The Troubled Journey

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19880, 8 May 1936, Page 4

The Troubled Journey

SERIAL STORY

By MARGARET GLENN.

CHAPTER II. — (Continued). Joan, as she went to her room, needed no more telling that he did realise the differences of opinion between Janet and herself. He would have mentioned his wife, or would have said something about her in some way, if he had not realised that it was a dangerous topic. Joan wondered, not for the first time, just how much Old John Martin really saw. lie was supposed to understand nothing but his chemicals and his theories, but she wondered whether that was true. For the moment, however, she was fully satisfied. There would be no query about her leaving Dancheste." for a while. Joan had a little shock as she realised how worried she had been lest anything had cropped up to stop her trip to London. She realised how completely she had always been dependent on others. It had never seriously occurred to her to go away before, despite the dislike which she had conceived for Janet. Partly, of course, it- was due to the fact that she had not wanted to be parted from her father, because she was afraid of hurting him. But it was not altogether that. For years she had been used to submitting to the will of others. She had spent a comparatively idle life at home, and she had lacked that “sorfiething” which was necessary to make her own decisions. She felt a little breathless now. And then she smiled as she realised that this had started because she had muttered “nonsense” aloud while intending the word for herself alone. Well, she was glad it had happened. She felt a lightness in her heart which had not been there for a long time. She was looking forward intensely to the time which she would spend with Felicity. And after that Joan didn’t know. She told herself, as she began to pack her things, that she didn't care. But she was as nearly sure as she ever would be of anything that she would not be coming back to Danchester for a long, long time. CHAPTER 111. Joan told her father, later in the day, that she would be going to London on the following Friday. That day was a Wednesday. Old John smiled at her. “You haven’t lost much time,” he said, with a little nod. “Well, it’s just as well to know what you want and to go and get it, my dear.” “Is it?” asked Joan. Was there a double meaning behind his words? she wondered. Was it possible that her father, apparently so blinded to everything but his work, had actually realised that she had been too easily handled by Janet, that •she had drifted, instead of making a definite course of her own? Joan hardly knew; but she did know her now than he had done since the that her father seemed much closer to day when he had met Janet, and his second marriage had been broached. It was on the following morning that she found an envelope addressed to her in her father’s neat writing on her dressing-table. Old John must have slipped inlo the room and placed it there while she had been asleep. She opened it wonderingly. Then she gave a little gasp of pleasure. Inside there was a cheque for fifty pounds! Her father had said briefly: “Have a good time, Joan; and if you need any more money don’t fail to let me know. —Dad.” Fifty pounds! She had some money saved up; probably her total fortune was seventy-five pounds. An idea, already half-formed, grew very strong and clear in her mind when she reaiised that. She had enough money, even after she had paid her expenses to get to London, and had enjoyed her holiday there, to' last her for at least six months, living on her own. Six months She might, a few days before, have been deterred from carrying out the idea by the thought of the unhappiness which it would cause her fatherBut now she doubted whether it would worry him. lie seemed to understand a great deal more than she had previously realised; and she doubted whether he would have given her fifty pounds just for a holiday; certainly lie would not have thought she would need more than that. Yet he had said, without any apparent reason, that il’ •she needed more she must ask him for it. Old John obviously realised she would be away for some time. Joan Martin thrilled to the prospect of the future. Even at that moment Danchester seemed a thing of the past. She was going to get away from her stepmother, away from those cronies who filled the West Side house so often, away from the mental worry; and she realised, a little «adly, away from the ghost of the past. She felt, then, that her mother was standing at her side, smiling. Would Mary, her mother, have smiled in approval at the thoughts that were in Joan’s mind at that moment? “I won’t take a taxi,” Joan told herself. “It’s an expense, and I can’t afford luxuries.” With a little smile of pleasure on her lips she left Wimbledon Station and walked towards the bus stop, which she could see a few hundred yards along the road. She asked a portly policefnan which bus would take her to Downs Road, and he directed her friendjly. Joan was feeling as though she were dreaming, and that soon she would wake up. For Hie first time in her life she had visited London alone. It was a terrible thing to admit, she told herself, at twenty-one. But it was true. She had, she acknowledged io herself, been a little nervous at first. Dan Chester’s quiet High Street and its solitary bus service had been nothing to this roaring Metropolis. London seemed alive! Everything, everyone, was hurrying. More people than Joan could remember seeing at once before thronged the streets. The noise and clatter were almost deafening. But people were smiling; policemen m their sober blue looked safe and solid; conductors and guards were cheerful and helpful. Joan, despite the novelty of the experience, fell nothing frightening. She did no! feel alone. She felt as if all these people were friends, as if any one of them would have turned and helped her. In many ways she was right. Joan Marlin hardly realised at lhat lime that she was vorv beautiful. The society iti which she had moved at Danchester had been, for the most part, feminine and middle-used. True,

