The Fate of Fenella. By Helen Mathers, Justin N [sic] McCarthy, Mrs. Trollope [and others], etc

Front matter

THE FATE OF FENELLA BY HELEN MATHERS. MRS. EDWARD KENNARD. RICHARD DOWLING. justin h. McCarthy. mrs. trollope. MRS. HUNGERFORD. ARTHUR A'BECKETT. JEAN MIDDLEMASS. CLEMENT SCOTT. A. CONAN DOYLE. MAY CROMMELIN. F. C. PHILLIPS. RITA. CLO. GRAVES. H. W. LUCY. JOSEPH HATTON. MRS. LOVETT CAMERON. BRAM STOKER. ADELINE SERGEANT. G. MANVILLE FENN. " TASMA." FLORENCE MARRYAT. FRANK DANBY. F. ANSTEY. LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., 25. PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C. 1892. [AU right reserved.^ Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. EDITOR'S NOTE. ~*HAT twenty-four well-known writers should each be able to affirm that " I wrote a twenty-fourth part of that Novel " is sufficiently striking even in these days of literary collabora tion. But that each should further be able to say that " I did so without any collaboration whatever, without a word exchanged, or a refer ence made, to my twenty-three fellow-workers " will, I think, be regarded as somewhat startling.

That I have survived to write this note is attributable to the fact that there was no col laboration in the ordinary sense of the word. Had it been otherwise the ten months of patient labour involved in matching off a dozen pairs of authors and authoresses must have produced a literary " Frankenstein," which would have fallen upon and pulverised me, as soon as life was breathed into it, by twenty -four persons discussing in EDITOR'S NOTE. IV plot, plan, and characters from twenty-four points of view. Mr. Walter Besant has said, in reference to collaboration in novel writing, that there must be one dominant mind responsible for the production of the work of two or more collaborateurs. It would be a little difficult to apply the theory in this case, where the novel has been developed chapter by chapter, without plan.

I leave it to the intelligent reader to discover the " dominant mind " in the " Fate of Fenella." The story was told week by week in the pages of The Gentlewoman, for which journal it was specially written, and having since passed through two Library Editions, now makes its appearance in a cheaper form. J. S. Wood. Howard House, Arundel Street, Temple. August, 1892. CONTENTS.

Chapter I

" FENELLA." BY HELEN MATHERS. " And dinna ye mind, love Gregory, As we twa sate at dine, How we changed the rings frae our fingers. And I can show thee thine ? " Her hair, gloves, and shoes were tan -colour, and closely allied to tan, too, was the tawny, true tiger-tint of her hazel eyes. For the rest, she was entirely white save for her dark lashes and brows, the faint tint of rose in her small cheeks, and a deeper red in the lips that were parted just then in a spasm of silent, delighted mirth. She stood on the top steps of the Prospect Hotel, Harrogate, waiting for the coach to come round, and looking across the hotel gardens to the picturesque Stray beyond, upon which an unique game of cricket was just then going forward, to the intense diversion of all beholders. Two little boys had evidently started it on their own hook, and a variety of casuals had dropped in to bear a hand, the most distinguished of these being a nigger minstrel, who, in full war-paint, and with deep lace ruffles falling over his sooty hands, was showing all his white teeth, and bat ting with a prowess that kept the whole field in action.

" I hope Ronny won't get his pate cracked," said the girl, half aloud, as the four greys drew up with a flourish, and the usual bustle on the steps began. " Good morning, George ! " and she nodded brightly to the good-looking driver, who beamed all over, and touched his hat, for the girl had clambered to many a pleasant drive beside him during the past fortnight. " Box-seat again ! " snapped a spiteful female voice behind her. " I wonder she is allowed to monopolise the best seat as she does, day after day ! " The girl laughed, as giving a brief glimpse of a soft mass of whiteness above silken hose, she swung lightly up to the perch that was indeed wide enough to accommodate three persons, though the privilege of occupying the third lay entirely within George's jurisdiction, and was never, save to an old favourite, accorded.

