Читать книгу Wild Wings - Margaret Piper Chalmers - Страница 12

Three quarters of an hour later Ted was seated on a log, near a small rustic bridge, beneath which flowed a limpid, gurgling stream. On a log beside him sat a girl of perhaps eighteen years, exceedingly handsome with the flaming kind of beauty like a poppy's, striking to the eye, shallow-petaled. She was vividly effective against the background of deep green spruces and white birch in her bright pink dress and large drooping black hat. Her coloring was brilliant, her lips full, scarlet, ripely sensuous. Beneath her straight black brows her sparkling, black eyes gleamed with restless eagerness. An ugly, jagged, still fresh wound showed beneath a carefully curled fringe of hair on her forehead.

"I don't like meeting you this way," Ted was saying. "Are you sure your grandfather would have cut up rough if I had come to the house and called properly?"

"You betcher," said his companion promptly. "You don't know grandpa. He's death on young men. He won't let one come within a mile of me if he can help it. He'd throw a fit if he knew I was here with you now. We should worry. What he don't know won't hurt him," she concluded with a toss of her head. Then, as Ted looked dubious, she added, "You just leave grandpa to me. If you had had your way you would have spilled the beans by telephoning me this morning at the wrong time. See how much better I fixed it. I told him a piece of wood flew up and hit me when I was chopping kindling before breakfast and that my head ached so I didn't feel like going to church. Then the minute he was out of the yard I ran to the 'phone and got you at the hotel. It was perfectly simple that way—slick as grease. Easiest thing in the world to make a date. We couldn't have gotten away with it otherwise."

Ted still looked dubious. The phrase "gotten away with it" jarred. At the moment he was not particularly proud of their mutual success in "getting away with it." The girl wasn't his kind. He realized that, now he saw her for the first time in daylight.

She had looked all right to him on the train night before last. Indeed he had been distinctly fascinated by her flashing, gypsy beauty, ready laughter and quick, keen, half "fresh" repartee when he had started a casual conversation with her when they chanced to be seat mates from Holyoke on.

Casual conversations were apt to turn into casual flirtations with Ted Holiday. Afterward he wasn't sure whether she had dared him or he had dared her to plan the midnight joy ride which had so narrowly missed ending in a tragedy. Anyway it had seemed a jolly lark at the time—a test of the mettle and mother wit of both of them to "get away with it."

And she had looked good to him last night when he met her at the appointed trysting place after "As You Like It." She had come out of the shadows of the trees behind which she had been lurking, wearing a scarlet tam-o'-shanter and a long dark cloak, her eyes shining like January stars. He had liked her nerve in coming out like that to meet him alone at midnight. He had liked the way she "sassed" him back and put him in his place, when he had tried impudently enough to kiss her. He had liked the way she laughed when he asked her if she was afraid to speed, on the home stretch. It was her laugh that had spurred him on, intoxicated him, made him send the car leaping faster and still faster, obeying his reckless will.

Then the crash had come. It was indeed a miracle that they had not both been killed. No thanks to the rash young driver that they had not been. It would be many a day before Ted Holiday would forget that nightmare of dread and remorse which took possession of him as he pulled himself to his feet and went over to where the girl's motionless form lay on the grass, her face dead white, the blood flowing from her forehead.

Never had he been so thankful for anything in his life as he was when he saw her bright eyes snap open, and heard her unsteady little giggle as she murmured, "My, but I thought I was dead, didn't you?"

Game to her fingertips she had been. Ted acknowledged that, even now that the glamour had worn off. Never once had she whimpered over her injuries, never hurled a single word of blame at him for the misadventure that had come within a hair's breadth of being the last for them both.

"It wasn't a bit more your fault than mine," she had waived aside his apologies. "And it was great while it lasted. I wouldn't have missed it for anything, though I'm glad I'm not dead before I've had a chance to really live. All I ask is that you won't tell a soul I was out with you. Grandpa would think I was headed straight for purgatory if he knew."

"I won't," Ted had promised glibly enough, and had kept his promise even at the cost of lying to his uncle, a memory which hurt like the toothache even now.

But looking at the girl now in her tawdry, inappropriate garb he suffered a revulsion of feeling. What he had admired in her as good sport quality seemed cheap now, his own conduct even cheaper. His reaction against himself was fully as poignant as his reaction against her. He was suddenly ashamed of his joy ride, ashamed that he had ever wished or tried to kiss her, ashamed that he had fallen in with her suggestion for a clandestine meeting this afternoon.

Possibly Madeline sensed that he was cold to her charms at the moment.

She flashed a shrewd glance at him.

"You don't like me as well to-day as you did last night," she challenged.

Caught, Ted tried half-heartedly to make denial, but the effort was scarcely a success. He had yet to learn the art of lying gracefully to a lady.

"You don't," she repeated. "You needn't try to pretend you do. You can't fool me. You're getting cold feet already. You're remembering I'm just—just a pick-up."

