Gwenna

“ Gwenna, standing shyly, as if on the brink of the party, heard the hostess saying: "We hardly hoped you'd come ... we know you people always are besieged by invitations——"
"Dear me! All these people seem dreat-fully grand," thought the Welsh girl hastily to herself. "I wonder if it wouldn't have been better, now, if Leslie had left that cerise velvet trimming as it was on my dress?"
Instinctively she glanced about for the nearest mirror. There was a big oval gilt-framed one over the yellow brocaded Empire couch near which Gwenna stood. ”

“ Definitely now Gwenna saw what the chief difference between them was.
Those other people treated and spoke of a pastime as though it were a matter of Life and Death. These people here made Life and Death matters their pastime.
"And these splendid real people are the ones I'm going to belong to," the girl told herself with a glance at the tall boy beside her who had decided her fate. That thought was to glow in the very depths of her, like a firefly nestling at the heart of a rose, for as long as she lived. ”

“ She'd always felt, dimly and uncomfortably, that a great part of herself, Gwenna, was just an uninteresting, commonplace little girl.... That part had gone! It had been left behind her, just as her bodily form had been left sleeping on her bed, that midsummer night, while her soul flew through dreams.
"Dreams!" she thought incoherently. "It's not true what people say about the dream-come-true, and how one's always disappointed in it. I'm not—ah, I'm not! This flying! ”

“ It was empty and hot and sunny. Gwenna looked up from the wood-littered ground where the ubiquitous London pigeons strutted and flirted and "Croo—croo—do—I—do"-ed about her feet. Overhead, that giant lacework on its iron crochet-hooks looked as if its pattern had been drawn with a pen and black ink against the opaque blue-grey sky. The sight of that far-off pinnacle put into her head again the thought of flying.
"I don't believe that I shall ever be as high up as that, with the blue beneath me, like I've always wanted!" reflected the young girl, dolefully looking up. ”

“ For Gwenna this bald and wedded patriarch of forty-five scarcely existed. She glanced, nervous and fluttered and interested, towards the group of other guests gathered about the nearer of the two flower-filled fireplaces; a pretty woman in rose-colour and two men of thirty or thereabouts, one of whom (rather stout, with an eye-glass, a black stock-tie, and a lock of brown hair brought down beside his ear like a tiny side-whisker) made straight for Leslie Long. ”

“ Absently she brushed more crumbs off her side of the dinner-napkin.
For one-half only of Gwenna now seemed to note that they were eating crusty loaf and drinking cider out of doors between a lupin-blue sky and a flowerful meadow; the other was conscious of nothing but her companion; of the clear friendliness of his eyes, those eyes of Icarus! Of his deep and gentle voice saying, "Mind if I smoke? You don't, I know," of those brown hard-looking forearms from which he had not troubled to pull down the sleeves, of his nearness. ”

“ For Gwenna, envious, thought, "Leslie can make a man think of nothing but her, even when she's 'not in the mood!' I can't. Yet I believe I could, but for one thing. Even now I don't know that he isn't thinking about That Other——"
"That Other" was her rival, that machine of his that Gwenna had not mentioned all the evening....
It had come, she knew, that duel between the Girl and the Aeroplane for the first place in the heart of a Flying Man. A duel as old as the world, between the thing a man greatly loves, and that which he loves more greatly still. ”

“ She was flying!
Gently, gently, she sped, full of a quiet happiness in her new power, which, after all, did not seem to be something new, but something restored to her.
"Dear me, I've flown before, I know I have," said Gwenna to herself as she swooped downwards in her dream, with the breeze cool on the soles of her little bare feet. "This is as lovely as swimming! It's lovelier, because one doesn't have to do anything. So silly to imagine that one has to have wings to fly!" ”

“ A Machine who "clawed" the man that owned her, just like a jealous betrothed who will not let her lover out of her sight! And supposing that Conflict did come, on which Gwenna's chum and Mr. Dampier's cousin had laid their laughing bets? The struggle between the sweetheart of steel springs and the sweetheart of soft flesh and warm blood? For one clear instant Gwenna knew that this fight would, must come. It was coming——
Then she turned her head and forgot her presentiments; coming back to the light-hearted Present. She watched Leslie, to whom the young Frenchman had been talking ”

