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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1921-09-16, Page 7�11i4d' 8'0e11g60n 1$44ett,'F r.r.. 1 ro,4to- .Fj'll)taill} gs. (Confirmed -411%1M • 1tiat week.) allowe odd!" she maid.' "These ar old papers. Did •you 'notice? FIs i a mistake? a This one is: dated--;-' She leaned forward, and ..her ey a word in a:head-line. "The 'Klondike;' she read. "There's something in•it about the Klondike.' ' He put his • ,hand out and drew the papers away. • "Dont you read that," he 'said "1 don't want you to go to bed and dream about the ktondike. You've got to dream about the •flat in Har- lem." "Yes," she.answered. "I mustn't think about sad things. The flat i Harlem is quite happy. But it startled me to see that word." ""I only sent for them—because I happened to want to look something up," he explained. "How much is a pound, Miss Alicia?" "Four dollars and eighty-six cents," she replied, recovering her- self. "Go up head again. You're going, to atay there." When she gave him her hand on their parting for the night he held it a moment. A subtle combination of things made him do it. The calcu- lations, the measurements, the nest from which one could look out over the Bronx, were prevailing elements in its make-up. Ann had been in each room of the Harlem flat, and she always vaguely reminded him of Ann. "We are relations, ain't we?" he asked. "I azo sure we often sewn quite near relations—'Temple." She added the name with very pretty kindness. "We're not -distant ones any nvore, anyhow," be said. "Are we near enough—would you. let me. kiss you good' night, Mies Alicia?'r- An emotional flush ran up to her cap ribbons. Indeed, my dear boy—indeed, yes." Holding her hand with a chivalric, ii slightly awkward, courtesy. he bent and kiss 1 her cheek. It was a hearty, of �etionately grateful young kiss, whicl, while it was for herself, remotely it eluded Ann. "It's the first time I've ever said good night to any one like that," he said. "Thank you for letting me." He patted i.er hand again before re- leasing it. I he went up -stairs blush- ing and feeliass rather as though she bad been pro.osed to, and yet, spin- ster though Co:. was, somehow quite understanding about the nest and Ann. ^¢.:. a,, ro �;, �i;i:•: it x..�. �� ImtCSf4k'Nt�4r �>I'.'�" yea.'Ce fi� Miele ,� b� X11 1plilael al�ot j gi ie!rlereyee7yy egad p jN d Ike e' tanner, • They, would qui a 111M1^� e/5:Ol se: Pt w0t ud ✓ oe, � ;. V dedehaind , when .+she a liplained, :'Qap- • married *men over, t rty five wool taiti �l sae 'foresaar ler bImagllg Speak of her as tbeyy��ggh.ttey had'been somo'•g et enterti}tinment in hia g •ir. the nurser to$dther. ` Marrt'ed meeting with the vialtora, }lady gi%le with a child or, 'so .viould treat Mallwe'''always provided a: certain her as though she. were a maiden aunt, ' order of sinusement--for bin, and ./10 She knew what was before her. Beg -- a man alive objeo'ted to finding interest i gary stared them both in the face if t - and 'even a certain excitement in the she did not make the moat of her ' society of Lady" Jean. i`t• was her. looks and waste no time. And Joan ye ohief characteriatic•.that she inspired knew it was all true,.and that worse,, in?..a man a vague, even if slightly far worse things were true also. Sho -irritated, desire to please her in some ' would be obliged to epeiid a long life ' degree. 'To lead' tier on t0 talk in with her mother in cheap lodgings, a her sometimes . brilliant,always faded, peniless, unmarried woman, heartlessly unsparing; 'fashion, per- ',railed- at, taunted, 'sneered at, forced haps to smile her shade of a bitter ' to be part of humiliating tricks play - smile, gave a man something to do,1 ed to enable them to get Into debt and especially if he was bowed. Palliser then to avoid paying what they owed. antieipatc-d a possible chance of re-,' Had she not seen one horrible aid pe-ating the dialogue of "the ladies," woman of their own rank who was• an not, however, going into the Jem example of what poverty might bring one to, an old harpy who triedto queen it over her landlady in an actual back street,i and was by turns fawned upon and disgustingly "your lady- shiped" or outrageously insulted by her landlady? Then that first season! Dear, dear God! that first season when she met Jem! She was not nineteen, and' the facile world pretended to be at her feet, and the sun shone as though London were in Italy, and the park was marvelous with flowers, and there were such dances and such laughter! d it was all so young -and she met Jem! It was at a garden -party at a lovely old house on the river, a place with celebrated gardens which would always come back to her mem- ory as a riot of roses. The frocks of the people .on the lawn looked as though they were made of the petals of flowers, and a mad little haunting waltz was being played by the' band, and there under a great copper birch on the green velvet turf near her stood Jem, looking at her with dark, liquid slanting eyes! 