Ted winced again at that. He did not like the word "pick-up" either, though to his shame he hadn't been above the thing itself.

"Don't talk like that, Madeline. You know I like you. You were immense last night. Any other girl I know, except my sister Tony, would have had hysterics and fainting fits and lord knows what else with half the excuse you had. And you never made a bit of fuss about your head, though it must have hurt like the deuce. I say, you don't think it is going to leave a scar, do you?"

He leaned forward with genuine concern to examine the red wound.

"I think it is more than likely. Lot you'll care, Ted Holiday. You'll never come back to see whether it leaves a scar or not. See that bee over there nosing around that elderberry. Think he'll come back next week? Not much. I know your kind," scornfully.

That bit into the lad's complacency.

"Of course, I care and of course, I'll come back," he protested, though a moment before he had had not the slightest wish or purpose to see her again, rather to the contrary.

"To see whether there is a scar?"

"To see you," he played up gallantly.

Her hard young face softened.

"Will you, honest, Ted Holiday? Will you come back?"

She put out her hand and touched his. Her eyes were suddenly wistful, gentle, beseeching.

"Sure I'll come back. Why wouldn't I?" The touch of her hand, the new softness, almost pathos of her mood touched him, appealed to the chivalry always latent in a Holiday.

He heard her breath come quickly, saw her full bosom heave, felt the warm pressure of her hand. He wanted to put his arm around her but he did not follow the impulse. The code of Holiday "noblesse oblige" was operating.

"I wish I could believe that," Madeline sighed, looking down into the water which whirled and eddied in white foam and splash over the rocks. "I'd like to think you really wanted to come—really cared about seeing me again. I know I'm not your kind."

He started involuntarily at her voicing unexpectedly his own recent thought.

"Oh, you needn't be surprised," she threw at him half angrily. "Don't you suppose I know that better than you do. Don't you suppose I know what the girls you are used to look like? Well, I do. I've watched 'em, on the street, on the campus, in church, everywhere. I've even seen your sister and watched her, too. Somebody pointed her out to me once when she had made a hit in a play and I've seen her at Glee Club concerts and at vespers in the choir. She is lovely—lovely the way I'd like to be. It isn't that she's any prettier. She isn't. It's just that she's different—acts different—looks different—dresses different from me. I can't make myself like her and the rest, no matter how I try. And I do try. You don't know how hard I try. I got this dress because I saw your sister Tony wearing a pink dress once. I thought maybe it would make me look more like her. But it doesn't. It makes me look more not like her than ever, doesn't it?" she appealed rather disconcertingly. "It's horrid. I hate it."

"I don't know much about girls' dresses," said Ted. "But, now you speak of it, maybe it would be prettier if it were a little—" he paused for a word—"quieter," he decided on. "Do you ever wear white? Tony wears it a lot and I think she looks nice in it."

"I've got a white dress. I thought about putting it on to-day. But somehow it didn't look quite nice enough. I thought—well, I thought I looked handsomer in the pink. I wanted to look pretty—for you." The last was very low—scarcely audible.

"You look good to me all right," said the boy heartily and he meant it. He thought she looked prettier at the moment than she had looked at any time since he had made her acquaintance.

Perhaps he was right. She had laid aside for once her mask of hard boldness and was just a simple, humble, rather pathetic little girl, voicing secret aspirations toward a fineness life had denied her.

"I say, Madeline," Ted went on. "You don't—meet other chaps the way you met me to-day, do you?" Set the blind to lead the blind! If there was anything absurd in scapegrace Ted's turning mentor he was unconscious of the absurdity, was exceedingly in earnest.

"What's that to you?" She snapped the mask back into place.

"Nothing—that is—I wouldn't—that's all."

She laughed shrilly.

"You're a pretty one to talk," she scoffed.

Ted flushed.

"I know I am. See here, Madeline. You're dead right. I ought not to have taken you out last night. I ought not to have let you meet me here to-day."

"I made you—I made you do both those things."

Ted shook his head at that.

"A man's to blame always," he asserted.

"No, he isn't," denied Madeline. "A girl's to blame always."

They stared at each other a moment while the brook tinkled through the silence. Then they both laughed at the solemnity of their contradictions.

"But there isn't a bit of harm done," went on Madeline. "You see, I knew that first night on the train that you were a gentleman."

"Some gentlemen are rotters," said Ted Holiday, with a wisdom beyond his twenty years.

"But you are not."

"No, I'm not; but some other chap might be. That is why I wish you would promise not to go in for this sort of thing."

"With anybody but you," she stipulated.

"Not with anybody at all," corrected Ted soberly, remembering his own recent restrained impulse to put his arm around her.

"Well, I don't want to—at least not with anybody but you. I never did it before with anybody. Honest, Ted, I never did."

"That's good. I felt sure that you hadn't."

"Why?"

He grinned sheepishly and stooped to break off a dry twig from a nearby bush.

