PAYMENT IN FULL

Cromwell Argus, 30 September 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

PAYMENT IN FULL

By W. .

PUBLISHED BV AUIIANGEMENT.

Ai-thor of "The Credit of the County/' " Clarissa Furiosa," "My Friend Jim, rhe Fight for the Crown." "Matrimony," Etc., Etc. COPYRIGHT.

CHAPTER XI. In the Maglio Gardens. If, as Mr. Barham declared, it is considered bad manners in some parts of the world to refuse a drink,, it is certainly held offensive all the world over to be met with a refusal of what you have never offered, and Teresa's father naturally did not relish the idea that her hand had been declined in advance by any man. He consoled himself, however, by reflecting how much worse it would have been if the young people had taken a fancy to one another, as they might have done. It was, after all, something to know that association with the March family presented no dangers. Between him and the head of that family a species of truce was patched up, the vigilant Gladys taking care that their meetings should be few and far between, and although he now began to talk' about making appointments in London for the transaction of business, he was prevented by the exercise of a little diplomacy on that same lady's part from specifying actual dates. Diplomacy, if ably employed, may accomplish much; but Gladys, as the days and weeks passed on, became more and more apprehensively conscious of its limitations. She could not but perceive that Oliver and Teresa were too friendly by half; the unwelcome conviction was forced upon her that they were taking the wind out of her sails by cheerfully agreeing to every little scheme that could be devised for their common advantage, and that they were not really progressing a yard along the course marked out for them. So one day she said boldly to her brother: "I suppose you know that your attentions to Teresa Barham have been a good deal remarked upon by people here." "No," answered Oliver, coolly, "I didn't know. I can easily stop being attentive, if that is what you mean. Buc I suspect," he added, with a smile, "that that isn't at all what you mean." She frankly confessed that it was not. She said that she quite understood his scruples and to some extent admired them, but she asked him to consider whether he was not by his present conduct stretching scrupulousness beyond all rational bounds. "Don't tell me that you are not fond of TeTesa; I know you well enough to know that you would never talk to her and look at her as you do unless yoxi were. Yet you seem to have made up your mind to lose her simply because she happens to have money. Is it any fault of hers that you happen to want money?" "As you may imagine," answered Oliver, "I have thought all that out. I am bound, I suppose, to be a fortunehunter, much as I loathe the job, and probably I shall perform my duty one of these days, if I can find a victim. But Miss Barham, I am sorry to tell you, won't do. Amongst several good reasons why she won't do there is the conclusive one that she won't have me." "How do you know?" asked Gladys, quickly. "Have you asked her?" "She was considerate enough not to wait for that. She has been very considerate, and I am sincerely grateful to her." Gladys, after staring at him for a moment, said quietly, "I don't believe you are grateful, and I don't believe in Teresa's having made any declaration that you didn't invite. Do you know what will happen now? Why, the Barhams will go to England soon, and then she will accept the first man who pioposes to her —oh, there will be plenty of men ready to propose to her! —rather than «ro back to Tasmania with that gruff and grim old father of hers. For, whatever she may pretend, she does not mean to end her days in a far-away colony." "So you think," returned Oliver, laughing and getting up, "that she might prefer even me to the prospect of a colonial career? I have my doubts; but never mind. As I told you, there are other reasons why Miss Barham won't do for me." He was out of the house and off, at a brisk pace, to attend to his military duties before she could inquire what those reasons were. He might have found them a little difficult to particularise, inasmuch as they were both cogent and absurd; still, the absurdity of one of them did not prevent him from placing it clearly before his own mind's eye in the course of the morning. His sister, he told himself, was right enough; it was just because he had really become very fond of Teresa Barham that the pursuit of her fortune was out of the question for him; he was made like that, and there was no help for it. But what might have been helped, and would have been helped had he possessed the common sense and self-control upon which he was accustomed to pride himself, was the akrming extent to which the fondness aforesaid had grown. The malady known as love admits of various definitions, and most people, if they were honest, would have to acknowledge that they had suffered from it in a mild form more frequently than they can well remember: the danger is that a slight attack is liable at any moment to develop into an acute one. Now Oliver, who was not unaware that he had of late been rather more than a little hit in love with a girl who was out of the question, began for the first time, on this fine, sunny morning, to be beset by serious misgivings. Oh!

