Cloudy Jewel

CHAPTER XXII The two young men had shoved the old canoe up on the bank, turned it over, emptied it, and put it back in the water. Fred Hicks was holding it at arm’s length now in the water; and the would-be bridegroom had crawled out to the extreme end, and with rolled-up sleeves was pawing about in the water, which did not appear to be very deep. At the cry they turned; and Fred Hicks, forgetting the other man’s plight, let go the boat, and dashed back to the road. Young Laws, arising too hastily, rolled into the water completely, and came splashing up the bank in a frothy state of mind. But suddenly, as they came, while Myrtle’s best efforts were put forth to hinder Leslie’s movements, something cold and gleaming flashed in her face that sent her crouching back in the corner of her seat and screaming. Leslie had slipped her hand into the little secret pocket of the car door and brought out her revolver, hoping fervently that it was still loaded, and that Allison had not chosen to shoot at a mark or anything with it the last time he was out.

“You’d better sit down and keep quiet,” she said coolly. “I’m a good shot.”

Then she put her foot on the clutch, and the car started just as Fred Hicks lit on the running-board.

Leslie’s little revolver came promptly around to meet him, and he dropped away with a gasp of surprise as suddenly as he had lit. Suddenly Leslie became aware of the other young man dripping and breathless, 252but with a dangerous look in his eye, bearing down upon her from the lake side of the road; and she flashed around and sent a shot ringing out into the road, the bullet ploughing into the dust at his very feet. The car leaped forward to obey her touch, and in a second more they had left the two young men safely behind them.

Myrtle was crouched in the back seat, weeping; and Leslie, cool and brave in the front seat, was trembling from head to foot. This was a new road to her; at least, she had never been more than two or three miles on it, and she did not know where she would bring up. She began to wonder how long her gasoline would hold out, for she had been in such a hurry to get away with Myrtle before Allison should come home that she had forgotten to look to see if everything was all right; and she now remembered that Allison had had the car out late the night before. Everything seemed to be falling in chaos about her. The earth rose and fell in front of her excited gaze; the sun was going down; and the road ahead seemed endless, without a turning as far as she could see.

A great burying-ground stretched for what seemed like miles along one side of the road. The polished marble gleamed red and bleak in the setting sun. The sky had suddenly gone lead-color, and there was a chill in the air. Leslie longed for nothing so much as to hide her head in Julia Cloud’s lap and weep. Yet she must go on and on and on till this awful road came to an end. Would it ever come to an end? Oh, it must somewhere! A great tower of bricks loomed ahead with a wide paved driveway leading to it through an arched gateway, and over the arch some words. Leslie 253got only one of them, “CREMATORY.” She shuddered, and put on speed. It seemed that she had come to the place of death and desolation. It was lonely everywhere, and not a soul in sight. What horror if her gasoline should give out in a place like this, and they have to spend the night here, she and that poor, weak creature sobbing behind! What contempt she felt for her former friend! What contempt she felt for herself! Oh, she was well punished for her wilfulness! To think she should have presumed to hope she could help her to better ways, she, a little innocent, who never dreamed of such depths of duplicity as had been shown her that afternoon! Oh, to think of that loathsome Hicks person daring to touch her! To try to take her car away from her! and to smile at her in that disgusting way!

On and on went the car, and the road wound away into the dusk up a high hill and down again, up another, past an old farmhouse with one dim light in the back window and a great dog howling like one in some old classic tale she had read; on and on, till at last a cross-road came, and she knew not which way to take, to right or to left. There was a sign-board; but it was too dark to read, and she dared not get out and leave Myrtle. There was no telling but she might try to run off with the car. It was at the crematory that she began to pray, and, when she reached the crossing, her heart put up a second plea for guidance. “O God, if You will just help me home, I will try, try, try to be what You want me to be! Please, please, please!” It was the old vow of a heart bowed down and brought to the limit. It was the first time Leslie had ever realized that there could be a situation in 254which Leslie Cloud would not find some way out. It was the first time, too, perhaps, when she realized herself as being a sinner in the sense of having a will against God and having exercised it for her own pleasure rather than for His glory.

