DICK’S MARRIAGE

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 6

DICK’S MARRIAGE

(By E. C. Kenyon.)

“One thing is quite certain, Mr Miles, I shall never many Gwendoline Willoughby." “My dear Dick, don’t talk in that way 1 I always credited you with a little common sense,” said the matter-of-

fact lawyer, who had been reading him his late uncle’s will.

“Exactly. It is that which makes mo determined that I will not marry this girl who has been thrown at my head," Dick spoke furiously. “She is not to blame,” interposed the lawyer. “How do you know ? She lived with unde, and probably influenced him. I liato girls who are always wanting to bo married. And she must have been in despair about getting a husband by any legitimate means. Probably, therefore, she is ugly, disfigured or deformed.”'

“Nothing of tho kind. I thought her a pretty girl when I saw her down at Willoughby Lodge." Dick gave him an impatient look. Doubtless he had no true idea of beauty. “At least,” lie said, “Gwendoline can’t have a very nice mind to have let my undo make a will like that.” “She had nothing to do with it. I assure you that she burst into tears when I read her the will after the funeral. ‘Am I to have nothing, nothing,’ sho said, ‘unless I marry that man? Oh, uncle, uncle, you are cruel 1’ ” Dick sniffed. Tlio lawyer might have been taken in by such pretence, but not he. “I am not to he imposed upon in that way,” he thought. Tho idea of any woman weeping'because she had to marry him! Ho glanced at himself in the mirror opposite, and saw with satisfaction an extremely presentable young man.

“Your uncle was always peculiar," remarked the lawyer coldly, "and in this will ho excelled himself. ' That is all. Ho did it spontaneously and with singular foolishness, as I ventured to observe at the t'me.” “You did?” “Yes. When a man has £IOO,OOO to leave," I said, “and only two relations who have any claim upon him, he might divide his wealth between them, without making any unnecessary stipulations, or conditions. But then there were the hospitals. He wished to do something for them, and never could mako up his mind how much. And he wanted his nieco to marry, that she might have someone to take care' of her. ‘She has an idea of earning money for herself,’ he said to me, ‘and being independent, as women often are in

these days, but I said no. None of ■ tho women of our house have ever worked for money, and she shall not do such a thing. Dick is a good fellow. He has a head upon his shoulders, and a steady, well-balanced character. He shall marry her; and I will compel him to do it by leaving them each £50,000 upon condition that they marry, otherwise the whole of the money must be given to local hospitals within three years of the date of my decease.’ ” “Rot!” commented Dick. “He cared for neither me, nor Gwendoline, nor the hospitals, but only that he might exercise power even when in the grav.n” “Well, whatever his motives were, you will not quarrel with your broad and butter,” said the lawyer blandly. “Bread and butter be "hanged! A man wants more thin that,” fmnod Dick Smith. He thought that his was a v rr bard' case. Left a penniless orphan

when a child, Mr Willoughby, his deceased aunt’s husband, paid for his maintenance and education at school, and at the university, and, although refusing to have him over at Willoughby, always led him to think that be would come into a considerable fortune at bis death. The will was, therefore, extremely disappointing, for Dick had never seen Mr Willoughby’s niece, Gwendoline Willoughby, and! could not tolerate the thought of a forced -union with her.

“You had better go and think it over,” said the man of law. “A little reflection may cause you to see things very differently." “No amount of reflection,” began Dick, hotly, but was interrupted by the entrance of a clerk, who came to say to his chief that a lady wished to see him immediately.

“All right; you can show her in as soon as this gentleman has -gone. Now, Smith, my dear fellow,” turning to him when the clerk had withdrawn, “no amount of talking can alter the facts. Either you take the girl and pocket with her your uncle’s fortune, or you go out into the world to starve or struggle on as a poor man. And, Dick, mark this. If you make no effort to win the girl yon condemn her to the same pitiless fate.”

“It’s her own fault. She shouldn’t have let him make such a will. I’ll be hanged if I marry her 1” exclaimed Dick, nodding to the lawyer, and going downstairs in such haste and pre-occupation that he passed a lady on the stairs without seeing her.

