Hearts are Trumes

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 9, 26 August 1908, Page 33

Hearts are Trumes

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Paul Urquhart

CHAPTER 1. THAT makes our little debt twelve thousand in all, Miss Bellairs.” He lifted his eyes for a moment from the small morocco leather note-book in which he had been entering the details of the last disastrous of rubber bridge—disastrous, that is, for Dorothy Bellairs —to shoot a quick glance at the tall, graceful girl standing by the fireplace. Miss Bellairs raised her fan, as if to protect her cheeks from the heat of the glowing coals. “I know. I will settle with you shortly, Mr. Vereker.” It was impossible to keep a certain nervous tremor from her voice. She knew it was the end of everything. She could not possibly pay the sum. For six months now her debt to him had been accumulating. It had started with a few hundreds, and grown with an ever-increasing rapidity to its present enormous proportions. On nearly every occasion that she had played Bridge she had been opposed to the South African millionaire. Never once in the preliminary cut for partners had she found herself drawn with him. And he always worn. It seemed like some diabolical conspiracy on the part of fate. The last game had seemed so promising. She had been playing with her host. Lord Bellamy. With a strong hand of hearts, diamonds and spades she had redoubled her original call of “No trumps.” Vereker. who had doubled the call, had then led a sequence of clubs from the ace downward, seven clubs in all. a.nd so won the odd trick, and the rubber. As they were playing £5 points tliis had meant a loss to her of close upon a thousand pounds. Against such illluck what eould one hope to do? Already the beautiful estates that had been left her under the terms of her father’s and mother's will were mortgaged up to the hilt. Most of her jewellery had been " pledged. She had hardly £5OO in the bank, and yet she had just told this man that she would settle with him soon! She would liked to have cried, but her pride kept her from showing any signs of weakness before Mr. Vereker. “I have no desire to be pressing, Miss Bellairs, especially as the cards have run against you so persistently and so long, but the amount is large, and six months is rather a long time.” “I regret the delay. I have told you so already, but in a few weeks now I shall be able to settle everything.” “Of course I can wait, but —I hate talking of these things. Miss Bellairs, believe me —the sum is large—and—and in short I think I am entitled to some security.” She kept her face still shielded from his eyes by her fan. In the great draw-ing-room beyond somebody was singing one of the beautiful Indian love songs from the “Garden of Kama.” She could

not hear the words, but the weirdly lovely music with its haunting undertone of Oriental fatalism stirred her blood strangely. What did these few thousands matter, after all? Indeed, did anything at all matter much? she asked herself, as the

singer’s voice rose and fell with the music. The long struggle against fate, was it worth all the heart-siekness, the loneliness, the almost unbearable sense of mental anguish? Fifteen years ago a girl of eighteen, she had bidden good-bye to Hubert Carnforth. His father. Arlington Carnforth, the old-fashioned Squire of Coniston Hall, had just disowned him, and turned him into the world to make his living as best he could, simply because his son had refused to accept his theory that he must marry the girl the Squire had chosen for him. On the steps of Simon’s Towers—the splendid Tudor mansion her father had since left her —they had bidden good bye to each other, swearing to be true to their plighted vow. For ten years he had written to her, telling her of his seemingly hopeless struggle in South Africa. Then his letters had

suddenly ceased. For five years she had heard nothing. But she had none the less remembered her promise, and though suitors had sought her hand by the score she still remained single. None the less his strange, inexplicable silence had told upon her mentally and physically. For a time she had com forted herself with the thought that he would return, but as the months slipped by this hope faded away, and in its place there came to her a dread that perhaps he was no more. She sought excitement to drown the terror of her thoughts. The little green baize tables and the cards were the anodynes she had tried. She had played madly, recklessly, not earing. Tn society she had the name of a gambler, and there were not wanting many who predicted for the beautiful Miss Bellairs, as she was still called, a catastrophe of the direst sort. And now