" FENELLA." -5 5 "Where are we going to-day?" she said, as she settled herself comfortably, and unfurled a SHE SWUNG LIGHTLY UP TO THE PERCH/' (p. 2.) big tan-colour sunshade. " Not to any of those tiresome show-places, I hope? I'm so tired of them ! " No, miss," said George, who refused, even in the teeth of Ronny, to recognise her as anything but a slip of a girl, " we're going for a drive of my own ; just dawdling about a bit like, and nowhere in particular." " Jolly ! " she said, sniffing up the pure air as if she loved it, and with that delightful quality of enjoyment in her voice which acts like an elixir on surrounding company. " Do you know, I mean to come up here every year to drink the waters, for I've got to love the place ! " George looked delighted as he glanced round to see if all his cargo was aboard, but as usual every one was waiting for the inevitable person who is always late, and who will probably be too late for his own funeral if he can possibly manage it.

" Most people who come here once come again, miss," said George, twisting the lash of his whip into a knot. " There's one gentleman who never misses a season, and I was going to ask you, as a favour, if you'd mind his coming on the box seat this morning? He 'most always had it last year. I told him I must ask a lady's consent, so we're to pick him up outside the Pump-room if you're quite agreeable." " Is he fat ?" said the girl, dubiously, and feel ing that her drive would be quite spoiled. " He's as slight as a poplar," said George, his FENELLA. 5 face lightening up, " and he's a gentleman, miss, and you can't say more than that. There's so few of 'em about nowadays ! " The cargo was now complete. The miscel laneous crowd that daily assembled to witness the departure of the coach fell back, the horses stretched out into a gallop, and skirting the hotel garden, with its lounging seats and cheerful awnings, rounded the corner with a flourish, emerging on the Stray with a musical horn blowing that made Ronny, in the distance, hold up his little flushed face to his mother, and wave the bat he was so very seldom allowed to use.

The girl waved and kissed her hand lovingly to the boy, and the nigger, appropriating the compliment to himself, and promptly returning the same, while he also tried to combine business and pleasure by hitting a ball, lost his balance, and sat down in a large puddle. Quaint and varied were the aspects of life afforded by the Stray, that curious piece of ground secured to the townspeople for ever, that in some parts almost resembles a fair ; while in others, ancient trees shut in stately houses that have all the dignity and peace of a cathedral close. In the open a band was playing, nigger min strels were performing, children played, old maids cackled, pigeons stocked, fortune-tellers plied their craft, and old couples sat side by side like puffins warming themselves in the sun. Even the inevit able groaning Salvation Army lasses and lads were there, combining piety and health with that astuteness which is so distinguishing a feature of their peculiar religion.

And the thoroughly English scene, so full of human life, and steeped through and through with such a glory of September air and sunshine as even summer had never dared to promise, or even tried to fulfil, gave extraordinary pleasure to the heart, making one feel, with Lucretius, that " he who has grown weary of remaining at home often goes forth, and suddenly returns, inasmuch as he perceives he is nothing better for being abroad." Down the steep incline in George's smartest style, past the Crown Hotel, that should surely be at the top of the hill, not the bottom, and so to the Pump-room, where with a clash and a clatter he draws up, scanning the crowd of people, who, having drunk their nauseous doses inside, are dawdling and gossiping in true Harrogate fashion before they disperse. The girl does not take the trouble to look at any of them, not even when George touches his hat, and says, " Here, my lord."

Then there is the sensation as of a person ascending the coach, on her side, she indignantly notes, so that she hastily whispers, — " FENELLA. 7 " Couldn't he go on your other side, George ?" " Very sorry, miss, but couldn't drive that way," and then she draws her skirts close to her, with head turned aside, as her unwelcome coach fellow swings himself into the seat beside her. " SHE DRAWS HER SKIRTS CLOSE TO HER. She is so slight, so small, that after all there is ample room and to spare, especially as he answers to the graceful description of him furnished by the driver. "Do you call this a new drive?" she says to George, as they rattle past the lovely Bogs Valley Gardens, and up the steep ascent to the Spa. " Why " "Fenella!" breathlessly exclaimed a voice beside her. " Frank ! " Two aghast, petrified young faces looked into each other ; then the girl, recovering herself first, said, — " Pray, how do you come here ?"

