The Storgteller. UNDER A STRANGE MASK.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 312, 9 July 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Storgteller. UNDER A STRANGE MASK.

BY FRAMC BARRETT

CHAPTER I.—DALEGROVE COURT,

As I approached the house by the carriace drive from the park, I caught sight of Miss Sylvester coming through the shrubbery by the private path from the church, which lies, I may tell you, not half a stone's throw from Dalegrove Court.

She was a little person, this Miss Sylvester, although she gave you the impression of being quite up to the average height of women because she was slight, carried her small head loftily, had a thin long face with delicats features and hands to match. She had not perceived me; so I stopped short to have a good look at her, as an artist would pause before his favourite picture, or a gardener beside his cherished flower, and with the critical eye of one whose judgment is in dispute. It is part of a lawyer's business to form a just estimate of character ; and I had lately parted from a young gentleman who had listened to my warm praises of Miss Sylvester •with the subdued sceptical smile of one who is too well-bred to dispute the claims of a lady to the esteem of her attorney. 'Can crafty designs or sordid consideration have a place in that young soul V I asked myself, pushing ray spectacles a little closer to my eyes. But my sight was not strong enough to detect any justification of such suspicion in her face. All I noticed was that she walked with lassitude, and that her figure was a little bent with fatigue. 'She's been fagging herself to death to give somebody pleasure, I warrant,' said I, abandoning the very thought of ill. 'She's pale and worn. I can see that. I wish to goodness she would grow a little ttouter.' At that moment she spied me and her cheeks flushing, her lips parting with a cry of pleasure, she came quickly to me ; our friendship was not of the one-sided sort. I noticed that she wore a plain cotton dress of dark blue, with white spots, gathered in at the waist with a ribbon. Her hair had tumbled down aud had been put up loosely in a knot and very pretty the soft brown mass looked against her white brow, with a stray curl or two catching the reddish tint of autumn loaves. She carried a basket in one hand and a cheap straw hat in the other ; dropping both at her feet, she slipped off her loose garden gloves, and impulsively put her two soft, slender hands in mine murmuring a welcome. She looked into my face, os if she would like me to kiss her, and so I took that pleasant privilege of an old man. •It does me good to see an old friend,' she said. • Why certainly you look better now than when I first caught sight of you.' ' Ob, I was tired —to-morrow is our harvest Sunday and I hare been at work in the* church all day picking up the things she had let fall as I stooped for th*t purpose. 'And when I am tired all my courage goes, and I'm nothing but a stupid little coward,' saying this with a frown at her own weakness, she crushed her hat up and crammed it, with her gloves, in the basket; then, slipping her hand under ray arm, she added, with a confiding smile; 'Do you know just before 1 saw you I was trying to invent some matter of business to bring you over here next week.' • Ha! ha ! you thought if you did not make business an excuse for my coming I might make it my excuse for staying away.' • Ob,' I knew you would come if I only told you what was the matter with me ; but I was ashamed to admit it.' ' Have you courage to acknowledge it now VI asked, ' Yes ; it is simply this : 1 have not had a chat with anyone for a week and I'm wretched. The rain has driven all visitors away ; Miss Winter has gone home to her friends —I am all alone."— ' I interrupted her:« Miss Winter is a paid companion,' I said sharply. ' Why on earth does Miss Winter want to go at this very time'(' ' Because it's just at this very time she doesn't want to stay. I suppose,' replied my little friend. I couldn't refuse to let her go when she told me her mother was ill.'^ « He mother's dead aud buried,'

laid I. , , ... A Well J feel sure, she'll write next week to say her mother's condition prevents her returning. «Good gracious me ! said I. Do you mean to say you are all alone in this great ghostly house? We were now standing in the hall. Sha nodded, pulling up her skirt and rubbing off the wet gravel from the edge of her little shoe on ihe mat. , Where's the vicar V said I, rubbing ny feet impatiently. Tn lira vicarage—so is Mrs Mildmay. They left all the decorations of the church iu my hands, because

I do it so nicely. They came in once to say how nieely I was getting on. Wonder they didn't bring me a bun. We ought to be good friends ; but we are not. It's rny fault, of coursp, that we don't get on. Our Rubicon is the weather ; we never go beyond it. Mr Mildmay is so dreadfully sweet-tempered he agrees with everything you say ; one can't even quarrel with a man of that sort , and you hate him the more because you can't. Mrs Mildmay writes, you know: tries to get down to my level ; but it's a failure. When I ventured to speak •flifcer&irare, she puts me down with a superior smile, and asks if she shall send me " The Fashionable World" to read, about two years old, you know. ' I know the sort of women,' said I, ' and I hate 'em,' We were still rubbing our shoes on the mat, and we went on rubbing them, unconsciously, a few seconds more, in silence, both occupied with our own thoughts: then, laying her hand on my arm, and looking into my face with her deep, earnest eyes, she said , . Tell me I ought to be ashamed of myself.'

