That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
Those strange eyes stung as they fastened on you and sucked at you,
somehow making you think of a tiger lurking in a cave of ice. They were
shadowed by the peak of a grey-green field-cap, with an edge of vivid
crimson showing above its deep band of silver lace, oakleaf and
acorn-patterned. He wore a loose grey overcoat with silver buttons,
thrown open to reveal a grey-green single-breasted Service jacket with a
turn-down collar edged with silver lace and faced with crimson, and a
glittering decoration dangling below the hook. But as he was of the
short-necked, fleshy type of man, and kept his head well down and thrust
forward, staring you out of countenance over a grizzled moustache with
upright, bushy ends--and all the light in the room came from overhead,
the decoration was obscured by the shadow of his chin. A sharp chin,
meagrely modelled, with a cleft in the middle, suggesting petulance and
vanity. The chin of a mediocre actor of romantic parts.
"So you are the boy?"
The tobacco-stained teeth in the mouth under the dyed moustache were
filled and patched with gold that glittered when he spoke to you. There
was a flash of yellow metal now as he added:
"You do not answer, no? Come nearer, boy!"
His legs, short, thick legs in grey riding-breeches and brown boots with
beautiful spurs of gold and steel, stuck out towards you under the
table. As you stepped out briskly to lessen the distance between you,
he pulled the legs back sharply, and a handsome, dark young officer,
standing on his right, put out a brown-gloved hand warningly, as though
the border of the big Turkey rug on which stood the kneehole
writing-table were a frontier-line that must not be crossed.
As he did this, the seated man glanced round at him, nodding approval,
and the pale, jagged seam of a scar on his left cheek showed plainly
against the dark, harsh, fever-dry skin. With the slewing of his head
the decoration hanging by a swivel at the collar of his single-breasted
Service jacket flashed into the light. Bawne saw a large Maltese Cross
eight-pointed and blue-enamelled, having a black eagle, with outspread
wings, between each arm. Crossed swords in diamonds were above,
surmounted by a diamond Crown Imperial. And a black and white ribbon
supported another Cross of plain black edged with silver, at a
buttonhole of the Norfolk-cut jacket of grey-green. Possibly the boy had
guessed in whose presence he stood, even before the young officer, at an
impatient signal from his master, said in excellent English:
"I am commanded to tell you that you are in the presence of the Emperor
of Germany."
*CHAPTER XLVIII*
*PATRINE IS ENGAGED*
"Don't tell me--not that you ever have--that there ain't such a thing as
Providence!" Thus Franky, after lunch upon the fateful Third of August,
from the hearthrug of the drawing room at 00, Cadogan Place. "When," he
went on, "just as I'm on the point of sendin' in my papers to please
you--good old England kerwumps into War!"
He continued, as Margot shrugged her small shoulders:
"All right, best child! Bet you twenty to one in gloves it comes
off!--as sure as the Austrian monitors were shellin' Belgrade, and the
British Cabinet were sittin' on Sunday, and the weekly rags selling like
hot cakes, when you and me and the rest of the congregation were slowly
oozin' out of Church. Why, the Kaiser and the Tsar have been at
loggerheads since Saturday. German troops are swampin' Luxembourg, and
the next move will be the Invasion of France. There We come in--and the
rest of the big European Powers! Like a row of beehives kicked
over!--all the swarms mixed and stingin', and Kittums' little Franky in
the middle of the scrum!"
"Why are you so--frightfully keen about it?"
Margot's great dark deer-eyes were vaguely troubled. She got up from her
writing-table, a lovely thing in Russian tulip-tree, the shelf of which
was graced by a row of mascots: Ti-Ti and the jade tree-frog, Jollikins,
Gojo, and half a dozen more.
"Best child, I'm not keen!" asserted Franky. "But I'm pattin' myself on
the back--gloatin' over the knowledge that I'm not a bally Has Been--but
a real live soldier--just when I'm likely to be wanted to be one!
Switch on?"
He added, as Margot shook her head: "My grammar's a bit off, but I know
what I mean if I can't express it. Here's a telegraph-kid on a red
spider. Two to one in cough-drops that yellow screed's for me! Callin'
me to Headquarters just as I'd got into my civvy rags to spend the
afternoon with my wife!"
The prophecy proved correct. Franky vanished upstairs to peel, plunge
into his Guards' uniform, and whirl away, borne by a taxi, into the dim
conjectural regions known as Headquarters.
Margot went back to her desk to re-read a type-written letter from the
Secretary of the Krauss and Wolfenbuchel Fraueenklinik at Berlin,
counselling the honoured English lady whose introduction, supplied by a
former lady-client, was specially satisfactory!--to secure a room at the
Institute, by the payment of a moiety of the fee in advance. The crowd
of applicants desirous to subject themselves to the wonderful "Purple
Dreams" treatment, was so large, the accommodation, by comparison, so
restricted, that to follow this course would be the only wise plan.
Similar treatment could be obtained in Paris and Brussels, but to ensure
success beyond doubt it was wisest to seek it at the German
fountainhead. One hundred guineas would secure admission to the Berlin
Fraueenklinik. By cheque made payable to the British Agent of
Professors Krauss and Wolfenbuchel, Mr. Otto Busch, 000, Cornhill,
London, E.C. It would be advisable were the English client to follow
her remittance, taking up residence in Berlin within the next few days.
Travelling might not be so easy in October, mildly hinted the Secretary
of the Institute.
