' Chapter XXVII.

Otago Witness, Issue 1762, 29 August 1885, Page 24

' Chapter XXVII.

fThe Return of the Fugitives. INNIE Lammas was in the rare position of having the oiie great ambition of her life gratified. She Was private secretary to a great lady— at all events Mrs Pollen, who appeared great enough in the eyes of the Fizurseham folk, and would have been made ever so much of by the West End of London, if only * she had been wiling to accept the West End's attentions, Vinnie came every day to Fitzurse House and wrote letters for Mrs Pollen, or read to her, or walked or drove with heV. She went home late in the evening, or at any hour, late or early, when Mrs Pollen was returning to town ; and Christian Pilgrim was sometimes sent to see her safely to her door. Mrs Pollen never said • a word to Vinnie about the plunge into the river. Vinnie felt that her ambition's long-familiar wish was granted, and that she ought to be happy. To do her justice, she tried hard to be happy. She made up her mind that she would get to be . happy as fast as ever she could. I Common gratitude to all who had been so kind I to her called for that much,, sacrifice, the re- j nunciation of disappointment's luxury, she j thought. Mrs Lammas was made happy by the position Vinnie had got, and by the improvement in Vinnie's health and spirits. Indeed, but for her own secret troubles, her disappointed love, her broken idol, her ■ sense of penitance and shame for her one act of despondency and wildness, Vinnie must. have been happy just then. Mrs Pollen" was one of the kindest, and at the same timle one of the most interesting and original of patronesses. Mr Romont was in and out a good deal, and always talked to Vinnie in the most friendly way, quite as if she were a regular lady. Viunie's sensations when she saw Mr Romont for the first time after " that night " were such as she could never forget. She thought how dreadful she must have looked when he lifted her out of the water and carried- her on shore ; what a frightful dripping bundle of clothes she must have been ; in what untold unimaginable disorder ! She wondered what he must have thought of her ; she wondered she ever had the courage to look him in the face. But he was so kind and friendly, so easy in his manner,, and so respectful that he put her quite at her ease, and she soon forgot all all about it — except at moments, except at sudden, awful moments, when it would all come 1 I back upon her with a rush, and she felt tempted to run out of the room, or at least to hide her face in her hands. It is very interesting when Mr Romout came in and sat with Mrs Pollen and Vinnie, and perhaps had afternoon tea and talked about everything. What things he had seen and done; what places, what countries he had been in ! and Mrs pollen too ; between them they appeared to have been everywhere in the world. Vinnie had never been brought into close acquaintanceship with a young man like Romont, who seemed to have absolutely nothing to do in the way of business, or of making a living. After so many years of poverty and hard work, seeing everyone around, her hard at work, and nevertheless very poor, it was strange and beyond comprehension or expression to Vinnie, to find herself the friendly companion of people who never thought 'of making money ; only, as it looked to Vinnie, about spending it ; who had no business of their own to do, but were constantly busy about the affairs ,of other people, trying to make them better and to keep them straight. Mrs Pollen's .absorbing interest in a scheme for a co-operative butcher's shop in Fitzurseham filled Vinnie with uttermost wonder. To think of a great, rich lady like that actually making up her mind to start a butcher's shop of her own for the sake of selling good meat cheap, to the dreadful good-for-nothing tliankless people of Fitzurseham! And Mr Romout too was going into the matter as seriously as if he had been brought up to the business from his infancy, Vinnie always had had an .impression that people like that never knew of the existence of butchers and their shops, and if they had known would never have allowed one moment's thought to such low subjects. Then what things they talked of, Mrs Pollen and Mrs Romont ! What odd, clever things they both said. How funnily they chaffed one another ! Vinnie did not always catch the point of their sayings quite in time ; sometimes she broke into little spurts of laughter which I though meant for the past joke seemed to come in as the proper tribute to the