CHAPTER III

A LAST FAVOUR

That thought at the heart of Gwenna seemed to grow with every hour that

passed.

And they were passing now so rapidly, the hours that remained to her

with her husband! One more blissful day spent on the mountains (but

always with that growing thought behind it: "_He has to go soon. Perhaps

he will not come back this time. The new machine may let him down

somehow, perhaps_").

One more train-journey, whizzing through country of twenty different

aspects, just him and her together (but still in her mind that thriving

dread: "_Very likely he may not come back. He has had so many narrow

escapes! That time he told me about when he came down from behind the

clouds and the machine was hit on both sides at once: our men firing on

him as well, thinking his was an enemy craft! He got up into the clouds

again and escaped that time. Next time as likely as not...._").

One more night they were together in the London hotel where Uncle Hugh

had always put up. Paul slept, with a smile on his face that looked so

utterly boyish while he was asleep: his blonde head nestled into her

neck. Gwenna, waking uneasily once or twice, and with his arms still

about her, was haunted by her fear as by a nightmare. "_It's more than

likely that he may not come back this time. This time I feel that he is

not going to come back!_" And the feeling grew with the growing light

outside the window, until she told herself: "_I know it! I know that I

am right_----"

Then came the wonder in her mind, "_Why am I not wretched about this?

Why do I feel that it's not going to matter after all, and that it's

going to be 'all right'?_"

Still wondering, she fell asleep again.

But in the morning her presentiment was a thing full-grown.

Paul, off to the Front, would never come back again.

Quite early they were at the Aircraft Works where he was to leave his

young wife and to fetch his machine, the completed P.D.Q. that was to

take him out to France.

He had spoken of her--that machine--in the train coming along. And

Gwenna, the dazed and fanciful, had thought sharply: "_Ah! That's her

revenge. That's what's going to be the end of this fight between the

Girl and the Machine. I won. I got him from her. This is how she takes

him back, the fiancee! He will be killed in that machine of his._"

Her headstrong, girlish fancy persisted. It was as real to her as any of

the crowd of everyday and concrete realities that they found, presently,

at the bustling Aircraft Works.

When Paul (who was to start at midday, flying across to France) changed

into his uniform and flying-kit, it seemed to her to set the seal upon

her premonition.

He would never wear other kit again now, upon this earth.

The Aeroplane Lady, bracingly cheerful, met them with a sheaf of

official documents for the young Army aviator.

"I'm going to steal him from you for a quarter of an hour, Mrs.

Dampier," she said with a little nod; and she took the young man into

her office.

Gwenna, left alone outside, walked up and down the sunny yard

mechanically.

She could not have said what her thoughts were. Probably she had no

thoughts. Nothing but the steady throb, quiet and reiterated as the

pulse of the machinery in the shops, of that conviction of fatality that

she felt.

It seemed to run on in her head as the belting ran on the shaft: "He

won't come back. He won't come back!"

It was in the middle of this monotonous inward muttering that the door

of the office opened, and there came out a shortish figure,

leather-jacketed and with enveloping overalls and wearing a cap with

goggles, peak behind. It was young Mr. Ryan.

He raised his cap and would have passed Gwenna quickly, but she stopped

him.

She didn't know why. Since her marriage she had (ungratefully enough)

almost forgotten the red-haired young man's existence, and perhaps it

was not so much himself as his cap and mufflings that caught her eye

now.

"Why, are you going up?" she asked.

"Yes," said young Ryan gloomily.

He seemed to be in the worst of tempers as he went on, grumblingly. He

was going up. Just his luck. Plenty of times he'd wanted to go and

hadn't been allowed. Now he'd got to go, just when he didn't want to.

"You don't want to?" Gwenna repeated.

Mr. Ryan coloured a little. "Well, if I've got to, that doesn't matter."

"Why don't you want to?" Gwenna asked, half indifferent, half surprised.

To her it had always appeared the one thing to want to do. She had been

put off time after time. Now here was he, grumbling that it was just his

luck to go.

Then she thought she could guess why he didn't want to go up just now.

She smiled faintly. Was it that Mr. Ryan had--somebody--to see?

