A SLEEP-WALKER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9497, 28 April 1894, Page 3 (Supplement)

A SLEEP-WALKER.

BY PAUL H. GERRARD. CHAPTER XIX.. HE LOSES HIS LADY-LOVE. Whether or nob Lady Bidebank's love for the son of her adoption had cooled during his year's desertion, the instant that, sick, unconscious, ragged, he was thrown again upon her care, all her tenderness revived. Had Sir Rupert been a prince of the blood he could nob have had more skilful atten - dance or more exquisite attention than ho now had bestowed upon him. Lady Bidebank and Miss Barth devoted themselves to him. The boy, in his delirium, lived nob the scenes of his tramp life, bub the hours when he had first discovered that he was adopted by her ladyship. All his pride, hi 3 sensitive shrinking from scorn, his grief, his shame, came clearly out, and her ladyship compassionated him with all her soul, and soon loved him far more tenderly than before. Bub Rupert's escapade bad raised up one very powerful enemy for him. The present Lord Bidebank had bub ill endured that her ladyship should adopt a child of unknown birth. The fact that her boy was one of the famous baby-farmer's victims had been sedulously concealed by her ladyship from everyone but her attached, faithful maid, Lady Barth, and Myra. But Lord Bidebank knew that the child was what he called a "common person," a " mere nobody," and he only tolerated him or his presence in the family. Then when Rupert disappeared, creating & scandal, a talk, curious inquiries —when the affair had drifted into the newspapers and into the sacred precincts of his clubroom, then Lord Bidebank fairly abhorred Sir Rupert. When his lordship heard that the boy was back—when, indeed, his own valet informed him that the boy had been returned, ragged, dirty, • sick, in a carb filled with clover. Lord Bidebank turned purple with mortification.

He drove to Bidebank Hall, careful to come in all the glory of lackeys and coats of arms, and the most grand of all his grand coaches, the finest and highest stepping of all his fine horses*.

"My dear lady," he said, with awful solemnity, to his kinswoman, "you certainly do nob intend to take back that vulgar little rascal ?" " Why not?" demanded Lady Bidebank. "Itis in all respects unsuitable. He has shown his low birth and his ineradicably bad disposition by running off with vile strollers for a year. He is no doubt now their confederate and will use his position here to admit them to your house, to rob and perhaps murder you." "I know him better. He is a boy worthy of love, and I, being otherwise childless, love him as my son." "As the head of the Family, and in the name of all the Family," said his lordship, speaking in capitals, "I protest against bringing this disgrace on us." " And why disgrace?" " Your ladyship makes us all subjects of gossip. We are questioned and wondered at. I consider it very bad taste. The boy is detestable. I cannob allow my children to speak to him or know him. If you keep him here, we shall be obliged to decline to come here." "I shall be sorry for that," said Lady Bidebank, in the quiet tone of one who could bravely endure this misfortune. " Bub I shall be sufficient for the boy's protection, for his position in society; and my money will keep him from poverty, ab least." Thus the reception of this little prodigal made a breach in the family, and Lord Bidebank, in the character of elder brother, felt himself outraged. "And who was this man who* persuaded you away?" asked her ladyship, finally, when the convalßscenb Rupert was lying on a couch in her own room.

*' His name, I think, was Tony, for once in a while they used that; bub I don't) remember if I heard any other name for him bub a nickname. They called him Gab and his wife Gabby, for they talked no end. You never heard anything like it." Lady Bidebank shuddered. Sir Rupert's statement was true. When Tony Pebtigrew fled from the metropolis to live a " free and unfettered life," he dropped his own name. When he and his own wife again joined company, be warned her that that name must lie in oblivion, and the two were finally known only as Gab and Gabby. "I don't see how ho knew anything about you, or why he should take an interest in leading you off." Rupert pondered a long time. "I believe, Miss Bath, your cousin Wrigley was ab the bottom of it," he said finally. " Wrigley !" cried Myra. " I have a mixed recollection," said Rupert, "of feeling carried or moved about, and two folks—him and her—talking over me, and of his saying : * Doctor Wrigley 'won't ask better news than that he's here, dead.' "' He'd be worth more alive to us,' she said. And then I heard him say : •"Doctor Wrigley would give twenty pounds for his dead body.' " " Oh, impossible 1" cried Myra. "la not this a fever dream? Remember you were sick, unconscious." " I'm sure I heard it and that ib was real talk." " And the man's name was Tony V said Miss Barth. , ...... " Yes, I'm sure of that," " What could be the object ?" asked Lady Bidebank. She and Myra discussed ib when they were alone.

