“Hang it all, man, don’t blow your horn like that!” roared Windomshire at last, harassed and full of dread. Joe, in his abstraction, was sounding his siren in a most insulting manner.
At last Windomshire’s wheels struck a surface that seemed hard and resisting. He gave a shout of joy.
“Here we are! It’s macadam!”
“Cobberly Road,” cried Joe. “Back off to the right and let me run in ahead. I’m—I’m in a devil of a hurry.”
“By Gad, sir, so am I. Hi, hold back there! Look out where you’re going, confound you!”
“Now for it,” cried Joe to Eleanor. “We’ve got the lead; I’ll bet a bun he can’t catch us.” He had deliberately driven across the other’s bows, as it were, scraping the wheel, and was off over Cobberly Road like the wind. “Turn to your right at the next crossing,” he shouted back to Windomshire. Then to himself hopefully: “If he does that, he’ll miss Fenlock by three miles.”
They had covered two rash, terrifying miles before a word was spoken. Then he heard her voice in his ear—an anxious, troubled voice that could scarcely be heard above the rushing wind.
“What will we do if the train is late, dear? He’ll be—be sure to catch us.”
“She’s never late. Besides, what if he does catch us? We don’t have to go back, do we? You’re of age. Brace up; be a man!” he called back encouragingly.
“There are too many men as it is,” she wailed, sinking back into the tonneau.
“Here we are!” he shouted, as the car whizzed into a murky, dimly lighted street on the edge of Fenlock, the county seat. “There are the station lights just ahead.”
“Is the train in?” she cried, struggling to her feet eagerly.
“I think not.” He was slowing down. A moment later the throbbing car came to a stop beside the railway station platform. The lights blinked feebly through the mist; far off in the night arose the faint toot of a locomotive’s whistle.
“We’re just in time,” he cried. “She’s coming. Quick!” He lifted her bodily over the side of the car, jerked two suitcases from beneath the curtains, and rushed frantically to the shelter of the platform sheds.
“I’ll leave you here, dear,” he was saying rapidly. “Wait a second; there is your railroad ticket and your drawing-room ticket, too. I’ll wake Derby when I get on board. I have to run the automobile down to Henry’s garage first. Won’t take ten seconds. Don’t worry. The train won’t be here for three or four minutes. Get on board and go to sleep. I’ll be two cars ahead.”
“Oh, Joe, won’t I see you again before we start?” she cried despairingly.
“I’ll be back in a minute. It’s only half a block to Henry’s. All I have to do is to leave the car in front of his place. His men will look after it. It’s all understood, dearest; don’t worry. I’ll be here before the train, never fear. Stand here in the shadow, dear.” He gave her what might have been a passionate kiss had it not been for the intervention of veil and goggles. Then he was off to the motor, his heart thumping frantically. Standing as stiff and motionless as a statue against the damp brick wall, she heard the automobile leap away and go pounding down the street. Apparently she was alone on the platform; the ticking of telegraph instruments came to her anxious ears, however, and she knew there were living people inside the long, low building. The experience certainly was new to this tall, carefully nurtured girl. Never before had she been left alone at such an hour and place; it goes without saying that the circumstances were unique. Here she was, standing alone in the most wretched of nights, her heart throbbing with a dozen emotions, her eyes and ears labouring in a new and thrilling enterprise, her whole life poised on the social dividing line. She was running away to marry the man she had loved for years; slipping away from the knot that ambition was trying to throw over her rebellious head. If she had any thought of the past or the future, however, it was lost among the fears and anxieties of the present. Her soul was crying out for the approach of two objects—Joe Dauntless and the north-bound flyer.
Her sharp ears caught the sound which told her that the motor had stopped down the street; it was a welcome sound, for it meant that he was racing back to the station—and just in time, too; the flyer was pounding the rails less than half a mile away.
