THE ROGUE OF FITZROY ROAD

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 46, 24 February 1931, Page 16

THE ROGUE OF FITZROY ROAD

&lp! By KENNAWAY JAMES |gpis §

iv&'&i&i (Author of " The Missing Mannequin," etc.) Wgxft; m

CHAPTER XVI. i Enid Makes Sure. "Bit too hot for tennis," lie whispered as he met her at the gate. '"'How about another little run out into the country T' j For a moment Enid pretended to de- j mur, but a few minutes later they had entered Harold's car and were speeding away to the romantic spot where Harold and she had declared their love. Enid laughed inwardly as she thought of it in those words, and could not help wish- j ing that the avowal had been mutual. 1 She wondered if Harold intended to mention definitely the idea of getting married. To say he was in love was one thing. To marry her was another. She decided to draw him on the point. When Harold had kissed her as one j who had a right, she looked up into his • eyes as happily as she could and murmured shyly: "You really do' love me, Harold darling?" * j "Of course I do," was the reply. "Love . you more than anything cm earth, and j always shall do." j "You mean always, don't you, dearest? Are you quite sure you want to marry me?" The word "marry" gave Harold a slight start. Not that he was hesitant about marrying Enid, but the word brought him face to face with all the formalities to be encountered before he could be free. He thought particularly of his father, on whom, at the moment, j depended his living. "Of course I want to marry you," he replied cheerfully. "Can't imagine anyone who wouldn't. But early to be fix- ; ing dates, and all that kind of thing, though, don't you think?" "I'm sure it is," said Enid. "In any case, I always liked the idea of a long engagement." i I Again Harold gave an imperceptible , start. He had forgotten that, though ! there might be every reason to postpone marriage, there was little reason for the delaying of an engagement between two people in love. I Harold seemed to be playing into her hands. "Have you told your people about it?" he asked, hoping for a negative reply. "Well, I had to give a teeny whisper to mother, you know," said Enid. "I | have always told mother about my ' affairs. And anyhow, she knew some- j thing had happened, because I looked so happy when I got back after being with you." Enid was skilfully using art to con- s ccal art. The result of her last words was that Harold drew her to him again and kissed her. "Well, if you've told them," he said, "I'll tell mine. So there we are." From that point the conversation ran on the merits and otherwise of their respective parents. Enid told Harold more about the sham of calling Mr. ' Noggins a provision broker, whilst Harold was emphatic in saying that his people were on exactly the same social scale as here. "But not on the same financial scale," said Enid. "D'you know, Harold, there is something about father I cannot understand. I feel that his business is not too good. We are trying to get him to sell it. I wonder " "What do you wonder, dearest?" 1 Enid hesitated. Then said: "I—er —l , hardly like to say what I was thinking, i but I have heard that your father buys ■up shops, and I was wondering if he ■ knew about father's, whether he might like to consider it. Of course you mustn't say I told you this. Father would be wild if he knew. He's so independent." j Harold beamed with intelligence. ] "I say!" he exclaimed. "If that's true, it might make it easier for me | get round the old man. Of course he will like you, in any case, but he can be very obstinate. He wants more shops I know, and he's gots pots of money." , (Here Enid breathed a sigh of relief. 1 Her father had evidently been wrong.) "Yes. I'll do it diplomatically to-nigbt. By Jove, Enid. You are a brick." Somehow the effect of the conversation that afternoon had been to make Enid see Harold in a favourable light. She found his views on many things to bt j the same as her own, whilst at times she caught a glimpse of human sympathy . which warmed her heart. She began to ' think she was not making such a bad bargain, from the sentimental standpoint, as she had imagined. A smile crossed her face as she wondered if, after all, Harold might not prove to be the right man about Avhom she had said so j much to her father. More than all, perhaps, she admired I his courage in deciding to face his father, i She knew quite well what such an j interview meant to a man with a father , like Morden Sarker, and her pulse beat more quickly when she thought tnat it was for her sake that Harold was willing to risk, perhaps, his livelihood. That night, after dinner, Mr. Morden Sarker sat in his private room preparatory to going into the West End—to his club, as he told the family—when there was a knock on his door. This was the hour which he demanded for himself, and he lowered his brows as his sou entered. — "Well?" he asked. Rj "I want a few words with you, father, if you don't mind," said Harold. j m Mr. Morden Sarker was a wise man j as wise men go. had always made it a rule that he' •hould have not only a room to himself, but an hour also. ' There were few in the Sarker household who dare even tap at the study door when Mr. Sarker was enjoying the hour which he called his own. _ The hour, as a matter of fact was elastic. Sometimes he simply entered his study to light a cigar preparatory to going to his "club" At other times he might stay there tEe whole of the evening. This much, however, had to be observed by the household, that until he emerged from his post-prandial retreat after dinner his privacy was inviolate. Because of this he was not at all inclined to give his son Harold a welcome when the latter wished to speak to him not only about his future, but about his future wife. Having begrudgingly assented t& Harold "speaking to him during the "close season," Mr. Sarker sat back and regarded his son critically. He sa* before him a being of his own making. Not only was Harold the son of his father, but the result of his father. Harold had been sent to Oxford simply because it was the thing. There were no expectations of him. Indeed Mr. Sarker hardly knew the meaning ot h degree, though the sound of the word Oxford -was as music in his There are some who go to the University and who dare not live there a life of idle-

