Our Novelettes.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1582, 25 March 1887, Page 4

Our Novelettes.

RAE GIFFOKD.

Chapter I.—Continued. Eunice broke off the thread of her reflections at this interesting and important point, on tho entrance of her brother, and tho appearanco of the urn for tea. Christopher Gifford was a gaunt man, with ma'ked features, fine teeth standing apart, and a brusl e 1-up top of light hair, where g'cy oould not be seen. He wore clothes made ftom the wool of his own sheep, spun, woven, cut and stitched at Clouds ; and, in consequence, rather coarse in their toxture, dingy in their mix'uro of purple and brown, and clumsy in their form. But he was not ungentlemanliko. There was a little air of noblesse oblige and cultivation about him ; and he loved study in itself, though bo loved bis own attainments better. •' Rae," Eunice reminded the mistress of the hours "we are waiting for you." And Rae shuffled to the tray. Tho meal, though primitive and a littlo formal, was yet snug and attractive, with its bright copper urn on a genuine tripod, its rose-'eaf china, its country home-made bread and butter, its dish of savoury trout from tho Clouds tr»ut-stream. But there wi*something unsuitable and inimical to the harmony of tho scene in the uncouth, üb-m'-miultd figure at the head of tho table. Eunice would not on any account have sat there j but she sat next Mrs Gifford, and helped her, aid overlooked h«"r performance, with a running fire of —" a little more sugar to Mr Gifford, Rae ; no, not so much cream; allow me to pour out tho water," all the time Eunice was drinking her o*n toa. Mr Gifford had good spirits and waß talkati-e. Uis own family, with one member to sympathize with and reply to him, was quite enough of an audience for him. " I have been looking over the rie,ht-hand book-case, Eunice," he remarked, as a subject

of lively concern. " I think the books had better be shilted. I have all the Roman men there; 'hey arc valuable editions; I should not liko them to suffer, and it is damp at that window. Indeed, I began to do a little ; but I opened Virgil where my old friend was leaviug Carthage, and bore I have just quitted his ship's compaty." " I am aware Virgil is a favourite of yours, Christopher, since you ured to translate him for me. You have not done it this long while." " Wait till the winter nights come," answered Mr Gifford, much gratified: flattered both in his love of consequence and his love of duly. His library was one of his hobbi-s. lie regarded it as beyond improvement, and despised those who w iuld pretend to literature by modern byways and backdoors, without the trouble of Latin grammar and Greek lexicon, or the cost of calf-skin. " I hope we shall not send you to sleep, Rae?" he added. " llave another trout? Ho ? Try the brown bread ?" " No, thank you ; and I never sleep on a chair." " That is scarcely complimentary," retorted her husdand, dryly, but only a little dryly. •' You remember something about .Eneas. Come, tell üb, Rae." Awaiting the information. " He founded a city," suid Rae, briefly. "So he did. So the Romans say ho did," acknowledged Mr Gilford, with a nod of moJifid commendation ; " bu* not Carthage, of course, not Carthage. Anuhiug more? ' " He was blind." " Rut not when he wooed queen Dido." " That would be a shocking anachronism," said Eunice, with a laugh. Aud theu a pause ensued. " I found the silrne quinquevidnera to-day, Christopher," announced bis sister, shortly afterwards. "Ahl did you?" he exhumed, with imprest, putting down his cup; "a sufficient

