The Hillman

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 183, 24 October 1927, Page 12

The Hillman

Jar

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM.

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS Chapters 1 to 21.—Louise finds that she, her maid and chauffeur are stranded on the Cumberland Hills. The car has broken down. The Hillman comes to their aid. He escorts them to his home. John Strangewey introduces Louise to his elder brother, Stephen. The family have a keen dislike to the fair sex, and it is years since a woman crossed the theshold. Stephen’s welcome is hostile. On awakening the next morning Louise recollects that the reason why the name of Strangewey seemed familiar was because a farmer of that name in the north of England had had a vast fortune left to him from a relative in Australia. She finds he is the Strangewey who has inherited that large fortune. The Prince of Seyre arrives in his car, and gives John Strangewey a courteous invitation to the shooting. Three months later John is confronted by Stephen, who points out that Louise is an actress in doubtful plays. John denies that there is anything wrong, and hurls back the insults that Stephen heaps upon Louise. In anger John leaves his brother, and goes straight to London. There is an undress rehearsal in progress on the stage. Louise notices John Strangewey. She introduces him to the company. Afterwards the Prince of Seyre converses with Strangewey. Later Louise tells the Prince that she and Sophy are taking John to a Bohemian restaurant. She tells him, too. that John has inherited a large fortune. The Prince presses for more details, but Louise withholds them. The Prince changes his plans and decides to remain in Londom, another week. The next day John, and Louise visit the Ritz. when John almost tells Louise that ho loves her. He takes her home and then goes to a night club with Sophy and tells her he is in love with. Louise. The following day the Prince visits John and takes him shopping. They meet Louise, who introduces John to Graillot. Later Graillot tells Louise that the Prince comes from a despised family and warns her to have nothing to do with him. John and he are enemies. That afternoon the Prince introduces John to Lady Hilda Mulloch. That night John goes to a party given by the Prince and almost becomes involved in an affair with a dancer. He leaves the house. That same night Louise tells Sophy that she thinks she is in love with John. John visits her the next day and tells her he loves ho*.’, but she says she does not want to go and live in the hills. He Is willing to go wherever she likes. The Prince comes In tnd interrupts and John leaves her. John leaves to stay a week-end with Lady Hilda under the impression that sha is having a house party. He finds after sleeping the night that he is the only guest in the place.

CHAPTER XXIV. The next night Sophy acted as showman. Her part was over at the end of the first act, and a few minutes later she slipped into a seat by John’s side behind the curtain. “What do you think of it so far?” she asked a little anxiously. “It seems quite good,” John replied cheerfully. “Some very clever lines, and all that sort of thing; but I can’t quite see what it’s all leading to.” Sophy peered around the house from behind the curtain. “There isn’t standing-room anywhere,” she declared. “I don’t suppose there ever was a play in London that ■was more talked about; and then putting it off for more than three months •—why, there have been all sorts of Tumours .about. Do you want to know Jwho the people in the audience are?” “Not particularly,” John answered.

“I shouldn’t know them, if you told me. There are just a few familiar faces. I see the prince in the box opposite.” “Did you telephone to Louise today?” Sophy asked. John shook his head. “No. I thought it better to leave her alone until after to-night.” “You are going to the supper, of course?” “I have been asked,” John replied, a little doubtfully. “I don’t quite know whether I want to go. Is it being given by the prince or by the management?” “The management,” Sophy assured him. “Do come, and take me! It’s going to be rather fun.” The curtain went up upon the second act. John, from the shadow’s of the box, listened attentively. The subject was not a particularly new one, but the writing was brilliant. There was the old Marquis de Guy, a roue, a degenerate, but still overbearing and full of personality, from whose lips came some of Graillot’s most brilliant sayings; Louise, his wife; and Faraday, a friend of the old marquis, and obviously the intended lover of his wife. “I don’t see anything so terrible in this,” John remarked, as the curtain went down once more and thunders of applause greeted some marvellous lines of Graillot’s. “It’s wonderful!” Sophy declared. “Try and bear the thread of it all in your mind. For two acts you have

