THE MARRYING OF MARIETTE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21953, 9 November 1934, Page 16

THE MARRYING OF MARIETTE

By MAY WYNNE ~ • Author of " Henry of Navarre," " Gwennolo." " The. Barn," *tc., etc.

CHAPTER XlV.—(Continued)

"You ought not to cry, Mr. Troveen," he urged. " At Mardon House we're as happy as can be. I've inherited iny father's home and property. I'm a rich man and a happy one. My father lived a life he liked and married a woman lie loved. So I guess it's all good come out of a —mistake." Treveen dried his tears. u lf that's true, sir," he replied, " I, ought to go On crying, but they should be tears of joy.* I dare not speak of the past. My poor wife 1 ... I loved her, and she loved ine—Joved our, Jean. But the cursed gambling fever crept into her blood. She had bad friends —the worst of friends who persuaded her to tell me nothing, and when I knew tho truth I was-, poor and broken. 1. did what I could in writing to your father —I have dreaded to have his reply. And now hero you are with no word of blame for those you might curse —those whoye word you might refuse to take. How are you to know it was not my doing instead of my wife's? How are you to know thai; I did. not keep silence because of tho money, robbed from your father p" " Say," urged Roy, flushed and distressed, " you mustn't talk like that. I reckon tho past is buried out of sight. You and I are agreed there. If you don't want to hurt me you'll never, mention the matter again. I only came to assure you that good has come out of evil. As far as my grandfather goes; if he suffered, it was his own fault. He was too hasty to accuse and too obstinate to apologise. He had no right to let tho gulf widen. I don't speak like this to hia daughter, She's loyal and rightly loyal,' but —I can't just "forget, that iny father counted for years on receiving a message which never came. It stung him to be left—an outcast. Bulb my aunt tells me it was the popular story that Roger Carstone had been drowned at sea, so—it may have been only at the end of . life that the old man doubted what he had believed for years. Now, if you'll let me, Mr. Treveen, I'd be glad to stay the night and talk hack to the days when you and my father were college friends together. I am glad to hear and meet niiy father's chum."

Jean Treveen had risen from her lowly seat and while, the nifen talked, began to prepare a frugal meal. She was worried over the scarcity of food and slipped out presently to buy eggs and more bread. Roy-sprang up to take her purchases. " I'nd giving you more trouble," he said. " That's bad! How - can I help ? I'm some cook.?' The girl laughed. She had a pretty laugh with a sad little lilt in it. " There's not much'to cook," she replied. " We're—we're .not rich, < and father/has been ill. Doctors dftn't come for nothing, and, when I'm nursing father, I can't earn so much moneyi" • Elton Treveen would not allow much talk on the subject, and Roy guessed he feared hits daughter was hinting too broadly about poverty. -Aiid~ yet—a keen observer must have noticed a certain desperation in the girl—which she tried to check, and then allowed to appear,

