by Berta Ruck
CHAPTER VI
HER GUARDIAN'S CONSENT
The Reverend Hugh Lloyd, who was Gwenna Williams' only relative andguardian and therefore the person from whom consent might be asked ifever the girl wished to be engaged, sat reading _The Cambrian News_. Hesat, over his breakfast eggs and tea, in the kitchen-sitting-room of hisChapel House. Inside, the grandfather clock ticked slowly but stillpointed (as ever) to half-past two; and the cosy room, with its Welshdresser and its book-shelves, still held its characteristic smell ofsingeing hearthrug. Outside, quiet brooded over the valley that fineAugust morning. The smoke from the village chimneys rose blue andstraight against the larches of the hill-side. The more distant hills ofthat landscape were faintly mauve against the cloudless, fainter blue ofthe late-summer sky. All the world seemed so peaceful!
And the expression on the Reverend Hugh's face of a Jesuit priest underits thatch of bog-cotton hair was that of a man at peace with all theworld.
True, there were rumours, in some of the newspapers, of some War goingon somewhere in the world outside.
But it was a long way from here to that old Continent, as they calledit! For the matter of that, it was a long way to London, where theysettled what they were going to do about Germany....
What they were going to do about Welsh Disestablishment was a good dealmore important, to a Welshman. There were some very good things aboutthat in this very article. The Reverend Hugh had written it himself.
Presently, in the midst of his reading, his housekeeper (who was asmall, middle-aged woman, rather like a black hen) entered the room at arun.
"Telegram for you, sir."
"Ah, yes; thank you, Margat," her master said as he took it.
He had guessed already what was in it. Some arrangement to do with hisnext Sabbath-day's journey. For he was a very popular preacher, invitedto give sermons by exchange in every country town in Wales.
"This," he told his housekeeper complacently, as he tore open theenvelope, "will be to say am I ex Pected in Carnarvon on the Sat Teudeh,or----"
Here he broke off, staring at the message in his hand. It was a longone.
There was a moment's silence while the clock ticked. Then that silencewas broken by an exclamation, in Welsh, from a man startled out of allprofessional decorum. He added, with more restraint, but also in Welsh,"Great King!"
Then he exclaimed, "Dear father!" and "_Name_ of goodness!"
"What is it, Mr. Lloyd _bach_?" demanded his housekeeper excitedly inWelsh, clutching her black, crochet wool shawl about her shoulders asshe waited by the side of the breakfast.
"Is it somebody died?" In her mind's eye she saw already that loved orgyof her kind--a funeral.
The Reverend Hugh shook his handsome white head. Again he read throughthe longest telegraph message that he had ever received:
It ran:
"_Dear Sir am going to marry your niece Gwenna to-morrow Tuesday morning at Hampstead regret forced to give you this short notice but impossible to do otherwise owing military duties trust you will excuse apparent casualness will write further particulars yours sincerely Paul Dampier Lieutenant Royal Flying Corps._"
"_Name_ of goodness!" breathed the Reverend Hugh, brushing back hiswhite locks in consternation. And at short intervals he continued toejaculate. "What did I tell her? _What_ did I tell her!... Indeed, it'sa great pity I ever let her go away from home.... It was my fault; myfault.... Young men----! This one sounds as if he was gone quite mad,whatever."
So the Reverend Hugh addressed his answer to Miss Gwenna Williams at herClub.
And it said:
"_Coming up to see you nine-thirty Euston to-night. Uncle._"
* * * * *
"I'm sure he'll be simply horrid about it," Gwenna rather tremulouslytold her betrothed that evening, as they walked, the small, curly-hairedgirl in dark blue and the tall, grey-clad aviator, up and down theplatform at Euston Station, waiting for the Welsh train to come in.
Little Gwenna was experiencing a feeling not unknown among those shortlyto be married; namely, that _every prospect was pleasing--save that ofhaving to face one's relatives with the affair_!
