A SHORT STORY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 10

A SHORT STORY

A MATTER OF DATES

BY

OWEN OLIVER

My woman’s “No" to George Harlow did not mean “Yes”; but I looked upon the question as open to further argument upon longer acquaintance. I had met him only a month previously, when I was visiting the Leslies at Ammerton, and I am not the sudden sort. He was; and I feared he might fall out of love as quickly as he had fallen in. In those days I always meant to make sure of the man I married. Now I am two years older, and know that you can never make sure of a man; but perhaps that is only an apology. I refused him gently at first. I was going to offer to be a sister —with contingent possibilities, but he was so wild and excited that I couldn’t get it in. It was really he who turned the refusal into a final one.

In memory I found something alluring in his ardour and impetuosity; and I missed these attractive defects in other men. If he had come back to me I was prepared to amend my rejection into the terms which I should have used originally, if he had not hustled me out of my self possession: a probationary period of friendly acquaintance before a proposal was made or answered.

However, he did not come back to me. During the two years in which I grew from 25 to 27, I neither heard from him nor of him. He did not even send me a Christmas card. At the end of the first year I was asked to the Leslies again, but did not go on this account.

“He’s a bad sulky boy with a temper,” I told myself, “and as I seem to be inclined to take a fancy to him”— I had never denied that —“I’d better keep out of his way.” During the next year I began to sell my little pictures much better, and to like the idea of remaining a prosperous bachelor woman. At the end of it I accepted another invitation from the Leslies. I didn't think that meeting George mattered now. I expected to see or hear of him as soon as I reached Ammerton; but three days passed, and I did neither. On the fourth evening, when we were sitting round the fire with some old friends of the Leslies, who had been in to dinner, I put a careless question. “By the way,” I asked. “What has become of George Harlow?” The company looked very much as If 1 had flung a bomb into the drawingroom.

“Ssh!’!’ Marian Leslie whispered in one of my ears, and pinched the corresponding arm. “Haven’t you heard?” Old grandmother Leslie’s high, trembling voice broke the silence.

“Gone to the devil!” she declared “Gone to the devil! Just think of it! If I had accepted his grandfather, George might have been my grandson. He proposed to me -wice. Twice, my dears! Very handsomely, and in the fashion of my days. We did it properly then. They don’t kneel now, the girls say. Well, I wouldn't take any man that stood to ask me. Not if one came to-morrow. Just like his grandfather in looks. And he’s gone straight to the devil!” She raised her shaking old hands. There was a further silence, till Mrs. Smithson spoke. She was visiting at

the Reads and had come to dinner with them. I thought her a very fine, noticeable woman. “George is a second or third cousin of mine," she observed, ‘‘and I was always fond of the boy. Since a slur has been cast upon him, I should like to know what it is, in the hope of defending the absent.” Something hot seemed to move in me then, and I was impetuous for the first time in my calmly ordered life. “I think,” I said, “I should like to say the same. He is not a cousin of mine in any degree, and I was only acquainted with him for a short time, but I should not like to believe any ill of him.” “Thank you, Miss Best,” Mrs. Smithson cried warmly. “Thank you!” “You musn’t pay any attention to what grandma says,” Mrs. Leslie interposed. “She’s 84, you know. She only means that he’s gone away. She thinks that young men are a bad lot nowadays, don’t you, grandma? Mrs. Smithson is a cousin of George’s, dear.” She nudged the old lady, who beamed and nodded and muttered: “Never mind me! Never mind me!” “I am not troubled so much about what Mrs. Leslie said,” Mrs. Smithson stated, “as about what the rest of you didn’t! Of course, I shall make inquiries if necessary and find out. But I suggest it would be kinder to spare me from discussing what seems to be an unpleasant matter with outsiders.” “Well,” Mr. Leslie said, “we were well-intentioned in keeping the matter quiet; but since you know of it, you may as well know about it. Eh, Royce?” Portly Mr. Royce nodded. “I have no objection to your telling Mrs. Smithson,” he offered. “You tell her,” Mrs. Leslie proposed. “You know most about it.” “He was in my firm, you know, Mrs. Smithson,” the big old man told her, “Royce and Palmer. In a position of trust; my confidential clerk in fact. He absconded. About £2,500 worth of bearer bonds went at the same time.” “How do you know that George took them?” she inquired quickly. “Anyone can put two and two together! However, if you want the details . . . He had a key of the safe. No one else had except my partner and me. He also had a key to the office, but several others had. that. In February, two years ago, he asked for and was granted a day to go up to town on important private business. That was on the Bth. He did not return. We thought that he was ill, or that there was some hitch in the business. After a day or two we became anxious at not hearing from him; but it did not occur to us to suspect anything wrong. We had absolute confidence in Harlow. On the morning of the 13th we received a brief letter from him, enclosing his key of the office and his key of the safe; a registered letter posted in London on the previous evening. Then we checked the securities, and those I have mentioned were missing. . . . His father was a friend of mine, and also of Palmer—a very intimate friend. We did not wish to gaol his son So we shared the loss, and did nothing to have him tracked. Two laz.y old rascals to whom a little money didn’t mattcjr much. That is the whole story We have heard nothing of him since.” “May I ask what he said in his letter?” Mrs. Smithson Inquired. “That his life was ruinesd, and he was leaving the country, and we should never see him again,” Royce told her, “and that he humbly apologised for the way in which he had treated us.” “He may merely have meant that he had left without due notice,” she observed.