Fenlock was a division point in the railroad. The company’s yards and the train despatcher’s office were located there. A huge round-house stood off to the right; half a dozen big headlights glared out at the shivering Eleanor like so many spying, accusing eyes. She knew that all trains stopped in Fenlock. Joe had told her that the flyer’s pause was the briefest of any during the day or night; still she wondered if it would go thundering through and spoil everything.
Miss Thursdale, watching the approaching headlight, her ears filled with the din of the wheels, did not see or hear a second motor car rush up to the extreme south end of the platform. She was not thinking of Windomshire or his machine. That is why she failed to witness an extraordinary incident.
As the driver leaped from the car a second man disconnected himself from the shadows, paused for a moment to take orders from the new arrival, and then jumped into the seat just vacated. Whereupon the one-time driver performed precisely the same feat that Dauntless had performed three minutes before him. He jerked forth a couple of bags and then proceeded to lift from the tonneau of the car a vague but animate something, which, an instant later, resolved itself into the form of a woman at his side.
“I’ve settled with the company, Meaders,” hurriedly announced Windomshire to the man on the seat. “The car is in your hands now.”
“Yes, sir; I understand. Your week is up tonight. Hope it was satisfactory, sir.” The car shot off in the night, almost running down a man who scudded across the street in its path.
“Just in time, Anne,” said Windomshire to the tall, hooded figure beside him. “Thank God, we didn’t miss it.”
“Hasn’t it been good sport, Harry?” cried the young woman, with an unmistakably English inflection. “It’s just like a book.”
“Only more so,” he observed. “This has really happened, you know. Things never really happen in books, don’t you know. You’ve not lost your tickets, dear?”
“No; they do that only in books. Really, I’m trembling like a leaf. I can’t realise that it is all taking place as we planned, and that I am to be your wife after all. Ah, Harry! isn’t it splendid?”
“’Gad, little woman, I am the one who hasn’t the right to realise. By Jove, I didn’t give myself credit for the cleverness to fool every one so neatly. Really, don’t you know, however, I feel a bit sorry for Miss Thursdale. She’s a ripping good sort, and I’m sorry on that account.”
Miss Courtenay—erstwhile governess—took hold of the lapels of his raincoat and looked seriously up into his face. “Are you sure you’ll never regret giving her up for me—with all her money?”
“Oh, I say, Anne dear, it’s I who am running away, not you. I’ve always wanted you—all my life. I’ve been something of a cad—”
“It wasn’t your fault. Mrs. Thursdale was bound to have you. It’s her way.”
“It hurts my pride to say it, but hanged if I think—er—Eleanor was very strong for the match. I’ve a notion she was bullied into it.”
“I’m quite sure of it.”
“You’re doing her a good turn, my dear. You see, I couldn’t love her, and I’d probably have beaten her and all that. It wasn’t as if I had to marry her for her money. Deuce take it, I’ve got a few pounds of my own.”
“I’m only Anne Courtenay, the governess.”
“You’ll be Lady Windomshire some day, my word for it—if the other chaps manage to die, God bless ’em. I say, here’s the train. Good-night, dear, up you go! I’ll go up ahead. Don’t forget! The wedding’s at noon tomorrow.”
The long, shadowy train came to a stop. He elbowed the porter aside and helped her up the steps. Neither of them noticed the vague figure which rushed across the platform and into the
second car below.
“Where’s the luggage car?” shouted Windomshire to the porter.
“The what?”
“I mean the baggage van.”
“Way up front, sir. Where they’re puttin’ on the trunks, sir.”
Swinging his travelling bag almost at arm’s length, the long Englishman raced forward. His own and Miss Courtenay’s pieces had come over during the afternoon, skilfully smuggled out of the Thursdale house. Just as he reached the baggage truck a panting, mud-covered individual dashed up from the opposite direction, madly rushing for the train. They tried to avoid a collision, but failed. A second later the two men were staring into each other’s eyes, open-mouthed and dismayed.
“Hello!” gasped Dauntless, staggered.
“What the devil, sir, do—My word! It’s Dauntless!” sputtered Windomshire.
