Part 12

"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 _menage_ 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 L10,000 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.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*THE EVE OF THE GREAT ATTEMPT*

The reporters, who arrived from London shortly after midday, were astonished to hear that Benny knew little of the excitement which his entry for the great prize had occasioned in London.

Some of them had written very pleasantly of this unknown aspirant; others had been severely derisive, a fact they overlooked when they called at the chalet later on and took out their note-books as a matter of course.

He, good man, had but a dim understanding of later-day journalism, and these attentions overwhelmed him. Some of his replies were quite unconventional. They asked him where he was educated, and he answered "anywhere." An interrogation concerning his favourite pursuits obtained the response "doing nothing." Generally, he said that if the engine kept going, he would win the money; but that if the engine stopped, he would not win it, and this was written down as an item of great importance, and cabled to London for the next day's issue.

Now all this had carried the man into a new world, and so swiftly that it seemed but yesterday he was a plodder in a dull workshop, without prospects and unknown. He had dreamed of fame, but not of this kind of fame, which came to him, note-book in hand, and desired to hear whether he flew on whisky or cold water. The world he would conquer was a shadow world; the great vague universe, wherein so many ambitions are interred. To be a newspaper hero was well enough, but he reflected a little sadly that even an acrobat may be that. He wondered already if he would find the fruits of success to be bitter; and this speculation set him thinking of Lily Delayne. Did he owe it to her indifference that flight to-morrow was possible? In truth, he believed that he did.

Brother Jack, upon the other hand, welcomed the reporters with real cordiality. He delighted to talk of his clever brother; to tell them impossible anecdotes of Benny's youth, and to insist that he himself had always known he was a genius. Jack spent a long afternoon in this employment, and when he varied it, his activities carried him up to the plateau whence the start was to be made, and back again to the shed wherein the machine was housed. What hours of strenuous labour it stood for; how they had worked to get everything ready! And now their work was done. Not a wire that had not been overhauled; not a stay which had not been tested.

Of those who had come from England to witness the great attempt, Sir John Perinder, the proprietor of the _Daily Recorder_, was the most eminent. A well-built, clear-eyed man, his manner was volatile to a ridiculous extent, and had earned for him the title of the greatest hustler in the universe. Naturally he asked Benny to dinner at the Palace, and with him Brother Jack and the Abbe Villari, of whom he heard with much interest. These had been but a little while at the table when they discovered that their host knew a great deal about aviation, and had the clearest perceptions as to the future of flying. At the same time he did not deceive himself by any of those futile prophecies in which unthinking men delight.

"You fellows are about to give us a new sport," he said bluntly, "young men will fly because they are tired of motoring. There will be a fine trade with the war-offices of Europe, but the rest I don't see. None of us now living will take aeroplanes where we now take cabs. That's foolish talk; the world will prefer _terra firma_ to the air, just as it prefers _terra firma_ to the sea. Do you think I would go to America on a ship if I could travel in a train? You know that I wouldn't. And so with your airships, good enough for their own purposes, but limited by the factor of personal courage. Why, I wouldn't go up in one for a thousand, and I'll warrant Monsieur l'Abbe here wouldn't go up for two."

Here, however, he met a tough adversary. The abbe had followed the movement with interest from the beginning. He had even built a machine of his own, and purposed to show it at Rome in the spring of the year. His optimism baffled the blunt baronet, who brushed it aside with a jest, and went on to speak of to-morrow's flight.

"If you win," he said to Benny, "you'll do the greatest thing ever done by man. I've been a climber for twenty years, and never did I think that a man would look down on what I've looked up to with awe. You'll do that to-morrow if you succeed. You're going to see the Alps as no man has ever seen them since the world dropped out of the sun. That's something to sleep on, Mr. Benson; it's something to take with you on your journey. I'd give ten thousand pounds to see it myself--twenty thousand for the courage which would let me do what you are going to do. It's a safe offer. There isn't a greater coward living where a height is concerned, and yet I climb mountains. Explain that if you can."

Benny would have explained it if he had been given half a chance, but he had hardly opened his mouth when the baronet was off again, saying how the affair must be "boomed" in this or the other way; the reports which must be given of it; the particular points which the aviator must note during his voyage. He declared that the public liked sensation, but must have it first hand nowadays. The man who has seen another man eaten by a lion in Africa is of no use--he must be eaten himself. Few mechanical minds were capable of conveying mechanical sensations, and that was the difficulty. He hoped that Benny would prove the exception to the rule, and give them a story for their money. Commercialism intruded when he added that no other paper in Europe would have put up such a sum, and that he relied upon Benny not to let him down. This the inventor modestly offered not to do if he could help it. "We ride in the same boat," he explained, and added, in imitation of Douglas Jerrold, "but we use different sculls."

