ANDROMEDA:

Otago Witness, Issue 2393, 11 January 1900, Page 53

ANDROMEDA :

A TALE OF THE GREAT RIVER.

By ROBERT BUCHANAN; Author of " God and the Man," " The Shadow of the Sword," ''Stormy Waters," "The Wedding Ring,' "Father Anthony," "Lady Kilpatrick," etc., etc.

COPYRIGHT.

CHAPTER IX.— (Continued)

ASSUME," said the lawyer, " that I am addressing Andromeda Costello, who was born on the high seas, and

■was afterwards adopted by a seaman named Matthew Watson, and brought up in the house of his only sister, now deceased? ' "Yes, that's right," cried Job Endell, interposing. " Permit the young lady to reply for herself," fcaid Lei/terstone, motioning Job aside, and glancing at Annie over his spectacles. "You are, I believe, Andromeda Oostello?" "My name's Annie," was the reply, " and 'Liza, Watson brought me up." " Just so. Annie, or Andromeda, Costello. Afterwards, when Watson ' sailed away from Gravesend on his last voyage, you were consigned to the care of Mrs Endell, of the Lobster Smack, Canvey Island?" Annie nodded. " Before yom guardian sailed away on his last voyage, when you were a young girl of only 16, you were married fit the registrar's office at Gravesend to this same Matthew Watson?"' Annie started, aad her face went crimson, then in another moment pale as death. Her lips quivered, the dark lines of her eyebrows met in a nervous frown, and she shrank as if she had received a blow. / , "It's all right, Anniedromedy," murmured Endell, soothingly. " Don't 'cc be afraid, answer the gentleman !" But Annie could not answer, so strange a shame fell upon her and so deep a dread. She knew now that all present, including the vicar, had learned her secret, and she sat with darkening brows and averted eyes, without uttering a word. The lawyer looked puzzled. "Kindly answer me," he ?aid after a pause. " You are Andromeda Costello, and in your sixteenth year you were married to Matthew Watson?" Still there was no answer, the gM seemed paralysed and stupefied. "O' course you were, Anniedromedy," cried Joe Endell. "Me and missus was there as witnesses; and afterwards " Then Annie found her tongue, and rising to her feet as if to fly from the room, she exclaimed : " I don't know ! I don't remember ! I don't want to remember!" "My dear child," said the vicar, rising and taking her hand, " there is nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. You were very young, a mere child in fact — and the marriage was, of course, a mere matter of foim. You remember, however, that it took place?" The girl's agitation increased. She fluttered and trembled like a bird in the net, panting to escape from some deadly terror. "What is it all about?" sOie panted, her dark eyes Hashing from one face to the other. "Why have you brought me here to ask me such silly questions? Has lie, has he come back?" There was no mistaking the look of shame and terror which accompanied the query. "Pray calm yourself," said the lawyer.

" 1 regret, dcr-ply regret, to inform you that, to the best of our infoimation, your husband is dead !"

" Dead ?'" she echoed. " Matt Watson ?"

" I fear so. lam advised so. The last communication sent to us from him was despatched, I understand, only a few days before his decease."

As he spoke Annie sank again into her chair, and, leaning forward on the table, covered her face with her hands. Her form was shaken with sobs, tears were streaming through her fingers, but she uttered no sound.

" Your grief is natural, Annie," murmured the vicar ; " nevertheless I must entreat you to control it, and to listen to what ourVfriend has further to communicate. It will comfort 3-011, no doubt, to learn that the poor fellow's last thoughts were of you, and that he did not pass away without proving his devotion."

"No, indeed!" muttered Endell. her, mister."

Thus appealed to, Mr Letterstone again turned over his papers, and proceeded. ' Some weeks ago, Mrs Watson " '(as he addressed her by her married name Annie shuddered through and through and raised her right arm as if to avert a blow), "we received, through our agents in Western America, these papers, containing Matthew Watson's last will and testament, duly witnessed and attested, together with a large sum of money, which has been left solely and unconditionally to you. This money we hold at your disposal, and after the requisite preliminaries and legal proof of your identity, we shall be prepared to pay it over. All that your husband possessed, in fact, is yours, and I am pleased to congratulate you on your good fortune."

