The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-10-02 00:00:00

CHAPTER XXXVI,

A NEW WHIM.
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade,
By the light quivering aspen made.—Scorr.
THE actor whom Allan Temple had thus suddenly en-
countered was Mr, James Chet wynd, a man who had
risen step by step from the very bottom rung of the
ladder to the very top, by his own courage and
industry.
Laughed at by the critics, when he first made his
appearance, and sneered at by the profession as a
Yankee—for he hailed from New York—he had
worked his way with the public, till now London
held no greater favourite, and his progress through
the provinces was one long ovation. He was part
owner and joint manager of the theatre where he
acted when in town, and was always on the look-out
for rising talent. Theta was a dearth of youngactors
in London at this particular time, and he was in hopes
that Allan Temple, of whom he had heard much, and
knew personally, was on his way to England to join
their ranks.
"I'm sorry to hear it, my boy," he said, in answer
to the young man's last remark. " I was in hopes
you were bound on a starring tour."
"1 haven't come to that proud position yet," Allan
said, with a smile. "I did intend to try for an en-
gagement in London. but—"
"There wouldn't have been much need of trying,
my dear fellow. Y3u would have got one at once;
the Minerva would have been open to you directly;
and if our style didn't suit you, I could name a dozen
others that would have been glad to have you. No
one would have been afraid to try the metal or
Dauncey Temple's son after all that has been reported
of you in the papers. Your fathar's name is a toner
of strength, and your own is pretty well known in
England, too."
" The critics have been wonderfully kind to me,"
said Allan, with a sigh, "and I was full of ambition
before—"
"Before you met a woman who made life seem like
heaven while the caprice lasted, and the other place
when her fancy faded. I know all about it. I've been
through it my boy. Don't send those trunks ashore
yet; there's plenty of time. Let us think the matter
over for a bit, and talk it over, too; you are half-way
to England, to a career af fortune, fame, triumph—a
career which will bring the woman to see you for a
look and a smile. Don't throw it away, my boy, for a
faithless jilt."
There was plenty of time—some two hours yet,
before the Cupid would proceed on her way, and Allan
allowed himself to be persuaded to sit down and light
a cigar. His luggage would be carried ashore in a
few minutes, and somehow it was a relief to be per-
suaded into.talking to anyone. It eased his full heart,
and lightened his burden just a little.
The two puffed at their cigars for a minnte or two,
and then Mr. Chetwynd broke the silence.
"It's no business of mine, I know," he said, "and
perhaps you'll think me impertinent to ask; but will
you tell me about this love affair of yours, and why
it is driving you back. I beg your pardon," he added,
hastily; "I see it is too new,' for Allan had hidden
his face that his companion might not see the tears
which all his manhood could not keep from scalding
his eyelids.
"No, no," he said, hastily brushing his eyes, " I will
tell you. It is new—the confirmation of what I feared
is only a few hours old. The letter was put into my
hands at Suez."
"And all the length of the canal you have been
making up your mind to go straight back, and wear
the willow for ever. Don't do that. Think of what
old Demas says:

All the women
That ever smiled destruction on brave hearts
Were not worth tears use these.
Make a career for yourself. Let her see you, hear of
you, wish she had been your wife to share your
triumph, as she will, if she cared for you."
"She swore she did—swore to be faithful to me
with her head on my breast, and her eyes looking up
into mine with a heaven of truth and purity in their
dark depths.
Ah, they all do it—it is a way they have," said
Mr. Chetwynd, with a smile. "Your life is all before
you yet, Temple, and a loving wife in the time to
come. Let me hear the story of your sorrows, and if
my advice as to your future is worth anything, you
shall have it."
plan told his story, and his friend listoned with
interest.
"I have heard of this Miss Atherstone," he said,
"and I always heard of her as a gentle, pretty girl,
with all her mother's beauty and talent, and all her
father's good breeding and refinement. I remember
them quite well at the beginning of their career, when

there was such i talk about-- the old squire disin-
heriting his son. So wealth has spoiled the young
lady, has it ? That's a pity."
"It seems so."
"I think you would do well to go to England," Mr.
Chetwynd said, after a pause. "There seems a mys-
tery in it all. Yours is a queer story, and the delusion
of the young lawyer you speak of is, to say the least
of it, strange. You shall have a berth at the Minerva.
We want just such a man as you for Didcot's new
piece, and you'll be able to look about you a bit.
Watch and wait, and you'll find out where the mis-

chief has been, depend upon it."
And so it came about that, instead of going back to
Melbourne' Allan Temple oreered his trunks back
into the hold, to the great disgust of the men who had
hoisted them therefrom, and resumed his berth in the
•
saloon,
Mr. Chetwynd was delighted. He had secured a
gentlemanly young actor for a leading part in a piece
which he trusted would make a sensation, and he sent
. .

