Copyright Story. A SILVER HEART.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue II, 9 January 1904, Page 9

Copyright Story. A SILVER HEART.

By

JOHN STRANGE WINTER.

Author of "Booties' Baby," Etc,

CHAPTER I. “Of course you said no?” said Mrs Desmond. Her voice rang across the glowing atmosphere of the firelit room like an cast wind cutting through 'the air. “I—l didn’t say no,” came the reply. The voice of the girl who answered was very soft and low; it was also firm and decided. “I said yes.” “You didn’t say yes?” shrieked the mother. “I did. I meant yes.” “And you mean to 'tell me that Ralph Byrne had the impertinence, the audacity, the unparalleled impudence to offer you—what ?” “He offered me Ralph Byrne.” “Why, the man hasn’t got a penny!” “He will have.” “Will have! Will have! We shall all be in our quiet graves a little later on, and then things will be equal, whether we. have fared luxuriously, or starved, in what these modern fanatics call our ‘earth life.’ I have finished with you, Madeline, finished with you!” “I can’t help it, mother,” she said. There was a gleam of tears in the great violet eyes upturned from the low seat which surrounded the fire. “You can’t help it! This is the reward of all I have done for you children; this is all the return that you make to me for my sacrifice years and years and years together. If I hadn’t so considered you children’s future, if I hadn’t denied myself and pinched myself, and striven to keep up as good a position as we had when your father was alive, you would have been propef helpmeets for men like Ralph Byrne” “I can’t help it, mother.” The voice was wavering a little, there was the sound of tears in the soft and yet decided tones; indeed, the girl was very near to breaking down altogether. “Ralph Byrne!” Mrs Desmond went on, “Ralph Byrne! What is he going to keep you on?” “He is going to make money.” “Oh, is he! That kind of man is always going to make money; he never gets there; he never makes it. You are nineteen; you are the eldest but one of my five daughters, and to you and Georgia I naturally look for a suitable example to set before the others. And all you do for me is to engage yourself to Ralph Byrne. I’m ashamed of you, Madeline.” “I can’t help it, mother. I—l—got fond of him. I don’t think there’s anybody in the world like him. I—l’d rather—yes, I would honestly, mother—■ live on twopence a day with Ralph than I’d marry a millionaire who was somebody else.” “And you might have married Sir George Stanton,” said Mrs Desmond, bitterly. “Oh, mother, how could I marry Sir George? He’s so fat.” “Fat!” echoed her mother. “Yes, mother, so fat. And he is so podgy, and so prosy. There wouldn't be a bit of romance or anything else.” “Romance,” repeated Mrs Desmond, "romance! My dear child, answer me this: Will romance buy you such a gown as you have on at this moment? Will romance give you such a luncheon as you ate to-day? Will romance provide you with a maid? Will romance take you to Paris, take you to London, give you the thousand and one things that you are accustomed to? No, no, no! Think what you will be like when he is working to make money; living in a grubby little house on the Tolbridge Road, with one grubby little servant and half a dozen children; doing your omi cooking, doing half your own washing, tramping up and down your bedroom at night with a baby, and such a very email bedroom that it will have very little tramping room. Oh, I haven’t patience with yout* “But, mother ”

"Well.” “We shouldn’t be married until he is in a position.” "A position! I should think his ideas of a position are very different to yours or mine. I don’t believe in long engagements; I don’t believe in a cruel waste of the best years of a woman’s life, waiting while a man achieves success. It is a wrong thing. A man has no right to ask a girl to marry him, or be engaged to him—which isn't at all one and the same—unless he can provide her a home which is at least as good as the one that she is living in. I have known more than one girl, Madeline, who waited years for a man, and then married somebody younger, fairer, wealthier. I knew one girl,” she went on, speaking in her well-bred, cruel voice, knew one girl who had a lover. She was a cousin of mine. She’s dead now, poor thing; you never knew her. He was a handsome man, with a way with him, just such another as Ralph Byrne. They got engaged; they were so much in love that time was nothing. He was willing to wait seven years for Rachel; and in the end Rachel waited seven years for her Jacob. And when the seven years were over, she was willing and ready to wait seven more. And he married—Leah.” “Well?” said Madeline; her voice quivered a little in spite of herself. “Well?” “It wasn’t well. Leah was the daughter of his chief. Marriage with her meant a partnership, but it did not mean waiting another seven years and getting Rachel at the end of them There is no marriage of that kind in oui - country. She.lived just seven years, and on Jacob's seventh wedding day she died. There was a long silence. The smart silver kettle on the tea-tray hissed and bubbled merrily; the cinders dropped one by one on the hearth; and at last Madeline Desmond spoke: “I never knew that you had such a story as that fa your family, mother,” she said. “I wonder you never' told us. Was that Cousin Agnes?” “Yes, that was my cousin Agnes. She was thirty-five when she died; she might have been twico thirty-five in everything but the texture of her skin and the abundance of her hair. I never can bear to think about my cousin Agnes. If I could have killed that man

