Taken Unawares

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 882, 7 December 1916, Page 12

Taken Unawares

[All Rights Reserved]

Author of

CHAPTER XIII.- -(Continued.)

The angry colour flamed in Terry's cheeks, and her breath came quickly. She had had a blow, but she had had such bad luck, and everybody knew luck turned. To-morrow she might be quite fortunate. And see how Mrs Caley won now! Why shouldn't she win, too? '•I shall come again when you ask t> me," she said. "Well, you know," said Mrs Caley,, "Humphrey is so strict about things. You should have done as 1 did, Terry. It's so much plensanter to be married to a rich idiot than to a clever lawyer, and Arty is an angel. He is even going to rent a theatre for me. I shall be acting again in a month or two." She stopped and loked down into Terry's white face. "You've got a different man to deal with altogether. Humphrey won 't let, you go on like this. You 've been gambling this afternoon, I hope you know, and he has a horror of gamblers and o' ! all games played for money. And now, all your month's allowance gone at a blow! Why, he will certainly stop it. We shan't see you any more, Terry, I'm sorry to Hay. He won't let you do this again. He will forbid you to come near us —you 'll see.'' The words fell on Terry's ears like blows, rousing a!! her pride, and rage, and obstinacy, humiliating her as Vi knew they would do —as she intended them to do; and her tawny eyes gleamed as she saw the hot blood run up into Terry's cheeks. "He won't know anything about it," Terry said sharply. "Oh!" "Why should I tell him? I shall do as I like, and he won't know anything about it. I shall certainly come. When are you going to have another afternoon? To-morrow? I'll come if you are.'' Her reckless words sounded childish enough, and might have deterred other women. Hut nothing would have deterred Vi Stevenish. Her bitter rage hart settled down into a sullen hatred that hail as its object the ruin of Terry and the humiliation of Humphrey. There were many to-morrows. Weeks went by. Autumn became winter. Mimmie went home, and Terry and Humphrey settled down into a life that left them at the end of a couple of months as far apart as the Poles. Humphrey began to feel in vaguely. He had got no farther with her. She looked upon him merely as her guardian, and her heart, if she had one, was not with him, or near him. Slowly he began to know it. Even the interest she, had seemed to take at first in his eases and his work had begun to flag. As a matter of fact, Terry was tired of pretending, and there were other things—distracting, worrying things, that clung lrfte a shadow about her, and crept up in between them when he was talking, telling her things. In the midst of a story he would find her sitting with her face clouded and grave and her brows knitted. Was she regretting what she had done? Was she realising that she was tied —tied for life to a man she did not love—perhaps, never, would love? The thought startled, worried him, cut. at his heart like a knife, and grew at last into a wound that might never heal. And whatever Terry knew or thought, she did net care. She was too busy, and too occupied with her own difficulties to care about his, and only old Mrs Steer noticed and guessed about tho shadows that were creeping back upon his face. In two months a strange change had come over them both. Terry, countrybred though she was, had quickly adapted herself to the ways of London, and hail somethow managed to accumulate a number of friends about her. Some of them Humphrey did not approve, sonic of them jarred upon him, but somehow, when he had remonstrated, Terry had coaxed like a child, and Humphrey, who for so long had been hard and indifferent to child or woman, was as clay in her hands, as such men 'often are. She had only to clasp her two small hands upon his arm, or catch at the lapels of his coat to set him trembling before her. And she liked to do it—to test her power over him in the same way that she tested it upon Ferdinand Ingram, and other men when she had the chance. And two months had increased her confidence in herself. Humphrey could not. resist her. Ferdinand was heartbroken, he said so often enough, and though Terry lied glibly herself, it never occurred to her that, others could lie, too. Not only Ferdinand, but other men seemed as eager to sit at her feet and adore her. And Humphrey was somehow disappointed and hurt to find that she liked it and encouraged them. He began to retire once more into his shell. He began to sit longer in the library after dinner, to shut, himself up more. And often Terry had friends in the » drawing-room who were of no interest to him, and some of whom he even disliked. That did not seem to matter to Terry. If he did not like them he need not meet them, she said; he could sit in his stuffy old library until they had gone. And so he sat, in his "stuffy old library" doing nothing, more often than not, feeling aloof, apart, feeling that he had made a mistake in taking a mad young thing like Terry into his own staid, quiet, life. It was, he thought, like caging a wild bird. He only thought of Terry as that—a wild thing that he did not understand, and whose life he had juggled with and perhaps spoilt. Often his face grew grave and sad, often the regret for. his mistake wrung his' heart. He ought not to have married her! He ought to have won her first. He ought, to have found out first wdiat kind of life would make her happy. His did not. She had no interest in him. All her fun and joy lay outside him altogether. He felt'it always when they were together. She was 'not the same when she was with him. He listened sometimes to the sound of noise and laughter in tho drawing room and

