MOUNTAINS AND MOLEHILLS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3514, 19 July 1921, Page 58

MOUNTAINS AND MOLEHILLS.

[All Rights Reserved.]

By

KATHLEEN BRODRICK.

It is early days to pronounce marriage a failure six weeks after the honeymoon. But that was what Mol lie Craig was doing. The appearance of an old friend in Penang—where her new home was—had been largely responsible for this. Tl, v, had come across him at a tennis party, and had discovered that he was passing through on his way to Hong Kong. He had alluded to a chapter of Mollie’s life which the girl had buried, and her husband discovering it for the first time had raised objections. That was how all the unpleasantness began. Perhaps things had become worse, because Mollie had been annoyed at the objections. They were unreasonable, she thought, and she began to draw ' comparisons between Tommy Evans, the lover of her youth to whom the newcomer, Captain Easterbrook, had alluded, and Ralph, her husband. The former would never have behaved as Ralph was behaving. I he day after the tennis party Captain Easterbrook asked them to his ship to tea, and Mollie and he, passing through liis private quarters, stepped on to the promenade deck beyond and began again to talk of old times. The afterglow of the sunset was on the water, and the stillness of evening made conversation easy. “Whenever I am on the sea here,” murmured Mollie, “I feel nearer to England ” “Ah, I remember, you are one of those who dearly love the old country,” said the sailor. “I almost wonder you could become reconciled to leaving it.” Mollie bent her head. Perhaps, if pressed, she could have told the reason, and it wag the old. old one of those women who give up the home of their childhood with its dear and sacred associations to follow I he men they love For this was before she had come to the conclusion that marriage is not ahvavs such a success after all. * ’ Craig was doing a tour of the ship, and examining tine wireless telegraphy amsiratms. It wae this opportunity which led Ea teifiro..'.: to sneak of Tommy amain But this time Molfie drooped her' head as she heard the familiar name. “I don’t think I wish to speak of him,” she began under her breath, and then with the inconsequence of a woman she added, ‘lt is ti at g ■ our meeting like this hero—an r l your—knowing.” “Perilous.” Easterbrook replied, “and T don t _ wi n to pry into your secrets--far from it—bub do von knew 1 mean, have you any news for me of Tommy Evans 7 You see he was my chum, and a very deai onr*.** ‘ ‘ FTV> ill i*r av n n f h o Wt yv.” “Yes. 1 was extremely sorry to hear it.” “He was "oing in for rubier planting, up in the States here but T forget tb n name of the nlaee. T’.>r s .me months I have heard nothing of him whatever.’’ “T see. T honed that von might !>-. able to heir* mo more than that. B it I am glad for so much news.” Mollie leant heavi’v pefim=t the rail and was silent, arid then, with the impel p of n woman who dislikes others to think badly

of her, she stammered : “There were reasons why we had to part. For of course you know what we were to ea/ch oilier—once.”

