Chiffon Scarf (6 page)

“Both men,” said Noel hours later, “died instantly when they crashed. It happened—like that.” He was lighting a cigarette as he spoke and he flicked the light from his match with a nervous, quick gesture. “Bill had only an instant or two of comprehension. None of pain; I could swear to that. Do believe me.”

Another somber silence followed his words. The hours intervening between the nightmare of the early morning and the scene in the Blaine library later in the day were vague and confused in Eden’s memory. She remembered that Averill and the chauffeur had returned at last, alone, to the car where she still sat with Creda on the running board. The chauffeur had looked sick and white. Averill was like a pale automatic doll. She’d said simply: “They are both dead. We’ll go home now. The others will come later.” And the chauffeur had driven slowly, as if it was a funeral cortege, all the way home with nobody speaking. Once there, Averill had got a doctor for Creda; Creda was now, mercifully, drugged and supposed to be sleeping.

And then they had waited for the others. Once Averill had said queerly: “I intended to fly with Bill. If Jim hadn’t stopped me I would have gone.”

That was all. It was afternoon when the others came. Noel white, eyes brilliant with excitement; Jim white, too; his face like a mask. Pace apparently unmoved except his little heavy-lidded eyes were so observant.

Dorothy Woolen came along with them and someone remembered to introduce her, Jim’s secretary, to Eden; Eden looked at her briefly and without much interest—a plump, phlegmatic, colorless girl, with pale face and lips, pale, straight, blonde hair done with a braid around her head, pale green eyes with no expression in them. She wore a dark, neat suit and was curiously self-effacing.

They had done everything, Noel said, that was to be done. And he tried again to reassure them; the merciful thing had been the swiftness of it.

“Neither of them knew,” he repeated. “There wasn’t time.”

Jim got up and went to the window and stood with his back to the room and his hands plunged into his pockets.

“The thing is,” he said, “it oughtn’t to have happened.”

“Mr. Cady,” said Major Pace suddenly, “just what happened? Why did the plane crash?”

Jim turned around.

“I don’t know. There was nothing wrong anywhere. Bill wouldn’t have taken her up—we wouldn’t have let him take her up if there’d been any question. But there wasn’t—”

“We’ve covered everything,” said Noel wearily. “There’s nothing to account for it. We’ve had the engine running as long as fifty hours on the testing table. This morning she was in perfect shape. We started her going and she ran for perhaps fifteen minutes or so before the take off. Sweet as honey. You were there, Pace. You heard.”

“But you, Mr. Cady,” persisted Pace in a gentle voice. “What’s your opinion?”

Jim turned toward Pace.

“Opinion! Good God, I haven’t any. It’s obvious something went wrong. But nothing—nothing could go wrong. Bill was an expert flyer.”

Noel rose again and went quickly to Jim and put his hand on Jim’s shoulder.

“But something did go wrong, old fellow,” he said. “You couldn’t have helped it. You aren’t responsible. The engine passed all the tests. Don’t take it so hard.”

“The point is,” said Averill suddenly and very coolly, “is Major Pace still in the market for the engine?”

It wasn’t what anyone had expected. Jim gave Averill a queer, long look and turned again abruptly toward the window. Dorothy Woolen blinked. Even Pace looked startled, as if pulled up short, and Noel said:

“My God, Averill. What—”

“Listen, Noel. The flight was a failure. But Jim is sure it wasn’t the engine.” Averill turned smoothly to Pace; she linked her small, calm hands on her knee and said: “The engine can be rebuilt, you know, Major Pace. It will take some time but Jim has all the plans, all the tools; he won’t be held up again waiting for patterns and jigs to be made. If time is an element with you, and I understand that it is, it will take only a short time to rebuild the engine. And if this—thing this morning was due to a fault in the engine, that fault will be discovered and corrected.”

“Averill” Jim began and Averill stopped him.

“Jim, darling, I know how dreadful this seems to you now. But I still have faith in the engine. If this was due to some flaw, you can find it and correct it. The main principle of the engine—”

“Listen, Averill,” said Jim, “if the accident was not an accident but some flaw in the engine then I can’t rebuild it successfully for I don’t know what that flaw is. I would have staked my life on this one being among the best that have ever been developed. That’s not boasting, it’s just the truth. Do you think I would have let Bill take her up if I’d not known that?”

