Love Set Free

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1043, 6 August 1930, Page 5

Love Set Free

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

By

L. G. MOBERLY

Author of 'Cleansing Fires,** "In Apple Blossom Time/* “Threads of Life/' etc.

CHAPTER VI. (continued). , “Oh don’t!” Judith exclaimed invol untarily. Millicent stared and laughed. “Oh, are you crazy about siums, too?” she asked lightly. “I can’t stand the sort of people who live there. They seem to me like a kind of vermin, better exterminated! Fra acis had marvellous schemes for raising and improving their health, and heaven knows what. And he had a bee In his bonnet about doing re- ' search work down in the wilds by the 1 docks! Oh, goodness knows what he didn’t want, and what he wouldn’t have done, if he had not had a wife who checked liis wild ideas! Judith could not answer at once. Resentment and repugnance choked her utterances She looked at the lovely face opposite to her and wondered how it had continued to retain its loveliness when so far from lovely a soul lay behind it. Milllcent’s voice speaking again ’ saved any need for a reply. “By the way, Mr. Stanesley will be i here presently. He telegraphed from 1 his old rat-hole in the country,to say he wanted tc see me about some signatures.” "Where is what you call Mr. Stanesley’s old rat-hole?” Judith asked, : laughing at the expression. “Somewhere beyond the pale of civilisa- ; tion?” 1

“In the Cotswolds, ever so far out of reach, miles from a railway. He and my husband were at school together, and had kept tip their friendship, but he is not the type of person who appeals to me.” Judith shrewdly speculated whether the truth was that Mrs. Francis Dashwood did not appeal to her husband’s old friend; for a few week’s residence in that lady’s house had made her companion aware that, unless a man

, succumbed to her fascinations, Mrs. ! Dashwood found no place for him in her world at all. Mr. Stanesley had not been to the Cavendish Square house since che (iay, now six weeks ago, when he and Judith had met upon the doorstep. A! ready Judith had learnt enough ot ner employer’s friends and their ways to be aware that those who fell under the power of her charm came to see her again and again. Horace Robertson had - been a fre quent visitor at the house, but, to her own immense relief, she had been out every time tie called. They had not met since the day of her first inter view with Millicent. “We shall have to give Mr. Stanesley tea,” Millicent’s words reached her, "and I suppose, after tea, I shall do a lot of horrid singing. He will want, to explain investments to me, and to tell me not to be extravagant! It is more than three months since Francis died, and they are still worry ing over his affairs. However,” she shrugged her shoulders gracefully, “I suppose these bothers are inevitable and I might have had some dreadful old fogey to deal with instead of Derek Stanesley. though he’s bad “Mr. Robertson does not help with your business?” Judith scarcely knew why she aslf»d the question. It came involuntarily. “Mr. Robertson? Oh, no, he is just a' friend? a most kind and attentive friend.” Millicent’s complacent smile seemed to explain more than her words. “By the way, didn’t you say, that first day you met him here, that you had known him before?” Something in Judith stiffened; she spoke with coldness. “He knew my father,” she said. "He came sometimes to our house in Sus sex.”

“Where your father had his studio?” For a second the self-centred Millicent glanced at her companion and vagueiy wondered what Judith’s life had been in the home of her father, the well known painter; wondered, too, for one inconsequent instant why a painter so well known had not left his daughter enough to live upon. “Yes, where my father had ms studio.” Judith answered the question, trying to keep out of her voice all her rankling detestation of Horace Rob ertson, all the distruct which in those other days, had made her dread his coming. “Mr. Robertson was quite a connoisseur about pictures.” “I wish it were he who was coming today instead of that tiresome Derek He is so amusing, such good com pany.” “And,” reflected Judith, “he flatters you and makes you think you are the most beautiful and wonderfu’ woman in the world ” She found herself wondering again what was Mr. Stanesley’s attitude to his friend’s wife, w hether he was amusing or no? And at that moment the parlourmaid came in to say that Mr. Stanesley was in the drawing room, and would Madam wish to ‘ tea there. Madam did wish to have tea there. “And you'd better come and pour it out,” Millicent said to Judith. “And just make yourself scarce when tea's done. I shall have to plunge into business which bores me stiff.” Acceding to her employer’s wisn. Judith followed her to the drawing room, where Derek Stanesley stood looking out of the window at the plane trees in the square. “You haven't met Miss Merivale be fore.” Millicent said, introducing them Derek smiled. “I won’t quite say that,” be answered, looking at Judith, upon whose face there was an answering smile, “we met one day on the doc.r step.” . “The very day I came here,” Juditn responded. “I believe I nearly knocked you down. I went out of the door in a headlong sort of way, never expecting to see anybody on the step.” “Miss Merivale saves me from dying

