A MISSING BRIDE
IT was two days before Peggy's wedding, and in the front room
downstairs Peggy was looking around complacently on her wedding
presents. They were very much like the wedding presents of other
prospective brides. A few were admirably suited to the needs of a young
couple of moderate means, about to start house-keeping. Others would
have been useful in the establishments of wealthy people who expected
to do a great deal of entertaining. And there were still others whose
use was problematical, anywhere and under any circumstances.
Peggy's mood, however, was far from critical. Each gift as it came
had given her the keenest pleasure, and if it were impossible to find
anything admirable in the article itself, she could always say, "How
awfully kind of them to send it. Everybody's being perfectly dear to
me." She approached every newly arrived package with the same feeling
with which she had once taken up a bulging Christmas stocking.
The clock in the dining room, a pert little timepiece with a peremptory
voice, struck three. It was characteristic of this particular
clock always to strike the hour as if it were reminding somebody
of something. On this occasion it reminded Peggy that she had an
engagement with the dressmaker at half past three, and that she was to
call for Ruth, who had promised to accompany her. As it was impossible
to take along a crowd of girls to the dressmaker's rather cramped
quarters, Peggy avoided hard feeling by inviting a different girl each
day.
Peggy had hardly reached the top of the stairs when the bell rang,
and Sally came rushing from the kitchen to answer it. The prospect of
a wedding in the family had so excited Sally that she was even less
responsible for her conduct than usual. Almost the only thing she could
be trusted to do was to answer the door-bell, but as the bell rang very
often, she succeeded in making herself rather useful. On this occasion
a swarthy woman stood outside, and in a quick, parrot-like fashion
said something Sally did not understand.
"You want to see Miss Peggy?" Sally demanded. Such wits as she
possessed were not on duty, for ordinarily she would have recognized
the stranger's errand, and sent her about her business. As the woman
nodded, Sally at once admitted her, showing her into the room where the
wedding presents stood about in picturesque confusion.
"Miss Peggy," shrieked Sally, forgetting for the moment the lesson
impressed on her on innumerable occasions that she was not to save her
steps by calling up the stairs, "Somebody to see you."
It was a minute or two before Peggy came down, and Sally had retreated
to the kitchen in the meantime. Peggy who had naturally expected to see
an acquaintance, was rather startled to be confronted by a dark-skinned
woman with jet black eyes and an oily voice.
"Buy lace, lady? Very cheap: three inch wide up to nine inch. Very
cheap!"
Peggy replied politely that she did not care for any lace, reflecting
as she spoke that had the woman presented herself a few months
earlier, she might have thought it worth while to examine her stock.
Having had some experience in the persistence of her kind, she was
surprised when the dark woman took her refusal as final, and meekly let
herself out. Peggy stepped into the kitchen to warn Sally against her
late indiscretion, and came back through the hall, reflecting that she
must hurry, since the dressmaker did not like to be kept waiting. As
she passed the open door of the room the vender of lace had so lately
quitted, she stopped and stood transfixed.
One of her wedding presents was missing. She knew exactly the place
where it had stood on the center table, flanked on one side by a pair
of book-ends, and on the other by a cloisonné vase. The gap left by
its removal was as obvious to Peggy's startled eyes as the breach in a
smile, due to a missing tooth. Instantly she understood that there was
no mystery about its disappearance. She had seen it not ten minutes
before, and the only person who had entered the room since then was the
woman with lace to sell.
The discovery went to Peggy's head. The stealing of any of her other
possessions would not have affected her in just the same way. But these
were her wedding presents, invested with a certain sanctity because
of the goodwill they represented, and the occasion which led to their
bestowal. It never once occurred to Peggy that she could submit to such
an outrage.
She ran out of the house, looking up and down the street, and
immediately caught sight of the woman she wanted. Apparently she had
suspended business for the day, for she was walking, rapidly and making
no attempt to dispose of her wares in any of the houses she passed.
Peggy promptly started in pursuit. Her idea was to follow the woman,
keeping her in sight until she could encounter a policeman. Peggy
had no desire to deprive any human creature, however erring, of her
liberty. She hoped the officer of the law would force the surrender of
her ill-gotten gains without formally arresting her. But whatever the
consequences, she meant to recover her property.
According to the calendar it was the last day of June, but the
thermometer proclaimed it mid-July. The heated air quivered. The
streets seemed as silent as the thoroughfares of a deserted village.
A block from Peggy's home, the woman took the right-hand turning and
went down Rossiter Street. Peggy followed, walking rapidly in her
determination to gain on the quick-walking figure on ahead.
Three blocks on Rossiter Street, and then the woman turned north,
giving Peggy a clew to her plan. Friendly Terrace lay near the
outskirts of the city. A walk of a mile from Peggy's home brought one
into a section sparsely settled. It looked as though Peggy's quarry
were making for the open country.
