THE HOUSE IN THE FOREST.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 30

THE HOUSE IN THE FOREST.

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. Author of "A Mad Marriage," "Dcnys, The Dreamer," "The Moated Grange," etc. CHAPTER XVI. She braced herself to it sternly and went on, the dogs keeping now at her heels, as though she had infected them with her terrors. She glanced nervously the way of the dark house, as she approached it.*repressing in herself the impulse to turn and run back. What had she to be afraid of? Wolf, pressing closely against her, should be a formidable protector. Now—her heart was in her mouth— she was passing the dark gable. The last of the flaming sky had fallen to grey ash. The wind began to stir in the tops of the trees. She had reached the place she dreaded. She was past it. She was trying not to look back. She remembered: Because he knows some fparful fiend Walks fast, nor turns his head. As one who on a lonesome road Doth close behind him tread. Suddenly she stopped short. A sound of sobbing and crying had broken out somewhere near, close to her, the sound muffled. It came from Forest Lodge. She stood for a second, her hands pressed over her heart that thudded as though it would break from her side. There was a roaring as of the waterfall in her ears. She stood there panting. Suddenly Wilf lifted his head and emitted a piercing howl. In the silence that followed she heard the clanking of a chain. Then she did the bravest thing she had ever done. She would not yield to the impulse to flight. She turned back, went to the window, and looked in. There was no fire or light, but sonicthing stirred in the obscurity as though it were a great beast lying in the straw. The sound of sobbing broke out. It was miserable. She had to remind herself that here was no beast, but a poor, shell-shocked disfigured man, a piteous victim of the folly and cruelty of man. Sho must get help. He could not lie there without fire, without light. Was it possible Mrs. Ware had forgotten him in her absorption with Sir Philip. It was terrible to think that these poor things became, perhaps, in time, an abhorrent burden to those who should love and cherish them. She could do nothing unaided. She started off, running as hard as she could in the direction of the house. She had forgotten to be afraid. The great impulse towards pity and indignation had made her forget all else. The dogs raced with her, forgetting their terror. The wind was increasing overhead, dislodging now and again the frozen snow that fell with a thud. There would be rain before long, and those avenues through the pines would be as rivers running. There would be a drippng thaw, but as yet the snow was hard under her feet. She must be near the house now. She wondered if anyone would notice that the dark had fallen and that she had not returned. The wall made a detour. This way was longer than she had thought, but she must be nearing the house. Suddenly in the path just ahead of her there was the sharp spurt of a match and a little flame sprung up. Before it was applied to a cigarette she had seen by its light the dark face and bright eyes of Antoine, Sir Philip's valet. There was someone with him. As 6he spoke a dark shape slipped off through the shrubbery—a woman. Bridget had time to wonder, half contemptuously, at the ways of lovers. What a chill, uncomfortable place and time for an assignation. Another time she might have been a little shocked and doubtful. Xow she thought only of what she wanted done. She laid a constraining hand on Antoine's arm, else he, too, might have eluded her. "I want you, Antoine," she said. She had come, half-unwillingly, to like Antoine. "We must get firing and light and fuel and food," she said, at once; it is urgent. That poor shell->rocked man in the Forest Lodge lies there in the dark and cold." Rather to her surprise Antoine did not demur. He even proved more helpful than she had dared to hope. He knew where the firing and fuel were to be had. He suggested la petite anesse with her little cart. The ass was used about the garden and the stables. She was very surefooted, la petite anesse. They could take logs, coal, anything that was needed. Bridget reported herself at the door of Sir Philip's room. Antoine had told her that Sir Philip had been persuaded by Mrs. Ware to go to bed. The housekeeper opened a narrow chink of the door to her. "The pain has been very bad," 6he said. "I have poulticed him and he will see nobody." Apparently Sir Philip had been suffering violent pain, and Elspeth's offer of help had been refused by Mrs. Ware rudely. "We must have a doctor, Bridget," said Elspeth. "I think we shall have to disregard his wishes. I do not like those pains. I walked into the room before she knew I was there, and he looked livid. I had to return to Peter then, and when I came again she closed the door in my face—quickly. I heard the key turn in the lock. I could not make a disturbance, of course." "She knows how to treat him," said Bridget. "He has confidence in her. But we shall certainly have a doctor unless he is better very soon." As she went downstairs she had a new sensation, as though the place was full of of shadows and portents. Antoine awaited her with the little ass and cart. They talked very little. Bridget had a passing wonder as to how Antoine and Mrs. Ware came to be related. There was no likeness between them in any way. Antoine had a certain dark brilliancy as of the South. She would have placed Mrs. Ware as a Parisian. Suddenly she remembered the woman who had been with Antoine when she came on him in the shrubbery. She had a startled suspicion. Was it Rose? Could it be possible ? Rose, with her looks would have a passionate nature. What chance would Alec, with his plain good face and colourless eyes have against such a one as Antoine? She remembered now that Rose had complained of Antoine's lovemaking; that was several weeks ago. Had the love-making been going on since then, turning Rose's heart from the simple lover with whom she had been so well satisfied? "Madame Ware," said Antoine, with a pause and jerk. It occurred to Bridget that he had been going to use some other name. "Madame Ware—she will not be pleased at what you do. She can be—oh, terrible in her anger." 'T'hat cannot be helped, Antoine," said Bridget. "We cannot leave that poor creature alone in the darkness without fire or light. She should attend to him better." Suddenly she said, and wondered why she said it: "Mrs. Ware nursed you after your Iwound at Verdun!'* ~ ~ " •

