Into the mists

Otago Witness, Issue 3758, 23 March 1926, Page 66

Into the mists

By

E.Phillips Oppenheim

Author of “The Wrath to Come,” “The Hillman,” “The Tempting of Tavernake,” &c., &c.

(Copyright.—Fob the Witxebs.

CHAPTER VJI. Frederick Amberleys with his two sisters and a brother officer were waiting on the lawn when Judith returned. For the remainder of the day the atmosphere of horror which had chilled the household seemed lifted. There was tennis to the point of exhaustion, an adjournment to the swimming baths—one of the modern luxuries of the place—iced drinks, a car despatched to Holt for clothes and an improvised dinner party. Judith felt sincerely grateful to her suitor as they all sat outside under the cedar trees, drinking their coffee and watching the moon make its slow appearance over the dark fir spinneys. “1 absolutely decline to be left alone with you this evening,” she warned him. “See about some bridge at once, please.” “I shall do nothing of the sort,” he declared. “You encourage me to hope that you will play up to your part as a heroine of romance and invite me to walk in the rose garden. What about it, Judith?” “I certainly shall not. For one thing it is far too obvious. There is one corner where the path drops and there is ; great clump of those moss roses, all mixed up with musk and verbena—a earner which you couldn’t possibly pass without proposing to me.” “Please,” lie begged, holding out his hand. She locked at him far too appraisingly for the moment and the circumstances. In the dim light he seemed to hav e lost something of that robustness, that almost animal vigour as a rule repellant to her more critical instincts. His face even seemed to have gained that touch of spirituality which she had often looked for in vain. His eyes were pleading, his manner anxious. He was very much in earnest. Hesitatingly she placed her hand in his, and felt herself drawn to her feet by a gentle but invincible force. “Frederick and I are going to have our usual half-an-hour’s flirtation,” she warned the others. “We shall be back for bridge directly.” They passed across the lawn, through a postern gate, through the square walled garden into a smaller and less rigidly kept enclosure where the walls were even older and more crumbling and the genius of a gardener, who was also something of an artist, had permitted a certain amount of riot. There were borders of old-fashion-ed flowers, whose perfume was pun gent but swCwt; a sort of heady background to the more exotic odour of the roses. Judith laid her fingers upon her companion’s coat sleeve. “You don’t know how grateful I am to you people for coming over this afternoon, Frederick. It was an experiment coming down here, of course, and it was on the point of turning out a ghastly failure.” “I couldn't have kept away. It was so lucky we were at Holt for a week. Y r cu must all come over and lunch with us to-morrow and well have some more tennis.” “It will be a salvation,” she murmured. He stole a glance at her, and her still, subtle beauty went to his head. He lost coherency. “Judith,” he s*id, “you’ll have to marry me some day. Why not soon?” “I don’t want to marry.” “But you must,” he pleaded. "Y’ou can’t go on living at home for eve". You told me once you were afraid of losing your individuality. You are more likely to lose it in Park Lane than in Mayfair with me. I shouldn't play the oldfashioned sort of husband. Y r ou car.' develop in your own way, strike out your own line—l shan’t interfere. But I’m fonder of you, Judith, than I ever expected to be of any one in my life. Be kind to me, dear!” “I want to be kind to you, Frederick,” she said earnestly, “but think. We’re eveT so different in many ways. There is my race.” “bear, what does it matter?” he in terrupted. “Those sort of prejudices have gone long ago.” “Perltaps. And yet remember my people have their own peculiar characteristics. I have all the temperament, the mysticism, the moodiness of the Hebrew woman. Sometimes I think that if 1 had lived two thousand years ago 1 should have been a prophetess.” “I know,” he acknowledged humbly. "Every one tells me that you are the makings of a great artist. Horthwaite says that you could be a painter, and Mayer says the world has lost a great musician because you are the daughter of a millionaire But, dearest, you cap look over the edge of the world as often and as long as you like, blow your bubbles and build your house of dreams whereever you will, but when your feet are on the earth, you must have a husband and I want to be he.” "You’re almost irresistible.”

"The greatest thing in me is what conics from you,” lie declared. “My love for you.”

