A Millionaire's Marriage.

Evening Post, Volume LIV, Issue 152, 24 December 1897, Page 4 (Supplement)

A Millionaire's Marriage.

The Lusitania was nearly at Naples. She had had a splendid run from Bombay. Ten days more and she would be in England. Tom Deighton quickened his steps for joy. Ten days ! Eight years since he left the Old Country, somewhat down on his luck ; for a moderate degree, chambers in Lincoln's Inn, a turn for reviewing, a readiness to devil for anybody, an uncle who was a judge, and a whole row of cousins at the Bar had all availed him nothing. A brief worth mentioning had never come his way ; in fact, the law, unless he broke it, seemed determined to have nothing to do with him. To make things worse, his father, % retired old Indian, took it into his head to go and live at Bath ; it made Tom shudder to think of it; his elder brother, who managed to get most of the good luck of the family, married a heiress,- went into Parliament, and took a dull house in Eatonplace, so that there was no longer a home to serve as head-quarters for such members of the family as were unattached elsewhere, or not in a position to start bachelor establishments for themselves. On the evening of Adrian's wedding Harry had announced that he intended to go and settle in a Devonshire village on the south coast and start a trout farm; he had heard of a fellow doing it somewhere else, and thought he should like it. Jim, the youngest member of the family, was already under orders for India ; and Julia, the only sister, had been married to a country parson for more than a year.^ Tom, poor old Tom, with his easy-going ways, and tall, eomewhat ga^unt figure, was the worst off of them all. He had a few hundreds of his own; he could have, had an allowance, but refused it, from his father; he had patience, a keen eye for a long distance, metaphorically as well as literary, and hankerings after an outdoor life and new experiences. Just to gain time he gave up his chambers in Lincoln's Inn — to keep them was only paying rent for nothing;, since he had made up his mind that the Bar was no good— and took rooms in Jermyn-street. He found them stuffy, and hated them ; opened the doors and windows, while he wrote an article on 'The Cut and Dried Professions,' and caught a cold that was nearly the death of him. Aunt Sarah, a spinster if you please, who lived at Kensington, in a flat on the fifth floor of a building that was guiltiest of lifts and had the dreariest staircase yet invented, turned up, and insisted on carrying him off to Upper Bedford Gardens, which was the address of her barrack. There, after the first real illness of his life, he was nursed back to health ; and there he met Violet Peyton, and fell in love with .her. Of course he did, he was just in the humour for it, his family scattered, his prospects deplorable, bis health nothing to boast of, his time at his own disposal— it was only natural that he should add this climax to his condition. Miss Peyton lived in the flat beneath Aunt Sarah's with her widowed mother, who was impecunious, but gave the impression of being highly respectable by means of an Honourable prefixed to her name, and the obviously untrained man servant of tender years who showed her visitors into the Japanese-screened and art needleworked drawing-room. The Peytons were old friends of Aunt Sarah's— that accounted for the neighbouring — so they foregathered in the evening, talked of people they remembered in a manner that impressed Tom with the lack of discrimination they must have shown in choosing their acquaintance, and played bezique with an ardour worthy of a higher stake than any they were known to lay on it. Tom, lying on a sofa after a fortnight in bed, aud then sitting propped up in an easy chair, had long ttte-a-t&tes with Violet. Twenty, and shy, blue-eyed and fairhaired— appealing blue eyes and soft fluffy hair— a pretty touch on the piano, a knack of making artistic rubbish with her needle, and a readiness to be advised, instructed, and taken oare of that was quite pathetic to Tom, wholly acoustomed to that sort of thing, and little deserving of it— how could he help falling in love ! Common gratitude alone demanded it. They had a glorious spring— with walks in Kensington Gardens, lingerings in the twilight, drives to Richmond, a week at Hastings, with its picturesque black wooden houses at one end, and wishing-well atFairlight— duly chaperoned of course, whenever the manner and customs of what we are pleased to consider Society demanded it. All this was contrived by Aunt Sarah, who loved a bit of match-making better than her chance of heaven, which, by the way, was excellent, though little considered by her. When the summer came, Mrs. Peyton, to avoid the Beaßon, from which she hated to hold aloof but had no funds to face, announced her intention of going to her broth( r inlaw's place in Cheshire, and shut up her flat till October. This brought things to a climax. Tom found that he could not live in England-r-it was too stuffy, even in the country, and, furthermore, that he could not live without Violet any more than he could marry without an income. Violet was attached to her native land, if she extended so