it was come. She had lost the man she loved. She had frittered away all her property, everything she possessed—and, after all—what did it matter! She was oppressed with an overwhelming dreariness. She let the fan drop to her side and turned on Mr. Vereker. “I have no security to offer. I cannot pay you.” She spoke as one enunciating a simple fact with which everyone was acquainted and at which none could be surprised. Strange to say, Mr. Vereker’s sallow fee expressed no astonishment. “I knew that, Miss Bellairs,” he said, calmly. A little flush crept into the girl’s cheeks. She was taken by surprise. But the mood only lasted for a moment, quickly making way for the state of fatalism with which she had been inspired by the music in the other room. “Knowing this, why did you ask me for security, then?” She spoke with an air of complete detachment. “I was simply curious to know how you intended to meet your liabilities.” “You seem to take a great deal of interest in my affairs,” she said, wearily. “Can you wonder? I have several reasons for being interested. One of them is that you owe me twelve thousand pounds.” She looked at him dreamily. “What do you propose to do then?” she asked calmly. For the first time the studied repose of his features relaxed, and he smiled under his neatly trimmed moustache. “Surely, Miss Bellairs, it is for you to make a proposal, not for me. It is I who am, not unnaturally, curious as to when Or how you are going to pay the twelve thousand pounds you owe me.” “1 have already told you I cannot pay you. The only security I have left is the remnant of mV jewels, and they, 1 am afraid, would not fetch a twentieth of the amount required. Even my estates are mortgaged.” “I know that.” Something in his voice aroused a fleeting curiosity in her mind. “How do you know?” “I have acquired the mortgage on Simon’s Towers myself.” “Then there is no need for me to tell you anything more. You know how I stand. I have no money, no security, nothing left in life. You had better foreclose. That is the only way I ean see that you are likely to recover even a small portion of the money.”. Mr. Vereker fixed his gaze intently upon her, as if . trying to search her inward thoughts. For a second or two he did not speak, and then with a glint of something like emotion in his eyes he moved closer to Dorothy Bellairs. “Yoji have one security left—one security I would consider as settling the debt a thousand times over. Shall I tell vou what it is?” She nodded with dreamy indifference. “Yourself.” Startled out of her mood of dreamy detachment, she would have spoken. But his passion carried him on in a storm of words, and he gave her no time. “I have loved you ever since I first met you four years ago, on my return from 'South Africa. Up to then I had devoted my time to acquiring wealth. It came to me suddenly, just as my love came to me. I want you to be my wife. These paltry thousands are nothing to me. I will forgive you them. I will forgive you everything, if only you will grant me the dearest wish of my life.” She could not answer the man. She could only stare at him in bewilderment and disgust. He was trying to buy her. Robbed of all pretences that is what it amounted to. He had obtained the mortgage on her estate, and allowed her to run up a debt to him of twelve thousand pounds. Now he had her in his power. If she would marry him he wou’d cancel the mortgage and forgive her the debt. If she refused, poverty and disgrace awaited her. His plan was clear, and judging by the triumphant look in his eyes he had no doubts as to its proving successful. Suddenly from the room beyond somebody began to sing another of Laurence Hope’s Indian Love Songs. “When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly; Stoop, as the yellow roses droop In the wind from the south; So I may when I wake, if there be an awakening, Keep, what lulled me to sleep, The touch of your lips on my mouth.”

There came back to her the scent of the jellow roses in the old garden at Simon’s Tower, that long ago June evening when she had kissed Hubert Carnforth a last farewell. The tears welled up in her eyes. How could she be untrue to him? He was dead, but “if there were an awakening” after death? The man in front of her filled her with disgust. His proposal was impossible, even if It were to save her from the hopeless financial embarrassments into which she was plunged She must have time to think how to act. “I cannot give you my answer now. You could not expect it,” she gasped, gazing at the man with wild, staring eyes. “I have no wish to hurry you. I am going up to spend Christmas with Mr. Arlington Carnforth at Coniston Hall. It lies near your place. We are certain to meet. You can give me your answer in a week’s time, on Christmas Eve.” Her heart suddenly began to beat furiously. This man knew Arlington Carnforth, and had been in South Africa? Perhaps he could give her news of Hubert. “I did not know you knew Mr. Carnforth,” she said—indeed, she knew nothing about Mr. Vereker, except that he played bridge with a consummate skill and an unfailing good fortune which had proved her ruin—“ He’s a very old friend of mine. I also am spending Christinas there.” “That is all the more fortunate. I have only known Mr. Carnforth since I returned to this country. He heard that I had been acquainted with his son, and begged me to come and se e him.” Dorothy Bellairs went suddenly to her old position by the fire-place, screening the deathly pallor of her cheeks with her fan.

