THE SHADOW OF A DREAM

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 254, 17 January 1928, Page 5

THE SHADOW OF A DREAM

By

Charles- Procter

•Wlhor Ol •A SpwndW Butterfly.- -The Woman Pay,.- "The *oc,we|. Combine An Innocent Adventures," 6c. 6c

CHAPTER I.—HOMEWARD BOUND. Monica Moncrief folded her arms on the ship’s rail and gazed thoughtfully out across the grey, heaving waters. It was a cold day in March, nineteen hundred and fifteen, a day of leaden skies and raw wind, and Monica shivered involuntarily and turned up the collar of her heavy travelling wrap. She felt lonely and somewhat depressed. There was no one visible on the deck on which she stood, and the s.s. Glenogle, homeward bound from South America, seemed alone on the seas. No, not quite alone, for far ahead Monica could see a smudge of smoke that indicated another steamer, while yet aft another smoke cloud represented the lean, sinister black destroyer w’hich an hour or two before had raced up alongside the Glenogle, and made signals which seemed to perturb the captain of the liner to some extent.

It seemed to Monica, as she stood grazing thoughtfully across the grey, troubled waters, that she had been on the Glenogle for months instead of weeks, that the past was very remote, and the future grey, ominous and mysterious as the seas through which the ship was labouring. The sound ol a firm step on the deck behind her made her turn her head, and her face lighted up with pleasure at sight of Jervis O’Neill, third officer of the Glenogle, approaching. Jervis O’Neill was a big, well-built, clean-shaven young fellow of about seven-and-twenty, deep-chested, s.nd so broad of shoulder that he at first sight seemed to be of middle height rather than nearly six feet, which indeed he was. His head was massive, and set on a muscular pillar of neck, his features rugged, with a very squire chin and wide firm mouth with laughter lines around the lips that relieved the grim His hair, which was very close-cropped, was reddish brown, as were his thick eye-brows, which overhung a pair of very piercing blue eyes—eyes blue as the southern seas, but with a hint of steeliness in their blueness. There was a look of virility and keen intelligence about the third officer of the Glenogle which had attracted Monica from the first. ••Do come and talk to me, Mr. O’Neill,” said Monica, with a little welcoming gesture. "I am bored almost to tears, and 1 can’t find anything to interest me. But perhaps you are on duty ?” ‘‘No, it isn’t my watch, Miss Moncrief, and I came along in the hope of finding you willing to talk to me,” responded Jervis O’Neill, in his sow, pleasant voice, with just a hint .of American accent. “I saw Mr. Valentine in the smoke room, playing cards, so guessed you would be alone.” It had passed his comprehension how anv man who had the opportunity of spending his time in the company of Monica Moncrief should prefer to devote himself to playing poker. ‘‘Cards seem to have a great fascination for my cousin,’ she said quietlv. glancing quickly away. Lt is good of you to take pity on my loneliness, Mr. O’Neill.” ‘•lt’s a pure joy to me to be allowed to talk to you, to be with you, to know that that , you care for my company, and my conversation,” said Jervis with obvious sincerity, his bronzed face flushing slightly. ‘‘We have been good friends for the past few weeks, and 1 shall be sorry when the voyage is over. I’ll carry with me the memory of your friendship and the hours veve spent together.”

Even in her big, shapeless travelling ulster, Monica Moncrief looked graceful, for the wind, flapping at the wrap, momentarily outlined the lithe, shapely figure it concealed. She was of middle height, but looked tall, although as she stood beside Jervis his height and bulk made her seem small In comparison. Her face was oval, but with rather a firm chin, and her brow was almost masculine in its height and width at the temples. The eyes were the most fascinating feature of an attractive face of Southern type, with olive-tinted skin, and colouring that made one think of a peach. Monica’s mother had been Spanish, and a woman of rare beauty, and from her the girl had inherited her fine features, black silky hair, level, well-marked brows, long black lashes, small straight nose, rather full crimson lips, and exquisite colouring. But the eyes were those of lier Scotcli father—the Moncrief eyes—unusual at any time, but strikingly unusual in a face of Southern type where one would expect to find dark, melting brown eyes, mysterious in their liquid darkness. Monica’s eyes were a clear, light-brownish hazel, with a dark ring round the iris, and a fleck of almost magnetic quality. Their colour seemed to be constantly changing, and in some lights they had almost a greenish tinge. Altogether a face of quite uncommon beauty, and one which Jervis O’Neill felt that he would be well content to spend his life in studying. “I hope you are not trying to hypnotise me, Mr.” O’Neill,” remarked Monica at last. “Is there anything wrong—anything unusual in my appearance. 4 * Why are you staring at me so strangely?” The warm colour crept into her face as she asked the questions quickly and almost abruptly, and Jervis, too, flushed suddenly, and drew a quick breath like a man awakened with a start.

