Wild Geese Overhead (20 page)

“You had just better mind your eye! And fancy you, the emancipated, the Parisian lady, with complete knowledge of the world, of life, of
living
, being shocked at the introduction of an idea, hardly even that, a fanciful conception, because it's based on sex! I mean to say——”

“Oh, go on,” she said, gloating. “This is too delicious.”

He regarded her doubtfully.

“I can't keep it in any longer,” she said. “I was shocked, shattered, to discover—that in this matter of life——”

“Of
living
. Yes?”

“——you are cleverer than I am. Can you possibly understand what a blow it was?”

He looked at her. Then—she was quite right—his smile dawned, and darkened, while his eyes caught a gleam deeper than any squirrel's.

“Felicity,” he said softly, “you are very ver-y clever. I admit your mastery.”

“Will,” she said, “that is very ver-y superb of you.” Her eyes were alive; softly hot. She was moved. The music started. A rising young surgeon stood before her.

“Jim,” she begged him, “would you mind if I didn't this time? There's something gone wrong with my heel. I must get it put right. Perhaps then? Oh, there's Philip. Philip!”

Philip excused himself to a tall dark girl and two others, and came across.

“There's something gone wrong with the heel of my slipper, something coming through and hurting a bit. Could you flatten it some way?”

“Why, yes. Let me see. It'll mean the garage. You wait here, and if you give me the slipper——”

“I'll come with you,” she said, “and mak siccar.”

“Very well. We can go out the back way.” Philip turned to Will. “Perhaps you could come and hold it while I bump?”

“Lead on,” said Will.

It was a large garage, with electric light and a work bench. Philip was very careful that Felicity should not soil her dress. Will watched Philip's face as he felt for the defect inside the slipper, but Philip's face remained perfectly solemn.

“There's a distinct lump there,” he said.

“Let me see.” Will took the slipper. “Yes. But it's not a nail. It's a lump. It will have to be hammered very gently. Do you mind if I try?”

“Do,” said Philip.

“I am sorry,” said Felicity to Philip, “taking you away like this. I called to you, with my usual recklessness!”

“Not at all,” said Philip, looking at her closely. “But if Will could manage alone——”

“Leave it to me,” said Will. “I'll put this clean piece of waste round the heel and fix it in the vice, then tap tap away.”

When Philip had gone, Will asked: “Who exactly is the tall dark lady to whom I've noticed Philip being particularly, almost proprietorially, attentive?” He closed the vice gently.

“One of the Clive-Smeatons.”

“Phew!” whistled Will softly. “Anything really doing?”

“Philip is reticent, of course. But, far as I can gather, she's the anointed.”

“Philip has the unlucky habit of blundering into money, hasn't he?”

“Malice deep and dyed?”

“No. Truth does sometimes slip out in a forgetful way. But that wasn't truth really. What do you think of her?”

“I think she's quite all right. A bit stiff, perhaps.”

“But you think she'd make a very good official wife? Feel that.”

“Oh, it's gone!”

Will stooped, put her slipper on, and arose beside her.

“Thank you, Will.”

He smiled to her, and she put her arms swiftly round his neck. Will responded.… She broke from him. “Ooh! You're rough.”

“And the light, too,” he observed, his breath disordered.

The switch was at the door and when he had turned the light off, she said: “How glorious to find you again, Will!” and got into his arms. Then she began to whisper to him, to teach him a few small things in love's gentler art.

When the experience got a little too much for Will, she restrained him strictly, saying there's a time for all things and this is one thing, and a sweet stinging gentleness is the tide on which it's borne, and tried to make him understand the wisdom thereof and succeeded as well as she wanted to.

“And now,” she sighed—“we must go.”

“Why? I shan't see you alone again.”

“Why not?”

“How can I?”

“And us sleeping in the same house?”

“But—when?”

“After the ball is over.”

“Felicity.”

“My door”, said Felicity, in a whisper, “is just before yours.”

He kissed her, for he could not answer.

