A CABINET SECRET.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 4, 20 May 1887, Page 5

A CABINET SECRET.

(By James J. Boubke— " Tibia,"— in the Dublin Freeman.) Fifty years ago, dating back from this present year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven, our brave old city could boast, and a proud boast it was considered then, that an Indiaman, a real bona fide Indiaman, sailed periodically from the Custom Honse Docks, Dublin, direct for Calcutta, and as regularly returned freighted in due course of time. She was a trim, beautiful barque of close on five hundred tons, was called by a very fanciful name, the Eastern Star, and was commanded by the owner's sole son and hope, Captain Richard Rooksgore, as fine a young fellow as ever marked a chart or watched the in-board-ing of a deep-sea lead-line. Mind you, though, this sea-going propensity was altogether of Richard's own choosing. If the elder Rooksgore had bad his way at all in the matter there would have been found for the lad immediately on his leaving school a high stool at a desk in the offices at Cope street, with a fond view, perhaps, to a perpetuation of the firm's title, " Rooksgore and Son," a title which had been familiar as a " house-

. hold word " in the mercantile world for over a century. But fate P and the boy's own restless spirits willed it otherwise, and here he was, at the date noted at the commencement of this little history, master in his twenty-fourth year of as handsome a craft of her class as sailed salt water, after passing, too, through the various grades of 'prentice, boatswain, and mate, creeping in, so to say it, through the hawse-hole, and owing — which he looked upon with pardonable pride— no degree of position to the fact of his father being one of the prince merchants of his native city. If the opinions of some distant relatives, and the whisperings of sententious clerks in the Cope street establishment were to be credited, Richard had inherited this love of a wild and adventurous life through the hot Spanish blood of his mother, who, the same wißeacres held, bad, in her parents' home in Alicante, been a lowlyborn lass with a high-sounding name, but with beauty of the most bewitching order ; whilst his waywardness and impatience of control, they insisted, were had from his father, who, in early life, bad made his family furious by simply turning head over ears in love with the same charming senorita, when he should have been minding the business of the house, on which be was sent to Spain, and despite stern prohibitions and earnest protestations, secretly marrying her off-hand, when he could tee no other way out of the difficulty.

Bat time, with its changes, did not deal lightly with the young meicbant, for, when after five years of wedded bliss in hie sunny Spanish home, he was summoned back to take up the headship of the firm, and when be proudly brought over his beautiful young wife and her baby boy, he bad hardly installed her as mistress in the grand old mansion at Mountjoy square, when she was called away to Heaven from his arms. Widowed of his early love, bis heart may be truthfully said to have been buried in the coffin with his Filumena. Setting up before him the training of his child as the one aim and object of his being, he eschewed society ; and though an untiring business man in the marts " where merchants most do congregate," bis home life, luxurious and splendid as it was in its surroundings, was that of a recluse, brightened only by the unfolding beauties of his boy. It may, therefore, be readily inferred what a heart-pang it caused him when, his school term ended, Richard declared for the sea — what gentle pleadings he urged to dissuade him from his choice ; and when all was of no avail, and the headstrong youth would face the deep and its dangers, what longing anxiousness followed him on his distant . voyages, and what rapturous — if unobtrusive — welcomes ever awaited him upon his return home. On board the Eastern Star, as mate, was a young fellow named Orr, who had been fellow 'prentice with Richard, but was his junior by a couple of years. This Orr— Mister Orr with the crew and shoregoing people ; Charley Orr with his prime friend and patron, the captain— had followed Richard, step by step, up the ladder of promotion, and had left ship after ship— for " Rooksgore and Son," be it known, owned many— when his apprenticeship closed, to sail even at times in a lowly position, with his boy -chum and ever-looked up-to companion ; and when at last Mr. Rooksgore had the beautiful Indiaman built for his son, and Orr, by the high favour of Richard, was made her chief officer, there was a rumour abroad that the offer of a captaiuacy of one of His Majesty's ships would not tempt Charley to forsake his trust — for he had, indeed, attained the Bummit of his ambition. Through youtbhood and manhood, by decree of the mighty Richard— whose will I tell you was not lightly to be gainsaid— Charley Orr was a recognised and welcome visitor at the Rooksgore home ; and it was a pleasant sight, at their little reunions on the young men's return from sea, to watch the brown-skinned, impulsive captain, relating, with all the fire and energy of his nature, to his attentive father, some deed of daring or act of ready seamanship of his gentle blue* eyed mate— for the lads were opposite as day and night— at which Charley would blush, bright as might a village girl on hearing her swain's first declaration of love. Upon one of these occasions — Orr remembered it well afterwards —when Kichara had to leave, to pay a courtesy visit to a neighbouring family named Raingold, where there was a snuffy, crotchet ty, starched old attorney for a father (firm of Blotter, Raingold, and Pounce), and a wilful, provokiDg, pretty darling, named Kitty, for a daughter— Mr. Rooksgore, looking up from his wine as the young man was about to take bis leave, said — " Spare me a moment, Mr. Orr ; that is if you are not in a violent hurry." " Hurry, sir," echoed Charley, blushing up to the ears at the sound of the great man's voice. " Not at all sir ; not at all. I'm quite at your service Bir." "Just so. Ah, thanks," said the merchant, grandly. " Please be seated." And Charley sat down once more, wondering what was comming. " There is a duty, Mr. Orr," said Richard's father, rising and opening a curioasly-formed escritoire on the opposite side of the room, " a duty sir," he continued; half turning round, and impressively tapping the now drawn back lid, " which every man who has anything to leave behind him on his departure from life owes to society — to society, Mr. Orr, yes, and to those, sir, who claim him as kindred' and that duty, lam sorry to say— yes lam more thaa sorry to say, sir, is daily, nay, hoarly, shirked from craven fear, or pusillanimous superstition." He spoke so solemnly, and with such severe tones, that the young sailor involuntarly placed his hand over his face as if he were listening to a sermon. •' But lam not going to neglect my bounden duty, Mr. Orr," went on the merchant, unfolding a large sheet of paper and spreading it on the table before him. " I will not, from dread of an old wife's tale, that the ' signing of my will can hasten my death,' run the risk of leaving my noble boy penniless, or at the mercy of a hungry brood of relatives, who would pluck my very bones out of the grave for money. No, " sir, this"— here he touched the bell and the butler appeaering he said to him " Binns, bring an ink tray and pens please and remain — " This Mr. Orr," said he returning to his subject, "is my last will and testament, and I wish you and Binns to witness my signature to it. It was a relief to Charley to learn the worst, so he signed his name as required, put his finger on a wafer where required, saw the others do the same, and when all was completed saw the document carefully folded and put back to its place ; then, after bidding his host good night, be carefully buttoned his coat about him, and went whistling down the street. That day fortnight the Eastern Star sailed for Calcutta. Miss Kitty Raingold sitting in a perfect "love" of a morning wrapper, and sipping her chocolate daintily opposite her prim old father one breezy, December morning, was in a high state of vexation . She was blonde, she was beautiful, and twenty years old. What under heaven could bring a pout to the rosy lips that toyed bo pettishly with her cup, that bad it been a Bentient thing would have given worlds for its position f " I'll tell you." Her father, withered old curmudgeon and miserable money grubber as he was considered — though fabulously wealthy — had positively forbidden.her, under pain of a displeasure she did not care to brave, from even looking in feminine curiosity upon the great sale —by otder of the executors— of the household furniture, pictures, plate, wines, etc., of the late Richard Rooksgore, Esquire, which wag

