THE PRISONER'S SISTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 August 1938, Page 10

THE PRISONER'S SISTER

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT COPYRIGHT

BY

PEARL BELLAIRS

(Author of “Velvet and Steel”)

CHAPTER XXIV. —Continued, She told herself that the reason why she wasn’t bubbling over with happiness was that everything had been so sudden. Arranging for their future home in Cambridge, making plans with Stuart—she felt that it should be the happiest time of her life. But something always intruded itself into her pleasure —a cold chill of doubt. Wasn 1 she as listless now as she had been that day when her own loneliness had driven her into Stuart s arms? Only when she was in the Rand household did she feel at all excited. What made her feel alive then was her animosity against Rand. It was nice to be back with the children, where she was away from the preblem of not seeming to know what one wanted in the world. Stuart came down at the week-end; it was when he was going over to

Julie’s rooms to find her on the bunday afternoon that he ran into Mrs Bolton. She congratulated him. on his engagement, and rambled on for some time. ~, T “Ah, sir, it’s that lovely. Miss Julie didn’t ought to be on her own in the world,! It’s just wonderful to have her getting married —and to you, sir! Not but what it isn’t a surprise, sir!” “Why?” enquired Stuart, carelessly. “Oh well, sir—we never thought of you marrying her, sir. We all thought that Mr Rand—your brother, sir—was after her. Leastaways that was what was said like. Oh, he was that kind to her l Always thinkin’ of any little thing he could do. And then when his sir, you see we were all wrong, and it’s you Miss Julie is going to marry after all!” • Mrs Bolton rambled on to the end of her speech without any idea of its tactlessness, and after wishing him joy many times she left Stuart to think over what she had said. - It was rather a shock to him. Supposing Ferris had been keen about Julie? . Julie obviously disliked . Ferris. However, it might be only servants’ gossip, and as it didn’t seem fair to his brother to mention the matter to Julie, Stuart did nothing about it. But then during the following week when Rand was there, he couldn’t help watching them both rather carefully. Rand was certainly not himself. He seemed constrained and gloomy; while Julie was positively ferocious to him.' The whole situation rather worried Stuart and he talked to Julie about it when he got her alone. “Julie,” he said, “don’t you think you might be a bit kinder to Ferris?” Julie coloured and looked surprised. She was looking so lovely that Stuart’s heart almost misgave him. Sometimes her new confidence and consciousness of her own charm made him feel that she was slipping away from him. “Perhaps I’m not—very,” she said. “I —I didn’t think it was noticeable, though.” . ■ “Well, it is noticeable,” said Stuart. “I don’t mind, you know—don’t think I’m scolding ou. But I think he’s a bit hurt' by it, you know.” “Hurt!” said Julie with an incredulous smile and a light in her eye which told him he was on dangerous ground. “He’s not very easily hurt, is he?” “Well, I suppose he’s as easily hurt himself. . Julie tried to defend herself: “I suppose it’s because of my brother —because of Tom.”

“Because Ferris prosecuted him?” ‘.‘Yes. You see, I came to Ferris before Tom’s case came up, and—and asked- not to prosecute—to withdraw the charge. He refused. I couldn’t forgive him at the time, and I’ve never been able to!” Her voice trembled. “But you know, Julie, Ferris hadn’t much choice so far as your brother was concerned. He had to think of the firm. And he deliberately suppressed half the evidence.” “What do you mean?” “Well, if the important nature of those blue-prints that were taken had been disclosed in court, your brother would have got a heavier sentence. Ferris deliberately withheld the information as to what they were, and they were treated as quite trivial documents.” “Did he do that?” “Of course he did.” Julie was lying back' in her chair; her face looked pale in the sunshine and her lips quivered. “I’ll try and get the better of it,” she said at last, in a forced voice. “I’m sorry of it —I’ll be more polite in future!” • And then she suddenly burst into a flood of tears, and while he stared at her in dismay, she got up and walked away into the house. Stuart’s face was clouded. Why should she be so upset at talking about Rand? It might, of course, be the subject of her brother which worried her. But the idea Mrs Bolton had put into his head haunted him. Could it have been because of Julie that Ferris had broken his engagement to Lorna? Had Julie’s reluctance to marry him, Stuart, been wholly on account of the social difficulties in the way?” When he drove Julie back to Lime Grove half an hour later, she apologised. “Talking about Tom always makes me weepy,” she said. “It’s very silly. I'm sorry. You mustn’t mind, Stuart.” CHAPTER XXV. The June days passed, and the first days of July. On the ninth, Rand's new bridge over the Thames was to be opened, and he was to leave on the same day, by air, for Marseilles, where he was joining a boat for Australia. On the fourteenth Julie and Stuart were to be married very quietly, and spend a fortnight in Brussels, where Stuart had friends, before going to Cambridge. Julie had heard from Tom in the first week of June, when he had seemed more depressed than usual. She tried to cheer herself with the thought he was more than half way through his sentence. But her own good fortune made her feel all the worse when she thought of him. She was expecting another letter from him; but it didn’t come. She was anxious, though she told herself there was no real cause. And then on the day before Rand’s departure for New Zealand, when Julie was at Lime Grove, a call came through from Rand’s office in town. Rand himself wanted to speak to her Julie thought it might have something to do with the hotel, though he never rang about in these days. “This is Rand speaking.” “Yet —it’s Julie here.” Julie wondered why her hand trembled as she held the receiver. “About your brother, Julie.” “Yes?”

