THE SPLENDID THING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3756, 9 March 1926, Page 85

THE SPLENDID THING.

By Mast Dhewe Tempest. (Copyright.—For the Witness.? “I must be wise—as a serpent —and keep cool,” panted the Honourable Mrs Fleetwood, as she climbed the steep, stone stairs of an ancient building in Chelsea to a studio on the third floor. Her second knock brought an irritated “Come in, can’t you?” which made her feel she was beginning badly. A man, busily at work on a big canvas, glanced round on her hurried entrance, and, tossing aside his palette, lounged forward, pipe in mouth, to meet her. She glanced at that pipe. “I was not expecting a lady.” he said, regretfully withdrawing it, and looking in-, quiringly at his visitor. "I am Mrs Fleetwood, come to have a little chat with you,” she said pleasantly, “may I sit down?” "Ah. .. . Cynthia’s aunt. Dear lady, you have a thousand welcomes.” Mrs Fleetwood seized the moment it took him to remove various impedimenta from a divan chair to take in the ensemble of this studio (environment can reveal so much!). There was the usual litter; paints, palettes, “studies,” and pictures—in all stages of semi-completion. The one on the easel caught her eye, and, anxious to impress .his would-be nephew-in-law, she graciously asked if she might examine it. For just a moment he looked suspiciously at this autocratic visitor, with her proud, grey eyes and dignified bearing, then he forgot himself in the pride of exhibiting his masterpiece. As he swung it into position before her, he grew quite expansive. “ ‘The Woodland Spirit’ is going to make me famous,” he told her. “Connoisseurs have prophesied that it will be the picture of the year ” Mrs Fleetwood studied .t closely, and, being no mean judge of pictures, she instantly recognised the noble beauty of this triumph of his brush. “Inspired,” she called it mentally, but she was not going to tell him that . . . she had “come to bury Caesar —not to praise him.” "Quite welt painted. Mr Carless,” she murmured. "Of course, your picture shows promise—and, when completed, ought to stand a fair chance of acceptance.”

. Barry Carless did not look pretty as he listened to this "damning praise.” She had noticed the massive head anu shoulders of this man ; now her attention was drawn to the line from ear to chin; it was aggressively prominent and altogether out or keeping with his soft, caressing voice, and those golden-brown eyes of his with their fringe of dark lashes. “ The voice and eyes of a woman . . ~ and the jowl of a brute,” she thought. But she stuck gamely to her purpose. “ You met my niece in the Latin Quarter —where I was foolish enough to let her go ? ”

The tone of her voice did not soothe him.

“ I did. I gave her some valuable hints, and she inspired that picture.” “You are not altogether an Englishman ? ”

He glanced up at that, and their eyes met for the fraction of a second. In that brief encounter both recognised that they were in for a battle over “ Cynthia.” “ My grandfather—on the distaff side —was a Frenchman, Mrs Fleetwood; does that make me a mongrel ? ”

"N—o; hut it is one of the adverse points ”

" One of ’em. And how many more are there ? ”

“All, all are adverse points! Don’t you see them? You are not a purebred Englishman—of family; have foreign ideas and—manners; are 15 years older than she is; and belong to quite a different world. . . Cynthia is just a romantic child, accustomed to luxurious living. At the moment she fancies herself in love with you—a penniless artist ”

“You are slightly in error, dear lady; I have £3OO a year ”

" Pshaw . . . what’s that, when she’s been used to £3000! ”

“ I may attain even that income, Mrs Fleetwood, when ‘ The Woodland Spirit * has launched me; and I do not propose to nlarry Cynthia till that is a fait accompli.” Enthusiasm glowed in those wonderful eyes of his. The poor lady could no

longer wonder at her niece’s “ mad fancy.”

“ He lias such winsome eyes.” she reflected, “ . . . yet the jaws of a prize-fighter.”

But the Honourable Mrs Fleetwood was no coward.

“ Mr Carless,” she said, “ I have given Cynthia a chance to get over her foolish infatuation for you. I have sent her to her grandmother at Nice for three months. I fancy you will not see your way to visiting her there.”

He winced at her implied reference to the state of his finances, but made no comment.

She continued, gathering confidence: “ I am going to trust you with a secret, Mr Carless. Sir Koger Moretou is staying the same hotel. He has ten thousand a year, and is simply crazy about dear Cynthia.”

“ That doesn’t surprise me.” Mrs Fleetwood dispensed with further diplomacy. “ I am glad you appreciate the fact that my niece stands to lose a fortune if she marries you,” she said sharply. “ Perhaps you can also understand my reluctance to let the poor child sacrifice such a golden chance?” He turned over her penultimate word thoughtfully, fastidiously. “ Yes, ‘ golden ’ is the right word,” he agreed. He was smiling provocatively now, but his mouth straightened into grim lines as he watched her proud eyes questing about for some vulnerable point in his defences. She obbviously shrank from the connection.

