The Mischief Maker

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18876, 21 February 1933, Page 8

The Mischief Maker

by j|! ALAN GREY. Author of “Conscience Money,” “Patricia’s Chauffeur,” Eto. j

BYNOPSIS. Sir Timothy StamJisb made leisurely up the drive to The Haven, known locally as “The Madhouse o Asylum.” Eighteen years ago the gate or this place had opened and c l° 3e ?i Edmund Raike, Sir Timothy’s brother in lal “i will see the patient,” demanded Sir Timothy or Dr. Brooks, the resident mea cal superintendent. . nrprc For some time the two men who _ ® _ meeting ror the ilrst time m *8 y a e stood eyeing each other in •’Hence. Y u come at last, Timothy. God *nows Ive spent every minute or the c*? 111 ®® 0 "now in hating you. But I can rorglve, now I ™i ve c.Sr,. ,, ..i?“Voa or rm *»”• Jl ™You damnahle devil! are you planning now? . . • E1 “ le ,?' d mi othy Standish. By the aid or God, set out or this living tomb. n 1 a _J call on the Devil you serve to help jo you’ll need him.” . , . snn 0 r Michael Slnding is the adopted son o Parson Qualle. He is in love with garet Standish, but Sir Timothy is opp to the match. c nn Basil Quaile is the Par a° n J 0 ,2. 0 r whose wastrel ways Michael shields love ror the Parson. . h . r Sir Timothy tells Margaret that a*r epusin, Jimmy Raike, is returning to l'rom abroad. . Titus, Sir Timothy’s servant, is mis shapen and weak-minded, and is th or his master’s cruel Jests. He RuE ore liimseir a hatred that thrives itie ror want or expression. But thougl or w : hat lies inside his coat P o s k ?L man ’s him. A letter, addressed in JY°" dlsll line handwriting to Sir Timothy Standisn A letter twenty years old. Titus naa never opened it, but he invested it great and secret importance. It had ne come a talisman, the symbol o the g triumph that would one day be ms has Efflce Brown, a girl whom helped to ilnd work as an artist s mod , had previously been a nurse at Ralke Haven,” but-sympathy tor R mad whom she believed to be no more mad than she was, lost her her Job. She con Ildcs her story to Michael, Y.h° Raike to help. They plan to get Edmund Raike out or “The Haven.” Jimmy Raike arrives in town prior to continuing His Journey* to Arden Hall. He wonders what motive Sir Timothy can have had ror recalling him. „ q „ o ivb« Michael, to Ills astonishment, receives an invitation Horn Sir Timothy to spend a week or two at Arden Hall 'with Jimmy. Jimmy believes his rather is dead.

(Chapter XII. —Continued.) As a form of entertainment the maze was a complete fiasco. Michael glowered upon it 9.S though, only wanting an excuse to burn it down, for Margaret the fun had gone out .of the adventure; Jimmy’s efforts to get lost only appeared ludicrous; the way in and out seemed childishly simple. , ~ On the way back to the Hall Jimmy rose to the occasion splendidly. The cause of this sudden depression was a complete mystery to him, but lie did his 'best to blow’ it away with the breeziest of anecdotes. -And the livelier his sallies, the deeper became Michael’s depression. Who could blame Margaret, he thought, for preferring the entertaining Jimmy to such a dumb dog as himself. Crossing the lawn Jimmy began to discuss the afternoon’s prospects of raking in a nice little fortune. He had three certain winners, it seemed. “Put your overdraft on Tin Tacks,” he counselled Michael. “And you’ll come back able to look your bank manager in the face with a smile of V conscious superiority." * “-Not to-day,” said Michael. “My luck’s out." Margaret seemed to read an underlying meaning in the words. “But you • are coming, Michael, aren’t you?” she asked anxiously. Until that moment it had never occurred to Michael to doubt It; of course he was coming. But now some imp of perversity prompted him to reply in the most casual way. “I thought of doing a sketch this afternoon from under that beech tree. A perfect day for it. The

shadow effect on creepered wall should be rather fascinating. Margaret said not a word. She gave him • one long look, hurt, incredulous and a little angry, and turned her back on him. "Just we two then?” she favoured Jimmy with a dazzling smile. “Just the irresponsibles. Sorry you’re not coming, Michael.” The expression of regret did not sound very convincing to _ Michael. At all events Jimmy’s spirits were not at all clamped, and for the rest of the morning Michael was in purgatory. Margaret was ignoring him. She seemed to enter whole-heartedly into Jimmy's game of bandinage. Never had Michael seen her so gay and exuberantly happy. Before lunch was over, ..however, , his sense of humour’ had begun to reassert itself. Ile had made an ass of himself. Very well he must take the consequences and grin and bear it. Later lie would implore Margaret’s forgiveness. As he stood waiting to see them off, Jimmy called out: “Anything I can hack for you, old man? ' What about a flutter on Tin T “l’m on already,” said Michael, quizzically, and Jimmy looked at him with a new interest. But Michael only continued to smile enigmatically. “No commissions then?” said Jlnjmy, slipping in the gear. “I like putting other people’s money on.” "I don’t think so,” said Michael, and looked hard at Margaret, unless there’s a donkey race." She refused to look at him, but the corners of her mouth seenied ready to quiver into a laugh. She turned her head away pe’rhaps to hide that delicious tell-tale dimple. But Michael had seen enough to cheer him considerably. “Good luck,”, lie shouted, as Jimmy let In the clutch. “You’ll be home'for dinner, 1 expect?” “Ye-es if not later," was the uncomfortlng reply. As the car turned into the park, Margaret looked back and waved. He waved in reply exuberantly, and being for the moment too intent on that distant figure to see where he xxms going, suddenly stepped on nothing and pitched headlong down the six steps from the terrace to the lawn. It required only that to drive his folly home to him crushingly. Hero he was sprawling like an imbecile on tho lawn when he might be sitting with Margaret In the car. He picked himself up. “l’m a blithering ass,” ho muttered, with absolute conviction, and a cheeky robin waiting for him to move his carcass off a particularly entrancing worm, txvceked out unqualified agreement.

