THE TANGLED WEB

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19120, 12 July 1930, Page 23 (Supplement)

THE TANGLED WEB

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

CHAPTER XXI. It was a beautiful day, calm seas | and blue skies, with a wealth of warm sunshine. Meriel walked slowly back from the post-office, unwilling to return to that house on the Leas which held the great tragedy of her life, yet irresistibly drawn. She knew that she was not a free agent in the matter. Poor Jim! llow carefully she had worded the telegram so as to hurt him no more than was strictly necessary. She had informed him that Eric. Saunders was very ill, and that she felt it to be an act of simple human mercy to remain here for the time being and see that everything possible was done for him. Purposely she had left out the word “duty.” That would have done more than merely hurt Jim; it would have enraged him. She had added, “Please leave me quite alone until I send for you. I must manage this unhappy affair for myself.” It did not occur to her that Jim regarded her as a child, incapable of taking such a situation into her own hands. Now that the first shock was over, Meriel felt steadier, more sure of herself. She was not going to get into a panic again, and there was time enough to face all those complexities which the future would bring. Resolutely she refused to dwell upon thoughts of little John. Whatever happened there, die was her baby, and no power on earth could take him from her For a while she tarried on the front gazing at the dim coast of France, her thoughts no less far away Her father's harshness of yesterday, even, seemed to belong to another existence and to matter as little One can do no more than confess one’s sin. and she had done that V it had been a sin to marry Eric She had begged Daddy’s forgiveness, and he hadn't been kind But all those things were so unimportant now The cable was cut and the ship had sailed away io a distant port. All the havering and indecision were over, all those absurd attempts to buy off her con-

science as she had bought Leonora Begby’s silence were of the past. She had faced the fact that she was Eric. Saunders’s wife and if the whole world had to know it, then she would face that fact, too. There was something of the stoic in this spoiled child of old Johnny Raynes. Yes, and now one must go back to the house where Eric was waiting for her. By this time he would have finished his afternoon sleep. Meriel moved on, loath yet determined A small yellow coupe car stood in front of the house and she hastened her steps now, thinking it might be that the doctor had called. She wanted to see the doctor. Leonora was waiting for her. The girl had been crying and was even now sniffing into her handkerchief. “Oh, there you are. Mrs Tremlett. The captain was taken bad soon after you went out. He’s had another nasty stroke. I daresay it was the excitement of seeing you.” “I’m sorry,” Meriel said. Was she to be blamed for this, too? “The doctor’s with him and a hospital nurse has been sent for I took the liberty.” The heaving chest and shoulders betrayed Leonora, and suddenly Meriel understood something that hadn t occurred to her before. This girl loved Eric. "Poor Miss Begby—poor Leonora! she exclaimed, her heart filled with pity. “Y'ou care a great deal for him, don’t you? Oh. how sad it all is!” And then Leonora laid her head on the shoulder of the woman she hated and burst into great blubbering s°bs Meriel put her arms around her “I’m sorry—so dreadfully sorry I wish I could help you comfort you in any way.” “You’d better go up to him,” Leonora said “It’s you he wants —not me. I’ve told the doctor you’re someone he’s fond of and that you came to stay here for a while until he got better .l l Only he’ll never get better now.”

She pulled herself together at the sound of the doorbell. . “That’s the nurse, I expect. Don’t let on to mother that I was crying. I shouldn't like for her to know how fond I am of the captain. hfobody knows. fvot even him.” Meriel went up to the sitting-room and introduced herself to the doctor, but she gave her name as Mrs Tremlett, and he did not ask her any questions as to what relation she stood in to the ill man. “Miss Begby thinks he was over-ex-cited by my coming to see him, she said. “Is it just that or something more serious?” The doctor shook his head. Captain Saunders was a little over-due lor this stroke, as a matter of fact. It was likely to happen any time, and lor any reason or none. I’m afraid its the lat “i-le’s going to die—soon?” Meriel asked, lowering her voice as she glanced towards the closed door of the bedroom. “Yes I'm afraid you must be prepared for that. I’d be surprised if he lasts the night out.” “Can I speak to him?”. The doctor hesitated, then said: cm yes, but don’t say anything that he d feel he ought to reply to. Say as little as possible. There’s no harm in sitting beside him. He might like that. I think he feel lonely. Dying can be a lonely business.” The nurse was ushered in by Leonora at that moment, and Meriel went into the bedroom. This was the first time she had encountered the swift approach of death, but she braced herself to face it as she had faced the other terrible things She did not think of this as a happy release for herself; a solution of at least one of her own problems The doctor s last words still rang in her ears "Dying L can be a lonely business Dric must not be allowed to feel himself utterly ' forsaken in this last dark hour i lie lay so still that she thought death must already have taken him unawares. but as she bent over him his i eyes opened and looked scarchingly l into hers ‘Poor Eric I It’s all right dear i i We’re going tc look after you ever so [ I carefully ” r ] She sat down by the bed and took his hand, feeling no repugnance now, i although its coldness sent an icy chill through her. • "I’ll stay h'efe beside you and if you "r lovfc me,...you if try to rest quietly and * I won’t go away, Eric, 1 promise you.”

