FATE'S JEST.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 20, 12 March 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

FATE'S JEST.

BY MADGE BARLOW. A gust of wind caught his hat, sent it careering madly along the street, led him a tantalising chase, and finally bobbed it into the gutter, whero a flower-seller stopped it with her foot. He was breathless from running and a trifle cross, but her smiling blue eyes mollified him. He had never seen anything quite so blue except hedge violets. "Thank you," he said, keeping his head uncovered.

''lt has been a morning of runaway hats," she laughed. " Yours is the tenth, and they were all cross." "The hats?" he queried, mildly facetious.

"Their owners," she replied, her low refined voice giving him an agreeable surprise. A woman stopped to purchase, and Larry Mayne lingered to gaze at the girl's 1 delicate fairness and the heavy basket of white and purplish lilac strung around her neck. It seemed too great a burden for her. She had a little tired cough. "Trade dull?" ne asked diffidently. "Very. I have sold three bunches the whole forenoon." "I'll take an armful. I'm fond or lilac." She selected the best of her stock and bound the stems together, Larry watching the play of her slim fingers. "Pardon me," he said. "Do you do this to earn a living ?" "Of course not. Ido it for fun."

Her trite irony embarrassed him. "I ask because you appear unused to the business; you" don T t cry your wares like the others."

" I haven't the nerve. I only started yesterday." "Well, I wish you the best of success."

"Thank you." Her tone was a trifle distant. He wanted to stay and talk, but had no Bound excuse, so he bade her good-af-ternoon and went his way, pleasantly stirred by the brief encounter. He kept the lilacs in a jug of water in his lodgings, and thought often of the girl, who was no ordinary street hawker. Her air of refinement, her speech, the grace of her in her serge skirt and white knitted sweater, and the white woollen cap confining her light brown hair labelled her a thing apart from the ordinary vendor of flowers. She roused a growing wonder in him. The rare beauty of her eyes l haunted him. Mayne was a reporter on the staff of a London daily, a lonely bachelor destitute of home ties and lacking either the will or the poarer to form friendships. Perhaps that was why he let the Lady of the Lilacs, as he called her, obsess'him. He had met scores of pretty .girls—the city was full of them—and none had fluttered his' pulses like this chance acquaintance of the pavement. He felt as if he had known her an entire lifetime and long before. To his farourite pipe he whispered blushingly of soul affinities and spiritual matings, and blessed the happy accident of the windblown hat, but for which he would have passed unheeding, thinking of his day'* -drag. On such slight pivots the wheels of destiny are ever turning. He sought her again and again, and began to be a regular customer, gifting his floral load to grimy Arabs when out •of her sight, in deference to his landlady's objection to his bringing home "rubbish." He learnt the girl's Christian name —Viola—and nothing more. She was reticent concerning herself and her affairs. As 1 soon as they became intimate he told her what tie was', and her intellignt grasp of the exigencies of his work caused Larry to snap his fingers and ex;:iim with a juvenile bound — Euresa! I've pirn,! %<»i. You are ■a journalist gaining pra^'-ca l experience for an aiticle on Loudon's flower-sell-ers."

"How clever of von !' : she murmured, her fa 33 L ank.

"Which paper are you en?" "Being clever, you '.-in £,uess that al-

"I won't try. I'll wait for you to tell. I'm awfully proud you're a journalist. It's a sort of bond between us."

"Oh, stop!" she pleaded, her lips quivering. "It hurts." "Surely not my sympathy, not my

"Every kindness of yours," she interrupted, divining his impulsive confession trembling on his tongue, and checking its utterance. "I don't get much kindness; yours overwhelms me; the pleasure of it is almost pain—can't you understand? Still, I wouldn't relinquish the friendship to be quit of the pain. I count you a friend, you see." "Then when your article is written .you'll give me a friend's confidence? About yourself, I mean." "Maybe," plucking nervously at the blossoms in her basket.

