HOPE FILLS NO BARNS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 276, 4 September 1939, Page 8

HOPE FILLS NO BARNS

s | By ELEANOR HOBSON.

s :: (Copyright) |

| The Life and Loves of a Rebel Son of a Feckless Family. fe

CHAPTER- XIV. ROBIN IN REVERSE. Robin’s 1 new acquaintanceship meant that he did not see so much of Suzette as before. They still met sometimes at ’the Cafe, however, still had their occasional suppers at Suzette’s petit logement. She took care of that ’ ; "She adored Robin with all the intensity of her impulsive nature, and although she understood perfectly well how hopeless her love was, she did not fret unduly. As she had told him, what did it matter? Her own heart was her own affair. To give expecting to receive in return was not to give at all. It did not incommode him, her heart? No. It was sad, she told herself, when these things were not of a mutuality; hut, sometimes it happens thus. C’est la. vie.

see Robin and so be able to give her first hand news of him. Gerald Oowther replied to the effectthat he .would most- certainly, do so. He wrote to Robin forthwith, telling him of his arrangements and asking him to dine with him, naming the date. In his reply Robin thanked him for his invitation, but said that he would be otherwise engaged upon the evening specified and regretted that he would he unable to see Gerald at all during his visit. Evidently Robin bad no wish to meet him. Evidently, but not truly, Gerald’s letter disturbed Robin, striking chords that had boon soundless for what seemed to be an eternity. He would have liked to meet Gerald very much indeed, and to have had a long talk; but he could not bear Gerald—successful, forging ahead—to find his floundering in the shallows as he was. Gerald, too, was just the sort of prig to put a wrong construction upon his friendship with Suzette and Clare. It was true that Robin had an engagement on the evening Gerald had asked him to dine. Clare had tickets for a new revue, and she and Robin, Franchot Thorpe and a woman friend of Clare’s were going in a party. As it happened, Gerald,’ having nothing else to do that evening, went to the same show. The two men saw each other from afar. Gerald was naturally shocked at Robin’s appearance. The handsome good-humoured face he used to know reflected something of the boredom of the gigolo. Or so it seemed to Gerald. But his heart was stabbed by the desperate defiance in Robin’s glance as he returned his salute. Gerald’s shrewd eyes, with a doctor’s powers of observation, surveyed Robin’s friends. Clare, with her furs and jewels, her white face and thin, scarlet mouth, and Thirpe, with his air of elegant weariness; and Clare’s friend, a brunette, lavishly made up, who might be anything. “What’s he doing in that galere?” he asked himself. And himself supplied the various answers. Naturally, he told Patricia nothing of all this. It was no use upsetting her, for, as things were, what could be done about it? The attitude at The Grange towards Robin was still much the same as it bad been when lie left, and'Robin himself, it was obvious from his refusal to see Gerald, did not contemplate making any advances. So he kept his mouth shut oil the subject, explaining that, very unfortunately, lie and Robin had found it quite impossible to arrange a meeting. But he had an uneasy feeling that he ought to do something about Robin. He would like to visit him unannounced. Preferably, be might learn something of him, first, from the people with whom lie was living. Gerald always “prepared” difficult interviews like tlia-t.

She kept a'watchful eye upon Robin. This English girl he had got to know, this mademoiselle so rich, she was not good for him. No. He was drinking too much, smoking too much, eating too little. She chided him gently. “You are so thin, Robin,” was the chief complaint she urged against the life he was leading. ■" It was true that he was thin. Busy all day, he was Clare’s 1 escort for four nights -out of seven at the least. But the rather hectic amusements she favoured were, to him. a kind of relaxation.. They prevented his brooding. . .. The feeling that he had experienced ppon first meeting. Clare—that he might like to do violence to her at some time —never recurred. Ho hardly thought Of her as a personality, as far as he was concerned, she might have been a figure Cut out of cardboard. Whether she had any sentimental feeling for him he-neither knew nor cared. Had he thought about it, he would have realised that she had not. She liked him because he was a charming escort, was good looking, and could be trusted to behave well in any circumstances. If she could be said to- be interested in anyone, it was in Franchot Thorpe. He was some years older than Robin and herself and she treated him with a .respect that she did not accord to anyone else. The kind of respect given to someone who had sustained a severe ordeal and emerged triumphant. Clare knew many people in Paris, blit Robin-and Thorpe were her favourite companions, and as Thorpe was frequently away—on business, or perhaps sometimes from inclination —he had a t place in the south of England, it ’ appeared, and also villa outside Naples—Robin often accompanied Clare alone. He knew without Suzette’s warning, that by burning the candle at both, ends as he was doing, his health was hound to suffer. But ho did not care, - Sometimes, while working in the close and airless laboratory he would go faint and giddy, and would have to go outside and fill his lungs with the natural product of that necessity to life which was manufactured synthetically inside the factory. He took no lunch, but a cup of coffee and a brioche from the factory canteen, and the “little breakfast” ho had before leaving his lodging was very small indeed. / Ho had arrived at a state now when (lie went through the days mechanically. The life of the factory was repellant to him, , but he had become resigned and indifferent to it. In the course of his work he came into contact, very often with M. Bourgin, but he had no liking for the little man. There was .a nervous ekeitability about liis manner which Robin found very irritating an apparent desire to appear to be always full of life and spirits. “Tt-tt” murmured Suzette, one evening .when he met her at the cafe, watching his ravaged face. “What would your Jean sa\ r if she could see you now?’’ What indeed! “Don’t you ever write to her?” she asked once. “The little billet-doux?” 'How could he write? he returned, when she so clearly wished to hav.e no more to do with him. Suzette sighed: “Ah-ca! It make of tliq difficulty. Yes.” R-obin wrote to his mother, as he had promised her he would, but very seldom.. Short notes assuring her that all was well with him. For her own letters to. him were not unnaturally full of questions as to his well-being. She never mentioned Giles when she wrote, or Jean. (He was still unforgiven and unforgiving). She told him news of the farm. They were progressing. It was true the harvest had been a disappointment, but what else could be expected when August was such a drencher? And it really was too bad that most of the autumn calves had been bulls. But things were sure to look up shortly. If only they had a- little more capital to lay out, they would be on velvet. In spite of Robin’s reassurances in his letters, Patricia could not help but feel vaguely worried about him; placid of nature though she was. He said so little. He had been unhappy when lie left home, and by that sixth sense possessed by mothers she felt that he was still unhappy.

