“OUT OF EVIL—”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2382, 24 December 1908, Page 12 (Supplement)

“OUT OF EVIL—”

(By Frederick Fenn.)

The only Merit, if such a word can bo used in connection with so sordid a business, was the frank shamelessness of it all. There was no selfdeception with the two schemers in the little comedy, and, oddly enough, out of evil came good for two, as least, of the three participants. The third party was disgusted in the end with the whole business, not ashamed of his part in it, but angry because it showed insufficient profit. Briefly, the situation was as follows. Henry Pitt was in love. It was no grand passion —grand passions are, fortunately rare —but he was in love to the full extent of his very limited little capacity. Some people have large hearts and a large capacity for loving, but Henry Pitt had a small heart and a small capacity. I mention this by way of finding excuse for his conduct. He was the pint measure which some people compare unfavorably with the quart measure. Not even love could enlarge his little pint capacity. Providence and his parents turned opt a puny article, that is all. He was an auctioneer’s clerk in receipt of two pounds fitfe shillings per week, and it was understood that if the next year should be a good one, his employers, Messrs. Pawson and Rolls, would geperouely increase tfcis

stipend to two pounds ten shillings. The object of his adoration was Alice Rivers, a fluffy blonde, who did typewriting in Chancery Lane. The only child of a wealthy tradesman wiho had failed, at twenty-two she found herself alone in* the world, lor neither father nor mother survived long the trying descent from the florid mansion on Hornsey Rise to tlio shabby little room® in an obscure square off the Gray’s Inn road. She was pretty in an unpretentious way, trim, and dainty, and Avhen Mr. Pitt made love to her she was a little flattered, and, weighing on thing against another, decided that to be Mrs. Pitt would bo preferable to losing her looks over indefinite typewriting. So they drifted into an engagement. It is worth while pointing out here that Mr. Pitt was'at this point at the apex of his soul-develop-ment. “You love, that's high as you shall go,” says the poet, and Mr. Pitt, at this point was straining on tiptoe. Alice Rivers, on the contrary, had possibilities. She was not in love, but merely pleased at ebing loved, a very common but a different state of things.

They prided themselves on being extremely practical young people, and the spectaole of two young things believing themselves to be in love, and knowing themselves to be extremely practical, is most disheartening to the idealist. They reviewed the situation, and being both genteel to the finger-tips, were firm on one point. Marriage was impossible under threehundred a year. Mrs. Pitt would be obliged to have an : at home” day, and sit in state on third Mondays in a neat little house somewhere within modest train or tram fare. They would have to have one servant, and possibly a second, and a perambulator, and, of course, a fortnight’s holiday at Broadstairs. No amount of cal-, culations made over tea at an Aerated Bread shop could make them see how this could be done under three hundred pounds a year. Towards this income they had Mr. Pitt’s prospective two T)ounds ten and the twentyfive shillings which Alice Rivers earned at typing. Mr. Pitt, by the way, was firm on the point that, once married, Alice should abandon her profession. “You will have quite enough to do,” he would say, “looking after the home and after me.” It was a terrible problem, and as the months and even years dragged by this young couple grew harder and more practical, and the glamour of love was rubbed off them Jike the scales off a battered butterfly. And then the unexpected happened. Alice Rivers, going home alone one night, was caught in t-lic rain. The heavens opened, regardless of her pretty summer blouse, and while peevishly waiting under an archway sho found herself addressed by a stranger, and an umbrella offered. The attention made her prettily flushed and flustered, and in a moment she was quite another Alice Rivers to the prosaic maid who, without ever a change of color, discussed ways and »neans w.itli Mr. Pitt. The preferred umbrella was in the hands of a man not young by any means, but kindly cynical and quietly amused. Alice was greatful; summer blouses were scarce,

