A Lonely Girl

Chapter I

'As merry as the day is long.'' " So nice to find ourselves all here together once again ! " says Mrs. Clarence with a satisfied sigh, throwing her pretty head a little backwards and side ways — her charmingly insincere face smiling out of its aureole of flaxen hair. She is popularly supposed, in her own set, to have the only pure flaxen hair in the United Kingdom ; and indeed, to give the Devil of gossip his due, no one has ever suggested the word dye ! In town — in the season — this delicate yellow hair of hers has created a small sensation for more years than she now cares to be reminded of, though in reality she is only thirty. For the rest, she has little to complain of in her life ; her means being ample, her charms beyond reproach, and her very uncon genial husband at this moment at the Antipodes.

In this small country place — an insignificant spot in the south of Ireland — she is regarded by the villagers B in the little town below with feelings that sway between awe and delight. " 'Tis a vision she is," said Mr. Twoomey, the opulent owner of the small hotel in Carrigmahon, when Mrs. Clarence had swept through the town in her cousin's — old Sir Lucien Adare's — carriage. " Wid her hair as yellow as the statchew in the chapel beyont. Faith, now that I think of it, she might be own cousin to the Blessed Virgin." Mrs. Clarence, and the Virgin Mary ! When Sir Lucien by some chance heard of this strange combina tion, he chuckled to himself. It gave him food indeed for much cynical mirth ; the joke lasting him (with care) for many days, and enabling him to add extra little stings to the remarks that fell from his sour old lips every now and then, remarks already too full of bitterness to suit the palates of most.

His present guests take them nonchalantly enough. Custom stales most things, and they being his nearest, if not his dearest, are so far accustomed to them as to prove positively hardened. Sir Lucien, who as a rule detests this Irish home of his, took a freak into his head last month, and after eight years absence from it, decided on gathering together such of his kinsfolk as accompanied him on his last visit, and spending a month or two in the pleasant wilds of Carrigmahon. Carrig Castle — The Castle, as it is called " for short" by the peasantry — is sufficiently charming a home to tempt most people, had they been its possessors, to visit it at least once a year. But not its delights have brought Sir Lucien to it in this sunny mid- August. Old associations have given him a distaste for Carrig that amounts to positive aversion, and but for several important reasons it is quite certain he would not have come here at all.

A defaulting agent for one. A battery of letters from his country solicitor for another. The knowledge that Brian Deane was home again and staying at the old mill, for a third, and strongest of all. He had always believed that fellow knew something of the missing jewels ! " Yes. Isn't it ? " says a very pretty girl, answering Mrs. Clarence's languid remark. There is very little languor about Mary Adare, or May, as she is generally called. " Hilary and I were delighted to come, weren't we, Hilary ? " She leans towards her brother, a tall young man sitting in a lounging chair near one of the open windows, through which the moonlight is streaming so vividly as to almost put the many shaded lamps out of countenance. " Intensely," returns Captain Adare politely, if B indifferently. He is lazily pulling a little terrier's ears, the dog answering these endearments by making snaps at his fingers.

It is possible that Hilary, Mary's brother, and Sir Lucien's heir, scarcely heard his sister's question, his mind being at the moment many miles away — in a conservatory at that last dance he went to, before leaving town, before "being dragged down here," as he termed it. Amongst the flowers on that memorable evening, he had told himself that the girl whose fan he was then caressing was the prettiest creature in the world. A week after he still thought so ; six weeks later — it is quite that now — he is sitting here, trying to think so still, and sailing a little. Six weeks is a long time — when one is only twenty-eight. " How many years since last we were here ? " asks someone from the background, someone dangling gracefully over the sill of the window, and twanging gaily, with a remorseless disregard for time and tune, on a banjo.

"What a horrid question !"says Mrs. Clarence with a delicate ruffling of her fair brows. " It must be Owen's ! " She peers round, softly parting with her fan the two men next her to make them stand aside until she can see the place where her brother, the Hon. Owen McGrath, sits revealed. " Good old girl ! " says the hero of the banjo. " You've guessed it. Go up one. Well, what's the matter with my question, anyway ? " He creates another discord on his abominable instrument with great effect. Everyone jumps ! He is so charmed with this success that he instantly twangs again. This time everyone goes mad. " Oh ! do do stop that dreadful noise ! " cries May, covering her little shellpink ears with her hands. " You know you love it," says Mr. McGrath unmoved. He turns his head so far inwards that one can see that he is fat, fair, and twenty-four or so.

