“THEY SAY SHE KILLED HIM”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 March 1941, Page 10

“THEY SAY SHE KILLED HIM”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

BY

PEARL BELLAIRS.

(Author of “Velvet and Steel,” "Christabel,” etc.)

CHAPTER VI. (Continued). “You mustn’t worry any more about this Trench business. I don't know the ins and out of it ”he hesitated an instant as if to give her an opportunity to tell them to him, but hurried on, perhaps because he had a board meeting at eleven-thirty: “But evidently Trench had suicidal tendencies, and if he hadn’t taken his life for one reason, it would have been for another. We can’t hold ourselves responsible for such people. All I can say is—don’t let yourself be annoyed. If there’s the slightest suspicion of anything like blackmail in the business—and it’s not impossible —-don’t hesitate to come to me, and I shall take action at once.”

He pointed a commanding finger at her, while he rose from his chair to depart to his board meeting. Because he fancied he was doing all he could for her, Valerie made a murmur of thanks, and realised how fruitless it would be to try to make him understand how she felt, even if he had had time to listen. Can’t you go away, or something?” suggested her father. “You don't look well! A rcund-the-world cruise might do you good. I’ll stand you your expenses.”' “No, thank you; I'm quite all right. Daddy." Paternal and business worries fought for possession of Sir George’s face, and business worries won. How cut and dried his world was! Valerie thought . . How it was all pig-eon-holed. One was “annoyed,” one was “libelled,” one was “blackmailed.” If he had had time he would have admitted that one might have a heart which was subject to torments of conscience, a soul lost in a dark night of remorse But it was years and years since he had had time to think about it. She set out to try to do all she could to minimize the harm she had done so far as Peter was concerned. She knew where Eileen Allen lived, for she had once driven Peter into town from Hertfordshire and dropped him at the girl’s studio in Notting Hill Gate. She was not certain of the number, and she had to knock on two shabby, blistering doors before she found the right oire . . A thin girl of about twelve in a paint-daubed smock, with a broad, pale face that bore a sisterly resemblance to Eileen’s, answered Valerie's knock. “She's out at work,” the child replied when Valerie asked for Eileen. “She won’t be home until six.”

It was a quarter past four. Valerie drove into town and made a pretence of having tea in an hotel lounge, while she waited until six o’clock. She felt she could not bear to be in the flat. Someone would ring, want to chat brightly, expect her to respond, or worse still, to go somewhere. At a quarter past six she found Eileen Allen at home. She was a roundshouldered girl, with ill-brushed hair, and the sort of sallow skin which never looks clean. The collar of her coat was dusty, and her worn sandals Were badly in need of polish. At the sight of Valerie her face turnea paler, with a sort, of wild surprise. Her lips tightened, she asked Valerie to come in and sit down on the one threadbare armchair; a hostile glitter came into the girl’s eyes, profound and painful to see, like that in the eyes of some injured animal. The younger sister stood staring fixedly at Valerie with sad curiosity. “I expect you’re surprised to see me,” Valerie said, summoning all her courage:. “We don’t know one another very well,, and so perhaps you may thing it rather odd! But it’s just because—because of Peter, you know!” A nervous spasm passed over the girl’s face, and she asked confusedly: “Why?” “Well, I know you were a friend of his. I wanted to know if there’s any way in which I could help?” “How could you help?” Eileen Alien’s voice sounded a double note of hopelessness and contempt. The little sister seemed to wince, and her stare grew sadder than ever. “I thought there must be some way. I thought you must have had a bad time; and perhaps Peter had been helping you. And I have so much,” Valerie went on, summoning all her strength. “I’d like you to let me help you if there’s any way I can.” “Help me with money, d’you mean?"

“You’d be helping me, so much, if you would let me do what I can ” Valerie’s voice died away nearly to a breath.

She felt utterly at Eileen’s mercy; and in the same moment she realised that the girl was too blinded with grief and resentment to give her any. “I suppose you want to make amends because you think Peter committed suicide because of you!" Eileen burst out. bitterly. "Of course I dont’—!" “Well, he didn't; you needn’t flatter yourself! Long before lie ever met you had anything to do with it!” Eileen’s voice rose more excitedly with every word. “Is isn't that! I wanted to help you.” Valerie made one last effort. “Why? Why should you? What am Ito you? Can you swear to me it isn’t because of that?” Valerie stared at the girl’s quivering face, tried to speak, grew pale, and could not do it.

