THE RED-HAIRED GIRL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12859, 6 May 1905, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE RED-HAIRED GIRL.

IJPUBIJSHED BY SPECIAL AHEANGEMENT.J

lIT F. FRANKFORT MOORE. Author of "The iris of the House." "Sir Holer's Heir." " The JeSsamj* Bride." "The Original Woman." "Well. Alter All," etc.. etc. CHAPTER nil.—(Continued.) Hk bowed his head in mournful acquiescence. " Yes. you taught me the rudiments of the w t —the art of being artful." she continued. •' fes, and 1 now and again felt myself within sight of the supreme art of concealing my artfulness. Yen made no attempt in tint direction. I'll be bound, while you were walking for an hum and a-half by the side of Anthony Uresham." said her father, turning to her so suddenly tint she Hushed ail over her white skin. lb' laughed, saying: " Yon have confessed it." "It i- a humiliating confession to make that for an hour and a-lia4f J. became mv--e!f." she said ■ It you did you became the most charming creature in the world." said he. " X"' charming —1 hate the word: charm —a charm suggests a piece of trickery." said she.

'I,ou!' the way you talk. Esther!" be cried. ' One would fancy thai I ran ? gambling house and used you as the decoy to my pigeons. I deny that we have ever done anything disreputable. You defined my metier very well'.- diplomatist, without a diploma." " You are compared to a diplomatist what a pawnbroker is compared to a b.tnke,." " Well, the worse case you make out for our— our mode of life the more delighted vou should be to leave it," he said. "And leave it we shall — soon as I get some of my irons out of the lire. Latterly 1 have not thrown my money about, You have saved something for me. How much have we inTested?" "Six thousand two hundred and eight pounds English," she replied. "M'atos will pay you another thousand if the English and Germans shell the forts." " He will, and the forts Mill be shelled," said he. " Hut I'll make another thousand still on that transaction, for I have written to-day to Hart at Trinidad to buy ten thousand pounds' worth of Venezuelan stock." "It is worth nothing." "Then tin.- is the psychological moment to buy-—the psychological moment to sell will be when it goes up ten points or so when Germany and England have shown Castro that they will stand no more of his brigandage, lie will to forced to disgorge— this Jim Grow vulture. Castro. That will pis! another thousand in our pockets, and don't forget ilia*, it the States recognise the Panama revolution I am to have six thousand dollars." " I would not count on a rebellion before it is hatched if I were you." said Esther. " Nor a nest egg before it is laid. The geese who run the revolutions are those who lay the golden eggs for us." " And supposing that you get all this money do you me, to retire from business finally'.'" " that depends upon circumstances, my dear. At any rate 1 think that we may pay a visit to England as soon cs we collect the money." "A visit to England generally, or to someone in particular":" "So far as I can gather we shall be the guests of my old friend. Theodore Gresham." Esther Dill "was so astonished when her father made this revelation to her that she found no words to speak. Then it occurred to her that he might only be indulging in a little jest —it was not so ludicrous as that about going to drink tea at Windsor Castle, but it was of the same genre. She looked at him. and saw that an explanation of hi* word* on this basis would not do: he bad spoken in earnest. Was it possible that an idea had entered Lis head that— that— 'Her imagination had run away with her. She recollected hearing the funny story of the man wfi. saved the life of another only to find that the man whom be had saved would not leave him afterward-, but insisted on being supported by him, assuring him that he couid not reasonably evade this lesponsibility. Was fiei father mad enough to believe that because Ml. Gresham had rescued her from the hinds of the scoundrel who had her in his power, he was going to stand sponsor for her family in their attempt to pass through th. door that had been closed to them for year-— the door leading to the eorridoi which leads to society"' Did he fancy that she What she .fancied it. possible that her father might fancy was too vague to be expressed in words. ' But the fancy of ic made her grave and then made her laugh. Her fat.ltci was grave at first, and then he too laughed: lie'was a very sympathetic man—-in some wavs : but Est hei did not like the wav he laughed, ft was too blurred ; it was nor definite enough: it gave her no hint of what she wanted'to know. "I suppose it is dreadful on the part of a daughter, but 1 nihil help feeling that you — that vou ai c— thai you have—" She failed to hud her words—she was actually stammering—hesitating op the brink of a sentence inl - which -he dared not plunge. .. ~ , . , .. ~ ••Don't mind me. said her father. By all means say what i.- on youi mind. Frankness, is everything between us. " 1 can't find all the words," she said: " I cannot. 1 only know thai: the word trick is the centre of the bentencc." " And a verv good word, too—in it-' way. he said, with" si pleasant approving nod of his bead. '• [ have played, many tricks in mv time, as vou know, but thai was when I •was surrounded bv tricksters— when we were all playing for tricks and honours didn t count. " Yon yourself took a hand in a rubber occasionally, my dear child, if L remember aright.'' "Perhaps I did." she said: "but i never looked over another player's shoulder." ■• ii vou had done so you might have learned something; sou would have learned that the other plavei was arranging his cards in accordance witii the knowledge lie had gained bv looking over the shoulder of his neighbour. You want to look over my feboulder "] want von to lav your cards on the table Do vou mean to mak' the attempt to enter Si. fheodore Gre'shain's house on the strength of having met his nephew here.' •\fv dear Esther, 1 am ashamed of you. What'can vou lake me for'/ Have we been toaethei all these years without your coming "to know that I am not exactly a fool? The Chances are that I shall never allude, to that tin;', escapade of out young friend last night in conversation with his uncle. It J rio you may b:- sine that I shall do so with artistic vagueness Th- English county families are not partial to being mixed up with lomance unless it means money to them." . . •it is some!lung for me to know- in time the exact tvpe of person whose society yon are so anxious to enter. But please leave me on the doorstep when you do enter. Meantime I don't see how you mean to enter They can make no money oft you. ' "So much i- certain. Dear little girl, I mar have painted English society for you in rather 100 lurid colours: but what, J said was true, and it is equally true thai there. are decent people even among tba best families in England. Theodore Greshain was once a friend of mine. I think that alter I have had a chat with him he will admit the claims of our old friendship to a good turn at his hands." "Why did you not tell me all this long ago? How is it that the name of Sir Theodore Gresham never passed your lips until last night'.' How is it that you never suggested retiring into private life until lb day .' What has our meeting with Mr. Gresham to do with this sudden change—tuts sudden desire to lead a new and more resectable life?"

