The Boy with Wings
said Leslie lightly. "He was _rather_ cut up when I told him so."
"Didn't you tell your old lady--anything about it, Leslie?"
"Does that kind of woman _ever_ get told the truth, Gwenna? I trow not.
That's why the dear old legends live on and on about what men like and
who they propose to. Also the kind old rules, drawn up by people who are
past taking a hand in the game."
Again she mimicked the old lady's voice: "Nice men have one standard for
the women they marry, and another (a very different standard!) for
the--er--women they flirt with. (So satisfactory, don't you know, for
the girl they marry. No _wonder_ we never find those marriages being a
complete washout!) But supposing that a sort of Leslie-girl came along
and insisted upon Marriage being brought up to the flirtation
standard--_hein_?"
"But your old lady, Leslie? D'you mean you just let her go on thinking
that you've never had any admiration, and that you've got to agree with
everything she says?"
"Rather!" said Miss Long with her enjoying laugh. "I take it in with
r-r-rapt attention, looking my worst, as I always do when I'm behaving
my best. Partly because one's bound to listen respectfully to one's
bread-and-butter speaking. And partly because I am genuinely interested
in her remarks," said Leslie Long. "It's the interest of a rather smart
young soldier--if I may say so--let loose in a museum of obsolete
small-arms!"
Even as she spoke her hands were busy with puff and brush, with
hair-pad, pins, and pencil. Gwenna still regarded her with that full,
discriminating admiration which is never grudged by one attractive girl
to another--of an opposite type.
With the admiration for this was mixed a tiny dread, well known to the
untried girl--"If she is what They like, _they won't like me_!" ... Also
a wonder, "What in the world would Uncle have said to _her_?"
And a mental picture rose before Gwenna of the guardian she had left in
the valley. She saw his shock of white, bog-cotton hair, his face of a
Jesuit priest and his voice of a Welsh dissenting minister. She heard
that much-resented voice declaiming slowly. "Yes, Yes. I know the
meaning of London and _self-respect and earning one's own living_. I
know all about these College girls and these girls going to business and
working same as the men, 'shoulder to shoulder'--Indeed, it's very
likely! _'Something better to do, nowadays, than sit at home frowsting
over drawn-thread work until a husband chooses to appear'_--All the same
thing! All the same thing! As it was in the beginning! _'A wider
field'_--for making eyes! And only two eyes to make them with. Oh,
forget-ful Providence, not to let a modern girl have four! _'Larger
opportunities'_--more chance of finding a young man! Yes, yes. That's
it, Gwenna!"
Gwenna, at the mere memory of it, broke out indignantly, "Sometimes I
should like to _stab_ old people!"
"Meaning the celebrated Uncle Hugh? Too wise, isn't he?" laughed Leslie
lightly, with her hands at her hair. "Too full of home-truths about the
business girl's typewriter, and the art-student's palette and the
shilling thermometer of the hospital nurse, eh? _He_ knows that they're
the modern girl's equivalent of the silken rope-ladder--what, what? And
the chaise to Gretna Green! _This Way Out. This Way--to Romance._ Why
not? Allow me, Madam----"
Here she took up an oval box of eighteenth-century enamel, picked out a
tiny black velvet patch and placed it to the left of a careless red
mouth.
"Effective, I think?"
"Yes; and how can you say there's such a thing as 'obsolete' in the
middle of all this?" protested Gwenna. "_Look_, how the old fashions
come up again!"
"Child, curb your dialect. '_Look_,'" Leslie mimicked the Welsh girl's
rising accent. "'The old fashshons.' Of course we modify the fashions
now to suit ourselves. My old lady had to follow them just as they were.
We," said this twentieth-century sage, "are just the same as she was in
lots of ways. The all-important thing to us is still what she calls the
Mate!"
"M'm,--I don't believe it would be to me," said Gwenna simply. And
thinking of the other possibilities of Life--fresh experiences, work,
friendship, adventure (flying, say!)--she meant what she said. That was
the truth.
Side by side with this, not contradicting but emphasising it, was
another truth.
For, as in a house one may arrange roses in a drawing-room and reck
nothing of the homely business of the kitchen--then presently descend
and forget, in the smell of baking bread, the flowers behind those other
doors, so divided, so uncommunicating, so pigeon-holed are the
compartments, lived in one at a time, of a young maid's mind.
Clearer to Gwenna's inner eyes than the larch green and slate purple of
her familiar valley had been the colours of a secret picture; herself in
a pink summer frock (always a summer frock, regardless of time, season
or place) being proposed to by a blonde youth with eyes as blue as
lupins....
Mocking Leslie was urging her, again in the old lady's tone, to "wait
until Mr. Right came along. Jewelled phrase! Such an old world
fragrance about it; moth powder, I suppose. Yet we know what it means,
and they didn't. We know it isn't just anybody in trousers that would
_be_ Mr. Right. (My dear! I use such strange expressions; I quite shock
me sometimes)," she interpolated; adding, "It's a mercy for us in some
ways; so good if we do get the right man. Worse than it used to be if we
don't. Swings and roundabouts again. But it's still true that
Two things greater than all things are,
The first is Love and the second is War."
"I can't imagine such a thing as war, now," mused Gwenna on the bed.
"Can you?"
"Oh, vaguely; yes," said Leslie Long. "You know my people, poor
darlings, were all in the Army. But the poisonously rich man my sister
married says there'll never be any war again, except perhaps among a few
dying-out savage races. He does so grudge every ha'penny to the Navy
Estimates; and he's quite violent about these useless standing armies!
