ST. MARTIN’S FLOW

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 252, 6 August 1941, Page 7

ST. MARTIN’S FLOW

By MARJORIE BOWEN.

CHAPTER. XII

LOVE’S DISAPPOINTMENT.

Mary Pettigrew thought there was a good deal in this, but she did not dare say so. 'The weariness of age was beginning to tell upon her; all sham content was shattered.

“Somebody’s got to stay on the land*’’ she declared. “Nobody’s got to live in a house like this with acres of unproductive parkland, employing men just in flower gardens and cutting turfs,” cried Simon, t

“It wasn’t very easy for a woman in my day to break away, Simon. But go over and see Hilda, Simon'. She’s only a girl and may have spoken impetuously. I think she’s fond of you, and even of me.”

“Do you mother?” he asked, eager-

“Yes. Don’t cross her or thwart her. I daresay her ideas are excellent, but they’ll pass. In a year or two she’ll have forgotten all about them.” He;* swallowed his tea/ pressed his mother’s hand gratefully and left hurriedly. < He went to the stable and got out his bay mare, and rode slowly toward the old Mansion Farm. As he passed, he looked down at St. Martin’s Flow, the little streamlet darkly passing the old mill. •The old Mansion Farm was .a handsome Tudor structure, lying in a slight hollow with a great walled garden, in a way a more perfect and handsome piece of architecture than the old Mansion House, that had been so often altered.

Simon,, naturally of a complacent and easy turn of mind, had already forgotten Hilda’s rebuff. He had been quite soothed by the few words his mother had spoken.^ Yes, of course, Hilda would have him. He must humour her a little, must not let her go because of a few wild ideas, because she, unprotected as she was, had fallen into the hands of some bunch of jealous fanatics. When he reached the gates of the old Mansion Farm and spoke to one of the men whom he saw coming along the, drive, he received a most unpleasant , surprise.. Miss Hilda had driven* up to London with two of her friends but half an hour ago. “I’LL JOIN UP! n Simon came home for the Long Vacation. He seemed downcast and discontented, by no means inclined to return to Oxford for his third year. Mother and son had not spoken muon in confidence since those few days when they'had, perhaps for the first time in their joint lives, discussed so candidly and openly their prospects and the affair of Hilda Boult. The jgirl had left the neighbourhood suddenly, after the sudden death of 1 or father; she was supposed to be travelling abroad and the old Mansion I arm was left in the hands of a steward. Mary felt a rancour that she could neither reason with nor control with the girl who-had refused. Simon. \ She put resolutely out of her mind ail this talk of war. She would not read the political news; often the morning paper remained unfolded in its place, and went thus down to the servants' hall.

For the first part of his vacation Simon had friends staying with him. young men with'whom ho was out a .great deal. He did not speak of the death of Hilda’s father, who bad died in a London nursing home. Mary went on b er own visits, and had her own friends, %nd left the young men much apart. She could hear their loud laughter and their excite-, balk as from a distance, and. she only met them on formal occasions., feho would hear them in the billiards room or walking on the terrace, or coming or going together in tne little car or on horseback full of their games,

their sports, and their private interests. Then one morning at breakfast, i Simon opened the paper. He was alone with his mother, for the others were already abroad. . • “Well,” ho said, in a tone of quiet excitement, “war’s been declared. It seems sudden, though 1 suppose wc were all expecting it. I’ve rather tried to blinker myself lately, I suppose you have too, mother, wove all been expecting it. In fact, we heard last night fn Norwich it was practically certain.” “You’ve been taking it all very coolly, if you knew that such a tremendous event as this was certain to

happen 1” „ , , , , “1 suppose we felt wo wanted a last fling,—put it like that, if you like. ’ ‘What are you going to do, Simon ? “I’ll join up, of course,” he said, shortly. , , , _ , . ‘ “You won’t go back to Oxford? “No, of course not. Would you want jno to?” he asked sharply. “I suppose not, Simon/’ HILDA REPENTS. In January, 1915, Hilda Boult returned to the old Mansion Farm. Everything looked the same, and that gave her a bitter* pang. In Norwich, things were different. There were signs, men / jn bine about, nurses with the red cross on their arms, V.A.D.’s hospital depots, collections for the sick and wounded; but here ■—— ~ • “Let’s forget it all,” said Hilda aloud to herself. , „ .. . She sat down by the oak lire that the housekeeper had got ready for her return. She had not been near home since before the war broke out. How stupid it seemed now to have gone abroad when affairs were in that state. She had gone to try to compose herself for w'hat she considered and hoped would be a strenuous, perhaps a brilliant future. She had wanted to dedicate herself yet anew to the cause she had undertaken to serve. How silly that all seemed now! it had been a wrench to give up Simon, and the old Mansion House and all that it meant. But she had not hesitated, no, not really. She had gone with two other members of the Cause to Italy. The three had stayed, with a stack or books and pamphlets td clarify their minds, on a little* farm in the Apennines! And then one day, going down into Florence, they had seen the notice in the window of a newspaper oflicoBritain and France were at war with Germany. Hilda’s first impulse had been to rush home. Impossible! The travel aguicies been oroWded by officers local!td to

A 1 ale of the End of an Epoch.

(Copyright),

.heir regiments, chance travellers like themselves, people who had been residf"® 5 tlme 5,1 Italy, alarmed, contused 1 hero were bewildered queues at the Consulate, and it was impossible to get money from the banks. Who knew which way Italy was jumping? there was talk of a ship sailing from Genoa, but how to get to Genoa? 'the passages would cost fifty pounds each; tiioy had not so much ready money. Alone, Hilda Boult, who was young, strong, and ardent, might have made her way homo again, but one of her companions, Kathleen 'Meryom, caught typhus. ’ &

It was difficult to get money from England. The other girl, the third oi the little■ ardent party that had hoped to put the world right,)’ attached her. selr to a family who finally made their way home.

