The Boy with Wings

by Berta Ruck

  CHAPTER III

  THE LAST SUNDAY OF PEACE

  Never had Gwenna risen so early after having spent so little of a nightin sleep!

  Into the small hours she had crouched in her kimono on the edge ofLeslie's camp bedstead in the light that came from the street lampoutside the window; and she had talked and talked and talked.

  For by "not saying anything about it" she had never meant keeping herhappiness from that close chum.

  Miss Long, sincerely delighted, had listened and had nodded her wiseblack head from the pillow. She had thrown in the confidante's runningcomments of "There! What did Leslie tell you?... Oh, he would, ofcourse.... Good.... Oh, my dear, _how_ exactly like them all.... No, no;I didn't mean that. (Of course there's nobody like _him_); I meant'Fancy!' ... Yes and then what did Paul say, Virginia?" At lastrepetitions had cropped up again and again into the softly chatteredrecital, with all its girlish italics of: "Oh, but you _don't_ know whathe's like; oh, Leslie, no, you _can't_ imagine!"--At last Leslie hadsighed, a trifle enviously. And little Gwenna, pattering to the head ofthe bed, had put her cheek to the other girl's and had whisperedearnestly: "Oh, Leslie, if I only could, d'you know what I'd do? I'darrange so that he had a twin-brother _exactly_ like him, to fall inlove with _you_!"

  "Taffy! you are too ... _sweet_," the elder girl had whispered back in astifled voice.

  Gwenna never guessed how Leslie Long had had much ado not to gigglealoud over that idea. To think of her, Leslie, finding rapture with anyone of the type of the Dampier boy....

  A twin-brother of _his_? Another equally bread-and-buttery blondeinfant--an infant-in-arms who was even "simpler" than Monty Scott? Oh,Ishtar!... For thus does one woman count as profoundest boredom whatbrings to her sister Ecstasy itself.

  And now here was Gwenna, all in white, coming down to the Club's Sundaybreakfast with her broad hat already on her head and her gloves and hervanity-bag in her hand.

  At the head of the table sat the Vicar's widow with the gold curb broochand the look of resigned disapproval. Over the table Miss Armitage andthe other suffrage-workers were discussing the Cat-and-Mouse Act.Opposite to them one of the art-students, with her hair cut a la Trilby,was listening bewildered, ready to be convinced.... Not one of the usualthings remained unsaid....

  Presently Gwenna's neighbour and _bete noire_, Miss Armitage, wasdenouncing the few remaining members of her sex who still seemed toacquiesce in the Oriental attitude towards Woman; who still remainedserfs or chattels or toys.

  "However! _Thy_ needn't think thy _caount_," declared the lecturerfirmly, stretching without apology across her neighbour to get the salt.With some distaste Gwenna regarded her. She had spots on her face."Pleasers of Men!" she pursued, with noble scorn. "The remnant of theSlyve-girl Type, now happily extinct----"

  "Loud cheers," from Leslie Long.

  "The serpent's tile," continued the suffragette, "the serpent's tilethat, after the reptile has been beaten to death, still gows on feeblywriggling----"

  "Better wriggle off now, Taffy, my child," murmured Leslie, who satfacing the breakfast-room window. "Here's a degraded Oriental coming upthe path now to call for his serf."

  "_You_ come," said Gwenna, warmly flushed as she rose. And she held herchum's long arm, dragging her with her as she came into the hall wherethe tall, typically English figure of her Airman stood, his straw hat inhis hand. A splash of scarlet from the stained glass of the hall doorfell upon his fair head and across his cheek as he turned.

  "Good-morning," said Gwenna sedately, and without giving him so much asa glance. She felt at that moment that she would rather keep him atarm's length for ever than allow him even to hold her hand, with Lesliethere. For it takes those who are cooler in temperament than was thelittle Welsh girl, or those who care less for their lovers than she did,to show themselves warmer in the presence of others.

  "Hullo," said Paul Dampier to her. Then, "Hullo, Miss Long! How d'youdo?"

  Leslie gave him a very hearty shake of the hand, a more friendly glanceand a still more demure inquiry about that Machine of his.

  Paul Dampier laughed, returning her glance.

  She was a sport, he thought. She could be trusted not to claim, justyet, the bet she'd won from his cousin; the laughing wager about theAeroplane versus the Girl. Fifteen to one on the Girl, wasn't it? Andhere was the Girl home in his heart now, with the whole of a gorgeousJuly Sunday before them for their first holiday together.

