LOVE IN FETTERS

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 14 (Supplement)

LOVE IN FETTERS

IJ'I fi y PATRICIA LEIGH |

SYNOPSIS OP PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

REX CUNNINGHAM, a wealthy and handsome young man, has married in Canada a lovely girl, MOLLY CURTIS, who is gifted with an unusually beautiful voice. For a brief period they are but soon they part, on the understanding that, if either wishes to remarry, he (or she) shall obtain a divorce. Rex returns to London, where he falls in love with UNA COWDRAY, a young, sensitive, impressionable girl, to whom he becomes engaged, without telling her that he is a married man. Rex and Una, with their friends, > LAWRENCE HABERLIN, a wide-awake young American journalist, and MARJORIB HARTLEY, who is herself in love with Bex, are receiving congratulations upon the engagement in the lounge of the World Peace Federation Club, when Rex looks up and finds himself staring into the eyes of Molly, his wife! She does not speak to him, but later she calls at his rooms. When she goes, having promised not to divulge that she is Rex's wife, Haberlin visits Rex and announces that he knows of the marriage, urging Rex to tell Una frankly about it. Rex temporises, and meets Una the next evening at the house of MRS. BLANEY, a vivacious American woman. Next day, Molly, who knows of Rex s engagement and has agreed to a divorce, meets Marjorie and Una, and is persuaded to lunch with them—and Rex. For a week Rex remembers that severe ordeal, and is only deterred from making to his fiancee a clean breast of his marriage because she has repeatedly told him that she does not believe in divorce. Meanwhile Marjorie has vague suspicions, and tries to " draw" Haberlin about Rex s sojourn in Canada.

CHAPTER IX. Una and Mrs. Blaney got to the Beethoven Hall half an hour before Molly's Lieder recital was due to begin. The active American woman had a good many friends and acquaintances she wanted to greet as they came in, and work up to the proper pitch of enthusiasm. She had taken a tremendous interest in Molly, and was most eager that the evening should be a complete success. After listening to her for a while, as she passed from one to another, murmuring: "A real musical treat," "One of the finest contraltos ever heard in London," and "You'll be surprised," Una went upstairs and sat down in one of the three purple and gold boxes at the back of the small gallery.

Rex had been out of town for a couple of days on business, but had promised to be at the Beethoven Hall a little before nine o'clock. Marjorie, as she suspected, had invited Haberlin to take her out to dinner before coming on to the concert, so for a while Una remained alone, deep in her own thoughts. She hoped that Rex would notice the new mauve frock she had bought, knowing it would go well with the colour scheme of the Concert Hall. He was so fond of pretty things, and always liked to see her well turned out. After a two days' separation, she felt quite excited about seeing him again. Mrs. Blaney's agitated drawl broke in upon her reverie. "My, what a time I've had! Think of it, there was some misunderstanding, and if I hadn't beeli able to get through on the telephone to the Canadian High Commissioner, he and his wife would never have been here at all. Thank goodness they are on their way now. Then, while I was in the telephone booth, I thought to ring up the 'Daily Wire,' and, believe me, their musical critic had never even had his notice." "What would people do without you, Mrs. Blaney! You have worked ever so hard for Molly, and I am sure that it is only because of your help that practically every seat has been sold." Mrs. Blaney leaned forward and surveyed the scene beneath with honest satisfaction. Amethyst walls and amber lights and hangings contrived to give just the- right atmosphere of intimacy required for musical recitals. There was a general sense of expectancy in the air; women in silken or velvet evening wraps flitted to and fro seeking out friends and acquaintances, and a well-known British composer held what looked almost like a small reception at the top of the hall. A continuous buzz of conversation ' mingled with the rustlings of the concert programmes. , A sudden hush fell as the«sombre pnrple velvet curtains at the back parted, but it was only the accompanist, who walked briskly across to the piano and began to adjust the stool. A slight stir behind her made Una turn, and she saw Marjorie and Haberlin enter the box together. Half-grudgingly she had to admit to. herself that the other girl could look really striking when she chose to take a little trouble over her appearance. In the evening she affected vivid, almost crude colour effects, and wore heavy, circular gold earrings which, with her tall, muscular figure, dark skin and bright colour, gave the impression of an Italian peasant. She seated herself behind the other two, next to Haberlin, and, bending forward, whispered to Una: "Rex not here yet? I didn't think he would want to miss a second of this concert." "But he isn't really very musical," smiled Una. "It is not very often that he can be lured to this sort of show." "I know," said Marjorie. Haberlin looked annoyed, but said nothing. Then, to the surprise of the audience, the lights were extinguished, and the small platform suddenly spr: ng into prominence, bathed in a warm radiance that suggested summer sunshine. Into the pool of light came a tall, slim figure, serious, unsmiling, with head held very erect. The tight-fitting, low-cut bodice of the amber brocaded gown had long sleeves ending in points over the wrists, making the delicate, unusually white hands, with their long tapering fingers, appear smaller than they actually were, and the skirt, touching the ground in front, swept the floor in a train. Between her fingers Molly held, loosely, negligently, two large, tawny chrysan- '. themums. ' The audience, too taken aback to j accord her the usual perfunctory clatter ' of applause, remained silent, and she began to sing.