Annie remained in the same position, liar face hidden in her hands, but her convulsive sobs had ceased, and she was evidently listening.

"D'ye hear, Annie, d'ye hear?" cried Job Endell, excitedly. " Sakes alive, my gel, ain't ye ready to jump out of your skin ? You're rich now, Anniedromedy ! Matt Watson has left you twenty thousand pounds ! And me and the old woman ain't forgotten neither! There's a thousand golden sovereigns for us, my gel — ain't there, sir, ain't there?"

The lawyer nodded, glancing still at Annie and motioning Job to silence. There was a long pause, a troubled silence. At last with a deep sigh Annie uncovered her face and sat up in her chair, "looking white and strange, more like one who had received tidings of some great calamity than lucky news. Her dirk eyes were dilated, her lips and throat were dry.

"Tell me more, sir," she said faintly, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue. " I don't seem rightly to understand. Matt Watson's dead, you say, and left me a heap o' money? How's that, sir? Where did he get so much to leave?"

" I am informed," replied Letterstone, glancing again at the papers before him, "that your husband" (again that curious gesture on the girl's part as if to avert a blow) " left his ship at the Fiji Islands, and made his way, like many others, to the goldfields of Western America. For some time he was lost sight of, but he was among the first lucky discoverers of gold in the neighbourhood of San Francisco. From there, after acquiring large sums, he passed up the country towards Alaska, and again he Avas fortunate. The amount remitted to us is possibly only a portion of the wealth he had accumulated. Stricken down by illness, and in daily expectation, of hfs death, he made his will in your favour and forwarded the £20,000, to be paid by us to your credit. We still await the official certificate of his decease, but in any case, whether he is dead or living, we are instructed to pay over to his wife the sum I have named."

"Then maybe he isn't dead at all!" cried Annie. "Maybe " • " I am afraid," said the lawyer, interrupting her gently, " that I can hold out no hope of his survival. The words of the will are explicit. 'I, Matthew Watson,' he says, ' being stricken* down by mortal sickness, and having only a few hours to live, and being at this moment of sane mind, &c, &c.' I have a copy of the document here which you can examine for yourself. Very shortly, no doubt, we shall receive full particulars of your husband's decease, and instructions concerning the residue of his property, which I have no doubt is considerable. In the meantime, I have again to congratulate you on the fact that your Avorldly wants are so fully provided for."

The rest of that interview, as far as Annie was concerned, was like a troubled dream. The sirl listened on, feeling neither glad nor sorry, but simply stupefied. The vicar's kindly advice, Job Endeli's boisterous congratulations, jnly bewildered the more. She could not think, she scarcely seemed able to feel. All that she realised was that some extraordinary and mysterious change in her fortunes had occurred, at the very time when she had felt most hopelessly adrift. Only one dim light seemed visible to her in the midst of the darkness, and that light was the face of the Fairy Prince she had met on Canvey Island.

CHAPTER X.— THE BOHEMIANS

Right in the heart of Bloomsbmy, and within a small bird's flutter from the gates of the British Museum, was the studio \\ here William Bufton, dear to his comrades as " Billy," and as yet unknown to the fame which was to overtake him too late in life, worked late and early, whenever the Lord sent him light, on potboilers for the picture dealers, and masterpieces which no one would buy. He had two companions — young Somerset, to whom our reader has already been introduced (and who is, in fact, our hero, or our apology for one) and George Constable Leroy, artist, dramatist, and out-and-out Bohemian. Bufton was a born artist, Somerset was an amateur with a certain amount of talent, Leroy was a man of letters who was full of enthusiasm for art, but avlio painted execrably.

The three occupied the studio together, and. the two elder j»pu slept there as well

as worked, in a couple of dingy cupboards, which were dignified with the name of "bedrooms." Somerset had a room in the neighbourhood, whither he retired from time to time and slept.

But, alas ! Bohemia still existed in those ; days, and it was very much the fashion to lengthen (or as the result proved, to shorten) one's days "by stealing a few hours from the night." It was the period of pipes and beer, and midnight gatherings, and "oudge and Jury," and Cremorne Gardens. Artists and literary men still affected the manners of the passing generation : they were generally hard up, careless in matters of raiment, free, not to say coarse, spoken, and still freer of morals. They worked very hard, were paid very little, and spent the little they earned very recklessly. The three dwellers in the studio were no exception to this rule.

