Novelist.

Waikato Times, Volume 2656, Issue 2656, 20 July 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist.

[ALL KKIIITS KKSKKVI'-lJ.] Love's Labour Won: AN EVENTFUL STORY. BY JAMES GRANT. Author of ''Tho Romance of War," "The Black Watch," " Fairer than a Fairy," &c., &c. CEIAI'IIEII xxr. — Coxtixukd. Wily should tho whim—the wish of my dead parents —fetter mo now ?" said Irene, in tears Why should it cast a shadow over ntc, and ruiu all my future ?"

" Why, indeed. Throw prudcnce to tho winds." " And what then ?" " Marry mo, darling ho whispcrod, softly, and drew her head upon his breast. There is always a mischievous excitemont and triumph in taking a pretty girl away from another man ; and this absurd emotion inspired Digby Montressor at that moment, and so the end of it all -was that they were privately and irrevocably wedded, after much apparent reluctance on the part of Irene, and no small dread alike of her aunt and the homecoming intended.

The former, a mysterious and perpetual invalid, who had never been visible after the marriage, abruptly took her departure from Brighton without " beat of drum," and without even seeing Montressor, from whoso eyes, now that tbo liubieon had been crossed, and his fate sealed, tlio enchantcd scales wero soon to fall. Tn less than a week the infatuated lad kuow all—or nearly so ; that lus wife was an iuebriato, and in spite of ontreaties and warnings, received the visits of Yal Bilke, D'Oyloy and other objectionable nion in his absence ; and when remonstrated with, became abusive — actually coarse. ,l You have no right to control me, " she said, defiantly ; " I shall go where I will —do what I choose." " Oh, Irene —surely I have a right —that of husband —the man who loves you." " Bah I" It was open war from that morn ont, Sho had often become apparently hysterical, when the pretended cousin—was his existence a myth— had been referred to ; but her attacks of hysteria were terribly accounted for now. The once sweetly sorrowful eyes that seemed to say—so thought weak Dir>V>y—it was almost a sin to say he loved her, were chap.ged in expression now. Could it be in nature, that her soft face with all its playful changes, her buautiful form so full of graec and -all that was alluring could hide a. soul so subtle, so vile, so eoars® and despicable ?

He had soon discoverer! that mentally and morally she w as profoundly his inferior: but ;iior her actual ignorance, intensely bad style, and more than all ior her

fury and ratings when crossed, lie was no way prepared. His first sensation was a dumb, gnawing, grinding pain, of a nature impossible to describe ; it seemed to affect him in body and son!, and for hours he thought he felt nothing else.

The agony of regret for his broken idol—his suddenly shattered ideal —was almost less, after a time than the emotion of amazement at his own rashness, blindness, and stupendous folly—the result of his ignorance of society, of the world, and of the female portion thereof in particular.

He had blighted and destroyed his young life at its very outset. With this conviction a great horror came upon him, and he remembered to have read that " Death may take our dear ones and their places may be filled up in our heart; but never again can life restore to us the broken hopes, the shattered illusions of our youth's fond imaginings. These things once slain, have perished for ever." She mocked him at last, and treated hini with defiance and contempt. Montressor heard her words as of those of some one in a hollow place or far away. They sounded at first vague, meaningless, and then stunning and terrible. They cut into his heart like sword blades, and for long after he never knew, in the dim confusion of his soul, how he loft her presence. But action was necessary. lie settled an income on her, and as his finances were thus embarassed, he exchanged from the Lancers into the Infantry, and prepared for service abroad. Ere he went, he offered her a good round sum to go out to Canada, where she had relatives, according to her own account. The money seemed to tempt her; she closed with his proposal—took a mocking farewell of him, and the ship sailed in due time but never reached the shores of America.

She foundered at sea, and among the list of the drowned cabin passengers —with a heart that thrilled to its core with great horror and greater relief mingled—Montressor read the name of his wife ! It was when our regiment was in South Africa, engaged in the Zulu war, and forming a part of Sir Evelyn Wood's column, that this intelligence—fatal he could notdeem it reached Digby Montressor and from that moment he became the jolly and happy fellow the mess knew him to be then, and afterwards on service and in India. But the second portion of his scory is an equally disastrous one. CHAPTER XXII-—" But all was False and Hollow !"

