Oh, no more of that; no more! She crushed the sheet in her h_Contact, and Other Stories

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CONTACT AND OTHER STORIES

FRANCES NOYES HART

[Illustration]

Garden City New York

Doubleday, Page & Company

1923

Doubleday, Page & Company

into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian

States and Great Britain

Printed in the United States

the Country Life Press, Garden City, N. Y.

First Edition

TO MY FATHER

FRANK BRETT NOYES

CONTENTS

PAGE

“CONTACT!” 1

THERE WAS A LADY 35

LONG DISTANCE 76

PHILIP THE GAY 108

GREEN GARDENS 157

DELILAH 177

HER GRACE 230

THE HONOURABLE TONY 264

CONTACT AND OTHER STORIES

“CONTACT!”

The first time she heard it was in the silk-hung and flower-scented

peace of the little drawing room in Curzon Street. His

sister Rosemary had wanted to come up to London to get some

clothes--Victory clothes they called them in those first joyous

months after the armistice, and decked their bodies in scarlet

and silver, even when their poor hearts went in black--and Janet

had been urged to leave her own drab boarding-house room to stay

with the forlorn small butterfly. They had struggled through

dinner somehow, and Janet had finished her coffee and turned the

great chair so that she could watch the dancing fire (it was cool

for May), her cloudy brown head tilted back against the rose-red

cushion, shadowy eyes half closed, idle hands linked across her

knees. She looked every one of her thirty years--and mortally

tired--and careless of both facts. But she managed an encouraging

smile at the sound of Rosemary’s shy, friendly voice at her elbow.

“Janet, these are yours, aren’t they? Mummy found them with some

things last week, and I thought that you might like to have them.”

She drew a quick breath at the sight of the shabby packet.

“Why, yes,” she said evenly. “That’s good of you, Rosemary. Thanks

a lot.”

“That’s all right,” murmured Rosemary diffidently. “Wouldn’t you

like something to read? There’s a most frightfully exciting Western

novel----”

The smile took on a slightly ironical edge.

“Don’t bother about me, my dear. You see, I come from that

frightfully exciting West, and I know all about the pet

rattlesnakes and the wildly Bohemian cowboys. Run along and play

with your book; I’ll be off to bed in a few minutes.”

Rosemary retired obediently to the deep chair in the corner, and

with the smile gone but the irony still hovering, she slipped the

cord off the packet. A meagre and sorry enough array; words had

never been for her the swift, docile servitors that most people

found them. But the thin gray sheet in her fingers started out

gallantly enough--“Beloved.” Beloved! She leaned far forward,

dropping it with deft precision into the glowing pocket of

embers. What next? This was more like; it began: “Dear Captain

Langdon” in the small, contained writing that was her pride, and

it went on soberly enough, “I shall be glad to have tea with you

next Friday--not Thursday, because I must be at the hut then. It

was stupid of me to have forgotten you; next time I will try to

do better.” Well, she had done better the next time. She had not

forgotten him again--never, never again. That had been her first

letter; how absurd of Jerry, the magnificently careless, to have

treasured it all that time, the miserable, stilted little thing!

She touched it with curious fingers. Surely, surely he must have

cared, to have cared so much for that!

It seemed incredible that she hadn’t remembered him at once when

he came into the hut that second time. Of course she had only seen

him for a moment and six months had passed, but he was so absurdly

vivid, every inch of him, from the top of his shining, dark head

to the heels of his shining, dark boots--and there were a great

many inches! How could she have forgotten, even for a minute, those

eyes dancing like blue fire in the brown young face, the swift,

disarming charm of his smile, and, above all, his voice--how, in

the name of absurdity, could any one who had once heard it ever

forget Jeremy Langdon’s voice? Even now she had only to close her

eyes, and it rang out again, with its clipped British accent and

its caressing magic, as un-English as any Provençal troubadour’s!

And yet she had forgotten; he had had to speak twice before she had

even lifted her head.

“Miss America--oh, I say, she’s forgotten me, and I thought that

I’d made such an everlasting impression!” The delighted amazement

reached even her tired ears, and she had smiled wanly as she pushed

the pile of coppers nearer to him.

“Have you been in before? It’s stupid of me, but there are such

hundreds of thousands of you, and you are gone in a minute, you

see. That’s your change, I think.”

“Hundreds of thousands of me, hey?” He had leaned across the

counter, his face alight with mirth. “I wish to the Lord my angel

mother could hear you--it’s what I’m for ever tellin’ her, though

just between us, it’s stuff and nonsense. I’ve got a well-founded

suspicion that I’m absolutely unique. You wait and see!”

And she had waited--and she had seen! She stirred a little, dropped

the note into the flames, and turned to the next, the quiet,

mocking mouth suddenly tortured and rebellious.

“No, you must be mad,” it ran, the trim writing strangely shaken.

“How often have you seen me--five times? Do you know how old I

am? How hard and tired and useless? No--no, a thousand times. In a

little while we will wake up and find that we were dreaming.”

That had brought him to her swifter than Fate, triumphant mischief

in every line of his exultant face. “Just let those damn cups

slip from your palsied fingers, will you? I’m goin’ to take your

honourable age for a little country air--it may keep you out of the

grave for a few days longer. Never can tell! No use your scowlin’

like that. The car’s outside, and the big chief says to be off with

you. Says you have no more colour than a banshee, and not half

the life--can’t grasp the fact that it’s just chronic antiquity.

