Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 9, Number 42, DeMotte, Jasper County, 7 September 1939 — Prologue to Love [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Prologue to Love

By MARTHA OSTENSO

O MARTHA OSTENSO—WNU SERVICE

SYNOPSIS Lovely. Independent Autumn Dean, returning home to British Columbia from abroad without her father's knowledge, stops at the home of Hector Cardigan, an old family friend, He tells her that she should not have come home, that things have changed. Arriving home at the "Castle of the Norns.” she ts greeted lovipgly by her father. Jarvis Dean, who gives her to understand that she is welqpme —for a short visit Her mother, former belle named Millicent Odell, has been dead for years Autumn cannot understand her father's attitude, though gives him to understand that she is home for good. She has grown tired of life in England, where she lived with an aunt. Riding around the estate with her father. Autumn realizes that he has changed.

CHAPTER ll—Continued — 3— When Autumn drew abreast of her father again, his face was oddly rigid and colorless. Hector Cardigan had been right, then. Her father had changed. He was not the man she had known in other years. He was getting old. and the burden of living had lain too heavily upon him. Her impatience with his mood melted to pity as she thought of him. “By the way. father, how are the Landors?” she asked casually, when they had ridden a short distance. “Eh? The Landors? Ah—they’re well, I presume,” he said absently. “You told me at Christmas time that Mrs. Landor had been ill.” she reminded him. “Oh, yes, yes, of courae,” he said hastily. “Old Jane has been very low. She’s not long for this world. I’m afraid.” “And Bruce?” But Jarvis had fixed his eyes suddenly on a straggling bunch of frail new weeds close to the trail. He dismounted abruptly and pulled the grasses up by the roots. “Milk vetch*” he remarked, and got back into the saddle. When they arrived at the camp, old Absolom was in his shack, brewing coffee and frying bacon. While her father went indoors, Autumn lingered for a moment outside, her eyes sweeping the rounded skyline above her, where the morning sun was burnishing the hills. The snug little valley into which she had ridden was filled with the bleat of ewes and the tiny cry of hundreds of new-1 born lambs. On the sunlit slope above her, the mam flocks grazed,! ewes with their lambs old enough to be released from the pens, or ewes which had not yet dropped their young. . Jarvis Dean's voice called to her from the doorway of the shack. There was old Absolom Peek, grown more wizened and gnome-like than ever, his weathered face contorted in a shy grin. He held the screen door open and she ran up to him. “Hello, Absolom!” she called. He shook hands with her, his old eyes beaming and watering with delight. “Welcome home, Miss Autumn!” he said, achieving a gallant little jerk of a bow “You’ve been gone a long time. But a line young lady they’ve made of you, I see.” Autumn laughed and glanced at her father who stood by, tall and elegant in is riding clothes, smiling indulgently down upon his old herder. “I’ve been gone too long, Absolom,” Autumn said. “But I’m home for good now, and I'll be over to see you often.” “We’ll be makin’ for the hills right after shcarin Absolom told hoi . “In about another fortnight.” “Stay and visit with Absolom while I go out arid look over the new family,” Jarvis said, starting for the coral. “Come along when you feel like it.” Autumn entered the shack and seated herself while Absolom tended to his coffee and bacon. “It’ll be like old times havin’ you back at the Castle, Miss Autumn.” the old herder said. “You'll be puttin’ new life into the old place.” "Perhaps the old place could stand a little new life.' Autumn replied. Absolom turned to her with the frying pan in one hand, then glanced quickly through the doorway. “And I’m telling you it could stand a lot of it,” he said. “You never Saw' such a place as that’s got to be. The Laird’s a great man. an’ still hearty for a man of his years, mind you, but there's need of someone about the house there besides that poor old body that does the cookin’ and the cleanin'. In the old days we used to have a bit of a dance now an’ then, or something to keep a man from gettin’ old before his time — but yon's a morgue, gettin’ to be.” “You give me an idea, Absolom,” Autumn said. “It isn't every day in the year that a daughter comes home. I'm going to celebrate I’m going to invite the whole countryside to a dance. Will you come? We couldn't give a party without you.” “We ll be leavin' in another fortnight,” he reminded her. “We'U make it next Friday night, then.” Absolom’s face lighted up with enormous pleasure. “I’ll come, right enough, if I can get away to it. But ye’ll promise to put on a few o’ die old dances, mind. I’m gettin’ too stiff in the j’ints for the stuff they call dancin’ nowadays.” Autumn laughed. “If some of the youngsters today tried your reels, Absolom, they'd have to be carried off the floor.” “Aye, that’s right enough, too. But who’ll ye be askin', now?”