" And what brings you ? " he retorted. " Gout. What are you laughing at ? " she said, airily; "haven't I got ancestors? Didn't they drink October ale by the hogshead, and old port by the gallon ? And Tve got to pay the piper, for I never heard of the liquor hurting them. But talking of ancestors, I've got such a lovely story to tell you. There is a frightfully fat, vulgar woman at our hotel, and you know there are only two things in this sinful world that give me real fits — humbug and vulgarity. Well, this woman never for one single meal lets any body forget her progenitors, and bawls out at the top of her dreadful voice, ' All my people are cavalry people ! ' And what do you think ? Her uncle keeps a pork-shop not far from here, so after all she's perfectly right in her boast, only the cavalry are — Pigs !

" Frank laughed. " You are as bad as ever, I see," he said, and ' FENELLA. 9 then glanced at the driver, who had averted his head as much as possible. " George," said Fenella, putting a coaxing little face round his shoulder, "could you — wotild you mind putting a bit of cotton wool in your ear on this side, because I want to talk to — to Lord Francis? I've got a bit in my pocket some where, I know ! " George's face flickered, as he expressed himself quite agreeable, but was rather surprised, as blue blooded people usually talk before their inferiors as if they had no more hearing and understanding faculties than tables or chairs. When the wool was produced out of a smart little pocket, he proceeded to plug his ear gravely, and even rammed it down hard, to show that his intentions were strictly honourable.

This business over, Fenella turned round, and showed a little laugh ing face that seemed to have caught all the sunshine of the day, ay, and held it fast. " I always carry a bit in my pocket for Ronny," she said, "as he gets a touch of ear-ache some times. What's that ? They can hear us behind ? Oh ! no, the trot of the horses' feet swallows up our voices. Let them talk. They will say I picked you up ! " " So you did. Do you know any of them ? " " Heaven forbid ! A woman, my dear, who never sits in the drawing-room with the other ladies," said Fenella, adroitly mimicking a sour female voice, " there must be something wrong about her. And so there is," she added, below her breath, and for a moment the little face grew hard. " How is Ronny ?" said Frank. " He is very well," she said, nonchalantly.

" Poor wee man, isn't it a good job he isn't a girl ? And he hasn't begun to grow ugly and horrid and masculine yet — he is all mine, mine!" The mother's love in her rang out trium phantly, and her face grew very tender. "We have such good times together, he and I," she went on happily; "he is not with me to-day, because he is playing cricket at the present moment. We go down to the Stray with the bat and stumps, and forage round for a scratch team. I took a hand myself the other day, and actually bowled out a butcher's boy ! " Frank laughed, then shook his head. " You are quite as mad as ever," he said. " Where is your companion ? " " I hope," said Fenella, calmly, " that she is dead. I didn't try to polish off any of the other ones, because they meant well in spite of their aggravatingness, but she was downright wicked.

So I led her a life," she concluded, looking as triumphantly happy as a child who plays truant on a glorious day, with a pocketfull of pennies and burnt almonds. " FENELLA. 11 Frank shook his head sadly. " Why won't you be good, Fenella ? " he said. " You could be so easily." " I always am," said Fenella, promptly, and nodded her curly head close to his nose. "I take sulphur baths, and regularly sneeze sulphur. I get up every morning at half-past seven. Just think of that ! It's a fearful scramble, because Ronny never will wake up. He sleeps just like you, for ever and ever." She stopped, and coloured vividly, then dashed on again breathlessly, " And of course it takes some time to dress him." " You have no nurse, no maid ? " he exclaimed, in amazement. " No," she replied, with great sang-froid, " I like a free hand, and no woman can have that, with a female detective tripping up her heels, and wearing her silk stockings.

