THE TAINT

Taranaki Daily News, 29 May 1933, Page 11

THE TAINT

By

Wilfred Roberts

CHAPTER VIII.—-(Continued.) “Kate’s baby was born wltnin a few hours of you, and died almost immediately. As I had feared, the shock sent poor Kate out of her mind. Christina was dangerously ill for weeks, and was riot able to give any connected account of herself. But Miss Drummond, who looked after her through all—you remember that I told you she was a trained nurse—pieced together a- few. words that she caught up at one time and another, and at length was able to put them into some sort of shape.' She gathered that a woman had turned- up, claiming that she was Sir Arthur’s real wife, and that consequently Christina was not. Christina had refused to bailey a word of her story, but Sir Arthur himself had come in—he had been out when the woman arrived —and was not able to deny it. You can imagine the effect on your mother. The shock and her journey very nearly killed lifer, but she began to recover slowly, after a while. “Long before she was well again, I had gone to see her husband. I went there, bitterly angry with him, but I found out that the business was no fault of his; he had been as much deceived as any one of us. He was half distracted by Christina’s disappearance, and when I was Able to assure him that she was with me', he told me the truth about the other matter. I told you that he had been in India ” “Yes, and. I had heard of it before from his nephew.” “He made one fatal mistake during his stay—he married a thoroughly worthless woman. He met her out there; she was remarkably pretty and innocent looking, a fact on which she had traded more than once. She was a sympathetic, petty swindler, working on inexperienced people by some pathetic tale, and then cheating them by some clever trick, or robbing them directly of their money and valuables. I believe she had had a varied career In that line, and made the acquaintance of the police before she left Eng 1 - land. But Trevelyan never told me much. I am not sure that he knew it all himself; I think he had been too much sickened with finding her out to carry his enquiries far. She told him that she was a widow, but I think she would have been rather put to it if he had been Xvlse enough to ask for proof of her marriage. SHU, she contrived to impose on him, and fi P u n him a story of how she had married, in. opposition to own people, who had-then cast her off, and refused to do anything more for her. Then her husband had turned on her, and treat-ed-her- badly after all she had sacrificed for him, and finally they had come to India, where he died. Since then she had been trying to get her living; she was unable to find employwent, and had no money too take her ,°“Well, Bevis; you wouldn‘t be far out, I believe, if ■ you put down all that as dies,, from beginning to end. But you can fancy how it worked on Trevelyan. ■ Think, if a pretty glr, had told you that yarn. The wretcned creature twisted him round her .finger. ’He helped her with money first, and then—when she had been piteously talking of the blank future before her—made a complete fool of himself, and married her. They .went on fairly well for about three months, and then' the smash came. She was arrested for theft. She had travelled out to India as a to a Mrs Lisle—another victim of her plausible dales’ -of hard-treatment—and, on landing, she had taken herself off with Mrs Lisle’s Jewelley, and all the loose cash on which she could lay hands. There was a great fuss About it, but she had covered her tracks well, and she was caught too late—too lata for poor Trevelyan who was married to her. You may imagine what he felt like. He would have paid anything to keep the business quiet, but he was unable to do so, and out it all had,-to come. She got off much lighter than she had any right to expect—which was poor comfort for him. In the middle of it, came the news of three deaths in his family, and he suddenly found himself Sir Arthur Trevelyan with a Lady Trevelyan who was in prison for theft. A nice thing for him 1 He made an agreement with her that she was to stay in India under the name of Mrs •'Potter, which was the one she had used before. She had called herself Mrs Carpenter when she was with -Mrs Lisle, and to which of the names she had a right, if either, is more than I can tell you. She drove a hard bargain with him, but they came to terms at last, and he went home to England. He did not stay there long as he wag constantly afraid of something being discovered about his marriage, but went abroad, and spent a couple of years travelling. Then he received news of his wife’s death, with a properly made-out certificate. Naturally, he had no doubt of it, and was thankful to be rid of her.. He settled in England, met my sister, and married her. And now this wretched woman had turned up again, threatening public exposure; the very thing, above all things, that Trevelyan dreaded for your mother’s sake, and -yours, Bevjs, more than for his own. He was almost in despair, for he did not see what hold he had over the creature, unless he could bribe her to hold her tongue. Luckily it occurred to me that she must have been up to •some dirty trick,*or he would not have had that certificate of her death, and that she had probably laid herself ■open to attack or at least to bluff. I offered to meet her with him, and he jumped at the chance. “We saw her together, and I managed to make her understand that she was not going to have everything her own way. At" first she tried to take a high hand, and declare that nothing but full recognition as Lady Trevelyan would content her. But I succeeded in bringing her off that. I got out of her the trick about'her death. She admitted, quite shamelessly, that she had grown tired of leading a decent, monotonous life on the allowance that Trevelyan made her; he had insisted as part of their agreement, that she was not to repeat any of her old exl ploits. It seemed to her that she ! could get more amusement out of her ' life on her own. So she persuaded I an acquaintance of hers, who was very 'ill, to pass herself, off as Mrs Potter, giving her the necessary facts*, and

