RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 238, 21 July 1941, Page 7

RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN.

8 By PETER BENEDICT. : :

(Copyright). |

| A Story ofy’Lawsuit and Romance. 8

CHAPTER XXIV.,

put in a longer time than he had meant to give to Adam’s affairs that day. The tree-stumps, one of them older by far than the invasion of the valley, my rather more than a hundred and fifty yards from tho white gate in the lane, and well away from the nearest houses, some few yards within the hedge. Tho one was the broken remains of an elm of terrific age, which had blown down on its own account some four years before. The remaining three. Adam had had felled, and the raw boles of them stood up yellowish, white among the grass. Two of the four were together, and probably joined * under the soil, the other two stood a dozen yards or more apart, and needed each a chayge. They saw the first shot go up as they approached, a charge nicely calculated. Tho old elm stump exploded in a flurry of soil and splinters/and a cloud gathered and hung where it had been rur several minutes. Britten met them with a satisfied grin. “There goes one of ’em. (Glad to see you back, Mr Probert, and all settled so well. Seems it fizzled out, after an. These women!”

JOYLESS VICTORY. \

Adam Pro her £ and Lyddon Strang left for Court Brandon by the train, that afternoon. »/ Adam was aware of it, for he \had seen Lyddon enter his first-class compartment a few moments before ithe train drew out. For two very different reasons they were each of them anxious to get home as quickly as possible, Adam to his neglected work, and Lyddon Strang to the bewildered Catherine who had suddenly thrown down the tvalls of Forli, and left, attackers anti defenders gasping. < “If only,” thought Adam Pro her £, “one could really get inside that mind of hers !” And he supposed that/the intensity with which he watched and envied Lyddon Strang was due to a detached curiosity in keeping with what he had always considered his proper character. Thb ability to- satisfy that curiosity, to take Catherine Court aside and ask her point-blank: ‘What does all this' mean?—that was what he lacked. Lyddon, Strang could do, it; and that was what Adam envied him. So, at least, he told.himself; and at the same time wondered, with the analytical interest ho. applied even to himself, whether he was being entirely honest. - The end of it was that he sat back in his corner with a resigned smile, shrugged his- shoulders and opened his book, and whether Catherine was so easily banished from his mind only himself knew. Ho saw Lyddon Strang leave the station at Stanchester. There was inevitable business to which he had to attend in town before he went on to Catherine’s arms. It struck Adam as typical of him. There was almost half an hour to wait before the next train left for Court Brandon, and he half-expected to see Strang return before it was due out; nor did human curiosity account for the impatience for which he had bargained even in this cojd and precise person. But Lyddon Strang did not come. He had telephoned Catherine from Stanchester that he was arriving later in the afternoon. So it was Adam Probert who was first to reach Court Brandon. * He found something of a, conference going on in the little office among the N new houses. Kenworth, i eyes gleaming behind his spectacles with excitement and triumph, was disclaiming any foreknowledge of Mrs Comet’s intention. Mickey Dennis sat in his accustomed place upon the desk, and not even the apprehension lie felt for his own position could deprive his face of the glow of conquest on Adam’s behalf. Bran Galway, the architect of the Probert estate, sat on the one spare chair with a hook in his hand and a cigarette between his lips, and looked from one to the other of them with some amusement, but no very keen interest. “Then how,” demanded Mickey, “did she get the tip? If you let nothing drop, then who was it ? When she came to me, she already knew half of what 1 could tell her. Where did she get it from?”. , Said Adam, coming unnoticed to the doorway: “That’s what I want to know.” , They swung round as one man, and in silence watched him come in and close tho door.

Alan watched the smoky cloud disintegrate slowly, and thought obstinately of these women, or at least of the one woman who bad brought all these strange things to pass, and had accomplished above all, what he had believed could not be accomplished—to. turn his mind away from the work he had made for himself. That, had she but known it, was her triumph. They attacked the double stump next It was the nearest to the houses, and the nearest to the hedge, lying only a yard within it. Once there had been an archway of boughs over the lane at this point, where the two trees which were one all but interlaced their branches with those of a young ash which jutted from the hedge opposite. Now only the ash remained, and, deli-, cate distinction, the ash must not be touched.

That meant an exceedingly nice judgment on Britten’s part; but Britten was sure of his calculations, and gave the signal to touch off as coolly as before. And in tho second that the fuse glowed, and before the man who had lit it had taken three steps back from his handiwork, someone—and the someone turned out afterwards to be Mickey Dennis, gave a sudden cry and pointed, and turned all eyes on the lane. Both ends of the lane had been guarded well enough, and there was no way into the lane between them, but had its red flag and its watching guard. But no one had thought to put a guard on the little white gate, for there was no ’way through it, but only the one ferny path; and why should anyone be inside the glade in the late afternoon of a winter’s day? Nevertheless, a. woman had just emerged unnoticed from the gate, and was now walking briskly along the lane toward the spot where the ash tree leaned outward.

■ ‘lt’s Mrs Court!” cried Mickey, and everyone shouted and waved frantically at once, so that tho girl heard, and saw, and hesitated, conscious that something was wrong, but unable to guess what it could be. She stood hesitant for a moment; and then, since she did not know what else to do, walked on as before. The thin jet of smoke from the fuse ran.

