The City in the Clouds

"Well, you've kept your oath splendidly. I cannot thank you enough. I have had the running all to myself – as far as you two are concerned, for twelve weeks."

"Yes, twelve weeks," Pat replied, with a sigh. "We've kept out of the way, old fellow, and I tell you it's been hard!"

Arthur nodded in corroboration, and somehow or other I felt myself a cur. Since boyhood we three had been like brothers, and it was a hard fate indeed that led us to center all our hopes upon something that could belong to one alone.

Despite what must have been their burning eagerness to know how things stood, both of them were far too delicate-minded and well-bred to ask a question. I knew it was up to me to satisfy them.

"Without going into details," I said, "I'll tell you just how it is, how I think it is, for I may be quite wrong, and presuming upon what doesn't exist."

I thought for a moment, and chose my words carefully. It was extremely difficult to say what I had to say.

"It comes to about this," I got out at last. "I've every reason to believe that she likes me. There's nothing decisive, but I've been given some hope. I very nearly put it to the test three months ago, but was interrupted and never had the chance again. At Cerne I'm going to try, finally. By hook or crook, in forty-eight hours, I'll have some news for you. And if I get the sack, then let the next man go in and win if he can, and I'll join the third in doing everything that lies in my power to help him."

"I am next," said Pat Moore, "not that I've the deuce of a chance. But I think you've spoken like a damn good sort, Tom, and we thank you. Arthur and I will do our best to keep every one else off the grass while you go in and try your luck. Faith! I'll make love to the duenna with the white hair meself and keep her out of the way, and Arthur here will consult with Morse upon the expediency of investing his large capital, which he hasn't got, in a Brazil-nut farm. Anyhow, Perth, who has been the safety bet with all the tipsters, won't be there. He's such a rotten shot that Sir Walter wouldn't dream of asking him. The bag has got to be kept up. For three years now, only Sandringham has beat it and a duffer at a drive would send the average down appallingly."

"What about me?" I asked, with a sinking of the heart.

"God forgive me," said Arthur, "I've lied about you to Sir Walter like the secretary of a building society to a maiden lady with two thousand pounds. He was astonished that he had never heard of your shooting – of course, he knows all the shots of the day, and I had to tell him a fairy story about your late lamented father who was a Puritan and would never let his son join country house-parties because they played cards after dinner."

I smiled, on the wrong side of my mouth. My dear old governor had been anything but a Puritan: I feared the scandal which would inevitably ensue when I went out for the first big drive.

"That's all right, Tom," said Arthur, "you'll simply have to sprain your ankle, or I'll give you a good hack in the shin privately if you like. Sir Walter has only to send a wire to get a first-class gun down. There are at least a dozen men I know who would almost commit parricide for the chance."

After that, by general consent, the subject of the league was dropped. We all knew where we were, and for the rest of the journey we talked of ordinary things.

It was a bright afternoon in early autumn when we stopped at the little local station and got into a waiting motor-car, while our servants collected our things and followed in the baggage lorry. For myself, I felt in the highest spirits as we buzzed along the three miles to Cerne Hall. There was a pleasant nip in the air; the vast landscape was yellow gold, as acre after acre of stubble stretched towards the horizon. Gray church towers embowered in trees broke the vast monotony, and I surrendered myself to a happy dream of Juanita, while Arthur and Pat talked shooting and marked covies that rose on either side as we whirred by.

When we arrived at Cerne Hall it was not yet tea-time, and everybody was out. The butler showed us to our rooms, all close together in the south wing of the fine old house, and I smoked a cigarette while Preston was unpacking.

"Everybody arrived yet, Preston?" I asked.

"Not yet, Sir Thomas, so I understand. I and Captain Moore's man and his lordship's was havin' a cherry brandy in the housekeeper's room just now, and the bulk of the house-party will be arriving by the later train, between tea and dinner, Sir Thomas."

"And Mr. Morse?"

"Only just before dinner, Sir Thomas; he always travels in a special train."

I saw by Preston's face that he considered this a snobbish and ostentatious thing to do, and, in the case of an ordinary multi-millionaire, I should certainly have agreed with him. But I recalled facts that had come to my notice about the famous Brazilian, and I wondered. There was the astounding scene at the Ritz, for instance, and more than that. I had not been following up Juanita for three months, in town, at Henley, and at Cowes, without noticing that Mr. Gideon Morse seemed to have an unobtrusive but quite singular entourage.

More than once, for example, I had caught sight of a certain great hulking man in tweeds, a professional Irish-American bruiser, if ever there was one.