ot the boredom of my own company Millicent put in, ind Judith, taking note of the slightly acid quality of her voice, and grasping its significance, obliterated herself behind the tea-tray, and began pouring out tea in silence. She had long since discovered thai Millicent lilted to absorb completely any and every man who came into her presence; and although she had been abusing Derek Stanesley Juditn was well aware that she would no( tolerate bis talking to anyone but he* I self. Now and again during the meal, | Derek made an attempt to draw the silent pourer-out into the converse tion; but she tactfully refused to be drawn, and Millicent allowed her guest uo opportunity for speaking t“ her companion. She cut in at once if he showed a sign of turning in Jud ith’s direction. Judith, already accustomed to Mrs. Uashwood’s idiosyncrasies, was merely amused by her manoeuvres Derek Stanesley, who liked the companion’s clear grey eyes, and straightforward manner, was annoyed when his efforts to speak to her were frus trated The moment she could man age to do so Judith made her escape from the drawing-room and. pulling on a hat. went out into the warmth of the summer afternoon, feeling that a complete change of atmosphere was essential. She strolled slowly down Harley Street and into Regent’s Park, sitting down upon one of the seats facing the water, and looking across the pleasant greenness surrounding Bedford College. Rather against her will her thoughts wandered back to those last months of her father's life, when Horace Robertson had been so con stantly in their home, and puzzling questions which had haunted her then, came buzzing about her now like persistent bees. “Why had her father changed so terribly, so unaccountably, during those same last months?” His sunny, genial nature had become morose, sullen, different—quite different. He had no longer painted with zest. He had become feverishly anxious to make money by speculations, into which she was sure Robertson dragged him. But he had refused to discuss money matters with her. The close friendship between them, which had existed during all Judith’s life, had been broken. She and her father had seemed to staqd on opposite sides of a gulf, across which there was no bridge. And at his death she discovered that all his promises to her were unfulfilled. He had told her she would be always above financial difficulty, that he had left her amply provided for. She had found no ample provision, merely a pittance and a sheaf of debts.

Then—even now, all these months afterward, sitting in this peaceful place, she squirmed at the remembrance —then Horace Robertson had come forward, the kindly, considerate friend, anxious to help. He had pressed his help upon her, pressed money, pressed a loan, pressed his friendship. She, sick with disap pointment, with a suspicious loath ing for him for which she could only half account, had refused all his overtures. “If only he did not know Mrs. Dash wood!” she thought. “I should like to get quite out of his reach, but I can’t give up my work!” How long she sat there revolving these things, and dimly conscious of the sweetness of roses from the bed close by, she did not know, but a step on the gravel, a step that paused in front of her seat, roused her from her abstraction She looked up. The man for whom just now she had been pouring out tea stood looking at her, a little smile on his brown face, and in his very blue eyes. “You are wise to come to this charming place,” he said. “I thought I would walk back to my quarters this way; Regent’s Park has a. great attraction for me.” Therewith he sat down beside her on the seat and began to talk. CHAPTER VII. DEREK “What a pleasant, peaceful place!” he said. “When I am staying in town I often drop in here. I won’t exactly say it gives me a sense, of the country, but there is something refreshing about it.” “Very, very refreshing!” Judith did not sigh; she was not given to sighing, but there was a certain fervour in her tones which brought a smile to the man’s lips, the whimsical smile

which gave his brown face so humor- 1 ous an expression. “You like the country?” It was 1 more of an assertion than a question, , and Judith smiled responsively. “I lovfe the country,” she answered ' simply. “I lived chiefly in a verv I quiet part of Sussex until my father , died.” i “I knew your father’s work well,” 1 Stanesley said, appreciatively, “some ! of it was, to my mind, very unique. It had a quality all its own. You were i jolly lucky to have him for a father,” 1 he added boyishily. “I think I was,” Judith’s grey eyes looked full into his, “just as you say, ‘jolly lucky.’ My father and I were such good friends, too —real pals, ' until ’’ She broke off short aud, thinking he was following her words to their logical conclusion, Stanesley i put iii gently:— . “Until, the end?” 1 She had turned her face away from ' ' him and was looking at the water. ! and a tall, yellow iris near the bank, , but she glanced at him again quickly 1 “1 wasn’t going to say that,” she | exclaimed, and once more checked her utterance, sitting silent for several 1 seconds. i Then she seemed to take some re- , solve, and her eyes met Stanesley’s eyes, straight and square. Making | sudden confidences was not usual with her. By nature she was reticent, ' but the eyes that met hers gave her : a sense of confidence. “I wasn’t going to say ‘until the , end,’ ” she enlarged her former 1 phrase. “My father and I were real Jjl friends —until something came be- S tween us. But I don’t know why 1 Ss should bother you by chattering about fit it.” snatching at her natural reserve K : “Why not? I am interested. We ® are, after all, two human beings who fif may, presumably, be interested in each other’s concerns At least, I confess to being absorbedly interested in (I? the joys and sorrows of my neigh- 2g bours.” 1 “I am hardly even a neighbour— i only the newest of acquaintances.” . “Even ‘ships that pass in the night speak each other in passing,’ and my I genuine admiration for your father’s . work does, in a sort of oblique way, ' make me more than an acquaintance, i doesn’t it?”

