“Rough weather for motoring,” remarked Dauntless, nervously. Windomshire removed his cap and goggles.
“Beastly. I just ran over for something to warm the inside man. Won’t you join me?” His voice was pleasant to the ear, his manner easy and appealing. He was not so good looking as Dauntless, true, but he had the air of a thoroughbred in his make-up—from head to foot.
“Sit down here,” called Mrs. Scudaway readily, creating a general shift of chairs. The two men hesitated a moment, nervousness apparent in both, and then sat down quickly. The Englishman was next Mrs. Scudaway. “What were you doing out in the rain?” she asked after the order for drinks had been taken.
“Hurrying to get out of it,” he said with evasive good humour, “and thinking how much nicer your fogs are than ours,” he added quickly.
“Anybody come over with you?” asked the bore, agreeably.
“No, they’re playing bridge over at Mrs. Thursdale’s and that lets me out. Beastly headache, too. Got out for a breath of air.” The silence that followed this observation seemed to call for further explanations. “Miss Thursdale retired soon after dinner, wretchedly under the weather. That rather left me adrift, don’t you know. I’m not playing bridge this year.”
“You’re not? Why not, pray?”
“Chiefly because of last year. My Mercedes came on from New York yesterday and I got her out for a spin. Couldn’t resist, don’t you know. She’s working beautifully.”
“There’s one thing about a Mercedes that I don’t like—and you don’t find it in a Panhard. I’ve got a Panhard and—” Dobson was saying with all the arrogance of a motor fiend, when Mrs. Scudaway ruthlessly and properly cut him off.
“We know all about your Panhard, Dobby. Don’t bother. Is Eleanor really ill, Mr. Windomshire?”
“I had it from her own lips, Mrs. Scudaway.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. Is it likely to be serious?”
“Really, I can’t say. I offered to go and fetch the doctor in my car, but she assured me she’d be all right in the morning. What say, Mr. Dauntless?”
“I didn’t speak, Mr. Windomshire.”
“I thought you did.” More than one at the table had heard Joe’s involuntary chuckle.
“I say, Windomshire, what’s the name of that pretty governess over at Thursdale’s?” asked the busy bore. “Saw her this morning.”
The Englishman looked down and flecked the ashes from his cigarette before answering.
“Miss Courtenay,” he responded.
“She’s a corking pretty girl.” Windomshire went through the unnecessary act of flecking ashes again, but said nothing in reply. “Are there any more at home like her?” with a fine chuckle in behalf of his wit.
“She’s of a very good family, I believe,” said Windomshire, looking about helplessly. Mrs. Scudaway caught the look in his eyes and remembered that English gentlemen are not supposed to discuss women outside of their own set.
“It must be time for the ’bus,” she said. “We’re all going in by the 10.10, Mr. Windomshire.”
“Can’t I take some of you over to the station in my car?”
“The ’bus is dryer, I think, thank you.” She led the way, and the other women followed her upstairs. “We’ll be down in time,” she called.
“I’ll take some of you men over in Hardy’s machine,” volunteered Dauntless. “I’ve got it out here this week, while he’s east.”
“Ain’t you going in, Joe?” demanded Rolfe.
“Not tonight. I’m staying overnight with my uncle in Cobberly Road.”
“The ’bus is good enough for me. I haven’t forgotten how you ran off the Peters Bridge last fall,” said Carter.
“Hang it, man, he wasn’t thinking about bridges that time,” said the cheerful bore. “There was a girl with him. Elea—Ahem! I say, old man, what the devil time is it? Time for the confounded ’bus? Don’t want to miss the train.” He had caught the scowl of warning from Carter and, for a wonder, understood.
“By the way,” said Windomshire, irrelevantly, “what was the disturbance over in O’Brien’s Lane this morning? Anybody hurt? I was driving the car up Andrews’ Hill when I saw the excitement. Couldn’t make it out. Were all of the horses running away?”
