The Journey’s End

Evening Star, Issue 20053, 19 December 1928, Page 14

The Journey’s End

A Delightful Christmas Story Bv CONSTANCE ENNE.

The Wainwrights had asked me down to spend Christmas at their place, chiefly, I suspect, because 1 was such a lonely brute, and Mrs Wainwright was such a topping little sport. They had a ripping house down in the country,' and had gathered a jolly little party together for the festive season. So Jean Wainwright had said in her note of invitation to me: “Just a few kindred spirits.”

Of course, if Pdhad the slightest Ilea Lisette was to be a fellow-guest, nothing would have induced me to go. I arrived duly about 4 oil the Saturday afternoon—Christmas Eve—feeling; exquisitely at peace with all the world —as far as a cnap can, mind you, who has been let down by the one g'rl in the world a couple of years before, and knows that 'nothing on earth can ever mend'the tear in his heart.

They were having tea in the oak and buff-coloured hall when I got to “ The Journey’s End,” the name of the Wainwright’s domicile. I was conscious of the women’s gay frocks against the more sombre attire of one or two other men, and the firelight, and little Mrs Wainwright introducing mo to the one person in the assembly she fancied I’d so far never met. “ Lisette, do come ere! I want to introduce a friend of. ours—Mr Terry. But everybody calls him Peter. Peter, this is .” She stopped ana stared at us. “Do you two really know each other? How quaint! ” Lisette recovered her balance—even if she’d ever lost it—with remarkable calm, lifted her lovely, lazy eyes to mine, and held out a beautiful steHy hand.

“Oh dear, yes! Peter and I have known each other for years. Only, in a rush-and-tumble world we have lost sight of and forgotten each other. How are you, Peter? I suppose I may still claim an old friend’s privileges and call you Peter? ” Her eyes challenged mine* "in the dancing firelight. “Or have yon forgotten me? ” she added. I saw she looked at me hard and steadily. “ No,” I said, in a voice that sounded stilted and pointless to my own ears. “ No, I never forget old friends. - May I get you some more tea?”

“You may not,” she said sweetly, “ because I’ve already had more than is good for me. But you may sit down and talk to me. Jean’s bringing vou yours with her own fair hands. Try the muffins! I can thoroughly recommend them.” I sat down beside her on the cushioned lounge in the corner, still feeling as if I were living in a dream. The others had drifted away in pairs, and the general buzz of conversation was resumed. I stole a glance at Lisette. She was just as pretty as ever, and somehow or other she seemed to have put the years back instead of forward. She looked almost a child. . She wore one of those seductive little frocks of some misty blue stuff that exactly matched _ her eyes. She broke into my musing in her perfectly-poised, detached way, directly. “ It’s so funny we should meet here like this,” she said, “ after so long. I wonder we’ve never run up against each other in town. Are you still at the same ,old address? ” My mind flew back to the sitting room in my flat, where she had given tea to me out of the pewter set we’d chosen together, because she said she would love to use it every day after we were married, poured out tea for me too many times to remember, and where her portrait still stood in its oval silver frame on my mantlepiece because, I suppose, I was a fool. ’ I nodded in answer to her question. “ Yes, I am rather conservative, you know. Changes never did appeal to mo. I make up my mind to a place or a thing, and stick to it.” Her little maddening, provocative laugh rang out on top of the buzz of other people’s conversation. “ Or—a gii 1 ? ” , , , , . I set down my cup and looked her straight in the eyes. “ Do you honestly think,” I said, " that you have any right to ask me that? ” She leaned against a background of fat blue cushions and looked at me out of gravely quizzical eyes. “ No, I suppose I haven’t, really. That’s a crushing snub for me, and no doubt I deserve it. Put it down to the effect of the Christmas spirit loosening the ‘ conventional ’ one. After all, one can do anything almost, unrcbuked, at Christmas. You—you’re different, 3?Gtor! “ Different? ” I echoed, absentmindedly. I was studying her small, vivid face, hungrily. Such a scrap of a woman to take the heart of a man and break it into pieces with those ruthless, small hands of hers! “ Different? ” she mimicked. Why, of course you are! You’re older by at least ten years . “ Nonsense! ” I cut in. “ You know perfectly well it is years since I saw you, since .” “ Since we broke off our stupid engagement,” she remarked. “You’ve | lost all your old nonsense—you’ve grown sombre.” „ T , . “ Dull,” I supplemented. Isn tit almost a pity you decided to spend this week-end with the Wainwrights, too? By to-morrow night you’ll be bored stiff! ” “ Don’t be silly! But I can’t make it out. All your old boyishness has gone! ” ... I had to take a firm grip of ray inclinations. I was possessed of an insane desire at the moment to make a fool of myself and tell her why, I’d lost it; that I was just the same—nothing would ever change me. But I wasn’t