'They were only a few feet from each other,—and he looked, and she looked, and. the haunting, mad little waltz played on, and it was as though they had been standing there since the world began, and nothing else was true. Afterward 'nothing mattered to either of then. Lady Mallowe her- self ceased to count. Now and then the world stops for two people in this unearthly fashion. At such times, as far as such a pair are concerned, causes and effects cease. Her bad temper fled, and she knew she would never feel its furious lash again. - With Jem lung at her with his glowing, drooping eyes, there would be no reason for rage and shame. She confessed the temper to him and told of her terror of it; he confessed to her his fondness for high 'play, and they held each other's hands, not with sentimental youthful lightness, but with the strong clasp of sworn com- rades, and promised en honor that they would stand by each other every hour of their lives against their worst selves. They would have kept the pact. Neither was a slight or dishonest creature. The phase of life through which they passed is not a new one, but it is not often se nearly an om- nipotent power as was their three - months' dream. It lasted only that length of time. Then came the end of the world.Joan did not look fresh in her second sea- son, and before it was over men were rather afraid of her. Because she was so young the freshness returned to her cheek, but it never came back to her eyes. What exactly had happened, or what she thought, it was impossible to know.She had delicate, black brows, and between them appeared two deli- cate, fierce lines. Her eyes were of a purplish -grey, "the color of thunder," a snubbed admirer had once said. Be- tween their black lashes they were more deeply thunder colored. Her life with her mother was a thing not to be spoken of. To the desperate girl's agony of rebellion against the horror of fate Lady Mallowe's taunts and beratings were devilish. There was a certain boudoir in the house in Hill street which was to Joan like the question chamber of the Inquisi- tion. Shut up in it together, the two went through scenes which in their cruelty would have done credit to the Middle Ages. Lady Mallowe always locked the door to prevent, the unex- pected entrance of a servant, but servants managed to hover about it, because her ladyship frequently for- got caution so far as to raise her voice at times, as ladies are not supposed to do. We fight," Joan said with a short horrible laugh one morning—"we fight like cats and dogs. No, like two cats. A cat -and -dog fight is more quickly over. Some day we shall scratch each other's eyes out." "Have you no shame?" her mother cried. "I am burning with it. I am like St. Lawrence on his gridiron. 'Turn me over on the other. side,' ". she quot- ed. This was when she had behaved so abominably to the Duke of Merth- shire that- he had actually withdrawn his more than half -finished proposal. That which she hated more than all else was the God she had prayed to when she asked she might be. helped to control her temper. She had not believed in Him at the time, but because she was fright- ened after she had stuck the scissors atilelll' l tried°tlie.' F®a1 as ' a M cut. T nil,�,r n after she viol t o*: en sloe west 'f ! d:- her redm ' injkl t for e Mght' ,she )trtelt pi ittd�,:'Prayed . betau#p she suddenly did•b Frye• 'Since there was Jem in 'thee d, there must be the other soul i Ae daY followed li ', her faith grew with her- love Sha told Jena about it,. and 'they agreed' to say a. prayer 1 together at. th@ Vie' the hour every niglst.. The.. big yon,9g man thought her piety beautiful, !tpd his voice was unsteady as they Pinked. But she told him that she wits nut pious, but impious. I want to be made 'good," she said. "I have beef} bad all my life. I was a bad child, I:have been a bad girl; but now I must be good." On the night after the tragic, card party she went to her room and kneel- ed down in a new spirit. She knelt, but not to cover her' face, she knelt With throat strained and her fierce young face thrown hack and upward. Her hands 'were clenched to fists and flung out and shaken at the ceil- ing. She said things so awful that her own blood shuddered as she ut- tered them. But she could not—in her mad helplessnbms—make them awful enough. She flung herself on the carpet at 1st, her arms out- stretched