strong a feeling to any part at all of tho green earth ; but felt that her heart would break if she were not allowed to marry, or, a*t any rate, to become engaged tp Tom. This being so, with some tears, pleasant, sentimental tears, and many caresses from their elders, they .were allowed to consider themselves betrothed, and for a fortnight there was an atmosphere of joy and congratulation. Then, to the consternation of Violet, and the astonishment of her graceful, emaciated -looking mother, and his gushing but most kindly maiden aunt, Tom announced his intention of going to New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia—anywhere it seemed .that was far away, and where space was abundant, and the chance of mkinp a fortune out of doors not impossible. He -explained it all to Violet in the twilight in Kensington Gardens. 1 You see, my darling,' he said, ' the prospects of landed property or money in the funds belong to other directions in our family. Besides, I don't care about a chap who sits beneath a tree on the chance of the fruit falling into his mouth. Another thing is, I want to live find work and breathe all at the same time. Do you understand, my sweet P •> 'Yes, Tom, dear,' she whispered; but of course she didn't. ' It's a splendid world, you know, if you use it properly.' She only nodded this time, for she felt that he was becoming too difficult to follow. ' I want to see as much of it as I can, to do things in it, stride about it, dig, and measure, and plant, and put by the result for my little girl to buy all sorts of things with by and by.' This was tangible, and she understood it well enough. ' I should like to go out and prospect generally for a year or two. Wo have no chance of getting married hero, so it would not be losing time, and when I have found a decent place and built a shanty we could live in, I wouM send for you, or come and fetch you. ' ' Yes,' and she nestled closer, like a bird in a nest he thought as he kissed her fluffy head and blessed the twilight. 'Don't you think it would be jolly to live out there, with plenty of air to breathe aud room to move about in, and not a soul,

perhaps, within a hundred miles— just our two selves ; all the world to each other P Bless you, you little darling, I should love you even more than I do now. 1 1 Tom, how should we manage if we were so far away — in a shanty, I mtianP We should have no furniture, and no servants, and I should be so afraid of being left alone.' There was a little fright in tho blue eyes that looked up at him ; it amused him. ' I suppose we should manage somehow— people do, you know ; but if I find it's too rough a life, you must give me five years and wait. I'll come back a rich man somehow, and we'll stay in England, in the country, buy a place, and live on it, that's what a freeborn son of the world should do,' he laughed ; 'not rent a patch of ground with a grimcrack house built on it, or live in a stifling city.' ' I like living in London, ' she said. ' You can't think how dull it is in Cheshire. Ido wish mother wouldn't go— but the country is lovely with you,' and she kissed his shoulder. ' Everywhere is lovely with you. But I can't live five years with you a long way off. I Bhould break my heart,' she sobbed, and he held her closer and loved her for it, and kissed her faster. ' Besides, I shall be so old then ; it's so nice to be young.' Those piteous words rang in Tom's ears many a time when he was thousands of miles away. 'Young!' he echoed, 'why, you are only a baby now, my darling. You will be young these fifteen years, and young all your life to me, if you live to be ninety. Wait, my sweetheart, and trust me ; five years wjll soon pass; perhaps it may be three ; or it may be mbre than five, but just you wait and trust me ; promise you willput your arms round my neck and say, " I promise, Tom," and leave the rest to me.' Two months later he was on the other side of the world with the promise still fresh in his ears, and in -his heart the remembrance of her tears and kisses. He prospered ; he had made up his mind to do so ; he was young and strong and steady ; he had brains and a little money, a real liking for adventure and hard work, though he took the last with so leisurely an air, that it seemed as if the work did itself, while he loafed round. But even so events did not march quickly ; at the end of three years he was little richer than when he had started ; but he had experience and knowledge to the good, and thorough enjoyment of his surroundings to give him courage. Letters from Violet came as regularly as possible, she was all right and constant; but it never occurred to him that she would be anything else. She had evidently learnt to bear his absence with patience. 