LESLIE ON "TOO MUCH LOVE"
It seemed to be decided for Gwenna that she should, after all, give
notice at the office.
For on the evening of the day of her climb up the scaffolding she met
the tall, sketchily-dressed figure of her chum coming down the hill that
she was ascending on her way to the Club. And Leslie accosted her with
the words, "Child, d'you happen to want to leave your place and take
another job? Because, if so, come along for a walk and we'll talk about
it."
So the two "inseparables" strolled on together up past the Club, passing
at the crest of the hill a troop of Boy Scouts with their band.
"Only chance one ever gets of hearing a drum; jolly sound," sighed
Leslie, watching the brown faces, the sturdy legs marching by. "I wonder
how many of those lads will be soldiers? Very few, I suppose. We're told
that the authorities are _so_ careful to keep the Boy Scout Movement
apart from any pernicious militarism, and ideas about National Service!"
And the girls took the road that dips downward from Hampstead, and the
chestnut avenue that leads into the Park of Golders Green. They passed
the Bandstand ringed by nurse-girls and perambulators. They crossed the
rustic bridge above the lily-pond, where children tossed crumbs to the
minnows. They went in at the door of the little flower-garden.
Here, except for an occasional sauntering couple, London seemed shut
out. In the late sunlight above the maze of paths, the roses were just
at their best. Over the pergolas and arbours they hung in garlands, they
were massed in great posies of pink and cream and crimson. The little
fountain set in the square of velvet turf tossed up a spray of white
mist touched with a rainbow, not unlike Gwenna's dance-frock.
The girls sat down on a shaded seat facing that fountain. Gwenna,
turning to her chum, said, "Now do tell me about that job you asked if
I'd take. What is it?"
"Oh! it's a woman who used to know some of my people; she came to the
Club this afternoon, and then on to my old lady's to see me about it,"
said Leslie. "She wants a girl--partly to do secretarial work, partly to
keep her company, partly to help her in the 'odd bits' of her work down
there where she has her business."
Gwenna, rather listlessly thinking of typewriting offices, of blouses,
or tea-shops, asked what the lady did.
Leslie gave the extraordinary answer, "She builds aeroplanes."
"_She_ does?" cried Gwenna, all thrilled. "_Aeroplanes?_"
"Yes. She's the only woman who's got an Aircraft Factory, men, shops and
all. It's about an hour's run from town. She's a pilot herself, and her
son's an aviator," said Leslie, speaking as though of everyday things.
"Everything supplied, from the Man to the Machine, what?"
"Oh! But what a _gorgeous_ sort of Life for a woman, Leslie!" cried the
younger girl, her face suddenly alight. "Fancy spending her time making
things like _that_! Things that are going to make a difference to the
whole world! Instead of her just 'settling down' and embroidering
'duchesse sets,' and sitting with tea-cups, like Uncle Hugh's 'Lady
parishioners,' and talking to callers about servants; and operations!
Oh, oh, don't _you_ want to take her job?"
"I'm not especially keen on one job more than another. And my old lady
would be rather upset if I did leave her in the lurch," said Leslie,
more unselfishly than her chum suspected. The truth was that this much
disapproved-of Leslie had resigned a congenial post because it might
mean what Gwenna loved. "I told the Aeroplane Lady about you," she
added. "And she'd like you to go down and interview her at the Factory
next Saturday, if you'd care to."
"Care? Of _course_ I'd care! Aeroplanes! After silly buildings and
specifications!" exclaimed Gwenna, clasping her hands in her grey linen
lap. But her face fell suddenly as she added, "But--it's an hour's run
from London, you say? I should have to live there?"
"'_Away from Troilus, and away from Troy_,'" quoted Leslie, smiling.
"You could come back to Troy for week-ends, Taffy. And I'll tell you
what. _It's no bad thing for a young man who's always thought of a girl
as being planted in one particular place, to realise suddenly that
she's been uprooted and set up in quite another place._ Gives him just a
little jerk. By the way, is there any fresh news of Troilus--of the
Dampier boy?"
And Gwenna, sitting there with troubled eyes upon the roses, gave her
the history of that afternoon's adventure. She ended up sadly, "Never
even said 'Good-bye' to me!"
"Getting nervous that he's going to like you too well!" translated
Leslie, without difficulty. "Probably deciding at this minute that he'd
better not see much more of you----"
"Oh, Leslie!" exclaimed the younger girl, alarmed.