“I knew that’s what you thought!” Eileen’s voice dropped level again, still shaking with resentment. “But I tell ' you you’re wrong! Time and again Peter u'sed to say life wasn’t worth living. His skin wasn't thick enough, he couldn't stand things, and I don't blame him. But my skin’s thick enough. I’ve got a job. I'm all right, I don't want any help from you. Don’t ’come here again—that’s all—offering it !” She was in tears. Thick sobs shook

her, and stretched her wide mouth in hopeless misery. She could not find a handkerchief, but pressed the black of her hand against her nose, while with the other she motioned Valerie towards the door, and grabbed it open for her. Frightened, shaken, in despair, Valerie passed out; she turned for one last word, but in the crack of the door saw only the sad, shocked eyes of the little sister who had come forward to close it. Valerie walked wretchedly away. She had tried to do something practical, and she had failed utterly. She felt that Eileen Allen was right, too—for what sacrifice was it to her, Valerie, to give money? One consolation she had come away with, though, and she clung to it. It was the suggestion that perhaps it hadn’t been her fault about Peter after all. Perhaps everything Dr. Trench had said was malicious and completely unfounded? After all, as her father had said, one couldn't make oneself responsible for people like Peter!”

Valerie arrived at her flat in a state bordering on hysteria; frantically rang up a man she knew and asked him if j therq, was any chance of making up a J party for a supper dance. I "Why, Vai, of course, I'll do all I i can!” and he hesitated and added with a half-laugh: “I had an idea that you were out of the running in these days. I’d have rung myself, otherwise!” Out of the running! Why did he say that? But, of course, he knew—everybody knew about Peter. They were all saying she had killed him. The whole set would be talking about it. She must forget! She steeled herself desperately, smiled perpetually all the evening, danced and talked with feverish animation. At supper the man on her right had a red carnation in his lapel, the woman opposite was wearing violets. In the brightly lighted restaurant Valerie shivered. Sne seemed to feel the night wind on her bare arms, and see flowers nodding dimly on new-filled grave . . .

She went out of the restaurant at one o’clock without saying good-bye to anybody, got into her car, and drove down to Hertfordshire. It took her some time to find the church, for she had never explored Peter’s village. She wandered in the shadows of the churchyard for a little while before she found the grave; but there was a moon and it was not difdicult ’to recognise the pale circle of her own wreath, lying with others on the mouth of earth. She sank on her knees by it, heavy with pain. It was three in the morning when she came away again, stiff with cold and weariness, her evening gown trailing its expensive hem in the muddy grass. The gate creaked, and the wind whispered in that eerie place. But her pale face was calm, and steadfastly lifted. It did not seem a sentimental indulgence, now, to have come.

For- now she knew that there could be no'patching things up. Her way of living in future must be different. It must be an effort towards a better sort of life; a pilgrimage in search of redemption. CHAPTER VII. Disappointment followed. It was easy for Valerie to come to a decision —but how difficult to put her resolutions into effect! There were weeks of disappointment and weary futility, months of evading other people's surprise, and in some cases, annoyance, at her change of habits. Valerie was working every day in a club for unemployed women, unhappy still, dissatisfied with her own efforts, when the chance came, to go to China, and she seized it — She had taken to wearing the plainest clothes. Two-thirds of her income was devoted to the purpose of sending convalescent children from the East End to a home in the country; she had had to argue with her father over it, had had to explain her point of view, and been sent to a nerve specialist in consequence. She had been threatened with the stoppage of her allowance altogether—uuntil Sir George had been advised by the nerve specialist to let her send sick children to the country if she liked. She went out quietly, seldom smiled when she was with men. She had almost a fear of influence over them, and if she could check their interest by looking stupid, then she would do so.

. . . She didn’t want to think about love, because she didn’t deserve happiness. Sometimes she thought that if she married at all it might be to some labourer, so that she could live and work and suffer as the majority of other people did . . . She didn't realise that some of her ambitions were a little absurd. She became more and more conscious of the suffering about her that she had never imagined; the millions of pinched, starved, stunted souls, deformed and apathetic, ground under the industrial machine, as it rolled on its way, making life comfortable for her own kind . .

So huge, it all was! And what could one do? Whatever she did was not real. She could never want. If she fell ill her father would sen her away to the best nursing home. She could know no real anxiety . . . She was in that frame of mind in November, when she was nursing a woman in a small street off Barking Road, who had influenza and a child with a mastoid in the East End hospital. She offered to go and see the child, and realised when she went to the hospital that it was there that Dr. Trench had his job of surgical registrar. (To be continued.)