The Storyteller THE VENGEANCE OF HUMPHREY OWEN

New Zealand Tablet, 20 September 1906, Page 3

The Storyteller THE VENGEANCE OF HUMPHREY OWEN

The recent death of her father left Esther Gray free to marry Humphrey Owen, the struggling physician. When the old man had opposed the match, on the grounds of difference of religion and inequality of fortune, she bade her lover to be patient — for him only wpuld,_she marry. They we're both young, and time might do much. And even if it did not soften "her father, it could hardly fail to bring about a change forthe better in the circumstances of the man whose pov-"" erty, even more perhaps than his religion,- made him so undesirable as a son-in-law. But the sudden death of Mr. Gray removed the sole obstacle to her union with the young doctor. She was now her own mistress — and yet ! Surely, surely Humphrey would understand ! When she promised to marry him, 1 she believed herself to be an heiress. And now that she found herself a pauper instead, she could not be expected to regard her engagement to a penniless doctor as binding. With the closing of the old man's grave the crash had come. Creditors, of whose very existence Esther was unaware, rose on every side, as if by magic of some demon's wand. And, in the face of their unsatisfied claims, the spoiled child of Fortune realised that she must henceforth be poor— unless ! Even the silken cushions of the luxurious chair in which she cowered were not her own, but the legal booty of some waiting creditor. She shuddered at the thought. The firelight flickered on the silver and ivory - nicknacks that strewed the toilet table in front which she sat. The waxen candles on either side "of the oval-shaped, gold-framed mirror burned. low,- and still she sat there. The beautiful face reflected in the glass was alternately deadly pale or flushed with suppressed excitement. Two mighty passions were struggling . for mastery in that proud heart. One wore the aspect^of an angel and its whisperings were soft and pleadrngi The other twined its terrifying coils around. her-, as the., serpent of Eden might have done, paralyzing her will, and inoculating her better nature with- the poison of its seductions. The one was the angel of Love, the. other the demon of Avarice. On her lap lay an open letter, and whether the angel or the demon would triumph depended on what she made up her mind to answer to her correspondent. Slowly the night wore on, and Esther Gray still sat there. She shivered, perhaps with cold, for the fire had gone out ; yet her cheeks were burning, and a band of flame seemed to bind her aching forehead. When at length the fevered vigil of that long night was over, and the dawn flltered through the unshuttered windows, she went to her inlaid writing table and scribbled a hasty note. It was her answer to the letter of John Copping, the millionaire, and her reply to his anxious question was — ' Yes.' The triumph of the demon was complete.

11. For ten years Esther Gray— or, rather, Esther Copping as she had become — drank even to satiety of what the world calls success. Her ambition to shine as a society queen was realised even beyond her wildest dreams. During that brief decade she -had- been courted' and envied by all who could not read—beneath the mask of gaiety she wore in public— the story of a broken heart. A jealous and exacting husband, several years her senior, robbed her stately London house of alf that makes home dear. Nor could she find happiness elsewhere, or forgetf ulness of what might 'have . been ; although she lived in a constant whirl of the "excitement that she, like other society queens, miscalled her 1 pleasures.' Domestic incidents sometimes * repeat. ..themselves, . even as history is said to do. . After ten years of worldly prosperity, Esther, the daughter of a one-time millionaire, and the wife of another^ _was destined "by the grim irony of fate to _: again upon the threshold of poverty. John Copping had shot ,himself in a fit of mental depression, -brought- on by, financial losses that meant his "own ruin and" the ruin -of hiswife and child. The news flashed through the city with the proverbial rapidity of evil things, and for the moment diverted the attention of London society from lighter matters. Then it was forgotton, and with it Esther Copping. The stately mansion was soon abandoned for the humble lodging. —^Then the saddest of all *ad strug-

