A Leap in the Dark OR, WED, BUT NO WIFE.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 3, 14 January 1913, Page 7

A Leap in the Dark OR, WED, BUT NO WIFE.

o. (Copyright.)

By MAY AGNES FLEMING, Author of "The Secret of Bantry Hall,’’ Etc., Etc.

'PART 9. “Wear it, Polly, for I love you !” Alas, for man's truth ! A fortnight ago that ring had been ordered of a London jeweller to fit the finger of Diana Hautton. He meant to propose down in Lincolnshire, and this was to be the pledge of the betrothal. Only an hour ago the, London express had brought it, and here it glittered on the finger of Polly Mason ! Heavens !;no,vs wbali further hi) might have said, what words, what promises might have been exchanged. Polly might have become Mrs. Allan Fane, perhaps, and this story had never been written for this great romance of this young woman’s life you have yet to hearbut at this instant (sent there by her' guardian angel, no doubt) there appeared upon the scene the gaunt form of Rosanna summoning her youthful charge in to tea.

She tendered no invitation to the gentleman. She scowled upon Slim, indeed, as this exemplary lady could scowl. Rosanna could have told you stories fit to make your hair rise,, of “squires of high degree’’ who came a-courting village maids, and of the dire grief and tribulation the aforesaid maids had come to in consequence. Polly in love, 'indeed ! Polly—who had taken her doll to bed yesterday, as it were, and sang it to sleep.

Mr. Fane lifted his hat and departed at once. The girl would not look at him. She could not meet the glance in his eyes. Her face was burning—her heart thrilling. She hid the hand that wore the ring, and followed Rosanna meekly into the house. On the stairs she met Duke, and that gentleman, as gravely as in the morning, summoned her into his own room. Miss Mason felt she was in for it.

“I wouldn’t let that young man dangle- after me too much if I were you, duchess,’’ he began. “He isn’t what he pretends to be ; he’s a humbug, you’ll find ; a false, fickle, mean humbug ! His father’s a very honest man, and a good tailor—a deuce of a screw, though—but” “Duke !” Polly cried, with, indignant sCorn—“a ta'lor !” j The young lady said it in much the same tone you or I might exclaim, '“A demon !” “Yes, duchess, a tailor I have bought clothes at the shop in Bondstreet many a time, and I’ve seen Mr. Allan Fane when he was a palefaced little shaver in round-abouts. He doesn’t remember me, of course, ' and I don’t care about renewing the acquaintance. He’s a tailor’s son, only thing about him not to his discredit.” i It was very unusual for Duke to be bitter, or say cruel things of the absent, but he felt terribly sore on the subject of this dandified artist,, with his shining boots and swell hat, and white hands, and soft voice, making a fool of his little Polly. ■ “He’s a humbug, duchess, and he’s trying to get that middle-aged Miss Hautton to marry him. She’s rich and high-born, and he's only an adventurer, with a good address and 1 a university education.” “Have you anything more to say, Duke ?” Polly asked quite meekly. She felt somehow that what Duke had said was true ; but still she looked at her ring, and her heart thrilled as she remembered his words —words so sweet to every girl’s ear and heart—“l love you !” And meantime Mr. Allan Fane walked home, and on the way found out he had been mad and a fool. What had he done ? Given up all the hopes of his life for a pretty f a ce with blue eyes. Very good and pleasant things in the'ir way, but not available as ready cash—not to be exchanged for good dinners, horses, opera boxes, and a house in Mayfair. What had ho done ? Dire alarm filled him as he walked along, hq cursed his own folly and precipitancy with a fervour good to hear. Was it, after all, too late yet ? He had not asked Miss Polly Mason to be ois wife.

He found Miss Hautton walking wearily round and round the great fish pond and joined her at once.

