R. JACOB REMSEN, late Rodney Carteret, Esq., of Somewhere-in-England,
was roused from his Semi-paralysis by a broad and bearded native who
approached, and, with a friendly grin, inclusive of both parties to the
_vis-à-vis_, inquired:
“Either of yeh Miss Cole for Boulder Brook?”
“Both,” said Darcy.
“Haw!” barked the native.
“That is, we are both going to Mr. Harmon’s.”
“Free bus to Boulder Brook,” proclaimed the humorous native. “It’s jest
as well there’s two of ye, though Mr. Tom didn’t say nothin’ about
more’n one. Ye won’t rattle s’ much when we hit the rocks.”
“I joined the party at the last moment,” explained the impromptu
bridegroom. “I’m for the Bungalow.”
“Ye’ll be there before ye know it. Twenty-one mile in twenty-eight
minutes, comin’ over in the ole boat.”
Their cicerone led the way to “the ole boat,” a large, battered,
comfortably purring car, tucked them in with many robes, and applied
himself to the wheel with an absorption which left them free to resume
their own concerns. The surrounding mountains were in full panoply of
their blazing October foliage, a scene to enthrall the dullest vision.
Notwithstanding, Mr. Remsen’s eyes kept straying from those splendors
to the face of his companion. Attractive though this nearer view was,
his own face wore the expression of one who painfully seeks the answer
to an insoluble riddle. The girl answered his look with challenging
mockery.
“Don’t overheat your poor brain about it,” she implored.
“He called you Miss Cole,” said Remsen, with furrowed brows.
“Why not, since it’s my name?”
“Cole? Cole!” ruminated her companion. “No. Positively no!”
“Positively, yes! Do you think it’s quite gallant in you to forget me
entirely.”
“First you say I’m your husband,” complained Remsen, “and now you claim
acquaintance with me. It isn’t fair. It muddles one’s brain.”
“Look at me hard.”
“I’ve been doing that all day.”
“But it doesn’t seem to have any result Haven’t you ever seen me
before?”
“Certainly.”
Darcy almost jumped. “Which time? I mean, where?”
“On the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, at 2.30
p.m. September 11th,” returned the other, as one who recites a
well-conned lesson. “You were looking up at an aeroplane and ran into
me. You wore a black-and-white checked suit and a most awfully smart
little hat, and I stood there gawking after you until I was in danger
of being arrested for obstructing the traffic.”
“Why?”
“Frankly, because I hadn’t seen anything quite like you since I landed,
and I wanted to make the most of a poor opportunity.”
“Then why didn’t you lift your hat politely and say, ‘How do you do,
Miss Cole?’ Like that.”
“Because, by Heavens!” cried the badgered Remsen, “I don’t know any
Miss Cole.”
“Think again,” adjured Darcy. “There was a blowy, windy day on a Fifth
Avenue coach when you got off to help a woman with a suitcase—”
“Full of burglar’s tools or solid gold ingots, I don’t know which.
Never thought a suitcase could weigh so much!”
“Poor Mr. Remsen!” laughed the girl, but her eyes were soft as she
turned them to him. “You must have been terribly bored. But you were
game. You didn’t see me on the coach?”
“I didn’t notice any one but the two working-girls with the suitcase.
Do you think I could have seen you and forgotten you?”
“Be careful! You’re only making it worse. One of the two working-girls
called after you to thank you, didn’t she?”
Remsen fell suddenly thoughtful. “Now I recall, the voice did seem
familiar. But—surely—”
“Perhaps this will help.” She hummed softly a passage of the lulling,
lilting song which she had heard from his lips on that memorable day of
her great resolve.
“Wait!” he cried. “I’m getting it! Gloria Greene’s studio. A girl
asleep on the divan, while I was playing. She corrected a change of
chord for me. But—you! Never tell me that was you!”
“Darcy Cole, at your service.”
“Well—well, but,” stammered Remsen, for once in his life wholly
confused and bewildered. “What were _you_ in disguise for?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then I must have been stone blind that day!”
“You had no eyes at all—for me,” said she demurely. “However, that’s
not to be wondered at.”
“If it were, somebody else would have to do the wondering. My capacity
in that direction is totally exhausted. Won’t you please explain?”
“With pleasure. If you’ll tell me what.” Miss Cole was enjoying herself
greatly.
