SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18566, 26 November 1923, Page 3

SHORT STORY.

IN APPLE BLOSSOM TIME.

BY L. G. MOBERLY.

(Copyright.) Margaret Carruthers lay very still in (he spring sunlight- It fell in a broad beam across her sofa, and lightened ever} corner of the clean, barely-furnished room. Margaret's glance wandered from pom> to point of the small apartment, whose walls had bounded her horizon for six weeks; and when her wandering glance had absorbed all the contents of the little room it turned to the window through which she could catch a glimpse of green uplands and blossoming hedgerows. It was at the moment when her glance fell upon the bend of the lane that she drew in her breath sharply, and pulled herself into a more upright position. I For, at the bend of the lane, there was an orchard, and the apple* boughs were a lacework of blossoming loveliness against a background of pure sky. The colour leapt into Margaret's face as she leant nearer to the window. That dainty lacework of pink and white blossom with the sky behind it, awoke in her brain a long train of remembrance, brought little dancing visions out of the past before her eyes. Apple orchards in flower ! Why, it was apple blossom time again, and it was apple blossom time 10 years ago when she and Denis— Denis — Her thoughts tangled and broke off, and began again in a strange incoherent fashion. Ten years ago this very May the orchards at Bardstone had been a glory of 4ainty flowers, .and the fragrance of the apple blossoms had drifted in at the windows of the old farm-house whw< shje was spending a few delicious weeks. And there, in May time, when the apple trees were blossoming, Denis had come into her life! They were always inextricably mixed together in her mind, Denis and apple blossom; and for years now, for years and years, she had avoided the counuyside "in May time because she did not want to see the apple trees in bloom. They made her remember too much/ They brought back too poignantly the old "joy, the old pain, the old intolerable heartache and despair. And now She stirred a little uneasily amongst the cushions Nurse Kate had heaped about her. She was here in the uplands to which her doctor had insisted upon sending her, and the first sight which greeted her eyes when the days of convalescence had come at last, was the blossoming apple orchard at the bend Q.f the lane ! It was ridiculous that the delicate loveliness of those boughs waving against the blueness of the sky should still have power to wring her heart; ridiculous >.nat the past should arise and look in her face again as though it. had not Been long, long dead. Long, long" dead, she repeated to herself, while still her eyes looked hungrily out across the curving upland,to the apple orchard, in the little hollow by the bend of the lane. Why should the past still have the power to hurt her? Denis —by his own —had passed out of her life. He had put himself out of her life on that day when the verdict went against him at the Danchester Assizes, whon he left the Court a guilty man with a long sentence to serve! Embezzlement —fraud! It had all been proved up to the hilt, and Denis Stanway's haggard face, and shamed miserable eyes told their own story. He denied none of the | charges brought against him. He only j stood there like one carved out of stone, listening to the piled-up proofs of his guilt, listening to the impassioned appeal of his counsel who did his utmost to move j the hearts of his listeners. i The sudden death of the elder Stanway ! had lain upon his son, Denis, the entire care of a mother and an invalid sister, and because the old man had died practically insolvent, money difficulties had at once confronted his son. Bills to be paid ; ] illness in his home; a perpetual up-hill struggle. One by one Denis' counsel bad, with all the eloquence at his command, laid these before the jury. But his eloquence availed nothing. Denis Stanway left the Court a condemned man with a hang sentence to serve ; and from that moment Margaret had hardened her heart against him. No — was before that moment, the thought came to her as she moved, un easily among her cushions. Her heart had begun to harden directly she knew of Denis' arrest — the tidings of his crime reached her. If he needed money, why did he not ask her help? That had been the first reflection. True, she was not rich, but she could have done something towards helping Denis in a difficulty, and surely, rather than stoop k. fraud and robbery, he might have sunk his pride and appealed to" - the woman who loved him—whom he loved ! " I wonder whether you love me as much as I love you?" She could hear her own young voice asking the foolish, old question that lovers ask one another. " How can one weigh love?" he answered, his voice grown suddenly grave. I only know that, whatever you might do, whatever might happen. . I should love you still. Nothing could kill my love/' "Not even if I committed some c?aadly crime? " she questioned, laughingly, her hand in his, her cheek resting against his cheek, and he put her gently away from him, and looked deep into her eyes. " Whatever you did I should love you,'' he said. "It is you I love—you yourself. I think there is nothing on earth I would, not- forgive yon." • The woman by the couch by the window suddenly put her hand over her eyes, as though "to shut out, not only the May sunlight and the waving apple blossom, but to shut out, too, the memory of Denis' face, of Denis' words. But the words haunted her :' " Whatever you did • I should love you still. I love you for yourse'f. I think there is nothing on earth I would not forgive you." Nothing on earth he would not forgive her! " And I — little sob broke from her. she said the words aloud in the silence of the bare little room, ' and I was hard— self-righteous—unforgiving. I turned my back upon him when he needed me most. If only I could have the time over again. If only " It was an exceeding bitter perhaps one of the bitterest in the world. If only! The words carried such an infinity of pain, such a sense of the irrevocable. the irretrivable; and Margaret Carruthers on that May afternoon, looking out at the apple blossom by the bend in the lane. drank the cup of remorse and bitterness to the dregs. " If only "

