A CHANGE AND A CHANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20930, 21 July 1931, Page 14

A CHANGE AND A CHANCE.

By L. G. MOBERLEY. Author of "A Year at the Outside." "The Voice," etc.. etc.

CHAPTER 'XlV.—(Continued.) The talk drifted to their house and surroundings, and presently lan asked idly: - " llow did you manago to get this Very delectable place ? A house like this isn't usually going begging." " The former owners left rather suddenly. They lost their son in Australia, and couldn't bear the place any more. Their name is Drummond —and they have gone to Rabley—the other end of the country. Their daughter-in-law turned up hero when she first arrived from Australia, very pretty woman, wasn't she. Eve?" " Ye-es, oh yes, she was pretty; but I didn't altogether like her, though it is very unfair to judge a person you have ©nly seen once."

" And the Denisons live not far from here?" lan's voice was deliberately unconcerned, but his astute sister once more pierced to the heart of the apparent unconcern, and the shadow of a smile' flitted over her lips. " About seven miles. They call here, as I told you. I liked them all. Mr. Denison is quite a dear, with a wife who is as much of a dear as he is himself; and Miss Denison, of course you know." She looked at her brother with maliciously twinkling eyes, but he evaded her glance.

"We tackled the Carstairs situation together, as well as we could," was his answer, " Mrs. Nestley was incapable of tackling any situation. Miss Denison had to bear all the burden and heals# of the day!" " She looked to mo capable of shouldering many burdens," Evelyn said heartily k "I am afraid you wouldn't find her even if you went over to her father's house. She is back in town."

Lan did not divulgo to his sister that Enid's town address lay safely in his pocket-book; but when two days later he was in London, he presented himself at the door of the flat shared by Enid and Hester.

Enid was alone, and seeing her in her home surroundings, lan was impressed more than ever by the gentle forcefulness of her personality; by that impalpable quality which for want of another name we call charm.

He plunged at once into the matter uppermost in his mind. " I understand that you have been cooperating with my sister and her husband over Mrs. Elmers' business," he said, " and as they have elected that now I am in England I am the proper person to see Mrs. Nestley, I am preparing to take a hand. The point is, will you help me?"

" Help you?" Enid was conscious how pleasant it was to see his brown face and its decision, conscious too of a sense of xelief in the thought that he had appeared, upon the scene at this psychological moment. " I warn, to ask whether you will pome with me to-day or tomorrow to see Mrs. Nestley," lan continued, "I honestly confess I shirk going alone. I am rather a coward about a woman's tears;" his eyes twinkled, "and I feel morally certain Mrs. Nestley will shed a few."

"A few is quite a moderate estimate," Enid laughed, " poor dear lady—her flow of tears 13 quite phenomenal. I never met anybody who could turn them on with such facility! Of course, I will go with you now, if you like. I am afraid you must be prepared for quite a fountain of weeping. What we have to tell her will be a great shock. lam sure she has not the slightest idea of the existence of poor little Christabel." . In every respect her certainty proved quite correct. The news they brought her came to Mrs. Nestley with the force of a very real blow; and for. several minutes after Enid had gently told her Christabel Elmers' story, she sat and sobbed weakly, in the small drawing room which, lan reflected humorously, was so very characteristic of her! There was an indeterminateness about the colouring of curtains and coverings; a feeble sentimentality in the pictures on the walls; a general lack of- anything coherent in the whole, which affected the artist oddly.

" It is exactly as if a jellyfish had furnished that drawing room," he said afterwards to Enid, " nothing in it had any particular connection with anything else; and the whole .place was totally devoid of. character.'"

