"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1940, Page 10

"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

PUBLISHED EY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

MARGARET WATSON.

CHAPTER VII. (Continued). They went to the concert. With the music round their spirits like a cloak, with their hands foolishly linked upon the arm of their seats, and their cheeks close together, they were back at the beginning again, where their romance had been created. They were happy, and immediately in the most beautiful unison. It was impossible that there had ever been the smallest shadow between them. They walked home afterwards. There was moonlight, and it was warm for April, with a soft air which did not chill with the sun's departure. Erica slipped her hand within his arm. and stretched her steps to match him. They walked with the cloudy presence of music still about them, but thinning a little now in the alien air of the world. “It was glorious, wasn’t it?” “Marvellous. Didn’t it make you see pictures? It always does me. But then, I could never, from a kid, resist mixing up my senses; I always wan. to express one art in terms of another; music in pictures, and pictures in music, and poetry in both.”. She sighed. “That’s why I shall always think of you by ‘Minstrels.’ ”

“Because I seemed to you an itinerant musician of life, I suppose, always departing?” “Because you didn't seem anything of the kind,” she said, with a throb at her heart, and a surge of panic for his too deep understanding. “It struck' me all the more because it seemed to have nothing whatever to do with you.” “Well, maybe you're right. Anyhow we're two minstrels now, and wherever we go we go together. What say you?” So it was still there, the thought of the onward road! And still there sprang up in her the instinct to meet it full, and answer it as he wanted it answered.

“I say Amen!” His fingers closed upon hers with a tight pressure. "You’re great. You’ll never let me down, I know.” She thought desperately: “No, I never will, if it costs me everything I’ve got.” There was a sort of peace in that thought. "We’re going to have a lot of fun al London's expense,” she said. "There'!] be lots of concerts like tonight’s, and theatres, and all the jolly things under the sun. I'm going to love being here." Martin said doubtfully: "That's like you, dear; I mean it’s like you to see the nice side of everything. But I can’t help feeling that it’s hardly what I promised you.” “We went into all that before, didn't we? You needn’t worry about me, Martin. I’m satisfied to go with you; 1 don’t ask any better.” He vzas silent, but his arm hugged hers with an almost painful pressure. She felt suddenly that she was accepting at least a half of his love on false pretences. He believed that she was identifying herself with this stable existence only out of loyalty to him, when in reality it fitted the measure of her desires as a glove fits a hand. She owed him her love all the more because of this harmless deceit.

“Whatever is all right for you, Martin, is all right for me. This life won’t be dull. I don't see how it can. But I want you to know that whatever you want to do, I’m on. If you come home tomorrow night and say: ‘Pack a bag, Erica, we’re leaving for the moon in half an hour.’ I shall be ready on time.”

“I wish I could,” he said, laughing “you'd love it, wouldn’t you? That’s the sort of life for which you're really designed.” Thank goodness, though, it couldn’t really happen! Fancy being summoned at a moment’s notice out of that delectable yellow and brown flat, from its music, and the Meryon etchings, and the golden cushions, to indulge in some hare-brained adventure! But -if it should happen, of course, she 1 would have to go; she would have to go like an arrow, without an instant’s hesitation, without a question, without a single glance of regret; because that was the only way of living up to Martin. CHAPTER VIII. One evening towards the end of their fourth month in London. Martin came home in another mood. Erica was arranging roses in a bowl, and listening abstractedly for his coming; but the moment she heard his hand at the door she know that something had happened. The sight of his face as she turned to meet him confirmed her instant knowledge. His eyes were alight with something more than eagerness. ‘Tack up. Erica! Never mind flowers! We're going abroad.” She knew then that she had been waiting for this moment, th;st she had been keyed up and ready for it since the day of their homecoming. How, otherwise, could she have found the courage of deceit to cry out at once, hard on the heels of his words: “When? Tonight?” “Tomorrow morning.” She had a fleeting impulse to throw up the whole pose then and there, to let her resolutely smiling month relax into the obstinate, angry lines it was aching to assume, to say flatly that she was not going, that she did not want to go. that she was happy where she was. Instead, she said, crisply: “All right. | I'll be ready. What time do we leave?" Martin swooped upon her and swept her into his arms. “Darling, you’re the most patient creature under the sun J All the while I've been wanting tol bring you this opportunity, until 11 was beginning to believe it never