“Where is she?” shouted Joe, convinced that his rival had captured his runaway fiancee and was now confronting him for explanation.
“Confound you, sir, it’s none of your business,” roared Windomshire, confident that Dauntless had been sent by Mrs. Thursdale to intercept him in his flight with the governess. “Damn your impudence!”
“Stand aside, Windomshire,” exclaimed Joe, white with anger and dread. “I’m going to find her. What have you done with her?”
“You sha’n’t interfere, Dauntless,” cried Windomshire, squaring himself. “She’s going to be my wife, and—”
“I guess not! Get out of my way, or—”
“She’s on that train, confound you, and I’m going away with her whether you like it or not—or anybody else, for that matter,” said Windomshire, refusing to budge an inch.
“Well, you’ll have a damned hard time getting rid of me,” roared Joe, trying to break past his rival. A baggage-man leaped between them in time to prevent blows. He held the angry, mistaken rivals apart,—rivals no longer, if they only knew. “Let go of me! Hold this fellow and I’ll give you a hundred dollars—hold him till the train goes!”
“Hold me, will you? My word! What is this? A highway robbery!”
Both men broke away from the baggage-man and rushed frantically down the line of cars, each trying to hold the other back. Joe succeeded in grasping the handrail of the first sleeping-car, but his adversary pulled him away. An instant later they were struggling across the station platform, clasped in savage and hysterical combat. The station employees were rushing up to separate them when the train began to move slowly away.
They came to their senses a moment later to find themselves held firmly by brawny peacemakers, the black cars rushing swiftly by without them.
Forgetting the battle so inopportunely begun, they started off madly in pursuit, shouting, yelling, commanding. But the flyer was deaf to their cries, callous against their tears. It whistled off into the north, carrying two trusting, nervous young women, who were secure in the belief that their liege lords to be were aboard, utterly unconscious of the true state of affairs. In the drawing-room of Car 5 Eleanor was still sitting, with her veil down, her raincoat saturating the couch on which she sat stiff and silent. Anne Courtenay in Car 7 was philosophically preparing for bed, absolutely confident that the Englishman she had loved for years was not going to fail her.
Windomshire, alas, came to grief in his useless pursuit. He fell off the end of the platform and rolled in the mud, half stunned. When he painfully picked himself up, he saw Dauntless sitting on the edge of the walk, his haggard, staring face lighted by the glare of a sympathetic lantern. The station agent was offering vain but well-intended commiseration.
“Good God!” he heard Joe groan, but he did not catch the words, “she’s gone without me!”
The next instant the distracted eloper was on his feet demanding a special engine.
“I’ve got to have it!” he shouted.
Windomshire’s wits returned. Why not have a special too? It was the only way.
“You can order one for me, too,” he exclaimed. “At once. It’s imperative.”
CHAPTER III
THE MORNING AFTER
The sun was peeping over the hilltops and shooting his merry glance across the rain-soaked lowlands when Eleanor Thursdale awoke from her final snatch of slumber. A hundred feverish lapses into restless subconsciousness had marked the passage of nearly as many miles of clatter and turmoil. Never before had she known a train to be so noisy; never before had she lain awake long enough to make the natural discovery. It seemed hours before she dropped off in the first surrender to sleep; it seemed hours between the succeeding falls. Her brain and heart were waging the most relentless battle against peace and security. She knew Joe Dauntless was but two cars ahead, and yet she wondered if were really there; she wondered and was troubled—oh, so troubled.
Daylight was creeping in beneath the curtain of the window. She stretched her fine, tired young body, and for the first time really felt like going to sleep. The perversity of early morning! Gradually it dawned upon her that the train was not moving; as far back as she could recall in her now wakeful spell it occurred to her that the cars had been standing still and that everything was as quiet as death. She looked at her watch; it was six o’clock.
“Goodness!” she thought, sitting up suddenly, “what is the matter?” The curtain flew up and her startled eyes blinked out upon the glaring world.
