“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 February 1940, Page 10

“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

‘ PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

PETER BENEDICT.

CHAPTER IX. (Continued.) ■ “You? What’s your worry? I should say the question is what am I to do? There’s no suit pending against you. Mr Washburn—as yet.’’ The Wretched man looked up, and gasped; he had seen Adam in many moods, but never before wearing the mephistophelean smile which he wore now. “No, don’t trouble. You're safe enough from me —as yet. You’ve only your own coterie to deal with, and I daresay they can be awkward enough. But if you know anything at all about this business if you’ve even heard the rumour of a rumour which might have something to do with it —I advise you to pass it on to me. For if I lose on this case, there’ll be a lawsuit pending against Court Brandon. Council, and you can explain it to tne other members in any terms you like.” “But, Mr Probert, you can’t hold» me responsible! I assure you I’ve never heard of anything which could cast doubt on our ownership of the field. Is it likely we should purchase with such a doubt in our minds? 1 swear that the matter has never been in question, never for one moment. This woman she came to me a few weeks ago, to ask me to use my influence to get rid of you —to close down on the building scheme. The whole thing is a concoction of hers—it must be —a fabrication ”

“Are you trying to say that Mrs Court forged the grounds for this claim?” asked Adam, his deep-set eyes flaring.

“Isn’t it obvious? She meant to get you out of the valley at all costs ” “I know that. She told me. An opponent who does me so much honour is not the person to fake her weapons afterwards. I wouldn’t make that suggestion, Mr Washburn not to me, at any rate.”

Councillor Washburn, deprived of the last vestige of his reasoning power, if not of his reason, flapped his dimpled hands helplessly, and shook his head in despair, and said nothing at all, simply sat and looked at Adam as if at q, snake which had fascinated him into paralysis, “Personally,” said the monster, less quietly, but in a tone which Mr Washburn liked very much better. “I haven’t the slightest doubt that Mrs Court considers herself within her rights; and very little that she is as completely right as she believes. But that’s scarcely my fault, is it? You may say it’s no more your fault than mine; well, that’s your affair. But as sure as'l pay'damages to Mrs Court, you’ll pay damages to me; and after that you can get them back in your turn from Kerwin as best you can, and so can he from the man who had the wretched farm before him?”

A family named Green. But they’re all dead or out of the country. The last two sons went to Canada. Mr Probert, you ” “Then he can go to Canada and bring his case there. It won’t matter to me. You’re the person who has to worry about what happens to me, Mr Washburn. You’re the person who’s going to help me to ferret out the truth about this business; not out of any love you bear (o me, my dear councillor —oh, dear, no? —but because unless you do —unless you help me to find a castiron defence —you’re going to be looking for one for yourself before the next term it out.” He swung away, and the tension being released, Mr Washburn ventured to extract a silk handkerchief from his pocket and mop his forehead. But Adam turned in the doorway to flash back at him: “Where can I And the records of this place?” “There’s the museum reading-room—-or the vicar is an authority ” “Thanks, I’ll try both.” He closed the door behind him, and from the landing, where he paused to light a cigarette, with malicious amusement he heard the frantic burring of the telephone as Beardsley’s number was dialled. CHAPTER X. In response to Catherine’s letter, Mrs Dunstan had written a vague little note entirely devoid of information; but a week or two later she descended upon Court Brandon in person, to decipher for. herself the curious situation set out not only in Catherine's sudden appeal. ,but also in Perry’s uneven letters. Perry was not particularly pleased to see her, for he guessed that all her very considerable energies would be bent to one end, to persuade him to return to London. As yet he hovered miserably between a desire to linger in his beloved Court Brandon to the last, and an equally strong desire to get out of it at once, and back into the lights of the town, as some means of drowning or at least assuaging the memory of his despoiled land. There was some hope fhat his mother would persuade him to return with her, until Catherine came down with her eyes alight for battle, and the allimportant note of agreement in her handbag, to set out her case for approval.

