THE MOATED GRANGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1925, Page 28

THE MOATED GRANGE.

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. Author of "A Mad Marriage," "The House of Doom," "Denya the Dreamer." CHAPTER XXI. Why should ehe have remembered after all these years? She had a vision of the octagonal library at Glen Assaroe walled in brasslattice doored bookcases, the gilt and tooled backs of the old books showing through the lattice wdrk. The library had had a emcll of leather mingling oddly with the smell of the wood and turf fire and the many flowers in vases and pots and pitchers with which the room waa made more beautiful. Potpourri too in the Nankin jars either side the fireplace. The Glen Assaroe recipe, for pot-pourri was famous, and had travelled to many lands. There had been a smell of lilies that day, so it must have been July. Tom, on his wheeled couch, was drawn close to the half-glass door that led on to the terraces. There had been a peacock strutting up and down, turning his magnificent fans in the sun. She and Tomit was one of his good days —had talked of the latest London sensation. He had just given her her pearls. There had been a picture of the old lady, the cause of whoso death was the latest London mystery. The pearls fell from her neck to her lap, too splendid, as Mrs. Cronch had said, for anything so frail to carry. Inset had been a picture of the maid who had been brushing her ha"ir when she died. Tom had said something lightly about that face looking over one's shoulder being quite sufficient to scare the bravest to death; and she, much loved and beautiful, had had a passing pity that any woman should be so ugly. Strange that the memory ehould have stayed with her through all the years, that slight memory, while other things much more important had dropped out. "I never could abear pearln since," said Mrs. Cronch, gloomily. "I'm glad you've put yours away. They used to give mc the creeps when I see you wearing them." "Oh, I'm sorry," Mrs. de Burgh said, lamely. Suddenly Mrs. Cronch flung her a glance of mingled humility and adoration. ) "Not but what they become you, my pretty," she said, "with that lovely neck of yours. Never you'll know in this life what it is to be hateful in men's eight. The pearls did seem somehow wrong on her poor old thin neck, and Ehe was wropt up in them." "Cronch stood by you," said Mrs. de Burgh. "That was some compensation for what you must have suffered." She was trying to remember the name of the woman who, had been suspected of killing Mrs. Ar.sell. Kate —Kate —what was the woman's other name? There was really no reason why she should bother about it. Ah, she had got it now. Evans—Kate Evans j that was it. Mrs. Cronch's expression was again lowering, "Cronch /was like all" the men," she said. "Hβ knew there' were a bit of money. An' I were a fool, like many \ wimming. He was the only man had ever thought If I hadn't got the money—well, there wouldn't have been any Nelly. That's eomethink can't be undone. I've got Nelly prayin' for mc in Heaving, and ehe never knowed I was ugly, bless her heart. Ifyshe'd lived a bit longer she might have known. Childring at school is very sharp. Though I don't think she would be —not my Nelly.?' "Oh, I'm sure ehe would never have been," eaid Mrs. de Burgh, in a great hurry. "Nelly wouldnt be like that— and, r my dear eoul, you're not ugly. You have a beautiful expression sometimes. People are only ugly who are bad inside shem." "I'd have liked that kind of looks," said Mrs. Cronch, unexpectedly, "that jeople would have liked you whether rou was bad inside or not." Mrs. de Burgh sometimes complained that the perfect efficiency of the servants left her nothing to do of the small household tasks she loved. Now she was making the beds with Mrs. Cronch in her Ladyship's Wing, emelling the warm smell of the linen sheets fresh from the airing cupboard, smoothing and patting them as she spread the mas though she loved them. The rooms were in perfect order and there was not much to be done beyond a little dusting and airing, and the setting of fires and the filling of water-jugs. The lighter tasks fell to Mrs. de Burgh, who enjoyed them thoroughly. The rooms were full of pretty and valuable things. A beautiful old writing-desk in her Ladyship's Room marked it for Beata's. Her mother's room adjoined, but did not communicate with it. This part of the house was like a eelfcontained flat. A drawing-room, a din-ing-room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom; and all the rooms built so as to catch the full 6un. They were ideal winter rooms. Mrs. de Burgh ha<J opened a- window and the air came in clean and' cold. Not a trace in it of the eickly emcll in the rooms overhanging the moat. Much loving thought had been taken by eomebody for her Ladyship's room. The beautiful old damask of the curtains waa white with a pattern of single roses and their leaves tumbling , all over it. The carpet matched. Beata would love her room, and would thrive in it. The low-«eiled rooms over the moat, charming as they were, had been all wrong. Here there were roses, roses everywhere. The writing set and the toilet things were Rose dv Barri pink. There was a huge wardrobe. Downstairs the wardrobe accommodation was somewhat limited. Opening a door and picturing Beata's delight in the ample housing for her pretty frocks, Mrs. de Burgh was startled to see that the wardrobe was already full mente, each hung in its linen bag. A smell of lavender, of orrie-root, came out to meet her, faintly sweet. Mrs. Cronch came and looked over her shoulder. "Them's her ladyship's dresses," she eaid. "They might as well hang there as elsewhere, this room bein' unoccupied. 11l have them all out and into the chists in next to no time. Miss Beata needn't know." ■■■•■■- = The day passed without any eign of Cronch. The new quarters were altogether delightful, and * they missed nothing they had had in the other rooms. Her ladyship's wing had been fitted up with everything love could devise for a beloved woman. Books, music, a piano, a harp, pi c !' turca. The wing might have been furnished for someone who must live her day*, and night* within these walls. The roome were incredibly lighter and brighter than the other roomi.

