Read Ebook: Everyman's Land by Williamson A M Alice Muriel Williamson C N Charles Norris

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Ebook has 1000 lines and 102196 words, and 20 pages

"Tragic Romance of Millionaire's Family," I read. "James W. Beckett brings his wife to France and Reads Newspaper Notice of Only Son's Death."

This was the double-line, big-lettered heading of a half column on the front page; and it brought to my mind a picture. I saw a group of nurses gazing over each other's shoulders at a blue cheque. It was a cheque for six thousand francs, signed in a clear, strong hand, "James W. Beckett, Junior."

So he was dead, that generous boy, to whom our hearts had gone out in gratitude! It could not be very long since he had finished his training at St. Raphael and begun work at the front. What a waste of splendid material it seemed, that he should have been swept away so soon!

I read on, and from my own misery I had an extra pang to spare for James Beckett, Senior, and his wife.

Someone had contrived to tear a fragmentary interview from the "bereaved railway magnate," as he was called in the potted phrase of the journalist. Apparently the poor, trapped man had been too soft-hearted or too dazed with grief to put up a forceful resistance, and the reporter had been quick to seize his advantage.

He had learned that Mr. and Mrs. James W. Beckett, Senior, had nearly died of homesickness for their son. They had thought of "running across to surprise Jimmy." And then a letter had come from him saying that in a fortnight his training would be over. He was to be granted eight days' leave, which he didn't particularly want, since he couldn't spend it with them; and immediately after he would go to the front.

The interviewer went on, upon his own account, to praise "Jimmy" Beckett. He described him as a young man of twenty-seven, "of singularly engaging manner and handsome appearance; a graduate with high honours from Harvard, an all-round sportsman and popular with a large circle of friends, but fortunately leaving neither a wife nor a fianc?e behind him in America." The newly qualified aviator had, indeed, fallen in his first battle: but according to the writer it had been a battle of astonishing glory for a beginner. Single-handed he had engaged four enemy machines, manoeuvring his own little Nieuport in a way to excite the highest admiration and even surprise in all spectators. Two out of the four German 'planes he had brought down over the French lines; and was in chase of the third, flying low above the German trenches, when two new Fokkers appeared on the scene and attacked him. His plane crashed to earth in flames, and a short time after, prisoners had brought news of his death.

"Mr. and Mrs. James W. Beckett will have the sympathy of all Europe as well as their native land, in these tragic circumstances," the journalist ended his story with a final flourish. "If such grief could be assuaged, pride in the gallant death of their gallant son might be a panacea."

I never mentioned my one-day romance to anybody. Only very silly, sentimental girls would put such an episode into words, and flatter themselves by calling it a romance. But now that you and Jimmy Beckett have both given your lives for the great cause, and are in the same mysterious Beyond while I'm still down here at Crucifix Corner, I can tell you the story. If you and he meet, it may make it easier for him to forgive me the thing I have done.

When Brian and I were having that great summer holiday of ours, the year before the war--one day we were in a delicious village near a cathedral town on the Belgian border. A piece of luck had fallen in our way, like a ripe apple tumbling off a tree. A rich Parisian and his wife came motoring along, and stopped out of sheer curiosity to look at a picture Brian was painting, under a white umbrella near the roadside. I was not with him. I think I must have been in the garden of our quaint old hotel by the canal side, writing letters--probably one to you; but the couple took such a fancy to Brian's "impression," that they offered to buy it. The bargain was struck, there and then. Two days later arrived a telegram from Paris asking for another picture to "match" the first at the same price. I advised Brian to choose out two or three sketches for the people to select from, and carry them to Paris himself, rather than trust the post. He went; and it was on the one day of his absence that my romance happened.

Ours was a friendly little hotel, with a darling landlady, who was almost as much interested in Brian and me as if she'd been our foster-mother. The morning after Brian left, she came waddling out to the adorable, earwiggy, rose-covered summer-house that I'd annexed as a private sitting room. "Mademoiselle," she breathlessly announced, "there is a young millionaire of a monsieur Anglais or Am?ricain just arrived. What a pity he should be wasted because Monsieur your brother has gone! I am sure if he could but see one of the exquisite pictures he would wish to buy all!"

"How do you know that the monsieur is a millionaire, and what makes you think he would care about pictures?" I enquired.

"I know he is a millionaire because he has come in one of those grand automobiles which only millionaires ever have. And I think he cares for pictures because the first thing he did when he came into the hall was to stare at the old prints on the wall. He praised the two best which the real artists always praise, and complimented me on owning them" the dear creature explained. "Besides, he is in this neighbourhood expressly to see the cathedral; and monsieur your brother has made a most beautiful sketch of the cathedral. It is now in his portfolio. Is there nothing we can do? I have already induced the monsieur to drink a glass of milk while I have come to consult Mademoiselle."

I thought hard for a minute, because it would be grand if I could say when Brian came back, "I have sold your cathedral for you." But I might have saved myself brain fag. Madame Mounet had settled everything in her head, and was merely playing me, like a foolish fish.

