Serial Story. CAPTAIN ADAIR’S WIFE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue VI, 11 August 1900, Page 234

Serial Story. CAPTAIN ADAIR’S WIFE.

By

LIEUTENANT JOHN PAYNE.

CHAPTER XXl.—Continued. Soldiers, who lead isolated lives, and who know the pang of losing by violence comrades who have shared their loneliness, wear sensitive hearts to each other. The hardening which comes to men in commercial life when each is striving to get the better of the other, they never know. Their lives are fixed. “I hope your love for me will never be a reason for denying me a chance to distinguish myself in battle,*' Adair said with till the lightness he could muster. “Precious little chance of distinguishing yourself in an Indian tight, the colonel grumbled. “The Eastern philanthropist will censure you for killing off his pets. He wants something to exercise his sympathy and charity upon that will not ‘sass back.' Depend upon it, my boy. the only possible glory you can get in Indian warfare is in endowing a school to teach the devils how to fight your comrades with more science." “Even that does not discourage me.” Adair said, with his quiet smile. He was thinking that if death came to him in this war it would find him ready. It seemed the only possible solution for Nina. “Where is Hecker?" “1 do not know.” "I believe I'll go up ami ask Nina. Neal is officer of the day. but I gave him leave to go outside for an hour and see a sick horse in the corral." The colonel, his heavy figure buttoned tightly into his uniform, strode up Officers’ Row. Nina's door stood open. There was a sound of merry voices. Mary had reached home. said, “how do you do" to her father, and run in to see Nina. They had finished their talk, and Mary was starting out, lingering in the hall for one last word. "I'm sure he'll be over to-night.” she said as a “lastly.” “I shall not feel—well. I cannot say that 1 shall not feel happy, because I am just as happy as I can be, but my heart isn't going to stop beating in thumps until Kader has seen papa, Nina.” and she took her cousin about the waist and gave a little waltz step. "You don't know how lovely Kader is!” Nina looked over Mary’s shoulder and laughed; Colonel Marcy was coming up tTie steps. “You didn’t hear, papa dear, did you?" and she put her rosy hands over his ears as though her deafening him now would act upon what he had already heard. Hut the colonel had not heard one word; his thoughts were on other things. "Nina, where is Hecker?" "Harry? Why. be went down into Mexico, didn't he? about some horse thieves.” "We have nothing to do with horse thieves in Mexico." the colonel said impatiently. “I suppose I shall have to send out to Neal. You ought to keep run of your husband." he added, half quizzically. "He's away a great deal and 1 am sure he told me it was Mexican horse thieves.” "Stuff!” "Oh. by the way. Nina,” Mary ran back up the steps with a thick letter in her hand. The paper was the heaviest parchment with a crest, and a perfume as loud and generally florid as the crest. "Mrs Savage sent this to you. She was so ill I could see her this morning only for an instant, but she gave me this for you. You ought to feel very much complimented that she took all that trouble to write to you on a matter of business when she was feeling so badly after her accident yesterday.” Nina took the letter with some wonder. “I cannot imagine what Mrs Savage can have to say to me that is of any importance on earth." and she tore if open. Mrs Savage knew. She had gone into violent hysterics after her accident. and the realisation that Hecker. Hecker was actually laughing at her.

Hut she hail soon recovered her poise, and declining to speak to Hecker again had made Mr Neal bring her home. Hecker hail ridden back, and had started out the next morning to finish his journey begun the day before. Mrs Savage had thrown herself upon her Led. wild with rage and grief.

Hecker had committed that one sin that was to her unpardonable. He had laughed at her. She had taken off' her skirt, and with the ruthlessness of despair had disordered her dress as much as possible to resemble that instant when she came out of the water, and had stood up before her largest dressing mirror and looked at hetself, and then she had cried again, with rage and fury and self pity.

