Kitabı oku: «A Romance in Transit», sayfa 6
XVII
ON THE NARROW-GAUGE
For a certain breath-cutting minute after he had made good his grasp on the hand-rails of the rear car, Brockway was too angry to congratulate himself. A blow, even though it be given by a senior, and that senior the father of the young woman with whom one chances to be in love, is not to be borne patiently save by a philosopher or a craven, and Brockway was far enough from being either the one or the other.
But, fortunately for his own peace of mind, the young man reckoned a quick temper among his compensations. By the time he had recovered his breath, some subtle essence of the clean, crisp morning air had gotten into his veins, and the insult dwindled in the perspective until it became less incendiary. Nay, more; before the engineer whistled for Argo, Brockway was beginning to find excuses for the exasperated father. He assumed that Gertrude was on the train with the Burtons – Mrs. Burton's message could mean no less – and Mr. Francis Vennor had doubtless been at some pains to arrange the little plan of separation. And to find it falling to pieces at the last moment was certainly very exasperating. Brockway admitted it cheerfully, and when he had laughed aloud at the President's discomfiture until the sore spot under his right collar-bone ached again, he thought he was fit to venture among the Tadmorians. Accordingly, he made his way forward through the two observation-cars to the coach set apart for the thirty-odd.
His appearance was the signal for a salvo of exclamatory inquiry from the members of the party, but Brockway had his eyes on the occupants of a double seat in the middle of the coach, and he assured himself that explanations to the thirty-odd might well wait. A moment later he was shaking hands with Mrs. Burton and Miss Vennor.
"Dear me!" said the proxy chaperon, with shameless disingenuousness; "I was really beginning to be afraid you were left. Where have you been all the time?"
"Out on the rear platform, taking in the scenery," Brockway replied, calmly, sitting down beside Gertrude. "Didn't you see me when I got on?"
Mrs. Burton had seen the little incident on the station platform out of the tail of her eye as the train was getting under way, so she was barely within truthful limits when she said "No." But she looked very hard at Brockway and succeeded in making him understand that Gertrude was not to know anything about the plot or its marring. The young man telegraphed acquiescence, though his leaning was rather toward straight forwardness.
"Did you rest well after your spin on the engine last night?" he asked of Gertrude.
"Quite well, thank you. Have you ever ridden on an engine, Mrs. Burton?"
"Many times," replied the marplot; and then she made small-talk desperately, while she tried to think of some way of warning her husband not to be surprised at the sudden change in Brockway's itinerary for the day. Nothing better suggesting, she struck hands with temerity when Burton appeared at the forward door with the conductor, and ordered Brockway to take Gertrude back to the observation-car.
"It's a shame that Miss Vennor should be missing the scenery," she said. "Go along with her and make yourself useful. We will take care of your ancients."
The small plotter breathed freer when they were gone. She knew she had a little duel to fight with her conservative husband, and she preferred to fight it without seconds. Her premonition became a reality as soon as he reached her.
"How is this?" he began; "did you know Fred had changed his plans?"
She shook her head. "He didn't take me into his confidence."
"Well, what did he say for himself?"
"About changing his mind? Nothing."
"He didn't? that's pretty cool! What does he mean by running us off up here on a wild-goose chase?"
"How should I know, when he didn't tell me?"
"Well, I'll just go and find out," Burton declared, with growing displeasure.
But his wife detained him. "Sit down and think about it for a few minutes, first," she said, coolly. "You are angry now, and you mustn't forget that he's with Miss Vennor."
"By Jove! that is the very thing I'm not forgetting. I believe you were more than half-right in your guess, yesterday; but we mustn't let them make fools of themselves – anyway, not while we are responsible."
"I don't quite savez the responsibility," retorted the little lady, flippantly. "But what do you imagine?"
"I don't imagine – I know. He found out, somehow, that she was going with us, and just dropped things and ran for it."
"Do you think he did that?"
"Of course he did. And if we're not careful the odium of the whole thing will fall on us."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know. I suppose we ought to go back from Golden and take Miss Vennor along with us."
"Wouldn't that be assuming a great deal? You would hardly want to tell the President that you had brought his daughter back because you were afraid she might do something rash."
"Oh, pshaw!" said Burton, who was rather out of his element in trying to pick his way among the social ploughshares.
"But that is what you will have to tell him, if we go back," she insisted, with delicious effrontery.
