Wheels Within Wheels

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LXIII, Issue 2477, 19 May 1939, Page 4

Wheels Within Wheels

FRANK HOWEL EVANS, < ( AUTHOR OF "FIVE YEARS," "THE CINEMA GIRL," ETC, '

CHAPTER XIX OLD FRIENDS They all laughed, and Guardene, to their surprise, looked rather em ai rassed and turned a little pmk and appeared to find his words with difficulty. "Well, you know, Hany, old man, I think it's quite possible that I might be of some little bit of use to you, you know. The old place in the North is going to be done up, of money is going to be spent on it, and the estate is going to be put in ordei, and I shall want somebody to look after it, you know, somebody I can trust, for when I get married I shall spend a good deal of my time there. I expect." ' "When you get married Jack?" Harry sat bolt upright and looked at him, and Gladys, with a woman's true enthusiasm in love matters, exclaimed eagerly: "Oh, Fni so glad, Lord Guardene! I do hope she is nice! Who is she?" But, to be absolutely honest; there was at the same time at the back of Gladys's mind just a little piqued feeling that he should have changed his mind so quickly, for not so longago he had swoin that he could never marry anybody but her. "X—l—l've brought her here with me." Lord Guardene seemed a little more relieved now that his confession was out. "She's up at the Hotel Lyonnais with Lady Dalmayer, who's chaperoning her. I say, Mrs Raymes, you'll like her awfully, I know. She's American, Cissy Layton her name is, and she's the only daughter of old Rufus Layton who died some years ago. I thought she was quite poor when "I met her first over here in England. She was staying with a friend at a little cheap boarding house in Bloomsbury, and I happened to interfere in some bother the two of them had with an insolent cab driver, and I—well, 1 saw them again, and when she went back to America I bolted after her. Yes, I'd simply gone head over heels in it. And when I got over I found to my disgust that she had millions, ye&. just millions of dollars. She had beer, doing London and Europe on the cheap, just the same as her friend, because she didn't want to swank hei money and make her friends feel uncomfortable. That's the sort of giii she is. She's an orphan, and when I wanted to back out of it after I hau found out she had all this oof, she simply told me that if I didn t keep to my word she'd have me up foi breach of promise. She never told me about the money till after I'd proposed to her. And so—well, theie it is. I want you to like her, Mrs Raymes, and I'm sure you will, you ahu Harry too. She's heard, all about yoii. And, besides, she's dying to meet the authoress of 'A Strange Case. "Oh, I shall love to meet her, Lord Guardene. But why so much, about A Strange Case'? It's just a little one.act pla-j, th-u' ' all, nothing to make a fuss about." "Good giviuous! Ana everybody ir London it- diking about it! There'? modesty!" "Why, nobody was exejted about it when I left London," said Gladys "It was jUat a fair success, that was all. But still, never mind talking about, me so much. Just go straighl back to 5 our hotel and bring Miss Layton and her chaperone back her: to lunch." "Right ho! 1 was hoping you'd saj that. Lady Dalmayer's very anxious to' see you, Harry. She says she'? some important new.s for you. Ant she's anxious to meet your wife, too Good gracious hie, Mrs Raymes, yoi ought to make a play out of this! Nowv I shan't be a tick. I guess 1 shall find them down on the sea front Ain't I getting American? That's Cissy's fault." "He's soon fo.rgotten you, Miss Mischief," said Harry, laughing and pointing a finger at his wife when Guardene had gone. "Oh, yes, you're all alike, you men! I wonder you didn't forget me, Hairy" ' "I couldn't, you wouldn't let me. You ran after me too much." "Pig! But who's this Lady Dalmayer, Miss Layton's chaperone; Harry 1" "Oh, a sort of distant connection ol Jack's. Anyway, they've been great pals for years, ever since they were kids, in fact, I knew her, too, in the old days." It was now Harry's turn to look a little uncomfortable. He had never told Gladys—how could he?—-how this woman had practically proposed to him, had practically offered herself to him in marriage. It was the sort oi thing a man couldn't talk about to any one.' And somehow Harry wished that she weren't coming;! he was sure that they would both feel uncomfortable. But still if Fate, that strange arbiter, had ordained it so, so it must be. That was the sole consolation he

