Painted [Butterflies

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 982, 27 May 1930, Page 5

Painted [Butterflies

Published by Special Arrangement.

y

Mrs PATRICK MacGILL

Aulhot ot *• Dancers in «h<* Dark.' " The UkeleU Girl.' *' The Flame of Life " etc etc

CHAPTER Xl. (Continued.) “Tell me, Mrs. Lome, who taught Jennifer her art? Whom did she study under? I’ve never seen such vivacity in figure-drawing except in the more advanced French school. Was she ill Paris at any time?” Every word was a studied Insult, uttered in the clear, high, would-be childishly innocent tones that Adela Creighton affected. Sir Ralph looked slightly surprised, but kept his eyes on his plate; his wife could not help feeling a little sorry for the poor woman who seemed to be so much out of her element, and immediately, with the best intentions in the world, made matters infinitely worse by asking her the first question that came into her head, “Do you admire the new Epstein statue—‘Night?’ Personally,” Lady Yardley hurried on, becoming suddenly conscious that she, too, had blundered, when a look of utter bewilderment was added to the confused redness of Mrs. Lome’s face, “I consider that those who decry it are simply betraying their own lack of Imagination. It is meant as a symbol of all the ugly passions let loose in mankind, with the coming of night--what do you think, Adela?” finished Frank’s mother, thus diverting her hostess’s attention from her victim with quite commendable skill. For the moment the chase was suspended, and one of Jennifer’s sincerest admirers, the butler, noted with satisfaction that his employer’s victim was at last being left to enjoy her supper.

“Like a cat after a poor bloomin’ mouse, she was, all the time. Seemed as if she’d got ’er claws so dug into the poor old girl she couldn't get ’em out again. But, my gawd, you should ’ave seen ’er turn green, as 1 did when it ’appened. I wouldn’t ’ave missed it —no, not for £50!” Thus Saunderson to his friends below stairs, at one o’clock the next morning, when, the last chug of the last motor having died away, he was free to join them. The discussion that began with j Lady Yardley’s remark on the Epstein statue proved only a temporary respite for Jennifer’s mother. In [ the polite, fiendishly clever baiting, j which, on the surface, was so entirely innocuous—one subject after another being introduced and immediately | dropped as Mrs. Lome displayed her woeful Ignorance —Adela Creighton was like an animal displaying an ataj vistic tendency, blindly consumed by | an uncontrollable desire to rend, hurt, | and, no matter at what cost, to destroy.

| A less keen intelligence than that j of Jennifer would have deduced the 1 reason for the cruel treatment that her I mother was receiving at her hostess’3 hands. She knew now why she had been placed in such close proximity to Frank’s parents; she could sense the triumph, see it waving flags in the big china-blue eyes that now and | again smiled on her from the other j end of the table. As a move, its I success was quite hopeless. | All the sparkle and joy represented j by the success of “Black Cargo” had disappeared. People spoke kindly and graciously of Jennifer's talent, and predicted for her a brilliant future. One or two, to Madame Elise’s great delight, made definite arrangements j for the discussion of gowns to be specially designed. Frank’s place at the table was not | very near Jennifer’s, being close to her I mother and Adela. Yet, without speaking across the table in a raised voice, he could not be of any conversational use to Mrs. Lome, much to his chagrin, for, without definitely sensing malice on Adela Creighton's part, he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was making Jennifer’s mother both look and feel like the proverbial fish out of water. It was only when, with a palpable relish that outraged even his good-

natured masculine tolerance, Adela found a fresh way of “showing up” her guest, that Frank proved the truth of one of the indubitable facts of life —that emotions which have not a door into the open will inevitably make havoc within. The change in the fresh, sunburnt, boyish personality was remarkable. In some intangible but definite fashion, Frank Yardley seemed to leave his boyishness behind him for ever that night. His eyes were flashing, the lines of his face had grown harsh: even the angle of his jaw had become aggressive, while a wave of intense pity seemed to surge out from him and comfort Jennifer. But, though one side of her deplored the ill-timed action, the woman within exulted and gloried in the fierce, almost elemental passion of the man whose choice she had been out of all the women who had bloomed in the flower garden of his life. Those interested heard the crashing of breakers ahead as Frank Yardley, leaping to his feet, and flashing a smile round the table, getting the attention of them all, gave a little how to his hostess and asked, “Have I your permission to say something, Adela?” The pale blue eyes narrowed the merest trifle, and Adela Creighton experienced a strange, inexplicable unwillingness to let Frank have his say. He seemed all keyed-up, afire with some strong emotion that certainly did not owe its origin to his fellow-guests, nearly all of whom had been known to him since his boyhood. But she had no choice in the matter of giving a smiling: permission for whatever it was that Frank wished to announce; so, with a smile that curved her lips, but left her eyes cold, she said, “Certainly, Frank. We’d all love to hear whatever it is.”

