In a Fair Ground

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 346, 18 August 1930, Page 10

In a Fair Ground

SERIAL STORY

[By

L.G.MOBERLY]

All Rights Reserved

CHAPTER XXI. “Oh, then!” She Said. i lam not by nature an eavesdropper. I sprang to my feet with the express intention of telling those two on the far side of the holly hedge that a listener was within hearing. But I refrained. I refrained because second thoughts told me that it would be much more pleasant for them if I never let them know that I had inadvertently overheard what they said. Maurice’s voice was so unmistakable, that beautiful voice, with the cadences which had the power to catch and hold one in a most extraordinary way. i “Little Lois,” he was saying, and the depth of tenderness in his tones made me glad. “Little Lois, could you manage to care for me?” and Lois’s ■ voice—a very shaky voice—answered: t “It seems so dreadful to be en- ' gaged to one person one minute, and I then all of a sudden to—to ” j “To find out you didn’t really care for that person, but that you cared i for somebody else instead? There’s I nothing very iniquitous in that, is I there?” Maurice’s tones were I humorous now, as well as tender. I I seemed to see the twinkle in his eyes. I “Give me a chance, Lois,” he pleaded. “They’ll say I’m marrying you because you have the title and the money,” she faltered, but his answer was rapped out quickly “And supposing I hadn’t either title or money?” “Oh, then,” she said, and she said no more, because Maurice, I was sure i of it, caught her into his arms and gave her no opportunity to say any : more for several seconds, and during ! those seconds I crept away as quietly as the hard gravel path would let me, and went into the house by the nearest door, thanking God for the gift that was being put at that moment into my little Lois’s hands.

By the time I returned to the drawing-room it seemed much fuller of people than when I had left it. Enid and Tom were there, both talking at once and exhibiting to the assembled company that very precious person, their firstborn son. Miles stood chatting to Martin, and I saw that Pearl, with an air of shyness which she was trying to hide under an assertive manner, was seated beside Brian on a big couch. Esther, as was perhaps natural, was absorbed in her grandson, but I was determined that for the moment she must be absorbed in Pearl instead. 1 went over to her and whispered—- “ Esther, I am sure Pearl is feeling not quite as much in everything as we would like her to feel. Do be your superlatively sweet self.”

Esther smiled that dear, motherly smile which was so particularly hers, and she at once left the laughing, cooing babe and moved across to the couch where Pearl sat, trying to look most completely at home, and failing signally.

“Now Brian, you are not to absorb Pearl any more,” she said; “you may go and make your nephew’s closer acquaintance. lam coming to talk to Pearl.” She smiled that mother’s smile at the girl, and laid a hand upon Pearl’s hand. “You don’t know haw happy it makes me to have you all with us for this Christmas here,” she said in her gentle way, and that gentle voice of Esther’s held a very welcoming note; “it was a great disappointment that you and Miles could not come down sooner, but you must be very busy now that everything is settled.” „ The cloud which had hung over Pearl’s face slowly lifted, and a smile that answered Esther’s smile flashed out.

“We’re busy enough,” she said; “what with one thing and another me and Miles don’t seem to have a minute to call our own. He’s interviewing here and interviewing there, and I’ve got to see about clothes and what not. The days are crammed up, and no mistake.”

“I do hope it will be a very happy move for you both; after Christmas everything here will be breaking up, and my husband and I are going back to town to begin life again, and it will be a great comfort to us to know that you and Miles are starting so well in a new country.” “Oh, I guess we’ll be all right,” Pearl said cheerfully. “I’m one that can make the best of things. There’s none of the grouser about me. But, my goodness”—she stared at Esther —“it’s pretty rough luck for you and the old—l mean, for his lordship—to begin working again after all this”— she cast a comprehensive glance round the great room—“seems a shame you should be turned out of the place, just when you’ve got used to it and all.”

“It will be a great wrench”—a shadow fell over Esther’s face, but it fled at once—“but 1 am trying not to think about the wrench. I am making the most of all our last days here, and then we are all going to make the best of the new life in London.” Dear Esther 1 The words were so like her, so quietly valiant and brave. She had always so splendid at facing heavy odds. She had only just spoken those courageous words when the door was flung open and Dunstan’s voice announced sonorously—-

“The Dowager Duchess of Gledworth.”

