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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Clinton New Era, 1891-12-04, Page 64 1801 HARDY NOES" rt i' esesseeSt 1A'' EDN& 14VAIdo C4NTI1CiTE A "You l ow Ceei'," said her mother ata; she returned to the seat under the •veranda, and began to arrange the flowers in a basket, "I have another theory as to this affair. It happened dxaety week after that day at the seaside when we all had such.a terrible frigght about .toy and Sigrid. Frithiof had a long run in the sun, which you remember was very hot that day; then he had all the excitement of row- ing out and resquing them, and though at the time it seemed no strain on Boli ,,, of all, yet I think it is quite possible that the shock may have brought back a slight touch of the old trouble," "And yet it teemed to do him good at the time," said Cecil. "lie looked ail_ bright and fresh when he came back. Besides to a man accustomed ae he once was to a very active life, the rescue was, after all, no such great exertion." Mrs Boniface sighed. "It would grieve me to think that it was really caused by that, but if it is so, there is all the more reason that They should clearly understand that the affair makes no difference at all in our opinion of him. It is just possible that it may be his meeting with Lady Eomiaux which. is the cause. Sigrid told me that they had accidently come across her again, and that it had tried him very much." Cecil turned away toather some ferns from the rockery; she could not bear to discuss that last suggestion. Later on in the afternoon it was with a very heavy heart that she reached the model lodgings and knocked at the door that had now become so familiar to her. Swanhild flew to greet her with usu- al warmth. It was easy to see that theachild knew nothing of the trouble hanging over the house. "What love- ly flowers! How good of you!" she cried. But Sigrid could- not speak; she only kissed her, then turned to Swan- hild and the flowers once more. "They are beautiful," she said. 'Do not you think we might spare some for Mrs Hallifield? Run and take her some, dear." ' When the ohild ran off she drew Ce- cil into their bedroom. The two girls sat down together on the bed, but Sigrid, usually the one to do most of the talking, was silent and dejected. Cecil saw at once that she must take the initiative. •`I, have been longing to come and see you," she said. But yesterday was so filled up. Father and mother are so sorry for all this trouble, and are very much vexed that Mr Horner has behaved, badly about it." "They are very kind," said Sigrid, wearily. "Of course most employers would have prosecuted Frithiof, or, at any rate, discharged him." "But, Sigrid, what can be the expla- nation of it? Oh, surely we can man- age to find out somehow. Who can have put the note in his pocket?" "What 1" cried Sigrid. "Do not you, too, hold Mr Boniface's opinion, and think that he himself did it uninten- tionally?" "II" cried Cecil, passionately. "Nev- er! never 1 I am quite sure he had nothing whatever to do with it." Sigrid flung her arms round her. "Oh, how I love you for saying that!" she exclaimed. If was the first real comfort that had come to her since their trouble, and al- though before Frithiof she was brave and cheerful, in his absence she became terribly anxious and depressed. But with the comfort there came a fresh care, for something at that moment revealed to her Cecil's secret. Perhaps it was the burning cheek that was pressed to hers, or perhaps a sort of thrill in her companions voice as she spoke those vehement words, and de- clared.her perfect faith in Frithiof. The thought filled her with hot in- dignation against Blanche. "Has she not only spoiled Frithiof's life, but Ce- cil's too?" she said to herself. And in despair she looked on into the future, and back into the sad past. "If it had not been for Blanche he might have loved her—I think he would have loved her. And, oh! how happy she would have made him! how different his whole life would have been! But now, with disgrace, and debt, and broken health, all that is impossible for him. Blanche has robbed him, too, of the very power of loving, she has cheated him, out of his heart. Her hateful flirting has ruined the happiness of two people, probably of many more, for Frithiof was not the only man whom she de- ceived. Oh! why does God give woman the power to bring such misery into the world?" She was recalled from her angry thoughts by Cecil's voice; it was sweet and gentle again now, and no longer vehement. Do you know, Sigrid," she said, "I have great hopes in Roy. He will be home to -night, and he will come to it all like an outsider, and I think, per- haps, he will throw some light on the mystery. I shall meet him at Charing Cross, and as we drive home, will tell him lust what happened." "Is it to -night he comes home?" said Sigrid, with a depth of relief in her tone. "Oh, how glad I ani 1 But there is Swanhild back again, You won't say anything before her, for we have not mentioned it to her; there seemed no reason Why she should be made un- happy, and Frithiof likes to feel that one person is unharmed by his trouble." "Yes, one can understand that," said Cecil.. "And Swanhild is such a child, one would like to shelter her from all