Joan of the Great Heart

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 98, 28 April 1930, Page 10

Joan of the Great Heart

Serial Story

By

May Wynne

(All Rights Reserved) ;

CHAPTER XV.—' Continued.) “ I could not help it, Joan,” he said “ You looked so adorable ... I could not help it. You know what the temptation has been. Thank heaven, I’m off to-morrow and shall not be back. You’ve played the game and I have not. But I loved you Joan. I loved you. I never thought you could have thrown me over without a thought. Oh, Joan!—if it could have been different.” “It cannot be,” she replied. “ And you ought not to have kissed me. You betrayed a trust. Will you go away now and leave me by myself?” He was glad to obey, being ashamed of himself. And there was another influence at work beside shame. An influence which had told him to put Love in the past tense just now when he spoke to Joan Hardale. Had Joan noticed that? Does a w’oman ever fail to notice the most trivial w’ord or incident which tells the story of a lover’s faith or unfaith. Joan had noticed and was glad to be left there to think out what those words meant. True, Michael’s kiss had been passionate, she felt her cheek burn again over the memory, but it had lacked that flne quality which whispered of Love’s revelation. And he said—he had loved her—had loved her.

She wondered whether it would be possible to forget the Insult of that kiss and call it the kiss of farewell. That was what she would have liked to call it, and because all farewells are sad she lay there on the frozen bank and sobbed as if her heart would break. Nor did she notice how Anthony Lesterlees, who had been standing near the rocks at the back of the wishing well, presently turned and climbed a tangled, difficult path which led by a short cut back to the Abbey. CHAPTER XVI. •• Very extraordinary,” said Erica Baydell, as she laid her morning correspondence on one side and prepared to pour out tea, “ I've had a line from Anthony saying he has had to go to London for a time, and that he will ret be back at the Cour: tbl some indefinite date. He had no such plans yesterday. I wonder if he is ill. He did not look well when we drove home from Allarton. I asked him if he had caught a chill and said ‘ no.’ There is a postscript, however, to my letter in which he says that you, Joan, will explain.”

Joan, too, had been reading her letter. It was a far longer one than that of Mrs Baydell, and she had not finished it as she rose from the table. Both the other women looked at her in surprise—she was deathly white. “Are you ill?” asked Erica, “you look ghastly. What is the matter?” But Aline was better informed. “ Let Joan go to her room and don’t worry her,” she urged—and Joan fled. “Has there been a rumpus?” asked Mrs Baydell—her eyebrows raised I noticed Joan was remarkably quiet when she came in yesterday evening Of course, my dear, you know my views about the engagement. Joan h not the girl for Tony, but I never thought there would be a break. De you know anything about it?” “ Naturally not,” retorted Miss Sandall, flushing, “why should 1? But I do know Anthony has been remarking Michael Grefton’s masked partiality for Joan’s company. Everyone knew ... at least most people were aware that Joan and Mr Grefton had been more or less engaged in the past, one of those boy and girl love once and for ever businesses, and Mr Grefton ought to have shown better taste than by remaining to make love to another man’s fiancee. Quite between ourselves, Erica, and this is absolutely private. I was on the Abbey walls yesterday and saw the whole ‘ act.’ Michael was down by the river kissing Joan in the most passionate manner and Anthony was watching. I met Anthony a few minutes later and he looked very HI. I spoke and tried to patch things up, saying that Mr Grefton was leaving next day, and they probably felt the parting, but he would net talk, and I thought it kinder to say no more.” “Ah!” said in rather an odd way, “ that was just like you, Aline, but you always have been interested in Tony.” A remark which Miss Sandall chose to ignore. And upstairs in her room Joan was crying over an amazing letter of farewell. Yes, that was what it amounted to. Lesterlees told her he was going tc London, and then to the north. It was just possible he might settle in the north altogether. He did not intend to go abroad, he added, as he felt it his duty to remain in England, though if he followed his own inclination it would be to go right away and never return.

“ Don’t think by that I shall lead a miserable existence,” he wrote, “ I shall be content to go on my way, shaping my course as I had planned before I met you. Now I am going out of your life without regret that for a time I entered it. I do not blame you, Joan. T am sure you never meant to let me down. It is Fate that has intervened to save us both from shipwreck. 1 know now that you loved Michael Grefton before you ever me* me. It seems to me most likely that you had parted from him owing to your father’s health. I know you—and your love of sacrifice better than you know yourself. Then I came on the scene. Knowing nothing of Michael I thought—since I was a masterful fellow—that I could win your heart, I might have succeeded too, but I was forestalled. You made a mistake, dear, in not telling me that, but I feel sure you did it with the best of motives. You thought first of your father. Then of your gratitude, never of yourself. I am sure that you would have been my loyal wife—'but you would have broken your heart and mine in keeping faith with me when Love the master influence of all drew you to that first lover. “ And because I am convinced there is no power or influence or happiness without Love I am not asking If you want your freedom. lam giving it. I should be guilty of a great crime and a -crime against Love too. So I am going out of your life. You will marry your lover, Jem*. The men who must

