Complete Story. A Far-away Memory.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XX, 19 May 1900, Page 918

Complete Story. A Far-away Memory.

CLIVE R. FENN.

I. Win'll the London season Is at Its height the town usually wears a far more brilliant and animated appearance than at other periods of the year. There is that frisson of gaiety, of brilliancy. And this is natural enough for, apart from the ever recurrent features of the first few weeks of the English summer, the parks and gardens of the Metropolis in their summer dress, and the pleasant sunshine which idealises the prospect and transforms this work-a-day Capital into a veritable city of dreams, it is in May and .June that foreign royalties and wealthy scions of the Trans-At-lantic race visit London. It was a summer which was more than ordinarily important ; a great eelebra'ti'on was under weigh. A monarch whose reign had never been eclipsed for grandeur in the world was being feted by her people.. The streets were thronged : in the evenings all vehicular traffic had to be stopped in order that the public might walk about in peace and admire the decorations, the illuminated stars and devices in front of the building's ; royal carriages dashed by intheearlier part of the day bearing foreign royalties ami attaches, and Indian princes in white and gold head-gear. London seemed for once to have really risen to a sense of its own importance, its own magnificence. Even the poets who like to dream in the green solitude of Saint .James's Park, where the noise of the traffic comes subdued, and where the meditative cow stands looking thoughtfully out from the Spring Cardens entrance at thi' green expanse and at the passersby, even they were for the nonce forced to recognise that something unusual was astir.

In office, in the busy, tumultuous world of polities, there was but little time for dreams, and yet that afternoon in .June as Stuart Rockhampton walked out of the House of Commons and crossed Old Palace Yard, lighting a cigar, where policemen sainted him and where several civilians raised their hats, and as he proceeded to where his brougham was waiting, something compelled him to lookback into the summer of ten years ago.

What was it which dragged him out of that rather self-centred view of the world, which forced him to look for a moment away from that decade oi laborious days, of days in a library or in his place in Parliament or on an electioneering platform ? It was as though a voice ordered him to turn round figuratively and reexamine that past. “You must look back,” it said. “It is important that you should. It Is June again and the Academy is open and the opera is in full swing’, while lilac gardens are scented, and the world is passing happy just as it was when ten years ago you allowed yourself to dream."

And as he reached bis brougham he for the moment forgot his main points in the debate that night, and the thread of discourse he was to give on Richelieu as the tragedy writer ana litterateur; instead of the present, the figures, the landscapes, the hopes, the ideals of that other time w re thrust into his view.

Certainly it was not th - old musician who was playing' “When Other Lips”on a. dy spept ic Hute near a public house which had caused that harking back. It was not the scene of the stat m'S, the garden, the grey piles of Westminster, or the carriages passing in which sat pretty women which had opened the old doorway of which be had imagined the key was .osl. Then how was it ? He bad lighted his cigar and had made up his mind to walk instead of driving home where work awaited him. So he mer ly told the footman that he should not inquire the carriage. "At seven as usual.” he said. “Yes, sir,” said the servant.

Then lie strolled past the Beaconsfield statue towards Victoria street, reflecting that though be had got on. though lie had not opened his books in vain, yet maybe that was only because wealth had come, because unlike

others who hail striven, alas ! in vain, he had not been called away. There would have been that same life and bustle and turmoil, the crowd in shops, the shouting, the far away cries, whether he had lived or died. And in the midst of that souvenir there came back recollections of an old garden, of Paris, of early struggles, and of a young girl whose features he remembered as well as though he had studied her photograph every day since that time. “If Adrienne had only thought differently.” he said, and he said it with a sigh. 11. Involuntarily he found himself going back there into that old time, stealing odd moments for a fresh glimpse of those distant days since the passing of which he had seen so much, lived so much and so ardently, rushing forward to a great position, holding a high place in the national council chamber.

He had thought that it was all buried, that he would never dream again; yet it seemed as. though some softening sentiment, as fairy like as a mist from the sea, had come in to Change his resolution, to urge him to find something more in that bygone than a mere nucleus of regret, a. forcing'house of melancholy.

Every thing had been representetd there: he saw farmhouses, old country sides, country roads with primroses and bluebells bordering the land on either side, and old tunes came back, tunes which were out of the fashion now.

Or in his place in the house there came back s: me old chance triviality out of the old days, and he would make a pencil mark on his. papers in the interest and excitement of the moment. But it was a time surely to forget those things when the nation was en fete, when the cavalry was riding through the streets amid the blare of trumpets, when a great queen was being acclaimed.

