THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9622, 15 October 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

CHAPTER "Vl.—Continued.

"I can take my maid." "The maid is a 4 mere infant." 'Think of some of your frienda who will go there with such a judicious elderly behaved girl as I am. Oh. I do so long for quiet, for work, for hiding—do let me go!" "How insistent you are! There is my old second cousin, Dame Hooper, but she is such an atrocious woman ! She wears a great orange satin bowas large—as large as ray hand—and her neck is always so abominably dressed." "I shall not mind those little peculiarities," said Pauline. "And as for a chaperon, she sits for hours dozing with a handkerchief over the top of her head. She neither reads, sews, knit 3 she does nothing ! What a woman she is!" "Never mind," said Pauline. "Yuu send her with me for look's sake, and I am such a sober girl I do not need a very active chaperon. While she sleeps in the window, with her handkerchief over her head, I will attend to my work." "I have to take care of my Cousin Hooper," said Lady Astraea, "and I dare say she is tired of lodging in Bernard street, and wiil be glad to go to Marke Holme. She shall come here and accompany you, for I cannot go there. I have very sad memories connected with that place." "How kind y.tu are to let me go there, and that you do not insist on my going to London!" cried Pauline. ''There is an old servant there, who unites the offices of housekeeper and upper housemaid. Her husband is butler, coachman, and head gardener; their daughter is laundry-maid and a cook. Many of the rooms at Holme Castle are shut, and this humble little household suffices. You will take down your maid, Lucy, and Cousin Hooper, and I will send Ted, our gardener's boy, with a pony phaeton, which will do you for equipage; led can remain there all winter. I will give you all the keyj. and you can look o"er the rooms and see if there are any relics or papers which need attention. You shall be the Chatelaine nf Holme Castle, conduct the household as you choose, and I shall see what faculties you have for being Lady of the Manor." "I have none, I think, as in me such faculties would go to waste. I shall never be lady of a manor. I am sure when those papers come to be opened they w.ill contain some sad story which might better have rested in Oblivion—excuses perhaps, for my poor unknown mother, whose memory will thenceforth rexain shrouded in a cloud. You are good to send me to Holme Castle, where I can work, for only in work can I find the comfort of forgetting " And now when all the harvestfields stood brown and bare, when the woods were silent and ieadess, then Harcourt Towers were deserted, except for a few denizens of the servants' hall; and while Lord Harcourt the dowager Lady Harcourt, and Lady Lina went to their London residence Pauline, with Mrs Hooper and her little trnid L'icy, reached their winter home by the Medway. Holme Castle was the most ancient portion of the emmense Harcourt property, a property scattered through many counties of England. The castle stood with its round tower planted on the Medway bank, an ancient oak wood guarded the approach, well trimmed and cleaned, with lone broad carnage road, winding through it from the main entrance of the castle to the highway leading to Maidstone; on the northeast side a dense fir wood rose in dark projecting beauty, and, sheltered by its strength the garden of the castle nurtured fig treerf and espalher peaches and pears against its antique walls. Now. after a long desertion, life awoke at the castle with the coming of Pauline; youth never looked so young, grace never so gracious, as when contrasted with the frowning age of this Norman round tower, that had been added to the rec tangular keep, with its olden roundarched windows. A lif 3 which would have chilled and saddened some girls seemed a native element to Pauline. Hitherto her years had been cramped and vexed by the captious frivolity, the rebellious suffering of Charlotte Ormesby, and then had been repressed and seemed to ring untruly, when she, a lonely stranger, her very name a mystery, had moved among the happy and high born throng at the Towers Here at the castle she could be herself; her love of nature, of retirement, of study, of the ancient a very passion for antiquartianism —all these could develop at their will; and, qieen of her little household at the castle. Pauline seemed the reviving of s.ime gracious Chatelaine of the long gona days, holding her keep while her lerd was away to the wars; and often standing in the sunset light, watching irom the top of the round tower the silver flood of Medway rolling to the narrow seas, Pauline's strong and pure contralto rang out the ballad of the middle ages, half fancying as she sang that she saw along the distant road armour gleaming in the light of parting day, and banners waving, and heard the ring of steel on steel. Perhaps it would have been too imaginative a life

BY DUNCAN MCGREGOR Author of "Kennedy's Foe," '■lahmael Refei-roe-"A Game of Three," "Edna's Peril." Etc, etc,

' for most girls, but nut for her, who so long had been bound to the trivialities and deceptions of Charlotte Ormesby's fading life as Ixion to his wheel. It had been the old bitter fantasy, horribly set in real life: "And Betty, give my cheek a little red, One would not be a fright if one ia dead " Ah! bitterness unspeakable to an honest soul to stand by and hear the directions to Adeline: "Draw that red curtain closer to light me up better; take that ghastly green out of rny bouquet, it makes my hand look deathly; put more padding in my wrapper, why will you let me look so shrunken? more lace on my cap. Adeline, you absolutely iet the gray streaks in my hair ahowl" And sd until death stopped the pitiful mockery forever. And now, instead. Pauline had around her these mighty, unshakable walls, the stout hearts of the oaks, the faithful colour of the firs, everything in castle and grounds, without and within, all solidly what I it seemed to be. And here in scli- I tude Pauline bloomed like the roses of Ainwick, until even sleepy Dame Hooper roused up a little and remarked : "It was a blessed thing for Lady Lina that Miss Percy had not gone to town as a rival belle." Ona,great source of joy to Pauline was the ancient church on the Marke Home estate, the church that stands just without the firwoDd, a church which is said to antedate the Norman times and to occupy the site of one built by Augustine the first missionary into Kent. This is the church where Gervoise Lewis had played his marvellous symphonies living in self-elecced retirement and humble fortune, happy in creating harmonies, until the sweet-sounding chords of his life were rudely snapped asunder, and he died. Since his day the great organ has been almost silent; few came to the Marke Holme church who could make melody from those sonorous pipes'.. The rector, a man ot eighty, read prayers in the afternoons, and the [•urate, a new fledgling of Oxford, one of the numerous Percy line a youth who expected from Lady Astraea the reveision of the ' living preached in • the mornings a neat little essay which suggested "sweec girl graduates with their golden curls" and dainty little compositions tied with a blue ribbon; their fif-teen-inch parchmentd had in them a deal of birds and flowers, and the merest n.odicum of 1 <w or gospel. Pauine, sitting in the grand oak carven Harcourt pew. felt almost irrestible impulsts to go up through the chancel ani shake a lit'le life into the placidly murmuring preacher. Thus curate saw one long-remem-bered morning, beside the dozen old men and women, the castle servants, and a score of school his usual congregation, a sleepy old dame noddiiig cordial asßent to all Jlis platitudes, and beside this head, a face calm, grand, and lovely beyond all that he had ever seen. We remark in passing that the curate fell in love instanter but not too wildly to reason. He learned that this was a Percy, a ward of Lady Astraea, a damsel who ruled her household well, and had all her servants in the hall while she read morning and evening prayers. I TO BE CONTINUED.!