The Boy with Wings
pampering the body. What's the consequence? She, and half the girls
here, go about smelling--to put it plainly--like cold grease and
goloshes! Can they wonder that men don't seem to think they'd be--be
very nice to marry?"
"Some suffragettes, and sort of brainy women," hesitated Gwenna, "are
married."
"Yes; and _have_ you observed the usual type of their husbands?" scoffed
Leslie. "Eugh!"
Gwenna, set upon her own subject, drew her back with innocent directness
to the matter in hand.
"What else ought one to do? Besides lots of washing, besides taking care
of one's hair and skin?"
"One's shape, of course," mused Leslie. "There you're all right. Thank
goodness--_and me_--that you've left off those weird, those unearthly
stays you came up to town in. My dear, they were like a hamper strapped
round the middle of you and sending your shoulders up, squared, into
your ears! You've got a pretty slope there now, besides setting free all
your 'lines.' I suppose elastic has pretty well solved the great corset
question at last."
"Thirty shillings was a dreat-ful lot to give for just an elastic belt,"
murmured Gwenna, with her little hand at her supple waist. "Still, you
said I must, even if I didn't have a new blouse over it for eighteen
months." Again she looked up for guidance. "What else? What's a good
_thing_, Leslie? About clothes and that?"
"Oh, child, you know it all now, practically. Let's see--shoes"--she
glanced at the tiny brown one half-tucked under Gwenna's knee. "_Boots
and shoes_ men seem to notice as much as any other part of your get-up.
Attractive shoes, even with an unfashionable skirt, will pull you
through, when shabby shoes would ruin the look of the smartest rig. They
see that, even when they've no idea what colour you've got on."
She went on to another hole in the stocking and continued: "As for
colours, a man does seem to notice 'a girl in black,' or all-white, or
pale blue. I read once that pale blue is 'the sex colour'--couldn't tell
you, never worn it myself. Managed well enough without it, too!" mused
Leslie. "Then 'a girl in pink' is very often a success in the evening.
Men seem to have settled vaguely that pink is 'the pretty girl's
colour.' So then they fondly imagine that anything that dares to wear
it must be lovely. _You_ needn't yet. Keep it for later. Pink--judicious
pink--takes off ten years, Taffy!"
"I--I suppose I shall still care what I look like," murmured the young
girl wistfully, "at thirty-two...."
"Pearl of Wisdom Number Forty-eight: When in doubt, wear the
coat-and-skirt (if it's decently cut) rather than the frock," decreed
Leslie. "White silk shirts they seem to like, always. (I'm glad
I weaned you of the pin-on tie, Taffy. It always looked like
'sixpence-three-farthings.' Whereas you buy a piece of narrow ribbon for
'six-three,' you _tie_ it, you fasten it with a plain silver brooch to
your shirt, and it looks _good_.)"
"I'll remember," murmured Gwenna devoutly, from the grass.
Leslie said, "One of the housemaids here--(never stoop to gossip with
the servants, dearest. It _is_ so unhelpful and demoralising to both
classes)--one of the housemaids once told me that _her_ young man had
told her that 'nothing in the wide world set a young woman off like a
nice, fresh, clean, simple shirt blouse, same as what she was wearing
then!' Of course, _he_ was a policeman. Not an aviator or a dean's son.
But when it comes to a girl in the case, I expect they're _'brothers
under their skins_,'" said Leslie Long.
Husky with much talking, she cleared her throat.
"Pearl of Wisdom Number Forty-nine: Be awfully careful about your
collar, the ends of your sleeves and the hem of your skirt. (Keeping a
strong force on the Frontier; that is always important.) Don't ever let
your clothes be 'picturesque,' except for indoors. A man loathes walking
along beside anything that flaps in the wind, or anything that looks
like what he calls 'fancy dress.' Outside, don't wear anything that you
can't skip easily on to the last bus in. Don't have 'bits' of anything
about you. Try to be as neat as the very dowdiest girl you know,
_without the dowdiness_. Neatness, my beloved sisters, is the---- (Here
am I talking like this; but why," she interrupted herself, laughing,
"_why_ aren't I neater myself when in mufti? I mean, when there's nobody
about? '_In time of Peace, prepare for War._' It would be better. Might
get my hair out of its _habit_ of descending at the wrong moment.) And
then, then, when all your good points are mobilised, you wait for the
Enemy."
"The _enemy_?" said little Gwenna, doubtfully.
"Yes. The Man. The opposing force, if you like. You can think and think
and wish and wish about him then until the whole air about you goes
shivery-quivery with it. 'Creating an atmosphere' is what they call it,
I believe. And get him well into the zone of _that_," advised Leslie.
"For it's no use the magnet being a magnet if it doesn't allow itself to
get within miles of a needle, is it? Might as well be any old bit of
scrap-iron. Plenty of girls--_nice_ girls, I mean--not like that
deplorably vulgar Miss Long. What _she's_ doing in a Club that's
supposed to be for _ladies_ I don't know. The _horrid_ things she says!
Bad! _Bad_ form! And I'm sure if she says those here, she must have
heaps of other worse things she _could_ say, and probably _does_, to
some people! Er--oh, where _was_ I? Ah, yes!" rattled on Leslie, with
her black head flung against the striped canvas back of the chair, her
eyes on her surprisingly neat darning. "I was going to say--plenty of
nice girls muff everything by putting too much distance that doesn't
lend enchantment to the view between themselves and the men that aren't
often sharp enough to deserve being called 'the needle.' Don't you make
the mistake of those nice girls, Taffy."