I felt wickedly convinced that the Dowager had pusposely arrived rather late, with the object of making a dramatic entrance. I do not know that J iiad ever seen her looking more sinister, if I may use a somewhat melodramatic word, which nevertheless fitted her. Her thin lips were parted In a smile which in some indescribable way held both malice and triumph. There was an expression in her hard eyes which made me remember a snake that had once fascinated me at the Zoo. That snake had looked at me with just the same expression as looked out of the Dowager’s green-grey eyes. “How kind of you to have asked me to your family party,” she said Ut. Esther, with a sidelong glance aC Pearl and her extreme beauty and flamboyant clothes; “you must be so busy, too,” she added smoothly; “the break-up of a household is such a terrible business/*

I saw Esther shrink a little, as though she had been struck; I saw Martin come forward with outstretched hands and charming, courteous manner, to greet the guest; and then, before Esther could answer Lady Gledworth’s remark, a voice said very clearly and Incisiely—“What household is breaking up?”

I had not seen Maurice come in, but already he was in the middle of the room, with Lois just behind him, her face glowing, and in her eyes the light that never was on sea or land. “What house is breaking up?” Maurice repeated, coming to a standstill before the Dowager, and looking at her with a fixedness which most evidently embarrassed her.

She laughed a queer, uneasy laugh, and into her eyes there leapt the unmistakable look of fear which I had noticed in them once before, in Maurice’s presence. “What an odd question,” she said shrilly; “you come here to take possession as the rightful heir, and the house as it is as present has to break up. It stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, no! I don’t think so.” Maurice spoke imperturbably, looking at her with a cool, amused glance, which nevertheless made me think of polished steel. “I don’t really think your reasoning is very good, or very logical.”

Somehow, I do not know how or why, all the other occupants of the room seemed suddenly to be aware that a duel was in progress; a silence had fallen upon us all, and we were all listening intently, expecting we knew not what, though I was sure Maurice meant to make the moment a dramatic one.

“What in the world do you mean?” —and the Dowager’s voice grew angry. She glared at Maurice still smiling at her—coolly and imperturbably—whilst his eyes were like polished steel. “ You have come back, the usurping Earl of Gledworth must naturally make way for the rightful Earl.”

She uttered the words with an insolent laugh, and I saw Maurice’s right hand clench suddenly. “ The usurping Earl proposes to make way for the rightful Earl,” he said gravely, and his voice seemed to cut like a knife. “ I wonder why you took so much trouble to bring a usurper here, when you might have known he would only have to turn round and go back again?” The colour slowly faded from the Dowager’s face; in her eyes, fixed upon Maurice’s face, fear deepened. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Martin started up from his seat, but he did not speak; in fact nobody spoke. We all stood there with bated breath, wailing for Maurice’s next words. They came, with little delay.

“ You knew perfectly well —you knew without a doubt, that the man you sought out to come and claim the Gledworth title and estates, was not a Damersley*at all.” Martin gave a little gasp, but no one else uttered a sound, and Maurice’s voice went on remorselessly:

“ You knew all along that I was not the son of Hubert Damersley, and therefore not the heir to the estates; you knew that I was the son of his second wTfe, by her first husband, Ronald Canberry. There’s no question of the break up of this home. There is only one usurper in this room now, and that is myself. Martin fairly hurled himself across the room to the younger man’s side, and seized his arm.

“ What are you talking about?” he said. “Of course you are not a usurper. Haven’t we chapter and verse to prove that you are the late Lord Gledworth’s heir? What are you dreaming of? The word usurper does not apply to you in the least.” Maurice put a soothing hand on my brother’s shoulder-

“ I am afraid it does,” he said, “although I certainly believed in my claim when I first made it. I had no fraudulent intentions. That lady ” —he nodded contemptuously towards the Dowager—“ had intentions of a completely fraudulent nature. She was aware from the very first that I am Ronald Canberry's son, with no claim whatever of any sort or kind upon the Gledworth estate. Am I telling the truth?”

He shot the question at the Dowager as if he were hurling a bomb at her, and she wilted away from him, the fear deepening and deepening in her eyes. “ I thought,” she faltered, “ I believed—” “ You neither thought nor believed that I was the rightful heir,” Maurice interrupted, “ You knew most certainly who and what I was. I myself have only found out the truth since I reached England.”

“ But you can’t mean—you are not trying to tell me that—that we shall not have to move away,” Martin’s voice sounded quite shaky, and I saw that his hands were trembling.

“ I am not only trying to tell you, 1 am telling you, very plainly, very emphatically.” Maurice laid a hand tenderly upon my brother’s shoulder. 1 You are here for keeps—and your son, and your son’s son after you.” The radiance that flashed over Marmade my throat contract and my eyes grow misty. Oh, Pat—the library!” he exclaimed in a choky voice—“ the great View, and Esther chimed in on my other side: “ The garden. Oh, Pat.” I did not know whether I most wanted to break into tears or laughter: whether I longed to sing aloud for joy, or to put up my head and howl like a dog! I am happy to say that I performed none of these unorthodox actions. I only put my hand through Martin’s arm and squeezed it tightly, and my other hand found and grasped Esther’s hand. (To be continued.)