The Golden Angel

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Would you like to meet one of the fliers?”

  Erin turned to him, her eyes open, and her lips parted with astonishment. “We could do that?”

  “Sure we could. One of them is a friend of mine, Hack Phillips. We flew together in France.”

  “Oh, I’d like to, and I’d like to look at the planes closer.”

  “Come along.”

  The two of them made their way out of the stands, and he led her to a short, rather rotund flier with electric blue eyes and a shock of blond hair. “Hello, Hack.”

  Hack Phillips stared at the tall man for a moment, then let out a sharp yelping sound. “Quaid, what are you doing here? Where have you been?”

  Erin watched as the two men greeted each other with the roughness that men seemed to like, beating each other on the shoulders and punching each other in the ribs. Finally Quaid pulled back and said, “Hack, I want you to meet Erin Winslow. Erin, this is Hack Phillips.”

  Phillips grinned broadly and nodded toward Quaid. “You’re in bad company, lady. Watch this one. He was a regular devil with the women in France. Put all the rest of us to shame.”

  “Watch your mouth, Hack!” Quaid said but was smiling as he spoke. “Erin is interested in anything that has wings.”

  “Is that so?” said Phillips. “Well, I always like to meet a fledgling aviator.”

  Quaid sketched Erin’s background for Phillips, then he had a sudden thought. “You think I might take her up? See if she can really fly or if she’s just putting me on.”

  “Be my guest. Come along. I’ll get the crate gassed up.”

  ****

  The next hour was even more delightful to Erin than the excitement of the air show. She had been so longing to get behind the controls of a plane again—and here she was finally! Seated in the front with Quaid in the rear cockpit, she found the controls quite easy to handle, and she took off smoothly. The power of the plane thrilled her after the underpowered plane she had flown in Africa. She climbed quickly and got the feel of the controls. Hearing a thumping noise, she turned to see Quaid knocking on the fuselage that separated them. “Let’s try a loop-the-loop.” He explained how to handle the controls and nodded. Erin pulled the stick back, went straight up in the air, turned the airplane over on its back and completed the loop with a long, sweeping dive. She had never done anything like this in her plane in Africa, but now she let out a whoop and said, “Let’s do it again!”

  For the next hour Quaid directed Erin as she went through loops, stalls, spins, and finally even an outside loop—diving down, turning the plane upside down, then climbing into the circle.

  Finally Quaid tapped on the fuselage and pointed down, shouting, “Let’s see if you can land it without killing us both.”

  Erin brought the plane in for a perfect landing and quickly released her safety belt. Turning, she scrambled out of the plane, arriving about the same time Quaid’s feet touched the field. “Oh, that was such fun!” she said.

  Hack Phillips came strolling up and nodded. “Was that you doing all those stunts?”

  “Yes, it was.” Erin smiled with excitement.

  “Do you pass her, Quaid?”

  “She’s got good hands and good balance. Didn’t have to teach her much.”

  “How long will you be here, Hack?” Erin asked. “I want to do that again.”

  “We’ll be here for three days. You come back anytime. We war heroes have to stick together. How about we go out and get something to eat?”

  “Fine,” Quaid said. He turned to Erin and said, “But it’ll be on you. I’ve never known Phillips to buy his own meal.”

  ****

  For the next three days Erin left the café at two o’clock, after the noon rush. She left Lena in charge, along with Dottie and Grace, and she and Quaid rushed to the airfield. She insisted on paying for the gasoline, even though Hack argued with her before giving in, then went up with Quaid. In those three days she became proficient at maneuvering the Spad.

  On the third day Hack shook his head. “Afraid that’s the last of it, Erin. We’ll be moving on to Buffalo tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I wish I had the money! I’d love to do this for a living.”

  Hack shook his head ruefully. “It’s not an easy job. You’d be better off trying to make a killing at the racetrack.”

  “Things pretty tough, huh?” Quaid murmured.

