The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 3 December 1908, Page 3

The Storyteller

A MESALLIANCE

When George Crackenthorpe and his daughter, Muriel, found their way to Ballysallah Spa, the Spa was out of fashion. But it did very well for the Crackenthorpes, who were miserably poor. Most of the casinos of Europe had assisted in George's ruin. Bath and Cheltenham and Tunbridge Wells were no longer possible. Ballysallagh served at once to cover up George's retreat and to save him in his starveling income. He could write to the few friends of happier days that Ballysallagh was a thousand times better than Hamburgh or Baden, or those new-fangled places, Marienbad and Salsomaggiore. And his daughter Muriel could buy him chickens at iod apiece, delicious, skinny bits of toothsomeness unknown to the millionaires of Park Lane, eggs at 6d a dozen, and other edibles in proportion.

George had several sisters living, who had not spoken to him for a good many years. They were respectable and pious ladies, whose handsome incomes, accumulating, had gathered like the rolling snowball, although much more solid. They had washed their hands of George long ago. The money would all go to Joe's children. Joe was a younger brother, who was a light of Exeter Hall. ' Money goes to money,' George would say bitterly. ' Never mind, my girl, we've had a rare good time with ours.'

Which meant that he riad had. Poor Muriel, who had been dragged about Europe all her life in the train of a gambler, had had no great joy of the squandered money, nor had the weeping little mother she remembered.

Occasionally a letter would come for George, addressed in a feigned, backward-sloping hand. The letter would enclose a hundred pounds in Bank of England notes. George would feel them between his thumb and forefinger with great satisfaction. ' Good old Henrietta,' he would murmur to himself. Henrietta was the youngest of his sisters, and although she had agreed with the others to ignore that black sheep, George, she had apparently some relenting in her heart towards hira. But for these banknotes a couple of times a year they could hardly have lived, even at Ballysallagh.

The roof that covered their heads was that of the long, white, two-storeyed house, with green outside shutters to all its windows, that was known as the Spa House. About a hundred years earlier the greatest of great ladies had taken their cures there ; had sipped the Spa water, with its agreeable rotten-egg flavor and odor ; had tripped in the meadows in shepherdess costumes. But now the Spa water had a merely local reputation, and the O 'Kelly family, who owned the Spa House, took an occasional lodger in one end of it, and filled it at the other end, being a long family. The heads of the O Kelly family, since the father and mother were dead, were Patrick, the eldest son, and Kathleen, the eldest daughter. A brother and sister more unlike could not well be imagined. Patrick was quite a beautiful creature, though the indiscriminating people about him had not discovered it. His eyes were the bluest blue — not grey-blue, and not green-blue, but blue. His skin, that had a short, golden down on it, was firm with health, and had the most beautiful color. His hair, corncolored, fell in waving masses that would have been the delight of a painter. His limbs were magnificent. He was a young giant, strong and graceful. Muriel, who adored beauty» was aware of it through his untidy everyday clothes, and the more dis» figuring garments he wore on Sundays. Kathleen, on the other hand, was cross-eyed, had a cheek like a little, hard, red winter apple, a squat figure, a short temper, and a managing disposition. Neither she nor Michael, the next brother, who resembled her, were satisfied with Patrick's way of doing business. It was too slow and easy-going for them. A deal more might be made of the land by Michael. Kathleen was prepared to develop the summer-lodgers scheme ; to fill the house with those who would pay, and not be too particular about what they did, whether they were rowdy, and turned the quiet valley under the mountains into a sort of Hall by the Sea of some trippers' resort. Already she had a poultry; farm, ■ and sent fruit to the Dublin market. She kept bees, and had no end of schemes for making money. Patrick quietly set himself in opposition to his sister's plan for attracting crowds to the Spa House. A dislike the rowdiness and noise was a small part of his opposition. A great part was that the Crackenthorpes would go if the others were

to come, and Kathleen was not fascinated by old George and his daughter as Patrick was, and was intolerant of her brother's folly. * «

She .could see nothing in Muriel Crackenthorpe to admire. For ihe matter of that, no one could, except Patrick. She was a pale, heavy-browed, sad-eyed girl, with masses of magnificent hair, too great for her small head, and an insignificant figure. She had never had a lover any more than Kathleen O'Kelly herself. Her father's gay companions, in the days before the money was spent, had hardly known of her existence. Her father had often commented unflatteringly on her appearance.

* Seeing that I was known as Beau Crackenthorpe in my day,' he had often said, ' and that your mother was bewitching when I married her, I am hanged if I know where you got your plain looks.'