“So had the bonds,” Royce stated drily. “And what had he done to ruin his life?” Frederick Harmer asked. He also was at Royce and Palmer’s. George hadn’t liked him very much;

but I had fancied that was principally because he paid attentions to me. (He seemed inclined to do so again.) “Yes,” Mrs. Leslie agreed. “That’s the point. No one knew of any scandal or trouble that he was in. We might think there was a possibility of some mistake, if any one knew of any other reason for his running off like that. Don’t you think so, Mr. Royce?” “The trouble was probably one that made money necessary,” Royce suggested. “Of course, if one knew of any other sort of trouble we might humbug ourselves—and Mrs. Smithson! We don’t know of anything.” “You have hardly been going the right way to find out,” Mrs. Smithson told him, “in keeping it from his relatives and friends. I warmly appreciate your kind motive, Mr. Royce. But his friends might be aware of some reason for his going away. He was very impulsive; very.” “Well,” Leslie commented, “now you know, and can tell them, if you think there is any good in it. Frankly, I don’t. No doubt he was in some trouble; but, as Royce says, that would be just what he needed the money for.” “I can conceive other things which might drive the foolish, hasty boy away,” she declared. “Don’t you think so. Miss Best? You spoke of him as a friend—before you heard of this.” “I shall speak of him as such till he is proved guilty,” I stated. (Where was my prudent self-control?) “And I think I must mention a possible motive for his going. I don’t know if you’ll consider it strong enough, but he was very impulsive. On February B—l remember the date—he came to see me, and he proposed. I did not feel that I knew him sufficiently well to accept him. Naturally I don’t like talking about the subject, but I feel that it is due to him. He became very excited —so excited that he rather frightened me—made me feel still more strongly that it would be rash to marry him without more knowledge of his character. lam afraid I grew a little angry, and made my final refusal too positive. I don’t mean too positive; but that it was not put so kindly and gently as I wished afterwards it had been. Anyhow, he was very angry with me; declared that 1 had led him on; and that, though he now despised me as a flirt and jilt—l’m not, I hope—he couldn’t help caring for me. He vowed that I had ruined his life, and that he should go straight off abroad. I thought that was mere passing temper. I never dreamt that he wasn’t still there. I can hardly think that any man would be so crazy over—just me!” “Easily could,” young Leslie declared. “I think,” Mr. Royce said, “some young men could, my dear.” He patted my shoulder. He Is a dear old man. “George could,” Mrs. Smithson added. “Well,” I said lightly. “I shouldn’t have thought so! But I find it easier to believe than that he is a thief, although ” “Although it looks like it,” Royce supplied. “Eh?” “Does It?” Mrs. Smithson queried. She sat with her hand on her chin, and stared at the fire. “Does it?” she repeated. “I dare say it does to most of you here. To me it does not. I do not think It would to anyone who knew him well.” “Here is one who did,” Royce said. He pointed to Harmer. “He was a colleague and an intimate friend of Harlow. However, he knows nothing of the actual circumstances. He was away at the time travelling for us, in France at the moment, and he did not return until we had discovered the loss. As I have told you that was after the return of the key of the safe on February 13, two years ago.” “Posted in London on the 12th,” Mrs. Smithson said. She turned round from the fire to face us. “Well, George sailed for South Africa on the. 10th. I saw him off. Who registered that letter on the 12th? Most certainly he did not, and most certainly I did not.” “It was addressed in his writing,’ Royce stated. Mrs. Smithson nodded; stared art tli€! fire again. “He must have given it to someone to post,” she asserted. “I presume you don’t suggest that Sybil—,” Mrs. Leslie began. She laid her hand on my knee. “No,” Mrs. Smithson sai/i. “That would mean that he Was gvilty.”

