FATE SHUFFLES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3757, 16 March 1926, Page 85

FATE SHUFFLES.

By Dorothy Dixon. (Copyright.—For the Witness.) * , “There is something rather nice about a girl who frankly admits that she does not like VYagner because of the ‘Homs,’ and that when she goes to a theatre she wants to he made to laugh.” The speaker was an old college friend of my husband’s, who was staying with us for the second time during a leave from the East. We were sitting in tli garden watching the others playing tennis, my two nieces, and two men from the neighbourhood I looked round at Miles Brett in some surprise. I had been finding him a little difficult to entertain, inasmuch as he seemed to prefei talking in a threesome with my husband and myself to being amused in the society of our two pretty nieces, and the one or two really charming women I had collected together for his benefit. He seemed unlike most men who are deprived of the society of 9 white women for a large portion of their time ' abroad. I looked at him with a question a in my eyes, and discerning it, he at once: ‘I met a girl recently who admitted it, and I confess I was rather | struck with her.” j I wondered who it could be. Miles I enlightened me. , “Helen” —he always used my Christian ■ name from thn beginning—“l am going to tell you something. When I first heard , from Geoff that lie was going to be married I was prepared to hate you at sight. Geoff had been such a pal, and we had done such jolly things together on my , leaves. And then I came home and met ; you. It seemed to me, the moment I ' saw you, that you were just the woman / I would have chosen for myself. You i were, in fact, the incarnation of i Dream Woman whom I scarcely realised existed / until that moment.” “Miles!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “I knew, too,” he went on, unheeding, “that I had got to find another like you or clear out.” A tiny pause. At the nets thev were calling out their scores. Then Miles announced : “Well I’ve found her!” “Miles!” I cried again. “You are trying to be funny!” I was tickled to death at the idea of meeting my double. “Tell me,” I begged, “is she exactly like me?” Miles looked at me critically. “No,” said he, t length. “She has brown hair, not quite like yours. Her eyes, I think, are grey—anyhow, they are not brown ; she is tall, like you, and built r er on the same lines; there was something about her that made me think of you at once.” “Where ’id you meet her?” “Hyde Park.” He picked up my dropped handkerchief and absently retained it. “Thank you,” I reminded him, holding out my hand for it. “Hyde Park?” I exclaimed, “Miles, you are joking!” “No, I’m not,” 1 responded cheerfully. “She was walking r Sealyham, who had on argument with another dog, and I helped to separate them. She was very graceful, so we sat down and began to talk. You know how one does. She lives in a flat, not far from the Park, and her name is Mrs Massingham.” “A widow?” I prompted. “Yes, and that was how it started.”

“How long has ‘lt been going on?’ ” I asked next.

“I met her just after I stayed with you last, about a month ago. During our conversation I let out that I was homo from Jehulabad. It appears that her brother was in the Consular Service out there, and she knew many people by name, some of whom, of course, I meet frequentlv.” “That was a link, naturally,” I aug* gested. Miles was giving me an account of his doings as if it were I, and not he, who had the ten years seniority. But I knew it was leading up to something, for ho said presently: "Look here, Helen, would you, that is, I wonder if you’d care.” “You mean,” I came to his assistance, “That you would like me to meet my ‘Double’ ?”

“She isn’t your ‘Double’,” he protested. “She is—”

“Just herself,” I filled in for him. I knew that Miles was going to make a splendid lc%’er. The following Saturday Geoff and I lunched with Miles in town, and Mrs Massingham made a fourth. As I suspected she was far, far prettier than I, and very attractive, both in manner and style, being exquisitely dressed, i’l unerring taste. She was not in the least bit like me, and to prove it I asked Geoff that night if he could see any resemblance between us. I told him that in describin her to me, Miles hid suggested a likeness. ‘‘Lord, no!” said Geoff emphatically. “Why, she has very nearly red hair and those sort of greeny eyes tha I don’t quite trust. I hope Miles is going to make a fool of himself over her!” I chortled into my pillow with delight. Men are funnv beings; wouldn’t life be dull without them?

Before many weeks had passed Mrs Massingham was my guest, and 1 liked her immensely. We had a great deal in common. Slie told me very little abou'. herself, though she said that her marriage had not been a happy one. I did not press her for details, as she did not offer them. I thought she wanted to forget, and I helped her ns far as I was able by disappearing discreetly whenever I could. 1 gave thvn as much time together as possible, in order to get to know each other better. I thought they made a delightful pair, and even Geoff confessed that she was more fun than he had opined at first. This was after she had admitted that she loved yachting, that she wanted to learn to fish, and that to own a caravan was the greatest ambition of her life. In .'act, she wanted to do all the jolly things that we did. What jaunts we would have, the four of us! , I conjured un i is ions of a happv party mustering each time leave was due. Our two nieces had betaken themselves to th<» Continent to finish the summer. The elder of the two had carried away

«•« sore place in her heart because of Miles’s wholly disinterested attitude towards her. 1 did" not suspect how' things were with her until the last night of her stay with

v.s. I found her in the drawing room in tears. She had a book of poems on her lap, and the tears had come because of a sonnet about unrequited love. It contained two stanzas of pain-strewn lines, and I wished that poet had never been lorn, Poor old Audrey! The poem made her feel very unhappy, and I was intensely sorry for her. When you are very young these things hurt so—so much more than they really need when you look at them afterwards. I comforted Audrey as well as I could. I told her that one always thought one could never forget, but that Fate was round the corner, waiting with arms full of roses and things like that. But she was inconsolable.

