“ PLAYGIRL "

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 80, 5 April 1939, Page 7

“ PLAYGIRL "

By Julie Anne Moore

Synopsis of Preceding Instalments. | Sandra Brooke, 21, and Stephen 1 Eddy, reared together on Park Avenue, have always been expected to marry. Their fathers, the law iirrn of Eddy and Brooke, take Anthony Ancell as a part uer. He is in love with Sandra’s mother, Enid. Sandra is furious when Ronny Mae Allister, popular radio announcer, won’t perforin for her guests and leaves. She for gets he is the shy little redhead she patronised eight years ago at Emily Stewart’s. He lias his cousin Emily give a party, recalls himself to Sandra, she likes him, and returns his kisses, but lie leaves abruptly when Bryant Wilson appears. Before Sandra and her brother David, Enid slaps their father, Chet; David, upset, drinks too milch, his car hit a man and ho drives on, but Bonny has him go to the police. Chet gets a Joan from Ancell and Enid tells Sandra if it isn’t repaid in six months Chet must give her a divorce. Sandra disappears, lives with Pannie .Roberts' and through Wilson gets a job as Sandra Marshall on the tabloid Flash. Wilson asks Sandra to marry him. Matt Stanley assigns her to discover the Ancell divorce co-respondent. Stephen goes on a cruise on Jack Cramer’s Fennimoro and meets Julia Markham. Wilson’s power cruiser is lost in a storm, but Sandra is rescued by Stephen when the Fennimoro sights the sinking craft. Following exposure on a Coast Guard cutter, Ronny loses his voice and goes to his mother’s New Hampshire home. Sandra is about to mary Stephen. Wilson’s death has been kept from her. Fannio Roberts saw a curious thing happen to Sandra’s faco in that brief silence. It was as if a muscle in her right cheek had suddenly contracted, and as suddenly relaxed again. Then Sandra was smiling. “But Bryant didn’t die, Fannie. He’s in a hospital here in New York. I’m going by to say good-bye before Stephen and I leave. But I haven’t had a chance to tell you, have I? Stephen Eijdy and I are to be married to-morrow afternoon and go to Maine until September . . . ’ ’ To the end of her days Fannio would remember this as the hour in which she had shown less intelligence than at uny time in her entire life. “But I’ve got that kind of brain—if you want to call it a brain,” sho would say to Matt Stanley. Sandra had said, “But Bryant didn’t die, Fannie. He’s in a hospital here in New York . . . ” So much Fannie heard, no more. She said, “Have you been reading the papers, Sandra?” “No.” Puzzled by the question, of course. “They haven’t let me read the papers. I’m supposed to avoid excitement, and with Dr. Coleman newspapers come under that head.’’ “Honey,” said Fannie, soberly, “one of 1 us is screwy . . . Bryant Wilson is not only dead; there’s a squabble on over his estate. You know, don’t you—you were there —that Wilson went aown with his boat ...” Again thero was that sharp twitch in Sandra’s pale cheek. She said, “No, Fannie —you’re mistaken.” But sho was not looking at Fannie. She was looking off into space, seeing the half dark interior of a 3inall cruiser, hearing the water sloshing about her legs—seeing Bryant Wilson sitting on his bunk, arms held out to her —seeing him lying face down in the water—seeing him stretched out on the bunk once more, unconscious, an open gash on the side of his head, seeing him this way longest and most vividly . . . And then, as all those lies she had been told at the hospital and at homo since were suddenly revealed as lies, she saw nothing at all. Fannie Roberts caught her as she fell. Stephen waited half-an-hour. He would have gone in, but he couldn’t remember Fannie’s last name. When he saw Sandra coming out of the building at last, he knew something was radically wrong when sho was still a dozen paces away. Ho opened the door for her and said, “What is it, San?” And seeing that she was not looking at him: “You’re ill, darling.” She was in the car then. She nodded.

“Tako mo home, Stephen.” Sho sat very still. Her face was chalk white. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk.” “All right, darling. I’m terribly sorry.” When they camo to tho apartment, Sandra asked him not to come in. “I may call you—later in the day,” she said, and went in and closed the door. Enid was out, making such simpio arrangements as she deemed necessary for a wedding that was to take place in the living room with only tho immediate families present. Sandra sat in the living-room with her hat on for a long while, very still. At intervals of ten seconds or less something tightened in her right cheek, tightened and relaxed. At last sho went lo the tolcphono and called David at tho office. When ho burst into her room thirty minutes later, she was bending over an open bag and a maid was coming from tho French chest with her arms loaded. “San—what’s it all about? You sounded like a bad dream on the ’phone.” She looked up Jit him then and he asked no more questions. “You were starting for New Hampshire this morning,” Sandra said. “Can you get ready to start at once?” “Why—yes, I suppose so, but —” He checked himself. “0.K., San. My stuff is ready to go. I’ll call father and tell him— ’ ’ “No.” Sho pointed to a larger bag than tho one she was packing. “Tell Russell to tako that ono down and put it in tho car. You can lake your own and I’ll manage this one.” She said

Instalment 20.

