QUEEN KATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9711, 5 January 1895, Page 3 (Supplement)

QUEEN KATE.

BY CHARLES GARVICK, -Bthorof '-In Cupid's Chains," "Oncein a Life," ' "A life's Mistake," "Better Than Life, "She Trusted Him," etc., etc. CHAPTER XXVIII. COBIX»her husband, stood before her. For a second she scarcely recognised him. Tfc seemed mora like a vision, one of those swiftly coming and slowly passing fantasies which flash across the mind with lightning rapidity. , Her eyes dilated, like a sleep walker s, her fingers stiffened ; she forgot the crowded room, that the preludo had ceased, and that all were waiting for her to begin. Then a slight shudder swept over her, »cd she came to a sense of the situation and what was expected of her. She "lanced at Lady Lilian, who had turned to regard her with faint surprise in her sweet, patient eyes, and Kate signed her to go on—forced a smile even. Lady Lilian played the opening notes of the accompaniment, and Kate, with a fearful effort, began to ein£, # , -She thought that her voice would issue forth hoarse and discordant, bub it did not do so. The notes were full of the liquid sweetness, the subtile charm which had made her famous. The audience drew a long breath, as of relief; for the emotion, the hesitation of the linger had tilled them with apprehension that something had happened to rob them of the pleasure they hart looked forward to so keenly ; and then, as the low, soft voice sung the old song which had floated down the years on a river of tears, they began to thrill. Some of the women held their breath, lome breathed in quick, rapid gasps, the man frowned and set their teeth, as men do when they are battling with emotion and trying to conceal it. Bub presently, as Kate proceeded, tears began to glisten in the eyes of the women, and from the packed audience a sob rose here and there. Before the last words had died away most of the women were crying openly, the rest stared at the singer through a mist, and bit their lips. There was a profound silence as the exquisite voice ceased, and then the sound pf that applause which cannot be withheld. " Encore ! encore !" cried a gentleman near the platform, and the audience took up the cry. Lilian turned her web eyes toward Kate inquiringly, but Kate slightly shook her head and stepped down from the platform. Prince Serge sprung forward to give her his hand. His dark face was like the colour of old ivory, his black eyes flashed and glowed upon her. " Ah, again, again!" be murmured. "Sing again !" She shook her head, she could scarcely speak. Although she did not look in the direction of the soot- where Curll had been standing, she felt aa it she still saw him. "Ah ! will you not ? Listen to them, how they beseech, implore you, senorita!" whispered Prince Serge. "I cannot!" said Kate, suddenly, incoherently. Then fighting for selfcommand, she said in a low voice, " I—l was to sing only one songthere are others —the programme is a long one. No, no, 1 Cannot sing again !" They gathered round her, a duchess, famous for her pride and hauteur, among the suppliants. Kate looked distressed, like a hunted animal; and Lady Lilian, though she knew nothing of the cause of emotion, saw that something was the matter, and came to her aid. " \\ e must not ask the senorita 1" she said, taking Kate's burning hand. "It was very good of her to sing at all, remember. How hot you are, dear senorita ! Come with me into the fernery—" Prince Serge offered his arm, bub Lady Lilian, with a slight gesture, stayed him, and led Kate into the sudden coolness of the fernery. Kate sunk on to a seat and looked down at the mosaic floor with her brows knit, her lips tremulous, and Lilian sat beside her silent, sympathetically silent, for a few minutes. Then she said in a low, gentle voice : "Are you better, dear senorita?" Better said Kate, as if awaking from a stupor, a dream. "I was not ill, lam nob ill 1" "I thought you were faint," said Lady Lilian. "I saw you stop and look—well, as one looks when one is going to be overcome by that death-in-iife feeling. Ib was the heat. It could not have been nervousness ?" "No," said Kate, very quietly. "Ib must have been the heat." " It was wonderful the way in which you conquered the weakness," remarked Lilian, admiringly. What a power of self command you must have. But that is of course, or you could not face a theatre full of people." "This was worse,"said Kate, almost absently. " Worse? Ah, yes ; I know you did not like it. Perhaps it was the absence of the footlights, which shut the audience from your sight, do they not? or perhaps it was the audience having them so near ; those in the front row could almost touch the edge of your dress. Very likely that was it ; it would have made me nervous ; and yet you must have sung to a private audience often before you appeared at the theatre ?' "Not often," said Kate. She scarcely knew what responses she was making to the tender expressions of sympathy. " Did —did they notice, remark my hesitation ?" Lady Lilian would have liked to have replied in the negative, but she was truth iteelf.

