Wild Wings

by Margaret Piper Chalmers

  CHAPTER XXXV

  GEOFFREY ANNERSLEY ARRIVES

  There were few passengers alighting from the south bound train fromCanada. Larry Holiday had no difficulty in picking out Geoffrey Annersleyamong these, a tall young man, wearing the British uniform and supportinghimself with a walking stick. His face was lean and bronzed and lined,the face of a man who has seen things which kill youth and laughter andyet a serene face too as if its owner had found that after all nothingmattered very much if you looked it square in the eye.

  Larry went to the stranger at once.

  "Captain Annersley?" he asked. "I am Laurence Holiday."

  The captain set down his bag, leaned on his stick, deliberatelyscrutinized the other man. Larry returned the look frankly. They were ofnearly the same age but any one seeing them would have set the Englishmanas at least five years the senior of the young doctor. Geoffrey Annersleyhad been trained in a stern school. A man does not wear a captain's barsand four wound stripes for nothing.

  Then the Englishman held out his hand with a pleasant and unexpectedlyboyish smile.

  "So you are Larry," he said. "Your brother sent me to you."

  "Ted! You have seen him?" For a minute Larry forgot who GeoffreyAnnersley was, forgot Ruth, forgot himself, remembered only Ted andgave his guest a heartier handshake than he had willed for his "Kid"brother's sake.

  "Yes, I was with him day before yesterday and the night before that. Hewas looking jolly well and sent all kinds of greetings to you all. Seehere, Doctor Holiday, I have no end of things to say to you. Can we gosomewhere and talk?"

  "My car is outside. You will come up to the house will you not? We areall expecting you." Larry tried hard to keep his voice quiet andemotionless. Not for anything would he have had this gallant soldiersuspect how his knees were trembling.

  "Delighted," bowed the captain suavely and permitted Larry to take hisbag and lead the way to the car. Nothing more was said until the two menwere seated and the car had left the station yard.

  "I am afraid I should have made my wire a bit more explicit," observedthe captain turning to Larry. "My wife says I am too parsimonious with mywords in telegrams--a British trait possibly." He spoke deliberately andhis keen eyes studied his companion's face as he made the casual remarkwhich set Larry's brain reeling. "See here, Holiday, I'm a blunt brute. Idon't know how to break things gently to people. But I am here to tellyou if you care to know that Elinor Ruth Farringdon is no more marriedthan you are unless she is married to you. That was her mother's weddingring. Lord, man, do you always drive a car like this? I've been all butkilled once this year and I don't care to repeat the experiment."

  Larry grinned, flushed, apologized and moderated the speed of his motor.He wondered that he could drive at all. He felt strangely light as if hewere stripped of his body and were nothing but spirit.

  "Do you mind if we drive about a bit and talk things over before I seeElinor--Ruth, as you call her? I'm funking that a little though I'vebeen trying ever since your brother told me the story to get used tothe idea of her being, well not quite right, you know. But I can'tstick it somehow."

  "She is all right, perfectly normal every way except that she hadforgotten things." Larry's voice was faintly indignant. He resentedanybody's implying that Ruth was queer, unbalanced in any way. Shewasn't. She was absolutely sane, as sane as Captain Annersley himself,considerably more sane than Larry Holiday could take oath he was atthis moment.

  "Good heavens! Isn't that enough?" groaned Annersley almost equallyindignant. "You forget or rather you don't know all she has forgotten. Iknow. I was brought up with her. Her father was my uncle and guardian. Weplayed together, had the same tutor, rode the same ponies, got into thesame jolly old scrapes. Why, Elinor's like my own sister, man. I can'tswallow her forgetting me and her brother Rod and all the rest as easilyas you seem to do. It--well, it's the limit as you say in the states."The captain wiped his forehead on which great drops of perspiration stoodin spite of the January chill in the air. There was agitation, suppressedvehemence in his tone.