a telegram ashore, to be forwarded immediately to his
managing partner at the Minerva Theatre. Allan
Temple would see his name placarded all over the
London walls and hoardings as soon as he arrived

there.
“It will do him good, and give him something to
think about," he argued; and perhaps he was right.
The enforced idleness of a voyage back to Australia

would have been the worst thing for the young man
in his gloomy state of mind.
Beryl Atherstone's tour was to begin at Birmingham,
where her father had died. She had been in the town,
and had seen the neat tablet put up by her mother to
the memory of the husband who had suffered so much
for her sake. All this was to be altered now—the
remains of the squire's only son were to be laid beside
those of his father and mother, in the family vault of
the Atherstones, and a handsome memorial window
added to the church in remembrance of him and hiE
patient wife. Only the extreme wet of the winter had
hindered it being done before now. But Beryl had not
visited her old friends, or been rear the theatre; and
there were old acquaintances in London to visit, and
cne house to go to of which she had never heard from
her mother, she told her cousins. Mr. and Mrs.
Carnaby had introduced themselves to her by letter,
as old friends of her father, and begged he'r to visit
them whenever she came to town. She heard all
about who they were from the rector and his wife,
who remembered the handsone young soldier and hls
pretty wife very well, though it was many years since

they had seen them.
It may be that Beryl Atherstone the elder had for-
gotten the gentleman whose acquaintance she had
made at Drizzleton-in-the-Willows, on the night when

her fate was sealed by the glamour of Leona-rd Ather-
stone's presence; anyway, her daughter declared she
had never spoken of him, and listened with interest
to all that her cousins could tell her of him.
"Then I suppose he never saw me," she remarked,
when they had been talking about him one day.
"I imagine not," Mrs. Atherstone said. "If he did
you must have been quite a baby."
" He won't remember much about me, then," Beryl
replied. " go and see him with pleasure, auntie, if
he wishes it. I don't want to shirk any of papa's old
friends."
The good lady had noticed that Beryl had been look-
ing rather pale and preoccupied lately, ever since
about the time of Graham Carson's coming home;

but that was about the time of her engagement to
Neel, and the mother laid it all to the very natural ex-
citement of the prospect before her. Who could be
engaged to anyone like her Noel, and not be excited
over it? In her eyes Noel was a paragon, a rara avis,
and to be his the happiest fate that could befal any
girl.
"Auntie, I don't think I'll come back to the Grange
after I've made all these stupid visits," she said, sud-
denly, the morning before they started. She had gone
into the Rectory very early, as she often did, and
found them at breakfast, with the letter-bag open on
the table, and newspapers lying about.
She took up a London paper, and carelessly glanced
at it, looking up from it to utter the sentence just
recorded.

"Not come back, my dear?"
"No."

" Why ?"
"Because lam restless, tired, out of spirits. lam
not very well, I suppose; but I should like to travel ;
go to Egypt, China, Timbuctoo—anywhere to get
away from here. I feel as though I had taken root
and vegetated here."
The rector pushed up his spectacle, and regarded
her with an amused look.

" Variable m the shade
By the light quivering aspen made,"

he said. "Scott knew women well when he wrote
that. My dear child, two months ago you were pro-
testing that you never wanted to leave the GrAnge
even for a day—that you could live and die here.
What's the meaning of this whim ?"
"I don't know," she said, returning his smile and
making a wilful grimace. "I suppose lam not well,
for I seem to have got up overloaded with cares and
troubles. I don't know that I have any more pres-
sing than the fact that my last dress fits me too
much,' as we say in the theatre, and I'm afraid I'm
_guilty of having fed a ehlekeu to death with pound
'cake ; but the world's a howling wilderness and ennui
is monarch thereof."
"And you want to go to Timbuctoo to cure it?
Wait till you are Noel's wife. You won't find time for
ennui then; you will be busy enough with the whirl
of London gaiety. Consider what you have to do
before June. You won't have time to go to the wilds
of Africa."
"I suppose not," said Beryl, with a light laugh, as
she left the room, seeming half ashamed of having
made such a speech as she had.
"Whatever made her break out like that ?"said Mrs.
Atherstone, when she was gone. "She must be
getting very whimsical, surely."
"She's a little exalted by the change in her position.
Her glories are beginning to pall upcn her. I don't
think she is well; I have noticed her very pale