"He was always rather a dret-ful old man," she confided anxiously toPaul, as they paced the sooty flags of the platform. "It's _just_ likehim to be sixteen minutes late already just when I want to get thisover. He never understands anything about--about people when they'reyoung. And the first thing he's sure to ask is whether you've got anymoney. Have you, Paul?"
"Stacks," said the Airman, reassuringly. "Old Hugo made it sixty, as awedding-present. Decent of him, wasn't it?"
They turned by the blackboard with the chalked-up notices of arrivalsand departures, and Gwenna ruefully went on with her prophecy of whather Uncle would say.
"He'll say he never _heard_ of anybody marrying an Airman. (I don'tsuppose he's ever heard of an Airman at all before now!) Ministers, andquarry-managers, and people _with some prospects_; that's the sort ofthing they've always married in Uncle Hugh's family," she saidanxiously. "And he'll say we've both behaved awfully badly not to lethim know before this. (Just as if there was anything to know.) Andhe'll say you turned my silly head when I was much too young to know myown mind! And then he's quite, quite sure to say that you only proposedto me because---- Well, of course," she broke off a little reproachfully,"you never even _did_ propose to me properly!"
"Too late to start it now," said her lover, laughing, as the knot ofporters surged forward to the side of the platform. "Here's the traincoming in!"
* * * * *
Now Gwenna was right about the first thing that Uncle Hugh would ask,when, after a searching glance and a handshake to this tall young manthat his niece introduced to him at the carriage-door, he carried offthe pair of them to the near-by hotel where the Minister always put upon his few and short visits to London.
"Well, young gentleman," he began, in his crisp yet deliberate Welshaccent. He settled himself on the red plush sofa, and gazed steadily atPaul Dampier on one of the red plush armchairs. "Well! And have you gotthe money reck-quisite to keep a wife?"
"No. I'm afraid I haven't, sir, really," returned the young man, lookingfrankly back at him. "Of course I'd my screw. Three pounds ten a week, Iwas getting as a pilot. But that was only just enough for myself--withwhat I had to do for the Machine. Of course I'm going to have her--theFlying Machine--taken up now, so----"
"It's very little faith I have in such things as flying machines.Flying? Yes, in the face of Providence, I call it," said the ReverendHugh, discouragingly, but with the dawn of some amusement in hissearching eyes. "What I say about the whole idea of Avi_ay_-shonis--_Kite-high lunacy!_"
"Uncle!" scolded Gwenna; blushing for him. But the young Airman took therebuke soberly enough.
"And out of that income," went on Uncle Hugh, still looking hard, atthis modern suitor in that incongruous red-plush setting with itsNineteenth Century clocks and ornaments, "out of that income you willnot have saved very much."
"Afraid not, sir," agreed young Dampier, who, last night, had been downto his last eightpence ha'penny and a book of stamps. "Not much to putby, you know----"
"Not even," took up the Reverend Hugh, shrewdly, "enough to pay for aspecial marriage licence?"
"Oh, yes, I had that. That is, I've raised _that_"--("Good old Hugo!" hethought.)--"and a bit over," he added, "to take us for some sort of alittle trip. To the sea, perhaps. Before I go on Service."
"Military service, do you mean?" said the Reverend Hugh. "Mmph! (I neverhave held with soldiery. I do not think that I have ever come intoact--ual con--tackt with _any_.)"
"Yes, I probably am going on Service, Mr. Lloyd," answered the youngman, quickly, and with a glance at the girl that seemed to indicate thatthis subject was only to be lightly dealt with at present. "When, I amnot sure. Then I shall get my pay as a Flight-Lieutenant, you see.Shan't want any money much, then. So _she_"--with a little nod tow
ardsthe small, defensively set face of Gwenna, sitting very straight in theother red-plush armchair--"she will get that sent home, to her."
"_I_ shan't want all your pay, indeed," interrupted the girl, hastily.It seemed to her too revoltingly horrible, this talk about moneycombined with this sense that a woman, married, must be an _expense_, aburden. A woman, who longs to mean only freedom and gifts and treasureto her lover!
