FREDA ALONE

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20329, 12 June 1934, Page 12

FREDA ALONE

Author of “ Peggy, the Daughter,” “Mary Gray,” eto.

! B,

KATHARINE TYNAN

CHAPTER VIII. Freia Out On the World

Freda never forgot her first glimpse of Lee Roses, as madame’s villa was called.

At first it was only a green gate in a white wall. Then the green gate opened and an odd-looking young man stood smiling against a background of the gayest colour. He had very bright eyes and a dark, soft, silky beard. The beard to Freda's mind put him out of the category of youth. The youhg men to whom she had been accustomed were usually closeshaven, or else had small moustaches. Lionel Dampier was of the close-shaven ones, and Freda’s ideal. But the young man with bright eyes and silky beard was pleasant, like a very nice old gentleman to Freda or perhaps rather like a big dog. “See, Andre, I have brought thee a little sister,” said madame. “It is what I have always desired, a little sister,” said Andre, smiling, and showing his white teeth. “She is not robust to look at, this little sister. We shall change all that, thou and I, mainan. Shall I carry her in, the little sister ?”

Before anyone could speak Freda was lifted in his kind, strong arms. His beard brushed her face, and she did not feel that she minded. He carried her through the open gateway. There was a square garden, with fruit trees on the wall and the beds filled in with China asters and dahlias of a bewildering variety of colour. In the sheltered enclosure some splendid hollyhocks yet held themselves upright. Beyond the garden was a white house with green shutters and roses above a green porch. Everything looked as fresh as though it had been newly painted. A little cheerful, nut-brown old woman stood smiling in the doorway. A huge white poodle, which reminded Freda sadly of poor Beau, came walking down the path towards them, ignoring the advances of a black kitten who was rubbing her sleek sides against him. The house door opened into a room, the walls of which were covered with a flowery chintz. The bare floor was polished like glass. There was very little furniture in the room, not a bit more than was necessary—but that included a comfortable, deep sofa that was drawn near a bright fire. On the sofa Andre laid down his burden. “Thou are to rest, little sister,” he said, “to rest and cat. Is it not so, Suzette?” to the old woman who had followed him. “Mademoiselle is to rest and eat before she can go upstairs. And now I go to dismiss the coachman for maman.”

It was Freda’s introduction to an exquisite life, which lasted without material change till she was come to her twentieth year.

Very few things happened during those years. Freda went to school to the Ursulines and learnt some solid things and many accomplishments. She grew tall, and acquired a pretty stateliness of height and bearing. She had a spiritual face, its pure oval framed in sober bauds of gold-brown hair. Anyone would have taken her for a French girl. She had the fine French skin, if it bad a little more colour than usually falls to the lot of French girls. She dressed like one, of course, in demure checks and plaid*. She had that aloof and virginal air which belongs to young French womanhood more than to our free and frank English damsels. But she had not forgotten that she was Freda Traquair, although she Had allowed herself to be called Freda Vane, or Vahn, as the people pronounced it, and had forgotten nearly her first dreadful associations with the name. Also she kept up her English with the aid of an English sister at the Ursulines, although she spoke it like a Frenchwoman, with a greater roll of the r’s than we permit ourselves, and the French turn of speech. Madame led a very quiet life at Les Roses. Quite early in Freda’s happy new life Andre had left them, had gone away to Paris to get his training as an artist. By the time Freda was 20, he was painting pictures that were exhibited, which sold sometimes for quite a good price. He would run down several times a year to Pont de Pierre, and would urge his mother to bring Freda to Paris for a little visit; but madame always shook her head. She would be lost in Paris; and as for Freda, why, where should a young girl be but in the seclusion of her own home ?

Freda was very fond of Andre, who was always £Ood to her from the beginning, and nad borne with her early childish tantrums as patiently as though ho were the big dog she had likened him to. She had almost forgotten something which had terrified her in her early frightened days—a look, a resemblance in the high, thin nose to that which had lain in the darkened room at Villa Marguerite, which had haunted her dreams for many a year, causing her dreadful screaming fits at night, till gradually the memory faded in the new sweet life that was so gracious, so full of tin thought of God.

To be sure, it was an elusive and shadowy likeness, not always perceptible, for Andre’s comfortably-covered features were very unlike the awful, sharpened thing she remembered; and' as for his mouth, it was quite invisible for the covering of the silky moustache. His eyes were like his mother’s, gentle and patient. The likeness had grovvn dimmer and dimmer as the years went by. Why. how should Andre, the dear and kind brother, be like that gliosjt of Freda’s early miserable years. They had not much society at Pont de Pierre. Ma'T’me’s friends were nearly all widow ladies like herself, although she knew neariy l ' r *dy; and, being held in universal esteem, > - ”’d be met everywhere with cordial and ‘ ‘ greetings on those occasions when she I went out into the village. And, to be [sure, there was Captain Roget, who had ! long since removed himself from Marigny, and with Mousquetaire and Margot, occupied a tiny cottage opposite the green garden gate at Les Roses. He came and went at Les Roses as he would, and he accompanied madame and Freda on their little expeditions, carrying madame’s basket and frowning ferociously at any male person who dared to look at Freda; while Mousquetaire. the bull-dog, and Menelik, the poodle, walked solemnly in front.