I would liave dour it. I met him, the last time I was in Jxmdon, at an evening party Leonore and I were at. It was one night you had u headache, and you said you would sit quietly by the window and go to bed early. It turned me over to see him. To ’ think of that broken heart, of Ml those crushed and broken illusions! Can you woudet that I am not glad to welcome Ralph Byrne to be a Jacob to iuy Rachel? You think I’m hard, you think I'm cruel, you think I’m worldly. Perhaps I am.” “I —I didn’t say so,” said Madeline; “I never said so. And I quite see what you mean; 1 quite understand why you should speak and think as you do; but I don't think that Ralph will c\er treat me like that.” ■'Neither" did Ague.s O’t onnor. Up to the end o, the seven years 1 wouldn’t have ventured to say one word against Jaeob. And yet lie left her. lie married—Leah.” CHAPTER 11. Before she changed her dress for dinner that night, Madeline Desmond sat down at the little writing table in her bedroom and wrote a note. It was to Ralph Byrne. So the following afternoon found Ralph Byrne in possession of the quaint Dutch summer-house when Madeline Desmond arrived to keep the tryst. "Something has happened?” he said to her. “Yes, everything has happened. It’s no use yon going to mother, Ralph. She’ll not hear of an engagement between us.” “But why ?” “It’s a long story. But 1 feel that she has right on her side. I feel that 1 have no business to give her the anxiety that an engagement between us would be. I— Oh, you don’t know what it is to me to give you up. I am not like most girls of my age. I’m not like my sisters. They’ve had a dozen sweethearts apiece —even the twins, who are only just promoted to the dignity of long frocks, and are not yet out of the schoolroom. I never had any favourite boys; I’m not like them; but I see that it won’t do. Last night—l’ll tell you all about it.” Then she told him the whole story that her mother told her tie night before. “Can you wonder,” she wound up, “that mother is so dead against long engagements ?” “No, I can’t wonder. I can't forget that I’ve nothing to offer you—nothing but myself. It's no use my protesting tliat I shouldn't change. Who knows? I might. I suppose this Jacob, as you call him, didn’t set out with the idea of marrying anybody but Rachel. But look here, Madeline, I shan’t be in Blackhampton many days longer. You know that I’m going back to town to grind; and I will grind. If you forget me, I’ll never reproach yon. If you marry some other fellow —well, it wiil bo better that we found it out sooner rather than later. I bought you an engagement ring this

morning. I was rather extravagant over it. I suppose it wouldn't be quite fair to ask you to take it J” “Let me see it,** said she. He took It out of hie pocket. It was a thick gold ring act with a large sapphire and two diamonds, just a broad band such as a man might wear.

“Put it on your own finger,” she said; “and if you are able to come baek, you can give it to me then." "I wish you could have taken it," he said, “even if you wouldn’t wear it.” “What’s the good of having a thing I cant’ wear? Look here, what is that little silver heart you wear on your Watch-chain T It’s an absurd thing for a man to wear.”

“That? Oh, it has no tender memories. My old nurse gave it to me when I was a mere boy and had my first watch and chain. She got it in India somewhere. Iler husband was a soldier, and she had followed the drum with him all over the world. She’s dead and gone years ago. Will you have it?” “Yes, I could take that. Nobody would ask questions. I'll put it on one of my silver bangles, and it will be something to remind me of you when you are gone.’

