TWO MEN AND MARY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1938, Page 10

TWO MEN AND MARY

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

HOLLOWAY HORN.

CHAPTER IX.—Continued.

On the whole she enjoyed it but she found the lack of any knowledge of the language irksome. She disliked being dependent on an interpreter. The guide—a young Russian womanspoke perfect English, but Mary was always conscious of the barrier of language. But for that she would have stayed longer than she did. The morning she left Moscow there was a letter from Anthony McCarthy. She was on the point of leaving the hotel when it arrived and she read it as the train was pulling out through the grey suburbs of the Russian city. He wrote from The Bungalow, Edenford, Kent. “Dear Mary (she read). “Well—here I am. I’ve been working all day in my garden and I feel more healthily tired than I have done for months. “I am no longej- a lawyer—at least not a practising one. My partners have bought me out and I am now (God help me!) a market-gardener. Today I drove a tractor for three hours and I flatter myself, did it passably well. “Whether or not I shall make a living out of the land—and I’m doubtful, for so many better men than I have failed—we shall see. I’ve no rent to pay, and that is an advantage. “But I do feel that • I’m alive down here. After all, unless one gets happiness out of one’s work, there isn’t any point in working. “The' house at Mossford is not yet sold, but I arranged with my partners to keep the control of this in my own hands. “Perhaps also you will write to me and tell me of your adventures. “I’m a dull dog these days, but as always am, Sincerely yours, Anthony McCarthy.” She read this letter several times, carefully. It was strangely impersonal. Healthily tired . . satisfaction. Phrases he had used recurred in her mind, started a train of thought. What sort of a bungalow was this in which he was living? Who looked after him there? If only he’d told her a few personal details about himself. Gradually her thoughts returned to the country through which she was passing. Russia was too vast, too mysterious for her to comprehend. Better, perhaps, even as McCarthy had said, to stay in a little place—a place like Kent, a place one could grasp and understand. At night, looking out on the occassional lights of the silent villages, the sense of mystery, of unknowableness, was deepened in her. It depressed her, the immensity of it all.

It was nature in its crude state. Suddenly she wanted something utterly sophisticated. Paris . . Monte Carlo. She was tired of Nature and Striving . . . But- in Paris she hesitated. The Frenchmen who looked at her as she wandered along the Boulevards merely irritated her. In the Rue St Honore she chanced upon an English bookshop and she was looking in the window when a man spoke to her. “Surely it’s Miss Rossiter?” She looked at him for a moment without recognising him. “Yes . . but . . .”

“You don’t remember me. I was at Cambridge. My last term was your first. My sister Clara Heston was at St Hilda’s with you.” “I remember. You took us on the river in a punt and nearly fell in!” “Yes. Are you doing anything for an hour or so?” “Well . . ” she temporised. “I’ve never been so desperately lonely in my life. I’m leaving the Gare de Lyons at eight-thirty and it’s now only half-past five?” “You married Laurie Hartly, didn’t you?” “Yes. Three years ago. Look here, there’s a tea shop upstairs. I’ve already had tea but I’d have another cup if you’ll join me.” “I’m on my way back to Malaya,” he said as they sat down. “Oh?”' “I’m in the Malay Civil Service. I’ve just finished my first leave. Laura was out there with me, but I’ve left her in England for awhile.” She was silent. It was not clear what was behind his tale. He was obviously nervy. “She’ll be coming out in a few months,” he went on. “They both will.” “Both?” He grinned awkwardly. “Yes. I’m a proud father. My daughter was born ten days ago.” “I say. How lovely!” Mary cried. “Is Laura all right?” “Fine. And so’s Margaret.” “I think Margaret’s my favourite name.” “Splendid.” “I’ll call on Laura when I get back to town.” “Do. She’s staying with her mother at her old address.” “I’ve got it.” “Look here, you. must have a spot of dinner with me. If you knew how utterly lonely I’ve been wt.ndering about this accursed town.”