"My dear, have vol' never read « story founded on the good influence that. meeting an innocent child las upon the stem nature ' of a hard mm! Now all last night—l mean, of course, after you had returned f'rorr your '. adventure—about three-thirty, wasn't it?— I felt my hard heart getting softer and I «ofter, till at last—" "At, las: you .saw something—J don t '■■'■''■ know what ft was, but 1 know that you m caught a glimpse of it. If i« 'lad happened > ia the old days I would have known that ?.;■:■■ you had caught the nam: of someon; whom .' ■ you" had strangely overlooked in your borrowing schemes;' cow you find it,, more profitable to lend rathei than borrow, so that—" ■ - , ■ • . .'. • "Ksthei. I admit that it was 'the mention ',' Pi the name of Theodore Gresbaa* Uiat

awoke an old memory within tie, I tell you the truth, and this is that I once did Theodore Gresham a good turn, and I think it likely that lie will do me a good turn in return. That's the whole story— give you my word." The girl looked bfc her'father for a few moments and then she said :

" You never told me anything that was not, true, and I have never lost anything by believing you; but it seems almost incredible, my dear father, that you should have overlooked for so long the chance of using anyone who could be of service to you. Airtway, heaven knows that I shall be glad enough "of the chance of getting into any other way of life than the one we are in at present. 1 felt that, that insult of Garcia's Mas the last straw. I should dearly like to horsewhip him soundly before we leave."

" Perhaps the chance may come. We shall not make a fuss over our going. We shall go quite unostentatiously by the train to La Gituyra. and get aboard the mail steamer for Barbadoes, before we are so much as missed. Meantime wo must take every precaution : it would be a paltry thing for us to allow ourselves to be laid in the cemetery here on the eve of our departure to another and a lovelier life."

"Whatever the hereafter may be it Mill be lovelier than our life in Caracas."' said the girl.