His face is innocent of hair, and so, very nearly, is his head. His sister says he suggests a penitentiary ! and that if he hasn't been in one, he ought to have been. However, both she and his father, Lord Kilfern, make much of him now and then, and so do a good many far better people. " Come here, and I'll sing to you ! You won't? . . . You shall!" He has seized her frock and pulled her down beside him. There is a cousinship between them, as indeed there is be tween everyone now staying in Sir Lucien's house. " Owen, don't be stupid ! " May gives him a vigorous little push, but Mr. McGrath with his arm so far thrust through hers as to enable him to get a purchase on the banjo, is already uplifting his terrible voice to the moonlit skies. " And the owl looked up to the stars above And sang to his light guitar, Oh !

Pussy, my darling, Oh ! Pussy, my love, What a beautful Pussy you are, you are, What a beautiful Pussy you are ! " A young man had come rather quickly up to the window when Miss Adare had been brought so swiftly to a seat beside the interpreter of the banjo. "Oh, is that you, Gilbert ?" exclaims she. " Yes, help me up. I must say, Owen," turning wrathfully to her late companion, "if you think that music . . . ." " Won't you wait for the next verse ? Do," says Mr. McGrath. " It's teeming with interest. . . . It is a proposal . . . from you to me . . . you won't wait? . . . Good Heavens, how blind people are to their own interests nowadays. I might — impossible as it sounds — actually have said 'Yes' .... " No one is listening to him, no one ever does as a rule — which says much for the wisdom of his acquaint ances and friends.

But if the present company think to disconcert him by this disregard of his remarks, they are indeed mistaken. He rises like the Phœnix from its ashes to even fresher life, and the knowledge (which covers him with mirth) that Gilbert Grey is now at the other side of the room, getting as near to an open quarrel with May as he dares. Indeed so far does the fight go that now May, leaving Gilbert Grey, and treading the floor as she comes, with the dainty air of a Titania insulted, drops into a seat next Eustace Everard, who as one has come to know, is always very close to Mrs. Clarence. He is a man of about forty, with blue eyes (paling now) and a pensive expression. He gives immensely to charities, especially to orphanages, — is a sound Radical, and has about the worst reputation in Europe. His pensive expression, however, stands to him, and then he is so good to the little fatherless ones !

A man who considers the Orphans must be good ! And besides he is so very rich ! "For me, lam delighted to be here again," May murmurs to him, with the exaggerated delight of a girl who doesn't mean a word she is saying. " I told you so a moment ago, didn't I, Dolly ? " to Mrs. Clarence — May always appeals. " I was awfully bored last season." She says this a little more clearly, so that Gilbert Grey may hear. He had been particularly atten tive to her last season . . . and she, if she told the truth, had been very attentive to him . . Mrs. Clarence regards her with a pitying stare. "My dear May ! " " Oh, yes, 1 know," frowning and tilting an angry shoulder. " You need not look at me like that. I hate town ! I love country ! There it is," petulantly, " in the palm of your hand, however unfashionable you may think me."

" You mean ?" asks Mrs. Clarence. "Oh ! " impatiently, " I don't know what I mean. Except that the cool green country has charms for me." "So it has for the beetle," says Mrs. Clarence sadly. " So it has for me," says Everard in his slow way, getting a glance of gratitude from May in retuin. Then he turns to Mrs. Clarence again. " You might have made it a robin," he reminds her with a smile and in a low tone. She glances up at him ; a mere touch, that lets him see the velvety violet of her beautiful eyes. "I could have made it prettier certainly. But now that you have joined factions with her, I am glad I didn't. And anyway," with a lingering half come, half go, glance, " I don't think the robin simile would suit you /" At this Mr. Everard laughs a little, and after a little too, withdraws to the safe solitude of the verandah and the delights of a solitary cigar.

" Last time I was here," says Mr. McGrath suddenly and apropos of nothing, " there was a donkey. A most energetic ass. I used to ride him bare backed, with his disgustingly short mane as reins." " In what Circus were you then ? " asks Captain Adare anxiously. But McGrath continues his speech unmoved, " I wonder if he is here still ? " " Ask Sir Lucien," says May. "Not much! My dear girl, do you know me? No, I shall find him out for myself. I remember he had a little black cross of hair over his shoulders." "Every donkey has that," says Grey contemptuously. McGrath grows thoughtful. "Has he?" he asks May in a low tone indicating Grey ; but May, who as a rule aids and abets him in all his villainies, now makes a little swift move and turns her back upon him. "Well, girls are queer things," says Owen re flectively.