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

“You’re going to Marseilles, I suppose?” He nodded. “Join the boat there. It gave me another day and a half in England.” “I’m going to Monte Carlo,” she said. “I’ll come with you as far as Avignon. Doesn’t matter to me what train I take and Paris is not a place to be alone in.” “I say. This is jolly good of you.” “We’ll gather my few belonging at my hotel and I’ll get tickets from Cook’s. Eight-thirty, you said?” “Yes. We must reserve seats. It’ll be something to do.” Half an hour- before she decided to go to Monte Carlo, Mary Rossiter had been on the point of getting the train back to Calais and London. It just needed a slight push in the other direction to make her alter her mind. They sat up most of the night talking, to the obvious annoyance of two elderly French ladies who wanted to sleep. Most of the time was spent in the restaurant car. They talked of every imaginable subject from Cambridge to Margaret. “Funny thing, Laura spoke about you a week or so ago. She wondered what you were doing. Whether you were married!” “Not guilty! the prisoner replied in a clear voice,” laughed Mary. “I believe in marriage,” he said solemnly. “I’d gathered that,” she replied with another smile. ’ The pale autumn dawn was filtering into the station at Avignon when. she alighted. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?” he asked anxiously. “Quite,” she said.- “I’ve seen the porter from the Hotel Europe where I stayed when I was here before.” “You are a very self-reliant young woman,” he said admiringly. “Of course. Why not? I suppose you’ll go to sleep now?” “I’m writing to Laura first. I can sleep on the boat. I’m most awfully grateful to you.” “Bosh! I've enjoyed our chat immensely.”

“You don’t understand. You are a link with them—with Laura and Margaret, I mean. I was pretty flat when I stopped you outside that shop in Rue St Honore.”

“Give Laura my love and congratulations, won’t you? And send my love to Margaret.” “Margaret.” He echoed the name. “She’ll be quite big when I see her again. You don’t thing she’ll remember me?”

“Probably not,” smiled Mary. “But she’ll make up for it. Good-bye!” she went on as the train began to move. “Good-bye!” he called.

And alone on that palely-lit platform, Mary Rossiter turned to the waiting porter. At the hotel she had a bath and went to bed. She was up however, in time for lunch, with plenty of time in which to consider what she was to do with herself next.

Mary Rossiter had told the lonely father outside the shop in the Rue St Honore that she was going to Monte Carlo. It was a sudden impulse, a sudden wave of sympathy with him which had determined her, but now. lonely once more, she wandered through the lovely old French town with all the vague uncertainty in her heart again.

She couldn’t wander about the world for ever; she must settle, do something, develop roots, at it were. Almost by accident she stumbled on the little garden in the Palace of the Poper from which is such a wonderful view over the valley of the Rhone. Below here was the famous broken bridge jutting out into the stream . . . Decorative . . but useless. Leading nowhere.

For years she had meant to revisit Avignon, to stand once more in that lovely garden, yet now she stood looking down, dissatisfied and disgruntled.

Heston, miserable as he had been when she met him, at least had an anchorage; there was someone interested in him. And two people in whom he was pathetically, almost comically, interested. She has no one. Kurt Eidenmuller? In all probability she would never see him again; nor did she particularly want to. Anthony McCarthy?” A friend! So had he described himself. But he would have understood the queer, strained mood she was in just as certainly as Eidenmuller would not. Almost angrily she attempted to shake off the depression. All hei’ life she had wanted to travel and here she was in one of the loveliest towns of Europe, moping about like an old disillusioned hen. A crowd of chattering Americans came into the garden. Their horn-rim-med glasses, cameras and guide books irritated her unreasonably and she turned down the little path leading into the town. In the Place du Palais she sat in the autumn sunshine outside one of the cafes and ordered than panacea—a pot of tea. She made up her mind to write to McCarthy, to tell him how disappoint-

edly things were turning out for her. She must get another- job. To be idle was to be bored. A holiday lost all its charm if it became indefinite. It was very illogical but she realised that if she had to re/urn to London at the end of, say, a fortnight, she would enjoy every moment of the fortnight. The Americans she had seen in the garden of the Palace came down the path into the Place. There was a girl more or less of her own age and four elderly people. The girl looked a little overdone. They came into the cafe and at once became the focal—and vocal—point. The four elderly people all seemed to be taking at once, but in the end they decided on what they wanted and the impassive waiter went to do their bidding. “After all,” his, attitude seemed to say, “these people will presently give me a considerable tip. One must be tolerant.” Very much to Mary Rossiter’s surprise the American girl suddenly rose from the table and crossed to her. “Say, aren’t you staying at the Hotel Europe?” she asked. “Yes,” said Mary. “Mind if I join you? My family is getting on my nerves.” “Of course not,” smiled Mary. - “You’re English?” “Yes.” “I thought so. You can’t mistake an English girl.” “I don’t think they ara as distinctive . . . as some nationalities.” “We’re just over here from your country.” “Oh? And what did you think of my country?” “I’d like to stay there—to live there.” (To be Continued).