There was not a house in sight as far as her eyes could range forward and behind. Instead, a wide sweep of farm lands partially submerged by the flood water of many rains. Far away there were brown hills and a long army of tall trees standing at attention,—a bleak prospect despite the cheery intentions of the sun, which lurked behind the hills. Despondent cornstalks of last year’s growth stood guard over the soggy fields; drenched, unhappy tufts of grass, and forlorn but triumphant reeds arose here and there from the watery wastes, asserting their victory over a dismantled winter. It was not a glorious view that met the gaze of the bride on her wedding morn.
Strangest of all, the train was so quiet, so utterly inactive, that an absurd feeling of loneliness grew upon her, gradually developing into the alarming certainty that she was the only living person in the world. Then she heard men’s voices outside of the window; her relief was almost hysterical. Scrambling out of the berth, she began a hasty, nervous toilet. Three sharp pushes on the button brought the company’s ladies’ maid—advertised as a part of the luxury and refinement which made the flyer “the finest train in the world.”
“What has happened? Where are we?” she demanded, upon the entrance of the sleepy young coloured woman.
“The Pride River bridge is washed away, ma’am,” said the maid. “We can’t go on no furder.”
“Dear me,” sighed Eleanor, turning to be buttoned at the back. “And where is Pride River bridge—or where was it, I mean?”
“’Bout twenty mile south of Omegon, ma’am—miss. The river’s a sight—highest ’at it’s ever been known. It’s all over the bottoms. This here train came mighty nigh running into it, too. A boy flagged it just in time, ’bout five o’clock.”
“Have we been standing here a whole hour?”
“Yes, miss; right here. They say we can’t go back till the section boss has examined the track in Baxter’s Cut. Seems as though there’s some danger of a washout back yander.”
“Do you mean to say we are likely to stay here indefinitely?” gasped Eleanor. “Ouch! Be careful, please!”
“Oh, it won’t be long. The porter says they’ve sent back over the line to telegraft for the section men.”
“Good Heavens, is there no station here?”
“No, ma’am; five miles back. They’s one jest across the river, but it might as well be in Africa.”
“Be quick, please, and then send the conductor to me—and the porter too,” urged Eleanor, in distress.
The porter was the first to arrive.
“Porter, will you go to Car 7 and see if the occupant of lower 4 is awake? I am quite sure that is right, but if it should
happen to be wrong, please let me know at once.”
“Yes, miss; and what shall I tell her?”
“Ahem! It’s a—a gentleman. Ask him to—to come to the rear end of the train. That’s all. Oh, conductor, how soon will we be on the track again?” The conductor was standing in the door, evidently impressed by the summons from the drawing-room.
“We’re not off the track, madam. There is no danger—just a little delay. I have telegraphed to see if I can have a relief train come down from Omegon and pick us up after we’ve been ferried across the river.”
“This is the very worst road I’ve ever travelled over—the very worst,” was Eleanor’s natural complaint. “When will that get us to Omegon?”
“We should be there in an hour after leaving here.”
“And when did you say we’d leave here?”
“I didn’t say. I don’t know.”
“Who does know, if you don’t?” demanded Eleanor.
“God, I presume,” observed the harassed conductor, turning away with the realisation that he had erred in coming to her in the first place. The porter returned at that moment.
“Nobody in that section, ma’am. It was sold, but the party didn’t show up.”
“Good Heavens, you—but he did show up. I—I know he did. Look again. Try—but wait! Ask for Mr. Dauntless. Ask quietly, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her nerves at highest tension, Miss Thursdale made her way toward the rear platform of the train. She passed down the curtained aisles of two coaches, wondering how people could sleep so soundly in a crisis like this. A porter politely opened a door and she slipped out upon the last platform. As far as the eye could reach stretched the roadbed and its telegraph poles, finally disappearing in the haze of the morning. Wide-spread flood, soaking the flat—
A sharp cry of amazement came from the track just below her. She looked down and into the eyes of Anne Courtenay, the governess. For a full minute they stared blankly at each other, apparently bereft of all the agencies that fall to the lot of woman.
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 191