THE RICH MAN

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 25, 31 January 1928, Page 18

THE RICH MAN

By Katherine Tynan

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER DELAROY ROBINSOX, familiarly known as "Kit," is the only son of

LORD PEXDRAGOX, a fabulously ricli man, who has fought hard to amass wealth, though he assures his son that he has always fought "big people." Kit loves his father, but dislikes his riches. During the war the boy served in France, first as a private, then as an officer, and while there he became devoted to a lovely Fretich girl, who, however, was destined for a convent. One May evening some years after the war. Kit is sitting in his rooms in Piccadilly when the telephone bell tinkles. A voire asks: "Are you Mayfair 6340?" and before he has a chance to point out that this is not his number it goes on. "Can you come at once to .1. Acacia Grove, FulhamV" The voice, frightened and appealing, reminds him of the French girl to whom he was attached. "I will come at once," he says. Kit finds that he has been summoned through a wrong telephone number. The girl who meets him, DELICE ARBUTHNOT. explains that her mother, who has been working hard as typist in order to make ends meet, has had a heart attack, and that she rang for a doctor. Kit at once phones for a physician. who explains that Mrs. Arbuthnot will recover, with nourishment and rest. When the doctor has gone, Kit returns to the house. CHAPTER IV. I "Xow what is the matter?" asked the doctor. "I gathered from your message that the case was urgent." "For the moment the attack is over. The lady had a spasm of tlie heart. Her daughter said something about angina." There was something in the doctor's voice and the expression of his face that made Kit feel that the situation needed explanation before lie should make a request which must seem a strange one to the doctor. Kit knew something about Dr. Bruce Browne which was in his favour. He was not a young man, but he had given his professional services to the wounded of the war whole-heartedly, spending three years in France until a breakdown in health sent him home. Someone liad said that he had had hard work to get back his practice, if he had got it back. Ho had been forgotten at home in those three years. Kit, admitting him, had seen the long nose and floppy ears of a dachshund leaning from the window ot' the car. His heart instinctively went out to Dr. Bruce Browne, as one doglover's heart goes out to another. He wondered if the dachshund was also a waif of the war, picked up as Bobby had been. "That's bad." said the doctor—he meant the angina. The accent was Scotch and the tones sympathetic. Kit felt glad that he had remembered that story about Dr. Bruce Browne's impetuous offer of his services to the War Office which some of his patients had resented. Here was a man. "Let me see the patient," said the doctor. "Wait a moment." Kit explained as quickly as ho could. It seemed an odd talo to unfold. The doctor watched him with kind shrewd eyes. * "I don't want them to know anything about who I am," he said. "It was a mistake in the number. There was something in the message like a call for help. I didn't know that I was called by mistake for a doctor until I got here. I should like to see this through—you appreciate the fact?— as though they were some relatives of my own. They seem very simple very inexperienced in worldly matters —the mother and daughter."

"It is a pretty wee place," said the doctor, "like a doll's house. There won't be many in Acacia Grove like this."

He said to himself that there was a lassie in the case. He would know more about that presently. This old comrade of the war was to be trusted.

There was something exquisite about the little house this May evening. It had panelled walls that dated from the time when it was a country cottage. Outside the staircase window the newleaved trees stirred softly in a wonderful shimmering green. The smell of wallflowers and pinks came into the house; and among the green silk one noble chestnut had lit up all his candles.

"A bonny wee place!" said the doctor, as they passed the staircase window. "I'm thinking that none but good folk have lived here."

The girl whom her mother had called Delice opened the door of the little 6itting-room as they came up stairs. Her slender childish figure showed against the room beyond. Her lips parted, the colour in her cheeks was coming and going; her pale fair hair showed like a halo against the window behind.

Dr. Bruce Browne put out his hand and took hers.

"I have come to see your mother my dear," he said, and the words had a homely sound.

She had a frightened look. The doctor whose little daughter seven years old had died during the war, said to himself that angina was a terrifying thing, especially where there was love. It might be that the mother was the girl's one ship, that all would go down with her.

They went into the room where Mrs. Arbuthnot was sitting, waiting for them —the doctor and the girl. Kit stayed in the sitting-room, standing by the window. Bobby had discovered the dachshund, and was evidently finding her appealing. He was standing up on the seat of the Sunbeam, his tail wagging hard, doubtless his eyes watering. Bobby was a susceptible dog where the ladies of his kind were concerned. Doubtless the little dachshund was a lady; indeed she could be nothing else. Despite the distraction of watching Bobby—the rascal had left his post now I and was standing on the footboard of the' big car pawing at the door, above i which the dachshund looked down at r him with an aloof detached air—he

found the time long. It was as though the doctor's verdict concerned someone I near and dear. It was absurd on this chance touching. He was glad it was Bruce Browne, a good fellow and a man. Mrs. Tliesiger, one of the doctor's patients who had gone back to him when he came home from the war with a new start to be made, had mentioned the death of the doctor's little daughter. He had apparently found Mrs. Tliesiger a sympathetic soul. , '-® e thinks he might have saved the «ov had been there," she said. She was a beautiful child especially dear to her father. He has a quiverfull or will have—but they don't make up for Elsie." r The doctor came in. "Not angina," he said. "The poor lassie will be spared that. Her mother may live for years with care and comfort. She has been killing herself working to bring up-the girl."