It was wonderful how stoical these two young people were. Anybody listening to their conversation would have thought that they were quite indifferent as to whether they met again or not; but there is an indifference which covers a tragedy of suffering. Madeline stayed in the old Dutch summer-house until the winter dusk was falling, and they said good-bye to each other—a literal good-bye—and then they tore themselves apart, and the girl went home alone with all her love frozen at the fountain head, and the man turned back into the summer-house and sat there motionless until the calls of the gardeners to clear the grounds roused him and made him, too, seek the shelter of his hotel.

Oh, these partings! Oh, the bitter black blank of looking forward over years which must be unilluinined by the smile of the only one who makes life worth living! Oh, the wrenching apart of twin souls, the tearing asunder of true affinities! Well, well, parting is always the same all the world over. Men and women who believe themselves very much in love suffer just as much in parting "3 those whose hearts have been enslaved for all time; but oh, the difference in the years that follow! Oh, the length of the years when the heart is elsewhere than with the bouy> Thf Wrench of parting is as the drawing of a tooth—agony for the moment-—but it is the everlasting pain which sometimes follows which frets away youth as moth doth fret out a garment.

Madeline Desmond went straight home from the Winter Garden. She found her mother alone. It was not a very usual circumstance that Mrs Desmond should be alone at that hour, but the other girls had gone their different ways, and Mrs Desmond, who was suffering from a chill, was in the house alone. “I want to tell you, mother,” said Madeline, when she had thrown aside her wraps and had taken her cup of tea from her mother’s hand, “that I’ve been with Ralph this afternoon.” “Yes?” Mrs Desmond looked up sharply.

“I’ve told him that it is quite impossible for us to be engaged.” “You have not tied yourself in any way?" “Not in any way, mother—neither he nor L”

“My dear child,” said Mrs. Desmond, “ you won’t regret this. If he goes away and forgets, it is better that you should know now—at least, you will find it better that you have not waited. It is such a slur on a woman to be plighted for years and forsaken. You can’t hide an engagement; you can’t explain it away when it’s broken as Jacob broke his.” “Is his name Jacob —his real name?” She asked the question not because she wanted to know, but because she wanted to draw the conversation away somewhat from her own case. “No. His name—l don’t feel inclined to tell you. It wouldn’t do you any good to know it. I would rather never stain my lips by uttering it. His name is well known. He is a highly honoured man in a distinguished position.” “Is he happy?”

“How could such a man be happy! I never saw—Leah until that night last season. I looked at him for an instant, just enough to convey to him that he was not to dare to speak to me, and then I turned, and I looked at her from head to foot, and I looked back at him. One glance at his scarlet face, although they’ve been married for twenty years, was enough to show me what kind of happiness is his portion. Whatever it is, it’s more than he deserves.” ‘Wes, I quite agree with you,” said Madeline; “I quite agree with you, mother. And now will you do something for me?” "If I can.” “I want you to regard the incident as closed. Please don’t speak about it. The girl’s don’t know that he had any serioius idea of marrying me, and if I’m not worried about it. I shall get over it—at all events, it won’t hurt quite so much.” “I haven’t spoken of it to a sonl, Madeline,” said Mrs. Desmond, keeping her eyes very intently upon her cup, which she was engaged in filling, “and I shouldn’t dream of speaking of your private affairs to your sisters, any more than I should, under similar circumstances, of theirs to you. You may trust me, Madeline. I know that I must have seemed hard and worldly to you. I don’t like vou to feel that I am that.”

“I haven’t said so,” said Madeline. “So you told me last night. You haven’t said so, but you haven’t yet told me that you haven’t thought so.” “I don’t think.” said Madeline, “that I have even thought it. I—-I could talk to you better in a year’s time, or a month, or a week. Just now I am sore and hurt. I feel like the child who wanted to buy the jeweller’s shop with half-a-crown. You must give me a little while to get over it. and to got back to mv natural state of —” “Of what?” said the mother almost piteously. “Well, perhaps of unfeelingness. At all events.” she went on, "I can tell you this for your comfort, mother—that I would rather yon have told me all that was in your mind; I would rather that yon. having such a story in your own experience, should tell me the truth. Girls aren’t told enough, of the truth

now a days.—l don’t know why they used to be. According to tradition, a girl was like a sheet of white paper until she was married. I don’t know how it worked. It doesn’t work now. I suppose the new condition of things has altered everything, but I know that I would rather be told the very worst han be let merely to take my chance of what might or might not happen to me. And I’ll never reproach you, mother, come what may.” After that evening the mother and daughter never reverted to the subject of Ralph Byrne. He called and left a card with a small “P.P.C.” in the corner when he knew that Mrs. Desmond would not be at home; and then he turned his baek Upon Blankhampton, that quaint old city of churches and ancient buildings, and went back to the busy life from which, he had come.

