Good Stories.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 9, 24 January 1905, Page 6 (Supplement)

Good Stories.

NELLIE VANCE’S MISTAKE.

Nellie Vance made an exquisite picture, sitting in the low, blue silken rockingchair on the front balcony of Mrs Oxford’s seaside villa; sitting with her delicate pink lawn skirt lying in fleecy, tremulous waves over the drugget some servant had spread; with a dreamy, halfanxious, half-expectant look in her dark, beautiful eyes—eyes that were all the • lovelier in contrast with her pearly-pale complexion and pallid golden hair, that, this afternoon, Miss Vance had arranged in bold defiance of prevailing fashion, and had piled in soft, burnished masses almost on the top of her head, with a pearl and pink coral dagger thrust through its golden loveliness. And the consequence was Miss Vance looked ineffably charming. Indeed, it was impossible for her to look otherwise. But this afternoon she certainly was at her very best—her tender, shadowy eyes full of soft, sweet lights as they roamed over the green, sparkling ocean waves. Afar the white sails of some passing schooners made pale flecks between the golden blue above and the sparkling green beneath; the dark, shadowy trail of a huge smoke-cloud streaming from the funnel of an ocean steamer—Nellie saw them all, and then went on with her thoughts of Clifford Chandler, the one man in all the world who could make her heart quicken its beats, or bring a delicious suggestion of oleoandcr-blossom tints to her pearl-pure cheeks. Sitting with the Atlantic almost rolling at her feet, w’ith the gorgeous perfection of beauty that only comes to summer days at tbe seashore everywhere about her—conscious of her established position as a beauty, a belle, in fashionable society—this fair-haired, dark-eyed, haughtyheaded, smiling-mouthed girl sat there, and toyed with her fan, and rocked in her silken chair, and saw her diamond rings gleam, and realised that the gods had been very good to her in bestowing the pleasant things of this world at her feet, and wondering if Clifford Chandler had meant anything when he told her to be on the balcony that afternoon at six o’clock. She was there, as fair to see' as ever woman was, and Mrs Oxford, the dowager lady of the artistocratic house of that name, sitting at a boudoir window, with a thrill of pride watched hfer, and then her own son Weldon—big, handsome, manly, fabulously rich, and unmarried—for whose especial benefit Nellie Vance had been invited to the villa for the season. “Just look at her, Weldon!” the mother cried. “Her profile is as exquisite as a cut cameo.” Weldon Oxford turned his close-cropped head leisurely, and took a cool, critical ■urvey of the curves and dimples, form and tinting of the girl waiting for Clifford Chandler. “Granted Mass Vance is charming, dear mother,” he lazily replied. “But what is a fellow to do if he can’t get up a furore about her?” Ha laughed pleasantly. He knew it was > subject very near his mother’s heart, and he avoided assuring his mother that Nellie Vance would never be his wife—not that she was not lovely, not because she was poor, with only her own sw’eet self to give her future lord, but for the strangely incomprehensible reason that he did not Ibve her. He had thought of it often—the stubborn truth that Nellie Vance had no power over his heart, for all her witching beauty and sweetness. He had even tried to make himself come under her influence —for his mother’s sake, the one woman he worshipped—but it was of no avail. He admired her ardently, liked her well—and she was his mother’s guest in his house. Mrs Oxford interrupted his rather grave thoughts. “I wonder if Cljfford Chandler is in love with her? Look at him, Weldon! I never saw such devotion in a man’s eyes. Oh,. Weldon! don’t let him marry her—, you must have her for your wifcfe!” Clifford Chandler was retaining the dainty little hand Miss Vance had shyly extended, and Mrs Oxford’s fa*ce paled with anxiety, that did not vanish at sight of the way in which the girl accepted his attentions. “I believe if Clifford makes her love him I shall hate him! What can the foolish girl want with such a lover? He hasn’t a shilling beyond his salary, and the idea of Nellie Vance marrying- a poor man!” Nellie sat there in the soft, cool breezes, listening to the story Clifford Chandler had come to tell her—his mad, wild passion for her, whose very dress he felt himself unworthy to touch. ‘‘l know the insane presumption I perpetrate in daring to tell you how I love you, Nellie—Nellie darling—but if I had not seen something in your sweet eyes, in your shy, conscious welcoming of me above all others, I never should have ventured,” he was saying. “Nellie, little girl, are you willing to risk the world with me?” His grave, grand face was a poem of inspiration as he bowed his head nearer the girl’s flushed cheeks—this girl who loved him so really, who never had loved another—this girl who would almost have exchanged her soul’s eternal welfare for Clifford Chandler’s love, and yet who—oh, strange, strange paradox—thought, as she listened with tingling nerves and sweet, ecstatic bliss, that he had nothing else to give her but this happiness —and Weldon Oxford had. So the pure, delicate face flushed and paled, from wild-rose tints io marble hue, and Clifford Chandler waited for his destiny. The little fair hands fluttered recklessly in her lap, and then the lovely dark eyes looked up a moment, all the girl’s love