Burton thought about it for a moment, and ended by accepting the fact merely because it was thrust upon him. "I couldn't very well do that, you know," he objected, and she nearly laughed in his face because he had fallen so readily into her small trap; "but if we don't break it off, what shall we do?"
"Do? why, nothing at all! Mr. Vennor asks us to take his daughter with us on a little pleasure-trip, and he doesn't tell us to bring her back instanter if we happen to find Fred on the train."
Burton was silenced, but he was very far from being convinced, and he gave up the return project reluctantly, promising himself that he should have a very uncomfortable day of it.
In the meantime, the two young people in the observation-car were making hard work of it. A good many undiscussable happenings had intervened between their parting and their meeting, and these interfered sadly with the march of a casual conversation. As usually befalls, it was the young woman who first rose superior to the embarrassments.
"I'm glad of this day," she said, frankly, when they had exhausted the scenery, the matchless morning, the crisp air, and half a dozen other commonplaces. "I enjoyed our trip down from Silver Plume a year ago so much, and it seemed the height of improbability to imagine that we'd ever repeat it. Did you think we ever should?"
"No, indeed," replied Brockway, truthfully; "but I have wished many times that we might. Once in awhile, when I was a boy, I used to get a day that was all my own – a day in which I could go where I pleased and do as I liked. Those days are all marked with white stones now, and I often envy the boy who had them."
"I think I can understand that."
"Can you? I didn't know little girls ever had such days."
"I've had a few, but I think they were never given me. They were usually stolen, and so were doubly precious."
Brockway laughed. "Suppose we call this a stolen day, and try to make it as much like the others as we can. Shall we?"
"It's a bargain," she said, impulsively.
"From this minute, I am any irresponsible age you please; and you – you are to do nothing whatever that you meant to do. Will you agree to that?"
"Gladly," Brockway assented, the more readily since his plans for the day had been so recently demolished and rebuilt. "We'll go where we please, and do as we like; and for this one day nobody shall say 'Don't!'"
She laughed with him, and then became suddenly grave. "It's no use; we can't do it," she said, with mock pathos; "the 'ancients and invalids' won't let us."
"Yes, they will," Brockway asserted, cheerfully; "Burton will take care of them – that's what he's here for. Moreover, I shall take it upon myself to abolish the perversities, animate or inanimate."
"Please do. And if Mrs. Burton scold me – "
"She'd better not," said Brockway, with much severity. "If she does, I'll tell tales out of school and give her something else to think about."
"Could you?"
"You would better believe it; she is trembling in her shoes this blessed minute for fear I may. But you would have to stand by me."
"I? Well, I've promised, you know. What place is this?"
The train had entered the great gateway in Table Mountain, and was clattering past the Golden smelting works.
"It is Golden – you remember, don't you?" And then Brockway bethought him of something. "Will you excuse me a minute, while I get off and speak to the agent?"
"Certainly," said Gertrude; and when the train skirted the high platform, Brockway sprang off and ran quickly to the telegraph office. The operator was just coming out with a freshly written message in his hand.
"Hello, Fred," he said; "didn't know you were on. Do you happen to know a Miss Gertrude Vennor? She's with John Burton's party."
"Yes," said Brockway, tingling to get hold of the message before Burton should come along.
"All right; give her this, will you? I can't leave that blessed wire a minute."
Brockway thrust the telegram into his pocket, dodged around the throng of station loungers, and won back to the rear platform of the observation-car without seeing or being seen of the general agent. Then he drew the crumpled paper from his pocket and read it shamelessly.
"To Miss Gertrude Vennor,
"Care John Burton,
"On Colorado Central Train 51.
"Come back from Golden on first train. Have changed our plans, and shall leave Denver at 1.30 P.M.
"Francis Vennor."
XVIII
FLAGGED DOWN
Brockway read the President's telegram twice, folded it very small, and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket.
"That's just about what I expected he'd do, and it's a straight bluff," he muttered. "All the same, she's not going back. And I've got to block it without getting Burton into trouble."
There was no time for anything but the simplest expedient. He jumped off again and ran back to the telegraph office.
"Say, Jim, that message to Miss Vennor is bulled. Ask Denver to repeat it to Beaver Brook, will you?" he said, interrupting the operator as he was repeating the train order.
The man of dots and dashes finished the order. "Can't do it, Fred; get me into hot water up to my neck. Think of something else."
"Will you help me if I do?"
"Sure; any way that won't cost me my job."