then, “We haven’t time to leave notes Enid may come home any minute. I’m not equal to a scene to-day. Russell can give them a message and I’ll write Chet and Stephen from Maple Village.” David started from the room, turned back. “See here, San., you’re sure you feel o.k. for the trip? It’s a long trek to New Hampshire.” She nodded for the maid to close tho bag. She said, “You’re wasting time, David.” “Right.” He harried along tho hall toward liis own room, calling lustily, “Hi, Russell—front and centre on the doublet ’ ’ Whether the table was too low or tho chair too high, Ronny couldn’t decide. It was one or tho other, though, because ho wanted to cross his legs and he couldn’t manage it. And at the moment this difficulty assumed the proportions of a major obstacle in the path of progress, for he had promise to drive Lucille Baldwin over to Shelldale at four o’clock and it was dow live minutes to four and this miserable editorial was just beginning to creep. Back in tho old days when lie was covering sports for a Boston daily, Ronny had felt himself a little sorry for the paper’s editorial writers. Good fellows and all that, but who wanted to spend his life ploughing through subjects as dry and barren as tho Sahara desert when lie could write about living, colourful, dramatic happenings like baseball and football and track and a thousand and ono other things that people could lead and enjoy? Stringing sixteen-cylinder words together wasn’t a gift; it was a doadly, stupid grind. Maybe he’d be compelled to pick up the simpio trick of it some day, but not while ho was in possession of his normal faculties. Not, ho meant, before lie was in his dotage. Aftor squirming and twisting for a full hour, ho had literally draggpd out two clumsy sentences. And having come to a dead-end, ho had tried to cross his legs—and failed. “What the heck!” he thought, irritably. “A fellow can’t be erudite if he has to be worrying about his legs all the time.”

He decided at last to make a fresh .start. Ho had promised his mother to write this thing about the need of some sort of traffic light on tho main stem and ho had to do it, Lucille or no Lucille.

lie refilled his pipe, held a match to tho bowl and thumbed up another piece of copy paper . . . and saw Lucillo standing in tho doorway. “Good afternoon, Mr. Editor. I wonder if I could interest you in a traffic safety campaign. Many of our children must cross Main Street to go to school and the way automobiles tear through town —”

Laughing, Ronny said, “I’ve just come to a decision, Lucille. Rather than labour over that editorial Mom want:* I think I’ll put on a uniform and go out thero and use my hands and a whistle.” He rose, took his coat from the back of the chair and crossed tho room to get his hat. “But you can’t leave until you’vo written it, Ronny,” Lucillo protested. “You run the paper off to-morrow and Mrs. MacAUister particularly wanted that editorial.” “Let’s go,” Ronny said, “when we get back, I’ll still have twelve hours before wo go to press—and. I’ll need every hour.” Walking out to the car, Ronny looked down at her with open admiration. She was wearing the tweed suit she had worn that first day when she had come to his house for luncheon with the boy she hadn’t seen since high school days — the boy who had looked at her that day and marvelled that he could have forgotten a girl so definitely lovely, so unexpectedly charming. And in thdir hours together since he liad found her beauty unfolding like a flower brought into the sunlight, revealing now and subtle qualities to which he had not been sensitive before. Lucille said as they left the town behind, “It’s been a gorgeous day. 3 thought about you all morning, sitting there in that dark little cubby-hole when you should have been out giving your throat a chance to absorb some sunshine.”

“What’s tho matter with my throat?” Ronny said, lightly. “I’ve got my voice back, haven’t I?” “No, Ronny, not your voice. You will get it bain time, of course, but—the voice I just heard used to belong to a circus barker.”

Ronny drove slowly. “No hurry,” he thought, “and maybe I’ll get around to it. ’ ’ He said, ‘ * You know, Lucille, I ’ve been wondering if it wouldn’t be a good thing if I never got my voice back. In shape for broadcasting, that is. I like Maple Village. And I like this business of eating regularly and going home to a comfortable bed at nights. Old age i slipping up on me, I suppose. ’ ’ ‘ ‘ But you could have your voice back and still go on living in Maple Village, if you preferred that. ’ ’

“I wonder if I could? I’m not so sure, Lucille. Once you get into the sort of game 1 was in, it isn’t easy to break away. I suppose it’s the fascination that canvas and sawdust holds for the circus performer. It isn’t tuo sort o life you want, but it’s the life you, can’t get along without if you know you can have it for tho asking.” They were in Shelldale more than an hour, when they turned back toward Maple Village. Ronny turned his head and found Lucille’s eyes full upon him, eyes in which there was patient wonder and some wistful quality that made the blood leap in Ronny's veins. He thought, “I’ll wait awhile; there’s no great rush.” And with that settled in his mind, he heard his own hoarse voice saying, “Once upon a time I was going to be a big league baseball player and come home the first chance 1 had and marry you and take you down to New York to live. Do you want especially to live in New York, Lucille?” She might have made it difficult for

him, but she did not. Sho said, “I want especially to live where you live, Ronny —all the rost of my life.” lie took her baud and hold it, and that was enough fbr them then. There was a fragile sweetness in this moment that required only this gentlo touch of hands to weld this new-forged link between t 3m. They were silent for many minutes, then Lucille said, “We’ve waited for this a long time —we mustn’t ever let anything happen to spoil it, Ronny. ” And Ronny thought, “She can’t tell me about Tom Burton now, but sho will —soon. ’’ Twenty minutes later they rode down the main street and saw the car with tho New York markers parked in front of The Guardian office. “It’s David Brooke,” Ronny said, \A cased, “and a fcirl.” (To be Continued.)