THE POISONED ROSE.

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

THE POISONED ROSE.

" Caka mia ! Love me or I die !" "Itis so easy always to die; and sometimes it is so hard—to love." There was a petulant frown, as ravishing and dimple-making as many a pretty woman's smile, on the Princess Czeckinski's face when, looking back over her shapely shoulder, she gathered her bluek laces about her and with a half bow left Paul Esteban in her drawing-room alone. Through the open windows came the fragrance of rare flowers, a soft light from the turquoise sky. the breeze from off a sea of deeper blue, and, mellowed by distance, the careless song of some light-hearted lnzzarone, Paul heeded none of these ; lie stood dazed and stupified as might a man blinded in a moment of joyousness by summer lightning. This, then, was the end of it all, the final chapter of that love story which had opened so sunnily. When men and women had bidden hiin beware of the fair Princess who, as a child with toys, trifled with men's hearts and broke them in the end, he had said in his heart that they lied, and had believed only the speaking glances and the whispered sighs. Who better than ho know that he was but an artist, with only youth and tlie future for his fortune, while she was a bv-word of beauty and a queen of f.ishion, with a hundred men laying wcaith, honouis and renown, with their hearts, at her feet ? Paul Esteban, remembering only thelove-lio-lit in licr eyes and a pressure of her hand, told himself gaily that youth and the future were, in thoso eyes, of greater worth than all the rest. Her Northern beauty hud set his Southern blood aflame, for ho was of Italian origin, and he had loved her as ono loves once and never after. , This morning his lips had spoken what his eyes unchidden had told her a hundred times. The Princess laughed, then lied, tolling him his declaration was a surprise, hinting also that it was an impertinence. Had she suspected so much folly she would never have sat to him for her portrait; she supposed no more sittings were necessary, in any case they were not possible, for she was leaving the Riviera for Paris to-morrow ; if he would send the picture to the villa her homnic cl' affaires would forward him a cheque—which last cut was as unkind as ]srutu»'s. And she left him, having told him in conclusion that it was sometimes so hard to lovo and always so easy to die. After he first beheld her he had thought tho first so easy—the other so hard. N< An'hour later they found in his studio her portrait, slashed across tho face with a stiletto ; for at the foot of tho easel thoy found the stiletto —in his heart, And tbo mother that bore him swore upon his corpse that he should be avenged.

At last the Princess Oeckinski married, and, like most women wilh all the orld to choose from, she married a in;iu distinguished only for his cominonplaeeness, and whoso head .1. inic had only crowned with silver, and nut much of that. It was not a love mutch, so they got on well together. When the Princess became a mother she ceased to bo a butterfly and developed into a woman. A.t last slio learned what it was to love some

one else than herself, and indeed she would have beeii quite happy only she had never known sorrow. Her baby boy became her idol, the gleam of his yellow hair was sunshine to her soul, as well as to her sight, and in his wonderiDg eyes she seemed to find heaven's own blue. Sometimes an awful thought would come to her like a chill wind on a summer night—what would life be if he were taken from her ? But she put it away from her with an angry shudder; she would have no death's head at her feast. So in the arrogance of her delight she thought; but one day her servants returned pale and almost dumb with terror. At last she tore their story from them— her child had been stolen ! Money can work marvels despite the vapourings of those who afTect to scorn it ; but, although it was lavished like water, it failed to bring about the recovery of the Princess's child. She was so accustomcd to having her slightest command implicitly obeyed that she could not realise the fact that, her entreaties and promises notwithstanding, no one brought back to her arms her baby boy.

Somo ten years later the widow Esteban was living in one of those narrow streets in Rouen which lie close to the Cathedral St. Maolou, aiul gaining a scanty livelihood by selling the (lowers and fruit brought to the shop by snowycapped Normandy peasant women from around the quaint old city. With her (hvelt a little lad whom she called her grandson, though folks said it was strange that an Italiau woman should be of kin to a child so wondrously fair and pale. When questioned as to its parents her story was that the child's father hid died years ago of grief for its mother, who had passed from the world within the hour her babe had entered it. The old woman had meant to hate the boy for the sake of the l'rinecss his mother, but in spite of herself she grew to love him for his own. Indeed, the little Alcide Esteban, as he was called, became loved by all around him. The loving are always most lovable, and in all the bitterness of her heart Madame Esteban could not bring herself to hate the sunny child who throughout the day cheered her with his happy prattle, and at evcntiine lisped a prayer to God to bless her. As time sped 011 she found it harder to lie to him of his parents, and tell him why the angels had taken them away beyond the stars leaving him and his dear grandma behind. In time he developed a rich soprano voice so clear and strong that the priests besought her leave to take him into the choir of the grand old Abbaye de St. Ouen, pleading that a gift so heavenly should be devoted to heaven's service. After that, often when strangers were pacing along the vaulted aisles and chappels of the Abbaye, chattering of art and history, they would hear a sweet voice floating along the avenues of pillars and, hushing their laughter, remember that they stood within God's threshold, and many a time the snowy capped Nonnaudy peasant, looking up from her beads and gazing on the cherub face bathed in the golden light from rare rose windows, would for a moment dream she saw and heard one of the holy angels.

