SWEET NELL OF OLD ISLINGTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19418, 28 August 1926, Page 5 (Supplement)

SWEET NELL OF OLD ISLINGTON.

Br YELVA BURNETT.

CHAPTER XlX.—(Conl inued). Nell bit her lip, striving to control her impatience. " Nothing, nothing at all, on my word of honour. There, does that satisfy you ? One must be by oneself sometimes, I suppose." He looked vexed and suspicious. She wanted to be alono so as to brood over memories of Richard, but he, Adimore, and Mirelda, supported even by Mrs. Markham Deare, who disliked him, he knew, had entered into a compact to rescue Nell from such chances for unhappy, futile thought. He took her arm firmly. " There is no going back, Nell, you know that as well as 1." "Going back?" she echoed. "Going back where?" Her p/oice, with its dragging note moved even him a little, in spite of his extreme selfishness, but thinking it for her good, he spoke roughly. " You know very well what I mean, drifting in thought, to him, Forrest!" She made no answer. Under the umbrella he had held over her, when she crossed the threshold, she shivered in the cold, damp wind, that brought a gush of rain to sting her cheeks icily. Then uhe coloured, and was resentful and angry that he had read so far into her 'thoughts, her resolve to visit Richard's Hat immediately, so as to learn from his servant that her fears for his health had no foundation. "Why should you suppose ?" she stammered. I'm no fool, you're putting me off. You've got something up your sleeve!" " You forget, I fear, Lion, that you promised never to mention his name!" ' " I was not the first to do so, Nell!" " Did I say a word ?" "His name is written in your eyes!" "Lion, Lion, stop! How you "goad ine!" " I am your best friend. If I didn't guard you from your own sentimentality, you would go to him, this instant, and humiliate voursolf, craving what he has no wish to givo!" " How dare you! Oh, be quiet. What right have you ? I shan't talk about it any more, only nothing can alter my purpose to drive by myself!" "Is it possible—are you mad enough to go to him?" "You will oblige me, Lion, by minding your own business!" "It is, it is my business!" " Sheer presumption." she declared angrily, and before he could prevent her, she raised her skirts, so that they should not bo splashed by the progress of her feet through the puddles, and ran before him, very swiftly, to her own car. Lion's face darkened to anger, but he made no further attempt to gainsay her intention. Smoking his cigar, under the Umbrella ho watched her speak to her chauffeur. Lion could not hear what she said. She entered the car, which turned and glided noiselessly away. He hesitated a moment, and did not see Mirelda step past him, nor did he reply when she bade him good-night. He stepped to his own man, accosting him with the brief command, " Folllow that car!" CHAPTER XX. On her way to Richard's flat, Nell looked back into the past, through tho long, burning days of a summer lost in time, weighed herself in the balance, and found herself sadly wanting in discrimination and wisdom. She had been foolish enough to summon Richard to their last interview, when she was boiling over with rage and fear, She had given him but little chance of clearing himself of the charge she had brought against him. Her voice, vibrating with scorn, had filled the room. ■ Now illumination had come to her very , suddenly as she sat before her dressing table. She had misjudged Richard. She had doubted, insulted him, and driven him away. She had summoned Mirelda to witness and seal the indignity of his departure. Her treatment oi him had been moro than sufficient to kill the love of the most patient man on earth, and, at times, Richard had as little patience as she. What had slio loft? Nothing at all, for in her present state of nervous unrest. the theatre", her work in it, the applauso and attention she never failed to receive, were like accumulated drugs. Ail she did, all sho was find had been, was insignificant, now that there was no radiant wooer at her side. The news that had recently linked Margaret's name to Richard's must be false or surely they would bo married by now, .since there was no reason to prevent, them. Yes, it was all false, for his voice was in h&r ears, speaking to her across and through the bitter past. Dim houses, dim shapes,- blurred by rain-drops coursing across the window glass brought her to a shivering interpretation of the chill, brutal language which the vast city speaks to the lonely and unhappy. Sho had always had a hardly-defined fear of this mightly vortex of grim and implacable forces. The theatre had shut her into a magic kingdom of romance and poetry as wholly as though sho had been an oriental princess lodged. in a lovely palace. Grim realities, things sinister and cruel, had come to her only in her work, through the realms of her imagination. Certainly, she had suffered for her father's shame, his inexplicable shrinking from her because he had feared her anger, but that tragedy had at least given scope and opportunity for her abiding love. She had seen peace steal over the haggard, sunken face before, lying against her breast, the eyes closed in the last sleep of all. Money, money, what a small thing it had seemed to her then and now; yet this money had crept in between Rfdhard. and herself, and had bitten and poisoned them as though is wero some venomous insect. Tho injection of this money poison, provided by Forrest in the first, srriali noxious draught, had been followed by other evils, that swarmed like scorpions in its track. Suspicion, jealousy, misgivings, had eaten into their castle "of happiness. She hated herself for her former lack of mercy. If to-night Richard would consent to see. her, and forgive her, she would never be guilty of doubt or qualms again. Her lips moved j in prayer. " Make him merciful to me, 0 God! i Let this trouble bo a means of holding < us more closely to one another. Without him I am torn to pieces." 1 The car stopped before the wrought iron gates and the boauy doors. She i descended, went through the gates, and ] across tho gleaming wet steps to- the door- i way. It was late, and there was no porter , stationed there with largo umbrella to ] shelter her from the rain. Jenner had ] been about to slip out of his seat to do ] so, but she had told him, through the j speaking tube, to remain where he was. < With her bead far back on her shoulder she was able to perceive the topmost flat. ] Tho edges of a curtained window caught ] the gleam of lighted lamps. Richard was at home, thank God ! In a few moments j sho might be in his arms. She seemed . to rush and leap toward the j highly-poised flat, coming to corridors, sweeping through them back to the broad, ( main staircase, but on tho third floor she ■ heard the electric lift ascending.' This ( gavo her pause. She had no wish to ( encounter cold, inquisitive eyes. She hid in a little shallow alcove, placed con- , venientlv to her need. As she did so, , she recalled something of her aunt's warning—"A great actress is like royalty." j Well, nobody except Richard and his J servant should know of her visit. She ( would remain in hiding nnt.il the lift f was empty, the coast clear. From her corner sho would be able to peep in at _ the brass cage as it swept up. Perhaps it was taking Richard to his flat. When the cage hung an instant over her head sho looked cautiously through the grill. She saw a natty, cloaked and hatted figure, something so remarkably feminine and familiar about its dark, closefitting garments, that sne recognised the visitor in a moment for Margaret Niel. She was ascending to Richard s flat, < hut even this ominous fact could no longer deter penitent, chastened Nell from be- | iioviniz in hi» integrity. Miss Niel at this )