And then, catching her sleeve — sleeves are big nowadays — he draws her back. "What's up?" " Nothing ! What should there be ? " Her eyes belie her words. " Come and see that old moke again, then, to morrow after breakfast." " Nonsense ! He must be dead by this time " Donkeys never die," solemnly. " Don't be absurd." " They don't really. It has been proved." " Everything dies." " Except donkeys," sturdily. " They are superior to us, you see. You will come after breakfast?" " Certainly not," coldly. And then as if recog nizing that her incivility to Owen may be pleasing to Gilbert, she suddenly changes her air. '* A bike is good enough for me," declares she with a little laugh. " But so antediluvian, dearest," puts in Mrs. Cla rence, who had been the centre of admiration at Battersea Park some weeks ago. ' Taken the cake,' according to her brother.

" Every one can bike nowadays. It is disgusting how the middle classes pick up things ! Really the good old donkey has its charms. One could strike out a new line on him." " So you could," says Owen encouragingly. " Over his head ! " Miss Adare laughs, but Mrs. Clarence, though refusing to smile at the absurd joke, answers it. " Not as we shall ride him now" says she calmly. And visions of rational costumes rise to everyone. " Where's Uncle Lucien ?" asks May suddenly. " He has gone to bed ; said he did not feel very well ! " " What a blessing ! " says Mrs. Clarence. Whether this has allusion to Sir Lucien's being safely out of reach or ill is left doubtful. "He is like a dear innocent little child," says Everard. "We never love him so dearly as when he is asleep." " I don't believe he is ever asleep," says Mr. McGrath gloomily.

" And if by chance he ever should be, I know he'd walk." "You mistake," says Hilary, talking two notes deeper. " He is reserving that as a bou bouche for us, when he is dead ! " " Pouf ! " says Mrs. Clarence, " do you think he is going to give us the satisfaction of leaving the world before us ! You little know him ! " " Anyhow it seems we are safe for an hour or so," says Everard, dropping into the chair nearest to her. " Let us make the most of it. By the way, what is the matter with him, Hilary ? " " I don't know really ! But I made out he went for a long walk, and came back tired ; he looked wretched, I thought." " Yet he ought to be happy," says his sister. " He has every one of his relations round him ! " At this they all roar, to May's intense disgust. "The flowers of speech are still with us," says Everard sweetly.

" And such a little daisy of a flower," says Owen. " May, I always knew you were an angel. I'm your relation, remember. I am round you, so you must be happy ! " " I do hate stupid people," says May pettishly, whereon the cloud that has been adorning Gilbert Grey's forehead for the past twenty minutes, lifts considerably. " For the matter of that," says Mrs. Clarence, " Sir Lucien has not got all his relations round him ; there is yet another niece of his living in this part of the country. Have you all forgotten her ? But it is not to be wondered at, as of her he never speaks."

Chapter II

" What hap dismays the dead ? Their couch is low; And over it the summer grasses creep, Or winter snows enshroud it, white and deep, Or long prevailing winds of autumn blow." THERE is a pause. Everyone looks as if in search of something once known, but forgotten for years and years. Hilary alone smiles. " Oh ! yes, he does sometimes — with adjectives ! " says Captain Adare. The little terrier has now gone to sleep upon his knees. " I declare I had forgotten all about her ! " cries May, growing suddenly excited. " But now I remember she is our cousin — our first cousin, isn't she Hilary ? Her mother was our aunt — Uncle Lucien's sister? Yet imagine," spreading her pretty hands abroad for a mere charming second. "We have none of us ever yet seen her. Have you, Hilary ? No? Then where was she when last we were all here ?

" Where you ought to have been — in the school room," returns her brother laughing. " You are wrong," says Mrs. Clarence. " She was in Paris with that precious mother of hers." " Is she there still ? " asks Everard. "Oh, no ! she is here now, as I tell you. Has been here indeed for some time ; ever since her mother's death which took place about six years ago. She is living in an old house seven miles from this, with some relations of her father called Deane." " Fancy that," says Mary (though she has never read a word of Ibsen). "Isn't it ridiculous that one can't see her ? One's own cousin, and only seven miles away ! " "In a great old rambling house," goes on Hilary, taking up Dolly Clarence's revelations. He has not as yet, however, seen the house of the unknown cousin. " A regular barrack of a place, I'm told, huge, empty ; and with a dilapidated mill at the end of the lawn, or somewhere."

" Her father used to work it," says Gilbert Grey ; " at least so I'm told." " Her grandfather ! " corrects Mrs. Clarence. " Thank Heaven they are neither of them alive now. I suppose in a way, they would be relations — of a sort —too." "A miller," puts in May a little disdainfully. " Well, yes and no," says her brother. " If you allude to her father, hardly that, in the usual acceptation of the term, as I believe though he still made pretence of working the mill, he let it go to irretriev able ruin. He was a decent enough sort of fellow I have heard — connected not so badly either on his mother's side, but not quite — you know ! " with a comprehensive nod all round. " A bookworm, too, which is fatal if one is not — exactly —you see! " " Pity Sir Lucien won't recognize her," says Gilbert Grey, who has a good heart, isa very jealous one.

