Читать книгу From the Car Behind - Eleanor M. Ingram - Страница 7

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The touring car rolled slowly through the October leaves rustling and swirling down the road in jovial wind-eddies, came up to a knoll beside the field, and stopped. The driver turned in his seat to face the two occupants of the tonneau, pushing his goggles up above the line of his fair hair.

"Look," he urged eagerly. "Look at the pitcher of our home team. There, just crossing the diamond—it's a new inning."

"It's not the first baseball game you've brought us out to see, Corrie," observed Mr. Thomas Rose, setting his own goggles on his cap above the line of his reddish-gray hair. "Is it, my girl?"

His daughter laughed, shaking her small head in its crimson hood and glancing roguishly at her brother.

"Nor the twenty-first, papa," she amplified.

"Well, but I haven't brought you to see the game, but the pitcher," the boy protested. "He's a new one; you never saw him before. Look."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to."

Flavia Rose obediently turned her gaze toward the players, and upon the indicated man it halted, arrested.

"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, and sat still.

The men were in their places, alert in poised expectation, the attention of the whole field concentrating upon the central figure of the pitcher at whom the young girl also looked. A slim, straight statue he stood during a full moment, then slowly raised his arms above his head in a gesture of supple grace and ease. The afternoon sun struck across his wind-ruffled brown hair and smiling face, as he gave a brief nod to the catcher and dropped his arm with a lithe, swift movement and turn of his whole body. The white ball shot across, swerving almost at the plate, and crashed into the catcher's mitt.

"He's got speed!" Mr. Rose approved loudly, standing up in the car. "That's pitching! Who's your friend, Corwin B.?"

His son did not answer. The ball was back in the pitcher's hands; again he was lifting his arms in the pose his physical beauty made classic. There was repeated the quick nod, the abruptly swift movement, and the ball sped across, dropping oddly.

"Strike two!" was called.

Amid the applause and shouts of encouragement, Flavia laid her small, urgent hand on her brother's sleeve.

"Corrie, who is he? Tell us, please."

He moved to see her more directly.

"Do you remember the Beach twenty-four-hour race, last summer, where I finished third? Do you remember how I told you about the big driver, Allan Gerard, who drove my machine for two hours until I could hold the wheel again myself?"

"Of course."

"Strike three—you're out!" rang the umpire's announcement; again the joyous shouts interrupted speech.

"Well, then, that's who."

"That's Gerard, playing ball?" interrogated Mr. Rose, incredulous. "What for? Lost his racing job?"

Laughing, Corrie shook his head.

"No, sir! Gerard is a member of the Mercury automobile company and has their western factory and all that end of the business in his hands. He races the Mercury car because he loves the work and because no one else can do it so well. No; practice for the Cup race opens to-morrow, and he's here on Long Island for that. But the pitcher of our home team put his arm out of business yesterday, and Gerard offered to pitch for this game. He knows everybody here—he always knows everybody everywhere, he's that kind. And I want to ask him to dinner," he concluded irrelevantly.

Mr. Rose scanned the field for a flying ball, as a sharp crack announced the first hit.

"Staying out here, or going in to the city each day?" he inquired.

"He's staying in Jamaica, sir."

"Then you'd best ask him to stop at your house until the race comes off, or he'll wreck his machine from weakness brought on by starvation," pronounced Mr. Rose, dryly. "One dinner won't carry him through weeks. I know those hotels, myself."

Corrie gasped, his face swept by delighted awe.

"Really? Oh, I'd give anything to have Gerard, Gerard, like that! Do you think he'll come?"

"If he had dinner at his hotel last night, and breakfast and lunch to-day, he'll come," his father assured. "Now be quiet and let me watch the game; it must be near ending."

"Almost, but——"

"Never mind the but, Corwin B. Keep cool."

But Corrie could not keep cool. When his father's attention was engaged he slipped down from his seat and went around to Flavia's side of the car.

"Do you think he would come?" he asked, for her ears alone. "Don't you want him, too? Why are you so serious—what do you think?"