ness. Indeed, there are some who gu ■ tip with such a sense of obligation to H their parents that they cannot leavl it fl without a "double first." Yet, on the I other hand, there are men who approach 9 the University in the same spirit as that M in which they are sent to it. They regard ■ it purely as a thing which can he bought, H a thing out of which no profit need be fi made unless necessary. A thing which B marks an ordinary stepping-stone in jj The University had been merely a K stepping-stone in life to Harold Sarker H —until its immediate memory began to 9 fade, until the quiet scholarship began H to exert the influence which had been a derided; until the ethics absorbed began w to take a definite mental cast. H Such was Harold —a man with a I weapon of which he was unaware. The 9 University had been his playground. H The M'orld, he had thought, was to be ■ the same. Now, however, he M-as com- Q ing under influences which had followed jjjj him from Oxford, and he was being B disillusioned about the world. ■ He was being disillusioned about his I father. Before he went to Oxford he H had taken his father for granted. Now ■ apparently ho was being taken for H granted by his father. He was not fl being given any insight into his father's business, nor into his own future. He B was being kept by his father as a son H just as another man might keep a rab- I Gradually this situation had begun to h obsess Harold's mind. Particularly had |l it done so since he had decided that he S was going to marry Enid Noggins.. With » the appearance of a woman in his life m he had begun to estimate himself and H his surroundings, and he had come to 1 the conclusion that he had drifted into 1 being a different fellow from that which 1 he really was. E The time had come now, he told him- B self, when he had either to stop being I an inconsequential unit of the youth of g his time, or continue to be it. B Ho decided not to be it. j Having cast a giance at his father's S cigars and whisky and soda, neither of I which was offered him, he took a seat 1 in the deep leather chair opposite his father. An interrogative glance from Mr. Sarker. — bade him speak. "It's nothing very much, Pater," he said. "I just thought we might have a few words about what I'm going to do. I've been down from Oxford for | nearly a year now, and I don't seem to be doing anything to help either vou or myself." Morden Sarker took a deep pull at his cigar. "It occurg to me that you've been kept all the time," he said. "Parental obligation," retorted Harold. "Perhaps you're right," admitted his father. "But parental obligation can cease at any time after you are twentyone. Or before, for that matter. Is that the only point you wanted to discuss with me?" Harold drew his chair a little nearer - his father's. "No, it isn't," he replied. "Hasn't it occurred to you that I am just wasting every month which goes by ? Until recently I've been pleased with it. It's been nice to potter about and not care a hoot where the money's coming from so long a 6 it comes. But now " "Well, what about now? Have you come all over industrious?" "Not quite that," said Harold, "but I have come to the opinion that I ought to know a little about your business or else be allowed the chance of doing something in another. Surely you can see what I mean." " 'Course I can," replied his father, "but you must permit me a little curiosity as to why you should have pnly just become so interested in your future." "Very well," said Harold. "Something had to happen to put an end to the sort of stalemate which has been going on for a year, nearly. Well, it's happened. I've met 6omebodv whom I want to marry, and I've got to know something of how I stand." "Marry!" vMr. Sarker echoed the word as though he had been affronted. "Yes, marry," repeated Harold, gaining confidence and momentarily feeling surprised at the change which had come over him. "And I suppose I'd better tell you whom I want to marry." "There's no need," said his father. "So far as I'm concerned, it is much too soon for you to think of any nonsense of that kind. It's just as well that you should know my views on the matter." "tv, Pater, but mine happen to be the only views which count." A vision of Enid flashed through his mind. He could hardly believe that the girl could have moved him to sueh courage. He had embarked on one of his ordinary flirtations with her, and now here he was so much in love with her that he was risking his whole future in her cause. "Yes, mine are the only views "which count," he repeated. "So I insist on telling you whom I'm going to marry. You once told me I'd got to marry someone in society, though Heaven knows why. Well, I'm not going to marry anyone in society." His father sat in silence. He, too, was astonished at the change which had come over his son. He had been so used to commanding him and having his commands obeyed that the present situation baffled him. Harold continued: "The girl I want to marry is Enid Noggins," he said. Then he sat back and awaited the outburst which he was certain would follow. His father's reception of the news wa6 dramatic. He sprang from his chair as though he would cross the room and strike his son. His face assumed an almost purple hue, and hi 3 eyes flashed with indignation. "Noggins," he cried. "You mean the daughter of that blasted little grocer down the road? Well, if you've got ideas in that direction you can take it that you won't carry them out from this address. See?" "I see," said Harold, "and I'm quite prepared to carry them out from elsewhere. I suppose I can earn a livi'ng 6omehow. Everyone else has to do it, and there's no patsct in it." Mr. Sarker smiled cynically. "Anyhow, how are we to leave it?" asked Harold. "I knew we should have a row about it, and we've had it, apparently. I don't think there's much need to make it any worse." "I quite agree," said his father. "I'm all against rows myself." J