Ilis lips moved, but no ordered sound came from them. A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead as he made • the effort to speak, and then Meriel understood what the doctor had meant : when he said she wasn’t to say anything which might require an answer. Eric Saunders had lost the power of speech and almost of all movement. Suddenly Meriel was conscious of Leonora Begby standing behind her. “He w-ants to tell you something and he can’t,” Leonora said in a hoarse whisper. “That’s what it is.” “Hush,” Meriel admonished, her finger to her lips. But Leonora ignored the rebuke. “Maybe I can guess what it is he’d like to tell you. Captain, dear”—she bent over Meriel’s shoulder—“there something you want to tell her, isn’t there? Something very important?” The ill man’s eyelids flickered and the ghost of a sigh escaped his dry lips. •“You want Mrs—you want Meriel to be happy, don’t you, captain dear?” Again the eyelids flickered. “I think he means ‘yes,’ don’t you?” whispered Leonora. Whatever’ he had meant, the eyes were closed now and Meriel felt the cold hand relax in her grasp. “Call the doctor,” she said quickly “Not much use—nor for the nurse, now. He’s gone,” Leonora replied Dying can, indeed, be a lonely business, but Eric Saunders had died with the woman he loved holding his hand, and the woman who loved him bending over him. Already his face had settled into j lines of peace and he looked younger. ; more like the Eric who had been Meriel Raynes’s beau ideal in the days that now seemed of the long ago But for her peace of mind his death had come too late. CHAPTER XXII Jim Tremlett was a young man who did not believe in half measures Also he was hard-headed to the point of stubbornness He hadn’t fought for Meriel and waited for her all those months to be bowled over now by a situation which he refused tc acknowledge might defeat him He meant to leave no stone unturned when it came tc the legal right of little John to the name of Tremlett and if such a course became necessary he would lead Meriel. to the altar a second time, but now that Eric Saunders was really dead. Jim gave Meriel no time in which to debate the higher ethics of the case. f

He took her straight back to the lit- ; tie house in St John’s Wood, and he • sent for Nanny ajid the baby. Jim could be fierce in his way. “Make . no mistake about it,” he told her, “you’re my wife, and it’s pretty late in the day to try to pretend you’re anything else.” Meriel was too bewildered to protest, and in her heart of hearts glad that Jim felt that way about her. “I was never Eric’s wife,” she said. “Not really. You know that, Jim.” He did not want to discuss the matter at all with her. It was bad enough that lie must discuss it with the lawyers and his father-in-law. Eric Saunders was under ground, but the harm he had done Meriel still lived. Her face grew shadowed again and her laugh did not ring out as in the days when the little house had known happiness. Life became increasingly difficult under the burden of this secret Now that she was back from that holiday in Cannes and that the “tiff”— as the family supposed it to be—was made up with Jim, people flocked around her again. Some of them were curious, too. for queer little rumours had got about. Cyril St Grys had held his tongue, like the gentleman he was, in spite of his lady-like mannerisms, but the fact that he did so only whetted Lady Pelburv’s curiosity all the more. Yet, of course, there was not very much that Cyril could have told her. One day she brought what she imagined was news to Meriel “My dear, what do you think.! Our poor Captain Saunders is really dead. I heard it from that Leonora person He had rooms in Folkestone with some relative of hers Do you remember we thought he must have died long ago? lie never paid me back that money Leonora looked so queer when I mentioned it She asked how much it was and thought perhaps I’d get it back when his estate was settled Now what do you make of that, my dear?” At her aunt’s first reference to Eric in connection with Leonora Begby, Meriel’s heart had leapt into her throat She didn’t want Angel to know, at least not until everybody had to know But Angel hadn't the ghost of an idea. “So funny Merry dear but I’d got it into my head that Leonora had some kind of a hold over you So had Cyril She behaved so oddly, didn’t she?” “I don’t quite see in what way,” i Meriel murmured “Apparently you’ve • found her satisfactory as a dressmaker.” l “Indeed—yes. But I’m afraid her • prices will be going up, They always do the moment a woman like that gets

i El El HI HHI HI HI H HI HI HI Hi HI HI ID HI HI HI HI H any success. She tells me she’s trying to get the next-door premises to enlarge her business, and she’s got a boy in buttons at the front door now. Make no mistake—we will have to pay for all that. I told her straight out that if she starts raising the ante on me I’m not standing in on her game.” Meriel sighed with relief as the conversation switched by a natural progress from Leonora to poker parties, for which Lady Pelbury had recently developed a mild passion. Then there was Grace Peabody, who decided to pay that long-deferred call upon Mrs Tremlett, and Grace also gushed a lot about Madame Leonora, dragging a wholly unnecessary reference to Captain Saunders at the end of it. “Never—never shall I get away from my past,” thought poor Meriel. Between her and Jim there was * a growing feeling of estrangement. He was sleeping in his dressing-room and respecting a little cynically his wife s idea that she was Eric Saunders s widow. So long as she made no great protest at living under the same roof with him, Jim humoured what he regarded as hair-splitting on her part. But he was deeply hurt, and Meriel knew it. Ilis point of view and hers were so different, and each was being very careful to give way to the other up to a point. They went separately to visit the nursery, for they could not borne to be together with little John. Meriel was out a great deal, and something always seemed to keep Jim at the office’ until after tea-time They gave dinner parties in order to escape the torture of each other’s society, and encouraged invitations from their friends. Everybody said how gay the young Tremletts were getting to be Was that a sign that their ideal and somewhat overdone domesticity had begun to pall ? Once only did they have anything approaching a confidential talk during the fey weeks following Eric Saunders s death On that occasion they had returned from the opera, to which old Tom Tremlett was a box-subscriber and Meriel was turning to go upstairs alter her usual “Good-night, Jim dear, when he asked her to come into his study for a moment She followed him with a pang ot apprehension. What was he going to sav? That if she did not wish to be his wife it would he easy enough to arrange their future accordingly? (To be con It Vfd.),