CHAPTER IX

Cha worth Mas not the sort of house that would be selected as a place of residence by a great financier, even after his prosecution. It was small and built of red brick, with gardens walled by yew hedges fifteen feet thick, an orchard beyond, and a billowy slope of the Sussex Downs beyond the orchard, 'the thirty or forty acres of woodland in which the house nestled had beer called Chawoith Pleasauuce for about five hundred years, and the little group of farm buildings in the midst of green fields had been called the Home since the county had been first mapped. It was the sort of property that is held by men with three or four thousand pounds a year, and Anthony Qresham was one of these men. His father had inherited (lie little estate from his mothei. The large Gresham estates in Buckinghamshire went to the elder branch. Sir Theodore Gresham was in possession of these and on his death they would, as Anthony had said in a fewwords to Captain Dill, go to hi* only child, who was a daughter, but the title would go to Anthony.

Some people shook their heads mournfully and said that it. was very hard on Tony Geshani that, after being looked on as his uncle's heir for eight or nine years, ho should, by the late marriage of Si. Theodore, be forced into the paltry position of the sou of a second sou.

It- could not be said, however, that Anthony's mother regarded the incident hi the light of a grievance, though she might have been disappointed in some degree, if Sir Theodore's offspring had been a boy. As for Anthony himself, he took only the smallest amount of interest in such matters as the law of primogeniture, in fact he took verylittle interest in anything that could not be expressed by chemical symbols. He went to the one public school where science is cultivated in other forms than find favour on the cricket field, and then he went to Cambridge, and in time he made quite a name for himself as a thoroughly practical investigator. He had written papers on some curious developments of a particular germ. r His friends thought that this was, going too far: no gentleman with money enough to live on should go so far, they said ; lie would be doing something useful next — something unworthy of the heir to a baronetcy. Put Anthony Gresham gave an ear to none of those people. He went his own way, and was constantly on the verge of doing something notable; so that really scientific men said that tie actually could do something if be bad been poor and had tried hard. Then suddenly Mi. Gresham began to take an interest in the races of mankind. It occurred to him to ask himself the question: What is to be the future of a country in which an imported negro population Maxes powerful and continues prolific, out of all proportion to the whites? Of course, even-one knows that that is the question which civilisation will have to answet Some day, and that, upon the nature of the answer the future of the world depend-. Put that was no reason why Anthony Gresham should mix himself up with it.

Still, he went out to the United States to study the niggers, and later he thought it necessary to see how they were getting on at their republic of Hayti, and in other islands in the Caribbean." After prolonging his investigations for a few months lie felt that he had done as much as Dante, and in the same direction, only not quit so artistically. And then he "went to Venezuela and then home.

And now he was sitting with his mother drinking tea. on the lawn" and trying to interest her in the account which he was giving —with v. large margin of reservation, owing to the technical nature of his subject—of an Obeah orgy which he had had the privilege of witnessing at considerable personal risk, in the island of San Domingo. "Hon terrible! How really awful they must be. And did you have a nice set of passengers on the steamer?" .-aid his mother: ami lie saw in a moment thi* she was more interested in the pale episodes of his travels than in the highly coloured. " You told me very little in your letters about .he passengers. 1 wonder if that General Sandys, whose name 1 saw in the passenger list, was the man who succeeded pool Bland in malt. Bland was killed by Dacoits."

" f suppose he must be the same ; at any rate he knew all about me," replied Anthony.

" I remember that he had two little girls," said Mis. Gresham. "Yes, he was always talking about his little girls. Dear me ! they would be—let mc see—yes, at least threeam' twenty, the elder. [ suppose they were not travelling with him: the West Indies is not where anvont would fake girls, Tony." Tony was amused.

"My dearest, you must not get it into yom head that such enormities which I sawby stealth hi San Domingo aie to be seen in any of the othei islands,"' he said. " You seem to have got the icier that the West Indie.' are like a Drench play which no young person should be permitted to see. Bit" J i hi assurr. you that there is a great deal thai' is propel in the West Indiescathedrals and so forth."'

