TWO MEN AND MARY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 May 1938, Page 10

TWO MEN AND MARY

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

HOLLOWAY HORN.

(Author of “George,” “That Man at Claverton Mansions,” etc.)

SYNOPSIS. MARY ROSSITER, twenty-one, pretty, educated at St Hilda’s Cambridge where she obtained an excellent degree and proficiency in languages, lives in a small flat in Red Lion Square, London She is employed as personal secretary to SIR HECTOR GILROY, the head of a big firm of South American merchants. Mary has no relatives; the only one, her father, having died soon after her return from Cambridge, leaving her some £7OOO. ANTHONY MCCARTHY, her father’s solicitor, takes a friend interest in her. He is thirty, dark-grey hair, and blue eyes, and married. His wife, who is suffering from consumption, is at a sanatorium in Davos. Mary instinctively trusts him and likes him. Sir Hector’s health is steadily breaking down, and according to his doctor’s advice he goes on a world-cruise, leaving his son, RONALD GILROY, in charge of the business. Ronald Gilroy, an attractive young man of twenty-five, is in love with Mary. But she dislikes him. She resents his constant attentions and asks him not to mix pleasure with business. But he persists, and Mary resigns her job. Mary confides her troubles to McCarthy, who sympathises with her. But finding life in London extremely boring and lonely, she decides to go to Germany, apparently aimless.

(Now read on). CHAPTER IV. Mary Rossiter was awakened by the bustle of Aachen station. She sat up with a start and looked out. She had fallen asleep just after the train had left Brussels, and remained asleep until she was beyond the frontier. Germany! She had slept solidly through the greater part of Belgium. The platform opposite was crowded with a mass of German youth, men and maidens arrayed in the garb of hikers, complete with bulging rucksacks. She watched them with interest. A blonde, laughing crowd, stockily built. As she watched, a youth came up and solemnly gave the Nazi salute she was to see a thousand times during the next few days.

The customs officer came in. Mary, with the exception of an elderly American lady, was alone in the compartment and her companion was still asleep. The rather noisy entry of the official roused her, however. “Anything to declare?” he asked cheerfully in English. “No,” said Mary, and the American lady echoed her negative as consciousness returned her. “Good,” said the officer and with a smile and the eternal salute he closed the door and vanished. “That’s a sensible man,” said the American and settled herself to slumber again. A girl came along the platform pushing a refreshment wagon. Mary had some delightful coffee, standing on the platform, but was suddenly conscious that many of the hikers were watching her. The beauty of the journey along the Rhine valley gripped her. The ageold castles on the tops of the hills overhanging the ancient river, the neat German towns, the slow barges on the water, the. clean stations . . Germany! From the train she saw the people working in the gardens, and the vineyards clinging to the hill-sides.

She lunched on the train—an excellent and solid lunch—changed, late in He kissed his fingers ecstatically as she had seen Frenchmen do when they wished to appear moved, kissed his fingers and wafted the kiss away apparently into the air. “Speilshaal 1 !” Mary said. “That sounds attractive.” “One dances there at nine o’clock. . There is Roulette . . . and often concerts.” “Thank you,” said Mary. “I’ll stroll round the town, for an hour, anyway.” Even if Herr Rothberg’s enthusiasm was as uncritical as enthusiasm so often is, Freudenstadt, that soft June evening, was delightful. She came suddenly on the Square and for a moment its sheer beauty held her. German architecture was fascinating. The houses were built over the pavement, so that one walked in an arcade. The shops were all small, but, without exception, strikingly clean.