Sensitive, arrogant, defiant, lie stood up to her mental arraignment with that exasperating grin. “Not being a man—like yourself, I can’t quite enter your point of view, but I know r what real love can sacrifice.”

“ Your memoirs ought to be interesting,” he said politely. Then, to her surprise and disgust, the man began to swagger. Complacently lie swung gaily round and looked down upon her with supercilious amusement. “ My dear lady, are you asking me to offer Cynthia her release? I’d do that with pleasure, but she would simply refuse to let me go. You see, she loves me with such a ‘ hang-the-eonsequenees 5 devotion.”

He longingly fingered his discarded pipe. Mrs Fleetwood ignored the hint. She took refuge in the sliady path of half-truths.

“ I presume you are aware that Cynthia is entirely dependent upon me, Mr Carless ? ” “Until li#r next birthday—yes; if my information is correct, she comes of age on the day the academy opens, and, incidentally, into two thousand a year.” He stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, rocked to and fro from heel to toe, and seemed about to whistle. Mrs Fleetwood tried desperately to find some spark of chivalry in this man’s murky soul.

“ You profess to love Cynthia,” she ventured; “ can you imagine how an ordinary French father would receive vou as a suitor for his only child?”

For a moment she again fell under the charm of those strange eyes that had so bewitched poor Cynthia; then Carless laughed aloud, showing all his strong, white teeth.

“ I can—but I’m not going to cat-o’ nine-tail myself! ”

The lady found herself lamenting. “ What a hampering thing it is to be a woman. If only I could be a man,” she became uncomfortably aware of his unusual physique, and amended, “ a stronger man than he is—for five short minutes. . . •”

Aloud she said: “You haven’t even a clean past to offer her—in exchange for her fortune! ”

“Not?—l am a man of the world, dear lady neither better nor worse than most men. I fancy Cynthia knows that; she can’t have studied in the Latin Quartier for six months without learning—well, things that are not taught in the schoolroom.”

“Mr Carless, I implore you to give Cynthia up.” “ Jamais de la vie!” he answered violently, and two little devils grinned out of those tawny eyes.

She looked at that protruding jaw and realised how hopelessly she was up against it. “ It is your clear duty to give Cynthia up,” she insisted. “In the circumstances —one of us could not do otherwise ” —that personal pronoun nettled the man —as she intended it should. “It would be the inevitable thing to do—a splendid thing to do; but,” and she tried to flay him with her contempt, “ you, sir, are incapable of doing that splendid thing.” Their eyes met. In cold fury he answered savagely, while those grinning demons of passion executed a war dance in his extraordinary eves.

“ I shall marry Cynthia the day my picture hangs on the line, and nobody on earth—nor in hell —shall stop me. Going? Well, good-bye, Mrs Fleetwood; I don’t mind admitting I am dying for a smoke.”

Cynthia, sweet,» slim, and very fair, was sitting in a seeluded corner of Derwent Hotel gardens, deep in a modified account of this interview from her fiance. She gurgled a soft little laugh at some whimsically-described mannerism of her aunt’s. The letter ended: She maddened me, sweetheart, but I got the best of it, for she realises at last that neither woman nor devil shall keep us two apart. In four

months the academy opens, and “ The Woodland Spirit ” hangs in its place of honour—or I’ll break the president’s head. And on that day we marry, darling; and with you for inspiration, I’ll forge ahead till Aunt Agatha wants to crawl to>me for pardon. Kisses on the sweetest eyes in the world.—Baury.

The sound of trampled gravel brought her swiftly to earth.

“ Ah, Miss Cynthia, I’ve found you at last! ” called a pleasant voice, and Sir Roger Moreton crossed the lawn to join her.

“May I?” he said, and taking her light nod for consent, he dropped on to the grass at her feet, and held up liis cigarette case. As she toyed with a cigarette she studied her companion. His shoulder almost touched her kuee, and she was surprised to see so much grey in his hair—hut she found she rather liked it; and there was a well-bred look about his lean, clever face that instinctively pleased her.