don’t follow that,” Leslie remarked. "She means,” I said, "that If he had given it to me—he did not—already addressed to be sent—he would have a motive, before I supplied, one, for going away.” "Yes,” Royce said. "Yes: I think Mrs. Smithson means a little more. Miss Sybil could not—and of course would not—have used the key to our safe. Perhaps Mrs. Smithson will say exactly what she does mean?” "It isn't meaning,” she told him, “only suspicion. The key was in someone else’s possession for a couple of days after George sailed; someone who knew your office; someone in it, or who had been in it; probably some colleague of George’s. To whom would he be more likely to entrust the letter to post, perhaps to deliver? Perhaps with some personal message and apology to you.” “There are a good many ‘perhaps* to your suggestion, Mrs. Smithson,” Mr. Royce observed. "This colleague would have had to be a dishonest man—l have no reason to think that any member of my remaining staff is—and also si pretty close friend of Harlow. As a matter of fact, I don’t fancy any member of the staff was an intimate l'riend of his, except Harmer here. Warmer was away from the beginning of February till about the 15th. I think you were in France till the 14th, weren’t you?” "In France,” he said. "Yes, sir yes.” That was when I began really to think. “I may add,’’ Royce continued, "that .1 saw the securities myself on the 6th. They were deposited as a guarantee for an overdraft, which was renewed then, and I had occasion to refer to them. Harlow, on your view, would have had no intention of going away when he left here, and wouldn't have been likely to have handed the key over to any of the staff. No one else could have done it. The place hadn’t been broken into. When he proposed to you. Miss Sybil, did he say anything about going abroad before you rejected him?” "No,” I said. “And if he had taken the— whatever you call the things—then, don’t you think he would have made his going away an excuse for his —his impetuosity? Mr. Royce, he couldn’t have had them in his pocket then. He couldn’t. He told me that he had just one thing to say for himself; that he was ‘a straight man,’ and would never disgrace me. If I’m any judge of men—don’t laugh. I know I’m not very old; but I’ve been out in the world, fending for myself since I was 19. I’ve had to be some Judge of men. I’d stake my life that he wouldn’t have said that to me—as he said it—if he had been a thief. *A straight man,’ he said, and drew himself up, and ” "Qui s’excuse,” Harmer muttered. I set my teeth then. If he had not said that, the result might have come differently; but, somehow—well, I suppose, now George was attacked, I had found that I liked him more than I had realised.” "Well,” Mr. Royce said, "well, my dear young lady, I wouldn’t have said it to you in his place, if I’d been lucky enough to be a young fellow and proposing to you; but I fear that he had taken them then. Of course he might have come back in disguise after you refused him, and when he felt desperate—l don’t wonder! I don’t wonder! And have got in with the key at night. It gieems very unlikely; but if you suggest it as a possibility ” *T don’t wish to suggest possibilities,” 1 hold him; “but to state a plain fact. An intimate friend and colleague of George Harlow was in London on the ffth of February. He called to see me that afternoon. lam sure of the date; it was the day after George came, so it seemed rather —rather a coincidence. I noticed that he stated just now that he was in France then.” I leaned forward and pointed to Harmer. "My God!” Royce cried. “Harmer?’ “I swear ” Harmer began hoarsely; but Mrs. Smithson put up her hand and stopped him. "I shall cable and ask George tonight,” she said. “I have his address. So perhaps you had better think before you speak.” She told me afterwards that she had watched his face while I was speaking, and felt no doubt about his guilt. ; There was a long pause. Then Har- ! mer walked to the door. "I shan’t run away,” he said. “You’ll j find me at my lodgings if you want to apprehend me.” He opened the door, and turned there. “You might cable out an acceptance this time,” he told me. “You’re getting on, you know.” “Poor devil!” Royce said when the door had closed. "Poor devil!” He blew his nose. I did an impulsive and outrageous thing then; got up and kissed the fat old gentleman on the ear. "Mr Royce,” I cried, “I didn’t really know men. I didn’t believe there was one so kind and good!” He put away his handkerchief, and stood up, and caught hold of me, and turned me round and kissed me properly. 4 .. ~ “You won’t have me prosecute him. he observed. “Eh? My dear, you’re a fair excuse for a young chap being a bit impetuous. Just remember that in Harlow’s favour.” I told Mrs. Smithson that I thought perhaps I would, and she could hint as much in the letter which she was writing to tell George exactly what had happened. I am afraid he is still very impulsive. On the day that he would get the mail I had a cable, asking me to marry him. I answered “Very likely. Letter wll» explain.” I explained very carefully in the letter the necessity for waiting till he came home, and we were better acquainted before becoming engaged; but his letter —he wrote when he cabled—explained the great damage to the business which he was working up. if he came home, and begged me to go out and marry him. He said he was sure he could never give his mind to his work until I did. Of course. I had good reason to know how he could upset himself about such things. So I have decided to go. You see, we have liked each other for over two years. So it won’t really be acting on Impulse.”—"The Australasian.'