LOVE Set Free

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1057, 22 August 1930, Page 5

LOVE Set Free

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

L.G.MOBERLY

Author of •'CleaoaiuK Fires,'' "In Apple Blossom Time," "Threads ol Life,” etc.

CHAPTER XXIII (Continued) Alison Derwent sat upon a bench close to one of the fragrant lilacs, and looked up at the embroidery of delicate green leaves with a smile upon her face. She was on her way back to her rooms after a busy afternoon, and she had chosen the rather longer way home by the churchyard to give herself the pleasure of seeing green things, and sitting for a little while among them. “What a lovely world," she said aloud, her glance travelling from the lilac bush to the snowy exquisiteness of the hawthorn. An inquisitive sparrow, hopping upon the grass close by, put his head on one side and looked at her questioningly with his bright black eyes, wondering perhaps why this mortal was suddenly talking aloud!

Since those nightmare days of the previous winter, when Alison and Francis had together made their great renunciation, he and she had not met. As soon as his affairs in the West End had once definitely been settled Francis had gone abroad, and Alison had only occasionally had letters from him. They were friendly letters, simply relating to his travelling expeiiences, or to matters of general interest, but entering into no more intimafe matters, and not touching upon their own future.

But “the winter was over and past," that was the glad refrain that rang in Alison’s heart. “The winter is over and past, the time of the singing of birds has come!” and on this May afternoon, when the world was radiant with spring glory, she sat and waited in the old churchyard for the man who had come back from his wanderings to her at last! That was the thought which shed a radiance over the loveliness of the sunny day— Francis Dashwood was coming back to her, and the glory of God was falling around her. She knew that all life was to be irradiated with that glory, even though the note she had received from Francis that morning only said very simply: Will you be in St. Gregory s churchyard this afternoon at 2.30 7 I want to have a talk? F.D. The place was very still. The children who normally made it their playground were not yet out of school. No men and women sat upon the benches as they would do later in the day. Even the old people who were past work had not yet come for their afternoon gossip. From somewhere beyond the grey houses came that murmur and roar of traffic on a main thoroughfare which was so like the boom of waves on a shore; from streets near by there was the occasional call of a child, the bark of a dog, and now and again a ship hooted on the river, otherwise the silence was unbroken, and Alison, the thrush and the sparrow seemed to be the only inhabitants of the churchyard, a place of green in the surrounding greyness; a real place of refreshment and peace. It seemed to Alison to be just that —a place of refreshment and peace. She always came here when difficult problems presented themselves, or when life loomed up menacingly, and

she always went away helped and comforted. The little old churchyard was a sort of haven, an oasis; and to Alison’s healthy and wholesome nature it had invariably spoken to her, not of death, but of life; not of an eternal sleep, but of a perennial resurrection! The green things were a joy to her; the birds were her friends; and the human beings who sometimes shared the churchyard quietness with her, shared with her as well their joys and hopes and sorrows. “Judith begs me to spend part of my holiday with them; I heard from her yesterday. If she can have us both could you and I—” she paused, flushing deeply. “You and I will go a little motor tour for our honeymoon* before we settle down in our dockland, and for part of the tour we will spend a day or two with dear old Derek and his wife, if they will have us.” “I want to see Judith’s home,” Alison said thoughtfully. “She has said so little about it; she has never really described it at all. J always feel as if she had told me nothing. Perhaps she is working too hard on the farm to be able to write much.” “Working on the farm? What farm? What on earth do you mean?” “Why—their farm; the Stanesleys’, of course. When she first mentioned