CHAPTER XIII. In his more querulous moods, Sloan Cunningham had ol'ten amused .Michael with his grumblings; an artist’s life was nothing hut slavery: lie was the pawn of a ruliiless mistress, "More exacting than a woman, and God knows a woman’s bad enough."

(An enthralling story, full of thrilling incidents.)

Michael was amused perhaps because he had never known the strain of overwork. 'His art was both work and hobby. He could give his w’hole soul to it, and while he \yas working nothing else seemed to exist for him. He had the great faculty of dissociating himself for the time from his surrounding's. ‘•l’ve never seen this before, I’ve just dropped from the moon,” he would say to himself. “There are no-trees in the moon; colour is something new to me. I’m seeing all this for the first time. I’ll paint it as I see It.” But to-day it was not like that. He had really no inclination to paint. The creepered wall with the shadow tracery upon it could stir no enthusiasm in him. It was commonplace. But he would struggle through with it; the effort might help to restore his self-respect. He began to sketch In the outline and found it laborious work. His mind would keep wandering away. What was Margaret doing now? For quite five minutes not a stroke was added to the sketch, and when with an effort of will he did return to it, the first curve his pencil executed halted him again. How suggestive it was of Margaret’s profile—a touch here, another there; that was It; a curl, a tiny ear just peeping through; now the graceful sweep of the neck. He began Impatiently to erase a patch of foliage that threatened to impede him. He sat back at last and viewed the head he had drawn in the middle of the ruined sketch. “Rotten," was his disgusted verdict. “Absolutely rotten." It was no use trying; he simply could not work. What on earth should he do with himself? Five hours yet to dinner, and he might have been spending them with Margaret instead of wishing them away like this. He must HU in the time somehow. The thought of Simon Qualle came to him like a reprieve. ile would wander down. He could talk of Margaret, that would be some relief. And that mwsterious- reference he had made, something about Sir Timothy Standish that might wreck the happiness or somebody or other —he must ask him about that. ,lt was certainly Michael’s unlucky day, for Simon Qualle was out visiting’a sick parishioner. Martha, when he questioned her, was not helpful. How could she say when he would he back; Mr Michael ought to know that without being told. She had one interesting item of news for him, however. , . „ , “Mister Basil has got a job, she told him.

“Really, how splendid.” Martha compressed her lips. Her satisfaction was evidentliy tempered with some misgivings. “The ‘movies’ at Elstree,” she said, with a sniff. “He says he’s got a part in a film. If you ask me, he’s wild enough without getting* any of that nonsense into his head.” “I don’t know,” said Michael. “It ■may’ suit him down to the ground.” “He fancies himself enough already”, grumbled Martha. If anyone else had said it she would have been the first to defend him. “'What’s It called?” asked Michael slyly, and Martha fell 'into the trap at once. ‘“Gilded Youth,’ and it”s to be released in three months’ time. _ Mr Basil has promised to send me a ticket for the private show." Michael laughed heartily. "You old fraud, Martha. You re as pleased as Punch. Good for Basil. I’m jolly glad to hear it.” Michael waited until six o clock, hut Simon Quail© did not put in an appearance, so he started back for \rden Hall in high hope. Margaret might be home. Perhaps she was.as eager to shorten the separation as he was. ... But he had been too optimistic, they had not returned. Dinner came and still no Margaret. “We won’t wait,” said Sir Timothy, casually, “they telephoned from Oxford. A little trouble with the car, I think." , Michael thought glumly that dining alone with Margaret’s father was going to prove an ordeal, but Sir Timothy, after the first look of ironic amusement, displayed no curiosity to learn why he was no't with the others, and for his part Michael had no inclination to- explain.. Far from being an ordeal, it was quite a pleasant hour, and Michael would have enjoyed it more thoroughly if Ills ears had. not been trained to catch the first sound of an approaching car. Sir Timothy talked to him in the most friendly fashion. Inevitably the conversation turned to his pet obsession, the futility of suffering- , . ~ . “I don’t know much about it, sir, I’ve not had many hard knocks." said Michael, “but we’ve got to be knocked into shape, I suppose. You put your hand in the fire and find it hurts. Next time you’ve got more sense. 11 • “It doesn’t follow. The moth returns to the candle in spite of singed wings. Suffering is the fire that purifies. Does It? It turns some into heasts and murderers. Occasionally when It hums like a white hot flame in the mind of an intelligent man, it is indeed a cleansing fire; it burns itself out, leaving no spark to rekindle the blaze. And that man begins to live.” “I don’t know,” said Michael, slowly. “I should say that when a man loses the power to suffer, Ills soul is dead." “Soul I Wlrat is soul? The conceit of man is too ridiculous for words. Ile pictures himself as an individual persisting on even through death to eternity, when lie’s nothing more than one of a million different forms of life. Soul! I don’t recognise it. Body and life if you will, but where does soul come in?” "I haven't thought about it," said Michael, with a rare smile. “1 suppose a man’s individuality is made up of a bundle of qualities good and bad all mixed up. His soul must be the sort of divine 'discontent that strives to destroy the bad and strengthen the good.” „ , “I have yet, to find a man suffering such divine discontent," sir Timothy retorted frostily. “self satisfaction come-s more naturally." Dinner was over when Sir Timothy turned the conversation abruptly into personal channels. (To be continued.)