CHAPTER III

THE LAST SUNDAY OF PEACE

Never had Gwenna risen so early after having spent so little of a night

in sleep!

Into the small hours she had crouched in her kimono on the edge of

Leslie's camp bedstead in the light that came from the street lamp

outside the window; and she had talked and talked and talked.

For by "not saying anything about it" she had never meant keeping her

happiness from that close chum.

Miss Long, sincerely delighted, had listened and had nodded her wise

black head from the pillow. She had thrown in the confidante's running

comments of "There! What did Leslie tell you?... Oh, he would, of

course.... Good.... Oh, my dear, _how_ exactly like them all.... No, no;

I didn't mean that. (Of course there's nobody like _him_); I meant

'Fancy!' ... Yes and then what did Paul say, Virginia?" At last

repetitions had cropped up again and again into the softly chattered

recital, with all its girlish italics of: "Oh, but you _don't_ know what

he's like; oh, Leslie, no, you _can't_ imagine!"--At last Leslie had

sighed, a trifle enviously. And little Gwenna, pattering to the head of

the bed, had put her cheek to the other girl's and had whispered

earnestly: "Oh, Leslie, if I only could, d'you know what I'd do? I'd

arrange so that he had a twin-brother _exactly_ like him, to fall in

love with _you_!"

"Taffy! you are too ... _sweet_," the elder girl had whispered back in a

stifled voice.

Gwenna never guessed how Leslie Long had had much ado not to giggle

aloud over that idea. To think of her, Leslie, finding rapture with any

one of the type of the Dampier boy....

A twin-brother of _his_? Another equally bread-and-buttery blonde

infant--an infant-in-arms who was even "simpler" than Monty Scott? Oh,

Ishtar!... For thus does one woman count as profoundest boredom what

brings to her sister Ecstasy itself.

And now here was Gwenna, all in white, coming down to the Club's Sunday

breakfast with her broad hat already on her head and her gloves and her

vanity-bag in her hand.

At the head of the table sat the Vicar's widow with the gold curb brooch

and the look of resigned disapproval. Over the table Miss Armitage and

the other suffrage-workers were discussing the Cat-and-Mouse Act.

Opposite to them one of the art-students, with her hair cut a la Trilby,

was listening bewildered, ready to be convinced.... Not one of the usual

things remained unsaid....

Presently Gwenna's neighbour and _bete noire_, Miss Armitage, was

denouncing the few remaining members of her sex who still seemed to

acquiesce in the Oriental attitude towards Woman; who still remained

serfs or chattels or toys.

"However! _Thy_ needn't think thy _caount_," declared the lecturer

firmly, stretching without apology across her neighbour to get the salt.

With some distaste Gwenna regarded her. She had spots on her face.

"Pleasers of Men!" she pursued, with noble scorn. "The remnant of the

Slyve-girl Type, now happily extinct----"

"Loud cheers," from Leslie Long.

"The serpent's tile," continued the suffragette, "the serpent's tile

that, after the reptile has been beaten to death, still gows on feebly

wriggling----"

"Better wriggle off now, Taffy, my child," murmured Leslie, who sat

facing the breakfast-room window. "Here's a degraded Oriental coming up

the path now to call for his serf."

"_You_ come," said Gwenna, warmly flushed as she rose. And she held her

chum's long arm, dragging her with her as she came into the hall where

the tall, typically English figure of her Airman stood, his straw hat in

his hand. A splash of scarlet from the stained glass of the hall door

fell upon his fair head and across his cheek as he turned.

"Good-morning," said Gwenna sedately, and without giving him so much as

a glance. She felt at that moment that she would rather keep him at

arm's length for ever than allow him even to hold her hand, with Leslie

there. For it takes those who are cooler in temperament than was the

little Welsh girl, or those who care less for their lovers than she did,

to show themselves warmer in the presence of others.

"Hullo," said Paul Dampier to her. Then, "Hullo, Miss Long! How d'you

do?"

Leslie gave him a very hearty shake of the hand, a more friendly glance

and a still more demure inquiry about that Machine of his.

Paul Dampier laughed, returning her glance.

She was a sport, he thought. She could be trusted not to claim, just

yet, the bet she'd won from his cousin; the laughing wager about the

Aeroplane versus the Girl. Fifteen to one on the Girl, wasn't it? And

here was the Girl home in his heart now, with the whole of a gorgeous

July Sunday before them for their first holiday together.

