FREDA ALONE

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 99, 28 April 1934, Page 8 (Supplement)

FREDA ALONE

i _ _____ 1 ~^KATHARINE TYNAN

i mary Gray '' ,ot,c W-L—— — - ——- —— j - ~ j

CHAPTER L The Man Who Was Once a Gentleman. At Marigny the wind blew as it blows eleven months of tho year, making progress a difficult thing, driving tho seasand into tho mouth and eyes, whirling round corners with a force to lift you off your feet if you were not of substantial build. All the cottages were shut up for the night, although it was barely six o'clock of a February evening. If a door were but opened the lamp flared and went out. Tho high wind deafened one with its parpetual screaming. The lamp had blown out inside the bus in which Freda was sole passenger; but the child hardly noticed the added darkness. She was so tired, so cold, so miserable: dazed not only with the day's long journey, during which she had been handed on from stranger to stranger, but also with the events of the last month or so. For during that time Freda's world had tumbled into ruins. The world had consisted at first of papa and mamma; but for some time back there had been only mamma. Then there was Nannie and there was Beau, tho poodle. Beau, at this moment, was all that remained to her; and Beau was something that kept Freda's terrified thoughts at the point of sanity. He was pressed close up against Freda's skirts. She had an idea that ho was nearly as frightened as herself. Auguste, who drove the bus, had looked at Beau doubtfully. As a rule, he did not accept caninq, passengers; but as Freda was the only occupant of the bus this evening, and he had enough sympathy to divine that the forlorn English child clung to her strange travelling companion, he pretended not to see Beau, who was wagging his tail insinuatingly and with all the expression a poodle's face is capable of, imploring dumbly that he should not be separated from Freda. Auguste sat up in front, driving his big Flemish horse with a phlegmatic face; but if Freda could only have known the thoughts that were passing behind it she would have been more alarmed about her unknown future than she was. As a matter of fact, she was numbed beyond contemplating her future. Her past was terrible enough to absorb all her thoughts. There had been papa and mamma and Nannie and Beau; and now N there was only Beau. Uncle Stephen had left her Beau with an air of contemptuous pity, because she had clung to the dog. If it had not been for that demonstration of hers she would have gone out into the world without the last of her friends. "Poor little one!" Auguste was thinking in his slow, Flemish thoughts. "She is the fourth child who has come to the Villa Marguerite. One was taken back by her parents after a scene. What a scene it was! The second ran away. The third fretted and died. And this little one —what is to become of it? But he is a rascal that M. Vane! And Madame worse than he. The people said that if it were not for Madame he would not be so bad. Certainly he had once been a gentleman, this M. Vane; whereas Madame —Madame was one of the common' people." Auguste, like the other folk about Marigny, was very slow in his thoughts and in his actions. But he thought with a dull pity of the child with her dog in the bus behind his broad back. She had looked such a forlorn little creature in her black mourning when he had received her at the station. His pity had shown itself in tho tender carefulness with which he had lifted her down from tho high carriage on to the wooden platform, and afterwards into the bus. It was not in Auguste to show his sympathy in words, and if he had been capable of doing it, Freda would not have understood his patois. Meanwhile, the man who had been a gentleman was striding along through the ill-smelling little streets to the Hotel of the Four Winds, where the bus had its stopping place. He was a tall, lean man, of a prevailing greyness of hue, if it had not been too dark to see his colour. His grey clothes were scarcely greyer than his face and his hair. He had thin, aristocratic features and a worn face. There were times when the greyness of his face deepened to a livid blue. "Anything for me, Auguste?" he asked with an attempt at joviality, as the bu3 drew up at the Hotel of the Four. Winds, which deserved its name, since, situated at a street corner, all the winds seemed to converge upon it. He drew his thin overcoat closely about him as he stood exposed to all the winds, and his long nose showed pinched and blue. "Why yes, Monsieur, a very little parcel," Auguste responded in the same vein, while he let down the step of the omnibus and opened the door. "Why, poor little one, she is in the darkness. Here is M. Vane, who seeks you, Ma'mselle." He felt about for Freda, who made no effort to come forth from the bus, and lifted her in his strong arms as though she had been an infant. "She is tired and frozen, the little one," said Auguste. "And see, here is her dog. He loves well his little mistress." "Ah, so there is a dog," M. Vane muttered half to himself. "Peggy will not like the dog." His long, lean hand went out and careesed Beau, who, for a very friendly dog, was oddly unresponsive. "And so this is Freda," he said, looking down at the little black figure. "I hope you are not very tired, Freda. Come with me. Auguste will carry down your luggage. I hope you will like your new home, Freda." Freda did not reply. There was a swimming in her head, and her eyes did not seem to see lightly. She let the strange man take her hand and lead her through tho dark streets where one slipped and slid over the wet cobbles, where there were such evil odours. Mr. Vane's fingers were cold and bony. Freda had no reassurance from his touch such as she had felt when Auguste had lifted her in his big, kind anns. Now and again she glanced down at Beau's little white figure trotting by her side. Ah, that was of her old world, something tangible, to rest her aching thoughts upon. Mr. Vane kept talking to her all the time. She hardly took in the sense of what he said. There were two sounds in her ears; the sound of his voice and a strange sound that seemed to compete with the wind for the mastery of tho air—the sea, breaking fn surf on a rough beach. Above the wind she could hear the screaming of the pebbles as the wave dragged them down, only to fling them back again. "I am taking you to your aunt, now, Freda," he said. "You must be a very good little girl, and please your aunt. She is not very strong, and there are a good many things you can do to help i her."

