NO WOMAN'S LAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 July 1938, Page 10

NO WOMAN'S LAND

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

COPYRIGHT

BY

JANE ENGLAND

(Author of “Sjambok,” “Trader’s License,” &c.)

CHAPTER XX.—Continued. When they got into the sitting-room they found the lamps were lit. Wentworth, it seemed, was just about tc leave, and Nella had changed into her black frock. She was talking to Fingall, and her words seemed to trip over each other; her eyes were toe bright, and she laughed at every other sentence. Dolly looked at David and made a helpless face, but he appeared not to notice, and introduced Drew. “Well,” said Wentworth, “I’ll be getting along. So long, Miss Howard, so long Fingall.” “Just a minute,” said David. ’ “A small matter of business. This fellow here wants to rent Nella’s land. He’s offering. fifty pounds a year. Is that right and proper?” Wentworth looked at Drew from under his heavy eyelids. “I should tie him down before he changes his mind,” he said laconically. “It’s a good offer.” “Drew, you’re Miss Howard’s tenant. Have a drink?” said David. “Well, so long,” said Wentworth again. “I’ll see you off the premises,” said David. “So will I,” said Dolly promptly. “Mr Fingall, give Mr Drew a drink, will you?" And as Wentworth rode away, she turned to David and said frantically, “Look, my pet, this giddy whirl, this constant stream of visitors is getting me down. I never get a chance of talking to you,' look at tonight. There are a hundred' things I want to tell you, and what happens? You turn up with a man whose head is covered with can-ary-coloured. hair, and the place positively hums with people.” “You’ll have to wait until we get into the privacy of the connubial chamber,” said David cheerfully. “Patience, self-control. 1 I’ve got quite a lot to tell you myself.” “Well,” said Dolly, “life has not stood still here. At tea time, Archie and Nella ride up like cooing doves, announcements are imminent, and now what? ' He rides away as if allthe fiends were after him, and Nella sits about being hectically gay.” “Is there any dinner?” asked David prosaically. CHAPTER XXL Nella had had a curious and private interview with Wentworth, just after Archie had flung away in that headlong gallop. It had seemed quite unreal to her at the time. c lt seemed to her that Wentworth was quite human, and yet horribly authoritative. He came into the sitting room where she was sitting with Dolly. She had just told Dolly about Archie, .and she was feeling excited and intensely happy. Everything had. fallen into place. Click! Then there had come that thunder of galloping hoofs and Wentworth came in, before she had time to grasp that it was Archie who was responsible for the din, and said, “I’d like to have a word with you, Miss Howard, if you don’t mind. Come out on the stoep, will you?” Dolly stared at them both with a curious expression. She was thinking, “Well, at least, this man has the courage of his convictions. He hasnlt left it to me to break the news to her.” Nella lifted her chin with a young aggression, but she walked silently out on to the stoep. The sun had. almost gone. Wentworth leaned against the wall, and thrust his hands into his pockets. “Miss Howard,” he said slowly, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that I’ve had to interfere in your affairs.”

“You’ve bee& doing that all along,” she said in a loud, rude, but shaky voice.

“Ah,” said Wentworth, gloomily, “but that’s my job. In this case, I’ve interfered in a personal matter. “I’ve just pointed out to Archie Fellowes that it would be highly unwise of him to be publicly engaged to you. You see . . . quite frankly, and you’d much better know it, it isn’t yet quite conclusive that he won’t be charged with your father’s death.” “But he hadn’t anything to do with it,” cried Nella passionately. “You didn’t think that at first,” countered Wentworth. “I didn’t know what I was doing or thinking then,” said Nella sulkily. “But I know now that I was stupid.” “Yes, I think you were,” said Wentworth, but the point is this I had to put it to Fellowes. That is, I had to give him fair warning and point out that it would be a difficult position if the worst happened, and he was engaged to you.” “No, it wouldn’t,” Nella rapped out at him, “I’d be proud to be engaged. It would ■ show everybody ’ that I didn’t believe it for a moment.” Wentworth pulled his nose and wondered whether it would be kindest in the end to tell her brutally that it might lead them to the conclusion that she was an accessory, which would be far more damaging to Archie. Then he decided not. Perhaps Mrs Hastings could tactfully indicate that aspect. “Fellowes himself sees the point,” he said. “He doesn’t like it, but he agrees. That was him, incidentally, bolting off just now.” “Do you mean,” exclaimed Nella huskily, “that Archie has just gone off, without even cpming in and explaining to me?” “I’m afraid so,” said Wentworth. She stood quite still. “I see,” she said thickly, and without another word walked past him into the sitting room, and through it into her own bedroom. The rest of the evening had been to her a kind of hectic blur. She was vaguely conscious that she had laughed a lot, and that she had talked a great deal. It was when she woke very early in the morning with a dry mouth and a

