Novelist.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2644, 22 June 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist.

[all mouth kksi-kved.] Love's Labour Won: AN EVENTFUL, STORY. BY JAMES GRANT. Author of -'The Romance of War," "The Black Watch," " Fairer than a Fairy," &c, &c. CHAPTRR XIV.—How it came Auout.

We left Montague Lonsdalea miieor more above the place where he was to have met Melanie, stretched among the scented grass, with a cigar between his teeth, his hands under his head, his straw hat tilted well over his eyes, which were fixed on tho branches and blue sky above, and his heart full of angry thoughts about the state of his love affair,

Tin: place was solitary, as it was above Abingdon, with its old bridge and red-tiled houses, and where the river becomes navigable by barges and he was in a silent nook of the stream, that could at the worst only he identified with house-boats, old lock-houses, and greenish water tumbling over the mossy piles and slucies of an ancient weir, or a humble thatcher's cottage, surrounded by tall blue flowers and smothered under roses and creepers. Suddenly there was a sound close by him—an exclamation—and the tall figure of a young lady appeared by his side, Hilda Tremayne, in a most becoming country costume, of bright-coloured wool crepe, a Zou-ave-shaped jacket, or bodice, a piquante hat, and a large sunshade, which she twirled with her wellgloved little hand as it rested on her shoulder, and a smile of coquettish surprise and mischief in her clear bright hazel eyes, as she recognised the lounger, who started at once to his feet. " Lonsdale—you here, and alone!'' she exclaimed, with one of her flashing glances, from eyes that were long lashed and heavily lidded. "As you see—and you ?" he in quired. " Oh—l am living at Oxford, with my uncle, the Professor of Old Trinity. Is this boat yours 1" " Fro tarn, it is." " My cousins were to have rowed me to Stokencross, but the stupid boys have either mistaken the time or the place, and I am left lamenting. Will you—'/" " Row you down the stream —. with pleasure," ho replied, yet with a sigh of annoyance, as he thought of the other whom he had meant to row, and for whose use he had arranged fhe dainty velvet cushions in the stem. Hilda Tremayne seated herself there at once ; he shipped the sculls and, sitting opposite her, pulled from the shady creek. " Yeu like Oxford, I doubt nut V said he.

" Oh, yes the undergrads are great fun ; at times I enjoy life there quite as much as I do in garrison. I was so sorry that you were not at the Chillington Park tennis party." " Why ?" " Can you ask me why 1" she queried, with a glance that spoke a volume of witchery and pretended pique. " Well, it was a success, I suppose ?" " It was too utterly enjoyable 1 Charming from beginning to end. By the way, I met a friend of yours there." "A friend of mine?" I " Yes—cannot you guess who ?" " I know so many, 1 ' replied Lonsdale, affecting an air of indifference. " But whom do you mean T " Miss Talbot—she certainly is a strange girl 1" " How ?" asked Lonsdale, on whose ear the laugh which accompanied Hilda's remark, though clear and silvery, jarred a little. ■' Went the pace, you kno.v. with that old baronet—who might be her father twice over. But then, he is so rich V " You met other friends at Chillington, I presume V said Lonsdale, to change the subject. " Oh, several 1 but I dislike—or don't care about new friends, and always turn lovingly to the old one. Do you ever think of what pleasant times we have had together in India !" This was said softly, and with one of her most effective glances 1 but without effect, as Londsdale, while sculling vigorously, was just then looking ahead over his shoulder. So after a pause, Hilda spoke again. "So your friend, Musgrave, is engaged to that little chit, Amy Brendon. How strange of him 1" " You know him 1" '' Oh yes. Horace is a lovely dancer; but, as a husband, must be most unsuited to her. It is all very well just now for the little Brendon girl, but a time will arrive when Horace may become like other married men—cross and ficlgetty, will keep her waiting for her ride or drive, vote waltzing a bore, that a ball gives a headache, eall her milliner's bill an outrage, and quote how economically other men's wives dress."

