An Idyll of All Fools' Day Read online

  II.

  THE FLIGHT

  ANTONY had now--so wonderfully resilient is youth--won sufficientconfidence in himself to realise that there was yet a chance ofbringing this dangerous expedition to some sort of successfulissue, if fate should prosper them with a straight and empty road.They were not, fortunately, travelling at any tremendous rate ofspeed; though jumping from the car would have been extremelyunwise, it remained a possibility, at least, and if, as was fairlyprobable, the car had already travelled a considerable distance,its motive power would become exhausted sooner or later and theycould dismount safely. In a few curt sentences he explained thesituation, as it appeared to him, to his companion.

  "I must beg you to believe," he concluded, "that I somehow got adistinct impression of your telling me that you were used tomanaging these things--I cannot understand how I could havemade such a mistake. I am particular in repeating this, because incase of accident--and it would be the merest idiocy to deny that avery grave accident is quite likely to happen at any moment--I donot want you to think too hardly of me. But of course your realisethat unless I had been quite certain of your ability I should neverhave attempted such a foolhardy thing."

  She made no answer, and at the risk of losing his straight coursehe stole a rapid glance at her.

  To his surprise she was crimson with what was obvious, even to hisfleeting view, as embarrassment. Her fingers twisted nervously; thetears that suffused her eyes were certainly not tears of grief orfright. She bit furiously at her under lip, and began more than onesentence that faltered away into confusion. Indeed, they hadtriumphantly climbed and descended a hill that sent Antony's heartinto his throat before she succeeded in the task she evidentlyloathed but had as evidently determined to fulfil.

  "Mr.--Mr. Tony," she began suddenly, alarmed in her turn at theirincreased speed as they went down the hill, "in case, as you say,anything should happen, I must tell you something. When I saidthat about--about my running the car perfectly well----"

  "You didn't, of course, put it in that way," he interjected, as sheseemed unable to go on.

  "Oh, didn't I?" she asked. "I thought you said I did."

  "You said that they ran themselves, you remember, and that you wereused to them," he reminded her, "and I took that to mean----"

  "Oh, that's what I said," she repeated, thoughtfully.

  "Don't you know what you said?" he demanded, a spasm of terrorcatching him and quickening his heart-beat as a great waggon loomedinto sight horribly near them. Despairingly he glanced at theshining metal paraphernalia that encompassed him--his eye fell uponan unmistakable brass horn at his right, terminating in a rubberbulb. This could be but one thing, and cautiously loosening oneclammy hand from the wheel, he pressed the bulb nervously. A loud,harsh cry from its brazen throat relieved him inexpressibly andsent a glow of confidence through him. He repeated the pressure,the driver of the cart looked leisurely around, and with ascowl drew off to one side of the road. Antony's blood resumed itsnormal pace, and as the course was now clear for a moment, anyway,he repeated his question:

  "Don't you know what you said?"

  The trees, the full brooks, the grazing cattle, unrolled behindthem like a painted ribbon for several seconds before she answered.At length his ear caught a faint, short murmur.

  "N--no."

  "Why not?" he demanded briefly.

  "I would rather not tell you," she replied with a return of her oldspirit.

  "You must tell me," he said angrily. "Here come two carriages--oh,why did I never notice how they stopped these things? Reach undermy arms and squeeze that horn--quick!"

  The carriages separated and he went, quaking, between them.

  "Now, go on--this luck can hardly last," he warned her. "I intendto know for how much of this nightmare I am responsible."

  "You are responsible for all of it, then," she cried recklessly."You had not the slightest excuse for making me drink all thatnasty, burning stuff!"

  Regardless of his wheel, Antony turned and stared at her, and onlyher shriek of terror saved them from the stone wall that bordered acurve in the road.

  "You mean you were----"

  "If you dare to say it I shall jump!" she interrupted, pluckingnervously at her skirt, and he saw that she was quite capable ofcarrying out the threat.

  "But--but you drank it yourself--I thought you knew----" hestammered.

  "It was down in my throat--I couldn't help it--I pushed it away assoon as I could--I never tasted anything but champagne and sherryand I thought they were all the same, those things. . ."

  She was on the point of tears now, and even in his keen sense ofdanger Antony was conscious of a gratified consciousness of thatcalm masculine superiority so long denied him.

