"CHRISTABEL"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1939, Page 12

"CHRISTABEL"

Published by Special Arrangement.

Copyright.

By

PEARL BELLAIRS.

(Author of “Velvet and Steel," "The. Prisoner’s Sister,” etc.)

CHAPTER XIX. (Continued). ‘‘My dear, I wanted to take you away, I wanted to look after you and protect you!” said Cavanagh, inexpressibly moved by her despairing face. “Your mother told me you had been unhappy. You're too perfect and too innocent, to be on your own. To me you stand for everything that s beautiful in youth, everything that one wants to save from damage and disillusion- —!” Christabel drew back from him. She stared at him: her breast rose and fell with her difficult breathing. "1 was innocent,” she said. “For three weeks 1 was an innocent as a baby—because I didn’t remember! But now I do!” He lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “I've served a three years term of imprisonment, said Christabel. Ive only been out for three months.” Utter silence; she noticed how his eyes seemed to darken as his face turned white, how his expression deadened with his thoughts, with the freezing of every warm feeling that he had towards her. But at last he said, in a dry, difficult voice: "Are you well, my dear? Aren’t you. perhaps—fancying things?” “Ask my mother—call her down, and ask her!” said Christabel: "No, I'm not mad, if that’s what you think!” Cavanagh frowned, bit his lips, and lowered his gaze. Christabel saw the effect her confession had produced; she pulled herself together and drew a long breath like a diver coming up from deep water. • "I've told you so much!” she said. “I might as well tell you the rest!" And leaning on the mantleshelf, shading her eyes with her hand, she told him, quite simply, not hurrying nor over-elaborating, but with the clear, reminiscent tones of truth, everything that had happened to her, from her marriage until the day when she left the prison. He listened in. a tense and painful silence. Now and again she paused, the better to remember some point in her story, or utter some comment, some vain question that was in her heart. As she went on it seemed as though she had forgotten he was there, and was lost in communication with her own recollections and thoughts. The wind whined in the chimney, the rain dripped onside from the gutters in the roof. At' first it seemed to Cavanagh that he was sitting among the ashes of his newly recaptured happiness, listening to something that could never console him. But as time went on her voice took possession of him, and he seemed to be looking on the greater tragedy of her life side by side with her. his own loss of illusion grew smaller, seemed absurd in comparison, and was forgotten. At last she had finished; falteringly. in two or three words she described what had happened since she had been out, how she had gone to the clinic, how she had met Hewitson—she passed over that without comment —how she had happened to come to the children’s camp, how she had met with her accident. '

“It was not I whom you knew for the last six weeks,” she ended, and her voice began to halt as the recollection of where she was came back to her. “Not remembering, I must have been someone else; perhaps the person 1 used to be, before I married, before it all happened !” She broke off. and looked round helplessly, drooping now that the tension of telling her story was over. A chair was near her; she sat down in it as though she had no strength left with which to stand. Cavanagh made a helpless gesture, as though he would have spoken. She smiled at him wanly. "So you see how impossible it is? 11 was kind of you to ask me. if I hadn't remembered, I might have accepted, but at least, I have been saved that!" Cavanagh’s heart, a little worn with too much knowledge of the world, out lonely enough to be susceptible, swelled with an overpowering emotion. ; "My dear Christabel." he said, putting out his hands suddenly, and taking hers. "My poor dear—!" But she cried out: "No. no, no! Please don't pity me! Go away, go away, and forget all about me! 1 tell you I'm not to be pitied—at the moment I'm mad. mad with rage, and hate!" And she was —she was thinking of Hewitson. “But my dear Christabel —my poor child!” said Cavanagh, and his voice was shaking. “Do you think that this makes any difference to me? I'm free, to do exactly as I like, nothing anyone could say about you would stop me. It gives me all tne more reason to want to look after you. to want to protect you. to take you away and to make you forget! "This makes me absolutely certain in my mind that you ought to accept me! I can take you away somewhere where there is no chance of your being brought up against this frightful trouble of yours again. You can spend the rest of your life in complete security, and nothing need ever remind you of the past. Now I feel that I do possess something worth offering tn you!" His second offer was even more astonishing Io her than the first. “You can't mean it." she said. "You don't mean it! You don't understand —l'm a convicted criminal!” "My dear, that is merely a word! It means nothing to me!" And she realised that that must be truer for him than to most men; he stood alone, on his own little peak above society. She began to tremble, hardly believing, as she saw this amazing future before her. Egypt, Fearne Hal], never a moment’s anxiety about means arid i ways; travel, luxury, the society of all.

