The Singer from the Hills

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1082, 20 September 1930, Page 23

The Singer from the Hills

COPYRIGHT published by special arrangement

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ROWAN GLEN

AutSor at Great Anvil.' The stronger p ssion rhe Romantic rtoad. etc

CHAPTER IX.—Continued. Sure for the yawning of a fat spaniel who rose from before the almost-out dining-room fire, there was ao sound in the house. Certainly there was that fire, and certainly the table was neatly laid, but of her fellow-revellers at Carruther's studio there was no sign. “They're sure to he along presently,” Catterton assured her i irheu he bad gulped down two-thirds - M that stiffish drink for which he had been longing. "Shall we wait for ’em j or shall we start, in by ourselves to pet the foodstuffs ready? I could wake Mrs. Smedley, of course, but that would not seem to be quite play-

ing the game, and in any case it isn’t necessary.” Though Sheila spoke then she L j scarcely knew that she was speaking. - ; All she knew was that the situation 3 ! seemed to have got out of control, and ’ j that she wished very fervently that ‘ ; she had not been persuaded to come • ' out on this ridiculously-arranged ex- > . pedition. “Are you quite sure that there is a Mrs. Smedley in this establishment of ■ i yours—l mean that she is here now?” i she asked, and though the question 1 was spoken half-jestingly, there was a t note of blended irritation and sus- > j picion in her voice which Catterton I ! found mildly worrying. : j “What in the world are you talking - i about, Sheila?” he asked. “You were

| not in earnest? It' you visit me to i . prove the truth of Mrs. Smedley’s ex- ! istence I'll do that right away. But I ) I’m mighty sorry that you’re doubting 1 • my-—my good faith." J He was moving toward the room ; j door, and that with something of digU 'T’. when she stopped hint, j "No, no,’’ she said. "Don’t go wak- | ing anybody up. But —l am not going j ! to stay for breakfast now. I'm not I | really hungry, and well, it. would all ! have been different if the others had J been here. Surely they can't all have lost their way?” He turned and smiled at her, much ; as he might have smiled at a tired and j rather peevish child. | “All?” he repeated. "We were only ! going to muster six or seven, and \ ! three or four in one car. Don’t jack i l the spree up, because we happen to j ; have got here first. What are you 1 scared about, anyway? Supposing ! 1 that by chance they had lost their ; ! way or let us down by changing their ! minds aud going home? What then? | The world would not crash into the i sun and burst into bits. You and I j could still have breakfast, and i could ; still get you back to Kensington by ■ the scheduled hour.” She did not answer, and, coming ; close to her, he spoke more softly and : more gravely. "Sheila,” he called her I again, “what has happened to you in the last few minutes? Is it just that you're beginning to worry about the conventions? Or is it that you disj trust me?” ! “I—l do not know what it is,” she returned. “All I do know is that I i want you to drive me back to London I now." "Merely because, save for my house- | : keeper, you and I are alone in this cottage? My dear, listen!” He talked to her then skilfully, and - with a subdued passion, which willy nilly, she found influencing -r. Other men who had said straigt .rwardly or hintingly that they care., for her, had been sincere, and it was not conceit which made her believe that Catterton was equally sincere. True, there was the memory of that night on which he had striven to kiss her, and there was the warning which Hew Kennedy had given, but, as she glanced at the table with its preparations for a meal her doubts lessened. As for Catterton, he w r as genuinely in love at last—or assured himself that he was—and this though he had always rather dreaded the thought of marriage. . . . But Sheila was something quite new in his experience, and so to be treated in a new way. “No, no, no!” she begged him when, having spoken of his love, he leaned down till she felt his breath on her face. “I’m not going to listen. 1 - don’t know what to say to you. Bui f know that you are supposed to be going to marry Dorothy Beamish. | Even the papers have been gossiping i about it.” "All infernal rot.” be exclaimed. "That’s all off. It meant nothing, anyway. Dorothy’s a pal of mine and nothing more. Sheila, don’t you understand? I love you. I could have told you before but ” The beauty and fragrance of her swept away the remnants of his caution. and. though she shrank from him as she had done before, he caught at her. It was then that she heard the toottooting of a motor-horn, and, a moment or two later, and when she was standing away from Catterton, there came a vigorous rat-tatting on the outer door of the cottage. A little whirl of (excitement came to Sheila, and she clapped her hands together softly. “Listen, Sir William!” she exclaimed. “That’s someone at the. 1 door.” j “I heard,” he answered with a | brusqueness which she failed to ! notice. “I’ll go at once. Whoever ! the fool is he’ll-have the house down j if he goes on that way. Wake up ! Mother Smedley, too!” His back was toward Sheila now, i so that, she did not see the scowl which had come to his face. Nor did she hear the whispered oath which came from him as he strode across the room. The fact was that Sir William Catterton had been jolted into a very bad temper indeed, aud understandably so. Things, or so he judged, had been beginning to go smoothly for him, and now some idiot had blundered along and crashed into a situation which should have ended with conquest. “No need for you to come,” he said to Sheila over a shoulder. “Probably it is some half-drunk motorist who | thinks that this is a wayside hotel, j I'll talk to him in a way that will ! j sober him up, quick and lively.” | But despite that. Sheila followed i Lhjia into the little hall and stood he. I £*KQI him jvfciis. swearinz .mutates, fctmi

