TALES & SKETCHES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 767, 12 November 1886, Page 7

TALES & SKETCHES.

.[NOW FIRST PUBLISHER.] OLIVERS BRIDE.

A NOVEL,

BY MRS OLIPHANT.

CHAPTER 111. 'Trix was not so quickly satisfied as Grace had been. ‘Going away,’ she cried «ioing to leave Grace! I thought you could not bear to have her out of your I was not such an ass as to say sobut I cannot help myself—it is an old he ; do I know him ?’ she said, as Grace had said. ‘You men are so ridiculous about your friends. Probably somebody that did you nothing but harm, > £a whom you would be thankful never to W ?Youip“ak like an Oracle. Trix; but I must go all the same. . „ ~ ‘ And why don’t you say who he ill Ah, it was a great deal better for you, Oliver, when you had no friends that your sister didn’t know of. Tell me who he is, at least; +p]i me bis Dfltne. , ‘ You would not be a bit the wiser. You know nothing whatever about him. Trix, take great eare of her while I am away. < Oh, as for taking care of her ! He •went out of the room while she was speaking to put his necessaries into his bag. A telegram had been put into his hand as he entered the house, which had made his face if possible, still more grave. And as he left ber with that troubled countenance, his sister’s mind was full of commotion and -anxiety. She ran over every name she could think of wondering whose urgent claim this -»ould be! She, too, felt the influence of that sudden cloud which blotted out the sky and brought the quick deluge of the spring shower pouring about the ears of the wayfarers P The darkness assisted her womanish imagination, as it had done that of Grace. It was like a sudden misfortune falling when no oife thought of it. And Mrs Ford’s m.nd was greatly exercised. When Oliver came into the room again ready to start, she got up quickly and went to him, seizing, with two hands, the lappels of his coat, « Oliver,’ she cried, breathlessly, I hope to goodness it is a him, and not-. You Wouldn’t, you wouldn’t-it isn’t possible.’ ‘ Suspicion seems always possible, he said, harshly, putting her away from him. Was it the natural indignation of one unjustly Mamed « ‘lf that is all you think of me, * what will it matter what I say ?’ • Ob’ cried Trix, who was very impulsive. 4 J beg ’ your pardon, Noll. It was only that t it -was because I am so anxious, oh, so anxious, that everything should go well. You wont be long—not any longer than you can help ?’ . , ~ ~. T «Not a moment, he said. If I can return to-morrow, I will. I hope so with all my heart. Going at all is no pleasure. Take care of her while I am away.’ It seemed to Trix that he was gone before she had convinced herself that he was going It was very sudden. He had not intended to go at all till after his marriage. He had said so only this morning, and wh,y this change all in an hour. A friend ! It must be a very intimate friend, she concluded or he would not have thrown up all his plans to go and visit him. To be sure when a man is dying he is not likely to wait the convenience of another who is about to be married. She told Her husband when he came home in the evening, and he, a good man who was not wont to trouble himself by searching out hidden meanings, received the news with great placidity. ‘ls it anyone we know? was hfs first question. ‘I hope it may be the sort of friend who will leave him seething—a legacy couldn’t come at a better moinent.’ This was a wonderful sedative to her alarms, and turned her thoughts into quite a different channel. It would be indeed a most suitable moment to have a legacy left him. Every time is suitable Jov that, but when a man is about to be married, nothing could be more appropriate. Mrs Ford, went across in the evening after dinner to see Grace. They lived quite near each other, and the Fords for that evening had no engagement. She found her future-sister-in law sitting over a little bright fire, reading a novel, with papers beside her on the table, lists from the furniture shops, and some

