Читать книгу Mark Gilmore, Scout of the Air - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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On a certain stormy night two events occurred in the town of Kent’s Falls in upper New York State, which were destined to have an important bearing on the life of Lefferts Leighton who participated in neither of these occurrences and was at the time many miles distant from this quiet town which he had never seen.

In the simple living room of a cottage along the main thoroughfare, a lady, highly nervous and trying to control her agitation, sat rocking in a chair by the marble-topped center table while her husband paced the floor, silent and preoccupied. The atmosphere in that rather homely room seemed tense.

For some minutes neither of these two had spoken. They were both clearly worried and anxious, but the man’s demeanor was one of anger, while that of the lady bespoke only suspense. They were the parents of Markle Gilmore.

“There’s one thing I will ask you,” said the boy’s mother, “and that is not to have a scene. There’s no use making matters worse by losing your temper; you’d simply make him stubborn and we’ll never get at the truth that way.”

Mr. Gilmore paced the floor, back and forth, and for a few moments said not a word. Clearly, he was not in the least influenced. “I think you may leave that to me,” he finally observed, tersely. “The best you can do is to withdraw altogether and leave the matter to me. I’m not going to brook any interference.” He looked at his watch, impatiently. “You don’t suppose he suspects anything, do you? It’s after ten o’clock.”

Mrs. Gilmore spoke as if her patience had already been subject to some strain. “I think, as I said before, that he stayed for supper at the Halburton’s. When he does that he never gets home before ten o’clock.” She uttered a long sigh, showing the effect of argument and suspense. “Here he comes now, I think.”

But he did not come, and the father continued pacing the floor back and forth, back and forth. The mother made no further effort to read her book, but inverted it in her lap and sat waiting, sighing occasionally. At every sound of footfalls in the street, she started anxiously. Her husband’s silence and steady pacing were portentous.

A tall boy of about nineteen lounged into the room, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He wore a studied air of sophistication; he looked bored and cynical. It was not often that he graced the household with his presence in the evening.

“Edgar, why don’t you go to bed instead of wandering around?” his mother asked, in nervous annoyance. “Or else take a book and read.”

“I’m sticking around to see the circus,” said the boy, sprawling in a chair. “Didn’t he show up yet?”

Mr. Gilmore, still pacing the floor, darted a quick look of angry disapproval at his son, but said nothing.

“I thought you were going to take Grace Arnold to the movies, dear,” said the boy’s mother.

The son rubbed his thumb and finger tips together with that motion which is intended to convey the need of money, and by this pantomime informed his mother that the lack of it had been fatal to his gallant enterprise.

“Well then, why didn’t you just make a little call on her?” the simple lady asked, under the impression that this good old custom still survived.

“They got no use for you if you haven’t a car,” answered Edgar, sneeringly. “You can bet I’m going to have one by next year. Look at Collie Walters, she’s out with him every night.” There was a pause. “What’s the matter with the kid, anyway?” he asked. “Where’d he go—up to Halburton’s? I bet the little rascal knows he’s in Dutch. What are you going to do—chase him to Military School?”

His father wheeled about, angrily. “If you haven’t got anything to do with yourself, go to bed!” he snapped. “I should have sent you to Military School when you were Mark’s age. Perhaps you would have been capable of doing something worth while now. I want you to get out of the room when Mark comes in.”

The boy smiled, a singularly sneering smile, eloquent of disrespect and cheap sophistication, and slowly rousing himself, ambled out of the room. His mother rocked on silently in her chair, alert to every sound without. Her husband paced the floor with a kind of grim patience—back and forth, back and forth...