“Everybody!” Autumn replied. The old fellow’s eyes became dreamy with reminiscence. ‘Tve had many a good turn in my time with Katie Macdougall, down at The Bend—if ye’ll think of it to ask her,” he suggested archly. “We’ll send her a special invitation, Absolom,” Autumn promised, getting up. “I’d better leave you to your coffee, now. while I go and take a look at the lambs.” “Aye, an’ they’re worth lookin’ at. Nigh unto five hundred was dropped durin’ the night.” Autumn went out and found her father beside one of the pens that opened off the corral. Within it a large, robust ewe stood in maternal dignity, while about her pranced a day-old lamb on its ridiculous legs, flicking an absurd cottony tail. Autumn laughed in sheer delight. “Oh, you little rascal!” she said. “I’ll have to learn about sheep all over again, Da.” She glanced up at him and noted the wistful eagerness that came into his eyes, and the quick, unaccountable restraint that immediately masked them. He sighed heavily. “It's no business for a woman, my girl.” “That's a man’s opinion. Da,” she countered. “And it’s my opinion that a woman can talk a lot of damned nonsense, given the chance,” her father retorted. “With the help of God, I’ll be out of the business myself before another year.” “Out of sheep-raising?” “I’m going to sell,” he told her. Autumn caught her breath with dismay. “Now who is talking nonsense? You’d die without all this—you know you would.” One of the sheep dogs, a graceful collie, came bounding up to them and Jarvis stooped to pat him. “I know, I know. But I’m getting too old for it. Autumn.” They moved to another pen and Autumn laid her hand affectionately on her father’s arm. “I never heard anything so absurd in my life,” she said, then decided to turn the conversation into another channel. “Now, that ewe, Da, is a Rambouillet, isn’t it?” Jarvis smiled appreciatively, drawn out in spite of himself. “I sent you to Europe to forget all that,” he mused aloud. “But it’s little you can do with a woman, it seems.” - With a lighter heart, Autumn mounted her horse and rode beside her father up the steep trail that led back to the highway. It was ten years or more since the Laird had opened his wide doors to tire purposes of merry-making, and people had come from as far away as Kelowna to welcome his daughter's homecoming. The drawing room and the hall thundered with the lusty measures of a Highland schottisehe; Old Country folk stamped resolutely on the polished floors middle-aged and elderly Scots, their gnarled faces scarlet and streaming, swung their partners with the earnestness of warriors going into battle. Not the least conspicuous and and certainly the most terrifying of all, was old Absolom Peek, whose flaming red necktie rested companionably on the shoulder of his partner, Katie Macdougall. Autumn stood near the doorway and applauded the efforts of the old sheep-herder, who beamed his gratitude and pursued his course more desperately than ever. When the dance came to an end and the exhausted performers scattered to find chairs or to go out into the evening, two or three of the younger men hurried toward Autumn. One took her peremptorily by the arm and drew her aside. “The next dance is ours. Miss Dean,” he informed her a little complacently. ”1 have asked the orchestra to favor us with a tango." Florian Parr was reputed to be the most dashing young man of the countryside. -The Parrs, a wealthy Scotch family with a ranch in the Okanagan Valley, had left their son in England to complete his education and had brought him out a year after Autumn had left to join her Aunt Flo in the Old Country. Her father had introduced him to Autumn earlier in the evening and her eyes had surveyed him, with a penetration subtly careless, from head to foot. He was just under thirty, blond, tall, firmly knit, and dressed in white flannels and impeccably tailored blue sack coat. In that amusing medley of rustics and bland sophisticates who were her father’s friends, Florian Parr stood out like a man from another world. His manner was an immediate challenge to Autumn. “Our dance, Mr. Parr? I cannot recall making any engagements.” He stepped closer to her. “It is not so much a matter of engagement, Miss Dean, as it is—a matter of preference.” She laughed. “Yours—or mine. Mr. Parr?” “I can only speak for myself.” he replied. She wrinkled her nose at him. “You seem to find little difficulty in that.” “Are you going to make this awkward?” he countered* Autumn chuckled softly. “Not at all, Mr. Par. Besides, I should