Oh, for a policeman! Peggy rather unjustly resented the scarcity of
officers of the law, forgetting how seldom their services were required
in the law-abiding part of town. She discovered, too, that the woman
pursued was uncannily aware of her pursuer. Though apparently she
never looked back, she accommodated her pace to Peggy's, accelerating
her speed, as Peggy quickened hers, so that the distance between them
remained about the same in spite of Peggy's efforts to lessen it.
Owing to the lack of policemen, had any reliable looking man passed
her in a car, Peggy believed herself capable of stopping him and
commandeering his services. But apparently the heat had driven every
one indoors. Two or three delivery wagons passed with small boys
handling the reins. One machine glided by, but the driver was a woman.
After an hour's chase the two participants in the singular game of
"Follow my Leader," came out upon the turnpike, stretching away to
the north, white and dusty and hot in the brilliant sun. Here the
houses were scattered and stood back from the road. The likelihood of
encountering a policeman had become extremely faint. But Peggy set her
teeth and pressed forward.
Graham got off half an hour early this particular afternoon, and
reached Peggy's a little before five. Irma, dimpled and sweet, a
replica of Dorothy a few years earlier, rushed to meet him squealing
with delight, while Dorothy smiled a welcome, her lips pinched tightly
together. One of Dorothy's upper front teeth was missing and Dorothy
was painfully conscious of the lack every minute that she was awake.
Graham kissed his prospective nieces, greeted the older members of the
family cordially, if less effusively, and put the inevitable question,
"Where's Peggy?"
"Oh, at the dressmaker's of course," sighed Mrs. Raymond. "I hope she
won't keep the poor child very long. It's so dreadfully warm."
The telephone tinkled, and Dick went to answer it. He scowled as he
listened. "Who did you say it was? Oh, wait a minute!" He turned to his
mother. "I thought you said Peggy had gone to the dressmaker's."
"She has. She had a fitting at half past three."
"Well, this is the dressmaker, and she says Peggy hasn't come."
"Let me speak to her." Mrs. Raymond crossed to the phone, with an air
of expecting to clear up the puzzle immediately. And hardly had she
made herself known, when the door opened and Ruth appeared. "What's
become of Peggy? She was to call for me a little after three, and I've
had my hat on waiting for her nearly two hours."
What had become of Peggy? She had not kept her engagement with the
dressmaker, and Ruth knew nothing of her whereabouts. Mrs. Raymond
called up Priscilla and Amy, each of whom disavowed having seen Peggy
since noon. And then as there seemed nothing better to do, she went on
calling neighbors and friends and trades-people, growing more and more
puzzled, moment by moment. For no one had seen Peggy.
It finally occurred to Peggy's sister, Alice, to make inquiries in the
kitchen. Sally informed her that Miss Peggy had come into the kitchen
with her hat on, and had said something about the dressmaker. The new
girl, who had been engaged to help out for the few weeks before the
wedding, confirmed Sally's story, adding that it was a little after
three when Peggy left the house. Obviously Peggy had started out with
the intention of keeping her appointment, and obviously she had not
done so.
Dinner was ready at six o'clock, but no one was ready for dinner.
Peggy's failure to appear at meal-time added to the general
consternation. Peggy was by nature prompt and methodical, and she had
acted the rôle of cook too often not to realize how the best efforts of
that important functionary are frustrated by late arrivals. At quarter
past six Mr. Raymond went to the telephone and called up the hospitals
one after another. But the hot sleepy day had not been productive of
automobile accidents, and the only cases of sun-strokes reported were
elderly people, four men and one old woman.
Graham was very pale. A dreadful suspicion was taking shape in his
mind. Could it be that, as the second of July drew near, Peggy had
found herself unable to face the situation? Perhaps he had asked too
much of her when he had urged her accompanying him to South America.
He thought of the innumerable ties that bound her to her native land,
and yet he had assumed that she would be ready to leave everything and
every one she loved, and go with him to a land of strangers. Graham
was no more troubled by excessive humility than other popular young
men, but in the present emergency he seemed to himself to have put a
most preposterous estimate on the value of his own society. He had a
horrible conviction that, through his demanding too much, Peggy was
lost to him forever.
It hardly need be said that no one in the anxious company shared this
particular apprehension. At seven o'clock Peggy's father made up his
mind that it would be necessary to appeal to the police. But before he
could bring himself to act on this conviction, the gate clicked and
Irma, standing at the window, her nose flattened against the screen,
exploded in a series of joyful shrieks.
"Aunt Peggy! Aunt Peggy! Oh, it's Aunt Peggy!"