  “Well, it’s not so much that. There’s money to be made, but . . .” Hack hesitated, then laughed. “You won’t believe this, but I’m getting married.”

  Quaid smiled crookedly. “Good. I hope she’ll take better care of you than I did.”

  “Fine woman, but she doesn’t want me stunt flying. So I’ve got to find some kind of a dull job pretty soon.”

  ****

  The next week passed slowly. Erin went about her work mechanically and without enthusiasm. Lena asked her once, “What’s the matter with you? You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No,” she had murmured. “Oh . . . oh, I don’t know.”

  Each night, after the café closed, she joined Quaid in the final cleanup—washing the dishes, mopping the floor, wiping the tables, and throwing out the trash. She pumped him for tales of his experiences in the war, and the more she listened the more she was convinced that he was a talented man who could do anything he pleased with his life.

  One Thursday evening after they had finished the cleaning, she fried up a couple of steaks, since both of them had skipped lunch and supper. He made a salad and some mashed potatoes. She scrounged about and came up with two candles to put on the table in the back.

  He laughed, saying, “Why, this is as good as being in a fine restaurant in Paris. Candlelit café with a beautiful woman.”

  “Did you do that a lot?”

  “Not as much as I wanted to. There at the last I was so drunk it didn’t matter any.” He shrugged his shoulders with that look of indifference that had by now become familiar to Erin.

  She was troubled by the darkness she saw in this man and the memories that he clearly avoided talking about. But her heart went out to him, and she wanted to help him find peace with his past and move on to a better future. For now, however, she said no more as they sat down to eat. As usual she asked the blessing, but this time she put in at the end, “And, Lord, I pray that you would bless Quaid and give him a plan for his life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  Quaid looked up, a quizzical expression on his face. The light overhead brightened his eyes and built up the solid angles at the base of his ears and at the bridge of his nose. His face was getting tan, but there wasn’t any fat on him even yet, and the edges of his jaws were sharp. He studied her, his long, full lips set firmly as always. “What’s that all about? A plan? You don’t think God’s interested in a plan for me, do you?”

  “I think God’s interested in everyone.”

  Quaid began to cut up his steak methodically, filling his plate with uniform pieces before setting down his knife, while Erin cut off bites one at a time. He tasted the steak and nodded toward Erin with a look of appreciation. “This is good,” he said.

  “Anybody can cook steak,” Erin said, shrugging off his compliment.

  They sat there eating quietly, and finally he remarked, “What about the plan for your life? Are you serious about selling this place and getting into flying?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’ve got the feeling that you’re thinking of getting a stunt plane and going into the air-show business.”

  “I want to do something different,” Erin said.

  “Well, that’s different, all right. What would your parents say?”

  “I . . . I haven’t told them yet, but I’m going to in my next letter.”

  “And what about your grandparents? You’ve told me a lot about them. Do you think they’ll be happy about that?”

  “No, I don’t, and I . . . I hate to hurt them, but I’m longing for some excitement in my life.”

  The look in her large
eyes as she leaned across the table was that of a woman with a dream. He put down his fork and sipped at his coffee as she spoke with obvious longing.

  “I never was good at books,” she went on. “My brother, Patrick, could do anything. Now he’s moving up in the world, but everyone’s always made fun of me because I was stupid.”

  “Stupid? You’re not stupid!”

  “You don’t know me. I always made the worst grades in school. I could do things with my hands, and I could figure things out by trial and error, but anything out of a book always threw me. It was very frustrating. So you see, I’ve got to do something in life with my hands—something I don’t have to learn out of books, something physical.”

  The two sat there talking until the food was gone. Then they got up to clean the dishes. When Erin had put the last dish in the stack, she turned to him and said, “You don’t know how it is always being the last in everything, but I think I’d be happy doing this one thing that I do really well.”

