Produced by Lynn Hill
[Illustration: "The outside edge, by George!" said Charlie Sands. "The
old sport!"]
TISH
The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions
By MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
_With Illustrations_
_by May Wilson Preston_
1916
CONTENTS
MIND OVER MOTOR
LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD
THE SIMPLE LIFERS
TISH'S SPY
MY COUNTRY TISH OF THEE -
ILLUSTRATIONS
"The outside edge, by George!" said Charlie Sands. "The old sport!"
Without cutting down her speed, bumped home the winner
The real meaning of what was occurring did not penetrate to any of us
It ended with Tish stalking off into the woods with the rabbit in one
hand and the knife in the other
As fast as she wet a bit of lawn, we followed with the pails
"Get the canoe and follow. I'm heading for Island Eleven"
"It's well enough for you, Tish Carberry, to talk about gripping a horse
with your knees"
"The older I get, Aggie Pilkington, the more I realize that to take you
anywhere means ruin"
"It would be just like the woman to refuse to come any farther and spoil
everything"
MIND OVER MOTOR
HOW TISH BROKE THE LAW AND SOME RECORDS
I
So many unkind things have been said of the affair at Morris Valley
that I think it best to publish a straightforward account of everything.
The ill nature of the cartoon, for instance, which showed Tish in a pair
of khaki trousers on her back under a racing-car was quite uncalled
for. Tish did not wear the khaki trousers; she merely took them along
in case of emergency. Nor was it true that Tish took Aggie along as
a mechanician and brutally pushed her off the car because she was not
pumping enough oil. The fact was that Aggie sneezed on a curve and fell
out of the car, and would no doubt have been killed had she not been
thrown into a pile of sand.
It was in early September that Eliza Bailey, my cousin, decided to go
to London, ostensibly for a rest, but really to get some cretonne at
Liberty's. Eliza wrote me at Lake Penzance asking me to go to Morris
Valley and look after Bettina.
I must confess that I was eager to do it. We three were very comfortable
at Mat Cottage, "Mat" being the name Charlie Sands, Tish's nephew, had
given it, being the initials of "Middle-Aged Trio." Not that I regard
the late forties as middle-aged. But Tish, of course, is fifty. Charlie
Sands, who is on a newspaper, calls us either the "M.A.T." or the
"B.A.'s," for "Beloved Aunts," although Aggie and I are not related
to him.
Bettina's mother's note: -
Not that she will allow you to do it, or because she isn't entirely
able to take care of herself; but because the people here are a talky
lot. Bettina will probably look after you. She has come from college
with a feeling that I am old and decrepit and must be cared for. She
maddens me with pillows and cups of tea and woolen shawls. She thinks
Morris Valley selfish and idle, and is disappointed in the church,
preferring her Presbyterianism pure. She is desirous now of learning
how to cook. If you decide to come I'll be grateful if you can keep
her out of the kitchen.
Devotedly, ELIZA.
P.S. If you can keep Bettina from getting married while I'm away
I'll be very glad. She believes a woman should marry and rear a
large family!
E.
We were sitting on the porch of the cottage at Lake Penzance when I
received the letter, and I read it aloud. "Humph!" said Tish, putting
down the stocking she was knitting and looking over her spectacles at
me - "Likes her Presbyterianism pure and believes in a large family! How
old is she? Forty?"
"Eighteen or twenty," I replied, looking at the letter. "I'm not anxious
to go. She'll probably find me frivolous."
Tish put on her spectacles and took the letter. "I think it's your duty,
Lizzie," she said when she'd read it through. "But that young woman
needs handling. We'd better all go. We can motor over in half a day."
That was how it happened that Bettina Bailey, sitting on Eliza Bailey's
front piazza, decked out in chintz cushions, - the piazza, of course, - saw
a dusty machine come up the drive and stop with a flourish at the steps.
And from it alight, not one chaperon, but three.
After her first gasp Bettina was game. She was a pretty girl in a white
dress and bore no traces in her face of any stern religious proclivities.
"I didn't know - " she said, staring from one to the other of us. "Mother
said - that is - won't you go right upstairs and have some tea and lie
down?" She had hardly taken her eyes from Tish, who had lifted the
engine hood and was poking at the carbureter with a hairpin.
"No, thanks," said Tish briskly. "I'll just go around to the garage and
oil up while I'm dirty. I've got a short circuit somewhere. Aggie, you
and Lizzie get the trunk off."
