"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 May 1940, Page 10

"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

MARGARET WATSON.

CHAPTER VI. (Continued). “View?’’ said Martin hazily. “Of the eclipse." “Oh, of course, the eclipse! To tell you the truth, Erica, we forgot all about the eclipse as soon as we started to climb. We just went on and on climbing.” “Until you reached the top. I suppose?” “Well, hardly that; but we did more than half of Koranto, anyhow, two ridges above the camp. After that it is •’a bit risky by moonlight, so we turned back.” His voice tried to be virtuous over the return, but for a second a faint shadow of disappointment crossed the gaiety of his face. He had thought of her, of course, waiting for him, and he had turned back much against his will. Again she felt the tremulous drift of estrangement between them, no thicker than gossamer, but disquieting. “You needn’t have come back on my account,” she said instantly. “I should have wanted to go on and finish the job if I’d been there.” She felt no compunction now over, those indubitable lies.

Martin said, rather deliberately: “I was afraid you'd be worried.” “I wasn't I knew you'd want to go on with it, and I quite expected you would be late. If I’d been with you

“Yes, but you weren’t, and that makes it rather different, doesn't it? Supposing anything had gone wrong, and I’d been killed?” “Martin!” she said with a cool little laught of protest. “I don't see why we should suppose anything so horrid. Because, I’m a fatalist. If anything’s to happen, it will happen. And I trust you to look after yourself; but I don't want—ever —to be the cause of your abandoning al! risky things. Life wouldn’t be worth living if we were as tied to the commonplace here as I used to be in Brandford.”

“Oh, well,” said Martin. “I’ve climbed Koranto before. And anyhow, we're leaving today.” Erica sprang upright in bed, with a cry which would have done equally well for disappointment or joy. “Leaving? But, Martin, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, what's the use of staying, now you’re crocked? All these pleasures of this place are active. We'll go on somewhere that we can just look at pictures, or listen to music; and then I suppose we shall have to go home.” So they said goodbye to Dalgano that day. There was some exclamation from all their friends about the haste of the departure; but Erica was not sorry to be going home, and Martin, now that she could not share his activities and he felt mean in enjoying them alone, was only too glad to turn his back upon the mountains and rush for fresh‘scenes.

Jon Bernstorn was the last to say 1 goodbye to them; and he brought for . Erica the day’s paper, published in 1 Dalgano. “You may like to be reminded of this place some time,” he said, “and to remember the race you won here. There’s your name, look, in nice large letters.' When you let yourself be reminded of Dalgano, I hope you won't entirely exclude me from the picture." Erica said with sincerity: “I shan't. You've been very kind. Not until they were rocking downhill in the train did she open the paper and explore the day's news. There was not very much of it, which perhaps accounted for the prominence given to one column. She was reading it when Martin, stretched out upon the opposite seat, asked in the negligent way of one who expects nothing: “Well, has anything been happening?” “Yes, there’s been a robbery. In Dalgano itself, at one of those private houses of the fabulously rich. Madame's jewels gone, and her daughter's > pearls, too and according to this account they were worth something. It happened some time during the night. The house was entered through a window, out of which a square of glass had been cut with a diamond. Fancy that, Martin! While I was sleeping, and you were sticking to the side of Koranto like a fly, some industrious person was breaking and entering, and getting away with a haul worth no end of money.” "Serves them right.” said Martin. “Most of those people ask for it pretty loudly and long before they get it. Good luck to the enterprising Rallies,

I say.” “You don’t mean that seriously?” Martin laughed, as if her question was too silly to require an answer, and closed his eyes and fell asleep. CHAPTER VII. Erica stood in the living-room of her flat, and drew a long breath of pleasure as she looked all round upon a vision of domesticity. They had been in London for a month. There had been a fortnight of hotel life while they amused themselves in choosing furniture, pictures, curtains, ornaments, for their home, and now here they were, securely ensconced in a very comfortable flat, less satisfactory than a house, perhaps, because so much less suggestive of stab 7 ility, but none the less unexpectedly delightful. The honeymoon was over, then; Paris was over, and Rome, and Dalgano. all the journeyings and excitements, at! the changes and surprises. Was it possible that, in her heart of hearts, she was glad to have all these things over? For there was certainly something in I her mind which felt very like relief. She had genuinely loved every mo-1 ment of her tour of Europe; it had] been like a glorious dream. Yes, that' was it; it seemed now no more real;