" I can't make it out," Mrs., Nestley moaned feebly, as Enid and lan unfolded their story, "It all seems like a nightmare. Poor dear Harry! To think he was the victim of designing females." You mustn't begin to think of anything of the sort," lan said decisively, " Mrs. Elmers —as she has hitherto been called—bears not the faintest resemblance to a designing female. She is a very gentle, timid little creature; and if you will forgive me for saying so, she has been greatly wronged. The other woman "

" Yes, the other woman," Mrs. Nestley waved a very wet handkerchief in his direction, " you can't say she wasn't designing, if all you tell me is true—and she murdered poor dear Harry, my poor brother," sobs again choked her words, " I'm sure I don't want to say unkind things, but a woman like that deserves to be killed in a railway accident, though perhaps it's very wicked of me to say

" I don't think you need blame yourself for any hardness toward that particular woman," lan said quietly,she most emphatically deserved 'all she got. Don't let us waste time over her. We have to consider a living woman, and what can be done for her." " That won't need much considering." Mrs, Nestlv exclaimed, witl. a decision that surprised both her hearers, "my business .is to try and make up to that poor creature for all the wrong my brother did her. Why—she is my sister-in-law, isn't she ? It is my duty to look after her and besides —" her jumbled thoughts seemerl all at once to sort themselves—" surely, if she was Harry's wife, she must inherit all Harry's property ?" " That is so," lan answered; " 1 under stood from the French avocat, (hat by your brother's will his property was all left to his wife. And though it is not clear which woman he himself intended should benefit bv this will, it is quite plain that the property goes to his legal wife—living now under her maiden name —Christabel Elmers."

" I suppose." again her listeners were surprised by Mrs. Nestlev's unusual display of common sense. " I don't want to cavil, but -I suppose there is no doubt this lady really is the netson she represents herself to be?" " I think there can be no doubt," said Tan, " my brother-in-law has gone carefully into it all "

" If there is the sh'chfesf dnubt." Enid broke in, "it has iust occurred to me that my aunt, Mrs. Redesden, could make assurance doubly sure. T remember she told me that she had known Mr. Carstairs in India, and that she had known his wife there. Presumably the wife sho kn«w W95 ni,ristab£>l Elmers ?"

Mrs. Nestlev, still mopping her eyes, and at intervals, nodded her head in assent.

"If your aunt could see tho poor thing, ( and mako sure she is Harry's—(Harry's wife, I should feel happier,"

(To be continued daily.)

(COPYRIGHT.)

AN ADVENTUROUS STORY, FULL OF DRAMATIC EPISODES.

she said, " would it bo possible to do this, without offending the lady wo want to help?" " Quite easy," Enid affirmed, ' my aunt is in town now. I will ask Christabel to.come up to my Hat, and arrange a meeting—to-morrow if possible. I can phono to ' The Far Horizon,' and it ought lo lie quite easily worked. Enid was right, it was quite .easily worked. The following afternoon found Christabel sitting in a corner of Enid's couch.

No reason for her visit had been given to her. By lan's advice she was simply invited to spend the afternoon, and when the door opened to admit Mrs. Redesden. escorted by Tan himself, slie sprang to her feet with a little spontaneous cry, which at once brought conviction to Enid and Tan.

" Mrs. Redesden," Christabel went forward, "oh! seeing you is like seeing.the old life, and the old days. But why are you here ?" Mrs. Redesden took the outstretched hands, and drew the slight form toward her.

My dear 1 , it is good to see you again. I have so often wondered what became of you, when you left India so suddenly, and vanished into the blue. And I an® here because Enid is my niece, and she invited me to come round, fancying you and I might have met before. I knew Mrs. Carstairs in India before she married. and afterwards," Clare Redesden turned to her niece with a smilo, " wo are old friends, and it is good to meet again." " Then that's finally settled," lan said to Enid later on, when Mrs. Redesden had carried Christabel off with her, " now there is no doubt that Mrs. Harry Carstairs' future is secured,. I only wish '' "You only wish what?" Enid questioned, when he paused. " I only wish mino were equally secure," he answered audaciously, the look in his eyes expressing his meaning more clearly than his words.