The conductor and engineer had signed the order, but Brockway begged for a respite. "Just a minute, Halsey, while I write a message," he said, snatching a pad of blanks and writing hastily, while the conductor waited.
"To Francis Vennor,
"Private Car 050, Denver.
"Can't you reconsider and leave Denver to-morrow morning, as previously arranged? Am quite sure Miss Vennor prefers to go on. Answer at Beaver Brook.
"Frederick Brockway."
He tossed the pad to the operator.
"There you are, Jim; don't break your neck to make a 'rush' of it; and when you hear the answer coming do what you can to make it limp a little – anything to change the sense a bit."
"I'll do it," quoth the operator; and then the conductor gave the signal, and Brockway boarded the train and rejoined Gertrude.
"Did you think I had deserted you?" he asked.
"Oh, no; and Mr. Burton's been in to keep me company. He came to ask if I didn't want to go back to Denver."
"Did he?" said Brockway, wondering if Burton had also had a message. "And you told him no?"
"Of course I did. Haven't we made a compact?"
"Yes, but – "
"But what?"
"You said you were going to be irresponsible, you know, and I didn't know just where it might crop out."
"Not in that direction, you may be sure. You said we were to do as we pleased, and I don't please to go back to Denver. But Mr. Burton seemed to be quite anxious about it, for some reason. I wonder why?"
"So do I," rejoined Brockway, innocently.
Gertrude stole a glance at him, and he tried to look inscrutable, and failed. Then they both laughed.
"You are keeping something back; tell me all about it," Gertrude commanded.
"I am afraid you will be very angry if I do."
"I shall be quite furious if you don't. My! how close that rock was!"
The train was storming up the canyon, dodging back and forth from wall to wall, roaring over diminutive bridges, and vying with the foaming torrent at the track-side in its twistings and turnings. The noise was deafening, but it was bearable, since it served to isolate them.
"Does the compact mean that we are to have no secrets from each other?" he asked, not daring to anticipate the answer; but Gertrude parried the direct question.
"What do two people who are trying to be very young and foolish and irresponsible know about secrets?" she demanded. "You are beating about the bush, and I won't have it. Tell me!"
For reply, he took the telegram from his pocket, opened it, smoothed it carefully on his knee, and handed it to her. She read it at a glance, and a faint flush came and went in her cheek, but whether of vexation or not he could not determine.
"You are very daring," she said, passing the square of paper back to him, and her voice was so low that he barely caught the words.
"You told me I wasn't to do anything that I meant to do: I certainly did not premeditate intercepting your telegrams – or answering them," he added.
"Then you have answered it? How?"
He turned the paper over and wrote his reply on the back, word for word.
"You dared to say that to my father!" she exclaimed. "How could you?"
"Under some circumstances, I think I could dare anything. But you are angry, as I said you'd be."
"Of course I am – very. I demand to be taken back to Denver this minute."
"Do you mean that?"
"Didn't I say it?"
Brockway tried in vain to read a contradiction in her face, but the steady eyes were veiled, and it is the eyes that speak when the lips are silent.
"I'm sorry," he began; "it meant a great deal to me, but I know it was inexcusable. I'll go and tell Burton, and you can go back from the Forks, where the trains meet."
Now Gertrude had builded upon the supposition that she was safe beyond the reach of recall, and she made haste to retract.
"Yes, do!" she said, tragically; "make me go down on my knees and beg you not to – I'll do it, if you insist. How was I to know that you were only trying to humiliate me?"
The swift little recantation gave Brockway a glimpse into her personality which was exceedingly precious while it lasted. A man may fall in love with a sweet face on slight provocation and without preliminaries, but he knows little of the height and depth of passion until association has taught him. But love of the instantaneous variety has this to commend it, that its demands are modest and based upon things visible. Wherefore, certain small excellences of character in the subject, brought to light by a better acquaintance, come in the nature of so many ecstatic little surprises.
That is the man's point of view. The woman takes the excellences for granted, and if they are lacking, one of two things may happen: a great smashing of ideals, or an attack of heavenly blindness. Gertrude was of the tribe of those who go blind; and deep down in her heart she rejoiced in Brockway's audacity. Hence it was only for form's sake that she said, "How was I to know that you were only trying to humiliate me?"
"I humiliate you!" he repeated, quite aghast at the bare suggestion. "Not knowingly, you may be very sure. But about the telegram; you are not angry with me because I was desperate enough to answer it without having first shown it to you?"