not as to practical results: these had been decided upon and could not be affected, one way or the other, by his personal feelings. Only it was a bore, to say the least of it, that his personal feelings should be what a few words from Gladys had led him to fear that they were. That sort of thing hurts; and he was a man who, when his feelings were moved, felt deeply. He had not at all liked his sister's forecast of Teresa's future; he had instantly perceived how likely it was to be correct, how unlikely of realisation though doubtless spoken in good faith —A\as Teresa's own prediction upon the same subject. Filial piety has well-known and justifiable limits; it stood to reason that she could not wish to be buried in Tasmania for the rest of her mortal life. Consequently well, consequently she was exposed to perils which he, for one, could not see his way to avert. He could offer her sage counsels, if there was any good in that; but he was not quite so ignorant of feminine character as to imagine that there would be much good in that. In the suburb of Gloriana, just outside the Porta Reale, is a narrow strip of pleasure ground, known as the Maglio gardens, where are sheltered seats and flower-beds and a few stunted trees. Fate decreed that Teresa should be sunning herself all alone 01 a bench in that quiet spot and contemplating the movements of the goldfish in a small tank, when Captain March, clanking back towards the town to change into mufti, came upon her all of a sudden. She was very glad to sec him, and she said so. Also she asked him to sit down and drew his attention to the evolutions of the foolishly gaping goldfish, which failed to excite his interest. His interest, indeed, seemed impervious to all attacks made upon it on this occasion, and after she had essayed several topics of conversation without eliciting replies other than monosyllabic, she was fain to ask what was the matter. "Because," she remarked, "you look as dismal as if you had lost every relation and every penny you possessed."

"I believe my few relations are in good health," he answered, "and I don't possess any pence worth mentioning. I am going—we are going—to lose you before long, though, are we not?"

"So my father says, and it is quite upon the cards that he may be in earnest. But I can't flatter myself that your spirits have dropped so low on that account."

"Why not? Do you think I have such a superfluity of friends?" "I should say that you had more than most people," replied Teresa. "Besides," she cheerfully and somewhat unfeelingly added, "we are not going to part for ever and ever, perhaps. Gladys, anyhow, will be coming to England before the summer." Captain March did not see what comfort an exiled soldier was expected to derive from that prospect. He was further of opinion that Miss Barham, when in England, might stand in need of a rather more experienced and impartial adviser than Gladys. And then, by way of demonstrating his own impartiality, he proceeded to favor her with some of that advice which he had already recognised as useless. It certainly did not seem to produce any great effect upon her, although she thanked him for his kind solicitude. "The odd thing," she remarked, after they had been conversing for some little time, "is that, with your notions about marriage, you shouldn't yourself have made a bid for the fortune which you evidently think will attract more admiration than my face."

With a slight increase of color, he said that he thought he had explained that.

"Not very conclusively. By your own showing, you are not particular, and you seem to have an idea that I am not hard to please either; so, as you don't dislike me, I hardly see why you shrank from making a gulp at the pill." Oliver shifted his position uneasily. As a matter of fact, he was extremely particular, and this way of putting the case jarred upon him. Perhaps, however, tMat was just what she had meant it to do; for she went on, with a laugh: "See how my native vulgarity comes out!".

"You are not vulgar!" he returned, almost angrily; "I wish you wouldn't sa3" stich things!" Then, urged by a sudden, irresistible impulse: "You may as well hear the truth; it can't do you any harm to be told. At first I laid my ears back out of sheer obstinacy and because I don't like having my affairs arranged for me by other people; afterwards, as you knew, we got on well together and there was a tacit agreement between us which I was in a sort of way bound in honor not to break. But all the time there was something else—not that I knew it all the time, still it was there—which made you the last person living whom I could approach with mercenary motives. In short " "In short?" she repeated with smiling interrogation, as he paused. "In short, I love you. There! —now you know."

The knowledge, so far as he could discern, neither pleased nor distressed not surprised her. She made no immediate rejoinder, but quietly contemplated him, and she may (little

though he suspected it) have been thinking that he made a handsome, gallant figure, notwithstanding the hideous undress uniform in which it has pleased superior authorities to array the much-enduring British officer of to-day. "I see," she said at length. "It is rather unfortunate, isn't it?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Yes; but I can't help it, you know." She was silent for quite a long time before she remarked in a low voice. "Nor can I."