Fasten the collar about your throat--no, higher! Darlin’, darlin’,

think of havin’ a whole rippin’ day to ourselves. You’re glad, too,

aren’t you, my little stubborn saint?”

Oh, that joyous and heart-breaking voice, running on and on--it

made all the other voices that she had ever heard seem colourless

and unreal----

“Darlin’ idiot, what do I care how old you are? Thirty, hey? Almost

old enough to be an ancestor! Look at me--no, look at me. Dare you

to say that you aren’t mad about me!”

Mad about him; mad, mad. She lifted her hands to her ears, but she

could no more shut out the exultant voice now than she could on

that windy afternoon.

“Other fellow got tired of you, did he? Good luck for us, what?

You’re a fearfully tiresome person, darlin’. It’s goin’ to take

me nine tenths of eternity to tell you how tiresome you are. Give

a chap a chance, won’t you? The tiresomest thing about you is the

way you leash up that dimple of yours. No, by George, there it is!

Janie, look at me----”

She touched the place where the leashed dimple had hidden with a

delicate and wondering finger--of all Jerry’s gifts to her, the

most miraculous had been that small fugitive. Exiled now, for ever

and for ever.

“Are you comin’ down to White Orchards next week-end? I’m off

for France on the twelfth and you’ve simply got to meet my

people. You’ll be insane about ’em; Rosemary’s the most beguilin’

flibbertigibbet, and I can’t wait to see you bein’ a kind of an

elderly grandmother to her. What a bewitchin’ little grandmother

you’re goin’ to be one of these days----”

Oh, Jerry! Oh, Jerry, Jerry! She twisted in her chair, her face

suddenly a small mask of incredulous terror. No, no, it wasn’t

true, it wasn’t true--never--never--never! And then, for the first

time, she heard it. Far off but clear, a fine and vibrant humming,

the distant music of wings! The faint, steady pulsing was drawing

nearer and nearer--nearer still; it must be flying quite high. The

letters scattered about her as she sprang to the open window; no,

it was too high to see, and too dark, though the sky was powdered

with stars, but she could hear it clearly, hovering and throbbing

like some gigantic bird. It must be almost directly over her head,

if she could only see it.

“It sounds--it sounds the way a humming-bird would look through a

telescope,” she said half aloud, and Rosemary murmured sleepily but

courteously, “What, Janet?”

“Just an airplane; no, gone now. It sounded like a bird. Didn’t you

hear it?”

“No,” replied Rosemary drowsily. “We get so used to the old things

that we don’t even notice them any more. Queer time to be flying.”

“It sounded rather beautiful,” said Janet, her face still turned

to the stars. “Far off, but so clear and sure. I wonder--I wonder

whether it will be coming back?”

Well, it came back. She went down to White Orchards with Rosemary

for the following week-end, and after she had smoothed her hair

and given a scornful glance at the pale face in the mirror, with

its shadowy eyes and defiant mouth, she slipped out to the lower

terrace for a breath of the soft country air. Half way down the

flight of steps she stumbled and caught at the balustrade, and

stood shaking for a moment, her face pressed against its rough

surface. Once before she had stumbled on those steps, but it was

not the balustrade that had saved her. She could feel his arms

about her now, holding her up, holding her close and safe. The

magical voice was in her ears.

“Let you go? I’ll never let you go! Poor little feet, stumblin’

in the dark, what would you do without Jerry? Time’s comin’, you

cheeky little devils, when you’ll come runnin’ to him when he

whistles! No use tryin’ to get away--you belong to him.”

Oh, whistle to them now, Jerry--they would run to you across the

stars!

“How’d you like to marry me before I go back to-morrow? No? No

accountin’ for tastes, Miss Abbott--lots of people would simply

jump at it! All right, April, then. Birds and flowers and all that

kind o’ thing--pretty intoxicatin’, what? No, keep still, darlin’

goose. What feller taught you to wear a dress that looks like roses

and smells like roses and feels like roses? This feller? Lord help

us, what a lovely liar!”

And suddenly she found herself weeping helplessly, desperately,

like an exhausted child, shaken to the heart at the memory of the

rose-coloured dress.

“You like me just a bit, don’t you, funny, quiet little thing?

But you’d never lift a finger to hold me; that’s the wonder of

you--that’s why I’ll never leave you. No, not for heaven. You can’t

lose me--no use tryin’.”

But she had lost you, Jerry; you had left her, for all your

promises, to terrified weeping in the hushed loveliness of the

terrace, where your voice had turned her still heart to a dancing

star, where your fingers had touched her quiet blood to flowers

and flames and butterflies. She had believed you then. What would

she ever believe again? And then she caught back the despairing

sobs swiftly, for once more she heard, far off, the rushing of

wings. Nearer--nearer--humming and singing and hovering in the

quiet dusk. Why, it was over the garden! She flung back her head,

suddenly eager to see it; it was a friendly and thrilling sound in

all that stillness. Oh, it was coming lower--lower still--she could

hear the throb of the propellers clearly. Where _was_ it? Behind

those trees, perhaps? She raced up the flight of steps, dashing

the treacherous tears from her eyes, straining up on impatient

tiptoes. Surely she could see it now! But already it was growing

fainter--drifting steadily away, the distant hum growing lighter

and lighter--lighter still----

“Janet!” called Mrs. Langdon’s pretty, patient voice.

“Dinner-time, dear! Is there any one with you?”

“No one at all, Mrs. Langdon. I was just listening to an airplane.”

“An _airplane_? Oh, no, dear; they never pass this way any more.