Their clear violet-blue eyes met in the intimate household love and understanding of all their lives. Flavia dropped a caressing arm around her brother's shoulders, gently drawing him to face the field.

"Really look," she bade.

Puzzled, he obeyed. Gerard was still occupying the centre of the diamond, holding the ball aloft while his meditative gaze apparently dwelt on the batsman. There was scarcely a perceptible turn of his brown head, yet as the two in the car watched, the impromptu pitcher's glance flashed from behind his uplifted arm and he whirled in a half-circle to hurl the unexpected ball straight across the diamond to where a careless enemy had ventured from second base. Too late the startled runner saw; the sudden attack won.

"You're out!" pealed the quick decision. The game was closed. With the gay uproar of local triumph Mr. Rose mingled his approving applause, still standing upright in the car to view the scene.

"Well, of what are you thinking?" Corrie repeated. "He's splendid, I know that."

"I am thinking of Isabel," Flavia answered quietly, "and of you. If you take Mr. Gerard home, she will see a great deal of him."

Astonished, he regarded her. After a moment he again looked toward the man opposite, his expression sober.

"It's like you to think of me," he acknowledged, with slow gratitude. "But that's all right. If any one else can get her, I'd better know it now. Of course he'll want her, she's just the kind of girl he'd like, such a sport herself about cars and things. If she likes him better than me, why I'll have to stand it, that's all."

"Then, I shall be very glad to have Mr. Gerard stay with us, dear; don't you and I always like the same things?"

"We sure do, Other Fellow?"

The childhood "play name" brought their cordial glances together, as Mr. Rose dropped into his seat.

"Game's over, Corwin B.; better run get your friend," he notified, cheerily imperious. "Hurry along."

Half-smiling, half-anxious, Corrie lingered on the verge of compliance.

"I—I feel a chill at the idea," he avowed. "I believe, after all, I'm shy of Gerard!"

"Now what's the matter?" Mr. Rose ejaculated, staring after his son. "Shy; and I've been trying ever since he was born—without succeeding—to teach him that there were one or two people on earth bigger than he is."

"Papa!"

"Isn't it so, then?"

She laughed with him, mutinously unanswering.

Whatever diffidence Corrie had felt promptly vanished when Gerard turned from the group of players and met him. Flushed with vigorous exercise and recent conquest, his smiling eyes warming to recognition as they fell upon the breathless young motorist, there certainly was nothing intimidating in the late pitcher's aspect.

"I'm Corrie Rose—you haven't forgotten? Come meet my father and sister, won't you?" was Corrie's eager greeting.

It was not at all the dignified self-introduction and invitation he had planned as he ran across the field, but Gerard had the gift of drawing sincerity to meet his own, like to like.

"You haven't forgotten me," countered the other, giving his hand. "And I should be delighted to meet your father and Miss Rose, if I were fit. Perhaps you'll give me another chance."

"Fit? Why, we've been watching you play ball! A fellow don't play ball in a frock coat. We want you to come home to dinner, now, and stay with us over the race. You know I'm practising for it, too. Don't say no," as Gerard moved. "We want you."

The impulsive, italicized speech was very compelling.

"Thank you; I'll come over to your car, anyway," Gerard accepted. "But——What is it, Rupert?"

"I guess you'd call it a raincoat," was the drawled reply. "I'd feel bad to find you'd brought out your pajamas, for there ain't anything to do except wear it, now."

"I'm not cold."

The mechanician nodded a brief return to Corrie's laughing salute, and directed his sardonic black eyes to Gerard's right arm, which the rolled-back sleeve left bare to the elbow.

"I ain't specially timid," he submitted. "If rheumatism is part of the racing equipment you like to have with you, I'll just hurry home and make my will before we start."

With an impatient shrug Gerard slipped into the garment.

"Thanks; you're worse than a wife. Rose, you know Jack Rupert, who's sheer nerve when we're racing and sheer nerves when we're not."

"I surely do," Corrie warmly confirmed. "You rode with Mr. Gerard at the Beach when he drove my car for me. I'm not likely to forget that."