Why, bosh! what utter piffle! Good old England wasn't going to toddle
into any European War in a hurry, decided Margot. She had had enough
bother over the South African biz. Perhaps if Germany was having a rag
with Russia, and a tiny bit of a scrap with France, one would have to
get a passport, and travel by a different route to Berlin. Perhaps the
best thing would be to go now--and stick the boredom of a three months'
residence in the Kaiser's capital! Why not? Under the existing
circumstances, one would be bored anywhere.
She drew the cheque, and enclosed it to Mr. Busch's address, and wrote a
little letter in a huge hand to the Secretary, saying that she had done
this and was obliged by his advice. Then she 'phoned to the Club to ask
Patrine to come round to tea at 00, Cadogan Place. Miss Saxham was not
there, according to the hall-porter, but might be found at AA, Harley
Street. There Margot ran her to earth. Yes, Pat would come with
pleasure! but upon condition that Lady Norwater was alone.
"Of course!" Margot remembered. "She's in mourning for the pretty
kiddy-cousin! I must be getting stupid, or I'd have thought of that!"
But when the tall figure passed under the Persian portiere of the
Cadogan Place drawing-room, it was arrayed in a revealing gown of pale
rose lisse with the well-known stole of black feathers and a
tall-crowned hat of golden braiding topped the Nile sunrise hair.
"Why, I thought--" Margot began:
"I know! Do you think it horribly unfeeling?" The speaker stooped to
kiss the soft cheek of the little creature curled up in the corner of a
favourite sofa in a favourite attitude which conveyed an impression of
Margot's having no feet. Patrine did not look at all horrid or
unfeeling as she said, winking back the tears that had overbrimmed her
underlids, "My heart is in crape if my body isn't!"
"I know!" Margot's lovely eyes looked sympathy. "I remember how fond
you've always been of the little cousin."
"Uncle Owen and Lynette won't believe that the darling's drowned,"
Patrine went on. "But I can't hope! I'm not of the hoping kind! When
I shut my eyes I seem to see Bawne fighting to keep afloat--then
sinking. It's as though he called me, and--it's horrible!" She
shuddered. "It's horrible!"
"And--Count von Herrnung? The German Flying Man?" Margot touched the
large white hand next her. "You know what a bad hand I am at saying
things that are consolatory and cosy. Couldn't rake up a single text
for my life--or if I did I'd quote 'em wrong end topside. Like the
callow curate who assured the weeping widow that 'Heaven tempers the
wind to the lorn sham!'"
"I'll let you off the texts, not being a weeping widow!"
But Patrine's pale cheeks burned. Margot pursued, not looking at them:
"Rhona Helvellyn told me there was nothing serious between you. Indeed,
she said you rather hated him than otherwise. But of course you're
sorry he's drowned, naturally!"
There was a silence. Then:
"Yes," Patrine agreed, "I rather hated him than otherwise!"
"Ah!" Margot's little face was sage. "It's a pity you don't care for
some nice man or other!"
"Isn't it?"
"But you will one day. It's much nicer to live with your husband than
with your sister. Though I never had a sister," added Margot. Then her
mind, light and brilliant as a humming-bird, flitted to another subject.
"Rhona and her two Militants lunched with me on Sunday. Awfully down on
their luck, all three. The Grand Slam they'd planned--the
surprise-packet for the Mansion House Banquet had had the lid put on it
by the Police. Fancy Scotland Yard finding out anything! But it had,
for Rhona got a mysterious note warning her that she'd be dropped on
before she could open her head. So--the Bishops toddled through their
speeches without being interrupted! Sit down and light up. These
Balkan Sobranies are tophole!"
"I can't stay!" But Patrine sat down on the sofa, dipped in the
ever-brimful silver box, and kindled a cigarette.
"Where's His Nibs?" she asked. For not even the chastening of
bereavement could cure Patrine of slanginess.
"Called to B.P.G. Headquarters suddenly." Margot blew rings. "Or doing
duty for some pal or other at the Tower. Don't bother about him! Tell
me--why can't you stay with me?"
"Aunt Lynette wants me, for one thing. And----"
"And who for the other?"
"A man!" Patrine sent a thin blue spiral of cigarette smoke twirling
upwards from her pursed lips. Intently she watched it climbing and
spreading. When it faded between her absorbed eyes and the Futurist
mouldings of the lapis lazuli-grounded ceiling whereon a silver comet
swung in a great elliptical orbit about a golden central Sun, she
resumed:
"A man----"
"That makes two men!" said Margot shrewdly,
"No, only one. A man I'm going to marry. Rather soon, too," said
Patrine calmly, and put her cigarette into her mouth again.
"PAT!"
Margot was staring at her blankly.
"Well, my dinkie?"
"Isn't this frightfully previous?"
Patrine removed the cigarette to say:
"It depends on how you look at things."
"But--when did you meet?"
"In Paris."
"Do I know him?"
"No, luckily for me!"
Margot's small, amazed face dimpled a little at the compliment.
"Is he nice?"
"I think so!"
"In Our Set?"
"I don't think so! He's a Flying Man by profession. Now you know nearly
as much as I do," said Patrine. "And I've to be getting back to Harley
Street." She rose from the sofa, towering over her small, indignant
friend.
"You're not going out of this room until you tell me the rest of it!
What is his name, and when did--it--come off?"
"His name is Alan--and he only asked me on Wednesday, when he came to
Harley Street. He has called every day since that horrible 18th of
July, but this time he came to bring"--Patrine choked a little--"Bawne's