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lato hour! But she knew that sometimes Kichard good-naturedly vacated his dwelling so that his sisters might have the use of it, on their infrequent visits to town. She managed to convince herself that Kate and Jessica were in there as well as-Margaret. She would give little Monna Lisa time to get indoors before she rang the bell end persuaded Carver to her Richard's address, and tell her if he was quite, quite well. She allowed a long five minutes to elapse before she stirred from the corner in the wall. In that time she heard a car draw up to the entrance of the block. She waited again, foreseeing that some other tenant might come up very soon. But no one came, nor touched the lever on the ground floor that would cause the lift to descend. She reached the landing that held Richard's flat. She was panting. She pressed the bell gently, and Carver came and stood beforo her, reviewing her with much surprise. "Are Mr. Richard's sistors staying here, J Carvershe asked. His surprise in- i creased. " Oh, no, Miss Lisben," ho returned, " but Mr. Richard came in a short while ago. Would you like to see him, miss ?" I " Not to-night, Carver, I think; but j tell ma, is he quite well ?" \ ery fit, so far as I knows, miss, but worried about his father, who is poorlv again and out of town, so Mr. Richard has a great deal to do!" Nell hardly knew what to say nest. She began to feel faint. If she "did not pull herself together, she would fall swooning in Richard's hall. With one ungloved hand she held to the frame of the door. " I was on my way from the theatre," she began with a wan smile, riot realising at the moment that, to even stupid, kind old Carver, it must seem a very long round about way to come from old Islington, through Chelsea to her home near the Green Park, " and I just wanted to know how Mr. Richard was. Owing to his father's ill-health I have not seen him for some time." Alas, all subterfuge was vain with Carver, who, like everyone else, knew only too well of the broken engagement. He had been very sore with Nell, who, part of the world declared, had thrown Richard over for a former lover, tho tragedian, Lion Lawes, but he could see that she looked pale arid tired and ill. He moved uneasily, and-he said gently: _ " If only the master was alone, miss I'd tell him you'ro here, but seeing how things are, I don't quite like to do so." Her bright eyes fastened to his face. " I thought I recognised someone who passed me in the lift, just now. If it is Miss Niel, I should not like her to — to bo disturbed." " Miss Niel it is," the old man admitted with reluctance, and, having gone thus far, he was about to say something else, which Nell .would have been very glad to hoar, when, from the side of the little alcove that led from one of the bedrooms, she caught the flash of purple and mauve skirts, of a bodice, exquisitely cut, curving a white, dazzling bosom. Seeming to float through Nell's dazed, swimming vision, iri the guise of some frightful, vet shining apparition, Mss Niel approached from the room in which she had been removing her outdoor garments. From where she stood, she failed to see Nell. Indeed, it was impossible for her to do so, unless she moved .with the curve of the passage that concealed the front door; besides Nell had shrunk instinctively from the threshold, the moment Margaret stepped into the passage. " Who is it, Carver ?" demanded little Monna. Lisa peremptorily, as of some humble menial of her own. Carver's eyes met Nell's. A comprehensive message was flashed to him. He bent his head in willing assent. He had been born and reared in the same borough as she, the good old borough of Islington. The door closed gently between actress and servant before Margaret, scenting some mystory, advanced to Carver's side. " It wasn't nobody of no importance, miss," he declared, looking very truthful and honest, yet with his eyes full of dislike. " Just my mate, the servant, from Number 10." Margaret pretended that she believed him. She permitted him to retire to his own quarters. She stood musing a little, half inclined to open the door of the flat, run along tho fjrridor and find out who had been, for she knew that Carver had told her a lie. Then she chanced to look down, and she was rewarded by the sight of a dainty little bag of satin and maltese lace which matched Nell's dress of old rich gold. • Miss Niel smiled when she pulled from the bag the tinv, scented chiffon handkerchief never wrought to hold a woman's tears, that bore the monogram of'the greatest actress in London and a diminutive wreath of violets.

