Beneath Their Feet.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 698, 20 October 1909, Page 2

Beneath Their Feet.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL AR RANGEMENT.

By Iza Duff us Hardy.

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

COPYRIGHT

"O let the solid ground m *Not fail beneath my feet!" —Tennyson. SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTERS I. and ll.—lt is the Brantynham's home-coming. George Bramynham succeeds to the baronetcy through the deaths of hts two cousins, lie inherited no fortune, and * j>* ->ut to make it in Florida, where bt carried. 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. Quentin to meet them at dinner. This information upsets Lady Brantynham's 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 recoirnised her. His reflections on the meet, iner prove that she is mistaken.

their grove till their oranges grew. None of us dreamt then of the strange turn of the wheel of Fortune that was to bring us here, back to the old place under such new circumstances. This used to be my ideal of Paradise when I was a schoolgirl and sometimes spent my holidays here, and I sometimes even now can hardly believe in the startling change that has made it home!"

CHAPTERS m. and IV.—Mrs. Cope-Hamilton gives an at home, at which' Sir George and Lady Brantynham are present. Sir George comes oss.-.Rhoda Frewen. whom he has n for six years, and introduces her iv. is wife. Lady Marlowe tells Sir George that Rhoda Frewen has picked up a crooked sjick in the person ->f a man named Dusenbury, about whom no one knows anything, but who is supposed to have changed his na.je. Sir George and his wife Cara chat about things in general, and Cara evinces curiosity about Rhoda Frewen. They both agree that she is a dangerous person to be on ill terms with. St. Quentin meets Alice Brantynham, Sir George's sister, once more; he is rapidly falling in love with her. While driving in the park with the Brantynhams, Douglas sees the beautiful Rhoda Frewen in a victoria, with a man at her side. He asks his companions who the man is. and Sir George replies that he does not know. St. Quentin fancies that he must have been mistaken in the likeness.

"Home —till you leave it for one of your own?" "When that day comes —if it ever does!" she laughed, but a quick blush deepened in her cheek. "It will come," he said seriously, no smile on his face responding to hers. "I only wish " He stopped, rather breaking off than hesitating in his speech, and after only a moment's pause resumed abruptly. "Alice 4 you talk of changes. I wonder if ' you know" —he hesitated now—"that there has been a change in my life too since you went to America?' Alice's colour deepened vividly. She had always understood that the subject to which it appeared he now alluded was one so sore and painful that even his nearest friends never approached it. Could it indeed be that he meant? or was it some lesser change ? She hesitated how to answer the question.

He interpreted her change of colour, the inquiry of her eyes, aright.

CHAPTER V.—(Xntiimed, "I wish I had," smiling as if the thought were a pleasant one. "And George I" she went on waxing more animated in her reminiscences, "George as brown as mahogany, in a blue and white flannel shirt and a cartridge belt, George always armed with

•'Youi have heard it ?" he said. "You know of the change that has revolt tionised the world for—know that I, a bond-slave all the best years of my life, am a free man now?" "Yes, I know." She felt her cheeks burn like fire, felt her eyes sink before his, her voice lower and less steady than usual, and with the sense of her own consciousness a wave of startled pride, and confusion surged over her, and in haste and impulse, with a forced and hurried laugh and a toss of her head, in feigned playfulness, she rushed into the very last thing she would have said had she taken time to think. "But I hadn't that in my mind when I was chanting the praises of my own domestic virtues !"

'A spade, a rake, a hoe, A pick-axe or a bil' 1' chopping wood, digging, planting, pruning—his own gardener, carpenter, plumber and builder and Jack-of-ail-trades! Oh, I must show you some pictures of the place!" she went on, going to a side table, opening a portfolio, and turning over some photographs until she found the desired collection of snap-shots giving various views of the little wooden frontier house, like a scanty slice off, a barrack, in the inchoate grove, and blackened "clearings," and background woods, with shadowy presentments of George—certainly not flattering portraits—George leaning on a pitchfork, George with a string of fish in his hand.