Miss Hautton, like Miss Mason, informed him she was going away. '"Montalien bores me, I find,” the lady said, carelessly, "more this year than usual, and the Duchess of Clanroland is going to the Italian lakes,, and urges rne to ” A yawn finished the sentence. The Duchess of Clanronald ! Her Grace of Clanronald had a n■[ hew rather an impoverished, nephew—who had made hard running last year for the Hautton stakes. No doubt he would go to the Italian lakes, too. Starry blue eyes, a witching gipsy face, a supple form, and sixteen sunny years are all very well if set off with diamonds and gilded with refined gold. He couldn’t marry Polly Mason ; he couldn't turn itinerant portrait-painter in this dull star of self into a shabby-hatted, family man. It was written—it was his fate—he must marry a rich wife ; and so, alas, for Polly ! Before Miss Hautton’s yawn was quite ended, he had poured forth the tale of his long admiration, and implored her to be his wife. The rosy light of the sun went down, and Dianna Hautton lingered by the fish pond with her accepted lover. Her accepted lover !

j CHAPTER yv. I HOW ROBERT HAWKSLEY KEPT | HIS WORD, i On the third day after, Polly , Mason stood at the parlour window j looking listlessly enough up and j down the deserted country road, j There was little to be seen—there | were few abroad. The fine June I weather, that had lasted steadily ! over a fortnight, had broken up ; ; yesterday it had rained all day, land all night. To-day it had ceased, but still a sullen, leaden sky frownjed darkly on a sodch n earth and things were in harmony ; Rosanna was laid up with toothache ; Duke had quarrelled with his employers at the Lyceum, and was out of spirits ; and Allan Fane had never once been n ar the cottage since. I She had heard of his engagement—his positive engagement—to marry Diana Hautton. Rosanna went to bed groaning dismally. Polly took her sewing and ; sat down by the window. The wind i grew wilder, the leaden sky- darker, l as the afternoon wore on ; the rain | drops: began pattering once more against the glass ; and in the young girl’s breast as she sat, her I needle flying, a sharp and cruel pain ! ached. She had been fooled, laughled at ; her woman’s pride hurt to ithe core ; she could never again, her life long, have the same perfect faith In man or woman. She had lost something, the ineffable bloom of per- ! feet innocence and chi Id-like trust, | and Allan Fane’s was the hand that 1 had brushed it off. I “How dare he—how dare he !” she I thought, her little hand clenching I again. "How dare he trifle with me .so !”

She sat there for over an hour, her anger rising and swelling with every instant. The rainy twilight was falling, when suddenly there came a knock. Her work dropped, but before she could rise the door was opened, and the visitor, hat in hand, walked in. He had come at last, Allan Pane stood before her, his light summer overcoat wet with rain, his high riding-hoots splashed with mud—paler, paler than herself ! Why had he come ? His first glance at her, as their eyes met, told him she knew all. She rose up and stood before him. Even, in the fading light he could see the streaming fire in her eyes, the scornful curl of her handsome lips.

The regal grace of mien that was this girl’s chief charm always had never been half so uplifting as now. She spoke first—he could not have uttered a word. "You have come for my congratulations, Mr. Pane,” she began, in a clear, ringing voice, that had neither quiver nor tremor in it. ‘‘T hear you are engaged to the Honourable B'iana Hautton. Well, you have them ! It is not every day that the son of a London tailor gets an opportunity of marrying an earl’s granddaughter ! Ah ! you feel that, Mr. Pane !” with a scornful laugh. “I know your secret, you see; so carefully guarded ! But don’t be alarmed. I won’t go to the Priory and tell Miss Hautton. I am afraid, as devotedly as she is attached to you, she might jilt you if she knew it ! I won’t tell, Mr. Faneand I wish you every happiness so suitable a match deserves. And this ring, which you so kindly forced upon my acceptance the night before last”—her voice; faltered for first time —“permit me to return it. If you haven’t purchased an engagement ring for Miss Hautton, I daresay you might make this answer.” He broke down. He was of a weak nature, impressionable as wax, but as strongly as it was in his nature to loveianyone but himself'he loved this girl. “I cannot. Oh, Polly !”