“Running away!” roared the blase man, forgetting his pose for the first time. “Running away!” and he broke into a roar of laughter. “Why, that was the advance guard of the Faraway Country Club. Good Lord, did you see them coming in?”
“My word, they were coming in. But what was the rush? I came over tonight to see if any of the women had been hurt. I could have sworn the horses were absolutely unmanageable. They were tearing through bushes and taking fences they’d never seen before. Egad, I give you my word, one of the women took the fence at the south end of the golf course, and she didn’t turn out for the bunker at No. 7, either. She took it like a bird, and straight across the course she flew on a dead line for the home green. What the deuce—”
“Sh! Windomshire, it will cost you your life if she hears you. That was Mrs. Scudaway. You don’t know what happened, so I’ll tell you. Half a dozen of the women went out with us for a run over the usual course. They are among our best and oldest hunters, too. Well, they were keeping right up with the men and having a splendid hunt, when all of a sudden a real, live fox dashed into view. By gad, sir, he started a panic. They’d never seen one in their lives, and they set up a howl that went clear to heaven. And they started for home—well, you saw ’em on the stretch. It was great! There never has been such riding in America. Mrs. Hooper lost her hat in the woods, and Mrs. Graves lost part of her habit coming through that break in the hedge over there. That skinny Miss Elperson, who never before has had nerve enough to jump her horse over the lawn hose, cleared the wall that runs along O’Brien’s mill,—nobody’s ever done it before,—and she came in hanging to the horse’s mane and yelling like a wild-cat. Gad, it was two hours before we got ’em quiet and sent’em to town. They thought it was a tiger, I understand, although some of them held out for the lion and the hyena. Mrs. Scudaway was game enough to stay and enjoy the laugh.”
“What became of the fox?” demanded the Englishman, his eyes glistening. At that moment the women came trooping down stairs; the ’bus bell was clanging sleepily.
“The fox? Oh—er—hanged if I know. I—er—”
“Were you riding?”
“Well—er—just a practice run, you know, old man. Er—I say, ladies, the ’bus waits!”
Two minutes later the ’bus rolled away in the fog and drizzle, leaving Dauntless and Windomshire alone on the steps.
“Good-night,” said the Englishman, after an awkward silence.
“Good-night,” was the response. Then, following a brief pause, both started toward their cars. The next minute they were chugging away, in the night and the lights in the clubhouse began to go out.
Two hours later a stealthy figure crept across the Thursdale lawn, lurking behind the rose beds and lilac bushes, finally worming its way to a dripping but secluded spot under the weather side of the house. It was past twelve o’clock, but there were still lights in the front part of the big summer-house. Quiet reigned there, however; the noise of merry-making came from the servants’ quarters overlooking the ravine. A handful of gravel left an impatient hand and rattled against the second-story window above. Almost instantaneously the window was raised and a head came forth.
“Joe?” came a shrill whisper from above.
“What’s the matter?” whispered the man below. “I’ve been waiting out there for two hours—well, half an hour, at least. Aren’t you coming, dear?”
“I can’t get out,” came in a whispered wail. “I’ve had my hat on for hours, but—”
“Why can’t you get out? Good Lord, you just must!”
“They’re playing bridge in the front part of the house and the servants are having a reunion in the back. Oh, I’ve been nearly crazy. What are we to do? Shall I jump?”
<
br /> “Don’t! Is there no way to sneak out?”
“I’m afraid of being seen. It would give everything away if any one saw me in this automobile rigging at this time of night—and in a rain like this, too. Oh, dear, dear, I know I shall go mad! You poor darling, aren’t you wet to the skin? I really couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t be there at 11.30.”
“We’ll never make that train—never in the world,” groaned Dauntless. “It’s ten miles, and the road’s horrible all the way. By Jove, Nell, you must get out some way. It’s now or never. I’ve got everything fixed.”
“Oh, Joe—listen! Do you think you can get a ladder out from under the verandah? The painters left them there this morning. Look out for paint, dear. Don’t make a noise—not a sound. Mr. Windomshire’s room is just over the porte cochere. For Heaven’s sake, don’t arouse him.”