  "I see, I see," he said hastily. "I am very sorry. I did the best Icould at the time: I am not accustomed to resuscitating faintingyoung ladies and I rather lost my head. I assure you that I assumeall the blame."

  "I think you had better," she replied vindictively, and Antony'sconscious magnanimity collapsed instantly into an intenseirritation.

  "I must beg you to observe," he said, somewhat jerkily, as theybounced up and down the irregularities of a rough country road,"that I am hardly responsible, even with the best will in theworld, for your inability to consume five or six swallows of badwhisky without--without----" in a panic of terror as her hands flewto her skirts and her knees stiffened, he concludedimpotently, "oh, have it any way you like! It's all my fault. Now,for heaven's sake, sit still and listen to me. Do you or do you notknow anything whatever about motor cars? I ask because it isabsolutely necessary," he added hastily.

  "I know nothing whatever about them," she returned with an icyfinality, an air of uninterested irresponsibility, that maddenedeven while it appalled him.

  "Very good; neither do I," he said. "We are, as you see, on a long,empty, practically uninhabited country road. This is extremelyfortunate for us, but it will not last much longer, for we arecoming into Huntersville, which was, on the occasion when I lastwent through it in one of these ungodly machines, full of babies,chickens, unhitched horses, and large, disagreeable dogs. Ratherthan go through Huntersville I would run this thing at a tree, now.If I could estimate the force of the shock, I'd do it anyway. But Icannot estimate it, and I do not want to frighten you to death.Besides, it might send the thing backward. The same reasoningapplies to a steep bank. Now, as I remember it, there is a wildsort of road that turns off to the left very soon and goes upa long hill somewhere or other. I haven't the least idea where, butit must lead to something. My idea would be to go up that road andtry to wear the machinery out on it. If it runs into a field, itcan't be helped. At any rate, I think there is less risk. Are youwilling to try it?"

  His sincere and serious manner had its effect and she answeredsimply, "Anything that you think is best, of course. But could wenot experiment a little, and try to stop it? It cannot be anythingvery complicated, since it has to be done so often."

  "No, no, no!" Antony cried nervously, "not while I'm in my rightmind! It may seem foolish to you," he continued more stiffly, "butI have reached my limit of experiment. I--I know nothing of anykind of machinery--I loathe it. As soon as I began anything of thatsort, my nerve would go. You remember the result when you stampedon that brass knob? Well, I admit that I am not equal to arepetition, to be quite frank."

  "I thought men always understood machinery," she murmuredimpatiently. "All the men I know are quite clever at it."

  Now, curiously enough, this pettish and really inexcusablefling did not produce its presumable effect upon Antony. Whether hefelt that it was partly justified and that he was really in somesort unworthy of his sex, or whether the actuality of theirpressing danger rendered him immune as regards such flighty stabs,is not known, but it remains a fact that he merely pursed his lipsindulgently and spoke as follows:

  "You are indeed fortunate in your acquaintance. I regret thatpractice in steering horses, sail boats, bob sleds and to a certainsmall exte
nt, dirigible balloons, has left me little leisure--andless inclination--for these evil-smelling devil-waggons. Neitherthe steamfitter nor the engineer has ever appealed to me----"

  He ceased abruptly, and as his voice died out she lookedquestioningly at him, for even her slight acquaintance with theyoung gentleman had taught her that he was not one to leave awell-planned sentence incomplete from choice.

  "What is it?" she asked breathlessly.

  "That wild road is on the other side of Huntersville!" he said,with an utter absence of comment that impressed her more deeplythan any of his previous conversational embroideries.

  Indeed, the pointed spire of the Huntersville church rose whitebefore them and scattered houses even now lined the road.

  "I wish we were going uphill now," Antony began, "and I shouldadvise you to jump. I don't believe you'd make such a mess of it asa great many girls would be likely to. Of course, you might have onthe last hill, but I hated the idea of it. It may be steering willdo. But if it's a question of running someone down, you'll have to,of course, and I'll turn sharp about and take my chance. Or aim attree. Now, blow the horn hard, please, and when I say jump, go theway the car is going, and clear it well. You may sprain your ankleor get a bruise or two, but that won't kill you. It's a small sortof place, and we might get through. Don't stop the horn a moment.What's that idiot doing?"

