He broke down utterly; it was something so terrible to see this friend
dying there--for him. 'Anything on earth that I can do'---- he murmured.
'You will do for her,' said Wrayworth. 'Thank you. I have no friends to
send her to. I meant to have made her very happy.'
'She shall be; I swear it!' Ralph answered fervently, thankful for
this charge, which might in some degree help him to pay that debt of
gratitude, and forgetful that he had no control of fate, that the
promise he gave of happiness was a fearfully presumptuous one. But he
made it willingly, gladly, solemnly, before God; and as far as lay in
his power it should sacredly be kept; any sacrifice he would make for
this child.
His friend's eyes rested on him searchingly for a moment. 'I trust
you,' he said--'I trust you.'
The hours passed on, the blazing sun arose, and Ralph went out into
the burning glare with bent head and staggering footsteps, while words
he had heard long since seemed floating round him in letters of fire:
'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
his friend.'--'Is there _none_ greater?' he thought. 'Is there nothing
_I_ can do to repay--nothing?'
CHAPTER I.--ASKED.
The years were well on in their teens since that melancholy scene was
enacted in the Indian tent--since Wrayworth consigned his only child
to the guardianship of the friend whose life, at the expense of his
own, he had saved on the battle-field. A carriage rolled along the
snowy high-road through the cold clear air; the short winter's day
was drawing to its close, and up in the darkening sky the stars were
beginning to shine upon the world's most joyful season, upon Christmas
eve. The world's most joyful season? We call it so, this festival, more
than eighteen hundred years old; but does the world think it so?--the
world, with its thousand cares and crosses, its deep and hidden
sorrows, its partings and its tears? Of those amongst the myriads who
keep the Yule-tide feast, how many hold it with a chastened joy! For
on that day most of all our thoughts go back to other years, to other
faces, to other lips that have wished us 'a merry Christmas;' to other
hands, which have clasped ours so loyally, to those who have loved us
so long ago!
But Major Loraine had no sad memories connected with the season as he
drove up to the old house, from which duty had so frequently called
him, and which he had not seen for five years. In the wide, dark,
panelled hall his step-mother stood waiting to welcome him, as gladly
as though he had been her own son. He was only a boy when she first
came there, when the pink was fresh on her cheek and the gold bright in
her hair; they had been drawn to each other then; and through the long
years of her widowhood his loving care had helped to lighten her load
of sorrow; so it was not wonderful that for months past she had been
eagerly looking forward to his return.
The greetings over, they sat down side by side, talking, as those
talk after long separation, of past, present, and future; of their
acquaintances married, dead, or far away; of things on the estate,
prosperous or failures; of the ball to be given next month, of the one
they were going to, to-night; of how much Emma was improved since she
'came out,' how Katharine was considered one of the handsomest girls
in the place, and how she might marry Sir Michael Leyland with thirty
thousand a year if she liked.
'But why ever doesn't she like?' asked the Major, astonished at this
new phase in the character of his worldly-minded sister.
'That is just what troubles me,' answered Mrs Loraine. 'They are all at
the church now, helping to decorate. Louise wanted to stay at home to
welcome you, but I sent them all off, so as to have you to myself for
an hour. You will see a great alteration in Louise, Ralph.'
'Shall I, mother?' he said smiling. 'I think not. Her letters are the
same always; they have altered in style a little of course in the last
year or two, but it is the same spirit--the same creature.'
'But not the same face, Ralph. Remember you have not seen her for five
years, which have not altered you, but which have changed her from an
unformed girl of fourteen to a lovely woman; with that bright changing
beauty, which has more charm for a man than regularity of feature. It
is a very difficult question.'
'What is a difficult question?' asked Ralph, as his mother paused.
'What to do with Louise.'
'You hinted something of the kind in your last letter, mother,' he said
gravely. 'I am sorry, but I must confess this house seems large enough
for four women. You know how I am situated; you know the promise which
binds me. But tell me,' he added smiling, 'what has Louise done? She
seemed to me gentle and tractable enough when I was last at home.'
