CHAPTER XXX.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1218, 30 January 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XXX.

A CHARACTER PHOTOGRAPHED. A photograph hardly gives the lights and shades of a face. The grand outlines, the features, the curves of the mouth, and the brow are all reproduced, but not the dainty bloom, nor the sheen of the hair, the color of the eyes, or the crimson of the lips. It is not more easy to photograph a character, to reproduce the lights and shades, the delicate tints, the faint coloring. To show where a fault almost widens into a virtue, and a virtue narrows into a fault ; to Bhow how closely they are allied to each other ; ■ how many fine qualities lie there latent, and how many evil qualities are hidden there ; to show great .possibilities, grand possibilities ' even, and great failures. The photograph of Lady Castlemaine's character was full of these dainty and delicate tints, full of those variable shades of coloring, full of the finest and noblest qualities, with almost intolerable faults. The photograph would Bhow magnificent generosity, with perfect unselfishness, a noble reliance and belief in others, a freedom from small vanities, an appreciation of all that is most beautiful in art or nature, a spiritual and religious frame of mind. Anything bordering on atheism or materialism' disgusted her. She had a perfect a fearless love of truth ; no false or mean word ever sullied her lips. She had a clear, bright «mind ; she was not suspicions ; out of the candor of her own soul" ehe believed in the candor of other people. She was incalpable of treachery, and hardly understood it in others. She was not jealous, unforgiving, or revengeful. She was most tender and loving of heart, and here was one of the strange parts of her character ; she was so easily wounded by one whom she loved; Bhe was quick to take offence, yet she took it far more easily from ; one she loved than from one to whom Bhe was indifferent. She had naturally an easy temper, but when she was* routed to anger she was proud and implacable. She was obstinate and wilful; when she had made up her mind to a certain course of action, Bhe would never give up. If she had resolved upon doing a certain thing she would do it, even if she risked her life in the attempt. Perhaps one of the strongest lines in the photograph, being one of the strongest of her characteristics, was that she could not bear contradiction, opposition, or control. Her mother's training had been the worst possible for her. She had never been denied one wish or one caprice, one whim, one desire. When Lady Craven found that opposition to her child produced scenes of anger and passion that distressed her, she ceased to make any opposition, and allowed he^ to have entirely her own way. She was never opposed in any one single thing; that which she wanted she had. When everything was smooth and easy, when Bhe had her own way in everything, she was sweet-tempered and gay. When she was contradicted, thwarted, or opposed she became, as it were, transformed. -

This is no unusual photograph, no unusual character. There were in Lady Castlemaine great possibilities of good and great powers of evil. She could never have been mediocre or commonplace ; she must always be very good or very bad. There was no intermediate course for her. A woman of grand possibilities, she might have been one of the noblest of her sex, or she might have been one of the most ignoble. Her sins would always have been frank ones, and she would never have denied them. She would never have covered them with a veil of hypocrisy.

Even when she was a child Lady Craven laughed at her. "I have scratched my nurse and have bitten her, mamma,"' Bhe would say," " and I shall do it again." She never concealed any of her childish? escapades. « Mamma, I threw a snow-ball at Gunton's face just as he was carrying a tray of glasses into the dining-room, and he let the tray fall and broke them all ; and he looked 60 absurd, I am afraid I shall do it again."

-She never concealed a fault. She had grand virtues Bide by side with great faults. If ehe had not been too credulous— if she had not been cursed with a false friend, Lady Castlemaine's life might have been all good and noble/ But Bhe was unfortunate in choeing for her friend one who brought all tha evil o! her nature into play and ignored^ ' the good ; one who incited her to rebel against her hußband ; who taught her to ridicule all notions of obedienoe in wives ; who tried to make her believe that the Castlemaine notion of matrimony was old-fashioned and obsolete; one who, in her odious character of false friend, dittner as much harm as it was pos* nble to dc her.

