Copyright Story. The Canon's Nearest Relative.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue XVII, 23 April 1904, Page 12

Copyright Story. The Canon's Nearest Relative.

By

ROSALINE MASSON.

of “Leslie Farquhar,” “In Our Town,” etc.).

'“VVhat is the likeness between a diplomatic secret and treacle?” "Reggie, you are fatiguing.” ‘‘Do you give it up?” 'His mother made no answer, but reWrranged the white chiffon streamers of her cap. "Because neither of them can be committed to paper without fear of leakage,” the young man informed her, imperturbably’. "Yes, that’s rather good. Reggie,” remarked his sister, turning from the window, where she had been standing listlessly looking out at the rain. "Don’t encourage him, Hilda.” ‘‘Oh, but lam encouraged! So little stimulates me! What is the difference between ” “None! Absolutely none!” cried his sister. “Between you and the silliest girl in the county. Right, my dear.” “I do wish that you, as the- head of the family, Reggie, would feel your responsibilities inorg.” "I feel them most acutely, mother.” He sat down opposite and beamed at her. “Buck up!” he advised her. “Nothing was ever so bad but it made it worse to look at its worst side. 1 express myself clumsily— ” "Yes, you do, Reggie,” put in Hilda, from the window. "But Hilda knows what T mean. That is why she never locks the curate in the face.” “Reggie!” “Though I think Ids profile is his worst side,” Reggie added, meditatively. “A profile is both sides,” snapped Hilda. "Not his,” Reggie affirmed. "Speaking of the curate,” their mother began, in her soft, ealm voice, "reminds me of your uncle, the Canon.” "And the mention of cur uncle, the Canon,” her son continued, crossing one knee over the other, and wagging his foot in the air rather impatiently, “naturally brings us to the everlasting topic of his blamed money.” Hilda came slowly from the window and sat down. ‘lf he would only- say to whom he intends to leave if!” she exclaimed. “And then die. Painlessly. of course.” “Reggie!” his mother expostulated. "We are his nearest relatives,” she added. "Uncle an 1 Aunt Colst -n are just us near,” sighed Hilda. “And Cousin An pie just a shade nearer,” Reggie reminded them, cheerfully. 1 heir mother echoed Hilda’s sigh. “He said ‘to ou> of the family,”’ she observed, “and of course that does include the ( olstons and Archie Nugent. Mr fol-ton is his rlrst cousin—his only cousin, and Archie Nugent is his sister's son. Still, Arehie inherits his mother’s fortune—he is well provided for. And your dear lather was t anon ilannay’s only brother - and toe Canon must know how badly off Phillip left us!” “No one better,” responded Reggie, “considering he paid all the debts, mid ” "Yes, yes; he lias acted very generously—so fm. And ‘one of the family’ lie said. He must have meant ” "I think he has been uncommonly good to ii«, little Uncle Arthur; and 1 for one don t want to trouble him further. You and Hilda have got your annuity, mother, and I shall have iny profession ” “But you’ve also got a large appetite, and a discriminating taste in dress, and a love of expensive sport ” “Quite true, Hilda. What .a the difference between ”

