SWEET NELL OF OLD ISLINGTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 5 (Supplement)

SWEET NELL OF OLD ISLINGTON.

YELVA BURNETT.

CHAPTER XVffi. It was a quarter to eight when Nell composed herself in her usual chair, hearkening to every sound in the street that blight herald Richard's arrival. She heard the gentle drip, drip that descended in a rythmic fall from her flowers to which the gardener was giving their bed* time bath. A small jewelled timepiece, Jovel with her eyes, fascinated, exasperated her. Why are moments ao long, so slow to the waiting, trembling heart of love? The woman's lot, this waiting. All through life it. is so, however exalted hex position may be. Ten minutes to eight, Now ho may be hero any moment! At least he is far on his way. Hitherto, he came early to every appointment! When ha enters, she will leap forward to the door, clasp him, fold him in hot arms. All his objections shall b'e voiced against, her breast. Five more minutes—a step firm and decided on the gravel of the pathway. It is he, surely; but against the glass of the •window, made rosy by the sun, she sees only the gardener moving with his serpenthose to another bed-of flowers. Now at last a bell rings through the house. Richard is at the door. Alas, alas, not tha house door at all, but the telephone! Who rings her up, who dare, in this sacred hour of waiting '! Lawes again ? But she told him decidedly. ' What on earth does he want ? She will not see him, nor rehearse with him to-night! With an angry stir, and rustle of her garments, such as a displeased wood pigeon might make, Nell went to the phone. Impatiently she demanded "Who is it? What is it? Who is , speaking?" A woman's voice replied respectfully, informing her of news to which she responded with appropriate words of regret. Marie, the parlour maid in the house on gtreatham Hill, was tolling her that she would not see Dick to-night. Old man Forrest had been taken very ill iti his club. Richard had been summoned, and had brought him home. " Mr. Dick has just asked me to ring you up, Miss Lisben, He is with the old gentleman and the doctor. Yes., miss, I'll tell fcim. It was a bad heart attack. Mr. Richard wanted to take him straight to a hospital, but he wouldn't hear of "it. He insisted on comin' back here. Yes, a bit easier now, rriiss, but very ill, and Mr. Richard Bends you his compliments, and ho don't know at all when he'll be able to find time to call!" Nell left the telephone, and wending her way, crestfallen, and aching with disappointment, she chanced to see herself, in her blue and white draperies, in a long cheval glass that dropped to the floor, between two exquisitely chiselled cupids which held in their chubby hands electric candles, unlighted, wrought in twisted v ivory that resembled was. In the mirror, she was conscious of the ghostliness of her representation. How pale and lifeless her face in its setting of rippling hair, that covered her head like a dark, silken hood. How weary. She might not see Richard for days, and in that house, which to her overwrought mood, seemed to be overflowing with peril, sinist# influences, secret treacheries, he might build against her, with the able assistance of Miss Niel,'his disapproving sisters, his father, his own conception of what was duei to Hugh Archer's orphan, impregnable defences. Love was shut out! Love called in vain! Her head was bowed on her hands for a. long time. Her sorrowful fears cast the blackness of a deep, and gloom-filled forest into her mind. She rescued herself from utter despondency in a quick mental shake. How absurd she was, mourning Richard as though ha were thousands of miles away, whereas, he was trily over there in the house on Sfcreatham, Hill, and ho loved