" You are surely sarcastic, Miss Tremayne, Horaco could never turn out a man of that kind,"

" Won't ho ? Then ho is different from most of the married men I know. •' Don't you marry, Hilda," said Lonsdale, laughing. " I shall not bo in hurry, believe me." And Lonsdale, who knew how much that assertion was worth, nearly laughed again. " Is Horace," —she was fond of calling men by their Christian names —" going to bid good-bye to the dear old Hussars ?" " Certainly not. Ho has no intention of selling or resigning. Miss livondon dotes on tho service as much as ho does, and quite looks forward to all the gaiety military society will procure for her, after iier rather dull girlhood tit tttokcncross A r iearago." " Thou she will load him a dance I expect." " How ?" " Oh, a girl bred as shehas been, is sure to become intoxicated with the new life, the now scenes, and the so man}' unexceptionable men. You know Avoll enough what I mean." " Not precisely," said Lonsdalo a little curtly ; the style of Hilda's prattle rather bored him just then. She had now drawn off a glove to show, perhaps, the whiteness of her hand, and a very boautiful hand it certainly was ; and a soft, coy smile spread over her handsome face as she trailed her fingers through the water. Then she adroitly caught an oak leaf that was drifting near, and, fashioning it into the shape of a tiny boat, let it float away with the current, while Lonsdale paused in his rowing to draw breath for a moment. " How delightful it would bo," said she, with half-drooped eyelids while a coquettish smile spread over her face, " if one—if wo— could thus commit our fate to the flow of time !"

All this had but one meaning— coquetry ; but Montague Lonsdalo was slow to accept her challenge now ; while Hilda believed that she was about to have that which to her mind was tho groafcest of all pleasures, tho beginning of a flirtation.

" Is there any otter time liko that beginning-," says someone, " when the knowledge creeps in that you are singled out, that you aro admired most, that ono other person is happy only when near you ; that eyes aro watching for your glance, that a hand is waiting to touch your hand, wlieu every Avord has a sweet now meaning, every word a bowildoriitg significance!"

But Hilda know all this' sort of thing well, aud had known it in more than one of tho places where tho Queen's morning-drum beats.

White swans were- sailing 1 past ; the stn am looked boatiful with all its sylvan adj imcts, and it charmed Lonsdale's artistic eye, for he said, laughingly "This scorns a placo to mate ono forget tho worhl, and everything but tho present liour." " Yes," added Hilda, dreamily,

" time —place—friends, trouble and all."

" Suppose were to wake from the dream to find that hundreds of year had passed by enchantment !" " Would that matter so long as wo wore together ?" said Hilda, with more than coquetry. " Oh, by Jove ! she is on dangerous topics again !" thought Lonsdale, and was about to resume his sculls and shoot round a wooded bend of the river, where a white skirt was seen amid the foliage, and a cry from Hilda alarmed him. " What is the matter ? ; ' he asked. ' Oh," she exclaimed, but in a low and breathless voice ; " a wasp —a wasp among my hair —take it out, please—take it out !" " Allow mo," said he, stooping over her. His fingers had to search among her rich bright air, and the obnoxious insect was—after a little time and troublo —extracted. This was the episode so inopportunely witnessed by Melanio ; and thus it was that all the misconception came about. CHAPTEE XV.—"lt Can Never Be!" More of sorrow and disappointment, than of anger, were in the tender heart of Melanio Talbot, with a shrinking from a contemplation of the dull, hopoless, and empty life that would bo before her now iE Montague Lonsdalo proved, indeed, untrue. Yet, through the evening and long hours of the night that followed the episode on the river, no tears came to her relief, even amid the crushing fears that the Circean wiles of Hilda Trcmayne might have parted thorn for over; for, of Hilda, she had always had a halfcontemptuous dread, with much of entire doubt.

If it were so, death could not more effectually separate her and Montague. And her future now— what would it—what could it bo? Cold drops stood on tho girl's white forehead at the thought. Yet a wild longing possessed her to see him once again; to tell liiim, even upbraidingly, what she had seen and overheard; perhaps to throw her arms about him, and to kiss him onco again ;but, then came the horror —the bitter conviction — that unless the episode could boar explanation, he would value or require her love no longer, and that another would stand between them then.

The dawn came in slowly, and the warm July morning crept on apace. The sunshine lay over everything ; on the garden without, on tiie equipage of the breakfasttable within, even on the grim, set face of her uncle as he pored over his correspondence; and, by one quick glance at the place where her cup and plate stood, Melanie perceived that there was no letter lying there for her —neither by post nor messenger had one come from Montague Lonsdale—and again her heart died within her breast.

No letter—and she could reckon now the hours within, which he would have to depart and report himself at the Brigade Oflice of the District to which his regiment be longed, ere he started for Bengal. Uncle Grimshaw, meanwhile, was gloomily and irritably opening several ominous-looking blue envelopes, addressed in the typical scrawling hand of trade, muttering as he did so, with furtive and resentful glances at Melanie, whose hands trembled among the cups and saucers. " Bills—bills—of course." "What, uncle?" she asked, wearily, and scarcely taking in his remark. " Bills ! Surely I spoke plainly enough!" he snapped. "The expense even of this small house is fast getting beyond me." Melanie only sighed, as she turned to supply the wants of her invalid brother, and felt and knew all that the words and manner of her guardian implied, and what was passing in his mind, and almost injuring the relish with which he despatched his kidneys and mushrooms.

