Back to the Old Home.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 59, 11 March 1901, Page 6

Back to the Old Home.

By MARY CECIL HAY, Author of "A Shadow on the Threshold," " Victor and Vanquished," "The Sorrow of a Secret," "Missing," "A Dark Inheritance," Etc

CHAPTER X.

OVER THE FALLEN LEAVES.

"And often, May, when you are livingl in your mother's beautiful old home, I shall stand just- here, and picture to myself the life within."

The old Hall lay like a picture in the moonlight, and after rry long gazp I looked from it down into my darling's thoughtful face. Her eyes had not come buck to mine, nor did she answer me. 13u1 I —on this spot where her mother had rescued me from selfishness and discontent so many years before —could bury the though(s which had been lighting- me so hard that night, and could remember how L ought, indeed, to have "nothing more earnestly at heart than the welfare of .Miss Mary's child."

j "Yes, dear, oi':en and often I sha.il i j stand here and picture you within I , those old grey walls; and it will all j j .seem so real to me, my pet, that I —l I I shall be almost as well oft' as if I were there, too." "While you will take care to stay very far away yourself, John." May said it lightly—l think because she heard my voice faltering a little,' and so wished to break the j pause. But I. was brave to go on, j now, thinking- only—so much easier ! it was upon this spot than it could. ! have been anywhere else—of what my ! darling's future ought to be —the future of Miss Mary's child. "Dear," I said, "no one has such a right to reign in. the beautiful old house as you have. .But don't let the j grass grow upon this little field path. ' I would like it trodden then, dear, as we tread it now. I had it made for your mother, May . Don't look so j sad to-night, my darling!"—for the j old sorrow was \ipon her face at my ! i mention of her mother —"I feel sure, j | dear, that not only your feet coming, I. | but ray feet going, will keep it worn j j and neat, as we have done lately—you i and I together." There was a long pause —to me it seemed a long, long pause —and then my child questioned me g-ently, looking- still before her, with something glistening- on her lashes. "Do you guess, John, or did Mr Fortescue tell you?" "Neither, exactly, dear," I answerI ed, as lightly as I could. "Mr Forj tescue made it too plain for me to i I guess; but he has not told me yet." i , I had helped her in the telling; but | I could say no more just yet. So I again there was a silence between us, I while we stood against the orchard gate, looking back upon the quiet j moonlit halJ and park, until at last \ May broke the silence, just as if she only finished aloud the thoughts my words had given her. "Yes, John, he asked me-—" "I know, my pet." "You seem to know everything." The tone was even a little unsteady in its impatience, and I saw that she5* would rather speak frankly to me than that I should anticipate all she had to tell. So I waited for her next words, though they were very long in coming. "You wished me to—to go and live there, John?" she asked, with her wistful eyes upon the moonlit Hall. Uut looking down upon her so, the answer that I wished to give her would not come.

"You wish me to go soon, John? Very soon, you seem to say." Still I could give no answer in this brief fit of cowardice, and so she raised her eyes and questioned me differently.

"Why do you hurry me, John? Why do you want me to go so soon?"

."I want you to be happy, dearest, That is all."

"And you think I shall be happier there?" '

My cowardly hesitation was all gone now, and once more I had simply the welfare of my child at heart.

"If I did not think so, I could not let you go, my pet." "You call it my home. You say I shall be happier there," May said, with a new,'quiet earnestness'in her tone, and a grave, direct glance into my eyes; "then why did you not call it my home when I was a child and homeless? Why did you not say I should be happier there, when you first tried to make me happy years ago?"

"All is so different now," I answereel every word a pain to me in its utterance as my thoughts went back at that dear time, and I knew that I had had the power to make her hapnv in her child life—even I. "Different—how?" "What childish questioning. May!" I said, smiling a little, knowing that I could not answer her steadily in any other way.

You gave me the life you thought best for me, John. Why has it ceased to be the life you think best for me now?"

"My child," I answered, just a little brokenly—for what question in the world could she have asked me that would have been harder to answer? —"the home I gave you then was but for a little ■ time. The one offered you now is for life."

"How do you know?" May inquired, with a flash of sudden petulance which, was most unlike her. "My mother's old home does not belong to Ernest Fortescue. He may give it up any day. You have no more reason to suppose that that would be my home for life than you had

The quick, impetuous words were broken as suddenly as they were begun; and who can ever guess how grateful I was that that impatient, childish question had been left unfinished?

There was a little silence between us, which I could not break; then May spoke even more gently than

usual, and with a dreamy slowness. "Yes, John, you were right. Ernest Fortescue wants me to go and live in the home my mother loved. She did love it—oh! how tenderly!" i "I know it, May." "Yes." my child went on, in her quiet, dreamy way, "you know it. Have you not often told me of it? And so lovingly she used to remember it. John, that she made iue-'even before I had seen it—love it, too. Was it strange?" , "Strange, my darling? It was moat natural." And then, in my old-<'ushioned fatherly way, I put my arm about her, as we stood' there, so still in the; peaceful moonlight.

