CRIMSON MOUNTAIN (5 page)

On that particular Friday evening, he had planned an elaborate party to be held up in the woods at his hunt club, fifty miles away from the city, and in the opposite direction from Carrollton where Laurel, with a stalled car, was waiting. Laurel knew these bare facts, but she did not know as yet that Adrian had been planning to make her guest of honor, and that if his plans for driving her up to the hunt club worked out, there might be an announcement to make during the evening.

Therefore Adrian Faber was much put out at Laurel’s message.

Of course Laurel had not been aware that she was to be driving up to the party alone with Adrian. She had supposed there would be a crowd, and therefore just one guest would not be missed. Anyway, he had plenty of time now to supply her place with a substitute before they started.

But Adrian Faber set his handsome mouth haughtily. He didn’t at all like it that Laurel had let him down and spoiled his plans. Of course there was always Genevieve, but he was above fed up with her. Though—if there was no one else. It was true she might have other plans, but he was reasonably sure she would cancel anything to go to the hunt club with him. She adored the hunt club, and he really hadn’t been seeing much of her lately.

There was another young man, Royal Turner, who would be at that party that Laurel was missing. He was good-looking, too, in a merry kind of a way; reckless, black eyes and a little sharp black mustache. Laurel didn’t admire the mustache but could probably persuade him to give it up if she wanted to. He had been very attentive and had taken her places whenever she would go, plays and dances and wild rides. He was a reckless driver, and Laurel was sometimes a little afraid when she went with him. And he was always insisting that she should have a drink. Laurel didn’t drink. She had been brought up with an aversion to it. Her father and mother had been against it, and they had inculcated strong reasons into her mind why it was never the right thing to do. Laurel knew and realized dangers in drink that other young people seemed to ignore. And if she had not been taught these things, she had seen enough of the effect that drinking had on the young people she met in their crowd to make her hate it. Not even Adrian, with his quiet, reasonable persuasiveness that a little temperate drinking was necessary in company in order to be polite, had been able to move her to yield. Sometimes she felt that none of these young people were true friends, and it was in a reaction from all her social life that she had suddenly driven away to Carrollton to see about the school vacancy she had heard of through an old Carrollton schoolmate who was teaching in the city.

There were half a dozen other young men who had been attentive to Laurel while she had been staying with her cousins in the city trying to think her way through and plan a future for herself. They were not all of this high-class, wealthy type. There were a couple of young writers, newspaper men, really bright and interesting, Tom Rainey and Bruce Winter. Tom had recently returned from abroad, where he had been a special correspondent in the war zone, and he had a mysterious air that was most intriguing. He had dark hair and a way of seeming awfully important while still quite casual. Laurel was never sure whether she liked him a lot or whether she felt he was not quite sincere. Bruce Winter, on the other hand, had red hair, intense gray eyes, an almost rugged face, and a mouth that seemed inexorable when it was set in a firm, thin line under eyes that took on a stormy look. These two men were always in the same company, though not particularly friendly. Sometimes Laurel had an idea that one of them was shadowing the other, although she couldn’t be sure which was the shadowed. But they were both friends of hers, and both seemed to enjoy her company. They would likely be at that party this evening, and Tom at least would be drinking a great many cocktails. It seemed such a pity, for in many ways he was very attractive.

Then there was a young theological student who had often come to her cousins’ house. He had several times asked her to go with him to hear some fine music. Chatham Brower was his name. He was brilliant, but she wasn’t at all convinced that he was a Christian in spite of his ministerial intentions. She had a fancy that his recent interest in things theological might have been to escape the draft. But of course that was an unworthy thought. She had no real reason to doubt him. And he was good company. He had invited her to attend a lecture that evening, but she had declined on account of this previous engagement. He wasn’t so good-looking, but he was supposed to be intellectual, and he had told her she was a good conversationalist.