She looked fat! But it was not long until her anger burned away her tears. She sat down at her desk and taking out her best writing paper began her letter. By the time she had written two lines she was in her accustomed state of coolness, so far as the outward vision went, but inside there was a boiling volcano which only the dust of every day, the trifling little events which were to fill her coming years, sifting over, could smother. The letter that reached Nina, which Mrs Savage with the utter lack of delicacy which she possessed had sent by the hand of Mary, was as follows: — "My Dear .Mrs Hecker, — “I know you will pardon my seeming indelicacy in writing to you upon a matter of business which would seem more properly to belong to your husband; but it is very necessary to me that it should be promptly arranged. When your husband went East last year to his marriage, he borrowed one thousand dollars from me to defray his expenses. The money was loaned from my private allowance, without my husband’s knowledge. I very foolishly made bills expecting the money to be repaid, and now find myself in a very mortifying position. I know—as who does not?—that the finances of the family rest in your hands, and I throw myself upon your mercy.—Yours very truly, “ELAINE SAVAGE.” Nina read the cruel, insulting sheet to the end. with an expression of incredulity upon her face. Then she began at the beginning and read it over again. Once she started to hand it to Colonel Marcy, and then she drew back. She could not let her uncle share his humiliation. She folded the letter up carefully and replaced it in its envelope and went on with her conversation. but there was a grey hardness about her face. She had ceased to expect some refinements of thought from her husband but—this! She could not believe that Harry had borrowed a woman’s pin money without the knowledge of that woman's husband. She would ask him as soon as he returned. But no! she remembered the fact that she was the purse-bearer. There must be some reason for Mrs. Savage requesting this money. She would pay it, without asking her husband for an explanation; would trust him. As Colonel Marcy went out to send some one for information of Hecker Nina called to him. “I’ncle. may I have a man to ride over to Tombstone upon a very urgent errand?" The colonel hesitated. "How urgent?" "Very!” "What fooleries do you want?” "None. I simply want a very im portant letter carried at once.” "Oh. in that case there is a dentist who has been over here tinkering up the regimental teeth, who is going home this afternoon. He will earry a letter.” "I'll have it ready in one minute.” Nina ran to her writing desk in the pretty little parlour she had arranged so cozily. and. taking out her cheque book, made out a cheque payable to Elaine Savage for one thousand dol-

lars. enclosed it with her card, and addressed it to Mrs. Savage. This she took to her uncle.

She found him talking to a large bundle of queer black stuffs, looking like a particularly bulky feather bed with a string about the middle. “Madame Eekar,” she persisted in -asking for. The long upper lip and the heavy square black chin of Senora Lopez hail its most determined expression. "Here's a lady who seems to want you." Colonel Marcy said. “Do you speak Spanish?” "Why, yes. I can understand it.” Senora Lopez lifted her bulk up the verandah steps and through the hall. Nina was rather gflad than otherwise to see her just now. She imagined that it was some question ot charity, and the strain upon her mind by the incident just past, made her want something to make her forget. She could understand Spanish very well, and in her chance contact with the Mexicans since her marriage she had caught up their peculiar way of distorting the accents of Castile. Senora Lopez was calm, with the calmness of desperation, and before her story was over. Nina was livid with misery and disgust. There was no need to read the crumpled notes that were offered her — notes whose chirography Nina plainly recognised as that of her husband; notes soiled 1A Ijfing for days in the bosom of a Mexican girl, whence they had been abstracted by her mother. Senora Lopez calmnly sjiid that she had tried to have Hecker killed when she made the discovery, that she came to tell Nina, but he had so liberally paid all the Mexicans about the ranch that they preferred to let him live. This visit was a last resort. When she was gone at last. Nina threw herself face downward on the wide couch, whose down cushions she had flung about with such artistic abandon only that morning, and buried her face in her hands. "What have I done to deserve this?” XXII. Mellish had been ugly for days. He wenjt about h t is du,tjps withi a face that was a picture of sullenness. He had twice sent notes to his wife asking her. commanding her, to come to niwt him. and each time she had ignored him entirely. Mrs Bland had put away from her as much as possible the suspi<iS>n beA* husband bad given her. but there, still rankled in her mind that vague feeling that we have taken to calling “a bad taste in the mouth.” because there is nothing else that will give any idea of its disagreeable nature. The day after Nina returned from that ride’ with Adair, in which she had told him of her loss of memory, she was unpacking her trunks, taking out souvenirs of her girlhood, which she had failed to destroy, and which she hardly knew why she had brought with her, only clinging to them as every married woman does, with a sort of homesickness for that time when she was entirely herself, before another personality had come in to take half of herself in exchange for Nina wondered even then, before the evolutions which were to follow, if Hecker gave her any proportion of himself. Affectionate pride, attention, ah. yes! But— even now there was a vague feeling that the re-