made out in her own handwriting of things that would be required in the new house. Miss Goodheart received Mrs Ford very cordially. •* It feels so odd to be quite alone again,’ she said, with a little laugh, which was slightly nervous, * and when one didn’t expect it. So I was glad to find a new book. Poor Oliver, he will not have a pleasant journey. I hope he , will find his friend better. Is he a friend of yours, too ? ‘He was in such a hurry he had not time to tell me, nor I to ask him,’ said Trix, which was not, as the reader knows, quite true. There was a little pause after this, as if they would each have liked to ask questions of the other ■; and then, no questions being possible, as neither knew, they plunged into furniture, which is a very enthralling subject. Trix, having experience, was able to give many hints, and to suggest a number of things Grace had left out—kitchen things, for instance. How can anyone know about pots and pans, and how many are necessary, without practical knowledge supplied by recent experience ? They both subdued a little dull pain they had about the region of their hearts by a good long talk on this subject, and parted quite cheerfully when Mr Ford—who never had any pains in that region except those which are produced by a digestion out of order—came to fetch his wife. * Oliver will take the opportunity to do several things on his own hook, now that he has managed to tear himself away,’ that gentleman said. ‘The great difficulty was to tear himself away. And I only hope his friend will leave him something.’ This, though it was so prosaic, gave a real comfort to the two women. It brought his mission down from the mystery that hung about it to the range of commonplace affairs. . , It was not till Wentworth was fairly gone from the station, shut up by himself in a compartment of a first-class carriage, and unapproachable by any spectator, that he took out from his pocket and read over again the letter and telegram which had sent him away thus hurriedly out of the happiness of his new life. The letter was on blue paper, not without a suspicion of greasiness, and very badly written in a hand which might have been that of a shopman or schoolboy. But it was signed by a female name, and this is what it said :

‘ Dear Mr Wentworth, — * Alice came home in had health three months ago. She has been very bad ever since, and there is now no hopes of her. It’s consumption and heart complaint, and what the doctor calls a complication. For the last fortnight she’s been weaker and weaker every day, and yesterday was took much worse, and hasn’t but a day or two to live. She says as she can’t die happy without seeing you. She calls for you all the time she’s waking both night and day. Oh, Mr Wentworth, you always was a kind gentleman, not like some. I know as you would have nothing to say to her if she was well, but being as she’s very ill and near her death, I do hope as you’ll listen to me. You was the first as she ever took a fancy to, she says. But if you come, oh come at oncet, for there is not a moment to be lost.

‘ Yours truly, * Matilda.’

He unfolded the telegram afterwards and read that. ‘ If you want to find her in life come at once.’ Wentworth remarked with a kind of horrible calm, and even a smile, that the telegraph people had corrected the spelling. This was the summons for which he had left Grace. He had read both more than once. Now that he had obeyed the call he asked himself was it indeed so necessary—ought he to have done it ? There had been something in the force of the contrast, something in the happiness which was so much more than he deserved, in the purity and nobleness of the woman who had given him her hand, and who was making her spotless atmosphere his v that stung him with that intolerable, remorseful pity, the impulse of which is not to be resisted. Standing by the side of his bride, and on the edge of a life altogether above his deserts, he had felt that he could not resist this appeal to him. To refuse to speak a word of comfort to a dying creature --he to whom God had been so good—how was it possible ? Comfort ! what comfort could he give ? He might bid her repent, as he had repented. But his repentance had been paid, it had been richly recompensed. It was setting open to him the doors of every happiness c whereas to this sharer of his iniquities it was to be followed only by suffering and death. Wentworth had never been callous or hard-hearted at his worst; and now at his best, compassion and remorse overwhelmed him. That he should receive that information” that appeal, with Grace’s hand in his, gave his whole nature a shock. He felt that he mu3t take himself away out of her presence ; and carry the recollections, the scenes that rushed back upon his mind, the thus thrust before his eye?, away from her at least, even if he did not answer the appeal. He was not of the iron fibre of some men. He could not carry these two images side by side. And then how did he dare resist such an appeal? ‘ You were the first.’ He had said to himself that he was responsible for the ruin of no other human creature. He was not a seducer. He had used no wiles to draw anyone from the paths of virtue. Is that a defence when life and death are in the balance, and arraigned before the tribunal of his own conscience ? When he went back into the recesses of his memory and beheld all that was there brought before him, as by a flash of lightning, and then remembered the position in which he now stood, he covered his face with his hands, He was ashamed to the bottom of his soul. The way of transgressors is hard. To anyone who had known all the facts it would have appeared that Oliver Wentworth was the most striking example of undeserved happiness. He had no right to all the good things that had fallen into his lap. He had deserved a very different return for all that he had done ; yet when he set out upon that railway journey .with the touch of Grace s hand still warm in his, the shame and misery in his mind were a not unfit representation of those tortures which to most men are more real than the fire and brimstone of the bottomless pit. How was the recollection of ' what was past ever to be