“What this transformation scene means? At the studio you were, well—”
“Say it,” she encouraged. “I was an ugly little toad.”
Remsen made gestures and gurgles of violent protest. “Not at all! But
you were—well, quite different.”
“Yes, I wasn’t very well. Nor very happy.”
“Judging from appearances, you must be about the healthiest and
happiest person in the world to-day, then,” he retorted.
“Do you know,” she reproved, “that your compliments lack subtlety?”
“That’s easy. Because I mean ’em.”
The native at the wheel made a quarter turn with his head, extended his
mouth to a point east by north of his right ear, and from the corner of
it shouted: “Set tight. Here’s where she gits kinder streaky.”
Thereupon, as at a signal call, the car gathered itself together and
proceeded to emulate the chamois of the Alps. For several frantic leaps
and jounces the couple in the back seat preserved the
conventionalities. Then came a stretch where an ancient, humpbacked
vein of granite had thrust itself up through the road’s surface, and
all decorum was flung to the winds. Miss Cole crossed the car in two
bunny-jumps and fell upon Mr. Remsen’s neck, thrusting his head against
the side curtain with such force as to form a bulge, which several
outreaching trees playfully poked with their branches. As further
evidence of her affection, she stuck her elbow in his eye, after which
she coyly retreated into her own corner by the aerial route. Mr. Remsen
assisted her flight by a method known in football as “giving the
shoulder.” He then rose to explain, settled squarely upon both her
feet, and concluded the performance by seating himself on her knees and
browsing a mouthful from the veil which was twisted about her hat.
Taking advantage of a precious but fleeting moment when the car soared
like a gull across a bay of mud, they both addressed the chauffeur.
“Stop!” shrieked Miss Cole.
“Schlupff!” vociferated Mr. Remsen, meaning the same thing. But the
veil had become involved with his utterance.
The native brought his “boat” to a halt, just short of a ghastly blind
turn, screened by a wooded cliff.
“S’ matter?” he inquired.
“You’re shaking us to bits,” protested Darcy. “Please don’t go so
fast.”
“Shucks!” said the other. “Call _that_ fast? I could do better with a
hearse.”
“Very likely,” returned Remsen. “The passenger in a hearse hasn’t
anything to say about how he travels. We have. Ease it up.”
What retort the native might have found was cut off by a persistent
trumpeting from around the curve.
“Honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump! Honk! Honk-honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump,
prr-rr-rramp!”
“Two cars,” interpreted the native. “Bel-lerin’ fer help, I wouldn’t
wonder. Prob’ly bogged down in that mud-waller at the foot of the hill.
One of ’em sounds like our truck.” Again the brazen voice of warning
and appeal thrilled through the air.
“’_T is_ our truck,” confirmed the chauffeur. “I know the old caow’s
voice. I pree-soom that couple for the boss’s cottage is gettin’ a
taste of real country life in the roadin’ line.”
“What couple?” asked Darcy, sitting up. “Young married pair. Got off
the train at Meredith.”
“At Meredith?” repeated Darcy, in troubled tones.
“There’s another couple due from Ashland for the Island. All friends of
the boss’s. Like’s not that’s the other car that’s whoopin’ it up daown
there’t the foot o’ the hill. Quite a pa’ty.”
The gleam of a horrid surmise shone in the look which Darcy turned upon
Remsen.
“Do you suppose it _could_ be they? Oh, it _couldn’t!_”
“I’m very much afraid it is.”
“Oh, that would be too awful! _Don’t_ let it be Maud and Helen!”
“If I could help it, I would,” he replied, bracing himself for
confession. “I’m sure it is your friends. In fact, Tom Harmon told me
they were coming.”
“You knew it all the time?”
“I did.”
“And let me come here without a word of warning?” The girl’s tone
rasped Remsen’s accusing conscience. She spoke like a hurt child whose
trust has been betrayed.
Remsen waited until the chauffeur, who had jumped out and was on his
way to the scene of distress, was beyond hearing. Then he said: “Please
don’t think me wholly selfish. But how was I to know that the presence
of other couples—I mean other people—would be so distressing to you?”
“Don’t pretend to be stupid,” she rebuked him. “There I was, a bride
without any bridegroom, looking for a place to hide myself and you let
me run right into the very people of all in the world that I didn’t
want to see. You knew I didn’t want to see them. I told you so,” she
ended with a suggestion of fearfulness, “the first thing. On the
train.”