| could offer himself. Very shortly Lord Guardene re- ■ turned, bringing with him his fiancee, a pretty little girl, petite, but evidently with a will of her own, with a most charming American accent and quaint expressions, and evidently wildly in love with Jack, but at the same time treating him with a finn hand, and exercising the sternest discipline over him. "Yes, Mrs Raymes," she said in her funny little way, "he's big and he's < good, and I guess he's got to keep good, or else there'll be trouble in our ; little family. Isn't that so, Jack?" "I guess that is so," answered Lord Guardene, with an attempt at an imi- ; tation of an American accent. "Ain't , she great, Mrs Raymes?" While the two were poking fun at each other, and Gladys was listening, with much amusement, Lady Dalmayer was talking to Harry in a quiet corner of the room to themselves. She was still good-looking, was Lady Dalmayer, but somehow her voice and her eyes seemed softer; the rather hard and cynical forms of expression in her speech had gone; she was, as Harry put it to himself, more womanly. He felt more than embarrassed as she and he shook hands, but she met the situation well. "Jack's told me something of what you've been through, Mr Raymes,' she said. There was just a little touch of colour in her cheeks. "I need not say how sorry I am, more than sorry. But you are married now and happy? Ah. yes, that's right. I'm glad you have such a nice little girl for a wife. I must see more of her. She seems so charming, and she's so pretty, and already so famous too!" Her kindly spoken words put Harry at his ease; the strain was over. "She won't allow at all that she';; famous, Lady Dalmayer. She can't understand any fuss being made aboui her little play." "Oh, but it's made her fame really! I hardly read any notices of it in the papers at all, but I heard everybody talking about it, and everybody is just clamouring to go and see it. It's just one of those curious instances where the public finds out a good thing for itself without being told about it in the papers. But, Mr Raymes, there's something really important I want to speak to you about. Lord Guardene told you that I had news for you, I think?" Harry nodded. "Well, it's about your father, your father and mother. D'you know you nearly broke his heart when you walked out of the hotel that night? He'd give worlds to have you back with him, you know. And your poor mother, it's upset her terribly, terribly. I think she's always liked me, and she told me everything, why it happened and how it happened, and Mr Raymes —I may say so now, mayn't I? —I know that your father wanted you to make love to me, to marry me for the sake of my money and my position, or—well, there was another, your present wife, her money, her position. Your mother told me, told me everything and—well, I think when I heard it I felt that something more than respect was due to you, honour was due." "It was the honour due to two women as well as myself, Lady Dalmayer I said Harry gently. "My father was | ambitious for nie, I know; his money was not as much as he had thought it was; he wanted to see me get on in the world, and he thought that all that was needed for that was money, money. I'm sorry for I was fond of the dad. And poor, dear old mother, I know how she would feel it too. But | I couldn't, I couldn't go back, and I wouldn't ask him for a penny. And I then there was the way he treated I Gladys, my wife. He threatened her, threatened her with an action if she wouldn't marry me; he went to see her and told her so. Oh, Lady Dalmayer, I felt shamed to my very soul when he told me what he had done. And she—d'you know she walked out of her house, left everything, every penny, even her clothes were refused her, and he—oh, the shame is his now! —took possession of the house. He took her at her foolish, simple, noble word, and took what she offered to give up, house, money, everything. Yes, he refused to allow her even her own personal belongings; the door was slammed in her face; he had taken possession of the house and everything. Can you wonder then that I am bitter against my father? Can you wonder that though I was fond of him once I could almost feel it in my heart to hate him now?j If you only knew, Lady Dalmayer, what my wife went through before I met her again! She had been practically starving. And after we were married we nearly starved, and that—that was through my father. No, no, Lady Dalmayer! I think it's very kind of you to tell me aoout my mother; I'll see her, oh, I would love to see her—but my father—no." "Mr Raymes," said Lady Dalmayer very, very softly, "d'you know many things have happened since we last met. Something has happened to me here." She just pressed her hand to her heart. "I think I'm a little different from what I was; I look at life differently. Somehow I've got to think that I would like to see everyone happy. Of course that's impossible' in this world, but one can do' a little towards it perhaps, and I think it was more than chance that brought your

