Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-08-31
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somest young men in London. Perhaps
that spoiled him His father died before
he was of age and he succeeded to hand
some fortune, which he began to squander
directly it came into his possession. Clare's
mother was a widow, woman of the
world, had been a beauty, lived only for
society, and cared very little for her
daughter. / have gathered as much as
this from Clare's reluctant admissions
rather than from actual statement, as she
has been 10th to cast the faintest reproach
upon her dead mother
Il know the kind of woman" said
Stukely; mot by any means an uncom-
mon type"
4Clare was only II, and had not yet been
introduced into society, wore schoolgirl
frocks, practiced Beethoven, and read
Schiller with good old governess, while
her mother went to parties. They spent
the London season in West End lodging,
and lived for the rest of the year at Tor
quay, where Mrs. Molyneaux, Clares
mother, had a house of her own. The
widows means were limited, and just
sufficed for this kind of life; and dare
say she looked forward with dread to the
expense of launching pretty daughter,
still more perhaps to the idea of being out
ance. Anyhow, she kept Clare very close;
and when Stuart Mackenzie proposed for
his cousin, Mrs. Molyneaux received him
with open arms, and forced ON the mar
rage with all the strength of mothers
influence. Clare, who was first reluctant,
was gradually persuaded to think herself
very fond of her cousin. He and she had
been playfellows in her childhood and she
had liked him very well then. 1t was fat
tering to think that one of the handsomest
young men in London was over head and
ears in love with her. The idea of imme-
date escape from the governess, the Ger
man poets, and the dizziness of London
lodgings was pleasanter still. The prospect
of a voyage to India was sheer enchant-
ment The girl gave way. The marriage
was hurried on, as the Afghanistans were
under sailing orders within six weeks.
Glare spent her honeymoon in Italy, and
sailed with her husband from Trieste in a
great troopship fortnight after her we'd
ding day, and six months before her 18th
birthday.
"Poor child"
"The life in India was gay and bright
enough at the first. There had been ru-
mors of war, but nothing came of these
rumors India was supremely quiet in
that long lull which followed the suppress
sion of the mutiny. Gradually, slowly, the
sickening truth dawned upon my poor
Clare. She had married a profigate, a
spendthrift, and gamester. She shrinks
with horror from all memories of that
hateful life; yet there have been times
when it has seemed relief to her to talk
to me about those days, when the over
burdened mind has thrown off some part
of its load and at such times l have en-
couraged her condolences. Her husband
was one of the most popular men in india,
from social standpoint, during those first
few years. He was brilliant, fascinating,
clever, open-handed; but he was thor
oughly bad man all the same, and his wife
was the chief sufferer by his vices. Then
came a change. Incorporate habits told
their usual tale. He grew nervous,
excitable, short-tempered, most of all
when he had been unlucky at play; and
play was his nightly amusement. He be-
came very unpopular with his brother
officers, and the feeling of the mess at last
came to point which rendered an ex-
change inevitable. Mackenzie exchanged
from the famous Afghanistans into line
regiment quartered in the south of Ire
land"
L
Stukely, whose happiest years had been
spent under an Indian sum- to whom the
ways of Indian life were the familiar
ways and those of Britain strange.
"A change that wrecked him forever.
In India there were some restraining in
fuences-caste, society, the knowledge
that the eyes of great men We're upon him;
but in that shabby little Irish town
there were none. He sunk in dull
apathy-abandoned every ambition of an
honorable man-sulked with his wife
was foolishly ndulgent one day, brutally
harsh the next, to their only child, boy
of Z, and the wife's solitary consolation.
He had spent nearly all his money. He
had thrown away all his chances of ad-
vancement. He knew this; and the very
knowledge that he was a ruined man
made him reckless. He drank to drown
care-drank till his brain grew soddened
and dull-drank until delirium tremens be-
came a chronic malady. Oh, the horror
of those days as Clare describes them.
The ever recurring evil, which she
dreaded in every hour of her life. She
was his nurse when he was ILL., She
screened him-apologized for him-she en-
abled him to keep his position years after
his own folly would have forfeited it.
They went from station to station-now at
home, now abroad-and it was on their
return to that dull old town in the south
of Ireland that the catastrophe occurred
which gave Stuart Mackenzes name a
criminal notoriety"
II remember. 1t was at Mallow the
murder occurred"
"The crime was hardly to be called a
murder for the wretch was mad when it
happened. He had been laid up for
week with an attack of delirium tremens.
which was little worse than any pre-
vious experience in the same line. His or
derby was good fellow, young, stalwart,
plucky and Glare and the orderly con-
trived between them TO nurse him and to
keep everything dark, though his parox-
ysms were at times so violent as to need
all the orderly's strength and all Clare's
courage to grapple with him Things
went on like this for a week by which
time both servant and mistress were
fairly worn out, while there were no signs
of improvement in the patient. The doc
tor knew what the complaint was, but
did not know half the violence of the at
tack, so careful was Glare to conceal the
worst symptoms-a mistake as she dis
covered afterward."
a can understand the look in Lady
Darnels face now" said the colonel medi-
tatively; "the look of a woman who had
suffered intensely in years gone by, and
can never quite forget the old wounds"
perhaps neither Clare nor the servant
knew how utterly exhausted they both
were by what they had done and gone
through in that dreadful week, for when
laft ha