His Wife’s Pecple

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 230, 28 September 1931, Page 12

His Wife’s Pecple

By

FLORENCE BONE

(Author of “ Red May,” « Stars in the Smoke,” etc.)

CHAPTER XXVII. The End of a Nightmare. Jean Rutherford had business in more than one country town and mining village on her way south that day, when London-bred Sheila caught a glimpse of life as she had never seen it. She w'as even able at points to forget the horror of the night before, though -whenever she was left alone in the car while Jean went into one of her customer’s shops, she sat huddled up, glancing over her shoulder at a sudden noise, and never at ease until Jean appeared again. She refused lunch in Newcastle at Jean Rutherford’s expense. “No, I’m not a cadger, and I won’t act like one,” she said. “I’ve had a splendid breakfast, and —” “Well, I see you’re strong-willed,” smiled Jean, speaking in her softly musical Northumbrian voice. “At any rate, do finish up what is in that basket. I’ll be glad to find a good home for all those things. And somebody’s sure to give us both tea. Probably in a nice little shop in Darlington.” Already a faint pink had appeared in Sheila’s cheek. The good air, the swift movement, her sane, sensible companion, had all helped. Never had a side street in a strange town, a litte round table, and a scent of hot bread, seemed such a good, safe, homely refuge, away from any kind of menace in existence. If it had not been that she was yearning for Anne and Simon, longing to know what might be happening to Andy, Sheila would have liked to stay with the hearty woman in the little teashop for a fortnight.. Joan Lester would never have heard of such a place. On the way from Northallerton to Borobridge, Sheila discovered that Jean Rutherford’s round over the Border sometimes took her to Bellington. She knew the place quite well. She usually stayed at the “Anchor,” where Mrs. Mackay was a good customer, always on the look-out for the newest biscuit. This w'as not a very surprising fact, considering the direction of Jean’s travels, but it seemed to Sheila marvellous. “Next time you’ll come to Rowans,” she said. “That is, if I ever go back to Andy, and my lovely home there. When you’ve run away ” “Oh, nonsense, of course you’ll go back,” said Jean. “I’d love to come,” she added. “I don’t go to Bellington again until May.” “It’s lovely in May at Rowans,” said Sheila, wistfully. “Yes, it will be. And there’s York on the horizon. Don’t you see its two tall towers across the flat country? Now, w'hat are we going to do? I go to an old inn I know, not much of a place, outwardly, but clean and cosy within, behind red curtains, and I always get a welcome. What about coming with me? We shall have to see about a seat for you in the bus to-morrow morning. Sheila shook her head. “Thanks to you the five shillings .are still intact,” said Sheila. “But they wouldn't? pay for bed and breakfast, would they ?” “Seven and six would, and leave something for supper,” said Jean. “You might let me at least pay the extra halfcrown. Only then you won’t have any food on your w'ay to London.” “If I’m going to London that won’t matter,” said Sheila, joyfully. “Anne w'ill give me enough food' to make up when I reach her.” “That won’t feed you to-night, and to-moriqw,” objected Jean. “It w’ill —in anticipation,” declared Sheila. “Fiddlesticks,” was the answer. “Look here, I don’t want to lose sight of you,” “Well, you needn’t,” said Sheila. “You’re coming to Bellington. And I shall write and tell you how things turn out, and then you’ll know’ I’m not a fraud.” “I know that now,” said Jean. “I won’t sponge on you.* I shall be all right in the station, and glad enough to be there. I feel quite safe now’ —thanks to you.” “Of course I know you are safe enough. But even so, I’d rather ha’ve you with me. I’m a motherly sort and I feel responsible for you.” Sheila laughed as she looked at the still young and vivid face, but grateful tears were in her eyes. “You must let me go to the station,” she said, decidedly. “Well—l’ll compromise. I insist on your having supper with me, first.” The March night was already dark when the two reached York. The old< bats, the narrow winding streets, and the space about the Minster all made Sheila feel that nothing could follow her, or find her now. Jean’s inn was, as she said, a cosy place, discovered by herself when she was doing business in a little shop near bv. She and Sheila sat over the fire of an empty commercial room, and did justice to ham and eggs, with the Minster chimes sounding almost over their heads. It w’as nearly eleven o’clock when Jean walked with Sheila to the station. The big place was deserted. Jean showed her into the small, narrow, waiting room, where a good fire w’as built up for the night. Two women and a baby were waiting for a midnight train. “I don’t like this, at all,” said Jean Rutherford, “and I’m used to getting my own way. My employers say I’m good at wheedling customers. Do let me pay the extra on a ticket for King’s Cross and then you can go by the train that runs, I know, in the wee small hours.” “King’s Cross isn’t Hampstead,” said Sheila. “If I go by bus I can get off and walk to Anne’s cottage. And I will be independent, now.” Jean Rutherford shook her head, and then smiled at Sheila. “I’m a great advocate of independence as a rule,” she said. “But I’ve met my match this time. Is it good-bye? Won’t you- ” “No. no,” said Sheila. “I’ll get mv breakfast at the station buffet or at another coffee stall. But I shall feel very different from this morning. And it isn’t good-bye. It’s only An revoir.” “Good! Well I’m away early on a Yorkshire round, and back again here, for to-morrow night. So I shan’t see you in the morning to hear your adventures.” “T shan’t have any. to-night. I’m goin’r to curl up on the station sofa. But I’ll write, I’ve got your address safely.” They parted like a pair of old friends, for their twelve hours’ companionship was not measured by time. Sheila went

