“It’s her grandmother who is ill—not she. But, yes! Please try to cheer her up a bit, Harry. She’s terribly upset.”
“I’m sure she is,” muttered he, dropping back with more haste than gallantry. Mr. Dauntless sprang forward with equal alacrity, and wrong was right a moment later.
“Joe dear,” whispered Eleanor, “I’ve been nearly crazy. What happened?” He was vainly trying to clasp her hand.
“Nell, he’s on to us. I wish I knew just why Miss Courtenay is here. Lord, I’ll never forget that ride.”
“It was just like you to take advantage of his engine.”
“His engine!” exploded Joe, wrathfully. Securely separated from the others, the elopers analysed the situation as best they could. Two separate enterprises struggled earnestly for an outcome. On the surface, the truth seemed plain enough: it was quite clear to both parties that the extraordinary chain of coincidence was not entirely due to Providence. There was something of design behind it all. The staggering part was the calamitous way in which chance had handled their dear and private affairs.
“He doesn’t know that you were in my automobile,” concluded Dauntless, almost at the same time that a like opinion was being expressed by Windomshire. “Are you willing to go on with it, Nell? Are you scared out of it?”
“No, indeed,” she exclaimed, perplexity leaving her brow. “At first I feared he might have telegraphed to mother, but now I am sure he hasn’t. He was not following me at all. He is in love with Anne, and he was surreptitiously off for a part of the distance with her. He really doesn’t want to marry me, you know.”
“Well, he isn’t going to, you see. By all that is holy, nothing shall stop us now, dear. We’ll go on to Omegon and carry out everything just as we planned. If he’s running off after another girl, it’s time you put an end to him. Don’t give him a thought.”
“Don’t you think we’d better talk it over with Mr. Derby? He discreetly disappeared when he saw it was you.”
“Right! Let’s hunt him out. By Jove, we can have him marry us right here,—great!”
“No,” she cried firmly, “it must be in a church.” He could not move her from that stand.
“Oh, if we could only get across that confounded river!” scolded Joe, as they went off in search of Derby.
Windomshire was slowly reconciling himself to the fact that Eleanor loved Dauntless, but he could not get it out of his head that she still expected to marry as her mother had planned.
“See here, Anne, it’s all very well to say that she loves Dauntless. Of course she does. But that isn’t going to prevent her from marrying me. I don’t believe she was running away with him, don’t you know. He was simply following her. That’s the way these Americans do, you know. Now, the question is, won’t she think it odd that you and I should happen to be doing almost the same thing?”
“To be sure she will,” said Anne, coolly. “She has a very bad opinion of me. I’m sure she doesn’t believe you expect to marry me.”
“By Jove, dear, it sounds rather dreadful, doesn’t it?” he groaned. “But of course you are going to marry me, so what’s the odds? Then she can marry Dauntless to her heart’s content. I say, are we never to get away from this beastly place?”
“They are to row us across the river in boats. We’ll be taken up by another train over there and carried on. Poor Mr. Dauntless, he looks so harassed.”
“By Jove, I feel rather cut up about him. He ought to have her, Anne. He’s a decent chap, although he was da—very unreasonable last night. I like him, too, in spite of the fact that he kicked coal over me twice in that confounded bin. He was good enough to take a cinder out of my eye this morning, and I helped him to find his watch in the coal-bin. I say, Anne, we might get a farm wagon and drive to some village where there is a minister—”
“No, Harry! you know I’ve set my heart on being married in a church. It seems so much more decent and—regular; especially after what has just happened.”
A porter appeared in the rear platform and shouted a warning to all those on the ground.
“Get yo’ things together. The boats’ll be ready in ten minutes, ladies and gen’l’men.” The locomotive uttered a few sharp whistles to reinforce his shouts, and everybody made a rush for the cars.
The conductor and other trainmen had all they could do to reassure the more nervous and apprehensive of the passengers, many of whom were afraid of the swollen, ugly river just ahead. Boats had been sent up from a town some miles down the stream, and the passengers with their baggage, the express, and the mail pouches were to be ferried across. Word had been received that a makeshift train would pick them up on the other side, not far from the wrecked bridge, and take them to Omegon as quickly as possible.