Her rich contralto voice; trained to perfection, held a wonderful tenderness and understanding. Here, one felt, had, the old masters lived again, they would have listened with delight to a singer who could worthily interpret their works. She began with Wolf's "Verborgenbeit," and when she was half-way through Marjorie alone noticed that Rex had arrived. He closed the door softly behind him, looked up, and then remained motionless in the shadows staring before him like a man in a trance. Marjorie, apparently in rapt enjoyment, her head resting on one hana, watched him stealthily from between her fingers. She could barely distinguish his features in the gloom, but he, fancying

himself quite unobserved, cast -aside his conventional mask and revealed his hunger for the woman who held them all critics alike, spell-bound. '

The programme was divided into two parts, and it was only when the singer had left the stage and the lights were turned up again that Rex made his presence known.

Una looked up at him, her face aglow with enthusiasm. "What a pity you could not have got here for the beginningLondon has never known anyone like her. And now you have missed half the programme."

Rex took off his overcoat and hung it up. As they all assumed that ho had just arrived, he thought it might be as well to let them think so. For the moment he stemmed back the emotions aroused by the beauty and magic voice of his wife, and took his place between Molly and Mrs. Blaney, both nearly incoherent with delight.

"It is so wonderful, too," cried Una, "the way she never talks about herself. How were we to know she was a really great singer?"

"It is only the really great who don't talk incessantly about themselves," broke in Marjorie caustically, "and as a rule those are the people we never meet at all."

She glanced contemptuously at Hex as she spoke, and Una, intercepting it, was an gry. She became conscious of some undercurrent that she did not understand, and looked round at Haberlin inquiringly, but he did not meet her,eyes. Again the lights went out, and the second part of the programme began. Molly stood there, in her golden robe, like some fairy princess in an enchanted wood, singing with an apparent lack of effort that kept up the illusion. When she sang Schubert's "Standchen, Horch, Horch, die Sereh," she was joyous, carefree, and lived in a land of perpetual spring, but when the music was sombre, melancholy, she became tragedy incarnate.

Towards the end she came to that despairing, heart-broken music of Tchaikowskv:

"Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, Weis, was ich leide, Allein und abgetrenne, Von alle Freude."

As they listened, those with experience lived again through their sufferings of the past, when love had been denied to them, and when they, too, racked by fruitless longing, had stood alone, cut off from all joy.

Una, greatly moved, turned to Rex, and said in a low voice: "Some time or other she must have suffered terribly herself to be able to sing like that."

He did not even hear her, but remained motionless, staring before him with unseeing eyes, and Una, puzzled by his set expression, drew back, intuitively aware that he was in a world of his own where she had no place.

