Novelist. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] Love's Labour Won: AN EVENTFUL STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2623, 4 May 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] Love's Labour Won: AN EVENTFUL STORY.

BY JAMES GRANT. Author of "The Romance of War," "The Black Watch," "Fairer than a Fairy," &.C.,

OffAPTEII I.—Lawn Tennis Party. Is your friend Captain Lonsdale, with whom you danced so often this season " " Who danced so often with me ? There is a difference, Miss Tremayne." " Well, is he here to-day ?" " I think not. Do you know him?" ' " Oh, so well; I met Montague so oft c 11 in Calcutta at the Government House, the racecourse, on the Esplanade, and everywhere else." " Montague?" thought Miss Talbot, over whoso soft face a shade of annoyance passed. Considering that since the commencement of the season in question in London, Melanto Talbot had been engaged to Montague Lonsdale, she had some cause to resent the free appropriation of his Christian name by the brilliant and Ilighty Hilda Tremayne. the enterprising daughter —the only spoiled one—of an Indian general, then on leave in England. Hilda, a garrison belle, but of a very superior fashion, was well up in all military society, and was decidely popular at Aldershot, Folkstone, and other red coat circles within easy distance of London.

She and her friend, or acquaintance, rather, were two more than handsome girls, and were guests at Chillington Park, a stately place on the Thames, an hour or so distant by rail from town ; and both were enjoying to the fullest extent a a brilliant lawn tennis party, given by the aunt of the latter, Mrs. Chillington, a wealthy and fashionable widow, of whom more anon, and whose social gatherings, especially of this kind, were extremely popular. Lawn tennis is essentially a jovial a graceful and a friendly game, that brings many into contact who otherwise might never meet or learn to know each other, making (like the Scottish golf, for older folks) all its votaries kin, at least for the time; and it is theone great game in which the youth of both sexes can meet on almost equal terms, and in which female play is almost equal to male in dexterity. Few sights can surpass, in attraction a tennis lawn in the well-kept grounds attached to a stately English house, such as Chillington—the courts duly chalked on the smooth green sward, the nettings tightly " belayed," and the players of both sexes in their piquants and brightcoloured costumes, arrayed for the merry struggle, with a goodly number of gossiping friends and chaperones, now too old to handle a racquet or display their figures, seated on benches and sofas under the broad and rustling leafage of summer. The dulcet sound of the English girls' voices their pure, happy laughter, is then mingled with the music of the band, that adds zest to their enjoyment without disturbing them, whilst the sunny air is laden with the fragrance of tho season from parterre and border, where dark and y«llow wall-flowers, clumps of laven-der-coloured aubretia, patches of white candytuft, clusters of polyanthus, sheets of pansies and tulips of every shade and hue are seen. At Chillington, to the bank of the river far stretched the velvety '' lawn of emerald green, shaded by tall and ancient trees ; where— till August—the nightingale proved himself sleepless by day as well as night, whil* the cows swung their

Jong tails in the soft breeze, till they could be driven quietly home to be milked. Liveried servants and other helps went round with iced champagne cups, strawberries and cream, or the inevitable five o'clock tea, all the more enjoyable amid such a scene and amid so many sweet sounds, the warm open air and on the fresh grass. On the latter, young fellows were lounging at the feet of girls on rustic chairs, fanning themselves with their racquets, and talking the usual common places ; and there, too, was more than one stately dowager promenading slowly or seated amid the rosebushes, talking scandal perhaps, over dainty cups of tea and dishes of bright-hued fruit. "To the dweller in town," says an essayist, " lawn tennis as a rule means lawn tennis, and nothing more ; the game, the whole game, and nothing but the game ; and lawn tennis has perforce, to dispense with buttercup and daisies, nut hatches, singingbirds, and parterres of shimmering flowers. A good ground, good balls and good players suffice, for the object is muscular, not a3sthetic. Possibly some earnest urban devotees of the game would regard the ! proximity of tulips and wail-flowers as Punch's Nimrod regarded those ' stinking violets' ; for Englishmen soon learn to manage without the elegances and luxuries of life, and to be satisfied with a due supply of its necessities. In the front rank of the latter, for the dwellers in our northern climes, is exercise. Next to that is the need of contending with someone about something." But amid the delightful surroundings afforded by Chillington Park, the joyous activity and grace of the young girls put to shame the blase Englishman-about-town, and compelled more than one to forget his inane drawl and that adopted manner which is so suggestive of perpetual boredom and efl'eminate weakness ; while even amid the crowd, many couplcs could have had their special tele a-tete unknown to chaperone—that tete-a-tete, when lips can form tender wordsunheard by others and 1 eyes look love to eyes that speak again for such gatherings

arc excellent for the purpose, as two may isolate themselves while the world surges closely round them. They may be close together, and yet seem practically far apart; and on these occasions topic and tone, glance and manner may wax perilously confidential indeed. Tirod of playing, Melanie Talbot had taken a seat on a rustic sofa, at a little distance from the numerous party, and there she had been joined by Miss Tremayne, who asked, in the most casual way, apparently, the question with which this chapter opens.

