Miranda of the Movies.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1926, Page 14

Miranda of the Movies.

By ERIC LEACROFT.

Author of "Winter "Silversanids," Etc., Etc. CHAPTER XV. "Why the devil don't she get Up?" repeated- the' owner of the car that had been brought to an abrupt and startling stop on' Corby Moor. The ch'aavffeuf' had taken off a- head- , light, and was leaning'over the lnotiowless figure in the road. "Oli lord, my lord!" he said. "Don't tell me' she's dead," said his 1 lordship irritably. And he, too, descended from the cat-. "Well, she ain't cold;" said the chau'f J feur. i "Of course she isn't, idiot. But she soon will be; if you don't help mc lift her into the car." They laid her on the amply padded seat. She looked very pale in the glare of the electric bulb that hung from the roof-of the car, and'she lay quite still. "Shall I throw water' over her?" suggested' the chauffeur. He felt as- if hewere suggesting sacrilege against the upholstery of the car, but he wanted to be useful. "What's the good of water? Here, hold her head up, while I see if I can get a drop of brandy down her throat." A Well-eqaipped motor-- ca-r- has itspoints. After a good deal of' fumbling' they managed to spill about a gill of brandy on Janet's coat and a tablespoonful down her throat. It' was excellent brandy. It had hardly had time to find its level'when she opened her'eyes .and remarked-very faintly: "Steak and onions." "She's alive," said the chauffeur, with ) the ready intuition of his class, "but ' deleerious. She thinks she having dinner." "Don't be silly," said Janet; in a firmer voice. '1 wish I was. Where's th* ■•' donkey?" i "I said- there was a donkey in it," ' murmured the chauffeur.

"There were two," said his master." ; "Get on home, and then you : can go on '■ aud fetch Hewetson. That'll be quicker' f. ;than going-back to town. Comfy" j Janet smiled up at him. L M _Vljr leg. hurts rather: Why, T feel' | somehow as if I've seen you before." j ' "Probably." said his lordship. As a." , local magnate lie was used'to being. I recognised. 'T can't place you for the j moment, though. But don't try to talk until we've had you overhauled. We shall be home in five minutes, and' the' j doctor will be there in another" tin: \ That is if he isn't at the cinema. They : say the man spends most of'liis evenings J there, which strikes mc as unprofessional, v to say nothing of' being unhealthy." As it turned out, Dr. Hewetson' was not at the cinema, and if" his relaxations took an unprofessional bent; he made up for- it by the efficiency of"his manner, and tlie sympathetic touch of his fingers. "Fracture of the left tibia," lie airnotinced'after examining her on a' couch' in-a-lofty room thtft seemed' to Janet's judgment- to be furnished in rather questionable taste. "Simple or compound?" asked lrer host wisely.

"Simple. She'll be about in a week: but. of cdurse, slie'H" have to lie up" until it heals. Got a spare bedroom?" "Twenty-six,"' said' lordship; spvcrely. "One will do," said the doctor. "Take her up."

"Doctor; I want'to tell'you something," said Janet earnestly, when the fracture had been set' and' ba'rtdaged] and the •patient felt nothing worse than a not unbearable throbbing.

"Of course. But you needn't worry; you know. You'll'be as right as a trivet" in 10 days." "It wasn't that." said Jartet. "I was wondering" if" f should be allowed to have any dinner'?'' "Want" it?" ' . "More than' a'riy'thing in" the wV>'rld." '•'<soo'(h-Ea't' a'lrytliiifg.'yoti like in" moderation, bllf don't'drink any wiile. bye" till to-mOrrow. Good-tiye, Lord Hestfltihe." "Oh 1" ': cried Janet' sharply. "It's bound to do that," said the doe--tor with a- knowing- nod*"Ts tliis Corby Castle ? Tr "Why, yes," said the doctor so casually that Lord Heseltihe felt impelled to 'repeat with' proper 2 impressiveness: l"Yes, this is"; Corby Ctfttlk" ;It had once been a real castle, inhabited 'by'a' feudal- baron' witii whom- tlie? Thorpe "of Bis day is said not to have been on speaking terms—very properly, for- Sir Roger de Corby had only come over with the Conqueror. Sir Roger's race had died out after' a mere couple of centuries, and the castle 1 had passed throiigh many hands -before reaching' its present owner. With the arrival of it's new master; Corby Castle became, as it were, socially out of bounds. Mr. Heseltine liad opened up coal mines in a place wherej- in' the opinion of Thorpe, coal had no right to be, or at any rate should be allowed', to lie undisturbejl. Mrs. Thorpe had- not on Mrs. Heseltine, dnd flioiigh; in the freer atmosphere of childhood, HWry Heseltine had seen quite a lot of Oswald and his sisters, the two houses did riot officially recogfifeij one another. There had been, some attempt at a rapprochement when Sir Joshua- Hieseltirie had Visited Mi\ Thorpe 1 . iwith* £h<s object of- offering him* a directorship of Corby Main Colleries. Mr. Thorpe had declined, not with a very good grace.----"I assure' you,''' Sir Joshua had said, "fluff we* sTi'ould' consider we were getting value for our money. Of course,- you wouldn't have anything to do; but I conside.? that? your name on our report would be well' worthy the" thousand a year that you'd be getting." At which Mr. Thorpe had stared at' him blankly. -He knew, irjf weff a* any man, the value of hi* name in- hi"? owncounty, m\t it had not even struck- liim that.a directOr's honorarium would be money f6r~ tWO-iHg; If anything, he though that he had been asked to sell rhis name cheaply; hut since he had no [intention of selling it at all—would as [soon,-; in fact, have lent it for the puripose 6t medicine—he isartt 1 hdfhTng, and Sir Joshua retired discomfited. The offer had never been fFtfn|wjSdy aM the barrier between Thorpe and GOfhy -became patent to the world. i A broken; >lp bone need not be- much more formidable than a Wetting; but the ! two together may lead to complications, ilt was so in Janet's case. Perhaps, too, 'she was- not- helped .by the lavish dinner that his Lordship had ordered to he sent up to her. When the doctor called the' next morning she had a temperature. in a high fever. Lord. H«-*Kfne', h'ivigg 'discovered who his' guest was, resolved to send her home at the first opportunity. He hastened to inform the young lady of his inten-

