Her Day of Adversity

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2305, 25 November 1925, Page 7

Her Day of Adversity

By SIRS. HATBICK MacGILL

*lf thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength Is small.”—Proverbs

:for new readers. All the characters in this story are purely fictitious. CAROL OLIVER returned to the poor homo in Bermondsey which she shared with her mother to find her —dee,d. Realising she hadn’t sixpence in tha world with which to pay funeral expenses, she went to a moneylender. JACOB STONE, struck by the girl's unusual beauty, saw possibilities of exploiting her, and lent her flO on the understanding she worked for 10 weeks in his office, leaving Carol convinced of his generosity. On the first day a young man DAVID MURRAY, arrived, knocked Stono senseless, and told Carol that her employer was a shark who ran poor people into debt through a tally business, then took everythin?,; from them. Carol refused to believe the story. David Murray called on Carol at the Y.W.C.A. where she was living, which was against the rules. Lottie, the little maidservant, smuggled him out. but he was caught by the principle, Miss Bilton. She cross-examined Lottie without avail, but overheard Carol and Lottie talking after bedtime. She demanded the truth. Although Carol told her about David, she made it quite plain that she did not want Carol in the house again. Next day Carol was horrified and amazed to find that Jacob Stono kept finding mistakes in her work. He told her that she was unfitted for office work, but would take her as secretary and hostess into his own house. CHAPTER V. (continued). Tha Hungry Lover. Carol gave a sigh of relief that at least the next eight months were provided for, and in the innocence of her ignorance, untried little heart she vowed to do the very best of which she was capable for this kindly,, generous employer of hers — surely one in ten thousand! “I cannot even begin to thank you, Mr. Stone, but I am so very .very f rateful," said Carol, so prettily that acob Stone found it hard work to resist taking her in his arms and trying to kiss into flaming response those cool, quiet-looking lips, that neither pouted nor dropped ,and had no need for lipstick. But it would not do to frighten Carol out of that amazing innocence which in these days of modern, up. to-the-minute; misses, was so rare and refreshing a thing. His voice 'was full of self-satisfac. tlon a,3 he said, counting out 33 pound notes, and pushing them towards Carol,” Then that’s settled, Miss Oliver. You can take up your fiew duties to-night. You’ll want a new frock or two, and a couple of evening dresses at once. Better get one blade and one white. Take this note to Marie Leroy, off Regent street, It’ll be after closing time when you get there, but ring at the side door; she’ll fix you up.” Carol had been gone half-an.hour When Markson, the office boy, announced that Mr. David Murray was in the outer office, asking to see him. "Asked for Miss Oliver first, he did, sir, and when I told him she was gone, he said I was to fetch you, and look lively about it.” The little boy grinned slyly, and received a sharp cuff over the head for doing so. "Damn him! I’ll get even with him la my own time. Does he think I H hnli ever forget?” Jacob Stone asked himself, venomously, as, compos. Jng hla swarthy features into an amiable smile, he went into the outer office to find David Murray standing fey Carol’s desk, his sun-browned face and vivid blue eyes looking strangely out of place in office surroundings. The moneylender advanced with St-stretched hand, and an oily smile oompanled the words of greeting. "lAb. how do you do Mr. Murray?” fce beamed, with as fine a show of Cordiality ao any West-end actor could have simulated. Dayld ignored the hand and nodded eoolly. He came straight to the point ,as usual. "Where's Mic s Oliver?” he asked curtly, Jacob Sterne gave his characteristic £rug and spread his hands deprecat. gly. ‘T do not know. I have no further interest than a business one in the girl, I sacked her because she was ho good In my office." David'* blue eyes stared increduously. "Ifou what?” he asked, with more emphasis than grammar. 'You heard me, Mr. Murray? I rave the girl e week’s salary in lieu Of notice and sent her packing, I could not have my books put in a muddle by a person who did not know her business. "Oh, damn you and your scoundrelly books too! Don’t you know where she's gone? She’s loft the lodging that you obtained for her. Did you know?" said David, Whose heart was afire with the anxious dread of the lover, who sees in every other a man & rival and a lurking menace at every Step Of hia beloved’s path, Jacob Slone felt a warm Inward Slow of deiUght’, because he was able So put thlsi tab straight young fellow, who was liar too free with his fists, Off tha ecent. "She said something about having friends In Bermondsey who were Very poor but very kind to herself ind, has Blotter when ate was alive.

