'HIS DIFFICULT DAUGHTER'

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 71, 24 March 1928, Page 12 (Supplement)

'HIS DIFFICULT DAUGHTER'

By WINIFRED CARTER

FIRST INSTALMENT of the INTRIGUING NEW SERIAL

CHAPTER I. Sir James Buckton, K.C., famoui throughout the world, looked a.t. th< letter he held In his hand, and th< blood rushed into his eheeks. Ilia wife who had run away from him nearl] eighteen years ago, was writing t< him ... What for ? Why revive tin agtraies of years ago! At first he vvaa tempted to fling th< letter into the fire, but then a queer almost human, look came into the hawk like face. Nita, his wife! Well, he hac loved her devotedly—until ®he hati bolted back to Italy with a lover of hei own race! The sight of the ill-formed writing stirred him to depths untouched foi years. With a swift movement ht ripped open the envelope. It was dated maJiy months ago, he noted. Than he forgot everything but the contents. Venetia Villa, St. Divos, Italy. •My dear Jame#, "I am dying, ao now you may know the truth. I was not unfaithful Pierre, whom I ran away with, was my brother, and so you see I did not gc ■with a lover, as you thought. I weuit to get away from fogs inside and out, Tou did not love me, James, not as 1 bad to be loved. Soon after I got back to Italy my little Carmen was born—your daughter and mine. I never let you know about her, for you would have wanted her. 1 'would not tell you the truth about Pierre —I did not want fetching back. "Now I am dying, I think I am a little •orry. "Your wife, Nita." For a moment lie stared at the letter In a very blaze of fury, fury at her and himself. Then passionate self-reproach tore hi# control to shreds. Fool! Fool! To have judged and condemned bo easily. Believing his wife to be unfaithful, he had shut his heart to everything loving and human. He had risen in his profession, but he had not known happiness. No! He had forged ahead in his career, had become feared, a power. Then lie was knighted. Sir Jamea Buckton was a name to conjure wirtih in the law oourts; he was renowned for hie hard, biting wit, hi# lack of sentiment; but, he had not known happiness. He read the letter again, a regretful look on his grey face. At the finish he turned over and saw a postscript that ho had not seen before. It was written in a girlish scrawl. "She is dead and buried now, where you cannot reach her. Ido not wish you to come. 1 hate you. Carmen." So his daughter hated him, too; Naturally I A bitter look clouded his eye«. The door opened just then and his ■ecretary entered. Miehael Rochester had Sir James' confidence more than any other. Michael waa not only hi# secretary, but he was connected by marriage. Sir James had had two sisters, both now dead, but Alice, his favourite, had married a widower with one boy, this Michael Rochester. Oddly enough Nita had taken to the little boy Michael all those yean ago. "Michael, you remember Nita—your Aunt NitaT" he said impulsively. "1 was wrong, years ago, when I believed that she had run away with her lover. Pierre waa her brother. She is dead now." Michael stared in hoirifled pity. Yes, he remembered her, his Aunt Nita, a lovely, tiny, volatile, exuberant little creature, who had pined in England. She used to romp with him. Child though he had been, he had been, sorry for her, and had in his boyish heart marvelled that anyone so bright and gay had married his quiet Uncle James. He remembered finding Aunt Nita in tears ana day. "This fog, it killa me, Michael. If I do not get away I shall die!" she had said, in reply to his anxiety to know what was the matter* He remembered how she had cried, and, in hie childish way, he had put his arm round her. And they had wept together, he in sympathy. The pretty, woeful little creature! The day aha had left her husband— •tfhat, too, he remembered. "You must make hhn forget," she had said in her attractive, broken accent. "Michael! When you are grown up, remember that Nita tried, J tried hard. The cage was too small, the bars too narrow. Nita could not breathe. When at last the door opened the bird had to escape, or die." And Uncle James had gone to Africa; and when at last he returned, Michael thought he had forgotten, for he had never opened his lips on that subject from that day to this. Now Michael knew that he'had been mistaken. Hard as he had been, his uncle had never forgotten. "I am sorry, Uncle James," he said earnestly. "There's more to it than that," went oil Sir James swiftly. "There was a child, a girl. Carmen, my daughter* hutcn' me, docs not want me near her! Michael, will you go over to Italy and see Carmen —tell her I'm sorry t Tell her I want my daughter." Michael hnd never seen his uncle so deeply moved. "Wouldn't it bo best for you to go?" he staid gently. "No! She hates me. You were her mother's little friend. Tell her that, ami bring her to nie! Will you." "I'll go like a shot, sir!" said Michael eagerly. "Of course I will! And bring her back, too!" He spoke confidently, but then, he did not know Carmen. •,• • • Wue and green and gold, and an occasional splash of tawny-orange—the whole drenched in sunshine—that was] the impression that Michael Rochester got as he made his way towards Venetia Villa. Shady olive groves, through the dark, shiny leaves of which the golden sun filtered, and, stretching in the distance, the burning, golden sand. He found the villa close by the sea, the bluest sea that he had ever seen; it glimmered in the sun that was like a shield of shining gold. For all the outside glare, the room into which he had been shown was coolness itself; green rush blinds kept out the glow. A voluble Italian serving woman had admitted him, and had gone to fetch I the "bambina," and now every moment aesmed an hour.

