CHRISTABEL: A NOVELETTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 5997, 5 February 1881, Page 2

CHRISTABEL: A NOVELETTE.

'. : '. ' BY- MRS. LEITH ADAMS, Author of "Madelon Lemoine," " Winstow," "My ■. ■ Land of Bcnlall." •' Aunt Hepsey's Foundling," ic., &c.

CHAPTER 111. There is no nature all bad,-no heart all stone. With the same jealous exaction, but also with a tenderness she had never given to her husband. Lady Deane loved this only child of her's, this Edgar who was coming home to find that home desolate. Strange, indeed it was how the love that was real leavened the jealousy that formed its other element. She had never cared for her husband in the best sense of the word ; she had never set hishappiuessbefore her as a thing to be longed for, striven for, worked up to ; she had never longed and prayed for power to win and keep his love, as some women long and pray throughout a loveless life—that the world should deem him her slave that was all she cared for; but with her son, her bonnie, handsome boy, it was otherwise. That strange law of retribution that God has woven in with the woof and warp of every man and woman's life, was working with this jealous, loveless life ; was leading her to lay at the feet of another that absolute devotion and passionate idolatry, that has in it, be it given how it may, the germ of inevitable suffering. To win and keep her boy's love— to teach him to look upon her, his mother, as the fount of all the happiness of his young life—to lead him to look upon his father as something that was but an accident of that life—a being that lie and she, mother and sou hand in hand; were to combine against, and to look down upon—this was the unworthy outcome of the love wherewith she loved her only child. It was a poor thing this love; it was only another form of intensest selfishness, but it was real in its way, as those who saw her bending over her boy night and day, as he lay tossing in the burning grasp of a virulent fever, were fain to admit; real in that it seemed in those days to dower her with an endurance that was almost superhuman ; real in that when first they told her that the child would live, she gave a cry of rapture such as few who heard it could ever forget, and fell upon her knees weaping and thanking the Heaven that had given back her idol to her arms even from the very gates of death. If the boy had not had a golden nature he would have been ruined by the utter want of discipline, the unlimited indulgence in which his mother reared him. If any threats of punishment were ever absolutely needful, she made it in the form of probable anger on his father's part, until one day, when the child, fearless and beautiful, smiled in her face and said '' Papa is never angry, and if he was I should not be afraid—l should only be sorry—l love him so very, very much !" The inevitable suffering was that the wages earned by such a love as Lady Dcane's - a love that takes no count of the best- good of the one beloved, but only strives how much love it can hold and grasp for itself—was coming upon her then. And now Edgar, a fine-grown young fellow of that that is neither boyhood nor manhood and yet partakes of both, was hurrying home from a far distant land to find that father whom, as a child, he had loved "so very, very much," laid to rest in the churchyard of the little grey stone church, that you could see from the wooded hill behind Deane Glen.

He came, looking handsomer, his mother thought, than ever ; older too, for the sorrow that had overshadowed his home had added a gravity and given a manliness to him that was lacking before. The tutor who had been Edgar's travelling companion told her that the boy's grief when first he knew that he should" see his father's face no more was terrible to witness. She hated the man as he spoke for telling her this, but she gave her hand to him and thanked him for his kindness to her boy in that time of trial, and lie, like others, thought to himself she bore it beautifully ; in truth, pondering on certain rumours he had heard as to the reasons that induced her to have this idolized sou of her's so much away from home, the tutor came to the conclusion that the death of Sir Anthony was one of those blessings that occasionally come in the disguise of a catastrophe.

How loving, how tender was Edgar Dcane to his mother in these the days of her early widowhood ! How he mourned over that great distance that had separated him from her in that time of unspeakable suffering when he might have sustained and comforted her ! How he questioned her (oh, nameless, unutterable torture !) with exquisite tenderness as to the fearful accident that had happened in the room she never now entered if she could avoid it.