“ies,’’ he said sadly, crossing his arms over his chest, “and perhaps I regret the outcome of it all. Yor—a woman such as I judge you to be—could have been the making of poor weak Tommy. Perhaps I ought not to say these things now, but he simply worshipped you.” Mollie crimsoned painfully, and as she looked over the water tears forced themselves into her eyes. “I nursed him once when we were on leave together and had gone on a shooting expedition,” Easterbrook continued. “He got a bad bout of fever, and one day, when he was getting better he showed me your photograph. That was before I had met you. ‘lsn't she worth keeping straight for, eh, Easterbrook?’ lie said. Well, I don’t know why I am telling you these things, Mrs Craig, but during that time your photograph looked down on un fi'om the wall of our lonely hut, and seemed to he our guardian angel. I felt a little share in it, ton.” “And yet the guardian angel—failed,” said Mollie in a low voice. “Women are hard, T think,” he said slowly, “and know so little of the temptations which beset very young men in the Epjsb But you would have been able to reclaim him. But now—well, after all, perhaps Tommy, merry .and smiling as of old, may some day return to his friends again.” He. spoke with bitterness, for he was thinking entirely of his friend, and Mollie’s old relationship to him. The part which Craig now played in her life was forgotten for the moment. The sound of distant voices brought him to the present. “As you say, what is the good of referring to all this now ?” he finished, a trifle angrily. “Let us go and have some tea Mrs Craig.” Mollie pulled herself together with an effort.. She, too, had been plunged into reminiscences of the oast—the past which to her and Tommy had been all important. The sound of her new name brought her to herself; but a feeling of remorse as to where her desertion had further driven Tommy had made her bow her head in distress, and when Craig appeared she stood before him like a guilty thing. Her husband saw the confusion in her eyes, and put the worst construction on it. It was while they were driving home from the landing-stage that his anger burst out, and he demanded an explanation. What was Easterbrook to her ? How was he acquainted with anvthing in her past life about which he, her husband, knew nothing ? His failure to trust her hurt her more than she would own, and, too proud to show it, she drew herself up, and his questions only made her answers more vague and unsatisfactory. As he grew more indignant, she became more determined to withhold the truth of the case—the truth which was that she loved Craig as she never could have loved Tommy, but that Tommy’s wild behaviour and disappearance—since she was partly responsible for them—still made tier very unhappy. She buried her face in her hands, as she thought of it all the following day, and had a good cry. Then she tidied her hair and put on her prettiest frock to await Craig’s home-coming for tea. But she would not forgive him easily, sue decided, for not trusting her. Craig came home at five o'clock as usual. It ha.d been a frightfully not day —not that it is ever very cool in Penang —but that day in particular a humid feeling in the air, under a boiling sun, had been extremely trying. The walk home had been the last straw. A bright word from Mollie might have sent the cobwebs away, but Craig found his wife sitting behind the teapot in the verandah with the most resigned of expressions, lie threw himself on to a chair, too weary even to kiss her. This in itself was unlucky, and, with a pout, she wondered if he noticed what a pretty gown she had on. But ho said nothing about it—only, “Oh, lord, how tired I am !” So she handed him his tea, and made herself think of Tommy. “Have you any more tea for me, Mollie?” Craig’s voice and a weary step across the verandah pulled her together. She stretched her hand out for the cup, and with a patient sigh filled it slowly. Craig plunsjed his hands into his pockets and watched her. When she handed it hack to him he paused for a minute with it in his grasp. “I say, Mollie, is anything up?” . Mollie lifted her head and slowly raised her eyebrows. “Dear me, no,” she said, as she filled her own cup. “What an extraordinary question, Ralph. Do you expict me always to be grinning?” Craig stirred his tea and looked rather worried. “I suppose T am unreasonable,” he said, and helped himself to another sandwich! It was the sandwich that did it. Matters were brought to a crisis. Mollie rose from the table, her second cup of tea untested, and. walking to the writingtable, seized her b’otter which lay there. Clutching it, she turned and faced her husband, whose attention was now thorough! v aroused. He gazed at her, half bewildered, half frowning. Then a photogran'i fell from the blotter to the floor. Whether it was dropped with intention or not would be hard to sav; auvwav. Craig saw it, and that, his 'wife should" treasure it in her blotter seemed to him an outrage. He jerked round in order to pick it up, and in doing so his cup slipped from bis hands and the contents flowed over the floor. Craig offered no apology. Rising, he strode to the entrance to ’the verandah, and called furiously for the Chinese ‘ ‘hov. ” The boy appeared and mopped flic tea up. He did not hurry over it. The collecting of the pieces of the broken cup

took quite a long time. The Englishspeaking Chinese servant always lingers over his work in the presence of the Tuan or the Mem. If there is anything to see or hear he will not miss it on any account.

