The cost of wings, and other stories

In Short

The Cost of Wings, and Other Stories is a dynamic 1914 collection of twenty-six short stories by Irish author Richard Dehan. The anthology moves effortlessly between dramatic high-stakes dilemmas, social satires, absurd farces, and touching domestic vignettes. Dehan captures early twentieth-century life across varied classes and settings, from elite British households and high-seas ballooning to rural Irish hamlets and theatrical stages. The collection has endured for its sharp, energetic prose, keen observations of human vulnerability, and balance of humor, romance, and tragedy.

The Story

The collection opens with its title story, where a world-famous aviator prepares for an unprecedented cross-Channel flight to Cherbourg. While he embodies physical perfection and mechanical daring, his wife sits motionless in their hotel room, weighed down by the silent, agonizing emotional toll of his dangerous passion. This theme of human cost sets the tone for the varied narratives that follow.

Dehan moves rapidly across genres and social spheres. In rural France, a family drama unfolds as a young bride named Ninette is turned out of her house by an elderly husband after a groom courts her, leaving her brother and mother to navigate social scandal and lost dowries. Elsewhere, romantic misunderstandings and old secrets resurface, as when two former lovers reunite after forty years through a chance meeting arranged by a clever tutor.

In "An Indian Baby" and "The Delusion of Mrs. Donohoe," Dehan turns her lens toward social pretension and Irish identity. A high-society widow enjoys her new life following her husband's death, while a comical identity mix-up reveals that a girl raised in comfort was swapped at birth with an Irish soldier's daughter. "Ponsonby and the Pantheress" exposes suburban secrets when an unfaithful husband hides in a curtained recess while his wife confronts an extortionist, only for the two women to recognize each other.

Darker, more dramatic stakes emerge in stories of peril and supernatural reckoning. A reckless balloon ascent turns deadly when a cuckolded husband corners his wife and her lover in mid-air with a revolver and a knife, forcing the coward to plead for his life while the wife accepts her fate with icy contempt. In a haunting ghost story, a grieving man is visited by his deceased lover, who offers to return to life if he wishes it; instead, he selfishly wishes for career success and titles, causing her spirit to fade away in sorrowful disgust.

Physical comedy and heroic feats anchor the later tales. In "A Fat Girl's Love Story," a circus giantess uses an iron bar to smash open a burning theater door, rescuing her unconscious lover. In "The Fly and the Spider," schoolboy letters reveal aristocratic antics, fake drownings, and teenage cynicism. "The Collapse of the Ideal" lampoons married life as a newlywed couple bickers over Japanese pugs in bed. Finally, "The Last Expedition" closes the book on a noble note: a loyal friend charters a ship into arctic waters to search for a woman's missing husband, rejecting her premature romantic advances to fulfill his duty.

How It Unfolds

The flight looms An acclaimed aviator prepares to fly across the English Channel from Greymouth Links to Cherbourg, while his wife sits motionless in their hotel room, trapped in quiet anguish over the peril of his craft.

The scandal at the cottage A French brother pleads for his seventeen-year-old sister, who was driven from her home by her sixty-year-old husband after dancing with a handsome groom at her own wedding.

The cradle swap revealed A young woman named Peggy upends a family of high-standing officers by revealing she was switched at birth with a soldier's baby, claiming her right to her new aristocratic father.

The confrontation behind the curtain A cheating husband cowered in a curtained recess listens in terror as his wife enters the room and directly confronts the extortionist who came to black-mail him.

The mid-air verdict Suspended high above the earth in a balloon basket, an aggrieved husband draws a gun on his unfaithful wife and her coward lover, cutting the envelope cord as the lover grovels for mercy.

The phantom's choice A dead woman returns from the grave to offer her surviving partner a second chance at love, but he instead demands professional prestige and power, banishing her ghost forever.

The giantess breaks through When fire engulfs a venue, a circus performer uses her massive strength to swing a heavy iron weight against a locked timber door, carrying her fainting partner to safety outside.

