With this ring, p.1
With this Ring, page 1
WITH THIS RING
Emilie Loring
© Emilie Loring 1955
Emilie Loring has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1955 by Little, Brown and Co., Inc.
This edition published in 2019 by Lume Books.
All episodes used to develop the plot of this novel are fictitious. Use of a name which is that of a living person is accidental. Newbury Point is a composite of the many charming spots which abound on the New England coast.
Table of Contents
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
I
Cynthia’s first intimation that something was wrong came from Eric Crane’s sharp order, “Let go, I’ll take over!” He turned from peering out the window and his tanned hands flashed to the wheel of the little plane. There were two sets of controls, so she needed only to release her own grip and shift her feet from the pedals to give him command. At the same moment she glanced at Eric beside her; his face was white and tight-lipped.
How had she blundered this time, she wondered. Taking off, as she’d done dozens of times before, what stupid mistake caused her fiancé to suddenly take over? Of course, there was that jolt and twist of the plane just before the landing wheels left the ground. But that was not unusual in her take-offs. Eric criticized her often for driving an airplane like a snowplow.
Could it be something else? She remembered being startled by his unexpected demand for a speedier wedding than they planned, but the argument which followed had been perfectly amicable and she was secretly rather flattered. All that was half an hour ago, so why this abrupt action which was anything but flattering? Puzzled, she looked down as they swept back over the field.
The lump which always jumped into her throat at the first sputtering throb of the plane’s motor and subsided when they took to the air now swelled to mammoth proportions. On the sunlit field men were running, waving their arms. One of them was holding something over his head, making wide sweeping motions to attract their attention to it. A wheel! She knew too well what that signal meant—a landing wheel of their plane was missing. Had it spun away as they left the ground, or just dropped off on this practice flight? As if that made any difference!
Was this to be her last flight? The end of the rigid self-discipline she had administered during all of her two month’s engagement to Eric Crane, forcing herself to endure flying because flying seemed to be his whole life? What a satiric ending!
She clasped her hands tightly together in her lap and shook her head.
“Don’t be a cry-baby—yet, Cynthia Farley!” she mentally reproved herself, and dragged her fascinated eyes away from the field.
How clear the mountains showed, sun-drenched except for the purple shadows of the clouds along their sides. Nearer, and higher still, a big silvery airplane floated, seemingly almost motionless. A black speck dropped from it, shot downward for a long breathless moment until a dazzling white flower opened wide above it and drifted slowly earthward. Parachute jumping. The girl set her teeth tight on her lower lip and shivered. Would Eric order her to try that next?
And if he does, I suppose I’ll jump, she thought bitterly. What Eric says, Cynthia does. Why Cynthia? Why had Eric Crane, youngest son of an English nobleman and an American mother, test pilot for a world-renowned British firm and hero of more than one spectacular flight abroad, come to California and immediately singled her out from among all the girls who set their caps for him? Beauties, some of them, and some with far more social standing than she had.
Never mind why, the fact remained that he had chosen her. And she, dazzled by his reputation, thrilled by his devotion, not only accepted his proposal of marriage, but took a mental oath to please him by becoming as air-minded as he—or perish in the attempt. At the moment, she thought with a shudder, it looked as if it might be perish.
Crane noticed her shiver, for he spoke impatiently.
“We’re in trouble! You must have hit something back there in the field because we’re minus a landing wheel on my side, but I’m going in anyway. Stop squirming around and brace yourself.” He settled lower into his seat and stared at the instrument panel.
“A control tower would help, but there isn’t one, so we’re on our own. Look at your landing wheel—seem all right?” When she nodded he flashed her a white-lipped smile. “We may take a nasty bump, but there is no real danger, Cynthia. I’ve landed on one wheel before.”
She tried to speak, to answer his reassurance with confidence, but her throat was paralyzed. It didn’t help to notice beads of perspiration forming just below his blond crew cut.
Crane eyed her again and spoke harshly.
“Did you hear me? Snap out of it and check your safety belt! Cover your face with your arms and keep low. Come on—move!”
