Wild Wings by Margaret Rebecca Piper

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He had laughed indulgently and declared as the rings and the pearls too
for that matter were in his possession in the safe deposit box he should
worry. He also told her to go ahead and be as "princessy" as she liked.
He would take the risk. Whereupon he placed a generous sum of money at
her account in a Boston bank and sent her away with his blessing and an
amused smile at the femininity of females. And Ruth had gone and played
princess to her heart's content. But there was little enough of heart's
content in any of it for poor Larry. Day by day it seemed to him he could
see his fairy girl slipping away from him. Ruth was a great lady and
heiress. Who was Larry Holiday to take advantage of the fact that
circumstances had almost thrown her into his willing arms?

Moreover the information afforded as to Roderick Farringdon had put a new
idea into his head. Roderick was reported "missing." Was it not possible
that Geoffrey Annersley might be in the same category? Missing men
sometimes stayed missing in war time but sometimes also they returned as
from the dead from enemy prisons or long illnesses. What if this should
be the case with the man who was presumably Ruth's husband? Certainly it
put out of the question, if there ever had been a question in Larry's
mind, his own right to marry the girl he loved until they knew absolutely
that the way was clear.

Considering these things it was not strange that the new year found Larry
Holiday in heavy mood, morose, silent, curt and unresponsive even to his
uncle, inclined at times to snap even at his beloved little Goldilocks
whose shining new happiness exasperated him because he could not share
it. Of course he repented in sack cloth and ashes afterward, but
repentance did not prevent other offenses and altogether the young doctor
was ill to live with during those harrassed January days.

It was not only Ruth. Larry could not take Ted's going with the quiet
fortitude with which his uncle met it. Those early weeks of nineteen
hundred and seventeen were black ones for many. The grim Moloch War
demanded more and ever more victims. Thousands of gay, brave, high
spirited lads like Ted were mown down daily by shrapnel and machine gun
or sent twisted and writhing to still more hideous death in the
unspeakable horror of noxious gases. It was all so unnecessary--so
senseless. Larry Holiday whose life was dedicated to the healing and
saving of men's bodies hated with bitter hate this opposing force which
was all for destruction and which held the groaning world in its
relentless grip. It would not have been so bad he thought if the Moloch
would have been content to take merely the old, the life weary, the
diseased, the vile. Not so. It demanded the young, the strong, the clean
and gallant hearted, took their bodies, maimed and tortured them, killed
them sooner or later, hurled them undiscriminatingly into the bottomless
pit of death.

To Larry it all came back to Ted. Ted was the embodiment, the symbol of
the rest. He was the young, the strong, the clean and gallant
hearted--the youth of the world, a vain sacrifice to the cruel blindness
of a so called civilization which would not learn the futility of war and
all the ways of war.

So while Ruth bought pretty clothes and basked in happy anticipations
which for her took the place of memories, poor Larry walked in dark
places and saw no single ray of light.

One afternoon he was summoned to the telephone to receive the word that
there was a telegram for him at the office. It was Dunbury's informal
habit to telephone messages of this sort to the recipient instead of
delivering them in person. Larry took the repeated word in silence. A
question evidently followed from the other end.

"Yes, I got it," Larry snapped back and threw the receiver back in place
with vicious energy. His uncle who had happened to be near looked up to
ask a question but the young doctor was already out of the room leaving
only the slam of the door in his wake. A few moments later the older man
saw the younger start off down the Hill in the car at a speed which was
not unlike Ted's at his worst before the smash on the Florence road.
Evidently Larry was on the war path. Why?

The afternoon wore on. Larry did not return. His uncle began to be
seriously disturbed. A patient with whom the junior doctor had had an
appointment came and waited and finally went away somewhat indignant in
spite of all efforts to soothe her not unnatural wrath. Worse and
worse! Larry never failed his appointments, met every obligation
invariably as punctiliously as if for professional purposes he was
operated by clock work.

At supper time Phil Lambert dropped in with the wire which had already
been reported to Larry and which the company with the same informality
already mentioned had asked him to deliver. Doctor Holiday was tempted to
read it but refrained. Surely the boy would be home soon.

The evening meal was rather a silent one. Ruth was wearing a charming
dark blue velvet gown which Larry especially liked. The doctor guessed
that she had dressed particularly for her lover and was sadly
disappointed when he failed to put in his appearance. She drooped
perceptibly and her blue eyes were wistful.