•There isn’t another, man in the world like Miles!” she moaned from my shoulder. There was only one other I knew, and I had married him !

I felt that Audrey would forget before long. I sincerely hoped that she would allow one or other or her many admirers to step into the place she had prepared for Miles. She was attractive enough for any man to want her, and she had the advantage of being twenty-two, with charm and brains.

Miles seemed to be perfectly happy. I asked Mrs Massingham tc prolong her visit of a week into another one, and the last week-end of it wo went down to Goring for three blazing days on the river. We split up into two boats and spent the time in picnicking in topping places, and if the ether two were half bo content with each other as Geoff and I, there was every likelihood of a speedy engagement. We returned home in time for Mrs Massingham to catch the afternoon train to town. Miles accompanied her, and I waved “Good-bye” to them, wondering, as I returned to the house, if he had spoken to her yet, and, if not, how soon he would do so. Geoff confessed to me that he was rather surprised when Miles left us without as much as hinting that he was in love with Stella Massingham. He said that he had given him opportunities, but that Miles had simply not mentioned her. The next development was a letter from Miles from a Paris hotel. He said that he was going on into Switzerland to do some alpine climbing with a man he had met. By the same post came a note from Mrs Massingham. She wanted to see me particularly, and would I meet her in town Hie following day, or lunch with her at her flat. She said she was leaving London for Scotland at the end of the week, and would be away until the autumn.

Scotland! Switzerland! What was the meaning of it all? Greatly wondering I went up to town the next day and found Stella waiting for me in her cool and airy flat. There were bowls everywhere of pink roses, and amongst them Stella Massingham, exquisite as usual in an expensively simple, grey frock. She wore her hair more smoothly dressed than Indore. Her face was paler and thinner, and her eves larger in consequence. There was something almost nunlike in her appearance. We lunched and talked about nothings during the meal, hut all the time I knew that she had something to tell me. When we had finished and sat near the sunscreened, open windows, over coffee and cigarettes, it caire: “ Helen,” she began, “ ~ou don’t mind, do you? Miles always spoke of you as Helen.”

So the trouble was Miles! “ There is something I have got to tell you before T leave London. We may never see each other again, because, when I leave my sister ; n Scotland I am going abroad for a long time. I—l let vou think that I was a widow—l'm not. My husband is still alive. It is true we are not happy, and rarely see each

other. He is a clergyman, so you see there is no question of my obtaining my freedom, because he does not sanction divorce. For the last two years he lias had a chaplaincy abroad, and I have not seen him. I was very young when I married, and I did not understand things. W$ were engaged, you see, before he was ordained, and we are entirely unsuited to each other. When my father died he left me my own income. I commenced to live my own life alone.” I was about to speak, hu' she stopped me, saying:

“I know what you arc going to say. But Miles took it for granted from'the first that I was a widow, and I did not enlighten him. It is rather an awkward position to be in, and to have to explain yourself, in a way. Then later, oh! J just couldn’t tell him. By that time it had become serious.”

“And Miles, lie knows,” I suggested, thinking that I now understood the sudden change of plans. “No,” replied Stella. “He doesn’t know yet. 1 have not had the courage to tell him myself. I want you to do it for me—you will, won’t you? lie thinks a tremendous lot of you, and lie won’t bate it quite so much if he hears it first from you.” From the way Stella spoke she seemed unaware that Miles was contemplating an alpine expedition. “Miles is in Baris at the moment,” 1 observed.

“Yes,” responded slie. “I had a note the day before yesterday to tell me that lie was going over to meet a man he had not seen for years. I can’t see him again!She broke down completely. Later, I returned home, miserably conscious that I could do nothing to help her, and also laden with the responsibility of breaking the news to Miles.

When I told Geoff all about it he looked rather grave, and lie thought, with me, that Miles must have heard that the Rev. Mr Massingham was alive and well.

“Poor old lad!” He meant Miles, of course. “So he was badly hit after all.” We were immersed soon after this with preparations for spending August on the Norfolk Broads, and it was not until after our return home that we heard of Miles.

He wrote to me, enclosing a note for Geoff. Mine was very short, too. It thanked me for being decent enough to liave him to stay, etc., and it finished up: “When I saw you and Stella together I realised that she was not in the least like you. There is only one You, and, until I can philosophically accept the fact, I must stay away. I sail on Saturday. Good-bye.—Miles.”