been asked to focus your attention upon the increasing brutality of the marquis. Remember that, won’t you?” “Not likely to forget it,” John replied. “How well they all act!” There was a quarter of an hour’s interval before the curtain rose again. Rumours concerning the last act had been floating about for weeks, and the house w*as almost tense with excitement as the curtain went up. The scene was the country chateau of the Marquis de Guy, who brought a noisy, crowd of companions from Paris without any •warning. His wife showed

signs of dismay at his coming. He had brought with him women whom she declined to receive. The great scene between her husband and herself took place in the square hall of the chateau, on the first floor. The marquis is on the way to the room of one of his guests. Louise reaffirms her intention of leaving the house. Her husband laughs at her. Her position is hopeless. “What can you do?” he mocks. She shrugs her shoulders and passes into her room. The marquis sinks upon a settee, and presently is joined by one of the ladies who have travelled with him from Paris. He talks to her of the pictures upon the wall. She is impatient to meet the Marquise de Guy. The marquis knocks at his wife’s door. Her voice is heard clearly, after a moment’s pause. “In a few minutes!” she replies. The marquis resumes his flirtation. His companion becomes impatient—the marquis has pledged his word that .she should be received by his wife. An enmity against the Marquise Guy prompts her to insist. Jhe marquis shrugs his shoulders And knocks more loudly than ever at his wife’s door. She comes out—followed by Faraday. “You asked me what I could do,” she says, pointing to her lover. “You see now!” There was a moment’s breathless silence through the house. The scene in itself was a little beyond anything that the audience had expected. Sophy, who had been leaning over the edge of the box, turned around in no little anxiety. She heard the door slam. John had disappeared! He left the theatre with only his liat in his hand, turning up his coat by instinct as he passed through the driving rain. All his senses seemed tingling with some nameless horror. He reached his rooms—he scarcely knew how—and walked upstairs. There he threw off some of his dripping garments, opened the window wide, and stood there. He looked out over the Thames, and there was a red fire before his eyes. Stephen was right, he told himself. There was nothing but evil to be found here, nothing but bitter disappointment, nothing but the pain w'hich deepens into anguish. Better to remain like Stephen, unloving and unloved, to draw nearer to the mountains, to find joy in the crops and the rain and the sunshine, to listen stonily to the cry of human beings as if to some voice from, an unknown world. He leaned a little further from the window, and gazed into the court at a dizzy depth below. He had cut himself adrift from the peace which might have been his. He woulij never know again the joys of his earlier life. It was for this that he had fought so many battles, clung so tightly to one ideal—for Louise, who could show herself to any one who cared to pay his shilling or his half-guinea, glorying in her dishonour; worse than glorying in it—finding some subtle humour in the little gesture with which she had pointed, unashamed, to her lover. John bent a little lower from the window. A sudden dizziness seemed to have come over him. Then he was forced to turn around. His door had been quickly opened and shut. It was Sophy who was crossing toward him, the rain streaming from her ruined opera-cloak. “John!” she cried. “Oh, John!” She led him back to his chair and knelt by his side. She held his hands tightly. “You mustn’t feel like this,” she sobbed; “you mustn’t, John, really! You don’t understand. It’s all a play. Louise wouldn’t really do anything like that!” He shivered. Nevertheless, he clutched her hands and drew her closer to him. “Do, please, listen to me,” she begged. “It’s all over. Louise is herself again—Louise Maurel. The Marquise de Guy never lived except upon those boards. It is simply a wonderful creation. Anv one of the great actresses would play that part and glory in it—the very greatest, John. Oh, it’s so hard to make you understand! Louise is waiting for you. They are all waiting at the supper-party. You are expected. You must go and tell her that you think it was wonderful!’ He rose slowly to his feet. “Wonderful!” he muttered. “Wonderful! But, child, it is damnable!” “Don’t be foolish,” she answered.