Worse than all, how she used to catch the sound of his voice talking to Daly as that troubled man, with shaking hands, put his new master's things in wrong places, and might as well have been blind for all lie could see of the work he was supposed to be doing. Though all the sentle womanhood within her rose in passionate protest against the dishonour of the thing she did, the miserable woman would steal along the corridor raising her trailing robe in her hand lest its silken rustle should betray her, and leaning by the closed door, with strained ears, and eager, fever-bright eyes, strive to catch a passing word of what was being said. What would become of her if, in some weak moment, Daly told J! s<oung master of those last awful morels uttered by blood-be-dabbled lips, " I could not to live to see my boy learn to hate me ?" What would become of her if the curse with which she had threatened her husband should fall upon her- own head ? What should she do if her own son grew to hate her? How should she live if those dark eyes so like—and yet oh, God ! how unlike to those that had glared upon her full of mad loathIng and hatred—were to look upon her coldly ? If her boy's arms, whose clasp was all the sweetness her barren life now held, should only make themselves felt to put her away from him—what should she do '! As she lay a wakeful woman watching the night grow to dawn, thinking these thoughts, maddened with possibilities that thrust themselves like mocking devilish faces pointed on the darkness close before her sleepless eyes—was not Alice, Lady Deane, drinking of the cup of that inevitable suffering that comes to those whose life is poisoned by a love of self, and self alone ?

As time passed on these fears were lulled to rest. Daly was constantly about the young baronet, his master went abroad with him to a foreign university and elsewhere, and still there was no sign of suspicion, no change in Edgar towards his mother. Lady Deane was almost content; her secret was safe. But it is just when such a secret seems buried away deep down out of sight with the earth of oblivion beat down hard above it, that an awful reproachful face looks up from the grave deemed so secure a hiding-place. Sir Edgar Deane had but just returned to the Glen after a longer absence than usual, when one morning ho knocked at the door of his mother's morning-room, and as he entered at her bidding, she flung herself upon his arm with a stifled cry.

What terrible experience had he passed through, to have so changed him in the space of one twelve hours ? What fearsome sight had his eyes gazed upon to have left that look of dread in their once clear depths ? Why was the hand that closed so convulsively on her's cold as death itself? "Are you ill, Gar?" she said trembling. "I asked Daly why you did not come to breakfast, and he said you had had a disturbed night. I was just coming to your room." He did not seem to heed her words ; hardly to hear them. He had thrown himself upon a couch near the table, and leaning his arms there, thrust his hair back from his brow 1 with both his hands, and so sat looting at her fixedly. '• Mother, was there anything about iny father's death that I did not know ! 0, mother, mother, have you been keeping something back from me all this time ?" The words were so unexpected that they hit her like so many actual blows. She fell back .a pace or two as if some ghostly hand thrust her from her son. "No," she breathed, rather than said. "Thank God," ho said, " that you can say that to me, mother." And then his voice broke, and he hid his face \ipon his hands. For a moment she could let the mask fall from her face; for a moment she could find the relief of looking whs t she felt, a miserable, betrayed, frightened woman. Again he looked up, this time trying to smile as lie met her eyes —now once more schooled and disciplined. "What a shame to frighten you in this way, mother—but let me tell you what has led to it. Only listen to what befell me, after you left me last night, and then you will be able to make some excuse—you will find it in your heart to forgive me, dear." . . t "Last night," she thought; " t!i«.-n it «»<>.. Daly after all; but, if not,

"I sat up reading when yon had gone bed—longer than usual. I told Daly 3 * wait up for me, and that I would put out t h° hall-lamp on my -way upstairs. He bade m good-night; and as I said before, I sat« reading." "P Lady Deane had seated herself i n a]n . chair on the other side of the fire, with h back to the -window; in her hand 'she held* screen of peacock's feathers to screen her fan —from-what?—the fire-glow: or eager eyes that sought her's ? •

" I had finished my book—and was crossim. the hall to put out the lamp, when I f pembered something I had left -j,, A" gnn-room. I was just going to take wax-light from the table, when, ehancin ■ to look-through the glass door that lea.l, into the passage I saw the room door-was half open ami the glimmer of a light stiadae through. ' How careless of Daly,' I thought to leave a lamp burning, , and sol went the passage. Mother, there was no lauiiL there, I know not where the still, soft liuht came from—it seemed every where around me, —like moonlight, but there Mas no moon last night. As I pushed open the door anilwent into the room, I saw, seated in the ol 1 chair ho used to love, the figure of niv father—" ■> She stifled a cry that rose to her lips an j the feather screen fell from her slack'enin«hold. a

