MRS PERRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 80

MRS PERRY.

By

Katherine Mercer.

'(Copyright. —For the Otago Witness.) A solitary horse’s canter sounded through the expectant silence that waits before a summer sunrise.

Little Mrs Perry sprang from her bed to listen. Her French windows opened on the garden, and across the wide, sloping lawn, from behind the low-trimmed hedge, the beat came clear and steady. It stood out against the soft, restful murmur of the tide like the solitary trees further along the road stood out against their background of the gently rounded hills.

“If an imitation, artifical thing can hurt like this, how lucky I am not to be really in love,” she said whimsically as her hand slipped up to quiet what felt ridiculously like a physical pain. It ebbed slowly as the sound grew fainter. Half a mile away that turned and checked. A pause, then a whistle, so far away it was almost elfin.. . “ And for bonnie Annie Laurie—” Mrs Perry echoed it softly. “No harm in enjoying that. I’ve been fond of it all my life.” She turned toward the bed, then twitched her flowery dressing-gown around her and recklessly out into the garden. A bird in the hedge sang, a hurried note of surprise rather than welcome, but Mrs Perry nodded to it. * You’re quite right,” she agreed. “ A woman of my age—it’s all too nearly forty, if I don’t look it yet —would be much more sensible to go back to bed, or better still, not to have got up from it at all, instead of traipsing out here in the dew, as if I were 16 again. It’s lucky for me the boy’s not 10 years older. I’m half in love with him as it is.”

The distant whistle came clearly again on a slight puff of wind.

“ Maxwelton braes are bonnie—As if it mattered where they were, or 'anything else but that they were young and he loved her.” She was across the lawn now, arid on the path that led under honeysucklecovered arches to the corner gate, where she could look down the road, after the hoof-beats that had left never a mark.

“At least he’s- young.” She turned the weapon carefully, to feel the pain a trifle more keenly. “He’s young. He should make a good lover, too. I believe he’s so nearly in love with me it would be easy to lead him over the brink. I may be nearing 40, but I don’t look it. And in a quiet place like this, with nothing but a stray morning’s fishing for occasional relaxation we’d neither of us age quickly.” The sound of a heavier wave came rolling up. Mrs Perry laughed. “ Listen to the solemn warning,” she mocked. “ Avaunt, get thee behind me. Ten years, that’s a generation elder. I’d be an old woman, faded and wrinkled, when he was a handsome man, barely middle-aged, for girls to admire and pity because of his elderly wife. Oh, I know how the story would work out. I’m half in love perhaps, but it’s not with this boy, its with love itself, and with being loved. Heavens, but I am lonely!” She shivered at the thought of the little school with the white school-house and neat garden all set so trimly beside it. “ I’m going back to it,” she said aloud, defiantly. “ Other people’s children aplenty, if none of my own. The men that went out in the war were luckier than the wives they left behind. Well I’m lucky. I can make a living, had that training before Tom went, so I could take his place and set a man free for service.” She laughed at the old set phrase, with a catch in her breath at the thought of Tom in khaki, on a long-ago morning as quiet as this.

“This boy’s about the age Tom was when he went. Well, I was a fit age for a bride then. Tom thought I made a pretty one. Like Stella would now. I’ll send for her to-day, and start matchmaking.” She nodded at the kingfisher who sat perched on the gate-post across the road, watching her reflectively. I’ll send for Stella to-day,” she repeated. Further along the hedge a blackbird broke into song, and its fellow’ took up ; the chorus. Mrs Perry listened a while, before she turned back to her forsaken bed.

It’s the only safe plan,” she thought rather drearily. “ He’s young enough to fall in love with any pretty girl, once he is started. ‘ Company for the end of my holiday,’ is excuse enough to brin" Stella.”

Excuse enough or not enough, Stella came, tiny and dainty as Mrs Perry herself, to be welcomed most gaily. •. “ My dear, we are alike in build and colouring, but was I ever as pretty as you are! I don’t doubt it, I know I was not. I’m glad Toni did not see you before he enlisted.”

“ He could not have married me twice Over,” Stella objected. “ You know they

all say I am the double of you at twenty. When they don’t say a faint reflection as Mr Lambert does.”

“ The chairman of the school board does not use such expressions in connection with school-teachers, my dear,” Mrs Perry said primly, then laughed outright. “ Have you brought sketching materials, Stella? If you fall in love with the whole of this coast at first sight as I did, you will want to spend all your time here putting it down to carry home.” “And if not?”

“ If not, you will wonder at my daring to ask anyone to help me stick it out in such a dull hole.”

I’ll feel as if I’ve got me to a nunnery. But other visitors may turn up. Mr Lamont, for instance.