washed out of his memory ? He might repent —he had repented—and neverso bitterly as now ; but how was he to get rid of the recollection ? In the great proclamation of mercy it is declared that God forgets as well as forgives : ‘ Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.’ But the sinner, how is he to forget, even when he believes th3t he is forgiven? Yet, what he was doing was not shameful nor sinful. It was mercy that carried him away from all he loved to give what consolation he could to a dying creature whom he had never loved, who had been but the companion of his amusements for a moment of aberration, a period which he looked back upon with astonishment and disgust. How could he have forgotten himself so far ? How could he have fallen into such depths ? His mind was eo revolted by the recollection, such a horror and loathing filled him at the thought, that it was impossible to suppose that any softer sentiment lay concealed beneath. Had he been a less tender-hearted man he would probably' have thrown the letter into the fire, and perhaps sent a little money as the common salve for all suffering; but his very happiness and elevation above those wretched recollections took from him the power to dismiss such an appeal in this way. And was it not a certain atonement, at least an offering of painful service such as the heart of man believes in, whatever may be its creed, to do this? The money he could have sent would have cost him nothing —this cost him what was incalculable, a price almost beyond bearing. His agitation calmed a little as he pursued these thoughts. He could do her no good, poor creature; but if it pleased her, if it eased a little the last Bteps towards the grave ? He arrived in London late on a wet and cold spring night; in town there was little visible of the shivering growth which makes a sudden chill in spring almost more miserable than winter, but the streets were wet and gleaming with squalid reflections, and the crowds even in the busiest thoroughfares were thinned and subdued. Wentworth took a cab and drove through a part of London with which he was not familiar, through line upon line of poor little streets, each one exactly like its neighbors, lighted with few lamps, with a faint occasional shop window, few and far between, and with only at long intervals a dark figure under an umbrella going up or down. The endless extent of this network of streets, all poor, mean, dark, yet decent, the homes _of myriads unknown, gave him a sense of weariness that many miles of country would not have produced. At last the cab stopped before one of tbe narrow doors, flanked with the little iron railing, the usual parlor window overlooking a narrow little area. In the room above a light was burning, and all the rest of the house dark. In the parlor window was a square printed advertisement of some trade just visible by the lamplight, and a painted board of the same description was attached to the railings. The door was opened by a young woman with a candle in her hand, which nearly blew out with the entry of the blast of night air, and flickered in her face so that it was difficult to make out her features. She gave a little cry, ‘Oh, it’s Mr Wentworth !’ and bade him come in. To describe the sensations with which Wentworth realised his position, known and expected in this house, going up the narrow stair, which was all that separated him from the sick room, from the dying woman, between whom and himself he was thus acknowledging a connection, is more than I can attempt. There was no secret here—a man in the slipshod dress of a worker at home looked out from the little back room and asked * Has he come Vas he passed. On the top of the stairs an elder woman, with the dreadful black cap of the elderly decent English woman of the lower classes, came out to meet him, and put out her hand in. welcome. ‘ How do you do, Mr Wentworth ? She’s that excited there’s no keeping her still, and I’m so glad you’ve come.’

In the face of all this his heart sank more and more. He felt himself no longer on a mission of mercy, but going to meet his fate.

