"CHRISTABEL"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1939, Page 10

"CHRISTABEL"

Published by Special Arrangement. Copyright.

By

PEARL BELLAIRS.

(Author of “Velvet and Steel,” “The Prisoner’s Sister,” etc.)

CHAPTER XXI (Continued).

Her voice, steady at first, became more and more incoherent, and failed her.

While she spoke Hewitson gazed at her, she could see the understanding growing in his eyes as his mind cleared from its turmoil of bewilderment. For an instant or two after she ceased speaking he gazed at her, then said quietly. “Yes. of course. You’re Mrs Milsom!’ “Yes!” said Christabel.

“Yes,” he repeated, frowning, his voice level, his face drawn and contorted. “Of course. But you’ve changed. Funny I didn't recognise you, though. It’s another instance of how one forgets what one wants to forget!” He set the manuscript on the mantleshelf and sat down, rather stiffly, in the chair nearest to him, with an exhausted air. A few half-burned sheets lay at his feet, and in the hearth some crisp black ashes ‘were flaking away, moving as paper ash does when it cools. Speechless, he gazed down at the ashes, no longer questioning why they should be there. Fascinated, with an emotion so sharp that it was physical pain, Christabel saw him tasting the bitterness of discovery.

“It was terrible of me to try to burn the manuscript,” she said. “Awful, hateful! When I went to prison I couldn’t have thought of doing a thing like that. ’I was so innocent, my heart was so soft. I wouldn’t have harmed a fly. I used to cry and cry because that poor old man, the one my husband swindled, should have thought ill of me! Oh, I’m vile, wicked, horrible — but I’m not as bad as you!” Her voice rose accusingly, and she went on:

“When I was a girl I was a fool. I was soft. I loved my husband, and believed what he told me, because it would have caused pain to us both if I had inquired too much. But I never intended any ill, I never knew what was happening until it all burst on my head! But you —you —you! What did you care? Why you’ve told me that you got a lot of fun out of it! You were out to get a conviction just for the kudos of it —because everyone would say you had got the better of the great Ross Barnes. But it didn’t matter who was convicted, it didn’t matter who was ruined. Why you never looked at me in court really to to see me —I wasn’t even human so far as you were concerned!”

Hewitson, frowning heavily, his mind moving steadily to produce order in the wreckage of his ideas, spoke then:

“I believed you were guilty in intention,’ he said. “I admit that I didn’t inquire closely into my belief. When one is conducting a prosecution one isn’t really supposed to do ( so!”

“But isn’t that abominable?” cried Christabel. “How many miserable people must suffer through the rivalries of the counsel?”

“Not as many as you might think, because judges don’t listen very closely to what counsel say.” His voice sounded half-amused, went ill with the ravaged torment of his face. His quiet maddened Christabel.

“You ask me to love you. to marry you! But I hate you —I’ve hated you ever since I used to lie in my cell and tear the blanket with my teeth, thinking about you! I forgot about it —almost!” she added. “But when I came out and heard of you again, when I heard you would toe at that clinic, I hated you again!” “Why didn't you burn that manuscript?” “Because I’m a fool and I'm not made like that!”

He narrowed his eyes slightly, gazing at her. She knew that his mind was working again, in its maddening detachment, coming to some conclusion about her.

She sobbed and went on wildly: “All the things you said in court, all the shame of it —that’s bad enough! But it was nothing, nothing compared with the imprisonment! Do you know what prison is like? If you’ve never been there, I can’t tell you. And you’ll never know, because you’ll never go to prison, you’re clever enough to send other people there—but you'll never be silly enough-—”

He had risen, he took her by the arms with a firm grip, and made her face him. His face was contorted with suffering such as she had never expected to see in it. but his voice was calm enough.

“Listen to me—how long have you been out?"

Christabel began to cry as she replied:

"Nearly four months.” "You're still suffering from the effects of it. You'll come to think differently about this, and about me." "Never!" Christabel wrested her arms out of his grip. “You know now —you understand a little. I've finished with you now. and with the wholething. I shall never see you again. I’m going to be married!” He winced, and turned a shade whiter. his lips narrowed to a line. “You’re what?" "I’m going to be married. To Arthur Cavanagh. We’re going to be married and he’s going to take me away, and then I shall be able to forget ”

Silence. At last she seemed to have given him too much to think about. Tremblingly, suddenly desiring escape Christabel moved towards the door. She snatched her bag and her gloves as she passed the table. She gave one glance at his set. drawn face, and without waiting to see if he Would try to stop her, opened the door, hurried across the hall, and let herself out of the flat.