j she had belonged to a tennis club, I and one or two of the younger men ! there had tried to interest her. Rut none of them had succeeded. None of them appealed to her, other than as pleasant, decent youngsters; that she could fall in love with any one of them never entered her head. Joan’s immunity from love affairs had been one of the things which had pleased Janet. Janet had her own ideas about the marriage of her stepdaughter; there was a certain prosperous business man who would shortly have been pleading for her hand. Joan, if she had ever realised it, must have laughed, for he was middle-aged and portly. That was one of the things which would never come about, however. For her own part, Joan had just not been interested in men. Some of them had amused her, and several times she had felt almost motherly towards men five or six years older than herself. She had walked home with them, from tennis, and had secretly smiled at their red-faced efforts to express themselves. But she had never laughed at them openly. It would not have been kind, and in any case she felt nothing but appreciation for the way in whicli I hey spoke. None of these Uttie romances had ever gono far enough for Joan to have been told of her loveliness, in that very clear-cut way which lovers have. She knew' vaguely that she was pleasant to look upon, and she liked to see herself dressed well. But it had never been important. As she walked through London, however, many curious eyes had been turned towards her. London is full of curious people. Men and women have developed the habit of looking at you, although they appear to be looking at something else altogether. The glances which Joan earned were admiring, for the most part. She would have blushed furiously if she had dreamed of the j compliments which men, both young and old, imagined themselves telling her. She had little difficulty in getting from Paddington to Wimbledon. The journey which she had made, partly on foot and partly by bus, across i London had been solely for the sake of seeing what there was to see; she ! was fully satisfied by the time she | reached Wimbledon, on the District , Railway. She was surprised as she went towards Downs Road on a bus similar to that which had carried her across London at the great difference between this outlying suburb and the city itself. Everything had been vast, or terribly crowded together, in London; here everything was spacious; the houses, for the most part, were built in ones or twos; each house had its pleasant little patch of garden tended carefully, without exception. It was different from Danchester if only because of the number of houses; they seemed endless. Road after road, turning after turning, she passed; now and again she caught a glimpse of a stretch of grassland, and once, bei tween the roofs of houses, she saw I the trees of Wimbledon Common; at that time she did not know the name of the place, but its fresh greenness appealed to her. “Downs Road!” bellowed thfe conductor. Joan hurried down the stairs. The man, big and red-faced, helped her with her two small suitcases. She stood on the pavement for a moment, watching the bus disappear. Then she looked up at the name which was painted on the side of one of the houses in the road. This was Downs Road, Wimbledon. In one of these pleasant, cosy-looking little houses, Felicity was waiting for her. How different, how wonderfully fresh these places were when compared with the vastness of the West Side house, with its great rooms and high ceilings. Joan laughed a little. It would almost have heen possible to put one of these houses into the breakfast room of the Danchester House 1 She brushed the thought aside, took a firm grip on her suitcases and started to walk along the road. Each house had a name, and she went slowly, in order to make sure that she did not miss Park View. Felicity made sure that that didn’t happen, however. One moment Joan was peering at a house, trying to read the name which, inconsiderately, was painted on the door and not on the front gate. The next she heard a shout of welcome, and, turning round, saw Felicity hurrying across the road. Felicity was dressed in a dark blue frock. Felicity’s eyes were gleaming with delight, and her cheeks were a healthy red, her teeth gleaming . white, as always. Joan held her breath. Felicity looked wonderful. “Joan!” “Darling!”

(To be continued.)