“You knew his son, did you, as well?” she exclaimed, with difficulty controlling her voice. “Yes, poor fellow, we went out prospecting together north of Salisbury in Rhcdesia. I had to leave him up country for a short time to return on business. When I got back to our old encampment I found him stretched before his fire with a revolver in his hand and a bullet through his head. He had shot himself, poor ehap. He had been depressed for a long time, and the loneliness. I suppose, had been too much for him. It is a very s-d story. Poor Carnforth had struggled for years after the gold. He might have struck it lucky, for my mines are situated within a fewyards of where I found his body. It seemed a cruel bit of fortune that he should have been driven to take his own life with all that wealth, for which he had searched so many years, practically within arm-reach. His father was very cut up about it. There had been a quarrel or something. Carnforth wouldn’t marry the girl his father intended for him, and as a result he was turned out of the house. A curious old man, Mr. Arlington Carnforth. It seems he never even told his son the name of the girl—expected him to be prepared to marry anyone he named. But, of course, you know this story?” “Yes, I have heard the story,” she answered, faintly. Mr. Vereker hesitated for a moment. Then he exclaimed, awkwardly: “Well, Miss Bellairs, as we shall meet at Coniston Hall I will wait for your answer till Christmas Eve.” “I promise you you shall have an answer by then. Might I trouble you to get me a glass of water, Mr. Vereker?” The man hurried away, eager to fulfil the first request she had ever made him. As soon as he had disappeared Dorothy Bellairs slipped from the room, and, hav-

ing got her cloak from a servant, hurried from the house without even bidding good-bye to her hostess. IL There was every promise of a seasonable Christmas at Coniston Hall. For twenty-four hours the snow had been falling steadily over the wild tracks of moor and forest land. Down at the bottom of the great sloping lawn, now covered a foot deep in white, the rapid flowing river was held tame and almost silent in the grip of the frost. A small regiment of men from the neighbouring village had been engaged by the Squire all day to keep the long, fir-flanked drive clear of snow. But their efforts had been mostly in vain, for as fast as they swept one place clean it was silently filled up again from the grey sky above. In the Hall itself great preparations had been made to keep Christmas in the true, old-fashioned way. Huge fires burnt in every room. Holly and mistletoe bedecked the oak-panelled walls. ( lus.ers of red berries peeped over the tops of frames in which were set pictures of the Squire’s ancestors in all the quint variety of costumes that had prevailed from the days of Elizabeth. The Squire himself was in a perfect fury of excitement. He insisted on inquiring into every detail of the arrangements that had been made for his guests. In spite of the extra trouble they were put to, his servants were glad to see their master in something of his old spirits, for of late years—ever svice. indeed, he had chanced on the discovery that Mr. Vereker, the very latest South African millonaire, had been acquainted with his only son, and had learnt from the latter’s lips that his boy h id taken his own life in Rhodesia—he seemed suddenly to have become and old man. His gruff, hearty spirits had vanished—even

nis voice had lost some of its old dictatorial tone. It was only at Christmastide that his spirits seemed to come back to him. On this occasion his excitement and restlessness were more like those of a boy anxious to be off for the holidays, and girding impatiently at the slowness of the leaden foot of time, than that of a main who would never see sixty again. It was four in the afternoon, and only one of his twelve guests had arrived. Simon Tower lay hardly a mile from Coniston Manor, and the weather had not therefore seriously affected Miss Bellair’s punctuality. But the eleven other guests who were expected by train from long distances off were already several hours late. “This Christmastide weather seems likely to spoil our Christmas, Dorothy.” Arlington Carnforth had known Miss Bellairs since she was a baby in arms, and was one of the few persons who called her by her Christian name. Sitting by the great fire in the oak-panelled hall, she watched him stalking across the polished floor backwards and forwards. She was thinking how she ought to hate this man, for was it not his obstinate pigheadedness and impervious will, that could brook no opposition, which had sent her lover to die in South Africa. But the tall, broadly-built figure with its white hair and weather-beaten fate did not inspire her with these feelings. She liked him in spite of all. During all those weary fifteen years never a word had passed between them regarding Herbert Carnforth. And now something prompted her to speak of him. “I met Mr. Vereker in town, Mr. Carnforth. He told me the story of your scin’s death. I was very sorry.” He stopped suddenly in his walk and turned and faced her. Underneath his sun-tanned cheeks she could see a pallor spread. He /seemed suddenly to sink into himself; the stiffness and erecbnesg with which he had held himself disappeared. He trembled as if with the weakness of age. “He told you the story, did he?” he gasped, uttering the words with difficulty. “But why do you talk of it now—at this time? Haven’t I to bear it all the year round, all the long nights