kinds of distinguished persons, the past wiped out her family reconciled to ner "Listen," said Christabel, rising at last, with a resolute face, though it was a brighter one thpn it had been since he had entered. "You must think this over! 1 would rather you though it over. It involves such a lot fur you. I would be happier if you did!” "I shall think just the same tomorrow, in a month’s time. I’m not such a young man, my dear —!” "Well, I must thing it over, then!” "Ah! well, in that case—"his manner changed at once. "I shan’t be here, I think I shall go to London.” she said, with a sudden return of the feverish light in her eye. •1 shall go back to work at the clinic a: though nothing had happened. And you must write to me there —that is if you still want to!” "This is ridiculous,” said Cavanagh. “But if you insist on it, I’ll agree to it. I feel I have rushed you. If I hadn't insisted so ” “No, no!” said Christabel. "You’re altogether good!” He noted down her address at Bering Street, and taking both her hands, looked into her eyes, with a sudden violent recollection of all that she had suffered showing in his own. She fancied that perhaps he would kiss her, and shrank a little from something for which she felt she was not quite ready; but he only raised her hands to his lips, and then left her, his face pale and tired looking from the emotions he had suffered, but with his eyes on fire.

Alone, Christabel stood in the empty room, where so much had happened. She wondered where her mother was. Her eyes fell on the couch where she had lain that afternoon when Hewitson came —and when he had said goodbye. A vivid memory her gasp, and shake from head to foot.

She walked up and down. She did not think about Cavanagh, or Egypt, or the Island of Bali, or of being a millionaire's wife Hewitson occupied her mind to the exclusion of everything else. She wondered what he would have done, whether he would have gone on making love to her. If she, in her innocence, had allowed him ? Whether in fact, he would still, go on?

If he did, what would she do? Contemplating what she would do, Christabel. walked up and down the room with a heaving breast and burning eyes. Mrs Haye half-opened the door and looked timidly in. "Has Mr Cavanagh gone?” she said. “I thought I heard him go!” "Yes.” "What did he say?” "Asked me to marry him.” Mrs Haye tottered where she stood. "Good gracious, Christabel!” ’ Her voice quavered into the merest breath. Christabel walked about, tidying up the room, throwing cushions into their proper places with a certain violence. "But Christabel —!” Disillusion as she realised the facts of the situation damped Mrs Haye’s momentary elation, “Oh, dear,” she said. "Of, course, it's —for various reasons, it's all rather difficult, isn’t it?" "Yes,” said Christabel. "You would have to explain about —various things!” "I have,” said Christabel. This was a greater shock to Mrs Haye than the first. “Oh. Christabel!” Her voice rose high in despair: "What did he say?'* "He asked me again.” Christabel smiled at her mother’s bewildered face, in which joy and dismay, and fright were all mingled in a look of helpless worry. "He’s very good!” “Christabel—fancy that!” breathed Mrs Haye; she had looked upon her husband's attitude towards Christabel as the inevitable one of the rest of the world. But the smile faded out of Christabel's face, and the cold hard look returned to it. She threw a cushion from the couch into an armchair with what was almost a gesture of fury. "I haven't accepted him,” she said. "He's writing to me at the clinic. I’ll lot you know next week.” She spoke as though it were a business deal they were discussing. "Arc you going back to the clinic, then, Christabel?" "Tomorrow,” said Christabel. "But you aren’t well enough! Why tomorrow dear —why not wait until the end of the week?” Christabel didn't explain that it was because tomorrow was a Monday and that Hewitson would be at the clinic in the afternoon. She didn't explain that she was drawn by a raging, irresistible longing to see him and have things out with him. To confront him at last with what she was—and with the monstrous pari he had played in Iter misfortunes! To tear down all pretences. to rip up his conceit with himself, and let him know!

(To be Continued.)