But fresh annoyances from other quarters came, and the successive visits of Sir Brisco Braybrooke and her Aunt Ohillington utterly precluded her from attempting to seek the usual meeting-place, and so the eventful day, to her, passed wearily and anxiously on. When Sir Brisco came with an unwished-for tribute of rare flowers, Uncle Grimshaw discreetly withdrew, on some feigned pretence, and Mclanie asked herself, as she had often clone before: " When will he understand that, after having rejected him, we cannot and ought not to meet again f But this troublesome and unsnubable old suitor seemed to deem her a soft-headed girl, who, with all her beauty, had neither mind nor will of her own, and would, in'the end, bend to circumstances. However, Sir Brisco had now made up his mind to get married. lie had already •' broken the ice " by asking Melanie to share his title an;l wealth, and at his years, did not care, perhaps, to risk the trouble of cultivating another young lady. Retaining the girl's hand in his— the very hand that bore Montague's engagement ring, and bending over Iter in a courteous and somewhat fatherly way, he said : "I do love you with a wild, cra.;y passion that gives me no rest—no peace," said Sir Brisco, in a low I voice, talking from some book rather

than his calm old heart; "and I would give my heart to have you —to win you —rather than see you another's."

This sounded very like " high falutin'," but the Last word alarmed Melanie, and her eyes fell on her ring, yet she ventured to ask : "But if one could be happier with that other, do you call your persistence love?" "What is it, thenf "Selfishness." " Come !" he exclaimed, dropping her hand for a moment; "but is there another V " I have not said so," replied Melanie, as she bit her nether lip in annoyance at her unwilling question. She had not yet had—and actually might never had—any explanation from, or reconciliation with, Montague Lonsdale ; and with this alarming dread before her and the baronet's words in her ears, the whole room seemed to dance round them, while with aching eyes she saw, as through a mist, the faded curtains, the patched carpet, the shabby cretonne-cohered chairs, and the general air of genteel poverty that lay painfully over everything, and which even all lier art and taste failed to hide. Nathelcss the bad progress of his suit as yet, grey-haired Sir Brisco hoped that a time would come when Melanie would be his; but meanwhile every effort towards more than the merest friendship was baffled by her, and he seamed to be perpetually undergoing the mortification of lost opportunities. On her part, she would have taken a higher and more resolute stand, and resented his persistence, but for the force of those fatal circumstances which cast her and her two brothers so completely into the power of her uncle and guardian ; thus, as yet, she could do no more than miserably temporise. " Melanie," said Sir Brisco, who knew the situation well, as he rose to withdraw, " I have plenty for us both, and for your brothers, too. Let my home be theirs as well as yours. I have thought it all over many times ; all my hope of happiness is iu your hands. Say only the word—one little word, yes." But she shook her head despondently, and replied : "1 thank you —but it can never be !" And she had been compelled to listen to all this and much more of the same kind, while her eye wandered to the clock on the mantel-board, and while Lonsdale was perhape awaiting her at their trysting-place, if he was not—oh, no —surely not! —with that other girl, who enjoyed the odious reputaion of " lead ing men on," or it bould be " oil"," rather. Barely had Sir Brisco gone, and Melanie began to meditate a flight to the bank of the river, when there alighted from her carriage at the pretty but humble entrance of Rose Cottage, Mrs Chillington, erect and stately, bearing her sixty years as if they were but forty, smooth-skinned and bright-complexioned, though her soft hair was white as new-fallen snow, and having about her all " that Christian charity, which enables one to bear the sorrows of others so well,"

To Mrs Chillington's critical eye, very commonplace her somewhat coarse brother-in-law, Gideon Grimshaw. looked, with his grizzled mutton-chop whiskers, stick-up collar, still' side-tufts of hair, and his coat of the fashion of twenty years ago (but he was always twenty years behind the time) ; while on tho other hand, he thought her a very selfish and vain old woman of the world, which she really was. She almost ignored both Reginald and Dick; indeed she cordially detested the latter ever since he had suggested she should. "Bant"; and he, fully reciprocating the sentiment, secretly encouraged his ally, Bingo, to make free in more ways than one with her trailing skirts of the richest moire antique, though he was wont to aver that her bearing to him always " made him feel about two inches high only." Aunt Ohillington had evidently met the baronet, for she barely seated herself when she said to Melanie:—

"So Sir Brisco has asked you again, child V " " Yes, aunt." " Are you not glad—proud of his constancy, courtesy, and persistence V " No; it neither Hatters nor gladdens me, under all the circumsfcflllCGS " Why V asked Mrs Chillington, with a flash of her keen, dark eyes. " Because I cannot marry him." " Your uncle is very poor ; he has nothing to leave you. Have you ever thought of that, dear ?" she asked, with asperity. Melanie only sighed wearily, and said, " Could you realise how all this worries me, you would have some idea of how I must detest his name, poor man !"

