AT THE LAST MOMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 81

AT THE LAST MOMENT.

By Ina Leon Oassilis, author of 1 Counsel for the Defence, 5 ’ “Is ® „ Guiltv ?” “ The World Against Her, “Iris*” “The Squire’s Choice,” etc.

“Who was that you met just now, Marguerite?” Marguerite Maxwell, with her hand on the wicket gate of the cottage garden, paused; not because she had any objection to answering the question, but because, though her step-mother asked it carelessly, the girl had a curious impression that the carelessness was not quite genuine. The hesitation, however, was only momentary ;■ then Marguerite replied : “It was Mr Falconer. How did you know I met anyone?'’ “ I could see your white dress fluttering out from behind the hedge, at the turn of the lane; but the hedge hid the person to whom you spoke. Marguerite threw off her hat, and rumpled her fingers through her short brown curls. “Mr Falconer said Jie would call in this evening, if he might, she said, “ so, of course, I gave him permission.”

“ Naturally.” Mrs Maxwell sat in the broad window seat of the pretty drawing room, stitching at some useless bit of needlework. She was a petite, lovely woman of apparently no more than thirty, though, in truth, she was seven years past that age. Born and brought up in the West Indies, she had managed to preserve a dazzling complexion ; her pale gold hair was abundant and glossy—it was the pride of Quita. her mulatto nurse; —her eyes were of light hazel, which physiognomists condemn as indicating a treacherous nature. She had laid aside mourning—for she was a three years widow, —and the pale blue robe she wore exactly suited her. Marguerite, who was just over twenty, was nearly head and shoulders taller than her step-mother a slender, graceful girl, with great, velvet', dark brown eyes set under straight broM6\ a mouth at once firm and sweet, and skin of a dusky fairness; to some eyes softer, more charming than the brilliant tints of Gertrude Maxwell. The two lived together peaceably, though there was little or no sympathy between them. They had means sufficient for comfort, though they were not rich ; and they were spending the summer months at The Cottage —left to Gertrude by her husband. Chance brought them —a- couple of weeks ago—across Max Falconer, who was renting the old manor house of Milton Lingwood, to see if he liked the house and district well enough to buy it. The acquaintance ripened, naturally enough; for Bradmere offered no society; and a man just over thirty, unmarried, readily gravitates towards the companionship of women both beautiful and cultured. Marguerite went upstairs, singing some song she had been lately practising over. She had a rich, sweet, well-cultivated voice, and her clear tones rang through the little house. Gertrude frowned ; her lips tightened. She could not sing; she had no voice, and no capacity for music. A few evenings ago Marguerite sang for Max Falconer, and he was delighted, and begged for another song. Gertrude dropped her work ; her little white hands clenched themselves together as she looked out over the sunnv garden, amd listened, perforce, to the clear, mellow notes above.

“Is the handsome gentleman coming dis evenin’?” said a voice at her elbow, with the peculiar slithering speech of the coloured races. -f Gertrude was not startled ; she was accustomed to Quita appearing suddenly from anywhere ami nowhere. The nurse was privileged, and came and went pretty much as she pleased. She wag a tall, powerfully-built woman, with beady black eyes; and the snowy wimple which she always wore enhanced the effect Of her negro features and colouring. She loved the “ missee ” with the fierce, jealous, half-savage affection of her race Marguerite iiad doubts of her sanity, for there was often a curious look in her eyes, and she would sit and croon weirdly to herself. scarcely seeming to understand when spoken to. 'There was, indeed, no love lost between Marguerite and the mulatto. The girl distrusted the nurse, and she instinctively felt this and resented it. She knew also that “ Missee Gertie.” as she always called Mrs Maxwell, had no great affection for her step-daughter, and that alone was enough for Quita. Gertrude dropped her work and halfturned. “ I daresay, Quita,” she replied carelessly.

“Him talk wid Missee Marguerite jus’ now,” said the mulatto, drily, but with a cunning look in her black eyes. “ How do vou know? You must have been looking,” said Mrs Maxwell. ‘‘ Me see mo’ tings,” replied Anita, chuckling; then her face changed, and she l>ent down to her mistress. “If him make \ub to Missae Marguerite ” she began, in a low. threatening tone. Gertrud e’s swift hand was on hers. "Hush!” said Mrs Maxwell, hurriedly. “ Don't talk so ! He—he doesn’t care for her.” She turned aside: her bosom heaved ; the white hand gripping the dark one trembled.

Quito watched her a minute. " Missee Marguerite not so handsome as my missee.” she said; then, “ Why does Massa Falconer talk to her?” “ Ytm funnv old thing!” said Gertrude, laughing. ‘‘They met by chance—Mr Falconer couldn’t run away if he wanted to. could he?” “ Mebbe him no want to!” returned Quito, grimly. “ But never fear, missee. Me take care —me take care !”

