Winged Victory/Chapter 9

They stood together beneath the tablet in the old church—a frail, fair-haired boy and a woman whose features he bore, though in him the scarcely marked lines of sorrow were as yet only foreshadowed by a childish gravity. His small hand lay confidingly in hers, and very slowly and painfully he read out the simple inscription.

He stopped and looked up at her.

“Villiers is my name,” he said proudly

“Yes.”

“And not yours?”

“Not now.”

He sighed a little.

“I thought mothers always had the same name as their sons,” he said wistfully. “Why has this man my name?”

“He was your father.”

“And duty?” His high treble rang with a childish persistency. “What is that?”

“The thing your father died for.”

“Does one have to die for it?”

She smiled a little, and the smile was sadder than her gravity.

“Sometimes one lives for it—baby.”

He frowned up at the tablet in puzzled silence, and then she drew him on, out of the church and down the avenue of old yew trees to where a carriage waited for them. Neither spoke on the home road. The boy sat close to her, his hand thrown out, unclasped, upon her knee, his head against her shoulder; and as they swerved in sight of a tall house, cut clear against the evening sky, he crept still nearer, seeming almost to seek shelter. She bent her head down to him.

“Are you afraid of shadows, baby?”

He frowned in reproof.

“Oh, no. I'm not afraid of anything.”

Yet he held her hand tighter. They drew up before the massive stone steps, and as a man in riding clothes came forward to greet them, the child shrank to one side.

“I can get down alone now, thank you,” he said.

Delisle laughed lightly.

“The independence of the new generation!” he said, and then, holding out his hand to the woman: “Where have you two been, Eileen?”

“To the church.” “She saw his swift change of expression and met it with a gentle movement of protest. “Do you mind, Oscar?”

“Mind? No. It seems to me a mistaken harping on the past—that's all. And now you have taken the boy”

“Sooner or later he had to know.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Sooner or later—and you have chosen that it shall be sooner. You're not always very considerate of me, Eileen.”

“I am sorry.”

They were all standing in the oak-vaulted hall, and now the boy slipped between them and looked up, half shy, half defiant. Delisle caught the expression, and perhaps read something of its significance. He put his hand under the child's chin and tilted it back to look into the upturned face.

“So I am not what I seemed—is that what you are thinking, eh?”

“Yes.”

“And you're rather glad? Well, perhaps after all you may find one day that there was not much cause to be glad—or proud.”

“Oscar!”

The child had shrunk away from the overcast and bitter face, not understanding the words, but only the intense, suppressed passion that they revealed; but the woman threw back her head, and her eyes shone. He shrugged his shoulders.

“You goad me!” he muttered between his teeth. He turned sullenly away from her and crossed the hall to the curtained doorway, where he paused, without looking back. “I'll be in the workshop all to-night,” he said. “There's a man from London coming to see me. Show him in here, and get a room ready for him. It's a matter of business.”

“What business?” she asked gravely.

“It concerns my work,” he answered.

He went out, closing the door sharply after him, and for a moment she stood motionless. The child pressed to her side. Then, with a quick-drawn sigh, she bent down and kissed the white little forehead.

“You must run along to your supper,” she said more lightly, “and afterward I will come and say good night—a long good night.”

“Promise?”

“Promise!”

The baby face brightened, and a minute later the boy had flashed out of her hands and was scrambling up the broad oak stairs pell-mell, as if his speed might hurry on the precious event.

The woman turned and went quietly back to the great stone steps that overlooked the park She stood there motionless, watching the evening shadows lengthen out over the wide sweep of lawn and mingle with the dark circle of trees beyond. Since her marriage, this place had been her home. Almost immediately Delisle had left the service—to devote himself to his experiments—and the great world had seen her no more. It was strange how little she missed it all. There was a great blank in her life, but not that left by the passing of the pleasures that had once seemed indispensable. It was as if something had been wrenched from her—a part of her very self that she had scarcely noticed until the catastrophe. And now there was the numb, ceaseless ache of loss.

A bent figure came up out of the twilight. It came very slowly, pausing at each step, and a stick jarred against the stone. Eileen Delisle bent forward.

“Father!” she said gently.

The old man looked up, but not at her. His sunken, shriveled face expressed nothing but the pitiful appeal and uncertainty that had never left it. His lips trembled.

“Fenton,” he muttered. “Tell—Fenton—forgive”

He stumbled on, and she did not follow him. Something had caught her attention—a sudden variation in her father's persistent refrain. It was not only “Fenton” to-night, but the word “forgive.” Had he forgiven? Or was it possible that he needed forgiveness? Was there something in the clouded brain that was beginning to break through to the light? She put the thought fiercely from her, and with a resolute step turned and went back to her husband's door. It was locked. She tapped, and instantly she heard the sound of an overturned chair and the rustle of paper hastily gathered together. A moment later the door opened. It seemed to her that her husband started as he saw her. The momentary anticipation in his eyes gave place to a look of sullen recognition.

“Do you want me?” he demanded.

“I should like to speak to you. May I come in?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the disordered table and shrugged his shoulders.

“Of course, if you wish it.”

She followed him. The reluctance of his words and movements chilled her. She did not accept the chair he pushed toward her, but stood quietly by the table, her hands resting on the disordered heap of papers.