An hour later when the three, Margery, her husband, and Ruth, were
sitting quietly engaged in reading in the living room they heard the
sound of the returning car. All three were distinctly conscious of an
involuntary breath of relief which permeated the room. Nobody had said a
word but every one of them had been filled with foreboding.

Presently Larry entered with the yellow envelope in his hand. He was pale
and very tired looking but obviously entirely in command of himself
whatever had been the case earlier in the day. He crossed the room to
where his uncle sat and handed him the telegram.

"Please read it aloud," he said. "It--it concerns all of us."

The older doctor complied with the request.

_Arrive Dunbury January 18 nine forty_ A.M. So ran the brief though
pregnant message. It was signed _Captain Geoffrey Annersley_.

The color went out of Ruth's face as she heard the name. She put her
hands over her eyes and uttered a little moan. Then abruptly she dropped
her hands, the color came surging back into her cheeks and she ran to
Larry, fairly throwing herself into his arms.

"I don't want to see him. Don't let him come. I hate him. I don't want to
be Elinor Farringdon. I want to be just Ruth--Ruth Holiday," she
whispered the last in Larry's ear, her head on his shoulder.

Larry kissed her for the first time before the others, then meeting his
uncle's grave eyes he put her gently from him and walked over to the
door. On the threshold he turned and faced them all.

"Uncle Phil--Aunt Margery, help Ruth. I can't." And the door
closed upon him.

Philip and Margery did their best to obey his parting injunction but it
was not an easy task. Ruth was possessed by a very panic of dread of
Geoffrey Annersley and an even more difficult to deal with flood of love
for Larry Holiday.

"I don't want anybody but Larry," she wailed over and over. "It is Larry
I love. I don't love Geoffrey Annersley. I won't let him be my husband. I
don't want anybody but Larry."

In vain they tried to comfort her, entreat her to wait until to-morrow
before she gave up. Perhaps Geoffrey Annersley wasn't her husband.
Perhaps everything was quite all right. She must try to have patience and
not let herself get sick worrying in advance.

"He _is_ my husband," she suddenly announced with startling conviction.
"I remember his putting the ring on my finger. I remember his saying
'You've got to wear it. It is the only thing to do. You must.' I remember
what he looks like--almost. He is tall and he has a scar on his cheek
--here." She patted her own face feverishly to show the spot. "He made me
wear the ring and I didn't want to. I didn't want to. Oh, don't let me
remember. Don't let me," she implored.

At this point the doctor took things in his own hands. The child was
obviously beginning to remember. The shock of the man's coming had
snapped something in her brain. They must not let things come back
too disastrously fast. He packed her off to bed with a stiff dose of
nerve quieting medicine. Margery sat with her arms tight around the
forlorn little sufferer and presently the dreary sobbing ceased and
the girl drifted off to exhausted sleep, nature's kindest panacea for
all human ills.

Meanwhile the doctor sought out Larry. He found him in the office
apparently completely absorbed in the perusal of a medical magazine. He
looked up quickly as the older man entered and answered the question in
his eyes giving assurance that Ruth was quite all right, would soon be
asleep if she was not already. He made no mention of that disconcerting
flash of memory. Sufficient unto the day was the trouble thereof.

He came over and laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Keep up heart a little longer," he said. "By tomorrow you will
know where you stand and that will be something, no matter which
way it turns."

"I should say it would," groaned Larry. "I'm sick of being in a
labyrinth. Even the worst can't be much worse than not knowing. You don't
know how tough it has been, Uncle Phil."

"I can make a fairly good guess at it, my boy. I've seen and understood
more than you realize perhaps. You have put up a magnificent fight, son.
And you are the boy who once told me he was a coward."

"I am afraid I still am, Uncle Phil,--sometimes."

"We all are, Larry, cowards in our hearts, but that does not matter so
long as the yellow streak doesn't get into our acts. You have not let
that happen I think."

Larry was silent. He was remembering that night when Ruth had come to
him. He wasn't very proud of the memory. He wondered if his uncle guessed
how near the yellow streak had come to the surface on that occasion.

"I don't deserve as much credit as you are giving me," he said humbly.
"There have been times--at least one time--" He broke off.