her! She grimaced at herself in the glass. She said aloud. " You selfish creature! i'ou are thinking only of yourself. You ire developing nerves." She failed to realise just then that she Was jarred arid shaken, not so much by Richard's inability to keep his appointment, as by the grave apprehension which, with the intuition of her deep love, gave warning, that in spirit, and driven by unkind circumstances, Richard had already deserted her. , A week, then a fortnight went by, and brought no eager, passionate Richard to Nell's door. Every day. she received a verbal message from Margaret Niel, who lent bulletins of the invalid's progress, in ilyly dolorpus tones, to the actress. "Mr. \ Forrest," she said, " is out of danger, and has been ordered to the seaside. He. starts on Wednesday, with a male nurse. We are all extremely anxious. Personally, I don't like the look of the dear old man at all. Richard has been most d.e- ! voted, and his hands are full, for ho goes Bp to the oflice every .day, but he can't very well return to his flat. His father can hardly bear him out of his sight!" " But why doesn't Richard phone, or write, or snatch time during the day, just a moment in which to see me ?" wondered Nell, beginning to be really angry with her lover. Mrs. .Markham Deare asked the same question. "This sudden illness has taken up all his time, and. without Miss Niel and the old man at the office, he is, of course, short-handed," answered Nell. The aunt was far from satisfied with this explanation. . " My darling," she said, " if you play fast-and-loose with that young man, who is spirited and proud, you will lose him." This was too much. Nell dropped the cat. " Aunt, what makes you say such a thing?" she demanded, with flashing eyes. " What have I done ? I love him dearly, but, his people are against us." The widow began in grave tones to speak of Lawes' frequent visits. "It isn't wise, Nell. I never liked him. He is eaten up with conceit. A great actress is like royalty. She ca».not escape the eyes of the world." Nell lor-ked angry. " Surely everyone knows Ave are rehearsing for the Duchess uf Yellowclay'l matinee." The wise 'aunt sighed and shrugged ■' You know what people are. A few years back every one expected you to marry Lion." Nell refused to discuss the matter. She had become a passionate rebel fate and circumstance. She would have .summoned Richard again to her presence, but her pride was up in arms und prevented her. When her aunt had left her she chanced to notice the Greenroom Star on her table. It had been in her possession for over a week, but she had' been too disturbed to care about reading, and had not yet opened the paper. Now she looked through it idly, and favourable criticisms of Adimore s touring _ players Etill in the provinces. Then, quite suddenly, in a column headed " Stage Whispers'," she came upon the news which, had she but known it, old man Forrest had sent the editor on the same evening in which he had found Miss Niel with bar arms roimd th* unwilling Richard. The paragraph was .to the effect that the nuly son r\f a wcli-known diamond mer:hant of Hatton Garden, recently pledged to the star actress of an ancient borough in London, had become privately engaged to the old gentleman's confidential secretary, who lived in his house like a daughter. Nell t/iared, reading the disagreeable inforinatio'Ji several times before she moved from her chair. Then, all on fire with tharne and indignation, she, with characteristic impetuosity, demanded Richard to come to her immediately. " Unless you do, and cancel every Other engagement, I shall never receive you again," cried Nell, her cheeks crimen, her voice vibrating across the wire. Dick listened without- comment, saying merely:

" Very well, I will be with yon in a few minutes." " So she settled as well, as she could, to another Waiting. She told Mirelda that phe was at home to none save young Mr. Fovre.-t. Whoever came—Mr. Laxves, for (i\ample*--was to be sent away. On this occasion she did not' trouble to change

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nor dress or re-arrange her hair, Such trivialities were of no account. She was going ,to have things out with lliehairi, _ She Would learn the truth abooi tliis wretched and malicious piece of gossip in the "Greenroom Star," " If there is not some truth behind it, how came it to be published* and," she went on, completely forgetful of'her prom.so to Margaret, " How can you seem so indignant, when I know for a fact that you used to be engaged to Miss Niel, and that dhe still wears you? ring on a ribbon under her dress."

When at last her lover stepped into the room, she shook from head to foot with humiliation and anger. " It was good ot you to find .time for me at last, Richard, ' she said, blind to his pallor, raid the look of fatigue which eamo from spending several nights at his father's beciside. He bowed merely, watching her closely, yet coldly, awaiting her explanation of the urgent summons with a stolid attention that gave no hint of his longing and love. " I demand to know exactly what this means!" she said, and brought him the open paper and the paragraph which she had marked in blue pencil. He perused it swiftly, and looked up, asking with t faint smile, "You believe this?" Ho laughed angrily. " What's all this?" he asked curtly. "What non sense are you talking, Nell ?" Rut site was off on a tangent, her head was high, her eyes wild and passionate. "It is quite obvious why you put me oil with empty excuses when I asked begged you to see me. Miss Niel in her pretty new clothes has cast a fresh spell over you! Oil, how .stupid I have been not to guess what was going on! How eager you were to spend a week-end in your home, to which, until Miss Niel came into it, you never would go!" She paused an instant, drawing in her breath with a gulp. " .Oh, this Miss Niel, this Margaret who pined and wept for you in secret! I congratulate her. Pray, tell her so, if you please, with my sincere compliments. I trust you will both be happy, Richard. I hope you know your own fickle mind at last. High time you did. But seeing so much of her —under the same roof—oh, I am not a hit surprised. She is fascinating. Mr. Forrest thinks much of her. Ha thinks nothing of me. A most suitable match, most suitable, in every way, Richard. Now, now, I can go back to- the stage without a single regret." His voice was thrust against hers with the sharpness of a sword. . "Be silent this moment!" he cried, " You are talking nonsense about the ring, and about our engagement. The fact that you believe this beastly lie, slrows exactly what you think of me!" "No use telling me that! I saw the rit|g! Your name was behind the diamond. With her own lips she told me that I had robbed her of you, her lover! I forgave you that; I fought with my disappointment, because you had proved unfaithful to me. I relegated the affair to oblivion. Now, now, it crops up again for everyone to seo. Can you tell me, on your honour, there is nothing in this news? Did you do nothing to make her suppose you had given her your changeable heart a second time? Oh, oh, I remember now, that, after your father sent Marie 'to fetch you, you loitered in the drawing room, and—and I heard singing. You were in there with her. Was she not the last to occupy your arms? Yes, yes, I can see by your face that I am right. She, this Miss Niel, lay in your arms!" His face had set into hardness. It was like a mask, but for the glittering eyes. " If you will have it so," he admitted, without a tracts of emotion, " she lay in my arms. I am willing to tell you how it camo about. I. went to the drawing room, because I had no that yoi were in the house. I saw my sisters first. They began slicing Miss Niel. It seeWd rather a low-down thing to do. I went to te.il her that I was willing to befriend her. I was talking music to her in an ordinary, friendly way when "Did she, "of her own accord, fling herself into your arms, Richard?" Nell cried out sarcastically. " And without the slightest encouragement ? " Please don't interrupt. You asked for an explanation. I am trying to give it to you." "No, no; I am not so simple as all that! I don't believe these excuses, Richard. They ring false! ,Pray spare me the details of your clandestine courtship ! ' Noll, you are insulting my honour!" She drew her head still higher from her proud shoulders. She was inexorable. She laughed a little over a sob! "Your idea of honour, where women are concerned, is different from mine!" " When you are calmer," he said freezingiy, " you will perhaps be able to tell me whether I have no just cause for complaint against you. Why is it that Lion Lawes is always at your door? I called the other day and heard you rehearsing with him, although you promised me that you would not return to the stage! " " Ytou—you called—and listened—and and spied upon us! ". " No, you are quite unjust, as usual. Mirelda was telling mo of your orders that you were not to be disturbed. It is no good trying to convince me that you are not preparing for a season at iThe Locking "Glass.' You deceived me once. It is not in your power to deceive •md again. I have kept away Irorn you 'hitch', not because my father is ill, but because I could not trust myself in your presence. From what you yourself said a moment ago and from, what I have seen and heard, your one wish is to go back to this wonderful actor. Well—go!" She took his ring from her finger, and thrust it into his hand. ' " All this is nothing to you," she said, very quietly, " now that you have Miss Niel to console you ? " " Nothing whatever, now that I have Miss Niel to console me! " She flew to, the bell rope. She tugged it with violence. Dick's bitter smile, his cold, ruthless eyes were driving her mad. Mirelda came scuttling to that urgent summons that seemed to crack the house with its shrill warning. " Something ails your mistress. Someone harms her! Hurry, hurry! " She flung herself into the room. She had feared lest in some extraordinary fashion Lion Lawes had _got into the drawing-room, and that iie and Dick were engaged in deadly battle. She stood stock still, dumfounded, to find only the accepted lover with Nell. Imperiously, her hand still on the tremulous bell rope, Nell said to Mirelda: " Show this gentleman out of r.iv house!"

