THE END OF THE GAME.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 16048, 26 July 1924, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE END OF THE GAME.

(By Holloway Horn.)

Looking back I can see that life ■was a game to him. When I first went to the Manor, as his mother’s companion, I had no idea that Lady Tremaync had a son; even then her references to him were casual.

"By the v*iy, Sir Richard will be here on Thursday,” she said the second evening I was with her. “I do not think I mentioned him, though. He’s at Oxford. We shan’t sec much of him, anyway." She spoke as if the matter were of no great moment, and without exhibiting any feeling at all. When he did come there appeared to be a certain understanding, but little, if any, affection between mother and son. I suppose it is impossible for a middle-class girl to understand these aristocrats.

After dinner he went into the library; I read to Lady Tremaync.

During the next few days, as his mother had foretold, we saw very little of him. He was not twenty - one at the time, and as far as I could gather had no interest in life except sport. Horses and dogs were passions with him; he seemed far more interested in them than in human beings. I was only alone with him once during his first visit; it was an evening when Lady Tremaync had retired early with a headache. I was afraid I should be nervous, but there was something in the boy—for all his great size and strength, I always thought of him as a boy, although he was only twelve months my junior—that put me at my ease.

I felt there must be something in him more serious than the eternal games he talked about. At a venture I changed the subject abruptly by' asking him if he were fond of poetry. “No," he said. “Arc you, Miss Wrayford?” “Particularly Browning . . £ said. “Browning .... I know a Browning—W. R. L.—he’ll probably get his blue. He’s not a poet though . . ." It was impossible not to smile. “I’m a most awful Philistine, I’m afraid, though that was a little joke about W. R. L. But I know more about dogs than I do about poetry, anyway." "And more than about men and women?” I hazarded. “I wish I did know more about men and women, Miss Wrayford," he said thoughtfully, and then, with a sudden change in his voice: “You sec, I’m going to get married.” For a moment I stared at him blankly.

“You think I'm young," he asked. “You are; Lady Tremayne mentioned your age." “Twenty-one . . .of course, not a word of this to the mater. I wish you’d tell me what you think about it, though.” “I certainly think that your mother should be told ... by you." “I knew you’d "say that. In a sense I suppose I am marrying beneath me, as the saying is. She is a girl in a tobacconist’s shop in Oxford,” “Why . . . why do you tell me all this?” I gasped. “I hardly know, Miss Wrayford. But you seem so jolly wise, somehow. And I felt that I had to tell someone.”

“I’m quite sure that it is your duty to tell your mother.”

“Not just for the moment, I think," he smiled.

“Do ... .do you love this girl?" I asked. Even at the time my question sounded idiotic.

“Oh, rather 1 She’ll make a jolly good wife, too. Level-headed, and all that sort of thing."

"She will be . . . Lady Tremayne,” I said after a silence. “Of course!"

“Forgive me, but doesn’t it sound a little incongruous—Lady Tremayne in a tobacconist’s shop?" “But she won’t be in a shop then. As a matter of fact she’s out of it already.” That was all, but it told me a great deal. I was neither a prude nor a fool; I had knocked about the world since my father died. The whole sordid affair was clear to me. The amazing part was the proposed marriage. "Baronets do not marry girls in tobacconists’ shops outside intensely popular fiction. “You think I’m making an ass of myself?” he asked. "Yes,” I said bluntly. “So do I,” he sale. “If you don’t love her it will be the wildest folly to 'marry her.” “But I do!" he interrupted with one of his smiles. “That’s the awkward part."

The maid entered with coffee. A little later he went into the library to

those vague letters of his, and I to Lady Tremayne. Ho spent the next week-end away.

He returned on the Tuesday silent, almost morose, I don’t think even then that his mother noticed anything was wrong. If he had been my son I should have been worried out of my mind. His was not the type of face th|, disguises emotions, and to any sympathetic observer it was clear that the boy was in trouble.

Soon afterwards he returned to Oxford and my knowledge of him was limited to the scraps of information Ills mother related from his letters. Not a wnrd came, however, of the girl who used to be in the tobacconist’s shop. Sometimes I wondered if she w’ere taking her place in his scheme of things as part of a game for which he had 'lost his enthusiasm. I was sorry for her anyway. Whichever way the affair went it could only result in misery for her. I saw him next time when he came down from Oxford. The whole house was In a turmoil for a few days. He was never still. He seemed to bo unable’ to support consciousness without playing at something—riding, shooting, swimming, golf. And not a word, not a whisper of the marriage. Once I had been up into the village on an errand of some kind for his mother, and as I came out of the post office I met him. He pulled his car up when he saw me.

"Going back?” he said. “Then jump ini" I don’t think he spoke until we, had reached the park, and then it was only when the tyre burst. "Damn 1" he said, and added, "sorry, Miss Wrayford. If you don’t mind we’ll leave the beastly thing here and walk up. Jones can come down and fetch it.” For awhile we walked in silence. A partridge flew across the road in front of us. He turned and watched it.