With the sensation of watching her double perform in slow motion, Cynthia at last obeyed. Crouched forward with face covered, she felt the plane sink slowly, tilt and then bound upward. That must have been the single landing wheel touching the runway. Now—
A siren wailed faintly in the distance. An ambulance? Had they called an ambulance? Not so good—The plane sank abruptly, steadied, but at an alarming angle, touched ground, sped onward. Good old runway! Blessed solid earth! Safe? Of course. Hadn’t Eric landed minus a wheel before? He was slowing now, cutting the throttle. How silly to be afraid with an expert handling the plane—
A sudden, sickening face-about whirl—a grinding, crunching jumble of noise tearing at her eardrums. Crash! The plane whipped over like a giant cartwheel … darkness.
A bright light dazzled Cynthia, seared her eyes. Then smothering blackness again. Clinging desperately to something warm and throbbing she felt her body rise, float, and begin to sink.
“Don’t—don’t let me go! Hold me!” she cried wildly.
“I am holding you, my dear.”
The voice was strange but calming. She felt safe; terribly tired; she tried to smile. Here came the black cloud again! She must fight it off! She opened her eyes.
“Hello there!” The same voice, gruff but soothing. She looked up at the gray, smiling man. His hands gripped hers. “I am Doctor Barnes. You will be all right now. Here, drink this.”
Something deliciously cool, slightly salty, slipped down her throat. The leaden weights which had pressed against her lids were gone; it wasn’t nearly so much effort to open her eyes.
Twin lamps of wrought iron, twisted vines with tiny lights set among the leaves, like the ones on her dressing table. What in the world were they doing here? With a superhuman effort she turned her head and stared. Leaf-green plaster walls, deeper green hangings at the windows. Her own room! But the plane was landing—there’d been a crack-up.
She forced her shoulders up from the pillow, caught the doctor’s arm, whispered, “Eric?”
Dr. Barnes patted the hand on his sleeve, peered over his rimless glasses.
“Your friend? He’s all right, my dear. It was quite a smash, but nothing seems badly damaged except the plane. The young man suffered a lot of bruises, including a black eye and a mean twist to his knee, which may keep him in bed for a few days. You were both very lucky.”
The girl sank back on the pillow but her spirits soared. Eric would be out of action for a few days! No flying! She would take her car and get out into the country, far from this air-minded atmosphere. No more jittery dread of take-offs and landings! How wonderful! Then a shattering thought—
“Am I—much—much scratched?” she whispered.
Dr. Barnes studied her for a moment, then smiled.
“Neither scratched nor broken.”
“Then why—why am I—in bed?”
His big hand gently restrained her when she attempted to sit up.
“Lie still,” he ordered. “You’ve had a severe shaking up and I want you to be quiet for a while. Tomorrow, if you look all right to me, you may get up.”
There was finality enough in his voice to impress her. She attempted a cheerful smile and nod of acquiescence, but her heavy lids drooped.
When next she opened her eyes twilight was stealing into the room. She heard the far-off drone of a plane and shivered. Somewhere in the house a door slammed. Aunt Julia coming in or going out with her customary energy. Cynthia felt far from energetic but ravenously hungry. As though in answer to the thought a velvet-footed shadow appeared in the room and advanced to the bed.
“Sara, you angel!” Cynthia greeted the Filipino maid with real enthusiasm. “Can that possibly be a tray of food in your hands? I am starving!”
“Yes’m, Miss Farley, it is and you generally are,” chuckled the girl. “I’m sure glad you aren’t an angel tonight! They say it was awful, the way your plane—”
“Spare me the details, Sara, I was there.”
“Yes’m. That doctor said you can have anything you want to eat. So I fixed you a nice supper.” She set the tray on a bedside table. “I’ll twist this around so’s you can get at it easy. It sure must have been kind of scary when you found that wheel had fallen off. ”
“The understatement of the year,” Cynthia agreed cheerfully. “I was petrified. Please hand me the mirror from my dressing table.” Restraining the almost overpowering urge to look at herself, she slid the mirror under the covers. “Thank you for everything, Sara, you’re precious.”
