A TRAVELLER'S TALES.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8541, 22 July 1893, Page 2

A TRAVELLER'S TALES.

By Mokley Roberts. ("Weekly Press and Referee.")

MADAME MORPHINE.

A Hunter's Love Story.

Her intimates usually called her Madame Fiftne; for she was half a Frenchwoman and her mother was a pure blooded Parlsienne. That is why Fifine, the play name given her by her husband, clung to her. She hated this husband; and yet hate

s too big a word, too big for him, and far too big for her. He was a sandy, good tempered individual who could hardly be hated except on account of his stupidity, and she waa gentle and fluffy and little, and very tender hearted. But when a woman does't love her husband she is often so near hating him that one may just as well use the word as go in for a long paragraph of careful differentiation. And what ia a very warm hearted woman to do when tbe man she is tied to understands as much about her as the leather cover of a book of ancient magic does of the signs and symbols inside it ? Madame Fifine resolved the matter instinctively and fell in love with Selvyn Carr, the great hunter and traveller.

Now, Selvyn Carr was a man that scores of women loved. Native Africans, Hottentots, Zulu women, Javanese, Japanese, and Europeans of all classes made eyes at hira, and in some cases not wholly in vain. Yet he never loved anyone in his life until he met Madame Fifine, when he was half broken down wibh ague malaria and jungle fever, and half-a-dozen bad wounds given him by boars, and a wounded deer | and a tiger in Nepaul. Yet, though his constitution was as worm-eaten as the British Constitution, he made as brave a showasEuglanddoes.andwhenhe was well looked handsome and brilliant. He was very big, too, and had a reputation which greatly affected women. His portrait was to be found in the shops of animal stuffers. "These guns were used by Mr Selvyn Carr," was a notice frequently seen in the gunsmiths. The Field and other sporting ; papers might have found it a saving of time to have his name cast solid; and generally speaking his word on certain aspects of wild sport was absolute law. He was so different from the general run lof men to be met in the usual west-end drawing-room that Madame Fifine adored at first sight. But she was a Puritan to the white of her rosy finger nails. In virtue of her Celtic blood she was steeped to tbe lips in its essence and her innocence was absolute. She knew so little that one could only imagine her ancestors knew less.. Even her instincts told her nothing. Her method of falling in love in spite of her marriage, and her one child, was that of a girl of sixteen. She had no idea that it was wrong to feel happy when she saw Carr. She never felt ashamed of herself because the sky was a tropic blue, and the chattering of London sparrows' music, when she was going to meet him. She showed her preference without the faintest shadow of doubt. She was married and of course people did not fall in love with married women. The papers said they did, but she never read horrible things in the papers, and everyone knew that papers lied. So she looked up at poor Carr with her great eyes, and showed she absolutely worshipped hira. And the poor fellow fell into the pit that Puritanism and innocence digged for him. For how could he help it. She was perfectly beautiful, her nair was a warm sunny brown, her eyes were like two stars, her little figure perfect, she was full of life and moat enticing, and wonderful of all she had a big natural brain, which had never been spoilt by learning a heap of stupid facts. She was naturally brilliantly intelligent as tbe brighter of her friends knew; at times her husband suspected it, but not having brains himself he was neither aware of her value, nor able to train her; so he sat on and withered her intellect to the best of his dogged ability in amiable destruction. But Carr had lived with savages and knew what Fifine was at once, and as living with inferior races had increased his natural tendency* to silence, he loved to sit and hear her talk. If he had only fathomed her Puritanism as well, he would have packed up his rifles and gone off to hunt something less terrible than a pure woman. Bi-t of Puritanism he knew nothing, few savages have any signs of that moral obliquity; they are natural end see nature straight; and Carr saw it straight too. For he was a very natural kind of man, without any f' larticulax principles except that he did not ike to harui anybody if he could help it, and when he loved anyone he did It with his whole body and soul. When Carr found out that Madame Fifine loved him he felt prouder than he had done in his life. As he was very ill and weak he was quite content thac he should know it, and that she should know he knew it, and knew that he was glad. So much he told her without words, and she was like a delighted child. Living in Park Village, West, he used to drag himself into Regents Park, and sit in the English apology for a summer, sun, and : nearly every day Madame Fifine came in and talked with him.

