CAPTAIN CUB

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 137, 9 June 1917, Page 18

CAPTAIN CUB

<AUL RIGHTS M>BtW>,l

By ETHEL TURNER [Mrs. H. R. Corlewim), Author of "The Cub," "Flower of th» Pine," "That Girl," "Seven lAttle Australian*," etc. CHArTER XI. ALSO THE "ItEAI, ME." Yet was there n.rer a strength but a woman's softness upheld It; Never a Thebes of our dreams but It rose to the music of woman— Iron and stone rt mlßlu stand, bnt the woninn had breathed ou the tiulldlnir. Yen, no man shall make or unmake, ero some woumn hath made him a man. But he wrote to Brijfid again a few days later; this extraordinary youth whom all but parents of n very fine discernment would have found it perilously easy to call precocious and a prig. Brigid (he wrote! 1 feel ns if I've written no end of an am of a letter to your mother. Something impelled mc to beearae it's just how 1 really do feel, but also don't feel. Not make you hnppv! I'd eorae out of this trench this minute, and walk, not run, down the hi.: that they've p-ot a couple of machine guns playing on, just for a chance to see your dimples come out as they do when you are happy, and the crinkles of laughing round your eyes. Xot want to get tlnngs fo r you and make you comfortable! If you told mc you hankered for an embroidered fez from the head of a Turk in t'onstantiioplc. I'd -ret it fo' you thonffh I had to take the fellow's head with it. and rink mv own all the time. You'll never be able to guess how a man loves a woman, Brigid. We stormed and carried a position of theirs the other day successfully—almost marvellously, and I'm made n captain by the way for my share in it. It was you who stormed and carried it, Brigid—your '•lee, just a_ 1 went rushing on. God— if I actually had you I feel as if I'd have it id mc to win this war mvKclf. Sometimes I look at some of the chaps here and wonder if they feel the same—most of them are engaged. 1 know, and are always writing to the girls they love. No, they couldn't—they'd have to love You to feel the name. But, imagine a battalion of men all made with love of you—why, we'd wipe the Hermans off the fare of the earth in a week.

Not want to take care of you! A cold sweat breaks out on mc sometimes at the thought that you might be in our car nnd an ignorant brute of a chauffeur M. the thing skid or run into something. Or that you might be out in a southerly in one of those thin-sleeved dresses of yours and catch a chill. O r get your feet wet and forget to change. Not want to take care of you. If ever I get back I shall .be fussing after you as you do after Jonelte.

But you know what I mean—do you know what I mean? Mv thought of you B mainly as a sort of" Atlanta running splendid races in the sun, with mc. shooting the breakers with mc, and coming with mc to flc-lit with all your strength and keep mc fighting with all mine, all things in the world' that war against good and beauty Come with m c, my golden-head, my sweet-eyed girl. God meant the whiteness of women lor this lighting of black places. Ho didn't mean one man to shut it up in n box just for hit- own lighting. Come with mc, Brigid: every evil that exists in the world seems to"mc a personal sin against you that I've got to avenge'and set right. My belnvcd-my darling—for I know you are mine—keep the sword of my spirit sharp: save mc from ever blunting it with the desire for peace ami happiness.—Your CUB. CHAPTER XII BRIGID GHOWS L"P "Brigid." "Coming!" "Brigid, you little wretch!" "Oh, MjHic—five minute-—really I'm nearly read\ now." "But what are you doing? You said youd be ready at eleven o'clock; it's nearly twelve. What on earth arc you aoing, sewing like this when we oucht to be hnlf there?" A loud whirr of the sewing machine was Alillicent'- only answer. Brigid's bedroom" uaa in amazing disorder— Millieent opened her eyes at the sight of it. for indeed the harum-scarum Brigid had become since the war a rather pathetic example of orderliness. Usually the bedroom she shared with Jos.ett- have passed a searching examination at almost any minute of the day or night, and have come olt triumphant. Every drawer was in the most perfect order; stacks of snowy lmen were confined each with a band'of forget-me-not blue for Brigid and geranium pink for Josette, to prevent them escaping into the spots reserved for other stacks. Little hags of sweet lavender lent fragrance to each drawer. Ribbons, ties, gloves, all the hundred and one belongings of girls had each their nllotted corner where they might be found in a moment and restored in a moment. Blouses, skirts, coats hung on their stretchers behind a curtain, each, however inexpensive and unpre tending, in an immaculate state of re pair and cleanness and rcadine-S. Josette's belongings were even in better order still; Josette was being driven relentlessly along this thorny path by order of Brigid; leaving her clothes and toy 6 about the child knew was; a crime Brigid never condoned, and she was falling into a way of shrugging her shoulders and muttering "Eh bien," and putting her things away all in the same breath.

