THE NOVELIST

Otago Witness, Issue 3958, 21 January 1930, Page 70

THE NOVELIST

THE NECKLACE OF EL-HOYA.

By

DULCE CARMAN.

(Special for the Otago Witness.)

CHAPTER XV.—THE FINDING OF THE DAY-DREAM LADY. If you’d fail not in the quest, you must find the. way, ■\Vi ■ ■ -ou love the best, so the chilt dren say! -—Old Rhyme. “I in ver could have Relieved it! ” Ralph Moore said at last, in a low, shaken voice, " These things don't happen i ea I ly ! ” Myra Leigh shook her head without lifting her eyes from the rapidly-growing dress upon the long white knitting pins. " You wouldn't think so, would you? ” she said slowly, “ Two people, thousands et miles apart, so perfectly in accord mentally that they dream the same thing, why! there were dozens of ridiculous little dreams in which that DreamBoy took part. For instance, one night I dreamt that he came to me riding a tame moa. It kept eating sponge cakes, ami swimming across and across the river. It was awfully angry because there was jam in the sponge cakes instead of whipped cream. The DreamBoy shut it up in a dolls’ house, and we began to play hide and seek amongst the water-cress with some crayfish in a little pool, I had just hidden myself nicely from them when ”

“ The moa got out of the dolls’ house, and said that it had cooked dinner!” finished Ralph eagerly, “ And that it had flavoured everything with vanilla cream. Awful piffle, isn't it? But we seem to have dreamed the same things all the time.’’

“ It seemed quite natural! ” said Myra, her pretty cheeks flushed with excitement, all awkwardness forgotten, “ Why! 1 was quite a big girl when I dreamed of a big birthday party where nearly all the guests were clockwork mice. Some of the very best pink and white sugar ones, too, were there. You know the sugar mice, don’t you —with string tails? ”

But Ralph did not know them. Being New Zealand born and country bred, sugar mice—with or without string tails —had not come within his wide acquaintance with sweetstuff. He confessed that he knew no sugar mice whatever, either pink or white, so several precious minutes were spent in explaining and describing, and then Myra Leigh went on—-

“ Am I really Laurian Leigh’s mother •—a staid, respectable married woman? But I really must see just how far we go together in these dream adventures. There was an alarm at the birthday party I mentioned, when it was discovered that 1 was a little girl really, and they turned me into a big birthday cake, all covered with white icing. I was quite frightened, and the horrid clockwork mice began to run all over me. I tried to scream, but could not—because I was a birthday cake, you see, and their wheels stuck in my icing, and they had to stay there.

“ Just then a whole party of little Ix>ys and girls sat down to a table loaded with good things to eat, and they called for the birthday cake. I was quite sure they were going to cut slices out of me, and felt all funny and hollow inside, but all the children grumbled and cried because there were only clockwork mice on me, and no sugar ones at all. I didn’t get cut up after all, because ”

“ Because I was the knife, and refused to cut!” Ralph finished quietly, “Oh, it is really no use going on. \Ve must have duplicated every dream. Y’oy came to me once in a hamper of chocolates—do you remember? You have been a wood-fire, and a Christmas tree, and once you were a cricket ball, and I was playing a match with you, and every time I hit you, you laughed most gleefully. They say, don’t they, that there is only a very narrow' line separating sleep from insanity. It that is true, I think we must have often crossed the border line.” “ But it was always you I crossed with! ” Mvra said defensively.

“ And you I i -, ' -wneys, though I should most likely never have known you if it had not been for your blessed idea of keeping the dreamdiarv.”

“ I had to! ” Myra said simply, “ I was the oddest child—lonely, and not very strong, and extremely sensitive. I used to absolutely live on those dreams of mine.”

“ You even knew that I called vou • Meri

“ They called me that at home, because mother was Myra, too.”

“ I can show you the bush glade where you came to me first! ” Ralph said slowly, “ And the very deserted whare in the bush wjiere I gathered the plums for you in the old forgotten orchard. I kept those plum trees pruned—they were on father's estate, you see. They still bear heavily -not even Sybil and Linda know of them—my children have never seen them. It was your secret and mine, and I guarded it jealously.”