CHAPTER 11. - “Oh, Mr Miles, I’ve come up to town to try and get work," said the girl, who entered the lawyer’s office a moment after, “and everyone wants me to give a reference—just as if I were a servant, you know —and so I have come to ask if I may refer people to you. Please say Wes,’ for I know no one else in town,"

“Yes,” assented tho lawyer, smiling at her eagerness. “Sit down, Miss Willoughby, sit down, and let us have a little talk.”

The girl sat down willingly enough, for she was tired. She had a sweet, fresh young face, which was good to see in that dismal office, and her voice was so pleasant that the lawyer longed to hear it again. He had not long to wait, for Gwendoline Willoughby had always plenty to say.

“First tell me,” she said, smiling up at him, “who was that very disagreeablo man who nearly knocked mo down on the stairs and never apologised?” Tho lawyer looked inscrutable. “A client,” he said, rather shortly, “a client, out of temper.” Gwendoline looked searchingly at him. “Did I hear rightly?” she asked, “or was it my own imagination, that he said as he left you, -‘Til bo hanged if I marry her!” Tho lawyer shook Ins head.

Miss Willoughby," ho said, gravely, “T cannot tell tales of my clients. What passes within these doors is private.” “I beg your pardon. I ought not to have asked. All tho same, I think he is a horrid man.”

1 Did you look at him ? He’s rather handsome,” said the lawyer, nonchalantly-

I didn!t see his face. It was such a long way up!” returned Gwendoline. “Besides,’’ she added, “I had quite enough with his words and manner.” The lawyer looked relieved. He hastened to assure Miss Willoughby that he would ho happy to speak in her favour to anyone who inquired of hint observing that his_ late client, her uncle, would have been in distress at the idea of her seeking work.

“Then lie shouldn’t have put me in such a position,” she said. “And I have no choice in the matter* I cannot go in pursuit of that Mr Smith, who has not even the grace to present himself to me. And I would not marry him if he asked me oil his ‘bended knees *’ ” She laughed merrily. "Do you know him, Mr Miles?” sho asked suddenly. “Yes—a little,” hesitated tho lawyer. She was so quick-witted she might find out that it was Mr Smith who had just been, and whose words she had overheard.

"isn’t he a horrid thing?" she questioned.

‘ “Why horrid?” temporised the other. “To allow, uncle to make such a will." Of course, it was his doin*?” “On the contrary, he thinks it was yours.”

“Mine?” almost screamed the giri. “Doesn’t that show how horrid he is?” she added, irrelevantly. The lawyer smiled. “Really, you beg tho question,” said he. ' “Why shouldn’t the man think it was your doing? You know you think it was his.” “Oh, but that’s different. A man is allowed to want a wife. But, a girl to want a husband!” *

She rose to go, looking quite shoeled. The lawyer was uncertan as to how ho stood in her good graces. ITe was an elderly widower, but felt young again as lie felt her band.

“You won’t think I’m horrid, too!” ho said, wistfully. “You? Oh, no!” There was no mistaking her voice. “Yon are so very

kind I” she olung to bis hand a moment. In all that vast city he was the only person sho knew. His heart gave a great bound. In. a moment thirty years dropped from him like a cloak. Age cannot be numbered by figures. He was a young man as he looked down into her pretty face. But she could not see him so, for the disguise which Time had hung upon him —grey hair, wrinkled skin, bowed shoulders. So she went on very earnestly. “I never knew my father. Yet I feel that he must have been like you.” “Oh, Heavens 1” He dropped her hand, as if it stung him. A remembrance of the bloated countenance of her drunken, ne’er-do-well parent mocked at him the next moment.

Tho girl’s countenance fell. She remembered a hint she had once received that her father was not a shining light.

“Good-bye,” she said, not knowing how else to escape from the awkward situation.

“Good-bye,” said Lawyer Miles, trying to smile as if nothing had happened. Tho next moment he was alone, and the burden of his years returned to him. “She was charming,” he said to himself, apologetically, “and she made an old fool of me! But her father ? Heaven preserve me from his similitude!”