  "I suppose it is natural that you should feel that way." Larry spokethoughtfully as he turned the car away from the Hill in response to hisguest's request that he be permitted to postpone meeting Elinor RuthFarringdon a little while. "The remembering part hasn't bothered me somuch. Maybe I wasn't very keen on having her remember. Maybe I was afraidshe would remember too much," he added coloring a little.

  The frown on his companion's stern young face melted at that. Thefrank, boyish smile appeared again. He liked Larry Holiday none the lessfor his lack of pretense. He understood all that. The younger Holidayhad taken pains to make things perfectly clear to him. He knew preciselywhat the young doctor was afraid of and why in case Elinor Farringdon'smemory returned.

  "My uncle thinks and I think too that her memory will come back now thatit has the external stimulus to waken it," Larry continued. "I shouldn'tbe surprised if seeing you would give the necessary impetus. In fact I amcounting on that very thing happening, hoping for it with all my might.That was one of the reasons I was glad to have you come. Please believethat I should have been glad even if your coming had made her remembershe was your wife. Of course her recovery is the main thing. The restis--a side issue."

  "A jolly important side issue I take it for her and for you. I'm not astranger, Doctor Holiday. I am Elinor Ruth Farringdon's cousin, in herbrother's absence I represent her family and in that capacity I wouldlike to say before I am a minute older that what you and the rest of youHolidays have done for Elinor passes anything I know of for sheerfineness and generosity. I'm not a man of words. War would have knockedthem out of me if I had been but when I remember that you not only savedElinor's life but took care of her afterward when she apparently hadn't afriend in the world--well, there isn't anything I can say but thank youand tell you that if there is ever anything I can do in return for you oryours you have only to ask. Neither Elinor nor I can ever repay you. Itis the sort of thing that is--unpayable." And again the captain wiped hisperspiring brow. He was deeply moved and emotion went hard with hisAnglo-Saxon temperament.

  "We did nothing but what anybody would have been glad to do. If thereare any thanks coming they are chiefly due to my uncle and his wife. Butwe don't any of us want thanks. We love Ruth. Please forget the rest. Wewould rather you would."

  The captain nodded quick approval. He had been told Americans wereboasters, given to Big-Itis. But either people got the Americans wrong orthese Holidays were an exception to the general run. He remembered thatother young Holiday whom he had met rather intimately in the Canadiancamp. There had been no side there either. His modesty had been one ofhis chief charms. And here was the brother quietly putting aside creditfor a course of conduct which was simply immense in its quixoticgenerosity. He liked these Holidays. There was something rathermagnificent about their simplicity--something almost British he thought.

  "That is all very well," he made answer. "I won't talk about it if youprefer but you will pardon me if I don't forget that you saved mycousin's life and looked after her when she was in a desperately unhappysituation and her own people seemed to have utterly deserted her. And Iconsider my running into your brother at camp one of the sheerest piecesof good luck I've had these many days on all counts."

  "How did it happen?" asked Larry.

  "I was doing some recruiting work in the vicinity and they asked me tosay a few words to the lads in training. I did. Your brother was thereand lost no time in getting in touch with me when he heard who I was. Andjolly pleased I was to hear his story--all of it."

  The speaker smiled at his companion.

  "I mean that, Larry Holiday. Elinor and I were kid sweethearts. We usedto swear we were going to get married when we grew up. That was when shewas eight and I a man of twelve or so. I gave her the locket which madesome of the trouble as a sort of hostage for the future. We called herRuth in those days. It was her own fancy to change it to Elinor later.She thought it more grown up and dignified I reme
mber. Then I went backto England to school. I didn't see her again until we were both grown upand then I married her best friend with her blessing and approval. Butthat is another story. Just now I am trying to tell you that I am readyto congratulate my cousin with all my heart if it happens that you wantto marry her as your brother seems to think."

  "There is no doubt about what I want," said Larry grimly. "Whether it iswhat she wants is another matter. We haven't been exactly in a positionto discuss marriage."

  "I understand. I'm beastly sorry to have been such an infernal dog in themanger unwittingly. The only thing I can do to make, up is to give myblessing and wish you best of luck in your wooing. Shall we shake on it,Larry Holiday, and on the friendship I hope you and I are going to have?"

