FREDA ALONE

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20374, 3 July 1934, Page 14

FREDA ALONE

Author of P ©9Qy* the Daughter,” •‘Mary Cray,” oto.

By

KATHARINE TYNAN

CHAPTER XXIV The Burglar.

rrcaa siooa up nois'.essiy xium nt-i «eat and went round the corner of the screen. She listened with the ears, of a hare. There was the sound of the window being: shaken stealthily. She looked from the heavy curtains, behind which the unknown danger lurked, back to the child’s cot. just visible in the firelight. One of flax's little hands was thrust through a rail. There was something piteous about it, like the tiny claw of a bird as it clutched at nothing. If he were to awake in terror what might not happen ? She was not much used to the illnesses of children and she exaggerated the danger, and there was not much time to think. The window, like the window of her own room, overlooked the balcony. She had tried to open it from the bottom earlier in the evening and had found that it was stuck fast. It was a little way open at the top. Apparently the person who wished to enter had his tools for dealing with obstinate windows, for after a second or two of quietness she could hear plainly the noise of the window being gently eased round about by a chisel. What was she to do? She did not dare to leave the child to look for help lest he should awake, and the creature who crept in darkness should stifle his crying out with violence. There was no hell in the room. She hesitated, looking iike a hunted tiling from the curtains behind which, the window was being oftly forced open back to the child’s •ot. On a sudden impulse she opened the loor communicating with Lady Rosecare’s room and went in. She was ware of rich and beautiful garments cattered carelessly about on bed and ofas and chairs, of a jewel case lying >pen on the table. The window shutters >f this room were closed and barred. The andle had been left lighted on the 1 reusing table. The jewels, flung lielterkelter among the gold and tortoisehell brushes, winked and glittered as ho candles flared in the draught from he open door. She knocked at the communicating door with her knuckles. “Lord Roseveare!” she called. “Lord Roseveare!” There was no answer; only the sound of a man breathing in heavy sleep the other side of the door. She shook the door, only to find it was locked, as she had feared, and called more loudly. But there was no answer, and in the pause she heard the window of the next room as it was quietly pushed up. She fled Dack. There was no time to look for help. It occurred to her at the last moment that she ought to have rung Lady Roseveare’s bell. But after all no one would hear it. The servants were gone to bed. It was not likely the bridge players would be aware of the bell sounding somewhere in the lower regions. She lifted the curtain a little at one 6ide and stood watching as though turned to stone. After all the window had refused to go up beyond a certain point. There was a dark lantern on the floor of the room, its light turned full on the man who was wriggling his way in like a snake. His head was turned in her direction. He saw her and uttered a quiet oath. Fdr a second her heart seemed to stop breathing. The yellow face, the hooked nose, the narrow black eyes, the thick Asiatic lips. It was Levi, the Jew, the man himself, and it was he whom she had seen in the shadow of the trees side by side with the respectable Lawson. There was no time to think. He was half-way through and finding it a tight fit. The child stirred in the bed and called out.

“Yes, yes, my darling,” she said in quick response, and the frozen blood in her veins began to flow. She sprang forward, knocking over the dark lantern and leant on the window with all her might. The horrible black-nailed claws she remembered clutched her about the feet and held her fast. The window yielded a little way. enough to pinion the man lying on his face. He was uttering horrible blasphemies now, not troubling any longer to utter them quietly, but with a deliberation that had its special terror. “Let me up, you —” His hands still held her feet while he tried with his shoulders to push up the mass of the window. She did not dare to let it go lest he should succeed; but the horror of his grip, the wriggling evil creature at her feet, uttering his unclean oaths and threats, was too much for her. She screamed; though she tried to keep back the scream, because of the child. She was cold and faint with horror. She hardly knew that the child had wakened and had broken out screaming, too. And now there were footsteps in the corridor. A body was flung violently against the door of Lady Roseveare’s room. She hoard the splintering of wood as the lock of the door gave and the door burst open.

“What is the matter?” someone called, rushing into the darkness of the inner room, and knocking over the screen in his headlong entry. It was Lionel Dampicr’s voice; Dampier himself; whose arms were about her, lifting her away from the clutching fingers, carrying her into the blessed light. “The child,” she gasped, “the child. He must not be frightened.”

Max had followed them into the lit room, and was standing, sobbing and shaking. Freda broke from her lover’s kisses to gather the little lad up in her arms and lay him in his mother’s bed. Lord Roseveare was in the room, and half a dozen other people, arriving in various stages of undress. When the light was brought into Freda’s room the Jew was discovered, still pinioned by the window and half unconscious from pain, for in his efforts to free himself he had dislocated his shoulder. He was put away safely for the night with a couple of men-servants to mount guard over him till morning

could bring the police. It seemed as thought no one. would have any more sleep that night. Everyone was tip discussing the attempted robbery and applauding Freda. The Jew had been confronted with Miss Lawson, who had had hysterics at seeing him, and so was spared the cynical avowal of Mr. Levi’s real design in making love to her, with a dissertation, despite the racking pain of his shoulder, on the folly of old girls in general where a chap was concerned.

“To be sure the fool must have told him where my room was,” Lady Rosevearc said, when at last the house was settled down to something like quietness. “She knew I left my jewels about, too, for she remarked on it to Stephanie. It isn't Stephanie’s fault, poor wretch, for I won’t let her tidy for me. And after all. what would have been the good? If that gentleman had succeeded in getting in, the cases would have been more portable than the loose jewels, of which

lie might have overlooked some. What am Ito say to you, Freda? He’d have killed my ‘little Max as remorselessly as he would have killed a chicken. \ou heard what he said ?”