If Freda ever missed J:he gaieties natural to her youth she was not conscious of it. She had her few girl friends, for the widow ladies occasionally had daughters; and there was one Germaine le Blanc whose* society she particularly affected. Germaine wore her fair hair in two long plaits either side of her olive face, with its great, grey eyes. She had an immense admiration for Freda, whose English blood showed itself in an adventurousness, a free outlook of life, widely different from anything the French gill had ever known.

They read and painted together, and played duets on the piano and sewed much together; nor seemed to weary of each other’s companionship, although in everything they were so unlike. They had worked side by side through the winters at the delicate underclothing and fine lingerie which each was acquiring against her marriage. Freda was the one who originated. Her designs were worthy of Paris, but her sewing was often inadame’s despair; whereas Germaine originated nothing, but executed miracles of fine sewing and delicate little tucks.

“What is the good of it all ?” Freda asked one day when they were embroidering some bed-linen. “Supposing we don’t marry and don’t want to have a house, what is to become of all this?” “Oh! but,” said Germaine, lifting her dreamy, short-sighted eyes. “We shall certainly marry. The fiances have not yet come, but they will come in time, and the mothers will arrange it with their parents and we shall be married at St. Koch. What a delight to think of the husband and the house! And in time, perhaps, there will be a little bebe.” Something stirred in Q,ermaine’s face of anticipation, of delight, but of shyness none at all. “That is all very well for you, Germaine,” said Freda, “but I should not like my husband arranged for me. I should like to choose for myself.” “Why, Elfride, you talk like the Eng lish,” Germaine said in a shocked voice. “I should not be happy in- choosing my fiance. Supposing he were not approved by inaman and the two grand-meres, and the grand-pere, and the uncles and the aunts—” Freda laughed gaily. “After all, it would be my affair,” she said. “I’m afraid lam like an English girl. I could not be like Josephine, who last year went out walking with her fiance, on either side of them and round about them her four grandparents, her father and mother, her two aunts and her great aunts; while this year she sits on the balcony of her villa, in Adolphe’s arms all day long. Everyone laughs about it, and I never like to look up as 1 pass by. It will be so with you, Germaine.” “Why not?” asked Germaine contentedly. “Le mari is, you see, very different from le fiance. And Adolphe was young and very much in love. Josephine was fortunate. I hope my fiance will he young. As for you, you are assured, Elfride.” “I?” said Freda. “How should I be assured ?”

“It is understood that you are to marry Andre, is it not? It will mak« niadame so happy, and perhaps when she sees you and Andre settled she will go across to Lo Petit Trou and make that poor old Capitaiue Roget happy, too, at the end of his days.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Freda quite sharply. “I am not going to marry Andie, 1 assure you. He is like my brother. He is the last person in the world I should think of marry-

“Oh, but that is all arranged tor us, Elfride,” Germaine said, with gentle persistence. “We do not go against our parents in such matters, we French girls. And if you have never thought of Andre, that is nothing. A girl is not supposed to think of a fiance till it is arranged. It would not be modest. Bo assured that madame has foreseen your marriage with Andre these many years. Without doubt it will he soon

arranged.” Germaine's suggestion remained with Freda, though she tried angrily to rid herself of it. Now that it had been made she remembered a hundred things that corroborated it—little words and looks and actions, barely noticed at the time, which now stood up in a horrid phalanx to bear witness to Germaine’s discernment. She might have discovered it for herself if she had not been deceived by her own frankly sisterly attitude of mind towards Andre. The idea was horribly repugnant. Andre! As a husband! Impossible! He would have been impossible even if there had not been the shadowy likeness which came back to her now as though she had never forgotten it in the growth of sisterly affection. Something she saw in madame’s eyct as she watched her that evening at her sewing made Freda speak. She was very different from the child who had avoided punishment, as an animal might, by creeping and hiding. Candour and honesty shone in the girl’s charming face. Her years at Les Roses had been fruitful years, undoing the evil wrought by those years at Villa Marguerite. The child who had stolen and lied and listened was very different from this frank and fair creature.

“Maman,” she said suddenly, tossing the fine linen to one side. With an impetuosity natural to her she dropped down beside madame and knelt by her, leaning her elbows in madame’s lap, “Maman.” “What is it, my child?”

“What is the good of it, maman, of my spending my days making the trousseau, as though I should have my marriage arranged for me like a French girl? See you now, maman, 1 am not going to .marry. Not at least, till I have found out who I am.”

“Be quiet, Freda,” madame said, with an air of consternation. “Are you not my child, my daughter? What is this about names? What do you suppose Andre would say?” But Freda waived the question. “Maman,” she said; and the tragical intensity in her face held the elder woman, distracted her for the moment her own hopes and anxieties. “You -now 1 have ceased to be a child. I am a woman. At twenty, one is a woman, is it not so? And I have come to understand things. I understand now the things you and M. Roget talked about when I lay ill, at his house.” Even yet she shuddered at the reminiscence. “Clierie, forgive me because I must recall to you days we would both wish to be forgotten There was—the aunt. I heard -M. Roget say to you that the aunt would search through his papers to see if there was any clue tv my parentage.” “Child, there was none.” Madame was quite pale, as though she could not endure having the old memories brought back to her. “Child, there was none, if there were any papers he had destroyed them. Can you not be content with us, with the name that is now yours by usage, that will presently be yours by right? You know what we hope for you—Andre and I and Papa Roget? Next week Andre comes down. We shall arrange Lae betrothal. Why—what hast thou, Freda? Tattle one!” (Xu be continued daily.).