Novelist.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2713, 30 November 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

Novelist.

[ALL RIGHTS RESIi'RVKU.] Love's Labour Won: AN EVENTFUL STORY.

BY JAMES GRANT. Author of " The Komance of War," " The Black " Watch." " Fairer than a Fairy," &0., &c.

CHAPTER LIX—A Fjlvxl Paragiupii. In a bungalow built of bamboo, thatched with elephant grass, and having a broad verandah for coolness in summer, lay Montague Lonsdale, stretched on a eharpay or native bed, unconscious of all the world about him, of the fierce war that was still being waged with the Dacoits, hundreds of miles up the «reat river that rolled past the cantonments to the Bay of Bengal, and ignorant or oblivious of everything else. "Bad case—very—hopeless, indeed!" said Surgeon-Major Squills, as he removed his cigarette and looked at the delirious and unconscious patient writhing on the cane couch, and beckoning to a hospital servant, he scribbled a memorandum in a book—anent the case, and a prescription therefor : — " Febris Remiltens —Rangoon. .

March. Shivering last night L-hot and giddy, listlessness, languor and delirium increasing without remission. Skin now burning hot. Pulse full and frequenttongue quite white—bad casevery. " Appl'tcc. LollsJrifjidw cassuti.

" Affusio β-vjidta stat " Capiat, calomel et ad. Culocyidh eonvp. aa- g>'- x s teJ -> tfcc, i£c. See to it, sergeant." "All right," sir." He saluted and withdrew, and so on went the visits and prescriptions for clays and days, ere. to Dr. Squills' surprise, a turn came. Nature began to assert herself, and the patient slowly to recover, and with the recovery came the longing to go home; and the craving for a letter with news of

her—the letter which would never come now—was strong in his heart, with the hope of sick leave and health and strength to travel.

" No letter —no letter —after all!" he muttered, and tried to control himself with the old adage, that "no news is good news"; but in vain. He did so hunger for news of Melanie, from whom one lino would be, as it werp, o glimpse of Heaven, circumstanced as he then was ; for she seemed somehow to have drifted out of his life.

"I don't think I shall die, doctor, this bout," said he, with a sickly smile. " Of course not."

"Of course not; yes, those whose lives are of no use to themselves or anyone else never die."

Squills knew not what to make of this cynical response, so he lit a cigarette and said nothing. Around them both were frightful scenes of human misery and human suffering at this time—for cruelly treated were our soldiers who were wounded or invalided on service in Burniah. "We remarked yesterday," says the Rangoon Times, " that they were experiencing great hardships and receiving very meagre allowance from the Commissariat Department; and it has come to our knowledge that these poor fellows, some wounded and others in the last stage of dysentery, are put on board the river steamers without beds or proper attention, and in fact, without arrangements being made with the steamers even for their messing. Men who are mere living skeletons are to be seen lying on the bare decks, and the diet the medical authorities seem to think best for men wounded or suffering from dysentery is that vile compound known as Chicago beef, dry biscuits, and a little tea and sugar tied up in a piece of dirty gunny."

One steamer on the Irawaddy— the Secundra.—carried nine hundred men, though she had only accomodotion for six hundred. They were "packed like sardines in a box," wrote one of the West Surrey .Regiment, without air to breathe, and several expired of heat and apoplexy. Among them, one man, who had struggled so far as the companion-ladder to get a little air and sleep, was thrown into the river. So it is ever with John Bull in any war. He has ever shown himself to be the incarnation of greed, meanness and mismanagement, for though John likes glory, he is shabby enough to like it cheap.

Lonsdiile was a great dreamer during his protracted and intermittent illness at Rangoon—born of what he had undergone amid the dewy marshes. He had almost begun to believe in mesmerism of a certain kind, and to think—to hope, that when he dreamt of Melanie she also was dreaming of him. It was a wild idea, but the outcome of all he had undergone made him a dreamer by night and clay, who ever saw a sweet face with pathetic eyes raised to his, and felt in his a small white hand, with the sound of a voice ovur haunting him, even as an old melody lingers in the memory. But does not Sir William Hamilton tell us that, 11 however astonishing, it is now proved, beyond all rational doubt, that in certain abnormal states of the nervous organism, perceptions are possible through other than ordinary channels."

Anon, a change came over the dreams of Lousdale, born perhaps of these very perceptions, for when at last he slept—by snatches—they were full of hazy and horrid visions of some great evil that overhung him—something dim, dire, and not to bo encountered.

