WHO WINS?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9488, 18 April 1894, Page 3

WHO WINS?

BY MAY AGNES FLEMING, Author of« Lady Evelyn ; or, The Lord of Royal Best," "Magdalen's Vow," "The Unseen Bridegroom," " The Heiress of Glen Gower," " Estella's Husband," etc., etc. -CHAPTER XIV. ON GUARD. The pretty little widow who bad come to " form" that fast young lady, Miss Gwendoline Chudleigh, made herself entirely at home ab Chudleigh Chase. Id was a very pleasant house—the rooms large, lightsome, elegant—Sir Rupert's French cook was an artist, and the dainty little widow was a gourmande in her way, and liked her sparkling Moselle, her hock, and her Cliquot. lb was a very pleasant house, and the hospitable baronet entertained some very pleasant people; and if his daughter's governess and companion had been a duchess, he could hardly have treated her with more courtly Grandieonian respect. If was ever so much nicer than at Trevanion Park, with only fidgety Lady Lemox, and her high-stepping, proud-eyed daughter, and nothing better to flirt with than a flippant Eton boy. For Mrs. Ingram dearly loved Aiming—she was a coquette, and, as Miss Trevanion had -aid of her,' would make eyes at tho stable lads, if no better game was to be had. But better game was abundant at Chudleigh Chase. First of all, there was tho baronet himself, upon whom old point and floating draperies, and plump shoulders, and perfumed tresses, and long almond eyes were never thrown away. And there were the officer's ,of 'the;! rifle brigade, very heavy swells indeed, from the colonel, who wrote his name high in the' peerage, to tho dashing young subs, with the green down yet callow on their military chins, and who invariably lost their heads at first sight of tho gorgeous widow. And there were the county magnatesponderous young squires in top-boots and pink coats, with mutton-chop whiskers, and an overfed look, like their own Durham cows, who stared at the brilliant little lady in speechless admiration, and whispered , clumsy compliments in her pretty pink ear after dinner in the drawing-room. And lastly, there was Cyril Trevanion—hero and knight-errant modern corsair as to his mysterious moodiness, who lived but in her divine presence, and who glared feroci ously upon everything masculine that dared approach her. Sir Rupert Chudleigh had been one of the first to call upon the returned heir, of Monkswood—his old friend's son— and welcome him heartily back to England. But the returned heir had met the baronet's courteour advances with that silent sulkiness that appeared his normal state. ''Your cousin is very much changed, my dear Miss Trevanion," Sir Rupert had said to Sybil, stroking his beard thoughtfully ; "changed oat of all knowledge, and nob for the better, I regret to say. The Trevanions were always gentlemen—thoroughbred ; bub your cousin—l give you my word—he is as rude as the most uncouth boor in Sussex. And I remember him sixteen years ago, with the polished manners of a prince regent himself." Nevertheless, Sir Rupert invited the excolonel to Chudleigh Cha3e, and the excolonel, finding his Circe an inmate of the house, accepted at once, and haunted the manor as a ghost. The elderly, elegant baronet frowned a little at these too assiduous attentions.

" The follow is a fool as well as a boor ! He's after that little woman like a ferret after a rabbit, a terrier after a rat, or a bound after a fox. He'll want her to marry him next—the superhuman idiot, and he'll fetch her to Monkswood, and shut her up with the prior's ghost, and feed her on greens and bacon, and shoot any man who so much as looks at her. And to think that that scowling, sullen, ill-mannered lout, for he is a lout, should be Ewes Trevanion'a son, with the best blood of the kingdom in his veins ! And yet why need I talk—there's Gwendoline—no milkmaid in the country was ever more rustic than she. It must be that the old blood degenerates - more'n the pity ! I only hope Mrs. Ingram won't be a fool and listen to 'Trevamon. He's us poor as a rat, and little Edith is ambitious. I dare say she would like to become my Lady Chudleigh, and display the family diamonds on that superb neck of hers, and reign Lady Paramount at the county balls. She's capital style, past mistress of the art of dress— looks like one of Lely's women, with their ripe figures and smiling lips and scented curls; or Reynolds' bright-eyed, laughing girls, who bewitch you from the canvas. I admire her immensely, and like to look at her exceedingly—but as to marrying her— no, my dear Mrs. Ingram—l'll do anything for you but that. I'll pay you any reasonably yearly salary you like—l'll listen to your delicious little chansons and ballads — I'll play ecarte with youl'll admire your exquisite toilets, I'll pay you high flown compliments; but as for making you, Lady Chudleigh—no, madame —I never will," But Mrs. Ingram could not read, clever as she was, the baronet's complacent thoughts, and her motto was still " hope on." v