into the waiting room, a somewhat forlorn figure in a grey macintosh, looking rather untidy, but less tired than she had looked that morning. The next hour passed pretty quickly. The two women and the sleeping baby went to their train. An attendant came in and made up the fire, and glanced at Sheila. The next two hours dragged, and the couch was very - hard and slippery. Again somebody, this time a porter, came in to the fire, and looked rather curiously at the only occupant of the waiting room. He said “Good-night,” but lie left Slieila uneasy again. After all, a station waiting room was a public place. Somebody might have tracked her. She had been foolish, obstinate, reckless, after the previous night’s experience, to refuse out of pride the oldfashioned bedroom and the soft feather bed offered to her in Jean’s favourite York Inn. Getting off the couch where she could not sleep, Sheila strolled into the great station, quiet, dusky, but not quite deserted in the cold small hours between midnight and dawn. It was very cold, and a few straggling travellers waited, wrapped up in thick overcoats, for the London train, now nearly due. They came mostly from the Station Hotel straight to the platform. Sheila walked up and down among them, glad of the sight of human beings. Nobody, even in the middle of the night, could carry her ff bodily with porters and men travellers standing about. “And of course nobody wants' to; I’ve got rid of all that and left it behind me,” murmured Sheila. She glanced fearfully into the lurking shadows of the halfdark station, behind its pillars, along the dim spaces of its well-know’n curves. A slight bustle sprang up. The train from the north was signalled. Up to that moment it had not struck Sheila that this train was coming from Edinburgh. But even so, if Andy had gone after her, he would be in London now. In the dark distance sounded the puffing of the oncoming train. A red glow from the engine moved lorward. The long, dark yet lighted coaches glided easily round the bend and came to a standstill at the platform of York station. Many of the carriages had drawn blinds. A few doors opened, some luggage was banged into the van and the doors clanged shut, but mostly the night train seemed a silent, sleeping thing. Sheila stood beside a pillar watching it almost as though it had a life apart from its passengers. As she did so, she noticed a first class carriage just opposite to w’here she stood. The blinds were drawn, and the light within was shaded. The train was due to stand in the station for some minutes, and evidently somebody inside the carriage- was fiddling with the blind as though trying to draw it up. Sheila watched for some reason fascinated, but she. drew back further into the shadows, away from one of the sparse lamps which was shining on the spot where she - had stood. At the same moment the blind in the railway carriage sprang up. A face was pressed to the window as though someone had woken suddenly and looked out to see where she was. But Sheila reeled, with a gasp of terror, for she knew that face—those amber eyes that seemed to shine in the dark—like a cat’s. Joan Lester was travelling on the night train to fyondon. As Sheila stared, Mrs. Lester rose to her feet. She put her hand on the handle of the door as though she meant to open it and get out. It was impossible that she could have seen Sheila, but the girl seemed unable to move. Before anything further happened a whistle sounded, an insignificant little green flag was waved, and the great night express glided out of York Station on its way to King’s Cross. “Oh—oh, well, she has gone, she has gone, but where shall I find her next? Where will she find me? Shall I go north again ? Shall I —but no, I can’t go after Miss Rutherford again. Then she w’ould lose faith in me if she found I’d never gone to London. Whatever happens I must get to Anne.” Trembling in every limb Sheila went back to the waiting-room first. She was not. afraid of pursuit now. The pursuers had gone on. She dragged up an armchair of sorts to the ba.iked-up cindery fire and gave it a poke with her foot that roused a flame. And there she huddled over it until dawn w’as in the sky, and the day was beginning, and then she went out into the streets of York. The London coach on that spring dayhad few’ passengers. Grantham—Newark —Stamford—with a pleasant lunch in a homely shop, and one and sixpence left to-provide tea, Sheila thought she might take a taxi from the bus to Anne’s house at Hampstead. It would not be far, and Anne would pay. Dusk w’as not far distant when, at last, in the clear sky, might be seen first the trees and roofs of Hertfordshire uplands, and at last the outlying parts of London. The coach ran through Hampstead itself, and Sheila knew w’here to be put down. She had no luggage, not even a handbag, and the conductor looked at her curiously. But she knew W’here she was, and she was near Anne. Joan Lester could not get her now, she told herself, as she scrutinised the taxi driver before she gave Anne’s address. The taxi whirred and started. Slieila was nearly at home. At 10 o’clock that night Anne Starkey and Meg Wedderburn were still thrashing out every conceivable suggestion for finding Sheila, without any satisfaction to either of them. Long before now they had expected Sheila to appear at Hampstead. Andy said she had some money. She had certainly left Bellington. She knew the way to Hampstead, and she had never been a fool about travelling. Anne, hearing for the first time, the story of Sheila’s illness, was disposed to ring up every possible hospital, and if they had no news by midnight to put the matter in the* hands of the police. Perhaps a broadcast message might find the girl. “We can’t go to bed until we’ve done something,” cried Anne. Simon and Andy were still out, scouring every possible place, including the London stations. Simon had already gone to a private detective agency. Meg Wedderburn fell silent as the evening wore wearily on. More and more she felt a sick certainty that somehow or other Jouli Lester had got hold of the girl. But how could a woman who had vanished as though into thin air turn up and carry off a well-grown, unwilling youjig woman, in broad daylight, on the way to Edinburgh? Nay it had already been ascertained that the bus conductor believed he remembered a “young leddy” like Sheila leaving his bus at the terminus, and walking away alone. Certainly she seemed ill, that was what made him remember her. But