"You would have been less than a man if there had not been, Larry. I
understand all that. But on the whole you know and I know that you have a
clean slate to show. Don't let yourself get morbid worrying about things
you might have done and didn't. They don't worry me. They needn't worry
you. Forget it."

"Uncle Phil! You are great the way you always clear away the fogs. But my
clean slate is a great deal thanks to you. I don't know where I would
have landed if you hadn't held me back, not so much by what you said as
what you are. Ted isn't the only one who has learned to appreciate what a
pillar of strength we all have in you. However this comes out I shan't
forget what you did for me, are doing all the time."

"Thank you, Larry. It is good to hear things like that though I think you
underestimate your own strength. I am thankful if I have helped in any
degree. I have felt futile enough. We all have. At any rate the strain is
about over. The telegram must have been a knock down blow though. Where
were you this afternoon?"

"I don't know. I just drove like the devil--anywhere. Did you worry? I am
sorry. Good Lord! I cut my appointment with Mrs. Blake, didn't I? I never
thought of it until this minute. Gee! I am worse than Ted. Used to think
I had some balance but evidently I am a plain nut. I'm disgusted with
myself and I should think you would be more disgusted with me." The boy
looked up at his uncle with eyes that were full of shamed compunction.

But the latter smiled back consolingly.

"Don't worry. There are worse things in the world than cutting an
appointment for good and sufficient reasons. You will get back your
balance when things get normal again. I have no complaint to make anyway.
You have kept up the professional end splendidly until now. What you need
is a good long vacation and I am going to pack you off on one at the
earliest opportunity. Do you want me to meet Captain Annersley for you
tomorrow?" he switched off to ask.

Larry shook his head.

"No, I'll meet him myself, thank you. It is my job. I am not going to
flunk it. If he is Ruth's husband I am going to be the first to shake
hands with him."

CHAPTER XXXIV

IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO

And while things were moving toward their crisis for Larry and Ruth
another drama was progressing more or less swiftly to its conclusion
down in Vera Cruz. Alan Massey had found his cousin in a wretched,
vermin haunted shack, nursed in haphazard fashion by a slovenly,
ignorant half-breed woman under the ostensible professional care of a
mercenary, incompetent, drunken Mexican doctor who cared little enough
whether the dog of an American lived or died so long as he himself
continued to get the generous checks from a certain newspaper in New
York City. The doctor held the credulity of the men who mailed those
checks in fine contempt and proceeded to feather his nest valiantly
while his good luck continued, going on many a glorious spree at the
paper's expense while Dick Carson went down every day deeper into the
valley of the shadow of death.

With the coming of Alan Massey however a new era began. Alan was apt to
leave transformation of one sort or another in his wake. It was not
merely his money magic though he wielded that magnificently as was his
habit and predilection, spent Mexican dollars with a superb disregard of
their value which won from the natives a respect akin to awe and wrought
miracles wherever the golden flow touched. But there was more than money
magic to Alan Massey's performance in Vera Cruz. There was also the
magic of his dominating, magnetic personality. He was a born master and
every one high or low who crossed his path recognized his rightful
ascendency and hastened to obey his royal will.

