THE PRISONER'S SISTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1938, Page 10

THE PRISONER'S SISTER

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT ' COPYRIGHT

BY

PEARL BELLAIRS

(Author of “Velvet and Steel”)

CHAPTER XVl.—Continued. | The radio was going and Lorna Treeves was dancing round slowly with one of the other men. Rand " was sitting on the other side of the room talking to the Earl of Mulhall, a thin little man with a fierce white moustache. Julie quietly examined the damage and went out again. In her severely cut black frock, with her face paler than usual, so young and so determinedly calm, there was an air of tragedy about her which made the two elder women, Lady Treeves and the Countess of Mulhall, stop talking and look at her as she passed quietly out. The baronet, too, had noticed her, and as soon as she had gone he stopped swinging his club and said: “What a beautiful manageress you have, Rand!” “Oh, you don’t know all the story!” cried Lorna Treeves as she danced past. Rand merely stared at the baronet, and said nothing. The Earl of Mulhall had to recall him to their conversation by offering him a cigar. Julie returned with Connor, the hall porter, who pasted a piece of paper over the broken pane to keep out the cold air until a man could be sent for to ' replace the glass in the morning. She waited while he did it in order to see that the job was effective, and her dignity while she stood there beside him was as much unconscious as conscious. For she really was suffering. These people, if they troubled to think about her, thought of her as the rescued sister of a convicted thief; she was not supposed to be good' enough for;her job. And as it’happened, after the baronet’s remark about her, they were most of them staring at her. To Julie is' was like being pilloried. She kept her eyes before her. But she did, when Connor had finished his job, sw'eep- their idly interested faces with one burning glance. It showed her that they, really were looking at her — Rand also, sitting there, staring at her, his expression enigmatic, the smoke rising idly from (he forgotten cigar in between his fingers. “I think that will do,” said Julie to Connor, and preceded him out of the room in silence broken only by the faint strains of dance music and desultory murmurs of conversation between the two elder ladies.

“Ma foi! What tragedy!” said the Countess, as the door closed. She smiled as she glanced round, and experienced a slight shock when she found Rand’s eye fixed on her with an. expression that was little short of murderous. Outside at the head of the stairs Julie said: “Thank you, Connor!” Connor walked away • downstairs with glue pot and his roll of paper. Julie envied him. An honest man, in his proper job, paid for his proper worth.

She began making'her round of the bed rooms, seeing that everything was in order for the night; here and there she enquired of somebody’s maid if anything was required?—was temperature in the room satisfactory, the fruit of the right kind in the early morning? Coming back along the passage she found one of the bedroom doors open, with Captain .Marsham leaning against it, holding a glass' in his hand. He and Mr Winter had been having a convivial party in Mr Winter’s bedroom. “Hello, sweetheart!” said Captain Marsham. How ’bout nex’ Saturday?” “I’m working next Saturday,” said Julie, who didn’t like him when he was sober, and felt still more uneasy about him when he was half drunk as he was now. She walked past him; Mr Winter’s face hovered hazily in the doorway. Captain Marsham reached out and caught hold of her arm to stop her from going. Julie wrenched her arm away. “Now, now! Don’t be uppish!” said Captain Marsham. “You’re too uppish, thash wa’tish.” In her present mood it was the .worst sort of thing to have to contend with, but Julie met it in the best managerial style she could muster. “You’ve had too much to drink,” she said. “If you want to get drunk you can do it in your room. You can’t do it in the passages.” And she turned and walked away. Captain Marsham called out:. “Hey! Hello, there!” But Julie walked on down the stairs. At any other time she might have been beastly just then. And he was such an unpleasant looking, stupid, brutal sort of fellow.

She was right to be a little afraid of him, for she found he was the kind of person who turns nasty easily. He followed her down the stairs to carry on the argument; and when she went into her office he came to the door. She hadn’t time to shut it, and he leaned there in the doorway, holding his glass of whisky and soda, talking at her. “Uppish! I’ll show you a thing or two! I wouldn’t take you to town if you asked me —wouldn’t have you in my car!” “You’d better go upstairs and find your friend, Mr Rand,” said Julie coldly, with an inward envenomed satisfaction in classing Rand and his unpleasant guest together. “Rand, eh? You’re not sho uppish with Rand, are you? Beat’sh me how he can go to sho much trouble to get thick with you.” Captain Marsham gulped his whisky, while Julie stood silent with humiliation. Was that, she wondered, just his own idea? Or was it the popular estimation of her relationship with Rand? He stood there looking more and more aggressive. Julie went to her