Bettina stood by while we unbuckled and lifted down our traveling trunk.
She did not speak a word, beyond asking if we wouldn't wait until the
gardener came. On Tish's saying she had no time to wait, because she
wanted to put kerosene in the cylinders before the engine cooled,
Bettina lapsed into silence and stood by watching us.
Bettina took us upstairs. She had put Drummond's "Natural Law in the
Spiritual World" on my table and a couch was ready with pillows and a
knitted slumber robe. Very gently she helped us out of our veils and
dusters and closed the windows for fear of drafts.
"Dear mother is so reckless of drafts," she remarked. "Are you sure you
won't have tea?"
"We had some blackberry cordial with us," Aggie said, "and we all had a
little on the way. We had to change a tire and it made us thirsty."
"Change a tire!"
Aggie had taken off her bonnet and was pinning on the small lace cap she
wears, away from home, to hide where her hair is growing thin. In her
cap Aggie is a sweet-faced woman of almost fifty, rather ethereal. She
pinned on her cap and pulled her crimps down over her forehead.
"Yes," she observed. "A bridge went down with us and one of the nails
spoiled a new tire. I told Miss Carberry the bridge was unsafe, but she
thought, by taking it very fast - "
Bettina went over to Aggie and clutched her arm. "Do you mean to say,"
she quavered, "that you three women went through a bridge - "
"It was a small bridge," I put in, to relieve her mind; "and only a foot
or two of water below. If only the man had not been so disagreeable - "
"Oh," she said, relieved, "you had a man with you!"
"We never take a man with us," Aggie said with dignity. "This one was
fishing under the bridge and he was most ungentlemanly. Quite refused
to help, and tried to get the license number so he could sue us."
"Sue you!"
"He claimed his arm was broken, but I distinctly saw him move it."
Aggie, having adjusted her cap, was looking at it in the mirror. "But
dear Tish thinks of everything. She had taken off the license plates."
Bettina had gone really pale. She seemed at a loss, and impatient at
herself for being so. "You - you won't have tea?" she asked.
"No, thank you."
"Would you - perhaps you would prefer whiskey and soda."
Aggie turned on her a reproachful eye. "My dear girl," she said, "with
the exception of a little home-made wine used medicinally we drink
nothing. I am the secretary of the Woman's Prohibition Party."
Bettina left us shortly after that to arrange for putting up Letitia
and Aggie. She gave them her mother's room, and whatever impulse she
may have had to put the Presbyterian Psalter by the bed, she restrained
it. By midnight Drummond's "Natural Law" had disappeared from my table
and a novel had taken its place. But Bettina had not lost her air of
bewilderment.
That first evening was very quiet. A young man in white flannels called,
and he and Letitia spent a delightful evening on the porch talking
spark-plugs and carbureters. Bettina sat in a corner and looked at the
moon. Spoken to, she replied in monosyllables in a carefully sweet tone.
The young man's name was Jasper McCutcheon.
It developed that Jasper owned an old racing-car which he kept in the
Bailey garage, and he and Tish went out to look it over. They very
politely asked us all to go along, but Bettina refusing, Aggie and I sat
with her and looked at the moon.
Aggie in her capacity as chaperon, or as one of an association of
chaperons, used the opportunity to examine Bettina on the subject of
Jasper.
"He seems a nice boy," she remarked. Aggie's idea of a nice boy is one
who in summer wears fresh flannels outside, in winter less conspicuously.
"Does he live near?"
"Next door," sweetly but coolly.
"He is very good-looking."
"Ears spoil him - too large."
"Does he come around - er - often?"
"Only two or three times a day. On Sunday, of course, we see more of
him."
Aggie looked at me in the moonlight. Clearly the young man from the next
door needed watching. It was well we had come.
"I suppose you like the same things?" she suggested. "Similar tastes
and - er - all that?"
Bettina stretched her arms over her head and yawned.
"Not so you could notice it," she said coolly. "I can't thick of
anything we agree on. He is an Episcopalian; I'm a Presbyterian. He
approves of suffrage for women; I do not. He is a Republican; I'm a
Progressive. He disapproves of large families; I approve of them, if
people can afford them."
Aggie sat straight up. "I hope you don't discuss that!" she exclaimed.
Bettina smiled. "How nice to find that you are really just nice elderly
ladies after all!" she said. "Of course we discuss it. Is it anything to
be ashamed of?"
"When I was a girl," I said tartly, "we married first and discussed
those things afterward."