'no more filling, than the stuff of dreams, whereas this commonplace | little corner of London was the fabric I of reality. - They had spent what to her seemed 1 the most delectable hours of her life 1 in. choosing the fittings for their 1 home. Martin, to be sure, had chaffed a‘little, and been inclined to leave the • selection entirely to her; but he had looked upon the, finished product, and • found it good. She looked round at ■ the sunny fawn-brown room, and felt 1 a proprietorial pride in everything in it, from Martin’s piano to the green marcasite book-ends on the coiner table, and the little black basalt Horus falcon on the mantlepiece. There were golden-brown cushions, the deep rich brown of leather-bound books, and upon the walls a few good copies of Meryon etchings of Paris, which they had bought together on the third day of their honeymoon. But the piano had pride of place, like a stately household god to which all the rest of the room bowed down. Sometimes, coming home from the unaccustomed imprisonment of Jamei son’s office, he would launch himself upon it as if he could never have enough of music to compensate for the hours he was compelled to spend with business. On other days he would tinkle miserably and restlessly, find no satisfaction in it, and spring up with the suggestion that they should go out somewhere, anywhere, to a theatre, or for a walk, or to look at the shops. Then she would see in his eyes the old longing burn up like a fire, the desire ■ to be away into the outer world. Erica had been unhappy about that look; but after all. she could not expect that Martin would be able to change his whole theory of life without some pain. He was willing to change it; he had voluntarily assumed the responsibility which made the change necessary; and he had known, he must have known, from the beginning what it would cost him. She was consoled by the fact that he never complained, that he talked business with almost the same intensity he had brought before to the discussion of adventure. Once the first strain of settling down as over, and when the relaxation of the expected business trips began, Martin would be happy, happier than he had ever been in those early days of his freedom. There was. after all, something aimless about a freedom which was solely for oneself: and with this new plan of life before him she did not see how he could choose choose but be happier. J Erica herself was perfectly content. Sometimes she wondered at her own ( happiness in what was, after all, a life almost as quiet in its way as the old life at Brandford. Was it possible that her desire for freedom had been so < shallow that one excursion into the < comparatively safe thrills of a European tour could satisfy it? She did not . think it was altogether that, for she could still listen with racing blood whenever Martin became reminiscent. Was it, then, that the possession of Martin was in itself a sobering responsibility? She stood looking round her, and thinking of all these things; and was disturbed from the thoughts of them by Martin’s step on the stair. He came in almost boisterously, as if it needed some activity to shake from his shoulders the cares of his office. .

“Hullo, darling! What an age since I saw you." He kissed her; he was not, as a rule, demonstrative. Occasionally when she felt most feminine and least Erica, she had even found it in her heart to wish him a little more so. “Look Martin, I’ve changed round those two etchings. Do you like them better that way. I thought ‘Le Stryge’ ought really to have the dark 1 corner so as to get the full effect from it.” “Oh, yes, just as you like!” It was, she was beginning to find, quite impossible to get Martin to feel strongly about property. He could admire things of beauty with a passion fully equal to her own; but that did not signify that he wished to possess them. His carelessness about such things pointed always, for her to the old restless instinct he had to shake off all encumbrances, even the most beloved. The moment they laid hands on him I his admiration changed to a sort, of an- | tagonistic dread. It frightened her; she wanted to combat it. But I want to know what you think." Oh, as if it matters!" he sighed impatiently. “See here, Erica, I’ve got tickets for a concert tonight, and they’re doing the “Eroica,"— and—why. what’s the matter?” t She asked childishly, and, she knew, foolishly: “Don't you care how your home looks?" “Not a bit! Don’t you care Io go and hear the 'Eroica'?” ' That was not the way; she had nothing to gain and everything to lose by bringing the issue, that poor, silly, significant little issue, to a head. She sighed, and laughed; after all, it was funny that she should already have to begin consciously holding him. "I wouldn't miss it for the world, and you know it. But my mind’s so broad that 1 can appreciate the importance of both things.” Sos mine. And you’re quite right about 'Le Stryge.’ ” He looked round for it. shamelessly. “Oh. I see. Where was it hung before?" I (To be Continued).