  On the side of the road an overgrown boy of eighteen hopped wildlyon one foot, the other stretched at right angles in front of him,while his lank red wrists beat the air like the arms of a windmill.

  These apparently purposeless evolutions he performed mechanicallyso long as his ungainly figure filled their vision, and themaniac appearance of the yokel rasped Antony's over-strained nervesunendurably.

  "If that is a fair sample of Huntersville youth, it would be a realblessing to the community to murder a few," he mutteredmalevolently, as they dashed, at what seemed to him a terriblyaccelerated pace, into the little town. A large sign-board sprangup suddenly, as it seemed, and faced them.

  _Village limits. Slow down to six miles an hour_ (it read) _byorder of Commissioners. Offenders Will be_----

  But Antony, though desirous of reading further, even at the cost ofa halt, was unable to do so.

  It was high noon and the main artery of travel could not haveassumed a condition more favourable to an unwilling excursionist.Save for a group of children, which scattered to safety atthe steady warning of the horn, and a laggard team of greys,whose languid progress from the middle of the road to theirlegitimate anchorage at the side cost their master his hind wheel,only a pompous speckled hen disputed their right of way. To hiscompanion's shriek of horror--"The hen! The hen, Mr. Tony!"--Antonyreplied only, through set teeth, "This is no time to think of hens--blow that horn!" and drove like Attila the implacable over whateverof domesticity and motherhood that obstinate fowl may haverepresented. One more heap of empty barrels making a treacherouscurve, one more angry woman, leaping into a puddle to protect herwide-eyed urchin, one heart-stifling ne'er-do-weel lurching at thelast possible quarter-second with drunken luck, out ofdestruction's way, and it was over: Antony, firmly convincedthat his hair must be snowy white, suffered the pent-up breath toescape at last from his lungs, only to catch it desperately againas a burly man, whose ostentatiously drawn-back coat displayed agleaming metal badge, stood deliberately before them, not a hundredfeet away, and waved his hand with unmistakable meaning. In thishand fluttered a bit of yellow paper which recalled irresistiblememories of the telegraph office; the other grasped a large nickelwatch that winked derisively in the sunlight.

  "Stop!" he bellowed majestically, and balanced upon his bow legs.

  On one side stretched a hastily constructed barrier of old boardsand flimsy crates through which the blue sky line gleamed in brightbars; on the other a heavy waggon rested at an evidentlyintentional slant.

  "Blow, blow!" gasped Antony, and, "Get out of the way, you fool!"he cried with ineffective hoarseness, grinding his teeth as itbecame apparent that the creature meant to brazen it through.

  "Look out! We can't stop! Oh, please go away!"

  The shrill scream of the girl at his side accomplished more thanthe horn: the terror in her eyes spoke loudly for her, and with aface wherein rage and incredulity struggled, this vidous obstructorof highways stepped unwillingly aside and left them a scant fivefeet of passageway. But for Antony, in his present state of nerves,five feet was all too scant. Had he then escaped all the chancesand changes of this mad morning, had he won through by amiracle of success, only to be balked at the last by anincalculable old village marplot? Should a paunchy waddler of thissort wreck at once his pride and his car? Thus he frothed andboiled in his heart, and perhaps that overheated organ clouded hiseyes and vibrated in his wrists, for the heavy front wheels of thegreat vehicle crashed into the flimsy right-hand barrier, moweddown the crates and planking as if they had been of straw,scattered them, crackling and clattering, far and wide; and worsethan this, the hind wheels, with an utterly unintentional flirtwhich had nevertheless all the effect of a malicious andbrilliantly executed manoeuvre, jolted the barrier-waggon soviolently that the horse attached to it sprang quickly forward,thus unfortunately upsetting the pursy and authoritative native whohad retreated to that side for safety. Down he rolled in the dust,yelling frantically, while the frightened horse with a sharp turnfled back through the town, scattering still further the wreckageof the ill-fated barricade. Nette, turning involuntarily, saw allthis and saw, too, that even as he bit the dust the outraged wearerof the metal badge still clutched, and as it seemed to herbrandished, with a sinister motion the square of yellow paper.

  She stole a glance at Antony, but his set jaw and lowering brow didnot invite confidences, and she sat in silence during the fewremaining moments that sufficed to set them free of the villageoutskirts.

