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That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day

Richard Dehan

Scout staff and smasher. They had been forgotten in the dressing-shed at the Flying School. Lynette was too ill to go down to receive them. I had to instead--and the sight of them broke me up." "I--see!" "And," Patrine went on, "he--Alan--was being sympathetic, when Uncle Owen came in." "My hat!" Margot sat up, her small face alight and sparkling. "The Doctor-man with the chin and eyebrows! Did he give you unlimited wigging or relent and bless you like the heavy uncle in a proper French Comedy?" "He saw how things were between us. He wasn't astonished. He was very kind. He is always kind!" said Patrine, swallowing. "If I really believed God were as good as Uncle Owen, I shouldn't be afraid to die." "He makes me feel like an earwig under a steam-roller," affirmed Margot. "And the charming aunt. Does she cotton to the engagement?" "Lynette is not, for the present, to be told. I asked that. It seems so cruel to be happy when she is so broken-hearted." "Umps! Then--Irma and your gay and giddy mater? How do they take it?" "They haven't been asked to take it any way." "Oh well! Love is good while it lasts," Kittums said from the summit of a pedestal of experience, "but if I could change back to Margot St. John again----" "You wouldn't!" "Wouldn't I, that's all! This horror that November brings--that's coming every day closer! ... Pat--I haven't told Franky yet, that's to be got over! But I've definitely settled to go to that Institute in Berlin where women can have babies without knowing anything about it--under--Bother! I never can remember the name of that drug!" Patrine sat up. Her face was curiously expressionless. She said, crushing out the last spark of her cigarette-end against the face of a Chinaman on the lacquer ash-tray that occupied a little stand beside the sofa with the silver Sobranie box: "You told me something--you showed me the pink book with the pretty title, 'WEEP NO MORE MOTHERS'--wasn't that the name? You've made up your mind? Does it cost the earth?" "Two hundred for patients of the superior class--_wohlgeboren_ clients. Half paid in advance! Stiff!--but to make sure of not suffering I'd plank a thou'! It's a nightmare, and a Day-mare, that haunts me all the clock round. That's why I'd change--and be Margot St. John again! That's why I can't whoop with joy when my friends tell me they're going to be spliced!" Patrine got up. "Oh!--well! Perhaps I shall escape. After all--it's a lottery!" "Not for big, splendid women like you. You were made to be a mother, Pat!" "_Don't!_" She kissed Margot hastily and went to the door. "Stop!" Margot scrambled off the sofa. "You've forgotten the most important thing of all. Hasn't 'Alan' got a surname by any chance?" Patrine looked back over her shoulder with something of the old smile. "Rather! What do you think of Sherbrand?" "What do I think of Sherbrand? How odd! It's Franky's family name!" "Queer coincidence. But _my_ Sherbrand hasn't any relatives in the Peerage!--or if he has, he hasn't told me! I'll butt you wise when I know him well enough to ask him about them. You see, the whole thing has been beautifully sudden!" "Bring him to lunch at the Club to-morrow. You're not in mourning, and if you were it wouldn't matter. It's simply a family affair, if he's really Franky's cousin. So, say yes." "Very well, if he'll come!" *CHAPTER XLIX* *THE WAR CLOUD BREAKS* Patrine kissed her friend again, and went, leaving Kittums in a whirl of astonishment. To Franky, presently returning from the conjectural region known as Headquarters she announced: "Here's something like news! Pat Saxham--the girl with the Nile sunrise hair that you don't like!--is going to marry a Flying Man. And his name is--the same as yours!" "By the Great Snipe! you don't say so!" Franky, slim and dapper in the scarlet Guards' tunic and crimson sash, divested himself of his sword, dropped his immaculate buckskin gloves into his forage-cap, and sighed with undisguised relief as the attentive Jobling, who had been hovering in the background, disappeared with these articles. Then he proceeded carefully to choose a cigarette from the silver box of Sobranies, lighted it up, bundled Fits out of her master's corner of the sofa, and dropped into it with a sigh of relief. "Sherbrand.... Must be the aviator-fellow we met in Paris. The chap whose hoverer was bein' tested by the swells of the French S. Ae! Saved your life and snubbed me for askin' him to dine with us! Well, that's what I call a cannon off the cush for the Saxham girl!" His dislike of her betrayed itself in his tone. "Must be the same man! supposin' him short of a father! Hilton of Ours showed me an advertisement in the B.M.D. column of _The Banner_ this afternoon briefly announcin' my Uncle Sherbrand's death. Never read _The Banner_--that's how I missed it. Can't say I feel much like puttin' crape on my sleeve in any quantity," went on Franky. "My Uncle Noel has been the Family Skeleton, poor old chap! since that affair in 1900. No doubt his son's cut up--wouldn't be decent of him not to! But at any rate it brings him nearer these--" Franky stuck out a beautifully-cut pair of red-striped auxiliaries ending in dazzling patent-leather Number Eights, and craning over Fits, who had jumped upon his knees, regarded them critically, ending after a pause--"By one life out of the three that stand between. Don't be so gushin', old girl!" The rebuke was for Fits, who had taken advantage of her master's attitude to lick him on the chin. Margot crinkled her slender eyebrows and moved restlessly among her big bright, muslin-covered cushions as she asked: "Is this Volapuk or Esperanto? For mercy's sake don't be obscure! Why is this Flying Sherbrand