  And with a cordial man to man grip there was cemented a friendship whichwas to last as long as they both lived.

  To relate briefly the links of the story some of which Larry Holiday nowheard as the car sped over the smooth, frost hardened roads which theopen winter had left unusually snowless and clean. Geoffrey Annersley hadbeen going his careless, happy go lucky way as an Oxford undergraduatewhen the sudden firing of a far off shot had startled the world and madewar the one inevitable fact. The young man had enlisted promptly and hadbeen in practically continuous service of one sort or another ever since.He had gone through desperate fighting, been four times wounded, and wasnow at last definitely eliminated from active service by a semi-paralyzedleg, the result of his last visit to "Blighty." He had been invalided theprevious spring and had been sent to Australia on a recruiting mission.Here he had renewed his acquaintance with his cousins whom he had notseen for years and promptly fell in love with and married pretty NancyHallinger, his cousin Elinor's chum.

  The speedy wooing accomplished as well as the recruiting job which wasdispatched equally expeditiously and thoroughly Geoffrey prepared toreturn to France to get in some more good work against the Huns while hiswife planned to enter Red Cross service as a nurse for which she had beenin training for some time. Roderick had entered the Australian airservice and was already in Flanders where he had the reputation of beingone of the youngest and most reckless aviators flying which was sayingconsiderable.

  It was imperative that some arrangement be made for Elinor who obviouslycould not be left alone in Sydney. It was decided in family conclave thatshe should go to America and accept the often proffered hospitality ofher aunt for a time at least. A cable to this effect had been dispatchedto Mrs. Wright which as later appeared never reached that lady as she wasalready on her way to England and died there shortly after.

  Geoffrey had been exceedingly reluctant to have his young cousin take thelong journey alone though she had laughed at his fears and his wife hadabetted her in her disregard of possible disastrous consequences, tellinghim that women no longer required wrapping in tissue paper. The war hadchanged all that.

  At his insistence however Ruth had finally consented to wear her mother'swedding ring as a sort of shadowy protection. He had an idea that thesmall gold band, being presumptive evidence of an existing male guardiansomewhere in the offing might serve to keep away the ill intentioned orover bold from his lovely little heiress cousin about whom he worried tono small degree.

  They had gone their separate ways, he to the fierce fighting of May,nineteen hundred and sixteen, she to her long journey and subsequentstrange adventures. At first no one had thought it unnatural that theyheard nothing from Elinor. Letters went easily astray those days.Geoffrey was weeks without news even from his wife and poor Roderickwas by this time beyond communication of any kind, his name labeledwith that saddest of all tags--missing. It was not until Geoffrey wasout of commission with that last worst knock out, lying insensible,more dead than alive in a hospital "somewhere in France" that theothers began to realize that Elinor had vanished utterly from the kenof all who knew her. Some one who knew her by sight had chanced to seeher in California and had noted the wedding ring, hence the"unsubstantiated rumor" of her marriage in San Francisco, a rumor whichNancy half frantic over her husband's desperate illness was the onlyperson who was in a position to explain.

  When Geoffrey came slowly back to the land of the living it was to learnthat his cousin Roderick was still reported missing and that Elinor waseven more sadly and mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth inspite of all effort to discover her fate. It had been a tragic comingback for the sick man. But an Englishman is hard to down and gradually hegot back health and a degree of hope and happiness. There would be nomore fighting for him but the War Department assured him there wereplenty of other ways in which he could serve the cause and he hadreadily placed himself at their disposal for the recruiting work in whichhe had already demonstrated his power to success in Australia.

  Which brings us to the Canadian training camp and Ted Holiday. CaptainAnnersley had been asked as he had told Larry to speak to the boys. Hehad done so, given a little straight talk of what lay ahead of them andwhat they were fighting for, bade them get in a few extra licks for himsince he was out of it for good, done for, "crocked." In conclusion hehad begged them give the Huns hell. It was all he asked of them and fromthe look of them he jolly well knew they would do it.