She spent two or three hours a day over her toilets, and came down to dinner as elaborately dressed as though the baronet entertained a perpetual dinner-party. She had diamonds, and opals, and emeralds, whose radiance made you wink again ; moires and brocades stiff enough in their richness to stand alone. They were rather suspicious, those splendid jewels, seeing that governesses, poor things, as a rule don't sport such splendour; but Mrs. Ingrain looked up at you with tears in the soft, luminious dark eyes, and told you how " poor, darling Harry"—the late lamented Ingram—had given her the diamonds and opals, and her grace of Strathbane the emeralds; and how could you be monster enough to doubt the truth of those innocent, tearful eyes ? She stood alone in the picture-gallery of Chudleigh, one afternoon, a little over a week after her coming. As usual her toilet was simply perfectionrich green silk, that trailed and wound after her, a crown of ivy on the glossy black hair, rare old lace drap ing the rouuded arms, the Strathbane emeralds gleaming greenish as she moved, and a gold serpent bracelet with emerald eyes on her dimpled wrist. She stood, amid the long array of court beauties by Kneller and Vandyke, herself a lovely vision, gazing out with bent brows and steady eyes at the ceaseless, falling rain. Those ...melting, starry eyes had a trick of growing very hard and steely when no other eyes were near, and the smooth brow bent into sharp lines that turned her ten years older in as many minutes. She was very psl&j too. It was not quite time to go down? to dinner, and that wondrous rouge in which she bloomed in perennial youth, and tho belladonna that light up the velvet eyes, were safely locked up in the widow's drawers. The August day had been dull, sunless, sultry,and overcast; the Augustevening was closing down, hopelessly windy and wet. The trees rocked in a high gale, the red deer trooped away to their shelter, sky and sea blended afar off in one long, grey line. It was a very fair domain, this Chudleigh Chase, even in the rainy twilight of an eerie day—a grand old place—and the wife of Sir Rupert Chudleigh and the mistress of these broad acres might consider herself a very lucky woman indeed. " And not one rood of it all is entailed," the widow thought, her dark eyes wandering greedily over meadow and park and copse. "And he doesn't care for Gwendoline. If she were to die tomorrow, he would shrug his shoulders and lift his eyebrows, and say : ' Poor child, how very unpleasant to finish like this !' and go back to Voltaire and Condorcet, and forget her in a week. As Mrs. Ingram I am nobody, less than nobody, barely tolerated, admired with an admiration that is an insult in itself, an object of suspicion, a toast for the mess-table, an adventuress, a milliner's layfigure. But as Lady Chudleigh, this wretched life of plotting, of intrigue, this dreary treadmill, on which I have gone up and down for the past twenty years, of which I am wearied to death, might end. I might forget the past, I might turn Lady Bountiful, grow as saintly and as orthodox as Miss Trevanion herself, and pass the re mainder of my days free from guile, embroidering elaborate stoles and surplices for newly fledged curates, and leading the choir in the village church. I could turn my mind to the poor, to beef and to blankets at Christmas, to eat tea and stale buns for the charity children, and forget the bad, bitter past. And by-and-by there would possibly be an heir, and 1 might be