  Quaid was standing very close to her, looking at Erin. For him she made a vivid, real-life picture of an image he had encountered in his thoughts and dreams. It was a private image, one he had never shared with anyone. Neither had he ever expected to find any real woman who would come even close to the dream he had conjured for himself. He couldn’t look at her without wondering what it would be like to hold her, to have her as his own. It was not a carnal thought, although he was very much aware of her feminine attributes. But here, he knew, was a woman he could not simply walk away from. As he looked at her standing in front of him, her eyes pleading for understanding, he bent to catch a better view of her face. He saw the heaviness of her expression, and something seemed to cut the cord that had been restraining him. He put his arms around her waist and drew her in tightly. He watched her face for a moment, waiting for resistance, but when there was none, he leaned down and kissed her lips gently.

  His kiss created a powerful sensation in Erin. She had been lonely, lonelier than she knew, and she clung to him as he held her, enjoying the feeling of security she had been longing for. For just a moment she relaxed in his arms, sharing the warmth and closeness that both of them clearly wanted.

  And then suddenly she drew back, ashamed and not knowing what had come over her. She stared at him and saw in his eyes a look she could not define, but it was one that had not been there before. It unsettled her, knowing that her response to him had brought the intimacy and familiarity that come between a man and a woman who share such a moment.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Quaid.”

  “No, you’re right, I shouldn’t, but perhaps you don’t know how you affect a man, Erin. You can pull a man’s eyes all the way across the room.”

  “Any woman can do that to any man.”

  “No, not like that . . . but I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  For one instant, Erin almost said, You didn’t hurt me, but instead she found herself erecting a barrier between them. “This is wrong. I should never have let it come to this.”

  “It was only a kiss. I’ll leave if you want me to. Perhaps that would be best.”

  “No, not unless you want to, but you must never do this again.”

  Quaid Merritt looked at her and said quietly, “I can’t make a promise like that. You’d better let me go.”

  Erin suddenly felt reluctant to see him step out of her life. “No . . . don’t go for a while. It was just a mistake, Quaid, and as much my fault as yours. I want you to stay.”

  When Erin left to go to her apartment, Quaid sat down at the table and for a long time did not move. The intimacy of their embrace had changed things completely. He wasn’t sure now if he could stay in her presence without constantly thinking about it. He stared at his hands and thought of what had happened, then shook his head. “She’d be better off without me,” he murmured.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Vision for Tomorrow

  The park was marked with serpentine pathways that led through the towering trees and beside the ponds. A flight of swallows over Erin’s head divided the air in evanescent shapes, and she admired the kaleidoscopic images as they made their way across the bright blue of the June sky. She had made Central Park a second home, and now as she stopped beside a pond, she watched as dragonflies hovered and darted and shook flakes of life from their clear wings.

  The park was not yet crowded, for it was before ten in the morning. Erin had worked with Grace and Dottie serving the early-morning crowd, but without apology had left abruptly, saying to Lena, “I’ll be back to help at noon.”

  Now as she stood beside the still blue water of a pond, for the moment at least, an illusion of peace was upon her. Looking high overhead, she watched a hawk turn on one wing in a geometric curve and then observed the sailing clouds, their cottony forms shifting gracefully on the air currents. Finally she turned and began walking along the edge of the pond.

  She loved the smells and sounds of the park. This place reminded her, in a small way, of Africa. After the cement streets and the steel and brick buildings, feeling grass under her feet and hearing the sounds of birds and smelling the earth itself made her long for the land where she had been brought up. She thought often of Nbuta and his wife, Beti, then she would think of her parents and brother and long to see them all.

  She passed a couple holding hands, oblivious to the world about them, lost in each other’s eyes. The sight troubled her, and the memory of Quaid’s kiss arose in her mind like a phantom. She shook her hair free from the collar of her dress, dissatisfied with her own inner world and angry with herself for not being able to forget his embrace.

  I once cared deeply for Stephen, and now here’s this man I hardly know, a petty thief and a drunk—and I’m falling in love with him. How stupid can I be? I’m not only stupid in books, I’m stupid in men!