The claim to a prior intimacy on the part of Miss Tremayne, and so far away as India too, was in itself displeasing to Melanie Talbot, who, however, could not deny that Hilda was a striking figure in her wollpliuned hat and verypiquantc lawn tennis costume. She was tall, largo, fair-skiuned, and languishing, with soft brown hair, and bright hazel eyes of nearly tlio same tint as her hair, heavily lidded, darkly-lashed, and ever varying in expression as the spirit moved her. Perhaps a residence in India affected her manner, for, like Byron's D.idu, she certainly was " Laiiguiphinpr and lazy, Vet of a beauty that would drive you crazy and in company was most attractive and chic—to use that new French word for which there is no equivalent in English.

But in the grace of her form, and the rare beauty of her small patrician face, Melanie Talbot was in no way her inferior, and fully surpassed her in that most attractive beauty, which lies less in feature and complexion—expression, changing with every emotion. Her figure was slender, lithe and perfect; her face had a pure profile, and her eyes were of that grey-blue which runs black at times; and her hair, of darkest brown, formed glorious coils around a most shapely head—yet so coiled by the left fingers of her aunt's maid, Mademoiselle Clochette, as not to conceal its form. Melanie's complexion was brilliantly fair, colourless in fact: and her curved lips were so scarlet that one might have thought she touched them with creme vermilla, yet it was the pure vermillion of nature. In the land of lovely women, both girls were beautiful. " And Captain Lonsdale never spoke of me to you V said Miss Tremayne, after a pause, during which she had been slowly fanning herself. "No." " Strange !" said the other, with a curl of her handsome lip. " Why strange ?" But for reasons of her own, this indolent beauty only replied by a soft dreamy smile of wonderful depth. Her remarks, and others made before, though too probably prompted by mere vanity, not unnaturally rankled in the mind of Melanie, whom Miss Tremayne sought to inspire with rivalry and jealousy. A rather awkward silence ensued, till it was broken by a gentleman, who claimcd the latter for a new set. She rose and swept away with smiling alacrity, and Melanie Talbot was left alone; but for a minute only, and a sigh of annoyance escaped her when she saw her beta 'iioir, Sir Brisco Braybrooke, approaching. Melanie Talbot (so named by her

godmother, a French lady, of Pondicherry), the penniless orphan of a distinguished officer of H.M. Indian army, had been for a season chaperoned by her widowed aunt, Mrs Chillington, of Chillington Park, the wealthy, proud, and somewhat selfish bugbear of the girl—,a bugbear, because of her assumption and high-handed interference. And now, the tennis party we have described was, to Melanie, the closing scene of her season and her •' opportunities," of which, she had been candidly informed, "it was her boundon duty to make the most and if Aunt Chillington knew aught about Montague Lonsdale, and how dear he was to Melanie, his existence was carefully ignored by that worthy lady, whose hopes for her niece were based on a wealthy marriage, her fortune being her face, which had procured for her all that remained of the elderly admirer who now advanced with mincing step to take the seat on the rustic sofa, just vacated by Miss Tremayne.

Erect, above the middle height, and inclined to be stout, Sir Brisco, past his sixtieth year, was certainly a suavely-mannered and pleasantlooking man, somewhat regardless of appearance as to costume, with a face expressive of strong will. His grey eyebrows were bushy, while his hair and moustache were white, coarsc, stubbly, and altogether disinclined to be smoothed or brushed, Regarding Melanie admiringly, with a gleam in his old crow's-footed eyes, he said : " A brilliant gathering and most charming dav !" "About a hundred persons have made the same original remark to me," replied Melanie, almost pettishly. " Then I make the hundred-and-first ?" " Yes," said she, colouring with annoyance at hjr own ill-concealed discourtesy. "So brilliant indeed," continued the baronet, ignoring it, " that we might fancy the times had come again, referred to by Sir Thomas Malory in his black-letter book, which gives us an account of King Arthur with his knights and ladies, all in green, riding near London by the margin of the Thames, in search of bunches of white thorn blossom. An American writer," lie continued, bending bis old head nearer hers, "says we English have no climate—• only samples ; and Talleyrand also asserted that we have no climate— only weather ] and yat, is not to-day lovely f'

