JUST OUTSIDE EUSTON

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20624, 27 May 1935, Page 14

JUST OUTSIDE EUSTON

A Fine, Human Story of Metropolitan Life.

By

JOHN ANTHONY

Author of “THE ELUSIVE LADY,” etc.

CHAPTER I. (Continued.) The omelette was succeeded by a beautifully cooked steak with a pat of parsley butter on the top of it, potato straws and horse-radish sauce, made as horse-radish sauce should be, but rarely “What a delicious steak.” said Marv. “There’s a water ice on the way. I’m having cheese and then we’ll stroll along to the theatre. I want to drop in at my office.” “I’ve never seen your office, as you call it. Do writers usually have one?” “No. But when I leave work I like to leave it.” "When you lays your tools down you lays ’em down! ” “Precisely. The office is on the way to the theatre. It is above a flowerdealer’s warehouse near Covent Garden. Hope we’ve time to walk.” Their way lay through some of the dingiest streets in central London, but Wayne knew them intimately. “This is ft.” he said, and opened a door ?n the tall, dark, gaunt building before which he had pulled up. “Nasty looking place.” “Now don’t start being lady-like. You can stay here if you want to. T shan’t be a moment; it’s only a letter I forgot to poet.” “Pm coming in.” she protested. “I’ve often wanted to see your office.” Dead Love. He switched on £he light. The place was filled with the rather pleasant scent of flowers that had gone—a queer, ghostlike scent. The stairs were uncarpeted, and he led the way to the first floor, where he unlocked a door on which was pinned a visiting card. It was a big room, amazingly untidy. A big, flat-topped desk occupied the books spilled over tlie rest of it, were dumped in piles here and there. “Who is she?” Mary demanded, pointing to the photo on the mantelpiece. “That is the girl who admitted no exception,” he said gravely. ‘■•She’s . . she was lovely, Bruce,” he said, as she examined it more 'osely. “She still ie.” ‘That frock. . .” “Pre-war, my dear.** “You’ve never mentioned her?” “No. I was twenty-something. And ■*. particularly offensive twenty-some-thing. She. as I said, admitted no exception. But it was not I she married. Her husband was ten years older than I was. A fine fellow. And now, years afterwards, she stands there on my mantelpiece, upright and dignified, in all this mess.” He indicated the room generally with a pathetic little gesture. “It’s funny,” he went on. “But the charwoman always dusts that picture, even if she is in such a hurry that she doesn’t touch anything else. Charwomen are very sentimental creatures in spite of their appearance. Pin certain she looks upon the whole thing as a romance.** “Romance!” said Mary, and for a ■moment her hand rented on his arm. “It might have been,” he said, “hut 1 rolled it in the mud. So often men roll romance in the mud. my dear. But we shall be late.” Tie picked up a letter from the desk as be spoke. “It’s funny a writer having an office.” Mary said again as they turned into the Strand. “T like the smell of tlie flowers, and the bustle that goe« on. Here we are!” lie said as t<)iey came to the theatre. “Non-Stop Variety.” he went on. “It was your choice, remember.” “Tt was,” she admitted. “Tf there’s anything in a name. NonStop Variety shouldn’t be boring.” It wasn’t. Some of the jokes were a trifle, broad, some olearlv had either two meanings or none at all. but it was not boring. On the whole, it was a cherry evening; evenings with Bruce Wavne usually were, in Marv Sebright’s experience. “You reallr are rather a lamb.” she said as they were walking towards Rossmore Square after the show. “A large lamb, surely?” “Tell me; do von still know that girl at the office?” “The sill at the office?” he asked, doubtfully. “The photograph.” “Oh! yes—l still know her. Regularly, once a year or so. T take her out to dinner and talk over the old days.” “And what might have been?” “Not now.” lie said, and she imagined a touch of wistfulness in his words. “The last time we met #die talked mainly about her kiddies. I’m sure thev are jolly kiddies, of course, but as a sole topic of conversation they arc not vow satisfying. Still, thank God. she’s happy.” “Y’ou’re not still in love with her?” “No. I have a. real affection for her. But love withers easily, my child; it is a tender plant.” They reached home—all the “regulars” referred to the Rossmorc Hotel a* home —and Mary Sebright went at once to her room. Wayne, however, stayed awhile in the lounge, to which presently. Saul brought him what he called a “bol of beer.” He was still there when Philip Win tour came in just before midnight. “Hallo. Wayne. Still up?” the newcomer asked. “Yes. Just going up, though. I was thinking about you this evenin'*.” “Oh? Got a cigarette?” ° Wintour dropped into the chair by Wayne’s side. The two formed rather a striking contrast. Wintour was carefully dressed, thin and dark, with very dark brown eye#;. His face was pale, so that the tiny vivid scar above his right eye stood out unmistakably. It was a handsome face, but there was danger in it; that tiny sear might almost have been a danger signal. “So the great man was thinking of me?” he asked with his momentary, twisted smile. “Yes. Quite casually, you know. 7 rather fancy that one of my stories i* going to be filmed by the ‘ Tringstead people.” “That’s good.” Wintour politely suppressed a yawn. “I'm tired,” lie said. “What are you doing along now?” “Still with the Barlow crowd.” “There’s a part in that story of mine that would fit you like a glove.” “This is very nice of you. A word from, an author sometimes goes a long Wayne smiled. “Its not finally accepted yet. What have von been up to to-night? You aren’t vour usual sparkling self.” Tlie film actor shrugged ni« shoulders in an exaggerated gesture. “Women, my •lear chap, can become a damned nuisance.” (

