FBREDA ALCNE

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 128, 1 June 1934, Page 15

FBREDA ALCNE

Author of " Peggy, wm»»nw»™i■'■!"',,, Miff,H PH-

CHAPTER XXVII. Freda en Famille. Freda was always one to .run to her goal swiftly. There was nothing devious, nothing secret about her. She had taken no one's counsel. Who could counsel her, indeed, since Lionel was away? She was free to come and go, since Miss Darlington seemed to need no companion while Julian Pauncefote remained, and since there was an incredible new domesticity sprung up between Lord and Lady Roseveare. They had actually taken the boy out between them in the motor —"Like Darby and Joan," said Lady Roseveare, with a fleer at the new order of things as Freda watched them depart. What matter that her ladyship mocked? The child, sending soft adoring glances from his beautiful gorgeous mother to his father, whose face had lightened ever so many degrees within a. space of forty- eigiu hours or so, was the bond of union between them. And —beauty could not last for ever. Lady Eoseveare had detected a crow's foot by her eye. It was as well to have an adoring husband to fall back upon.

Cecile Agar was in her room with a slight feverish cold. The men were enjoying themselves after their own manner. Freda was at liberty for her expedition.

His lordship was in the library, the footman said, looking doubtfully at Freda, whose air had something unfamiliar about it to the eye of, an English servant. Maman's scarf of old lace tied daintily about Freda's hat and under her chin, was exotic to the footman's eye. His lordship was busy with his papers. He did not like to be disturbed.

"Please say that I come from Almoners," said Freda. "From Almoners," the man repeated, suddenly alert, and forgetting the professional manner for something mori» human. "It isn't that there's anything wrong with Mies Cecile?" "No, no, there is nothing wrong," Freda answered, making haste to reassure him.

But, shown into Lord Agincourt's presence, it was easy to seo that he, too, had been startled by a messenger from Almoners. He advanced a little way down the long room to meet Freda, a slender, dark man with a worn lace, looking at her his courteous inquiry as to the cause of her visit, not a glimmer of recognition in the sunken eyes, but only some surprise when Freda shrank back before his offered hand.

To her it seemed incredible that he should not recognise her. Sho would have recognised him anywhere. The years that had passed, over him had left their {races indeed in a face seamed with lines and worn to a haggard fineness, but Tiis person hardly seemed to have aged. Despite hie sedentary life ho was still spare and elegant of figure; and if his hair was almost white eho seemed to remember that more than a dozen years ago he had' been grizzling. "You bring a message from my daughter?" he said, and there was a sharp note of anxiety in his voice. "No, Miss Agar docs not know I am here."

"Ah! I was afraid her cold might be worse. She wrote to me that she had a slight cold. I hope she does nothing imprudent." "She is very careful indeed," Freda said, "and everyone is careful for her. No one would wish her to take harm."

"Ah, thank you." He looked at Freda with some kindness. She had made her little speech with a fervour which seemed to him explained by her elightly foreign- accent. Hβ looked closer, and his eyebrows took a puzzled line. "I think you must be tho heroine of the great burglar adventure," ho eaid. "Everyone is talking about your share in it. lam very glad my daughter was not alarmed. But, excuse me, Mademoiselle, we have met before, or I have met someone like you?" Freda had wondered all the way what sho ehould say when sho was brought face to face with Lord Agincourt, and ehould recognise him as her uncle, but now it seemed simple enougbi "You have forgotten me, Uncle Stephen," she said. "I was only seven years old when you saw mo last." An indescribable change came over his face. It would be hardly right to say that he became pale, rather his dark skin turned a shade darker. He put his hand to his throat; his eyes wera suddenly the eyes of a sick man. , Ho tried to speak, but no words came. "I am Freda, uncle," the girl said again. "Freda, Svhom you sent to Marigny thirteen years ago. I have been looking for you since I came back. I came here' by no arrangement of my own, ltttlo thinking I should find you. I nciver suspected that Lord Agincourt could be the uncle I was looking for, till yesterday, when your daughter, my cousin, took me to see the little church at Wendamere. The tablet to your brother's memory gave me the clue. Traquair is an uncommon name. *It was almost all I kept of my father and mother —just the name and the memory that their lodgings were in Slo'ane Street. Those were very Blight clues." "But they have brought you here," he said, turning about suddenly and indicating with a wave of his hand the lofty and splendid apartment. "But, supposing, Mademoiselle, that I ask you to go away quietly, rather than have you removed as an imposter? You say I am your uncle; What proof have you of this most-unlikely tale?" "I have no proof at all," said Freda simply; "but, I think Lady Eoseveare knows. I think there, are- people who would recognise you as the brother who used to visit my father- and mother, at those lodgings. I have friends who will help me." He looked at her and again his expression changed. t "Sit down," "and let us talk ■ft over." He pushed a chair to her, and she sat down in it. Then he stood up facing her with his back to the fireplace.