His eye fell on the typewriter and accompaniments.

"It doesn't look like hard work; it looks like a toy," he said. Kit explained.

"We had better get at that woman," he saicl. "I'm afraid there has been privation. They are both undernourished in my opinion, under-warmed, too, in the cold winter. There will be other friends, perhaps. They look as though they had fallen out of a world to which they lightly belong."

He was watching Kit's face -with his shrewd grey eyes, which could be very soft at times, at others hard as an agate.

"Good God," said Kit, "I was afraid of that. There is something in the air of the house that suggests a bare cupboard."

"Aye! Good God!" said the doctor, "it might be that the Good God thought of those poor things when he sent you."

"Don't let them know me as a rich man scattering largesse," said Kit, and there was a certain irritability in the tone in which he used the absurd phrase, "I am sick of being a rich man."

Kit went downstairs with the doctor and along the little flagged path by the irises and wall flowers to the gate.

Bobby had returned to his post and was wagging his tail deprecatingly, looking over the hood of the Sunbeam. The Dachshund was only aware of her master, | while making no extravagant demonstrations of delight. "Judy's just a little woman," the | doctor said, taking the dog up and hold- j ing her in his arms. "She's the wisest being alive. She was picked up after a push. I don't know how she came to be where she was, but I expect the Boclie who owned her was among the dead. She nearly died, too, of grief. But one day when she was very bad, I happened to say a few words in German, and she showed signs of life. After that we talked German together. Judy has forgotten that I was ever an enemy —eh, liebehen!" CHAPTER V. The girl drew him into the little sitting room. "The doctor was very kind, very reassuring," she said. "How can I ever thank you enough? Could you stay a few minutes longer? There is this prescription to be made up. 1 am going to take it to the chemist." Her slender lingers were holding a folded paper. "Let nie have it," he said, "I shall be quicker than you. And —while lam about it, isn't there something else? The doctor said she needed nourishment —and you, too." "Oh," she said, and he saw that her breast heaved. "1 have been trying to get things for her that she could eat." "And leaving out yourself," lie said. It had come to him with a shock that she was thinner than she ought to be.

"She has been killing herself over the typing," she said. "1 try to help, but I am not as good as she is at making out crabbed handwriting. Some clients have complained of my mistakes. So she will not let me do it. I take the house work off her hands."

She turned away her head as though what she was staying was painful to her.

He took the hand that held the paper and looked at it.

"Poor little hand!" he said. "It has done too much hard work. Not- good for the typing, that."

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and the sight of them was more than he could bear.

"Could you take it, my dear," he said, and was hardly aware of the caressing epithet, "that the mistake about the telephone number may have been meant —by whoever decrees our fates—in a kind mood. I have money—more than I want to spend." He had not meant to say that, but having said it he went on—"I have no one to spend it on but myself. Can I help?"

She looked at him wide-eyed. He had never seen eyes of so lambent a light. "A milk white hind." The quotation came to him. Her eye 9 were soft as a deer's and almost as shy, but she had forgotten to be shy.

"But we arc strangers," she said. "I have come to you in a strange way," he said. "Don't let us talk about being strangers. It was to save your mother's life."

"Ah;" she said; and again the young breast heaved, affccting him strangely". If it was to save her precious life, I would beg in the streets for that. I have sometimes thought of singing in the streets if only I could do it without her knowing. There are so few ways one can earn money."

She smiled, a rather shaky smile—but he saw that she could be merry. "I will talk to my mother," she said, and let him take the prescription from her.

She had glanced through the window, and for the first time discovered the' car and the dog. "The car is yours?" she said—"and the dog ?"

"Yes. Bobby minds the car when Igo visiting. I shall not be long." He was going toward the door, the prescription in his hand.

"Let me take care of you a little— you are alone in the world and I am a lonely man."

"My father was killed in the war," she said simply, as though that explained thing. "He was a good soldier. He

might have commanded the regiment in time. My mother's pension is very small."

