Wild Wings

by Margaret Piper Chalmers

  CHAPTER XXIII

  SEPTEMBER CHANGES

  When September came Carlotta, who had been ostensibly visiting Tonythough spending a good deal of her time "in the moon with Phil" as sheput it, departed for Crest House, carrying Philip with her "forinspection," as he dubbed it somewhat ruefully. He wasn't particularlyenamored of the prospect of being passed upon by Carlotta's friends andrelatives. It was rather incongruous when you came to think of it thatthe lovely Carlotta, who might have married any one in the world, shouldelect an obscure village store keeper for a husband. But Carlotta herselfhad no qualms. She was shrewd enough to know that with her father on herside no one would do much disapproving. And in any case she had no fearthat any one even just looking at Phil would question her choice.Carlotta was not the woman to choose a man she would have to apologizefor. Phil would hold his own with the best of them and she knew it. Hewas a man every inch of him, and what more could any woman ask?

  Ted went up for his examinations and came back so soberly that the familyheld its composite breath and wondered in secret whether he couldpossibly have failed after all his really heroic effort. But presentlythe word came that he had not only not failed but had rather coveredhimself with glory. The Dean himself, an old friend of Doctor Holiday's,wrote expressing his congratulations and the hope that this performanceof his nephew's was a pledge of better things in the future and that thisfourth Holiday to pass through the college might yet reflect credit uponit and the Holiday name.

  Ted himself emphatically disclaimed all praise whatsoever in the matterand cut short his uncle's attempt at expressing his appreciation not onlyof the successful finish of the examinations but the whole summer's hardwork and steadiness.

  "I am glad if you are satisfied, Uncle Phil," he said. "But there isn'tany credit coming to me. It was the least I could do after making such aconfounded mess of things. Let's forget it."

  But Ted Holiday was not quite the same unthinking young barbarian inSeptember that he had been in June. Nobody could work as he had workedthat summer without gaining something in character and self-respect.Moreover, being constantly as he was with his brother and uncle, hewould have been duller than he was not to get a "hunch," as he wouldhave called it, of what it meant to be a Holiday of the authentic sort.Larry's example was particularly salutary. The younger Holiday couldnot help comparing his own weak-willed irresponsibility of conduct withthe older one's quiet self-control and firmness of principle. Larry'slove for Ruth was the real thing. Ted could see that, and it made hisown random, ill-judged attraction to Madeline Taylor look crude andcheap if nothing worse. He hated to remember that affair in CousinEmma's garden. He made up his mind there would be no more things likethat to have to remember.

  "You can tell old Bob Caldwell," he wrote from college to his uncle,"that he'll sport no more caddies and golf balls at my expense. Flunkingis too damned expensive every way, saving your presence, Uncle Phil. Nomore of it for this child. But don't get it into your head I am aviolently reformed character. I am nothing of the kind and don't want tobe. If I see any signs of angel pin-feathers cropping out I'll shave 'em.I'd hate to be conspicuously virtuous. All the same if I have a fewgrains more sense than I had last year they are mostly to your credit.Fact is, Uncle Phil, you are a peach and I am just beginning to realizeit, more fool I."

  Tony also flitted from the Hill that September for her new work and lifein the big city. Rather against her will she had ensconced herself in aStudent Hostelry where Jean Lambert, Phil's older sister, had been livingseveral years very happily, first as a student and later as a successfulillustrator. Tony had objected that she did not want anything so"schooly," and that the very fact that Jean liked the Hostelry would beproof positive that she, Tony, would not like it. What she really wantedto do was either to have a studio of her own or accept Felice Norman'sinvitation to make her home with her. Mrs. Norman was a cousin of Tony'smother, a charming widow of wealth and wide social connections whom Tonyhad always adored and admired extravagantly. Just visiting her had alwaysbeen like taking a trip to fairy land and to live with her--well, itwould be just too wonderful, Tony thought. But Doctor Holiday had vetoeddecidedly both these pleasant and impractical propositions. Tony was fartoo young and pretty to live alone. That was out of the question. And hewas scarcely more willing that she should go to Mrs. Norman, though heliked the latter very well and was glad that his niece would have her togo to in any emergency. He knew Tony, and knew that in such anenvironment as Mrs. Norman's home offered the girl would all butinevitably drift into being a gay little social butterfly and forget sheever came to the city to do serious work. Life with Mrs. Norman would be"too wonderful" indeed.