nearer your shoes by one life out of three? What has he got to do with your shoes at all?" "Don't you switch on?" He lifted his sleek brown head and turned his neck in the setting of the gold-encrusted collar badged with the Scottish Thistle, and stared at Margot with the brown eyes that had seemed so beautiful under the awnings of the Nile _dahabeyah_, and were only stupid now. "Have you forgotten? Don't you twig, best child? Suppose--for the joke of it--there's War, and I get wiped out tryin' to keep up the fightin' traditions of my family and get a bit of gun-metal to hang on a ribbon here." He glanced down at the left breast of the red coat, guiltless of anything in the decoration line. "Then--unless the child"--his tone grew gentle--"our kiddy that's coming, happens to be a boy--my Cousin Sherbrand steps into my billet. He's the next heir to the Norwater Viscounty. Look in Burke or Whittaker if you don't believe me! Get down, old lady, you're coverin' me with white hairs!" He bundled Fits off his knees, got up and rang. "A man ought to be here from Armer's," he told the servant who responded. "Armer and Co., Pall Mall, Military Tailors. Send him up to my room and tell Jobling to help him with all those cases and things. No! don't send Jobling!--send Dowd!" The said Dowd being Franky's soldier servant, between whom and the civilian Jobling reigned a profound mutual contempt. "What is Dowd going to do?" "Oh! only goin' to help overhaul my Service kit and so on," Franky responded lightly. "What with gettin' leave and bein' married I've hardly sported kharks since last Autumn Slogs. Wouldn't do to find myself too potty to get into the regulation tea-leaves in case my country called." "What rot! ..." But Franky had swung out of the room and clattered upstairs with Fits close upon his heels. Fits, who, ordinarily unwilling to be out of sight and sound of her master, now adhered to him like a leech, or his shadow; whining and fidgeting in his absence, as though her feminine mind were beset by haunting apprehensions of some sudden parting, or impending loss.... Long afterwards Margot wondered: "If I had loved him as Fits loves him--should I not also have felt that foreshadowing dread?" But she was conscious only of her own physical discomfort and the increasing weariness that movement brought her. Sharp discontent peaked and pinched the tiny features. She caught a reflection of them in a screen-mirror and shuddered. With every day that dawned now, their wild-rose prettiness faded. By-and-by-- "If I were as good to look at as I used to be in June--or even a month ago!" she wondered--"would _he_ leave me as he is leaving me to-night--to go down to the House? Don't I know that the House means the Club, or the music-hall, or a card-party! Why do men get the best of everything and never have to pay the bill?" She dined in a tea-gown, and when Franky, still in that strange mood of suppressed excitement, attired to four pins in the magpie evening garb of civilized life, had kissed her and said: "So-long, Kittums, little woman! I'm going down to the Big Talk Shop for a bit. Expect me back on the doormat when the Mouthpieces of the Nation have done swoppin' hot air!" she tucked up her feet on the big sofa in her charming drawing-room and read "WEEP NO MORE, MOTHERS," until the pink pamphlet with the gilt sunrise stamped upon it grew heavy in the tiny hand. Then she rang for Pauline and betook herself to bed. The bedroom was blue-green as a starling's egg, its painted walls adorned with delicate lines of black and silver. Perhaps you can see Kittums, under her Brittany lace coverlet amongst the big frilled pillows in one of the narrow black oak bedsteads standing side by side on a carpet of deep rose. A silver night-lamp burned under a dome of sapphire glass on her night-table, and an electric clock noiselessly marked the hours. Lying thus, wrapped about with all the swaddlings of Civilisation, this dainty daughter of the Twentieth Century strove in blind revolt against Nature, the huge relentless Force that was slowly grinding her down. The ant that gets fed into the mill-hopper with the grain might resent the millstone after the same fashion. Ridiculous, but infinitely pathetic, the tragedy of an infinitesimal thing. What did Franky comprehend of her terrors, her forebodings? Even Saxham's counsels were a man's counsels, his advice a man's advice. "_Face your ordeal! do not flee it, lest you encounter something even more terrible!_" Not more terrible for oneself, mind you! but for that unknown, conjectural being, referred to by Franky with such foolish tenderness. The child always! Never Margot! She set her little teeth, staring out into the blue-green dusk from among her pillows. What if it were to be always so? "My boy," "My son," for ever, instead of "My wife." It was a breathless night. A hush of suspense brooded over the huge, hot city, such as prevails before the breaking of a storm. Sentences from the Secretary's letter came back to her as she tossed under the cool light coverings: "_Wiser not to delay, lest travelling should become difficult. It will be advisable indeed for the gracious lady to start as soon as may be. English bank-notes are negotiable here to some extent. A sum in gold is most convenient to bring._" Why hang back? Why hesitate because one expected opposition from Franky? Why not slip off on the quiet without a hint to him? What a perfectly tophole idea! One could pack secretly, get funds from one's Bank, and skip with Pauline via Ostend to-morrow! Berlin was a dull place, but anyhow one had got to be dull for some months yet. The thing could be arranged while Franky was absent on duty at the Tower, or on one of his mysterious errands to Headquarters. One could cable to him afterwards from the _Fraueenklinik_ at Berlin.