The Zeppelin's Passenger - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best way to read ebooks TXT) 📗
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“It’s that indoor work I couldn’t stick, old thing,” he confided. “You know, they’re saying all the time it’s a young man’s war. They’d make me take some one’s place at home behind a desk.”=20
“But even if they did,” she protested, “even if they put you in a coal cellar, wouldn’t you be happier to feel that you were helping your country? Wouldn’t you be glad to know that I was happier?”
Sir Henry made a wry face.
“It seems to me that your outlook is a trifle superficial, dear,” he grumbled. “However - now what the dickens is the matter?”
The door had been opened by Mills, with his usual smoothness, but Jimmy Dumble, out of breath and excited, pushed his way into the room.
“Hullo? What is it, Jimmy?” his patron demanded.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” was the almost incoherent reply. “I’ve run all the way up, and there’s a rare wind blowing. There’s one of our - our trawlers lying off the Point, and she’s sent up three green and six yellow balls.”
“Whiting, by God!” Sir Henry exclaimed.
“Whiting!” Philippa repeated, in agonised disgust. “What does this mean, Henry?”
“It must be a shoal,” her husband explained. “It means that we’ve got to get amongst them quick. Is the Ida down on the beach, Jimmy?”
“She there all right, sir,” was the somewhat doubtful reply, “but us’ll have a rare job to get away, sir. That there nor’easter is blowing great guns again and it’s a cruel tide.”
“We’ve got to get out somehow,” Sir Henry declared. “Mills, my oilskins and flask at once. I sha’n’t change a thing, but you might bring a cardigan jacket and the whisky and soda.”
Mills withdrew, a little dazed. Philippa, whose fingers were clenched together, found her tongue at last.
“Henry!” she exclaimed furiously.
“What is it, my dear?”
“Do you mean to tell me that after your promise,” she continued, “after what you have just said, you are starting out tonight for another fishing expedition?”
“Whiting, my dear,” Sir Henry explained. “One can’t possibly miss whiting. Where the devil are my keys? - Here they are. Now then.”
He sat down before his desk, took some papers from the top drawer, rummaged about for a moment or two in another, and found what seemed to be a couple of charts in oilskin cases. All the time the wind was shaking the windows, and a storm of rain was beating against the panes.
“Help yourself to whisky and soda, Jimmy,” Sir Henry invited, as he buttoned up his coat. “You’ll need it all presently.”
“I thank you kindly, sir,” Jimmy replied. “I am thinking that we’ll both need a drink before we’re through this night.”
He helped himself to a whisky and soda on the generous principle of half and half. Philippa, who was watching her husband’s preparations indignantly, once more found words.
“Henry, you are incorrigible!” she exclaimed. “Listen to me if you please. I insist upon it.”
Sir Henry turned a little impatiently towards her. “Philippa, I really can’t stop now,” he protested. “But you must! You shall!” she cried. “You shall hear this much from me, at any rate, before you go. What I said the other day I repeat a thousandfold now.”
Sir Henry glanced at Dumble and motioned his head towards the door. The fisherman made an awkward exit.
“A thousandfold,” Philippa repeated passionately. “You hear, Henry? I do not consider myself any more your wife. If I am here when you return, it will be simply because I find it convenient. Your conduct is disgraceful and unmanly.”
“My dear girl!” he remonstrated. “I may be back in twenty-four - possibly twelve hours.”
“It is a matter of indifference to me when you return,” was the curt reply. “I have finished.”
The door was thrown open.
“Your oilskins, sir, and flask,” Mills announced, hurrying in, a little breathless. “You’ll forgive my mentioning it, sir, but it scarcely seems a fit night to leave home.”
“Got to be done this once, Mills,” his master replied, struggling into his coat.
The young people from the billiard room suddenly streamed in. Nora, who was still carrying her cue, gazed at her father in amazement.
“Why, where’s Dad going?” she cried.
“It appears,” Philippa explained sarcastically, “that a shoal of whiting has arrived.”
“Very uncertain fish, whiting,” Sir Henry observed, “here to-day and gone tomorrow.”
“You won’t find it too easy getting off tonight, sir,” Harrison remarked doubtfully.
“Jimmy will see to that,” was the confident reply. “I expect we shall be amongst them at daybreak. Good-by, everybody! Good-by, Philippa!”
His eyes sought his wife’s in vain. She had turned towards Lessingham.
“You are not hurrying off, are you, Mr. Lessingham?” she asked. “I want you to show me that new Patience.”
“I shall be delighted.”
Sir Henry turned slowly away. For a moment his face darkened as his eyes met Lessingham’s. He seemed about to speak but changed his mind.
“Well, good-by, every one,” he called out. “I shall be back before midnight if we don’t get out.”
“And if you do?” Nora cried.
“If we do, Heaven help the whiting!”
“Of course, we’re behaving shockingly, all three of us!” Philippa declared, as she sipped her champagne and leaned back in her seat.
“You mean by coming to a place like this?” Lessingham queried, looking around the crowded restaurant. “We are not, in that case, the only sinners.”
“I didn’t mean the mere fact of being here,” Philippa explained, “but being here with you.”
“I forgot,” he said gloomily, “that I was such a black sheep.”