It was seven years after that time, and when the dark episode of his early life had become like the memory of a disagreeable dream, that Digby Montressor, at one of Mrs. Chillington's brilliant garden parties, was introduced by Horace Musgrave, to Claire Richmond, the only daughter of the good old Rector of Ghillington, a very handsome, but a more than usually sweet and attractive girl in her twenty-second year ; and with that chance meeting began the golden summer of a new life to Digby. They met again and again after that introduction, at those places where " everyone meets everyone else, and he soon learned to love her but caimly, with delight—a new and joyous emotion, all unlike the rash' and headstrong passion—for mere passion it was—that wrecked his life at Brighton.

" Digby Montressor, you have been a fool once," lie said so himself ; " beware how you are so

again. But it was impossible to look upon the pure and winning face of Claire Richmond and be either wary or wise ; and so it came to pass, that before either knew quite what they were about, there was exchanged between them the mysterious glance

—" that electric flash"—by which eye understands eye, and through which heart suddenly speaks to heart ; and to Digby there opened a newer and more glorious happiness, that seemed to compensate him for all the misery and humiliation he had undergone in the past, and before he had looked on the fields of Ginghilovo and Ulundi. In him Claire found a man of whom any woman might be proud —a brave soldier, who had faced death and suffering in many ways, a polished gentleman and a thoughtful one, with a fully-developed, formed, and experienced mind, a handsome figure, a manly bearing and calm, well-cut features ; more than that, perhaps, one who loved her ; and so after the tale that was told in the soft twilight garden of Chillington Rectory, Montressor found himself an active suitor.

Never would he and she forget that twilight eve in the gorgeous summer, under the dense shadow of the aged trees, and near tho still older rectory, its fretted carvings, thatched roof, and lozenged and mullioned windows, crimsoned by the last light—the warm afterglow —of the set sun ; amid all the greenery and flowers that framed the pictureque old edifice with an English beauty of its own. | We shall not dwell longer on this I event. The language of love is * pretty much the same all the world ! over, and has been so, we presume, ! since flowers and apples grew in Eden ; thus few, we believe, care to 1 hear it—when not addressed to

themselves—as its vapid inanities, sweet little iterations and imbecilities are dear to lovers, and to lovers only. The father of Claire, though reluctant to lose the apple of his eye, and that his one ewe lamb should leave him to become the wife of a soldier, and to follow that soldier to distant lands, performed the ceremony in the beautiful old parish church, which, if history told truth, was built by William of Wykeham, and wherein William of Orange, when flouting Bushey Park, and Horace Walpole, when resident at Strawberry Hill, both said their prayers, the former returning thank to the Dutchman's God for the massacre of Glencoe.

The wedding was over, the cake cut, the speeches made, healths drunk, the ricc and slippers thrown after the departing carriage bore away the happy pair, not for a " spin among the gay places of the continent, but to enjoy each other's society amid the sylvan and sequestered scenery of Lynmouth, and there, while wandering no doubt hand in hand, forgetting all the external world, in the richly-wooded combes near Ihe Swiss-like village where the hill-streams of Devon roll down over huge boulders like one long waterfall, and the Valley of the Stones—that wonder of the West of England—rises 011 each side, in its terrific masses like the ruins of a Cyclopean palace, with glimpses of the distant sea far down below, life seemed to be as near perfection as it could well be, and their honeymoon was indeed a sweet and happy if brief, bewildering dream—for a brief dream it was fated to be.

Yes, it was joyous, while it lasted, in a pretty Devon cottage, under the friendly shadow of apple bowers a century old—orchards where the sun's rays, with many a freak, flickered among the thick leaves, where the moss-grown branches spread out broad and low, and where the birds and the honey-bees knew whore to find the sweetest apples, as many a hole in the rosy or sun-browned sides of the golden pippins evinced. Ono evening tho pair had returned from a long ramble, in which Digby had guided Claire's pony by the bridle through the Alpine gorge of Lindale, where the sides of the echoing ravine are covered by thick 'woods—tlie haunt of tho wild (leer of Exmoor, —and where all tho -white foaming torrents of the hills unite near Glenthome ; and as the two approached the cottagc, which was their temporary home, in the fullness and happiness of her heart Claire was singing a little song, with a voice like a silver boll —a song to which there were no listeners but her husband and tho birds, that, like themselves, were seeking' their nest —when, just as he lifted her from her saddle, his valet said :

