THE STORM CHILD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3764, 4 May 1926, Page 85

THE STORM CHILD.

By

ELIZABETH GURNEY.

(Copyright.—For the Witness.)

Dick Langton leisurely sipped his coffee, and felt that life was very good, and that there was no place like home. It was 18 years now’—gracious! how the time had flown!—since he had come into possession of Ridgeways through the death by drowning of his second cousin, Fred Brand. Poor Fred had gone down with his wife and child on that wild night when the Anita was dashed to pieces off the east coast. They w’ere returning from Norway, where they had been on a visit to Mrs Fred’s relatives, and> not a soul on the Anita had survived to tell the tale. Langton often thought regretfully of his cousin, of whom lie had been really fond, but there was no doubt that Ridgeways had proved a great consolation. He had grown to love the place, situated as it was in the heart of one of the prettiest shires in England, grown to love his easy life, too, and the bachelor freedom which at the age of 36 he had no intention of resigning. I*l . A pile of letters lay on the breakfast table. Letters were a bore. He glanced at the envelopes half-heartedly. Ha! — Ted Davidson’s writing! “Davie” was liis best friend, whom he loved closer than a brother. He tore open the envelope. “ Dear old Dicky-bird ” —Langton’s long, dark, somewhat saturnine visage crinkled up into the smile that made it so extraordinarily attractive —“ here I am at the back of nowhere as usual seeking inspiration. This time, however, I’ve actually struck it—a strip of grey sea, green dunes merging into a sandy beach, an upland farmhouse or twe with a few storm-tortii'red trees, and an odd sheep grazing around —all this I’m trying to immortalise with a view to next year’s Academy, and am working like a blessed nigger. But the loveliest thing of all I’ve discovered is a girl, an exquisite creature of divine fairness, hair, the colour of ripe oats, eyes that might have belonged to a Viking’s daughter, the gait and dignity of a young goddess. And yet she’s just a fisherman’s daughter, and lives with her grandmother here in the cottage where I’ve taken rooms. She happens to be better educated than the average of these village girls, having kept house for an old clergyman, who made her free of his library and actually taught her French, so that she has a cultivated mind,: and can talk on most subjects, although her life is - spent in the most menial occupations. And now, old man, prepare for revelations. I’ve fallen hopelessly in

