From the Car Behind
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor M. Ingram
Chapter 17: The End of the Road
In the golden afternoon sunlight, when tree-shadows stretched long and velvet-soft across the lawns and terraces of Mr. Rose’s park, amid all October’s blending fragrances and mellow tints, Corrie Rose came home. After all, it was Jack Rupert who put the Mercury Titan in the garage, opposite the house Corrie; yielding his seat to his mechanician.
“I believe I’ll let you take her around; I want to go in with my people,” the driver explained. “You might as well get established here, you know, since you are going to stay some time. I,” it was so long since anyone had seen that teasing mischief sparkling in Corrie’s unclouded eyes, “I have grown so used to your gentle, winning ways that I don’t know how to get along without you, Rupert.”
Rupert settled himself in the great machine, regarding his companion with dry intelligence.
“I’ve got more respect for your morals than I had, Rose, and less for your sense,” he issued final judgment above the clamor of the motor, before sending the car away.
“Right again,” Corrie agreed. He turned and looked up at the house.
The three from the limousine were waiting for him upon the columned veranda. Weary, stiff and aching from long exertion, soiled with the dust of course and road, Corrie, victor of that day and of many days, climbed the broad rose-colored steps to them. There was nothing adequate to say, had they been a demonstrative family; as it was, no one considered speech. But at the open door Corrie stopped, turning his bright, clear glance to his father. And Thomas Rose closed his hand on his son’s shoulder, so that they crossed the threshold together.
Gerard detained Flavia a pace behind.
“When I see you in the lace gown, I am going to kiss you,” he stated firmly. “I do not care how many people are present or where it is. So you had better come down early to the fountain arcade, where I have pictured you more often than you will ever know. Will you, flower-lady?”
“Perhaps,” she doubted. “If I think of it.”
“Heartsease for thought,” said Gerard, and kissed her dimpling mouth.
On the stairs a few minutes later, Corrie overtook his sister and caught her in his arms.
“I need a bath and some fresh rags and—well, everything,” he laughed. “I’m not fit to touch—do you mind?”
She clasped her arms around his neck, nestling her soft cheek against the rough, grimy cloth of his driving-suit.
“I love you! Oh, my dear, my dear, if mamma had lived, this year could never have happened! Not to you, nor to me.”
He looked into her upturned face, realizing with her the difference that might have been wrought by a mother’s clairvoyant tenderness and the link of a wife’s understanding between her husband and her children. No, without this lack in the household the year’s deception could not have endured. If the chain of Roses had not once been broken, it could not have come so near this later destruction.
“Flavia, you know I feel how good they have all been to me? You know what nonsense it was for Allan—he tells me I can’t call my own brother ‘Gerard’—what nonsense it was for him to suggest that I ever could blame anyone but myself for what I had to stand?”
“I know you feel it so, Corrie.”
“Then, I want to say there was only you, Other Fellow, who never hurt or made it harder.”
“Even—Allan?”
“I think there never was a man so generous as Allan—but, only you. I,” he drew a breath of inexpressible content, “I see a bully good life ahead, but I don’t see any woman in it, unless I find one like you. And from what I overheard Allan saying, just now when I passed you both at the alcove, he’s secured the only perfect angel-girl——”
Laughing, warmly flushed, she put her hand across his lips.
But it was that evening, in the glowing richness and repose of the dining-room in the pink marble villa, now reinvested with the dignity of a home, that the core of the late situation was touched.