THE TANGLED WEB

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19119, 11 July 1930, Page 16

THE TANGLED WEB

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By

ELIZABETH YORK MILLER.

Author of “The Runaway Wife,” “The Road That Led Home,” “ A Cinderella of Mayfair,” etc., etc. [Copyright.]

CHAPTER XX. What had. been in Meriel’s mind that morning ? Julia, with the best of intentions to soothe down her hysterical young sister, had not been able to keep her in bed. Indeed, Merry was up with the children and assisting at the ritual of baby’s bath long before Julia herself had stirred. “It’s only some silly tiff she's had with Jim,” Julia confided to her husband. “Yes, I thought Merry's meek domesticity was too good to last,” he replied. “Well, we’re not going to mix ourselves up in other people’s quarrels. It's all we can do to handle our own.” To which Julia replied with the quite unanswerable retort that Merry was her sister. But even Julia was not altogether pleased to be made the dumping ground of what appeared to be a family upheaval, and she was less pleased when later on in the morning Meriel announced her intention of going off by herself on a motor excursion. “I don't know that I can spare the car,” Julia protested fdfebly. “I didn’t mean to ask j r ou for it,” Meriel replied. “Well, what shall I say to Jim or Daddy, if either of them ring up? Merry, you’re really rather trjfing.” “You can tell them I’ve gone out,” Meriel said coldly. “And I’m awfully sorry to give you such a lot of trouble.” There didn't seem much more to say after that, and unfortunately Julia did not know that her sister flew up to the nursery again to take a tearful farewell of little John, as though she nevet expected to see him again. She also called at the station and collected the dressing-bag and suitcase which she had been assured would be coming by a certain train. Consequently Leonora Begby was more than a little disconcerted to see young Mrs. Tremlett arriving with luggage. Leonora didn’t like the look of that at all, and hurried down to make inquiries. Mrs. Begby was admitting the visitor with a flutter of self-consciousness. “Oh, how do you do, Mrs—er—er—do come in. . . . Yes, it will be all right to leave your bags in the hall. I’ll just i find out if the captain .... oh, here comes my daughter. Lee, you remember Mrs—er—this young lady, don’t you? Can she go straight up to the captain’s sitting-room?” “I’ll take Mrs Tremlett up,” Leonora said firmly, leaving no doubt in the matter of Meriel’s name. “You’d better see about lunch, mums.” Mrs Begby whisked away and the two younger women stood eyeing each other in a guarded fashion. Both were very pale and showed the effects of the strain they/’’ had endured; and both were very cairn. “Well ” said Meriel, with a helpless gesture— “you see, here I am. It had to come to this Miss Begby. “If you’ll forgive my saying so, it needn’t have come to anything of the sort,” Leonora replied. “I couldn’t go on living a lie.” “Perhaps you'll say I drove you to it,” Leonora suggested anxiously. She wanted desperately to know what Meriel would tell Eric Saunders. Muriel shook her head. “Nobody’s driven me. It’s merely my feeling in the matter—conscience, if you like to call it that.” Leonora suppressed a sniff but just then a bell tinkled and she said, “That’s him. He heard the car drive up. You’d better go to him at once. You’ll find him changed,” she added. The bell clamoured again and Meriel ran up the short flight to the first landing and hurried down the corridor to the room into which Eric had brought her as his bride nearly three years ago. It had all come back to her so poignantly that she had to put a hand to her heart to still its frantic beating, and make a determined effort to turn the handle of the door, forcing herself to enter. This man—she did not want to see him. He had ruined her life. What was he to her or she to him? Nothing at all; the}- were the veriest strangers. For a second or two she stood appalled on the threshold. Yet, of course, that wreck must be Eric. He looked like a corpse decked out in the splendour of shimmering silk, with roses and lilies around him for burial flowers. And the corpse was smiling at her wfith a glimmer of lovelight in its dull eyes. “M—Meriel!” he whispered huskily. A shaking hand was held out to her. “I c—can’t get up to meet you, s—sweetheart,” he stammered. There was something dreadful about his slow, uncertain pronunciation and the slack fall of his jaw. “Oh, no, don’t try,” she murmured, and half-averting her face crossed the room and took his hand. “Aren’t you g—going to kiss me?” he asked. Repressing a shudder she bent down and touched his clammy forehead with her lips. This man she had loved! “For better or for worse; for richer or poorer.” This man, not Jim, was her lawful husband. Worst of all, he seemed to be under the delusion that she still loved him. “So they told you I was dead, eh, and got you to marry that chap, after, all? I kept quiet when I found out you’d married him. Thought, perhaps, you’d forgotten me by that time and were happy with the new lerve.” “Eric, why didn’t you write? Why did you leave me so long like that without a word?” Meriel asked, dropping limply into a chair beside the sofa. “It would have saved so much misery, so much suffering.” The wreck withdrew his hungry gaze from her face and an evasive expression crossed his haggard features. “ There were reasons,” he muttered. “ llow long have you been in England?” she asked. “ I forget how long, exactly. It is a matter of a few months or so.” “ And if I had waited all that time? ” “ T read of your marriage to Tremlett,” Eric explained. “ You wouldn’t have thanked m-me for writing after that, w-would you?” “ It would have been better if you had. You see, I have a little son.” A look of pain swept his face. “ Oh—there’s an infant, is there? Meriel, you belong to me, you know.” She drew back as the thin hand reached out as though to clutch her. “ Please, Eric! It seems to me that I belong to nobody,” Meriel said. “ I’ve left my baby at my sister’s ” “You left him to come to me—because you c-care for me?” Pity was melting the ice in her heart. The man was dying. Anyone could see that. At the most he could live no more than a few months. “ I came because I had to, Eric. I couldn’t do less. I wanted you to know—l wanted to tell you myself that I didn’t break my promise to you with my eyes open. Daddy, in all kindness as he thought, told me he had news of 3'our death.” “ K-kindness?” stammered the]