She pulled him by the hand out of the open garage, and found a mirror and a wash basin, before they reappeared. “We must”, said Felicity, “do a little more of our duty now. I am even prepared for the dark cavalier.” She saw Jim and hailed him and they went off gaily together, talking about heels and blisters and a doctor's lapsed opportunity.

The night now took on for Will a tension and strangeness behind all his overt acts. He got talking to some of the older men, too, who had known his father; for one like fat jolly Mr. Calder, the fruit importer, with the small shrewd kindly eyes, he felt an affection; there were oranges in his skin and a half-tumbler of whisky was “a small one”. Will laughed at the size of the drink he accepted from him. Others, too, whose names stood for shipbuilding and overseas trade, spoke to him in a friendly way as the son of his father. There was a reticence about a few of these men that touched him. Most were full of social manners, with hearty voices and a proper importance.

But whisky seemed to have no effect on the quiver and tension at his heart. And he wanted it to have an effect. He wanted to move swiftly away from the tension, to subdue the quiver. For there was something about it all that was scarcely credible. Then he would see Felicity's head, and the sensation of intimacy with it became for one swift moment overpowering. During the moment, his muscles flexed rigidly, and on one occasion he in this involuntary manner embraced the calm Maisie, but at once said: “Ah, that was nearly a bump!” and guided her sideways.

With Felicity he did not dance again. Some of the older guests began to take their departure and at two o'clock came the end. Dark coats and white mufflers and hats in hand; fur coats and satin shoes and bare sleek heads. Thanks were offered for a perfectly lovely evening, while, outside, cars were started up and young men strode hither and thither with commanding vigour.

“Can you tell me”, Felicity whispered to him as they stood in the hall, “why so many of the faces of the fully middle-aged ladies of this city are little noses on blobs of water?”

They happened to be looking towards two or three women rather small in stature, but rotund, whose red slightly blown watery faces rose out of the rich collars of their furs in a way that gave Felicity's question an impressionistic warrant.

He did not turn and look at her. He could not look at her. He laughed instead. All his cool assurance was gone. He had to say something equally wild, anything but meet her eyes.

“Do you know what I was thinking just now?” he asked.

“No.”

One of the ladies sat down, her richly tinted face heaving a sigh from the depths of her two-hundred guinea coat. “Ah,” she said, “I am very tired.”

“Well?” prompted Felicity, and looked up at him—when her glance immediately concentrated on his expression. He was staring at the woman as if she were an apparition. In a moment, he blinked, and began vaguely: “Ah——”

“Will? Tell me.”

“A ghost walked over my grave,” he said, and his smile twisted drily. “Let's watch them go.” She went with him to the door.

But here was Sir Norman. He shook hands with her and said: “Now, remember!” in a playful meaningful voice and departed.

“Let's watch, if we must, from a window,” said Felicity. “This is too cold.”

“Imagine the old boy staying right to the end!”

“He's an old rip,” she answered. “Let's sit here. We've said our good-byes—or enough of 'em.” Her gay manner was reckless still, but a trifle more downright. “Now, tell me your story.”

“About the ghost?”

“Not about that—unless you like.”

“It's not really personal. It was about a poor married girl who died in the slums—a case I was dealing with lately. But, by an odd chance, the stout lady…”

“Mrs. Dobson. Yes?”

“…said something which coincided oddly enough with what I was going to say to you. Have you ever imagined yourself looking down on a city and seeing it like a clay model of itself? Just a queer vision I sometimes have of it. You know my politics from of old. Well—here we have the spacious residential quarter on the Hills; and down there we have the tall dark slums of the River. That isn't strictly true, of course, because you can get the worst slums off a main thoroughfare, but it clarifies the picture, if you see what I mean.”

“Perfectly.”

“When I saw the guests making for their cars, the fantastic thought arose in me—of the revolution swelling up from the River to the Hills and the folk of the Hills preparing to meet it. Have you ever thought of something like that happening in our city?”

