CHAPTEE III.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1598, 30 September 1882, Page 1

CHAPTEE 111.

Some six weeks later I was obliged to run up to London on business, and upon my return in the evening I found that Elizabeth Kempsford had arrived, and had brought with her a Eussian maid, or companion — Tim was not sure which. " But begorra ! Misther Harry," said he, as, with the familiarity of an old servant, he stood gossiping in my room while I dressed for dinner, " she's araal out-an'-outer, an' no mistake ! Not but what Miss Kempsford's a mighty purty girl herself, but to my thinkin' the other bates her entirely. But sure ye're able to judge for yorself — divil a one betthcr ! Here's yer coat, sir." When I entered the drawing-room, I said to myself that, whatever the maid might be, the mistress was certainly a very handsome girl. She was what the French call a blonde mix yeux noirs, having extremely bright fair hair and a clear, pale complexion, combined with the soft dark eyes which I concluded she had derived from her Maltese mother. She was dressed in deep mourning, but did not appear in any way depressed by her recent loss, and it jarred upon me to hear the flippant laugh with which she replied to my father's remark that in feature she was very like Frederick Kempsford, as he remembered him. She had evidently felt no great affection for her father ; but, though I thought her rather heartless on this account, much is forgiven to youth and beauty, and, as Miss Kempsford was a very lively and accomplished girl, we soon became great friends. But the Eussian maid, Glika Nasilovitch — how shall I describe the impression which she produced on me ? It was not by any means a favorable one, though her manner was quiet an*d unobtrusive, and her personal attractions equal, if not superior, to those of her mistress. " Mistress," however, is hardly the word to use, for Glika had been brought up with Elizabeth Kempsford, and was more in the position, as Tim had said, of a friend and companion than of a servant. She was tall, taller than Miss Kempsford — though the latter exceeded the middle height of woman — and had a lithe, upright figure, with a singularly graceful and sweeping walk. But in its very giace there was something stealthy and feline, as there was, too, in the large, light grey eyes. Her hair was of a reddish brown, her skin of a sallow paleness, and her features, with the exception of the mouth and jaw, regular and delicate. This latter was disproportionately large and square, and, in conjunction with the firmly closed lips, inspired me with a half -instinctive distrust. " Such a womanas that," I said to myself, " would be, I imagine, a dangerous enemy." Glika spoke English well, but said very little to anybody except Miss Kempsford, with whom, however, she would sometimes chatter Eussian, a language which I was surprised to find so soft and musical. And now for the first time a slight cloud arose between myself and my father. Miss Kempsford had been several months at Monkton-Edgett when I began to ask myself* what was the state of my feelings towards her, and the result of my self-examination may be gathered from the question which I put to my father one evening in his study, where I generally went to sit with him for an hour or two before dinner, when I happened to be at home. "You remember," I said, " that when the letter concerning Miss Kempsford arrived, you expressed a hope that no attachment might spring up between us. Are you still of the same mind upon that point ?" " Most assuredly," replied- my father, with more acerbity than was usual with him. •' I ;am not in the* habit of lightly changing" my opinions. Am Ito understand that you are about to make' a proposal to -Miss Kemps-" ford?"- •'. ' '' - * ; "j" ,•' ' "By nq.means^my/ dear sir! ; I have never- ( made 1 any, advances whatever to her ;;b'ut;?as ! IJb'egarijt6Stnink^it' possible th"at"^ye*migKt,be-|