“How dear of you! ” said Myra in a moved tone, busying herself with the rainbow gleam of Laurian’s half-com-pleted dress.

“ But there were two years, when I was knocking round the islands with my tutor, that you scarcely came at all.” “ Oh ! I wanted so to come, but I could not find the wav.”

“ And yet I missed you awfully. It was soon after that you stopped coming to me altogether.” “ That must have been when you married!” Myra said interestedly. “How wonderful! Always when I tried to find my way to that dear bush glade where the wild bees hummed above the scarlet rata blossom, there seemed to be a barrier, past which I could not pass, no matter how hard I tried. I knew, in some strange way. that vou were on the other side of the barrier.”

“ And now we are here—together—in the waking world!” said Ralph tensely. “ There is no barrier between us now, little Day-Dream Lady of mine! Do you remember Maitland’s story yesterday about the Queen of Heart’s Desire? I wonder if he meant it to apply to you and me? Meri—what do vou'think?”

“ I think,” said Mrs Leigh deliberately. " that the world is a very strange place, and that we have had unbelievable experiences, you and I!”

“ But now? ” said the man, compellingly. “ Now that we are together at last, as we never expected to be, you won't let me lose you again? You will come to me with little Laurian—you will train my children up to be—-—” “\\ orthy of the mother who was large hearted enough to know everything without feeling jealous?” Myra finished softly. “I will trv!”

She raised her blue eyes to those that were so eager, and so perilously close, and the rainbow silk fell unheaded upon her knee. “Be careful!” she said warniugly. “ Here come the swimmers. There are eyes all round us.”

“ What do they matter? Let everyone know that we have found one another at last, after all these years,” murmured the man pleadingly. “No! Not yet! You must remember that, in the eyes of the world, we are practically strangers. Everything must be done properly. We have never had each other’s company at all before—a short time longer of being friends only will matter very little. In any case, I would rather have time to realise things. Y’ou can’t think how pleased I feel that my dreams were never like poor Mona’s.” “ Tier’s was a bit weird, wasn't it? Hallo, Maitland—who won the race? I didn't happen to be looking when you reached shore.”

“Mona won the chocolates!” Terry said cheerfully. “ I won the cigarettes. Lionel’s gone to get them from the car, and soon as they have been properly presented, we will share all round.”

“ Haven't you two just about exhausted every possible topic of conversation, lazy beings? ” demanded Marie gaily, as she slipped into the shade of the big umbrella. “ How that dress is growing, Mrs Leigh—it’s a sweet thing!” Ralph rose to his feet abruptly. It was more than he could do to sit quietly and enter into conversational chit-chat after the emotional strain of the past half-hour.

“ I’m going to give my imps a swim!” he said, in as light a tone as he could compass. “ I think they can’t learn to swim too young.” Myra nodded a little shyly, and devoted all her attention to her knitting. “Myra!” said Mona in an undertone, as the two men went off together. “You have made a conquest there!” The lovely colour rushed in a flood to Mrs Leigh’s face. “Mona—how can you? Why! I have hardly met him!” she said lamely. “I only met him yesterday for the first time of all—although of course I’ve known him ” she stopped abruptly.

“All your life!” finished Marie quickly. “My dear, I guessed. Y’ou are the little Day-Dream Lady!”

“How on earth did you guess?” with frank astonishment. Marie shook her head.

