THE NOVELIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3418, 19 September 1919, Page 54

THE NOVELIST.

HIS FAIR EN I MY.

[Published bt Special Abhangemkkt.]

Bv DOROTHEA CORBOULD,. Author of " Held in Bondage," " A Father's Sin," "Loyal Hearts," etc. [COPYRIGHT^ SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.—Miss Euphemia Merlyn retums home late one March afternoon. At hor door she is accosted by a shabby etranger. It is her brother, Ralph, the black sheep of the family. After years of absence he returns to ask a favour. She takes hini in' and gives him tea, all against her will. She refuses to take charge of Ralph's daughter, Sophie. Her sister, Delia, enters ihs library, av.d welcomes her brother, accepting the charge of her niece, Sophie, with akwjrity. She agrees to lend her brother a hundred pounds. He is anticipating a good livelihood out of a situation which has been offered to him in Barbadoes. CHAPTEE, ll.—The scene changes to a, rencontre between Carl Meintz and his ditraghter, Alma Miller. It was considered well for Alm>a>to drop hex German name while she is among her relatives in Canada. Her lather, working for the German Secret Service, tells her of his deep-laid plan to serve the Fatherland, in which she must participate. She is to take the place of Sophie Morlyn, who was to come to 1 hex auncs in England. He has arranged that Sophie shall stay in Canada and take the place of'Alma in the Miller heme. Alma tells her father that she intends to marry an Englishman, Jack Bellairs. He rebels against the idea, but holds out Bellairs as a sop to his daughter. She contemplates the idea of posing as Sophie Merlyn. CHAPTER 111. Merivale Farm stood in the midst of far-reaching meadows and freshlyploughed fields, the landscape ending in a dark line of forest, darker still on this April afternoon Against the golden glory of the setting sun. At the gate of a small coppice through which a beaten path made a short cut to thp house itself, stood two figures—a young man and a girl. The man was speaking. " You won't forget me, Sophie?" " Of course not, Jack," came the reply in the, girl's soft, sweet tones. "How could I forget my oldest friend and playmate? We have had such happy times together, haven't we?"

" Ilather! I say, Sophie, how jolly it would be if you'd promise- to marry me! Nay, hear me out," as the girl shrank back a little. " You know 1 have always loved you dearly. You have been my one thought ever since the day I first saw you—and it would be such happiness to l'eel when I'm out there in the trenches that I've a dear little . girl waiting and praying for me, and thinking of me far away over here—oh, don't you agree with me?"

The girl did not immediately reply. Her eyes were fixed not upon the tall young man beside her, whose uniform—that of a picked Canadian regiment which was under orders to sail at once for Europe—so well became him, but upon the home which had been hers for nearly twelve years, and every stick and stone of which she loved. It had been a great disappointment to both Miss JLeplage and her niece when Ralph Merlyn wrote in reply to her letter telling him of Madame Leplage's death and the consequent break-up Gf the home*at Merivale Farm, saying that his sisters had refused to receive Sophie into their household, and that he was therefore arranging for the latter to remain in Toronto, and make her home for the present with the Miller's, for Sophie longed to be wiabh her father's people, and dreaded the'lonely life she must lead, far away from those she loved, without Jack, and without her friend Alma Miller, who had already, left for England "I don't know what to say," she faltered. " You see, Jack, I am very fond of you, but I've never thought of marrying you—l always fancied it was Alma whom you "

" What? You thought I was in lovo with Alma Miller? Great Scoit! Why, to begin with, I'm certain her people are Germans—not Mrs Miller. She's English right enough. But if that Adolf Miller is Dutch, as he tries to make out, why did ha change his name from Meintz ? No ; I very soon found out all you were to me, sweetheart, when it came to a question of parting from you. I hoped you would feel the same about me." •

