“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 February 1940, Page 10

“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

PETER BENEDICT.

CHAPTER I. Continued. Outlined among those various signals of construction ran in a straight row the shapes of future houses, near to her mere peggings of cord, beyond, cement foundations, beyond again the beginnings of walls: simply curious cabalistic signs as yet, but some day to be—she could not tell how many, but she thought almost fifty—small, semi-detached, red-brick houses. At the far' end of the row stood a watchman’s shelter, with a dull red eye of fire in a brazier in front of it.

On the other side of the lane the process had not gone quite so far; but the trees, the dear limes of her babyhood were down and dead, the scatterings oi their lopped twigs and branches withered and brown in the grass; and the positions of houses were marked ou' there also, as many as the opposih row, she thought even more.

She stood on the crest of the road and looked at a desolation like that of a modern battle-field, where she hac hoped to find all the peacefulness oi the past; and that was her home-com-ing.

After a while she stirred herself, and walked down into the heart of it. Beside the corrugated store-shed which glittered so like silver in the dying dusk there was a little pile of neglected odds and ends of labour, the flat boards on which mortar had been mixed, a trowel, a couple of hand-carts marked in large letters “Hanwell and Glover, Builders and Contrartors, Stanchester.’ The small completed building, with its frosted panes, she took to be an estate office. But none of them should have been there. Good enough, kind enough, useful enough they might all of them be in their proper environment; but they were aching wounds in the enchanted night of Court Brandon. Catherine stood in the middle of the plot, and stared at the foundations of the new Court Brandon. She felt a numbness—closing upon her. There was something so final, so unquestionable about it. The watchman came out of the storeshed behind her, saw her, and came bustling.

“Now then, lady, there’s no way here. You’ll have to go round by the road. This is private property, this is.”

“Don’t trouble," said Catherine, “I’m going,” She looked at him; he was a town -man, she supposed from Stanchester. "I was just looking at the layout for the houses. Naturally I’m interested; the glen beyond the end of the row there happens to be my property. I’m Mrs Court.”

“Oh, yes. Nice bit of ground, that glen, If the stream was run off and the pool drained it would make a grand building site; and it could be done easy. Nice job of work, this, eh? Only a fortnight since wc got the treestumps out. Pretty old, I’d say, them trees; we had to use dynamite on them, but it had to be done; the site wasn’t big enough without clearing that copse. So up they went. There another site over beyond your dingle marked down for use, too.”

She could not bear to stay and listen to him. It ws like hearing the details of a murder discussed shamelessly, and being unable to reach out a hand for any sort of revenge. Yet she had to find out why this one spot on earth had been chosen for the houses, and above all to whom she owed the cold pain in her heart.

She went hurriedly back to the road, and headed for the cluster of trees which hid her father’s old house, now Perry Dunstan’s studio. Perry would kno.w all about it. of course; he made it his business to know everything, which went on in the district. “Is Mr Dunstan in?" she asked the housekeeper who let her into the house.

“In the studio, Mrs Court. Would you like to go through to him?” Catherine opened the heavy door at the head of the stairs, and went into the biggest room the house boasted, built as it had been in age when space was valued, and before lofty rooms began to be littered with pictures and crowded with furniture. It was .as empty and austere as a monk's cell now, one wall an entire square of windows filled with the dusk, and only one fireside corner redeemed from stern utility to comfort by the presence of a table, a bookcase, and a large basket chair. All the rest of the room was a grey, airy space round the clay torso of a straining athletic, which stood upon a high stool in the centre of the floor.

Perry Dunstan was invisible from the doorway, but a blue coil of smoke snaking upwards from tne depths of the basket chair showed where he was. Catherine closed the door, and he heard the click of the latch slipping home, and craned his head round the back of the chair without altering his position in any other way. Then he came to his feet nimbly, and jumped to meet her with a smile which was pleasant to see. “Catherine, what on earth are you doing here?”