and one glance revealed to her trained eye that the man was a gentleman. He suggested a cab, but this Frightened her and made hex* prettier still. She would walk under his umbrella if lie “would be sure to keep it/well over himself• Together they walked to Holford Square, and the time passed very pleasantly for both. Before they parted her new friend knew where she worked, what time she finished, and many more details, but she did not mention Henry Pitt, nor to Henry Pitt did she at first say more than that “a funny old man had lent her an umbrella.” Then it camo about that they met again. James ReckfoH, known as “Jimmy the Wrecker” west of Charing Cross, took a decided liking to the little typewriter. He was a man of means, with one foot in the grave (the result of many years steady devotion to pleasing himself), and he was one of those personalities dowered by nature with an unfailing charm of manner, which made liis vices almost seem accomplishments, and his audacities precating courtesies. Alice Rivers was far too self-possessed and practical to fall in love with an “impossible,” besides, was she not engaged? But she cultivated' his acquaintance, and now frankly talked him over with Mr. Pitt, and discussed the possibility of his being useful to them. Reckfort, himself, was a humorist, with no very high opinion of women in general or, at this stage, of the pretty typewriter in particular, but she introduced a new interest into the fagend of his life.

“How much do you make out of that absurd typewriting?” he asked her one day... “Don’t you think it would pay you better to come and amuse me for a while ?” “I don’t understand what you mean,” said Alice, primly. The humorist smiled, and, dropping the subject, went off to liis old friend and doctor. “Well, Stephens,” he said, lighting a cigarette, “not dead yet, you see.” Stephens, M.D., looked at him closely. “So I perceive.” “What a cheery beggar you are,” said the wrecker. “How long do you give me now?” “Six ..months —a year at the utmost,” said Stephens, M.D., lightly. “What’s the game?” “Pretty low down sort of thing suppose you’d consider it to make a

woman fall in love with me at ths. stage?” ' / “Pretty fair,” said Stephens, M.D. “Thought you’would. How do you suggest I shall amuse myself? I shall die in a week without amusement.” “Travel,” said Stephens, M.D. “Alone?”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “Ah!” said Mr. Reckford, “I see your no good to me. You can’t even savo my life ,much levss my soul,” and he went off and suggested to Alice Rivers that she should come abroad with him for six months. “I can make it pretty well worth your while,” ho added, cynically. But the girl was not one to make a mistake. She protended to be shocked and declined.

Reckfort disappeared for a week and the lovers discussed the situation.

“I’ve found out all about him,” snid Henry Pitt, sententiously. “He’s Jimmy Reckfort, of Castle Basing, and got five thousand a year.” Ho paused for a moment, adding thoughtfully, “He must be awfully gone on you.” “I think he is,” said Alice, sweetly.

But Reckfor’s disappearance was not for long. He had gone away, he told himself, to find forgetfulness. However, little of moment is forgotten in a fortnight, and when he returned it was to make Alice Rivers a formal propsal of marriage. “It isn’t very much I am offering' you,” lie said, “but you shall have a good time, little woman, and plenty of money if you ever think about that, which I don’t believe you do; besides you won’t be bothered xvith me for long—a year at the outside. If you don’t believe me about that, go and ask Stephens, 109, Cavendish Square. Say I sent you and he’ll tell you the truth. Noxv what do you say ” “I should like to think it over,” said Alice Rivers.

She thought it over and talked it over to some purpose. She even went to see Stephens, and heard her elderly lover’s death* confirmed, and then she reasoned it out xvith Henry Pitt. “It really does' seem a chance,” said Mr. Pitt; “we might have to wait five years otherwise.” “And it isn’t as if I should be doing anything wrong or horrid,” said the girl. “He is very fond of me, and, of course, I shall be very nice to him. I’m sure if we don’t do it we shall think afterwards that we were very silly and sentimental. Because tlie/doctor said he was quite certain lie couldn’t live for more than a year.” “One must take some chances,” said Mr. Pitt. “Five thousand a year, and he’s pretty sure to leave you the bulk of it. I guess we can wait a year. Go in and win, old girl.”