CHAPTER XXI. Nell had flown up, she was dragged down, heavy-footed, with" aching heart. In her the cry of a ghost, "too late, too late!" She moved like an automaton, unconsciously. Instinct carried her. No longer was she clear about where she was or whither she was going. The sword had gone too deep. Her eyes were half-closed as though from intolerable fatigue, yet behind the eyes, in a world filled with blinding light, the quivering brain had a fantastic wakefulness. On ono of the lower floors a man hurried toward her with open arms. She went straight into them, in tho headlong, unthinking manner of a hurt child. The arms closed round her. A breast that beat loudly, Like a clock, supported her. Sho fell against it with all h<;r weight, and again Lawes ached and hungered to the scent of invisible flowers. He murmured ecstatically in her ear: " Poor little Nell; poor little" Nell. .1 am glad I came. I feared this, my dear, feared it more than I can say. My dear, don't moan like that. Come, I "will take you homo, my darling whom I have loved for years, but you never looked at me, never thought of me, as your loyal lover, except when your work made it necessary. My Nell, all mine. After this, no one shall take you from mo." In his low, soft voice ho went on expansively, while supporting her, guiding her feet to the car in the rain. His tones surged with eagerness, for here was. his chance at last, and he did not much care that it came jthrough her pain, her tears, Nothing but death should induce him to let her go. His twin soul, his affinity, his companion star. He had known it long, long ago, but he had never wanted to marry, and he fancied, with his usual egotism, that Nell would always be at his side. Richard's wooing, had enhanced his devotion. The gods were kind tonight, for wayWard Nell lay close against his breast. Tears stole down her pallid cheek; her body, so dauntless and upright, sagged liko a branch near its breaking. So he got. her down to her waiting car. Ho had sent his own away. Nell was far past refusing him a seat, even had she wished to do so. One of tho leather pockets held a flask, and he forced neat brandy through her lips. Sho had paid no heed to his revelation of anguish and. love. His voice came to her only as a rumbling'that ran over and trickled' through that other rumbling, far off. menacing, cruel, the voice of London, as potent to terrify her as though it had proceeded from an adjacent junglo occupied by wild and savage beasts. Even after the sip of brandy, she was hardly sure that it was really" Lion who accompanied her to her drawing room, who showed rare tact and sympathy when Mirelda came forward to receive her woebegone mistress. The woman might think what, chose, and pity Nell from the bottom of her heart, but too wise and kindly was sho to probe raw wounds. Eventually Nell was tucked into bed. sipping brandy and milk, while Lion, satisfied, went upon his homeward way. t . "Are yqu sure you're all right, dearie? she asked. " And there's nothing more I can get you ?" " Not another thing, angel Oh, you re good enough to be my mother. I never really had one, Mirelda, except when I

