“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 March 1940, Page 10

“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

PETER BENEDICT.

CHAPTER XIX. (Continued.) Alan watched the smoky cloud disintegrate slowly, and thought obstinately of these women, or at least of the one woman who had brought all these strange things to pass, and had accomplished above ad what he had believed could not be accomplished—to turn his mind away from the work he had made for himself.

They attacked the double stump next. It was the nearest to the houses, and the nearest to the hedge, lying only a yard within it. Once there had been an archway of boughs over the lane at this point, where the two trees which were one all but interlaced their branches with those of a young ash which jutted from the hedge opposite. Now only the ash remained, and, delicate distinction, the ash must not be touched.

That meant an exceedingly nice judgment on Britten’s part; but Britten was sure of his calculations, and gave the signal to touch off as cooly as before. And in the second that the fuse glowed, and before the man who had lit ithad taken three steps back from his handiwork, someone —and the someone turned out afterwards to be Mickey Dennis, gave a sudden cry and pointed, and turned all eyes on the lane. Both ends of the lane had been guarded well enough, and there was no way into the lane between them but had its red flag and its watching guard. But no one had thought to put a guard on the little white gate, for there was no way through it. but only the one ferny path; and why should anyone be inside the glade in the late afternoon of a winter’s day?

Nevertheless, a woman had just emerged unnoticed from the gate, and was now walking briskly along the lane towards the spot where the ash tree leaned outward. ‘•lt’s Mrs Court!” Cried Mickey, and everyone shouted and waved frantically at once, so that the girl heard, and .saw, and hesitated, conscious that something was wrong, but unable to guess what it could be. She stood hesitant for a moment; and then, since she did not know what else to' do, walked on as before. The thin jet of smoke from the fuse ran.

“Catherine, go back," cried Adam. The name he had given her was lost in the general shout; but before it had passed his lips he was running full for the hedge. It was not low, or thin, but he cut through it with a rending of thorns and tearing of twigs, like so many minor reports from the report to come; and then he had her in his arms, all the startled frightened, elusive reality of her, warm and shuddering with an instinctive fear, and had swept her into the far hedge, and crushed her into the shelter of the ash trunk, with himself for an outer barrier.

Catherine did not know what was happening, but she yielded to his arms as readily as the leaves to the wind, and cruched quivering and panting in the shadow of" the tree. There was a dull noise which seemed at once very far and very near; and the turf under her feet seemed to heave with a hollow boom, and settle again slowly, and a dark cloud has risen and spread over the light, so that only the two of them remained in the world crushed breast to breast against the tree. The noise ran on in her ears, and would not cease. She lifted her head, and found him laughing. The thorns of the hedge had tom a furrow across his cheek, and a slow trickle of blood was running down from it; and he was laughing gently to himself; for not a stone of the lane was displaced, and scarcely a twig of the far hedge was broken.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said, in the measured and cool voice she knew. “It seems there was no reason, after all.” Catherine was silent. He looked down at her face uplifted so strangely from his arms, and it was ashen pale still with the suddenness of the onslaught, and without any expression but a sort of dazed wonder. She was thinking, not of this brief and rather ridiculous scene, out of the evening when she had met him first, when she had walked into his arms, and they had folded and never touched her. with the detached care one would have for a china ornament. They were firm enough about her now, those arms; this was the completion of the scene begun then; and it seemed to her that if only his arms had tightened upon her then as they had done now, all the weary interim’ could have been wiped out and put aside, and each of them would have been spared much pain. This was the right thing; this was the only thing; and neither of them had realised it until it was 100 late. She smiled, suddenly; and something of what she fell came into him. This had always been the most real part of her to Adam Probert: the mere heft and balance of her in his arms, resilient and strong, as it had been in the beginning. He said: "Catherine!" and kissed her, as simply as if an inevitable fate led him; and in that moment, when his ’lips were leaving hers, he saw her eyes sharpen upon someone or something which she saw over his shoulder. He turned and beheld Lyddon Strang coming along the lane towards them.

CHAPTER XX. Catherine and Lyddon Strang walked slowly back through tic dusk together, the first dusk which was hardly more than a deepening of the blue which showed in the distant hills, and a dimming of the black which hung everywhere over the trees of Court Brandon,

There was silence between them, there had been silence since they had left the shadow of the new houses, since the last laborious sentence of explanation and the last murmur of understanding. It seemed to grow heavier upon them both as they went, so that they walked like two very weary people.

They had talked about everything; about the houses, and the rents their tenants were paying for them, and the bus service, and the swimming bath, and the tennis courts, and all the other mysterious things, which Adam Probert had given to Court Brandon out of his own fertile mind; about everything which was in their minds, except the one thing which loomed greater than them all.