“Drop your bag down first, dear,—here! I’ll catch it.”
“I’ve got to put some things in it first. It isn’t quite ready,” she gasped, darting away from the window.
“’Twas ever thus,” he muttered in despair. Cautiously he made his way to the end of the verandah. A close listener might have heard him snarl “damn” more than once as he tugged away at the painters’ ladders, which had been left there when the rain began. He was a good-natured chap, but barking his knuckles, bumping his head, and banging his shins, added to the misfortunes that had gone before, were enough to demoralise a saint.
He imagined that he was making enough noise to rouse the neighbours for blocks around. No time was to be lost in self-commiseration, however. He hurriedly dragged out a ladder, which he managed to place against the window-sill without accident.
“Here it is,” she whispered excitedly. The next instant a heavy object dropped at his feet with a crash. “Oh!” she exclaimed with horror, “my perfume bottles!”
“Good Lord!” he gasped.
“I thought you were going to catch it. Oh, here’s the ladder. Do you think I’ll fall? Oh, oh!”
“Don’t be afraid. Climb out, dear—and hurry!”
She was brave enough in the crisis. While he held the bottom of the ladder she scrambled through the window and hurried downward. Before she reached the bottom he lifted her from the ladder in his strong arms and held her close for a moment.
“Take the ladder down, dearest,” she whispered between kisses. “I don’t want mother to know I left that way—not just yet,—nor Mr. Windomshire, either.”
“Come this way,” he whispered, after replacing the ladder. “I left the car just around the corner. Come on, darling, and we’ll soon be safe. Don’t make a noise!”
“Goodness, isn’t it dark! What a horrid night! Oh, what’s that?”
“Gad, I thought I heard something over there in the croquet ground. Sounded like some one mixing it up with a wicket. Quick! Out this way!” He had her hand in his, and was rushing ruthlessly through flower-beds toward the big gate, her travelling bag banging against his knee with the insistence of a hundredweight.
Panting and gasping for breath, they finally floundered into the roadway, and dashed off through the muddy surface toward the unseen automobile.
She was half fainting with the panic of excitement as he started to lift her into the tonneau of the car. “No, no! Please let me sit with you in the front seat,” she implored. She had her way, and a moment later he was up beside her, both wrapped in the oil-cloths, the drizzle blowing in their hot faces.
“We’re off, thank God!” he whispered joyously, as the car leaped forward under his hand.
“I wonder—oh, dear, how I wonder what mamma will say,” she was crying in his ear.
Dauntless grinned happily as the car shot onward through the blackness of the night. Its lanterns were dark and cold, but he knew the road.
CHAPTER II
THE FLYERS CATCH THE FLYER
No one would have recognised either of them had it been possible to see them,—so carefully were their heads swathed in their coverings. She was veiled and he was goggled, and both of them scrooged down in the seat apprehensively. Hardy’s car, borrowed in reality for the occasion, was performing nobly. It careened through the muddy streets of the village with a sturdiness that augured well for the enterprise. Out into the country road, scudding northward, it sped. Dauntless increased the speed, not to the limit, on account of the fog and uncertainty of the road, but enough to add new thrills to the girl who crouched beside him. Neither spoke until they were far from the town line; the strain was too intense.
“What will everybody say?” she finally cried in his ear—the most natural question in the world. “And the newspapers? Oh, dear!”
“You’re not weakening, are you?” he cried. “Shall I turn back?”
She was silent for half a mile.
“No,” she replied at last, “I couldn’t climb up that ladder. And besides—” with a gasp as the car shot over the railroad tracks,—”we never could get as good a start as this again.”
“Bully for you!” he shouted.
“How far is it to Fenlock, Joe?” she asked, a quaver in her high-pitched voice.
“About seven miles. We’ll take the short cut through O’Brien’s Lane and strike Cobberly Road again at the crossroads. Then it will be easy going. We’ll catch the flyer all right, Nell. Everything’s arranged. You go into Car 5 and I in Car 7—”
“With a whole car between us? Heavens!”
