O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 by Various

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But she had lost you, Jerry--you had left her, for all your promises,
to terrified weeping in the hushed loveliness of the terrace, where
your voice had turned her still heart to a dancing star, where your
fingers had touched her quiet blood to flowers and flames and
butterflies. She had believed you then--what would she ever
believe again? And then she caught back the despairing sobs
swiftly, for once more she heard, far off, the rushing of wings.
Nearer--nearer--humming and singing and hovering in the quiet dusk.
Why, it was over the garden! She flung back her head, suddenly eager
to see it; it was a friendly and thrilling sound in all that
stillness. Oh, it was coming lower--lower still--she could hear the
throb of the propellers clearly. Where _was_ it? Behind those trees,
perhaps? She raced up the flight of steps, dashing the treacherous
tears from her eyes, straining up on impatient tiptoes. Surely she
could see it now! But already it was growing fainter--drifting
steadily away, the distant hum growing lighter and lighter--lighter
still----

"Janet!" called Mrs. Langdon's pretty, patient voice. "Dinner-time,
dear! Is there any one with you?"

"No one at all, Mrs. Langdon. I was just listening to an airplane."

"An _airplane_? Oh, no, dear--they never pass this way any more. The
last one was in October, I think----"

The soft, plaintive voice trailed off in the direction of the
dining-room and Janet followed it, a small, secure smile touching
her lips. The last one had not passed in October. It had passed a
few minutes before, over the lower garden.

She quite forgot it by the next week--she was becoming an adept at
forgetting. That was all that was left for her to do! Day after day
and night after night she had raised the drawbridge between her
heart and memory, leaving the lonely thoughts to shiver desolately
on the other side of the moat. She was weary to the bone of suffering,
and they were enemies, for all their dear and friendly guise; they
would tear her to pieces if she ever let them in. No, no, she was
done with them. She would forget, as Jerry had forgotten. She would
destroy every link between herself and the past--and pack the neat
little steamer trunk neatly--and bid these kind and gentle people
good-by--and take herself and her bitterness and her dullness back
to the class-room in the Western university town--back to the
Romance languages. The Romance languages!

She would finish it all that night, and leave as soon as possible.
There were some trinkets to destroy, and his letters from France to
burn--she would give Rosemary the rose-coloured dress--foolish,
lovely little Rosemary, whom he had loved, and who was lying now
fast asleep in the next room curled up like a kitten in the middle
of the great bed, her honey-coloured hair falling about her in a
shining mist. She swept back her own cloud of hair resolutely,
frowning at the candle-lit reflection in the mirror. Two desolate
pools in the small, pale oval of her face stared back at her--two
pools with something drowned in their lonely depths. Well, she would
drown it deeper!

The letters first; how lucky that they still used candle-light! It
would make the task much simpler--the funeral pyre already lighted.
She moved one of the tall candelabra to the desk, sitting for a long
time quite still, her chin cupped in her hands, staring down at the
bits of paper. She could smell the wall-flowers under the window as
though they were in the room--drenched in dew and moonlight, they
were reckless of their fragrance. All this peace and cleanliness and
orderly beauty--what a ghastly trick for God to have played--to have
taught her to adore them, and then to snatch them away! All about her,
warm with candle-light, lay the gracious loveliness of the little
room with its dark waxed furniture, its bright glazed chintz, its
narrow bed with the cool linen sheets smelling of lavender, and its
straight, patterned curtains--oh, that hateful, mustard-coloured den
at home, with its golden-oak day-bed!

She wrung her hands suddenly in a little hunted gesture. How could
he have left her to that, he who had sworn that he would never leave
her? In every one of those letters beneath her linked fingers he had
sworn it--in every one perjured--false half a hundred times. Pick up
any one of them at random--

"Janie, you darling stick, is 'dear Jerry' the best that you can do?
You ought to learn French! I took a perfectly ripping French kid out
to dinner last night--name's Liane, from the Varietes--and she was
calling me '_mon grand cheri_' before the salad, and '_mon p'tit
amour_' before the green mint. Maybe _that'll_ buck you up! And I'd
have you know that she's so pretty that it's ridiculous, with black
velvet hair that she wears like a little Oriental turban, and eyes
like golden pansies, and a mouth between a kiss and a prayer--and a
nice affable nature into the bargain. But I'm a ghastly jackass--I
didn't get any fun out of it at all--because I really didn't even
see her. Under the pink shaded candles to my blind eyes it seemed
that there was seated the coolest, quietest, whitest little thing,
with eyes that were as indifferent as my velvety Liane's were kind,
and mockery in her smile. Oh, little masquerader! If I could get
my arms about you even for a minute--if I could kiss so much as
the tips of your lashes--would you be cool and quiet and mocking
then? Janie, Janie, rosy-red as flowers on the terrace and
sweeter--sweeter--they're about you now--they'll be about you always!"