sptcimen ?" " IVs, I think so ; and I am inclined to maintain, in spi:e of the authorities, thai it is a distinct genus. Sot only are the petals marked, but the styl. 9 differ. I bade Rae I notice it, as it was a good study for her, und she thinks her father used to gather it. " Indeed, 1 wish you could be particular, Rae," he said. " Precision in details is absolutely necessary in botany, and in everything else, if you would have a well-ordered mind," he counselled her. " I c »nnot be sure. I forget the most of the plants; but it struck me that father picked the like when we went to the pond near the upper Grange gate to gel sun-dows," she stated supinely. And Christopher Giflord turned from his wife to discuss floral localities with his sister. Unless, in its supreme patronage, there was no fault to be found with Christopher Gilford's treatment of his wife. He hud been disappointed in her; not that he over-esti-imted the social sacrifices which he hud made tor her, or that they began to gall him. But after being "taken" with Rachael Corbet, according to ttie saying of which Eunice had been thinking, he had reckoned on moulding Rachael to his tastes and habits. He bad talked in a high-flown way to Eunice, who had not agreed with him, but who had not failed him, of employing the retirement which be lo*ed in the fascinating tisk of educating his wi f e up to the standard of feminine learning and acomplishmenta. He had desired her to be a cultivated man's companion, and on a level with Eunice. He had meant to work on the foundation of reading, writing, doing a few accounts, and sowing, which had served for the druggist's girl. But although Eunice aided and abetted him ; although, as Eunice had admitted, there was no incapacity for theory, and the intellectual instrument was there complete in all its parts, either some secrot, vital spring was wanting, or Christopher Gifford's was not the hand which could play on it and draw from it choice melody. Rae Gifford was a submissive wife : she never asked for company, or objected to her entire withdrawal from her former associates (her father and his remaining family had emigrated shortly after her marriage), or rebelled against any of the timehonoured institutions of Linton, including the influence and authority of Miss Gifford; but she was a spiritless creature, whom her very servants ceased to envy. Christopher Gifford did not take his mistake too deeply to heart. He was accountuble to nobody, and in the seclusion of his life few witnessed his failure. Besides, he was too much of a man and a gentleman to visit any chagrin which he felt by harshness and un-

kindneu to Rae ; and the hope of an heir filled him with pride and gentleness. Chaiteh 11. Christopher Gilford returned to his library, and Eunice was in her own room, when she heard the postman's ring, without it being followed by any business letters to her or to Christopher, whose sanctum was next door to hers. Servants were always gotting letters now; she wished they were always profitable letters, Eunice said to herself, mid continued an inventory that she was engaged in, until the blue of the afternoon sky had deepened to its evening purple, and the last cow had lift the paddock for the yard. Then she

went, with her light, swift, assured step, downstairs, and entered the drawing-room ; hut stopped after the first step across the threshold.

Mrs Gifford was there seated in a window seat, catching the last beams of the failing light, with an open letter on her knee. It was not the letter which struck Eunice—for her sister in law, at intervals few and far between, got letters from Australia. It wa9 something that she could not on the instant fix upon, strange in the aspect of the orderly room. The next moment she saw that a chair and foot-stool were pushed out of their places, and the piece of the quilt Rae hnd been poring over whs thrown down on the floor, with the cotton warped backwards and forwards, as if somebody had passed blindly across the room, dragging it from chair to chair.

" Kao, you have dropped your work, and let the cotton get into a tangle : you should have better care of it. The square will not look nice when it, is so often pulled down, or when the thread is broken and joined ; and it is far from nice to work it, when it is soiled." Eunice advanced, after stopping to pick up the work, then sho stood still again and spoke abruptly, " Rae. what is it ? What have you heard ? What has happened ? Eunice, in igncranco of Rae's antecedents, was utterly at a loss to account for the alteration in her sister-in-law. There was a great alteration. Rae sit up, grasping the letter in her hands; her face was a ruddy brown; her eyes —tho j e coll, blue-grey eyes —were bright and glistening, and were looking straight into Eunice's face, piercing it with their intelligence. "Mat Penn has written, Miss Gifford," gasped Rae, going back with a jerk of the body, and a fevoroi step to the old table. " lie never thought to give mc up. He did not pass the first examination, and he could not bear to write that he had lest. Me waited till he had giited. He was always a proud lad." Eunico remained standing, and looking down on hr-r brother's wife without a shade of a blush rrfleeted on the ivory whiteness of her skin. Her mouth, almost straight and thin lipped closed hard, and narrowed to a faint red line. " Why do you tell me this, R<:e ? What do I know of Matthew Penn, except that he served mo onco or twice in your father's shop? He may have written to you not knowing the event that las tak-n place." Eunice turned the back of tho letter without opposition. Sure enough it was addressed, " Rachael Corbet, Joseph Co'ht, Druggi-t, Clouds." " But what is it to you ?" Eunice spoke in a tone of low, cold, wondering remonstrance. She touched Rae on the arm ; and the very touch, though light, fell on the fevered, thrilling flesh, chill, unimpressionable, and unyielding as iron. Rae's fully opened eyes waxed wider, and at the same time a film descended over them, and a moaning quiver ran through her body. " I had forgotten. I had a mind that I could have just risen and gone to bim," she said, in a high-strained key. "I thought it were all as one when I wedded, whether I obeyed father and mother, and took Mr Gifford at his word, or went away across the sea beyond tho reach of Mat's repentance ; but, oh ! I see it is an awful difference."