and all the long days by myself? Couldn't you have left me Christmas to forget my eruelty and my crime?” At the sight of his suffering she forgot her own terrible grief, and with a little cry of compassion rose from her chair and hurried across to where he stood swaying beneath a great bundle of mistletoe. “Oh, Mr. Carnforth, I’m so sorry, so very sorry.” She put her hands on his shouders and looked into his face as if imploring forgiveness. “But it was right that you should punish me,” he went on, lookiing down into her eyes. “Listen, Dorothy. Fifteen years ago I came to him and said, ‘You’ve got to marry, my boy. I’ve got a wife for you.’ He had always been taught to obey me, promptly and at once, ever since he was a little chap. I expected him to obey me in this without question. Instead, he turned on me angrily, swore that he wasn’t to be mated like an animal to anybody that I had a fancy for, but that he would marry the girl he loved and no one else. He was twenty-one, and I was forty-six, and to my shame my temper was even more rash and youthful than his. I told him that he would either have to marry the girl I had chosen or leave me at once. He answered proudly that he would go, and that very evening he went. I was too obstinate to send for him back. He went out to meet his death at his own hand in that heart-breaking loneliness. 1 can understand how he did it. I know what it is to be lonely, even here.” He broke off suddenly, as if recollect-' ing that he had wandered from the subject. “Yes, it was right that you should punish me by reminding me of it when I was trying to forget, for it was you, my dear, whom I wished to make his wife.” Dorothy Bellairs sprang away from him, her face deathly pale. She stared at him wildly, and then gave a little hysterical laugh. “I?” she exclaimed. “I am the girl he loved and wanted to marry. I have waited all these years for him. I gave

up my life to be true to him. Oh, Mr. Carnforth, what a mess you’ve made of all our lives!” The old man made a movement with hiii trembling hands as if to stop her lips. Just then the bell of the front door rang. The butler came hurrying down the hall. Dorothy Bellairs turned to the fire to hide her emotion. The Squire, with a little gasp, pulled himself together to receive his guests. They began to come fast, one after the other, stamping the snow off their boots, and shaking the flakes off their hats and coats. Mr. Vereker arrived at last. He had driven up from London in his motorcar, and had been caught in a drift in crossing the moor from Skipton. He stopped to speak a word to Miss Bellairs as he passed through the hall on the way to his rooms. She noticed he seemed somewhat agitated and confused. “You look as if you had been seeing ghosts,” she said, as she gave him her hand. “I have,” he said, and then, without saying another wordl hurried away. The dinner that night was a failure. What merriment there was was of a forecd and artificial kind. The Squire, in spite of all his efforts, could not shake off the gloom of remorse which obsessed him. Miss Bellairs made no effort to affect a joyousness she did not feel. She had learnt that day the full bitterness of her fate, But for the obstinacy of the old man at the head of the table she would have been happily wed to the man she lovel. And now her fortunes were completely shipwrecked. There seemed' to be nothing more worth living for. To be able to live at all in the future she must marry Mr. Vereker, and Mr. Vereker was there to await her answer. She must give it him after dinner. The South African millionaire hmiself seemed ill at ease. He spoke little and ate little and made up for his abstinence in these respects by drinking a great deal of champagne. But the wine, excellent as it was, neither loosened his tongue nor raised his spirits. The gloom cast by these three persons affected the rest of the company. It might have been a funeral feast rather

than a Christmas Eve dinner party. The accustomed toasts at the end mirrorred the dulness from which everybody suffered'. The Squire attempted to make a speech, but stopped abruptly after only uttering a few words. Everybody was relieved when it was all over—everybody, that is, except Dorothy Bellairs. For she had to face an ordeal far worse than the gloomiest of dinners. She took a seat on the broad sill of the old-fashioned drawing-room. The windows were cosily shuttered, and in the sha lows of the curtains she had a wild impossible hope that perhaps she might escape the notice of Mr. Vereker. For even after a week she had not made up her mind. She hated the man, but, as against that, she hated her life, and the misery she already had to endure was not likely to be assuaged when she wa« turned penniless out of Simon's Tower. She had no one whose advise she could ask, no one to whom she could turn to in her trouble. She was still uncertain what answer to give him. She saw Mr. Vereker enter the room, and, glancing quickly round, make straight towards her. He took a seat by her si !e. and, like a drowning woman, she snatched desperately at every straw of conversation to delay the crucial moment. She asked about his journey, tried to open a discussion on the pictures in th? Squire's gallery, and, as a last resource, begged him to tell her about the ghosts he had seen. “It was only imagination,” he returned, with a laugh. “It was just after we had got the car out of the drift, coming down the long hill. I thought I saw a man I had known out in South Africa at a bend in the road. He seemed to be standing up against the wall to light his pipe. But my chauffeur, who was keeping his eyes about him, said there was nobody, so I allowed him to exercise the phantom from my mind. But, Miss Bellairs, I haven’t come here to talk of ghosts. You remember you promised to give me an answer to-night.” Just then there was a tapping on the window-pane, a tapping repeated three or four times.

