Beneath Their Feet.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 696, 6 October 1909, Page 2

Beneath Their Feet.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By Iza Duffus Hardy.

Author of "The Lesser Evil," "MacGilleroy's Millions," Woman and Fate," "Oranges and Pomegranates," "The Butterfly," etc., etc.

COPYRIGHT.

"O let the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet!" —Tennyson. SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS, s CHAPTERS I. and ll.—lt is the Brantynham's home-coming. George Brantynham succeeds to the baronetcy through the deaths of his two cousins. He inherited no fortune, and went out to make it in Florida, where he married. On their return Sir George, his wife, and his sister Alice find themselves centres of attraction. Lady Marlowe entertains them, and informs them that she has asked Douglas St. Quentm to meet them at dinner. This information upsets Lady Brantynham'b equanimity. Lady Marlowe also mentions Rhoda Frewen, another of Sir George's old acquaintances. On the Friday, the night of the dinner. Cara Brantynham dresses herself with unusual care, and changes her hair from dark to gold. This surprises her hostess. Lady Marlowe, and Sir George, but both think it a childish freak. At dinner Douglas St. Quentin is introduced to Cara, who trusts that St. Quentin has not recognised her. His reflections on the meeting prove that she is mistaken.

CHAPTER IL— Continued, ''Yes—no—l mean we stayed here tor a day or two to rest on our way io Bishopsleigh, and " She hesitated, colouring vividly, almost painfully. Her kind hostess, glancing in their direction, thought how shy she was, but no doubt that shyness would wear off after a little more social experience. ,f Yes ; one wants a rest after the Atlantic voyage," he said, easily, endeavouring to relieve her embarrassment "You have been living in America for some years, Brantynham tells me." "Yes; in Florida" "The land of oranges and alligators," he observed, smilingly. ''Yes, but we did not see much of the alligators; the oranges were more in our line of interest. You know we had a grove," she added, getting more at her ease. "Life in an orange grove sounds something ideal," he remarked, "and it is a delightful climate, I have heard." 0 "It's beautiful in winter, but the summers are trying." "It is well that you have come over here in summer," he said. "You will have time to get acclimatised before the frosts and fogs of the English winter —happily far off yet." "Oh, I am not afraid of cold weather," she answered. "You will not find It very cold at Brantynham Hall if you winter there; it is well sheltered."

"It is beautiful, and I'm sure it is most comfortable and delightful in every way," she rejoined, less constrainedly as she warmed to the subject of her future home. "It is a fine old place," he said. "A cousin of mine has just taken a furnished cottage near Bishopsleigh, and I am going down to stay, so we shall be neighbours." "Yes?" she said, forcing a smile as if at a pleasant prospect, but looking up at him with a startled glance. It flashed across his mind that those large dark eyes had something of the look of a hunted fawn. His answering glance was kind. Was there even something pitying, reassuring in his smile as he made some easy and pleasant remark in reply. "Well, Cara," said her husband, cheerfully, when the guests had departed ; "how did you get on with old St. Quentinr" "I only had a short chat with him. I thought he looked nice." "And so he thought of you," Sir George rejoined with conjugal complacence. "I had meant him to take in Cara," remarked the hostess, "but Mrs. Lightway is so fidgety about draughts I had to change the arrangement at the last minute and put her that side of the table." Cara felt there was something to be hankful for in Mrs. Lightway's fidgets, which had saved her from the ordeal of being chained to St. Quentin's side during the dinner hour. Yet it seemed that more or less intimate association with him was an ordeal she could hardly hope to escape. He was an old and evidently favourite friend of George's. He was here in London, and he would be there at Bishopsleigh, and doubtless a frequent visitor at

Brantynham Hill. The only thing she could do was to accept the situation. She had come from a frugal life of daily toil, the primitive hard-working life of a pioneer settlement, to the existence of ease and luxury in a beautiful English home; but she felt as if she had left behind peace and tranquility there in the little three-room wooden cottage amongst the orangetrees. Yes, there behind her lay calm —and safety! What might be awaiting her here in her native land? Meanwhile, Douglas St. Quentin, too, was thinking seriously (he was not a man who took things lightly) over this meeting which seemed well-nigh as strange to him as to her. "Better they had stayed in Florida," he said to himself, reflectively. "It is risky—very risky to bring her here. There's one thing, Bishopsleigh is a safe distance from Slumborough, and she's a good deal changed, though I knew her at once. Poor little woman! those frightened eyes of hers were like a wounded deer's. I wonder how much Brantynham knows?"

