Our Novelettes.

Western Star, Issue 857, 5 July 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

Our Novelettes.

THE HBIE OF PAYTONS.

(By the Author of “ Estelle’s Ebeob,” &c.)

Chapter V. — Continued.

With a heavy heart and slow step Maud wended her way at the appointed hour towards the spot where her lover awaited ■her. Life looked very dark before her—tor she felt that matters could not go on as at present. She would not consent to any more clandestine meetings—and none other would be allowed, as she knew [too well; hence her heart was heavy and her eyes were brimming with unshed tears as she went to meet her lover for the last time. As she neared the spot, the report of a gun close by and a wild scream of agony made her stop short and then dart forward with the speed of a deer. What a sight met her eyes! On the ground, pale and lifeless, the dark blood slowly oozing from his side, lay Frank Dayrell, his still white face not more ghastly in hue than that of Arthur Denver, who was standing gazing at him, the gun in his hand still smoking from the recent discharge. As Maud reached them he started violently and exclaimed, eagerly—‘lt was an accident —I swear it! I swear it! I would rather have shot myself.’ But Maud did not hear him. _ With a low moan she dropped down on the~ground and lifted the heavy, helpless head on to her lap, with trembling fingers smoothing the short fair curls back from the white brow, and rocking to and fro in unspeakable sorrow. Arthur gazed at her with a quivering face. «Heaven knows I never meant it, Maud ! he cried, hoarsely. I would change places with him only too gladly. I am no murderer !”

She never looked at him—did not seem to hear him—hut sat quietly moaning j and Arthur, unable to bear the sight any longer, said, hurriedly—- ‘ I will go for help. He may not be dead.’ He went, and Maud was left alone with that terribly still, lifeless form —but only for a few minutes. Arthur soon returned with two men bearing a hurdle, on which they laid poor Frank, and slowly made their way to the house, Maud following with a white woe-begone face that wrung her cousin’s heart. At the door they were met by Mr and Mrs Denver returning from their drive ; and for once the former forgot his sweet expression as he gasped forth “ Good Heaven, Arthur, what has happened ?” • I have shot him,’ replied his son, in a low, hoarse voice. ‘ Send for a doctor at once.’ The wretched father wrung his hands in wild distress, while Mrs Denver, womanlike, forgot her horror and fear until she had obeyed her son’s injunction and despatched a servant for a doctor, and seen the wounded man laid in bed to await the medical man’s arrival. He soon appeared, and breathlessly they awaited his verdict. »Nob dead yet,’ it came at last, after a careful examination —* scarcely likely to live through the night, though. Send for his friends.’

Maud heard with dry eyes and quiet face, though her heart felt like a lump of ice. ‘ He has a mother,’ she said, as those near her gazed at one another in bewilderment, knowing nothing of his family or friends. “ She lives in London—Chester street, Grosvenor Place. Telegraph for her, for he is sure to ask for her if he recovers his senses. She is his only relative.’ The telegram was despatched, none questioning Maud as to her knowledge of all this; and then a hush fell over the house, and stealthy footsteps crept over the wellcarpeted stairs and passages, and Maud sat alone in the drawing-room with her overwhelming sorrow, while those who had any appetite went in to dinner. Sir Arthur came to her at last, and took her .cold, clammy hand in his, as he said, gently—- ' My poor child, this is indeed sad, but we must hope for the best.’ 1 Have you seen him ?’ asked Maud, lifting her heavy eyes to her uncle’s face. ‘ May I go to him ?’ • That cannnt be,’ he replied, shaking his bead. ‘ But I will go and see him if you like, and tell you whether he is sensible, and what I think of him.’ »Yes, please ’ —wearily. * I will come to the door with you.’ He made no objection, and they went together to the door of the room where the wounded man lay. Then Sir Arthur left Maud,- who stood listening with quick, short breath to the low groans of pain within. Presently he returned, very pale, and with a look of deep distress on his face. He led Maud back to the drawing-room, and, closing the door, said abruptly—‘He is not sensible. I cannot say there is any hope—but it is in Heaven’s hands. Tell me whose son he is and all you know about him. Who is his mother ?” ‘ A widow,’ replied Maud, sadly and drearily. ‘He is her only child, and his father died before he can remember. He was an officer—a Mr Dayrell. I know no more.'

Sir Arthur made no remark, but, pacing the room with rapid steps, remained deep in thought. Then, saying hurriedly, ‘I will send your aunt to you,’ he left the room, and, telling Mrs Denver to go to Maud, shut himself up in his room for the rest of the evening. Chapter YI.

