Farm Girls Disguised Identities

Rupert Dale sat at the writing-table before the open windows of his sitting-room in Clanton Street, Westminster. It was a glorious summer morning. The sun had torn aside the grey mantle from the face of London. The roofs and spires of the city shone. The trees rustled their leaves in the warm breeze. The roar of traffic echoed in his ears.

Rupert stretched himself, sighed, and leant back in his chair. His table was littered with papers. There were letters, bills, advertisements-principally from tipsters and bookmakers-and the examination papers which had been set him at his third attempt to pass the final examination of the School of Mining Engineers.

The result was due to-day, and Rupert had intended going down to the hall to find out whether he had passed or not.

But he was afraid. He had failed twice already. He could not afford to fail a third time. If he failed ruin faced him, and disgrace. His father had warned him that the money he had saved for his education had come to an end. Ruin for his father and his little sister!

He had no idea how deeply Rupert was in debt. Rupert himself had only just realised it. And in desperation he had gambled to save himself.

He had backed a horse on the big race to be run that day for more money than he possessed. He had staked honour and love on a horse he had never even seen. If it won he was saved. He could face his father, pay his debts, and, supposing he had failed, go up yet once again for his final examination.

If it lost--?

On the table a letter lay from his father in Devonshire enclosing a cheque-the last he would be able to send him.

There was also a letter from Ruby Strode, reminding him that he had promised to take her to see the big race that day.

Rupert picked up his father's letter and looked at the cheque. For five pounds only. It was drawn by Reginald Crichton, of Post Bridge Hall, made payable to John Allen Dale. His father had endorsed it.

Rupert smiled and fingered the cheque thoughtfully. Five pounds! Quite a lot of money-to his father; probably he did not spend as much in a month. And Rupert's conscience pricked him.

He set his teeth and swept aside the accumulation of unanswered letters and bills.

Ruin! An ugly word. He repeated it aloud-and laughed. It savoured of the melodramatic. Yet here was ruin facing him. He looked up and saw it blotting out the sunshine.

It had come upon him stealthily, like a thief in the night. And at the same time Love had come, too!

Again Rupert laughed.

He had only known Miss Strode seven months, but six weeks after their meeting outside the stage-door of the Ingenue Theatre they had been engaged to be married. As Miss Strode's income-including two matinees-was exactly the same as Rupert's, marriage was out of the question. Being young and lighthearted and having no idea of the value of time, money or life, they had taken all the gods offered them, living for the day, careless of the morrow.

But the to-morrow and the day of reckoning had unexpectedly arrived. For himself Rupert did not care. He could face poverty, failure, even disgrace. But it was of his father he was thinking, and of his sister Marjorie. His father, the old yeoman farmer who had pinched and scraped for seven years now, denying himself and even his daughter the ordinary necessities of life that he might give this only son a good education and make a man and a gentleman of him.

As he stood before the dressing-table in his bedroom and commenced to shave it was not the reflection of his own face he saw in the mirror. A vision rose before his eyes of Blackthorn Farm, his humble home in the middle of the wild moorlands, of his father, aged and worn with toil and poverty; of his sister, a girl on the eve of beautiful womanhood.

For centuries the Dales had lived at Blackthorn Farm, and when with the passage of time the homestead decayed and threatened to crumble to dust and disappear, so, in the same way, the family of Dales dwindled and decayed, too.

For there was no money in Blackthorn Farm. It was difficult enough to grow pasture to feed the few cattle. And so John Allen Dale had determined to make a gentleman of his only son. He had been studying now for over three years in London-ever since he had left Taunton Grammar School. It was two years since John Dale had even seen his first-born, and his heart thrilled with pride and expectation when he thought of the homecoming. It would make up for all the years of grinding and scraping. He had been even forced to mortgage a small part of the unproductive land in which an old tin mine was situated, unworked for many years now and valueless-though once it had promised to retrieve the fortunes of the Dales.

It had hurt his pride at the time, and he had not told Rupert. For the mortgagee was Sir Reginald Crichton, of Post Bridge Hall, who had gradually bought up all the land lying in the valley; a rich man and influential, yet a stranger to Dartmoor and therefore unwelcome.

But John Dale consoled himself with the thought that when his son was a gentleman he would have no use for the old homestead of Blackthorn. It would just sink into oblivion and disappear, and there would be nothing left but memory-and the everlasting morass and moorlands. But the grand old name of Dale would rise phoenix-like from the ashes and be handed down to future generations by his son.