CHAPTER 111. A year later Mr Miles sat in his office, reading the letters which had come in by the early post. Two of them excited him not a little. Ho read them oyer a second time, and, after comparing them with each other, uttered an exclamation of satisfaction, and then sighed and looked pensive, after which, saying, “Thank the Lord!” lie felt supremely good and unselfishly glad. The letters were as follows: —• “14, Lonsdale Gard.ens, London, N., June 16th, 1900. “Dear Mr Miles, — “Just a line to inform you of my good news. I am going to be married on Wednesday, at All Saints, Higbgate, to the dearest girl in the world. Her name is Eva Wilmot, and she is as poor as I am, but we are marrying for love, and this is a thousand times better than marrying for money. “I am sorry if I have helped to ruin Gwendoline Willoughby financially, by depriving her of myself as a husband, but trust she will get along somehow. We should both have been miserable if we had married without love. “The hospitals will benefit by the money. “Yours very truly, “Richard Smith.”

15, Lonsdale Gardens, “London, N., June 16, 1900. “Dear Mr Miles, _ “I write to tell you that I am the happiest girl in the world, for I am going to marry the very dearest man in it. The wedding will take place at All Saints, Higbgate, at twelve o’clock on Wednesday, so please think about us then.

“You have been so kind to me that I should like to tell you a little more. The situation which you kindly helped me to get has been an exceedingly trying one. There were six children, and they were rather wild and unruly when I came—they are very much tamer now. I had to teach them all, down to the baby, to take them out walks—the baby in a perambulator, the boys with hoops, which they were continually bowling into all sorts of places where hoops ought not to be—aud to sew for them and make their clothes. It was a life of incessant labour, early and late. I toiled, and yet, try as I might, could not always give satisfaction. Tho children complained to their parents if I punished them; and appealed to tlieir parents if they did not wish to obey me; and the parents were always on the side of the olifldren against poor me. Sometimes I went out into the garden and 'cried, after the children had gone to bed, or when, on rare occasions, they were not under my charge; and then, one of the gentlemen who lodged next door used to lean over the paling and talk to me so very kindly and advise me what to do—perliaps it was not very proper, as I had not been introduced to him, but I knew him pretty well through his writings. For he is an author,, who writes for the magazines—lie lent me some of his stories, and I think they are the most beautiful stories I ever read. Then, one day, when the hoys, during the absence of tlieir parents, were so very wild and unruly that they imprisoned mo in the summerhouse for a couple of hours before Mr Smith found out and came to my help; he took my part so vigorously that he whipped them all soundly—there was a noise!—and made them beg my pardon and promise never to annoy mo again. And, do you know, lie called upon my employers afterwards and talked to them so ably that they have been different to me ever srnce. When I tried to thank him a lump came m my throat, so that I could not speak, and lie said he loved me. So. as I loved him, we became engaged and sinra then everything has gone well’ ®?“* as *«*»<*, wo are going to be marl ned on Wednesday, and I am the happiest girl in the world. “How glad I am that the other Mr Smith, uncle’s nephew, never made love

to me! For I don’t mind confessing you that, after uncle died, I was so lonely and so frightened of poverty ant of facing the world alone that I might have been persuaded to marry him even if I did not love him, and then how miserable I should have been !' I n that case, too, I should have missed the greatest joy this life can offer a girl, the true, sincere love of a good man. “Dear Mr Miles, give the hospitals unde’s money, and may it do them good.

“My Mr Smith is as poor as I am, excepting that he can earn about £l5O a year by his pen. At least he has done that one year, and hopes to do it again. But, with love, such love as ours,, we shall be rich in all that is most’ precious.

“Thank you very much for having been my reference and good friend I am, 5

“Yours very sincerely.” “Gwendoline Eva Wilmot Willoughby.” P.S.—You know that when I went out as a governess I dropped my surname, as poor uncle had such an aversion to a gentlewoman of the house of Willoughby earning her own bread, and I have not told Mr Smith what my true name is. You see he has very strict notions about truth and honour, and I am* afraid he will think I was wrong in sailing under rather false colours, besides there really seemed no necessity to tell him. Perhaps, however, I ought to marry him under my true name. Please tell me if it is absolutely necessary that I should do so ?”

After a little thought, Mr Miles got some telegraph forms, and, addressing one to Gwendoline, and one to Dick wrote upon each:— ’

“Your letter received. Come to my office this evening at seven. Business of great importance.—Esau Miles.”

