FICTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 9

FICTION.

“A LOST WIFE,” BY MRS LOVETT CAMERON, AUTHOR OF ‘IN A GRASS COUNTKf/ ‘ A DEVOUT ROVER/ £ DECEIVERS EVER,’ ‘ THIS WICKED WORLD/ &C., &C. / Continued.) CHAPTER XVII. mark’s story. * Judge me, ye powers; let Fortune tempt or frown, . I stand prepared, Uiy honour is my oWn. 5 —Lansdown. When I awoke to life, after that short swoon, I awoke to find my head pillowed upon Mark Thistleby’s breast, whilst he alternately sprinkled cold water upon my face and showered down kisses upon my unconscious lips. For a moment I remembered ridthing—fi<iid could not think how I came to he in so strdngd and yet so pleasant a position. Then all at once the memory of his words came back with a sharp, stabbing pain into my mind —‘ lam married / he had said ! I shrank shudderingly away out of his arms, and rejecting his help, raised myself with difficulty on to a chair. I think my face must have been nearly as white as when I lay senseless and helpless upon the floor. ‘I am better, thanks/ I murmured. 4 Tell me, now, everything.’ ‘You are not strong enough/ ‘Yes, yes/ I interrupted, impatiently; ‘tell me at once everything there is to know.’ / So Mark Thistleby, sitting down opposite me on the further side of the bare, desolate little sitting-room, told me then and there the story of his life’s mistake. I will let it stand in his oWn words.-

It was tert years Freda, when I was quite a youngster, and had Only joined' the army a few months, that I was sent to the depot of my regiment—to a little station on the West coast of Ireland. There is little to do ever at a depot, and less than ever if it happens to be at such a desolate place as this was. There was not a decent-sized town within an hour by rail, and not an educated inhabitant within twenty miles. _ There was no sport beyond a little sea fishing, and no occupation of any sort or kind for us three fellows Who Were exiled there, besides smoking and idling away our time. Perhaps it was only natural that I should have got into some sort of misohief, especially as my two fellow-officers in this lonely place were both older than myself, and were great friends, so that they were very much together, whilst I was consequently left a good deal to myself, and sjpent most of my time alone. ‘I used to take long solitary walks along the shore. One day when I was walking on the sands at low tide, in a wild, lovely bay, about four miles - from home, I saw a young girl picking her way across the brown rocks left bare by the tide. The rocks were covered with seaweed and very slippery, and the girl stumbled and nearly fell. I hurried forward to her assistance, and helped her to gain the firmer footing of the flat, yellow sands. ‘ She was quite young and very pretty, after the true Irish type, dark-haired and blue-eyed, and with a pretty, shy, wild-fawn manner which completely captivated me. I found that she lived with her sister, who was many years older than herself, in a little cottage which she pointed out to me high np in a cleft of the wild hills which came down abruptly to the edge of the sea. ‘ They were the daughters of a gentleman—a navy captain, long retired from the service, and who had died a few years previously. But although a lady by birth and in appearance, my little Irish girl had had few or no advantages of education ; she had spent all her life in that seaside cottage, and her sister, of whom, apparently, she stood in considerable awe, had been her sole instructress. She was like a wild flower of her native hills, utterly untaught and untrained, with no ideas beyond her narrow life, and with absolutely no knowledge whatever of the world and its ways. But an impressionable young fellow of one-and-twenty is blind to these disadvantages in a young and lovely girl. When she looked at me with her deep blue eyes, I forgot that there was not much meaning in them beyond a certain puzzled wonder; when her pretty lips parted, I forgave them the silliness they generally uttered ; and when her little head was pillowed on my shoulder, I did not remember that it was as ignorant and as empty as those of the yellow sea poppies which covered the cliffs over oar heads. For it came to that at last; we used to meet daily upon the sands, and sit there for hours lovemaking, like the couple of young fools that we were, without a thought of what it was all to lead to.