She suddenly paused and looked at him. His expression as he gazed at her was almost adoring. A gleam of the moonlight shone in her smooth black hair. The marble whiteness of her cheeks, the soft fire in her eyes, the tender scarlet of her lips were all maddening. He took her suddenly into his arms, and she lifted her head a little. Her eyes sought his, tenderly, yet with a curious wistfulness. "Kiss me Frederick, please,” she whispered, "then I will tell you.” The glamour of the night, the unearthli ness of her beauty were his salvation. All that even savoured of coarseness in his virility seemed to pass away He held her to him, with a strength restrained by an intense tenderness, the fire of an almost sublimated passion burning upon his lips. She lay in his arms for a moment like a long-stemmed beautiful flower which had just been plucked. Then without any framing she broke awa\\ He heard a little sob, caught a glimpse of her—a streak of white through the bushes—and still inspiration rested with him. He stayed where he was amongst the roses—contented.

There was bridge and billiards, much laughter and the usual amount of chaff that evening, and it was midnight before the cars were brought round. Then Judith sought her opportunity. She kept Frederick back after the others had made their adieux and, with her arm through his,. led him to her mother. “Mother dear,” sbe announced, “I’m going to marry Frederick. Dad, do vou hear? Come and shake hands with him. Now, that you both know, the others can come back if they like.” For a single moment Rachel seemed tr return from the far away world in which she had been living. She held out hei hands, and Frederick stooped and kissed hei forehead. “Judith has made me very happy,” he said.

“Well, well!” Joseph declared, pulling down his waistcoat vigorously. “Is that Martin out there’ Martin, send me some champagne and glasses. Never mind about the whiskies and sodas, and the gout! Amberleys—Frederick—shake hands. My congratulations!” The others came streaming in and Judith was surrounded. Her father stood on the outside of the little circle, his hands in his pockets, an air of immense satisfaction pervading his whole being “To tell the truth, Mother,” he confided to his wife, “I was beginning to get just

a . little nervous about Judith—a trifle too exotic, she seemed sometimes. You know what I mean. Seemed positively to dislike the idea of marriage. When a girl lias a brain like Judith’s and gets that notion into her head, she sometimes ends by being a spinster. There have been two in our family already. God help them! Amberleys is a fine fellow, and with Judith’s money—well, it will give vou something to think about Mother, »eli?”

He looked anxiously down at her. She took the glass of wine which Martin was handing, and smiled bravely up at her husband

"We should be very happy about this. Joseph,” she said. “We will drink to their future, you and I together. God has brought this to pass. He may yet save my heart from breaking.” She drained her glass and set it down empty. Everyone was talking very noisilv about the plans for to-morrow, and Joseph himself was being dragged into the council. Rachel stretched out her hand and took up the knitting which was always close to her side. Soon her fingers began to flash and the needles to gleam. She listened, apparently, to the conversation, but in spirit she had already passed away, wandering across the world in that eterqal search. CHAPTER VIII. Judith, on the night of the dinner party in Park Lane, noticed her guest’s slight hesitation after he had been announced, and. breaking off her conversation with Frederick Amberleys, stepped forward to meet him. “You are looking for your hostess. 1 am sure, Sir Lawrence,” she said. “My mother has given up entertaining for the present, and I am her -deputy. We are verv glad to see you.” Sir Lawrence made his how and expressed his hope that Lady Honerton was not seriously indisposed. "She is simply tired,” Judith told him. “She finds the season a little long. Do you know everybody here?” “Except Lord Amberleys, whom, I think vou brought with you to the works, no one,” he replied Amberleys heard his name and turned around. The two men exchanged greetings. "I gather from an announcement in ‘The Times’ the other day that I am to congratulate you. Lord Amberleys,” the newcomer said. “May I at the same time

take tlie opportunity of wishing you every happiness, Lady Judith,” he added. “Yery nice of you, but how can you expect me to be happy when I have a desire unsatisfied?”

"I can scarcely conceive such a possibility.”

“Not although you are responsible?” she reminded him. “Don’t you know that you are one of the few people in the world* who have refused a request of mine?”

He looked for a moment blank, then lie remembered. “Is that still rankling?” “Horribly,” she admitted.

