THE POWER OF LOVE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3713, 12 May 1925, Page 74

THE POWER OF LOVE.

By

Madue Barlow.

(CornuGHT. —For the Witness.) I. Miss Adair gazed, white-faced, into the garden. Down yonder behind the clump t)f laurels she saw a man's bent head, Suessed what he was saying to Kitty—ttle, childish Kitty, not half his age, and just as high as his heart. She had overheard a iragment of their conversation, and fled back to the house unobserved, to oattle with the shock alone. No suspicion of anything of the kind had entered her head. * Until this afternoon she had believed she was all the world to Dan Hyde. Now, standing amid the ruins of her fair castle of dreams, she could recall many incidents which ridiculed that fatuous belief < f hers.

She and Dan had been engaged lovers for twelve years. Margery knew they were her best years. The glory of life's high noon had faded with them into the track of the past, taking from her the freshness and brightness of early womanhood. She was thirty-nine, and looked her age, and felt it, which was worse. His mother had kept them apart. A nervous wreck, the widowed Mrs Hyde had clung tenaciously and selfishly to her son. He must not leave her, must not nmrry while she lived unless he wished to kill her. Did not her life hang by a thread, the least worry might snap? A plea calculated to impress big Dan of the soft heart and slow-moving mind. He carried it to Margery, and she promised to wait. At that time it did not seem humanly possible that Mrs Hyde would see the summer through, but the gaining of her ends acted like a bracing tonic, and she dragged out a fretful existence almost until the twelfth anniversary of Miss Adair’s mistaken promise. On the question of whether it was mistaken or not, King’s Minister had a cleavage of opinion. The cathedral set purred of holy mother-love, and the beauty of self-sacrifice. The godless opposition which didn’t care a fiddle-string for ecclesiastical patronage or opinion said Margery was a fool, considering that she was the type of woman who doesn’t wear well. A few years would stamp her a back number, and leave Hyde practically unchanged. Desides, safe bind, safe find. Men were deceivers ever.

Margery know what they were saying, and her fiesh winced while her spirit feigned indifference. As the years lengthened they did not forbear to chaff and twit her. She found their chaff less galling than the attitude of the cathedral set whose semi-pious praisings and comfortings scarcely veiled a greedy curiosity to probe her inmost feelings, and with their scalpels prick the hidden nerve of pain. Her calm silences irritated them. In provincial towns where people live in one another’s pockets, to hold one’s neighbours at arm’s length is the unpardonable sin. They said poor dear Margery was making a Spartan effort to conceal her mortification, and in their secret souls they would not have been sorry to see her condemned to grey-haired spinsterhood.

She had, of course, her dumb revolts her mental agonisings over the unfairness of it, and of Dan’s placid acceptance of the position as if it were irremediable. If he had not shown her the depths of his love, if hers had not been the grande passion of a lifetime, she might have rebelled openly or broken with him; but the very greatness of her love made her long-suffering, compelled her to confine her murmurings !x> the inner silences of her own heart.

At the beginning of the twelfth year of waiting Kitty O’Neill came to share her home and enliven it. Kitt’s father, a colonel stationed in India, fancied the climate didn’t suit his petted daughter, and he sent her to King’s Minster, saddling Miss Adair with temporary guardianship on the strength of a remote relationship. Distracting] v pretty winning. Kitty attracted the male youth of the place as a honey-pot attracts flies.

Harry Weston, son and heir of the town’s wealthiest leading light, paid her serious attentions, and to Margery’s dismay, Weston pere—who had risen from close proximity to the gutter—strenuously objected. He ordered her to nip the affair in the bud, and threatened that his son should find himself on the wrong side of the parental door if he continued to dangle after “ that designing Irish minx.” Margery, as in duty bound, declared the intimacy must cease, and all Kitty’s pleadings and coaxings availed nothing. “ All right,” said the culprit laughingly defiant. “If I’m to give up ITarry I’ll have revenge by flirting with your Mr Dan. I warn you I will. Miss Marge.” “ For pitv’s sake do. He's the safest of the bunch.” said amused Margery.

“Mr Dan like me whole heaps,” grimaced Kittv, shaking her bobhed hair into a red-gold nimbus about her piquant face.