“ I really could not say. All sorts of little things seemed to point the way. Y’ou came from Australia—‘a hot country ’ —and your eyes are blue and your hair fair. Mona told me once that you were called ‘Meri’ as a child, and you both mentioned the dream of falling off a bridge.” “ Y’ou would make a good detective, Miss Luxford!” said Myra Leigh laughing. “Y’ou built up a splendid case on very slight evidence, but it happens that you were right this time.” “Well, so many strange things have happened lately that one more or less doesn't make very much difference!” Marie said easily. “ Because, you see,

the man in Mona's dream is real, or anyway if he isn’t, Mr Maitland, Lion and I have all imagined we saw him, so he is tangible enough. For my part I would like to know what it is in this valley of Mona’s that seems to draw and hold mysteries. Mine, and Moua’s, and Mr Maitland’s are all interwoven in an apparently hopeless tangle, but why on earth you and Mr Moore should have to meet here first, of all places upon earth, is more than I can understand.” “I can’t understand it myself!” owned Myra Leigh, candidly, “ In fact it is too wildly improbable for anything, but there it 'is! ”

“ And you are both of the waking world now! ” said Marie, a little sadly, “ Y’ou don't know how lucky you are, mv dear.”

“ Phyllis and Leopold are the luckiest people of all! ” Mona said enthusiastically, “ What a change you will make in them.”

A faint Hush crept into Myra Leigh's beautiful cheeks.

“I had forgotten the children! ” she owned honestly, “ Poor dears, they are badly behaved, I must admit, but they have had no mother, ami they have always been trained absolutely wrong. Y’ou know, I live nearer to them than you do here, and I have seen far more of them. They are really nice children wheit one gets to know them. There is a lot of determination and sturdy honesty about their characters that promises well. I have always been curiously drawn towaids them. I sometimes wondered why! “ Well! Y’ou know now, dear Myra. But I do not see how you will ever make them the least bit like wee Laurian, for instance.” Mrs Leigh laughed cutri'di’

“ I probably never shall! ” she agreed readily, “Laurian is a wonderiiiot ...n. 1 child, as I used to be at her age. It will do her all the good in the world to be brought into constant contact with sturdier natures than her own. And look at the way the dear things have been treated. Nobody ever attempts to make them obey, except their father, and it seems that he has been very seldom with them. They have literally run wild. Now honestly, Mona, did you ever sec a jolly real little girl in clothes like that pink monstrosity poor Phyllis wore yesterday?”

“ It certainly was rather singular! ” admitted Mrs Vellacott cautiouslv.

“ And did yen ever know a rollicking, well-mannered boy done up in blue gingham like that, and answering to the name of 1 Leopold ’? "

“I can't say I have!” agreed Mona, adding cautiouslv. “ But he has no other name, so what can you do about that? ” Mvra smiled.

“ When they come under my guidance,” she said quietly, " Phyllis and Leopold will vanish. When 1 come to see you, Phil, in checked gingham frock, and Leo in shirt and shorts, will come with me, and I hope Laurian will be in checked gingham too —nothing would please me better.” “ Then Terry's fairy story will come true after all. The Queen and little Delight will influence the naughty Prince and Princess, and everything will go as merrlv as——”

“The proverbial wedding bell!” finished Marie lightly, as her twin ceased speaking. “ What is the matter, dear? ”

For Mona was staring across the sand with a stricken look of horror on her face.

“What is it, Mona?” Marie repeated sharply, as her twin did not speak, “What are you looking at?” “Lion!” said Mona, with an effort, “Who is with him?” “Dickie!” answered Marie, after a moment’s pause, gazing across the sundrenched sand intently, “ Dickie —with his little red bucket —they are going down to the sea for water.” “No, not Dckie! Behind him—see! Just over his shoulder—that hideous old man with a flowing white beard.” Marie looked again.

“There is no old man, Mona, you are dreaming, dear. If there were I should be sure to be able to see him.”

“Perhaps! ” answered her twin in a lew voice, “ Anyway, I am thankful that Dickie has your necklace, Marie, it will safeguard them both.” CHAPTER XVI.—OFF THE DEEP END. Seek not to know what must not be revealed ; Joys only flow where fate is most concealed —Dryden. “Things are going like the devil!” said Lionel Y'ellacott, morosely. “Meaning, what in particular?” demanded his chum anxiously. ‘ I have only been away a day—-surely much could not happen in that time? ” “Y’ou wouldn't think so, certainly!” admitted Lionel unwillingly “ But all the same, I mean it—you see, you took Marie with you—she wore that deuced necklace, of course? ” “Yes! 1 have never seen her without it—except when Dickie wore it on the beach, and when she threw it on my arm ttie day Bluebottle nearly kicked Dickie and Laurian into Kingdom Come! Funny those two finding one another like that, isn't it? Moore and Mrs Leigh, I mean.’”