love with this girl—Hetty Hales —ami what's more, I mean to marry her if she’ll have me. Unlike you, I have no caste prejudice. Of course, you’ll be horrified—cold, comfortable, cultured, old bachelor that you are; but there it is, and ’* Langton dropped the letter as though it had been a hot coal. “ Davie,” his best fifend, going to commit social suicide! It simply mustn’t be! At all costs he (Langton) would prevent it. He pounced on a railway guide and discovered that Dunthorp—the heading of Davidson’s letter—could be reached in three hours from King’s Cross. Accordingly the afternoon of the following day found him pounding along the coast road that led from the station to the village, and appreciatively sniffing the salt freshness of the North Sea. The early spring weather was' fine. The place seemed restful and at the same time invigorating. A few days’ holiday in Ted’s congenial society would be good for them both, apart even from the service that he was rendering his friend in rescuing him from the clutches of the village siren. He paused on the outskirts of the village, which consisted of a single street of somewhat irregularly built houses with a shop or two. No one was immediately visible save a girl in an adjoining field, feeding a couple of sportive calves. Her back was towards him, but she made a charming picture as she bent over the eager young creatures, calling them by pet names in a laughing, girlish voice. Suddenly she turned and faced him, and he saw that her hair was “the colour of ripe oats,” and her eyes “the eves of a Viking’s daughter,” nor could the rough print dress she wore conceal the lovely curves of the splendid, vigorous young body. Surely this was none other than Ted’s enchantress. “I am looking for a cottage belonging to people called Hales, where a friend of mine, Mr Davidson, an artist, is stopping. Perhaps you could direct me to it?” “This is the cottage”—she pointed to a small, two-storeyfed, pebble-dashed house a few yards back from the road—“and I am Hetty Hales.” She paused, then the colour flooded her face as she added abruptly, “Mr Davidson left this morning, sir.” “Aha!” thought Langton. “Wise boy! He has escaped, and I might have saved myself a journey. But she’s a beauty and no mistake. And where on earth have I seen someone like her?” “I suppose I could have Mr Davidson’s rooms for a day or two? My things are at the station, but I could have them fetched,” he said. * The girl smilingly consented, and led him into the cottage, the old woman dropping him a curtsey as he passed. Everything was scrupulously clean and neat, and the meal she served him later —tea, omelettes, scones, with fragrant butter and home-made jam—would have done the gods. For the next few days Langton explored the neighbourhood, which he found full of interest and charm. In the evenings he read or talked to Hetty Hales and her grandmother. The old lady he found somewhat taciturn. Neither in appearance nor disposition did she bear the remotest likeness to her granddaughter. She liad long fits of silence during which she would stare into the fire with fixed intensity. At other times her eyes would follow Hetty’s every movement. Her manner of speech, too, w*as totally different from her grandmother’s, being an entirely north country dialect. Once Langton heard her mutter, “Ta storm-child—ta bonny storm-child,” and came to the conclusion that she was rapidly sinking into dotage. She slept in a little room off the kitchen, and suffered so terribly from asthma that there were times when Hetty had to sit up whole nights with her. The more he saw of the girl the more he admired her unselfishness, her patience, her industry. At times a sad, rather puzzled look would come into her beautiful eyes, as though she were wistfully questioning Fate. Such moods he attributed to a love-sick longing for the absent Ted. He had noticed her confusion every time his friend’s name was mentioned. To be sure, Davie had been quite right in fleeing from temptation, and yet he was beginning to feel an unaccountable resentment against him for doing the very thing of which he most approved. Then canm a letter from Davidson which entirely altered Langton’s conception of things, and indeed gave him “furiously to think.” The letter had been forwarded from Ridgeways. “ Dear Dick, —This is to tell you that I’m off to Italy for a few weeks to the Mackenzie-Browns, and that letters will be forwarded, also that I proposed to Hetty Hales, and that she refused me on the grounds of the inequality of our social positions, nor could any arguments of mine induce her to alter her decision. She is the noblest and loveliest woman I have ever met, and I shall never love another as I love her. Doubtless you will l>e relieved that I am not, after all, going to commit * social suicide.* I know your views on such matters. But I don’t mind telling you that it has been a knock-down blow to me.— Yours disconsolately, Ted.” Relief, amazement, incredulity jostled each other in Langton’s mind as he read Xia friend’s letter. That a girl like lifttty Hales, brought up in humble surroundings, and depending on the labour of her hands for a living, should refuse

