The Hillman

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 192, 3 November 1927, Page 14

The Hillman

J&T

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHELM.

CHAPTER XXXVII (Continued). “No one can help,’* he told her (limly. “It is all finished and done with. I would rather not talk any more about it. I didn’t come here to talk about it. I came to see you. So this is where you live!” Ho looked around him. and for a moment he almost forgot the pain which was gnawing at his heart. It was such a simple, plainly furnished little room, so clean, so neat, so pathetically eloquent of poverty. She drew closer together the curtains which concealed her little chintz-covered bed, and came and sat down by his side. “You know', you are rather a silly person,” she whispered soothingly. "Wait for a time and perhaps things will look different. I know that Louise c ares. Isn’t that the great thing, after all ? ’ “I would like not to talk about it any more,'’ said John. “Just now I cannot put what I feel into words. What remains is just this: I have been a fool, a sort of Don Quixote, building castles in Spain and believing that real men and women could live in them. I have expected the impossible in life.” She clasped her hands tighter around his arm- Her eyes sought his anxiously. “Bui. you mustn’t climb down, John,” she insisted. “You are so much nicer where you are. so much too good for the silly, ugly things. You must fight this in your own way, fight it according to your own standards. You are too good to come down ” “Am I too good for you. Sophy?” She looked at him, and her whole face seemed to soften. The light in her blue eyes was sweet and wistful. A bewildering little smile curled her lips. “Don’t be stupid!” she begged. “A few minutes ago I was looking out of my window and thinking what a poor little morsel of humanity 1 am, and w hat a useless, drifting life I have led. But that’s foolish. Come now! What I want to persuade you to do is to go back to Cumberland for a time and try hard—very hard indeed—to realise what it means to be a woman like Louise, with her temperament, her intense- intellectual curiosity, her charm. Nothing could make Louise different from what she is—a dear, sweet woman and a great artist. And, John, I believe she loves you!” His face remained undisturbed even by the flicker of an eyelid. “Sophy,” he said. “I have decided to go abroad. Will you come with me?" She sat quite still. Again her face was momentarily transformed. All its pallor and fatigue seemed to have vanished. Her head had fallen a little back- She was looking through the . eiiing into heaven. Then the light died away almost as quickly as it had f!- . lips shook tremulously. B You know you don't mean it. John! ■ You wouldn’t take me. And if you I dbi. you’d hate me afterward—you'd I want to send me back.: ’

“Sophy,” he declared, “I have been a fool! I have come an awful cropper, but you might help me with what’s left. lam going to start afresh. lam going to get rid of some of these ideas of mine which have brought me nothing but misery and disappointment. I don’t want to live up to them any longer. I want to just forget them. I want to live as other men liye—just the simple, ordinary life. Come with me! I’ll take you to the places we’ve talked about together. I ais always happy and contented with you. Let’s try it!” Her arms stole around his neck. “If only you cared, John!” she sobbed. “But I do.” he insisted. “I love to have you with me, I love to see you happy. 1 shall love to give you pretty things. I shall be proud of you, soothed by you—and rested. What do you say, Sophy?” “John,” she whispered, hiding her face for a moment. “What can I say? What could any poor, weal*, little creautre- like me say? You know lam fond of you—l haven’t had the pride, even, to conceal it!” He stood up, held her face for a moment between his hands, and kissed her forehead. “Then that’s all settled,” he declared. “I am going back to my rooms now. I want you to come and dine, with me there to-night, at eight o’clock.” Her eyes sought his, pleaded with them, searched them. “You are sure, John?” she asked, her voice a little broken. “You want me really? lam to come? You won’t be sorry—afterwards?” "I am sure,” he answered steadfastly.