CHAPTER IV. The room was small and dingy : opposite to the door an old-fashioned tent-bed hung with curtains of a huge-patterned chintz, immense flowers on a black ground, a candle standing on a small table by the bedside, another faintly blinking from the mantelpiece, the darkness of everything around bringing into fuller relief the. whiteness of the bed, the pillows heaped up to support a restless head, a worn and ghastly face, with large, gleaming eyes, which seemed to have an independent, restless life of their own. The face had been pretty when Wentworth had known it first. It wa3 scarcely recognisable now. The cheek bones had become prominent, the lower part of the face worn away almost to nothing, the eyes enlarged m their hollow caves. She looked as she had been said to be—dying, except that the light in her eyes spoke of a secret force which might be fever, or might be because they were the last citadel of life. But though she looked at the last extremity of existence, a few efforts had been made to ornament and adorn the dying creature, efforts which added unspeakably, horribly, to the ghastly look of her face. The collar of her night-dress had been folded over a pink ribbon, leaving bare an emaciated throat, round which was a little gold chain, suspending a locket; and her hair, still plentiful and pretty, the one human decoration which does not fade, was carefully dressed, though somewhat disordered by the continual motion of her restlessness. It was all horrible to Wentworth, death masquerading in the poor little vanities which were so unspeakably mean and small in comparison with that majesty ; and all to please him, God help the forlorn creature, to make her look as when he had praised her prettiness, she from whom every prettiness, every possibility of pleasing had gone. She held out her two hand, which were worn to skin and bone, ‘Oh Oliver, my Oliver ! oh I knew he would come. Oh, didn’t I say he would come ?’ she cried. Wentworth could not but take the bony finders into his own. He saw that it was expected he should kiss her, but that was impossible. He sat down in the chair which had been placed for him by the bedside.

‘ I am very sorry to see you so ill, my poor girl,’ he said. ‘ Ill’s not the word, Mr Wentworth ; she’s dying. She hasn’t above an hour or two in this world,’ said the mother, or the woman who took a mo her’s place. He gave her a look of horrified reproach, with the usual human sense that it is cruel to announce the fact too clearly, ‘ I hope it is not quite so bad as that.’ ‘Yes, Oliver; oh, dear Oliver, yes yes,’ said the sick woman. ‘This is—my last night—on earth.’ She spoke with difficulty, pausing and panting between the words, her thin lips distended with a smile, the smile (he could not help remembering) that had always been a little artificial, poor girl, at her best. Rut even at that awful moment she was endeavoring to charm him still (he felt with horror) by the means which she supposed to have charmed him in the past. ‘Tell him, mother, tell him. I haven’t got—the strength.’ She put out her hands for his hand, which he could _ not refuse, thong"h her touch made him shiver, and lay looking at him, smiling, with that awful attempt at fascination. He covered his eyes with his disengaged hand, half because of the horror in his soul, half that he might not see her face.

‘ Mr Wentworth,’ said the elder woman, ‘my poor child, sir, she’s got one last wish,’ the bony hands closed upon his with, a feebly, yet anxious pressure as this was said. ‘ Yes. What is it ? If it is auythiag I can do for her, tell me. I will do anything that can procure her a moment’s pleasure,’ he said. Fatal words to say 1 but he meant them fully—out of pity first, and also out of a burning desire, at any cost, to get away. Anything for that 1 He would have willingly given the half of what he possessed only to get away from this place—to return to the life he had left, to-hear this woman’s name no more. . Once more the wasted hands pressed his, and she gave a little cry. ‘ I knowed it—always—mother. I told you.’ • ‘ Hush, hush, dear. Don’t you wear yourself out. You’ll want all your strength. Mr Wentworth, I didn’t expect no less from a gentleman like you. If she hasn’t been all she might have been, poor dear, though I don’t want to blame you, sir, you’re not the one as should say a word, for it was all out of love for you.’ Wentworth had it not in him to be cruel, but he drew his hand almost forcibly from between the girl’s feverish hands. * What is the use of entering into such a question ? he said. ‘ I do not blame her. Let the past alone. What can Ido for her now ? He had risen up, determined to make his escape at all hazards ; but the little cry she gave had so much pain in it that his heart was touched. He sat down again, and patted softly the poor hand that lay on the coverlet. ‘My poor girl, I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said. ‘ You mustn’t be harsh to her,’ said the mother. ‘ How would you like to think that poor thing had gone miserable out of this world to complain of you, sir, before the Throne ? Not as she’d have the heart to do it, for she thinks there is no one like you, whatever you may say to her. Mr Wentworth, there’s j ust one thing you can do for her. Make an honest woman of her, sir, before she dies.’