"I said I was, and so I must be. But I don't see how you could have done otherwise – not after you had promised not to let anything interfere. Do you think Mr. Burton had a telegram, too?"
"I was just wondering," Brockway rejoined, reflectively. "I think we are safe in assuming that he hadn't."
"I don't care; I'm not going back," said Gertrude, with fine determination. "Papa gave me this day, early in the morning, and I'm going to keep it. What do you think of an irresponsible young person who says such an unfilial thing as that?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you what I think."
"Try me and see."
"That is one of the things I don't dare – not yet."
"You'd better not abate any of your daring; you'll need it all when we get back," laughed Gertrude, speaking far better than she knew.
"To take the consequences of my impudence?"
"Yes. You don't know my father; he is steel and ice when he is angry."
Remembering the object-lesson on the station platform in Denver, Brockway ventured to dissent from this, though he was politic enough not to do so openly.
"You think he will be very angry, then?"
"Indeed I don't – I know it."
"I'm sorry; but I'm afraid he will be angrier yet, before long."
"Why?"
"You read my message: I asked him to answer at Beaver Brook. He'll be pretty sure to send you a peremptory order to turn back from Forks Creek, won't he?"
"Why, of course he will; and I'll have to go back, after all – I sha'n't dare disobey. Oh, why didn't you make it impossible, while you were doing it?"
"I had to do what I could; and you, and Burton, and the operator, had to be saved blameless. But I'll venture a prediction. As well as you know your father, you may prepare yourself to be surprised at what he will say. I am no mind-reader, but I'm going to prophesy that he doesn't recall you."
"But why? I don't understand – "
"We are due at Beaver Brook in five minutes; wait, and you will see."
So they waited while the pygmy locomotive snorted and labored, and the yellow torrent roared and fled backward, and the gray cliffs on either hand flung back the clamorous echoes, and the cool damp air of the canyon, flushed now and then with a jet of spray, blew in at the car windows.
For the first time since her father had suggested the trip with the Burtons, Gertrude began to understand that it could scarcely have been his intention to give her an uninterrupted day in the company of the passenger agent. But in that case, why had he proposed the trip, knowing that Brockway's party would be on the train? The answer to this query did not tarry. She had caught the surprised exclamations of the Tadmorians when Brockway made his appearance, and they pointed to the supposition that his presence on the train was unexpected. And he had been evidently embarrassed; and Mrs. Burton was curiously distrait and unmistakably anxious to get them out of the way before her husband should return.
These things were but straws, but they all pointed to one conclusion. Her father knew, or thought he knew, that the passenger agent was to stay behind in Denver, and he had deliberately sent her away for the day to preclude the possibility of another meeting. And when he had discovered that the little plan had miscarried, he had quite as deliberately ordered her return.
Speaking broadly, the President's daughter was not undutiful; but she was sufficiently like her father to be quickly resentful of coercive measures. Wherefore, when she had cleared up the small mystery to her own satisfaction, she hardened her heart and promised herself that nothing short of a repetition of the peremptory order should make her return on the forenoon train. And the shriek of the engine, whistling for Beaver Brook, punctuated the resolve.
XIX
THE FOOLISH WIRES
When President Vennor returned to his stateroom in the private car after the choleric little incident on the platform, he found his secretary waiting with open note-book and a sheaf of well-sharpened pencils. Quatremain's hands were a trifle unsteady when he began to write at the President's dictation, but his employer did not observe it. As a matter of fact, Mr. Francis Vennor was deep in the undercurrent of his private thoughts – thoughts which were quite separate and apart from the unbroken flow of words trickling out through Quatremain's pencil-point upon the pages of the note-book. Mere business was very much a matter of habit with the President, and the dictating of a few letters to be signed "Francis Vennor, President," did not interfere with a coincident search for some means of retrieving the morning's disaster.
It was a disaster, and no less. He began by calling it a mistake, but mistakes which involve the possible loss of fortunes, small or great, are not to be lightly spoken of. By the time he reached the end of the fifth letter, he had run the gamut of expedients and concluded to try the effect of a little wholesome parental authority.
"Go out and get me a Colorado Central time-card," he said to Quatremain; and when the secretary returned with a copy of the official time-table, Mr. Vennor traced out the schedule of the morning trains, east and west. Number Fifty-one was not yet due at Golden, and a telegram to that station would doubtless reach Gertrude.