  So Tony went to the Hostelry with the understanding that if after a fewmonths' trial she really did dislike it as much as she declared she knewshe would they would make other arrangements. But rather to her chagrinshe found herself liking the place very much and enjoying the society ofthe other girls who were all in the city as she and Jean were, pursuingsome art or other.

  The dramatic school work was all she had hoped and more, stimulating,engrossing, altogether delightful. She made friends easily as always,among teachers and pupils, slipped naturally here as in college into aposition of leadership. Tony Holiday was a born queen.

  She had plenty of outside diversion too. Cousin Felice was kind anddelighted to pet and exhibit her pretty little kinswoman. There werefascinating glimpses into high society, delightful private dancingparties in gorgeous ball rooms, motor trips, gay theater parties inresplendent boxes, followed by suppers in brilliant restaurants--all thepomp and glitter of life that youth loves.

  There were other no less genuinely happy occasions spent with DickCarson, way up near the roof in the theaters and opera house or in queer,fascinating out-of-the-way foreign restaurants. The two had the jolliestkind of time together, always like two children at a picnic. Tony wasvery nice to Dick these days. He kept her from being too homesick for theHill and anyway she felt a wee bit sorry for him because he did not knowabout Alan and those long letters which came so frequently from theretreat in the mountains where the latter was sketching. She knew sheought to tell Dick how far things had gone but somehow she couldn't quitedrive herself to do it. She didn't want to hurt him. And she did not wantto banish him from her life. She wanted him, needed him just where hewas, at her feet, and never bothering her with any inconvenient demandsor love-making. It was selfish but it was true. And in any case it wouldbe soon enough to worry Dick when Alan came back to town.

  And then without warning he was back, very much back. And with his returnthe pleasant nicely balanced, casual scheme of things which she had beenfollowing so contentedly was knocked sky high. She had to adjust herselfto a new heaven and a new earth with Alan Massey the center of both. Inher delight and intoxication at having her lover near her again, morefascinating and lover-like than ever, Tony lost her head a little,neglected her work, snubbed her friends, refused invitations from Dickand Cousin Felice, and indeed from everybody except Alan. She wenteverywhere with him, almost nowhere without him, spent her days and moreof her nights than was at all prudent or proper in his absorbing society,had, in short, what she afterward described to Carlotta as a "perfectorgy of Alan."

  At the end of ten days she called a halt, sat down and took honestaccount of herself and her proceedings and found that this sort of thingwould not do. Alan was too expensive every way. She could not afford somuch of him. Accordingly with her usual decision and frankness sheexplained the situation to him as she saw it and announced thathenceforth she would see him only twice a week and not as often if shewere especially busy.

  To this ultimatum she kept rigidly in spite of her lover's protests andpleas and threats. She was inexorable. If Alan wanted to see her at allhe must do it on her terms. He yielded perforce and was madder over herthan ever, feted and worshiped and adored her inordinately when he waswith her, deluged her with flowers and poetry and letters between times,called her up daily and nightly by telephon
e just to hear her voice, ifhe might not see her face.

  So superficially Tony conquered. But she was not over-proud of hervictory. She knew that whether she saw Alan or not he was always in theunder-current of her thoughts and feelings. In the midst of otheroccupations she caught herself wondering whether he had written her,whether she would find his flowers when she got home, where he was,what he was doing, if he was thinking of her as she of him. She wantedhim most irrationally when she forbade his coming to her. She lookedforward to those few hours spent with him as the only time when she wasfully alive, dreamed them over afterward, knew they meant a hundredfoldmore to her than those she spent with any other man or woman. She worehis flowers, pored over his long, beautiful, impassioned letters,devoured the books of poetry he sent her, danced with him as often andas long as she dared, gave her soul more and more into his keeping, themore so perhaps in that he was so tenderly reverential of her body,never even touching her lips with his, though his eyes often told aless moderate story.

  The orgy over she was again doing well with her work at the school. Sheknew that. Her teachers praised her gifts and her progress. Without anyvanity she could not help seeing that she was forging ahead of others whohad started even with her, had more real talent perhaps than most ofthose with whom she worked and played. But she took no pride in thesethings. For equally clearly she saw that she was not doing half what shemight have done, would have done, had there been no Alan Massey in thecity and in her heart. She had a divided allegiance and a dividedallegiance is a hard thing to live with as a daily companion.