“You wouldn’t let me go,” said Averill suddenly and softly.

Jim gave her an incredulous look. He went so white he looked sick. He said:

“Averill—you can’t mean I had any doubt—”

“That’s a beastly thing to say, Averill,” cried Noel, interrupting. “She didn’t mean it, Jim. She’s upset. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She—”

A kind of veil went down over Averill’s shallow brown eyes. She rose and went gracefully to Jim and laid her small hand on his arm.

“Do forgive me, Jim. I meant nothing. I was excited. I spoke without thinking. But you see—you see, in spite of Bill’s death which we all regret and in spite of the horrible shock of it, life does still go on for the rest of us. And we intended to sell the engine to Major Pace; why should an accident change our plans?”

Pace turned heavily to Jim.

“Cady—you say this was an accident?”

“I don’t know what it was. If I hadn’t seen it happen, I would say it was impossible.”

“How about the engine itself—what was left of it, I mean. Can’t you tell from that what happened?”

“It was pretty smashed,” said Noel. “It struck head on.”

“Lud Strevsky is out there now waiting for it to cool,” said Jim. “He’s one of our best mechanics. If it was a fault of the engine Lud will make a pretty good guess as to what it was.”

Averill said quickly:

“It seems to me the best thing to do right now is to go ahead with our plans.”

Jim turned, as if bewildered, toward Averill. “You mean go on to the Bayou Teche place right away?”

“Yes, of course. Bill would have wanted us to do it that way. The funeral will be at the plantation; all the family are buried there; we would have to send Bill there anyway. The wedding will be extremely quiet; we had planned that already. The plane Uncle Bill chartered is ready and waiting. The sooner we leave the better for all of us, I think. And—Major Pace,” she turned to him graciously with the air of a hostess giving a purely social invitation, “Major Pace, we would very much like you to go South with us. We leave tonight.”

It was typical of Averill and good generalship to announce her plans like that—publicly and with every detail thought out. It made it almost impossible for Jim or anyone else to oppose her. But it had not occurred to Eden until just then that Averill’s wedding could be in any way affected by the plane crash. In spite of herself a small desperate hope rose and grew in her heart. She didn’t dare look at Jim.

He said: “But, Averill—I ought to be here. I’ve got to be here when we tear down the engine—that is, take the engine apart. Don’t you see—”

“Jim, you just now said this mechanic—Strevsky, wasn’t it?—knows as much about the engine as you do. And, besides, surely you,” she smiled a little wistfully (Averill was never wistful), “surely you don’t object to our wedding taking place as planned. Jim, my dear, I’ve been thinking it all out while I waited for you to come. I’m sure this is the way—”

Pace cleared his throat and said abruptly:

“Can you rebuild the engine, Cady? And how long will it take you? And will you be willing to sell to me after it is rebuilt?”

Noel replied.

“Certainly he can rebuild it and will. It oughtn’t to take more than a few weeks. And he—he agreed to selling last night. There’s no heed to go into all that again.”

“Noel’s quite right,” said Averill instantly. “So you will come with us, Major Pace?”

It seemed to Eden that he agreed almost before she had finished speaking.

“Yes,” said Pace, “I’ll come—if you insist. And I—hope I shall not intrude in these family matters.”

Averill turned at once to Noel.

“Noel, will you see that they know at the field that our plans are not changed? We’ll make a night flight of it exactly as we had planned.”

“Yes—Yes, of course, my dear. At once. Will you come along, Pace?”

The door closed behind them and put a stamp of finality upon Averill’s neat plans. Dorothy Woolen rose and said quietly:

“Do you want me to prepare statements for the newspapers, Miss Blaine?”

“Newspapers!”

“The reporters have already been at the field. Mr. Carreaux made a brief statement. He said it had been an accident and they were making an investigation. He kept Major Pace out of it. I imagine reporters will be at the house soon—”

“Yes. Yes, by all means, Dorothy. You’d better stay here and deal with them.”

“Averill,” said Jim rather desperately, “you don’t understand. I—I
can’t
go.”

