IN HER OWN RIGHT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3033, 1 May 1912, Page 62

IN HER OWN RIGHT.

THE NOVELIST.

[Published by Special Arrangement.]

By LADY TROUBRIDGE. Author of "The Soul of Honour,” “The Cheat,” "Love the Locksmith,” <: Tho Girl With the Blue Eyes,” Etc., Etc.

[Copyright. ]

CHAPTER XI. AMES FEEDER, the butler, ' was sitting in his sanctum enjoying an after-luncheon glass of port. The great house ■was completely silent; one might almost have heard a pin drop, and Ferder, as he leaned back in the arm-chair, felt at peace with all men. He had had a hard morning of it, what with one thing and another, for in Mr Garrett’s absence and Lord Rollesden’s illness a great deal of organising passed through his trustworthy hands, and there had been consultations with Lady Rollesden, in whose name ho had made various payments, carefully entered by him for submission to the secretary s keen eyes on his return. That secretary ! He was the thorn in Ferder’s side. If it had not been for him he felt he could have lived and died in the service of the Lord and Lady Rollesden, who, whatever their faults might be, knew how to appreciate faithfulness and discretion in those who served them. And downstairs he had been a kind ot little king, ruling well, dealing out justice with a firm and iranartial hand, yet erring perhaps on the side of meicy always ready to hear an excuse, or o make allowances. Well, it could not be helped, and there must be costs for a man of experience, even if his hair was getting touched with grey. His lordship would see that his references did him justice, and he must fight the world again on the sure basis of several hundred pounds’ worth of savings. His thoughts had just reached this comfortable point when a knock at the door startled him, and on his giving permission to enter, the footman of whom Garrett had spoken, and who had now become informally promoted to being under-butler, stood before him. It had been a point of honour with Ferder to push the young man forward, and in the absence of one of the men out of livery, he had allowed him to take his place. A fine, handy servant he was, too; never needing to be told a thing twice, capable to his finger tips; yet at the bottom of his heart Ferder did not care for him, and if it had been Lord Rollesden who bad found fault, he would hav6 yielded in a moment. “Well, what is it?” he asked. “Can I have a word with you, Mr Ferder?” “Yes; what is it?” “I should just like to know one or two things, if I might ask.” “Well, if it’s anything you ought to know I’m willing to answer.” “Well, Mr Ferder, I don’t know if I really have a right to ask it, but I should be glad to know all the same, for ray plans depend a bit on yours; so I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind mentioning if you’d made up your mind to stay after all. You see,” went on the young man, “you’re my only friend here, and I’m not sure if I should care to stay if you went.” “Well, if you put it like that,” replied Feeder, “I don’t see as there’s anything against mv satisfying your curiosity. His lordship’s “illness has temporarily altered mv plans; I’ve been with the family thirty years, and I don’t think this would be a proper moment to leave them. Her ladyship depends on me for the present, and I’m more than happy to be of any use to her. But as for staying on altogether, that’s another matter. 1 can’t work with Mr Garrett, and that’s the truth. If he’s to go on being master here, well, I’m not going to be under him, that’s all; but we’ll have to wait and see.” “Thank you, Mr Ferder. Might I ask you if Mr Garrett’s gone to fetch Lady Ivy back? I couldn’t help hearing something about it when I came in to fix the shutters in his lordship’s room; and her ladyship, she’s been giving orders to the upper housemaid about Lady Ivy's room.” Ferder looked severe. “Now, look here, John,” he said; “if you want to get on in the houses of the nobility or in anybody’s house for the matter of that you mustn’t listen to drawing room conversations, or to the gossip of the women servants.” “ I wasn’t listening, Mr Ferder.” “Yes, you were, my boy, or you wouldn’t have heard it. I do think there’s something in the wind and I’m sorry her ladyship puts so much trust in that fellow,” he added, as the port with its soothing influence stole insensibly to his brain, allowing his tongue more latitude. “That’s my own idea,” returned the yo-ng man eagerly. “Now, look here, Mr Ferder, there’s something I should like to mention to you. I did overhear it, if you like to put it that way, and I know that Mr Garrett has told them that he hasn’t found her.” ‘‘Well well, well, what of that?” said Ferder. “ It’s a cruel disappointment for them, but I do say they brought it on themselves. You can’t treat a beautiful, high-spirited young lady like a nun in a convent, and now she’s gone there may be a bit of trouble in getting her back. I -wouldn’t like to say iu.r Garrett is not telling the truth. You must remember he’s a hard job in front of him, for his lordship won’t have the detectives employed. Yes, I should think it would be day“s before he found her.” “Well, it wasn’t, then” said John. “It

