The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-24 00:00:00

CLEALMYTINE MONTAG%

AUTHOR OF

"The Lady of the Holm," " My Wife or His," "Ropes
of Sand," "For the Glitter of G01d.," j.e.
CALL EIGHTS nEspavED

"As fits the holy Christmas birth,
Be this, good friends, our carol still:
Be peace on earth. be peace on earth,
To men of gentle will."—TnecsEarlr„

A MERRY Christmas truly, a Christmas to be re-
membered, the season of the year of grace 18—,
when Charley Talbot and I parted at the door of my
office: he to go his way to a pleasant home-gathering,
and I to turn back for awhile to some unfinished
work. _ _ _ _ _

'SO you won't be persuaded, old boy?' he said.
'Don't tempt me, Charley; I'd rather not.'
'Hang it all; Christmas-eve, you know.'
'Too early to begin drinking, with such a lot of
work staring me in the face. Look up again—say
four or thereabouts. I shall hare done then, or nearly
so.'

That's just what I can't do,' Charley replied. 'l'm
off by the three o'clock train from King's-cross, and
rye a thousand things or so to do before then. So if
you won't make yourself agreeable I'll say good-bye.'
Good bye, old fellow,' I replied, ,and a merry
Christmas to you. I hope you'll enjoy yourself no
end.'

'Won't be my fault if I don't,' he returned, giving
my hand a hearty grip that made my fingers tingle
again. But I musn't stand here jawing any longer.
Ta, ta, old boy, and a merry Christmas to yon.'
A moment later the door of my den closed behind
him, and I was listening to his quick springy foot-
step as he hurried along the stone passage outside,
and then descending the long flight of steps two at a
time, whistling gaily as he went. A little pang of
envy shot through my heart—envy of his youth, high
spirits, and power of enjoyment—all which blessings
seemed to have passed me by, never to return. I felt
quite an old man this Christmas-eve, though my
years numbered only some half-dozen over the twenty-
one recently completed by Charley Talbot; and as
the last echoes of his retreating footsteps died away I
sighed a little bitterly as I pondered on the inequality
of our respective lots.
Three years before my prospects had seemed as
bright, and my future as roseate-hued as Charley's—
not that I had, like him, the certainty of succeeding
in time to an honoured name and an ample inheri-
tance, strictly entailed and with not the shadow of an
encumbrance. The lineage of my family, though
respectable and even ancient, gave us no place in the
aristocracy of birth. But what I lacked in rank was
amply conpensated by riches.
My father was senior partner in one of the oldest
established banks in the city of London—a firm that
for more than a century had had a Lawrence
Ainslie for its head—a firm that when the great
wave of limited liability rolled over the com-
mercial world, and joint-stock companies sprung up
like mushrooms in a night from one end of the country
to the other—had held its own course, despising such
new-fangled devices, and steadily adhering to the old
lines.

I was an only child, alone always from my very
infancy, for I never knew the tender care of a mother.
I never remember nestling to a mother's bosom, or
going to a mother's love for solace in my childish
griefs and troubles. My father was indulgent and
denied me nothing; and when be found I had no
bent for business and disliked the time-honoured
bank and its associations, he put aside his disappoint-
ment—and I know that he was disappointed—and
allowed me to go to college, and study with the noti,m
that I could make a place for myself in the literary
world.
I had all sorts of aspirations. I fancied—heaven
save the mark—that I was going to be the wonder of
the age—a compound of all the authors that had ever
lived, and something better than any of them. I came
to my senses at Oxford, and found that what I had
mistaken for the divine afflatus of genius was an
immense amount of vanity and self-satisfaction, and a
very mediocre aptitude for turning sounding verses,
and weaving highly-coloured, but by no means
talented romances.
I was anything but industrious at college, but I had
a capital memory, and managed to take my degree
with a moderate amount of credit so as to leave the
old city with something of eclat, and establish myself
as a student of the Middle Temple in a respectable
fashion.
I had been heart free at Oxford. Somehow, by
chance, I suppose, I had escaped the many snares
laid for young men in that time-worn old city. But my
fate came upon me when I was settled in town—came
to me in the Temple-gardens in the soft spring time,
when the trees were at their freshest and greenest, and
everything, even smoky, busy Londcn, rejoicing in the
brightness of Heaven and the freshness of the sun-
shine.