They sat round the fire in Perry's studio, when tne September evening grew chilly round the valley farm, and held a very irregular council of war, Catherine produced her papers, and told her story, to a divided audience. Perry listened with glistening eyes and rising excitement, (interrupting here and there with eager questions and comments. His mother sat in the big wicker chair, smoothing her admirably waved hair with her immaculately thin and white hand, and occasionally yawned, and occasionally looked from] her sister-in-law to her son with equal tolerant deprecation for the still enthusiasm of each. They met in a union

she could neither join nor understand, though as a Court she could not choose but feel some loyalty to their cause, whatever its foolish quixotism might be. But she could not reach into Perry’s heart as he lay there sprawled on the rug at her feet, and whistled low and long in wondering hope, and said: “So that’s the game! You might have told me before. Didn't you know you could have had every penny I’ve got, and every ounce of energy, if that’s worth anything?” “I didn’t want you to know,” said Catherine steadily, “until I was sure we could make something of it. You see, there was always a doubt; there is a doubt still. But at least we can make a case of it now, and if you find Geoffrey’s letter for me, Joan, we shall be another step on the way.” “I havent forgotten that,” replied Mr Dunstan, rather helplessly. “As a ' matter of fact, I haven’t many of them left, because I never keep letters, but there are a few in my case, ■ I’ve read through some of them and I can’t make out whether they have anything to do with what you want. But, Catherine, is it really—well, do you think you really have a chance of winning? I mean, court cases are notoriously expensive things, though I’ve never indulged in them —and the anxiety too! It is really worth while?” Catherine raised her eyes slowly, and smiled across at her sister-in-law. A loyal supporter she might have in Joan, but it was not there she would find response, but in Perry's mobile face upturned so ardently to here from the rug. She said steadily: “I think so. I’m not building on the damages I may or may not get; I don’t even care whether I win or lose. At least he’ll fight; and he’ll fight in the High Court,’ and not until the Hilary term, at the earliest—a long fight, and an expensive fight, if I can make it so. That means that whether I win or lose, I hold up his work for several months, and lose him a great deal of money. And perhaps, if the luck is really with me, I shall cost him so much that he’ll give up Court Brandon as a bad speculation, and leave us with only the scars we already have.” “But suppose,” said Mrs Dunstan, frowning, “that you dont win? I don’t want to be a wet-blanket, you know, dear, but —if anything should go wrong —well, litigation is such an expensive business, isn’t it?” Catherine smiled. “Yes, I’m sure you must be wondering how I dare face il. Well, you may as well know now as late, and there’s really no secret about it. Lyddon Strang is backing me. fie knows all the circumstances, and he's prepared to make the case last as long as he can, and cost the other fellow every penny we can squeeze out of him. And millionaires aren’t usually any fonder of losing money that ordinary men, I believe.”

“It sounds to me,” said Mrs Dunstan, slowly, “a very peculiar arrangement for a business man like Lyddon to make. Do you know, I must have misjudged that man; for I certainly got the impression that his motto, in private life as well as business, was value for money.” Her eyes dwelt speculatively upon Catherines face, but no shadow answered the question she forebore to ask. Instead, Catherine smiled deliberately, and answered, as if she had been merely replying to a casual enquiry about a mutual friend: “Oh, Lyddon seems satisfied with his bargain.” She leaned forward into the firelight, and spread her left hand wide with long, slender ngers taut as tied ribbons. They saw, what somehow had escaped them until that moment, Lyddon’s ring upon her finger, a hoop of diamonds, immaculately correct as the man himself, and somehow, at that moment, equally unsatisfying. “He gave it to me yesterday,” she said, in reply to these oddly reserved glances.

Mrs Dunstan, first to recover herself, made complimentary remarks about the ring and its giver, in the careful tone of one unsure of her ground. Certainly Persy had been right in calling Catherine a dark horse. She said comfortably: “Well, at least you wont have to worry any more about anything; he’ll take care of that. I hope you'll both be very happy." “Thank you,” said Catherine, with eyes averted, more to avoid Perry’s glance than because of any confusion she might have felt. For Perry had said not a word since the hoop of diamonds had dazzled his eyes, but had simply gathered himself up slowly at her feet, and sat looking at Lyddon’s ring numbly, as if it fascinated and repelled him, as if something about it troubled his mind with a violent distaste.

His mother saw that look, but it told her nothing, and in her slightly bored and slightly resigned way she forebore to ask it anything. She merely said placidly, returning to the issue which they had all, for the moment, forgotten:

"You were asking about Geoffrey’s letters, weren’t you, dear? I'd better go and find them, and then you can see if there’s anything of value to you."

She rose, and went from the room, closing the door upon a deep and strange silence. Perry sat staring into the fire for a full moment without a word or a movement; then suddenly he scrambled to his knees before. Catherine’s chair, and took her hands, and held them. They looked at each other at last. His lips moved helplessly, and he said, in a stumbling gust of words: “Catherine, you can't do it. It isn’t worth it.”

(To be’Continued.)

“The hectoring type of sergeant has disappeared." says a writer. Nowadays the only bully is in tins.