Serial Story. LATIMER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVIII, Issue XXII, 31 May 1902, Page 1062

Serial Story. LATIMER.

CHAPTER I. “Have you realised,” said Lettice, "that 1 shall be eighteen next April, and mamma has taken no steps?” “Mamma never will take steps,” Kitty answered, going on composedly with her painting. Lett ice was lying back in a big armchair, with her feet in little patent leather shoes. They were both very pretty girls, dressed as modern girls usually do dress, in plain tweed skirts, and shirts with ties and pins. These shirts had almost cost their mother tears. But lattice and Kitty were inexorable. At any rate they would be smart and not aesthetic. It had been obvious from the beginning of her widowhood, nearly three years ago, that Eleanor Aylmer had no control. Years ago Lettice had been older than her mother, who, more or less, lived in the clouds with a few chosen companions, while Lettice was already a woman of the world. The daughters were not unkind, but they wished she had more worldly wisdom, and less preference for the unreal, as opposed to the real. They were more of the earth. earthy; she was not of heaven, heavenly, but strayed from a strange planet, and not quite a. home in this one. “It is very important, Kitty, to begin to think of a visiting list, and looking up acquaintances. Mamma has not a smart friend in the world.” Lettice and Kitty were not experienced enough to realise how very vulgar the word “smart” is. They were still in the stage of believing in it. “She says ‘smart' people bore her,” Lettice said. “It is lucky for us we have taken after the Aylmers.” “And yet there is something about mamma we have not got, something we shall never have," Kitty said a little doubtfully. "Well, let's be thankful for small mercies. As we have got to make our own way in the world its lucky we are Aylmers and not altogether like mamma.” “And yet,” Kitty said rather wistfully, “no one will ever love ns as they love her.” “Well, who wants extravagant devotions? They are very hampering. Mamma isn't a bit popular like Aunt M n.rgaret..” “And yet no one loves her as they love mamma.” “My dear. Aunt Margaret has twenty visitors for mamma's one. She is asked to all the best houses, and when Daisy and Ruth come out they will go everywhere.” Kitty sighed. “A few men, about five, who think her an angel, some women who don’t give parties, and queer literary and psychical people, these are her friends ami much good will iney do us." "And yet look how’ they love her,"' Kilty insisted. Kitty was the prettiest and the most indulged, but Lettice was the cleverest and sawthings more clearly. “Well, anyhow’, I shall go to mamma now and remind her that I am getting on for eighteen.” Lettice threw’ down her novel and! sauntered into the little room where Eleanor Alymer lived her own life.. CHAPTER If. She looked up smiling as Lettice came in. She had been a widow for nearly three years, and had left off wearing black which did not suit her. She was slight and

thin, and very graceful, with a delicate lovely face. She looked as young as Lettice, who was like her, on a larger scale. She was dressed in soft grey, with a good deal of lace and long ribbons. Her hair was reddish brown, with the effect of fairness, and she wore it curled round on the back of her head, while all over the crown, and on the forehead, it was curly and short like a boy’s. She had a curious contradiction about her, with a manner often unusually merry and bright. She had a very sad expression in her eyes. Therefore she possessed the niquancy A’hich such a contradiction gives the little touch of mystery. Such was Eleanor, tne mother o, Lettice and Kitty. But in spite of all the difference between mother and daughters, they loved her very fondly, and kindly made excuses for her, on the plea that she had been brought up in a very old-fashioned way in the country, and had not had their advantages. And she. in her turn, was proud of her daughters, and secretly admired their independence. even though she shuddered a little at it. “I see by your face, Lettice, that you have come to scold me about something.” “Well, mother dear, if you would only try and remember sometimes that I am nearly eighteen.” “So you are. tiresome child! How it bores me to have a grown-up

