The Man who Paid

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 308, 20 March 1928, Page 4

The Man who Paid

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Pierre Cotello

Author of " A Sinner in Itratl,' 9 '* Tainted Live*,” •• The Money Matter,” Etc., Etc

•TXOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS '-'tapter Ito lII.—On :i stormy Februntnliij, amid the Black Mountains v ales, a man, drenched to the skin, *^ er m °re than two hours of steady * 'nibing, finds hospitality in a cottage •** °ld man lives, with his daughJohn Venetian is a venerable, •Hue-bearded old man, imbued with stic anti humanitarian ideas. . es f k ‘ } has consistently taught to his jjUigirter, Grace, the heroine. The Bter is Norman Rivett. the hero, who in t trAVelled * n Africa, and has not been for nine years. Norman makes a quick wooing, and the are married exactly a week after »*'»£. laer s d *ath. Settling her father's . ar ;d being busy with her own '»? .j ’ ( -' rac ® has at last some breathhusband and wife reach 2i v nu Rivett engages a suite hotel. A few days after, in the to rh^ K Grace dresses for dinner and goes feeding room. Coming out she •pSk? t ? r * a dark-haired man who fcGz 8 lo her, giving his name, as Paul this 2 After some preliminary remarks ! nforn >« he that her husband “ rtd hia first wife ten years aet>. t H.\fT KKS Iv tf> v _ Pau , Dane huw«l ,ra<e Rivett details concerning the committed by her husband. Rivlu» n g °“t that she knows about his At th« ?. !i hand and wife are estranged. Ute i? dinner given by the Gardentrees V , offant good advice to Grace, time, i ukfilst next morning Norman I « nnd says he has administered ■ Bt a nr, l s to **aul Pacre. He int;rnin» r fcnov.-ing the bare facts conItriJe , Uie death of his first wife. They her i,., 1 t toge ther as strangers. loiter •ne “‘i’hand tells her he has learnt that ml ® e woman who led on a cerlll* thlr** ®amed Frank Moody, and finover, on account of which committed suicide.

CHAPTER VIII—SHEAN GLYN Grace was alone in Weaveham for two or three days after their arrival. Rivett had gone to Sulpice Abbey to ascertain the amount of the damage, to find workmen and to see what living arrangements he could make for his wife and himself. When they were established there, the architect and contractors were to come to inspect the ruin, and to work out their plans for rebuilding the great house as nearly as possible as it stood before. She was staying at the big hotel to which they had motored from the marriage ceremony in the little chapel in the Welsh hills. It was full of grief for her. Here she had begun to realise wliat happiness meant. It had been like the coming of a great and marvellous dawn. But the sun had been blotted out before it had risen. And hero had been dealt to her the cruel blow that had parted her from the man she had loved for ever.

Looking back on those seven months of restless travel, she realised that they had c hanged nothing for her. The early lessons of her life had been too well learned. She could not accept the world’s standards and values. It was not that she sat in judgment on Rivett. but she simply could not live in intimate affinity with a man who had shed blood. Even now his deed was aeways before her. It was a grim truth that the fact that he believed ill of her. too and despised her as the moral slayer of his friend, made her position easier than it might have been. She hardly knew why she had wanted to accompany him to Wales. She did want to. And now in dark and rainsodden Weaveham, she for the cool breath of the beloved hills. She was all impatience to get there Rivett did not enter into her thoughts. She did not suppose she would see much of him. She felt vaguely that a sense of •Intv had actuated her in accompanying h in?. Whatever Impassable gulf divided them, her principles and ideals told her that her place was by his side. But she was training herself to think of him more as an abstraction than as

a man, as if the rest of her days were to be passed in the company of a disembodied force rather than of a man in whose arms she had, for a brief few days, found heaven. It was only when his look of scorn stung her that she realised him as a man, and he roused in her the hot passion of defiance that beat itself against his arrogant temper and his iron will. Twice during those seven months their wills had clashed. She had fought him with all her spirit and courage, but in the end he bad tamed her, and his strength had won the day.