.loc^ not appear to be taken captive yet, you won't suffer any great hardship in keeping it free for the short remainder of niy days. There's the dressing-bell!" "My father's complaint is beginning to affect his temper," I said to myself as I opened the door. " I never knew him so tetchy before. Hallo! who Avas that ?" I added, half aloud, as I saw the figure of a woman whisk quickly along the dimly-lighted passage and disappear round the corner of the stairs. I followed rapidly, but could see no one. "Strange!" I thought. "I could have sworn it was that Itussian girl. What could she be doing in this part of the house, though? Looks as if she'd been listening, or why should she run away!" Dinnei over, I strolled out into the garden with a cigar. Elizabeth Kempsford, who was an accomplished mu&ician, was playing to my father, and as I leant upon the old sun-dial the music came softly to me through the scented June twilight. The piece was an arrangement of "Lucrezia Borgia," and the picture which the spell of Donizetti's music conjured up in my mind, of the subtle and relentless Italian, seemed in some vague way to connect itself with Grlika Nasilovitch. Vague at first, that is, for when, with a persistence which was habitual with me, I strove to analyse the connection between the two ideas, I found that it arose from an impression that the terrible Duchess of Ferrara must have been just such another lithe, noiseless, inscrutable creature as my Russian enigma. Then I flashed into sudden impatience with myself for allowing my thoughts to dwell so much upon the latter. " Whatis the woman to me ?" I asked myself angrily. " What a schoolboy lam to'trouble myself because she has hard gray eyes — tlie jaw of a bulldog, or the walls of a leopard ! I'll think no more of her," I said, half-aloud, as with an action corresponding to the idea, I flung away the end of my cigar. But I was not fated to cast from me in like manner the hold that Glika had established on my thoughts. As I turned to go back to the house, | encountered Tim Regan with a face which, there was still light enough to sec, betokened that he had something particular to communicate. " Don't go in yet, Misther Harry," he said. "I want a word wid ye, if ye plaze." j "All right, Tim — fire away!" I replied, lighting another weed, while the old man looked cautiously around to make sure that we had no eavesdroppers. " Ye know well, sir," he began, " that ould Tim Regan's not the one for to be fetchin' an' carryin' tales — lasteways not widout great razon ; but I'm thinkin' its time ye should know how that Rooshian girl's been carryin' on 1" I half started. Here was the woman forced back on my attention again. Was there a fate in it ? " It's about six weeks or so," went on Tim, " since she came to me as I was polishin' up things a bit in the gun-room. She peeps in at the dure, an' says she, • What a lot o' guns an' things ye've got there, Misther Tim 1 may I come in an' have a look at them?' Well, I niver tuk to the girl from the first, for all she's so good-lookin' ; there's somethin 1 about her that puts me in mind of a sarpent ; but of coorse I couldn't very asy refuse, an 1 so, in she comes an' begins lookin' first at this an' then at that, an' chatterin' away like a magpie all the time. ' Bedad,' says Ito meself, ye've found your tongue all of a sudden 1 ' It's hardly a word we could git out of ye before. There's some razon for the change, anyhow, I thinks ; an', sure enough, afther a bit, roun' comes me lady, as gradual an' Jas cunnin' as ye plaze, to the family affairs, an' begins to pump me about the masther's property, an' how he was likely to lave it, an 1 what you thought of Miss Kempsford, an' the divil knows what all! I needn't tell ye Misther Harry, that she didn't get much out of ould Tim, an' at last, when she seen it was no use, she gives me a wicked look out of them cat's eyes of hers. Thank ye,' she says, 'Misther Tim. Thank ye; I won't forget your kindness 1' an' off she goes." " Oh, confound it, Tim !" said I—"I — " why trouble me with all this? Mere woman's curiosity I suppose — nothing more!" "Hould on, sir!" said Tim, — "hould on! I thought at the time that it might be only curossity, as ye say, an' that's why I dicing bother ye wid tellin' ye anythin' about it before; but since then she's been pumpin' Patty Crump, an' what's more, she gey her a five-shillin'-piece to tell all she knew about the family. That don't look like mere curossity !" " What do you think she wants to know these things for, then?" I asked, after a pause, in which I vainly endeavored to conjecture what could be the object of the inquiries. "Will ye forgive me if I spake plain, Misther Harry ?" said Tim, coming closer and sinking his voice to a whisper. " Of course 1" " Then it's one of two thing?. She has an idea that yell be a rich man when the masther — God presarve him long ! — dies, an' she ayther wants to get her misthress