Novelist. Through Deep Waters.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2483, 9 June 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist. Through Deep Waters.

By INA LEON CASSILIS, Author of "lima Raphael. Actress," " The Young Widower," "M. Caddie 5 Carpet ,Bag," &c„ &c. CHAPTER IX.—Continued. Lady d.e Clifford did not speak to her daughter on the way home, tut when they entered the house and Agnes went up to her dressingroom, her mother followed her, and dismissing tlis maid, said very gently— "My dear child, wHafc is the matter with you to-night, you have acted very atrangely V' Agnes threw off her opera cloak and sat down on a low chair, averting her face. »' Never mind to-night," she said, fcrcniMing. "I am not myself, I know/' ■« Agnes, you are not wayward or fanciful. I have never known you •capricious. Why should you allow .a passing on clit to so agitate you that you actually turn deliberately from an old friend, and refuse to let him perforin an every-day act of courtusy? You cannot ignore the interpretation that might be put on such an act, by Don Cola himself. jAgnes locked her hands tightly together — "No, no," she said, directly, "he ■will not misinterpret me—l know .Jie will not."

" How can you know so much of him 1 Your action spoke for itself." " I know it," said Agnes more quietly; " and he understood it. Mother —" She paused, and drew her breath quickly. Lady de Clifford did not move from where she stood; she was not willing that Agnes should see her face. " Well, my child," she said. " Mother," said the girl; " I do not know what to think now, I feel in a dream. I don't think I rightly [ understand things. You said a ' careless gossip," or some words to that effect. What did you mean 1 Is it?" "It it so impossible that it should have any foundation, Agnes V' Agnes rose up and turned round, quivering in every limb, speaking passionately— " Impossible, utterly impossible ! I never dreamed of it —never once —how should I? Grant-Faulkner ! Mother, what has come over you ? You seem to imply that you would wish me to—to —but it cannot be so —you cannot think of it—you cannot wish it."

" Agnes, hush ! be calm !" said Lady de Clifford, almost shrinking from the outburst she had provoked ; " is it so strange that even a man of Grant-Faulkner's age should love you—"

"He love !" interrupted Agnes, impetuously. "Has he told you that he did T

"Yes, Agnes." Lady de Clifford's cheek did not colour as she uttered the lie.

But the hot blood rushed to Agnes' brow, and her eyes glowed as she answered with the same passionate utterance—

"Love! he cannot! he dare not say it. I thought him a friend—l tried to believe him a friend for your sake, and because he was kind to me when I was a little child ; but if I had dreamed of this ! Madonna mia !" she said, clasping her hands together as words and actions which had puzzled her, and sometimes startled her at the time, but had never enlightened her, how, indeed, should they ? rushed across her memory, fraught with a new meaning, " how could I think that that man—he who will be an old man long before my first youth is past, could think of me except as a child."

" Agnes," said Florence, laying her hand on the girl's arm, " I have been wrong; I should not have spoken to you at all to-night; wo will speak of it to-morrow." "To-night, to-morrow, any day, my answer will still be the same," said Agnes, firmly; " the mere thought is horrible; but it has come upon ine so suddenly," she said, covering her face, "it seems like a dream."

" A dream that the morning light may dispel," said Florence, with an effort. " Agnes, you are too young to know yourself—you have never given such things a thought; let it rest for to-night, I say again."

" Agnes lifted her white face and fixed her eyes with such an earnest searching gize on her mother's features that the hitter's look dropped.

" Mother," said the girl, "do you wish this, you did not deny my words before V'

" Why should I deny that I do wish it, Agnes V'

The sickening presentiment lay heavy on the girl's heart; there seemed a mist before her; she stood for a moment perfectly motionless, and Florence groaned within herself as she watched her —Ah ! that " fatal gift of beauty," was it to be a curse to this child as it had been to her country 1 Agnes roused herself with a kind of start, and said quietly— " Yes, let it rest for to-night, as you said, Good-night, madre; will you send Lisetta to tue, pleuse 1" What could so abrupt a change mean 1 Florence de Clifford had never understood her child, and now that circumstances were bringing her in conflict with the real strength of that child's nature, she saw at every step how really sealed to her was the character which should have been, in some things at least, almost as an open book to her. She sighed as she pressed her lips to the girl's forehead, and merely saying " good-night, my child " went out of the room. Agnes allowed Lisetta to remove her ball dress; she was not going to rest yet, she said, and she flung a rich morning gown round her, and bidding the maid good-night dismissed her.