Burn it fast, candle--faster, faster. Here's another for you.

"So the other fellow cured you of using pretty names, did he--you
don't care much for dear and darling any more? Bit hard on me,
but fortunately for you, Janie Janet, I'm rather a dab at
languages--'specially when it comes to what the late lamented Boche
referred to as 'cosy names.' _Querida mi alma, douchka, Herzliebchen,
carissima_; and _bien, bien-aimee_, I'll not run out of salutations
for you this side of heaven--no--nor t'other. I adore the serene
grace with which you ignore the ravishing Liane. Haven't you any
curiosity at all, my Sphinx? No? Well, then, just to punish you,
I'll tell you all about it. She's married to the best fellow in the
world--a _liaison_ officer working with our squadron--and she
worships the ground that he walks on and the air that he occasionally
flies in. So whenever I run up to the City of Light, _en permission_,
I look her up, and take her the latest news--and for an hour, over
the candles, we pretend that I am Philippe, and that she is Janie.
Only she says that I don't pretend very well--and it's just possible
that she's right.

"_Mon petit coeur et grand tresor_, I wish that I could take you
flying with me this evening. You'd be daft about it! Lots of it's a
rotten bore, of course, but there's something in me that doesn't
live at all when I'm on this too, too solid earth. Something that
lies there, crouched and dormant, waiting until I've climbed up into
the seat, and buckled the strap about me and laid my hands on the
'stick.' It's waiting--waiting for a word--and so am I. And I lean
far forward, watching the figure toiling out beyond till the call
comes back to me, clear and confident, 'Contact, sir?' And I shout
back, as restless and exultant as the first time that I answered
it--'Contact!'

"And I'm off--and I'm alive--and I'm free! Ho, Janie! That's simpler
than Abracadabra or Open Sesame, isn't it? But it opens doors more
magical than ever they swung wide, and something in me bounds through,
more swift and eager than any Aladdin. Free! I'm a crazy sort of a
beggar, my little love--that same thing in me hungers and thirsts and
aches for freedom. I go half mad when people or events try to hold
me--you, wise beyond wisdom, never will. Somehow, between us, we've
struck the spark that turns a mere piece of machinery into a wonder
with wings--somehow, you are forever setting me free. It is your
voice--your voice of silver and peace--that's eternally whispering
'Contact!' to me--and I am released, heart, soul, and body! And
because you speed me on my way, Janie, I'll never fly so far, I'll
never fly so long, I'll never fly so high that I'll not return to you.
You hold me fast, forever and forever."

You had flown high and far indeed, Jerry--and you had not returned.
Forever and forever! Burn faster, flame!

"My blessed child, who's been frightening you? Airplanes are by all
odds safer than taxis--and no end safer than the infernal duffer
who's been chaffing you would be if I could once get my hands on him.
Damn fool! Don't care if you do hate swearing--damn fools are damn
fools, and there's an end to it. All those statistics are sheer
melodramatic rot--the chap who fired 'em at you probably has all his
money invested in submarines, and is fairly delirious with jealousy.
Peg (did I ever formally introduce you to Pegasus, the best
pursuit-plane in the R.F.C.--or out of it?)--Peg's about as likely
to let me down as you are! We'd do a good deal for each other, she
and I--nobody else can really fly her, the darling! But she'd go to
the stars for me--and farther still. Never you fear--we have charmed
lives, Peg and I--we belong to Janie.

"I think that people make an idiotic row about dying, anyway. It's
probably jolly good fun--and I can't see what difference a few years
here would make if you're going to have all eternity to play with.
Of course you're a ghastly little heathen, and I can see you wagging
a mournful head over this already--but every time that I remember
what a shocking sell the After Life (exquisite phrase!) is going to
be for you, darling, I do a bit of head-wagging myself--and it's not
precisely mournful! I can't wait to see your blank consternation--and
you needn't expect any sympathy from _me_. My very first words will
be, 'I told you so!' Maybe I'll rap them out to you with a table-leg!