Sophie came nearer and put'her hand through his arm, leaning against him in the way he remembered her doing when she was only in the " flapper" stage, and he a hobbledehoy youth, just out of his school days in England. He was always inclined to resent the liberty then, but now the action thrilled him through and through. " I don't know what it feels like to be in love," she said softly, " but I know that when you are gone away, Jack, everything that made my life so happy will be gone from me for ever!" Jack gave her hand a little squeeze. " Not for ever," he replied promptly, " because if I'm spared I shall come back, and then we'll be happy again. You do love me, darling. I'm sure of it, if you feel like that. So say you'll marry "me when I come back, covered with honour and glory, and we'll only have to settle the day and get married. For you've simply got to marry: me, Sophie. There's no help for tit, and I'm waiting for your answer. What is it to be?"

There was another pause. A thrush on a neighbouring tree was trilling forth his newly-learnt evening hymn:

"And singing it twice over LfCst you should think ho never could re re-capturo The firat fino rapture."

Then Sophie suddenly turned her sweet blue eyes upon her lover, and in them he read that which emboldened him to take her into his arms and press upon her lips the first " long, long kiss," which spoke of youth and love. So they plighted tlieir troth beneath the April sky, golden in the rays of the setting sun, and Jack placed his own signet ring upon Sophie's finger, the pledge of their betrothal, after which, with one last long look upon the scene they might never behold again—for Merivale Farm was to pass into the hands of strangers,—they wended their way back to the house, trying not to think of the morrow, and the burden it was bringing of sorrow and parting. " Your protegee i 3 taking care to begin as she means to go on, I suppose," Miss Euphemia remarked, as the sisters sat in state in the drawing room the next afternoon, to receive their guest. "It is very late nearly five o'clock. I shall ring for Matthews to make the tea." There had been a stormy argument verjnearly approaching a quarrel between the .sisters upon the subject of Ralph Merlyn's daughter and the coming of the girl to take up her abode at Ormiston terrace, Miss Euphemia declaring that it would upset her entire household, that, living, as she had" been doing, upon a Canadian farm, where everything wouM be •of the rough-and-ready order, Sophie would be wholly, unused to the ways of polite society in England—her manners would be "gauche," her speech unrefined, and she herself utterly impossible. Besides, the advent of this stranger meant a constant reminder of the brother whom Euphemia could never forgive for having been the means of ruining her life's happiness, for when Raloh Merlyn forged the name of her fiance for a large amount, a public scandal being only averted by his victim's magnanimity, she had insisted on breaking oft' her engagement, and sent her lover away, never to return. The twenty years which had elapsed since then had turned Euphemia. Merlyn into a harsh, hardnatured woman, whose pleasant manners in society were a mere mask which hid a bitter intolerance of the world in which she moved and had her being. Only to her sister Delia did she ever show any -affection or remain her old self, and the subject of that tragedy of her youth had never once been mentioned between them, till the unexpected visit of Ralph Merlyn, after his long silence, had once more raked up the past. Euphemia felt that she already hated this unknown niece who would be a constant thorn in the flesh to her.

Scarcely had Mis* Merlyn risen from her seat when there came the honk! honk ! of a motor horn,, followed by the sudden stoppage of the vehicle; and Miss Delia, going to the window, announced that a taxi laden with luggage was standing at the door. A few minutes later the door of the drawing room opened, and Matthews announced "Miss Merlyn." The girl who entered paused a moment on the threshold and gazed irresolutely round here, as though uncertain of her welcome. She was tall, and well and fashionably dressed, though in perfect taste. Her b.ack cloth coat ancb skirt fitted her to perfection, while a set of splendid sables, stole, muff, and small toque trimmed with two upstanding jet wings, completed her costume.

She was undeniably handsome, but there was a certain hard expression upon her face which accorded ill with its youthful freshness of complexion and' soft, rounded cheeks. Pier beautiful grey eyes, just now taking stock of the Early Victorian room and its occupants, had not the softness one would expect to see in them, and the rather full red lips were set in a line at once obstinate and defiant, due, no doubt, to the difficult position in which she found herself and the certainty, born of a few hints which Ralph Merlyn had told himself it was necessary to give his daughter that her arrival in Ormiaton Terrace was not altogether welcome.