Left alone she sat clown, feeling weary; in such as lier strong excitement has its revenge in subsequent lassitude. Passion, with then, is not a passing outburst, as temper in a child ; it stirs their natures to their depth—it shakes every power of their being, it is not a mountain breeze, but a fierce tempest, and even when its outward manifestation is gone it leaves blasted tree and ruined field, to bear witness to its force. To-night Agnes de Clifford was too agitated to think definitely ; she felt as if she were moving in a phantasmagoria in which there was nothing distinct, nothing to which she was accustomed, and which she had yet some part to play wholly beyond her capability. To the future she dared not look ; it might seem a simple thing to refuse GrantFaulkner, as she had refused others, but she could not shake off, nay,

the more she tried to shake it off the thicker it grew—that heavy cloud of dread that seemed to shut out all light from the path before her. She tried, after hours had passed, to take rest, and lay for a long time looking straight before her, with a fixed sorrowful gaze that sought vaguely for some help, some relief from an intolerable weight. Sleep came at last, from very weariness, but it was not rest. The nigln came back in fantastic dreams; " Oberon" was before her again, brilliant, glowing, with all its picturesque music ringing in her ears, but faint and far, and her mother was there, and Sir Selwyn, and Don Cola, who was " Oberon " and yet Sir Iluon, but she felt safe when he was by, and when Sir Sehvyn drew near she turned trembling to Cambaceres, and knew that nothing could harm her. The dream was confused, misty and unhappy, as dreams are wont to be, but through all it,s vague sense of terror and misery and impending sorrow, one form and face and voice were always distinct as in his life ; whether invested by the dreamer's troubled fancy with the personality of Sir lluon or of " Oberon" for he was each separately and both in one—Cola de Cambaccres was himself still, and in his presence there was protection and a sense of rest and of perfect peace. CHAPTER X. It was not till the afternoon of the day after the opera that GrantFaulkner called at Upper Grosvenorstreet, and was at once admitted to Lady de ClifTord's presence. She looked pale and almost haggard, but when hg.had closed the door of the drawing-room, and advanced to where he stood, she said—

" I told you the struggle would be a hard one, She starts like a frightened fawn at the mere mention of you as a suitor, and scorns the idea of your love.!'

" Scorns me 1" said Sir Sehvyn, seating himelf by the lady's side on the sofa. " How is she to-day, where is she ?"

" I do not know where she is at this moment, she was up early as she always is, and evidently tried to resume her usual manner. I avoided every approach to tha subject—l will tell you why in a few minutes —and she went out in the forenoon, with Mrs Talbot, who joined us later at luncheon. Since luncheon I have not seen Agnes." '• I must see her myself," and Sir Selwyn, " but first let rue know what it was that occurred to make -her act so strangely in the crush-room." Lady de Clillbrd detailed briefly the remarks which had been overheard, and Grant-Faulkner frowned heavily. " I see," he soid, "it will hi- a severe struggle, but I shall compter in the end ; I must conquer." " Listen, Selwyn," said Florence, " I spoke to her last night, foolishly you think? well perhaps it was so, but I cannot pretend to understand that child. She broke out with a passion which I confess I had not expected from her so gentle as she is, despite her Italian nature, and it is evident that you are something more or less than an object of indifference to her (put it which way you will); she dislikes you."

" And turns from me to that Creole," s iid Grant-Faulkner, with that cruel gleam iu his light eyes, " and had he been a suitor for her hand, what could he have understood by such an act " He is not a suitor, Selwyn.' .No man could act more nobly than lie has done, It would he impossible to divine whether lie were indifferent to Agnes or not; and if he is not who can blame hint? He is not more than man because his mother was a Creole. Even the way in which Agnes turned from you to him did not move him from his usual manner or make him change countenance." " You are right, for I watched him ; but maidens do not wait to be sought to give their affections, and if Agnes—" " If she has," interrupted Florence

" she does not know it. What she did last night was not from preference for yourself. I will tell her you wish to see her." "So be it; it were better so." Outside the drawing-room Lady de Clifford met Lisetta, and asked her where her young mistrress was. ' The signorina is in the library, I believe/ replied the girl, and Florence turned back to the drawingroom. "Agnes is in the library," she said, "go to her there, I will await you here." Sir Selwyn rose, went straight to the library, half pausing as he laid his hand on the door ; he shrank from meeting the girl face to face, shrank from encountering her determined opposition; but his was a selfish compunction soon mastered, and he opened his door softly and entered.