  But she would not have had it otherwise. Not for a moment did she everwish to go back to those free days when love was but a name and the flamehad not blown so dangerously near.

  As for Alan Massey himself, he alternated between moods which were starrypinnacles of ecstasy and others which were bottomless pits of despair. Helived for two things only--his hours with Tony and his work. For he hadbegun to paint again, magnificently, furiously, with all his old powerand a new almost godlike one added to it. As an artist it was his supremehour. He painted as he had never painted before.

  His love for Tony ran the whole gamut. He loved her passionately, foundit exquisite torture to have her in his arms when they danced and tohave still to bank the fires which consumed him and of which she onlydimly guessed. He loved her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look toa star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by hisown might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard herday and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near hershining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle ofbeauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a placeapart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies and emeralds. Heloved her jealously, was sick at the thought that some other man mightbe near her when he might not, might dance with her, covet her, kissher. He hated all men because of her and particularly he hated withblack hate the man whom he was wronging daily by his silence, hiscousin, John Massey.

  Beneath all this strange, sad welter of emotion deeper still in AlanMassey's heart lay the tragic conviction that he would never win Tony,that his own sins would somehow rise to strike at him like a snake out ofthe grass. He had lost faith in his luck, had lost it strangely enoughwhen luck had laid at his feet that most desirable of all gifts, JimRoberts' timely death.

  In the House on the Hill, things were very quiet, missing the gaypresence of the two younger Holidays and with those at home cumbered withcares and perplexity and grief.

  Things were easier for Ruth than for Larry. It was less difficult for herto play the part of quiet friendship than for him, partly because herlove was a much less tempestuous affair and partly because a woman nearlyalways plays a part of any kind with more facility than a man does. AndLarry Holiday was temperamentally unfit to play any part whatsoever. Hewas a Yea-Yea and Nay-Nay person.

  The simplicity of the girl's role was also very largely created by herlover's rigid self control. She took her cue from his quietness and feltthat things could not be so bad after all. At least they were together.Neither had driven the other away from the Hill by any unconsidered actor word. Ruth had no idea that being with her under the tormentingcircumstances was scarcely undivided happiness for poor Larry or that herpeace of mind was more or less purchased at cost of his.

  Larry kept the promise he had made to his uncle more literally than thelatter had had any idea he would or could. He never sought out Ruth'ssociety, was never alone with her if he could help it, never so much astouched her hand. Ruth being a very human and feminine little personsometimes wished he were not quite so consistently, "Holidayish" in hisconduct. She missed the ardent gaze of those wonderful gray eyes which henow kept studiously averted from hers. Privately she thought it would nothave mattered so fearfully if just once in a while he had forgotten thering. Life was very, very drab when you never forgot and let yourself gothe tiniest little bit. Child like little Ruth never guessed that a manlike Larry Holiday does not dare let himself go the tiniest little bit,lest he go farther, far enough to regret.

  Doctor Holiday watching in silence out of the tail of his eye understoodbetter what was going on behind his nephew's quiet exterior demeanor,and wondered sometimes if it had not been a mistake to keep the boybound to the wheel like that, if he should not rather have packed himoff to the uttermost parts of the earth, far away from the little ladywith the wedding ring who was so little married. And yet there wasGranny, growing perceptibly weaker day by day, clinging pathetically toLarry's young strength. Poor Granny! And poor Larry! How little onecould do for either!

  Ruth's memory did not return. She remembered, or at least found familiar,books she had read, songs she must have sung, drifted into doing ahundred little simple everyday things she must have done before, sincethey came to her with no effort. She could sew and knit and play thepiano exquisitely. But all this seemed rather a trick of the fingers thanof the mind. The people, the places, the life that lay behind that crashon the Overland never returned to her consciousness for all her anxiousstruggle to get them back.

  It began to look as if her husband, if she had one, were not going toclaim her. No one claimed her. Not a single response came from all theextensive advertising which Larry still kept up in vain hope of success.Apparently no one had missed the little Goldilocks. Precious as she wasnone sought her.

  In the meanwhile she was an undisguised angel visitant to the House onthe Hill. If in his kindly hospitality Doctor Holiday had stretched apoint or two in the first place to make the little stranger feel at homethe case was different now. She was needed, badly needed and she playedthe part of house daughter so sweetly and unselfishly that her presenceamong them was a double blessing to them all, except perhaps to poorLarry who loved her best of all.