"Pity he should recognize her now," puts in Captain Adare with a shrug. " It would be a betise of the first water. If he had recognized her long ago, something might have been made of her, but now — she must be a child of the soil indeed." " A little touch of injustice somewhere," suggests Everard with a pensive expression. It brings a smile to the lips of Mrs. Clarence. She knows him. When had he ever done justice to anyone ? "Well, I agree with Hilary," says May in her little rushy way. " An impossible, vulgar, countrified girl by this time ! How is she to be accepted ? Oh ! " — impatiently — " How could Uncle Lucien's sister have married so dreadfully ! " " I've just been telling you it wasn't so bad as all that," says her brother. " He was a miller certainly, so was his father and grandfather, and great grandfather I believe before him ; and really nowadays if one can show up three generations one ought to get the Victoria Cross.

What the girl is like is the question. Run wild, I shouldn't wonder. The old mill is standing still, I hear." " Very still," says Everard with a laugh. " It was in the last stage of decay when we were here — how many years ago ? " turning to Mrs. Clarence, who gives him a glance in return that makes him laugh inwardly. " Well, when we were here yesterday ! " " But what has all this got to do with our mysterious cousin ? " asks Mr. McGrath, who has been weaving all the silken things in the room into a sort of lasso, with which to embarrass May presently, and drag her into his net, to the sure discomfiture of Gilbert Grey. " Let us come back to her : I hate ruins. Some tom fools admire them — to me they suggest nothing but old women." "You haven't been listening," says Mrs. Clarence severely ; "of course Sir Lucien was frantic when his sister made so low a match, and now he visits on the girl that ancient feud."

"Just like him," declares Grey indignantly. "Fancy making the life of a young girl wretched just because her people had not done according to his tenets ! " " There was more," says Mrs. Clarence ; " Haven't you heard, Gilbert, about the disappearance of those jewels ? " She leans forward, jewels appeal to her. " Surely you must have heard ! " " I have not indeed. Jewels ! Whose? " "What? Jewels? I never heard of them either,' cries May, growing suddenly most deeply interested. " Did you ever hear about them, Hilary ? " " Years ago ! But I confess I had forgotten all about them until lately, when there seemed to be a chance of the revival of the sensation that marked their disappearance." " But I never heard of their appearance," protests May. "You must have been asleep, my good child," says Dolly.

"Not a bit more than Gilbert," a little indignantly. She resents this speech. " You never heard of them either, Gilbert, did you ? " " Never ! " says Grey emphatically. Blessed ignorance that seems to bring them even a degree nearer to each other ! "Well, tell us about them." May is somewhat mollified. " Oh ! It's a long story." Mrs. Clarence looks bored. " I'll tell you," says Everard, who seems amused. " Your dear Uncle Lucien's sister — an only sister — was by a clause in her father's will entitled on her C marriage to take possession of the family jewels, I have heard it said that they were unique — that their price was fabulous ; but at all events there is no doubt about it, that they were and are (though I expect distributed by this time) some of the best stones in Europe. Of course the old man always thought that with her beauty and position she would marry brilliantly, and so left her the jewels.

She, however, elected to marry the miller, O'Connell." " She ought to have been ashamed of herself," yawns Mrs. Clarence. " But what an extraordinary arrangement ! About the will, I mean ! " says Grey. " The absurdest on record. There was, however, a proviso. She was to have the jewels for her life, or until she had a son . There was no mention ofa daughter, or else our unknown cousin would be the richest heiress in England to-day. Failing the son, they were to revert to the family again. To Sir Lucien in fact. He did all he could to make his father change this will, but even after the disastrous marriage the old man would not. She was to have the jewels for her life, or for her son." " Yes, that was it," says Mrs. Clarence. " I remember it all now quite clearly. And no son was born. Only a girl.

Therefore the diamonds — very valuable — half a king's ransom, as they say — should have come to Sir Lucien. But, how was it, Eustace ? " to Everard. " On her death ? " — frowning prettily (she never forgets appearances), and shaking a small forefinger up and down, as if to help her memory — " the jewels were not to be had. They were lost : gone. And never a single sign of them since. Isn't that it ? " " A very graphic description. On Mrs. O'Connell's death, demand was made for the jewels, but from that day to this no tidings of them has ever been heard." " Her husband ? " "O'Connell, they all said, made away with them. But—" " You think ? " " From all / have heard of her," puts in Mrs. Clarence indolently, " I should say Lilian Adare — Mrs. O'Connell — had more to do with the selling of or disposing of them than anyone else.

