Winged Victory/Chapter 8

Eileen Villiers sat at her window, looking out over the dreary square. It was summer, but even with the trees in full leaf, there was an atmosphere of weariness and hopelessness in the prospect before her. It was as if the drab respectability that hid in the blank-faced houses had crept out of the windows and infested even the gardens with a withered despair. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw the same veiled misery printed on the worn plush furniture, on the faded, ugly pictures of another generation, on faded, ugly walls.

Sir Richard sat by the fireside. The grate was empty, but that did not matter to him. Day after day he took his place there, and stared into the blankness, as if for him it were peopled with visions, and muttered to himself. Very often it was a mere name uttered in a tone of curious brooding, and with a look of pathetic helplessness. It was a living death.

In the neighboring room a child wailed.

The sound aroused Eileen from her self-absorption. She looked up at the man who stood quietly beside her.

“He often cries,” she said, almost in apology. “It's the heat and the closeness. He's not strong. A little six-months'-old baby can't bear much.”

“Least of all this.” He stood very erect, his handsome face turned to the light. “Make an end, Eileen. I've been patient. If it were only myself, I would go on being patient forever. But it's hard to see you suffer. You weren't made for suffering, dear. You can't stand it.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps things have changed; perhaps I've learned something—even the art of suffering—in these months.” She smiled wearily. “I was a child then, Oscar, but now that I have my son, I have grown up.”

“And is it easier to suffer when one is grown up?” he asked gently.

“It's harder—only one learns to understand—that other people suffer—and have suffered.”

Something like a frown gathered between his straight brows. It passed, so that she did not see it, and he laid his hand on hers.

“Then perhaps you understand that I am suffering, Eileen.”

“I can't think of you to-day, Oscar.”

“Why not, dear? You promised me that to-day you would try. I've been patient. It has not always been easy.”

She rose restlessly.

“I know—you've been very good. But it is to-day a year that it all happened. Oscar—I feel haunted—I scarcely know by what—but I am afraid. I was a child then, quick and passionate in my judgment. If I have been unjust! I can't forget his last words—'I have done my best'—and he died bravely at his post.” She turned to the man beside her and looked at him, her eyes full of an intense appeal. “Oscar, as his friend and mine, I trust you, and I trust you now to answer me honestly. If I misjudged my husband or if I, in my bitterness, hindered him or made things harder for him, then I should know what to say to you.”

His eyes met hers for an instant, then his glance shifted to the parched, stifling square, on which a drab dusk had begun to descend.

“What would you say then, Eileen?”

“That there was an insurmountable barrier between us. The knowledge that we had both failed him would stand- between us all our lives. On your honor—as his friend—did I wrong him, Oscar?”

“No,” he answered.

3etween her question and his answer the pause had been scarcely longer than the drawing of a breath, but afterward the silence lingered. The feverish flood of color that had risen to her cheeks receded slowly, leaving her very pale, for that moment almost old looking.

In the next room the child cried out again—a piteous exclamation of pain and weariness.

Delisle glanced at the woman beside him. Then, quietly, he took her hand and led her from the window to the open door. There was very little else in the poor room but the cradle. He led her to it and stood beside her. Then, as the child cried again, she moved a little to bend over it, and thereafter it chanced that the cradle was between them.

“Poor little fellow!” Delisle said gently.

He, too, bent down, and their hands touched. She drew back, and he saw something come into her face that he had not seen before.

“I love my son,” she said. “And I have just begun to understand that I love him—for Fenton's sake. The knowledge has come to me very slowly. I believe I love my husband. I believe that if he lived—and though every wrong I thought of him were true—I should go to him and stand by him. That's what I must tell you. Knowing that—do you still want me?”

He stood silent for an instant, still with bowed head, the child's tiny, helpless hand held gently in his.

“Yes,” he said doggedly. “I want you more. I will make you happy—I will make you forget.”

“And if that were impossible?”

“Even then.” He drew himself up, facing her with a resolution that was defiant and almost antagonistic. “If you love Fenton, you will give his son a chance in life,” he added. “I was Fenton's friend. Can you trust me?”

“I do trust you. But if I told you that—that I was selling myself for Fenton's sake”

“I'd sell my soul for you,” he stammered back.

She shrank from that first betrayal of unbridled passion, and in an instant he had regained his self-control.

“Forgive me. I have been sorely tried, Eileen. Remember, I love you. To wait is easy, but to stand by helpless and see you suffer is unbearable. Trust me!”