wasn’t hours. See here Mr Ferder, I went down to see a pal of mine yesterday, employed as a waiter at the Welcome Hotel in Shaftesbury avenue —you know that big hotel opposite the Metropole. Well the chap was on duty, and I couldn’t get a word with him, but the head waiter he allowed me to stand just inside the door and point out the fellow I wanted to speak to. Then he was called away, and I stood there by myself, so to speak. I hadn’t been there a moment before who should come past me but Mr Keith Garrett and her ladyship ” “Her ladyship!” repeated Ferder, stupefied, his thoughts turning to the gaunt, haggard woman upstairs. “Lady Ivy—the young lady here, Mr Ferder.” “Never!” cried Ferder. “ What can be the meaning of it?” “Ah! that takes some thinking out,” said John ; “and if I Was you, Mr Ferder, I would think it out.” “Go on,” said the butler, his attention thoroughly riveted. “Here, wait a minute,” he'added, “turn a key in that door behind you, and take a seat. I’d like to hear this.” John obeyed, for etiquette being as strict below stairs as above, he would not have dared to sit unbidden in his superior’s presence. “Well, they passed me by. She seemed rather pale and trembling, and he’d linked his arm in her’s, half to support her like; then they sat down at the further table, and he orders right and left for her, making no end of a fuss, shouting to the waiters and carrying on anyhow. Well, her la.-yship sits* quite still and quiet; then he sits down himself, and all the time he’s eating he never takes his eyes off her. Well, there was ho mistaking the look; and at last, when he thought no one was looking, he put out his hand and be took hers in his.” “And she let him?” broke in Ferder,

“Well, she acted very curious like. Sometimes she’d pull her hand away, and kind of shrink back; then again she’d let him have his wav. But she drooped her head and turned it on one side, and seemed unhappy. Now what I say is, if they were there, him treating her not as a lady of higher rank than himself, but just as a young fellow does his best girl, what’s the meaning, Mr Ferder, of the telephone message received this morning written down by me, and taken up to her ladyship, *No success as yet —will communicate later 1 ?” ‘ Well, it beats me,” said Ferder, his honest mind groping in the dark. “Well, if I may make so bold as to say so, Mr Ferder, it doesn’t altogether beat me. That young fellow has some deep game on, and before he brings the young lady back, he’s going to play his cards for himself.” “Heaven forbid!” said Ferder. “He’s a nice one,” said John, “trying to turn honest people out of their situations, and betraying his trust in that way. He nearly did for me, and if I got a chance, I’d do for him.” “Give over thinking about yourself,” said Ferder. “This matter’s far too important to be carried out in a spirit of spite. I’ll have to think it all over, and turn it round in my mind. Have you anything more to say?” “Yes. You know, Mr Ferder, I’m thinking of getting married?” “Yes, I know, and a terrible fool you are, my boy.” “I think so myself,” replied John, with a smile that for a moment softened his narrow peaked face. “And me and my young woman have had some words, so it’s all off between us at the eleventh hour, so to speak.” “Well, that’s a good thing for you; but excuse me for saying it, it doesn’t interest me.” “ I think it will, Mr Ferder, for to tell you the truth, I’d fixed matters up at the registry office in Mount street, and I had to call there to cancel my instructions. I went this morning, in the hour off you gave me, and there again I see Mr Garrett.” “Come, now, this is a bit too thick, 1 ’ said Ferder. “'thick or thin, it’s gospel truth. He was in talking to one of the officials, and making some kind of arrangement; so if you’re going to think over the matter, it seems as if there ain’t much time to be lost.” “Do .you dare to tell me,'' demanded Ferder, “that that scoundrel would raise his eyes to our Lady Ivy?” “I think he has raised them before now,” replied John. “But that you would call gossip, and I won’t trouble you with it. You’re not the sort to understand him, Mr Ferder; he’s a bit too deep and sly, but I’ve had a hard life and knocked about the world a bit, and I’ve met his style before now. Lady Ivy’s not where she was now, is she?” “No, heaven help us, no!” answered Ferder. “She’ll inherit everything, won’t she?”

“Of course she will. Who else should, now? And more in this family in most, for she’ll be Lady Rollescfen in her own right, as soon as the breath is out of his lordship’s body.” “Well, now, Mr Ferder, wouldn’t it suit this young chap’s book if he could get her safely tied up to him before she came back, and took possession? I should say it would be a tidy job for himself.” “Look here, John,” said Ferder, ‘‘you’ve done your duty in coming to me as you have, and I shan’t forget it. If you can go a step further and keep your mouth shut over this business, you 'will show that you have the makings of a good servant in you. I’ll be quite honest with you, my boy; you’ve done your work well, as well as anyone in this house ; but there’s been something about vou I haven’t altogether fancied. I haven’t felt quite sure of you. Now, I give you a chance to prove to me that you’re the right sort, and if you do, and I leave. I’ll recommend you to my place and tell her ladyship that she couldn’t do better than give you her trust and confidence