As for the studio itself, the approach to it was down a mews, and in all probability it had once been a portion of the neighbouring stables. It was a large glass-roofed chamber with a good light from the north, and it was dining room, drawing room, room of all work, as well as studio. Littered about it were plaster casts, canvases, easels, lay figures, sketch books, palettes, brushes, articles of apparel, pipes empty bottles, flotsam Wind jetsam of all kinds. The air, when the window was closed, smelt faintly of hay and manure. In one corner of the room was a raised 1 - platform for models, and close to thtiu a rusty-looking stove, where the three cooked such meals as they partook of " en famille. ' They generally dined out at soihe cheap restaurant in the neighbourhood 'of Tottenham Court road : but their morning repasts of coffee and rolls were taken 'at home, and sometimes they supped in the studio, Lero3>-, who was a first-rate cook, preparing the repast. Servant they had none, if we except a certain middle-aged being, playfully known as the " slavey," who came in at stated intervals to clean and tidy the place, and who, being generally execrated and saluted with missiles if she dared to disarrange the artists' property and working materials, made hei office as much a sinecure as possible. @ne morning, late in the month of January, in the year succeeding the one when the two artists had visited Canvey Island, Bufton sat in the studio, busy on sdine blocks for the wood engraver, on which he was working with the aid of a magnifying glass fixed in his one available eye. He wore a velvet painting jacket and loose pantaloons, and a Turkish fez was cockefl upon his forehead. George Constable Leray — a- tall, pale-faced 'man of about 40, blinking mildly through gold-rimmed spectacles — he was very short-sighted — was busy over the stove, warming the coffee for a late breakfast. His lips were cleanshaven, but he wore what -were termed " mutton-chop " whiskers. His thin form was wrapped ir an old dressing gown, covered with stains of paint and splashes of ink. " Charles is unusually late," soliloquised Leroy, bending over the coffee po_t, which he held in his hand. " Everyone hasn't your head, Constable," returned Bufton. " The more you tippla overnight the livelier you seem in the morn- , in g." Leroy smiled, a feeble, good-humoured, . watery .smile, and then, going to a table ; set at a little distance from the stove, 1 arranged two or three breakfast cups, a ; milk bowl, and a, broken sugar basin, and j proceeded to pour out the coffee and to ! cut up two enormous loaves of French ; bread. As he did so he glanced across the studio '■ to a large wooden easel, on which there [ stood an unfinished painting in the manner known as the " antique — a nude female figure chained to a rock in the moonlight. " He was getting on very well with that picture," he said, thoughtfully ; "he hasn't touched it, however, for at least a month." " Shows his sense," growled the cynic. " The next wisest thing he could do would be to chop it up to light the fire. ' Why, just look at the thing ! It's about as like an Andromeda, or anything else human, as I'm like Shakespeare." . " The human figure is so difficult,'' murmured Lsroy. " Of course it is," returned Bufton, rlsir> and walking over to the breakfast table. "No Englishman since Etty has ever got within a hundred miles of it, and Etty's things are glorified cows, not women. Yet this youngster thinks he can paint an - 1 Andromeda,' as he calls it, all out of his own head, without even a decent model ! Hang his impudence ! " '. So saying, Bufton sat down and began vigorously discussing the coffee and the French bread. His companion sat down opposite to him, poured himself out a cup of coffee, but ate nothing. "Hot coppers, Constable?" demanded Bufton, with a grin. "■ Ko, Billy, no ; only I've no appetite so early in the day. I've been thinking, you know, that Charles has not been quite himself lately. That experience down on- the Thames has touched him more sharply thai? 3*ou suspected. Eh? Don't .you think so? ' Bufton shrugged his shoulders.' " I don't think about it," he answered ; " but it's not him I'm sorry for. He spooned the girl shamefully, and left hei almost broken-hearted. If I hadn't got him away in time there would have been trouble." "A fisherman's daughter?" " Something of that sort. A little beaut) with all the airs and graces of a lady. What right had the youngster to go fooling over her, knowing as he did thai it could come to nothing? Selfish young monkey! I had to talk to him like a father, I can tell you. Lucky I v, as there ! " Leroy blinked gently across the table and heaved a heavy sigh. " I sometimes think, Billy "' Here he paused, sighed ' again, and tboi a large draught of hot coffee. "Well, what do you think?" Bufton de manded. " I sometimes think that these thingi oiiEjlit to be left alone, to be worked out for good or evil by the persons^ chiefly, concerned. Take my case, Billy ! Fifteen, years ago I was in love, madly, desperately. jt> loye, with a girl far below me in social!

