LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5803, 17 December 1886, Page 1

LITERATURE.

A SINGULAR LEGACY.

18. A. LQUGHNAN,

'Ohaptbb VIII LA CALTJNKIA.

The Scamp was comfortable in his new quarters. Daring the week that had elapsed between the time of his installation, and the interview between his patron and the bankers, he had not been idle ; unwonted comfort had been apparently • productive of unwonted busineßs. There was not a nursemaid of the bevy to be seen on fine mornings by the river aide in Magnolia tkat he did not know by sight. With nearly every one he had scraped an With a. certain percentage be was on good terms, »B^ with th?sc Ms conversation took, of Course, a gil^llt turn, persistency Jn which system of soon caused him to be considered ■quite ** genteel 1 ' and " affable." His strong "point was always gossip. He pretended an interest in tte names of the owners of the houses, the incomes of the families, the state they kept up, and the good they did in the world. In return, he imparted a good deal cf information. He had seen .fife, he told his new friends, in some of his strolling, at which confidence they would look up at him admiringly; and tihen he would dilate on his numerous experiences of love and war. He told one of his confidantes one day that in the regiment, that; mysterious body which flourished in a far-off bygone time wifchoufc any number or distinguishing mark, he iiad been known as Don Juan. And very soon he became known among the ladies by that suggestive and enviable soubriquet; it even came to pass that he never was called anything else but " The Don." It was at all events better than "The Scamp." With his new reputation he was constantly dangling after the ladies, proud to be their escort, spending monsy freely for their entertainment, and imposing upon them by the gentlemanly veneer his old associations enabled him to assume at will. As a natural consequence there was *7ery soon "nobody like the Don." His ■stories of course had breathless attention. >It is tiue they were a great deal about himself, but egotism does not always ■detract from the success of a man's stories, especially when he is a little richer, a little more experienced, a little more polished, and a little more wicked than his company. "The Don" was supposed to have done a great many things that he ought not to have done, and was, like his betters in another sphere, very much more prized in consequence. Among the ladies there waa naturally a good deal of scandal about their mistresses. ! Some were cross, some were exacting, one } 'locked up the food, another weighed the '■ tea and sugar, and there was a variety of ; other grievances which prevented various ! maids from ever remaining any time in ; certain place 3. j In the inner circles the talk of this sort was not ouite so harmless. Mrs Smith was . fonder ot* dresfa than she ought to be. Mrs ! van Tromp waa Jonder of a certain lawyer ' than she was of her husband, and Mrs Knickerbocker was fonder of the bottle i than of her dresses, or of her husband, or ' even of a certain military gentleman. This was the atmosphere for the Scamp. He revelled in it, and he thickened it in his vulgar veneery way with industrious venom. What he heard from one and told to another was of the usual character ; no one was astonished; it was what they had : been saying to one another for ever co ! long. But in one case he produced an -effect which, though it wag at first astonishing, was steady, sure, and of great capacity for increase. He began by whispering into the sympathetic ear of a silly, brainless ' creature, hint 3 about Mrs Digby. When the ear's ovum had got quite reconciled - to these suspicions and had spread them a little, the iitst vibration given to the «ir by the calumny was complete. The Scamp produced another by dropping some more serious suspicions, ■ which, falling upon minds already acted apon by poison, went further than the first whisperings. That was the second vibration. After that there was a chird, and a fourth, and vibration succeeded vibration until a conviction was established that Mrs Digby was surrounded by a most uncomfortable mystery. » When the mystery stage has been reached the work of the skilful operator becomes plain sailing. He has nothing to do but to encoturage conjecture. The Scamp fed the name of curiosity judiciously ■till it produced the most definite images. Thus it came to pass — First, that a great -calumny grew ; and second, that all trace of the anthor was lost. According to this story, the charming Mrs Digby's husband never had sailed away on any South Sea voyage, fortunate or unfortunate. Ifc was the charming Mrs Digby who .had sailed away from her unfortuaiate husband in the company of thaC amart young Mr Gresham, " him as is going to marry the widow Warren." Just now *fchey passed for brother and sister, because Mr Gresham, who was impecuniou3, wanted •the widow's.money. The ladies were " that •friendly you might almost take them for sißter3. But wait till the wedding's over — that's all." Such was the story which, thanks to the skilful handling of Mr Harold, alias "The Scamp," alias "The Don," had got Abroad among the servants' Aalln of Magnolia. At his public-house, The Scamp had been steadily at work too. He had popularisd himself by organising what he called a nightly "Bympoßium" in the dull place. The landlord was delighted to see the "gents" from the neighbourhood come .flocking in, and the " gents " were delighted with their organising and talented friend Mr 'Arold. Mr 'Arold, on his side, deserved his good reputation. Did he not spend money freely, and was he ever weary of talking knowingly of the sins of the upper classes ? Thus it came to pass that the fair fame of Mrs Digby, who was known by sight to most of the "gents," and prodigiously admired to boot, came in for considerable smirching at the " sym- f posium." It was not such easy work for .the Scamp here as among the nurses and luaid3ervan.tr. There were chivalrous instincts among the "gents." A certain *Mr Turpin, who waited periodically upon 'Mrs Digbj's establishment with loaves, objected to his making so free with her -name, and being reviled for his pains after the manner of the Scamp, challenged that worthy to- single combat in the back-yard. The Scamp took refuge in a fine, high disdain. There were derisive cries from a minority of " Don't disgrace the regiment," which proving _ unavailing, Mr Turpin advanced to " pitch him into the middle of -next week." Mr 'Arold suddenly found that he preferred the middle of the street, and hurriedly proceeded there, but not before the. contemptuous Mr Turpin had considerably accelerated his pace for him. But this only made matters worse for Mrs Digby, as her brave champion boasted of the manner in which he had chut up " the soldier." This only gave greater publicity to the story without convincing anybody that it waa wrong. Indeed how could it ? The Scamp's frienda declared that Turpin was jealous of " The Don's "success with a certain mistress Alice, which they said " accounted for the milk in thatcocoanut." Others said that Mr Turpin's opinion waa all very well, very honourable to that gentleman, and that kind of thing. But nearly everybody was on the other side. The symposium went on as usual, Turpin and his frienda retiring because they would have no further connection with "such