' And welcome, my dear, if you will show me why.' ' For having so little self-com-mand said she ; for breaking down just when I ought to stand up firmly. It was pleasant enough all the summer while friends were coming and the village was full of visitors ; but now when I've done my morning's duties and sit down tired I can't even fix my attention on a book but must look at the leaves outside falling —falling with not a sound—till I get frightened and think I am in a dying world ; and, oh 1 I would give anything if only my dog could say a word to me.' The tears guthered in her tye», 'My child ! ' said I, in a note of expostulation. *I am not a child.' She said: ' I am four-and-twenty.' ' That is why it is so humiliating to feel that one is childish. If I am not a woman now, I never shall be.' ' You are a woman, my dear and that is why you cannot endure this solitude. Woman was no more intended to live alone than man is. No man would stand it a week—anyhow. I wouldn't, I knew how it would be,'and only last night. I said to myself, that little lady must not be left there alone.' ' And that is why you have come ten miles to see me ?' She said, her face aglow with gratitude, as she laid her hands on my shoulders : • Not altogether, my dear,' and I gave her another kiss—l've known her since she wore pinafores,— ' There's a matter of business 'to be discussed after tea.'

' Yes, after tea—not one word before. Oh ; we'll have such a long evening 1 I won't be five minutes changing my dress, and she ran upstairs, pausing half way to ask me if I had left my trap in the village, and then again a little further on, asking me to ring the bell and order tea to be made ; and I own that for me this child-like excitement over such a trifle as the visit of an old man was pathetic in its signification.

Redland'e Court—or, as it; is now called, Dalegrove Court —stands on the brow of a gently rising hill, from which a noble park sweeps down to the quaint village of Loecliff. From the lawn you may see the little harbour, in which nestles a fleet of fishing boats under the lee of a pier with a diminutive lighthouse at the end, curving outward into a lunt-tto of dark blue sea. A lovelier sight could not have been chosen for the habitation of man, and I doubt if man could have chosen a more hideous habitation for the site—a great square stone building embellished, as they doubtless said at the time it was built, with a row of Boric Columns, apparently placed there to support nothing, and for no earthly useful purpose A house stood there in the sixteenth Century, as I know by the title-deeds in my keeping ; and a fine specirren of English domestic architecture it must have been, to judge by a wing abutting upon the old Chnrch, which was thought good enough to leave standing to serve for stables and outer offices ; but the main building was pulled down and replaced with the present structure, which stands as a monument to the execrable state of the last century. There are forty or fifty rooms in it and some of them cover sufficient space to serve for an ordinary modern villa-residence. All that side of the house on the east of the great entrance hall, was unused, the doors were locked, and no one had been in the rooms for years past; only eight or nine rooms, on the west side were in use, one of these too was divided by the late proprietor with a partition, one part serving as a study and library, and the other as a living room ; and here alone you might forget what a great, ugly, chill barracks of a place the court was. CHAPTKR lI.—TEN MINUTES' KECOLLECTIONS. I told the maid to set the tea things in the living-room, and strolling into the library, threw myself into the easiest chair, and closing my eyes, thinking about Miss Sylvester and this ugly house she lived in—naturally enough. My little friend says she found me asleep there when she camo in ; but that could not be, for I have a distinct

recollection of putting the history of the court and its owners into a form 1 judicious, clear, succinct, The language plain, and the incidents well linked.' which I could not have done had I been even sleepy. I can even now run oven thd details as they accurred to me, and perhaps there will be no better place in my story than this to do so.