She would almost certainly go there until she got another job,” he said smoothly.

"Whereabouts in Bermondsey do these people live?” asked David hope, fully. He had been disappointed not to receive a letter from Carol, and, calling at the Institute, had learned of her departure from Miss Bilton, who had given a little moral lecture into the bargain. Davkl was far 100 well-bred to say "Shucks!” to a lady, but he thought it as, waiting until Miss Bilton gave him an opportunity for speoch, he asked for Lottie, to whom he bad taken quite a genuine fancy. He drove furiously to the moneylender’s office when he found that Lottie had also left, and now, it seemed, he was as far as ever from tracing Carol, except for a vague clue in Bermondsey. His blue eyes bored giralet.llke Into Jacob Stone’s; his voice rasped with the emotion which was tearing his feelings to shreds. “I’ll search every inch of Bermondsey, and I’ll call here every day on the chance that she will make her whereabouts known to you. She’ll need some sort of reference from you I suppose?” he asked, brightening as the idea struck him.

"She may—yes, certainly. You can call if you wish,” acceded Carol’s employer finding great satisfaction In the idea of having his office boy send David away day after day hungry for news which he did not get. There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the consciousness of love, the first fluttering of its silken wings. As she travelled by Tube to Piccadilly-circus. Carol’s thoughts were not of the employer to whom she imagined herself so greatly indebted, but of David Murray, and she found a new shy, but wholly sweet pleasure in dwelling upon the recol. lection of him as ho looked when Lottie hod told her to go into the gym, the other night. Strange, and utterly improbable as it may seem for a twentieth century girl, Carol had never reaiy known, nor had she ever possessed, a single boy friend. She had drifted about from one school to another just as often as her mother had changed her situations, and as she had always been accompanied' by her mother when she went out, even the chance attention which her youth and beauty might have excited had never come her way. All her knowledge of men had been gleaned from books, and everybody knows the danger of this method of learning about life. Her eager young eyes took in all that the Tube journey offered in the way of novelty—a Turk in full native costume,, a Breton onion boy with roguish dark eyes and flashing white teeth, a woman with a huge basket of flowers, all of tjhem sitting side by. side, the foreigners staring around them with strange eyes—but the brain behind the bright eyes was focussed upon one face only—that of David Murray—and more fiercely than ever she re. gretted that Lottie had accidentally burned his card for she now had no means of finding him, the telephone directory having failed her, which was as easily to be understood, for David Murray’s flat was a furnished one, and the telephone was in his landlord's name.

But Carol partly forgot her regret at having lost sight of David when she found herself caught up in the complex human whirl which Is Piccadilly-circus. It was wonderfully exhillraiing to Carol; it never failed to thrill her when she had safely crossed from one street Island to Swan and Edgar's corner. She found Beak-Street quite easily, and Madame Leroy’s shop turned out to have one of those narrow sup of plate.glass windows which serve to display a single frock or hat, a fall of dark velvet on a wooden stick with a nob at the tip, and an artificial flower flung in the immediate vicinity of the said frock or hat. Carol pressed the bell In the wall at the side door, and almost at once It was opened by a small, sallow little women with smooth, sleek hair, who might have been a Frenchwoman but who was not. “I have come from Mr. Jacob Stone. He gave mo this letter for you,” explained Carol, smilingly. There was no answering smile in the modiste’s bright, beady, black eyes as she looked Carol up and down with a glance that was an Insult in itself. “Come in. I was told on the telephone to expect you.” she said grudgingly. The Unspoken Word. The look and the tone were, however, accounted for in a characteristically charitable fashion by Carol, who surmised that Mme. Leroy was very tired and possibly cross at being sent a customer after hours. She re. solved that the process of choosing her frocks should be a quick one. “These will do spendidly, thank you she said, a little shyly, as she pointed to a couple of filmy chiffon evening frocks- very simple affairs, but most suitable to her youth, which needed so little in the way of adornment—a little black velvet evening cloak with a lining of pale pink satin, and a pair of brocaded evening sandals with sheen silk stockings. The woman paused in her fingering of the garments preparatory to pack, ing them into a big cardboard box, and asked abruptly, “Who’s paying for these glad rags? You aro not buying them yourself are you?” She shot a rapid glance at the plain