unhappiness. Are you sure that you do not mind my staying? Would you not rather be alone tonight? "Oh no, no," said Sigrid. "Do stay to supper. It will show Frithiof that you don't think any the worse of him forthis—it will please him so much." rey went back to the sitting room and began to prepare the evening meal; and when, presently, Frithiof returned from his work, the first thing he caught sight of on entering the room was Cecil's sweet, open looking face. She was standing by the table arrang- ing flowers, but carne forward quickly to greet him. Her color was a little deeper than usual, her handclasp a little closer, but otherw' she behav- ed exactly as if not unusual had ha, ppened. "I have mostniously ask- ed myself to Supp said, "for I have to meet Roy at ha past eight." "It is very good of you to come," Children Calfa, said h'rithiof•gr,atefull ,. His Interview with Carlo Donati brad done much for hini, and hadhelp ed pini through a very trying day at the shop, but though he had. Made a good start and had begun his new life bravely, and borne many disagreeables patiently, yet he was now miserably tiked and depressed,ust in the mood which cares most for human sym- pathy. "Lance sent you this," she said, hand- ing him the passion flower and making him smile by repeating the child's words. He seemed touched and pleased; and the conversation at supper -time turn- ed a gooddeal on the children. He asked anxiously after Mr Boniface, and then they discussed the concert of the previous night, and then he spoke a little of Donati's kindness to him. Then, when Sigrid and Swanhild were busy in the kitchen, she told him what she knew of Donati's previous life, and how it was that he had gained this extraordinary power of sympathy and insight. "I never met anyone like him," said Frithiof. "He is a hero and a saint, if ever there was one, yet without one touch of the asceticism which annoys one in most good people. That the idol of the operatic stage should be such a man as that seems to me wond- erful." "You mean because the life is a try- ing one?" "Yes; because sueh very great popu- larity might be supposed to make a man conceited, and such an out of the way voice might make him selfish and heedless of others, and to be so much run after might make him consider himself above ordinary mortals, in- stead of being ready, as he evidently is, to be the friend of anyone who is in need." "I am so glad you like him. and that you saw so much of him," said Cecil. "I wonder if you would just see mo in- to a cab now, for I ought to be going." He was pleased that she had asked him to do this; and when she had said good bye to Sigrid and Swanhild, and was once more alone with him, walk- ing through the big court yard, he could not resist alluding to it. "It is good of you," he said, "to treat me as though I were under no cloud. You have cheered me wonderfully." "Oh," she said, "it is not good of me —you must not think that I believe you under a cloud at all. Nothing would ever make me believe that you had anything whatever to do with that flve pound note. It is a mystery that will some day be cleared up." "That is what Signor Donati said.— He. too, believed in me, in spite of ap- pearances against me. And Sigrid says the same. With three people on my side I can wait more patiently." Cecil had spoken very quietly, and without the passionate Vehemence which had betrayed her secret to Sigrid, for now she was on her guard; but her tone conveyed to Frithiof just the trust and friendliness which she wished it to convey; and he went house again with a fresh stock or hope and courage in his heart. Meanwhile Cecil paced gravely up and down the arrival platform at Char- ing Cross. She, too, had been cheered by their interview, but, nevertheless, the baffling mystery haunted her con- tinually, and in vain she racked her mind for any solution of the affair.— Perhaps the anxiety had already left its traces on her face, for Roy at once noticed a change in her. "Why, Cecil, what has oonie over you? You are not looking well," he said, as they got into a hansom and set off on their long drive. "Father has not been well," she said, in explanation. "And I think we have all been rather upset by _Something that happened on Monday afternoon at the shop." Then she told him exactly what had passed, and waited hopefully for his comments on the story. He knitted his brows in perplexity. "I wish I had been at home," he said. "If only James Horner had not gone ferreting into it all this it would never have happened. Frithiof would have discovered his mistake, and all would have been well." But you don't imagine that Frithiof put the note in his pocket?" said Cecil, her heart sinking down in deep disap- pointment. "Why, who else could have put it there? Of course he must have done it in absence of mind. Probably the ex- citement and strain of that unlucky afternoon at Britling Gap affected his brain in some way." "I can not think that," she said, in a low voice. "And even if it were so, that is the last sort of thing he would do." "But that is just the way when peo- ple's brains are affected; they do the most unnatural things; it is a known fact that young innocent girls will of- ten in delirium use the most horrible 'language, such as in real life they can not