Angel Island Part 31

Angela's dead little wings suddenly flared with life; they fluttered in a very panic. She stretched out her arms to her father. She turned her limpid gaze in an agony of infantile entreaty up to her mother's face.

But Peachy shook her head. The baby flutter died down. Angela closed her eyes, dropped her head on her mother's shoulder; the tears started from under her eyelids.

"Shall Angela fly?" Julia asked. "Remember this is your last chance."

"No," Ralph said. And the word was the growl of a balked beast.

"Then," Julia said sternly, "we will leave Angel Island forever."

"You will," Ralph sneered. "You will, will you? All right. Let's see you do it!" Suddenly he started swiftly down toward the trail. "Come, boys!"

he commanded. Honey followed--and Billy and Pete.

But, suddenly, Julia spoke. She spoke in the loud, clear tones of her flying days and she used the language of her girlhood. It was a word of command. And as it fell from her lips, the five women leaped from the top of the knoll. But they did not fall into the lake. They did not touch its surface. They flew. Flew--and yet it was not flight. It was half-flight. It was scarcely flight at all. Compared with the magnificent, calm, effortless sweep of their girlhood days, it was almost a grotesque performance. Their wing-stumps beat back and forth violently, beat in a very agony of effort. Indeed these stunted fans could never have held them up. They supplemented their efforts by a curious rotary movement of the legs and feet. They could not rise very far above the surface of the water, especially as each woman was weighted by a child; but they sustained a steady, level flight to the other side of the lake.

The men stared for an instant, petrified. Then panic broke. "Come back, Lulu!" Honey yelled. "Come back!" "Julia!" Billy called hoa.r.s.ely, "Julia! Julia! Julia!" He went on calling her name as if his senses had left him. Pete's lips moved. Words came, but no voice; he stood like a statue, whispering. Merrill remained silent; obviously he could not even whisper; his was the silence of paralysis. Addington, on the other hand, was all voice. "Oh, my G.o.d!" he cried. "Don't leave me, Peachy! Don't leave me! Peachy! Angela! Peachy! Angela!" His voice ascended on the scale of hysteric entreaty until he screeched. "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" He fell to his knees and held out his arms; the tears poured down his face.

The women heard, turned, flew back. Holding themselves above the men's heads, they fluttered and floated. Their faces were working and the tears flowed freely, but they kept their eyes steadily fixed on Julia, waiting for command.

Julia was ghastly. "Shall Angela fly?" she asked. And it was as though her voice came from an enormous distance, so thin and expressionless and far-away had it become.

"Anything!" Addington said. "Anything! Oh, my G.o.d, don't leave us!"

Julia said something. Again this word was in their own language and again it was a word of command. But emotion had come into her voice--joy; it thrilled through the air like a magic fluid. The women sank slowly to earth. In another instant the two forces were in each other's arms.

"Billy," Julia said, as hand in hand they struck into one of the paths that led to the jungle, "will you marry me?"

Billy did not answer. He only looked at her.

"When?" he said finally. "To-morrow?"

"To-day," Julia said.

Sunset on Angel Island.

The Honeymoon House thrilled with excitement. At intervals figures crowded to the narrow door; at intervals faces crowded in the narrow window. Sometimes it was Lulu, swollen and purple and broken with weeping. Sometimes it was Chiquita, pale and blurred and sagging with tears. Often it was Peachy, whose look, white and sodden, steadily searched the distance. Below on the sand, Clara, shriveled, pinched, bent over, her hands writhing in and out of each other's clasp, paced back and forth, her eye moving always on the path. Suddenly she stopped and listened. There came first a faint disturbance of the air, then confusion, then the pounding of feet. Angela, white-faced, frightened, appeared, flying above the trail. "I found him," she called. Behind came Billy, running. He flashed past Clara.

"How is she?" he panted.

"Alive," Clara said briefly.

He flew up the steps. Clara followed. Angela dropped to the sand and Jay there, her little head in the crook of her elbow, sobbing.

Inside a murmur of relief greeted Billy. "He's come, Julia," Peachy whispered softly.

The women withdrew from the inner room as Billy pa.s.sed over the threshold.

Julia lay on the couch stately and still. One long white hand rested on her breast. The other stretched at her side; its fingers touched a little bundle there. Her wings--the glorious pinions of her girlhood--towered above the pillow, silver-s.h.i.+ning, quiescent. Her honey-colored hair piled in a huge crown above her brow. Her eyes were closed. Her face was like marble; but for an occasional faint movement of the hand at her side, she might have been the sculpture on a tomb.

Her lids flickered as Billy approached, opened on eyes as dull as stones. But as they looked up into his, they filled with light.

"My husband--" she said. Her eyes closed.

But presently they opened and with a greater dazzle of light. "Our son--" The hand at her side moved feebly on the little bundle there.

That faint movement seemed a great effort. Her eyes closed again.

But for a third time she opened them, and now they shone with their greatest glory. "My husband--our son--has--wings."

And then Julia's eyes closed for the last time.