daughter. I wish you were a baby again.” “But as I can’t be, let us face the present difficulty. How am I to go out, if you know no one?” “I suppose I must leave cards.” “But, mother, it’s no use going about once a week dropping a card here and there in a desultory way on a few people who don’t give parties.” “How worldly wise you are,” Eleanor said laughing, as she tucked up her pretty feet on the sofa, under the coils of her teagown, and looked at her daughter with gentle mocking eyes. “Mother, we never left cards on the Stewards after not going to their party. You never answered Lady Sinclair's letter asking for us to sell at her bazaar. You never went to the Stanleys’ garden-party after telling her you would come on purpose to meet those ” “My darling, if you only knew how like you look to Aunt Margaret as you sit there upbraiding me, you never would again.” “Oh, mamma! you are incorrigible," Lettice said desperately. “Let us leave your coming out to Providence,” Mrs Aylmer said mischievously. “I married without ever having been to a single party in London, and so perhaps will you and. Kitty.” “Then mamma, I wanted to ask you something.” She blushed a little, and Eleanor thought a love confession might be coining and felt

sympathetic at once. Her quick mind recalled the name of a certain Philip Herbert who had talked a good deal to Lettice at her Aunt Margaret’s; a young man Eleanor believed her sister-in-law had destined for her eldest daughter Ruth. But surely Lettice, not eighteen, could not be thinking of a lover yet!” “You remember Mr Herbert?” “Of course I do.” “Kitty and I met him in the Park yesterday.” “I hope to Heaven you were with Miss Martin!” Eleanor asked anxiously. “Of course we were.” “But Miss Martin knows you must not talk to young men.” “Miss Martin could not help if it he came.” “Well,” Eleanor sighed. “And I asked him to eome to tea to-day. Was that right? He has fifteen thousand a year.” “O Lettice! Lettice, to think of your knowing or caring whether he has fifteen thousand, or fifteen hundred pounds a year! lam horrified —grieved.” “I thought,” Lettice said, taken rather aback, you would think how clever 1 have been.” “Did he ask to call?” “Well, not exactly; but he said. Has Mrs Aylmer got, a day at homer and I said, ‘She !s often in on Sunday afternoon, but I don’t think she ever means to have a day; it would bore her. We mean to have a day, though.’ Then he said, ‘Will you let me call on your day?’ And I said, ‘Come at five on Sunday.’” Eleanor was speechless. “I don’t know.” she said at last, “what your grandfather would have said or done if f had ever asked a man to tea without consulting him first; even now it is dreadful to think what it would have been!” “But things are different now, and everyone asks men to tea. It is the fashion.” “You are not even out,” Eleanor said, as if that might make a differ-

ence. “I should think Mr Herbert is laughiug at you all this time, and me, too.” She was excited, almost tearful. Lettice remained unmoved. "Perhaps he won’t come.” Lettice expressed no opinion. At this awkward moment Mr Latimer was announced. Eleanor’s face brightened like a girl’s. She immediately forgot her daughter as completely as if she had ceased to exist. Lettice, who looked on Mr Latimer as an old friend of “mother’s,” went away. It was about five o’clock. Mr Herbert would soon be here. Eleanor would certainly forget all about him too, and have tea in her sittingroom w'ith Mr Latimer. But with the unexpectedness of her character she had not forgotten about Mr Herbert. She rang the bell anu sent a message to Miss Martin to be so kind as to have her tea in the draw-ing-room as she was not coming immediately. Mr Latimer, meanwhile, sat down in one corner of the large sofa; he

was one of few privileged to sit there with silken cushions behind his head. Eleanor was indulgent to him. He had only come home a few weeks ago. She once had known him very well, but they had been' parted a long time, he only having just come back to England. But he had the ways of the old friend whom separation has not altered. •“I think yon look perplexed," he said.

She was slightly flushed, which gave her quite a girl’s complexion. She had always found Latimer a great consolation to her in her troubles, and she had at once resumed her habit of consulting, and choosing to find comfort in him. She never inquired into motives, had not begun to wonder yet, whether its interest in her was that of a friend or the lover. If she sometimes let herself think that his eyes had something more than mere kindliness, his voice a tone not quite only that of the friend, she had not, as yet, allowed herself to dwell on possibilities. For there was a depth of determination in this apparently yielding woman unsuspected by her friends, least suspected by Latimer. He understood her about as well as a man ever understands a woman, accusing her lof faults she is perhaps not guilty of, giving her virtues she does not really possess. CHAPTER ITT. “I think,” Latimer said, looking at her with his humorous eyes, “sJome-

