The Singer from the Hills

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1080, 18 September 1930, Page 5

The Singer from the Hills

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

by

ROWAN GLEN

Author 0 { *'Th« Great Anvil." “The Stronger P ssion ’ - The Rorr,antic Road.'' etc

CHAPTER Vll.—Continued. “Well, I am,” Wadeburn told her, and she had never known him so determined of voice and manner. “Don’t forget that we’re only a few days away from what will probably be the most important evening in your life. If for no other reason than the fact that it may be useful for you to be seen at Carruther’s, you must be there.” “If I refuse?” Sheila asked. “That would be unwise, would it not? Look here, Sheila, I’ll be frank, I do not want you to get too interested in this doctor friend of yours. [ do not know what you really think of him, but I waut nothing to interfere with your professional career, and you have placed yourself in my hands where that is concerned. Don't be foolish enough to get engaged to him, for instance. X know that you want to help him along and I’m willing to give you a hand in that. I’ll send along a whole bunch of wellknown people to him, once he starts on his own, but you must be reasonable.” For a second or two Sheila hesitated, then found herscliN smiling at his earnestness. “I'm not getting engaged to anybody,” she said. “But please don’t forget your promise to send some important patients to Dr. Kennedy when lie’s ready for them. And—l’ll come

to the party. I’m going to get back to my lodgings early, though.” It was one of those resolutions so easily made but which often prove impossible to keep. Though Sheila managed to see Hew Kennedy on that evening, and before she went home to dress for the party which she had promised to attend, she did so only after some considerable delay. The final editions of the newspapers were something more than generous with space concerning the royal battle at Twickenham, and among al most all the sub-headlines above the reports of the match, Kennedy’s name appeared. On merit alone, he had been acclaimed the big figure of the afternoon, and the fact that he had been rather badly hurt added to his passing news-value. One result of this was that at tho hospital to which he had been taken with so commendable a swiftness —it was the one in which he spent many working hours of each day—there were a large number of callers. Most of them were Rugby-playing friends of his from the North; some were ex-patients of his; a few were folk whose acquaintanceship he had made in a social way since he had settled in London. Of this well-intentioned company only a selected number were permitted to visit the private room to which he had been taken, and when

Sheila asked to be allowed to go to him "for just a minute or so.” as she put it, there were head-shakings at first. “He’s in no danger, but he should really be resting for the next 24 hours,” a young house-surgeon told her. "Then I won’t wait,” she had said. “I know something about this sort of business, for I was a nurse at St. Cerf’s in Edinburgh when Dr. Kennedy was there. He is an old friend of mine and ” She did not complete the sentence, for that was not required of her. “Oh, one of us,” the house-surgeon said. “Right you are, Miss Stewart. I’ll fix things.” He did do that, and when Sheila was sitting by Kennedy’s bedside and had praised his prowess so that a flush came to chase the pallor from his face, she said: “It’s rotten luck, Hew, But I suppose one should he thankful that you got off so lightly. I thought at first that you’d been killed. Do you remember my coming to you in the i dressing-room? But, of course, you don’t. I did come, though.” "Bless you for that,” he said. “And bless you for having come to see me here, i’m all right y’ know. It appears that my back should have been broken, but it’s still complete, and I'll be on deck again in a day or two. I’m sorry about tonight, Sheila. I was looking forward to coming to that ‘do’ at the St, John's Wood studio, where your artist pal paints pictures and interviews the broker’s men, but it’s a case of ‘no-can-do.’ You’re going, I suppose?” “Yes,” she answered. “But I don’t want to go. I mean that, and I told Charles Wadeburn so. It seemed different, somehow, when I had an invitation for you, and we were to go together, but —well. I cannot get out of it. Don’t frown, please! You should I take what I’ve said as a compli- , j ment.” ! “So I do.” he said. "You go along j i and enjoy yourself—but while you’re ! dancing or drinking champagne-cup give a thought or two to the noble youth W’ho fell fighting for Scotland.” She copied his bantering mood as | best she could, but she did not tell him that she was going to the studio- '' dance mainly because Wadeburn, in whose power she was, in a professional sense, had made a very definite point of that. Nor did she tell hint that Sir William Cattertou was expected to be one of the chief figures in the revels which were only a few hours away. CHAPTER VIII. Sheila went to the big studio-house j in a taxi-cab. and dirl so alone, if she had cared to ring up one of a dozen telephone numbers she could have found easily enough a willing and an eager escort, but her mood was made for loneliness. It would be different, she knew, when she was in the midst of the gay crowd, but she did not, in the least, mind going unaccompanied to he the guest of elderly, jovial Morris Carrutliers. He was an understanding person who painted the most glorious pictures; made lots of money and was always in debt; said that he would never marry, yet made love to every woman, young or elderly, who came his way.