It was also announced that the company would be unable to send a train beyond Omegon and into the northwest for eight or ten hours, owing to extensive damage by the floods. Repairs to bridges and roadbed were necessary. In the meantime, the passengers would be cared for at the Somerset Hotel in Omegon, at the company’s expense. The company regretted and deplored, etc.
There was a frightful clamour by the through passengers, threats of lawsuits, claims for damage, execrations, and groans. In time, however, the whole company went trooping down the track under the leadership of the patient conductor. It was a sorry, disgruntled parade. Everybodywanted a porter at once, and when he could not get one, berated the road in fiercer terms than ever; men who had always carried their own bags to escape feeing a porter, now howled and raged because there was not an army of them on the spot. Everybody was constantly “damning” the luck.
The conductor led his charges from the track through a muddy stubble-field and down to a point where half a dozen small rowboats were waiting among the willows. Dauntless and Eleanor were well up in front, their faces set resolutely toward Omegon. For some well-defined reason, Windomshire and Anne were the last in the strange procession. The medical college agent, the tall and sombre Mr. Hooker, was the first man into a boat. He said it was a case of life or death.
Eleanor looked backward down the long file of trailers, a little smile on her lips.
“They are not all going away to be married, are they, Joe?” she said, taking note of the unbroken array of sour countenances.
“It looks like a funeral, my dear. Look at the cadaverous individual beside the con—Heavens, Nell, isn’t that—by George, it is! It’s old Mrs. Van Truder! Back there about half-way—the fat one. See her? Good Lord!”
Eleanor turned pale and the joyous light fled from her eyes.
“Oh, dear! I forgot that the Van Truders spend all their summers at Omegon. And it is she—and he, too. Oh, Joe, it’s just awful!”
“She’s the worst old cat in town,” groaned Dauntless. “We can’t escape her. She’ll spot us, and she’ll never let go of us. I don’t mind him. He’s so near-sighted he couldn’t see us. But she!”
“She will suspect, Joe—she’s sure to suspect, and she’ll watch us like a hawk,” whispered the distressed Eleanor. The Van Truders lived in the same block with the Thursdales in town. “She’ll telegraph to mother!”
“That reminds me,” muttered Joe, looking at his watch. “I had hoped to telegraph to your mother about this time.”
“She will forgive us,” said she, but she failed in her assumption of confidence. As a matter of fact she felt that her mother would not forgive.
“Well, you left a note pinned on your pillow,” said he, as if that covered all the sins.
“Yes, but it was directed to Miss Courtenay, asking her to break it gently to mamma,” said she, dismally.
They had reached the edge of the river by this time and others came up with them. For a while they managed to keep out of old Mrs. Van Truder’s range of vision, but her sharp eyes soon caught sight of them as they tried to slip into a boat that was already crowded to its full capacity.
“Why, Eleanor Thursdale!” shouted the old lady, her aristocratic eyes almost crossing
in their stare of amazement.
“Discovered!” groaned Dauntless to the willows.
Mrs. Van Truder pounced upon Eleanor and, between personal questions and impersonal reflections upon non-government railways, gave her a dizzy quarter of an hour. She ignored Mr. Dauntless almost completely,—quite entirely when she discovered Mr. Windomshire in the background. Little old Mr. Van Truder, in his usual state of subjection, was permitted to study the scenery at close range.
“I was so afraid you’d marry that horrid Dauntless fellow,” whispered Mrs. Van Truder. Eleanor gave vent to a constrained laugh.
“How perfectly preposterous!”
“When are you to be married, my dear?”
“At once—I mean, quite soon. Isn’t the scenery beautiful, Mr. Van Truder?” asked Eleanor in desperation.
“It’s too far away. I can’t see it,” grumbled the old gentleman.
“He’s so very near-sighted,” explained his wife. “Do you expect to stay long at the Somerset?”
“It all depends,” said Eleanor, with a glance at Dauntless.
