The Great Anvil

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 361, 23 May 1928, Page 5

The Great Anvil

By

Rowan Glen.

Author of “ The Best G'tt ot All, “ The Bishop's Masquerade,” &r.., &.c

CHAPTER II. —(Continued) “You know me very well, mother,” he said. “I dreaded going back to Apple-Warley. I don’t think that I want to go back ever again, or that I want to see—to talk to, I mean—any of the people whom I knew there._ If I had my sight it would be different. Then I’d go to see Mary’s grave, but as it is, I’m better pleased to think of the old home as it used to be, and not as it is now—with all the sunshine and the beauty of it gone.” It was on a Thursday that they moved into the new home in the small country town of Baxington. On the Saturday of the same week Basil Felton, to whom, at iter son’s request, Mrs. Carruthers had written from the hospital, called to see them. “You'll forgive me, won’t you,” he said, when he and Carrutker- were alone together in the little garden, “if I don’t say anything about your—about what your —other told me in her letter?” Carruthers’s lips twitched, and he raised a hand as though he would have passed it across the sightless and still heavily-shaded eyes. “I know what you mean by that,” he returned, “and if our positions were reversed I’d feel the same way myself. I’ve spoken about it to no one save my mother, and I don’t suppose I'll mention it to anyone else except you—and not even to you after to-day. But, somehow, though, I want to talk to you about her. “It seems that it happened only a fortnight or so before I got back to England. You know what the homecoming spelled for me. Just one word—and that word 'Mary.' There was my

mother, too, but a man’s wife—the woman whom he has chosen to be his mate—comes first. I think it’s only now that I : m beginning to realise what I've lost. “At first I was numbed —the merciful numbness that comes when some terrible blow is dealt . . . She was so y mg, so full of life, and so wonderful. I think there was scarcely an hour when she wasn’t either laughing or singing. She used to fill the place with sunshine, and even her graver moods were almost like a child’s. I ! remember how she persisted that her west fault was impulsiveness, but I never knew one of her impulses that wasn't right and kindly. “Well, I’ve had my faith pretty severely tested these last few weeks. I’ve never been what’s commonly known as a religious man, and for days on end I cursed not only whatever powers there might be outside the range of human knowledge, but ! cursed the day that I’d been born, it! all seemed —it still seems —so utterly useless and cruel. I’ve nothing leit to me—nothing!” Strenuously Felton strove to rally him. “It’s easy to talk, I know,” he said. “Easy to advise when it isn’t oneself who’s suffering. It’s not to be expected that you should listen to me with patience if I talk about the future. And yet you’re young and healthy, and there are no financial worries to add to the load that you’re carrying. Your mother’s with you, and, if all goes well, will be with, you for many years to come. . . Better than all these things are your memories.” “My memories?” Carruthers re-

peated, his face upturned to the sun- p shine that filtered through the bran- F ches of the tree beneath which they h sat. “Yes, I can thank God for those. There’s one picture in my mind that u 1 can see as clearly as though it were t before me now and as though my a eyes were as they once were. c “It was the day I left home., I wouldn’t let Mary come to the station “ with me. Saying good-bye was hard t enough without having to say it be- t fore a lot of gaping strangers. Just t before I turned a bend in the lane h I looked back, and she was standing t there by the gate. c “The cherry trees were in bloom, 1 and some of the petals were falling on her. She was wearing a white t frock, and the breeze seemed to be r tugging at her skirt as though it E wanted to bring her after me. She put a hand up to push back, a tendril, c of hair that had been blown across her t brow, and then the hand went to her « eyes. That was the last 1 saw of I her.” t Silence fell between them, and for almost a minute it remained un- t j broken. Then his tone altered, Car- < ruthers spoke again. < “About that man you mentioned,” t he said, “It’s quite certain that I must have somebody to look after me i and valet me, and act as a sort of 1 general bodyguard, and factotum. You think that this fellow, Pratt, would j nil the bill?” 1 “Yes,” Felton answered, “I do. Mir you, I don’t pretend to pass him on you with a hard and fast guarante- , G f excellence, nor even of suitabilit’ j came across him, quite by j n a country pub, where I put up f or a night or two. He did me a “service, and, later, got communicativ" x “It seems that he was a underbutler or something before the war, and that after he was dero pbilised he found his old place filled, 'and couldn’t get anything else that pleased him. He’s been doing what he CO uld to keep the flag flying, as he expressed it, but his great idea was to get back to service.” “How old is he?” 'Carruthers asked. “Oh, that? Well, p didn’t ask him; but, roughly, I she *ild put his age at about twenty-seve D r twenty-eight.” “Is he cheerft'd? That’s essential, you know. I d pn’t want any graveviewed matiser - aant around me. If he’s of the bright and active brand I’d feel very m ach like giving him a chance —if h , e cares to take it.” Felton l aughed. “Oh, Mr. Pratt’s | cheerful ©'lough!” he returned. “You’ll have no complaint to find with him | on that 'Fycore. As to activity, I should j say th?”a he’s as active as any of his class, and 1 should say, too, that he’d be absolutely trustworthy and hour —the sort of man who might develop into a very stout lientenant. '•Shall I get in touch with him i tv gain, Carruthers? It would be quite ' lasy, and you could always sack him if he didn't come up to schedule. I’ve ‘ got to get back to town to-night, but I can make a point of visiting at that