Down the road to the left the car sped, and after a mile and a half of growing darkness, with woods and scattered farmhouses, the lights of a village began to appear. But it was no village that Leslie knew, and nothing anywhere gave her a clew. A trolley line appeared, however; and after a little a car came along with a name that showed it was going cityward. Leslie decided to follow the trolley track.

In the meantime the girl in the back seat roused up, and began to look about her, evidently recognizing something familiar in the streets or town.

“You can put me out here, Leslie; I’m done with you,” she said haughtily. “I don’t care to go any farther with you. I’ll go back on the train.”

“No!” said Leslie sharply. “You’ll go home with me. I took you away without knowing what you intended, but I mean to put you back where you were before I’m done. Then my responsibility for you will be over. I was a fool to let you deceive me that way, but I’m not a fool any longer.”

“Well, I won’t go home with you, so! and that’s flat, Leslie Cloud. You needn’t think you can frighten me into going, either. We’re in a village now, and my aunt lives here. If you get out that revolver again, I’ll scream and have you arrested, and tell them you’re trying to murder me; so there!”

For answer Leslie turned sharply into a cross-road that led away from the settled portion of the town, and 255put on all speed, tearing away into the dusk like a wild creature. Myrtle screamed and stormed behind her, all to no purpose. Leslie Cloud had her mettle up, and meant to take her prisoner home. Out of the town she turned into another road that ran parallel to the trolley track, from which she could see the lights of the trolleys passing now and again, as it grew darker; and by and by when they came to another cross-road, Leslie got back to the trolley track, and followed it; but whenever they came into a town she kept to its outskirts.

Leslie had a pretty good general sense of direction, and she knew just where the sun went down. If it had not been for a river and some hills that turned up and bewildered her, she would have made a pretty direct course home; but, as it was, she went far out of her way, and was long delayed and much distressed besides, being continually harassed by the angry girl in the back seat. The gasoline was holding out. It was evident that Allison had looked after it. Blessed Allison, who always did everything when he ought to do it, and never put off things until the next day! How cross she had been with him for the last six weeks, and how good and kind he always was to her! How she had deceived dear Cloudy and troubled her by going off this afternoon! Oh, what would they think? Would they ever forgive her, and take her back into their hearts, and trust her again? The tears were blurring her eyes now as she stared ahead at the road. It seemed as if she had been tearing on through the night for hours like this. Her arms ached with the nervous strain; her back ached; her head ached. Perhaps they were going around the world, and would only stop when the gasoline gave out!

256 They swept around a curve. Could it be that those were the lights of the college ahead on the hill? Oh, joy at last! They were! Up this hill, over across two blocks, and the little pink-and-white house would be nestled among the hemlocks; and rest and home at last! But there was something to be done first. She turned toward the back seat, where sat her victim silent and angry.

“Well, you can let me out now, Leslie Cloud,” said Myrtle scornfully. “I suppose you won’t dare lord it over me any longer, and I’ll take good care that the rest of the town understands what a dangerous little spitfire you are. You ought to be arrested for this night’s work! That’s all I’ve got to say.”

“Well, I have one more thing to say,” said Leslie slowly, as she swerved into her own street and her eyes hungrily sought for the lights of Cloudy Villa. “You’re coming into the house with me first, before you go anywhere else, and you’re going to tell this whole story to my Aunt Jewel. After that––I should worry!”

“Well, I rather guess I am not going into your old house and tell your old aunt anything! I’m going to get right out here this minute; and you’re good and going to let me out, too, or I’ll scream bloody murder, and tell it all over this town how you went out there to meet those boys. You haven’t got any witnesses, and I have, remember!” said Myrtle, suddenly feeling courageous now that she was back among familiar streets.