ia them, and Clifford saw the reservation within them as plainly as the revelation—saw with a pang of speechless anguish that this girl would reject him because he could not lay wealth, and fashion, and position at her feet. Mrs Oxford, looking from her lacedraperied window, beyond hearing their low voices, saw it all. Would Nellie accept Clifford Chandler, poor, penniless, proud though he was—this fair, enchanting girl, whose sweet dignity and haughty graciousness she so ardently courted for her son?

Then she saw Chandler suddenly frown, whiter than the spotless linen he wore, and she knew Weldon’s chance was good so far as Nellie was concerned, and she went, away from the window, little knowing the agony of the man who had heard Nellie’s sweet, half-piteous, half-pardon-ing, yet wholly hopeless answer. “Must I take it for your final, irrevocable answer? Oh, Nellie, how can I bear to think ” He turned sfray, with compressed lips and pale face, and Nellie’s heart almost broke for love, for pity. But, then, she must be prudent—she must be wise—and marry only money; and so she did not relent, as he looked at her with his anguished eyes; yet her voice was very soft and gentle—maddening to the man who had staked all, and —lost! “Indeed, Mr Chandler, it is best as I have decided. No good could come to either of us if it should be as you say.” He looked at her in a perfect stoniness of anguish. “No good come to two who love each other as we love? Miss Vance, you love me! You cannot deny the witness of your face, the truth that is in your eyes. And yet you tell me no good can come to you and me?” His low, intense voice was thrilling her, almost wavering her, and just then Mrs Oxford, in trailing silken skirt, came out, smiling. “Good afternoon, Mr Chandler! Did you ever see a lovelier afternoon? Nellie, dear, isn’t that the Brewerton carriage passing? Do come and take dinner with us, Mr Chandler. Weldon will be so pleased! Come, Nellie, it’s two minutes after seven, and you know Maicetelli is in mortal horror if w e keep the soup waiting a second.” But Mr Chandler did not remain to Mrs Oxford’s dinner. He bowed, and carried his sorrow away as well as he could; and Nellie went into the elegant dining-room, to be admired by Weldon and petted by his mother, and to trifle with the dainty creations the French cook had deigned to give them. That night, lying wakeful, with the solemn boom of the waves thundering on the sands, and the solemn, silent stars shining over land and sea, Nellie Vance poured out her tears, wrung from her tortured heart, as she accepted the truth—she had throttled mercilessly her one "love. But she would not relent. And when the morning came in glad sunshine, and joyouacompanionship, she went deliberately to work to win the wearing of the diamond ring that circled Weldon Oxford’s little finger, while Clifford Chandler went his way, crushed, bitter, hurt to death. Mrs Wycherly’s elegant rooms were filled with such artistocratic guests as only visited Mrs Wycherly—exclusive to a fault, and fashionably elite—and at the head and front of all, Clifford Chandler, not a fortnight returned from a three years’ tour abroad, whither the fair, cruel hand of Nellie Vance had hurled him, as he left her fateful presence and happiness for ever. At least, he had thought so then—but that was three years ago; and yet—yet as he went into Mrs Wycherly’s rooms, conscious of being well dressed, well-bred, honoured, courted, and owner of an estate of a couple of hundred of thousands that an eccentric distant relative had left him six months back—despite all these comfortable sensations and assurances, Mr Chandler found himself wondering whether or not he would meet, in any of the charming young matrons present, Nellie Vance that was—Nellie, with the low, beautiful brow—Nellie, with the eyes, the hair, the manner that had driven him almost wild only three little years ago. He was handsomer than ever, this princely fellow, who wore his honors and his good fortune like one to the manner born—a magnificent fellow, whom the women adored and the men envied, and who was on the look-out for the girls who had sent him away. Right into his momentary reverie Mrs Wycherly came bearing down on him, like a frigate with all sails set. “Mr Chandler, you must let me have the pleasure of being the means of renewing your acquaintanceship with a friend of lang syne. Come to the music-room, and be prepared to be joyful.” • And in a second he was bowing before Nellie Vance, his heart throbbing, his thoughts flying hither and yon for one little second, as Mrs Wycherly called the name. Only one second, and then he was himself again—grave, dignified, possessed, but very glad to take Miss Vance’s hand in his after so long. “It seems hardly possible that I sfiould find you still Miss Vance. I am afraid you have not attempted to improve the shining hours.” He smiled, with such exquisite unconsciousness in every look, word, tone, that Nellie’s heart gave a bound of pain. He had ceased to care, and she—she had not succeeded in winning Weldon Oxford, nor succeeded the least bit better in forgetting this man whom she had loved so truly, with a strength and depth that, while she suffered ambition to interfere, had rfever permitted another love to enter her heart. They had been three weary years since she had seen Clifford Chandler—weary, weary years, with hours of such regret,