At last Carmen came. Michael turned eagerly. She seemed very young, but was collected and quite mistress of herself. And she gave Michael a cool, appraising stare, before she spoke. "You are Michael Rochester, sent by my father?" she said. 'It was unnecessary. I wish to have no further communication with him. I do not even care to accept money from him, only Uncle Pierre died before mother, and I have no-one. And," she added with a shrug, "one must live." As she gave that delightful shrug of the shoulders, Michael thought that she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen in all his life. Her hair was black, a silken mass of thick, short curls; her face cream and rose, her figure slim, exquisitely formed; and her great black eyes glowed with a luminosity that was arresting, as were the lashes that were so thick that they flung a shadow on the white skin. Passionate, wilful, tempestuous—no doubt she was all that! "You condemn your father unheard. It's not sporting," he said. "He has been deeply wronged." "My father!" she declared, with an annihilating flash of her wonderful eyes. "Please do not speak of him to me again!" Dismissing the unpleasant subject thus lightly, Carmen made as though to disappear out of the window. In dismay Michael barred the way. "Carmen!" he pleaded desperately. "Do try and think more kindly of your father. He's sorry now and wishes with all his heart he had not been so quick to judge. And, it's too late now." "Too late!" she flared, in her volatile, liquid English, which sounded so like the Italian. "Yes! Too late 1 But my mother suffered. She could not entirely forget him. She loved him, yes. But I—l could not bear to see the man who made her life unhappy." Michael braced himself. "I have come to take you home," he said firmly. Carmen made a scornful moue. "England! I have heard about it—all mists and rain and winds —miserable!" She turned to the window, to the golden sun, the warm, caressing waters of the bay, and the olive groves! This wa# home! A frown of indignation and revolt came. Why must shfe go to England anil the father she hated, but whom she had never seen? "I will not go," she said calmly. "Oh, but you would learn to love England," he pleaded. "Can't you see that he, too, has been badly treated? He thought your mother loved some-one else—she never explained. You are his

child, too. Your father is a very lonely man! 1 know he seems cold and reserved, but, you should have seen him after he got your mother's letter. Oh, he loved her —there was no doubt of that. But we humans are not all made in one mould. He could not speak his love—poor Uncle James."

Carmen had turned her back upon him in sheer obstinacy. All he could see was the enchanting line of her young throat, and the slim, young silhouette against the outside glare. All the same he could see by the rise and fall of her breast that his words had affected her.

"Your father will do all he can to make you happy. And there's your cousin Betty. You never knew your Aunt Rosamond, who died, but Betty is her daughter, and like her, she is sweet and kind. She's about your age, I should think."

Seeing he had caught her attention, he hurried on:

"You'd have a great time. We could teach you to ride. I've got a topping little mare that would suit you. Oh, you'd be happy, I promise you!"

"Happy! In England!" she cried scornfully. "You do not understand. I could never be happy away from here."

"Have you no soft spot in your heart for your father?" he pleaded. "He too was miserable. Remember, your mother ran away and hid from him. She never let him know where she was."

Carmen's eyes narrowed, and her lips were compressed. She stamped her foot in sudden rage.

"He should have made it is business to find out!" she retorted. "He should not have gone off big game hunting." "It was a wrong policy," admitted Michael. "But a man does not always think clearly under the stress of great emotion."

"Ah! You do not understand what my mother felt," she went 011 passionately. "She could not endure your cold England, with the fogs and the rain. It was all cold—England. My father, he was cold, too. He did not understand her warm heart. She wanted love, and the sun, and her own country. He would sit night aftr night in his study, with his law cases. And she —what did she matter! No, I do not like my father." Then she added energetically, "And I do not like you, either. I shall be glad if you will go back to England and tell my' father that I come—no, not at all."

"Oh, please, Carmen!" implored Michael. "Listen! You'll break his heart. When he heard that your mother had died —died a good while ago—lie was in great trouble. He could not understand how the letter had been so long in coming. Otherwise he would have been here before."

"It was not so long in coming." retorted Carmen. "I did not want him to have it before. I did not want liim to send for me. I nearly burnt the letter! If it had not been I needed money, I would never have sent it."

Michael was rather shocked at this mercenarv outlook.

"I think your mother was to blame, too! I think she ought to have let him know," said Michael suddenly.

That was privately what Carmen Lad thought, but one word against her beloved mother, and her untamed spirit flashed from her eves.

"My mother was perfect," she flared. And then she added rebukingly: "And she is dead." And then she burst into tears. Michael looked on aghast. Her sobbing was' so passionate and abandoned that he was afraid for her. And yet, what could he do? At last he went to her and put his arms round her and cradled that satiny head against his coat. And, to his great relief, and greater astonishment, she yielded herself up to his ministrations. "If I go to England I shall cry like this all the time," she sobbed, apparently softened. "Even as my mother did." "Cheer up," he whispered. And then he ventured an attempt to amuse her. "Anyhow, you don't need to go to England to cry." At that she wrenched herself free and dashed out of the room. Michael, starting, stared after her. What a wild little creature—so fierce and temperamental! How he wished Uncle James had come to fetch her himself. Almost he felt sorry for Uncle James. Certainly he now understood a little how, though his uncle had been swept off his feet by Nita'a wondrous beauty and charm, he had been utterly unable to understand her and make her happy. (To be continued daily.)