" You remember that Wrigley put him with the baby-farmer; his unrelenting hate seems to pursue him," said Lady Bidebank. " I believe that we should take this matter up and ferret oub the mystery." "It would probably result in finding that he was the child of some person of rank who has paid the doctor heavily, or gives him an annuity, for hiding him,"' said Myra. " If we meddle with the matter we shall stir up a scandal, get ourselves involved in very unpleasant things ; and we have so little grounds for charges. Rupert may really have heard this; bub Wrigley can take'shelter behind fever insanity." "The dear boy is beset by enemies," cried Lady Bidebank. " Doctor Wrigley desires his death. Lord Bidebank detests him, and is ready to believe that be is a thief and a friend of murderers. I shall take him away from a place thab has become hateful to him and to me. I-shall get a tutor for him and take him to the Continent, where we can live a few years until he is out of that man's power and has outgrown the scandals and suspicions which now make him miserable." The tutor was soon engaged, but various affairs conspired to keep Lady Bidebank in England until the next June. During thab fall and winter the friendship of Ruperb, Natolie, and Mi was renewed. Rupert shrank from most of his boy friends, I bub .the girls soothed and cheered his ■ excited mind .-.: •.■,.■ ; : ",y' v V,-.;: ;'

Doctor Wrigley seemed so heartily glad that Lady Bidebank's boy had been found, spoke so pleasantly to and of him, and so favoured his friendship 1 for"Mi, that Miss Earth became convinced- that . their suspicions of his hostility were groundless. However, he was now bub wisely seeking to find if there was any value in Mrs. Wrigley's projects, since his own had failed.

Bub another summer oame round, and Sir Rupert was fifteen, and ho was ready to set out for the Continent. Mi cried for two days. She recklessly forgot that crying swelled her eyes and • made her more red. She did not care who, knew how sorry she felt. She and Rupert and Natolie had had such lovely times,' and now all was ended. This wonderful boy, with his beautiful face, his curls, his adventures, his merry tongue, going far away from his little worshipper., , -_, . Natolie would nob cryby no means. She vowed thab she was glad he was going. She said he needed to see more of the world. Let him go to France if he wanted to see good manners,, to Germany if he desired to to imbibe learning, to Italy for art and blue skies. ,'..-,, ■ i-- ...-.,

What was England ? Alas ! a country of cold and exile and lack of all delights. These words cub Rupert to the soul. Bub he echoed them all and went further, saying be should remain until he was a man, and would go to Spain and woo and wed a lovely Spanish damsel with languishing eyes and a lace mantilla, and he hoped they would both , like her when he broughb her back. . ,

And yeb, after all this skirmishing in public, it fell out that Rupert and Nabolie meb one afternoon on the very spot where first he had seen her gathering , primroses. And then Rupert bad wildly vowed that she was the idol of his existence and that he should never love anyone else; that absence from her would . throw gloom over France, Germany, Italy, and all other celestial resorts ! Ah, would she forget him? Would she laugh at his devotion? And Natolie, looking down, had thought better of her hardness of heart, and concluded that she did like him a little; and she would nob forget, and when she said a thing she never changed her mind. Then these little people exchanged flowers and kisses and pocket handkerchiefs. ■

