Complete Story. A Dual Obligation.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XXIV, 16 June 1900, Page 1109

Complete Story. A Dual Obligation.

BY

E. FORD BECK.

Hack among the Downs, just far enough, when the air is still and incoming vessels salute, to faintly reecho the booming from its white cot-tage-walls, stands the village of Twycross. The traveller upon the drab ribbon of coach road which the villagers say—though they have never been there —serpentines upward to London, and downward over turfy undulations of chalk land to Portsmouth, seldom devotes more than a passing glance to Twycross, nestling in coppices of hazel and beech; it is rural and pretty, that is all. If he be a box passenger, and not asleep, his attention is directed by the driver to a large sombre mansion whose grey front can l»e seen frowning through the trees. The driver calls it “The House,” as does every soul gifted with the faculty of speech for ten miles round. It is very damp and huge and draughty, and so old as to have become an institution whose distinction is gained from the mists of time—and lost among them too, in a sense, for of the thousand legends clustering round its weather-stained walls there are but few without a tragic or disreputable significance. The memory of man —at any rate the traditions of Twycross manliood—fails to recall an era when the House was not in the Ankerdine family, or when a devil-daunting Squire Ankerdine had not drunk and diced and maintained the finest company there, or led in the break-neek chase over the wide acres that owned his sway. But all things are finite, ven the luck of persons popularly accredited with diabolical protection: the broad lands had dwindled, year in. year otu. beneath the grip of profligacy and ex-

travagance like limbs gnawed of a wasting fever, till little but the ancestral hall remained to point a moral and adorn country side tap-room tales. Arnold Ankerdine, an admitted hard liver even in an age when pre-eminence of this description was jealously contested, had paid the tardy debt of nature: his last and youngest brother, Paul, the poverty-stricken inheritor of an old and bold name, and owning many of the worst traits of his progenitors without their compensating virtues. had installed himself in “The House,” a narrow and pragmatic old man whose one pursuit was the harrying of a sadly shrunken staff of domestics, and whose one apology in the eyes of the neighbours for ever having existed at all, was the daughter who accompanied him. The first severe frost of the season. One by one, lights in cottage windows vanished, and cotters, shaking weather-wise heads with dismal import betook themselves to couches, which, if they might be as hard were certainly warmer than the frost. There was no moon, but a brilliant spread of stars winked vigorously at the cracking- earth beneath until a thousand gems glinted on the garden paths. Paul Ankerdine did not indulge the bucolic propensity to early hours; his dinner was still in course of preparation. and his cook had flung open the pantry door, sending a shaft of cheerfulness into the gloom. A moment after and the apartment was left empty, with the open door exuding a heavy odour of savoury comfort from a dozen caparisoned shelves. From the dark shade of the trees a figure stepped out, cautiously and noiselessly as a wind-driven leaf, cran-

ing a lean head and neck forward and and nearer into the tantalising breeze. It was a tall man of limber and graceful carriage; his thin hair was drawn back from a high, narrow forehead, and secured behind with a whisp of black ribbon; tarnished buckles upon his shoes, and frayed lace garnishing his torn coat, shone dimly in the light. He sniffed luxuriously, in a kind of rapture, till his haggard face was puckered into wrinkles wilh the torments of empty inhalation, and the bridge of his hooked nose was almost drawn parallel with his deeply scored eyebrows. He stood for many minutes thus, absolutely motionless; then took an irresolute, rapid movement forward; then baek again into the shadow. It was so dark that it would have been impossible to detect the sudden flush that suffused his sallow cheeks, his lips weie bitten on an instant so elose and angrily that the tree trunks could scarce have heard a muttered “Mon Dieu, e'est le dernier resort!” With the clang of massive hasps another door opened, this . me the main entranee to the house. Hidden, the watcher’s hand jeiked with an odd motion to his side—as if he had been accustomed to wear a sword there—and fell again. He eould see plainly into the great reception hall of the oi l building, where in a cavernous grate knotted logs crackled and occasionally fell with a crash upon the tiles lieneath; where thick rugs and deep armchairs of ancient pattern, remnants of past glories, were scattered around. Framed in the oaken porch a girl stood with a thick wrap across her shoulders, glancing to right and left with a slight shiver, and hesitating on the threshold. “You’re confoundly .anxious, madam.” snarled a voice behind her. “I opine an ardent lover’s journey will not be accelerated by your tramping about in the old.” “Perhaps not, sir,” answered Millie Ankerdine with spirit: “but neither

