The Romantic Runaway

Matamata Record, Volume XVII, Issue 1546, 26 July 1934, Page 7

The Romantic Runaway

CHAPTER I. It aii began some 30 years ago when a young Englishman saw a maid, Mary Marriage, in the upper hall of an old place that is well known in England. It was a spring day and perhaps that had something to do with it; and she had a fine prettiness that he was to learn was not echoed in her mind or speech. He kissed her and, because he was young, he confused passion and love; it is done often. He kissed her again. “I love you,” “and I don’t care who knows it I” Then he looked up at the old portraits on the walls of the spacious hall and something of tradition and set habit that they implied made, him suggest a meeting that night beyond the grounds. Mary, popr child, was willing. He was of thie gentry and she of the servant class. One said “Yes” and "Thank you” to one’s betters. She stood pluoking at the edge of her apron even then —through' the gift of two kisses—f-lost to love.

A month later , the village and the tenants celebrated the young man’s twenty-first birthday. With that done he announced his intention of “seeing the world a bit” and started for Italy where he had sent Mary.

In Italy they both learned the length of the stretches between passion which, while Indulged, obliterates differences. -■ And futllely they Stt'OVd to hold that which had never been theirs, save through imagination; he with forced, hollow echoes of his old want for her and she with pitiably little attempts at “conversation.”. r

When she'told him about “the' baby” he grew up. Something that was good for him happened to him when he saw her sitting before him, sagged and humble and utterly at his mercy. He covered his young eyes then to shut her out but he still saw her and heard her saying without words „o him, “And what will you bo doing with me—now?” He knew, by that time, that he couldn’t marry her. She had never expected that and her lack of expecting it added to the burden hejiad assumed —so easily 1 The titie that -would be his some day and her memories of her own life of work had made her the more his servant and him the greater cad. “I’ll send you away,” he promised, “and I’ll: always care for you and —the child.” . •/

She whispered a shaken, “Thank you,” and began to cry from relief. For she knew, from night after night of lying a\\fake thinkng of it, that her place , ,with the decent folk of home was gone. She couldn’t go back to them now. They wouldn't have her.

The young man meant to keep that promise hut the 1 uncertainties that are life made him break it. They both returned to England hut to different sections of the land and by different I rains.

, “You see, Mary, it’s quite changed now. T’m sorry but — now it, hurts me to see you”

“Yes, sir! I know, sir.” It hurt her, too, to see him now. And ns the spring enme again and summer followed he found himself to he increasingly uncomfortable. England is not large. It, would be better to have Mary in another country. He thought of the States, so big and far away.

SERIAL STORY.

Copyright. By KATHERINE HAVILAND TAYLOR.

Mary sailed for New York in December and one day when the sea was rough and the sky was bleak with gray she died giving birth to a son. The passengers .were shocked and sobered but none of them .felt the tragedy so fully as did Concepcion and Belen Villnverde, two young Cuban girls travelling under the chaperonage of a poor relation. “The small boy baby will be returned to his father?" Concepcion questioned the while she wiped brown eyes that filled easily with tears. The aunt lifted her fat shoulders. “Dios mlol And how?" she questioned in turn. “The ,lady -was registered only from England, and England, while small, can be large when a child of this nature seeks its remaining parent." ....... : ‘ -

Mary’s status had been clear almost from the start of the voyage. She had been “shamed to the sinning heart” of her and It showed. • “What then .will become of it,; the baby?” asked Belen, with dnusu&l energy for a daughter of the' . tropics. She'had leanings to good deeds, a love of adventure and —why not? Senor Villaverde had means. To adopt the baby, that would entertain, she''reasoned, remembering hot . afternoons when there seemed nothing to do but to wave a fan and yawn. She made her suggestion to Concepcion who was enchanted. The baby was pf utter whiteness, a mark of real distinction in Cuba where the colour of skin, with other hues, is often obscured as night falls.

The captain did not, at first, Know what to do about the matter but he did know the length of governmental red tape and how it can tangle to restrict motion And, too, he knew that if the, baby were returned to England he would be reared in some foundlings’ home which would be a poor substitute for the one now offered him.

