money lender looked questioningly at him for a moment, and then apparently satisfied with the result, said, 11 Very well. I'll prepare in a few minutes a document which is, perhaps, more formal than necessary. Sign it, | and you shall hare what you require in the morning."

Hftlf-an*hour later, as Tim drives back towards his Bohemian quarter!, he finds his heart is offeriog sundry reasons for delay. Obeying an impulse he does not stop to question, he suddenly alters his direction, and presently finds himself on the doorstep of a house which has seen him not unfrequently in the last few months. As he goes upstairs he wonders Tsguely in what sort of state he will come down, much -as the young soldier going into action speculates on the probabilities of his needing a stretcher. Little time for further reflection is given him, for, as the servant retires, he sees at the other end of the room the tall, graceful figure he now feels he has learned to lore overmuch for his happiness. As she mores towards him, her fair face beams with the

unconscious, but unmistakable, light of< lore, and leaves no doubt as to her beauty, while, with the frankness which is not! the least of her charms, she says : " I am so glad you have come ; it is quite an age since we met." Anything but a coxcomb, Tim cannot but see that the task that is set before him is harder than he had dared to think possible. i "You have found it so," he says tenderly, as he takes her hand and sits 'beside her. And then there falls upon I them both that too eloquent silence which tells so much. Of course, she was the first to find the advantage of speech. But were things made better as she said with heightened color :— " Did you get a letter from a nameless friend last night ?" " Yos," he answered, with amazement. " Do you know anything about il ?". "Well—yes, I forgot you would not know my writing, and I did not like to put my name to such a piece of advice. But have you seen your father?" "My father 1" asked Tim, as if he conld not be further astonished. "Ah! I must explain. He was here yesterday, and as Uncle Philip is rather deaf, I heard, perhaps, more than was intended. But—" and her violet eyes soften and fill with tears as she turns them on his face, " why will you be so reckless ? Your father, though, allowed there might be some '.excuse to offer. He would not condemn you unheard, and he declared that if you went, confessed, and promised amendment, he would pay what you had lost once more." Poor Tim ! So Reggie had been right after all. And he ? Well, he had sold bis birthright—his love—his happiness ; and the sooner he crept away like the hound he felt, the better.

" Now for my trumps," said Tim's host, a few minutes after lie had gone, as he stepped into the perfectly-appointed coupe, which he ordered to be driven to Lord Heighleigh's. "Mr Howard?" said the old Peer, bowing stiffly, as he looked inquiringly from the card he held in his hand to the face of his unknown visitor. "Yes, my Lord. A friend—if I may say so—of your eon." " Which ?" was the question—put in a tone which did not imply that he admitted the passport. " Captain Montague." " Ah! you have come as his pleader ? he has not the courage himself to tell what I know already." 111 may say at once, if you allude to what happened on Friday night, that he has already arranged the matter." "The devil!" stormed the astonished father. " Who has been fool enough to let him have such a sum ?" " I have !" is the calm answer. The old man starts, looks at his visitor keenly, sees that there is more to follow, and motions him to a seat. " You don't look like the traditional spider." His visitor bows ironical thanks. " Yet you are, of course, up to all the tricks of the trade. You must know that my son has absolutely nothing, and will have nothing, but a.small annuity." '• He has a reversion," is the short but significant answer. •• To what ?" "Your title and magnificent rent-roll." "You must first dispose of his elder .brother," sarcastically replies the father. "I have; at least as far as the second item goes."

"What! Agincourt has sold his right of succession 1 Impossible!" " 'Tis true nevertheless. The quietest men are often the deepest. You have i always kept him too short. He, got into an extravagant set at Christ Church. He did not care to tell you. Renewals at ruinous rates, and increased wants brought him to me. In a word, I hold the reversions of both your sons." •' Good God!" and for a moment the ashy face and tremulous limbs looked as if the sudden shock would make the reversions a speedy certainty; but with an effort, which the other wondered at and envied, Lord Heighleigh calmed himself and said, "If this be so, I presume that you have some further object than its revelation in coming to me thus ?" "I have." The old Peer bowed. " Some twenty years ago I was tempted to deceive one who might have loved me for my own sake. If I may say so, I did not look what I was and am. Travelling in Germany, I met her; she was at the baths with an old lady. After a brief courtship I married her. They imagined I was high born, like themselves. My Jiride and my love combined oddly to brbid their knowing the truth, which, however, came out suddenly and acciden* tally one day when we were still abroad From that hour my poor wife drooped, and barely survived the birth of her daughter. As the only reparation in my power, I vowed that the child should be spared the knowledge which had killed her, and as soon as possible I took the little one to her mother's relations, who were not too rich nor too proud to receive her on the condition that she should be kept in ignorance of her paternity. My first thought is that child's happiness. I know, how it matters not, that your son Theodore has it more in his bands than either of them may fancy. If Ibe right, will you sanction their union ?" " Great heavens, sir !" cried the indignant father, springing impetuously to his feet. " One moment my Lord," calmly interposed the other, as Lord Heighleigh strode towards the bell; "I came for peace not war. You had better listen." And there was something in his tone which made the old man hesitate and say, "Well! what then P" "I hold his written promise to marry my daughter. "Then, sir, you can call upon him to fulfil the conditions of his bargain without my aid. Good morning." And with a frigid courtesy which speaks volumes, Tim's father bows his visitor from the room. Arrived at a house in Park lane, Mr Howard is shown into a room, where he is not kept long waiting ere an elderly gentleman greets him with a cordiality not, perhaps, uneootbing after his late interview. " Sir Philip," he says presently, " what I have for some time foreseen and somewhat dreaded has come to pass. I have tried to do without your promised assistance; but pride is stubborn, as I have found to my cost. Will you explain to Lord Heighleigh .that my daughter is your neice, whom he knows and likes so well; that she is and shall remain ignorant of my relationship, and that the reversions I purchased are but part of what I will gladly give to secure her happiness?" * # # #