FICTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 9430, 3 June 1891, Page 3

FICTION.

' HER ONE ROMANCE. It was Mdlle. Seraphine’s fata to have apartments, or really an apartment in a very frowsy house, kept by a very frowsy landlady,' in a very frowsy London suburb. To bo sure alia did not sea much of either house, landlady or suburb. She had her lessons to give. Sho_ taught her native tongue in various educational establishments where young ladies are instructed in the last refinements of civilisation, and where her faded yellow hair (they, thought it'was a wig), and her waterproof and umbrella (a cotton one, these young ladies hilariously particularised), were the cause of much abiding merriment. It is possible that Mdllei Seraphine was quite unconscious of these. graceful ■ little jests. She was a trifle near sighted, and absent minded, too, at times. One rainy night, a night when the wind made Wild clutches at one’s umbrella, and the street-lamps flared, Mdlle. Seraphine came in later and more weary than usual, and met her landlady on the stairs.

“There’s no use,” said that worthy person, whose equanimity seemed to have suffered a most severe shook, “that fellow’s gob to go.” “Is ho no better? Oh!” murmured Mdlle. Seraphine, for though bo wet and tired she could stop to listen to this tale of woe.

“ Oh, yes, he’s hatter! But he's got to go all the same. I can’t keep him no more. I’ve got my own interests to look after. And he ain’t got a penny to pay his lodging with, and I’vo lost three pounds by him already.” “Oh!” murmured Mdlle. Seraphine again. She went to her own little room, where she took out books and the pile of exercises waiting to bo corrected. But she could not Six her mind, and her hearb was heavy within her. She finally rose, and extracting a worn old purse from her little leather trunk, counted over its meagre contents. This much had been laid aside, to hny a new pair of shoes and a heavier cloak against the winter. Bat there were more urgent needs even than her own. Alas! How full the world was of trouble. She wrapped what tho purse contained in an envelope, and then stole across tho hall. At the sick man’s door she paused with a beating heart. It was very hard to do these things. How should she avoid offending? Perhaps he was asleep, and then she could slip the envelope under his hand and leave the room again unnoticed. The door was partly ajar, and she pushed it very softly. But the sick man was not asleep. His eyes were wide open, and seemed twice too large for his wasted face. Tho fever had left him, but he looked so feeble and spent that Mddle. Seraphine’s pity welled up in her eyes in a look so beautiful that it made bar for the moment almost lovely. He was much younger than she, and she felt like a mother to him. As for Stephen Holme, when he understood what she wished to do for him in his weak state, after his long loneliness and hopefulness, it was too much. For a few seconds ho could not speak. “ Mdlle. Seraphine, if ever I get on my feet again—” “Oh, please, please!” she pleaded, clasping her thin little hands softly, in her French way, “do not say anything more. Of course you will he well again soon. But now you must think of nothing but that.” ‘

And then sh 3 hurried away. Youth, and the one ray of sunshine, the one token of human goodwill shining on the darkness and misery that had closed all around him, did their work. And the young man got better, and finally well enough to crawl out of doors and look for other quarters. “’Cause if ho ain’t got no situation, an’ no money cornin’ in, I can’t keep him,” announced Mrs Brady, conclusively. “ There’s other parties that’ll take that room, and sure pay. And I can’t take no risks.”

Mdllo. Seraphine shrank away a little, and flushed faintly over her sallow cheek, as she often did at Mrs Brady’s words. But then she upbraided herself for mentally accusing the landlady of brutality. She was a poor woman, too. Once more she had recourse to another little fund tucked away in a leathern trunk, and this time it was tho last there saved up.

“It is very little. But it may do for the first few weeks, till she added, eagerly, seeing the young man's flush," you get something to do.” “ I can’t take any more from you, Mdlle. Seraphine.” “ You will hurt me,” she said “if you refuse.”

And so he took it. But getting anything to do was hard. And the days passed on. And onee, coining back footsore, and dejected, and faint, for he was not yet strong, to the room where bo now lodged, he met Mdlle Seraphine returning from her lessons.

“ Where is it you live ?” she asked. _ The following day there was a timid knock at the door. She had brought him some copying to do. “ I got it without any trouble,” she said, with her deprecating eagerness, before he could speak; “they thought it was for myself.” After that, one day, while giving her lesson in the house of a French resident, who had married an English lady, and to whose children she had been nursery governess, she heard the son, who happened to be at home, casually remark that his father needed an extra clerk. An idea implanted itself then under Mdlle. Seraphine’a queer little faded yellow curls, and germinated on the morrow. The French gentleman’s office was in the City. Poor little Mdlle. Seraphine entered its precincts with a tremulous spirit and a faltering step. Her whilom employer looked up with a scowl which changed to a good-humoured smilo upon hie recognition of her. He had always liked this .grotesque-looking little Seraphine, and she soon found hearb to state her errand.

“ Well, what sort of references has he, this young j>rotty& of yours ?” he asked at length. “ Oh, I am sura they will bo found of the very best!” cried Mdlle. Seraphine, clasping her hands moat earnestly.' Her fellow-countryman laughed, and looked down at her quizzically. “ It’s evident that they would be if you had the giving of them!” he. cried, with jocose intention. And Mdlle. Seraphine blushed crimson, and was so overwhelmed with confusion that eho turned tho wrong way to go out.

“ This way,” said the gentleman, taking her with playful good nature by the arm.