rubbish" aa "The Seedier," whom they declared to be nothing but " a sneaking, lying, throakcufcting camp-follower." M? *Arold and his partisans thus had the place all to themselves. That gentleman being a good ouatomer, had the landlord on bis side ; being a free*handed entertainer he had the majority of the symposium also with him. So it came to pass that his plea of superior " moral courage " was accepted as the proper ending of the Turpin affair. The only result of that affair was to give greater publicity to that which ought to have been kept Becret. Such are champions sometimes ! Having reached the basement and the tradespeople, it was only a question of time for the mystery to get higher. According, before long, ladies began to whisper together. " You know in Paris, my dear, literary ladies are not thought altogether respectable. That 6 , lightful Captain Dormeuil, wfl fl waß k ere last year, told, me bo ; aild he knows." TWS w"aS In allusion to the literary work pooi' sfr? Pigby used, to get her living by, " Those Bohemians I h That w&8 another phrase that came to be h"6rws in drawingrooms, and people found a grcflt deal of ridicule for the " model brothel"/' as he came to be called, as well as for the " image of constancy " who never would allow' t&afc her husband could be dead. "Brotheffy love," the tri" of Mrs Candour used to" remark, " is an excellent cover for contributions which are anything but brotherly." To which Miss Prism would add, with tart promptitude, " And the name of a husband who does not exist is so convenient."

When things had got to this stage among a select few of the inner sisterhood of scandal which exists in every city, village, and large farmhouse, from Paris to Pekin, the atmosphere began to grow darker. There was a Mrs Velabaw who was particularly active. She was widely known and highly respected (or disrespected) as " the Vulture's aunt ;" a woman of auaterity and stiff curls, who criticised all her neighbours impartially from the highest point of view. With the highest motives and the most successful noncommittal assiduity, what else could she be but highly respected ? She was a constant companion now of Mrs Candour, and the delightful Miss Prism. Every day she had heard something new. One day it waa a gentleman from Damascus, who had said that in an experience of forty years he had never heard of any Mr Digby — except Digby the chimneysweep, who waa still plying his trade " with hia usual exemplary blackness my dear madam, and dwelling in the bosom of his sooty family of ten children, where jou will find him any time you like to honour his domicile with a visit." Another day it was a seafaring " party " from the Bame seaport — the austere woman of curls thought there was something aweinspiring in the word "party" — who had never beard of any ship sailing for the South Seas, and never being heard of more. " Why, we don't send a ship to the South Seas once in five years. Let me see ! there waa the ' Thames/ and the ' Mary Jane/ and the ' Old Hundredth ' — and that's all we have sent to those parts in the last fifteen years, and they have all come back again. The only one of these that has come to grief is the • Old Hundredth,' and she ha 3 just been broken up to save her from going down No, madam ;we do not iasure our old tubs at Damascus, and send them away to sea with a cargo of stock that has been dead unsaleable for seventeen years. Tha commercial morality of Damascus, madam, is so near to another and a higher morality as to be quite irreproachable. Even those newspapes fellows fling no stones at our commercial morality."

" And the proay old party from the interesting seaport, left me, my dear friend, with a heart sad for my dear sister in trouble, but determined to do its duty by society." After which the austerity and the curls would give flavour to many reminiscences. " Don't you remember the long visits that Mr Benjamin <3xesham used to pay to Damascus before the sudden appearance here of hia charming Bister? " and then the whole life of thfe unhappy gentleman would be reviewed with industry and careful remembrance. When a man's life is reviewed by his friends in the light of a fixed idea, held up like a lantern by an enemy with a set purpose, it requires no ghost to tell us the result. Mr Gresham was a heartless rake, selfish and shameless, —whose conduct ought to be denounced. Several ladies left off bowing to Mrs Digby. At his Club tbe Vulture had worked much to the same purpose, proceeding carefully by the Socratic method.' When a Damascus man was sitting in tbe smoking room, the conversation would find itself turning upon Mrs Digby, and whenever the men, the younger ones especially, had enlarged upon her beauty and her youth, and her "awful jolliness " generally, and had begun to dilate upon her astonishing constancy, and to discuss that virtue from various points, the Vulture would put his questions to the man from Damascus, who would reply much as other men from Damascus had replied to hia respectable and amiable aunt. But if anybody who felt puzzled and grieved at the mystery weaving itself round the name of a sweet young creature in every way, and so adorable, said, "Come, I say, ' Vulture/ what is all this about," the man of law would only throw op his shoulders, and throw down his eyes, and " hope there waa nothing in it."

" la fact, I may Bay," with an apparently sudden virtuous resolve he would add, " that appearances are not to be trusted. I make a point, for my part, of never trusting them. But we shall, of course, Bee soon."

The mystery -was, by natural consequence, thus made worse than ever.

This Story will be continued in our issue of Wednesday next.)