APHNE ENGAGED

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 2, Issue 3, 1 September 1923, Page 10

APHNE ENGAGED

by a New Zealand writer, ESTHER GLEN

"IF it weren't for Aunt Daphne we * could keep a maid.'' The words, flung carelessly into.the air, slipped through the partition, cutting sharply into the consciousness of the girl in the next room, forcing her to a realisation of their significance. Girl? Yes, why not. Girl! Girl! Girl! The fact needed forcing home; Daphne certainly thought so. She was twenty-nine, and twenty-nine, though a huge age, isn't first cousin to Methuselah. Peggy and Jill ranked her with the immediate descendants of the patriarchs, or at least with the earlier Victorians; but then Peggy was only eighteen and Jill a year younger. Daphne was an aunt aunt to Peggy and Jill. She had never been consulted about the relationship. She had been gazetted Auntie Daphne before she was thirteen, and though at that time she had accepted the title with a feeling of superiority, with the years her viewpoint had changed, and she had long since ceased to enthuse over the relationship. Sitting there in her roomshe had lived in it for sixteen years —with the sound of the girls' chatter like a buzz-saw in her consciousness, her mind went travelling back over the years, separate incidents standing scorchingly forth from a background negative in its monotony. She had been a lonely child, an orphan at a large boarding-school, her only excitement the visits of the big brother, who at holiday time drifted into her life. When she was ten—a thin slip of a child, with dark eyes, and a shy smile which slipped out unexpectedly—married, and the little sister was introduced into the new home. Six years later she left school, and found that the plan of her life was all mapped out for her. She was to continue her life with Jim and Clarice, and help Clarice with the work, since servants were impossible; and there were now two little girls who needed much looking after. It was her duty, as her sister-in-law pointed out. Now, duty is no doubt a very estimable thing, but the pity of it is that so many people spell it s-a-c-r-i-f-i-e-e; and Daphne had offered up her youth on the altar of her brother's children. With no very definite plans of her own she had acquiesced in the scheme of things arranged for her by Jim and Clarice, acting jointly as Deputy Providence of her life. That was when the children were small. The milestones of her life had flashed by; she hardly realised that she was twenty, twenty-five, until one day she awakened to the fact that she was twentyseven. Time had not stayed for her as somehow, in our youth, we vaguely imagine it will. The inevitable, in the shape of the thirties, was growing nearer, and viewed from the angle of the late twenties, there is something menacing in the thought of a three. Its plump curves are suggestive of the comfortable outlines of middle age; it has none of the pleasant angularity of a two. And while she was trying to avert her thought from it, Time relentlessly popped on another unit, and then another; and suddenly Daphne found that she had rounded the corner of twenty-nine, and the thirties were looming obesely in front of her. Of late she had grown restless; subconsciously she had been aware for some time that Jill and Peggy, now two pretty girls, possessed of an amaz-

ing self-confidence which she herself lacked, resented her presence in the house. It took the shock of Jill's remark, floating through the thin partition, which separated the girls' room from her own, to force her to a sudden stock-taking of her position, and a burning realisation of her dependence upon Jim and Clarice. "If it weren't for Aunt Daphne we could keep a maid. All the vague resolutions, the restlessness of the past five years crystallised into one intense resolve. " She would bear it no longer. They wanted a servant; they should have one. She would go; she was sick of her thankless, unpaid job. Like a blind thing she rose from her chair and made for the window, her eyes very big in her face, her hands clenched. From the next room the sound of voices rose, maddeningly insistent. For one moment Daphne paused. Oh, she wanted to take Jill and Peggy, to tell them vehemently what she thought of them, to strike at their unruffled self-esteem. Then the memory of Peggy's words scorched her again, like the brand of an iron on her soul. She turned from them, and slipping through the low window, ran down the steps and over the drenched lawn, seeking the shelter of the friendly trees in the distance. It was her own fault; that was what hurt. She had been willing to be dependent; she had never made a decisive move towards freedom. She had drifted, drifted complacently, willing to let others take the direction of her life, sacrificing herself where there was no call for sacrifice, and where it was not appreciated. But it was not too late; one is not decrepit at twenty-nine, whatever Peggy might say, and the whole wide world lay before her. Daphne felt the chains of her environment slipping from her at last. A slim, wide-eyed creature, she stood against the trees, her arms outstretched, as if she felt the actual loosening of her bonds. It was a very perfect evening, cool and sweet, with the scent of rain new-fallen on the hot earth. Above, the sky was a tender blue, shot with glory in the west, where the clouds lay in fleecy, rosy piles. The wide stretch of the lawn lay between her and the house; at her feet, rising from the grass, like a little blue island in a green land, a rioting bed of pansies lifted pensive faces to the sky. Daphne smiled as she looked at them, and then stooped and gathered a great bunch of the little purple flowers. The words of an old text slipped into her mind. "They sow not, neither do they reap," she said, and rested one hot cheek lightly against their cool fragrance. "Only it wasn't flowers; I believe it was birds. I've sowed, but I've never reaped. It's about time for the harvest." She buried her face in the flowers again. Suddenly she laughed. "Now I'm through with the agricultural business. I've about done my share. I'll sow not, but I'll reap and gather into barns. I'll leave the rest to Providence. I am," said Daphne, inconseciuently, but still inclined to be Biblical, "'of more value than many sparrows. I might say that I am of more value than a whole nestful of sparrows, but somehow no one seems to notice it.''

