Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1900 — Captain Brabazon [ARTICLE]

Captain Brabazon

BY B. M. CROKER

«/Ai I i • Sou Wea

• CHAPTER I. "I don’t and won’t believe it! There suit be some mistake. It’s too bad to be truef* This reekless assertion came from the lips of a tall girl of seventeen, who was leaning her shabby elbows on a wide, oldfashioned window sill, and looking out on a steady downpour, in an attitude of the deepest dejection; staring blankly at the whity-gray sky, the dripping bushes, the roses like sponges, and the flattened flower beds, with her pretty face drowned in tears. Behind her, gazing gloomily over her head, with his hands in the pockets ot his shooting coat, stood a young man. No, ■ot her lover—for in him we trace a strong family likeness, and notice the same very dark blue eyes and crisp, brown hair —he is merely her youngest brother, who, five minutes previously, had bunt into the room and abruptly informed her that, “just as he expected, he had been spun for the army, and it was his luck all over.” On the carpet beside him lay the Morning Post, containing a list of the successful candidates, among whom, alas! the name of Edward Brabazon does not appear. “Please yourself, my good f»‘rl! Believe it or not, as you like,” be returned gruffly; “I don’t fancy it will make much difference at the Horse Guards. I really wish to goodness, Esme, you would not go on like this.” "But it was your last chance,” she sobbed, In ■ muffled tone. “And, after working so hard, and reading for hours and hours, with a wet towel round your head—it’s too hard.” “Fine weather for young ducks,” suddenly interrupted a gay treble voice; and another girl, having pushed the door open with her knee, entered slowly, bearing a tray covered with jam pots. She is Miss Brabazon—Augusta, known as Gussie, in the bosom of her family;

not so tall as Esme, and not nearly so * pretty; still, as she says herself, "she is by.no means an unprepossessing young person.” She has a bright, vivacious a pair of twinkling, mischievous brown eyes, a neat little figure, and an impudent nose. “Tears!” she exclaimed, carefully depositing her tray on the school room table. “What has happened? Who is dead? or la it only one of the dogs?" “The list la out, and I’ve been spun,” replied her brother. “Oh, nonsense!” she cried, with a gasp of incredulity. “You don’t mean to say •o,” almost snatching the paper out of his band in her eagerness to verify the fact. “▲nd that odious young Thomas has actually passed!” she exclaimed, at length. “A miserable little creature in spectacles, who could never originate one single remark beyond ‘Yea, Miss Brabazon,’ 'No, Mias Brabazon,’ Thank you, Miss Brabasoa,’ that positively dared not say ‘Boo’ to the proverbial goose! And talking of saying ‘Boo* to a goose, who is to break this to Mrs. B.?” “I am, I suppose!” returned the brother, doggedly. “It is the third occasion 1 have had to ‘break’ the same news to her, as you call it. There’s a kind of fatal familiarity about the subject by thia time!” “Mr. Edward, if you please, the mistress wishes to speak to you in the drawing room at once,” said a grlm-looking, elderly woman from the doorway; a person whose figure resembled a deal board covered with a tight black alpaca dress. ‘To me! To speak to me, Nokes?” suddenly sitting upright. “Yes, Mr. Edward, to speak to you,” she answered in a tone of decorous decision; a tone which, being interpreted by these experienced young people, meant, “And won’t you just catch it, that’s all!” ‘Then she must have seen it,” exclaimed Esme, in an awestruck voice. “Oh, Teddy!”

Mrs. Brabazon is seated at' a writing table in one of the windows of the drawing room aa Teddy enters. She is a lady with a very long, upright back, a back that has a distinct character and expression of its own, and that of an aggressive nature. When we look into her face, we discover that she is between forty and fifty, dark and sallow, with thin lips pinched together in a manner that bodes but ill for Master Teddy; In fact, her countenance is the embodiment of a thunder cloud, as she waits in an attitude of rigid expectancy, with the Times spread out before her, her eyes fixed on one particular column, engaged in the amiable task of nursing her wrath to keep it warm. She heard the door open and close, she heard his approaching footsteps without moving for fully sixty seconds. At length she turned her head slightly toward the culprit, and said, in a tone .which had gathered intensity from the preceding awful pause. “This Is a nice business r rapping the paper before her with an impressive forefinger. "Pray what hare you got to say for yourself, sir—eh? I hope you are ashamed. Only,” hastily correcting heroelf, “it is not in your nature to be ashamed of anything. 'Come,*' with a jerk of her chair, "speak; and don’t stand there looking like a foot” ' “What can I say, Mrs. Brabazon?” returned Teddy, with heightened color. *T am awfully sorry I failed to pass. I did my very best as far as working went. I am sorry for all the time that has been wasted ” “Aqd money,” Interpolated the lady, "And money, as you say,” he continued; "and I am very sorry you should be so much disappointed; but, after all, it’s rougher on me than anyone else. 1 shall be the chief sufferer.” • “Chief sufferer I You!” she cried, glaring at him with her fiery little coffeecolored eyes, “you a sufferer! you idle, lazy, good-for-nothing lout! This is the third time you’ve come to me with this same story—failed to pass! Suffer, indeed!” charging back on that unlucky word. “It has been my purse that has

