THE HOUSE ON THE BOGS

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 87, 12 April 1922, Page 12

THE HOUSE ON THE BOGS

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Doreen O"KelIv. tne unly cnild of widowed mother, is befriended liy Mi> Hamilton, a famous actress, who lives in q-aaint uld-wnr'ul house, wlllch she iuhuliit with two forbidding Trench servants. Mli Hamilton is engaged in marry Mr. Steiilie \c-raey. niul after Mr.s. O'Kelly'a ileat she send.* Doreoii to s«-hool ro the fainoii Abbey of Klosterberg. near Vienna, '■able from India announces the illucst- « -■Mr ppenws Ruintan. anil Verney is calle hack, only to liinl That his ihief is ile<i< Twelve ypnrs pass ilnrins which Dnrec learns of the mi happiness that hurt com t> her benefactress. Stephen Vernqy Ini married Rawdon within three month "f her hu-sbajid's death and his pertt.l had deeply affected the woman lit' hud Ik frayed. Her letters and gifts to Uoreei had ceased lons ag-o. Doreen was iwent.i one .before- she was tokl that Misa Haniilto liail spttled upon her £200 n year. Doroe •loridcs to rptuni to lior own country. ;ui •tiirlnt: the journey ha* ;i romantic advei t urc at ;i Wiij-siile railway stntion, 3n whir »'hris-tophrr. otherwise Kit Lαvery, conic to her aid. CIHAPTBK V. I'HK KMI'ItKSS. ■He left her fifty miles further on. ii the charge of a comfortable Englial family. Only then did she realise tha he had returned <>n his journey. s.o tha he might see her in safety. They hai spent the long, golden day together a the station among the cornfields, hai finished their provisions and begun ti feel hungry before the train came. Latei on. at a main-line station, he iiad sect to all her wants before that final leave taking. After he had gone slio sat feelins rather doleful with the little kilt.-n ii her lap. "What a very kind and attentive "brother you , have! " said the Rnglisl: mamma, looking at her. curiously. "Oi perhaps"—s.he looked a little arch—"it i- the fiancel" ■**>■ "Oh. no." Doreen answered, tnrnin; very pink. "It is—only a friend."' f>he could not have told 'why she had hesitated to say that they had only just met. The Knglisii lady made no comment beyond saying , that he appeared a very charming young man. Doreen was very quiet during the re.st of the journey. They went through without stopping, and towards the end people were too tired to think aboni each other's affairs. All the time she was vonsoious of a blank feeling as though something, someone she cared for, had suddenly gone out of her life. After all Christopher I-avery had been her first friend outside the Abbey and its environments. lie had scribbled an address on a card. We would he there in a month's time and a letter there ■would always find him. v She had no address to give him in return, but the (Surrey address of her old friends;, the Misses McCabe. Of .course she intended to see them, and to keep them informed of her whereabouts. By and liye she "hoped to settle down in » cottage on the shores of Dublin Bay. She remembered one which had steps up to the hall door and its lower floor on the level of the garden. When one entered the little door, turning one's back ou the mountains, one looked straight through an open door on to the sea, It was like the deck of a ship. A little path between the rocks led down to a natural swimming-bath, which the tide filled as it came in and emptied aa it retreated. She might find it vacant when she was ready to settle down. She was an accomplished musician. By teaching music she could supplement that blessed two hundred poundVyearly which had been accumulating so that there was a tidy sum jn hand. Sometimes, as the journey passed and she grew more and more weary, she had a da/ed feeling that-those hours at the railway station had been a dream. But there were the tangible proofs of Fortuna who was hardly ever out of her lap, and the little card with the address, ■which s be had looked at so often in the hot and dusty train that it had become limp and shabby before she reached London. All one night, indeed, in the jolting sleeping car she had held it in her hand and had awakened in the morning to find it missing, only to be recovered, from where it had' slipped' down at the back of the berth, after a frantic" search. She kept saying to herself that it was no wonder she thought about him: he had 'behaved so perfectly. It might }ia\ r e Been so uncomfortable with many men, even of the kindest and best. He had kept such a detached brotherly air, as long as they were alone together. At the last Tinder the gaze of the good English family he had looked into her eyes; he had held her hand a little longer than was necessary. Perhaps it ■was no wonder that Mrs. Bell had m-dde the suggestion about the fiance. She -was so tired on her arrival at Charing Cross, that she accepted gratefully, Mrs. Bell's kind invitation to stay a night or two. It occurred to her that she might run down and see her old friends, and deposit Fortuna with them till she had some sort of permanent abode. The Bells'" house was no place for her. The Invll-dog. with the large and terrifying smile, who £<>t up anc i •welcomed them as they arrived at the Croydon house, to say nothing of the Pom and the 'Schipperke that came out ■harking furiously, had made Fortuna. cling to Doreen in such a frenzy of terror and hostility that she drew blood with her unsheathed claws. While they stayed at the Bells', Fortuna must be oarefully guarded, from herself rather than the dogs, who lived in perfect amity with the cat of the household. The lightness . and brightness and rheerfuhcomfort of the house were new to Doreen: and the kindliness that would have kept her with them tilled Jier with warm gTatitude. But she would consent only to stay two nights, though she promised to come back again to the new, kind friends. The second day. which her hosts would have liked to devote to sightseeing, she went down into Surrey to see the. old friends and to leave Fortuna in their;care. There were things they might be n'ble to tell her that Madame Thekla had not known. Mice Hamilton had, ?he knew, filled a considerable pilace in the conversation and thoughts of the two spinster ladies, to whom the rest of the world they touched—their pupils' parents, chiefly, made little appeal. They must have been there when the on her friend. There were gaps in what Madame Thekla had known and imparted to Koreen that the old friends might fill up. She fouud them in a delicious doll's bouse, with everything of the neatest and prettiest: They had a little maid ■who was a model of efliciencv; and the old cottage garden was packed with autumn flowers; the pjars and apples and plums hung ripening on" the trees ?£i S v°? d araon * r tt * flow " and vegetable beds. On the lawn in front were

