A SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6052, 9 November 1906, Page 5

A SHORT STORY.

(By Edith C- M. Bart.)

AT LAST

Barbara Waring had practically learned and mastered the difficult art of being poor, when Fato presented Ikm* whimsically with abundance. Everybody, even she, felt it to bo more or 3c*?s a fantastic happening. She needed so lit'tlc. There" was certainly n patent absurdity in so much being forced upon her without desire, when the world is overrun with more or ices discontented folk oighing for it. She wondered a r t first >vhat she was going to do with it all, that was before nho had learned that, along with a fortune, Fate always certainly bestows methods for its disposal—ouddon and unknown acts of duty to call insistent, family claims that had been only sleeping dogs until their opportunity awoke them to bark. She found out also, with a vague’surprise, \hat a groat deal of money may be expended upon the getting of simple things for which others ask—simplicity by the* way, being rarely demanded by tbo multitude.

With a sort of gasping relief she got free, after many months, of rather importunate folk**, ami ran off to .the sea, to a household of merry, affectionate, noisy creatures she had once schooled and*loved. They made much of her in their own breezy quite un- • affected by her change of circumstances except that it gave such an unfailing excuse for teasing.

She soon discovered among them that tho girl in herself was not so much crushed and dead as neglected. Kilo kept cropping up and assorting herself in the meet unlooked-for daily fashion.

“You aro getting prettier and younger every day, Mother Bab,” one of the girls exclaimed, watching a 'iittlo excitement ruffle the quietness of bos grey eyes, and flush her smooth, small check. "Isn’t she, isn’t she, Edward?” the girl cried merrily. The man’s watching eyes had a sudden spark of something now and strange through their quiet rather sleepy look of observation. Barbara drew a blind of blank forbidding over the youth in her own. Her cheeks flamed, not with the blush of mere reproof, nut something fiercer. The man saw ■it, and began to talk. instantly with much detail of something else. She thanked him for it secretly, but with that barb implanted by the careless schoolgirl band rankling. It was so long since that a man had looked at her '.vith that flash in hifl eyes, the brief admiration of the moment as ).he called it to herself. Sho thought that she could meet it calmly enough now, yet the old savage throb had leaped in response to that look,*as it hact done when she was twenty, in her foolish ■ tumultuous, unguessed girli hood.

The greater part of her life had been passed curiously apart from the other sex. She had Jived in a little nunlike seclusion, more perhaps tho result of circumstances tlian temperament. She had shared, therefore, in none of Vho rough-and-tumblo wholesomeness of brothers’ criticisms, chums, and masculine outlook, do stimulating to the woman’s narrower point of vantage. Yet there was something in her that Would have revelled in sharing it aU—- ■ an unconquerable faith and optimism —a belief in the innate honesty of others that was scarcely a. feminine trait, and was little enough suspected in Barbara Waring by thodo surrounding her mostly. When she was twenty sho met for the first time a man obviously attracted by herself, not by any of her attributes —music, deftness, or mental quickness of perception—but by herself, her whole. For the first time her wishes were anticipated her lightest words remembered and quoted, her tastes ■studied, in that old and sure fadhion never to bp sot aside or improved upon, in tho primitive pleasure of a wooer. ■She opened out like a flower to the sun, until tho blow fell. He was not in earnest; It svas a summer’s amusement. no morel Tho realisation came crashing across her life, destroying hot alone her hope but some faith in herself. What really mattered was not no much the loss of a lover as the loss 'of herself. She exaggerated in tho way of youth tho extent of selfrevolation when ho was "amusing liimEolf” as the common phrase put It. The thought bit into her sensitiveness like acid into a copper plate. She emerged from tho silent conflict altered only to hewtelf. Sjie was not the sorb of woman that other wom&n discussed, luckily for her. She had killed that part of her nature, sho ■told herself somewhat grandiosely, and isrtainly tho corpse had shown no sign of life until this afternoon, when tho girl’d nonsense_ drew that flash from a man’s eyes and that instinctive, cruel Tcflponso from herself.

