“Of No Importance.”

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXI, Issue 3570, 26 June 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

“Of No Importance.”

“Great Scbtt, hdw time flics!” remarked llislop- as he and Langham seated themselves in the tent. “Why, old chap, it must he quite ten years since we- last met!”'

“Nearer eleven!” amended Langham as he lit his pipe. "By Jove, so it is!-You went to 1 India in ’B9, shortly before my first mar ” “Aiil be*n grilling there ever since,” supplemented Langham quickly. "Oh, but ever since that big hill fight at Aswi they think no end of you at home,'*'demurred the other man a- little enviously, “and-now you■have been given a.brigade in Africa! Oh, you’ve done well, whereas‘ I have done- nothing—nothing, that is, but get married twice!” added Bislop, laughing boisterously. “Ah, jes—you’ve been married twice!” said Langham', with a queer look in his eyes, and the hand that held the pipe trembled slightly. “To' Rose ' Julitfn first—yoit remember Rose? Of course you do—why, you were sweet;ou Bose'yourself once I’' ci’icd Hislop, with’ bhd of his noisy laughs. " LanghanTs fae'e whitened a little and his hand trembled' as he shook the ashes' from his pipe. “And she—apd she dic'd?” he said, ignoring the imputation. “Six feontha'after we’ married,” explained ' Hislop,' moderating his voice with an obvious etfprt. “Ydii see.” he welit on, confidentially, ‘Tt was all a beastly misUkeH»»l nidrnagei, I mean. Rose never said anything; but'l’ve often thought she had had a row with some-other johanie and married me out. of, pique. At . any rate my temper and her health—• she.- v nerves and insomnia,' and one day there was an ‘accident’- with a laudanum hottje..Awfully rough on me,” he' added, ruefully. -“Of course!” agreed Langham, with glim sarcasm; but his face was very white as he spoke, and for some minutes he' gazed-, out silently into the gathering gloom. ' Far ; away 'in , front stretched the long - Imea of the camp, its avenues of tents ris- ■ ingMjm and undefined in tho growing darkness like .ghosts in: a fog; while occasion- . aly. ••the--snap of' a Boer rifle broke the silence as some daring sniper made long pot-shots at the wearied camp. , i-But Langham hafdly thought of these things, or, if-lie did, they but symbolised the. points in his own misery, for the dropping shots were as sods falling oil tlie cofiu ’iougrburied hopes. .. “She' had a row with some other jolinui"and: married me out of pique.” 'Hislpp's careless words rang through Langham*B brain with maddening persistence. IMiy should ho care whom she had married? She had satisfied her “pique” as Hislop phrased it» as many another woman -had done before her;.and lie had .suffered us many' a man had done before slid .would do - after him. Why should it trouble him now? Why should he be upset, now. by ibe blundering, if accurate, speculation of. the. man before .him? ; -Were- all.,his efforts, all those years of fierce., repression, to c.puut., for nothing now,? «All those years, through:, which ho bad-sweated and fought, and Striven for the .“waters of Lethe”—were they all to tdnialj. now before the. random speculation of Hip.maii before him? ..“NoV’ his brain answered fiercely, but Ills'jbeartwhispered, “Yes!”' And the was 4’eh .years ago that a- dose of laudan- !. .For '-10, as ho sat there looking out through the, opening-, of the tent,, the memory of those ten bitter years, years that, the locusts had eaten,”, faded away, and in theit placc there capic,stealing back those other ; days, .that had gone before—-the-days when she loved liim-—-the days when, as. Hislop :expressed .it, he, -Laugliainj had been “sweet”,on her, It all came back to him now as he gazed straight in, frpnt .with blind, unseeing ejee—a-1), even that last trivial quarrel, which had sundered them forever. Every detail passed across liis brain like the pictures in a cinematograph—even the glint of gold in' Her ha.r, the light in her eyes, the tenderness in her voiced—all came back. ’

• "But wliat's the use?” lie thought dully. "She is dciaid-^dcadj—dead. Tire liglit went * but'of those dear eyes, long years, ago; it was 'ten years ago that a 'dose oflaudanum silenced for ever that tenderness in hei voice and——

‘ "Yes, as, t was saying,” said Hislop—"it was a’mistake from beginning to end. I was’ foud of sport, whereas she cared for nothing- bui books, and social problems, and—,and—well rot of that sort.” .He paused Tor a momen.t. The firing'on the heights increased in volume and sometiling went zip-zip through the top of the ♦ e*t.

’ “Now,” continued Hislop, with a casual glance at'the bullet hole. “My present Wife is absolutely different—suits me down to the ground. She was one of the Bishops —remember the Bishops of Bevoncourt? Of. course you do’ Ripping girls on a horse; hardest riders iu the country, and Fanny, my wife—why. she can give me points in a twenty-mire walk.” “You arc to ho envied,” said Langham, drilv.

For a moment Ilislop paused and glanced at him doubtfully: then his overweening self-satisfaction as quipkly dismissed suspicion. “Yes,” he agreed complacently, “on the whole ! think I am. Pity you didn't marry Hose, old chap”—generously—“your taste were similar, and, by Jove, I always thought it was you she cared for—on my honour I did! No’ one could have been more surprised than I was when she accepted me on the night of Her sister’s ball. Do you remember Lady Glendon’s ball. Langham—the one just before you went abroad?”

“I‘wasn't there,” said Langham, a little hoarsely.

“I remember it so well,” continued Hislop, 'blissfully unconscious of his companion’s remark: “it was on the 18th of December, the night before the Veuner Steeplechases, and—by Jove, bow Curious ! to-night Is also the IBth of December—exactly the tenth anniversary of the ball."