You know he's no sahib. '_His tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances
to fantastic tunes._' However, never mind him. _I'm_ the central figure.
Which is to be my frock of fascination to-night? '_The White Hope?_' or
'_The Yellow Peril?_' You're wearing your white, Taffy. Righto, then
I'll put on _this_," decided the elder girl.
She stepped into and drew up about her a moulding sheath of
amber-coloured satin that clung to her limbs as a wave clings to a
bather--such was the fleeting fashion now defunct! There was a corolla
of escholtzia-yellow about the strait hips, a heavy golden girdle
dangling.
"There! Now! How's the Bakst view?" demanded Leslie.
She turned slowly, rising on her toes, lifting the glossy black head
above a generous display of creamy shoulder-blades; posing, laughing
while Gwenna caught her breath.
"Les-lie!... And where _did_ you get it?"
"Cast-off from an opulent cousin. What I should do if I didn't get a few
clothes given me I don't know; I should be sent back by the policeman at
the corner, I suppose. One can't _live_ at fancy dances at the Albert
Hall," said Miss Long philosophically. "Don't I look like a Rilette
advertisement on the end page of _Punch_? Don't I vary? Would anybody
think I was the same wispy rag-bag you met in the hall? Nay. 'From
Slattern to Show-girl,' that's my gamut. But you, Taff, I've never seen
you look really plain. It's partly your curls. You've got the sort of
hair some boys have and all women envy. Come here, now, and let's
arrange you. I've already been attending to your frock."
The frock which Gwenna was to wear that evening at the dinner-party was
one which she had bought, without advice, out of an Oxford Street shop
window during a summer sale. It was of satin of which the dead-white
gleam was softened by a misty over-dress. So far, so good; but what of
the heavy, expensive-looking garniture--sash, knots, and what-nots of
lurid colour--with which the French artist's conception had been
"brightened up" in this English version?
"Ripped off," explained Leslie Long, firmly, as its owner gazed in
horror at a mutilated gown. "No cerise--it's a 'married' colour--No
mural decorations for you, Taffy, my child. '_Oh, what a power has white
simplicity._' White, pure white, with these little transparent ruffles
that kind Leslie has sewn into the sleeves and round the fichu
arrangement for you; and a sash of _very_ pale sky-blue."
"Shan't I look like a baby?"
"Yes; the sweetest portrait of one, by Sir Joshua Reynolds."
"Oh! And I'd bought a cerise and _diamante_ hair-ornament."
"Quite imposs. A hair-ornament? One of the housemaids will love it for
her next tango tea in Camden Town. As for you, don't dare to touch your
curls again--no, nor to put anything round your neck! Take away that
bauble!"
"Aren't I even to wear my gold Liberty beads?"
"No! you aren't. Partly because I am, in my hair. Besides, what d'you
want them for, with a throat like that? Necklaces are such a mistake,"
decreed Leslie. "If a girl's got a nice neck, it hides the line; if she
hasn't, it shows the defect up!"
"Well," protested Gwenna doubtfully, "but mightn't you say that of
anything to wear?"
"Precisely. Still, you can't live up to every counsel of perfection. Not
in this climate!"
"You might let me have my thin silver chain, whatever, and my little
heart that my Auntie Margie gave me--in fact, I'm going to. It's a
mascot," said Gwenna, as she hung the little mother-o'-pearl pendant
obstinately about her neck. "There!"
"Very well. Spoil the look of that lovely little dimply hollow you've
got just at the base there if you must. A man," said Gwenna's chum with
a quick, critical glance, "a man would find that very easy to kiss."
"Easy!" said Gwenna, with a quicker blush of anger. "He wouldn't then,
indeed!"
"Oh, my dear, I didn't mean that," explained Leslie as she caught up her
gloves and wrap and prepared to lead the way out of the room and
downstairs to the hall. They would walk as far as the Tube, then book to
South Kensington. "All I meant was, that a man would--- that is,
_might_--er--possibly get the better--ah--of his--say, his natural
repugnance to _trying_----"
A little wistfully, Gwenna volunteered: "One never has."
"I know, Taffy. Not yet," said Leslie Long. "But one will. '_Cheer up,
girls, he is getting on his boots!_' Ready? Come along."
CHAPTER III
THE EYES OF ICARUS
Gwenna, who was always bubbling over with young curiosity about the
fresh _people_ whom she was to meet at a party, had never taken overmuch
interest in the _places_ where the party might be held.
She had not yet reached the age when, for information about new
acquaintances, one glances first at their background.
To her the well-appointed though slightly "Art"-y Smith establishment
where her friend was taking her to dine was merely "a married house."
She took for granted the arrangements thereof. She lumped them all--from
the slim, deferential parlour-maid who ushered them through a
thickly-carpeted corridor with framed French etchings into a spacious
bedroom where the girls removed their wraps, down to the ivory,
bemonogrammed pin-tray and powder-box in front of the big mirror--she
lumped these all together as "things you have when you're _married_."
It never struck her--it never strikes eight out of ten young girls--that
Marriage does not necessarily bring these "things" with their subtle
assurance of ease, security, and dignity in its train. She never thought
about it. Marriage indeed seemed to her a sort of dullish postscript to
what she imagined must be a thrilling letter.
Why _must_ nearly all married people become so stodgy? Gwenna simply