“Go and put on another dress coat, tie your tie again, and brush your hair. I have come to take you to the supper.” He caught at her hands roughly. “Supposing I won’t go?” he whispered hoarsely. “Supposing—l keep you here instead, Sophy?” She swayed for a moment. Something flashed into her face and passed away. She was paler than ever. “Dear John,” she begged, “pull yourself together! Remember that Louise is waiting for you. It’s Louise you want —not me. Nothing that she has done to-night should make her any the less worthy of you and your love.” He strode away into the farther room. He reappeared in a moment or two, his hair smoothly brushed, his tie newly arranged. “I’ll come, little girl,” he promised. “I don’t know what I’ll say to her, but I’ll come. There can’t be any harm in that! ” “Of course not,” she answered cheerfully. “You’re the most terrible goose, John,” she added, as they walked down the corridor. “Do, please, lose your tragical air. The whole world is at Louise’s feet to-night. You mustn’t let her know how absurdly you have been feeling. To-morrow you will find that every paper in London will be acclaiming her genius.” John squared his shoulders. “All the same,” he declared grimly, “if I could burn the theatre and the play, and lock up Graillot for a month, to-night, I’d do it!” CHAPTER XXV. The days and weeks drifted into months, and John remained in London. His circle of friends and his interests had widened. It was only his relations with Louise which remained still unchanged. Always charming to him, giving him much of her time, favouring him, beyond a doubt, more than any of her admirers, there was yet about her something elusive, something which intended to keep him so far as possible at arm’s length. There was nothing tangible of which he could complain, and his probationary period was of his own suggestion. He bore it grimly. holding his place, whenever it was possible, by her side

with dogged persistence. Then one evening there was a knock at his door and Stephen Strangewey walked in. After all, this meeting, of which John had often thought, and which sometimes he had dreaded a little, turned out to be a very ordinary affair. Stephen, although he seemed a little taller and gaunter than ever, though he seemed to bring into the perhaps overwarmed atmosphere of John’s little sitting-room something of the cold austerity of his own domain, had evidently come in no unfriendly spirit. He took both his brother’s hands in his and gripped them warmly. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you, Stephen!” John declared. “It has been an effort to me to come,” Stephen admitted. “But I had in my mind, John, that we parted bad friends. I have come to see how things are with you.” “Well enough,” John answered evasively. “Sit down.” Stephen held his brother away from him, gripping his shoulders with both hands. He looked steadily into his face. “Well enough you may be, John,” he said, “but your looks tell a different story. There’s a look in your eyes already that they all get here, sooner o.r later.” “Nonsense!” John protested cheerfully. “No one pretends that the life here is quite as healthy as ours, physically, but that isn’t everything. I am a little tired to-day, perhaps. One spends one’s time differently up here, you know, and there’s a little more call upon the brain, a little less upon the muscles.”

“Give me an example,” Stephen suggested. “What were you doing last night, for instance?” John rang the bell for some tea, took his brother’s hat and stick from his hand, and installed him in an easy chair. “I went to a political meeting down in the East End,” he replied. “One of the things I am trying to take a little more interest in up here is politics.” “No harm in that, anyway,” Stephen admitted. “That all?” “The meeting was over about eleven,” John continued. “After that I came

