Hillman

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 170, 8 October 1927, Page 28 (Supplement)

Hillman

By

E-PHILLIPS OPPENHELM.

SYNONSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Chapters 1 and 2.—Louise finds that she, her maid and chaffeur, are stranded on the Cumberland Hills. The car has broken down. The Hillman comes to their aid. He escorts them to his home. John Strangewey introduces Louise to his elder brother, Stephen. The family have a keen dislike to the fair sex, and it is years since a woman crossed the threshold. Stephen's welcome is hostile. In the large old-fashioned bedroom Louise notes the family tree. The name Strangewey sounds familiar. At the foot of the stairs John meets her in evening dress. Louise adapts herself, and does justice to the formidable meal. Stephen announces that they are haters of her sex, and enters into some family particulars to justify this attitude. The family portraits are examined. At ten o’clock she bids them goodnight. Chapters 3 and 4.—Louise finds her maid Aline, on awakening the next morning. She partakes of an ample breakfast. Aline recollects that the reason why the name tf Strangewey seemed familiar was because a farmer of that name in the north of England had had a vast fortune left to him from a relative in Australia. Loise joins John, who shows her the beauties of the place They visit the churchyard. Stephen joins them with the intimation that her car Is ready. He then walks away. John and Louise discuss some of the deeper problems of life, and Louise declares she has something to say to him. CHAPTER Vl.—Continued. “It isn’t your health, I mean. There are other things, as you well know. You do you:' day’s work and you take your pleasure, and you go through both as if your feet were on a treadmill.” “Your farcy, Stephen.” “God grant it! I’ve had an unwelcome visitor in your absence.” John turned swiftly round. "A visitor?” he repeated. “Who was it?” Stephen glowered at him for a moment. “It was the prince.” he said: “the Prince of Seyre, as he calls himself, though he has the right to style himself Master of Raynham It’s only his foreign blood which makes him choose what I regard as the lesser title. Yes, he called to ask you to shoot and stay at the castle, if you would, from the 16th to the 20th of next month.” “What answer did you give him?” “I told him that you were your own master. You must send word to-mor-

John was silent for a moment. A bewildering thought had taken hold of him. Supposing she wore to be th^re! Stephen, watching him, read his

thoughts!, and for a moment lost control of himself. “Were you thinking about that woman?” he asked sternly. “What woman?” “The woman whom we sheltered here —the woman whose shameless picture is on the cover of that book.” John swung round on his heel. “Stop that, Stephen!” he said menacingly. “Why should I?” the older man retorted “Take up that paper, if you want to read a sketch of the life of Louise Maurel. See the play she made her name in—‘La Gioconda’!” “What about it?” “There’s this much about it, John,” Stephen continued “The woman played that part night after night—played it to the life, mind you. She made her reputation in it. That’s the woman we unknowingly let sleep beneath this roof’ The barn is the place for her and her sort!” John’s clenched fists were held firmly to his sides. His eyes were blazing.

“That’s enough. Stephen!” he cried. “No, it’s not enough!” was the fierce reply. “The truth’s been burning in my heart long enough. It’s better out. You want to find her a guest at Raynham Castle, do you?—Raynham Castle, where never a decent woman crosses the threshold!” An anger that was almost paralysing, a sense of the utter impotence of words, drove John in silence from the room. He left the house by the back door. passed quickly through the orchard, where the tangled moonlight iay upon the ground in strange, fantastic shadows; across the narrow strip of field —a field now of golden stubble: up the rough ascent, across the road, and higher still up the hill which looked down upon the farm buildings and tho churchyard, and there sat down upon a great boulder. Across the viaduct there came a blaze of streaming light, a serpc*ntlike trail, a faintly heard whistle — the Scottish express on its way southward toward London. His eyes follower it out of sight. He found himself thinking of the passengers who would wake the next morning In London. He felt himself suddenly acutely conscious of his isolation. Was there not something almost monastic in the seclusion which had become a passion with Stephen, and which had its grip, too, upon him—a waste of life, a buryr»g of talents? After all* two more months passed

before the end came, and it came then without a warning. It was a little past mid-day when John drove slowly through the streets of Market Ketton in his high dog-cart, exchanging salutations right and left with the tradespeople, with farmers brought into town by the market, with acquaintances of all sorts, and conditions. More than one young woman from the shop-win-dows or the pavements ventured to smile at him, and the few greetings he received from the wives and daughters of his neighbours were as gracious as they could possibly be made. John almost smiled once, in the act of raising his hat, as he realised how completely the whole charm of the world, for him, seemed to lie in one woman's eyes.