His good constitution prevailed over his illness. He " pulled through," as the phrase goes, in spite of all medical predictions to the contrary ; and in a few weeks was able to ride about Rangoon on a native pony, one of these stout and singularly strong animals that are not more, usually, than twelve hands high, but are ever roughcoated and ungroomed. Thus mounted, he daily traversed Mer-chant-street, a broad and spacious thoroughfare, having lines of trees and grass plots before its double rows of varied mansions, some of which are of European aspect, so far as cornices and pilasters go ; others, native-built of wood ,and bamboo, materials which do not indicate poverty, but are used, being light and portable.

Such edifices are all built on piles or posts, in consequence of the occasional inundations that roll beneath the first floor, and many have noble galleries, graceful verandahs with elliptical arches, above which are broad projecting roofs, all of AngloBurmese, architecture, being the residences chiefly of Europeans, and over all towers the great Golden Dragon Pagoda, with its new umbrella, erected since the war of 1852.

As the Burmese women are not shut up Mohammedan fashion, but rnk freely in all social gatherings, Lonsdale could see them working at their looms, with men beside them, gossiping and flirting—a true Burmese art—while their slender lingers wove deftly the stuffs of brilliant silk or cotton. Elsewhere wero diminutive damsels squatted in the lower verandahs, behind stalls of fruit, betel nut, cigars, with a British sailor or " Tommy Atkins ' ; lingering near them "airing" his "pigeon English.' ,

One day—he was never to forget it—he came back from one of these rides, and with an emotion of thank-

fullness in his heart, felt stronger, and had many a hopeful thought of home. He sought the mess bungalow to get some iced drink, when he found that the mail had eome in from Europe, and the last London papers, then several weeks old, were being conned with avidity—all looking first at the latest news prior to taking the rest at leisure.

Ho got one—the T-buns —and after running his eyes over the news vaguely for some time, he alighted upon one tiny paragraph that gave him a dreadful shock, and for a moment or two the power of sight seemed to l.;ave him, ere he could read it again and disentangle one line from the other.

''The marriage of Sir Brisco Brayhrooke, Bart., of Ravensbourne Hall, Oxford, with Miss Melanie Talbot, only daughter of the late Captain Reginald Talbot, of H.M. Bengal Army, will take place tomorrow- at .Stokencross Church. The ceremony, we understand, will be performed by a Bishop—a near relation of the bridegroom—assisted by the vicar, Dr. Brendou. Our correspondent adds, that after the ceremony the happy couple will leave for the Continent, but return to Ravensbourne Hall before the meeting of Parliament."

The paper dropped from his hand on the floor, and he never looked ac it again. There seemed no doubting it. The statement was too circumstantial ; and by that time the whole dark episode—dark to him—must have been over long ago. The world—the " penny a liner" world, he knew, was at times given to marrying people with or without their consent. But this notice was in an important journal, and would be no mere " Society paper" canar d, and with this conviction came the thought that he was so far away and .so helpless that he could neither learn the best nor worst.

In a moment or two may seem to be assembled the agony of a lifetime—the heart to receive its death wound, with the knowledge that the world will never, and can never, be the same to us again.

The best part of his life had gone from him.

" I shall never be the man I was !"' he thought, as—in defiance of Dr, Squills' orders—lift got from the mess khansaman a stiff jorum of V> and S, and drained it at a d rau g hi.

Weak though ho was in health he now thought that he would not leave India or Burmah, or return home ; for what purpose should he go there'? '• No letters,' he muttered ; "no Jotters 'I Her silence is fully accounted for now. Fool —ass, that I have been. '

He manipulated a cheroot, put it in his mouth but forgot to light it, as he strolled, like one in a dream, away to the quietude of his own lonely quarters.

" Marriage without love, I have hoard stigmatised as bp.ins; as much a sin as love without marriage,' he thought bitterly. " Can she really have cared for me, after all 1 Can she have felt that deep love which, we are told, never changes, and ends but with life, such as I—poor fool ! —from the first hour felt for her? It could not be !"

Yet, anon he remembered—could he ever forget it ] —what cruel pressure might have been put upon her by her relations. Of the letters that were intercepted, he had never yet received any explanation ; of the false rumour of his own death, he knew nothing, or of all the doubt and grief it caused ; and yet, amid all the terrible thoughts this unexpected intelligence roused, the soft face, the tender eyes and touching voice of Melanie seemed to haunt him.

So this was the haunting evil lie dreaded, that had come to him in his feverish dreams, and for which he could find no name. But he seemed to have foreseen it all in his dream, when at Rangoon before, of the shadowy marriage group in Stokencross church—one so powerful that he had never forgotten, though deeming it only one of those visions of the night that come unhidden. " But seeing in dreams," says Dr. Eunemoser, "is a self-illuminating of things, places and times —for relation of time and space form no obstruction to the dreamer: things near and far are alike seen in the mirror of the soul, according to the connection in which they stand to each other, and, as the future is but an unfolding of the present, as the present is of the past, one being necessarily involved in the other, it is not more difficult to the untrammelled spirit to perceive what is to happen, than what has already happened."

