THE WORLD BETWEEN THEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6817, 22 September 1883, Page 3

THE WORLD BETWEEN THEM.

BY BERTHA M. CLAY. Author of "Thrown on the World," "A Bitter Atonement," "Beyond Pardon," "Set in Diamonds," &c, &c. CHAPTER I. " SOME DAY I SHALL TELL THESE BICH, GREEDY ESTMEBKS ALL I THINK OF THEM." The sight of a bright, laughing young face, looking out from the broken arch of a ruined window —the window covered with ivy of a hundred yeara' growth—the facet fair as youth and health could make it, would have startled any one. It startled .Nigel FieldeD, who had been sent down to the ruins at Ulsiiale castle to sketch the fine arches of the once great windows, which Lord Estmere wished to reproduce in another building. He had been at Ulsdale for six. whole days, and had seen no one except the old housekeeper and a pretty young maid-servant; he had heard nothing but the song of a thousand birds coming from the great clusters of ivy that cling round the great old towers and battlements ; now he hears a sweet voice staging blithely and carelessly as any happy bird in the ivy-clad towers. He stood still to listen. The words were those of the oldfashioned, beautiful song— JOCK OV IIAZELDEAN. " Why weep ye by the tido. ladic? \vhy weep yo by the tido? Young Frank is chief of Errington, And ye shall be his bride ! Yβ shall be his bride, ladie, So comely to be seen. But, ah ! sho let the teirs downf*' For Jock of Hazeldean." It seemed to the listener as though the birds paused in their flight to listen, aud the butterflies poised lightly on their wings. The voice was so sweet aud clear, quite untrained, full and free as that of a wild bird, yet every note vibrated with what, from wane ot a batter word, we call "soul." It was so sympathetic that it brought the whole picture before the listener. The lady seated on the lone sea-shore, watching the tide roll on, while she wept salt tears. What was the chief of Errington to her, when she loved "Jock of Hazeldean?" The next words he heard were— ** The lady was not seen ! She's o'er the border, and awa' Wi' Jock of liazeldoan." Then came the ripple of a sweet, snnny laugh, and all was still. " It must be the ghost of one of the Ladies Estmere," the listener said to himself. His wonder grew. He was standing on a grassy knoll, half hidden by tall, waving ferns ; she was seated in a broken arch of what had once been the great western window of an old church. The crumbling stones were covered with ivy ; scarlet creepers hunt; down to the grass; great groups of golden brown gillyflowers grew in the clefts; the meadow-sweet grew tall and strong. From out the tangled frame-work of ivy and flower the beautiful fair head stood in bold relief—a head such as one sets in the famous pictures of Greuze—the golden hair, with a natural ripple in it: the broad, low, white brow ; blue eyes, all sunshine and laughttr, yet, to a keen observer, with something of • weariness in their bright depths; a lovely < mouth; a skin all lilies and roses; a young j fao<?, on which, up to the pre&eut hour, neither time Dor experience had written one i line. i Quite suddenly, as she gazed listlessly from the ruined window, she saw the stranger : who had lutened to her song. His eyes met hers : he raised his bafc. Then, as though '. some irresistible force drew him toward her, he left the grassy kcoll where the ferns grew, and walked to the window. So fate draws us as with a finger of straw. If Lynette i'stmere had not sung of "Jock o' Hazeldean" that lovely June morning, ; this story would never have been written. I Nigel Fielden looked up at the beautiful / ] arch, then at the fresh young face framed' i by it; he took off his hat and stood bareheaded while he spoke to her. "I beg your pardon," he said. " I have been at work among these ruins so many days, and eo entirely alone, that the sound ot your voice startltd me." A crimson flush covered the fresh young face. "I did not know that any one was here," said the girl. "I have lived at Ulsdale eix years, and you are the first stranger I hare seen." "Do you live here, at the ruins?" he asked, in surprise. " Yes : there are six or seven good rooms left in the keep. I live there with Mrs. Vtytchley, the housekeeper, and Barbara Hope, her servant. "You live with them," he repeated. "Why, then, who are you?" She laughed; and his keen ear detected just a little tinge of bitterness in that laugb. "Who am IJ To tell you the Unth," she added, with a passionate outburst, "that question from a stranger may well puzzle me, for It is a question I am always asking