Miranda of the Movies.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1926, Page 30

Miranda of the Movies.

By ERIC IXACROFT.

Author of "Winter Corn," "Silversands," \ . Etc., Etc. j , CHAPTER XVI. ! There was something else in Jiiru that I moved, her. Now and theu, ,in some j passing gesture or expression, she j caught a likeness to Harry. . It came to! lier with almost, a shock that this man i was Harry's father —that same Harry who had so far made himself at home in her own world, that he had spoken i to her of marriage and had been heard j without dismay. She had not yet made up her mind how far she liked Harry, | but here at any rate she had common inteT-est with her host. She talked of his political success, of the great future that observers predicted of him, and I looked for an answering gleam of i enthusiasm in the eyes of Harry's j father. But none came. | "1 leave Harry alone," said his lordj ship simply. And again Janet's new insight told her that this was not quite I an exact statement of the case. Harry had found his way, quite brilliantly, into I society, and she saw that this had meant j an adaptation, deliberate or otherwise, of his own attitude to the attitude of I his new associates. It was Harry, she felt quite sure, who had left his father alone. But nothing in Janet's behaviour told i i her host that he was being pitied. If she saw in him a pathetic figure, he saw | in himself nothing but a skilful host,! who was not too old to make himself agreeable to a charming young lady— j young enough, too, to take pleasure in ! her society. ! At moments they vergec on flirta- ; I tion. Altogether, Lord Heseltine found j himself well satisfied with the outcome of that _ovel mishap on Corby Moor. | '"You mustn't be in a hurry to go j back to Thorpe," he told her one evening. It was the day when Dr. Hewetj son had pronounced her sufficiently ! cured to make it unnecessary for him | to call at Corby again. "I'm told that you Thorpes do nothing but hunt. But yon know, you're not really strong enough to go hunting.*' "Cubbing," said Janet, "is the best we can do in August." Lord Heseltine didn't see any difference. It would be far better, he thought, that Miss Thorpe should stay quietly at Corby until her convalescence was complete, and avoid all temptation to the kind of exercise that she wasn't really strong enough to resume. "As a matter of fact," said Janet, "we shan't hunt much this season. We've got rid of the horses." < She checked" herself suddenly and | wished the words unspoken. Lately she I had found it hard to remember that her companion was, in a way, the cause of most of her troubles. It was hard to keep in mind that her new friend was really her old enemy. But Lord Heseltine did not seem to notice her sudden embarrassment. "I know," he remarkea. Then, in reply to Janet's look of surprise: "You sec, I have business with your father." "Yes, but—well, I didn't think you werr; interested in horses.'* "I'm not," said the old man bluntly. "But I'm interested in money. Horses, you see, are assets." i Janet started. That was the last | light in which horses were regarded at j Thorpe. j She had a sudden impulse to probe him further, to see just how he did look at a transaction that meant so much to her and hers. Only thus, she thought, could she decide whether abe .ought to like or hate this elderly recluse, whose success had brought him so little contact with the world to which ho nominally belonged. It would help her to understand how he could be, as Mr. Jonah had been,, at the same time her enemy and her friend—for, more and more, in spite of the gulf between them, she felt that he was her friend. I She plunged into the middle of the thing. * "By the way, when are you going to turn us out of Thorpe?" "Eh?" said Lord Heseltine. i Janet repeated her question, not per- ' haps with the same fine carelessness ; that she had achieved in asking it for the first time. Lord Heseltine looked at her doubtfully. It didn't quite square with his notioi. of a pleasant little dinner for two that he should be invited to talk business. "I'm naturally rather interested," Janet explained. . "1 see. j Yes, of course. I suppose you would be. As a matter of fact, I haven't decided. It's—er—purely a matter of business." Janet agreed. There was nothing more to be said—or at least she couldn't think of anything more to say. She had learned from Jonah that business was a matter in which young ladies interfered at their own risk. But her question seemed to have set him thinking, and a moment later he expanded his answer. "You see," said his lordship. "It's like this. It don't mean much to mc, one way or the other. When her ladyship was alive she never really took to this house. I could never quite understand why." Janet credited the memory of Lady Heseltine with ah unsuspected sensibility, i but said nothing. "So she naturally cast her eyes round for somewhere that fitted in more than her ideas," pursued Lord Heseltine. "And it turned out that there was no place she thought would* suit her quite as well as Thorpe." ,_ Janet fixed a resolute eye on her plate and tried not to laugh. It was much as if a provincial matron, looking round for a residences London, had taken a fancy to- St. James Palace. And yet as her host's next words showed her, the thing hadn't, after all, been quite absurd. "You know what ladies are"—he bowed slightly to mitigate the summary! of her sex—"when they take a fancy j to a place. They aren't happy till they get it. So I went to your father, and offered him a liberal figure for the- place —I think I might say a more than i liberal figure. He wasn't inclined to sell." This was it mildly. Janet well remembered the shock of horror and I indignation that had shaken Thorpe wheh.Sir Joshua had called with his more than liberal offer. ."He didn't take it very well," hisTordship went on reflectively. "Seemed to have a kind of sentimental attachment to the place. That's understandable, of' course." -I "I'm glad you understood," murmured ! Janet. ■ '. .. j "Oh, I did. But naturally Susan wasn't ■ satisfied. She'd grown accustomed to getting what she wanted, cost what it might. So I told him to name his own i price. He refused again. I'm not blaming him; mind you. A man's place is hit own to keep or sell as he thinks fit. But Lady Haseltine had met her heart on living at Thorpe, and—ah well! it want to be."