lately."
"All the spirit seems to have gone out of her sud-
denly," his wife remarked. "Look how listlessly she
is walking about with Lilly—and she came in all
bright and cheerful, too."
Listless was just the word to express Beryl's manner
as she walked beside her cousin in the garden; the
light of love, and the knowledge of Graham's safety
had brought the colour back to Lillian Atherstone's
pretty face, and she looked as fresh as a new-blown
rose; while Beryl was pale and heavy-eyed. And yet
she had looked happy enough when she had walked
into the breakfast-parlour with her hands full of spring
flowers, and some light remark about the weather.
"I think she saw something in this paper," said
Mrs. Atherstone, taking it up and turning it over.
"What makes y ou fancy so ?"
"It seemed to me that she changed from the time
she took it up. I don't see anything particular in
it."

The rector took it from his wife and glanced down
its columns. He knew what part of a newspaper
Beryl would be likely to look at first, in spite of her
so persistently ignoring her old profession, and he
found it at once. The paper spoke to him, though it
was quite dumb to his wife.
"Here is the clue," said he.
"Where?"
"Here in these two paragraphs."
Mrs. Atherstone read them, but they might have
been Greek for all she could make of them, and she
looked at her husband in bewilderment. They were
theatrical announcements, and set forth that J.
Chetwynd, Esq., the enterprising and energetic
manager of the Minerva Theatre, had secured the
services of the young and talented Australian actor,
Mr. Allan Temple, son of the celebrated Dauncey
Temple, well-known formerly, &c., &c. It further
stated that Mr. Temple would shortly appear in a part
written expressly for him in a comedy by Talbot
Didcot, Esq., and would doubtless make a reputation
among London playgoers at once.
In another part of thepaper there wasan announce-
ment that Mr. Temple had left Melbourne by the
P. and 0. boat Cupid, and would arrive in London on
a given date. Besides these announcements there
was a regular advertisement, written in the true
spirit of theatrical puffing, endowing the young actor
with all the talents and virtues under the sun, and
proclaiming the merits of the Minerva Theatre as
something above all other places of amusement at the
same time.
"I don't understand," said the rector's wife." What
has Beryl to do with all this ?"
"I don't know exactly villa, but I am afraid she
has something. She is to be our boy's wife, and I
hope and pray that she may make him a good one;
but I am much afraid that she has not behaved
quite honourably to someone she has left across the
sea."
"Oh, Norton, what makes you think so?"
"Several things,, my dear—one or two words she
has let drop, and slight things that I have heard from
young Carson. I askhd him point-blank if he had
heard of any entanglement out there, and he avoided
answeling me."
"I cannot think it, Norton—l cannot believe that
she would do anything mean or base."
"I think she may have been led into a strait by
circumstances. Do you remember a little ring she
used to wear, with a motto on it ?"
" Yes ; she told Lilly an actress gave it to her."
"An actor, my dear. I gathered from something
Carson said it was a present from this very man. He
comes of a good family, it seems, and the motto and
crest were those of his mother's people. lam afraid
Beryl has some reason to fear him."
"How observant you are."
"Suspicion makes us so, and I have suspected all
along that our little cousin has a secret, and a painful
one. Don't look so worried over it, wife. - I hope I
am wrong, for our boy's sake. Even if there had been
any girlish engagement, it would have to be broken
off. Miss Atherstone of the Grange must not marry
an actor."
"No, it wouldn't do," his wife replied; "though
there is no squire now to object. Still it would be a
mesalliance. I hope we shall hear no more about this
Mr. Temple."
A vain hope; but the good lady could not see into
the f nture.

(To be continued) -

LANDLORD Of hotel in Switzerland: "Can you tesil us,
Professor, hew people are to know in these mountains
how high they are above the sea level ?" Professor:
"It varies exactly in proportion to the height of the
hotel charges."