wreck. “ Did he think you would t-take it as good news?” She hung her head. “He knew that I was worrying, that I was unhappy. I didn’t tell him we had been married— 3-0 U said I mustn’t—but I did tell fiim I had promised to wait for you.” Eric Saunders gave vent to a sigh that was half groan. “If you wouldn’t mind—there’s a bottle “of brandy around here somewhere. Mother Begby’s probably tucked it away in the cupboard. This has b-been an exciting day for me.” Meriel took the hint and was glad indeed for something active to do. She found the brandy and poured him out some, helping him to hold the glass to his lips. “Eric, do you need money?” she asked abruptly as she set the glass back on the table. He coughed and laughed in a hollow fashion. “ I’ve got plenty, thanks.” “ I think you ought to have a nurse. Who looks after you?” “ Oh, there’s a young chap comes in of a morning to get me up and again at night to put me to bed. I can manage to do a little for myself.” “ I think you ought to have someone all the time. What does your doctor say ? ” “ I don’t w-want to talk about such things. You’ll take care of me now, sweetheart. And anyway, I’m going to get well. I’ve got something to live for—to fight for—now that I’ve got you back.” There came a tap at the door and when he said impatiently, “ Come in,” Leonora entered with a daintily set luncheon tray. In a few well-chosen words she disposed of the situation to her liking. Mums had a meal ready for Mrs Tremlett, who looked as though she needed it. She herself, would give the captain his lunch. Reluctantly Eric Saunders permitted this arrangement. “ You will come back to see me soon?” he said, as Meriel moved towards the door. “ After lunch you ought to sleep,” Leonora objected. “ I will come back as soon as you’ve had your nap,” Meriel said. He kissed his hand to her. * * * * “Oh, what am I going to do?” she cried to herself as she stood for a moment outside the door before going down to Mrs Begby’s dining-room. How could she tell that sick and dying man that she could not bear the touch of his hand even? And he thought she still loved him! The truth was she had never loved him; she saw that clearly enough now when it was years too late. Somehow she got through the tempting little meal Mrs Begby set before her, during which she made arrangements to take the two vacant rooms on the second floor. She did not know how long she might be staying, she told Mrs Begby, but she felt she owed a certain obligation to Captain Saunders. Mrs Begby, who had none of Leonora’s reticence, related the pitiful story of how he had insisted upon getting smartened up when he heard she was coming. Indeed, Mrs Begby went into unnecessary details as to the low state of mind as well as of body that the captain had let himself sink into. “But I don’t see how he can ever get better,” she added, “so long as he drinks like he does. Why, he’s had two strokes already. Of course, the doctor says he mustn’t touch nothing, but nobody can stop him. That’s one reason why he won’t have a proper nurse.” Mrs Begby managed to control any outward sign of her interest in Meriel’s unexpected appearance, but inwardly she was seething with curiosity. She did wish that Mrs Tremlett would open her heart and tell the whole storj*. Failing this confidence, Mrs Begby opened her own heart, and told all her hopes and fears for Leonora and said how kind it was of Mrs Tremlett to patronize her and recommend her to the aristocracy. “Lee’s got brains and ability, but she’s not had an easy life. Begging your pardon, madame, there was a time when Captain Saunders first came to stay with us that I thought he and Lee might hit it off together. He took her about a lot. But, of course, it was just friendliness on the captain’s part, and Lee never was a girl to set much store about men. Some girls are born old maids, aren’t they?” *s« ’sjs m Meanwhile, “the born old maid” was tenderly coaxing morsels of grilled sole and spoonsful of chicken jelly into the mouth of a man whose worst foe was his lack of appetite. Leonora would have made an ideal nurse for this particular invalid, had she been able to devote all her time to him. Did Eric Saunders suspect how she adored him with every fibre of her lovestarved being? Did he sometimes torment her on purpose? He was, himself, so tormented that perhaps he could not refrain from taking it out of somebody else,, and nobody was quite such a likely subject as Leonora. Still, she would be recompensed when his will was proved. In one way at least he had gauged her nature to a nicety. Leonora, on her part, put a little prob in him after she had got him to eat all he could be coaxed to, and given him the half bottle of champagne she had been obliged to promise by way of reward. “Where’s my wife?” he demanded when Leonora brought up the champagne from the ice-box. “She thinks you’re going to lie down for your sleep, as you must do. Mrs Tremlett has gone out. She told mums she had a couple of telegrams to send oft.” Saunders sank back on his cushions with a groan of anguish. “She won’t come back! ” “Yes she will, captain dear. Her bags have been taken up to the rooms over these. Mrs Tremlett said she must get off those telegrams ” “How d —dare you c—call her Mrs Tremlett! ” “That’s her name, captain dear. And I think 1 ought to tell you for your own sake that she’s very fond of that young husband of hers. They’ve got ever such a nice little home, and I’ve reason to believe that they dote on each other.” What Meriel, who did not love him. had recoiled from saying, Leonora who would have sold her soul for Eric Saunders gave him straight from the shoulder. “I w—won’t b—believe it! ” he stuttered. “It’s just your j—jealousy'.” “Oh, captain dear! ” She sprang to her feet as he fell back against the cushions with wildly staring eyes, a little trickle coming from his lips, his breath painfully heavy. Leonora ran to the door. “Mums —mums!” she shrieked over the banisters. “Mums, the captain’s had another stroke. Telephone for the doctor .... And, mums, you'd better telephone to the Seabright Home in Sandgate for a nurse as well.” (To be Continued).