Ainslee's Magazine/Winged Victory/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I.
S|.54em}}O that,” said the young Frenchman, nodding across the ball-room, “that is the Fenton Villiers, I suppose.”
His tone, despite the casual movement, suggested interest, his emphasis on the article a certain ultra superiority in the person indicated that caused his companion to turn and glance at him with some Surprise.
“Yes, that's Villiers,” he assented. “My nephew, you know; but 'pon my word I didn't realize that he was so famous as to have 'the' tacked on to his name. You're a stranger in this country, Captain Rochefort. What do you know about the Fenton Villiers?”
“Well, for one thing, that he is your nephew,” the Frenchman returned with a smile and a little bow; “and for another, that he is a second lieutenant in his majesty's navy. Finally, that he is a young officer of great promise. I am not mistaken, I think, when I say that your government is at present considering plans of his that may bring about a complete revolution in the matter of aérial warfare?”
“Well, I should like to know how you knew that!” Admiral Raeburn exclaimed bluffly. “You're not a spy, Captain Rochefort, I hope?”
He glanced laughingly at the man beside him; and Rochefort smiled. Immediately afterward his narrow, rather white face became expressionless. Like his immaculate clothes, the whole manner of the man seemed a mask assumed either to conceal too much or too little.
“Scarcely, admiral. I have not the ability or the energy for that sort of thing. But rumors float very easily in this gossiping generation. By the way, Mr. Villiers is married, I understand?”
Admiral Raeburn chuckled.
“Really, I ought to come to you for information about my nephew,” he said good-naturedly. “Yes, he is married—has been for the last three years. That's his wife over there, dancing with that tall naval fellow. Daughter of Sir Richard Sinclair—as I suppose you know.”
“Wealth as well as beauty and all the virtues, eh?”
Something in the Frenchman's tone caused Raeburn a passing annoyance, and he made no response. Captain Rochefort adjusted his eyeglass for a closer scrutiny of the young couple, who at that moment drifted past to the slow measure of a waltz.
“Yes, very beautiful and very young,” he murmured. “Quite a child, in fact. One could build all sorts of romances with her face in mind. She loves life, does she not? One can see that in every movement.”
“You see a great many things, captain,” Raeburn retorted tartly.
“I have learned to read faces,” Rochefort explained, with a return of his fleeting, enigmatic smile. “They interest me almost as much as aëroplanes. Now there is the officer with whom Madame Villiers is dancing—he interests me very much. Strength and weakness, eh? Strength in the jaw and weakness in the mouth—a very common phenomenon. In temptation he would probably yield, but he can also be ruthlessly determined. I wonder if my diagnosis is justified?”
Raeburn snorted.
“Lieutenant Delisle will no doubt be delighted to give you all information,” he said sarcastically. Being a sailor of the old school, he disliked astuteness, and he labored under the uncomfortable conviction that his companion was, in some subtle way, playing a game with him.
“So that is Oscar Delisle!” Rochefort observed, apparently with increased interest.
“Yes, but there is no earthly reason why you should know anything about him,” Raeburn retorted. “Delisle has invented nothing that I know of.”
“I happen to know something of his family,” the Frenchman explained.
The conversation dropped. On the other side of the ballroom, Fenton Villiers, unconscious that he was under observation, in his turn watched the two dancers, who, as if overtaken by a gay exhaustion, at length passed into a flower-screened alcove and disappeared. The young officer's strong, lean-jawed face, hitherto overcast and preoccupied, lit up with a moment's pleasure. Whatever his thoughts had been, it was clear that the two young and handsome figures had changed their direction, for he half smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if throwing off an irritating burden.
The next minute he became aware that he was being observed by the white-faced man across the room. The realization that this stranger had been a witness of his change of expression irritated him. He returned the stare, and a moment later the man sauntered across the floor, piloting his way through the desultory couples of dancers with an assured ease.
“You will forgive the intrusion, Mr. Villiers,” he said courteously. “I have been waiting some time for the pleasure of an introduction, which Admiral Raeburn promised me; but he has disappeared and left me to my own devices. My name is Rochefort, late captain of the Fourth Regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. I wish to offer you my congratulations.”
Villiers considered the newcomer with regained good humor.
“I suppose you've been watching my expression?” he said lightly. “I confess that for the moment I was feeling childishly pleased with myself and the world in general”
“Pardon me,” was the suave interruption. “I was alluding less to a passing mood than to something more permanent—success.”
“My success?”
The Frenchman bowed.
Villiers laughed.
“My good sir, it is a little early in the day to congratulate a second lieutenant on board a submarine.”
“Nevertheless, I have heard of you as the coming man. Is not the new aëroplane in the hands of the government?”
Villiers started slightly, and a dull red crept into his bronzed cheeks.
“You have heard of that, then?”
“Who has not?”
“I thought it had been kept quieter. I wish it had.”