On the third morning of her stay she went on a shopping expedition. Rivett had wired to her that he was returning that evening, arid that she must buy warm clothes, some blankets, a simple camp kitchen equipment, and the least possible amount of crockery, glass, cutlery, and table silver that they could do with.

She made the round of the shops, and returned in a laden taxi cab. She had several small parcels in her arms, and, as she paid the driver, she dropped them.

A young man, just coming out of the hotel, picked them up and restored them to her.

As she looked at him, the words of thanks almost died on her lips. His appearance held her spellbound. He was quite young—a mere boy, she thought. And he was quite the most beautiful creature she had ever seen, tall and straight, like a young ash, with a big, fair head and flashing blue eyes and an irresisitible smile. It was like an apparition in smoky workaday, moneygrubbing Weaveham, as if some bright hero of the dawn of days had dropped from the sky. Grace had a feeling that hepught to be in shining armour brandishing a sword. Instead, he wore rough tweeds, and his soft felt hat was rolled up under his arm. “Oh. thanks so much,” she murmured, and then in her confusion, she dropped the parcels again. At which he laughed, a strong, brilliant laugh that sounded to her like water leaping down from rock to rock. “I say, let me carry them in for you,” he said, picking the parcels up again. “You’ve got too many.” By this time the porter had collected the larger parcels from the cab, and she entered the hotel side by side with the young man. “I say, are you by any chance Mrs. Norman Rivett?” he asked her in his gay voice that seemed to Grace so warm and human and friendly, that it was just as if someone were playing a beautiful tune on her heart. She admitted that she was.

“I thought you must be, I don’t know why. I’m awfully keen to know your husband, Mrs. Rivett. I think he must be a wonderful person—all that exploring that he’s done in Darkest

Africa. And I’ve got a letter of introduction to him. No end of a bit of luck for me. I want to get him to help me find a job out in Africa. I’m fed up with England, don’t you know? Such a potty little place. By the way, my name’s Glyn—Shean Glyn. Such a silly name, Shean, isn’t it? I don’t know whether it’s Irish or Scotch or what. I’m both Irish and Scotch. But I am looking forward to meeting your husband. I’m told lie’s coming back tonight. Do you think he’ll help me to find a job in Africa?” Grace smiled at the young man rather absently. They stood in the vestibule of the hotel. His rattling talk confused her slightly. She was taken up with his personality. She was trying to realise, and with a pang of something like regret—that she had only met him a minute ago, and that he wanted to go to Africa, so that she would see no more of him.

Grace lunched in the restaurant, and it happened quite naturally that the handsome young man came in and passed her table, and asked her, in his engaging way, if he might sit with her, and she could do nothing but say yes, and in a little while they were chatting as if they had known each other all their lives.

She soon knew all about him. lie had left Oxford last term and he had only just taken a degree “by the skin of his teeth.” He was an awful duffer, no good at anything, and lie hadn’t a penny to bless himself with, so he wanted a job out in the wilds of Africa. That was the life lie fancied.

Grace asked him whether his people wanted him to go, and he said he had no people, or practically none. Grace wondered what on earth lie was doing in Weaveham. He seemed so out of place in the murky city, with its ring of fiery blast furnaces, and the ceaseless thunder of its looms. Presently came an explanation. He had come to see Sir Julian Wall, the rubber king. Sir Julian had been a friend of his father’s, though they had not seen