"My dear niece," he said, "you are quite right. Lady Roseveare knows some of my secrets. On the other hand I know some of hers, and we made a bargain over it. Lady Eoseveare might or might not give me away. But as a matter of fact, nothing can be served by raking up an old scandal, except that it might possibly have the effect of killing niy daughter. .Now I cannot imagine anyone wanting to hurt Cecile." "Nor I," said Freda. "I wouldn't hurt a hair of her head for worlds."

His face softened from the look of haggard despair which, it had worn despite his light manner, "That being so," lie said; "why should we not come to an amicable arrangement? Need we bring 'the lawyers in more than necessary? I grant you that there would have to be some dovetailing before our story could figure creditably in Court. Supposing I were to acknowledge you—on the proofs? There would be a nine-daye' wande%d&ut .jeojria would eaon*

By KATHARINE TYNAN

forget. After all —I don't mind confessing to you that —it hasn't been very ha'ppy. Why I did it is immaterial. I make no defence. But the dead —have a way of returning. Those I did it for would not profit by it. They would not wait to profit. Except Cecile. What can money do for Cecile? —a delicate girl who has in her the seeds of the disease that killed her mother. My clear niece—l assure you —I have not profited by my sin. If I had perhaps I might not have repented."

The speech was jerked out from thin lips that had a strange look of bitterness upon them. There was inalterable pride in the speech and the manner; not the faintest suggestion of remorse, nor plea of forgiveness. Yet Freda felt the old resentment dying in her heart. All the griefs and the wrongs of her childhood seemed far away and done with. They counted little now against the joy that had come to her girlhood. And one had only to look into the man's face to see that he had had no profit of his sin.

"I am not troubled with remorse," he said again. "If it had only profited those for whom it was done I should think little of my own shame, my own dishonour, nor even of the trust I broke with the brother who loved me. But, as it is I have had nothing of it. Even Cecile —I can do nothing for Cecile but keep her with mo a little while. Cecile will not mind very much that you take her place."

Freda .stood up impetuously and confronted Lord Agincourt face to face.

"Do you think I want to hurt Ceeile?" she said. "Why I would not hurt Cecile for worlds. I love her like a sister. I did not know why I felt so drawn to her from the first moment we met. It is, what you say, that blood is thicker than water. Cecile' shall not suffer."

"Ah, I am glad you feel that way about it," the man said, bending his head as though in a courteous acknowledgment. "I am glad you will be good to Cecile. If you do not want to punish me—and I assure you Fate has been before you in that—why should you not enter upon your inheritance quietly? I have all the proofs. I don't know why I should have kept them, since, if I died suddenly, they would have been there to condemn me—but—for eome reason I did not' destroy them. I have the marriage certificato of your father and mother; I have the certificate of your birth. It will bo easy to establish your identity. I have but to transfer the proof to your hands. Why, there is no reason against my rejoicing in the discovery that my elder brother was secretly married and left a daughter. Wo need not take the world into our confidence as to how the discovery was made. Let it talk! As for Cecile-it will be easy to deceive Cecile. And she will probably set the new cousin against the fact that sho will be considerably poorer, being Cecile." "I don't want the money," Freda cried out. "What do I want with money? I only want that I should have a namethat is should bo known that there was a marriage." The blood rushed over her transparent face to the roots of her hair. "Do you know tho greatest wrong you did me, Lord Agincourt? It Was to leave me a nameless child—with that stigma upon me-T-upon the memories of thqso who gave me life. I heard it whispered first when I was a li.ttle child—before I understood what it meant. If it were not for that I should leave things as they are. There is nothing that money can give me." She lifted her young face, and there was a' light upon it which the. man who had wronged her failed to understand. "It shall be righted,",he said, almost humbly. "That was a consequence of my action that "I did not that anyone should think that: of you. Poor Jack! He was the soul of honour. I don't know how he came to have such a black sheep for a brother. We had a very harsh father, Freda. He had not forgiven my'. marriage. He would not have forgiven his favourite son s if lie had known of it. I suppose there must have been something—some terror of him implanted in our hearts when we were little and helpless that made your father keep his marriage secret. At ter all,. I am glad it is done with. I shall sleep to-night." #

Lord Agincourt, when all was said and done, abdicated with a completeness, that left him a very poor man But what he could not prevent was Fiecas provision for her cousin, which was what a most generous and tender elder sister mio-ht make for a beloved younger one. When the marvel was known ireda moved over quietly to the Abbey, and took up her abode there as though she had always been the acknowledged niece of Lord Agincourt and heiress to the esFates. If anything was whispered as to Lord Agincourt's part in the curious history, those who were' on the side of tho angels had only, to point the.,

amity which prevailed between Freda and her uncle, to say nothing of the great affection between her and Cecile, to confute the gossips.