Tea was in the hall of the great house. I was introduced to Sir Walter, a delightful man, with a hooked nose, a tiny mustache, the remains of gray hair, and a charming smile. Lady Stileman also made me most welcome. Her hair was gray, but her figure was slight and upright as a girl's, and many girls in the County must have envied her dainty prettiness, and the charm of her lazy, musical voice.

Circumstances paired me off with a vivacious young lady whose face I seemed to know, whose surname I could not catch, but whom every one called "Poppy."

"I say," she said, after her third cup of tea and fourth egg sandwich, "you're the Evening Special, aren't you?"

I admitted it.

"Well," she said, "I do think you might give me a show now and then. Considering the press I generally get, I've never been quite able to understand why the Special leaves me out of it."

I thought she must be an actress – and yet she hadn't quite that manner. At any rate I said:

"I'm awfully sorry, but you see I'm only editor, and I've nothing really to do with the dramatic criticism. However, please say the word, and I'll ginger up my man at once."

"Dramatic criticism!" she said, her eyes wide with surprise. "Sir Thomas, can it really be that you don't know who I am?"

It was a little embarrassing.

"Do you know, I know your face awfully well," I said, "though I'm quite sure we've never met before or I should have remembered, and when Lady Stileman introduced us just now all I caught was Poppy."

She sighed – I should put her between nineteen and twenty in age – "Well, for a London editor, you are a fossil, though you don't look more than about six-and-twenty. Why, Poppy Boynton!"

Then, in a flash, I knew. This was the Hon. Poppy Boynton, Lord Portesham's daughter, the flying girl, the leading lady aviator, who had looped the loop over Mont Blanc and done all sorts of mad, extraordinary things.

"Of course, I know you, Miss Boynton! Only, I never expected to meet you here. What a chance for an editor! Do tell me all your adventures."

"Will you give me a column interview on the front page if I do?"

"Of course I will. I'll write it myself."

"And a large photograph?"

"Half the back page if you like."

"You're a dear," she said in a business-like voice. "On second thoughts, I'll write the interview myself and give it you before we leave here. And, meanwhile, I'll tell you an extraordinary flight of mine only yesterday."

I was in for it and there was no way out. Still, she was extremely pretty and a celebrity in her way, so I settled myself to listen.

"What did you do yesterday morning?" I asked. "Did you loop the loop over Saint Paul's or something?"

"Loop the loop!" she replied, with great contempt. "That's an infantile stunt of the dark ages. No, I went for my usual morning fly before breakfast and saw a marvel, and got cursed by a djinn out of the Arabian Nights."

This sounded fairly promising for a start, but as she went on I jerked like a fish in a basket.

"You know the great wireless towers on Richmond Hill?"

"Of course. The highest erection in the world, isn't it, more than twice the height of the Eiffel Tower? You can see the things from all parts of London."

"On a clear day," she nodded, "the rest of the time the top is quite hidden by clouds. Now it struck me I'd go and have a look at them close to. Our place, Norman Court, is only about fifteen miles farther up the Thames. I started off in my little gnat-machine and rose to about fifteen hundred feet at once, when I got into a bank of fleecy wet cloud, fortunately not more than a hundred yards or so thick. It was keeping all the sun from London about seven-thirty yesterday morning. When I came out above, of course I wasn't sure of my direction, but as I turned the machine a point or so I saw, standing up straight out of the cloud at not more than six miles away, the tops of the towers. I headed straight for them."

She lit a cigarette and I noticed her face changed a little. There was an introspective look in the eyes, a look of memory.

"As I drew near, Sir Thomas, I saw what I think is the most marvelous sight I have ever seen. You people who crawl about on earth never do see what we see. I have flown over Mont Blanc and seen the dawn upon the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa from that height, and I thought that was the most heavenly thing ever seen by mortal eye. But yesterday morning I beat that impression – yes! – right on the outskirts of London and only a few hours ago! Down from below nobody can really see much of the towers. You haven't seen much, for instance, have you?"

"Only that they're now all linked together at the top by the most intricate series of girders, on the suspension principle, I suppose. There are a lot of sheds and things on this artificial space, or at least it looks like it."

"Sheds and things! Sir Thomas, I thought I saw the New Jerusalem floating on the clouds! The morning sun poured down upon a vast, hanging space of which you can have no conception, and rising up on every side from snowy-white ramparts were towers and cupolas with gilded roofs which blazed like gold. There were fantastic halls pierced with Oriental windows, walls which glowed like jacinth and amethyst, and parapets of pearl.