“Why? Success should never hide herself—particularly where a career has to be made. I presume your invention has already been accepted?”
“By the government?” Villiers' mouth took on a grim line. “Governments are in no such hurry, Captain Rochefort. My invention has yet to be tested by independent experts. After that I shall know for certain.”
Rochefort considered his white hand thoughtfully.
“Rather a risk, that, is it not? The expert might be unfriendly or stupid; experts occasionally are, you know—and, above all, an official expert, who knows that his business is to minimize the value of everything but himself!”
“The English government is aware that I am not out for reward.”
“Pure patriotism, eh?” Villiers made no answer, and the Frenchman smiled. “Well, there is another cause for congratulation. Another man, less fortunate, might have to be a little less patriotic.”
“What do you mean?”
“Merely that there are other people ready to buy and to pay long prices for a good thing—private firms, for instance.”
“No private firm is to be trusted with a secret of national importance,” was the somewhat stern answer.
Rochefort laughed.
“There speaks the patriot again! Have you noticed, Mr. Villiers, that the patriot is always the man with the bank account?”
“I have not.”
“You may live to learn, Mr. Villiers.”
The Englishman made no answer. The stranger's tone, with its undercurrent of cynical superiority, at once repelled and troubled him. His nerves, steeled as they were by a life of constant peril, were vibrating beneath some new power, beneath the warning touch of a formless menace. He drew himself up, frowning at his own fancifulness, and turned away. At that moment his wife and Oscar Delisle came out of the alcove. He saw them; in the sudden hush that closed the dying strains of subdued music he heard their voices and knew that they were waiting for him. But he did not move. For the first time he felt that their mood jarred with his—or his with theirs—and the pleasant sense of light-hearted fellowship was lost in a vague disquiet. He ignored their laughing summons and turned and disappeared in the crowd.
Eileen Villiers uttered a little exclamation of annoyance, and then glanced up at her companion with a perplexed pucker between her brows that was like a shadow on a fair, sunlit landscape.
“Just when we want him, too!” she said. “I can't wait to tell him of our plan and he promptly disappears. He is so strange nowadays, Oscar. I believe he thinks of nothing but his invention—that wretched aëroplane. As if the submarine weren't bad enough! If only Fenton were more like you! You're never serious, are you?”
“Sometimes—very.”
“Oh, well, but not in that steam-roller fashion of Fenton's. Sometimes I feel as if he would crush me to death under it all.”
“He's ambitious—for you perhaps,” Delisle suggested slowly.
“Not for me. I don't want anything. We have money enough.”
“Money is not everything. I know that.”
She laughed charmingly.
“Do you? And you have such a lot!”
“I have no one to make happy with it, and that's all it's of any good for.”
“Oh, Oscar, don't be trite! Anyhow, money means a lot to me—everything, in fact—pleasures, luxuries, whims”
“And Fenton—doesn't he come in anywhere?”
She hesitated. The band had broken into a swinging waltz, and it seemed as if she would have been glad to let the music fill out her silence, but the man beside her repeated his question with a teasing persistency, and she looked up, smiling a little wistfully.
“Oh, Fenton is a sort of human edition of his bothersome old submarine,” she said. “I expect he is underneath everything—here, there, everywhere—but no one can tell exactly where to find him. He's like that in my life, I think—deep down underneath, but never on the surface. One can't get at him—at least, not now.”
He heard the sadness in her young voice, and bent over her with a brotherly solicitude. His handsome young face had sobered, revealing the characteristic mingling of strength and weakness that the Frenchman had noted.
“Well, perhaps now that Submarine D Eight is to be dry-docked for six weeks and I'm going to pack you both off to Monte Carlo or some such frivolous place, you'll have a chance to find him again,” he said, with a cheerfulness that sounded a little forced. “Fenton's fagged out and a bit morose. He'll get over it out there”
“He won't go.”
“Yes, he will. I'm his best friend and his superior officer, and I'll pound at him till he gives in.”
“I—I've been extravagant.”
He laughed.
“Haven't you the right to be? If there's any fuss about money, I'll go to Sir Richard to-morrow and tell him that his daughter is pining away and that only a six weeks' outing will save her life. If he doesn't send you packing in all senses of the word—I'm a Dutchman. Trust me. I'm your and Fenton's best friend, and I'm going to look after you both. Is it agreed?”
“It's agreed that you're our friend.”
“Your proved friend.”
Something in his tone caught her attention. She looked up with a faint trouble in her eyes.
“Why, of course. Were you thinking of anything special?”
“Well, perhaps I was.”
“Won't you tell me?”
He shook his head, smiling at her
“No, not now. Perhaps some day, little Eileen. Perhaps when another Fenton has a submarine of his own and you have gray hair—and I have ceased to count.”
“But you will always count!” She clasped her hands impulsively about his arm. “Why, I love you best after Fenton. And I'm going to ask you something—an idea all my own! If we go abroad, come with us, Oscar!”