At the crossways, where he should have turned up to the inn, he paused while a motor-car passed. It contained a woman, who was talking to her host. She was not in the least like Louise, and yet instinctively he knew that she was of the same world. The perfection of her white-serge costume, her hat so smartly worn, the half-insolent smile, the little gesture with which she raised her hand—something about her unlocked the floodgates.

Market Ketton had seemed well enough a few minutes ago. John had felt a healthy appetite for his mid-day meal, and a certain interest concerning a deal of barley upon which he was about to engage. And now another world had him in its grip. He flicked the mare with his whip, turned away from the inn, and galloped up to the station, keeping pace with the train whose whistle he had heard. Standing outside was a local horse-dealer of his acquaintance. “Take the mare back for me to Peak Hall, will you, Jenkins, or send one of your lads?” he begged. “I want to catch this train.”

The man assented with pleasure—it paid to do a kindness for a Strangewey. John passed through the ticketoffice to the platform, where the train was waiting, threw open the door of a carriage, and flung himself into a corner seat. The whistle sounded. The adventure of his life had begun at last. CHAPTER VII. The great French dramatist, dark, pale-faced and corpulent, stood upon the extreme edge of the stage, brandishing his manuscript in his hand. From close at hand, the stage manager watched him anxiously. For the third time M. Graillot was within a few inches of the orchestra well. “If you would pardon me, M. Graillot,” he ventured timidly, “the footlights are quite unprotected, as you see.”

Graillot glanced behind him and promptly abandoned his dangerous position. “It is you, ladies and gentlemen.” he declared, shaking his manuscript vigorously at the handful upon the stage.

“who drive me into forgetfulness and place me in the danger from which our friend here has just rescued me. Do I not best know the words and the phrases which will carry the message of my play across the footlights? Who is to judge, ladies and gentlemenyou or I?” He banged the palm of his left hand with the rolled-up manuscript and looked at them all furiously. A slight, middle-aged man, clean-shaven, with a single eye-glass, and features very well known to the theatre-going world, detached himself a little from the others. “No on© indeed, dear M. Graillot,” he

admitted, “could possibly know these things so well as you; but, on the other hand, when you write in your study at Montainebleau you write for a quickerminded public than ours. The phrase which would find its way at once to the brain of the French audience needs shall I say, just a little amplification to cary equal weight across the footlights of my theatre.” “The only success I care for,” Graillot thundered, “is an artistic success!”

“With Miss Maurel playing your leading part, M. Graillot,” the actormanager declared, “not to speak of a company carefully selected to the best of my judgment, I think you may venture to anticipate even that.”

The dramatist bowed hurriedly to Louise. “You recall me to a fact,” he said, gallantly, “which almost reconciles me to this diabolical travesty of some of my lines. Proceed, then—proceed! J will be as patient as possible.” The stage manager shouted out some directions from his box. A gentleman in faultless morning clothes, who seemed to have been thoroughly enjoying the interlude, suddenly adopted the puppet-like walk of a footman. Other actors, who had been whispering together in the wings, came back to their places. Louise advanced alone, a little languidly, to the front of the stage.

Her speech was a long one. It appeared that she had been arraigned before a company of her relatives, assembled to comment upon her misdeeds. She wound up with a passionate appeal to her husband, who had made an unexpected appearance. M. Graillot’s face, as she concluded, was wreathed in smiles. “Ah!” he cried. “You have lifted us all up! Now I feel once more the inspiration. Mademoiselle, I kiss your hand,” he went on. “It is you who still redeem my play. You bring back the spirit of it to me. In you I see the embodiment of my Therese.” Miles Faraday gave a little sigh of relief and glanced gratefully toward Louise. She nodded back to him, and gave her hand to the Frenchman, who held it to his lips.

“You flatter me, M. Graollot,” she said.

“It really comes to this,” Faraday intervened. “Shall we achieve a purely artistic triumph and drive the people away? Or shall we—at the expense, I admit, of some of the finest passages in M. Graillot’s superb drama—compromise the matter and keep our box-office open? In a more humble way I hope I also may call myself an artist; and yet not only must I live myself, but I have a staff of employees dependent upon me.”