myself, ' Who am I ?' The birds in the old ivied towere, the rooks in the old lime trees, could answer that question better than I." "I am sorry I asked it," he said gently ; " but it was such a surprise. I had no idea that any one except the caretaker lived here, and I was startled when I saw you looking so perfectly at home among the ivy and the flowers." " Yee," she answered, looking round with »bright smile of unutterable content, " 1 am at homfe here—these ruins are my world, I people them as I will; this magnificent arch is all that is left of one of the finest windows in England. Many years ago when Ulsdale was a great castle with towere aud battlements that were the wonder of all who saw them, a noble church stood side by eide ■with it—a church dedicated to the Saint Columbar—and these are the ruin 9 of the once happy shrine." She seemed to be speaking moro to herself than to him, but he liatened eagerly. "I people them," she continued. "For me the knights once more scale the ramparts, ladies stand at the castle windows, and the white-veiled nuns fill the church." " You should not live in dreams," he said, gently ; " it is not a healthy life." "I have nothing else to live in or for," she replied. " If I dare, I should ask you how old you are?" said Nigel Fielden. " Perhaps you ■would be angry with me; but it sterns so strange to be so young a lady, aud so lontly." "1 will tell you my age," she replied, smilingly. " I shall be seventeen in July." "You are too young to be so lonely," he said, thoughtfully, "I may repeat my question, ' Who are yon ?' " " And I may repeat my answer that the birds and the rooks know almost as well as I do." "But you must have an individuality and a name," he remonstrated. "1 have a great deal of individuality," she replied, "also a very good name. I am called Lynette Estmere." " Lynette—that is a quaint, old-fashioned name," be said. "I have read of it in old Saxon posms. You are the first lady I have ever known who bears it." Then she replied, quickly : •' Yov have not known many of the Estmeres." " I know none but the present lord," he answered. She went on : "In every branch of the family the eldest daughter is always called Lynette. If there were four brothers, and they were all married, each one would call his eldest daughter Lynette ; it is a custom of the family." "A very pretty one, too," said Nigel Fielden. By this time he had begun to feel quite at home with the beautiful, friendless girl. Suddenly he raised his eyes to her, and said, quickly : " If your name is Estmere, you must be related to the family who own Uladale." "I do belong to them." she replied, "by name ; but I do not think any of them ever remember me." "Yet," he said, slowly, "you are one to be remembered." "Am I?" she cried, brightly. "Should you remember me? Do 1 seem to you a person that any one would like ':" "Yes," he answered, slowly, "1 think you are." She did not see the light that flashed ia his eyes, or the quiver on his lips. "I should imatrine," he continued, slowly, " that you would be very much liked ; but how is it that you, an Estmere, are living here alone ?" " Because I belong, in some measure, to everybody, yet to nobody. I can explain it to yoo. very clearly, The Estmere family is a large one. The reigning lord, Thornton, is married, and hue two sons; the eldest is, of course, his heir. Hβ has also tbrep brothers—Bndolph. Arnold and Arthur. Kudolphis the- married, but I do not think others

are. My father was Captain Hugh Estmere, a first cousin of the present lord, but he was not one of the fortunate ones of the world— he lost all his money; he went to Canada, where he married a beautiful Canadian girl, as poor as himself. He died in Canada, and my mother brought me home. They are rich, you kuow, these Eatmeres ; the baron, who lives At Kingirere, so the housekeeper says, 'rolls in money.' I wonder why people use that expression, ' rolls in money ?' It seems a most absurd one. My mother brought me home a little child only five years old ;an 4 — will you believe it ? — these Estmere <, who own money and lands more than one can tell, not one of them was willing to hslp her. The baron, Thornton, Lord Estmere, said it was as much as he could do to meet his expenses; bis wife, Lady Estmere, a brilliant lady of fashion, spent a royal income in London. The second brother, Arthur, was abroad, and never even answered my mother's letter. The third brother, Rudolph, was married, and liviDg on a small estate in the country ; he declared himself both unwilling and unable to h"l;j the wife and child of another man. Arthur, the