Richard stood at his full height, and Mirelda saw the same pale smile of acrid amusement which she had observed when he stood hearkening to her reminiscences in the hall. He looked directly into Nell's proud eyes, eyes that seemed empty. They were dying stare, dropping into space out of his firmament. il Madame," ho said to Nell, and his voice was hardly recognisable to the* women. " I shall not enter your house after to-night until you beg me to do so! " CHAPTER XIX. The name of Sweet Nell of Old Islington, companioned by another name, sewn in fire, scintillated above the open portals- of " The Looking Glass " Theatre! During the daytime, a flag, given by Nell by the borough, waved its silken length above the mosque-like dome. Fresh flowers and green shrubs decorated the foyer, that resembled an open hive dark with moving bees. " The Looking Glass" had come back to former halcyon days. Nell had come back to it; unmarried and with the great incomparable Lavves at her side. Each night of that warm, dripping autumn, and on three afternoons a week, The'house was crammed from roof to floor." Each departure from the stage door knew fresh honours. Noil's genius had expanded, flowered into more lovely blossoms; all the experts agreed about this,.

A dim off? gfeW piling agaiiij liis wrinkled face spilt lilt<3 perpetual smiles. Oil ike day when Neli came to him> voluntarily wtoh Lioil, to sign her contract for tie dull, wet season, the tears raced over his cheeks. With paternal hands laid en her shouidersj he kissed her fondly) calling he? "his beloved daughter and saviour!" It was good to see one matt, at leasts so happy, Lion, too, the fretful peevish* ness flown fronl his fade, greeting Nell, as a devoted subject greets his queen--* and of Richard, since that awful evening, no sign, no news at all, Toiling on, one would suppose, in the Hatton Garden office, making money hand over fist ill the diamond trade, with his father partially restored to health, but obliged to take frequent trips to the sea, and \v|th Miss Niel ready to receive him, with Warm, tooeager smiles whenever he came to the home roof. « Yet, one nitrht, his hat pulled low down over his eyes, Dick visited " The Looking Glass " for the evening performance, He was apart from the crowd of pleasure seekers in taxis and private cars, drawing up a tangle of jet and dark green bpxes in the muddy street. Commissionaires in scarlet sleeves scurried up and down t!ae steps, with raised umbrellas for the piotaction of beauty in expensive dreiis. Police had hovered near the queues of poorer folk before they scrambled to the gallery, and pit, Dick peered at what went on around him, before he hid himself in the theatre.

The streets ran like rivers with soft November mist and rain, through which lights and faces struggled and swam, pursued by the menacing jars and scream and roar of the main thoroughfares. Nell was already in her dressing-room, being attired by the faithful Mirelda. Dick could picture her there miserably, as he squeezed and pushed his way, succeeding miraculously in obtaining the only seat vacant. For to-night, he figured as one of the Islington poor, who have but little to spend on personal amusement. In his case it was odd, that, with the scant cash apparently at his disposal, he should set it deliberately upon fate's dark counter, for another potion of pain.

He calculated beforehand, "with fair adequacy, the intolerable agony of beholding presently the "star-crossed lovers" of medieval Verona, clasped, and adoring; yet the hunger for her face spurred him into this new folly. He came.deliberately, and proudly; in his poise some quality akin to that of an old aristocrat of France, moving to the guillotine. Throughout the play he sat as one detached from, yet wrung by the vain passion of the lovers. How real their representation of the love which neither deadly faction nor death can overcome. So real that, droopinc forward from the crowded bench, he could not doubt that Nell had promised her terribly impressionable self to Lawes' keeping for good. His wrapt attention seldom wandered from their faces. He was deaf to what went on immediately around him—the slight stir and whisper between the acts, therustles of paper bags, the scent of oranges. Even the tears, the sighs of the people-, in the deep pit found him not, for alone, ho entered the dark frightful chamber of the inquisition, in which his heart was riven from his breast, j He came at last to the stage door, to watch with patient, loyal, inquisitive folk, huddled beneath wet umbrellas. She drove off behind closed windows, but her smile flicked through like a floating sunbeam. Lawes was shut in at her side. Richard was a' mere shadow, scantily sketched upon the dim wall of the sidewalk. He stood there, disconsolate, some moments after the car had threaded its irrevocable way from the sunken lane to the broad wide street. Then he moved his hand across his eyes. They and his cheeks were wet with tears. His father was ill again, .and off on another journey, seeking health .with the same zeal with which an imaginative child s9eks fairies, Previous to his departure, his manner to his son was suave and smug and civil; but he could not deceive himself, when he viewed Richard's pale, drawn face, that he had succeeded in rooting up Nell from the deeps of his sod's heart. Dick never mentioned her name; never spoke 'to his father of any intimate personal concern, except when it was inseparable from the business. He gave Miss Neil a wide berth on the few occasions ..when he had come to, the house to consult his parent on some vital matter, when the old man was too unwell to go down to his office. In part, he confided in Jess and Kate, who combined with alacrity to hedge him in against the bold and detrmined secretary. They cleverly frustrated her every scheme of getting the son and heir all to herself when he descended from the sick-

