CUPID'S ALLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20768, 10 January 1931, Page 9 (Supplement)

CUPID'S ALLY.

BY NORMA CRAIG.

Peter Gane snapped down the lid of his cash box, tipped back bis chair on its thin, old legs, and pushing up his spectacles on to his forehead, blinked across at his wife. " How soon can you get ready to go visiting, mother!" he asked abruptly. Mrs. Gane put down her sewing and stared back afc him in astonishment. "To go visiting! At this time of night! Man, you're daft." Peter laughed indulgently and let his chair fall back into position. " Not that kind of visiting," he explained. " I mean holiday visiting. To Tom and Ailsa. We can do ifc without touching what's in the bank." He tapped the lid of his cash box with a long forefinger. His wife did not answer him. She was sitting gazing at him with eyes and mouth wide open. " Dorl't look.so dumbfounded, mother,' Peter chuckled. " I haven't suggested a trip to Makogai." " But, Peter! —" Peter Gane began to look obstinate. "Now look here, Nance" (he called her Nance when he was trying to be stern), " I've made up my mind to take a holiday and. I won't be ' but-ed * out of ifc." " Yes, but, Peter —!" " Stop! There you go again. How soon can you be ready? That's what I want to know." Mrs. Gane made an effort to speak without the offending preface. "Well?" Peter challenged. " By next week some time, I suppose, she said resignedly. V "Oh, next week be damned!" Peter exploded. "But, Peter! Man alive! Surely—!" Peter rose and went to the newspaper rack behind the kitchen door and took down a copy of that morning s local paper. He strode back to the table and slapped ifc down in fronfc of his wife. " Just, look up the time-table for the river-boat. There should be one leaving some time day after to-morrow. I m going to put a- trunk call through to Andrew Somers in Auckland.'' " Whatever for ? Really!" Mrs. Gain raised her hands in a gesture of bewilderment. " Oh, I've just a notion he'd like to rent, the house while we're away," Peter said. He went from the room and left, her staring down afc the printed sheets of the newspaper. She made no move to find the required time-table. She was feeling considerably confused. Peter had acted like this only twice before during her remembrance of him; once when he stopped her girlish waverings by saying she would have to marry him the following week or not. at all; and once when he ordered their eldest boy oufc of the house, telling him to go and make his own way in the world. He had been adamant on both occasions. She had reasoq to believe he would prove adamant now. These quiet, unassertive men could be terribly obstinate when roused. And they seemed to become roused once or twice in a lifetime, as if, by occasional self-assertion, to give justification for their existence. Curiously enough he had proved right on both occasions. Only good had come of his firmness. She heard his voice, grown crisp and decisive, speaking into the telephone. She did not understand what, had given birth to this sudden desire of his, but 6he wisely decided to humour him. After all, it was rather pleasant to have someone else arranging things, even though ifc was so astonishingly suddenPeter came from the phone and stood frowning down afc her. "Found out about, the boats?" he

snapped. " N-no.*! Suddenly be smiled, i* Poor "old lady," he said soothingly, 44 Taken the wind completely out. of your sails, haven't I? Never mind, I'll make up for it, I promise you. We'll look up those boats together. « # # ♦ * Gane Cottage, looking like a little oldfashioned lady in a flowered skirt, smiled a bright welcome to the newcomers as they turned a bend in the road a mile out from the little country township. The roses were in full bloom—pink, white and red; they loved to bloom in Peter Gane's garden. Behind the house was a' wide stretch of bushland, called Matthews bush, and behind that again, in the far distance, was a line of blue hills. Andrew Somers glanced at his wife to see, if he could, what impression the house had made upon her. The corners of her thin lips were raised a trifle scornfully. " Well, what d'you think of it, Madge?" he asked. Madge gave a shrug and the scornful twist persisted. " I suppose it's "all right, as cottages go. But I'm sure Jean and I will be tumbling over one another. It's so ridiculously small. However —" Again the little resigned shrug. It was not at all Madge Somers' desire to bury herself in a quiet country cottage for four weeks of trie summer season. But discipline had to be maintained at all costs. Andrew turned to his daughter for her opinion. But she was not looking at the cottage. She had gone back in spirit to the town which she had just left. Back to a great level field, just outside the boundary, where mechanical birds were standing, poised for mechanical flight. She saw a young, red-headed, grey-eyed man, tinkering with the engines. He whistled as he tinkered. " Jean!" She started slightly at sound of her name. "What d'you think of it?" her father asked. | " It's all right," she said listlessly, I " Prettier than the average run of prisons." " What,!" The word ripped through Andrew Somers' lips like a propelled bullet. Mrs. Somers raised inquiring eyebrows. " Parents, dear," Jean said calmly, " you're not deceiving me, you know. I'm quite aware of the reason for this country pilgrimage. I'm not resenting it much; I daresay you're acting according to your own ideas. But I want, you to realise that it isn't going to make any difference between Frank and me." Mr. and Mrs. Somers looked at their daughter without speaking. There seemed to be nothing for them to say. The three, walked on in silence to Gane Cottage. * , Next day Andrew Somers returned to town after'having engaged a girl from the township to go up daily and do the housework for his wife. Mrs. Somers settled down with books and fancy-work to four weeks of boredom. The first week passed without unusual event. Then there came a day of sapphire loveliness; a day when Peter Gane s roses quivered beneath the passionate loss of the sun, and th® trees stood im-