“I—l beg your pardon, Miss Mon - crief” he stammered hastily and in some confusion. “I did not realise that I was staring and behaving rudely. As for hypnotising you, dear lady,” he added, with his slow smile. “I might claim that it was your beauty and the magic of your presence that made me forget myself.” “I am sure you are more Irish than American, and that you have kissed the Blarney Stone,” laughed Monica. “That remark was as Irish as your name.” “Then in truth the Irish must be famed for telling the simple truth. Miss Moncrief,” Jervis responded quietly, as they began to pace up and down the deck together. “Perhaps, though, I am Irish in temperament, although I was born in Chicago, as also was my father. My grandfather was Irish, and went to America as a boy with his Irish father —my great-grand-father. I must be a queer mixture, for my grandfather married a Scotch - woman, c.nd my mother was a Canadian girl.” Certainly my name is Irish enough, though!” “My mother was Spanish, but I don’t remember her,” said Monica. “She died when I was very young. My father was Scotch.” Her sweet voice faltered slightly, and she sighed involuntarily as she broke off. It was still difficult to speak of her father without emotion, for his death, which had occurred scarcely a month before she sailed from South America, was still fresh in her memory, and her sense of Joss still poignant. Jervis, with quick sympathy and understanding, appre-

ciated this and was silent for a few minutes. “I have never mentioned the fact before, Miss Moncrief, but I knew your father; in fact, I worked for him for a month or two about five years ago,” Jervis remarked after a pause, and his eyes twinkled as Monica flashed him an astonished and inquiring glance. “And I remembered you. too, dear lady, as soon as you stepped aboard this vessel.” “I don’t understand,” exclaimed Monica in perplexity. “Do you mean that you worked on the ranch for dad?” “I do,” Jervis answered with a reflective smile. “I was broke at the time, and was tramping to Rio, when I struck the Moncrief Ranch. Yo - r father gave me a job, and I worked for him about six weeks. Quite often I saw you when I had occasion to go near the house, and often you galloped past me when you were out riding. Once I was even able to do you a slight service, for which Old Man Moncrief — I beg your pardon, Miss Moncief —that is what the boys used to call him, and the name slipped out.” “I know,” said Monica absently. She had halted suddenly, and was regarding Jervis intently as if searching for a clue to something that was puzzling her; then suddenly her eyes lit up, she drew in her breath sharply, and the colour flashed into her face again. “Now I remember!” she ejaculated and instinctively her hand went out to Jervis. “How strange—and how foolish of me not to recognise you before! Yet all along I had a feeling that we had met before. It was you, Mr. O’Neill, who saved me from that drunken, crazy Mexican.” “Well, I happened to be on the spot, and hit him when he started fooling,” said Jervis uncomfortably. ‘‘l never did like these greasers, and it was a real pleasure to me to lay the Dago out. Your father made rather a fuss about it ” “And you promptly disappeared!” concluded Monica, as he broke off. “They told me it was an odd man named Jerry who had saved me, but when I tried to find him to thank him, I found he had vanished. So you are Jerry, Mr. O’Neill?” “Yes, my friends call me Jerry, Miss Moncrief, Jervis I was christened, but I’m Jerry to most folk, and—and I’d like it if you’d think of me as ‘Jerry’ instead of as ‘Mr. O’Neill.’ And please don’t thank me, dear lady.” He had dropped into the habit during the past week of calling Monica “dear lady” and Monica liked the quaint term, spoken in Jervis’ deep, drawling voice.

CHAPTER II. —A DECLARATION “Tell me, liow did you come to be Jerry, an odd man on the ranch, and how came you to be ‘broke’ and tramping to Rio?” asked Monica, coming to a pause beside the deck-chair from which she had risen sometime before, and seating herself. “Won’t you sit down?” Jervis nodded, and after he had carefully wrapped Monica’s rug around her, he seated himself on a camp stool beside her chair. ‘That would be a long story, Miss Moncrief,” he said quietly. “I’ve been most things during the past ten years, and odd man on a ranch isn’t the least job I’ve filled. I ran away from home ten years ago, when I was seventeen, ran away to sea because —well, because I didn’t want to go «to college, didn’t want to be a business man and spend my life in a Chicago stockyard or an office, and because I wanted to see the world. I just broke loose.” “I’ve been most things, as I said, Miss Moncrief, in the past ten years, since I broke loose as a green lad of seventeen and went to sea,” Jervis continued in his slow voice after a pause. “I’ve been a deck hand and a steward, and a cook, and a cattleman on boats of all sorts. I’ve been odd man on an Argentine ranch; I’ve dug for gold in Alaska, and fished for pearls in the South Seas. I’ve worked on a sheep ranch in Australia, worked in the diamond fields in Kimberley, and been assistant storekeeper for a Nigerian trader. I’ve been third officer of this old tub for three voyages, and now I can’t quite make up my mind whether to go back home to the States or enlist in the British Army and have a smack at the Germans. I have a fancy that I could settle down now that