Could it be that in the past we had foreshadowed the present ?

" It is impossible !" he exclaimed to himself ; "and well it is for us that we cau neither know nor foresee all that life may have to bring. I shall get over it, I supposo—life is made up of getting over things ; I never loved any one before, and certainly am not likely to do ao again." But with all this attempted philosophy, very desolate and loveless seemed tho future before him now, and weakness of the body, which returned in a great measure now, reacted on his mind, and at times, he knew not whither he wandered or what he did. Tho blight sky had grown dark apparently— hope and love and the energies of life were gone ; but it was chiefly when darkness fell over the hushed cantonments, and the last bugleu

had sounded, that he felt most alone in his desolation ; for he had no friends or chums there. Some were in their graves, others with the regimeut, far up country, hundreds of miles away, beyond Ava and Amarapura.

If the terrible tenor of that paragraph was true —could he doubt it ? —he would never, could never hate .Melanie, nor ever cease to love and pity her, though lost to him for ever. Some dreadful arguments, some harassing alternatives, must have been applied to her by those sol fish relations, at whoso mercy she was placed ; but, anyhow, ho would remain in India or Burmali, he cared not which, and never return to England for long years to come.

So he thought; but the hand of disease was still heavy on him, after ail he had undergone, and the riat of a medical board was peremptory. He was, at that time, unfit for service in the field, and was invalided "for home'" yet in charge of other sick, some of whom were worse than himself.

At this juncture tbe "blind goddess " viewed him with some favour. A relation, of whom he knew little more than the name, departed this life and left him £2,000 a year.

How welcome this accession would have been once. How little he valued it now ! With whom was he to share this little fortune, if not with Melanie Talbot? And she was lost to him for ever.

The future seemed such a frightful blank. Of what might happen in the years to come, he never attempted to speculate, save in the possibility that in a soldier's death somewhere he might find oblivion of all. Luckily such, thoughts do not last for ever, and sick though be was, he had to " pull himself together," and look after his invalids, see to the medical reports, the returns for Netley, and other prosaic matters. "Lonsdale has a -wonderful recuperative power—a great nervous force," said Surgeon-Major Squills, " but lie is not out of danger yet, and I should not wonder if he went over to leeward in the Bay of Bengal, with a cold shot at his heels ! " And with this —to him unknown —sentence before him, with weary and indifferent eyes, Lonsdale saw tho white trooper clearing the waters of tho Rangoon rivor and heading away towards Baigue Point, along the Dalla coast. It seemed but yesterday that he and poor Digby Montressor had stood side by side looking on it together. Ere long, Elephanta Point, and then the Aguada Beef, with its lefty granite lighthouse, sank into the sea on the starboard quarter, and the great transport, with its freight of sick and wounded, bore away into the vast Bay of Bengal.

CHAPTER LX.—The Makiuage,

And now we m ust go back a few weeks in our narrative , , to where we left the inmates of Rose Cottage, as it was named- -though a small twostoried villa.

" There is a glamour in love,' , some writer tells us, adding, perhaps, with truth, that " what we love is not the tangible man or woman, as the case may be, who lives, breathes and exists, but the fancy of our own hearts —the ideal that we have created out of our own satisfied longings."

Be all that as it may, Melanie, had no such thoughts—and yet her marriage was close to hand now, painfully close—as it was a contract in which her heart had no share ; a degrading one she felt it to be.

So, at last, but one day intervened.

Melanie had not watched the papers for some time past, as a kind of curious indifference to everything, a kind of dumb despair of her future, possessed her now ; but had she seen the only paper that came to Rose Cottage, even on the morning of her marriage, it "might have changed that future indeed. Uncle Grimshaw had looked, however, and seen sufficent to make him conceal the newspaper in hot haste. The intelligence he saw was sutficiei.tly startling, especially at such a crisis. It was to tlio effect, " that Captain Montague Lonsdale, who disappeared after the capture of Ava, and had so miraculously escaped the Dacoits, reaching our gunboat Kathleen on the Irawaddy some time before, was now coming home in charge of sick and wounded men from Kangoon !"

"Coming home !" muttered Uncle Grimshaw; and, as he concealed the paper, something like a malediction escaped him, and he hurried away to see Mrs Chillington, who had taken up her quarters at Rose Cottage " till the event came off." Melanie was thinking of her future when married to Sir Brisco. She contrasted her years, barely twenty, with his, over sixty; and knew that when she was forty, if spared, he would be an aged and helpless creature of eighty—helpless perhaps as poor Reggie. On her marriage morning she was somewhat like an automaton in the hands; of Mrs Chillington, old Bethia, and more especially Mademoiselle Cloehette, to whom was chiefly assigned tho duty of attiring her : while her affectionate aunt" had duly brought her well-hung carriage for her use, with the powdered coachman duly accoutred with bouquets and breastknots..