“I will say yes,” he stated after full consideration of the danger that he ran. Concepcion drew a deep, shaken breath to close her eyes. Belen said a triumphant, “He is named Pablo Tomas Francisco Villaverde y Blanco 1”

The chaperoning aunt shook her head; she doubted whether the Senor Villaverde would be pleased. She found dread increasing as she looked toward the moment when the Senor and Senor Villaverde would meet her, their daughters, and this child at Key West. “Your parents. T fear they will not approve," she told the girls, which proved a mild description of what w'as to be. Senor Villaverde was at first speechless; la Madre was not. “Do you know what will be said?” she screeched. looking from one to the other of her offending daughters. “It will be said that instead of an education Concencion acquired something else. Would, I ask you, any Christian believe this tale of adoption? No! T know the world and it is the pious who believe the worst. It cannot be!” Conocpcion said she would kill herself if the child were taken from her and Belen joined her chorus. Senor Villaverde y Blanco said ho would seek the counsel of a Key West friend who might, he able tn suggest a fostermother fO" ir>n hi Print. Senor Villaverde’s friend suc , f y esto'i Angela, a pious crone who, on the

Cathedral »teps, whined for aim*. 'Then Angela was summoned and she prematurely old woman with the whining, servile voice of the professional beggar. She would care for the child, she promised, as if it were her oWn. And that one of her own was .an idiot from a blow on the head that she had given him made the promise seem no less real. '• T!?9 small white baby was given to her merciless custody and she departed, _ satisfied. that the price for caring for fto child would biiy a great deal of gin; and' Pabllto, little TO ablo, the small white baby, was to learn nothing of love and quite everything of fear and physical hurt. In time Belen and Concepcion married and, with this done and children of their own, their dream of reclaiming Pabllto faded. Thus ended his influence upon them and their influence upon him, though the abuse from Angela sustained. When Pabllto reached the age of seven he knew his world ’well* There was a filthy shack of one room which ’shook with the wind and grew damp when rain fell. In this was a a broken stove, a make-shift table and broken crockery. Also there were Angelo’s sons; all souvenirs of gentlemen who had come and gone. •. By the door was a picture that was called (for some'reason) “La Santissima Madre de Christo.” Angelo’s brood were hard upon Pablito; She, too, was hard upon Pabllto and her- beatings left on his body made her the harder on him, for they brought from her a vague shamo that she must still by self-justification. •' “I give you a home and you rob my own of their ;bread! What do I get for this?’’ began many of her tirades i which _ ended in yet another scar on [ Pablito’s back.' The monthly remltff° ,n one rtf/: for drink and aftej* that was fofrgditCfl. As time passed her.ways became knovyn.. She Was rarely sober, the , town whispered. The Key West' friend of Senor Villaverde decided he must report Angela’s evil ways, her , possible Influence upon the child that had been given her. But he settled to write this letter aft.er a too-heavy 1 dinner and after he had penned a flow Tpery salutation Ills lips turned blue and .his head dropped to the desk. There, had been too many heavy dinners for him. , - . .. ’;r For this reason Pabllto was to suffer yet a little longer from tfye wrath of Angela. And then came the nightT ( of unbearable agony and ‘the strange ! man and the new life that was to make * him all he became. ■ M The small blond boy was a curious, [ unnaturally keen animal. He knew fhe colours of the sky and what they forecast; that sea water stopped Itching; that you stole food to run with it where no one could snatch it from you; and he knew exactly what mental reactions came from Angela’s various degrees of drunkenness. . On his eighth, uncelebrated birthday he had his first lesson In love and Its loss He found a bird»wlth a broken wing; he held it close to his heart and the feeling this set in him ledrhlm 'to? make small soft noises. Thep.one of Angela’s own came across him and wrested the bird from Pabllto to break its neck. After he had gone, laughing. Pabllto held the bird close again and salt water came from his eyes. Many of the scars on his back would never fade, but this bruise on his mind never in any sense healed. (To be Continued!