SIMON IN LOVE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21876, 11 August 1934, Page 11 (Supplement)

SIMON IN LOVE

By L. C. DOUTHWAITE

CHAPTER Xll.—(Continued) That also, Simon was able to accept; neither in the tongue nor the life of the one concerning whom they spoke was there any discipline; her needs and thoughts broadcast always to the worldi- " Incidentally, I suppose they'd no idea you had anything to do with my escape?" he questioned. It brought him no reassurance that it was a moment before the little man replied. " I shouldn't wonder a bit," he said quietly at last. " An' if I may say so, that isn't because of anything either of 'em said._ It's that way I caught 'em lookin' at me. . . There was a queer pause. " That, and the bloke 'oos's bsen campin' on my trail all the time I've been in Plymouth," he addon Simon started. " How do you measi?" ho asked quickly "Trailing you?" " Trailin'," confirmed Cocky, "is right. Feller like a moon-faced rat; fat but ferrety, if you get my meanin'." " A detective?" Simon questioned level ly. " .Not a reg'lar 'busy,' sir. From one of them there enquiry agents, I should think ' Do you Know 'Ow You're Husband Spends 'His Spare Time?' an 1 all that. Inefficient bloke, 'im." The little man spoke with siuch unruffled confidence that Simon, whose trust in him at any time was considerable, began to feel a little cheered. " Ha didn't follow you here?" he suggested, and Cocky raised derisive eyebrows. " Me? 'Ere?" he exclaimed. " That feller couldn't've followed a steam-roller down a six-foot-wide lane unless the driver wore a crimson 'at. Why, bless your life, sir, soon as I got on to it 'o was try in' to trail me, I used to make bets with myself as 'ow many times I could lose 'im in one day. Seven was the record, an* every time' 1 got hack to my lodgin's, there 'e was, waitin' to start all over again. No, sir! You needn't worry about'm findin' Jon through me." So that was that; nevertheless Simon was not quite easy in his mind. He had hoped that, accepting his escape as defeat, they would leave him in peace.

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AN ENTHRALLING TALE OF MYSTERY AND ROMANCE

Cocky's voice broke in upon his thoughts. '* Ready to talk about that there job, sir?" he was saying anxioysly. Simon was. In that time of emergency the little man had proved himself as resourceful, as loyal, and as selfeffacingly ready to help as he had been even in the old days. " Quite," he said, " after, that, I've thanked you for jour help. . . . How do you farcy being a sailor, not without, your little 'bit of savings,' who's been ordered into the country for his health, willing to take a job if it's offered, but not worrying overmuch if nothing happens along?' There was the old sparkle in Cocky's eyes as he said readily: " Anything you say, from pitch-an'-toss to John o' Groats. What's the idea, sir?" Because of his reliance upon this perky little Cockney, except as to the oart that, even to himself, he had acknowledged only with awe and self-de-preciation, Simon had no hesitation in confiding those happenings of the last few days. To all of it Cocky listened with an interest and understanding characteristically exact The job, it appeared, was one entirely after his own heart. " You'll take rooms in the village of Charteris Magna—with the biggest gossip you can find," Simon instructed him. " You'll make friends with everybody. Spend part of each evening, at least, in the local pub. You'll be out for information, all the time and every time—and not a soul must have the glimmering of an idea of it —or that you know me from a hole in the ground. If you've anything to report write me tp the Dower House, arranging to meet me here." " I'll do just that, sir," Cocky assured him earnestly. CHAPTER XIII. The next day was Sunday; cloudless and fragrant. In the morning, following upon the previous day's hard manual labour of cleaning the pond, Simon wel-i corned the opportunity for putting in a spell of constructive thought.