CHAPTER 111. The next day was Mrs. Cope-Hamil-ton's at home. That lady, being a popular hostess, her visitors on these occasions not only filled the rooms, but overflowed into the garden, which was one of the attractions of the CopeHamilton villa in Old Kensington. Amongst the' gathering on this particular afternoon were Lady Marlowe and her guests. Lady Brantynham, as one of the newest stars of that particular system of the social firmament, about whom there had already arisen a good deal of curiosity, soon found herself the centre of a little circle, anxious either to make her acquaintance or to improve acquaintance already made with the wife the new baronet had brought home from no one knew where, but of whose beauty and grace the report had run around like a prairie fire.

Sir George, seeing his wife apparently enjoying herself, and in no need of his moral support, strolled out into the garden, and there, while making his leisurely way through the scattered groups on the lawn, came face to face with the beautiful Miss Frewen, whom Lady Marlowe had mentioned as one of his old friends. Beautiful she certainly was, and the women knew what Sir George did not, how far her beauty was indebted to artificial aid. She was tall, fair, statuesque, and her toilette was perfection. She had left her first youth some way behind, but so delicately and discreetly had Art been called to the supplementing of Nature that to his eyes Rhoda Frewen looked exactly as he had left her some six years ago. Their meeting was mutually cordial in the extreme.

All the world over one finds it the same. Set virtue in lags against—shall we say, vice ?—in a Paris toilette the one will be left bedraggled in the gutter, while the other scores success. You are nrt sc different from the rest of your kind, Sir George. You know," with a slow soft smile, "you would rather be talking to me than to the peppe-and-salt person over there, in the hat of the year One —wherever did Mrs. Cope-Hamilton pick her up?" "But I never classed you either with the very good or the very bad —only with the very beautiful!" he rejoined laughingly. "I hope you won't ininoculate my little wife with your fashionable morality. She would not understand it as I do."

"Oh, no fear! I won't breathe on her iced innocence with my sacrilegious breath! You will have to lead your white lamb about with a blue ribbon, George!" she laughed. "I see you have chosen exactly the sort of woman I always knew you would like."

"How did you know? for I never knew myself until I found herj" he rejoined smiling still. "I knew your ideal better than you did."

"Look round and see if you can pick her out," he said, with a gleam of pleasure in his eyes as he perceived his wife in amongst a group just then coming into the garden. Miss Frewen followed his glance.

"Ah? The one in black and white with the golden hair?" she sair, instantly guessing aright. "You al•;d Frewen, when after a little thit-chat the group drifted and scattered, Miss Frewen still retaining hex old friend at her side. "I congratulate you on your choice." "Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed/ 5 he quoted. "Quite exquisitely fair," Miss Freiven continued as if appreciating a picture, "and that mass of golden hair throws out the dark eyes so effectively," Sir George smiled to himself, but respected the secret of what he thought his wife's harmless little vanitv.

"How well Rhoda is looking," Lady Marlowe remarked that evening when they were talking over the day's meetings ; "and she was without her shadow to-day."

"Has she set up a shadow?" inquired Sir George with languid interest. "Perhaps I should have said 'another' shadow. The line of them has been as long as the Kings in Macbeth. It seemed as if it would stretch out to the crack of doom! She was always an arrant coquette, as you know. Over and over again she might have married well, but she has gone through the wood, and now I am afraid she is going to pick up the crooked stick at last."

"Well, the crooked sticks must be picked up by somebody," he observed, "but I should not have thought the fair Rhoda was one for that pick-ing-up. And what about her stick ? I suppose it has a name?" "He rejoices in the name of Dusenbury. I did hear a whisper that he had changed his name; and he is the sort of man of whom one can quite believe it. Rhoda picked him up somewhere abroad, and has managed to foist him upon some of her friends, bwt he is not one of us; he is not a gentleman. I cannot understand Rhode's infatuation." "Can one ever account for a , woman's infatuation?"