Langham started slightly, hut said nothing. “What a rattling affair it was,” * contiuiied llislop enthusiastically. “Do you remember the supper?” “I have said I wasn't invited,” repeated Langham,, in a dry, level voice. “Eh? Not invited? Oh.”

In a moment Hislop had sprung to hia feel and was looking down at hia companion rather shamefacedly. “I say, old chap,” j. hope you will forgive me. I’ve got to own up that it was through my beastly stupidity that you received no iuvitatiou to Lady Glcndon’s ball.”

“Your stupidity?” “It's rather difficult to explain. At first 1 thought of writing, but at that time you were ■in some outlandish place or other with no postal address, and then the whole thing slipped from my memory until now.”

“Yes?” “Well, the truth of the matter "is this,” continued Hislop, ruefully. “Bose asked me to post your iuvitatiou to Lady Glendon's ball, and I forgot all about it.”

“You forgot—all about it.” The words came through Laugham’s lips slowly, and in the flickering cimdlc-light his face seemed to have grown horribly gray and old. “I was playing billiards with Glcudoii,” explained Hislop, “and afterwards we helped the ladies with the invitations. The printers had made a mess of the date, and the error wasn’t discovered till too late to be rectified, so we spent the evening helping Rose and her sister to alter the date on the cards.”

“Go on!” said Langham, in a hard, dry voice.

• “When all had been sent to the post, as we thought, one was found on the floor. It was your invitation, which Rose had dropped. They asked me to post it on my way homo, and—well, old chap, I forget it.” He looked at Langham as ho spoke, expecting some remark; but none came from the man, who sat gazing, gazifig with hard, wide-open eyes into the deepening shadows. "Afterwards it must have got mixed up with some other papers and boon put away —at any rate, I only came across it again six months after Rose’s death. I’m, awfully .sorry, old chap!"

“Awfully sorry!” repeated Langham vaguely, as Hislop rose and opened a battered writing case. “I thought we should meet some day,” he said, handing a largo envelope to Langham., “Therefore I have always kept it carefully. It’s a lucky thing,” he added, with a laugh, “that it was a matter of no importance.” Langham took the letter, and for some moments looked silently at-.the handwriting of the woman who had died ten years before—the woman he had so passionately Toved. YEREKER LANGHAM, ESQ., STURGESS CHAMBERS, PICCADILLY. Outside the darkness had increased, and the bullets of the Boer snipers were pattering with deadly persistency amongst the long lines of canvas. But death hold no place in Langham’s thoughts as he drew the guttering candle closer and opened the envelope with unsteady fingers. Inside lay an ordinary invitation card with the original printed date—January 2nd—erased, and another—December 18th —substituted in the writing of the woman who had died. The year had been added—lß9o.-

What misery might have been saved—how different the world might be now—had that little card reached its destination ten years 'earlier! Then suddenly the peculiarity in the date struck him.

"The eighteenth of December, 1899!’’ he repeated, wondoringly. Why, to-night was the eighteenth of December,. 1899. The card had been dated ten years in advance ! “How extraordinary!” he cried, pointing out the error to Hislop. "The eighteenth of December, 1899! By Jove! Of course it should have been 1889,” Hislop cried. ''But what an extraordinary mistake for Rose to make, and why put the year at all?” “I don’t know,” said Langham, slowly : “It’s very strange; it ”

' He stopped short as he turned the card over and read the words which were scribbled on the back—

“If you still care for me come at eleven —I shall be waiting. , ROSE.” For a moment the world seemed to rock beneath his feet, and in Ins ears there was a great . rushing and roaring of sound, tlirough which the tap-tap of the Boer rifles came like the driving of nails into a coffin. ,

Then suddenly Laugham's brain cleared and he grow strangely calm. In a flash he understood it. al! —

“If you still care for me come at eleven.”

Those few words had been her. peaceoffering; that one phrase laid her pride in the dust: and he—he had placed her in the ordinary ruck of women, whilst she—she had waited and waited for the man that never came.

Just a scrap of card, a few lines of print and an. altered date—and it had ruined two lives.

He regarded it for a moment stupidly: then suddenly his thoughts reverted to the man whose negligence had been so disastrous, and just for that instant Ilislop was nearer death than he had ever been from the rifles of the Doers.

“What is wrong?” he eriedi, startled by tlie colour of Langham's face. “I hope there was nothing on the card of ” “Nothing!" said Langham, drily. “It was. as you say, ‘a matter of no importance.’ ’’ “You Great Heavens!" cried Hislop suddenly, as he sprang to his feet with a gesture of horror. “Do you see her—do you see her?” he whispered hoarsely. "She is standing heside you." "■Who?” Langham glanced behind him as he spoke. Inti eotild see or hear nothing

save the patter of the Boer rifles away in the darkness and the face of the cheap alarm clock : that hung at the hack of the tent. ■ 1 ‘ ■ ,

He inetihahically Stared at the time. It wanted twenty seconds of eleven. “Rose, Hose,” cried Hislop, his burly form shaking absurdly. “Don’t you see her? She is standing beside you—she points at the’card in your hand—she ”

Langham looked down quickly, but could see nothing—nothing except the words she had written ten years before—“lf you still care for me come at eleven. I shall be waiting.” Then, even as he raised his head, something came through the tent with a “zip” and struck him on the forehead.

For a moment Langham grew rigid, then pitched forward, on his face.

As he fell the clock. began to strike e l evcn ,_Nolan of Castleknock, in the Family Herald.