CHAPTER LIII.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1642, 13 January 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER LIII.

A strange talo it was ; dealing with the writer's lifetime up to her arrival in Australia, and containing the record of many vicissitudes, and not a few crimes. Employed, when still quite a child, as a spy for the Russian police, she appeared to have distinguished herself in that congenial occupation ; and there were not wanting indications in her story that Ketnpsford, in whose house she had been brought up, had made himself useful to the authorities in the same way. The once gay and distinguished officer of the Guards had sunk, it seemed, to be a tool of the corrupt and scoundrelly political police of Eussia; and, brought up in the moral atmosphere of such a home, it was scarcely surprising, perhaps, that my wife should have been what she was. Passing over the history of many a cruel and treacherous act by which private resentments were gratified through the means of political denunciations, I came to the part of the narrative which dealt with the writer's life at Monkton-Edgett. And what a plan was unfolded there. With the desire of securing herself a comfortable home for life, she wrote, she had early resolved that Miss Kempsford should become my wife, but, having gathered, by listening and prying about the house, that my father was unfavorable to such a match, she had made up her mind to bide her time, and wait the course of events. On the memorable evening when I found her concealed in the tree, however, she had been listening at the study-door, and, having heard my father give his consent to my marrage with her mistress after he should be dead, she had resolved — and my heart stood still as I read it — to put an end to his life. Yes ! — coolly and exultantly the cold-blooded fiend of a writer went on to relate how she had poisoned my father with a subtle drug obtained from Black Betty. A drug which would, she said, have defied a post-vwrtem examination, had one been made, and which had put an end to the old man's life, suddenly and painlessly in his sleep. Then, in due time, came the ill-assorted marriage, when the Russian, enraged to find that the influence she had hitherto exercised over her mistress, was gone, and actuated, further, by a growing predilection for myself, deliberately laid herself out to produce a separation. With that object she wrote to Dumarlay, whom she had known in St. Petersburg, and quickly obeying the summons, he had appeared at Monkton-Edgett during that very absence of mine, in which I had received warning of his intentions. Here I put down the book for a moment. " What, then ?" I asked myself, " becomes of the story about his having always kept up a correspondence with my wife — of his having been m England all the time of our married life ? Was all that a lie ?" " Yes !" I resumed my reading, and found by the Russian's own statement, that these were deliberate inventions, palmed off upon me on tho morning after the discovery ; first, with the view of making my wife's guilt appear blacker than it was — secondly, to give colour to the statement that the boy was not my son — and thirdly, by the combined influence of these considerations to render her own overtures more acceptable. At last, then, I knew the truth. The supposed Walter Addison was, in very deed, my own son. Dutnarlay had come to Australia with his victim, land, there deserted her and her boy, and returned to Europe. Glika had followed them to the colony, and, having fallen in with the so-called Mrs. Dumarlay, had lost sight of her when she married Mr. Addison. Long years afterwards, however she had recognised the Count and myself in the opera-house, and, seeing in our company a young man who so strongly resembled me. had afterwards — it will be remembered — extracted from me the information that his name was Addison, and that he was engaged to Count Giustiniani's daughter. Convinced then, that this was my son, and having a keenly malicious remembrance of the Count's unfavourable opinion of her — expressed so long ago— she determined to gratify her rancour against all of us, by causing the engagement to be broken off — and hence the anonymous letter. What remained of the wretched tale is of no consequence to my story, and I breathed more freely as I flung the vile record overboard. "Hallo!" said Shuter — "unceremonious treatment that. Not pleased with the con< tents, eh ?" " The contents," I said, " are simply horror ! — save in one respect. Walter is, as I have long suspected, my son. His name is Julian— not Walter at all." " You don't say so I Glad to hear it— very glad ! What d'ye thing of that, Muckle?" " Theenk o' what ?" asked the Scotchman, who was smoking like a furnace at the helm. Shuter having explained, and Mucklebody and Fys&he having duly expressed their astonishment, I thought the moment a good one for announcing to the latter his probable good fortune. "If there should turn out to be a, will of Addisons after all," I thought, " it is certain to be iv my son's favour, and, as he would be equally certain to refuse to benefit by it, the property could be conveyed to Fysshe, who undoubtedly has the better right to it." Wide did Fysshe .open his solemn eyes when his good-luck was made known to him ; and Mucklebody, to celebrate the occasion, produced the only, two bottles of champagne that remained to us. • " Here's gude health, an' lang life t'ye, Mr. Feeshl" he said, with a bumper in one claw, and the tiller in the other. " Ye're a verra , respaictable young man, and a richt gude fallow, forby— even if ye-are a trifle lang-winded at times," . , | Fysshe having responded in the most por- , tentous polysyllables he could command, proposed, in turn, the health of Mr. Saunders Mucklebody ; " a gentleman," he went on to say, "whose little eccentricities of idiosyncrasy served but to individualize, of, if he might be allowed the somewhat catachrestical expression — to accentuate the admirable qualities of his head and heart.'' The captain of the Maggie Jumder touted low — grinned a grin of acknowledgement—, drank his own health— and put his helm down. We were off Port, Phillip Heads* " There's a deil o' a sea on in the Rip, kds," he said ; " an' we'll hae omajr than speechifyin/ tae theenk o' before we get through I" And so we soon discovered. But the cutter again proved equal to the .occasion : after a smart buffeting; we ran the Heads successfully, anchored inside for the night, and reached Melbourne by the middle of fte following.