These things gave Muriel a low opinion of herself and a desire to shrink from publicity. She was very happy at Ballysallagh, content to wait on her father, who grew old and querulous and ill, and when she was off duty, and could leave him asleep or reading the London papers which she managed to procure for him, to wander in the pleasant fields about the Spa House, or sit in the garden, or climb to the mountain, or stray in. the woods.

It was surprising what small things could give Muriel joy — the leafage of spring-tide, the colors in the autumn trees, a robin on a bough, a little brook running over golden and silver sands. In time Patrick O'Kelly began to appreciate the things that would please her, and would present himself before her shyly with a trail of wild roses on a bough, or an armful of red wild-cherry leaves with hips and haws, or a great mass of cowslips, and would feel himself only too well repaid by the pleasure that would send the sudden color to her cheek and the light to her eyes before her soft voice thanked him. It was with Muriel's voice that Patrick O'Kelly first fell hopelessly in love. His own sisters' voices %vere rough and loud. To be sure, he was not unacquainted with soft-speaking peasant girls, but Muriel's voice was another matter. That was really her one beauty, although so few people heard it that it hardly counted in her favor.

George Crackenthorpe went off quietly in his sleep one nighl He had not seemed to concern himself as to what was to become of his daughter hitherto. But the day before he died he had suddenly developed a care for her, which made poor Muriel's heart beat faster with disproportionate love and gratitude. ' When I leave you, my girl,' he said, ' you'd better write to your Aunt Henrietta. She's the best of the lot. Not but what we're all rotten with pride, the whole lot of us. I believe I could gabble the family tree myself this minute. There was never a mesalliance in the family. Write to your Aunt Henrietta. She's your godmother, too. It's her place to look after you.' What possessed him to talk of mesalliances the very last night? The next morning, when old George did not waken, and Muriel discovered him cold and quiet, her frantic pull at the befi brought Patrick first to her aid. Patrick closed the dead man's eyes with a quiet hand. He saw to everything, even that the orphan should be undisturbed in her grief. He did not think to ask if he should write to anyone, and perhaps Muriel forgot it too. So it came to pass that when George Crackenthorpe was laid to rest he had only two mourners, his daughter and Patrick O'Kelly. Patrick could never understand how his avowal of love was made. He had certainly never contemplated anything so audacious. Miss Crackenthorpe was a lady, and as far above him as the stars in the sky. To be sure, the O'Kellys were once great people. There was 'still an O'Kelly in Connaught who led a sort of chieftain life, and was a cousin of Patrick's. But the gentility in the blood had become so attenuated by admixture with a commoner strain that it appeared not all in Patrick's brothers and sisters. Patrick himself was a throw-back to old days and the old stock. He was essentially a gentleman, although the accidents were against him. Doubtless, first of all, he adored Muriel because she represented to him that exquisite thing, ladyhood. But the sight of Muriel in her poor black gown, brokendown, trembling with sobs, helpless in her loneliness, made him mad. He had flung himself on his knees beside her, and had taken her in his arms before he could remember .that it was a mad thing to do. To his bewilderment and delight, her soft lips turned to meet his kis»e», her arms went about his neck. For, the first time in her life she wept upon a breast that was hers.

