Harbour House

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13326, 1 May 1941, Page 3

Harbour House

INSTALMENT XXIX. , he fumbled over the catching of a=e and the lock slipped, and f Jersey went out on the floor in !<ie dley'of pencils and loose sheets a . m ! ner ' and sketching paraphernaol P ai ' e ' lia ,'. oh , heck!" said Miss Wayne and got off his chair t 0 help Pick them up. He laughed, inTo luntarily. „ Isay .... they're good." Cub abandoned his homework, and came and leaned on Lacy's shoulder, d even Lin laid down his hook. "That's old Hone," announced Ciib, dancing with excitement. "Look at his funny, ragged scarf!" "That was the old Maori we met the day we started to walk around the inlet to the ford," said Miss Wayne, laughing, and not ill-pleased w ith their admiration. 'We toiled about three miles, and met a Maori woman, and asked her how much farther, and she said two miles, and then we walked ahout two miles and met this old chap and asked him how much further, and he cheerfully ed we must be going backwards, so d we must be going backwards, so we abandoned the attempt." "Was that when you drew him, Miss Wayne?" said Cub, hanging entranced on Lacy's shoulder. "Yes, that was when I drew him," said Miss Wayne. It semed to Janice suddenly that there was a peculiar expression on key's face. He was holding in his hand a dog-eared sheet of yellow paper.

"What's that you've got?" said Miss Wayne, "Oh, that's as old as the hills .... I did it years ago when I was in Australia, and raked it out the other day to copy into a study of children on the beach. Rather a cute kid, isn't he?" Janice, drawn by her curiosity, manoeuvred to see the sketch Lacy was holding. It was roughly done, but with the same distinction and !ire that characterised the other sketches, a drawing of a very small hoy in a brief bathing-suit reaching labouriously up to the handle of a pump. The background was merely suggested, but it was there all the sa me .... a cobblestoned yard, the corner of a porch, a branch of willow dangling. "We used to la,ugh ourselves into fits over that child . . . .'member, Renee?" she appealed to her friend '»the window-seat. "See him come °ut in his little bathing-suit, and stand under the pump, and pull the handle down .... it was when we Were sta ying at this place up in the B1 «e. Mountains, they took paying Nests. The kid what did they fall him? , _ _ was boarded out ther e- That was a queer tale, if ever there was one . . . ." Lacy had laid the sketch faceowmvards, back in the folio, but «• Wayne was not to be lightly " verted fr °m a story once embarked

Hj s mother was a raving beauty '•_; • what was her name, Renee?" Aran . . . .» said R enee dreamilv ro « the window-seat, "Aran Lee." JIa >' I smoke?" said Lacy pmfcl,l "Will you?" Saj Y^ s : she u sed her maiden name," W Wa yne. She leaned her head over to the -W Lacy held shielded between Can!: and Janice - watching meej th ■ Wondered if slie imagines at the flame wav ered. "She married to some rotter, and he to off into the blue, and left her I . "V° r hereelf - That was when of fad *• • sn e was working as o{ fa * d out of our ken and I never expect i° Ut ° f ° Ur keU- and ] ' never b of et ' to aear anything more of 'one! v V6r Would if we hadn,t tain 3 ° Place in the Blue Mounted'"th" * remember what they Colin t bOy ~~ U was Gardner, " n Lee Gardner . said I WaSnt his other's name," b er „/ eufee - contemplatively, into smoke. .-.; °; Gard ner was the other man Bltl/L?! m t 0 me t( > be getting a ■j-Jf**." said Renee. '' lre Cberu etol ' ted MiSS WayUe[k w oman P6rteCtly nOW tola i, lt th at tne boarding-house Ar au L J ne whole thing. This girl. ! Utl e r OO '" " ' she nad a miserable that * a m Somew uere in the slums, s af ter she gave up the model

By JOYCE WEST

work .... and was ill, practically starving, and the baby coming, and the landlady got frightened and called in a doctor. Anyway, it turned out to be this man Gardner ... he was a New Zealander, too . . . did I say that Aran Lee came from New Zealand? .... history doesn't relate whether he fell in love with her on the spot, or whether he was merely sorry for her, but the fact remains that he took her away that night from the miserable place where she was, and took her back to his rooms, and she lived there until the baby was born . . . ." "And then she died," Renee supplied languidly. Miss Wayne flicked the ash from her cigarette into the hearth. "Don't interrupt! She didn't . . . she went into a consumption, and he gave up the practice he was just starting, and took her and the baby up to this place in the Blue Mountains .... and brought specialists to her .... and moved heaven and earth ..... but nothing was any good, and she died six months after the baby was born . . . ." "And then he went back and left the baby there," Renee said. "Yes, he boarded him out with the people who kept the place . . . and that was how we got to know him . . . . poor little kid! I wonder what happened to him . . . ." The room was oddly quiet, but Miss Wayne was blissfully unconscious jof any tension. She tossed her cigarette stub into the hearth, and turned her honey-coloured head suggestively. Lin had moved to the window, and he stood holding the curtain aside in his hand. "How does the tide look?" Lacy said.

"I think it's full enough .... I'll go down to the foot of the orchard with Miss Wayne, and see . . . you came up that way, I suppose?" "Why, that's very kind of you," Miss Wayne said. "Yes," we did . . ." She had turned the provocative battery of her glance on Lin, and he, apparently supremely unconscious, moved to the door. The languid Renee rose from the window-seat. "Oh! I haven't even paid you," said Miss Wayne. She dragged a dog-eared cheque-book out of her ill-used case, andfflourished it at Lacy .... "What do I owe you, anyway?" "Seven-and-sixpence," said Lacy politely. "Thank you." She rested her case on her knee, and her cheque-book on her case, and scratched hastily, and then paused to look up at Lacy with dawning amusement. "Do you know, I don't know your name." "Smith," said Lacy placidly, "J. Smith." She folded the cheque, and laid it down on the table. (To Be Continued)