Miss Merlyn rose from her chajr and held out her hand. \

"How do you do?" she said in the same tone in which she would have welcomed a casual caller. "We feared you had missed your way as you are so late."

.; "Sorry," was the response, as the girl took the proffered hand, noting its limpne:s, "but my father and I had so much to say to each other that we missed the time. You are my Aunt Euphemia, of course," regarding her with an uncomfortably keen scrutiny, which made Miss Euphemia feel as though she were being weighed in the balance and found wanting. She dropped her niece's hand, and turned away.

"Yes," she replied, "and this is your Aunt Delia."

" You are welcome, my dear," Miss Delia sakl kindly. "And we hope you Avill be happy with us. Do you see any likeness in Sophie to Ralph,"" turning to her sister.

" Not the slightest," was the prompt rejoinder, Miss Eupheinia adding to herself—"thank Heaven I"

" Perhaps you resemble your mother," Miss Delia ventured ; but the girl interrupted her with a laugh. "Dear me, no!" she exclaimed—"l am sure I don't. She was French, you know —verv lively, and—and all that. I am not like anybody." "Tea is waiting," came in Miss Euphemia's cold tones. "Yon had better take off your furs, Sophie. They are very handsome, and must have cost a good deal of money."

"They were a present," was the reply. "A friend of Mad—of grandmother's sent her a lot of sable skins from Ontario, and she had them made up for us. She gave Aunt Marie and me a set, and also my friend, Alma Miller, as she never wore furs herself." Neither of the aunts could see any signs of want of "savoir faire" in this new addition to their household, and though

the conversation at dinner that night was confined to merely ordinary-topics, Sophie showed herself "well versed in all the news of the day, and gave her opinion upon things in general as one who had been accustomed to air her superior knowledge for the benefit of less-enlightened intellects, her ideas being really far in advance of those of the Misses Merlyn, who lived more or less secluded lives—and Miss Euphemia's final effort to convince herself of her niece's plebeian up-bring-ing was a signal failure. Sophia had been • well and carefully educated. She spoke French and German and Italian she told her aunts, and had studied music and singing under the best masters Toronto could produce. "That, girl is much too forward for my taste," ' Miss Euphemia remarked when, her supposed niece had retired for the night. "In our young days we should never have been allowed to air our opinions as Sophie did to-night.' Besides, anyone would think she was a speciallyinvited guest, and honoured us by accepting our invitation. I see she will have to be put in her place and kept there." And upstairs in her pretty bedroom Alma Miller was summing up her newlyfound relatives as "two old frumps," and wondering how long she would be able to stand the dull life before her.

The -pseudo Sophie Merlyn £ocn made herself at home at Ormisto'n terrace, and by reason of the charming manner she knew so well how to assume, became a favourite with every member of the household, except Miss" Merlyn herself, who maintained an attitude of armed neutrality, and steadily refused every efiort on her supposed niece's part to bring about a warmer relationship between them.

" Why did they call her Sophie?" the latter would often.say angrily. "Anyone more unlike our dear, saintly sister it i 9 impossible to imagine! It makes me quite ill to a hear Phoebe constantly saying; that the girl 'has quite a look of Miss Sophia and many of her pretty ways!' as though anyone could hope to attain to dear Sophia's standard of perfection!" Alma had been an inmate of 35 Ormiston terrace for nearly two months, and it was now the middle of June.