  While he was speaking he was aware all the time of a tall, blue-eyedyouth who stood leaning against a post with a kind of nonchalant grace.The boy's pose had been indolent but his eyes had been wide awake,earnest, responsive. Little by little the captain found himself talkingdirectly to the lad. What he was saying might be over the heads of someof them but not this chap's. He got you as the Americans say. He had thevision, would go wherever the speaker could take him. One saw that.

  Afterwards the boy had sought out the recruiter to ask if by any chancehe knew a girl named Elinor Ruth Farringdon. It had been rather atremendous moment for both of them. Each had plenty to say that the otherwanted to hear. But the full story had to wait. Corporal Holiday couldn'trun around loose even talking to a distinguished British officer. Therewould have to be special dispensation for that and special dispensationstake time in an army world. It would be forthcoming however--to-morrow.

  In the meantime Geoffrey Annersley had heard enough to want to know agreat deal more and thought he might as well make some inquiries on hisown. He wanted to find out who these American Holidays were, one of whomhad apparently saved his cousin Elinor's life and all of whom had, oneconcluded, been amazingly kind to her though the blue-eyed boy hadgracefully made light of that side of the thing in the brief synopsis ofevents he had had time to give to the Englishman. The captain had taken afancy to the narrator and was not averse to beginning his investigationas to the Holiday family with the young corporal himself.

  Accordingly he tackled the boy's commanding officer, a young colonel withwhom he chanced to be dining. The colonel was willing to talk andGeoffrey Annersley discovered that young Holiday was rather by way ofbeing a top-notcher. He had enlisted as a private only a short time agobut had been shot speedily into his corporalship. Time pressed. Officerswere needed. The boy was officer stuff. He wouldn't stay a corporal. Ifall went well he would go over as a sergeant.

  "We put him through though, just at first handled him rather nasty," thecolonel admitted with a reminiscent twinkle. "We do put the Americansthrough somehow, though it isn't that we have any grudge against 'em. Wehaven't. We like 'em--most of 'em and we have to admit it's rather decentof them to be here at all when they don't have to. All the same we give'em an extra twist of the discipline crank on general principles just tosee what they are made of. We found out mighty quick with this youngster.He took it all and came back for more with a 'sir,' and a salute and adevilish debonair, you-can't-down-me kind of grin that would havedisarmed a Turk."

  "He doesn't look precisely meek to me," Annersley had said rememberingthe answering flash he had caught in those blue eyes when he was beggingthe boys to get in an extra lick against the Huns for his sake.

  "Meek nothing! He has more spirit than any cub we've had to get intoshape this
many a moon. It isn't that. It is just that he has the rightidea, had it from the start however he came by it. You know what it is,captain. It is obedience, first, last and all the time, the will to bewilled. A soldier's job is to do what he is told whether he likes it ornot, whether it is his job or not, whether it makes sense or not, whetherhe gets his orders from a man he looks up to and respects or whether hegets them from a low down cur that he knows perfectly well isn't fit toblack his boots--none of that makes any difference. It is up to him to dowhat he is told and he does it without a kick if he's wise. Young Holidayis wise. He'd had his medicine sometime. One sees that. I don't know whyhe dropped down on us like a shooting star the way he did, some collegefiasco I understand. He doesn't talk about himself or his affairs thoughhe is a frank outspoken youngster in other ways. But there was a look inhis eyes when he came to us that most boys of twenty don't have, thankthe Lord! And it is that look or what is behind it that has made him acehigh here. That boy struck bottom somewhere and struck it hard. I'll betmy best belt on that."

  This interested Geoffrey Annersley. He thought he understood what thecolonel meant. There was something in Ted Holiday's eyes which betrayedthat he had already been under fire somehow. He had seen it himself.