But Leslie turned sharply into the little drive, and brought up the car in a flood of light at the end of the terrace.

257 “Now, get out!” she ordered, swinging the door open and flashing her little revolver about again at the angry girl.

“O Leslie!” pleaded the victim, quickly quelled by the sight of the cold steel, and thrilled with the memory of that shot whistling by her into the road a few hours before.

“Get out!” said Leslie coolly as the front door was flung open and Julia Cloud peered through the brightness of the porch light into the darkness.

“Get out!” Leslie held the cold steel nearer to Myrtle’s face, and the girl shuddered, and got out.

“Now go into the house!” she ordered; and shuddering, shivering, with a frightened glance behind her and a fearful glance ahead, she walked straight into the wondering, shocked presence of Julia Cloud, who threw the door open wide and stepped aside to let them in. Leslie, with the revolver still raised, and pointed toward the other girl, came close behind Myrtle, who sidled hastily around to get behind Miss Cloud.

“Why, Leslie! What is the matter?” gasped Julia Cloud.

“Tell her!” ordered Leslie, the revolver still pointed straight at Myrtle.

“What shall I tell?” gasped the other girl, turning a white, miserable face toward Miss Cloud as if to appeal to her leniency. But there was a severity in Julia Cloud’s face now after her long hours of anxiety that boded no good for the cause of all her alarm.

“Tell her the whole story!” ordered the fierce young voice of Leslie.

“Why, we went out to take a ride,” began Myrtle, looking up with her old braggadocio. There had seldom 258been a time when Myrtle had not been able to get out of a situation by use of her wily tongue.

“Tell it all,” said Leslie, looking across the barrel of her weapon. “Tell who wanted to go on that ride.”

“Why, yes, I asked Leslie to take me. I––we––well, that is––I wanted to meet a friend.”

“Tell it straight!” ordered Leslie.

“Why, of course I didn’t tell Leslie I expected to meet them––him. I wasn’t just sure he could make the arrangements. I meant to tell her when we got out. And when we met him––and my cousin––it was my cousin I was to meet––you see I’m––we––he–––”

Myrtle was getting all tangled up with her glib tongue under the clear gaze of Julia Cloud’s truth-compelling eyes. She looked up and down, and twisted the fringe on her sash, and turned red and white by turns, and seemed for the first time a very young, very silly child. But Leslie had suffered, and just now Leslie had no mercy. This girl had been a kind of idol to whom she had sacrificed much, and now that her idol had fallen she wanted to make the idol pay. Or no, was that it? Leslie afterwards searched her heart, and felt that she could truly say that her strongest motive in compelling this confession had been to get the burden of the knowledge of it off her own shrinking soul.

“Tell the rest!” came the relentless voice of Leslie, and Myrtle struggled on.

“Well, I’m engaged to Mr. Bartram Laws; and my guardian won’t let us get married till I’m through college, and we fixed it up to get married to-day quietly. I knew it would be all right after he found out he couldn’t help himself, and so–––”

259 “Tell how you asked the boys to get in the car!” ordered the fierce voice again; and Myrtle, recalled from another attempt to pass it all off pleasantly, went step by step through the whole shameful story until it was complete.

Then Leslie with a sudden motion of finality flung the little weapon down upon the mahogany table, and dashed into Julia Cloud’s arms in a storm of tears. “O Cloudy, I’ll never, never do any such thing again! And I hate her! I hate her! I’ll never forgive her! Can you ever forgive me?”

No one had heard a sudden, startled exclamation from the porch room as Leslie and Myrtle came into the house; but now Myrtle suddenly looked up, thinking the time had come for her to steal away unseen; and there in the two doorways that opened on either side of the fireplace stood, on one side Allison Cloud and the dean of the college, and on the other side two members of the student executive body, all looking straight at her! Moreover, she read it in their eyes that they had heard every word of her confession. Without a word she dropped white and stricken into a chair, and covered her face with her hands. For once her brazen wiles were gone.

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