She flung it at his feet in a sud--1 den tempest of fury—the quick fury ’ of a v ery child. | “Don’t ever call me Polly. How ' dare you do it ? Take your ring this moment, or I will walk straight I out of this house up to the Priory, ! and tell/ Miss Hautton every word, j And your hooks, and your drawings—j here they are—everything you gave I me, except the flowers, and those I threw into the fire an hour ago. Take, them, I command you, Mr. Fane.” What could he do but obey ? And meanwhile at the Priory its lord had arrived by the seven o’clock train, bringing with him a short, sombre, stout man, with a legal look. Pic was legal : he was Mr. Gripper, of the firm of Gripper and Grinder, Lincoln’s-inn, London ; end he and Lord Montalicn were doreted together on important business for some time after their an Pal. Mr. Gripper emerged at last, and was shown to his room. He was slaying over night, it seemedand Mr. Fane was announced and shown into the library where my lord sat. Mr. Pane took a seat opposite, looking singularly nervous indeed. I am given to understand by masculine friends who have done the business that asking the consent of a young lady’s papa or guardian is much more disagreeable than asking the young lady herself. Mr. Fane had got through this part with Miss Hautton glibly enough, and this asking Lord Montalicn was the merest matter of form ; still, like Macbeth’s “Amen,” the words “stuck in his throat.” l ord Montalicn wrenched his thoughts away from his own absorbing topic with an evident effort, and listened with bland suavity to the youngman’s stumbling words. “Wish to marry Diana and ask my consent? My-dear boy, my consent is quite unnecessary, as you ! now. Very correct of you, thoigh, to come to me. Of course, I have long foreseen this, and ns Diana scorns pleased L sincerely offer you my congratulalions. There’s some tri : *in r dis. a"'ty of years, I am aware ; but you know

the Scotch have a saying that for the wife to be the elder brings luck to the house.” “ You have my approval and best wishes. Diana is certainly old enough to act for herself” —and the young man winced—“and her income, as you must know, dies with her. By-the-bye, Fane,” changing his voice with abruptness, “you mixed a great deal among the people at the fete the other day, and may know —whether there was a man by name of—of Trowel—no, Mason,” referring to his tablets, "there upon that occasion ?” Allan Fane started more nervously than before. ; “There is a man by the name of Mason living about three miles from here. Mason is a common name, however. There may be many Masons in Speckhaven.” "'So there may. The fellow I mean is called Marmaduke Mason and has a maiden sister, Rosamond—Rosalind —no, Rosanna,” referring to the tablets again. "By occupation a scenepainter.” “That is the man, my lord. Yes, I know him.” “ And he has a ward —she passes for his cousin—a girl of sixteen, called Polly ?” Had Lord Montalien not been so engrossed by his tablets and questions, he must have noticed Mr. Fane’s greatly disturbed face. “Yes, my lord, there is a Polly Mason.”

“That’s the girl !” His lordship shut up his tablets with a triumphant snap. “Now, what’s she like ? I’ll lay my life she has thick ankles, a Lincolnshire accent, and a turnedup nose.” '“You would lose you stake, then, my lord. Miss Mason is”—with something of an effort he said this—■“one of the very handsomest girls I ever saw in the whole course of my life.” •“Ah, 'ls she ?” his lordship sighed, resignedly ; “all the worse for me. An heiress and ward with a snub nose would be trouble enough, but a ward with a Grecian nasal appendage and eighty thousand pounds to her fortune ! Ah, well, my I'lfe has been one long martyrdom ’ this is only the last straw that very likely will break the camel’s back !” Allan Fane looked at the speaker with a face of ghastly wonder. “My lord,” he said, “I don’t understand. Polly Mason is no heiress—she is this scene-painter’s poor rela-tion-brought up out of charity.”