The last one was in October, I think----”

The plaintive voice trailed off in the direction of the dining room

and Janet followed it, a small, secure smile touching her lips. The

last one had not passed in October. It had passed a few minutes

before, over the lower garden.

She quite forgot it by the next week; she was becoming an adept at

forgetting. That was all that was left for her to do! Day after

day and night after night she had raised the drawbridge between

her heart and memory, leaving the lonely thoughts to shiver

desolately on the other side of the moat. She was weary to the

bone of suffering, and they were enemies, for all their dear and

friendly guise; they would tear her to pieces if she ever let them

in. No, no, she was done with them. She would forget, as Jerry

had forgotten. She would destroy every link between herself and

the past, and pack the neat little steamer trunk neatly and bid

these kind and gentle people good-bye, and take herself and her

bitterness and her dulness back to the classroom in the Western

university town--back to the Romance languages. The Romance

languages!

She would finish it all that night, and leave as soon as possible.

There were some trinkets to destroy, and his letters from France

to burn; she would give Rosemary the rose-coloured dress--foolish,

lovely little Rosemary, whom he had loved, and who was lying now

fast asleep in the next room, curled up like a kitten in the middle

of the great bed, her honey-coloured hair falling about her in a

shining mist. She swept back her own cloud of hair resolutely,

frowning at the candle-lit reflection in the mirror. Two desolate

pools in the small, pale oval of her face stared back at her--two

pools with something drowned in their lonely depths. Well, she

would drown it deeper!

The letters first; lucky that they still used candlelight! It would

make the task much simpler--the funeral pyre already lighted. She

moved one of the tall candelabra to the desk, sitting for a long

time quite still, her chin cupped in her hands, staring down at the

bits of paper. She could smell the wall-flowers under the window as

though they were in the room; drenched in dew and moonlight, they

were reckless of their fragrance. All this peace and cleanliness

and ordered beauty--what a ghastly trick for God to have played--to

have taught her to adore them, and then to snatch them away! All

about her, warm with candlelight, lay the gracious loveliness of

the little room with its dark waxed furniture, its bright glazed

chintz, its narrow bed with the cool linen sheets smelling of

lavender, and its straight, patterned curtains--oh, that hateful,

mustard-coloured den at home with its golden-oak day-bed!

She wrung her hands suddenly in a little hunted gesture. How could

he have left her to that, he who had sworn that he would never

leave her? In every one of those letters beneath her linked fingers

he had sworn it--in every one perjured--false half a hundred times.

Pick up any one of them at random----

“Janie, you darling stick, is ‘dear Jerry’ the best that you can

do? You ought to learn French! I took a perfectly ripping French

kid out to dinner last night--name’s Liane, from the Varietiés--and

she was calling me ‘_mon grand chéri_’ before the salad, and ‘_mon

p’tit amour_’ before the green mint. Maybe _that’ll_ buck you up!

And I’d have you know that she’s so pretty that it’s ridiculous,

with black velvet hair that she wears like a little Oriental

turban, and eyes like golden pansies, and a mouth between a kiss

and a prayer, and a nice affable nature into the bargain. But I’m

a ghastly jackass--I didn’t get any fun out of it at all--because

I really didn’t even see her. Under the pink shaded candles to my

blind eyes it seemed that there was seated the coolest, quietest,

whitest little thing, with eyes that were as indifferent as my

velvety Liane’s were kind, and mockery in her smile. Oh, little

masquerader! If I could get my arms about you even for a minute--if

I could kiss so much as the tips of your lashes--would you be cool

and quiet and mocking then? Janie, Janie, rosy-red as flowers on

the terrace and sweeter--sweeter--they’re about you now--they’ll be

about you always!”

Burn it fast, candle--faster, faster. Here’s another for you!

“So the other fellow cured you of using pretty names, did he--you

don’t care much for dear and darling any more? Bit hard on me, but

fortunately for you, Janie Janet, I’m rather a dab at languages,

’specially when it comes to ‘cozy names.’ _Querida mi alma_,

_douchka_, _Herzliebchen_, _carissima_, and _bien, bien-aimée_,

I’ll not run out of salutations for you this side of heaven--no,

nor t’other. I adore the serene grace with which you ignore the

ravishing Liane. Haven’t you any curiosity at all, my Sphinx?

No? Well, then, just to punish you, I’ll tell you all about it.

She’s married to the best fellow in the world, a _liaison_ officer

working with our squadron--and she worships the ground that he

walks on and the air that he occasionally flies in. So whenever I

run up to the City of Light, _en permission_, I look her up, and

take her the latest news--and for an hour, over the candles, we

pretend that I am Maurice, and that she is Janie. Only she says

that I don’t pretend very well--and it’s just possible that she’s

right.

“_Mon petit cœur et grand trésor_, I wish that I could take you

flying with me this evening. You’d be daft about it! Lots of it’s

a rotten bore, of course, but there’s something in me that doesn’t

live at all when I’m on this too, too solid earth. Something that

lies there, crouched and dormant, waiting until I’ve climbed up

into the seat, and buckled the strap about me and laid my hands on

the ‘stick.’ It’s waiting--waiting for a word--and so am I. And I

lean far forward, watching the figure toiling out beyond till the

call comes back to me, clear and confident: ‘Contact, sir?’ And

I shout back, as restless and exultant as the first time that I

answered it: ‘Contact!’