Agnes was seated in a low arm chair, with a book on her knees ; her attitude was thoughtful, her figure drooping, her elbow leaning on the volume she held, while the small hand which supported her head was

buried amid the rich masses of curls on which the sunshine was glinting

brightly. He had time to catch the expression of her face, grave, sorrowful, and firm almost to severity, before, hearing someone enter, she looked round, and rose at once, colouring deeply; but the set lips

were not parted, and she only dropped the book she had seemed to read and stood still, leaving him to advance and speak first. "Is that the way you greet old friends 1" said Sir Selwyn, coming forward with a smile, and holding out his hand, but Agnes made no movement to touch it. "No," she said, looking him full in the face, " not old friends—not if you come only as an old friend." Grant-Faulkner shunned that clear steady gaze, but he would not show the cloven foot yet, '• Am I not your mother's friend?" he said, "is the past so readily blotted out from your memory, and new friendships more welcome than those of early childhood ?" " Offer your hand again, Sir Selwyn,as a friend only, and for my mother's sake I will take it," said Agnes. " For your mother's sake, Agnes 1 not for your own 1" " No," she said, " not for my own." The answer almost betrayed him into losing his self control, but mastering himself with a strong effort, he said gravely—

"I cannot doit, Agnes —1 cannot ofibr you my hand with a falsehood on my tongue ; you know what hopes I ventured to cherish—you know what your mother's wishes are; nay, but for her 1 had not dared remembering my years and yours, to even hope, far less to speak. Will you refuse to strengthen that hope ? I have forborne long ; I sought sometimes to arouse, suspicion of the truth in your mind, and when I saw that no suspicion crossed you, I would not startle you or wound you, though often, I know unwittingly, you wounded me. Is this my reward 1" He paused, and bent his head slightly, as if in anxious suspense awaiting her verdict—the man who had held her in his arms as a little child resigning his very life to her wayward fancy—surely this must touch at least her woman's pride of conquest. he had spoken softly, he had chosen his words well to convey reproach to a noble and sensitive nature. The acting was good ; but it failed in its object, for Agnes was not for one moment deceived by it; he only succeeded into fanning it into stronger life the stronger antagonism he sought to destroy.

"Sir Selwyn," she said, nerving herself to speak as she had never thought to speak to him, "hear me for a few moments. You were my mother's friend ; you can never be more to me. I might have loved you as a father ; that is impossible now—you speak of my mother's wishes. I have never wittingly disobeyed her till now, and there are higher laws than a mother's wishes, and I cannot disobey them. If you had been twenty years younger, if you bad been all that you are not— tor yon have not deceived me, I do not trust you, I do not believe— you forget that our faith is not the

same. I could not if I would, and I would not if I could break down that barrier." Though every word she had spoken so calmly had been a deadly stab to that man. he still masked the steel gauntlet under the velvet glove. " Agnes, you tell me you do not trust me, you do not believe me. 1 pass by that reproach though I have not merited it; hub you ask me to believe that difference of faith would be any barrier between us, if I were 'all that I am not,' if, in short, you loved me." " I do not ask you to believe," said the girl, "I speak truth, that is enough, but I need not insist on that impediment. I have told you that I do not love you, that I never did, that 1 never shall. Is not that enough 1 Can any man of honour need more?"

" From a woman five-and-twenty, no, from a girl of seventeen, yes," said Grant-Faulkner, "from a girl who does not, cannot know her own heart, who is at least bound to pay some respect to the wishes of a mother who never yet crossed her or thwarted her in anything." " Can you dare," said Agnes, trembling inwardly, but speaking still calmly, "to ask me to make, not my love for you, but my obedience to my mother, my guide in this 1 Speak plainly, Sir Selwyn, and say that it is the heiress of Clifford Ardeley whom you seek." " That would be to speak falsely," answered the baronet, with at least some truth. " Agnes, if you had no fortune but the form and the mind that God has given you, I should still ask you to be my wife."

Wife ! she almost recoiled at the word 3 she had studiously avoided it, and it seemed to arouse in her a very passion of resentment. " If you had ouc spark of knightly feeling, one reniant of the honour that once your forefathers boasted," she said, giving full rein to the emotions she had hither to restrained, " you would have needed but the first words I uttered to have left me. Wife! wife to you ! God forbid it! If my mother's wishes were commands, if she knelt at my feet to ask this of me, I would not yield for one moment. Am I to love you because you are false, selfish, mercenary, because there is nothing in you that any woman can love ; did you think that I wasa gentle, docile child who could be frightened into profaning a sacrament and perjuring herself at God's altar, by the threat, (a noble weapon for a GrantFaulkner !) that disobedience would incur a mother's displeasure? you havp strangely deceived yourself j