Joseph canre up a little fussily. "Glad to see you Sir Lawrence. First time you’ve honoured us, I think—not that we shouldn’t have asked you often enough if I’d had any idea you were a diner out. Judith, as usual, was the clever one of the family.” “So I -have you to thank for my invitation,” lie remarked, turning to her. “I call that returning good for evil.’ ‘‘The episode is not yet closed,” she warned him.

It was a dinner party of twelve—a smaller number than usual at Judith’s initiative Sir Lawrence sat on her left hand and Lord Clareton, an Irish Peer and relative of Frederick’s, on her right. Lady Clareton was on one side of her father—a most satisfactory diner for him, as she never left off talking, hated even to pause for an answer to her stream of questions, and was blessed with a marvellous appetite. Mrs Lola Reistmann, on his other side, was the wife of a famous musician, dark, languishing, and entirely engrossed in a flirtation with Henry Fernham, who was over on a week’s ’ /e from Paris to make the acquaintance of his sister’s fiance. Then there was Reistmann himself, noisy, hungry and witty, continually seeking for opportunities to talk to Judith across the table, Joyce Cloughkm, one of Judith’s intimate acquaintances, and Sir Philip Dane, a very famous physician and medical adviser in ordinary to the family. It was a party of triends deliberately chosen by Judith after Paule’s acceptance of her invitation, a party which was meant to give her considerable freedom with regard to the entertainment of this one guest. Everything had turned out as she had intended, but the enterprise had uddenly lost its savour. She was conscious of a marked indisposition to cross the boundary of the light outposts of conversation with Sir Lawrence. She had realised from the first that her ordinary weapons would be use less against this man. and she was inc'ined to shirk a combat of personalities. There was something almost saturine in his, easy indifference to the demands which courtesy made upon him. The woman on his left—-Lady Dane, carefully chosen as being a person who very much preferred her dinner to conversation—found him a most satisfactory companion. Indirectly he challenged Judith’s * : lence. "I am still in disgrace, I fear, fer preserving the secrets of my Bluebeard’s chamber.” “If vou realise tlie cause, it is at least open to you to remove it. ' “At any time,” he assented, "when you come alone.” “TTnchaperoned, without my fiance?” “Entirely alone.” “The adventure is to assume a new aspect,” she declared. “Someone must have told you that I have a flair for doing improper things.” “I needed no gossin to assure me that you were in the habit of doing daring ones.” he retorted “What risks shall T run if I come alone to your magic chamber?” she asked. “If I answer that question the adventure would cease to be one.” “T am very stronglv tempted.” •• You stand the least chance of being blown up on Wednesday or Thursday, , he said. “Mv housekeeper makes tea "about four o’clock.” “It all seems very easy,” she remarked. “Really, I needn’t haw* taken the trouble to have you asked to dinner, need I?” "Quite unnecessary. Y r ou might have spared me. too. I don t dine out twice a year like this.” “We are very flattered,” she murmured. He suddenly turned and looked at her, and she was conscious that she had never been looked at in the same fashion before. "Well, in a sense you ought to bo. You are the only woman in the world whose invitation I should have accepted.” His words- were deliberate, spoken without enthusiasm or fervour of any sort. Yet Judith knew that they were the truth. She was aware of a desire to withdraw from an eonal contest. She turned and began to talk restlessly to Lord Clareton. He brushed aside her tentative efforts towards conventional conversation. “I have just heard who your left-hand neighbour is,” he confided in an undertone. “Do you know that he is one of the most remarkable men living?” "Is he?” she replied. “I know my father thinks very highly of his work.’’ "I am not a scientific man myself,” Lord ClaTeton continued, “but mv nephew, Ronald, was at college with this fellow Panic, and he's never tired of talking about, him. I remember his telling us, for instance, that Paule, before he went down, after having carried off every possible honour, declared that, before lie was forty, he would have solved the problem of the genesis of the world and the indefinite prolongation of life. Pretty good for a lad of twenty-two or twentythree ”

"He hasn’t done it, has he?” she remarked drily. - “He isn’t fortv v et,” Lord Clareton reminded her. “He’s done some wonderful things, though.” Judith leaned across the table and exchanged amenities with Frederick. Then she turned once more to her left-hand neighbour. "I have been told that you are pledged to discover before you are forty, tlie secret of the genesis of the world and the elixir of life.”