He glanced at her with that alert glance of his. "Mademoiselle is right—but parfaitment. She is a queen of nurses, that Madeleine" — again there was a pause before the name—"Ware. But she is the troublesome kind that the doctors do not love. She has la grande passion for her patients, or they have it for her. One poor camarade has blown his brains out because she will not return the passion she has inspired. Another will drag a chain because his passion only flared up and went cold."' They were at the dark front of the little house and Bridget had discovered that Wolf had caught up with them and was licking her hand. She had shut up the dogs, but they had escaped. Bobby was standing up against her skirt, fawning upon her apologetically. "Madeleine does not like the dogs," said Antoiue. 'She likes her cat. Mademoiselle should keep the dogs away from Madeleine's cat." His English was as though he had learnt a lesson. '"l'auvre camarade!" he said under his breath, as they pushed at the door, which came open at a touch. Antoine flashed the light of the lantern into the dark little hall and round about. There was an open door. Bridget, coming fearfully behind him, glad of the dogs at her heels, saw that the room was empty. Leaving the lantern on the table, he went into the hall for a second and came back. The two dog 3 were pressing closely against Bridget, as though they, too, were afraid. She felt siek and cold at the cruelty of it. With her foot she touched the heap of rags on the floor, and fancied that they moved under her feet, as though they were alive. "Le vieux camarade has forced the door," said Antoine, and his tone had a touch of horror in it. "Perhaps he goes seeking food like the rabbits and the squirrels. There is no food here. She has left him to starve, the accursed one." He set a match to the fire and it caught. Turning about, he made a queer choked sound. "So—he was chained," he said. "Le vieux camarade. But he has got away with it." , From a staple in the discoloured wall above the heap of foul bedding swung a length of rusty chain. It had evidently broken off short; a piece of jagged iron which might have been used as a file lay on the floor. CHAPTER XVII. 'J he storm grew in strength during the night. The promise of the red sky was fulfilled. The shrieking ami crying of the wind, and the groaning of the trees as they rocked before it woke Bridget out of. an uneasy sleep. She glanced at her watch, a luminous watch, shabby and battered, which Larry had carried during the war, making it very precious. It was two o'clock. The waking had brought her more than nerves. She was heavy with a nameless depression. She had realised blankly, coming awake, Sir Philip's illness. He had always been as 6trong as a horse, he had told her yesterday, or the day before, but he had said it with shadows about his eyes and lips, and a sweat of pain on his forehead. There was something else in the background, the memory of the wretched place they had visited last night, and some other anxiety less personal. Who was it with whom Antoine had talked last night in the shrubbery, when she had seen his face by the flare of a lit match, and a woman had glided away into the darkness? She was pretty sure now that the woman was Hose. She was helped to the conclusion by Hose's absence last night. There had been a half sheet of paper pinned to her pincushion. Would Miss Bridget please excuse as Rose was not feeling well. j Bridget did not like that discovery. Was Bose playing dast and loose between the two men? And she did not like the girl stealing out into the dark shrubbery. It seemed sly, underhand, not what she thought of Rose. She had slipped out of bed and got into her dressing-gown and slippers. Why should she be suddenly fearful of her pretty rooms where she loved her isolation, her solitude. She was still doing her illustrations, her book-jackets. She line! brought a suit-case full of her particular books to Wildwater Forest. She hud said to herself that an hour of work in that quiet room was better than three in a less peaceful place. She loved her little bath-room, the tiny room adjoining, fitted for such small laundry work and washing up as one might need to do in a self-contained f ,t. The electric dryers and ironers, and all the other discoveries had pleased Bridget as an ingenious toy might please a child. She had not been accustomed to such convenience. But now she was all in a hurry to be gone. It was a dark night outside. The moon had set early. Lifting a corner of the window-blind to look out she dropped it again with a fear lest she should see the dark shape of the man or a beast flung up on the whiteness of the snow. She had locked the door of communication with the corridor leading to the old kitchen every night since the housekeeper had visited her. She switched off the electric light in her room and went into the little passage between the two • doors. She had seen that passage in her thoughts open to the garden and the un and wind in spring and summer days to come. She felt with her hand for the key—there was no key. The door was open. Was it possible she had not locked it last night? When first she had had her pretty rooms she had not locked the door from an old childish habit, inculcated upon her because one might be ill in the night and need help But she had been locking it carefully of late. The thought that the door had not been locked filled her with an unreasonable terror. She must have forgotten in the flurry of her thoughts last night. She had always locked the door of late, leaving the key in the lock so that a key could not be introduced from the other side. Switching on the light 6he found the key. It was lying on the floor at her feet. It must have fallen out by accident. She would have discovered it if she had thought of locking the door last night. She locked it now, on the outer side, taking the key with her. She must %et back *to her rowms in the early morning before the servants were about. And to-morrow she would change back t>> her upstairs room again unless indeed morning brought her calm and self-con-trol. She had inculcated so many lessons of courage upon herself, the daughter and sister of a soldier. She was a little ashamed of her nerves by the time she had reached the upstairs room. The room was dismantled, but she knew where to find linen, and the blankets were there. Before she made her bed she stole tiptoe into the night nursery. Elspeth woke up and spoke to her in a whisper. It was no wonder Bridget had been frightened. She must not sleep in those lonely rooms again, pretty though they were. She had been too wonderfully brave already.