station — for I Avas a "bit of a sArell then, and my people thought I ought to look ihigh up for a suitable wife. Well, they interfered ; they Avorried my life out — till at •last they succeeded in separating us. I've "neA T er married, and she, poor dear, she married an infernal tradesman and died of a broken heart last summer."

" Apres? " groAvled Bufton, who did not fail to notice that the other's voice was broken and his spectacles dim Avith tears.

" Apres, Billy, both our lives were ■wasted, while on the other hand, if our ikind friends hadn't interfered, it might lhave been so different. She Avas too good for me, I admit, and perhaps — perhaps I shouldn't have made .her happy, but at any rate I should have tried, and she, in her turn, might haA'e made mo a different man."

He took another gulp of hot coffee, and blinked pathetically. "The cases are not parallel," obserA r ed Bufton. " Charles is engaged to be mar-

" Quite so," answered Leroy. " I am afraid, hoArever, that his mother, not himself, has done the courting in that quarter. His cousin is a A r ery nice girl, I admit ; but he seems in no hurry to marry her."

"Of course not. He can't keep himself, let alone a AA r ife. ' Well, what's the matter hoav, you precious old sentimentalist?"

The last question Avas provoked by a loud exclamation from Leroy, who set doAvn his ■cup with a clatter and" rose quickly to his feet. His mild face was flushed and excited, his whole demeanour agitated.

"In matters of true love, Billy," he cried, " I protest against worldly interference. I return to my first position and assert, Avithout any fear of contradiction, ihat young lovers should he let alone. I am, as you suggest, a sentimentalist, and my sentiment is that it is , better to go wrong at the dictates of the affections than to go right through worldly calculation. Yes — a thousand times, yes ! "

" I see ! " returned Bufton, with a sneer. "So in your opinion I ought to have let the yoimgster play the gay Lothario to the bitter end. I ought to have stood by quietly and suffered him to lie, and lie, and lie, on the principle that true love, as you call it, ought to have its fling. Rot, Constable, rot ! Love's a myth, and generally another name for infernal selfishness. If I ihad the stage managing of this planet I'd make it a criminal offence for men under 40 to make love at all."

Leroy smiled. "It would be very nic.e for old fogies like you and me, Billy," he said ; " but a ,very bad look-out for the fair sex. No, sir, youth is 'the time for love, and the world can't have too much of it."

" Oh, besh ! " interrupted Buflon, with a mocking laugh. " You knoAV as much about the world and about real men and women as I do about Sanscrit. ' Quantum sufficit.' How's the play shaping? "

The allusion Avas to a neAv piece by Lerey which was just then in rehearsal at one of the theatres in the Strand — a pretical piece in Avhich the neAV tragedian, ILv Eugene Arani, had a leading part. It A\as Leroy' s first attempt at this kind of play. Hitherto he had confined his efforts to shorter pieces Df modern character, for which he had been wretchedly paid, the palmy days of dramatic authorship not having yet arrived. "It's shaping splendidly," ansAvered Leroy. "Aram will be immense at Earl Tancred."

"Aram would be an excellent actor," returned the cynic, "if he could but walk the stage and articulate the English language. His elocution is a caution, and his legs are a nightmare." " He is a genius, Billy," cried the dramatist, " and, mark my words, the world will one day acknowledge it. In the scene frhere he finds Paolo and Francesca together, and stabs them without a Avord, he is absolutely Dantesque." . Just then the outer door of the studio was flung open, and in ran, rather than walked, the youngest member of the artistic trio. He Avas elegantly dressed in the fashion of the period — a somewhat highwaisted coat, peg-top trousers, patent leather boots, and tall hat. His face was flushed, and his Avhole manner betokened jmusual excitement.

(To be Continued.)