CHAPTER XXIII

THE SONG OF SPEED

For a business woman, Kate took singularly small interest in her letters that morning, and Mrs. Craven from behind the coffee-pot looked at her rather wistfully. They were staying in the Lakes, and were supposed to be motoring. But though the old lady was vigorous enough, and was only too pleased to bustle about from place to place, Kate was listless, and always had an excuse when change was suggested. As a reason, she said she had been overworking herself, and wanted to sit still and do nothing; but she did not believe this herself nor did Mrs. Craven believe it. Moreover, Kate knew that Mrs. Craven disbelieved.

She was a very healthy young woman as a general thing, but that morning she ate a thoroughly bad breakfast, and crumbled a slice of toast beside her plate to give a general idea of performance. Then she threw her napkin on the table, and again went through the envelopes. There was one from the Liverpool office. She opened it, and drew out half a dozen typewritten sheets. But the distaste for business was big in her, and she was putting these down with the rest when a name caught her eye.

Cascaes.

She read the sentence surrounding it. "Our Mr. Cascaes cables that he this morning married a Miss Laura Slade, and on her insistence hereby tenders us his resignation."

Kate snapped the papers together, looked at her bracelet watch and stood up briskly.

"Aunt Jane, I am sorry, but a very important matter has turned up which drags me off to Liverpool for the day."

Mrs. Craven was a wise woman and could read signs. Moreover, she had known Kate from three years old, upwards. "My dear," she said, "I'm rejoiced at your news. Go and make it up with him."

Kate blushed and laughed. "It isn't that at all, aunt. Or only partly. But I must go."

"There's no train now till mid-day."

"I shall motor down to Carnforth and cut off the 10.38 there."

"If you don't break your neck in the process, you'll land in gaol for excessive speed," said the old lady; "and," she added dryly, "I'm sure you'd prefer even one of those alternatives to staying sensibly here with me, and waiting for a train in the decent course of things. There, run along, Kitty, and get your things on, and I'll go and incite Wagner."

Miss O'Neill went upstairs to her bedroom two steps at a time, and for the moment was minded to drag on any outer clothes that would cover her. But then a thought came to her, and she smiled, and took out from its box a Paris hat that she had never worn before. She pinned this into place with infinite care, covered it and her auburn hair with a capacious motor veil, and hung another veil, which had in it a protective window of talc, over her pretty face. And then she put on a great motor coat. She was very much guarded from the dust and the weather externally, but inside the ugly chrysalis was as spruce a Kitty O'Neill as any man could have sighed after.

Wagner, as usual when he was wanted, had "just gone out" for something. But Kate had an enthusiast's knowledge of her that year's forty-horse car. She saw that both electric and magneto ignitions were switched off, and then she turned on her gasolene, flooded the carburetter, and applied herself to the starting handle. There was a high compression in the engine, but she was strong, and just then she was goaded by something which made her put out just a fraction more (she thought) than the full of her strength. She filled the cylinders with gas. Then she threw in the switch to all the insulators, and the engine started most obediently. She stepped into the driving seat, collected her wraps, threw out the clutch, dropped in the first speed, and let the clutch slide home.

The car drew out, as if it had been pulled by a rope, and Kate flung a last hand wave to Mrs. Craven. Then she got on to the direct drive of the third speed, and checked her throttle to keep down the pace till she was out of the traffic.

"Six-and-twenty miles to Carnforth," she reckoned, "and the train goes through there in just sixty-one minutes from now. Well, I should average thirty-five miles an hour for the run, and that will leave me nice time to find someone to take charge of the car, and buy a ticket to Liverpool for myself."

They pulled out of the village, and Kate pushed up her spark and throttle levers notch by notch. The purr of the motor increased in shrillness. She drove often herself, but seldom at high speeds, and just now, when she got into the long empty stretches of straight, out of sheer exhilaration she let out the great car till it was wheeling along at a good forty miles to the hour. It swayed rather dangerously, but she had no nerves to be ruffled by a trifle like that. The motor was giving out its high note of exultant speed, and she was thrilled with the power she rode.

Woods and rocks flew by, mile after mile of fencing shot astern, but still the great car sang along its way, now bumping over a grip, now slackening a trifle on a rise. The rhythm of the engines sounded in her ears like a poem, and she tended to their needs with a real affection; the pelt of the air exhilarated her.

And then came the downfall. A whistle shrieked out from behind her, another whistle shrilled in front, and a policeman sprang from the hedge. Kate was in no mood for stopping. She tried to dodge round the man. With ignorant courage he leaped across the road to stop her. She threw out her clutch and desperately set her brakes. The great car lurched, slid, sidled, and all but overturned. The policeman, by a marvellous mixture of skill, presence of mind, and luck on Kate's part, was not killed. But he stood scorching his hand on a very warm radiator, and Kate sat white-faced at the wheel, taming down her insulted engines.

