AUTOCRAT'S ISLAND

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

AUTOCRAT'S ISLAND

By MARY HOWARD. ruthor of "Windier Skies."

CHAPTER XVL Playing for Safety. lo Boma it seemed as though 'the whole of chattering Paris had suddenly quietened, and there was just this man and herself sitting in the" quiet little cafe with its view of the Seine . . . and he was asking her to marry him. But it was absurd ... he must see it was absurd. She was married to Jaime. Even now, knowing he did not love her, and presumably had made 110 move to find her, she knew that he had but to call ... to say that he needed her in any small way, and she would go willingly and be glad and proud to go. But he had not needed her . . . she was just part of a bargain . . . and this man who sat opposite her, wealthy and handsome in his way, was asking lier to marry him. E.onia looked at him . . at his perfectly cut clothes, his grey hair . . . and the little hard lines round his sombre dark eyes. Tliarke was in early middle age, but to Boma twenty-one years he was old—old— "Thanks," she said faintly. "Thanks ■ —but, Bandal, aren't you being rattier —silly? I am married. You know that." 1 He swept away her -jwords as though they did not matter. Boma did not like this dominant manner of his that over-rode objections. Her own personality was too dominant to be pleased by this aggression. He seemed to think he could mould her mind into, his way of thinking. "Vou arc married," he repeated scornfully. "You went to a ceremony and came away with a ring on your hand . , . do you call that being married?" "It mattered, a lot to me at the time ... it still does. . . " "Oh, you are living on old dreams," he said impatiently. "You found that Graham didn't care for you as you thought ho did—so you burnt your boats and ran away. But in that silly, romantic heart of yours there was always a hope that ho would follow you. But he hasn't followed. He has left you alone. Why haven't you the courage to face things?" "What do you suggest I should do?" asked Boma. "Have another conflagration . . . burn every possible bridge and boat . . . every way back to your old life. Let Graham divorce you. It is only for you to say. He's only the shadow of a husband to you. . . " Boma rose to her feet, picking up her gloves and bag quickly. The shadow of a husband . . . she could have laughed. Maybe he was. But that splendid, lithe, vital shadow would be more to her always than any reality Tliarke could offer.

"Well, what is your answer?" She seemed pale when, she turned to face him, pale and yet determined. But there was that about his eager eyes, and the powerfully built head, that inade her hesitate . in. speaking the refusal that was there, waiting to be epoken, upon her lips. Tharke, thinking for a moment that his eagerness had frightened her, suddenly altered his manner. Ho smiled into her wide, grave eyes. "There," he said reassuringly, "I forget you are only a child ... and a very independent one at that, "iiou must not be rushed into anything. Let us continue as we are ... in this companionship . . . for, let us say, three weeks. At the end of that time you ill know me better . . . you will be able to give me a fair decision. What do you say?" And because for a moment her courage deserted her, Roma agreed. She was silent on the drive home and answered Tliarke's questions in monosyllables . . . nodding absently when he commented on passing scenes or pointed out objects of interest. He handed her out of the car outside the Ivanhoe Hotel and stood with his soft black hat in his hand on the lowest .step, looking up at her. "Well," he said, smiling, "where do we dine to-night?" "I . . . that is . .• " Roma hesitated, then suddenly said lightly, "I don't feel like going out to-night. I'm tired. I think I'll go to bed." "Oh, I am sorry." He was at once solicitous. "Is there anything 1* can send you round?" "No, thanks." Roma put out her hand. "Good-bye." "Only au'voir," he said gallantly. •Til ring you to-morrow. We'll go Bomewhere really gay to-morrow night ... if you feel like it, of course." "I expect I shall by then._ Well — au'voir —since you prefer lE," and leaving him she went into the hotel. It was Friday evening, 60 eh a found her hill waiting for her . . . just over two hundred francs. She went down to the desk to pay it, considered having dinner at the hotel, and then decided she couldn't stand that dining room with its chattering globe-trotting diners. She felt as though she wanted" company . . . what kind of company ehe could not say, and aa ehe stood in her room ehe. suddenly made up her mind to go and see Alastair Madden. Why, she did not know ... he had only been rude to her before. But—he knew Jaime ... and he was the only other person Bhe knew in Paris. She could go to the Ritz or the Embassy Club and find many of her old acquaintances. But they were not the sort of people she wanted . . . they seemed to live a tinsel, butterfly existence now. Tliarke was real enough in his brutal way . . .and Alastair was real ...