"By the way you didn't let me kiss you," he admitted. "A fellow likes that in a girl. Did you know it?" He tossed away the twig and looked back at the girl as he asked the question.

"I thought they liked—the other thing."

"They do and they don't," said Ted, his paradox again betraying a scarcely to be expected wisdom. "But that is neither here nor there. What I started out to say was that I'm glad you don't make a practice of this pick-up business. It—it's no good," he summed up.

"I know." Madeline nodded understanding of the import of his warning. She was far too handsome and too prematurely developed physically to be devoid of experience of the ways of the opposite sex. Like Ophelia she knew there were tricks in the world and she liked frank Ted Holiday the better for reminding her of them. "I won't do it," she promised. "That is, unless you don't ever come back yourself. I don't know what I'll do then—something awful, maybe."

"I'll come fast enough. I'll come to-morrow." he added obeying a sudden impulse, Ted fashion.

"Will you?" The girl's face flushed with delight. "When?"

"To-morrow afternoon. I can't dodge the ivy stuff in the morning. Will four o'clock do all right?"

"Yes. Come here to this same place."

"I say, Madeline, can't I come to the house? I hate doing it like this."

"No, you can't. If you want to see me you'll have to do it this way. It's lots nicer here than in the house, anyway."

Ted acquiesced, since he had no choice, and rose, announcing that it was time to go now.

"We don't have to go yet. I told Grandpa I was going to spend the evening with my friend, Linda Bates. He won't know. We can stay as long as we like."

"I am afraid we can't," said Ted decidedly. "Come on, my lady." He held out both hands and Madeline let him draw her to her feet, though she was pouting a little at his gainsaying of her wishes.

"You may kiss me now," she said suddenly, lifting her face to his.

But Ted backed away. The code was still on. A girl of his own kind he would have kissed in a moment at such provocation, or none. But he had an odd feeling of needing to protect this girl from herself as well as from himself.

"You had more sense than I did last night. Let's follow your lead instead of mine," he said. "It's better."

"But Ted, you will come to-morrow?" she pleaded. "You won't forget or go back on your promise?"

"Of course, I'll come," promised Ted again readily.

Five minutes later they parted, he to take his car, and she to stroll in the opposite direction toward her friend Linda's house.

"He is a dear," she thought. "I'm glad he wouldn't kiss me, so there," she said aloud to a dusty daisy that peered up at her rather mockingly from the gutter.

An automobile horn honked behind her. She stepped aside, but the car stopped.

"Well, here is luck. Where are you going, my pretty maid?" called a gay, bold voice.

She turned. The speaker was one Willis Hubbard, an automobile agent by profession, lady's man and general Lothario by avocation. His handsome dark face stood out clearly in the dusk. She could see the avid shine in his eyes. She hated him all of a sudden, though hitherto she had secretly rather admired him, though she had always steadily refused his invitations.

For Madeline was wary. She knew how other girls had gone out with Willis in his smart car and come back to give rather sketchy accounts of the evening's pleasure jaunt. Her friend Linda had tried it once and remarked later that Willis was some speed and that Madeline had the right hunch to keep away from him.

But it happened that Madeline Taylor was the particular peach that Willis Hubbard hankered after. He didn't like them too easy, ready to drop from the bough at the first touch. All the same, he meant to have his way in the end with Madeline. He had an excellent opinion of his powers as a conquering male. He had, alas, plenty of data to warrant it in his relations with the fair and sometimes weak sex.

"What's your hurry, dearie?" he asked now. "Come on for a spin. It's the pink of the evening."

But she thanked him stiffly and refused, remembering Ted Holiday's honest blue eyes.

"What are you so almighty prunes and prisms for, all of a sudden? It's the wrong game to play with a man, I can tell you, if you want to have a good time in the world. I say, Maidie, be a good girl and come out with me to-morrow night. We'll have dinner somewhere and dance and make a night of it. Say yes, you beauty. A girl like you oughtn't to stay cooped up at home forever. It's against nature."

But again Madeline refused and moved away with dignity.

"Your grandfather will never know. You can plan to stay with Linda afterward. I'll meet you by the sycamore tree just beyond the Bates' place at eight sharp—give you the best time you ever had in your life. Believe me, I'm some little spender when I get to going."

"No, thank you, Mr. Hubbard. I tell you I can't go."

He stared at the finality of her manner. He had no means of knowing that he was being measured up, to his infinite disadvantage, with a blue eyed lad who had stirred something in the girl before him that he himself could never have roused in a thousand years. But he did know he was being snubbed and the knowledge disturbed his fond conceit of self.

"Highty tighty with your 'Mr. Hubbards'! You will sing another tune by to-morrow night. I'll wait at the sycamore and you'll be there. See if you won't. You're no fool, Maidie. You want a good time and you know I'm the boy to give it to you. So long! See you to-morrow night." He started his motor, kissed his hand impudently to her and was off down the road, leaving Madeline to follow slowly, in his dust.