If lie had sat down in the railway carriage of life face to face with a regret, if he had never married though he was forty, if he would never see youngsters of his own, yet the world nevertheless had been tolerably kind. It was in his old student days that he had first seen Adrienne, at a time when he was emerging from his chrysalis state, when the few friends whom he could boast predicted a great future. "But,” they said, “you must get known.”

A few articles in the press, an historical disquisition had brought him under the notice of a wealthy amateur, a writer on kindred subjects. Lord I’rymont had expressed a wish to meet him. “He is a thinker,” he had said. So it had happened that at a soiree of a learned society, a friend, Aynton, a (llasg'ow man, had come up to Stuart Rockhampton who in moments of disenchantment had imagined that he would never be able to make his name, that he would be smothered in the pressure, and said:

“Stuart, old fellow, 1 have something which may be useful to you, and which I am sure will be useful to the other man too.” "What is it?" he asked.

"Lord I’yrinont, you see the old man over the way with a blue ribbon round his neck -wishes to be introduced to you.” "Is that so?”

“Yes, my dear fellow, 1 mean it. He read your article and wants to have a talk.”

And Stuart allowed himself to be conducted towards the “old gentleman with the blue riband round his neck." en route his friend saying: "He will do much for you, my dear fellow, if you once get into the swing.” Lord Pyrmont proved to be a man of large ideas. He talked long with Stuart, and assured him politely that he (Pyrmont) was only a beginner in that branch of political knowledge which Stuart had dealt with so admirably.

“I wish, Mr. Rix-khampt: n.” he said at parting, "that we could finish our talk under less crowded conditions. Yon could assist me too with several points of something 1 am about just now. Have you any spare time? Could you come and see me?"

“1 should be pleased,” said Stuart, "but ”

“Ah, you will come! I’m sure that you will. Let's see, to-day is Tuesday. Come on Thursday, will you, and lunch with us at a quarter to one?” 111. In those dayss when he was still in the ante-room of fortune waiting for the door to be opened anil for his name to be called, he lived in a quarter of the town held in but low estimation by those who lead. It was south of the Thames in a dim region of docks, of lodging houses and quaint and narrow streets in which the railway company thought it had a right to lay lines, for goods trucks escaped out of neighbouring yards were to be met in the i borough fares parleying with milk carts, resembling in proportion elephants footing it among a drove of ass s He lived there because it was cheap and not too far away. He could see Vauxhall Bridge and a quaint panorama of old buildings and towers, and the since dismantled Convict Prison at Millbank and Doulton’s Pottery Works from the window of his sittingroom, a room littered with papers and books.

The cab which he took outside his chambers on the following Thursday took him into quite a different district. It did not seem to be the same capital. Lord Pyrmont lived in Park Lane ; his was a magnificent house, the windows of which overlooked the Park. It was about twenty minutes to one when he went up the steps and rang the bell.

In the old style drawing-room, white and gold with pastoral frescoes, into which he was shown, he was soon joined by his host who were a scarlet geranium in his grey frock coat. He came forward eagerly. “ I am very glad to see you,” he said cordially, “ very glad indeed.”

They had fallen into a conversation on general subjects, and the old nobleman pointed out one or two pictures of interest in the room. The sound of summer came through the window and a puff of hot air from a winter garden at the other end of the apartment brought with it the scent of many flowering plants. And the Baron began to speak of the old days, of what had been in that past into the mysteries of which they were both peering. The old arms on the walls, the pictures of Lancret and Watteau, with their azure and white effects out of Arcadia, the few ancient volumes which his host showed him after they had entered a side library, gave Rockhampton much to think about, much which would remain in the memory. They were living in a later age—an age however when thought was active, and all comprehending, and though he stood outside the charmed circle yet there was in that glimpse back, something so thrilling, there was something so important in looking at objects which had been owned by people who understood the world and life, who had glanced out of palace

windows and taken it all in, that he felt appeased. The Baron was turning over a volume three hundred years old in which the learned monk Alvarius haa recorded his impressions, when the door opened and a footman appeared. “ His Lordship is served,” he said. Lord Pyrmont took his guest’s arm and they walked through a suite of apartments to the dining-room which, was a magnificent chamber. There were two people in the room when they entered besides the footmen, and he heard as in a dream the Baron saying : “ You have not met my daughter. I will make the introduction. Adrienne, this is Mr Stuart Rockhampton, a student of history, and a great politician if 1 mistake not. Mr Rockhampton, my daughter, Miss Morningtower.”