  "I say, I'm not too early now, am I?" he asked as he and the girl walkeddown the Club steps together. "I was the first time, so I just went fora walk round the cricket-pitch and back. Sickening thing I couldn't rakeup a car anywhere for to-day. Put up with trains or tubes and taxisinstead, I'm afraid. D'you mind? Where shall we go?"

  * * * * *

  "Flying, of course," was Gwenna's first thought. "Now at last he'll takeme up." But that would be for the afternoon.

  For the morning they wanted country, and grass, and trees to situnder.... Not Hampstead; Richmond Park was finally decided upon.

  "We'll taxi to Waterloo," the boy said, with an inward doubt. He dived along brown hand into his pocket as they walked together down the roadthat Gwenna used to take every morning to her Westminster bus. He wasparticularly short of money just then. Dashed nuisance! Just when hewould have wished to be particularly flush! That's what came of buying aclock for the Machine before it was wanted. Still, he couldn't let theLittle Thing here know that. Manage somehow. A taxi came rattling downthe Pond Street Hill from Belsize Park as they reached thestopping-place of the buses, and Paul held up his hand.

  "Taxi!"

  But the driver shook his head. He pulled up the taxi in front of asmall, rather mean-looking house close to where Gwenna and Paul werestanding on the pavement. Then his fare came out of the house, a kit-bagin each hand and a steamer-rug thrown over his arm; he was a small,compactly-built young man in clothes so new and so smart that theyseemed oddly out of place with the slatternly entrance of hislodging-house. It was this that made Paul Dampier look a little hard athim. Gwenna was wondering where she'd seen that blonde, grave face ofhis before.

  He sprang lightly into the cab; a pink-faced girl was sitting there,whom Gwenna did not see. If she had seen her, she would have recognisedher Westminster colleague, Ottilie Becker.

  "Liverpool Street," ordered Miss Becker's companion, setting down hisluggage.

  Then, raising his head, he caught the eyes upon him of the other youngman in the street. He put a hand to his hat, gave a quick little oddsmile, and leaned forward out of the cab.

  "_Auf Wiedersehen!_" he called, as the taxi started off--for LiverpoolStreet.

  "Deuce did he mean by that?" exclaimed the young Englishman, staringafter the cab. "Who on earth was that fellow? I didn't know him."

  "Nor did I. But I _have_ seen him," said Gwenna.

  "I believe I have, somewhere," said Paul, musing.

  They puzzled over it for a bit as they went on to Waterloo on the top oftheir bus.

  And then, when they were passing "The Horse Shoe" in Tottenham CourtRoad, and when they were talking about something quite different (aboutthe river-dance, in fact), they both broke off talking sharply. Gwenna,with a little jump on the slanting front seat, exclaimed, "I know--!"Just as Paul said, "By Jove! I've got it! I know who that fellow was.That German fellow just now. He was one of the waiters at that verydance, Gwenna!"

  Gwenna, turning, said breathlessly, "Yes, I know. The one who passed uson the path. But I've thought of something else, too. I thought then hisface reminded me of somebody's; I know now who it is. It's that fairyoung man who came down to try and be taken on at the Works."

  "At Westminster?" Paul asked quickly.

  "No; at the Aircraft Works one afternoon. He talked English awfullywell, and he said he was Swiss. And then Andre--you know, the big, darkFrench workman--talked to him for quite a long time in French; he saidhe seemed very intelligent. But he wouldn't give him a job, wha
tever."

  "He wouldn't?"

  "No. I heard him tell the Aeroplane Lady that the young man ('_cegarcon-la_') came from the wrong canton," said Gwenna. "So he went away.I saw him go out. He was awfully _like_ that German waiter. I supposemost Germans look alike, to us."

  "S'pose so," said the Aviator, adding, "Was that the day that drawing ofmine was missing from the Aircraft Works, I wonder?"

  She looked at him, surprised. "I didn't know one of your drawings wasmissing, Paul."

  "Yes. It didn't matter, as it happened. Drawing of a detail for myMachine. I've taken jolly good care not to have complete drawings of itanywhere," he said, with a little nod.

  And some minutes later they had begun to talk of something else again,as the bus lurched on through the hot, deserted Sunday streets.