Hie lordship permitted himself the faintest of sighs; "AU the same," he added, "I gdt what I wanted. If poor Susan was alive to-day, she could walk into the -place next week. Though I always said that it didn't strike mc as healthy, being right down in that hollow under the moore." Janet felt curiously near to tears—not at the pathos of Lady Heseltine's wishes being frustrated by death, but at the thought that anybody couhl look on Thorpe as a place to be schemed for by someone to whom it could have no real meaning. To this kindly old gentleman on the other side of the table there was no tragedy in the thing, except the tragedy of unfulfilled hopes. He had merely sought to gratify his wife's fad, and even now it had not occurred to him that he was seeking to commit a kind of sacrilege. "And so," siie forced herself to ask, "you no longer want Thorpe." "Not for myself," said Lord Heseltine mournfully, "f'orby Castle is good enough 1 for mc. ~'ve no sentiment about it now, | you see. It's just a matter of business." i And at last Janet thought she began jto understand how this man could be both friend and enemy. Again it was just a matter of business. Mr. Jonah had complained of the way in which his clients abused him because he insisted on their standing to a bargain that they were presumed to have understood when they made it. In the same way, she realised, Lord Heseltine -you'd hardly understand her if she spoke of her father's resentment at the way. ,n which he had been treated. He had dealt with Mr. Thorpe as one man of business deals with another. That ■ was the extent of his enmity. Then suddenly, with a catch, of the I breath, she saw. too. quite clearly the ! extent of his friendship. She knew that ' hi' had grown, in a way, attached to her. [ S'le had brought youth and companion- ! ship to a house of loneliness, and there was a bond of sympathy between them. It (■:■:«-• to, her. with the force of certainty. that she had only to ask and he | would give—at any rate delay. And it was delay, only <~.elay, that ehe had bean fighting for. She glanced a little wildly round the vast room with its lavish and denress>n.<r decorations; then hastily began to talk of something else. CHAPTER XVII. On Janet's last morn'ng at Corby Castle —even Lord Heseltine had failed to find a pretext for keeping her any longer—she was walking on the famous terrace, when someone hailed h?r from the garden below. She supposed for a moment that it must be the gardener. She had found her way to his heart by admiring his roses, and he had formed an embarrassing habit of seeking her out every morning with a bunch of hU choicest specimens. But it was not that now familiar fiaure that she saw waving to her from the other side of the sunk fence that divided the lawn frof the rose garden, though she felt vaguely, even at this distance, that it was somebody she knew. ''May I come up?"' shouted the intruder; and taking her consent for granted," he jumped the haha and advanced to the foot of the terrace. "So it's you," said Janet coolly. ".Aren't you trespassing?" "Possibly." he panted, drawing his legs after him over the store balustrade and perching there. "in fact, probably; but Janet -" "But what?" said Miss Thorpe. ' "Oh. I can't help it. 1 repeat 'Janet.' " "Really—er—Richard *' "If yon only knew how I'd missed you," cried Coverdale. "But I've had extraordinary luck. I heard at the station of your accident, and the first man I met on the moor happened to have heard that you were staying here, so I came straight on. Isn't that Providence ?" "I really don't know." said Janet. "It depends on why you wanted to find mc. But 1 wish you'd sit in a chair, and stop swinging your legs." He complied with alacrity. The chair was nearer to her than the balustrade. "Why did I come? Well, first of all, I can't live without you." "An illusion,"' said Janet. "You could, really, you know." He shook his head with a gesture that combined denial with an effect of shaking off a dash of cold water. ~

"Still,"" pursued Janet, "since we're on the subject, you may as well tell mc when you besan to think you couldn't." "Oh, when you disappeared. No. that's not true. I suppose it was when I left you that first night at Capoulade's. No, hang it, that' 9 not true either. D'yoii know," he went on wonderingly, "1 believe it was that day when we sat in the heather over Thorpe after rounding up the ponies, and when you "

"Why, you're sillier than I thought," interrupted Janet quickly. He hung his head; and there was something so boyish in the gesture that Janet's thoughts few back in spite of herself to that oth?r time when he had hung his- head while she waited, nose in air, for an answer to a peremptory invitation.

