Tomorrow About This Time (28 page)

“You needn’t be afraid,” he said half contemptuously, half gently. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Athalie, some of the old spirit returning.

“Oh!” said the boy. “All right! I thought you were!” They speeded on again in silence. Presently Athalie spoke. Her voice showed returning temper. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Going to take you home to your father!” said Barry.

The young woman sat up suddenly. This then was no highwayman.

This was some meddler in her business. He knew her father. He had somehow trailed her and recognized her. She was furious.

“But I don’t choose to go home,” she said indignantly.

“That doesn’t cut any ice,” said Barry crisply. “You’re getting there pretty fast all right.”

Athalie turned on him angrily. “Look here,” she said fiercely, “I’m not going to stand this another minute. Do you know what a terrible thing you’re doing? You’ll probably be put in prison for life for it. But if you’ll turn right around now and take me back to my friend I’ll tell him you just made a mistake. You didn’t try to steal the car at all.”

“Thank you,” said Barry, a grim shadow of a smile flickering across his face in the darkness. “I’m not worrying about that just now.”

“But you’ve
got
to take me back,” said Athalie, almost on the verge of tears. “I’m on my way to be
married!”

“Not tonight!” said Barry grimly.

“Well, I guess I’m not going to be stopped by a kid like you!” burst out Athalie. She suddenly rose with all her might and flung herself on the wheel, and Athalie had some weight and grip when she chose to use them.

Barry, utterly unprepared for this onslaught, ground on the brakes and put forth all his strength, trying to keep the wavering car from climbing a tree while he was bringing it to a standstill, but he managed to keep his head.

It was a sharp, brief struggle, for Athalie’s muscles were untrained, and in a moment more Barry was holding her firmly with both hands, and she had ceased to struggle. He had not again brought the revolver into play. He hated dramatic effects when physical force would do as well.

But he could not stay there all night and hold her down. He cast about for some way of making her hold still. There was a handkerchief in his pocket. He managed to get hold of it, and crossing her hands, bound them together. Her cloak had fallen off revealing the flimsy dress and the long fringed ends of a satin sash tied around her waist. He pulled at it and found that it came loose. With this he bound her across the shoulders and down to the waist.

“You’re cold!” he remarked as he saw her shiver. “And that flimsy coat is no good. Here, put this sweater on.”

He pulled off his own sweater and pulled it down over her head. She started to scream again, but he put his hand over her mouth and when she was quiet remarked very gently: “I hate awfully to treat a girl this way, but I’ll have to gag you if you try that line again,” and she knew by his tone that he meant it. “I don’t think you’d like gagging.”

Athalie began to cry.

“I’m sorry,” said Barry remorsefully, “but you can’t be trusted.”

He was down on his knees now fastening her ankles together with a bit of old rope he had found in his pocket.

“But I’m on my way to be
married,”
sobbed out the indignant child. “You’re spoiling my
life
—” She was weeping uncontrollably now.

“Excuse me,” he said quietly, “I guess I’ll have to use my necktie for a gag.” And he began unconcernedly to take off his necktie. “I can’t have all this noise.”

Athalie stopped short.

“I won’t cry,” she said shortly, “but won’t you just listen to reason? Would you like it if you were going to get married, to be interfered with this way?”

“Say, kid,” he said gently, “you talk sense, and I’ll help you. You know, you aren’t old enough to get married yet. And I say, did you know what kind of a rotter you were going off with?”

Athalie’s eyes fairly blazed.

“He’s nothing of the sort!” she retorted. “I’ve known him for years. He’s perfectly darling! He’s my mother’s friend.”

“Is that all?” said Barry witheringly. “I thought you were going to say your grandmother’s.”

“I think you’re perfectly horrid!” said Athalie, shrugging what was left of her shoulders and drawing as far away from him as she could. “You think you’re smart!”

“Look here, kid! There’s no use you’re quarrelling with the only friend you’ve got just now. I’m telling you facts. Can’t you listen to reason? That man’s a rotter. I know his kind. If he’s your mother’s friend, so much the worse. He knew he wasn’t doing the square thing taking a kid like you off that way at night. What kind of a rep would you have had, will you tell me, when you got back, I’d like to know?”

