That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
Bawne's parents.... Dry-eyed they might smile until their lips cracked,
but their hidden hearts would weep. Their tongues might be silent, but
their hearts would cry always; Did we wish our child to be heroic? Had
he been a craven we would have had him now beside us! Give us our
living boy again! O! keep your empty words!
A cry from Patrine prodded Sherbrand to active sympathy. So at last they
had told her. She knew all. And true to her type she was raging at the
Doctor and the Chief like a very termagant; upbraiding them with a spate
of words rushing over her writhing lips and lioness-frenzy in her
blazing eyes.
"I begged you not to let him go!" This was to the Doctor. "Faint! Do
you take me for a bally idiot--to faint when there's something to be
done! Follow that man and get him back! If he takes him away to
Germany--don't you know we shall never see Bawne again! Oh! why--why
can't I make you understand!"
The raging voice grew hoarse with sobs, though her furious eyes were dry
as enamel. She added with an inflection that made Sherbrand blink and
gulp:
"Don't you know--don't you _know_ it will kill Aunt Lynette? And I
shall be guilty--I who love them so! Oh, God, I must do something or
die raving mad!"
The Doctor's great arm held her firmly round the body. Saxham was strong
as an oak-tree, but who can control a woman in the frenzy of hysteria,
standing six feet tall in high-heeled No. 7 shoes? She wrestled and
fought, and her tawdry hat of silver spangles tumbled off, and her
superb hair shed its pins of tortoiseshell, and rolled, yellow-tawny as
a South African torrent in flood-time, down over her heaving shoulders,
over the supple back and writhing loins, reaching nearly to her knees.
Then her strength went from her, and her tears came. She dropped into a
chair Sherbrand had got her, and crumpled up there, crying bitterly.
*CHAPTER XXXVII*
*PATRINE CONFESSES*
With her hat off and her hairpins out, and her tawny-coloured mane
tumbling over her heaving shoulders, the superb illusion of maturity
vanished. The three men viewed Patrine with clear, unprejudiced eyes.
Stripped of the magic cloak of Circe, here was no transformer of Man
into the hoofed and rooting mammal, but a great galumphing schoolgirl,
pouring out a heartful of trouble, without the least concern for her
complexion; mopping her streaming eyes with a little sopping
handkerchief; temporarily ending its brief career of usefulness with a
dismal blast upon the nose.
"Take mine!" said Saxham, thrusting the large-sized square of cambric
upon her.
"Th--thank you, Uncle Owen!"
She said it in the voice of a child. The torrent of tears, so different
from those shed earlier, had washed her heart clean. Something hard and
cynical and evil had passed out of her. She was Bawne's dear Pat again.
A lean brown hand that wore a chipped and ancient signet was next held
out to her. She grasped it and was straightway hauled upon her feet.
"Are you better?" said a friendly voice, in a crisp way.
"I--think so. Thank you, Sir Roland!" She added in a tone as
tear-soaked as her handkerchief, while Saxham offered her her hat, and
Sherbrand tendered tortoiseshell hairpins:
"I'm awfully afraid I have behaved like a fool!"
"Like a woman!" said the friendly voice even more crisply.
"Do you think women are fools?" she was beginning, when she caught his
eye and broke off. For she had met Sir Roland's mother and she knew his
young wife quite well, and her Aunt Lynette, the one living being whom
she worshipped, was one of his closest friends. No! To this man women
were sacred. Why had she uttered such a banality? For the life of her
she did not know.
She drew a sobbing breath, and looked about her vaguely, and suddenly a
mist rolled away from her brain. The net of Tragedy whirled high and
fell upon her, and the steel trident was driven deep between her ribs
again:
"I--had forgotten!" She stared upon them. "What must you all think of
me?"
Saxham's arm came round her, and Saxham's voice answered:
"Nothing, my dear, but that you are human, and have had a tremendous
shock!"
She leaned against the Doctor's great shoulder, sighing:
"Thank you! ... I'm all right now! Not going to cry any more.... But
Bawne! If we wait long enough there will be news of him? We--shall get
him back?"
She felt Saxham's iron muscles jerk, and his ribs heave as though the
trident had found a home between them. Perhaps he could not find his
voice, for it was the Chief who said:
"We are doing everything possible. Mr. Sherbrand is helping. He has
been good enough to place the telegraph installation at our disposal and
the Wireless also. A call, Burgin?"
The undersized clerk had waved a hand from the threshold of the cabin.
The Chief vanished. Patrine sighed:
"Oh, if there should be news!"
"You are too sensible to be bowled over if there happens to be no news,"
said the Doctor's voice. But his arm was tense about her waist and she
felt the beating of his heart.
"Uncle Owen!"
Sherbrand had withdrawn out of earshot. She squeezed the kind
responsive hand, turned her mouth towards the Doctor's ear, and
whispered tremulously:
"Uncle Owen! You don't know _him_ as I do. That's why I am
so--horribly afraid for Bawne! He would be cruel to anyone you liked,
if he hated you. And he is furious with me! I have thwarted him
in--something he wishes! He is bad!--dangerous!--do you understand?"
"He cannot be a bad pilot with such a record. And in such calm weather
there is little danger of an accident. We must be patient; there is
nothing else to do at the moment, but wait!"