'la the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished
dove;
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turn to
thoughts of love,
says the poet. And so it was with Mary and me. We
loved each other very dearly, and though she had no
fortune my father was pleased to say that he thought
she was just the wife for me. She was the eldest
daughter of a large family, most of them girls, and all
of them loving sister Mary' with an intensity that
plainly proved her worth. I was only 23; Mary just
four years younger. Mr. Featherstone, her father,
though possessed of ;sufficient means, was not in a
position to give her more than a very modest dowry
indeed; so that he thought his darling—for Mary was
his favourite—was doing very well indeed when, with
my father's full sanction, I asked him to give her to
me for my wife.
He only stipulated that twelve months- should
elapse before our marriage. Mary was too young, he
said, and I had hardly enough knowledge of the
world. Let a year go by, and then he would allow us
to talk about fixing the date of our wedding day. It
was a reasonable request, though a year seemed like
an eternity to look forward to, and we gave way some-
what reluctantly. Alas, before the year was out we
were parted irrevocably. I was alone in the world,
ruined, and fatherless! No need to tell of the cir-
cutnstances which brought this about. The wave of
ruin that swept over the commercial world in the
year 18—, is too well remembered by hundreds to
need comment in a story. Suffice it to say that
Ainslie, Ditton, and Co. went down into the deep
water, after a wild and hopeless struggle to„keep afloat,
and meet the overwhelming liabilities that lay upon
them. _ _ _

My father was the head of the firm, though he had
long retired from any active share in the business and
bad left the conduct of affairs at the bank to a man
in whom he put the racist perfect trust, and who was
an honest man-in-intent; but bitten by the speculat-
ing mania which had run through the city of late
years like an epidemic—tempted by glowing chances,
he embarked in speculation with money that did not
belong to him, and through a series of mistalus,
brought the old firm to bankruptcy, and my father to
his deathbed,,

could have borne anything but dishonour,' he
said piteously, when he rallied a little from the first
attack that came upon him on hearing the dreadful
news, but the thought of theinnocent people involved
in the downfall of Ainslie's ' broke his heart; and
before any arrangementwas come to with the creditors
he *as in his grave, dishonoured and execrated by
hundreds who had come to rain and beggary through
the failure of the bank. They were not to know how
blameless and how honourable he was, nor how his
heart had broken in the pain and struggle. To out-
siders he was only the head of the firm—the respon-
sible person, who should have aeen and stopped the
mischief.
Dir. Featherstone professed, and I really believe
felt, great sympathy for me in my loss and trouble;
but he gave me to understand, without any beating
sibeak the inishAliat my ekligement'wlth Marl tni.lBl`
be at an end. The news of my misfortune had been 1
a great shock to her, he said, and be was =did

enough to tell me that my darling said that what had
happened to me ought not to make any difference,
and could not make any as far as she was concerned.
'I dare say I am foolish to tell you this, Lawrence,'
he said. 'My poor girl is infatuated enough to think
that love will furnish a home and keep the pot boil-
ing in it afterwards. Heaven knows I don't want to
be hard on her or you. But-'
'What do you want me to do?' I asked.
'Be brave, my boy,' he replied. 'Help me to save
Mary from herself.'

' aow ?'

Give her up.'
It was only the right thing to do, and I knew it.
But how could I, thus suddenly asked, fling away my
life's future with my own hand? It had been sweet
to think of Mary in the midst of mj, bitterest troupe.
Even by my father's deathbed the thoughts of her
sweet sympathy had come uppermost. I should for-
get my poverty with her by my side. And I was being
asked to give up the only thing the world held for me
now.
God knows I don't want to be hard,' Mr. Feather-
stone said, and there was a kindly ring in his voice as
he spoke. 'There's the truth, Lawrence, Mary loves
you, but if you hold the foolish girl to her promise I
cannot help it. But consider--think what yod are
bringing on her. You will take her from a home of
comfort and ease—to share—what? at best a life of
struggling poverty; rendered ten times harder to bear
from the knowledge that you have brought it upon
the woman you love as well as having to endure it
yourself.'
• Mary's love would give me a stronger motive for
work,' I replied. We should be happier in our poverty
—and it should not be so dire as you picture it— than
in the most luxuriant home in the world.'