"Oh, of course, it isn't your fault! Heaven knows you have never encouraged me by a single word or look!" "That isn't what I mean," said the girl, who had now removed her eyes from him and was looking down at the ground. "What I mean is that what has happened to you has happened to me, too. And, as you say, it was there all the time, though we didn't know it. And —and a nice predicament we have got ourselves into through not knowing." "Teresa!"

She waved him back and resumed, half-laughing, yet with a hint of tears in her voice, "Yes, a wretched predicament! For, as I told you that day at the picnic, I am not really an heiress. Of course, if I were, it would bo plain sailing; but I am not, and I think I may say pretty positively that my father would never consent to our marrying." "I don't care whether he consents or not," Oliver began, with an impetuosity not at all characteristic of him. Much more in keeping with his customary habit of mind was the realisation of hard facts which caused him to leave his speech unfinished. How could he pretend to be independent of Mr. Barham's consent? His own consent to be dependent upon the girl whom he loved, and who, as he now learned, to his ineffable joy and astonishment, loved him, might be given; but could he possibly ask her to depend for the future upon his pay, supplemented by an allowance which had hitherto barely sufficed for his own needs? Teresa must have divined his thoughts; for she said sorrowfully: "There is no way out of it; your father has to be considered as well as mine. You can't marry a pauper, and I can't desert my post without leave."

"As for that," Oliver slowly and meditatively returned, "I don't think that the fifth commandment binds us to make a wreck of our lives. The real difficulty is that I must not offer yo\; a life of hardship. I didn't mean to offer it." Not until several moments had elapsed did she murmur under her breath, yet distinctly enough for him to hear her, "I should love a life of hardship—with you!" How many thousands of times has that sentiment been sincerely proclaimed since the human race started on its career of continuous change and repetition? The sentiment is as idiotic as anybody may please to call it; but while it lasts there is no resisting it or its consequences. Prudence, duty, self-sacrifice and other fine things went to the wall in this instance, as they have had to do in many previous ones, and since the Maglio gardens chanced at that time to be deserted, the goldfish were privileged to behold a spectacle which may not have been entirely novel to them. Oliver and Teresa knew what they were about; or, at any rate, they repeatedly assured one another that they did. Willingly, gladly, and with their eyes open they accepted what their mutual love left them no choice but to accept. When all was said, it remained remotely possible that Mr. Barham's obduracy would be overcome. There was, moreover, just the chance of a staff appointment at Aldershot which was likely to fall vacant ere long. For the rest, they soon ceased to talk about tho future, which indeed presented fewer features of attraction than the present.

CHAPTER XII

Omens.

Oliver was going to ride a pony belonging to a brother officer of his, that afternoon, in one of the frequent race meetings on the Marsa. His chance of finishing amongst the first three was very doubtful, he told Teresa, but he meant to back his mount, all the same. "And if, by some extraordinary fluke, I were to win, I should take it as a good omen," he added. He was much more likely to win a race for which he was over-weighted than to propitiate Mr. Barham; but both tasks had to be essayed, the latter being only put off until Teresa should have paved the way for it. This she did not propose to do before evening, experience having taught her that if ever her father was amenable to pressure, it was while smoking his last pipe. She might have felt encouraged had she known what pressure was being brought to bear upon him daily by his own reluctant recognition of her unsuitability for Tasmanian society, and his dread lest Tasmanian society should proclaim the ground that it had for agreeing with him in that respect. Still, he had not only pronounced Oliver March unsuitable, but had received Teresa's assurance that that young man had no intentions; so it was in a wholly unsuspecting frame of mind that he drove down to the Marsa with his children to witness a series of contests which he compared very unfavorably with similar displays on the other side of the world.

