CHAPTER XVIII
A STALLED ENGINE
"Well, I don't expect to be any nearer flying till I get to Heaven and they fit me to a pair of wings. I might try a little jaunt in an air-ship some day, but I don't feel as if I'd relish that for a steady diet. For this world, an automobile is plenty good enough for me."
Not for many a year had Persis been possessed by such a sense of buoyancy and youthfulness. The road lay straight and smooth before her. The little car, obedient to her strong capable hand, spun along the shining track, counterfeiting by the swiftness of its motion the breeze lacking in the languid spring day. Persis had laid aside her hat, and the rush of air ruffled her abundant hair and rouged her cheeks. As a matter of fact, Persis was not so near flying as she thought. In the most conservative community, there would have been little danger of her arrest for exceeding the speed limit. But to one accustomed to the sedate jog-trot of farm horses taken from the plow to hitch to the capacious carry-all, the ten-mile-an-hour gait of the new motor seemed exhilarating flight.
The day had the deceptive stillness by which nature disguises the ferocious intensity of her spring-time activities. Bird, beast and insensate clod all felt the challenge of the season. Persis had responded characteristically by cleaning house from six o'clock till noon and making a dress for Betty in the interval which less strenuous natures devote to afternoon naps. And now that Celia was off somewhere with Joel, and Betty had promised to look after the baby, and the boys had received permission to inspect a family of puppies newly arrived in the neighborhood, Persis was scurrying hither and thither with all the ebullient light-heartedness of a girl let out of school. She had startled the staid residents of Twin Rivers, where the spectacle of a woman driving a car ranked in interest second only to a circus parade. She had frightened two horses and narrowly escaped running over a chicken. And now she turned her face homeward, with the deliberate intention of ignoring the approach of supper-time and inviting young Mrs. Thompson to take the baby out for an airing. At no other time of the year would Persis have considered being late to supper for no reason except that she was loath to shorten her pleasure. Without doubt the momentous interview between Mother Eve and the most subtle of beasts occurred in the spring when the moral defenses need reinforcement.
Against the deepening gold of the west, a black speck showed, emerging rapidly into distinctness as the vehicles approached. The slower-moving of the two was still at too great a distance for Persis to distinguish its occupants when she began to slow down, her dread of causing an accident through frightening some one's horse counteracting her unwonted feeling of irresponsibility. The car had come almost to a standstill when out of the recesses of the still distant buggy Persis caught a flash of pink. She had the trained eye for color characteristic of her profession. And this peculiarly trying shade of pink she always associated with Diantha Sinclair, who had an audacious fondness for testing her flawless coloring with hues capable of turning the ordinary complexion to saffron.
Prompt action is characteristic of the intuitive. Logic takes time. Persis never attempted to account for the unreasoning certainty which on occasion took command of her actions. It was impossible for her to recognize Diantha's companion or to know indeed, that the opalescent flash of pink stood for Diantha's nearness. Yet she was sure of both things and of much besides. And with her conviction that the case was serious, an adequate plan of action instantly presented itself.
The car stopped with a jerk, and in the middle of the road, so that the on-coming driver would have to exercise caution in passing. The panting engine became silent. Persis alighted. She made several tours of inspection of her property, her face expressive of gravest concern. Occasionally she touched a screw or lever tentatively and then shook her head. Finally dropping on her knees in the dust, she thrust her head between the wheels and gazed inquiringly at the bottom of the car. Thus occupied she was too engrossed to notice that the thud of horse's hoofs was coming very near. Suddenly the sound ceased.
"Why," cried a girlish voice, "it's Miss Persis."
Persis gave up her unavailing scrutiny and climbed slowly to her feet. As she dusted her knees, she welcomed the occupants of the buggy with a fine blending of surprise and relief.
"Well, I venture to say I know just how ship-wrecked folks feel when they're off on a raft in mid-ocean and they sight a sail. Ain't this a funny fix, half past four in the afternoon and me ten miles from home? And to make it worse I wrenched my knee a mite cleaning house this morning." This last statement was strictly accurate though her limp as she advanced toward them was exaggerated. "I don't know what I'd have done," declared Persis, "if you hadn't happened along."
Diantha's face reflected the pinkness of the gown which had betrayed her. Thad West looked frankly sulky and quite at a loss.
