“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 March 1940, Page 10

“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

PETER BENEDICT.

CHAPTER XVI. At ten o’clock next morning Catherine Court knocked at Mrs Dunning's door. She felt some reluctance, at the last moment, to go there at all; and she found herself as nervous as a schoolgirl as she stood waiting for the door to open. Yet Nancy Dunning was not the person to'add anything to her distresses; she had not her mother's fiery partisanship, nor the depth of her strength; and there was nothing beyond a start, and a slight flush, to trouble Catherine’s heart when at length they stood looking at each oher. Then she smiled. She was of a smiling nature, and nothing could withhold her friendship from anyone living for very long. She said: “Oh, Mrs Court, I didn't know you were home again. I thought—well ' “I know,” said Catherine, bracing herself, for it was now painful to her even to hark back to the subject which was greatest in her mind. “You re right; the case isn’t finished.. But I had to come back, because there s something I want to know. Nancy I 1 me t your mother in London.” “Oh, yes,” said Nancy, flushing again, and more deeply. “She's staying there with her married sister; they’ve got a flat near Paddington. Mother often goes, when work is scarce, and she can get away. They'd like her to go oftener, but there, mother's that independent.”

“And this time,” said Catherine, wanly smiling, but as certain of herself as she was now of Mrs Garland’s enmity, “she went on my account—didn’t she? Because of this case." ? “Yes,” admitted Nancy. “She was in court yesterday. She wrote me a letter.” “I can guess what she says in it. But what I want to know is—is it true what she says of me—and of Mr Probert?” Nancy hesitated for a moment, standing there slim and neat in her gay overall and her plain dark dress, swinging the door in her hand. Then she stepped back, and opened it wide. 'Won’t you come in, Mrs Court? And then we can talk.” “Thank you,” said Catherine. “If you think as badly of me as she does, that's very generous of you.” “I don’t; and neither does she think as bad as you imagine, only she feels it very much, you see, after me being so happy and comfortable here. But I see what you mean better than she does, that’s all. She’s hot, is mother, but she never sees more than one thing at a time.”

Nancy moved gently about the little living-room; Catherine, following her in from the passage which ran clean through the little house, saw her as the genius of the colony. Nancy had escaped from tne slums, not to carry them with her, but to shake them off for ever with all the more passionate care because she remembered them so keenly. The house, the room, the hearth, the panes of the window, the baby who played solemnly in a pen in the warmest corner, all were spotless and shining as if with a consciousness of virtue.

The pale baby girl was not so pale now, in spite of the winter, and the long hours she had perforce to spend indoors. She had a shining of colour in the cheeks which were growing so round and plump, and her little body was sturdier than Catherine remembered it. So much, at any rate, Court Brandon had achieved; and if it accomplished nothing more, yet it had not been completely wasted. But Catherine ,had eyes for other things in the Probert houses now; for the sensible windows, with their large panes, so inviting to the light and sun, and so easy to clean, not sash windows, but opening outward; for the low open grate, nicely calculated to supply the maximum of heat on the minimum of coal; for the glimpse of a neat, and not minute, kitchenette, which she saw through the open ,door beyond. She could not, it was true, see much more, but the range of her vision cud embrace the corner of a gas cooker. She had passed, on her way along the passage, the door of the sittingroom; and on her former visit to this house she had been in that room, and knew how quietly satisfactory it was. On the whole, these were houses in which she would have guessed a woman had had a hand; at least they avoided most of the pitfalls which usually tripped men. “This is really a very nice house,” she said, half to herself, but aloud. “It is," said Nancy. “There's three bedrooms, and a lovely bathroom, and the range in the kitchen heats the water; you'd be surprised how soon it gets hot. and it keeps hot all day. When Harry went after it —the house, I mean—l said: 'Oh. what's the use? They’ll be too much rent for us. and even if we could raise it. they'd never .let us have a house with three bedrooms. for only the two of hs and the baby.’ But Harry said you never know, and he went, and the first thing they asked him—you'll never guess—was where he was living now. 1 mean’ it wasn’t as if they was council houses, or built for slum clearance, or anything like that; but anyhow, we got it. and no trouble." “It was about that I wanted to ask you," said Catherine. “Your mother told me what rent you were paying for this house. Is it true that they're all the same—really only five shillings? you see, I feel some interest; this ease “Yes," said Nancy, very quietly, and watching every movement of Catherine’s face as if the conflict behind it shone clear through the brown eyes and calm lips, and showed itself in every glance she cast about the warm