Melanio bowed, but it was evident that her mature admirer did not intend to discant longer on that safe topic, the weather, as he said, in his most suave tone, whilst stooping still nearer : " Chillington, I believe, is famous for its arum lillies. Shall we go into the conservatory close by ?' " But then we should not hear the band in that receptacle for ear wigs." "It is only playing one of those foreign noises which we English, for lack of something of our own, call music," said he, with a little air of annoyance. " I knew you would be here, and though I detest gatherings of this kind, I cams in consequence, Miss Talbot." He saw a little colour sweep over her face, leaving it paler than before ; but resumed, in a very low voice— "You know, so I need not repeat, the regard, the love, I have for you, Melanie. I must call you Melanie," lie added, as a gesture of impatience escaped her.

She raised her eyes and looked at him ; but for several secret reasons and terrors of her own, yet to be related, she gave no reply. '• Do you doubt my love for you ?" he asked, with his white moustache within an inch of her lovely little ear. " No, Sir Brisco." " How then V' •' I doubt having any to give you in return for it." " This is hard to bear. It will come in time. I have been abrupt, perhaps ; but to see you so sweeps all prudence away." " Surely this is a strange place for such speeches—or such a conversation !" "You declined the orthodox observatory." " Orthodox—in novels." " And often in real life, too, Melanie." "You have no right to call me by my Christian name!" said she, colouring now. To him, when her aunt was not present, she was usually defiant, quizzical, or cold. He thought then that he would like to play Pygmalion to her Galatea, only he was too old and too obese for the part of the sculptor of Cyprus. " And you leave tliis to-inorrow, Miss Talbot ?" said he. "Yes, Sir Brisco." He paused, and then said, " I have so much, to say again that I have said bofore, I know ; but tell me, have you quite reconsidered the offer I made you, with the full consent of your aunt, Mrs Chillington ?" "Yes, Sir Brisco." "And—and you may in time accept it ? Have I any chance of success—any hope of winning you to be my wife ?" he persisted. "Do not recur to that subject, Sir Brisco," said the girl, bitterly, painfully, as she thought of how she was circumstanced; "you do not know all; I cannot tell you all," Her tone impressed him, for ho r s a proud man. He drew back

a little, and his heart throbbed with vague distrust. He had now proposed twice to the girl, though his knowledge of her family and her past was scanty. He only knew that she was beautiful, perfectly ladylike, and that tho position of her aunt in society was irreproachable, She was young, and he loved her with all tho curiously mingled emotions of a man of his years, when much of the fatherly is apt to blend with the lover—his hopes encouraged by a knowledge of his great wealth, his superior position, and | that worship of the golden, which he saw daily practised in the circle amid which lie moved. "I shall be content to wait—not a year," he added, colouring as he thought of the years he had attained to ; " but till I can win your love at last." "It may not be—it cannot be !" said Melanie, in a tremulous voice, as she cast down her' eyes and felt her engagement ring under her glove—not that she needed to gather courage or a power of resistance therefrom. " And see, Sir Brisco, people • are approaching. Here comes Miss Tremayne already. " Allow me," said Sir Brisco, offering his arm. But Melanie ignored it. He bowed low and turned almost sadly away, but not before lie could overhear Hilda say laughingly to a smart young fellow in a gay tennis suit, who escorted her. "Of course, Miss Smith—or Symthe, as she calls herself—is a goose ! If I have a supreme horror in this world, it is to see a girl marrying a man old enough to be her father. And for what? The sake of money !"

