1932-09-26 — Page 15

THE HONGKONG - TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1932.

THE LATE ARNOLD BENNET'S LAST LONGSTORY

"DREAM OF DESTINY"

(Copyright Strictly Reserved).

CHAPTER I

woman ds-

of

courteous guards apparently insenter of arrears of rent. (The harah- Mrs. Lynton Smythe, hostess

Roland moved towards

to

"And her children."-

and

An-

"You're evidently very keen on Why the theatre," he remarked with false composure, in a pause.

"Keen! I live for it. It's horri- ble, but I live for it."

"Do you act!"

had dropped down dead. A fear- "I can't help thinking I've met ful shock. The ceremony had had you somewhere before, Miss Friar," to be postponed for a day. Highly said Roland, who was occasionally perturbing for everyone concern- impulsive. Ho was aware of a ed. He recalled his own feelings. over part of the lawn and sur disconcerting sensation, not more- However, it had been all right in rounded by gilt chaire (also hiredly that he had met the girl before, the end. Disconcerting, such as 'Howard', and had entitled for the night), a number of people but had met hor in this gardon, seriously so! The most discon-

dancing boneath coloured the whole (with the approval of were

Disconcerting, but not seriously corting coincidorice in his wholo Roland Lane Smith was ewung the Post Office) Thames Court. electric globes hung on wires from so. Nearly everyone experiences life. By far the most disconcert-

A few other people were up out of the Tube railway-full Thus a charwoman could begin a trees.

dream, which he had glittering cool carriages, with hom- letter with the words "Howard, strolling about in pairs, light some time or other the sensa-ing. The

tion of having lived figures and dark. The glowing through the moment in which he had dreamed of meeting her in before forgotten, and the real event, Ho ing theatregoors, intoxicated males Thames Court, Chelsen, S.W.8," arguing lovingly arm-in-arm, Roland knew personally many of tips of cigarettes could be discern is living; and men of science have an illuminated garden, and he had. amorous couples, inscrutable and

children: tached herself from the distant explained the phenomenon by at- met her in an illuminated garden. silent men, inscrutable and silent the tenants and a few of their in-here and there. A

shricking which fact did not mitigate his crowd and came hastening in the tributing it to a fault in the dual Naught but his strong social netie women, newspaper-scanners, book-numerable

of the house. It was functioning of the brain: Roland prevented him from running away. readers, smokers, indifferent and steely harshness in the grave mat-direction

reentled.

Neoing from her electrical indi- I've not met you before," said viduality, hor beauty-if beauty alble to fatigue and monatony

Miss Friar positively, "But I saw she had, the loud yet quiet thrill and ennuf, all unwealthy-into the ness, by the way, helped him to the night.

maintain the esteem of his some her. hot July night at South Kensing what old-fashioned Board; it was "My dear Roland! How nice of you to-night at the St. James's of her voice, fleeing away and Arat-night. Perhaps that was it." taking every precaution nover to ten. In a back-tilted opera-hat and the one thing in his strange philo-you! I was afraid. Shaking

Roland set-eyes on her again. She was full evening-dres9,

whito with flower, but no overcoat, he stuck ophy which they could thoroughly hands, she glanced up suddenly at "It must have been," his hands into his pockets and understand and endorse in their the windowed wall of the house, agreed. "And yet I'm ashamed (affrightingly dangerous to him.

hearts). He had become a won-"Now, chicks. You are really very, to say I didn't notice you." strolled leisurely along throughder-man in the eyes of the fashion- very naughty. You ought to be ether of his social cliches. Sussex Place towards The Boltons.able or intellectual friends of his asleep. You know this isn't your should he be ashamed?

"Subconscious you know Quiet gradually succeeded racket. There were fow peden- youth, a legend to hostesses, an party. You'll have yours on Satur trians, and in the ronds nothing exemplar to the smart young of day afternoon. Now do get into But I was in a box," but swift cars and labouring taxis.both sexes. His yearly salary was bed again. You've been put to bed

Thoy chatted about the play. $1,250, and this, with his private twice already."

"It's He reached the large oval which means, gave him case and some

the band," shrieked

"Did you like it?" she naked. culla itself The Boltons, with the luxury at eventide in his busy and child's voice from an upper storey. "Yes, I did. Especially the last dark heavy mass of the Church of anxious life. He was under forty. We can't sleep because of the act. It frightened me, the last

act did." St. Mary in the midst, and had to a bachelor, elegant, well known; his band." count numbers to find the house, own master-in truth if not in "The band will stop, darlings.”

