The Man who Paid

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 312, 24 March 1928, Page 21

The Man who Paid

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Pierre Costello

Author of *• A Sinner in Israel,” " Tainted Lives,” *• The Money Master,” etc., etc.

CHAPTER XII. —Continued. LAD’S LOVE. She was not frightened, because she did not know what fear was. But she had. the humiliating knowledge that she was totally unfit for such an excursion And that seemed to her to be what he wanted—to make her feel as miserable as he could. She had magnificent courage. During their brief halts she laughed and joked; and on the summit of the rocky crag she enjoyed the view to the full. But the descent tried her nerve more than she could have believed possible. When they reached safety again on the springing turf of the hillside below the rocks, she was shaking in every limb, white as death, and she could hardly stand upright. Shean Glyn was there, waiting for them. She did not know it, but he had been W'atehing their progress, and his face was w r hite, too. As Rivett, unroped her, she swayed, and the boy held her by the arm. She saw his blue eyes blazing with anger. “My wife has somewhat exaggerated her mountaineering powers,” Rivett said with abrupt nonchalance that acted on Grace like a whip on a spirited horse. “She’s a bit done up, I’m afraid. I ought to have asked you to come along Glyn. She needed a great deal more help than I thought.” It sounded like deliberate cruelty, and the boy’s eyes were dark and angry, although he could not say anything. It was a climb that only an expert ought to attempt, and Rivett mu&t know that. Grace recovered quickly, and laughed all the way back to their quarters, and insisted on getting supper ready and ate with appetite, and was as cheerful as could be : , and declared that she had really loved it, although she had been such a duffer and such a handicap. She and the boy were alone for a few moments before they turned into their sleeping quarters. Glyn’s feelings got the better of him. “Mrs. Rivett,” he said in a whisper, “you ought not to have done it. It was frightfully dangerous. I nearly died watching you, waiting for you to come down. Mr. Rivett ought never to have taken you up there.” “It’s my head,” she answered lightly. “Really, you know, I wasn’t frightened, only I haven’t a bit of a good head.” “But why did he do it? Please don’t think me horrid and impertinent, but there are lots of things he oughtn’t to do! Letting you wait on us like this— I cant’ stand it! And that man of his. Joseph, does absolutely nothing to help.” She tried to stop him, but his feelings were too strong to be suppressed. “I wish you wouldn’t let him treat you like that. I can't stand it. I think he must be mad. You are so wonderful, so—so lovely—why, we ought all to to be slaving for you.” Looking into his eyes, she felt cold.

She spoke very quietly, holding herself in on a tight rein. She was afraid of something in herself —all her revolt against Rivett’s treatment was nothing to her fear of what she saw in the boy’s blue eyes. “You mustn’t worry,” she said. “It is a queer life. You had better go away. You don’t understand. I can’t explain.” “I don’t want to understand,” he answered passionately. “I can see. And I don’t want to go away. Why do you suppose I stayed? Because of you. I can’t leave you—God help me. I can’t leave you—like this, all alone, leave you to this weird life. I love you—l love you!” And before she could stop him, he had taken her hands and was covering them with kisses. His kisses burned her hands with their passion and despair. He looked at her helplessly, his blue eyes drowned' in the great flood tide of this first love. He was lost to everything else in the world but herself and his love for her. Grace was smitten with horror, and neither of them heard Rivett’s footsteps returning from the kennels, where he had been chaining up the dogs. CHAPTER XIII.—THE CRUELTY OF LOVE. Rivett stood in the doorway. Grace was the first to become aware of his presence. The boy had his back to him. He had released her hands, but he was standing gazing at her with all his soul in his eyes. There could be no doubt about what his entire young form expressed, tense not only with his passion, but with indignation and the desire to protect. Grace, white and shaken and still unnerved by her experiences of the day, looked across at her husband, and a kind of stony indifference settled on her. She saw his face set like a bronze mask, and then relax into a slight smile of what seemed to her pure mockery. Shean Glyn gave a violent start at the sound of his host’s voice behind him. “I’m afraid Grace has given you a fright, my dear Glyn,” Rivett said, making himself master of the situation with consummate ease, his voice expressing but a casual regard for his wife’s condition, and far more concern that the young man should be disturbed. “She looks like a ghost. ! Has she been indulging in a fainting I fit?” ‘ I The boy could not find his voice.

