"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 December 1940, Page 10

"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

Phyllis Hambledon.

(Author of “Youth Takes the Helm.”)

CHAPTER X. (Continued*. She got Sally on to her back, and managed to bring her to he bank. There were a dozen arms to bear them upwards. But they were still to act. “Take the girl, somebody!” shouted Freyne. “Stay where you are, Jill. Harry, grab her. Cameras!” And Jill found herself hauled out of the water, and carried oy a dipping Harry, according to programme, as if there had been on intervening arrowly averted tragedy, as if she had indeed been merely sprayed in nice warm water. The scene was continued. “Well it’s all right” said Freyne when it was over and when Jill was wearing dry clothes again. “I’ve been talking to the camera men, and they say they got enough shots of the girl, before you butted in, Jill. I suppose you know you might nave cost me a mighty lot of money. As it is, it will be O.K. As for that girl, she doesn’t get crowd work again, much less doubling. Pinched that certificate of proficiency from somebody else, I suppose. It certainly wasn’t hers.” “It all goes to show what somebody will do for a five pound note,” said Jill bitterly. She said no more, but found her way to the housekeeper’s room, where Sally was lying wrapped up in blankets. The child cast a frightened look at her. “I’m so sorry ” she began. •"I’m not,” said Jill, “except for you

“It was my sister’s certificate,” whispered Sally. “She’s on tour, so I took it I can swim a bit, you know, j thought I’d manage, nut I didn’t. I’m an idiot. I don’t deserve to make good. But I was behind with my rent. I don’t even know if they’ll give me the five pounds now. I mess everything I do.” “You’ll get the five pounds all right,” said Jill. “We’ll send your landlady the money. You’re coming home with me till you’re well again. And when you’re well, we’ll do a bit of talking. I might have a job for you, better than doubling, unless you want to go on vzith film work.” “I never want to see a camera again,” cried Sally, with emphasis. “Well, perhaps you never need,” said Jill. “There’s a use for people who like kitchens better than cinemas.”

She rang up her house. Then she took Sally back to Charnford. It was young Dr. Wilson, who carried her out of the car, and upstairs, to. the bedroom Mrs. O’Flynn had put ready for her—Dr. Wilson, gentle as a mother vzith a baby. “Poor kid, ’ he said to Jill as he came downstairs again. “She doesn’t look a bit like an actress.” “No, she doesn’t, does ’she?” said Jill. Oliver had been a fortnight in Biarritz, and was bored to tears.. Never in his life had he been so abysmally weary of any place. And that surprised him. He had thought that he could be happy here, for, from the moment he had seen the twin spires of Bayonne Cathedral in the early morning, to his first glimpse of the purple-blue Bay of Biscay, the black rocks, the breakers curling upon silver sand, he had taken his fill of beauty. It was as if Charnford and illness and a doctor’s surgery ere places out of a dream. This was real, this was how life ought to be lived, here was ease and dignity and luxury. His room in the hotel, with the little balcony in front of it, was the room he wanted; the view of the tamerisks to the beach and the gaily striped sun-tents was the view he ought to have. He was content to lie there most of the day at first, letting the curl of tne waves mesmerise him into a contented somnolence He slept, he ate, he walked a little, he watched the cosmopolitan world that came and went. For the first fortnight, it was

enough. But then, as strength and vigour returned to him, he became impatient. The very scent of the flowers outside his window irked him. The very perfection of service annoyed him. This was not hs place; these were not his kind of people. Some of them tried to make his acquaintance, but he didn’t encourage them. They were drones they fluttered" from one continental resort to another. “We’ll see you again at Trouville, at the Lido, at Cowes —in Scotland!” The world for them consisted merely of the places where the fashionable ones amused themselves. But he was Dr. Oliver Vereker and he had a job worth while. These folk would consider Charnford a dull hole, but in Oliver’s opinion at any rate, its people lived; they were born, married, brought forth children and died. They went on with the business of the world, they aid not merely play, and spend money and lend their own bodies. The sea is too blue, here, thought Oliver, the weather’s too calm, the scenery is too lush. I want to go back. But he knew that he would be unwise to go back just yet. Dr. Wilson had been booked for' a month, and Oliver had reserved his room at the Eclat for the same period. Jill too wrote encouragingly from home. Everything was going on splendidly, there was nothing whatever for him to worry about. All he must do was to get quite strong again. Nevertheless he was beginning to count the days before his return, until one evening, when something rather amazing happened. As he had passed through the foyer, there had been- the hub-bub and bustle or arrival. A train had just arrived from Paris. As he reached his room, he saw luggage being carried into the adjoining suite. The hotel was filling up now, the season was fairly in swing. Another arrival thought Oliver, with nothing to do, but to find diversion. He lit a cigarette rather peevishly, and went out on to his balcony.