'' And introduce me to your people, Viola?" "I haven't any. I am lonelier than you." "Another bond. I declare you and 1 were made to comfort each other," he cried, his plain strong face so tender, and coaxing, and boyish that the Lady of the Lilacs ached to hold it to her breast and weep her heart out. Hearts are troublesome possessions. Hers had been frozen until Larry thawed it. She was sorry he had. Life is such a lot easier if one ceases to feel. "Shall we celebrate the discovery of our mutual loneliness by taking a trip t? the country next Saturday?" he urged. "Now, you needn't say that's your busiest evening. Be reckless for once. We'll pretend we haven't a care in the world, and treat ourselves to a jolly spree. Do come, Viola." "I should have to wear these old clothes." "Clothes don't matter in the country, vain person." "I'd hate to have you ashamed of my' her head hanging. "Ashamed! Child, I'll positively strut with conceit."

" Child, indeed! lam twenty-seven, Mr. Larry." "My age exactly. Funny! I've always said I'd marry a wife just my own age. Does it strike you that we —you and I are ?"

"I won't go unless you promise not to talk nonsense,'' she pouted; but her eyes shone, her cheeks flushed, and across her pensive features flashed the mutinous look of one who snatches forbidden delights and ignores the consequences. The big policeman doing beat duty witnessed Larry's attentions to the Lady of the Lilacs and unapproved of them. He marched past clearing his throat sternly, and Larry moved, after arranging where to meet her next Saturday. He resented the big policeman's sur 'eillance, and retaliated by staring amusedly at Bobby's feet, as though the size afforded him intense diversion. •'Viola's done the flower-girl stunt a goodish while," he pondered "I suppose she's turning out first-rate copy, and the Juggins of an editor is stretching her article to a series. I could cuff his ears for tuppence. He's piling it on to the poor little woman a bit stiffly

They had their joy-flay, a perfectly f-plendid day during which Mayne refn'incd from talking nonsense, according to command, yet managed to convey to Viola that he was hers eternally, body and soul. She didn't require ~ joy-day to convince her of it. And sin- was "glad. A reckless mood swayed her. She took what the gods gave, and h in sunshine mentally and physically, putting the past hehind her and ..hutting her eyev to the future, lhey

strolled through lush meadows cowslip sweet, rested beside a singing stream on banks of clover to eat the lunch of Larry's providing, and were merry over it as a couple ot children. Viola said it must be lovely to live in the country, and he asked her whether she intended to spend her summer vacation there or at the sea. She answered that she had neither time nor money for vacations, and he was puzzled. He would have reminded her that she had nobody dependent on her, and her profession was not ill-paid, but Viola pointedly changed the subject. They went back to town in the gloaming among a crowd of trippers, packed into a third-class compartment of an excursion train.

She dismissed him in an East-End thoroughfare. "I can find my way alone," she said, her small ungloved hand clinging to his. "I've had a glorious evening. 1 haven't words to thank you."

Larry swallowed disappointment at not being allowed to accompany her further.. He told her it was she who had conferred a favour on him and he was duly grateful. Viola shook a depreciating head and ran off, pink and smiling, and he followed the length of the street le&t the boisterous element of tho Saturday night element should alarm her. To his astonishment she made for a slum district, walking briskly and without hesitation like one certain of her ground. He stood nonplussed. Was it possible that a passion for realism in her work drove her to the slums to dwell amid the toilers whose lives she was exploiting for newspaper purposes? His slow wrath caught fire. His mouth tightened. No wonder she had grown thin and worn of late. He felt justified in pursuing her, scolding her, compelling her to leave those undesirable quarters and go home at once. Anxious and angry he continued his march, never losing sight of her. Viola entered a shop near the end of a double row of dingy tenements, from the windows of which several family washings were suspended on poles'. Coming out she vanished in the common hall of the last tenement on the same side. Undecided whether to rush after her or wait a minute Mayne halted and scanned the strange cooked meats in the gaslit shop, and the conversation of three typical 'Arriets grouped round the door fell upon his reddening ears. They were discussing the Lady of the Lilacs, whom they sneeringly dubbed Countess Viola, and the knowledge they showed of her and her daily drudgery set him gasping, rudely opened his eyes to the truth. He knew then why she had neither time nor money for holidays, and a great gush of love and pity thrilled him. He yearned to give her a period of rest and quiet happiness before he begged her to share his grind and marry him.

