THE DAYS OF ENCHANT= MENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 4028, 26 May 1931, Page 78

THE DAYS OF ENCHANT= MENT.

By Christina Margaret Mackenzie. It was a dark and cold night, and the wind was high and cruel. It I bellowed down the wide chimney where round a blazing log fire, three children were gathered. The great stone fireplace filled the east side of the hall at Gerconnel, the Scottish home of Campbell MacDonald, at present with the Britisli garrison at Lucknow. The sconces had been lit and their light blazed warmly in the vast hall. The children, whose imaginations were flicked by the noise of the wind and the blackness of the night were trying to impress each other by gruesome, eerie stories. “ Isn’t it lovely to talk of dreadful deeds when we are all snug and safe in here,” Marie said when the wind blew an angry cloud of smoke out on them, and the roar in the chimney became deafening. “Great!” agreed her brother—eleven and sturdy. “ This is the kind of night I like, when the wind is howling, and we can imagine all kinds of evil people creeping about, and we’re in here hiding from them.” “ But what if someone did come? ” small Margaret asked in a parched whisper. She turned her dark eyes towards the two. “And daddie,” she said, wistfully, “ is far away.” But Marie and Charles laughed at her fears with all the pride of four years’ seniority. “And what if daddie is away?” Charles remonstrated. “Mother is here.” Small Margaret smiled happily. She was too young then to know things from observance; she only felt instinctively that the tall gracious woman with the cloud of dark hair and the deep, baffling eyes, was oTice just a little girl like herself. She didn’t know that her mother was one of the greatest beauties in Scotland, and that of all the family she was the only one to inherit feature for feature that beauty. “ When I grow up.” Charles threw out his chest with an important gesture, “ I’ll be like father and have a crowd of enemies waiting to capture me, but ” “ But. Charles, why does daddie have enemies?” interrupted small Margaret. “ Because, child,” and the boy’s eyes flashed, “ he is powerful, and people are envious.” She turned away sighing. “ Well, Charles,” she said, “ I wish he weren’t powerful.” “ You’re too young Margaret,” said her brother. “ It's splendid to be powerful and free.” Margaret’s lips were tremulous. “ I jest don't like it,” she said, quaintly. “ All right, baby,” Marie rose and sat down beside the tiny figure. “ Let's play.”

“ \ es, play wif Margaret,” whispered the wee mite. “Play hide and seek wif Margaret.” Charles turned and hid his eyes. Small Margaret scuttled away and crouched behind the bronze figure of a dignified ancestor. “ Weady! ” she called gleefully. “ Weady, Charles.” Just then the crunch, crunch of heavy footsteps fell on the flagged path outside. Charles retired hastily. Margaret crouched closer into the shadows. The door shook and the bolts rattled, then of a sudden a cold wind rushed into the hall, and a figure stumbled into the blaze of light. Almost numb with terror, Margaret saw the man who entered, big and brown, with his bulky figure swathed in a cloak of black. Over his chest a brown beard fell in matted clots. His eyes were small and covetous as now, half blinded with the flare of the sconces, he looked more awesome than ever. In the glory of this baronial hall, with its evidence of ward and the chase, “ Black Angus ” looked round for his quarry. He knew that Campbell of Gereonnel was a power to be reckoned with, but in the meantime that power was overseas. Just then his eye caught sight of a little white shoe peeping from behind the big, bronzed figure. He moved closer. Under the blaze of the sconces he saw she was a tiny heap of white—and she was alone—hiding. And because he knew a price would be on this little bundle of fragile humanity he began to pull her towards him. She was too frozen with terror to resist. “Now, my liT lady,” she heard the man mumble, “ we'll see what price MacDonald will put on you.” ~ The icy wind from the doorway stung her cheek, and her little body hung limp on the damp arm of her captor. He buttoned his cloak round her. Then from the stairway came a voice cold with autocratic command: “ Hands off, or I fire.” Black Angus slackened his grip on the little bundle of satin, and stared round. He was all unprepared for what he saw. Standing between the immense pillars of the staircase with levelled pistol stood MacDonald of Gereonnel. He was cloaked and masked, but Black Angus knew the dress. Across the hall camo, the voice “ Hands off, or I fire.” ° Then, like lightening, a bullet shivered, and skinned the wall opposite. Black Angus reeled and fell with his tiny captive. “You little darling,” and small Margaret found arms snatching her close. Servants tumbled into the hall. “ Remove this man,” and the masked man pointed with a foot to where Black