Mr. Ryan blushed richly. Probably he did so not on this somebody's

account, but because it was Gwenna who asked the question. One does not

care for the sympathetic questions of the late idol, even when another

fills the shrine. He told Gwenna: "I've got to go with your husband as a

passenger. He's had a wire to bring another man over to one of the

repairing bases; and so he's spotted me."

"To bring over? D'you mean to France?"

"Yes. Not that they want _me_, of course; but just somebody. So I've got

to go, I suppose."

Gwenna was silent, absorbed. She glanced away across the flat

eighty-acre field beyond the yards, where the planes of Paul's new

biplane gleamed like a parallel ruler in the sun. A ruler marked with

inches, each inch being one of the seams that Gwenna had carefully doped

over. About the machine two or three dark figures moved, giving

finishing touches, seeing that all was right.

And young Ryan was to fly in her, with Paul!

It wasn't Ryan they wanted, but "just somebody." ... And then, all in a

moment, Gwenna, thinking, had a very curious little mental experience.

As once before she had had that "flying dream," and had floated up from

earth and had seen her own body lying inert and soulless on her bed, so

now the same thing happened. She seemed to see herself in the yard.

Herself, quite still and nonchalant, talking to this young man in cap

and goggles who had to go to France just when he particularly wanted to

go somewhere else. She saw all the details, quite clearly: his leather

jacket, herself, in her blouse and skirt, the cylindrical iron, steam

chambers where they steamed the skids, the Wing-room door, and beyond it

the new biplane waiting in the field two hundred yards away.

Then she saw herself put her hand on the young man's leathern sleeve.

She heard her own voice ascending, as it were, to her. It was saying

what seemed to be the most matter-of-fact thing in the world.

"Then don't go. You go later, Mr. Ryan. Follow him on. You go and meet

your girl instead; it will be all right."

He was staring blankly at her. She wondered what he saw to stare at.

"What? What d'you mean, Mrs. Dampier? I'm bound to go. Military orders."

"Yes; they are for him, not for you. _You_ aren't under military

orders." This was in her own, quite calm and detached little voice with

its un-English accent. "You say anybody'd do. He can take--somebody

else."

"Isn't anybody else," she heard young Ryan say. Then she heard from her

own lips the most surprising thing of all.

"Yes, there's somebody. You give me those things of yours. I'm going

instead of you."

Then Mr. Ryan laughed loudly. He seemed to see a joke that Gwenna did

not see. "Well, for a film-drama, that takes it!" he laughed.

She did not laugh. She heard herself say, softly, earnestly, swiftly:

"Listen to me. Paul is going away and I have never been up with him yet.

I was always promised a flight. And always something got in the way of

it. And now he's going. He will never----"

Her voice corrected itself.

"He _may_ never come back. I may never get another chance of flying with

him. Let me--let me have it! Say you will!"

But Mr. Ryan, instead of saying he would, became suddenly firm and

peremptory. Perhaps it was the change in his voice that brought Gwenna

Dampier, with a start, back to herself. She was no longer watching

herself. She was watching young Ryan's face, intently, desperately. But

she was still quite calm. It seemed to her that since an idea and a plan

had come to her out of nowhere, it would be mad to throw them away again

untried.

"Let me go; it will be all right! Let me get into your things."

"Quite out of the question," said young Ryan, with growing firmness--the

iron mask of the man who knows himself liable to turn wax in the hands

of a woman. "Not to be thought of."

She set her teeth. It was life and death to her now, what he refused.

She could have flown at him like a fury for his obstinacy. She knew,

however, that this is no road to a woman's attainment of her desires.

With honeyed sweetness, and always calmly, she murmured: "You were

always so nice to me, Mr. Ryan. I liked you so!"

"I say, don't----"

"I am sure that girl must be devoted to you. Isn't she? The one you want

to see? Oh, yes! Well, think if it were _she_ who begged to be with

_you_," pleaded Gwenna softly and deadly calm. Her knuckles were white

on the hands that she held clasped against her breast. "Think if she

begged for one last, last little time!"

"Look here; it's imposs----"

"I never begged for any one anything before, in my whole life. Never!

Not even my husband. Only you! It's the first--the last favour, Mr.

Ryan! You used to say you'd do anything----"

"No, please; I say----!"