“I shall probably do both. I could prolong any reasonable healthy person’s life about thirty years already if it was worth while—it so seldom is.”

“Could you prolong mine?” ' Easily. I could guarantee you o. hundred years or so. You’re* much too sensible, though to ask me to do it.” "Is that one of the problems you study in Bluebeard’s Chamber?”

“Occasionally,” he admitted. "Why not devote your efforts to keeping me young and beautiful?” “You ask a great deal of science.” “I thought you were one of those,” she rejoined, “who taught that we are as yet only on the threshold of knowledge, that some of the planets are inhabited, for instance, by a race of beings infinitely more intelligent than we arc, and that it is only because we are slothful that we have made so little progress.” “There is not the slightest doubt about that. As to the planets being inhabited, more than half the scientific men of the day have come to that conclusion.”

"Then why don’t we communicate with some of them?”

“It is simply a question of somebody with brains, having time enough to spare, to devise the instrument, or rather series of instruments. I’ll give you the idea now if you feel you’d like to devote yourself to it.” “I am not a scientist, but I have other qualities.” “So I understand,” be acquiesced. “A great musician, an artist, a tragedienne, and a poetess were all lost to the world, thanks to vour father’s amazing facility for doctoring the human race at a cost of a few millions.”

“You are pleased to be sarcastic,” she observed. “I can assure vou all the same that I really have brains.” “You have done one thing which makes me doubt it,” he answered bluntly.

She felt his eyes rest for a moment upon the ring on her finger. A spasm of anger brought the quick colour to her cheeks. She devoted herself to her guests, talking round the table to her friends. Tlie dinner went brightly on to its appointed end Judith, however, was conscious of a little sense of relief as she gained the shelter of the drawing-room; she felt somehow that he had escaped from the proximity of danger. “Tell me all about this wonderful guest of vours,” Joyce Cloughton demanded, drawing her on one side. You were rather a cat not to put me next to him. He’s good-looking, too, in a forbidding sort of way.”

"My dear, you can have him for the rest of the evening.” Judith promised. “He’s a little taciturn, but when he does speak it’s to the point all rights He’ll tell you how to live to a hundred, if you like, and before he's forty years old lie's going to tell us how the world started, and how long it’s going on.” “If he’s said he would, he’ll do it,” Joyce declared "He looks that sort of man.’’ “Bad tempered I should think and terriblv domineering,” Judith observed. “Half-an-bour of him makes one thankful for an ordinary person like Freddy.]’ “You’re a juckv girl,” Joyce sighed. "I’ve always thought that Freddy Amberlevs was one of the nicest young men about town. I can see that T shall have to think seriously of your cousin Samrav, after all. ' What are you going to do with ns this evening. Judith?” “Frederick and Sir Philip Dane and Mrs Reistmann and Dad are going to plnv brid v\ You and the others are going to play poker, and I am going to entertain Sir Lawrence. He does not plav cards.” “Will Freddy quite approve?” Joyce incurred. "He won’t be asked.” Judith replied. “As a matter of fact, though, I arranged tliis party before it was settled between Freddy and mvself. I can’t back out of it new I thought I wanted to talk to Sir Lawrence. I’m not quite so sure of it as I was.” "Better pass him on to me as you promised, dear,” Joyce advised. “He s a dangerous tvpe for an engaged girl. Ho wouldn’t take me so seriously. I should probably be able to lead him into the paths of gentle flirtation. He would ask if he could give me a lift home —I suppose he has a car—and there ought to bo at least a dinner and theatre in it.” “It’s mv last fling, Jovce.” she said. “T think I’ll have to see it through.” "I warn you Freddy’s inclined to be jealous. “I saw him watching vou from across the table once or twice this evening. In his way the chemist man is very you know.” Judith glanced warninglv towards the door. Tlie sound of men’s voices was already to be heard in the hall. “You go and res-cue Henry from the wiles of that Reistmann woman,” Judith enjoined. "Don’t interfere with me, n«d don’t let the others try and drag me into

bridge.” "As much in earnest as all that? Joyce exclaimed. Judith smPed. She was looking across at the little phalanx of white-fronted men.

T have a reason,” she murmured. (To be Continued.)