A MOMENT OF SENTIMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11949, 25 April 1902, Page 3

A MOMENT OF SENTIMENT.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL. ABBANGEJCEOT.]

BY E. LIVINGSTON PRESCOTT.

[COPYRIGHT.] "Come hack, Chubby I" Chubby wrested himself scornfully from the detaining grasp of the Hon. Bobby Erne, his brother subaltern. " 'Pon my soul, it's awfully important this time," the latter persisted. But Chubby, otherwise Charles Übbington Lumley, had something much more important on hand. He shook himseli free, Vaulted on the fiery stead his soldierservant held with a covert grin, and plunged gallantly after a seedy victoria. The Hon. Bobby, aged twenty, shook his venerable head over his comrade. "Sad pity! But he will have it. Even I once possessed illusions," ho remarked to Second-Lieutenant Chetwood, and the two rode regretfully away.,

There had been a regimental gymkhana, and tea .at the mess. Never had the devotion of Chubby to the widow—his widow — been so painfully pronounced, or ho so blindly enchanted. He was lEquerry to the Queen of Love and Beauty, and as he rode at her somewhat creaking wheel all things were transmuted, to his young eyes, by the roseate haze of his virginal passion. Chubby was very young altogether; young in years, and, oh! how young in his innocence. Ho could not believe bad things, regarding them as stupid mistakes or outrageous calumny, even when they were thrust for his good under his unformed nose. His face was roundhence his nickname—his eyes were full of faith, his blushes came and went terribly, and his large young limbs, failing to achieve their owner's eager purpose, got in his own and everybody else's way.

Such was the cavalier; one of a long and woeful ancestry who had fallen, alas 1 into Mrs. Cardew's hand:

Mrs. Cardew was a very bad instance of the conventional widow; not the little widow with soft blue eyes and simpatica mouth, but the other type —tall, showy, hag-gardly-handsome, and painted within an inch of her life.

" She's a mask of it," said Chubby's servant, who would fain have protected him. " If my missis laid on a tenth of that. I'd strap 'er. But 'im—'e's a hinfant!" Chubby jumped off his pawing bay, cast the rein to an idler, and having assisted tho widow, as if she were the finest porcelain, to alight, in response to a curt — "Coming in?"—followed her, treading on air, into the stuffy, scented drawing-room, with its rose-pink curtains and meretricious adornments.

To his disgust, a man rose up out of the easiest chair. His maimer also was easy: which Chubby felt, in a follow who had that ruu-to-seed aspect, to be prospective impudence—"And to her!" he said, in his own romantic bosom.

She, however, was calm. " Captain Scobell, an old, old friend," she said.

"Friend of childhood," the captain murmured, with a faint grimace. "I just wanted —a word."

To borrow money, Chubby thought, fiercely. She who was so sweet, so innocent! Chubby longed to protect her. Instead, she said to him, mortifyingly, i "Go into the {lining-room and play with Bully for half an hour." It was a dreadful thing to hear, and if Chubby had not been a good boy he would have cursed that bullfinch; but he was so mild that ho only stood by* the cage and said, "Ah, Bully, Bully!" Bully, who had this resemblance to his mistress, that he loved all men, offered him in pity a half-digested hemp seed. Scobell, precisely the stock raffish captain of past fiction, had been misjudged by Chubby. He had no sinister aim, was an old friend, and—but for hopeless pecuniary barriers— have been something more. Lying comfortably back in his chair ho inquired, "This is tho lad?" The widow supposed so. "A shadejuvenile?" "Men like young wives; why not women young husbands? And everybody, I imagine, likes money." Scobell nodded, as one convinced. " Ah! Congrats." Then he begged, with a vestige of animation, even sentiment, for a last " jaw." So Chubby and the bullfinch sat in the twilight for "a long half hour, till a wisp of fair hair fell over Chubby' brow and he bit a trembling lip. At last the captain, on his way out, intimated that Mrs. Cardew was disengaged. Her opening remark was a comfort: "What a bo.-e old friends are! " Old enough to be your father 1" the boy said, witheringly. The widow returned, with a pensive air, that she had often sat on his knee; but gave no precise date of the performance. "It seemed so—o—o long!" said Chubby, referring to tho last half hour. "Bully wanted to kiss me," he added, intending no presumptuous comparison, and stricken with horror when the widow " feared he was impertinent." So the game was played a little longer. Then, thinking the silent contemplation of her charms might hearten a suitor who, though mortally eager to ask the decisive question, was checked by the very humility of his love—"I have a letter to write; walk about and amuse yourself," she commanded.

