CHAPTER VI

HER GUARDIAN'S CONSENT

The Reverend Hugh Lloyd, who was Gwenna Williams' only relative and

guardian and therefore the person from whom consent might be asked if

ever the girl wished to be engaged, sat reading _The Cambrian News_. He

sat, over his breakfast eggs and tea, in the kitchen-sitting-room of his

Chapel House. Inside, the grandfather clock ticked slowly but still

pointed (as ever) to half-past two; and the cosy room, with its Welsh

dresser and its book-shelves, still held its characteristic smell of

singeing hearthrug. Outside, quiet brooded over the valley that fine

August morning. The smoke from the village chimneys rose blue and

straight against the larches of the hill-side. The more distant hills of

that landscape were faintly mauve against the cloudless, fainter blue of

the late-summer sky. All the world seemed so peaceful!

And the expression on the Reverend Hugh's face of a Jesuit priest under

its thatch of bog-cotton hair was that of a man at peace with all the

world.

True, there were rumours, in some of the newspapers, of some War going

on somewhere in the world outside.

But it was a long way from here to that old Continent, as they called

it! For the matter of that, it was a long way to London, where they

settled what they were going to do about Germany....

What they were going to do about Welsh Disestablishment was a good deal

more important, to a Welshman. There were some very good things about

that in this very article. The Reverend Hugh had written it himself.

Presently, in the midst of his reading, his housekeeper (who was a

small, middle-aged woman, rather like a black hen) entered the room at a

run.

"Telegram for you, sir."

"Ah, yes; thank you, Margat," her master said as he took it.

He had guessed already what was in it. Some arrangement to do with his

next Sabbath-day's journey. For he was a very popular preacher, invited

to give sermons by exchange in every country town in Wales.

"This," he told his housekeeper complacently, as he tore open the

envelope, "will be to say am I ex Pected in Carnarvon on the Sat Teudeh,

or----"

Here he broke off, staring at the message in his hand. It was a long

one.

There was a moment's silence while the clock ticked. Then that silence

was broken by an exclamation, in Welsh, from a man startled out of all

professional decorum. He added, with more restraint, but also in Welsh,

"Great King!"

Then he exclaimed, "Dear father!" and "_Name_ of goodness!"

"What is it, Mr. Lloyd _bach_?" demanded his housekeeper excitedly in

Welsh, clutching her black, crochet wool shawl about her shoulders as

she waited by the side of the breakfast.

"Is it somebody died?" In her mind's eye she saw already that loved orgy

of her kind--a funeral.

The Reverend Hugh shook his handsome white head. Again he read through

the longest telegraph message that he had ever received:

It ran:

"_Dear Sir am going to marry your niece Gwenna to-morrow Tuesday

morning at Hampstead regret forced to give you this short notice

but impossible to do otherwise owing military duties trust you will

excuse apparent casualness will write further particulars yours

sincerely Paul Dampier Lieutenant Royal Flying Corps._"

"_Name_ of goodness!" breathed the Reverend Hugh, brushing back his

white locks in consternation. And at short intervals he continued to

ejaculate. "What did I tell her? _What_ did I tell her!... Indeed, it's

a great pity I ever let her go away from home.... It was my fault; my

fault.... Young men----! This one sounds as if he was gone quite mad,

whatever."

So the Reverend Hugh addressed his answer to Miss Gwenna Williams at her

Club.

And it said:

"_Coming up to see you nine-thirty Euston to-night. Uncle._"

* * * * *

"I'm sure he'll be simply horrid about it," Gwenna rather tremulously

told her betrothed that evening, as they walked, the small, curly-haired

girl in dark blue and the tall, grey-clad aviator, up and down the

platform at Euston Station, waiting for the Welsh train to come in.

Little Gwenna was experiencing a feeling not unknown among those shortly

to be married; namely, that _every prospect was pleasing--save that of

having to face one's relatives with the affair_!

"He was always rather a dret-ful old man," she confided anxiously to

Paul, as they paced the sooty flags of the platform. "It's _just_ like

him to be sixteen minutes late already just when I want to get this

over. He never understands anything about--about people when they're

young. And the first thing he's sure to ask is whether you've got any

money. Have you, Paul?"