“Hullo, Bran!” he said abstractedly in passing, and came to the table, and dropped gloves and hat upon it, and extracted and lit a cigarette before he spoke again. “Well, now I’m here is someone going to tell what it’s all about?” “I only wish we could,” said Kenworth, pushing his spectacles up on to his forehead. “Mickey here knows the end of it, but where it began we cauu imagine.” “It's over, anyhow,” said Mickey, with a spurt of triumph. “What does it matter how or why ?” Adam watched the smoke curling up** ward'slowly from his cigarette, / and said,’ “It matters a great deal to me. And I want to know at least all you can tell me before I do anything else. What is this mystery ? Did Mrs Court come here and ask questions?” “No,” said Mickey. “She came to mo in Stanchester.” “And what did you tell her?” “What do .you think? What I’ve wanted to tell her all along, from the day you played your scene with her .about that glade she owns. I told her you were making nothing out of the settlement, and .1 told her who the people in the houses were, and I tolcl her every other thing I could speak of about the recreation ground, and the buses, and the whole boiling. She asked me, and she got it. What did you expect me to do?” / “Just that!” said Adam, with a tired

“Catherine, go back!” cried Adam. The name he had given her was lost in the general shout; but before it had passed his lips lie was running full for the hedge. It was not low, or thin, but he cut through it with a rending of thorns and tearing of twigs, like so many minor reports from the report to come; and then he had her in his arms, all the startled, frightened, elusive reality of her, warm and shuddering with an instinctive fearand had swept her into the far hedge, and crushed her into the shelter of the ash trunk, with himself for an outer barrier. Catherine did not know what was happening, hut she yielded to his .arms as readily as the leaves to the wind, and crouched quivering and .panting in the shadow of the tree. There was a dull noise which seemed at ( once very far off and very near; and the turf under her feet seemed to heave with a hollow boom, and settle again slowly'; and a dark cloud had risen and spread oyer the light, so that only the two of them remained in -the world, crushed breast to breast'against the tree. The noise ran on in her ears, and would not cease. She lifted her head, and found him laughing. The thorns of the hedge had torn a furrow across his cheek, and a slow trickle of blood was running down from it; and he was laughing gently to himself, for not a stone of the lane was displaced, and scarcely a twig of the tar hedge was broken. , ~ , “I’m sorry if I frightened you, he said, in the measured and cool voice she knew. “It seems there was no reason, alter- all.” Catherine was silent.' He looked down at her face uplifted so strangely from his arms, and it was ashen pale still with the suddenness of the onslaught, and witnout any expression but a sort of dazed wonder. tShe was thinking not of this brief and rather ridiculous scene but of the evening when she had met him first, when she had walked into his arms, and they had folded and never touched her, with the detached care one would have for a china ornament. They were firm enough about her now, those arms ; this was the completion of the scene begun then; and it seemed to her that if only his arms had tightened upon her then as they had done now, all the weary interim could have been wiped out and put aside, and each of them would have been spared much pain. This was the right thing; this was the only thing; and. neither of them had realised it until it was too late. She smiled, suddenly, and something of what she felt came into him. This had always been the most real part of her to Adam Probert; the mt*re heft and balance of her in his arms, resilient and strong, as it hail been in the begining. Ho said: “Catherine!” and kissed her, as simply as if an inevitable fate led him; and in that moment, when his lips were leaving hers, he saw her 6yes sharpen upon someone or something which she saw over his shoulder. He turned, and beheld Lyddon Strang coming along the lane toward them. (To Be Continued)

but angry sigh. “I suppose it’s no use arguing with the issue now; it’s done. But why you couldn’t respect my feelings, and put the women off with half an answer, I can’t imagine.” He added, raising his eyes to Mickey’s face with a speculative smile:.“l suppose; it’s no use trying to fire you, either; you wouldn’t go.” “I would not,” was his reply. Mickey Dennis leaned forward, still anxious in spite of his chief’s humour. Ho perceived that Catherine was where she had no right to be, for ever uppermost in, Adam’s mind, shutting out all other interests behind the banter of her presence. Mickey said, protestingly: But seriously, what does it matter ? It s her affair what she chooses to do.” “Perhaps,” said Adam, and he got up restlessly, aud walked to the office window; it was still broad daylight, and the stillest hour of the winter afternoon, and he saw the heads or the trees against the sky shadowy black beneath their sparse leaves. The red tiles of his house roofs running upward one above another no longer gave him any untroubled pleasure. “But I don t like this surrendering without a word; it isn’t like her. And I wanted to see the end of it.” . _ “You have seen the end,” said Bran Galway. , ~ ~ “A .had anti-climaXj then.” He shrugged his shoulders in sudden, savage resignation, and asked: "What s been happening here while I’ve been away?” . ... ~ “Oh, everything’s gone smoothly, said Kenwrth. “We’re lifting those tree-stumps further up the lane almost any time now, if you’d like to see them go up.” Some positive interest came back to Adam’s eyes. He turned back to the room. got both ends of the lane covered, of course?” “Oh, yes, with men and notices. Though there’s never any tiling on the lahe at this hour. And there’s no midway opening into it between here and the farm, not even a field. They re very minor shots, but you never know, of course. Let’s go and have a look at Britten put ’em up, shall we. EX-ENEMIES. They went, all but Bran Galway, who had business in town, and had already