"What do you think of all this Ouija Planchette rumpus, anyway? I
can't for the life of me see why any one with a whole new world to
explore should hang around chattering with this one. I know that I'd
be half mad with excitement to get at the new job, and that I'd find
re-assuring the loved ones (exquisite phrase number two) a hideous
bore. Still, I can see that it would be nice from their selfish
point of view! Well, I'm no ghost yet, thank God--nor yet are
you--but if ever I am one, I'll show you what devotion really is.
I'll come all the way back from heaven to play with foolish Janie,
who doesn't believe that there is one to come from. To foolish,
foolish Janie, who still will be dearer than the prettiest angel of
them all, no matter how alluringly her halo may be tilted or her
wings ruffled. To Janie who, Heaven forgive him, will be all that
one poor ghost has ever loved!"

Had there come to him, the radiant and the confident, a moment of
terrible and shattering surprise--a moment when he realized that
there were no pretty angels with shining wings waiting to greet
him--a moment when he saw before him only the overwhelming darkness,
blacker and deeper than the night would be, when she blew out the
little hungry flame that was eating up the sheet that held his
laughter? Oh, gladly would she have died a thousand deaths to have
spared him that moment!

"My little Greatheart, did you think that I did not know how brave
you are? You are the truest soldier of us all, and I, who am not
much given to worship, am on my knees before that shy gallantry of
yours, which makes what courage we poor duffers have seem a vain and
boastful thing. When I see you as I saw you last, small and white
and clear and brave, I can't think of anything but the first
crocuses at White Orchards, shining out, demure and valiant,
fearless of wind and storm and cold--fearless of Fear itself. You see,
you're so very, very brave that you make me ashamed to be afraid of
poetry and sentiment and pretty words--things of which I have a good,
thumping Anglo-Saxon terror, I can tell you! It's because I know
what a heavenly brick you are that I could have killed that
statistical jackass for bothering you; but I'll forgive him, since
you say that it's all right. And so ghosts are the only things in
the world that frighten you--even though you know that there aren't
any. You and Madame de Stael, hey? 'I do not believe in ghosts, but I
fear them!' It's pretty painful to learn that the mere sight of one
would turn you into a gibbering lunatic. Nice sell for an
enthusiastic spirit who'd romped clear back from heaven to give you
a pleasant surprise--I _don't_ think! Well, no fear, young
Janie--I'll find some way if I'm put to it--some nice, safe, pretty
way that wouldn't scare a neurasthenic baby, let alone the dauntless
Miss Abbott. I'll find--"

Oh, no more of that--no more! She crushed the sheet in her hands
fiercely, crumpling it into a little ball--the candle-flame was too
slow. No, she couldn't stand it--she couldn't--she couldn't,
and there was an end to it. She would go raving mad--she would
kill herself--she would--She lifted her head, wrenched suddenly
back from that chaos of despair, alert and intent. There it was
again, coming swiftly nearer and nearer from some immeasurable
distance--down--down--nearer still--the very room was humming and
throbbing with it--she could almost hear the singing in the wires.
She swung far out over the window edge, searching the moon-drenched
garden with eager eyes--surely, surely it would never fly so low
unless it were about to land! Engine trouble, perhaps--though she
could detect no break in the huge, rhythmic pulsing that was shaking
the night. Still--

"Rosemary!" she called urgently. "Rosemary--listen--is there a
place where it can land?"

"Where what can land?" asked a drowsy voice.

"An airplane. It's flying so low that it must be in some kind of
trouble--do come and see!"

Rosemary came pattering obediently toward her, a small, docile figure,
dark eyes misted with dreams, wide with amazement.

"I must be nine-tenths asleep," she murmured gently. "Because I
don't hear a single thing, Janet. Perhaps--"

"Hush--listen!" begged Janet, raising an imperative hand--and then
her own eyes widened. "Why--it's _gone_!" There was a note of flat
incredulity in her voice. "Heavens, how those things must eat up
space! Not a minute, ago it was fairly shaking this room, and now--"

Rosemary stifled a small pink yawn and smiled ingratiatingly.

"Perhaps you were asleep too," she suggested humbly. "I don't
believe that airplanes ever fly this way any more. Or it might have
been that fat Hodges boy on his motorcycle--he does make the most
dreadful racket. Oh, Janet, what a perfectly _ripping_ night--do see!"