He was being corrected as amply as he could desire when Gladys, at Jack's invitation, left his side to inspect the horses in the paddock. It was not often that poor Jack ventured upon making any suggestion to a lady whom h n feared almost as much as he adored; but of late Miss March had treated him with a toleration which sometimes emboldened if it never deceived him. He knew well enough that the utmost he could expect from her was toleration; he aspired to nothing more and was content to be spared setdowns, which, in all conscience, he had only once deserved. If she was more amiable than usual to him on this occasion it was probably because she thought she had substantial reasons for feeling amiable towards everybody. Something undefinable in her brother's face and voice, when she had seen him for a few minutes in the middle of the day, had given her hope; she could not help fancying that her words had somehow or other begun to bear fruit; and although, of course, she knew nothing of his previous meeting with Teresa, it pleased her to see them passing to and fro together in the paddock now, v/ith every appearance of being what she so ardently wished them to be. She put up a little silent prayer while she watched them and surveyed the smartly-clad ladies of Malta, with their attendant swains, and the gentlemenriders in their gay jackets, and the brown, dusty plain beyond. Owing to a certain frigidity of manner, Gladys March was scarcely as well liked as she ought to have been; but the few persons who knew her intimately knew that there breathed no more unselfish being than she. To insure a peaceful old age for her father, to save the old home from passing into the occupation of a tenant and to relieve Oliver of pecuniary cares, she would have sacrificed herself and her future without hesitation; but she did not want Oliver to make any sacrifice that could be avoided, and she was therefore as anxious that he should fall in love with Teresa Barham as that he should marry her. "The Elwick course," Jack was saying, "is rather smaller than this; but it isn't badly laid out, and I think you would call it pretty." "The Elwick course?" she repeated vaguely; for in truth she Avas unconscious of having for some little time tal<en an absent-minded share in a dialogue which had had Australian sport of its theme. "Oh, yes, I daresay I should. Where is it?" It did not greatly interest her to hear that Elwick was near Hobart, or that a horse bred in Tasmania had recently carried off important events in Sydney and Melbourne; but for once she tried to seem interested; for once (being in a mood so grateful towards Providence) she tried to show a little kindness to this long-legged, longsuffering admirer, of whose admiration she could not but be aware.

"I suppose," she said, "you have much the same amusements out there as you Avould have in England—hunting and shooting, and all the rest of it"

"Well, no," Jack confessed. "I can't say that we have anything corresponding to Norfolk, and I am afraid our nearest approach to Leicestershire is running a drag during the winter months. Still, we have posts and rails which take a little jumping, and a man with a gun can generally find something to do, if he isn't too particular. And there is as much fishing as anybody can want." He told her of the trout, averaging from ten to twenty pounds, that were to be caught in the rivers and the great lakes; he described (since she appeared to be lending him an attentive ear) the mountain scenery of those silent inland regions, and, in answer to inquiries, enumerated the wild animals that were to be met with in the bush —the kangaroo and wallaby, the so-called "tiger," or species of striped wolf, the Tasmanian devil and the platypus, that queer quadruped which lays eggs and had a bill like a duck. This last freak of nature moved her to unaffected curiosity. It was becoming rare, Jack said, and its thick fur was highly prized. "I wonder," he diffidently hazarded, "if you would let me send you a platypus rug when Igo home. I might not be able to get it at once, for it takes a number of skins to make a rug, and I shall have to look about to secure good ones; but if you would care to have such a thing " Gladys was upon the point of declining a gift which, as she guessed, was likely to cost a considerable sum of money; but his eager face made her pause. Why, after all, should she deny the poor boy what would so evidently be a pleasure to him? He really was not such a bad sort of boy, and if, after the manner of boys, he was suffering just now from an absurd and slightly presumptuous attack of calflove, what did it signify? He would soon be going back to his native island, and would trouble Europeans no more for ever. So she said it was very kind of him. "It is you who are kind," Jack declared, with that bright smile of his in which nobody could well help recognising an eloquent testimonial tofrcharacter. "Now I shall have something to look forward to!"

He did not dare to say more, and indeed was half afraid that he had again said too much; but, as Gladys smiled back at him, without taking umbrage, he was more than satisfied. So easy was it to satisfy his father's sen!

"There isn't a little township in the Australian bush, sir," he made haste to tell Mr. March, "that wouldn't be ashamed to keep its course in such a condition as this. Why, you might, as veil run horses along a high road!"

Mr. March observed that to make grass grow in Malta would require rather larger funds than the Sports Committee could command. He had been informed that the same drawback applied to parts of Australia; but he spoke under correction.

Not that Barham, in the meantime, had been altogether unsatisfactorily engaged. If he wanted to quarrel with Mr. March and, upon the whole, that was what he probably did want — he had come as near to achieving his aim as that much-tried gentleman's ur-' banity and sense of dignity would allow.