think a man who plays polo and pilots his own plane-—” “A splendid alliteration,” he put in. Before she could reply, he had swung her out upon the floor The orchestra had already begun to play. The crystal chandeliers of the drawing room were turned off. and immediately the long floor was a dim pool of violet light from the colored lanterns that had been strung below the ceiling Autumn noted the eyes that followed herself and Florian, shadowed eyes of envy or of admiration, and overheard one or two comments mat were unequivocal. She permitted herself to drift in the joy of the dance, glancing up at her partner now and then with that rare, long took of half-closed eyes that is the piquant complement of that most subtly articulate of dances. In the encore that followed the tango, Florian maneuvered so that they became separate from the main body of the' dancers, arid moved through the open French windows, out across the piazza and down the steps into the garden. Florian leaned above her With one elbow resting on the bough of the tree. She saw him smile as he lifted a lock of her hair and pretended to peer at the moon through its mesh. “Mr. Parr,” she said, with mock severity, “I must* remind you that

I am hostess this evening- and must be treated with the dignity due my position.” "You might also add that we met for the first time not . more than an hour ago,” he said. ”1 do.” e “But it has been an unforgettable hour,'' he responded. Another couple strolled by in the moonlight. “Look here,” Florian said suddenly. “Why can’t you come down for the week-end in Kelowna soon? The family will be keen on you. They’ve all heard about you from your father. j My sister Linda wanted terribly to come up tonight, but she had a sprained ankle. She'd he crazy about you.” “I should love to come,” Autumn assured him. “I’ll tell you what,” he suggested. “Drop down for the polo game a week from tomorrow and stay over Sunday. I promise you a good time. Your father owes .my governor a visit too. He hasn’t been down for months. Let’s make a real party of it.” “I’ll speak to father about it.” “Right!” he said. “Let’s go back. Mr. Parr,” Autumn remarked. “I’m forgetting my duties.” “I’ll come if you'll call me Pierian,” he stipulated, in a voice so low and engaging that it brought her throaty, pleased laughter. “Very well, Florian.’ she responded. and they retraced their way to the brilliantly lighted house. The music floated out to them when they mounted the steps to the piazza that was completely festooned with honeysuckle in sweet and heady bloom. Florian caught her arm. “Let’s finish this dance before we go in,” he said, and drew her lightly away on the rhythm of the waltz that was being played. The piazza was in darkness, away from the moon, and as they waltzed to the farther end of it, they found themselves alone. There Florian paused, drew her close and brushed her hair with his lips. “I think I’m going to love you.” he whispered. Autumn’s lips and cheeks glowed faintly, and she experienced the old, swift sensation of being deliciously drugged. Then, for some unaccountable reason, she thought of her mother, Millicent, whom she could recall only as a dream, and of that other Odell woman, known only as a myth, the woman who had been her grandmother. She thought then of men in England and men on the Continent, whom she had played with until they merely bored her! One especially she remembered—a blue-eyed youth who had been