gles 'began— the struggle of the half-educated gentler woman -to. earn a living. The unhappy woman had '', some vague idea of resorting to needlework, that last / resource of the destitute lady. But, although from time to time a few of her former fashionable 'friends gave her some sewing, it helped her very little. Then she courageously set about looking for a situation as governess. And soon, between advertisements and fees to agencies, her little stock of money grew still smaller. That was all that resulted from "the workhunt so valiantly begun. No one wanted the brokendown lady, who could not show even a solitary diploma for any one of the arts and sciences she professed to be competent to teach. Domestic service was as little thought of, even had her strength been equal to it. A servant would have had as good a chance of being engaged as a governess as poor fragile Mrs. Copping had of finding any mistress willing to take her as housemaid. The delicately-nurtured lady realised, then, how vain were the boasts, too often made by women of independent means to their less fortunate sisters, of the great things they would do if they ever found themselves obliged to earn their living— boasts she herself now remembered with a pang to have made in happier days. And her very soul grew sick within her as it brought home to her, with terrible significance, that she had not the means ol giving to her only child the education without which a woman, if she is ever thrown upon her own resources, is even more heavily handicapped in the battle of life than a man. A kind of spiritual despair, too, seized her. Religion, of late years, had been no more to her than a family inheritance, represented by a velvet-cush-ioned pew in church, and a well-bred distrust of the Pope and of all things savoring of Popery. But even the family pew was hers no longer now, and she did not find that aversion to the Pope, and to all that appertained to Popery, brought her any heavenly help or consolation in her ■ sorrows. Humphrey Owen had sometimes spoken to her, in his days of struggle, of the strength and solace he drew from the practices of his religion. Vaguely she wondered what he meant ; for he spoke too earnestly, she felt sure, for his words to have been a mere idle boast. She would examine the claims of such a faith, she said. Little 'by little the proud spirit broke, and the weary heart seemed to struggle. The desperate hunt for employment which, as witnessed among women of Esther Copping's class, Walter Besant has compared, not inaptly, to c the savage's hunt for food,' was relaxed, postponed, and finally altogether abandoned. Her health, enfeebled by a life of self-indulgence, had at last given way. Within a year after the suicide of John Copping, 'his widow lay dying, in a meanly-furnished room, wheira she had once reigned as fortune's favored queen. Her wasted hands fondled the beautiful girl who clung to her in tears, though she knew not yet that the Angel of Death was hovering nigh. Not so, however, Mrs. Towers, the landlady. She rightly judged her lodger's illness to be more serious than either the girl or the invalid herself as yet suspected. Worthy Mrs. Towers was not a bad-hearted woman, and she felt really sorry for her sick lodger. Still, it must be admitted that personal interest was uppermost in her mind when she decided to fetch a doctor. If anything was to happen- to ' the poor thing upstairs,' it would be^best that it should happen in the hospital. Lodgers, ' leastways them as paid punctual,' were so easily scared*. A -death in the ' 'ouse ' might mean bankruptcy to Mrs. Towers. And what doctor should she fetch, to be sure, but good Doctor Owen, ' who had attended her own self, and ail for nothing— God bless him !— when she had the rheumatics so bad last winter ! ' Acting on her own responsibility, therefore, she set out one chill October evening to fetch the doctor for the sick lady— for, with the sharpness of her class, she knew the dying woman to be a lady in spite of her poverty. Had Mrs. Copping been of her own faith, she would have liked to bring the priest, too ; but she knew that the invalid was not a Catholic, whatever else she might be. Indeed, good Mrs. Towers privately doubted if the poor lady was • anything at all.' Doctor Owen was at home when Mrs. Towers called at his mansion in Park Lane. He was a wealthy 'man now. 'The once struggling physician numbered among his clients members of the wealthiest and' most influential families in London, while his name was a houseword among the poor. He listened with kindly * sympathy to his visitor's account of her lodger's illN ness ; and his interest increased when the invalid's personality was described and - dwelt upon toy the gossiploving landlady. Even she cbuld not fail to see that he was influenced by something more than mere pro-