“It couldn't,” she said. “There isn't the fire in us.”

“It wouldn't be fire. It would be something much more grim and bloody and unyielding.”

“What a thought!”

“Assuming it happened, Felicity of the Left: what side would you be on?”

She looked at him. He met her eyes with a calm smile. She searched his eyes.

“It's a thought, isn't it?” he said.

“Will, tell me—feeling all right?”

“Naturally a bit excited.”

“Dear Will,” she murmured and pressed his hand. “Come. Let's go. We'll talk—and talk—alone.” She jumped up. Outside the cars were whining, one after another, into the distance. “I hate starting something and being interrupted by inquisitive faces. Here's Philip, his dark lady gone.”

The house party was small, and after they had sat for half an hour discussing the evening, the ladies retired. The men sat on for a little, then Mr. Manson, a personable man, bald on the crown, rather quiet, with an easy-going nature, threw his cigar in the fire and got up. He yawned and knuckled his eyes audibly. “Well, it's bed for me. Good night.”

Philip suggested to Will that there was no particular hurry for a few minutes, unless he was tired.

Will found himself gladly accepting the idea. He must have drunk far too much whisky, for in recent minutes, while sitting still, he had experienced a queasy feeling of insecurity and had had to move restlessly on his chair in order to ensure command of his body. It would have been rather a dreadful thing if the room had tilted and slid his body sideways before them all!

Not that he was really drunk. It was a light-headed feeling from an odd sickly excitement in the stomach.

“What about a last drink?” Without waiting for Will's response, Philip went away and fetched two whiskies well charged with soda.

Will, after a mouthful, felt himself again, and they lit cigarettes.

“Enjoyed yourself?” Philip asked.

“To be quite candid, much more than I expected.”

Philip smiled. “Good. I could see Felicity and you were hitting it off. And that's often a gamble—renewing youthful fellowships, I mean.”

Will grew quickly animated, talking about Paris and barricades, and soon Philip and himself were on the friendliest terms.

“Have you fixed up about seeing her any time?” Philip asked.

“No,” said Will. “Somehow—it…didn't think about it, really. Why?” He finished his whisky.

“I'm not being inquisitive,” said Philip with a smile. “It's simply that if you had fixed up anything with her, then I shouldn't feel the responsibilities of a host so much. And she's the girl who will
have
to be doing something—probably wild. She is really very charming.”

“That's true,” said Will. “Yes.”

“And you'll be off before she's up in the morning and you won't see her.”

“Hadn't thought of that,” said Will.

“Oh, it's nothing, but I mean you could have come to my aid, so to speak, and, well—it mightn't be doing you, I had hoped, a disservice either, what?”

Will smiled in response and moved restlessly. “But I will, of course! I mean—certainly. I'll—I'll get in touch. Somehow the evening just finished—you know—and——”

“It's only really one point,” said Philip negligently. “I'm getting a new car next week and I was thinking of having the week-end off—a week to-morrow—or, I suppose I should say to-day, for it's Saturday now. A fellow needs occasionally to get away from his home crowd.” He slowly finished his drink and, as he was setting his glass down, added: “If you fixed up somewhat early in the week with Felicity for the Saturday evening, then—that would be that. She has really an uncanny gift of getting at you!” He lit a fresh cigarette.

Will stretched to the floor and lifted his empty glass automatically.

“Oh, have a last spot!” Philip got up.

“Thanks.” Will handed him his glass and, when Philip had gone, got to his feet. His whole body underwent a slow rigor, the head tilting back, eyes shut, teeth showing, and the right hand coming up breast high and clenching into a fist. Christ's name came through his teeth in a hiss. It looked like the reaction to an intense knot of physical pain. It passed, as it came, and his palm went up and across his forehead. He sat down, as Philip returned, but he could not command his hand, which shook a little as it took the glass.

“Feeling all right?” Philip looked at him, brow wrinkling in concern.

Will slowly smiled. “The truth is, Philip, I've already had, I'm afraid, just a wee drop too much.”