serve (tower which Hecker seemed to keep in the background, was only au appearance. That in reality his depth was the depth of the mirror, and that she could never hope to go into the kingdom of his mind and heart, as a woman of her nature dreams of doing when she marries, because that realm was only a figment of a dream. All the more Nina clung to the things she cherished as a girl. Mrs. Bland sat by her, doing some delicate sewing. Although there was very little difference in their ages, Mrs. Bland seemed years older than Nina. Her hair was parted in the middle, and the white, even line, seemed but a continuation of the whiteness of her face. It was u face whose repressed lips and sad eyes told a tale which made a woman with a woman’s heart turn to comfort, and man turn to seek the cause. In diving into the trunk Nina brought out a short blue serge gown "Do you know.” she said, lifting it up. "I haven't the faintest idea why I keep this gown. It's old. and of no value to •anybody on earth, but when I start to give it away, there is some sort of a feeling restrains me. I eannot tell what." She put her hand to her forehead. “Edith. I am going to tell you something. I was terribly sensitive about it at first, but I am over all that now. only it is difficult to explain —now! When I had been out here for some time last year, I had an accident. It was something about Indians. I know that, and it frightened me so that I had brain fever. The very name of Indian makes me tremble, and I am almost afraid of what will happen when I see one! Harry says it is all nonsense, that I shall not eare at all. “When the fever left me, I was wretchedly weak for a time, and they took me to the hot springs in Mexico. It was some time before I fully realised it. but after a while I did, that I had lost several weeks from my memory. Mrs. Bland gave a little gasp, and let her sewing fall into her lap; then, quickly recovering herself, went on with her work, calmly, placidly. Nina had not noticed her; she was smoothing out the rough serge gown in which she had married Adair, and in which she had fallen back insensible as the Apache had eaught her—fallen into an unconsciousness, a forgetfulness of her marriage, and her former intimate acquaintance with the man whom nature had intended for her mate. I hey say.’ Nina went on dreamily, pressing her hand over the folds, “that there are people so sensitive that by holding a bit of texture to their forehead they can see as in a vision everything that the wearer has ever seen, every emotion that has ever possessed him. I should like to take this old gown to one of them, and let her (mt it to her forehead.” She lifted the hem and laid it against her temple. Mrs. Bland reached and took it out of her hand. “It would make a very pretty little jacket for me to wear about, the hills here. Suppose you give it to me.” ' "Why— yes—l suppose I am stupid about it. You may have it,” and she turned again to her unpacking. Airs. Bland sent a note to Mellish saying that she would see him that evening. It was dark under the live oak trees at the upper end of the parade grounds, which she had chosen. There were some old cannon, and a pile of balls there. Mellish lazily seated himself on these. "You must want something." he sneered. "You took you time about coming. What can I do for vou, madam?” “You can let me tell you that you have done the very vilest injustice to a good woman. That the attack which the Indians made on Mrs Hecker and Captain Adair, that night, deprived her of her memory; that she does not know she is married to Adair ”

“Did she tell you that she had forgotten she had ever married Adair? It sounds like her devilish audacity,’Mellish’s teeth gleamed in the darkness. “It makes me think something of the boy’s essay on Columbus. ’I suppose you are Columbus.’ said the niggers. -There is no help for us, we are discovered at last!’ If Mrs Hec.ker don't know she is married to Adair, how in the mischief does she know she don’t know it?” His wife turned away from him and went on in the careful, monotonous tone that one uses in explaining a thing to a child, and told him the whole story. ■She could not (see that his eyes were brightening, that she was giving him what he considered an extra weapon to pry money out of Adair’s pocket. “Well, I don't think half as much of her as I did before. I thought there was one woman in this day and generation with some nerve, and I thought Mrs Hecker, who had married two men in the same army post, and was carrying on the situation with a high hand, was the woman. But if she is only a poor weak thing who would be scared to death if she knew what she had done—like all the rest of you. T don’t care a hang what becomes of her. Does Hecker know this precious story?” “Of course she /told him of the loss of memory when she married him. Nothing else would have been justice. But Nina says that he did iiot care at all, himself, but asked her not to speak of it to other people.” Mellish laughed. “Well that’s slicker of him. than he knows. I can see the why of his reasoning. Adair was an old sweetheart of Mrs Hecker’s—he knows that. He knows he had no sort of a chance at all when Adair was round. Of course he was tickled to death to bring her back here his wife, and have her forget Adair.” Mellish threw back his head and gave a loud laugh, which made his wife’s slender black figure shrink. “It’s the best comedy all around I ever heard of. By George! But I’d like to know what would happen if the actors knew what they were about.” “You are surely not so lost to all sense of decency as to tell any one?” His wife put her hands, thin, nervous, strong hands on his shoulders and almost shook him. He took them otf. still laughing. ‘"I always did enjoy the climax to the play. Do you remember I never came in until the last act.” “You shall not!” “Let go!” he said roughly. “I’ll do as I please!” XXIII. There was a stir all about the post when Ronan rode in, feeling like a knight who had won his spurs and had come to claim his lady fair. In this sordid day, the pity is that the jingle should be that of dollars instead of rowels and chains. He did not go to Mary at first, but rode at once up to the commanding officer’s quarters. He hoped—there was no fear now—to find her father alone, tell his story, and then go to Mary. He knew the gallant colonel too well not to feel certain that he would never priggishly burrow into the follies of his youth. However great they may have been, they were elean follies, that had left no wrecks to mark their pathway. Ronan had flung his fortune far ami wide, but it had been done gayly. Truly, as Neal had said, his wild oats were of the seedless variety. As he came up to Colonel Marcy’s office door, he found that instead of being empty, it was full of anxious men. The Indians had within the past six or eight hours gone’into a ranch less than twenty miles away, had carried off the women, slaughtered the children, and left the owner, horribly mutilated, tied to a tree, to Tell his miserable story. A courier had ridden in to ask for troops. "There is a company of enlisted Indians on its way here now.” Colonel Marcy said, “but depleted as we are. I feel* that some one must follow this band of fiends at once.” “Precious little good the Indians will do.” one young fellow said under his breath. “They simply go along to aid their brothers. There’s no good Indian but a dead Indian.” “That’s an old piece of philosophy,” Captain Judd remarked, under his breath as well, “but it can't be improved on.”