Chubby, with the restlessness of youth, was glad to prowl around. She presently observed him pick up a photo from a side table. At sight of it he blushed a deep blush, and his mouth rounded itself into a silent "O." The widow asked tartly what that was, and he came apologetically to her, photo in hand. It was a face of angelic innocence, but not altogether that of a child. " Such a jolly child." Ho knew by instanct— which, however, he drew no cold distinctions—that the widow did not like girls. She snatched it from him: ' Xou tiresome bov; poking and prying!" the bov, utterly routed, with drooping mouth and raised brows, made things worse. "T—l only thought— it was like A fell silence followed, voiceful with the widow's frown, which turned suddenly to an artificial smile, as, tossing over some papers on tho table, she handed him the photo of a small child in long stockings. "My little girl. Another of her, you see. Guess her ago !' . Chubby, looking from one portrait to the other, murmured mendaciously, "F-five or six." Even love could not teach him to lie well. • ' , . He drew close to her; her eyes met his. Such different eyes, with such a world between them! "J wish," she said, and her lips seemed a little dry, " 1 was five or six again." , _ Perhaps she spoke the truth. Her eyes seemed to grow bigger and bigger; to draw Chubby down. The boy thrilled, and, as he stooped over her. seemed to dilate and age. "Why'.'" he asked, huskily. "Why should you wish that?" The widow turned her head asido to hide —something. "That I might grow up—for you." she said, with exceeding sweetness. ' The resultant rocking of the universe brought Chubby to his knees Then he came out gallantly with a good, round, oldfashioned proposal. The reply need scarcely be given in detail. It may be stated, instead, that Chubby had five thousand a year. He stayed very late, very long, and would have staved longer but for an untoward incident. . ~, Picking up the photo again, with a possessive air, he asked gaily, had she any more children? ..,»■. ~ "I don't, believe the little fool would mind," she told herself, "if I had a dozen. To Chubby she said curtly— Yes, one. It died." ~ ~ , " Then you can comfort my mother, he cried effusively. "She never got over ny twin's death. That's why she's so set on me. How she'll love you!" /•• Tho Cardrew assented, with thinly-veiled I sarcasm.

"I'll tell you about it," said Chubbyhe was considered prolix by the mesa. "The mater's name is different from rmno —I took my uncle's, you know, with the money. She's Mrs. Robertson." ) At this common appellation the widows eve flickered strangely, and instead of snubbing, she encouraged the narrator. He held her manicured hand in his the the while., as if it were a fresh rose loaf. " My people were at an hotel at some out-of-the-way diggings in Italy, an 1 bver brjke out. I and my brother were attle kids. We both took the blessed thing like a shot. The mater nursed us. and was in "an awful scare. We were doing all right, but there was a poor lady in this lame hole, married to a bad hat— What is it? A little finger and thumb, still pretty, had nipped him smartly. "Nothing. Go on." "Well; her children were down with it, too, and she got knocked up, and there was no one to look after the kiddies but a fool of a Swis3 maid. Something is the matter!" said Chubbv, with tender sternness. She smiled stiffly: " Onlv I'm so interested."

"The mater's no end of kind-hearted. So, as we seemed all right, she went, just to put things in train; and one poor little chap—this lady's.baby— "Well?" said the widow, quickly; but, oddly enough, she seemed to know what was coming; her lips formed the words. " Died in my mother's arms." His listener's mouth was wide open in a sickly, staring smile. The boy, now interested in his own narrative, resumed:

" When the poor mater went back _ my twin had had a fit, and the nurse didn't know the right medicine or something; and we lost him. It cut her up awfully." " And your mother's name," said the widow, " Robertson?" She repeated it as if it were the most unheard-of cognomen.

" Why, yes," said Chubby, wonderingly. " She never married again, of course." Then he cast down his eyes and crimsoned, feeling how rude he had been. The Cardow began to laugh, loud and long; she was glad of the excuse, perhaps. Then she said plainly to the boy that she wished to be alone. "Why? I've been here such a little, little while!"