(Copyright—Published by Armngomen with the General Press, Ltd,)

rroiim to bo trampled on, so I pulled myself together with a mighty effort. I let loose an enigmatic smile for her solo benefit instead. “ That,” I said cryptically, “ belongs to yesterday—the chap you knew and the boyishness. And as you reminded me long ago, yesterday is dead, isn t it? Hullo, Wainwright, old son! Billiards? Why, yes! I should revel in a game! ” . Lisette was laughing joyously with a man who dropped into ray vacant seat, and never cast a glance as I went out. It looked like being a brilliant sort of week-end, and no mistake. I cursed myself for not staying in town. Yet 1 realised within myself, in spite of things, that wild horses wouldn’t have kept me away. It was Jean Wainwright who put me wise that evening before dinner as to the lay of the land. “ It’s so nice,” she said, complacently, “to think that' you and Lisette are old friends! As things were I was afraid the poor child would have rather a dull sort of time. Such a pity Stewart Grant was called away on Yds business trip to Scotland just now, instead of coming with her!” I looked at her sharply, and forgot to conceal the startled look in my eyes. “ Grant! ” I echoed. “ I don’t seem to have heard that .” “Of course not!” she laughed. “ I’d forgotten you’d lost sight of each other—for two years, wasn’t it? You see, we only met Lisette on a holiday about a year ago, though she and I are great pals. Yes, Stewart Grant—the man she’s engaged to, you know,” She was obviously utterly ignorant of the fact that Lisette had once been engaged to me. Mercifully, she was lifting a fresh log from the basket near tin fire at the moment, and never looked at me. I said: “ Then he’s a lucky bounder, and he’s a fool to let anything lure him to Scotland, pr anywhere else, when he might have stayed here with Lisette! ” “ Oh, but you see,” she exclaimed, “ the poor dear lad had to. It’s business —something to do with his mines, granite or marble or something —I don’t quite know what. He’s a fearfully important person! ” I thought the blighter sounded exactly like his name—cold and hard. “ Such a splendid match for her! " went on my hostess enthusiastically. “ You see, he’s awfully rich.” I murmured nothing in particular, and thought a lot more. And then Lisette herself drifted in, and for the first time I noticed the flashing diamonds on the third left-hand finger. “ Did you say Peter would be my dinner partner, Jean? ” quoth she gaily. She flashed me the old mischievous glance from her blue eyes. “ He will have to take care of me ■ M “ As far as one can, as a mere male,” I put in. “ You can trust yourself in my hands.” She tucked a small one into the crook of my arm. “ How far, I wonder? ” she murmured.