If Cunningham had once been in love with his wife before, his longing for her now had increased a hundred-fold. While she was with him, she had shown him her bitterness, her disillusionment, but through her art she had revealed herself to him as a woman who, while having tasted the dregs of love', had by no means exhausted her capacity for loving. She was not happy, although still young enough to drive away her black moods, and keep them at bay most of the time, yet he had detected no weakening, no hope for himself that afternoon in Hampshire. He had once had his chance and lost it, it was for some other man to benefit by his folly, and attain an exquisite happiness unknown to the humdrum majority. He was profoundly moved, too, by the ovation accorded Molly at the conclusion of the coucert. The polite detachment of a very correct English audience changed to something perilously near hysteria; when she had finished her programme they clamoured for more, so she gave them Schuman's joyous "Oh, Sonnenschein." , Throughout the evening she had remained grave, infinitely appealing beneath the pose of tranquillity with which she cloaked her inward nervousness. But it was not the' public who aroused panic within her; it was the knowledge of Rex's presence, and the result had been to make her put her very soul into the music, giving her power to sing that night as she had never sung before. Amid thunders of applause and cries of "Bravo," she came forward to receive the masses of flowers which were handed up, and then, for the first time that night, as she glanced round the concert hall, as though seeing-it for the first time, she smiled happily, gratefully, as she gave a low curtsey, to disappear for the final time. "Miss Curtis has a fine sense of the dramatic," remarked Marjorie. "I've never known such a night as this before," exclaimed Mrs. Blaney, taken aback on one of the few occasions in her social career. "Can we all go into the artiste's room now and congratulate her?" asked Una in an awestruck voice. "If we can get to her in all this mob," answered Haberlin. "She has certainly delivered the goods all right this evening." Only Rex said nothing, remaining there curiously remote from them all, while Una looked across at him, a little hurt, with a sensation of having been totally forgotten for the time being. It was Haberlin who shepherded them downstairs, and who did his best to squeeze them all into the artiste's room. Even when they were inside it took quite a time before they were able to worm their way to where she stood, flushed, smiling, looking incredibly yqinig. Everyone swirled - around her, still wild with enthusiam, and two Germans murmuring "wunderbar," "ganz herrlich," were kissing her hand with something like reverence as they approached. , Rex, who had reached her side at that moment, overcome by an irresistible impulse, bent and kissed her hand with one swift gesture. She shrank back, startled, wide-eyed, but recovered herself an instant later. It all happened so swiftly that in the dense crowd Una had been the only one to notice the incident. As their little group gathered round Molly she looked up at Mrs. Blaney and said: ' "I think it is the awful heat in this room, but unless you can get me away this very moment, I iball probably be ' ridiculous enough to faint." Haberlin now took charge of things, anil soon had Mrs. Blaney and Molly ' speeding aloae together to the Majegtjg,

He and Marjorie were going on to a dance, and Una looked inquiringly at Bex. As he showed no desire to prolong the evening Una said she was tired, and asked him to take her straight home. For the first time jealousy began to stir within her; she suddenly felt colourless and insignificant in comparison with the baffling and elusive personality and magic voice of Molly Curtis. She was glad when Rex, abstracted to the very end, said good-night and left her to her own thoughts, unpleasant though they were. CHAPTER X. . Haberlin, hoping to distract Marjorie, and keep her off file subject of Una, became much more talkative than usual as they taxied through the West End to a big Anglo-American ball. Once there where she knew a great many people, he hoped she would be taken off his hands for a considerable part of the evening. Marjorie, who .also saw a distracting time ahead, and who was extremely anxious to have her partner to herself, leaned back and gave a yawn. "I dont know why, but I feel simply dead to the world," she said. "I don't feel that I want to meet that AngloAmerican gang to-night." "If you would rather go straight back to your club " began Haberlin hopefully, but she interrupted him. "Would you mind very much if we went on somewhere else instead? - lam dreadfully hungry, and would like something to eat before I turn in." "We'll go wherever you say," said Haberlin philosophically, as they pulled up at the ballroom entrance. "What about the Dawn Club; have you been there yet?" "The one opened last Tuesday? Not a bad show; too small, like most of these dance pens in London, but you'll see lots of interesting folk there." He gave new directions to the taxidriver, and five minutes later they were sitting at a too-small table tucked into a remote corner beside the band. Haberlin apologised, and said it was the only one left, but if they did not try to talk to one another, it would not be so bad. But, as Marjorie pointed out, this new sort of' music was more soothing than distracting. At the Dawn Club they were trying out a. new idea, and instead of the usual jazz band they had three harps,. a mandolin, a guitar, and a drummer who played very softly. The colour scheme did its best to live up to the name, and was a clever blending of soft greys, roseate pinks and subdued yellows. "It's all so restful," said Marjorie, looking round, "and somehow jolly and intimate as well." "They have certainly succeeded in striking an original note, and lots of these people will dance and eat till dawn, I suppose." "Don't look so gloomy!" laughed Marjorie, beginning to thoroughly enjoy herself again. "I promise to let you escape at a perfectly reasonable hour." "And to-morrow you'll be able to tell all your girl friends about the Dawn Club. 'My dear, haven't you been there yet? Why it's simply marvellous, so different from the other places, and you'll see lots of well-known people there.'" Haberlin leaned back and chuckled. He knew Marjorie's weakness, her desire to rush to everything new, whether it was a theatre, a concert hall, a dance club, or a new restaurant or hotel, so that she could inform the world, with conscious superiority, what it was like. "I think you are perfectly abominable sometimes," said Marjorie, frankly enjoying her supper. "But I am still too hungry to tell you what I think of. you."