cheaply.mado garments that almost obscured the graceful lines of Carol’s slim well-dressed young body. “I am buying them with an advance out of my salary. lam Mr. Jacob Stone’s new social secretary,” explain, ed Carol, brightly. *

“Social rubbish! If you take my advice—and I am a good many years older than you—you’ll take that money back to Jacob Stone and tell him to find another girl to do his dir ”

A sharp peal at the electric bell cut short what “Marie Leroy” intended to say.

“Just a minute, she said to Carol, by way of excusing herself. Jacob Stone was with her when she returned to the showroom a few sec. ends later .

The little dark woman looked sulky but the moneylender was radiant and picked up the dresses and cloak that Carol had selected, fingering the material and examining the workrannship with an eye which anybody but Carol would have known to be well trained in such matters.

“Good, Very suitable, all of them,” he said approvingly. Then, taking out his watch, he said briskly, “We’ll take them hom e with us. I’ve got the car outside.” There was no opportunity for the little modiste to repeat her warning but her eyes followed Carol’s dainty figure very regretfully as she stepped into Jacob Stone’s luxuriously appointed car, which was drawn up to the kerb, almost filling the narrow thoroughfare. Chapter VI. In her little whltet frock, dressed for the evening, Carol looked like a lovely but very sad child. The sight of her as she passed through the heavily furnished dining, room on her way to the long, narrow apartment which was built out Into the garden went to Jacob Stone’s head and ho called to her from his arm. chair by the fire. “Carol, I want you,” he said silklly. She turned and wont towards him slowly. There was no sparkle of youthful pleasure In her lovely eyes, her rounded choeka had fallen in a little, and there was a wistful drop to the corners of her mouth that would have made a motherly woman fold her in her loving arms until the trouble was told and smoothed away.

She thought of the things that she had seen and shuddered at the recol. lection of them. After tho second day she had pleaded to be allowed to go, to pay back what she owed out of whatever wages she could command as a servant, waitress, anything rath, er than remain in that evil house. For answer Jacob Stone had laugh, ed, and reminded her that she had signed an agreement to remain in his employ until she had earned the sum which she had already spent upon her back.

But he did not intend that she should remain an employee any longer. Never, In all his life—and he knew women—had anybody exercised such an extraordinary fascination upon him as Carol. Tho mere fact that he wanted to make her—a penniless girl of no particular family—his wife, proved to himself that the time for the grand passion, of which he had always secretly felt himself capable had come.

“Mr, Stone, once again, will you let m e go? Oh, do, please; I beg of you.” Carol stretched out pitiful little hands in hopeless appeal.

Stone heaved himself slowly and heavily up from the depths of his comfortable armchair. He put a finger beneath Carol’s chin, and turned her face towards the blaze of light from the electric chandelier.

Something was wrong. Even his blunted sensibilities could detect that. “What’s the matter?” he asked lr. rltably. “Upon my soul, you’ve no sense of gratitude whatever, Carol Here you come to me, an utter strang. er, and say, “Lend me ten pounds to bury my ■" “Don’t you dare mention my mother!” blazed Carol, suddenly firing up. She wrenched free the arm which Jacob Stone held tightly between his finger and thumb, and faced him like a young tiger, utterly fearless in her anger. “You must have seen to-night’s papers, Mr. Stone, with the report of poor young Roger Bentley's death.’ A spasm of pain contracted the white mobile little features.