‘ From first to last I was intensely foolish about the whole business. To begin with, I refused to make the acquaintance of the sister. I saw her once at a distance; she looked stern and hard-featured, and I had an uneasy consciousness that she would not regard these pleasant t££e-d-fs£es upon the sand with &. friendly eye. She would want to know my intentions, and I had no intentions. How could a younger son, living with difficulty upon his pay and upon the small sum allowed him by his father, be supposed to have any intentions P I did not want to marry my little love. Fancy my father’s face had I announced such a thing ! Neither did I wish to be awakened out of my fool’s paradise. So I persuaded her to go on meeting me on the sly, and I would not let her introduce me to her sister.

‘ Things went on drifting like this for some months, and then at last even I felt that something must be done. The girl was now absolutely devoted to me; she was ready to follow me to the world’s end. It became clear to me that I must either marry her or turn my back resolutely upon her for ever; for I must do myself the justice to say that, foolish and blamable as I was, no thoughtl of any other less honourable course of action towards her ever entered into my brain. The man would have been a brute indeed who could have harboured any thought of wrong towards one so young and so guilelessly confiding. No, it was either marriage or flight, which presented a conflicting alternative to my conscience. I had not the heart to leave her, and I had not the courage to marry her openly. I took a middle course, and married her secretly. One other folly I had committed, that of concealing my real name from her. I was so afraid of my father hearing of my lovemaking, that I took this perfectly silly and needless precaution. I obtained three days’ leave without much difficulty, and I gave myself a fictitious name, and under that name I married her; meeting her at a little solitary church far up among the hills, where, by a strong bribe, I induced a very poor old priest to marry us according to the rites of the .Roman Catholic Church, and to ask no incon-

Veiiicnt questions. For the next two days I lived at the little Village inn close to her cottage, dud waiidered With her all day upon the deserted sands. Then I Had to gd hack to my work. We parted with tears Upoii- the lonely shore, and, Freda—l have never e&eii her again! ‘ When I got back to the barracks I found a telegram from my mother, telling me to come honi§ at once, as my father had had a paralytic seizure. I sent a note to my bride by a small village boy Whom I have good reason to suspect never delivered it, and I started for England that night. ‘My father was desperately ill for rife weeks before he died, and a day or two after the funeral, as soon as ever I could be spared, I went back in hot haste to Ireland. All the time I had been away I had not dared to write to my little wife, but now I was determined to own her boldly, and to bring her home to my mother, and throw fliyeelf and her upon her mercy and compassion. I did not believe my mother would refuse us her forgiveness. But when I got back to the sheltered bay oft the wild Irish coast where I had so often met her, I waited in vain at our try sting-place, Where I had told her to come every day at a certain hour nntil I returned to her.

1 Lonely and sick at heart, I climbed the steep path to the Cottage, and you may imagine my dismay when I found it empty and dismantled. The windows were bare and curtainless, and all the furniture had been taken away. The very garden looked uncared for and desolate. The sisters had ceased to live there. I never could gain any information about them. Why or wherefore they had left, and where they had gone to, has for ever remained a mystery to me. At first I was in despair I made every possible enquiry in the neighbourhood, and advertised in all the local papers. ‘ I came to the conclusion, at last, that she had become impatient and unhappy at my long absence, and had confided her story to her sister, and that both together had gone to England, and were, trying to trace me out there ; but the fact of her being in ignorance of my real name placed an insuperable difficulty in the way of her finding me. ‘ Time went on, and I heard nothing of her ; and by degrees my first grief abated, and insensibly I relaxed the energy of my efforts at finding her. Then suddenly I was ordered to join my regiment in India. Fresh scenes and interests served to drive the past more and more out of my memory, till at last those short six months upon the Irish coast became only like a,dim dream to me; and it seemed to me as though my love-making and marriage had never existed.