'I have not the slightest fault to find,' Mrs Loraine replied; 'you
know I am very fond of her. You will think my difficulty very womanish;
simply, Louise is too pretty.'
'And some one has told her so,' said Ralph, laughing. 'Go on.'
'It is not that; but I cannot bear to see my own child's happiness
destroyed by another, who, if not a stranger, has at least no claim
upon her.'
Ralph frowned slightly. 'Perhaps not,' he answered; 'the claim is upon
me, and it is a sacred one. So,' he continued, 'it is a case of rivals,
I see.'
'Simply this, Ralph. You remember the Levesons of Leigh Court, where
we are going to-night? Their eldest son is in the --th Dragoons, and
has been home on leave. Louise was away when he first came here, and he
appeared very much struck with Katharine; and no wonder; she is very
handsome. Well--don't laugh at me; I don't like match-making as a rule;
but I thought as she seemed interested in him, there was no harm in
inviting him sometimes. But as soon as Louise came home, he transferred
his attentions to her. Katharine says nothing; but it makes a kind
of awkwardness between them. I know she feels it, poor child; though
indeed I believe Vere Leveson is simply flirting with Louise.'
Major Loraine laughed. 'Poor mother!' he said, 'you will have enough to
do if you take all your children's love affairs to heart so seriously.
These things always right themselves, you know. But I confess I am
surprised to hear of Katharine going in for sentiment; I should have
thought Sir Michael more in her line. Is that all, mother?'
'No; only the first of my difficulties,' she answered half sadly. 'You
know what my health has been for the last few years; you know---- Well,
you do not wish me to speak of that; but it is better to look in the
face of possibility. Suppose anything happened to me, Ralph, what would
become of Louise?'
'You speak of what I hope may be far distant, mother,' he answered
tenderly. 'But why should you be uneasy about her? In the event of her
not marrying, she would always have a home here with me.'
Mrs Loraine shook her head. 'Turn round and look in the glass,' she
said; 'thirty-nine is not such a very formidable age.'
He turned, and contemplated his bronzed face in the glass; such a
handsome, noble face, telling of a nature that could not act falsely or
meanly. The broad square forehead, marred by a sabre-cut, and the dark
hair flecked here and there, by the Indian sun, with gray; nothing else
to find fault with in the frank kind smile, the fine regular features,
the dark true eyes.
'I think there is no fear of my being taken for younger than I am,
mother,' he said, smiling.
'It is an awkward position for you, though,' she answered; 'and as
I said, a difficult question what to do. We must hope for the best,
Ralph. You are going to join the others now, I suppose?'
'Yes; I think I can find my way.'
He went out into the keen frosty air, walking slowly, though it was
unpleasantly cold to one accustomed to tropical climates. He was
thinking over his mother's words, and knew she was right as to the
awkwardness of the position. He saw the peace of the household was
troubled, without knowing how to set matters right, and he thought
of the old friend who had trusted his child to him. He had vowed she
should be happy, and now it seemed a difficult vow to keep; but for the
sake of the man who had died for him sixteen long years ago, the pledge
then given must be redeemed.
Louise Wrayworth's life had been a bright one hitherto; her guardian's
home was the only one she could remember, and he had striven to fill in
some degree her father's place. To him, from infancy to womanhood, she
had looked up with loving grateful reverence, regarding him, present or
absent, as the noblest of created beings.
He reached the old church, and made his way round to the open vestry
door. The steps were encumbered with bundles of evergreens; the voices
of the workers, who had finished their task, were audible. He pushed
the door further open, and went in. The floor was covered with boughs,
and around the pillars were wreathed holly and other evergreens in
honour of the joyous season. Some of the choristers stood waiting
for the choir-practice, and the organist was softly playing _Adeste
Fideles_.
'Ralph!' cried a young fresh voice; and a slight fair girl with a merry
face sprang up from the floor, with her hands full of the scarlet
berries, which fell hither and thither in bright-hued rain, as with
complete indifference to the by-standers, she gave the returned soldier
a sisterly embrace. 'You dear old thing to come for us!' she exclaimed.