“He was just a boy, and he was an only son —the only child, in fact—he told me so.

You made him drink night after night with your free wine and whisky, and your confederates urged him to play for high stakes, for ever so much more than he could afford, and he pledged things that did not belong to him in order to pay you something off ffwhat he owed! And now he is dead—at twenty!” Carol’s throat contracted , and she swallowed painfully.

Jacob Stone did not attempt to reply. Instead he placed a gentle arm around the slim shoulders. Carol jerked herself away. “Don’t touch me! I think that you are one of the vilest that ever lived!” she cried, struggling futilely to sup. press her sobs.

At length, physically unable any longer to stand, she sank down upon the chair which Jacob Stono had placed for her—a pathetically limp, huddled little figure in white chiffon, with head downbent upon arms that were very frail and chlldish.looklng as they rested upon the chair rail.

Suddenly Carol felt herself caught up in an eager, passionate embrace and the gross, overfed face was press, ed hard against her cold white little cheek, until Carol felt a sense of nausea almost overcome her.

“Why should you bother your lovely little head about every silly young fool that chooses to kill himself rather than pay for his experience of life? Carol, little lovely, precious Carol, 1 love you, and want you, and if you’ll marry me I promise that you shall have a house right away from London In any place that you like, and we”ll live and love and be happy together—-

why, Carol, it will be heaven," cried the impassioned man, face, eyes, and heart aflame with love.

Carol closed her eyes and fought desperately against the sensation of physical sickness which surged over her, threatening to engulf her In its horrid depths. Every vestige of blood left her face; the colour seemed driven back from her whole being—lips, the eyes beneath the closed lids, the warmly tinted, shining hair, all seemed to bo suddenly bereft of the red pulsing blood that gave life to tho form and features of tho girl. Jacob Stone felt the light body relax in his arms, and, his passion diminishing, he became suddenly conscious of an acute sense of gnev. ance. Carol opened her eyes,, and, looking into the small, red-rimmed, beady eyes of her employer, she saw something that caused her to shudder with a terrifying sense of her own impotence. Something less than a man—a wild, untamable beast—look, ed out momentarily from those impassioned eyes, and Carol turned her own away, sinking her soft chin on the warm, bare little hollow at tho base of her throat ,and fixing her gaze on the pattern of the thick rod carpet. But, placing two fingers beneath her shin, her would-be lover jerked her face upwards, and compelled her to meet his gaze. “Listen to me.” Jacob Stone’s voice was hoarse, and it was plain that he was keeping a tight hold on himself at that particular moment. "Do you think that I’ll givo you up, having set my heart upon you? Do you, you little fool? Answer me,” as Caro! made no sign that she had hea.rd, beyond fixing hor wide eyes on him ,as if they held some strange, terrible fascination for her. But Carol’s tongue felt stiff in her parched throat ,and though she opened her lips, no sound came. A knock sounded, upon the door. "Como in,” growled Jacob Stone, moving swiftly away from Carol’s side. Bundy’ entered to tell his master that he was wanted on tho telephone. “Mr. Lester, sir,” he said, with a slight but significant wink in Carol’s direction. “All right.” A look sent Bundy about his busl. ness. Jacob Stone bont over the half-re-clining girl, and there was a veiled threat in his tone as he remarked. “Do all that you can to make young Dester’s evening pleasant, remember. He’s worth cultivating, that boy.” After he liad gone, Carol sat with her little troubled head held between her shaking hands, considering the best thing to do. She felt so horribly alone, ao powerless to prevent a man like Jacob Stono doing what he will, ed. But, though Carol was inexperienced in tho ways of a big city, though she naturally felt herself to be no match for a criminal such as she now knew' her employer to bo. yet she had not tho faintest intention of being forced into marriage with a man liko Jacob Stone merely because he chose to threaten her. Soma way of escape there must surely be, but whenever she went out for a walk or on the simplest errand she was followed by one of Jacob Stone’s employees, and she knew it. Carol had no money, not yet having earned the dresses that she was wearing, and if she tried to dispose of them to a dress agency in order to get a little, Jacob Stone would only inform them that she was endeavouring to sell property that was not her own.