fessional interest as she proceeded with her tale, and he dropped a question here and- there. But. at the end of the interview, all he said was ' Take me to her— take me to Mrs. . Copping ! ' A solitary candle spluttered in a dilapidated candle-/ stick, and its wavering, flame cast a ghastly, light upon the pale face*of tbe» sufferer. ~cThe^-wiri<£ howl- ' ed without, and moaned drearily in the fireless chimney, while the rain splashed against the ill-fitting window that shook and rattled with every other gust, 1 There was a knock at the door. In answer to the sick woman's feebly-murmured ' Come in ! ' or, rather, in expectation of it, for the sounds never reached her — Mrs. Towers entered with a cheery : • The doctor's come to see you, mum ; good Doctor Owen—' But even the bustling landlady retreated hurriedly, and ' all in a; flurry,' as l she afterwards said, before the cry that came from the sick-bed as Humphrey Owen approached it. That cry l was followed by a long ' silence. What passed between those -two who had been plighted lovers ? Were they lovers once again now ? Or 'had her love never been worthy of the name— the name of the angel who struggled vainly with the demon within her breast on that fatal night when the devotion of Humphrey Owen was set at naught for filthy luchre's sake ? And he now looked down upon her faded beauty — he had come to value her affection at the worth she herself had set upon it then ? Only .in each other's eyes, as they met, could the answer be read. The girl— scarcely more than a child as yet— the new Esther, watohed the strange scene wide-eyed. Her eyes, so like those of the dying Esther's, but softer far, gazed wonderingly up at the bearded stranger. That innocent gaze, and the memories it brought with it, together with the anxious, questioning look on the poor mother's face, smote Humphrey Owen to the heart. . -He took the child's hand in -his and held it kindly, almost caressingly. The girl smiled confidingly through her tears* Then the poor mother looked long and earnestly in that strong, manly face ; and, seeing there no shadow of reproach or paltry triumph, but only genuine though silent sympathy and compassion, tried to shape into articulate words the wish that was aching at her failing heart. But she was a woman, and this man to whose generosity she wanted to appeal was her rejected lover. Her humiliation was indeed complete. And i* that dying hour she realised, as all do sooner or later, that God is not mocked, and that His mills grind fine. But maternal love— the only love in which selfishness had no share— conquered her pride, and drew the faltering plea from her bursting heart at last. A week later Esther Copping died in the arms of her weeping daughter, and of the good nun sent by Dr. Owen to nurse her. It was the evening of the day on which she bad been received into the Church. She knew at last what Humphrey Owen meant in' the old days when he spoke of the consolations religion can give even in the darkest hours. She -left the scene of her earthly sorrows fortified by the comforting aid the one true Church alone can offer to the dying, and made happy by the assurance that her beloved child would be instructed in the sublime mysteries --of that once despised faith.

In answer to the dying prayer of the woman he had once so fondly loved, and in obedience to the generous impulse of his own noble heart, Humphrey Owen acted as guardian to her orphan child. He placed the little Esther at a convent boarding school, where in due time she made her First Communion. And it is Humphrey Owen who stands beside her now in the golden summer sunshine— she in the first flush of fair .young womanhood, he in the prime of manhood' still. They have just twined sweet-scented roses .round the white marble .cross that marks the grave of Esther's mother, and Hheir eyes are dim and full of mournful memories as they read the ' Requiescat in pace ' sculptured on the snowy tomb. But when at length they move away, passing hand in hand out into the bright and busy world that 'is waiting for them, the momentary shadow fades as silently as it came. He is her guardian stillj and ml a higher sense than- while * her girlhood " lasted. Not m^ny weeks have flown since, at the foot, of tire altar, she gave him the right to protect and cherish her eyen till death do them part. -And, remembering tlrijse mutual vows- now, her. face is full of .calm content ; for she knows that the love of Humphrey "Owen is hers forever more, and that it is a treasure' t>tiat gold could not have bought. — ' Aye Maria.'