"That's the worst of those dog-goned things," he exclaimed, scowling at the object blocking his way. "They're always giving out just when you need them most. I wouldn't take one as a gift," he added savagely, and only the enthusiastic motorist will understand what it cost Persis not to refute his words on the spot.
"Have you tried everything you can think of to make it go, Miss Persis?" Diantha asked, her troubled tones indicating how much she took to heart her friend's misadventure.
Persis' glance implied affectionate appreciation.
"Well, you see, dearie, they gave me lessons in the city on how to run a car, but I suppose it's too much to expect that I'll know everything about it right off from the start. I dare say some real smart person could fix it in a jiffy." She was so certain on this point that she quaked for fear Thad might begin experimenting, but that young man's confidence in his mechanical ability was luckily limited. He sat scowling and twisting the lines in his hands, while his horse looked back over its shoulder as if it shared its master's impatience of the delay.
"I didn't relish the idea of setting here in the road all night," explained Persis, still with an air of relief. "Seems fairly providential your coming along in the nick o' time."
"Fact is," said Thad sullenly, "we're not going home for a while."
"Well, I'm in no real hurry," Persis returned obligingly. "If the children get hungry, Mary'll feed 'em. They're all too little to worry if I'm not home on the minute, and Joel ain't the worrying kind."
"Truth is, Miss Persis," exclaimed the goaded lad, "it isn't what you'd call convenient for us to take you along this evening."
"Thad!" cried Diantha in accents of unutterable reproach.
"Well, I don't mean to be impolite, but it's not convenient and you know it."
"Thad West, Miss Persis is just about my dearest friend in Clematis. And if you think I'm going to leave her here alone ten miles from home, with an automobile that won't go—and getting dark—and a lame knee—"
"Well, of course if you feel that way about it," returned the unhappy young man, "there's nothing more to be said. But you know yourself—"
"I guess I'd better light my lamps before I leave," remarked Persis briskly. She attended to that little matter and hobbled toward the buggy. Thad alighted and assisted her to climb in with so poor a grace as to make her suspicions an absolute certainty.
"Now, children," Persis settled herself and slipping an arm deftly behind Thad's back, she took Diantha's slim hand in hers, "I never was one to be a kill-joy. You drive round as long as you feel like it and don't mind me, no more'n if I was a coach dog running on behind."
"Thad!" exclaimed Diantha in peremptory fashion. "I'm going to tell her."
"Just as you think best," replied young Mr. West, who bade fair to find this a convenient stock phrase.
Diantha's hand gave that of Persis a tremulous pressure, suggestive of fluttering nerves. "Miss Persis," she said in a thrilling half-whisper, "we're going to be married, Thad and I."
Persis returned the squeeze. "I thought as much, dearie. I've seen you look at him and him look at you, and that made it plain enough to a body with eyes. And I'm glad to hear it. For all I've missed it myself, I believe marriage is about the best thing there is. Thad's got his faults and you've got yours, and it stands to reason you're going to do better at mastering 'em if each helps the other, than if you struggle along alone. There's nothing easy about marriage except for lazy folks and cowards, but things that are hard are the only ones that pay. Some people will tell you it's a risk, and so it is, but most things are when you come to that. I believe in getting married and in early marriages, too, and so I'm glad to know that some day you and Thad—"
Thad West gave his horse a quite unnecessary cut with the whip. In the voice of a dying zephyr, Diantha interrupted.
"You don't understand, Miss Persis. It isn't some day. It's to-day.
We're running off to be married."
"Oh!" Persis' hold on the fluttering little hand tightened. Her silence seemed to imply reflection.
"Well, that puts a different face on it. I suppose it's because I think so much of marriage that I hate to have it mixed up with things that are underhanded. My idea of husband and wife, you see, is just two folks helping each other to make a better man and a better woman, instead of backing each other up in lying—"
"Lying!" exploded Thad. "Who's going to do any lying?"
"Diantha's not eighteen yet, and you haven't got her parents' permission for her to marry you. The only way you can manage it is to lie about her age and start your new life with that hanging over you. And all because you can't wait one little year. Looks like Thad's afraid he will change his mind about Diantha, and Diantha's in a hurry for fear she will find somebody she likes better'n Thad."
Two vehement protests mingled in inextricable confusion. "They won't let me see her except on the sly," cried Thad, making himself heard at last. "They've said I wasn't to come to the house. And I won't stand it."
"Of course you won't," Persis agreed. "That's past all reason that two young people dead in love with each other aren't to have a chance to do their courting. That's got to be different."