"Sort of thing they _do_ decide," said Leslie, lightly. "Well, we'll see
what it amounts to. And we'll wire to-morrow to the Aeroplane Lady. Or
telephone down to-night. I am going to telephone to Hugo Swayne to tell
him I don't feel in the mood to have dinner out to-night again."
"Again?" said Gwenna, rather wistfully, as they rose from the arbour and
walked slowly down the path by the peach-houses. "Has he been asking you
out _several_ times, then?"
"Several," said Leslie with a laugh. She added in her insouciant way,
"You know, _he_ wants to marry me now."
Gwenna regarded her with envy. Leslie spoke of what should be the eighth
wonder of the world, the making or rejecting of a man's life, as if it
were an everyday affair.
"Don't look so unflatteringly _surprised_, Taffy. Strictly pretty I may
not be. But a scrupulously neat and lady-like appearance," mocked
Leslie, putting out a long arm in a faded-silk sleeve that was torn at
the cuff, "has often (they tell one) done more to win husbands than
actual good looks!"
Little Gwenna said, startled, "You aren't--aren't going to _let_ Mr.
Swayne be your husband, are you?"
"I don't know," said Leslie, reflectively, a little wearily. "I don't
know, yet. He's fat--but of course _that_ would come off after I'd
worried him for a year or so. He's flabby. He's rather like Kipling's
person whose '_rooms at College was beastly_!' but he's good-natured,
and his people were all right, and, Taffy, he's delightfully well-off.
And when one's turned twenty-six, one does want to be _sure_ of what's
coming. One must have some investment that'll bring in one's frocks and
one's railway-fares and one's proper setting."
"There are other things," protested little Gwenna with a warm memory of
that moment's clasping on the heights that afternoon. "There are things
one wants more."
"Not me."
"Ah! That's because you don't _know_ them," declared Gwenna, flushed.
And at that the elder girl gave a very rueful laugh.
"Not know them? I've known them too well," she admitted. "Listen, Taffy,
I'll tell you the sort of girl I am. I'm afraid there are plenty of us
about."
She sighed, and went on with a little nod.
"We're the girl who works in the sweetshop and who never wants to touch
chocolates again. We're the sort of girl who's been turned loose too
early at dances and studio-parties and theatricals and so forth. The
girl who's come in for too much excitement and flattery and love-making.
Yes! For in spite of all my natural disadvantages (tuck in that bit of
hair for me, will you?) and in _spite_ of not being quite a fool--I've
been made too much of, by men. The Monties and so forth. _Here's where I
pay for it._ I and the girls like me. We can't ever take a real live
interest in men again!"
"But----!" objected Gwenna, seeing a mental image of Leslie as she had
been at that dance, whirling and flushed and radiant. "You _seem_ to
like----"
"'_The chase, not the quarry_,'" quoted Leslie. "For when I've brought
down my bird, what happens?--He doesn't amuse me any more! It's like
having sweets to eat and such a cold that one can't taste 'em."
"But--that's such a _pity_!"
"D'you suppose I don't _know_ that?" retorted Miss Long. "D'you suppose
I don't wish to Heaven that I could be 'in Love' with somebody? I can't
though. I see through men. And I don't see as much in them as there is
in myself. They can't boss _me_, or take _me_ out of myself, or surprise
_me_ into admiring them. Why can't they, _dash_ them? they can't even
_say_ anything that I can't think of, quicker, first!" complained the
girl with many admirers, resentfully. "And that's a fatal thing to any
woman's happiness. Remember, there's no fun for a woman in just _being_
adored!"
The girl in love, kicking her small brown shoe against the pebbles of
the garden path, sighed that she wished that she could try "being
adored." Just for a change.
"Ah, but you, Taffy, you're lucky. You're so fresh, so eager. You're as
much in love with that aviator's job as you are with anything else about
him. You're as much amused by 'ordinary things' as any other girl is
amused by getting a young man. As for what you feel about the young man
himself, well!--I suppose _that's_ a tune played half a yard to the
right of the keyboard of an ordinary girl's capacity. You're keen for
Life; you've got what men call '_a thirst you couldn't buy_.' Wish I
were like that!"