Graillot waved his hand. “So! No more!” he exclaimed grandiloquently. “The affair is finished. My consent is given. Delete the lines! As to the scene laid in the bedroom of madame, to-night I shall take up my pen. By to-morrow I will give you a revision which will puff out the cheeks of the Philistines with satisfaction. Have no fear, cher ami Faraday! Mothers shall bring their unmarried daughters to see our play. They shall all watch it without a blush. If there is anything to make the others think, it shall be beneath the surface. It shall be for the great artist whom it is my supreme joy to watch,” he went on, bowing to Louise, “to act and express the real truth of my ideas through the music of innocent words.”

“Then all is arranged,” Miles Faraday concluded briskly. “We will leave the second act until to-morrow; then M. Graillot will bring us his revision. We will proceed now to the next act. Stand back a little, if .you please, ladies and gentlemen. Miss Maurel, will you make your entrance?” Louise made no movement. Her eyes were fixed upon a certain shadowy corner of the wings. Overwrought as she had seemed a few minutes ago, with the emotional excitement of her long speech, there was now a new and curious expression upon her face. She seemed to be looking beyond the gloomy, unlit spaces of the theatre into some unexpected land. Curiously enough, the three people there most interested in her —the prince. Graillot, and her friend, Sophy Gerard — ea.ch noticed the change. The little fair-

haired girl, who owed her small part in the play to Louise, quitted her chair to follow the direction of her friend’s eyes. Faraday, with the frown of an actormanager resenting intrusion, gazed in the same direction.

To Sophy, the new-comer was simply the handsomest young man she had ever seen in her life. To Faraday he represented nothing more nor less than the unwelcome intruder. The prince alone, with immovable features, but with a slight contraction of his eyebrows, gazed with distrust, almost with fear, unaccountable, yet disturbing, at the tall, hesitating figure that stood off the stage.

Louise only knew that she was amazed at herself, amazed to find the walls of the theatre falling away from her. She forgot the little company of friends by whom she was surrounded. She forgot the existence of the famous dramatist who hung upon her words, and the close presence of the prince. Her feet no longer trod the dusty boards of the theatre. She was almost painfully conscious of the perfume of apple-blossom.

“You!” she exclaimed, stretching out her hands. “Why do you not come and speak to me? I am here!”

John came out upon the stage. The French dramatist, with his hands behind his back, made swift mental notes of an iteresting situation. He saw the coming of a man who stood like a giant among them, sunburnt, ouoyan. vvjth health, his eyes bright with the wonder of his unexpected surroundings a man in whose presence every one else seemed to represent an effete and pallid type of humanity. The dramatist and the prince were satisfied, however, with one single glance at the newcomer. Afterwards, their whole regard was fixed upon Louise. The same thought was in the mind of both of them—the same fear! CHAPTER VIII. Those few first sentences, spoken in the midst of a curious little crowd of strangers, seemed to John, when he thought of his long waiting, almost piteously inadequate. Louise, recognising the difficulty of the situation, swiftly recovered her composure. She was both tactful and gracious. “Do tell me how you got in here,” she said. “No one is allowed to pass the stage door at rehearsal times. Mr. Faraday, to whom I will introduce you in a moment, is a perfect autocrat; and Mr. Mullins, our stage-manager, is even worse.”

“I just asked for you,” John explained. “The doorkeeper told me that you were engaged, but I persuaded him to let me come in.” She shook her head.

“Bribery!” she declared accusingly. “I heard your voice, and after that it was hard to go away. I’m afraid I ought to have waited outside.” Louise turned to Miles Jr araday, who was looking a little annoyed.

' -1 • Faraday,” she said, appealingly, “Mr. Strangewey comes from the country—he is, in fact, the most complete countryman I have ever met in my life. He comes from Cumberland, and he once—well, very nearly saved my life. He knows nothing about theatres, and he hasn't the least idea of the importance of a rehearsal. You won’t mind if we put him somewhere out of the way till we have finished, will you?” “After such an itroduction,” Faraday said, in a tone of resignation, “Mr. Strangewey would be welcome at any time.” “There’s a dear man!” Louise ex-

claimed. “Let me introduce him quickly. Mr. John Strangewey—Mr. Miles Faraday, M. Graillot, Miss Sophy Gerard, my particular little friend. The prince you already know, although you may not: recognise him trying to balance himself on that absurd stool.” John bowed in various directions, and Faraday, taking him good-naturedly by the arm, led him to a garden-seat at the back of the stage. “There!” he said. “You are one of the most privileged persons in London. You shall hear the finish of our rehearsal. There isn’t a press man in London I’d have near the place.” “Very kind of you, I’m sure,” John replied. “Is this, may I ask, the play that you are soon going to produce?” “Three weeks from next Monday, I hope,” Faraday told him. “Don’t attempt to judge by anything you hear this afternoon. AVe are just deciding upon some cuts. See you later. You may smoke, if you like.”