'■ I oppose some of the Governors have daughters: but they would probably leave them in England." said his mother. "No, I don't suppose J hat even the bes!- of the islands i- v place for young girls, say what you will. Tony. A' any rate, you did not mention meeting any. ] was rathet glad." Tony gazed at her with wonder-waiting eves.

'.'Wasn't tha' rather unkind of you, mother'.'" li-.- said. "Oh. perhaps it was that you did no', want mv work interfered with.'"

" I think 1 can trust you out. of my sight, Tony." said she. " But still—well, the tropics are the tropics, and girls are girls." "Truer words never were spoken," said he. " And moreover mothers are always mothers, and you are best of all possible mothers, being the most careful. Make your mind easy, my dear J met with no entanglement—no barbed wire entanglement. i refill to vou without a scar."

"I am glad," said Mis. Gresham, "although, mind you, if the right girl—but there in no use in talking to you of the right girl or the wrong girl. The right gill is the girt whom you love." "I wonder if the right girl is the girl a man loves or the girl who loves the man," remarked Anthony, musingly. "The one who is both -he only is the right girl," said his mother.

•Where is she?" cried Anthony in mock exuberance.

"I could fell von thai loo," said bis mother, sully. " I d" not- ask you to do so," he, said quickly. "My dear mother, why should you be s l ' urgent on this point? Do not you, and 1. find oui little child, science, get on very well together? Why seek to introduce a discordant fourth to break up our pleasant lilt)-, \nenage a. trois?" " My dear boy, it is the natural thing." said the molhei. "A man by himself is—" "I know that—yes', I know what be is. I have not go* fai in my study of science, but I have got far enough to know so ranch ; besider that, I am th- man by himself; I know what h? is exactly. Oh, moth'ei, you are lik: the children " -f Israel, when in one. or (heir moods bt cuesedness, they asked foi ? king tr reign, over them. 'that made . th good old republican prophet very angry, and be turned upon, them, say- ■ ing. 'I'll tell vou what "a kiojj will do [or

you'.—and lie showed them what a king would do lor them, and when he came he did. .Shall I tell you what a daughter-in-law would do for you, 0 mater puJchra?" "She would make mo happy." " She would take the keys from your keybasket and open and shut the cupboard in the still-room at hei will, . nd sometimes she would go out leaving the dooi ol the still-room unlocked. She would empty all the bottles of the Orcsham white-currant cordial, and substitute thereto* something fiery and iniquitous that is sold by common grocers. She would smile at the famous Beavis recipe for gilliflowcr flavouring, and the shelves that held that incomparable relish would oe laden with bottles bearing a well-advert device or their labels. She would sack Duelling the gardener, who has deprived us of the fruits and the flowers of our garden foi the past twenty years except at such timet' as pleases himself. She would dip away the clipped peacock that has surmounted yonder yew hedge for the nasi two hundred years, and she would lav an -xe unto the root of yonder tulip tree that has grown old in our service simply because it sheds its leaves to the first breeze of June. She -"'

" She would love yon and you would love her, therefore I would mil mind her doing any of these things which she certainly would never do. 1 >I* you write to Doris once all the time thai vou wore awav?"

" I sent bet postcards from various places, pictorial places with views or scenery far more eloquent than any .voids that 1 could write. Hut why bring the name of my cousin into this discussion? Oh, never mind answering. 1 know what is in your mind. it once was in mine."

lie threw awa; the cigarette which he had just lit, .-.lid jumping quickly up from his seat phi his hands in the pocket of his jacket and walked with quick steps down to the round rose bed which was on the point of breaking into (lowers. He bent down and snipped off .■» leaf here and there. Then be returned slowly to where his niothei sat watching him. "Mother." he said in a iow (one. "I will (ell you a secret. 1 asked Doris to be my wife when we wort together in Scotland in the autumn."

" Ah! I was not sure—l had a suspicion faint —that was the cause of your taking up the negro question all at once," said Mrs. Gresham.

"1 did no' tell you at thai time. 1 knew you had set, your heart on—on it: I did not wish to disappoint you. She refused me. The way in which she refused me was more graciour than any other girl's acceptance of me would be."

