1932-09-26 — Page 3

F

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1932.

THE LATE ARNOLD BENNET'S LAST LONGSTORY

"DREAM OF DESTINY".

(Copyright Strictly Reserved).

CHAPTER I

Jover part of

the lawn and sur-

"And her children."

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 feelinga. rounded by gilt chairs (also hired disconcerting sensation, not more-However, it had been all right in ly that he had met the girl boforo, tho end. Disconcerting, and such pa 'Howard', and had entitled for the night), a number of people but had met her in this garden, seriously so! The most discon- the whole (with the approval of were dancing beneath coloured Disconcerting, but not seriously corting coincidonce in his whole Roland Lane Smith was swung the Post Offee) Thames Court. clectric globes hung on wires from 40, Nearly everyone experiences iffe. By far the most disconcert- up out of the Tube railway-full Thus a charwoman could begin a trees. A few other people wore it some time or other the sonsa ing. The dream, which he had

words "Howard, atrolling glittering cool carriages, with hom letter with the

about in pairs, light tion of having vod before forgotten, and the real event. Ho

dark. The glowing ing theatregoers, intoxicated males Thames Court, Chelsea, S.W.3." figures and arguing lovingly arm-in-arm, Roland know personally many of tips of elgarettes could be discerned through the moment in which he had dreamed of meeting her in amorous couples, inscrutable and allont men, inscrutable and silent the tenants and a few of their in-here and there. A woman de-a living; and men of science have an illuminated garden, and he had

shricking

children: tached herself from the distant explained the phenomenon by at-met her in an illuminated garden. mitigate his crowd and came hastening in the tributing it to a fault in the dual Naught but his strong social senso women, newspaper-acanners, book-numerable

was functioning of the brain: Roland prevented him from running away, readers, smokers, Indifferent and which fact did not

fleeing from her electrical indi- courteous guarda apparently insen- steely harshness in the grave mat-direction of the house. It

"I've not met you before," saidviduality, her beauty-if benuty sible to fatigue and monotony ter of arrears of rent. (The harsh Mrs. Lynton Smythe, hostess of recalled.

Miss Friar positively. "But I saw she had, the loud yet quiet thrill and ennul, all unwealthy-into the ness, by the way, helped him to the night. Roland moved towards het July night at South Kensing-maintain the esteem of his some hor.

My dear Holand! How nice of you to-night at the St. James's of her. voice, fleeing away and Shaking frat-night. Perhaps that was it."taking every precaution never to ton. In a back-tilted opera-hat and what old-fashioned Board; It was

white the one thing in his strange philo-you! I was afraid..

"It must have beon," Roland set eyes on her again. She was full evening-dress, with flower, but no overcont, he stuck sophy which they could thoroughly hands, she glanced up suddenly at

and understand and endorse in their the windowed wall of the house.greed. "And yet I'm ashamed affrightingly dangerous to him.

An- "You're evidently very keen on his hands into his pockets

hearts). He had become a von-"Now, chicks. You are really very, to say I didn't notico you."

Why the theatre," he remarked with atrolled leisurely along through

false composure, in a pause. Sussex Place towards The Boltons. der-man in the eyes of the fashion-very naughty. You ought to be other of his social cliches.

able or intellectual friends of his asleep. You know this isn't your should he be ashamed?

"Subconscious you know- "Keen! I live for it. It's harri- Quiet gradually succeeded

an party. You'll have yours on Satur-

ble, but I live for it." tackol. There were few pedes-youth, a legend to hostesses,

"Do you act!" trians, and in the roads nothing exemplar to the smart young of day afternoon. Now do get into But I was in a box.

