The Boy with Wings
I'd _much_ rather I should have something to do. And I'd get nearly a
pound 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 man
interposed, "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Dampier, that you were not
aware that my niece had got a little bit of her own?"
"There! I _knew_ Uncle would say that!" burst out the young girl, angry
and blushing and ashamed. "I knew he'd say you were only marrying me
because of that! _He_ won't believe that it wouldn't make any difference
to 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 and
his voice took a very relieved note.
"I say, how topping! Make no difference to me? But it does. Rather!" he
declared. "Don't you see that I shall know you won't _have_ to work, and
that I shall be ever so much more comfortable about you? Why did you
never 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 a
fortune-hunter after all. That had always been his anxiety. Seventy-five
pounds a year (certain) remained a considerable fortune to this
Victorian. 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 of
sixteen pounds. He would have thought of that himself.... But the leggy,
fair-haired boy who was now smiling across the oval hotel table at his
Gwenna had meant only what he had said. The older man realised that.
So, waiving for the present the question of means, the Reverend Hugh
went on, in rather a modified tone, to ask other questions.
Asking questions of the newly accepted suitor seems to be all that
remains for the parent or guardian of our times. It is the sole survival
of that potent authority which once disposed (or said it disposed) of
the young lady's hand. Clearing his throat with the same little sound
that so often heralded the words of some text from his pulpit, the
Reverend Hugh began by inquiring where Gwenna, after her short
honeymoon, was supposed to be going to live.
Nowhere new, it appeared! She had her berth at the Aircraft Factory, her
room at Mrs. Crewe's cottage for when young Dampier was away. (Yes; from
his tone when he spoke of it, evidently that parting was to be kept in
the background and evaded as much as possible for the present.) And if
he 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't
it? 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 very
different from the ideas of all the young couples in _his_ time. When
Gwenna's father, now, was courting Gwenna's mother, well! he, Hugh
Lloyd, had never heard such a lot of talk about _Mahoggani_. _And_
tebbel-linen. _And_ who was to have the three feather-beds from the
old 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 get
a 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's
fetish. Spring-cleaning, now; the yearly rites! And that furniture. "The
Lares," he went on in an ever-strengthening Welsh accent. "The
Pen--nates----!"
"Oh, _those_!" scoffed the girl in love. "_Those_----!"
So Gwenna didn't seem to think she would miss these things? She was
willing to marry without them? Yes? Strange!... Well, well!
And what about this marriage-in-haste? Where was it to take place? In
that Church in Hampstead? A Church. Well! He, as an orthodox dissenting
minister, 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 Dampier
had left.
"Same as myself," said the Reverend Hugh, a little quietly. "A big
family, we were. Six boys, two girls; like people used to have. All
gone. Nothing left, but----"
Here, for the first time taking his eyes from young Dampier, he turned
upon his niece with an abrupt question. With a quick nod towards her
husband-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 first
time."
"Oh! I think it was--it was at a party I went to with my friend, Miss
Long, 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 seem
to go on, still, under the name of 'Party.'" And there was a sudden and
quite 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----" He
cleared his throat and made another start. "If I'd had the--er--the the
privilege of seeing Gwenna at your place----" Yet another start. "We had
no _idea_, of course," said Paul Dampier, "until fairly recently----"
"Dear me," said the Reverend Hugh again. Then, turning to the young man
whom Gwenna had said he would accuse of turning the head of one too
young to know her own mind, he remarked with some feeling, "I dare say
she had made up her mind, that first time, not to give you a bit of
peace 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 he
wouldn't understand anything!"
"Well, he doesn't," persisted the mutinous Gwenna. But she laughed a
little, 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 again
at 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 unsympathetic
and 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 to
her, first, sooner than she had ever hoped. Even if he were forced to
leave her quite soon, say in a month's time!--she would have had him
all to herself first, without any of these small, fretting good-byes
that 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' thoughts
were curiously, almost incredibly vague. That dormant bud of passion
knew so little of its own hidden root.
Marriage! To this young girl it was a journey into a country of which
she had never formed any clear idea. Her own dreams had been the rosy
mists that obscured alike the heights and depths of that scarcely
guessed-at land. All she saw, clearly, was her fellow traveller; the
dear boy-comrade and sweetheart who would not now leave her side. What
did 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 had
dreamed that queer flying dream, and so many others, so many longing
daydreams about him!
To-morrow was her wedding-day!
CHAPTER VII
HASTE TO THE WEDDING!
The Tuesday morning that brought Gwenna's wedding-day as the morning of
the official declaration of war.
It was in all the papers over which the girls at the Hampstead Club
pored, before they went off to their various avocations, staring,
half-realising only.
"Can it be true?... War?... Nowadays?... Good gracious!... D'you suppose
it means we shall really have to send an army of ours--an English
Army--over to France?... What do you think, Miss Armitage?"
Miss Armitage, the suffragette, then became voluble on the subject of
how very different all would have been if women had had the casting vote
in the matter. Intelligent women. Women with some insight into the wider
interests of their sex.... Not mere---- Here, by way of illustration,
this Feminist shot a vicious glance at Miss Long. Now, Leslie, dressed
in a lilac river-frock and wearing her black picture hat, was going
round the breakfast-table, under the very eye of the disapproving Lady
Principal with the gold curb brooch, on an errand of her own. She was
collecting from it the daintiest bits of dry toast, the nicest-looking
pats of butter, a white rose from the nosegay in the centre bowl, and
all that was left of the marmalade.
For to Leslie Long the question whether War was to be or not to be
seemed now to have been settled an age ago. The burden of that anxiety
was lifted. The other anxieties ahead could be put aside for the
present. And she turned, with a tranquil face, to the immediate matter
in hand. She was going to take a little tray up to Gwenna, whom she had
advised to have her breakfast in bed and not to dress until she should
make herself all ready for her wedding at that church at the foot of the
hill.
"'Good-morning, Madam Bride!'" said Leslie, smiling, as she came, tray
in hand, into the little room where Gwenna was still drowsily curled up
against her pillow. "Here's a little bit of sugar for the bird." She sat
down on the side of the bed, cutting the dry buttered toast into narrow
strips for her chum, taking the top off her egg for her.
"But I won't '_help to salt, help to sorrow_' for you," she went on
talking, just a trifle more brightly than naturally. "Curious thing
about a wedding, Taff--I mean _one_ of the curious things about a
wedding, is the wide desire it gives you to quote every aged, half-pay
proverb and tag that you've ever heard. '_Marriage is a_----"
"Not '_lottery_,' Leslie! Not that one!" begged the bride-to-be, sitting
up and laughing with her mouth full of toast. "We had it four times from
Uncle Hugh before we left him last night. '_Few prizes! Many blanks!_'"
she quoted joyously. All Monday she had been tremulously nervous. The
reaction had come at the right moment.
"'_Happy is the Bride that the sun shines on_,' then," amended Leslie.
"You'll be glad to hear it's shining like Billy-oh this morning."
"_I_ saw it," said Gwenna, nodding her curls towards the open casement.
"And I shall be getting '_Married in white, sure to be right_,' too!"
The white lingerie frock she was to put on was not new, but it was the
prettiest that she had. It lay, folded, crisp as a butterfly's wing and
fresh from the wash, on the top of her chest-of-drawers, with the white
Princesse slip--that _was_ new, bought by her in a hurry the day