His first step was to get the sick man transferred from the filthy hovel
in which he found him to clean, comfortable quarters in an ancient adobe
palace, screened, airy, spacious. The second step was to secure the
services of two competent and high priced nurses from Mexico City, one an
American, the other an English woman, both experienced, intrepid,
efficient. The third step taken simultaneously with the other two was to
dismiss the man who masqueraded as a physician though he was nothing in
reality but a cheap charlatan fattening himself at the expense of
weakness and disease. The man had been inclined to make trouble at first
about his unceremonious discharge. He had no mind to lose without a
protest such a convenient source of unearned increment as those checks
represented. He had intended to get in many another good carouse before
the sick man died or got well as nature willed. But a single interview
with Alan Massey sufficed to lay his objections to leaving the case. In
concise and forcible language couched in perfect Spanish Alan had made it
clear that if the so-called doctor came near his victim again he would be
shot down like a dog and if Carson died he would in any case be tried for
man slaughter and hanged on the spot. The last point had been further
punctuated by an expressive gesture on the speaker's part, pointing to
his own throat accompanied by a significant little gurgling sound. The
gesture and the gurgle had been convincing. The man surrendered the case
in some haste. He did not at all care for the style of conversation
indulged in by this tall, unsmiling, green-eyed man. Consequently he
immediately evaporated to all intents and purposes and was seen no more.
The new physician put in charge was a different breed entirely, a man who
had the authentic gift and passion for healing which the born doctor
always possesses, be he Christian or heathen, gypsy herb mixer or ten
thousand dollar specialist. Alan explained to this man precisely what was
required of him, explained in the same forcible, concise, perfect Spanish
that had banished the other so completely. His job was to cure the sick
man. If he succeeded there would be a generous remuneration. If he failed
through no fault of his there would still be fair remuneration though
nothing like what would be his in case of complete recovery. If he failed
through negligence--and here the expressive gesture and the gurgle were
repeated--. The sentence had not needed completion. The matter was
sufficiently elucidated. The man was a born healer as has been recorded
but even if he had not been he would still have felt obliged to move
heaven and earth so far as in him lay to cure Dick Carson. Alan Massey's
manner was persuasive. One did one's best to satisfy a person who spoke
such Spanish and made such ominous gestures. One did as one was
commanded. One dared do no other.

As for the servants whom Alan rallied to his standard they were slaves
rather than servants. They recognized in him their preordained master,
were wax to his hands, mats to his feet. They obeyed his word as
obsequiously, faithfully and unquestioningly as if he could by a clap of
his lordly hands banish them to strange deaths.

They talked in low tones about him among themselves behind his back.
This was no American they said. No American could command as this
green-eyed one commanded. No American had such gift of tongues, such
gestures, such picturesque and varied and awesome oaths. No American
carried small bright flashing daggers such as he carried in his inner
pockets, nor did Americans talk glibly as he talked of weird poisons,
not every day drugs, but marvelous, death dealing concoctions done up in
lustrous jewel-like capsules or diluted in sparkling, insidious gorgeous
hued fluids. The man was too wise--altogether too wise to be an
American. He had traveled much, knew strange secrets. They rather
thought he knew black art. Certainly he knew more of the arts of healing
than the doctor himself. There was nothing he did not know, the
green-eyed one. It was best to obey him.

And while Alan Massey's various arts operated Dick Carson passed through
a series of mental and physical evolutions and came slowly back to
consciousness of what was going on.

At first he was too close to the hinterland to know or care as to what
was happening here, though he did vaguely sense that he had left the
lower levels of Hell and was traversing a milder purgatorial region. He
did not question Alan's presence or recognize him. Alan was at first
simply another of those distrusted foreigners whose point of view and
character he comprehended as little as he did their jibbering tongues.

Gradually however this one man seemed to stand out from the others and
finally took upon himself a name and an entity. By and by, Dick thought,
when he wasn't so infernally-tired as he was just now he would wonder why
Alan Massey was here and would try to recall why he had disliked him so,
some time a million years ago or so. He did not dislike him now. He was
too weak to dislike anybody in any case but he was beginning to connect
Alan vaguely but surely with the superior cleanliness and comfort and
care with which he was now surrounded. He knew now that he had been
sick, very sick and that he was getting better, knew that before long he
would find himself asking questions. Even now his eyes followed Alan
Massey as the latter came and went with an ever more insistent wonderment
though he had not yet the force of will or body to voice that pursuing
question as to why Alan Massey was here apparently taking charge of his
own slow return to health and consciousness.

Meanwhile Alan wired Tony Holiday every day as to his patient's condition
though he wrote not at all and said nothing in his wires of himself.
Letters from Tony were now beginning to arrive, letters full of eager
gratitude and love for Alan and concern for Dick.

And one day Dick's mind got suddenly very clear. He was alone with the
nurse at the time, the sympathetic American one whom he liked better and
was less afraid of than he was of the stolid, inexorable British lady.
And he began to ask questions, many questions and very definite ones. He
knew at last precisely what it was he wanted to know.

He got a good deal of information though by no means all he sought. He
found out that he had been taken desperately ill, that he had been
summarily removed from his lodging place because of the owner's
superstitious dread of contagion into the miserable little thatch
roofed hut in which he had nearly died thanks to the mal-practice of
the rascally, drunken doctor and the ignorant half-breed nurse. He
learned how Alan Massey had suddenly appeared and taken things in his
own hands, discovered that in a nutshell the fact was he owed his life
to the other-man. But why? That was what he had to find out from Alan
Massey himself.