But the Tuan and the Mem had nothing to say, and the Chinese mind could not decipher what he saw. So the boy slowly and sadly retired. The Tuan was leaning over the rail of the verandah gazing down on the tennis court, frowning. Mollie was sitting down again, and still held the blotter. . She was pot altogether sorry + hat Ralph had seen the little photograph of Tommy. He would see what a handsome boy he was. . II was just as well for him to know how much Tommy had loved her. She was not sorry—since he was so cross—that he should, become acquainted with her previous love affair. She saw no reason for telling him that the love for the man had dwarfed the love for the hoy, or that it had been her anger at Tommy's fall from virtue which had made her too sore to talk of him. liis wife had had a lover before they met. For over five years, Craig now learnt, there had been a secret engagement. Hob a word or suspicion of such a thing had ever coma to him. He had been under the delusion that Mollie, in spite of her 25 years, had come to him with a heart untouched by thought or love of other men. She must have known that such was hi? belief, but she had never set him right. But now truth was being revealed to him. I his handsome young chaphang him! how handsome he was—had kissed her. and asked her to raarrv him, and she had consented. Ralph wheeled round and looked again at the photograph which now lay on the table. Of course, she had consented. Women, from nursery-maids upwards, all adored a uniform. But what had happened to make her accept him, Craig? That it could have been love which prompted her to do so appeared to him nqw too childish to be believed. I wonder why you broke with this fellow, then,” he said roughly. Mollie moved. It was certainly the last thing she had expected him to say, and his way of saying it made her furious. . 0 sat bolt upright i n her chair, red with anger. \v liy did you break with him V' r** pea ted Craig, fast losing his self control. Mollie rose with dignity. It was not a moment when either was able to choose words. “That I did,” she began recklessly with quivering lips, “seems to me now—now—a thousand pities.” Craig took a step back. “And yet you married me,” he cried furiously. “That xou never told me of this affair seems to me incomprehensible—unless there was something to hide—something that vou were ashamed of. Well,” as Mollie moved as if to leave him, “perhaps—oh, hang it, perhaps I don’t quite mean that! But certainly I ought to have been told.” There was a pause, during which Cram softened somewhat, and he hurriedly took a step towards his wife, who still stood at the entrance to the verandah “I offered you love, Mollie,” he said sorrowfully, “and all the time vou were thinking of the other fellow "“and treasuring h;s photograph. Why did you say you would marry me? I command you to" be straight with me—this once.' Striding towards her, Craig seized her hands, and as she stood quiverinc under his grasp the bitterness of the” man’s ■jealousy showed in his eyes, Mollie looked back at him, and all the softness of her nature fled away, and she knew that she he'd the weapon a women if she will, can wield with such success—the weapon that can wound the man who loves. “Why did I marry you? You want to know that now,” she said haughtily. “Well, I will tell you.” She stood with her head thrown back, her white gown clinging round ner and anger and pride in her face. “Tommy was poor,” she said, with a little choke of anger, which she soon repressed, “and, then, you came. I was twenty-five, not quits in my first youth, you see, and as a poor woman T should have been a failure. I forgot, then, that I was proud. It has onlv been in the last few days that J have realised that there are worse things than being poor.” For a brief space husband and wife faced each other. And slowly the significance of her words crept into the man’s brain. lie looked at her as she stood before him, her whole attitude breathing defiance. He longed, even then, to take her into his arms—to force her affection to vanquish her entirely. But the photograph on the table and her confession lay between them. He strode past her, and then, as a second thought, turned. “Thank vou.” he said coldly: now, at any- rate, we have no secrets between us.” He went downstairs, and Mol he heard hifi footsteps in the garden, and then in the ro-ad beyond. Then she seized Tommy’s photograph and flung it face downwards in n drawer. She hated Tommy now. hut at that moment slip. thought that she hated Era ip more. How could he—Ralph—sav such things to her ? She wished, though, that she hadn’t said that she would have hated to he poor, when that very morning she would have thought herself rich with a crust if Ralph had been there to share it with her. \nd she wished this still mors when later in the evening a little note came from Craig. If she was proud, lie wrote, so was Vie, and he thought it better that he should go up to see about some planting in the Milnv States in whieh lie was interested. The income he had settled on her on her marriage was hers entirely. She could either stay where she was or, if she preferred it, go home for a time. Tie could not say when liis work would ho finished.