The party was gay enough, and broke up early. The bright light which beat suddenly upon this quite modest throne somewhat alarmed Benny, and set him hungering for the solitude of the chalet. He had left gendarmes in charge of his machine, but he was anxious none the less; and upon that was all the fulsome adulation now lavished upon him by good-natured folk who had just discovered his existence.

He could detect a change everywhere, a new respect paid to him, and a desire to be seen in his company. Even such athletic aristocrats as Keith Rivers patronised him no longer; while it began to be plain that he had lighted a candle which failure alone would put out. That was the rub which must be present in his reckoning. It would be a mighty humiliation to fail before the thousands who were coming to Andana to see him start. He knew that there would be thousands, for the hotel people said as much; and when he managed to escape his host and to steal as a fugitive from the Palace, the night bore witness to the truth of such prophecies.

Surely such a spectacle had never been seen in this place before. Scores of great arc lamps illuminated the scene. Workmen from Sierre, from Martigny, and from Lausanne were busy erecting shelters for the people and building barriers. Sleighs came up the mountain-side, so many that he wondered whence they had been conjured up. Averse to all such trappings of spectacle himself, he guessed that Sir John Perinder had contrived this aspect of tournament, and had set the lists that the _Daily Recorder_ might be glorified. He imagined that the affair had been largely advertised both in Switzerland and in Italy, and this was the case. All joined willingly in such an emprise; the hotel-keepers to begin with, then the railway companies. Excursions were to be run from Milan, from Geneva, even from Paris. The flight across the Alps appealed to the imagination of all.

Benny had a great deal of courage, but this new aspect of life filled him with dread. At the same time it was not unattended by a certain pride which spoke of many emotions. He realised that he had yet to earn the homage now paid to him. After all, he was but a tyro in achievement, and the world had taken him at his own estimate. If he failed to succeed, he would be forgotten in three days, and no one would listen to him afterwards. This he remembered as he took his way up the mountain-side toward his own chalet. He might be leaving Switzerland a broken man to-morrow, and the contempt of the multitude would attend him. Vain to accomplish in secret that which he had promised to do in public. The world is credulous where the inventor is concerned and seldom gives him a second chance.

He wondered if all were really as well as Brother Jack and the abbe believed it to be. They had done wonders during those long days, worked heroically, and with true devotion. He himself had set them no mean example when he had discovered a woman's indifference and the true meaning of her lightly-spoken words. Why should he think of her? What part had she to play in the story of his life? His very friendship might be misconstrued, and he resolved to terminate it so soon as his self-invited obligation had been fulfilled. For the moment she was alone and without a friend--this great lady who was of a world apart, whom he had worshipped in secret as his own type of true womanhood. He remembered the day when he had first seen her at Holmswell, her gentle bearing, her sweet courtesy. What right had he to expect her interest? Reason answered, none.

He was approaching her chalet at this time, and perceived that a light shone from the window of her sitting-room. When he drew a little nearer, he discerned Lily herself, dressed in a gown of white lace, and seated at the writing-table by the window. She was not writing, however, and her profound reverie appeared to be unbroken by any knowledge of the stir without. In such an attitude there were aspects of her beauty he had yet to mark, a grace of pose and bearing as inimitable by the divinities of his own world as they were inherent in hers. Benny stood a long while, as though a single step would warn her and shut the vision from his sight. He would have wanted words to convey his impressions, and would have contented himself, perhaps, by the one word "queenly." She was born to reign, this mistress of a heritage of woe; life had dealt hardly with her when it shut her from her kingdom.

Men rarely confess to their most secret thought, even in the confessional of the intimate hours. Benny would have been ashamed to tell his oldest friend that he had dwelt for an instant there, at the gate of the chalet, in a shadowland of dreams, and that it had shown him this gracious lady as his wife. His destiny linked to hers, imagination led him to the high places of the world. He shared her kingdom in his thoughts, and wore the armour of a chivalry as true as any in the human story. Recreated by the dream, he struck off the shackles of birth and obliterated the scars of a mean heritage. For such a woman, a man could give life itself, he thought; for her there would be no sacrifice from which the mind would shrink. Nor could calamity cast down this idol from its pedestal. He worshipped more surely because she no longer commanded worship as a right. The world's contempt would dower her anew in his eyes, would give him a title which otherwise he had not possessed.