WINGED YOUTH

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 2 March 1935, Page 14

WINGED YOUTH

1 by I FRANK H. SHAW {Author of u The Haven of Desire, etc.) Jin

CHAPTER XIII. BETTY’S BABY.

He charged downstairs to discover his mother, whom he had' almost forgotten. Gwen Craddock had contrived to bring seemliness and order to the dining-room already. The servants, ■who had run things much to their liking, had recognised in a glance that here was an old-fashioned mistress who knew her own mind and intended that they should learn it. Inconvenient travel had not disposed Mrs Craddock to be too lenient with shortcomings; she was herself angry, her nerves were shaken. But all her disgruntledness vanished completely at the radiance of her boy’s face when he dashed into the room. ‘'Peter dear—l’m so glad!” She reached him and hugged him and. wept over him.

"How is she?” whispered Peter to the nurse, feeling wmak all over. ‘ ‘ Quite all right, Mr Craddock. Will you ’phone the doctor; it won’t be long now?” That meant she was dying. He wanted to break into that room of mysteries and by his own sheer strength drag his wife back from the portentous threshold.

"Look here—is she all right? You’re not hiding anything, are you?” . The nurse had witnessed many such break-ings-up in the dominant sex. It served them- right, was her private opinion, for like many nurses, she was a strong feminist.

"Of course she’s all right,” she returned briskly, looking, Peter thought, like an executioner just about to brandish the fatal axe. "If you’ll tell the doctor—!” Peter talked incoherencies into the telephone, annoyed 1 at the medical man’s apparent indifference. When, after five minutes, the noise of his car was not audible, Peter "went to look for him; and, at his home, found he hadn’t even started! Callous inhumanity, of course! If it has riot been that Betty’s life more or less rested in this man’s hands, Peter would have rowed him; as it was he had an inclination to cringe. The doctor yawningly got into the car, he was ill-humoured and curt.

“You’re a grandmother!” Peter laughed. “Cheers, Mater—mighty decent of you to come. I say, that’s an amazing kid —I bet he knew me.” “I’m sure he did, dearest. Has it been awful —this waiting and worrying?” “Oh, -well—a bit beastly, you know. Still, it’s tophole now. X reckon we’ll have to think what to call him.” “Have some tea now, dear, and then a bath and clean up; you look like a wreck.”

“Righto.” “I sa y—i do look a moss, eh? The Governor all right?”

Peter got him to The Towers, and the fret and suspense started all over again. The house -wakened’ to life —grimyfaced maids moved here and thoie with clatterings; Peter w r as unable to find a place in wdiicli to parade. Betty, lie was quite certain, was dying, and they were keeping it from him. *****

Gwen Crcjddock, moved very deeply by circumstances, unintentionally committed one of the few solecisms of her life.

“He would be all right dear, if only you apologised to him and admitted 3'ourself in the wrong,” she said. “Oh, that’s it, is it?” Peter softening hardened again. It was a pity* “Well, all this doesn’t look as if I’d made a mess of it, does it? Why bring that up just now?”

“A boy, Mr Craddock—a beauty!” Peter crashed mentally. What a beautific .pe/son that normally iron-faced nurse was, when you thought it over! He wanted to embrace her. He would buy her a present. ‘•But—Betty!” “Oh, she’s splendid—or will be.”

CHAPTER XIV.

PASSED OVER.

“C-can I see her?” gulped the boy.

When Mrs Grant Craddock left The Towers, w’hich she did after a week, Peter was in no mood to make up with his father. He might have done it on the day of the baby’s birth, for in an ununderstandable way, he was beginning to realise something about how a father felt towards his own son. But ..there came an urgent call from the Works to try out a repaired ’plane which was required in a hurry; and although his impulse was to chuck the whole thing up, commonsense —compelled him to obey the summons. The fog had dispersed; and wherever he looked there seemed to be a plentitude of young life—so that he wanted to laugh in sympathy with carolling birds and frisking lambs and puppies and kittens and what. not.

The nurse said no, not yet, but she gave her solemn word' that Betty was quite all right. And from inside tha!t door, which remained ajar Peter heard a fretful coughing whimper that did something incredible to him. It ran clean through his body like an electric current. It made him want, astonishingly, to laugh or jump in the air or else* flop —he didn’t .know .which. “Is that the lad?” he grunted', his voice rising in a queer dry squeak.

He was consumed with desire to sec Betty —the child he had felt he hated during the time of its appearance. That was really odd —-he actually hated the little beast, because of the agony it was causing Betty; only now well, somehow things looked, different. All the chaos in which he had spun resolved itself into reasonable orderliness. He was sane and alive again. He grew aware that he was dirty, unshaven and dishevelled. He must clean himself up. First, just a spot of whisky to drink that boy’s health in, though. Or —no, champagne. He slid down the bannister) to rummage, and found a neglected bottle left over from some previous evening.

In making his landing he had a slight —a very slight —recurrence of his old fear and shaken confidence. It wasn’t anything to fret about; and no one of importance, was on the ’drome to notice what a bad jolt he made of his arrival; but in his own mind he knew that it was a sloppy show.

It w’ould, Peter saw, be a proper mess if his nerve went, nov% He’d been drinking rather too much lately- —last night he’d shifted a deuce of a lot of mixed stuff; that -would account for this feeling as if his skin didn’t belong to himself. Well, all right, he would cut it out.

The servants cheerfully drank to mother and son. There were grins and titters and significant nudgings. The ringing of a fell broke up the party, and Peter dashed out to the room, intending to hurry through his toilet. He ran fairly into his mother! At first Gwen Craddock was utterly dismayed, shocked. Peter looked a dissipated w r reck, hair all anyhow, face drawn and shaded with unshaven fluff; collar w’ilted; the reck of alcohol preceded him. All the delayed intoxica 1 tion of the night was having its revenge.

