Untitled

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15772, 24 May 1913, Page 2

[Published by Special Arrangement.]

CLEANSING-JFERES,

% L. 0. MOBERLY. Author of "In the Balance," "Christina," " Hope, My Wife,'' " Violet Dun. 6tan," etc., etc. (Copyright.) CHAPTER XIV.-A CHANGE OF AIR. The days had slipped into weeks, the weeks into months/and by the beginning of August little Betty Clevedale wus slowly recovering from the effects of her long and wearisome illness. True she was still a mere shadow of her farmer self—a little wan white shadow whose brown eyes seemed too big for her face, whose mouth dropped pathetically at the corners, whose whole aspect seemed to have altered since Martin Holdsworth came to her in the riverside cottage to tell her of her young husband's death on that far off April day. Whilst she watched her baby play beside her tbere, she had sung gay'little songs, even though she had been faced by poverty and had battled gallantly to make difficult ends meet. But in those days she had baked at poverty with a brave and gallant smile, because she was so sure she was helping Denis in his upward struggle. Her faith in him had never for an instant wavered or faltered. She had both loved him and believed in him with never a shade of doubt or questioning. But after his death, as she slowly gathered together her broken forces, as she was tenderly nursed back to health in Denis's home, she realised bit by bit that her faith had been wrongly bestowed, that the Denis of her dreams, the Denis she had almost worshipped, was in no sense the real Denis at all. That cruel overthrow of her faith had retarded her recovery far more than anyone guessed, excepting perhaps the nurse who tended her so long and lovingly. Margaret had pieced together words spoken by the girl in her moments of delirium; and could at least partially account for that lethargy and continued weakness which so puzzled the medical men. She dimly understood that it was not physical weakness only which sapped Betty's strength, but that sickness of heart and the bitterness of disillusionment hindered her from even wishing to take up the burden of life again. Denis had posed as a poor man; this was the haunting thought in Betty's heart. Denis had allowed her to think he was working hard to keep the wolf from the door, whilst all the time there was no wolf to be kept away, there was no struggle in his life, no difficulty to be feared. He was the only son of rich parents, who had been ready to indulge his every whim. And he had deceived both them and her with deliberate deception which was as aimless as it was cruel. Why? Why? Why had he deceived them all, that gay and debonair yonng husband of hers, who had seemed to her the very idea! of all that was best in a man? The problem swung itself to and fro in her brain all through those summer days, when she lay said and listless in the big bedroom, filled with the fragrance of the roses that grow on the wall; and in those later days of summer when she was carried out to lie on her couch on the lawn, and watch her brown-eyed baby clutching at the daisies with his dimpled hands, the same question reiterated itself ceaselessly in her mind. Why had Denis done it? Though she and Margaret had become close friends; though she and her mother-in-law tad drawn very near together during the days of her illness and convalescence, she breathed no word to either of them of the misery that possessed her soul; and she was unconscious of her own delirious words which had given M'argaret at least a partial clue to the situation.

" She would be better right away from her present surroundings," the tall nurse said to the old doctor, when he and she had left Betty's side and were alone in the morning- room. "Sir James and Lady Clevedale are overwhelming heT with kindness they cannot do enough for her, and yet, I believe she would be better away from them, away from this house, away

from every association with her husband's past. Shu has utterly lost heart; she will never get it back unless some new thoughts, some new interests can lie given her." Dr Barrow nodded, and looked thought, fully into Margaret's beautiful anxious face.

" There is something I don't understand in the whole business," he said slowly, "that poor pretty child ought to havo vitality enough to be picking up strength by now, even taking into consideration the terrible shock she has sustained. You havo some theory to account for her condition," the old man added suddenly, his shrewd eyes meeting Margaret's grey ones fullv.

" She has no heart to get well," Margaret said after a perceptible pause, " it would not be fair to her to say more—because —all my surmises are . baaed upon what the poor child said when she was unconscious. But, she has lost heart; she lias lost faith in human nature. What we have to do is to give them both back to her." The grey eyes looked squarely into the doctor's brown ones, and for a moment there was silence in the little Toom. Then Dr Barrow pnt his hand on the tall nurse's shoulder.

" I begin to get a elimmering of what is wrong," he said thoughtfully, " and we must see what can be done to pull the poor child back into vitality. She is too young to have her life warped. There must surely still he a chance of happinecs before her."

