THWARTED.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 39, 26 September 1891, Page 424

THWARTED.

BY

MARY KYLE DALLAS.

■ F r ORE going out for her morning ride, Jessie Lane always went to her father’s study to Sil bid him good-bye, and get her usual kiss. Sj Sb® was t ‘b e onl y c “ild at home. The =AI B sweet mother she bad loved so well had now been dead five years, and Jessie was the 1 idol of her father’s heart. As she opened the door of the study, he looked up and smiled and held out his hand. ‘ As pretty as a picture,’ he said, ‘ and I am not the only one who thinks so either.’ Jessie blushed, and perching on her father’s knee, took a big spice pink from her belt and pinned it into the lapel of his coat. * Had another offer for me, papa,’ she laughed. ‘ Well, tell the man just what I asked you to tell Mr Rodman—that I am too fond of my home and my father to marry any one just yet.’ • But if I should tell you I wished you to do so, Jessie ?’ said the father. As he spoke she noticed that his lips were white, his cheeks pallid, and that he seemed to have aged suddenly. He had not looked well for some days, and it occurred to her that he might fear some fatal illness and wish to see her married before he left this world. At this thought, her own face lost its bright rose tints, and tears filled her eyes. * Papa !’ was all she could say, as she hid her face on his shoulder. ‘ My dear, marriage is the usual fate of woman,’ said Mr Lane, with a tremor in his voice that Jessie had never heard before,’ and you must consider this offer for my sake. Casper Paul is madly in love with you ; he asked me to tell you so, and I ask you to accept him.’ ‘ Oh !’ said the girl, much relieved, * it is a joke. I never was so frightened in my life.’ • It is no joke, darling,’ said the father. ‘ I mean what I say.’ Jessie sprang from his knee and stared at him with wide open eyes. ‘ Casper Paul !’ said she. ‘ A clerk in your office ! One you do not even think well of at that ! A man with nothing to recommend him in manners or appearance ! Papa, you don’t mean it?’ ‘ I do,’ persisted Mr Lane. ‘ I was a poor clerk myself in the old days when your mother married me, and you have beauty enough for two. The young fellow’s passionate adoration has touched a romantic spot in my old heart. Can’t you overlook his deficiencies and give me a “ yes ” for him 1’ • I had much rather die !’ Jessie answered. ‘ I am trembling all over. I cannot bear it much longer. Don’t tease me any more.’ ‘ I won’t,’ said the old man. ‘ Of course, it is a senseless joke. Kiss me and go for your ride. There—there. How could you think me in earnest ?’ Jessie kissed her father, but her mind was not relieved. His manner was very strange, his face pallid, his voice full of misery, his laugh a mere mockery. An impression that her father’s mind was unstrung came upon her as she took her way downstairs, and she turned back, feeling that she could not leave him so, and ran to the study door, pulling it open suddenly. As she did so'she saw a sight that she never forgot in all her life. Her father stood in the middle of the room holding a revolver to his forehead. To spring toward him, to snatch the weapon from his hand, was the work of an instant. As she clutched it it went oft’. There was a crash—the bullet had passed through the window-pane—the great sheet of plate glass was shivered to atoms. The servants rushed in affrighted. * I’ve been handling a pistol against papa’s orders,’ Jessie said. ‘ No one hurt, but I’m too nervous to go out. Tell John to take the horses back to the stable.’ With the comments and exclamations to be expected, the servants retired. Father and daughter were alone. He sat in a great arm-chair, his eyes closed, his hands clasped together. She knelt down before him, her cheek upon his shoulder. ‘ Papa,’ she said, ‘ tell me the truth. What has happened 1 And what has Casper Paul to do with it ? Are you going to fail ? But, if so, how could my marrying Casper Paul help you ? He is only a poor young man, without power or influence.’ ‘ Little do you know his power, child,’ said the old merchant. ‘ There is no money in the question. I would beg in the streets rather than give you to Casper Paul. There, ask no more. The time will come when you will regret that you hindered a deed which, terrible as it seems, is better than what will come. Child, I cannot tell you.’ • You must, papa,’ she said. ‘ What is the use of love if it fails one at such a time ? Tell me what has happened or what you imagine. Perhaps it is some fancy that I can prove untrue.’ The idea that her father’s brain was touched had again seized her —he understood that as she spoke. ‘ I am not insane,’ he answered, * though I have enough upon my mind to make me so. Jessie, I am a criminal. My crime is known to Casper Paul. He has me in his power.' ‘ A criminal—you ?’ she gasped. ‘ What is your crime ?’ He answered one awful word : • Murder !’ And now Jessie thought that «he knew that he was mad. She flung her arms about him. * Dear papa,’ she said, * dismiss this idea. You kill any one? You’ve dreamed it—you fancy it. People often have delusions. This is one. Let me send for Dr. Balm ; it is a fever or something. You haven’t killed any one.’ * My dear child,’ the merchant answered, ‘ it is only too