Sir Edgar noticed neither thing—his whole mind was concentrated upon the remembrance of the night that was passed—he was as O n u deaf and blind to all else. " Before him with a troubled look upon L» face, knelt Michael Daly. I saw the mm\ cl.-isped hands resting "against my father's heart, and the whiteness of the knuckles bloodless through tension. As I got hnli wav across the room my father turned anil looked at me —looked at me with red-riimn M { eyes full of anguish, and his grey livid lip, moved, yet I heard no sound. That was titworst of it—the dead, dead silence of it a!I~ listen as I would. I tried to break the stillness with the sound of my own voice, i JU t my throat seemed parched, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. As if overpowered by the agony of not beiti-. able to speak so that I could hear ajiit understand, that awful figure threw Uμ its arms, and fell forward on to Daly's nock. ] saw the trey hair hanging down" against This shoulder, one bloodless hand drooped almost to the ground." " You were dreaming. Gar - it was a vision of sleep," said my lady, her breath coming in. little gasps.

"If I was dreaming then Bernard wns dreaming too ; he had followed me into the room, and in the dark surface of the chiiimcvpiecc, as in a mirror, I saw him behind me, crouching against the vails with the hair oil his back standing up, and the lips drawn back from his teeth in a grin of terror. As I looked he raised his head liigh, and uttered a yell of abject fear. The next moment, I know not how, I was stumbling about in the dark, and Bernard had rushed by me, and down the passage to the hall, where I found him, cuddled up under a table, shaking as if with ague. Crawling to my feet lie shoved !»s. nose into my hand to try aud comfort me." '' That was, perhaps, all part of your— dream—" said a voice that did not sound like J,ady Dome's at all. "Ask Daly—if it was a dream"—was tlie unlooked for answer to her words. "Daly?" she said, or thought she'said, for though her lips moved, no sound louilcithan a hoarse, faiut whisper came through them. " I had seen him, or his wraith I knew net. which, kneeling before that awful ikiu-ein the old arm chair—l could not rest till I taj seen him." Lady Deane, clasping her hands convulsively, the one in the other, leaned forward, htr haggard eytw fixed on her son's face, as if to read her doom. " I took a candle and went up to big room. I went iu softly, drew back the curtain at the head of the bed, and bent over tljc • pillow where he lay asleep. " He was sleeping soundly, deeply, and yet uneasily. Every now aud again he mutteitil v orils I could not catch the" meaning of, anil saw the drops of sweat shining ou his forehead. 'Daly!' I said, laying my hand on Ms shoulder ; and he sat up in bed, staring at me with eyes that seem dull and misty. 'la. that you, Master 'Gaiv?' he said, in a frightened kind of way, and speaking to me as he used to do when I was a child, ' sure and I've been dreaming—dreaming of my dear old master." He seemed so full of his dream that the strangeness of my being there at such an hour never struck him, of which I Mas tlad—for I had by that time regained my calmness, and, mother, I wanted "to search out this awful thing." She bowed her head, as if to signify that the thonght he was right in that. " ' You were dreaming of my father,' said I—l had put the light upon the stand near, and stood beside the bed. 'Yes,' hesaid, still confused, and peering at me curiously, as though he half believed his dream was not done yet—' dreaming of the old master, Master 'Gar—l fancied he was in sore trouble.' ' Sitting in the old chair by the gun-room Sre ?' 1 put. in softly. 'Yes, yes,' he said, oegiuiiing to tremble—he had my hands pressed against his breast. 'I was'-sore troubled mysel', and then I saw you coming in. Master 'Oar, and the big dog at your heels, and the master he tried to say something to you. I was sore afraid what like it, would be, but I seemed struck dumb.' ' Well, did he—did my father speak to we'r I said. • No, no,' said Daly ; 'he tried hard to, like he used to, Master 'Gar, in that very room.' Mother, I had heard enough—it was no dream, what I saw. They say the injured dead come back to the living who have wronged them, but you, you who loved him, you who were his wife and must have known, say to me that my dear father had no. wrongs to avenge—nothing to embitter his life—nothing that he would like to have told me, his own son who loved him so dearly—if . he could ?" - [To be continued.]