Angus lay wounded. Then Marie and Charles rushed out. “ Father, when did you come? ” A long white hand removed the mask, and the baffling eyes of their mother smiled on them. “ Your father is still away, but I was out and I know you were in danger, so I hurried home by the back road, and changed into your father’s things.” She loked at them with a pale, exquisite face. “ You might have been killed, mother,” Charles caught her hand. “If Black Angus knew it was only you.” “ But I would have saved you first, children.” That night became like a misty dream to Margaret. The masked figure of her mother standing under the flaming sconces stayed in her memory as a symbol of love incarnate. And afterwards, when she grew older and passed into womanhood, she remembered with a loving, passionate pride what her beautiful mother had risked for her—her beautiful, fearless mother. That was the picture she carried with her when, years afterwards, she followed the man of her choice out of Scotland, out to where a tropical sun blazed down on the lines of the Gordon Highlanders in the Transval.

South Africa in 1881, seething in the white-hot tumult of battle. The Gordon Highlanders, with Colonel Gordon, had not long been landed at the Cape. At Natal they had been defeated, and Colonel Ferguson had suffered defeat bravely. Only his wife knew how great was the effort to present a brave front in the face of defeat. And still under the burning sun men schemed, and fought, and died. Leave no man alive. Loot! Burn! Kill! Till sunset to sunrise the order echoed over the veldt, and in the end one nation must lie crushed and vanquished. All through the hot, gasping night little Peg Ferguson, whose mother had been small Margaret MacDonald, wondered and watched. She didn't know that the storm of battle without meant destruction and death; she only knew that there was an uncanny tension about the house, and that panic hovered near. Her mother was bending over her; her lovely mother, whose coral cheeks were blanched, and whose carmine mouth was set and resolute. “ Muinmie,” said small Peg, “ what’s you crying for?” For her mother had tears in her eyes, and she was holding the sturdy little body to her with a pressure that hurt. “ Hush, darling,” soothed her mother. “ I’m not crying. You must sleep, and Topsy will come and sing to you.” Over the hot silence a shot rattled, and as if in answer to her mistress’s thoughts, Topsy stood in the doorway.” “ I’se come, mistress,” she panted. Little Peg felt her mother clasp her tightly as she kissed her. “ Sleep, darling, father is coming soon.” And then she stood up tall, aloof, and imperious. Peg Ferguson, too small to realise what she was seeing, saw her mother walk out, and heard Topsy’s hidoo croon fall above her dreamily, and in the street her mother’s foot all died in the distance.

She was away from the house at last. Majuba Hill, beetling and boulder-bound, raised itself in shadowy steepness. Up she climbed, heedless of the stinging air and tortuous paths. Far to the back of the hill she could • see a dark mass silhouetted against the blazing sky —the enemy’s encampment. She stood on the brow of the hill and watched. In daytime the hill was an arduous task, and at night it was almost impossible. But she had found accessible paths, and on her small writing-block she sketched the route. Far to the west the sun was sinking in dazzling splendour—to her it seemed the symbol of life, endeavour. Standing in the flaming silence the memory of her childhood flashed before her, when her mother, lovely and fearless, had risked her life for her.

“Mother!” cried Margaret Ferguson, and the scene of Gereonnel Hall revived again. “ Give me the strength to endure, and let me save my people.” She went down the hill again, crawling and rolling, but the map of Majuba Hill was safe. Night had come swiftly, she knew she couldn’t reach the town, but down on the base of the hill she drew signs—signs they had used tracking in the woods of Scotland. Her husband would recognise them, and if she were lost he could at least find the trail and—under a mossy boulder she hid her map —one life for a country. She was fearless now. It didn’t matter much that over the hill dark figures were creeping, and that out of the shadows alien voices shouted, “ A woman! A spy.” They turned and saw standing out from the shadows a woman, tall, fearless, and lovely. “ A Britisher and a spy,” they shouted, and because they knew she was from the enemy’s camp one of them drew from his pocket something that flashed hard and cruel in the night light. Margaret heard a voice say, “Hands up! ” With hands up she faced them—bafflingly serene. The hot breath of the Eastern night stung her cool brow, and before her the garish light of the sky gleamed red, but she didn’t see these things. Before her, it seemed, the Highland hills heaved blue in the purple distance. A shot shivered; the sky paled. And Majuba Hill slept. Down the annals of history Majuba Hill stands out a glorious military achievement, but only Colonel Ferguson and the screaming night birds knew that the little iron cross at the foot of the hill attested to the passing of the lovely Margaret Ferguson.