By KATHERINE TYNAN.

two mulberry trees which were raining s down their fruit, i '"They are very naughty trees, my • dear," said Miss Katie. "They would ', ruin your beautiful frock if you were i to sic under them." • The cottage looked across a valley to r the -Downs. It was within the walled I precincts of the Empress 1 domain. "So safe, my dear." said Miss. Honoria. , "My sister and 1 have a horror o" 1 tramps. We should be miserable by the • side of the road." Everything in the cottage, including i the cottage itself, seemed to be a gift • from the Empress, The old ladies, on J whom prosperity seemed to have had a I, very good effect, for they looked no ■ older llinn Doreen remembered them, I had received her. charmingly dressed. "We change every afternoon." "Miss Katie said, '■because very often the Kmpress. with our sister. Louise, comes to visit us. It would be dreadful if she . caught us in our working clothe?, although it has happened." "Once, my dear," aaid Miss Honoria, "we were actually working in the garden. We keep the garden ourselves, with the very little aid from the gardeners at the Castle. It was wet weather, and we. were really grimy, for I had been weeding and Katie picking off slugs from the cabbages, . when we glanced up and saw the Empress, looking so queenly, smiling down at us. We never work since except in our garden overalls. In the afternoon when we are dressed and sit. down to sew for the poor end the poor churches, we wear aprons. If one has to give a little help in the kitchen —there are things Annie cannot do—we wear two aprons. On occasion we wear three. ; When I have been called on to tend a sick fowl I have put on four. Yon see one can -always keep clean underneath." Indeed, the little satin apron, smartly embroidered on the bib and pockets, which the ladies were wearing. really added to the attractiveness of their toilette, but when Miss Katie prepared the salad dressing she put on a white spotted muslin, with blue bows, which was prettier still. When she brushed Fortuna, -who was rather sooty, Mjss Honoria put on an alpaca apron. They seemed to Doreen to be always putting on and taking off aprons. The day was very fine, and after lunch they ea-t on the little shelter looking down the valley and talked. Doreen could not refrain ""from saying that it was good to see them in such different, surroundings, and was surprised to find the remark received diacouragingly. "After all, Doreen," said Miss Katie, "you had only to take one of those horrid new-fangled things—tramsgreat ugly monsters I call them, or the Kingstown train, and you were out in the midet of the most beautiful mountains, my dear. When the people here say to us. "Don't the Downs look beautiful?' we just say that we have been • accustomed to mountains." '"I dare say you've seen beautiful places, Doreen," Miss Honoria said in a tone of rebuke, '"but you haven't seen more beautiful places than Killiney and Glendalough.' , Dpreen laughed. "Why/ , she said, ''I came back to Ireland where I know hardly anyone, becauee I felt that there we're always the mountains." "We should never become Anglicised," said the old ladies in a breath. Then Doreen asked about the tragic story of Miss Hamilton. It was forthcoming. Apparently the blow- of her lover's betrayal of her had fallen with a more dreadful suddenness than Doreen had known. Stephen Verliey's letters had cpmo regularly \\n to ■a point. They had ceased when all was ready for the wedding; the news of the marriage had come through a newspaper paragraph. The old ladies were very full of the story. He was to have left Bombay on a certain date. He had, not arrived when lie was expected. but there were many things which might account for that. and. meanwhile. Miss Hamilton \ had bepn busy with arrangements for J the wedding. She had refused to be married from a hotel. She would be married from her own house. Tt was : against all customs, the conventions— [ but when had Veggv Hamilton cared I for customs or conventions? r The wedI fling dress was made; the wedding cake [come: all was prepared. She was one to make other happy because, of her own happiness. In. the garden at the back of the house, behind which were the stables, a feast had been spread for the children of the Blums. Doreen remembered the garden. It had a couple of mulberry trees like those on the lawn of Mon Abrie, only much older and propped up with supports, and plastered in the yawning , ' ! trunks with tin plates. But they had borne fruit luxuriantly, and Doreen, on one of the wicked occasions \vhen slip had stolen away to play with the children of the 'Lane' liud had the adventurous delight—almost us good as the run-away ring—of stealing in with the other children by the open stable door and nicking up a few mulberries from the sunny grass-plot before old Simon, the coachman, had detected their presence and driven them forth. The children had had their feast. The betrayed and deserted , woman had given orders that that part of the rejoicing should not be interfered with, but before the children's feast. Miss Hamilton had fled away. She had locked the doors of the rooms, leaving them just as they were when the ill-news reached her. Xo one knew where she had gone to. A few hours later the French servants had gone also. The children feasted and shouted and romped before the closed and shuttered windows of the house in which joy and faith had died. "It is said," said Miss Honoria, with a linger laid on her palm to point the tale, "that the 'wedding breakfast lies mouldering and uneaten on the spread table: that the wedding dress lies on the floor of the bride's room: that all is in disorder ju-st as it was that morning when she got up out of bed saying, 'Surely he will be here to-day,' and there came the news of his marriage. No one seems to know where she went. Her man of business, Mr. Deane—he is very old—probably he has retired by this time —settled all her accounts. The place was already ghostly before we left to come over here. The children used to run by the house if they had to pass that way in the dark. "You remember that the Hall was a lonesome place, even in broad daylight. There were already tales of ghostly crying in the locked rooms; a face at the~upper windows." "Doreen's heart bled for her friend. Such a' strong vivid creature she had

