Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

MISS M E BRADDON

CHAPTER IX—Continued.

“Isn’t he? Too much of the watchdog about him, I suppose. As for fast friends, there s not much friendship between Wyatt and me. He’s a useful fellow to have about one, that's all. He lias served me faithfully, and has got well paid for his services. It’s a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence on his side, and a matter of convenience on mine. No doubt Wyatt knows that as well as I do." “Don’t you think friendship on such a basis may be rather an insecure bond?” said Constance, gravely; “and that a man who can consent to profess .friendship on such degrading terms is likely to be half an enemy?” “Oh, I don t go in for such high flown ethics. Jim Wyatt knows that it’s his Interest to serve me well, and that it’s as much a i his life is worth to play me false. Jim and I understand one another perfectly, Constance, you may be aure.

“I am sure that he understands you, ” answered Constance. But Gilbert had gone before she had finished her sentence. Baby, christened Christabel, after •the late Lady Clanyarde, wa> nearly a twelvemonth old, and had arrived, in the opinion of mother and nurse, at the most interesting epoch of babyhood. Her tender cooing«, her joyous chucklings, her pretty o uck-clucking noises, as of anxious 'maternal hens calling their offspring, her inarticulate language of broken syllables, which only maternal love could interpret, were an inexhaustible fountain of delight. She was the blithest and happiest of babies, and every object in creation with which she became newly acquainted ■was a source of rapture to her. The flowers, the birds, the insect life of that balmy pine forest, filled her with •delight. The soft blue eyes sparkled with pleasure, the rose-bud lips babbled her wordless wonder, the little feet danced with ecstasy. “Oh,’’cried thede.ighted mother, “if she would always be just like this, my plaything, my darling! Of course, I shall love her just as dearly when she ■is older—a long-armed, lanky girl in a brown holland pinafore, always inking her fingers and getting into trouble .about her lessons—like my sisters and me when we were in the school-room; but she can never be so pretty or so sweet again, can she, Martha?” “Lor’, mum, she’ll always be a love,” •replied the devoted nurse; “and as for her arms being long and her fingers inky, you won’t love her a bit less — and I’m sure, I hope she won’t be worried with too many lessons, for I do think great folks’ children are to be pitied, half their time cooped up in school rooms or stretched out on blackboards, or strumming on the piano, while floor children are running wild in the fields.” “Oh,vMartha, how shocking," cried Mrs. Sinclair, pretending to be horrified, “to think that one of-my favorite pupils should underrate the value of education.” “Oh, no, indeed, ma’am, I have no such thought. I have often felt what a blessing it is to be able to read a good book and write a decent letter. But I never can think That life was meant to be all education. ” “Life is all education, Martha,” answered her mistress, with a sigh, “but not the eiucation of grammars and dictionaries. The world is our school and time our schoolmaster. No, Martha, my Christabel shall not *be harassed with too much learning. We won’t try to make her a paragon. Her life shall be all happiness and freedom, and she shall grow up without the knowledge of care or evil, except the sorrows of others, and these she shall heal; and she shall marry a man she loves, whether he is rich or poor, for I am sure my sweet one would never love a bad man. ” “I don’t say that ma’am,” reiterated Martha: “looks are so deceiving. I’m sure there was my own cousin, on the •father’s side, Susan Tadgerp, married the handsomest young man in Marchbrook village, and before they’d been two years married he took to drinking, and was so neglectful of himself you wouldn’t have known him; and his whiskers, that he used to take such pride in, are all brown and shaggy, dike a straw Scotch terrier." The day after that somewhat unpleasant tete-a-tete between husband and wife, Gilbert Sinclair announced his intention of going back to England .for the Leger. “I have never missed a Leger,” he said, as if attendance at that race were ;a pious duty, like the Commination -service on Ash-Wednesday, “and I (Shouldn’t like to miss this race.” “Hadn't we better go home at one e, then, Gilbert? lam quite ready to return.” “Nonsense. I’ve taken this place till the 20th of October, and shall have to pay pretty stiffly for it. I shall come back directly after the Doncaster.” “But it will be a fatiguing journey dor you.” “1 d just as soon be sitting in a railway train as any where else. ” “Does Mr. Wyatt go back with you?” “No; Wyatt stays at Baden for the next week or so. He pretends to be here for the sake of the water, goes very little to the Kursaal, and lives •quietly like a careful old bachelor who wished to mend a damaged constitution, but I should rather think he had some deeper game than water-drink-ing.” Gilbert departed: and Constance was •alone with her child. The weather was delightful—cloudless skies, balmy ■days, blissful weather for the grape gatherers on the vine-clad slopes that sheltered one side of this quaint old village of Schoenesthal. A river wound through the valley, a deep and rapid stream narrowing in this cleft of the hills, and utilized by some sawmills in the outskirts of the village, whence at certain seasons rafts of timber were floated down the Rhine. A romantic road following the course •of, this river was one of Mrs. Sinclair’s wworite drives. There were plcturesoUe old villages and romantic ruins to be explored, and many lovely spots to be shown to baby, who, although in-