“Don’t be silly,” she admonished. “You’re nothing of the sort. But, of course, we are skating on rather thin ice. If I had Henry to consider in any way, if he had any sort of a career, perhaps I should be more careful. As it is, I think I feel a little reckless lately. Dreymarsh has got upon my nerves. The things that I thought most of in life seem to have crumbled away.”
“Ought I to be sorry?” he asked. “I am not.”
“But why are you so unsympathetic?”
“Because I am waiting by your side to rebuild,” he whispered.
A tall, bronzed young soldier with his arm in a sling, stopped before their table, and Helen, after a moment’s protest and a glance at Philippa, moved away with him to the little space reserved for the dancers.
“What a chaperon I am!” Philippa sighed. “I scarcely know anything about the young man except his name and that he was in Dick’s regiment.”
“I did not hear it,” Lessingham observed, “but I feel deeply grateful to him. It is so seldom that I have a chance to talk to you alone like this.”
“It seems incredible that we have talked so long,” Philippa said, glancing at the watch upon her wrist. “I really feel now that I know all about you - your school days, your college days, and your soldiering. You have been very frank, haven’t you?”
“I have nothing to conceal - from you,” he replied. “If there is anything more you want to know - “
“There is nothing,” she interrupted uneasily.
“Perhaps you are wise,” he reflected, “and yet some day, you know, you will have to hear it all, over and over again.”
“I will not be made love to in a restaurant,” she declared firmly.
“You are so particular as to localities,” he complained. “You could not see your way clear, I suppose, to suggest what you would consider a suitable environment? =20
Philippa looked at him for a moment very earnestly.
“Ah, don’t let us play at things we neither of us feel!” she begged. “And there is some one there who wants to speak to you.”
Lessingham looked up into the face of the man who had paused before their table, as one might look into the face of unexpected death. He remained perfectly still, but the slight colour seemed slowly to be drawn from his cheeks. Yet the newcomer himself seemed in no way terrifying. He was tall and largely built, clean-shaven, and with the humourous mouth of an Irishman or an American. Neither was there anything threatening in his speech.
“Glad to run up against you, Lessingham,” he said, holding out his hand. “Gay crowd here tonight, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Lessingham answered, speaking very much like a man in a dream. “Lady Cranston, will you permit me to introduce my friend - Mr. Hayter.”
Philippa was immediately gracious, and a few moments passed in trivial conversation. Then Mr. Hayter prepared to depart.
“I must be joining my friends,” he observed. “Look in and see me sometime, Lessingham - Number 72, Milan Court. You know what a nightbird I am. Perhaps you will call and have a final drink with me when you have finished here.”
“I shall be very glad,” Lessingham promised.
Mr. Hayter passed on, a man, apparently, of many acquaintances, to judge by his interrupted progress. Lady Cranston looked at her companion. She was puzzled.
“Is that a recent acquaintance,” she asked, “as he addressed you by the name of Lessingham?”
“Yes,” was the quiet reply.
“You don’t wish to talk about him?”
“No!”
Helen and her partner returned, a few moments later, and the little party presently broke up. Lessingham drove the two women to their hotel in Dover Street.
“We’ve had a most delightful evening,” Philippa assured him, as they said good night. “You are coming round to see us in the morning, aren’t you?”
“If I may,” Lessingham assented.
Helen found her way into Philippa’s room, later on that night. She had nerved herself for a very thankless task.
“May I sit down for a few moments?” she asked, a little nervously. “Your fire is so much better than mine.”
Philippa glanced at her friend through the looking-glass before which she was brushing her hair, and made a little grimace. She felt a forewarning of what was coming.
“Of course, dear,” she replied. “Have you enjoyed your evening?”
“Very much, in a way,” was the somewhat hesitating reply. “Of course, nothing really counts until Dick comes back, but it is nice to talk with some one who knows him.”
“Agreeable conversation,” Philippa remarked didactically, “is one of the greatest pleasures in life.”
“You find Mr. Lessingham very interesting, don’t you?” Helen asked.
Philippa finished arranging her hair to her satisfaction and drew up an easy-chair opposite her visitor’s.
“So you want to talk with me about Mr. Lessingham, do you?”
“I suppose you know that he’s in love with you? Helen began.
“I hope he is a little, my dear,” was the smiling reply. “I’m sure I’ve tried my best.”
“Won’t you talk seriously?” Helen pleaded.
“I don’t altogether see the necessity,” Philippa protested.
“I do, and I’ll tell you why,” Helen answered. “I don’t think Mr. Lessingham is at all the type of man to which you are accustomed. I think that he is in deadly earnest about you. I think that he was in deadly earnest from the first. You don’t really care for him, do you, dear?”
“Very much, and yet not, perhaps, quite in the way you are thinking of,” was the quiet reply.
“Then please send him away,” Helen begged.
“My dear, how can I?” Philippa objected. “He has done us an immense service, and he can’t disobey his orders.”
“You don’t want him to go away, then?”
Philippa was silent for several moments. “No,” she admitted, “I don’t think that I do.”
“You don’t care for Henry any more?”
“Just as much as ever,” was the somewhat bitter reply. “That’s what I resent so much. I should like Henry to believe that he had killed every spark of love in me.”
Helen moved across and sat on the arm of her friend’s chair. She
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