“And I’m off--and I’m alive--and I’m free! Ho, Janie! That’s

simpler than Abracadabra or Open Sesame, isn’t it? But it opens

doors more magical than ever they swung wide, and something in me

bounds through, more swift and eager than any Aladdin. Free! I’m

a crazy sort of a beggar, my little love--that same thing in me

hungers and thirsts and aches for freedom. I go half mad when

people or events try to hold me; you, wise beyond wisdom, never

will. Somehow, between us, we’ve struck the spark that turns a

mere piece of machinery into a wonder with wings; somehow, you are

for ever setting me free. It is your voice, your voice of silver

and peace, that’s eternally whispering ‘Contact!’ to me--and I am

released, heart, soul, and body! And because you speed me on my

way, Janie, I’ll never fly so far, I’ll never fly so long, I’ll

never fly so high that I’ll not return to you. You hold me fast,

for ever and for ever.”

You had flown high and far indeed, Jerry--and you had not returned.

For ever and for ever! Burn faster, flame!

“My blessed child, who’s been frightening you? Airplanes are by all

odds safer than taxis, and no end safer than the infernal duffer

who’s been chaffing you would be if I could once get my hands on

him. Damn fool! Don’t care if you do hate swearing; damn fools are

damn fools, and there’s an end to it. All those statistics are

sheer melodramatic rot; the chap who fired ’em at you probably

has all his money invested in submarines, and is fairly delirious

with jealousy. Peg (did I ever formally introduce you to Pegasus,

the best pursuit-plane in the R. F. C.--or out of it?) Peg’s about

as likely to let me down as you are! We’d do a good deal for each

other, she and I; nobody else can really fly her, the darling! But

she’d go to the stars for me--and farther still. Never you fear--we

have charmed lives, Peg and I--we belong to Janie.

“I think that people make an idiotic row about dying, anyway. It’s

probably jolly good fun, and I can’t see what difference a few

years here would make if you’re going to have all eternity to play

with. Of course you’re a ghastly little heathen, and I can see you

wagging a mournful head over this already--but every time that I

remember what a shocking sell the After Life (exquisite phrase!) is

going to be for you, darling, I do a bit of head-wagging myself,

and it’s not precisely mournful! I can’t wait to see your blank

consternation, and you needn’t expect any sympathy from _me_. My

very first words will be, ‘I told you so!’ Maybe I’ll rap them out

to you with a table-leg!

“What do you think of all this Ouija Planchette rumpus, anyway? I

can’t for the life of me see why any one with a whole new world to

explore should hang around chattering with this one. I know that

I’d be half mad with excitement to get at the new job, and that

I’d find reassuring the loved ones (exquisite phrase number two)

a hideous bore. Still, I can see that it would be nice from their

selfish point of view! Well, I’m no ghost yet, thank God, nor yet

are you--but if ever I am one, I’ll show you what devotion really

is. I’ll come all the way back from heaven to play with foolish

Janie, who doesn’t believe that there is one to come from. To

foolish, foolish Janie, who will still be dearer than the prettiest

angel of them all, no matter how alluringly her halo may be tilted

or her wings ruffled. To Janie who, Heaven forgive him, will be all

that one poor ghost has ever loved!”

Had there come to him, the radiant and the confident, a moment

of terrible and shattering surprise--a moment when he realized

that there were no pretty angels with shining wings waiting to

greet him--a moment when he saw before him only the overwhelming

darkness, blacker and deeper than the night would be, when she blew

out the little hungry flame that was eating up the sheet that held

his laughter? Oh, gladly would she have died a thousand deaths to

have spared him that moment!

“My little Greatheart, did you think that I did not know how brave

you are? You are the truest soldier of us all, and I, who am not

much given to worship, am on my knees before that shy gallantry

of yours, which makes what courage we poor duffers have seem a

vain and boastful thing. When I see you as I saw you last, small

and white and clear and brave, I can’t think of anything but the

first crocuses at White Orchards, shining out, demure and valiant,

fearless of wind and storm and cold--fearless of Fear itself. You

see, you’re so very, very brave that you make me ashamed to be

afraid of poetry and sentiment and pretty words--things of which

I have a good, thumping Anglo-Saxon terror, I can tell you! It’s

because I know what a heavenly brick you are that I could have

killed that statistical jackass for bothering you; but I’ll forgive

him, since you say that it’s all right. And so ghosts are the only

thing in the world that frighten you--even though you know that

there aren’t any. You and Madame de Staël, hey? ‘I do not believe

in ghosts, but I fear them!’ It’s pretty painful to learn that the

mere sight of one would turn you into a gibbering lunatic. Nice

sell for an enthusiastic spirit who’d romped clear back from heaven

to give you a pleasant surprise--I _don’t_ think! Well, no fear,

young Janie; I’ll find some way if I’m put to it--some nice, safe,

pretty way that wouldn’t scare a neurasthenic baby, let alone the

dauntless Miss Abbott. I’ll find----”

Oh, no more of that; no more! She crushed the sheet in her hands

fiercely, crumpling it into a little ball; the candle-flame was

too slow. No, she couldn’t stand it--she couldn’t, she couldn’t,

and there was an end to it. She would go raving mad--she would

kill herself--she would---- She lifted her head, wrenched suddenly

back from that chaos of despair, alert and intent. There it was

again, coming swiftly nearer and nearer from some immeasurable

distance--down--down--nearer still--the very room was humming and

throbbing with it, she could almost hear the singing in the wires.

She swung far out over the window edge, searching the moon-drenched

garden with eager eyes; surely, surely it would never fly so low

unless it were about to land! Engine trouble, perhaps, though

she could detect no break in the huge, rhythmic pulsing that was

shaking the night. Still----

“Rosemary!” she called urgently. “Rosemary, listen--is there a

place where it can land?”