Going down to- breakfast one morning, Alma found two letters aM'aiting her. One bore the Barbadoes stamp, the other, rather a bulky one, was from her father. She had only time to put them hurriedly away in her pocket before the Misses Merlyn entered the dining room. Both looked so smiling and happy that Alma gazed at them in wonder. We have just ..heard that your Uncle James's ship is in dock for repairs, and that he is coming hom e this afternoon," Miss Euphemia announced in quite a genial tone; "it will be so nice to havs him with us again, for we haven't seen him for months!"

The sisters talked of nothing all break-fast-time but their brother, in the intervals of reading their letters, while Alma ate hers in silence, scarcely replying when addressed, and showing no interest in her uncle's arrival—a fact_ which allowed of another entry on the wrong side in Miss Euphemia's mental catalogue of her shortcomings.

'"' Did you have any letters, dear?" Miss Delia asked, in a pause of her conversation with her sister and turning to Alma with a smile, " Your great friend you told me about hasn't forgotten you, has she?" " I have a letter from Barbadoes," Alma answered coldly. " I haven't read it yet." " Well, do eo. We always read our letters at the breakfast table, and I have told you before that it is not necessary for you to take yours away to read, unless they are too private to read in company."

It was Miss Euphemia who spoke, and she looked sharply at Alma, who changed colour.

"I prefer to read them by myself. They contain nothing interesting to other people,' she replied, and closed her lips for the remainder of the meal. In the privacy of her own sitting room Alma opened her letters, reading Ralph Merlyn's first. It gave an account of his arrival in Barbadoes, and went en to sav that he hoped to have his daughter with him very soon.

' The house I am taking, three miles from Bridgetown, will be ready by Christmas, and I may get a lon<r enough holiday then to come and fetch you. I am longing for a letter from you, so write when you get this.—Your loving, father, Ralph Merlyn." Father will have to be responsible for all this muddle," Alma muttered, as she laid the letter aside and took nn the bulkv envelope addressed in Uarl Meintz's small German handwriting. " Sophie will be making a fuss soon if she doesn't hear from her father, and perhaps write here, as she hasn't his address. That would mean the ruin of everything! I wish I had never come here." There were two letters enclosed in the envelope—one fronv Alma's aunt in Toronto, the other from Sophie Merlyn. Alma read her father's first. It was curt and peremptory. " You are making no progress in the task you have undertaken, and after nearly three months' residence with the 'aunts,' you are no nearer to beins able to eet me the information I wait for. Now I hear that the Maiestic has arrived at Chatham for repairs, having (I hone) struck a mine. Therefore Captain Merlyn will be at home shortly. This will bs your chance. There.is no time to be lost, for already preparations are on foot—what I spoke of, —and if I am too late, it means failure in my life-long ambition. The Fatherland calls for vour aid. Obey the call.—C. M." "I daresay! but the Fatherland must

