Winged Victory/Chapter 4

“I can make nothing of the business,” the lawyer exclaimed testily as he gathered up his papers. “Sir Richard's mind seems practically blank on the subject, and as he did not consult me when he made the investment, I can do very little to clear the matter up. Mrs. Villiers, have you no clew—no clew whatever?”

She shook her head. For an instant her eyes had traveled past the lawyer's astute face and had encountered her husband's moody gaze.

“I know nothing!”

“And you, Mr. Villiers?”

“What should I know?”

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders, hesitating.

“Perhaps—well, you are aware of Sir Richard's attitude toward you, Mr. Villiers.”

“It is incomprehensible.”

“Possibly.”

Eileen Villiers rose slowly to her feet.

“I do not see that I can help matters any farther,” she said. “Oscar is downstairs. Do you wish to see him afterward, Fenton?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

He answered mechanically, not looking up, and she slipped noiselessly from the room. Outside, in the stately corridor, she stood still a moment. On every hand were signs of the disaster that had broken over them—dismantled walls, empty pedestals that had borne her father's treasures, hideous labels marking down the future victims of callous bidding. Ruined—by a merciless ambition! Something welled up from her heart to her throat—a sob that was half pain, half anger, a bitterness that was near hatred. They had indeed danced together, as he had said. The sweet, intoxicating melody of youth and wealth had played them into a light-hearted love, a gay, insouciant union. Now the music had stopped, the lights had gone out, and they were facing each other in the drear twilight of realities. And the love was gone! She swayed a little. And suddenly from out of the shadows a man came toward her and stood beside her.

“Oh, Oscar!” she exclaimed under her breath.

He put out his hand and she felt that it was deadly cold.

“I got tired of waiting,” he said in a voice that was so dead and level that she scarcely recognized it. “I sent up a message, but I thought the servant might have forgotten and came along to Fenton's room. Is he in there?”

“Yes.” She had the feeling that he was talking to gain time. The light from an overhead window fell on his half-averted face, and its tense whiteness startled her. “Is there anything wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. I hardly expected to run across you like this. It startled me—that's all. I was thinking of Fenton.”

“I see!” She smiled with an uncontrolled bitterness. “You were thinking of Fenton. I don't count.”

“I was thinking of you both.”

“And you were trying to avoid me?”

He turned his head and looked down at her with a somber eagerness.

“No—you know that's not true, Eileen, If I've been thinking of you both, it's been for your sake. I want to help you over all this, but I can't help you except through Fenton, can I?”

“I suppose not. I don't see even how you can help Fenton.”

“There's just one thing. If anything goes wrong with his scheme—if the admiralty refuse it—then it's time for a friend to step in. I could make it possible for him to prove what he says.”

Each sentence seemed to have been jerked from him by an effort of the will that blinded him to everything else, for it was only when she spoke that he saw she was trembling and that tears stood in her angry eyes.

“And so you are going the same way!” she said. “My father had to be ruined to satiate Fenton's ambition—and now you are going to throw yourself into the breach. Is that to help me?”

“If the invention is all Fenton believes” he began hoarsely.

She interrupted him with an almost violent gesture.

“Fenton! But do you believe in it? Oscar, he has shown you something of his idea, You are his superior and you know enough to judge. Do you believe in it?”

His eyes sank before her insistent interrogation.

“I—I don't know.”

“You don't know? And yet you are prepared to sacrifice yourself as my father was sacrificed? Hasn't enough been offered up to Fenton's fetish? Is there going to be no end of it?”

Her voice dropped. It had rung with a childish resentment, but the last words had come unsteadily, almost piteously. Oscar Delisle started like a man roughly awakened from a dream. He bent toward her.

“You may be right,” he said rapidly. “I dare say you are. Now I come to think of it—what do I know? What should make me believe it? I wouldn't believe in another man on such evidence. Friendship can go too far; it can become Quixotic—ridiculous. One must do what one can in one's own way.” He seemed to be arguing, but not with her. She looked at him dazedly, and suddenly his hand rested on hers and held it. “I won't do it, Eileen. I'll help you—I promise you.”

The door at the far end of the corridor opened and closed. The lawyer came slowly, with head bent, toward the stairs. Delisle drew himself up. The strained eagerness passed from his features, leaving him calm and even indifferent.

“I'll go along and have a look at Fenton,” he said casually. “See you later.”

She made no answer. His complete change of tone bewildered her so that his words were lost, and she stood motionless, looking after him, until the door of her husband's room closed again.

At the sound of Delisle's entrance, Villiers, seated by the table with his back turned, rose hastily and faced about with an involuntary movement that was almost defiant. Then, as he recognized his visitor, he laughed out with abrupt relief.

“Sorry, old fellow. You jumped on me, rather. I wasn't expecting you, and”

“You might have been expecting the devil.”

“Not as bad as that. I was expecting Eileen I didn't want her to find me—well, like this. Sit down. It's good to see you. You're the only man I could bear to see just now.”

“Are things as bad as all that?'

“They're as bad as they can be.” He was silent a moment, gazing down at the massed bundles of papers before him as if they absorbed his atention [sic]; in reality fighting for a semblance of indifference. “You know how it is,” he went on levelly. “There's nothing left but a mass of debts. Sir Richard had no idea of money. He had always had more than he wanted, and I suppose he couldn't understand—that the source of it all might fail. This last investment was reckless—the wildest madcap speculation imaginable”

“You don't know who induced him to enter into such a gamble?”