  "Here is the road," said Antony briefly as they turned into awinding, stony track that closed behind them like a gate; and onthis occasion no untoward happening checked the deep breath that heallowed himself.

  "I have ridden along this road ten miles at least," he continued,"and it is practically deserted. They have to keep it in some sortof shape because it is the only way they have to haul timber in theautumn from the woods beyond, and telegraph poles; then they sendthem away by boat down the river. I never followed it to the end,but I should suppose it would wind into Brookdale, which is on theNorthern Trunk Division, and nowhere near us by rail, you know."

  "Brookdale . . . Brookdale?" she murmured vaguely, as he seemed tobe waiting for her to speak.

  "What I propose to do," he went on, quite easily now, and steeringthe car, within the simple limits possible, almost unconsciously,"is to go on like this as long as the road is deserted as it isnow. As soon as we reach Brookdale--or whatever village we touchfirst--I will try to find a big enough sweep to turn around in andsimply retrace our way. This I shall continue to do until thisbrutal machinery runs down. It will be dull, but safe. All thefarmhouses have turns for their own waggons, and I can be fairlysure of a clear path around a watering trough or sign board, yousee. There is a good broad sweep, I noticed, in front of the lastfarm before we turn into the woods here and I'm not afraid to go asnear Huntersville as that. To begin with, they'd never believe thatwe would be so foolish as to come back, and they will naturallysuppose that we took the regular state road and got across theriver; touring-cars like this don't go up this way--unless they areobliged to," he added grimly, as an unusually rough spot shook themtill their very teeth rattled. "I hope you approve of this plan?"he concluded politely.

  "I suppose it is the best thing to do, consideringeverything," she answered after a little pause, "though I wish . . .when shall we reach Brookdale?"

  "I am unable to tell you," Antony replied with a touch of asperity,"and I really cannot see what difference it makes, since we canhardly hope to stop there on our first trip."

  "To be sure," she said, "I forgot. You manage the car so well thatI forgot that you c
an't do anything you like with it. You mustexcuse me."

  At these words a comforting and fragrant warmth, the very subtlearoma of well-being, stole about Antony's heart, and his facerelaxed insensibly. He could the more readily excuse her ingenuouserror because he had more than once in the last hour fallen into ithimself. It was difficult to believe that his control of thiscumbrous soft-bitted monster, answering so sweetly to the slightestcontraction of his wrist, was merely nominal; that only the mostextraordinary good fortune stood between him and crushing ruin.

  "Why do you suppose that ugly fat man wanted to stop us, Mr. Tony?"Nette demanded suddenly--"did he have any right to, or any reason?"

  Antony sighed thoughtfully, and his various feelings struggled inhis face.

  "As to his rights," he answered judicially, "I really could notsay. He certainly had some kind of badge. But as to his reasons, Ifear the only difficulty will be to count them."

  "To count them?" she repeated curiously. "Are there so many, then?"

  Antony shrugged his shoulders expressively.

  "In the first place," he began, "we are supposed to have purposelyirritated an extremely unpleasant old snake to the point of biting,perhaps fatally, a French chauffeur. If fatally, the law wants uson that account. In the second place, we have stolen a largeand costly touring car and are apparently occupied in making awaywith it as fast as possible. And the law wants us on that account.In the third place, we have violated the speed regulations ofHuntersville and refused to stop when called upon to answer for it,and the law wants us on that account. In the fourth place, we haveknocked down and, for all I know, seriously injured an official ofHuntersville, and the law wants us on that account. Do I makemyself clear?"

  "Quite clear," she replied soberly, and then, without the slightestwarning, she burst into a rich gurgle of laughter, so rollickingand infectious that Antony had joined her before he realised it,and the wood rang with their united mirth. The massive mechanism,whose least lever they could not have explained, had it been tosave their lives, rolled ponderously along, clanking and hissingbeneath them; and they, perched like flippant butterflies on itsupholstered surface, chuckled and trilled and rejoiced in theiryouth. As the Indian child leads the mighty elephant by a leash ofmeadow grass, so Antony directed his car with a flick of the wrist,and like the child thought nothing of what he did, save that it wasamusing and showed forth his mightiness. Death glided alongbeside them, revolving softly with each turn of the four broadtires; terror lurked at every vine-twisted bend in the road; not asmooth beech nor a rough chestnut but might have hidden behind itsome horrid destiny--and they rode on lightly, as the froth on thebreaker before it crashes on the beach.