Freda looked down at her feet and shuddered. She could still feel the clawlike tearing fingers upon her flesh, and would remember them in many a night-

“I don’t know why I should have such horrible adventures,” she said in a low voice. “Those quiet years in which nothing happened—” “Came after the delights of Marigny/' put in Lady Rosevearc with a return to her old manner. “Perhaps you will have a placid time once more—a placid and a prosperous time.” Her eyes narrowed themselves as she looked at Freda, her fingers playing with the rope of pearls that fell from her neck and lay in her lap. “I foresee for you, Freda, a propitious time, a fortunate time. By the way, you know that Dampier came back this evening quite unexpectedly? He walked into the drawing room just as we were cutting for partners. I didn’t tell you when I came upstairs lest it should disturb vour maiden slumbers. Even as a child you had a tenderness for that young man. Don’t say you hadn’t, for you had; and he was absurdly concerned about you to-night, as though there was nobody but you to be considered. Why, many a woman would have been in hysterics over the danger to her jewels, to sav nothing of her brat. Tlow quietly lie sleeps, as though a visit from an armed burglar were a thing which anyone might expect in any night that came.” “He had no time to realise it,” Freda said. “I carried him off into his father’s room while they were—taking tliat creature away. I told him fairy stories —may heaven forgive me I” “Heaven will forgive you, if you will take it on the authority of a person who knows very little about its ways. To think that Cyril slept through it! It is us °y ril - is always either suffering from insomnia or sleeping too heavily. That wretched Dissenter in him will never let him rest.”

“He is very fond of you, Lady Roseveare,” Freda said quietly.

“I l>elieve he is. Such faithfulness is rather boring. I could care for a man I wasn’t sure of. That was why I stuck so long to poor old Denis. 1 am sometimes tempted —for the brat’s sake—to see if I couldn’t make Cyril forget everything but me. To give him his due he is a tenacious lover—a bit of the bulldog in his nature as well as his looks.” “I should try it for Max’s sake. He is a very sensitive child, and he notices already.” “Lord, Lord! To think of me Sitting hero and hearing good advice from you, Freda. I may take it, too. It makeA, a fool of a woman to have only one brat, and he all nerves. I wouldn’t be surprised now if I were to die in the odour of sanctity.” Her lips were scornful as she said it. “I shan’t really change, you know,’’ she said. “I was born bad, and my mother before me. Xo one knows better than you what I’m capable of. The utmost I shall ever arrive at is being decent for the brat’s sake. For his sake I could wish—that—that I uever had a brat. It’s hard on him.” “Max is devoted to you and to his father.”

“Poor kid! I hope he’ll keep his illusions as long as he can. Anyhow, I’ve been straight since I married Cyril. I was never crooked—in that way—except—poor old Denis, you couldn’t believe, Freda, how fascinating he was!”

She stood up and unwound the pearls from about her neck.

“I must have my beauty-sleep,” she said yawning, “especially if I’m to begin to subjugate my husband in the morning. Not that he’d know. He doesn’t see other women. It’s ridiculous. By the way, it was a shock to him when Dampier walked in to-night. Poor Cyril turned quite purple. Dampier pretended he’d never seen him before nor me either. It was excellently well done. But Cyril will have the hump for a month. He can’t bear anything that recalls my past to him.” “Let me,” Freda said, standing up and helping Lady Roseveare to take off her dress. “T am quite an accomplished lady’s maid. I do so much for Verc— Miss Darlington. She loves the way I brush her hair. She says T am ever so much better than any maid she has 2ver had.”

“Ah,‘thank you. You sec. you, of all people know how helpless I am. I never could have been Peggy Vane, having to do things for myself except what poor old Denis did for me, could I? You really have a comfortable touch. If I hadn’t been a wild cat in the old days I mi "lit have mede a little maid of you instead of a kitchen drudge. T wonder if Dampier will clear out. He is the sort to do it. In fact, I heard him say to-night that he had only come back for the briefest visit. By the way, it was he who burst the lock?” “Yes, it was he.”

“And you never knew he was just across the corridor. What a comfort it would have been to you if you’d known!”

“It would have been,” 6aid Freda steadily, “a very great comfort.” “Although according to the conven tions he might be a thousand miles away,” mocked Lady Roseveare. She was watching Freda’s face in the glass while the girl brushed at the splendid masses of her dark soft hair.

“You brush it as though you loved it she said at last. “T do love it.”

“I thought only men loved women’s hair. You’re a queer thing, Freda. After my being such a beast to you too. I remember how you used to glare at mo with your big eyes.”

“I always admired you intensely/ Freda said, “even when I hated you

“There*, twist it up. T must have mj beauty sleep. Good-night. Remcmbei that t)ampier is just across the corridor and sleep well in the thought. lam going to have the brat to myself for to-night. He has always been the nurses’ since he was born. Good-night. Freda. The new era begins to-morrow. Who knows? There may be some good wonderful news to tell. Tt would be really nice if one could begin over again to-morrow. I begin to feel quite a domestic character and a reformed one. How little poor Cyril knows the favourable auguries for to-morrow!” Freda, unable to sleep, peeped through the open door between her room and Lady Roseveare’s, some time in the early hours of the morning. The mother and the child were sleeping with their faces close to each other on the same pillow. The lines of cruelty and cynicism in the woman’s face had disappeared. So might she have looked in the hours following the child’s, birth, fresh and purified from the baptism of pain. (To be continued daily.)