Roy Carstone noticed —and pitied, >ut it was hard to know wliat to do. ' You'll have to come' arid stay at Harden House," he told them in the xioming when about to leave. 'You've been real good to roc and I [ike your Suffolk'' scenery. Will you et me come again and we'll fix for pou to spend Christmas with u'sP" Treveen shook his head, but Jean clapped her hands. "Oh, I'd love it," she cried. "It would be a real Christmas. ! Say yes, father. I know we should be happy." Her small face was quite radiant as she went to her father, standing bchihd: his chair, her arms about his neck. Roy took the picture away with him—the frail, nerve-wrecked cripple —a man who had found life hard and had grown a trifle bitter under tragedy—and the girl with her flowerlike beauty, her admixture of child and woman, smiling her gratitude to the stranger who had brought hope and peace of mind into a home where the shadows had lam so darkly, j "God bless you, Roy Carstone," had been Treveen's parting words, but .Jean had looked wistfully at the new friend. You will come'again?" sbe asked, and Roy had smiled his "comrade" smile into her eyes. "Sure," he replied, "and you shall show me the crumbling cliffs from which the church fell, and we will look for the town swallowed up by the sea near Dumvich. I'll sure look forward to my next visit." He knew he would, and he found himself thinking again and again of Jean Treveen —brave little Jean, nursing a sick father and planning how to make sixpence go as far as a shilling, while she knew her father at least would starve rather than accept charity. But —a Christmas visit would not be charity, and Roy told himself Mariette would be good to Jean —he could picture them together, and yet it suddenly occured to him in talking of Harden House and Aunt Agnes ho had never bo much as mentioned Mariette. " That's odd," he told himself. "How May would laugh. I'll have to tell Je.m all about her when I go next time to see the wonders of Suffolk. I guess Jean Treveen needs someone to help her —she's got a tough job, and I don't see how she is going to handle it alone." To his disappointment he did not find Miss Carstone taking kindly to tho idea of-having the Treveons for Christmas. The more he extolled them, the less willing she appeared. " It would be better to wait till you are married," she said, tartly. " I hope Mariette will be ready by the New Year. She does not like the thought of a Christmas winding."

" There's sure no hurry now we are engaged," urged Roy. "We can wait till the summer if May prefers it, and —I know she will like Jean. I'm set on having her and her father here for Christmas. That poor kid is half starved, and looks worried stiff —you should have seen her face light up when I asked her and her father to come along."

Miss Carstone said no more, but Iloy knew she was not pleased, and in his blundering way went to Marietto to learn the reason for it. But Marietta only laughed, mischievously, and would not say. After all, Aunt Agnes had no right to fear her nephew might fall in love with the one girl he had no business to fall in love with, and surely she ought to know that Iloy with Colonial views of hospitality would sooner or later, be asking her to throw open her doors to every "down-and-out " who happened to awaken his sympathy*

A POWERFUL MYSTERY ROMANCE

(COPT BIGHT)

Mariette herself had listened with interest to her cousin's description of •that cottage home, its daintiness and cleanliness, the crushed and broken man, the heroic little daughter, and was only too ready to promise friendship to Jean Trevfien. " 1 knew you'd feel like 1 do," said Roy, gratefully. ." She's a peach of a girl—and so are you." But his bear-like hug was quito brotherly in its affection, and Mariette was glad to sli,p away for a solitary walk. It was strange that, in Court Lane she should meet Oaptaip Jack Anford, /and if she could she would have turned.aside to avoid him, but he wished to speak, and had his way. " I was hoping to see you 1 , Miss Carstone," he said, with relief in his tones. " Vivienne is home, but she 's not at all well. I believe she wants to poo you, and—my brother is very anxious—very anxious—how can I put it?—that you should not help her in any way of which you feel he would disapprove. Do you understand?" Mariette paled. "You really mean," she replied, "that Sir Neville distrusts me,"

CHAPTER XV Marietta's words rang passionately and she repeated them as though to emphasise the truth. His " very embarrassment and hesitation seemed to label her as someone who had behaved in an underhand way —someone who was definitely not wanted at the Court. The protest in her speech evidently distressed her listener for ho raised his hand though to check the repetition. " You are unreasonable," he said in a low tone. " There is no question of distrust. I am merely a messenger from my brother who feels you ought to. be warned--against taking part in what you do not rightly understand. I wish to be loyal in thought and word to those I love, but it is a difficult tangle —and you, unfortunately, cannot read the riddle; and so, if"l'put it bluntly, may blunder —and regret." "It is very, kind of you," said Mariette, stiffly, whilst she fought down emotions which surged witnui. " I ought to bo grateful."

