CHAPTER XI.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 16, 5 February 1892, Page 25

CHAPTER XI.

After spending two months with the Cudlip-Gayes in the clerical atmosphere of the Close, I (Angela) have returned to this humble little shop in this narrow little street, to brood on my future in the spasmodic fashion which evolves plans of action. One would have thought that a young person in my position would have felt rather out of it with such a thorough-paced woman of tbe world as Mrs Cudlip-Gaye ; for I don't think there exists a more clarified comprehension of the mttif that is guiding the fiats and sharps and quavers and demi-semiquavers of the endless fantasies, concertos and mazurkas which compose everybody's lives (be they good or bad) than has Emma — for to me she is " Emma." " You know it will not do for you to introduce old Megiddo's supposed daughter to your friends," I said, when she led me away from my misery on that memorable night which had grown to day — the day Megiddo was gathered to his fathers. How rapidly ehe turned those full, cool, gray eyes on me and replied : " Thank God there are yet a few people left who venture to leap that old barricade called ' It will not do.' That barricade I call the

' old snobs' water-jump.' What this century of ours has yet to do is to drown all tha old snobs in the water that they can't jump. I have found out, my dear Angela, what your are, and now I'm going to find out who you are. Grapes are not yet found on thistles. You are a mystery." I am disposed to believe thai there is a good deal of mystery connected with my parentage. That wretch Jabin knows all about it ; I almost wish he would return, if only to insist on his giving me a clue. By the bye, to-night I must fulfil Megiddo's request. Under the seven lime-trees (which Megiddo called his dressing-room), those weird frees which have always caught my imagination in tbe old garden at the back of the house, I am to search for the fortune which he is reputed to have had. How minute were his directions I I don't know whether it was very wise of me to tell Mr Harrison about it and ask him to assist me in the search ; but that man bat a strange power over me. I feel I must do his bidding, and yet lam disgusted at myself for doing v. Still, I an not alone in this weakness : look at the power he is rapidly obtaining over Canon Conway Hope and Mrs Cndlip-Gaye. I hope he won't make converts of us, I wonder if his theory is that life shorn of its shams is only to be found in the peaceful seclusion of his happy valley, not far from tbe city of the great prophet ?

I think Mr Harrison likes money, for when I told him the story of the lime-trees and the solemn whisperings of Megiddo I saw a strange light burn in those great black orbs (not eyes) of his, and be said, calling me by name, which would be a liberty from anybody elte less than a prophet, " Angela , there should be a witness." Then, of course, I asked him to come. The only uncomfortable part about tbe proceeding is the hour. Megiddo said I was Dot to search before twelve o'clock, and he fixed this day and hour because the moon would be at the full. Impossible to receive even a prophet such as Mr Harrison At midnight ; so I had to take Mrs Cadlip-Qaye into my confidence* and she immediately told Canon Hope, and be threw her back upon the Archdeacon, who very prosily talked about his night-cap, which Mrs Cudlip-Gay says he has clung to as the tail of Conservatism, though the things went out just fifty years ago, and are only to be had to order in one particular shop located at the Land's End, and situated close to tbe lighthonse at that particular point. However, as Mrs Cudlip-Gaye says, life is a series of give and take. She gave in about that night-cap, she declares, and uses it as a screwdriver to get her own way every now and then. So she is coming also — Pietra Beckett.

Pietra Beckett deserves a volume of description to herself, she it so peculiar. Thera are no old maids now, the animal has gone out, and instead this new thiag has come in — the thing between the sexes. Cravat, shirt, and fringe— that's Pietra Beckett. She is all that and something more. She has a cigarette-case I The Archdeacon was frightened, really frightened, when he saw it. She immediately made a pun, and said :—": — " Keep it close, Mr Archdeacon ; it's brother Bob's, it really is." Pietra is so cool. When I say cool I don't mean cold ; I mean she can put you in the wrong position at any moment. She is the full development of, as I said before, this new thing that has entered tbe lists with men for the places and positions held hitherto by men. She is decidedly good-looking ; her hair is cropped dose and her features are regular ; her mouth is the best and worst feature : it is pretty but cynical. When I said just now that there are no old maids I forgot Mrs Gudlip-Gaye's intimate friend, Miss Olutterbeck. She is one of the right sort and one of the new old sort. Miss Clutterbeck means to marry, and talks of herself as a " spin " spun at last into matrimony. Pietra does not mean to marry, but to compete for the positions now held by men. I don't think marriage would be possible for Pietra, because she has so completely forgotten that there is any other ground between the sexes than mere position-getting that she has, as it were, outlived the possibility of love. She is not aware that passion is an agent to be reckoned with. Mr Harrison hates her because she calls him a knave. She says it pleasantly enough, too. " Ah, Mr Harrison, you are a knave I " She belongs to that new school which only knows distinction of terms by distinction of actions. I have described all these people roughly enough, all save Canon Conway Hope, and bitn I hesitate to describe because (well, after all, this is but a piece of paper, not the eyes of this and that person)— because — yes, he attracts me. His extraordinary goodness makes me ashamed. Yet it is not a kind of goodness that awes. I feel at my moral best in his atmospbere.

He has an enthusiasm for the masses, and he takes an interest in ma as one of tbe masses. H« views me collectively, and he is as abstracted when he talks to me as if I were a congregation, not an individual. Now, I like this, because before (in that before), when I was Jabin's great " draw " at his horrible shows, it was so difficult to impress individuals with the fact that I was but a piece of machinery that danced and mide music and recited — nothing more to them. Ah I people don't know what it is to fold the lily and the snowdrop about their soul's health, till they have had to guard innocence in its alabaster box of experience. Well, all the distinguished people are coming here to-night, comimg to this quaint eld shop to search beneath

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the whispering lime-trees for Megiddo's hidden wealth. Once, when AMegiddo was ill, I remember he bade me lead him to the window, f and I saw him look upon those lime-trees as a heathen might look upon his god or a gourmand on his favourite dish. He looked, and then his tongue went round hie lips, an action as eloquent of Megiddo as a Latin quotation of a don. Mrs Cod lip-Qaye asked me how 1 had «cqnired education. I said by observation, and also by being an accident of ray position, and not in the position of the accident. " You will turn out to be a personage," she said ; •' You m%y be a stolen child." I rather like this idea ; I should enjoy stealing home and making myself known. I find that life, as a series of tableaux in which one is oneself the actor, suits my disposition. If one could only get rid of one's heart and cuddle one's heai in its place, one would feel more comfortable, if less divine. Sometimes I see my part At * series of tableaux. As in a dream I see first of all a room overlooking a park ; numbers of deer come swooping up to tht windowe. I see a sky all clouds and storm ; then all is blank. Next I am learning to dance. A man with a violin is instructing me ; the face of the man is Bhaped like the violin ; then Jabin rises up before me, always brutal— a living oath ; people pass and repass before me, phantom-like, intangible ! Tis after all but the tie of blood or heart that binds us together. Then Jabin brings me to Megiddo, his father ; from henceforth I alternate between an eye for Chippendale and an ear for monotone. No more dead are the bygone chairs and tables than the human chapters in that book of stone our Abbey. So says the new prophet, Mr Harrison ; but I misdoubt him. What shall we discover to-night ? I shall have some further reflections to add to these few p iges of my life to-night, or rather this morning. (To be continued.)