“Where what can land?” asked a drowsy voice.

“An airplane. It’s flying so low that it must be in some kind of

trouble; do come and see!”

Rosemary came pattering obediently toward her, a small docile

figure, dark eyes misted with dreams, wide with amazement.

“I must be nine tenths asleep,” she murmured gently. “Because I

don’t hear a single thing, Janet. Perhaps----”

“Hush--listen!” begged Janet, raising an imperative hand--and then

her own eyes widened. “Why--it’s _gone_!” There was a note of

flat incredulity in her voice. “Heavens, how those things must eat

up space! Not a minute ago it was fairly shaking this room, and

now----”

Rosemary stifled a yawn and smiled ingratiatingly.

“Perhaps you were asleep, too,” she suggested humbly. “I don’t

believe that airplanes ever fly this way any more. Or it might have

been that fat Hodges boy on his motorcycle; he does make the most

dreadful racket. Oh, Janet, what a perfectly _ripping_ night--do

see!”

They leaned together on the window-sill, silenced by the white

and shining beauty that had turned the pleasant garden into a

place of magic. The corners of Janet’s mouth lifted suddenly. How

absurd people were! The fat Hodges boy and his motorcycle! Did

they all regard her as an amiable lunatic, even little, friendly

Rosemary, wavering sleepily at her side? It really was maddening.

But she felt, amazingly enough, suddenly quiet and joyous and

indifferent--and passionately glad that the wanderer from the skies

had won safely through and was speeding home. Home! Oh, it was a

crying pity that it need ever land; anything so fleet and strong

and sure should fly for ever! But if they must rest, those beating

wings--the old R. F. C. toast went singing through her head and

she flung it out into the moonlight, smiling--“Happy landings!

Happy landings, you!”

The next day was the one that brought to White Orchards what was to

be known for many moons as “the Big Storm.” It had been gathering

all afternoon, and by evening the heat had grown incredible, even

to Janet’s American and exigent standards. The smouldering copper

sky looked as though it had caught fire from the world and would

burn for ever; there was not so much as a whisper of air to break

the stillness--it seemed as though the whole tortured earth were

holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next. Everyone

had struggled through the day assuring one another that when

evening came it would be all right, dangling the alluring thought

of the cool darkness before each other’s hot and weary eyes; but

the night proved even more outrageous than the day. To the little

group seated on the terrace, dispiritedly playing with their

coffee, it seemed almost a personal affront. The darkness closed

in on them, smothering, heavy, intolerable; they could feel its

weight, as though it were some hateful and tangible thing.

“Like--like black cotton wool,” explained Rosemary, stirred to

unwonted resentment. She had spent the day curled up in the

largest Indian chair on the terrace, round-eyed with fatigue and

incredulity.

“I honestly think that we must be dreaming,” she murmured to her

feverish audience; “I do, honestly. Why, it’s only _May_, and we

never, never--there was that day in August about five years ago

that was almost as bad, though. D’you remember, Mummy?”

“It’s hardly the kind of thing that one is likely to forget, dear.

Do you think that it is necessary for us to talk? I feel somehow

that I could bear it much more easily if we kept quite quiet.”

Janet stirred a little, uneasily. She hated silence, that terrible

empty space waiting to be filled up with your thoughts--why, the

idlest chatter spared you that. She hated the terrace, too--she

closed her eyes to shut out the ugly darkness that was pressing

against her; behind the shelter of her lids it was cooler and

stiller, but open eyed or closed, she could not shut out memory.

The very touch of the bricks beneath her feet brought back that

late October day. She had been sitting curled up on the steps in

the warm sunlight, with the keen, sweet air stirring her hair and

sending the beech-leaves dancing down the flagged path; there had

been a heavenly smell of burning from the far meadow, and she was

sniffing it luxuriously, feeling warm and joyous and protected in

Jerry’s great tweed coat, watching the tall figure swinging across

from the lodge gate with idle, happy eyes--not even curious. It was

not until he had almost reached the steps that she had noticed that

he was wearing a foreign uniform--and even then she had promptly

placed him as one of Rosemary’s innumerable conquests, bestowing on

him a friendly and inquiring smile.

“Were you looking for Miss Langdon?” Even now she could see the

courteous, grave young face soften as he turned quickly toward her,

baring his dark head with that swift foreign grace that turns our

perfunctory habits into something like a ritual.

“But no,” he had said gently, “I was looking for you, Miss Abbott.”

“Now will you please tell me how in the world you knew that I was

Miss Abbott?”

And he had smiled with his lips, not his eyes.

“I should be dull indeed if that I did not know. I am Maurice

Laurent, Miss Abbott.”

And “Oh,” she had cried joyously, “Liane’s Maurice!”

“But yes--Liane’s Maurice. They are not here, the others? Madame

Langdon, the little Miss Rosemary?”

“No, they’ve gone to some parish fair, and I’ve been wicked and

stayed home. Won’t you sit down and talk to me? Please!”

“Miss Abbott, it is not to you that I must talk. What I have to say

is indeed most difficult, and it is to Jeremy’s Janie that I would

say it. May I, then?”

It had seemed to Jeremy’s Janie that the voice in which she

answered him came from a great distance, but she never took her

eyes from the grave and vivid face.

“Yes. And quickly, please.”