“I've been thinking things over, Oscar,” she began gently, “and I wanted to speak to you—now, while my thoughts are clear. I believe I have been unjust to you.”

He nodded grimly with a faint smile.

“I'm glad that it has dawned on you.”

“It was unjust of me to marry you.”

“Eileen!”

“It was unjust,” she persisted earnestly. “Though I was honest about it, it did not make my bargain with you the less discreditable, the less unfair to you. I married you for my father's and my son's sake—not for yours. And I have not made you happy. As you said to-night, I goad, you”

“I was angry when I said that.” He turned with a sudden, impulsive pleading. “Eileen, forgive me. It was I who was unjust, ungrateful”

“You have nothing to be grateful for,” she interrupted steadily. “I do goad you, Oscar. I can't help it—or you, either. For I have cheated you of happiness.”

“My dear, I could be so easily happy! What do I ask of you? Nothing but a little of the affection, the confidence that a friend deserves. Could I ask less? With that much I would be content.”

“I can't give it you, Oscar.” She turned her eyes to his pale, eager face with an expression of bewildered pain. “It's that that troubles me. I did trust you—I cared for you as my dearest friend—but that has gone. I can't bring it back. It's as if something had come between us—a barrier.”

“You imagine things,” he interrupted passionately, almost roughly. “You let the past stand between us. Won't you—can't you put it aside, forget it?”

“It haunts me,” she said piteously.

“You let it haunt you. It's that that is so hard to bear. The knowledge that you are forever looking back, lingering over what has been, drives me to despair. It makes me unjust to you, to little Fenton—to the dead” He paused, watching her with the intentness of reviving hope. “Won't you give me a full, straight chance to win you—Eileen—even now? You've sacrificed so much for those dear to you. Sacrifice your memories—for their happiness and ours.”

She made no answer for a moment. Her fair head was bent, her fingers played unconsciously with the loose sheets of the paper.

“You're asking me to forget,” she said dully.

“Yes. It's the one chance for us all. If I could drive out memory—I could win you. I feel that. You owe me that chance, Eileen. You owe it to Fenton—and Fenton's son.”

Her lips whitened with sudden pain.

“If it were possible”

“I'll help you to make it possible. Only help me. Give me hope—courage”

He seized her hands. His words came from him with a painful incoherence, and she looked at him with a wondering pity.

“Oscar” He saw the promise in her eyes and bent over her hands and kissed them wildly. A gust of wind through the open window swept across the room, rustling among the papers, When he lifted his head, he saw that something had happened. She was not looking at him. Very slowly she withdrew one hand and laid it on a sheet of foolscap covered with writing.

“This is my husband's writing,” she said.

“Yes.” The monosyllable came tonelessly from his lips. He did not move. From that moment he drifted unresistingly.

“I recognize the paper. It's part of my husband's plans. You told me that they had been destroyed.”

“Partly—yes.”

“You are trying to fill in what is missing?”

He made no answer. His silence was sullen—desperate.

“You meant to carry on his work—in your name? Oscar—for pity's sake—I don't want to be unjust—is it true?”

“I meant to carry on his work. It would have been his wish.”

“Yet you told me—on your word of honor—that these plans were worthless. You knew that they were not worthless. You betrayed him—and you betrayed me.” He flinched under her white contempt, but, his jaw was set in dogged lines. “You made me a disloyal wife,” she said. “You made me ruin my husband.”

The persistent use of the name stung him to retort.

“I am your husband!”

“Is that true? In the eyes of the law, perhaps—not in mine. I warned you—five years ago—that if one of us had wronged Fenton, the barrier between us could never be surmounted. The barrier is there.”

“Eileen—I loved you! Can't you understand”

“I understand that I have done a great wrong. How great the wrong is I can't know—perhaps I shall never know. But it was done against the one being I loved—for I did love him in my foolish, childish way. And now it's too late”

“Be careful! You're driving me mad”

Unheard by either of them, the door had opened, and only a deliberate movement on the part of the newcomer startled them into a recognition of his presence. Eileen turned swiftly. A man stood in the curtained doorway. She caught a glimpse of a heavily bearded face, of eyes that rested on her for an instant with a curious intentness, of a figure that was hunched as if by some maiming accident. The whole aspect of the stranger was somber—almost menacing.

“I'm sorry to interrupt,” he said quietly. “Your servant told me to come straight in here. My name is Rogers.”

Delisle nodded. He was recovering slowly, painfully. His eyes never left his wife's face.

“Yes, it's all right. I was expecting you, Mr. Rogers. Eileen, this is the gentleman of whom I was speaking.”

She smiled faintly, with a bitterness that the darkness could not hide.

“I understand that you have come to help complete my husband's work?”

The man bowed, and for an instant his deep-set eyes met hers

“If it is possible.”

“May success crown the deserving!” She laughed lightly. “Good night, gentlemen. I'll leave you to your honorable labors.”

Delisle followed her swiftly to the door, and they confronted each other with scarcely concealed defiance.

“Where are you going, Eileen?”

“To my son.”

He stood aside, and she passed between both men. And as she passed, her eyes encountered the stranger's for a second time.