“It’s safest, dear. There might happen to be some one on board who’d know us and suspect. Keep your veil down until you get into the berth. There’s not much danger of any one being up at this time of night, but don’t take any chances.”
“Goodness, isn’t it thrilling! And when do we get to Omegon?”
“Little after seven in the morning. My cousin will meet us in a hack and drive us straight to the church. His wife will go with us as the extra witness. By eight o’clock we’ll be married. Derby will be on the train with us. He’s a full-fledged preacher now, and he’ll marry us without a whimper.”
“Oh,” she sighed deliciously, in spite of the jarring of the motor, “isn’t it nice to have old college chums who can be depended upon?”
“Poor old Windomshire,” he laughed in the buoyancy of conquest.
“I don’t think he’ll—” She stopped.
“What?”
“Care very much,” she concluded. He laughed doubtingly.
Mile after mile the car traversed the misty night, jolting over the ruts in the lane, taking the hills blindly—driven entirely by the hand of Good Luck.
Suddenly the “honk, honk!” of an invisible motor struck upon their tense ears, the sound coming from some point ahead in the black, narrow lane. Dauntless sat straight and peered ahead, sounding his horn sharply.
“I hope no one is coming toward us,” he groaned, slowing up sharply. “We never can pass in this confounded lane. If we get off into the soft ground—Hello! Here he comes—and no lights either! Hey! Look out!” He brought his car to an abrupt standstill.
“Where are we, Joe?” she cried.
“Near the crossroads, I’m sure. Curse an idiot that runs around without lights on a night like this,” he growled, forgetting that his own lamps were dark.
Out of the misty blackness loomed another car, directly ahead. It had come to a sudden stop not ten feet away. Both cars were tooting their horns viciously.
“Where are your lights?” roared Dauntless.
“Where are yours?” came back angrily through the fog.
“Good Lord!” gasped Joe, panic-stricken.
“It’s Mr. Windomshire,” whispered Eleanor, in consternation.
Before she realised what was happening her companion lifted her bodily over the back of the seat and deposited her in the bed of the tonneau.
“Hide, dearest,” he whispered. “Get under the storm blankets. He must not see you! I’ll—I’ll bluff it out some way.”
“Wha—what is he doing out here in a machine?” she was wh
ispering wildly. “He is pursuing us! He has found out!”
In the other car Windomshire—for it was the tall Englishman—was hoarsely whispering to some one beside him:
“It’s Dauntless! Hang him! What’s he doing here?” Then followed a hurried scuffling and subdued whispers. A long silence, fraught with an importance which the throbbing of the two engines was powerless to disturb, followed the mutual discovery. Joe’s brain worked the quicker. Disguising his voice as best he could, he shouted through the fog:
“We can’t pass here.”
“Is—is this Cobberly Road?” cried Windomshire, striving to obtain what he considered the American twang.
“No, it’s not. It’s O’Brien’s Lane.”
Then, after a long silence, “Can’t you back out?”
“It’s rather—I mean sorter risky, mister. I don’t know how far I’d have to back, doncherknow—er, ahem!”
“The crossroads can’t be more than a hundred yards behind you. Where are you going?”
“I’m going for—a doctor,” called Windomshire, hastily.
“Well, then, we ought not to stand here all night,” groaned Joe, his ears open to catch the sound of the locomotive’s whistle. There was no time to be lost.
“I’ll—I’ll try to back her out,” shouted Windomshire. Eleanor whispered something shrilly and anxiously from the tonneau, and Joe called out instantly:
“Who is ill?”
“Mrs.—Mrs. Smith,” replied the other, bravely.
“Good!” exclaimed Dauntless, heartily. Windomshire was not in the least annoyed by the lack of sympathy. He began to drive his car backward by jerks and jolts, blindly trusting to luck in the effort to reach the road which he had passed in his haste a few minutes before. Joe was shouting encouragement and pushing slowly forward in his own machine. The noise of the engines was deafening.
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 190