"Of course you did, Aunt Lizzie," she said, smiling alluringly. She was
the prettiest girl I think I have ever seen, and that night she was
beautiful. "And you raised enormous families who religiously walked to
church in their bare feet to save their shoes!"
"I did nothing of the sort," I snapped.
"It seems to me," Aggie put in gently, "that you make very little of
love." Aggie was once engaged to be married to a young man named
Wiggins, a roofer by trade, who was killed in the act of inspecting a
tin gutter, on a rainy day. He slipped and fell over, breaking his neck
as a result.
Bettina smiled at Aggie. "Not at all," she said. "The day of blind love
is gone, that's all - gone like the day of the chaperon."
Neither of us cared to pursue this, and Tish at that moment appearing
with Jasper, Aggie and I made a move toward bed. But Jasper not going,
and none of us caring to leave him alone with Bettina, we sat down
again.
We sat until one o'clock.
At the end of that time Jasper rose, and saying something about its
being almost bedtime strolled off next door. Aggie was sound asleep in
her chair and Tish was dozing. As for Bettina, she had said hardly a
word after eleven o'clock.
Aggie and Tish, as I have said, were occupying the same room. I went to
sleep the moment I got into bed, and must have slept three or four hours
when I was awakened by a shot. A moment later a dozen or more shots were
fired in rapid succession and I sat bolt upright in bed. Across the
street some one was raising a window, and a man called "What's the
matter?" twice.
There was no response and no further sound. Shaking in every limb, I
found the light switch and looked at the time. It was four o'clock in
the morning and quite dark.
Some one was moving in the hall outside and whimpering. I opened the
door hurriedly and Aggie half fell into the room.
"Tish is murdered, Lizzie!" she said, and collapsed on the floor in a
heap.
"Nonsense!"
"She's not in her room or in the house, and I heard shots!"
Well, Aggie was right. Tish was not in her room. There was a sort of
horrible stillness everywhere as we stood there clutching at each other
and listening.
"She's heard burglars downstairs and has gone down after them, and this
is what has happened! Oh, Tish! brave Tish!" Aggie cried hysterically.
And at that Bettina came in with her hair over her shoulders and asked
us if we had heard anything. When we told her about Tish, she insisted
on going downstairs, and with Aggie carrying her first-aid box and I
carrying the blackberry cordial, we went down.
The lower floor was quiet and empty. The man across the street had put
down his window and gone back to bed, and everything was still. Bettina
in her dressing-gown went out on the porch and turned on the light. Tish
was not there, nor was there a body lying on the lawn.
"It was back of the house by the garage," Bettina said. "If only
Jasper - "
And at that moment Jasper came into the circle of light. He had a
Norfolk coat on over his pajamas and a pair of slippers, and he was
running, calling over his shoulder to some one behind as he ran.
"Watch the drive!" he yelled. "I saw him duck round the corner."
We could hear other footsteps now and somebody panting near us. Aggie
was sitting huddled in a porch chair, crying, and Bettina, in the hall,
was trying to get down from the wall a Moorish knife that Eliza Bailey
had picked up somewhere.
"John!" we heard Jasper calling. "John! Quick! I've got him!"
He was just at the corner of the porch. My heart stopped and then rushed
on a thousand a minute. Then: -
"Take your hands off me!" said Tish's voice.
The next moment Tish came majestically into the circle of light and
mounted the steps. Jasper, with his mouth open, stood below looking up,
and a hired man in what looked like a bed quilt was behind in the
shadow.
Tish was completely dressed in her motoring clothes, even to her
goggles. She looked neither to the right nor left, but stalked across
the porch into the house and up the stairway. None of us moved until we
heard the door of her room slam above.
"Poor old dear!" said Bettina. "She's been walking in her sleep!"
"But the shots!" gasped Aggie. "Some one was shooting at her!"
Conscious now of his costume, Jasper had edged close to the veranda and
stood in its shadow.
"Walking in her sleep, of course!" he said heartily. "The trip to-day was
too much for her. But think of her getting into that burglar-proof
garage with her eyes shut - or do sleep-walkers have their eyes
shut? - and actually cranking up my racer!"
Aggie looked at me and I looked at Aggie.
"Of course," Jasper went on, "there being no muffler on it, the racket
wakened her as well as the neighborhood. And then the way we chased
her!"
"Poor old dear!" said Bettina again. "I'm going in to make her some
tea."
"I think," said Jasper, "that I need a bit of tea too. If you will put
out the porch lights I'll come up and have some."