'Emma, Emma!' exclaimed Ralph, laughing and disengaging himself; 'you
have not learned to behave any better in five years.'
But his young sister had vanished, and he turned to greet the vicar;
and one or two of the ladies he recognised. In a few minutes Emma
reappeared; and behind her came a tall fair girl with masses of golden
hair, and great beautiful cold blue eyes. She greeted Major Loraine
affectionately, but with the quiet stately grace habitual to her. Five
years had not changed Katharine Loraine; at twenty-four she was still
the same majestic Queen Katharine as at nineteen, with whom he had
always had so little sympathy, whose nature he had found so difficult
to understand.
'Where is Louise?' he asked presently. 'Is she not here?'
'She went into the churchyard just now,' answered Emma, 'to put a
wreath on Nellie Bryant's grave. You remember her, Ralph?'
'Louise's friend? Yes.'
'A _triste_ employment for Christmas eve,' observed one of the
gentlemen decorators to Katharine, as he stooped to disentangle her
dress from a long sprig of ivy.
'Oh, Mr Leveson went to hold a lantern for her,' Katharine answered,
with the slightest possible shade of contempt in the silvery tones of
her voice; 'and Louise is never _triste_, unless she is by herself.'
The choir was now fully assembled; the organist struck up the anthem,
the rest were silent to listen, and Ralph Loraine went out to look
for his ward. He came round the east end of the old church, and stood
still for a moment in the shadow. There were two people standing at
the edge of the path, looking down on the grave at their feet, where
the lantern's light shewed the shining holly upon the upright marble
cross. It shewed too the face of his friend's child; a beautiful face,
as his step-mother had said, with large dark eyes and wavy dusky hair,
a clear delicate complexion with a little rose-flush on the cheeks, and
full red lips half-parted by the sweetest smile he had ever seen; with
the same erect carriage of the head, the same fearless straight regard
which had characterised her father.
It was so strange to see her there a woman, whom he had left a mere
girl; and as he looked on the fair face, something seemed to whisper
that the ideal beauty he had so often dreamed of was before him at
last. They moved away, and came slowly nearer, and paused again where
he could see her companion; and for a moment he almost hated the man
for his youth, and his handsome face, and the deep-blue eyes aflame
with passion-fire as they rested on the child of his dead friend; and
another whisper which silenced the first, told him how fitted was each
for the other.
'If _I_ were lying there,' said Vere Leveson, and Ralph could hear
every one of the foolish, softly spoken words, 'would you ever make
wreaths for _me_, I wonder?'
'I don't know.'
'Don't you? I wish you did; for I thought just now I should be glad to
be lying there, if you would remember me.'
Ralph had heard enough, and tried to slip away unseen; but the gravel
crunched under his feet and betrayed him.
Louise started, and a bright vivid blush covered her face as she sprang
forward. 'Lorrie! Oh, how glad I am to see you again!' she cried, as
she took both his hands in hers and lifted her cheek for his kiss.
He felt half sorry she had done so; that and the old childish name put
him immediately in his place as guardian, and made him ashamed of his
thoughts. 'How you are altered, Louise!' he said, looking down at her
admiringly. 'I think I should hardly have known you!'
'I should have known you, Lorrie, anywhere,' she said reproachfully.
'That is rather different,' he said; 'when we once get old, we don't
change so quickly.'
'You would not like it if I said you were old, Lorrie. But tell me, am
_I_ altered for the worse? or'----
'You have no need to come to me for compliments, surely,' he said
smiling.
'I should think more of yours than of any one's,' she whispered, with
that sweet dangerous smile; a smile which a man like Ralph Loraine
should have taken as a warning not to feel its influence too often.
'How rude I am!' she said at last.--'Mr Leveson, do you know my
guardian?' She turned to her companion, who stood holding the lantern a
few yards from them.
'I had the honour of dining in your company once, Major Loraine,' he
answered, stepping forward. 'It is some time ago, when I first joined
at Madras; but I well remember my anxiety to see such a distinguished
soldier as yourself.'