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movable in a breathless world. Jeaij went with her mother to sifc in Matthew's Bush. Ifc seemed to be the only place within easy distance where there was any coolness. Mrs. Somers read and dozed, but Jean, growing restless, wandered away through the bushland. She came out eventually upon a large, level paddock where cows grazed lazily in the heat. She sat down in the shade of the fringing trees and watched a light , cloud, like a bride's veil, floa.t over the blue sky. A hawk rose and hovered. A cheeky, erratic fantail chased a blue moth a few feet above her head. The earth seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for something unusual to happen. A small dark spot showed in the sky just above the outline of the hills. Another hawk perhaps; but a hawk with steady, unbeating wings; 1 a hawk that droned and murmured; a hawk that grew larger and noisier, and neither soared nor dipped but came steadily onwards with the sun up/m its wings. Not a hawk at all. Jean ran out into tlie open and watched that vessel of the air. Ifc passed above her head, then turned and swept over the township to the east. It turned again and crossed over the paddock where she stood. Kound and round in a circle it flew, its engine drumming steadily. She could see its letters now, large beneath the wings—ZK-AAM. An aeroplaqe from the Mangere aerodrome, she knew. Her Frank had probably tuned that engine for its journey. Her heart warmed to the graceful aeroplane. Suddenly ifc swooped down and made a bumpy landing at the far end of the paddock. One moment it was just an aeroplane taxi-ing toward Jean. The next ifc was a magic chariot, from heaven, for ifc had brought. to her, her heart's desire. Out of the pilot's seafc had leapt a younc man in overalls. He was running toward her, his grey eyes shining with love and excitement. The noise of the drumming engine drowned all sound, and only dumb things saw the greeting. Something was shouted into the girl's ear. She gave a little, happy nod, and wenfc back with him to the plane. From the rear seafc he took out a.' bundle of clothes and wrapped a cloak around her. A fur-lined cap he pulled down over her short, curling hair. Then he kissed her and lifted her up into the passenger's seat. He turned the plane toward the length of the field and clambered in again. Over the fence, the trees, the township, the river and the hills, they flew. They could not speak with one another, but love's language was in the glances that passed between the pilofc and his passenger.

Peter Gane snapped down the lid of his tobacco-box, tipped back his chair, and pushing up his spectacles on to his forehead, blinked across afc his wife.

" How soon can you be ready to start back home again, mother?" he asked abruptly. Mrs. Gain put the grandchild she was nursing, back into its cot again and turned to face her husband. ."Well! Of all the—'; "No abuse now, Nance-%voman, no abuse." '

" Peter Gane, you're daffy. You dragged me away here against my will and now at a moment's notice you want to be packing me home again. Just when I'm beginning to enjoy myself too." I suppose it does seem strange on the face of it. Still, you'll" admit that my impulses, when I act on them, are usually sound. Now, aren't they ? Ever regretted marrying me when you did?"- " No, of course not, but—"

!* And young Jim ! Didn't getting away from your apron-strings make a man of him?"

" Perhaps, but—" " Done mighty well for himself, young Jim has."

" He's only a mechanic, Peter." }' He's more than that. He's the husband of the jolliesfc little girl in Auckland—and the richest." Mrs. Gane looked at her husband in alarm.

" Now I know you're daft," she said resignedly. " I'm not. Have you read the morning paper ?" "No. Why?" _ " If you looked you'd see on the second page a large heading, ELOPEMENT UP TO DATE. AUCKLAND ROMANCE. Young Couple Escape by Aeroplane. You would also read a long paragraph describing how a young mechanic borrowed the plane he was tunii)g-up for a demonstration flight, and without a pilot's licence, but with perfect airmanship, flew the machine to a certain township forty miles north of Auckland, landed in a grazing paddock, was met there by a girl, and carried her back with him, having literally' snatched her from beneath her mother's nose. You will also see that they were married that evening by special licence, and that the parents of the girl have resigned themselves to fate. If I know anything about the father, he'll think none the less of his son-in-law for having acted with such a high hand. Andrew Somers is the man appreciate a boy with courage and initiative. '( "Andrew Somers! You don't mean to say it was his daughter." "It was, and the boy's name was James Francis Somerville Gane—known to his city associates as Francis Somerville.'?. Peter! Our boy Jim 1" " The 6ame, bless his heart." Mrs. Gane looked steadily at her husband for a revealing second. " Peter," she said slowly, " did you have anything to do with this elopement?" Peter chuckled, and tapped a forefinger wisely against the side of his nose. "Of course I did," he admitted. M Mine was the organising brain. Jim merely attended to the heroics." " Well, I never did know such a man! So that was the reason why you bustled me away? Though for the life of me I can't see why you couldn't have told me." " Poor old lady," Peter said, going to her and putting an arm consolingly around her shoulders, " I've taken the wind out of your sails again. But you'll admit that if I had told you our plan, you would have considered it your tell Mrs. Somers. Now, wouldn't you ?" " I suppose so. It was rather a mean trick to play on the parents:" " All's fair In love, and Cupid rewards the audacious." "What I don't understand is, how did you persuade the Somers to take Gane Cottage? And why didn't that, dear silly child elopo from her own home?" " Oh, that's easily explained, Andrew Somers wrote to our postmaster to ask if ho knew of anyone who would board his wife and daugnter for a few weeks. He said his .wife; needed a of air. Last time I was in'town Jim* told mo that he was in love with .lean Somers, but that her parents didn't like his over--311-job. When I heard of bis wife needing a. change of air, I got the germ of an idea. Jim watered it with his enthusiasm and it grew into a fully developed plot. The situation demanded audacious handling. I'm proud of Jim. (He'll go far." "He will. With such a father. Peter looked into his wife's eyes and smiled. He saw there, admiration and forgiveness. He patted her shoulder possessively. " And now. here's a letter xi'om y 0 '"" romantic' children. I waylaid the postman and kept it. back until I told you the news. Run off into the garden and laugh or weep over it as much as you like. I'm going to look up the timetable for the home journey. My! It 11 b® good to get back to the old cottage and the roses again won't it mother.?'-