"Is there a chance for happiness for anyone?" The words dropped involuntarily from Margaret's lips, and their etrange ring of bitterness made the doctor glance at her sharply. A great pain looked out of her eyes, and the observant doctor noticed that her hands were tightly clenched, and that lines of suffering all at once pencilled themselves about her mouth,

" It is not like you to speak bitterly," he said very gently, his hand touciting her shoulder again, " you have always seemed to me to have such a sane outlook on life."

" Have I?" She laughed a little rueful laugh; "sometimes I feel as if I could not look sanely at anything. Life plays one such sorry tricks. But I did not mean to. speak bitterly, or to speak of myself at all," she added, smiling into her companion's concerned face. "I exipect we all start out with rather exalted ideas of what Fate has in store for us, and we are disappointed when our expectations are not realised."

" I should have thoueht Fate would give vou all your heart's desires," Dr Barrow answered slowly. "I am old enough to be your father, so you will forgive me for saying that a woman with your personality ought to have the world at her feet."

" Ought I?" Margaret's smile brought a lump into the doctor' 6 throat, " ah! but I haven't, I haven't, and sometimes I am afraid" she pulled herself up short, her sentence unfinished, and a flood of colour rushed over her face. " Please don't pay anv attention to what I said," she exclaimed hurriedly. " I think perhaps I am a little tired myself, and then one gete fanciful."

"You and young Mrs Clevedale must both get away," Dr Barrow said more licrhtly, seeing her obvious wish to change the subject. " I will talk to Lady Clevedale, and see what can be arranged, and meanwhile take heart." With a warm shake of the hand the old man left her, and after his departure Margaret stood for many minutes looking out of the window. The still heat of an August day lay over garden and park; the distant landscape was veiled in mist not a leaf was stirring, and such air as was wafted into the room was heavy with the fragrance of flowers.

"Happiness!" The word broke from the woman by the window as if it could not be held 'back. " I suppose I bartered my own chance' of happiness—when—and yet, what else could I have done?"

" I thought I might venture to look in on you without annoimcing my coming beforehand, and the Manor is so little out of my way." It was Martin Holdswortli who spoke, and Lady Clevedale's smile and outstretched hand assured him that ho was welcome. "I had to motor over for a board meeting," he continued, "and I thought I should like to ask after your invalid."

"We are very much wondering what is best to do for her," Lady Cleveland answered, a shadowi crossing her gentle face; "she has reached a point beyond which she does not go, and she does not seem to have the wish to get better. Perhaps," Lady Clevedale hesitated, " I wonder whether it would rouse her to see you. Tho doctor is so anxious at all costs to rouse her from this deadly lethargy, and you have not seen her since " "Since I brought her to you," Martin put in quietly, hu mind filled with a vivid recollection of the dazed, white-faced girl who had dumbly done his bidding on that Anril day. "I am afraid all her memories of me are very terrible ones."

"Still, Lady Clevedals hesitated again, "to galvanize her into any sort of life would be better for her than this indifference to everything. We have grown so fond of her—my husband and I—and we cannot boar to see her as she is now. Sometimes we are afraid lest she should slip from us altogether, and she is such a lovable little soul."

" Such a lovable little soul." The phrase echoed in Hods-worth's brain as he followed Lady Clevedale out of the drawing room and into the garden. " Such a lovable little soul." The words brought back to him an open cottage door, beds of wallflowers in .the sunlight, and a girl who sat singing beside a brown-eyed baby. How well he remembered the look in her face as she sprang to her feet; the eager, wistful look that had leapt into her eyes when lie spoke- to her; the colour that had swept from neck to brow as he mentioned her husband's name; the proud little smile -which had accompanied her own mention of Denis. And then, the stony misery of her face after he had told his "dreadful tidings. All these swept back into 'his mind whilst lie followed his hostess across the lawn to the shady corner where Betty lay on a long couch, her small white hands listlessly folded on the red coverlet. When ho saw her Martin's heart contracted, and for a moment the quiet figure on the couch grew misty oefore his eyes. She looked so small, so fragile, so infinitely pathetic, lying there, that the man was seized by an absurd longing to gather her into his arms and comfort her, as one might comfort a child; and for a few seconds he felt as though, the mere effort of speech must choke him.