They did nob promise to write each other, for the Oontessa Idriaand Lady Bidebank would have been shocked at that; bub they were always to be true to each other, and as young man and young woman they could publicly make known their preference. Then they each went home, and thab night all Rupert, Natolie, and Mi—cried themselves to sleep. And so Rupert was gone. Bidebank Hall was shut only for the presence of the butler, the housekeeper, and three servants who kept their state in the rear, and aired and sunned the rooms, and looked forward to the distant return of their mistress. Rupert was gone, and Sir James Wrigley, M.P., walking over bo confer his presence on "my cousin," found his youngest daughter sitting, "a maiden all forlorn," on a bench in the garden. "And so," say the paternal Wrigley, cheerily, "so your little lover has gone again, has he ?" • " He's not my lover," retorts Mi, flushing. " He likes Natolie a great deal more than he does me." What That little foreign girl—the contessa's girl ?" " Yes; to be sure," replies Mi, though her bosom heaves with some jealousy at the thought. "Bub he's my friend and my make-believe brother, and I'm awfully sorry he's gone." And she sets to crying again. " You've plenty of brothers without any make-believe," says her parent, grimly, and passes on. Thab was such nonsense of Mrs. Wrigley's —fancying a match betweeen these two children! Who in this world ever heard of things falling out as they should? What bub ill-luck ever came of that boy ? Bereft of her friend, Lady Bidebank, Miss Earth was more lonely and secluded than ever. Her interests and occupations seemed to be in money accumulations, whereof she felt that she had plenty, and that whatever she heaped was for the Wrigleys, who would grace it bub ill. The only two Wrigleys whom she could endure wore that honest fellow. " Our Eldest," who had chosen law for his "profession, and had now taken chambers in Temple Inn, and that pleasant child Mi, who was to the most of her other relations as a lily to thorns. Abandoned to solitude, Myra Barth's thoughts more than ever reverted to the lover whom she had so long mourned. » The love of youth seemed to spring up anew in her mature heart. Thus Myra Barth, in the cool and pleasant shades about B&rth House, revisited the scenes where she had wandered with Jasper Fitzroy, and dreamed of the lost love of her girlhood. And Jasper Fitzroy, toiling under Asian sans, dwelt hour after hour on his long unseen Myra, and shrined her in his heart of hearb, while he wondered would bhab blood-written cry for help never be seen by sympathetic eye, never enter a generous ear ? The five-pound note lay a long time in the strong-box of Ibrahaim Ben Edin. Sometimes he book it out and looked at'it. "It is a pity, Yusef, that this scrap of paper lies here in place of five good pieces of gold." . . " Oh, master, my wisdom would be to get the gold insbead bhereof." " Bub, Yusef, I read danger in its ugly appearance. This crumpled, grey paper, unblessed by bhe name of Allah, suggests bo me destruction. If I sent ib abroad, who knows bub bhab artful Christian has breathed a curse upon ib ?" " In that case, Son of Splendour, I would burn it."

"Then I am lacking the five pieces of gold, and to waste gold is a sin sufficient to close the door of Paradise. Buib your advice is good, child of wisdom, and I always fellow ib; therefore I will send the paper orth and get the gold for ib. For if it is the will of Allah, and written in the decrees of fate, thab by that bib of paper I am to arrive at destruction, ib is idle to try to prevent it." The use of the bank-note having been determined upon, Ibrahaim, with characteristic Turkish slowness, waited six months I for a favourable opportunity to send it abroad, and Jasper Fitzroy had been for three years relying on this note for help before ib passed out of the clutches of Ibrahaim. During all that time no loophole for escape offered to his closest ob- j servation. No prison ever held a state prisoner more closely than this domain of Ibrahaim Ben Edin hold his captives. Finally, Yusef had business ac Makri, and he took the bank-note on the chance of finding some English or French ship of which the captain would give him gold for paper. He found a bark of Genoa, and the Italian captain took the bank-note. This captain, returned to Genoa, gave ib to an English mate. The mate, being a dutiful son, presented this five-pound note to his mother. The mother, being a prudent woman, had resolved that she would lay up five pounds for her own burial expenses, so thab if death overtook her while her son was absent, she would in nowise be beholden to the parish for a funeral. Thus the malign fates which pursued Jasper Fitzroy and Sam Porter decreed that the paper from whioh so much was hoped should be shub up in the box of a purblind old lady, who merely looked ab it once in a month "or two, to be sure thab ib was there. And yet this important bank-note was nob two miles from Myra Barth, who would have gladly given hundreds of pounds for ib, and who had the will and the power to fly to the relief of the captive of Ibrahaim Ben Edin. . The sight of this note would have drawn Myra from sorrow and from solitude—a solitude nearly unbroken, for Myra had never formed any intimacy with the Contessa Idria. The shadow hanging over her life rendered her averse to the presence of strangers. She saw Natolie frequently, as she and Mi were much together. To Myra came Mi running one day, crying: " Oh, Miss Barth I ' Something terrible must have happened at Bidebank Lodge; fori went there just now, and I heard the contessa crying and screaming, and the maids were crying, and the servants said I could nob see Nabolie, for she was with her mother, and they were in trouble." Of course, Miss Barth at once sent a sorvanb to ask if she could be of any assistance to the contessa, bub received a negative reply. : '.'*'' ■"