but you have not deceived me. Say that you are come, not to seek, but to claim a wife, that you have power or influence, and that you will use it without scruple." Was this Agnes de Clifford ? erect, haughty, with flushed cheek and glowing eyes, facing him fearlessly, with scorn and defiance in every line of her face, in word of her tongue, in every tone of her voice 1 This girl who had never spoken harshly to a living creature—who so shrank from giving pain that she would rather be misunderstood than incur the

risk, now planting a sting in every

word she uttered ? Surprise had almost held Grant-Faulkner silent, but he had hardly been human if ho could have endured without losing the self-control he had preserved hitherto, the bitter reproaches which touched him the more keenly that his own conscience endorsed them each and all. Whether or no she sought that end, Agnes had succeeded iu stripping the mask, and laying bare the man's real nature.

" I know this," he said, not passionately as she had spoken, for in the colder and cruel natures passion is not frank and free but manifests itself in a grim sternness of look and manner which augurs a ruthless purpose, " I know this, that I have borne long and will bear no longer. You have scorned me, defied me, you whom I have loved, whom I love still. Gentle and docile I did believe you, and I have been deceived; influence I have, and I will use it. A wife I did seek while I thought she might be won; but the hope is past, and henceforth I will claim her, and by a power that cannot be defied."

False as she knew him to be, it was impossible to doubt the truth of his last words, impossible not to feel that they contained far more than appeared upon their surface ; yet terrible as was the thought that flashed like lightning through her mind, Agnes did not move or even tremble. Strong in a strength whose source was a mystery to him, she stood before him a moment in perfect silence, and there was something sublime in the calm which seemed to have fallen upon her, in the steadfast look which he dared not face.

" There is only one power," she said at length, " that cannot be defied ; and to that power I can safely trust. When God shall command me to break his own laws, then I will break my own heart and become the wife of a dishonoured gentleman and a Godless scoffer."

She moved forward to leave the room and Grant Faulkner did not attempt to arrest her steps. For tho first time his merciless heart failed him. not from mercy but from fear. What if after all, in spi eof nil, she could remain firm ? But that was impossible ; she spoke in ignorance; her own feelings, her own principles could not fight long against the forces that would be marshalled against her. In the strength of principle Grant-Faulk-ner had no faith; ho was a thorough cynic, and did not believe, simply because ho could not understand, that principle was more thau a feather-weight in the scale if self-interest or any other strong motive were in the opposite balance. But if after all Agnes' affections were engaged; then indeed he had a serious foe to contend with. This thought restored the faltering determination, more even than the memory of the lialf-ruined fortunes which the wealth of the heiress of Clifford-Ardeley must renew, more even than tho dazzling beauty, the fascination of character and manner which had strangely captivated the cold cynic, and grew livid and bit his lips till tho blood came, to restrain the words that it had been madness to utter; so he suffered her to pass out in silence, but left alone he clenched his hands to tho very impotence of wrath. " By the Heaven above us ! " he said, in a suppressed voice, "if it is so, if that man, whether by design or no, has won her heart, he will rue it—no power on earth shall turn mo from my purpose, least and last that mau of all men."

He went out and returned to the drawing-room. Florence rose up deadly white to meet him; she read his answer in his face befere he

spoke. " She defies me to my face," said Grant-Faulker, " have you tauglit her to whet her tonguo like a twoedged sword ? She trusts not in vain to her youth and beauty, or man as I am I might liave struck her where she stood. She speaks bravely, but brave words are easier than brave actions. Your task is now to be done, Florence, I will brook no more delay." " Sehvyn, did you threaten her— did you speak of—" " I told her plainly —she drove me to it—that I had power which I would use; and she believed mo. Her answers show it, but instead of cowing her the threat made her more defiant. Do all but tell lior the truth, that indeed were fatal— and keep her out of the West Indian's way." " Selwj'n," said Florence, firmly, " you ask an impossibility. To provoke the gossip of the world might gain the very end of your droad. As it is Canibaceres is rarely here —never unless I ask him ; we meet in society (which cannot be avoided) and at his own studio which will bo but once or twico more. Can I do more? Even to leave London in the middle of the season would certainly set every idle tongue in motion. After all you liave no direct ground for suspicion, aud

beware how you show any suspicion—toher at least." " You are right," said the baronet, more quietly, "say no more to Agnes to-day." " Trust my woman's wit this time," she answered, " it has failed mo once ; it shall not do so again. Remember how much I have at stake." " Aye," he said, pausing as he turned to the door, " if at the last I lose the chief stake for which I have played for but a short time, I shall not lose the stake I have played for for years. That I will win, though in winning it I am involved in the ruin that destroys you."

(To be continual.)