Laurel, as she stood at the desk waiting for the attention of the proprietress of the tearoom, remembered all those possibilities for the evening and wondered at herself for being so content to have them wiped out of the picture and to be stalled here with a comparative stranger whom she dimly remembered as a boy in the past. With the vision of all these city friends of hers in her mind, she turned and glanced back to where Phil Pilgrim stood near their table with such a strong, dependable, fine, yet wistful look on his nice face. Handsome? Yes, but those other fellows were, too, yet not one of them looked better to her than the young man who had that afternoon saved her life. And she acknowledged to herself that she was reluctant to cut short this new companionship of the day that might never come her way again.

Then the woman who had been telephoning hung up the receiver and turned toward her.

“Rooms? Yes, we ordinarily have rooms. But it just happens there is a wedding in town tonight and our rooms are all taken for the night. Tomorrow I think we shall have rooms. Could you wait until tomorrow?”

Laurel shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I need a room tonight. You don’t know of any place nearby that I could get?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” said the woman. “We hired every room in the neighborhood to accommodate the people from the wedding.”

Laurel went back to Phil.

“Nothing tonight on account of a wedding.”

“Well, that’s that!” said Pilgrim thoughtfully. “But I guess there’ll be some other way. Come on, we’ll go and see about your car.

“Well, in the first place, let’s see whether the generator has come yet. If it hasn’t, we might hitch your car to mine and run it down to the city. But of course we’d have to consider that I’m pretty much of a stranger to you, and you might not feel you cared to take a long ride like that with me just coming nightfall!” He gave her a little grin.

“Nonsense!” said Laurel. “I certainly know enough
about
you to feel perfectly safe with you no matter how dark it is. But I am not going to allow you to take a long journey like that for me. Let’s go and see about that train. Don’t I hear it now?”

“Yes,” said Pilgrim. “We’ll drive over to the station and see for ourselves. You can’t tell whether Mark may forget to go over. No, there he is heading toward the station on a dead run. Yes, there! They’ve flung him a package. That ought to be it. We’ll drive over and see.”

Mark was undoing the package as they came into the garage, and he turned and grinned at them.

“They’ve sent the generator, all rightie!” he said. “And Ted and I are working overtime tonight. We’ll have her done as quick as she can be done. Maybe tonight if we don’t have too many interruptions.”

“Great work, Mark!” said Pilgrim. “You can count on me to bring you a pot of coffee and cinnamon buns if it keeps you late.”

“Great idea, Phil Pilgrim. I see you ain’t lost any of your big heart by gettin’ eddicated. I’ll vote for you every time.”

But Laurel had been doing some thinking while the two were talking, and now she stepped up to the mechanic.

“Did I understand you to say there was a possibility that my car might be finished tonight?”

The man eyed her sharply.

“Yes, ma’am, I said that. I think if we can get this generator in before dark, we might have her ready to travel by seven o’clock. Mind you, I ain’t promising, not till I see what shape she’s in when I get the generator in, but I think it might happen, if you don’t mind paying my helper for overtime.”

“Of course not,” said Laurel. “It’s important for me to get the car as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” said the mechanic, returning to his work. “Stick around, lady, I’ll do my best. Angels can’t do no more.”

She turned a quick glance toward Pilgrim but saw he had just vanished inside the room where the telephone was. She wondered whether he had heard what Mark had said. But when he was through with the telephone, she would try a couple of old friends and see if either of them would take her in, provided her car was not done in time to use that night.

Phil Pilgrim came out of the office smiling.

“Say,” he said with a happy grin, “want to do a little more scouting around for a stopping place? I had a hunch that I’d better find out for sure whether my man is coming on the midnight or later, and I find he came in on the five ten. Started from Chicago sooner than he expected, and he’s home now. I can see him if I drive to his house at once. I thought perhaps you’d like to go alone and stop off somewhere on the way back to find a place for overnight.

And anyway, it would pass the time till you know for sure what to expect about your car.”