“And some day yon may want to marry, Reggie,” his sister continued. "Expensive sport—you’ve already mentioned it.” "Of course he’ll want to marry!” his mother cried. "Are the Hannays to die out?” “A little premature, aren’t you, mother?” “If only you children could both marry' in the family'—it would almost settle the matter of the Canon’s money.” Reggie and his sister exchanged quick glances, and their eyes rested on one another for a moment of half amused, half anxious calculation. Then both spoke at once. “You’d have to marry Archie, Hilda! Alas, poor curate!” And: “Of course, there Is Folly’ Colston, Reggie!” “What would be the difference between asking old Colston for his daughter’s hand, and my marrying two wives at once?” “Reggie—remember your sister is present !” “Well, he did not say lie was going to do either, mother.” “The one would be a ease of ‘(tie me Polly,’ and the other would be a ease of ‘polly-gie-me.’ ” The door was opened and the maid announced: "Mr Nugent!” “Archie, by Jove!—Hilda, now’s your chance!” whispered Reggie, as they all rose. “We were talking of Uncle Arthur,” said Reggie, mischievously', when the greetings were over. Mrs Hannay and Hilda grew’ a little pink and confused, and shot reproachful glances at the incorrigible Reginald. “How is your uncle, Archie?” asked Mrs Hannay quickly, and with on air of deep concern. “You have seen him since we did, I think?” The young man, who was of rather a stolid build, with a grave and self important air, and small eyes set rather too near together, slowly took the seat that Reggie pushed carelessly towards him, placing it deliberately, sat down, and answered with an air of deep concern : “Uncle Arthur seems particularly well.” “I am so glad!” Mrs Hannah assured him, the least shade too fervently’. Reggie took his seat on a corner of the table behind the group and tried to catch his sister’s eye and make her laugh; but she studiously averted it. “I was just saying to Hilda, and Reggie, before you came in, that he has been so wonderfully kind to us,” remarked the widow, again readjusting her chiffon streamers. The young man eyed her gravely. Then his eye sought Hilda, whose clearcut little profile and colourless haiy looked well against a wall of pale amber. "In-deed,” he said, meditatively. “He has about adopted you. hasn’t he?” Reggie asked, with the careless directness of an easy conscience. His mother and sister, after hasty' glances of consternation at the bold questioner, both hung on the reply’. Arehie Nugent fulgitted. “Not exact Jy,” he admitted. “But you are his nearest kin, and a homeless orphan—he really ought to,” Reggie insisted. “Oh—not homeless!” Mrs Hannay put in. with a deprecating laugh. “Well, if I were you, Archie, I’d play up to him iv bit.” Reggie said, slipping down from the table and patting his cousin on the back. “He has lots of shekels to dispose of, you know.” "Reginald! How can yon say such things—even in joke? It is in the worst

fastel Your dear father’s only brother! Your own unele!”

“And Archie’s unele!—and my unele, too,” added Hilda. Her cousin looked thoughtfully at her. Then he turned to the mother. “Unele Arthur told me last night,” he eaid, with immense gravity, “that he contemplated making a new will.” The others ceased all pretence at uneoneern. Even Reggie looked interested. "Did he say ” Mrs. Hannay gasped. “He said —he intended to leave the main bulk of his property ” “Yes?” “ —To his nearest relative.” “Oh!” “And then ” “Yes! and then?” “And then—he laughed softly to himself!” “How very strange!” “it must be to one of us—-we are his only relatives,” Archie added, slowly. “Except the Colstons.” “Oh—the Colstons! They are only cousins. And he does not like the daughter.” Again the young man’s eyes sought Hilda. She dropped hers demurely. She was the Canon’s only niece, and was at that moment at work on a piece of red embroidery for Whit Sunday. “Does he like Polly?” asked Mrs. Hannay; and as she said it she looked at her son. ’ “Now, that is odd,” he said instantly, as he caught her look. “Because Polly Colston has an indescribable charm. By the way—he hates me! I asked him how we know that Ruth was impolite to Boas” “And how do we know?” inquired Archie, with a gleam in his eyes, which were certainly too near his nose. "Because she pulled his ears and trod on his corn.” “You did not ask him that?” Mrs. Hannay stood upright in her wrath.

“I did! Faet! And he said it was irreverent” ; , Arehie stood up to go. “Will you walk with me as far as the gate, Hilda?” he inquired. Hilda folded the rod embroidery, with a glow of reflected Whitsuntide colour on her fare, and assented. As Archie followed her out of thd door and shut it after them, Reggio turned to his mother and whistled. There was a sort of amused sadness ill his eyes. "Young people are changed since my; day!” he murmured. "Do yon think he means to propose?” the mother cried. “Well—lie made hia intentions very; evident,” the brother answered. His cheek reddened suddenly, and he made a step as if to follow them, and then as suddenly stopped. “After all, it is Hilda’s affair,” he said. “It would be an excellent thing—anyway,” Mrs. Hannay answered. Canon Hannay married his niece Hilda Hannay to his nephew Archie Nugent himself, and he gave the bride a handsome cheque for her trousseau. The Colstons were present, looking moody, all except Polly, who acted as bridesmaid, and flirted alternately with Reggie and the by no means inconsolable curateMrs. Hannay could scarcely control her pride: it all seemed so propitious; and when the little celibate Canon found the ring in the piece of bridescake he was nervously crumbling whilst he tried to propose the health of the bride, Mrs. Hannay laughed merrily with the rest at his confusion and collapse. The church had been crowded to overflowing for the ceremony; but, perhaps out of consideration for the widow's small income, only the family and immeoiate friends had been bidden to the breakfast. While the bride was upstairs

