Part 22 (1/2)
”That's because you can't see yourself. Give the motor a rest. There is plenty of time. Let's have tea here instead of on the way home. There is cold tea and chicken-loaf, bread and b.u.t.ter, and half a tart.”
The doctor brightened. ”You may have the half-tart,” he concluded generously. ”And in return you will forgive me my pessimism. I believe I am hungry and thirsty and--if I could only swear I should be all right presently.”
Esther put her small fingers in her ears and directed an absorbed gaze toward the sunset.
Callandar laughed.
”All over!” he called. ”Richard is himself again. And now we have got to be serious. Painful as it is, I admit defeat. I can't make that car budge an inch. It won't move. We can't push it. We have no other means of conveyance. Deduction--we must walk!”
”Yes, only like most deductions, it doesn't get us anywhere. We _can't_ walk.”
”Not to Coombe of course. Merely to the nearest farm house.”
”There isn't any nearest farm house.”
”Then to the nearest common or garden house.”
”I thought we were going to be serious. Really, there is no house within reasonable walking distance. We are quite in the wilds here. Don't you remember the long stretches of waste land we came through? No one builds on useless ground. The nearest houses of any kind are over on the other side of the lake. The beach is good there and there are a few summer cottages and a boarding house. Farther in is the little railway station of Pine Lake--”
”Jove! That's what we want! Why did you try to frighten me? Once let us reach the station and our troubles are over. There is probably an evening train into Coombe.”
”There is. But we shall never catch it. We are on the wrong side of the lake. We have no boat. There is a trail around but it is absolutely out of the question, too far and too rough, even if we knew it, which we do not. It would take a woodsman to follow it even in daylight.”
”But--” The doctor hesitated. He was beginning to feel seriously disturbed. It seemed impossible that they could be as isolated as Esther seemed to think. Distance is a small thing to a powerful motor eating up s.p.a.ce with an effortless appet.i.te, which deceives novice and expert alike. It is only when one looks back that one counts the miles. He remembered vaguely that the nearest house was a long way back.
”I'll have another try,” he answered soberly, ”and in the meantime, think--think hard! There may be some place you have forgotten. If not, we are in rather a serious fix.”
”There are no bears now,” said Esther.
”There are gossips!” briefly.
The girl laughed. The thought of possible gossip seemed to disturb her not at all. ”Oh, it will be all right as soon as we explain,”
confidently. ”But Aunt Amy will be terrified. If we could only get word to Aunt Amy! I don't mind so much about Mrs. Sykes, for she is always prepared for everything. She will comfort herself with remembering how she said when she saw it was going to be a lovely day: 'It may be a fine enough morning, Esther, but I have a feeling that something will happen before night. I have put in an umbrella in case of rain and a pair of rubbers and a rug and you'd better take my smelling salts. I hope you won't have an accident, I'm sure, but it's best to be forewarned.'”
The doctor glanced up from his tinkering to join in her laugh. He felt ashamed of himself. The possibility of evil tongues making capital of their enforced position had certainly never entered into the thought of this smiling girl. Yet that such a possibility might exist in Coombe as well as in other places he did not doubt. And she was in his charge. The thought of her clear eyes looking upon the thing which she did not know enough to dread made him feel positively sick!
When he spoke to her again there was a subtle change in his manner. He had become at once her senior, the physician, and man of the world.
”Miss Esther,” he said, leaving his futile tampering with the machine, ”I can see no way out of this but one. I am a good walker and a fast one. I shall leave you here with the car and the rugs and a revolver (there is one in the tool box), and go back along the road. I shall walk until I come to somewhere and then get a carriage or wagon--also a chaperone--and come back for you. It is positively the only thing to do.”
Esther's charming mouth drooped delicately at the corners. ”Oh no!
That's not at all a nice plan. I'm afraid to stay here. Not of bears, but of tramps--or--or something.”
”Where there are no houses there will be no tramps.”
”There may be. You never can tell about tramps. And I couldn't shoot a tramp. The very best I could do would be to shoot myself--”
”But--”
”And I might bungle even that!” pathetically.