There was no wish expressed of seeing her again—no hope or word of the future. No, she realised, alas! too late, that her words had cut too deeply lor that. She had driven Ralph from her, and he had gone far too easily. And he had gone to the Malay States, where Tommy was.

Looking back, in after years Mollie wondered if, in the months that followed, it had ever stopped raining. She was in England, at the old Vicarage again, and every morning as she looked across the lawn, with its d upping trees and flowers, she asked herself the same dreary question. “My dear,” whispered her woman friend,_ “send for him.” Mol ie turned and raised her head haughtily. “Never,” she said. “Not even ?” . Her hearer sank into a chair and gazed into the fire. No, she cried, with a little choke, ‘not even then.” And Craig, living in the Malay Peninsuja ’ WE!S leading a bachelor’s life again. got- out of Craig,” said one of his messmates to another °as they rode across the plantation. “Dill you ever come across such a grumpy fellow?” . say, Ralph,” said one of them that evening as they sat in their roughlylurmshed bungalow which faced the jungle, “you’ve got the hump. Why ■don t you go homo?'” Crai'g listened to the wind in the trees ami tae hideous cry of the night-jar ‘Thank you,” he said coldly- “if I have got the hump I prefer to hide it m the jungle. In England one has time to think.” i

And ?o three years passed away, and Molhe was still in England and Craig in toe East. Stiff little letters were sent from one to the other, but the word was never written which would bring them together again. Ralph could not forget what Mollie had said to him. He wanted her love, and he felt certain that she would never give it to him. And Mollie could not forgive his suspicions and desertion. And so the monies crept on, and every day drew them further apart. One evening Craig was riding across the plantation when a little moan caught his ear. He stopped his norse and listened or some time all was perfectly silent, then ho heard a second moan. Jumping from his horse he forced liis wav among the trees, and in a few minutes he came across a. man lvim- on the ground, face downwards. Bending downhe laid a hand on his arm, and saw tnat lie was either hurt or had been taken very ill. Forcing brandy down his throat he watched for a sign of life to come into his face. The brandy had soon c e c esired effect, and the man opened his eyes. Craig .started a little as he saw them, bomehow they seemed familiar, and vet as he looned into the pale and emaciated face before him he felt certain that he had never seen the fellow before. “Give me a hand to rnv hut, over tnere, groaned the sufferer at last. “1 have got a bad fit of fever, and 1 was a tool to try and get out.” Craig did as he was asked, and five minute’s brought them to a hut whi.-h he had not noticed before. In a faltering voice the vomm fellow mumbled his thanks, and. flingum him self on a bed in.the corner of the onlv room the hut contained, he lapsed into unconsciousness again. that it was a bad case of fever at tacking a frame already weaken»d was clear enough. Clear, too’, it was that the fel ow had no one to lyjfae him. So Craig decided to stop and look after him As the morning light crept through the chinks of the hut on the first morning, Ralph turned from his patient and stared round the place where thev were lodging He looked at the bare table, and marveiled at the utter want of order which prevailed everywhere. Mho was this fel- j 1 o w, h e Avon d e red. His voice told him that he was a gentleman, and as his eyes fell on a little volume of poems he took it up. Turning to the fly-leaf he read the name of its owner, and the book fell from his grasp as he started with surprise. And yet he had known all along that some day he mi "lit- meet with Tommy Evans. He rose angrily as the memory of the dispute with his wife returned to him and he thought savagely again of the words which had passed between them. And then as he raised his head he came I face to face with Mollie’s photograph. Yes, here on the wall of this hut belonging to a fellow who was a total stranger to him, was the photograph of his own wife ! Mollie, laughing, and with a tennis 1 racquet in her hand, was grazing down at ■ him. “My stars!” came a feeble voice at his elbow, “whv do you look so confoundedly i stern? T-n’t she just ripping?” Something like a sob followed the words j and without another word the patient! | who bad been watching him, turned his i face to the wall and for some time did not speak again. But when he did it was to turn once | more to Mollie’s Photograph. “I say.” he said in a feeble voice, I “you’ve noticed that photograph, haven’t I yon ?” Craig looked towards it again. “Yes,” lie said sternly. “I want you to take it.” went on ! Tommy Evans, and as Craig started he j continued : “I am pegging out. I have j got fever again, and I have not been ! living the sort of life to fight it. and vou ! - von seem a decent kind of chap—and T should not like that picture to fall into j the hands of just anybody.” Craig was silent. Then he laid a hand on Tommy’s arm. “Nonsense.” he said j quickly, “there is plenty of life in you I