much of each other in late years. His b father had died two years ago, a week v after his mother, and there was just u enough money to finish his time at Oxford. Shean had never met Sir p Julian, but had heard a great deal a: about him. So be wrote to him and s asked him for a job, and Sir Julian i. bade him come to Weaveham to see s him. But it turned out that he had t no openings in Africa, and all he could □ offer his friend’s son was a clerkship a in his Weaveham offices, beginning t: right at the bottom. l: “I couldn’t stick the idea, Mrs. Riv- ° ett,” said Shean, shaking his handsome head. “ To tell you the truth, I £ don’t think the old bird approved of me. Read me quite a lecture when he heard I was staying here. When J you’ve only got a few pounds in the world, you may as well spend ’em, I think. Don’t you agree with me? Anyhow, he gave me a letter to Mr. Rivett, who, he thought, might do something for me. I do hope he will. Do you think so?” And he looked at Grace with such ingenuous earnestness that she felt a pang of regret at the thought of such a bright creature going out so eagerly . to the hardships * and dangers her husband had des- * cribed to her. “I’m sure he’ll do anything he can for you.” she answered. And as they d went on talking she caught the infeetion of his gaiety, and her laugh rang t out clear as a bell and her face lost t its unnatural gravity, and she looked what she was, a girl of 25, who had \ missed one of the greatest and truest £ delights of youth, the companionship £ of other young people. ( This boy was something just after s her heart. He touched the springs of l romance in her that the deep earnest- < ness of her father’s outlook on life had more or less suppressed. Her 1 spirit replied eagerly to his —the ad- i venture of going out penniless into the 3 world and working one’s way with a ] high heart toward an unknown destiny. She was sure that Rivett would help him. Something told her that the boy would appeal to him, too. She would, urge him to find some place for 1 :

him. It suddenly came to her that it ; would be the first request she had ever ; made to her husband. , The rest ot' the day she was busy packing the few things she was talc- i ing with her in the new rough life, and ; storing away those that she was leaving behind. When Rivett came back, she told him about Shean Glyn; but the boy was nowhere to be seen at dinner time. &tho went to bed early, as they were leaving the next morning. At breakfast Rivett told her that he had seen Glyn and liked the look of him and thought he could fix him up with a suitable job in Africa. Me did not go into details, and in the bustle of their departure and the novelty of settling themselves into the ruins of Sulpice Abbey, Grace gave no more thought to the boy, although he dwelt in her mind as a memory particularly bright. CHAPTER IX.—A GREAT GULF FIXED. Some people who knew him said there was a streak of madness in Norman Rivett’s nature. To them it explained, if it did not excuse, the tragedy that had sent him into ten years' exile. Anybody watching his movements during the days following his departure from Weaveham, might have thought those people had grounds for their belief. lie was an extremely wealthy man, but he chose to live like a penniless adventurei' staking out a claim in some newly-discovered gold field. Not only that, but he allowed his wife, a girl of 25, and not over-strong physique, to share this comfortless existence. It was a raw, bleak evening when they arrived in the Welsh hills. The sun had set. and a chilly twilight reigned. The mountains looked desolate and bare. The swollen stream rushing down the valley told of the prolonged rains of the previous month. They, spent the night at the inn that was housed in the remnants of the old monastery, which had been Rivett’s

goal on the February night when he had found shelter in John Venetian’s cottage during the storm. The next . morning Rivett and Grace talked across the mountains to the Sulpice Valley. The motor-car went round by the road, but the road in Sulpice Valley was a mere rough track, and the two were far more comfortable on their feet, although it was a long way, and the searching damp mist made it very trying. They reached Sulpice Abbey not ; long before it grew dark. Rivett’s j chauffeur had prepared some kind of | shelter for them in an old stone barn, j the only one of the outlying farm buildings that had escaped the fire. Husband and wife stood together, gazing at the ruins of the splendid house. It had burned for nearly a day beforeany j attempt could be made to put the fire J out. It was the only habitation in the j whole valley, which was over twelve ; miles long. The caretaker and his wife 1 could give no explanation of how the fire had started. It happened just in a dry spell, while a strong wind was blowing. Once the flames got a hold there was nothing to be done. “You cannot stay here,” Rivett said to Grace. “You see that you made a mistake in coming. Y’ou look tired out now. There are no comforts. We shall have to get our own supper. You will never get a servant to stay here. Joseph and I have roughed it together, but lie won’t be much use to you, I’m afraid.” Grace was looking up at the sole ! wall of the great pile that was left standing. It soared into the gloomy sky, melancholy and fire-blackened, and yet still eloquent of its former strength. There were gaping windows and at the very top a twisted bit of beautiful old ironwork toppled dangerously into the empty air. (To be Continu cl.j