So he had told her, quickly, in his exquisitely careful English,

and she had listened as attentively and politely, huddled up on the

brick steps in the sunlight, as though he were running over the

details of the last drive instead of tearing her life to pieces

with every word. She remembered now that it hadn’t seemed real at

all; if it had been to Jerry that these horrors had happened could

she have sat there so quietly, feeling the colour bright in her

cheeks, and the wind stirring in her hair, and the sunlight warm on

her hands? Why, for less than this people screamed, and fainted,

and went raving mad!

“You say--that his back is broken?”

“But yes, my dear,” Liane’s Maurice told her, and she had seen the

tears shining in his gray eyes.

“And he is badly burned?”

“My brave Janie, these questions are not good to ask; not good, not

good to answer. This I will tell you. He lives, our Jerry--and so

dearly does he love you that he will drag back that poor body from

hell itself, because it is yours, not his. This he has sent me to

tell you, most lucky lady ever loved.”

“You mean--that he isn’t going to die?”

“I tell you that into those small hands of yours he has given his

life. Hold it fast.”

“Will he--will he get well?”

“He will not walk again; but have you not swift feet to run for

him?”

And there had come to her, sitting on the terrace in the sunshine,

an overwhelming flood of joy, reckless and cruel and triumphant.

Now he was hers for ever, the restless wanderer, delivered to her

bound and helpless, never to stray again. Hers to worship and serve

and slave for, his troth to Freedom broken--hers at last!

“I’m coming,” she had told the tall young Frenchman breathlessly.

“Take me to him--please let’s hurry.”

“_Ma pauvre petite_, this is war. One does not come and go at will.

God knows by what miracle enough red tape unwound to let me through

to you, to bring my message and to take one back.”

“What message, Maurice?”

“That is for you to say, little Janie. He told me, ‘Say to her that

she has my heart; if she needs my body, I will live. Say to her

that it is an ugly, broken, and useless thing; still, hers. She

must use it as she sees fit. Say to her--no, say nothing more. She

is my Janie, and has no need of words. Tell her to send me only

one, and I will be content.’ For that one word, Janie, I have come

many miles. What shall it be?”

And she had cried out exultantly, “Why, tell him that I say----”

But the word had died in her throat. Her treacherous lips had

mutinied, and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back

out of her face, out of her heart--feeling her eyes turn black

with terror while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a

little word “Live!”--surely they could say that. Was it not what

he was waiting for, lying far away and still, schooled at last to

patience, the reckless and the restless? Oh, Jerry, Jerry, live!

Even now she could feel her mind like some frantic little wild

thing, racing, racing to escape Memory. What had he said to her?

“You, wise beyond wisdom, will never hold me--you will never hold

me--you will never----”

And suddenly she had dropped her twisted hands in her lap and

lifted her eyes to Jerry’s ambassador.

“Will you please tell him--will you please tell him that I

say--‘Contact’?”

“Contact?” He had stood smiling down at her, ironical and tender.

“Ah, what a race! That is the prettiest word that you can find for

Jerry? But then it means to come very close, to touch, that poor

harsh word--there he must find what comfort he can. We, too, in

aviation use that word; it is the signal that says--‘Now you can

fly!’ You do not know our vocabulary, perhaps?”

“I know very little.”

“That is all then? No other message? He will understand, our Jerry?”

And Janie had smiled--rather a terrible, small smile.

“Oh, yes,” she told him. “He will understand. It is the word that

he is waiting for, you see.”

“I see.” But there had been a grave wonder in his voice.

“Would it”--she had framed the words as carefully as though it were

a strange tongue that she was speaking--“would it be possible to

buy his machine? He wouldn’t want any one else to fly it.”

“Little Janie, never fear. The man does not live who shall fly poor

Peg again. Smashed to kindling-wood and burned to ashes, she has

taken her last flight to the heaven for good and brave birds of

war. Not enough was left of her to hold in your two hands.”

“I’m glad. Then that’s all, isn’t it? And thank you for coming.”

“It is I who thank you. What was hard as death you have made easy.

I had thought the lady to whom Jeremy Langdon gave his heart the

luckiest creature ever born--now I think him that luckiest one.”

The grave grace with which he had bent to kiss her hand made of the

formal salutation an accolade. “My homage to you, Jerry’s Janie!”

A quick salute, and he had turned on his heel, swinging off down

the flagged path with that swift, easy stride past the sun-dial,

past the lily-pond, past the beech trees--gone! For hours and hours

after he had passed out of sight she had sat staring after him,

her hands lying quite still in her lap--staring, staring--they had

found her there when they came back, sitting where Rosemary was

seated now. Why, there, on those same steps, a bare six months

ago---- Something snapped in her head, and she stumbled to her

feet, clinging to the arm of her chair.

“I can’t _stand_ it!” she gasped. “No, no, it’s no use--I can’t, I

tell you. I----”

Rosemary’s arm was about her, Mrs. Langdon’s soft voice in her

ears, a deeper note from Rosemary’s engineer.

“Oh, I say, poor girl! What is it, dear child--what’s the matter?

Is it the heat, Janie?”

“The heat!” She could hear herself laughing; frantic, hateful,

jangling laughter that wouldn’t stop. “Oh, Jerry! Oh-h, Jerry,

Jerry, Jerry!”

“It’s this ghastly day. Let me get her some water, Mrs. Langdon.

Don’t cry so, Janie--please, please don’t, darling.”

“I c-can’t help it--I c-can’t----” She paused, listening intently,

her hand closing sharply over Rosemary’s wrist. “Oh, listen,

listen, there it comes again--I told you so!”