would come. I've longed for it myself, too. You never complain; but confess, now. it did get rather monotonous, didn't it?” ' Erica closed her eyes. What was the use? She had not the courage to turn back now. “Well, if you want to have everything straight—well, perhaps it did rather.” He laughed exultantly. “Well, now we're going roaming again. Not for such a very long time; maybe only for a month, and only on business, unfortunately, but still we’ll have fun. And this is only the first of many trips together, I hope.” Erica looked round at all her household goods, and they appeared to her even lovelier than they had ever appeared before. She thought resentfully: “Fancy having to leave all this, and just as it was beginning to feel like home!” , Aloud she asked: “Where are we going?” “To Stockholm.” “To interview timber magnates?” “Well, something like that. But you’ll love the town.” “And how are we going? Not by air this time?” “No —ship; so you can take whatever you like. Darling, you are glad, aren’t you?” “Glad? Well, you bet I am!” There was no ardour lacking from that response, at any rate. She had proved to herself that she could deceive him quite easily, though at what cost to herself she had as yet no clue. ‘And I've a lot of friends in Stockholm who’ll love to meet you. And you’ve at least one there yourself; Jon Bernstorn —you remember him? — lives on one of the islands off the harbour.” “Does he?” said Erica. She had almost forgotten him. “And you’ll adore the town. It’s built on hundreds of islands, with bridges in between; and you shall go Up and down on little steamers instead of buses, and walk in the Deer Park, and explore all the museums. I promise it. I’ll take you to see the shirt Gustavus Adolphus wore at Lutzen. We’ll sail all over- Lake Malar. We’ll have a glorious time.” “What about your business?” asked Erica drily. “That won’t occupy me all the time, I hope.” “I. suppose not!” she sighed in agreement; she could not help laughing at his eagerness. But in her heart she did not want either the Deer Park, or Lake Malar, or the shirt of Gustavus Adolphus. They were all very well in their way; but she wanted rather to go on with her singing lessons, and arrange about the new curtains, and decide how to accommodate the overflow of books which as yet had no home. However, she had chosen her part, once and for all. She went with Martin to Stockholm. She was sure from the first that it would not be the halsyon trip he painted for her; partly, of course, because things never were quite the same in fact as they had been in fancy; partly because they were not in tune, and she knew it, and was continually and painfully on the alert lest he should, discover it. Fortunately he accepted her enthusiasm without question, though there remained always the apprehension that .some day he would see through it.

From the moment that they were out of London ho seemed to snuff the air of freedom again, and his eyes were continually on the horizon. It seemed to her then that they were standing in the middle of a bridge, and that some day each of them would have to decide which way to take; either forward into the blue distances scarcely seen, or backward to the quiet four walls with only love to furnish them. And she knew which he would take; but she was not, even now, sure if her resolve was equal to following him.

Martin would have liked to take her from Gothenburg to Stockholm byway of the Gota Canal and the Lakes, but the journey was too long, and time was of some value to his employer, il of little to him; so they went by rail. Even so the country had beauty, which was always an intense pleasure to her; and Stockholm itself, when they reached it. justified all Martin’s praise. From the moment that they- entered the town Martin began to be recognised. First it was a Danish captain with fair hair and a face burned to a colour like oak, who met them as they sauntered along the quays; then an influential old man whose true position Erica never fully grasped, but who appeared to be extremely important, rushed upon them in the Deer-Park with outstretched hand; then 'one of the curators of the museum came reverently but hurriedly across his lofty halls to shake hands with Martin and ask is he himself was remembered: then a priest; then a business man who cannoned into them in the street; then a magnate in his own adopted world of timber; then a singer from the opera whose brother had sailed with him in old days. They were not always the people she would have expected an adventurer to know. On the quays, in particular, he could not-stand for long to watch the ships load and unload without being hailed by someone on board one or other of them. Wherever they- turned it was "Marlin! Martin Hirst!" in tones of joyful surprise. There was. too. the old un- | flattering astonishment at her own significance. No one seemed to expect Martin to have a wife. She could not quite see why. (To be Continued).