little room. “Yes, they're all the same." "And all from—from the poor parts of Stanchester?" "Not quite all, and besides, I don't know all of them; there must be some from parts I ever saw in. my life. But there's the Dewleys, next door; they're from Gallowshields Road. . And there's the Holts, I know them, too; they're from quite near where we lived in the Pleasance; and there must be more of them, too, if I could only think of them.” “And, like your husband, these men still work in Stanchester, do they? Doesn’t it make it rather expensive, after all, when rhe 'train fare is . added on?” “They don’t go by train; there’s a bus.” “Oh, one of me Stanchester locals?" “No, it's an independent, so they say. It runs from the Greyhound every morning, and comes back at half past five; so the man are home pretty early. They say there’s another one going to be put on. because it’s getting too much for the one, now there is so many people moving out here.” “I see,” said Catherine; and though dimly through this new detail, she did not perceive a possibility of an influence she knew, the words were only a half-truth. "But still, it must cost quite a lot in bus fares, I should think." “Well, you would expect it to,” admitted Nancy. "Many a time I’ve said to myself, I don’t see how the owner of the bus can possibly be making his expeses on it, let alone any profit. But I suppose he must be, or he wouldn't be able to go on with it, would he? The fact is, he charges each of them two shillings a week for the journey. Of course, I suppose it’s regular; 1 mean he’s sure of his customers. But I can't see what he can clear out of that above running expenses, can you?” “No,” said Catherine, very quietly, “no I can’t.”

She turned away suddenly, and stood staring out from the window. Here, from the back part of the house, she 'could see the hedge on the further side of the lane, and her own. white gate set in it, the gate of her peace of mind, which Adam Probert had violated.

Remembering how she had found him there, beside the poo), she was suddenly filled with longing to have another, and more difficult, question answered for her; but this time she knew that it was useless to appeal to Nancy. Nancy had confirmed, if not her mother’s accusations, at least Catherine’s own misgiving. As yet it was much of doubt, and little proof. It might be possible to make a reasonable, if slow, profit out of five shilling houses; though remembering the rentals set upon cottages less roomy and worse built than these, Catherine could answer that premise for herself. But the glade—that needed more explaining than Nancy and all her kin. and all her neighbours of the garden city, could do between them. She would not know for what purpose he had desired it; she could not point out from what motive he had covetpd it. That was for himself to answer; and he would never condescend to do that, she was assured. There was no one else.

Then she remembered Mickey Dennis, Mickey who had come with him to the assault of her dominion, and had looked at her in anger and dislike when she had presumed to reject Adam's offer; Mickey who had once undoubtedly opened his lips to make a furious answer, and been restrained only by Adam's hand upon his arm.

It occurred to her that there was more than the relationship of employer and. employed here; that Mickey stood in much the same relation to Adam as Perry did to herself, and resented the placing of obstacles in his idol's path just as hotly. Mickey would be able to tell her all she needed to know, it was less now than ever it had been; she already knew so much, and felt so much more with an intensity which was almost in itself knowledge. “You think, then, like your mother,” she said slowly, “that Probert planned this settlement out of a real desire to better the conditions of the poor people in Stanchester, and not as a financial speculation for his own benefit at all?" “That’s just it,” said Nancy. ‘‘That’s what we believe, all of us here in the village; because we can't see how he’s making a penny out of it." She looked up at Catherine, and her eyes were not unfriendly. "You mustn't be hurt. Mrs Court, if you find the tenants here in the new village a bit cool to you now. You see, they owe him a good deal, or right or wrong, they think they do. But I understand the way it must have seemed to you, too: because I know now how I should feel if I'd lived in this valley all my life, and then someone came and built houses all over it. and tore up the trees. I'm fond of trees myself, and I know how you must have felt—like the end of the world was come." “Something'like that,” said Catherine, shaken, in spite of her composure, by the unexpectedness of (his concession. “And you don't feel that way about it now? But you don't, I can see that. You’ve changed a lot." “I've seen some other points of view besides my own." “It isn't only that," said Nancy, with a furrowed brow. "It’s more as if —- your own needs had altered,- if you know what 1 mean.' As if you'd found something more than trees to bother about now; not that they aren't important still, but as if there was things more important.” (To be Continued.) I