She ran down the stairs with a blind, aimless haste, and did not stop

until she found herself, on the pavement. Frantically, she hailed a taxi, and for want of anywhere better to go, told the driver to take her to Charing Cross. As she sank back on the seat of the taxi, sick and trembling all over, she became fully aware of the pain in her hand. She had burned her fingers badly in taking the manuscript out of the fire. CHAPTER XXII. Al Charing Cross Christabel left the taxi. She had intended to go out to Barking, but instead she turned aimlessly aside into the Embankment gardens. It was no longer raining, and the sky poured a yellow evening light through breaking clouds on the new washed trees and lawns. The wind blew and scattered the drops off the the branches far and wide.

Christabel walked slowly along, and sat down on a seat, still wet with rain. She felt numbed. She had ceased to think, almost to feel. She was physically utterly exhausted; spiritually defeated, as though she had at last plumbed the depths of wretchedness to which it was possible to sink, and from which there could be no rising again. , For over half an hour she sat there, nursing her burnt hand on her knee, sometimes rocking herself to and fro with the pain in it. Gradually her mind cleared, her inability to do anything left her. She rose at last with a resolution, and walked along to the telephones at Charing Cross station.

She rang the Beaulcigh Hotel, and asked for Cavanagh. He was not there, but he was expected back in half an hour.

The cjty crowds were on their way home. Christabel joiped the stream on the Embankment, and walked as far as Westminster and back, the west was clear and the afternoon light streamed up the river. She stared dully at tne glittering tide, and wqtehed the gulls wheeling overhead; on the freshly dried pavement d crippled pavement artist was out already, chalking seascapes.

Christabel gave him a shilling and stood aimlessly watching him, in a lethargy of misery, wondering what his misfortunes were. She felt a fellowship with him. isolated with him from the crowd of apparently respectable workers on their way to the trains; after a time she walked on and went back —to the telephones at Charing Cross. Her burnt fingers had begun to stiffen when she put the coins In the slot.

Cavanagh had returned to the Beauleigh Hotel. After a little delay Christabel was put through to his room.

As soon as she heard his voice, a sort of hysterical brightness came to her rescue; she heard herself saying just the right things, with the right sweetness and enthusiasm. “You were a dear to write to me so soon! I didn’t expect it. But aren’t you unwise?" “No, never! Where are you Christabel?—where are you speaking from?” "I’m at Charing Cross in a call box.” .“Then come and have dinner with me?” “I hadn't thought of dinner —” “You mean you had thought of Egypt, or Bali, or somewhere like that?” “No, I meant that I'm not dressed for dinner. As regards the other — well —yes, I have been thinking of it, Arthur.”

“Have you? Oh, my deal’! Look here meet me at- seven fifteen in the grill room of the Hotel here and we’ll settle it all before you change your mind!”

She came cut of the telephone box. Like that—so simple. It was fixed. Her mind almost used the word “finished."

She wandered northwards, pausing :o go into the ladies cloak room in a tea shop to bathe her tired eyes and make up her face, and try to smarten ner appearance a little, for she was only wearing her costume in which she went to the clinic; in Piccadilly underground she stopped to buy a bunch of freezias which she pinned to her lapel. Men, as they passed her, stared at the face whole warm pallor matched he creamy whiteness of the flowers, fen minutes later she walked into the lounge of the Beauleigh. Cavanagh came down immediately, greeted her with an affectionatelj 7 beaming face, look her to a small table in the lounge and ordered a sheery for her. "Aren’t you having one?" said Christabel, with desperate liveliness. "I can’t drink alone!” “Forbidden, I’m afraid!” he said, with a little rueful grimace. “But only temporarily; my doctor has ordered me to go easy lor a while, and I’m told I mustn’t work cither, my dear, so that leaves us free. So I suggest that we should get away at once, any where; it’s for you to choose. I suggest a quiet wedding in a registry office next Monday. And that we should leave immediately afterwards for wherever we are going.” , Christabel saw behind all this, his cr.re that there should be no embarrassment for her, no awkward questions asked that might worry her as regards the past, and was grateful. In her there was still a void, a nerveless dullness like the anaesthetised parts of one’s mouth after a tooth has been extracted; half herself was so bruised that it was numb, while the rest bubbled up into a mechanical light heartedness.

They dined in a quiet corner of the hotel restaurant. Christabel’s fingers stung fiercely again, she took her gloves off. Blisters were forming on the backs of the forefinger and middle finger, and the pain was so noticeable (hat she had to explain to him. (To be Continued.)