up here, changed my clothes, and went to a dance.” ‘‘At that time of night?” John laughed. “Why, nothing of that sort ever begins until eleven o’clock,” he explained.' “I stayed there for about an hour or so, and afterward I went round to a club I belong to, with the Prince of Seyre and some other men. They played bridge and I watched.” “So that’s one of your evenings, is it?” Stephen remarked. “No great harm in such doings—nor much good, that I can see. With the Prince of Seyre, eh?” “I see him occasionally “He is one of your friends now?” “I suppose so,” John admitted, frowning. “Sometimes I think he is, sometimes I am not so sure. At any rate, he has been very kind to me.” “He is by way of being a friend of the young woman herself, isn’t he?” Stephen asked bluntly. “He has been a friend of Miss Maurel since she first went on the stage,” John replied. “It is no doubt for her sake that he has been so kind to me.” “And how’s the courting getting on?” Stephen demanded, his steely eyes suddenly intent. “None too well,” John confessed. “Are you still in earnest about it?” “Absolutely! More than ever!” Stephen produced his pipe from his pocket, and slowly filled it. “She is keeping you dangling at her heels, and giving you no sort of answer?” “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” John declared, good-humour-edly. “I asked her to marry me as soon as I came up, and we both agreed to wait for a time. You see, her life has been so extraordinarily different from mine. I have only half understood the things which to her are like the air she breathes. She is a great artist, and I scarcely ever leave her without feeling appallingly ignorant. Our life down in Cumberland, Stephen, is well enough in its way, but it leaves us outside many of the great things of life.” “That may be true enough, boy,” Stephen admitted, blowing out dense volumes of smoke from his pipe, “but are you sure that it’s toward those great things that she is pointing you?” “I am sure of it,” John answered earnestly. “I appreciate that in my heart. Let us talk together, Stephen, as we used. I will admit that I have found most of the time up here wearisome. On the other hand, I am beginning to understand that I have been, and still am, very ignorant. There is so much in the world that one can only learn by experience.” “And what are you willing to pay for the knowledge?” Stephen asked. "Your health, I suppose, your simple life, your love of the pure ways—all these are to go into the melting-pot?” “There’s no such payment demanded for the things I am thinking of,” John assured his brother. “Take art, for instance. We reach the fringe of it with our books. There are pictures, even here in London, which when you look at them, especially with one who understands, gives a new vigour to your understanding, a new resource to living. You become conscious of a new beauty in the world, a new garden, as it were, into which one can wander every day and yet not explore it in a lifetime. I have seen enough, Stephen to make me want to go to Italy. It’s a shameful thing to keep one's brain and tastes unemployed.” “Who takes you to see the pictures’” Stephen demanded. “Miss Maurel, generally. She understands these things better than anyone I have ever talked with ” “Pictures, eh?” Stephen grunted I mentioned pictures as an example ” John continued, “but the love of them includes many other things ” lnem “Theatres ?” Of course,” John assented. “It’s no oood being narrow about theatres Stephen. Tou read books readflv and theatres are only S books, after all. Thero uving difference.” re 18 no re al af tSere ff fs re a Ce diCr Pla >> hooks,” Stephen reminded him™ What ta°nowr Pla3 ' Miss is aT«ng the°r h o n om W came a and e lat ab °. Ut toms brother. He* leaned^'a^itUeTforStephen,” he confessed, ‘I loathed