Villiers looked up for an instant.

“Some one who stood to gain by it,” he said bitterly. “But there's no use in looking around for some one to throw the blame at, is there? Though I must say that lawyer fellow seemed deuced curious about it all. What does it matter? It won't help us now.”

“No,” Delisle agreed quietly. He had not taken the proffered chair, but had gone over to the window, where he stood with his back turned. “What are you going to do?”

“Throw up the navy and take to sheep farming or whatever is considered the correct thing for—for men of my sort.”

“There's the aëroplane”

“That's all over. I heard this morning. The experts have been into it—confound them!—and they beg to inform me that they don't think this and they don't believe that and they can't take it upon their souls to recommend the government to give me my chance.” He threw back his head with a movement that, for all the haggard lines that had drawn themselves about mouth and eyes, was still boyish in its vigor and defiance. “Ten days ago I shouldn't have cared. If the government failed, Sir Richard was going to see me through. Now it's done for—finished. And I tell you, Delisle, if I had a fighting chance, if one man who had the power to help me would believe in me to-day, I'd prove my faith to be justified. I'd revolutionize warfare. I'd set my country strong and unassailable above all the world. But I'm lamed—tied hand and foot”

He broke off, his clenched fists pressed down upon the table, his resolute face gray with the effort to crush back the cry of passionate pain and bitterness. He did not look at Delisle, but Delisle turned like a man hypnotized.

“You believe all that,” he asked hoarsely, “in the face of an expert report?”

“I know it!”

There was a moment's silence again. Delisle had made an impulsive movement as if he would have spoken, but he drew back, and there was a scarcely perceptible hardening about his mouth which changed the character of his face.

“I'm sorry, Fenton,” he said. “I would help you if I could. I'd be proud to be the man to give you your chance—but I can't help you—not in that way.”

“There is no other way. I'm not pleading for help—but there is no other way.”

“Have you thought of your wife—Eileen?”

“I don't understand”

“You will in a minute, Fenton. You know my position. I'm well to do. I can afford some luxuries, but not all. I could afford to back you in this business, but if, after all, you failed, I couldn't help either you or Eileen any more.”

“Still I don't see”

“Wait. I mean to help you. I knew Eileen before you met her—I'm your friend. I won't let you go under, both for your sake—and for hers. I won't let you leave the navy. But I can't risk anything. It's your aëroplane and a risk—or certainty. I've chosen the certainty.”

“Old fellow—I can't accept help of that sort”

“Not for her sake?”

They looked at each other steadily.

“You don't believe in me,” Villiers answered. “That was the only help I could have taken.”

“And so—it's Australia and sheep farming? Man, you can't do it! Think of her—brought up as she has been—roughing it, suffering as only a gently nurtured woman can suffer. She is ill already. Don't you see that?”

Fenton lifted his heavy eyes to his friend's face.

“I see that something is wrong,” he said. “Perhaps it's been there all along and I have not known it. I can't tell. I only that Eileen has changed. She shrinks from me. For a moment to-day I thought—you'll think me mad—she seemed to hate me. It's as if her father's unreasoning distrust of me had crept into her blood. Delisle, you know her—perhaps better than I do. Can you explain—help?”

Between question and answer there was the slightest pause.

“I am offering you help.”

“I know—I thank you. But it's not that I'm thinking of now. I hadn't realized before Delisle, you don't know what it means to love a woman as I love Eileen—as I have grown to love her in these last few days. I had counted my work and ambition above everything, and now I know, too late perhaps, that they were all valuable only for her sake. But she won't understand that—she sees in me only the ruthless egoist.” He had begun to pace the room with quick, agitated steps, but now he stopped short, facing about resolutely, doggedly. “I'll win her back,” he said between his teeth. “Please God, it's not too late!”

“In Australia it will be too late.” Abruptly Delisle took a step forward and laid a firm, almost compelling hand on the younger man's shoulder. “Fenton, she'll eat her heart out in grief and bitterness. She's only a child. Take all I have to offer—for her sake. She need never know. Take her, as you promised, abroad. Afterward—we'll talk things over again.”

“I can't!”

“Then, after all, she's second best to your pride,” was the bitter comment.

Fenton swung around.

“That's not true. But I want to win my wife with my own strength. If she knew”

“She won't know—I give you my word of honor.” He paused, watching the white, drawn features with an eager intentness. “Fenton, it's because I understand that I offer—this chance. You said that I didn't know what it is to love as you love. Well, I do know. I know what it is to care above friendship and above honor. Does that comfort you?”

Villiers laughed shortly.

“You? I didn't think that was possible. Am I to congratulate?”

“Not yet.”

“That means soon. You'll always get your way, Oscar.”

“I wonder. Let me have it now, at any rate—for Eileen's sake.”

There was a long moment of hesitation. Delisle's hand was outstretched. He was smiling frankly, but his eyes remained watchful, strainingly intent. They darkened for a moment, as if with pain, as his hand was taken.

“For Eileen's sake, then,” Fenton said quietly, “and because you are my friend.”

Delisle's hand dropped limply to his side.