simply and honestly happy, like other women, an honoured wife, a loved mother. Oh, lose wretch that I am She covered her face suddenly, shuddering from head to foot. "Can I forget I once had a child? Where in all the wide earth, or under it, is the baby I deserted eighteen years ago ?" The dinner-bell sounded while she still stood there, white and cold, so altered, so haggard, so old, so worn, that Sir Ruperb Chudleigh would not have believed his own eyes had he seen her. But at the sound of that loud clanging in the lofty turrets, she turned slowly away and went up to her room. She was a first-class actress in the great drama of life, and it was her turn to go on and smile, and look happy and beautiful, and play the dreary play out. The many clustering lights were lighted in drawing and dining-room when the elegant widow ewept in, the dark eyes brilliantly sparkling, the delicate rose-tint bright on cheek and lip, the soft, subtle smile at its most witching. The brilliant green of her dress set off that rich, bright complexion, and the curiously-plaited coronet of ivy lay like some chapleb on the abundant black tresses. There were strangers in the long drawing room when Mrs. Ingram swept in ; bub strangers at Sir Rupert's hospitable board were nothing to marvel at. And two of the guests were not strangers, either, to the widow. Cyril Trevanion, turning over a volume of engravings, all by himself, and feverishly watching the door by which she must enter ; and Charles Lemox, leaning on the back of Gwendoline's chair, and talking in his usual slow, lazy voice. A third gentleman, a tall, dark bearded man, with a sunburned, striking, and eminently handsome face—stood leaning negligently against the marble mantel, arguing some question animatedly with his host. Mrs. Ingram looked at him, and looked again. Like Queen Elizabeth, of virgin memory, she had a great and mighty admiration for handsome men, and adored (but most women do that) thews and sinews and physical might. Regarded from this point of view, the dark stranger was really a magnificent specimen of kingly man. lb was much the same sort of glance as Henry the Eighth's royal daughter gave poor Raleigh, and %Jssex, and Leicester, and hosts of others, equally approving and equally fatal. There was a lull in the busy hum of conversation as the handsome widow sailed forward, her long silk robe trailing, her emeralds gloaming in the soft, mellow light. Colonel Trevanion and Charley rose to greet her, and the baronet advanced and presented his guest, the stranger, as Mr. Angus Macgregor. " You've heard of him, and you've read him, no doubt," the baronet said. "He's very delightful in typo, and cheap, in cloth, lettered, at three and sixpence a volume. He's been everywhere, and seen everything ; and I can safely recommend him as amusing, when the time permits you to draw him out." The little lady laughed as she held out her ringed right hand to the superb stranger. " How very complimentary Sir Rupert is, Mr. Macgregor. Ho promotes you to the same rank as a new song, a novel, a poodle, or an opera. Yes, I have heard of you, and read you, and your poems are entrancing, and your novels fascinating, and your books of travel perfectly irresistible." There were men alive who would have given a year of their live for the sweetly murmured words—ten for the Parthian glance that shot the compliment home. Colonel Trevanion's countenance was like a thunder-cloud ; but the tall tenant of the Retreat just touched and dropped the taper fingers, and the handsome bearded face looked strangely stern and set. " Mrs. Ingram is pleased to be sarcastic," he said, very coldly. " Neither 1 nor my poor books make any pretence of ranking among the immortals. 'Men must work,' as Kingsley says, and if I earn the bread and butter of daily life by quill driving, I ask no more." The deep, dark eyes met Mrs. Ingram's with a long, steady, powerful glance ; the deep, stern voice had a metallic ring new to most of his hearers and as the widow meb those strong black eyes, heard that vibrating tone, tho colour faded slowly from brow to chin, leaving her of a dull, unnatural white. Even tho rouge seemed to pale, and the velvety eyes dilated in some strange and unaccountable terror. Where had she met those eyes? where had she heard that voice before ? and why did this new terror clutch her heart like a mailed hand ? " Dinner !" announced the butler, flinging open the door. Sir Rupert courteously offered his arm to the widow, Charley took possession of Gwendoline, and Cyril Trevanion and Angus Macgregor brought up the rear. [To be continued on Saturday next.]