The Story Teller.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 190, 24 March 1893, Page 4

The Story Teller.

A SIMPLE STORY-

Royal Moore was Rachel Heath's first love, and she bad reached the age of twenty-nine before she met him—quite an old maid ; and yet at that age a woman knows her own mind, and her love is much more likely to be lasting and tiue than tne ardent passion of eighteen. Rachel’s life had been such that she had no chance for what is called falling in love. Her mother had died when she was verv young, and the care of an old and sickly father had fallen upon Rachel. She had fulfilled the trust faithfully. She had borne all the old man’s querulousness with gentle patience ; she had submitted without a murmur to being kept in the sickroom while her young acquaintances were gathered together enjoying themselves ; and though Mr Heath might have spared her as well as not, she never called him selfish, not even in her thoughts. He was her father, and to him she owed every duty. So her sweet youth wore away, and wo man’s crowning blessing was denied her ; and her cheek lost its sea-shell bloom, and her dark eyes gathered shadows of thought and darkness which should never come to young eyes. At last old Mr Heath died at the age of eighty- nine, and Rachel was left alone. It was then that Royal Moore came into her life. He was a physician, and had attended her father during the last few weeks of his existence.

Something about the girl’s calm, quiet endurance, something in the self-reliant strength of character, touched Dr. Moore a interest before he had even noticed that she had a clearly-cut face, a little pale and sad, with large hazel eyes, and a wealth of curling brown hair. Her figure was perfect ; and, after all, there is no charm of beauty more potent in a man’s eyes than a fine figure. After Mr Heath’s death, when Rachel was left alone in the house with only her Aunt Edith for a companion, Dr. Moore applied to Miss Heath for rooms and board. Rachel would hardly have taken him, so accustomed had she become to loneliness, and so much did she dread any breaking up of old habi+s, but Aunt Edith was stroDgly in his favour, and so it happened that about a fortnight after Mr Heath’s burial Dr. Moore was comfortably established in the south room of Rachel s house, and was taking his meals opposite her at table.

It was not more than a month before the old, old story was told, and listened to with a strange and sweet delight. This love of Dr. Moore’s was so unlike anything poor Rachel had ever had shown her before that she hardly dared b; happy in it, lest it might elude luer grasp and leave her more desolate than before. Hitherto she had always had to think and care for everybody—all the planning, and calculating, and ‘ looking out ’ fell upon her —but now all was changed One whose constant aim was to make her happy was near her continually, and upon his strength her weakness relied, and her mind rested from care and perplexity. A ceuple of months they had been engaged when Laura Sayres, a distant cousin of Rachel’s, took it into her head that she needed the sea air. Rachel lived in the little sea-girt town of Beauview, and to ‘ dear Cousin Rachel’ Laura wrote that ahe was coming.

Rachel remembeied her as a child—gold-en-haired, blue eyed, and waxen-faced and of late years she had heard something of her wonderful beauty, which had made her the belle of Washington the past season, for her father held an important office at the capital, and during the winter his family were with him. To tell the truth, Rachel was hardly pleased at the prospect of Laura’s coming. Perhaps she dreaded the bustle and excitement which this woman of fashion would bring with her, and perhaps she shrank from any intrusion upon the sweet and tender relation between herself and Dr. Moore. Dr. Moore was not overpleased at the prospect, for he detested fashionable ladies, he said, and he had no doubt my Lady Laura was frivolous and vain, like the majority of them. He would so much rather have his little Rachel to himself. Then he kissed her forehead, and slid his arm around her waist, and drew her to his side, and they stood silently together and heat’d the sea waves beat on the shore, and

the crickets chirp in the and neither of them dreamed of the cloud which was even then gathering in the calm sky of their felicity. The next day Laura Sayres came. Just twenty —a slight, graceful girl, with hands like sculptured marble, and feet whose rare perfection of shape and tininess were admir ably shown off by the exquisite Paris boots she wore ; and arch rosebud of a face, framed up in a mass of crinkly golden hair, ;ied up with azure ribbon, and falling in a shower of curls down her shoulders. Yes, there was no gainsaying the fact that Laura Sayres was a beauty, and Dr. Mcore, being a man, could not help admiring her. She played and sung finely, too, and he was fond of music. Rachel foresaw that which was to come, but she bore up bravely against it, and was always kind and sweet to Laura, and gentle with Royal Moore. Laura, accustomed as she was to being admired and flattered, appropriated Dr. Moore without hesitation. Aunt Edith had mentioned to her his engagement with Rachel, but Laura bad lived in the world where engagements are formed and broken to suit the convenience of the parties, and she attached no importance to the com munication. She had only said : • Why, Aunt Edith ! engaged to that old maid ! Why, Dr. Moore is one of the most splendid men I ever met V ‘ Laura,’ said Aunt Edith, severely, ‘ no man can he too good for Rachel Heath. She is the noblest and truest of women I ever knew.’