She awoke to the pattering of raiu upon the window. The wind, which had been in her dreams all night, had fallen. But there was something else besides the rain and the wind. She groped for her watch. It was five o'clock. The servants would not be about till seven. But there was something, something in the room—a faint rosy glow. It was in the dark window, where she had forgotten to draw the blind. The town lay in that direction. Was there a lire? Or perhaps it was the foundry at Scar. It might have been the beginning of a rosy dawn to match the rosy eve, but five o'clock was too early for dawn to begin so early in the year. She slept again and there was fire in her dreams, fire and terror. Someone was leaning over her, someone with a long beard and long hair that was. all about her face, her eyes, her hands, when she tried to disentangle herself — her limbs. The beard was close against her face. The hair enveloped her from head to foot. Xo face, no hands, a bodiless thing, just a flowing beard and hair. She strangled, she fought with all her might to get free. Then, when she was at her worst agony she came awake— to Llspeth - 8 voice, Elspeth's face. "You have had a nightmare, Bridget," said Elspeth. "You can't imagine what a noise you have been making." "I am so sorry," said Bridget humbly. "I hope I did not wake Peter." "He is sound asleep. Was it very horrible? Would you like me to come into bed with you? It is ncarlv morning." "Oh. Elspeth. if you would. I should not dare to sleep again, lost it should return. I have had that dream before. There is plenty of room." Elspeth crept into bed. She had turned on the light. "Soon there will be day in the pane." she said. "Xow, what was it all about. Bridget?" "It was horrible," said Bridget, proceeding to describe her nightmare and feeling the comfort of Elspeth's presence. "I am so grateful that you woke me. It was much worse terror and agonv than anything that comes by day. 'The terror that lies by night,' you "remember?" "You would have wakened anyhow," said Elspeth. "What had you been eating, Bridget, toasted cheese—cucumber— what?" "I was frightened last night," Bridget said. "I have wanted to tell you. And at Dcrrymorc when I was a child there was a picture in the nursery which frightened me very much. It was the Prophet Elias, made all in beadwork. 1 never told anyone how the glassy eyes used to follow me about till my mother discovered it, and the picture was banished to the lumber room. He had a beard, that old man. I was nearly as much afraid of the beard as of the eyes." "And you have had a recurrent nightmare of the beard and the eyes," said Elspeth wisely. "There were no eyes in the dream, only the hair and the beard." "Well, forget about them and tell me your story," said Elspeth, settling herself to hear. Elspeth thought that action must be taken about the wretched inmate of the Forest Lodge. "That woman," she said, "lias proved herself cruel and heartless. She is not fit to be in charge of a sick man, though I believe she is a competent nurse. She railed me in to see Sir Philip yesterday evening, and she was quite ingratiating in her ways with me—almost fawning. Sir Philip seemed better. I do not like these internal pains. And now, do you think yon could go to sleep?" "I might," said Bridget, "but I rl••• • i want to sleep too long. I want ' c .> back and dress in my own room before the servants are about." "I shouldn't worry over that. - ' She switched otT the light and the room was in darkness. Before she, settled again she sat up leaning on her elbow, and gazing towards the window. "There is a tire somewhere." she said. "Somewhere beyond the forest." Suddenly Bridget was wide awake and terrified. "It is the Forest Lodge," she said. "Antoine lit a lire there before we left."' (To be continued daily.)