desk and sat down. She took up the ’phone and plugged through to the kitchen with the idea of asking Harbin to come in and send Captain Marsham upstairs. There was no reply —everyone had left the kitchen by now. The obvious solution of the difficulty occurred to Julie. She plugged into Rand’s rooms and rang Mr Hill, Rand’s secretary. Marsham lurched across from the door. “What y’ ringing for? Always ringin’ people up! Put that ’phone down and come an’ have a drink!” “Hello!” said Mr Hill’s voice. Julie said: “Mr Hill, will you come down to the office? Yes, immediately, please—!” They were cut off by Marsham catching hold of the receiver, and dragging it away from her. Julie struggled for the receiver, and then wisely abandoned it. Marsham dropped it, and it hung by its cord, knocking against the edge of the desk as it swung. She tried to pick it up, but he caught her wrist. * “What’s the matter wi’ you? Why can’t you be civil?” Through the glass wall of the office, Julie had a glimpse of Mr Hill hurrying down the stairs. “What on earth is all this?” said Mr Hall. He was a stockily built, middle aged man with a serious face and spectacles. He had evidently been on his way to bed, for he was wearing a crimson silk dressing gown. “She won’t be civil,” ■ said Captain Marsham, truculently, swaying slightly on his feet. He made an attempt to focus Mr Hill by half closing his eyes. “You’re drunk!” said Mr Hill, indignantly, . “You’ve had too much to drink! You can’t behave like this!” ■ “Uh?” said Captain Marsham, confused by the number of Mr Hills he could see.

“You’ll get yourself into trouble if you behave like this!” “S’uppish!” protested Captain Marsham, peering at Julie. “You clear along off up to bed!” Captain Marsham looked uncertain what to do, and a certain melancholy seemed to be mixed with his irritation.

Mr Hill took his arm and began to coax him towards the stairway; after a slightly defensive hesitation, Captain Marsham suffered him to be led away. Mr Hill nodded reassuringly at Julie, and drew the' Captain towards the stairs. They began to climb them slowly. At one point Captain Marshaw suddenly pitched back on to his heels and seemed about , to overbalance. But they got to the top and round the corner along the landing towards Marsham’s room without any mishap, , When they had disappeared, Julie turned back to the office and began mechanically locking the desk and putting things straight for the night. She was still shaking rather, and she felt sick. She hadn’t been exactly frightened; but there is something shocking in drunkenness when one is unused to it. What he had said about Rand and herself didn’t help to compose her. The whole thing was horrid. She had locked the office door and had gone out through the kitchen before Mr Hill came down to tell her that he had got Marsham quietly to his room, where the Captain’s man had taken charge of him. Julie slipped out of the door into the yard; there was just the same. sort of starry sky that there had been on the night when she had come down looking for burglars when Rand was there. But tonight Julie did not look up at the stars. She hurried across the yard towards the quiet little building which housed the disused stables and her own small rooms above them. She glanced back at the big house as she climbed the wooden stairway up to her door, and saw the glowing windows of the lounge on the first floor. Everyone had not gone to bed yet. But Julie felt that she couldn’t endure another moment of this dreadful evening, however much she might be deserting her job. She was just about to open her door when she noticed that the door of one of the garages across the yard was standing open. It was the garage in which Rand’s car was housed. Automatically Julie ran down the stairs again and crossed the yard to shut it. She was wondering why it should be —but it never occurred to her that someone might be inside; but as she came to the door somebody stepped out of the darkness. Julie had time to see that it was a man in evening dress, but no time to save herself from running straight into him. She stumbled, and found herself clinging to him in the starlight. It was Rand. “Oh, hello!” he said. “It’s you, is it?”

“Oh, dear —I didn’t see you!” Breathlessly Julie recovered her balance and&ried to draw back, but found herself held by the wrist. His face was a blur in front of her. She»had an idea that he was smiling slightly. For a frightened, expectant instant she stared at him—and then he suddenly' caught her to him, crushing her against him in his arms. With an amount of passion that might have frightened Julie even in someone she knew very well, he began kissing her face, her hair, her lips—all without a sound. “Oh dear, oh dear!” thought Julie, and for a moment or ■ two she was weak, absolutely nerveless in-his arms. And then it was just terribly distressing. It came so soon after her encounter with Marsham and the humiliations of the day. He was engaged to Lorna Treeves. Julie felt that this embrace could be nothing but another I sign of her own lack of title to respect —another wound to her spirit !

She struggled, trying to twist out of his determined grip, and putting her hand over his mouth, succeeding in pushing his face away. “Let me go!” she whispered frantically. “Not on your life!” he whispered back.

(To be Continued)