But I saved any answer to the challenge underlying her words, because just then we went into dinner. Two or three hours afterwards we sat talking in that little secluded corner of the hall again, rith the others all very much otherwise occupied. j “I hear,” I said quietly, “ I have to i congratulate you.” “ And do you? ” she said. “I’m not quite sure,” I said thoughtfully. “If you’ve got the right —if you’re happy—well, i suppose I j must. Are you happy, Lisette? ” j She twisted that chap’s ring round ' and round absently. i “Is anyone really happy, as one , imagines one may be, when one is in one's first youthful, days? ” she put j in dreamily. “ Somehow men are such ■ funny things—rather like butterflies, I think. And it’s the flower with the most attractive petals that catches their passing fancy and holds it longest.” “ Girls,” 1 said gently, “ are not distinctive in that way, of. course, j Besides, it wasn’t anything more colourful by way of attraction on my side which caused our bust-up, my ! dear. It was simply a matter of temperament—on your side —and Berra by.” “ And because you hated me having a good time ? ” “ When I held all rights as to the giving,” 1 reminded her, _“ I naturally resented any of those fights being, infringed by the other chap,” I cut in, and had the satisfaction of • seeing" her colour deepen. “ The fact j of my being too poor to be able to come up to your expectations in the art of good-time giving,” I said cryptically, “ should not have been an afterthought rom your standpoint—it should have been one of your first considerations when I asked you to marry me. However, as it doesn’t happen to be me you’re going to marry, suppose we cut the subject.” My tone was as casual as I could make it. . “ You’re rather brutal,” she_ said, with a frown I swore I could see in the firelight, and wistfulness behind her words 1 ■ caught unmistakably. I “Perhaps, I said; “but I am at least sincere. Tell me just how happy I you are.” | “As happy as I look—at this moment,” said she; and I wasn’t even! then quite sure which way she meant that. ‘ I “ D’you—are you quito convinced at I last you’ve met the man? ” I asked slowly. She smiled a little. “ He’s very well off,” she said. “ He can give me everything I want.” “ Everything? ” I echoed. “ Details,” she scoffed. “Of course, I might have known. Well, to get! right down to brass tacks, I suppose j you mean am I in love with him? Not i in the least—in your sense of the term. But if he can give me heaps of things I want —I’ve always wanted—if he can be kind, and let me do pretty much as I like, what does it all matter? I. shall have somebody to take care of me. He’s quite a dear.” Somehow or other, I longed to shake her, . , “ And,” I put in remorsely, “ if he s what jou call such ‘ a dear,’ don’t you see the wrong you are doing him—giving him a ‘ dud,’ a sham jewel in exchange for the real thing? ” Her soft, amused laugh jangled my nerves. ' ; “My dear old boy, you needn t get heroic! It’s not a case of that sort—he’s not in the least in love with me; we understand each other, be quite sure. He wants somebody to grace smart dinners, a smart car—in short, something to come home to. He’s a nice, placid, untemperamental person, who will never bore me by—by making love to me—a perfectly sound bargain. He’s awfully fond of me, really.” “ He must bo!” I put in dryly. “ He is,” she said; “ and he knows how perfectly sick I am of living in a couple of perfectly hateful rooms.” If you’d married me at least I could have saved you from that.” “I should have had to listen to something that might have made the vision of loneliness seem preferable,” she returned cruelly. " You know the trite things the struggling husband always says to the extravagant wife. You’d have grown to hate me, Peter.” “I’d have loved you,” I said abruptly, “ so that you wouldn’t have minded anything so merely mundane. And we’d Wo kept romance*”

“ YouVe an optimist,” she said, and raft a slim, pensive forefinger over the back of my hand as it clasped the other round my/knee fiercely, “and I notice you use the past tense.” I saw the other chap’s diamonds winking and flashing in the firelight—a sort of 5.0.5., 1 told myself grimly, that “ got ” me just in time. I stood up and looked down on her slim, lovely little form huddled against decision.

“ Come back into the drawing room' at once and dance," I commanded. We drifted over Christmas Day, and did most of the usual things, but had a wonderful evening.' Everybody danced, everybody flirted— all save two of us were undeniably happy! “ I shall always remember this evening,” said Lisette, with her head perilously near lily heart. How perfectly our steps go together. You dance as wonderfully well as ever, Peter.”

I thought grimly of the granite chap, and couldn’t fathom the picture of them drifting round the room to the strains of this perfect waltz, as we were doing at the moment. The gramophone record came to an end with a sudden burr-rr-rl And we sat down.