As they chatted, Cynthia noticed the admiration in liis eyes whenever they came to rest on her happy face. Of actual love-making there was none, for Cynthia always met and scotched any sign of it with gay banter. The long weeks drifted away, and April, with its many moods, arrived to find Cynthia’s bright spirits flagging. It had been trying enough not to have seen Barry for three whole months, but it became infinitely harder when she noticed the change which began to manifest itself in his letters. They came less frequently; were briefer; colder; less communicative—each leaving her more dissatisfied. At last came one to tell her the bare fact that “ The Woodland Spirit ” would never grace the academy. And it ofllered to set her free. That .was on the other side of the page. The abrupt news of the failure of the picture on which they had set such high hopes came as an awful shock to Cynthia; but when she turned the page and came to the suggestion of her release, her pretty colour came rushing back, and her eyes shone like twin stars. “That’s the reason,” she almost sang, and taking pen and ink, she scribbled: My poor darling Barry,—Don’t let us fret too much over the rejection of our picture, you shall try your luck with another. Anyhow, I'll never, never give you up! Your own loving Cynthia. Sir Roger proposed to her that evening. Cynthia came straight to the point. “You have been such a dear pal to me, Sir Roger,” she said her eyes abrim, “but—there’s somebody else. Please don’t go away, or let this hurt our friendship.” “I didn’t know; forgive me, little lady,’ was all he said. A few days later, they were having tea on the lawn when a sharp shower drove them to the verandah. Almost immediately, the sun shone again, turning myriads of raindrops into sparkling diamonds. Then Cynthia, watching the fickle sky, saw clouds rush together once more, and turning gaily to Sir Roger, began to quote; I tlunk that love is like a play, Where tears with smile 3 are blended; Or like a faithless April day, Whose shine in shower is end ” The last syllable died on Cynthia’s lips for a maid had handed her a letter on a salver. She flushed a rosy red for she knew it contained an answer to her own. Slipping away to the other end of the verandah and standing with her back against the ivy-clad wall—so as to be out of sight of the tea-party assembled round her grandmother, she feverishly tore it open. It‘was an untidy scrawl. “Cynthia,” she read amazed, I want my freedom. You will think me an awful cad, but, the fact is, there’s another girl, Barry. She made a little moaning sound and her heart seemed to turn over upon itself in a sickening manner. . . . then she groped for something to cling to, and failing, fell headlong. “Yes, Roger, I will marry you if you can be content with so little. . . . I’ve no love to give anybody,” her smile was a pale, twisted thing as she struggled with rising sobs, “but it seems so unfair,” she said urgently, “you’re giving all, I nothing !” Through blinding tears she watched him passionately kissing her cold, unresponsive hands—hands that had been so wont to clasp and cling!—as he promised a lifelong devotion. Even as a bride in all the bravery of white satin and orange blossom, her heart was still crying like a sick child for the love that liad failed ....

and her thoughts would wander to that faithless lover whose passionate worship was now being lavished on someone else’s charm and loveliness. . . “ Forgetting ” is such a slo\v, cruel business; one has to untliink so many tender, exquisite thoughts. . . .

It w r as after Cynthia’s son was born that the Honourable Mrs Fleetw'ood

“ forgave ” Barry Carless for “so callously dropping Cynthia for another girl,” although she had always rejoiced in its result.

She had been savagely glad that the picture had failed to get into the academy; and, in some queer way, Cynthia too had found comfort in that fact.

On the occasion of Lady Morcton’s first ball Mrs Fleetwood chanced on a stray —and somewhat disturbing remark. Cynthia had gone into the garden with one of her guests, and her aunt was hurrying after her with a wrap—for there was a cold wind—when she caught these words, en passant:

“ l agree it was high time she took her place in society. Oh, yes, Lady Moreton is lovely enough; but I can’t forget her heartless treatment of poor Carless, turning him down just when he needed her most.”