“ Y’ery odd!” agreed Lionel absently. “ But honestly, Terry, I'm as worried as the deuce! ” “What on earth has gone wrong?”

“It’s that old beast Icmalios!” said Lionel explosively. “ I hate to give in, Terry. I know, with half my brain, that these things don’t happen, they couldn’t—but the other half is in deadly fear. We are not going to be allowed to use the green metal for innocent

purposes. If we develop it at all, it must be along the lines that the old priesthood lays down for us. I am beginning to see that clearly. I know' I have been difficult to convince, but it is damnably hard to give up such a great thing when success is practically assured—within one's very grasp, indeed.”

“But what happened. Lion? I know, of course, how hard it is to give up what is undeniably the biggest thing we shall ever touch, but I saw some time ago that there was nothing else for it.”

“ Y’ou don’t suppose— —” a faint gleam of hope lighting his eyes, “ that if we keep Marie altogether in the valley for a little longer, we could pull thing's through? Y’ou see, when you took Marie and her necklace with you. you took all the good influence out of the valley.” “Perhaps! No, Lion —-I am afraid it can't be done! There was a time when I hoped otherwise, but that time is past now.” “ I suppose you are right.”

“ I know I am right. Now, Lion—l haven t told you what happened the other day. I did not mean to men'tion it to anybody, but if it will convince you that there is more in the green metal than we realise.”

M hat was it?” demanded Lionel briefl v.

\\ ell! Mona put Dickie down for his morning sleep as usual. She had a bad headache herself, and went to lie down in the cool of the living-room, so as not to disturb him. She left him to Miss Luxford to see after. It was, by the way, the morning you went into town for those new chemicals.

“ About twelve o’clock, Miss Luxford came to me in great distress. She had gone to take the kiddie up at the usual time, and he wasn't there—his cot was empty.”

“Nothing odd about that!” commented Lionel. “Cynthia might have taken him up for some reason or other. She has done it sometimes." “Cynthia went to town with vou, if you remember!” Terry said drilv. ‘ “ And Mona was asleep.”

I hat does put a different complexion on affairs certainly! Dickie can't climb out of his cot by himself, I know.” “ No! I remembered that. That is what worried Miss Luxford so much, and why she came to me. You s-*o we couldn’t find him, and although we dared not call very loud, because we were afraid of disturbing Mona, he would not answer us at all, and you know that Dickie never hides.” “No!” commented Dickie’s father curtly. ’ The kid would have come if he had heard you calling.”

"We knew that. That was just what we couldn’t understand—that, and how he had managed to get out of his cot without help from any of us. Anvway, just as we were beginning to get desperate, and feel that after all we should hax e to go and wake Mona, and appeal for her help, I chanced to look out of the window, and mv heart seemed to give one great leap, and then stop altogether. lhe little creek caught my eye, and there, toddling towards it as fast as he could, was Dickie, laughing gleefully to himself, and holding out his fat hands for something I could not see. How he ever got beyond the garden fence is a mystery to me, for the gate was closed and fastened as usual. There he was, and I tore out of the house, and broke my own record in crossing that strip of ground.” “Yes?” said Lionel tensely, as his chum paused. Terry chuckled.

“ They counted me a sprinter at Cambridge!” he said, “ I just wish they could have seen me cross that grass, and take the garden fence. Just as I got to the creek-bank, Dickie reached it too, and walked straight off it, exactly as though someone had given him a shrarp push from the back.”