But Aggie and I said nothing. We knew Tish never walked in her sleep.
She had meant to try out Jasper's racing-car at dawn, forgetting that
racers have no mufflers, and she had been, as one may say, hoist with
her own petard - although I do not know what a petard is and have never
been able to find out.
We drank our tea, but Tish refused to have any or to reply to our
knocks, preserving a sulky silence. Also she had locked Aggie out and
I was compelled to let her sleep in my room.
I was almost asleep when Aggie spoke: -
"Did you think there was anything queer about the way that Jasper boy
said good-night to Bettina?" she asked drowsily.
"I didn't hear him say good-night."
"That was it. He didn't. I think" - she yawned - "I think he kissed her."
II
Tish was down early to breakfast that morning and her manner forbade any
mention of the night before. Aggie, however, noticed that she ate her
cereal with her left hand and used her right arm only when absolutely
necessary. Once before Tish had almost broken an arm cranking a car and
had been driven to arnica compresses for a week; but this time we dared
not suggest anything.
Shortly after breakfast she came down to the porch where Aggie and I
were knitting.
"I've hurt my arm, Lizzie," she said. "I wish you'd come out and crank
the car."
"You'd better stay at home with an arm like that," I replied stiffly.
"Very well, I'll crank it myself."
"Where are you going?"
"To the drug store for arnica."
Bettina was not there, so I turned on Tish sharply. "I'll go, of
course," I said; "but I'll not go without speaking my mind, Letitia
Carberry. By and large, I've stood by you for twenty-five years, and
now in the weakness of your age I'm not going to leave you. But I warn
you, Tish, if you touch that racing-car again, I'll send for Charlie
Sands."
"I haven't any intention of touching it again," said Tish, meekly
enough. "But I wish I could buy a second-hand racer cheap."
"What for?" Aggie demanded.
Tish looked at her with scorn. "To hold flowers on the dining-table,"
she snapped.
It being necessary, of course, to leave a chaperon with Bettina, because
of the Jasper person's habit of coming over at any hour of the day, we
left Aggie with instructions to watch them both.
Tish and I drove to the drug store together, and from there to a garage
for gasoline. I have never learned to say "gas" for gasoline. It seems
to me as absurd as if I were to say "but" for butter. Considering that
Aggie was quite sulky at being left, it is absurd for her to assume an
air of virtue over what followed that day. Aggie was only like a lot of
people - good because she was not tempted; for it was at the garage that
we met Mr. Ellis.
We had stopped the engine and Tish was quarreling with the man about
the price of gasoline when I saw him - a nice-looking young man in a
black-and-white checked suit and a Panama hat. He came over and stood
looking at Tish's machine.
"Nice lines to that car," he said. "Built for speed, isn't she? What do
you get out of her?"
Tish heard him and turned. "Get out of her?" she said. "Bills mostly."
"Well, that's the way with most of them," he remarked, looking steadily
at Tish. "A machine's a rich man's toy. The only way to own one is to
have it endowed like a university. But I meant speed. What can you
make?"
"Never had a chance to find out," Tish said grimly. "Between nervous
women in the machine and constables outside I have the twelve-miles-an-
hour habit. I'm going to exchange the speedometer for a vacuum bottle."
He smiled. "I don't think you're fair to yourself. Mostly - if you'll
forgive me - I can tell a woman's driving as far off as I can see the
machine; but you are a very fine driver. The way you brought that car
in here impressed me considerably."
"She need not pretend she crawls along the road," I said with some
sarcasm. "The bills she complains of are mostly fines for speeding."
"No!" said the young man, delighted. "Good! I'm glad to hear it. So are
mine!"
After that we got along famously. He had his car there - a low gray thing
that looked like an armored cruiser.
"I'd like you ladies to try her," he said. "She can move, but she is as
gentle as a lamb. A lady friend of mine once threaded a needle as an
experiment while going sixty-five miles an hour."
"In this car?"
"In this car."
Looking back, I do not recall just how the thing started. I believe Tish
expressed a desire to see the car go, and Mr. Ellis said he couldn't let
her out on the roads, but that the race-track at the fair-ground was
open and if we cared to drive down there in Tish's car he would show us
her paces, as he called it.
From that to going to the race-track, and from that to Tish's getting in
beside him on the mechanician's seat and going round once or twice, was
natural. I refused; I didn't like the look of the thing.
