The Zeppelin's Passenger
Helen drew up a small chair and seated herself before the fire.
“Are you going away with Mr. Lessingham, Philippa?” she asked.
“I am,” was the calm response. “I made up my mind this afternoon. We are
leaving to-night.”
Helen stretched out one foot to the blaze.
“Motoring?” she enquired.
“Naturally,” Philippa replied. “You know there are no trains leaving
here to-night.”
“You'll have a cold ride,” Helen remarked. “I should take your heavy fur
coat.”
Philippa stared at her companion.
“You don't seem much upset, Helen!”
“I think,” Helen declared, looking up, “that nothing that has ever
happened to me in my life has made me more unhappy, but I can see that
you have reasoned it all out, and there is not a single argument I could
use which you haven't already discounted. It is your life, Philippa, not
mine.”
“Since you are so philosophical,” Philippa observed, “let me ask
you--should you do what I am going to do, if you were in my place?”
“I should not,” was the firm reply.
Philippa laughed heartily.
“Oh, I know what you are going to say!” Helen continued quickly. “You'll
tell me, won't you, that I am not temperamental. I think in your heart
you rather despise my absolute fidelity to Richard. You would call it
cowlike, or something of that sort. There is a difference between us,
Philippa, and that is why I am afraid to argue with you.”
“What should you do,” Philippa demanded, “if Richard failed you in some
great thing?”
“I might suffer,” Helen confessed, “but my love would be there all the
same. Perhaps for that reason I should suffer the more, but I should
never be able to see with those who judged him hardly.”
“You think, then,” Philippa persisted, “that I ought still to remain
Henry's loving and affectionate wife, ready to take my place amongst the
pastimes of his life--when he feels inclined, for instance, to wander
from his dark lady-love to something petite and of my complexion, or
when he settles down at home for a few days after a fortnight's sport on
the sea and expects me to tell him the war news?”
“I don't think that I should do that,” Helen admitted quietly, “but I am
quite certain that I shouldn't run away with another man.”
“Why not?”
“Because I should be punishing myself too much.”
Philippa's eyes suddenly flashed.
“Helen,” she said, “you are not such a fool as you try to make me think.
Can't you see what is really at the back of it all in my mind? Can't you
realise that, whatever the punishment it may bring, it will punish Henry
more?”
“I see,” Helen observed. “You are running away with Mr. Lessingham to
annoy Henry?”
“Oh, he'll be more than annoyed!” Philippa laughed sardonically. “He has
terrible ideas about the sanctity of things that belong to him. He'll be
remarkably sheepish for some time to come. He may even feel a few little
stabs. When I have time, I am going to write him a letter which he can
keep for the rest of his life. It won't please him!”
“Where are you--and Mr. Lessingham going to live?” Helen enquired.
“In America, to start with. I've always longed to go to the States.”
“What shall you do,” Helen continued, “if you don't get out of the
country safely?”
“Mr. Lessingham seems quite sure that we shall,” Philippa replied, “and
he seems a person of many expedients. Of course, if we didn't, I should
go back to Cheshire. I should have gone back there, anyway, before now,
if Mr. Lessingham hadn't come.”
“Well, it all seems very simple,” Helen admitted. “I think Mr.
Lessingham is a perfectly delightful person, and I shouldn't wonder if
you didn't now and then almost imagine that you were happy.”
“You seem to be taking my going very coolly,” Philippa remarked.
“I told you how I felt about it just now,” Helen reminded her. “Your
going is like a great black cloud that I have seen growing larger and
larger, day by day. I think that, in his way, Dick will suffer just as
much as Henry. We shall all be utterly miserable.”
“Why don't you try and persuade me not to go, then?” Philippa demanded.
“You sit there talking about it as though I were going on an ordinary
country-house visit.”
Helen raised her head, and Philippa saw that her eyes were filled with
tears.
“Philippa dear,” she said, “if I thought that all the tears that were
ever shed, all the words that were ever dragged from one's heart, could
have any real effect, I'd go on my knees to you now and implore you to
give up this idea. But I think--you won't be angry with me, dear?--I
think you would go just the same.”
“You seem to think that I am obstinate,” Philippa complained.
“You see, you are temperamental, dear,” Helen reminded her. “You have a
complex nature. I know very well that you need the daily love that Henry
doesn't seem to have been willing to give you lately, and I couldn't
stop your turning towards the sun, you know. Only--all the time there's
that terrible anxiety--are you quite sure it is the sun?”
“You believe in Mr. Lessingham, don't you?” Philippa asked.
“I do indeed,” Helen replied. “I am not quite sure, though, that I
believe in you.”
Philippa was a little startled.
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “Exactly what do you mean by that,
Helen?”
“I am not quite sure,” Helen continued, “that when the moment has really
come, and your head is upturned and your arms outstretched, and your
feet have left this world in which you are now, I am not quite sure that
you will find all that you seek.”
“You think he doesn't love me?”
“I am not convinced,” Helen replied calmly, “that you love him.”
“Why, you idiot,” Philippa declared feverishly, “of course I love him!
I think he is one of the sweetest, most lovable persons I ever knew,
and as to his being a Swede, I shouldn't care whether he were a Fiji
Islander or a Chinese.”