The next day when Alan came in and the nurse went out he asked
his question.

"That is easy," said Alan grimly. "I came on Tony's account."

Dick winced. Of course that was it. Tony had sent Massey. He was here as
her emissary, naturally, no doubt as her accepted lover. It was kind.
Tony was always kind but he wished she had not done it. He did not want
to have his life saved by the man who was going to marry Tony Holiday. He
rather thought he did not want his life saved anyway by anybody. He
wished they hadn't done it.

"I--I am much obliged to you and to Tony," he said a little stiffly. "I
fear it--it was hardly worth the effort." His eyes closed wearily.

"Tony didn't send me though," observed Alan Massey as if he had read the
other's thought. "I sent myself."

Dick's eyes opened.

"That is odd if it is true," he said slowly.

Alan dropped into a chair near the bed.

"It is odd," he admitted. "But it happens to be true. It came about
simply enough. When Tony heard you were sick she went crazy, swore
she was coming down here in spite of us all to take care of you. Then
Miss Clay's child died and she had to go on the boards. You can
imagine what it meant to her--the two things coming at once. She
played that night--swept everything as you'd know she would--got 'em
all at her feet."

Dick nodded, a faint flash of pleasure in his eyes. Down and out as he
was he could still be glad to hear of Tony's triumph.

"She wanted to come to you," went on Alan. "She let me come instead
because she couldn't. I came for--for her sake."

Dick nodded.

"Naturally--for her sake," he said. "I could hardly have expected you to
come for mine. I would hardly have expected it in any case."

"I would hardly have expected it of myself," acknowledged Alan with a wry
smile. "But I've had rather a jolly time at your expense. I've always
enjoyed working miracles and if you could have seen yourself the way you
were when I got here you would think there was a magic in it somehow."

"I evidently owe you a great deal, Mr. Massey. I am grateful or at least
I presume I shall be later. Just now I feel a little--dumb."

"My dear fellow, nothing would please me better than to have you continue
dumb on that subject. I did this thing as I've done most things in my
life to please myself. I don't want your thanks. I would like a little of
your liking though. You and I are likely to see quite a bit of each other
these next few weeks. Could you manage to forget the past and call a kind
of truce for a while? You have a good deal to forgive me--perhaps more
than you know. If you would be willing to let the little I have done down
here--and mind you I don't want to magnify that part--wipe off the slate
I should be glad. Could you manage it, Carson?"

"It looks as if it hardly could be magnified," said Dick with sudden
heartiness. "I spoke grudgingly just now I am afraid. Please overlook it.
I am more than grateful for all you have done and more than glad to be
friends if you want it. I don't hate you. How could I when you have saved
my life and anyway I never hated you as you used to hate me. I've often
wondered why you did, especially at first before you knew how much I
cared for Tony. And even that shouldn't have made you hate me
because--you won."

"Never mind why I hated you. I don't any more. Will you shake hands with
me, Carson, so we can begin again?"

Dick pulled himself weakly up on the pillow. Their hands met.

"Hang it, Massey," Dick said. "I am afraid I am going to like you. I've
heard you were hypnotic. I believe on my soul you came down here to make
me like you? Did you?"

But Alan only smiled his ironic, noncommital smile and remarked it was
time for the invalid to take a nap. He had had enough conversation for
the first attempt.

Dick soon drifted off to sleep but Alan Massey prowled the streets of the
Mexican city far into the night, with tireless, driven feet. The demons
were after him again.

And far away in another city whose bright lights glow all night Tony
Holiday was still playing Madge to packed houses, happy in her triumph
but with heart very pitiful for her beloved Miss Clay whose sorrow and
continued illness had made possible the fruition of her own eager hopes.
Tony was sadly lonely without Alan, thought of him far more often and
with deeper affection even than she had while she had him at her beck and
call in the city, loved him with a new kind of love for his generous
kindness to Dick. She made up her mind that he had cleared the shield
forever by this splendid act and saw no reason why she should keep him
any longer on probation. Surely she knew by this time that he was a man
even a Holiday might be proud to marry.

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