Tish came back with a cinder in her eye and full of enthusiasm. "It was
magnificent, Lizzie," she said. "The only word for it is sublime. You
see nothing. There is just the rush of the wind and the roar of the
engine and a wonderful feeling of flying. Here! See if you can find this
cinder."
"Won't you try it, Miss - er - Lizzie?"
"No, thanks," I replied. "I can get all the roar and rush of wind I want
in front of an electric fan, and no danger."
He stood by, looking out over the oval track while I took three cinders
from Tish's eye.
"Great track!" he said. "It's a horse-track, of course, but it's in
bully shape - the county fair is held there and these fellows make a big
feature of their horse-races. I came up here to persuade them to hold an
automobile meet, but they've got cold feet an the proposition."
"What was the proposition?" asked Tish.
"Well," he said, "it was something like this. I've been turning the
trick all over the country and it works like a charm. The town's ahead
in money and business, for an automobile race always brings a big crowd;
the track owners make the gate money and the racing-cars get the prizes.
Everybody's ahead. It's a clean sport too."
"I don't approve of racing for money," Tish said decidedly.
But Mr. Ellis shrugged his shoulders. "It's really hardly racing for
money," he explained. "The prizes cover the expenses of the racing-cars,
which are heavy naturally. The cars alone cost a young fortune."
"I see," said Tish. "I hadn't thought of it in that light. Well, why
didn't Morris Valley jump at the chance?"
He hesitated a moment before he answered. "It was my fault really," he
said. "They were willing enough to have the races, but it was a matter
of money. I made them a proposition to duplicate whatever prize money
they offered, and in return I was to have half the gate receipts and the
betting privileges."
Tish quite stiffened. "Clean sport!" she said sarcastically. "With
betting privileges!"
"You don't quite understand, dear lady," he explained. "Even in the
cleanest sport we cannot prevent a man's having an opinion and backing
it with his own money. What I intended to do was to regulate it.
Regulate it."
Tish was quite mollified. "Well, of course," she said, "I suppose since
it must be, it is better - er, - regulated. But why haven't you
succeeded?"
"An unfortunate thing happened just as I had the deal about to close,"
he replied, and drew a long breath. "The town had raised twenty-five
hundred. I was to duplicate the amount. But just at that time a - a young
brother of mine in the West got into difficulties, and I - but why go
into family matters? It would have been easy enough for me to pay my
part of the purse out of my share of the gate money; but the committee
demands cash on the table. I haven't got it."
Tish stood up in her car and looked out over the track.
"Twenty-five hundred dollars is a lot of money, young man."
"Not so much when you realize that the gate money will probably amount
to twelve thousand."
Tish turned and surveyed the grandstand.
"That thing doesn't seat twelve hundred."
"Two thousand people in the grandstand - that's four thousand dollars.
Four thousand standing inside the ropes at a dollar each, four thousand
more. And say eight hundred machines parked in the oval there at five
dollars a car, four thousand more. That's twelve thousand for the gate
money alone. Then there are the concessions to sell peanuts, toy
balloons, lemonade and palm-leaf fans, the lunch-stands, merry-go-round
and moving-picture permits. It's a bonanza! Fourteen thousand anyhow."
"Half of fourteen thousand is seven," said Tish dreamily. "Seven
thousand less twenty-five hundred is thirty-five hundred dollars
profit."
"Forty-five hundred, dear lady," corrected Mr. Ellis, watching her.
"Forty-five hundred dollars profit to be made in two weeks, and nothing
to do to get it but sit still and watch it coming!"
I can read Tish like a book and I saw what was in her mind. "Letitia
Carberry!" I said sternly. "You take my warning and keep clear of this
foolishness. If money comes as easy as that it ain't honest."
"Why not?" demanded Mr. Ellis. "We give them their money's worth,
don't we? They'd pay two dollars for a theater seat without half
the thrills - no chances of seeing a car turn turtle or break its
steering-knuckle and dash into the side-lines. Two dollars' worth?
It's twenty!"
But Tish had had a moment to consider, and the turning-turtle business
settled it. She shook her head. "I'm not interested, Mr. Ellis," she
said coldly. "I couldn't sleep at night if I thought I'd been the cause
of anything turning turtle or dashing into the side-lines."
"Dear lady!" he said, shocked; "I had no idea of asking you to help
me out of my difficulties. Anyhow, while matters are at a standstill
probably some shrewd money-maker here will come forward before long and
make a nice profit on a small investment."
