THE STOLEN DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 20

THE STOLEN DAY.

I' A NEW ZEALAND STORY.

] By NORMA CRAIG.

'Andrew Somerville stepped out on to tho verandah and stood looking down into the misty bowl of the valley where the township lay. The world seemed asleep, except for himself And the early wakening birds. Then suddenly, froni somewhere within tho house came the clear tones of a girl's voice raised in eager questioning. " Isn't that car coming yet, father?" No, dear, it's late." "Jim must have slept in for once," 'Anne Somerville said, coming to tho door and looking down also in tho direction of the township. "Is tfhe bag ready, dear?" Andrew asked. " Yes, strapped and ready, but I can't lift it. "Of course not! Don't try. 111 come in for it now." He disappeared into the house, to roturn presently with a large leather bag, which ho carried out to tho gate. Anno followed him, issuing her final instructions. I " Now, don't forget, father! Collars in the right-hand corner, handkerchiefs in the left.' Your spare studs are in tho small pocket in tho lid-three of them. When they are all lost, goodness knows what you'll do. . Wire mo for some more, I suppose. It would never enter your dear head t<f buy any for yourself. Would it now?" ' Anne's voice was teasing but her eyes were tender. " Oh'and, father !" But Andrew bent down and kissed tJie next? words quiet on her lips. ' " Now look here, Anne-girl, ho said, laughing softly, "you're not to go bothering yourself about me.. llt oe all right. I'm not a nowly-iledged chicken, you knoW." „ . " No, but you're a very absent-minded man, and I hate the idea of you going off there by yourself. I ( Wish now I'd arranged'to go with you. A great white service-car had come roaring up the hill and was pulling, up before the Somervilles' gate. Andrew kissed Anne and took his place beside the driver. "Look after him, won't you, Jim . Anne asked of the smiling youug man behind .the wheel. " He's all the family I've got, you know." She stood and watched tho road long I after the car had disappeared. ' Two years ago, when triple disaster had come upon Andrew Somervillo in the death oi his wife, the loss of his money, and the breaking down of his health, he had taken Anne from a city college and set her down in that rural corner of New Zealand, to keep house for him. Anno had adapted herself easily to tho new conditions. She was ono who accepted life with philosophical cheerfulness. And it sometithes, she thought longingly of things x beyond the encircling hills, those thoughts gave her neither lasting unhappiness nor discontent. He father, rising like a shining peak out of the cloud of his troublo, became a wise and enlivening companion for her. Anne looked after the chickens and the bees, the flowers and the y e 8?~ tables, while Andrew spent most of Ins time in an old shed which had been fitted j up as a workshop. He had considerable inventive genius, and the quiet mode of living gave him opportunity for experiment. He had just perfected a new braking system for motor-cars, and the present trip had been planned in order that he might put his invention before those city men whom he believed would bo interested. Anne, surging with pride and tenderness for him, went reluctantly back into tho house, and stood before the kitchen sink, which was half-filled with unwashed breakfast dishes. The thought of orchnary duties suddenly irked her. She looked up through the curtained window and saw the stream glistening as it ran through the trees at the foot of the paddocks. l»e----yond the stream stood the bush, from whicli the leaf-plumes of the rimus seemed to lift beckoning