possibly have heard. Your honest man is quite likely, under the circum- stances, to become a thief. Is not this the view that my father takes?" "Yes," said Cecil. "But somehow— I thought—I hoped that you would have trusted him." "It does not in the least affect my opinion of his character. He was sim- ply not himself when he did it. But one can't doubt such evidence as that. The thing was missed from the till and found pinned into his pocket, how can any reasonable being doubt that he himself put it there?" "It may be unreasonable to refuse to believe it—I can not help that," said Cecil. But how can it possibly be explained on any other supposition?" he urged, a little impatiently. "I don't know," said Cecil; "at pre- sent it is a mystery. But I am as sure that he did not put it there as that I did not put it there." "Women believe what they wish to believe, and utterly disregard logic," said Roy. "It is not only women who believe in him. Carlo tonati has gone most carefully into every detail, and he be- lieves in him." "Then I wish he would give me his recipe," said Roy, with a sigh. "I am but a matter-of-fact, prosaic man of business, and can not make myself be- lieve that black is white, however much 1 wish it. Have you seen Miss Feick? Is she very much troubled about it?" "Yes, she is so afraid that he will worry himself ill; but of course; she too believes in him. I think she sus- pects the other man in the shop—Dar- nell; but 1 don't see how he can have anything to do with it, I must own." Where was a silence. Cecil looked§ sac..ly at the passers by, lovers stroll - TRZ C-tN N ._ :tZ big along happily in the pool of the just set free from the long day's toil, children revelling' in the fresh sweet • sir, Bow very brief was the happiness and rest as compared to the hard, wearing drud- gery of most of those lives! Love per- haps brightened a few minutes of each day, but in the outside world' there was no love, no justice, nrthing but a hard, grinding, competition, while Sorrow and Sin, Sickness and Death, hovered round, ever ready to pounce upon their.victims. It was un- like her to look so entirely on the dark side of things, but Frithiof's per- sistent ill luck had depressed her, and she was disappointed by Roy's words. Perhaps it was unreasonable of her to expect him to share her view of the affair, but somehow she had expected it, and now there stole into her heart a dreary sense that everything was against the man she loved. In her sheltered happy home, where a bitter word was neverheard, where the fam- ily love glowed so brightly that all the outside world was seen through its cheering rays, sad thoughts of the strength of evil seldom came, there was ever present so strong a witness for the infinitely greater power of love. But driving now along these rather melancholy roads, weighed down by Frithiof's trouble, a sort of hopeless- ness seized her, the thought of • the miles and miles of houses all round, each one representing several troubled .struggling lives, made her miserable. Personal trouble helps us afterwards to face the sorrows of humanity, and shows us how we may all in our in- finitesimal way help to brighten other lives—take something from the world's great load of pain and evil. But at first there must be times of deadly depression, and in these it is perhaps impossible not to yield a little for the moment to the despairing thought that evil is rampant and all-powerful. Poverty, and sin, and temptation are so easily visible everywhere, and to be ever conscious of the great unseen world encompassing us, and of Him who makes both seen and unseen to work together forood, is not easy. Cecil Boniface. like everyone else in this world, had, in spite of her ideal home, in spite of all the comforts that love and money could give her, to "dree her weird." CHAPTER XXVIII. If Roy had seemed unsympathetic as they drove home, it was not because he did not feel keenly. He was indeed afraid to show how keenly he felt, and he would have given almost anything to have been able honestly to say that he, too, believed in some unexplained mystery which should entirely free his friend from reproach. But he could not honestly believe in such a thing— it would have been as easy to him to believe in the existence of fairies and hobgoblins. Since no such thing as magic existed, and since Darnell had never been an assistant of Maskelyne and Cooke, he could believe that he had anything to do with the five -pound note. Assuredly no one but I+thiof could have taken it out of the tall and carefully pinned it to the lining of his waistcoat pocket. The more he thought over the details of the story, the more irrational seemed his sister's blind faith. And yet his longing to share in her views chafed and irritated him as he realized the impossibility. His mind was far too much engrossed to notice Cecil much, and that, perhaps, was a good thing. for just then in her great dejection any ordinary acute ob- server could not have failed to read her story. But Roy, full of passionate love for Sigrid,Yand of hot indignation 'with James Horner for havin r been the in- strument of bringing about all this trouble, was little likely to observe other people. Why had he ever one to Paris? he wondered;angrily, when his father or ,lames Horner