As we drove away from the fair grounds Tish was very silent; but just as
we reached the Bailey place, with Bettina and young Jasper McCutcheon
batting a ball about on the tennis court, Tish turned to me.
"You needn't look like that, Lizzie," she said. "I'm not even thinking
of backing an automobile race - although I don't see why I shouldn't, so
far as that goes. But it's curious, isn't it, that I've got twenty-five
hundred dollars from Cousin Angeline's estate not even earning four per
cent?"
I got out grimly and jerked at my bonnet-strings.
"You put it in a mortgage, Tish," I advised her with severity in every
tone. "It may not be so fast as an automobile race or so likely to turn
turtle or break its steering-knuckle, but it's safe."
"Huh!" said Tish, reaching for the gear lever. "And about as exciting as
a cold pork chop."
"And furthermore," I interjected, "if you go into this thing now that
your eyes are open, I'll send for Charlie Sands!"
"You and Charlie Sands," said Tish viciously, jamming at her gears,
"ought to go and live in an old ladies' home away from this cruel
world."
Aggie was sitting under a sunshade in the broiling sun at the tennis
court. She said she had not left Bettina and Jasper for a moment, and
that they had evidently quarreled, although she did not know when,
having listened to every word they said. For the last half-hour, she
said, they had not spoken at all.
"Young people in love are very foolish," she said, rising stiffly. "They
should be happy in the present. Who knows what the future may hold?"
I knew she was thinking of Mr. Wiggins and the icy roof, so I patted her
shoulder and sent her up to put cold cloths on her head for fear of
sunstroke. Then I sat down in the broiling sun and chaperoned Bettina
until luncheon.
III
Jasper took dinner with us that night. He came across the lawn, freshly
shaved and in clean white flannels, just as dinner was announced, and
said he had seen a chocolate cake cooling on the kitchen porch and that
it was a sort of unwritten social law that when the Baileys happened to
have a chocolate cake at dinner they had him also.
There seemed to be nothing to object to in this. Evidently he was right,
for we found his place laid at the table. The meal was quite cheerful,
although Jasper ate the way some people play the piano, by touch, with
his eyes on Bettina. And he gave no evidence at dessert of a fondness
for chocolate cake sufficient to justify a standing invitation.
After dinner we went out on the veranda, and under cover of showing me a
sunset Jasper took me round the corner of the house. Once there, he
entirely forgot the sunset.
"Miss Lizzie," he began at once, "what have I done to you to have you
treat me like this?"
"I?" I asked, amazed.
"All three of you. Did - did Bettina's mother warn you against me?"
"The girl has to be chaperoned."
"But not jailed, Miss Lizzie, not jailed! Do you know that I haven't had
a word with Bettina alone since you came?"
"Why should you want to say anything we cannot hear?"
"Miss Lizzie," he said desperately, "do you want to hear me propose to
her? For I've reached the point where if I don't propose to Bettina
soon, I'll - I'll propose to somebody. You'd better be warned in time. It
might be you or Miss Aggie."
I weakened at that. The Lord never saw fit to send me a man I could care
enough about to marry, or one who cared enough about me, but I couldn't
look at the boy's face and not be sorry for him.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
"Come for a walk with us," he begged. "Then sprain your ankle or get
tired, I don't care which. Tell us to go on and come back for you later.
Do you see? You can sit down by the road somewhere."
"I won't lie," I said firmly. "If I really get tired I'll say so. If I
don't - "
"You will." He was gleeful. "We'll walk until you do! You see it's like
this, Miss Lizzie. Bettina was all for me, in spite of our differing on
religion and politics and - "
"I know all about your differences," I put in hastily.
"Until a new chap came to town - a fellow named Ellis. Runs a sporty car
and has every girl in the town lashed to the mast. He's a novelty and
I'm not. So far I have kept him away from Bettina, but at any time they
may meet, and it will be one-two-three with me."
I am not defending my conduct; I am only explaining. Eliza Bailey
herself would have done what I did under the circumstances. I went for a
walk with Bettina and Jasper shortly after my talk with Jasper, leaving
Tish with the evening paper and Aggie inhaling a cubeb cigarette, her
hay fever having threatened a return. And what is more, I tired within
three blocks of the house, where I saw a grassy bank beside the road.
Bettina wished to stay with me, but I said, in obedience to Jasper's
eyes, that I liked to sit alone and listen to the crickets, and for them
to go on. The last I saw of them Jasper had drawn Bettina's arm through
his and was walking beside her with his head bent, talking. I sat for
perhaps fifteen minutes and was growing uneasy about dew and my
rheumatism when I heard footsteps and, looking up, I saw Aggie coming
toward me. She was not surprised to see me and addressed me coldly.