The young girl sighed.Difo seemed a monstrous futility, a burden too , great for her strength. She was looking white and older than her yearg when Jacob Stone came back from his conversation on the telephone. “Don’t show a face like that to the company to-night. Put some rouge on if you can’t get a colour any other ■way,” he said, with a sour, dissatls. fied glance at her pale, troubled young face. ■ CHAPTER VTT. Down In Bermondsey. David made a little clicking sound with hi s tongue—a sign of Impatience in him —but there was a kindly look In his eyes, all the same, as he stopped beside a coffee-stall In the busy Bermondsey street and, pof. fering a ten-shilling note to the proprietor, indicated the motley troop of ragged youngsters who had gathered about him in tha course of his wanderings through the maze of mean streets and alleys that composed tho neighbourhood. For over three hours, starting at the house in which Carol had lived with her mother, David had searched for the girl whose image was for ever haunting his waking hours, nut every eagerly proffered and feverishly pursued clue ended in the same way; no. body could swear to having seen Carol since the day of her mother’s funeral. “Give mo the value of this in cakes, will you ?” David asked the man in the white coat behind the brightly brassed counter. . “Certainly, sir. The poor little devils don't often get a treat like this, “Give me the value of this in cakes, will you?” David asked the man In the -white coat behind tho brightly brassed counter. “Certainly, sir. The poor little devils don’t often get a treat like this ,and some of ’em never gets much else besides -what they pinches,” said the man, pulling out a tray of mixed from beneath tho counter. The children, who had excitedly followed David all tho afternoon, now' fought with each other for front places at the stall, and, seizing his opportunity for escape David darted Into the saloon bar of an. adjoining public-house, and there, holding quite a little reception, and dressed up to what she called “the nines,” was Lottie, looking as if she had never seen or heard of such a person as Miss Bilton in all her life. Lottie's merry back answers, star, ed ■ in amazement at the tall broad-shouldered, well-dressed youngstranger who, thrusting them aside, almost leaped over tho counter in his excitement, and. taking hold of both

the young barmaid's red, work-hard-ened little hands, worked them up and down as If they had been pumphandles. "Well, of all the luck! This is splendid, Lottie. I’ve been searching Bermondsey since ten o'clock this morning.” “ 'Ave you, Mr. Murray? What for?” inquired Lottie, her little round race becoming suddenly serious. She moved up towards the mahogany partition that separated the saloon from the public bar, and motioned with her head for David to follow, so as to get os fat as possible out of earshot of the other customers. Seeing clearly that they were not wanted the men finished their drinks and departed, and for a few minutes they were able to talk undisturbed. ‘Do you know where Miss Oliver has gone, Lottie If you have the faintest idea, for God's sake tell me. She’s got no money, and something tells me that' she is in want, and per. haps suffering badly.!’ David’s blue agitated eye s never left the young girl's face. What ho read there made his heart sink back into utter hopelessness of a few moments since. Before she replied, it was quite clear that Lottie did not know any. thing of Carol’s whereabouts, Indeed, the sum total of her knowledge of Carol was limited to having waited upon her at breakfast, and In return receiving a smile and a few sweetly spoken vyords of thanks. “I wish I could tell you where she Is Mr. Murray. Me and her never saw each other after the night when I sauced Miss Bilton and 'ooked it. ’Ave you tried one o’ them notices in the newspapers, with ’er photo. ‘Como back to your loving sweetheart?” asked Lottie quite seriously. David shot a keen glance at the honest perturbed Utte face ,ana something in Its expression—the lunate kindliness of heart that reflected itself in every feature, surest pass, port in all to confidence —moved David to entrust the Cockney aer. vant girl with his secret. To be continued.