passing jest. They must be very happy, she thought, and why shouldn't they be when they are so good, and so kind,* and so rich ? Romont we know was not rich, and he had his troubles; and he was not always by any means happy. But no hint of any trouble of his got to Vinnie's ears, and to her he was as rich as Croesus. Camiola did not come to Fitzurseham House these days ; she wrote a line to Mrs Pollen now and then, mostly to say that nothing yet had been heard from Janette. No one from the Rectory came near the place. Lady Letitia in her heart blamed Mrs Pollen for her patronage of Walter Fitzurse, and nourished a kind of acrid thought that only for Mrs Pollen things .might not have turned out as they did. Mrs Pollen perhaps suspected the existence of some such feeling ; and in any case would not have cared to intrude upon the Lisles just then. She thought she had better maintain for the present an attitude ' of neutrality. " I cannot say what side I may have to take yet," she thought, "if they hold out against Janette." One or two evenings after the meeting on the river side between Romont and Camiola, Mrs Pollen, Vinnie, and Romont were on the lawn of Fitzurse House. Vinnie had a volume of Shakespeare in her hand, from which she had'been reading to Mrs Pollen when Romont presented himself. Then Romont stretched himself on the grass, and Mrs Pollen and he fell to talking in their usual discursory way, flinging ideas and epigrams and paradoxes at each other, during intervals of graver discussion on Australian mutton, and the dwellings of the poor, and the difficulty of keeping this Fitzi ursehamite sober, and that Fitzursehamite's | children, at school. "I have often wondered," Mrs Pollen said, " what are the most pathetic words in Shakespeare." " I have thought of that, too," Romont said. " I wonder what he has not thought of," Vinnie &sked in her own mind as she looked discreetly but wonderingly at him. " What is your idea ?" Mrs Pollen asked. " No ; I would rather have your! first." "Well, I wonder whether any words ever

\ written or spoken could have more pathetic meaning in them than those about loving ' not wisely but too well ?' Think what a picture of lost lives aud lost feelings ; of love destroying what it loved, and all out of very love, ' not' wisely but too well.' Think of that ; and of all it calls up with it in one's mind." " Yes ; but what do you say to ' Perchance, lago, I will ne'er go home ?"' , "That seems to me terrible," little Vinnie ventured to say, " if I understand it rightly 1 ." '.' Caraiola always stands out for it," Mrs' Pollen said, quietly, " that nothing can exceed the pathos of Antony's words about ' The poor last ' — ' Until of many thousand kisses, the poor last I lay upou thy lips.' Come, what do you say to that?" " Oh, but I think it is euough to bring tears into anyone's eyes," Vinnie declared. She was becoming quite the poetic and Shakespearian scholar already. Romout seemed distracted. He turned himself unquietly on the grass. " I shouldn't have thought she would fix on that," he said at last. "Why not, clear youth ?'_' " There seems such an intensity of love, and passion, and pain in it ; I didn't think women I felt so much as that." " When ? How is that ? Do you mean womoii in general — or this particular woman?" " Well, there seems a passionate depth in these words that somehow does not seem to me i to be felt by women of a certain nature ; Englishwomen especially. Some women seem to be rather lifted above that sort of emotion " In fact you don't know auything about the matter." " In fact I don't." ' " Who on earth would have thought that a girl like Janette Lisle, brought up in that land of way aud in such a household, would have • beeu so carried away by her love as to kick right over the traces and run off ?" " I always thought there was something a little hysterical about her," Roraont said; "something not quite healthy; something rather undisciplined ; apt to be mutinous if auy chance should come." " I begin to understand you now," Mrs Pollen said with a smile ; " I didn't before. Yes ; I see. She is an undisciplined little thing who runs away with her lover ; but there are nobler and loftier creatures compact of purer fire aud finer clay who would not condescend to do anything of the kind, and whose lovers are only all the more proud of them because they keep their love within the bounds of becoming discipline ! Exactly ; you like the women not to show too much of the passionate depth of emotion . aud all that. - My