Held in Bondage

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11933, 13 September 1924, Page 13

Held in Bondage

By

DOROTHEA CORBOULD

Author ol ' Loyal Hoar it, * “A faihio Sin, “ is., &«. ICOPYRIGBTJ

CHAPTER Xlll.—Continued. “And you say the Everard Erlinghama know of my being here and are looking for me! Oh! you will tell them, won’t you and take me awayp” clasping her handis together supplicatingly. “You can’t think how much I have suffewad hewel I must get away! I must! —I would have gone long ago while my stepmother was away-—only I have no money—and she has 'taken all my trinkets from me—to keep them for me she said, till I came out. —so I have nothing to sell—besides, Morgan was ndt my friend then, as she is now—and she could have stopped me. I am not very brave!” Sir Christopher leaned forward and took the two little trembling handle in his. “I think you have been very brave, ’ he Said, “to have home so much—but why did you not come forward when the Everard Erlingbams were at the Abbey ? They would have taken , you away—” “Because I dared not I my stepmother would have killed me! I know she would 1 she could easily have shut jne up in that secret room and left me there to die—ahe would have'dope it that tim« you came to the north wing only Morgan rescued me. My stepmother is a wicked woman. I—l can’t forgive her or make excuses for her, though I know I ought to do so, but you are not her friend—you said so, if you had been, I should have told you nothing. “There is another person I am afraid of—you may know him —Mr Lessingtoa— ’’ Sir Christopher started. “I can remember how I always hated him when he came to the Abbey before my dear father died —and Daddy hated him too —oh if you only knew how full of terror 1 am when I think of those two! They wish me dead, I know, though I cannot imagine why ” “Well, I can tell you that. You are a great heiress. Your stepmother comes ipto your fortune if you die, and she has already had the spending of the I money since you were supposed to I have been drowned. Your father left you all your .mother’s personal property —you' are a very wealthy young lady indeed!’’ PhylJis gazed at. Sir Christopher ip Speechless amazement. “Why—she told: me my father left me nothing, ’’ she gasped, “and that I was entirely dependent upon her charity. J hare written several times to Mr Mitchell, hut never had any reply. I don’t believe he ever got my letters.’’ “I am sure ho did not. But now everything will come right. I shall let Mitchell know to-night that you are here—and that ho must come and fetch you • away hefore Mrs' Erlipgha.ro returns >” “Oh, but do you think he will?” Phyllis’s face took its old. terrified look—she drew her hands away from the firm clasp in which they lay—and covered her face with them—“if she finds out—she will kill me! I know she will—it is the money— ” and Phyllis’s overwrought feelings found vent in a burst of tears. “Don’t cry I—for heaven’s sake, don’t cry—my—Miss Erlingham—if vou do, I shall certainly do something desperate—for I can’t bear to see women weep! Come, don’t let such gloomy thoughts mar this lovely morning. We must talk of all the delightful things you are going to do when you get away from here. I shall write to 'Mrs Everard, too, at once. They are compresently—only they had to go firpt to Brighton as a blind—then is a detective at the inn, looking out for you,” with a laugh. “I must walk down there presently and tell “jo g e b kina to keep a watch on the Abbey while you are there—he is a host in himself—and he is very disappointed at not succeeding in his guest for you—he tried to get into the north wing one day by pretending he wanted to buy an oak chest Mrs Evert'd had seen there—but Mrs Erlinoham wouldn’t let him—consequently he stays on in the neighbourhood, waiting for a favourable opportunity to enter the Abbey. I say, I must bo going! it’s your lunch time, isn’t it?” “I—l don’t know—l have my lunch any time while I am out here. Morgan lays it in the morning room, and l I feel quite grand sitting there, instead of the gloomy north wing. Perhaps—if Morgan said you might— you would come and have some, too, with me? I’ll go and ask—no, Binkie, you must stay here. I’m afraid to let you come with me.” • A moment later," and Phvllis was gone—leaving Sir Christopher to struggle with Binkie, who was backing and wriggling in bis arms in frantic efforts to follow her. “True to your first love, old chap, I Bee,” was his comment. “Well, if all goes well, you’ll spend the remainder of your days with her—and me, too—for you helped me to find her.” , In about five minutes Phyllis ro _ turned. “Morgan says you can come,” she exclaimed delightedly. “She thinks it will he quite safe if you don’t mind not smoking—because we have a woman m the kitchen who is deaf, and very stupid, but she might be able to smell tobacco smoke, Morgan says, and that would 'be awkward, perhaps, as wo have no man about the place. Do you like cold chicken and apple turnover.” “Do I not?” was the reply. "It ib my favourite lunch. I am in luck today!” It was a delightful meal they had in the pleasant room which used 1 to be the nursery, and was now called the morning room, having been used by Phyllis and her brother in their holiday time —and each moment Sir Christopher grew more desperately in love with his ideal, and found her even more charming than he hadl dreamed. For, with this new friend, and the Fair prospect of the future which his discovery of her was to bring to reality, Phyllis became her former light-hearted self, and let him see her beautiful childlike mind which no contact with the world had spoiled—her . interest in everything he told her, of his travels and adventures —all her remairks showing that she was intelligent and exceedingly well read upon all subjects, a charming companion, utterly devoid: of all those feminine efforts to attract 1