Saxham had feigned to misunderstand her, for very pity, you can
conceive. Blurting out her miserable secret in this moment of unselfish
sorrow, his heart was wrung in him to an anguish of compassion for
Patrine. But no less was he wrung by the truth her words conveyed. His
son and Lynette's was in the power of an evil man! What was David's
daughter saying?
"Uncle Owen!" The tall figure of Sherbrand had moved away into the
reddish twilight, and a wild desire of confession spurred on the girl to
desperate frankness of speech. She hurried on, nerving herself to the
change that would presently show in Saxham. "Uncle Owen! I think you
had better know! Since I met _him_ in Paris I----"
"Stop!" said Saxham. But she would not stop. She had his blood in her,
and went on, though to have set her naked foot on glowing iron would
have been easier than to tell.
"I have flirted with him!--gone alone with him to restaurants and
music-halls!--let him take me to the Upas!"--there was a tightness like
knotted whipcord about her throat; "That's--not the worst!"
"I guessed it. Stop!" Saxham repeated:
"Who told?"--she faltered brokenly, and shivered at the deep stern
whisper:
"No one told, but the reputation of the--man is known to me. His type
does not hesitate where a woman's virtue is concerned."
A great sigh burst from her. "And you can speak to me and touch me
kindly--you don't hate the sight of me?"
"No, my poor girl, God forbid!"
"How good!--" she began, broke off and said, shuddering: "But--Aunt
Lynette! How could I bear it, if she were ever to know----"
Saxham said harshly:
"She shall not know! Who do you dream will tell her? Not I! So set
your mind at rest, my girl. You are a girl--though you talk like a
woman of thirty!"
She said with a miserable catch in her throat:
"Nineteen _is_ rather young, isn't it? Perhaps things would have been
different if only Dada had lived!"
The utterance was as inapposite as it was sentimental. If David had
still been in existence his daughter would have had no less cause for
regret. But Saxham, inwardly quivering and wrung with pity, could only
acquiesce:
"Perhaps things would! What you have got to do now is--Forget! Do you
hear me? I order you, and I will be obeyed! And I will have you leave
this titled lady who employs you, and who is all kindness and no
discretion. Resign your post to-morrow! You need not return to your
mother. My house is your home!" He went on in his rare tone of
tenderness, "You need no telling that I care for you as a daughter.
Come to me, and to Lynette who loves you dearly. She will want
comfort--now that--" His voice broke and his mouth twisted. He fought
with his anguish, in silence, turning his grim white face away.
"Who will tell Aunt Lynette? Oh! who will tell her?" he heard Patrine
whisper. He commanded himself to answer:
"For the present, I have telephoned her that we may be detained here
until late. Suppose you twist up your hair now, and put your hat on.
Sherbrand!"
A sweet, manly voice answered out of the dimness of the Flying Ground:
"Here, Doctor! You called me?"
In the madder and umber light of the dying sunset Sherbrand's tall brown
shape came towards them. Saxham said as Patrine swept her tawny tresses
into one rough rope:
"I am going to ask you to find out whether the people at the
refreshment-place could give my niece something by way of substitute for
dinner. A cup of coffee, or cocoa with milk, a roll and butter, and a
slice of cold beef or ham?"
Sherbrand said eagerly:
"I am sure Miss Saxham can get anything like that. Mrs. Durrant keeps
open house till nine o'clock, or later, if there is reason. She caters
for the School Staff, respectably, by contract. I lodge--a very decent
berth--over the dining-room, where I have my grub. Noisy by day but
quiet enough at night-time. Will you come this way, Miss Saxham? You
too, Doctor?"
Saxham declined. They left him standing there, in the wide expanse that
was filling up with brooding shadows, with his back to the dying rose of
the sunset, looking fixedly to the north.
*CHAPTER XXXVIII*
*THE REBOUND*
Patrine, that magnificent animal, had passed unknowingly through the
painful ordeal which accompanies in the human the evolution of a soul.
No doubt she had had one before without suspecting it. Now she was
conscious of the presence of the guest.
Through the big barbaric halls of her nature, glittering with tinsel
over plaster backed with canvas, thronged with vanities, appetites,
desires, and ambitions, jostling at the glittering fountains, buying at
the tawdry counters, flocking to the dubious restaurants, swooping down
the water-chutes, wandering through the painted landscapes, drinking in
the dubious atmosphere, had passed a ray of light, pure, vivifying and
cleansing, had blown a breeze of crystal mountain air. And through the
blare of brass a note had sounded that would never cease to vibrate in
Patrine's ears. Having partially confessed, she experienced a
disproportionate rebound of spirits. Her fears for Bawne weighed on her
less heavily, Saxham's reference to cold ham had awakened in her the
pangs of healthy appetite. The proximity of Sherbrand was a vividly
keen pleasure. She had always wished for a brother, and here was the
very _beau ideal_ of one! She meant to ask him if he had sisters--she
was sure they would be awfully nice girls!
One or two electric lights were switched on in the big room full of
little white-covered tables, with the counter at the far end piled high
with thick white plates. The big nickel urns were cold and empty, but
Mrs. Durrant, the stout and smiling proprietress of the restaurant,
produced hot coffee and milk in a twinkling, bread and butter, the cold
ham, and a cold pigeon-pie.
With her own very fat, very pink hands Mrs. Durrant ministered, voluble
the while in sympathy.... The lady had been upset because the dear