In the little side office into which she had blundered a young girl sat over a typewriter. She raised her eyes fora second, and Mdlle. Seraphine thought sho had never seen a more lovely face. “ Oh, what a beautiful young girl!” she whisperod, as she Went cut. “Bab how sad she looks !” “ Sho has reason to be, poor child !” said her pilot, sympathetically. “It is one of those reverses *o£ fortune which are much too common. Her father was well-to-do; he died penniless. Tho girls all had to do something.” “Poor creatures!” sighed Mdlle. Seraphine, whose- heart was always bleeding for someone. On the evening before the day when ho waa to begin his duties in his new position, Stephen Holmo asked Mddle to take a walk with him. It was a soft and balmy night, a respite and breathing space, half way between the beginning ami the end of the winter.

They walked into the adjacent square. It was silent and lonely. Stephen was pre-occupied, and said little foe some time. Then, while they strolled slowly, and no one was in sight, ho began tremulously. " Mdlle. Seraphine—” Mdlle. Seraphine looked up and then down with a prophetic emotion which warned her that something never before heard of was going to happen. . “ Mdlle. Seraphine, if I get on, will you marry me ?” Well, as soon as slm could apeak, she urged, upon, him the difference in-their

years, her plainness, the obvious fact that, with his way to make, he must not hamper himself with a wife.

“Perhaps you think it is gratitude only,” Stephen said,gravely. “It is not. You have been, and are, more to me than any one else ever was.” And so they became engaged. And Mdlle. Seraphine, who had always looked older than she really was, : seemed to grow much younger as the winter sped on and the spring weather came. After Stephen Holme had been a month or two with his new employer, he had seen a chance for making an investment which promised good results, and in his talks with Mdlle. Seraphine had lamented his poverty which prevented his taking advantage of it. Mdlle Seraphine had said nothing. But the next day she had gone to the savings bank and out of it drawn all her little hoard, saved up pound by pound, and laid away against sickness, against a rainy day, and brought it to Stephen. It represented all her worldly possessions, and Stephen who had nob dreamed of its existence, refused to touch it. But Mdlle. Seraphine had pleaded bo well, alas! that he had finally allowed himself to be tempted. At first all had promised well. But one evening Stephen had come in looking miserably haggard and white. He said nothing until they sat in their accustomed place by their favourite rendezvous, the water’s edge in the park, and then he broke down, and, crying like a child, told her that the money was all gone; the investment bad proved disastrous.

Then Mdlle. Seraphine had laid her hand on his arm and, forcing him to raise his head, had shown him a face in which there was only pity for him and a perfectly serene smile. What did it matter ? Was it his fault ? she asked. Were they not able to work, both of them ? Was not one there to help the other ? “Seraphine”—Stephen put hia arm about the queer little figure and kissed her —“you are the best woman on eartb.” The summer was now well advanced, and the days and nights succeeded each other in slow and sultry order. Well, Seraphine’s pupils had flown, one and all, for the summer, and she had made her plans for her ten days’ vacation at a farmhouse in Kent, which constituted her one yearly diversion.

Stephen would come down from Saturday until Monday to see her, and what more could one wish ? If she had not been so keenly alive to the sorrows of so many of her fellow-beings, whose wretchedness she saw continually round her, and thinking of whom it seemed almost sinful to be taking ten whole days of idleness and gladness, the world, as she rode down to the City one bright morning to give Stephen some last direction as to trains, or what net—for this expedition was a momentous one would have been to Mdlle. Seraphine more beautiful than any dream.

The head of the firm was away, as were many of his subordinates, but a boy told Mdlle. Seraphine where she would find Stephen Holme. She passed into the office where she had pleaded Stephen’s cause with the head of tho firm that day, and finding it empty, turned towards the other partitioned inclosure where the beautiful girl sat over the type-writer.

But then she stood still. She made no sound. She was only there a moment, yob it seemed like eternity. Stephen was in there, and he stood before the beautiful girl and looked down at her, with such a passion of love and sorrow and renunciation in his face, while she buried hers in her hands, that a veil was torn away before Mdlle. Seraphine, and she read the secret of the last few months, of Stephen’s altered looks, of his troubled eyes, of his increased devotion—devotion which was only loyalty that would not permit itself to swerve, however tempted—as plainly as though it had been written in fiery characters before her/

She turned and passed out again. And neither of these two young people who loved each other had seen her, bo absorbed had they been in their own despair. The gas flared high in Mdlle. Seraphine’s room that night—high and late. And when morning dawned the little room waa dismantled, stripped of its few poor little efforts at grace and prettiness, and the small leathern trunk was packed. Many months ago a letter had come to Mdlle. Seraphine, from a cousin who had gone to Australia, telling her that if she chose to come sho would be able to do well there. Tho pupils bad all paid for their final quarters before leaving town, and Mdlle. Seraphine could go now. She would nob leave any trace behind her. If she did Stephen would feel himself bound to her. That must not be. She looked at herself in the. glass. What! he, so young, so handsome, marry a faded, plain middle-aged woman such aa she was. One who looked so wild and haggard in the gray morning light, with her reddened eyes and her hollow cheeks! No, no! She had only been dreaming. It must never be. By-and-bye, Stephen, who only cared for her because be conld not be ungrateful, would forget and marry the beautiful girl he loved, and he snould be happy. And that is why the passengers on the ship Forest Queen, outward bound to Adelaide, wondered once or twice why the queer-looking little woman with the faded locks of yellow hair looked ao sad and wept so frequently.