THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 43, 22 October 1892, Page 1058

THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME.

BY CLYDE RAYMOND.

BOODCOTE is a grand old place—grand and beautiful in the red light of the setting sun ; and it is no wonder Natalie Peyton does not quite like to give it up. She is standing in the deep oriel window of the picture - gallery, looking almost beautiful in the soft light that sifts through the stained glass over her lithe, slight form and irregular-featured, dusky, insouciant face.

A half-shadow lies upon the low, girlish brow and the red unsmiling lips, as she looks lingeringly over the lawns and fountains, the stately avenues and emerald terraces which might all be hers so easily. * Why couldn't I have cared for him instead of Geoffrey ?’ she murmurs to herself, her voice sinking shyly at the utterance of the name which brings a blush to her cheek even here. * But, then, how could I ? He must be at least twenty years older than I. True, he is handsome, and — and I really believe he could have any other girl here for the asking. They all rave over him, particularly Doris Bradshaw, the prettiest one of all. I wonder how he could have passed by her dazzling blonde beauty to fall in love with me, while I ’

A low, (inn footstep near her makes her start and turn, with a guilty flush, for she knows instinctively who it is that has paused beside her. It is the master of Woodcote—Cliffe Strudwick—a man not far from forty, of a superb style of masculine beauty that usually won the hearts of women without an effort. And he stops before this slim, dark girl who is not beautiful with a look of anxious, passionate entreaty in his fine blue eyes.

* I thought I should find you here,’ he says, hesitatingly, with a slight smile curving his handsome, blonde moustached lips. ‘Have you thought it well over Miss Natalie? and can —can you give me any hope ?’ Natalie withdraws her eyes, with a little, shivering sigh, from the magnificent scene without, but they do not meet his glance; indeed, she is half frightened at the thought that this splendid man has absolutely offered himself and all his possessions for her acceptance, and that she is recklessly refusing it all. ‘ I am afraid not, Mr Strudwick,’ she says, tremulously ; ‘although I deeply realise the honour you have done me. It seems so strange,’ she goes on, with naive earnestness, ‘ that you should have chosen me I Why’—with a sweeping glance around the gallery lined with family portraits—- ‘ there is not a face among them all that is not fairer than mine—not one of the ladies of your name who does not far outshine me in loveliness.’

‘ And not one among them all was ever loved and honoured more truly than you will be, dear Natalie, if you will be mine,' he answers quickly, with a smile of such rare, sweet tenderness as no other, perhaps, has ever seen upon his handsome face. ‘lf that is all, little girl, do not ’ But Natalie lifts her band with a quick, impetuous gesture

‘ No, it is not, Mr Strudwick,’ she stammers, almost guiltily, for he is so gentle, so humble, that she can hardly bear to put the plain, hard truth into words. * But if I were to accept you it would be only for—your wealth, and ’

But he dropped the'hand he had taken and drew back a step, a look of pain that she never forgot in the depths of his beautiful bine eyes. ‘Then you care nothing for me at all?’ he slowly asks, his voice seeming to grow hard and strained and bitter all at once. ‘ You were slightly tempted, for the sake of possessing Woodcote, to listen favourably to my snit—but for no other reason in the world. Am I not right?’ Natalie nods her dusky head, feeling distressed and desperate, and not knowing how to gracefully redeem her blundering words, which she sees has only wounded and humilated him.

‘ Oh, I wish you hadn’t asked me,’ she exclaims, with regretful bitterness. ‘lam so sorry to disappoint you—sorry that yon thought of me at all. Now, if you had asked Doris ’

She stops, biting her lips with mortification. What a fool she is making of herself, she thinks.

Mr Strudwick looks straight into her Hushed, confused face with a faintly-snrcastic smile. ‘ Pardon me,’ he says, coldly, ‘ but if I had desired to ask another lady to be my wife, I should have spared you the painful task of rejecting me, even after having carefully weighed my golden advantages, and myself your pity.’ He turns, with no other sign of anger or regret, and moves away ; then pausing suddenly, he glances back and says, with calm politeness : • Do not let this little incident cause any change in your plans. Miss Peyton. You are my mother’s guest, you know, not mine, and I should be grieved were you to suffer the least embarrassment.'

She bows slightly and coldly in reply; for somehow the latent irony in his quiet voice has roused a certain fierce resentment in her heart which drives out all the first gentle pity. She is glad now that she iefused him as cavalierly as she did, and wishes that she had been even more cruel in her manner of doing it. She is glad she let him know that she thought only of his gold — this proud, self-sufficient, dangerously handsome master of Woodcote !

She inwardly resolves, however, to take her departure as soon as she can do so without exciting comment. Another glance from the window shows her a glimpse of a tall, elegant, youthful figure—younger but not handsomer than Chile Strudwick—strolling impatiently up and down one rrf the marble-walled terraces, ami a swift light of happiness Hashes into the large, dark eyes. ‘ Geoffrey !’ she murmurs, tenderly. ‘He is waiting there to see me. ’

And as the disappointed master of Woodcote disappears down the grand staircase leading from the picture-gallery, Natalie Hies down by an opposite way, and in two minutes she is joined by Geoffrey Levere, who has, indeed, been waiting for her.