“ Of course I hauled him out immediately, and the poor little fellow was not hurt at all, only very wet indeed, and very badly frightened. Me soon had him dried and comforted, and neither Mona nor you were told anything about it. Y’ou see, the water in the creek isn’t a bit deep, and with me there, of course, there was not the slightest danger. At the same time, if I had not been there the consequences would probably have been very serious indeed. It seems as though they are concentrating on the kiddie now, and are determined to do him harm.” “That is so! ” agreed Lionel, “You will see it is even more clearly shown by what happened to-day while you were away.” “What happened?” asked Terence, in his turn. “ It was realistic enough for Mona—she is quite ill, so we had to send her to bed. We are to blame really—we left the door of the lab. unlocked when we came away this morning.’ Terence stared at his chum in unbelief.

“ But we never have done such a thing! ’’ he said with emphasis. “ No! I could have sworn we locked it as usual, but there it is! We had rather a severe earthquake here in the valley this afternoon—l suppose you felt it even in town? ”

“Yes! It was a heavy shock. It made an awful mess of the windows in one china shop—that new little place in High street.”

“ It was the heaviest I have felt in New Zealand! ” the elder man said reflectively. “ The whole house shook and creaked, the hanging lamp in the livingroom and two pictures were dashed to

the ground and smashed; in the kitchen all the milk was upset over the freshly* washed floor, and it wasn’t safe to go near Cynthia for hours. Dickie was iti view in the garden, laughing gleefully at the ground which rose and fell in long, undulating waves quite visibly as we watched. In the bush we heard a dead tree crash heavily to the ground, and then the earth slowly steadied down, and all was silence and stillness.

“ It seemed to us to go on rocking even after we knew that |t had stopped, and it took us some little time to master the physical nausea—the worse than sea* sickness peculiar to several earthquakes —and then the same idea came to both Cynthia and myself at the same instant, Where was Mona all this time? Y’ou know how terrified she always is by the hast suggestion of an earthquake. Why on earth had she stayed by herself all this long time? Yon must remember how she always comes running at the first sign of an earthquake.” But how was it that you didn't miss her at first ? ” demanded Terry curiouslv, " Well, I thought she was probably with (ynthia when she didn’t turn up in search of me, and Cynthia thought she was with me. It was not until Cynthia came to tell her that all the milk was spilt that either of us realised that she was missing. Of course we started the search-party straight away, and hunted through every corner of the house without success. There was no trace of her anywhere at all, she seemed to have completely vanished.”

“ How unfortunate in her present state of strain and jumpy nerves. She did not need another upset of any kind." "No! ” gloomily, “ If I hadn't been so confoundedly obstinate, I suppose it couldn’t have happened either, because the green metal would have been done away with, if I had given in when vou first asked me to. When we found that she was not in the house, of course we < xtended the search to the garden and orchard, and at last the bush. But still we could not find her. and she did not' answer to our calling, and at last, in sheer desperation, I turned to the laboratory—where she never goes—and got quite a shock when I discovered that the door which I had supposed to be securely locked, was swinging just ajar.” Mas Mona there? ” incredulously, “I though nothing would ever induce her to cross that threshold.”

“ I thought so too! ” ruefully, “ That's where we fell in, Terry. Mona was there, right enough, lying insensible on the floor, and also—though I didn't notice it at the time—the little green metal model Icmalios made no longer stood upon the stand we commandeered from the living-room. It was poised motionless in mid-air, by the side of the stand instead of on top of it where it should have been.” " Great Scott! ”

“Of course we carried Mona up to the house, and brought her round again—and deuce of a time we had doing it too. She was in an awful state of mind when she first came to herself—crying for Dickie, and seemingly unable to believe that the kid was all right—even when she had him in her arms.”

“ Did you get the story from her eventually?” queried Terry gravely. “ Y'es—after a time she quietened down, and then I coaxed her to tell me what had induced her to go to the lab. —a place which, as you know, she hate* like poison, and in the end she told me.” “What?” demanded the younger man impatiently, as Lionel Y’ellacott paused refleeti velv.