And I love to wait on Ronny — to wash and dress him, and make him look sweet. Of course," she added anxiously, " he isn't always clean — the dirtier a boy is, the nicer he is — but he is perfectly happy ! You should see us run down the hill to the Pump room, though every one has done long before we get there ! And then we eat such a breakfast. We've got a dear little fat waiter who simply devotes himself to us, and steals for us all the newest eggs. But he had an awful accident yesterday," said Fenella, turning tragic eyes on Frank; "what do you think it was?" "He fell in love with you ? " Fenella began to laugh in that low gurgle which was so like the sound of a cheerful, over full brook. " Do you remember you said that about my hairdresser ? And how I said I thought it would really have come cheaper in the end it I had married him ?

I always thought that rather neat myself. But I never told you what the accident was. He broke four hundred plates yesterday ! " ' Very greedy of him if he did it all at once "It was all at once. The strap of the lift broke as he was hauling them up ! " " Poor devil ! " said Frank absently. They were quite away from the houses now, and the brisk, pure air, the pleasant scents from the hedgerows, and the swift movement to the music of the horses' feet, and perhaps some other sources of satisfaction within, brought a light to Fenella's eyes, and a rose-soft colour to her cheek, that made her altogether enchanting and sweet. " And pray," said Frank, looking at her eagerly, unwillingly, as at forbidden fruit that sorely tempted him, " do you talk to any of the fellows at the hotel ? " " No," she said airily, " they talk to me.

You see, they are all so fond of Ronny." FENELLA. 13 " No doubt," said Frank, curtly and significantly. " But I pretend not to hear. Stay: — there is one man whom I talk to " " Who is he?" said Frank, grimly, and looking straight between the horses' ears. " Oh, nobody in particular," said Fenella, rather faintly ; " but you see he has a small nephew here, and it seems he and Ronny met at the Grandisons in the country, and are quite old friends. So the barrister and I have got quite pally." Frank sat mute as a fish. " He is ofthe type I rather admire," she said, with a suspicious note in her voice. " You know, Frank," she lifted a naively impudent, grave little face to his, " I always did like a dark, clean shaven man ! " Frank himself was as dark and clean-shaven as it was possible to be, and the corners of his mouth trembled at her audacity, as he turned away.

" He told me such a delicious story yesterday,' she went on, her face breaking up into dimples. "It was about a little girl upon whose mother a horrid old woman was calling. When the old woman got up to depart, she said to the child, ' You'll come and see me, my dear, won't you ? ' ' Oh, yes ! ' said the child. ' But you don't know where I live ? ' ' Yes, I do,' said the child, nodding. ' I know who is your next-door neigh bour.' ' Who is that ? ' says the old woman. ' Why, mother says you are next door to a fool ! ' " But Frank did not smile. It is curious that a man's sense of humour is usually entirely in abeyance when matters of stern import engross him, while a woman's is usually at its keenest when tragedy is in the air. " What do people think at the hotel ? " he burst out, in the undertone both had maintained throughout the conversation.

" That I am a widow," she said, coolly ; "that is to say, if they turn up the hotel list of visitors." "What name have you inscribed?" he said, coldly. " Fenella Ffrench. I suppose I have a right to my own name ? " And the child's ? " Ronny Onslow." " What are your trustees about ? " he broke out, with subdued passion. Fenella shrugged her slender shoulders and laughed. " I was twenty-four years old yester day," she said, with apparent irrelevance ; " did you remember ? " " I remembered," he said, curtly. " Talking of trustees," she said, " will you ever forget the talk and fuss and documents that " FENELLA. 15 day at Carlton House Terrace ? I couldn't help thinking of Lady Caroline Lamb, and how, when she and her husband were required to sign the deed of separation, the pair of them could nowhere be' found !