"I never knew I had an aunt," said Freda, waking to a little interest. "There was Uncle Stephen, but I never heard anything about my aunt. And there was grandpapa, whom I never saw. Papa used to say I should see him one day perhaps, hut I never did. And then pappe went away, and there was only mamma. And mamma cried while she sowed at black things. And then mamma went away too —mamma and my little brother whom I never saw. Nannie said tliey went away to be with papa. Then Nannie took mo away to a cottage in the country —such a tiny cottage, as small as any of these. And then Uncle Stephen came and took me with him, though Nannie cried and cried." Tho life had suddenly warmed in her frozen heart at the thought that she might be going to sec someone who was kin of Iters. But her hopes were destined to be dashed to earth. "This aunt is someone who has nothing iiO do with your father or your Uncle Stephen," the man said, and his lean lingers tightened on her little hand like a vice. In fact, my dear child, you must forget .about England and that old life of yours. You belong to us now. I am your uncle, and my wife is your aunt. You are to call us uncle and aunt. Your name is now Freda Vane. Do you understand, my dear? And you are to be very good to your new aunt. If you were not good to her I should not like you, for there is no one in tho world like your new aunt. You must save her all the trouble in the house that you can. Unfortunately she has to work harder than she likes or than I like, because we are poor. But a willing little girl might take a great deal off her shoulders." After that first leap Freda's thoughts had dropped dully to their old, bewildered hopelessness. She was not interested about this strange aunt; and while she wondered a little at the shake of emotion in the man's voice when he had spoken of her, she had taken in nothing else of what he said. Freda had been reared delicately. Nannie had done everything for her and Mamma in London, and when summer came in the little country cottage, surrounded by its flower garden and furnished with every prettiness that heart could desire. Papa had only come sometimes, and Nannie had done all Freda and Mamma needed. What should she know about taking the burden of work off the shoulders of a grown \yoinan, and she but seven years old? They had turned the corner of the church, where the wind, sweeping down a narrow passage, had nearly lifted Freda off her feet. The wind now was in their faces, and conversation for the moment was impossible. At the next corner there was a big house with a light in the window. They turned its angle and garden trees at one side cut off the wind. "Let me see," said Mr. Vane, suddenly stopping and lifting Freda's little face by the chin. "Your new uncle has not yet seen your face, Freda." He looked down into Freda's eyes, which ached with fatigue. She was a very pretty child, with a face at once spirited and soft. The little round, white chin, the slightly tip-tilted nose, the large grey eyes, the soft, pale colour just lightly dusted over with golden freckles, made a charming whole, despite. tho traces of tears and tho long fatigue. "H'm," the man said, as though to himself, "very pretty, very pretty. Not a match on her mother, though. I remember her mother when the young fellows were all mad after her." They turned in at a gateway, where even in the darkness "Freda could see that the gate swung from the hinges. Beyond, a lit house showed through the darkness—that is to say, one or two lit windows showed enough to reveal the darkness of the house lifting above them. There was a tangle of boughs between Freda's eyes and the house. Her feet walked in obscurity, and she was only guided by the cold, lean hand that held her so tightly. Getting nearer to the light she could see that the house was white with green outside shutters. One or two of them creaked in the wind with ' a mournful sound as they hung by a hinge. Still within the shadow of the trees, ane P u 'led up with a sudden jerk. 'Your Uncle Stephen, whom we need not speak of in that way again," he said, "put you in the train, did he not? He took your ticket for you, yes? Ah 1 and he gave you some money? Is it in that bag you are carrying?" Ho took out of Freda's hand the little bag of crushed purple morocco, which had belonged to her mother. "Your aunt will take care of this for you," he said. "It is much too smart for Marigny. Here are your gloves and handkerchief. And your little purse. Why, there is gold in it. Someone might have taken this from you. Supposing I take care of it for you, Freda?" "Yes, please," said Freda. "Uncle Stephen put it in my purse. He said I could buy something I wanted witli it." "Very , imprudent of your Uncle Stephen. A child like you travelling alone!" "Everyone was very kind," said Freda forlornly, while the man who had once been a gentleman emptied the contents of her little purse first into his hand and then into his pocket. "It will bo quite safe with me," he said, "and any time you want a sou yon can ask me. By the way, you needn't mention it to your aunt. In fact, .you had much better not. Come on now, Freda, and remember that you are henceforth Freda Vane." He turned the handle of the hall door and led the child through a dark hall lit only by tho ljght that came from a door that stood half-open. "Dear me, what a draught!" called a complaining voice from the room beyond. "Is that you, Denis? Do shut the door and come in." "The draught came with us through tho hall door," returned the man. "I am sorry you felt it, my darling. And, hero is Freda!" Freda stood blinking in the light of a strong lamp, rose-shaded, but sufficiently above her small height for the light to fall on her face. She could see nothing at first after coming in out of the darkness; but after a few seconds she could see the woman who lolled on a sofa among many-coloured cushions in an attitude which had a curious serpentine grace about it. She was looking at Freda with an expression of cold dislike. She had strange, milky-blue eyes, and an exquisite small oval face of an olive colour. She was wearing long blue earrings, and a necklace of blue beads, and she had on a loose blue gown trimmed with curious embroideries. , Freda stood before her, a small, black; figure, feeling too forlorn for tears. I