She was not to know—not yet at all event*—that the fragrant order and beauty and simplicity of that little Belgian home into whose heart Brigid had been taken for three days had made an impression for life upon her. Brigid felt it a debt she owed to the woman who bad died there before her eyes, so pitcously helpless and so piteously brave, to hand on at least the sweet and gentle virtues of her orderliness to her poor little child. But to-day Brigid's bedroom! The dressing-table wae strewn witb hairpins—hairpins actually—while the bows of hair ribbons were on the floor! There were three white skirts, rejected for some reason or other, and tossed on the bed; upon the fourth Brigid was hard at work —tearing along the hem of it with the machine. Josette was buzzing about, picking up scissors, offering cotton, pin», and all sorts of unnecessary material*, but quite in silence,! she had an intuition that things cut of the common were happening. Millicent stared at Brigid. The long plaits had gone. The rich masses of warm gold hair were gathered up by aid of—perhaps Josette realised how many —hairpins, and disposed as close as might be to the young head. And now

I you saw the shape of that young head j and the clean lines of the round young I throat. Now you saw that very tender and touching thing, a young girl just brushed with the wings of the dawn of womanhood. It was a thing for the Cub to have seen. Millicent saw it, was moved by it in an inchoate sort of way—it stirred her memory of that vague lost moment of her own when she too had felt those wings. "How do you like my hair?" Brigid asked, furiously self-eon_cious. "I think it looks stupid," said Milli- ! cent perversely. "You are far too young, nnd you've done it awfully badly." "liv not too young," said Brigid hotly; "I'm quite old enough. I've got to begin some time.'' "Mother didn't let mc put mine up till I wjjs nearly nineteen," persisted Millicent. "I not you," said Brigid succinctly. "It's perfectly absurd," continued Millicent, her chagrin unaccountably deepening. "Why, you haven't stopped climbing' trees yet." "Yes, I have," said Brigid, quickly pink. "Since when? Since last week?" inquired Millicent. "I saw you up the quince tree only last week, juts as if you were a boy." "Oh, the quince tree," said Brigid, a trifle, abashed. "I expect I had gone up just to see if it were safe for Josie to climb." "Well, I know when I was seventeen there'd have been something to pay if I'd taken things in the ridiculously serious way you are doing," said Millicent, urged by some obscure demon compact of sisterly love and jealousy. "Do you think I never imagined myself in love at that age? Why. there was that Monsieur Beaujeu, who gave our class painting and had such sad brown eyes and such a drooping moustache, every girl in the class used to imagine " "I wish you'd go ont of my room, Millicent Lindsay," said Brigid hotly; "how can I hurry if you keep on with your chatter?" "I don't care; I'm saying it for your own good. Do you think boys never thought they were in love with mc when I was seventeen? Why, if mother had seen some of t he notes the boys at the Eeole Polytechnique slipped into my hands when we went to church she'd have had a fit." "Millicent? You'd better he quiet. But I'm not listening — I can't hear a word with the machine going like this." "I don't care. I shall talk. Lots of boys, I toll you. used to write and tell mc they'd just die if I didn't love them hack. And have made the same threat, I Haven't a doubt, to half a dozen other girls since. You mustn't be so serious at the first time."

But Brigid's anger had died: an immense tenderness h.ul crime to flood her heart at tin thought of the first boy who had said he would die if she did not love him. ".Must I?" she said, and lent intent attention to fastening off the ends of her top and shuttle cotton. "Then-—thnt's snished. Mill —I'll be ready in a minute note. Josette, quick, get my little 'lectric iron, darling. I must press this hem." Millicent. baffled, turned her eyes on the white skirt in her sister's hand. "Letting down a hem! How absurd." she said. "Why, if you really want to be grown-up just now you shorten your dresses. That is inches longer than even mine. You'll look positively old-fash-ioned." "I feel old-fashioned," said Brigid, with a sort of sober joyousness. And indeed she did. Old-fashioned as Eve. But at the gal,' they both burst suddenly into a fit of laughing that restored the jangled threads of sisterly intercourse as if by magic. While they had talked. .losette had busied herself. She had used up all the rest of the hairpins, and turned her own straight hair up as far as she might, and screwed pins nnd combs into it to keep it in place. Also she hail taken a pair of scissors and carefully unpicked the deep hem of her own little frock. It was flapping and dangling raw-edged round her legs in the funniest fashion. But she was very much in earnest, f-lte flashed a glance of the liveliest enmity at Millicent, and one of adoration at Brigid. "Allons," she said, "we are kite old, Brigecd, nest cc pas,"