'Dear little girl,' he said to himself, as he became convinced of this, ' I knew she was a brick.' Perhaps he had enjoyed her im- ■ patience, certainly he lingered over the remembrance of her tears rather than of her smiles; but this was only natural. Any way he felt that he had no occasion to worry about things in England, and since sheep-farming in Auckland had only given him a certainty for the rest of his life, but not precisely a fortune, he told himself, it was just as well to do things properly while one was about it ; and Belling- his interests to advantage, departed for Melbourne. He delighted in his life, the freedom of it, the absence of ties ; even marriage seemed only a glorious dream it would be a pity to begin too soon. Out there he had no belongings to hamper 1 him, no luggage he ' oould not put into a canvas bag, no furniture he could not dispose of over a drink to a new-comer. * • • • • The five years had passed, but Violet was evidently in no hurry; neither was he. They were certain to be together in the long run. What was the good of rushing it ? He would make a real pile, and then go home, and his little girl should spend it.. It was just before the Australian boom of a few years since. Tom was in the nick of time for it. At the end of three years more he was a millionaire. A great home-sickness had taken possession of him. He longed to see England as he had never longed to ccc any one or any thing in his whole life. And Violet — dear little girl ! — she should cry for joy this time, and he would buy her anything her heart could desire. Money! It had gone over, bit by bit, to his bankers, so that he hardly knew what he possessed— only that he had kept his word, and made a fortune. He wrote her a letter — short, for he had felt, somehow, that details either did not interest her, or were beyond her girlish oomprehenion. 'She understands what I mean when I Bay I love her,' he thought to himself; and in his letter he said it with all his heart. Then he took his passage. 11. Tom Deighton was the gayest passenger on board — and the handsomest, some of the women thought, as they looked at him, tall and sunburnt, with happiness writ large in his honest eyes. He "was thin still, even gaunt. 'But I like it,' a lively girl, who had come on board at Bombay, declared. ' I can't bear fat men ; they are so selfish. A man's first duty is to be a broomstick.' People didn't know of his wealth ; but a little married woman with whom he sat on deck in the moonlight, got out of him the whole story of his engagement, and told it in confidence to every one else. « Well,' said the girl from India, ' I am sorry lam not his young woman. Being out in the backwoods has given him a touoh of simplicity that I should say he hadn't when he left civilisation, and I think he's just adorable.' She tried to make Tom sensible of her opinion, but he had no heart for any woman save Violet. Truth" to tell, he was not muoh of a lady's man, and if he had not been an engaged one, would have troubled himself little enough about the sex. The world interested him more than its people did individually. '* They were getting near Naples. He had taken hiß passage to London ; but suddenly the happy thought Btruck him— Why not ' chuck ' the boat, and go home overland P ' By George ! it -would be a lark to take the little girl by surprise, and to see London again sooner than I expected.' He laughed as he remembered how he had hated the streets find 'longed 'to get away from them towards the great spaces. Now his heart was so full, as he thought of home, that he could have knelt and kissed its pavement. He thought of the joy of a hansom, of the underground railway — it used to stifle him to walk past a station— of running up the steps of hia club— the one in Piccadilly that is a sore of stepping-stone to the Atheneeum. ' Those fellows will be looking older,' he thought ; ' but I expect I do, too. Violet will, of course.' He stopped, and sat down in full view oi' the Bay — they were getting as near as that. ' Violet will. I wonder why she hasn't sent me a new photograph this last three years. Found 'em expensive, I suppose, and hasn't had any done. I guess she won't find anything expensive presently. She'll never think of the price of anything, once I get back, but just go for it, that's all. I hope her hair is as fluffy as ever, and she hasn't grown any taller, then I don't care.' The girl from India was Btanding near him. They had only spoken occasionally; but she looked up at him now, and something in her face attracted him. ' She's ugly,' he thought, 'but she looks honest, and she's got a good laugh in her, and that's something.' He looked back at her and saw that her eyes— clear grey eyes, that would never let her lips tell a lie, for the shame they would betray— were as full of happiness as his own. ' Half an hour more, Mr. Deighton, 1 she Baid, • and we shall be on shore. I suppose you land here? 1 ' •Not I,' answered Tom. 'I'm booked to London.' 'I wonder you can bear it.' She said meaningly. ♦ Why, what the plague do you know about it?' he asked. ' All about it. Mrs. Margetson told me. You shouldn't tell things to a married i woman, if ybu don't. want them told to her