"Well, do I _want_ to? But how can I help it? How can I even try to 'be'
anything, if he isn't there to know anything at all about it? I don't
see him! I don't meet him!" mourned the Welsh girl in the soft accent
that was very unmistakable to-day. "It's a whole fortnight, Leslie,
since that lovely day in the fields. It seems years. He hasn't written
or anything. I've waited and waited.... And sometimes I feel as if
perhaps I _shouldn't_ ever see him again. After all, I never did see him
properly before we went to your sister's that night. Oh, isn't it awful
to think what little _chances_ make all the difference to who one sees
or doesn't see? I can't know for certain that I shall _ever_ see him
again. Oh, Leslie!"
Leslie cut her last needleful of lilac silk and answered in the most
reassuringly matter-of-fact tone:
"But of course you will. If you want to enough. For instance--should you
like to see him at this dance?"
"Dance?" inquired Gwenna, dazed.
"Yes. This fancy-dress affair that I'm doing these stockings for. (I won
these in a bet from one of my Woolwich cadets.) This tamasha next week?"
"But--_he_ isn't going, is he? And I'm not even asked."
"And can't these things ever be arranged?" demanded her chum, laughing.
"Can do, Taffy. Leslie will manage."
"Oh--but that's so _kind_!" murmured the younger girl, overcome.
"Do you expect me _not_ to be 'kind'? To another girl, in love? Nay, oh
Taffy! I leave that to the 'nicest' of the girls who think it 'horrid'
to think about young men, even. Gem of Truth Number Eighty: It isn't the
little girl who's _had_ plenty to eat who's ready to snatch the bun out
of the hand of the next little girl," said Leslie. She rolled the silk
stockings into a ball, and rose in sections from that sagging chair.
"Leslie will see you're done all right. All that remains to be discussed
is the question of what you're to wear at the dance."
This question Leslie settled as the two girls went for an after-supper
stroll. They went past the summer crowd patrolling the Spaniards Road,
past the patch of common and the benches and the pond by the flagstaff
that make that part of Hampstead so like a bit of the seaside. It was a
golden evening. In the hazy distance a small, greyish, winged object
rose above the plane which was Hendon, and moved to the left towards the
blue taper of Harrow Church, then sank out of sight again.
"There's one," sighed Gwenna, her eyes on the glowing sky, where the
biplane had been circling. "He's in it, perhaps."
"Little recking what plans are now being made for his welfare by me,"
observed Miss Long, as the two girls descended the hill and found at
last a birch thicket that was not held by Cockney lovers. She let
herself down cross-legged into the bracken. The Welsh girl perched
herself on a branch of the birch tree that was polished smooth as an old
bench. Thus she sat among the stirring leaves, head on one side,
listening, her babyish face looking down intent against the sky.
"Ah! That's _you_! '_A Cherub._' That's what your fancy dress is to be,"
pronounced the elder girl. "Just your own little crop-curled head with
nothing on it; and a ruff of cherub's wings up to your chin. Those
little wings off your hat will do beautifully. Below the ruff, clouds.
Appropriate background for cherubs. Your misty-white frock with no sash
this time, and one of those soap-bubble coloured scarves of Liberty
gauze draped over it to represent a rainbow. Little silver shoes.
_Strictly_ speaking, cherubs don't have those, of course. But if you
can't become a Queen of Spain--if you can't be realistic, be pretty.
Your own, nearly-always expression of dreamy innocence will come in
nicely for the costume," added Leslie. "Quite in keeping."
"I'm sure I'm not that," protested the Welsh girl, piqued. "_I'm_ not
what they call 'innocent.'"
"No, I don't think you are. 'What they call innocent' in a girl is such
a mixture. It means (a) no sense of humour at all; (b) the chilliest
temperament you can shiver at, and (c) a complete absence of
observation. But I believe _you_ have '_beneath your little frostings
the brilliance of your fires_,' Taffy. Yours is the real innocence."
"It isn't, indeed," protested the girl, who was young enough to wish to
be everything but what she was. "Why, look at the way you say anything
to me, Leslie!"
Leslie laughed, with a remoter glance. Then suddenly she dropped her
black head and put a light caress on the corner of the sunshine-yellow
jersey coat.
"Be as sweet always," she said, lightly too. "Look as sweet--at the
dance!"
CHAPTER XI
THE HEELS OF MERCURY
This injunction Gwenna carried out to the letter a week later. Never had
she looked so pretty as when she smiled at her own reflection in her
bedroom mirror above the cherub's ruff of wings on the evening of the
dance.
It was given by some wealthy theatrical people whose "set" often
intermingled with that to which Hugo Swayne belonged. And it was held in
a couple of big marquees that had been set up on the lawn behind their
house; a lawn of which the banks sloped down to the willows that fringed
the river. There was a houseboat as buffet. There were Japanese lanterns
and fairy-lights. Red carpet had been put down to save costumes from
dewy grass or gravel.
For this dance was held at the height of that brief and grotesque period
in the English history when dancing and costume--more particularly when
the two were combined--became an affair of national moment. That was the
time when tickets for an Artists' Ball were gambled with even as stocks
and shares; when prizes for costume were given of which the value ran
into hundreds of pounds. When columns of responsible newspapers were
given up to descriptions of some "brilliant carnival." When Society,
the Arts, Commerce, the Stage and the Middle Class joined hands to dance
the maddest ring-o'-roses round some mulberry bush rooted in Heaven knew