" There never was a bride uiore beautiful than you. Miss Talbot," said Clochettc, in her broken. English, as she fastened a sparkling

spray of the Ravensbourne diamonds among the dark masses of Melanie's hair. " Mon Dieu— -it is a romance to regard you ! •Pen suis en cxtasse ! You are ■par/ail !" And she was so—perfect from her splendid hair and snow-white neck to the tips of her satin shoes—-but all, so painfully pale, rigid and indifferent to all appearance.

" With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow." Uncle Grimshaw heard the words, perhaps more distinctly than she to whom they were said, and he thought joyously of Ravensbourne Hall and all itseoneomitants—the settlements and so forth.

Melanie heard the solemn words of promise, and they seemed to echo through the old vaulted church of Stokencross, first in the vicar's soft and sonorous voice, and then in the firm and quiet tones of Sir Brisco, and as they fell on her ear, the shadow that sat enthroned in her heart—the shadow of him, who she deemed had found a soldier's grave so far, far away, seemed to rise upbraid ingly before her. She dared not then lift her eyes, even for a second to those of Sir Brisco, nor cared she to do so.

" With my body I thee worship." As he said this, she felt his strong, firm hand clasp hers closely ; but it felt—she was conscious—singularly cold and clammy just then.

Why ? Her long dark lashes drooped, and remained so till the close of the

ceremony. Nor did she lift them when Dick, with tear-wetted cheeks, sprang forward to claim the first kiss in the vestry, for boy though he was, he knew enough to feel that Melanie had sacrificed herself for Reggie and for him.

No bishop was present, as the paragraph had it ; but among those in church were Mr, Mrs and Miss Plantagenet Pugwash, uninvited, however, to their own disgust.

All that followed seemed a dream to the chief actress therein. The register was duly signed in the damp old mouldy vestry, or whilom sacristy in England's older days; and there were two signatures side by side that seemed odd—most strange to Melanie—as the pen dropped from ho.r fingers. Then Sir Brisco drew her hand over his arm, pressing it to his side, and they issued forth, while on the wheezy old organ was performed something that was meant to be Mendlessohn's Wedding March ; and they passed through the usually deserted and sequestered churchyard, now fully crowded, for all the "country side" had gathered to see the marriage of their popular landlord with the sweet young lady whom they knew so well; and a few well-meaning folks, with their children, all smartened up for the occasion, strewed flowers upon the path before the wedded pair. " She looks like death—a corpse more nor a bride," Melanie heard ono whisper near her. " Better be an old man's darling than a young one's slave. I was none the 'appier for marrying a young un," said another rustic. '■' She'll soon be rid of him ; he'll croak anon," was the consolatory remark of a third cronie.

Melanie recalled this speech with dismay ere long; but meanwhile the familiar bells were jingling merrily in the ivy-clad tower of the Anglo - Norman church, halfdrowned by the cheers of the rustics.

Under the moss-green lych-gate Melanie was led by Sir Brisco to his carriage, with all its heraldic bravery—a shield azure, fretty arqent," supported by lions, winged ; and to her the dream seemed only protracted as she entered it—protracted in all its painful details. As she put a foot upon the first stop of the carriage she reeled, and would have fallen backward but for the ready arm of her watchful husband ; but she recovered herself, and half repelled the carressing assistance. "It is nothing—nothing,' she murmured through the folds of her long veil. _ The marriage breakfast at Eose Cottage, the speeches, the healthdrinking, and" many a flattering reference to herself, sank like iron into Melanie's soul, especially when she heard the mockery—for utter and bitter mockery it was— of the speech of her uncle, Mr Gideon Grimshaw; and to her it was almost a relief to turn and watch Dick, who, among the jellies, trifles and fruit, was enjoying 'the fleeting present; who already saw himself, in imagination, a fullblown cadet at Sandhurst, in the " near point" affected at that institution ; and in addition to his marriage favour, he had bestowed on Bingo more bonus than that quadruped could bury in the garden for his future delectation. So atter a time, Melanie, who had to don travelling costume, hastened to her own room—the room iu which she was now to find her-

self for the last time ; while domestics wore collecting the old slippers and rice, to throw after the wheels that bore away the wedded pair. To her, the wedding breakfast had seemed an intolerable phantasmagoria. She had heard people talking and making merry, but Ihoir voices had seemed strange and unfamiliar, even, as her own husky whispers sounded, afar off; while to swallow anything, even a glass of wine, was an impossibility. (To be contir'K'.l.)