“I wasn’t coming back,” sobbed Athalie softly. “I told you—I—was ggg–g–oing to be m–m–married!”

“Yes, in a pig’s eye you were! If that man ever married you, kid, I’d eat my hat. He hadn’t any more idea of marrying you than I have, and that’s flat! This isn’t a very nice way to talk to a girl, I know, but when you won’t listen to sense, why, you’ve gotta be shown.”

“He was going to buy me—a—s–s–string of real pearls!” wept Athalie, suddenly remembering, “and we were going to have a turkey dinner! I’m—ju–s–t—st–ar–r–r–ved!”

Barry shrugged down behind his wheel disgustedly.

“You look as if you had meat enough on you to stand it awhile!” he said contemptuously. “I thought you were a girl, not a baby!”

Athalie held in the sob on a high note and surveyed him angrily. “You are the most—
disagreeable
boy!” she shouted.

“I didn’t state my opinion of you yet. But you certainly aren’t my idea of agreeable.”

“I didn’t ask you your opinion.”

“Say, look here,” said Barry, “let’s cut this out. This isn’t getting us anywhere. What I want is for you to see some sense before I get you home. Your father’s kind of a friend of mine, and I’d hate like the deuce to have all this get out about you in the town. You see, whatever you think of this rotter you were going off with, the little old town would know fast enough what he was, if any of ‘em knew you were off in the night with him. You can’t kid the town!”

“I haven’t the slightest desire to bother with your little old town,” said Athalie loftily. “It may go to the devil for all I care!”

Barry was silent with disgust for a moment.

“Well, if it does,” he said slowly, “it will carry you on a pointed stick ahead of it, and like as not they’ll try out the point of the stick on your father first. You can’t kid the devil!”

There was a long pause. The night was very still. They had not passed a car for some time. The lights in the sleeping villages in the valley below them were nearly all gone out; moist, dank air rushed up in wreaths and struck them lightly in the face as they passed. The sudden breath of an apricot tree in bloom drenched the darkness. Over in the east, toward which they were hurrying, a silver light was lifting beyond the horizon, and in reflection a little thread of a river leaped out from the darkness where it had been sleeping in winding curves among the dark of plumy willows.

“I
hate
you!” said Athalie suddenly. “You called me names! You’re a vulgar boy!”

“What names did I call you, kid?” Barry’s voice was gentle.

“You called me fat in a very coarse way!”

“Well, you’re not exactly emaciated, are you?” He gave her a friendly grin in the darkness.

“I hate you!” reiterated Athalie again. “And I want to get out and walk!”

“Anything to please you!” said Barry, quickly bringing the car to a full stop and reaching over to throw open the door by her side.

Athalie was surprised to be taken so literally, but she made an instant move to get out, and then realizing that her ankles were tied she subsided again.

“Oh, excuse me,” said Barry, and stooping unfastened the cord on her ankles and sat back again.

“Are you going to untie my hands?” she asked imperiously.

“Oh, no, I guess not,” said Barry easily. “You don’t walk on your hands, do you?”

She cast him a furious look and bounced out of the car, walking off very rapidly down the road with her shoulders stiff and indignant.

Barry sat back and watched her. She went on swiftly till she came to the bend of the road, and then she looked back half fearfully. The car was still and dark as if Barry had settled for a nap. The road ahead wound into a dark wood, and the trees were casting weird shadows across the roadway. But no one should call her bluff. She would go on and show him. She stumbled forward on her little high-heeled shoes almost falling as she ran fearfully toward the darkness of the wooded road. Then suddenly on her horrified sense came the distant sound of a motor in the opposite direction, and a long, thin forecasting of light shot out with a blind glare ahead. Another car was coming! And it was far into the nighttime! And she alone on the road with her arms tied! Horrible fear seized upon her and rooted her to the ground. Then with a mighty effort she gathered her ebbing strength and turning fled.

Chapter 21

I
n
the first few yards her right shoe flew off and lay at the side of the road, but she waited not for shoes. Her silken-clad foot went over the rough stony highway with the fleetness of a rabbit. She darted to the side of the car and panted: “Let me get in, quick! Quick! There’s another car coming!”