By ANNIE O. TIBBITS

" The Threadt of Doitiny," " Life's Revenge," etc

buried his face in his hands. Once he came out to listen, and standing at his library door he became suddenly aware of his housekeeper's face watching him,; and drew back sharply, cut to the quick. The next moment he came out, ascended the stairs and walked into the drawing-room, as if he had intended to do so first. Almost instantly the laughter stopped, and the voices ceased, the noises slowed down. He waved to them to go on, he laughed, he tried to joke. He forced his face into smiles and did his best to make them forget that he was there. But it was no use. Terry's friends were not his friends. She had got a strange set round her —people he did not know, perhaps could never know. Two months ago he had tried to revive his old friends for her—people a, the chapel his mother had attended, ministers, neighbours. But Terry had found her owr. friends and refused his. They were too slow for her A doctor's wife had called — Ihe wrong doctor's wife (as happens often in Loudon), and she introduced Terry to the wrong set. Even in Brixton there is a wrong.set. If Humphrey had been a local man, if he had taken any interest in local af- ! fairs, he would have known the difference. But he had been a man shut in upon himself so long that ho took no interest in local life; and one doctor's wife was as good as another to him. But he was surprised when, speaking to Terry of her friends, he found that they had been introduced by the wife of a professional man. It puzzled and baffled him, but. in the end he let Terry go her own way. She always escaped him, ami while he was utterly weak with regard to her, he had no hold upon her. If she had cared —oh, how different things would be! If he could have won her —oh, what a life they might have had! But now, she in the drawing room, he in the library; and in the hall, listening, a hard-faced old woman who hated Terry and loved her master —a woman who watched with growing agony the old shadows coming back over Humphrey's face and life. And surely, swiftly Terry drifted on to her fate. CHAPTER XIV. Two hundred and eighty pounds! Three hundred pounds! Four hundred and forty pounds! Oh, Vi, it's sickening!" Terry pushed aside paper and pencil and turned her young face, drawn and haggard now, to Mrs Stevenish. "That's over a thousand pounds altogether," she said, shivering. "I can't believe it. Mrs Caley must have cheated me. It's—it's horrible." Her voice choked. Vi shrugged her shoulders. "I have told you over and over again to be careful," she said. "I've warned you. Of course, as far as I know, Mrs Caley is all right in one way; but, you know, you must be careful in dealing with her. She is a eat when she likes." Mrs Stevenish got up and walked across the room, lifting her richly chased lorgnettes to a tiny, gaudy clock that ticked noisily upon the mantelpiece. A short time had wrought great changes in Mrs Algy Bradford! Terry glanced curiously at her elaborate French frock. Vi always wore expensive frocks nowadays, and quantities of jewellery that Algy lavished upon her, and she had a general air of wealth and luxury that suitod her. She showed no sign to Terry of her disappointment over her marriage, no sign of envy. Terry thought she had forgotten it, or did not care, after all. Humphrey was scarcely ever mentioned between them, and she accepted the fact that Terry and Humphrey lived utterly different lives, very wide apart, without showing any interest or concern. "All wives do," had been her remark once when Terry mentioned it. "Only the bourgcoiso middle-classes are domestic nowadays," and Terry, child as she was in spite of all, treasured up the remark to air to Mimmie Dale some day when Mimmie came to see her again, or whenever she paid a visit to Brancaster. "But what shall I do?" Terry cried. "Why, pay her, of course," replied Vi. "But I can't; I—l can't—yet." Mrs Stevenish shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I should move heaven and earth to do it if I were you,'' she said, "and at once; she's a pig over money, and if you don't pay her wdien sho asks she'll talk. You know what she is. Sho ruined Lady Dcphnoy, and Mrs Stephen Cannister, and poor little Mollie Snced, too. It is a pity you got into her (daws. But can't you ask Humphrey for some money, and pay her?" Terry shivered. "He gavo me five hundred pounds only last week," she said. "It was a birthday present, and he said J was to buy—to buy a ring with it,—any I liked. And I haven't. It—it all went to Mrs Caley, and I've lost again this week, and I'm more and more in her debt. And there's Bevan, too. I'm in an awful mess, Vi." A'i leant, without moving, against the mantelpiece, looking down at the fire and putting out ono small, pointed too to the warmth. As the light of the fire flashed and leaped it seemed to cast queer shadows over her face. Queer expressions came and went upon it,— enmity anil rage, contemptuous dislike, and hatred and impatience were there in turn, as she stood with a smile that added to the cruelty of her face curling her lips. "'1 told you not to go to a moneylender," she said. "I know you did," Terry shuddered again, "but I was in such a mess, and Mrs Caley said he was all right.'-' "Mrs Caley! " "Oh, but I did not. know her so well then, and why didn't you warn me? You. might have told me what she was like—things she did——" Vi swung round. "Tell you? Warn you ? Of course I

did, you foolish child. ] 've Leon warn ing you all along and telling you not to play so rashly, and all that. You're "I can't help it." Terry stirred uneasily in her seat, and the thought of what she had become in the last few weeks drained her face of its last drop of ldood. (To bo continued.)