"He's always said he would take me. You can follow us on. Yes, indeed it

will be all right----"

Here Paul, passing with the Aeroplane Lady at the end of the yard, on

his way to the machine in the field, saw by the steam reservoir his

young wife talking earnestly to the red-haired Ryan chap, who was to be

his passenger. He heard her say: "You must, Peter, you _must_!"

He hadn't known that the Little Thing called that fellow by his

Christian name, but he thought he knew the kind of thing that she would

be saying to Ryan; begging him to keep an eye upon her husband, to do

anything he could for him (Paul) since they were both going over to

France together.

"It will be all right," repeated Gwenna to young Ryan in a settled kind

of tone. "You'll give me your things, and then you'll stay here, out of

the way until we've gone. You will!"

Thereupon Mr. Ryan became firmer than ever.

"Can't be done, Mrs. Dampier," he said curtly. "Afraid that ends it!"

* * * * *

In the meantime Paul was making a last tour of the P.D.Q.

"Just start her, will you?" he said to one of his mechanics.

A harsh roar rattled out over the countryside. Paul touched parts here

and there.

"All right," he said; and the engine was shut off again. Then he turned

to Mrs. Crewe.

"Well," he said, "if you don't mind----" He glanced first at his

wrist-watch and then in the direction of the buildings. The Aeroplane

Lady smiled.

"I think you'll find her in the office," she replied.

He crossed the field and walked straight into the office, but Gwenna was

not there. He passed into the Wing-room where he had seen her at work.

She was not there, either; only two of the lads in blue overalls were

bringing in a wing. He said to them: "Is Mrs. Dampier in the central

shop? Just tell her I'm here, will you? I shall have to be off very

soon." In a moment one of the lads returned to say that Mrs. Dampier was

not in the shops.

"Go out that way and find her, will you, then?" he said. "I'll go out

the other way; ask her to wait for me in the Wing-room if you find her

first." He went out to search for his wife. He sought her in the shops

and in the sheds. She was not to be found. He came back to the

Wing-room; it was empty, except for the Great Dane, lying in his corner

blinking wisely, with his head on his paws. Dismayed (for he would have

not more than a moment to spare with her now) young Dampier came out and

sent a lad on a bicycle up to Mrs. Crewe's cottage to find out if his

wife were there. Perhaps the Little Thing had forgotten the

cap-comforter she was going to give him, and had gone to fetch that.

Mrs. Crewe herself walked back from the field, and found him almost

running about the yards again.

"What, haven't you found her? Isn't she anywhere about?" cried the

Aeroplane Lady in astonishment. "This is most extraordinary. She must be

here somewhere----"

"I've been and I've sent all over the place," said the young aviator,

distressed. "Here, I've got to start in a minute, and she isn't here to

see me before I go. I can't imagine what's become of her!"

The Aeroplane Lady could imagine. She had had the quick thought that

Gwenna Dampier, at the last moment, had gone away, hidden herself from

that ordeal of last farewells. "Perhaps the little creature couldn't

stand it," she thought. It was, when all was said, a heart-breaking

moment....

The Aeroplane Lady said softly: "Perhaps your wife's one of the people

who don't want to say any good-bye, Mr. Dampier. Like some people

thinking it's unlucky to watch people out of sight!"

"Well, I've hunted all over the place," he said, turning away, agitated

and dismayed. "Tell her, will you, Mrs. Crewe, I shan't be able to wait

any longer. I was to start at midday. I shall be late. You explain to

her, please. Where's Ryan--ah, there he is."

For across the field he saw a short, muffled-up, brown figure, climbing,

rather hurriedly, into the passenger's seat. It sat, waiting without

looking round.

The last stroke of twelve sounded from the clock of the factory. The

whistle blew. The men trooped out of the works; every one of them cast a

glance towards the field where the biplane was ready. Several of them in

a group turned off there to watch the start.

Paul joined them and walked across the field.

His brows were knitted; it was dashed hard lines that he couldn't see

_her_ for good-bye. His wife! She ought to have seen him off.... Poor

Little sweet Thing, she thought she couldn't stick it---- He wondered

where on earth she'd gone and hidden herself.