CAPRICE

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 12 (Supplement)

CAPRICE

)1 By NORMAN PENLEY j]

|| (Author of "The Treeless Isle," "The Girl in th« | II Green Beret," etc). ' I 11,

CHAPTER XII.

Harmony,

Ted Droylesden was home early, but he did not dresa for dinner. One of the signs of the new emancipation of Ted, which dated from the night, nearly a mpnth previously, wlicn Caprice left home, was the. appearance of Ted at dinner, clad in hie office clothes, on those occasional evenings when he was in time to share a meal with his early-dining wife.

On this evenin, Bertha was upstairs, dressing, when he returned. Ted did not go up to her. He made himself tidy in a downstairs retiring room, and then settled down to a cigarette, Presently, Bertha came down, clad in a beautiful gown, so striking in its combination of slinging softness and its sophistication, that even Ted noticed that ft was unusual. More unusual still, she came acrose to him, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. There was no rapturous response. He just dropped his inevitable book, flicked the ash otf his cigarette, and blinked. "That's a new one." "What's new, Ted?" "That frock." "Yes, dear. Do you like it?" "Ay. It's all right. But what's on to-night? Got, a special ehow at the Rendezvous?" "No, Ted." "Well, what d'you want to wear that swell frock for?" • "For you, dear." "Here, chuck it. What d'you mean?" . "Well, dear bay, I thought you'd like to seo it. I've had it for a day or two, and when I heard you > come- in, and knew you'd be having dinner with me', I just slipped it on. . . . You like it?" She posed and turned like a mannequin. "Aye. . . It's all right," stammered Ted. This consideration, this show of affection was embarrassing. 6a he changed the subject. ; "Had a letter from the lass." "You have?" "Yes." "Oh, tell me; what does she say? Is she happy?" Bertha shedding all the indifference acquired in twenty-two years of married life, came and perched her ample form upon the arm of tho chair. "Do tell me, Ted," she pleaded. "I would if I thought you cared." "But, Ted I do. After all, she's our lass, mine as well as yours."

She had put an arm about his shoulders. Ted was feeling moat uncomfortable. He wanted to deliver yet another lecture to her upon her treatment of Caprice. All this was making it very difficult for him to carry out his intention. But he steeled' himself, and continued:

"That's true enough. But deeds, not words, are what matters. You'd have married her off to chat low lord of yours if she'd let you; now, wouldn't you? You'd have sold tho lass for brass, wouldn't you?" "No, Ted. You're cVuel to say such a thing. Perhaps I was hard on the lass, expecting her to dance with a man she didn't like; but, to me, it was only business, just like serving a customer whether you like him or not. . . . Just as I used to serve all sorts of fellows in the tobacco shop in Welton. I served them all alike, Ted. ... all except you, eh?" Ted grunted. Her hand had made /.ts way round hie neck so that the upturned lingers were just in front of his mouth. Ted bent his head and kissed those fingers. . .. And then the battle was lost.

In two minutes Bertha knew all that there was in Caprice's letter. What was more, in a half-reluctant way, Ted had said she might come with him when he met Caprice. And he had written, asking Caprice to take tea with him, in the city, the following day.

While her parents were thus engaged, Caprico was sitting in the sedate club for girls, in Belgravia, staring at an illustrated paper. She was turning over the pages aimlessly, seeing nothing of their contents. Super-imposed on every page was that astonishing letter from Sleeman, Leman and Company, Publishers. The ghosts of the typewritten words, rejecting her book, haunted every page of the magazine.

Now she wished that she had not written to her father. It would be difficult to face him the next day without disclosing her failure. She would say nothing of it, of course, but he would guess. She knew she was not a sufficiently good actress to disguise the effects of a blow at once so unexpected and so severe.

What Avas she to do next She hardly had courage to face the question. She might try again elsewhere with her children's book. She might seek a job as a dancing instructress.

Over and over the" same ground her mind travelled. Dinner, with its stewed steak and suet pudding, served by clumsy maids, was doubly a farce. Her sleep, too, was fitful, and the night seemed interminable.

Next day, she considered all over again whether she would keep the appointment which her father had made in a letter received at breakfast-time. In the end, for the sake of vanity, she decided finally and emphatically that she would go, and then by a supreme effort dismissed the subject from her mind.

At a quarter past four, Caprice, a little pale, and little slow of foot, made her way up Ludgate Hill to a tea shop near St. Paul's.

Before entering, she peeped into a mirror near the door, a crude, circular mirror advertising someone's malted milk. Then, satisfied that she sometimes looked even worse, she stepped across the threshold to see not only her father, but her mother, the blonde, beaming Bertha, sitting by his side at, a table.

CHAPTER XII

Surrender.

When Caprice saw her mother as well as her father, awaiting her in the cafe,

ithe surprise was too great for a nervous system which had suffered much in the I last 24 hours. She halted just inside the door, and seemed utterly baffled for a few seconds. Nevertheless, she had sufficient presence of mind to note that her mother was wearing jade beads* jade which never suited her, and which Caprice nearly always.induced lier to abandon when she ,was at home.