Is the photograph complete? Does the reader see it with its lights and shades, its dark shadows and its flocks of gold, its black Bpots and its dainty oolors ? — the character that was destroyed, as a canker destroys a flower, by the influence of a false friend. * Daring the time of her most happy marriage her faults had grown less; she seemed to have overcome them. She loved her husband so dearly, and she was so unutterably happy with him, that her virtues and her goodness blossomed and sweetened, like flowers in the rays of the sun. She had been happy as a bird or a queen np to this time, for there had not been, between herself and her husband any particular difference of opinion save one. Lord Castlemaine was a thorough conservative — he believed in ancient pedigree, in ancient families and titles. She did not, and she slightly resented the fact that he did. That fact was always more or less present to her mind, and she remembered it always with bitterness. They had never actually come in collision. He had never uttered those words of evil import, " Ton shall not," and she had not retorted, "I shall." He had not said, "You must not ;" she had not cried, " I will 1"

They had differed in opinion. Lord Castlemaine was inolined to think too much of hia ancient pedigree, to be too proud of his old family. Lady Castlemaine was too much inclined the other way ; she expressed a contempt for all such notions and ideas, which was very grevious to him.

Up to the present time they had come to no real issue about it.

When two people, both young, both proud, both high-spirited, oome together, there must of necessity be some collision, some difference of opinion. Isabel Hyde had often wondered if it came to a pitched battle between the two, which would win. If the two strong wills came in oontaot, which would gain the ascendency ? "It will be an equal contest," she said, " for I believe one to be as obstinate as the other."

A night came when Lord Castlemaine took his wife to the opera to hear " Hermani." Isabel accompanied them. When they were comfortably installed in the box, he went away. Something occurred to him that he had quite forgotten ; with many apologies to hia wife and Misa Hyde, he left them. 11 1 shall not be very long," he said. " I will take a hansom and drive down to the club. I will be as quick as I can."

He was sorry to leave them, but he had promised to. see an old friend who had just returned from Canada, and he had forgotten the engagement until now. " Gertrude," oried Isabel Hyde, " there is Colonel Lennox." " Where ? " asked Lady Castlemaine. "Do you not see him ? " He is talking to the Duke of E , and he sees us ; he is coming, I am sure." For the duke to whom he was talking had observed how suddenly he became distrait, and had said to him, " You had better follow your eyes, Lennox," and the colonel availed himself of the permission, and left with a smile and a bow.

" He is ooming here," repeated Isabel Hyde with a curious drawing up of her lips, and a wonder in her heart as to what would follow.

"He is coming here," said "Lady Castlemaine, at the same time, but her. voice and face were calm.

The next minute he was in the box, bowing low to the two beautiful women seated there. That opera-box had been the great centre of attraction the whole of the evening. " Hermani" was most beautifully put upon the stage ; Patti was at her best ; but many of the opera-glasses turned from the stage and lingered on the exquisite faces of the two women. The contrast between them was very great. Lady Castlemaine looked very fair in a dress of pale-blue velvet, the front of which was almost covered with a net-work of pearls. She wore a necklaoe of pearls "around her white throat, bracelets of pearls on her beautiful arms, and a coronet of pearls on her golden bair. She was a pioture of fair and radiant loveliness. Isabel Hyde presented a perfect contrast. Her dark, proud beauty was enhanced by her dress of rich black lace, with its trimming of gloire de dijon roses. She carried a superb bouquet of the same flowers. Many who watched the bea'nties eagerly and intently were quite unable to decide whiolrwaa the fairer of the two.

Colonel Lennox knew. He hardly saw the dark beauty of Isabel Hyde, so engrossed was he by Lady Castlemaine.

Isabel looked pleased to see him; calmly indifferent, attentive to the play, who could have imagined that in her heart there was a seething torrent of hate and implacable long,ing for vengeance ; that while she smiled at the lovely voice and graceful manner of the most charming vocalist in the world, she was hoping and longing that even this night the beginning of the end might arrive.

" I thought I saw Lord Castlemaine with you," he Baid. "Yes, he was with us; but he suddenly remembered that he had promised to see an old friend at the olub ; he will not be long away.

" I will remain, with your permission," said Colonel L9nnox. " I have been quite unfortunate in all my efforts to obtain an introduction to Lord Castlemaine."

" I shall be much pleased," said the countess, and they began a very earnest discussion about music and singers.

Isabel waited in silence. It was one of the most desperate hours of her life. Before the night ended, some decisive step, she felt sure, would be taken, and the web she had weaved with such difficulty would begin to close.