Madame Nicole had decided to retire from business. As she explained to Robin, “when one reaches the cinquantaine it is necessary—is it not?—to take one’s leisure ... I have made a little competence—'and what would you It is not right to be greedy. It is, in effect, but foolish. To work and work to amass more and then to be too old, too infirm, to take one’s pleasure of it.” “You will still live in Paris, madaine?” inquired Robin, thinking that even when she removed from the shop, which, he understood, had, with the goodwill, already been sold, and was scheduled for immediate and extensive alterations, she might still take him in as a “loeataine.” “Mais non,” she replied, plainly indignant- that such a question should be asked. “I—l am not of Paris. I am of Provence. And I go now there to live with my widowed sister. Ah Provence!” She laid her hand upon her superb bust at the spot where she imagined her heart to be, and rolled her eyes upwards. “ You know that country m’siour ?”■ ■ No. To liis infinite regret, Robin did not know it. All, but he was then indeed unfortunate. Provence, it was the country, the department, of France the most magnificent. Nowhere was the grass so green, the flowers so gay as in Provence, nowhere the men so handsome or the women so beautiful. It was the land of sweet wines and good cheer. Tho land of troubadours and poets. Madame Nicole herself became quite lyrical in its praise. ' But all it meant to Robin was that he must turn out of his comfortable bed sitting room and find accommodation elsewhere. With the indifference that now characterised all his actions, be went to tho first- place that occurred to him; a small, cheap hotel, near the Gare Montparnasse, where, if alone, he frequently dined. ri 1 . The room they gave him was not so pleasant as the one he had occupied cliez Madame Nicole. It was tho cheapest they had, but even so, more than lie had been paying. He would have to curtail something, because, largely on account of his friendship with Clare, ho liad boon living up to the limit of his salary before. Suzette scolded him for not having consulted her about lodgings. She would have found him much better ones than his hotel of L’Ecureuil d’Or—such was its name. It was not a good hotel, no. Once or twice Suzette had dined with him there and the food had been such to make one sick. Out of her own garbage tin she could make a better meal. It was not of a cleanliness either. True, there might be a bathroom, but what was that when the glasses were not well polished, or the cutlery and silver ware in good order. And what of table napkins and sheets? Were the napkins presented fresh each day, were the sheets properly aired? She had very much doubted it. The L’Ecureuil d’Or was good enough he told her. In any case, what did it matter? She sighed, regarded her hands and

If only she could go over to Paris and see how he really was. It.was no distance nowadays. One flew in an hour from 1 Croydon. But Patricia’s private purse was now as, nearly always, waiting upon the beautiful future which lay round the corner. Generous when she did have any.'money, she spent without thinking, usually! finding herself in need when it was most inconvenient to be so. * A visit to Paris was more than she could afford at the moment; because, well, a visit to Paris was a visit to Paris. Besides the bare expenses there was what one could not help spending in-the shops. VISITOR FROM HOME. Tt was no use asking Giles. He would not hear of her going to see Robin—or go himself. Then, one Sunday morning coming oiit- of "church, Mrs Crowther, the vicar’s wife, informed her that Gerald had been, deputed to attend a medical conference in Paris, which was to lake place the following week. Patricia at once wrote to Gerald and asked him if, as a favour to herself, he would try and

with her little white teeth, tore off a particle of broken finger nail. She must look after him, or what would Jean think of her? Deep in her secret heart she had allied herself with this Jean of whom he spoke. She. knew by instinct that she was right in fooling that the very thing which, in nearly all cases, caused division and enmity between women in this acted in a diametrically opposite ’way, drawing and binding Jean -and himself together. They both loved the same man. In her oddly logical way she began to evolve a plan. (To be’Continued.)