Then her father, usually slow in action, was suddenly inspired. He went forward, took her tenderly by the arm and led her to the table. Bertha, too, rose to greet her, and presently the trio were discussing the rival merits of muffins and toasted tea cakes. Suddenly, it seemed, tliey were thrown back to the atmosphere of home, not the home of recent years, but of those prewar days when tea was the ceremonial meal of the working day, the meal when tho little family was united and free to sit and chat in leisurely fashion. Not the slightest reference was made to Caprice's desertion of the home until tho meal was over and Ted had lighted 0210 of his bent cigarettes, and the time was near when he must return to his office. "Well lass," said Ted, "when are you coming back ?" "Yes," echoed Bertha, "when? We do miss you, and as I was sayiug to Daddy, there's no reason at all why you should not do your writing there." Bertha liked to refer to Ted as "Daddy." It made her feel younger. . Caprice merely muttered "Thank you," and Ted was afraid she was about to refuse. Once again his instinct Berved him well. He glanced at his watch and exclaimed: 8 "By Jove! It's half-past-four. I promised to bo back before this. Look here, mother, do you think we could get the lass to come to dinner to-night. P'raps you could send the car v.p for her about half-past six, and could take her back after •driving you to the Rendezvous." "Yes, dear. If Caprice will come." "You'll come, lass, won't you?" said Ted. There was a note of urgency, of pleading in his voice, and Caprice could not bring herself to refuse. "All right, Daddy. ' I'll come, although,

strictly speaking, I ought'to. be writing."

' The last was but a half-truth. Strictly speaking she certainly should be writing, for, as matters. stood,*-writing was her only hope of an income, and a very slender hope at that, for she now had no definite task in view; she had no idea, even, to what she should next turn her pen.

But the last thing blio wished to do was to give an impression of being at the end of her tether.

"Aye," responded Ted, enthusiastically, "if you want to get on you'll have to work pretty hard, but a couple of hours' change will do you good." "Yes," added Bertha, "you look x little tired and stale. Come and see how your flowers are getting on. Marjorie'a been looking after them for you. Being a country girl, she loves Qven those old boxes and pots, and she's spent hours on them. You'll come and see them, won't you?"

"Very well, Mamma, but promise you won't wear those beads, please 1" For the first time that day something like a genuine smile lighted her features. So Caprice, surrendered, and when the trio dispersed, she was feeling a little happier than she had done since that moment—it seemed an age ago—when her precious manuscript, upon which so many hopcß were built, came back, rejected, almost scorned. Prior to the meeting with Caprice over the tea cups, Ted and Bertha Droylesden had arrived at an understanding— or, it would be more exact to say that Ted had laid down certain conditions and Bertha had agreed to them with a readiness that astonished her husband.

The first principle of the understanding was that if Caprice returned, she was to 'be free to choose her own friends. No more was Bertha to push'into the girl's arms any prospective husband, and least of all Lord Barastre.

Bertha professed to have seen the light in this matter. She agreed with Ted that Caprice had the right to choose as freely as Bertha herself had done, and that nothing but trouble would result of any arranged alliance, even if Caprice would lend herself to it. For the rest, thero were details about Caprice being free to write if she wished and to enjoy a reasonable amount of leisure.

All this had been agreed between husband and wife, but Ted was wise enough to seo that, at tea, Caprice was in a difficult mood, and that no good would be done by raising the subject there. Caprice walked all the way back to her club. For one thing, she wanted to think over the situation; for another, she had resolved to save even the pence which, a London girl spends eo freely on bus fares.

The journey was a little over two miles. She chose the quieter streets, and by the time she reached Belgravia she had resolved upon her course of action. ' The position, she felt, culled for generosity. She would not wait for her mother to ask her to return and live at home. Her mother had gone half-way by pressing her to come to. dinner that night. Obviously, her mother wished her to return permanently. She (Caprice) would.not wait for the wish to 1)0 expressed. She would travel the other half.of the way.

She would pack her things that night, and when the car came to take her to dinner with her parents, it would take her back to resume her life at the drab Georgian house—but not the old life, a newer and freer existence, less and less of which, she hoped, would be spent in what she termed the nieotine-and-Nilde atmosphere of the Rendezvous Dansant. Earlier in the week she had drawn her last £5 from the bank. That sum, with tho exception of a few shillings, remained in the bag to which she. had latterly become accustomed to cling more and more tightly.

A man might have felt that to return would be an admission of defeat, but Caprice, being a woman, persuaded herself that this had nothing to do with her efforts to make another career for herself and to establish her independence. She could, still continue those efforts, and continue them in circumstances which would leave her free of worry and embarrassment. :

Thus, she reasoned, she was giving herself a better chance 6f success.

So Caprice returned to her parents, not as a prodigal daughter, but as one who felt that she had fought in' a good cause, and had-won. She felt, too, that in victory she had'been generous. Bertha, for her. part# felt she had retreated only in order to win the next, and more important fight, for she had by 110 means abandoned Lord Barastre or her ambition to make her daughter a peeress. Always she pictured herself as scheming for the/ good of an ungrateful i child. v ' ■ -

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