Sib Arthur Denver sat in his library on the following' morning, when the rest of the family had gone to the church, with a looK of deep thought on his pale face, and the lines round his close firm mouth deeper than usual. Frank Dayrell was still alive and in some measure sensible, but the doctor gave no hope of his recovery. Mrs Dayrell had arrived at midnight, and her voice and presence seemed to soothe the wounded man like magci; she was a pale, fair woman, exceedingly like her son, dressed in mourning and with a look of irrepressible sadness on her still beautiful face. Maud yet lingered, though her mother had sent her a peremptory message to return home immediately j but Sir Arthur, hearing the message as he left the breakfast-table, [had returned for answer that he was keeping his niece, and she was left undisturbed to sit hour after hour in the room adjoining poor Frank’s, listening to the sounds within, and starting forward each time to ask how he was.

An oppressive stillness reigned throughout the house, in which the ticking of the great clock in the hall sounded startlingly loud. Sir Arthur sat by the open window in his great arm-chair, gazing thoughtfully out at the bright flower-beds ,and smooth turf, with their background of stately elms, and started as if he had been struck when a gentle tap sounded on the door. * Come in 1’ he cried, impatiently ,- and Mrs Dayrell entered the room. With a low cry the Baronet rose from his chair, a deathy pallor spreading over his features, and his eyes dilating as they rested on the pale, beautiful features before him,

' Melaine, you here !’ he exclaimed, in stern accents, while his voice trembled with intense emotion. * Have you dared to enter my house ?’ ‘ Tes, Arthur,’ she replied in tones of unutterable sadness, ‘to see my boy die Nothing short of that would have brough me here. The one tie that has held me to life, that has kept me from madness, is about to be broken, and I feel I shall not long survive him. Arthur, over our boy’s death-bed you can surely forgive his wretched mother. I have suffered enough to appease even your anger. Oh, Arthur, forgive me—say yon forgive me before I wander away in my loneliness to die!’ She sank on her knees at his feet, and lifted her white quivering face to his j but he made no reply. Trembling from head to foot he leant against the wall. ‘ Found only to lose him again!’ he whispered, hoarsely. ‘My boy, my son! Oh, woman why did you take him with you when you fled P By what right did you rob me of my son when you blighted my life and disgraced my name ? How can I forgive such injuries as yours ?’ She clasped her hands tightly together and wrung them bitterly. * I have been punished,’ she moaned — *I am punished ! My boy, my darling, the only living creature I have had to love or to love me through these long, long years — he is going from me ! He died—the man for whom I brought all this upon me and you—a few months after our guilty flight, and I have had no thought in life for five-and-twenty years but for Frank. How can I live without him ? Bub, oh, Arthur, my husband, say you forgive me before I go ! Forgive, as you hope to be forgiven.’ But he turned away, clenching his hand fiercely. ‘lcannot!’ he cried, hoarsely. ‘Go! Leave me and return to the son you have robbed me of, who shrinks from me on his death-bed—the father he has never known. Go! Can I forgive you at such a moment as this P’

She made no reply, but, staggering from the room, groped along the passage like one blind, and Sir Arthur was left alone once more. Restlessly, hurriedly, he strode backwards and forwards, now and then pausing to listen at the half-open door, then pacing up and down once more like a caged animal. How slowly the hours dragged on—the hours that were fraught with suspense about his son i How every sound struck on the tensely-strung nerves of the miserable man, as he listened for the cry of grief that would tell him his one hope of happiness was gone ! Why had he known it ? Why had this woman —his faithless wife—come to tell him that it was his own son who lay dying in his house, murdered, it might be, by his cousin ? Why had she come to tear open afresh the wounds that had bled for such long, long years ? He remained in his solitude, the wondering family attributing it to sorrow for the disgrace that was likely to fall upon his name, or some new freak in his morbid nature.

Still Frank did not die, and, when the eminent surgeon telegraphed for from London at Sir Arthur’s desire arrived, he did not quite take a hopeless view. It was a terrible wound he said, but no vital part was injured, and he was not prepared to say that it would be fatal. It was the first ray of hope, and the aching, anxious hearts snatched eagerly at it; and, as each hour it broadened and deepened. Sir Arthur grew more restless and uneasy, going again and again to listen at the door of the room he dared not enter. Youth and an iron constitution were fighting desperately with the King of Terrors, and by slow degrees achieving a victory. For three long days and nights Frank Dayrell hovered between life and death, conscious of nothing but his mother’s presence and his own sufferings ; and then the London surgeon told Sir Arthur that he considered the patient so far out of danger that there would be no further need of his services—care and the treatment he had ordered would do the rest. Sir Arthur Denver listened in silence, a momentary twitch of the mouth alone betraying his interest, and then sought his study, to leave it no more that day. Frank’s first question, when he had recovered his senses frilly and knew where he was and what had happened, was—- ‘ Where is Maud ? I want to see her.’