And Peggy it was, though it took a second glance to be sure. The
perspiration trickling over her dusty face had produced a curious
piebald effect, and she walked with a noticeable limp. They rushed to
the door, greeting her with mingled cries of joy and reproach. All but
Graham. He sat down in the darkest corner of the living room and put
his hands over his face. The intensity of his relief was almost too
much for him.
Peggy limped in, looking decidedly ashamed of herself.
"Have you waited dinner for me? I'm awfully sorry."
"Waited dinner," repeated Mrs. Raymond, and burst into tears. Peggy's
sister Alice caught her by the shoulders and gave her a sharp little
shake.
"Peggy Raymond, where have you been and what have you been doing? Don't
you understand that we've been frightened to death about you?"
Peggy dropped into the nearest chair and began on her story. She told
of the woman Sally had admitted to the house, the missing wedding
present, and the purpose with which she had started in pursuit. They
all listened breathlessly, Graham left his corner and stood back of the
others, unwilling to miss a word.
It was not till Peggy's recital brought her to the turnpike that she
lost a little of her fluency. At this point she hesitated and seemed
to appreciate the difficulty of making matters clear to her audience.
"Of course I should have given up then. But somehow I couldn't. I kept
hoping that somebody would appear, and it seemed such a shame when I'd
followed that thief so far, to give up and go back. I'd made up my mind
that as soon as an automobile came along, I'd ask for a lift. I felt if
I could only catch up with her I could frighten her into giving me what
belonged to me. But nobody passed me, and then when she got to the old
toll-gate--"
Mr. Raymond interrupted, "You don't mean you followed her to the toll
gate?"
"Yes, father. Or at least I was almost there. You know there's a
cross-road just beyond the gate, and a Ford car came up that cross-road
and turned north on the pike. And the woman stopped it--"
"Confederates, I'll bet," cried Dick.
"No, it looked as if she were just asking some stranger for a ride. And
as far as they knew she was only a tired woman carrying a bag and they
took her in. And then I saw it wasn't any use to go further."
"You surprise me." Mr. Raymond's voice was satirical. "I can't
understand why you didn't run after the machine."
Peggy accepted the sarcastic rejoinder meekly. "Then I turned around
and came home. But you see I had put on my new brown shoes because
Mrs. Morley wanted to fit my brown dress with the shoes I was going to
wear with it, and all at once they began to hurt me terribly. Instead
of hurrying I had to slow up, and sometimes I had to stop and wait. I
never had anything hurt so."
"If you'd walked three blocks east," exclaimed Graham, speaking for the
first time, "you could have got a car."
"I knew it, but I'd come off without my pocket book. I didn't have a
penny with me. That was the reason I didn't telephone."
Peggy looked about her with a crestfallen air. While she was far from
realizing the extent of the alarm her family had felt, and would not
have believed Graham had he told her of the apprehensions that had
tortured him through the terrible time of waiting, she understood that
they had all been worried and that she had inconvenienced every one by
making dinner late. "Don't wait for me any longer," she pleaded. "Have
the dinner put on, mother, and I'll be down as soon as I've washed up a
little."
Mrs. Raymond put her arm about her. "Yes, come upstairs, darling. You
must have something on those blisters right away. Alice, tell Sally to
put on plates for Ruth and Graham."
It was while they were eating lamb chops, which after an hour and a
half in the warming oven might as well have been anything else, that
some one thought to put the question Peggy had been dreading. "Do you
know what present she stole?"
Peggy took a hasty sip of her iced tea and looked appealingly at her
questioner. But her reluctant manner only aroused the curiosity of
every one.
"I'll bet it was the silver teapot," exclaimed Dick.
"It doesn't matter what's missing, as long as Peggy herself is here
safe and sound," declared Mrs. Raymond fervently.
"But what _did_ she take?" insisted Alice, eyeing her sister with
suspicion.
Again Peggy forfeited herself with iced tea, and her cheeks, flushed
by heat and weariness, took on a deeper hue. "It--it really wasn't
so valuable,--" stammered Peggy. "You know Elvira Bond gave me half
a dozen teaspoons that she got by saving soap wrappers or something.
They came in a neat little case, and I suppose the woman snatched the
nearest thing without looking. I didn't chase her because the spoons
were worth so much because--well, it was the principle of the thing."
There was a long moment of silence, and then a roar of laughter. They
laughed long and helplessly and wiped their eyes and started all over
again. As a rule Peggy could appreciate a joke, even if it was against
herself, but on this occasion a rather wry smile was the best she could
do. She was beginning to realize that she had been very silly.
"Well, Graham," remarked Mr. Raymond when he could make himself heard,
"In my opinion you're assuming quite a responsibility in planning to
take this young woman to South America."
Graham's eyes met Peggy's and something in his look arrested her
attention, a peculiar radiance as if he had just heard a wonderful
piece of news. But all he said was, "I'm ready to take the risk, sir."