His yearly salary was bed again.. You've been put to bed but swift cars and labouring taxia,

He reached the large oval which $1,200, and this, with his private twice already."

case and some means, gave him calls itself The Beltons, with the luxury at eventide in his busy and dark heavy mass of the Church of anxious life. He was under forty, St. Mary' in the midst, and had to ja bachelor, elegant, well known, his truth If not in count numbers to find the house, own master-in

cousin

to

by the unwonted stir due to the vast hospitality

habitant.

of the new in-

Spaciousness: that was the lead-i

ing quality of The Bullons; space between the seemly, three-storied houses, space in the large gardens glimpsed behind them. Half Moon

Street, where Roland lived

in

both sexes.

cynosure

UNFINISHED

MASTERPIECE

Arnold Bennett's last story, the first instal- tent of which appears

this

page,

251

**

al

"It's the band," shrieked child's voice from an upper storey. "We can't sleep because of the band."

"The band will stop, darlings." And at that moment the band did

miracles

well was a duty. She looked wor-

worried, for she was doing. the

"Oh yes."

"What?"

She

She

And then,

And

They chatted about the plny. "My name is Phoebe Friar. I've "Did you like it?" she asked.

been acting five years in America, "Yes, I did. Especially the last where they've been very kind to

me, the last me." act. It frightened nct did."

"Oh! Forgive me. How stupid "Oh I'm so glad. First-night of me!" and he. "It never oc- audiences are so stupid, area't cured to me." for this was his first visit to his theory. He had not a care in tho

"Why should it?" she laughed. cousin's new home. He found it world. Except Thames Court. stop, and guests began to arrange they? They haven't changed a bit! hy the brown matting laid ncross And Thames Court was perfect, a chairs in a semi-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

phil-the promised of practical lighting of the house and by the

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

for the was nor-how- bad he was. was an actress; she was. like an of the front garden and the com: ever worried by the sense of the night). Nancy held Roland's hand Miss Friar separated the words, actress; her voltage was terrific; missionaire therat. His widowed crowdedness of his multitudinous with a certain pressure and gazed emphasizing each, and at the end but she was not like an actress. was convinced, was warming her new tenants. The children had asphalte up at him as though she had been of the sentence bringing down her Ile thought, he home; cars were ranked all round to diaport themselves on; their living for the delicious encounter right hand on her knee with a that she must be a great actress.

fine and was enjoying it to the full grandiose finishing gesture.

Duse, Eleonora the inner railing of the oval: old parents had the roofs, in

Mrs. Patrick in fashionable inhabitants of adjoining houses weather. But the housewives were Elegantly dressed

"I remember now," said Roland Campbell, He learned, by ques- black, she had the sweet yearning unthinkingly, and then checked tioning, that she had gone out to were being annoyed and kept awake

air of a kindly hostess, a relation himself.

New York, having played nothing with a proper sense of the family,

in England but tiny parts in mother of young brood and the

and. "Oh, nothing. Do go on about

those in touring stave of a conscience who dressed the play. What you say is fright- companies, *nd then instantly well for the reason that to dress fully interesting."

aroused the enthusiasm of Alan But he had indeed remembered. Dale, the arch-destroyer, in Now

And she was 'made." ried, but amiably and happily He remembered that two nights York

in just such an illuminated gar-trived to stay 'put." right thing that night. Roland earlier he had dreamed of being had been pat, and she had come thought, as he folded her in his den as this garden in The Boltona hungry for London, driven by an gentle," loving suavity: "Why and of being introduced to just overpowering nostalgia, she had | house-warming?

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

the sentence which had reminded star, with her name burning in seen in himself an ideal second hus him of the dream. The dream, pink on the facade of a theatre in band for her. But the altar and

and Shaftesbury Avenue. And there another mus brood did not in the like almost all his dreams

almost tril other people's she sat by his side, as simply as a least attract him. Still, he likedvem, had been faint and vague. nobody! Twenty-seven, twenty- her, and he liked the children and they liked him and called him within five minutes of awaking eight, conceivably twenty-nine, not Was staying with uncle'-boisterously or timidly ac from it he had forgotten the de- thirty. She

an hour dearest Nancy until her parents cording to their natures and their tails of it, and within

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

Jacked corner. turn round. They

consclous. Bit by bit it recon- "It was they who forced me on dustrial flats, and in the same docu.to

conscious to the stage," ahe said, with n ment had appointed Roland Lane spaciousness in their everlasting "Do come and be introduced to stituted itself in his Smith to be the controlling man- toll.