Shaking her head and continuing to

mutter unintelligibly, the mulatto withdrew. Gertrude looked after the retreating figure, and her eves narrowed, her teeth were set, and a look came into her face which changed it—aged it—in a second. But the look passed, for the song above had ceased, and Marguerite s light step was on the stair. 11. Gertrude, standing in the little garden in the evening lights, bending over a rose tree, heal’d the dick of the gate-latch, and looked up. A tall, handsome man, dark-haired, dark-eyed, had just come in, and Mrs Maxwell went forward to meet him with a bright smile and outstretched hands. He could not know that she had been watching and waiting for him. “ How good Of you to come.” she said. “How good of you to let me!” Falconer answered; but his clasp was merely friendly—the pretty hand was released at once, and easily. “ Have it your own way,” she answered laughingly. “Isn’t this a lovely evening? We are having tea out on the lawn at the back. I have just been trimming the rose trees. Will you have a rose?” “Indeed I will. I shall be delighted.”

Gertrude cut the best rose bn the tree, seeking it out with great care, and presented it with a pretty curtsey. She hoped lie would ask her to put it in his buttonhole, or touch his lips with it; but he did neither. He smiled and thanked her, and deftly inserted the flower in his coat. An angry pang shot through the woman’s heart. If Marguerite had given the rose, would he have acted differently? She turned, and Jed the way to the large garden at the hack, where the tea-table was already set under a sycamore tree, and Marguerite, in a cream frock, sat in a low chair reading. Was there any subtle difference between Max Falconer’s greeting of the girl and his greeting of her stepmother? Was his clasp closer —more lingering? If so, only Marguerite felt it. There was no outward sign for Gertrude’s jealous, covertly watchful eyes to note. The girl did not even change colour; but she pointed to the rose, and said, laughingly : “Have you been stealing? There are no roses just like that at Milton Lingwood.”

“Honour bright!” returned Falconer, seating himself. “Mrs Maxwell give it to me.”

“More than vou deserve.”

Falconer glanced at her keenly. She spoke quite frankly, without a tinge of jealousy. Was she indifferent? She could not regard a young and lovely step-mother as not to be reckoned with.

Quita brought out the tea, and her black eyes glanced inquisitively from one to the other of the group; but she sawnothing—indeed, there was nothing to see. The time passed happily—for two of that group, at any rate; for the third in a feverish unrest, which could hardly be called happiness. And when the servant came out to say the gardener had called —as instructed—with some plants for inspection, Gertrude had almost sent the man away. But this she could hardly do; tea was over, and there was no plausible excuse for rescinding her own order, nor could she send Marguerite, for the girl knew nothing about the plants in question. There was nothing for it but to leave her step-daughter and Falconer together, if only for a few minutes. The young man was not slow to profit by the opportunity. As Gertrude disappeared into the house he turned to Marguerite, and said, in a quick, low tone; “Do you never go out alone, Miss Maxwell ?”

The girl started and coloured deeply “Yes,” she answered, in a sort of be wildorment, “sometimes. Why?”

“Ah ! you must forgive me.” His voice trembled as he bent a little nearer to her. “Be good to me,” he added softly, and the girl’s heart throbbed in her throat. His hand sought hers, do. ed over it in a tense clasp that made her hold her breath. He spoke hurriedly now, for the time was short. “To-morrow ; in Bradmere Woods. Can you do it? In the morning—or the afternoon. Which?”

Hi assumed her consent; hut liis voice and touch were compelling. His look she dared not meet; and there was only a moment to decide, for Gertrude appeared at the door. She was bringing the gardener into the garden. “The morning,” Marguerite said under her breath. “About 11.” “A thousand thanks!” H> released her hand, and as Gertrude approached he was talking about some ordinary subject, giving his companion time to recover her composure, while nothing in his own manner betrayed any emotion. Mrs Maxwell made no discovery. She asked FaT coner to stay to dinner, and he stayed; but there were no more moments alone with Marguerite. No one, however, could have supposed that he had any preference : not a look, not a tone, when he bad his hostesses good-night, betrayed a deeper interest in Marguerite than in Mrs Maxwell. Perhaps be felt or saw, that the latter was watchful. He was not a coxcomb. but he was keen-witted and observant : and Gertrude, cautions and circumspect though she believed herself to he, rcallv gave away the position (to a man of Falconer’s fine perception) more than she had any idea of. Jealousy is a curiously blinding passion; its victims, like the physically blind, never realise that others have sight.