will it be delayed by my listening for a moment for his chariot wheels." “A wilful woman must have her way,” replied her father, “but when you consider .he hall suiticiently .ike an iee-house, I beg you will do me the favour of coming in.” Miss Ankerdine made no reply, but daintily collecting with one small hand a mass of skirt that would have puzzled a man to grasp in two large ones, threaded a way around flower beds and bushes to another part of the garden where the ground rose some what abruptly to a conical hill, on whose summit the caprice of a former owner had constructed a small and deep artificial pond, now skinned thinly over and refleeting the stars like a mirror. It was spanned by a rustic bridge, fragile and worm-bitten. From it on a fine day miles of open country could be scanned, across the fields and dingles to where the Solent smiled, a blue perpendicular shimmer against the duller background of the Wight. The girl could see none of this now; her eyes were directed toward a cluster of lights standing together as if for company in the blackness. It was Portsmouth, and the flickering glare a little to the right, checked at times by a smear that might be driving smoke, was the harbour, busy at this hour as in the height of noontide. She leaned forward upon the bridge-rail to draw the scene nearer in imagination : the rail creaked coinplainingly, and the man, crouching within a few paces, watched. The high road was just discernible in patches where no hedge trammelled its boundary, but only at rare intervals before it plunged into a dip and disappeared. She knew its southward course well. — better than ever tonight when her betrothed must travel its windings before he could reach The House. Two years away, and his ship paid off to-day ; it would not be many hours before his horses' hoofs pounded along its famous course. For famous it was. Trafalgar was yet to be fought, and few days closed

without a detachment of soldiers swinging past, coaches Hashing by, crowded in and out with men whose trade was war, returned mariners, with a cargo of prize-money and intoxicants, pursuing their jovial way, or a successful press-gang hurrying to the sea. But three days gone a detachment of French prisoners had been escorted inland by that route to an unknown fate—decapitation the villagers imagined and noped, for they lived in houily dread of the pressgang that the atrocious acts of these same prisoners’ compatriots rendered operative. The night was so still that twigs snapping beneath the cold sounded like tiny pistol shots —- the weather when any heavy sound comes to the senses in a sei i s of pulsations of the air long before the ear can be relied upon. Far off became apparent two tire-flies, and vanished again : carriage lamps. Followed a faint humming : the rumbling of carriage wheels. Millie Ankerdine's eyes danced as she leaned over the bridge in an eager aspect of listening ; there was a quick tearing, a. slight thud, an arrested cry, and broken fragments of ice and wood work floated upon the dariv water over her head. The loiterer, whose teeth were chattering like n pair of castanets, burst from his place of concealment, and flinging himself in without a moment’s hesitation, gripped her by the hair as she rose fighting to the surface a second time. There are times when the most punctilious of men mist waive ceremony. He swam ashore - but a few strokes—placed her quietly so that the weight rested on one of his arms only, and ran toward the house. Not a moment Had been lost up to now : he stared at the girl's face as they emerged into the light from the open door —the eyelids were flickering. and colour coming back to her cheek. Placing her upon the grass carefully and untying a silk kerchief from his neck, he bound its wet folds in such a manner as to shadow and disguise his eyes and brow, 'then he picked his burden up again and sped into the house. IT. " What the devil’s all this noise about muttered Mr Ankerdyne testily as an unaccustomed clamour penetrated to his study and attracted him forth to seek its import. He detested a noise—and fault-finding was the breath of his nostrils. Before the great hall fire, the once breezy drapery of a dinner dress oozing dark pools and steaming lazily, lay his daughter : a stranger, trickling rills of moisture from each fold of his clothing, was chafing her hands and vociferating for assistance ; he ceased suddenly as her father appeared with servants at his heels, and stood back beyond the play of the fire-light. Mr Ankerdine knelt down beside her. and the few immediate and deft touches of his hands showed that he had dealt with injury by water before. “Here, Martha." he said shortly to one of the women standing by. " take Miss .Millicent to her room and give her some hot brandy at once, do you understand ? Keep the fire going and get her into dry things, and 1 will come up and see her. —All l ight. Millie. I will attend to that." The girl had almost completely revived. and the old man’s remark was in answer to an almost imperceptible movement of her head toward where the stranger was still standing, shivering like an aspen in the breeze. The old man advanced with outstretched hand and more geniality than his face usually expressed. •• I have to thank you for rescuing my daughter. I suppose, sir." he said; " the best kind of gratitude is the practical. You must be made comfortable first, and I can din you with words after." The man bowed with a dignity strangely disaccordant with his bedraggled appearance. " You have visitors that come," he replied jerkily, biting his words through his chattering teeth. “ 1 should be de—in the way. that is to say.” Mr Ankerdine had no time to answer. A post chaise dashed up to the porch with a groaning of leather and jingling of harness, a broad-shoulder-ed young fellow completely enveloped in a huge wrap, precipitated himself, rather than got out of the vehicle, and gripped the old man with both hands, exclaiming. “ How’s the gout, sir ? And where is Millie- not here to welcome me