‘ Until I met you, Freda, until I learnt to love you as I have loved no other woman, I give you my word that I had almost forgotten that I was a married man. I never meant you to know it. I meant you to think, if you could, that it was your engagement to Mr Curtis which stood between, us, and yet I could not bear you to think that I bad behaved badly to you. But now that you have given up all for me —that you are ready to give yourself to me —I am bound to tell you why it is that I dare not take the dear gift which you hold out to me. For your own sake, my darling, I dare not take your love — not until I know for certain whether or no my poor little bride is still living. 1 CHAPTER XVIII. TELEGRAMS. ‘ When one is past, another care we have ; Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.' —Herrick. I listened in silence to the end, and then my face sank down into my hands, whilst a low moan of pain escaped me. So it was all at an end ! —all my dreams, my hopes of happiness, all that a woman looks for to make up the joy of life. I must givq it all up ! Even the dreaming was now forbidden to me ; there was nothing in the future for me but colourless despair. And Captain Thistleby must find his wife ; for that she was dead, as he seemed —God forgive him! —to hope, never for one instant entered into my calculation. Why should she be dead ? She had been young, and strong, and vigorous ; there could be no reason why death should have claimed her. Somewhere, I felt very sure, she still lived; and where that ‘ somewhere 1 was, it was undoubtedly Captain Thistleby’s duty to discover. 4 You are not angry with me ?’ he said, wistfully, after some minutes. ‘Will you not forgive me, Freda P 1 ‘ There is nothing to forgive, 1 I answered, drearily. 4 You could not help it, I suppose P 1 4 1 did not think of it when I first met you, 1 he answered. 4 1 have never spoken of my marriage, no one knows it. Bella would be as much surprised as you are ; she has never had the slightest idea of it. It all happened so long ago, long before she married my brother. There has never seemed any occasion for telling my story to anyone. I have flirted and made love io dozens of women, but I have never done so seriously until I met you. When first I saw you, I never imagined that our relations towards . each other would have any other depth or significance on either side than an ordinary flirtation, such as I have passed through unscathed and unscathing many a time. But after a time, when I met you again at Eddington, I found out that .this was a very different case. I leave you to judge of the misery I suffered, when I began to realise how far beyond my reach you were. And there was a time when the temptation to ignore that miserable mistake of my youth, and to let the secret of my wretched past, which no one knew but myself, remain for ever buried in my own heart—to woo you and to win you for myself boldly—was almost too strong for me. Indeed, I came to Eddington, mad with jealousy and despair, with no other intention. And then I thought —I thought how terrible it would be if you ever came to know the truth after, when it would be too late. And I loved you too well, darling, to do you so cruel a wrong, and so I left you. 1 My noble-hearted lover! how dear he seemed to me, whilst he told me so simply the story of his love, and of his resistance of the overpowering temptation which had assailed him, and to which I believe nine men out of ten would have succumbed. I had never loved him so well as now, and yet my love was no longer a glory, but a shame. I could never more own to it, nor confess it. Henceforth it must remain for ever hidden and concealed. I rose and held out my hand to him. 4 Thank you, 1 I said. 4 1 honour and respect you above all living men, and .1 can never cease to be grateful to you for your unselfish goodness. But you and I, Mark, must henceforth become strangers to each other. I will ask you to take me to Bella’s house, and then I will say good-bye to you, and it must be for ever. 1

He did not attempt to contradict me. He rang the bell, paid the bill, and ordered a cab. As wo came together out of the door of the little hotel, a victoria was driving slowly by with a lady inside it, Captain Thistleby sud-

denly put out his hand and pulled me bade into the shadow of the doorway. 4 lt is Clara Featherstonc F he said. “ I hope to goodness she did not see you. 1 4 1 don’t see why it should matter if she did,’ I answered, somewhat proudly. ‘ Qhe is the most spiteful and. venomous* tongued woman in England, 1 answered Mark, as he put me into the cab. 4 Sh'e .would do you. mischief if she could; but I dop’t think she saw us, her head did not turn towards us in. the least. 1 But Mrs Featherstone had seen us both perfectly, as I was afterwards to discover to Ifly cost. We beached Chester square after a drive of almost absolute silence between us. No sooner had the housemaid who had been left in charge of the house caught sight of me, than she flew back into the hall, and brought two of those fatal coloured telegraphic envelopes in her hand. ‘ Oh ! miss, I’m so glad, you’ve come,’ she exclaimed. ‘ These two tallygrams has come this morning, and I .didn’t know whatever to do with them. And hope as they ain't bad news, miss/ ahe added/ with the encouraging delight in anything lixs® a prospect of evil which is common to he* cl/ss. With trembling hands I tore Ppen the envelope. The messages camo\ from Aunt Selina; the first ran thus : * Your father has had a stroke. GV>me back at once/ ' ; ■ . ■ • „ The second was even more alarming : 4 Your father worse ; return instantly; therG is no time to be lost/ I turned straight back into the cab, from which I had just alighted., v 4 My father is dying/ I said, in a dull voice. Mark called out to the cabman to drive to the Paddington Station as fast as he could, andL followed me. W hat happened when we got there I do not; remember. Everything was in a whirl to me. -I felt cold and numbed. I knew of nothing that was going oil around me.; I only knew that my father was dying, and that he had got his death-warrant in all probability from my ' . It was my doing ! My flight, and the note which I had left in his room, teiling him that I would not fulfil rny engagement to George Curtis, had been the 'blow, I felt certain, which had shortened his frail old life. This one awful idea so absorbed my every thought and feeling, that I was;,, absolutely scious of everything which’ was going on around me.