" Mr lloldsworth has come over to ask you how you aTe, dear," he heard Lady Clevedale say, as she bent over her daughter-in-law. "1 thought you would like to seo him and show him how much Baby Jim has grown." Into the -whiteness of Betty's face there crept a {bint touch of colour;" sho put out her hand to Martin, and the ghost of a smile trembled round her mcnitlu

"It was good of you to come," she said. " I don't get on very fast, and I give everybody such a dreadful lot of trouble. But it seems so hard to get well." Sho looked up into Martins face, and the expression in her brown eyes was the same wistful expression which had lingered in his memory. It set his heart strings vibrating now, and there was a wonderful gentleness in his voice as he took the small white hand and spoke to, the sick girl. All his life this big man, witlil tlio rugged face, liad been very tender to the littlo and the weak, and this girl with the w.istfulness in her brown eyes and the heart-break in her face, made a strange appeal to him. "The getting well is always the difficulty." lie said'cheerily; "we can. manago the convalescence, but the next step is the hard'one. Now, a sudden idea has come into my mind," he glanced from Betty to Lady Clevedale, who had seated hereslf in a low chair by the couch, "some good angel must have put it there, for it camo with the force of an inspiration. 1 want to know why you and the boy and your nurse— —" ho looked at Margaret, 'who stood at the head of the couch— "shouldn't come over and stay with my sister and mo. I can motor you there. I could carry you off this very aftornoon if you would mako up your mind on the spur of tlio moment. Our place is bracing, it is protty; wo will take- splendid caro of you, and Auu'y will spoil that little chap to her heart's content."

: '0h!" Betty exclaimed, "it is impossible—at least, I mean " she broke off breathlessly.

" I think it is not at all impossible," Margaret put in before anyone else spoke, " the doctor wishes Mrs Clevedale to have a change, .and this would be ideal, much less tiring than a railway journey, ar.d much better than the seaside."

His impulsively-uttered suggestion gamed in attractiveness every moment in Martin's own eyes, and it belonged to his naturally masterful nature to press his point until he had attained his wish.

" I see no impossibilities," he said, and something in the strength of has personality seemed to put strength, into Betty, "it is not a long run. I will make you very comfortable in the car, and whilst your preparations are being made I will go down to the post office and wire to my sister." " Your poor sister," Lady Clevedale remonstrated, "is it fair to invade her with suoh a party? Won't she feel overwhelmed?"

" Sho will enjoy the overwhelming," Martin answered with the smile that lit up his rugged face so pleasantly, " she has grown accustomed to my volcanic way of springing surprises on her, and my new secretary will help her. I have a new secretary, who is a most valuable acquisition," he added, turning to Lady Clovedale, whilst Margaret knelt by Betty's side and in soft whispers persuaded her to accept Mr Holdsworth's unexpected invitation. Perhaps the persuasions carried the day; perhaps Martin's kindly glance and smile were his best and most eloquent seconders. Be that as it may the next hour was one of bustle and preparation in the Clevedale household, and before the sun had begun. to go down behind the hills, Betty and Margaret and the .precious baby were tucked safely into the car, and driven away towards East Down House. And so, because of that chance visit of Martin Holdswortli, tho tangled skein of many lives began to be woven together; and the end of the skein? Ah! who could foresee the end? CHAPTER XV.—MORE SCHEMING. " I shall risk it—l think I can safely risk it. That silly littlo Betty never really gi w me excepting when she was delirious, and I went—oh; well, never mind that. And the nurse? The nurse Lady Clevedale cho3e to consider so beautiful—sho was so much with her patient that beyond occasionally meeting her in the passage, I scarcely saw her at all. Surely—it will be all right." So Bertha soliloquised, standing, as was her habit, in front of the glass in her bedroom, looking at her own reflection with puckered brows and a puzzled' expression in her blue eyes.

" And then, with my hair done liko this, I believe I am beyond even my best friends' recognition. Bernard nearly had a fit when he saw me, and I hardly knew myself." She 'laughed half ruefully, whilst again she surveyed her tail figure in its short, ill-cut skirt and ready-made blouse; and at her head, on which her usually curly hair had been plastered down into the severest straightness and trimness. " Of course it is a horrible nuisance that Mr Holdsworth should have taken it into his head to ask these people here all in a hurry like this. I shall have to be eternally on my guard, and heaven knows too, whether I shall bo able to see much of tho precious Martin. And I do not wish him to slip out of my grasp." Bertha Tarnley had long ago given up any efforts at self-deception. Whatever attitude she might present to the world at large, with herself she was entirely and cynically frank, and she made no attempt to disguise or gloss over her own motives and schemes. To Miss Mary who, in a state of flurried excitement, had come to her with Martin's telegram, she had been calmly and energetically helpful. But the preparations for the coming guests being completed, she had retired to her room, and, as she herself expressed it, taken off the mask just to rest.

