HARD LUCK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3768, 1 June 1926, Page 82

HARD LUCK.

By

H.H. the Ranke of Saeawak.

(Copyright.—For the Witness.)

Mr Potters’s hand trembled. It trembled so violently he could hardly unfold the letter from its envelope. His eyes swam—he was rather inclined to have moist looking eyes at any time—and the slightest excitement made the tears run down kin cheeks. What did this letter contain, this flimsy, coloured scrap of paper? What did she sav? What could one sav in answer to his full frenzied appeal? Would she agree to meet him in the hall of the Langliam Hotel, or waa that asking too much of her? Had lie been over presumptuous in his endeavour to become acquainted with her? Ought lie not to have taken more time, worked more gradually towards his goal? What.would she think of him nisliing to meet her as it were, not dealing his cards out one by one, but throwing them all on the table in a heap? Perhaps she would like to have been more delicately treated.

Mr Potters was bewildered and uncertain in his dealings with women. His wife—well, she was his wife, and somehow that was different. She understood him, or was it that she tolerated him? Mr Potter had not the intuition, neither did he take the trouble to find out. His Wife. How apart she seemed from the letter in his hand, how separate from this reckless and original adventure. So prim and prosaic and exact. With what ill-concealed horror

she would have gazed ujion the straggling, uneven handwriting, and impudent orange notcpa|»er. “ Six o’clock, Langliam Hotel, Louella.” Only those few words, and yet Mr Potters trembled like ail imbalanced jelly, and the tears ran from his pale blue eyes on to his full red cheeks, leaving little shining marks like the course of a river on a map. It waa like this. Mr Potters worked in the city. Every morning he took down his bowler hat off a stags horn in the hall, and clambering upon a bus became engulfed amongst the many breadwinners winning their way to Throgmorton street. He made a small and, it must be confessed, precarious living. Toiling all day and in all weathers. Every evening he put his bow-ler hat back upon the stag’s horn and went up a green carpeted staircase to the drawing room. There he would find his w-ife knitting or sewing; always she had something in her hands, she was either twisting in and out or drawing a needle through; and always she would look up and say sweetly: “Is that you, John?” Although for 10 years it had never been known to be anyone else. And lie would sul»side into the armchair opposite her and, unfolding the evening new-spaper, reply, equally sweetly, “ Yes, Mary, it’s me. And then silence —those long interminable silences broken pnly by the rustle of a newspaper, or the clickirlg of a needle, tortoisealiLdl or steel.

Mary Potters was not a pretty woman, indeed, she never had been, uot even in the early days. But when young she had had paetty things about her so fatal to some men. Her hands and feet were tiny, the poise of her head upon her shoulders gracious and kindly. But her face lacked expression. It was without humour, though not without dignity. She oame of a good family. Hence the stag’s horn in the hall, emblem of respectability and sport. Mary’s childhood had been breezy and outdoor; you could see it in her small insignificant features that melted into little lines wherever the weather had caught them. Because she was slim her age trumphed over the youthful appearance of her body, by showing each advancing year in her face. Her movements were gentle and slow. She was noiseless about the house like a tall, grey moth. Mr Potters wished she would sing or call out to him sometimes—the silence of his house oppressed him Years ago, when he had been quite young, he had rather prided himself in his propensities as a lady’s man, and it irritated him to see himself sinking back into middle age—being drawn back by her. He was not shy by uature, but his wife’s timid reticence was growing on him like a spreading fungus, impending his movements; wasting his ability. He felt like a very diminutive fly being drawn by subtle and invisible threads into a web. He felt himself being sucked dry—drained slowly to death, because from some strange inertia he was unable to fight his way out. He was panting and breathless and stout; aching to be active, but unable to because Mary sat by his fireside. Mary, pale and quiet and pverwhebning. Mary was the spider, and the little house with the grene carpeted stairway was the web in which he was trapped, from wnich he could not and would not escape. For he loved Mary—that is so often the way with husbands whose lives are choked by their wives—they love them really. Whatever happened Mr Potters would love Mary. She suited him. All he wanted was to be uplifted. To be taken out of himself. To forget Throgmorton street and his own bandbox of a home, so neat and tied up and prepared. If only Mary would sometimes leave things about as he did: or forget to order a meal. Yet he enjoyed his meals. Nobody enjoyed a good dinner better than Mr Potters, and nobody knew better how to order one than his wife. What then was wrong? He wanted Mary, could not indeed do without her. Bui Mary was not everything in life—there was something more than a more warm house and a good dinner. Sometimes going to and fro to the city Mr Fottcrs would catch sight of a shapely leg boarding the omnibus ladder; or else a pair of eyes would suddenly flash into his, and his heart would give such a bound ne would almost choke. Gay, laughing eyes, and a. pair of silk stockings would so disturb Mr Potters’s mind that he could not sleep. He discovered that his little home was irksome, and a sudden fury possessed him when he saw these girls flit by that lie was out of it —just because Mary eat by the fire knitting Fur ten years it had gone on like this, unbroken except by the usual holidays to a usual seaside fesort. Mr Potters was rather natty by the sea—little bowler hat, and a Malacca cane tucked under the arrn. But what was the use of it with Mary floating raoth-like beside him, weaving her web. The holidays only made things worse.

