QUEER STORIES.

Observer, Volume 6, Issue 141, 26 May 1883, Page 152

QUEER STORIES.

WEAK WOMAN,

Mat Milmkin was quite up to the form of the orthodox hero of romance. He was a counterjumper ; a young man who smoked a pipe, drank beer, was partial to t! flutters " for drinks. And yet this prosaic soulless being in one particular followed in the footsteps of all the heroes of romance, .from the Thousand and One Mights to the days of ourselves and Ovida — that is, fell deeply and determinedly in love with a pretty girl. She, too, was of the shop shoppy, with a smile as bright as her eyes, and a heart as light as her step ; with a style and go-ahead dash just enough to make women call her " fast," and men declare her " proper." Yes, Mat and his "wife were just the style of pair one meets by the hundred in Q,ueen-street on Saturday nights. This story begins where most end. They married. Did they live happy ever afterwards ? Wait and see. I doubt if you would have found a happier man than Mat Millikin during his first year as a benedict. His hopes and his ambitions were limited ; they were centred in his wife, and promotion to be a leading salesman. Both dreams of youth were fulfilled. They are not very lofty, most of our earthly aims, but when attained they are surely sweeter than the richest harvest of life's autumn ; and Mat, in possession of a pretty wife, a cheap and common villa with a bay window and a bricky garden, was as proud and happy as a C.M.Gr. — more so than many of them. And in course of time a baby came. This made things lively, and kept the young couple from feeling dull. For instance, when the "interesting infant was not indulging in a convulsion, or sitting on a pin, she was generally J swallowing cotton reels, or cutting her teeth on pieces of charcoal; so that life, dies Millikin, was far from monotonous. Mow,_ if Mrs M. had been as commonplace an her ideas as her lord and master, this happy state of things might have gone on ad infinitum. \ But she, alas ! tired of even love — in a cottage. Mrs M. uafortunately was a trifle too much given to novel-reading, and\ in the pages of the Girl's Own Guslier, and similar forms of literature equally cheap and filling, had imbibed notions and fancies as intoxicating and as dangerous as fche opium dream. The heroes of her imagination were blonde and languid swells who were never ■out of dress clothes, And whose names were as long as their purses. 'Mat was neither tall nor languid, and sometimes after a hard day in the shop he seemed a little bit scrubby. And then one day Mat came home with a very white face, and told how that business being slack they were reducing the establishment in which he was employed. Still she might have 'proved steadfast and true had not temptation come in her weakest hour. She knew how hard it was sometimes, even with Mat in steady employment, to accomplish that great feat in the jugglery of life — make both ends meet. The weekly wage was so small, the margin for little fallals, ribbons, and what not so extremely limited, the bare necessaries of their humdrum life took so much, there was nothing for luxuries. How she envied those heroines of the wonderful novelettes she devoured when Mat •was at the shop : the haughty Lady Lardidardianas, whose patrician hands glistened with jewels, who were always casting diamond bracelets aside in anger. Some of these she read of longed for love in a cottage before all else the world could give them — longed to leave the stately halls, the glistening palaces, the wonderful boudoirs, and to cast in their lot with some humble lowly lover — those tales she could not believe. She could not imagine such women as the romancer pictured to her imagination, surrounded by wealth and fashion, to be unhappy. She knew, or thought she knew, that, without these mundane attractions, life with her was very dark and hard. Gf course there was baby. Yes, there was something loveable in life, and when the little blue eyes danced with delight as they sought her, even she forgot for a time her discontent, and the vague unreal dreams in which she had indulged. But the dreams would come back again, the longing Vfor something better than she had known." Blame her, my dear sir or madam ? lam not picturing a heroine. I should hardly know how to do that, I have met so few. I have read and heard and dreamed of many, but life is not made up of these. Mary Millikin was far from a heroine, only a weak woman, such as one meets in every class here and there. You are quite right, rr •• f?«n.r Mrs Cornelia, the creature was not fit to ■-•aih -.?• the same air as — yourself, for 1*00;/ - ' '? - she was more sinned against than biuninj-j I-?, indeed, whatever the cynics may say to the co^t^'-'y ;. 7 ">elieve the woman is in ninety-nine-'~«li cap/-:- •::. of a hundred. Hj"? ??& luu ,-.'.>• .ie;. by step down the- dangerous \^ e^\ r >”- ~<' 3 '" '•■'..!; is known as a man about town,";! i->u:i-e m yx 1 •■::"•■>-; the position, the mean?. £•:••'-- .n a s :-.>.;.-■..-- ri.-e education of a gentleman. j\-.'\(f-'-:\e i-f-aV/t; :■• very euphonious motto, an<^ o::-; £'"•-••■: i;i'r>'ly ;uolor] ; but how of ten is it piv ; .ir<e>''.t 'iiie w.m iz •nestiou would have considered" '•■uistrit '";; „-, .vy sense Mat Millikin's superior, av-'f *\y>\:--i Un : ild himself in some manm- tli.-jgA-:i'".;'.t by .-onioer- with, one of Mat's class — would Lx\c - oru'-.i to v-k in the same carriage or at. 'Jie ■:-..';if!'.&h~u- j.^ Li ". humble "shopman." Yet :--~; <;oir of .-jo-i*:.-; .■■• • van could be too low to lie «-.; i.--is ia -\ i<: v - general characteristic of the \ lqd i=-' : --'-o;.- ■ respects than one. Cat' - w--.io.i -ha, ,V- : lowed him to shake hands o~ •:■:.• •.«>. '»±k ;iir \ Mat, but caste let him deal \um i< I'liesi, j basest stab in his power, the most v .1; ■ ox j all. Yes, she was wrong, niy dear bi-o. 1 j sister Pharisees. She beheld arorce;: he ! flaunting in velvets and silks, while honest j six kk by in squalor and rags. She saw the b&i;.--:>ir. ■wheels of the demirep splash the pale eh eel: o<." the patient humble worker ; still she woulc liavbeen content to be patient, bespattered, and J--tuous. She was the angel of her husband* heart, the star of his life ; but angels and stars have fallen ere now — and she fell also ! The rapid pace vratj tempting. The sparkle danced in the wine cup, and the tempter was kind and courtly — for a time. But the pace