fingers. The earth called softly with tho voifce of'the temptress. Anne went to the door and. stood there in the full glare of the morning sun. A new thought had given her sudden excitement. Comfortable Edith Messenger had promised to come up from the township to stay with her' during her father's absence, but she was not due until the evening, and here was a whole day before her, almost untouched ; a day beautiful as heaven and vibrating'with music, waiting with soft beating heart for her. She slipped her apron off her shoulders and left it, a discarded blue heap, upon the floor. She was going to steal this day, beautiful as heaven, and run away with it into the bush/ 1 ' - , „ ~, For an hour she wandered through the bush, sometimes 'wading in the stream, sometimes pushing her way along old, overgrown cattle-tracks where the " bushlawyers " hooked their scratching fingers in her skin, and tho supplejacks hung low festoons to trap her feet. She listened to the plaintive warbling of tho riri-riros, , and frightened a wood-pigeon from his morning feast of fuchsia berries. The sound of moving water drew her on, and she entered a rocky grove where a waterfall tumbled noisily into a wide, deep pool. 1 Here she sat down. apd watched fantails chasing blue moths over the water. A' faint cry wakened her from daydreaming. She sprang to her feet and stood, hand to throat, peering curiously about. Someone else must be near her in the/ 7 grove. Presently the cry was _ repeated, louder and more urgent. Ihe falling water seemed to catch the sound and break it into a thousand echoes, but each echo rang with that note of urgency. She moved quickly about the grove, watching and listening for the author of the cry. Beside a large, round boulder she found him—a young man, lying upon the ground with a great stone across- one leg. Beside him, scattered about on the stones, were a rod, a creel, a net, and other, articles of an angler's paraphernalia. A look of relief leapt to those blue eyes as she hurried toward him and knelt, peering anxiously into his face. lie looked back at her with a little twisted smile on his lips. , "Dashed careless!" he muttered, moving His head restle'ssly with pain. "Slipped with my last cast. . • think I vo. . . broken my leg." r 1 " It's that stone," Anne said, rising and surveying tho stone with speculative eye. She set her feet carefully and firmly among tho stones and braced her body for an ordeal of strength. She knerw that she must make a mighty effort and sustain it until the stone rolled away. It would be dreadful if she could lift it only so far and then have to let it drop again on to that crushed leg. " Just shut your eyes and pray for me," she said, smiling encouragingly down at the tortured man. But he neither shut his eyes nor prayed. He had already delivered himself up into the keeping of the gods. Through half-closed lids ire lay and watched Anne, working with her )>.uug muscles for his deliVerance. Through the overruling sense of pain he was aware of the fineness at the heart of her. Gradually the cruel pressure lifted. Anne's face was scarlet and shp' was breathing labourcdly, but the stone did not fall back. It went gradually tipping away, to fall presently with a great splash into the pool. /' There!" s'lie gasped, throwing up her head with a gesture of triumph. " Now I'll have to—" But she was speaking to unconscious cars. - When the young man opened his eyes again Anne was bending over him, "iril bo . . . all right . . . now," he said hoarsely. " What kind fate .' . . sent you . . . here ?" " Not fate. Just the lure of tho morn4. Jng." "I'aee. I suppose I might have lain j: Skttra , , , for days."