“I have told you that my own child had died, and that Kate had lost her mind. She had got a fixed idea that her baby was not dead but only lost, and she would spend hours wandering about looking for. it. I had some hope that she might recover, at least, temporarily, and I thought that, if she had some child that could replace the one she had lost, it might help her mind to regain its balance. That, and the disaster which had fallen on Christina, pointed to one conclusion — that I should take you, and bring you up as my own. I made Christina this offer. I promised that you should be treated in every way as though you were my son, and she consented, for your sake. It was & desperate Struggle for her to give you up, but she felt that It was the best thing for you, and she went through with it, poor girl, poor glrll There was no question of practising a fraud. If you went to that village now-—I could tell you the name, if it were needed—you would find in the old registers, your own baptism with your parents name, and the baptism and burial of my own daughter, Kate. We knew that the chances were thousands to one against anyone who knew us going to thaf place, and turning out the old records, and. there they are to this day—tor 1 •saw them myself, six months ago, sc that, if ever you wished to prove your identity, It could be done. "Christina and Miss Drummond went abroad together. Trevelyan had gone before, and though there was a little gossip and speculation about the trouble between them, it soon was forgotten. Christina’s very name passed out of people’s minds, and though a few have some idea that Sir Arthur’s first marriage turned out badly, no one knows the -whole truth. ■ Miss Drummond would have kept silence, however, long she had lived, and she is dead now. So is Trevelyan’s brother. He may have told the facts to his son, Gerard, before he died, but I don’t know that he did. He was a fool if he could not see that they, were best kept to himself.” “But they.were married again in the end,” Bevis put in. Mr Thornbury nodded. “Lady Trevelyan died, nearly twenty years after the trouble that she bad brought on us all—really died,, this time, for Sir Arthur spared no pains to make certain on the point. Then he sought out your mother, arid they were married for the second time, at some place abroad -where Miss Drummond had just arrived from on© of her journeys. The newspaper account's all gave her name a's Miss Merton, who had become rather famous as Miss Drummond’s companion, ■and was said to have explored some of the strangest spots on the face of the earth. No one suspected that Miss Merton was the same as his supposed first wife. You must remember that the Indian . marriage was never known to the public here. All the old talk died away years and years ago. Christina Is really married to him now, and the only person who remains irreparably injured is yourself.” “ 1 don’t know,” said Bevis quietly. “I think it is my mother who has suffered worst. I could not have been happier, until this last year or so, than I have been. I have lost nothing by being brought up as your son. Poor Lady Trevelyan — I can hardly think of her as anything to me at present,” he added with a faint smile — “1 have been so accustomed to thinking of — of my Aunt Kate as my mother — she has gone through a terrible time of it. I have escaped, almost, entirely. And I could never, never repay the smallest part of the debt that I owe to you and Aunt Kate. If I had. been your own son you could not have done more for me. Did she know?" he added hastily. “Only at the end. My plan proved perfectly successful. _Kat& 19

paying all the expenses of her illness It was this woman who died, and was burled as Mrs Potter, and whose death was reported to Trevelyan. His wife had not found her career as prosperous as sna expected, and growing tired of having to depend on her resources. she made enquiries about him again. Then she learned that he had married the second time, so putting himself into her hands.

“I pointed out to her that the deception she had played off on him weakened her position, and that If she insisted on a public row, It would not be to her advantage. I bluffed for all I was worth, and threatened a prosecution for conspiracy until she moderated her tone wonderfully, and consented to take a generous Income from Sir Arthur, to return to India and trouble him no further. We made 1 some arrangements—l need not tell you the details—to avoid any risk of being so imposed upon again. We took into our confidence a trustworthy man in India, and it was settled that Lady Trevelyan must report herself to him when she wished to draw her allowance. On the whole, I think it was the best thing we could do in the miserable position. “But there still remained the question of what was best done for you and Christina. She and Trevelyan met for one parting interview at my house. Then he decided that his best course was to go abroad, and give the scandal a chance to die away. Not that anyone knew that Christina was not really his wife, but their separation was bound to start gossip. His brother was the only person, except ourselves, who knew the truth. Fortunately, Sir Arthur had not yet taken any part in public life, as he had been planning to do, and his circle of acquaintances was comparatively small, so that there would be the loss talk. “Then Miss Drummond came forward with a suggestion. 'She proposed that Christina, as soon as she was well enough, should become her companion;" In the out-of-the-way places, where Miss Drummond spent half her time, no one would know Christina’s story, and no tattle would reach her, whatever might be said at home. Miss Drummond suggested further that Christina should call herself Christina Merton. Miss Drummond had connections of the name, and it would look, to anyone who was not In the secret', as though Christina were one of them. She, poor girl, agreed willingly, provided that we could make some plan for you. - ■ And here 'it was that I had something to say.

you as her child, fancying that she had found it again. Her mind gradually came right for a while. But she was subject to attacks, when she was —hardly, mad—but strange. She was never dangerous to herself, or to anyone else; she always remained very gentle and quiet, but there were times when she was undoubtedly not normal. (T© ba continued.)