“ At the bottom of the jrond but for this gentleman.” said Mr Ankerdine. ” I must introduce you when I — Halloa !” he gasped in a species of stupefaction, for the gallant stranger had slipped out into the night, and Lieutenant Higden, his daughter’s prospective husband, had, with an articulate sound that might have denoted almost anything, but certainly not apology, started in pursuit. The first man, stimulated by the slow diffusion of warmth as his limbs coursed with blood again, held his own at first. Higden’s ulster impeded him, and he was cramped with travelling. He doggedly crashed on however, careless of obstructions, for perhaps half a mile, when the fugitive’s rapid steps slackened, and the distance between them lessened until his laboured breathing became quite perceptible and told its own tale. Higden threw down his coat and approached with every faculty alert for a tussle he knew might be severe. It was needless ; the man bowed with the same incongruous air of dignity as before and held out his hands with the emptypalms upward. He was too exhausted to speak, but he smiled faintly. " You must come back with me. Monsieur de Frontignac,” said the young sailor. "It is the fortune of “ Again the fortune of war,” replied the Frenchman. " A cold fortune at present, mon ami.” He fell into step beside his companion without resistance, and accepted with a short word of thanks the latter’s offer of the thick coat. Beside that no word was spoken until they reached the house, and were greeted in no verycomplaisant humour by the owner thereof. "Millie has asked for vou,”he observed drily. "She appeared surprised that you should prefer scouring the country at midnight to greeting her. However. each to his taste. The young generation’s code of manners I do not attempt to understand. She is in the drawing-room, and has also expressed a desire to see this gentleman if convenient to his evident desire for, privacy. She is quite able to converse. and I anticipate no unfavourable results from her immersion.”

