Wanderfoot (The Dream Ship)
"No. Has she never told you? Her husband whom she thought dead came
back. You must never speak of this to any one."
"Of course not. But how funny, Garry!"
"Very funny," he said grimly. "That is, of course, who was staying with
her at the studios, with a perfect right to do so. Only"--his face took
a harder expression--"she can't go on having Bran too."
"But why not, Garry? She hasn't got the man--her husband--staying at
Cannes with her. She 's told me heaps of times she and Bran are there
alone. Rupert wrote and told me too."
"That is understood," said Westenra coldly. "Or I should n't let you go
to her, even for a few days."
"Where are _you_ going?"
"To a hotel, of course. I 've arranged for a room at the Metropole."
Haidee mused awhile, her brows knitted.
"And afterwards, Garry--when you have got Bran?"
"God knows, Haidee." He did not speak like a man who has won fame and
renown and almost all he set out to get--except one small thing! But
rather as one whose golden gifts have turned to ashes in the mouth,
whose laurels have fallen to dust. Inspiration shot into Haidee's eyes.
"Then you haven't got a wife at all, Garry?"
"Devil a wife!"
"Then I don't see why I can't marry you at last. I 've always wanted
to."
Westenra began to laugh.
"There's nothing to laugh at. Lots of girls marry their guardians. Oh,
_do_ let me marry you, Garry. I do love you so."
"Dear Silly Billy, I couldn't possibly."
"Why not? Why _not_? How can I come back to America with you and Bran
unless I _am_ married to you? It would not be at all correct." (Haidee
had not been brought up in conventional France for nothing!) Westenra
grinned sardonically.
"And if you get Bran away from Val, he will need a mother, and you
surely would n't marry some old strange pig of a woman to mind him. He
's a gentle little kid and he _must_ be mothered. I believe he 'd just
die if he did n't have love and kindness round him all the time."
Westenra left off laughing and for the first time considered her
seriously.
"Do you think you 'd make him a good step-mother, Haidee?"
"I _love_ Bran, though I 've often been a pig to him--but _that's_ Val's
fault," she ended vindictively. "Oh, do have me, Garry."
"Well, we 'll think about it," said he gravely, though the suspicion of
a smile hovered in his eyes. Haidee pounced upon him with her fresh
lips.
"Won't I just run your nursing home for you!"
"Oh, _that_!" said Westenra, startled. "It runs itself now.
Besides"--("No more experiments like that," he had been going to say,
but did not)--"I have practically given it up. There'll be nothing for
you to do in New York but mind Bran and amuse yourself."
Haidee looked glum for a moment. It was plain she was dying to run
something.
"Anyway it's settled, is n't it, that I am to marry you and go back with
you and Bran?" She flung her arms imploringly round his neck. Gently
and a little wearily he unlaced them.
"All right, dearest, if you 're so keen on it, you shall go--but we
won't get married just yet, I think--" He patted her hand
affectionately.
"You 'll meet some one you like better than me on the voyage, perhaps."
"Never, never," she said almost viciously, and her eyes seemed to look
down a long passage which had some one at the end of it.
"At last I 've got some one away from her!" she murmured to herself.
Westenra, even though in the past few weeks he had grown used to her
extraordinary childish innocence and ignorance of life, mixed with a
leaning for outlawry, an amazing respect for _etiquette_, and an anxiety
to keep up a conventional appearance, found this new phase
incomprehensible. He could not understand the gloating triumph of her
manner. She behaved as if he were a hunting trophy which she had long
yearned to bag. A dozen times she would jump up from her seat, examine
him proudly, hug him, and sit down again murmuring:
"I've got you--I've got you, haven't I, Garry? No one can get you away
again, can they?"
"Of course not, Silly Billy," came to be his standard reply.
----
Times are when a traveller arriving at Cannes railway station needs the
physique and temper of a thoroughly-aroused buffalo to make any
impression on the crowd that surges and sways and laughs and greets and
grumbles there. But on the early June morning when Westenra and Haidee
Halston descended from the P.M.L. Express there was no one in sight
expect a few somnolent porters and a tall woman holding a small
arrow-straight boy by the hand. The woman was beautifully dressed in
white linen and a hat smothered with red and yellow poppies. The arrowy
boy had a waving topknot of shiny, ruddy-gold hair, with bare legs and
sandalled feet to make a sculptor rave.