"Yes; but it did not matter. It was only a moment of extreme suspense. And then—ah, then, senorita !I am almost glad you did not sing againat any rate, that song. Had you done so, I must have cried out loud, and the rest felt like that, I am sure. Ah, it is ringing in my ears now. What a wonderful gift! And you sing it so simply. Just the notes of the air without an added thrill or flourish. It was like a roice speaking the words from a heart pining to death for the dear lost home. Oh, it was just wonderful!" " 1 am glad you are pleased," said Kate, softly. Lady Lilian touched her hand ; with her the little caresses of hands and eyes were rare, and it was not often she indulged in them.

"Pleased iB scarcely the word. How moved they were ! I could see their faces, you know—though sometimes my tears shut them out— they were a study. I don't suppose the Duchess of Altcastle has shed a tear for— how many years ! She will scarcely forgive you. And the men. They don't cry — they must not, poor things ! —but they looked—well, I could have laughed if I had nob felt with them and understood what it cost them to restrain themselves, to keep back the tears. Even Southborough, who is supposed to be hewn out of granite--well, I could see by the sternness of his face— went quite white— that he was as moved as the rest." Kate was silent for a moment. "The— of Southborough," she said."He is here, then?" "Yes," said Lilian, quietly. "He came in just as 1 played the prelude ; just, indeed, as you stopped. At first, I thought you had paused because his entrance made a little stir and disturbed you." "No," said Kate. "He stood near the door—l expect intentionally, so that he might make his escape quickly. He hates 'At Homes' and concerts —every kind of ' mob,' as he calls it." "I think I saw him," said Kate. She must learn the truth, and at once, "He is • — tall man ?" " Oh, yes ; you cannot mistake him. He is the finest man in the room, not excepting Prince Serge, who runs him very close perhapsthe tallest and most stalwart," she went on ; and with Kate's sensitive ears she seemed to speak with half-suppressed pride. " They call him the ' Big English •evil' in Egypt. You may have heard how bravely, how recklessly he fought, and how he distinguished himself." " Yes, I think 1 have," said Kate. " You ■—you have known him some time, Lady Lilian?" Yes," Lilian answered, simply; "ever since I was a little girl. We were playmates together. His father's place and ours adjoined—it is his now, of course." Kai« almost held her breath. "I thought the Duke of Southborough was an older man," she said, in a low voice. Yes Ah, yea, I ' remember your making the same remark the other day. I think you must have Been the laeb duke; ha was older.