could have seen to the lnisiuess there quite as well. He had gone partly because he liked the change, and partly because he was thankful for anything that would fill up the wretched time while he waited for Sigrid's definite reply to his pro- posal. But now he blamed himself for his restlessness, and was made miser- able by the perception that had he chosen differently, all would have now been well. He slept little that night, and went up to business the next morning in anything but a pleasant frame of mind, for he could hardly resist his longing to go straight to Sigrid, and see how things were with her. When he enter- ed the shop Darnell was in his usual place at the 'left hand counter, but Frithiof was arranging some songs on a stand in the centre, and Roy was at once struck by a change that had come over him; he could not define it, but he felt that it was not in this way that he had expected to find the Norwegian after a trouble which must have been so specially galling to his pride. "How are you?" he said, grasping his hand; but it was impossible before others to say what was really in his heart, and it was not till an hour or two later that they had any opportunity of really speaking together. Then it chanced that Frithiof came into his room with a. message. "There is a Mr Ca; r its ers wa't:ng to speak to you," he said, handing him a card; "he has two manuscript songs which he wishes to submit to yon." "Tell him I am engaged," said Roy. "And that as for songs. we have enough to last us for the next two years." "They are rather good; he has shown them to me. You mightjust glance through them," suggested Frithiof. "I shall write a book soiree day on the sorrows of a music publisher!" said Roy. "How many thousand of com- posers do you think there can be in this overcrowded country? No, I'll not see the roan; I'm in too bad a tem- per; but you can just bring in the songs, and I will look at them and talk to you at the same time." Frithiof returned in a minute, carry- ing the neat manuscripts which meant so much to the composer and so little, alas 1 to publisher. Roy glanced through the flrst. "The usual style of thing," he said. "Moon, man, and maid, rill and hill, quarrels, kisses—all based on `So the Story Goes.' I don't think this is worth sending to the reader. What's the other? Words by Swinburne: 'If Love were wha the Rose is.' Yes, you are right; his one is original; I rather like the refrain. We will send it to Martino and see what he thinks of it. Tell Mr Carruthers that he shall hear about it in a month or two. And take him back this moonlight affair. Don't go -vet; he can wait on tender hooks a lit ele longer. 01 course Pitcher's Castorla. Children Cry for 44 447, r ERA thy have told me at home about all this fuse on 111911day and x want you to promise me onet iing•'e W fehatis that?"said Frithiof. "That you won't" worry about this miserable five pound note: 'That, if' you ever think of it again, you will remember that my father and I both regard the accident as if it had never happened." "Then you too take this view of the affair?" said Frithiof. "Yes, it seems to me the only rea- sonable one; but don't let us talk of a thing that is blotted out and done away. It lakes no difference what- ever to me, and you must promise that yon won't let it come between us." "You are very good," said Frithiof sadly; and, remembering the hopeless- ness of arguing with one who took this view of his trouble, he said no more, but went back to the poor com- poser, whose face Lengthened when he saw that his hands were not empty, but brightened into radiant hope as Frithiof explained that one song really had the rare privilege of being actually looked at. Being behind the scenes, he happened to know that the vast majority of songs sent to the firm remained for a few weeks in the house, and were then wrapped up again and returned without even being glanced at. His interventing had, at any rate, saved Mr Carruthers from that hard fate. "And yet, poor fellow," he reflected, "even if he does get his song published it is a hundred to one that it will fall flat and nevta do him any good at all; where one succeeds, a thousand fail; that seems the law of the world, and I am one of the thousand. I wonder what is the use of it all." Some lines that Donati had quoted to him returned to his mind: "Glorious it is to wear the Drown Of a deserved and pure success; He that knows how to fail has won A Drown whose lustre is not lees." His reflections were interrupted by the entrance of two customers, evi- dently a recently married couple, who had come to choose a piano. Once again he had to summon Roy, who stood patiently discoursing on the merits of different makers, until at last the purchase had been made. Then, unable any longer to resist the feverish impatience which had been consuming him for so long, he snatched up his hat, left word with Frithiof that he should be absent for an hour, and getting into a hansom drove straight to the model lodgings. TO BE CONTINUED. ugust Flower For Pyspepsia. A. Bellanger, Propr. , Stove Foun- dry, Montagny, Quebec, writes: "I have used August Flower for Dys- pepsia. It gave me great relief. I recommend it to all Dyspeptics as a very good remedy." Ed. 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