They leaned together on the window-sill, silenced by the white and
shining beauty that had turned the pleasant garden into a place of
magic and enchantment. The corners of Janet's mouth lifted suddenly.
How absurd people were! The fat Hodges boy and his motorcycle! Did
they all regard her as an amiable lunatic--even little, lovely,
friendly Rosemary, wavering sleepily at her side? It really was
maddening. But she felt, amazingly enough, suddenly quiet and joyous
and indifferent--and passionately glad that the wanderer from the
skies had won safely through and was speeding home. Home! Oh, it was
a crying pity that it need ever land--anything so fleet and strong
and sure should fly forever! But if they must rest, those beating
wings--the old R.F.C. toast went singing through her head and she
flung it out into the moonlight, smiling--"Happy landings! Happy
landings, you!"

The next day was the one that brought to White Orchards what was to
be known for many moons as "the Big Storm." It had been gathering
all afternoon, and by evening the heat had grown appalling and
incredible, even to Janet's American and exigent standards. The
smouldering copper sky looked as though it had caught fire from the
world and would burn forever; there was not so much as a whisper of
air to break the stillness--it seemed as though the whole tortured
earth were holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
Every one had struggled through the day assuring one another that
when evening came it would be all right--dangling the alluring
thought of the cool darkness before each other's hot and weary eyes;
but the night proved even more outrageous than the day. To the
little group seated on the terrace, dispiritedly playing with their
coffee, it seemed almost a personal affront. The darkness closed in
on them, smothering, heavy, intolerable; they could feel its weight,
as though it were some hateful and tangible thing.

"Like--like black cotton wool," explained Rosemary, stirred to
unwonted resentment. She had spent the day curled up in the largest
Indian chair on the terrace, round-eyed with fatigue and incredulity.

"I honestly think that we must be dreaming," she murmured to her
feverish audience; "I do, honestly. Why, it's only _May_, and we
never, never--there was that day in August about five years ago that
was almost as bad, though. D'you remember, Mummy?"

"It's hardly the kind of thing that one is likely to forget, love.
Do you think that it is necessary for us to talk? I feel somehow
that I could bear it much more easily if we kept quite quiet."

Janet stirred a little, uneasily. She hated silence--that terrible,
empty space waiting to be filled up with your thoughts--why, the
idlest chatter spared you that. She hated the terrace, too--she
closed her eyes to shut out the ugly darkness that was pressing
against her; behind the shelter of her lids it was cooler and stiller,
but open-eyed or closed, she could not shut out memory. The very
touch of the bricks beneath her feet brought back that late October
day. She had been sitting curled up on the steps in the warm sunlight,
with the keen, sweet air stirring her hair and sending the
beech-leaves dancing down the flagged path--there had been a heavenly
smell of burning from the far meadow, and she was sniffing it
luxuriously, feeling warm and joyous and protected in Jerry's great
tweed coat--watching the tall figure swinging across from the lodge
gate with idle, happy eyes--not even curious. It was not until he
had almost reached the steps that she had noticed that he was
wearing a foreign uniform--and even then she had promptly placed him
as one of Rosemary's innumerable conquests, bestowing on him a
friendly and inquiring smile.

"Were you looking for Miss Langdon?" Even now she could see the
courteous, grave young face soften as he turned quickly toward her,
baring his dark head with that swift foreign grace that turns our
perfunctory habits into something like a ritual.

"But no," he had said gently, "I was looking for you, Miss Abbott."

"Now will you please tell me how in the world you knew that I was
Miss Abbott?"

And he had smiled--with his lips, not his eyes.

"I should be dull indeed if that I did not know. I am Philippe
Laurent, Miss Abbott."

And "Oh," she had cried joyously, "Liane's Philippe!"

"But yes--Liane's Philippe. They are not here, the others? Madame
Langdon, the little Miss Rosemary?"

"No, they've gone to some parish fair, and I've been wicked and
stayed home. Won't you sit down and talk to me? Please!"

"Miss Abbott, it is not to you that I must talk. What I have to say
is indeed most difficult, and it is to Jeremy's Janie that I would
say it. May I, then?"

It had seemed to Jeremy's Janie that the voice in which she answered
him came from a great distance, but she never took her eyes from the
grave and vivid face.

"Yes. And quickly, please."

So he had told her--quickly--in his exquisitely careful English, and
she had listened as attentively and politely, huddled up on the
brick steps in the sunlight, as though he were running over the
details of the last drive, instead of tearing her life to pieces
with every word. She remembered now that it hadn't seemed real at
all--if it had been to Jerry that these horrors had happened could
she have sat there so quietly, feeling the colour bright in her
cheeks, and the wind stirring in her hair, and the sunlight warm on
her hands? Why, for less than this people screamed, and fainted, and
went raving mad!