44 The last duke ¥' repeated Kate. " Has thin one nob been the duke long I" "No; only a few months. The last duke, poor man, died of the shock of his little boy's death." Kate scarcely knew how to continue the interrogation; and yet ah® must know the truth. V There was a little boy, then?" she said, at last. "Yes; have you not heard? How strange ! It was the strangest, saddest, chapter of accidents. The duke had two sons—Edgar, who was delicate, and little Bertie. Edgar caught cold at the Riviera —one gets a chill very quickly there, you know—and died—died quite suddenly—and so Bertie became the heir. He was a very quiet little fellowa dear little mitebut everyone thought him strong and likely to live. But one day, about nine months ago, he caught scarlet fever in the village at Rilsby—that is one of the ducal places, you know. Perhaps you have heard of it ?" " Yes," said Kate, " I have heard of it." "They did everything they could for him, and he seemed to be getting better; bu there was a relapse, and he died. Poor little fellow!" she murmured, pityingly. "I was with him when he died, and so was Southborough—l mean the present) duke, of course." "Yes," said Kate, her heart beating heavily. " Bertie was passionately fond of his cousin, and could scarcely bear to let him out of his sight. Curll had just come home from Egypt, and Bertie declared that ho had kept from dying to see Curll." "Curll?" The ferns seemed to be floating on a sea of mist before Kate's eyes. "Curll?" she said, between her teeth. "Yes. How stupid of me not to explaiu 1 The present duke's name is Curll Brendon." Kate felt for the arm of the seat and clutched ib as a drowning man clutches at the rock that may save him from death. "He is the son of Lord Brendon. It must all seem a tangle to you, senorita, and ib bores you perhaps ?" "No, no," said Kate, trying to smile. " Please—please go on." "Curll had just come homo from Egypt in time to see Bertie die. The boy died in his arms, and almost his last words were, ' Kiss me, Uncle Curll! I couldn't grow a big man like you, and so it's better I should die, isn't it V " The tears rose to her eyes as she repeated the childish farewell, and she paused a moment. " I have never forgotten Curll's answer. Ha lifted the boy on to his broad breast, and said—he could scarcely speak—' Live foir my sake, Bertie,' and I saw him shake —well, like a woman. And yet they say he has no heart," she put in parenthetically, and with a soft flush. "Think of ib, senor ! the 'Big English Devil' crying over a little boy—the little boy who stood between him and a dukedom !"

Kate sab with averted face. Bertie died," went on Lady Lilian, "and the duke fell ill. He had lost all his children and was tired of life. People envy a duke, and think that he must be happy. Ah, me ! if they could have seen the last duke, as I did, sitting in his study-chair, with his hands clasped on the table before him, and the tired, weary look on his face ! Ha fell ill, and while they were asking themselves whether he could get better or not, news came that Lord Brendon, Curll's father, was dying at San Remo. Curll had to leave the duke, who had grown so fond of him that he could not bear him out of his sight —ib was because Bertie loved Curll so—and posted off to San Remo. " His father died before he gob there, and the duke died before ho, Curl!, had buried his father. Doesit not sound like a romance, senorita? Picture to yourself a man—a young manstanding, as ib were, surrounded by his dead kinsmen. Death had hewn a path to the dukedom for him."

" It is little wonder that he looks grave and sad," said Kate, in a low voice. A cloud passed over Lady Lilian's fair face. " No ; little wonder, as you Bay," she said. "Ib was a terrible time but—" she paused. Kate glanced ab her swiftly, and after a momentary hesitation, Lady Lilian continued : " I was going to say that Curll Brendon — is so difficult for me to remember that he is the duke—looked as you see him before his people died, before he left England for Egypt. He exchanged into the regiment that was ordered out, and left the one in which he was so popular, that ho might get active service. I saw him just before he went, and—senorita, have you ever seen a man who hail just recovered from a long attack of fever ?" " Yes," said Kate, " I have been through the hospitals in Rome and Paris ; I have seen men in Naples after an attack of cholera." " Well, then, that is how Curll Brendon looked. Ib was dreadful!" She sighed and looked away for a moment. " Had he—been ill V asked Kate, in a dry voice.