youngest, allowed her fifty pounds per annum. You see, ii; is not always a fortunate thing to belong to a noble family. Then Lord Estmere, shamed into some little show of liberality, offered my mother a cottage here. In the old keep there are some six or seven habitable rooms, and we lived in them together, my mother and I, for nine years." Her face changed, her lips quivered, her eyes grew brighter. "I will not cry," she said " but when I think of it my hot anger knows no bounds. We lived here nine long years, and during the whole time no one came to see us. No one cared for us ; we were both dead to the world, just as I am dead to it now ; the only notice ever taken of us was at times Lady Estmere sent us a box of old clothes. True, we had this lovely world of nature, and these beautiful ruins, but one wants more in life than the sight of green trees and ivy-clad rains." She spoke with haste and passion. He followed overy word with attention. "Daring all these nine years," she continued, "my mother was slowly dying—lean see it now. She had great hopes when she came to Eugland. She thought the Estmere family would open their arms to receive her. Perhaps she had dreamed of a bright life here in merry England : but in the old keep there she pined, and sickened, and died. She died in that room where the passion-flowers grow round the window. 1 ain glad—l thank Heaven—that I can speak of it without tears. Some day I shall tell these rich, greedy Estmeres all I think of them ; it will not do to cry then." "Yours is a sad story," he said, gently, "although you have a bright face. Is it possible that yon have been here alone ever since your mother died?" " Yes," she replied, and then he saw the uneasiness in her blue eyes. I was five years old when my mother brought me to this inhospitable land. We lived in the old keep nine years. When my mother died I was fourteen. I have been here ever since." "I should have died of my own loneliness," she continued, "but that my mother had spent those nine years in teaching me. She taught me French—we spoke French more than English—she taught me singing and drawing. When she died," continued the girl abruptly, "Lady Estmere sent me a black dress, a box ot books, and a letter advising me to spend my time in study, and she would see, in the course of time, what was to be done with me. That time has never arrived and never will. I envy even the little birds aud the rooks ; they have a home nest and I have none." CHAPTER 11. "I HAVE SEVER HAD A F til USD. YOO WILL BE MY FIRST." Nigel Fielden looked earnestly at the fair young face. " Your story is an almost impossible one," hesaid. " I can hardly imagine that a great and powerful family like the Eatmeres would leave a young girl like you here alone." "It is true,"she said. " lam everybody's business, and yet nobody's business. Lord Estmere, I have no doubt, thinks that he is a great benefactor to me." " It is incredible," cried .Nigel Fielden. "It ia true," repeated ttie girl. "You would think that, having three houses in the country and one in town, he would have found a corner for me; but there is no room for me in any of the homes of the Estmeres. Id was thought the best thing that could be done with me,keepingme here inUlsdale with tbe old housekeeper. L.ady Estmere did one kind thing—she allows me to have a governess from Black Tor; a lady who comes four hours each clay, and with whom I learn a quantity of quite useless things which do not interest me at all." " It is like a romance," said Nigel Fielden. " It is not much of a romance to me," she replied. Then she was silent for a few minutes, and he saw that a crimson blush burned her face. "I do not know what you will think of me," she replied, desperately, " telling all these things to a stranger ; but my heart has been so full for so long that I—well, I could not help it. "Besides," she added, shyly, "you do not seem quite a stranger to me." His eyes shone with honest delight. "Do I not ? It is very goo 1 of you to say so. I shall be mush pleased if I can Eerve you in any way." " You cannot do that," she said, with a laugh ; "no one can help me. lam like a bird shut up in a cage ; no one can open the door for me to fly." She stretched out her hands with a gesture of longing for freedom. " I envy the birds that fly where they will. I envy the free, sweet wind that blows as it listeth. I envy the waves of the wild, free ocean that rise and fall as they will. I envy everything that is free and at liberty." There was on the beautiful face, as she Bpoke, a look of such intense longing that .Nigel