Mrs Dayrell sought the trembling, anxious girl she had already learnt to love, and asked her if she would come to her son.

‘He has asked for you,’ she said; ‘ and I think it is better to gratify his wish, if you will command yourself and not betray any excitement.

‘ Oh, 1 will be very quiet 1’ she promised, eagerly. * I will not speak if I may only see him once again.’

Thus it was that Mr Horace Denver, when he came that evening to inquire after the invalid, perceived, to his intense horror, through the open door, nis niece Maud, the heiress of Sir Henry’s money, the future wife of his son, as he still fondly hoped, sitting by the bedside of the wounded man, with his hand in her own. Utterly unable to cope with such a spirit of opposition, self-will, and unmaidenly forwardness, he hastened to report .o Lady Denver how matters were progressing at Paytons. That lady’s indignation and wrath knew no bounds.

‘ This is Sir Arthur’s doing I’ she exclaimed, angrily. And he shall answer to me far it. The young man will recover, and it will be spread abroad that my daughter —a Denver—-has been in his sick-room nursing him and waiting upon him ! She shall not stay there another hour. I will fetch her home myself, if I have to take her by force from his bedside; and she shall never see him again I Bitterly shall the obstinate girl rue the day she first dared to disobey me 1’ Full of indignation. Lady Denver hurried to Paytons, quite unconscious of Mr Horace Denver’s entreaties that she would not inculpate him. ‘ I'ell my daughter I want her directly,’ she said peremptorily to the footman who opened the door. He had been her servant when she had reigned at Paytons, and Lady Denver had not succeeded in winning the love of those beneath her.

‘ Miss Denver is in Mr Dayrell’s room,’ replied the man, * and I may not go to the door.’

t Lady Denver nearly dropped with rage. To be told by a servant that her daughter was in this man’s room and might not be fetched from it I

‘You refuse to take my message, man !’ she exclaimed. ‘ Then I will fetch her myself !’ And with a quick step she approached the stairs; but before she reached them Sir Arthur opened his study door. ‘ Come in here,’ he said, quietly. ‘ You must not go up-stairs.’ * But I will 1" returned the wrathful lady. ‘ Come in here,’ repeated Sir Arthur, in a tone that she did not dare to v, ithstand; and the door closed behind the two.

‘ What is the meaning of all this, may I ask ?’ she cried, facing him with glittering eyes. ‘ Do you know that my daughter is in that man’s room, sitting by his bed ? Do you know that he has dared to try to

win her love, and that she has refused to marry Arthur through this scamp’s artifices ? Am Ito allow this to go on any longer? I let her remain at your wislr when they told me he was dying, though I believe it was all a wicked trick to assist them in their folly; hut it shall not be. Maud shall never be his wife!’

‘Stop, Lady Denver/ said Sir Arthur, lifting his hand authoratively. ‘ You do not know what you are saying. Has it not been the wish of your heart for many years that Maud should marry my heir ?’ ‘Of course it has/ replied that lady ; and Sir Arthur continued —

‘ Then go home and let matters take their course. The young man she loves—whom you have said she shall not marry, and I say she shall, if they both wish it—is my only son, the future Sir Francis Denver of Paytons, and she whom they call Mrs Dayrell is my wife. Does that alter your determination to take Maud home with yon ?’ But Lady Denver did not hear his question.

‘Your son? Your wife?’ she gasped, gazing with wide-open eyes at him. “ Are you mad, Sir Arthur, or is this another way of tricking me ?’ ‘ I am not mad, LadyjDenver,’ he replied, coldly, ‘ nor am I tricking you. I did not know till the other day that— ’ he paused, and then added quickly— ‘ that Maud loved him. Nobody knows of this yet but yourself ; but, as soon as he is a little better, I shall announce it. May I ask you therefore to make no noise as you pass out P I believe Maud’s presence to be the best medicine he can have, and so I must beg you to leave her here for the present. His mother is with them, and, as they will probably be married as soon as he is well enough, you need not fear what the world will say. I presume you do not mean to oppose the marriage ?' ‘ Oh, no 1’ replied Lady Denver, promptly. ‘ But I am so utterly astounded. Why have we never known of this wifejand son ?’

