The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-06-04 00:00:00

BY TEN
.etuthor of The Heiress of dtherstone Grange.°

CHAPTER L
OLD MEMORIES.

"Images and precious thought'
That shall not die and cannot be destroyed."
—WORDSWORTH.
Tim Temple! What a succession of vivid images

are called -up to an imaginative mind by the very
sight and names of the musty-looking old buildings
that still stand to speak of the power and wealth of
the Order that once held stronghold there, glowing
fancies of deeds of daring done, and knightly valour
_ _ _

and the religious duties-of stern and ho-ly -men to
whom a woman was an abomination, and .the soft

impeachment of love and household happiness a
_thing

to be avoided and fled from as from an thing:
The Temple is prosaic and dreary enough now.
Memorials of a past—modern in comparison with the
knights and their doings—have disappeared also, and
the place of Temple Bar knows it no more. The
griffin stands and smirks where once upon a time loyal
CitizenB were wont to meet their sovereign with
welcome whenever Royalty went eastward; and
where heads of men who died for the causes they
happened to have espoused frowned down on the

Passers by in grim significance of the state of public

Opinion Or mint favour.
The stately, inconvenient Law Courts and the new
bank opposite have made a strange place of the well.
known corner, and country people, familiar with the
London of a few years ago, look in vain for the old
landmarks, and ask helplessly the way to places they
thought they knew quite well.
There are plenty of nooks and corners in the Temple
that the hand of Time and improvement has not
touched for centuries. Old World staircases with

broad banisters that seem made for boys to slide
down, if boys ever came there; and low flat steps,
easy of a-7cent, though somewhat worn by the traffic
of ceaseless feet; massive doors, telling of a past-and-
gone style of building, lead to these chambers plea-
sant per orce from their roominess and old-world as-
pect; and broad steps lead down to the gardens and
the civer froat of the old Templar's haunts.
They knew how to select a dwelling-place did these
bombastic, self-indulgent, saintly soldiers; and their
successors, the men of law, have known how to keep
It. Here in Garden Court Temple, London might be
_ _

many a mile away for all sign Of the hum and bustle
of it that comes in at the open windows.
_There
.is

bright sunshine and the twitter of birds from the
trees outside, and the plash of the fountain in the
court above makes it heard above the sound of patter-

inifeet, which is incessant—for the Temple has
nmay visitors—and the hum of voices that might
be heard in any garden. There is a low ceaseless roar
outside somewhere—a dull sound that seems to have

nothing to do with the quietude of the sanctuary, or
the old heroes who lie yonder in the church under their
quaintly-carved effigies: it is the never-ending hum of
the streets that, even through the night, is heard in
fitful breaks, for life does not sleep in London, even

in the darkest hours.
In summer time Garden Court is a place to dream
In, And the occcupant of the set of chambers known
as Preceptor's Corner' was dreaming most decidedly
on this sunny afternoon. The old chambers had a
number like the rest of the houses, but no one ever

thought of calling them by it, and it is doubtful if the
very inhabitants of them would have recognised them
If asked for No. 18e.' They had been Preceptor's

_ .
Corner' always, as far as anyone knew, and they
would remain so to the end of the chapter. It is more

likely that they were actually the site of the abode of
the Preceptor at some time or other, for they were not
only the pleasantest rooms in the Temple, and themost
favoured with light and air, but they were convenient
to the river, and therefore handy for any outgoings
or incomings that the Superiors of the Order did not
think fit to publish to their inferiors.
Mr. Hedderwick Jarvis, the present occupier of the
rooms, was a lawyg of great repute, though he did
not practise much Himself now. Report said that he
had very little occasion to keep on his expensive
chambers. He had none, as far as the necessity for
business was concerned; and his friends declared that
he only held them as a harbour of refuge, as it were
to which the powers that be in his household at
Norwood could not penetrate without leave granted