thing has put you out a little, what is it, you had better tell me.” “It’s only about my children—iny daughters, I should say,” Eleanor answered. She was standing by the tall carved wooden chimney piece, leaning her head disconsolately against the shelf. He watched her quietly. He knew it was only a question of time. “Of course it was different in my day.” He smiled. "But then they say 1 am old-fashioned. But 1 never asked men to tea before 1 was married.” ‘ I daresay not, perhaps you made up for it afterwards.” Eleanor was too sad to be angry with him—besides she always forgave his impertinence. “Lettice has asked Mr Herbert to tea to-day!” “And who is Mr Herbert?” “A young man. We met him at Margaret’s house. I take Lettice to little dinners now she is seventeen, and I find she has been speaking to him in the Park —of course Miss Mar-

tin was with her, and she has asked him to call to-day.” “Well, is there much harm done?” "Oh 1 am so thankfid you don’t see it as I do; I am so unpractical, perhaps 1 was seeing it all wrong, if you don’t think any harm is done?” “I don’t indeed —and is that all?” She came to the sofa, and stood looking down at him with perplexed eyes. “Sit down,” he said, “and tell me all the trouble, as you used to, long ago.” She sighed, but she sat down among her cushions-—and looked —- Oh! so very like the Eleanor of years ago. “Perhaps it is my fault after all. You are sure to say it is my fault.” “Why?” “Because you were always so hard on me.” His hand moved as if to touch hers, but he restrained himself; she had always been blind and unjust. “But I don’t know how it is. They are so strong and independent, and go their own way. I did try—yes—whatever you may say.” “I did not say anything.” “I did try to win their love, and 1 did occupy myself with them, by fits and starts, but it was so difficult. and my head wiv. always mining on poetry, and clairvoyance, and low spirits.” “Yes, yes I understand,” Latimer said, and he did not smile this time. Her humility had always touched him more than he dared to confess. “But they do love you.”

“Not as I thought they were going to, once. Had you known Margaret —I always thought it was dull to in* like Margaret, so devoted to duty, and her children, and all that. And now I believe her da lighters love her more than mine do me.** Here she looked down a little. Latimer found the situation a trying one. Her absence of self-consciousness was his best help. “It’s everything —in everything I feel it, and oh it’s all my own fault. Their father always prophesied how it would be. It seems a sort of curse on me.” What Latimer might have said or done at that moment, no one cun ever tell, for the door opened, and the parlourmaid’s voice said. ‘‘Mr Herbert is in the drawing-room, madam.” Eleanor was recalled to her duty. “Very well. I will come.” She was so very anxious to do her duty when she saw it so plainly put before her, that she hurried to the door, carrying a sofa cushion or two

after her on the train of her gown, and dropping her pocket handkerchief and a bunch of violets. Latimer. used to her inconsequent ways, caught the cushions, picked up the handkerchief which he gave her, but he kept the bunch of violets. He would not for worlds have given her the satisfaction of knowing he had done this, and perhaps she remains in ignorance of it unto this day. Eleanor found her daughters and Mr Herbert talking in a very friendly manner. Miss Martin was within earshot. but with the “Lady's Pictorial.” her favourite Sunday reading, open before her. Lettice said. “O mother, we thought you would like your tea sent to you.” But Eleanor sat down for once with an air of great authority to preside over her own tea kettle. “I am so glad my daughters thought of telling you I am at home on Sunday afternoons.” she said, in so sweet a tone that Mr Herbert who had been quite at his ease before, became less at his ease at once.

He began to wonder if he ought to have come at all. Such was the effect of Mrs Aylmer's company manners. Latimer would have been amused, only he began in a very short time to think that Eleanor was too well amused by Herbert, and that he was lieing left out in the cold, a place where he never cured to linger. He began to think that growing-up daughters were certainly a hindrance, while the mother was little more than a grown-up daughter herself. Herbert was a tall, nicelooking young man of the ordinary nice-looking, well-dressed type. His hair was very short and his collar very high, and hr had really good manners, considering he was quite a young man. Eleanor found In* had a little deferential manner towards herself, by which a woman knows she is still a pretty woman, ami she had a sweet air of pretending she might be his mother.