“Before you had a husband,” he reminded her. “Now you have one—”
“And that makes it worse! A thousand times worse. Oh, why didn’t you
tell me on the train?”
“Suppose I had. What would you have done?”
“Got off at the next station. Jumped out of the window. Anything!”
“And have been alone in some strange place with nobody to look after
you? If you’d done that, I should have felt obligated to get off, too.”
“You wouldn’t!” Darcy stamped her foot. “You haven’t any right.”
“When a lady puts a claim on a gentleman as her husband,” remonstrated
Remsen mildly, “while he may not have the right to prevent her from
jumping out of the window of a moving train, at least he may use all
fair means to see her through.”
“Do you think you’ve been fair in this?”
“_Kamerad!_ I surrender! I don’t! The plain fact is, I knew you’d run
away if I told you, and I couldn’t bear to lose you, after I’d
miraculously found you again.”
“Consequently,” she accused, “I am here where the girls are sure to
find me, married and without a husband, or with a husband that they’ll
discover is bogus. What am I going to do?”
“List to an inspired idea! I’ve just thought it out. When you see your
friends, tell them that I didn’t get off the train at all. I went right
on to Montreal.”
“And deserted your bride?”
“Emergency call on imperative official business. Back to-morrow or next
day, or whenever you choose to tell ’em. That’ll give you time to
arrange things and fix up a good, water-tight lie.”
“No lie could be good enough.”
“Wait till we put our heads together over it.”
“How can we put our heads together if your head is in Montreal?”
“It won’t be, except for publication to the bridal party. It’ll be at
the Bungalow. I’m going to carry it there now, on foot.”
“And stay there until it’s time for you to get back from Montreal?”
“Precisely. When you need your titled Britisher back, I’ll be ready,
with the accent and the infernal, scratchy whiskers.”
“Suppose, meantime, the bridal couples come wandering about the
Bungalow?”
“Then I’ll take to the woods. Lives of the hunted and all that sort of
thing. Before I’m through with all this I may have to disguise myself
as a rabbit and learn to twitch my ears.”
“It’s fearfully risky—” began the girl.
“It is,” he confirmed, “with the woods full of amateur hunters. But
I’ve known rabbits to live to a ripe old age. There was an old
cottontail on Uncle Simeon’s place—”
“Please don’t joke. It’s fearfully serious for me. I’ve got to go ahead
and face the girls.”
“Say the word and I’ll gird my gospel armour on—I mean my
side-burns—and support you.”
“Yes: and what would our frisky chauffeur think of that! Gracious
goodness! I forgot about him. What will he think about your
disappearance if you run away now?”
“Leave him to me. I’ve got an argument for him.”
The native reappeared with the information that the truck was bemired
and that the garage car in which one couple had arrived from Ashland
(the motor-boat having broken down) was unable to pull it out unaided.
Therefore, he told them, he would have to go to the rescue with his
car.
Mr. Remsen produced a roll of greenbacks. “Have you any aversion to a
ten-dollar bill?” he inquired.
“I ain’t never knowed one teh make me sick t’ my stommick yet,”
confessed the native.
“Try this one,” said Remsen.
But the speeder withheld his hand. “What am I bein’ hired fer?”
“To tell me a short cut by foot to the Bungalow.”
“Over this hill, and yeh can see it. Only house in sight. Whut else?”
“To ferget that you’ve seen me.”
“Nuthin’ fishy about this?” inquired the cautious chauffeur.
“It’s just a little joke on the people in front.”
“My mem’ry,” said the other, pocketing the bill, “ain’t whut it was. I
c’n t ba’ly rec’lect t’ say ‘Thank-ye,’ but there my power gives out.
Some one comin’ aroun! the bend,” he added.
Remsen made a dive into the underbrush. From somewhere above Darcy, a
moment later, a tree found voice to speak like a dryad:
“I’ll be at your call to-morrow.”
At the elbow of the road appeared Maud and Holcomb Lee. Darcy, envying
Daniel what has been regarded as one of the most trying experiences in
the records of animal training, walked forward to meet them.
Her head was high.
Her chin was firm.
Her step was light.
Her eyes danced with defiance.
Andy Dunne would have been proud of her.
She was game.