was nothing of good nature. “Well, • if this does not beat, the band! Come i along in, and explain why you did not ! get here long ago.” His always nimble brain was, as it were, working overtime now, and though he felt that he would have found greater satisfaction in killing the other man then, he gave no sign i of the raging irritation in him. “Don't make a row,” he added, as he closed the door behind the newcomers. “I do not want my housekeeper to come tripping down half asleep, screaming out that ihere are burglars in the place.” i Beyond the fact that Freddie War- • ren made a sort of mumbled explana- | tion about being sorry to come along ; when the ham and eggs might be cold. ' no one spoke, save Cattertou, till all : four were in the dining room, and,

managed to turn the key ot the outer door without allowing her to see him do so. She had not known that he had used that key after their entry. Two figures stood in the doorway, and. by the light of the hall lamp, Sheila recognised those figures. One was that of Dorothy Beamish, the other that of Freddie Warren! “Who the devil are you, and what do you want?’’ Catterton had started, when he realised, as Sheila hacl done, that the disturbers of his personal peace were two recent fellow-revellers. { A gripped band went to his mouth for a moment, then, with a sort of grunt, j he stepped hack. “You, Dorothy! And you, Freddie!” he managed, with an attempt at goodnatured surprise, while actually, hough surprise was present, there '

j very awkwardly, and not looking at i his host, Freddie Warren took out a j cigarette case and passed it round. “Where —where are the others, j Bill?” he asked. “I mean, though. we’re so infernally late, they have not | gone, have they?” It was Sheila who answered, and j though she spoke to Freddie it was at ! Dorothy Beamish that she glanced. “The others have not gone home because they have never been here,” : she said. “Lost their way I suppose, as you two did. I’m terrifically glad to I see you. for now ” Catterton interrupted her there, but , did so genially. “Now. we can get busy about break- ! fast,” he remarked. “Personally. l’m * starving. How about you, Dorothy? Like something to drink f ist?” She had turned away and was layi ing her cloak over a chair back near ! to the fireplace. ! “Thanks, no.” she answered. “I'm i quite ready to help get breakfast and to eat some of it. but first of all I would like to announce, once and for 1 all. that I never intend to go night motoring again with Master Freddie Warren. I’ve already told him that ■ lie is a blithering idiot of tb worst type, but I’ll tell you others that I | believe he’s gone completely batty. He ! would take a turn at the wheel and I i was fool enough to let him. Do you know what he tried to do? He tried to drive me back to London, said that he didn’t believe anybody would come ; here after all. If I hadn't threatened j never to speak to him again and made ! him give me the driver’s seat you’d ■ never have seen us.” She moved round hen. gracefully, and with something almost sardonic in her pretty face, which, even under the make-up, was pale now. With a lift of her eyebrows, and ! with, in the eyes themselves an exfrpressiort rtf hall; aaocker# ffhieh.

brought a sudden sense of discomfort j to Sheila, who had been swinging back t to her normal, she said:— “But perhaps instead of slanging the ! ineffable Freddie I should be apol- ] ogising for having hutted in on a delightful tete-a-tete? But how was I to know'? I expected to find the Barton crowd here, too. Instead of that, Miss Sheila Stewart and Sir William Catterton, shut off from the cold, hard world in a lonely cottage at. some ungodly hour in the morning! What a setting for a romance! But there! I I'm pulling your legs! Let’s get some | food. I feel as thougn T hadn't seen any - for days.” Yawningly she was going toward the door, but Sheila said: “Just a second, please. You were ; joking, I know, but [ want to explain that, when you knocked 1 was starting back for London. because —because, though as youii see, preparation had been made for a bunch of us. only Sir William and I had turned up.” She had spoken impulsively, and next moment regretted the speech, for Dorothy Beamish laughed, though with nothing of ill-nature. “Goodness! Surely you're not apologising?’ she asked. "Or are you afraid that Freddie and I will think that you and Bill here were eloping? Forget it. my dear! I’ve been in this cottage myself, alone with bold, bad Bill—haven't I, Bill?—but the fact never worried me. Come, we ll go into the kitchen, you and I. I know where everything is.” She had contrived to cover her verbal barbs with the balm of laughter, but, for all that, Sheila felt the prick of those barbs: guessed that what had been said with affected lightness had been said, too, with something of bitterness. Yet so great was the relief whiqjt had b»qiy bom

-when that knock had sounded on the cottage door that she coupled it on to her pride, and managed to add fcer laugnter to that of the older and more sophisticated gill's. "Right you are,” she said. "Sir William has been telling me that he s good at making coffee, and I'll show him that I know all about turning out a decent dish of ham and eggs.” When the girls had gone from the room Dorothy returned to it almost immediately to say that there wei e queer noises coming from upstairs, and that she was certain she had seen a weird-looking figure on the landing. “I suppose is Mrs. Smediey, bu .t it is go to her and send her hack to bed, Bill,” she said. “That old woiusr. scares me. Go now'.” Cattertou did so and came back in an ill humour. “You were right,” ie admitted to Dorothy. “It. was the old ’un. There are times when she scares me. too. But she's retired with her feathers smoothed down, so it'll be all right for you to dodge back to the kitchen. And Dorothy—” “Yes?” she asked, and was near i» i hating liin> then, though, as against * ! that, she still hoped to be h-.s wife : some day. “Any instructions about i the fair Shei'a?” I (To be continued on Monday.)