"I can. I will," he said huskily, retracing his steps. "I'll do it on Monday. Heaven be praised than I can!"

He didn't see her on Monday, for he went West by order of his chief, and Tuesday was lost owing to rumours of an impending Cabinet split and his reputation of having "a nose for news." When he was free from duty she had left her post. He practised patience till the middle of the week found him chasing the nimble par. in his East-End haunts. Viola was at her accustomed corner, eagerly glancing up and clown the street in quest of his long, lank figure. "Oh, Larry, you!" she breathed, her face radiant. "I have missed you. I didn't dream that I should ever miss anvono so much."

"It's worth the miserable separation to hear you say wou missed me," he replied. I had to go elsewhere, earning my bread and butter. But whence this air of excitement, dear girl?" "I've had an amazing stroke of luck I'm going to stop selling flowers. Today finishes it, Larry." His blithe smile faded. " What is the luck?" he asked in a queer, strained voice. " Has a millionaire fallen in love with you and offered you a wedding ring?" "Millionaires don't do such silly things except in novels, stupid." ''l would I were a millionaire." "If you were we shouldn't have met. Guess again." "Perhaps you have received the intelligence that you are really the daughter of a noble lord, stolen in infancy from your parents by some male or female villain who bore them a bitter grudge." "1 believe you are poking fun at me," she said reproachfully, but her blue eyes danced. "It's less romantic. It isn't even a fairy godmother. It's an aunt. Guess what she has done." "Can't," he muttered gloomily. "I had an aunt years ago and there was no limit to what that woman would have done."

"I shall be compelled to tell you," cried Viola in mock despair. * " Wait a moment thougli. The lady beckoning me across the street is a good customer. I mustn't neglect her. I shan't delay a minute." She stepped off the edge of the pavement laughing back at him. He saw only her. And silently' and swiftly, without a warning hoot, a large motor driven by its fashionable owner darted round the corner and cut her down. Larry sprang forward. . . too late. Had he not been absorbed in 'witching thoughts of her ne might have been in time.

He went temporarily mad and cursed himself aloud. The sunlit road, the prono shape, the scattered flowers, seemed part of a horrid nightmare. The throbbing noise of the car, brought to a standstill, beat in his brain, putting j him to unbearable torture. He had a strange lapse of consciousness 1 in which lie was gripping the throat of Viola's murderer, and people were springing from nowhere, and the world was a blood-red blur, rent with clamour. Someone —a giant—seized and dragged him to one side. It was the big policeman. "Control yourself, sir," he' said gruffly. "The culpable party will; be charged." That brought Larry to his i «ensoM. Dazed and shaken, he glared 1 about him. An ambulance had arrived, and they were lilting Viola into it. He started to run to her, and the big policeman held him like a vice. "In quire at the hospital." advised his custodian. "The quicker they get her away the better. She isn't dead. Fortunately the car struck her slantwise and didn't go over her." Larry wrung the giant's hand. Tie wanted' to apologise for niv wanton grins at those capable feet, but he refrained, knowing that big men as a rule are sensitive and easily wounded in their feelings. * * * Three weeks elapsed. He obtained permission to see her, and a nurse led him to a verandah surrounding the convalescent ward, where Viola bas.ked in the sunshine, looking absurdly young witli her hair in two glossy pigtails. Shwore a grey dressing-gown, corded about her waist, barely reaching her ankles, and helping to accentuate her girlishness. Larrv's arms' were full of paper bags of frui't, or he would have gathered her right into them and kissed her, hut Viola didn't appear to comprehend his desire and his dilemma, though she greeted him warmly enough. He felt :\ difference, as if an invisible barrier had arisen between them. She motioned him to a wicker chair, and sat in another opposite him, letting him pile his p-iftv on her lap. Her face when idin raised it was very sweet and sad. "Dearest friend," she whispered,

"you make me both gtad and grieved; 1 value your friendship so higmy, and L can't repay it." "A iig lor friendship!'' he retorted. ''lt isn t the word to use in this connection, you adorable little triller. Viola, I'm going to rise up and kiss you. I'll suffocate if I don't."

" Please, Larry, sit where you are and hear me,'' she entreated. "For how long?" "Five minutes will suffice."