Haidee having seen them last recognised them first. But even she had to
give a second glance to make sure that it really was Val and Bran. They
both looked so well and charming and beautiful to behold. Bran had
never had clothes so truly _magnifique_ before. And Val had roses in
her cheeks and lips--a strange thing in so hot a climate! Somehow the
triumph Haidee had been exulting over and vengefully trumpeting in her
heart died down and faded away when she saw Val coming towards her,
hands out in the usual eager fashion, a kiss forming on her lips. Both
she and Bran at the back of their welcoming smiles seemed to be wearing
their wistful lion-cub expression, and Haidee had to grip hard on to her
vengeance not to lose it altogether and just fall upon them both and hug
them. Westenra, too, was aware of a sensation that surprised him, at
the sight of this woman who had once been so much to his life and now
was nothing, standing there with frank outstretched hands smiling a
welcome from under her cool flowery hat. The fact was that she did not
sufficiently look the part of a shrine-smasher. If he had not happened
to know her guilty it might have been quite difficult for him to believe
that this was the woman who had destroyed his life-dreams--and ruined
his home. As it was he could only marvel at the strangeness of women
who could do such things and yet retain a look of honesty and inward
peace. He marvelled, too, that as he took her hand and looked into the
eyes he knew so well his heart stirred like a live thing. He was more
amazed by that strange stirring in his breast than if a body he had
certified dead and seen put away into the place of dead things suddenly
quickened in its shroud and returned to life. For he had in the last
few years deliberately fought down and crushed out his feeling for Val
as a man might crush and kill a useless, hopeless thing. It _was_
useless that madness he had felt for her--as useless as she was and
always would be to a sane, practical man. There was no use or sense in
letting the pain of his longing for her get the upper hand of him and he
had not let it, but wrestled with it until he got it under. Had she not
shown him in Jersey that she did not care enough for him to change?
Shown him, and told him, and proved her words with deeds. And it was
all old grief and pain now. Even if he had still retained any feeling
for her she had gone back to Valdana. That ended it all as definitely
as if she lay before him in her coffin. He would never have risked
seeing her again if it had not been for his son.
Ah! his son! That was different. It was natural and justifiable that
his veins should thrill at the sight of such a brave stripling. Bran,
for all his elfin faun-like grace of body, had a big face, with the
promise of big things lurking behind its plastic contours and deep-set
eyes. He sprang into his father's arms and kissed him ardently.
"Oh! Daddy, I do love you."
Val's face curiously gave the impression that it had grown pale, while
the colour in her cheeks and lips "stayed put"--almost as if it _had_
been "put." Haidee was interested in this phenomenon, but there was no
time to give it more than passing observation, for Rupert Lorrain
suddenly flashed into the scene with the announcement that he would
drive them back in his motor. They engaged in a bustle for luggage, of
which Haidee had apparently brought a mountain--and a few moments later
all were packed into Rupert's luxurious Panhard and flying along the
_route Nationale_, Bran tooting the siren and singing at the top of his
voice.
"Sing before breakfast, you 'll cry before tea," quoted Haidee at him.
She had to shriek to be heard.
"Shall we drop you at your hotel, Garrett? Or will you come to breakfast
with us at the Villa?" Val's voice was the casual gentle voice of a
good friend.
The realisation that he had been calmly and unquestioningly going back
with this noisy crowd as though it belonged to him, to her villa which
was not his, shocked him into a stiff answer.
"At the hotel, please. And I 'd like Bran to stay with me this morning,
if you don't mind."
"Oh, yes," cried Bran, ecstatically. "I'll come."
"I'll bring him back safely to you after lunch."
"Of course," said Val, smiling radiantly. It is on record that martyrs
could radiantly smile even when the slow fire was applied.
So he and Bran were dropped at the Metropole, not without many
proprietary grumblings from Haidee and warnings from Rupert that he
would be back to join them ere long. The car drove off amidst a shower
of shouts and calls and farewells. Only Val sat silent under her
poppies.
As soon as they were on their way once more, under cover of the motor's
burr, Haidee said, staring Val defiantly in the eyes:
"Garry and I are engaged."
It never occurred to her that Rupert had in any way prepared the way for
her announcement, and she was blinded with amazement and fury that Val
took it so serenely. True she once more got the impression of pallor
under that unwonted colour in Val's cheeks, but the latter's eyes were
very big and bright and friendly when she said quietly:
"That is very wonderful news, chicken."
That was all! The lovely dark face under the Congo orchid grew darker.
"We shall be awfully happy," she said fiercely. "And never think of this
rotten old Europe or any one in it again."
Val spoke a strange saying, laying her hand on the girl's.
"One should try alway to keep a little dew in one's heart, Haidee, or
else, in the heat and weariness of the desert it may dry up and blow
away like a leaf."
Haidee wrenched her hand away.
----
"And what do you think of being when you 're a man, Bran?"
Bran reflected a while, balancing a spoonful of strawberry ice-cream on
the edge of his glass.
"Well, Daddy, sometimes I 'd like to be one of those professors that
feed the animals at the Zoo, _you_ know. But after all, I think I
prefer to be an engine driver." The little golden face looked up into
Westenra's with the perfect confidence and frankness of a nature that
has never been snubbed or thwarted. "You see one could be always going
to new places."
Westenra's heart sank. He got a sudden vision of Val smiling that very
smile of boyish confidence as she looked up from a deck chair saying:
"I would love to wake up in a new place every morning of my life."
Good God! was it possible that it was after all only a child, no better
or worse than this golden-headed stripling, whom he had had in his hands
all these years, treating harshly, misjudging, scolding, neglecting?
The thought was horrible, but it pierced as though it were true.
"What is the good of that, my boy?" he said gently. He shrank from
losing that lovely confidence by an unsympathetic word, but--"What would
you do in all those new places?"
"Do?" Bran mused a while. "Oh, there'd always be something to do,