  * * * * *

  The morning that had brought Gwenna to her lover left Gwenna's chum foronce at a loose end.

  "Leslie, my child, aren't you a little tired of being the looker-on whosees most of the game? Won't you take a hand?" Miss Long asked herselfas she went back into her Club bedroom. It was scented with the freshsmell of the rosemary and bay-rum that Leslie used for her ink-blacksheaf of hair, and there drifted in through the open window the sound ofbells from all the churches.

  "Sunday. My free morning! '_The better the day._' So I'll settle up atlast what I am going to do about this little matter of my future," shedecided.

  She sat down at the little bamboo writing-table set against the bedroomwall. Above it there hung (since this was a girl's room!) alooking-glass; and about the looking-glass there was festooned a littlegarland made up of dance-programmes, dangling by their pencils, of gaudypaper-fans from restaurants, and of strung beads. Stuck crookedly into acorner of the glass there was a cockling snapshot. It showed MontyScott's dark head above his sculptor's blouse. Leslie picked it out andlooked at it.

  "Handsome, wicked eyes," she said to it lightly. "The only wicked thingsabout you, you unsophisticated infant-in-arms!" Then she said, "You andyour sculpturing!... _Just_ like a baby with its box of bricks. Besides,I don't suppose you'll ever have a penny. One doesn't marry a manbecause one may like the _look_ of him. No, boy."

  She flicked the snapshot aside. There was conscientious carelessness inthe flick.

  Then she took out the leather-cased ink-bottle from her dressing-bag,and some paper.

  She wrote: "MY DEAR HUGO----"

  Then she stopped and thought--"Maudie and Hilary Smith will be pleasedwith me. So will the cousins, the opulent cousins who've always beenkind about clothes they've finished wearing, and invitations to partieswhere they want another girl to brighten things up. You can give somebright parties for _them_ now, Leslie! Good Reason Number Ninety-ninefor saying 'Yes.'"

  She took up her pen.

  "Nothing," she murmured, "_Nothing_ will ever kill the idea that _thegirl who isn't married is the girl who hasn't been asked_. Nothing willever spoil the satisfaction of that girl when showing that she _has_!"

  She wrote down the date, which she had forgotten.

  "Poor Monty would be so much more decorative for 'show' purposes. But Iexplained quite frankly to Hugo that it would be his money I'd want!"

  She wrote, "_After thinking it well over_----"

  Then again she meditated.

  "Great things, reasons! The reason why so many marriages aren't asuccess is because they haven't _enough_ 'reasons why' behind them. Now,how far had I got with mine--ah, yes. Reason Number a Hundred: I'mtwenty-six; I shall never been any better-looking than I am now. Notunless I'm better-dressed. Which (Reason a Hundred and One) I should beif I married Hugo. Reason a Hundred and Two: my old lady won't live forever, and I should never get a better job than hers. Except his. ReasonNumber a Hundred and Two and a Half: I do quite like him. He doesn'texpect anything more, so there's the other half-reason for taking him.Reason a Hundred and Four: _he's_ never disapproved of me. Whereas Montyalways likes me against his better judgment. Much nicer for me, butannoying for a husband. I should make Hugo an excellent wife." She addedthis half-aloud (to the snapshot).

  "I should never shock _him_. Never bore him. Never interfere with him.Never make him look silly--any sillier than he can't help looking withthat hair and that necktie he will wear. Leslie would have the sense,when she wasn't amusing him at the moment, to retire to her _own rooms_(Reason a Hundred and Five for marrying well), and to stay there untilshe was fetched. Reason a----"

  Here, in the full flow of her reasoning, Miss Long cast suddenly andrather violently down her pen, and tore the sheet with Hugo's name in itinto tiny strips that she cast into the empty fireplace.

  "I can't _think_ to write a good letter to-day!" she excused herself toherself as she got up from her chair. "I'm tired.... It was all thattalking from Taffy last night. Bother the child. _Bother_ her. _It'sunsettling!_--Bother _all_ engaged girls. (_And all the people shall sayAmen._) I wonder where they went to?... I shall ring up somebody to takeme on the river, I think. Plenty of time to say 'Yes' to Hugo later."

  The letter to Hugo, between the lines of which there had come the visionof an engaged girl's happy face, remained, for the present, unfinished.

  Leslie went to the telephone.

  "O-o-o Chelsea," she called. "I want to speak to Mr. Scott, please."