good youth, what an insular you are after all ! But, I say, where have we left the Immortal Bard ?" Most of this was sheer mystery to Vinnie. A letter was handed to Mrs Pollen. She read it, glancing up even while she was reading, now at Romont and now at Vinnie. " This is from Mis* Sabine," she said, " Our romantic wanderers have returned ; at least if they haven't returned they have given signal of their whereabouts; and they declare themselves ready to return. If all is forgiven they are willing to come back." " Where do they write from ?" " From Bremen — of all places in the world." "Of courso ; yes, I know," Romont said ; "North German Lloyd steamers; they are ready to go out to America if they are not invited to return home." " " Precisely. The letter comes from Janette — from Mrs Fitzurse — so Camiola tells me. They are married ; ceremony took place in Scotland. Then they went at once to Bremen to be out of the way of all possible trouble by pursuit or otherwise ; and if they are not asked to come back to England they will go to America, and call in the New World to redress the balance of the old. That isn't Camiola's phrase, mind ; nor Janette's ; it's mine ;, I mean it's my quotation from Pitt or Canning or somebody, and I am rather proud of the application of it now. It was struck off on the spur of the moment. Oh dear, these romantic young lovers! I declare I admire her immensely, and I only wish I could admire him." Romont had risen to his feet now, and Mrs Pollen walked a few paces with him. " That child takes it well," she said quietly, indicating Vinnie. " Every day will make her stronger now. It is the doubt and suspense that kill. I dou't pity her now so much any longer ; but I feel rather distressed about poor Janette. Can he ever come to anything good, do you think ?" Romont shook his head. "I am afraid not ; I don't see the root of any goodness in him." " Well, of course, you will say nothing. You won't interfere with whatever chance he has of retrieving himself? Mind, my friend — for Janette's sake." "Oh, God forbid!" Romont said, fervently. " For her sake aud for her mother's I'll stand aside. If he can cohie to better things I'll not hinder him. The thing is clone now." "Would you like to have Camiola's letter? I'll give it to you if you would,?" Romont looked eagerly at the little letter. His lover's impulse was at first to take it. "No," he said, after a moment; i"it's not mine ; what's the good ; it's yours, Mrs Pollen." " Have you any scrap of a letter from her ?" " Not a lino." " But you have written to her ?" " Yos, once ; a few lines, as I told you." " She keeps tbese lines," Mrs Pollen said -with a half-melancholy smile. " I' don't know." " Ask her," Mrs Pollen said, " years from this; and she will produce the letter." The moment " the Lisles heard of their daughter's whereabouts they sent a telegram to Bremen, and the result was that within fortyeight hours Mr and Mrs Walter Fitzurse arrived at the Rectory. Walter had his wife and himself dressed in the most becoming way for a young pair who had made a secret marriage. It was a semi-penitential " throw ourselves on tbe mercy of parents " sort of got up. Walter had still in his pocket a few, truly a very few, of tho sovereigns which had once weighted Mrs Pollen's casket. He had spent pretty freely for the few days of the adventure, and if the Lisles had proved obdurate he positively would not have been able to pay for the passage to America unless by ths pawning of watches and chains and some of Jannctt's trinkets. The returning fugitives were well received at the Rectory by every one but Georgie. He could not keep down his dislike of Fitzurse, whom he considered a beastly cad; and he could not get over his annoyance with Janette, ' because she bad put the family so much out with her confounded nonsense. " I say, Janette, what a fool you have made of yourself," was his tender greeting to his newly-married sister. Janette only smiled. She knew it was his way, and she dicl not believe lie really meant it, and she thought that all brothers rather liked to snub their sisters aud take the conceit out of them. Besides, she was far too happy to mind what even Georgie might have thought about her. Mrs Pollen called and brought Romont with her. The moment was trying for Romont. He'