  "He is as smart as they make 'em," went on the colonel. "Quick as a flashto think and to see and to act, never loses his head. And he's a wonderwith the men, jollies 'em along when they are grousing or homesick, sets'em grinning from ear to ear when they are down-hearted, has a pat on theshoulder for this one and a jeer for that one. Old and young they areall crazy about him. They'd go anywhere he led. I tell you he's the stuffthat will take 'em over the top and make the boches feel cold in the pitof their fat tumtums when they see him coming. Lord, but the uselessnessof it though! He'll get killed. His kind always does. They are always infront. They are made that way. Can't help it. Sometimes they do comethrough though." The colonel flashed a quick admiring glance at his guestwho had also been the kind that was always in front and yet had somehowby the grace of something come through in spite of the hazards he had runand the deaths he had all but died. "You are a living witness to thatlittle fact," he added. "Lord love us! It's all in the game anyway and aman can die but once."

  The next day Corporal Holiday was given a brief leave of absence fromcamp at the request of the distinguished British officer. Together thetwo went over the strange story of Elinor Ruth Farringdon and theHolidays' connection with the later chapters thereof. They decided not towrite to the Hill as Annersley was planning to go to Boston next daywhence he was to return soon to England his mission accomplished, andcould easily stop over in Dunbury on his way and set things right inperson, perhaps even by his personal presence renew Ruth's memory ofthings she had forgotten.

  All through the pleasant dinner hour Ted kept wishing he could get thecaptain to talking about himself and his battle experiences and had noidea at all that he himself was being shrewdly studied as they talked."Good breeding, good blood-quality," the captain summed up. "If he is afair sample of young America then young America is a bit of all right."And if he is a fair sample of the Holiday family then Elinor had indeedfallen into the best of hands. Praise be! He wondered more than once whatthe young-corporal's own story was, what was the nature of the fiascowhich had driven him into the Canadian training camp and what was behindthat unboyish look which came now and then into his boyish eyes.

  Later during the intimate evening over their cigarettes both had theircuriosity gratified. Captain Annersley was moved to relate some of hishair breadth escapes and thrilling moments to an alert and heroworshiping listener. And later still Ted too waxed autobiographical inresponse to some clever baiting of which he was entirely unaware thoughhe did wonder afterward how he had happened to tell the thing he had keptmost secret to an entire stranger. It was an immense relief to the boy totalk it all out. It would never haunt him again in quite the same way nowhe had once broken the barriers of his reserve. Geoffrey Annersley servedhis purpose for Ted as well as Larry Holiday.

  Annersley was immensely interested in the confession. It matched verywell he thought with that other story of a gallant young Holiday to whomhis cousin Elinor owed so much in more than one way. They were a queerlot these Holidays. They had the courage of their convictions and tiltedat windmills right valiantly it seemed.

  And then he fell to talking straight talk to Ted Holiday, saying thingsthat only a man who has lived deeply can say with any effect. He urgedthe boy not to worry about that smash of his. It was past history, overand done with. He must look ahead not back and be thankful he had comeout as well as he had.

  "There is just one other thing I want to say," he added. "You think youhave had your lesson. Maybe it is enough but you'll find it a jolly loteasier to slip up over there than it is at home. You lose your sense ofvalues when there is death and damnation going all around you, get tofeeling you have a right to take anything that comes your way to even itup. Anyway I felt that way until I met the girl I wanted to marry. Thenthe rest looked almighty different. I've given Nancy the best I had togive but it wasn't good enough. She deserved more than I could give her.That is plain speaking, Holiday. Men say war excuses justify anything. Itdoesn't do anything of the sort. Some day you will be wanting to marry agirl yourself. Don't let anything happen in this next year over therethat you will regret for a life-time. That is a queer preachment and I'ma jolly rotten preacher. But somehow I felt I had to say it. You canremember it or forget it as you like."

  Ted lit another cigarette, looked up straight into Geoffrey Annersley'swar lined face.

  "Thank you," he said. "I think I'll remember it. Anyway I appreciate yoursaying it to me that way."

  The subject dropped then, went back to war and how men feel on the edgeof death, of the unimportance of death anyway.