" And are not so," he retorted. "After all, you show me what a thankless task it is to be a go-between. If there is any further reference to this business, I hope—and sincerely hope—you will go to Sir Neville yourself. I decline to deal with it and am sorry I ever tried to help—or interfere as you call. it. If you would have allowed me, I should have explained that my interest lay chiefly, if not solely, m my fear for you; but now you have an adviser who will undertake my self-imposed task. I hope ,you will forgive me." Mariette was speechless. She could see the other was feeling hurt and resentful; his eyes were stern; he accused her —after she had accused him. It was she who ought to have apolo-. gized, but her lips refused to frame the words. She loved Captain Jack, and was engaged to Eoy Carstone. Oh! how glad she was to be engaged, since, most certainly, Captain Jack did not love her. Yet every word of that speech told of his thought for her; his vexation because of misjudging; his closing of a book. . . A book which she had never read and would, never now, be allowed to read. With an_ effort she rallied, aware he was waiting for an answer to a formal question.

" If you ask for my forgiveness it is yours," she said slowly, " though I have nothing to forgive. I thank you for . . . your interest. You are very kind. Please give my love to Vivienne, but —I shall not come to the Court."

He checked a hasty protest. " I wdl tell her," he replied. " She will be sorry, but no doubt your decision is best."

He had become formal again. Mariette did not hold out her hand, but, bidding a brief good-bye, turned back down the lane in an opposite direction to the one he was taking. She did not want to think.; she did not want to talk, but she did want to cry, vaguely aware that something very precious had been within her reach . . . and she had missed it.

The great old oak tree, known to the children as Merlin's Oak, made a splendid shelter—and the lane was lonely, Mariette leaned against the tree, her fare buried in her arms whilst great sobs shook her. It was the luxury of-woe, a revelling loneliness —with her misery complete;' 1 and how cruel it was that she should be interrupted. She had been so busv, telling herself that her life was wrecked, that she did not hear approaching steps and started violently when a voice said: "Miss Mariette!"

As she started back, her face all flushed and tear-stained, she felt she could have laughed at sight of Captain Jack's expression of horror. " You are ill?" he asked. " Why didn't you tell me? What can I do?"

He looked as if he wanted to say so much —and yet checked himself. Of course, he had to remember she was Roy's fiancee —and so stood, awkward, distressful, with large inquiry in his eyes. Mariette gave the most absurd of giggles—and hated herself for it. " You can't do anything," she replied. " I was behaving like a perfect idiot. Kn—knocking my elbow, and c—crying like a hurt baby. Don't sympathise, please, but laugh at the weakness of human nature, when its funny-bone is jarred."

.She knew she was talking nonsense and that he did not believe in her excuse, but he could see that she did not want .his help. So, raising his hat, he turned away, not even attempting to accept her paltry excuse. It was the honest thing to do, and yet Mariette blamed him in her heart for not having scouted her plea of a bruised elbow altogether, or else . . . helped on the illusion with stereotyped words of concern.

" He might have seen me home," she though bitterly. " He might have said he was sorrv. Oh, what a perfectly priceless dutter I am I Mariette, my girl, let me introduce you to the Miller of the Dee. Follow his example and be happy for. ' I care for nobody, no not I, and nobody cares for me!' ".

And that particular evening Miss Carstono noticed her nephew and niece were neither of them in the best of tempers, nor did she make it any better by talking about Christmas and—oh! the bathos of it—asking if they wished to stir, the pudding together, t;

Marietta made excuse at last and went up to bed, but not to sleep. She was terribly worried over Vivienne's return, deciding, quite vigorously, that as Aunt Agnes disliked her connection with the Court, it was her duty to leave that restless little friend of hers alone. After the meeting with Captain Jack she told herself, ve»y vehemently, that she did not want anything to do with the family at the Court. Roy was not quite himself, either. Occupied as she was with her own concerns she had noticed a change in him. He was more attentive to her than before ho went away, but the jolly smile, the gay comradeship, wero both lacking. More than onco this evening she had noticed him watching her, wistfully, and the thought came to her—was he falling in love and had he discovered how barren her heart was of love to give in return ? " Roy has gone to London to-day," Miss Carstone told her next morning at breakfast. "He is anxious to seo Mr. Legs, and I am glad. Thoy should have a talk." (To be continued daily)