Aunt Maria, who knew her very intimately, says she was a vain, intolerably selfish creature, with a capacity for spending money, that — " " Even you could not rival," says Everard in a little low teasing whisper that reaches her ear alone. " Still a woman, however extravagantly inclined, could hardly sell a quantity of valuable stones with out a chance of their being traced," says Gilbert Grey. C A Lonely Gikl 20 " That's what I always think," says Adare. " And O'Connell — out of sheer malignity (you know he was never acknowledged by any of your family) could not he, perhaps — ? " He pauses, it is bad to speak ill of the dead ! " You think he hid them ? " Mrs. Clarence stifles another yawn behind her fan. " Perhaps that is the best solution of the mystery. At all events it gives me hope of a final sensation !

The discovery ! In large type." " What madness to make a will like that ! " says Everard. " To give stones of almost untold value into the hands of a girl who was unable to manage even her own life. I don't exactly hanker after Sir Lucien, but I'm sorry he failed in getting his father to change his will. But it seems the old man would not hear of it. He stood firm. The fact is he was not in love with Sir Lucien, and he adored his daughter — perhaps because she was his only one — " " Oh, no ! Because she was domineering — hard, unloving but very beautiful," says Mrs. Clarence with a cynical shrug of her shoulders. " There might have been another reason for the old man's obstinacy," says Gilbert Grey. " Everard has hinted at it. We all know he hated his eldest son — Sir Lucien. Have you forgotten it ?

" " Hardly forgotten ! " Mr. McGrath, who has been so taken up with knotting his noose as to be unable to bear the noble part he usually does in every conversation, whether it concerns him or otherwise, now breaks in solemnly. " We merely felt it was unnecessary to mention it! Our dear relative, Sir Lucien, has made known to us by this time his many engaging qualities. You say he went for a long walk to-day with Hilary, in the direction of the old mill?" "Yes," May nods her head, "that is where his sister, Mrs. O'Connell, used to live." " Where our aunt used to live," corrects her brother, lifting his brows, and smiling a little. "Oh!" May frowns slightly, " I never thought of her as that." " Yet you thought of her daughter as your cousin ! " "That's so different." " Is it ? Yet it was her mother who martied the millman — " " — Your uncle !

" puts in Everard carefully. " It's absurd," says May, throwing up her head with a touch of hauteur, " because one's aunt happens to marry a — a — anybody — why should ' anyone ' be called my uncle ? " " So unfair," murmurs Mrs. Clarence. "So unjust. These stupid governments that come and go, are always bringing in the silliest laws for the silliest things in the world, when sensible ones are for ever staring them in the face. Now a bill that would make an aunt not an aunt when she had married beneath her, would do more good than all this education rubbish you could put your mind to." " I entirely agree with you," says Everard, who isa cousin of Sir Lucien's only, and who has come down here into this little Irish corner of the world for no earthly reason he can assign to himself, unless he believes in the shooting, and the idea that it may be good for him to vegetate a bit.

The fact that Mrs. Clarence was also coming had influenced him slightly, not much. He has known her for so many years. " By the way, Sir Lucien's sister, Lilian Adare, ran away with her husband, didn't she ? " "Oh, no! She only married him, to the disgust of all her family. Her father — your grand father, May — lived here then, and as she was the light of his eyes he forgave her, though her brother Sir Lucien never did. But her father's forgiveness (he must have been in his dotage) did her little good, as he died three days after her wedding. Your poor father, you know, died two years before that." " Yes, I know," says May slowly. She hardly remembers either her father or her mother. Her father had been Sir Lucien's younger brother. " It was quite a tragedy," murmurs Mrs. Clarence, in a tone that would have suited quite as ad mirably if she had said, " It was quite a comedy."

" How she must have felt that," says May, in a low tone. " Her father dying so soon after her terrible defiance of all his wishes, his desires " " Oh ! she was a fool ! " says Mrs. Clarence. " And fools feel nothing." Everard regards her curiously. " You don't study things," says he. " The one who does feel is the fool ! " At this Mr. McGrath grows thoughtful. " Sir Lucien must be a genius ! " he remarks. " You are wrong there. He feels something," says Gilbert Grey, who always contradicts Owen if possible, and as a rule to his subsequent grief. " He feels the loss of those stones." " I think he has come here this time because of them," says Everard. " You know that fellow Deane is in the country. He was a nephew of O'Connell's, and after O'Connell's death Sir Lucien took it into his head that Deane knew something of the jewels."