marriage with a man like Davidson—an artist and a gentleman—was certai# ly astounding. It was extremely humiliating to his owu amour propre that he should have been guilty of such an error of judgment where Hetty was concerned. That she had pride and spirit far beyond her station he had already discovered. He to study her with heightened inter&t, intrigued more than ever by that strange and baffling resemblance to someone he had known in the past. Meanwhile, the weather grew cold and stormy, and the old lady took one of her severe turns of asthma, necessitating Hetty’s almost constant attendance. So ill did she become that Langton decided that it would be kinder on his part to leave. Yet some mysterious and unaccountable force seemed to be urging him to remain. “ You w’ould be very lonely if anything happened to your grandmother,” he remarked sympatlieticaljv one evening when the old lady had taken a sudden turn for the worse. “ Yes, sir. She—she’s all I have in the world, and the doctor told me today that her heart was so bad she might go at any time.” A sob rose in the girl’s throat. “ You .look dead-beat, you know. Would you let me take turns with you in sitting up to-night?” To his surprise she gratefully consented, and Langton, with a comical sense of the novelty of his position, installed himself by the old lady’s bed. It was a wild, stormy night, and he could hear the boom of the waves breaking on the shore and the moaning of the wind round the walls of the cottage. Towards midnight the invalid awoke from a kind of stupor and asked for Hetty. “ She’s gone to lie down, and you must rest, too,” he answered soothingly, but the old creature laid a skinny hand on his arm. “ I bain’t a-goin’ to get better this time,” she murmured. “ I knaws it. I be goin’ to mv old man. Hark ye, sir! I mun tell ee. I mun tell ee about Hetty. I dursn’t go wi’out tell in’ it. She bain’t our child. She coom wi’ the storm. I alius meant to tell her, but I was feared she would leave me, sir. You won’t tell her till I be gone; but she mun knaw, she mun knaw. She’s a storm child; she bain’t ourn.” “There! there! Never mind! You li. down and take a good sleep,” said Langton, thinking she was wandering. But she did not heed him; she was looking past him into a dark corner of the little room. “Do ee see yon black box?” she said, pointing towards the corner. “There’s things in that box I mun show ee, sir.” She fumbled under her pillow and produced a key. Langton, who saw that she was getting excited* thought it better to humour her, and brought the box to her bedside. It was a small, black chest about a foot in dimensions. With shaking hand she managed to unlock it and drew out what looked like a child’s dress. She peered closely at it, then held it up to him. ~ ; “Tha’ll see ta naame,” she whispered, “and tha’ll tell Hetty when I'm gone. I kept ta clothes; all these years I kept ’em: but I was alius feared to ” “Good heavens, woman!” he had snatched the dainty little garpieut from her and was holding it close to the lamp. His face was white and his eyes were staring like a madman’s, for embroidered on the hem of the dress was the name, “Norma Brand,” the uamc o'f his cousin's infant daughter who was supposed to have been drowned in the wreck of the Anita, 18 long years ago. “Tell me where you got this, tell me all about it.” With an almost superhuman effort he controlled himself sufficiently to speak calmly. He feared that if he excited or alarmed the old creaturu she might have a heart attack and die with the story untold. He could have seized her and shaken her so agitated was he by the discovery, the significance of which he had not yet completely grasped. In a quavering voice, interYupted by much gasping and coughing, the old woman told her story, while Langton, bending over her with burning eyes and tense drawn face, hung on every word. Briefly it amounted to this—that “Hetty Hales” was none other than Norma Brand, daughter of Fred Brand, of “Ridgeways. On that wild night 18 years ago, when the Anita was wrecked some 20 miles north of Dunthorp, Tom Hales was one of a band o! fishermen who tried to "et near the doomed vessel. Their efforts, however, proved unavailing, but just as. the Anita broke to pieces amid the despairing cries of the doomed victims, Hales noticed a sailor struggling in the water within a few yards of the shore. At the risk of his lifo. he plunged into the seething flood, but the poor shipwrecked man was carried off by a wave just as Hales reached him. In his arms, however, was a bundle which he managed to fling at Hales before death sucked him away. The bundle turned out to be a soaked and almost perishing baby-girl, whom the fisherman took home to his wife ana mother. The women received it with open arms, nil the more eagerly becausethc Hales couple had lost their only child a few weeks previously. Inside five years Hales and his wife died, and little “Hetty,” as she was called, after the child who had been taken from them, was left to the care of her supposed grandmother. Mrs Hales, on fch’e death of ner son and daughter-in-law, moved to Dunthorp, where Hetty grew to womanhood totally ignorant of her strange history. As Langton listened to the old woman’s quavering narrative, while the wind howled and the waves boomed, iust as they had done on that fateful nignt long