“ We all like you except Mr Weston,” rejoined Margery, and was more amused to see her charge take an immediate, flattering interest in Hyde. He humoured and indulged her as any bachelor of 40 would a fascinating child, and Kitty took full advantage of his softness of heart, and practised her wheedling arts upon him. Thereafter she formed a habit of eanntering often to High Meadows, his suburban mansion, and spending whole evenings away from Miss Adair. Soon Dan be van to look worried. Margery asked him one day if Kitty were an annoyance to his mother and him, and he coloured and said :

" Not the least. The little lady has a way with her, and can twist my mother round her fingers. Let her be, dear.” Too sure of his loyalty to feel concern, Margery dropped the subject, and never Questioned Kitty about what went on at High Meadows, nor was she jealous of the § Ill's ability to win the favour Mrs Hyde enied to her son’s fiancee. She harboured no doubts even when she heard Dan say

once, sternly for him, “It’s got to stop, .witty,” neard the saucy answer, ‘‘Stop if you can.” “Whs* are you doing to vex my man?” she inq lired, entering the sitting room unexpectedly, and Kitty glanced out of the corners of roguish eyes, and said demurely, “He’s lecturing *me on my bad behaviour. Doesn't he do it like a father?” ‘‘Acting in loco parentis to a wild Irish colleen is fast thinning my hair,” lie groaned, trying to hide his sudden confusion. ‘‘She has me bothered entirely, and how it’ll end I don’t know.” This incident, other incidents to which sho had attached no significance, recurred to memory on the day of Margery’s awakening and mocked her blindness. Several weeks subsequent to the above small skirmish, Kitty whirled into the house one evening, flusheu and breathless from running, radiant with joy. “Great news, Miss Marge,” she cried, dancing round her excitedly. “Dan’s mother is dead!” “You heartless little wietch!” Miss Adair exclaimed faintly. “Is that the wav to announce a death?” “It is when it’s Dan’s mother,” was the prompt reply. “Now you can get married, and I’ll be your bridesmaid. King’s Minster evidently thought along the same lines, for it said Margery was hypocritical to wear black and pull a sad face. Everybody talked of an immediate wedding, but Dan and his betrothed agreed to a three months’ delay. The vision having materialised at last, Margery forgot past bitterness, and made quiet preparations for the event. Dan left the fixing of the date to her. They were discussing it on the afternoon of tragic discoveries, chatting beside the fire, ana holding each other’s hands, ahd on their privacy Kitty intruded to ask rather quakingly whether iMr Dan could spare a minute to advise her about some buibs she was planting back of the laurels. He gave ner an uneasy look, replied a trifle curtly that the bulbs could wait. Margery, gracious in her happiness, begged him to go. A minute wouldn’t rob them, and the child was keen on getting her bulbs down. The pair went out together, his tall figure dwarfing Kitty’s fairy-like proportions. Matching them, Marjery felt the proud thrill ot ownership. What a fine man her Dan was! Impulsively she followed them to join in the gardening decisions, walking slowly across the grass in the mild sunshine. And then—horrible—the sun was blotted out of the sky, and bleak winds of desolation blew upon her as voices reached her ears, speaking in the shelter of the laurels.

“Have you told her as you said you would, Mr Dan?” “No. I hadn’t the moral courage.”

“I was afraid you were going to, that’s why I fetched you here, to say you mustn’t tell her. You know what she’d think of us, how she’d blame us for what we couldn’t help—what I, at least, couldn’t help. She wouldn’t count love an excuse, she’s so honourable herself. Miss Marge can be awfully hard on those who aren’t straight.” “We had no right to deceive her, Kitty. I shouldn’t have lot you come to High Meadows.”

“I didn’t ask you to let me. I just went, and the rest happened before you knew where you were.” “When I realised things "were going too far I should have made you stop coming. I tried to once, and you said saucily, ‘Stop me if you can.’ I wonder she wasn’t suspicious that evening. We’ve side-slipped pretty badly, Kitty dear, and it’s late to repent. The mischief’s done.” “I’m not repenting,” said the girl sturdily. “I’m glad, glad you were weak enough to do it; only, don’t tell her.” Margery did not linger to hear more. She fled over the grass and* gained the house unnoticed. The appalling truth stunned her. Kitty and Dan loved each other, and they wouldn’t tell her, fearing her blame. The twelve sacrificial years which had sapped her youth had blunted the edge of Dan’s desire, but lie would fulfil his obligation to the faded woman of whom lie had tired, a woman who didn’t wane the husk of him while his heart and soul were Kitty’s. Better to yield him to the girl half his age, whose fresh young beauty bewitched him. l r es, sho must do that though the surrender dragged her very life up by the roots. A spasm of pain contracted her mouth.