He groaned and submitted, fancying he knew already what she had to say, thinking her agitation over the trivial confession foolish and unnecessary. It hadn't worried him a scrap since he gleaned it from the talkative trio of coster lasses.

"When my attempt to tell you of my luck was frustrated by a motor car I had determined to bury my past and begin life afresh. I forgot that one cannot dig a grave sufficiently deep to bury the past. It won't stay underneath. Larry, I'm not a journalist; you tempted me to act a lie. I was a nursery governess till my health failed. Doctor.- 1 ordered me to jive in the open air. I had scant choice of occupations, and only a few pounds of capital. I chose to sell flowers. Every other avenue was blocked."

"Is that the past you spoke of:" he chuckled. "Lord! I could bury it in a six-inch hole.'' "Aren't you shocked at my—my lie?"

"No fear. I've told heaps a lot worse."

"Larry, you are noble, but I deceived you in a more vital matter, and God unmasked me before he sinned against him, and myself, and you. As I lay her on a sick bed "the nurse said to me one day—'lt's curious we've got a patient with your uncommon name in the men's ward, also an accident case. He came yesterday, a wreck of a fine fellow, Hector Crespigny.' " " Is Crespigny your surname, Viola ?" She nodded, the pupils of her eyes dilating. "Yes. The nurse's chatter frightened me. I craved opportunity to see him. Through her I obtained it, and I recognised him after seven, years of desertion; years of hardship for me, of killing dissipation for him. Haven't you heard of Crespigny, the brilliant special correspondent whose career drink ruined?" " Why-why —to be sure.'' Mayne stammered. "He is my husband.'' "Great heavens'! No!" "He is. I had almost forgotten that I had a husband. I resolved when you came to hide the truth and get the best from life. It seemed to me that long desertion severed the marriage bond like death or divorce. 1 tried to feel justified. But now —now he repents and wants me to help him to rise out of the slough; and I will for nor lost baby's sake. A woman cannot quite turn her back on the father of uer child. She may think she can, but Nature's 1 too strong for her if she's the right kind of woman, Larry." "Which you are," ho muttered hoarsely. "The pearl of them all. Go on, little girl. I —l'm awfully interested."

"That brings me back to the bit of luck, the luck that puts it in my power to take Hector to Australia, where his health will improve and he will yet make good. The Tuesday following our Saturday jaunt, Larry, I received a lawyer's letter informing me. that an unknown aunt had died abroad, leaving me £BO. How I exulted! It meant emancipation from the flower-basket, leisure to rest, to look around for congenial employment. To-day it means infinitely more —the redemption of a man. It is Hector's one chance of salvation. Oh, Larry, the mercy that sent the money sent me to the hospital to show me mv dutv and bid me do it."

Mayne sat motionless, his head bowed, fighting the rebellious Adam within him. After a stiff and silent tussle he lifted his eyes to Viola's and smiled at her, and that dissembling smile of his was a vast relief to her. Her face cleared, "You aren't vexed or hurt?" she whispered. "Not unless you are," he fibbed.

"I'm full of hope," she rejoined. "Hector is changed, and we -are still young. Nothing is impossible to youth and hope." "Nothing," he echoed.

"Larry, I haven't hurt you?" she cried faintly. "Say I haven't, or you'll break my heart."

"Indeed you haven't. I'm in the jolliest humour," he replied forcing an expression of gaiety. "God bless you and him, dear Lady of the Lilacs. I'm going to be tremendously happy about you, because I'm dead certain you're going to be happy. He'll make good. My prophetic instinct assures me he will. - '

"And mine," said Viola, a note of cheer in her voice.

So, for the last time, they clasped hands. And Larry did not tell her that he was the fictitious aunt, and that the £BO represented his whole savings. He had given her his all to spend and enjoy before he asked her to give him the coveted blessing of her own beloved self, and Kate, the grim jester, had used him as the instrument of the other man's uplifting. His generous action was banishing the woman he adored beyond the seas, beyond his ken for ever. And he had never even kissed her. Life is cruel to some of us.

But he was learning the old, old lesson that "with self-renlinciation life begins." We learn it, like Larry in the school of pain.—"Glasgow Weekly Herald."