CHAPTER ll.—Auxt Ortir.r.ixG

Tho last carriages had rolled away through the lodge gates, the guests were gone, the briliant jele was over, and visions of her Aunt Chillington's animadversions and censures, uttered in clear and shrill staccato English, and those of her guardian, Uncle Grimshaw, in the background, rose lip to torture Melanie. Better, she thought, any humiliating occupation, if hoiust —teaching, telegraphy, companionship — than undergoing the. lcctures of either; but for what was she fitted? She had been openly and selfishly warned by both to " make good use of the opportunities" her aunt's invitation afforded her, and one of the ways in which she had done so was to decline the proposal of the wealthy old baronet. Thoroughly would Melanie have enjoyed her season in London with Aunt Chillington, but for one feature in the picture—the baronet; and even the society of Montague Lonsdale was almost unable to compensate her for the annoyance it entailed. She had revelled in the gay, wonderful streets ; the sunny park : the Row, with its brilliant show of tine equipages and beautiful women ; the four-in-hand meet by the Serpentine, t'l e trooping of the colours at the Horse Guards ; the grand old Abbey and ponderous St. Paul's ; the ladies' gallery in the House, with its grotesque screen of brass wire; the opera and balls without number; and now all was over for her, and, like Cinderella, she was goirg to a somewhat sordid home—sordid, at least, as compared with Chillington Park—where she knew she would be unwelcome; where Montague Lonsdale's advent would be unwelcome, too ; but where she hoped, at least, to be beyond the ken of Sir Brisco Braybrooke for a time—if only for a time.

" Love is no love if it comes not at once," says a poet, and in her first meeting with Montague Lonsdale the whole tenor of her young life was changed at once—and his too, for that matter, for though he had seen and known many beautiful and attractive women, the meeting with Melanie was the first in which he had looked into a girl's eyes and felt that maguetic influence which rendered him almost unable to take his own gaze away

Even for the rich dresses, for street and Row and ball-room, she was indebted to her aunt, but for her magnificent fans and bouquets to Captain Lonsdale, Sir Briseo, and other admirers, some of whom had even lost little bets to her at Ascot and Goodwood, in the most graceful way imaginable—bets which she blushed to win, though she saw Hilda Tremayno and others do so without compunction. The most rural of lanes—those lovely lanes which are so peculiarly English —led from every side to the fair white manor-house of Chillington, on the summit of grassy slope, where a few ornamental deer might be seen grazing with the sunlight falling on their sleek and dappled coats. Over stately terrace, as a plateau, with carved stone vases full of brilliant flowers, was the house, with its peristyle of four Corinthian columns, nearly forty feet in height, with a rich entablature and pediment, in the tympanum of which were the griffins' heads and three oysters, scalloped, quarterly, being the arms of Alderman Chillington, a city magnate of the early days of George 111., the first founder of the family. Evidences of wealth and luxury were apparent on every hand. The house is famous for a saloon, 011 the ceiling of which is an immense painting of Aurora, copied from

that of Guido in the Respiglori Palace; a stuccoed dining-room, wherein Admirals Pocock and Keppel had been feasted, after the bombardment of Havannah; and for all manner of handsome things in the guest-room, corridors and staircase; and a wonderful blue drawing-room, with curios, the collection of the Alderman's descendants, who, in taste and education, surpassed himself, of course. To the blue drawing-room, then, Melanie was solemnly summoned by her Aunt Chillington, after the guests had departed, and with a beating heart the girl entered what was a species of torture chamber to her. There Aunt Chillington had seated herself, as if in judgment on a throne, on a blue satin ottoman iu the very centre of the room, and was slowly fanning herself and looking as grim as Medusa, as she prepared to expound the law to the shrinking Melanie.

One of Mrs Ohillington's chief aim in life was to be deemed the best dressed woman of her set. She was tall, slender, and aristocratic in bearing, and actually handsome, though past her sixtieth year ; but the world had gone very easily and luxuriously with her in her wifehood and womanhood. She was inordinately proud of her birth as a Talbot, and, as a supposed descendof that Richard de Talbot whom the Domesday Book records as holding nine pieces of land from Walter of Buckingham, was somewhat inclined to undervalue the family into which she had married, though for money. She was also proud of her small hands and feet. Her eyes were keen and dark, She has a wellbred face and a great quantity of magnificently soft and silky white hair. With all her pride, she was cold, calculating, and selfish. The baronet, before leaving, had evidently reported to her the bad success of his suit. " And so—-so you have actually refused Sir Brisco," said the old lady, eyeing her with a steel-like glance, while her nether lip quivered with indignation ; " refused him a second time—-after all my trouble, care, expense, and anxiety?'' Melanie was silent. " Answer me, dear We fear she pronounced the term of affection, " dear," sharply, alter the usual manner of an ill-tempered Englishwoman, when she means to be remarkably incisive. . "Yes, aunt." "If it is not too late, or too much beneath your ambition—£2o,ooo a year—l wish you would reconsider this act of insane and most outrageous folly."