The Casino night club and dance hall had wedged its starred and golden self into a specious part of the West End. “ Rapid place, the Casino ” —a perfect hive of human idiosyncracies. Out of the chaos and debris of the war it had sprung, blossomed, and remained rooted. It had a Select baud, and it was the Casino manager who first introduced a singer. When the band sobbed softly there was a faint rustle, then out of the silence a voice trilled, and the dancers beheld in the shadowy distance a pair of naked shoulders, alabaster white, and an exquisite head thrown back—amazingly seductive. Margaret, the singer, was known every where. Tall, da’rk, and sinuous, she caused among the blase crowd a cooling sense of diversion. To-night she was sitting at a table, her bare arm flung over the back of her chair, and she drank champagne listlessly. Then she saw someone she knew coming towards her. She smiled. And the smile was baffling, provocative. Tired to-night, Margaret?” To the whole club she was “ Margaret.” “ No, fit as ever.” She lowered her lips to her glass, and he noticed that beneath the film of rouge she was wan. Already the laughing light was fading in her eyes. It was only the brilliant spots of rouge that electrified them. Without, her war-paint, he thought, she’d be finished. “Shall we dance?” She had finished her wine. “ Very well.” - She got up. He had often danced with Margaret, although he was a professional, and it was more lucrative with clumsy, opulent dames. So he - put his arm behind her, and took her long white hand lightly in his, just touching it, and swung out on the polished floor. And, as always, when he swirled round the room with her, feeling her featherly light in his arms, he was aware of something, and he said to himself, “ She is old.” But now that he held the sinuous body, and watched her face as they went round, he felt mysteriously the message, “ She will never grow old.” When the -music stopped he noticed groups of young girls looking at her with that half triumphant, half-pitiful look youth cherishes for age. “ We’ll dance the next,” said Margaret. And again he was conscious of something kindred, something soft, even tender, for this woman with her dead beauty and her mask of powder and paint. For Margaret’s face had something serene about it, and her voice was always tremendously expressive. They went round again, and then she said, “ I m going home.” He called a taxi for her and waited in the street till it bore her away, then he went back to dance. Margaret’s taxi disgorged her in front of a little flat with a main door. There was light in the front room. Margaret slipped her key in quietly and a laugh answered the turn of the lock. She pushed the door open. It was only a reading lamp that lit the room. The man on the bed put down the book he was reading. “ Home again, Beg,” he greeted her. She threw off her cloak and bent over and kissed him. “What kind of day did you have?” “Great!” he said, warmly, and patted the bed for her to sit down. “ Anne is coming in the morning.” “Anne!” The word was like a song. “Oh. Billie boy!” And she stroked his cheek with a caressing hand. She went out of the room to make coffee, and he heard her singing as she moved; her voice carolling clear as a bird’s. Peg had so little to sing about. So very litle. He had been invalided home after the retreat at Mons, and she had got that job at the Casino. She worked day and night for them, and she had managed to send Anne to a select finishing school. Anne would never know what took place behind the scenes of her mother’s life. Sh e only knew that her mother was a faded beauty who still believed in doing the paces, though she was growing old. Margaret came in with the coffee steaming and fragrant. The little meal at night was the happiest time of the day. It was strange how many humorous incidents happened at the club, and the late meal was always interspersed with her gay sallies. At last they said “ Good-night,” but that night she didn’t go to bed at once. In her own room she lit the shaded candles on either side of her dressing table. There was something tragic about this fallen star. She had washed off the paint and powder, and the face that looked back at her between the shaded lights was the face of a woman old and haggard. “ You’re getting old,” she told herself, “ but you’ll be thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the rubbish heap. After all,” and the worn face became suddenly warm and alive, “ you have a daughter to carry on the banner, and you’ve managed to give her a good start off.”

She fell to dreaming, this old woman, and the lights burned low. The living room in the little flat was bright with flowers. The table was laid for breakfast when the bell rang, loud and persistent. Margaret knew the ring. Anne had a private one of her own. “Anne!” She caught the girl in her arms. “Hallo, Mumsie! Daddy all right?” “ Run and see him.” Margaret went swiftly to the kitchen and cut and halved grape fruit. After what seemed an interminable time she tip toed to the room. Anne was stand-

ing holding her father’s hand. She was a little girl no longer, but a woman, tall, gracious, and imperious. Something seemed to burst for very joy in the older woman’s heart. She hadn’t carried the torch in the way in which her beautiful, fearless ancestors had done, but at least she had striven to fit another to carry on. She went back to the living room and rang the breakfast bell. Anne came in and saw the stern morning light fall on the painted face of her mother. And suddenly the memory of an old portrait came before her, that of the beautiful, feat less Margaret Fergusonvwho gave her He out East, and looking at her mother she was conscious that beneath the mask of paint and powder this was a noble woman too.—Weekly Scotsman.