lb was from the ever-busy Wrigley that the'riewrfiret came.' l " '■•■&;.' • i: " x ' ■:'" ■;'' ■ I. "Well, the Lodge will be empty soon. The confessa'has given it- up." ■■:"■'■ " What has happened ?" >' > • , " She has lost her property. s It was not very much, I suppose, but enough for her and her child. But it is all lost—and she is leaving." ;■. ■■■:■-'> ' Wrigley was not sorry that the contessa was leaving. Lady Bidebank 'and Rupert might come home any day, and it would be well that Mi, who was blooming into a very pretty girl, should find herself without a rival. ,;'■.> ' ."',

Myra, not deaf to the call of compassion, though disliking society, hastened to Bidebank Lodge. "■ ■. / Could she be of any service to the contessa? A loan, say, of a few hundred pounds, without interest, at the contessa'B * convenience I Miss Barth would really "by laid under obligations by its acceptance. Or, would the contessa come to Barth Hall on a visit of a year or so? Mi would bo vastly benefited by having a companion in study, and in the course of time the contessa might find her affairs in better case than she thought. But the proud contessa declined all these offers. ■ '■■.■.■,•:,•-•■■■■•■■■, '■ She said there would be no better phase of her affairs. She had been robbed, ruined, by her husband's relatives. It only ermained for herself and Natolie to go into lodgings in London, and maintain themselves, like many other fallen gentlewomen, by teaching. They could teach French, Italian, music, drawing, fancywork, very many things— they should hide themselves and their sorrows and economies. The contessa even declined to give her future address. She thought it would be better for herself and Natolie if they lost themselves to all former friends and more luxurious days, and shut themselves into their own narrow round ot work a-day life. It might have been a foolish view, but it was a natural view to proud and sensitive women, hiding their mortifications from the world. ' And so the servants of Bidebank Lodge '• were paid and dismissed. Certain articles were sold; others were packed and sent off; and the contessa and her sixteen-year-old daughter went away in a cab, no one knew whither. Natolie and Mi had a farewell meeting in the woods. Mi cried convulsively; she always cried with all her heart when anything troubled her. She clung to Natolie and begged hoc to take half of everything belonging to her, and henceforth always to share her pocketmoney. But Natolie never shed a tear. " We shall never meet again," she said to Mi; "our ways now lie far apart. I shall bo but a daily governess, or may bo even a fine seamstress. I shall always love you, but it is best for mamma and for me to fight our way alone, hidden from all we have ever known and loved. Ib will be less hard." " Bub whab will Rupert say when he comes back and finds you lost?" cried Mi. "He will not mind. He has been gone two years; by this time he will have forgotten." "No one could ever forget you, Natolie 1" cried the admiring and unselfish Mi, looking at her taller companion, who stood like some beautiful nymph in the shadow of the woods. , "He will have forgotten," said Natolie— who in truth did. not believe that he would and she inconsistently added : " And you, golden-headed English primrose, you must console him." And so Natolie went away, and ib was from the letters of Miss Barth thab Ruperb and Lady Bidebank learned thab the contessa had met losses and had gone away, no one knew where. " She will write to me herself," said her ladyship. And so she and the boy waited a long while, and no letters came. "Let us go back and look for them," cried Ruperb. "I shall never be happy unless I find Natolie. Oh, I. love her, and I was sure I should have her for my wife! Come, let us go back and find them 1" However, her ladyship was nob well enough to go back, and she told Ruperb that Lawyer Mellodew should be instructed to look up the lost ones, while they themselves concluded their time of travel. Mr. Mellodew set himself to search for the Idrias. His search proved merely how easily, people can lose themselves in London. A change of name, a change of dress, a change of locale, and one is lost amid the myriads of toilers for bread who in London live in lodgings. The proud contessa would not darken the lofty name of Idria by wearing it while she took wages. She fell back on the name of the English portion of her ancestry, and that happened to be Montgomery. Now Montgomerys are not few in the United Kingdom, and under the shadow of that wide-spreading name the contessa and Natolie set down in lodgings in Birdcage Walk, Bethnel Green—lodgings over a baker's shop— there they sewed and painted and copied and taught for a living.