And Patrick was a new man. There was no more misgiving for Patrick. She loved him, and she would marry him. He trod the earth with a new step ; he walked upright from that minute. The change in him made him more beautiful to look on than ever. There was something about him that made his sister Kathleen more short-tempered than usual on their next meeting. ' You look as if you'd been to your wedding instead of to a funeral,' she said acidly. ' Sometimes a wedding follows a funeral,' he answered radiantly. She pretended to misunderstand him. ' Miss Crackenthorpe will be going to her own people?' she said. ' I'll be able to fit up the house for next summer. If you like to put some of your two hundred -pounds into the furnishing it will pay you well. Michael is giving us twentyfive pounds. I'm putting in twenty-five pounds of my own. To be sure, I can't touch the children's.' ' No, you can't touch the children's,' he said. ' And I think I'll be wanting my two hundred. As for Miss Crackenthorpe, the poor little thing, she's lika left alone in the world for all she has to turn to. I'm going to clear out and leave you and Michael to manage for yourselves and the children. You'll make more of it than I could, I've no doubt. Miss Crackenthorpe is going to marry me.' ' Indeed!' said Kathleen, as though she had not guessed it. ' I'm afraid 'tisn't much use she'll be to you for a wife. How are you going to earn her bread and your own? ' Patrick passed over the lack of sympathy in her voice. He was used to Katty's way. ' I've been to the Colonel about it, and he has offered me a steward's place, with a cottage at Lara. I've seen a picture of the cottage; "it's as pretty as a picture.' 'A steward's place! Are you mad, Patrick O'Kelly? I thought you'd be buying a bit of land for yourself somewhere.' ' With two hundred pounds ! I won't begin life with her saddled with debt.' He had his own reasons for accepting the Colonel's offer. He felt intuitively that there would be nothing in the life at Lara to offend his Muriel. The steward's cottage was a cottage ornce, built fantastically, like a Swiss chalet, amid the woods and waters of the lonely mountainous country. Life there with Muriel would be paradise to him. They would be entirely alone. None of that equal intercourse with uneducated people, which he felt would fret Muriel sorely, need be necessary. He felt with an uplifting of the heart that Kathleen and Michael would hardly ever visit them at Lara. i If there was anything wanted to make it certain, it was supplied in their indignation- at his accepting the position of Colonel Denis's steward. . He was an affectionate fellow, but his family had been contemptuous of affection and its outward signs. The young ones growing up were faithful replicas of Kathleen and Michael. It was bcwildcringly sweet to him to find one who, like Muriel, thought that Love was the most precious thing in the world. Hitherto, only his horse and his clogs had been of that mind with him. Patrick had a pound a week and the cottage from the Colcnel. \»ith Muriel's consent the two hundred pounds were put away, safely invested against a rainy day. At the time of their marriage she had about fifty pounds left of Aunt Henrietta's last remittance. She spent it on some things for herself and for the cottage, to make it habitable according to her notions. There was room and to spare for stowing away the articles of furniture which had proved quite sufficient for the needs of the late steward. Colonel Denis never visited his steward. If he had, he would have been surprised at the air of austere elegance which Muriel managed to impart to the long room which was the sitting-room. To be sure, it had two deep windows opening on to balconies and overlooking a superb prospect of wood and lake and mountains. A few strips of matting, a couple of wicker chairs, soft muslin curtains at the windows. Muriel's piano, a bookcase with her books, made the room refined, homelike. Patrick was out riding over moor and mountain all day, inspecting the Colonel's mountain cattle here, visiting some drainage works there, seeing that the ploughmen were at their work in one place, thai? the women were at work at another picking off the stones that continually intruded themselves in the Colonel's cultivated land. v The life- suited him. Certain unspoken teachings of his wife on ordinary manners and behaviour had been eagerly acted upon by him. After all, Muriel had only maried a gentleman in the rough. Patrick was so gentle and so pathetically eager

to please her that none of her lessons were lost. In their evenings together she even began to educate him, taking down the shabby old books out of which she had picked up her own education, which somehow had never got lost in all her father's wanderings.

While he was out she did her housework. He would be up in the morning to light the lire for her and boil her kettle, always anxious to save her all he could. Kathleen had mocked at the idea of her sister-in-law, a lady born, living without a servant in a steward's cottage in the mountains. She had no idea of how much Muriel had learned to do for herself and her father in their pinching days together of those latter years on the Continent. She had not counted either, and had no knowledge indeed, of the English housewifely instinct, which is not only for the simple. Muriel knitting her delicate brows over a cookery-book, Muriel on her knees scrubbing out the long, boarded room, Muriel at the washing-tub, would have been a revelation to her. Patrick never saw hi 3 wife at these employments. He always came home to find her cool and neat and delicate, ready for their lessons together, or to talk or play the piano to him after he had eaten the daintily-cooked meal which was a positive revelation to his palate. Something of the happiness of the man found its way info his air. He was now not only strikingly handsome as he rode about his business, but he had a radiant air of perfect content, which made old people, bowing their backs under life's burdens, turn to stare after him as he went It was an ideal life so long as the fine weather and the good health lasted. But winter came, bringing dampness an 1 draughts to the cottage, and swelling the mountain torents and the rivers so that Patrick often forded them with difficulty ; bringing storms, too, wher the thunder roared and reverberated in the hills, and the lightning menaced the lonely cottage, witli its many little pinnacles, and was blue in the wooden rooms with their unshuttered windows. It was terrible to Muriel when storms came and Patrick was out riding along the heavily- wooded roads, exposed to th<* fury of the lightning or the gale ; and again when snow came and drifted in the valleys, and he was out on the hills, where the shaep were lambing, sometimes the length of the night. And there were leasons why she should not be scared as she often was just now. There we«-e reasons, too, why she should not work so hard, why, for instance, scrubbing the lon<* rooms must not be thought of. Yet there was more necessity to work than ever, since Patrick coming in brought the snevs and the heavy clay on his feet and clothing, and there had to be constant changes of garments ready for him when he came in half-numbed, and fires kept up. And every day she was less fit to do these things. Already she felt heavy and paralysed. The time was coming when she could not attempt half her former tasks. And help, on fifty pounds a year, seemed out of the question. Patrick, pitying and tender, might serve her in a hundred ways ; but there yet remained a hundred impossible other things to do. Then came a worse matter, for Patrick, dienrhed to the skin in a sleety night, took a chill and developed pneumonia. It was in the early days of his illness that a chance messenger brought Muriel a letter which had bean lying for her at the distant post office for some weeks. With a leap of her heart she recognised one of those letters which used to make" her father angelic in his temper for a day or two after their arrival. It had been addressed to him at the Spa House, and had been forwarded by Kathleen to her. - She opened the letter, and drew out the thin, rustling banknotes — twenty five-pound notes — and looked at them, while the color deepened in her cheeks. She had been wondering how she was going to pay the doctor, and get the things which wouid be needed for Patrick ; how she was going to provide the little things for the baby, as well as for herself. She had been looking wistfully towards that two hundred pounds which Pattick had put away so safely. But she had been afraid to touch it, if, indeed, she could have touched it without Patrick's co-operation ; and Patrick was lying tossing in a fever, his face purple, drawing breaths which were like sword thrusts in his lungs. That two hundred was all they had between them and the poorhouse if Patrick's illness was tedious and Colonel Denis grew weary of waiting and appointed a man in his place. Then, lo ! and behold, here was a hundred pounds placed in her hands. But, as she fingered this deliverance, her mind was agitated by a thousand delicate, over-strained scruples. The money had