•* You look better every day," she said, and he smiled.

"Yes, I am- getting stronger, .dear Madame," said Carr and he looked into her very soul, shining through her pellucid eyes. "I suppose I shall go away when I am really well," he went on. And her face clouded over.

" You will not be well enough far a long time, Mr Carr," she replied. " And don't you think you have done enough hunting? Perhaps, who knows, you will get married?"

And when he vowed he never should, she lighted up again; yet she never thought that he could be more to her than her friend.

One day when the nurse and her little boy rambled a little way off, Carr took her hand and kissed it.

"You are so good to mc," he murmured. And that night Fifine kissed her own hand.

He wrote her a rough little note, aad she carried it about for weeks, till it was crumpled and creased and odorous of herself. She had a little harmless secret; she was so fond of him and he liked to be wither. Who would mind that? And then one day when they were strolling down a close leafy walk he caught her in his arms and kissed her. She flushed scarlet and trembled, and could not speak. " Forgive mc, forgive, dear Fifine, but I love you." And she forgave him; she had not wanted him to kiss her, and yet he had done it. It would lead to nothing else, and she was so glad she really knew he loved her. But as she crept home sho felt more than a little guilty. She kissed her little boy with a curious passionate rapture, which was, as she imagined, without any touch of sex in it, or only so much aa a mother must have. But she wondered at herself.

Carr went off home feeling very miserable and ashamed. Perhaps she had not forgiven him after all; perhaps she would write and say he must never see her again, and if it had not been for Fifine's absolute belief in herself and in the general harmless innocence of men, he would have received that letter. It never came for two days, though she never came to the Park. The third day they were sitting there together. " Why mayn't I love you, dear?' said Carr. And his heart was really pare; perhaps because he was weak. It made hira glad to be with her. He was not jealous of the cover of that book of new magic. "And do you, .Selvyn*" asked Fifine. "Do I? How different yon are, and how