The effect' was startling and 4 quite-] incomprehensible to tlie 1 well-meaning"] peer: The youn-g" lady sat up in bed— which' she' .fad 1 been strictly" forbidden' to db-^and : told hint roundly" that* ife lie' allowed' news of- f her presence *t Corby to rfeaeli 1 Thorpe, she would" nevet> speak to him' again. The threat in itself may not hare'been very terrible, but" hislordship quailed,' in spite of himself; at the manner" in which it was delivered;

"Oh, come," he soothed' her. "You mustn't get excited; you know." "I know f nrusrt't. So why do you' excite' mc?"

iC T— I'd no idea-- you'd take it like - that;"

""Well, you know now. If yon don't promise mc not to breathe a word to anyone that I'm'here. I shall get Worse —ever so much worse. And if you don't keop your promise l , I shall die on your hands. •,.

Having delivered her ultimatum, Janet turned her face to tlie wall and refused to have anything more to say to him. In spite of" his- promise; She did get worse. But Corby and Thorpe, separated by the higti barrier of tlie moor, are iii different worlds, and though it was known in the countryside that ypfos Thorpe was lying ill at Corby Cattle, the news did not spread to Thorpe— probably because Betty was staying with friends in Scotland, and of late Mi-. Trorpe rarely went beyond the borders of his own domain. For a week jTanet tossed in her fourposter bed, hating the trained nurse who had come from Newcastle to tend her, and loathing still more certain Victorian cherubs-that sprawled about the ceiling and intruded themselves malignantly into her dreams. Then the fever burnt' itself out; and she discovered that the nurse was quite a tompanionable person, with a great fund of anecdotes- of' the houses she had kisited in the way of business; while the 1 cherubs- withdrew into their: plaster-of-paris selves and did not even speak when they were spoken to. A week later she was strong enough to join his lordship at dinner—physically a shadow of'- the Janet who' had set off-so buoyantly to walk home from the station, but with a new and quite delightful clarity of mind-and a sympathetic; benevolence towards the human rape tnVt> never- ceased to amaze her.

Tbat- first dinner with liim was a delight to. her, She was not deluded into s\ipposing that' Lord Heseltinc would ever- be regarded by her own .set' as- am engaging personality. She realised very- soon in their- acquaintance that from- the Thorpe point of view— which in- Thorpedale has rather more than the force of law—there bad been ample justification for classing, him as a person- wbom it was not desirable to know. Whether it-' might have been expedient- to know him was another matter, but experience-bad never with the family of Thorpe as- it weighed with' lesser families. As for bis title, so many Thorpes- had declined in past days to be ennobled that it counted as a demerit in so far as it counted atall. In the Thorpe view,- the man was not merely an outsider; be was not within half-a-dozen generations of touching-, the fringe of the world of which' Mr. Thorpe regarded binieelf as an ornament.

Janet, then, dining with' him tete-a---tete in that- vast- dining-room where she, had once sprawled on the floor gnawing- - a leg of" cold- chicken and drinking lemonade from the bottle, could- not- quite dismiss the idea that'-ehance had led her by even istranger ways than when it had thrown jher- inter' tlie company of: Miriam aud iDicfc: Coverdale inn the chocolate and :creaiir setting of'Gaponlade's. ■ Still, he-gavcc-heri a better dinner, and •played' tlie host- Avith a kind of dignity ;tbat lost nothing, of kindliness- from being, outside the traditional line 9: It' occurred to- her that be, too, waspleasqd, in some obscure way, at her. intrusion on' liis? solitary- habits. He-con-fessed- with a- touch of awkwardness, that it was many years since he had entertained a guest at Corby. "Except." lie added, "'in the way of business, if you understand mc." Janet was not sure that she did. Entertaining in the way of business was a kind of hospitality that didn't altogether explain itself. But she .felt vaguely gratified at the thought that lie" was laying- himself ou£ however awkwardly, to entertain her in-another way, and she did'not find it difficult to fall in with his mood, even though she could not pretend to understand it; "Since ber ladyship" died," he explained, "I've left society alone." : At- another- time Janet- might have smiled at the naivete of the confession. But she did not smile now. She perceived as clearly as if he had told her that this heavy old man with the shrewd eyes and the grim mouth—yet withall its grimness there was something boyish in its uncritical curves—was a lonely old man. The world had showered success and bonours on bin.—no doubt he' would say that he had wrested- them from the world—and having done so had passed' him by, leaving hirtf with his Wvea-fthj his servant's"; aridJ the otiose vaßtHess- of the' house that Lady Heseltine had-once had visions of making the centre of the countryside. Janet lra"d a? feelihsf t =dbh£?eTOttsl but always delightful—that she had understood him where others had failed. s

(To be continued daily.)