“ A comfortable house——
("I hate comfortable houses. So stuffy. Just like a tea-cosy. They'd smother me!" from Gwenna.)
But the House, her Uncle Hugh had Olwês understood, was the Woman's fetish. Spring-cleaning, now; the yearly rites! And that furniture. "The Lares," he went on in an ever-strengthening Welsh accent. "The Pen—nates——!"
"Oh, those!" scoffed the girl in love. "Those——!"
So Gwenna didn't seem to think she would miss these things? She was willing to marry without them? Yes? Strange!... Well, well! ”

“ Gwenna, turning to her chum, said, "Now do tell me about that job you asked if I'd take. What is it?"
"Oh! it's a woman who used to know some of my people; she came to the Club this afternoon, and then on to my old lady's to see me about it," said Leslie. "She wants a girl—partly to do secretarial work, partly to keep her company, partly to help her in the 'odd bits' of her work down there where she has her business."
Gwenna, rather listlessly thinking of typewriting offices, of blouses, or tea-shops, asked what the lady did. ”

“ Gwenna regarded her with envy. Leslie spoke of what should be the eighth wonder of the world, the making or rejecting of a man's life, as if it were an everyday affair. [Pg 172]
"Don't look so unflatteringly surprised, Taffy. Strictly pretty I may not be. But a scrupulously neat and lady-like appearance," mocked Leslie, putting out a long arm in a faded-silk sleeve that was torn at the cuff, "has often (they tell one) done more to win husbands than actual good looks!"
Little Gwenna said, startled, "You aren't—aren't going to let Mr. Swayne be your husband, are you?" ”

“ Gwenna, with a little jump on the slanting front seat, exclaimed, "I know—!" Just as Paul said, "By Jove! I've got it! I know who that fellow was. That German fellow just now. He was one of the waiters at that very dance, Gwenna!"
Gwenna, turning, said breathlessly, "Yes, I know. The one who passed us on the path. But I've thought of something else, too. I thought then his face reminded me of somebody's; I know now who it is. It's that fair young man who came down to try and be taken on at the Works."
"At Westminster?" Paul asked quickly.
"No; at the Aircraft Works one afternoon. ”

“ Her real name was Becker; Ottilie Becker. She worked at the German correspondence of that London office where the other two girls, Gwenna Williams and Mabel Butcher, were typists. It was one of the many small jokes of the place to allude to themselves as the Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick-maker.
All three were excellent friends....
The other two scarcely realised that Gwenna, the [Pg 6] Celt, was different from themselves; more absent-minded, yet more alive. A passer-by might have summed her up as "a pretty, commonplace little thing;" a girl like millions of others. ”

“ The day after the dinner-party was spent by Gwenna metaphorically, at least, in the clouds.
By her vivid day-dreams she was carried off, as Ganymede was carried by the eagle, sky-high; she felt the rush of keen air on her face; she saw the khaki-green flying-ground beneath her with the clustered onlookers, as small as ants. And—thus she imagined it—she heard that megaphone announcement:
"Ladies and gentul MEN! ”

“ Made that baggage in the yellow dress and the Mrs. in the Pink look like a couple of half-artificial florists' blooms by the side of a lily-of-the-valley freshly-plucked from some country garden, sappy and sturdy, and sweet. And her skin was like the bit of mother-of-pearl she was wearing as a heart-shaped locket.
Quite suddenly he said to her: "Look here! Should you care to go up?"
Gwenna gasped.
The whole room, the bright table and the chattering guests seemed now to whirl about her in a circle of shiny mist—as that aeroplane propeller had whirled.... Care to go up? "Care!" Would she? ”

“ A splash of scarlet from the stained glass of the hall door fell upon his fair head and across his cheek as he turned.
"Good-morning," said Gwenna sedately, and without giving him so much as a glance. She felt at that moment that she would rather keep him at arm's length for ever than allow him even to hold her hand, with Leslie there. For it takes those who are cooler in temperament [Pg 244] than was the little Welsh girl, or those who care less for their lovers than she did, to show themselves warmer in the presence of others.
"Hullo," said Paul Dampier to her. Then, "Hullo, Miss Long! ”

