“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 February 1940, Page 10

“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

PETER BENEDICT.

CHAPTER XIII

(Continued)

Why her conscience should enter into the struggle she did not know. What was there in the wrongs of the slumdwellers of Stanchester to make this desecration of Court Brandon right. Nothing, and her intellect cried out that there could be nothing; but her divided heart trembled. And what was there in the fact of Mrs Dunning’s new-found happiness, in her gratitude for the decent home she had acquired, to build a pedestal under the feet of Adam Probert? Nothing, nothing nothing! Nancy’s blessedness was none of her, designing. Nancy paid for it.

What were the tenants to him, so long as they paid his rents? Did ne even know their names? Had he felt for even one of them the fierce indignation she had felt for the people’ of Howard’s Pleasance? And her own offering had been little enough, and was as remote now as the moon out of sight. She knew and admitted that. But the terrible part of it was that it was that it was quite clear to her mine, what Adam Probert was, a perfectly ordinary housing speculator doing bold and profitable business, with no one’s benefit in prospect but his own; but she could not persuade her heart into ease.

Here in her own glade she felt, the old wrath of her despoiled soil more keenly; and the faces of Mrs Dunning, of Mrs Garland, of the dirty chidren playing in the gutter—all these faded and were lost in the wilderness of her beloved trees. Here she could hate Adam as she would, and desire for his downfall with all her former fervour. That was some satisfaction.

The fight was still to win or lose; but at least she still had her weapons clear, he should go, or she should go down fighting for his dismissal. Why should the happiness of a young couple in the new houses affect the issue at all? He could have built in a valley less lovely, and they would still have been happy, and he would have had his profits the same.

But still the unease of her heart remained, an argument against which there was no appeal. She stirred miserably against the rcugh bole of the tree and drew her hands from, the crotch of it, and went forward slowly under the trailing branches towards the edge of the water, where she had walked with Geoffrey ten years and more ago.

She had scarcely been old enough, then, to know what she was doing to him and to herself when she married him out of pity; but she thought, she prayed, that he had been happy; for he was not the man to be eternally questioning her affection; and she thought too, that by now he must have understood and forgiven her for not loving him. ■>

But could she forgive herself for marrying again, and for less reason even than pity? Could she ever forgive, even for Court Brandon and Geoffrey’s memory rolled in one, the presence of Lyddon Strang’s ring upon her finger? She dragged her fingers through- and through the long, shivering leaves, and her heart was full of unfathomable distresses for none of which could she find any relief.

She parted the trailing twigs before her, and saw the water darkly clear; and to her right, and not far away along the shore, she saw what appeared to be a small scarlet star, fading and glowing in slow time as she watched. It took her several moments to realise what it was, the lighted end of a cigarette between a man’s lips, a man who drew at it with the steady contemplative breath of a philosopher. She went nearer, Treading stealthily in the soft grass along the edge of the narrow shore; and presently she had him in profile against the grey water, dimly but clearly. At first she had thought that he could oe no one but Perry; but now she saw that he had neither Perry’s height nor his bulk; nor was her nephew, for all his artistic soul, in the habit of coming but late at night to admire the all but invisible beauties of her glen. After a while her eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, and then she knew him. Adam Probert!

Even there she could not escape from him, nor close her mind to the thoughts of him. She stood staring at him intently, for it was the first time she had had him at a disadvantage, and in all things he puzzled her. She would have liked to stare at him as frankly as he stared at her; and now was the only chance she had ever had. But she saw him, now. through a mist of cold and troubled anger which made him a monster. He stood there so calmly, on her forbidden territory, gazing out over the eerie grey of the pool like one already upon fore-conquer-ed ground, like —what was it? —

"Like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes. He gazed at the Pacific —’ She could not see the eagle eyes, but she had the rest spread before her, the spare and insignificant form posed with the simple innocence of a Napoleon, the square head lifted, the square jaw set, everything even in the outline of him as hard and positive as rock. Once again she knew beyond doubt that though she admired him much, she hated him more. She made an involuntary movement, as if shaking him off from her shouldders; and the leaves in which she stood rustled like silk, and he heard, and sprang round towards the spot where she was. “Hullo, who’s there?”