"I thought as much!" she said. "I expected better of you, Lizzie. That
boy asked me and I refused. I dare say he asked Tish also. For you, who
pride yourself on your strength of mind - "
"I was tired," I said. "I was to sprain my ankle," she observed
sarcastically. "I just thought as I was sitting there alone - "
"Where's Tish?"
"A young man named Ellis came and took her out for a ride," said Aggie.
"He couldn't take us both, as the car holds only two."
I got up and stared at Aggie in the twilight. "You come straight home
with me, Aggie Pilkington," I said sternly.
"But what about Bettina and Jasper?"
"Let 'em alone," I said; "they're safe enough. What we need to keep an
eye on is Letitia Carberry and her Cousin Angeline's legacy."
But I was too late. Tish and Mr. Ellis whirled up to the door at
half-past eight and Tish did not even notice that Bettina was absent.
She took off her veil and said something about Mr. Ellis's having heard
a grinding in the differential of her car that afternoon and that he
suspected a chip of steel in the gears. They went out together to the
garage, leaving Aggie and me staring at each other. Mr. Ellis was
carrying a box of tools.
Jasper and Bettina returned shortly after, and even in the dusk I knew
things had gone badly for him. He sat on the steps, looking out across
the dark lawn, and spoke in monosyllables. Bettina, however, was very
gay.
It was evident that Bettina had decided not to take her Presbyterianism
into the Episcopal fold. And although I am a Presbyterian myself I felt
sorry.
Tish and Mr. Ellis came round to the porch about ten o'clock and he was
presented to Bettina. From that moment there was no question in my mind
as to how affairs were going, or in Jasper's either. He refused to move
and sat doggedly on the steps, but he took little part in the
conversation.
Mr. Ellis was a good talker, especially about himself.
"You'll be glad to know," he said to me, "that I've got this race matter
fixed up finally. In two weeks from now we'll have a little excitement
here."
I looked toward Tish, but she said nothing.
"Excitement is where I live," said Mr. Ellis. "If I don't find any
waiting I make it."
"If you are looking for excitement, we'll have to find you some," Jasper
said pointedly.
Mr. Ellis only laughed. "Don't put yourself out, dear boy," he said.
"I have enough for present necessities. If you think an automobile race
is an easy thing to manage, try it. Every man who drives a racing-car
has a _coloratura_ soprano beaten to death for temperament. Then every
racing-car has quirky spells; there's the local committee to propitiate;
the track to look after; and if that isn't enough, there's the promotion
itself, the advertising. That's my stunt - the advertising."
"It's a wonderful business, isn't it?" asked Bettina. "To take a mile
or so of dirt track and turn it into a sort of stage, with drama every
minute and sometimes tragedy!"
"Wait a moment," said Mr. Ellis; "I want to put that down. I'll use it
somewhere in the advertising." He wrote by the light of a match, while
we all sat rather stunned by both his personality and his alertness.
"Everything's grist that comes to my mill. I suppose you all remember
when I completed the speedway at Indianapolis and had the Governor of
Indiana lay a gold brick at the entrance? Great stunt that! But the best
part of that story never reached the public."
Bettina was leaning forward, all ears and thrills. "What was that?" she
asked.
"I had the gold brick stolen that night - did it myself and carried the
brick away in my pocket - only gold-plated, you know. Cost eight or nine
dollars, all told, and brought a million dollars in advertising. But the
papers were sore about some passes and wouldn't use the story. Too bad
we can't use the brick here. Still have it kicking about somewhere."
It was then, I think, that Jasper yawned loudly, apologized, said
good-night and lounged away across the lawn. Bettina hardly knew he was
going. She was bending forward, her chin in her palms, listening to Mr.
Ellis tell about a driver in a motor race breaking his wrist cranking a
car, and how he - Ellis - had jumped into the car and driven it to
victory. Even Aggie was enthralled. It seemed as if, in the last hour,
the great world of stress and keen wits and endeavor and mad speed had
sat down on our door-step.
As Tish said when we were going up to bed, why shouldn't Mr. Ellis brag?
He had something to brag about.
IV
Although I felt quite sure that Tish had put up the prize money for Mr.
Ellis, I could not be certain. And Tish's attitude at that time did not
invite inquiry. She took long rides daily with the Ellis man in his gray
car, and I have reason to believe that their objective point was always
the same - the race-track.