On the heels of pain came a piercing stab of righteous anger. Since he could thus readily transfer his love, lie hadn’t deserved her loyalty, her sacrifice. If she relinquished him would her little world believe it a voluntary act? Might it not say she had made a virtue of necessity? Pride writhed, picturing public sympathy, private whisperings and sneers, greedy eyes devouring here for signs of a crushed spirit humbled to the dust. Unless she proved to them that she was the one who had tired, the future would be unbearable. In the white heat of anger she panted to hurt him as he had hurt her. Perhaps it wasn’t possible to hurt him ns much, but to some extent lie could be hurt. She pondered long, and owing to her habit of self-repression she was able to conquer her emotions ami meet Hyde composedly upon his return, her back to the window to screen the pallor of her fjice. ne put his arm round her neck and kissed her.

“Well, darling, have you fixed the great day?” “ShaH we say the 29th of next month, your birthday?’ “A splendid idea. You’ll be the nicest birthday present I’ve ever got,” he replied with enthuaiaam.

“Judaa,” she hissed inwardly. And again. “Judaa I” when Kitty, later on. kisaea her too, and said, “Pm delighted you poor deara are having the knot tied at last.” Then ahe flew for a fashion paper to ask their advice on the subject

of bridesmaids' attire, keeping Dan laughing, neither observing Margery’s stillness, the rigid quality of ner smile. King’s Minster showered presents and congratulations. The banns were read on three successive Sundays at the cathedral service, local dressmakers waxed cheerful over a plethora of orders tor wedding garments, and in the height of the pleasant bustle Margery took the course she had deliberately planned. She jilted Dan. 11. “Why, I did think you knew your own mind, cried Kitty, aghast. “The whole place is buzzing like a beehive and reviling you.” “Thank God it isn’t pitying me,” thought Margery. The reason she offered for her behaviour dumbfounded Hyde. Her love, she said, hadn’t stood the strain of long waiting, and marriage with him was now repugnant to her. Dan wasn’t the sort of man who refuses to take a refusal lying down and insists on threshing the matter out under the flail of cross-examination and vehement protest. Such a man would have wrung the entire truth from a Margery twice as determined not to tell it. Dan’s “slowness” handicapped him. Ho was bewildered, dumb in the face of the finality of her cold dismissal, convinced by her manner that the incredible thing was true. She had ceased to love him, and there was nothing more to be said. His look of mute reproach and suffering haunted her, incensed her. She gave him scornful credit for being a clever actor. Shrinking from the limelight -into which she had thrust him. he remained in strict seclusion until King’s Minster talked the affair to shreds and flung its tattered remnants on the scrap-heap of ancient gossip. By that time summer had reached its heyday, and the next they heard of him was that he had sold Higii Meadows, and was about to start on a world-tour, intending never to return to the cathedral town. “Will he take Kitty with him?” questioned Margery ,studying her ward to no purpose. Kitty had become subdued and quiet, given to secret tears that reddened her eyelids. She avoided High Meadows after the jilting, but Margery had seen her once—before the place was sold—speaking earnestly to Dan in a side street, her fingers clutching his coat-sleeve, her expression entreating. But he went away alone, and the girl kept eager watch every morning for the post’s arrival. At length the expected letter came, and she read it with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks, but did not reveal its contents. When luncheon was over she dressed and went out, leaving Margery a prey to anxious forebodings. Between five and six o’clock Kitty danced into the sitting room, flourishing a bouquet of exquisite flowers.

“Miss Adair with Mr Weston’s compliments,” she cried gleefully, “and will Miss Adair consider the ban on Harry’s visits removed, and accept Mr Weston’s grateful acknowledgment of her dignified compliance with his previous instructions, which are now rescinded. I’ve been repeating that like a parrot an the homeward road lest I’d forget a word of it. The man’s a perambulating dictionary of high-falutin’ language.” “I—l don’t understand, ’ faltered Miss Adair, staring at the flowers and the radiant face.

