JUST OUTSIDE EUSTON

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 106, 7 May 1935, Page 19

JUST OUTSIDE EUSTON

By JOHN ANTHONY

Author of "THE ELUSIVE LADY," etc.

CHAPTER 11. The Shabby Girl. He bought some tobacco at Charing Cross and passed on into the less-fre-quented gardens in front of Whitehall Court. Two bored-looking young men were playing clock-golf on one of the small greens; it struck Wayne as a eingularly futile tiling to do, although the young men had apparently paid for the privilege. Just beyond the clockgolfers he noticed a girl sitting alone on a seat beneath a friendly tree, and as there was something reminiscent in the way she sat, leaning forward slightly as if she were contemplating her toes, he glanced at her. At that moment she happened to look up and their eyes met. "If it isn't Anna!" he said, pulling up. She looked at him doubtfully for a moment before recognition came. "Yes, I'm Anna," she said. "You're Bruce Wayne, aren't you?" "Rather. I will join you in the shade if you don't mind." "I don't mind," she said listlessly. By that time Wayne had looked her up and down, swiftly and appraisingly. In some ways he was as observant as a woman and his glance told him a great deal. She was still pretty, but she was evidently down on her luck. Her stockings and shoes were cheap, and these, more than anything, give a woman away. The Anna he remembered had been sparkling and impudent; the girl he found that fine afternoon was neither. "It must be over a year since we met, Anna," he said. "Almost. You haven't changed. I should have known the glasses anywhere. You still seem to be following them about." He smiled at the joke, but his voice was serious when he said : "I haven't seen you on the screen recently." "No." "How are things?" "Do you really want to know?" she demanded, half turning to face him. "I do."

"Then as far as I am concerned, things—as you call it—are pretty grim." "Had lunch?" She hesitated before she said: "No, I'm slimming." A less sensitive man than Wayne might have missed the bitterness in the words. 'Then come 011. I have, but I haven't had any coffee," he replied, almost casually. "I haven't any money," the girl said, nervously. "My child, if I invite a lady to lunch, I'm the host. Come on." Down, but Not Out. The restaurant he took her to had seen better days, had once, indeed, been associated with a name that is great in the world of exquisite food and drink. It still retains some of its old virtue, and, as Wayne had said, was very quiet. He led her to a table in the far corner, behind which was a bench upholstered in comfortable Victorian plush. ' She sank into this with a little sigh, and he took the chair opposite to her. "It's an odd sort of time," he said, "but what about a nice pot of tea, a grilled sole and some crisp rolls and butter t To start with, I mean."

"A grilled sole! In all the world there's nothing I'd like more." "Good." "Bring the tea and rolls at once, and coffee for one," he told the waiter. "I've got an idea for a yarn," he said when the tea had arrived, and proceeded to tell her the plot of a story lie had written some time before. All she had to do was to sit back, sip her ten, and listen, and as Wayne knew, it was just about all she wanted to do. The girl was hungry and tired and miserable. The plot came to a rapid end with the advent of the sole—a large and excellent fish—and ho chatted lightly to her as she ate it. "That's saved my life," said, when the grilled sole had come to its appointed end. "What do you feel like now? A slice of pineapple? An ice?" "Nothing, thanks. Just a cigarette." She sat back luxuriously when he had lit it for her. "You," she said deliberately, "arc a good sort." "Tut-tut, Anna! What have you been doing lately" "I'll tell you the talc of me life, sir," she said with a laugh that was more like the old Anna. "When you blew along I was hungry. Honest to goodness hungry! And I had about ninepence in my bag!" ? "You certainly seemed a bit down." From the bag in question, 011 a sudden impulse, she took a small mirror and contemplated her face. "My goodness!" she said. "You're a hero to take such a hag to lunch." "I noticed that you hadn't bothered to powder your nose. It's a bad sign; it worried me. What's gone wrong?" She was already dabbing her nose witli a rather soiled-looking puff. "Everything. Life is a rotten thing if you give it best. And that's what I've very nearly done." "You're not the girl to give it best", that I'll swear. My dear child, what's been happening? You were going ahead when I knew you before. I've wondered why I haven't seen your name stuck about."

"I suppose it's my fault. I made a complete mess of things. It all boils down to the fact that I'm a fool."' "That's the commonest of crimes, I'm afraid."