married to ye, or, axin' your pardon for mentionin' such a thing to ye, she's got an eye to yo herself !" " Upon my word, Tim," I replied, with a laugh, "I feel extremely flattered by the latter supposition, but I think the former one is much more probable ! Supposing, as you say, that she wants me to marry her mistress, the object is a harmless one enough, after all. Did Patty Crump supply her with the required information ?" "Patty," returned Tim, with the grim smile of the confirmed old bachelor, "is a woman — an' a foolish one at that! If she was such an oinadhaun as to let out to me aftherwards about the five shillings, ye may be sure the other got everythin' she knew out of her." "Well, Tim," I said, beginning to walk towards the house, "-I don't think there's anything of consequence in the matter. Still you did right to tell me ; I know what a faithful old fellow you are, and I thank you !" "One word more, sir," said Tim, "an' you'll undherstand why I make bouldto think it would be a bad job for ye to marry Miss Kempsford— wid all respect be it spoken. Patty tould me"— | "What?" said I, pausing once more. " Patty again I "Why Tim, there's no end to your mysteries to-night. But cut* it short, will you ; I cannot stay 1" " Well then, sir, in one word— Miss Kempsford has a baste of a temper 1 She hides it well enough before you an' the masther, but when she's alone wid the Rooshian woman sheTlies into the diviis' own tanthrums about the laste. thing -that puts her out. Ay, ye may well look surprised, .sir," went on Tim, as I stared at him in astonishment, " but Jane Marshall/ the housemaid, seen it wid her own eyes^ She's a einsible, crathur, Jane— for a woman — an' I can de£ind on what she says. She 'tould, me she* often heerd striigglin' an! .squabbliri'goija^qnbetween Miss Kempsford- - an' >the j ßpb's^ian i t|an''"one i .d4y;,ab6ut',a ; fqstf _ night-ago.r^Sen^e^asJin ,the room opposite r

tongue wid' the fri&ht, an' by the time she came rouu' a bit she seen that tho Eooshian ' was only holdin' the other down. An' she did hould her there, till Miss Kempsford began to cool down a bit, when she let go of her an' closed the door. Then Jane got away wid herself, but she says she's almost afeared to live in the same house wid 'them two tarthars." Extraordinary as this story appeared, I could not but admit to myself that it would have been still more extraordinary for the housemaid to have invented it, and besides I now recollected that, about the time Tim mentioned, Glika had worn a bandage round her head for several days, to account for which something was said about her having struck against a doorway in the dark. Then I bethought me of the fierceness of the halfItalian, half-Arabic blood of the Maltese, and by the pang with which I mentally accepted the truth of the accusation, my eyes were opened to the fact that I had begun to love the delinquent. " Has the housemaid mentioned this matter to anybody but you?" I asked. " She says she hasn't, an' I believe her," said Tim. "Very good, then; if this thing is true, there is no good to be done by making it public. There is no need to caution you, Tim, but you may as well give Marshall a hint to hold her tongue." " 'Tis already done, sir," answered Tim, and then surprised me by adding, in a loud voice — " Mr. Brooks wants twiniy pounds for the two fox-terrier pups, sir ; an' he says that any of ould Strangler's stock is dirt-chape at the figure." As he spoke, however, his sudden change of subject was explained by what appeared in the dim light to be a human figure gliding from the shelter of one shrub in our vicinity to that of another. " Very well," I answered, in an unconcerned tone. " I suppose he must have it. I'll send him a cheque, and you can go over for the dogs when you have time. See who it is, Tim," I added in a whisper, and on the instant the old fellow made a dash at the bush which concealed the eavesdropper. He was too late, however ; the figure glided away swiftly into the darkness, but not before he had recognised it as a woman's. " 'Twas the Eooshian herself, sir," ho said. " There's no other woman about the place so mighty quick on her legs. Begorra, she can run like a ridshank !" "Never mind, Tim," I said, as I walked towards the house. " Even if you had caught her, she would have had some excuse ready, no doubt. Keep your mouth shut, and your eyes open, and we shall get to the bottom of the mystery in time."