Through the flickering light and shadow of the wood Marguerite walked slowly, half dreading what she hoped for. Was he there already? Surely he would be waiting! A quick step, a rustle among the tinder wood, and Max Falconer was before her and her hands were in his, and he bent his head and kissed them with a lover’s kieses. Marguerite, flushing and trembling, made no effort to release herself. A coquette would have done so. But she was no coquette; she had given the man the right he claimed by consenting to meet him. But when Falconer lifted his head she tried to draw

her hands away, for his eyes were searching her face, and her cheeks burnt under the gaze she felt, and she wanted to escape. “Sweetheart!” he said softly, with a sort of wistfulness, as if he almost feared to believe that the great treasure of this woman’s love could be his. He drew her closer, she yielding. He folded her to his heart, and his lips sought hers. They were alone in the stillness of the wood, no sound but the light rustle of the leaves and the dreamy notes of birds in the green recesses; but they were only vaguely conscious of external sights and sounds. Each was to the other the universe. Bv and by they strolled slowly onwards. Gleaming eyes low down amid the undergrowth watched them passing in and out of sunshine and shadow till they were lost to sight among the trees. Then a dark form crept away, still on hands and knees, slowly at first, as if fearful t)f being heard ; then with extraordinary rapidity, and at length, rising to its feet, it sped away through the outskirts of the wood, and through the lane that led direct to the cottage. 111. “ Quita, what is the matter?” Gertrude was startled by the look in the mulatto’s face as she entered the sitting room; but Quita, before answering the question, shut the door ; then she came forward, right up to her mistress. “ Las’ evenin’,” she said, in a low, suppressed tone, “ me look out of window. When you go away me see Massa Falconer take Missee Marguerite hand.’ Gertrude uttered a stifled exclamation, but did not interrupt the speaker. “ Dis mornin’ ” —Quita went on—“Missee go out —up lane. Me tink ‘ She go meet Massa Falconer.’ Me follow—-cautious — creeping. She go to de wood —me creep through underwood. Dey meet —missee an’ massa—he take missee in his arms—he kiss her —he call her ‘Sweetheart’!” She stopped, convulsed with rage. Gertrude clenched her hands over her heart with the fierce outcry of a creature wounded and maddened. ‘‘ He shall not have her!” she panted. “He shall not have her!”

“Wait a little, hinney,” raid Quito, with a strange mixture of tenderness and ferocity in her look and manner —tenderness for her nursling, ferocity for the woman who had plucked from that nursling- her heart’s desire. “ Wait a little. Missee Marquerita forget Quita —Quita no forget her. By n’ by Missee Gertie go out for walk, eh?” There was a look of infinite cunning in the glittering eyes as she said this.

Gertrude shrank back. It flashed across her that this afternoon the servant would be away, having had leave for a half-holi-day. But the woman’s heart wa6 torn hv the most cruel, the most pitiless of all passions. She would not look at the thought that darted into her mind—she would not question. “Missee know nothin!?.” said Quita, watching her, “ when Missee Marguerite come home; an’ by n’ by Missee Gertie go for walk !” She turned to Ihe door, and, looking back once before she closed it, saw Gertrude still standing rigid and silent.

“ I am going out for a stroll; I shan’t be long!” Gertrude called from the front garden to Marguerite, who was at the sitting room window. She had worn the mask well during the brief time she and her step-daughter were toe-ether, and the girl, naturally preoccupied, had not been very keen to notice her companion. “Yew well.” she said, and Gertrude passed down the path and vanished. Marguerite was cpiite content to be alone for a while. .She had golden dreams to dream, golden memories to recall, and by and by she would see Max Falconer again. -He was coming to see Gertrude, to tell her something, and if be came before Gertrude returned, why so much the better.

Some sound in the house brought Quita to her mind, and with the vision of the mulatto came the recollection that the aci vant was awav. and the house was verv Jonelv. How ab-nrd ! What was there t'o be nervous about? Even with the mental question the room door opened, and the powerful ■ figure of the mulatto woman appeared. The verv manner of her entrance-—swift, sudden, almost stealthv —was startling: hut one look at the dusky face brought Marguerite’s heart into her throat. Insanity was in those fierce eyes, in the savage leer of the thick lips; hut it was the fell, deadly insanity /if a fixed purpose, going straight to its accomplishment without compunction, without fear of couseouences.

As Marguerite rose to her feet she knew that the mulatto had come to kill her. and she knew also that her one hope—and but a. faint bone—was to gain time. The girl had that high and brave spirit which is often the heritage of gentle birth, and her brain was ouick and fertile. Horrible though the position was. she rose to meet it, and the imminence of the peril seemed to quicken her intelligence.

In the moment of the mulatto’s entrance, of her closing the door behind her, Marguerite had grasped the whole position. Onita knew something. There was more than suspicion. She had perhaps made her opportunity. There was no escape. She was armed—the woman held one hand behind her. She commanded the only egress ; for the window behind Marguerite was one of those cottage windows divided by stanchions, with casement openings, too small to allow even so slight a bodv as Marguerite’s to pass through.