“Thank Heaven,” murmured Mrs. Langdon devoutly, “I thought that it

never was going to rise this evening. It’s from the south, too, so

I suppose that it means rain.”

“Rain?” repeated Janet vaguely. “Why in the world should it

mean rain?” Her small, pale face looked suddenly brilliant and

enchanted, tilted up to meet the thunderous music that was swinging

nearer and nearer. “Oh, do listen, you people! This time it’s

surely going to land!”

Rosemary stared at her blankly. “Land? What _are_ you talking

about, Janie?”

“My airplane--the one that you said was the fat Hodges boy on

a motorcycle! Is there any place near here that it can make a

landing?”

“Darling child”--Mrs. Langdon’s gentle voice was gentler than

ever--“darling child, it’s this wretched heat. There isn’t any

airplane, dear; it’s just the wind rising in the beeches.”

“The wind?” Janet laughed aloud; they really were too absurd. “Why,

Mrs. Langdon, you can hear the _engines_, if you’ll only listen!

You can hear them, can’t you, Mr. Bain?”

The young engineer shook his head. “No plane would risk flying with

this storm coming, Miss Abbott. There’s been thunder for the last

hour or so, and it’s getting nearer, too. It’s only the wind, I

think.”

“Oh, you’re laughing at me; of course, of course you hear it. Why,

it’s as clear as--as clear as----”

Her voice trailed off into silence. Quite suddenly, without any

transition or warning, she knew. She could feel her heart stand

perfectly still for a minute, and then plunge forward in mad

flight--oh, it knew, too, that eager heart! She took her hand from

the arm of the chair, releasing Rosemary’s wrist very gently.

“Yes, of course, it’s the heat,” she said quietly. She must be

careful not to frighten them, these kind ones. “If you don’t mind,

Mrs. Langdon, I think that I’ll go down to the gate to watch the

storm burst. No, please, don’t any of you come; I’ll promise to

change everything if I get caught--yes, everything! I won’t be

long; don’t wait for me.”

She walked sedately enough until she came to the turn in the

path, but after that she ran, only pausing for a minute to listen

breathlessly. Oh, yes--following, following, that gigantic music!

How he must be laughing at her now, blind, deaf, incredulous little

fool that she had been, to doubt that Jerry would find a way! But

where could he land? Not in the garden--not at the gates--oh, now

she had it--the far meadow. She turned sharply; it was dark, but

the path must be here. Yes, this was the wicket gate; her groping

fingers were quite steady; they found the latch, released it--the

gate swung to behind her flying footsteps. “Oh, Jerry, Jerry!” sang

her heart. Why hadn’t she worn the rose-coloured frock? It was she

who would be a ghost in that trailing white thing. To the right

here; yes, there was the hawthorn hedge--only a few steps more--oh,

now!

She stood as still as a small statue, not moving, not breathing,

her hands at her heart, her face turned to the black and torn

sky. Nearer, nearer, circling and darting and swooping; the

gigantic humming grew louder--louder still--it swept about her

thunderously, so close that she clapped her hands over her ears,

but she stood her ground, exultant and undaunted. Oh, louder

still--and then suddenly the storm broke. All the winds and

the rains of the world were unleashed, and fell howling and

shrieking upon her; she staggered under their onslaught, drenched

to the bone, her dress whipping frantically about her, blinded

and deafened by that tumultuous clamour. She had only one weapon

against it--laughter--and she laughed now, straight into its

teeth. And as though hell itself must yield to mirth, the fury

wavered--failed--sank to muttering. But Janie, beaten to her knees

and laughing, never even heard it die.

“Jerry?” she whispered into the darkness, “Jerry?”

Oh, more wonderful than wonder, he was there! She could feel him

stir, even if she could not hear him; so close was he that if she

even reached out her hand, she could touch him. She stretched it

out eagerly, but there was nothing there--only a small, remote

sound of withdrawal, as though someone had moved a little.

“You’re afraid that I’ll be frightened, aren’t you?” she asked

wistfully. “I wouldn’t be--I wouldn’t--please come back!”

He was laughing at her, she knew, tender and mocking and caressing;

she smiled back, tremulously.

“You’re thinking, ‘I told you so!’ Have you come far to say it to

me?”

Only that little stir; the wind was rising again.

“Jerry, come close--come closer still. What are you waiting for,

dear and dearest?”

This time there was not even a stir to answer her; she felt

suddenly cold to the heart. What had he always waited for?

“You aren’t waiting--you aren’t waiting to go?” She fought to keep

the terror out of her voice, but it had her by the throat. “Oh, no,

no, you can’t--not again! Jerry, Jerry, don’t go away and leave me;

truly and truly I can’t stand it--truly!”

She wrung her hands together desperately; she was on her knees to

him--did he wish her to go lower still? Oh, she had never learned

to beg!

Not a sound, not a stir, but well she knew that he was standing

there, waiting. She rose slowly to her feet.

“Very well--you’ve won,” she said hardly. “Go back to your saints

and seraphs and angels; I’m beaten. I was mad to think that you

ever cared--go back!”

She turned, stumbling, the sobs tearing at her throat; she had gone

several steps before she realized that he was following her--and

all the hardness and bitterness and despair fell from her like a

cloak.

“Oh, Jerry,” she whispered, “Jerry, darling, I’m so sorry. And

you’ve come so far--just to find this! What is it that you want;

can’t you tell me?”

She waited tense and still, straining eyes and ears for her

answer--but it was not to eyes or ears that it came.