like a creature crucified face downward on the erose. "I believed in you!" she gasped. "The first moment you gave me a reason I believed. I die! I did! We both said our prayer to you every night, like children. Anil you've done this—this--this!" And she beat with herfists upon the floor. Several years had passed sincethat i night, and no living being knew what ' she carried in her soul. If she had a soul, she said to herself, it was black black. But sihe had none. Neither had Jem had one; when the earth' •and stones had fallen upon him it had been the end, as it would have ' been if he had been a beetle. Thiswas the guest who was com- ing to the house where Miles Hugo smiled from his frame in the picture gallery—the house which would to-' day have been Jem's. Tembarom • had not inherited it. Tembarom returned same twenty- I four hours after Miss Alicia had re- ceived his visitors for him. He had been "going into" absorbing things in London. Hue thoughts during his northward journey were puzzled and discouraged ones. He sat in the - corner of the railway carriage and stared out of the window without seeing the springtime changes in the dying landscape. The price he would have given for a talk with Ann would net have been easy to compute. Her head, her lev- el little head, and her way of seeing into things and picking out facts! CHAPTER XXI Lady Mallowe and. her daughter did not pay .heir visit to Asahaw,e Holt, the absolute, though not openly to- ferred to, fact being that they had not been invites. The visit in question had morel; Posted in the air as a del- i -ate suggestion made by her ladyship ir. !'er letter to Mrs. Asrne Shaw, to the effect that she and Joan „ere go- ing to sta, at Temple Barholm, the visa to :e• shawe they hid partly ar• ranged s Imo time ago might new be fitted in. The partial arrangement itself, Mrs. Asshe Shaw remarked to her eldest daughter when she received 'the suggesting note, was sb partial as to require slight consideration, since it had been made "by the woman her- self, who would push herself and her daughter into any house in England if a back door were left open." In the civilly phrased letter she received in answer to her own, Lady Mallowe read between the lines the point of view taken, and writhed sectetly, as she bad been made to writhe scores of .times in the course of her career. It had happened so often indeed, thaat it might have been imagined that she had become used. to it; but the wo- man who acted as maid to herself and Joan always knew when "she had tried to get in somewhere" and fail- ed. The note of explanation sent im- mediately to Miss Alicia was at once adroit and amiable. They had un- fortunately been detained in London' a day or two past the date fixed for their visit to Asshawe, and Lady Mal- lowe would not allow Mrs. Aashe Shawe, who had so many guests, to be inconvenienced by their arriving late and perhaps disarranging her plans. So if it was quite convenient they would come to. Temple Barholm a week earlier; but not, of course, if that would be the least upsetting: When they arrived, Tembarom himself was in London. He had sud- denly found he was obliged to go. The business whieh called him was something which could not, be put off. He expected to return at once. It was made very easy for him when he made his' excuses to Palliser, who suggested that he might even find himself returning by the same train With his guests, which would give him opportunities. If he was detain - Hay -Fever SUMMER COLDS, ASTHMA, spoil many a holiday., Positively stops these troubles t Sneezing, weezing, coughing, weeping eyes aren't neeeesary— unless you like being that way. $1.00 at year druggist's, or write Templeton, Toronto, for h tree ?slid. SCold by E. -ttlitxbdbb 3 Temple Barholm part of it. When one finds a man whoite idle life has generated in him, the curiosity which is usually called feminine, it frequent= ly occupies him more actively than he is aware or will admit. A fashionable male gossip is a curious development. Palliser wast, upon the whole, not aware that he had an intense interest in finding out the enact reason why Lady Mallowe had not failed utterly bi any attempt to- drag her daughter to thls par- ticular place, to be flung headlong, so to sipeak, at this special man. Lady Mallowe one could run and read, but -Lady Joan was in this instance un- explainablh. And as she never deign- ed the slightest concealment, the story of the dialogue would no doubt cause her to show ,her hand. She must have a •hand, and it must be one worth seeing. It was not he, however, who could either guess or understand. The following would have beet his sum- ming up of her: "Flaringly hand- some