LAKE-PELHAM'S DAUGHTER

Cromwell Argus, Volume LX, Issue 3111, 12 May 1930, Page 2

LAKE-PELHAM'S DAUGHTER

By Herbert Herbert.

CHAPTER n.

Lilith sinks upon a bench when they are gone, folding her hands and staring blankly before her. The afternoon sun beats full upon the window, the room is very hot; she feels that the thick crape veil is almost stifling her; but she cannot remove It for very shame. People come and go, taking no notice, but sho thinks that t.bcy stare curiously, as though a brand were upon her brow. Then a feeling of faintness overpowers her; and, although she has never swooned before, she fears she will do so now. Rising, she passes through the open door and through a larger waiting-room Into the open air.

The street is full of holiday-makers, for Bournton-on-Sea is one of the seaport towns greatly affected by excursionists; and they have taken possession for the day by thousands. Drifting idly with the throng, she finds herself in due time walking upon the esplanade, and Inhaling a cool breeze from the sea. The entrance to a stone pier, new and massive, Is immediately before her; but the pier is crowded; and for the present her gregarious instincts are in abeyance. Farther on, a quarter of a mile or so, is the old wooden jetty, dotted here and there with human beings. Through sand and shingle Lake-Pelham's daughter trudges towards it, until the jetty is gained. Hour after hour she sits there at the farther extremity, thinking her bitter thoughts, and looking through her thick crape veil upon the sounding sea —hour after hour, until the shades of night begin to fall, and everybody has gone away, except a gentleman who for some time has lain at full length upon a bench, watching drowsily, but with faint Interest, the girl's slight, motionless figure. She is not conscious of the espionage; through all these hours she has not once turned her head.

She has been reviewing her life, asking herself whether, taken all in •11, the bad and the good, it has been worth the living. To that question she has returned an unhesitating negative; and out of it another has arisen. Whether, seeing that existence was thrust upon her, a burden, not a boon—an unsolicited evil —it can be very, very wrong to rid herself of the evil and lay the burden down. Even In childhood, when the motnerlove wrapped her round, life was not worth the living, because her father was so stern. Mother and daughter alike feared him, trembling at his footstep, dreading the very sound of his voice, shunning his companionship—each being even more alarmed foi the other than for herself. And surely, after the tragedy of her mother's death, existence at Minerva College, that house of shams—an existence weighted with the awful secret which only she and her father knew —has not been preferable to a state of utter negation! So much for the past; as for the present, having staked everything on one throw for happiness, she has most miserably lost; and in this "lowest deep" of her wretchedness "a lower deep still threatening to devour her opens wide." She dares not face the future as a felon's wife. Her resolve Is taken —not suddenly, not hurriedly, but after long thought and mature consideration. A mighty calmness has suddenly fallen upon her. With the rich, warm life-blood coursing through all her veins, she enters, as It were, the grim presence of Death, and does not quail. The sky Is black and overcast: night is coming on. Looking round her for the first time, she sees that all the people who were upon the jetty have retired, except one. The tide is running In, swift and strong; she can see the foam on the waves seething about the wooden piles below. With a curious intentness, and as though it possessed some terrible fascination, she watches that surfy whiteness until it is no longer visible. Then she looks round once more. The slumberer on the bench has not yet moved. It is very hot still —hot and close, as though there were thunder in the air. She has taken off her gloves, and a big warm drop of rain splashes upon her hand. Faster and faster fall the drops; and she is glad of it; for surely that man upon the bench will not sleep through a shower, bnt will rise and go away. Seeking to verify this conclusion, she discovers that the man upon the bench is sitting up, smoking • cigar. After all, what does it matter? He cannot see her, she reasons, forgetting that her form is outlined against the sky. Even if he could see her, he could not arrest the carrying out of her resolve. It will only take one instant to creep through the wooden framework and leap down there, where the white waves are seething beyond her ken. It does not matter; and yet she wishes he would go away. Again and again she looks round: but, although his figure is invisible through the darkness and the rain, the tip of his cigar glows still like a star of fire. She will wait no longer, but rises to her feet. For one moment her slim form is dimly visible, erect and motionless; the next—Lake-Pelham's daughter, with a low, involuntary cry, has thrown herself into the sea.

The curtain is drawn over a period of four years in this eventful history, after a fateful rescue and a return by the daughter to the ancestral home.