The Honourable Mrs Fleetwood put her hand to her throat as if the pulse that suddenly began to beat there was stifling her; then, being a resourceful women, she stepped back and deliberately broke up that dangerous conversation by commissioning the young man w'ho had been so ruthlessly condemning Cynthia to take the wrap to her and tell her that Mrs Fleetwood had gone home. Alone in her car she tried to reason things out . . . staring into the darkness with pinched lips; but she could only arrive at the same conclusion: “ He heartlessly jilted Cynthia for another girl.” fc>he repeated it over and oyer again w ith a glow of "self-justifica-tion. She determined to see Carless. Breathlessly climbing those same stone stairs on the following morning, her knock was answered by a “ Come in! ” in Barry’s queer, whispery voice. He neither rose from his chair by the fire nor took any notice of her. A change liad come over that once charming room. Floor and furniture thick with dust; fireplace littered with dead ashes; the contents of an overturned coffee cup soaking books and papers beside him; and—on the easel, “The Woodland Spirit,” unfinished—or rather, spoilt, as if someone had been working on it in the dark. ... “Well?” she said sharply, approaching him. He rose and began to put out a hand for the table to lay down his pipe, while her quick eye took in the shabby, illgroomed, ill-shorn man—who might have been her relation!—now standing hesitatingly before her. Those oddlymagnetic eyes of his were staring straight at her. but they neither smiled nor frowned. “ I beg your pardon, Mrs Fleetwood,” he stammered, “ I thought it was Mrs Tomkins come to make up my fire.” He smiled at last as lie added slowly: “ You see, I hardly expected you to honour me with another visit! Won’t you find yourself a seat ? ” Her proud eyes blazed with indignation at this casual reception, but he looked serenely past her. “ I’m afraid my room is scarcely fit for a lady’s presence,” lie said courteously ; “ my housekeeper ” “ Where’s your wife ? ” Mrs Fleetwood had temporarily lost all dignity, so great was her irritation. “ All . . there’s the rub! I haven’t got a wife—more’s the pity! ” Tiny beads of agony began to cluster about liis temples, and the wliispery voice became almost inaudible as he finished: “ I—l’m blind, you see.” “ W-wliat ? ” The monosyllable trembled from Mrs Fleetwood’s lips, and suddenly she herself was blind—with a mist of tears. For at last she understood. He had told a magnificent lie to spare the girl he loved. “ Oh,” she said, coming close to him, “ what—wliat can I say ? ” Tears were now running down her cheeks and dropping on to the hand she was clasping between her own. “ Oh, Barry, I am proud of you, for you did the splendid thing which I wars presumptuous enough to say you couhl not do, splendidlv.” * # * * It was two years since the Honourable Mrs Fleetwood paid that memorable visit to Barry Carless, and 18 months since Sir Roger Moreton’s death in the hunting field, and his wealthy young widow 7 , just returned from a long winder on the Continent, was calling on her aunt. Presently a look that came into Cynthia’s eyes as she refused an invitation to the academy, together with a certain haunting memory, made Mrs Fleetwood come f o a momentous decision. “ Dear child, I want to tell you something that may make you feel happier ” “Happier! ” The young widow leant forward with slender hands clasped in an ecstasy of feeling. “Then —it must be something that exonerates Barry! ” “Yes; he gave >ou up because lie became totally blind.” She glanced away from the stricken face. “ I only knew — after your marriage.” “I must go to him! ” Cynthia said. The dear old familiar studio! Carless was sitting with his Pack to her, but by the leaping flames of a log fire she could see the massive head with its mat of curly hair that her fingers had so often rumpled! A sob climbed into her throat as she crept to his chair, and sinking w r eakly on to her knees beside him, whispered: “ Oh, Barry, say you love me still! ” For answer two great arms stole round her, drawing her closer and closer till she was lying on his breast. “ What brings you back ? ” “Just love—that’s all. Aunt Agatha only told me to-day. I have eyes for us both, Barry, darling! Will you marry me straight away? I shall die of shlime if you refuse me again ” “You’d marry a blind man—for love and happiness? Sure there’s no pity—no condescension? Compared with yourself I’m a very poor person, Lady Moreton! ” For answer she raised her sweet lips to his. A long, passionate kiss brought to

life the Burry she knew and worshipped of old—tender, mocking, gay, a little boastful. Then he sprang to his feet. “ Darling, ectoie here! ” There was the old imperious ring in liis voice when excitement possessed him as he drew her to an easel and threw back the cover. Cynthia herself gazed sweetly back at her. She clasped her hands in breathless bewilderment. “ How could ” “ Sweetheart, be prepared for a startler! I’m no longer blind. Musgrove, the eye specialist, found out the cause of the disease and cured it a year ago. And, darling, our picture—repainted—is accepted at last! ” “ I’m glad for your sake —but I don’t understand ” Her joy flickered out, and her eyes held an agonised question. Carless set that joy throbbing again. “Ever since I have lived on day dreams, but your title, together with its £IO,OOO a year, stood, like a flaming sword, in my way.” She laughed contentedly and snuggled to him. “ You knew we always belonged,” she said. “ Ah, yes —I knew, deep in my heart, but Aunt Agatha would have had too good a case against me. Now I can say, ‘Hang Agatha! ’ but I like her too much. By the way, honey, we must lmrry up if I’m to keep ray promise to her.” She rubbfed her soft cheek against his sleeve. “What was that, Barry, dear?” He took her hands and filled in the pauses in liis answer by kissing each rosy finger-tip. * “I think these arc the very words: ‘ I shall marry Cynthia the day my picture hangs on the line, and nobody on earth—nor in hell—shall stop me! ’ After all, sweetheart, that’s going to be the ‘ splendid thing ’! ”