changing her frock, the others sauntered into the drawing-room to admire her pre* aents. A pearl necklace, with a heavy pendant set with diamonds, lag in its open case against an ivory Prayer Book. “Both his gifts,” murmured, the mo* ther to Mrs. Colston. “Archie's?" she asked. “No —-no! Her uncle’s!” “Really?” Mrs Colston took up the Case and looked closely at the pendant, and her lips tightened. “And the dear child values the one as much as the other!” Mrs Hannay added, impressively, laying the tips of her fingers on the Prayer Book. Reggie, standing by, shook his head, solemnly. “Very wrong!’’ he said, “but very human. The day will come when she will be called upon to make her choice. A man cannot serve two masters. What makes us know. Aunt Colston, that a bride ” But both ladies had turned away, and. were examining a silver punch bowl. Later on in the day, when the hall ■was strewn with rice and rose leaves, and the bride had long since driven off, with a white satin shoe dangling to the back of the carriage, and Mrs Hannay was all tears and tiredness, and had said good-bye to the last of her guests, she drew Reggie into her own room. “I am sorry for you, my boy!” she said. “You must naturally be feeling as if fate were not so kind to you.” Reggie’s honest eyes grew wistful for a moment, and he bent them on her. “You mean, mother ?” “But he may —especially as dear Archie has already so much—he may divide it between you.” “Who may divide what ?” demanded Reggie, the wistful look giving place to one of impatience. “Your uncle, of course. He may divide his property between you.” “Oh, hang his property! I beg your pardon, mater; but I don’t want - his property. I’ve failed in my exam., by the -way; I heard it this morning, but didn’t want to bother you, and I’m 'going to chuck the whole thing and go to the colonies and ” “Oh, Reggie! And leave me?” “You have Hilda and the blameless Archie. Do you really want me, mater?” His eyes softened. “Indeed I do, my own boy—my big son!” He drew himself up—six feet of manhood, and laughed a deep, good-humour-ed laugh. “I’ve no brains, you know,” he said. ‘TH never do the family any credit.” “You’ll never do it discredit —except with your ridiculous riddles!” she said, laying her head on his shoulder. He flung his other arm round her, regardless of the new chiffon streamers. “I have another riddle for you to solve, mater,” he told her. He bent his head a little over hers, as it rested on his shoulder, “You know Emmie —Miss Winthrop?” There was a pause. Then she raised her head, so that the arm round her head had perforce to unloose her, and she looked up at him. “Reggie—you have never been so mad!” she exclaimed. “In church this morning!” he answered, gleefully. “When?” she cried.

“Just as we all came out of the vestry, and the “Wedding March" struck up. Everyone had eyes only for the happy pair, and my part tn the ceremony was over —I’d given her away, ‘Satan finds some mischief still for Idle hands to do,’ you know, mater, and t just leant over the edge of her pew as I passed and whispered to her, ‘Shall we be the next?’” “And she answered you?” “biot she! She said ‘Hush!’ —but as we came out Well, anyway, it’s all settled.” “She hasn't a penny.” “Neither have I.” “Exactly! And you’ve not. passed your examination! It was dishonourable 1” Reggie suddenly grew rigid. “Look here, mater, seriously, I see ▼our I cint of view, but it isn’t mine. Emmie and I have known one another since we were babies, and we have always—l mean—l have failed in my exam., but I haven’t failed all along the line. And isn’t it dishonourable to —to —oh, hang it all! You know what I mean. We both cared, and we both knew it. But, if I had not failed in that blessed exam., then I should not have spoken, for the profession of law in London means waiting, waiting, till your head is grey or as bald as Uncle Arthur’s. But now —now I am free! I went on studying dusty law, as you wished me to, and had spent so much on sending me to college. But now I’m free, and I’m pretty strong and big, so it will be a wonder if I can’t work hard enough at something—-anything, so long as it is in the open air and the country, and needs muscles and not brains —to support Emmie.” “Oil, Reggie, you are mad! Quite mad! I think I ought, as he is really virtually head of the family, to tell your uncle the Canon.” “Oh —I’ve told him!” her graceless son answered lightly. “I didn’t want him to think I was cringing after his pennies, so I told him frankly that I was no go, and should probably adopt the stage as a profession. I thought that would choke him off; but, in case it did not, just to make sure, I asked him how we knew for certain that Moses wore a wig.” “Then you’ve thrown away all your chances!” “Well, you cannot deny that he was sometimes seen with Aaron and sometimes without?” Mrs. Hannay raised her handkerchief to her eyes and left him. It was a fortnight after the wedding that Canon Hannay called on his sister-in-law. She received him with effusion, and pushed forward her own chair for him, contenting herself with a low wicker seat at his side. The Canon took her chair in unseeing nervousness, and sat folding and unfolding his soft clerical hat. A. silence fell upon them, unbroken even by Reggie, who, for once in his life, appeared out of spirits and asked no riddle whatsoever. The truth is that he had that morning realised the possibility that open-aii’ work, even for a robust giant of six-and-twenty, might perhaps not be had for asking. But, seeing that the Canon was distraint and uncomfortable, he roused himself, threw a log of wood on the fire, turned round with a face that had resumed its habitual cheerfulness, and suggested tea. “Not for me —not for me!” said the Canon, hastily. “The fact is—l came to