A wild night, with the wind raging round the house like an angry demon, while the hailstones rattle against the windows and tumble, soot-encased,

A TALE OF ADVENTURE

down the broad chimney into the fire. A gloomy room, with its wainscotting of black oak and its heavy portraits in tarnished frames of dead-and-gone Pelhams who had not as yet intermarried with the Lakes and assumed the compound name. A grim old man, who has taken from a quaint, spindle-legged cabinet something bright and glittering, and who stands now before the fire, contemplating his prize with saddened intentness.

His thoughts have not been very active for the last five minutes, as he hap stood before the fire, in a purposeless way toying with the glittering ornaments.

"I hope they will please her," he mutters. That is the text of his thoughts, and they revert to it again and again without much amplification. He is a very grim old man. All the wrinkles with which Time —to say nothing of hard living and the bottle-imp —has seamed his face, have run into fierce, wrathful lines and puckers. In their mildest repose his features wear an expression of repressed ferocity. This being the case, it is curiously contradictory that those muttered words should be uttered in a tone wistful and patient; and that, after breathing them, Sir Percival Lake-Pelham heaves a sigh.

She must be rather hard to please, since Sir Percival's hope is a dubious one —this unknown female for whom the ornaments are designed. At the nervous trembling movements of his fingers they flash back the light in brilliant coruscations, like strings of living flame. They are gems of the purest water, a parure of diamonds worth many thousands of pounds. i Is this their destined wearer, this little lady with the golden hair who has pushed open the heavy oaken door, and whose sudden appearance seems to brighten that corner of the gloomy room, as gleams of sunshine might do, falling athwart the floor? The Baronet's hands are thrust behind him now; under the tails of his coat the diamonds flash in vain.

"It is getting late, papa. I thought I had better remind you that presently our guests will begin a arrive." What is it conveys, even to ears that wine has dulled, an almost painful sense of incongruity? Such a dainty little lady she is, with her refined features, her fathomless, grey eyes, her creamy, colorless complexion. She looks like a child, who, suddenly awakening, has found herself a woman; she speaks like a woman who, suddenly awakening, has found herself a vocal block of stone.

"And I wanted to give you this," continues Lake-Pelham's daughter. "This" is a tiny bouquet of flowers for his button-hole waxen petals, feathery fern. If there were one particle of affection in the tones, the presentation might be construed as a thoughtful filial attention. Sir Percival tries to so interpret it. "It was kind of you," he says, with wistful doubt.

"Hardly, when one analyses motives," replies the girl, with a low laugh, which sets him wondering how so musical a sound can be so chilling withal. "If you fail to present a festive appearance to-night, people may be ill-natured enough to conclude that you do not rejoice at your daughter's attainment of her majority." "You say that because my congratulations have not yet been very warm!" he cries eagerly. "I reserved them, Lilith, that I might offer at the same moment a little token of their sincerity. Here it is." "It was kind of you," answers Miss Lake-Pelham.

It is like his own response to her gift of the flowers, a response shorn of the wistfuln'ess, mit retaining the doubt, and spoken with such delicate, scornful mimicry that he cannot be certain whether the mimicry be real or imaginary. "You are to-day twenty-one years of age," continues her father. "It has always seemed to me that you made a sudden leap from girlhood to womanhood four years ago, when you refused to return to Minerva College. From that day until now you have been your own mistress, setting my authority at defiance, so that I lose nothing to-day except the control of the fortune which you inherit from your mother. I do not say this, Lilith, in any spirit of complaint." "You would hardly mention my mother in a spirit of complaint!" retorts the girl. Sir Perclval changes color and hurries on. "The accumulations of the trustproperty are considerable; it now represents an income of about two thousand a year. This income is at your sole disposal; you are one of the richest heiresses in the district, while at my death your means will be trebled. I should like to see you well married; I should have no further anxiety as to your future." "The holy estate of matrimony being 'like a little heaven below.'" says his daughter, flippantly. "My experience, drawn from personal observation, does not verify that conclusion." This time the Baronet does not bear the retort patiently. "I cannot understand you!" he cries. "For four years half the eligible men in the country and all the ineligible ones have been dangling after you. A smile to one, a glance to another, a kind word to a third, and the iufatuated fools are in the mesh. You lay yourself out to allure them; your name is becoming " He stops, for his daughter, without a word, conceding him a mocking curtsey, has turned to leave the room. For one instant Sir Percival glares in

speechless rage at her retreating form; the next, he makes a mighty effort for 6elf-command, and a succeesful one.