suffered! You must make up your mind to earn your own bread, and that without delay. I never dreamed of having to support yon; and what with keeping up the place and Fiorian’s allowance, and your sisters’ expenses, my hand is never out of my pocket!” “Still there is a good deal of spending in three thousand a year, Mrs. Brabazon,” said Teddy, impetuously, his soul revolting at her hypocritical rapacity and meanness. “Three thousand a year! It’s nothing of the sort,” quickly turning to him with a livid face. "What business is the amount of my income to you? It is my money,” passionately, "and not yours! I’ve put up with your insolence too long. I won’t have you another week. I’ve been prepared for this,” pointing a trembling finger to the paper. “I’ve heard of something at the West Coast of Africa that will suit. There you will learn industry, discipline and manners, and 1 never wish to see you again. I shall write about your passage this very day—this very post.” “You need not trouble yourself, Mrs. Brabazon,” interrupted Teddy, decidedly. “I may as well tell you at once that I shall not go to the West Coast of Africa. I can find work for myself. After what you have said, I would rather break stones than be beholden to you for a crumb. I know of something that will suit me better than the yellow fever.” “Take care what you do!” she exclaimed hoarsely. “If you get into low company, or disgrace yourself in any way, I shall wash my hands of you and your affairs. Yon shall be ’’ here she suddenly discovered that Teddy had departed. When he left his stepmother’s presence fee quickly made up his mind what to do. He had failed in passing the examination for an officer, he would enlist as a private in the ranks. He so informed his sisters during the day, and stuck to his determination in spite of all their expostulations. On one thing he was as obstinate as a mule — he would not pass another night in the house as a dependent on his stepmother’s bounty. At 9 o’clock that night he bade his sisters a fond farewell, and left Barrowsford to become a soldier.

CHAPTER 11. Mr. Adrian Brabazon had been an idle, indolent man, whose predilection was congenial society, and who, when his pretty wife died and left him with four small children, had promptly dispatched the boys to school, the girls to the care of their aunt', his sister, shut up at Baronsford, and taken himself off abroad. He spent a good deal of money in an easygoing, gentlemanly fashion, passing as an invalid, a connoisseur in cookery, a patron of the fine arts, and rambling from Italy to the South of France, from Paris to the German Spas, in a kind of perennial circular tour. During his travels he wedded a second wife. Beyond the fact that she was a Mrs. Jupp, widow, aged 40, nothing whatever was known of her antecedents, although the ears of the Maxton gossips were literally aching for particulars. To speak quite frankly, Mrs. Brabazon was not a lady by birth, nor yet one of nature’s gentlewomen. She was a shrewd, sharp, scheming woman, of scant education, who had worked herself up step by step, and who had recently come abroad as confidential traveling maid to an eb derly lady In bad health. She and her employer happened to be inmates of the same hotel in Paris as Mr. Brabazon. It was an unhealthy season, low fever was prowling about and carried off the elderly Englishwoman as one of its first victims. Mr. Brabazon himself became dangerously ill, and was tenderly nursed back to convalescence by Mrs. Jupp, who was a skilled sick nurse, and soft-voiced, soft-footed, sympathetic and soothing. Vague possibilities were floating through Mrs. Jupp’s brain at this period. In addition to a small legacy, she had succeeded to her late mistress’ handsome wardrobe, and made quite an imposing appearance in soft cashmeres and rich black silks, and dainty little lace caps, whenever Mr. Brabazon was sufficiently convalescent to notice such matters. She spoke of herself as companion only to her late “dear friend,” and talked tearfully of better days, far more affluent circumstances, and bewailed her losses in an apocryphal mine in Cornwall. Mrs. Jupp had made herself very necessary to the invalid; he liked her, he was grateful to her. She exactly understood his wants, knew his favorite little dishes, and did not suffer him to be troubled or bored. His health was uncertain, he told himself that he could not dispense with her. He hated the trouble of combating her stronger will, and, telling himself that he was acting for the best, and required a sensible woman to look after him, married her at the English church one morning in November, and, as a reward, his bride carried him away to Italy immediately after the ceremony. Gradually Mr. Brabazon became more and more feeble and decrepit, and during the last year of his life his mind was mnch affected. At first he forgot things that happened thirty years previously, then twenty, then ten, then last year—yesterday. His state was not generally known beyond the small retinue of Italian servants, as for years Mrs. Brabazon had conducted his correspondence and managed all his business, and his present unhappy condition made no alteration in his affairs. She corresponded with her step-children from time to time; stiff, conventional letters, whose contents might have been posted in the market place; but she firmly repressed any desire on their part to come abroad and see their dear papa. The miserable state of his health, she declared in one of her first epistles she wrote to them after her marriage, precluded their much-desired visit, although personally she was languishing to make their acquaintance. At last one day they re-