The small, malignly intelligent mechanician contemplated him, unsmiling, although far from unfriendly.

"I ride with Gerard," he acquiesced.

And only Gerard himself knew the history of service in the face of death comprehended in the simple statement.

Thomas Rose, repeatedly millionaire and genially absolute dictator in his circle of affairs, was not easy to gainsay. And he chose to assume prompt possession of Gerard, almost before the introduction was over.

"Get right in," he commanded. "Never mind anything, get in; and we'll talk about keeping you after we've had dinner. We'll stop at your hotel for your things, if you want them."

"You're very good," Gerard began, and stopped, encountering Flavia's eyes. Neither had spoken of their former meeting, indeed they had been given no opportunity for speech, yet the acute recollection was a bond between them.

"We do not wish to be insistent, Mr. Gerard," she said now, in her fresh, soft tones. "But we should be very glad to have you."

Gerard continued to look at her, gravely attentive as she herself. She was as exquisitely dressed as when he had caught her in his arms on the stairs of the Beach grand-stand, the fragile hand she laid on the car door carried the vivid flash of jewels. Somehow he divined that her father exacted this, that in his pride of self-made millionaire he would insist upon extravagance as other men might upon economy. And she would yield. He remembered her playful speech at their first meeting: "I am the only passive member of a strong-willed family." His impression was of her most feminine softness that was not in the least weak.

"Thank you," he answered. "I should have liked above all things to be your guest. But it happens that I have brought my mechanician with me and that I cannot desert him at the hotel. It does not matter at all about relative social position; we are down here together. Moreover, I have a ninety Mercury racing machine to look after, and I should be a most unrestful visitor, up at dawn and out until dark."

"If that's all," decided Mr. Rose, "this is a seven-passenger car and an architect said my house had ninety-five rooms. There's standing room in the garage, I guess, for a car or two. Corrie, turn loose your horn."

Corrie promptly put his finger on the button of the electric signal, and a raucous wail shattered the sunset hush.

"That's your man, looking this way? I like your sticking to him, Gerard. Here he comes. We're all fixed, then; get in."

Gerard got in, beside Flavia, who laughingly drew her velvet skirts to give him place.

"I think this bears a perilous resemblance to a kidnapping," she doubted. "Is it quite safe, I wonder? Shall you summon rescue when we reach a populated place?"

"If kidnapping means being taken against one's will, I haven't any case," he returned as seriously. "I don't believe I could be dislodged from here, now, if you tried."

"I had not contemplated the attempt—yet."

"Please do not! I look like a tramp, I know, but I will be exceedingly good."

"Not immoderately good; we are a frivolous family," she deprecated.

They looked at each other, and their eyes laughed together.

Radiant, Corrie was already behind the steering-wheel, an impatient hand poised to release the brake.

"Beside me, Rupert," he blithely invited, when the mechanician came up.

Rupert looked at Gerard, received his gesture of corroboration, and lifting his cap to Flavia, took the designated seat without comment.

"Don't you care where you're going?" presently demanded Corrie, moving up a speed. He respected Allan Gerard's little mechanician almost as much as he did Allan Gerard, knowing his reputation in racing circles; the glance he gave to accompany the query was an invitation to friendship.

Rupert braced one small tan shoe against the floor, as the car wrenched itself out of a tenacious sand rut.

"I ain't worrying," he kindly assured. "Any place that ain't New York is off the map, anyhow."

"I thought you belonged out west with Mr. Gerard."

"I guess I belong to the Mercury racer. But I'm officially chief tester at the eastern factory, up the Hudson, except when there's a race on. Since Darling French got married, I've raced with Gerard. Were you aiming to collect that horseshoe with a nail in it, ahead there on the course, or will it be an accident?"

"It's going to be an escape," smiled the driver, swerving deftly. "Tell me about the first part of the ball game, won't you? I missed it, going after my father and sister."

"Who, me? I ain't qualified. The curves I'm used to judging belong to a different game. I guess, if you listen to what's being said behind us, you'll get the better record. I'm enjoying the novelty of the automobile ride, myself."

