CHAPTER XVII HERALDS OF GREAT TIDINGS

Bob Otway and Dick Fenton were coming down the Vermala slopes together, when they espied the "little widow" on the path below the hotel. Her appearance reminded them that more than a week had passed since they had seen her at the chalet, and that it had been a time of events never to be forgotten. To be candid, the boys had changed very much during these wonder-working days. They had even come, as Bob admitted ruefully, to speak of such mysteries as drainage and water supply. The realities were gripping them and romance already cried out.

"Why, it's Lady Delayne, Bob—don't you see her? We really ought to pull up and tell her what has happened."

Bob agreed, and, as a testimony to his approval, did a wonderful telemarque which came near to dashing out his brains against a tree. It was just twelve o'clock of a glorious day, and both the boys hungering for lunch.

But they could not pass by Lily Delayne, even at the bidding of a mountain appetite, and so they shot down wildly to the path and confronted her, as two loping bears emerging suddenly upon their prey.

Lily was dressed in black, and wore a wide motor hat and a heavy veil. For an instant she smiled kindly upon the boys, then relapsed to that pensive air which seemed inseparable from her natural mood.

"Why," she said, "here are the truants. Let me see, ten days, yes, just ten days since the embassy, is it not, Mr. Otway? And black silence all this time; now, really, is not that ingratitude?"

Bob admitted that it was; Dick hung his head and looked sheepish.

"You see," said the former, "we found it was all right, and so we didn't want to trouble you. It's a beastly thing to have to speak about money, and I wouldn't have any girl believe that it's her money I want. When I heard from Mrs. Rider that Nellie had three hundred a year, I knew we could just rub along, and what more does any fellow want? Of course, we can't keep a motor on that, and I shall have to play golf once a week, instead of twice. But it's something to be able to pay your way these hard times, and the fellow who can't give up something for the sake of a pretty girl isn't much good."

Dick was more explicit.

"I'm rather sorry Marjory has the money," he said with conviction. "I don't believe marriages are made in heaven, or that sort of nonsense; but I do believe that young people should be content to start in a small way, and that if a man is to get on, his own brains should push him. It can't be helped, of course, and Mrs. Rider is so pleased about it that I believe she'd double their allowance for a nod. She's flirting like one o'clock with old Gordon Snagg, and it wouldn't astound me if she married him."

"And struck another!" interposed Bob, whose alternations of melancholy and gladness were a delight to hear. Lily was so much amused by them that she encouraged him to talk; and saying that she, also, was returning to lunch, they all set off down the mountain together.

"We're going to live out at Hampstead to begin with," Bob explained, cheerily. "I suppose it must be flats, for it won't run to a house. Dick thinks we might share a big one, but I know the girls would quarrel, and when sisters do quarrel, then you hear things. I shall go into a motor-car business, and open a garage somewhere. Dick is going to write books when he can afford the paper—and I'm sorry for Thackeray and those fellows. Perhaps you'll come and see us when we're settled down, though I say it's the settling up that's the trouble. Hampstead's not a bad place, and they don't charge anything for the empty ginger-beer bottles on the Heath. I wonder if you really would come, Lady Delayne?"

Lily said it would be a pleasure to do so, though her secret doubt as to the establishment of this particular ménage remained unspoken. Concerning Dick, however, she had no afterthought. He had grown sentimental in an hour, and saw nothing but a vision of Marjory in his brightest heaven.

"I've always wanted to write a book," he said, "but a man needs a spur. It's impossible for a fellow to do anything when he's a bachelor and men are coming in every five minutes to look over his shoulder. I could have finished a play last year, if it hadn't been for the Scratch Medal at Neasden, but I was so keen to win it that I never got further than the prologue. Now, however, I mean to take my coat off."

"And to fly—like Benny, the wonderful Benny," Bob added. He was surprised to learn that her ladyship had heard nothing of this. Did she not know that a regular mob was expected at the Palace to-morrow to see that amazing hero, Mr. Benjamin Benson, try for the great prize offered by the Daily Recorder of London? Well, it was so. They were even making up beds on the billiard table, and what sort of a game was a man expected to play on a mattress?

"It's the most amazing get-back I ever heard of," he ran on, delighted to interest her so much. "Benny's the last man in Switzerland we should have looked to for this, and here he is, cock-a-whoop in the papers, and as famous as a prize-fighter. In London they're talking of nothing else. He's invented a new kind of aeroplane, and one which must be the machine of the future, so they say. That's why he didn't come into the hotel. We thought him a secret kind of bird, and all the time he was just working away to bag the ￡10,000 offered by the London editor. If he gets it, it will be an eye-opener; but old Gordon Snagg, who has been hanging about the chalet, declares he will get it, and that he deserves to. Don't you see, Lady Delayne, that Benny has been the ghost? It was his machine over the Zaat which scared the people so. Fancy, old Benny—mustn't he have a head, and didn't he think a lot when he heard us talking about him?"

Dick took a more serious view of it.

"Benny is a genius," was his testimony. "He's just one of those born strong men you can't keep back. If we had more of him in England, there wouldn't be all this talk about decadence. We're just falling behind as pioneers, and that's the whole truth. If you speak to the manufacturers about it, they say it doesn't matter, because we can always imitate the foreigners when they have invented things. I'm sure that's all nonsense. The same brains which lead the way will hold it in the long run. Look how long it took us to overtake the French in the motor-car business; have we done it even now? Benny is one of our national assets, and if he succeeds, no honour is too big for him."

"Then you think he will succeed, Mr. Fenton?"

Dick shook his head.

"Bob knows more about machinery—he'll tell you. If it depends on the man and not on a bag of tricks, I'm sure he will succeed. That remains to be seen: we shall know to-morrow, anyway."