"Ok! I'm so glad, First-night for this was his first visit to his theory. He had not a care in the And at that moment the band did audiences are so stupid, aren't cousin's now homo. He found it world. Except Thames Court. stop, and guests began to arrange they? They haven't changed a bit by the brown matting laid across And Thames Court was perfect, a chairs in Bemi-circle on the in five years. I'll tell you one "What trifle of a name I have 1 the pavement and by the brilliant boon to an Industrial mass; the dance-boarding in order to watch thing. The author of that play made In New York." She had no lighting of the house and by the

miracles

Sho practical phil- the promised

of a didn't know how good he pose, no self-consciousness. open front-door and the open door anthropists. Only Roland was for magician

(also

hired for the was-- nor-how-- bad-ha was," was an actrose; she was like an of the front garden and the comever worried by the sense of the night). Nancy held Roland's hand Miss Friar separated the words, actress; her voltage was terrifc; missionaire therat. His widowed crowdedness of his multitudinous with a certain pressure and guzed emphasizing cach, and at the end but she was not like an actress. cousin was warming her new tenants. The children had asphalte up at him as though she had been of the sentence bringing down her Ho thought, he was convinced, home; cars were ranked all round to disport themselves on; their living for the delicious encounter right hand on her knee with a that she must be a great actress. the inner railing of the oval: old parents

had the roofs, in fine and was enjoying it to the full grandiose finishing gesture. Eleonora Duse, Mrs. Patrick inhabitants of adjoining houses

But the housewives were Elegantly dreseed in fashionable "I remember now," said Roland Campbell. He learned, by ques- wore being annoyed and kept awake

black, she had the siveet yearning unthinkingly, and then checked tioning, that she had gone out to by the unwonted stir due to the

air of a kindly hostess, a relation himself.

New York, having played nothing vast hospitality of the new in-

with a proper sense of the family,

in England but tiny parts habitant.

ja mother of a young brood and the "Oh, nothing. Do go on about and those in touring

well for the reason that to dress fully interesting." slave of a conscience who dressed the play. What you say is fright-companies, and then instantly aroused the enthusiasm of Alan well was a duty. She looked wor-i

But he had indeed remembered. Dale, the arch-destroyer, in New ried, but amiably and happily He remembered that two nights York. And she was made." She

Spaciousness: that was the lead- Ing quality of The Boltons; space between the seemly, three-storied

Street,

space in the large gardens

where Roland lived in!

cynosure

weather.

of

||UNFINISHED

MASTERPIECE

housed behind them. Half Moon Arnold Bennett's last 'chambers' (two rooms and a bath-story, the first instal-right" zoom, and a landlady noted for the ment of which appears gracious superiority of her deport-222 this page, ment towards her 'gentlemen'),

spaciousness. And Roland was al- ways preoccupied by his sense of

was certainly not characterized by unfinished, but this

does

not spoil its the difference hotween spacious-worth 07 readable ness and the nutshell. He happen-

but rather ed to be the secretary and etter-quality, tive ruler) of the Leicester Trust adds a mystery value Homes Limited, which homes were

which will be found low-rented flats, hundreds of them storey above storey in five immense

very intriguing. blocks near King's Road, Chelsea. Simeon Leicester, the deceased money-lender, had in his will left|

some

a

"Oh yes."

"What?"

"My name is Phoebe Friar. I've been acting five years in America, where they've been very kind to me."

How stupid

"Oh! Forgive me.

of me!" anld he. "It never oc- cured to me."

"Why should it?" she laughed.

worried, for she was doing the earlier he had dreamed of being and bean put, and she had con- thing that night. Roland in just such an "Illuminated gartrived to stay 'put.' And then, thought, as he folded her in hiaden as this garden in The Boltona hungry for London, driven by an entle loving suavity: "Why and of being introduced to just overpowering nostalgia, she had house-warming? is

Her daughters such a girl as this Miss Friar and returned to the dead city. And won't be ripo for marriage for of sitting with her on just such in a month's time, fifteen or twenty years yet." He a bench as this bench. It was her newspapers had not yet gathered though the knew, from hints and glances, that broad, violent gesture in finishing the news, she was to 'open' as a

well-meaning friends yea in himself an ideal second hus- the sentence which had reminded star, with her name burning in band for her. But the altar and him of the dream. The dream, pink on the facade of a theatre in And there another man's brood did not in the like almost all his dreams and Shaftesbury Avenue.

people's she sat by his bide, na simply as H least attract him. Still, he liked like niniest all other

Twenty-seven, twenty- they liked him and called her, and he liked the children and dreams, had been faint and vague, nobody!

him Within five minutes of awaking eight, conceivably twenty-nine, not staying with 'uncle boisteroualy or timidly ac from it he had forgotten the de- thirty. She cording to their natures and their tails of it, and within an hour dearest Nancy until her parents mood.

he had forgotten the whole dream. came back to London from some- Theu Nancy's hostess-cye, heed-But now it was returning to him, where on the continent. She mon- the greater part of a considerable all living and working on the top fully roving, saw a girl seated lone- or perhaps rising up from the tioned hor parents with adoring fortune for the erection of in- of one another. They lacked room ly on a garden-bench in an obscure jeternal safe-desposit of his sub- affectionate respect.

turn round. They lacked corner. dustrial flats, and in the same docu-to

conscious. Bit by bit it recon- "It was they who, forced me on conscious to the stage," she said, with a ment had appolated Roland Lane spaciousness in their everlasting "Do come and be introduced to stituted itself in his Smith to be the controlling man- toil,

Friar," said she, drawing memory. Well, if you had any light, resounding laugh.