“Oh, of course!” she cried clearly. “Of course, my wanderer! Ready?”

She stood poised for a second, head thrown back, arms flung wide, a

small figure of Victory, caught in the flying wind.

And, “Contact, Jerry!” she called joyously into the darkness.

“Contact!”

There was a mighty whirring, a thunder and a roaring above the

storm. She stood listening breathlessly to it rise and swell, and

then grow fainter--fainter still--dying, dying--dying----

But Janie, her face turned to the storm-swept sky, was smiling at

the stars which shone behind it. For she had sped her wanderer on

his way--she had not failed him!

THERE WAS A LADY

There is one point on which Larry Benedick’s best friend and worst

enemy and a lot of other less emphatic individuals are thoroughly

and cordially agreed. Ask his closest female relative or his

remotest business acquaintance or the man who plays an occasional

hand of auction with him at the club why Benedick has never

married, and they will one and all yield to sardonic mirth, and

assure you that the woman who could interest that imperturbable

individual has not yet been born--that he is without exception

the coldest-hearted, hardest-headed bachelor who has ever driven

fluttering débutantes and radiant ladies from the chorus into a

state of utter and abject despair--that romance is anathema to him

and sentiment an abomination.

“Benedick!” they will chorus with convincing unanimity. “My dear

fellow, he’s been immune since birth. He’s never given any girl

that lived or breathed a second thought--it’s extremely doubtful if

he ever gave one a first. You can say what you please about him,

but this you can take as a fact; you know one man who is going

down to the grave as single as the day he was born.”

Well, you can take it as a fact if you care to, and it’s more than

likely that you and the rest of the world will be right. Certainly,

no one would ever have called him susceptible, even at the age when

any decent, normal young cub is ready to count the world well lost

for an eyelash. But not our Benedick--no, long before the gray

steel had touched the blue of his eyes and the black of his hair

he had apparently found a use for it in an absolutely invulnerable

strong box for what he was pleased to call his heart. Then as now,

he had faced his world with curled lips and cool eyes--graceful and

graceless, spoiled, arrogant, and indifferent, with more money and

more brains and more charm and a better conceit of himself than any

two men should have--and a wary and sceptical eye for the charming

creatures who circled closer and closer about him. The things

that he used to think and occasionally say about those circling

enchantresses were certainly unromantic and unchivalrous to a

degree. Rather an intolerable young puppy, for all his brilliant

charm--and the years have not mellowed him to any perceptible

extent. Hardly likely to fall victim to the wiles of any lady,

according to his worst enemy and his best friend and the world in

general. No, hardly. But there was a lady....

It wasn’t yesterday that he first saw her--and it wasn’t a hundred

years ago, either. It was at Raoul’s; if you are one of the large

group of apparently intelligent people whose mania consists in

believing that there is only one place in the world that any one

could possibly reside in, and that that place is about a quarter

of a mile square and a mile and a half long and runs up from a

street called Forty-second on an island called Manhattan, you

undoubtedly know Raoul’s. Not a tea room--Heaven save the mark!

Not a restaurant--God forbid! Something between the two; a small

room, clean and shabby, fragrant with odours more delectable

than flowers. No one is permitted to smoke at Raoul’s, not even

ladies, because the light blue haze might disturb the heavenly

aroma, at once spiced and bland, that broods over the place like a

benediction. Nothing quite like it anywhere else in America, those

who have been there will tell you; nothing quite like it anywhere

else in the world. It costs fine gold to sit at one of the little

round tables in the corner, but mere gold cannot pay for what you

receive. For to Raoul the preparation of food is an art and a

ceremony and a ritual and a science--not a commercial enterprise.

The only thing that he purchases with your gold is leisure in

which to serve you better. So who are you to grudge it to him?

Larry Benedick lunched there every day of his life, when he was in

New York, heedless of a steady shower of invitations. He lived then

in one of those coveted apartments not a stone’s throw from Raoul’s

brown door--a luxurious box of a place that one of the charming

creatures (who happened to be his sister-in-law) had metamorphosed

into a bachelor’s paradise, so successfully that any bachelor

should have frothed at the mouth with envy at the mere sight of it.

It had a fair-sized living room, with very masculine crash

curtains, darned in brilliant colours, and rough gray walls and an

old Florentine chest skillfully stuffed with the most expensive

phonograph on the market, and rows and rows of beautifully bound

books. There was a deep gray velvet sofa with three Chinese-red

cushions in front of the small black fireplace (of course it wasn’t

possible to light a fire in it without retiring from the apartment

with a wet towel tied around the head, crawling rather rapidly on

the hands and knees because all the first-aid books state that any

fresh air will be near the floor--but what of that? After all, you

can’t have everything!)--and there were wrought-iron lamps that

threw the light at exactly the right angle for reading, and very

good English etchings and very gay Viennese prints in red lacquer

frames, and a really charming old Venetian mirror over the mantel.

It was a perfect room for a fastidious young man, and Benedick

loathed it with an awful loathing.

“All the elusive charm of a window in a furniture shop,” he

remarked pensively to his best friend--but at least he refrained

from destroying the pretty sister-in-law’s transports of altruistic

enthusiasm, and left it grimly alone, keeping his eyes averted

from its charms as frequently as possible, and leaving for South

Carolina or northern Canada on the slightest provocation--or

else swinging off to Raoul’s at twelve o’clock with a feeling

of profound relief, when what he fantastically referred to as

“business” kept him chained to New York and the highly successful

living room.