Hilda had stayed with Katlileen and nursed her. When she recovered, they had gone south, where the war affected them less, and they could live more cheaply. And then, when Kathleen was well again, their homesickness so desperate that they would no longwait even for finer weather, they had slowly made their way homeward, undergoing every kind of fatigue, difficulty, and distress. And here at last was Hilda, hack at the old Mansion Farm, feeling as if her life had been cut in two. She wondered first of all about Mary Pettigrew and Simon. Of course, lie had “joined up,” she wondered if he was still alive. One/ had to wonder that now about almost everyone. Of course, too, she had to do something herselt—drive an ambulance, she supposed, or help in a canteen, she did not know, she had not had time to collect her wits. She felt useless and humiliated. Her ideas had been so grand and large, and they had been swept away as cnair before the wind. Tho cause that srife had served had seemed so all-important, so all-embracing and now it was almost forgotten.

“I must collect my wits,” thought Hilda, “perhaps I ought to stay here and run this place.” She stared at the oak fire. What a luxury to bo in England, even in wartime !

“To-morrow I’ll go ovor and see Mrs Pettigrew. Suppose anything has happened to Simon? He’s ail she’s got, and I suppose, with these new taxes and the war, they’ll he half-ruined anyhow.”

Hlida could get no further than that, there was much that was inexplicable. She could not sleep that night, but paced up and down her room, casting herself down now'and then on the pillows of her old-fashioned bod. now strange it was to be homo again! “I can’t understand what any of this means,” she cried to nersejr. “Simon Pctigrew wanted to marry *;e, hut 1/ wouldn’t have him, and why? I liked him and ho was. well-favoured, and the fortune he offered pleased me. But no, I must consider this cause to which A was bound—woman’s suffrage! What does it matter now if the women have the vote or not?” SIMON IS MISSING. Still urged by an inner emotion, Hilda went early the next morning to the old Mansion House, and asked for Mary Pettigrew. The lady of the Manor received her at once, and with open arms. “My dear Hilda! bo you’ve come back at last!” “Don’t tell mo anything of Simon now,” burst, out Hilda, at last. “I can’t endure it! I know what you will say to me—how I was a fool and liow I put too much on ” “Hush! Hush! All here is tranquil, I hope. We wait, but We wait in peace. Come into tho parlour, the fire is lit. I’m an did woman and you are young. For me the future is over, for/ you it is but a beginning.” “Beginning!” cried Hilda. “I don’t see any beginning in anything. This war! Do you suppose—“l don’t know, my dear. I was shut away in- this ancient world with my wailed garden, and* my routine of day to day, thinking of nothing but how to preserve the estate for Simon, and scraping and pinching to that sole end. Lately I did not dare read the papers, but for you I suppose it’ \fas different—” “No, it was not different for mo, either. But I was not absorbed in routine like you were, 1 was absorbed in—well, the cause for women’s rights and social service. I’ve nothing to say, I’m defeated! Women have no rights, I can see that. I’ve been in Italy with a friend who was ill. I’ve had to nurse her, wo couldn’t get home.” “Oh, Hilda! WhyMiavo you come to me thus?”

1 “I don’t know! I thought at one time I could have loved him, your son, Simon, but these other matters called me. I wanted to be true to the Cause, you understand?” “Tell me,” sighed Hilda, “about Simon ”

“My dear, I can’t tell you. He’s supposed to be among the missing. That is all. Don’t say anything—now. Perhaps he’s gone down, somewhere in Flanders. Who knows? And, in a way, who cares? You refused him when ho had something to offer. I suppose you won’t grievo over him now when he's, littlo more than a memory. Don’t suppose, my dear, that because I was his mother I want to make a hero out of him. I knew that he always had one foot in the past and one in the present.” “1 think lie cared for.me and I pm him aside for something that really didn’t matter at all.” “I’m not so sure that it didn’t matter, Hilda. Only the war has made these matters seem insignificant for the present.”

“I like this place,” whispered Hilda. “I like the air of continuity it has. i feel that I could have been at borne here. But wliat are we but two women who weep together in the twilight?” “We are something more,” said Mrs Pettigrew. “I am old, too old to be Simon’s mother. But you are young, too young perhaps to be his wife.” Emotion overwhelmed Hilda, but sue controlled herself. She sat on the low stool before the flames, putting her hands before her after she had drunk some tea. and eaten some cake, she wished that she had accepted Simon Pettigrew when he had offered himself and let all these questions of female rights and social reform go by the board.

“I wasn’t good enough for what l undertook,” she said. “And, indeed, Fm not the sort of a woman to undertake any sort of career.” For answer, Marv Pettigrew closed her hand over ..Hilda Boult’s and the two women sat together, silent in the firelight. At last the older spoke: “Hilda, darling, there's .not much i can say to you. Simon is missing. You know what that word means, there’s a great deal which it covers.” “I suppose he’s gone,” said Hilda, beginning to weep, “gone for ever . . . and you feel that. You asked me not

to speak—has he gone?” “Wo mustn’t think so. But if he should he gone, have disappeared without even a grave—the old Mansion House will be without a master. It will got to a very distant cousin, :o one who is a stringer, almost an alien. But you’re still mistress of the Mansion Farm, Hilda.” (To Be Continued).

The characters in this story are entirely imaginary. No reference ia intended to any living person or to any public or private company.