CHAPTER XIII. NEW USES FOR THE CALTHROP CAR. They were going to luncn, and the afternoon to the C'althrops at Wahgunyah, Millicent, Brigid, and Josette. It was to be the farewell visit before they started for Yanco the following week. Mrs. Lindsay was not of the party, though she had been so warmly pressed to come. Millicent was bearing a letter to Mrs. Calthrop for her. ' _>ear Kate," it said. The friendship between tho two mothers had ripened to the extent at least of using their Christian names to each other. "Dear Kate, I won't come to lunch with you after all. You can come out to mc instead. I won't risk any more hankerings after the fleshpots of Egypt, which is too often the result of a visit to you in your luxury. I'm going to where there are no fleshpots whatever, and as I haven't much spine to boast about— you must have learned this fact, of course, by this —I'll take no more risks. "My dear, if you saw the plan of the cottage we're going to you would appreciate my wisdom. So come to mc on Friday to say good-bye. And for heaven's sake, Kate, come for once without your motor-car. Come just as a plain woman friend by the tram, and walk the rest of the way to mc by the very rough footpath there is.—Yours, "EDITH LINDSAY." Brigid walked that same footpath somewhat sedately. She was more than a little afraid of the hairpins dropping, and more than a little restricted by the skirt that clung every minute or two around her ankles; besides that, she had a sensitive shrinkI ing from meeting the inhabitants of Wahgunyah. The Cub had written to his mother, that she knew; and his mother and her mother had met since the letter—that she also knew. But she herself had seen none of them since the altered state of affairs. Yet was it an altered state of affairs? What had happened? A boy and girl " affair " that no one could treat seriously, that her mother and father entirely refused to allow, at which Millicent from the height of her superior advantage of Aye years simply laughed. Yet was it an altered state of affairs? What had happened? The leaping into flame of that divine passion that not often, not often, is born in human hearts, but that when so it does leap there is no heart that is too young—no-'too old—to hold it. Brigid's colour paled and deepened, deepened and paled as eh., stood at last in the Wahgunyah drawing-room in the,

midst of the first wash of every-day greetings and questionings. Sometimes the purples and the greys of the room seemed to blurr and swim before her eyes. She made wild statements about the cottage at Yanco; she left you with an impression that it was a very small Noah's Ark on the edge of a very vast flood, and that they would all rattle abput loosely within in much after the manner in which Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives would have done if all the customary layers of animals and birds had been removed.

You gathered in one breath that she was glad to be going there, and in the next dreaded it, ami in the next had really hardly thought about it yet. Which was in a measure true. But when Millicent and Eva and Concie went ufT upstairs their arms twined around ouch other, Mrs. Calthrop drew the girl very tenderly to her for one moment. "Mother says you are far too young," she said. "Y-y-yes, I know," stammered Brigid. "And she thinks my Johnnie is." "Y-y-yes, I know," stammered Brigid, and added all in a little gasp, "Is he?" "No. John has never been quite young since he was—or, quite young. I think John absolutely knows his own mind." She looked a littlo yearningly at the flushed girl face so close to her. "But I'm not at nil sure if Brigid does. Little girl, if you must break his heart, break it at once; don't make a mistake and leave it till it is too late. John is not a hit like other boys." For answer, Brigid clutched her round the neck, regardless of the frail tulle ruff there. "Oh, hut I love him," she said; whispered warmly, "love him!" When she ran upstairs, still flushed, to take off her hat, tke'girls teased her good-humouretfly, as the sisters of a brother will at such a time. They took an almost maternal attitude in the matter. Love? Oh, yes, they knew all about love. They had both had lots of love affairs since they were sixteen or seventeen —every girl did. They aired their views at length. They did not know that their girl guest who listened to them with such continually flushing cheeks and such shy eyes was marvelling at them in her heart of hearts. Love! They said they knew all there was to he known about this strange thins love, and it had left them no different from this. Was the fact credible? (To be Continued Next Saturday.)