Silently she gave him her hand, but it felt heavy, lifeless.

“I have trusted you already,” she said at last, “for I have accepted your judgment on the man I love.”

He kissed the hand he still held gently, with a restraint that touched her. Tears gathered in her eyes and she turned away, so that when he drew himself upright again, she did not look into his face.

The dusk had deepened to twilight when he left her. Lights had sprung up, marking the square through the branches of the trees; and here and there a window shone dully, as if at this hour a hidden, shrinking life had begun to stir. Oscar Delisle stood on the steps of the house, hesitating. He had won. That was his predominating emotion. A beggar passed, and he tossed him a shilling and the cigar that he had taken out of his case for himself. Generosity was not overdeveloped in him, but to-night he would have given freely. The beggar ducked after his booty and scurried away in the slouching, yet fleet, manner of his class.

At the same moment a man came out from the shadow of the trees opposite and crossed the road. Delisle laughed. Another of them! Yet the man held himself proudly—almost arrogantly. Delisle wondered coldly where he had seen that carriage of the shoulders. And then he went down the steps. The man had passed under the street lamp and now, at the last step, they came face to face. No word was spoken in that first moment. Delisle barred the way.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“What is that to you? To my wife.”

“You can't do that.”

“Are you going to prevent me?”

Delisle, moved by a sudden impulse, moved aside. Yet, as the man passed him and reached the door, he looked back with an odd smile about the lips.

“You can't do that, Fenton,” he said. “You're dead.”

The man's hand dropped. After a long minute he came slowly back, so that not more than a step divided them.

“I don't understand,” he said.

“You're dead, Fenton. That's all. Didn't you know that?”

“Good God, what do you mean? What can I know? I've been shut out from everything. All these months I've been fighting to get back, with every port blocked—without a friend, without money I hadn't a chance. Look at my clothes. I've come back a beggar—but I'm not dead.”

“Then it were better you were.”

“I'm not dead—and I'm not ruined. What happened to me might have happened to any one. I was tricked and trapped. They'll believe that”

“Do you think so? It will look pretty black when you tell your story, Fenton.”

Villiers made a swift gesture of resolute purpose.

“I have come back to defend my honor,” he said.

“That at least is safe. You have been buried with full honors, Fenton.”

“Will you be good enough to explain?”

“Submarine D was cut in half on the same morning that I took over the command,” was the quiet answer. “There was only one man saved—myself. It was believed that you were on board. No one but I could have told the truth. I held my tongue.”

“My God—Oscar—why?”

At the sound of the name Delisle winced. Then, in defiance of that instant's flash of emotion, he stared up steadily into the white, strained face above him.

“Perhaps—a little—for the old friendship's sake.”

Villiers laughed aloud.

“No, no, there wasn't much of that, Oscar. Don't lie to yourself or to me. I threw down my challenge and you took it up, and chance played straight into your hands. But I'm not beaten—not yet. There is still, perhaps, something left me”

He turned again, and Delisle did not move.

“Are you thinking of your wife?” he asked.

“I have thought of her always.”

“Then think of her now. When you—died, she was a child. She is a woman now, Villiers. And the woman has forgotten.”

“Oscar—you taught her to forget.”

“Perhaps. It was for her happiness to forget.”

“That remains for me to find out.”

“Wait! There is something else. The woman honors you—dead. Do you want to lose even that much—living?”

“That's playing with words. I'm a man and she's a woman, and my wife, and we will face this together. That is our duty. A man shields his wife while he can. There comes a time when they have to stand shoulder to shoulder.”

Delisle nodded.

“You may be right. You may be justified in bringing down ruin and shame and unhappiness on one who has sworn to share the best and the worst with you. But there is one thing that nothing justifies—the ruining of an innocent third.”

“Whom—do you mean?”

“Your son.”

Villiers cried out—a cry that broke in half. Then he stood still, his clenched hands rigid at his sides. Delisle stared sightlessly in front of him.

“You see now what I mean,” he said.

After a long minute Villiers nodded. It was as if the words had only just reached him.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I quite understand. I am, as you say, dead and buried. I give you my word—I'll remain dead. You have won.” He came down the steps and passed the man who stood motionless against the railings. With a little ironical flourish he raised his hat. “A ghost salutes you!” he said.

He gave one glance up at the unlit windows—and disappeared into the deepening shadows of the square.