"JUDY SAYS NO"

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6773, 3 February 1932, Page 9

"JUDY SAYS NO"

(BY WINIFRED CARTER.) Instalment 16,

CHAPTER VI. —Continued. Old Harmer came in, and saw Enid’s look of disdain at Judy. > “What arc you two quarrelling about?" he said, suspiciously. "I wish you would speak to your granddaughlcr, Mr Harmer,” said Enid, aLmost hysterical. “She has been trying to persuade me for half an hour to stick to’Nicholas, to marry him. I simply can’t bear it. It’s insolence on her part. Trying to teach me!” “Judy,” said her grandfather, exasperation in his voice, “do you mean to tell me after all I’ve said that you have actually tried to persuade Enid to go to Nicholas?” “There is nothing I would not do to make her stick to Nicholas. She loves him. It Isn’t, because she believes that he has done wrong that she has thrown him up; It’s simply because he’s poor. Grandfather, don't let her break both their hearts." “I have, nolhing at, all to do with it,” said her grandfather, but he gave that old malicious chuckle that she hated. She stood there 'in front of him and stamped her foot. “Everyone in this house is hateful, hateful!” she said sobbingly. “There is a dark cloud over everything. If it’s money, then I want none of it,." She had to swallow her misery because Clive and Lord Kenway strolled towards her. Just for a moment her grandfather was angry with her, but, amazing fact, it vanished almost instantly. The girl's bewitched him, thought Mrs Crawford resentfully. Now her grandfather sent Judy to the piano straight away. Like a lark she sang, from an overflowing heart, llenry Harmer himself was back in the past. Fool he had been to cut himself away from Ms daughter Judith’s family. All the years that he might have spent with 'them>- .Patricia, ihe eldest, J 23, and the boy, Peter, what was he like at 21? And there was Agnes and Robert and Daphne, and, best of all, dear warm-hearted Judy! And he had shut himself awayl Listening, as one in a dream, the old man wondered if he had heard anything so vibrant, so true, as that low, exquisite voice. She sang as a bird sings, giving of a full heart generously. . . And there were live others like her! Had he, hoarding his money, feeding his pride, missed the best tilings after all?

Suddenly Enid rose. Her mother saw her face, the look of ennui that flashed across its sophisticated loveliness. She was inwardly less serene than she appeared.

She had lunched with Roger Bourne. She had endured his attempt at love-making, had with difficulty staved off the Inevitable proposal. Judy’s talk of Nicholas had stirred her deeply. Judy’s talk of love had been too poignant to be ignored. At that moment the 'mere sight of the girl was enough to infuriate her. Judy singing to her grandfather! Evidently the old man was getting in his dotage. Clive listening dutifully. She was nauseated by Clive's hypocrisy. Her mother, doing ‘fancy-work am bored (stiff. No, isho just couldn' . and wouldn’t stay.

Her mother looked up imploringly. It was no use. After an afternoon of unadulterated Roger, she would stifle in here. So she closed the door and departed precipitately to her room. Then her eyes fell on Nick’s photograph Jn a silver frame. She had not yet taken it out. It was not likely that Henry Harmer would come in here.

She picked it up ami looked at it. Taken in the happy days that had passed, he looked a splendid specimen of manhood. An acute heart-hunger stormed through her. There was tenderness in his eyes, a smile ori his face.

“t’m thinking of you, Enid!” he had told her.

Enid Snatched up a wrap and made for the door. A moment later and she was racing down the avenue towards the cottage where Nicholas was! Granted she had jilted him, and treated him cruelly, yet she wanted him I Every pulse of hers was calling out for Nicholas! Playing With Fire. Nicholas Ilarmcr, sitting in the big, quaint, low-ccilinged kitchen of liarmer’s Best, was studying catalogues with (hat close attention which showed that he meant to put his whole heart in the new job. Hamer's Rest had twenty acres of arable and thirty acres of pasture. It lay between the big liarmer House estate and the estate belonging to Lord Kenway. And for a long time had been a thorn in the side of Henry Harmer. Tiie owner was a man with a will as grim and determined as Henry Harmer was. In his lime Henry Harmer had made many enemies. An autocrat who liked to think his word was law, he had 'trodden on many corns in his time. And it was in consequence of this arrogance that .lames Wilcox refused to sell Naboth’s Vineyard. Thai, was the name that it secretly went by in the surrounding district.

It had pleased .Tames Wilcox when Nicholas Harmer had come to him asking to rent Harmer’s Rest, There was humour in the situation. “What’s the Idea, my boy?” he said, for James Wilcox and young Nicholas Harmer were old friends. Wilcox might hate the grandfather, and did with all the strength of his nature, but Hie young man was a favourite. “I want to make good on my own. I have got a little money saved. T have !c-ften thought I would like to take a 'little place and make farming pay. i don’t know anything about it, i grant you that, save what I have seen on grandfather’s estate, but of course that is run on very lavish lines. But I’ll just enjoy making that place pay.” To cut a long story short, old Wilcox had rented the farm to Nicholas. And now, working off his indignation and his desire to farm at one and the same time, Nicholas was putting all he knew into it.