"Just about," she agreed. "And yet in spite of what I did, I don't think I am a fool." "Steady on, old lady!" he said, startled by the sudden passion in the girl's voice. She was staring ahead in silence. "You'd have thought that a girl who had knocked about as I have done would know her way about?" she asked, suddenly. He shrugged his shoulders. Most modern young women seem to." _ "My mother died when I was a kid," she went on, as if Jhe comfort and the meal had made her garrulous. "I left home- soon after I left school. And since then I've been on my own. I've been in panto; I've toured with third-rate companies; I've been on the films. Surely to goodness you'd think that a girl who'd been through all that would be too cunning to trust a man?" "Not at all my dear. Women do trust men; they trust men whom I wouldn't trust with twopence with their very lives. And they'll go on trusting them. And nine times out of ten they aie right."

A Fine, Human Story of Metropolitan Life

"I Fell in Love." "Then I struck the tenth, I'm afraid," she said bitterly. "It was just after I had met you at Barlow's Studios. _It was a man ... of course. But it's bad luclc 011 you, having to listen to my tale of woe after you've been so kind to me." "I may be able to help you, Anna," he said gravely. "Well . . . here's for it. I fell in love!" He waited in silence. "He was little better than a super at the time and I ... I was one of the smaller stars—anyway, I was making five times as much as he was. He was amazingly good-looking. He could talk . . . and I fell for him!" Wayne noticed that her knuckles were white, so tightly were her hands clenched. "Anyway, I believe in him. He asked me to marry him, and I said I would. He made no mistake. Within twentyfour hours everybody in the studio knew about it. "Petersen, the producer, told me frankly 1 was making a fool of myself, that the man I had promised to marry was a handsome face and nothing else. But when a girl is in love—a girl who really knows as little of life as I did— she doesn't listen to reason —or anything else.

"We were to be married at some little church in the country. He made all the arrangements —he insisted that he hated the thought of a big wedding. I agreed; I would have agreed to anything. Sounds funny, after what's happened?"

"No," said Wayne in his grave voice. "I think 1 cau understand."

"I lent him most of the money I had saved up to furnish the flat, and the night before we were to be married— the night the film I'd been . working on ended —they gave a party for us in the studio —champagne and speeches and so on. All very friendly and jolly," she added bitterly.

"We were going to stay that night with an aunt of his in the country —he refused to tell me where it was until the party was over. It was to be a complete surprise—and we drove oil in a smart little car he had hired. "He pulled up a good many miles out of London at a small hotel, and then 1 had the complete surprise. He told me the truth—there was no aunt . . . and we were not going to be married." Wayne nodded. "He was already married," the girl said in a low tone. "It was then I saw liini suddenly as he really was and from that moment I've hated him as I've never hated any other man or woman. " 'If only we had met before,' he kept on saying. "I let him talk—but I wasn't a fool any longer, and I saw what his game was—and then I told him exactly what I thought of him. "Suddenly he lost his temper and left me in the hotel, where we 'were going to have supper. He didn't come back, and when 1 went out I found both he and the car had gone. "I couldn't get back that night, so I stayed at the hotel . . . alone. "I simply could not face the crowd at Barlow's—the sniggers and smiles — and as the film I'd been working on was finished, I tried to get into one of the other studios.

"But ill the film business it's easier to walk out of a job than to walk into one. 1 got frightened—l'd very little money left—and tried to get him to repay me what I'd lent him.

"He laughed at me, denied that I'd ever lent him monev.