knew that all eyes were on him. Mrs Pollen was watching him with a curious interest, that merely of a spectator who is anxious to. know how some person suddenly made prominent will get through a difficult piece of ceremonial. Camiola, who ,had not the,,same knowledge of the actualities of the situation, fixed her eyes on Romont with, a different interest. She could not but think that something had passed between Roraont and Fitzurse which; Would explain if she only, knew it Romont's sudden | intervention ; aud she looked on with as much eagerness as if she might now get some glimpse of the truth from the expression of his face. Janette longed to see Romont welcome her husband with a truly cordial aud friendly greeting; [and she expected this andjookedfor it. Fitzurse came forward aud held out his hand, and he looked into Romont's eyes. The expression was eloquent. It said as plainly as words could speak, " I'm at your mercy — I know it — I Ideserve anything; but will you destroy ■ me?" Then Romont accepted the situation. " Over < ankles over knees " is- a sensible, practical. sort of proverb ; when one is in for a thing he may. as well go right in for it. Roraont, did the necessary bit of play-acting and pretence with as good a grace and as much appearance of earnestness as all his practice in disguises and his skill in private theatricals enabled him to assume. He clasped Walter Fitzurse's band. " Fitzurse, my dear boy, how delightful I am to see you here " — emphasis on here — " and to give you my heartfelt congratulations." Walter returned the clasp of the hand with a peculiar sort of little after-pressure' which plainly said : " You have spared me and saved me ; I understand all your feelings ; I give you my unending gratitude," The minds of all the party were somehow relieved. There was hardly one present who had not had.a more or less vague suspicion that Romont was Fitzurse's enemy, and could tell something dreadfully against him if he would., At the same lime, the common , conviction was > that Romont, was a man who. would not have pretended to any feeling which was not really, in his heart. . Therefore, when he thus cordially welcomed Fitzurse<and warmly clasped his hand it was like the verdict of acquittal by a jury of honour. Such is the value of a good character — such is even its oblique value, its .refracted value, i Romont's good character vindicated Walter, and Romont meanwhile was acting in direct contravention to his own principles and making use of a good character to screen a bad one. It must be left to casuists and moralists to decide how far he was excusable in this, or whether, he was wholly wrong. Ought he to . have then and there exposed and proclaimed, Walter's falsehood and treachery ? Ought he to have told of the attempt at robbery aud the attempt at murder ? Ought he to have thereby rendered it impossible for ,Walter ever to retrieve himself, and so made Janette and Janette's father and mother unhappy for life ? If he were not to do this, then was he not justified in completely concealing Walter's past misdeeds, and so giving him a real and not a sham chance ,of retrieving himself ? A formal receptionj a chilly reception, would 'assuredly have left Walter, an object. of suspicion, and mistrust in the eyes of- Mr Lisle, and Lady Letitia, and Camiola ; would- even have perhaps sown the first seed of doubt and distrust in the innocent heart of Janette herself. Could Romont make up his mind to do this ? As well go in for a complete exposure at once. Walter Fitzurse setting out to retrieve himself - with the burden ef common suspicion imposed upon him would have but a poor chance of making much way. Romont could not make himself the means of spoiling the unfortunate young man's last chance ; he clasped Fitzurse's hand and gave Fitzurse , his good character to begin with all over again.. „. A sudden revulsion of good spirits came to Romont's help when this trying little .scene, was f fairly got through, and he set talk soon going and kept it alive. Janette withdrew .into the •background with- Camiola;- Ge'orgie hun'g'upori their skirts, pressing upon Janette a certain unwonted tenderness of brotherly interest, and all the time acting as a sort of screen between Camiola and any possible approach from the general company. • Never does a young man • look to less advantage in the eyes of the young , woman he adores, and who does not adore him, than when he is trying to prevent some rival from coming to speech of her. Caraiola understood perfectly well whatGeorgie was about; she could have explained to. him the meaning of every movement he made, and every position he fell into, and every step 'he took; and she thought him provokingly undignified and ridiculous.