Mr. Stanesley, Judith said that Mrs. Dashwood had told her he had a derelict old farm somewhere. I remember the expression distinctly, because I always felt rather sorry that Judith should have anything derelict belonging to her. However, she seems very happy in spite of it and she has never given me any description of the farm since she went there; she has more than once said I must come and see it for myself. She wanted to show it to me herself.” Francis flung back his head and laughed a hearty, boyish laugh. “Then if Judith hasn’t described the derelict farm to you, neither will I,” he said. “Evidently Judith wants to spring a surprise on you; lefc. her spring it. I won’t forestall her in any way. Let her show off her tumbledown old barns herself! We will be married as soon as I can see about the licence. There ought to be no difficulty about that. Then we will spin off into the country by our two selves and wind up by a visit to the Stanesleys and their ancient farm!” CHAPTER XXIV. JOURNEY’S END “Oh! Francis, where are we coming? Who lives here? What a perfectly heavenly place! I don’t know when I ever saw anything so lovely. Why are you bringing me here? Is it some show place you want me to see?” These impetuous exclamations burst from Alison a fortnight later, as her husband stopped their car in front of a house which had made Alison first draw her breath in excited delight, and then break into her torrent of questions. An Elizabethan manor house basked In the golden light of a June day; its warm red bricks half hidden by a wealth of roses; its gables cutting the blue in the summer sky. The diamondpaned windows twinkled like gay little welcoming eyes; doves cooed softly as they walked over the velvet lawn round which the drive curved; beds of spring flowers lay under the wall; and above the trees that hid the house from the lane rooks wheeled in melodious cawings. The house itself was a picture; its surroundings scarcely less picturesque. “How beautiful, how perfectly beautiful,” Alison cried, as her husband helped her out of the car. “But why are we here? Whose —Judith,” she broke off her sentence in amazement as Judith Stanesley came round the corner of the terrace flanking the house. Judith was holding out hands of welcome. “It isn’t, it can’t be! You said a derelict farm. I had imagined that you lived and worked hard on quite a small farm,” Alison said incoherently, her glance turning from Judith’s happy, amused face, to the old world house that stood like some beautiful Princess in the sunlight, a beautiful Princess who had sat theie for centuries, watching the generations come and go, and silently draw ing fresh atmosphere from each gen eration that came and went; keeping always her own rare beauty, or rather, increasing in beauty as the years went by! Alison still stood beside Judith, a petrified look of bewilderment on her face. “I still cannot in the least understand it. What does it mean? Haven’t you really got a farm? This isn’t a farm.” She glanced at the building’s stately loveliness. “What does it really mean?” “It really means welcome to Kingsden Manor,” Derek’s voice answered, as he came round the corner of the house to Judith’s side, and shook hands with their guests. “I have at last managed to explode the derelict farm idea, but it has taken a lot of exploding. Judith clung to it for a long time! She would have a derelict farm at all costs! It was all I could do to make her believe this really is my very own house, that I am not a kind of usurper; and that I haven’t even a derelict shed on the estate, much less a derelict farm. But I have got a farm,” he turned now to Alison, with twinkling eyes. “As a matter of strict truth I have four farms, all intact!” “I made a mistake —I just made a mistake,” Judith said, hastily, with a glance at Francis, remembering how contemptuously Millicent had alluded to Derek’s country house, as though it was the poorest place imaginable!”

“This really is our home. When I first saw it I thought I must be tak ing leave of my senses, Alison. I simply could not believe 1 was goi \g to live in such a place and be the mistress of it! It felt like the wilde3L most impossible dream. It took Derek quite a long time to convince me that he was not hoaxing me.” “Yes, i believe she thought I was really the butler masquerading as the master. She looked at me with a good deal of suspicion,” Derek said, with a wicked glance at his wife. “Anti I think she was quite disappointed when my housekeeper, Mrs. Bowers, came out to greet her. She had fan cied herself cooking in a farm kitchen.” Alison often thought that, sitting here, talking and listening, she had com© nearer even than at other times to the great heart of humanity. Her drifting thoughts went back now to some of those talks, to the friends she had made sitting here under the lilac tree, but they did not drift for long. Very soon they came back to the one central point of joy on which they were concentrated —the joy of meeting Francis Dashwood again! A step on the gravel path made her turn, and before she could rise from her place the man of whom her heart was full was there, sitting down on the bench beside her, and drawing her hand into his with a quietly possessive gesture that brought the colour to her face.

“I couldn’t wait another minute,” he said, with an impetuous boyishness that pleased her. “I only got back late last night, but I had to send you round that note this morning. I did not know how to wait even till then. Did you wonder why I asked you to meet me here?”