was top little to know what she might mean. Life is like that," she mused, with her eyes on the fireglow splashing her hearth. " What wo don't appreciate at the time is taken away. We deserve nothing else; then, when we want it, cry out for it, it isn't, then any more!" " But, Miss Nell, deav Miss Nell, you're over-voung to talk like that. If the good Lord sees fit to say no to our dearest wish, we must be brave, and trust to His lovin' kindness and mercy!" " What a good woman you are, darling. You kept your religion close to you, all these years, in spite of the theatre. I think you made a church even of ' The Looking Glass.' " " Just anvwhere can be that, Miss Nell." * \ " Yes." agreed Nell tremulously, "on!v it is difficult to trust. There, run away and sleep,and Mirelda," her tones dropped to a whisper, insistent yet childlike, " Don't tell Aunt Carrie, I came over so stupid and faint!" " Not a word, don't you fret." She tended the fire, took a last peep at Nell, and stole softly from the room to sleep in one that adjoined it, her ear alert, even while she slept, for the last sound of need from her mistress. There was quite a simple, straightforward explanation for Miss Neil's presence in Richard's flat, had Nell but guessed it, and Carver had been on the point of declaring as much of it as he knew, when the moving form of Margaret stopped him. She, weary of waiting and scheming to catch Ilichard unawares, decided to bring the issue to a head. On the morning of Nell's visit to the Chelsea flat. Margaret sent in her card to Richard's private room in the Hatton Garden office, and he at once returned word via the office boy, thA he was far too busy to see anyone at all, requesting her to leave a message, but to his considerable annoyance, when he looked up again from his morning mail, Margaret was advancing upon him, a suit- j case in her hand. She put it down, undisturbed by his chill vexation. He saw he must make the best of a bad business. " I can spare you only ten minutes, Miss Neil," he said briefly. She sank into the armchair near his desk, and began to weep. She could weep to order. Her tears were enough to move a heart of stone, so that it was odd, that Dick should maintain in his cold serenity, his vexed frown at being interrupted in the early part of the day. " What is it ?" he demanded sharply.

"I am very, very unhappy, Dick," she whimpered. " Are you an exception in that to the general run ?" ho inquired with a thin, bitter smile. "I hope." . . I hope,hat few people are so unfortunate as I am, Dick. ' * He flinched angrily each time she called him by his Christian name. Ho hated tho soft slur in her voice when she pronounced it. He moved impatiently to tho sido of his desk that was farthest from her chair. Sho was looking up, hor queer eyes shining, her red mouth a tremble, her little white foxy teeth almost hidden in the thin underlip, as though in an effort to control her tears. " Your sisters, after having driven me nearly mad, have turned me out of the house. I have nowhere to go. Each time your poor dear father leaves for tho coast they get more unkind. What I have had to put up with, nobody knows." " There is quite a simple remedy within your reach, Miss Neil," observed Richard stiffly, " which is to find other quarters." " Where, where am I to go? I am all nerves, wracked to pieces; to go among strangers all alone, would kill me. I can't do my old work. I came to ask you a great favour, Richard. ou won't refuse me, I'm sure, particularly when I tell vou that I am engaged to your father. The "girls don't know. I didn't dare to tell them. They would not have believed me!" "Engaged to my father?" repeated Dick, and his cold eyes began to kindle with relief and satisfaction. She drew her left hand out of its glove. On her finger ho saw the identical ring about which she had stooped to lie to Nell. "Well, what is the f-.vrur? What do vou wish me to do?" ho asked, still "coldly and suspiciously, but with less impatient bearing. " You are chivalrous and kind, she declared, hating him in her heart for his indifference to her charm, " and I want to tell vou, that—it is a little awkward to say—that I—l was suffering from a temporary infatuation, and, and loneliness, I suppose, when—when I behaved so atrociously to you that , evening, and allowed your father to- —to imagine that that we'loved each other, Richard. You see, it was very wrong of me, I know, but I am really fond of him, and he