He kept his eyes fixed upon Louise. He told himself that he was in her presence at last. As the moments passed, it became more and more difficult for him to realise the actuality of the scene upon which he was looking. It seemed like a dream-picture, with unreal men and women moving about aimlessly, saving strange words.

Then there came a moment which brought a tingle into his blood, which plunged his senses into hot confusion He rose to his feet. Faraday was sitting down, and Louise was resting both hr»hands upon his shoulders. “Is there nothing I 1 - -• then, Edmund?” she asked, her voice vibrating with a passion .. - it hard to believe was not real. Faraday turned slowly in his chair He held out his arms. “One thing,” he murmured.

John had moved half a step forward when he felt the prince’s eyes fixed upon him, and was conscious of a sudden sense of ignorance, almost of uncouthness. It was a play which they were rehearsing, of course! It was a damnable thing to see Louise taken into that cold and obviously unreal embrace, bur it was only a play. It was part of her work.

John resumed his seat and folded his arms. With the embrace had fallen an imaginary curtain, and the rehearsal was over. They were all crowded together, talking, in the centre of the stage. The prince, who had stepped across the footlights, made his way to where John was sitting. “So you have deserted Cumberland for a «V me ? ' he c °urteously inquired. C£ ’ me night,” John replied. t Y° u 3-rc making a long stay?” ‘I can scarcely tell yet, I have made no plans.” “London, at this season of the year,” the prince observed, “is scarcely at its best. John smiled. “I am afraid,” he said, “that I am not critical. It is eight years since I was here last, on my wa -y down from Oxford. You have been abroad, perhaps?” the prince inquired.

“I have not been out of Cumberland during the whole of that time,” John confessed.

The prince, after a moment’s increduious stare, laughed softly to himself. lou are a very wonderful person, Mr. Strangewey,” he declared. I have heard of your good fortune. If I can be of any service to you during your stay in he , added politely, “please command me.

“You are very kind,” John replied gratefully. Louise broke away from the little group and came across toward them. “Free at last! ” she exclaimed. "Now let us go out and have some tea.” They made their way down the little passage and out into the sudden blaze of the sunlit streets. Two ears were drawn up outside the stage door. “The Carlton or Rumpelmayers. asked the prince, who had overtaken them upon the pavement. “The Carlton, I think,” Lciise decided. “We can get a quiet table there inside the restaurant. You bring Sophy, will you, Eugene ? lam going to talie possession of Mr. Strangewey. ’ The prince, with a little bow, pointefl to the door of his limousine, which a footman was holding open. Louise lea John to a smaller car which was waning in the rear. “The Carlton,” she told the man, » he arranged the rugs. “And now,’ »he added, turning to John, “why ha you come to London? How long are you going to stay? What axe Y going to do? And —most important all —in what spirit have you com* . John breathed a little sigh of tentment. They were moving slow} down a back street to take their p in the tide of traffic which flooded main thoroughfares. .. « T “That sounds so like you,’ he saja - came up last night, suddenly. I » idea how long I am going to stay • have no idea what lam going to • As for the spiirt in which I have co —well, I should call it an inquire “A very good start,” Louise mured approvingly, “but still a vague” . „ “Then I will do away with all ness. I came to see you." John evu fessed bluntly. , “Dear me!” she exclaimed. at him with a little smile. “How a** 1 * right you are!’* “The truth—” he began. «_« “Has to be handled very carefiuiy. she said, softly. “You have co see me, you say. Very well, the » bo just as frank. I have that you would come!” .* + 0 “You can’t imagine how gooA it « hear you say that,” he declareh. “Mind,” she went on, I M** one hoping it for more reasons tn You have come to realise. 1 it is your duty to try to see cat _ more of life than you poss leading a patriarchal existence your flocks and herds.” “That may be so,” John have often thought of our whether tion. I don’t know, even you are right or wrong- 1 0 felt that since you went away * w hicn something of the unrest i settle you threatened me. I other 1 the matter one way or tn _ it is want to try, for a little time, - t(j like to live in the crowded P** ' of near you, to see, if 1 you and your way ot mQm They were silent for se\ ments.

To be continued