“Eileen—nonsense!”
“It's not nonsense.”
“Fenton won't”
“Of course he will—his best friend! And then he'll have some one to pour out his heart to when I get too fluffy and feminine. Promise! Or don't you want to?”
“You know I do.”
She tapped the floor with impatience.
“And I want you. I want to have some one to laugh and frivol with. Fenton is so ponderous. Promise!”
“Better not.”
“Better not—when I ask you?”
He was silent, looking beyond her at something visible only to himself. His expression was veiled, unreadable.
“It's fate,” he said slowly. “I promise.”
At that moment Fenton came toward them, and Delisle saw how her face lit up.
“If I could make you as happy as that, I wouldn't mind what I promised,” he said under his breath. But she did not hear him. She went to meet her husband and brought him back, her eyes sparkling with childish triumph.
“I'm in for trouble,” Fenton said light-heartedly. “I apologize. But I wasn't in the mood. A French fellow—a friend of my uncle's—bothered me with his confounded polite cynicisms, and, anyhow, my nerves are all on edge to-night. What are you two looking wise about?”
“We've thought of a penalty, my terrible, wise husband. I've suffered too much already from being married to a 'rising young man,' and I mean to have my turn”
“And what does that mean?”
“That we three are going right away where there won't be such a thing as a submarine within a hundred miles—to a dreadful, wicked place, where all sensible things are taboo—to Monte Carlo, Solomon!”
“You must know perfectly well that it's impossible, Eileen. You can't be serious!”
“About Monte Carlo? Why, that's the only sort of thing I am serious about.”
“I ought to know that, I suppose.” Her careless gayety seemed to leave him unmoved save for an uncontrollable impatience. His careworn young face was stern and unyielding. “You don't seem to realize that I'm a poor man and that the life we are leading is that of millionaires. These trips to London—our house at Portsmouth”
“Fenton, how absurd you are!” she interrupted. “You talk as if father didn't exist. What I do is done with his money”
“Nevertheless, we are horribly in debt. Your father's allowance for this year is gone—swallowed up—and there are a dozen expenses now that I don't know how to meet.”
She stood silent for a moment, unimpressed, still smiling, though with a touch of mischief in her bright eyes.
“And you put it all down to me?” she said. “Has the aëroplane not figured among the expenses?”
“Eileen!”
“Fenton, don't scowl like that. You're a spoil-sport, dear. Isn't he, Oscar?” The two men exchanged lightning glances which she did not see and which they themselves could not have interpreted. She put her hands caressingly on her husband's shoulders. “Dear Fenton, is the money really worrying you? Sordid money! Why, I'll tell father to-morrow and he'll give us a check that will cover everything and send us off on a second honeymoon, with Oscar as general manager and peacemaker. Fenton, say 'yes' quickly before some one finds me making love to my own husband.”
He laughed dully, yet half conquered by the loveliness of the small face raised appealingly to his. Reckless of observation, he bent and kissed her.
“Serpent of old Nile—I suppose you could bewitch me into cutting off my head if you ever had a bloodthirsty desire in that direction. Dear, if it can be managed, it shall be done” He hesitated and then broke out: “But can't you understand how I hate to be always taking and begging? If the aëroplane's a success—then it will be my money and things will be happier”
“But in the meantime I have to wait? Because of your pride? Why should I? We're rich enough already Why, what's the matter?”
Oscar Delisle had come back from the open doorway, where he had been standing with his back turned, watching the dancers. He smiled carelessly.
“It's nothing. Only one of the servants is asking for you, Fenton. A telephone message. Shall I take it for you?”
“No, it may be something important. From whom is it? Why, man, what's the matter with you?”
The footman, white-faced and breathless, pulled himself together.
“From Sir Richard Sinclair, sir”
“Well, you don't need to look as if you had seen a ghost. Did he ask for me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I'll come at once. Eileen, I'll be back in a minute.”
“If you please, sir,” the servant interfered with a sudden decision, “I don't think There's something wrong I came straight to you because I was afraid”
“Afraid of what? Be quick!”
“After Sir Richard had asked for you, sir, and given his name, he wouldn't answer. I called to him, but it was no use. We hadn't been cut off. I could hear every sound in the room, even to the ticking of a clock, and I knew he had still hold of the receiver—and then—all at once there was a thud as if”
Fenton held out a restraining hand. He had seen his wife's colorless face, and with quiet resolution he drew her arm through his.
“We must go home at once,” he said. “Be a good fellow, Oscar, and get the carriage round. Sir Richard may have fainted. At any rate, he wanted us. Eileen, sweetheart, you'll find it's nothing serious.”
He hurried her through the ballroom, giving her no time for thought or further explanation. The grim, unconquerable foreboding that had clung to him throughout the evening had now taken a new form, indefinite as yet, but growing with every moment clearer.