The day he had first met Judy he

had been to a big agricultural implement maker who had a factory m Blayborough neighbourhood. He bought a tractor, rather a daring thing to do with the small capital he had at his disposal, but he was more than a little experienced in motors, and until he made the farm pay he would hire himself and the tractor out to farmers in the neighbourhood. No one ae yet had been enterprising enough to start a tractor. He was quiie sure he would get plenty of orders. People in the district were only too keen on helping him, partly because he was generally liked in the district and a great, deal more beoause It would affront the old man to help his grandson. Yet as lie studied the catalogue a face kept flashing in between. Enid’s face, as fair as the dawn, with hair of that enchanting pale gold, and a mouth like twin cherries. But it was madness to think of Enid. He could not bear the idea of Roger Bourne either.

Nicholas Ilarmcr had been trying to the best of his ability to And out who it was had been lying about him. The whole business was exceedingly bewildering. First he had been accused of forging a cheque, then of running up bills, and Anally of playing Don Juan lo a farm labourer’s daughter. Sometimes Nioholas could have cursed the pride that had not demanded a full investigation from his grandfather. There were moments when he decided to face the old man and demand proofs of what he accused him of. At other times, sick wtih a great heart-sickness, he had thought bitterly that if only Enid had stood by him, he would have done. But Enid could never marry a poor man, even though she cared. If he had only waited until Die first blind rage had passed. He could remember her face as she had thrust back her ring. He had never seen it like that, hard and cold. He tried to take her in his arms but stie had withstood him. She did not want to be tempted. The sun had caught the diamonds In the ring, and bad made it flash with a thousand sparkles. How It had hurt! “I have jolly well got to stop thinking about it,” said Nicholas, and he rose restlessly and went to the door and opened it . . . always his thoughts came back to Enid. A crescent moon iiung in the sky in velvet, silvering the tops of the fir trees in Harmer Woods. How beautiful it was, had the one girl been there, had the one girl been trucl And then, as though to add to his pain, a nightingale started, fluting out golden notes of enchanting harmony. Oh, it was too late for a nightingale. It oughtn’t to have sung just then; he groaned and clenched his hands so that the nails cut into the palms. “Nicholas 1” Someone spoke. Enid! It was a dream! It must be the result of his own imaginings, for Enid would not be there. He brushed his hands across his eyes, and when he looked again she was there in front of him. Her scarf had fallen from her slim white shoulders. Lovely as she had never been die stood in front of him. A frock of shimmering opalescent tissue swathed her supple figure. “I just couldn't keep away any longer. They are driving me mad up there,” she said. He drew back. Something caught him by the throat, swelled as though to choke him. “Have you come to me because you care? Do you want to be engaged again?” What had Judy, the little girl who had come from the country, said? Either this would be a test, and Enid’s love would be all the stronger, or else he would be glad he had found out before marriage. Was he lo learn that Judy was right? She shivered, but did not answer his question. “It’s dreadful up there. Henry Harmer sitting and making that hateful girl sing, and mother like a grey ghost, and Clive simpering, the fooll" “What girl?” said Nicholas, quietly.

“Grandfather’s new heiress!" she said, almost hysterically, “Sho has been there for a month, and is likely to stop for ever, A nice prospeot for usl When I see tho hateful creature sitting there, ogling her grandfather, getting round him, and purring like a pussy-cat with her claws sheathed, it makes me sick. Oh, Nicholas, isn’t there anything we can do?”

“Absolutely nothing,” said Nicholas Harmer, coldly. “How you can go on like this, letting all that money slip out of your hands without making an effort, amazes me,” she cried, “Can’t you prove that he is wrong? What’s the good of pride when It’s going to lose you a fortune? Oh, Nick, for my sake, can't you do something?” She leaned against him, but lie did not touch her. He was asking himself why she would not be engaged. Was she thinking of another man—one who had always wanted to win her? A rich man, if old enough to be her father.

“Enid,” he said, “some day things may right themselves and grandfather may learn that 1 am not the blackguard he thinks I am. When that day comes you’ll he glad you have stuck to mo. Forget that money counts, and remember only that love is wonderful. Let rn'e give you back your ring, darling." For a moment she swayed in his arms. Looking down into her eyes it seemed to him as though he read yielding, and he kissed her, kissed the lovely upturned lips, not once but many times. “Oh, darling, I have been so miserable,” he said quiveringly. “I have sat here thinking of you, sometimes I have thought l should go mad. But now that is over and we are engaged again. I can stand anything if only you will stick to me.” “Don’t be tiresome, Nicholas,” said Enid. “I don’t want to be engaged, i have told you I can’t help loving you, but. as for an engagement, that's out of the question, as I have said before, until your prospects change. It wouldn’t be fair to tie me.” “Wouldn’t be fair to youl” ho gasped. (To be continued.)