"Oh, a woman ought never, _never_ to feel she has to be _kept_," thoughtGwenna, rosy again with embarrassment. "If men don't think we _mind_,very well, then let all the money in the world be taken away from men,and given to us. Let _them_ be kept. And if they don't mind it--well,then it will be a happier world, all round!"
And as she was thinking this, she announced eagerly, "If--if you _do_ goaway, I shall stay on with the Aeroplane Lady, as I told you, Paul. Yes.I'd _much_ rather I should have something to do. And I'd get nearly apound a week, and my keep. Besides! I've got my own money."
"Which money, dear?" asked Paul Dampier.
The quick eyes of the Reverend Hugh had not left the young man's face.
They were fixed still more scrutinisingly upon it as the old maninterposed, "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Dampier, that you were notaware that my niece had got a little bit of her own?"
"There! I _knew_ Uncle would say that!" burst out the young girl, angryand blushing and ashamed. "I knew he'd say you were only marrying mebecause of that! _He_ won't believe that it wouldn't make any differenceto you that I've got seventy-five pounds a year!"
"Seventy-five pounds a year? _Have_ you?" said the young man, surprised."Really?"
And it was Gwenna's turn to be surprised as his frank face cleared andhis voice took a very relieved note.
"I say, how topping! Make no difference to me? But it does. Rather!" hedeclared. "Don't you see that I shall know you won't _have_ to work, andthat I shall be ever so much more comfortable about you? Why did younever tell me?"
"I forgot," said Gwenna truly.
And the Reverend Hugh suddenly laughed aloud.
At the same time he hoped he had concealed his relief, which was great.His youngest sister's girl was not going to be snapped up by afortune-hunter after all. That had always been his anxiety. Seventy-fivepounds a year (certain) remained a considerable fortune to thisVictorian. In his valley quite a large house, with a nice bit of garden,too (running steeply up a mountain-side), was to be had for a rent ofsixteen pounds. He would have thought of that himself.... But the leggy,fair-haired boy who was now smiling across the oval hotel table at hisGwenna had meant only what he had said. The older man realised that.So, waiving for the present the question of means, the Reverend Hughwent on, in rather a modified tone, to ask other questions.
Asking questions of the newly accepted suitor seems to be all thatremains for the parent or guardian of our times. It is the sole survivalof that potent authority which once disposed (or said it disposed) ofthe young lady's hand. Clearing his throat with the same little soundthat so often heralded the words of some text from his pulpit, theReverend Hugh began by inquiring where Gwenna, after her shorthoneymoon, was supposed to be going to live.
Nowhere new, it appeared! She had her berth at the Aircraft Factory, herroom at Mrs. Crewe's cottage for when young Dampier was away. (Yes; fromhis tone when he spoke of it, evidently that parting was to be kept inthe background and evaded as much as possible for the present.) And ifhe were in London, he had his rooms in Camden Town. Do for them both,perhaps.... His bachelor digs.; not bad ones....
Well, but no _house_? Dear me. That was a gipsyish sort of plan, wasn'tit? That was a new idea of setting up housekeeping to Uncle Hugh. He,himself, was an old bachelor. But he could see that this was all verydifferent from the ideas of all the young couples in _his_ time. WhenGwenna's father, now, was courting Gwenna's mother, well! he, HughLloyd, had never heard such a lot of talk about _Mahoggani_. _And_tebbel-linen. _And_ who was to have the three feather-beds from theold Quarry-house; Gwenna's mother, or Gwenna's mother's sister----
(All this the Reverend Hugh declaimed in his most distinct Chapel voice,but still with his searching eyes upon the face of the husband-to-be.)
The idea of most young girls, in getting married, he thought, was to geta nice home of their own, as soon as possible. A comfortable house----
("I hate comfortable houses. So stuffy. Just like a tea-cosy. They'd_smother_ me!" from Gwenna.)
But the House, her Uncle Hugh had _Olwes_ understood, was the Woman'sfetish. Spring-cleaning, now; the yearly rites! And that furniture. "TheLares," he went on in an ever-strengthening Welsh accent. "ThePen--nates----!"