Presently Freda was married from the Abbey, in that very little church outside whose "walls her father lay buried. On her marriage she and her husband would have gone to take up their residence near those redoubtable ladies, the Aunts Dashwood, who had forgiven their nephew, since he had, all unknown, wooed and won the elder princess instead of the younger; only that Cecile could not bear the deprivation of her dear new sister, whose coming had seemed to impart to the delicate girl something of the other's health and strength. So Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Dampier went to live at the Dower House, since the elder princess would by no manner of means permit the abdication of those who had ruled at the Abbey so long.

To the Dower-House came, at different periods, many people who had befriended Freda Alone, to see Freda in her honour and happiness, surrounded by fitiends and crowned with love. Thither came Maman and Andre and Germaine, now Madame Andre, for a brief visit one summer when Lord and Lady Koseveare had gone travelling round the world with the boy. Thither came M. le Capitaine Eogct in the train of his beloved friend, Madame Vann. Thither came Mrs. Maitland; and Dr. Cronin, who had struck up a great friendship with the stately old lady, and was installed as her medical attendant, making many journeys out of the East to see her, for he could not be persuaded to leave the East and establish himself in more civilised regions. Dr. Cronin showed a great disinclination to come face to face with Lord Agincourt on the occasion of his visits "Bedad, Mrs. Dampier, ma'am," he said, "it's the oddest thing going, but there was a time when his lordship and I were pretty well acquainted. Would you be surprised to hear that I brought you into the world? You were a lovely baby, too. It was no wonder I stood by you when I did. And wasn't it the queerest thing of all that I never found out what you were after? Not that I could have helped you much, for sure I never knew your father and mother except as Mr. and Mrs. Traquair, and his lordship as Mr. Stephen. It isn't a doctor's business to be too curious. And sure you were getting better direction than mine after all."

"I do want him to come to the West End," Mrs. Maitland said, almost tearfully. "A man of his abilities is lost in the East End. And you know, Freda, he had once a West End practice. He would soon regain it if he would only come back. That is what I am always urging upon him."

"Indeed, you're too kind, ma'am," Dr. Cronin said, "but I think I'll stay where I am, with the blessing of God. I've got fond of the East. Sure it took mo in wfien I fihut the door of the West in my own face. I'm happier among the poor people, and so many of them poor Irish, more betoken. I'm fond of the East, so I am. And Mrs. Dampier will bear mo out that there are good people in it, if there are bad people. Didn't she put away two of the greatest villains the East End ever knew? It isn't likely she'll bo unfriendly to us after doing us that service."

Humbler friends also had happy cause to remember Freda. Old Miss Mathcson at tho almshouses was made happy, since sho had grown fond of the place and would not leave it, by a generous and tender provision for her comfort, a provision ample enough for her to share it with her old friends at St. Olave's. That intrepid small boy, Tommy, with his equally intrepid little mother, were taken out of the East and installed at one of the gate-lodges of the Abbey, where Tommy works in the gardens and grows tall and sunburnt, taking a definite interest always in his inches, since his goal is to join the London police and bo on duty in the East End. Mrs. Grant, the butcher's wife, who had befriended Freda once upon a time, was much gratified by a friendly visit from Mrs. Dampier and a gift of a jewel in memory of the day when ehe was Good Samaritan to Freda. Also Freda's kindness has reached with comfort and protection the old woman at the mews who used to work for the Misses Matheson and remembered Freda's father and mother.

If there is not exactly a friendship between Mrs. Dampier and Lady Koseveare, there is at least a tolerance; and there is something moro than friendship between Freda and little Max, while Lord Roseveare has been won at last out of his nervous shrinking from Dampier and. Mrs. Dampier, both of whom had known Lady Eoseveare in her chrysalis days. "Poor Cyril!" Lady Eoseveare has said to Freda, "it was uncommonly hard luck on him his marrying me. Ho has the prejudices of the middle classes, with tho Dissenter thrown in. But, after all, he's infatuated about me, and I mean to keep him so to the end. I'm really glad, Freda, that you came to your own—without my intervention. I was in an uncommonly tight corner after .that burglary business, for I didn't want to give Lord Agincourt away. You see, we'd made a bargain, and he'd kept Ms part of it. I wasn't exactly the friend he'd have chosen for Cecile; yet, it would take a worse woman than lam to hurt Cecile." -. . .

"I once thought you a veiy bad woman," said Freda. "1 don't think you so any longer. And you oughtn't tp talk like that, Max's mother—"

' "Oh, I'm just as bad as ever I was," said her ladyship, "and I was uncommonly bad, as no one knows bette: than you, Freda. Still, I've got to bo decent for the rest of my days, for Max's sake —yes, a*hd for Cyril's. And I shall-be decent. There's something to be said for domesticity after all, when one's growing old and every day shows a new wrinkle." (The End.)