have been breaking his heart when he wished you goodbye. He is a flne fellow I am sure—the beau ideal of a lover, and a genius in his art I am told. Of course, it is the art you love. You will be the perfect words to noble music in the song of life. That sounds sentimental—and lam not pleading guilty to that. It would be out of place for an iron-master to be a lover of poesie and sentiment. So I go back to my work and find it all-sufficient. In time to come we shall meet and I shall be glad to see your happiness. That is all-excepting the dull business part. I must not forget that. I enclose the cheque for the sale of your father’s goods. I have bought some few articles myself, and you will not want business details. You can trust me there, eh, Joan. And —later still—and you need a friend I have to fall back on the hackneyed offer of brotherhood- An elder brother—or a brotherly friend, no matter for the title—but just a business machine with a heart who asks nothing better than to be a comrade in need to the girl he still respects, admires and ... if she will forgive it—still loves, I am going to London to-day, then north, then back to the Court—but these plans are not those of the Medes and Persians. All that is best I wish you . . . and forgive me my blindness and presumption.

Your friend, Anthony Lesterlees.” Joan read it to the end, read it with the tears rolling down her cheeks, read it with shame at her heart; looked at the cheque and was staggered by its magnitude—and then wondered. . asking herself and finding no answer to the question as to why she did not thrill in a transport of joy because she was free ... and Michael need not go away after all. Michael need not go away. But he was going, this very day. He had told her his plans. Would he want to change them now? A fever seemed tc grip her. She felt she must see Michael now, at once, before he went away—see him and tell him this news, tell him she was free. Going to a writing table in the corner of the room she sat down and took up a pen. “Dear Michael,” she wrote—then paused. Opposite her stood a calendar. She had made a circle round a date there —Monday week. Anthony had spoken of going up to town on Monday week and getting ... a special license. . . . Suddenly Joan pushed the writing pad aside and putting her head down on her folded arms burst into tear*.

CHAPTER XVII. She had written after ah. Joan looked out of the window, but could see little beyond the driizle of rain. The post would be here soon, and bring her Michael's answer. She had not written to Anthony yet she had asked Erica and Aline not to talk yet of her broken engagement. She felt she must learn more of her own heart first. And Michael would show her. Michael must know what Anthony had done, must know that this other man had stood aside and in the bravest, kindest way acknowledged Michael’s prior claim. That was how Anthony had seen it, and Anthony was a man of the world. Even in this hour of bitter disappointment he helped her. As she re-read his letter she was struck by Its unselfish recognition of the fact that he had blundered in taking what already belonged to another. He asked pardon for the unwitting trespass when she only was to blame. Now, Joan had felt It behoved her to tell Michael of this unselfishness and give him his opportunity. As she thought of his bitter reproaches she could not doubt what his action would be. His anger against Anthony spoke eloquently of his own sense of loss. He had alluded to the joy of taking her to Italy. As she stood there she expected to see Michael himself come tearing up the path, radiant, victorious with the light of love on his handsome face. Her pulses quickened. She had once dreamed a dream with Michael as central figure. She hoped to dream it again, to feel the intoxication of delight in hearing of his love and the glamour of the future existence—together. A small boy came splashing through the puddles with obvious delight in choosing the deepest pools. He recognised Joan, and from under his oilskin cape produced a letter. Sa Michael had written. She threw open the casement heedless of the driving rain, and claimed the damp envelope, bestowing a shilling on the smiling messenger. It was good to be liberal with “tips.” Joan had suffered often in having to accept free service—and yet it had been a service of love. Aline and Erica were upstairs packing up winter clothes and discussing spring outfits. Aline was an authority on dress, and liked to be consulted. She had from the first regarded Joan as hopeless.

Not a long letter this one; only a few lines, probably to announce his coming. But no, the letter was brief in its vagueness—- “ Dear Little Great Heart, —Your news amazed me. I seem to think there must be a mistake somewhere. You will write again, I expect, and tell me you are off on your honeymoon. Don’t; I know you of old, Joan, child. ■- And, after all, Lesterlees is a fine fellow. I felt bitter at first, thinking of my own dream; but that is cured now, and I shall be glad—really glad—to know your storm oloud has passed over. You wrote on the spur of the moment. How I smiled. Am off to my uncle’s place. Pity me with all those lawyer fellows. I shall feel inclined to extract a cheque—-and bolt. I am longing for Fiesole and the flowering almonds. Au revoir, little chum. The best of everything for you. That’s the wish of your devoted —Mike. ” (To be continued.)