There was a ring of truth and honest admiration in the words, which
raised them above an ordinary compliment, and which made Ralph hold out
his hand and answer cordially: 'I have a bad memory for faces, or I
think I should have remembered yours.'
'Thanks,' said Vere, laughing. 'We shall have the pleasure of seeing
you to-night, I hope?'
'Yes; my mother told me of the invitation.'
'Of course he is coming,' said Louise. 'And you will dance with me all
the evening, Lorrie; won't you?'
'Not quite all, Miss Wrayworth; please, don't forget my waltzes,' said
Vere, holding out his hand. 'I must be off now; so good-bye for the
present. You won't forget?'
She looked up quickly. 'Perhaps,' the lips said laughingly; but the
dark eyes gave a sweet silent answer Ralph did not see, though he was
watching them. But after Vere Leveson had gone, he walked home beneath
the Christmas stars, with Louise's hand resting on his arm, dreaming as
he went, a fair, fond, foolish dream.
* * * * *
The Christmas-eve ball at Leigh Park was a regular institution, one
which Sir Harry Leveson had kept up for years. It was a pretty sight,
Ralph thought, as he stood leaning against a window, and looking round
to select a partner. And amongst all the fair women, the one he thought
the fairest was his young ward Louise Wrayworth, in her white floating
dress, with its wreaths of holly, and the red clustering berries in her
dark hair.
Ralph had been watching Vere Leveson, trying to decide in his own
mind whether Mrs Loraine's verdict of flirtation was a just one;
and he judged that it was; for the attentions of the young officer
were apparently equally divided between Louise and Katharine. Ralph
did not happen to be near when, later on, he led Louise to one of
the cool empty rooms, where through the open window could be heard
the merry Christmas bells. He did not see the hand-clasp or the
light that flashed in the eyes of each. He did not hear the hurried
whisper: 'Louise, you won't forget me, you will trust me till next
Christmas-time?'
The ball was over, the rooms were dark and silent; the whole world
waited for the sun to rise on Christmas-day.
IS THE TELEPHONE A PRACTICAL SUCCESS?
In September last appeared in this _Journal_ an article entitled
'Singing and Talking by Telegraph;' and in that paper we attempted
to describe the mechanism of that wonderful little instrument the
telephone. It is now our purpose to say something regarding the
progress that has been made towards perfecting the invention; but in
order to make the article as clear as possible, we venture once more
upon a few words explanatory of the instrument.
The telephone as it is now made is an exceedingly simple-looking
apparatus similar in appearance to a stethoscope; to the handle of a
girl's skipping-rope; or better still, to a large-sized penny wooden
trumpet. Inside this hollow cylinder, and within an inch or so of the
wider end, is fixed a plate of iron as thin as a well-worn sixpence,
and about the size of a half-crown piece. This is called the diaphragm.
Behind the diaphragm, nearly touching it, and extending to the narrower
end of the cylinder, is a piece of 'soft' iron enveloped in wire
coils, with a permanent magnet beyond. Outside the narrower end of
the cylinder, and communicating with the coils that surround the iron
inside, are attached two screws or 'terminals,' which are 'joined up'
to a main wire, communicating with the distant or receiving telephone
wherever that may be, and which is precisely similar to the one we
have described. When we apply our mouth to the bell-shaped end of the
apparatus, and speak or shout or sing, we set the diaphragm vibrating
as in a tuning-fork; the vibrations thus created are electrically
communicated through the wire to a distant telephone, and are repeated
on its diaphragm with more or less distinctness.
It is known that the motion of an iron plate contiguous to the poles
of a magnet creates a disturbance of electricity in coils surrounding
those poles; and the duration of this current will coincide with the
vibratory motion of the plate or diaphragm. When, therefore, the human
voice (or any other suitable sound) impinges through the tube against
this diaphragm, the diaphragm begins to vibrate, and awakens, so to
speak, electrical action in the coils of wire surrounding the poles
of the magnet; not a current, but a series of undulations, something
like those produced by the voice in the air around us. In short the
telephone is an apparatus designed to transmit sound through a wire
of indefinite length; the voice being, so to speak, 'converted into
electricity at one end, the electricity becoming voice at the other.'