The voyage into the ice Refusing to accept the premature mourning of a friend's wife, a loyal companion charters a steamship to sail into dangerous southern seas to find his missing friend.

The People

• Sheldrick: A tall, eagle-featured pioneer of aviation. He lives for the exhilaration and mathematics of flight, oblivious to the emotional exhaustion his dangerous career inflicts upon his devoted wife.
• Ninette: A seventeen-year-old French bride married to an elderly man. Her brief, innocent dance with a groom destroys her marriage, costing her both her dowry and her home.
• Peggy Donohoe: A boisterous, coarse-handed young woman who discovers she was swapped at birth, boldly stepping forward to claim her place in high society despite her rustic background.
• Mr. Ponsonby: A foolish, scheming husband who finds himself trapped behind a curtain when his streetwise extortionist and his dignified wife come face-to-face in his own home.
• Maudslay-Berrish: A disgraced husband who lures his unfaithful wife and her sniveling lover into a high-altitude balloon, using a revolver and a deflating cord to exact a terrifying revenge.
• Sir Robert Daymond: A selfish, ambitious lover who is offered a miraculous return to life by the ghost of his beloved, but chooses political titles and status over her resurrection.
• Miss Minota: A giantess working in a show who feels self-conscious about her size until a fire breaks out, allowing her to use her immense physical strength to save the man she loves.
• Hawting-Holliday: A resolute, honorable friend who rejects a quick romance with a newly "widowed" woman, choosing instead to fund an expedition into frozen seas to rescue her missing husband.

In Its Own Voice

"Mathematician, engineer, meteorologist, and athlete, his tall, lightly built but muscular frame carried the head of an eagle."

Sheldrick is described as the ideal modern aviator, whose physique and mind are perfectly adapted to the dangerous thrill of flight.

"‘I wish,’ he said very distinctly, ‘to be Sir Robert Daymond, Baronet, and President of the ---- before the year is out!’"

Faced with the spirit of his dead lover offering him a second chance at love, Daymond reveals his cold ambition by asking for social power instead.

"O Lord! where’s the use in You havin’ made me so much bigger than other folk if I can’t save him?"

Trapped in a burning building, the giantess Miss Minota prays for the strength to break through a locked door and save her lover's life.

What It's Really About

Underneath its lively plots and theatrical set pieces, The Cost of Wings examines the hidden prices exacted by ambition, vanity, and social expectation. Dehan constantly contrasts outer appearances with inner costs: the glory of early aviation is weighed against a wife's silent horror; high-society respectability is juxtaposed with betrayal and cowardice; and physical anomalies like extreme height or awkwardness become sources of unexpected heroism. The stories repeatedly ask what individuals owe to those they love versus what they sacrifice for vanity, status, or self-preservation. Honor is shown not as a title or class privilege, but as a deliberate choice made in moments of crisis, whether high in a balloon basket or deep in the arctic ice.

Why Read It Today

The Cost of Wings, and Other Stories offers modern readers a delightful time capsule of Edwardian storytelling, filled with quick-witted dialogue, dramatic twists, and distinct character voices. Readers who enjoy classic early twentieth-century short fiction, British satire, and historical adventure will find much to admire in Dehan's versatile pacing and rich scenes.

The experience of reading the collection is fast-paced and varied, moving rapidly from room-scale farces to suspenseful outdoor life-or-death struggles. Dehan's prose is sharp and clear, though readers should be prepared for period conventions. A few stories feature thick regional or Irish dialects spelled phonetically, as well as period-typical depictions of class dynamics, theatrical tropes, and domestic spats. Furthermore, readers accustomed to single-genre collections will encounter a broad, unpredictable mix of romance, comedy, melodrama, and supernatural fantasy. The book's charm lies in its vitality, its genuine empathy for social outsiders, and its sharp-eyed refusal to let respectable scoundrels off the hook.