Catherine went forward down the slope of grass, parting the leaves be. fore her. She stood face to face with him, and felt him straining to know

her in the dark; and knew, and coi tell how she knew, that the strain!

was for only a fraction of a minute, for lie knew aer before she spoke. “Good evening, Mr Probert. You take your exercise rather late, it seems."

“And you, too, Mrs Court,” he said pleasantly; she thought that he was smiling, the remotely amused smile she knew.

“But on my own ground; which should be some assurance of safety—and privacy.”

“I beg your pardon. I should not be here, I know; but I had no idea I should be interfering with your enjoyment. I’ll go. I’m sorry you came just at this minute.” He laughed; she heard the sound and the sense of it, infinitely gentle.

“In about two minutes more the moon will be rising; did you know that?” he continued. “If you hadn't come, I should have seen it come over the trees across the water there, in a clear sky after rain. There’s no moment quite like it. Do you think, if I keep on talking very steadily, you may forget to order me off for another two minutes?” Catherine felt her heart within her cold as ice. She said: “How often do you come here?” “As often as I can, and whenever you’re not about.” "Please don’t come here again—wherever I am. Need you walk on every grave 1 care about? Isn’t it enough that you can take every other corner of my earth away from me, but you must put your hands on this, too? Do you think this place will ever be the same to me again, now I know that you’ve been in it?” Her throat shook; she had never fell such anger. “Get out! Do you hear? Get out, and never come here again. And be satisfied; you’ve soiled everything in the world I love —even this —even this

Through the storm of her tears she knew that he was gone, silently and suddenly, for once awed out of his calm, and for once without an answer. She stood trembling where he had left her, and wept into her hands; and presently the moon came up, as he had said it would come, like a scarlet lantern above the trees, and shed a flood of light over the waters of the pool, and made her hands red and her tears upon them like blood. She went home slowly through the ocean of that light as it paled, and the monstrous source of it shrank and blanched to white in the night sky. She was very tired, and still did not know her way, nor what she wanted, nor what she ought to do. But when she reached her cottage in the hills she found that the issue had been decided for her.

“Oh, I’m so glad you've come,” said Mabel, meeting her in the hall. "Mr Massingham has been ringing, off and on, ever since six oclock. I told him you’d ring him up as soon as you came in.”

"But I saw him as late as twelve this morning.” said Catherine, stirred out of her weariness. "Something must have happened since then. I’ll call him at once.”

She tried his home number, wisely, for he came to the telephone with an alacrity which suggested that he had been waiting for her to ring. “Hullo, is that you, Mrs Court? Listen, we’ve lost a round. I had to warn you tonight; and besides, I want you to come down and talk to Ronnie Beresford tomorrow, if possible. We’ve got to hurry after all; this case is up for hearing early in the Michaelmas term.”

“Is that his doing?' asked Catherine grimly. “Not altogether; it couldn’t be. It’s purely luck, though I daresay he entered a plea on the grounds of monetary loss in the delay. Can you come down during the morning, and we'll -do the journey by car?” “I’ll be at your office by ten o’clock," said Catherine, and rang off abruptly upon his gratified farewells. But as she drew off her gloves and smoothed her nair she was still wondering miserably what the end of it would be; for her heart had not ceased to reproach her with the memory of Howard’s Pleasance, Gallowshields Road. CHAPTER XIV. Court v Probert opened in the middle of November, in an atmosphere of complete indifference. London had never heard of either of the parties, the case was merely one of property, and none of the people concerned appeared particularly interesting. So the court in which Catherine found herself fighting her battle was scarcely filled, and almost every face in it revealed no hope of anything much better than boredom. In the Strand the temperature was round about forty; in court it was more like eighty. Some who had wandered in wished that they had not; a few retired; those who had no choice in the matter, like the bored reporters at the press table, groaned and suffered with what patience they could muster. Said one reporter to his neighbour: "What is this case all about, anyway?” “Oh, some silly squabble over property —the usual tale." But the two brightened somewhat when Catherine rose and took the stand, and at the judges invitation took off her coat. The sure touch which had dressed her so perfectly for Court Brandon had not lost its cunning when catering for this occasion. She wore a dross of an odd, neutral blue, severely plain, but with a cut to it which extinguished most of the women in court at a glance; and against its austere dimness her own rich colouring blazed, the sting of excitement kindling it to