  Upon Antony, indeed, positive serenity had fallen, and aconsciousness of readiness for any emergency. It was with somestrong sense of this that he leaned down to his companion and saidwith a masterful smile--the smile of one whose thoroughacquaintance with himself precludes any idea of self-gratulation:

  "Perhaps, my dear Miss Nette, it is, after all, as well that youhave one of us despised young fellows with you to-day? Even themost fascinating of greybeards might have found this crisis alittle too much for him?"

  Only the lowest curve of her flushed cheek was visible. Grapelikecurls of warm brown shielded her eyes, but he remembered theirastonishing blue and glanced with keen appreciation at her silkeninstep to strengthen the memory. When all was said, what pluck shehad! How many girls would have skimmed so swiftly and surelydown that hill, would have faced a danger so evident with suchbuoyant courage, would have smiled so comradely in the face offear? What if her tongue were a little sharp? She was not theordinary brainless twitterer of her age. And something more thanbrain had flashed and deepened in her eyes. . . . She was speaking.

  "Perhaps, my dear Mr. Tony," she responded affably--alas, tooaffably--"it is, after all, as well to remember that even the leastfascinating of greybeards would be hardly likely to involve me insuch a crisis!"

  The car rose to a large irregular stone that punctuated the alreadyrough road, and Antony bounced angrily from his seat, descendingwith a shock that jarred his spine throughout its length. It seemedto him that the machinery clanked and laboured more heavily, thatthey were going a little more slowly; only a little, perhaps, butstill more slowly. But he was too vexed to care if their progresswere slow or quick. He loathed the pert, confident creature at hisside from the bottom of his heart. Viewed in the sudden sultry heatof his feelings, what was her self-possession but brazeneffrontery? Was such diabolic quickness of _riposte_ evencreditable to her years and sex? He considered the situationbriefly: why were they in their present plight? Because, to put thematter baldly, he had been misled by the statements of a youngwoman who had openly admitted herself in no condition to be heldresponsible for her words--a pretty state of things! Really, it washardly . . . hardly . . . but she was speaking again.

  "Mr. Tony," she said softly (she had the knack of making a softmurmur rise above the clamour of the machinery), "please do notthink, Mr. Tony, that I do not appreciate your courage, and--andsensibleness after it all happened! And I fully realise that it waspartly my--that I--that if I had not----"

  "Not at all," he answered stiffly, taking pity in spite of himselfat her evident embarrassment. "As you implied, the initialresponsibility was all mine."

  But though his words were stiff, his heart had grown insensiblysupple under the pressure of her voice. After all, what did hercondition prove--that condition that had prompted their mad flight--but her very innocence and ignorance of alcoholicstimulant? Avery good showing, in these relaxed and indecorous days. We shouldalways try to be just.

  Drifting on these conflicting tides of feeling, Antony ceased tostudy the winding road with the severe scrutiny he had hithertoapplied to it, and as the way was now very rough, he failed utterlyto observe for what it was, a certain grassy cart track curvinginto their path, and took it with a twist of the wheel, even as hiscompanion cried out in alarm.

  "What are you doing? This cannot be right!" she warned, but it wastoo late, and Antony realized that on the very verge of thewood road, just as he should have looked for a space to turn in andretrace their safe course, he had left that course entirely and wassteering along a now barely perceptible wheelway through a roughand rolling pasture lot.

  He shut his lips tightly and affected not to have heard her, andfor a few seconds they rode, in silence, through the stony field.Suddenly she grasped his arm and for the first time terrorsharpened her voice.

  "Oh! oh! see those cows! Oh, don't you see them? Go back! Go back!"

  Antony shook her off impatiently and grazed a stump on the rightonly to bump against a jagged boulder on the left. The car wasundoubtedly moving more slowly; he could swear to it.

  "I believe it is an established fact that the cow is notcarnivorous," he observed, peering in spirit to the limits of thefield and wondering if he could turn in case a stone wallthreatened.

  "I am going to jump," she announced quietly, and a spasm of fearshot through him remembering the pointed stubble and the flintyrocks.