‘ Oh, yes, auntie, returned Laura, ‘ I know she is a perfect saint ; but she is so grave and old, and she wears her hair in such horrid style ! Hot a puff, nor a friz, and I’ll venture to say Sot a thread of false hair !’ ‘Ho,’ said Aunt Edith, ‘ Rachel’s head is too full of good sense to allow itself to be done up in hair from the scalp of any lunatic or criminal. Laura flounced out of the room in a pet, and revenged herself by hunting up Dr. Moore and coaxing him tc take her out in his boat. It was twilight when they returned, and Rachel sat on the piazza and watched them come up the shell-paved walk with an odd pain at her heart. She did not understand Dr. Moore. Suddenly something seemed to have come between them, and to have changed the genial, happy young man into a restless and capricious trifier. Rachel felt curiously afraid of him in these days ; she avoided being left alone with him, and shrank into herself more persistently than ever. Sometimes she caught his dark eyes fixed upou her face with an expression of anxious doubt, and once he had detained her in the hall and asked her what was the matter. And she had answered ‘ nothing,’ bravely repressing the tears which were ready to fall over this wreck of her brief happiness. All the bright summer Laura lingered at Beauview, and Dr. Moore was ever her most devoted cavalier Riding, walking, or boating, the two were always together, and though Dr. Moore used at first to ask Rachel to come with them she always declined, and after a time he ceased to ask her. Laura confided her hopes to Rachel one night after the girls bad ad gone to their rooms. She should marry Dr, Moore, for she liked him vastly, and then he was rich and of a good family. ‘ I did think he was engaged to you,’ went on the selfish girl, ‘ but, of course, that is all over. No man loves and neglects a woman at the same time. And then you must be ages older than he.’ 1 I am twenty-nine—Dr, Moore is thirty,’ eaid Rachel, in a cold, hard voice, which surprised herself, ‘ and if he loves you I should advise you to marry him,’ ‘ You are such a dear, good creature,’ cried Laura, kissing her, ‘ and I am so glad that you do not care anything about him. It would be so awkward, you know, if you did. But I hear him coming to his room and we must be quiet. So good-night, and pleasant dreams.’ rieasant dreams, indeed ! Pocr Rachel never closed her weary eyes that night, and the next morning she looked so worn and ill that even selfish Laura insisted on bathing her head and coddling her to sleep on the sofa. It was early autumn now, and the evenings were growing chilly. Rachel had a fire lighted that night on the sittingroom hearth,

Laura, all in a diaphanous cloud of white muslin and azure ribbons, sailed in just be - fore it was time for Dr. Moore to come from his office.

* A fire ! a wood fire !’ she cried, gayly ; ‘ how charming. Royal and I are to practice that new song together, and really, it would have been chilly here without -the fire. You are very thoughtful, Cousin Rachel I wonder if I will be as good when I am as old ?’

She went close to the fire, and held her small white hands out to the ruddy blaze. Her sweeping skirts over the hearth—a breath of air from the opening door as Aunt Edith camo in swayed them a little nearer ; a tongue of flame seized upon the flimsy fabric, and in an instant the unfortunate girl was wrapped in a cloud of fire A fearful temptation beset Rachel. Do not temptations, at times—temptations dark, and evil, and devilish—beset the best of us ? If Laura perished, Royal Moore would be hers once more. The thought went through her brain like lightning, but she cast it behind her with impatient scorn. The next moment she had torn up the hearthrug and wrapped it around Laura, and forcing the screaming girl to the floor, she succeeded in smothering the flames, just as Dr. Moore entered the room. She thought it very strange that he should spring to her side, and ask if she were burned, before he even looked at Laura ; hut afterwards he lifted the poor young girl in his arms and carried her up to her room and dressed her wounds, and soothed her as best he could.

By and by he came down and found Rachel out in the moonlight under the yellow maples. She had bandaged both her hands, for they were fearfully burned, and she had told Dr, Moore she was not hurt.

‘ My dear little girl!’ he said drawing her into the sitting-room, ‘you have deceived me—yon are burned. I must see after this myself.’ And he took off the wrappings, and he grew pale and grave at the sight of tbe poor scarred and blistered hands. She submitted to him quietly. His touch brought back to her some of the sweetness of the old time. And she had made up her mind to tell him this very evening that he was free. ‘ Rachel,’ said he, when he had finished dressing the burns, ‘ I want to talk to you a little while. You have given me no chance lately, and I have been very udhappy over it. I have at times almost begun to fear that after all you did not care for me as I thought you did !’ ‘ I desire your happiness above anything else,’ began Rachel, bravely ; ‘ and when I saw that you were pleased with Laura, and indeed it is not strange, for she is young and handsome——” ‘ Pleased with Laura ?’ said Dr, Moore * I was never pleased with her, dear. I have been playing, you will think, a very mean and dastardly game, but my conscience approves me ! Two years ago, Rachel, that girl flirted with my brother Henry, and broke his heart ! He was young, romantic, and very susceplib'e Her beauty enthralled him. She, like the heartless flirt she is, led him on until he knew no rest nor joy away from her. Then, when his devotion became troublesome—for there was another suitor on hand —she laughed at him for an idiot, and frankly told him that she had never thought of marrying him. She had only been amusing herself, and supposed he had been doing the same. It was so ridiculous for people to get in love. Harry went to his lodgings, entered his room, locked the door, and blew out his brains ! And when this girl, who had caused his death just as surely as though her own white hand had held the fatal pistol-—when she heard of it, she cried out: ‘ What a fool ! But there 1 I always thought he was rather weak, somehow 1 and he was so fond of me! Dear me ! how disagreeable it is to have men falling in love with one !’ By the side of my poor brother’s dead body I made a vow that if ever destiny false and treacherous girl in my way, I would punish her for her sin against him, and I have kept my word. Perhaps it is not noble or generous for me to say it, but I believe she loves me. And, Rachel, darling, I love only you !’ Despite poor Rachel’s involuntary shrinking hack, he took her into his arms

and kissed her in the old slow, sweet way. So her lost happiness came back. Laura Sayres was not able to leave her chamber when Rachel and Dr. Moore went quietly to the-village chapel one morning and were married. And when Aunt Edith told Laura of what was going on—and Aunt Edith had a wicked sort of enjoyment in telling her—you may well believe there was a soene. Hie next day Lama went home. A month afterwards she married old Goldbrim, who was seventy years old and worth a million ; and the old fellow still lives, and leads her a wretched life. Dr, Moore and his wife are leading their contented, quiet, country life, all the happ er, maybe, for the cloud which once came across the haven of their love.