In all his mental turmoil, only one thing was certain; due to neither fault nor defection of her own, the florid and disingenuous Julius Gordon had acquired such moral dictatorship over the lady of the Dower House as, in every action of the common day, to render her subject to his will. If, then, the last and most irreparable calamity of all was to be avoided, it was necessary to discover exactly of what that stranglehold consisted, and, having discovered, remove' it. And, except that in some way her duress was bound up in her love and care for Nobby, to this bo had obtained no hint at all. It was, then, how best that might be obtained that was his chief pro-occupation; once he had that, by hook or crook he would find the way out. His jaw set grimly at the thought of the satisfaction he would then extract from the blackmailer.

Who was this man, Julius Gordon, anyway? What had been his origin, and, before settling down as a too-highly-polished country gentleman, his record? Already it had occurred to Simon that information on those points might contribute toward that anxiously-sought objective; it was to this end he had enlisted the help of Cocky Withers. And now it came to him that this outside aid might profitably be reinforced Surely there was some method by which the career of that flamboyant man might bo traced Casting about in his mind, a name occurred to him. After the Armistice Tommy ltoyle, captain of D Company in the battalion, had taken a position with the firm of commercial inquiry agents of which his father was managing director. Though Simon had forgotten the name of that concern, and had no idea of Tommy's private address, he remembered that throughout his sojourn in Canada his friend had retained his membership of tho Savage Club.

Presumably, then, a letter addressed there would find him. There and then Simon set himself to writo one that should bo a very specifically worded document indeed. The nearest pillar-box was near the church in the tree-encompassed hollow about a mile away. It was about four o'clock when ho set off to jtost his letter. He had covered about half tho distance across the field path when, approaching from the direction of the church, two figures appeared. Una and Nobby, returning from the afternoon service.

Not until they were so close it was necessary for Simon to step from tho path to enable them to pass did it occur to him that this was the first time they had met in any but working

clothes, she in the periwinkle blue overalls that marched so delectably with her eyes, he in the ill-cut ready-mades of Cocky's provision. But now, despite that his sun-and-cojd hardened features were too irregular for more than wholesomeness, the London-made Glen Urquhart, whose absence from his cabin had contributed proof of his default, proclaimed him what for so many generations the Forrestiers had been. Una, in a summer fabric fashioned by no unskilled artist, and of the shade with which he had come to identify her, a cornflower hat throwing into relief the eyes below its tiny brim, and the glory of burnished hair it crowned, was the gracious and lovely patrician that nature had fashioned and her own fastidiousness perfected.

" I should have thought," she said, a smile in her eyes, " that you'd have had all the exercise you needed —with that pond?"

Ho smiled back at her. "A man must see something of the district ho works in," he protested. " Especially," ho added, " if he wants to mail a letter."

" Have you seen tho church yet?" gravely inquired Nobby, resplendent in black coat and vest and linen collar There was something in the ,boy's voice —a lessening of his usual reserve, as if of tho throwing open of somo closel.v guarded inner chamber of his mind, that led Simon to suspect the question was no idle one. Ho saw, too, in the quick glance Una cast at the boy, before, as quickly, sho looked away, that her sparkle of a moment ago had faded. " Not yet,'' Simon said, and in ths pause that followed was a certain expectancy. Then.

" Would you like me —us —to show is to you—now?" Nobby said, not so much eagerly as one who, faith in tho ono to whom he speaks having become established, warmly and generously displays his treasures. As well as that acceptance would mean an extension of this—this nearness to her, in face of whatever gift the boy was offering, to have rejected that guidance would have been to the last degree ungracious. " If there is one thing 1 should like," ho replied, with quick sincerity, " it is just that." Even then he saw that, however infinitestimally, Una hesitated, so that he know she would have given much not to have been returning to the church. '