Mademoiselle said "Yes--yes!" to her part of the programme. But what of the millionaire monsieur? Would he not balk? Would he not refuse to be bothered?

In fifteen minutes the exhibition was ready in the showroom of the hotel, the yellow salon which had been occupied as a bedchamber one night by the Empress Eug?nie, and was always kept locked except on gala occasions. I, not knowing how I had been over-praised to the audience, was also ready, quivering with the haste I had made in pinning up the pictures and opening the musty, close room to the air. Then came in a young man.

I begin to talk, to shake off an odd embarrassment.

"Madame Mounet tells me you want to see my brother's pictures," I say. "Here are a few sketches. He has taken all the rest worth looking at to Paris."

We talk and talk--mostly of France, and our travels, and pictures and books we love; but our eyes speak of other things. I feel that his are saying, "You are beautiful!" Mine answer, "I'm glad you think that. Why do you seem so different to me from other people?" Then suddenly, there's a look too long between us. "I wish my brother were here to explain his pictures!" I cry; though I don't wish it at all. It is only that I must break the silence.

This brings us back to the business in hand. He says, "May I really buy one of these sketches?"

"Sure!" he answers. And I never heard that word sound so nice, even in my own dear Ireland.

When the matter is settled, an odd look passes over his face. I wonder if he has changed his mind, and doesn't know how to tell me his trouble. Something is worrying him; that is clear. Just as I'm ready to make things easy, with a question, he laughs.

"You don't do your tramping on foot?"

"Then at that rate you won't have got far in fifteen days. I know the direction you've come from by what you've told me, and your brother's sketches. You wouldn't be here on the border of Belgium if you didn't mean to cross the frontier."

"Oh, we shall cross it, of course. But where we shall go when we get across is another question."

"I'll find the answer, and I'll find you," he flings at me with a smile of defiance.

"Why should you give yourself trouble?"

"To--see some more of your brother's pictures," he says gravely. I know that he wishes to see me, not the pictures, and he knows that I know; but I let it go at that.

"You mean in a fortnight?" I ask. "Probably we shan't be here."

"I mean this evening."

"You certainly must not! I won't dine with you to-night if you do."

"Will you if I don't?"

"Perhaps."

"Then I'll order the dinner before I start for the cathedral. I want it to be a perfect one."

"But--I've said only perhaps."

"Don't you want to pour a little honest gold into poor old Madame Mounet's pocket?"

"Ye-es."

"If so, you mustn't chase away her customers."

"For her sake, the dinner is a bargain!"

"Not the least bit for my sake?"

The little inn on the canal-side buzzes with excitement. Not within the memory of man or woman has there been so important a client as Mr. Jim Wyndham. Most motoring millionaires dash by in a cloud of dust to the cathedral town, where a smart modern hotel has been run up to cater for tourists. This magnificent Monsieur Am?ricain engages the "suite of the Empress Eug?nie," as it grandly advertises itself, for his own use and that of his chauffeur, merely to bathe in, and rest in, though they are not to stay the night. And the dinner ordered will enable Madame to show what she can do, a chance she rarely gets from cheeseparing customers, like Brian and me, and others of our ilk.

I am determined not to betray my childish eagerness by being first at the rendezvous. I keep to my hot room, until I spy a tall young figure of a man in evening dress striding toward the arbour. To see this sight, I have to be at my window; but I hide behind a white curtain and a screen of wistaria and roses. I count sixty before I go down. I walk slowly. I stop and examine flowers in the garden. I could catch a wonderful gold butterfly, but perhaps it is as happy as I am. I wouldn't take its life for anything on earth! As I watch it flutter away, my host comes out of the arbour to meet me.

"I won't take it!" I laugh.

"Wait till you see it, before you make sure."

"I'm not even sure yet of seeing you," I remind him.

"You may be sure if I'm alive. I shall scour the country for miles around to find you. I shall succeed--unless I'm dead."

All this time he had been holding my hand, while I have pretended to be unconscious of the fact. Suddenly I seem to remember, and reluctantly he lets my fingers slip through his.

Just so I have kept it for more than three years; for we never met again. And now that I've seen the photograph of Jimmy Beckett, I know that we never shall meet.

Why he did not find us when the fortnight of his bet was over I can't imagine. It seems that, if he tried, he must have come upon our tracks, for we travelled scarcely more than twenty miles in the two weeks. Perhaps he changed his mind, and did not try. Perhaps he feared that my "romantic beauty" might lose its romance, when seen for the second time. Something like this must be the explanation; and I confess to you, Padre, that the failure of the prince to keep our tryst was the biggest disappointment and the sharpest humiliation of my life. It took most of the conceit out of me, and since then I've never been vain of my alleged "looks" or "charm" for more than two minutes on end. I've invariably said to myself, "Remember Jim Wyndham, and how he didn't think you worth the bother of coming back to see."

Now you know why I can't describe the effect upon my mind of learning that Jim Wyndham, the hero of my one-day romance, and Jimmy Beckett, the dead American aviator, were one.

There could be no chance of mistake. The photograph was a very good likeness.

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