“My good fellow,” Lord Montalien said, plaintively,, “she’s nothing of the kind. She is my ward, and she has eighty thousand pounds at this moment deposited in the funds for her benefit. No, don’t look so imploringly—it’s too long a story to tell you. There’s tho dressing-bell —you shall all hear it at dinner.” He arose. Allan Pane quitted the room, and went up to his own. He did not seek his advanced—he was aghast with wonder and alarm. What did it mean ? Eighty thousand' pounds and Polly Mason ! The great bell clanging high up in the windy turrets, at half-past seven, informed Speckhaven and its inhabitants that my lord and his family were about to dine. Lord Montalien, took advantage of a few minutes before going in to dinner, and presented his congratulations to his cousin Diana on this interesting episode in her life. Mr. Gripper brought up the rear of the other people around the table. “He doesn’t look like the harbinger of romance, or a fairy godfather, or anything of the kind,” Lord Montalien remarked ; “nevertheless he is. He comes to inform ’a little country girl of sixteen that she is my ward and heiress of eighty thousand pounds. Do any of you beside Fane know her ? Pier name at present is Polly Mason !” Lord Montalien glanced around his own hoard, and was somewhat surprised at the sensation the very commonplace name of a very commonplace young person created. Diana Hautton started, and turned her icy look upon her lover. That gentleman fixed his eyes upon his plate, and seemed slowly petrifying. Guy suppressed a whistle and looked unutterable things, and my lady Charteris’s spoon dropped into her soupplate with a clash. Francis Earlscourt was eagerly interested ; and. Sir Vane, after one steady look at his pallid and startled wife, waited with composure for the peer’s next words.

■‘‘Well,” said his lordship, “you ail look as though you knew her. Being so interested before I begin, how will you be thrilled before I have finished ? Shall Igo back and begin at the beginning with this romance of real life ? Yes, I will.” Lord Montalien pushed away his soup, leaned back in his chair, and began to thrill his hearers. ‘■‘lt’s just fourteen years ago, on the second of last April, that left New York for Liverpool. The pas-

sengers of the Land of Columbia were the usual sort of people one meets—rich mercantile and manufacturing people from the northern cities, with millions of dollars, going over to make the grand tour. There was only one among them I ever found worth the trouble of talking to,, and he was a second-class fellow—splendid proportions—tall, and moulded like an athletic Apollo, with a face full of intelligence and self-rcpresscn. Self-repression in maq or woman i like. This man looked as if he had a story. He puzzled meto be puzzled means to be interested, I was interested in Mr. L’obert Hawksley ; and on the last day out he told me bis story, menti niur no names but his own. The name ho went on board ship even Urn I suspected, at times, to be assumed. He was an Englishman,, the only son of a yoeman farmer, but

educated as a gentleman. Ho had been two or three years before secretary to a man in Staffordshire. I think he said this man had a daughter or niece—l forget which—a great heiress, a great beauty, and six years his junior. She was home from school, romantic, as all girls home from school are, and she meets my handsome secretary. "What would you have ? Why, fall in love with each other, of course. They ran away to Scotland, and were married !”

My lord paused. The fish had been placed upon the table, and he took his knife and fork and refreshed himself with a little turbot. And over the face of Sir Vane Charters a strange, dark change was passing, and over the face of my lady a deathly whiteness had come. She leaned a little forward, her lips apart, her great eyes dilated—heedless of her husband, of her dinner, of the people who looked at her. What story was this she was hearing ? Lord Montalien complacently set it all down to his own nhrill'ing” powers of narration, and placidly went on ’

‘‘Well, those two foolish, unfortunate, happy young lovers kept their secret for four months ; then ' the truth came out, and then there was the,deuce to pay. Little m'issy was spirited away ; my handsome secretary, through some nefarious plot on the part of the guardjan, was found guilty of stealing money and Jewels, and obliged to fly England. Now, two years after, he had made a home and a competence, and he was returning to seek his wife and‘take her back to that New ' World. We parted on the quay. As we shook hands I made him promise that if ever, ;in any way, I could serve him, he would command me. I liked the lad greatly —his was a brave and loyal nature, I truly believe.