"We do nob know," replied Lilian. " He did not complain, and we never heard of any serious illness. Something must have happened, something of which we had never learned, some great trouble. And yet I can guess. They say some men love so passionately, that if their love is thwarted—" she stopped. It had just flashed upon her that she had no right to betray Curll's confidence, and that, though she had begun to love her, the senorita, she was a stranger. Kate's lips trembled. " You—think that Captain Brendon had suffered a disappointment in love; that there was— woman ?" " Yes."said Lilian, sadly. "I know that much ; but I do not know what happened. Perhaps she died, or perhaps she— Oh, no, she could not. have been false to him ; and he—" She stopped. "He?" " Well, I was going to say that ib was impossible that Curll should have been false to her. He is the soul of honour." Kate winced at the word. She could never hear it without feeling as if she had been stabbed. " Honour !" What had ib not cost her ? " Besides, if the fault had been on his side, he would not have suffered so keenly, would he ?" went on Lilian. " ' Men love and they ride away,' you know." "And he suffered so much?" murmured Kate, almost to herself. " Yes," responded Lilian. "I told you how ill, how worn he looked ; and I have heard from men who were out in Egypt with him that he was utterly careless of his life, that he seemed to court death. They say that he must have borne a charmed life, for he always rode straight for the places where the battle waged the fiercest, and that he never took the least care of himself, though be was as anxious about his men as any of the other officers could be. No wonder his men almost worshipped him. The war accounts were full of his exploits, and if he had not succeeded to the dukedom, there would have been a peerage for hini. And yet," she smiled, "no one can got him to talk of the war ; and if he is ever induced to speak of it, it is always of things the other men achieved."

" That is the way of all brave men," said Kate. Her heart was throbbing with pride—and love. This man, the hero, was her husband. It was his love for her, his loss of her thab had wrought the change in him and made him reckless of bis life. Oh, if she could only go to him and say : "Curll, I love you, have always loved you. Forgive me 1" Bub she could nob do thab. He was a duke, one of the highesb peers in the land, while she— She shuddered and turned pale under the stress of her emotion. Lilian looked at her. Are you better, senorita V' she asked. "Shall we go into the room again ?" "I am better," said Kate; "bub I will not go in again. Can I nob get out of the house some way"— looked toward the end of the fernery. " I should like to go home now—at once. You must go back to the salon, Lady Lilian, to your friends." Lilian went to a door at the end of the conservatory, bub came back immediately. "It is locked," she said. " I am so sorry ! But the people will be leaving directly, or going into other parts of the house, and then you can leave without being seen. I will go and see how far they have gob in the programme, and will come back to yon." Kate, left alone, leaned back and covered her eyes with her hands. She had seen Curll again, and he was the Duke of Southborough ! Then ib flashed upon her, and she realised what she had nob realised during Lady Lilian's story, that she was a duchess—she, upon whose birth was a stain which rendered her unworthy to be the wife of any honourable man ! What could she do? She, must leave London—England—at once* Her engagement must be cancelled. ... , .

Then she thought of the heavy forfeit she would have to pay, and, still more keenly, of the manager's loss and disappointment. Mr. Proper had dealt liberally and honourably with her, and he would suffer heavily if she were to break her engagement. Would ib bo possible for her to remain jusb long enough to fulfil her contract with him? She need not meet Curll again. Ib would not be at all likely that they should meet. A wide social gulf stretched between a duke and an opera-singer. If she remained in London she must carefully avoid him. Ob, if she could only geb away now! And yeb while she longed to fly from him she was conscious of the desire—the almost overmastering desire —to see him, to hear him speak. Perhaps he had gone. Lady Lilian had said he would be sure to make his escape as soon as possible. It he had gone, she might pass through the salon and leave the house. She rose, but fearful that he might still bo in the salon, she sunk down again.

CHAPTER XXIX. Curll had nob gone. He stood jusb inside the room, by L door where Kate had seen him, and ho stood looking straight before him, with a strained and haggard expression on his grave face, an expression which made him look stern arid worn. Was he dead or dreaming? he asked himself Ho had come to this concert under considerable pressure, pressure applied by Lady Margaret, Lady Uevadon, ami, lastly, by Lady Lilian. They had told him that it was not only his duty to help the society by his presence, bub that he would be amply repaid for coming out of his shell" by seeing heating the wonderful singer, Senorita Corona, Ho cared nothing for any senorita, however wonderful her beauty and voice might be, and he had come, reluctantly enough, to please the kind women who had asked, implored him. He had entered the room, looked round wearily upon the brilliant throng, and then at the lady on the platform. And as his eyes had rested upon her, something had seemed to stab him to the hearb. For the woman on the platform was sbrangely, weirdly like—his Kate ! He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked again. Then he turned them away and Mghed. Yes, she was like her, fearfully like her, bub it was nob Kate. It could nob be Kate had dark, almosb black hair—and Kate had dark, almost black hair—and this woman's was almost golden. Besides, he know that, Kate was dead. He had seen the announcement of her death two years