"Or for a man's," rejoined Lady Marlowe, standing up for her sex. "I suppose we shall not have the pleasure of seeing Rhoda's infatuation here?" hazaided Sir George. "I have not invited him, and 1 do rot intend to invite him unless I am obliged. Of course, if Rhoda marries him, one can hardly excuse him." Later that evening when the Branlynhams were enjoying a tete-a-tete chat about things and people of the day, Miss Frewen's name again came up, and Sir George observed, "I hope you will get on well together, Cara I should like you to be good friends." : : I dare say we shall be friends all right enough as the world goes," she answered. "She is not the sort of woman I should like to have for an enemy. She is very handsome, but there is a hard cold glitter about her beauty, and I believe she doesn't like me." "Now that must be your fancy, Cara! She spoke of you in the most admiring terms." "Words are easy enough, and perhaps she wished to please you, George." "Vain puss!" he rejoined smiling. "So you think your praises please me?" "I know I shouldn't care for any praises that didn't please you," she answered with a sweet glance from the great soft dark eyes. "Well, I dp believe that, little girl," he said heartiiy. In high good humour with the things in general and his wife's success in particular, George chatted on, giving her little biographical sketches of the people they had met that day, but her mind was wandering, and presently when he paused for a reply, she asked suddenly, "Was she ever fond of you, George ?" "Fond of me ?" he echoed disregarding the past tense. "Good Heavens, Cara! she is a most devoted wife; why she was married when I left school." "Miss Frewen?" "Why, we had left her behind long ago. I was speaking of Mrs. Lightway." "But was she?" urged Cara, with a wistful searching - glance. "Was who, what?" "Was Miss Frewen fond of you?" "What an absurd idea," irritably, and flushing a little. "What put such nonesense into your head?"

"I am so glad to see you, George," she said with one of her brilliant smiles, making no haste to withdraw her hand from his. "Only think, it is nearly six years ago .since we last met, and yet I live!" with a laughing audacious glance. "And thrive!" he rejoined, regarding her'with appreciative eyes. "You are looking ten years younger, and — if possible—handsomer than ever!" "Quite one of your own old compliments. I am considering," looking him in the face, "whether 1 can return it? I see no trace of the ravages of Time! And I hear, to leave our own attractions for the present, that you have imported a whole cargo of beauty on your own account:" "My wife, you mean? And she is something better than beautiful," he added with a contented smile. "Better than beautiful? Now, George, you dont mean 'good ?' " "That's what I do mean." "Good people generally bore me," Miss Frewen remarked reflectively. "I suppose it is from some defect in my constitution, and then you* know that I was born and bred in a set where they didn't take much stock in mere humdrum goodness. I know I shock you dreadfully, George." "No, I know your tongue will never do justice to your heart, Rhoda. I know, in spite of your cynical way of talking, that your standard is as high as that of the rest of the world." it is," she assented drily, "but that is not saying much.

"Nobody put it there, it came of itself to-day, George," softly, and stealing her hand into, his with a propitiatory caress, "do you know what I have been thinking? That if you had not married me, Miss Frewen would not have picked up a crooked stick, but have married you!"

"I think the fair Rhoda regarded me as a very crooked stick in those days," with a rather grim dry smile. "She would not have thrown herself away on a poor beggar with twopenct in his pocket. But put that idea out of your mind, Cara. I have always admired Rhoda Frewen immensely, but she is the last woman in the world I should wish to bave for my wife. Don't let any groundless fancies take hold of you, little woman ! You and Rhoda Frewen will naturally meet, perhaps often, and I should not like there co be any coolness betwen you I tell you frankly, I wish you to be on pleasant terms. Rhoda Frewen is a dangerous person to be at odds with." "So I can well imagine; that is exactly the impression she produces on me."

"I don't mean to set you against her," he interposed, perceiving that he was going on the wrong tack.

"Oh, no, you don't at all," said Cara with a re-assuring smile. "We are quite of one mind. Trust me, George dear, I'll do all I can to carry out your wishes. I'll make myself as agreeable as ever I can to Miss Frewen and I've no doubt we shall get on very well.".