Captain . Thistleby took my ticket, and thrust it into my hand, and placed me in a first-class carriage. I submitted myself to his guidance like a person in a dream; he bought me something to eat by the way, and put it on the seat in front of me, whence X never moved it. We. had about a quarter of an hour to wait before the train started. He got into the carriage with me, and I believe he talked to me ; but I heard nothing of what he said; I answered yes and no mechanically. My lover, who was so lately everything in the world to me ; my love story, and my blighted hopes of happiness, which a short hour ago seemed to crush me to the earth with an intensity of pain, were now entirely forgotten in this new calamity which threatened, me. ; \. Even when Mark wished me good-bye, and raised my hand to his lips, I.think, poor fellow, that I never answered him, and was hardly conscious that this parting, so mournful and yet so pass onless, was in all probability a final one between us. I experienced no sorrow at leaving him, I only remember feeling a faint gleam of gladness when tho train was off at last. - , Oh! that miserable homeward journey! shall I ever forget it? The remorse, the selfreproach, the self-condemnation which filled me ! And then the agony of suspense, which every instant seemed to increase fourfold. Should I find my father alive ? —that was the question which I asked myself over and over again, in unavailing anguish. - Should I h§ permitted to see him once more," and to kneel by., his . and pray for his pardon, and receive his •parting-words'-of, forgiveness and blessing ? Or was he to die before I could reach him, believing me to be heartless, and rebellious, and I be for ever unforgiven and unblest ? Should I not then be guiltv of his death ? —I, his daughter, his only child. Oh ! what a horrible thought was this ! Over and over again I cursed my folly and my wickedness in leaving home as I had done. If I had had the courage to stay and to tell him bravely myself that I was unhappy in my engagement, surely I might have broken it to him gently. But it was the shock of my disappearance, and the suddenness of the news in my hurried note, which had brought this evil upon him. Of that there could be no doubt.

At last, after what seemed to me to be the most interminably long railway journey, the train stopped at Narborough. I could not get on by rail to Slopperton, and had to take a fiy from there. If the train had seemed to me to be slow, the fly assuredly was infinitely slower. I did not dare to ask the flyman if he knew how my father was. The man knew me, and I fancied that there was a respectful sympathy in his manner, as he touched his hat to me. But I would not ask him if ho knew; I was afraid of his answer, I was afraid to crush out the hopes which I could still indulge in. I felt that I would rather not know tjie_wprst. v So we drove orTthrough the.damp, foggy lanes, that looked unusually dreary/ and cheerless, past many a well-known village and hamlet; past the woods and the high paling of , Eddington Park, where I could catch glimpses of the deer through the glades of the leafless trees; past Slopperton Church, where, the sight of the curate and the parish clerk in close conference in the churchyard made me shrink back tremblingly into the corner of the fly, lest they should see me. Oh ! ghastly thought: they might be choosing a site for a grave ! And then up the long straight road which led for half a mile from the village green to our cottage. The fly pulled up, the man descended slowly from the box and pulled the bell. The bell rang out, clanging and harsh, into the stillness of the autumn afternoon, and I was at home. (To be continued.)