About dx o'clock Anthony Napier left them to walk back to Warley over the frozen snow. It was full moon, he said, as he bade Beata good-bye at the hall door. She had gone down with him to see him off, leaving her mother in the drawing room of. her ladyship's wing where she wae, 'by this time, very much at home. They had really suffered from cold in the other rooms with their north-east aspect. The curtaine and carpets and all the comfortable plenishing had been powerless against the cold. The rosy glow of the rooms had been deceptive, and since the cold came, they had ehivered inside the heavy screens facing the roaring fires. ' The getting ready to start had taken some little time.. There had been so much to say ji'st at the last moment, and when the Tarewella were all said, Anthony Napier had come running back again. "If I had any right to speak," he said, "I should insist on your both leaving this place. It is charming, but it is too solitary. And those queer servants! I wonder why Sir Hilary Egerton kept them on. The man is certainly not to bo trusted. "But what do you fear for us?" asked Beata, looking up at him. "Even if Cronch were very unsatisfactory—and of course he's a brute (I can't bear to think of that wretched cat, and the poor creature was fond of him too) —we are still three women and a dog to one man; and Cronch is not a very strong man, I should say." Anthony Napier stooped, took Dash's muzzlo into his hand, opened the dog's moutb, and looked at his teeth. "As I thought," lie said. "The poor old fellow has no teeth to bite with. And he is growing rather crippled. Still, he would put up a good show of fight, I think." He turned from the dog and looked at her, still unready to go. Ho had very blue eyes. As he gnzftd at her they seemed full of a lambent light. There was a silence between them for a few seconds, and the feeling was tense. Suddenly he moved towards her as if she drew him and he must follow. "You know why I am anxious about you, my dear," he whispered. "It is because I love you, I love you, I loveyou. I loved you the very first time I caught sight of you. Will you think about it and tell mo when I como again 1" Sho was suddenly Bhy and half terrified. He was her first lover. Sho wanted to get away to her mother, with whom love was all peace. Sho was' afraid of what might happen next. She slipped out of his arms and went a little' way down the corridor. "You will come again?" she eaid, softly. "Very soon," and then she ran up the little flight of steps that led to' the upper floor, and stood for a second looking down at him before she went. For a eecond or two he hesitated as though he would follow her. Then, somewhere, not very far off, he heard a door open and close. She was gone. Anthony Napier opened the hall door and let himself out. • , He had hardly gone before Beata looked through the curtain at the headof the stairs. She had not gone far after all. She stood peering down, her slender figure and charming head, with the long neck which was one of her greatest beauties, thrown up against the heavy dark velvet of the portiere. She was almost sorry; now that she had let him go. Would he think she did not like him ? How silly she had been I Would it not be too dreadful if he had taken her running away as a rebuff? What would she do if he did not come again? But all the time she , knew that he would come again. She was about to drop the curtain when a patch of something light showed on the.rug by which they had stood to say good-bye. liA glove? Yea, it might be a glove. She ran quickly down the stairs and picked up the object. It was his glove. It had a comfortable, companionable feel. As she went along the corridor upstairs from which their old rooms opened, the air smelt damp and chilly. Worse than that, it waa charged with the odour of decay. She held the glove against her face to chut it out. Though the moon had risen, there was still a last reflection of the sunset in which the blood-red ball of the eun had dropped behind the woods in the western sky. She could see it through the open door of the bedroom she had just vacated, behind the old windmill, shining through the upper window of the mill, as though there was a fire behind it. A strange and lonely thing, a windmill, she thought, and stooped to pat Dash. For a second it almost looked as though the windmill was on fire. Then, as though a fire had fallen in, the red went low, and the' eky behind the windmill was ashen grey. (To be continued daily.)