"Take a message to Miss Gertrude, Harry," he began; but while he was trying to formulate it in words which should be peremptory without being incendiary, he thought better of it and went out to send it himself. There was a querulous old gentleman in the telegraph office who was making life burdensome for the operator, and it was with no little difficulty that the President secured enough of the young man's time and attention to serve his purpose.
"You are quite sure you can reach Golden before the train gets there, are you?" he said, writing the number of his telegraph frank in the corner of the blank.
"Oh, yes," replied the operator, with an upward glance at the clock; "there's plenty of time. I'll send it right away."
"But I ah – protest!" declared the querulous gentleman, and he failed not to do so most emphatically after the President left the office.
The operator turned a deaf ear, and sent the message to Miss Vennor; and when, in due course of time, Brockway's answer came, he sent it out to the private car. The President was still dictating and was in the midst of a letter when the yellow envelope was handed him, but he stopped short and opened the telegram. The reading of Brockway's insolent question imposed a severe test upon Mr. Vennor's powers of self-control, and the outcome was not wholly a victory on the side of stoicism.
"Curse his impudence!" he broke out, wrathfully; "I'll make this cost him something before he's through with it!" and he sprang to his feet and hurried out with the inflammatory message in his hand.
It is a trite saying that anger is an evil counsellor, and whoso hearkens thereto will have many things to repent of. No one knew the value of this aphorism better than Francis Vennor, but for once in a way he allowed himself to disregard it. He knew well enough that a delicately worded hint to Burton would bring the general agent and his wife and Gertrude back to Denver on the next train, but wrath would not be satisfied with such a placable expedient. On the contrary, he resolved to communicate directly with Gertrude herself, and to rebuke her openly, as her undutiful conduct deserved.
In the telegraph office the operator was still having trouble with the querulous gentleman, but the President went to the desk to write his message, shutting his ears to the shrill voice of the gadfly.
"But, sir, I must ah – protest. I distinctly heard Mr. ah – Brockway tell you to send anything I desired, and I demand that you send this; it was part of the ah – stipulation, sir!"
"This" was a message of five hundred-odd words to the local railway agent in the small town where Mr. Jordan had purchased his ticket, setting forth his grievance at length; and the operator naturally demurred. While he was trying to persuade the pertinacious gentleman to cut the jeremiad down to a reasonable length, the President finished his telegram to his daughter. It was curt and incisive.
"To Miss Gertrude Vennor,
"On Train 51.
"If you do not return this forenoon we shall not wait for you.
"Francis Vennor."
The operator took it, and the President glanced at his watch.
"Can you catch that train at Beaver Brook?" he inquired.
"Yes, just about."
"Do it, then, at once. Excuse me – " to the gadfly – "this is very important, and you have all day for your business."
The brusque interruption started the fountain of protests afresh, but the operator turned away and sat down to his instrument. Beaver Brook answered its call promptly, and the message to Miss Vennor clicked swiftly through the sounder.
For a quarter of an hour or more, Brockway's friend in the Golden office had been neglecting his work and listening intently to the irrelevant chattering of his sounder. He heard Denver call Beaver Brook, and when the station in the canyon answered, he promptly grounded the wire and caught up his pen. The effect of this manœuvre was to short-circuit that particular wire at Golden, cutting off all stations beyond; but this the Denver operator could not know. As a result, the President's telegram got no farther than Golden, and Brockway's friend took it down as it was sent. At the final word he opened the wire again in time to hear Beaver Brook swear at the prolonged "break," and ask Denver what was wanted.
Thereupon followed a smart quarrel in telegraphic shorthand, in which Denver accused Beaver Brook of going to sleep over his instrument, and Beaver Brook intimated that Denver was intoxicated. All of which gave the obstructionist at Golden a clear minute in which to determine what to do.
"If I only knew what Fred wants to have happen," he mused, "I might be able to fix it up right for him. As I don't, I'll just have to make hash of it – no, I won't, either; I'll just trim it down a bit and make it talk backward – that's the idea! and three words dropped will do it, by jing! Wonder if I can get the switchboard down fine enough to cut them out? Here she comes again."
The quarrel was concluded and Denver began to repeat the message. Brockway's friend bent over his table with his soul in his ears and his finger-tips. Denver was impatient, and the preliminaries chattered through the sounder as one long word. At the final letter in the address, the Golden man's switch-key flicked to the right and then back again; and at the tenth word in the message the movement was repeated.
"O. K.," said Beaver Brook.
"Repeat," clicked Denver.
"No time; train's here," came back from the station in the canyon; and Brockway's friend sat back and chuckled softly.