" There is a lady waiting to see you, sir." '' A lady—here ?" asked Digby. "Wei!, sir—a woman, anyway — seems rather down on her luck I think." " Bogging ?" '■Oh. no,sir; seems rather a cut above that! but wishing to see you, or Mrs Montressor, very particular indeed. " I shall see her myself," said Digby, taking out his purse, and having no doubt it was a visit for the purpose of charity ; while Claire hurried upstairs to change her attire for dinner. Tn the pretty litt'e dining-room, where already the table was laid for two — glittering with plate, ivory and crystal, and gay with freshly-gathered flowers — stood a woman, meanly attired, pallid in face, degraded in aspect, defiant and insolent in bearing; and tho heart of Moutressor —the heart that had never quailed iu breach or battle—diod within him on recognising Irene. Had tho sea given up its deed ?" Tho room swam round him, and his blood felt as if turned to water.

Tho transient charms of face and person that had once attracted Digby Montressor were gone now. What a difference a few short years of such a life as she must have led had made. There were wrinkles now whore dimples had oucc been ; her face seemed as if it had never worn a smile, unless it were a Satanic or Saturnian one, and where tlio faint roseleaf that had once bloomed at times in the usually colourless cheeks, a woebegone pallor alone existed now. " You cannot sp6ak for joy, I suppose, even though you have made a second selection !" said this mocking friend, eyeing him with intense malevolence.

Montressor's tongue certainly failed him for a few seconds ; his bewilderment and dismay were indescribable —the sense of sudden and dire calamity, shame and destruction, enveloped him like a dense dark cloud. "Devil!" at last ho gasped; "how did the sea—how did Death spare you when that ship perished ?" " For a very good reason. I didn't sail in her." " But your name was in the list of those- " " Who paid their passage money, and were thus supposed to have embarked, -which I never intended to do." " And since then "I have been on 'the scoop' in London, living on ray wits after your money was spent; and I saw latoly your marriage in tho papers. I knew then that you wore home from India, and I traced you here, and here I mean to remain. But you don't seem a bit glad to see

me—your own Irene, of the happy days at Brighton. My arrival to take my place and enforce my just rights will rather scare your new inadumc, I fear; but sho must now bundle about her business. However, talking is dry work, and this is some prime sherry, I suppose," she added, and filling a champagne goblet to the brim from a decanter she drained it at a draught.

Claire now came tripping lightly into the room, smiling and smoothing her sunny hair with lier white fairy fingers, and then adjusting some flowers on her bosom, till, something in the aspcct of the intruder, who stood face to face wtth hor, and more than all, something in the horror-struck expression of Digby, appalled tho poor girl, and hor smile died away. She grew quite pale, and glanced inquiringly at her crushed and maddened husband. "Claire—Claire!" he exclaimed with outstretched hands as the words seemed to force themselves from him. " Oh, my own one— how I love you !"

She drew back with a more startled expression at this piteous and unexpected outburst. " Digby, what is it; why do you look at me thus ? You are ill !" "No,'' he gasped, as he passed a hand across his eyes ; " 110 full of horror." " Eor what ?" " For you—oh, my God !" " What does all this mean ?" she asked, with sudden terror and anguish. " It means that I am his firstmarried and lawful wife, young woman ; that I won't be paid to keep my marriage dark any longer ; that I am here, hero I shall remain; and that you may—nay must—clear out at onco!" said the intruder, with a strange mocking laugh, and a glance of fellcst fury in her eyes, while that she was partially inebriated was but too apparent.

It was a terrible scene. Montressor led Claire, who was passive in his hands, to their apartment— their's no longer now. She glanced at him mutely, imploringly, with white and palsied lips, thatfailed to utter the questions that trembled on her tongue, while the crushed aspect and deadly pallor of Montressor more than appalled her, as they seemed to corroborate the accusation brought against him 5 and for some minutes, to judge by Claire's eyes, a flood of anguish, shame, horror—or was it contempt —seemed to sweep over her soul. " My poor Claire," said Digby, brokenly ; " my poor darling, what am 1 to say—how explain away the dark secret of my life—the secret that now will be the ruin of yours Then, in hurried but broken accents, he told her of his act of youthful folly at Brighton ; of the money he had paid to rid himself of Irene Beaufort—if indeed such was her name; of the departure and foundering of the ship with all on board ; of his ignorance of the deception she had practiced upon him, after he had sailed for India, believing himself then, as when he had returned, a free man; and now —now —after all—after all! Even bribery, with all his fortune, would not mend matters now. " Let us take time—let us consider what can be done," he said, with a groan. " Oh, God in Heaven, what can be done V' wailed Claire, as she lay sunk in a heap by her bedside. "And what have I done—what sin committed, that Eate so cruelly punishes me 1" she added in bitterness of heart.

