LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1838, 13 January 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A QUEEN OP TRUMPS

Chapter I.

I hope I shall not forfeit the good opinion of any serious-minded reader by admitting that I was, a few years ago, walking along the High street of Durnford in company with the clown of a travelling circus. I don’t know that I have any excu e to make for it except that the clown was himself the most serious minded man whom I ever knew. His very name, to my ears, has a serious twang—it was Danvers. His face, when washed of its painted grin, might have been a Bishop’s ; outside the ring he seldom spoke, he never made a joke, and 1 never saw him smile. He was contented enough in the station of life to which he had been called, and never even suggested that in his person the Hamlet of the ago was hidden under a bushel J but natnre, as if to make a joke of her own, had teemed to overwhelm this man with an almost excessive sense of the dignity and responsibility of buffoonery■

Nevertheless, I do not mention Mr Joseph Danvers as, in this respect, at all an exceptional or even unusual character. I only wish (o impress on the reader how unlikely it is that such a man should have invented a romance, or repeated one, knowing it to be untrne. Indeed, anybody more destitute of the faculty of invention I never knew — even his jokes made in the ring, when not of the practical sort, were invariably second hand.

I was a stranger in the town myself, and was struck at first sight, while I was drinking a glass of beer at ore end of the bar of the Blue Dragon and he at the other, with a phyeiogomy which singled him out as the one man of men fit to sit for the great Lord Burleigh in a historical picture I was then painting. I had no difficulty in miking his acquaintance at the cost of a sixpence, and so it happened that we walked that serious High street in company. Presently a handsome open carriage, drawn by a pair of splendid chestnuts, stopped at a draper’s. Mr Danvers suddenly stopped in the middle of the pavement, lifted his hat and bowed so profoundly that I thought ho was going to show me with what gravity and solemnity a somersault is capable of being performed. A lady sat alone in the carriage, and she surprised me a little by returning this exaggerated salute with a sweet and friendly smile. I should have taken her for a countess, at least ; and one does not expsot in places of such strict propriety as Durnford, to see countesses greet circus clowns like old friends. In my blind masculine way, which invariably passes over more to less important points in noticing a woman, I failed to observe how she waa dressed, beyond getting a general impression that it was quietly and elegantly. It was her face and her smile that struck me ; the face beautiful bright and eager ; the smile gracious, calm and happy. It was impossible to think of her as having ever known sorrow, or even trouble, though she must have been, probably, well on the way toward forty. Her dark gray eyes could never have had any tears in them, save snch as are pleasant to feel

But I was more surprised when she beckoned to Mr Danvers, and took his arm to help her leave the carriage. I thought, indeed, that her light and graceful figure leaned upon my new acquaintance a great deal more closely and heavily than was needful or reasonable—but I wronged her. As soon as sbe reached the pavement and began to walk, still leaning on his arm, I saw that she was lame.

For a minute, perhaps, they stood talking, while 1 tried to find a way of introducing her also into my picture, as the best foil to my Lord Burleigh that I could ever expect to find. Then he threatened her with another somersault, she went into the shop, and wo walked on. * Who is that ?’ asked L * That ’ said he, ‘is the Queen of Tramps.’ ‘ The Queen of Trumps.’ ‘Yes; whether they’re Hearts, Spades, Clubs, or Diamonds—particularly Hearts and Diamonds. That’s she.’

‘ Ah,’ said I, a little disappointed; * I thought she looked rather out of the common. So that’s how she keeps her carriage and pair, eh ?’ ‘ Yes, sir, that’s how.’

I began to think I had lighted upon rather remarkable company, considering that I was in a straight-laced country town, and made a resolution that if Mr Danvers proposed a hand of eoarte for pastime I would refuse. However, I only said :

‘ It’s a pity that a pretty woman like that should be lame. Has she broken her leg as well as the bank ? ’

l On the contrary, Sir; it’s not a pity at all. It might have been her neck, Mr Grey.’ ‘ How did it happen ? ’ ‘ Well, Sir, I’ve only two objections to telling yon. One is that talking is dry work, and another it that you won’t believe it when it’s told.’

‘ The first objection is easily got over. As to the second, Mr Danvers, I conld not look at you and doubt the truth of anything yon please to tell me.’ I fancied, for the first time, that I saw a twinkle in one of his eyes. Conld it be that he thought along story was a good tap to get liquor out of a greenhorn? If so, all the better sitter would he prove for a diplomatist and statesman. The upshot waa that he gained his point, and that I am enabled tell how and why the Queen of Trumps is lame. At any rate, my readers may believe me, seeing that I, at least, have nothing to gain by telling them what is not absolutely true. If I am asked how it was that Mr Danvers came to be acquainted with all its details, I can only answer that I don’t know.

Late one night Mr Raymond’s house, near Dnrnford, was startled by a loud clatter of the front door bell.