‘ What ?’ said Wentworth, springing once more to his feet. He but dimly, vaguely understood what she meant, yet felt for a moment as if he had fallen into an ambush, as if he had been trapped in a den of thieves. He thought he saw a man’s head appearing at the door, and heard whisperings and footsteps on the stairs. This it was that produced the momentary fury of his cry ; but then he .regained control of himself, and looking round saw no one but the dying girl on the bed, and the elderly woman standing in front of him, looking at him with deprecating yet earnest eyes. ‘ It’s a great deal,’ said the woman, * and yet it’s nothing. It’s what will never harm you one way or another, what nobody will know, nor he able to cast in your teeth—that won’t cost you anything (except maybe a bit of a fee) : and yet it’s everything to her. It would make all the difference between going out of this world honest and creditable and going in her shame—which it was you that brought her to it.’ * That’s a lie,’ said Oliver. Was it to be supposed he could think of civility at such a moment ? A desperate tremor seized hold upon him. He got up and turned, half blinded with horror and excitement, towards the door. ‘ I am here,’ he said, ‘ because—because ’

Ah, because—why ? What could he say ? He had meant to be kind—to make up to her, anyhow, he could not tell how, for the fact that he was happy and she dying. He stood arrested with those words upon his lips, which he could not say, half turned from hex-, facing the door, as if he would have broken away. And then there came a low, despairing cry from the bed, the cry as of a lost creature. * Oh, Oliver, Oliver 1 you loved me once. Oh, don’t go and leave me. You loved me, and I loved you.’ He would have cried out that it was false : but the breathless voice, broken by panting that sounded like the last struggle, the voice of the woman who was dying, while he was full of life and force, silenced him in spite of himself. The mother Fad flown to her to raise her head, to give her something from a glass on the table, and he too turned again awe-stricken, thinking the last moment had come. _ _ «And you can stand and see her like this,’ said the woman by the bedside in a low tone. ‘ You that are well and strong and have the world before you, and let her go out of it at five and. twenty, a girl as you made an idol of once, a girl as you have helped to bring to this : and won't lift a finger to satisfy her before she dies, to give her what she wants, and what will make her happy for the last hour before she dies. The girl truly was past speech. She lay back against her mother’s breast, her own worn and emaciated shoulder heaving with convulsive struggles for the departing breath. She could not speak, but those eyes which were so living while she was dying, turned to him with a look of such appeal, such entreaty that he could not bear the sight. They were large with fever and weakness, liquid and clear and dilated, as the eyes of the dying often are, like two stars glowing out in sudden light, from the pale night of