“Where is Hecker?" Colonel Marcy asked impatiently. “He got leave to go down tuunnl Mexico to look at a horse,” Neal came forward to “He ought to Ikback by this time.” “Adair,” the Colonel went on rapidly, “you take Company K, out at at once, and follow this trail. Take this man here as a guide.” “I can’t go. sir. I’m going on to warn my brother.” “Let me go,” Honan said qttickly. The talk had told him the story, and he knew every foot of the way. He did not wait to tell his love; he asked for a fresh horse, and ten minutes later was trotting by Adair's side over the sun-baked mesa he had just left. He had scribbled a note on the back of a Tombstone shoe advertisement, and sent it over to Mary, but he had forgotten the story of his new fortune. Tn a reiteration of his love this fact was entirely lost sight of. It was a brave little band. All suntanned veterans, who followed Adair. Mrs Bland had been hastily called to the door an hour before, and oblivious to consequences. Mellish had followed her into the dining room. “That dentist who has Iteen over here, recognised me from the descriptions that were sent out two years ago,” he began without any preliminaries, “and has sent word to the bank officials, and I've got to get now’ How much money have you got now? “I?” Her face was ashy. "None!" “It’s got to be found! I'm not going to stay here like a rat in a trap. I can't go to Adair. for he is in with the colonel. They've got some Indian scare on hand. 1 would be pounced on at once. I belong in the troop that is preparing to go out. I’ll go with them, and with money in my pocket can desert and get over the Mexican border. You've got to get it” “I have no way.” “Then I’ll make a way. I’ll go to Mrs Hecker, and tell her that she isn't Hecker’s wife, and ask her what she’ll give me not to tell it.” ■ You shall not!” “I will.” There was the dare-devil gleam in Mellish's eyes. He enjoyed the excitement of being pursued, and the added joy of his interview with Mrs lieeker He had the curiosity of the aud'ence to see what would happen next. "Mrs Hecker is engaged this instant with a Spanish woman.” “Not old Lopez? Oh. Lord! This is rich! I knew she’d come some time.” He had a glimpse through the curtains of the bulky form of the Mexican woman. Mrs Bland shut the door. “Let me. go to her and ask her for money for you. “Well, go, and see you get it!” “She shall not hear that story,” Mrs Bland said. As she shut the dining-room door tightlv and stood for an instant in the hall, her face set itself. She went r.-.pidly to the kitchen and sent the orderly to bring Mrs Hecker's horse around to the front door. The dining-room was in the rear. 'I he orderly went. “What. are you saddling up that horse for?” one of the troopers, who was waiting for the sound of “boots and saddles.” called. “I guess some o' the ladies is going to ride a half mile or so with th officers.” the man answered as he bent his back to “cinch up.” He trotted the horse to the door. Mrs Bland went into the parlour to find Nina lying, a limp heap on the sofa. “Nina, dear.” she said softly, "will you rule up through the canyon, and take some tonic T promised to that poor lame boy on the Murchison ranch? 1 promised it to-day. I took the liberty of ordering your horse around feeling sure you would go. Here is your hat. anil whip. I suppose you don't care to change your gown to a habit for that little ride.” “If I can get her up there they will keep her until the troops have gone, and he has gone with them." the little woman was thinking, “and she will never know.”

