The girl from nowhere

by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds

The world, he found, was an oyster that he could not open. He had declined to try the usual kind of knife—that provided by custom for him, in the shape of an office stool. He had imbibed socialistic theories somehow in early boyhood, and his half-brother, Denzil Vanston, had from that moment assured him that he was lost.

The late Squire Vanston, of Normansgrave, had made a foolish second marriage. He had been caught by a designing young woman whom he met at a Brighton hotel. While Felix was still a child, his father died, leaving the widow a life interest in the property. Poor Denzil had cause to feel displeasure. The second Mrs. Vanston filled the house with a crew of very second-rate journalists, music-hall artistes, and sporting men. Her son, Felix, was most imprudently indulged; her stepson, Denzil, had no home as long as she lived. His own mother had been the exact reverse of his father's second wife—a good, rather dull woman, affectionate and sincere, but hard and prim. Denzil, brought up on these lines, was unspeakably shocked by the proceedings which at Normansgrave followed his father's death.

Mrs. Vanston was killed in a carriage accident, after a reckless ten years of very frivolous widowhood. This is putting the case with an extreme mildness, which the inhabitants of the neighborhood might class as euphemism. She died intestate, and was found to have spent the whole of the money which the Squire had left to her, with a view to its coming to Felix after her death. His will bequeathed all the property and all the money, with the exception of this sum, to his elder son. Felix was unprovided for.

At this time he was eighteen years old, and studying at a Continental university. Oxford and Cambridge were not Bohemian enough for him. His brother was willing to make him an allowance, on condition of his qualifying for some profession; and although the only profession for which he would show interest was journalism, and though Denzil profoundly, and perhaps excusably, mistrusted journalism after his experience of his stepmother's set, he did help him, and did make him an allowance, until debts and irregular habits and bad associates convinced him that Felix would do no good until he had actually to work for his living.

Actuated by the best intentions, the elder brother said he would stop supplies until Felix really buckled down to work. The next thing was that the police raided a Dynamite Club in Soho, and Felix was arrested, brought to trial, and convicted. He had served the greater part of his two years' sentence. And now the end had come. At the age of twenty-three Felix Vanston decided that life was not worth living.

It is possible that journalism was not his destined medium. It is certain that nobody would pay him for what he wrote. With hunger comes depression. Moreover, Felix, from the moment when he donned his prison garb, had lost his self-respect. There was nothing to hold him back from the thing he contemplated. He had nothing to lose.

His book was burnt. The incoherent ravings of a boy caught by catchwords, not understanding what he thought or wished or hoped, knowing little, comprehending less—it was all ashes now. The wild heart of him had gone out into its formless sentiments. Nonsense as it was, he had burned with the necessity of expressing it. Now it was gone; and the world finally went out with it. The last flicker, oddly enough, took him back to a boyish episode, when the gardeners had a big bonfire at Normansgrave in the autumn long ago. He saw, as he crouched by the rusty grate, a dream-picture of October woods, rising in billows of color upon the swelling uplands that cradled the old red-brick house. He saw the drift of blue smoke between his eyes and the distance, smelt the aromatic fragrance of burning wood and smoldering leaf. He could feel again the warmth of his big brother's hand as he stood, in his fur and velvet and plumed cap, shouting to Denzil to make it blaze. He saw his mother coming along the garden walk, somewhat hurried. She had a smile for the men who fed the fire, and for the two boys—the little and big—watching. Then she ordered them away. She said Felix must not be out in the cold air. Denzil, kindly enough, tried to draw away the small boy, who, spoilt and uncontrolled, declined to go—stamped, shrieked, and fought. In the midst of his fighting the fire blazed up higher—just near where they were standing. He saw his mother, with a furtive, sweeping look round at the men, whose backs were turned as they lifted more fuel on the flames with a fork—he saw her make a swift movement and fling into the glowing red part of the fire some letters which she had clasped in her hand.

The fire was very fierce; they were ashes in a moment; and, stroking her boy's smooth cheek, she said, laughingly: "Let him stay a while, Denzil, if he cares so much."

Then the child was conscious of a silence—an interchange of glance between his mother and her step-son. Denzil knew that Mrs. Vanston had come down to the bonfire to burn something—that she had desired to send him and Felix away that they might not see her do so; that the sudden opening of a glowing hot hole in the fire quite near had made her risk detection and toss in what she came to destroy. Felix had not understood. He thought Denzil looked severely at "Ma" because she spoilt him, Felix, and let him have his way when he roared. But as his paper fire flared and died down and blackened, the memory of the little scene floated to him through the mist of years; he saw the sweet place, the faint sunlight, the privet hedges and green archways of the vegetable garden; and for one moment there swept over him a desire to live—a desire to see the Cleveshire hills again.

It expired with the last red glow in the flapping ash of paper. Life was over. Nobody there at Normansgrave wanted him. Nay, more, they would be devoutly thankful to know that he was dead.