“You soon will, old dear. That letter this morning was from Mr Weston, senior, inviting me to his house to partake of afternoon tea in his company and Harry’s. The bouquet is his peace-offering to you. He has relented and consents to Harry and me being engaged. He isn’t the stuffy horror he seemed, only pompous and touchy, and what the Irish call divilish conthrairy. However, Mr Dan talked him round to our side before he left on his travels, and we owe our happiness to him. I collared him in town one day, and got him to promise he’d do his utmost for us, and so he has.”

Kitty sat on a table, and swung a pair of much-exposed, shapely legs. ‘Mr Dan’s just a big, nice boy, with a fellow-feeling for lovers, and when you parted Harry and me he allowed us to meet at High Meadows. On occasions conscience pricked him because he was helping us to deeive his darling Margery. The evening you surprised us in the parlour here he threatened to make me stop, but you don’t catch Harry and me losing an inch of ground we’ve won.” There was a sharp intake of Margery’s breath.

‘I was afraid, though, Mr Dan would split on us the dav you and he were arranging your wedding date, and I hauled him outside to sift him, bulbs my artificial excuse. He said he hadn’t the courage to split, and I begged him not to. Forgive me, won’t you? We aren’t all marble saints. Luckily for us, Mr Dan was human, and sinful to the point of cloaking and conniving at our misdeeds.” “Are you telling me this is what you and Dan were speaking of that day behind the laurels—your love for Harry Weston ?”

‘To be sure I am. We were speaking of Harry and myself, and Mr Dan’s share in our clandestine courtship, sweet saints reward him! How you could treat that jewel of a man the way you did passes my understanding. You ought to be thoroughly asha ”

Kitty ceased abruptly, slid off her perch and retreated a step. Margery had risen to her feet, ghastly-faced, mad-eyed, a terrifying Margery from whose lips poured a wild torrent of revelations which bared her cankering wound and showed it in its stark nakedness to the cowering girl driven backwards to the wall, hands raised as if to repel attack, voice raised, crying thinly in affright: “Oh, Miss Marge, you couldn’t have thoneht such a wicked thing of Mr Dan ana me—you couldn’t.” And the babble of wild words flowed on, leaving naught untold, ending on a shrill peal of laughter that froze the listener's blood. Nature, avenging the restraints and silences of years, exacted full toll of relief in the frenzied outburst that dashed down every barrier of re-

serve, then let her drop, emptied of emotions.

They got her upstairs, and at the door of her room she motioned them to go, but Kitty stayed, knelt beside her as she crouched by the window, gazing vacantly at the laurels. “ Miss Marge,” she said tremblingly, “I heard from the Westons that Mr Dan meant to remain a week in London, transacting business, and to sail on the Australian liner, Polynesia, from London docks early to-morrow morning. They didn’t know his plans or the name of his hotel, but there’s a shadow of a chance I might get him if I take the 11.30 express to-night. It doesn’t stop, but it will if it’s signalled, and I’ve no other choice. It’s the 11.30 or none. I’ll bring him back to you, please heaven. I must, or he’ll be gone beyond recall. We’ll never find him unless we find him tomorrow.”

“To-morrow!” Margery turned a face fierce and ttrained. “Can you annihilate time and spate? If you can you’ll find him, not otherv Your train won’t arrive till his ship is in the estuary. Spare yourself a fruitless journey, and let me be. You brought me ruin and misery. You and your trivial selfishness have destroyed me. Grasp your happiness and enjoy it. You’ve bought it at the price of mine. Through you, Dan and I are eternally sundered, and our love was such a beautiful, perfect love. I can’t live with this hell’s torment in my breast. I wish I could tear it out. i want .him . . . want him . . and where am I to go and look . . .? ” Her head fell heavily on the windowsill. Kitty screamed for the housekeeper, Mrs Ames, an elderly confidential servant of the old school, who sent her in haste for a doctor. “ There isn’t a more wretched girl on earth than I,” she sobbed, aa she wheeled her bicycle to the gate. She had told Mrs Ames the who’s story, and the housekeeper patted her shoulder and spoke encouragingly. “ I don’t see it’s your fault, my dear. If the mistress hadn’t been one of the silent ones it wouldn’t have happened. You didn’t intend harm, and none woi'.d have come had she opened her mind to you and Mi Hyde. But there! It takes a lot of diff ment people to make a world. Mr Hyde wasn’t fond of talking, either.” Whep Kitty rushed to catch tier train the doctor was still at the bedside of unconscious Margery. After all restoratives had failed to revive her, he pronounced her in a state of coma, the result of nervous collapse following extreme mental excitement or shock. Some curious features of the case interested him. She lay apparently lifeless, her half-closed eyes glazed and fixed, her flesh icily chill, the bluish-white lips slightly parted. At intervals he lifted the lids to peer into the pupils of her eyes, felt the stiff hands in which dark blood showed like congealed death beneath the finger-nails; his professional thoughts busy with similar recorded instances of suspended animation bearing so striking a resemblance to actual death that medical diagnosis halted between two opinions. He stayed to watch the course of the strange trance condition, to be present when she awakened—if she did awaken.