She laughed again. Long ago Daphne had learned to laugh, with herself, and at herselfwhich was just as well. Once at least in every life the gates which shut in our little world of everyday swing back, and the green lanes of adventure and romance show dimly. Daphne had left it all to Providence, and Providence must have been listening, for just at that moment the lock on the gate of Daphne's life began to creak. It is not only in books and at the cinema that the unexpected happens. Sometimes in real life, too, the time and the need are met. 'the gate swings ajar, just when we feel that we can bear the monotony of the way no longer, when we awaken to the fact that the hedges which bound our vision on either side have become for us a prison wall. It was literally the man and the moment for Aunt Daphne, though she didn't know it. He came between the rhododendron bushes which bordered the path, just an ordinary, everyday sort of a man, with the' eyes of a dreamer, and the jaw of a' business man. By the old pine he paused. Here the rhododendron bushes opened out a little, and a stretch of tangled lawn swept away to dark trees in the distance. Somewhere in the grass a bed of pansies flourished, and standing there, holding a cluster of the wet, crushed flowers in her hands, her uplifted eyes like velvety blossoms, stood Daphne. Just a little dark-eyed girl, with slender, drooping figure, and soft, brown hair, drinking in the sweetness of the evening, and realising the beauty of God's peace after a storm. The stranger paused. He was a man with an ideal, and the ideal was someone very like Daphne. After many years she had materialised, just when he was wearying of a search which was growing both hopeless and unprofitable, lie stood looking at —a slim, white figure, silhouetted against the dark background of the trees. Suddenly she lifted her face and smiled, anil it was as if an elusive gleam of sunshine had peeped out of the wistful soul of her. Forgetful of everything else, the man pushed forward, and then, as suddenly, paused, his eyes still on her, drinking in the picture she made. To-night he would go no further. He would see her again, and yet again. He thought of her pansy eyes, of her white, uplifted face, till* he could scent the sweetness of the flowers, and see her as she stood among them. "I'll call at the house to-morrow," he told himself, "and talk to her, if I have to strangle the other two to get her to myself. I never noticed her before, and yetl've met her. I've seen her about the place." Something of his exultation must have touched Aunt Daphne. No, not Aunt Daphne now. From that moment she forswore her auntship. She had a pretty name—Daphne Dawn. That night she stood before her open window. Like a child she held up her hands. "God! I've always worked hard enough. Thou knowest. Now, I'm going to take a holiday, a real, dancing, sunshiny holiday.' I don know where I'll go or -what I'll do. I'll leave it all to Thee." Providence had taken over the job. Daphne, with no particular chart for her guidance, was about to set sail on