her face. He could not endure the dumb entreaty in them. He cried out, * What do you want me to do with, despair in nta voice, and a sense that whatever they asked of him he could not now refuse. ‘To do her justice,’ said the mother. ‘ Oh, Mr Wentworth 1 to make up to her for. all she suffered. To make her an honest woman before she dies.’ The girl’s dying lips moved, but no sound was heard : she still kept that terrible smile, and her eyes held him with that prayer, too intense for words. Oliver turned away his head not to see them, then turned back again as if in them there was sonie spell, A passionate impatience pricked his heart; for it was not true. They had not been to each other what was said. Love 1 love was too grand a word to be mentioned here at all. It had been utter folly or worse, it had not been love. She had been too slight for such a word ; but she was not too slight for death. For no soul is too mean or poor ; and death is as great as love is, and compels respect. She drew bis eyes to her so that he could not free himself. He said in an unnatural, stifled voice, ‘ Whatever you want from me —this is not the—the time. There is nothing to be done to-night—and after to night ’ —he could not say the words —he waved his hand towards the bed. She was dying now -now—before their eyes. * I know what you mean,’ said the mother with dreadful calm. ‘ She won’t last out the night. Very likely she won’t, but that’s what nobody knows except her Maker. If she don’t, you can’t do nothing, and nobody here will say a word. But if she do 1 Give her your word, Mr Wentworth, as you'll marry her to-morrow if she lives, and she’ll die happy. She’ll die happy ; whether it comes to anything, or whether it don’t—Mr Wentworth, sir, do for the love of God.’ The girl recovered a little, gasping breath. * I’ll die happy. I’ll die happy, whether it comes to anything— ’ Even this little rally showed more and more the nearness of the end. He had shrunk at the word f marry as if it had been a blow aimed at him, but he could not escape from the tragic persistence of those eyes. And overwhelmed as he was a little hope stirred ia him, He said to himself, * She can never live till to-morrow.’ Why should he resist if words would make her happy ? for she was surely dying, and she never could take him at his word. ‘lf that is all, I will promise,’ he said. The light in her eyes seemed to give a leap of joy and triumph, then closed, with flickering eyelids, he thought for ever : he cried out involuntarily, and made a step nearer to the bed. When her eyes were closed she looked like one who had been dead a day, nothing but a faint convulsive heave of the shoulders showing that there was life in her still. The mother busied herself about the halfunconscious creature, putting the cordial within her lips, supporting the pillows against her own breast. * You will have an. easy bargain,’ she said, as she went on with these cares, ‘ but anyhow we’ll bless you for what you say. Matilda, give me the drops the doctor left for her when she felt faint. She’s very low now. poor dear. Mr Wentworth’s behaving like a gentleman, as ycu always said he would. He has promised to marrv her to morrow morning, if she lives. She’ll not live, but she’s satisfied, poor dear I’ Matilda had come so softly into the room that she startled him as if she had been a ghost. ‘ I knew as he would do it when ha saw how bad she was ; but, Lord, what do it matter to the poor thing now V This was his own opinion. In a few minutes more there was a bustle down stairs, which Matilda pronounced to be the_ doctor coming, and Wentworth went tikxwn" to wait until he had paid his visit. The little parlour below had one candle burning in it, for the benefit of those who went and came. The young man was left there for a few minutes alone. To describe the condition in which he was is impossible. His heart was beating with a dull noise against his breast. All that had been so bright to him a little while before had become black as night. lie could not think ; only contemplate what was before him dumbly, with horror and disgust and fear. He had given a pledge, but it was a pledge that never would call for fulfilment—no, no, it never could be fulfilled—it would be like a nightmare, a dreadful dream, from which he would awake by and-bye and find the sun shining and all well. After a while he heard the doctor’s heavy, foot come clamping down the staircase. He was angry with the man for having so little delicacy, for making so much noise when his patient was dying. Presently, he came in to give his bulletin to the gentleman, whom he perceived at once to be somehow very deeply concerned. . ‘ Last the night ? No, I don’t think she’ll last the night : but you never can tell exactly with such nervous subjects. She might put on a spurt. and come round again for a little while.

* Then,’. said Wentworth, with a sense that he was acquiring information clandestinely, ‘ there is no hope of any permanent recovery ?’ The doctor laughed him to scorn. If he had not been a parish doctor, accustomed to very poor patients and their ways, he would, not have allowed himself to laugh in such circumstances.

• When she has not above half a lung, and her heart is—but you don’t understand these matters, perhaps. She may make a rally for a few hours, but I doubt if she wilL see out the night.’ After this Wentworth went home to the closed-up chambers, where nobody expected him, and to which he got admittance under difficulty. He had to walk miles, he thought, through those dreadful streets, all like each other, all gleaming with the wet, before he could even find a cab. There was no strength left in him. He went on and on mechanically, and might, he thought, have been wandering all night, but that the sight of a vacant cab, which he knew he wanted, brought him baek to a dull sense of the necessity of shelter. The cold rooms, so vacant and unprepared, which were just shelter and no more, were scarcely an improvement upon the mechanical march and movement, which deadened his mind and made him less sensible of his terrible position. It had been arranged that if she were still alive in the morning a messenger was to be sent to him, and that then he was to take the necessary steps to redeem his

pledge. But he said to himself that it was impossible—that she could not live till morning. It was a horrible moment for a man to go through—a man whose life had blossomed into such gladness and prosperity. But still, if he could but be sure that nothing worse was to come of it- and what could come of it when the doctor himself was all but certain that she could not see out the night ?’ (To be continued).