maimed in the war The Odell women had been no respecter* of hearts. old Hector had said. The Basque bell! She winced suddenly and drew away from Florian. Was it for this, then, she had left behind her that life s.'.e had lived for the past nine years? Casually, and without a word, she led) Florian back into the rectangle of light from the open French windows, and a moment later they were among the dancers in the drawing room When the waltz had ended. Autumn spoke a quiet word to her father and slipped away up the rear stairs to her own room. Autumn knew not what mad impulse had possessed her to desert her] father's guests and come out here to be alone on the silver-lit range. In her own room it had taken pniy a minute or two to change into her riding clothes, steal down again and out to the stables where she h ad saddled her horse, and come gall ping away under the pallor of the ] night. Some yearning for escap?. she knew, had prompted her act. She realized now that she had run away from Florian Pan It was from the Florian Parrs she had run ] when she had left that s-i a K'ow life jshe had known in Euro: e the Fiona n Parrs, in whom deep passions tv ere merely quaint and laughable Site was well within the Lar.dor ranchjbefore she realized the direction Is re had taken She had been sitting there for minutes, breathing deeul\ of the night's enchanted per fume, when a sound! behind her caused her to draw sharply on the reinsl and wheel her horse, about. Anofjher rider was coming down the narrow trail, his form looming black and nigh against the moon. "Hello, there ! a man’s voice challenged her. a level voice, unhurried, its intonation rich and deep. As he dr.ew closer Autumn could see the t he was bareheaded, dressed in riding breeches and the collar of his cijaik shirt carelessly open. “I lam Autumn Dean,” she announced quickly, as he came alongside he r and halted his horse. Alt he ugh the moonlight made an obscure mask of his features, she thought she saw a look of puzzled surprise cross them ' “Aiftturrm Dean! he exclaimed, and extended his hand. -Why—B rucevLandor! It is you, isn’t jt?” Abojve their clasped hands, Autumn ' saw his smile—the boyish, quizzical smile she remembered, ”1 vims sure it was you—at once,” he told her. A thrill of uneasiness .coursed through her -a queer, unsteady Hading th d left her r da ulously. irritated at herself. "\VI y didn't you say ro, a;, n?” she demanded. He held her hand warmly and smilec at her. "I have learned to take nothing lor granted,” lie observe, "But—l understood you were celebrating over at your place tonigh . How do you happen to be here?’ “I don't believe I could even ex plain that myself,” she said a little blankly. "I just rode away, and— I’m here.” He smiled again and took a cigarette from his breast pocket, struck a match and lighted it between his cupped hands. In that" one brief moment she saw the dark, crisply curling] hair that was cropped short, straight dark brows rather heavy above eyes that she remembered now were a deep blue, a nose wellformed] and sensitive about the nostrils, and a mouth that was somewhat full but straight-drawn and obstinate. In the sudden realization that she was giving him a shameless scrutiny, she wrenched her gaze away in the instant that he looked up at her. "I had expected to see you over at our dance tonight.” Autumn said. "Or were you not the least bit curious?" "Curious?” He regarded her intently. "Scarcely—curious. I should have come if I had been able. This happens to be a very busy time for me—and besides, mother has taken another bad spell." "Oh, I’m very sorry. Father told me she had been quite ill. I should have been over to see her if I had had time. Do you think she would remember me, Bruce?.” His eyes rested gravely upon her face. Her hand moved nervously to her cheek as his look held hers, the moonlight Seeming to go thin and extraordinarily translucent between them. “I doubt it.” he said at last. "You are grown-up now,” . "Won't you take me down to see her? "Now" ! "Whv not" It's still early, and I can ride back that way. Unless, of course, she’s asleep.” "She never goes to sleep until I come in,” Bruce told her. "I should love to go down, then,” she said Bruce glanced* once in the direction of the' ravine. “I can come back here later,” he said. "Let us go this way, then.” He led the way across the slope to a point from which the light in the Landor house was plainly visible. "I hope you will not be shocked at mother’s condition,” he said, "She has had a stroke, you know, and it has left her partially paralyzed. She may not even remember your name.” "What a pity,” Autumn said. "She was always such a proud, capable woman.” (TO HF. CONTINUED>

“It isn’t every day in the year that a daughter comes home.”