Helen nodded sympathetically.
“I agree with you,” she said, “but listen. You know that I haven't
uttered a single word to dissuade you. Well, then, grant me just one
thing. Before you start off this evening, tell Mr. Lessingham the truth,
whatever it may be, the truth which you haven't told me. It very likely
won't make any difference. Two people as nice as you and he, who are
going to join their lives, generally do, I believe, find the things they
seek. Still, tell him.”
Philippa made no reply. Richard opened the door and lingered upon the
threshold. Helen rose to her feet.
“I am coming, Dick,” she called out cheerfully. “There's a gorgeous fire
in the gun room, and two big easy-chairs, and we'll have just the time I
have been looking forward to all day. You'll tell me things, won't you?”
She looked very sweet as she came towards him, her eyes raised to him,
her face full of the one happiness. He passed his arm around her waist.
“I'll try, dear,” he said. “You won't be lonely, Philippa?”
“I'll come and disturb you when I am,” she promised.
The door closed. She stood gazing down into the fire, listening to their
footsteps as they crossed the hall.
CHAPTER XXXI
Lessingham stood for a moment by the side of the car from which he had
just descended, glanced at the huge tyres and the tins of petrol lashed
on behind.
“Nothing more you want, chauffeur?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir,” was the almost inaudible reply.
“You have the route map?”
“Yes, sir, and enough petrol for three hundred miles.”
Lessingham turned away, pushed open the gate, and walked up the drive
of Mainsail Haul. Decidedly it was the moment of his life. He was
hard-pressed, as he knew, by others besides Griffiths. A few hours now
was all the start he could reasonably expect. He was face to face with a
very real and serious danger, which he could no longer ignore, and from
which escape was all the time becoming more difficult. And yet all
the emotionalism of this climax was centred elsewhere. It was from
Philippa's lips that he would hear his real sentence; it was her answer
which would fill him once more with the lust for life, or send him on in
his rush through the night for safety, callous, almost indifferent as to
its result.
He walked up the drive, curiously at his ease, in a state of suspended
animation, which knew no hope and feared no disappointment. Just before
he reached the front door, the postern gate in the wall on his left-hand
side opened, and Philippa stood there, muffled up in her fur coat,
framed in the faint and shadowy moonlight against the background of
seabounded space. He moved eagerly towards her.
“I heard the car,” she whispered. “Come and sit down for a moment. It
isn't in the least cold, and the moon is just coming up over the sea.
I came out,” she went on, as he walked obediently by her side, “because
the house somehow stifled me.”
She led him to a seat. Below, the long waves were breaking through upon
the rocks, throwing little fountains of spray into the air. The village
which lay at their feet was silent and lifeless--there was, indeed, a
curious absence of sound, except when the incoming waves broke upon the
rocks and ground the pebbles together in their long, backward swish.
Very soon the sleeping country, now wrapped in shadows, would take form
and outline in the light of the rising moon; hedges would divide the
square fields, the black woods would take shape and the hills their
mystic solemnity. But those few minutes were minutes of suspense.
Lessingham was to some extent conscious of their queer, allegorical
significance.
“I have come,” he reminded her quite steadily, “for my answer.”
She showed him the small bag by her side upon the seat, and touched her
cloak. She was indeed prepared for a journey.
“You see,” she told him, “here I am.”
His face was suddenly transformed. She was almost afraid of the effect
of her words. She found herself struggling in his arms.
“Not yet,” she begged. “Please remember where we are.”
He released her reluctantly. A few yards away, they could hear the soft
purring of the six-cylinder engine, inexorable reminder of the passing
moments. He caught her by the hand.
“Come,” he whispered passionately. “Every moment is precious.”
She hesitated no longer. The open postern gate seemed to him suddenly to
lead down the great thoroughfare of a new and splendid life. He was to
be one of those favoured few to whom was given the divine prize. And
then he stopped short, even while she walked willingly by his side. He
knew so well the need for haste. The gentle murmur of that engine was
inviting him all the while. Yet he knew there was one thing more which
must be said.
“Philippa,” he began, “you know what we are doing? We can escape, I
believe. My flight is all wonderfully arranged. But there will be no
coming back. It will be all over when our car passes over the hills
there. You will not regret? You care enough even for this supreme
sacrifice?”
“I shall never reproach you as long as I live,” she promised. “I have
made up my mind to come, and I am ready.”
“But it is because you care?” he pleaded anxiously.
“It is because I care, for one reason.”
“In the great way?” he persisted. “In the only way?”
She hesitated. He suddenly felt her hand grow colder in his. He saw her
frame shiver beneath its weight of furs.
“Don't ask me quite that,” she begged breathlessly. “Be content to know
that I have counted the cost, and that I am willing to come.”
He felt the chill of impending disaster. He closed the little gate
through which they had been about to pass, and stood with his back to
it. In that faint light which seemed to creep over the world before the
moon itself was revealed, she seemed to him at that moment the fairest,
the most desirable thing on earth. Her face was upturned towards his,
half pathetic, half protesting against the revelation which he was
forcing from her.