"Poor Doris! She did not know you— she does not know you yet." "I'am not sure that that is not the best chance a man has with a woman—the fact of her not knowing him through and through. You think the opposite where I am concerned. Well, if Doris doesn't know me, what girl may I hope tor?" "Poor Doris! 1 think that 1 can understand her. She is but a girl, and she has a girl's—an old-fashioned girl's* feeling for romance —for the romantic elements of lovemaking. She.cannot think that there can he any love without romantic accompaniments. You are a prosaic relation—a cousin with a scientific and not a poetical turn of mind. She has known you all her life. She was ten when you were almost twenty, and to a girl of en a boy of twenty is a man in the decline of life. She has her dreams. Every girl has. If you had rescued her from brigands she would not have rejected you— provided that you were a stranger and poor. Poor girl! she does not know her own heart vet. Xor do vou. mv bov."

"Xor do I know my own heart? Is that what voti savV"

" Wellperhaps—but what I meant to say is that you do not know- her heart. You fancy that she does not love vou."

"I have only he* word foi it." ."And that is nothing, it she does not know the truth herself."

" But 011 the evening of the day when she had told me so, I learned at least one truth —the truth of what jther people thought of my pretensions. . "What could other people think'.' What do they know of you? What have they to do with you and.Doris?"

"I overheard two men and one woman talking—it was the first word of any conversation I ever overheard in all my life, and it made an impression upon me that is not likely ft wear off soon. 'Old. Tony litis a scientific eye,' said one of the men. ' Old Tony is e great advocate oi the Endow ment oi Research, and he is going t.> show his scientific friends how they should endow themselves in the sacred cause oi science.'

' It would be an extremely good thing for Mi. Gresham.' said the woman. 'It lie can only prevail upon bis charming cousin to many him wo will have done pretty well fo. himself.' I managed to get away from where I Mas standing before the second man had finished what he had In say; but what 1 did overhear was very much to the point— included a quotation from Tennyson's 'Northern Farmer' -something about not marrying foi money, but- to 'go. where, the money is.' It seemed an ant quotation to the others. At that moment I felt glad that Doris had not accepted me. I never felt so humiliated in all my life. I fell that I had been a fool for not having known all along what lookers-on would think of me in regard to Doris. 1 tell yon that I felt grateful to Doris for rejecting me. Shall we go into the house? I think it is ting a, nil chilly out heir." CHAPTER -X. Mis. Gresham said nothing after her .soil had told her his story. What could she say to him feeling as she did so strongly—so foolishly— on the subject of his proposal to his cousin? She knew that it would be useless foi her just then to make an attempt to prove to him that only people win were fools or jealous of him would call him a, fortune-hunter for desiring to marry his cousin Doris. He had been, left amply provided for 'by his hither; but even if he had been penniless, no sensible person would think that, he was doing anything contemptible in seeking to many her. Hi was licit to his uncle'.-: title, and surely this fact of itself should be sufficient to prevent anyone from suggesting that he would be playing an unworthy pari in seeking to make Sii Theodore's daughter 'hear the title that her inothe.' bore, All ll;« world would recognise I lie reasonableness of his aspiration, even without the necessity for taking into account the fact that lie was in love with Doris Gresham.

Their were, howcvei, foolish people—especially men--and jealous people—especially women—-in every society in [he world, and so long as these people existed they would' talk.

But why should such a man as Anthony Gtesham pay any attention to the cackling and the babbling of such people? Why should he. allow himself lo be moved one way or another by anything they might say? Well, sir- amid understand her sou's taking to heart such words as he had overheard ,and being in some measure affected by them. Although he had mixed much with men at home and abroad there was ;; good deal of sensitiveness ;n his nature. Then sin- remembered that he had been rejected by Doris before he had overheard what (hose chatterers had said, and she asked herself if it was possible that Doris hud at some time come in contact with odious and unjust persons whe had called him (perhaps in whispers) a foi tune-hunter. What if she had? She. knew that. Doris had not rejected him on this account. She was convinced, on the contrary, she had rejected him because their marriage would be a natural and convenient thing. A manage do convenance was the one, thing which a girl of Doris' nature would be certain to shrink from; nay, she would be led to feel that the convenance of such a. transaction Mould cause bee to lose sight of the possibility of I he. existence id' true affection existing alongside of it.