  She berated herself, knowing all the time that her anger was self-defeating. Abruptly she turned and made her way to the taxi zone. She hailed a cab and gave the driver her grandparents’ address.

  She made the trip in utter silence, staring out at the city, and then, finally, as the business district gave way to residential areas, she began to wonder what she would say. She did not know what to say to herself, much less to her grandparents.

  When the cab pulled up in front of the house, the driver took the fare with the tip and said, “You want me to wait, lady?”

  “No, I’ll find a way back in.”

  “Okay.”

  Moving up the steps, she knocked on the door, and it was Lola herself who answered instead of the servant.

  “Why, Erin, come in!” Lola came forward, kissed the girl’s cheek, and then, with an arm around her, walked down the hall. “Your grandfather’s in the study. He’s having a good day today. Can you stay the night?”

  “No, I have to be back pretty soon. I’m really playing truant today.”

  The two women went in, and Mark looked up. He was sitting at a table writing, but when he saw Erin he smiled and got up at once. His color was good, but as they hugged Erin could feel how thin he was. She thought suddenly of the strength that must have been his when he was the toughest man on the Union Pacific Railway, able to take on any of the thousands of workers and hold his own.

  For a while she let the two make a fuss over her, until her grandmother went off and soon came back with coffee and cakes. She insisted that Erin eat some cake now and take the rest home with her.

  After some enjoyable conversation, Lola said, “Is something troubling you, Erin?”

  “I never could fool you, Grandmother,” Erin smiled wanly. “Yes, something’s bothering me. I don’t have anybody else to talk to.”

  Her grandparents exchanged glances, then Mark said, “Well, I guess you know, Granddaughter, you can tell us anything, and we’ll help if we can.”

  Erin took a deep breath and then plunged into the story of Stephen Charterhouse. She did not withhold any pertinent details but told the entire history of her relatio
nship with Charterhouse. After getting it all out, she said bitterly, “I was a fool. It’s only by God’s mercy that I didn’t get more involved with him than I did, but I was spared that. I found him out in time.”

  Lola put her hand on Erin’s. “I’ve known since you came to America that something was bothering you. I’m sorry to see that this has been eating away at you.”

  “How can I help it, Grandmother? I made such a fool out of myself! I was always stupid in books, and now I find out I’m no better with people.”

  “That’s not true,” Mark said quickly. “From what you tell me, he was a very attractive man. You had no way of knowing his past. You were young, and there was nobody else around. We could tell from your letters that you were leading a lonely life. You mustn’t blame yourself for things like this. Why, my word,” Mark went on, summoning up a smile, “if you knew how many times I’ve made a fool out of myself, you’d feel you had a fool for a grandfather.”

  Lola’s mind was working quickly as she listened to Mark comforting Erin. When silence finally fell among them, she ventured, “I think there’s more to it than this matter of Stephen Charterhouse. Does it have anything to do with Quaid Merritt?”

  A rich flush suddenly colored Erin’s cheeks. She put up her hands to cover her face and could not meet their eyes. “I . . . I found I was making the same mistake with Quaid that I made with Stephen.”

  “You think he’s the same kind of man as Charterhouse?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t know. How can I know? How can I know whether or not to trust him? I thought Stephen was good, but he failed me.”

  Lola had always possessed a keen insight into people, and now she shook her head slightly at Mark as if to say, We mustn’t be harsh or judgmental. Aloud she said, “I think it’s good that you’re cautious, Erin. Women have to be very careful these days, especially attractive young women like you. This man Merritt—you know so little about him.”

  “That’s right. And what you do know isn’t all that good,” Mark added. “He was a war hero, but a lot of men who performed well in the army went sour afterward. We all expected that to be the war to end all wars, but I doubt that it will be. War simply hardens men’s hearts even more toward one another—and the anger and bitterness leaves wounds that never heal.”