  She thought, "This shall be my last free Sunday, and I'll have it inpeace!"

  * * * * *

  In Richmond Park the grass was doubly cool and green beneath the shadeboth of the oaks and of the breast-high bracken where Gwenna and PaulDampier sat, eating the fruit and cake that they had bought on the way,and talking with long stretches of contented silence.

  They were near enough actually to London and the multitude. But town andpeople seemed far away, out of their world to-day.

  Gwenna's soft, oddly-accented voice said presently into the warmstillness, "You'll take me up this afternoon?"

  "Up?" he said idly. "Where to?"

  "Up flying, of course."

  "No, I don't think so," said the young Airman quietly, putting his chinin his hand as he lay in his favourite attitude, chest downwards in thegrass, looking at her.

  "Not flying? Not this afternoon?"

  "Don't think so, Little Thing."

  "Oh, you're lazy," she teased him, touching a finger to his fair headand taking it quickly back again. "You don't want to move."

  "Not going to move, either; not until I've got to."

  She sighed, not too disappointed.

  Here in the dappled shade and the solitude with him it was heavenlyenough; even if she did glance upward at the peeps of sapphire-bluethrough the leaves and wonder what added rapture it would be to soar tothose heights with her lover.

  "D'you know how many times you've put me off?" she said presently,fanning the midges away from herself with her broad white hat. "Alwaysyou've said you'd take me flying with you, Paul. And always there's beensomething to stop it. Let's settle it now. Now, when will you?"

  "Ah," he said, and flung the stone of the peach he'd been eating intothe dark green jungle of bracken ahead of them. "Good shot. I wanted tosee if I could get that knob on that branch."

  She moved nearer to him and said coaxingly, "What about next Sunday?"

  "Hope it'll be as fine as this," he said, smiling at her. "I'd like allthe Sundays to be just like this one. Can't think what I did with allthe ripping days before this, Gwenna."

  She said, "I meant, what about your taking me up next Sunday?"

  "Nothing about it," he said, shaking his head. There was a little pause.He crossed his long legs in the grass and said, "Not next Sunday. Northe Sunday after that. Nor any Sunday. Nor any time. I may as well tellyou now. You aren't ever coming flying," said the young aviator firmlyto his sweetheart. "I've settled _that_."

  The cherub face of the girl looked blankly into his. "But, Paul! Noflying? Why? Surely--It's safe enough now!"

  "Safe enough for me--and for most pe
ople."

  "But you've taken Miss Conyers and plenty of girls flying."

  "Girls. Yes."

  "And you _promised_ to take me!"

  "That was ages ago. That was when you were a girl too."

  "Well, what am I now, pray?"

  "Don't you know? Not '_a_ girl.' _My_ Girl!" he said.

  Then he moved. He knelt up beside her. He made love to her sweetlyenough to cause her to forget all else for a time. And presently,flushed and shy and enraptured, she brought out of her vanity-bag thetiny white wing that was to be his mascot, and she safety-pinned itinside the breast of his old grey jacket.

  "That ought to be fastened somewhere to the P.D.Q.," he suggested. Butshe shook her head. No. It was not for the P.D.Q. It was for him towear.

  Then she saw him weighing in his hand her own mascot, the littlemother-of-pearl heart with the silver chain.

  "Ah! You did remember to bring it, at last?" she said.

  Nestling against his arm, she lifted her chin and waited for him to snapthe trinket about her neck.

  He laughed and hesitated. She looked at him rather wonderingly. Then hemade a confession.

  "D'you know, I--I do hate to have to give it back again, Gwenna. I'vehad it _so_ long. Might as well let me hold on to it. May I?"

  "Oh, you are greedy for keepsakes," she said, delighted. "What would you_do_ with a thing like that?"

  "I've thought of something," said he, nodding at her.

  She asked, "What?"

  "Tell you another time," he smiled, with the locket clutched in the handthat was about her waist. She flung back her head happily against hisshoulder, curling herself up like a kitten in his hold. They had settledthat they were going to walk on to Kew Gardens to tea, but it was nottime yet, and it was so peaceful here. Scarcely any one passed them inthat nook of the Park. Another happy silence fell upon the lovers. Itwas long before the boy broke it, asking softly, "You do like being withme, don't you?" There was no answer from the girl.

  "Do you, Gwenna?" It seemed still odd to be able to call her whatever heliked, now! "Do you, my Little Sweet Thing?"