an unknown sea. Where she was going she didn't know; what she was going to do when she got there she eared still less. There was a thrill of adventure in it all, like the stories of her childhood's days. Life was better in story-book form. And she meant to make the illustrations attractive. Next day she donned what finerv she had, and sallied forth. Oh, just for a few hours. She wasn't sailing for a while yet. She put on her hat It was of black straw. Now, there are black hats, and black hats, and Daphne's headgear could —even in its palmiest dayshave been included in anything but the second classification. It had a hard, shiny brim, and a stiff bow rose, as if iii defiance, at the back. Tt was a serviceable hat, no doubt about that. It could be worn with any frock, and be depended upon to add ten years to the most youthful face, and make even the most fashionable frock appear hopelessly dowdy. Not that Daphne bad any fashionable frocks. To-day she wore a cotton crepe of washed-out heliotrope. "Shabby old thing," she said, fiercely, viewing it with disdain. It hadn't looked so terrible before. Oh, Aunt Daphne was moving rapidly now. She floated down the hall, even the hard-brimmed black hat unable to dim the shine of her eyes, or take the pink from her usually pale cheeks. Jill was sitting in the drawing room. She had donned a frock of palest vellow. Peggy was on the terrace. She had chosen white— shoes, stockings and all, complete. Jill wore curls. Peggy's hair was bobbed. Either girl would have adorned a film. Daphne smiled at them, hardly aware of their existence, much less of their finery and air of expecting an important visitor. Both looked dismayed. "Where are you going?" asked Peggy, sitting on' the edge of a table, and trying to look like Dorothy Gish. "Mr. Leslie is calling. Who is going to get afternoon tea 1 should like to know'?" ' So should I.'' "You might wait. You must. It's very important, lie—it's him! lie's here now! Jill sank into a chair with a Mary Pickford air. Dorothy Gish swung her heels. "Oh, it's only a false alarm. But you can't go out, Aunt Daphne. You simply can't." "Oh, can't I? You watch me." said Daphne, and sailed out. At the door she turned. "I'm off to buy clothes," she cried. "Frocks and hats and .jumpers. Something in pink and rose and blue, and pale lemon." This with a glance at Jill's own confection. "And shoes and stockings and hats heaps of themboxes of hats, and a cabin trunk, and— anything else I can think of. Good-bye, girls! "Is she ill, do'you think.'" Peggy asked, awed. Daphne bought stockings; she bought shoes — white shoes, grey shoes, suede shoes, kid shoes. In a riot of acquisition she purchased frocks a pale green one, like spring, an ecstasy of blue, a moonlight confection of filmy silver and black, a tender rose, a wisp of a thing in softest grey. She indulged in two evening coats, and she positively revelled in the final touches, which,'according to the fashion notes, make or mar a woman's appearance. Aunt Daphne's appearance wasn't going to stand any chance of being marred. And some of her frocks were at least a month ahead of fashion. At the last— saved the best for the last—she purchased hats. She smiled when she tried on a confection of black and white tulle; she lost ten years when she donned one of blue, and when she placed an affair of delicate mauve, deepening into purple, on her brown locks, her years dropped straightaway to twenty.

"It suits you perfectly. That is the one, cried the assistant, who had entered enthusiastically into the game. "I'll take them all," said Daphne, recklessly. She looked at her reflection in the glass. The mauve hat harmonised wonderfully with the frock of washedout heliotrope she was wearing. It framed her small, pale face, deepening the lights of her dark eyes, resting daintily on her soft, brown hair. Believe me, she didn't look a day over seventeen. "I'll wear this now," she said. She just couldn't help it. Why, she hadn't seen herself look so young or so altogether charming for years. The assistant took up the hardbrimmed, black hat. '' Shall I send this home with the others'?" she asked, balancing it on one protesting finger. Daphne Dawn looked at it with a shudder; in itself it seemed to epitomise the ugliness of the days which were past. "No, burn it —or give it to any respectable scarecrow you know," she said. Outside she met him, obviously waiting, standing by a window which could hardly have been very fascinating, since it contained nothing more interesting than a collection of sewing machines. "I saw you go in an hour ago," he said. "I've been waiting ever since. Will you come and have some tea.' 1 want to talk to you." He smiled down at her, wondering why her charm had escaped him so long. lie had known her as a member of her brother family, but then she had been only a shadowy figure in the background, lie had evinced no particular interest in her. Since last night, however, she had become the compelling interest of his life, and he bitterly regretted his dense blindness of the days which were gone. As for Daphne —well, she was very, very happy. Why shouldn't she be? She had a new hat, an attentive cavalier, and even the old frock appeared quite presentable. Providence was managing the whole affair very well indeed. They went down the gay, sunlit street —even the sun was in the conspiracy to-day—and found a table in the brightest, prettiest tea room of the town. And Daphne poured the tea, and nibbled delectable cakes, and decided that life was really a wonderful thing after all. She never once thought of Peggy and Jill; why, she even forgot she was an aunt. Looking at her, Mr. Leslie thought she seemed more than ever like a delicate, purpleeyed pansy. Once or twice she caught his eyes and smileda faint, elusive smile that fascinated him, till he tried to draw it forth again and again. Do you know how long I have been looking for you'?" he asked. It was at this very moment that Peggy and Jill, disappointed by the non-arrival of the visitor, and exhausted by an hour's subsequent shopping, entered the room. They looked at Daphne, and then at her companion. "Mr. Leslie!" gasped Jill, sinking into the first chair, too overcome to go further. With Aunt Daphne! " "She looks awfully pretty," said Jill, staggered by the realisation that an aged aunt of twenty-nine could retain any semblance of good looks. '' She's got on a new hat,'' Peggy added, in explanation. That evening Mr. Leslie called again. They sat on the porch where the creepers grew thickly—Clarice, Peggy and Jill, Aunt Daphne and Mr. Leslie. Aunt Daphne, whose parcels had arrived, wore a frock of palest yellow, which made Jill feel that her own was home-made and dowdy. Her eyes were bright, and there was the

