The Road that Led Home

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 134, 27 August 1927, Page 25

The Road that Led Home

W\

Elizabeth York Miller.

Conscience " A Ctnderella of Mayfair." &c . crc

CHAPTER XXXII. “There!” she exclaimed softly. “Oh, Jim—your dear little house! Do you think that if we hang our faces over the hedge for a moment the ‘mystery lady* will be kind and understanding enough to pretend that we’re only a couple of sheep?” Then, as the door of the cottage opened, they both cried in blank astonishment, “Nora!” For it was, indeed, Nora who stood there laughing at them with tears behind the laughter, her slender little figure swathed in a blue and white overall, ancl garden mud on her shoes. Amidst a chorus of questions and explanations, poor Mrs. Belcher and her invitation to tea were forgotten. So Nora was the mystery lady! She wouldn’t be able to remain a mystery 'cry long, though. Nora, not at Claridge’s; Nora, with not even a charwoman to look after ne J» here in Jim’s old cottage. No wonder there were questions and explanations, for Nora had her ewn misgivings on beholding Jim and A'ison. Until she heard that this was Just a day off in the country taken on impulse, she rather feared that Mr. Perks had betrayed her. “There’s nothing to get excited about,” she told them gaily. “I’m Just retrenching while Raymond’s busy making another fortune. Only we don't care to have it known, you ’Rderstand. It would be bad for him m business.” The innocents—Jim and Alison — swallowed this little story whole. Of

course they wouldn’t say anything to anybody about the “retrenching.” They didn’t know anybody in Raymond Clayton’s world to tell. But Nora overlooked the fact that they knew Bessie Adams, and neither Jim nor Alison suspected for a moment that Bessie wasn’t in the secret, or Raymond Clayton as well. This was entirely Nora’s fault, for she was bent now upon showing a good face to everybody, and no one, not even her own sister, should know that Raymond and she had parted for what was probably all time. At least they should not know it yet. It was twilight, with night coming on quickly, when Jim and Alison set forth again on their walk back to the junction. They were pleasantly fortified with eggs and tea and buttered toast, and they carried away a happy impression of Nora with the glow of firelight behind her, cheerfully bidding them good-bye, and reminding them that they had promised to come again next Saturday. Jim took Alison’s arm into the crook of his. It seemed companionable and natural to walk like that, for night closing in drew them together. Across the fiat marshland they could see the yellow lights of the station encouraging them from a distance. “Alison, do you think you could care for me a little? —no, I mean’ care a whole lot? IVhat I mean is—l love you Alison. I don’t‘suppose for a moment you ever thought about me to that way. You see—or perhaps

you wouldn’t see—l’ve been fumbling all my life in such an idiotic fashion. Alison dear, could you love me a little?” “A little!” Alison cried softly. “Why, Jim, I do love you. and always have. Are you asking me to marry you?” Jim drew her closer to him. “Why, yes, I suppose I am,” he admitted, “but I didn’t think, I scarcely dared to hope ” “Oh, you silly old darling! First there was Nora, and then I think you liked Bessie a little, so of course it’s only fair that I should have my turn in your affections. Only I think I’d better warn you that you needn’t count on my jilting you. I’m the last, and I’m going to be the last. I’ll see to that.” Jim laughed shamefacedly. “Alison, I’m not a philanderer, really. I believe that 1 always loved you, only I didn’t have the good taste to wait until you grew up. Here, just a minute.” “Oh. . . . Jim.” He took her into his arms, and. a little by sunwise, in that first kiss. “Oh, Jim, darling! But we mustn’t. We’ll lose the train.” “Bother the train!” But a moment later they saw the long thread of lights coming toward them, across the marsh, and they clasped hands and raced it to the station, winning by no more than a few seconds. “That was a near thing,” Alison panted as Jim helped her into a carriage. _ “Not so near as some other things in life,” Jim replied. “But we caught it.” Nora had gone to Riffmoor with the homing instinct of some wounded creature. As a girl she had always felt that she wanted to get away from the pokey little place, but now of her own accord she had come back. She had hoped to nurse her wounds in peace and solitude, but in that respect Riffmoor was a little worse than the world. Headed b:/ Mrs. Belcher, every living soul in the village was eaten alive by curiosity, and made no attempt to conceal it. Nora was obliged to tell the most ingenious fairy tales about herself, and even then it was impossible to satisfy those old friends amongst whom she had grown up, and who had heard such wonderful accounts of her fashionable life in London. Mrs. Belcher had always suspected that Raymond Clayton’s wealth was more or less mythical, and it was impossible to convince that good but garrulous lady that Nora was living servantless in Rose Cottage while her husband was away on business just because she preferred that mode of existence. Still, the village gossips were mere pinpricks compared with Nora’s gx*eater pain. She was misei'ably counting the days i now until next Saturday, when Raymond was due to sail. They had bade each other a constrained farewell at Hangerfield House, and Raymond supposed that she had cancelled her intention to spend the rest of the winter at Clai'idge’s in order to go with Mrs. Metlxune to some place on the Riviera, not yet definitely decided upon. She had asked that letters should be sent to her in care of Mr. Perks, who had charge of her affairs for, as she said: ‘I should like to hear how you are getting on, Raymond, if you felt like dropping me a line now and again.” And Raymond had said: “Of course 1 will let you know, and if you get into any sort of difficulty, just take it to old Perks, and he’ll straighten it out for you.” There had been no acrimony in that parting. If anything, it had been a shade too pleasant, formally so. They shook hands when they said good-bye, and sepai-ated., each with the feeling that the other -was glad to have it over. Yet now Nora was telling off the days with an aching heart, though showing a smiling face to Riffmoor, which must not suspect how hard life had used her in return for her folly. There was plenty of leisui'e in which to think things over. There was. in fact, very little else after Nora had attended to her simple household duties. On the day before Raymond was due i to sail she had a bad attack of resti lessness, and felt that her own lindi-