‘"Well,” said Lord Montalien, taking a little more turbot, ‘‘‘fourteen years passed, and I heard nothing more bf or from Mr. Robert Hawksley until yesterday, when Mr. James Gripper here called upon me and informed me I was solicited to become guardian to a young lady, heiress of eighty thousand pounds, and presenting me with a letter containing further particulars. The letter was all the way from San Francisco, and from my old acquaintance, Hawksley. He recalled the promise I had voluntarily made, and in the most manly and frank way asked me to fulfil ;it now by becoming the guardian and protector of hia only child. And he told me his story in brief, from the time of our parting on the Liverpool clock.

“He had found his wife—the wife on whose fidelity he sajd to me on shipboard he could have staged his existence —how do you think ? At the altar—the bride of another—a man to whom she had been engaged before he had met her, of her own rank and station. There are more Enoch Ardens in the world than Mr. Tennyson’s hero. He left England again without speaking a word to her, and he has never returned since ; but, by some mystery, which he does not explain, he discovered that his wife had given birth to a child—a daughter—five months after his first flight from England, which child, at two years old, she had given to a scene-painter named Mason and Ms sister to bring up. He found his child, begged the Mason people to take every care of her, and they should one day be well rewarded. That day has now come. In the Californian gold mines this man has made a fortune. Eighty thousand pounds he has deposited to be his lucky little daughter s dowry, and I am appointed her guardian. He asks me to place her at a school, where she will be educated in a manner befitting the station in life she is destined to fill; and- he says that she may drop the cognomen of ‘ Polly Mason ’ for her own rightful name of Pauline Lisle. From this, therefore, it is plain that, instead of his name being Hawksley, it is Robert Lisle !”

Lord Montalien paused—not that he had finished by any means with his interesting story—but at that moment, with a gasping cry, Lady Charteris fell forward, her head on the table. All started up. Her husband lifted her in his arms, almost ghastly as herself. She had fainted dead away ! .And in two days after this Miss Polly Mason learnt the full extent of her .good fortune.

CHAPTER XVI. AFTER TWO YEARS.' The glory of a. golden September day lay over the earth. It was the m'iddle of the month. Down at Montalicn Priory,, for the past two weeks the sportsmen had crashed through the stubble and turnip fields, and the sharp ring of their fowling-pieces echoed all day long through the golden richness. Very fair, very state-

ly, looked the grand ivied old mansion, with its wealth of glowing dogroses and shining ivy, its waving oaks and cedars, its yellow harvest fields, its blooming gardens, all gilt with the glory of the cloudless September sun. There were a half-dozen men all told—Lord Montalien and his brother Guy, Allan Fane, the artist, and husband of the rich Diana Hautton, a Mr. Stedman, a Sir Harry Gordon, and Captain Cecil VilUers, of the Guards. All good men and true, and not a single woman in the house to mar their sport all day among the partridges—nor the perfect dinner Mrs. Hamper got up for their delectation in the evening. It was Liberty Hall—lord and guest did precisely as they pleased, and enjoyed themselves admirably. Francis Earlscourt was Lord Mcntaiien now, the late lord having