Fielden, stranger as he was, would have given much tc set her free. "I have talked enough of myself," she said, suddenly. "Tell me something of yourself now." "I have little to tell," he replied, half I shyly. "But what has brought you here?" she asked. "No one ever comes here. Ulsdale is a show plaoe ; people come to see the ruins and to sketch the finest views, but no one ever comes to stay. Yon are staying at Black Tor, I presume ?" "Yes," he replied. I am an architect, and I am here at Lord Estmere's request. He is adding a new wi/'g to that maguificent place of his, the King's Mere, and he wants the windows like this. lam here to sketch all these arches, and to make out as far as I can the original design of the windows." " Who sent you ?" she asked. "Lord Estmere, of course. lam to be here a whole month, and sketch whatever strikes me as being most beautiful and most practical. lam an architect, and Lord Estmere has been kind enough to give me his commission. He told me that I was to take | lodgings at that pretty hotel in Black Tor, and come over here every day. I know he wrote to the housekeeper here to say that I was to have every access, and to do here what I thought best." " Mrs. Wytchley would never tell me anythi'g," cried the girl; "she treats me as though I were a natural enemy of hers. My governess, Miss Blunt, haa not been here for three weeks: *he is ill, and it is feared that she may not recover. lam not allowed even to go to see her.' " Why not?" asked Nigel Fielden. " I cannot tell; but no one Bcems to know anything about my being shut up here." " It seems very unjust," he said, quietly. "It is unjust," sh« replied. "It is cruel and wrong, but I shall break my own chains some day. I shall leave this place, and go into the wide world without saying one word to the Kstmeres. I am young and strong, and would rathfr die of hard -work than remain here in this enforced idleness. I know all mv music by heart. I have read all my books. I have exhausted all my resources. I have nothing left but dreaming in the ruinß here, and my dreams all tend to liberty. l--you must not be shocked at me I hate all th» Estmeres, they have been so I co!d and cruel to me. I shall be glad to I have them all behind." "But," he said, looking kindly at her, " what could a young girl like you do in the world ?" . " I should do the same as other girls do, she replied. "I would rather be out there, fighting ever so fiercely, than here, with no object in my life 1" "You must do nothmg rashly, he said. " It seems to me as though Providence had 1 sent me here expressly to be your friend." s He never forgot th« light that overspread 1 her face when he uttered those wordß. 1 "Do yon really think so? she cried. "If that be true, how happy I shall be. I s have never had a friend. sTou will ,be my ■ first." .. ' He was looking earnestly at aer.

" I believe," he said, " in the love and care ] of Providence. I disbelieve in what mei j call fate. I do not think mon's lives are ruled by ohance or by accident, but by a wise and supreme power, and I believe that Providence brought you here to this ruined arch this morning that I might see you, help you, and be your friend." "I hope it is true!" she cried, clasping her hands. " Why, that ha 3 been my prayer by day and by night—by the light of the sun, moon, and stars—'Pray Heaven send me a friend 1' " " Heaven has answered your prayer," he answered, earnestly, " for I will be your friend. I wonder," he continued, thoughtfully, "if it would be of any use for me to write to Lord or Lady Estmere, to call their attention to you 1" She started back in unconcealed terror. " No," she cried, not for the whole world ! 1 hate the Estmeres ! I would not take their kindness now. If Lady Estmere sent for me to-morrow, and wished to adopt me as her daughter, I would not go ! They have neglected me all these years. If they had been kinder to my mother she would have been alive now. No, you are kind to think how you can help me, but never in that fashion. You see," she added, pointing to a long blue line, "the great ocean there 1 I would rather go and drown myself in it than I would receive charity from Lord or Lady Estmere." "It is not charity," he said ; " it is your right. You belong to the family, and you have a claim upon them." "A claim they have ignored so many years, and one which I choose to ignore now," she replied. Suddenly trom over the trees came the distant souud of chiming bells. Nigel Fielden knew they were ringing at noon, and he had an appointment eoou after noon at ulack Tor. He took out his watch. "I must go," he