"Stay, Lllith, stay!" he cries imploringly. "I do not want to quarrel with you, on this of all days. You have not accepted my present yet." "Your present is too much in the nature of a bribe."

"Is there no chance that we may be reconciled?" he asks, with a new wistful humility which sits so strangely upon him. "I could be so blessed with you, so proud of you; and I have no one else in the world! Your coming-of-age would indeed be a joyful event i? it inaugurated kinder relations between my daughter and me." She is silent, considering that appeal. As though to stay her decision, and in the forlorn hope of winning a favorable one, he says—"l know that I was harsh to you in childhood. Your birth was a keen disappointment, for I wanted a son and heir; and, as you grow older, I was annoyed that all your love was given to your mother —none to me. And I know that from your mother's death" —his heavy eyes sinK from her fathomless ones to the ground —"to the time you left Minerva College, we avoided each other as much as possible. But for the last four years, Lilith, we have met daily almost as enemies, preserving at the best a kind of armed truce. Will the estrangement last forever? Can it never be bridged over?" "Is the age of miracles past?" she cried mockingly. "As you have sown, so must you reap." "I am tired of reaping," Is the sad rejoinder. "Take my peace-offering. Lilith; have mercy upon me; let us at least be friends!"

"Yes," answers the girl musingly. "1 will wear the diamonds, I will have mercy; there shall be peace between us, peace and love, when " "When?" he repeats eagerly. "Tell me when?"

"When the age of miracles returns; when you can stand beside a vault in the church-yard yonder and raise the dead to life."

"Not till then?" asks the Baronet despondingly. "Not till then," replied Lake-Pel-ham's daughter, with placid but pitiless resolution.

She glides across the floor of the gloomy room, which darkens visibly as she disappears. The painted eyes of dead-and-gone Pelhams have followed her, some condemningly, some approvingly; and now they seem to contemplate that solitary man upon the hearth. His head has sunk upon his breast; his listless fingers, relaxing their hold upon the gems, have let them fall in a tiny gleaming heap upon the rug of skins on which he stands. In his hopeless, wine-soddened dejection he takes no note of time, until the roll of wheels is heard in a momentary lull of the wind, and a servant enters hastily to inform him that the guests are beginning to arrive. The roughness of the night, the howling wind, the driving hail, have not availed to prevent the elite of the place from attending the ball given by Sir Percival Lake-Pelham in honor of his daughter's comlng-of-age. Car after car has rolled up the avenue, and has deposited its freight of "fair women and brave men." The dancing has begun, and Miss Lake-Pelham's programme is full, the only blanks being such as she has insisted should be left. "Duty-dances, reserved for some of my father's friends," she explains, with an apologetic smile. But in her heart she knows that those "dutydances" are at the service of one particular individual, less her father's friend than her own, if he should appear to claim them. She is enjoying the evening, notwithstanding his absence. She has Instituted a mental comparison between her simple costume and the richer dresses of the other women, a comparison which they, like Mrs. Malaprop, might pronounce "odorous." She has contrasted her own refined, hard, delicate loveliness with other types of beauty, and she is content. She has reviewed the captives of her bow and spear, dispensing, in the terms of Sir Percival's criticism "a smile to one, a glance to another, a kind word to a third," and she is satisfied that their fetters are all firmly riveted. Like Alexander, she sighs for another world to conquer. For four years LakePelham's daughter has devoted herself with marked success to the subjugation of the unmarried men within the circle of her immediate acquaintance. Beyond that circle lives one who only comes within it at distant intervals, and for a brief period. He is a foeman worthy of her steel, and she had hoped that he would have been present tonight. About three miles from Pelham Hall stands a hotelry which purports to be the Railway Inn. It was a farm-house pure and simple before Sir Percival's influence with the chairman of the line brought about the opening of that little branch station for the convenience of the Lake-Pelham family; and, as there is not another house within a mile, and the visits of chance customers who enter and call for refreshments are, like those of angels, lamentably 'few and far between," it remains, to all intents and purposes, a farm-house still. But at this instant the mind of Widow Boothby, the landlady, is sorely exercised because a strange gentleman has come in by the 8.30 train, and is demanding that some vehicle should forthwith be prepared to convey himself and his servant to the residence of Sir Percival LakePelham.

