The Lightning Conductor Discovers America Part 28

Yours truly,

E. CASPIAN.

x.x.xI

MOLLY WINSTON TO MERCeDES LANE

_Awepesha._

DEAREST:

I promised to write again soon, but there isn't yet the news I hoped to tell. Indeed, I'm a little depressed and worried, though I've nailed my flag of faith to the mast of the "Stormy Petrel!"

You shall know just what has happened.

I think I wrote you that Peter went to New York early the morning after our night rush from Great Barrington to Long Island. I took it for granted that his business there concerned the revelation he made to me in Aunt Mary's garret; but he had no time, and perhaps no inclination, to enter into details. He just said, "I'm off, and I hope everything will go well. I shall get back to my 'diggings,' and see you either at Awepesha or Kidd's Pines the minute I can finish up."

Caspian hung about till Peter was safely away, and then put in as much deadly work as possible before leaving for New York. He was nice (as nice as he knows how to be) to Larry and Pat, and bucked them up about Kidd's Pines. That was the proper thing; but was it proper, or was it simply Caspian-esque, to tell Patty at such a moment that he'd bought the beautiful Stanislaws house I wrote you about, as a present for her?

Of course he mentioned the sum he was paying for it--a whacking one. He wouldn't be Caspian if he hadn't boasted!

I happened to be at Kidd's Pines when he was making this dramatic announcement. (I told you Jack and I were motoring over in the old car, but we went earlier than we expected, because just as I had finished your letter Patsey 'phoned to ask us for a "picnic luncheon in the burnt-up house.")

Caspian was telephoning like mad when we arrived, and only finished just as luncheon was ready, which gave him an excuse for letting his left hand, to say nothing of both feet, know what his right hand had been doing. I suppose he was afraid, if Jack and I were left to hear the news from Pat, a little of the gilt might be off the gingerbread. So he launched his own thunderbolt as we sat down at the table: Larry, Pat, Mrs. Shuster, Jack, and I.

I was so flabbergasted that I can't remember his words. But they were those of the n.o.ble, misunderstood hero of melodrama to his ungrateful sweetheart and her ruined father who have never appreciated his sterling worth. He let them jolly well know, and rubbed it in, that he would _never_ have spent such an enormous sum on anything for himself: that indeed, though he _ought_ to have received the Stanislaws house as an inheritance, he had abandoned all idea of possessing it until Pat expressed intense admiration for the place. With this incentive, the moment they were engaged he had begun negotiations. The price asked was so outrageous, however, that he was on the point of refusing when misfortune fell upon Kidd's Pines. It would now be impossible to continue living there in comfort for the present, so he (Caspian) had spent his morning in fixing up by 'phone the business of purchase. Of course he would have to go to New York, and see Mr. Strickland, who had the matter in hand. Indeed, he intended to start directly after luncheon; but he could not bear to go without relieving the family mind of its anxieties.

Poor little Pat was scarlet, and her eyes were--I was going to say like saucers, but I think they were more like large, expressive pansies. "Oh, you _shouldn't_ have done that for me!" she exclaimed. "Of course, I'm grateful, and it was ver-r-y good of you, but----"

"Didn't you say you would _love_ to live in that house?" Caspian cross-questioned her over a pickle. (He's disgustingly fond of pickles: makes a beast of himself on pickles!)

"Yes, I suppose I did," Patsey admitted; and got out a "but" again, but not a word further.

"Very well. That was enough for me. I wanted to prove that I was going to stand by you now, in every way, and I hope this is as big a proof as a man can give," said the n.o.ble saviour of the situation. "We must marry as soon as possible, of course. I'll get the license to-day. And then you can have your wish. You shall live in the Stanislaws house, and when your father and Mrs. Shuster get back from their honeymoon you can write them to visit us, and stay as long as they like."

Pat, as pale as she had been red, stammered confused thanks for his thoughtfulness. How _could_ the girl, when he'd just announced the expenditure of five hundred thousand dollars for her _beaux yeux_, tell him not by any means to get the license?

I was sickeningly sorry for her. I knew exactly how she felt. As for me, I had rush of luncheon to the head, a frightful effect, considering that I'd just eaten a soft-sh.e.l.led crab. With the little I knew of affairs between them I was still instinctively sure that Pat and the Stormy Petrel had come to some sort of a vague understanding the day of rain at Bretton Woods. I thought that the rain had melted down the wall between the two, and Peter had prematurely said more than he meant to say, perhaps begging her to break off with Caspian. Evidently she had refused (for Larry's sake), but had very likely hoped that somehow Peter would step in and save her before it was too late.

Now, all of a sudden, it _was_ too late! And Peter wasn't even near. I could imagine the child's despair, with the present of a five-hundred-thousand-dollar house flung at her head--a house which would be "no use" to her fiance if it were not to be shared with her.

Even knowing what _I_ knew, I feared that the situation might become serious, more because of Peter's absence than anything else.