If you require any motive to work, save duty, you
are weaker of purpose than I thought you,' Mary's
father said quietly. But I won't think so badly
you as that. Come, Lawrence, try azi.i. h reason-
able.'
'Reasonable!'
'Just that; look at it sensibly. It is for Mary's
sake; to save her I ask you to be bravo.'
What could I say? Argument was of no avail, and
in the end I was forced to succumb. I had no pros-
pects, no profession. no friends. It was selfish of me
to want to drag a gently-reared girl into my life, and
I yielded; snaking one proviso, viz., that I should see
Mary once more, take leave of her with my own lips,
and not by means of a letter.
Mr. Featherstone said I was very foolish, that it
would hurt Mary and pain me, but I was resolute cn
the point, I would have the sad satisfaction of seeing
my darling once again, and hearing her gentle voice
once more; though it might never reach my ears again
on this side of eternity.
No need to dwell on that parting, only those who
have said a good-bye like that can understand what I
felt when 1 held Mary in my arms, heart to heart, lip
to lip, for the last time. I cannot think of it now
without a choking at my heart and moisture in my
eyes, old hardened man of the world though I am. It
was good-bye, indeed; and the white, still face of my
darling, as I gme, her to her father's arms, after I had
pressed my last kiss on her pate lips, came between
me and my work for many a day.
It was all over, and I was out in the cold now;
and with that parting came the battle with the world
—that well-nigh laid me low. Only those .rno have
fought the fight out can tell what it is. How every
door to employment seems to be shut; how the little
possessions go one by one till there is nothing lett ; and
how presently the wardrobe follows till there is nothing
for it but to sneak out at night, for very shame of
being seen by one's fellow men.
I had come to that wretched pass, and was tasting
the bitter .diet of poverty and despair, when a lucky
chance threw a trifle in my way. It was but a trifle
—a couple of pounds, no more—but it paved the
way for other things, and I began to rise from the
misery and degradation that had fallen upon me,
and see my way a little clearer to getting my daily
bread.

_
From one tiny thing to another I stepped till the
little matters grew greater, and I found myself editor
of a fairly profitable and popular periodical, with
opportunities of placing what copy I had by me, or
had time to produce, in good papers and magazines.
I was happy and contented but for the thoughts of
Mary. My love had not cooled with time; I loved
her more dearly for the separation, but I was not in
a position to ask for her yet, snd it was uncertain
whether I should ever be any better off.
Just when my fortunes were on the mend I met
Charley Talbot. He had come to Oxford a youngster
just as I was finishing my last term, and he had been
so grateful to me for taking him under my wing,
showing him the ways of the place and saving him
from many a scurvy trick and practical joke from the
older men, that he conceived a violent fancy for me,
which I returned thoroughly. There never was a better
fe:low than Charley, and I was right glad to meet
him again, and feel the clasp of his warm young hand.
He made me an offer which I accepted gladly, and
that was that I should occupy a room in a set of
Chambers that he had taken in the Strand. He never
used it he said, and it was too close to his own
quarters for him to care to let it to a stranger.
The only room I could call a den was a stuffy ill
ventilated apartment at the back of the publishing
office of the periodical I edited. It was hardly private,
and by no means comfortable, and Charley's offer
would ensure me the privacy that a literary man
needs above everything else.
It would have been almost too quiet for some
people, this odd room of Charley's—whatever inducei
any architect to plan such a place has always been
beyond my comprehension. It was actually out of
sight and sound of the outer world. It was by itself
at the end of a long stone corridor on the second floor
of the building, which was all let out in chambers.
The lower floor was a large hall used for all sorts 'of
purposes, and above were more chambers, Charley's
set were three rooms—two large light ones
looking out to the front and side of the building, and
the one he proposed to give me, looking out on
nothing—that is to say, nothing but the windows of
chambers like itself; two dead walls of houses, and
some leads belonging to stories below. It had been
the fancy of the architect or the builder of the place
to make the doors, as I thought, unnecessarily heavy;
every separate corridor was shut in by massive oaken
doors, heavily clamped with iron, and the doors ot
the rooms themselves were modifications of the same
fancy. When I was alone in my back tenement, and
Charley's outer door was shut, I might have been
in a grave for all the sound heard from outside.
_