which would, as a matter of fact, have been impossible. as Philip Herbert was older than he looked. Lettice found herself wondering why it was mamma looked so pretty this evening and said such amusing things in a way she began to be quite sure she and Kitty had not inherited. It was the first time Lettice had ever caught herself genuinely admiring her mother. “Mamma does palmistry very cleverly, Mr Herbert,” Kitty said, and Philip instantly begged to have his fortune told. In a few minutes she was in the mysteries of lines, and Philip was, like most men, believing everything she told him: though not exactly recalling at the moment all the hair-breadth escapes and dangerous illnesses and desperate love affairs she described in his past. Lettice. seeing her friend so well occupied ami her mother amused, turned to Latimer, who was sitting by. ostentatiously bored. And when she asked him whether she might try and read his destiny, he

said rather stiffly, that he never allowed his hand to be looked at. Lettiee afterwards said he was jealous. But girls are very merciless in I heir judgment. “Are you going away,” said Eleanor, turning away from Philip’s hand with unflattering indifference. She was so undignified as to get up from her ehair, and walk a step or two to Latimer, and look at him with pleading eyes, as if asking to be forgiven for her frivolity. But he put on that manner that hurt her most —the careless hearty manner—and said, "Well I must try and find you in some afternoon when there is no palmistry.” Lettiee observed with amusement, how mystified poor Herbert looked at Eleanor’s sudden cessation of interest in him. He had not learnt her ways yet. She went away soon after to her sitting-room, and wondered sadly to herself how she had vexed Latimer! CHAPTER IV. Lady Margaret Lacy was a great power in the family. Eleanor was

rather afraid of her husband’s sister. though not afraid of her broth-er-in-law, John Lacy, an easy going man, indulgent, who saw no harm in Eleanor. “But John, you must admit she is frivolous for her age.” “My dear, such pretty women have no age. I don't see that she is frivolous. She is very well read!” “ O. what a man’s expression—well read! ” She seldom looks at a paper, she scarcely knows anything about politics, she has no decided religious opinion. A great many theories she never acts up to.” “ Ah, well, but she has pretty manners, and to my mind, only one fault.” “You are lenient; and which do you consider to be her only fault?” “ Why, not having succeeded in making her daughters the least like her. Good girls, pretty, clever girls, but not at all like Eleanor.” “I think they are both like her in colouring and figure.” Perhaps, but not in good ways. And I tell you what it is, Margaret, they have a little tone of disrespect —perhaps that’s too strong a word—when they speak of her, which 1 don’t like in girls.” “ But girls are not blind,” Lady Margaret said, rather doubtfully, " certainly not nineteenth century girls!” “ Then they ought to be when a mother is in question, perfectly blind.” “ Very entete, as usual,” she thought, as she gathered up a handful of letters to be answered, and sailed out of the room. Certainly, Lady Margaret’s sittingroom expressed very clearly the difference between herself and her sis-ter-in-law. There were no poetry books, and no large soft sola with many silk cushions, where privileged heads might rest. No fault-find-ing, hard, but beloved Latimer, ever sat there at ease. There was an orthodox chimney-piece, and over it an orthodox looking-glass interframtd with invitation cards. No unanswered notes were scattered about in odd corners of the bureau. When a letter had to be answered, it did not cause a commotion throughout the household while it was being searched for, and seldom found till after many days. Everything was business-like, suitable, orderly. Eleanor’s little rooms were beautifully arranged, and were feminine, tender, and capricious to the last degree; but in Lady Margaret’s there was the triumphant evidence of a well-bal-anced, masterly spirit. All the same, John was fond of slipping off to Eleanor's house, and resting in, perhaps, the most unworldly atmosphere, in London. Lady Margaret sat at her bureau, pen in hand, when Lettice looked in at the door, to lay her complaints before her aunt and receive a dignified sympathy. “ Poor child, we must think what can be done. I have written out a

list for your mother, and it is possible she may be glad of my help. I must have a good talk with her about your coming out.” “ Mamma w’ill never summon up courage to go to the Drawing Room; the thought of it will make her ill, and 1 shall feel like a brute.” Lady Margaret, who also had very good manners, though uot like Eleanor's, winced slightly »t the word "brute.”

(To be continued.)