An ugly house, with an ugly history, thought I; if it had only been a little more picturesque, what a capitcal story one of these clover novelists might have made with it ! Might have got a ghost in if those old gables had been left ; but how could a ghost associate with those detestable Doric Columns V

1828—fifty years ago—alongway to go back ! Never mind, we can get over fifty years in fifty seconds, perhaps ; for I shan't spin my story out as if it were a bill ot cost?, or make it tedious with attempted fine writing. For you need not expect an old lawyer in his moments of ease to be severely correct, as if he were talking with a ticklish client on formal business. We lawyers unbend like other men, and drop into colloquial phrases easily enough with folks whom we neither fear nor dislike. I have no reason to fear or dislike you, my dear reader, so away we go without restraint.

Fifty years ago this house and the country for miles around belonged to the Redlands family; there are the arras sculptured in that marble chimney-piece (I remember opening my eyes and glaring at it.) Soecliff at that time was a collection of miserable huts tenanted by nob less miserable fishermen and their wretched families ; the farmers on the estate were scarcely better off. The Redlands were always in want of money, and their steward had to grind it out of the tenants somehow. It was not a bad family ;. they had, and still have, some of the best qualities, but their extravagance and improvidence made them bad landlords, and must have been a source of perpetual discomfort to themselves. They lived beyond their income, and did nothing whatever to improve their estate; they never thought of retrenching, and, as the property deteriorated every year in value, they got into debt, and sank pretty deep in it. When things were about as bad as they could be, Gordon, Lord Redland, took to himself a wife that was characteristic as soon as he came home from the honeymoon, he found he must borrow ten thousand pounds from some one to pay off the swarm of minor creditors who threatened to destroy the place of his young wife's new home. He applied to his friends. There was one who had already displayed unusual genorosity. That friend was Robert Sylvester. Robert Sylvester was about the same age as Lord Redlands J he had married at twenty-five ; his wife died after the birth of a son. Three years afterwards he and his friend Lord Redlandsjfell simultaneously in love with the beautiful daughter of Sir Andrew Peytori. She rejetted Sylvester and accepted Lord Redlands. But this did not shake the devotion of Sylvester to his friend: And when as I say, Lord Redlands made known his pecuniary embarrassment, Sylvester at once came forward, offering to supply him with the money on his note-of-hand. The offer was accepted and Sylvester drew the money from his banker and posted over with the hard cash in his pocket from Bath where he was then staying. It i 3 possible that his intention became known through the indiscretion of some one in the bank ; anyhow, it is a fact that between Bath and Barnstapb he was attacked by a couple of high waymen. He was armed, and, succeeding in beating off the rascals, and reached Barnsv,aplp. He rested there that night, and the next day arrived at Redland Court. It was the first time he had seen Lady Redland3" since she rejected him, but nothing in his manner betrayed that ho hegrudged his friend the happiness he himself had failed to win. The two friends sat up late as Sylvester was obliged to return to Bath the next day. Before they parted he handed over to Lord Redlands the money he had brought, and received from him acknowledgement in the form of a note-of-hand. Early the, next morning the servants found that the house had been broken into during the night, and, going to Lord Redlands' room, they found him lying dead in his bed beneath the pillow with which he had been suffocated ; the box in which he kept some private papers and had placed the money he received from Sylvester was gone. There were marks of heavy footsteps in a flower-bed beneath the window through which the entrance had been made ; a couple of horsemen had been seen early in the moaning on the outskirts of Coneyford—-indeed, there was sutlicient evidence to prove that the men who took Lord Redlands' life and his money were the same scoundrels who attacked Sylvester on the Barnstaple road. Robert Sylvester was overcome with grief and dismay when theterrible face of his friend was made known to him; but, summoning fortitude, he did all that a man should, and could in such circumstances, 110 called together the friends and relatives of Lord and Lady Redlands to come and console the unhappy young widow, whilst he himself, animated by that thirst for vengeance which was considerably