" I am shocked," Eunice interposed sternly. " But say no more, and I will not mention your foolish words to my brother. I could not repent them to him, and yet you could say them to me ! You must c impose yourself, Kae," —as Mrs Gilford began to rock herself with a feeble, mished, wailing sound —" or else I cannot cor.ceal this exposure. Fou will hurt yourself. Think of your state, think of your child." Rae cried out at that word a short sharp cry, as if Eunice had stabbed her, and fell hick, trembling in every limb, with a horrifieJ, scared expression, blotting out the pain en her faee, and replacing it by other and deeper suffering. Eunice was not easily frightened, but she was frightened now, too frightened to rebuke and protest any more.

After a wliile, when Mm Gilford remained ••till, except for a feeblo effort to draw up her apron, which she was in the habit of mutlling her hands in, to cover her face, Eunice asked whether she would not go to her own room. Taking silence as consent, Eunice puthera'm round Rae—a dead weight on tunico's hands —and assisted her to rise and proceed to the dark, frigid room, with the heavy stuff bed. Eunice helped her to bed, and fa r beside her there till she saw the eves—dull with more than their old despair—the secret they had held petrified at their source—close like lead, and not till thou quitted her. " Poor, impulsive, outrageous woman," Eunice said to herself, as she shut the door softly. "I did not know she had so much in her. Her class generally have but one idea, and they are wretchedly wanting in self-control. She must be guarded now for ad our sakes j though, to give Rae her due, I believe that any inclination to evil lies ia her weakness. I have no reason to suppose that she did not intend to do her duty. That druggist lad—l hope Christopher will never know, it is too humiliating," muttered Eunice, reddening for the first time, as if humiliation were the chief pang, and the GifF>rds of Linton the sole sufferers. " I think she mav not betray herself again ; although she has no self-command, she has little self-asseriion Of course, I shall not allude to wha f . has pass-d to keep it before her mind; I will banish it from my own mind as far as possible. I have heard Matthew Penn was seeking for a government appointment. His name and his destination will be on the list. He does not seem to keep up much communication with Ch.uds; but I shall take care that he shall have one of the file of newspapers whbh Christopher had procured and laid asido on the occ ision of the last marriage at Linton." The next day, to Eunieo's relief, Mrs Gifford wandered into the drawing-room as usua 1 , and began anew—with her half-closed eyes, and her half-apart lips, and a little shiver now and then, as if she felt colder than formerly—like another Sisyphus, to roll her stoies of rows, up her mountain of white crochet cotton-woik. CflAriEß 111. Linton was always a staid, dull place ; but early this Oc'ober morning there wis a stillness about it that was not of life. Death had crossed the threshold with the first nip of frost which turned the green of some of the trees hectic red, and had fixed his bony clutch where it is most felt, on the head of the hou«e: he who has the right and the will to rule, defend, nnd keep together the rest. Christopher Gifford had rusted in hi* cherished leisure, oged before his time, and died in his place by a stroke, as such men arc apt t > die, leaving some to mourn, but few to miss him. The house was lying in the chill, decent repose of a house of death; the very cows were not turned out in the paddock to browse on the Autumn minis, but leaned their broad ne.ks over the hedge, and lowed at the passers-by. The death had taken place the previous night, and as yet no preparations for the funeral broke the arrest of every-day work and animation.

One person betides the servants was stirring. The new-made widow, worn with fatigue and awed by the blow which had fallen, was standing at one of the curtained windows with

her three-years' old ohild in her arms. The window was open by that quarter of an inch which country housemaids consider sufficient for the airing of the room. Every now and then the sharp, fresh wind stirred the long, blank blinn—blank like the eyes of the dead man lying up stairs—and let in a glimpse of the paddock, with the grass whitening, the elms and the lime yellowing, the leaves dropping disconsolately, the very thistles and burdock razeed and brown as they are in October. But the whole was covered with the dense sotting of a thick October dew, glistening as the sun rose higher in the greyveiled blue sky, and was reflected with a ruddy reflection ns of fire from the reddest of the fallen leaves. A longing arose in the widow's heart—impulsive as Eunice had called it, but with all itsJimpulßes, long ice-bound —'o go out with her child and breathe the cold, keen air, and traverse the wasted, frost-touched October paddock. Rao got her ordinary bonnet and her li'tle girl's prim hood, and walked abroad —with small remark from the servants, who hid come to regard her as an "out-of-the-way kind of body," rather beneath their notice—into the watery sunshine, and along by the where webs of spun film were hanging from the dank crimson-tipped leaves, and a robin was singing its solitary song. Rae had no thought of irreverence to the dead. She was an unconventional being, to whom mmners could not be easily taught. And both she and the child wanted air and light, space and freedom, after closo confinement ; for Eae had watched during the last fortnight with little intermission, at Eunice's side, by her husband's pillow. She was mourn ng, too, in a stunned, self-reproachful, simpln way for her husband, from she had never known anything but friendly dictation, and who had cherished much affection for her child.