Edward Bants was an older son of

the house by another marriage. Ho Was removed by ago and a certain difference, not so much ago as a change Iff mental outlook from the merry, pleasure-loving throng of half-brothers land sisters, whom ho secretly protected from themselves at every_ turn. There was nothing superior in his attitude. "Old Ted” was looked up to laughingly, yet with much earnestness underneath the fun, as mingling in himself the joint roles of an autocrat nnd a most susceptible chancellor of ■exchequer. He was inevitably the arbiter of family destinies in . his quiet conclusive way of deeision. Barbara, stepped into the family attitude straightway. Oddly enough, although her years and his own tallied, »lio regarded him much as his young

*isters did, to his own amusement at 1 fireft.' Lately a vague doubt crept in. It was never expressly defined, not wen when his flashing eyes set her pulses dancing on the summer afternoon when they sat looking at the blue waters of the bay beyond tho tamarisk bushes at the garden’s end. She escaped with only* one thought—not that—-not that again 1 A line of Browning came to her, then and later, as tho situation developed—

She had A heart— how shall I say?—too- soon made glad, Too easily impressed.

It was not a comment that would oomo from anybody else on this staid little creature' with the sleek brown hair, ii ml eyes at which few looked long enough to find tho hidden light that sometimes reddened them' from insignificance to positive beauty. Edward

Banks had discovered the latter, and ho looked again, always to encounter chat instant withdrawal of the vague something that tantalised him behind the soft reticence of voice and eye, that echoed in and out elfishly of the music she* played to herself of an evening in the shadows of the great empty, as she thought, drawing-room. The noisy laughter and chatter of the family outside always broke off this audience too frcon.

Ho watched and waited. Barbara eluded more than ever. Ho told himself that he was too old to make experiments, lie mart bo sure, thougn every day caution became harder: she felt that* what had been wno returning, and too ready to bo warned would not let herself see the difference of this, tho real thing, from that old youthful imitation passion, that had pulled youth about her ears long ago. Tliore wore no spectators, or so many that they never thought of looking, or it might have made an entertaining spectacle. He hid his feelings far leso cleverly than he imagined from their object. She was continually averting their slight expression, scheming against betrayal and against her own response day after day.

She bad only that one bitter experience to guide her, and its remembrance rose up like a warning ghost to scare her from the possibility of enacting the part again. Her native good sense was overridden : she could not trust her judgment against this bogey of the part. Tho one dominant thought was ever to escape being taken again in tho net of a mistaken confidence, to put away from her resolutely the chance of being overtaken the second time- by misplaced emotion.

Tho days went by, until she felt forced to act. She despatched a letter which would bring her a telegram, and she would fly. She knew she must have some tangible reason of need to go, to produce to these creatures of tho actual, who clung about her continually, without any secret being permissible in action or arrangement.

She looked across thq gay dinner table and out of the oriel window at the evening sea, its blue growing violet as tho sunset faded. The sound of the sea came like a tain? song between tbe paused of laughter and talk of the pleasant company, a vague, sad refrain of waves that lapped tbe foot of tbe : ff below tho gardens. Against the bine borizob sails glistened white, orange, and dim; the last steamer, with its laden decks, put out from the jiier aiid sped across to the other side.

Barbara thought, not of the beauty of tho evening, but of how desolate sho would bo to-morrow night away from them all, alone! Tho sound of her own namo broke in. “Why! You will bo all by yourselves to-night, Ba, yon and Ted; I had forgotten we aro all going out to this pastoral play rehearsal thing. How rudo of no”—the speaker laughed with penitence. “You mus-t entertain one another, Ba; ’play to him. Old Ted would like that ”

"Ho would,” interpolated Edward. "And if he’s good he may smoke in the drawing-room-; he could never he happy after dinner without.”

"Couldn’t he?” Barbara avoided the glance direct across the dinner table. Someone else took up the talk. “Did you ever hear the tale, Ba, of how ho'went to stay with Aunt and I7nclo Chichester, who looks upon tobacco as poison, and was found by one of tho family one evening sucking an unliglvtcd pipe in the dining-room with an air of awful gloom, while (Tncle Chichester read him extracts from a lecture ho had given on——?” “1 say, Dot, draw it mild!” , “Honeet Injun, Doll told me herself.”