stronger fifty years ago than it is at present, raised the country in pursuit of the malefactors. There was no telegraph then and the police system was almost defective; the culprits got clear off and no trace of them could be found beyond Coneyford, where, it is supposed, they got a fishing-boat to carry them off to Wales. Sylvester stayed in the neighbourhood until his friend was buried ; then he went away. [[• left a note for Lady Redlands. When she opened it she found her late husband's note-of-hand to Sylvester for ten thousand pounds torn in half. ' The last service I can offer my dear friend " was written on the paper that enclosed the torn acknowledgement. No one could deny that Robert Sylvester had behaved throughout like a devoted friend, and this last act of generosity was worthy of such friendships. Unfortunately, it did not discharge Lord Redlands' debts to other creditors and it was found necessary to sell part of the estate. Lady Redlands had no longer any desire to live at the Court, and that part of the estate, including the Court, the park, and the villas of Seocliff, was publicly offered for sale. There were not many offers ; but the highest was outbid by Robert Sylvester; and it was knocked down to him at a price considerably beyond .its actual value. Three months had passed siace the death of her husband, and Lady Redlands was bomewhat recovered from the terrible shock. With the titledeeds in his hands, Robert Sylvester presented himself and prayed the widow to take them back and be his wife, She refused, telling him she had resolved never to marry again. Perhaps there was little in his appearance at that time to tempt the young widow to a second marriage. The loss of his friend had produced an effect upon him which testified to the extraordinary affection he bore to Lord Redlands: the young and genial man who had suddenly became old and morse—avoiding society, dhunning every kind of amusement. It was said that he never slept, and at times vyas not master of his reason. He was told by the doctor to whom he applied for opiates to procure sleep and forgetfulness, that the only permanent relief was to be found in entire change of surroundings. This advice, seconding his disinclination to mingle with former friends, he accepted ; and leaving his child in good hands, he became a traveller, and was no more seen in England. Now we come to Richard Sylvester, the son of Robert, whose history I have been talking about. The lad vvas brought up under the care of a wise and kindly old parson in Staffordshire, who taught him the simple duties of a Christian and a gentleman. In due course the lad went to Eton, and thence to Oxford. He was twenty one when his father, Robert Sylvester, divided his property, reserving enough for his own requirements and handing the rest over to his son. With this Richard bought a commission in the Army : he went to India where he distinguished himself, rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and five years later received his colonelcy. In 1563 ho married ; in 'Gi his daughter, Marian was born. Soon after this he laid down his commission and came to England, with his wife, whose health was failing, and his daughter. The colonel was then a fairly rich man ; but in 70 a commercial failure left him absolutely penniless, and he was compelled to write to his father for money. Robert Sylvester sent him a couple of hundred pounds for his present necessities and told him he was welcome to live at Redlands Court and make what he could out of the estate, but he must not expect any further pecuniary assistance from him. The man must have lost all tenderness and sunk into the condition of a misanthrope. Writing from Athens, he said something to this effect (I was looking at the letter only last week :) —' I have given you all that I can afford; I can give you no more without depriving myself of comforts that I regard aa necessary. In this, I consider that I have discharged my parental duties, and see no necessity to do more. The Loecliff Estate has scarcely paid expenses since it became mine. No tenant has been found for the Court, and the rent collected from the villagers hardly covers the expense of repairing their houses. It may be that the man who is in charge of the property is dishonest. Get the advice of a decent lawyer who knows the country ; with that and careful management you may be able to make a living. I hope you will : at any rate there is a roof to shelter you and your family until you see some way out of your present difficulties; but in any case do not bother me with your affairs. Ido not wish ever again to write the name of that place or to hear one word about it nor need you trouble to answer this letter; I would rather you did not : but, if you do, pray try to avoid all expression of sentiment. We have not seen each other for thirty-three years ; then you were too young to know me from any other person. Why should we care more for each other now than then 1 As a rational being, you, I hope, are proof against the hallucination of false sentiment; and I beg you to believe that I am.'

One piece of advice in this precious letter the Colonel acted upon immediately—he asked in Coneyford for a respectable lawyer and was directed to me. He laid the case before me, showed me the letter from his father and asked if I would help him. I liked the man from the very first—a fearless, clear speaking, straightforward man with deep-set dark eyes, his sunburnt skin lightly lined with the wrinkles that come of mirth and kindliness—and I agreed to help him as best I could. We went over the estate together. Its condition was pretty nearly as bad as it could be. With thirty years' of neglect and bad management the farm lands had become worthless, and but for ragged hedges that surrounded them would have passed for common ; not an aere was under cultivation, and the farm houses were untenanted. Loecliff was a miserable collection of tumbledown hovels inhabited by a miserable and squalid community, who lived. heaven only knows how, Every storm swept away a portion of the only pier so that it scarcely afforded protection to the few fishing boats left of the once respectable fleet.