"Well, but it's so easy to be," argued Gwenna, "when you _do_ meet some
one so wonderful----"
"It's not so easy to see 'wonder,' let me tell you. It's a gift. I've
had it; lost it; spoilt it," mourned the elder girl. "To you
everything's thrilling: their blessed airships--the men in them--the Air
itself. All miracles to you! Everything's an Adventure. So would
Marriage be----"
"Oh, I don't--don't ever think of _that_. Being always _with_ a person!
Oh, it would be _too_ wonderful---- I shouldn't expect--Even to be a
little _liked_, if he once told me so, would be enough," whispered the
little Welsh girl, so softly that her chum did not catch it.
Leslie, striding along, said, "To a girl like me all that's as far
behind as the school-room. At the stage where I am, a girl looks upon
Marriage--how? As '_The Last 'Bus Home, or A Settled Job at last_.'
That's why she so often ends up as an old man's darling--with some very
young man as her slave. That's what makes me ready to accept Hugo
Swayne. And now forget I ever told you so."
The two girls turned homewards; Gwenna a little sad.
To think that Leslie should lack what even ordinary little Mabel Butcher
had! To think that Leslie, underneath all her gaiety and rattle, should
not know any more the taste of real delight!
Gwenna, the simple-hearted, did not know the ways of self-critics. She
did not guess that possibly Miss Long had been analysing her own
character with less truth than gusto.... And she was surprised when, as
they passed the Park gates again, her chum broke the silence with all
her old lightness of tone.
"Talking of young men--a habit for which Leslie never bothers to
apologise--talking of young men, I believe there might be some at the
Aeroplane Lady's place. She often has some one there. A
gentleman--'prentice or pupil or something of that sort. Might be rather
glad to see a new pretty face about with real curls."
It was then that Gwenna turned up that blushing but rather indignant
little face. "But, Leslie! Don't you _understand_? If there were a
million other young men about, all thinking me--all thinking what you
say, it wouldn't make a _bit_ of difference to _me_!"
"Possibly not," said Miss Long, "but there's no reason why it shouldn't
be made to make a difference to the Dampier boy, is there?"
"What d'you mean, Leslie?" demanded the other girl as they climbed the
hill together. For the first time a look of austerity crossed Gwenna's
small face. For the first time it seemed to her that the adored
girl-chum was in the wrong. Yes! She had never before been shocked at
Leslie, whatever wild thing she said. But now--now she was shocked. She
was disappointed in her. She repeated, rebukefully, "What do you mean?"
"What," took up Leslie, defiantly, "do you think I meant?"
"Well--_did_ you mean make--make Mr. Dampier think other people liked
me, and that I might like somebody else better than _him_?"
"Something of the sort _had_ crossed the mind of Leslie the Limit."
"Well, then, it isn't _like_ you----"
"Think not?" There was more than a hint of quarrel in both the girlish
voices. Up to now they had never exchanged a word that was not of
affection, of comradeship.
Gwenna, flushing deeper, said, "It's--it's _horrid_ of you, Leslie."
"Why, pray?"
"Because it would be sort of _deceiving_ Mr. Dampier, for one thing.
It's a _trick_."
"M'yes!"
"And not a pretty one, either," said little Gwenna, red and angry now.
"It's--it's----"
"What?"
"Well, it's what I should have thought that you yourself, Leslie, would
have called '_so obvious_.'"
"Exactly," agreed Miss Long, with a flippant little laugh that covered
smarting feelings. _Taffy_ had turned against her now! Taffy, who used
to think that Leslie could do no wrong! This was what happened when
one's inseparable chum fell in love....
Leslie said impenitently, "I've never yet found that '_the obvious
thing_' was '_the unsuccessful thing_.' Especially when it comes to
anything to do with young men. My good child, you and the Dampier boy,
you
'_Really constitute a pair,
Each being rather like an artless woodland elf._'
I mean, can't you see that the dear old-fashioned simple remedies and
recipes remain the best? For a sore throat, black-currant tea. (Never
fails!) For the hair, Macassar oil. (Unsurpassed since the Year
Eighteen-dot!) For the stimulation of an admirer's interest, jealousy.
Jealousy and competition, Taffy."
"He isn't an admirer," protested the younger girl, mollified. Then they
smiled together. The cloud of the first squabble had passed.
Leslie said, "Never mind. If you don't approve of my specific, don't
think of it again."