ago. . , , Ho turned away with a pang, a spasm of pain and as he turned away the singer began to sing, and the shock repeated itself. , . „ Why, it was Kates voice? Her voice, though matured and cultivated. He leaned against the wall and glared at her with the set, stern expression which those who have gone through the horrors of war acquire and carry to their death. It was terrible, terrible ! Here was his love risen from the grave ; and yet nob his love bub a counterfeib presentiment, a itrango woman who had probably never heard his name. Big drops of sweat broke out on his brow, the brow lined by the terrible heat of Africa, by privation, by days and weeks of anxiety and danger, days and weeks spent amidst scenes of carnage too awful for description. The audience around him would have seen the signs of his emotion if ib had nob been so much engrossed by its own, evoked by the exquisitely moving voice of the singer as she sans; the hackneyed " Home, Sweet Home." Every eye was fixed upon the senorita, and while she sung, even the celebrated hero, the Duke of Southborough, was forgotten. How can one describe the effect which the voice, the song produced upon Curll? He leaned against the wall, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his face set in a frown that looked stern and forbiding. Ais the liquid notes rose clear and sweet as a bird's, his great chest expanded, his heart swelled with something very like agony. It wa3 not only the exquisite pathos of the voice, but the strange resemblance to Kate's which affected him.

He saw, remarked nothing, of the emotion of those near him ; lie did not see that the women were crying, that the bishop was holding his hand before his eyes and shaking with suppressed sobs; he seemed to bo once more in the drawing-room at Ammondale, listening to Kate, his Kate. As the last notes died away and the audience broke into a storm of applause, he straightened himself and looked round like a man waking from a sleep haunted by dreams.

" Who—who was that lady who has jusb sung?" he asked of no one in particular. The bishop, who was blowing his nose after the manner of middle-aged men when they are moved, looked ab him with surprise. " Don't you know, duke 1" he said. " It is the new prima donna." " What is her name ?" asked Curll, in the curt fashion which was now characteristic of him.

"Her name? Well, she calls herself Senorita Corona ; but of course that is only a norn de tMHtre. How exquisitely she sung, did she not ? I—er—have not been ——impressed for years. Have you not beard her at the opera, duke 1 really think I must go, though, as you know, we clergy—" Curll broke in upon the unctuous TOice. " la she English ?" "I really—er—don't know. She sung the words of the dear old song with no or very little accent," replied the bishop. " But I think she is Italian." " Italian, your grace," said a gentleman standing near them. "The senorita is an Italian, of course. When did you hear an English voice like hers?" and the speaker at once engaged in a long, wordy argument on the difference between the Saxon and the Latin races in the matter of voice. Curll did not listen to the flow of verbiage. His eyes were fixed, his attention wholly absorbed, by the singer, as, after a modest bow, full of dignity, she left the platform with Lady Lilian. He drew a long breath and wiped the perspiration from his brow, and waited to see if she would sing again. A babble of voices raged round him, the torpor of blase indifferance which usually falls like a blight over such functions as this, was dispelled by the exquisite genius of the singer and an excitement, which was as intense as it was rare, throbbed through the brilliant throng. " She will not sing again," said the bishop with a sigh, " Well, perhaps ib is better so. Nothing she could have sung would have moved u* as that' Home, Sweet Home' has done. No, she will nob sing again; see, Senor Podoboske has gon« to the piano." (To be continued.)