Averill blinked slowly, as if giving herself time to seek behind his words and refute whatever lay there. Eden waited, tense. Jim went on: “I’ve got to see about this thing. I—”

“Jim,” said Averill swiftly, “you can’t walk out on me like this. Besides, you can keep in constant touch with the plant and the mechanic you think so much of. We’ll take Dorothy with us—” She turned, smiling at Dorothy and said winningly: “You will go, won’t you?” Dorothy, looking blank, nodded her head affirmatively and Averill turned again, sweepingly, to Jim. “You see, darling. It’s all settled. You’ll have to come now, Jim,” she said in a gentle way. “I can’t go through all this alone. And I won’t let our marriage be postponed. Will you give that statement to the papers, too, Dorothy? Tell them that my wedding will take place as arranged; only the family will be present. Good—that’s settled.” She went to the bell and put her slender finger on it.

The little desperate hope in Eden’s heart died. Painfully. Settled, she thought, as Averill wanted it to be settled. The wedding to take place as planned.

Well, after all, wasn’t it better to have the wedding over with and done? So she could write the end to that chapter; close it, put it away, forget it. Take up her usual life again briskly. Avoid, for a while, the aching memory of a garden at night, a man’s lips—so briefly—on her own.

Yes, it was much better to end the thing, since it must be ended, quickly. Finally.

She rose and went rather blindly to the window, looking down upon velvet green lawn with eyes that did not see.

Behind her, she heard Jim speak.

“I’ve got to go back to the plant now. Averill, what did you do with the plans for the engine? Last night, I mean?”

“I put them over there in the drawer of the table. Why? You don’t need them now.”

“They aren’t here.”

“They must be.”

“Nothing here but stationery and pens.”

Averill, footsteps light and quick, must have gone to look. Eden turned, drawn by some undertone in Jim’s voice. She watched and Jim watched and Dorothy Woolen watched, too. Averill ran her slim hand increduously about the drawer; there was stationery, blotters, pens, nothing else.

“But I—I put them here,” she said. “I rolled them up and put them here myself.” She stopped thoughtfully. “Bill must have removed them.” She turned to Dorothy. “Bill didn’t give them to you?”

“No.”

Averill’s sleek black eyebrows had drawn to a fine line.

“It doesn’t really matter, I suppose,” she said. “It’s not the only copy you have, Jim?”

“No. There are the tracings from which the blueprints were made. I have them at the office. And when the government tests were passed we deposited a whole set of plans with the government bureau—sealed. Oh, it’s not a question of losing something we can’t replace. Of course—” He stopped, frowning.

“Yes, Jim?” said Averill.

“I was only going to say, of course our one model is practically destroyed. It will take time to make another.”

There was a little pause. Averill bit her thin lip thoughtfully.

“Well, then,” she said with an air of decision, “we’ll just have to keep Pace here until there is a new model. Jim—you didn’t mind my asking him to go South with us? I mean—well, it was the only way it occurred to me at the time to keep him here. Frankly, I don’t see why we should let him go to another seller, as long as we have the thing he wants and he has the money to pay for it. You see, Jim?”

“Yes, I see. It was fairly obvious. It’s not so obvious why he accepted.”

“Because he still wants the engine,” said Averill triumphantly.

“And you are still going to sell it?”

“But of course, darling. And you’ll be glad, when we have all that money; you’ll think you have a very clever wife, indeed. See if you don’t.”

Jim said: “If Bill took the plans—or Noel—we can soon find out.”

“No one else would take them,” said Averill positively. “I’ll go now and look in Bill’s room and question Noel. I’ll find them,” she said with energy.

She went quickly away, closing the door definitely behind her. There was a small silence with Jim staring rather fixedly down into the empty drawer and the girl Dorothy watching him.

“I’m sure Miss Blaine will find them,” said Dorothy at last, soothingly. “And after all, it really doesn’t matter, does it, Mr. Cady? Everything’s fully patented; and the blueprints were only copies.”

A maid opened the door gently and came in. She gave Jim a half-frightened look from swollen eyes which looked as if she’d been crying, for Bill Blaine had always been liked by the servants, and said a little gaspingly that reporters were at the door.

“Miss Blaine said you would see them, please, Miss Woolen.”

“I’ll come,” said Dorothy Woolen competently and went quietly away.

The door closed behind her. In the silence it seemed to Eden that Jim must hear her heart, beating suddenly fast and loud.