So Alice Rivers went in and won

The oddly assorted couple went abroad, and when they came back they went into the country. London saw them little, and Mr. Pitt not at all. The man developed a very sincere affection for the girl, while the charm of James Reckfort woke the soul of the prim tittle scheming immoral moralist, Alico Rivers. She learned to love Jimmy the Wrecker, as many a woman had done before. His breath of view and kindly tolerance, his understanding and unvarying consideration, and the fact that though he had many sins he had no meannesses, made her first ashamed and then devoted. Finally, when she found she could not keep her sordid secret from him, she knew that she loved him and that Mr. Pitt did not count in her new world. “And this Mr. Pitt,” said Reckfort, with a little twinkle in his eye which sometimes puzzled liis wife, “did he approve?” “Ho told me,” said Mrs. Reckfort, with a little sob. “He told me to go in and win,” and then she broke down and cried. “Poor little woman!” said Reckfort. “Well, my time is nearly up, but I couldn’t have spared him this year.” Then somehow Mrs. Reckfort convoyed to her husband that she could not have spared Mr. Pitt that year either, and that day was the only day of tears in a union which, contrary to all expectation, turned out ideally happy. But there came a morning when Stephens, M.D., turning over the “Morning Post” at breakfast, saw curtly announced the death of James Reckfort, of Castle Basing, and lie will, and longed, as life-long friends do at such a moment, to see Jimmy smiled grimly. He smiled more kindly later, when he read-the dead man’s the Wrecker lounge into the room in his old inipeturbable way. It was an odd will. Mrs. Reckfort received under its terms one thousand a year, and in event of her marrying again another four thousand was to come to her, but while she remained a widow .this four thousand was to be devoted to such scientific research as Stephens, M.D., had most at heart. The only other legatee was Henry Pitt, who .benefited to the extent of £3OO per annum. Mr. Pitt was not long in calling*on the widow. “Well, Alice,” ho said, “so you’ve pulled it off . all right. I suppose you’ve got to try and look a bit upset? But we needn't wait Jong, need wo—three months, six months, eh?” Somehow ho was a little nervous in the presence of this grave woman in black. Marriage had somewhat changed her. “It was sporting of him to-make such a ripping will. Some beggars try to pro

vent their widows marrying again. £5,000 a year directly we are married ! Good old Jimmy.” Mrs. Reckfort was silent for a moment. “My husband,”, sho smiled at last, and there was a little catch, in hot* voice at the word, “has prevented me marrying again. He loved me. You never did, and I know now, I never loved you. I shall never marry again.” - Mr. Pitt gasped with astonishment. “Well, of all the ” “I know you will think I am behaving badly,” she pursued, “but I cannot help it. 1 have a thousand a year of my own, and I am going to arrange with the trustee, Dr. Stephens, that a share of this is made over to you for—for waiting. I am sorry, Henry, but we made a mistake. We’d better say good-bye!” Mr. Pitt wasted an hour’s eloquence in first trying to persuade and then to bully her into carrying out the original programme. When at length he realised the hopelessness of shaking her resolution, he took up his hat and left in a rage. “Women,” he afterwards confined to a crony, when telling him how he had been “let in,” “have positively no sense of honor,” an dso abandoning all hope Of finding a woriian with a sense of honor, he sought for one who had money to supply the deficiency. Stephens, M.D., in any cynical frame of mind, was the next caller.

As trustee he was obliged to see the “little schemer.” He listened to hexviews with regard to assigning the bulk of her income to Mr. Pitt, but promptly negatived the idea. “My instructions,” he said, “as trustee, emphatically forbid any such tiling. It was my old friend’s wish that you should be well provided for and protected against yourself. As for the £4,000 la yeai* ” “I shall never marry again,” said Mi’s. Reckfort. “You would feel as I do, doctor, if you had once been happy,” and Stephens, M.D., who had carried an old sorrow through thirty years, promptly forgave her and shook hands with her.

They were very good friends ever afterwards, but Mrs. Reckfort never married again. Mr. Henry Pitt, when last heard of, was conducting a flourishing turf agency.