"Really, Mr. Barham," the latter was saying, in response to a prolonged diatribe against England and her entire foreign and colonial policy, "if

you are so disloyal a subject as you make yourself out, I wonder that you do not change your nationality. Why not become a citizen of the United States or of some other republic?" "No need for that, sir," returned Barham. "I am quite content to be an Australian citizen, and before many years are past Australia, you may depend upon it, will be an independent country." "I should have thought," said Mr. March, pensively, "that all intelligent Australians were aware of the impossibility of independence for them, and most Australians, I imagine, would rather own allegiance to the King than to the German Emperor."

Barham snorted defiance to all invaders. "We are not afraid of the German Emperor. As for owing allegiance to your King or your Government, can you give me any practical reasons why we should?" "We guarantee you against annexation by a foreign power, that's all. I confess that I know of no reason which you would call practical for our -doing that, as I have never been able to understand what material injury we should suffer by the loss of the colonies. There are, however, sentimental reasons which may perhaps count for something on both sides." "They don't count for much on our side, sir. You had better not be deceived by after-dinner speeches and waving of flags and singing the National Anthem and all that sort of nonsense. A good many of us don't forget how the mother country has treated us and our forefathers."

"Well, yes," agreed Mr. March; "I daresay some of you remember that the mother country was obliged to dispense with the company of their forefathers; but she was hardly to blame for that, was she?" It was not a very civil thing to say, and, irritated though he was, he would not have said it, had he realised the personal application of his remark. Barham took him up savagely. "There have been transported convicts, sir, who were innocent of the charges brought against them, and who were honester men by a long way than those who despatched them beyong the seas to be flogged and tortured to death." Mr. March took leave to doubt whether such failures of justice had been or* frequent occurrence at any time. "Can you give me a single well-authen-ticated Instance?"

Barham, who was very angry, had it on the tip of his tongue to cite a case which certainly was not well authenticated, and which every consideration of prudence demanded that he should keep to himself; but at this moment Oliver, on a wiry little grey horse, interposed like a god out of a machine and saved the situation.

Oliver, sweeping round the end of the course at top speed, was making a gallant bid for victory in the sixfurlong race for which his mount had been entered. He had to all appearance been done with immediately after the start, and the contest had narrowed itself to a match between the two leading ponies; but now hei'e he vas, drawing up hand over hand, to an accompaniment of encouraging shouts f'*om the excited spectators, and Mr. March, mildly excited, in sympathy with those around him, ceased to pay any heed to his irate neighbor. When nearing the stand, one of the two leaders swerved, changed his leg, and lost more ground than there was time for him to recover; at the same instant Oliver's whip went up, and the hopes of his few backers went down. The grey, however, made game response and shot past the post a bare head in advance of his remaining antagonist, amidst loud and prolonged applause, to which, as may be supposed, Teresa did not fail to contribute her share.

Gladys, seeing the girl's flushed cheeks and shining eyes, was well pleased; Barham, who also noted these symptoms, gave a low, uneasy growl; while Jack, whose attention was concentrated upon a face nearer to him than his sister's, remarked: "Fine riding! You look as if you were satisfied. May I congratulate you upon a very successful afterneon?" "Thank you; I think you may," answered Gladys, smiling quietly. "Then," declared that altruistic young man, "I congratulate myself, it's a case for congratulation all round." Oliver and Teresa, exchanging a few hurried words in the paddock, after he had weighed in. were disposed to hope that it was. "We have had our good omen, anyhew," he whispered. "Will you meet me in the Maglio gardens after breakfast to-morrow and tell me how you have sped with your father? I shall proceed at once to tackle mine." Teresa had only time to answer with a nod of assent; for Mr. Barbara's walking-stick, flourished peremptorily above the heads of the bystanders, beckoned her away. (To be Continued.) WHERE SHE FAILED. i The old country-woman wended her way slowly along the departure platform of the station in the direction of a solitary seat. Reaching her objective, she sat down and, with a sigh of relief, disposed of her various parcels and an embrella. Then she noticed a nurse who occupied the other end of the seat. "Ah," she said, eyeing the uniform, "I don't know what we'd do without the likes o' you. "Oh," replied the nurse, "now you are too kind. There's no doubt you do things equally worthy." "Not me, miss," responded the old lady. "I can kill a duck or a chicken wi' the best —that I admit; but when it comes to 'uman beings, my 'eart fails me!" A diner complained to the manager of a restaurant about a waiter. "I'm glad to hear it," was the manager's response. "Glad?" asked the amazed customer. "Yes; it is a relief to hear a complaint that isn't about the food!"