“Why, that will be fine,” she said, smiling. “But you didn’t hear what the mechanic said, did you? He told me if everything went all right, he might get the car ready to move by seven—in which case I’m going back to the city tonight. I simply
must
if I can, for I have so much to do before I get back here for Monday. But of course I ought to find a place before dark where I can stay if the car isn’t ready tonight.”

The young man looked at her, startled for a minute.

“Well, yes, I suppose he could get it done if he is willing to work overtime,” he said. “Well, come on. I’m sure we can find you a place anyway, and it may help you out when you get back.”

So they got into his old car again and went speeding down the road, through Carrollton, and out to a country place on the highway.

“Why, this is where Mr. Banfield used to live,” said Laurel, as they turned into the driveway and drove up before the steps of a big old-fashioned brick house.

“Yes, that’s the name, Banfield. Do you know him?”

“No,” said Laurel, “but I remember he had something to do with a foundry down the road. I remember hearing his name. He was a manufacturer of some kind of machines, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right,” said Pilgrim. “Now, do you want to go in, or would you rather sit here and wait? I won’t be long.”

“Oh, I’d much rather sit here. Don’t hurry. I’m very comfortable.”

She smiled at him, and he got out and went up the steps with a spring and pulled the old-fashioned doorbell.

The door was presently opened by a girl who nodded as if Pilgrim was expected, and he went in.

Laurel sat there thinking the afternoon over with its strange happenings, amused at the situation, and still more amused at her own contentment with things. Why was it that she felt so much as if she had fallen in with one who seemed a part of her old life when Father and Mother were at hand and home was a beloved and beautiful place where there was protection and comfort and plenty of luxury? And why was it that she felt so much more at home in this man’s company than she did when she was with any of the young men in the city who had paid her attention?

Ah, well did she know that if her cousins with whom she was staying temporarily should find out what she had been doing today, and how she had sent her regrets to Adrian Faber, and instead was staying in the company of a young man whose only contact with her in the past had been as a boy in a filling station where her father’s car used to be serviced, they would lift up their hands in horror and reproach her most mercilessly.

“Laurel Sheridan! What have you done? You crazy girl!” she could imagine her friends and relative saying. “To go off on a wild goose chase after a job to teach school in a little dinky town and ruin your chances to get the absolutely best catch of the city! Don’t you know that Adrian Faber is simply rolling in wealth and able to give you anything you want? And don’t you know that he is just crazy about you?” Laurel could almost hear the tones of her cousin’s voice as she would say these things if she ever found out about the matter.

But they never should know. Laurel had no intention of telling them,
ever!
If she got home tonight sometime, she would simply explain that she had car trouble, and by the time she got back home it was too late to go to that party. Besides, she was tired and didn’t feel equal to staying up practically all night as it would likely prove to be. She would pass it off that way. And when and if she took that job in Carrollton, she would just pass out of their picture as quietly and painlessly as possible, and let them say what they would after she was gone. They need never know about the young man who had saved her life and been so kind and interesting afterward. That was her own secret, and too pleasant and sort of sacred to be slung into public gaze and rollicked around among kindly gossiping tongues till all the beauty and friendship were taken out of it.

Well, and then tonight, or at latest tomorrow morning, this nice young soldier boy out of her childhood’s past, would say good-bye and pass on to his camp or his war or whatever, and would not be around anymore for anybody to jeer about. Then they would exert all the influence they had to make her snare and marry one of those wholly desirable young men whom they had so obviously flung at her from time to time.

Into these pleasant reflections came footsteps—Phil Pilgrim coming out the door and down the steps of the brick house, followed by older footsteps. A tall elderly man stood on the porch.

“Then you’ll let me know, Pilgrim, not later than ten tomorrow morning?”

“Yes sir. I’ll let you know if I can get my leave extended a few hours at least.”

“Well, find out tonight if you can possibly get into contact with your captain. I should like to get these papers signed tomorrow for sure. I want to get the manager here to meet you tomorrow evening at the latest, sooner if possible. This thing must be put through at once.”