"I say, I'm not too early now, am I?" he asked as he and the girl walked

down the Club steps together. "I was the first time, so I just went for

a walk round the cricket-pitch and back. Sickening thing I couldn't rake

up a car anywhere for to-day. Put up with trains or tubes and taxis

instead, I'm afraid. D'you mind? Where shall we go?"

* * * * *

"Flying, of course," was Gwenna's first thought. "Now at last he'll take

me up." But that would be for the afternoon.

For the morning they wanted country, and grass, and trees to sit

under.... Not Hampstead; Richmond Park was finally decided upon.

"We'll taxi to Waterloo," the boy said, with an inward doubt. He dived a

long brown hand into his pocket as they walked together down the road

that Gwenna used to take every morning to her Westminster bus. He was

particularly short of money just then. Dashed nuisance! Just when he

would have wished to be particularly flush! That's what came of buying a

clock for the Machine before it was wanted. Still, he couldn't let the

Little Thing here know that. Manage somehow. A taxi came rattling down

the Pond Street Hill from Belsize Park as they reached the

stopping-place of the buses, and Paul held up his hand.

"Taxi!"

But the driver shook his head. He pulled up the taxi in front of a

small, rather mean-looking house close to where Gwenna and Paul were

standing on the pavement. Then his fare came out of the house, a kit-bag

in each hand and a steamer-rug thrown over his arm; he was a small,

compactly-built young man in clothes so new and so smart that they

seemed oddly out of place with the slatternly entrance of his

lodging-house. It was this that made Paul Dampier look a little hard at

him. Gwenna was wondering where she'd seen that blonde, grave face of

his before.

He sprang lightly into the cab; a pink-faced girl was sitting there,

whom Gwenna did not see. If she had seen her, she would have recognised

her Westminster colleague, Ottilie Becker.

"Liverpool Street," ordered Miss Becker's companion, setting down his

luggage.

Then, raising his head, he caught the eyes upon him of the other young

man in the street. He put a hand to his hat, gave a quick little odd

smile, and leaned forward out of the cab.

"_Auf Wiedersehen!_" he called, as the taxi started off--for Liverpool

Street.

"Deuce did he mean by that?" exclaimed the young Englishman, staring

after the cab. "Who on earth was that fellow? I didn't know him."

"Nor did I. But I _have_ seen him," said Gwenna.

"I believe I have, somewhere," said Paul, musing.

They puzzled over it for a bit as they went on to Waterloo on the top of

their bus.

And then, when they were passing "The Horse Shoe" in Tottenham Court

Road, and when they were talking about something quite different (about

the river-dance, in fact), they both broke off talking sharply. Gwenna,

with a little jump on the slanting front seat, exclaimed, "I know--!"

Just as Paul said, "By Jove! I've got it! I know who that fellow was.

That German fellow just now. He was one of the waiters at that very

dance, Gwenna!"

Gwenna, turning, said breathlessly, "Yes, I know. The one who passed us

on the path. But I've thought of something else, too. I thought then his

face reminded me of somebody's; I know now who it is. It's that fair

young man who came down to try and be taken on at the Works."

"At Westminster?" Paul asked quickly.

"No; at the Aircraft Works one afternoon. He talked English awfully

well, and he said he was Swiss. And then Andre--you know, the big, dark

French workman--talked to him for quite a long time in French; he said

he seemed very intelligent. But he wouldn't give him a job, whatever."

"He wouldn't?"

"No. I heard him tell the Aeroplane Lady that the young man ('_ce

garcon-la_') came from the wrong canton," said Gwenna. "So he went away.

I saw him go out. He was awfully _like_ that German waiter. I suppose

most Germans look alike, to us."

"S'pose so," said the Aviator, adding, "Was that the day that drawing of

mine was missing from the Aircraft Works, I wonder?"

She looked at him, surprised. "I didn't know one of your drawings was

missing, Paul."

"Yes. It didn't matter, as it happened. Drawing of a detail for my

Machine. I've taken jolly good care not to have complete drawings of it

anywhere," he said, with a little nod.

And some minutes later they had begun to talk of something else again,

as the bus lurched on through the hot, deserted Sunday streets.