"I know you" had no thought of it," he replied, and in a flash she felt with burning cheeks that she should not have challenged that assurance! "It is nothing to you," he continued, "but it's a great deal to me. I only realised how much it meant to me a few weeks ago. I had grown used to the feeling of being shut out from all the best of life as a galley-slave gets used to the chain. But since "

"I hope I'm not interrupting an interesting conversation," said Miss Frewen, who did not care in the least whether she was or not. "What are these things?" turning over the photographs.

"Poor George's lightest and most congenial task," Alice continued, "was when we sent him out to catch fish for supper or to shoot our dinner. Cara was an excellent hand at a squirrel pie, and we have known what it was to be thankful for a stewed racoon!" "Better a dinner of herbs where love is," quoted St. Quentin, appositely if not originally. "Thank heaven we never missed that flavouring at the worst of times," she rejoined less lightly. "There was never any lack of that. But sometimes I own we should have relished a little more of the stalled ox, though he did come fifteen hundred miles in refrigerating cars and was generally very tough when we got him! Our supper often consisted of fried bananas and cake, 'my' cake, for which I may teil you* I had the highest credentials! Well, the whole thing seems like a dream now; and at its best it was like a sort of prolonged picnic." "You are like the bee that gathers sweetness from every- flower," he remarked. "After all, it was very well for me to look on it as a picnic," she rejoined. "I was only there on a few months' visit. It was different for poor George and Cara, who seemed to have no prospect of getting out of it, only plodding and grinding along on

"Did George and Cara really live in this place? Why, it is like a dogkennel—or a slice off a Noah's Ark I and is this George? Why, he looks like Noah himself in his beard and shirt-sleeves." "Did Noah wear a beard? and was this the popular costume in Noah's time?" laughed Alice.

Her heart was beating so happily, she was less annoyed at the fail Rhoda's intrusion than was her companion. Only later, when alone she wondered what words were on his lips when they were interrupted. "But since"—he had been saying. "Since' —when? Would he have said "since he had met her again?" Was it only then that he had learnt what his freedom meant or might mean? And Alice blushed in sweet bashfvlness at the thought.

Presently Cara came in, and also noticed the photographs on the table. "I was showing them to Mr. St. Quentin, and telling him about Florida and our domestic work and our picnic suppers," said Alice.

Cara looked at the little pictures with a wistful smile.

"They were happy days," she said, and heaved a little involuntary sigh, though there seemed small reason indeed why she, the favourite of fortune now, should sigh for those pioneer days of roughing it, when those pretty white hands of hers had been marred by hard work.

But the thought that rose in her mind, though not to her lips, was, "The world and its ways never same between us then I"

CHAPTER VI. On the occasion of St. Quentin's next visit to Brantynham Hall, the sight of a smart phaeton at the door suggested that other visitors were there before him, also held out promise that the family were at home. However, it appeared that Sir George and Lady Brantynham were out, but the manservant believed that Miss Brantynham was in. Quite content, St. Quentin turned toward the drawing-room to wait for her. "A gentleman there for Miss Frewen, sir," the man remarked as he threw open the door, before going in search of Miss Brantynham to announce Mr. St. Quentin's arrival. The gentleman was standing, according to British wont, with his back to the fireplace, although no fire was there, and St. Quentin, entering the room, found himself at once face to face with the man whom he had seen driving with Rhoda Frewen in the park—the man who now glanced at him at first unrecognisingly, then with an instant's flicker of startled, dismayed surprise that passed like a flash and left his face expressionless as a mask. Coolly and blankly, as stranger meeting stranger, he gazed at Douglas St. Quentin, who stood for a moment silent, his dark eyes fixed, in almost stern inquisition on the other's face, before he said stiffly, "I think we have met before."

"You have the advantage of me," was the polite reply, in .a low but deep, rich, and full-toned voice. "1 cannot recall our having- met." "Can you not?" "My memory is usually a good one. But I don't think I have ever had the pleasure of meeting you before." "I may be mistaken," said St. Quentin, slowly, his eyes still dwelling intently on the stranger's face. "The perso'n whom you resemble would hardly be here."