“Oh, Dell’s tales!” The table dispersed. They went off in a body, bearing fiddles, mandoline, guitar, and stage properties. . “Don’t fight!” “Wo won’t.” “Play to him; he'll he quiet and good then.” “Wo shall be back at teri.” “It’s really too bad to troop off and leave you ” “Good-bye, good-bye!” They flocked off, a gay crowd of light-robed, laughing nonsense-loving creatures. -

Without a word to one another the two left moved away. Barbara went upstairs to the drawing-room, its many windows opened to the sea that entered like a song. The fragrance of ers filled the empty room. There were books, papers, trifles scattered ■about on chair and sofa. More from habit than a desire to tidy, Barbara moved about the great room picking them up and straightening hero and there. She did not attempt to play for some time, but sat in the peace of the deserted room listening, fearing a step on the stairs. None came. Ho was smoking, after ail, downstairs in his own room. She need not imagine her music was inducement to bring him here, where he never willingly ventured, she told herself; yet, just for to-night, the very last night—— She ertaided. Edward was standing in the doorway. He stood watching her, with that same strange flicker in his sober eyes. He crossed the room, and sat opposite her, still silent and smiling. “Shall I play ? What would you like?” She did not wait for his answer, but began.. The man listening, knew that it was his presence, his obvious presence, that kept the magic out of her melody. He gave a grim attention to it for a few moments, then got up and went into the inner room. Sho thought ho had gone, and a Faint current of something mysterious' crept into her music;' it reioved her, soothed the unrest of her mood, flowed with a momentary healing over her jarred' Spirit. As sho ceased a servant entered with t telegram. She was looking at it unopened when he came back. She knew escape was too late.

“Come outside. You have had enough music.”

“You mean you have,” she corrected, trying to talk lightly. ‘You sometimes . make a mistake about me,” ho said abruptly.

There were winding steps that led from the drawing-room windows to the garden. He followed her, going carefully to escape her trailing gown. She went to the little alley of tamarisk bushes that threw a feathery awning overhead, with graceful spires of scanty wax-like blossoms upon the gnarled stems. There was a sort of rampart at one end with t low sandstone bench that overlooked the sea. Tho air was full of soft sounds and scents. Tho violet dusk had vanished from tho sea. Ho could only just see her face, and tho soft sweep of cheek that gave distinction to her profile. A little fold of her gown trailed across the bench as .they sat. • He took it

between bis fingers. “I like your shadowy black 1 rocks. I don't like women, as a rule, in black gowns. This is like twilight, fmo and frail Is that'whv yon chose it, Barbara?" For the first time ho called her by her name. She was dumb. There was piercing ewiftly through her distaste and fear; something stronger. Ho tried to see her face in the gloom.

Something in her heart was keeping time to tnc rhythm of the sea. He caught the strangeness of her mood without understanding it. He was as sensitive as herself to mental impression. From sheer incapacity to finesse he took the one course that convinced — the direct one. “I want you,”,ho said. ‘Tt’s not the way to put it; men don’t say it blunvlj like that—men who know how to woo. I never did, never tried, or wanted to before. I <uu too old to learn the rules of tho difficult game. I only repeat I want you. Does it seem enough.” Ho took her trembling hands.

‘■J want you to marry me. After all, it’s what they come to in the end, those pretty tricks and speeches, those byways I can’t learn. Let it bring me near- you.” “But if I can’t?”

There was an edge of half malice, half unconcealed content in her voice. "You must! I’ll have to try and learn the other follow’s methods if yon won’t come to me like this!” She shuddered, and for an instant, in tho inexplicable ebb and flow of emotion, she seemed carried from him. “Yon don’t'know me yet,” he wont on: “you have taken other people’s views of me. I shall to different to you—quite ‘ different, if you let me show you myself, apart from everybody else. I have a prophetic feeling about U3 _l bad it from the beginning. I suspect I am going to make you want me, more than you know.” Insurgenco returned—wa.s overflowing all. “You can’t make me want yon more suddenly timid. “Don’t you see why?” He did, though to the latest day of their life together be could never be brought to understand how it camo about. „ , The telegram had fallen from her fingers unopened to the ground. Ho picked it up later. “See! It’s never opened, careless one!”

“And it never will he . . . . now!” She leaned over tho wall and tossed it into the washing waves that leaped lazily up the edge. He asked no question of her. It was not his way; besides, ho was too happy. Sho thought with a sudden fear as she watched the yellow envelope carried out to tho sea, "If it had been too late, if lie had waited one night longer!” That was just her woman’s way of frightening herself with danaers that never come, even in the moment of a great joy.