“TO-MORROW’S CHILD”

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 144, 21 June 1939, Page 12

“TO-MORROW’S CHILD”

Instalment 23

Synopsis of Preceding Instalments: Val Clarke, engaged to Robert Greeley, goes to New York from New Manchester to shop. At Kate Hollister’s, her cousin, a fashion magazine editor, sho meets Hugh Malcolm, playwright; Bret Gallishaw, New Manchester author of a best seller; Leslie Crawford, Bret’s halfbrother, and Winifred Sperry, who starring in Hugh’s ‘‘End of Tears,” and • Guy Williams, who inherited millions and has a small part in the play. Bret, engaged to Kate, married wealthy Evelyn Gar* lield. Ho hates Leslie after losing a will contest and Leslie resents Hugh’s interest in Winifred. Guy takes Val to Pete Gaboriau’s dancing and gaming place near Philadelphia. Louise (Lceze) Cameron, who is with Crandall Scott, strikes Va» who defends herself so well Guy has to assist Leeze out. Cran drives Val back. During a stage storm scene Leslie is shot through the heart. Hurrying from tho theatre, Val secs Hugh at tho entrance. Bret had left to catch a train. Leeze goes with Cran to see Val whose Aunt Mahala orders her out for smoking. Val goes along. Returning, she finds a wire from Kate, goes to New York and clears Hugh by saying he was returning from a corner cigar store when sho saw him. Val’a aunt sends her trunks to Kate’s. Hugh had seen a play in Val’s personality and offered her a salary to remain in New York. Val accepts now r . Prosecutor Kellogg re-stages the storm scene and Bret is shot dead sitting where lie sat when Leslie was killed. Kate, mourning Bret, disappears but returns. Hugh loves Val, but she thinks he loves Winifred. Kate gives Val a job.

“Tell you what we’ll do, Val. We’ll get a Christmas tree and decorate it and hang up our stockings Christmas Eve and have a swell old time. How about it ?”

Smiling, Val tried to put a little enthusiasm into her voice. “Great. I’d love that, Kate ...” But it was no good. Hor voice was flat and her eyes belied her words.

Kato plunged a thermometer into the syrupy mixture in tho small pot. I’ve an idea this is about ready now—though you' vo witnessed a miracle if it’s lit to cat. I never made a decent plato of fudge in my life.” She might not have been thinking about Val at all, so casually she said this, though actually she was racking her brain for some plan by which she could counteract Val’s growing despondency. The girl was practically ill. Kate had discovered that soon after her return. Only that first evening had her own poignant grief blinded her. Waking from a long sleep, she had found Val sitting by the bod, reading. She had thought only of herself then, lying very still, clinging to Val’s hand, her dry, lifeless eyes staring into a dark and harrowing past. And then she had closed her eyes and drifted into oblivion again . . . But at breakfast Sunday morning it had suddenly come to her that the emptiness in Val’s dark eyes betokened an emptiness in her heart, as well. Cautiously, Kate bad tried to feel Val out. But Val’s face revealed nothing, not even when Kate suggested that- they have Hugh up for Christmas dinner. “If you like,” Val had said, and whether sho was pleased or displeased Kate could not know.

And now it was Tuesday evening, Christmas Eve, and Kate was suddenly determined to pull Val out of her dejection.

Val was sitting on the kitchen tabic, her eyes following tho inexpert movements of Kate’s hands but obviously not seeing anything at all. Kate put the fudge on a shelf, and as sho washed hor hands at the sink, said, “We’ll start in at Times Square. There’ll be a million people on the streets down thoro aud it’s always fun to battle a crowd. Then wo ’ll buy our decorations, pick out a tree tho two of us cau manage in a taxi, and come home for a grand time of it. ’ ’

Val slid from the table. She tried to smile, but it was a pathetic effort. And then, for no reason at all that Kate know, Val said, “I forgot to tell you about Robert, Kate. He didn’t come back after that first night.”

Kato wondered if at last she had found a clue to the problem. After a moment she asked, “Are you sorry?” “Not for myself,” Val replied. “But I’m sorry for him. I frightened him off by tolling him that if I went back to New Manchester, it would be with tho definite understanding that Aunt Mahala was not to alter her will in my favour.” She turned suddenly and walked out of the room. Times Square on Christmas Eve is one writhing mass of humanity. It is not, of course, the gay, noisy crowd of New Year’s Evo aimlessly following the current, but a hurried, anxious mob seriously intent on doing in an hour or two what might better have been done over & period of weeks. Kate and Val wero jostled about until at last Kate caught Val’s hand and pulled her through a wide marble entrance and down a flight of stairs to a crowded grill room. “We’re not dressed for this, but what of it?”, Kate said, pulling off her gloves. “At least we can eat and get our second wind. ’ ’ Val was suddenly startled to hear a man’s voice close to her car. “Pardon me, madame, but if you’ll help me chuck this blonde leech, I’ll honour you with tho next dance.” Val looked up into Guy’s green eyes and suddenly saw another head thrust between them. She rose, quickly, caught the girl’s arms: “Leeze . . A When did you come to New York?” “This afternoon. I tried to get this dope to let me give you a call, but he hasn’t let me powdor my nose for hours . . . How’ve you been, Val? I’ve thought about you lots these last few weeks.”