The house was called Lanoeham, and stood in a large park, about five miles frcm town. Mr Raymond was an elderly widower of high standing in the county. His family consisted, beside the servants, of an unmarried sister and an only son —a young man of three and twenty. It was nearly eleven—that is to say, nearly bedtime—when the bell rang, and Mr Raymond was sitting by himself in the library, half dozing and half reading. Who could it porsibly be at such an hour ? The servants had already gone up stairs, and Mr Raymond, preferring to face a burglar’s stratagem in person, went to the door himself, finding his son already in the hall. He undid all the fastenings but the chain, and found himself face to face with a tall, moustached person, wrapped up in a long furred and hooded cloau, and with sallow cheeks, a long, hooked nose, and large black eyes. ‘ I have met with a terrible accident!’ he ssid, not waiting to. be spoken to, with a foreign accent, tint in good English. ‘I came to the first house I find, in the name of charity, lam Pdnoe Neranski. I drive my niece. Princess Helena, in a trap—a carriage. We travel in England, Princess Helena and I. The night is dark; the horse bolts—runs. We go into a hedge ; the Princess Helena,’ he clasped his hands in dramatic desperation, ‘lies in a swoon—perhaps she is dead. I cime for help. What are we to do ?’

Mr Richmond looked at the stranger with natural suspicion. It seemed edd that a foreign Prince and Princess should be driving about at midnight, and get overturned then and there; and whatever looked odd looked suspicions round about Durnford. But still, a Prince and B incess cannot, of course, be expected .to behave like ordinary mortals. So, wavering between conflicting chains of reasoning, he said nothing. But Frank Raymond had no suspicion. There was a young Princess that is to say, a young woman —he felt unre she must be young —lying halt or quite killed under a carriage in the middle of the road, all alone and—<DoP’ he exclaimed at once. 1 Why, I’ll get rut the pony carriage in half a minute, and —’ • Wait a bit 1’ said his Ether, ‘that’s all very well; hut what then ?’ ■Monsieur,’ said tbe Prince, ‘you are a noble young man. And, Monsieur,’ he said to Mr Raymond, ‘ here Is my card the Prince Michael Neranski. Gentlemen, Monsieur, when they meet know one another My nieoe is in danger, Monsieur.’ Before the simple dignity of the stranger, Mr Raymond’s doubts melted away. Of course, it takes a gentleman to know a gentleman, and in su 'h a matter pride demanded that the Prince’s perception should not be allowed to be more keen than his own, ‘Of course, of coarse, ’ he said. ‘ Ves, Frank, go and look after the young lady, and do all that need be dona. I’ll ring np some of the servants, and stay np till yon come back again ’ Frank Raymond had out the pony carriage without help, and guided by the Prince, who sat silently wringing his Hands, found the overturned carriage close to a aide entrance of the park, not three minutes’ drive from the stable. He leaped down, and there, sure enough, he found a young and beautiful girl lying iu a dead swoon. Even so, and while her eyes were closed in temporary death, he thought her the most beautiful girl he had ever seen —and he might fairly have thought the same even had his experience been much less limited. She seemed to be no more than about seventeen or eighteen, with a figure of singular grace; she even seemed to have been overturned gracefully. She was fair, and with features so delicate in form as to be independent of tbe now absent color and expression to make them lovely. He raised her gently and tenderly in arms that would not have found six times her fairy like weight hard to carry, and laid her in the carriage. Suddenly she opened her eyes and moaned slightly. Those eyes went through him—the moan sank into him.

‘Ah, she lives,’cried the Prince, ‘ Heaven be praised I ’ ‘ W here are you hurt ? * asked Frank, ‘Do you feel pain ? ’ ‘ What has happened ? ' she asked in a voice worthy of the eyes, and even a purer accent than her uncle. •My ankle—l am in pain there; I am in pain everywhere.' ‘ We must take her to the house at once,' said Frank, taking full advantage of the discretion his father had given him. *My aunt will see to her till a doctor comes. You must be our guests to-rdght, I am afraid—that is to say I am glad that —’ ‘ How can I thank you enough ? ’ said the Prince, seizing Frank by the hand, ‘But alas ! I fear I must refuse. It is of importance that we reach Durnford to night, and Dover to morrow, and, Monsieur, I must be frank with you. It is on public affairs that I am in England, and delay is impossib’e, simply Impossible. Ah, you know not in England what are public affairs.’ But by this time they were at the house, though Frank had led the pony with the utmost care over the smoothest turf, so that the girl might suffer no avoidable pain. Brought into the lighted hall, they could aeo at onoo that she was a foreign lady—that is to say, she was not an English one ; for in spite of her beauty and her dress, there was an air about her, even as she lay speechless and passive, that does not belong to English drawingrooms, though nobody could have told wherein it lay. Chapter 11. Happily no hones were broken ; indeed, indeed, the surgeon could discover no signs of any serious external injury. Bat the next morning, when she triea to rise, she complained of such excruciating pain in her ankle that she was obliged to give up the attempt, and soon afterward snch intense headache came on as to make her wander in her mind, so that the surgeon began to fear serious injury to the brain. To move her for the present was absolutely out of the question for anybody of ordinary hospitality who had a room in his house to spare. Miss Baymond dearly loved a sick bed, and to nurse a Princess was scarcely even a strain upon her good nature. {To he continued,')