luted society was just a little more than she could endure. But it was almost as bad at Mrs. Belcher’s, where she went for tea, and had to spin her fairy tale all over again, adding fringe and embroidery which had not decorated it before. This time they talked about Conny’s news, of whose secret marriage to Cora Methune news had reached them, and plied Nora with all sorts of questions about all sorts of rumours. They had heard, for instance — Heaven alone knew how! —that Conny had got himself mixed up with another man’s wife, and was obliged to leave England or run the risk of an open scandal. In a way all that was true, and as she departed from the doctor’s house Nora’s cheeks burned with humiliation. Perhaps her ears burned, too, for she had left two other neighbours behind with Airs. Belcher, and none of them had believed her very much when she said that she knew nothing about Conny’s affairs except that it was quite true that he was married to Airs. Methune. She walked lonely through the twilight, the mud of the road freezing a little, the trees and church and huddles of cottages standing out like black cardboard shapes against the pale sky. At the crossroads, the turning toward Riffe Castle, she halted for a moment, meditative. It was just here that, her fate had been decided that day when she cycled back from the tennis party. Had she gone straight on instead of turning towards the castle and the common, her fate and the fates of quite a number of other people would have been dif-

ferent. She would never, in all probability, have met Raymond Clayton; she would in all probability have married James Prester, and been moderately dissatisfied with life instead of so violently unhappy. And now Alison was going to marry Jim—she had written a few days ago to say so—and Alison would be very happy indeed, as she deserved to be. Ah, well! Nora continued her way, and this time she kept to the road straight on the road that led home. Strange that home should now be Jim’s old cottage, and that she would rather be there than in fashionable London, even had her present circumstances permitted the alternative. Fashionable London, indeed! The market-place, rather, where she had stood up in her jewels and lades and fine furs, with painted lips, to barter away a good man’s love for an idle flirtation; and with that love she had bartered away her soul, not knowing until too late what the heartless folly was to cost her. “But I’ve done what 1 can,” she whispered to herself. “I’ve done what I can to prove how soi'ry I am. Some day perhaps he will come back to me.” She turned down the lane that led to the cottage, then slightly quickened her pace. A shabby little two-seater car stood by the gate, and there were lights showing from the sitting room windows. Like most of the cottage folk in Riffmoor, Nora had left her key under the mat when she went out that afteri noon, where any sensible person could j easily find it. She thought that probj ably All*. Perks had come down with | some parting instructions from RayI mond— —or would it be Jim and Alison? | But her heart beat fast with un- • .acknowledged hope that her visitor | was someone quite different—someone I for whom she longed with a desire that

in its intensity made her feel almost faint. And there he was—Raymond! “Oh!” she cried, “how did you—why are you here?” But although her words conveyed an impression of dismay, that forbidden hope quivered into life and rang triumphant through her voice. How big he loomed in the lowceilinged room—big and awkward, and so puzzled-looking in a grieved, worried way that Nora simply couldn’t bear it. Of what use were words now? Raymond had found out about the money, and he didn’t understand why she had made such a sacrifice for* him, unless it were from a sense of duty. There was only one way to tell him why— ' and it was not by words. Nora ran to him and threw her arms around his neck—she had to reach up to do that—and drew his face down to hers. It was the first time she had kissed him of her own accord —the first time she had ever kissed him with the lips of love. Life flowed into her veins—strong, primitive, joyous life —sending a rush of tears to her eyes and a bubble of laughter to her heart that overflowed in a long, sobbing breath. “Oh, Raymond, you’ve come to say you can’t go without me! You’ll take mo with you, won’t you? I can’t live without you—not now, I can’t!” “Nora, are you sure? You’re not just being kind? I came to thank you and to find out if I could why you did that—about the money. Bessie heard from your sister that you were living here, and then I got the truth out of Perks. Nora, why ’ “Because I love you,” Nora replied. “Could I have done anything else?” “You really love me?” He was still puzzled, but he held her closer, for his own smothered hopes and longings had come to life, too. Outside the night crept up to the I frosty window-panes and shut them in ! with the flicker of fire and candle-light ; shut them in together under the old roof-tree which had sheltered so many humble lives and loves, and was, in itself, a symbol of contentment. (The End.)