pub agaiu early next week, amj jf Pratt’s willing I’ll send him. down here for an interview.” He rose while he spoke, a nd picked up the hat that had been ly fug on the turf. Sensing that the other was about to leave, Carruthers, pushed his chair back and got to b’. feet. “Send him by all he said. “If he proves to be th' A right person, then I’ll be in your d-ebt. And Felton —I know that yr ju*re going down to the West County y for a bit, but I hope that you’ll v ,-rSte me now and then, and that yof a’H make a point of coming down hf -re whenever that’s possible.” “You can ccrtyrrt on me,” he was told. “And non/, s it down again, Carruthers. I’ll gTy indoors and make my adieus to you/ • mother.” In under a week from that day, Oliver Pratt, -was established as a not unimportap £ member of the Carruthers’s smal j household, and from the moment <ft hi s arrival radiated a sort of veher oent cheerfulness. “Lord, bless you, sir!” he said in answev f 0 a hope that his master had exprev/sed. “You and me’ll get on capit-*!! There’s not a single doubt abov/_ that!” Lfe went away with a heavily thumpiu g stride, and presently Carruthers IVsard him whistling in his tiny bedtoom. ) The days went past with placid uneventfulness till one evening when, Pratt being off duty for the night, Mrs. Carruthers found that there were ’ certain necessary stores lacking from the larder. “You’ll be all right if I leave you for half an hour,” she said to her son. “I want to go to Hewitson’s for some things.” “You run along and don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I’ll promise not to move from this chair till you come back.” And so, touched more nearly by a spirit of content than she had been since the day of her first visit to the ■ hospital, she went to the little town. Hewitson’s grocery shop was not far from the station, and as she approached it, Kathleen Carruthers saw coming toward her a figure which, in 1 the first place, she recognised by its unstudied grace of movement. A hand with fingers of ice seemed , to be laid across the old woman's 1 heart, and unconsciously she faltered .| in her walk and stood near to the i pavement edge, the fingers of tier ; ! right hand gripped convulsively about . i the little leather bag that she carried, j Slowly the girl—whom she had last , | seen in Apple-Warley—came towards her. When at last they stood face . to face, it was Mary Carruthers who spoke first.

The beautiful face held a sadness which matured it, and the big and I very deep blue eyes bespoke a weari- 9 ness hinting at collapse. “I’m glad that I’ve met you first, in- i stead of —him,” she faltered, her voice I breaking. “I’ve come back to find I him.” “You’ve come back to find him?” 9 Mrs. Carruthers said dully. “But, but H Briefly the younger woman ex- gj plained how it was that, seeing a E paragraph about Harvey Carruthers 9 in a newspaper, she had learned of I his accident —and that he had settled I down in Baxington. *1 "I left Arthur Welland on the same R day that he and I ran away,” she I ended. “For weeks I’ve been living m -—anyhow. And, oh!—I want Harvey j I again. You’ll never forgive, I know; I but he will.” There was no gentleness in Kath- I leen Carruthers’s freart then. ! “Come with me," she said. "WeTl H walk over to the little lane there, R where nobody will see us.” She told Mary just how things j “ were; explained that Carruthers had p for weeks thought of his wife as someone whom he would never see again—as someone who was dead. Listening to her, the girl pressed a clenched hand against her breast. “But it isn't true!” she exclaimed. “Oh! 1 know that you acted for the best, but I—l love him! In spite of everything he’s my husband, and I’m going to him.” “Listen!” Carruthers’s mother said. "He thinks that you are dead. He cherishes your memory, and everyday extols your virtues to me. You have it in your power to wreck such happiness as he has left. If you go to him and tell him the truth, then I it must be the whole truth, and that I —that would break his heart. If you want to do a second wrong, which, in its way, will be far greater than the first, then come with me and face the man whose life you’ve broken. Will you do that? Are you selfish enough to break him utterly?” “I love him,” Mary said, and swayed as though faintness had seized her. “I know that you don’t like me —you never did. It was always Harvey with you, and I was always a thief who had stolen him. But I’m going to him now!” For an instant Mrs. Carruthers’s eyes closed, then she turned about. “Come, then,” she said, “I’ll watch you aeal ...e death blow.” In silence the two women walked through the village, and this silence ; was maintained till they reached the gate leading through the neat garden to the porch of Carruthers’s house. Pausing there, the blind man's mother gripped with unsteady fingers at the gate's top-most rail. (To be continued.)