hideously true. You know that I have a hasty temper, that I speak furiously at times ; and you know of niv miserable half-brother, the disgrace to our family, Dick Lane. Always bringing shame upon my mother in his boyhood, always coming to me for money, which he drank and gambled away as soon as he got it.’ * But you sent him away, you gave him enough to live on in Canada,’ the girl gasped. * You saw that he was settled there in comfort.’ ‘ Yes, I did all that man could do,’ said Mr Lane. * But a week ago he returned as poor as ever, worse than ever. He came to the office; I sent him away ; be returned. This time I drove him forth. ‘ “ Dare to come to meagain,” I said, “and I’ll kill you.” All my clerks hgard me, Casper Paul heard. ‘ “ I beg pardon, a threat like that might be used against you if anything should happen to that gentleman,” he said. * * ‘ The sooner that what you call ‘ something ’ happens to that fellow, the better for the world,” I said. ‘ A day or two after a holiday came —24th May—you remember. The clerks were off. It was quite inconvenient that they should be, and in the afternoon I went down to the office to do what I could myself. ‘ After I had been alone there for some time, Casper Paul entered. He said that he felt as though I needed him, and I did. ‘ I felt pleased that he had come. We worked away together until it was time to light the gas. Even the janitress and her family were away ; the place was deserted. ‘ Casper had gone to another room to get some matches, when I heard a shuffling step upon the floor, and turned and saw Dick, who had made his way up the stairs somehow. ‘ “ Out of this room 1” I cried. ‘ “ Just a minute, Brother Tom,” said he. ‘He nut his hand upon my arm. In my rage I struck him. He fell like a log. As he did so Casper ran into the room ; he stooped over him. * “ You’ve killed him, sir,” he said. * I was horror-stricken. I could not believe that I had committed murder. * “ Call a doctor,” I said. ‘ “ It’s no use, sir,” Casper said, “he is quite dead. Your having threatened him before the clerks would be against you. His neck is broken, it must have hit against the brass rail.” * He showed me his hand, red with blood ; there was blood upon the floor, also. ‘ Come,’ he said, ‘we don’t want any one to see this. I’ll drag him out into the alleyway. There’s no one in the janitress’ place, and the police will find him and think he is a tramp that has fallen down the stone steps there.” ‘ “ No, no,” said I. “ What I should do is to give myself up.” ‘ “ Having threatened to kill him, that might mean the gallows, sir,” he said. ‘ I knew he was right. I hid my face and let him do what he would. He dragged Dick’s body out somehow, and came back and washed up the floor, and then he made me go home, calling a cab for me. ‘“You see,” he said, “a valuable life like yours, sir, ought not to be imperilled for a beast of a creature like that. ” ‘ I thought him my friend at the time, but the very next day he began to show what he meant, and at last he told me plainly that for such a service he deserved a proportionate reward. I knew that I was in his hands, and I said : “ Name it.” ’ ‘ He asked for me?’ gasped Jessie. ‘Yes,’ replied her father. ‘ I admit that he told me that he loved you beyond all expression; but he added “And of course your son-in-law would become your partner. ” I begged him to take half my fortune instead. He answered that he could not live without you, and swore to tell the truth if you refused him, to testify against me so that I should have no possibility of escape. You see, my child, it would have been better had I killed myself.’ She threw her arms abous him. ‘ No, papa,’ she said. ‘ You have a great burden to bear. I will share it with you. I will marry Casper Paul, if it is the only way to save you.’ ‘ t Goa bless you, my angel,’ the father said. ‘ But after all, the young fellow is no monster, only an ordinary young business man.’ He breathed a great breath ; he had taken hold of life again. And life is so sweet, death so mysterious, he was almost happy once more. As for Jessie, she made no promise whatever. When Casper came she allowed him to say what he chose, and answered nothing. Then the wedding-day was set, the cards sent out, everything was settled. Miserably Jessie went about the preparations for the wretched wedding-day, wishing that she had never been. She had been one day to talk to a poor woman who embroidered beautifully and had pleaded for work, when a strange thing happened. As she stood near the poor woman’s window, she saw Casper Paul standing at the window of a rear house opposite. Drawing back her head she watched him. He was talking angrily to some one just out of sight; he doubled his fist ana shook it furiously. His voice crossed the space between the houses, but she could only hear an oath and an angry ‘if you dare. ’ Then there came the crash of a door, and he appeared at the entrance of the building and hurried through the alley. Ten minutes after this, while she was still wondering what it all meant, he reappeared, carrying two bottles which evidently contained liquor. She heard the door crash to again, a little more loud talking, then Casper came out of the house once more, with a key in his hand, and this time went entirely away. What did this mean? Jessie asked herself. Then a sudden hope leaped into her heart. It was that Casper might have a secret of his own, which, if she could learn, might give her power over him. Perhaps he kept a wretched wife in that miserable room. His whole manner, and the way he looked about him, seemed to prove that he was afraid of being seen at the door. She looked at her watch, it was just five o’clock of a Saturday afternoon. ‘ May 1 come on Monday at this time with more work ?’ she asked the embroiderer. * Indeed, I shall be glad of it,’ said the woman.