Mr. Ellis was the busiest man in Morris Valley. In the daytime he was
superintending putting the track in condition, writing what he called
"promotion stuff," securing entries and forming the center of excited
groups at the drug store and one or other of the two public garages.
In the evenings he was generally to be found at Bettina's feet.
Jasper did not come over any more. He sauntered past, evening after
evening, very much white-flanneled and carrying a tennis racket. And
once or twice he took out his old racing-car, and later shot by the
house with a flutter of veils and a motor coat beside him.
Aggie was exceedingly sorry for him, and even went the length of having
the cook bake a chocolate cake and put it on the window sill to cool. It
had, however, no perceptible effect, except to draw from Mr. Ellis, who
had been round at the garage looking at Jasper's old racer, a remark
that he was exceedingly fond of cake, and if he were urged -
That was, I believe, a week before the race. The big city papers had
taken it up, according to Mr. Ellis, and entries were pouring in.
"That's the trouble on a small track," he said - "we can't crowd 'em.
A dozen cars will be about the limit. Even with using the cattle pens
for repair pits we can't look after more than a dozen. Did I tell you
Heckert had entered his Bonor?"
"No!" we exclaimed. As far as Aggie and I were concerned, the Bonor
might have been a new sort of dog.
"Yes, and Johnson his Sampler. It's going to be some race - eh, what!"
Jasper sauntered over that evening, possibly a late result of the cake,
after all. He greeted us affably, as if his defection of the past week
had been merely incidental, and sat down on the steps.
"I've been thinking, Ellis," he said, "that I'd like to enter my car."
"What!" said Ellis. "Not that - "
"My racer. I'm not much for speed, but there's a sort of feeling in the
town that the locality ought to be represented. As I'm the only owner of
a speed car - "
"Speed car!" said Ellis, and chuckled. "My dear boy, we've got Heckert
with his ninety-horse-power Bonor!"
"Never heard of him." Jasper lighted a cigarette. "Anyhow, what's that
to me? I don't like to race. I've got less speed mania than any owner of
a race car you ever met. But the honor of the town seems to demand a
sacrifice, and I'm it."
"You can try out for it anyhow," said Ellis. "I don't think you'll make
it; but, if you qualify, all right. But don't let any other town people,
from a sense of mistaken local pride, enter a street roller or a
traction engine."
Jasper colored, but kept his temper.
Aggie, however, spoke up indignantly. "Mr. McCutcheon's car was a very
fine racer when it was built."
"_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_," remarked Mr. Ellis, and getting up said
good-night.
Jasper sat on the steps and watched him disappear. Then he turned to
Tish.
"Miss Letitia," he said, "do you think you are wise to drive that racer
of his the way you have been doing?"
Aggie gave a little gasp and promptly sneezed, as she does when she is
excited.
"I?" said Tish.
"You!" he smiled. "Not that I don't admire your courage. I do. But the
other day, now, when you lost a tire and went into the ditch - "
"Tish!" from Aggie.
" - you were fortunate. But when a racer turns over the results are not
pleasant."
"As a matter of fact," said Tish coldly, "it was a wheat-field, not a
ditch."
Jasper got up and threw away his cigarette. "Well, our departing friend
is not the only one who can quote Latin," he said. "_Verbum sap._, Miss
Tish. Good-night, everybody. Good-night, Bettina."
Bettina's good-night was very cool. As I went up to bed that night, I
thought Jasper's chances poor indeed. As for Tish, I endeavored to speak
a few word of remonstrance to her, but she opened her Bible and began to
read the lesson for the day and I was obliged to beat a retreat.
It was that night that Aggie and I, having decided the situation was
beyond us, wrote a letter to Charlie Sands asking him to come up. Just
as I was sealing it Bettina knocked and came in. She closed the door
behind her and stood looking at us both.
"Where is Miss Tish?" she asked.
"Reading her Bible," I said tartly. "When Tish is up to some mischief,
she generally reads an extra chapter or two as atonement."
"Is she - is she always like this?"
"The trouble is," explained Aggie gently, "Miss Letitia is an
enthusiast. Whatever she does, she does with all her heart."
"I feel so responsible," said Bettina. "I try to look after her, but
what can I do?"
"There is only one thing to do," I assured her - "let her alone. If she
wants to fly, let her fly; if she wants to race, let her race - and trust
in Providence."
"I'm afraid Providence has its hands full!" said Bettina, and went to