Not a word had he said, nor she, of that kiss in the shadow of the ash tree in the lane. Not a word would either of them say about it, if thqy walked until midnight. It was so much easier, after all that had happened, to let things go on as they were. Catherine had taken off her hat. and swung it in her hand as she walked; and the evening air upon her forehead was gently warm and damp, as if with the promise of rain. She did not look at Lyddon, but downward at the ground, her brows drawn together in her pale face. But persistently she felt his eyes upon her. eyes no longer puzzled, but only gently wondering, not now at her or any of her inconsistencies, but only at what he himself should do in this strange and unforeseen emergency. “I always thought,” he said at last, ■’that there was more in it than we had seen. It was so strange that he should choose this , place at all. There were other sites nearer to town, and just as suitable for his purpose; and'he seemed to me —and to you, too. as I know — a man who would always do everything in the light of cold reason. But neither of us guessed the reason.” “How could we?” said Catherine. “It was the thing I hated most in him, and the thing I admire most now. But —• don’t let’s talk about it any more.” They walked for a few minutes’in silence after that, and silence seemed now the only language in which they could talk to each other; for now that they attempted no words, Catherine felt herself drawn nearer to Strang, and slipped her hand within his arm. where his fingers closed upon it warmly! and so they walked, more and more slowly as they reached the first rise of the hill, in a subdued companionship which they had seldom attained before that day. Aud presently even speech seemed easier to Lyddon. Suddenly he stopped, dead upon a step, with a little helpless sound like a laugh and a sigh in one. Catherine stopped, too, looking at him along her taut arm with the first glimmer of wonder in her eyes, for Lyddon was seldom unexpected in anything he did. even to the littlest things which pass between friends. But she said nothing. “Catherine,” he said, taking her by both hands, and drawing her round to face him at the edge of the grassy waste which bordered the road. “Oh, Catherine, why do we go on pretending like this? Pretending that everythings the same as ever, and that we're going to be married, and live happily ever after! Why do we keep up this feint of caring about each other?" “Don’t you care about me?” asked Catherine dully, raising her tired dark eyes to his face. “You know I do, and always shall, but I don't care to have you like this. I should never have brought marriage into it at all; it was enough joy to me just to help you. without selling you my help, like that." “It wasn’t like that at all," said Catherine, stirring herself to protest for his sake, though still her thoughts were far from him. “You mustn't talk about it in such a tone, Lyddon. You asked me to marry you. and I said I would, and the help you were giving rfle had nothing to do with it.” “It had everything to do with it, Catherine, and you know it. You gave me an advantage of you, you see. I knew you wouldn’t be willing to take something from me, and give nothing in exchange. I knew you were too proud for that. I knew it was the only chance I ever had had, or probably ever would have, of—getting you into my power." Ho smiled, and swung her hands lightly in his. “It sounds silly, doesn't it. when I'm so completely in yours, and always have been? But the fact remains that I took advantage of you.”

“You wanted me to be happy,” she said softly, “and you wanted to be the one person to make and keep me happy. I know that, at least.” “But that still doesn't make me any prouder of it." "But my dear Lyddon, everything's just the same now. Look!" She drew her left hand slowly from its glove, and showed him his ring shining upon the marriage finger. “I’m not complaining, you see.”

"And you never would. Don’t I know it? But it isn’t enough, Catherine. Something has changed, my dearest, changed out of all knowledge. I was willing to stick unscrupulously to any chance of winning you in the end. 1 was —I am —low enough to get you by trickery. But I’ve not yet sunk so low as to keep you when 1 know you belong to someone else.” "What do you mean?" cried Catherine, flushing before his steady smiling glance. It was a smile she remembered. at once resigned and embittered. She saw the end of his happiness in it; if. indeed, she had ever brought him happiness. "I mean that you love him. Oh. don’t try to put me off now. You can’t stand on your dignity with me any longer, you know.” “I —love —him!" repeated Catherine, slowly, as if shf had not understood.

“You didn’t know it, did you But it’s true. Think of it; isn't it true?” Her pale face did not change; she stared at him in silence, like a puzzled child, her eyes wide and dark, until he laughed gently, and with the warmest impulse he had ever felt even towards this most beloved person, he put his arms around her. The sparse leaves rustled faintly'over their heads in a rising breeze; along the twilit road nothing moved to disturb their loneliness. "That kiss.” said Catherine, slowly, “you mustn’t mistake it; it was nothing at all ’’ ‘lt was not that; or perhaps it was. partly, but what I saw was your face, my dearest Catherine, and the way you looked at me." He lifted her left hand, and gently drew his ring from her finger, and shut it into her palm, holding the doubled fingers fast closed upon it. though they did not so much as flutter at the touch.

“Keep it, if you will: I don’t want it to be a reminder of anything unhappy; but if you could possibly think of me sometimes, without being miserable — and without being so foolish as to think you should reproach yourself about me —well, I shall be glad." He lifted the clenched hand, and kissed it. “There! It means nothing but that from now on. Your friend Lyddon Strang gave it to you as a memento inori—a reminder of something which is blessedly dead." Catherine’s face quivered; she opened her lips to protest, and he put his ngers gently over them. “No, don't say anything yet. Don’t say anything until I've gone; I’m going very soon. You won't be troubled with me any more. And don’t try to make me stay, because 1 know it would be silly, and hurt both of us in the end. I’m going back to Stanchester; and you're going to him." He smiled. "I think you’re wise to love him. May you be happy, my darling.” He kissed her, and turning away from her suddenly, walked rapidly down the hill.

Catherine stood still, staring after him, breathing slowly and deeply, as if she had been asleep. She saw him reach the crossroads, and there he turned. and waved his hand, and so went on; and after a few minutes more the dusk received him from her sight, and he was irrevocably gone. She looked at the ring, where it lay in the palm of her hand, all its diamonds shining still in the waning light. Then slowly she began to retrace her steps, following where Lyddon had led her so unexpectedly, almost as if there had been some hypnotic quality in his last advice to her.

At the crossroads she. too. hesitated; then she turned to the right along the lane, and walked steadily past the gates of the new houses to Adam Probert's ofl’iee. (To be Continued.)