tie was still in the grip of the mightiest feeling that he had ever known. It was a reaching out of his whole being towards this lovely girl who seemed to him to be the victim of a savage and heartless man. “No, I wasn’t quite as bad" as that, Norman,” Grace said, giving Glyn time to recover. “But I did feel queer, and I’m afraid I treated Mr Glyn to a bit of a scene. I think I’ll go to bed.” “The best place for you,” ner husband said curtly. “Glyn, shall we take a turn outside? I think Mrs. Rivett is tired out.”

The boy murmured assent and followed him out of the room without daring to look at Grace again. But they exchanged good nights in their usual frank, friendly way. An hour later, Rivett entered the dining-room again. Grace had not gone to bed. She sat by the table near the lamp, darning socks. “I saw you still had the light here,” he sad. “Glyn has turned in. I want to talk to you. I can’t have you make a fool of the boy. As I said before, he’s too nice. He was making love to you just now, kissing your hands. It won’t do.” “Oh,” she said in a troubled voice, “he was upset by seeing me on the rocks —he’s so young and impressionable. He was sorry for me. He thought I oughtn’t to have gone.” “You are young yourself,” Rivett put in drily. “I know there is no harm in the boy. But you must have given him the impression. He thinks me a hideous tyrant, an and you a persecuted princess. Please don’t lead him on. I don’t like the thought of other men kissing your hands.” She was silent, swallowing her mortification. “If you cannot live'' without men’s admiration,” he went on coldly, “it is always open to you to go away from here. But here—there is really no room for it. I did not think you were that kind of woman at all.” This stung her beyond bearing. “You seem to hate me,” she said, and once she began to speak, the words came more easily and her voice gathered passion and resentment and reproach, as she went on: “When we agreed that—that we had to live, like this, you said you would make it as easy as yo-u could for me. You seemed to understand what it meant to me, that I couldn’t, that I simply couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened, as if —as if ” _ “As if I had not murdered my first wife,” he put in harshly. “I thought I did understand you, Grace. I didn t know then that you were a heartless flirt. You admitted that you had led Frank Moody 'on, that it was through you that he went to the bad, that he died. That changed everything. You ought to have gone, Grace. You ought not to have stayed with me. You

ought not to have come here.” “Did you want me to go”” she asked. “I did and I didn’t. By God, Grace, don’t you know that I loved you, that I was mad with love for you?” “You hate me now.” “We are to be strangers. You said so. It was your will.” His voice was broken now and full of passionate pain. . “You said we were to be friendly strangers,” she retorted. “Where is your friendliness? You treat me worse than you would a dog. That boy is horrified at the work I do here. It isn’t the work I mind. It’s your attitude towards me. Sometimes you seem to me to be a savage, as if you had got me in your power and only wanted to hurt me, to wound me, to humiliate me as horribly as you can.” “My life is nothing but damnaole torture!” It was like a cry of despair, bursting from liis lips, and coming from one so self-contained, so hard and rigidly controlled, it almost appalled her. But it also woke an echo in her own spirit. “And what do you suppose mine is?”

she asked. “Why won’t# you do as the rest of the world does—take me 'as I am? Whv did you put me outside the pale?’’ “Why do you despise and hate me?” she asked him in reply. “I don’t hate you.” “You seem to.” “I hate what you did. You ruined a young life —one of the most promising in the .whole world. All I was ever, accused of was killing a bad woman.” “Good or bad —it makes no difference.” “To you the body is more than the soul.” He seemed to be beside himself. He spoke very low and slowly, with difficulty, as if his words had to break through some confining band oE heavy, dull horror. He spoke literally, as a man under torture might speak. 'You prove it. You are one of those women who must possess a man, any man, get hold of him, allow

him not a single thought but o£ yourself. Who would ever dream of it, to meet you, to look at you, to know your upbringing? This boy, you want

him for a pet dog—he can already think of nothing else. You enslave him more every moment. WTien you’ve had enough, you’ll drop him as you did Frank Moody.” This was more than Grace could bear. Her face was white with anger. Her hands were clenched by her sides.