The widow did not stab him with sarcasm, as aforetime; she was gentle, chilly, absent. His great eyes seemed to be a long way back, and he perceived with a start what lie had never realised beforethat she was slightly his senior. Suddenly she asked him:—

" What would your mother do if she lost you?" " She says I am rll she has; and it would kill her," he returned, in a voice of conviction. "But why—" She studied him thoughtfully; straight flaxen hair, rosy cheeks, round -bluo eyes. "I see," ehe said. "Well, well—go now!" His words tumbling over each other with eagerness ho asked: "What time may I eonio to-morrow? I— want to bring you a— little ring I saw." It was a heartshaped sapphire of immense price. She named an hour, listlessly. When he was gone she sat still staring at the embers liko a witch, or a Fate, and thrusting her fingers recklessly through her gilded locks, so that the grey roots showed. Then she crawled upstairs, casting a passing glance at an elaborate photograph of Chubby in full uniform, and disinterred from among rouge and powder pots a blurred portrait of a putty-faced infant, at which she looked long. . Next day she made her French maid— a skilful artist, but of besmirched repute, and therefore cheapremonstrate movingly, "Mais! madame. Si co petit m'sieu'."

Mrs. Cardew, adding lavishly to the ruddle on her cheeks, swore select foreign oaths. Her silk skirts swirled out of the room; skirts of very light hues, by no means becoming by day. When Chubby, as extensively got up as tho rigid ideal of his regiment permitted, presented himself the rose-pink curtains were drawn mercilessly back. Cruel as a Pharisaical eyo tho truthful sunlight shono on the widow's face. Even Chubby was startled, and stood with lips parted, the colour on his cheeks excelling all art. You could pee the white round the blue of his eyes. He was so frightfully discomposed and ashamed that his hand almost dropped the satin case he was concealing. The painted lips cracked in a satiric smile of welcome. "What's the matter?" she demanded. "It's bad form to stare." "You— ill—feverish I" the boy stammered. Tho stammer seemed to touch a chord and make the mask-face a shade less brazen. She said abruptly— " Come and sit down." Chubby obeyed, "with a quivering lip, feeling that he must be very bad, somehow; or perhaps she was "trying" him. He fumbled nervously at the ring-ease. She closed his hand sharply on it and said, in a high-pitched accent of doom— "Do you remember that story you were telling mo?" His heart was too sick for more than inarticulate assent. She was not, he thought, in the least like herself. "And—that child that died in your mother's arms?" Chubby, with drawn brows of puzzled pain, said, "Yes. But why— The widow opened her nostrils; they palpitated oddly. Between her tightened lips she announced—"That was my child." She saw that Chubby could not take it in, and tapped his hand hard to emphasise her meaning. He noticed dimly that her fingers were like ice. "I was the lady. Understand?" "Oh! I c-c-can't!" the boy began to stutter, vainly fighting his fate. "So, you see," with a swift, cold change of note, "it would be perfectly absurd for me to many you." Chubby uttered a cry; the knifo had got home to his young heart. He, knew she spoke the truth: and then, there was that new face—most dreadful, scarlet and white, and, withal, so wrinkled and old! Ho turned his eyes from hers with a moan and a shiver. " I'm sorry," the widow said, tranquilly. "But you perceive yourself, my good child, it's impossible." Tho boy rose up, stumbled heavily across the room, and laid his head on his arms against the wall. There was a great silence; the mask of paint regarded him with raised eyebrows. Five thousand a year was a sore ' temptation. Why reckon such a trifle as a dead baby's face, pillowed on a strange woman's breast, against it? When Chubby had done biting back his sobs she touched him on the shoulder and bade him smooth his hair and make himself presentable before he went away. Ho obeyed listlessly. . " And then—?" he said, in a low, said

voice. , .. , , i "Then," said the widow. go back to your mother, and tell her this—story-with my love. You might say ' a son for a son,' though it's not a square bargain, for hers is alive, and mine—!" Chubby, with a certain dignity, in spite of red eyelids and quivering chin, laid his hand on the photo which had started the mischief: . " May I have this?" "What for?" , "To remind me of—what might have "Oh, yes." Then she turned her backon him, and he departed. After four years, when the boy had lost his mother and had, failed to lose the memory of his first love, lo! he encountered, in a London drawing-room, her young and glorious apotheosis, very grave and timid, under the wing of a great lady; and her name waa Miss Cardew, and her fathers people had taken her up, parting her from her undesirable mother. And—but the rest may be left to the sagacious reader A'little later Captain Scobell and Mrs. Cardew met, in a sorry boarding establishment at Boulogne. Both were the worse for "What on earth did you do it for? bo asked inquisitively. She paused; then, staring at the sea, she said, with a short laugh. " Oh, I don't know. > T suppose— was a moment of sentiment." [THE END.]