Every face round the long table, with the exception of that of Jennifer, her mother, Carlos Mayhew, and his hostess, was woven Into the background of Frank Yardley’s life. His mother and father were looking at him strangely, and both were a little pale and tight-lipped. Their outward composure when the bomb burst was an altogether gracious, kindly, and charming thing. “As we are all here to honour Miss Lome, it seems a’ splendid opportunity of telling you that tonight she has clone me the honour of promising to be my wife.” Afterward, Frank vowed that he could not in any way account for the sudden Impulse that had caused him to jump up and make the announcement, but if he had been a worldfamous actor, timing the highest point of a drama, he could not have better succeeded In startling his hearers. Silence. Eighteen pairs of franklyamazed eyes—nineteen, if one included Saunderson’s - fastened themselves upon Jennifer Lome, whose small, exquisite face had gone as pale as death itself. “Why? why? why?” she kept asking herself, the word spinning round and round in her brain with the futility of a squirrel running around its cage Sir Ralph Yardley was the first to rise to the occasion. With an apologetic bow to Adela for leaving ills seat, he rose and going round to his son, first of all shook hands with him, and then, before everybody, took Jennifer’s little cold face In both his hands, and kissed her on a cheek as soft as a baby’s, and as fresh. “Oh, you young moderns!” he smilingly chided, as he gave the caress. Whatever she felt inwardly, Frank’s mother behaved bautifully to Jennifer, in front of them all. “You were naughty children to spring it upon us like this, but then, from a boy, Frank has always loved surprising people,” the charming woman told those around her. who knew Frank almost as well as herself. Adela’s face was exactly as her butler later on described it to his fellow servants —faintly tinted with green. Her feeling of intense hatred

against the girl who was sitting at her own table was almost beyond human expression. In the first moment of shock, Adela Creighton felt *a,s if everything that her world held of beauty and pleasure had come crashing down about her, like a flimsy doll’s house in the fierce breath of a hurricane. She stared, shaking in every limb, while her soul dwelt for a moment that seemed an eternity in the lowest hell. A dark curtain seemed to rise before her, and for the first time in all her self-centred life, Adela Creighton looked upon the mysterious world of moral suffering, discerning at last the immensity of pain that can be represented by an infinitesimal space of I ime. “Congratulations to both of you. Saunderson, bring some of the special champagne,” the wretched, heartsick girl heard her own voice ordering her butler. Then: “Here’s health, happiness and success to both of you.” Those whom life had instructed in a true sense of values were touched and delighted by the sweet little romance which seemed so charming an accompaniment to the success of “Black Cargo.” “I have to leave town early tomorrow morning, my dear, but Frank must arrange to bring you to Oversley—our place in the country—for the week end. We can then have a little talk together, for this has been a tremendous —er —” Lady Yardley bit back the word “blow” just in time—“a tremendous surprise to us,” she finished. About Lady Yardley’s face, voice and manner was something of the smoothness of polished marble, and Jennifer argued bitterly to herself that perhaps one could hardly expect them to be elated at the prospect of a match between herself—a penniless girl with her way yet to make—and their only child, the son in, whom lay all their hopes.

A marriage with the enormously wealthy and socially important Honourable Adela Creighton would have had their fervent blessing. That the rich society girl was in love with Frank, Jennifer very well knew. What she did not know, for her essentially sane, loving nature was a stranger to such a destructive emotion, was the power of hate—the virulent hate of one woman who considers herself robbed of her lover by another. Very soon after the announcement of Jennifer’s engagement, Mrs. Lorne ‘•ad made an excuse to her hostess, and escorted by Carlos Mayhew, had been bowled swiftly bowled swiftly and smoothly home to the little house on Hampstead Heath which enshrined the greatest happiness that her life had ever known. I suppose I ought to be as ’appy as a queen over Jennifer, Carlos,” Mrs. Lorne confided to the strangely silent, uuelated young man by her side on their homeward way. “But, somehow, I’ve got a ’eavy ’eart, ’stead of a light one. I don’t like that there Miss Creighton. It was barefaced the way she showed me up In front o’ them all, on purpose-Uke, I’ll take my dying bath. Well, if she’s a sample of what a society lady’s like, give me a plain woman, that’s all I’ve got to say. Tile young gentleman seems all right—l’ll say that for Tin—but even so, I wish Jennifer had fallen In love With some nice, steady chap, without so much money, and a title some day.”