ceived a letter with an inch-deep black border, announcing the not unexpected death of their father; and Mrs. Brabazon, haring buried him under a touching and handsome white monument in the cemetery at Florence, disposed of her villa, dismissed her servants and returned as a widow to reign at Baronsford. The will created a profound sensation. Everything was left in the hands of Mrs. Brabazon until Florian attained his majority, and he was not to come of age until he was twenty-five. Over the fortunes of her step-daughters and their matrimonial possibilities her power was absolute. She was sole mistress of the property till Florian came of age, and guardian to the four young Brabazons. The interest of the money in the funds, the whole yearly rental of Baronsford, and the nice, large, quarterly dividends accruing from the first Mrs. Brabazon’s fortune were exclusively hers during the minority of the testator’s children. There were no executors, no trustees; all power was vested in one person, and that person was the widow. “The will of a madman!” shrieked public opinion. "A shameful, unnatural, wicked will; most unfair to the young people.” But after a while public opinion veered around, like a weathercock that it is, and gravely declared that when you came to look into the matter, the will gained upon you, and that really, after all, Adrian Brabazon had more sense than they imagined. It was far wiser to leave the property in the hands of a clever, sensible person, who would keep the house together, and probably put by the money she saved for the benefit of her step-chil-dren, and be a second mother to them all, than if everything had gone to idle, thriftless, extravagant Florian. After that day when Teddy so unceremoniously left her presence Mrs. Brabazon never once mentioned his name, and maintained an ostentatious deportment of injured innocence, generally taking her meals in her own sitting room, greatly to the relief of her step-daughters, who talked about their missing brother with bated breath, and minds full of misgiving and conjecture. At last, one morning, the news came. He had done it. Esme knew it from her first glance at Mrs. Brabazon’s upper lip, as she entered the dining room with a bundle of letters in her hand. "There xyill be no prayers this morning,” she said abruptly, sending the servants back into the hall. "You can all go! I am not in a fit frame of mind to go down on my knees and ask a blessing on this house and family. Ido not know when I hare been so upset as I am today. I suppose you have heard about your previous brother?” with a sneer specially dedicated to Esme; and now taking her place before the teapot, as though it were a kind of judgment-seat; “he has written to you, I know, this Private Brown, of the Prince’s lancers.” "What!” cried Florian, startled out of his usual lethargy. "Oh, nonseuse! you don't mean to say that the idiot has enlisted?”

“He has.” she returned, with vicious energy. “He is now a soldier in the ranks; a common soldier.” “Well, of all the idiots!” ejaculated Florian. contemptuously. “He has disgraced us,” continued Mrs. Brabazon, hoarsely, snatching up the sugar tongs in a kind of blind fury, and commencing to make tea; but her hand shook so violently that half the lumps were scattered about the tray. “If he had gone to sea it would not have-mat-tered; no one would have known. What will people say?” she demanded, fiercely, of her audience. “He had every advantage, and I had the promise of an excellent appointment for him on the West Coast of Africa, as deputy superintendent of a jail; but, without a word, he leaves my roof and walks off and enlists as Private Brown. Such base ingratitude never was beard of. Gussie and Esme were both in tears, and Florian was slicing the ham before him very delicately and very deliberately, with an air of deep meditation on his sallow brow. "His name I forbid to be mentioned by any one in this house,” proceeded Mrs. Brabazon. "I forbid you girls to correspond with him or speak of him! Ijdward has as much passed out of your lives now as if his death were in the morning’s paper. I have desired Nokes to keep all the front blinds down for three days.” (To be continued.)