wait," Alma muttered, ■ as she tore the letter in small pieces, and threw them into the waste-paper basket. "Father talks as if it were the easiest thing in the woxil to open safes and steal valuable papers therefrom. I declare I'd run away, back to Toronto, and get out of it ail—oniy I hate my so-called ' Aunt' Euphemia so much, that I would stick at nothing to annoy her. If she had only been as kind to me as her sister has been, I would throw up the whole thing and disappear. Let's see what the prim and prudish Sophie has to say for herself. This "s only the second letter I've had from her in two months. But then I don't write to her. I suppose it's tit for tat!" It was a long letter —lamenting that the writer had not' heard from her dear Alma, and saying how much she missed her. "But," went on the letter, "something has happened since I last wrote ■which has greatly softened the sadness of my present lot, and that is—prepare for a shock! —I am going to marry Jack Belairs. He proposed to me the evening before he went away. Of course, we shall not be married till the war is over, but we write to each other. I have already had several letters from him —such dear letters, and I can pray for him night and morning. He was slightly wounded at Ypres, and they sent him to Englandhe said it was my prayers that saved his life. I should die too if he were killed. I could not live without him!" Alma read no more. She dropped the letter as though it had stung her, and her face was fiendish in its rage and fury. "Going to marry Jack Bellairs"—the man whom she, Alma, had all along considered to be her own special property — devoted to herself, and only waiting for an opportunity to ask her to be his wife! It was incredible, impossible ! " The sly, designing minx!" ejaculated the minx's greatest friend, "waiting till my back was -turned, to take away from me the man I love! And Jack Bellairs would have loved me —I know he would — if she, with her sanctimonious airs and pretence' of being better than anybody else, had not come in the way! _ But 1 will be revenged on her, and him, and everybody ! I will make them all suffer! I hate the Fatherland and I hate ■ my father,'too, for sending me here, where he. knew I should be miserable; but I will carry this scheme of his through, if only to "help him to get rich—and then when I have got my share, leave him to enjoy his by himself. I'll have a good time and enjoy life, and—and—oh! how wretched they have made me between them!" bursting into tears. "I will never forgive them—never!" She dried, her eyes angrily and took up Sophie Merlyn's letter again. "Jack was expecting to return to France when last I heard, and I see by the papers that his regiment is again in action, so you may guess how anxious I am about him. It is strange my father has never written or sent me his address. I do not know if. he has even reached Barbadoes safely. You are a lucky girl, Alma, to be safe with your Jather. He must be so glad to have you with him after your long separation. Perhaps you and he will be coming to visit Mrs Miller one of these days. I long to see you again, and have one of cur dear old confidential chats!" "Which means that I should have to listen to your foolish rhapsodies over the man I intended to marry nryeelf!" was Alma's comment. "No, thank you, friend Sophie, I've done with you, and never wish to see you again in this world." Suddenly 'there was a knock at the door, and Miss Euphemia entered the room. . "I wanted to speak to you, Sophie, she began, "and I prefer to do so without your Aunt Delia being present, as it only worries her to hear me finding fault, and especially with you. Now, what I w ? antecl to say to you is this: It has come to my knowledge that you are in the habit of going out to the piliar-box to post your own letters, a most unnecessary proceeding, as we send to the post two. or three times a day." v , " The pillar-box is so close to. the house that I can't see the harm of my just putting in my letters. Miss Delafield always does it." Alma's voice was slightly defiant. "Miss Delaneld smokes' cigarettes, drives her own car, and talks slang. Please leave iier out of the discussion. I do not likoyour going out, especially in the evening, to the pillar-box, leaving the door open for any burglar to enter. I must have you promise not to do it again." "But, Aunt Euphemia, it is absurd " " Your promise, please. I have a sufficiently good opinion of you to if you give it me you will keep it." " Oh, of course. I promise, but I still think you might let me be independent of the servants in the matter of letters." "The servants post our letters; they can post yours, and I consider that as we have received you here a 3 our guest, at your father's request, the least you can do is to respect our wishes." " I have never shown any disrespect of your wishes that I am aware of," Alma returned in a tone as cold as Miss Euphemia's. " I have not been informed till now what they were. Now that I have, you may rely on my respecting them. Is there anything else 3-011 -wish to say before I get ready to go out with Aunt Delia?" Miss Euphemia would dearly have loved to box the girl's ears, but as this was not practicable, she merely remarked that she hoped she would not have to remind their guest again of her position as such in their household, and took her cdeparture, leaving Alma in such a fury of race that, could she have given way to it, she would have smashed everything within her reach, and then cast herself down among the ruins to cry her eyes out. Failing this means of giving her feelings a vent, her thoughts turned upon the revenge she could take upon Miss Euphemia •wllen time and opportunity offered. " She little knows what it means to

make an enemy of me!' she muttered, ' and I'm an alien enemy, too!" —with a bitter little laugh,—" but I will be even with her—and with them all. They shallpay for all her insults to me, and for once I shall have an incentive to work for the Fatherland. You never did a worse day's work in your life, Miss Euphemia Merlyn, you and your niece Sophie, than you have done this morning." (To be Continued.)