"There were whispers in the studios— it's always the girl who is whispered about, and I was on the point of swallowing my pride and going back to Barlowls, when I heard that Petersen, the producer I'd been working with, had gone 011 a cruise, after a breakdown. I knew then that even Barlow's was no use. "I'd just about enough money to get to Hollywood, and like a fool I booked I my passage and went—steerage." Again Wayne nodded. "I got as far as New York," she went on. "The emigration officials asked me for proof that I had an engagement to go to. I hadn't ... and I was sent back to this country via Ellis Island. Ever been to Ellis Island?" "No," said Wayne. "Then don't," the girl said. "I wasn't there long, but I did a fair amount of thinking while I was there. Anyway, ten days later I landed once more in Liverpool with about a pound in my pocket. "I got a job as a waitress, saved my fare back to dear old London and came back—older and wiser than when I'd left it. "You know—or can guess—the next A job here ... a job there . . . Once T met the man who had asked me to marry liim. He Wj^^jin the Strand with another girl—a little thing. Ho was laughing as he passed mo and I was thankful that he didn't see me. I was almost as shabby as lam now. . . . "Lately it's been worse. Jobs of any sort have been harder to get—for me anyhow—and the studios seem hopeless. They've forgotten me completely. And here I am!" For a while Wayne sat smoking in silence after Anna had finished. At length, however, he'said: "You know, Anna, you'd go a long way in the films if you had your chance. In 'gammie' parts." "In what parts?" "Oh. shop-girls, waitresses . . . that kind of thing." "I very nearly got another job as a waitress last week. I'm going again to-morrow. Jn a tea shop, I mean, not on the films." "Where are you hanging out?" "Up to this morning in Pitcairn Street, Lambeth. Just over * Westminster Bridge. Rather a hole, but convenient." "And since this morning?" he pur- j sued. "In the cloak-room at Charing Cross! Underground. At least, that's where my bags are. T was turned out this morning because I hadn't paid my rent. Very decent of the old woman not, to stick to my luggage—not that it's worth much, as she probablv guessed." "And you've got about nine pence?" "Just about. And a gold wrist-, watch. I tried to pawn it the other day. What do you think Ikey offered for it?" Wayne examined the watch on her thin wrist: "Three pounds?" he hazarded. "Twelve shillinsrs. I told him to go to .. . Jerusalem. Tell you what. I'll sell it to you for thirty bob." "Now what 11=0 would that wristwatch bo to me?" .She shrugged her shoulders.

"I paid seven pounds for it," she said. Bruce Wayne was thinking. "I have an idea," he said at length. "You'd better get a chef!]) room at my hotel." "And how 1" she asked, sarcastically. "Xow cut out that nonsense. Up to a point you can trust me. Anna." "I know that," she said quietly, almost humbly. "Listen to me. You get your luggage out of the cloak-room, get a taxi and go to the Rossmore Hotel —it's quite a small place near Euston. I've been there for years, on and off. You will ask for Mrs. Sebright. Tell her that you are a friend of mine and that I sent you, that you want one of the little rooms on the top floor, that you're hard up. Tell her anything you like, but make it quite clear that you are an old friend of mine and that I sent you. You'll find there will be no difficulty." "I'll try anything once," she said. "This isn't a joke, is it?" "No." "You mean it?" she went on, her eyes 011 his. "Yes." "You know that I'm broke to the wide 1" "Yes. I may be ail incorrigible optimist—l am —but I feel certain that one of my books is going to he filmed at Tringstead. If it comes off I can probably get you in there. These people at the hotel —Mrs. Sebright and her niece are my dearest friends. I'm taking a chance in fixing this up, but I'm not often wrong about women. You're not going to let me down, Anna!"

She was watching him like a starving dog looks at a man who lias been kind to it. There was surprise, suspicion, gratitude, in her face. "I ... I won't let you down," she faltered. "There are no snags in my offer to help you," he said in a quiet voice. "In any case, I'm certain that we can fix you up in some job or other, even if there's nothing doing in your own line." "Hi!" he called to the waiter, in his unaffectedly plebeian way. "My bill." "Better for me not to come with you," he explained as they walked along. "I shall be back about lialf-past six. Dinner's not until half-past seven, so you've plenty of time for a rest. There's a bathroom up there,, if you feel like a bath." "I shall wake up presently. I know I shall," she said. Off to The Rossmore. "I rather fancy you have waked up. Here's some money for the taxi." She took it without hesitation. "Let's have the ticket for the bags," he went on. They were pathetically small and light, and he carried them through the station to the taxi rank outside. "You know what to say?" he asked when she was in the cab. "Yes. Only I don't know what Mrs. Sebright will say."

"I do. You needn't worry about that. When I get back presently you will be installed as a visitor. Good luck, and don't get worried or nervy. You won't need to do a lot of'talking. Make it clear to her that you are my friend, that I sent you. You'll have no difficulty."

lie closed the door: "Rossmore Hotel, Rossmore Square, Euston." he said to the driver, and smiled into her unsmiling, frightened face as the taxi snorted awav.

Then, in Lis lazy, shambling way, lie sauntered up Villiers Street, to the Strand, where lie was nearly run over by a taxi; but lie always was nearly run over when he crossed the Strand. He readied his office without further adventure, however, and settled down to the short story.

(To be continued daily.)