which rob the present day girl of her power to touch the better part of roan’s nature, and win his best and truest affections. Morgan had not, at first been very easy to win over to give her consent to a visitor to !unoh—-out reflection told her that Sir Christopher peering might be the friend Phyllis was in need of, and that by his means, the latter might gain her liberty, and after all there could be no chance of Mrs Erlingham finding out anything about it, and there was certainly a chance that others would, who could deliver the girl from her stepmother’s clutches, and reinstate her in the world 1 . So Sir Christopher was made welcome, Morgan unearthing a bottle of sparkling Moselle for his special delectation —and when before he left he a6ked to see her, and slipped a five-pound note into her hand, with a low-toned request that she would take particular care of Miss Phyllis and see that no harm came to her till she could' be got away from the Abbey, she reflected with a' chuckle of satisfaction that she was not coming' off so badly as her charge’s friend 1 and protector. “But though t'other one give me a sovereign, and this one hadn’t give me nothin’,” she muttered, “I’d ha’ done what he told me, for he is a gentleman born, anyone can see that —an’ he’ll be a friend, to Miss Phyllis, an’ more, if looks can be trusted)! so the mistress had better look out!” What happy days, were those that followed, for tlve poor prisoner of the north wing!—she would always think of them as “heavenly days that cannot die”—dawning after the dark night of her lonely captivity, r full of light and sunshine. Sir Christopher always managed to coir.e over with 'Binkie some time during the' day, and the two would sit and talk, and he heard all atone Phylis’s life at the ecu vent, • her homecoming to her father’s funeral, and after that, her second journey io England when Morgan brought her to the Abbey, and she was shut, up in the north wiug, a prey to melancholy and despair. Then the man would speak to her of tho future so different from what she had feared —painting her lifa m rosy colours, and promising her' an amount of happiness that would blot out for ever the misery of the past, while the girl sat and listened, her evea fixed upon the handsome fa'co of this new friend—a face whioh spoke of truth and honesty—and to.ld her that she could trust and confide in him '—a face which filled her thoughts and caused its owner to occupy a very- important place in her girlish dreams—as her hero and her ideal. And then, when her hopes were highest and her happiness complete—, came the bolt from the blue! CHAPTER XIV. It was a lovely morning in. early September—the air soft as summer breezes, the sky ’ ’so cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,” a day when it was good to be alive—and Phyllis Erlingham, pacing np and down the Monks’ Walk, felt a happiness she had never felt before in all her nineteen years. Gone was the despair in her heart, gone the fear of the future to be spent beneath her etepmothor’3 rule—gone the terror of an unknown influence working against her which had made existence such a burden. Today Sir Christopher was coming with tows' of the Everard Erlinghams and Mr Mitchell, who would, he knew, reply, to his letters by return cf post, if they did not immediately set off for Cransraoor—which was the more likely possibility. Then she would to free —oh what words could tell the rapture at the thought, whioh made her feel as if she must dance and sing with the joy which filled her being. She had" chattered away to Morgan all breakfast time of the wonderful things she meant to do when she was her own mistress—of the happy times which Sir Christopher had described so graphically, and in which no thought of her sbepipother intruded to spoil the picture. Morgan’s amazeinch t had been as great cs her own, when tho girl told her of the big fortune whioh would be here on her coming of ago. “And all the time I thought I was living on my stepmother’s charity,” Phyllis said, “but she will have to give me hack all the pretty things my dear father gave me, and Sir Christopher tod me that those lovely emeralds she was wearing the evening of the dance were really mine—think of it, Morgan, jninel” “Yes. I’m thinking of it all, Miss Phyllis, and it don’t sound reasonable as the mistress’ll give up that money an’ all them things without a struggle. I do hope as they’ll get you safe away before she hears anything—there’ll be ‘the devil to pay an’ no pitch hot.’ as the old say in’ is—if she do!” “Yes. that is what'frightens mo, hut when I told Sir Christopher, he said that she couldn’t touch me now. because he would take care of me till the Everard Erlinghams and Mr Mitchell came, and they may arrive to-day, or at least to-morrow. We shall both of us to out of the way when. Mrs 'Erlingham arrives here on her surprise visit to see if I am safe.” “Well—l don’t know about me ” Morgan was beginning, but Phyllis went to her side and put both her arms round her neck. “You don’t mean to say you are not going to stay with me, Morgan, you unkind old thing 1” she exclaimed. “Why. I couldn’t do without you, and I’ll make them pay you double what you have now. and when I have my money for ihy very own, you shall have that five thousand- pounds you refused to take from my stepmother to shut me up in that secret room and leave me there—l told Sr Christopher about that, and he said he quite loved you for it. I was rather jealous of you, Morgan.” “Go along, Miss Phyllis 1 you wasn’t nothin’ of the kind! so don’t come round me with your Irish blarney. But if you want me, I’ll go to the world’s end with you—not for the money, but because I never oared for nobody in all the wide world, except my poor sister, as I do for you—an’ I’ll serve you faithfully, never fear, Miss Phyllis, as I’d do if you was really poor like we

thought you was. JjwT I’m a bit uneasy like. I dreamt last night of my husband, which is always unlucky, and there was a windin’ sheet in the camdle.” “Oh, you horrid old croaker! .Don’t try to make me frightened when I feel bo happy and when you’ve washed and ironed my blouses so beautifully, because we are going to settle everything this morning, Sir Christopher and l—and I’ll tell you all about it while 1 have my dinner.” (To be continued.)