twelve months before passed a better, and ■ (with all due respect for the j British nobility), let us hope, even a higher sphere, where boredom is unknown. And his elder son reigned in his stead—that elder son whom, like his mother, he had never loved, j Francis, Lord Montalien, walked slowly up to the house, and entered the library by an open French window. A noble room, its four walls lined with books, statues, and bronzes, everywhere writing-tables anl easy-chairs strewn around, pleasant recesses for reading, and the mellow afternoon sunshine flooding all. There were three pictures in this library—three pictures hanging together over the tall, carved mantel. They were three portraits—the late Lord Montalien, his second wife, and younger son. Vsnetia, Lady Montalien, a portionless Italian girl, with a face of perfect beauty, such as one does not see twice in a lifetime, and barely Eighteen when her son was born. That son’s portrait hung hy hers —the same dark, brilliant face, the same lustrous eyes of Southern darkness, the same proudly held head the same exquisite, smiling mouth. He spoke to them as though they had been sensate things. ‘"Ay,” he said, ‘‘you have had your day—it !is my time now ! There you hang—the father who could barely conceal his dislike—the woman who supplanted my dead mother—the hoy who would have supplanted me had it been in his father’s power. You left your younger and favorite son—your Benjamin—every penny you coulct. leave away from the entail; now is the time for me to show my gratitude. In your lifetime he was always first—his beauty, his brilliant gifts drew all to his side, while I was passed over. ‘ What a pity Guy is not the heir,’ my father’s friends used to say. ‘ Poor Frank is so dull—so like his mother.' You thought so, too, my lord—poor Frank went to the wail in your reign. When the heir of Montalien came of age, who knew or cared ? When Guy came of age hells rung, bonfires blazed, and the tenantry were feasted. Even those boors said, ‘ What a pity Master Guy isn’t the heir.’ Ah, well, we’ll change all that ; I am Lord Montali'.n now, and Guy Earlscourt is wh?re I have led him, on the high road to ruin—nay, a ruined man and a pauper to-day. * Semper Fidelis’ is the motto of our houseand ‘ Always Faithful ’ to my revenge, he shall pay me back for every sneer, every slight, every advantage over mo to the uttermost farthing.” It was the secret of his life. Francis Earlscourt bated his brother, and there was no evil that could have befa’len him that would not have rejoiced his fratricidal heart. He paced up and down —up and down, while the sun dropped lower and lower, and not all the glory in the heavens could brighten the dark moodiness of his irate face. “Curse her obstinacy,” he muttered, sullenly. “With her fair, drooping head, her fawn-like eyes, her timid blushes, and flattering replies, she has the devil’s own will ! She won’t yield—three times a day to church every Sunday, as long as she can and the Sunday school between whiles, have done their work. I could as easily remove the Baron’s Tower yonder as that frail milk-and-rose cottage girl. What the deuce shall I do ?—for have her I must, though I paid the dire penalty of—a wedding-ring.” He paced t 0 and fro, revolving this question, ‘“What shall Ido ?” He had a deep, subtle brain, like his smile, powerful to work good or evil for himself or others.

The thoughtful frown deepened on his face as he trod to and fro, thinking it out. Why not? Every moment it grew clearer and clearer, every moment the diobolical scheme, impossible as it seemed at first, grew more and more feasible, The scheme was practicable, but where was the convenient college friend to be found? He thought over the men in the house one by one. Guy, reckless to madness, he knew well would stand and have a bullet sent through his heart sooner than lift a finger in such a matter as this, which he, the spotless elder brother, darkly revolved now. He felt this with secret rage. Allan Fane, weak and selfish, frivolous and false, would be strong .in his indignation here. Sir Harry Gordon and Cecil Villiers were officers and gentlemen, to whom he would n 0 more have breathed a word of his plot than he would have done to his own mother had she lived. But one remained, Stedroan—his face suddenly lighted as he thought of Stedman. “The heart of a cucumber fried in snow,” he thought, grimly. “A man with neither honour, conscience, principle, nor feeling—-a man poor as a church mouse—a man capable of poisoning his own mother if he could benefit himself by the old lady’s demise and not be found out. Yes,,” he said, unconsciously aloud, “Stedman will do it.”

Late that night, long after she had retired to her little room, Alice Warren penned these words : '“My own darling,—l must speak one word to you before I go—before I go away from my home, my dear, dear home, to be married. Yes, Pau-

lina—Alice is to be married to one she loves —oh, so dearly—so dearly —the best, the noblest of men on earth. Some day you will know his name, and what a happy, happy girl I am. Until then love ma, and trust always your own. “ALICE.” She addressed this brief note to Paris, to “Mllle. Paulina Lisle.” She kissed the name, she took the locket from her neck, and kissed tlj.e pictured face, “Darling little Polly,” she said, “to think that when next we meet Alice will be a lady, too !” (To be Continued!.