Now that her mind is fully made up, she gives him a shy, pretty encouragement, hitherto almost denied ; and before the shadows of night infold the two forms, pacing arm-in-arm up and down the long velvet-green terrace, Natalie has listened to another love-story, and this time both her heart and her coral-red lips say ‘ yes.’ ‘ And you are quite certain, dearest, that Cliffe Strudholme can’t win you from me ?’ asks her lover, bending, with an anxious look, to catch the answer almost ere it passes her smiling lips ‘ Quite certain, Geoffrey,' she says decidedly. ‘Ah, I don't know about that, Natalie,’ he persists, with a tender jealousy which she thinks peifectly delicious. * He is rfeh—immensely rich, you see, which would be an awful temptation to most girls’—he does not see, in the darkness, the vivid blush which suddenly rushes to the girl’s very temples— ‘ and besides, the sly old dog is deucedly handsome, too; lots of the young fellows are mortally jealous of him. And it’s been plain enough for some time that he’s been a serious rival of mine. Now what can yon say to all that, my darling ?’ Natalie uttered a low, soft laugh. ‘Geoffrey, I will tell you a little secret,’she says, with sweet confidence in him she loves ; ‘ but no one else must learn of it.’ And, briefly as possible, she tells him of her rejection of Woodcote’s wealthy master. ‘ And it was all for my sake ?’ he asked, with a thrill of proud triumph in his tones. ‘ Yes, all for your sake,’she returns sincerely. ‘ And now, Geoflrey, don’t you think I ought to be quite certain of my heart ?’ But it is Geoffrey Levere’s great pride that he has ‘ cut out,’ as he expresses it, the wealthy owner of Woodcote, and he is very far from keeping it the close secret which Natalie has desired. It is his private boastand triumph for several weeks thereafter.

At the first moment when she can gracefully do so, Natalie departs from Woodcote, and she goes without one regret for the choice she has made.

She and Cliffe Strudwick have said good-bye courteously, before everybody—he, with a veiled irony beneath his polite words—she, with outward coolness, but a silent, stinging resentment in her heart, which showed itself only in the half contemptuous flash of her dusky eyes upon him. And Geoffrey Levere escorts her home in the role of her accepted lover. A tew weeks of blissful happiness, of perfect confidence, and then a change slowly dawns upon Natalie’s bright lovedream. Geoffrey, her once devoted fiance, has surely cooled in his ardent love. He has taken to flirting openly and desperately, first to Natalie’s incredulous surprise, then to her deep sorrow, and lastly to her intense disgust. He is a flirt by nature, and was actuated in his mad infatuation for herself by Cliffe Strudwick’s evident intention to win and wed her, and the proud triumph of being known as the successful lover against such a rival. That battle once fought and won, Geoffrey is quite willing to win fresh laurels on other fields, and at last Natalie opens her beautiful dark eyes to the whole humiliating, bitter truth, and sees him exactly as he is. There is no quarrel, no scene ; but a few quiet, contemptuous words from the girl’s sad, red lips, a glance from her dark eyes which makes the faithless lover shrink back abashed, and the matter is settled forever. Natalie has quietly, gladly severed the bonds which had so soon grown hateful. And for his sake she had refused Woodcote and Woodcote’s noble, handsome master I

The thought strikes her heart sharply, keenly; but she tells herself that she hates him, and would not have things different if she could. Then, somehow, the rumour drifts to her that he is about to wed Doris Bradshaw. So beautiful Doris, with her lilyfair face and her glittering yellow hair, will soon be the wife of the man whom she so desperately admired, and the mistress of charming Woodcote ? Well, the grand old place could have no more lovely bride to grace its halls. And Natalie sighs. Had not she heiself suggested it ? One dreary, autumn-like day she is walking down a lonely road, having left the streets of the town behind. She has a fit of the blues, she pretends, and is only trying to walk it off. But her dark eyes are full of tears, and the sadness in her pretty, brunt face is something deeper than a mere ‘ fit of the blues.’ On descending into a little hollow, where the road turns sharply, she is startled at seeing a man’s form coming towards her, only two or three feet away—startled yet more when he looks up and squarely meets her tell tale, tear-wet eyes. ‘Natalie !’ he cries, involuntarily, forgetting formality in the surprise of seeing her thus. ‘Mr Strudwick I’ she responds, faintly; but she lifts her dark head proudly the very next instant, and dashes away her tears. ‘You are honouring that fellow, Geoffrey Levere, too much,’ he exclaims, with kind intent, but most unfortunately. *He is not worthy of your tears.’ Instantly those dusky eyes are all ablaze with indignation.

•Geoffrey Levere I do you presume to think those tears were for him ?' she cries, disdainfully. ‘ I despise him, even as I do ’ ‘ Natalie !’ There is something in the tone which checks her, and draws her flashing eyes back to his. ‘ 1 did not expect to see you here,’ he goes on, his voic e low and husky ; ‘ but now that we have met, by fate, as i B seems—oh. Natalie I’—with sudden passion in every accent of his thrilling voice—‘ tell me, could we live those week B over again, would you live them dilterently ?’ He is holding out his arms, almost unconsciously, and, after one quick, searching glance into his handsome face, all glowing with the repressed tenderness and passion of many months, she lets them infold her unresistingly. ‘Oh, Cliffe, my king,’ she sobs, in tones so low he has to bend his stately head to hear them. And thus the whirligig of time brought her the happiness she tried to throw away.