“How dare you say such things?” she gasped. “They are true.” He did not ceem mad now. To her he seemed only wicked, deliberately and unforgivably cruel. “You are one of those women who must prey on men. You are a soft-faced hypocrite, a sham moralist. I daresay all you people are the same when you prate so much of your love for your fellow-men! You destroyed Frank Moody, and you’ll destroy Shean Glyn, and lie’ll let you, and kiss your hands for doing it. You’re a danger to the world. You have to be kept on a leash, chained fast, with your nose to the grindstone. Y»fi need a firm hand; you need the whip. I have to forbid you to flirt with a Welsh foreman mason. It makes me sick!” She stood up and stared at him as if turned to stone. Their eyes met in blank hostility. She could not speak. He turned on his heel and left ner. The next morning Rivett and Glyn went off early to the wood. Grace went about her tasks mechanically. To herself she did not seem alive. She was hurt beyond healing. Her husband hated her. She was sure of that now. For the first time in her life she felt a complete indifference to everything. She did not care whether she did right or wrong. Her husband, the man she loved, God help her, had

accused her of wilfully trying to win Shean Glyn’s love; he had accused her, far more monstrously than that, of flirting with the too-familiar Welsh foreman. Could such insults be borne by any woman? Shean Glyn came back before Rivett. The boy came back early in the afternon. His host had gone to another valley to inspect a stone quarry. The car was to be sent to meet him. Glyn offered to drive it, but Joseph would not let him. “You stay here and look after the place, sir,” he said firmly. And he took the opportunity to speak to Grace alone. “Mrs. Rivett, ma’am, ic that man, Edwin Stroud, should show up here, or if young Mr. Glyn should happen to meet him anywhere, put him on his oath not to mention his name to the master.” Grace assented, as she would have done to anything he asked her. She had lost all curiosity now, all concern with anything save her intolerable wrongs. She and Shean Glyn were alone for several hours. He begged her pardon most humbly for what he had done the night before. “Mrs. Rivett, I ought to be shot — I’m an absolute out and out cad, bothering you like that.” “You didn’t mean anything,” she answered him, with an absent smile.

“You are sorry for me. I've told you. you don’t understand this life. You’d better go away.” “I can’t go—unless you absolutely send me,” he said passionately. “If only I could do the very smallest tiling for you!” “You can’t —really. I don’t need anything.” “Do you think Mr. Rivctt noticed anything?’* he asked, with intense shyness: “No, no,” she said hastily. “lie thought 1 was feeling queer.”. “May I stay, Mrs. Rivett?” His beautiful blue eyes devoured lier face with humble eagerness. lie was a slave at her feet. With a pang of horror she realised that what her husband had said was true. She could do anything she chose with the bey. "I swear 111 never do anything like that again,” he added. “I went mad. It was watching you coming down those rocks —it nearly killed me. You —so lovely—so tender —just like a flower you are—it aeemed as if you must be bruised to death against those cruel rocks.” Grace forced herself to laugh. He was so young. He seemed to her much younger than herself, and yet he was only 18 months her junior. Ther<was nothing to do but laugh, if he were to remain at the camp. “Really, I’m not a bit like a flower.’’ she said gaily. “And I really have done quite a lot of hard climbing; only yesterday my head was worse than usual. You see, I really think I boasted to my husband and he took tne at my word. He’s one of the fine:st mountaineers alive. Eut I’m perfectly all right now, and ready for more. You must come, too, next time. Please, Mr. Glyn, don’t give it another thought.” And her eyes were very kind, though a little troubled, as they rested on his handsome, eager race. She could still feel his kisses on her hands —such rapturous, ardent kisses, full of the clean, beautiful, pure fire of youth. For the next hour or two they were just two young people together, enjoying every moment of the short afternoon, putting away all troubling thoughts, just revelling in the marvellous fact of being alive. Grace, for one, felt that if she could not have such moments now and then, she could no longer support life. ' (To be continued.)