CHAPTER XX. ' ANOTHER ILL TORN OF FORTUNE. Sir James Wrigley, M.P., ableib with a very discontented face, was walking around the Barth estate. The estate was goodly, and growing goodlier in its values every year as great London stretched nearer and nearer to it. Wrigley, as he walked, mused thab one day this estate would be his and his heirs. Ah, when that day came, how they would roll in gold ! What a princely fortune was accumulating during the quiet and careful life of "my cousin." This expectation surely did not make Wrigley ead. lb was hope deferred that sickened his face. Would that woman never die? Meaning Miss Barth, who had educated all his children; who was providing for "Our Eldest," and making a man of him ; who had just bought a lieutenancy for " Our Second;" who had promised the rich family living to " Our Third," now a theological sprig in Oxford; who was foster-mother to "Oar Mi." But there are some Christian breasts as ignorant of the grace of gratitude as that Turk, Ibrahaim Ben Edin. As Wrigley walked, his head thrust foriward, his eyes lowered, his lean, restless fingers clasped behind him, up, apparently from the ground at his feet, rose that Bon of mischief, Tony Pettigrew. "Tony! What brings you here?" "Which it are my conscience," said Tony, feelingly. " Bah ! That means that you wanb to leech me of money. It's no go, Tony. I hold the whip-hand over you. I can give you and your misdeeds over to the court. And you know you admitted to Miss Barth thab you stole that baby. And she'll remember you, Tony, long as it is. She has an eye like an eagle. Zounds ! I don't know bub the very best thing I can do is just to hand you over to justice." "Do it, then," said Tony, with remarkable assumption of misery and self-surrender. " I don't care. I'm that miserable I believe it would be a relief to my mind just to swear it all out to the court— our doings —yours and mine, eir." " Bah Who'd believe what you say about me?" " Mebby they wouldn't. I don't care if they don't," persisted Tony. "It would feel good to make a clean breast of it. And I could have the satisfaction, while ending , o£ my mis'able, wicked days—to think that I'd done right, and that that boy had gob his own again, and thab Miss Barth had her dear little brother back." " What!" roared the doctor. Tony dropped his eyelids »3 he saw thab his shot had told. " Why, this is what : I ain'b no fool. I have laid this and that together. I think that boy won't get far oub o' his true name if he just drops the Bidebank and keeps to Rupert Barth." " You confounded, drivelling fool!" No, I ain'b such a fool—nob a werry greab one. Didn'b you wanb thab Barth boy put oub of the way jusb as soon as he come to this 'ere wicked world ? What call, sir, have you to care what lady Bidebank do with a boy! Why, none. Bub it's a deal to you whether there's a likely boy to inherit Barth. I smelt that out" a good while ago, and I see every day, clearer nor comets, as how ib don't pay me to hold my tongue." . ■ *-■■■" • , v A > ' ■■•■■■ .'I " You are all wrong, Tony—: much mistaken. I could show you that in two minutes if I tried. : I -see how ib is, my poor fellow. Trouble and poverty have turned your head. I am sorry for you. I have always been a friend to you—and now, if I only knew what was pressing ; on - you, I'd be willing to help you—l really would.''