So things might have gone on for ever had lie not one evening brought back another paper tucked up inside his ordinary one—a paper he haul found on the Top of the bus that had brought him back from the city. Now he had never seen anything quite like this paper before, it had all sorts of startling and exciting announcements, and it advertised colour for drab lives, and happiness for monotony—there were other people then distressed by the ruts that they lived in, there were men and women like Mr Potters craving for adventure. Mr Pottere’s heart swelled as he read the little paper through and through; swelled towards the many lonely souls within its pages. “ Poor damn people! ” he said to himself. “ I know how they feel.” And over the rim of the paper he looked at Mary Potters, knitting and sewing the garments that never seemed to materialise into wear, and he sighed and repeated, “I know just exactly how you feel.” Then he

caught sight of Louellan advertisement, and his heart stood still. For it appeared that here at last was a kindred spirit—one who had drained the dregs of life and found them bitter; one who cried out for companionship, for a break in the greyness of her existence. With i > what a thrill he crept guiltily upstairs. With what infinite delight he took up his pen to answer her. “Dear Louella,” lie began, in an artfully-disguised handwriting, and he proceeded to reveal that he also was lonely. He did not confess that he was married; rather did he lead her to lielieve that he had missed the greatest thing on earth—the companionship of women. No—not of women, but of one woman. “And I rather think you are she, Louella,” he wrote, “ because it was just by chance I came upon your name. It is the calculated things in life that are the failures—the chances are like undiscovered treasures in a cave.”

He was rather proud of this plnase, and repeated it over and over again to himself long after he had closed the envelope and sent the letter speeding on its way. He had never allowed himself such expression of thought before —indeed, lie had not realised he had it iu him; this girl’s appeal for companionship had already made a new man of him, and now her answ'er, “ Six o’clock, Langhain Hotel, Louella,” filled him with a strange exhilaration. He had signed himself “ Leander ” —it seemed to fit in with the name that she had chosen—Louella and Leander, it was amazing. No wonder he felt like a boy who was about to embark on a dangerous and forbidden adventure as he crept down the stairs on liis way to the little hall. He had dressed himself with special attention, brushing the thin strands of his hair carefully across the large areas of baldness. He was by no means an ill-looking man, and carried his 40 years but lightly. It was merely his surroundings that were against him; this continual coming and going and climbing up the green-car-peted stairs—then Mary, preposterously respectable with her masonic immobility. It was all bad for him, and you must admit bad for anyone to be as bored as lie was. Vet, as he walked towards the Langliam Hotel he could not help feeling a twinge of regret at his deceitfulness. What would Mary have thought of him with his hat a little tip-tilted and a flower in his buttonhole? What would she have thought of the money jangling in his pocket with which he intended to buy Louella a bunch of flowers and himself a drink? Oh, yes, he certainly intended to have a drink perhaps before he saw Louella, for there was a strange sinking inside him as lie walked up Regent street and saw the spire of AH Souls’ Church. He turned into a flow’er shop ami asked the assistant what flow r ers she thought a lady would prefer; the assistant replied pertly that surely lie ought to know. This rather shocked Mr Potters; he had never been treated like this in a shop before. He rather fancied it might lie the rakish angle of his hat, and shamefacedly and surreptitiously altered it whilst she was stooping in the window' for some roses. Red roses! He fancied Louella would look radiant and very lovely with red roses, hyw kind he would be to her —how helpful. Just the very man for a lonely girl to lean upon and trust. She would lie able to depend oil him —lie was that sort. He stood suddenly revealed to himself as the protector of women, and he swung in at the doors of the Langham Hotel with a flourish, his heart beating furiously, and his eyes rather moist.