Jessie went her way—her cab waited at the corner. It was only a hired one, and could have told Casper nothing if he had seen it. On Monday she came again, and was rewarded by another glimpse of Casper with a basket in his hand. He enteied the hallway as before. Determined to learn the truth, if possible, she bade the poor seamstress a hasty good-bye and hastened to the entrance of the rear building. Having groped her way upstairs, she paused before a rickety door on the first landing and listened. Casper Paul was talking. ‘ What’s the matter ?’ he was saying. ‘ Haven’t you all you can drink ?’ A husky voice was heard to answer something. ‘ Not a bit like a prison,’ replied Casper. As he uttered these words Jessie opened the door and entered. What she expected to see she could not have said, but the sight that caught her eye was one that utterly amazed her. Sitting at a table on which food and drink were spread, was her father’s half-brother, Richard Lane, his bloated face as unprepossessing as ever, but evidently as well as usual. He staggered to his feet as he saw her. ‘My niesh,’ he cried. ‘Hullo, washermatter? Tom knocked me down ; but let bygones be bygones. Did he send any money ?’ ‘ Idiot !’ said Casper. ‘So !’ said Jessie, ‘ This is your miserable trick ? You have been playing on my father’s fears all this while ; eni'oying his misery, hoping to win me by such evil means, >ut Heaven has th wartea you. Were you in the trick also, L T ncle Richard ?’ ‘ Bit of fun,’ gabbled Richard. ‘ Wanted to scare Tom ; Casper said it would do him good.’ ‘ Casper !’ repeated Jessie with a touch of scorn. ‘ All is fair in love as in war,’ said the young man. ‘ I loved yon, Jessie, I loved you.’ She motioned him out of her way and passed him, leading her miserable uncle by the hand. For once in his life the poor creatnre was sure of a welcome from his brother. Casper remained where they left him. Late that night some neighbours found him lying on the floor a pistol in nis hand, quite dead.