“Coming home. I thought," she said slowly. “No, but what I meant is, why didn't you let me know you were coming tonight? I'd have been down to the station with the old rattle-trap like a shot. As it is, you’ve walked; and I don't know whether you ought to be walking much yet—ought you? Let's have a look at you!" He stood back, and had his look: not with an artist's eye this Lime, but with a subject's, and an adoring subject, al that. She was something more than a beautiful woman to Perry. He had adored her

through ten of his twenty years, and she was a habit to him now.

“Yes. They have put you together again, haven’t they. Quite nicely, too. You're looking awfully fit, darling. 1 think someone ought to propose a vote of thanks to France and the Perro'nets. I don’t believe you know what a wreck you were when we sent you abroad. It was a ghastly business, wasn’t it? That awful smash, and Uncle Geoff’s death, and then that long, long, dragging recovery of yours. Once we thought we’d lost you, too. but we didn’t dare admit it. Oh, don’t let’s talk about it!” He drew her by the hands ’to the hearth. "Come and sit down. Have a drink? Have something to eat! You must be tired." “No, thanks!” said Catherine, “I’m not hungry; nor tired, even,- though I supose there’d be nothing abnormal in that. But, Perry ’’ "It’s nice to have you back,” he interrupted enthusiastically. “Perry, who’s bought up all. that ground along the valley?” she remarked. “Heaven help us!” said the young man, his contentment collapsing with a groan. “I was hoping you hadn’t been along the lane. If you’d turned straight in here you wouldn't have seen it.”

"1 walked into the middle of it, and it was rather like sudden death. I came here because I have seen it. I want to know what's happening.” “Happening! It's happened. Someone has hit on tne bright idea of building a garden-city here in Court Brandon. There’s no end of money in house-property, I believe, and in these bungalow cities —village greens, roses round the door, and all that. Some rich johnny from Stanchester has bought up all the property in the valley floor, barring one or two independent bits like your dingle; and how many little tin-pot houses he means to build I don’t know. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later; but I’d like to shoot the chap who's doing it, all the same.”

Catherine heard this bitter and not very coherent recital with a still face, though her colour ebbed and flowed a little from chin to brow. She looked at Perry, and saw that he was resigned his face was angry, but his voice was borrowing venom only from its own speaking. “When did all this begin?” she asked. “Well, just over three months ago, as far as I can place it. They’ve made short work of our trees. That very big lime that I fell out of—. Oh, well, what's the use? Court Brandon is a tale that is told.” “But they needn’t have sold to him. He’s on Council land, as well as farm land. Does that mean ?”

“Mean?” He gave a short laugh. “It means they fell on his neck as soon as he went high enough with his offers. Not one of them; all of them. And. mind you, he’s generous enough over prices; so generous that it seems pretty plain he’s going to scoop in a packet over the finished products.” He wrenched himself from the mantlepiece, and came and sat on the arm of her chair. “It's no use worrying about it. darling." ( Without moving or appearing to hear him Catherine said: “What are you going to do about it?” “Do? I’m going to get out, like a sensible person. I’m going to try and find another Court Brandon, or the nearest possible approach to it. and settle there until another Probert comes and turns me out of it. Or if I can’t find such a place I’ll go back to London. Anyhow, that’s got a character of its own. And I advise you to do the same.”

She said deliberately: "No. I’m not going to turn my back on it. There must be something I can do." “But there isn’t! Short of shooting him, any how. I’ve asked Massingham. Uncle Geoff’s lawyer, but Massingham says the only thing wo can do is clear out.”

“Massingham!” said Catherine scornfully. “What does he know about it? He’s never lived here. He doesn’t know what I feel about this place. Neither do you, or you couldn't run away from it. I'm staying.” ■ “But what can you do. Perry demanded miserably. He sprang up and began to walk relentlessly about the room. “What can you do? Much better get out now, and forget it." Catherine rose. “I suppose T must go. I’m late, and Mabel will be wondering where I am.” “I'll walk up with you,” he said, relieved at the change in the subject and in her tone.

“No, please. I'd hate to make you do that. I shall be quite all right." She hesitated, staring at him. "What did you say this man’s name is? The man behind this building scheme?" “Probert. Some rich business magnate from Stanchester, named Adam Probert." CTo be Continued.)