Carlos Mayhew said nothing, only looked straight in front of him, his dark, passionate eyes apparently absorbed in a single pink carnation which stood in a slim silver vase placed high on the opposite wall of the car. In reality his eves were the mirrors of little flash-like pictures which kept coming and going in his brain. He was seeing a dead man in a chair—a white, frightened slip of a girl with blue eyes—eyes that seemed to find some irresistible fascination in the hole torn by a bullet in the wall above the dead man’s head. “Oh, girlie, I’m so sorry I went and disgraced you like I did at that grandsupper party Miss Creighton gave for you. I shouldn’t have gone. You must have been ashamed of me, dear.”

The contrition in the upset, quivering voice was a heart-rending thing. Like a flash Jennifer’s arms were around her mother, her lips pressed to the trembling mouth, her young voice a thing of sheer beauty as she said, with that generous understanding which all her life was to make her beloved: “I am not ashamed of you, Mother, but of the woman who

could have fallen so low as to Invite you to her board and treat you In such a way. I am certain that was why Frank spoke up as he did —because he wanted to let everybody know that it was the mother of his future wife who was her victim. Darling, I’m so happy, say that you are, too. I shall not sleep unless I know that you are glad for me.” Instead of answering her child directly, Jennifer's mother dropped on her knees beside her child’s bed. Not since her childhood, when she had been teaching Jennifer to pray, had she done such a thing and, quietly, with a hushed feeling in her heart as if angels knelt beside them and joined them in their prayers, the young girl knelt beside her mother and sent her thank-offering up to the Throne of Grace.

CHAPTER XII. Madame Elise looked up with a smile as Jennifer, dressed for dinner and the theatre afterwards, came into the dining room, looking so radiant an embodiment of youth that she gave a little inward sigh—a thing that she rarely indulged in—for the days that were gone for ever, though in her case the autumn was a decidedly attractive yield. Under her purity and culture and almost ethereal beauty of soul, Jennifer Lorne was so warmly, vividly loving, so charmingly deferential without being obsequious, to older women. “You look exquisite, child, in that dull white satin and diamente—almost like a bride,” smiled the Frenchwoman, graciously. After the success of “Black Cargo,” orders for designing had been fairly frequent with Jennifer, and it had been her employer’s kindly suggestion that she should go to live with her in her smart West End flat. “You can pay your share of the expenses, so long as you do not find them too heavy,” Madame Elise told her with native shrewdnes. “But you cannot create the right atmosphere for your work if you receive your clients in a little, out-of-the-way villa in Hampstead,” her employer told her candidly. . “My mother would not consent to giving up the house and the little girl whom she looks after. Faith has no mother, you see.” Jennifer' explained very sweetly and courteously. She did not want her employer to get the wrong impresion, besides which, her mother had only worked out sixteen pounds of the money which she fondly believed Carlos Mayhew bad advanced to her boy so that he could have his chance abroad. “No? Well, she must give up you, my dear. I will speak to her about it. It is necessary for you to mee* the right people,” Madame Elise told her favourite. To herself she said, “It would be the best thing that one could do for that nice child—to take her away from her mother’s side.” Two days later, she was driving home in her Rolls-Royce, having been successful in persuading Mrs. Lorne, and, although she was not and had never been a mother, something in the stricken expression on the face of Jennifer’s mother must have pricked her conscience, for she told herself, half angrily, “Pah! It is the mother’s place only to give life, not. to stand in the way t of its progress!” As the fiancee of Sir Ralph Yardley’s only son, Jennifer enjoyed quite a little social triumph under the wing of her future mother-in-law, but there was far too much shrewd commonsense in the bright brown head for Jennifer to allow herself to be swamped by society, and caught up in the whirl of mostly useless activities that occupied the girls of her own age, who would have been quite willing to have admitted her to their exclusive circle had she wished. But, besides being genuinely interested in her work, Jennifer had her own pride. She wanted to become well-known for Frank’s sake, and also, she was ambitious to make some money which she could invest for her mother, so that on the day of her marriage she could go to the altar knowing that she was provided for; that there would be no need for her husband to keep his -wife’s mother. Jennifer looked like an artist’s dream come to life as she stood waiting in the little hall for Madame Elise, who had gone to put on her cloak. Pier voice was as bright, and happy as a lark’s song on a summer morning, as she picked up the telephone from the small table at her