"You must be," Corrie agreed ironically. "You get so little of it. They are not talking real ball."

But he settled back to listen. In fact, it was the recent game that was being discussed in the tonneau, with Mr. Rose as chief speaker and Flavia as auditor. The party was of enchanting congeniality.

They drove first to the hotel where Gerard had been stopping.

It was quite six o'clock when the touring car rolled through Mr. Rose's lawns and landscape-garden scenery, to come to a stop before the large, pink stone house of many columns. Mr. Rose had a passion for columns. Across the rug-strewn veranda a girl advanced to meet the arriving motorists; an auburn-haired, high-colored girl who wore a tweed ulster over her light evening gown.

"I thought you were never coming," she reproached, imperiously aggrieved. "I hate waiting. And I want uncle to send Lenoir after my runabout——"

The sentence broke as she saw the man beside Flavia, her gray eyes widened in astonished interest.

"My niece Isabel Rose, Mr. Gerard," presented Mr. Rose. "And now you have met all of us. Come on, Corwin B."

Isabel Rose gave her hand to the guest. She had the slightly hard beauty of nineteen years and exuberant health; contrasted with Flavia, there was almost a boyishness in her air of assurance and athletic vigor. But in the studied coquetry of her glance at Gerard, the instant desire to allure in response to the allure of this man's good looks, she showed femininity of a type that her cousin never would understand.

"I should not have minded waiting," she declared, in her high-pitched, clear-cut speech, "if I had known something pleasant was going to happen."

"If that means me, Miss Rose——" Gerard laughingly doubted.

"I don't see anyone else who happens; the rest of them are just always here," she confirmed, shrugging her shoulders.

He regarded her with the gay indulgence one shows an agreeable child. "Then, all thanks for the welcome. I shall try to live up to it, if you will not expect too much."

"Oh, but I shall!"

"Then perhaps I had better retreat at once?"

"You might try, first. Don't you think so, Flavia?"

"I think we might go in," Flavia smilingly suggested from the threshold. "We could assume Mr. Gerard's safety so far."

"Come on, Corwin B.," his father summoned again.

But Corrie sat still in his place, leaning on his steering-wheel and gazing curiously at his cousin and Gerard. Nor did he follow the group into the house; instead, he took the car and Jack Rupert around to the garage.

A little later, when Flavia Rose went upstairs to make ready for dinner, Isabel followed her, frankly inquisitive.

"Is this Mr. Gerard the real Gerard, the Gerard who races cars?" the examination commenced, as soon as the cousins were alone.

"He is Allan Gerard," Flavia stated. "Did you have a nice game, this afternoon?"

The distraction was put aside.

"Oh, pretty fair. I walked home across the links and left the runabout at the club. Did you ever meet Mr. Gerard before? You seem to know each other pretty well."

Flavia's delicate color flushed over her face; for an instant she again felt Gerard's firm arm around her and encountered his concerned eyes bent upon her own, as they stood on the stairs of the grand-stand. Truthfulness was the atmosphere of the household, the truthfulness born of fearless affection and cordial sympathy of feeling, but now she used an evasion, almost for the first time in her life.

"It is Corrie who knows Mr. Gerard, Isabel," she explained, a trifle slowly. "You remember that race when he helped Corrie, last summer? To-day Corrie saw him playing ball, and brought him to meet us."

"Oh! Yes, I remember the race, of course; I was there. But I did not know Allan Gerard was—well, looked like that. How long will he be here?"

"Papa and Corrie asked him to stay until the Cup race is over."

There was a pause. Isabel walked over to one of the long mirrors and studied her own vigorously handsome image, then turned her head and regarded Flavia with the perfect complacency and mischievous malice of a young kitten.

"Good sport," she anticipated.

Flavia carefully laid her brush upon the dressing table and proceeded to gather into a coil the shimmering mass of her fair hair. Suddenly she was afraid, quiveringly afraid of herself, of Gerard and the next two weeks, but most afraid of showing any change in expression to Isabel's sharp scrutiny.