articulate, was supposed to be appreciative. Upon the first day of Gilbert’s ab sence Martha Briggs'came home from her afternoon promenade with baby, looking flushed and tired, and complaining of sore throat. Constance was quick to take alarm. The poor girl was going to have a fever, perhaps, and must instantly be separated from baby. There was no medical man nearer than Baden, Bo Mrs. Sinclair sent the groom off at once to that town. She told him to inquire fcr the best English doctor in the place, or if there was no English practitioner at Baden, for the best German doctor. The moment she had given these instructions, however, it struck her that the man who was not remarkable for intelligence out of his stable, was likely to lose time in making his inquiries, and perhaps get misdirected at last. “Mr. Wyatt is at Baden,” she thought; “I dare say he would act kindly in such an extremity as this, though I have no opinion of his sincerity in a general way. Stop, Dawson,” she said to the groom, “I’ll give ycu a note for Mr. Wyatt, who is staving at the Badenscher Hos. He will direct you to the doctor. You will drive to Baden in the pony-carriage, and, if possible, brink the doctor back with you.” Baby was transferred to the care of Melanie Duport, who seemed full of sympathy and kindliness for her fel-low-servants, a sympathy which Martha Briggs’ surly British temper disdained. Mrs. Sinclair had Martha’s bed moved from the nursery into her own dress-ing-room, where she would be able herself to take care of the invalid. Melanie was ordered to keep strictly to her nursery, and on no account to enter Martha’s room. “But if Martha has a fever, and madame nurses her, this little angel may catch the fever from madame,” suggested Melaine. "If Martha's illness is contagious I shall not nurse her,” answered Constance. “I can get a nursing sister from one of the convents. But I like to have the poor girl near me, that,' at the worst, she may know that she is not deserted.” “Ah, madame is too good! What happiness to serve so kind a mistriss!” Mr Wyatt showed himself most benevolently anxious to be useful on receipt of Mrs. Sinclair's note. He made all necessary inquiries at the office of the hotel, and having found out the name of the best doctor in Baden, took the trouble to accompany the groom to the medical man’s house, and waited until Mr. Paulton, the English surgeon, was seated in the ponycarriage. “I shall be anxious to know if Mrs. Sinclair’s nurse is seriously ill, ” said Mr. Wyatt, while the groom was taking his seat “I shall take the liberty to call and inquire in the course of the evening.” “Delighted to give you any information,” replied Mr. Paulton, graciously; “I’ll send you a line if you like. Where are you staying?” “At the padenscher.” “You shall know how the.young woman is directly I get back.” “A thousand thanks.” CHAPTER X. THE CRUEL RIVER. Mrs. Sinclair's precaution had been in no wise futile. Mr. Paulton pronounced that Martha’s symptoms pointed only too plainly to some kind of fever-possibly scarlet fever—possibly typhoid. In any case there could not be too much care taken to guard against contagion. The villa was airy and spacious, and Mrs. Sinclair's dress-ing-room at some distance from the nursery. There would be no necessity, therefore, Mr. Paulton said, for the removal of the chi d to another house. He would send a nursing sister from Baden—an experienced woman—to whose care the sick-room might be safely confided.

The sister came—a middle-aged woman —in the somber garb of her order, but with a pleasant, cheerful face, that well became her snow-white head-gear. She showed herself kind and dexterous in nursing the sick girl, but before she had been three days in the house, Martha, who was now in a raging fever, took a dislike to the nurse, and raved wildly about this black-robed figure at her bedside. In vain did the sister endeavor to reassure her. To the girl's wandering wits that foreign tongue seemed like the gibberish of some unholy goblin. She shrieked for help, and Mrs. Sinclair ran in from an adjoining room to see what was amiss. Martha was calmed and comforted immediately by the sight of her mistress; and from that time Constance devoted herself to the sick-room and shared the nurse’s watch.

