"CHRISTABEL"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1939, Page 10

"CHRISTABEL"

Published by Special Arrangement. Copyright.

By

PEARL BELLAIRS.

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

CHAPTER XXIII (Continued).

The last question was shot at her suddenly, with an abrupt change of tone; in a manner that reminded her so much of his aptitude as a cross-ex-aminer. that for a moment horrors of the trial were ringing fresh in her ears.

■‘Because—because he was only doing what he thought was his duty!’ she said.

“I also had a duty as Crown prosecutor."

“But they told me—everyone told me that you were trying to get the better of Ross Barnes!” “I was. He was something of a rival of mine." Hcwitson admitted it steadily, but his frown grew more acute, his face paler and more drawn. "To some extent I was influenced by that."

"Oh, but was I to be ruined, was I to go to prison—just for the sake of that?” Christabel cried.

"No; it was infamous. My only defence is that I’ve given up practising law, when it would have been very much to my advantage to go on. You say the working of the legal code is sometimes at fault; I say that* the whole social attitude towards crime and crinlinals is sheer balderdash! You’re arguing to convince me of something I am. more than convinced of already!" Christabel was silenced: it seemed he was too clever for her. But she said bitterly at last: “You think you don't need to repent about what you did to me. because you've repented of the whole thing?"

"Repent!" he said. “Do you want me to cut my throat in front of you? Because that’s the only repentance I can think of that would really meet the case!”

Christabel paled and said nothing. She believed now, that she had really made him feel. But he seemed to be gathering himself for an attack, his eyes narrowed, he threjw his cigarette end into her hearth with a fine carelessness as to. whether it was the place for cigarette ends, and came to stand nearer to her. “All this,’ he said, “doesn’t explain to me why you blame me so much more than Tolrner, who gave' you a heavier sentence than he need- have done out of sheep stupidity and ill nature."

I’ve told you," said Christabel

“Oh, no!" He shook his head. “You don’t realty know yourself! It’s wny you're so unhappy and tormented —always on the point of boiling over about me! You don’t think that hate, do you, could last in such an active state for three years?” Christabel stared at him with an expectancy of something so incredible that the more possibility of his suggesting it turned her cold. “When I touch you ” He put his hand on one of the arms with which she was clasping herself so tightly. "When I touch you the cutaneous blood bessels of your face dilate and so do the pupils of your eyes —or, shall I say, you blush and your eyes shine!” So rigid was she that with his one hand on her arm he could shake her slightly to and fro. Her face had certainly coloured, the eyes that stared at him with a kind of fascinated incredulity were shining—but. with what?"

Hewilson set his teeth and went on. rather as a man might plunge ahead into the thick of a thunderstorm with every expectation of being struck by lightning: "When I'm in the room you never look at anyone or anything else. After your accident, when you’d forgotten things, and I came down to Kent, you more or less assumed that there had been something between us —that is to say. you hoped that there had been. You’re one of those people. Christabel, who are irresistibly attracted to the thing that hurts them, you've been in love with me ever since I ripped you to pieces fm’ the benefit of the jury thre years ago in court! If I were to smack your face now. you’d love me still more —!" For answer. Christabel smacked his. He stood back, with one check red.

"In love with you!" She shook visibly with fury. “What conceit. You must be mad! How dare you —how dare you come here and talk this nonsense to me? You force yourself into my room, what do you think the landlady is thinking? I’m engaged to another man. I'm going to marry Arthur Cavanagh —! After al! you've done! And the end of it is that you say that to me!"

It seemed to her to be the lasi, the final stupendous insult. He looked at her narrowly. “Now my cursed passion for candour has ruined everything! If I had grovelled. and pleaded with you not to hate me, when ail the time I knew that you didn’t really. I should certainly have got round you!" "Will you please go?"

"It's a pity." he said, "that you didn't really burn that manuscript of mine. You’d feel very differently now.” "Go!" cried Christabel. "Will you go?"

"Yes. I'll go.' he said; ho was already on his way. lie stopped al the door, and his face was drawn and bitter, but compietely convineed.

"I know 1 have only got what I deserve," he said. "My loss of you. the loss of my peace of mind, it’s nothing to what I deserve for not keeping a sharper eye on my vanity three years ago in court. But 1 warn you ! You’ll marry your millionaire, he'll lavish his affection and his millions on you, he’ll give you everything you want. But whatever may keep us actually apart, you and I will never escape one another! 1 can tell you—-and I know enough of myself to be able to say so —that I'll never forget you. And quite as surely as E say that of myself, 1 tell you that you won’t forget me!”