When discovered at last, Lady Caroline was on her husband's knee, feeding him with bread and butter ! But, though they parted, he loved her all the time," went on Fenella, the little mocking voice grown suddenly wistful;'' and it was on his faithful what are you doing there ?'" (. ' . breast that she pillowed her dying head at last, and his kind voice that sped her on her way ! " " Yes," said Frank, in a strained voice ; " her faults were more of head than heart. But some women have not even hearts for faults to be bred in. Why did you do it ? " he said suddenly, with a mist before his own eyes that hindered him from seeing the tears in hers. "Hi! Onslow! I say, Onslow!" shouted a voice, that seemed to come from beneath the horses' feet, and both the young people peeped over, to see a fat little man in white linen clothes, standing on tiptoe in the road, and blowing out his cheeks like a cherub's. " Why, Castleton !

" cried Frank, " what are you doing there ? " " Walking down my fat, dear boy. I was look ing heavenwards, and saw you coming. Where do you hang out? Beastly water — rotten eggs, rusty iron, and a dash of old Nick. Oh ! I say!" (catching sight of Fenella, not quite hidden by her sunshade), " is that really — well, you know, really — I am astonished — and delighted, too ! I always said " " Drive on ! " roared Frank, and on they went upon the instant, and Frank turned to look at Fenella. She was very pale, and very angry, with all the summer gladnes,s gone out of her eyes and lips. " Frank," she said, " never, never will I submit to be made ridiculous. By to-morrow this time " FENELLA. 17 the story will be all over the London clubs. Drive back to Harrogate with you I will not, and either you get down, or I will."

Frank never moved. " George ! " " Yes, my lady." She stamped her little foot. " How dare you call me that ? " she said, in a furious under-breath. " Put me down ! " George never budged an inch. The trot-trot of the horses' feet maddened her, and she sprang up. " Fenella," said Frank, winding his arm round her waist, " if you don't sit tight I'll put you on my knee, and keep you there, and then I'll kiss __. ,, you.

Chapter II. Kismet

by justin H. McCarthy, m.p. ' But, ah, that Spring should vanish with the rose, That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close." Omar Khayyam. ' Hulloa, Jacynth!" Jacynth awoke from his reverie with a start, and stared at the speaker. He had quite for gotten where he was. Through the grey smoke of his cigarette he had conjured, as from some magic vapour, an enchanting face — a girl's face — with hazel eyes and wonderful tan-coloured hair. He had been in dreamland, and now he was only in the gardens of the hotel, and instead of his exquisite vision he found facing him a fat little man in white linen, who looked very hot and very jolly. " I say, Jacynth, don't you remember me ? Jacynth did not remember, at least fully. He had a dim consciousness that the fat little figure ought to be familiar to him, but he could not remember where or why.

He had not quite KISMET. 19 collected himself yet, and he was slightly annoyed at the interruption to his day-dream. Also he was annoyed at being annoyed and being discom posed by anything. No perplexing witness, no hostile counsel, no antagonistic judge, had ever been known to ruffle Clitheroe Jacynth's imper- "'I SAY, JACYNTH, DONT YOU REMEMBER ME?'" (p. l8j. turbability. But then no vision with tan-coloured hair and hazel eyes had ever come into court with him. He looked at the fat white figure, and shook his head gravely. " But I say, hang it all, Jacynth, don't you remember that night in Cairo, and the dancing girls, and the hasheesh den, and the row, and all the rest of it ? " Memory asserted herself in Jacynth's mind. He did remember a night in Cairo when a party of young fellows from Shepheard's set out to see something of the queer Cairene slums.

The fat little man was of the party ; he was in white then, too, Jacynth remembered. He remembered, too, how hugely the little man had enjoyed everything, from the — well, the eccentricities of the dancing girls to the fumes in the hasheesh den, and even to the final scrimmage in the gambling hell, when Jacynth by a timely stroke saved his fat companion from being knifed by a Levantine rogue who had been detected in cheating. There was an awful row, afterwards; he remembered that, too, and an awkward business before the authorities next morning, but the names of his friends and his own legal reputation settled the matter. Yes, he remembered the fat little man now. He got up with a smile on his dark, clean-shaven face, and held out his hand. "How are you, Lord Castleton ? " Lord Castleton laughed.