" After my up-and-down career it wouldn't be bad to end my days as mistress of East Down House," was the final remark she made to her own reflection before turning away from the glass, and she punctuated the words with another of those short laughs which held in them so littlo of mirth, so much of cynicism, " I care for Bernard, but he doesn't care for me, and I care for comfort more than I care for him or anything—consequently I mean to marry Martin Holdsworth." She was discreetly absent when, between 7 awl 8 o'clock, Martin drove up to the door, and Betty was carefully carried into the house; aed her first encounter with Margaret was on the stains where the gathering twilight allowed each woman to 6ee the other faintly and indistinctly. How little did either guess that before many weeks had passed, .the threads of their lives would be intermingled by the fcasy fingers of Fate. How littlo did either know that tragic threads were to bo interwoven into tlie warp and woof of their lives before those weeks had pa6sed.

Bernard Duncan sat at his breakfast table, an open letter in his hand, an evil smile on his face; and when that evil smile was on Duncan's faco, all its undeniable good looks were spoilt and shadowed.

" Bertha has her uses," he muttered, tearing tlio letter lie had just read into the minutest fragments, " she has dug moro information out of that fellow Holdsworth's correspondence than I thought she would have done. She's got brains, that girl. It's a pity in some ways I couldn't hiivo married her, though sho would soon, have bojred me with her affection. Per-1

haps it's best to keep her on a string. She doesn't know more of me than 1 choose, and I don't suppose she has the remotest suspicion of that episode in my lifo which has effectually put her out of the running. The episode which, " his soliloquising broke off, ho frowned heavily, and sat down at the bureau in the corner, flinging his letters upon it with a mattered oath. " Curse that other," he Slid, " and yet I can't curse her. She made a fool of me with those eyes of hers, and I can't forget her. I wish to heaven I could. I " The sentence was interrupted by a sharp rap on the door, followed by the entranoe of a small, fair man, whose shabby clothes shifty sidelong glan.ee proclaimed him as as belonging to the adventurer type. His face did not lack shrewdness; once upon a time if must have even possessed charm, but a certain low cunning was marked now in the lines of his mouth and looked out of his furtive eyes, and nothing of ckrm was left to him excepting a low and curiouslv pleasant voice.

" Come to' look you up, old ho said to Duncan, " because I want a job, and you can find me one."

Beneath the man's somewhat fawning manner something defiant showed., To an onlooker it would almost have appeared that this shabby intruder had some reason for supposing tliat he would not appeal in vain to the other man; almost as if the shifty-eyed adventurer had some hold over the well-dressed man of the world who, after one exclamation of amazement, had stood sulkily beside his bureau since his visitor's entrance.

" I am not made of jobs, my good Rawson," Duncan answered with an uneasy glance into tli-e other's furtive face, " you must know perfectly well that I am-more or less living from hand to mouth myself."

" More—or—less," the visitor answered drily, "rather less than more, if that little affair you and I know about came off all right. I should have looked you up about it before, but I was out of the country. Did it pan out-properly ? And what do I get out of it'/" " Nothing," the retort was rapped out fiercely, " neither of us got anything, and for goodness sake be careful what you say about it." Duncan's face had grown livid during Rawson's speech; his eves glanced nervously round tlie room, " things did't pan out quite as we hoped, and—but " " It's no use shuffling aiKl beating about, tbe bush with me, old chap," the.other said easily, seating himself in an armchair and taking a cigarette from,an open box on the table, " I've no doubt'you are sorry I've turned up. I know too nruch, don't I?" He winked facetiously, and a, dusky colour mounted to Duncan's brow, '"you can't tell me you made nothing by' tbe whole business—nothing out of the fair lady who "

" Shut up; confound you," Duncan interrupted vehemently. " I don't even blow where—she—is. 1 '

" Done a bunk? By jove," Eawson leant back in his chair and stared openmouthed at his companion. " Well, but you must know where she is, considering that you and she "

" I tell you I don't know where she is," was the answeT, spoken savagely. "If you find her, you can bo sure of the profit? right enough."

" The' profits ?" A mystified expression crossed the fair, shifty face; "you.don't mean to tell me that she collared everything?"

"Not in the way you mean," Duncan answered slowly, "she isn't the sort to collar thing 3in the way you mean. But you know and I know that after the Macpherson affair that young fool Tom jiansby took everything we got to her, and decamoed himself.''