" My poor Claire, this hag shall not come between us," he said wildly. " Oh, papa, what a revelation this will be to you!" said Claire, in a broken voice, as her thoughts fled home to her poor old lonely parent in his sequestered rectory. But she said nothing that was upbraiding to Montressor, for such from her sweet lips would have broken his already tortured heart. Digby got the woman—his wife —to leave the cottage and go to the village inn ; and how that most terrible night was passed he never percisely knew. He dared not go near Claire, for now her dismay at the sight of him, at the touch of his hand, at his attempted caresses to soothe, seemed to sting, to madden her. Within a very short space her face seemed to be greatly altered; her lovely eyes wore a wistful and dumbly-pained expression, and her lips were pitiably pale and quivering with pain and anxiety. " And I thought he loved me so !" wailed the girl in her heart; but thought, in the words of Milton, " that all was false and hollow." flow long she sat there Claire never knew; it might have been one hour or ten hours ; but all her faculties, mental and physical alike, became now absorbed in one great effort —flight—to get away from Lynmouth and him. She was slowly making up her mind to achieve that, even though she felt frightened by the prospect, but to remain now was impossible.

Slie had been tricked into a marriage—most daringly tricked. To her, at times, it seemed that all this calamity must be happening, not to her, but to someone else, whoso story she was reading, or hearing.

The bride of a month returning to her father's hearth and hitherto unsullied home ' What would be thought—what said to her ? She was neither wife nor widow ! How to face world—society—brutal, sel-

fish and unreasoning bugbear? She was cut off from both for ever now.

While Digby was telegraphing to his solicitor at Lincoln's Inn Eields, Claire, rising from the bed on which she had thrown herself without undressing, and where she had lain in speechless misery, bathed her throbbing temples with scented vinegar, gathered together a few jewels that were strictly her own, put a certain sum in her purse, clothed herself in a dark and plain costume, and with a few necessary articles in a handbag, stole away from the scene of her past happiness ! and pausing only to take a tear-blurred and brief farewell glance at the cottage, embosomed amid its fragrant orchards, she went forth into the darkness of the early morning ; and when Digby returned, all trace of her was lost; and he never saw her face again.

After a long and painful search, after putting the telegraph to work in every direction, after writing and advertising till his heart grew sick and sore with direst apprehension, after all manners of wild ideas about the waterfalls, torrents and cascades that abound in the vicinity of Lynmouth, he had to give up all hope of uuravellinsi the mystery that covered the llight or fate of Claire. Mrs Chillington had heard nothing of her since her marriage. She remembered well that the girl looked so pretty in her lawn tennis suit of white flannel faced with light blue silk, with a white and blue cap to match, set coquettishly on one side of her sunny hair ; but that was all, except that she wielded her racquet easily and moved swiftly and gracefully. But now she drew her pen through the names of Captain and Mrs Montressor in her visiting list, and straightway thought no more about them.

Claire had not been to Chillington Rectory, where her wretched story had preceded J)igby's visit, an:l broken the heart of the aged Hector ; and he found him dead. Dead ! What must the poor old man have thought of him ere mental agony crushed out his true, gentle, and loving spirit 1 And what must Oiaire, wherever she was, think of him now ?

It was all too dreadful to ponder over. lie felt inclined to shoot himself, and end it all—-all so far as this wretched world was concerned.

In time Diipy's solicitors had discovered that his tirst supposed wife was doubly a sham—site was not and never had been named Irene Beaufort, but was, in reality, ere she turned up at Brighton, the runaway spouse of Mr Toddy Chuckerbutty, a comedian of very mediocre theatrical position, who, for a due consideration, at once came forward to assert his marital rights, and when too late, apparently, to free Digby Montressor of all further trouble.

So Claire had passed completely out of the life of the latter, though not out of his tortured memory, when he sailed with Lonsdale in the Pagoda, to rejoin the regiment. (To be continued.)