As for myself, I must think it over. Be off now, and not a word mindLeft alone Ferder stared into the fire. His wits were blunt, though solid; his mind was honest, but not sharp- lie had lived too long in the same groove to take np new ideas, and he shrank from the great problem suddenly presented to him. Was it his duty to go to the bedside of the stricken earl, and to warn him of another catastrophe, or was it not ? CHAPTER XII. “How do you feel now?” asked \iia, coming into Ivy’s room after a perfunctory knock. _ The girl was standing in front of the looking-glass in her black velvet coat and skirt, and was just nutting a long bat pin through the black straw hat she wore. Viva saw her for a moment from the open door, and watched her with a pang of envy, for simple as her costume there was a nameless elegance about it that spoke of those great dressmakers who ply their trade behind shaded windows in Bond street, Hanover square, or Dover street. The supple velvet clung to the lissom figure, while the faint pink of the sot t clinging chiffon shirt revealed the white throat, circled by a row of pearls and the hat with its fashionable helmet shape, came low behind the small ears, and stuck out like a Dutch bonnet on cither side. A simple girlish dress and a girlish wearer; yet in both there was something that absolutely them noni the ordinary, and Viva knew it. She herself spent money like water on her clothes, but either from a certain want of taste, or from not going to the right places, she could never look as Ivy did. And she knew that too; so, coining into the room, and joining Ivy at the table, like a woman she began to decry what she most admired. “I don’t think you ought to wear black to-day,” she said. “Don’t you?” returned Ivy. The response was a baffling one, and it conveyed without the need of any more words the fact of her indifference to the oninion of the speaker. She did not cure what Viva thought any longer, and she showed it. „ It was now three days since she laid in this darkened loom, suffering from nervous prostration, and forbidden by tho doctor Viva had called in to move. On the fourth day, however, Ivy had received a letter, and* had risen and dressed herself, ignoring the feebleness of her limbs, the whiteness of her face, and the quick, uneven beating of her heart. There seemed almost an eagerness in her way of preparing herself for the ordeal she was to go through; yet it was the eagerness of despair; it had come to this: that it was hotter to go out and face it than to lie here tormenting herself. Viva had made several attempts at confidence, since she had been laid up, hut IVy had gently and very decidedly put them from her. She was not ungrateful for the shelter she wr.s being given, or at least she tried not to be; hut after the humiliation she had been through, the sense of obligation was almost unbearable, and it was, in fact, the chief factor in the series of events that was throwing 1 er into the arms of a man she knew now fhe did not love.

Viva fidgeted a little under Ivy’s calm scrutiny. She held all the winning carls in her hand, yet somehow in this silent; battle between them, she did not feel a« ;f she were getting the best of it. Thc>a was nothing she felt it so difficult to meet as the silent, composed haughtiness ot bearing that Ivy had adopted towards her. Suddenly she determined to try and break it down. After all, why should not the girl know and understand that she was, to a certain extent, in her newer. “I think I ought to tell you,” sue began, ’’that I know all about this expedition of yours to-day.” Ivy gave a great start. “Really?” “Yes,” replied Viva, as she flung herself into a chair near, and adopted as nonchalant a manner as she could. “Your young man told me all about it. How sly you were, my dear! Why didn’t you tell me that this was the man you cared for, w'hen we had our talk? It would have made it all so very- simple.” She looked up and met Ivy’s eyes, that seemed like great sombre pools set in the whiteness of her face. “I did not tell you, 1 ' said Ivy slowly, “because there was then nothing to te I* “Oh! vou’ve settled it all since?” “Yes.” “Then I suppose you are blissfully happy ?” “Do you suppose that ?” “Really', Ivy, you are not very pleasant.” Ivy took a step towards her. “ I do not suppose a person would be pleasant,” she said, “who had fallen into a rushing stream and did not know when it would bear them. lam in the rushing stream of life; I have taken the great step—or I am going to take it—and I do not know whether I have done right. You pushed me into it, Viva.” “I deny that; you pushed yourself in,” raid Viva.

“Well, we will not argue about thi'. - or anything else,” answered Ivy wear! Iv “ I can do what I have to do, but I cannot talk about it.” There was a delicate reserve end resistance in her whole attitude that maddened Viva, who felt that she had lost her confidence entirely, and w-ho was clever enough to eee that if she attempted to probe into her feelings now, she micht lose all that had been gained There was a look of dull misery in the pathetic white face /with its childish curls, and it would have needed very little to break the bonds of the hidden anguish and let it come to the surface. Viva controlled herself. “Very well,” she said. ‘ You’ve taken your life into your own hands, and as you clo not even seem to ask for my good wishes, I will not trouble you with them;