As soon as we finished luncheon and Caspian was saying good-bye to Pat (decorously in the presence of Larry, from whom she refused to be detached), I asked Jack what he thought. "If only we knew where to get at Peter in New York!" I wailed. "I'm afraid the girl will be _married_ to that creature before Peter comes back; and then nothing will be of any use."

"We mustn't let that happen," said Jack. "Not that I believe Storm has turned his back without thinking of every contingency. And he must know about the sale."

"He didn't mention it when he told me the story," I said. "Not a word about the Stanislaws house!"

"Probably it didn't strike him as important in that connection," Jack argued; and I accepted the deduction; but I was _far_ from comfortable and my peace of mind was not restored by a conversation I s.n.a.t.c.hed with Pat when Caspian had gone. I begged her to do nothing rash, in a moment of generous impulse; but she exclaimed, "It is others who seem to have the generous impulses! I cannot afford to be generous. But dear Molly, I must be just. And now everything is against Larry and me. We must go where the tide takes us."

She didn't use as flowery language as that, but it's difficult to quote Patty in the vernacular.

Well, we crawled home after a while, Jack and I. And nothing more happened that day, except that Pat 'phoned me from her ruinous home about nine o'clock in the evening, to say "Mistaire" Caspian had come back. He had bought the Stanislaws house and paid for it, but she had refused to accept the gift. "It must be _his_, not mine," she said. "I understand that he would not have bought it except for my sake, so already I owe him a big debt of grat.i.tude. I will not owe him more. It is now too much."

"Did he get the license?" I tremblingly ventured to inquire.

"Yes," Pat answered. But when I hurried on to the next question, "Have you fixed a date?" silence was my answer. She had dropped the receiver, and I was afraid I could guess why. She couldn't bear to discuss the sword hanging over her head. Few descendants of Damocles can!

All that was yesterday. I've waited to-day to write you in the hope of having something new to tell. But it's now ten o'clock P. M.

and there is nothing good; rather the contrary. Pat has almost if not quite promised to marry Ed Caspian at the end of the week, Sat.u.r.day, and Mrs. Shuster has hinted at her willingness to become Mrs. Moore on the same day. The knots are to be tied (devil permitting) very quietly, at home, in the water-logged drawing-room at Kidd's Pines. My pleadings to Pat of no avail. The combination of p.a.w.ned rings, debts, five-hundred-thousand-dollar houses, etc., and _Peter's absence at the crucial moment_ is too strong for her. As for Larry, he seems to be as hopeless as his daughter. I fancy from a chance word which Pat _inadvertently_ let drop that, with the prospect of a millionaire son-in-law, Larry desperately attempted to free himself, but Mrs.

Shuster "persuaded" him to stick to his bargain. How she managed I don't know, but there are lots of ways, and Larry with all his faults is a gentleman. He even has a chivalrous vein which, though lying deep under selfishness, crops up near the surface occasionally. I wish he'd been chivalrous with his daughter, while there was time for it to do good, instead of at the last moment with this silly middle-aged woman who wants to get "into society" through him.

Oh, just one other thing which I nearly forgot to mention! At my urgent suggestion Jack wrote a line to Peter Storm, in care of a man named James Strickland, said by Caspian to have looked after the interests of a family with whom Peter is connected. He's a well-known lawyer, so we easily found his address in the New York directory. He has his office there, of course, though I believe he has a house somewhere on Long Island, I don't know where. There's just the merest chance that Peter Storm may go to him in New York. He's going to _some_ lawyer, so why not Strickland? Anyhow, we have no other means of getting at this extremely Stormy Petrel until his return. May it not be put off too long!

Jack, like all other men, hated to interfere, for P. S. has never spoken to either of us, in so many words, of his "intentions" toward Patty Moore. But I cooked up a specious-sounding note, saying that, if Peter didn't want Caspian to complicate matters for everybody, he had better hurry up and come back before C---- was actually _married_.

That letter went off by special delivery this morning.

Au revoir, till I can give you the sequel!

Your battered but not yet broken

MOLLY.

x.x.xII

MOLLY WINSTON TO MERCeDES LANE

_Awepesha._

MERCeDES MINE:

Hurrah! There's a thing I may tell you without giving away Peter's confidences till the cat's ready to jump from the bag.

Jack and I were restless last evening. When I finished my letter to you, it was only half-past ten; and I felt as if I could jump up and down and scream.

"If I don't do _something_, I shall have a conniption fit!" I threatened.

Jack doesn't know what a conniption fit is, not having been brought up in an American nursery, but lest it might be something appalling, he asked how I should like to go out in the car for a short spin. By this time Hiawatha had been brought home by our chauffeur; and the moon was soon due to rise, so it seemed an attractive prospect that Jack held out.

"I'll tell you what let's do!" said I. "Go over to Patty's. If there's a light in the drawing-room windows we'll ring. If not, we'll just spin round outside the wall to the side gate, and go into the grounds for a look at the moon from the Point of the Pines."