"Stacks," said the Airman, reassuringly. "Old Hugo made it sixty, as a

wedding-present. Decent of him, wasn't it?"

They turned by the blackboard with the chalked-up notices of arrivals

and departures, and Gwenna ruefully went on with her prophecy of what

her Uncle would say.

"He'll say he never _heard_ of anybody marrying an Airman. (I don't

suppose he's ever heard of an Airman at all before now!) Ministers, and

quarry-managers, and people _with some prospects_; that's the sort of

thing they've always married in Uncle Hugh's family," she said

anxiously. "And he'll say we've both behaved awfully badly not to let

him know before this. (Just as if there was anything to know.) And

he'll say you turned my silly head when I was much too young to know my

own mind! And then he's quite, quite sure to say that you only proposed

to me because---- Well, of course," she broke off a little reproachfully,

"you never even _did_ propose to me properly!"

"Too late to start it now," said her lover, laughing, as the knot of

porters surged forward to the side of the platform. "Here's the train

coming in!"

* * * * *

Now Gwenna was right about the first thing that Uncle Hugh would ask,

when, after a searching glance and a handshake to this tall young man

that his niece introduced to him at the carriage-door, he carried off

the pair of them to the near-by hotel where the Minister always put up

on his few and short visits to London.

"Well, young gentleman," he began, in his crisp yet deliberate Welsh

accent. He settled himself on the red plush sofa, and gazed steadily at

Paul Dampier on one of the red plush armchairs. "Well! And have you got

the money reck-quisite to keep a wife?"

"No. I'm afraid I haven't, sir, really," returned the young man, looking

frankly back at him. "Of course I'd my screw. Three pounds ten a week, I

was getting as a pilot. But that was only just enough for myself--with

what I had to do for the Machine. Of course I'm going to have her--the

Flying Machine--taken up now, so----"

"It's very little faith I have in such things as flying machines.

Flying? Yes, in the face of Providence, I call it," said the Reverend

Hugh, discouragingly, but with the dawn of some amusement in his

searching eyes. "What I say about the whole idea of Avi_ay_-shon

is--_Kite-high lunacy!_"

"Uncle!" scolded Gwenna; blushing for him. But the young Airman took the

rebuke soberly enough.

"And out of that income," went on Uncle Hugh, still looking hard, at

this modern suitor in that incongruous red-plush setting with its

Nineteenth Century clocks and ornaments, "out of that income you will

not have saved very much."

"Afraid not, sir," agreed young Dampier, who, last night, had been down

to his last eightpence ha'penny and a book of stamps. "Not much to put

by, you know----"

"Not even," took up the Reverend Hugh, shrewdly, "enough to pay for a

special marriage licence?"

"Oh, yes, I had that. That is, I've raised _that_"--("Good old Hugo!" he

thought.)--"and a bit over," he added, "to take us for some sort of a

little trip. To the sea, perhaps. Before I go on Service."

"Military service, do you mean?" said the Reverend Hugh. "Mmph! (I never

have held with soldiery. I do not think that I have ever come into

act--ual con--tackt with _any_.)"

"Yes, I probably am going on Service, Mr. Lloyd," answered the young

man, quickly, and with a glance at the girl that seemed to indicate that

this subject was only to be lightly dealt with at present. "When, I am

not sure. Then I shall get my pay as a Flight-Lieutenant, you see.

Shan't want any money much, then. So _she_"--with a little nod towards

the small, defensively set face of Gwenna, sitting very straight in the

other red-plush armchair--"she will get that sent home, to her."

"_I_ shan't want all your pay, indeed," interrupted the girl, hastily.

It seemed to her too revoltingly horrible, this talk about money

combined with this sense that a woman, married, must be an _expense_, a

burden. A woman, who longs to mean only freedom and gifts and treasure

to her lover!

"Oh, a woman ought never, _never_ to feel she has to be _kept_," thought

Gwenna, rosy again with embarrassment. "If men don't think we _mind_,

very well, then let all the money in the world be taken away from men,

and given to us. Let _them_ be kept. And if they don't mind it--well,

then it will be a happier world, all round!"

And as she was thinking this, she announced eagerly, "If--if you _do_ go

away, I shall stay on with the Aeroplane Lady, as I told you, Paul. Yes.

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!