David Manners — David’s Lost Love (1934) 🇺🇸
David was returning from abroad and had made the shipboard acquaintance of a delightful English couple. They were on their way to Banff and David decided to go with them. At Banff, they collected supplies for a pack trip to Jasper Park. And a guide called Jim.
by Sonia Lee
On the morning of departure, a fifth member joined the party. She was Jim’s daughter, Mary, who frequently went with her father on excursions of this sort.
She intrigued David. Slender, clear-eyed, with a keen mind, she would have graced a drawing-room. She was a revelation to the boy who had known sophisticated women.
His admiration increased when she demonstrated her knowledge of woodcraft. She could handle horses and was adept at making camp.
For hours, David and Mary rode woodland paths together. And there were walks along the moonlit trails when camp was made. The third day, David knew he was in love; gloriously and completely.
He told the girl as they rode into the sunset. That night the air was balmy and no tents were pitched. The bedrolls were placed on balsam boughs in a clearing. And throughout the night they talked, too deliriously happy to even think of sleep.
Their plans were simple. Immediate marriage was out of the question. David had been suffering from recurrent attacks of pneumonia, and his trip abroad was during one of his recuperative periods. He would return to New York, solve the financial problems facing him, and then send for her. They would live happily.
Mary had too much courage to cry when the moment of parting came. They belonged to each other for always. They would wait for each other.
The trip had lasted five days and was destined to modify the pattern of David’s life.
On his arrival in New York, he began counting the days before a letter from Mary could reach him. He had written her en route East.
But there was no word from Mary. Each succeeding day held an added note of uneasiness for him. He was sure of her love and no mistake.
Finally, in terror at her silence, he wrote to her father at Banff, begging for news of the girl — for one line assuring him that she was well. The days stretched into weeks. Letters and telegrams remained unanswered.
Then he heard from his English friends. They spoke of inconsequential things, which he skimmed in hope that somewhere would be a line about the girl. There was.
A postscript. And it read: “You will be distressed to hear that old Jim’s charming daughter was killed in an auto accident the day she returned to Victoria.”
David Manners was standing at a window of his apartment as he read that fatal sentence. The first snow of the year was falling gently. The world was in a shroud.
It was a love too perfect to have a happy ending in marriage.
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Collection: Modern Screen Magazine, January 1934
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- 1934–01 — Evelyn Brent
- 1934–01 — Cora Sue Collins
- 1934–01 — David Manners
- 1934–01 — John Miljian