That was his way. He went through life laughing, as if everything were the best joke in the world. " I'm glad you haven't forgotten me," he said. " By Jove ! I haven't forgotten you, and that KISMET. 21 turn of the wrist which sent that Levantine devil's toothpick spinning. Well, and how are you ? " The men had sat down beside each other on the garden chair. Castleton produced a cigarette case almost as fat as himself, on which a daintily painted ballet girl disported. "Try one!" he said; "they are ripping. Bingham Pasha sent them to me himself. He got them from the Sultan." Jacynth took a cigarette, lit it from the end of his own, Castleton watching him all the time with the most jocular expression. " You're not looking very fit," he said. " Those confounded courts, I suppose. By Jove ! I shouldn't like to be a lawyer."

"Oh, I'm all right," Jacynth said; "I'm not taking the waters here. My sister lives here, and I've a festive little nephew. I only came here for a rest ; I don't quite know why I came here just now though. Kismet, I suppose." As he spoke that same vision of face and hair and eyes floated up before him. Castleton laughed more boisterously than ever. " Ah ! Kismet, the dear old word. Yes, I suppose it's fate that makes us do most of the things which we seem to do for no particular reason." "Has Kismet brought you here?" Jacynth inquired. " You seem fit enough, at all events." " Fit, my dear fellow ? Not at all." It was one of Castleton's little jocularities with life to consider himself likely at any moment to become a confirmed invalid. " I was up in Bag dad, and I picked up an English paper which said that Harrogate was looking lovely, and somehow I felt homesick and seedy, and all that sort of thing, so I just cut the East and came slap on here."

"Do you know," said Jacynth gravely, "that there are moments when I feel much more in clined to cut the West, and go, as you say, ' slap on ' to some sleepy Eastern place — Bagdad, perhaps, or Japan — and dream away the rest of my life." " The rest of your life ? You talk as if you were ninety ! " And Castleton slapped his fat little leg merrily. " Don't you know what the man-at-arms says in Thackeray's ballad?" Jacynth replied. "'Wait till you come to forty year.' Well, I have come to forty year, pretty nearly. I was thirty-nine three weeks ago — and do you know, Castleton, there are times when I'm tired of the whole business." " By Jove ! what would the judges say if they heard the famous Clitheroe Jacynth talking like this ? " " My dear fellow, I'm not famous, and if I KISMET. 23 were, what's the good of being famous at the price of becoming a fossil ?

" " Do you know," said Castleton, with a grin, " I believe you must be mashed on somebody or other, by Jove I do, if you talk " Before Castleton had finished his sentence he became aware that Jacynth was not paying him much attention. In fact, Jacynth's gaze seemed to be directed very intently towards the end of the garden, and Jacynth's mind appeared to be giving no heed whatever to Castleton's amiable garrulity. So Castleton, following the direction of his friend's glance, saw in the distance a woman's form — a form that was familiar to him ; a form that he had already seen that day. "By Jove!" said Castleton to himself, softly. He had no time to say more, even to himself, for Jacynth had jumped to his feet and was bidding him good-bye. " Glad to have met you ; hope to see you soon again."

These were the words Jacynth was saying, with a confusion curiously at variance with his habitual composure. He shook Castle ton warmly by the hand, and moved away so rapidly that Castleton's " Why, my dear boy, of course you will ; I shall stop here for ever so long," was delivered to the empty air. " By Jove ! " Castleton said again, this time aloud, as he watched Jacynth's rapid advance in the direction of the girl. " By Jove, he's struck like all the lot. Poor devil ! I'll stay here and give him a hint presently. Oh, poor devil, poor devil ! " And Castleton's jolly face expressed as much honest commiseration as its ruddy plump ness permitted. In the meantime, Jacynth, walking rapidly, had met the girl. She smiled a welcome to him, and stopped as he stopped. Her face seemed troubled, he thought, in spite of its enchanting smile.