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

"Oh! Did they? How?" nger of the enterprlac. A fellcitous

He passed through the garden Roland towards the bench. "She's social decency--and Roland bad a

By putting some alliteration windfall for Roland, 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 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. 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 respon-door, and a superb functionary in Roland said, using a cliche of his reason he had checked himself. of theatres, Mr. Smythe." sibility. From being a university-evening-dress bowed to him, and social idiom. He had been intro- He looked at her and latened. laughed again." educated idle amateur of life, he another superb functionary re-duced to

"Yes," he smiled. "But may I hundreds of wonderful All she said was original and in- had flowered almost suddenly into celved his but across the table girls in his evening career, and be teresting. But what, interested tell you my name's Smith?' a serious and weighty person. True, bearing a saucer of ping and an managed so far as possible to pre-him

"But your cousin's the things she was less 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 auid, with another the Board in his pocket. He had superb bowing functionary waved--she sprang up and seized 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 inflicetion, mysterious, Somebody must have had superintended in every detall 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 garden 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. the last and the finest word of in- "Everyone is in the garden, sir," fete of yours is marvellous." Some svitable. Every syllable had im sorry I've got to go," dustrial flats in London. The flats said the third functionary Roland slight trace of an American accent portance for her. As she spoke mured, in a voice broken, qucer. were very ingeniously devised; divined, knowing Nancy's habits, in her tonen.

she could not have lived more in- He rose.

chambers, two rooms and a bath room, and a landlady noted for the gracious superiority of her deport-211 ment towards her 'gentlemen'), was certainly not characterized by unfinished, but this spaciousness. And Roland was al does

not spoil its ways pranceupied by his sense of the difference between spacious! worth 01' readable ness and the nutshell. He happen-

but rather ed to be the secretary (and eter-quality, tive ruler) of the Leleuster Trust adds a mystery value low-rented flats, hundreds of them which will be found storey above storey in five immense

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

Homes Limited, which homes were

mood.

Miss

That name

She

name whS

It's very

I'm awfully he mur-

Still a further episode

A

they had all the space-economies of that all the functionaries were want you to know my poor tengely had she been proclaiming from his dream had risen from the a yacht: they had open playgrounds hired for the night,and that pro- husband's cousin, Roland 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. He thought: she must be in a bedroom, doctor on the city (at a special rato), gas (with a family in a home that the front- Smythe") "I'm aure you know all free stoves and rings) refuse-hall alone would have contained about him.... Miss Friar, Rsome sort of an artist. She was right of the bed, Roland on the shoots on each floor, hot-water on with room to spare. He was in land.

but not left. The doctor bent down to her, Come and see the conjurer with

rather richly dressed,

cara; her dark frock was straightened himself, glanced at each 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 run, for three affirm that she was beautiful. Her tor vanished from the room, balconies, and level roofs with the thin sound of a band. The new guests were emerging from the eyes had the glinting frame of nurse, all white and blue, entered, safety rails, and above all Roland garden seemed boundless in the house. had refused to imprint the name night. Although he was seeing it

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

heavy weeping. For a few seconda the! of Leicester on the walls, and re- for the first time, the garden ap side by side, Miss Friar blowing aing auburn--was beautiful.

just escap-murae could not speak. "The baby muttered. The Her too?" Roland fused to baptize the blocks "Block peared somehow vaguely familiar kiss to Nancy's flying back. A", "Block B", Block C", etc. In-to him.

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

(Continued on Pago 11.) atend he had bestowed on ench At the far end of the hot garden, for hospitality," said Miss Friary. The casence of life omanated block the name of a philanthropist, on a wooden floor temporarily laid "She seems to live for her friends from her. He remembered that

ber

in the dream he had married her. He knew that in the dream he had married her, if only because of a vory strange incident before the wedding. The aged clergymau

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