The nurse, aflame with icalous wrath for her mistress, had her victim completely trapped. A cry for help would be wasted energy—nay, might prove instantly fatal. The tigress might play awhile with her prey, if not fearful of instant rescue. One thing Quits could not know, though she might guess it —that Max Falconer was coming this afternoon. Marguerite had not said a word to Gertrude. But Max was not likely to come for more than an

hour. The girl’s heart was lifted in a swift prayer for help; but her lips said calmly, and a little haughtily: “What does this mean, Quita? What do vou want?”

The mulatto laughed the chuckling laugh of her race, but the tone of madness was in it. Marguerite drew a deep breath. The woman evidently enjoyed the -situation. There was no immediate hurry. The instinct of the savage to torture its victim was working within her. “Look ye hyar, missee,” said Quita. “You tink it fine ting to take away Massa Falconer fro’ Missee Gertie, eh? Missee Gertie, she lub massa, and you take him away—dat fine ting, eh?” “I don’t understand you,” Marguerite said, speaking of set puropse very slowly, and a sickening thourjJit flashed through her brqim “I have not taken Mr Falconer awav.”

Quita brought out her hand from behind her, and showed a long, sharppointed kitchen knife. “You tink me not know!” she said with another horrid chuckle. “Me see massa yes’dy take your hand. Me see you an’ ’ixn in de wood dis mornin’.” She made a step ward. “Me goin’ to kill you,” she said, “den massa, he lub my missee——” Marguerite did not stir. “It would do no v good to kill me,” she said. “It would not make Mr Falconer love Gertrude. He might even hats her. He might think that she told you to murder me. So yon will gain nothing.” Quita hesitated ;. the reply evidently presented a new idea to her. The quiet manner and steady, fearless gaze of the girl had also their effect upon the nature of the woman born to hereditary subservience. Marguerite had gained a moment, but it was only a moment. Jealousy, the sense of power, were too strong to be dispossessed. The mulatto flung up her hand and flourished the knife threateningly. “You tink I let you go!” she cried fiercely. “You tink I no kill you!” In her mad rage she raised her voice; the harsh tones became almost a scream.

Marguerite, holding herself ready it) meet as best she might the spring and the descending knife, heard suddenly a quick step without, which Quits, (further from the window and deafened by her own voice) could not hear. It was Max Falconer’s step !

With wonderful oreseuce of mind Marguerite checked the cry which might have sealed her doom, for Quita was quite mad, and knowing she had but a moment, would in that moment strike her victim down. Max, to'o. would have heard the mulatto’s furious voice; he, too, must have thought of that peril, for he rushed up to the house, not on the path, but on the grass. Quita heard the s 1 en in the entry, a.nd half-turned, instinctively, towards the door; then with a yell rushed upon Marguerite : but too late. The door was dashed open, the uplifted arm seized -in an iron grip, the mulatto was hurled to the ground with such force that she lay stunned, and Marguerite, almost swooning now, was locked in her lover’s arms. Onlv a second more and he would have been too late !

By and by Marguerite was able to tell Max Falconer wbat bad happened. and he explained that, meaning Priginallv to come later, he had felt unaccountably apprehensive, and so took his way to, the cottage earlier; and he shuddered as he told Marguerite this, straining her closer to his heart. But his brow grew black, hearing how Gertrude had gone out leaving her step-daughter alone with Quita.

‘‘ Quita would have told her,” he said. “ She knew what the wretched creature was. Aye. it is an awful thing to sav—to think. Your face tells me, Marguerite, that the thought has come to you, too. In mv soul I believe that Gertrude Maxwell is more guilty than the savage* who served her. You will not f-tav in this accursed house, dear one. I will take you to a friend of my own. I fear for you ” Marguerite had little desire to meet her step-mother again. “ But Quita?” she said.

Falconer’s face hardened. “ What is it to you or to me?” he said. “ Let her mistress see her.” When Gertrude returned home in (he falling dusk and crept tremblingly into the silent house she saw —surelv not what she had expected ; for b was the mulatto woman who lav prostrate on the floor. The knife was gone. Wa ‘ Quita dead? But a paper was on the table. Mechanically Gertrude caught it up and read the lilies :

Marguerite is in safety. How far you are guilty your own soul knows. I cannot acquit vpu. The woman Quba will he charged with attempted murder.” That step Falconer took for his young wife’s sake. While Quits was free Marguerite’s bfe would he always in danger. So the charge was made and proved: but as the woman was clearly mad. she was consigned to a criminal lunatic asvlum. If Gertrude Maxwell was indeed guiltv. her punishment was none too heavy for her sin. She had striven for a man's love, and gained his loathing and contempt.. and she knew that he was barmy in Marguerite’s love; and that she herself was cast nut utterly from their life.

Happiness is a Lethe for painful memories. Under that influence Marguerite is beginning to recall less and less vividlv those terrib’e moments when she fought inch by inch for her life with a madwoman .