husband, and slowly circulated all over the ship.' 'Thought a married woman just about as safe as anything feminine well could be.' 'Not if she loves her man,' the girl answered quickly. Tom looked at her again, and thought it possible that she might know something of human nature. 1 sTou needn't mind my knowing,' she went Dn. Til tell you a secret— that no one knows ; I didn't even give a married man my confidence in the moonlight,' she added, with a 'twink,' as ho called it, in her eye. ' I'm in the same boat.' Tom understood perfectly. ' Going home to marry him ?' Sho nodded. ' What did you go out lor, then, in the name of wonder ?' he asked. ' To take a sister; her husband was there, and couldn't oome back for her ; but India agrees with her, and she was breaking her heart at home. She was ill after I got there so I had to stay ' ' Is she all right now ?' ' All right,' eohoed the girl, ' and up in tha hills with Diok, happy enough for six.' « That's a good thing to have done,' Tom answered. 'I twig pretty quiokly you know, and I expect you were a brick. When is your affair coming off P' 'Pretty soon, I expect— when is ycurs?' ' Soon as I can hurry her into a churoh. I say, are you going off here ? ' 'Of course I am ; but I am chaperoned by a good lady who insists on staying a day at Naples, to get rid of the ship's motion, she says. Jt will be quioker than going round by Gibraltar, any way.' ' I shall go off. too— l was a fool to take my passage to London ; fact is, the very name of England was so intoxicating, I don't believe I could have borne to see anything else on the ticket. I'm awfully grateful to you for the tip. We shall meet again.' He gave her a sympathetic nod, and went off to explain matters to the steward. The letters came on board at Naples before anyone had time to leave tho ship. There was a line from his bankers and one from Adrian, asking him to go straight to Eaton-plaoe. Aunt Sarah towol They had not seen Violet lately. She was a good deal taken up with her Cheshire cousins ; but she was in town— at the flat still. ' She'll be a good deal more taken with me soon,' Tom said to himself; ' but why the misohief hasn't she writt«n? ? He passed the girl from India ; Miss Halliday she was called, and her Christian name was Margaret. She waa evidently anxious not to speak. She had a letter in her hand screwed up tightly, and her face was pale and set. ' She seams to have tad some Dad news,' he thought. 'Perhaps her chap is ill or his letter isn't up to the mark.' But he was too busy with his own affairs to trouble about her just then. Two hours later he was in the train. He sent Violet a telegram from the station. ' I won't take her by surprise,' he thought ; ' anticipation is half the fun in this world. I'll just quicken it up a bit for her.' Those two and a half days and nights, in whioh, as fast as expresses oould carry him, he fle w towards home, were the happiest in Tom's life. His thoughts will always go back to them in future years, when he wants to measure any joy that may come to him by the joy that he remembers. It was summer time, and hot; tha carriages wore stuffy and crowded; the stations looked dirty ; the distances trivial when he thought of those he had left. He failed to find a sleeping-car ; but what did it matter to him, who had slept many a night on tho j hard ground, with nothing between his face and the stars ? Nothing in the world mattered save the slow rate at which even the fastest train seemed to go and the time that was wasted at the stations. ' I expect that in these little countries they have more time than space, and so can afford to waste some ; out there, if we hadn't hurried we should never have got over the ground at all, so we just had to make the most of every moment,' he' explained to a fellowpassenger, who thought him a lunatic. He Bent his luggage on to Eaton-place, all but some gold bangles, made in the shape of gaping serpents, that he had bought during the hour he spent ashore at Bombay. He went to the club just to get I tubbed down, as he expressed it ; then took a hansom to Kensington. She waa all right, Adrian's letter had told him that, and expecting' him ; had he not wired from every possible place— from Dover last of all? He fled up the dreary highway two stairs at a time, and knocked at the door of the flat. The servant, not the boy he remembered, but an older more important one, came to the door. Why didn't she come herself ? he wondered —no one else was likely to knook with the impatience that he did. A moment later he was shown into the drawing-room. Mrs. Peyton was there working. ' Same old curtains of drab and green,' he said to himself as he nuhed forward. ' Where's the little girl ? ' he aaked, as he grasped her hands till her lean finger* ached. She looked older and a little harder than I formerly. He half bent to kiss her, but drew back; he felt that she might dislike it. 'My dear Tom,' she said — and he, from Australia, noticed the cultured tone of her voice—' Violet will not be in town till tomorrow. She meant to write — and I did ; but it* has been too difficult.' ' Too difficult ! Why the mischief should it be too difficult ?' His heart sank, though as yet he knew no reason. ' My dear, you have left her too long.' •Too long!' ' She was faithful to you for years, so that you mutt forgive her — she meant to marry you, to wait for you, but the fact ifl her cousin, Lorimer has been devoted to her ' ' Lorimer ? What, Cyril— come into th,e title, has he ?* ' His father died last March.' Mrs. Peyton gave a little gulp. 