afternoon, into the small puffing train that went up and up through the hills until it came at last to rest in Freudenstadt. The hotel ’bus met the train —-the hotel porter, indeed, was waiting for her at the carriage door —and by tea time she had reached the Pavilion Hotel, set —as the young man in the Agency assured her—in the midst of the pines. Herr Rothberg, the incredibly fat proprietor, welcomed her in the hall. The building was apparently constructed entirely of wood and was scrupulously clean. The German maid who took her to her room had a lovely pink and white complexion, but no English, aind Mary was relieved to find someone to whom she could speak German. Her room opened on to a verandah which seemed perilously slung at the side of the building. It overlooked a wide, lovely valley and the air had an

exhilarating tang in it. Leading to her bedroom, she discovered, was a bathroom with a pale green bath. The chamber-maid had left her and Mary was wondering whether she would ring for a pot of tea before she had her bath, when the girl returned carrying a tray . . with tea and small cakes on it. With a smile as of one who knew the national weakness, she set it on a small table near the open window and departed once more. So far, Mary decided, so good. Dinner, a notice in her room told her, was at seven, at which hour, arrayed in a neat little black frock she went down to the dining room. Herr Rothberg, now wearing surely the largest expanse of shirt front ever seen on one human chest, came forward to meet her and led her to a table in one of the windows which, overlooked the valley she had seen from her window. The waitress was a Swiss girl, rather dull and unresponsible, but as her shyness wore off she became as cheerful as everyone else in the hotel. Not a third of the tables were occupied. Most of her fellow Germans, Mary could tell, were provincial Germans. There were a few Americans and, sitting by herself, a charming old lady who might have been of any civilised nationality, but was, she later discovered, a fellow-countrywoman.-Having arrived at Freudenstadt, the next thing was to discover what to do, so she had a chat with Herr Rothberg when the meal was over. He was eloquent.

There were the baths, the pinewoods, the air—the loveliest air in all Germany!—the Cinema, the Spielshaal . . . the band in the Square. The Square itself, Fraulein must certainly see the Square! Fifteenth century! Beautiful!

A band was playing, even as Herr Rothberg had told her, and the stolidlooking Germans were listening intently. She sat on a seat at the far side of the Square and watched the scene in front of her. Many of the people were apparently peasants who had come in from the country around and their strange garments made splashes of colour here and there. It was utterly restful. She went to bed early that evening. From her bed, she could look through the open window to the dark, mysterious masses of the pines in the distance, for a while the sound of an occasional car reached her, but presently the silence of the forest had closed in on Freudenstadt. In the town, a few lights still twinkled, but the moon coming up over the pine trees gilded the scene with silent silver. A world, one would have said, utterly at peace—the old Germany of dreams and legends that would never be disturbed by the sound of tramping soldiers. She breakfasted early. “A lovely day, Mees,” the pink-faced chamber maid greeted her. The hotel was apparently deserted when she went down. From its door a path went up vaguely into the pine woods and without thinking where it would lead her, Mary followed it. The scene of the early morning in those pine woods is something which is found nowhere else on earth. All pine woods smell deliciously, but the pine woods of the Black Forest, on a hot morning in June, are an experience. The sunlight through the pines made the place a fairyland, but Mary Rossiter’s though were not in harmony with the quiet beauty which drenched the world around her. She was vaguely dissatisfied with it all. She was alone, for one thing, and when one is young it is a risky thing, to spend a holiday without a compan-

ion. There were very few young people at the hotel, and these few were all members of parties or families. What, exactly, had she come for? She faced the question. To polish hei’ German, she had told McCarthy, but that was a part only, and not a considerable part, of the truth. Had she been a fool where Ronald Gilroy was concerned? Could she not have managed the whole affairs more tactfully? Uneasy thoughts came and went, just as the butterflies were fitting in and out of the warm sunlight between the pines. At the top of the hill she came upon a new road which had been cut through the forest, a broad road made with some definite objective. Not a human being was in sight, not a vehicle. Evidently one of the new military roads, she decided. As she stood wondering, the sound of men singing reached her and round the bend of the road a company of soldiers, with rifles slung across their soldiers, came into view. Grey, dusty uniforms, stock, strong men. They sang an old German song as they marched. ; Several of them smiled at her as i they passed. Pleasant, cheery-faced 1 men. Some of them, more sophisticat- ‘ ed, winked. It was very German, but i corning on it suddenly in the midst of < that peaceful wood was a shock. 1 Two young officers came on horse- 1 back behind the men. There was a < touch of pre-war German smartness I about them. (To be Continued). J