I took up the hand lying nearest me, so little and pink-palmed. “ I’ve got to say good-bye to you to-night,” I said suddenly. She turned and looked at me with wide, startled eyes, and every scrap of colour went out or her face. “ Good-bye? ” she echoed, in her little, tired voice. “But why? You can’t be going? There’s the party tomorrow night. You’ve forgotten! ” Her voice, besides being so suddenly tired, had a tinge of hopelessness in it. The hand lying in mine clenched itself and unclenched again nervously. “No.” I said gontly, “it’s not that I’ve forgotten. But I am going first thing in the morning.” “ Have to? ” she said. I simply nodded. “ H’m! Must!”

I glanced about me cautiously. The rest were out of sight, out of earshot. But there was a ripping bunch of mistletoe, to furnish every excuse for me, hanging up above. I bent towards her, and took her dear little quivering face between my two hands swiftly. “After all,” I said, “as you say, the granite chap doesn’t care, and most things'are permitted at Christmas. So good-night and good-bye; little girl! ” I was gone, next morning before she was up. Wainwright lent me the car, and I reached town soon after 11. But all through the hustling time I managed to put into that blessed day I could see the look in Lisette’s eyes when I’d kissed her last night.

It was 7 when I got hack, and as everybody was dressing for dinner nobody, saw me arrive. At exactly twenty past I came softly downstairs and found Lisette in the firelit hall huddled in the corner she and I had occupied the night before. And her head was on her arms, j I tiptoed over Persian rugs and stood before her. “ Would it .be rooking you to offer a penny for them? ” I inquired. She raised a face of sheer, stark wonder, to meet my eyes. Then, woman-like, she pulled herself together. “ Have you come back to say goodbye all over again? ” - said she irrelevantly. 1 shook my head. “ No,” I said. “ I’ve come back to show you what I’ve spent a whole day trying to get. It was a bit of a job, because shops are shut on Boxing Day, as a rule, and people are out of town. But by bearding various lions in the very heart of their domestic dens I have got what X went in search of. Look! ”

And then I laid them in her special license, a platinum and diamond circlet, and a wedding ring. “ Which,” said she, whito as the snow drifting idly down in the world outside, “ which, being interpreted intelligently, means- ” I put the blessed things back in my pocket temporarily, and then I picked her up as if she’d been a baby, put my arms round her, and kissed her. “ It means,” I said, “ that I’ll be hanged before I lot you mess up your life by chucking it away on this Grant chap. You’re coming up to London with me to-morrow, and we’ro going to be married without giving time for any more obstacles in the way of quarrels and other difficulties. It’s me you lovo! You know you can’t deny it.”

She clung to me laughing, and crying a little as well. “ I’m not denying it,” she whispered. “I thought you didn’t care Are you sure you do?” I kissed her again and laughed. “ Aren’t you sure—now,’ 7 I said. “ I’ll never risk letting you go again.” “I shan’t want to,” she said. ‘‘l don’t care about being poor a bit, really. I only pretended all that part to cover up my pride, which was hurt. I shall love making money spin out almost twice as long as you could.”

I laughed again. “My dear child,” I said, oven that won’t bo necessary. Haven’t you heard that the frieze I did for the Kymbal Institute in America, eighteen months ago, was my turning point? Not only has it brought me fame, but the beginning of a very snug fortune. So there’s nothing between you and me and happiness any longer. Not even the granite chap, who hasn’t the common sense to love you. Therefore, I feel no qualms in taking what I’m going to take, I shall tell him ” She looked up at that, and put two slim arms round my neck. “ Peter,” said she, “ you’ll do nothing of the kind, because of the mere fact that he never existed. You see, I told Jean all about ” us,” and she planned everything before you came.

I gasped. “ Then,” I said weakly, you weren’t really surprised to see me the night I arrived? ” “ I was overjoyed,” said she. As to the rest, it’s awfully easy for you to piece it together; I wanted to find out if you cared, and how much. So wo—we invented Stewart Grant. Jean lent me my ‘engagement’ ring.” “ Weill ” I said. “ You little—baggage I ” Jean’s voice came from close by, startlingly, as I bent my head over the business of taking off her ring and replacing it with the one I took from my pocket. “ Congratulations, you two I said she.