"I don't know, of course, who or what my double may be, or why he should not visit here. As it happens, I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Sir George Brantynham, though it is by his and Lady Brantynhams kind invitation that I am here, as a friend of Miss Frewen's —who is here," he added in smooth and courteous tones, as there was a soft frou-frou of rustling silk at the opening door —"to introduce me 1"

"Ah, to be sure," said Rhoda, catching the words, as she swept in; "you haven't met before. Mr. Dusenbury —Mr. St. Quentin." She introduced them in a perfunctory manner, and after an equally casual greeting of St. Quentin, hardly giving him time to respond, she went on, turning with her brilliant smile to Dusenbury, "Well, am I not punctual—for a woman?"

"You are everything that a woman ought to be," he said gallantly. "It is I who am, I fear, unpu<nctual in being a little before my time." "It is a better compliment than being behind it," she replied graciously. "I am going to drive with. Mr. Dusenbury to Fair Oaks. You will excuse us, I am sure," smiling at St. Quentin. "Alice, is in the garden, I think. You will find her somewhere by the rosery."

"Mr. St. Quentin thinks we have met before somewhere," said Dusenbury, with a gleam of defiance like polished steel in his eyes. "Very likely you have," carelessly buttoning her glove. "Everybody is bound to meet everybody else sooner or later, and one cannot remember half the people one does meet." "Mr. Dusenbury assures me that I am mistaken," said St. Quentin, looking from one other. "Mr. Dusenbury has generally a pretty good memory," rejoined Miss Frewen, with whom this gentleman apparently stood in high favour. There was generally a tinge of something metallic in her brightness, a suggestion of sub-acid in her sweetest smile, which was curiously lacking now in her manner to Mr. Dusenbury. She was evidently too ready to set off on the drive to wish to waste time in conversation with St. Quentin, and the latter on the impulse of the moment determined to keep silence at least for the present. He could not before the woman's face declare whathe suspected—nay, more than suspected, of the man whom he believed to be her choice. Remembering the rumours that linked her name with his, he could not then and there denounce him. He would at least for the present let it pass as if he were mistaken. Yet he was too sure there was no mistake in this identification of the man who now called himself Dusenbury. Acting on Miss Frewen's plain hint, he went into the garden to find Miss Brantynham. He did find her, but found her not alone. The vicar's daughter, Miss Farquhar, was with her | admiring the roses, 50 he had no chance of resuming the conversation so inopportunely interrupted the other day, as the visitor, to whom it evidently never occuirred that she was one too many, had no idea of discreetly effacing herself. St. Quentin naturally mentioned the incident of Mr. Dusenbury's calling to take Miss Frewen for a drive to Fair Oaks.

"Duseribury? Oh, that's her. shadow," observed Alice with some interest. "What is he like?"

not as a rule, on meeting after years, press personal questions into each other's private affairs. Brantynham had volunteered no confidence. St. Quentin had sought none. Beyond a siinple, sincere, more or less conventional compliment to Lady Brantynham's beauty, her name had not been mentioned between" them. But now the time had come when . he must speak, though not to George. It was no part of his to betray a woman's secret, if secret indeed it were, behind her back. "She must be mad 1" he said to himself, "mad!" When Sir George and Cara returned to the Hall, St. Quentin watched for an opportunity of conversation apart with his hostess. It was rare for these two to meet in a tete-a-tete, still rarer for him to seek it.

"I am glad to find the chance of a few words with you, Lady Brantynham," he said when he had found, or made, his opportunity.' He spoke with his wonted courtesy, with even more than usual careful kindliness of expression, as of one who, weapon in hand and bound to wouod, yet hated to hurt a tender, helpless thing, and her quick instinct took the alarm at once. She tried to force a smile as she responded with a would-be unconscious and inquiring interrogative "Yes ?" but he saw long secret apprehension flash to white terror in her face.