“ She said that just when the earthquake started, she ran out into the garden where Dickie was playing, to fetch the child in to me, and he had left his kitten in the flower-bed, and was just vanishing into the lab., the door of which, to Mona’s great surprise, was standing partly open. By this time the earthquake was at its worst, and Mona—knowing that we were both away from the lab., and wondering how on earth the door came to be unlocked and open—choked back the fear she had of the earthquake, and ran down to bring the child out before there was danger of anything being dislodged from its place, and falling upon and injuring him. She says that the earthquake—at least we will presume that the Earthquake was responsible—had jarred the model from its stand, and it was poised in the air. “Now that in itself, you must admit, would be enough to frighten anyone with nerves, especially when you remember that Mona had never seen the model, and knew nothing whatever of its queer tricks where gravity is concerned. But that was not all. Dickie was standing beneath the model, reaching upwards to grasp what doubtless seemed to him a charming new toy, and over him, with frowning brows, and hand up-raised to strike, was a very old white-bearded man, wearing a yellowlinen robe. Mona swears it was the same old man she has seen several times lately.” “Icmalios!” said Terence gloomily. “ I suppose it was Icmalios. It seems like one of his kindly acts. At all events, Mona snatched the boy away, and pushed him out of the lab. She intended to follow him herself, but she avers that the old priest got in her way, and shook his fist in her face in a very threatening manner. Then she keeled over, and she doesn't know how the lab. door became so nearly closed again, or what became of the old man, whom she evidently regards with extreme dislike. But she has been quite ill ever since, so I sent her to bed, and told Cynthia to keep her there.”

“I wonder if we shall be allowed to give up the green metal researches wholly?'’ said Terence slowly. His' chum stared at him in unfeigned amazement.

“Allowed to?’’ he repeated incredulously. “Why on earth not? What is to prevent us from scrapping the whole thing this minute if we wanted to?” The younger man shook his head helplessly. “ I can’t explain, Lion—l’m not sure that I even know myself quite what I mean. But, we haven't been working with the green metal much lately, and yet, look at the attempts to harm Dickie that have taken place within the last few days. It seems to me that we have loosed forces that are too strong for us, and it may not be left altogether in our hands to decide what we will do about it.” “ But how ? ”

“Well! It seems quite evident to me that this-green metal of ours is the idol of a bygone people —the symbol of an ancient religion. We laugh at these things now-a-days, of course, and refuse to believe them, and when ancient curses work, we have plenty’ of commonsense explanations; but they are with us, nevertheless. I have a fancy that the guardians of the green metal must always have demanded singleness of purpose from, and complete control over all the actions of their followers —of everyone who comes into contact with the sacred metal in any way, or, at the least, those who worked amongst it. You haven't heard all that I have, from both Mona and Marie, so jierhaps you won’t realise quite so fully what I mean—but Mona and Dickie are alien to it—they’ know nothing of it, and therefore cannot worship it, and they share your thoughts with it, and prevent your whole life being devoted to its service. Therefore, Mona and Dickie are decidedly in the way, and may, to put it very baldly, Im dispensed with.”

“ You said something the same before!” said Lionel Vellaeott slowly. “And I hadn't the sense to take your advice. It’s rather horrible, isn’t it?”

“ It’s damnable, and quite unbelievable. but it is so. I am convinced. We shall never have luck with the green rue tai.”

“No—confound it! I could tear my hair when I think of its possibilities. But how about Marie, Terry? I should have thought that her objection to our researches in connection with the green metal were more active than Mona’s—and Dickie is only a baby, knowing nothing. Unless the green metal tills your thoughts to the utter exclusion of Marie, is she to lie ‘ dispensed with ’ as wel l ? ”

“ Miss Luxford is not —never will or can be under the inHumice of either Icmalios or the green metal!” Terence said, rather confusedly. " There can lx* no doubt whatever that Miss Luxford is under the influence of some unseen agency, and it is my firm belief that it is an adverse one to, and stronger than that of the green metal. She is stronger than Icmalios—indeed I am beginning to think that she is our only safeguard.”

“I’m fond of Marie!” Lionel said slowly. “ She is a tine girl, and I admire her immensely. At the same time, I don’t altogether care for the idea that she holds my fate in the hollow of her hand.” (To be continued.)