“l shall expect you at eight o’clock!” It was five minutes to eight, and dinner had been laid at a little round table in the centre of the room. There was a bowl of pink roses—Sophy’s favourite flower —sent in from the florist’s; the table was lighted by a pink-shaded lamp. John went around the room, turning out the other lights, until the apartment was hung with shadows save for the little spot of colour in the middle. An unopened bottle of champagne stood in an icepail, and two specially prepared cocktails had been placed upon the little side-table. There were no more preparations to be made. John walked restlessly to the window and gazed at the curving line of lights along the Embankment. This was the end. then—the end of his strenuous days, the end of his ideals, the end of a love-story which had made life, for a time seem so wonderful! He could hear them talking about him in a few days’ time—the prince’s subtle sneer, the jests of his acquaintances. And Louise! His heart stopped for a moment as lie tried to think of her face when she heard the news. Tie turned impatiently away from the window and glanced at the clock. It was almost eight. He tried to imagine that the bell was ringing, that Sophy was standing there on the threshold, in her simple but dainty evening dress, with a little smile parting her lips. The end of it all! He pulled down the blind. No more of the window, no more looking out at the lights, no more living in the clouds! It was time, indeed, that he lived as other men. He lifted one of the glasses to his lips and drained its contents. Then the bell rang. He moved forward to answer the summons with beating heart. As he opened it, he received a shock. A messenger-boy stood outside. He took the note which the boy handed him and tore it open under the lamp. There were only a few lines: John, my heart is breaking, but I know you do not mean what you said. I know it was only a moment of madness with you. I know you will love Louise all your life, and will bless me all your life because I am giving up the one thing which could make my life a paradise. I shall be in the train when you read this, on my way to Bath. I have wired my young man, as you call him, to meet me. I am going to ask him to marry me, if he will, next week. Good-bye! I give you no advice. Some day I think that life will right itself with you. Sophy. The letter dropped upon tlie table. John stood for a moment dazed. Suddenly he began to laugh. Then he remembered the messenger-boy, gave him half-a-crown, and closed the door. He came back into the room and took his place at the table. lie looked at the empty chair by his side, looked at the full glass on the sideboard. It seemed to him that he was past all sensations. The waiter came in silently. “You can serve the dinner,” John ordered, shaking out his napkin. ‘ Open the champagne before you go.” “You will be alone, sir?” the man inquired. “I shall be alone,” John answered. CHAPTER XXXVIII. It was a room of silence, save for the hissing of the green logs that burned on the open hearth, and for the slow movements of Jennings, as he cleared the table. Straight and grim in his chair, with the newspaper by his side, Stephen Strangewey sat smoking stolidly. Opposite to him, almost as grim, equally silent, sat John. “Things were quiet at Market Ketton to-day, then, John?” Stephen asked, at last. “There was nothing doing,” was tl\e brief reply. That, for the space, of a-quarter of an hour or so, was the sole attempt

at conversation between the two brothers. Then Jennings appeared with a decanter of wine and two glasses which he reverently filled. Stephen held his up to the light and looked at it critically. John’s remained by his side, unnoticed. ■ “A glass for yourself, Jennings,” Stephen ordered. “I thank ye kindly, sir,” the old man replied. TIo fetched a glass from the side-

board, filled it, and held it respectfully before him. “It’s the old toast,” Stephen said glumly. “Yhu know it!” “Aye, Master Stephen!” the servant assented. “We’ve drunk it together for many a long year. I give it ye now with all my heart —confusion to all women! ” They both glanced toward John, who showed no signs of movement. Then they drank together, the older man and his servant. Still John never moved. Jennings drained his glass, placed the decanter by his master’s side and withdrew. “So the poison’s still there, brother?” Stephen asked.

“And will be so long as I live,” John confessed gloomily. “For all that, I’ll not drink your toast.” “Why not?” “There was a little girl—you saw her when you were in London. She is married now, but I think of her sometimes; and when I do, you and old Jennings seem to me like a couple of blithering idiots, cursing things too wonderful for you to understand!” Stephen made no protest. For a time he smoked in silence. Curiously enough, as they sat there together, some of the grim fierceness seemed to have passed from his expression and settled upon John. More than once, as he looked across at his younger brother, it almost seemed as if there was something of self-reproach in his questioning look. “You dined at the ordinary in Market Ketton?” Stephen asked at last. “I did.” “Then you heard the news?” “Who could help it?” John muttered. “There wasn’t much else talked about.” “Bailiff Henderson has been over here,” Stephen went on. “There’s a small army of painters and decorators coming down to the castle next week. You saw the announcement of the wedding in the ‘Morning Post,’ maybe?” John assented without words. Stephen smoked vigorously for a few moments. Every now and then he glanced across to where John was sitting. Once again the uneasiness was in his eyes—an uneasiness which was almost self-reproach. “You mind what I called her once, John —a witch woman? She is that, right enough. This marriage of hers proves it. Although he is half a Frenchman, the Prince of Seyre is the greatest landowner in the county. Tie is the worst landlord, maybe, but the blood’s there. He is a man who has lived among women all his life. He should know something about them, and be proof against their wiles. Yet he's going to marry her next Thursday.”