“That’s equally true of men, don’t you think?” Wayne asked, as he emptied hi? glass. “Xo. Funny thing, Wayne, but you never know what to do with a woman at the end of anything, whether it’s a tragedy or merely an affair. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said so?” “Yes. But it alfio happens to be true. That’s one of the reasons that 1 don’t write tragedy. Another is that you can’t sell it; at least, I can’t. Can’t speak s*' definitely about affairs, as you cal) them.” “Life’ll be a more amusing thing when women are really emancipated, when they haven’t all this infernal marriage complex. They can never understand that the old ‘ever and a day’ business has gone right out.” “And have you been explaining it to one of them to-night?” Wayne asked, without a smile. Wintour grinned in a manner which suggested that he was really proud of it. “Damn it all,” he said, “what is the use of pretending when it’s all over? Why not face the fact?” “I suppose at bottom i in a sentimentalist. After all, it’s your own fault. London's full of women who are as cynical about what is loosely called love a? you are. Why go outside their ranks?” “I like ’em a bit fresher, L suppose,” said the actor. “The devil is that the. little filly who is causing the present spot of bother is in the picture with me at Barlow’s. Thank the Lord, though, I haven’t got to make love to her there. That’s the star’s job. Ah well! I’m for bed. Goodnight!” “I seem to remember you talking about another spot of bother with another film filly sonic time ago?” Wayne said as the other rose. “Quite likely. They’re a worrying crowd. Good-night.” There was a queer look on Wayne’s face as he watched the other man saunter out rf the lounge. That Fellow Wintour. Bruce Wayne came down to breakfast on a morning some days later to find that the table in the window of the dining room appropriated by the “regulars” was empty excepting for Sibley. “Hallo!” said Wayne, and sat, rather heavily, on the chair opposite. Sibley put his paper down. “How’s the great man?” he asked, for it was a convention in the Rossmore Hot.*! that Bruce Wayne was to be so ad' dressed. “Fairish. Everybody gone?” “Miss Sebright lias only just gone. She went <ut with that fellow Wintour.” “They usually do go out together. Their ways are in the same direction. I fancy.” ‘‘There’s something about actors, particularly film actors . . .” Sibley began. Wayne smiled at the younger man’* hesitation. “I fancy you know what I mean. Something blatant and bombastic—at least in the ones I've met,” Sibley went “Why don’t you like him? That’s wliat it boils down to. I suppose?” “It’s difficult to give a reason for something that’s instinctive. I should rather like to have him in the chair at my surgery.” “But that is very wrong, surely? Your function in life is to prevent pain, not to create it. You have the same code as a doctor.” “You don’t like the fellow, either,” Sibley retorted, at a venture. Wayne poured out the coffee which Freda had brought before he replied: “It’s my job to understand people, nor to dislike them. You can never understand a person you dislike.” “Funny thing about you. but T forget when I'm talking to you that you arewell. hardly of mv generation.” “That's nice of you,” said Wayne, with a sudden smile. “Nevertheless. I’m nearly twenty years older than you arc. You’re quite right, my young friend, when you say I shouldn’t burst into tears if Master Wintour were suddenly given a contract that took him to —sav —Hollywood for a good, long, indefinite period. I should congratulate him very heartily indeed.” “Or if he fell down and broke his damned neck.” suggested Sibley. “That’s quite another proposition, attractive as it appears,” Wayne smiled. “You know. Freda.” he went on to the maid, who had brought his unvarying bacon and eggs, “the coffee in this‘hotel has a character of its own.” Freda tittered; she always did titter when Wayne made a remark she did not understand. “It’s a bad character,” he went on. “Saul made it ’isself for you, Mr. Wayne. You always do grumble about the coffee. Why don't you ’ave tea?” “Because. Freda. I prefer cofTec—even bad coffee—in the morning. Don’t mention the matter to Saul. He’s a good fellow to make it specially for “I’ll toll him you said that it was better.” “It is better, Freda.” “Then why carry on about it. Mr, Wayne ?” “Because it’s still bad, Freda.” “He will ’ave ’is joke. Mr. Sibley. no of ’ini’s the best plan.” “There’s a great deal to he said for Freda’s idea of taking tea if you can t get the coffee you want,” ‘said th» writer when the maid had left them. “As a philosophy, I mean.” “Ihe devil is that one wants what one wants,” Sibley replied, rising. “At the time, my friend, and when one is young. See you this evening? Good.” Half a hour later Wayne set out on his daily amble to his office near Covcut Garden. He glanced for a moment or so at the photograph of the girl in the prewar frock ‘before he turned to his typewriter. He was under no illusions about his work; but he held that it did no harm, was comj>eteiitly written and easily •read. The sheer work involved would have surprised many a tired business man apt to regard the writer as one making easy money. There was a queer conscientious streak in Bruce Wayne and nothing of his ever went out to an editor If lie could improve That day. for example, he worked from ten-thirty until a quarter to two. There was no adjournment for coffee, no back-chat on the telephone, no stories to a colleague about somebody or other’s daughter. It was sheer solid work. This, of course, is not the way Bruce Wayne wasn’t a "enius, wasn’t within a mile of being a genius. He was altogether too pleasant a follow for one thing. But ho could 101 l a decently amusing story, and oven if his appeal u primarily to the low-brow, ho did. in the expressive phrase, da his stuff.

By one-fortv-five he had finished what he had planned to do. He was in a pleasantly tired mood as he walked down to the Strand in order to cat a chop. It was. needless to say. an excellent chop. The pirc of bitter, too, was good, and Wayne was at peace with the general scheme of tilings as he strolled through the Embankment Gardens in order to listen to the band before ho returned ro his office. (To be continued daily.)