And time went on. Time, how much of it? Does it matter? Time is, or should be, according to how you measure it. At the bar, where Ralph Byrne was wooing fortune, fifteen years is. looks! upon as a mere apprenticeship. As a matter of fact, five whole years had gons by since Madeline Desmond and Ralph Byrne had parted in the old Dutch summer house in the Winter Garden at Blankhampton; five long years, during which not one word had come to tell her that he remembered her existence. “My dear Madeline,” said Mrs. Desmond one day. “Do you think you are wise to refuse Major Endicott?” “Oh, I don’t know, mother. Perhaps I am not very wise. I don’t mean to marry him, if that’s what you want to know.” “But why not? He’s so nice, so wealthy, so well-born.” "Yes, I know dear; but he doesn’t suit me.” "It seems such a pity,” said Mrs. Desmond, wistfully. “Not that I would persuade you, Madeline, not at all; only you are four-and-twenty.” “And if I were four-and-thirty, or fourand forty, I should say the same. He's very fine and large, mother, but he’s not for me —most emphatically not for me, darling. You-have got your Georgia married, and Lenore married, and little Avis; it won’t be long before Jose follows the example of Avis, and then you’ll have nobody but me to look after you and see that you are comfortable and happy, and that you get a good time. Don’t you think you and I were made for each other” “No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Desmond, shortly. “When you are married I look forward to having a very gay time. I shall have five married daughters to visit, and five sets of grandchildren to visit me. I shall have the gayest time that I have ever had in my life. The idea of two lone women in a big house like this is too terrible.”

“But, dear, you have four married daughters to visit now, and we shall have four sets of grandchildren to visit us.” “It's no use talking to me, Madeline. I should like you to marry, but not until you meet the right man.” “When 1 meet the right man I’ll marry him, I promise you. Have another egg?”

“No, thanks.” “Have some potted shrimps, or some of this foie gras?” “A little of the foie gras,” said Mrs. Desmond. “Oh, is that you, Jose? Well, you are late.” “Yes, dear, I am very late,” said Jose, in a sinail, meeic voice. “But I was so tired this morning. I danced such a lot last niiilit. I’m sleepy yet.” “My dear child, you should have slept yourself out and had your breakfast in bed. Did you really have a good time?” While the two were discussing the previous evening’s dance Madeline picked up the newspaper. The first words that struck her were those at the head of a column, “A Silver Heart.”

She put the paper down as if she had been stung. Oh, why did she ever think about him! Why did she carry that silver heart always on her lett wrist? Because she was a fool, a fool. It was the old story of Jacob and Rachel over again. No, she wouldn’t be weak; it was against her principles to be weak. She was a strong woman. So she took up the newspaper again, and saw that “The Silver Heart” wae the title of a play, a play that had been produced the previous evening in London, a play that had taken the world by storm, a play by an utterly unknown author, an author who had no nom de guerre, who did not appear at the production in response to the calls of “Author!” who preferred to keep hie identity an absolute secret. “There’s some lucky Madeline somewhere,” she said to herself as she put the paper down. And where was the lucky Madeline ? Well, as a matter of fact, she happened that very morning to be walking down St. Thomas’ street at Blankhampton. She had half-a-dozen commissions to execute; her mind was intent -> pon then*. She was never on the look-out for young men, as the majority of girls are in cathedral cities, and when somebody stopped and said: “Madeline, don’t you know me?” she gave a start—a little cry. “I see,” he said, “that you are wearing the silver heart that I gave you. Did you see the paper this morning? I didn’t find the Bar quick enough, Madeline. I—l took the silver heart for a guerdon. I’ve got there, Madeline! Where are you going? What are you doing t Let’s go up to the Dutch summer-house, Madeline, and I’ll tell you ail about it.”