But in the Works’ mess, where the test-pilots foregathered when not employed, it was necessary to tell the news of his fatherhood, and to offer to stand drinks round, and what with one thing and another, his resolution went phutt. He was rather thickspoken when McGregor sent for his report on the ’plane; and the works manager ■ eyed him grimly.

“Peter! My dear boy!” moaned Mrs Craddock.-

“My wife’s just had a baby, and we had to celebrate,” he said. He made his report, and did not know that Macgregor shook a scandalised head over him on his departure. After lunch Peter was requisitioned to deliver a new ’plane; as a result he was late in arriving home, since the return journey had to be made by train, and it was an awkward cross-country trip.

“S’all right, Mater, quite all right,” Peter articulated. “I’m a Daddy, now —got a boy.” From above the nurse called:

“If Mr Craddock wishes to see his wife —!”

“My hat!” gasped Peter, and raced UP the stairs. He w r ent into the hot, odourful room, awed, almost afraid. A ghost of the old radiant Betty, no better! Peter choked. He’d intended to make a joke about it all, but sight of her killed all that. He plopped on his knees beside the ordered bed, and dropped his face on the pillow alongside Betty’s and cried. He could only grip her caressing hand, in an effort to recover his weakened manhood.

Betty was not disturbed, it appeared; she w r as doing well; but sleep -was sacred. Tired as he was, and nervous, too, Peter showed rude to his mother; he went to sleep when she was trying to find out how- he stood financially, for she "was secretly dismayed at the reckless extravagance evidenced -whereever she looked.

“Sure you’re all right? Sure you’re not pretending? You are all right, aren’t you?” “Poor Peter—has it been awful?”

“Mm. Pretty poisonous, yes—! Oh, God, Betty. I thought they were killing you. It’s the last time; I swear we’ll never—never —!"

“Go and look at him, Peter —he’s wonderful; a real baby!” He pulled himself together and went to the col, not certain whether he was ashamed or -what? He saw something exceedingly ugly and puckered, .something that, yelled. Peter poked a hesitant finger at a tiny crumpled rose-leaf. He was disappointed—this thing looked like a skinned rabbit. The rose-leaf closed purposefully on his finger and a thin ecstasy ran up Peter’s finger tot his arm and to his heart.

“Hello, you comic merchant!” he chuckled. “Welcome home. Book at your Daddy,” he commanded; but the’ baby, having contrived to drag the? finger into his mouth, stopped sobbing. “Knows his father,” hushed Peter; and would have grown proud if the nurse hadn’t shooed him from the room.'

That cocktail bar had mildly shocked her, too; and a maid-servant’s mention of the parties at The Towers had confirmed her suspicion that Betty—that girl—w r as doing Peter no good. It stood to reason that she couldn’t be doing him good when a house was carried on under such deplorable conditions. The house w r as absurdly big for a young couple, and during the day Mrs Craddock had been required to meet a youngish man of unpleasanth' familiar .manner who stated he was a wine merchant’s representative, and would be glad of a settlement of a considerable bill. Mrs Craddock had always dreaded debt; had the account been smaller, she would have settled it; but it v'as dreadful and she hadn’t sufficient money with her. Things got little better. An exacting spell of work commenced at the works; Peter got little leisure. Daily the conviction grew into Gw T en Craddock’s sensitive mind 1 that she was one too many in that menage. Betty was foolish with the child—in a way foreign to its grandmother’s theories, for twenty-turn years had passed since Gwen Craddock had handled a nurseling. Peter had to listen to petty’s

complaints about his mother’s interference. His ''instinct -was to side with his wife—not only because she was Betty, but also because to admit her in the wrong- meant to admit himself a failure.

Grant Craddock, who had been wait-, ing for news—that Peter had come to heel, was writing to say that the home was going to pieces without its chatelaine, that his wife was neglecting her duty in preferring her sow to her husband.

“Have you any message for Had?” Mrs Craddock asked Peter -when he drove her to the station.

“No, nothing to mention, thanks. We’re pulling along aIL right. I’ll show him I know my own way around, Mum.” Mrs Craddock sighed: “It would be so nice if you and Daddy ipade it up, Peter; then you and Betty could come up and see us.” “Look here, Mater —I made up my mind to .prove I can steer my own bus. Well, I’m doing it. Suppose we leave it at that?”

Not much satisfaction to be got out of that!

And though Mrs Craddock would have liked to thrash out the matter, somehow there wasn’t an opportunity; because a country-cart filled the narrow road, and wouldn’t ditch itself to allow the impetuous Peter right of way; and when the train was caught, it was caught with a frantic rush that allowed of no discussions. »

Peter had rather to rush it to reach the Works in time that morning and wasn’t able to see Betty; and when he got there he found there was some talk about another stunt-flight, but it was Mike Carling who was listed to try it! That was a bore. Carling certainly knew his job; but he hadn’t broken any records particularly; whereas Peter Craddock had"—he’d put. the Zntro Pup on the map. Peter went to see Maegregor about it. “Live and 1 let live,” advised Maegregor. “There’s other.? got to win their spurs, laddie. And if you’ll take a hint from a man nearly old enough to be your grandfather, you’ll go easy on the bottle. No man ever got anywhere far on booze.”

Peter tried remonstrance, but it was coldly received. “Just watch yourself, Mr Craddock,” said the manager darkly. No more than that; but it gave Peter to think when he Avalkcd away from the office.

(To be continued.)