"Why, there is a dog," said thej woman. "Who said she was to .bring a dog? You know I detest dogs." "But we need a house-dog," said the man. "Ho will be very useful in old Hector's place. And see this pretty bag! It is not a child's bag. You will like to give it to your aunt, my dear." The woman's face lit up greedily. "Toss it over here," she said, "and take her into the kitchen. Lizette will see to her. Why, the fittings are gold, I believe. What a pretty bag! Chain up the dog, Denis. Why, here is a purse, but it is ompty. You don't mean to say the little beast hadn't a penny in her purse." "To bo sure not," said tho man who was once a gentleman. "Absurd, my darling, to think of letting a child like that travel alone with money in her purse." Tho door closed behind them while Freda wondered and wondered. "If your aunt asks you about the money," Mr. Vane said, one hand clutching Freda's shoulder, "you are to say you had none. Do you hear me, Freda?" Freda was too spent to ask questions. She had had nothing to eat for hours; and she was glad enough of the soup that Lizette gave her in the kitchen. Lizette was a French child of about 14, immeasurably older than Freda, Tho was seven. While Freda swallowed her soup, Lizette watched her with a disagreeable smile. But Freda was too spent to notice Lizctte's smile. She was only too glad to creep into fhe bed, which creaked and groaned even beneath her light weight. ller new bedroom was a narrow slip of a room, with scarcely space to turn round in, even for a little body like Freda, now that the middle of it was taken up by the bod. At the far end, under tho window, there was a jug and basin. A looking glass in a bamboo frame hung on the wall opposite Freda's eyes as she slept. On tho wall at the foot of the bed was a crucifix, which must have been left by some previous occupant of the house, since there was nothing about Mr. or Mrs. Vane to suggest that cither of them had any kind of religion whatsoever. Often and often in the years during which Freda was growing up she would lie awake at night strangling with her sobs while she was still little, while the memory of tho exquisite other world in which were papa and mamma remained with her; later in a cold and hard desolation which was often full of hatred and asked nothing better than revenge —a nice, short, sharp revenge of a knifeblade between two smooth white shoulders. Sometimes at the worst she would catch sight of the crucifix glimmering in the dim light, and would suddenly grow softened and weep. At tho Villa Marguerite poor Freda grew up as a little pagan. Yet the sight of the crucifix, glimmering in the night, would suggest to her that Someone was sorry for her somewhere, bringing with the suggestion a softness that would melt the hard rebellion in her heart as though the soft south wind had breathed on ice. (To bo Continued Daily.)