,•;■'" I s'pose you know better nor me, sir,"' said Tony with a sudden meekness— feeling half so sure of his ground about the Barth 1 boy as he pretended—-"bat I've no objections explaining to a friend whab'a working, me.up.; Poverty's one thing— when a man is down to his last shilling he's apt to be down in the mouth, too---ain'b it so,' sir ? But the" heaviest thing on me, sir —is my wife." : ' " '• ; .'••.' '-" " How's that, Tony ? She earns her own living. I fancy ?" " Oh, sir, 't ain't the wally o' what goes into her mouth I'm repinin' over, bub the weight of what comes out of it. ' Sir—there's no end, sir, to that woman's tongue. Don't talk o' a mill-stream, nor yet o a locomotyve, nor yet 6* a mail-coach. It's just perpetooal' motion. There's no end to Mrs. Pettigrew. Now, sir, if I wasn't of the same cut, of course it could be stood. She could go on, and I cdald keep silent. But, sir,' the two of us is just one too many. She goes it, and I go it. She's wollybui and I'm wollybui, and it would take a Solyman to tell which went ib wurab, and a howling dervish to beat either of us. You see for yourself, sir, when I get once agora' I can't stop. How long have I been goin' now, if you please, sir ?" " A long time," said Wrigley, wearily. " Well, ijhe goes a longtimo same. She goes fast and Igo faster. Then we runs a race, an' comes out neck and neck. She talks loud, and I talk louder. Them she yells, and I scream; and such a din, sir, never was before. To do ib makas my throat ache j to hear ib makes your ears ache. Now, sir, I could stand my throat aching, bub to have the ears, too—oh, that's too much I It robs a man o' vitality, sir, never to get no rest !" " Except when he's asleep," interposed the doctor. "It's my belief," retorted Tony, "fchafc Mrs. Pettigrew and me yells and goes on at each other when we is asleep for, for my part, I feel just as tired when I gob up-aa when I go to bed." " Well, what am I to do about ib ¥' . " There, now you puts the polish on it, if one may so say; and when you trims ib down to a nice, fine point. Why, sir, you're to give me twenty poun' to build me up after these many aggrawations, and you're to take Mrs. Pettigrew off my hands, and keep her off." " Only that!" cried the doctor, furiously* "Only that, Tony?" "Only that," said Mr. Pettigrew,' doggedly, " or else, sir, I know just what I shall do. I shall fly to the arms of the court to escape Mrs. Pettigrew. I shall take refuge in a prison-cell. I shall abandon my own—dear native land—Britannia —rules— the —waves, and be a' exile in penal settlements; and if so be J. could take you along with me, sir, so as not to be 'mong—strangers—and—poleceslong — —roam, all by myself, so much the better for me." "But what could I do with Mm Petti* grew, Tony ?" , "Stick her and the boy in some little house and give her a small allowance and plenty of work, and she'll do your work. She's sharp, is Mrs. Pettigrew; what she don't know ain't worth knowing." "And what will you engage to do in thab case V " Oh, I'll go off and never come back," " How shall I be sure of that, Tony V ' " Sure ! Just you keep Mrs. Pettigrew near you, and 1 won't.come near you no i more than if she were a mad dog 2" " Still I do nob see what I can do with her," said Wrigley. " Never fear Mrs. Pettigrew is up to anything," said Tony, boasting his wares !to get them off his hands. " She can rtusa i sick people, an' keep house, an' do lots-o' things.". j . ■ [To be continued.]