BY MISADVENTURE

Otago Witness, Issue 3549, 28 March 1922, Page 58

BY MISADVENTURE

H. W. Jamieson

.Copyright.)

It is said that Arnold Preston and Mary Cuiliford, though tne happiest and most devoted ot married couples, became en gaged by misadventure. 1 have the story on the excellent authority of one of Preston’s most intimate friends, to whom it was related as a special secret. It came to my#ears though—but that is the way of secrets. From his earliest days Preston was a favourite with the ladies. There must have been something feminine in his nature that made him a completer man than most of us. As a girl, from whom I sought an explanation of the mystery, once said to me, “He seems to understand you so.” Living very much with his emotions, he was destined to reap considerable trouble from affairs of the heart. At the period of life when call-love attack’s a boy, or the man he imagines himself to be, Preston was never in love with the same girl for more than a w r eek -at a time. There were no Quests of Golden Girls or Pursuits of Well-Beloveds in those days to hold up the mirror to his state ot mmd, or furnish him with palliation or excuse. His sole desire was to cling for life to the rock of a single stable ahection, and be all that a steadfast lover should be. Alas! the shifting sands of interest were ever hurrying him in -a new direction. A look from a pair of bluer eyes, a smile from rosier lips, and he was again adrift at the mercy of those shifting currents, his inconstant feelings. It was a serious trouble to him. xiut one day the star of his destined love did appear to him. He had not read Maeterlinck, but that is how, deriding plagiarism, he would have phrased it. Fixed in the heaven of his love she shone for three whole months with unvarying brilliancy ; the duration of time was alone sufficient to prove tne success of his quest. But that was not the only proof. Never had his feelings known such disturbance. He was stirred to the centre of his being, her mere presence reducing him to a condition of palpitating nerves. He lost all sense of humour, which was serious, and preached the gospel of intensity as the one means of converting existence into life. He knew nothing, morning, noon or night, but that one fact of his love—his private, personal love, blazoned across heaven and earth. Men and angels were called upon to listen to the story of Arnold Preston’s passion for Agnes Simpson. There was one drawback, however. He had sorrowfully to admit that his love was not reciprocated. The direct question had not been put, but intuition told him so. There was no flame in her - eyes like unto his, and she was still able to start the most ordinary topics of conversation. A remark on the weather, for instance, did not appear to her ears the rank sacrilege that it did to his, tingling with celestial music. For a long time he comforted himself with the reflection that his income of love was sufficient for two, though ihe process of halving he would fain attempt was not an easy one. How to set about it? In his perplexity Preston did the very worst thing possible ; he consulted another girl. Now everyone versed in the sex knows the insanity of that proceeding. But Preston in confessional mood saw nothing but the necessity of relieving his mind. As the recipient of his trouble he chose Mary Cuiliford, his oldest girl friend. He had run races with her when in short frocks —the girl, I mean. He had grown up side by side with her, and knew her with an intimacy that rendered ridiculous any notion of romance between them. A plain, matter-of-f'act girl, she would look -at the affair in a common-sense light, and give him golden advice. He could talk to her as to a sister. Yet even Preston’s knowledge of her sex had limitations, for this is what happened. He called for her one Saturday afterneon, when he had put office work away from him and was free to live until Monday morning the unhampered life of the sentiments. It was a glorious day, and she made no demur to a walk. They wended their way to a park, not unknown to North Londoners, whose natural loveliness the County Council has wisely left alone. For such a conversation as Preston contemplated atmosphere and surroundings were everything. He chose a shady seat that overlooked the lower of the two ponds, across whose surface some swans and Tucks sported. In the background there was a- rustic bridge crossing a miniature material!, to border which a pretty rockery had been constructed. Had Preston been a scientist

he could not have studied more close the relation of the environment to t subject in hand. After freely cutting up the gravel wi his walking stick, an act which, inste; of disguising, only further betrayed 1: agitation to the girl, he broached the top nearest to his heart. “Suppose, Mary, that you loved som one a man I mean—very deeply, ai were not sure that that love was returne how- would you act?” Diver in icy Serpentine on a winter morning never plunged so daringly. T 1 sentence wound itself off like a reel. SI looked up surprised, but sighted tl passion in his question, and sought tl depths in herself whence alone the answi could fitly come. I m afraid, being a girl, I shoul simply have to wait in silence.” “Well, suppose you were I then—man—and loved a girl with every atoi of your being. Suppose it choked’you 1 keep quiet, and yet you dreaded h< possible answer like the’ plague. Suppos —but there, you can see how I feel. Wh; wmuld I not give to know that she share these feelings too?” Preston spoke with such ardour an warmth that the misunderstanding whic ensued was not in the least extraordinary Mary had never heard such a speec from a man’s lips before, and, knovvin nothing of Preston’s other affair, she too it to refer to herself. She was a modes girl, and her first disposition was to flee Totally unread in those popular weeklie that minister to the needs of sentiments misses, she could recall no guide tconduct in this difficult crisis. And sh cared for Preston—cared for him far mor deeply than she had ever supposed. Ii this moment of revelation her heart stooi clearly forth, and she let it speak for her In a voice, thin, quavering, vet rich wit! sincerity, she replied : “Suppose she loves you after all!” Preston could not mistake the persona inflection in the tones. He turned sharp! round, and caught her eyes before the; went down. There was an open declara tion in them that yet in no way shame< her womanhood. What had he done How should he act now? He might poin out the misunderstanding, but it vyoulc be terrible for her; she would feel tha she could never look him in the faci again. For her honour s sake he must no retract. There wece doubtless other considera tions at work. Perhaps he was sick o the turmoil of his emotions. Perhaps hi had begun to suspect that ideals weri unmarketable, and that that other grea' love of his would never have fulfilment Perhaps he was tired of chaff about hii butterfly propensities, and yearned for en gaged respectability. Perhaps Mary’s eyehad that moment attained a depth of b’lui he had never seen elsewhere, and her heart felt words had laid a rosiness on her lips unknown before. The inner facts we shal! never know ; the outer were that Preston caught her hands in his, and poured intc her ears a confession that five minutes before had been intended for another girl. Next day the whole of our little world knew that Arnold Preston was engaged to Mary Cuiliford. A considerate friend of his posted us with the news as we went into church, so ive were delightfully independent of the sermon for a source of reflection. In the light of the details herein set forth, midsummer madness seems a light term to apply to the affair; but from a quiet observation of the pair concerned, I opine that heaven sometimes connives at a marriage by misadventure.