I liked the place, and worked well in the solitude of
my rightly-named den. For Charley was not much
in his rooms, and I seldom went out of mine. His
place was daintily furnished, and set forth as if a lady
were going to live there; but he could not persuade
me to have anything more than a couple of chairs and
a table in my "cell," as he called it.
"I shouldn't like to be shut up hero with anything on
my conscience," he said to me only a day or two before
Christmas Day; "I should conjure up all the ghosts
of the past, and hang myself on the hat-pin in half-
an-hour."
"The ghosts don't trouble me," I said, with a little
sigh, as I thought of one ghost that did come very
often--the ghost of my dead and gone happiness;
"I'm too busy. You couldn't have done me a greater
service than giving me this room."
"And you couldn't have done me a greater than
coming here," ho said, laughing "you help to keep
me straight by your immaculate presence."
When he had left me to go away on his Christmas
trip, I felt lonelier than ususl, somehow. I had work
enough to keep me from thinking, and I set to it with
a will. I would not think, or if I did, it should only
be how comfortable my good-natured landlady would
have everything for me when I got home. I had
nothing to complain of in the way of home arrange-
ments, conzidering I was only a lodger, and she was a
busy woman, with half-a-dozen tiresome youngsters to
worry her.

About four o'clock I went to my usual haunt and
ordered some dinner, and I suppose I was out of sorts
a little, for I could not eat many mouthfuls, and I
swallowed a glass of ale and came out wondering
what was the matter with me. 1 would go back I
thought and do another hour's work, and have some-
thing substantial when I went home. As I left the
restaurant a hand was laid on my shoulder, and I
turned round to see with inexpressible amazement,
Mr. Featherstone, Mary's father.
I had not seen him, not even so much as a passing
glimpse for many months, and I was struck at once
by the alteration in his appearance. He was bent
and aged, and there was a wistful look in his eyes that
spoke of some heavy trouble.
'Ainslie. I want to speak to you,' he said.
I did not respond at once. I did not feel cordially
towards him. How could I? He had broken my life,
dashed all my hopes to the ground at a time when I
wanted help and hope more than any man did in this
world; he had acted rightly and for the beet, as far as he
thought; but it might have sent me to perdition for
aught he knew. I had seen him sometimes at .a dis-
tance, going about in his usual fashion, but we had
never met, and I had not noticed that the years that
had gone by had made any perceptible difference in
his looks.

I could see it now, and hear it in his broken voice.
It was an effort to speak to me at all.
'I am at your service, sir,' I said, shortly.
'it is about her, Ainslie, my Mary, that I want to
speak to you.'
.Her name :exorcised the demon of coldness and
stiffness that had taken possession of me. • The very
sound of it ran through me with a tingle of delight.
How I longed for a word concerning her, for any news
of her, and there had been none. •

Yes,' I said brokenly, What of her?'
You love her still, Ainslie ?;,* You have not
()hanged ?'

'Changed! to Mary! You must know me very
little, Mr. Featherstone, to think that possible.'
'lt is because I do know you that I liave spoken
now,' he said. Lawrence forget the past, and come
back to Mary and me.'
'Sir! Mr. Featherstone!'
It was all I could say in my astonishment and de-
light. I could not believe I had heard aright. The
recollection of our last parting was before me too
strongly for that. But I was not dreaming; it was
aM true. and I recovered my wits after a moment and
-
• 'Yon are not jesting with me, sir?' I said.
• destink ! Do I look like it? Come hack to my
girljawrenee, and save her for me; she is dying.'
'Dying! My Mary 1'
Aye' lAwrelloa facliue day after day: doine her