dull headache, that she tried to think about things. If Archie had been shocked and horrified by her impulsive fear that he had killed her father, she was more deeply shocked that after everything that had transpired that afternoon, he should listen to Wentworth, and, without any effort to see her, bolt away. Almost as if he were frightened. As if he thought that to be openly friendly with her would do him harm. Well, even if that were so, he might at least have come and told her so. She would have been willing enough to do anything, anything to make up for her first stupid suspicions. But he had done nothing; he had heard what Wentworth said, and bolted. Perhaps what hurt her most, what tore down the flimsy foundations of her new, and imagined, security, was the fact that Archie had not even thought of her, had not even seen how humiliating it would be for her. She felt as if she had been standing on a platform on the sunlight, and the props had been taken away to cast her down into the dust and dirt. She was still Old Howard’s girl, still someone who was undesirable, someone with whom it was a disgrace to be friendly. She lay quite still, and the day brightened, turned to a fine, pale gold and poured down in slanting beams from the windows. The stillness became subtly changed, more alive. The five Nyassa boys began to work on the new hut, and their voices came to her through the clear air. One of them laughed suddenly, and Nella felt the empty, agonizing loneliness that is only felt by the very young. It was an icy loneliness. And it would go on forever and forever. She could not imagine a time when this loneliness would ever cease:, Life was intolerable. .. It was impossible to live. You. could not live and feel like this. It was not to .be borne. Other people, even natives, could laugh and have friends; even they could be natural, walking about in the sun, could love and be loved! She tried to imagine what she would do through those long, hot, empty days that stretched ahead. She felt that this was the end of life. She tried to hate Wentworth for it, but somehow she could not. If only she could hate someone, it would be as a balm to that bruised and battered feeling she had. There was no one to hate, except Archie, and she couldn’t hate him. She could only see very plainly that he did not really want her, that the thing was all over. But her whole being ached for him. He had been the one thing she Had ever had. The sunlight was much brighter now. Jacob tapped discreetly on her door, and she heard the tea tray being put down on the floor outside.

“You know,” said Dolly, when she had brought her own tea-tray into the room, “you know, I wish I was a man. Then I would give . Archie Fellowes a hard kick in the pants.” “Which would not be a lot of help,” said David.

He sat up in bed. “Do you realize,” he asked, “that this is Friday, and that tomorrow we are supposed to be spending the week-end with the Marshalls?”

“Heavens!” said Dolly. “I’d forgotten all about it. And I’ve got young Fingall here, and gallons of whitewash and stuff are arriving here any minute and who’s going to milk those infernal cows—and what about everything?” “Young Fingall can manage for the week-end,” said David. “I’m worried about Nella,” said Dolly.

“Have we even been anything else? asked David.

“Well, I mean, last night was rather tiring. By the way, if ever I leave home it will be for Peter Drew. I like that nasty, warped look of his.” “If he’s the Engleburg, I wish you joy of him,” said David. Dolly frowned. Her vivid face became set and thoughtful. “Do,you know,” she said soberly, “I very much hope that he isn’t the Engleburg.” “If he isn’t,” said David shortly, “it’s highly probable that Archie Fellowes will march into town with gyves upon his wrists.”

“Oh, shut up!” said Dolly. “Shut up, David! It’s all too real. What are we going to' do?” “You and I, Dolly,” he said, “are going to farm. We’re going to plough and sow. And, by-and-by that mine is going to be nothing. The posts will be down soon. Maybe, in the intervals of all that, and the work, I shall write a book. It may be a good book, or a rotten book, but I’ll probably write it. We’re going to evolve a philosophy of life —somehow or other . . . Oh, well, we’d better get up. The days have passed when we can afford to lie in bed and discuss the universe over morning tea. I’m due to meet Tenby at nine o’clock. We’re going to mark out the dip just as a beginning.” “David,” she said thoughtfully, as she got out of bed and stretched, “it’s odd this new attitude of yours. I mean, in the old days you’d have stayed round here and “kagged” about Nella, and all that. And now, you seem to be concerned about the construction of a dip. The dip is the all-important thing.” “Look here!” he said. “We can’t live other people's lives for them. We’ve got to live our own.” “How right you are!” said Dolly, with a smile. “I’m quite sure that you’re right. But for years now we've always been interested in other people,’ and we’re —well, sort of allowed ourselves to be side-tracked.” “My dear,” said David, “that is now ended. I’m, going down to meet Tenby and see to that dip.” (To be Continued).