“ Our worthy chairman seems to haunt you. Oh, do let us forget all about work-a-day connections.” “Let us plunge into real life,” Stella agreed, “ What is the first burst of dissipation ?” “ Your nerves are under control ? You can stand a shock? Then let us come together, to watch the sunset from the beach.”

“ Aunt Lavender—” she began, as if to begin confessing, but Mrs Perry rattled on heedlessly till they had come to the wide beach, lying almost untouched bv any reminder of man. Something in the cool twilight calmed her there. She stood awhile listening to the quiet waves before she spoke. “ There shall be no more sea,” she quoted. “ I am glad that will not be in my time. Providence would have to make me"all over again, to be happy in a world without a sea.”

“ You should have married a sailor.” “ Oh, it’s sailors’ wives that ask for that particular blessing, naturally. It would be inhuman not to want : something different.’ Now, probably you are planning an ideal view of this, “with a human contrast. Isn’t it beautiful enough without, in this quiet light? ” “ Too beautiful for me to hope to reproduce,” Stella said practically. “ Yet you will hope, and try. My dear, 1 know I have been young too. A century or so ago, of course. You will try, and be happy in that. This lad coming toward us on his grey horse makes as arresting a note against the quiet shades as his whistle does against the background of the waves.” “ Annie Laurie,” Stella said. “ I like that.”

“ Annie Laurie. 1 know’ who the whistler is then. A nice boy too, if he could think of any pleasure “but fishing. You shall study him for a human interest, and I’ll be eager to see if you acknowledge learning anything.” Her hand went up sharply to ease what could be only a fancied pain. If it had been a soberly real throb, Stella must have heard its beat, so loud and insistent. But Stella did not know what'‘‘Annie ■aurie " meant till she met him. Mrs Perry leaned forward, her hand fallen again. “ A pleasant evening, Mr Drummond, isn’t it? Have you time enough before the tide to make an acquaintance in my niece? Stella, if you meet Mr Drummond even a few’ times w’hile we are here, he will try to convince you fishing is as attractive as painting. He has tried to make me believe a fish is as satisfactory a catch as a small boy’s interest.” “ Aunt Lavender is beyond being persuaded any interest can compare with small boys,” Stella said, laughing. “ I was surprised she could keep away from the neighbourhood of her school so long.” “ The shrine was empty,” Mrs Perry retorted. “ Every boy was away holidaymaking. Even those who took . their holidays at home never thought to come back to look at the school. Did they in your school-days, Mr Drummond? ” “ They kept it secret if they did.” His thin, tanned young face was oddly attractive when he smiled. “ I never heard of any doing it.” “ Perhaps they w’ent like little ghosts at night,. wandering around the playgrounds disconsolately, or stealing along under the windows to listen for the scratching of pens or whack of a cane. Surely you remember? ” . “I. am afraid it is only model children that have such remembrances,” he answered.

“ Those that deserve to, die young or get killed off by sensible relations as soon as possible,” Mrs Perry agreed. “ The really nice, human boys find their holidays too crow’ded with fishing, to worry over school.”

“ The' necessities of life have to come first in -a savage state,” •he apologised. “ And you know boys are only savages.” “That is what Aunt Lavender finds charming.” “Of course. Now’ that state of life is calling you more and more every moment, Mr Drummond. Listen! - What a great breaker. If you stay gossiping With us, you w’ill miss the tide.” Her tide of chatter ebbed as she watched him growing smaller. Annie Laurie came back to them faintly before he reached the river mouth where he turned out of sight.

“ All boys are charming,” she said with forced lightness. “He is only thirteen still. A trifle big for his age, and very nice-looking, don’t you think?” “ I wonder if there is any boy of any age you wouldn't want "to "mother,” Stella answered irrelevantly. “ Well, I’m old enough, surely.” Mrs Perry countered instantly. She listened dutifully to Stella’s news and comments for the rest of the stroll, sometimes glancing curiously at the vivid face as she wondered what that chance meeting had meant to the girl. Nothing. Yet how could one, young as he was himself, meet him and the meeting mean nothing?

’’ I wonder,” Mrs Perry soliloquised as she sat at her window before making ready for bed, “ I wonder if I care so much because I am so old? She must love him when she knows him. How could any girl help it? And it is not putting her to too much risk. She is so pretty and young, he is sure to love her. He would have loved me if I had been young. I was, you know, a lifetime since," in defiance of some shadowy accuser.

Yet the end of their holiday came near and apparently nothing had happened, though she set herself almost feverishly to work in every trifling incident possible.