" Think of being Lady Braybrooke of Ravensbourne Horcsc —of the jewels—the dresses." " Douglas Jerrold says that Eve ate the apple in order that sho might drcs-i," said Reginald, with a quiet smih, and was only honoured by his aunt with a brief stare.

,' Dross ! —by Jove ! She didn't do so extravagant!)"," said Dick, with a grin. " Hoar mo, Molanio Talbot," resum ,'"! Mrs. Okillingtou ; " I am not to bo fouled, nor is your good audkiudUncleGrimshaw. 3J thought

a season in town, and at Chillington Park, with me, would have opened you eyes to the ways of tho world, and made another girl of you, but I am disappointed—grievously disappointed." " I am so sorry, clear aunt." " Sorry !—stuff ? When does your old admirer—the military interloper—take his departure ?" " Very—very soon, now," replied poor, hunted Melanie, with a break in her voice, too crushed to feel anger, " So much the better for everyone. What a fool Sir Brisco is to have him at tho Hall, so near this ; but, of course, good, easy man, he knows nothing of your wicked folly —for wicked I deem it ; and he acts in ignorance and in kindness to his nephew's friend. But Melanie, you certainly do look much better than when you left London." " Of course, aunt, one does become rather done-up after a hot season there, and the country agrees so well with me." Aunt Chillington smiled sourly, and tapped the carpet with her littlo feet, of which she was very vain, but did not know that for Melanio to see Montague Lonsdalo daily was better than all the country air in tho world.

" When left to your own roiloctions, and uninfluenced," said Mrs. Chillington, as somo suspicion of this perhaps did Hash upon her at last, " you will see what is for your own good. Think of tho endless gaieties of Loudon to which you would have access ; apart from the opera and theatre, tho State balls at Buckingham Palace, the now club dances, tho Hurlingham teas, the cavalry po'lo matches, botanic fetes, garden parties, and so forth, to all of which a man of Sirßrisco's years might not care to accompany you ; and that, to a young married woman, is a great consideration now-a-days. Think, also, that should ho predecease you, which, of course, is only in the order of Naturo, of tho settlements and of that too lovely Dower House overlooking tho river. But all this I have urged before, till weary." "' Aunt, it can never be." How little Melauie could forsee the future !

Mrs. Ohillington remained silent for half a minute ; then she said with asperity —perhaps disgust ; "' How fond you seem of being a beggar, and looking to a half-ruin-ed uncle to provide for you." The prosperous widow's scornful words drew tears to the eyes of Melanie, who answered gently; " I have been used to poverty, to limited means, aunt."

" Used to it ! Wait till the worst presses on you and your two useless brothers, and the struggle for food comesvulgarlybot'ore you," continued this pitilesss woman. " Send me from here ; let mo go away, let mo live my own life, let me have some right to choose it. Why," asked Melanie, turning like the trodden worm at last, " why should I be dependent on the stern will of others ! I am a woman with the right to work, and with a will of my own." Mrs. Ohillington hold up her little white hands in dismay. " She talks quite like those dread ful people, the Socialists and Liberals who use dynamite, at the lie formers' tree in Hyde Park !" she exclaimed, a little obtusely.

"Yes—she had better rant about all this on a barrel at tho street corner—harangue uponthe wrongs of hor sex. I wash my hands of you all !" thundered Uncle Grimshaw, as ho quitted tho room, choking with fury, and forgetting tho resolution to await in patience tho result of Lonsdale's absence.

" Ring for my carriage-, please," said Aunt Ohillington, rising coldly and frigidly, a repuest to which Dick Talbot acceded -with the greatest alacrity, followed by Bingo. Now Dick —curly-haired and blue-eyed Dick —who always resented seeing his sister moved to tears, sot off with the faithful Bingo to inspect the adjacent hedgerows,and the result of his inspections was, that for the second time, Uncle Grimshaw, after extinguishing his candle that night and tucking himself cosily in bed, found between the sheets thereof, mysteriously, and greatly to his tribulation, rolled up like a spiny and bristly ball, a very fair specimen of the EchinusTerrestris, otherwise known as hedgehog.

(jTo lo continued.)