After that there was no hurry. She pleaded a life and death engagement, but the majesty of the law was ruffled, and saw to it that all things were done with dignity and in order.

Kate was charged with driving to the danger of the public. The road was entirely deserted just there, and there was no public, but she admitted the crime, gave name and number, and humbly asked to go. But not a bit of it. The Law wanted to see her driving license, which of course she had not got, and then out came note-books and pencils. The criminal lost her temper, and so the Law was deliberately slow....

Kate reached Carnforth station just three minutes after the express had left, and was half-minded there and then to give up the chase. Carter would sail in the _Secondee_ at the appointed hour, and when he got to Las Palmas and heard the news he would return to her by the next boat. She was sure enough of that. But no, she could not let him go. It might be (terrific thing) unmaidenly of her to thrust herself and her news in his way, but she could not help it. Besides, a fear cramped her when she thought of Cascaes. She had heard to her horror of the knife that Cascaes had wielded so undeftly in the dark along the Telde road, although indeed Carter had made no mention of it, and she dreaded what might happen should the two men come together a second time.

She looked at the time-table; there was no train that would help her. If she wanted to get to Liverpool before the _Secondee_ sailed, it must be by car. So once more she sat herself in the seat of government....

The road held through Lancaster to Preston, and outside towns and villages she crashed along often at a fifty-mile gait in her fear at being too late. And then came the black cotton towns of Lancashire with their slatternly women and shrill-voiced children scrambling over the streets. She had to slow to a crawl through these, and even then the tires skated dangerously over the greasy streets. But speed triumphed over time and distance in the end. She swung at a rattling gait into a Liverpool suburb, and for the third time had her number taken by an indignant policeman, and thereafter slowed to a dignified crawl. She glanced at her watch. With care now, and if no mishap blocked her progress, she would be on the landing stage before the mail-boat threw off her ropes.

Luck and good nerve aided her bravely now. She wormed her way rapidly through the increasing traffic of the Liverpool streets, and came to the landing stage entrance.

She patted her car and gave it a word of gratitude. A cabman took charge, and with him also she left motor veils, coat and gloves, and walked down onto the landing stage fully conscious of neat hair, a perfect frock, and the Paris hat. Carter was standing gloomily at the bookstall, with a chin that looked more dogged and hair that was redder than ever.

"Ah," she said lightly, "fancy meeting you here. Weren't you going by last week's boat?"

"No," he said heavily, "this."

"Have you paid for your passage?"

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Because I'm afraid you will waste it."

He shook his head.

"You had no cable from Las Palmas during the last two days?"

"No. Have you? What are you driving at?" There was something so pathetic in his brown eyes that she had not the heart to drag out her explanation any further. She pulled a letter from her pocket, marked a place with her thumb and showed it to him.

He put a heavy hand down on the bookstall and stirred the papers into little heaps. "My God! Laura married. Married! Let me think what this means!"

A very indignant bookstall keeper began to make remarks, but Kate said, "Thank you. Those are the ones I want. Please tie them up for me. Here's a sovereign." And then she put a hand on Carter's arm and led him outside the crowd.

"Well," she said, "have you decided yet if you are entirely broken-hearted?"

He thought a minute, and then said he, "I think my people will be glad when they hear."

Kate blushed rosy pink. "They are both very fond of me," she observed.

"That," said Carter, "is what I was thinking about. Kitty, darling, there isn't a girl in all Africa, Europe, or America, who has been loved as dearly as I've loved you. But I couldn't marry you, could I, till the way was cleared. Now, could I?--here, let's get out of this crowd, and hire a cab, and drive to the North Pole, or somewhere we can be alone to talk all this out. It's wonderful."

"But what about your baggage?"

"Oh, bother the baggage. White-Man's-Trouble has it somewhere, and he'll jump overboard if he finds I'm not on the ship. There's no shaking off that boy, Kitty dear, so I'm afraid you'll have to take him along with me when you cease to be Kitty O'Neill."

"George, do you know I've got a great secret for you. I'm not Kitty O'Neill at all. I'm Kitty Meredith."

"As a point of fact I gathered that from your father. From what old Cappie Image told me, 'Major Smith,' as he calls him, will be home in time to give you away on your wedding day. But I shouldn't trouble to call yourself Kate Meredith, if I were you, sweetheart. When you do practise a new signature let it be Kitty Carter."

Kate blushed again most divinely. "As the deepest of secrets, let me tell you that I can write it quite well already, though I have been desperately afraid I should never have the luck to use it."

THE END

* * * * *

Former Works by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

THE LOST CONTINENT PRINCE RUPERT, THE BUCCANEER THOMPSON'S PROGRESS McTODD ATOMS OF EMPIRE THE FILIBUSTERS A MASTER OF FORTUNE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE

End of Project Gutenberg's Kate Meredith, Financier, by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne