A GIRL'S STRATAGEM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 37, 19 June 1891, Page 23

A GIRL'S STRATAGEM.

(By Katherine Tynan.)

Betty La. TotrCHE bad not sustained the f amilj tradition for beauty, thoagh some held her handsome, and her worst ensmy could not say she was plain-looking. She was a tall girl, almost too slender, with a face which seldom by any chance had any colour in it, vivid, scarlet lips, and a strange pair of eyes, balf grey, half hazel, which ware apt to take a topaz colonr when their owner was excited. Her mother had been a beauty, and a worthless one. Harry La Touche had never had a happy hour from the time be became possessor of her until be lay, a dying man, on the grass of the Fifteen Acres, Bhot in a dnel which her heartless coquetries had brought about, Betty remembered him dimly ; a fresh-looking, honest-faced fellow, to the last an incongruous presence in the gambling saloons, whither his wife's follies drove him. She remembered his kissing her in the grey dawn of the morning he went out to die, and putting her down so tenderly on her warm pillow. Growing older, she came to learn the story of that day, and it filled her with a grest bitterness against her mother, now an elderly butterfly, known in half the cities cf Europe. She bad dragged her little girl in her train almost from the time she could walk. She was no beauty, her mother said half complacently, and there was no fear of rivalry. However, tha bitterness grew and grew, and had become almost insupportable, when Mrs La Touche took it in her head to bestow her faded person upon a parson ten years her junior, who had been long devoted to her or her jointure, Tbey were in Belgium when this happened, and Betty very gladly shook the dust of the hot little Belgium town off her feet and travelled homewards to Ireland, where she had not been for twelve years. It was in thn last years of the last century, and the journey was a toilsome, and even dangerous one, but it was accomplished safely. She was going to her father's aunt, whose country house was on the outskirts of tbe city at Inchicore, not far from Phoenix Park, a quiet and little frequented place, though somewhat spoilt by his Majesty's prison of Kilmainham, in tbe near vicinity. The packet had been half the week tossing about in the Channel, and Miss La Touche was a bad sailor, so she was a pitiable object for her presentation to her great aunt. Still, when the coach deposited her at the green-barred gate of her new abode, she felt the life creeping back iv her veins, and the joy in her heart at the pleasant sight, A long garden stretched away from the gate, rosy and white with apple blossoms, over which stood up a grey old house framed in creepers with gabled roof and twisted chimneys, the diamond- pantd windows open, and all, basking in tne morning sun, looking a very haven of rest. Down the long pathway came the stateliest of ladies in a stiff dove-coloured silk-gown, with a lace kerchief crossed on her bosom, and a cap of the same, frail as a cobweb, on soft, white hair. Peach-coloured ribboos in gay knots adorned cap and kerchief, and matched with mild violet eyes which looked out of her worn fair face. She gathered tbe tired girl into such a motherly embrace as she had never known in all her life ; then, having dismissed the hackney coach, carried her off into the shaly old house, where her maid Hester was waiting with almost as warm a welcome. And tben there was a dainty breakfast and a warm bath prepared, and the tired traveller afterwards went to sleep in a room all roses oa a green background, and slept nearly through the twenty-four hours, to be awakened only by tbe sorjgs of the thrushes and blackbirds just outside her window. She was a fascinating girl, despite her lack of absolute beauty. No belle of the day had more admirers, and would-be-lovers ; bat Betty would have none of them in that capacity, though she had plenty of smiles and gay words for them. Some said she was cold and some exacting, but she was neither, as after events proved ; only unable to love a man who had displayed mere social qualities. She was now getting on for twenty-six years of age and her name had been associated with no man's. She gave none of her admirer* cause to complain. Her favours, were impartially distributid, and there was no duelling on her account. She was unconventional in an age when what we nowadays would call fastness was almost a convention. Sbe thought her own thoughts and put them into speech, and she chose her own friends. Also, now and then, she made her own enemies. She could be curiously bitter at times, and bad a way of flashing out at pretence, at scandal-mon-geriog, or anything else that earned her disdain, with a dilation of her yellow eyes, which occasionally made for her implacable enemies ; but she was well loved, too, and went on her way unheeding. She took part in all the town's gaieties, dancing at the Botnndft, and

driving to take the water at Leixlip surrounded by a posse of her admirers on horseback, and altogether led a very gay existence. The high tide of gaiety which tbe Rutland Administration had inaugurated had not yet fallen to it* ebb. Lord Buckingham was followed by Lord Fitswilliam, and under this beloved Viceroy tha Irish capital was a gay and pleasant place indeed. II was the day of the United Irish Sooietyjwhen the noblest in the land belonged to its ranks, and the proudest dames displayed its favours, and as yet its strength and power and the boldness of its pretensions had not seemed to inspire with anxiety the ruling authorities, this happy state of things was not for long. In March, 1797, Lord Fit«william was recalled, and left Ireland amid the deepest national mourning, his kind rule being replaced by the savage despotism of Lord Camden's viceroyalty. It came like a thunder-clap on tha country, when some of tbe noblest and most beloved among tha United Irishmen were seized and imprisoned in Newgate, in the old prison of Kilmainham, in CarrickjEergos, and the other strongholds throughout the country, the most active agent in the now policy of repression being the newly- appointed Chief Secretary, Bobert Stewart, Lord Oastlereagh, who had been one of the foremost . among tha United Irishmen in his native northern province. Under the new rule the gaieties went on with less heart, bat little outward expression of the gloom that had fallen upon the city in common with tbe country. The fairest and noblest faces were missing perhaps, but society agreed! as it always does, to bury its dead as decently as possible. So martial law not yet proclaimed, coaches rumbled through the oity by night, and link-boys ran shouting with their lights, and the sedan chairmen had not to complain of much diminution of custom. Some, indeed were too generous to accept the existing state of things ; manly a gentleman laid aside his ruffles and velvet, and went no more to Court ; many a lady folded her brocades sprinkled with shamrocks in dusky drawers, strewn with lavender, and put by her gaieties for a better day. But, contrary to all expectations, Betty La Touche went with the tide. She had made one hot little protest at first. One night she had overruled all her adoring aunt's objections to appearing at one of tha Viceroy's balls. She had come down muffled in her white silk cloak, and while they were waiting for the coach the gentle old lady had time to notice the feverish excitement in the girl's face. Her own heart was sad enough. She could not see why they should be junketing off to the Castle, with all this misery going on aad some of their dearest and most honoured friends lying in prison. Betty mast have guessed her thoughts, for turning to her suddenly she bent and kissed the sweet withered face. " Bear with me, my dearest," she said, "O, what are you think* ing of me 1 That I am my mother's daughter, perhaps light and hard like her. Bear with me a little, and you will soon understand. And the tears brimmed over her two bright eyes. So they went off, the old lady's kind heart comforted through all sense of mystification. However, Betty's appearance at the ball created considerable commotion. Her white velvet was embroidered thickly with silver shamrocks, and her underskirt was of the rebel green. The sham* rock was in her hair, on her breast— everywhere. Miss La Touche was a little dismayed at this madcap freak, and yet in her brave heart a little proud of it, On the Chief Secretary, whose first appearance this was under the new regime, the effect was far from what Betty had anticipated. As she swept by him and the Vioeroy, her haughty bead in the air. her long train gathered ovtr her arm, her eyes quite golden with anger and excitement, his Lordship swore he had never seen so charming aa apparition. " A dangerous little rebel, and one worth knowing, by Heaven," was his comment, whioh was cbronic'ed and repeated to Betty herself next day. After this her fire seemed to have died out, and to all the world she looked well in process of taming. On the very first opportunity my Lord Castlereagh had obtained an introduction, and a friendship seemed to grow between the two, to tbe scandal of many and the wonder of all. His Lordship found time between the cares of the I State to lavish the petitt toint on this one charming woman. Not that there was anything to give scandal ; scarcely anything even in th« way of flirtation. Betty La Touche was far too haughtily careful of her good name for that. All the world might bear her shower of gay witticisms us she sat smoothing her yellow silk and opening and shutting her great fan, while 'the Secretary's handsome and sinister face leansd delightfully ever her. Hear the talk of the dowagers. " Beally," says one, a little acrimoniously, " that girl grows more like her mother every day. What can Pritcilla La Touche be about to permit it 1 And her friendship with Lady Edward, and those poor Bonayoes t Dear, dear 1 'tis the way of the world." "Yet, they say," says her kinder-looking neighbour, "that Lady Edward has much affection for her, and repels with anger those who would carry talcs to her. And poor Mrs Bonayne ; they say this girl travels every day to her country bouse at Drumcondra, to be with her and comfort her for the loss of her son in Kilmainham. And they say also that, by my Lord Castlereagh, she has procured for him in many ways a mitigation of the hardships of bis prison,"

" By day she visits the sorrowful," says the other, with a saeer ; 'by night she charms away the evil humours of my lord. Surely a Christian life." But Betty is unconscious of the comments of friend or foe. As the evening goes on she grows almost wild in her mirth, a scarlet flush lights into radiance her usually pale face ; her eyes have diamonds in their gollen depths, and my lord is enchanted. As Davi i with his hnrp soothed Saul, so docs she the hated Chief Secretary— who bus. many flatterers and no friends, whose hand is against his _old companions and theirs against him. " The little witch's tongue enchants me," he says to an intimate, " till I forget ; and, by my soul, an hour of such forgetfulness is sweet." Only Miss La Touche knows what wild gaiety costs in the expenditure of strength. After such scenes, once safely in the shelter of her coach, Betty La Touches sparkle dies out suddenly, leaving a piteously wan face and an exhausted body. Once or twice after they are in the house, behind its tall walls and apple trees, she has broken down in wild fits of hysterical weeping, ani often the lifeless day succeeds a disturbed night. She grows thinner and paler, despite her aunt's strengthening mixtures ; but by night she makes her faithful pilgrimage to Drumcondra, " to get strength," she siys to herself, and there her wanness is noticed and anxiously commented upon. " My child," Mrs Ronayne says to her one day, •' what have you been doiog to yourself ? How shall I answer my Archie when, God willing, he returns to me and asks how I have cared for his sweetheart ? Are not these nightly gaieties too much ?" •' My dearest mother," says the girl, lifting her face from the knees on which it was hidden, " I am well, and only thin because I am very anxious. I fear to absent myself from even one event where Lord Castlereagh shall be, lest he should find some new distraction. Then there are years and ysars in which to get well. Now, I have to charm my lord till he be content to pay for his charming." So for some weeks this continues. One night Betty had been in her most brilliant humour, and for once the mood does not fail her when they left the ballroom. She is still sparkling when they are safe at home in the brown parlour, much in need of a composing draught ere she shall sleep, her aunt thinks. But this night the gaiety is not merely feverish. She comes and kneels by the old lady in a pretty way she has, and begins stroking her face. Then she says with a wistful tenderness : " Soft heart and brave soul. Dear, to-night I have won my wage after months of bondage. Look what my lord brought me to the ball." And ehe withdraws a signed and sealed document from her boeom. It is an order from Ljrd Castlereagb that the mother of the prisoner, Archibald Ronayne, shall be admitted to visit him at any time on the presentation of the order, and as often as it is presented. "My lord thought it no great boon to give me," she says. "He knows my rebel sympathies and my rebel friendships. He even complimented me on the softness of my virtues, which moved me to sympathy with a mother's heart." " It wat the thought of akinJ heart, my child, " saya the old lady. " It will give nia mother aa much haopinessas she can have while he is a prisoner and in peril." " My dear," replies the giil, " it will make another happy, too. Listen while I whisper it to you, and forgive me for being so secret I was but waiting to tell you. He is my dear love. I think I have loved him always, and he had been my dear husband if he would. He was 6ilent all the time just for the foolish reason that his lands were impoverished and I was a rich woman. Bat I read it in his true eyes. And so when the trouble came I even put aside the woman ia me, and going to him I besought him that he should make me a proud woman with the name of his wife. And though he was well - nigh beside himself with joy and gratitude — gratitude, ah me I" sbe said with her face flushed and pulling, "he would not because he knew not how the struggle would end ; but I vowed that however it should be, no other man would ever call me wife. Think, dear, what I have endured for him these months. 0, it must have been my share of my mother's flintiness which kept my heart from breaking. And now, dear, shall I leave him to rot in prison? You will be brave brave heait, while I tell you all my plans. The pats will not take hismother to him : it will take me. O, Betty La Touche is a good actress ; she has it in her inheritance ; and she has things on her toilet table to turn a young woman old. And so some evening about the dusk, she, in her cloak, and her bonnet with its veil, shall pass into prison, and he, God willing, shall coma out and be sailing to France ere the Governor of Kilmainham discovers his change of prisoners. Dear, how brave you are ; you would not unnerve me. There is no danger to be feared except from his stubborn will ; jet even that will 1 overcome. And I have planned it all : how here you will give him rest and refreshment ; and afterwards there are kind friends who will relieve you of further responsibility. And even my lord, I think, though he miy rage at being outwit'el woul 1 scarcely fret to death if a kind fate were so to relieve him of half a score of his illustrious prisonere. And there will be a new life for ua all over the sea.

" God grant it," said the older woman devoutly ; " tbongtt it teems a wild enterprise, yet perhaps not bo wild as it seems. Shall Ibe less lacking in spirit than you my child, seeing that my heart too bleedl for those brave gentlemen ? At lt-ast you have set your will to it, a Bturdy will aa I well know, and we must bat trust the issue to God* 1 would have done as much when I, too, waa young, for »ne I loved. And, God willing, no harm can come to my brave girl. My lord's oread of tho town's Liughter will oblige him to Bhield you, if we succoed, though his fri ndship may fail." So in an *-ye ing or tw,>, about the wintry dusk, a tall old Jady alighted from her sedan chair at the barred gates of Kilmainham, and having presented the all-powerful Secretary's permit, was conducted leaning on her tilver-headed staff, down the dark corridors to Bon* aynes cell. "My dearest mother," said th« prisoner, jumping up from his studies in old Gre> k Testament, and taking the two gloved hands, " this is a happy fortune. I had scarce hoped to see you bo soon again," lifting up the heavy veil, when the warden had gone tramping down the echoing corridor. This member of the United Irish Society was a man of thirty-fire or so, straight and tall, and brown as a berry — a very goodly specimen of mankind. His grey eyes had not forgotten their merriment though there was a seriousness about the face which told of grave thought and strenuous endeavours, and perhaps of a steady-looking into the future, which must have seemed a troubled one indeed. "H ay," said a voice which was not his mother's— the silvery, treble voice of a young girl — '' not one so dear, perhaps, but one who loves thee so dearly that she must nee is go masquerading in that mother's stead to look upon thy face." " My dearest, dearest love," be said, " how I have hungered to hear your voice. And how brave of you, my dear one, to come to me like this. My mother has told me of ail your tenderness and all your faith. But bow shall I thank you for this ?" He was stroking back her hair, which she had taken to wearing after the fashion of the French Revolution, in a short curly crop.— The old woman's bonnet had fallen back and she had put her clasped hands upon his breast, gazing up at his face with a light of exultation on her own. Away in the prison there was a distant echo of laughter and singing, for the political prisoners were by no means kept in isolation, and outside they heard the tread of the sentry, and the occasional clank of his sword in the scabbard. There was a glimpse through the grated window of the skeleton boughs of an elm tree in the Governor's garden, stark against the fading rose of the evening sky ; a robin was perched there singing his delicate song ot hope that comforts us when the winter is here. In the cell the two lovers were speaking almost in whispers. His face had assumed a great gravity, hers was pleading and wistful and very pale in the growing dusk. "O, believe me," she was saying, "that your honour is as dear tome as to yourself. For a mere chimera such as this is, will you condemn your mother to misery and perhaps to death ? For, indeed, she has failed cruelly since they have taken her only son away from her. And me would you cundemn to dea'h in life without you? Your sacred honour is safe with me. I who have Lved you because yoa are the most honourable gentleman in God's world. 1 am no weak woman to council you to safety at honour's cost. You will be gone, and Betty La Touche will > c heie ; and what will they do with her but even open the pnton gates and let her go quietly, seeing that my lord's warrant hath brought all this mischief, and seeing that she has many friends in high places." " You are tempting me sorely, my dearest one," he said, " and wjat you siy teems wise enough. Yet I should go as a craven for ever if one of th sa aboat the prison should harm one hair of this dear head. Yet I think they will not ; and did not the Scotch lord in Prince Ctarles Stewart's rising win freedom so through his brave wife, while she also went safe and unharmed? But to-night I will give you no answer, my love. I must consult with one true friend as to whether I may do this thing. And be brave, my child." And so he sent her away with a misgiving 'isart. But her feminine ingenuity brought strong allies to har aiJ. She and his Pamela pleaded so well with Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the young leader of the insurrection, that he came to view the matter in their light, and wrote a w ,id to Ronayne to overcome his scruples. " My fiiend," the note ran, " lend thy will to that of thy sweetheart. Whit she wishts may be done with no scruple by thee. She will be aa safe as m her own chamber, and what we have at heart will be served by thy presence in the Fiench capital." And it was signed with his beloved and immortal name: This precious letter Betty carried in her bosom on her next visit to Kilmainham, and it had the desired effect. The visit was shorter than usual the soldieis thought who were cleaning their carbines by the outer g ites *s the < rect old lady passed out, with many a respectful salutation, for th-re was strong sjmuathy wi h the prisoners. But a f»w hwurs Uter my Ljid (Jarhampton paid an unexpected visit to the pribon, and ih? cells being thrown open for his inspection, instead of Archie Rocayne and his Greek Testament there wad Betty La Toucbe — a bewitching picture, half laughing and half weeping, in

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a charming flowered gown of rose brocade, and, for all the nervous tension of those endless five or six hours, in no mood to be quelled by the Commander of Forces, or any other State official in all Ireland. So there was a tremendoas commotion, and the Secretary presently arrived from the Oastle, and indicated his character as a gentleman by handing Miss La louche, with most deadly courtesy, into a chair, and despatching her to her aunt's house ; for, though he was livid with fury, he was too clever not to accept the situation. And there were soldiers despatched here and there, and the port of Dublin was guarded, and the Castle messengers were kept riding all night ; but A-jehie Ronayne, in the Frenoh wine ship, was well out in the Channel, So Betty La Touche fell under a cloud, and was severely excluded from all State festivities. But she became at once a popular heroine, and a street song was composed in her honour and sung at opportune moments at the street corners. All the old friends flocked around her, and many of those who had relatives in prison came and kissed her, and wept while they told her what a brave girl she was. But some of the wits circulated lampoons about my lord, and bow little his statecraft availed him against the wiles of the fair ; and it was reported that he was furiously angry over the whole business. So lent worse befall there was a flitting, and the old house at Incbicore— it is Btill standing behind its apple trees, a stone's throw from the narrow street with its jingling tramcars — was vacated, and Miss Priscilla La Touche, her niece and household, with her widowed friend, Mrs Ronayne, went away to foreign parts, and were said to hare joined the latter's 6on in Paris. Soon Betty La Touches wedding was announced ; and it was said that the Secretary, when he heard the news, looked black as a thunder-cloud. But they cay— what do they say ? All such rumours may be baseless, for side by side with this some said that he entertained secretly a half-angry admiration for his whilome friend's daring and skill. But Betty La Touche over seas had nothing to trouble her happy and innocent life, except the heavy troubles of those she and her husband loved at home in Ireland, where they were " Hanging men and women for the wearing of the green." — Exchange.