tries one, and when the sweet wine- is quaffed the dregs remain. The betrayer sometimes turns cold, like the child who despises the toy he has broken, and then the weary spirit and the dreary eyes turn to where the dark waters flow, darkly, silently, to the ocean. It was by no means a pleasant story, nor, alas ! an uncommon one. A glance, a smile, and a passing bow, a pursuit, a handsome hawk, a fluttering foolish dove, an appointment, a clandestine dinner — fight. The dream at first was pleasant, something like those in which Mary had been so prone to indulge. Her surroundings were lively and pleasant ; she was so far like a lady that she had now no menial work to perform, and her hand gi-ew white and soft as lilies. They travelled, too. The whirl of Sydney life, the novelty of Melbourne, the sight-seeing, the gaiety, and the gambling, for a time drowned all recollection of the past, left little time for remorse. But often, when the excitement of some madcap day was over, she thought of the humble home she had blighted, the humble man she had wronged, the humble child she had shamed. The cage was gilded, but the bars were there. But the wheel of fortune which so long had favoured her Giovanni turned in time. A horse, heavily backed, broke down. A night's bad luck at cards cost him a year's income. Dabbling in Stock transactions too, he burned his fingers. Giovanni determined to break ifc gently and delicately to her that times were hard, and that they must part. Fate, however, less considerate, forestalled him. A smart creditor entered judgment against him for a large debt, and put in" an execution at the house which Mary occupied, but which was rented in his name. A few days after he was made bankrupt, a settlement was arranged with his creditors, and he shortly afterwards left the country accompanying a frisnd on a cruise to the South Seas. Mary awoke one morning to find herself friendless and deserted. More than this, there was no one of whom she had the right to ask for aid. The strong arm that in the bygone days was ever ready for her defence she had scorned, she had now no demand on its protection. Misfortunes never come singly. Mary applied for employment on the stage, but her day was past, her name was unknown. As for histrionic ability of any kind, as you may have guessed, this poor frail wretched girl had not soul enough for that. Nemesis had arisen and was in full pursuit. * # * # # # * Two years have flown, and Mary Millikin stands once more in Auckland on the wharf friendless, penniless, deserted. There is no one near. Just a spring into the shifting rushing darkness below ; it would soon be over ! But, ah ! between her and that darkness comes the vision of a baby face. If she could only see it once again ! hear the ripple of its laughter only once! Instinctively her footsteps turn from death. An hour later she is crouching at the wicket of the house, once her happy honoured home. The window is aglow with a cheerful light, telling the comfort within. The past rushes before her like a rapid dream, the pent-up sobs burst from her bosom, and she forgets alike both past and present. In his lonely room Mat Millikin heard that cry ; so did the child that slumbered on his knee. The child awoke, as was her habit, breathed that name which stabbed her father to the heart, " Mamma !" Mat went to the door. What was that huddled heap at the gate ? Poor houseless creature ! " Merciful Heaven ! Mary !" And what did this man — who, mark you, was no hero — do ? Scoff at him, you cynical men and women of the world. Blame him, ye stern sticklers for morality who abhor evil so fiercely that ye would crush the evil-doers. The world might scoff or chide or blame him at its will ; but his wailing child had cried for her mother, so — he let the hopeless wanderer in.