I have seen something of the world.” He paused, looking half-smilingly at Monica, who smiled back at him, and drew a long breath. “I wonder!” she said reflectively. “You would find it hard, for I think the wanderlust must be in your veins. You have enjoyed it all, even the hardships?” “Yes, I think I have,” Jervis answered. “I didn’t enjoy the hardships at the time, but looking back they seem trifling. I don’t regret having broken loose, and ‘I have seen the world and found it good.’ That’s Kipling, isn’t it? But I have made very little money, although I’ve gained a heap of experience, and I’m seven-and-twenty now. Time I decided on a career and settled down to it in real earnest. I wonder,” —he paused, bending forward slightly, and something in his eyes set Monica’s heart throbbing again and impelled her hurriedly to change the subject. “What did that warship that came close to us this afternoon signal, Mr. O’Neill?” she asked hurriedly. “Did it give the captain any news?” Jervis rose to his feet, the light dying out of his eyes suddenly, and his lips compressed. “Yes, it gave us news of a sort, and a warning,” he said, after a moment of hesitation. “Perhaps I ought not to tell you—none of the other passengers know—but I know you will not be scared. It seems that the Germans for the past week or two have been waging war on British merchant ships, and their submarines have already sunk several vessels. They threaten now to torpedo any British ships without warning, and the destroyer warned us to keep a sharp lookout going up the Channel. That’s why we have two men on the lookout, although, I don’t suppose there is much danger. We haven’t a deal of speed, but I reckon we could easily outdistance a submarine if we caught sight of one. But there’s a certain amount of risk, of course.” In a moment Monica was all animation. She sat up straight, and her eyes brightened. “The voyage has been long, tedious and uneventful up to now, and the prospect of adventure and excitement is quite stimulating,” she responded lightly. “I am sorry you have found it so dull,” said Jervis after a pause. “It has been one of the most enjoyable voyages I have ever had, and I am regretting it is so nearly over. We’ve been good friends, and I can’t help feeling sorry that we may not meet again after we get home—unless ” He broke off as if at a loss for words, and stood looking down at Monica and rubbing his chin in nervous fashion. Aloniea lowered her eyes, curiously disturbed by his halting words, and feeling ashamed of her own sudden nervousness. There was silence between them for a few moments, a strained silence, then Monica forced herself to look up at the rugged face above her again, and to try to speak almost casually.

“I’m not looking forward very eagerly to arriving in England, although I am tired of the voyage, Mr. O’Neill,” she said, with just the suspicion of a tremor in her musical voice that made her tone far from casual; “in fact, I feel almost apprehensive. Everythig will be so strange, the life will be so different, and—and I shall have no friends.” “No friends?” queried Jervis. “I am going to stay with my aunt, Lady Valentine, my father’s sister,” Monica explained. “She and my cousin Geoffrey are my only relatives—the only relatives I know of; and I have not seen my aunt since I was quite a little girl. I think my father, like you, must have ‘broke loose,’ and quarrelled with everyone, for he never spoke of the people at home until —until his last illness.” Her voice faltered again, then her chin lifted in the brave way Jervis had learned to admire during the few weeks he had known her, and she continued; “I remember nothing of England, and shall know no one, so—so, you see, it won’t really be ‘home’ to me, at least, at first, and afterwards—well, afterwards, I may become accustomed to it, but I rather think I shall miss the free, adventurous life, and find the people strange and formal after the

men I have been accustomed to for the past seven years—ever since I was sixteen. I was glad to get away, after my father’s death, but somehow since I have been on board the Glenogle, during the past five weeks, I —l—oh, I can’t explain it, but I wish I were back —wish I had not come.”

A troubled look had crept into her brown eyes, and she sighed as she rose to her feet, throwing back her shoulders as if casting off the weight of depression. A moment later she was smiling, her white teeth gleaming between her parted crimson lips, and her whole face aglow. “I don’t know why on earth I am inflicting my troubles on you, Mr. O’Neill,” she added, almost gaily, before Jervis could speak. “We have been quite doleful, both of us, and now it is getting dark. I suppose I shall have to go and dress for dinner.” Jervis stood still, biting hard at his under-lip, tongue-tied, and cursing his own dumbness. It was a new experience for him to feel nervous and at a loss to know how to act. His pulses were throbbing madly, and there were a thousand things he wanted to say, yet he stood rigid and silent. And at that instant Fate —and the sea—came to the aid of Jervis O’Neill. A sudden wave made the ship lurch, and made Monica miss her footing and stagger. Instinctively Jervis jumped forward and caught her, and instinctively Monica clung to him for support. Her touch thrilled him as if an electric current had run through him, the blood rushed through his face, then ebbed quickly away again, leaving him white beneath the tan, and the protecting arm he had flung out to save Monica from falling closed round the girl's supple figure and drew her close to him. (To be Continued.)