"Oh, _those_!" scoffed the girl in love. "_Those_----!"
So Gwenna didn't seem to think she would miss these things? She waswilling to marry without them? Yes? Strange!... Well, well!
And what about this marriage-in-haste? Where was it to take place? Inthat Church in Hampstead? A Church. Well! He, as an orthodox dissentingminister, ought not, perhaps, to enter such a place of worship. But,after all, this was not at home. This was only up here, in England.Perhaps it wouldn't matter, just this once.
And who was the clergyman who was going to officiate at the cerrymonny?And what sort of a preacher, now, was _he_? (This was not known.)
And Mr. Dampier's own relations? Would they all be at the Church?
Only one cousin, he was told. That was the only relation Paul Dampierhad left.
"Same as myself," said the Reverend Hugh, a little quietly. "A bigfamily, we were. Six boys, two girls; like people used to have. Allgone. Nothing left, but----"
Here, for the first time taking his eyes from young Dampier, he turnedupon his niece with an abrupt question. With a quick nod towards herhusband-to-be, he demanded: "And where did you find _him_?"
Little Gwenna, still on the defensive, but thawing gradually (since,after all, Uncle Hugh had spoken in friendly tones to the Beloved),Gwenna asked, "When, Uncle?"
"The time that counts, my girl," said the Reverend Hugh; "the firsttime."
"Oh! I think it was--it was at a party I went to with my friend, MissLong, that I've told you about," explained Gwenna, a little nervously."And--and he was there. It's--_quite_ a long time ago, now."
"Dear me," said the Reverend Hugh. "Dukes! There is a lot of things seemto go on, still, under the name of 'Party.'" And there was a sudden andquite young twinkle in the eyes under the white thatch.
Paul Dampier, not seeing it, began hastily: "I hope you understand, sir,that we were only keeping all this to ourselves, because--well----" Hecleared his throat and made another start. "If I'd had the--er--the theprivilege of seeing Gwenna at your place----" Yet another start. "We hadno _idea_, of course," said Paul Dampier, "until fairly recently----"
"Dear me," said the Reverend Hugh again. Then, turning to the young manwhom Gwenna had said he would accuse of turning the head of one tooyoung to know her own mind, he remarked with some feeling, "I dare sayshe had made up her mind, that first time, not to give you a bit ofpeace until you'd sent off that telly-gram to me!"
* * * * *
As he was taking the bride-to-be back to her Club, young Dampier said,smiling: "Why, darling, he's not a bad old chap at all! You said hewouldn't understand anything!"
"Well, he doesn't," persisted the mutinous Gwenna. But she laughed alittle, relentingly.
Twenty minutes later her lover took his leave with a whispered"Good-night. Do you know that I shan't ever have to say it againat this blessed door, after this?... And another, for luck....Good-_night_--er--Miss Williams!"
She ran upstairs humming a tune.
She was so happy that she could feel kind even to old and unsympatheticand cynical people to-night.
To-morrow she was to be Paul Dampier's wife.
It was hardly believable, still it was true!
War, now threatening to tear him from her, had at least brought him toher, first, sooner than she had ever hoped. Even if he were forced toleave her quite
soon, say in a month's time!--she would have had himall to herself first, without any of these small, fretting good-byesthat came so punctually following every meeting! She would have _been_all his; his very own, she thought.
And here it may be said that upon this subject Gwenna Williams' thoughtswere curiously, almost incredibly vague. That dormant bud of passionknew so little of its own hidden root.
Marriage! To this young girl it was a journey into a country of whichshe had never formed any clear idea. Her own dreams had been the rosymists that obscured alike the heights and depths of that scarcelyguessed-at land. All she saw, clearly, was her fellow traveller; thedear boy-comrade and sweetheart who would not now leave her side. Whatdid it matter where he took her, so that it was with him always?
Only one more night, now, in the long, narrow Club bedroom where she haddreamed that queer flying dream, and so many others, so many longingdaydreams about him!
To-morrow was her wedding-day!
