Flotsam

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 91, 8 July 1927, Page 12

Flotsam

By

Coralie Stanton and Heath Hosken .

Author* of “ The Real Mrs. Dare , " The Man She Never Married ,” ** Sword and Plough&c., Jtrc.

To have Flotsam, i.e., goods floating v on the water; Jetsam, i.e., goods cast out of a ship during a storm, and Wilsam, i.e., goods driven ashore when ships are wrecked. These wrecks were called by the vulgar, Goods of God's mercy. (Ancient Charter of Dover.) SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.—John Bolton kneels on the shingle beside the animate form of- a lad who has just been rescued from drowning. The sailor who has brought the boy from the shipwreck can give no information about him. Eater, inquiries proving futile, John Bolton carries the lad to his motor, covers him with rugs, and drives off. The boy refuses the stimulating drink that John offers, and wants to go. This request is refused. Questioned the lad states that he is Jack King. He and his father were bound for South America. Complains of feeling sick and collapses. Arrived at Saye Cas.tle, John Bolton’s home, Mrs. Manton, the housekeeper, undertakes to get the boy to bed, but he fights, kicks, bites, struggles, and makes off. John Bolton

catches him and he capitulates by fainting. He is got to bed and Dr. Goring is sent for. About six in the evening Mrs. Manton seeks her master and informs him that Jack King is a girl—a young woman about eighteen. Dr. Goring says the patient must be kept perfectly quiet for a few days. John Bolton communicates with the steamship offices in London, Scotland Yard tells a sordid story. The girl’s father is really Michael Dennis Croft, company promoter, whose gigantic failure has engulfed the savings of millions of hard workers. His daughter, Jacqueline, is penniless.

CHAPTER I.— (Continued). There had been a long discussion, and finally Mrs. Manton had broken the news of her father’s death. That had been yesterday. The housekeeper had told Bolton that she took it very quietly—“ Never carried on a bit, sir. Just looked at me and nodded her head. Then told me to leave the room.”

Mrs. Manton, from all Bolton could gather, had been a veritable angel. The girl was what she called “a handful and no mistake.”

Bolton sat down near her by the window wide open to a balcony filled with flowers. Pier appearance was fascinating against the greyish oak panelling of the old room—like a silverpoint.

“I am so glad you are better,” he said.

I want to go away at once,” she answered. “You can’t keep me here against my will.”

“Where do you want to go?” he asked her.

“I don’t care. I won’t stay here. I wont’! ”

“Your father ” he began, timidly. “My father is dead!” she interrupted, turning on him like a wild cat. “Pie was drowned. Why didn’t they let me drown, too? I know all about it. They say my father was a bad man. He wasn’t. He never did anybody any harm. He was a good man—a good, good man! He’s dead, and I want to die. too. I don’t want to live. I hate you for making me live—for bringing me here. Let me go at once!”

The man was startled. She was wild with her grief. In the ordered luxury of this old house she was like some untamed animal.

“Your mother?” he suggested. He knew nothing about the late Michael Dennis Croft’s wife.

‘My mother is dead, too,” she answered, sullenly. “Years and years ago. I don’t remember her—l never knew her at all.” "Where do you want to go, then?” “I don’t care.” ‘To your father’s people?” Bolton had discovered two brothers, cousins of the late Michael Dennis Croft, well-to-do manufacturers in the Midlands. “No! They hated him. They were cruel to him.” 0 ‘Why don’t you want to stay here?” ‘Because you think my father was a bad man.” Bolton lied in what he deemed a commendable cause. He assured her that he did not think her father a bad man. The girl’s whole being was wrapped up in that memory. He could see that. Her little face was a tragic mask of deathless devotion. It was almost awesome to think how she idolised the man who obviously had been a heartless scamp. His lie plainly brought her comfort, and he felt that it was cheaply bought. Poor little soul! Such loyalty was wonderful. Her eyes grew less viciously hostile, although they were still sullen. “For the moment I think you must Stay here,” he said. “You are not strong enough to be moved. Just make up your mind to get well. And try to think of us as friends—Mrs. Manton, Dr. Goring, myself.” CHAPTER 11. Lady Maud Genge sat on the verandah of the Swiss mountain hotel, overlooking the blue lake, and backed by the snow peaks-, with - the great glaciers pouring down their sides. It was about six o’clock in the evening. Maud had been for a picnic with

a jolly party, and was going out to dinner at another hotel. She generally fed on her swarms of friends. She was nearly as fond of food as she was of clothes. In fact, she was fond of evervthing that costs a great deal of money. And she had been poor all her life.

Her face was as nearly perfect as a woman’s face can be —the beautiful, gay mouth, the brilliant dark blue eyes, the exquisite rich colouring of peach bloom skin and corn-coloured hair, the short nose, Aith the scornful, sharp-cut nostrils, the bewitching oval chin. But the lovely face was a shade hard: it wore an expression of such complete self-possession as to amount almost to heartlessness. You saw that, if the beauty of it did not blind you. it did blind ~ most people—especially men.