"I have kept silence on matters that I thought it might pain you unnecessarily to mention," he went on, pausing now and then, not in hesitation, bu't in pure pity for her —"but now, in view of present developments, I feel that I must speak to you—must ask you "

"Must ask me —what? And to what present developments do you refer? I have not the least idea what you can possibly mean!" She spoke with a desperate feint of ignorance and innocence, betrayed by her deathly pallor, the husky unevenness of her voice, the wild look of her dilated eyes which did not droop before his, but met them with the defiant challenge of despair. He pitied her as he would have pitied a wild fawn caught and struggling in a trap. "Don't compel me to pain you by entering into details," he said compassionately. "Believe me, Lady Brantynham," with soothing and reassuring dwelling on the name, "I only wish to be a friend to you and to my old chum Brantynham. It is as his friend, and one who will be yours if you will allow me —that 1 must ask you now, Is he aware of—of the present—latest circumstances?" "What circumstances?" she gasped wildly, blindly, as if her senses were too dazed for anything but a desperate clinging to her position of ignorance. "I don't of course," he resumed cautiously, "what may have happened during these years—what changes there may have been in the aspect of things," with slow and significant emphasis, "but in the present condition >f affairs —if, as I gather, iJrantynh;. a is in ignorance of the complication—there must be some readjustment of the position. You must see that it is absolutely necessary, for the sake of all concerned." "Who is concerned ?" she flashed out, with sudden forgetful and complete surrender of her position, "beside me and my husband ? It lies between us two, and who shall interfere between us ?"

"Ask yourself, does it lie between you two only now?"' with emphasis on the last word.

"You mean —you' will betray me?" she gasped. "No. I only ask you to listen to me, to let me advise you."

At that moment there were sounds of steps and voices in the Hall, dominant amongst them the hearty ring of Sir George's genial tones.

Cara started as if the sound struck a dagger into her heart.

"For God's sakel" she gasped, beneath, her breath, catching St. Quentin's hand desperately, "do not betray me! If you do, I'll kill myself— I swear I will!"

"I will not," he promised. "Butt 1 must speak to you again, Lady Brantynham—l must," he repeated urgently- ' '

The door opened, and Alice Braatynham, quick and light of foot, was in the room as the last word was on his lips. Swift as a flash Cara's quiverperfectly straight, the feet catlike, and ing hand was snatched from his, the two heads that for a moment had bent near together were instantly drawn apart, but in that instant Alice had seen the white betrayal of Cara's face, the serious look on his, the constraint of his expression, had even caught the instantaneous movement of the parting hands.

CHAPTER VII. Cara recovered herself more quickly than she woirid have thought possible, but in that instant the mischiei was done. Alice Brantynham, the very last person whom St. Quentin would have wished to break in upon such a conversation, had taken in at one startled glance, the aspect of the interview she interrupted unawares. Sir George's voice was still heard in the hall close at hand; he was "lingering telling Miss Farquhar some anecdote, but evidently both were following in Alice's steps; and on the flash of an impulse she could not have explained Alice flung herself into the breach to the rescue.

"Well, he's a solid kind of shadow," St. Quentin replied. The disclosure he had felt he could not make before Rhoda Frewen's face he would not make now behind her back to her host's sister and in the hearing of the vicar's daughter. But there was one to whom he felt he must speak now. In duty to his friend George Brantynham he rnvst hold aloof in silence no longer. He had never made any inquiries of Brantynham concerning his wife or his marriage. Englishmen do

"You> know that old story of the boar's head,' she said in a hurried, laughing voice with a harder, lighter ring in it than usual —"don't you ?

George is fighting his" battles over again 1" "It is so interesting! andi was just saying how yout have improved this hall, Lady Brantynham t" said the vicar's daughter enthusiastically as she entered the room. Cara had commanded herself to her usual tone as she murmured some polite rejoinder. With "an apparently natural and graceful movement had turned in greeting so that •hj ,y back was to the light. Her face thus in shade, her pallor passed unobserved by them. "I've been trying to persuade Miss Farquhar to stay to dinner," said Sir George, jovial and unsuspicious. "You'll stay, old fellow, won't you?" turning to St. Quentin. He did not observe that neither his wife nor sister seconded the invitation; but St. Quentin did, and excused himself. In the general chat for the few minutes before Miss Farquhar rose to take her departure, which was quickly followed by his own, he endeavoured to catch Alice's eye to draw her into conversation, and win her usual friendly smile, her pleasant word. (To be continued.)