try and tell you—but, knowing my utteranoe might fail me, I—l1 —I have written it down, and I —l will leave it with you!" He laid an envelope, directed in hi» neat, precise little handwriting, on the {table, and literally bolted out of the room. “Here —hi! I say!” cried Reggie, hot in pursuit. When Reggie returned from opening the front door, he found his mother standing with the torn envelope on the table in front of her, unfolding the letter. She had been unable to restrain her curiosity for a moment. ‘■Reggie!—Reggie!” she cried, “this may be the announcement! Oh, my son! ” “All right—shall I fetch the smelling salts?” There was a moment's pause whilst Mrs. Hannay’** eyes ran rapidly down the first page, and Reggie watched her, with the look of amused sadness on his young face that it so often wore. Then Mrs, Hannay, with an inarticulate exclamation, dropped the letter. “He is going to be married to Miss Jamieson!” she cried out, in a terrible voice. “You don’t say so! Uncle Arthur going to be married to Miss Jamieson? Well done the little Canon! And—by Jove, mater! Of course! I have it! —• ’to his nearest relative!’ I suppose a wife counts as one’s nearest relative?” Reggie broke into uncontrolled laughter. Mrs. Hannay stood speechless, staring at him. “If you see anything to laugh at in the downfall of all our hopes!” she gasped. “Well, if it comes to that, mater—you have a comfortable annuity, Hilda is well off, now, and I—never hoped.” Mrs Hannay vouchsafed no answer. She spread out the fatal letter on the table, and went on reading it. “‘After fifty-seven years of bachelorhood,’ ” she read. “Poor devil!” interpolated Reggie. “But he was a Celibate, my dear! He approved of Celibacy for the clergy! 1 have heard him say so a thousand times.” Reggie only laughed the more; and Mrs Hannay, with an indignant look at

Idm, went on reading to herself. Suddenly she gave a little cry, “Reggie!" she exclaimed. “Well?” “Listen to this! ‘My dear niece Hilda I was the glad instrument ot helping at the time of her marriage to my poor sister Annie's sou, a union which caused me inexpressible content. You too, my dear sister-in-law, have been good enough to allow me to express my respect for the memory of my dear departed brother Philip by assisting you materially in the distressing circumstances in which you found yourself. These things were my duty as well as my privilege. But my nephew Reginald has never allowed me to approach the subject to him, and 1 deeply respect and appreciate, the manly pride he has often evinced, although at times he hides it under a seeming levity that I cannot but deplore. Yet 1 trust that now, when ho contemplates having another to provide for besides himself (on which auspicious event I have already offered him my heartfelt felicitations), he will no longer withhold from me the joy of apportioning those worldly possessions of which 1 regard myself as merely the steward. I have therefore purchased the farm of Sunnylands. It is very small, and at present in neglected condition, and needs energetic supervision. Would Reginald care to undertake it?’” Reggie seized the wicker chair by on<J leg and waved it round his head. “God bless the little man!” he cried. “The wind in one’s eyes and the rain in one’s teeth, and the mud of the long-hill-furrow on one’s boots, ami within doors the fireside glow and —and 1 must off and tell Emmie!” He ran as quickly to the door as the Canon had done, but after he had shut it he re-opened it and thrust his bend in. “Why do wo know that. Miss Jamieson has martial blood in her veins?” lie inquired. “But she hasn’t, Reggie! Her father was an Archdeacon.” “Ay, but she was not afraid to face the Canon’s mouth!” “Reginald I” Tile door was shut hastily.