Judith laughed. “A very oblique way,” she answered. “But it is such a pleasure to meet someone who liked my father’s pictures," she looked at him with a frankly graceful glance “Of course, I though! he was unique.” “So did I,” Stanesley said promptly “There was a quality about his work which 1 have never come across be fore or since. It puzzles me ” he stopped short, looking a little embarrassed.

“What puzzles you?” “I was going to make an impertinent remark. It might offend you hope lessly.” “I can’t imagine why it should,' Judith’s smile dimpled out again. “My remark is very impertinent, however kindly you may take it. B«t I was going to say, considering the high quality of your father’s pictures, it puzzles me why his daughter should be working as you are; and if that is not an impertinent piece of inquisitiveness, I don’t know what you would call impertinence.” “Not that, certainly,” was the firm response. “It is very kind of you to be interested at all. I am not surprised that you wonder. Other people wondered too.” She spoke with sudden impulsiveness. “I myself have wondered about it till my brain nearly cracked. My father’s old friend, and my very kind friend. Dr Davidson, is puzzled too.” “1 like Dr. Davidson. He’s a dear old chap, one of the very best. Did he know your father well?” “Yes. But for years they had hardly met at all, so, that Dr. Davidson saw very little of him latterly. And he knew nothing about my father’s money affairs.” “Had your father any solicitor, or any friend who was aware of his financial position. Who advised him? Artists are proverbially not very successful over business mattei’s.’’ “He had no solicitor who gave him advice,” Judith spoke with hesitation, “my father had a friend who —I don’t know whether he helped, but I am sure he advised.” - The note of bitterness ip her voice made her companion look sharply at her averted face, and what he saw there brought him to a decision. “Miss Merivale,” he said, “it is quite true that, as you pointed out, I am only an acquaintance. But sometimes acquaintances grow quite

quickly into friends; I cannot help feeling that somehow at this moment you want a friend. I’m not forgetting Dr. Davidson. Nobody could have a better or wiser friend than that dear old chap. But at the moment he is in Switzerland, enjoying an exceedingly well-earned holiday, and if by chance you need a friend now. while he is away, will you let this mere acquaintance play a hand at friendship?” The half humorous tone of the words, the whimsical smile by which they were accompanied, made them seem the merest commonsense with no trace of the sentimental Judith turned to him impetuously “I can’t think why you should be so kind,” she said, “or have you a gift of second sight? As I sat here, I was feeling as if 1 wanted a friend very much. Only,” she pulled herself up. “I don’t know whether I ought to bother you with my stupid bur dens.” “The best man I ever knew, the very best,” Stanesley said, low and

emphatically, ‘used to say that other people’s burdens were much easier to carry than one’s own. And he wos a past master at shouldering both his own burdens and those of others Francis was, and is, a kindling inspiration.” he added, under his breath. “Are you speaking of Dr. Dashwood?” Judith asked eagerly. “Why? You didn’t know him, did you?” “1 saw him once, only that once in the theatre at Bramstone when he saved my life. You know he saved my life —when he lost his own?' Judith’s voice shook. “1 never realised it was you he , saved. His wife told me he had saved somebody in the fire, but 1

never knew——he broke off. His eyes rested rather disconcertingly upcn her face. Then, seeing her colour rise he looked away, and said softly. “Those words of the poet fit him:— 1 “If I lose myself 1 save myself—” : i “But he wasn’t saved.” | “In the sense of saving his life— ( no. But I wonder? Has he been ' saved from all the hurt and fret of I life? Has he saved his soul alive?" I “Oh, I hope some good has come ' out of his sacrifice! It seemed such a ! waste, that this useful, splendid life 1 should be lost, and mine saved The | world could perfectly well have spared | me, but it could not spare Dr Dash ' I wood.” | "Can we really say at all who can : best be spared?" Stanesley's voice I was very thoughtful, “who can tell whether the passing on of any par ticu’ar life i: a loss or a gain to the world? May it not be more than , possible that a life which goes from i here is needed in the life beyond? We know so little.”

He smiled again, his whimsicaJ, it resistible smile, and a warm glow spread about Judith's heart. This man with the brown face and very blue eyes inspired her with confidence—gave her a sense of hopefulness and courage.