By Julie Anne Moore

Val said, “I’ve been rather busy Guy could give you the details.” She turned to Kate: “You don’t know Leeze, do you? Louise Cameron, the girl who lost on the long count in the famous battle at Pete Gaboriau’s—and the same who gave me my lovely blackeyc . . . My cousin, Kate Hollister, Leeze. ’ ’ “That, Val,” Guy-said, “is hardly ericket.” But Leeze slipped her arm through Val’s and made a face at Guy. “What you don’t know about women would fill a library,” she told him. “What about that dance?” Guy suddenly demanded. He forced Leeze into a chair. “Stay there until I tell you to get up, you.” And then he held out his arms to Val and after one swift glance at Kato she moved toward him and presently they were lost from view. Leeze hitched her chair forward, brushed her golden hair back with her hands. “I suppose Val told you what we fought about?” she said to Kate. Discreetly, Kate replied, “Val told us practically nothing. What little we learned came from Guy.” “It was all my fault,” Leeze said. “Guy was to meet me and Cran at Pete’s place and he was hours late, and then at last he walked in with Val and I was set for battle. She’s lovely, isn’t she —Val?” And not waiting even for Kate’s half nod: “I’m pretty touchy about Guy and I got the idea in my thick head Guy was that way about her.” She smiled. “Silly, wasn’t it?” Across the floor Kate sajv A’al and Guy swing out of tho slowly revolving mass. Guy was holding Val needlessly close and his head was down, his lips moving in an earnest monologue. Val was wishing now she had politely declined Guy’s casual bid and left him to Leeze. She should have known, she told herself, that Guy would somehow manage to be disagreeable before this dapee had ended. Once before—driving to Pete’s place that night—he had grown mildly sentimental. She had laughed at him then, but now she resented what she saw as an absurd attempt to create in her mind the fantastic notion that he was in love with her —had been in love with her since that first night. Trying to josh him out of this mood, Val had made tho mistake of saying to him, “Mind now, or I’ll tell Leeze what a cheater you are.” With all the gravity of which he was capable, Guy said, “Leeze is a kid, Val. Not in years, but—intellect. She’s fun and all that, but after all a man doesn’t fall in love with a youngster he plays around with. He wants—” Abruptly Val said, “I’ve heard enough.'of this, Guy. It doesn’t interest me and it doesn’t amuse me.”

“Oh, so that’s the way it is ... I don’t interest you.”

“In fact,” Val said, calmly, “you bore me.”

She watched that old swift change of moods, the suddenly drawn brows and narrowed eyes, the harsh, surly voice, the childish effort to impress by being domineering, dictatorial.

“And 1 suppose,” he said, “you weren’t interested the night you pulled out of Kate's party to go to Pete’s place? . . . You were and you still are. You don’t want to be, but you are. You wouldn’t be so anxious to deny it if you weren’t.”

They wero not dancing then. Val had pushed out of his aims and was threading her way through the crowd. Guy caught up with her, grasped her arm. “You don’t have to make a scene about it, you know,” he said unpleasantly. Val merely thrust his hand from her arm and returned to tho table to announce casually, “I’m afraid I’m pretty terrible. Guv's disgusted with me.” Kate and Leeze laughed and Leezo said, “Oh, Guy’s not so hot. Cran’s a lot better dancer.”

Apparently Guy was content to let it go at that. To fill in the silent gap, Val said, “How is Cran, Leeze?” Or haven’t you seen him lately?” Leeze stared at her. “Didn't I toll you? Cran brought mo to New York. I tried to get him to come along with us, but he and Guy aren’t hitting it off so well.”

Val toyed w T ith a fork. “I’m sorry,” she said. Presently sho looked up. “Tell him if he has a minute whilo he's here, I’d like to see him, will you?” A teasing smile played on Leezo’s red lips. “Of course . . . And unless I’m very badly mistaken, he’d like to see you.”

“After the tossing around sho gave him?” Guy cut in. “Don’t be foolish.” His question was addressed to Leeze, but his green eyes were fixed on Val’s face.

Kate, too, had been watching Val’s face, struck with the first semblance of interest she had seen there for days, but Guy’s uncalled-for remark brought Kate’s head around sharply. “I think, Guy,” she told him quietly, “that about concludes your contribution to the evening’s entertainment. Sorry you have to rush away, of course, but— ’ ’

11 Come along, Leeze. ’ * Guy caught Leeze’s arm aud pulled her to her feet, protesting but making no effort to hold back. In a moment sho looked back and ■winked. “Good-bye . . . Sorry the cave-man had to get nasty . . “You wouldn’t believe it,” Kate told Val when they had gone, “but I can remember -when that boy was almost human . . . 1 can’t understand a bright child like Leeze putting up with his churlishness. ’ ’

Nor could \ al, but she had dismissed both Guy and Leeze from her mind, holding her thoughts to the only person she had come to know these last months whose memory remained unsullied. Cran ... in New York . . . and but for Guy she would have seen him tonight.

Kate and Val had just crawled out of the taxi, loaded with. bundles and struggling with the small tree, when the young man pacing the sidewalk before

the apartments suddenly quickened his pace as he came toward them. “Merry Christmas! Need a hand with that junk?” It was Cran. He had been there since 8 o’clock. “The maid said she didn’t know when you would be back, but I decided to wait.” Kate said, “Well, you didn't wait in vain, my young gallant. You can come up and help us deebrate and after the job’s done, I’ll leave you and Val to sit up and w r aifc .or Santa Claus ... I suppose you know' how to decorate?” “Me!” Cran said. “I’m practically the best in the business.” Val didn’t say anything. She just looked at Cran aud grinned if he had said the most amusing thing imaginable. (To be Continued.)