It was the delicious hour between daylight and starlight. A yacht swung at anchor in the bay. Lights studded

the pale shape of her, making trailing reflections in the water. The arc lamps of the hotel were enlarged in the gleaming leaves of the tamerisks. Suddenly in the half darkness beside him, Oliver heard the softest, shortest of laughs. He turned sharply, his throat constricted. A woman stood on the balcony next to his. She still wore the big wrap in which she had travelled from Paris, but her face was luminous. It was turned towards him, and she was smiling. But he did not need to see her in order to recognise her. He would have known that soft laughter anywhere. “Viva!” he gasped. “Viva!” “Well, Noll,” said Viva. “Are you surprised to see me?” “You shouldn’t have come,” said Oliver. “Why not?” said Viva. “You know why not.” “Oh,” said Viva airily “I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t know you were staying here, that this is the shock of my life or anything. But, my dear Noll, I’m your sister-in-law! The doctor told me I had to take a holiday as (soon as the picture was finished. When Il heard that Jill had packed you off 'here, well, naturally I thought I’d rather come somewhere when I knew somebody. As for arriving at the Eclat, most people stay at the Eclat anyway. I must admit I didn’t know we wou dihave rooms so close together. Well, I won’t bother you, Noll. As for being—well—silly—we've both got over that!” “Where’s Greer?” asked Oliver

sharply. “How should I know?” said Viva. “Now that the picture is finished, I don’t expect to see very much of him. He's been rather difficult, Noll.” She put on the hurt-little-girl voice, which always got him. He did not guess of course how difficult Greer had been. His wife had at last become restive, and was talking of divorcing him. Greer wanted to be divorced. He wanted very much to marry Viva. But Viva had no intention of figuring in the Courts, if she could help it, nor of marrying Greer. So she had run away from Paris, and so, straight to Oliver. At first she had had little idea in her mind, but to amuse herself, and to annoy Jill. She still had not forgiven her sister. She told herself that she, at last, had the sense to see that Oliver was not for her. But Biarritz is a place where the senses rather than sensed are catered for. The very moon might have been ordered at stupendous cost, to add romance to the situation; the days were full of glamour. It was i the very air they breathed.

Natural that a brother and sister-in-law staying at the same place, should see a good deal of each other. Oliver told himself. But somehow he did not mention Viva when he wrote to Jill. And, since such an ’ omission would have seemed curious in a letter, he contented himself with postcards: “We drove into the Pyrenees today” he would say. “We bathed today.” “We watched Pelota this afternoon.” “We might be anybody he reflected. Leave it at that!

And then, gradually, both he and Viva forgot Jill. Helena, Viva’s maid, she-who-had-lived-in-the-best-families watched in disapproval Surely, surely her mistress wasn’t going to make a fool of herself! Surely, I’m not! Viva too, said to herself, starry-eyed, sitting a white shape on her bed, looking at herself in the mirror opposite. But Birritz and Oliver had the fascination of forbidden fruit. There were long days together, short nights, with only a wall between them.

The best thing that could happen to happen to me would be a telegram, telling me to come home at once, thought Oliver.

He was fighting, but he was fighting a losing game, and he was beginning to realise it. That was a lethargy and an inertia upon his ( limbs. The whole atmosphere of the place was against him. Enjoy yourself’ sang the sea and sky and the stars, and the scent of the flowers. What is there to do in life, except to enjoy yourself? Just another week, thought Oliver with dry lips, just another week, and then Charnford again, Charnford, for life, perhaps.

One evening, he and Viva had gone up to dine at a little Basque inn perched up in the mountains. They had sat at a rough wooden table, had drunk the wine of the country, had listened to the peasant music. Below them the cliffs fell sheerly to a silver river. They saw the sun setting in a glow of orange and rose and emerald and silver. Viva wore green, mysterious, cloudy; her shoulders rose very whitely out of film draperies her eyes were strange, her smile a promise. The music said things to them, strange haunting things they could not say themselves.

“It’s all so beautiful,” whispered Viva. “Doesn’t it make you feel that everything should be beautiful like this for ever?”

“It can’t be,” saidd Oliver harshly. “Let’s keep it like this as long as we can, then,” said Viva. “No!” said Oliver. He rose and called for the landlord. “It was a good dinner, Viva,” he said, “but one pays for it, as one pay for everything.” “Does it matter as long as you don’! count the cost beforehand?” whispered Viva. “Aren't there some things worth paying for?”

She was very near to him. Her eyes said so much more than her word.,. Olivers’ face was white, strained. He began remembering Jill- He was married to her. wasn’t he” Jill, his wile, his very faithful loving wife. Jill, who had worked for him. who was working for him still, back in England. But he couldn't remember her. Like

Charnford, she wasn’t real.

?To be Continued)