But Enid refused to understand him. They were standing beside the window of her flat, after the departure of the other two—and she only laughed softly. " Your future is secure enough, Mr. Robertson," she said, " an artist of your capacity doesn't need to worry about futures." " I happen to bo a man, as well as an artist," he murmured, but Enid only laughed again, holding out her hand. " I am glad we have settled Mrs. Carstairs' for her," she said, " I must go off now to my I hope you will find that your future puts a;i A.R.A. after your name!'' • CHAPTER XV. REFLECTION S. Betty Drummond sat in her own sitting room, deep in thought. The room was in every respect charming. With loving care its every detail had been thought out by Mrs. Drummond when she had been preparing for the arrival of her daughter-in-law; and there was about it an air of comfort and homeyness, which would have appealed irresistibly to a woman of a different typo from the one who now sat staring straight in front of- her, gloom written upon every line of her lovely face. She hated it. She hated it all, that was her predominating thought. She loathed the quiet of the country; she neither admired nor liked the view across the garden which Mrs. Drummond had wistfully suggested she would find so restful and healing. " Pish," she exclaimed, giving a hearty kick to an unoffending footstool, " what do I want with rest and healing? Good Lord! This place will be the death of me. I wouldn't stay here another second, if it wasn't my only haven of refuge!'' she laughed a low and bitter little laugh, " Hilda Lancer descended to this!"

She glanced with distaste round the room, and as her glance rested upon the bookshelf, into which Mrs. Drummond had put books she felt sure " Betty " wouid like, the girl who looked at that row of books smiled scornfully. "Heavens alive! Fancy sitting down to read that bread-and-milk rubbish," she exclaimed, apparently addressing her remark to the photograph which stood on a small table near her, " I suppose I ought to be grateful to you, because your widow's death gave me my chance," she added, still apostrophising the photograph, " and—it was a way of escajje,'' there was a grudging note in her words, " but—oh! what a dull way!" She yawned—stretched, lifted her arms lazily above her head—then got up with an impatient movement. " I want life," she exclaimed with sudden vehemence, " life, colour, movement, not this stagnation, tiiis deadly stagnation. And I daren't go to any of the old haunts; I daren't even go to Flossie now—that devil may track me, if I go where I was known before."

Her thoughts flew back to the Marylebone Road and her encounter, of the previous afternoon, with that keen-faced man John Titheridge. The mere recollection of it —the mere memory of his grey eyes—cold, steady, inscrutable, made her heart beat queerly, even here in the security of her own room. Nowhere could she well be safer and moro secluded than here—in the Drummonds' peaceful home. The Outlook, , Rabley, offered a shelter which could not be equalled! Who was likely to search for her in this remote Surrey village'; here, where she was successfully playing the part of the devoted daughter-in-law to eminently respectable people ? " But is the game worth the candle—the dreadfully dull candle?" she murmured, as she began to pace the room restlessly, pausing now and again to look out at James Drummond's cherished delphiniums, arid the bed of tiger lilies that flamed orange against a background of green. " I don't think I can stick it much longer and yet——" And yet. Yes, that was just it—and yet—what was the alternative ?

She dropped back into her chair again, as her thoughts reached this point—and her face grew rather white.

'Unless, i could somehow altor my life a little, and still bluff things," her reflections hurried on again, " but—they would be .shocked," her shoulders went up in an irritated shrug, " these good people would be horribly shocked, if 1 began to go to riancos and night clubs " She chuckled under her breath, but bet eyes shone, "they are even a little bit shocked that I let Derek take me to a few quite deadly amusements, if you call them amusements! . . . Shall I marry Derek ?" the general thread of thought went on, " that would be anothei sale bolt hole, but—could I put up will; Derek day in day out. He is so worth', —but could I bear it?" She made a litt / grimace, and spread out her hands sigrr ficantly, " he's well off, I should be com fortabie, but—too well looked after,'" again she t;huckled cynically, " a golde cage, but sitill a cage."