* * * * *

The morning that had brought Gwenna to her lover left Gwenna's chum for

once at a loose end.

"Leslie, my child, aren't you a little tired of being the looker-on who

sees most of the game? Won't you take a hand?" Miss Long asked herself

as she went back into her Club bedroom. It was scented with the fresh

smell of the rosemary and bay-rum that Leslie used for her ink-black

sheaf of hair, and there drifted in through the open window the sound of

bells from all the churches.

"Sunday. My free morning! '_The better the day._' So I'll settle up at

last what I am going to do about this little matter of my future," she

decided.

She sat down at the little bamboo writing-table set against the bedroom

wall. Above it there hung (since this was a girl's room!) a

looking-glass; and about the looking-glass there was festooned a little

garland made up of dance-programmes, dangling by their pencils, of gaudy

paper-fans from restaurants, and of strung beads. Stuck crookedly into a

corner of the glass there was a cockling snapshot. It showed Monty

Scott's dark head above his sculptor's blouse. Leslie picked it out and

looked at it.

"Handsome, wicked eyes," she said to it lightly. "The only wicked things

about you, you unsophisticated infant-in-arms!" Then she said, "You and

your sculpturing!... _Just_ like a baby with its box of bricks. Besides,

I don't suppose you'll ever have a penny. One doesn't marry a man

because one may like the _look_ of him. No, boy."

She flicked the snapshot aside. There was conscientious carelessness in

the flick.

Then she took out the leather-cased ink-bottle from her dressing-bag,

and some paper.

She wrote: "MY DEAR HUGO----"

Then she stopped and thought--"Maudie and Hilary Smith will be pleased

with me. So will the cousins, the opulent cousins who've always been

kind about clothes they've finished wearing, and invitations to parties

where they want another girl to brighten things up. You can give some

bright parties for _them_ now, Leslie! Good Reason Number Ninety-nine

for saying 'Yes.'"

She took up her pen.

"Nothing," she murmured, "_Nothing_ will ever kill the idea that _the

girl who isn't married is the girl who hasn't been asked_. Nothing will

ever spoil the satisfaction of that girl when showing that she _has_!"

She wrote down the date, which she had forgotten.

"Poor Monty would be so much more decorative for 'show' purposes. But I

explained quite frankly to Hugo that it would be his money I'd want!"

She wrote, "_After thinking it well over_----"

Then again she meditated.

"Great things, reasons! The reason why so many marriages aren't a

success is because they haven't _enough_ 'reasons why' behind them. Now,

how far had I got with mine--ah, yes. Reason Number a Hundred: I'm

twenty-six; I shall never been any better-looking than I am now. Not

unless I'm better-dressed. Which (Reason a Hundred and One) I should be

if I married Hugo. Reason a Hundred and Two: my old lady won't live for

ever, and I should never get a better job than hers. Except his. Reason

Number a Hundred and Two and a Half: I do quite like him. He doesn't

expect anything more, so there's the other half-reason for taking him.

Reason a Hundred and Four: _he's_ never disapproved of me. Whereas Monty

always likes me against his better judgment. Much nicer for me, but

annoying for a husband. I should make Hugo an excellent wife." She added

this half-aloud (to the snapshot).

"I should never shock _him_. Never bore him. Never interfere with him.

Never make him look silly--any sillier than he can't help looking with

that hair and that necktie he will wear. Leslie would have the sense,

when she wasn't amusing him at the moment, to retire to her _own rooms_

(Reason a Hundred and Five for marrying well), and to stay there until

she was fetched. Reason a----"

Here, in the full flow of her reasoning, Miss Long cast suddenly and

rather violently down her pen, and tore the sheet with Hugo's name in it

into tiny strips that she cast into the empty fireplace.

"I can't _think_ to write a good letter to-day!" she excused herself to

herself as she got up from her chair. "I'm tired.... It was all that

talking from Taffy last night. Bother the child. _Bother_ her. _It's

unsettling!_--Bother _all_ engaged girls. (_And all the people shall say

Amen._) I wonder where they went to?... I shall ring up somebody to take

me on the river, I think. Plenty of time to say 'Yes' to Hugo later."

The letter to Hugo, between the lines of which there had come the vision

of an engaged girl's happy face, remained, for the present, unfinished.

Leslie went to the telephone.

"O-o-o Chelsea," she called. "I want to speak to Mr. Scott, please."