There was about the interior of that squat towered Norman church the beauty, as there was the austerity, of a gift passed down through ages of loving tending. The pews and pulpit

of carved oak bore the sublimation of four hundred years; the brasses, of which there were many, most caret u 11% nrcscrved; the font a huge stone, shaped and - hollowed, that had been used at the consecration of the original edifice nine hundred years ago. Accustomed as for so many years he had been to undeveloped and uncharted country, confronted with this monument of tradition and age-old endeavour, Simon was possessed ot tlio same sense of heritage that had seized upon him at his first view of the Dovier House. And it was revealed to him, then, how splendid a background had the overseas Briton. For while this was the only part of the Old Country be had seen, from what he had tead, as from those Scots and by whoso side he had fought in war and in peace had worked and traded, ho was able to realise that the Celtic ramparts of this motherland were not less hallowed than this tiny stronghold ot Ked °With the knowledge of what, through the centuries, the men and the sons or tho men of this land had done in those far-off places they had made their own, the breed who in ice and simoon, swamp and desert, had fought and laboured and died, " so that their sons might follow after," how they had brought peace where before had been | no peace; by the alchemy of sacrifice transmuted famine into plonty and pestilence into health; freed the slave and punished the oppressor, for the sacred places of his heart he g a^ e (.hanks that this motherland could be " proud of her 6eed." "Finel" Simon said quietly, and realised in Nobby's intent regard something of especial urgency; saw that Una, standing a little in the background, was looking with equal uvtentuoss at Nobby. It was tho boy who was the first to move off, and though ho lingered politely while Simon paused to examine anything of especial interest —tho quaint wording of ancient tombs or ono or other of tho brasses —it was, apparent how little at the moment these meant to him . At the south-east corner of the church was a tiny Lady Chapel, and to this, directly, Nobby led them with Una's customarily light footsteps curiously halting. Tho moment that, preceded by Nobby, he crossed the threshold, Simon understood why the lad had shown such eagerness to have him hoie lfc was tho shrine of his forefathers. Here and there about tho walls were tablets to those who had fallen in former wars. Rodger Bower, Cornet of Horse, killed at Corunna; Captain Nicholas Bower, loth Foot, at Water-

loo; Colonel Nicholas Bower, Ist Grenadier Guards, at Inkerman; Lieutenant Rodger Bower, 24th Regiment, at Isandlwana; Major Rodger Bower, Black Watch, at Magersfoontein. Above, bathing the tiny flower-bedecked altar in subdued refulgency, was ft stained-glass window, modern, but of beautv and dignity —an armoured knight, casque and broken sword at his feet, gauntleted hands crossed upon the breast, the countenance, ctherealised by suffering, upturned. With his first sight of it, something that had been stirring in Simon's memory came to life Bunty's reference to the boy's father that first day at the Dower House, " there's a winder an n brass plate to him at Charteris Regis Church that'll tell you all about him. He went over so that he might read the inscription.

To tho Glory of God and in Proud and Loving Memory of Major William Carless Bower, D.5.0.. M.C.,

4th-3rd Batt. Royal south Devonshire

Regiment, Who foil at Yprcs, July 1, 1916. This window was Erected jointly _ by His Brother Officers and the Parishioners of this Church. " Pro Ariset Focis."

On the point of moving away Simon cast a side-glance at Nobby—arid know there was nothing he could put into words that would be adequate. For whereas customarily Nobby s expression carried the rather aloof impersonality that is the imprint of tho English Public School, now he was as one transfixed; eyes shining, lips halfparted; he was oblivious of the church, Una, Simon —everything but what was represented by the sacrificed figure silhouetted against the window ot purple and silver and gold at which so absorbingly he was gazing. In that brief instant the inner temple of the boy's life was unveiled, and that holy of holies tho memory of his father; never in his life had Simon seen such adoration as shone now from the soul of that dead soldier's son. And to Simon that he should have been given this glimpse into the sacred places was the greatest tribute that ever had been paid him. It Was an instant only before, once more, the veil was drawn. When, turning away, he spoke, the boy s voice was deliberately casual. " Rather decent, don't you think t he said. , ' .. Instinctively Simon knew that if ever again that veil whs to be lifted _ for him, now he must strike the one right note. And, because he was finding such difficulty in selection, it was a moment before he spoke.

(To be co&tinued next week)