There was also an old lady in black present, who was introduced, but he scarcely heard her name or her remark : “ You must have studied much.”

He had only eyes for the young girl who was tall and seemed to blend the extreme grace of a Frenchwoman with Saxon fairness and Danish blue eyes. It was rather a silent repast at first; then Adrienne let drop an observation about a horse, and said something about an invitation which she wished to accept. “ But you will be at Baden then with me,” said her father.

“ Oh, of course, I forgot,” she replied. IV. Looking back at that time. Stuart found excuses for his aspirations. Adrienne had seemed to him to represent all that was most beautiful in the world. To look back was as sad as re-examining a mind’s eye picture of a country road, of a park in summer, of a quaint old countryside. It was a thought which came back at all times on odd Saturday afternoons, and it always brought with it the semimocking reminder that though he had found success he had not found happiness. After lunch, and after a chat with her father about the book on which he was engaged, he had left, though not before seeing her again when he was leaving ; she was crossing the hall dressed for a drive. She came up and said : “ Are you going so soon ?” “ Yes, I think your father has told :ne all that he wished.” “Oh ! But you are surely coming again ?” “ I hope so.” “ But don’t only hope. Come.” “ Thank you so much,” he said. That was the banal all, and it was not much. But the footman was holding the door open, and Madame Ernestine was waiting to accompany her charge on that drive.

“Well, good-bye again.” she sad pleasantly, holding out her gloved hand. “ Don’t let father lament too much over Queen Marie Antoinette in his work.”

Then she was gone, and as he went down the steps of the mansion he saw the carriage rolling away towards Piccadilly. As he walked back home a new comprehension of life came. For the first time in his life he was disposed to envy the loungers in Bond Street, and all that throng of welldressed flaneurs in Pieeadilly and the Park. What did she think of it all, of all the pageantry of that wot Id which looked so charming, so glowing that summer —that world in the town with its early mornings of brilliancy, its opening hotels and re-awakening to life, its thought ? And yet there was trouble there as well—there was fighting beyond seas ; there were sad scenes on the great routes. He walked home and dreamt of that experience, thinking it all out again, and the references he had to jot down for Lord Pyrmont’s magnum opus weii- forgotten. He was passing it all in review that evening till so late that his old landlady brought up his dinner with the observation :

“As you did not ring, sir, 1 thought you must have forgotten it.” So he had forgotten it—completely.

When should he see her again ? On the following day the inclination for work had partly returned but it went again as quickly as it came. Everything that spoke of her was interesting to him ; the streets where she had driven seemed to excite an additional curiosity, and Baden, where she was going, was a place which now stood out clearly in his imagination apart from all other Continental resorts. For two days he reflected and did nothing ; ambition might have been lead. She had spoken of a horse ; then evidently she rode, and on the third day he left his chambers and walked into the West End. It was too early in the day, being July, eleven in the morning, for the crowd of vehicles to be very great at Hyde Park Corner ; he passed through into the Park, stopping a. moment just inside where there were phalanxes of empty green chairs. In the Row’ there were a few riders cantering along under the trees.

And as fate w’lled it he saw her that morning, mounted on a tine horse and riding in his direction. As he saw her the thought of his possible advance, the memory of February days in town, of little culs-de-sae of regret at seaside places and elsewhere all vanished.

He only saw her sitting her horse so well, and riding superbly ; the groom was far behind. That meeting was for long a point of departure with him. He lifted h‘s hat and she brought her horse to a stop, reaching out her hand. “ You, Mr Rockhampton, of all people in the world ! I didn’t know that you were frivolous enough to spend your mornings in the Park.” “ Oh, sometimes I come.” “You do well,” she answered. “Have you been getting on ’?" “ No, I fear not.” “ How is that ?” “ Because,” he began, and then lie stopped. “ You have been ill ; you work too hard.” She spoke with precipitation. “ No,” he replied. “ I have not been ill. It is only because I have thought of you.” “ Of me ?” He nodded. “ That was kind. Do you know that I also have thought of you.” He looked up at her eagerly as she sal there smiling down at. him. “J thought you would be coming again.” “ Your father did not write.”

“ Oh, my father gets so immersed in his work that he forgets all about what he should do. But come and see us again. Will you ?” “Yes,” he replied. “When can you come ?”