faintest flush on her checks. Peggy and Jill were reluctantly forced to admit that the phenomenon of Aunt Daphne's good looks still continued. She sat on a low chair, a vision of slender grace, and gradually it was borne upon the girls that they were being entirely eclipsed by their aged aunt. It was to Daphne the visitor talked; he seemed hardly to remember their existence, and they were particularly anxious to impress him. The conversation ranged; it touched on many things, books and countries far away, king, cabbages, and —pictures. Mr. Leslie was an authority on that subject, as Jill and Peggy v. ere both very much aware. "Mary Pickford? Do you know what I should like to do to Mary he asked. ' If I had my way I'd shave off every curl, big and little, podgy and persuasive. I'd have her as bald as a badger. There's not a prospective star who doesn't cultivate a Pickford mop or a Dorothy Gish buster cut. Oh, for an ordinary, natural girl heroine. Peggy looked at Jill, ami Jill looked at Peggy. Jill thought of her careful curls, and Peggy became suddenly conscious of her bobbed locks. But the conversation had swerved again, leaving them far in the rear. It isn't pleasant to be passed over for an elderly relation, and the girls, being unused to it, took it badly. Jill's pleasant remarks held a waspish sting, and Peggy relapsed into an aggrieved silence, out of which an occasional remark emerged sullenly. And if the visitor didn't know Aunt Daphne's age to a minute it wasn't the girls' fault. They made the fact of her longevity pretty plain. At length, subdued ami decidedly cross, they fell into silence, since no one appeared to care whether they spoke or not. But they stayed glued to their seats; they weren't going to leave the field altogether to Aunt Daphne—that was too much to expect. Mr. Leslie looked at them, and wished they would follow their mother, who had disappeared into the drawing room half an hour ago. Hut Jill and Peggy sat on. "It's a wonderful evening," he remarked, suggestively, and looked at Daphne where she sat, a shadowy, golden blurr in the growing darkness. ' Will you take a walk round the garden with me? I've something I want to say to you, Daphne.'' They walked down the path together. Peggy and Jill looked at them, their eyes popping out of their heads. "Daphne!" gasped Jill. "And she didn't mind !'' '' Thevampire !'' moaned Peggy. This way,'' said Mr. Leslie, taking Daphne's arm. They went down the drive, through the rhododendrons, and over the tangled lawn. By the pansy bed he paused. "It was here I saw you," he said. "Standing like a flower yourself among the blossoms. Listen to me, Daphne.'' The evening passed on; the ail" grew chill; the moon, rising, watery pale, looked down on the old garden—on Daphne, star-eyed, cloud-like in the darkness, on her companion, head bent, talking earnestly, on Peggy and Jill, huddled together, straining their eyes through the night, their vantage ground Aunt Daphne's own low casement window. "I can just see her,'' Peggy said. "It past ten." It was half-past eleven, when Daphne, like a heroine of seventeen, crept in through her bedroom window. Peggy and Jill, escaping only just in time, and tired out with their vigil, disposed themselves for sleep. "I call it disgraceful," said Peggy. Next day Daphne stop]ted Jim on his way to the office.