only you may rest assured that I shall keep your secret.” j “What secret do you mean?” said Ivy. ' “I think you know very well what 1 do mean. You are now going out, to 'make a clandestine marriage with .Keith Garrett, your father’s secretary, at a registry office. I understand from him the preliminaries are all arranged, ana that you will meet him to-day. U‘ has shown more confidence in me than you j have, Ivy, but I do not intend to betray j either of you.” . Ivy turned and walked towards the door. : At it she stopped and looked round. “Good-bye, Viva,” she said. lam sony if I seem ungrateful, but 1 was happy when I came here, and you took all the happiness away. There more to be said—again good-bye. Then with a firm step she walked from the room, and Viva was left with a sense of failure, only softened by one thought: this proud girl was going to a povertystricken, loveless marriage. She was a"a in throwing away the great _ chance Fate had flung into her lap. Vivn did not tell herself who it was that had kept Ivy in an ignorance that must alter her whole life, and if anyone had_ accused her of it, she would have denied it. She had been neither Garrett’s accomplice nor his tool; she had simply stood aside, and let him play his game without interference. And Ivy, as she stepped into a taxi and drove to the registry office, would not allow herself one moment for thought. That way madness lay; action was the only soporific for the tortured brain, even although action drew her nearer to what she most dreaded, and she was glad when the short drive was over. Garrett met her just inside the door, and taking her hand led her straight into a room, and introduced her to another man standing there “ A friend of mine, Ivy—Frank Gardiner. Ho and this other friend here will be our witnesses.” j Both men shook hands with her, and permitted themselves one look into the beautiful sad face. It struck each of them as incongruous that a girl like this should come to such a ceremony with no woman friend of any kind, to take even the semblance of a mother’s place; and although they had been willing to oblige an old college friend, they were both filled with a sense of wonderment, and even uneasiness. Garrett seemed in such a hurry to get on with the business in hand tnat he cut short their platitudes remorselessly. His face was white, his eyes were shining, and each moment seemed an hour until the marriage was over. What if either of these quondam friends of his should blunder out something of the truth ! There was something in the white, set look of his bride’s face that told him such an event would mean disaster. I Quickly the formal words were mumbled over—words more in the nature of a. statement that anything else, and needing only affirmations from the parties concerned. Glibly the names were spoken, and almost hurriedly the ring passed on to the finger of her left hand; then with a few formal congratulations the ceremony was over. Only then did Garrett permit himself one long, deep look into her eyes, and what he saw there seemed to frighten him a little. He felt he must get her to himself, try and cheer her up, soften and enliven her, and work upon her nature with all the strong forces of hie own. “ We won’t detain you,” he said to his friends, after he had* shaken hands with the registrar. “We arc just going off to catch a train.” As he spoke they all passed out into the hall, and the young men so abruptly dismissed, shook hands one after the other. “I think we ougni to he allowed to get you a cab,” said Gardiner. ■ ‘‘ Thank you,” she answered, “but I kept my own at the door.” j A deep flush had come into her cheeks, i and Gardiner noticed that the ungloved | hand on which the bright gold ring shone shook visibly. “One moment, Mr Garrett,” said the registrar, putting his head round the door, with an anxious look and an expression of impatience. Garrett stepped back into the room, and the other three moved down the steps. | I “I think I will get into the cab,” said Ivy almost faintly ~ “I haven’t been very well lately,” she added, “and I’ll just rest a moment till he comes in.” I “ I should.” returned Gardiner, who was ’ a gentlemanly-like young fellow, and while I his friend, raising his hat, moved down ’ the street, he stood for an instant by the door. “ I’m sure I don’t wonder that you haven't been feeling quite the thing,” he | went on; “and now that I have congratulated you, may I just condole with yon on the ere at family bereavement you have | sustained. Garrett told me that was the ‘ reason for a quiet wedding. and I could understand it so well. I had a brother once, and I know what it meant when he was taken.” i The taxi door was still open, and she leaned towards him, turning ashy white. I “My brothers!” she cried. “You are ! alluding to them!” “Yes. I can’t tell you how sorry I felt j when I saw it all in the papers.” I “Mr Gardiner, I know nothing whatever about it, and I implore you to tell ' mo at once.” 1 “Really, Lady Ivy, I think I’d better leave it to your husband, if that's the case.” ! “No, Mr Gardiner; if you are a gentleman you will tell me. It may mean everything to me, to get to my father in time.” i Still he hesitated, but her imploring, terrified eyes menaced and commanded him, and at last in disjointed sentences the words fell from his lips as Garrett came down the steps. 1 Controlling herself., she put her hand through the open door and touched his. ‘‘Good-bye, and thank you. Now, don’t say anything more to either of us. Go, please, go.” And Gardiner went.

“At last!” said Garrett. “Now it’s too late for you to get away from me!” She stiffened at hie touch, and threw herself, writhing with anguish, into the opposite corner of the cab. Then she turned to him. ‘Liar and coward !” she cried. “It is not too late; it is just in time !’’ (To be continued.)