“I am free, he said. “Well, come this afternoon if you will, at about half past three. Will that suit you ?” “I shall be delighted.” “Then that is arranged. Good-bye—-till this afternoon.” She waved her hand and trotted off and left him standing there looking

at rhododendrons and at the file of carriages entering the Park. And for a while he forgot where he was, what he was doing, why he was doing it, and the matter of the Richelieu fol*os faded entirely from his mind. Why had he not a fortune ? Why was he only an heir of prospects which were poor things at best? The world was rushing on and he might be swept away out of the main stream into some eddy of oblivion if he did not take care. Yet in place of going bark to the lists to continue the struggle, he only had one real wish—and that was to see her. and to listen to her, to ask her what she thought of things, of the river in summer time, of the theatres, of the war. V. At half-past three that afternoon hr was shown into a room which hr had not seen before, a room in white and blue —a place heavy with the scent of flowers. lie had been there less than a minute when the door opened and Adrienne appeared, followed by the old ladv in black who knitted as she wail ed. “I am glad you kept your promise,” she said, and then her companion shook hands with him gravely and settled down in a roomy arm-chair. The girl began to talk eagerly. She said : “I think your life must be so deeply interesting.” “Do you think that ?” he said wonder ingly. “Well*, is it not ?” “Ah, perhaps sometimes. I can’t say. but just now it seems poor and foolish and ridiculously empty.” “How strangely you talk !” she said. “How absurd to think such a

thing.” And then he had gone on to talk naively, enthusiastically as though they were alone in the world, ami in a tit of expansion such as entails an aftermath of regret.

Madame Ernestine had simmered into a nap, and until tea was brought

in there was no interruption. He could still hear her saying “It must be so nice to have an ambition, to be looking forward to being in Parliament ami to making a great name.” But was it so nice? He was not quite sure. There were attendant disadvantages there. Suddenly she jumped up from her chair and said: “Perhaps you would like some music.” “Very much.” She went over to the piano and played some old German airs airs which suggested sleepy old German cities, and burgomasters, and musicians dreaming of great conceptions as they sat and played. When tea was brought she did not awaken the old lady who slumbered on. He saw her again a few mornings after in the Park, and then it became almost an accepted thing to see her. One day she said pointedly: “I shall be at the Flower Show tomorrow.” Of course he went there too. and they walked through the tents together with the old governante lingering behind, looking at dinner centres.

At one moment everything seemed to be going well: at the next he was at the brink of despair. One morning in the Park she dismounted and gave the horse to the groom and they walked along by the grotto over the grass, stopping to look at the peacocks.

“Yon are going away,” he said. “The thought makes me feel mad.” “How extravagant you are!” “But you are going.” • “Y’es, I am going.' Father wishes me to go to Baden.”

“I shall count the days until you return.”

“It will not be for long.” “If it were only into the country that you were going!” “Oil. Haden will be more amusing.” He glanced at her figure in its triiff habit, at her black hat. How exquisite she looked walking there in the