lie was positive that nobody had met her. The only person who seemed interested in her was a newspaper boy. “All the same, that’s what bothering me,” said Meg to herself. She had wired her husband not to expect her until some news was heard of Sheila. Anne begged her to stay, but Mrs. Wedderburn had almost made up her mind to take the next train back to Edinburgh. She felt certain that the lost girl had got no further than that city. “I couldn’t go from door to door asking for her, but I’m certain, I’ve been certain all the time, that Mrs. Lester is still in the North, and not in London. I’m sure she’s got no accomplice in Bellington. Even Bertha Mitchell wouldn’t take that on, certainly Mrs. Duff wouldn’t. I wonder, somehow, if Marion—but no, not even that—” A taxi whirred up to the door, and the bell shrilled. Both women jumped up. Only Andrew and Simon appeared. They had sent George back to Bellington, to stop possible rumours with the truth, if necessary, and to explain matters to James Robb. “But not to his wife, mind you,” Simon Todd had told him. “No fear,” said George, who was glad to go back. There was only one person he wanted to explain matters to, a little wisp of a woman with appealing eyes, who hadn’t been quite sure that she trusted him. “But she must after this, for evermore, and slie will,” said George, half ashamed of his own happiness and relief, with Andy in such distress. Simon was at the telephone, and Andy was declaring that lie was going back to King’s Cross, in case, somehow or other, Slieila turned up there, when another taxi stopped outside the littla gate of Anne’s house. This time nobody heard it, for Anne was trying to persuade Andrew Robb to take three hours’ rest. But she heard a latchkey put into her door. Only one person but herself and Ellen possessed one, and that was Slieila. When she married and went North Anne had made her keep it, saying that her house would always be Sheila’s home. Before Anne could start up and throw open the sitting room door, footsteps came briskly towards it. The door was thrown hack, and Slieila came in. She seemed to stand in a blaze of light for a second, searching the room. When she saw’ Andy she saw nobody else. Botli Anne and Simon observed that, and knew that things were all right between them. “Andy—Andy—forgive me. When I married yon I didn’t know. I’ve been so unhappy—so frightened.” Those who heard it never forgof Sheila’s cry. In one stride her husband was across the room. His voice was inarticulate, but lie caught her, sobbing, and half carried her from the room, and across the little hall, into Anne Starkey’s dining room. There he shut the door, put her into the great, deep chair before the glowing gas fire, and knelt at her feet. It was so quiet, so safe, so familiar —all the last months, all the anguish, all the fears seemed to slip away from Sheila, never to corno back. |To be concluded.)