Hurriedly she looked through her address book . . . she had scribbled down his address that night when she had arrived back at the hotel—not for any particular reason. Ah, there it was— 3, Rue Bressarde —top floor, four flights up. Alastair Madden. She wondered if he was on the telephone, 'but a hurried search of the directory assured her that he was not. Impoverished artiste, she thought, could not be expected to afford a telephone. Actually Madden was by 110 means impoverished, and he always got good prices for his work. But he was so inconsequential where money was concerned that he invariably forgot to pay his bills, so that the telephone had been removed one day while he was abroad in Italy. Roma changed into the plain black costume and hat that she had worn the night before. ... She went out of the hotel and looked around her. It was a fine night, with etars —and a faint radiance towards the cast heralded the rising of a full moon. The centre of Paris was alive with electric lights and sky signs, and there seemed to Roma to be tower upon tower pointing blackly against the sky. Far away to-th® west the Eiffel Tower with

its myriad lights gleamed, the king of all towers, piercing the deep blue and seeming almost to reach the stars. She knew it was impossible for her to try and find the little whitewashed cafe again, for slie had walked blindly last night, not noticing the direction in which she was going. Apart from the fact that it was in the quieter part of Montparnasse, she had not the faintest idea where it was. Besides, Madden did not say he lived in that direction, and it was unlikely that the proprietor of the' cafe would know where the Bue Bressarde was. She called a taxi. "Most of my money seems to go in taxi fares," she thought, pulling a wry little face as the man set the meter working. To her surprise, he drove in the opposite direction, up towards where the heights of Montmartre rise above the city, crowned by the Church of the Sacred Heart. There, at the corner of a narrow winding lane, away from the light and the noisy cafes and restaurants thronged with tourists and artists, he left her. Through an opening between two buildings she could see the lights of Paris gleaming like a myriad fireflies . . . but where she stood in the queer, narrow streets of wliito houses, it was dark. There was one feeble lamp in an iron wall bracket about fifty yards away ... the cobbles and the whitewashed houses made her think of an old seaside town . . . reminded her of the fishing quarter of Mont Allasso. It was very quiet. The moon had risen, a full moon with the pallid face of a tipsy pierrot, making the buildings on one side of the street very white, while the other side was steeped in deep shadows. There was a large house towards the end of the street, four storeys high . . . and she could see orange-coloured lamplight coming from one of the dormer windows . . . and could hear a flood of music. Someone who could really plaj' was at a piano up there, a good piano, and was playing a regretful Chopin Nocturne. The notes fell through the moonlight like a crystal fountain playing. Immediately Boma decided that this must be the house. She was sure that Alastair, with his queer romantic looks, must live in that top flat, high up near the skies.

Sure enough, there was a rough figure 3 scrawled on the door, and, plucking up courage, she gave a light knock. No one answered ... so, throwing discretion to the winds, she hammered on the door. A window at the top of the house was thrown open, and a voice called into the night: "'Alio? Qui est la?" Roma stepped back into the road, and, craning her neck, saw the black silouette of a man's head and shoulders against the orange glow of the window. "I . . she began, then haltingly, for her French was almost nil. "Je desire a parler avee M'sieur Alastair Madden." "Do you?" mocked the voice, with a charming French accent. "Well, Mademoiselle, if you will look under the plant pot 011 the window sill you will find there, I 'ope, a key. Open the door, put back the key, and walk upstairs. Voila!" And the window was banged to as the head withdrew into the room. Obediently Soma found the key and opened the door. As she put the key back under the plant pot she thought it was a very odd idea, for if the tenants of the house shouted the hiding place of the key so openly it would bo quite easy for burglars or any doubtful character to overhear and enter. Therefore, it was with extreme trepidation that she began to mount the ill-lighted staircase, gazing warily around her as she did so.

The stairs were narrow, and made of bare boards, and the bannisters were shiny with many years' wear. Three or four doors gave on to each landing, some of them were quite silent, and others gave forth sounds . . . sounds of music, of revelry, of heated discussion, or a voiced raised in song, as tlio different tenants caroused or argued according to their particular bent.

Her knees began to aclie from the climb by the time she had reached the fourth floor. It was up a final, rieketty flight of stairs, at the top of which was a door painted bright yellow, and lit by a smoky lantern in a very beautiful antique wrought iron casing. 0110 would judge the cost of that lantern would have been worth a year's rent in the shabby tenement.