Meanwhile, the fast express thundered through towns and villages, Kitty curled in a corner of a first class compartment, sleeping unquietly, the smudge of many tears soiling her face. At the terminus she took a flying leap on to the platform before tbe train stopped, eluded a wrathful official, and sped to the cab ranks. A taxi driver said the chase to the docks would be useless, but she insisted, and he humoured her, shrugging his shoulders. That hideous crush! Would they ever get clear of the station precincts? And the streets! Everything on wheels appeared to conspire to raise a blockade. She shouted through the speaking-tube to the driver to speed up, and his wooden immobility reduced her to despair. Her fists pounded the leather cushions, her cheeks burned, her head was an aching lump of lead. “No use 1” she groaned. A possibility that the boat might not leave punctually was sliattered at the docks. The Polynesia had sailed twentyfive minutes previously. “I told you, miss,” said the driver.

“Take me to tl.e offices of the Kangaroo Line,” she gulped. She wished to make certain Dan had gone.

“Mr Hyde’s luggage went aboard yesterday,” a clerk informed her, “and during the evening he requested us bv ’phone to change his cabin to one amidships.” “Will the Polynesia call at any home port?” she asked. “Having her mails and full complement of passengers, she will not,” was The reply-. Kitty felt that she could flop on the floor and howl.

Only on the return journey did it occur to her that she could have sent a wireless message, and she upbraded herself bitterly for not being quick-witted enough to think of reaching Dan with a Marconigram. “I’d ratlier face a firing-squad than tell Miss Marge I didn’t think of It, and I’ve failed,” she whispered, strickenly. Shades of night were gathering as she stumbled up the garden path, but there was no light in Margeiy's bed-chamber, and the deep hush of the house thrilled her creepily. The front door was ajar. A sound of movement in the dining room at the lower end of the hall drew her thither. On the threshold she stood transfixed, walls and furniture whirling round her. She seemed to drop into a blank pit and be pulled out by somebody who was holding a glass to her lips, and splashing wine all over her chin and throat. “Steady, Kittv 1” said a familiar voice. “You’re right as rain now.” “Mr Dan!” she gasped. “Where-have you come from?” “London—bv an early morning train.” “But your luggage went on the Polynesia.”

”1 forgot to have it taken off in my hurry.” “I've been to London to find you.”

“So Mrs Ames has told me, you little brick ! I know about Margery’s blunder. I had that from herself. She regained consciousness three hours ago and was able to speak, and I 6at with her till she slept. She was terribly exhausted, ,said she had the queerest feeling that her soul had wandered out of her body, and found it difficult to get back again. Supposing it hadn’t been able to get back. I’ve been pondering it and quaking a bit." “What do you mean?”

“Margery came for me last night, Kitty.”

“Mr Dan, you’re talking nonsense ! She was in bed, quite senseless.” “She came for me,' he reiterated. “I was awake in my room in the Savoy at midnight. There was a broad track of moonlight across the floor, near the door, and Margery stood in the track. She was in white, her hair streaming and she streched her hands to me and looked at me with eyes that called and implored. I sprang up and went to her, and when I gained the track of moonlight she—she wasn’t there. Y'et, when I stepped a few puces away I could see tier. I dressed and waited for morning, anticipating, something frightfully wrong at home, that she was dead, perhaps, and I had seen her ghost. So I had, if ghost and spirit be one. And if real love be of the spirit, Kitty, mightn’t Margery’s have outleaped the bondage of the flesh and flown in search of me? That feeling she had on awaking assures me my surmise is correct. She came.”

Dan smiled gravely down at the startled girl.

“Another odd thing is that she doesn’t know she did it. Maybe we’d better keep our knowledge to ourselves, Kitty."