He is a fine, upright gentleman, of

commanding presence and imperious manner. He is already dressed, beneath his overcoat, for the grand ball oi. which the Widow Boothby has heard; and, although he Is not attired in full regimentals, but in quiet black,

I she conjectures that he is one of the "millingtary gents," temporarily quartered at the county town, fifteen miles away, because the servant salutes in I soldier-like fashion when speaking:, and

calls him the Colonel. That his re-1 quest to be conveyed to Pelham Hall should be refused is not to be thought of. That it should be complied with is for the present impossible, since the Widow Boothby's male factotum, who combines in his own person the post of ostler, occasional barman, and farmlaborer, has not returned from market; nor is he expected to do so for at least another hour.

The Widow Boothby is the proud possessor of an equipage which she calls a "shandrydan," and which resembles a square box mounted on wheels; also of a broken-kneed horse, whose duties are as various as those of the male factotum who sometimes drives him.

But these possessions cannot be yoked together and sent upon their way until Jim —called for the nonce "the ostler" —comes back from market; while it is more than probable that on such a wild night a laudable ambition to "keep out the cold" will incite him to later indulgence than usual in bibulous conviviality, insomuch that he will be as unfitted for the office of Phaeton as was his illustrious prototype. All this the widow volubly explains, with many apologetic curtseys, and the Colonel solves the difficulty in a curt sentence. "Send to the nearest house for another driver; my man can go, if you have no one who can act as messenger. I will pay liberally." "The nearest cottage is a mile away, the man is in bed by this time, and he couldn't drive a cow," says the Widow Boothby, wringing her hands. "Is Pelham Hall very far away, or very difficult to find?" asks a voice from the settle which stands out from the farther side of the great old-fash-ioned fire-place." "Straight along the main road, about two miles and a half, till you get to the lodge-gates; then straight up the avenue," answers the widow. "'Tis easy enough to find, only the night is pitch dark." "I should be glad of a chance to earn I am equal to the task of harnessing the horse to the standrydan, and acting as charioteer." It is a quiet and cultivated voice, very mellow and musical, evidently that of a man of education._

"Who are you?" asks the Colonel abruptly. "My name is Philip Arkwright," says the first speaker, after slight hesitation. "I am a doctor of medicine; but I am very poor." He says it quite simply, without effort, apparently without shame. He had risen from the settle upon which he had been stretched, and the flickering firelight falls full upon him, revealing how threadbare and worn are his black frock coat and grey trousers. "You can have the job; but be quick about it," says the Colonel contemptuously. "My fellow will help you to harness the horse."

With a faint flush upon his pale cheeks, Philip Arkwright turns to the landlady, asking for a lantern; and in a few seconds the Colonel is seated upon the settle he has vacated, gazing gloomily into the fire. "Poor beggar!" he mutters, with a kind of scornful compassion, as a sudden gust of wind drives the hailstones smartly against the lozenge-shaped window-panes; and with that he

ceases to think of the volunteer, coachman who is glad to earn a couple of pounds by getting wet through on such a night. The shandrydan is at the door, and the Colonel, summoned by the obsequious widow, conveys himself and his meditations to the box-like Interior. Upon the driving-seat there is barely space enough to accommodate his servant and the volunteer coachman; and the driving hail, beating in their faces almost as smartly as pellets of stone, renders the position a very trying one; but, although there is ample room for half a dozen folk within, it does not even occur to the Colonel that he might offer his man shelter from the storm.

Miss Lake-Pelham has filled up and walked through the first of her "dutydances," and the second Is at hand. With philosophical resignation, she haa accepted the absence of him to whom she would have like to accord them. It is with a quick start of pleasure that, at the sound of her father's "Lilith," she turns and sees by whom he is accompanied. "Better late than never, Colonel Hatherleigh." "Better never than late, Miss LakePelham, if your programme is filled; as is, of course, the case." "Quite filled—except a few blanks I insisted on reserving for dutydances." "The first of which I shall take the liberty of appropriating. Why, it is the very set they are now arranging! Pray do not refuse me." "Is it a petition or a command?" asks the young lady haughtily, for the Colonel's tone is masterful withal. But she rises as she speaks, and lays her hand on his proffered arm. A proud and happy man is Colonel F.atherleigh—proud and happy, possibly, with the kind of pride which is said to go before a fall. That possibility does not occur to him. He is forgetting the prudence which bade him keep from this ball; forgetting the reputation this childCirce has acquired as a sorceress who is invulnerably heartless, and whose existence is devoted to the task of winning the mad love on one man after another and flinging it away. "It was only at the last moment I found I could get away," he explains, between the steps of the quadrille. "I jumped into the train, and was spirited, comfortably enough, to the nearest station; but there my troubles began. I should at this moment be drowning my sorrows in a flowing bowl at a farmhouse called Railway Inn, but for the good offices of the rural "Dr. Netherby! Did he bring you?"