' seemed to be paying me quite a lot of | attention, without saying anything definite ] about marriage." 1 Miss Niel had the grace to blush, and look down coyly at those snaky, Monna Lisa fingers of hers, which clasped her wet handkerchief against her dress. " My only purpose, dear Richard, was to make him jealous, afraid of losing me. I coukin't afford to let him go. Oh, don't be too hard on me, I am only a poor working girl. Nobody ever troubled to teach me the difference between right and wrong. You will remember, perhaps, that I caught hold of you only when I heard your father coming to the door. I knew ho would value me far more if I could convince him I that another man, a younger man, was anxious to make me his wife." Dick said nothing. His mind was back on the scene which until now he had wished to forget. Recalling his father's sneers and iibes on the occasion, he could well believe that jealousy alone had been responsible for his behaviour. He did not like Margaret any moro than before her contrite revelation, nor could he condone her for using him as a tool, but he thought-he saw his way to punish her and prove her peuitcnce. .Accordingly he heard her out. " I wanted to explain so awfully, Dick," she said girlishly, " and obtain your forgiveness, but when you came to the house, your sisters always behaved like a bodyguard, and I never had the chance to see you alone." " Wait one moment, Miss Niel," ordered Richard. " I have something to say." > "Oh please forgive me, Richard. Soon, ! quite soon, if poor dear, Mr. Forrest regains his health, I will be in the place of your dead mother. For her sake, let there be no further bitterness between us." " I fear mv forgiveness is not of vital importance to you, Miss Niel." " Oh, Richard, it is—it is!" " However that may be," he resumed sternly, " you have done me a very grave wrong, deliberately and in cold blood. I have always done what I could to make things easier for you while you were with us here. You knew that I was devoted to Miss Lisben, and yet, in my absence, you showed her a ring, very likely the one which is this moment on your finger, and represented it as my gift to you. Further, you told her that you and I were once engaged, that I threw you over so as to win her love. The

I announcement of your engagement to me j was put into the Greenioom Star, a j paper to which Nell has subscribed for ' years. You robbed me of her. Why should I help you ? Why should I ? You are an enemy. You have taken my happiness from me." " Oh, no! Don't say that ! Don't blame ime for all that. lam guilty, it is ! true, but not so guilty as you think. -If I have done you mischief, it was in-' ' advertently. I know nothing of the j Greenroom Star. I never saw it in my 'life; and how can your father be responsible for it, when he is so jealous j of you, that I fear he is beginning to hate you, Richard ?" " Indeed ? And what about the falsehoods you told Miss Lisben ?" I " I told her none. She misunderstood ! me. She is so quick, so temperamental. She saw the narno Richard on this ring , that fell friim the ribbon round my neck. ! I tried to tell her it was the gift of another Richard. I couldn't say outright: 'lt is from Dick's father, who wishes to marry me.' He had made me i promise most faithfully not to tell a soul. > You know what he is, when he is dlsI obeyed. I didn't dare tell Miss Lisben j the whole truth, but I, I did my best, j She refused to believe a word! She swept : out of the room. She would have left j the house, there and then, but she had an appointment with your father who came into the boudoir, before, she was able to get away. I had no further chance of explaining. She wouldn't take the slightest notice of me. The moment she had heard what your father had to say. the same old story, that he would cut you off without a shilling unless she gave you up, she flew off, to her car, as you know!" Having given her curious and clever version of the matter, Miss Niel folded her hands, and across them, through wet, pleading eyes, the dangerous little thing gazed steadily at Richard. He knew his Nell, lovable, sweet, but flashing, like a jewel. She had refused to hearken to th* explication he had been bitterly willing to tender her, and, in the same way, she had refused to hearken to Miss Niel. Hence all the misery that lay like a broken column upon his heart. " You will tell Miss Lisben, now, exactly what you have told me!" he ordered inexorably. " There is the 'phone, go to it at once and ring her up!". (To be continued on Saturday nest.)