There had been a moonlight picnic on the beach to provide camping Bov Scouts with a surprise supper. °Stella had flirted outrageously with an Assistant Scoutmaster much younger than heiself that was all that had happened there. Except that he had kept Stella’s aunt, if not Stella herself, talking by the gate waiting for the truant’s return. I must go in,” she had said repeatedly, more to her own heart than to and then stifled her conscience by saying that it was only because Stella’s’ whim had prevented" his talking to her that he loitered at all. What did the reason matter, any reason was good if it kept him a moment longer? It hardly mattered .even what he said, yet she would treasure every casual word his voice spoke. “No fool like an old fool,” she summed up bitterly when at last he had gone and Stella aad waved goodbye to the reluctant Assistant Scoutmaster. No fool like an old fool. But how could I have cared like this when I was young, and did not know what loving meant after going years without Tt takes years to teach one that. Stella would love him more the longer she knew him. How could any ffirl help it?” '

No one but Mr Drummond, with his solitary explorer habit, knew- the surprise feature of the district, the unmapped caves behind the old gold workings well enough to guide strangers safely through them, Mrs Perry was sure she had heard and believed. So it was natural to ask him to take charge of the small party she got up,’ and enjoin special care of Stella. Mrs Perry herself would go no further than the narrow cleft that formed the hardly noticeable entrance. I m too old to go hunting for adventures. Another 20 years and some of you will begin to know how satisiying it is to sit on a comfortable boulder doing nothing but rejoice in the sunshine. Find it dull waiting? , o ".“ 1,11 twi fe-armed,” exhibiting knitting and a book.

She sat herself down to wait, imioring both defences as she gazed after the explorers and brooded over what ha PP en - Surely something must. Stella was so pretty and young, her MMd lace would show at its best where o£ n w a elp aiU Sirl W ° Uld 10 ° k ro,nantic -

Perhaps it was as well Mrs Perry did not hear what did happen when she was greeting the returned stranglers who had left Stella and Mr DrSSndlto guard the tail-end of the party. Rather damp to sit on, these mossy stone 3> but J t hink pil take a ~ btella remarked. “ I rather want to talk to you, Mr Drummond. Clear the air, you know. Prevent any misunderstanding.” “Has there been any?” he inquired smiling.

~ • 1 kl >ow of. In fact, I don’t think it 3 at all likely,” she assured him. But don t you think Aunt Lavender’s old-fashioned.”

I hadn’t noticed it,” rather stiffly. She is, though. Probably an artistic sense of fitness to live "up to her name. , Don’t look so disapproving. It wouldn’t be good form for young people not to criticise their elders. Surely vou know that.” J ’

“I imagine it is a popular belief.” Now, Aunt Lavender still believes in fairy godmothers. So much so that she has been trying to act the part ever since I came. Trying to throw us together, if you see what I mean. Well, that’s too old-fashioned for words. I don’t need a fairy godmother. Now doin’t quote stilted verse about needing no charms but my own, thank you. All

that kind of thing is done and finished with.”

“The charms, or the verse, or what?” he asked, smiling again. It was difficult not to enjoy Stella’s confident youth.

“The job,” she answered. “He is coming here for the week-end—we’ll break it to Aunt Lavender then. No, keep your congratulations for a moment’. I am trying to act fairy godmether myself.”

“.I am sure you will lock charming in it,” he replied with mock formality.

“ Even if I don’t .manage the business end successfully? I mean to do that, too, that is why he is coming.” “ As admiring audience, or moral encourageme t ? ”

“ Simply to bring the second party. His'uncle is coming with him, an old friend, a very old and valued friend of Aunt Lavender’s. He has been the chairman of her school board for ages. They know- each other’s habits and taste's better <,h?n most married coi pies do tc years of experience. Dick and I agree it will be nearly as ideal a marriage as our own. So once Dick has brought him, we are going to sacrifice our natural modesty till they can’t escape seeing sentiment, hearing sentiment, getting soaked in sentiment.” “ They might feel they had seen enough without any more personal experience,” he suggseted. “ Not the way we will do it. Aunt Lavender's too sympathetic to let herself feel fed up. And Mr Lamont will swear by her slightest whim. It is really practically arranged, except details—catch at opportunity as it passes, vou know.” “ If you can.” “Me can,” Stella was confident of a trifle like that. “ I’ve told Dick the wedding had better be before ours, to have me for bridesmaid.”

“ Even Hie details are settled; then,” he said admiringly. “ Hav.- you decided what shoes you will wear ? ”

“ Only as things have happened,” she went on unheeding. “ She might try comfort vou in your affliction, in your not standing in Dick’s shoes, I mean, and have her mind too filled with that to let us manage the affair successfully. So you will let her see you are not pining away, that you have no suggestion of love-lorn swain for the sharpest eyes to discover, won't you ? ” “ I’ll hide my aching heart under a robe of motley.” he promised. “ Then that’s that,” she jumped up. “ You’re a good sort, or I shouldn't have told you. You’d never laugh at her.” “ Nd,” he said slowly, “ I wouldn’t laugh. It’s rather the other way. I’m glad you told me what’s in the air. You see, I’ve always been, well, oldfashioned myself, never felt at home with fellows my own age, you know the kind of feeling. Mrs Perry’s such a good pal, everything about her honest as sunlight, so—so —unpretending, somehow I’d almost forgotten she was a bit older. If you hadn't told me about this I might have made a fool of myself. Of course, she’s too sensible ever to think of having anything to do with such a crude young fool. But it’s just as well you let me know, so there won’t be any chance of my—well—hurting her feelings by giving her a jar after she’s been so friendly.”