" I thought he decamped because you cut him out with her," the other man said drilv.

" Put it that way if you like," Duncan smiled a cynical smile; "in any case I got what he lost—if you can call it getting, when I know no more than the man in the moon where she is." There was almost a savage note in his voice. " She's gone, I tell you, and what we got out of that old fool Macpherson lias gons with her. Find her, and you shall have "

"What shall I have?" Rawson exclaimed eagerly. " I'm down on the bedrock now, old man. I've como to the bottom of things—you can see that for yourself. But I haven't lost my brains. I'm 6till as good as ever I was at unravelling tangled 6koin6, and nosing out things. What will you give me I find the fair lady who has gone off with the swag?" . "Oh- fetop jabbering, and listen to' me,'' Duncan broke in roughly, "we needn't dig up the past more than we can help. Let it bury its dead. You know what happened, pretty nearly as well ;is I do."

"Pretty nearly as well—possibly, but you are clever at keeping your own counsels," was the dry retort; "all right, go ahead, I know that you and the beautiful Margaret— " "Yes, yes, never mind about that. iJI you need know for practical purposes is that I've lost sight of her—lost her completely." "Lost your " " She has vanished—vanished utterly," Duncan interrupted tersely, " and though once or twice I have had her almost in my grasp, I have lost her again. The last time I saw her was at Twillsbury, in the hospital, in nurse's uniform. I made sure of getting her then, but she escaped me again." "Why didn't yon claim her on the nail the day you saw hex?"

" Because—never mind why I didn't, as you say, ' claim' her then. I had very

good reasons. There are reasons why it is better to do things quietly." Eawson chuckled an ironical chuckle.

"So tilings have to be done quietly, have they? For quiet dealings I am your man. And Twdhsbury knows your—the kdv no more?"

"She has left the hospital, and I can't trace her," Duncan answered, a note of vexation in her voice. "If your cleverness is as great as you fancy, you will hunt her out for me. The game ought to be worth the candle, for she is the only person who knows where the Macpherson haul is."

" Whew!" Eawson gave vent to a long, expressive whistle, "I 6ay I have been a long time away, and I never heard the end of all that Macpherson business; was the murderer ever found?"

Tlie dusky flush faded from Ihinoan's face, leaving it strangely livid once more. "We need not enter "into that part of the affair," he said hurriedly "all you have to do is to find the person who can tell us how to get at what I want.—Macpherson's little lot. lam hung up for want of that. I could do with it rather well just now." " Got some fresh operations on hand?" Eawson asked, his furtive glance searching Duncan's face shrewdly for a moment, then turning away again to look abstractedly out of the window to the grey, houses opposite, "something profitable?" "Something profitable if it works out all right," was the non-committal answer, "and if you do what I want you to do, you will have a share in the profits." " I think you may take it for granted I shall succeed," Eawson answered' drily; " this is a sort of job after my own heart. I ought to have been a Sherlock Holmes."

" Or a spy," Duncan said, with an acid laugh; "you come of the ferret breed, my good chap. Your nature fits you for grovelling about underground in pursuit of prey." ■ Tlio sarcasm made Baw6on wince, even though lie tried to laugh, and the glance that he momentarily cast at Duncan when the latter turned towards the bureau, gave a hint of some of the spite and resentment rankling in his soul. .'"Theres something pretty fishy about all this somewhere," he mused, when, having obtained a few more details from Duncan, lie left the latter's rooms and ■walked slowly eastwards. " Duncan never does things without a motive—generally a bad motive. But I am bound to say he has a way of coming out on top, which makes one prefer to be his friend rather than his enemy. There's a lot about all that Macpnereon business I can't make out. And I should like to know wbat became of Tom Mansby. Duncan drew him deeply into it, that I do know, and that beautiful woman over whom Duncan made a fool of himself was in it somehow, too. 1 guess she and Mansby were something to each other, until Duncan intervened. There is mystery upon mystery in it all. Mansby's "gone; the beautiful lady has gon-e; Duncan's got hie finger into new scheming pies—he's a born schemer, thai) chap. And I—where do I come in? As catspaw to pull the plum out of the pie and give it to him. We shall see. Mr Bernard Duncan, we shall sea whether this time the catspaw can't get a plum for itself; don't make any mistake about that. If I find the fair Margaret I take my share of the reward." (To be Continued.)