'' I'm leaving here, Jim,'' she said. "You'll have to get another servant.'' Then her heart relented at the sight of his puzzled face. Poor old Jim had never seen her as anything but the younger sister, a little older than his own girls, maybe, able to give a hand about the house, but just a slip of a thing still. His eyes grew troubled as she continued. '' I 've grown up, Jim. I grew up years ago, and the girls are growing up, too. There are too many of us in the house now. So I'm off into the world to make my own way, and — please, I want all the money I've got. I have a little, I know.'' She ended rather breathlessly. She was fond of Jim. Why, she could even love Peggy and Jill —a hundred miles away. She got her money, quietly augmented by a cheque from Jim, some of which went in payment for the clothes already bought. She packed her trunks, touching her new possessions reverently. In went the white frock; in went the blue; the green and the foamy black and white had a compartment all to themselves. Jill and Peggy, assisting, were struck dumb with envy. Peggy hadn't a sting left, and both girls treated Daphne with a respect which was altogether delightful. "But where's she going?" Jill asked Peggy. That was what Daphne didn't tell —not till the last. To Jim's anxious inquiries she answered, laughing. "Don't worry, Jimmy. I'm all right. I know what I'm doing, and I 'll write to you soon.'' She went off in a taxi —a shining, new car, just the thing to carry a traveller to unknown fields. The others

clustered round to say good-bye—Jim and Clarice, Peggy and Jill. "Write soon," urged Jill. Looking at them, Daphne felt a sudden surging of love, which wiped out the bitterness of the past. Even Jill's words were forgotten. After all they were her people, and it was churlish to go without telling them her news her wonderful news. Perhaps, too, she wanted to make Jill's hair curl naturally, and raise a wave of excitement in Peggy's straight bobbed locks. "I'm going—" she began. Unfortunately, at that moment, the motor shot forward with a loud hoot. Daphne's voice floated back to the family. "Fairville .. . . engaged .... Mr. Leslie.'' " Oh! " said Peggy. " Oh! gasped Jill. A month, two months passed, and they heard nothing of her. Then, when the furrows were growing pronounced on Jim's forehead, a bulky letter arrived. He read it, looked perplexed, read it again, and visibly excited, prepared for a third perusal. Peggy and Jill, nearly exploding with curiosity, watched him. "Well?" asked Peggy. "Where is she? What is she doing?" demanded Jill. "She's in Fairville, enjoying herself," answered Jim. He paused a moment, looked at the girls, and then threw the letter into the air. '' Bravo, Daphne! " he cried. "Well?" demanded Peggy, again. Jim folded up the epistle, and placed it in his breast pocket. "I suppose Mr. Leslie's in Fairville, too," Jill said, bitterly. Jim laughed. '' Yes, he's there, too,'' he answered. It was some time after this that he

came home one night, and astonished the family by producing tickets for the leading picture theatre of the town. '' They are putting on a new film — the first the new Australian Company have made. I'd like you girls to see it. You'll be —interested." ' Fancy dad going to the pictures," said Peggy to Jill. The Weekly Gazette, and the Scenic Film, with a lavish display of waterfall, were over when they entered the theatre, Peggy carrying a large box of chocolates which her father, in the exuberance of his feelings, had purchased. They sank into the padded chairs. They had the best seats in the house, Jill noticed. '' What's the picture you 're so keen on seeing, "Dad ? she asked. "I— Look, Peggy! It's Daphne! " "Aunt Daphne! " shrieked Jill, disgracing the family. She stood, dew-drenched, among the pansies, in the twilight, a great bunch of the purple-eyed things in her arms. Suddenly she buried her face in their sweetness, and looked up with a smile, and it was as if an elusive sunbeam had peeped out of the wistful soul of her. '' Butshewhyoh,'' gasped Jill, incapable of coherency. '' She has a contract with John Leslie, Director of the new Australian Film Company, at five hundred a week," Jim said, unable to restrain himself any longer, and clapping with a vigour which completed what Peggy had begun, and focussed the attention of the house on the party. ' Then she's been all this time at Fairville, rehearsing?" asked Peggy. "Yes, star parts. Leslie reckons she's the coming star." Yes, that was it. Providence had led the great Director straight to Daphne Dawn. He had been searching the country for a new star, and

there, among the pansies, he had stumbled on Daphne Dawn. '' Bravo, Daphne! Bravo! '' Jim led the applause. Daphne was launched, and judging from her performance, would soon become one of the most popular screen actresses of the day. Mr. Leslie, who was a shrewd business man as well as an artist, with his finger on the pulse of the great picture-loving world, had not been mistaken when he selected this star for the cinema to delight people with her tender, elusive charm. Marry her? Who said anything about marriage? She was his ideal picture actress, that was all, a contrast to most of the curled and bobbed film heroines then in the public eye. She was engaged, yes, but only to play star parts. That was all, and Daphne wanted no more. Anyway, he had a wife and two children already.