John moved a little restlessly in his chair. “Let’s drop it, Stephen,” he begged. “We both know the facts. She is going to marry him, and that’s the end of it. Fill your glass up again. ITere’s mine untouched. I’ll drink your toast with you, if you’ll leave out the little girl who was kind to me.” “Confusion to ” Stephen began. “What on earth is that?” They both heard it at the same time —the faint beating of a motor-engine in the distance. John set down his glass. There was a strange look in his eyes. “There are more cars passing along the road now than in the oid days,” he muttered; “but that’s a queer sound. It reminds one—good Heavens, how >’t reminds one!” There was a look of agony in his face for a moment. Then once more he raised his glass to his lips. “It’s passed out of hearing,” Stephen said. “It’s some one on the way to the castle, maybe.” Still their glasses remained suspended in mid-air. The little garden gate had opened and closed with a click; there were footsteps upon the flinty walk. “It’s some one coming here!” John cried hoarsely. “Why can’t they keep away? It’s two years ago this week since I brought her up the drive and you met us at the front door. Two years ago, Stephen! Wlio can it be?” They heard the front door open, they heard Jennings’s voice raised in unusual and indignant protest. Then their own door was suddenly flung wide, and a miracle happened. John’s glass slipped from his fingers, and the wine streamed out across the carpet. He

shrank back, gripping at the tablecloth. Stephen turned his head, and sat as if turned to stone. “John!” She was coming toward him exactly as he had dreamed of her so many times, her hands outstretched, her lips quivering, with that sweet look in her face which had dwelt there once for a few days—just a few days oC her life. “John,” she faltered, “it isn't the car j this time —it is I who have broken ; down! I cannot go on. I have no : pride left. I have come to you. Will : you help me?” He found himself upon his feet. 1 Stephen, too. had risen. She stood between the two men, and glanced from one to the other. Then she looked j more closely into John's face, peering forward with a little start of pain, and her eyes were filled with tears. “John,” she cried, “forgive me! You were so cruel that morning, and you seemed to understand so little. Don’t you really understand, even now? Have you ever known the truth, I wonder?” “The truth,” he echoed hoarsely. “Don’t we all know that? Don’t we j all know that he is to give you your rights, that you are coming —” “Stop!” she ordered him. He obeyed, and for a moment there was silence—a tense, strained silence. “John,” she continued at last. ’1 have no rights to receive from the i Prince of Seyre. He owes me nothing. Listen! Always we have seen life differently, you and I. To me there is only one great thing, and that • is love; and beyond that nothing counts. I tried to love the prince j before you came, and I thought I did, j and I promised him at last what you | know, because I believed that he loved me and that I loved him. and that if , so it was his right. Look down the road, John! On that night I was or. my way to the castle, to give myself to him; but I broke down, and in the morning the world was all different, and I went back to London. It has been different ever since, and there has never been any question of anything between the prince and me. because J ; knew that it was not love.” John was shaking in every limb. Ills eyes were filled with fierce questioning. Stephen sat there, and there was wonder in his face, too. * When you came to me that morn- j

ing,” she went on, “you spoke to me in a strange tongue. I couldn’t understand you, you seemed so far away. I wanted to tell you the whole truth, but I didn’t. Perhaps I wasn't sure—perhaps it seemed to me that it was best for me to, forget, if ever I had cared, for the ways of our lives seemed so far apart. You went away, and I drifted on; but it wasn’t true that I ever promised to marry the prince. No one had any right to put that paragraph in the newsnaper!” “But what are you doing here, then?” John asked hoarsely. “Aren’t ycu on your way to the castle?” She came a little nearer still: her arms went around liis neck. “You dear stupid!” siie cried. “Haven’t I told you? I’ve tried to do without you and I can’t. I’ve come for you. Come outside, please! It’s quite light. The moon’s coming over the hills. I want to walk up the orchard. I want to hear just what I've come to hear!” He passed out of the room in a dream under the blossom-laden boughs of the orchard, and up the hillside toward the church. The dream passed, but Louise remained, flesh and blood. Her lips were warm and her arms held him almost feverishly. “In that little church. John, and quickly—so quickly, please!” she whispered. Jennings hastened in to where Stephen was sitting alone. “Mr. Stephen,” he cried, “what’s

coming to us? There’s that French hussy outside, and a motor-car in the drive, and the chauffeur’s asking where he’s to sleep. The woman wants to know whether she can have the same bedroom for her mistress as last time!' “Then why don't you go ancl see about it, you old fool?” Stephena replied. “Pick up those pieces of glass there, lay the cloth, and get some supper ready.” The old man recovered himself slowly. “You’re taking ’em in, sir! What about that toast?” Stephen refilled two glasses. “We will drink it now. Luck K) John and his wife!” “Mr. John and his wife!” Jennin?s repeated, as he set his glass flown empty. “I’ll just see that them sheet! is aired upstairs, sir. or that hussy will be making eyes at Tom!” He departed, and Stephen was left alone. He sat and listened to the sound of luggage being taken upstairs, to Aline’s little torrent of directions, good-humoured but profuse, to the sound of preparations in the kitchen. In the room the tall clock ticked solemnly; a fragment of the log every now and then fell upon the hearth. Presently he rose to his feet. heard the click of the garden gate, the sound of John and Louise returning He rose and stood ready to welcome them. THE END.