not been sent to her. Could it be right to divert it to her own uses? To be sure, the sender would never forgive her the marriage she had made, any more than that that black sheep, George Crackenthorpe, would have forgiven her. She had no right to the money, she said to herself, with a pang at that second thought that her father would have been the last of all to forgive her. The doctor came in unheard as she sat fingering the notes. ' Ah, they look comfortable,' he said kindly, without surprise, for he had seen that the steward's wife was a lady, and had pitied her for the mdsalliance she had made. So her friends of old had not quite forgotten her. ' Take care of them,' he went on. ' You'll want them presently. We'll have to be getting this man of yours all sorts of things to pick him up. And you'll want care yourself, someone to help you now. You've been doing too much.' It seemed to be taken out of her hands. After all, would Aunt Henrietta, her godmother, grudge her the money that meant so much to her? She took one of the thin notes and handed it to the doctor. He was a young man, with a wife and family, and he had come long distances in hard weather to attend on Patrick, without any very definite notion of being paid for his services. He took the note now with an apologetic air. ' You owe me a very small fraction of this,' he said. ' I shall have a deal of change to bring you. As you are so very remote from a town, perhaps you would let me spend some of it \n things you ought to have. There is a girl at one of the cottages I visit, a servant out of place, just come home. Let me send her to you.' It was taken out of Muriel's hands. A second five pounds soon followed the first. The doctor's young wife bought Muriel the things for her baby, which she would not now have time to prepare. The doctor thought a trained nurse necessary for a case as grave as Patrick's. She rad to be provided. Presently there would be the nurse for Muriel herself. Thus that hundred pounds did take wings to itself and fly '. Fortunately, Colonel Denis proved kind. He had paid a visit to his siewaid when he was at his worst, and had been impressed by bis steward's wife. To be sure, Muriel had gained something by her love and marriage, something of charm, nf elusive beauty, which not even her haggard anxiety had power to destroy. For the time, Coionel Denis put in a man lo attend to the most pressing of Patrick's duties. There was ->o question a\ Patrick being superseded , none of that pound a week, whic.i meant so much, being withdrawn. More fortunately still, Patrick mended steadily, if slowly. Mild days of February came to help him. He was about the house again by the tim 3 (he baby was born. Before that happened Muriel had made her provision, tc* women do, against the chances of life and death. She had snt her house in order lest she should be called away by stealth, lest Patrick should know the thing she dreaded. She had few wrongs to right. And what bee in her bonnet made this gambler's daughter worry over that hundred pounds as though she had stolen it? It was perhaps because she was a gambler's daughter. Old George would have said that the girl had it from him. Who, indeed, was more fantasticaliv honorable than he when it was a question of debts of honor > The gaming tables still remembered George Crackenthorpe as •* gentleman. Before she was taken ill she wrote her full confession lo Miss Henrieta Crackenthorpe. She had been obliged to usa the money, but it would be repaid, every penny of it, in time. Not only was the hundied pounds gone, but by the time Muriel was about again with the baby some inroads had been made into the two hundred pounds. The servant had to be kept on. It was impossible that Mrs. O'Kelly could do housework and grow strong herself and attend to her maternal duties, said the doctor, remembering the hundred pounds, and calculating that Mrs. O'Kelly's friends would find money for her necessities.

(To be concluded.)