been, abounding in health and joie rte vivre. She wondered how any mans betrayal could have power to make such a ruin of such a life. '•It is a pitiful story," said Mies Katie, "but very romantic." "Fiddlesticks!" said Miss Honoria. who was often snappish when men were under discussion. "As though there weren't plenty of men in the world! Miss Hamilton was a fool to take it so much to heart." She stood up and walked a little way to where a boundary hedße of briar roses still showed starry blossoms oi white and pink and yellow. "She lias always been afraid that I might marry and leave her alone," ftaid I-Mi*- Katie "with a little simper. "Her dislike of men began in that way. I won't say it wasn't justified. Still— we have stayed so long together that we shall probably etay till the c.nd." Miss Honoria camo back hastily. "There are two figures coming this way," she said. "1 think they are the Empress and Uuiae. Her Imperial Majesty rail lay aside i-cremony so sweetly when she visits her humble friends. She conies unattended, except by our sister." "The two little satin aprons were hastily removed. Miss Katie ran to the kitchen tv tell Annie to ffet out the Sevres china and make hot cakes in case the Empress honoured them l>y staying to te-a. Honoria, with DoreenV assistance, dragged on to the lawn a high-backed chair upholstered in beautiful ancient needlework, with a footstool to match. The excitement was prodigious. A few minutes later Doreen was curtseying to the woman whose beauty had made T<}urope in love with her. .Something came into her mind: "Wns tills the faro that InunHiP'l .1 11i0r..-.-iMi! ships Ami burnt the topm.-si towers of Ilium;" this tall, gracious woman in the flowing black draperies that made her look like a priestess with the clusters of ringlets. : into the gold of which the year* hail shaken ashes, the still beautiful complexion and the wonderful «ea-blui; eyes? ; For the moment the tragedy of wild. ' generous Pfcggy Hamilton was forgotten. Instinctively, when the Kmprees extended her hand, Doreen stooped anil kissed it, and the Empress patted her cheek and called her bonne fille. She was hardly conscious of \liss Louise, co unlike, her sieters, who stoorl by the Kmprees' chair and would not be seated till the Empress bade ner. i with a soft imperioueneas. Louise hart I caught the air of courts. She seemed a world away from the two little fussy spinsters who were her sistcre. After | a little while she spread a shawl on the Empress' whouldcrs. saying that the i wind was in the cast. And, presently. '< there camp an old gentleman all in ! black, with a scaf«£t ribbon in his.but- j tonhole, to attend her Majesty as she returned home /across the park. It was an afternoon not to be for- i gotten. After the Empress had de- ! parted Doreen assisted Miss Katie ami ' Mies Honoria, who had donned three aprons for the task, to wash up the

precious china, and before the task was quite finished, tame a messenger with a gift from tho Rmprcse of a tiny glass bos, with a delicious picture on the lid of cupids swinging, like a design for a fan by Boucher. "She has had so much iovp." said -Miss Katie, -watching the almost tearful deliglit of Dorep.n's face, "yet never is sho insensible to love. T could see she was pleased with you, child." (To be continued daily.)