As lie stood in the hall amidst a surging mass of arriving and departing people, and boxes of all sorts *and shapes, the courage oozed out of him, and he became filled with apprehension and misgiving. How was he to find her, or she him—Louella and Leander seeking for one another blindly, without any clue as to what either of them looked like? Was she dark or fair, short or tall? What would she be wearing? In despair he gazed round the over-crowded overbusy hall. He began to feel ridiculous, standing there with his bunch of red roses, and all idea of venturing into the bar vanished. He was at any time acutely sensitive and aware of his own shortcomings, and lie became suddenly conscious that his shoes were too brown, and that his tie did not match his socks. • saw Deople looking down at hr*socks, and he wondered if there was a hole in them. He had rolled up his blue serge trousers, and his ankles protruded awkwardly. He had ugly bunchcd-up ankles, and puffy freckled hands—the w’hole position of himself in the hall of the Langhain, holding his bowler in one hand and the flowers in the other, suddenly became ludicrous and intolerable, and he wished he had never come. He was just about to prepare for flight when he caught sight of what he made sure was Louella sitting in the corner of an inner room. Why he made so certain she was Louella he had no idea except that she was heavily veiled and had an air of nervous mystery about her. He went in a roundabout way to reach her, so that she ahould not see him before he pronounced her name—then “Louella,” he cried loudly and boldly in her ear, and presented himself before her. If she had appeared nervous before, it was nothing to the little gasp of terror -she gave at the sight of Mr Potters. She half rose from her chair, drawing her veil closely about her face,

murmuring that she must go. JShe must go home at ouce. But Mr Potters had not sallied forth in rain, nor purchased the roses to take home ignominiously to his wife. He stood in front of Louella presenting the roses in a shy self-con-scious way. “It is all right,” he said. “1 am Leander,” and he smiled beatifieally into the shrouded face. He was distinctly disappointed that she had so concealed herself, it made him feel blatant and exposed. He was distinctly' aware of eyes that rather pierced hiik through the grey veil. She was like a woman seen and heard from a very long distance. She was taller than he had hoped, and not particularly well-dressed. Her gloved hands lay across her knees, gestureless. She seemed absolutely calm and without animation beyond that one frightened movement when he had first stood before her. He thought to himself how unlike her advertisement she was. When she spoke it did not seem as if her voice belonged to her, but as if she had assumed a sound and intonation that did not fit.

Mr Potters found that during that brief interview lie did most of the talking, whilst she stared at him through her veil. He told her how unutterably bored he was, and described the monotony of his life. He confessed he was married, “But that would make no difference,” he said, with an airy wave of his hand. He gained confidence every moment, and said far more than he had intended to when he first set out, and she urged him on with little murmurs of sympathy, but never once giving herself away. He described his home, the hall with the stag’s horn where he took down and put back iiis bowler hat, the charming lium-drum of his existence. “I am bored,” he said. “Bored to death. I thought perhaps you might help me.” “In what wav?” she replied, her voice muffled and confused. Mr Potters could not exactly explain to her then in what way he had meant. He suggested that they should meet some other time at some other place. She took the roses, and asked him to w’rite to her leaving him, he thought, a little abruptly. He went to the bar feeling crestfallen and rattyer foolish. It had all been so different to what he had imagined. However, after a few quick drinks he almost began to convince himself he would not have had her otherwise. “Still waters run deep,” he said to himself as lie made his way home. It was not without guilt that Mr Potters unlocked the front door, h**ng up his hat, and climbed the green carpeted stairs. His w’ife was there, sewing this lime, her head bent over her work. “Is that you, John?” she said. He subsided with extra .rapidity behind liis newspaper. “Yes, Mary, it’s me,” he replied. “You are late,” she said, stitching quietly. “I had an appointment,” lie answered. “An important appointment.” “So had I,” she said gently. “Very important.” Over the rim of the paper Mr Potters gazed at his wife in amazement. She was laughing—actually laughing. “It was bad luck,” she said. “Bad luck for both of us.” And she looked away from her husband to a corner of the room where his bunch of red roses stood. But when she turned again there was no Mr Potters. He had melted behind his newspaper into the chair.