With these few explanatory remarks, we now proceed to offer to our
readers the following interesting experiments made by a gentleman well
skilled in telegraphy.
'Journalists,' he says, 'with no special knowledge of the difficulties
the invention has to encounter as a telegraph instrument, have
expatiated in such enthusiastic terms upon the results said to have
been achieved by the telephone, that a somewhat exaggerated notion of
its powers and capabilities has been accepted by the general public.
It appears, therefore, to the writer of those lines that a statement
of the experiences of a person practically engaged in the work of
telegraphy may assist in placing the phenomena of the telephone on a
proper footing.
'Scientifically, the telephone is a great and undoubted success; and
a person would be grievously in error if, because of some undoubted
hindrances to its practical use, he pronounced it unworthy of further
experiment. The emergence of telegraphy from the domain of experiment
into that of daily practical use is a fact so undoubted, and one with
which we are now so familiar, that it is impossible to say at what
moment the telephone, at present a scientific toy, may become a daily
necessity not only of telegraphic but of ordinary commercial work.
'Being engaged in daily contact with a large telegraphic centre, and
in association with men who have the command of every means of testing
the invention in a practical work-a-day manner, the writer was able to
gauge pretty accurately the range within which the telephone can work.
It must be understood, however, that in recording the effects observed
by him and his associates, he has no desire to invalidate, or even to
call in question the experiences of others who may have been able to
arrive at better results. The telephone is in the hands of some of
the first electricians and telegraphists of the day, and differences
of conditions (not to speak of differences of capacity on the part
of the operator) may give variety in the observations made. The very
difficulties and drawbacks now to be recorded will no doubt some day
suggest to a master-mind the method by which they may be overcome. But
till that day arrives, the telephone must be content to remain where
the writer leaves it, an undoubted success from a scientific point of
view, but overwhelmed with obstacles to its practical use, in this
country at least, in general telegraphy.
'When a telegraphist first gets into his hand this beautifully simple
and electrically delicate instrument, his first inclination is to test
its carrying-power. This is of course a closet experiment, not working
with actual telegraph line, but with "resistance" equivalent to a
telegraph line of stated length. An experiment of this nature gives
better results than could be obtained by a veritable line, because the
insulation is, so to speak, perfect. No leakage at undesigned points of
contact, or disturbance from unfavourable atmospheric conditions, is
felt, and the experiment is entirely under the observer's control. The
apparatus used is designed to offer the same labour for the electric
current to overcome, as would be offered by a stated length of outside
telegraph line. This artificial resistance is nicely graduated, and
as the method of testing was suggested by Ohm, a German electrician,
the unit of resistance is, as we once previously explained, termed an
"ohm." Removing the telephone to such a distance that the two observers
were "out of earshot," the test with resistance was tried, and with a
resistance of one thousand ohms--roughly speaking, equal to seventy
miles of a well-constructed line--the sound was perfect, although not
very loud. Every articulation of the speaker at the other end could be
distinguished so long as silence was maintained in the room, or so long
as no heavy lorry rumbling over the stones outside sent in harsh noises
which drowned the faint whisper of the instrument. The resistance
was gradually raised to four thousand ohms--nearly three hundred
miles--with like favourable results; and for some little distance
beyond, articulation could still be made out. But by the time ten
thousand ohms had been applied, putting the speaker at a distance of,
say, seven hundred miles, sound only, but not articulate sound, reached
the ear. The tone was there, and every inflection of the voice could
be followed; but articulation was absent, although the listener strove
every nerve to catch the sound, which the speaker, as was afterwards
ascertained, was shouting in a loud clear voice. The prolonged notes
of an air sung could be heard with the resistance named, but again
no words could be distinguished. The voice, whether in speaking or
singing, has a weird curious sound in the telephone. It is in a measure
ventriloqual in character; and with the telephone held an inch or two
from the ear, it has the effect as if some one were singing far off
in the building, or the sound were coming up from a vaulted cellar or
through a massive stone wall.