  Still she didn't answer. He bent closer to look at her.... Her longeyelashes lay like two little dark half-moons upon her cheeks and herwhite blouse fell and rose softly to her breathing. Drowsy from the latehours she'd kept last night and from the sun-warmed silence under thetrees, she had fallen asleep in his arms. Her eyes were still shut whenat last she heard his deep and gentle voice again in her ear, "I supposeyou know you owe me several pairs of gloves, miss!"

  She laughed sleepily, returning (still a little shyly and unfamiliarly!)the next kiss that he put on her parted lips.

  "I was _nearly_ asleep," she said, with a little sudden stretch that ranall over her like a shake given to a sheet of white aluminium at theWorks. "Isn't it quiet? Feels as if _everything_ was asleep." She openedher eyes, blinking at the rays of the sun, now level in her face. "Oh, I_should_ like some tea, wouldn't you?"

  They rose to go and find a place for tea in Kew Gardens, among thehappy, lazing Sunday crowds of those whom it has been the fashion totreat so condescendingly: England's big Middle-classes. There were theconventional young married couples; "She" wearing out the long tussorecoat that seemed so voluminous; "He," pipe in mouth, wheeling the wickermail-cart that held their pink-and-white bud of a baby. There were alsocourting couples innumerable....

  (Not all of these were as reticent in the public eye as Gwenna had beenwith her lover before Leslie.)

  To Gwenna the bright landscape and the coloured figures seemed a pageout of some picture-book that she turned idly, her lover beside her. Shehad to remind herself that to these other lovers she herself and Paulwere also part of a half-seen picture....

  They sat down at one of the green wooden tea-tables, and a waiter in agreasy black coat came out under the trees to take Dampier's order.Perhaps that started another train of thought in the girl's mind, forquite suddenly she exclaimed, "Ah! I've thought of _another_ German nowthat he was like!"

  "Who was that?" asked Paul.

  "Only a picture I used to see every day. A photograph that our MissBaker kept pinned up over her desk at the works in Westminster,"explained Gwenna. "The photograph of that brother of hers that she wasalways writing those long letters to."

  "Always writing, was she? Was _he_ a waiter?"

  "No, he was a soldier. He was in uniform in that photo," Gwenna said, asthe little tray was set before her. "Karl was his name, Karl Becker....Do you take sugar?"

  "Yes. You'll have to remember that for later on," he said, looking ather with his head tilted back and a laugh in his eyes, as she poured outhis tea. She handed it to him, and then sat sipping her own, lookingdreamily over the English gardens, over the green spaces flowered withthe light frocks and white flannels of other couples who perhaps calledthemselves "in love," and who possibly imagined they could ever feel asshe and her lover felt. (Deluded beings!)

  She murmured, "What do you suppose all these people are thinkingabout?"

  "Oh! Whether they'll go to Brighton or to South-end for their fortnight,I expect," returned Paul Dampier. "Everybody's thinking about holidaysjust now."

  Later, they stood together in the hushed gloom of the big chestnut aislebeside the river that slipped softly under Kew Bridge, passing thewillows and islands and the incongruously rural-looking street ofStrand-on-the-Green. One of the cottage-windows there showed red blinds,lighted up and homely.

  Young Dampier whispered to his girl--"Going on holidays myself, perhaps,presently, eh?"

  "Oh, Paul!" she said blankly, "you aren't going away for a holiday, areyou?"

  "Not yet, thanks. Not without you."

  "Oh!" she said. Then she sighed happily, watching the stars. "To-day'sbeen the loveliest holiday I've ever had in my life. Hasn't it beenperfect?"

  "Not quite," he said, with his eyes on those red-lighted windows on theopposite bank. "Not perfect, Gwen."

  "Not----?" she took up quickly, wondering if she had said something thathe didn't like.

  Almost roughly he broke out, "Oh, I say, darling! _Don't_ let's go andhave one of these infernally long engagements, shall we?"

  She turned, surprised.

  "We said," she reminded him, "that we weren't 'engaged' at all."

  "I know," he said. Then he laughed as he stooped and kissed her littleringless fingers and the palms of her hands. "But----"

  There was a pause.

  "Got to _marry_ me one day, you know," said young Paul Dampierseriously.

  He might have spoken more seriously still if he had known that what hesaid must happen in ten days' time from then.