"Was.it strange," she went on, unheeding both my questions and my caress, "that in those dreary Paris rooms of ours the memory of such a home ay—as hers had been, and of the life she led there, should be passing1 sweet to my mother, and that I should love it, too —for her sake?" '

"To whatever life she might have gone, May," I said, looking down into the tender moonlit face I loved, and longing for power to brighten these sad, childish memories, "all remembrance of the life she had lived here must have been passing sweet, my pet, because her life was one of usefulness, and helpfulness, and sympathy —for all."

"I could never live, even there," May said, "such a life as hers. How can I dare to take her place and be so different?"

"Leave us—leave the young squire to judge of that, my love," I said; and the words came now unbrokenly, even almost coldly, in the great strain I put upon myself.

"Yes, it was very dear to my mother," May went on, still in that .dreamy, wondering way, and still with her wistful gaze upon the beautiful home where she was wanted. "it will be dearer still to you, my child." "And you can spare me, John?" The thoughtful, quiet question came unexpectedly, even though I had for so long been reading how her pity for myself had saddened even her own new dreams to-night; yet 1 had tried hard, too, to hide any dreary glimpse ol! my own selfish pain. What a re- ; turn for all she had been to me, that now, in her first awakening to happy love, it should be my gloomy, solitary figure which darkened the sunny picture!

"The young squire knew that I could spare you, May. Was it not plain that he was sure of that, dear, before he won your answer?"

"My answer!" she echoed, swiftly, with an entire change of tone, and even of expression, as her eyes came baoft from their far, rapt graze, and flashed one frightened glance into mine. "He did not make me answer ! him in such! haste. All men are not ;so impatient as you are. I —l would have answered him if he had wished it, of course. Why not? It is but natural, as you say, that I should be very g-lad to take my mother's place. It—it was but a silly whim, of* mine to wish to speak to —you first." "Then tell me, May," I said, quite coolly to all seeming-, for I saw how, in her compassion, she had Avislled to break thjs to me as gently as possible, and I could not bear her bravery to be so much greater than my own, "when is Mr Portescue to come for his answer?" "To-morrow,. John." To-morrow! Only one night to pas's, one sleepless nigfiit, and I should, know, beyond all doubt, how soon my darling was to leave me. "To-morrow, dear?" I repeated, almost cheerily, for she was not looking now up into my troubled face. "That is well. But even to-night I fancy he knows pretty well what your answer is to be." "You do, of course, John. You always know what is—best for me." "And you can trust me, dear?" "I ought to do so, John, remembering 'how you made my happiness all the time I was—a child." All the time she was a child! Yes, . it was the simple truth as sihe had said it. I had made her happy while she was a child. Now she was a woman, and this was beyond my readh. Often as . I had framed this very thought to myself, the few words from her own lips had a new pain for me to-night.

"Yes, dear, the old farm life was enough for you all the while you were a child; but now you are ready to take your place' among the ladies of the.county, as your mother did. How glad the thought would have made her! I like to fancy it." "Do you?" my child asked me, in a cold, sad way, so impossible was it to her to hear, even yet, as an ordinary speech, any one which touched her mother's name. . "Do you really like to fancy it?" And once more—but for the last time—l was a coward in my» heart, and turned my face away, and could not answer. Then in the silence there swept over me all I had heard that day—of the sorrow and the humiliation that threatened my child; of the cloud that —if we did not stay it—would come between her and the sunlight forever more; of the cruel and degrading. story which might be told her soon to poison the purity and freshness of her nature; jof the life of fraud and sin which soon must overshadow her, and leave) its taint upon her,, unless I who loved ; her gave her up without hesitation I and delay to the man she loved. And' so well I loved her that after those I few moments of silence I was strong to do it. "May, darling, do you trust me that what my heart is set upon is for your good?" "Yes, John," she answered, simply, but so earnestly. "Then, dear one, it seems best to me, as well as to Ernest Fortescue that you should —should go and live in your mother's old home." "You wish me to go?" "Yes." I did not try to make that answer longer. I only tried to say it as steadily and clearly as I could.

"Then I will go." "What, May? What, my dearest? I could not help that eager questioning. It was not because I had not heard her answer, though it ftaa been spoken so low, and with her head turned from me. It was only because, even now at the last, x fought feebly against the certainty that my house was to be left to me so desolate. , Slowly she raised hex head and met my eyes. Some look in them—perhaps a shade of their old loneliness stealing back-tilled hers with pity; and for that moment our gaze was steadfast and sad—mine with a yearing tenderness, hers with a yearning

compassion. "As you wish it," she said, then,: very- quietly; "and as he asks me, I will go. He need not have waited for! to-morrow. It is all smooth for him and—for me. I make the promise now—and here. I will go." 1 read the great truthfulness within her eyes, and even in that moment! of my own despair I drew her closely to mv side and thanked her. I knew then "how faithfully my child would keep this promise, just as I know now how faithfully she kept it. . (To be continued.)