“It’s very quiet for you down here, isn’t it?” he asked, just as if the partridge had suggested the thought to him.

“I like it,” I said. “It’s peaceful and calm.”

“I should go potty if I stayed here long." “How’s the little girl in the tobacconist’s shop?” I asked. I spoke before I thought what I was saying. "So-so," he said. “You didn’t mention that business to the mater?" “No."

“Goodl See that hare there? No, it’s gone."

Thus the girl was dismissed from our conversation.

I glanced at his face. He was still looking through the trees to where he had seen the hare. There was a dark beauty in his profile, an intentness, an exhilaration was in his face such, as I had seldom seen there. The hare was sport, you see shooting ... . .a game. The next

day he had gone. Scotland this time. I learnt from his mother that he was staying with the Earl of Turriff. And once again my news of him became intermittent.

It was perhaps a month later that Lady Tremayne told me that he was to be married. She had received a letter from him that morning.

“Sir Richard is engaged to Lady Joan Mcßae, the daughter of the Earl of Turriff," she said. “I’m relieved, dear. One hears of such deplorable things nowadays. Actresses and so forth.”

The engagement was, of course, duly announced in the papers, and it was part of my work to answer the scores of congratulatory letters that Lady Tremaync received. He sent down several photos of Lady Joan. She was fair. Laay Tremayne commented on her likeness to me. Of course, one can never tell from a photo, but there was certainly a similarity. Perhaps it was this likeness that caused the strange incident that happened a week or so later. Sir Richard was home for a few days, and once again he gave me a lift from the tillage. By the church I noticed a girl watching us as we went by. She was a stranger to me and her clothes showed that she was not a village girl. I met her again in the park that afternoon. She was waiting by a 'Htle stile as I came up. She was •■well, almost expensively, dressed. “You are Lady Joan Macßae? I’ve seen your photo in the papers. May I speak to you, please?” “You are mistaken,” I said. “But I saw you with him this morning."

“1 was with Sir Richard Tremayne but I am his mother’s, companion." “I’m sorry. I . . . ."

“Do you. ... do you come from Oxford?” I ventured. “I wanted to see her!" she moaned. “He’s mine . . . not hers! If I could explain to her . . .”

“Y’ou can do no good." I said gently. “I am very sorry but you could do no good by seeing her, even if she were here, and she isn't.” “He promised ... he promised to marry me I I don’t complain, but I love him. I want him, not his money 1”

In the end I persuaded her to go. It was a pitiful little tragedy. If only she had been able to look on life as a game . . . but it is not so easy for a woman to do so. It was not until some weeks later that I saw Lady Joan. She was, in her cold way, beautiful. They came for a week-end. Her father, greyhaired and startlingly erect, was with them. There was a strength in the Macllaes, a devastating self-assur-ance. They were . . . aristocrats. Lady Joan rode and golfed with her fiance. A match for him. And in the early summer they were married. Lady Tremayne, of course, was at the wedding, but she did not take me. I was glad, thankful. I wandered alone in the woods, thinking of the girl I had seen there, the girl who had wept; thinking of the man who was being married. A game . . . . a new game 1 They spent their honeymoon in Spain. I saw the photos in the illustrated papers. And I guessed that the poor little girl in Oxford would see them too.

And suddenly, across that honeymoon, like a swordcut, fell the war. Looking back now over the years I can dimly remember the excitement of it all. Home came Sir Richard and his bride. His face positively shone as I saw him come up the steps to the old hall. The greatest game of all! He had fixed things up In London on his way through, and was off in the morning. I was not in the least surprised. I didn’t think his mother was.

In a month ho was in France. Lady Joan stayed a while with us. Colder, more distant than ever. A little frightened, I thought, once or twice. In the end she went back to her Scottish home. Letters from Scotland and France, and we learned little from either. Three months after he had gone Lady Tremayne sighed audibly over one of her letters.

“Dear Joan,” she said, “is expecting a little one." I remained silent. I was not cer-

tain what she wanted me to say, and a companion is not wholly a free agent. , .. “He might even be killed and then the Tremaynes would have been finished,” she went on. “It would have been a great pity." That casualness of hers was getting on my nerves. “Oh, don’t even think of his being killed!” I .cried. But he was killed. The telegram came a fortnight after his son was born. I was with his mother when the news reached "her. I longed to fling my arms around her, but I didn’t. She would have disliked it. Middleclass. . . And now, years after, I am waiting it ail down. Fragmentary, inconclusive, just as it happened. lam still Lady Tremayne’s companion, and likely, to remain so. Death to him was a whistle at the end of a game, a game of, excitement and thrills. His wife was her son . . . his son. His mother has memories of the days when he was tiny—ha.ppy memories, surely? And the little girl who used to be in the tobacconist’s shop has memories, too, memories of the pressure of his arms around her, of his kisses. They all have something of him. I alone have nothing. I who lovetf him a thousand times more than any of them did.