room to the house door; He had hot beett alone with her since the evening in which her arms had stolen to his neck; He ihaci made no mention of the par&i graph hi thrt Greenroom rifcati His sisters, being adverse to ail things theatrieal, had been Spared knowledge of the announcement; Except on bookstalls they never Eaw the paper-. One evening, toward the close of lier magnificent season, Nell came-to her dressing room, after a great'ovation accorded hot' between the swinging curtains and, with & passivity that and grieved Mirelda, allowed herself to be disrobed of Portia's shining attire-. The jewels were out of her hair. She was ready to leave the theatre. Without, Lion awaited hei\ yet she lingered before lier mirror, with' out looking into it, faint with heart-sick' ness and weariness. In hard, incessant work, she had nought to drown memory and pain, but now they struck at her like cobras.

She with her great gifts had failed to find trua companionship and happiness. She was lonely as any waif in the streets. Save on the stagt*, Lion did not suffice hor needs, nor dared she show it to him, so resolute was he to shut out from her horizon everything but himself and their mutual art. she was rarely alone. There was always Lion, Mirelda. her aunt, hovering with tender, probing glances that made her realise the exquisite worth of solitude. She was obliged to hide all evidences of suffering. Her very soul was cramped. She had been acquiescent in the manner of those who surrender hope and submit to despair as chill bedfellow. She was a traveller, going wearily from one, dim meagre inn to another. The theatre was only an inn at the wayside. Surrounded by the lovely flowers that had been offered from the auditorium, some sudden truth flashed blindly through the dark veil which enwrapped her, shining with the radiance of a water-lily from the bosom of a pool—Richard's hand and face beckoning her imperiously and tragically. She felt his presence all about her. Almost lifting her head to listen, she could persuade herself that his voice was

actually in her fears, impelling, command' ing liel'j M love Commands to leave everything, as though it had never been, and come to Mm at once;

So strangely vivid and eerie was this summoning of Spirit "to spirit that horror lest hi should ba ill sore iieed, dying or very 111, held her In its grip, She rose abruptly, seized her cloak and gloves, pulled Back the door, colliding with Mlrelda, who had been putting aW&y the valuable dresses, and was now hi her hat mid e&at. " Take a taxi home," Nell said briefly, tn a strange voice. " I am needing the car I" Before the woman could reply, she was Bomo distance away. _ .At the istagQ door she encountered the impatient Lion, in the shelter of the corridor, staring out to the kerb, at which his car was drawn close to Nell's. " What a time you've been, Nell!" be complained moodily. " One would fancy you d be glad to leave the place on such a beastly night. Jump into ray car; and come and have supper at Feraldo's. Your man can take Mirelda home in state all by hersolf." "No, I want the car!" He looked down at all he could see of her face in the flickering gas light, with surprised incredulity. " Aren't you coming to supper as you promised ?" " I don'£ remember promising Lion; I think you took it for granted I should come." " But, good heavens, do you actually wish to drive off by yourself ?" " Yes, I do, Lion !" "How odd, how unfriendly! Have I vexed you in any way ? Aren't vou well?" Her head moved from side to side in the high, snowy collar.of her cloak. "I am quite well, Lion, thank you." " But then—well," I don't understand, Why— ?" - " For goodness sake, stop arguing," cried Nell, in a passion.. " But what have I done, I insist on knowing, to be robbed in this way of your society?" (To bo continued on Saturday nest.)