mother and me together. I was de;ermined to try and do something, so [ saw your father. Yes, I told him ;hat your mother had told me all; I ;old him too that I knew where you ,vere. Miss Layton has been staying vith me since she came from America, ind Lord Guardene had of course told ne about your wife. I told your father ;hat you were married, I told him to vhom you were married —Lord Guardme had of course told me-—and the )ld man broke down and cried like a ihild. And then he told me something ;hat made me think a little differently jf him, that, perhaps, may make you ;hink a little differently of him. He said that when you had gone, when tie realised that you had really left dim, the blow was terrible. He waited jays for you to come back, but you , never came, and then that mysteiious something which touches us all at some time in our life, I believe, told aim that he was wrong, wrong. He acknowledged it to me himself. "Ah, I'm glad of that!" said Harry. 'I'm glad that he had the courage to lo that." "Yes, buL there's more than that. 3e tried in some way to make up. He vent to the lawyers and told them ;hat he would under no circumstances accept the letter of resignation of j very thing written by your wife; she ivas to have everything just the same is before | lie wouldn't take one step to deprive her of a farthing." "He said that, did he? Ah, the gov'uor's all right at bottom aftci dll then! I'm glad he did that. But my wife, Gladys, she was turned away when she went to the door ? "That was a mistake on the part of the stupid old caretaker. Your father's lawyers, of course, communicated with the solicitor to her estate, only to find that he was dead. What then was to become of the house in Kirton Square I Your wife didn't return, and your father then suggested to the lawyers that he should act in her interests and look after the house for her, for she would be sure to return some time." "He did that? The guv-nor did that? That was good of him, that was kind!" "It was 110 use keeping on all the staff, so they were discharged with ample compensation, and your father took the old butler Blayre into his service. Everything in the house is left there just as it was. Your father even had old Mr Tremayne's will examined, and he is seeing that the money is all being carefully guarded again st the retur" of j our wife. That's what your father has done. Everything waits for her to step into again just the same as she left it. Day after day he expected news, expected to hear that she had returned. He set agents to work lo inquire for her and for you, still hoping against hope for of his boy.'' "I'm sorry, sorry that I've thought so badly of him. But it was like the real dad to do that. That was kind, that was good of him." "Ah, I'm glad you can speak like that! I thought you'd understand. And to think of that silly old woman turning the heiress away!" Lady Dalrru>yer laughed a little. "She thought she was doing her duty nobly, I expect. But there, all's well that ends well. Will ycrt.i come with us after lunch and see your father and mother?" "See my father and mother? Are they here in Birrevile?" "Yes, they're here. Directly I knew where you were and that I should be seeing you. I wrote and told them, and he and your mother came here together, and they're just longing to see you. And there's 110 question of money now. Your father is very, very rich, richer than he ever thought it possible he could be. While he was desperate at the loss of you and half mad with grief and anxiety—so he told me —he risked everything, everything he had in one wild speculation, and strangely enough it came out well, and he has sufficient money for everything, money, a u he told me, 'for my boy.' There now., I've told you what I promised him I would tell you, and it's going to be a case of by-gones being by-gones between you and him, isn't it?" "Yes of course!" said Harry. "And I can't thank you enough, Lady Dalmayer, for the kindness you've shown me, and the kindness which I know you have shown to him and to my mother. Thank you very, very much." He held out his hand, Lady Dalmayei took it, they looked into each other's faces, and somehow Harry read in hers that thei soul of her had changed, aml that in her heart now there was true and sweet happiness. (To be Concluded)