The sailor deferred apologies until his own impatience had been satisfied* and led the way to the drawing-room at once, locking the door and placing the key in his pocket so soon as they were inside, a manoeuvre which did not escape the young lady’s notice, and added a spice of alarm to the shy affection with which she returned her lover’s caress. "Why did you do that, Edward?” she whispered anxiously in his ears "Is there danger outside, or is that a bad man? T fell into the pond, and he jumped in too on this freezingnight and saved my life, dear.” "Thank God it was saved, little girl." he replied, snatching a hearty; kiss with that genial air of unquestionable dominion which, together with a hearty contempt for the cut-and-dried conventionalities of love or warfare, has gone not a little to establish the sea service’s powers of conquest over soft hearts as well as, the tough ones of its country's enemies. "but that this gentleman should have been the agent rather complicates matters. We must at anyrate thank him, Millie, so first let me Introduce in form the Count de Frontignac, captain in the navy of republican France. Monsieur, I have the honour to present my fiancee.” The Frenchman, with a discretion that did credit even to his discreet na< tion. had been immersed in a book ever since his entrance. He now- advanced and bent over the slim finger:, extended, and even the stained and disordered clothes still wet upon hint did not destroy the grace with which the action was accompanied. “My good luck has not been entirely dead, then, that T could render even so small a service to so gracious n demoiselle.” he said. “Why. you are soaking, sir!” ext claimed the girl. “Edward, what have, you and papa been doing? How wicked you are. He will die.” She coloured with annoyance and made as if to summon a servant. “One moment. Millie.” exclaimed Higden, stopping her. “There an? more important questions than those of etiquette and raiment to be discussed. That this gentleman is brave von will know from what he has donu to-night more than brave, for he risked almost certain death by discovering himself to save you; but he will Ten also dangerous to succour. His frigate wits captured recently by a British

squadron, and he was to be sent along with the prisoners to London under escort. 1 assume he has escaped and is attempting to reach the coast. Millie, this man preserved to me all 1 hold dear, but—he is one of my country’s most active enemies.” "Perhaps you are mistaken,” said Millie, with a woman's readiness tiescape wide questions by a side issue. "Jtepoit may have magnified his fame, though it could never have exaggerated his qualities,” she added, shooting a little glance at the subject of then colloquy which sent a twitching to his mouth. It was a transient gieam of hope. “No mistake here,” said Higden with a short laugh. “I was one of his captors, and the last time we met was upon his quarter-deck, when he gave me this.” He drew down one corner of his cravat and showed a thin red seam running along the base of the neck. "It was a near thing, monsieur. Another inch would have done my business.” It was the misfortune for you that a marine should then intervene and receive the coup you prepare for me." replied the Frenchman, watching Millie, who had covered her eyes to shut out the sight and the man w ho had drawn it ; " he dropped in his tracks, that mar’ne—my countryman— dead. Your advantage, monsieur. then, and again now ; fate, perhaps. or God. Who knows ? It is unfortunately for me only." He shrugged his shoulders very slightly and looked towards Millie again. She drew her lover aside and placed her hands on his shoulders. The Frenchman was staring into the fire. " Edward, you must let him go. and help him too. Is this man’s honour or woman’s gratitude, to drag back to a dungeon one who has voluntarily thrown himself upon our mercy ? If so. noble deeds were better unacted,

and will be if they are to be repaid as we would repay this.” Listen, Millie,” said the young num in a very low voice : ” You know your father’s obstinacy.” “ Yes.” she replied in the same tone. “ You know the condition necessary to be fulfilled before our marriage ?” ” That you are to be a captain—- ” You know that I have not yet received my promotion ?” ” Ye—es,” very low. “ That th’s gentleman is an important capture to lose, and that by restoring him to the authorities. I am certain of recognition : which means a ship, and—a—wife ?” ” This is what 1 had begun to fear,” she sa’d breathlessly. ” You must not let it scale one feather weight in the balance. We owe him my life, and not the broad pennant of an Admiral would cover the blot on your honour if you give him up. Edward, can you ?” The sailor bit his I ps. but could not withdraw his gaze from the beseeching blue eyes that had not looked into his own for two years, lie hesitated onl\ for a minute ; then turned round and said curtly. “ Venus has triumphed, monsieur. Your country's history can show parallel examples which will enable you to appreciate my attitude. Mr Ankerdine must be avoided, and i suitable fiction prepi red by this lady and myself for his subsequent delectation. I will search you to see that no papers are concealed—pardon me. there shall be no indignity, and duty to my cloth, which has come out something hardly in this encounter, renders it necessaty —also some clothes are required and food. 1 will then do myself the pleasure of putting you upon the safest route.”