The gates of the great prison closed behind the man who was free; the Man who, in accordance with his own wish, was to make his way across the moor back to the haunts of his fellow men back to the life from which he had been shut away for so long. . , When the pates closed behind him he stood for a moment looking about .him with dazed eves. There swept over him an instinctive'longing to batter ■ at those prison gates and crave for readmittance ; the outside world seemed vast _ and strange, and he was such an atom in u.A this limitless space which for years he had been unaccustomed. Then he drew a long breath, and straightened his stooping shoulders as the wonder of freedom began slowly to re-assort itself, and glancing up at the frowning walls whic'i had so lately bounded his horizon, he shivered. Instinct now prompted him to put miles and miles between himself and the grim place where he had expiated his crime; instinct drove him to walk as quickly as his limbs would carry him, out from the little town and on to the open spaces or the moor. There he could breathe with greater ease; there he could dimly begin to realise that, he was free—free—free to go where he would, to do what he would; a free man a<ain, with his own life in his hands. '■ . The May breezes blew softly over the wide spaces of the uplands. The sky was blue as a sky he remembered in Rome many and many a year ago, when his youth was crowded with boundless ambition and life stretched before him full of boundie ,s possibilities. The air was sweet

with the fragrance of gorse, and here and there upon the moorland a hawthorn bush stood snowy and white, like a bride adorned for her husband. _, ~ . The Psalmist's words came flashing into his mind, and a great . heartache came with them. "A bride adorned for her husband." Once upon a time, in that far-awaj past, he had dreamt dreams oi the bride who would one day come to him. " Margaret of the Sweet Eyes, ho had called her in fond lover language. And Margaret had failed him— rightlv, he told himself "as he trudged along "the road; quite rightly she had refused to allow her unstained name to be linked with his. lie did not blame her, how could he blame her? That he was now an utterly lonely man was his own fault; he only was to" blame for the loneliness which all at once, up there on the wide moorland, seemed to drop upon him like a pall. His mother and sister were long since dead. It was not likely that the friends of the past would hold out hands of welcome to a released convict. And Margaret Margaret had rightly, quite rightly, cut herself adrift from him long ago. Probably she had long ere this married seme other man; almost certainly she was living the life of a happy wife and mother, with nothing in her full and busy days to remind her the man who had brought her only disgrace and shame. Hi's steps slackened. Some of the newly found joy of freedom dropped from him. The wide skies, the great spaces of the moor, the May sunlight, and the sweet fragrances of crowing things stabbed him with pain. They no longer gave him a sense- of gladness. Of what use was freedom to him now? He was alone in a world that seemed as big and empty as the wide stretching moor that spread out to far horizons. His past was severed from his present by a great gulf over which there could be no passing. The life that had been was gone for ever. He must begin all over again to fashion a new life for himself; it was not a case of taking up threads that had been dropped — must start again from the. very beginning, carving out a new future as best he could. The further his steps led him along the upland road, the deeper-Iris spirits-sank, and as he paced onwards, all that first elation of the freed prisoner ebbed away. If only Margaret.— little thougi.,'. went trickling through his brain, with maddening persistency. If only Margaret had been waiting for him outside those grim gates and frowning walls, how different lite and the future would have looked ! And she had loved him once: she had loved him once. The second thought followed hard upon the first, and Margaret's face alight with love danced before him across the moorland, was silhouetted against the sunny sky. There came a dip in the straight moorland road, a dip into a little valley, and out of the little valley there ran a- lane . that bent round shoulder of hill, and ran down into another valley far below. And just at the point where the lane bent round the shcoilder of upland, lay a mist of apple blossom in the May sunlight. The man who moved slowly, and aimlessly along the lane stopped short suddenly. That mist of apple, blossom, the sun 'glinting through the delicate flowers that made a lacework of loveliness upon a background of blue sky made him draw a sharp breath. It was " apple blossom time." When he walked away from the prison gates he had not realised that it was apple blossom time. /His dulled senses had lost sight of the fact that the month was May—the same, month when he and Margaret— and Margaret Someone was walking slowly up the lane towards him, a tall, slight woman whose glance, as his had been, was fastened upon the blossoming glory of the orchard. She walked slowly, as though she were not, very strong, but the mam who watched her coming: un the lane drew a sharp breath. He could fiot mistake the slight, tall figure, the graceful walk, even though this Margaret had lost the vigorous vitality of the Margaret of another apple blossom time. He stood there watching her, uncertain whether to await her recognition, or to turn and flee back up the lane to the straight moorland road above. But, while he hesitated, her glance left the orchard, and she saw him. The rosy colour flew over her face, a great light leapt Jhto her eyes. She came quickly towards him, her hands outstretched. " Denis." she said softly. Oh, Denis forgive! " " But I," he stammered, holding .her hands closely, looking into her upturned face with a bewildered sense that this must all be. a dream. " But I— not fitnot worthy. I'm just out of prison, not fit to touch your hands." "I thought my love was dead." Her voice broke on .a sob, and she clung to him more closely in the quiet lane. "But when I saw the apple blossom, I knew that love doesn't die."

„-" But I"— faltered —"l have to begin all my life afresh. lam not fit for you." ./ ..v. ... " We will begin life afresh together." she whispered, her face very close to. his. "I have learnt,now that in the old days I was hard and cold and bitter. I fought against my —but many waters cannot quench love. We will begin the new life together." " In apple blossom time," he answered softly, his lips on hers. "In apple blossom time."