* That is my affair/ answered Sir Arthur, coldly. ‘My wife and I parted for reasons best known to ourselves, and I intend to give no information on the subject. You will oblige me by never asking me any more questions upon the matter, and I shall tell them also to answer none. I do not care for my private affairs to be the gossip of the county.’ Lady Denver acquiesced, and was soon wending t her way across the park to her own house, in a very different frame of mind from that in which she had traversed the same path half an hour before. Halfway she encountered Mr Horace Denver, who had been anxiously awaiting her return.

‘Well/ he said/ has that disobedient girl refused to come ?’ ' I have not asked her/ replied Lady Denver, coldly. ‘I have withdrawn my refusal to let her marry this young man, and, if she wishes to stay and nurse him, she is welcome to do so / and, before her horrified companion could utter a word, she had swept on and left him standing alone. Sir Arthur sought the sick room on the following day, and entered it for the first time. Prank lay back on his pillows, his eyes closed and encircled by dark shadows, and his handsome features pale and drawn. By his side sat Maud on a low chair, her hands clasped by the thin white fingers, and her gaze resting sadly on the pale face of the sufferer. Mrs Dayrell was standing by her ; but she drew back as Sir Arthur entered, with a flush on her features that restored to them for a moment the rare beauty of her youth. Sir Arthur saw it, and a spasm of pain contracted his brow as the memory of how he had idolised this woman rushed upon him. ‘ Your mother was here yesterday evening, Maud/ he said in a low tone. ‘ She wanted to take you home with her; but I induced her to let you remain until this poor fellow is better.' «Thank you, dear uncle Arthur,’ returned Maud, earnestly; and Prank opened his eyes and smiled faintly. * You are very kind/ he said to Arthur. ' I think I should soon die if Maud left me; and I must try to live for my poor mother’s sake, even if I dare not hope for Maud.’ * But why should you not hope for Maud ?’ inquired the Baronet, kindly. ‘ I have great influence with her mother, as you can see ; and, if you think you would get well the sooner for the promise, I will tell you that I have every hope of inducing her to consent to your marriage.’ Mrs Dayrell clasped her hands together, and an expression of intense pain crossed her features; but Prank, in his joy, did not see it. ‘Heaven bless you for that! he exclaimed, .extending his hand to Sir Arthur. ‘ 111 get well in a week it the old lady will give me Maud.’ Sir Arthur’s shook as he felt the wasted hand in his, the hand of his long-lost son, but his iron self-control did not desert him. * Then make haste about it,’ ho said, quietly. * I shall come and see you every day now, and, if I don’t see a change for the better each time, I shall take Maud away from you. Don’t let him talk, Maud. He must lie still and think for the present. Happiness is a good medicine.’ He pressed Prank’s hand and left the room, never once glancing towards his wife, who stood near the window, great tears of silent agony coursing down her cheeks. Por separation from her son and banishment from her husband loomed plainly before her in the near future.

‘ And I deserve it all 1’ she murmured, as she leant out of the window to hide her fast-falling tears.

Chapter VII., and Last.

Sir Arthur proved a true prophet. With hope and happiness Frank made rapid progress towards recovery. The Baronet came daily to see him, and so winning were the kind voice and rare smile of the stern, grave man that his son learned to look with pleasure for his visit. Maud looked on with astonishment. That her moody, silent uncle should take an interest in anybody was strange enough; but his tone and manner to this young officer evinced more affection than he had even shown for herself. His whole nature seemed changed; the settled melancholy and sternness had given way to a restless, uneasy mood that made him utterly unlike himself. To Mrs Bayrell he never vouchsafed a single word that actual civility did not require; but Frank saw him more than once hx his dark eyes on her with a look that made him remark one day to Maud, half jokingly—‘l say, Maud, I have a sort of notion that your uncle is smitten by my mother. I don’t wonder at it, for she’s prettier and more charming now at forty-five than most girls of half her age.’ ‘Nonsense,’ returned Maud, smiling. ‘ Sweet and charming as your mother is, uncle Arthur is not very likely to fall in love now, after having held out for so many years; and I am quite sure she would not return his love if he did. She quite shrinks from him. Frank, how sad she always looks 1 And she sighs so heavily. Was she so devoted to your father ?’ {To he continued).