LIGHTS & SHADOWS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18888, 14 October 1929, Page 16

LIGHTS & SHADOWS

STAR’S" NEW SERIAL

BY

EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS.

CHAPTER Xl.—(Continued

At the end of September Elizabeth went over to Paris with her chaperon. Mrs Wakefield. And though she went through the pretence of asking Hester to go with them, she was extremely delighted when the other woman refused eagerly. , . She made no friendship with her chaperon; but, at the same time, she was fully conscious of the importance of having such a delightful woman constantly about with her. Mrs Wakefield was of a very old titled family, and it was rather a feather in the cap of Elizabeth Charlbury to have such a woman to take her about and look after her. . „ , , , Whatever Mrs Wakefield thought of this beautiful girl who had been put in her charge, she was very cautious not to share her opinion with anyone, in fact less with Judith Winscott than other people. She always told Judith that she could never be grateful enough for the thought which had put her in such a delightful home, and she always spoke enthusiastically of Miss Charlbury’s beauty. But Mrs Wakefield knew the world so well that she found herself sometimes regretting the necessity which put her into such close contact with s. nature so repellant to her as that which Elizabeth possessed. However, she told herself it would be utterly impossible to make any change in sufch a young woman, and therefore she accepted all that belonged to her new surroundings, and proved not only a most delightful companion, but a very clever adviser. It was when she returned from Paris that Elizabeth had the first disagreeable episode in her path of success. She had so worked upon Michael that he had almost invohintarily done what she wanted him to do with Hester Slaj’de, and when she went away the lawyers, she understood, were busy drawing up the deeds of settlement. Certainly Ilester was going constantly to their office to discuss investments and all matters connected with the property which had passed to her, and so Elizabeth naturally imagined the settlement was being arranged, too. So everything looked rose-hued to the selfish heart of this girl until one day when she was shopping she had finished her errand and was leaving a well-known establishment in Bond Street to enter her car, which had just been brought by the commissionaire, when she came face to face with Gerald Briggs. She noted that he was quietly dressed, and that he appeared to be in mourning. But she also noted that he was just the same ugly, common young man he had been when she had mai.de his acquaintance in Boulogne. She was passing on with her head a little in the air, when he stopped her. “Look here!” he said, and there was a definite threat in his voice, “I’m not going to stand for that! \ ou’ve treated me like dirt! Well, I’m not dirt. I had a lot of money -when I saw you last, well, I’ve a lot more now; and money counts with a creature like you!” Elizabeth grew very white. “How dare you!” she said in a low, hurried, almost choked voice. “How dare you speak to me at all! I taught you your lesson when I last saw you. Please nio\ ? e and let me pass. “Not a bit of it,” said Gerald Briggs doggedlj'. “I’ye got things to say to you, and I mean to say them. And you'd best make up your mind to listen. Is that your car? Weil, you have got up in the world since I saw you! Mine was good enough for you then. Well see here, you’d best get in the car and hear what I’ve got to say.” As it happened Elizabeth was alone. Mrs Wakefield was not very well, and Hester had gone to the lawyers, and so she had ordered the car and gone out shopping by herself. She was glad now that there was no one to be a witness to this untimely and most disagreeable encounter. She only had to look into Gerald’s angry eyes to realise that the young man intended to enforce his will to come quickly to a decision. “There is nothing you have to sayto me that I care to hear, but if you will force yourself upon me,” she said coldly, “I suppose I have no alternative but to listen to you.”

She spoke to the chauffeur, who was standing at the door of the car looking curiously at her. “Go into the Park and drive round until I stop you.”

Then she got into the magnificent car, and Gerald Briggs followed her. “You seem to have hit it lucky,” he said.

“If you can't speak to me civilly,” said Elizabeth in a white rage, “I shall stop the car and have you thrown into the street.”

At which young Briggs laughed a disagreeable laugh. “Oh no, you won’t,” he said. “I know you too well for that! Aou don’t want to have any scene, do you. my dear Elizabeth? You treated me, as I said just now, like dirt; well, you’ve got to pay for that. I'm not going to put up with such treatment. Who are you, Elizabeth Charlbury? Oh, I’ve been hearing things about you. I’ve been hearing how wonderful you are, and how beautiful you are. Judith Winscott’s always talking about you to my sister. Well, she doesn’t know you so well as I do; perhaps she wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about your beauty if she could know what a mean, cruel beast of a woman you can be!“

The fact that he spoke the name of Judith Winscott sent a thrill of something like fear through Elizabeth. She suddenly determined to change her method of treating this very objectionable young man. “My dear Gerald,” she said, “you are very angry'- with me, and not very just. People are never very just when they are very angry'. You ask Miss Winscott, or you ask anybody else if we put the case before them, to tell you whether I was a beast of a woman. I had to take care of myself, my dear Gerald. That letter you sent me was an insult. You said you were coming' up to my room and that you would insist on seeing me. I don’t know if you have improved since that day’, but I can tell you that not one woman in a thousand would have accepted such a threat quietly'.” Gerald Briggs looked at her very quickly’. “Well, perhaps I did do wrong.” he allowed; “but, you see, you made me mad. I was not so wise to things then as I am now, Elizabeth. I’ve gone through a bit. I’ve lost my father . . . that churns up a fellow, y’pu know. He was the best fellow that ever walked this earth, although he was a tradesman once. You sneered at him, I remember. Well, perhaps you wouldn’t have sneered at him if you’d have known he was worth two millions or more.”

It was true, she was, as he put it, on velvet, but the deeds.of settlement had not been signed yet. For some reason or other, the matter was hanging fire and the lawyers were trying to persuade Hester not to make* this settlement at all.

“You measure everything, apparently’, my dear Gerald, by money,” said Elizabeth, adopting a languid manner. They had rolled out of Piccadilly into the Park, and were going round as she directed. “I suppose two millions is a very nice thing to possess, but I have plenty of money of my own now, and one does not buy one’s friendships, you know.” The boy’—he was very’ little moresat in the corner of the luxurious car, and was silent a while, and then he said almost gently: “I don’t know about buying friendships, but you’ve got me body and soul, Elizabeth! There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. Sa_v, why do you treat me so badly? Everybody wants friends in this world, even if they have got a lot of money. I don’t know anything about you except thak y’ou’ve been adopted by some old woman, and things are on velvet with you now, I guess. But even you, clever as you are, might need a friend. Why do you quarrel with me?” There was so much common sense in this speech that it appealed to Elizabeth.

She was such an honest, open creature, that she even discussed this matter with Elizabeth herelf, and it appeared that she was a good bit worried, because the lawyers had put the thought into her mind that perhaps she was not doing the right thing by her late mistress if she were to make! over such a large amount of money to one who had been a comparative stranger to Sophia Martingate. No argument could have been so strong to influence Hester as this, viz., that she was not being just or loyal to her dead mistress, and when Elizabeth had heard her stammer out that the lawyers had said she must not do Anything in a great hurry the girl could have struck out at Hester and let some of the impatient anger that was surging in her heart find an outlet. So now this very practical appeal from Gerald Briggs touched her own i common sense and reasoning powers. What he said was so true! She might need a friend. What was there to be gained by quarrelling with this yotjng man? Far better keep him dangling on as an admirer, one who could be extremely useful in the future if necesi (To be continued.) (