Melanie shook her head. " His settlements will be all that wc can desire." " But—he is eld, aunt." " Old !" "Too rinich so for my taste and years ; and if good-natured, stupid, not chic enough " "Not what enough? Don't use that horrid word, dear 1" " Surely I deserve something better at the hands of Fate, and something tells me I shall get it, too," said the girl, nervously, and a trifle defiantly. " Surely a girl, if marriageable at eighteen, is able to please and judge for herself." " But not if poor, miserably poor, as you are," was the stinging retort. " And, anyway, her father and mother, or guardians, may not think that she is able to judge for herself." " Why, aunt?"' " Because they have lived longer, got over all the nonsense of life—" " And forgot that they married about the same year themselves." "Exactly ; it is the way .of the world ; and if you will have romance, be assured that Sir Briseo loves you." " Perhaps so—as much as such a " Grandfather Whitehead" can ; but certainly I cannot be the first love of his life," said Melanie, with irritation quivering on her lip. " The second, perhaps, and consequently the best." Alclanie laughed almost scornfully at this remark. " Remember what someone says —and what, perhaps, he thinks/' she said ; and then, hoping, but in vain, to make her aunt smile, she sang— " First love ia a pretty romance, But not half so sweet as 'tis reckoned ; And when one awake 3 from the trance, There's a vast deal of love in the second.And e'en should a second subside, A lover should never despair ; j The world is uncommonly wide, And the women uncommonly fair. The poets their raptures may tell, Who have never been put to the test; A first love is all very well, But believe me the last one's the best." " This spirit of banter is most unbecoming, Melanie!" said Mrs Chillingtou, starting up from the' ottoman and fanning herself wi;th anry vigour. "You are a mcisfc ungrateful girl!" Then poor Melaine, finding thiifc her desperate attempt at playfulness failed, felt her eyes suffuse with- j tears. I " I am most grateful to you for for all your great kindness to me, aunt; for all your good wishes and i intentions regarding me, and those of my Uucle Gritnshaw, too; but — but," she added, as the image of Montague Lonsdale rose before her, " I cannot destroy my who la life, and that of another, too." " Another ! To whom do you refer V' asked her aunt, sbarpl y. Blushing deeply for the word that had unwittingly escaped, f( made

the girl take refuge in a little duplicity. " My brother, poor Reggie, would think that I sacrificed myself for his interests, and the conviction would break his heart." " Fiddlesticks ! You are aware that since you came here to Ohillington your Uncle Grimshaw— burdened as the poor man is witfh you and that helpless creature Reggis —has been compelled to take a smaller house, and at a greater distance from town, for economy. As for Reggie, it would be well indeed if he were out of the world." " Oh, aunt, aunt 1" exclaimed Melaine, her hot tears falling now. " Poor Reggie—so helpless, so gentle, so gentlemanly, even full of apologies for the trouble he gives. How can you speak of him thus ?" Mrs Chillington coloured a little at the effect of her remark, but said : " Why, girl, with Sir Brisco, apart from the settlements, you might have a marriage that would surpass any St. George's has ever seen—twelve bridesmaids, perhaps —the richest lace, the richest satin, the Braybrooke diamonds, the greatest wedding cake— " And the most indigestible!" " Mockery again 1 This affair is more serious than you imagine, and that when you go home to-morrow. What is to become of you ? You are as much unfitted to be a governess as to submit to the humiliation of being a companion ; and if you scout at such an unexceptional offer as that of Sir Brisco, I repeat, what-—as a penniless and dependent girl—is to become of you 1" "God alone knows!" sighed Melanie, wearily. And with all the softness of her beauty, she looked too statuesque, too calm and graud and beautifully fair of complexion for either line of life : and, sooth to say, no lady with growing up sons or younger brothers would have had her. The girl bowed her head under her pitiless aunt's bitter home truths, a prey to love, to grief, perplexity and sorest anxiety. " She shall marry him yet, or I shall have clone with her for ever !" thought Mrs Chillington, as she swept away to hor room, in such a fiame of mind and undignified rage, that she furiously summoned her maid, Clochette, to apply a handkerchief dipped in the inevitable compound of Johann Maria Farina, to her temples. And madamoiselle hid one of M. Alphonse Daudet's very naughty novels, in which she had been deep, in her pocket, and hastened to attend her mistress. Aunt Chillington had, of course, heard of the Montague Lonsdale episode; but, as yet, disdained to make any reference thereto, though she had evidently failed to cure her nejce of " that folly." So, on the morrow, Melanie Talbot was to go home betimes — home, where she knew, and too well, that a second edition of all she had undergone in the blue drawing-room—and perhaps in even more bitter terms—awaited her at the hands of Uncle Grimshaw, (To be conlinucd.)