1 Tommy shook his head. “Take it,” he i said faintly, pointing to the picture once | more. “She tried to keep me straight, j au( t perhaps, but for her sweet memory, ’ I might have been a worse chap than I |am Who knows?” “Memory?” repeated Craig, playing the part of hypocrite with doubttul success. Is she dead, then?” But ho shuddered at his own words. I (< ‘Head to me,” said the other sadly, I “for she married another chap.” j Craig took the picture from the wall, | an h Tommy held outh is hand for it.” I “We were engaged as boy and girl,’’ I went on Tommy, all at once becoming ! communicative, “and some day we were to marry. I always worshipped her. She was that sort of girl, you know.” “And why ?” began Craig, and then stopped. (( “I disappointed her,” said Tommy. “She had always been brought up i-i her A icarage at home. No bit of the world had ever touched her. and for years thought of her pure innocence kept me straight. Then I came East—well, you know what that means. I was tempkjd, i and I fell, and Mollie heard of it.” “I went home, hut I saw it was all j over between us. Perhaps I might have | pulled myself together—perhaps noU, I Anyway, her horror was intense. She wafc determined to break with me.” | C-raig listened silently, and Tommy, bin j voice growing fainter at- every word, con- . tinned : j “Well, I think I went to the dogs ! pretty thoroughly after that. But once the longing for another glimpse of Mollie overpowered me, and I packed up and came back to England. I did not want my people to know of it. The black i sheep of the family is best out of the I w av, you understand, so I crept into the I Vicarage garden one evening, and, as j luck would have it, I saw Mollie alone.” ! Craig nodded. j “It was then,” Tommy continued, “that t saw that my last chance had gone, and that she had never loved me properly at all.” “Never stammered Craig. “She was just engaged to a chap called Craig, and as I looked into her eyes I realised that all her woman’s love had been just stored up for him. She had , never given me love like that. I just ! worshipped her, but I saw that sho just I worshipped him.” His hearer rose and began to pace the hut. “I am Ralph Craig,” he said sternly, , “and you are mistaken. She never cared for anything but my wretched money.” Tommy half rose from his bed, and then I sank back exhausted. Ilia face was . crimson. “How dare you say that of her!” he j cried, “and why—- Good heavens, man! : Do you mean to tell me you have deserted her?” Craig sank down by the bedside, and soon the sick man had heard all that there was to tell. When the recital was over Tommy thrust the photograph into the ! speaker’s hands. “Take it and give it back to her, and, confound it! never take seriously what Mollie says in a temper. I’ve known her all my life, and I know. She would never have married you if she had not cared for you. But you have just to keep her love. She is as proud as Lucifer.” That night Tommy died, and the following week Craig started for England. But perhaps, after all, it was a little fellow with eyes like Mollie’s and a lisping voice which told Craig that his name was Henry Ralph Craig who really brought them together. “Good heavens,” said Craig, “she never told me.” The little hoy was playing in the garden, and running towards the house, in fright at the stranger, he rushed in at the French window of the morning room, and buried his head in his mother’s lap. And Mollie looked up and saw her husband. And the eyes of both fell on the curly head of their son.