Maud was reading an English newspaper with absorbed attention. She sat motionless, her thin, black eyebrows drawn together, her red lips compressed, the hands that held the paper rigid. On the left one blazed John Bolton’s ruby and diamond ring.

j Presently she rose, slim, trim and I girlish, in her white knitted silk frock, j She went up to her bedroom in the lift, the paper in her hand. “Clarice!” she said, as she opened the door. A little woman, well over fifty, looked up from a shimmering satin evening dress that she was altering. She had a bright, bird-like face? dark hair that waved naturally, a dark skin, and a dumpy figure. She wore black, and a bhick silk apron. She had been in Maud’s service ever since Maud was a girl. "Clarice,” Maud said, "Mr. Croft is dead. Did you know?” Her voice had the same inherent quality of gaiety as her mouth. Even in a rage, or in the depths of depression, it always seemed to be laughing. “No, my lady,” answered the little woman, looking suitably grave. “I thought perhaps you'd seen about it and didn’t like to tell me. He’s been dead a fortnight, Clarice. I’ve just been reading about Farewater Hall, his country place, having been sold. And it repeats all about his death. He was drowned in a wreck off the coast of Kent in a fog. He was trying to escape from England to South America. They were going to arrest him for frauds —huge frauds, evidently. Y’ou remember we saw something about his financial doings some tim*? ago?” “Yes, my lady. It’s very sad. But perhaps it’s as well, my lady, if there was going to be a scandal.” “How I.hated him!” exclaimed Maud. Tlie words sounded almost grotesque in her laughing voice. "But I haven’t really thought about him for years..

Not in that wav. band." ' Not a » ffiy "My lady, it was better „ . was such a bad business , such a young thing." ' m ‘-c : iarice. he behaved _ "Yes, my lady.” t oo -B«t do you think I la dy'.” U SUCh a you "S thing ... Clarice. I know you thinwrong. You never understand !*■ could leave niv child to hin'. "Poor wee babe, my lady- “ Clarice, he divorced me it brute—an odious brute f dead. It was a hideous tn.S* 4 tcharge. I was perfect?® "You let him do it, niv “Of course, 1 did. lIS such a cad. Why. Clarice vm,*®? I wouldn’t light him, even. ** child.” en f w “I know, my lady.” "You think me "a lioartles. w Clarice. You always did." a hard, little laugh. & "Oh. no, my lady. it „ difficult. And you were such! J® * thing.” The woman’s voice Wt ! mg: it was the voice of faithful 2?? tion that nothing could quench •n the paper mention the—little on ' lady?” ”Xo; not a word. X dares,, palmed her off on some of hi, ii. years ago.” "It's better not to think of ii more, my lady," suggested Clark, 1 can do no good." But, when the woman had W» room Maud did think of it Her went back to that time when * r '- of barely eighteen years, plain v Genge then, she had run awav * married Michael Dennis Crcft the bitious young bank clerk. How had quarrelled almost from the 6 how he had been madlv~jealon c she had been bored and their poverty. How she had flirted 4 gadded about, and then had come - * great scene when he had struck h and she had run away, leaving baby barely a year old.’ And thw ■ divorce — the hideous injustice of And her return to her father. whoV it served her right for marrvin* her class. ’ *°*

Then her father’s sudden access to the peerage through the deathTf uncle and two cousins, and the appearance both of Maud Genge aMaud Croft, buried under the courtesy title as surely as though had been dead. She. had given but little thought the man who had captured her v o ir ful heart. From time to time she hfelt a pang, as she realised tha* - had become rich.

And now he had died just in time avert disgrace.

She was still thinking of him, in. stead of dressing for dinner, Clarice brought her a letter. It ** the letter from John Bolton which'• had written to her, telling her all aW the coming of Jacqueline Croft to Saw Castle.

It was a long letter. She ber> to read it without much heed, her mistill fixed on the sensational death the husband of her youth.

She took in the .queer story super ficially. A boy who turned out to W a girl. John had rescued him after* accident —oh, another wreck! A sen. ous illness. The boy—no, girl—*3; at the Castle. John did not know wh» to do with him—no, her.

There was a long description. De* me, John was interested! A stranf creature, half-savage, desperately mi*, erable—needing a woman’s care. Thi: meant her. She knew John. It w*» just like him to burden himself wifc a complete stranger and then to cat on her to help him out.

Her eyes travelled rapidly over tW paper. She caught a name—Micha® Dennis Croft—the defaulting Compam Promoter —the girl's father. Her nan? was Jacqueline. Croft had dressed h* as a boy to facilitate their escape. was stranded, alone in the world, heart broken, with a. disgraced xiame 8$ not a friend. Maud drew in her breath. • This girl at Saye Castle——Michael Dennis Croft’s daughter Out of the dim past arose the memory of a little plump baby form, f a rosy face, of queer, yellow eyes.. It was her own child. (To be continued.)