"But father won't have it."
"To-morrow I'm going to drop in and have a talk with your father. I'm not afraid of obstinacy in a man that's got ordinary sense somewhere in the back of his head. It's the brainless sort of folks that can't be moved after they've once got set. Stanley Sinclair knows enough to listen to reason. And he's got to do it."
"But mother," began Diantha, and then sobbed. His face sternly set,
Thad gulped. Even the self-contained Persis found her eyes moist.
"Yes, child, I understand. I knew your mother before you were born, and I'll own that we're likely to have a little trouble in that quarter. But when folks have common sense and everything else dead against 'em, there's nothing for 'em to do but give up. Sometimes I've felt," Persis added thoughtfully, "as if I'd just enjoy a real plain talk with your mother."
"If we go back now," stormed Thad, "it'll be the same story over again next year. They're never going to let me marry Diantha unless I run off with her."
"Next year she'll be of age and her own mistress, and you'll have no cause to run. Diantha's the sort of girl that ought to be married in church with bridesmaids and the wedding march and pews full Of folks looking on. 'Tain't only about once in a generation that a bride as pretty as Diantha comes along, and the idea of marrying her in some minister's back parlor, with the student lamp turned low to save oil and the servant girl called in for a witness, is a plain case of casting pearls before swine. Not that I've got anything against ministers," Persis added, in hasty amends to the cloth.
The weeping Diantha was sobbing less violently. Persis was sure she was giving close attention. Possibly Thad was impressed by the same view of the case, for he spoke with the aggressive confidence of one who feels that his cause is imperiled.
"Church wedding! Makes me laugh to think what Diantha's mother would say to that."
"Well, if they won't give Diantha a wedding next year, I will. And it'll be the kind," Persis promised solemnly, "that'll make Clematis sit up and take notice."
Neither of the lovers spoke. Gazing down the winding road with the dreamy air of one who sees beautiful visions, Persis broke the tense silence.
"I've given up dressmaking for good, but there's one dress I'm willing to break my rule for, and that's Diantha Sinclair's wedding gown. I've got a picture of it in my mind's eye, if the styles don't change too much between now and next June. And if anything could make Diantha look sweeter than she does now, 'twould be that wedding dress. And the making of it ain't going to cost her a cent."
Diantha leaned behind Thad's back and left a damp kiss on her friend's forehead. Persis knew her battle was won. Thad knew it too, and a hollow groan escaped him.
"By the way, Thad, I'm going to arrange with Mr. Sinclair to let you call on Diantha twice a week, and if you should happen to feel like seeing her between times, she's pretty likely to be at my house along in the afternoon. If you should drop in 'most any day about four o'clock, you'd probably find her. And now s'pose both of you come home with me for supper. I'll telephone Diantha's folks where she is, so they won't worry."
"I think—I think that'll be awfully nice, don't you, Thad?" said
Diantha.
And the loser in the unequal contest surrendered without a blow as he answered, "Just as you say."
Persis had not overestimated her persuasive powers. She actually brought the Sinclairs to agree to the liberal terms she had promised the young people. The hauteur with which Stanley Sinclair received her at his office the following day, and the explicitness of his statement that he was not anxious for her advice concerning his domestic affairs, proved unavailing before Persis' matter-of-fact bluntness. Anger availed him little since she remained cool. His irony rebounded harmless from her absolute certainty of being in the right. Forced to retreat step by step, he ended by conceding all that she demanded for the lovers. If he had an air when he bade her good morning, of resolving never to forgive her, the knowledge that she had gained all she came for imparted an unfeigned cordiality to her farewell.
The interview with Annabel was briefer and more dramatic, but quite as conclusive. As she pondered on the success that had attended her efforts, Persis indulged in brief philosophy.
"Anybody's at a terrible disadvantage that's afraid of the truth. Now, it doesn't worry me a mite to have Annabel call me an old maid, but if I tell her she's thirty-eight she feels worse than if I'd stuck a knife into her. Annabel makes me think of those squirming things that live under stones. All you have to do to bring 'em to terms is to turn the stone over and let the light in on 'em. It beats all how Annabel will scramble to get away from the truth."
The man commissioned to bring home Persis Dale's car relished his task enormously. He told every one that there wasn't a thing the matter with the machine. She had just stalled her engine and didn't know enough to get it started again. All Clematis enjoyed the joke, Persis in particular.