"And make a night of it if our man wins," Bob added with conviction. More than that he was reticent to say. Whatever were the secrets of Benny's aeroplane, they had been guarded closely.

"He must be the cleverest chap alive," he continued. "Not a soul at Andana had an idea of it. He's been flying about here for weeks, and all the time we thought him a good-natured crank, to be chaffed and rotted as much as we pleased. Now he looks like becoming one of the most famous men in the world. Sir Gordon says he will, and he's had his eye to the keyhole. Perhaps he wants to float Benny as a company; I shouldn't be surprised. If his machine is what he claims it to be, there'll not be a rival in the market in a month. Sir Gordon is sure of it."

"Then it is a very wonderful machine, Mr. Otway?"

"So wonderful that you could pack it up in a hair-trunk, they tell me. The engine's a gem—just like a toy. The frame looks like a torpedo—it's as light as feathers. We shall see something to-morrow, Lady Delayne, and I'm jolly glad I'm at Andana, anyway. They start from the slope before the Park at nine o'clock. Benny has to fly right over Mont Blanc, then to Zermatt, and back across the Weisshorn. He should be here before dark to win. If he does it—well, I hope the Palace will not catch fire; but I shouldn't wonder if it did. You'll be coming, of course. We shall see you there in the morning?"

She answered, "Certainly." She would not miss it on any account. The news had surprised her very much; she did not add that, although she had seen Benny every day, he had said no word to her. This was for her own thoughts, which now engrossed her so that she was very glad when they came down to her chalet and she could say "Good-bye." Even there it was possible to remark the number of the sleighs now driving up the valley from Sierre. And the flags and the bunting! She had been blind to them hitherto. But now they spoke eloquently of a man who had befriended her beyond any she had known. And to his hopes and ambitions she had hardly given a thought during that long week of watching and waiting! This was the truth, and it was not unaccompanied by regret. She remembered her promise to Brother Jack and wondered that she could have broken it.

To be sure, there had been excuse enough. Long days of a terrible doubt had left her at the last almost beyond the influence of fear or hope. Luton himself had not written to her—she was glad of his silence. All the tidings that Benny had was a brief note from him in which he described his arrival at Locarno, and his occupation of the shanty. The threatened inquisition upon the part of the Swiss police had not become a reality. The crime at Vermala appeared to be already forgotten by the authorities, as it had ceased to interest the visitors. Probably most people now believed that it had been an accident. Lily could almost persuade herself that this view was right. Luton would remain a little while at the lakeside, and then go South. The accusing hours, when the truth would not be hidden, were to be combatted with new courage in the face of this unexpected respite.

It was a quarter to two when she entered the chalet and nearly half an hour later when the post arrived from Sierre; to her great surprise there was a letter from Italy—the only letter that day—and she perceived immediately that it was in Luton's handwriting. Letters from him during recent years had been rare events and coincided with his pecuniary needs; but she had not read many lines of this particular epistle before she detected a new note. Here was an apologia pro vita sua; she knew not at first whether to believe it serious or a jest.

He spoke of his departure from Andana, and of the terrible circumstance of it. Like all men who fall foul of the world, he was eloquent in self-defence and could make out a pretty case.

What he seemed to feel acutely was the degradation of the tragedy. Had it been different, an affair in which honour had been compromised, it would have been defensible; but this poor devil of a soldier, against whom he had no possible grudge, that was humiliation enough. From which he passed on to deplore his heritage of character, naming himself as a man predestined to the enmity of his fellows, and without that power of will which alone could have saved him.

Did not Lily understand this? Had she never taken it into account upon a day of reckoning? He saw himself as the sport of the Almighty—mocked by his inheritance. All that he had done he must do again if he began life anew under the same set of circumstances. He had been without a friend, misunderstood always, even by her who had been at no pains to understand him. Did she think she had done her duty toward him—had she stood by him as a true wife should have done? Then came incoherent rhapsodies of love from which she shrank. He swore to God that there had never been but one woman in the story of his life. She knew it to be true. And here he was, an outcast among men and alone, while she had money enough and to spare. His poverty had brought him to this. Did she think upon reflection that none of the responsibility was hers?

As to the actual position at the moment, he confessed himself in some danger. He thought it possible that the Swiss police would trace him, but he declared that he would face the matter lightly enough if she were with him. Would she come to Locarno and help him? He wanted courage, the power to understand the meaning of his own life, some hope for the future which she might inspire. She was a clever woman, but had never used her cleverness on his behalf. He implored her to hear him and have pity.

Such an idea, recurring again and again, betrayed a mind which had lost stability and a physical condition which was ominous. And yet Lily read a deeper meaning into the screed, and her early contempt was chastened. Just as she had asked herself a week ago if she had done her duty by this man, so could she repeat the question with insistence. Phrases of his letter appealed to her pity, despite a lack of faith; perhaps she was less influenced by them than by the judgment pronounced at the tribunal of her own conscience. She would go to him; but having gone, what then? Must the old way of life be taken once more? Could she contemplate a future as his wife, living out the long days of sacrifice without complaint?

The afternoon passed and found her unable to come to a decision. Sitting at her window she could see the stir and bustle before the Palace Hotel, the arrival of sleighs, and the coming and going of strangers. Her hope that she might receive a visit from the object of all this interest was not to be gratified. Benny did not come to the chalet; he contented himself with a pencilled note brought down by a lad during the afternoon, and containing just three words, "All goes well." She saw him for a moment walking with Dr. Orange and Sir Gordon Snagg toward the Park at about four o'clock, but after that the dark fell and her day was over.

Was it to be her last night in Switzerland? she wondered, as she sat by the window with Luton's letter still in her hand.