She thought, "This shall be my last free Sunday, and I'll have it in

peace!"

* * * * *

In Richmond Park the grass was doubly cool and green beneath the shade

both of the oaks and of the breast-high bracken where Gwenna and Paul

Dampier sat, eating the fruit and cake that they had bought on the way,

and talking with long stretches of contented silence.

They were near enough actually to London and the multitude. But town and

people seemed far away, out of their world to-day.

Gwenna's soft, oddly-accented voice said presently into the warm

stillness, "You'll take me up this afternoon?"

"Up?" he said idly. "Where to?"

"Up flying, of course."

"No, I don't think so," said the young Airman quietly, putting his chin

in his hand as he lay in his favourite attitude, chest downwards in the

grass, looking at her.

"Not flying? Not this afternoon?"

"Don't think so, Little Thing."

"Oh, you're lazy," she teased him, touching a finger to his fair head

and taking it quickly back again. "You don't want to move."

"Not going to move, either; not until I've got to."

She sighed, not too disappointed.

Here in the dappled shade and the solitude with him it was heavenly

enough; even if she did glance upward at the peeps of sapphire-blue

through the leaves and wonder what added rapture it would be to soar to

those heights with her lover.

"D'you know how many times you've put me off?" she said presently,

fanning the midges away from herself with her broad white hat. "Always

you've said you'd take me flying with you, Paul. And always there's been

something to stop it. Let's settle it now. Now, when will you?"

"Ah," he said, and flung the stone of the peach he'd been eating into

the dark green jungle of bracken ahead of them. "Good shot. I wanted to

see if I could get that knob on that branch."

She moved nearer to him and said coaxingly, "What about next Sunday?"

"Hope it'll be as fine as this," he said, smiling at her. "I'd like all

the Sundays to be just like this one. Can't think what I did with all

the ripping days before this, Gwenna."

She said, "I meant, what about your taking me up next Sunday?"

"Nothing about it," he said, shaking his head. There was a little pause.

He crossed his long legs in the grass and said, "Not next Sunday. Nor

the Sunday after that. Nor any Sunday. Nor any time. I may as well tell

you now. You aren't ever coming flying," said the young aviator firmly

to his sweetheart. "I've settled _that_."

The cherub face of the girl looked blankly into his. "But, Paul! No

flying? Why? Surely--It's safe enough now!"

"Safe enough for me--and for most people."

"But you've taken Miss Conyers and plenty of girls flying."

"Girls. Yes."

"And you _promised_ to take me!"

"That was ages ago. That was when you were a girl too."

"Well, what am I now, pray?"

"Don't you know? Not '_a_ girl.' _My_ Girl!" he said.

Then he moved. He knelt up beside her. He made love to her sweetly

enough to cause her to forget all else for a time. And presently,

flushed and shy and enraptured, she brought out of her vanity-bag the

tiny white wing that was to be his mascot, and she safety-pinned it

inside the breast of his old grey jacket.

"That ought to be fastened somewhere to the P.D.Q.," he suggested. But

she shook her head. No. It was not for the P.D.Q. It was for him to

wear.

Then she saw him weighing in his hand her own mascot, the little

mother-of-pearl heart with the silver chain.

"Ah! You did remember to bring it, at last?" she said.

Nestling against his arm, she lifted her chin and waited for him to snap

the trinket about her neck.

He laughed and hesitated. She looked at him rather wonderingly. Then he

made a confession.

"D'you know, I--I do hate to have to give it back again, Gwenna. I've

had it _so_ long. Might as well let me hold on to it. May I?"

"Oh, you are greedy for keepsakes," she said, delighted. "What would you

_do_ with a thing like that?"

"I've thought of something," said he, nodding at her.

She asked, "What?"

"Tell you another time," he smiled, with the locket clutched in the hand

that was about her waist. She flung back her head happily against his

shoulder, curling herself up like a kitten in his hold. They had settled

that they were going to walk on to Kew Gardens to tea, but it was not

time yet, and it was so peaceful here. Scarcely any one passed them in

that nook of the Park. Another happy silence fell upon the lovers. It

was long before the boy broke it, asking softly, "You do like being with

me, don't you?" There was no answer from the girl.

"Do you, Gwenna?" It seemed still odd to be able to call her whatever he

liked, now! "Do you, my Little Sweet Thing?"