“Isn’t that your governess with Mr. Windomshire? I can’t be mistaken.”
“Yes, she’s going out to spend a few weeks with a rich aunt,—her sister’s mother, I think.”
“How’s that?” gasped the old lady.
“I mean her mother’s sister.”
“It sounded very strange, my dear.”
“About the mother having a sister?” guessed old Mr. Van Truder, sharply. “Seems all right to me.”
“They are going to row us across the river,” volunteered Eleanor, helplessly.
“Good-morning, Mr. Windomshire,” called Mrs. Van Truder. Windomshire started and got very red in the face. Miss Courtenay’s bow went unnoticed by the old lady. In sheer despair, the Englishman turned to Dauntless, a fellow-sufferer.
“I say, old man,” he began nervously, “I’d like to ask a favour of you.”
“Go ahead—anything I can do,” said the other, blankly. Windomshire continued in lowered tones:
“Deucedly awkward, but I forgot my bags at Fenlock. I see you’ve got yours. Would you mind lending me a fresh shirt and a collar, old chap?”
“Gladly,” cried Joe, very much relieved. “Will you take them now?” starting to open his bag. Windomshire hastily interposed.
“I’d rather not, old chap. It’s rather exposed here, don’t you know. Later on, if you please. Thanks, old man; I’ll not forget this.” They shook hands without any apparent excuse.
“Mr. Windomshire!” called Mrs. Van Truder. He turned with a hopeless look in his eyes. The two girls had misery and consternation plainly stamped in their faces. “We can’t all go over in the next boats, you know. I’ve no doubt you and Miss Thursdale would not in the least mind being left to the last,” with a sly smile.
“Oh—er—ah, by Jove!” gasped Windomshire, with a glance at the still faces of the young women. He saw no relief there.
“Blamed cat!” muttered Dauntless, gritting his teeth.
“Mr. Dauntless, will you and Miss Courtenay come with us in this boat? I want some one to keep the snakes away; Mr. Van Truder can’t see them, you know.”
There was no way out of it. Joe and Anne meekly followed the Van Truders into the wobbly boat, resentment in their hearts, uncertainty in their minds. They rowed away, leaving Windomshire and Eleanor standing among the willows, ill at ease and troubled beyond expression.
CHAPTER V
AS NIGHT APPROACHES
Neither spoke until the boat came to its slippery, uncertain landing-place on the opposite side of the river. Then each breathed easier, in a sigh that seemed to express both relief and dismay.
“It’s a very ugly looking river,” she murmured encouragingly. She was afraid he might feel obliged, in honour, to offer an explanation for his presence, perhaps attempt to convince her in some tangible way that she was to expect nothing but slavish devotion from him in the future.
“I don’t wonder that the bridge gave way,” he replied politely. They looked at each other involuntarily, and then instantly looked away.
“I’d give my head to know what she expects of me,” thought Windomshire miserably.
“How I despise that old woman!” welled up in Eleanor’s bitter heart. Everything was awry. Luckily for both of them a small boy slipped into the river at that moment. He was rescued by the brakeman, but not until the catastrophe had served its purpose as a godsend. The excitement which attended the rescue saved the couple an uncomfortable ten minutes. Eleanor went to the assistance of the distracted mother; Windomshire, in his eagerness to do something, offered to exchange clothes with the dripping trainman; the small boy howled as lustily as his wheezy lungs would permit. Everybody shouted advice to the mother, rebukes to the boy, and praise to the hero; altogether Providence was acting most handsomely.
At last the final boatload of passengers crossed the river and drew up at the landing; Eleanor, with her bewildered fiance, stepped into the beaming presence of Mrs. Van Truder.
“Come with us,” she said with a friendliness that shattered all hope. “Mr. Van Truder has just arranged for breakfast at that farmhouse over there. The relief train won’t be here for half an hour or more and you must be famished.” Eleanor’s flimsy excuses were unavailing; her protestations that she could not eat a mouthful fell on obdurate ears. Windomshire, catching sight of the forlorn Anne, was about to assert himself vigorously in declining the invitation when a meaning look from the governess caused him to refrain. The look very plainly told him to accept.