One day a messenger from one of the principal hotels in the city entered the Siliop of Madame Estabat), and requested her to prepare and send a bouquet of white roses.

"Tliey must be the best and rarest in bloom ; and," he a:lded, "you need not lie particular as to the price, for they are for a princess, look you." " A princess ?" repeated the floriste dreamily. " True —and such a princcss ! She is still one of tho most beautiful women in Europe, anil tliey say that in her day she was beyond compare. She was then called the lovely Czeckinski! " The Princess Czeckinski ! A bouquet for the beautiful princess—and of the rarest !" the old dame muttered to herself, almost vacantly, as the hotel messenger left her shop. After so many years then fate has put vengeance into my hands, for wc are not yet equal," An hour afterwards Madame Esteban made her way to the Pharmacie, where she purchased a certain powder which to inhale was cprtain death. It was indeed a marvellous boquct which reached the princess next morning, and Her Highness wondered why the florist had so securely packed it in the wooden box containing it. " This lovely rose in the centre—it is a bouquet in itself. I will wear it to Mass."

There was a great congregation this morning at iSt. Ouen, for after the sermon there was to be a grand anthem, and that little nightingale, the boy Esteban, was to sing a solo. Madame Esteban was there, and as she hobbled down the aisles the folks made way for her, whispering one to another : " It is tho granddame of the little Esteban who sings so like a seraph; give her room for she old and feeble." Straining her dim eyes to catch sight of Aleide afar off, they rested midway upon another face, and she started with surprise as she recognised her intended victim, the Princess. So her arrow had missed its mark. And then remembering the holy place wherein she was a sense of the wickedness of her design came upon her, and with it a late repentance; but these reflections were merged in a thrill of horror as, looking again at the woman she had meant to destroy, she saw that upon her breast she wore the deadly rose. Even in her fiercest craving for vengeance she had not dreamed of seeking it here. At last came the anthem, and a deeper silence reigned along the carved and sculptured vistas. The organ's swelling notes woke into life a burst of sils-er sound, exquisitely harmonised from the full choir ; then in soft cadences these died away and for a moment there was solemn silence save for one plaintive organ strain. And then that strain seemed blended with another even sweeter, and as this last rose high, higher, and higher yet, those present held their very breath, for they knew the little Esteban was singing. The clear voice mounted like a lark on wing, floating on the mellow organ chords far away where high oriel windows shed their soft empurpled light, at times strong and stirring as a trumpet blast, then falling away in a tender dreamy calm that fell upon the spirits of those who heard a message from heaven. At last it sank as it had risen, in a melodious burst of other voices, and the anthem ceased. All this time Madame Esteban never once took her eyes off the rose on the Princess's breast. The choir left their places and marched iu a snowy tile along tho aisles. They passsed the very seat whereon which the Princess rested.

What was Madame Esteban's horror to see the Princess take from her breast the rose she wore and, fastening upon its stem a brooch of glistening diamonds, thrust it into the hand of the little Alcide as he passed her ! She would have shrieked but that her voice and limbs seemed stricken with a paralysis of terror. She had not bargained for this, that the bolt of vengeance she had hurled should reb juud on the one being left for her to love, for in that moment she learned how precious to her heart the fair child was, how tender, good, and gentle. Who, indeed, learns how dear their loved oues are uutil they are lost ? Besides, it was too im ■ pious to slay even the child of the woman

who had killed htr son by that woman's hand—and in God's house,

Then in the agony of her despair the mother of Paul Esteban vowed to the Mother of Christ that if this child were spared she would forego her vengeance, would put away the memory of her wrong; more even than that, she would restore him to the mother who had mourned him.

As the congregation dispersed she made her way with feeble steps, and trembling with terror, to the sacristy and asked for him she called her grandchild. He approached her, still robed in his white surplice, and with the flush of triumph on his cheeks, for the good fathers had praised him for singing so sweetly. From his hands she took the rose and crushed it, and for a space she knew no more !

The Princess sat in her room wrapped in reverie ; her eyes were full of tears. Her maid entared the apartment gently.

" Plow sweetly that child sang this morning, Josephine !" " Indeed, Highness—like an angel." " Yes. and he has the face of one. Ah ! Josephine, my baby boy, if he still lives, will be of the same age, and, Heaven bless him, as fair and lovable." And liko most people the Princess began to reflect how hardly Heaven had dealt with her, then, unlike most people, sho remembered how little she had deserved of Heaven. Her mind went back to the days when fashion was her creed and self her idol; somehow she thought of Paul Est&ban, whoso death lay at her door, and wondered what his mother— whose only son ho was—had said and thought when she beheld him in his shroud. Last of all sho sobbed to herself, " I deserve it all.'' "Josephine, I should like to sec that little lad again," "I came to tell your Highness ho waits below. Ho has brought this note." The Princess opened the letter and read these lines : "You murdered my boy; you cannot give him back to me. I stole yours and I restore him. Ho bears this letter.—The Mother of Paul Estbbax."