"That's my own little wife," said the satisfied husband, rewarding his docile spouse with a kiss.

CHAPTER IV.

It was the social hour of the day tea when Douglas St. Quentin, walking into Lady Marlowe's diawingroom, encountered a pleasant surprise, This was not the presence of Miss Frewen, whose beauty he had been well accustomed to contemplate for a good many more seasons past than the young lady would have cared to count. It was a younger, fresher face that smiled at him, when, having greeted his hostess, Lady Brantynham and Miss Frewen, he glanced at the fourth member of the group, a tall slim girl standing by the tea table. 'Here is Alice, you see," said Lady Marlowe cheerfully. "You' remember Alice?"

"He would not dare to own it if he didn't,".said the girl gaily, giving him ber hand.

St. Quentm had never a light hand at badinage even, of the mildest. He only smiled as he pressed the frankly offfered hand in a cordial clasp. "I did not know you had arrived," he said. "I came late last night." "Aad was as welcome as sunshine," put in the hostess. "That used to be our old pet name for her, you know," turning to *lady Brantynham, "Our Sunshine!" "You could not have found a better one," said Cara with an affectionate glance at her sister-in law. "So the sun rose at midnight—an unusual hour for the proceeding," remarked Miss Frewen with one of her chilly smiles She did not care to hear any other woman compared to the sun, though she would not have grudged their being likened to moon or star beside her •)\vn full-orbed lighc. It appeared to her that everybody was too much taken up with that girl, Alice Brantynham. There was Douglas St. Quentin looking at her as if there was not another creature in the room worthy his atter.ti.jn. Indeed he was thinking that she was lovelier even than he remembered her. Her girlish grace had gained in a touch of statliness ; her colouring of warm chestnut hair and viclet eyes and creamy fair complexion lovelier than ever. But Alice Brantynham's charm lay not in beauty of feature, form, and colour; there was magnetism in her smile , sympathy in the frank gaze that knew no fear nor guile. The stream of ronvrr^u 1 <•> flowed fast and free. There was so much- to be asked and told about Alice's life in Savannah —her journey home —the Atlantic voyage--the delay in landing—the lateness of her arrival. The other women had so much to ask, and Miss Brantynham so much to tell, that St. Quentin had but little opportunity of putting in his word, but he listened contentedly to their bright babble. There was no doubt about the friendly relationship between the sis-ters-in-law. He noted their mutual looks of pleasure in rc-twiion as he glanced from one to the other, and Lady Brantynham meeting his eyes felt that there was something sympathetic in his gaze. These two, George Brantynham's wife and George Brantynham's friend had seen but little of each other since their first introduction at Lady Marlowe's dinner-paity, bu>t there was a c:siri<<m *•' terest in their meeting glances, a flick-. er so slight that even Rhoda Frewen's keen eyes failed to observe it. What she did remark, and with a shade of jealous dissatisfaction, was the frank camaraderie between Alice and her brother's wife. "You two are great chums," she observed. "Were you' friends before you were married?" Lady Brantynham looked for a moment half startled as Miss Fiewen turned upon her with this sudden question—it was Alice who answered simply and frankly. "Oh, no, we never met till I went to stay widi my brother in Florida." Again Douglas St. Quentin cast an involuntary glance at Lady Branynham, and again it seemed as if an el ectric thrill of strange questioning—was it of pity on his side, of fear and doubt on hers ? —for an instant passed

like a flash in the air between them. The park was no haunt of Douglas St. Quentin's, but the day after this visit it happened that he found himself there with the Brantynbiims, at least with George and Alice; Lady Brantynham had gone to the dressmaker's with her hostess. The meeting was accidental. It kad occurred to St. Quentin that it was long since he had been in the park; it would be a pleasant stroll and lounge for a h-isuie hour; and if he remembered that Alice had said something about going there that afternoon he did not acknowledge the thought to himself. Anyhow, there they met, and there they three sat, and watched the stream of fashion roll by, visions of beauty, visions of the wealth of the world, passing in kaleidoscopic procession and seemingly unending round. (To be continued.)