different the world isT "Is the world different since you knew mer she asked, timidly. He turned and looked do«m on her. „ •• Dear little Fifine. it is a new world. " I am glad, and you will always love "ii-d still, though «he felt it was wrong, she never thought of any evil. There are such women in the world, which is good for the world aud bad for them. •' Siuce I have known you all things have changed," she said, after a louse pause. "I am braver ana stronger aud better; and Tarn not so sad. When I was a child I was always happy, but— " Since you have been married you have not b»en so happy?" " No, but it is my fault I am sure. Everyone is good to mc, and I ought to bs happy." , -,_ .. -j "Dear, what a child you are, said Selvyn, and he mused upon his kuowledgo of women; he did not think of his ignorance. ._..__,_ ! - Three weeks after that the first crisis came, when the scales fell from her eyes, and she knew how Selvyn Carr loved her. With his returning strength his passion grew and grew redly; it spread and covered all things, and flowered in strange speech," for desire gave him the gift of tonaues. She shook and trembled and stared at him, aud her heart answered bis dumbly, but her lips were dry. " Go, go, you must never see mc again.' He caught her in" his arms and held her. She failed upon bis arm, but at his hot entreaty kissed him. "Don't send mc away; don't kill mc, Fifine." He implored her to go away with him, and wrung her heart with natural arguments which her love admitted, which her Puritanism revolted against. He left the house In despair, and neaily walking over Ft fine's husband, had an almost uncoutroltable impulse to wring his neck. For so many years he had been accustomed to settling all difficulties in some such wuy, that his thoughts naturally turned to violence now. He restrained himself and went away feeling wretchedly ill, for he was still far from strong. But when a man has very bad health, unnaturally combined with the remnants of very strong passions, he is in a bad way, and when hi* love is "rejected he is in a worse way. When it is returned without any possibility of a natural end, he is between the devil and the deep sea; and angels might have taken him by the scalp lock or the scruff of his neck and dragged him out of tbe imbrcglio, but his angel was a woman, and women are, with their modern nature and ancient morality, the best substitute for devils a man is likely to meet outside himself, since we got rid of the diabolic hierarchy. For a time it was nothing but argument between-Carr and Madame Fifine. He haunted her drawing-room daily; ho threw his pride to the winds, and sneered ab himself when he was hypocritically civil to the man who stood iv his way. When he got a chance he used his tongue, when he got none, his eyes. They were the most eloqueut, for be was . not a courtier, nor swift and subtle of speech, and when he went away without saying anything sweet, Fifine wept till her own were dull and halt blind. But for all that she hung on to her duty, and then Carr took to cursing her even aloud. Asa matter of fact he had no particular morality of any kind. His idea was to kill his enemy, help his friend, take what he wanted, and for once in bis life he was thwarted by something utterly unlike any obstacle he bad run against before. He saw Fifine loved him. What kept her true to convention waa an idea. He might fume and fret, and get pale and sallow with lying awake, but he could not cut an idea's throat or knock out its brains. Very often this stubborn idea ros6 up In his mind as Fifine herself, and then he was within an ace of killing her, One day he took her delicate throat in bis huge hand. She smiled up at him; "kill mc, dear," she said, and instead he kissed her, and called himself all kinds of names, which he thoroughly deserved. Then he bad an attack of illness without any name, which three doctors could not agree on. For wounds and jungle fever and love, when they are mixed, beat the nomenclature of common patboiogy. Fifine felt that to save him she would do anything. She almost came to cutting the throat of that idea herself. And then, as trouble was at the root of her lover's illness, he got better. She retreated again, entrenchedherself securely. That broke Carr down, and to save himself from murder he began taking morphine. When a man takes to opium he may leave It off if the case that drove him to it is removed soon enough. He may in some exceptional cases go on for the rest of his life only using it in moderate quantities; especially if he wants to live; but when a man uses it who has lived his life and done his work, who isiiland broken down, he is not likely to. leave it off or take it in homospathic doses. And Carr began ib in a wholesale way; five grains at a time. But he was desperate, and pursued Fifine" just the same. For a time he was even more persistent, and almost brutal, Under the constant stress her physical powers began to wane, her passion began to die, or at any rate to fail. She thought him almost barely physical, yet when she discovered he was using morphine largely, she Implored him to give ib up. " W hat for ? " asked Carr. *■ That I may live a year longer than I shall by using it ? It gives mea little rest." And he went away angrily, determined, under the influence of the drug that she should no longer accuse him of coarse cruelty to her. She might go her own way, and let him go his, for morphine can drown passion as well as other pains. And she never saw him for three weeks. On being left alone, Fifine's love for him began to return. She saw how wretched he was, how lonely; she imagined bis physical pain, and acted in her very heart at last. She went recklessly to see him and found him lying on the sofa in his rooms half stupefied. He looked up at her sleepily and did not rise. Yet he took her hand and kissed it. "Dear Madame Fifine," said he, in an altered voice, " it's Madame Morphine now." And he fell so fast asleep that she could not wake him. It was with the utmost difficulty she tore herself away, for she was so afraid that he had taken more than he could stand; but by cow he could take twenty grains at a time. Her renascent love grew quickly in spite of her lover's absolute selfishness. She was for ever fighting with herself, forever in a dire and bitter argument, in which her training was on one side.-her nature on the other* If Carr had only cared sufficiently to make an appeal to her he might have trampled that idea into mud. But now he did not care so much. He was always so sleepy i yet not always so sleepy that he could not reproach her. They met in the Park soon after her visit to him. "Are you still using morphine dear?" she asked, imploringly, with tears in her voic«. He shrustged his shoulders. "Why not? You see Madame Morphine makes things comfortable. I don't suffer now." . "And do you think I don't suffer Selwynf she asked, ia an agonised voice, "I suppose so, dear girl, bat what does it matter? What do we matter? Goodbye ; try and forget mc, de&r. lam only a .brutal man." He walked on with his head down, and I did not look back. Sbe noticed how bant fhe was, bow strangely bleached bis face. ; His eyes had grown big, and were darkly circled; but they no longer looked at her I with the old appeal. He was going to the bad she said, and for her 1 She rose up to [ follow him, and then the nurse came up with her child.. They ail went home together, and Fifine locked herself in her room and cried herself sick and ill. She went again to his rooms, and again. i Any one time Carr might have overcome | her scruples, and even induced her to j leave her home with biro ; but he did not now care to. He lay on the sofa and held her hand. Often sbe began to speak and refrained. And tbe sole text he preached on was the bitter "it doesn't matter." All ;he did for her sake was not to let her see him take the drug which had now full power over him. But when ebe was gone there was a curious selfish smile on his face as he drank bis increasing quantity. " You are late, dear Madame Morphine." As he became grossly callous, poor little Fifine's passion grew and grew again, until what she had felt for bim seemed nothing compared with what she feie now. She ran a thousand risks of beins discovered, for she came to him nearly every day. She wept over him; she coaxed him like a child. She cried bitterly. Once when he was les* stupefied than usual he made a futile effort to console her. "Dear Fi I Perhaps it would have been just the same if I had never known you. Don't cry; lam not worth it." But that was wby she was crying. He had been worth it, end might have been again.