But as Rae paced along in the sober decline of the year, ard listened to the robin when all the birds were gone, there came pressing upon her a longing for space any freedom. It would be something, in the dearth of all other hopes, to go and come without telling, to speak without being called back, to do with Delia as she would. Rae loitered and clasped her hands aghast at the darirg of the thought, as little Delia crowed in her arms, clutched at the dripping boughs, and stammered out, "Nice walk; wo-a-wo; gee up, mother," treating her mother as her beast of burden, for Rae perceived not that moment that her freedom was within her grasp. " .Miss Gilford has sent me for you and the child," said a servant, advancing, and recalling Mrs Gilford to the house. Rae returned immediately, and met Eunice at the drawing-room door. She was the same neat, exemplary Eunice throughout all her attention at a sick-bed, ending in the baffling mystery of death, with only her eyelids red for her brother, whom she had clung to, her sole hindred, save the child in Rue's arms. " You must stay within doors, Rae, for the present," arid Eunice, with a tone of mild decision which she had always used to her sister-in-law. "If baby frets, Barbara or Hannah can carry her out." Rae obeyed as implicitly as in the days when sho was a wife, and she had even a more frightened look in her face now; while Euuice summoned up composure to meet her brother's lawyer, and to give thought to her own and widow's mourning. The Giffords of Linton had always mourned in deep and long-continued crape, and Eunice contemplated the very child Delia, in a black mantle and black hat, rosette and shoulderknots, till she was well through her childhood.

Rae did not offer an opinion or raise an objection, but those around her, and her sister-in-law among them, who glanced once or twice at her, saw her afterwards sitting stitching at her widow's weeds as she had climbed the mountain of while crochet cotton, only with a pale doubtful light iu her resigned face.

Mr Gifford's will was to the general mind a reasonable will. He left Liuiou, burdened with un inconsiderable annuity to his widow in life-rent, to his sister, to pjss on her death to his only child. Miss Gilford was a very superior woman, getting mature in years and able tor the business intrusted to her. Mrs Gifford was nobody and nothing. ihe public had become apprised of Mr (Jitl'ord's tmlure, quiet as he i.ad kept it Tne wonderfully taking girl, who had been deemed bright and original as she played about the streets of Clouds, and as she walked hi the twilight hours with Matt Poun, the geniub who was raising himself and was going to raise her, had proved hi the sudden lift in lift which h id appeared to realize the aflticipution in another way, a poor-spirited, inapt, incapabie woman. If she was not a beacon to warn vuin, ignorant girls against worldly ambition, she was nothing. Without Miss Gifford, Mrs Gifford and Delia would have been certain to become the prey of designing porsons. Mr Gifford had done well by his household to leave it under the care of his sister.

Miss Gifford accepted the trust willingly; she hud no positive dislike to her sister-in-law, if ut first there had been some natural repugnunce never broadly displayed, existing in the two towards each other. She was fond of Delia and had already taken a great trouble with the child, though her srx—which kept in viow the end of the male line of the Giffords of Linton, who had not done anything except servo themselves in a small way all these years —had been a moutifica'ion to Eunice, only secned to what it had b en to Christopher. It was a greater mortification t> the unworldly pair than Christopher's stooping in his marriage had been to his sister. Eunice would do her duty and preserve the prosperity and credit of the little property of Linton intact, and would train up Delia in the way that she should go, to manage her kingdom after her. It never entered Eunice's head, nor the h*id of anybody connected with the business, that fie a. count would not be required of her; that her pupils would slip out of their bonds, steal a march on her, and leave her -vith her k'i'gdom. Eunice could hardly believe it, when a week after the funeral, without apprising anybody of her intention, Mrs Gifford left on another misty morning, before even the farm people were about, walking and carrying Delia, after having placed a letter on the hall table for Miss Gifford. The letter, in the handwriting which Euuiee had taught the penwoman, and which she could never get her to reform altogether from the slim, slanting, runaway letters to a formed legible hand, said — (To be continued).