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" Yes, you probably would. Not many peoplo roam about in this bush." " Only . . . trespassing anglers . . . and ministering . .. . angels ?" " I'll have to go and get'help for you," she told him. " Can you keep up your spirits a whilo longer? I'll bo as quick as 1 can." " 1 think so. Now that I don't feel so utterly abandoned, but—l say! awfully sorry to have spoilt your day." "Oh, poof!" Anne said deprccatingly: " Jt was a stolen day anyway," she added.

An hour afterwards the young man, who gavo his name as Bryan Mason, was lying between the whito sheets in Andrew Somervillo's room- Anno was moving quietly about the house, attending to the dixies from which she had that morning run away. Comfortable Edith Messenger, summoned hastily from the villago, was waiting upon the doctor with the capablencss of a country woman who had brought up many children. For weeks Bryan Mason stayed there, an enforced but welcome guest, and between .him and Aune there grow up a delightful friendship. She would slip into his room at all hours of the day, and sit on a low chair by tho window, sometimes with a basket of fruit in her lap for peeling, or sometimes with a bowl of peas to shell for dinner. In the clays of convalescence Bryan tried to help her with theso tasks, but his unaccustomed man's fingers proved inept. Anne would chido him gently for his clumsiness in spilling the peas. And Bryan loved to hoar her. Ho would smile to himself and wonder what she would think if she knew that the spilling of them was not always accident, but a ruso to keep her longer by him. Anno would talk as she worked, telling him of those things which she knew and loved in the fields and in the bush, unconsciously revealing to him the core of her philosophy, which was tho belief that beauty was at the heart of all God-made things. Bryan too would talk when the mood was upon him, but he talked always of generalities. Anne learned nothing about him except that he was a young Englishman, travelling through New Zealand, partly for business and partly for pleasure. She respected his reserve and refrained from asking questions. But on one subject he invited and satisfied her questions, and that was —England! Ho soon learned the fascination that the very word held for her, and he in his turn was curious to know why. " But you weren't born in England, were you ?" Bryan pressed. " No. I was born in New Zealand, and both my parents were born here. I'm thoroughly colonial. But still, I love—-I adore England. Is it so very strange 7" " No, perhaps not. Your forbears were English, and English blood is a persistent fluid." He took her hand as she stood there at tho side of his bed, and looked into the firm, crinkled palm. ' " I haven't, told you before," he said, tracing a line wifh his forefinger, " but I'm something of a mystic. I foretell. A —well, a sort of palmist. Shall I translate these lines fof you ?" Anne laughed gaily. " Well, you can if you like, but I won't promise to believe you." " That's often the lot of a prophet. Time will prove me right or wrong. See this x line here—this long, straight line? That's a journey—perhaps to England. And these"? Ah! A new home with lovely gardens . . . and a title . . and one, two, three, oh! .lots of children . . . and one who loves you very dearly." Anne snatched her hand way and moved toward tho door. The weeks passed thus in happy companionship until Bryan's leg grew better, and he could , find no for staying longer. The great white service car came roaring up the hill again to stop at the Somervilles' gate. Again Anne stood and watched the road long after it had disappeared, and she suddenly hated it, because she knew that it had taken from her one who had set up within her heart the bright and burning star of love. * # * * * Anne was sitting at twilight down in the shadow (of the trees that fringed the stream. The air was warm and fragrant with the scent of wild flowers and the incense of the trees. A few belated birds twittering sleepily in tho branches made chorus with the waters of the stream. Then, gradually working its way into Anne's senses, there came a new sound — the swish, swishing-as of feet pushing their Uay through long, dry grass. Someone was astir in tho paddoA beyond the trees. Presently she heard a voice calling her name. " Anne! Anne! Little hiding Anne!" Bryan Mason had come back and was searching fpr her beside the stream. He found her there in the shadows and went to her with words of love tumbling from his lips. The pain of the last three weeks evaporated before the warmth of Bryan's tender'ness. Anno did not ask why he had left her without a word of love; did not question him as to his doings; it was sufficient that he was there, holding her in his strong arms. " I ran your father to earth in Auckland,".Bryan told Anne presently.

She came down out of her new heaven for awhile to answer him.

" Oh, Bryan! I'm so glad. Is he well ? Is the invention a success ? He doesn't tell me anything at all definite in his letters." " He's well— But, I'm afraid, about to lose heavily." , "Oh, how? Do you mean—the invention ?" " No." % " What then ?"

" His daughter." " Oh."' Anne rippled out the word on a wave of happy laughter. " There's something I want to toll you, Anne." Bryan said with a new note of soberness in his voice. " I wonder how you will like it." " I don't know. Is it very dreadful ?" " No—not exactly dreadful." It's about myself." " Well, I love you, so I don't suppose it will make any difference. But what is it? Are you an escaped convict or something ?" " No," he laughed. " But I'm not Bryan Mason —at least, not quite." " Oh ! Who are you ihen ?" " Sir Bryan Mason-Wentworth." Anne gave a startled gasp and her body stiffened in his arms. "Is it so very dreadful, little Lady Anne?" " Please don't —don't call mo that." "Why not? You will havo to get used to it, as my wife." " Oh, but I couldn't ever bo a lady," wailed Anne. Bryan's laugh rang out delightedly through the quiet air. " But you're a lady now, dear. A sweet and lovely lady. Besides you remember I prophesied a title for you. Oh, Anno, you said you loved mo and' that nothing else mattered." " I—l know—but " Anno, in a panic, sought frantically for reasons with which to label her confusion. . There's father, you know," she said in a small, strained voice. " I can't possibly leave him, he's so dreadfully absentminded about things." " What a poor, littlp, lame, hackneyed excuse," Bryan teased. " There'll be "no need to abandon your, father. He's coming to England with us." " But—but ho has tfb money—'and—" " He'll havo money soon. The invention is a success. I'm backing it myself, but it needs a larger market than the colonies, so we'll take it to London. Now, are you going to invent any more excuses for not marrying mo? I warn you, I can dismiss them all —all except tho one that you don't really lovo mo. Are you going to advance that one, Anpe? Are you?" But Anne, in all honesty, could not.