She looked at him with twinkling eyes that shone with a great gladness. “No,” she said demurely, “I didn't wonder —I thought I knew. It seemed to me quite obvious,” and she laughed a soft, delicious laugh that made him put his arm Impetuously about her, while the sparrow watched and meditated.

“You most blessed woman,” he exclaimed. “I don't believe it is in you to pretend; or to play hot and cold with a man; or to coquette. You could not stoop to such things. You are just—you—the one woman in my world—the woman I need.” The flush on her face deepened, and she smiled a lovely wavering smile. “You know I want you for my own,” he said; “you knew, even on that other day when you made me see that I had done wrong. You knew then. I let you know I loved you.” “I think perhaps you did, and certainly I guessed,” she said without hesitation, while in the deserted and silent place, where no one but the birds could see, his arm drew her closer. “But you knew you must not say it all—then.” “It was a ghastly temptation,” he answered, “a more terrible temptation than you can realise, perhaps. It seemed just at that moment that it would be so simple to remain dead, to go John Smith, to allow the old Francis Dashwood to be permanently merged in his new identity. Everything pointed to my doing that, and allowing sleeping dogs to remain asleep. I thought nobody would have been a penny the worse, and I realised what life here with you would mean. It was all so simple, sc easy, just to go on lying low and saying nothing. I was sorely tempted, my dear. I nearly gave in.”

“But you didn’t quite. I know how hard you fought, but you came through —you came out on the top, as I was sure you would! You won.” She looked into his eyes, her own very shining. “You made such a splendid* fight,” she ended, with the gladness of a great triumph In her voice, and you were victor after the hard fight.” “And now,” his arm held her in a close clasp, “and now I have come back to you; there is nothing between us. I am free, and you won’t make me wait, will you, Alison?” “Wait—for what?” she asked mischievously. “You haven't asked me for anything yet. What is it you want? Remember you haven’t put your wishes into words, most imperious man.”

“Must I dot my i’s and cross my t’s? Must it all be written down in black and white? Can’t you take anything for granted? Must I put it into plain script?” “Not quite that, but you can hardly talk about my making you wait, when you haven’t —when you don’t tell me ”

“I’ll tell you now in simple English. I want you for my own. I want you for my wife as soon as possible. There, my dear, there Is my wish, plainly expressed. I want you now, this minute, to fix the actual day when you will come to me. We needn’t wait,” he spoke with a sort of anxious breathlessness. “I have been through so much. I can’t stand waiting. I feel as if 1 couldn’t bear to be lonely any more. We can be married by special licence just as Judith and Derek were.”

“But isn’t it very expensive?” “Never mind the expense. I am not a poor man; on the contrary, I have plenty of money, and I want to fix things up directly. Then you can come to the Riverside Cottage to begin our life there together. We can settle down there at once. You don’t know how often I have pictured you there. Don’t let us delay.”

“Our life together,” she echoed. “I think the little house by the river will be a little bit of paradise. It seems an impossibly beautiful dream that you and I should be there together.” “Perhaps I ought to have given you a better, bigger house.” Francis said rather wistfully. “Perhaps I am wrong to let you spend your life down here with me. Why should you be tied to these grey streets for the rest of your life?”

“Perhaps you are talking Outrageous nonsense,” she retorted gaily. “I love the grey streets; I love the work here; I love the people, I love your researches. Nothing could make me happier than to share your work here. I don't want a big house, and I should hate a West End practice. Let me make life beautiful about us here, in the little house by the river; let us make life beautiful for the grey world round us. You and I together can spread joy around us.” And then he stooped toward her and kissed her softly on the lips. After a happy little pause, she drew a letter from her pocket and handed It to him.

“I had thought I might help with the work,” Judith laughed. “I never thought I should be so lazy as I am. just being waited on. Derek and I often try to imagine whafrit all looked like in old days, when Stuart folk played bowls on the bowling greer. or Georgians danced minuets in the great hall. We try to people the whole house with the generations that went before.”

Both inside and out the house was to Alison a sheer delight, and their host and hostess gave them that delicious sense of being at home and very welcome, which is the topmost pinnacle of hospitality. (To be concluded tomorrow)