Ah, that was why she had rejected Tony. The dear girl was still a girl, and being an English girl of spirit she hat! abhorred the idea of ;• marriage having about it anything of the nature of -. business suction, It was, of course, very foolish ; but Mrs. Oresham, who bad bad a romance in her own life, had still v soft place in her heart, for any girl who in the*- mercenary, days could cast ■every practical consideration to the winds, and think of love and love only as the justification of .- union between a man and a woman. ■

Doris loved Tony; although sir. did not know her own mind sufficiently well to bo assured of, this fact. She could not but love b.ni, i\v. fond mother thought, and if Tony only continued faithful to her she, might yet make bin; happy,

, This was the fond mother's first reflection when she had retired to her room. But she, soon cairn to sec that while this idea formed a good general basis upon which a scheme for the future might he founded, a good many obstacles were in the way of its realisation. There was always the dreadful possibility of Join's being caught in the. toils of some designing woman before he should come to see now it was with Doris—; before he came to understand that Doris rejection of him should not bo taken as the last word to be said in this connection. The designing woman was the fond mother's greatest dread. She. knew that tliatjungle which is called society abounds with this particular variant of the class Felts, and she was afraid that the instinct of this creature would lead her it" the direction of Tony while his heart was still sore after his. rejection by his cousin. •Mrs. Gresham feared this class of person greatly, especially when Terry had expressed his intention of entering on a new field 01 study that involved his taking some long sea voyages. She feared the effect* of silting for soma weeks on a comfortable deck chair, chatting beneath a. tropical sky to some woman who possessed a sympathetic style, and she had been quite prepared for some revelation to be made by Tony on the day of his return to Chat worth, on the subject of deck chairs and a sympathetic woman. It was a great relief to her to gather from all that he had said and left, unsaid that he had passed unscathed through the ordeal of the Atlantic.

(hi the whole Mrs. Gresham felt that she had a. great deal to be thankful I'oi, and she •nas confident in her own capacity to refrain from interfering with (he general trend of affairs. She knew that more plans are spoilt by the injudicious interference of well-meaning busybodyies thai' by any ot the ordinary obstacles in the course of the stream of true love.

Anthony had told hci a, good deal of his West Indian experiences, but he had only touched in the most casual way upon his incidental excursion to the Spanish Main. lie had been to Caracas, ihe capital of Venezuela, he said : he thought it would lie pity being in (he West Indies to refrain from seeing bow great a muddle President Castro was making of matters in his Republic; and he had lound that all the ridicule which from time tt time*iiad been heaped upon the South American States was inadequate to do more than suggest the real state of affairs in Venezuela at least.

11,- did not think it. necessary (r touch upon (lie little mutter in which lie hud been personally concerned during the night which li« had spent at Caracas. His feeling that to refel to the part, which lie had played in that adventure would savour of boasting, was probably correct. Consequently his mother heard nothing of flic sudden appearance of a certain young woman with marvellous hair and exquisitt leet, before his eyes on that night at Caracas. ( During the lirst few weeks after his return to England he was. kept pretty busy, not merely arranging ; n it convenient form the elaborate notes which lie had taken both in the United States and the West Indies, but in working up the arrears .if the routine business of his little estate. His agent was one of those enterprising men who have changed the aspect of many parts of the country, particularly on the sea coast, by a. process known as development. He clearly saw, and tried to make Anthony see also, that it would be possible to "develop" a portion of the property which skirted the sand of a small bay and seemed designed by Providence or some other force as villa sites. Villa sites in the neighbourhood of sand and sen an- the beginning of unpicturesque prosperity, and it took Anthony (Jieshain quite a fortnight inventing scientific pretexts for the postponement of his agent'-, transformation scheme. Then the. world was beginning in talk about the new element that had blazed into notoriety since its accidental discovery m the laboratory of French chemist, and >,':. (ireshaiu tore himself'away from the "eligible villa sites" t< ham something more about this strange tiling whose discovery had added twenty million!; of years to the life of the world, in addition to being tin infallible cure fo. waits.' ' To he continued on .Saturday nest).