So that was what they lived upon. A widow's war pension eked out by typing. "A comrade of the war," he aid. "It gives me a claim. Let me talk to your mother. She will accept that claim." His face was eager, persuasive. Again i Delice smiled. * "You talk as though helping us was

a favour to you, not to us," she said. "I want to do it very much," he said earnestly. "So much that I feel you must let me do what I will. I may have to wait for this prescription, but I shall be quicker than you could be." | He was winding up the car, telling Bobby that his rejoicings were premature, that they were not really on the way home yet, when glancing back at the little house he saw that the girl was still standing by the window, watching him. He waved his hand to her in that strange new sense of intimacy, of something possessive. He might be a man who had suddenly discovered warm j family ties. He left the prescription in the first chemist's he came to in the long main street, in which already the lights were lit, living and golden against a sky of hazy pink. The shops were still open. He had hoped for that. He visited one or two .and bought what he thought best, eggs,

butter, cream at the dairy; groceric6, an abundant supply of fruit. He hoped they would not mind. He thought they would not. They must not, becausc he wanted to do so much for them. When they knew* what it meant for him they would let him have his way.

He was quite well aware that it was a queer business. Sane, sensible people did not go about adopting families like this. He already had his hands fairly full, though he felt the official giving to his mother, the giving 011 a munificent scale for public purposes to his father. He simply could not conic into the open with his gifts as his father had wished that he should, placing large sums at his disposal. Much of his beneficence weni through others. An anonymous gift now and again to the depicted purse of somi excellent modest charity; a sum placed in the hands of real lovers of their kind like Sir Francis Archer, who had given up the latter years of his life to the cause of broken soldiers. It had sometimes been commented 011 that Captain Delaroy Robinson's name did not appear in the subscription lists which his father's name so greatly adorned.

Kit picked up the prescription on the way back. It was dusk now, and the lights were showing in the little windows of the houses in Acacia Grove, where a cobbler's head could be seen bending over the shoe he cobbled; and in another window a little dressmaker placed the garment she was making on a lav figure. They were not chary of their interiors in Acacia Grove.

The abundant foliage which must have come down from the country days showed clear and green with tlie lij;ht upon it above the street lamps. The skv was now of an intense blueness.

The little house had not yet put up its lights, but, as the ear stopped a light went on in the hall. It was as though somcbodv welcomed his return.

The door opened before he had time to knock, and the girl was standing there. He made one or two journeys between the car and the house bvlore lie had unloaded all his packages. "I did the best I could," lie said. "Luckily the shops were still open."

She looked at the basket of fruit, the cream, the cooked chicken which showed out of its wrappings, the wine, the jelly.

"Oh," she said, "how good you are, I am sure God sent vou."

''I think He must have," said Kit simply. It was good that she took it like that. That they, those two helpless creatures, would not refuse what came from God.

fie found Mrs. Arbutlinot sitting as lie had left lier by the open window. Delice had let him go in alone. Her .'•mall tired lace showed up against, the dark leather of the chair in which she was sitiing. She t-miled at him as he came in, and motioned to him to sit down in a chair beside her.

"You are wonderfully good," she 6aid. "Delice has been telling me. For her sake I cannot refuse your help. I am almost at the end of my tether."

"Oh. no," he said, taking her hand in his. "We are going to save you. You cannot go on with the typing, that is certain. You must put yourself in my hands and Dr. Bruce Browne's. Wc are going to take care of you and of Delice."

"How nice that sounds," she said. "It is long since there has been anyone to take care of me and Delice. We have had to take care of each other, and I have been afraid that the partnership was going to be broken. 1 could not face leaving Delice upon the world." "You will not he asked to do that," lie said, and caressed her hand as though lie had been a loving soil. "I am going to take care of vou both."

"I ain asleep," she said; "I am dreaming, and shall wake up to know it. 1 have prayed so hard that a friend might be sent for Dclice."'

Your prayer has been heard," he said

The door was pushed gently open, and Delice came in carrying a tray, which he jumped up and took from her. There was a beaten-tip egg, jelly in a glass, with cream, biscuits, wine, a bunch of grapes. "Darling," said the girl, "for once you shall feed on the fat of the land, thanks to this friend whom God sent." "You must eat, too, Delice," said the mother. "I will not conceal from this new friend that we were in sore straits, despite all our good friends here could do for you." "When you have eaten I shall," said the" girl. "I believe I am quite hungry— and you?" She sent a shy glance towards Kit. "I believe I have missed my dinner,"' life saicl, "and it is half-past nine. But 1 won't stay now. 1 shall come again :o-morrow." (To be continued daily.) SEVEN WEEKB FOR 1/. Think of It! Seven weeks* rrcedoin from back-breaking rubbing at the wasbtub, all Tor one shilling. A packet ol Easy Monday Laundry Help does seven wash-days. Makes clothes spotlessly clean in hair the time. Simply boil, rinse and hang out—no rubbing!—(Ad.)