The unhappy couple followed the Van Truders to the nearby farmhouse. They left behind them on the edge of the crowd, seated side by side on a pile of ties, two miserable partners in the fiasco. Gloomy, indeed, was the outlook for Miss Courtenay and the despised Mr. Dauntless. They were silent for many minutes after the departure, rage in their hearts. Then Mr. Dauntless could hold his tongue no longer.
“Damn her!” he exploded so viciously that Anne jumped and cried out,—
“Mr. Dauntless!”
“Oh, you feel just as I do about it only you won’t say it aloud,” he exclaimed. “I won’t stand for it!”
“I—I am sure Miss Thursdale has done nothing to deserve your curses,” she began diplomatically.
“Good Heavens, Miss Courtenay, you—Oh, I say, you know I didn’t mean Eleanor. The old pelican—that’s the one. Old Mrs. Intruder,” he grated.
“I am sure it is all quite regular,” observed Anne, so seriously that he looked at her in wonder. It began to creep into his head that his speculations were wrong, after all. At any rate it seemed advisable to put a sharp curb on his tongue.
“I’m sorry I spoke as I did about the old lady,” he said, after a moment’s reflection. “I was thinking of the way in which she left you out of her invitation to breakfast.”
“And yourself, incidentally,” she smiled.
“Miss Courtenay, I’m—I’m a confounded ass for not thinking of your breakfast. It’s not too late. We are both hungry. Won’t you come with me and have a bit of something to eat? We’ll try that farmhouse ourselves. Come, let us hurry or the crowd will get in ahead of us. Ham and eggs and coffee! they always have that sort of breakfast in farmhouses, I’m told. Come.”
She sprang up cheerfully, and followed him across the meadow to the farmhouse. The Van Truder party was entering the door, smoke pouring forth suggestively from a chimney in the rear of the house. The sudden desire for ham and eggs was overcoming, in a way, the pangs of outraged love; there was solace in the new thought.
That breakfast was one never to be forgotten by four persons; two others remembered it to their last days on account of its amazing excellence. A dozen persons were crowded into the little dining-room; no one went forth upon his travels with an empty stomach. No such profitable harvest had ever been reaped by the farmer. Dauntless and Anne ate off of a sewing-table in the corner. Mrs. Van Truder deliberately refused to hear Mr. Windoms
hire’s timorous suggestion that they “make room” for them at the select table. Silent anathemas accompanied every mouthful of food that went down the despot’s throat, but she did not know it. Fortunately the lovers were healthy and hungry.
They fared forth after that memorable breakfast with lighter hearts, though still misplaced by an unrelenting fate.
All the way to Omegon Anne sat in the seat with the seething Dauntless, each nursing a pride that had received almost insupportable injuries during the morning hours. Windomshire and Eleanor, under the espionage of the “oldest friend of the family,” moped and sighed with a frankness that could not have escaped more discerning eyes. Mrs. Van Truder, having established herself as the much needed chaperon, sat back complacently and gave her charges every opportunity to hold private and no doubt sacred communication in the double seat just across the aisle.
Eleanor pleaded fatigue, and forthwith closed her wistful eyes. Windomshire, with fine consideration, sank into a rapt study of the flitting farm lands. Having got but little sleep among the coals, he finally dropped off into a peaceful cat nap.
Omegon was reached before Eleanor had the courage to awaken him. She did so then only because it was impossible for her to crawl over his knees without losing her dignity; they were planted sturdily against the seat in front. She fled like a scared child to Joe’s side, her mind made up to cling to him now, no matter what manner of opposition prevailed.
“I’ll go with you, Joe,” she whispered fiercely. “I don’t care what any one says or thinks. Your cousin will meet us with the carriage, won’t he?” she concluded piteously. Windomshire also had taken the bull by the horns and was helping Miss Courtenay from the train with an assiduity that brought down the wrath of obstructing passengers upon his devoted head.
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 193