' Haberlin told himself a trifle grimly . that'he was not anxious for her con- . fidence. He liked women well enough. ' but in England he had already had quite a hard time keeping clear of entanglements. So many of these i pretty girls had anxious mothers. On the whole he felt genuinely sorry for them; in America there was not this scarcity of men, and the resultant fierce competition. Una, of course, was an exception; naturally a girl like that would be snapped up at once anywhere. Marjoric's voice interrupted his reflections. "Now a strong, black coffee and I am all ready for a nice quiet talk," she announced. "Don't you want to dance?" he asked in surprise. "Not just at present, though I may feel more like it later on. First of all, I want to know what you thought of the Curtis recital." , "Very fine. Miss Curtis "has a big career in front of her." . Marjorie looked at him very intently as she continued. "It seemed to me that she was all worked up to-night about something or other; she. sang as though she were living through some deep emotional experience." "What made you think that?" Haberlin's voice was level, non-com-mittal. "I also thought that Rex was not like his usual self." Haberlin looked steadily at her with his deep-set, hazel eyes. "I did not notice anything unusual," he said. "Yes, you did. Because you know." "Know what?" "That Molly Curtis was Cunningham's wife." "It was clever of you to discover that," he said slowly, wondering exactly how this would affect the position. Marjorie felt a thrill of triumph surge through her. Then her suspicions had been right all along. She wondered how she could turn this knowledge to her own advantage. "I feel sorry for Una," resumed Haberlin. "She is so happy at the moment that it seems too bad that she should know anything. At the same time, that fellow Cunningham has no right to marry her without telling her of his i divorce." Mentally he thanked heaven that Marjorie did not know that the divorce was only pending. It was bad enough that she should have stumbled on the secret unless. ... An idea occurred to him. "I didn't think that poor Una knew anything about it," said Marjorie, further suspicions being confirmed. "It seems to me that someone ought to tell her," remarked Habelin thoughtfully. e "Surely Cunningham is the right" person to do that?" * "Certainly, but he won't do it." So, thought Marjorie excitedly, Cunningham and Haberlin had already been over this ground together. "Una is so dead,against divorce for other people," said Marjorie, "but perhaps in her own case * she might feel differently about it." "No, there you are quite wrong. Una has much more backbone than most people imagine, and she would never give in on this point, I am sure." Marjorie knew-that he was probably right, and that if Una heard from an outside source of her fiance's earlier marriage she would instantly break off her engagement, would probably do so even if Rex himself confessed the truth. Hkmi & Umj sis would probably

marry Haberlin. She made up her mind that Una had better remain in ignorance. "Poor Una, I have been go dreadfully worried about her," she said, with unaccustomed softness. "You can't guess what a relief it is to be able to talk it all over with someone." Haberlin regarded her more kindlv. After all, she was good-hearted enough underneath' and honestly distressed about Una. It might be as well to have her help after all. "You and Una are very good friends, and now that you have stumbled on the truth, don't you think you ought to tell her?" He wants me to be the one to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, the girl thought swiftly. If he tells Una himself she will never forgive him, and he can't make Cunningham say a word. Blending sorrow with perplexity, she looked across at him. "I simply couldn't shoulder the responsibility," she said. "Cunningham is the only one to tell herj in these matters it js so difficult for a third person to intervene. Personally I wouldn't take the risk for all the world." ™'« he^onl7 other one who knows "is Molly Curtis, and I suppose we can rule her out altogether," said Haberlin. "We don't know her attitude, of course, but I think Ihe has been rather splendid. She met Una by accident and had no idea who she was until she found herself being introduced to Rex." ' "Quite a dramatic situation—l am almost sorry I missed it. But I am dead certain Miss Curtis tell Una." Marjorie sat up with* an air of finality. "It all boils down to this in the end," she said. "It is Rex's job to tell her, and nobody else ought to interfere." . Haberlin agreed, a trifle doubtfully, at the .same time wondering how lons it would be before this erratic girl iTo be continued Saturday next