“That must be the ghost." she ex- < laimed, eager for any excuse to put oil' her answer. Her thoughtless words seemed to move him strangely. “it’s only a tree branch knocking against the window, like that tree branch • >ver there." He pointed with a finger that shook perceptibly at the unshuttered window at the other end of the room. “There’s no tree on this site of the house, so it can’t be that. Listen, there it is, again." Ihe tapping was repeated louder and longer this time, Miss Bellairs rose to her feet. and', kneeling on the siil. lifted up the heavy shutter bar. and swung it loose. As she turned tack one leaf of (he shutter, she saw the tall figure of a man silhouetted clear against the long -tretch of snow covered lawn. The man uddenly stepped forward, and peered ( hrough the glass. “The figure 1 saw! -the ghost’- he’s come liack from the deal!" Then* was a shriek behind her. and a 'iidden crash, as the South Afii.au mil iionaire fell back on the floor, his fealures convulsed and distorted. Immediately an uproar filled the room. People rushed from every quarter to raise him. The men bawled out orders to the ervants to fetch brandy. Someone emp- ■ ied the water from a flower vase over '.iis head. In the confusion that prevailed m one noticed that Dorothy Bellairs had losed the shutter and fled from the oom. \’or did anyone hear the opening of tin* front door, or the soft patter of lootsteps mi the <now outside. \\ hen tin* butler. hurrying with a Lottie of brandy across the hall some fen minutes later saw a tall bearded man hanging his snow-covered coat upon the lack, he conceived, in his confusion of mind, that it must 1m» the doctor, though ’ he nearest doctor lived -even miles away Nobody knew how he got in the drawing room till they <aw him. his six-foot-three body clad in loosely-fitting Norfolk coat, knickerbockers, buckskin gaiters and thick boots, standing in the middle of the floor, looking down on the unconscious figure of Mr. Vereker. It was the South \frican millionaire, indeed, who first -poke to him. As he recovered his senses his eyes opened, and he fixed them on the ~t ranger’s face. “So it is you." “Yes. it’s I. pard. You didn’t kill me a- you thought you had five years ago."

Ihe stranger suddenly turned to the Squire, who stood opposite him. "This man and I were partners, sir, out in Rhodesia. We had been prospecting for months, and w struck lucky all of a sudden. We were on our way back to Salisbury to make good our claim, lie didn't seem to care about dividing the wealth we had come up against with me. so be waited till I was asleep and tried to murder me. He thought he had done the job. but when he had trekked off some niggers found me and nursed me back to life. They took me a loWg way up country. At the end of the year I got my strength back again, and was thinking wf coming back to square up with this mail, when 1 struck a vein of gold myself, and 1 was too occupied in getting the stuff out of the ground to bother with anything else. Meanwhile he cleared to England. So 1 let the matter rest until I should return to the old country. I knew I should find him in the end. Von had better tell them it’s true, pard.” He fixed his gaze oh Vereker. "Yes, it’s all true,” he-gasped. struggling to his feet, “every word. Let me go.” He moved like a drunken man towards the door. The Squire would have stopped him. but the stranger held up his hand. "No. I'm not vindictive. Let him go. I guess he’ll never enjoy the money he’s got. That'll be punishment enough for him.” “And who are you. sir?” asked the Squire, for the first time wondering how the man had got into the house. “I don't know whether I care about mentioning my name,” he said. “I’m not very popular about here. But perhaps you’ll introduce me.” He turned to Miss Bellairs, who had been standing behind him with a strange, radiant happiness upon her face. “Mr Carnforth, don’t you know him? It’s Hubert.” The Squire looked at the tall, bearded man, and then with a little broken cry staggered forward a step and put his arms round his neck. “Hubert, my boy! thank Heaven! you have come back again.” The stranger disengaged himself with an effort. “I came back to see somebody else,” be said in a gruff voice broken with emotion. “They sent me on here from her place. I saw her in the drawing-room through that unshuttered window, so I

played the ghost-trick, which frightened Vereker into fits. And, father, this is the girl I’m going to marry, whether you want it or not!” He slipped an arm round Dorothy Bellairs' waist. “My boy, she was the girl I always wanted you to marry. That has been the tragedy of it all. Can you forgive me for a stupid, pig-headed old fool ?” “I should just think so, father.” The Christmas at Couiston Hall, so all agreed who were present, was the jollies t Christmas they ever recollected—jollier, even than the wedding of Hubert Carnforth, the South African millionaire, to Dorothy Bellairs, which took place a month later.