"If I hadn't been ordered to avoid excitement, I should probably order you off the terrace." she went on. "You might at least have come to the front door. Unfortunately I'm not strong enough to quarrel with you, so you maj as well go on—no, do sit still—and tell mc all the news about Miriam and Van Quisten andVniy dear Mr. Jonah. I'm afraid I've treated them badly, but you see all my plans have been spoilt by that wretched donkey." "Lord Heseltine?"

"No, of course not." Then she had to tell him the whole story, laying special stress on the kindness of her host. Hencetorth she was prepared to champion Lord Heseltine in the face of the world.

"They say he's a hard customer," commented Dick, "but I never heard of his doing anything underhand."

"He never did," declared Janet, with conviction.

"I wish I could say the same of , but never mind that. So you want news of Millennium' Well, the chiei item is that they've lost the services of a brilliant young author and assistant producer."

"Oh, I'm sorry," cried Janet, im pulsively.

"Then I don't care," replied Dick. "I'm afraid you must prepare yourself for a little disappointment. Perhaps I oughtn't to tell you until you're better." It will be seen that the young man's knowledge of the femiaine mind was less than an author's should be. Janet promptly declared that she, had never felt better in her life.

"You see, Van Quisten got tired of waiting to hear from you. I rather fancy that Jonah stood out as- ; long as he could, but the whole thing was rather hung up, and so "He paused. "Oh, go on," cried Janet, fighting down a growing dismay. "He decided that it wag no use waiting to get hold of Thorpej and told Van Quisten he could take his precious villa in Surrey and go ahead." _______ tain—then 111 hari to go to Surrey."

"I'm afraid sot. You see, &» hain't heard from you." "But of course not," cried Janet. "What was the use of my writing to him when I hadn't even began to do the thing I came to do?" "Quite so. But you know what those people are. Anyway, the fact is they've cast my cousin as Janet again, and I daresay you wouldn't care to go hack in any other part." Janet was silent. It had never occurred to her that a mere delay of a cquple of weeks would be counted to her as tailure. Time had never been an important consideration in her life, and if anybody with a' better understanding of modern hustle had suggested that Mr. Jonah had really been unusually patient, she would have laughed scornfully. The whole thing struck her as incredibly mean. She turned to find Dick looking at her and lowered her eyes quickly when they met his. If she were to share he disappointment with him, it must not be yet. "So much for Janet," she said with a little laugh. "But you haven't explained why they got rid of you." "'Oh, that?" Why, it follewed automatically." "Did it?" But I can't see why." "Oh, 1 wasn't going to have my story spoilt." He spoke awkwardly now and diffidently, as though he could not quite depend on her not laughing at him. "I'd made up my mind that Miriam'wouldn't do for Janet. She's too sophisticated, and the Surrey setting is wildly wrong, anyway. So 1 washed my hands of the thing and—and came along." Janet nodded. His awkwardness had communicated itself to her, as awkwardness will in certain electrical states of the mind's ether. She wanted to i alone, but she found herself wondering, with a quite unusual lack of savoir take, how to get rid of he. unexpected visitor. Besides, she was not quite sure how this strange young man would take a too-direct dismissal. A step on the terrace behind them put an end to these atmospherics. The second arrival could hardly have beeraccused of trespassing, for it was none other than the sou. of the house. "Janet," cried Harry Heseltine. And the other young man noted that this time the use of her name passed unreproved. Janet decided that she wasn't, after all, so strong as she had imagined herself to be. She found herself wishing that there were fewer young men in the world, or at least that they would time their appearances so as not to coincide. "Oh, Harry, your father's a dear. I've been here a fortnight and I'm just going." "ifll agree to the first statement" he said, with reservations, "but I won't agree to the second." He interrupted himself with a glance of polite inquiry in the direction of Dick. ""Mr. Covcrda'e," she hurried to introduce him. "The author, you know." "Let mc confess at once," said Harry, "that 1-haven't read any of your books. Unbss, by any chancy they're bluebooks. I'm a professional Pharisee —a politician " Dick Coverdale responded awkwardly. •Janet ha ten -d to make it clear that he didn't wr le books, blue or otherwise. "Ah. a playwright." Again it fell to Janet to explain -that he wasn't exactly a playwright either, but one who wrote for the films. "The fi'.ms?"' said Harry absently. "Ah. yes. the films." Still Dick had nothing to say for himself. Janet felt annoyed with him. She had sometimes, with no' definite purpose, pictured these men together, wondering how two such different personalities would combine, but the imagined meeting had not been at all like this. "Harry." she broke in, "your father's been so kind to mc that I feel as if Corby Castle belongs to mc." She could well imagine what would have been Harry's' response if he had been alone with her. But he contented himself with the Snania—i'o assurance that the house was' hers. ".In that case." said Janet. "I'm going to ask 3tr. Coverdale to stay for lunch with us." 'To bs continued daily.)