To restore the place to prosperity money must be spent upon it. To get money we must mortgage the property or cut down timber. I persuaded the Colonel to let me write to his father and ask which he would prefer. In due course he sent the title-deeds of the estate, with a brief and characteristic letter saying that his son was at liberty to make what use he pleased of them ; that with regard to the timber' he was perfectly indifferent whether we left the trees standing or cut them down. We raised money on the title-deeds. The Colonel spent it wisely aud well. He made a few rooms in the Court habitable and brought his wife there. His daughter lie placed in a school at Coneyford that she might have companions of her own age and condi tion. Then he repaired the old pier, had the cottages made clean and waterproof, and began to put some of the land under cultivation. He had indomitable courage and a hopeful, cheerful disposition; he needed all that in the first years of that uphill fight. His wife was a brave woman, too, accommodating herself cheerfully to the circuras ances of her changed condition—comforting her husband in little difficulties Making the home sweet and cheerful, seconding his efforts with patient steadfastness—a true helpmeet, -as a wife should be. While he toiled to made the land beautiful and the village decent, she strove to make the fishermen and their wives and broods clean and decent, and bring them into a better and happier way of living. Difficult work it was ; for when folks get deeply sunk in misery they lose hope, and with it the wish to rise again. The men only wanted to be alone ; the women resented the ' prying ways ' of those who sought to know their wants; the children wouldn't be washed, if they could help it. But just as the Colonel, by patient ploughing and harrowing got the weeds out of the land and made it yield potatoes in their place, so did his wife clean the hearts of those stubborn human creatures and plant seed that brought forth good harvest' in its season. It was refreshing to see them at work and I never left the Court without feeling a greater respect and love for my follow-creatures. It was a lesson in humanity. Little by little—though slowly enough at first to try the patience of Job—the property rose in value. The villagers began to make money, and save it, which was the great thing. Instead of spending all in beer they contrived to pay some for rent. One year was good for herrings. Another was good for potatoes ; tenants came on the estate instead of going out, and so every year showed a better result than the preceding one ; but the great stroke of fortune came when the line of railway was opened to Coneyford. It brought visitors fiom London—plea-stirc-seekcrs, healtli-scekers poets, painters—all sorts and conditions of men, who astonished by the grandeur of the coast, the beauty of the country, the pure bracing air that sweeps in from the Atlantic, the quaint picturesqueness of the old village spread everywhere, the praises of Soecliff bringing year by year more visitors. With a generous hand, the Colonel and his wife helped the villagers to furnish roorns'in their cottages for accommodation of these folks, raising them to a state of pros perity that they or we had never dreamed of. The rail also opened a fresh outlet for produce, and at length the Colonel, after paying off his mortgage found himself with money in hand, another servant, a pony and trap to fetch his daughter from Coneyford on Saturday and take her back on Monday—these were the only additions the Colonel made to his own expenses. All the surplus money was sunk in improving the property —in building a new pier, a school-house, new roads,, etc. ' In 'B2 an end came to his happiness : his wife died. Marian, then eighteen, left school, and came home to comfort her father and be his right hand. Bravely she played her part, subduing her own grief to lessen her father's sorrow. The colonel's heart was broken ; his health gave way, and slowly he sank and sank. Marian undertook the duties of the household, and, in addition,

charged herself with the management of the estate as her father became less and less capable of administering his affairs, making herself complete mistress of every detail of the complicated machinery. Slw astonished me; I never could have believed a young woman capable of such an understanding But though towards the latter part of her father's lifetime she controlled the estate in perfect indpendence of his help I doubted if she would have the strength to continue it alone. I spoke to the Colonel about it, representing that, in view of accidents, he ought to set his father to make some settlement of the property ; for as he had no legal claim to anything on the estate he could bequeath nothing to his daughter, and sh«, at the caprice of her grandfather — who seemed to me little better than a madman—might be turned out of the Court absolutely destitute'. ' Write to my father, if you think it necessary,' said he ; and accordingly I did write by the very next post. The reply was brief : 'As I I am not likely to outlive my son —and don't wish to —the enclosed will may answer all purposes and relieve your mind of uneasiness.' The will signed and witnessed, was almost as brief : He left everything, real and personal, unconditionally to his granddaughter Marian. Contrary to his inclination, the old man did outlive his son, for the colonel died in 'B6. Sylvester being still alive somewhere in Italy, in this very autumn of 'BB. ' Tea has been ready quite ten minutes.' said Miss Sylvester, leaning on the arm of the chair, and looking down into my face as I happened to open my eyes. (To be continued).