Barry leaned over and pulled her up, cast a quick glance to the oncoming lights, started his motor, and dashed along at full speed just in time to pass swiftly as if he had come from a distance and then when the passing car was out of sight remarked pleasantly: “Have a nice walk?”

“Don’t!” said Athalie shuddering. He looked at her furtively. The tears were coursing down her cheeks, but she was not making any sound.

“Look here, kid, I’m sorry!” he said pleasantly. “Let’s call this off. You’re all in! And say! I’m going to untie your hands. I know I can trust you not to make any more trouble. We’re almost home now, kid. Only a matter of about four miles, and we’ll run through the town as still as oil and get you home and nobody any the wiser. But before we get there you’ve got to make a pact to can that rotter or I’ll have to make a clean breast of the whole thing to your father, how you phoned to him, and how you met him in the woods, and what he said to you and all—”

Athalie turned an amazed face toward him now, smeared with powder and tears, and lit by the newly risen moon.

“You know?”

“Yep! Know it all! Saw you climb out your window and go to the drugstore. Was in the next booth and heard every word you phoned. Wasn’t ten feet away from you in the woods. I tell you, you can’t kid this town.”

Athalie looked aghast.

“No, you don’t need to worry. Nobody else knows yet, and I don’t intend they shall if you agree to can that man. Is it a bargain?”

There was a long pause, during which Athalie sniffed quietly, then she murmured: “My father—he’ll half kill me—”

“No, he won’t! He’ll be much more likely to kill the man. But perhaps we can fix that up, too. You leave it to me. Now, lean over here, and let’s get those knots untied.”

“I didn’t say I would yet!” said Athalie with a catch of rebellion in her breath.

“No, but you’re going to,” said Barry pleasantly. “You’re not yella.”

Barry worked away at the satin sash, talking meanwhile.

“Say, kid, you know you’ll forget all this when you get acquainted in town and begin to have good times. What you need is to get into high school and play basketball. You’d need to train a little of course, but you’d make a great player. I watched you as you went up the road, and you’ve got the build all right. Say, some of the girls on our team are peachy players, but you could beat ‘em all at it if you’d try. If I was you I’d begin to train tomorra. Cut out those sundaes and sodas and chocolates, and don’t be everlastingly eating cake and fudge. You’ll never make a player unless you …”

It was surprising how their attitudes toward one another had changed. Athalie wiped up her smeary face and began to take an interest in life. She even smiled once at a joke Barry made about the moon. She was rather quiet and almost humble.

Barry grew almost voluble. He described in detail several notable athletic features of the past that had put their high school in a class with several large prep schools in the state. He opened out on the prospects for the season’s baseball games admitting reluctantly on inquiry that he was their team’s captain and coach.

Suddenly the brow of the hill they were climbing was reached, and there before them lay the plain of Silver Sands, with the belching chimneys of Frogtown glaring against the night and off to the left the steeple of the Presbyterian church shining in the moonlight. It was very still down there where the houses slept, and the few drowsy lights kept vigil. Barry cast it a loyal glance and brought the car to a standstill.

“Look, kid,” he said with something commanding in his young voice, “that’s our town, down there! Doesn’t she look great with her feet to the river and her head on the hills? She’s a crackerjack little old town if you treat her right, and no mistake. See that white spot over there behind the trees? That’s the pillars on the old Silver house. It’s a prince of a house, and the people that lived in it have always been princes. My mother says the whole country round has always looked up to the Silvers. They’ve always been
real
! Do you get me? It’s a great thing to belong to a family like that!”

Athalie turned her large eyes on him wonderingly, and suddenly some of her father’s sentences of the morning came to her, sentences about gentlemen and ladies and respectable standards, and their meaning went home on the shaft of Barry’s simple arrow.

Barry was never one to explain a joke or a sermon. He let it rest and passed to another line of thought.

“We’re going around on the beach road,” explained Barry, “and come in the lane just below your house. We’ll stop at Aunt Katie’s where the minister boards and slip through the back hedge. Then there won’t be a whole lot for anyone to see and hear. Anybody might drive up to the minister’s door any time of night and nobody think anything of it. If Aunt Katie sees us she’ll keep her mouth shut. She’s a peach, she is. If you ever need a friend, tip up to her, kid. Now, before we go on I’ll trouble you for the name and address of that rotter!”