“I have a letter from him here. He —I gather he’s been ill. He’s in the hospital.” “Yes? Why—?” Distressed and anxious, Julie wondered why Tom had written to Rand instead of to herself. . “Well, I gather he’s feeling fairly low about things, and he’s very anxious to see you.” “But—will they let me?” “That was why he wrote to me. He wanted me to put in a word for him with the authorities, so that you could get permission.” “I see.” Julie was torn between misery for Tom and humiliation because such a favour had to be asked of Rand. “If he’s ill, though, can’t I get permission without your having to bother?” she managed to say at last. “Perhaps, but I’ve already done it. I was speaking to the Governor on tne telephone just now, and you have permission.”

The calm announcement silenced her protests. “Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “Then I—l can go any time?” “I said you would go at half past three this afternoon. I expect they’ll have told him that.” “But it’s already a quarter to two —” “Yes. That will give me an hour to get out to Lime Grove to pick you up, and another three-quarters of an hour for us to get over to the prison.” "What? But I —l can go alone!” “I think it’would be better for you to have someone with you.” The wire was tense with Julie’s silent protest. “Would you rather Stuart went with you?” . A stifled “No!” broke from her at once. She felt she couldn’t drag Stuart into it.

“I think that it’s rather more my business than his,” Rand’s voice said, echoing her thoughts. “Very well,” said Julie. “Thank you. I’ll be ready when you come.” She rang off. The next hour passed in a fever of dread and discomfort. Anxiety about Tom drove everything that was trivial and resentful out of her attitude towards Rand. She had to acknowledge his kindness in dealing with the whole thing so promptly. The business must be intensely unpleasant to him, yet he made no attempt to evade it—went out of his way to do all that he could At twenty. minutes to three he arrived in his big coupe-de-ville with the chauffeur in front. As they drove .across country towards the prison they spoke very little. Rand was a trifle pale, and his face was tense; he seemed to be brooding over some inward resolution; Julie was white faced and wide eyed, somehow reduced to her most childish self, the merest ghost of the lovely, confident- girl into which she had recently blossomed. ” It all seemed unreal,'a nightmare return to all the harsh ■ suffering of the past winter which had begun to' grow dim in her mind. t The grey prison gate, the gloomy walls with the slits of the cell wihdo'ws high up in them, hardly admitting the sun! The dreadful sense of the cruelty of man to man; the relentlessness of misfortune!

Somewhere in there was poor Tom. There was nothing so very dreadful about the place, and yet it seemed a thousand times worse to Julie in all its grim reality than it had ever seemed in her imagination. Rand helped her out of the car, Rand’s hand was under her elbow as they went up the steps to the main entrance; Rand did all the talking which gained them admission; Rand signed their names and talked to the official in the office. Julie began to realise how much his intervention and his coming had probably saved her. They followed a warder along bare corridors; where voices and footsteps echoed in the silent desolation of bricks and mortar. There was a stale smell, not wholly dispelled by the acridity of disinfectant. Julie shuddered, and her spirit faltered under a terrible consciousness of the pent-up human suffering of the place. She told her-self,-perhaps it wasn’t so bad, perhaps some people’were cheerful'here —and then as they walked down a flight of steps, somewhere above them in the upper part of the building. a man’s voice began to shout—some prisoner maddened by the monotony of his cell, making strange animal shouts to tell himself that he was still alive. Julie’s heart gave a sickening jump, Rand’s supporting hand tightened on her arm; she looked up at him, and he gave her a slight reassuring smile. The warder made a half-apologetic grunt and shook his head. “Noisy!" he said.

Another turn in the passage brought them to the doors of the prison hospital ward. Past rows and rows of narrow beds with grey blankets, and eyes turning to start hungrily at Julie as she passed; or gaze, lack lustre, at the white-washed ceiling. The only other visitor in the ward was an old woman huddled by a bed in which lay a still figure with the features of a boy: she was crying. “Number 509?” said the prison warder. “Number 509?” said the hospital warder. “Fourth bed on the right.” And there was Tom Moffat, stretched o.ut in the narrow grey bed, so thin and old looking that Julie hardly knew him. His face lighted up at the sight of her, and he clung to her hand, but it was Rand to whom he spoke first. “Thank you, Mr Rand! I knew you’d do it for me. The warder stood by. Julie wanted to cry, but she controlled herself and smiled instead, and sat on the edge of his bed and asked him how he was, and what was the matter. “Just seeing anyone from outside is going to put me on my feet again,” said Tom. “It’s some beastly bronchial trouble I’ve got. I think I’m getting the better of it, though they don’t tell you anything about yourself here.” Julie was still very pale, but Rand noticed how she drew on every reserve of strength she had to speak strongly and cheerfully. She told him how well the children were, and how well everything was going. She told him about her legacy, and how he would be able to get on his feet when he came out with the help of it. (To be Continued).