Nina sprang up. There was noth ing. she often said, that took the “tired” out of her mind ami body like a horseback ride. Neither oi the two women had been told one word of the Indians being out. The possibility of their leaving the fort was beyond Colonel Marcy’s thought. In two minutes, Nina had pinned n broad hat on her head, and was in her saddle, cantering up through

“the park” toward Murchison’s ranch about four miles away. Mrs Bland went back into the din-ing-room after she had seen her disappear. “You may do your worst. I have no money for you. Mrs Hecker is entirely out of your reach. Tell your story to whom you like. Nobody wil* believe you.” Mellish turned with an oath, and struck her. She fell, but conscious and unhurt, and lifting herself, saw him leave her sight. Nina rode up the park. After passing through that part of the canyon, she emerged upon a wooded plateau. Then she drew up her horse and looked over toward Murchison's ranch. There seemed to be a great many people going in and out; she could see the house plainly at this distance, but the people and horses looked like ants. “It must be a company of cowboys who have stopped for water,” she thought, and turning her horse into the wooded road which led down to it, she let him walk along, giving the cowboys time to get away from the Murchisons'. They lived on a road, one of the least frequented. into Mexico. As Nina walked her horse under the scrubby mountain live oaks, and through the chaparral, there came before her mind visions of her schooldays. of the zest with which she had gone into society, of the men and women who had helped to pass the days, and looking at the failure of her married life, she passionately wondered how it could have happened. She seemed to herself to have been an automaton, moved by secret influence of which she herself was unconscious. Once, on the winding road, which adapted itself to the formation of the ground and the forest, she seemed to hear the sound of hoofs galloping. She stopped to listen. Her horse set its feet and pricked up its ears, and then broke from its walk into a trot, snorting with uplifted head. “Is a fly bothering you. old boy?” She leaned over and patted his neck. A horseman came tearing around the curve ahead of her. his horse's head down, running, riding for his life. Nina’s horse wheeled and struck right across the path of the coining animal. Perspiration pouring from his red face, his hat gone, dust almost obliterating his uniform, in that bewildered minute. Nina recognised Hecker. “Harry I” In the same instant the sound of pounding hoofs could be heard both before and behind them. They seemed to be in a ring of galloping horses. “My God! They have trapped us! Take this.” He thrust a revolver into her hand. “Shoot; kill the devils!” It was, the voice of desperation, the de-

termination to sell life as dearly as possible, and the sound of it was lost in the melee that precipitated itself alx>iit them. Around the curve, behind Hecker, low on their horses, their evil faces blurs of black in the red of their head bauds, came the Apaches. Over the road Nina had ridden gallo|M*d Company K. led by Adair. Nina seemed to hear one crash, to see Hashes of lightning lie fore her brwildered eyes, to hear the shouts of men and the guttural snarl of beasts. There was a report at her elbow, ami she saw Hecker fall from his saddle, his legs twisting limply from his heavy stirrups. She felt a hand on her bridle, and Adair's face was in hers. The soldiers had surrounded her. and were fighting the Indians like demons. Something gave way — she wakened from 1 he dream. “Robert, save me!** In her eyes, in that hell of fighting. Adair saw that his own kingdom had come back to him. After they had routed the Indians, scattering them one by one through the wood, like a dust column cut by a rifle shot, they gathered up the dead and wounded and carried them sorrowfully home. Hecker, Mellish ami two other privates only, could have the last honours of war. lamentations in the army papers, and a four line notice in the great busy dailies of the cities. Mellish was buried in the little camp graveyard, under his assumed name. His wife stood at the window, watching the funeral pass, her body shaken with sobs for the lover of her girlhood, who had been dead to her so long. Hecker’s body was taken home to his people in Ohio. His widow was too ill to accompany it. When Adair left the house the night after everything was over, the colonel wrung his hand, and held it close in his grasp. “I know it seems like a long time, but it must he a year. We must never tell the story to the world. It will be a year before the horror of what she considers her insanity will leave Nina her healthy, happy self again. You are both young. You can wait.” “Yes.” ’ And looking down the vista of the coming years. Adair saw peace and happiness. (rhe End.)