girl, brought up by her mother to one end. Bad temper to begin with. Girl who might, if she lost her head, get into, some frightful mess. Meets a fascinating devil in the first season. A regular Romeo and Juliet passion blazes up—all for love and the world well lost. All London look- ing on. Lady Mallowe frantic and furious. Suddenly the fascinating devil ruined for life, done for. Bolts, gets killed. ,Lady Mallowe triumph- ant. Girl dragged about afterward like a beautiful young demon in chains. Refuses all sorts of things. Behaves infernally, Nobody knows anything else." Nobody did know; Lady Mallowe herself did not. From the first year in which Jean had looked at her with child consciousness she had felt that there was antagonism in the deeps of her eyes. No mother likes to recognize such a thing, and Lady Mallowe, was a particularly vain wo- man. The child was going to be an undeniable beauty, and she ought to adore the mother who was to arrange her future. Ihstead of which, she plainly disliked her. By the time she was three years old, the antagonism had become defiance and rebellion. Lady Mallowe could not even indulge herself in the satisfaction of show- ing her embryo beauty off, and thus preparing a reputation for her. She was not cross or tearful, but she had the temper of a little devil. She would not be shown off. She hated it, and her bearing dangerously sug- gested that she hated her handsome young mother. No effects could be produced with her. Before she was four the antagon- ism was mutual, and it increased with years. The child was of a paasion- ate nature, and had been born in- tensely not all her mother was. A' throw -back to some high-spirited and fiercely honest ancestor created in her a fury at the sight of mean fals- ities and dishonors. Before she was old enough to know the exact cause of her rage she was shaken by it. She thought she had a bad temper, and was bad enough to hate her own mother without being able to, help it. As she grew older she found out that she was not really so bad as she had thought, though she was obliged to concede that nothing palliative could be said about the temper. It had been violent from the first, and she had lived in an atmosphere which in- furiated it. She did not suppose such a thing could be controlled. It some- times frightened her. Had not the old Marquis of Norborough been cel- ebrated through his entire life for his furies a• Was there not a hushed -up rumor that he had oncethrown a de- canter at his wife, and so nearly killed her that people had -been asking one another in whispers if a peer of the realm could be hanged. He had been born that way, so had she. Her school room days had been a horror to her, and also a terror, because she had often almost flung ink bottles and heavy„rulers at her silly, lying gov- ernesses, and once had dug a nair of scissors into one sneaking old maid fool's arm when she had made her "-see red" by her ignoble trickeries. Perhaps she would be hanged some day herself. She once prayed for a week that the might be made better tempered,—riot that she believed in prayer,—and of course nothing came Ott it. • Every year she lived she raged mare foriously at the tricks she 'saw played by her mother and every one who surrounded her; the very ser - Vents were 'greater liars and pilferers than any other servants. Her moth- er was always trying to gel) things from people which they did not want to give her. She would carry off slights and snubs as though' they were actual tributes, if she could gaits her end. ''The girl knew what the mean- ing of her own future would be. Since she definitely disliked her' daughter, Lady Mallowe did not mince matters when they were alone.. She had no matey, she was extremely good 'leek- Iprn fYouCantBary New Hayes cut pJ��Cleoaou cao 671'6001C a .il ailbyga dined YOUR E G.S iurfnc E -c Remedy Ntclu rad hl[omivg,•• Seep your PveaMoae, etear ae, ISealtlw. welt sae' Free Ireecus eeex. Notloo 2ro flemedv Cs..9 Cas? Oafs 3'u:. aI:ao w91y dee dId e of till , 04atn some waw e' tate, at the ladies wxp ogler dinner. Fear esi spas ir waiting pri it ,overYthing ,in •readuleasa. the rapid.. performance • ',af , .hie. duties; Teel/baron bad learned to al- low himself• be waited upon: " He bad, in fast, done flits, for the sans - Continued on page six:, - The Only �iu?ior >t! YoungHyon. • i4L UC 0 1 N� )1:1,44/- ° 4 oo 7&iccc" M1i f` r� '1 r lir�l6; j7 i�"1-�pG tie' i -a nM1 'a aaa 3 THE man who smokes the big plug has reasons aplenty, aside from m the real pipe 0 en- joyment he gets from Master Mason. There is no waste: there's F:o kss of flavor : and there's the satisfying economy. 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