"You say--that his back is broken?"

"But yes, my dear," Liane's Philippe had told her, and she had seen
the tears shining in his gray eyes.

"And he is badly burned?"

"My brave Janie, these questions are not good to ask--not good, not
good to answer. This I will tell you. He lives, our Jerry--and so
dearly does he love you that he will drag back that poor body from
hell itself--because it is yours, not his. This he has sent me to
tell you, most lucky lady ever loved."

"You mean--that he isn't going to die?"

"I tell you that into those small hands of yours he has given his
life. Hold it fast."

"Will he--will he get well?" "He will not walk again; but have you
not swift feet to run for him?"

And there had come to her, sitting on the terrace in the sunshine,
an overwhelming flood of joy, reckless and cruel and triumphant. Now
he was hers forever, the restless wanderer--delivered to her bound
and helpless, never to stray again. Hers to worship and serve and
slave for, his troth to Freedom broken--hers at last!

"I'm coming," she had told the tall young Frenchman breathlessly.
"Take me to him--please let's hurry."

"_Ma pauvre petite_, this is war. One does not come and go at will.
God knows by what miracle enough red tape unwound to let me through
to you, to bring my message and to take one back."

"What message, Philippe?"

"That is for you to say, little Janie. He told me, 'Say to her that
she has my heart--if she needs my body, I will live. Say to her that
it is an ugly, broken, and useless thing; still, hers. She must use
it as she sees fit. Say to her--no, say nothing more. She is my Janie,
and has no need of words. Tell her to send me only one, and I will
be content.' For that one word, Janie, I have come many miles. What
shall it be?"

And she had cried out exultantly, "Why, tell him that I say--" But
the word had died in her throat. Her treacherous lips had mutinied,
and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back out of her
face--out of her heart--feeling her eyes turn back with sheer terror,
while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a little word
"Live!"--surely they could say that. Was it not what he was waiting
for, lying far away and still--schooled at last to patience, the
reckless and the restless! Oh, Jerry, Jerry, live! Even now she
could feel her mind, like some frantic little wild thing, racing,
racing to escape Memory. What had he said to her? "You, wise beyond
wisdom, will never hold me--you will never hold me--you will never--"

And suddenly she had dropped her twisted hands in her lap and lifted
her eyes to Jerry's ambassador.

"Will you please tell him--will you please tell him that I
say--'Contact'?"

"Contact?" He had stood smiling down at her, ironical and tender.
"Ah, what a race! That is the prettiest word that you can find for
Jerry? But then it means to come very close, to touch, that poor
harsh word--there he must find what comfort he can. We, too, in
aviation use that word--it is the signal that says--'Now, you can fly!'
You do not know our vocabulary, perhaps?"

"I know very little."

"That is all then? No other message? He will understand, our Jerry?"

And Janie had smiled--rather a terrible small smile.

"Oh, yes," she told him. "He will understand. It is the word that he
is waiting for, you see."

"I see." But there had been a grave wonder in his voice.

"Would it----" she had framed the words as carefully as though it
were a strange tongue that she was speaking--"would it be possible
to buy his machine? He wouldn't want any one else to fly it."

"Little Janie, never fear. The man does not live who shall fly poor
Peg again. Smashed to kindling-wood and burned to ashes, she has
taken her last flight to the heaven for good and brave birds of war.
Not enough was left of her to hold in your two hands."

"I'm glad. Then that's all--isn't it? And thank you for coming."

"It is I who thank you. What was hard as death you have made easy. I
had thought the lady to whom Jeremy Langdon gave his heart the
luckiest creature ever born--now I think him that luckiest one." The
grave grace with which he had bent to kiss her hand made of the
formal salutation an accolade--"My homage to you, Jerry's Janie!" A
quick salute, and he had turned on his heel, swinging off down the
flagged path with that swift, easy stride--past the sun-dial--past
the lily-pond--past the beech-trees--gone! For hours and hours after
he had passed out of sight she had sat staring after him, her hands
lying quite still in her lap--staring, staring--they had found her
there when they came back, sitting where Rosemary was seated now. Why,
there, on those same steps, a bare six months ago--Something snapped
in her head, and she stumbled to her feet, clinging to the arm of her
chair.

"I can't _stand_ it!" she gasped. "No, no, it's no use--I can't, I
tell you. I--"

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