elbow and asked who was calling. The smile faded, along with the colour from the exquisite young face as the high, excited voice of Adela Creighton came to her ears, saying: “X have something of the utmost urgency to see you about. I am downstairs in the hall, and the porter says he will bring me up to you at once." CHAPTER XIII. A sense of fatalistic futility took hold of Jennifer, and deepened with every second. “Who is it, child?” asked Madame Elise rather curtly, as Jennifer replaced the receiver of the telephone with the elaborate care of the mentally shocked, and stood motionless as marble for a moment without speaking. “It —it is Miss Creighton. She is downstairs —she is coming up,” Jennifer told her employer in a voice which bespoke the sick fear lying cold and clammy on her heart like a winding sheet for the dead. A few seconds later, Adela Creighton’s ring at the outer door sounded through the little fiat. She was not dressed for the evening—a fact which struck Jennifer’s employer as being strange—but for the street, in a neat little black cloth suit that Jennifer had designed for her. The Frenchwoman hid her annoyance at being held up for her theatre party’, and extended a gracious welcome to her most valuable client, protesting that the engagement which she and Miss Lome had made could quite easily await her pleasure. “Oh, T need not detain you,” said Adela Creighton, with an emphasis

on the pronoun which was virtually a dismissal. “My business with Miss Lome is of so personal a nature that I should be glad if you would leave us,” finished the plainly agitated girl, a little breathlessly. Though every particle of her feminine curiosity was roused, and her quick French brain sensed dramatic possibilities in the interview with her little protegee, yet it was a fact that at the Royalty a party of four awaited their hostess for the evening, and doubtless the child would tell her everything on her return, she told herself, comfortingly. “You know the number of my box. don’t you, Jennifer? Come straight on when you and Miss Creighton have had your little talk,” the kindly Frenchwoman bade Jennifer, as she opened the door and went out, leaving the two girls alone—literally alone, for it was a service flat, and there was no need for a resident maid. “Will you come into the drawingroom, Miss Creighton?” said Jennifer, leading the way to the somewhat bizarre little apartment that reflected its owner’s personality so amusingly. As Jennifer preceded her, Adela Creighton let her light blue eyes rest momentarily on the beautiful shape of Jennifer’s proudly poised little head; something oddly gallant, indomitable and free was suggested by the slim young figure in the eau de nil chiffon dress with the old paste buckles oil the tiny green shoes that had be n specially dyed to match the frock. Deep down in her own consciouness, Adela Creighton was disinclined to admit to herself that the thing could be true, but even in her smoothly equipped world facts were never anything but facts, though

golden blinkers often reduced the effect to that of a fancy. “Won’t you sit down. Miss Creighton?” said Jennifer, politely waving her visitor to the most comfortable armchair. There was no need for the courtesy. Adela Creighton, a perfect mass of arrogant conceit, had not the least intention of standing in front of tbia girl who had dared, not only to scrape an acquaintance and ultimately engage herself to the man whom she herself loved and wanted, but had had the impertinence to flaunt her triumph in her face by getting him 10 make the announcement at her own table 1 Her eyes were hard as agates: her pink-tipped little claws of fingers trembled as she opened her gold mesh bag and took therefrom a slip of paper which she held very cautiously in both hands at a safe distance from any attempt to snatch, hut quite near enough for Jennifer to read. “1 can see by your face that you recognise this? Well, what have you got to say?” There was no attempt now at an imitation of a childish treble in the voice that seemed to reach Jennifer from behind a thick mental curtain. On the contrary, nothing could have been shriller, more reminiscent of a backyard shrew than the voice whose vindictiveness seemed to gather in strength as it gave vent to its purely circumstantial knowledge. (To he Continued Tomorrow.!