“ It would surprise her, Stella agreed. “ I’m glad you never will, never did, even think of such a thing.” They came out into the sunlight before a suggested rescue party had been organised. Mrs Perry looked anxiously, but could see no sign of anything but open friendliness. If he was rather quiet that was usual with him. Stella’s gaiety was unaffected.

“ One of the best possible days,” she summed tip in the evening. “ And tomorrow will be better still. Aunt Lavender, I didn’t tell you—Dick's coming to-morrow with his unde.’’

“ Dick ? ” “ That is what will make it the best possible day. Didn’t you guess? ” “ No.” Mrs Perry’s tone was rather strained. “ No, I never guessed. Dick is a very good boy, my dear, very lovable. But Mr Drummond who was with you to-day—are you quite sure he has not ”

“ Not a bit of it,” Stella assured her at once. “ He’s never been in love with anything but his fishing rod; never will be. You may be quite sure of that.” “ I’m so glad,” Mrs Perry murmured. “ Dick is really very—lovable.” “ All boys are, to you,” Stella mocked gaily. “ Dick is really one by himself. His uncle is rather a good sort, too, don’t you think ? ” “Mr Lamont? Oh, yes. He is a man I have always liked. I am sure you have chosen wisely.”

“ There wasn’t much choice about, it,” Stella declared. “ Nowadays girls don't have to choose between a score of lovesick swains. They’ve got sense enough to count themselves lucky if one suitable man turns up to keep them from growing lonely as they grow old.” Mrs Perry smiled faintly. “ Even with only a solitary suitor, one" has to decide whether it is better to take him, or risk growing lonely as you say. Good-night my dear. Whatever prosaic you say about suitability I’m sure you’re in love with Dick, so there is no need to wish you happiness.”

“No, you’re right. We’ve got it,” Stella said confidently. Mrs Perry sat for a long time by her open window, looking out silently into the moon-lit garden, listening to the waves. She shivered when she stood up, then leaned forward with a catch of the breath.

I thought it was a horse,” she said to heiself. ‘ It was only my heart thumping. She must be in love" with Dick, or how could she have seen him even these few days without beginning to love him. I suppose it really is loving that counts, not the identity of the one loved. As she says, there isn’t much choice for a girl. She has to love someone. If not, there’s an unnatural, half-starved existence to look forward to. So at all events I’m glad I love him. It may hurt a bit. but it’s better than semi-starvation. Substitutes are sapless, like shavings. M ith which philosophy she went to bed, and dreamed of a horse cantering down the empty road, to the whistled tune of Annie Laurie, which was pleasant enough, but not so satisfactory as to make her feel as buoyant as Stella next moi ning, though the day was ‘ one to exhilarate a hermit crab ’ that voun fr lady said. ’ ’’’

I’ve been singing to myself all day,” she told Dick. “ It’s the best of all possible worlds. Everything’s going to happen as beautifully as we’ve planned.” “ Even your aunt and uncle Phil?” She nodded.

“ I’m perfectly sure. I’ll see he gets a good chance, this very evening, out in the garden. Where shall we be? Oh, we’re an old engaged couple, we don’t count. We’ve got to think first of them, poor innocents.”

So another moon-lit evening Mrs Perry walked in the garden, and beside her an old friend, a most suitable worthy gentleman, urged that their long-stand-ing friendship would justify an experiment in something warmer. Hardly an experiment,” he corrected himself. “Me know each other too well for there to be any uncertainty.’ And my dear, it’s more than that, not just a social partnership to keep us both from growing lonely. I love you. Can’t you come? Take time to consider it.”

They were near the gate by now. Along the road someone cantered easily, to a whistled tune that sounded almost defiant against the everlasting background. Mrs Perry stood listening a moment, as if considering. Then she looked at him honestly.

“ That is just why I can’t,” slie said. ‘ A social partnership, there we could give evenly. But I can’t take your love and give nothing but liking in return. It would be like giving dried sticks or shavings for growing wood. There’s no sap in shavings you know.” The horse cantered past. Its rider gave no sign of having seen the two figures by the gate. “ Hadn’t we better go inside ?” said Mrs Perry.