to take place on that and the following days till completed, and which had been lavishly advertised for ever so long. Tea, it was all too true ; the fine, genial gentleman, the princely merchant, was dead. He had died suddenly months before; died, calmly and placidly, sitting in his chair, the very evening after the * depart nre of the Indiaman . Worse too, if worse could be, he had died without making a will, though Binns, the butler, ma ie positive assertion that at the request of the deceased gentleman he had tdgned a paper as witness, in conjunction with Mr. Orr, and which paper he was led to believe was a will. But when, in consequence of this assertion, most vigorous search was made everywhere that such a document might be bidden, and without avail, and when Mr. Binns, cornerei, so to speak, by the lawyers nnder a cross-fire of examination, simply lost his wits, and could scarcely testify to the fact qf bis own existence, I need not say that his assertion fell flat, and unprofitable indeed. Two nephews of Mr. Rooksgore, ill-conditioned varlets whom he had always kept at bay, came in as claimants of the estate. For they not only disputed the existence of a will, but the very legitimacy of his son Richard, on the ground of there being no proof of the marriage of their uncle with the beautiful Filumena de Truebasy Castro, and although Mr. Raingold's firm, in a neighbourly way, set inquiries through their agents all over Alicante, nothing came o£ them but news of the death or emigration of everybody who had known the lovely girl in her maidenhood. These dismal tidingsjae'ng duly forwarded to Calcutta to await | the arrival of the Eastern Star may be well expected to have come • crushingly npon the hopes and aspirations of poor luckless Richard. | However, when he had read them foi the hundredth time over, and , weighed scruple by scruple their contents, he, after a fierce combat ' with his own passionate and fiery nature, and though not without earnest dissuadings from his young friend and companion, fairly ' threw up the sponge, and let the hungry hounds have all, sooner, as I he said, than drag the sacred name of his mother through the mire of ! a trial at law. ) So the ships, one after the other as they arrived were sold ; and the Eastern Star, poor Richard's glory and pride, was ordered home with the same view, and might be expected any day. It was young : Orr who was bringing her along, for her late captain, who had been politely requested to retain his position until her disposal, bad declined with thanks, but insisted that Charley, from a mistaken idea of attachment, should not miss such a chance of advancement. Then when all was arranged with bis friends, and after a few manly heart messages to poor little Kitty Raingold in Dublin, the wronged heir of the house of Rooksgore got a vessel for Teddo, and might, at the hour his pretty sweet-heart was remonstrating with her unbending father, be anywhere on the waters of the habitable globe. She, poor dear, had craved in her girlish way to be possessed of some little memorial of the friend she had so long kaown and so ! dearly loved ; some pretty toy or article that would ba within her daily ken, and a glance at which would recall the absent one though thousands of miles away. For be it known that as children Kitty and Dick had romped and played together under the watchful eyes of their nurse maids, as awkward boy and shy giggling girl ; they had met and interchanged confidences, and at last when dawning womanhood came upon the one, and adolescence upon the other, be hid whispered and she had listened to the old, old story — " Old as the Universe but not yet outworn.' 1 They had too, after the quaint fashion of lovers all the world over, broken a ring between them, each taking a half. But as darling Kitty reasoned to herself with a little impatient stamp of ncr foot, that was not for show, that was for taking out o' nights twenty and twenty times from the place where it was hidden, and kissing it, and kissing it again und again. She wanted something everyone might see, something the very presence of which might draw forth even from strangers, the tbeme of her lost lover, or expression of the hope of his return. And here w^s her tiresome papa setting his face against her harmless desire. Why, his conduct was simply tyranny. •' Kitty, child, you will put that stubborn nonsense aside for once, pet, and do as I request," said Mr. Raingold, rising from the ,table and whisking the crumbs from his coat front with his napkin. ' You know, darling, that what I advise is ever for your good, for what other object than your welfare have I in life ?" " Papas can be too good at times," pouted the wilful Kitty. " Yes, and pretty young ladies can be cross and ugly when they cannot have all their own way." " I am sure I don't want all my own way," said Miss Raingold, lifting the now fast-cooling chocolate out with her spoon and making little rivulets all over the tea-board. " There are the Miss Hanrahans, and Mrs. O'Dywer Joyce, and Mrs. Dunbrody, and a hundred other ladies of the square ; they have all arranged to look in upon the sale to-day, and I arranged to go with them. Heigh I hoi" said the doleful Kitty. " Yes, darling ; but none of those knew the Rooksgores as we knew them," urged her father. "So let them have their humour out. why, pet," eaid he, turning Bhort aound from eyeing himself in the mirror above the mantelshelf, and looking at his daughter with a kind of fond appealing — " why, worldling as folks consider me, which indeed after all I am not, I would look upon such curiosity in the home of an old-time friend as sacrilege. Ah, Kitty I Kitty I" That finished it — •• I won't go," said she. " My good, swe"et girl," said Mr. Raingold ; "I knew you would be Baid by your fond old father, and then again "" — and here he opened his hands, as if to add further impressiveness to his words — 11 those two villains, who have worked all the wrong and ruin to poor Richard are sure to be present, and I would not have my child contaminated by the air which they breathe." " I won't go," said Kitty ; " I have decided." He gave her a little kiss of thanks, and w«nt forth to his daily duties. (To be concluded in our next,)