Just as Rupert finished dressing there was a knock at the outer door and Ruby Strode burst into the sitting-room bringing with her the sunshine and the breath of summer. The vision that had been conjured before Rupert's eyes disappeared: he was glad enough to dismiss the thoughts and memories that it had brought.

Ruin! He looked at Ruby, and advanced to meet her with open arms.

"Be careful, you mustn't crush me," she laughed. "What do you think of my new frock?-and isn't this a duck of a hat, straight from Paris?"

Rupert stepped back and gazed at her. "By Jove, how beautiful you are," he whispered. "You look simply--" He searched for an adjective in vain.

Ruby gave a satisfied smile. She was really in love with Rupert, and she valued his opinion as much or more than she would have valued the opinion of a woman friend-or enemy.

Remarkably good-looking, of a type of beauty rather unusual, she had found the stage an excellent matrimonial market. But life had taught her that love was to be given, not sold. Unfortunately, she had given it to a penniless young man whose heritage was as unstable as the bog on which his house was built. But he was strong, he was clean, he was young. And he had won her.

"We shall have to hurry up or we shall miss the train," she cried. "I wish we could motor down, but I suppose that's impossible."

Rupert laughed light-heartedly and emptied the contents of his pockets on to the table.

"Every penny I possess in the world is on Paulus. I've backed it at 'sevens' already, you know. It'll cost a couple of pounds to get on to the stand. We shall have to train it, my dear, and walk down the course."

Ruby glanced ruefully at her long narrow shoes and silk stockings. "Right ho! I believe I'd walk through your Devonshire bogs if you asked me. But I say, Rupert, suppose Paulus doesn't win? What on earth are we going to do?"

Rupert shrugged his shoulders. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. If I pass my final-well, I suppose I shall get a job somewhere and the old man will be so pleased that he'll forgive me.... I'll manage somehow. Find tin in an old disused mine we've got on our property, and float a company."

He spoke lightly, but a shadow crossed his face. He looked at Ruby again and found himself wondering how much her clothes had cost, how much money they had managed to waste together during the happy months they had known one another. And then, again, he saw the queer eerie little farmhouse lying tucked between the granite tors: on one side of it the Dart purred to the sea; stretching away to the left a few fields surrounded by stone walls and the cattle standing in the green grass. And beyond, the vast peat bogs with the rushes flinging their white seed to the wind, and creeping up the hills the purple heather with patches of wild gorse; and little Marjorie milking the cows, scalding the cream, and making the butter.

If he had failed in his final examination? His body grew suddenly cold, he shuddered. He could not face his father then.

"What's the matter?" Ruby stepped forward and took Rupert's hand.

"I was wondering, if Paulus didn't win?" he stammered. "But, of course it will. Come along, or we shall miss the train!"

Rupert slung his race-glasses over his shoulder, put on his hat, and together they ran downstairs. At the front door the landlady of the lodgings met him. She drew Rupert aside and reminded him that his bill was three weeks overdue.

"You said you would let me have something to-day, sir. I'm sorry to trouble you, but--"

"Of course, I forgot. I'll pay you to-night without fail," he cried cheerfully.

Then, slamming the front door behind him, he slipped his arm through Ruby's. Hailing a passing taxi-cab they drove to Waterloo Station.

* * * * *

Epsom Downs looked like a vast ant-hill. The very air seemed to shake and quiver with the cries of the multitude. The great race of the day was due to start. Paulus was a hot favourite. It was difficult to get bookmakers to lay two to one against it.

"By gad, it can't lose," Rupert kept on saying. "I shall win enough, Ruby, to pay my debts, with a little to spare."

Ruby slipped her hand into his. She looked into his face a trifle uneasily: "You mean if it were to win? Would it be very serious for you if Paulus were to lose?"

Rupert forced a laugh. Again, at this moment of tense excitement, he realised what it would mean if the horse lost.

Ruin! Not just for himself, that was nothing. But disgrace! That was something his father would never face. The blasting of the old man's hopes. All that he had lived for and dreamed of. Unsteadily Rupert counted out five sovereigns.

"I'd better stick this on the brute as well, it's all or nothing," he said, forcing a smile. And he began to fight his way to the rails where the bookmakers shouted the odds.

Ruby laid her hand on his arm. "Give it to me, I'll do it. You always say I'm lucky to you-and I may get better odds."