that play the first night I saw it. I shan’t forget how miserable I was. Louise was so wonderful that I could see how she swayed all that audience just by lifting or dropping her voice; but the story was a horror to me. The next day—well, she talked to me. She was very kind and very considerate. She explained many things." Sephen’s eyes were filled for a moment with silent scorn. flien he knocked out the ashes from his pipe. “You’re content, then, to let the woman you want to make your wife show herself on the stage and play the wanton for folks to grin at?" he asked. John rose once more to his feet. “Look here, Stephen," he said, “Louise will be my wife some day, or I shall count my life a failure, and I don’t want to feel that words have passed between us ” “I’ll say no more, John,” Stephen interrupted. “I was hoping, when 1 came, that there might be a chance of seeing you back home again soon. It’s going to be an early spring. There was June sunshine yesterday. It lay about the hillsides all day and brought the tender greens out of the earth. It opened the crocuses, waxy yellow and white, all up the garden border. The hedgerows down in the valley smelled of primroses and violets. Art and pictures! I never had such schooling as you, John, but there was old Dr. Benson at Clowmarsh—l always remember what he said one day, just before I left. I’d been reading Ruskin, and I asked him what art was and what it meant. *My boy,’ he answered, art simply represents man’s passionate desire to drag the truth out of life in half a dozen different ways. God does it for you in the country!’ Thev called him an ignorant man, old Benson, for a schoolmaster, but when I’d struggled through what I could of Ruskm, I came to the conclusion that he mind" were something of the same “R’s good to hear you talk like that, Stephen, John said earnestly. “You’re making me homesick, but what’s the sense of it? For good or for evil I am here to wrestle with things for a „nf lt t’L l, ?^ asy matter for me to open Steohen hlnss th , at are in my heart," on? 1 ? 16 ?* ans ' vered - “I am one of the old-fashioned Strangeways. What I The ,' S ,f t etty well Kmked up inside ? snoife , y u U and 1 met perhaps 1 ?P°ke too much; so here I am!” It’s fine of you,” John declared “I nothir 'S of that day. We will look at things squarely, together, even where we differ. I’m—” He broke off in the middle of his sentence. The door had been suddenlv opened and Sophy Gerard made a somewhat impetuous entrance. ‘■l’m absolutely sick of ringing, John," Oh, I beg your pardon. I hadnt the least idea vou had anyone with you.” She stood still in surprise, a little apologetic smile upon her lips. John .?iS ned forward and welcomed her. It s all right, Sophy,” he declared Let me introduce my brother, mav I? Gerard ”° ther Stephen —Miss Sophy Stephen rose slowly from his place, laid down his pipe, and bowed stiffly to Sophy. She held out her hand, howfufly and smiled up at him delightHov nice of you to come and see f™ r poor, lonely brother!” she said v\e have done our best to spoil him. l™ af rl ld he is very homesick sometimes. I hope you’ve come to stay a. long lime and to learn all about London, as John is doing. If you are half as nice as he is, we’ll give you such a good time!” his great height Stephen looked down upon the girl s upturned face a little austerely. She chattered away, entirely unabashed. "I do hope you’re not shocked at mv tw t n w ln V, pon your brother like this. \\ e really are great pals, and I lit e only just across the way. We are much less formal up here, you know than you are in the country. John, I’ve brought you a message from Louise. ’ About to-night?” She nodded. "Louise is most frightfully sorry,” she explained, “but she has to go down to fetreatham to open a bazaar, and she can t possibly be back in time to dine b . e tlieatre - Can you guess what she dared to suggest?” "I think I can,” John replied, smiling. “Say you will, there’s a dear,” she begged. "I am not playing to-night May Lnser is going on in mv place v% e arranged it a week ago. I had two

fines to pay cn Saturday, and I haven’t had a decent meal this week. But I had forgotten," she broke off. with a sudden not© of disappointment in her tone. “There’s your brother, I must’t take you away from him.” “We’ll all have dinner together,” John suggested. “You’ll come, of course, Stephen?" Stephen shook his head. “Thank you," he said. ‘I am due at my hotel. I’m going back to Cumberland to-morrow morning, and my errand is already done.” “You will do nothing of the sort!’’ John declared. “Please be amiable." Sophy begged. “If you won’t come with us, I shall i simply run away and leave you with John. You needn’t look at your clothes,” she went on. “We can go to a grill-room. John shan’t dress, either. I want you to tell me all about Cumberland, where this brother of your? lives. He doesn’t tell us half enough!’ John passed his arm through his brother’s and led him away. “Come and have a wash, old chp,” he said. They dined togethed at Luigi’s, a curiously assorted trio —Soply, between the two men, supplying a distinctly alien note. She was always gay, always amusing, but although she addressed most of her remarks to Stephen, he never once unbent. He ate and drank simply, seldom speaking of himself or his plans, and firmly negativing all their suggestions for the remainder of the evening. Occasionally he glanced at the clock. John becanw conscious of a certain feeling of curiosity, which in a sense Sophy shared. “Your brother seems to me like a man with a purpose," she sad, as they stood in the entrance hall on their way out of the restaurant. “Like a prophet with a mission, perhaps I should say." “For the # last time, Stephen,” John said, “won’t* you come to a music-hall with us?" “I have made my plans for the evening, thank you.” Stephen replied, holding out his hand. “Good night!" He left them standing there and walked off down the Strand. John, looking after him. frowned. He was conscious of a certain foreboding. (To be Continued.)