"No, the name was not Netherby. A shabby genteel Individual, out at elbows and out at knees, who said that he was a doctor of medicine, but that

the fee I offered him tempted him—poor beggar! to turn ostler and coachman for the nonce. There was not a driver to he found for lore or money."

"Quite a romance!" "Of which the second volume is just beginning," says the Colonel ardently. "How will the third end?" "Do not all, romances end alike?" asks Miss Lake-Pelham; and the grey eyes look straight into his, so innocently, so artlessly, that he cannot but think what a child she is, in spite of her twenty-one years.

"In fiction —yes. In real life —no. Not so often, I fear, orange-wreaths and wedding-bells, as aching hearts and stifled misery."

"I am wondering whether you have broken many hearts," says the girl.

"That is not in my line," he answers complacently. "I am a soldier, not a lady-killer. Indeed, I have found sufficient occupation in repelling the attacks of my fair foes, without carrying the war into the enemy's country." "Because you are an unexceptionable parti," says Miss Lake-Pelham naively. "Because you are young very young for a Colonel —and brave and handsome, of good family, and rich, and because you will some day be a lord, will you not?" "I suppose so," he answers smilingly, exonerating her in his heart from a vague suspicion he once entertained that these considerations might influence her graciousness also, like that of other women." Why should she encourage and man, however brilliant his prospects, however high his position, except one she could truly love? Was she not a Baronet's daughter and the mistress of undoubted wealth? "These things have little weight with you," he continues. "You are not like other girls."

"No," she replies hastily. "Your penetration, is not at fault, Colonel Hatherleigh. I am not like other girls." The quadrille is over; they are slowly promenading the room. Will he lead her into the conservatory? That is the question she is asking herself. Once there, in his present mood, in the

dim light and the comparative privacy, among the rich, warm perfume of rare exotics, the victory will be as good as won, the triumph she has coveted will assuredly be achieved. Once or twice it seemed within her power, she had almost relented; but that last speech—"you are not like other girls," has

hardened and decided her. There will

j be no relenting now. j "I believe you like me for myself alone," he says musingly. She stops short, a frown of haughty

displeasure upon her fair young brow. ( "I am not aware, Colonel Hatherleigh, that I have ever afforded you | the slightest ground for such a supposition. Thanks; lam tired; you may leave me • here."

Withdrawing her fingers from his I sleeve, she bows slightly in token of dismissal; but her companion, in his consternation, is not to be shaken off. I "What have I said?" he cries. "I beg your pardon most heartily. Pray .1 give me an opportunity to explain, to | apologise! There are some charming--1 ly contrived seats here." | They are moving on again, and she knows that the game is won. Agitated and in earnest, he has no chance against the skilled player who, young as she is, has for four years rejoiced to pit her strength against that of doughtier champions than he. They have reached the conservatory; they stand in the dim light, halting where long tropical grasses shut them in, while at their feet, beyond drooping ferns, a fountain plashes musically. "It was presumptuous to assume that you like me; but the wish was father to the thought," he whispers, gazing fcndly at that slight figure by his side. "Even if it were so, liking would not content me; I want your love. Miss Lake-Pelham, will you be my wife?" "No," answers the girl very simply and decidedly, without a blush or a sign of embarrassment, but looking him full in the face with those great fathomless eyes of hers. If ever Colonel Hatherleigh flattered himself that he had been able to inspire the slightest tenderness, he is at this moment woefully undeceived. "You love another!" he cries, with a pang of sharp and bitter jealousy; and her laugh answers him, those low, liquid notes which Sir Percival wondered could be so musical yet so chilling.

"I have never loved but one human being. As you justly remarked not long ago, I am not like other girls." i "And that being?" "Was my mother. A waltz is commencing, and my partner will be hunting for me in vain. Let us both forget the conversation of the last few minutes, and go back to the ball-room." Without waiting for assent, she turns away, and he has no alternative but to follow. As they reach the threshold, they perceive that there is a tumult In one corner; and, with one or two discordant shrieks, the music stops suddenly. "Is it fire?" asks somebody. "No," replies another. "Sir Percival has fallen down in a fit." (To be continued.)