by their master.
This was only talk, of course. Mr. Jarvis was
certainly very fond of his chambers, and spent far
more time there than he did at home; and he kept
various matters there that he would never have
thought of showing to the wife of his bosom, or to the
prim young ladies who called him papa, and who were
the counterparts of their estimable mother.
It must not be imagined that Mr. Hedderwick
Jarvis was a man of immoral life, or that he had two
existences in any wrong sense. In all London a man
of purer mind or more real goodness of heart could
acerely have been found. Could his wife have read
his intnost heart she would not have seen a single
thought disloyal to her; but he had his memories, and
they were with him as he sat by his open window
looking dreamily out on the river.
Old memories, too, judging from the faded look of
two or three letters that lie open before him, and the
old-fashioned style of the dress in two miniatures that
are close to his hand. Three, indeed, though there is
nothing in one of them to tell when the portrait was
taken; it is simply a girl's htad, graceful and beau-
tiful as a dream, covered with rippling curls, the
Sunniness of which the artist had caught with mar-
vellous fidelity. There is a light drapery of lace or
some hing filmy about the neck, but no indication of
any sty!ci whatever of dress.
All the portraits are young. 312. Jarvis is, if not an
o'd man, certainly past middle age, and will scarce),
see sixty again. People fancy him older even than
that; but he is something old-fashioned and behind
the age in ha dress and manner, and his hair is very
white. That must be a peculiarity about him, for it
has been on far longer than is usual in men of his age
and easy temperament.
It is a good face that bends over these relics of the
past—a kindly face, albeit resolute and sometimes
hard: if he once makes up his mind to anything he is
not to be driven from his purpose by ale harshest of
speeches, or the most persistent feminine 'nagging.'
'And we were boys together,' he said, taking up
the nearest of the pictures and holding it in his hand
along with that of the beautiful head that seemed to
have a fascination for him. 'All three of us ;at least
they were boys, and I was a hobbledehoy old enough
to set them an example—which I didn't. But how
we loved each other, and how two of us loved her,
and—' .
He paused, and a spasm passed over his face, and
something like a tear stood in his eyes.
. Wel, well; he won her before I had time to ask
her whether she could love los. She couldn't have
done it, of course; it was impossible with Ramsay
near her. lam glad I never asked her • I was glad
when I saw his grief for her loss, and knew what a
heartache would go with him to his grave. And to
think they are both gone. Ah, how many years ago!
And lam their child's guardian, and the holder of
poor Hatherleigh's wishes too. Poor Hatherleigh !my
rosy, contented fag at school. It seems but yesterday
that I thrashed him for going after a badger and
getting nearly drowned; to say nothing of the corn-
paniont hip he fell in with.
He sat looking at the portraits and drumming
gently with his white hand upon the table. It was a
very white band, and one of the fingers was adorned
with a diamond of almost unheard of price— a gift
from a wealthy and grateful client. His mind had
gone back to a time when diamonds and he were
strangers— when he was a lad at school growing out
of his clothes and causing his parents much anxiety
about his future. His future had made itself. His
two boyish friends lay under the sod, and his ward,
Miss Helen Ramsay, was On her way from school to
place herself under his guardianship, till such time as
she should quit it for the protection of a husband
already chosen, and perfectly aware of his good
fortune.
*ft seems but yesterday,' he murmured, as hi took
up ore of the open letters—a thin, rustling paper,
with a subtle scent about it that sent the mind
!
travelling in a flash across the sea, and presented
Eastern ideas and images at once. It was in a female
hand, and the postmark was Allahabad.
'1 hardly know what prompts me to write,' part of
it ran. ';l'here is nothing the matter, and yet I feel
as if I could not let this night go over without writing
to you, my staunch and good friend, what is in mv
heart. I want you to promise that, whatever
happens to me or my darling, you will be a friend to
our child. She is se engaging and so pretty, that
she has lia-rel your name, and says it in
her prayers every night; and I want you
to love her - and help her if ever she
Is left alone in - the world. Archie doss not
know I am writing this—and I don't intend to tell
him. He is overworked, and low, and nervous, and
lam anxious about him. He is not ill—don't fancy
that—hut he is not bright; we none of us are. The
cholera is upon us; it has come slowly but surely, and
I expect every day that we shall be ordered away to
some p'ace where we can get a breath of air. It is
_ impessib'e here, the place is like an oven. We have
sent Nelly away under safe guardianship—is it not
startling to you, who knows how we love her, to think
that we could do that—but it is to save her life,
perhaps, and I cannot leave Archie; without me, he
would have no care from anyone, and he would take
- none for himself, and there is not much doubt what
the end of that would be. I fear the future tonight.
I don't know why, more than any other night; hut I
am tired of hearing the death-bell ring, and being told
how many men are gone every day out of the
bur plows. Let me have a letter from you. I think
a sverd in answer to this would give my heart a lift,
, and make me more hopeful.'
Mere VMS nu re of it in the same strain, and Mr.
J:ir, is tuQied h;s spectacles, and laid it down. 'Old
let OrP, old memories,' he muttered. 'What heart-
en 10, s t hey are! She trusted me, though she never
knew that I would have given my life to save tier a
angle sorrow; and she never received my letter, and
the next news I had of her was this;
. lie touched another of the faded bundle of letters
as hs spoke. A man's hand this , time, and showing
by its irregularity under what pressure of agitation it
was written. • Poor figlow I poor • Archie!' he
murmured. 'Yo wonder it broke his heart.'
It was a passionate, incoherent letter, telling of the