It was' Carrutliers himself who was lhe first to greet Sheila when she had handed her cloak over to a servant, and had spent half a minute or so in front of a mirror.

“Good for you, child!” the artist exclaimed. “I’m told that today’s great man is a friend of yours, and tossing at present on a fevered so I think it noble of you to have turned up for this jambouree.” “What nonsense,” she returned. “It was awfully good, of you to ask me, and. I’m only sorry that Hew Kennedy could not come along. He’s been looking forward to it, and, by the way,'he asked me to make his apologies and to say that he hoped to meet you some other time.” “Any day or night, and at any hour,” Carruthers told her genially. “And now, come along and mix with your little playmates. You know most of ’em already, I think, and you will know the others soon, for you are what the Americans call a good ‘mixer.’ Charles Wadeburn tells me that you’ve no work to do tomorrow morning, so I’m counting on you staying till about milkman-time.”

She laughed, but shook her head the while. •[ told Mr. Wadeburn that 1 would not be able to stay late.” she said. “I've a kindly dragon at my rooms in the person of an old nurse. She's been lecturing me so much about what she calls my ‘goings on,’ that I’m getting to be quite afraid of her. Besides, I really am tired tonight.”

“All I can say is that you don’t look it,” he told her. “I know exactly how you feel, though. But it is wonderful how the tiredness begins to go, bit 'by bit, when by all the rules it should be increasing. I suppose it’s the company, and the music, and an occasional sip of something that, sparkles in a glass and continues to sparkle after it has left the glass. You’re one of the lucky ones who can sparkle without the help of champagne.” Thus he chattered on while he took her into the big studio which had been cleared for dancing, and had been decorated by some of his women friends, who were also his frank ad.mirers. “I'll introduce you to Mildred Scott.” j he said. “That’s her over there by the fireplace, talking to the little, : white-haired man. who happens to be her husband, and a thundering good | etcher. Mildred’s a darling, and knows everybody here, also everybody : who’s likely to come along later.” j What Carruthers had prophesied j

with regard to the fading of Sheila's feeling of tiredness proved to be true for when midnight had come she had been definitely caught by the rollicking atmosphere of the place and matched in gaiety the mood of the gayest present. “You’re the newest Bohemian of us all, but the best.” she was complimented by Freddie Warren, who was one of London’s star comedians but, in the theatrical phrase, “resting” at the moment. “Don’t you dare to think of trotting back to Nursey and leaving- us all flat. There’s sure to be some rag to wind up with. A few

selected souls among us will probably go down to see dawn breaking over St. Paul’s, and hare breakfast at a coffee-stall while talking about the beauties of nature. Something like that ...” She had laughed at him goodnaturedly, but had done so knowing that she was becoming keved-up to the point where any frolic would have its appeal. Also she realised that, artistically speaking at least, the company in which she found herself was a distinguished one, and that she was but a humble unit of that compary. Fame might be waiting ahead for her, but it had not come yet, and it behoved her to fall in with the ! wishes of those already famous. | Dorothy Beamish was of the party ■ and went out of her way to be pleasant to Sheila whom, thus early, she had begun to legard as a possible : rival where the affections of Sir William Catterton were concerned, but j Catterton himself did not arrive till I nearly one o'clock. I Doing so. however, be dominated

things, and without effort. Ho had come on from a dinner of welcome given to an American novelist of note, and though no one speaking to him would have had any reason to suspect the fact, he had wined rather more than he had dined. Despite that, he was at his social best, and Bill Catterton’s social best was a very good best indeed. He was innately selfish, and seldom failed to appease the appetite of that selfishness: but he was undeniably clever, so clever, indeed, that when he got his way, as we say. about anything, he usually contrived to make the other person feel that he, Catterton. had given in graciously on a point that had been dear to him. (To be continued tomorrow) •