Still she didn't answer. He bent closer to look at her.... Her long

eyelashes lay like two little dark half-moons upon her cheeks and her

white blouse fell and rose softly to her breathing. Drowsy from the late

hours she'd kept last night and from the sun-warmed silence under the

trees, she had fallen asleep in his arms. Her eyes were still shut when

at last she heard his deep and gentle voice again in her ear, "I suppose

you know you owe me several pairs of gloves, miss!"

She laughed sleepily, returning (still a little shyly and unfamiliarly!)

the next kiss that he put on her parted lips.

"I was _nearly_ asleep," she said, with a little sudden stretch that ran

all over her like a shake given to a sheet of white aluminium at the

Works. "Isn't it quiet? Feels as if _everything_ was asleep." She opened

her eyes, blinking at the rays of the sun, now level in her face. "Oh, I

_should_ like some tea, wouldn't you?"

They rose to go and find a place for tea in Kew Gardens, among the

happy, lazing Sunday crowds of those whom it has been the fashion to

treat so condescendingly: England's big Middle-classes. There were the

conventional young married couples; "She" wearing out the long tussore

coat that seemed so voluminous; "He," pipe in mouth, wheeling the wicker

mail-cart that held their pink-and-white bud of a baby. There were also

courting couples innumerable....

(Not all of these were as reticent in the public eye as Gwenna had been

with her lover before Leslie.)

To Gwenna the bright landscape and the coloured figures seemed a page

out of some picture-book that she turned idly, her lover beside her. She

had to remind herself that to these other lovers she herself and Paul

were also part of a half-seen picture....

They sat down at one of the green wooden tea-tables, and a waiter in a

greasy black coat came out under the trees to take Dampier's order.

Perhaps that started another train of thought in the girl's mind, for

quite suddenly she exclaimed, "Ah! I've thought of _another_ German now

that he was like!"

"Who was that?" asked Paul.

"Only a picture I used to see every day. A photograph that our Miss

Baker kept pinned up over her desk at the works in Westminster,"

explained Gwenna. "The photograph of that brother of hers that she was

always writing those long letters to."

"Always writing, was she? Was _he_ a waiter?"

"No, he was a soldier. He was in uniform in that photo," Gwenna said, as

the little tray was set before her. "Karl was his name, Karl Becker....

Do you take sugar?"

"Yes. You'll have to remember that for later on," he said, looking at

her with his head tilted back and a laugh in his eyes, as she poured out

his tea. She handed it to him, and then sat sipping her own, looking

dreamily over the English gardens, over the green spaces flowered with

the light frocks and white flannels of other couples who perhaps called

themselves "in love," and who possibly imagined they could ever feel as

she and her lover felt. (Deluded beings!)

She murmured, "What do you suppose all these people are thinking

about?"

"Oh! Whether they'll go to Brighton or to South-end for their fortnight,

I expect," returned Paul Dampier. "Everybody's thinking about holidays

just now."

Later, they stood together in the hushed gloom of the big chestnut aisle

beside the river that slipped softly under Kew Bridge, passing the

willows and islands and the incongruously rural-looking street of

Strand-on-the-Green. One of the cottage-windows there showed red blinds,

lighted up and homely.

Young Dampier whispered to his girl--"Going on holidays myself, perhaps,

presently, eh?"

"Oh, Paul!" she said blankly, "you aren't going away for a holiday, are

you?"

"Not yet, thanks. Not without you."

"Oh!" she said. Then she sighed happily, watching the stars. "To-day's

been the loveliest holiday I've ever had in my life. Hasn't it been

perfect?"

"Not quite," he said, with his eyes on those red-lighted windows on the

opposite bank. "Not perfect, Gwen."

"Not----?" she took up quickly, wondering if she had said something that

he didn't like.

Almost roughly he broke out, "Oh, I say, darling! _Don't_ let's go and

have one of these infernally long engagements, shall we?"

She turned, surprised.

"We said," she reminded him, "that we weren't 'engaged' at all."

"I know," he said. Then he laughed as he stooped and kissed her little

ringless fingers and the palms of her hands. "But----"

There was a pause.

"Got to _marry_ me one day, you know," said young Paul Dampier

seriously.

He might have spoken more seriously still if he had known that what he

said must happen in ten days' time from then.