Calling his clerk, he sent him to despatch tho telegrams, and, smiling grimly, turned to his other work.

His staff thought he was strangely absent-minded and contradictory all day, but the truth was that he was preoccupied in mind.

When seven o’clock came, the clerks liad gone home, and he was alone iu his private office, with only one lad in attendance in the other rocm, to wait upon him and open the door. Punctually as the clock struck seven, Dick arrived. He burst into the office like a sudden breeze in hot sultry weather.

“Congratulate me, dear old fellow!" lie said, seizing the lawyer’s hand and shaking it heartily. Then, almost without pausing for the other to speak, he cried. “Why have you wired for me? What is the matter?”

“It- is the lawyer remarked, dryly, “it is absolutely necessary that before you are married you should say a few words to your late uncle’s niece, Miss Willoughby. “But I have repudiated her. I mean, I mean I will have nothing at all to do with her!” protested the young man, looking as much alarmed as if there was a danger that he would be compelled to marry the girl who had once, as he said, been-thrown at his head.

“Would you mind signing a statement to that effect?" said Mr Miles, with his head bent over a paper on which he was writing.

“Oh. I’ll sign fast enough, though, what the dickens I need do that for I don’t know!” vociferated Dick.

The office boy put in his head. “If you please, sir, tho lady’s come,” he observed. “Show her in here. Now, my dear Dick, sign this.” Dick wrote his patronymic under the written words, “I will have nothing to do with Miss Gwendoline Willoughby." “That may save you from the danger,” observed the lawyer, dryly. “Miss Gwendoline Willoughby," announced the office boy shrilly, ushering in tho lady.

Dick stared. Then his face lighted up, and he exclaimed joyfully, “Eva!!” “Dick!” cried the girl, “you here! Oh!" She looked as if she were going to run into his arms, but Mr Miles stopped her advance, with a gesture of authority.

“Allow me,” he said to Dick, “allow me to introduce you to Miss Gwendoline Eva Wilmot Willoughby. Miss Willoughby, this is your late uncle’s nephew, Sir Richard Smith.”

Dick was staggered. He grasped a chair-back and stood behind it, looking at Gwendoline in amazement. “Oli, Dick dear!” she cried. “Oh, didn’t know—indeed I did not know. You, uncle Willoughby’s nephew!” “And, confound it, I didn’t know you were Gwendoline Willoughby—your name is Wilmot!”

“Forgive me, dear. Oh, please forgive me 1” she cried. “I meant to tell you some day that that was not my whole name. Oh, Mr Miles,” turning to him beseechingly, “explain to him how it was I seemed to deceive—” she broke down, in the greatest distress. “Calm yourself, my dear lady. Dick, it was her uncle’s wish that no female Willoughby should work for her bread, therefore she dropped the name.” “But you might have told me, dear,*’ remonstrated Dick.

“I was afraid you would think that I wasn’t exactly myself—and—and—would you have loved me more if I had?” she asked.

“No! No! No!” Dick’s manly voice

through the room, and seemed to scare away Mr Miles, for the next moment they were alone. ... . A little later,-when, on his return, he found that the lovers had got over their little difference, and were once more a Mutual Admiration Society, as lovers ought to be, he flourished the paper Dick had s’gned, exclaiming, ‘‘Shall I show it to her? Dick my boy? Dick caught hold of the document, and tore it into a thousand fragments, while Gwendoline looked on in some bewilderment. “What is it ?” she asked. “Oh, do tell me what it is?”

Mr Miles laughed. “I will tell you after you are married,” he eplied. “Yes, Dick, she shall know then the depths of vour perfidy.” After the wedding on Wednesday, at which the onerous duty of giving Gwendoline away devolved upon Mr Miles, h 9 told her what was written upon the paper, whereupon, laughing merrily, she declared that it was a matter of no im_ portar.ee, as there was no lonegr a spinster named Gwendoline Willoughby. Tho two local hospitals did not benefit by the wholo of the large fortune Mr Willoughby left, but his legatees presented each with £IO,OOO, which they a thanks offering for their own great happiness.