In response to her tap the same voice called: "Come in, Mademoiselle," so she opened tho door and went in. It was a long, low attic directly under the roof. Rafters crossed the ceiling, and a skylight was open to the stars. The walls were yellow, and the floor .was of bare stained boards. An ancient but evidently efficient stove glowed like a red eye in one corner, and sent the smell of the large potatoes that were baking in their skins on its lid into the chill autumn air.-

Two or three divans, very grubby and untidy, covered with odd robes and palettes, and miscellaneous objects such as paint brushes, a string of onions and a golf jacket, stood about the room. Two magnificent gilded sconces held tallow candles • that dripped over the ancient splendour of their carvings. A black cat of enormous size slept near the stove. At the window overlooking the street there were no curtains, but at the other end of the room there was an enormous window facing north, and taking up almost the whole of the wall. It looked as though the large panes had not been washed for many a year, they were so covered with grime and rain marks, but it was hung with glittering curtains of dull cloth of gold. Near the window was a fine piano, a Bechstein baby grand, which bore a modernesque witch bowl lamp with an orange parchment shade, which made the pleasantly coloured light which Roma had seen from the road. Two or three steps mounted to a door about two feet from the level of the floor on the further side of the room, evidently leading to another room or rooms. Everywhere canvases were stacked against the walls, old palettes and tubes, jam pots full of coloured water . . . and in one corner there slione the white form of a half-finished figure in clay, ghostlike in its wrappings . . .

surrounded by the tools and whitesplashed walls and paraphernalia of a sculptor.

Sitting at the piano was a young man of about twenty ... lie was dressed in sliabby flannels and a yellow woollen shirt. He liad tlie head of a Roman emperor; broad-browed and heavy, and covered with copper curls; it seemed too heavy for the rest of his slight body. Ho looked at Roma inquiringly—noted

her eliie—her assured maimer—and decided bhe was not the sort oi" girl who usually came to the studio, She was

perhaps a wealthy client. Most politely Michel jumped to his feet and dragged forth a chair. "Be seated, Mademoiselle," lie said with a gesture, "What can I do for you —please?" You couldn't help smiling at him, somehow*. Ho was such an imp of a boy with that imperial head and those mischievous green eyes. "I just thought I'd like to see Mr. Madden," explained Boma. "1 came purely on impulse. But if he isn't in I'll come again another time." "Non, non, non!" expostulated Michel, to whom a pretty girl was a pretty girl, client or not. "Sit please. Alastair —he will be here in one—two minutes— perliaps. You sit and talk to me. Please ?" I-ioma, tired from the climb up the stairs, and completely captivated by the studio and the engaging charm of Michel, assented. "I'll wait for a little while." She looked round curiously. "So this is what a studio looks like?" "You've never been in a studio before? Never? No?" he asked in astonishment.' "Oh, yes," she replied. "When I've had my portrait painted. But that was always by big English artists with lovely palatial places in. Chelsea or Hampstead. This looks real, somehow. It's so odd."

"Odd?" His brows twisted with comic query. "Yes. Look at these grubby, unpolished boards—and those, curtains that must have cost about 2000 francs. Your piano, too —a valuable Bechstein, standing next to that old German stove. The dirty windows, and then medieval candle sconces that are almost priceless. It's all so mixed up." Michel scratched his head and looked at the studio. "Humph. Perhaps you arc right," ho said finally. Then with a shrug. "'But what can you expect. Alastair sometimes he has money —Michel (that's me) sometimes he has. Alastair he buy the sconces, Michel he buy the piano— the curtains came out of a revue—then next week—no money—so the studio it stays dirty, because Madame Oliver will not clean anything except for spot cash!" Boma laughed, and he, delighted that she was laughing, laughed, with her. "It is sO, is it not?" he demanded. "Well, it certainly looks as though there lias been no spot cash about for a considerable period," she agreed. Michel now fully realised that this charming person was not a client, but obviously a new friend, so ho set out with utmost ability to amuse her. Impressionable, gay, young, gaily in and out of love from day to day, he was the very opposite to Alastair, his dour I Scottish studio companion. "What is your name?" he inquired. "My name is Michel Dubois. In English—Micky Smith. In England when people say, 'You not remember me, my name is Smith?' you reply, 'Ah, your name I remember well, it is your face I forget.' Is it not so?"

"Yes," laughed Roma, for Michel was a born clown and had already woven the spell of his dclicious foolishness about her.

"Well, in France, Dubois is the panic. Everyone is called—Dubois." He stopped suddenly, his head on one side, listening like a mischievous robin. "Ah, the heavy tread. The good, solemn Alastair—he come."

There was a sound of footsteps on the rieketty steps outside, and the yellow door was carelessly banged open as Alastair eame in.

"Hello, Michel ..." he cried, then his pale translucent eyes rested 011 Roma, and for the first time she noticed a little flame of interest light in their calm depths. "Hello, you ..." he said in his deep sonorous voice, "I knew youM come some time.' What's the matter now? Broke? Or arc you frightened and have started to run away again?"

Roma found herself not being annoyed. She knew that this indifferent mortal was indifferent no longer and had noticed her for the first time.

Then very casually he spoke again: "Since you have come, perhaps you'll stay to dinner. This is my friend Michel . . . doubtless he has already introduced himself. He usually does."

"Yes . . . we've made friends," Roma said lightly. "And I'd love to stay to dinner if you'll have me."

(To be continued Saturday next.)