This time it was Harold who laughed cynically. "Nothing you like better," he said. Then becoming friendly, he again addressed his father. "See," he said, "I am willing to do any work of any kind in your shops. I take it we are grocers just as much as are the Noggins people. And that reminds me. Enid thought we belonged to the big firm of Sarkers. I haven't disillusioned her, but I shall tell lier the truth when I meet her next time. I don't see why we should keep up such a pretence.'' "My dear Harold, it was never my intention to deceive people. It was just these local mutts who, finding out about the shops, assumed that we were what your mother calls the Sarkers. She was j quite pleased to let them go 011 thinking it. It doesn't matter a damn to me. Tell your Noggins ladv, by all mea'ns, and let her tell her fat little father as well." Harold refused the insult. "Very well, I'll tell her. Now about myself again. Are you willing for me to work in your business, or is there some mystery about it? I'm almost beginning to think there must be something. You won't allow Joan and myself to come and see you in town. Nor do you let mother." It was here that Mr. Sarker gave himself away and provided his son with material for much thinking later on. The suggestion came so unexpectedly that his face paled and his breath came in gasps. Quickly, however, lieTecovered himself. "The old heart still gives me a "bit of trouble," he said, "and interviews like this don't help it. HI see the whole family damned before I let a'nybodv into this room again after dinner." But Harold had become stiddenlv doubtful. As yet he could think of no mystery which could attach itself to such an apparently simple business as

grocery. It would have been a great i stretch of his imagination to suspect j that the grocers' shops were simply j masks to hide gambling and dope dens. "Now see," he said. "I wonder how a little more news will affect you. I have a shrewd idea that it might be possible to buy up old Noggins' shop in Pimlico. Does that interest you at all?" Mr. Sarker was moved to sudden j alacrity. : "Now you're saying something that may be worth listening to," he said. "I want a shop in his neighbourhood very badly.. The real Sarkers, as your mother would say, have one near Victoria station, and I've wanted one somewhere hear there myself." Mr. Sarker was not speaking the 1 truth, and, as was his habit when not doing so, he smoothed his white hair with his hand and gazed upwards. In reality he had seen in this suggestion of his so'n's a possibility of his getting into touch with Mr. Noggins. That Noggins knew something about him, he was sure. He had aDt forgotten the peculiar look which had shown itself in the bespectacled eyes of Mr. Noggins in the train on one occasion. Still le&s had he forgotten the sound of Noggins' dog when Sing Loo was scaling his gardon wall. He, Sarker, had that evening immediately climb .d up a standard i>!i r :c tree which stood agsinst the wall, and he had seen a rotund figure disappearing into the distant shadows. He could not be sure that it was the little grocer himself, but he had uneasy doubts. Indeed Mr. Sarker was at the moment in a state of mental torture, the intensity of which had been increased by the remarks of Harold. Brave to a point, Sarker was a coward in many ways. He could deal with the traffickers and the underworld He could even deal with the police, but he could

not deal with suspicion when it lay near at home. He decided that in sonte way he must make his peace with for the moment at'least. _ "I'll think it all over," he said. suppose you have got to marry some body some time. Trot the some time and let me have a word wi her. Mind you, I'm not giving my PJ; mission, or anything like that. T si®P 7 want you to get fair play, i' a * r Pj_ has always been my Then p®* haps I might consider having ff ° T with her father about his business. This volte face astonished Sa 10 ! Still, the battle seemed to be going his favour, and he was not inclined hinder it. Presently his father rose from Jj chair, and took up the telephone ordered a taxi. "I'm going to the club now," 1 10 and a little later Harold heard the tro door close behind his father. (To be continued daily.) • '■