"Oh! Did they? How?" ager of the enterprise. A felicitous He passed through the garden Roland towards the bench. "She's social decency and Roland had a windfall for Heland, who had been gate of his cousin's widow's house a wonderful girl and a very great lot-you could not tell a perfect "By putting some alliteration a mere acquaintance of Simeon's, in The Boltons, and the commis-friend of mine; and she's only just stranger, and a girl, that you had into my name, and disguising with but who without knowing it had sionaire saluted him. He passed arrived from New York."

been dreaming about her in ad- a ph, Phoebe Friar.

That name

garden

Miss

was less

the things she

Was

It's very

deeply impressed the old Jew, into the house, through the open "I should adore to meet her,"vance. It wasn't done. For this just had to be on the foreheads Roland had accepted the reapon- door, and a superb functionary in Roland said, using a cliche of his reason he had checked himself of theatres, Mr. Smythe." She sibility. From being a university-evening-dress bowed to him, and social idiom. He had been intro-He looked at her and listened. laughed again. educated idle amateur of life, he another superb functionary reduced to hundreds of wonderful All she said was original and in- "Yes," he smiled. "But may I had flowered almost suddenly into ceived his hat across the table girls in his evening career, and he teresting. But what interested tell you my name's Smith?"* a serious and weighty person. True, bearing a saucer of pins and an managed so far as possible to pre-him

"But your cousin's name was he had a Board to humour, but empty saucer, and gave him a pink serve the wonder of all of them in said than the way she said them. Smythe, How was that?" within six months he was carrying ticket in exchange, and a third his esteem. The girl did not rise, She said them as though they "Well," he said, with another the Board In his pocket. He had superb bowing functionary waved she sprang up and avized Nancy's mattered--at any rate to herself, smile, "I don't know. studied the subject of 'dwellings", him respectfully forward through hand and kissed it.

Each phrase, each Inflection, mysterious. Somebody must have had superintended in every detail the halls of the house towards the "Dearest!" she exclaimed in a throbbed with her vitality. She changed it." the planning and the building of open

door. Everywhere rich, throbbing contralto voice, was an intensely vital individual. "Or yours!" the serried flats. The flats were was reckless and wanton space, "what an organizer you are! This She lived intensely through every "No. Not mine. I'm awfully the last and the finest word of in- "Everyone is in the garden, sir," fete of yours is marvellous." Some syllable. Every syllable had im- sorry I've got to go," he mur- dustrial flats in London. The flats said the third functionary. Roland alight trace of an American accent portance for her. As she spoke mured, in a voice broken, queer, wore very ingeniously duvised; divined, knowing Nancy's habits, in her tones..

she could not have lived more in. He rose. Still a further episode they had all the space-economies of that all the functionaries were

"I want you to know my poor tensely had she been proclaiming from his dream had risen from the nyacht: they had open playgrounds hired for the night,and that pro- husband's cousin, Reland Lane her faith amid the fires of the sub-conscious. She was lying very and covered playgrounds, electri-bably each of them lived and kept Smith." (Nancy pronounced Smith stake. city (at a special rate), gas (with a family in a home that the front- Smythe'.)

He thought: she must be in a bedroom, doctor on the "I'm sure you know all some sort of an artist. She was right of the bed, Roland on the. free stoves and rings), refuse- hall alone would have contained about him. ... Mias shoots on each floor, hot-water on with room to spare. He was in land.

Friar, Rorather richly dressed, but not left. The doctor bent down to hor, Come and see the conjurer with care; her dark frock was straightened himself, glanced at cach floor, hot water even in the the garden. In the distance of the as soon as you feel inclined." And awry. He would neither deny nor Roland. She was dead. The doc. wash-house on each floor, many illuminated garden he could hear then off she abruptly ran, for three affirm that she was beautiful. Her tor vanished from the room. A balconies, and level roofs with the thin sound of a band. The new guests were emerging from the safety rails, and above all Roland gurden seemed boundless in the house.

feyes had the glinting frame of nurse, all white and blug, entered, had refused to imprint the namo night. Although he was seeing it

beauty. Assuredly her Miss Friar and Roland sat down untidy hair-brown,

heavy weeping. For a few seconds the of Leicester on the walls, and re-for the first time, the garden op-side by side. Misa Friar blowing aing auburn-was beautiful.

nurse could not speak. "The baby just escap-

Roland muttered. - The fused to baptize the blocks "Block peared somehow vaguely familiar kiss to Nancy's flying back.

Her too?" A", "Block B", Block C, etc. In-to him.

"She's got an extraordinary gift gestures were violent and ungain- nurse nodded, and sobbed into her

(Continued on Page 11.) stead he had bestowed on each At the far end of the hot garden, for hospitality," said Misa Friary. The essence of life emanated block the name of a philanthropist, on a wooden floor temporarily laid "She seems to live for her friends from her. He remembered that in the dream he had married her, Ho know that in the dream he had married her, if only because of a vory strange incident before the wedding. The aged clergyman

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