This meant separation from Christabel. and that was a hard trial for the mother, who had never yet lived a day apart from her child; but Constance bore this bravely for the sake of the faithful girl—too thankful that her darling had escaped the fever which had so strangely stricken the nurse. The weather continued glorious, and baby seemed quite happy with Melanie, who roamed about with her charge all day, or went for long drives in the pony carriage under the care cf the faithful Dawson, who was a pattern of sobriety and steadiness, and incapable of flirtation. Mr. Wyatt rode over from Baden every other day to inquire about the nurse's progress—an inquiry which he might just as easily have made of the doctor in Baden—and this exhibition of good feeling on his part induced Constance to think that she had been mistaken in her estimate of his character.

, “The Gospel says ‘Judge not,’ ” she thought,“asd yet we are always sitting in judgment upon one another. Perhaps, after all, Mr. Wyatt is as kindhearted as his admirers think him, and I have done wrong in being prejudiced against him. He was Cyprian’s friend too, and always speaks of him with particular affection.” Constance remembered that scene in the morning-room at Davenant. It was one of those unpleasant memories which do not grow fainter with the passage of years. She had been inclined to suspect James Wyatt of a malicious intention in his sudden announcement of Sir Cyprian's death—the wish to let her husband see how strong a hold her first love still had upon her heart. He, who had been Cyprian Davenant’s friend and confidante, was likely to have known something of that*earlier attachment, or at least to have formed a shrewd guess at the truth. “Perhaps I have susuected him wrongly in that affair,” Constance thought, now that she was disposed to think more kindly of Mr. Wyatt. “Bis mention of Sir Cyprian might have been purely accidental." Four or five times in every day Melaine Duport brought the baby Christabel to the grass-plot under the window of Mrs. Sinclair's bedroom, and there were tender greetings between mother and child, baby struggling In

nurse’s grasp and holding up her chubby arms as if she would fain have embraced her mother even at that di>tance. These interviews were a sorry substitute for the long happy hours of closest companionship which mother and child had enjoyed at SchoenesthalJ but Constance bore the trial bravely, The patient was going on wonderfully well, Mr. Paulton said; the violence of the fever was considerably abated. It had proved a light attack of the scarlet fever, and not typhoid, as the doctor had feared it might have proved. In a week the patient would most likely be on the high-road to recovery, and then Mrs. Sinclair could leave her entirely to the sister’s care, since poor Martha was now restored to fter righ,' mir.d, and was quite reconciled to tnai trustworthy attendant. “And then, said Mr. Paulton, “I shall send you to Baden for a few days, be. fore you goback to baby, and you must put aside all clothes that you have worn in the sick-room, and I think wq shall escape all risk of infection." This was a good bearing. Constancy languished for the happy hour when she should be ab!e to clasp that rosy babbling child toiler breast once more. Mademoiselle Duport had been a marvel of goodness throughout this anxious time. “I shall never forget how good and thoughtful you have been, Melanie." said Constance, from her window, as the French girl stood in the garden below, holding baby up to be adored before setting out for her morning ramble. “But it is a plea -uro to serve Madame, ” shrieked Melanie, in her shrill treble. “Monsieur returns this evening,” said Constance, who had just received a hurried scrawl from Gilbert, naming the hour of his arrival; “you must take care that Christabel looks the prettiest. ’’ “Ah, but she is always ravishingly pretty. If she were only a boy, Monsieur would idolize her.” “Where are you going this morning, Melanie?” “To the ruined castle on the hill.” “Do you think that is a safe place for baby?” “What could there be safer? What peril can madame forsee?” “No,” said Constance, with a sigh. “I suppose she is as safe there as anywhere else, but I am always uneasy when she is away from me. ” “But mrfdame's love for this little one is a passion!” Melanie departed with her charge, and Constance went back to the sickroom to attend her patient while the sister enjoyed a few hours’ comfortable sleep. One o’clock was Christabel's dinner time, and Christabel’s dinner was a business of no small importance in the mother's mind. One o’clock came, and there was no sign of Melanie ana her charge, a curious thing, as Melanie was methodical and punctual to a praiseworthy degree, and was provided with a neat little silver watch to keep her acquainted with the time. Two o'clock struck, and still no Melanie. Constat ce began to grow uneasy, and sent scout, to look for the nurse and child. But when 3 o'clock came and baby had not yet appeared, Constance became seriously alarmed, and put on her hat hastily, and went out in search of the missing nurse. She would mt listen to the servants who had just returned from their fruitless quest, and who begged her to let them go in fresh directions while she waited the result at home. “No,” she said; “I could not rest. I must go my.-elf. Send to the police, any one, the proper authorities. Tell them my child is lost. Let them send in every direction. You have been to the ruins?” “Yes, ma'am.” “And there was no one there? You could hear nothing?” “No, ma'am,” answered Dawson, the groom; “the place was quite lonesome. Theft) was nothing but grasshoppers chirping.” |TO BE CONTINUED. |