To be- Continued.)

“Nonsense,” said Christabel, breathlessly. "It’s sheer nonsense!” She lifted nor chin in incredulous derision, denying any sense even in what he said, defying’ the prophetic certainty in those intent blue eyes . . . "Is it?"

He smiled painfully, his hand on the handle of the door, his gaze wandering over her from head to foot, registering a last impression. Thon he shrugged his shoulders. “Good-bye." he said.

Shutting the door behind him, he went out. ,

"Well!” said Christabel, to herself, with a sort of hysterical brightness, half aloud. "That's that.”

His footsteps sounded quickly on the stairs, passed out. of hearing . . . . Christabel walked to a chair with difficulty, sat down on it. and relieved her feelings by bursting into a storm of tears. He was mad, tie was dreadful. he was worse than awful! He thought he knew everything about everybody Because he knew something about psychology! He was so vain he thought that everybody was “irresistibly attracted" to him!

In love wiT|U\ him —with him for throe years! He, who had ruined her and sent, her to prison! She cried and cried, and could do nothing else, until she was so exhausted that she had to drag herself to the bed and lie there for half an hour. CHAPTER XXIV.

Miss Cavanagh surprised her brother when he told her about Christabel, by not looking at all surprised herself. "You were bound to marry again, I always thought.” she said.

Before she went back to Kearne Hall Cavanagh arranged to take Christabel down to the Hall to have lunch with her on the following day.

When he saw Christabel he told her about Miss Cavanagh’s reaction to their engagement, with some amusement. “The only person who will be a little annoyed is my brother Hartley's wife. He died, you know, in the war. She has a boy, and the usual hopes of the mother of a boy who has a ryealthy uncle. However, we need not fear that she'll be open about her anxiety!” They lunched at Kearne Hall with Miss Cavanagh. She did not say very much, but after lunch she brightened, and suggested that Christabel might like to look at the Pekinese pups. Christabel went with her to sec the little slug-like things crawling about their mother in the straw in the semidarkness of the kennel.

“Dora has evidently taken to you,” said Cavanagh, when they were lone. “Otherwise she would never have suggested your seeing the puppies. I’m afraid it’s the only sign one can go by! Nobody knows what Dora is thinking, except when she’s thinking about her dogs."

He suggested that Christabel might like to see the garden, and they began a leisurely inspection. He showed her the fallen ruins of what had once been Kearne Abbey, which had stood on the site of the present stables. They walked through rose gardens glowing with roses, looked into hot houses containing flowers, rock melons, and nectarines; and one where the light was green and dim as it shone through the leaves and faintly glistening clusters of the grape vines. They looked at the walled kitchen gardens, surrounded with fruit trees; and at beds of violets that seemca acres wide, and the very sight of the leaves made one smell the flowers of another season.

It was strange to think of returning to such a place as its mistress.

They arrived, finally, at the tower room, from whith one could see over the gardens and the countryside, across the marsh to Dungeness on one side, and the high country which hid Canterbury on the other.

"Shall we ring for tea up here?" Cavanagh said. "I’m sure you need a little refreshment after so much walking and climbing about the house. Personally, I feel I would far rather sit down in a chair than face walking all the way down the stairs again!" He smiled as he said it; but after ringing the bell, he sat down in the nearest chair with a look on his face as though he was as glad to do it as he said.

"Are you tired?" Christabel said. "We have covered a good deal of ground ifi the last two hours, and I feel tired myself."

But she did not sit down; she walked restlessly round the room, looking a' the pictures and every now and again gazing out of the window with a far-away look. When she paused by the piano, Cavanagh said: "Play something; I would like to hoar you play. I remember that you were playing at Pine Cottage the first time I called there. How eharming you looked!

Christabel sat down and played—but played Chopin not Debussy.

Cavanagh lay back in his chair, feeling exhausted. He told himself it. was surprising how the afternoon looking over the place had taken it out of him! Foolish, perhaps, to have done it. He wa:; in that kind of state when a man is not sure whether he feels it or not --because he cannot think of any adequate reason for his unpleasant sensations.

Christabel played as much to herself as to him. She played to soothe herself, to charm away the turmoil of thoughts which were always threatening to rise and overwhelm her.

When she thought of Hcwitson it was not charitably or reasonably, and she did not. fancy for an instant that there was anything in what he had said about her really caring for him. She loathed the thought of nim.