such despair at what she had done, such yearning longing for the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand—that she had been almost beside herself. And here, at the end of all those awful, regretful days, he was at her side, smiling, showing his gladness, holding her hand. He was so different, too! And Nellie thought, with. a thrill, “What if he had been true all these years, and had come to give her himself and his riches?” The very thought banished the transient feeling of dismay his cool, cautious Words had occasioned, and made the flames of excited hope and happiness light up her beautiful eyes as she looked at him, her hand still in his warm, caressing hold. “Oh, Clifford, you surely cannot mean what you say? Don’t talk about my improving the shining hours—l, t who . Mr Chandler, how well you are looking, and how glad I am to see you!” Her lips parted in a gracious smile, very unlike the pain on her face a moment before, and in that moment Clifford Chandler knew this girl’s heart was still his to take or leave. He offered her his arm in his courtly, caressing way, that went straight to her heart, and said: “Let us go into the conservatory, Miss Vance. The fountains sound deliciously cool.” She looked up at him laughingly; her hopes were so high at his suggestive invitation. “Have you forgotten that my friends call me Nellie? Or was that formal ‘Miss Vance’ a polite reminder that I erred grossly in daring to remember you were ‘Clifford’ to me, as you have been all these years?” Her sweet grciciousness of manner hid the daring of ner language, the double daring of her meaning, and he accepted her arch reproof. “Nellie, then—although I did not flatter myself you would permit such tokens of friendliness. • I am pleased you have not forgotten me.” It was the supreme moment of her destiny, and Nellie’s heart gave great suffocating bounds, as she dashed aside all barriers of conventionalism in her overwhelming love for this man at her side, who had once pleaded for her love as a man pleads for 1 his life—this handsome fellow’, who must have been as true to her as she, with all fickleness, her ambition, had really been to him. So she suddenly clasped her beautiful hands around his arm, making him pause in their slow walk by the very ardour and abruptness of the act. “Forgotten you ? Oh, Clifford! forgotten you? When I have never thought of another but you since that dreadful, wicked day when I sinned past forgiveness. Clifford, you cared then —you cared for me, and I am the same Nellie you loved, only—only . Clifford, don’t despise me for daring to say that—that 1 have changed my mind on that subject!” She was pitifully, painfully agitated, but hardly less so than Mr Chandler, whose face grew grave as he listened. Then, with his splendid eyes, that had looked such despairing passion at her the last time they had been alone together—those eyes she loved so above all things in the world—quiet, kindly, fixed on her pure, wistful face, he said: “Nellie, friend, you can hardly censure me that I, too, have changed my mind on the same subject. Had we not better return to the ballroom? The music is sounding, and you may want to dance.”