“ Oh, forget-ful Providence, not to let a modern girl have four! 'Larger opportunities'—more chance of finding a young man! Yes, yes. That's it, Gwenna!"
Gwenna, at the mere memory of it, broke out indignantly, "Sometimes I should like to stab old people!"
"Meaning the celebrated Uncle Hugh? Too wise, isn't he?" laughed Leslie lightly, with her hands at her hair. "Too full of home-truths about the business girl's typewriter, and the art-student's palette and the shilling thermometer of the hospital nurse, eh? ”

“ You're as much in love with that aviator's job as you are with anything else about him. You're as much amused by 'ordinary things' as any other girl is amused by getting a young man. As for what you feel about the young man himself, well!—I suppose that's a tune played half a yard to the right of the keyboard of an ordinary girl's capacity. You're keen for Life; you've got what men call 'a thirst you couldn't buy.' Wish I were like that!"
"Well, but it's so easy to be," argued Gwenna, "when you do meet some one so wonderful——"
"It's not so easy to see 'wonder,' let me tell you. ”

“ Clearer to Gwenna's inner eyes than the larch green and slate purple of her familiar valley had been the colours of a secret picture; herself in a pink summer frock (always a summer frock, regardless of time, season or place) being proposed to by a blonde youth with eyes as blue as lupins....
Mocking Leslie was urging her, again in the old lady's tone, to "wait until Mr. Right came along. Jewelled [Pg 30] phrase! Such an old world fragrance about it; moth powder, I suppose. Yet we know what it means, and they didn't. We know it isn't just anybody in trousers that would be Mr. Right. ”

“ As for Gwenna, she bloomed under it, gaining also in poise. She learned to take a compliment as if it were an offered flower, instead of dodging it like a brick-bat, which is the very young girl's failing. She found that even if receiving a compliment from the wrong man is like wearing a right-hand glove on the left hand, it is better than having no gloves. (Especially it is better than looking as if one had no gloves.) [Pg 196]
The attentions of young Ryan, his comment on a new summer frock, the rose laid by him on her desk in the morning ”

“ Ryan blushed richly. Probably he did so not on this somebody's account, but because it was Gwenna who asked the question. One does not care for the sympathetic questions of the late idol, even when another fills the shrine. He told Gwenna: "I've got to go with your husband as a passenger. He's had a wire to bring another man over to one of the repairing bases ”

“ They could also go to colleges and pass men's exams. Lots did. But (thought Gwenna) not many of them could get through the day's work of Mr. Ryan, who had also been at Oxford, and who not only had forearms that made her own look like ivory toys, but who could plan out his work so that if he said that that squat, ponderous case would "stop exactly there"—stop there it would. She watched; the breeze rollicking in her curls, spreading the folds of her grey-blue [Pg 199] pinafore out behind her like a sail, moulding her skirt to her rounded shape as she stood. ”

“ Her softly-modulated voice had a trace of Welsh accent as she added, "I'm paying for this, indeed!"
"No, you aren't, then, Gwenna Williams!" protested the girl in pink (whose accent was Higher Cockney) . "We were all to pay for ourselves!"
"Yes; but wasn't it me that made you come into the half-crown places because I was so keen to see a flying-machine close?... I'll pay the difference then, if you must make a fuss. We'll settle up at the office on Monday," said the girl who had been addressed as Gwenna Williams. ”

“ The chintz of the casement-curtains showed flowering sprays on which parrots perched; there was a patchwork quilt on the oaken bed.
Gwenna had come up early; it was only nine o'clock. So, having undressed and got into her soft white ruffled night-gown and her kimono of pink cotton-crêpe, she proceeded to indulge in one of those "bedroom potterings" so dear to girlhood's heart. ”

“ She held it motionless a little away from her darning. There was a flash [Pg 112] in the sunlight and a sharp little "click" as the needle flew up and clung to the magnet.
"D'you see, Turtle-dove?"
"Yes; but that isn't what you seemed to be talking about just now," objected Gwenna. "You seemed to think that a girl needn't mind 'doing' something about it. Letting a person see that she liked him."
"That isn't 'doing.' A girl can get in such a lot of useful execution—excuse my calling spade work spade work—all the time she is going on being as passive as—as that magnet," pronounced the mentor. ”