Once he himself looked down, as the whole hideous shame of the thing came home to him. He laid his head- on the table, and cried like a child. It shocked and horrified her, and, curiously enough, disgusted her almost, although she knew he was so ill. "Oh, oh, it can't be you, Selwyn. It can't be; can't be." " By Jove 11 used to be a man," cried he.

as he rose up;««but I am nrnTT Child don't come to let** o * o **. kissed her, with a faint i».*k? n)or,J * Ha ancient passion, and hfmSTfej jfi She went away in a h\; n A soul. And that night ■£_lS ,t 5 qUh * that there was __&_• thh.S?& to **2 ay awake dryeyed, couuU_i\{s\ §2 thinking of the time of her■*?£*■***«■ cence when she first met her W V 6*** all her fault for loving him ff •* U ***'t 300 done, that hs would never b_v e i 8 °M her affection so much. AnA f M happsned just when be w M w*_V tt She might., as a friend. As a ioviujr woman „\ tfi __£**,***, destroyed him. Was is a qlf.. ai^ almost dcttroylng him now ? k,i"? a M utterly killed him? But Z _„£&*•*•*-* and the darkness melted slowly all! ** made up her mind not to sis **' the fiend that now ** the sofc poison had killed him» to _S«*i| sweet. Could it bo sweeter tb'aJffN Was she not stro., k - enough and KS?' enough, and passionate enough her rival and drag him said th_t she itm, and at eirlv dL "H* rose with a new heart and soal **** Though «he was so pale she fr*. was lovely. She dressed with c_S?*_**t the colours he loved. She ha!v_U i* B * to write that morning, and she «Se iftf a firae** nana. She never brakT__ti? •» all until she kissed her sleeping eleven o clock she took a cab and %bJ_ Carr* rooms. She went un _rh.iT*> word, but tb.y .aid he had * She went into his bedroom. Ha i?. on his b-ck. but in the drawn curtains *he could not J** She sat on the edge of the bed * B "* •"■***. '•Selwyn, my dear, ray dear! I _*«__. to stay with you 1 I will never lg** again !" **'« Jfai She leant forward, listenim*- __. _ breathing. She saw s orae t_j a \g_Jfl his band and she touched it. a. _?_V* it a thrill of strange passion shot _S_f her heart. It was a tress of her o»_?# But, alter all, it was thai Madame Morphine whom he lorlSs? For his hand was cold. ■ *•**..-