grass, brushing the flowers with her whip. After her return from Baden, one day in early September he reeeived a note from her —a perfumed note which he had always guarded. Why? Seeing that he had eeased to attach any importance there, why should he have kept it? But it was there. He often looked at it and recalled that time. She had written : “Dear Stuart. Please meet me at the National Gallery to-morrow at eleven. I have something to fell you. I will be in the second room.” He went to the National Gallery long liefore the time fixed. He walked up and down in front of the building, glanced at the children playing near the fountain and then stopped a moment at the entrance to St. Martin's Lane where there were theatrical notices, for the autumn season had commenced ; people were returning from foreign baths to London and they required to be amused. It had certainly been a wonderful summer ; he had seen her at the Opera and afterwards at Henley where there were violins over the water. He had met her at a great summer race meeting the rendezvous of fashionable life : the band had played on a trim lawn in front of the Grand Stand. It had been a time of dreams. Somehow there was something in that September day which was saddening ; the details of the scene, the piano organ, the dancing children, the sandwich advertisement carriers, seemed instinct with that something which denoted the end of a hope. He entered the Gallery and waited. The pictures did not interest him for he could only recall her words—words which somehow just then seemed far away like something which lay beyond the sea, beyond battlefields, on the other side of mountains—words which had thrilled him. She had said,“Yes, in the autumn we will be engaged.” And the autumn had come ! He eagerly watched the door by which she would enter. Two ladies in black passed through : then a uniformed caretaker. If she did not come ! If she had forgotten I But no - she would be certain not to forget. A martial picture near the door attracted his attention ; a prince was riding at the head of his regiment of cavalry. The face seemed to look at him meaningly as if to mock him. How little it all depended on ! Perhaps now he was farther away than ever, for during' those two or three months he had scarcely done any serious work. He had only thought of her. Yet there bad been great movement in the world : there had been a revolution in one land and the breaking up of laws ; the papers too had recounted a war. At length he saw her. She walked rapidly into the room and glanced round ; she was in a deep fawn tailormade suit and a black hat trimmed with blue ribbon and white lace. He went eagerly to meet her. exclaiming : “ At last.” “ Yes.” she said airily. “ I have come. Good morning. So you reeeived mv note ?” “ Yes.” “ How pale you are I Is anything “ No. no ; I only feared that you might not come, that yon might have forgot ten.” “Oh, I should not have forgotten.” She walked through the room into the adjoining one, and be kept by her side. “ Shall we sit down here ?" she said. “1 have something which I wish to tell you.” When they were seated she looked for a second intently at the iron grating in the floor through which the gallery was warmed, and then gazing sit him full in the face she said : — “Stuart. I am going to be married.” He started back and then stared at It er. “Then Lord Pyrinont consents.” “ You do not understand me. I am going to be married to the Prince of Breuhl.” “To the Prince of Breuhl !" “ ’l es ; and you ought to know first ns we are such old friends.” She rose and stood in front of him. “ But but ," he began and then he was silent. “ You might. I think, congratulate me." she said. “ But why do you look at me like that ?" He at last managed to speak. “ Adrienne, you are joking ; it is not true I"

“ It is true,” she said almost gravely. “ quite true I” “ But you promised me.” “ Foolish boy I” she exclaimed. “ That is all over. Come, don’t look like that. The official is staring at you, you look so ghastly. Say something' You will come and see us when I am a Princess. You must see that I eon Id not have married you. It would have been absurd. Yet we can be good friends.” He looked at her through a mist of something. “I suppose it was absurd, ’ he said faintly. “Good-bye.” She looked at him curiously for another second and then said “Goodbye.” Her hand touched his. He heard her steps along the polished floor and when he raised his head she was gone. Afterwards it was clearly an awakening from a dream —a mad dream. He had a little independence —enough to enable him to settle down to work again—work which although pot immediately resultant in material advantage, yet eventually brought him into a prominent place in the world. VI. A solitary life may yet be an excitable one, and Rockhampton’s life had been full of excitement, of engagement. of new sensations, of applause, 'l et he never forgot and never changed his idea. The dream of ten years ago was the same as if it had been the vision of yesterday. Why had she played with him only to cast him off. only to send him adrift into the desolate land of disillusionment and melancholy? Yet peace had come. He could go on alone now to the end. He had been to the furthest limit of despair and had come back strong to the fight, resolute, determined, prepared for all. It was onlv that during blazing days of that June the similarity of the two seasons, with the gulf of years tixed between, recalled that old time when the scene impressed so strangely, when there was a glamour over all. when the sound of life, of the coach horns, of military music had seemed significant of much. It was all in London. lie had scarcely left the city in reality, though in imagination he had gone far afield into quiet villages—the v llages of the homeland, where windmills turned slowly, where brooks murmured over stones, where children played in cottage gardens ablaze with hollyhocks, and also into the quiet countrysides of other countries —-places which had hardly changed with the centuries, though the years had wrought revolutions in the busy towns.

It was a fixed memory—that of the long past summer. After the bitterness had gone he hoped that she was happy—as he was. He walked into the National Gallery that day and saw the place where they had sat down. The picture of the prince was still there.

He had promised to go to a reception that night after his work at Westminster was done, and the Earl of G- had extracted a promise from him that he would join him at the end of the week in his yacht at Seaford. At the reception he saw among the later arrivals a woman whose face was familiar to him. She wore many diamonds and was surrounded on her entrance into the salon.

“You must be introduced, my dear Mr Rockhampton,” said his host.

"To whom?” "To the Princess de Breuhl— an Englishwoman despite her name. Iler husband died last year.”

Stuart started, and mechanically ho followed his conductor across the room and heard him say, as in a dream:

“May I introduce the Hon. Stuart Rockhampton, princess?” The princess looked at Stuart. "I know Mr Rockhampton. He is an old friend," said she, and her voice seemed softer than of old. And Stuart found it quite impossible to accept the yachting invitation after all.