'We were there, and he was lonely and miserable. Violet never felt sure how long you would stay away,' she added gently ; ' the years seemed to go by so easily with you, and he was so devoted to her.' ' Why didn't ahe tell me ?' he managed to ask. The room swam round ; he thought of his thousands and thousands at the bank, and longed to go and sweep them out into the street. • She didn't know till your telegram came from Naples how* difficult matters had become ; that clinched them.' ' Where is she now ?' ' She has gone out with Lorimer.* • She is in town then. Afraid to faceme?' 'I fear she was,' Mrs. Peyton said gently, and put her hand on his. 'Tell her it'll be all right,' he said, luakily ; ' but I should like to see her. I'll come to • morrow, about four ; that's fashionable calling time in England still, 1 suppose,' he added, with the ghost of a laugh. 'I shaVt make any fuss; she shall have her own way ; but I should like to see her.' • He never knew how that day passed; it was a blank in his history. He walked long miles and sat long hours thinking, and stopped to watch eagerly things in which he took no interest. He thought of the stars in the sky one night in Auckland seven years ago, when he had slept beneath them, and vowed before he dropped off that he would take her hone a lot of money : he had brought it, and it was useless. He saw her the next day. Her face had grown, a little hard too. ' She was so young when he went away, 1 the pleaded, ' she had hardly known what she was j doing.' , ' Of course you didn't,' he said gently. The appealing look had gone from her eyes, the flufflness of her hair looked as if it came of irons or pins, or some other contrivance that wai not natufe's. 'You won't be very unhappy, Tom?' Bhe asked. ' It's all right. Look here, wear these ; they'll do for a wedding gift,' aud he threw the golden serpents into her lop. '

' Oh, how lovely ! Are you very rich, Tom?' He had told her little about his wealth in his letters. 'Oh yes, I'm rich, you bet,' he answered shortly ; ' but it's nothing to you now. It's my fault,' he added generously. 'I oughtn't to have left you so long — be happy.' He wrung her hand and left her. ' That's over,' ho said, as he went down the stone staircase for the last time in his life. A hansom was passing; he stopped it. ' I'll go and get a big portmanteau at the stores,' he said to himself. Just inside the stores he saw the girl from India. Her face waa pale still ; she looked as if she had been weeping. He went up to her. 'is anything the matter?' he asked, ' you look pretty bad.' • Everything is the matter,' she answered, without any more greeting. •It's that way with me,' he answered ruefully. They stood looking at each other for a moment. ' Look here, shall we drive to some quiet spot, aud tell eaoh other all about it ? We know ' ■ • Yes,' she answered simply. They went to the bridge over the Serpentine in the Park, and stood leaning on the parapet: they did not speak a word on tho way to it. •Well?' he said. ' I got a letter breaking it off at Naples.' 'I thought something was up. I saw you, and your faoe told me.' ' What has happened to you ?' ''It's all over ; she is going 1 to marry her cousin, Lord Lorimer. I "think it will please her mother ; it is not the little girl'i fault.' r Did you see her ?' ' Yes— she didn't look the same.* • What are you going to do?,' 'Go back — at least go somewhere. I don't think I want to go to the same places. What shall you do ?' ' I don't know ; get work, of some tort* I have a little money, not much ; but work will be good for me. I mußt find a home of some sort first. I haven't one now my sister's gone.' There was a long silence ; then he looked up. 'I Bay, we are both in the same boat once more.' ' Yes.' She looked at him, and he took comfort in the truthful grey eyes. A desperate remedy suggested itself. ' Look here,' he said, ' why shouldn't we continue it P We have both got through our hottest love affair perhaps ; but something tells me that I like you, you look so straight. I believe I should be happier with you than without you anyway. Perhaps you would not altogether hate me if you tried hard not to. I don't think that lam exactly a scoundrel. I won't be one to you if I can help it. We have both waited for happiness and failed, shall we make a snatch at — well — some sort -of substituta for it without any waiting at all ? I feel as if I know something about you, and I'll tell yon anything you like about myself.' He stopped for a moment, then went on quiokly— 'l won't insult you by talking of money, except by saying that you'll have enough to get alonjj with if you take me. Will you risk it?' He thought of a fluffy head while he spoke, but he looked into the eyes beside him again and took courage. The tears came into them, welled up, and fell over. She buried her faoe in her arms for a moment— they were outstretched on the parapet. Then she raised her head. 'Yes,' she said, with a frightened nod. He pulled her hand through his arm, and they walked away together— into a new world, it seemed to Tom, in which, if there might not be great joy, there would at least be truth and certainty. That was how Tom Deighton the millionaire got married. It took place a week later by special license.— Mas. W. K. Clhtosd, in the Lady's Pictorial.