years ago, a vivid consciousness was borne in on him of the strangeness of human life and its destinies. Yes, it was all clear enough—the likeness that had so baffled him was Hetty’s resemblance to her mother, the beautiful Norwegian whom Fred Brand had married. Besides, on examining the little underclothes which the box also contained, he found that not only had the child’s name been embroidered on them, but also the family crest of the Brands, a crest lie had grown very familiar with since he had gone to live at Ridgeways. Wild emotions surged within him, as he realised what a difference the revelatiou would make to him. He, Dick Langton, was no longer the lawful owuer of Ridgeways. The estate and every penny belonging to it was by right Norma Brand’s. At the age of thirty-six lie was practically a pauper. The irony of the situation struck him with added force, as he recollected that lie had come to Dunthorp to destroy, if need be, Hetty’s happiness, only to make a discovery that involved his own ruin. For one horrible uncontrolled moment lie was seized with the temptation to conceal the whole thing. Nothing easier. The old woman had again sunk into a stupor from which it was very doubtful that she would ever awaken. To do away with the contents of the box would be a simple matter. He might even salve his conscience by inducing Hetty to marry him. But he put the vile thought from him.- No—there was only one thing to be done—make a clean breast of the whole affair, establish Hetty in her proper position, and do what he could to bring about lier marriage with his best friend, Ted Davidson. He restored the baby-clothes carefully to the box, locked it, and put the key in his pocket.DDarnw r n was already breaking over a storm-tortured world when Hetty came to relieve his vigil, and at sight of her, so lovely, so sad, Langton’s heart tightened within him. He knew now what he had half-suspected already, that lie loved her as his own soul, and the knowledge was fraught with anguish as he realised that lie was now in honour bound to make no sign. Just as Langton had guessed, the old lady never recovered consciousness. When the doctor came he shook his head. Before midday she passed quietly away in Hetty’s arms. For the next three days Langton thought of nothing but Hetty and her trouble. Instinctively she turned to him for help, and so absolute was her dependence on him that it almost seemed as though she was unconsciously influenced by the bond of kinship that existed between them, though Langton carefully refrained from even hinting at the revelation that had been made to him. It was not till they re-entered the cottage after the funeral, and she sat opposite to him, a very young and pathetic figure in her simple black dress, her blue, tear-washed eyes looking sadly out of her pale face, that Langton prepared to tell her the wonderful story. “Can you bear to hear a very strange piece of news, Hetty?” lie said gently, going over to her and taking her hands in his. She looked up at him startled, her lip quivering, the colour flowing and ebbing in her face. Suddenly she bent her head and laid her lips against the hands that held liers. “Oh, sir, you’ve been so good to me! What would I have done without you?” she exclaimed. For one wild moment he was tempted to take her in his arms, to kiss her tears away, to comfort her as only a man can comfort the woman-he loves; but for the last three days lie had been steeling himself for the ordeal and he was able to rise triumphant over bis The story took a long time in the telling, for at first Hetty absolutely refused to believe it; and it was onlv when he produced the box and shewed her the little garments that she was at last convinced. “She never would let that box be opened,” she murmured, as she stared in amazement at the beautifully wrought baby clothes. ‘•‘She always kept the key, and l thought it was just bits of odds and ends she had in it, keepsakes and such like. Oh, sir, I can’t believe it.” “Don t ‘sir’ me,” he said, smiling. “Dont you understand that we are cousins ?” “Cousins? Are we really? Oh, I can’t somehow take it all in.” “Don’t you see that I came into the estate that should have been yours? That I have been, quite unconsciously, living at your expense, so to speak, that everything I thought I owned is really yours, and that you are now a rich woman, and can marry Ted Davidson, the best and finest fellow in the world, and live at Ridgeways ” But at the mention cf the beloved place a lump rose in his throat, and he turned away his head. She had risen, and was looking at him strangely, her face white and strained. “And you think I would turn you out of what has been vour home?” she exclaimed. “But, my dear girl, you’ve got to turn me cut whether you like it or not. It’s yours.” “And yon think that I want to marry your friend Mr Davidson ?” She went on as though she had not heard his last words. “But he loves you, and I believe you love him. No woman could help loving Davie. And T haven't confessed to you yet what a cad I’Ve been. I came her® with the object of doing my best to prevent Ted marrying you. I didn’t think you good enough, but I know now that you’d be good enough for the noblest

man in the world if you hadn't sixpene to your name.” Scarlet flooded the girl’s cheeks as she 1 «oked at him, her Tips quivering, her eyes full of the glorious shame of a love confessed. “But—but if I told you that I don’t love him— that I never cared for him—in that way—that I—l ” Suddenly she burst into wild sobs, and then he knew. Hetty! Hetty! Norma!” he cried. His arms were round her; her tears were on his cheek. “Call me ‘Hetty* always,” she murmured. “I’ll always be just Hetty to you.”