said. I hope I shall see you again. You must think of me as the Iriend whom Heaven has sent to you. I am going to Black Tor, and I will bring some books back with me. Have you read Tennyson's poems ?" '' Tennyson ?" she repeated ; '' no, I have never heard the name." Nigel smiled. " There needs no further proof," he said, " that Ulsdale is out of the world, i wiH bring a new world to you. You love these old ruins and people them. You will love them more than ever wben you have read the ' Idyls of the King,'" Her face brightened. "How good you are to me," she said. "I have not read a new book for more than six months. When will you bring them ?" "This evening," he said. "I am coming back at six o'clock to finish a sketch of the great window here, and I will bring them with me. Can you be here to take them ?" " Yes," she replied, brightly. "No one ever knows or cares where I go. I spend all my e/jnings here. Even the bats and the owls are more companionable than the old housekeeper." Neither of them had any thought of making an appointment. He merely wished to do her a kindly action ; she wished to receive the books. " I will be here at six," she said. "You will be cheerful all day," he said, " knowing that you have found a friend." " Knowing that Heaven has sent me one," she added, and looking at him with her lovely eyes, she owned that he was a friend worth having. There was nothing aristocratic or dis-tinguished-looking about him ; he was a tall, handsome man, with a strong, erect figure, and a kindly, thoughtful face—a lace that instantly and implicitly won trust and affection. All women and children loved Nigel Fielden; all those in trouble sought him. He was a man who could be implicitly relied upon. There was nothing very striking in his appearance ; his eyes were blue and full of thought, full of kindness ; a loyal and pure soul looked out.of them ; his moutb, though firm with well closed lips, was tender and beautiful as a woman's; his hair dark, with a dark moustache. He was certainly no boarding-school hero ; he had no airs, no graces, no affectations ; he looked exactly what he was—an honest, noble, straightforward man. This young girl whom he had found like a stray wild bird in the old ruins was sacred to him as though she had been a young queen surrounded by bodyguards—sacred from the fact of her youth and loveliness. Tho girl's eyes dwelt on him lingeringly for a few minutes, then her hand went out to him. "You look like a friend to trust," she said, gently. "You will find me so," was his quiet reply. "And remember always that 1 did not come myself of my own free will or my own accord, but that Heaven sent me." " I will try to understand it," she replied ; and then, with a low bow, Nigel Fielden turned away. To the girl's fancy he took the light of the suubhine, the fragrance of the flowers, and the m-jsic of the wind with him. While he walked rapidly over the grass, it was characteristic of him that he did. not crush the sweet white daisies as he passed— that when they smiled up into his face, he carefully avoided treading on them. If a pretty tangled creeper lay acruss Ilia path, he did not break it impatiently and throw it away ; he raised it and placed it out of danger. If the delicate bough of a green tree stopped his way, he carefully removed it without injuring one leaf. And that tells the character of the man ; he was loyal and brave, tender and true. He takes the memory of that fair face away with him. It was incredible, ho thought, that any family could be so bliud to their duty as to leave a beautiful girl of that age alone and unfriended. He could not help his firm belief that Heaven had sent him to the rescue. He was quite alone in the world ; his parents were both dead ; he had neither brother nor sister, uncle nor aunt—he was quite alone. His father died when he was fifteen, leaving him just enough money to continue his studies, and at the age of twentyone ho had begun in business for himself. This work at Clsdale was one of his first engagements ; he was proud of it and resolved to work hard. The change from his rooms in London to the beautifu" romantic neighbourhood of Black Tor was most pleasant. He had enjoyed his work very much, aud Lord Eatmcre was delightedwichthe sketches he sent. He had been there one week when ho saw Lynette Estmere by the ruined window, and the whole current of his life was changed. There is a beginning to everything, aud that was the beginning of a strange trugedy, although no warning of it, however faint, came to the pair who met so strangely on that June morning. [To be continued.]