“Yes’m, I knows it. If you want anything else, just yell.” The maid took a last look about the room and tiptoed out.
Cynthia whipped up the hand mirror. Doctor Barnes was an honest man; not a scratch or bruise. Breathlessly she inventoried the almost black hair, heavily lashed brown eyes and lips now set in a wistful curve. Not much color, but otherwise none the worse for the adventure. Relieved, she turned to her meal.
There would be no need to “yell” for Sara, she thought, surveying the laden tray. Cream of tomato soup, avocado salad with wafer-thin but luscious toasted cheese sandwiches, a mouth-watering ice of raspberry hue. She enjoyed every mouthful. How nice it was to be alive!
Leisurely sipping her coffee she leaned back against the pillows and regarded the diamond on her finger. With more than a slight twinge of conscience she wondered at her reaction to the news that Eric would be out of circulation for a day or so. Relief—not that he was safe, but that she would not have to fly again until he recovered. Was this love?
For the first time in months she had the desire and the opportunity to think things through. That terrible accident which took both her father and mother had left her stunned. In a stupor of agony she closed their home and while her two older brothers went their separate ways she came here to California to live with Uncle Joe Darcy and his second wife, Julia.
“Julia!” She groaned as she set her cup down and pushed the table away. “Aunt Julia, the world’s champion pain-in-the-neck, self-centered, nagging and so madly socially ambitious that you shame me a dozen times a day!” She repressed a shudder as she remembered Julia’s broadcasting of every detail of Cynthia’s inheritance. A million dollars when she was twenty-three—or married.
Had she accepted Eric as a refuge from life with the demon aunt? From the day of her arrival Julia had persistently condemned Cynthia’s likes, ridiculed her dislikes. It seemed, Cynthia thought bitterly, as though she seizes every occasion to call me “odd”! Because I’m not a social climber, I’m odd. Because I don’t enjoy going out with the pawing, over-drinking sons of her friends, I’m odd.
Her thoughts raced as she studied the diamond ring. At last she had done something which met with her aunt’s approval—probably because Eric might some day come into a title, a glittering prospect to a social climber. Cynthia had been jubilant, too, at least in the beginning. Why? Because she loved him, of course. Well—she did love him, didn’t she? He was so attractive—although a bit more chin and a trifle less nose would improve him. But that, according to Julia, was typical of English nobility. And he seemed so unspoiled by fame that she forgave him his faults, although they did trouble her.
He was easy to get along with—when he had his own way, she added ruefully. Not very considerate, and to be honest, downright domineering at times. Unambitious, content to drift along. She wondered, not for the first time, what he did when he wasn’t with her and her friends at the Club. He made frequent visits to big airplane plants and factories in the vicinity, but he never mentioned their purpose and changed the subject when she inquired. Oh well, what if he didn’t have a regular job? That didn’t matter; when they married she would come into her inheritance—plenty for both of them.
She had met him at the Country Club where he was staying after a solo flight from England and a cross-country tour in his own plane. She burned with shame when she recalled her aunt’s palpitant introduction with its thinly veiled hints of her niece’s financial prospects. If Eric was embarrassed at Julia’s crude approach his suave courtesy had concealed the feeling while he put himself out to be charming to Cynthia.
Before she realized it she had succumbed to that charm, so completely in fact that in a few weeks she was learning to pilot a plane under his tuition. A mistake. She enjoyed flying as a passenger, but this do-it-yourself routine was something else again—and something that frightened her. Every moment at the controls was an hour of tense foreboding, although Eric never seemed to realize this. Heart in mouth she dived and zoomed, raced ahead of a storm, stonily regarded the red-hot skeleton of a crashed plane, never betraying her inward turmoil. Why endure such torture? Because Eric had set his heart on making a pilot of her!
Idly she pleated the edge of the mint green sheet while she wondered if he appreciated what she was going through for him. He had never said so; in fact, now that she searched her memory, he had never praised her for anything she did in the air. Could she be as bad as all that?
At the beginning of their romance he had been generous with compliments. Since their engagement had been announced she could not remember one nice thing Eric had said about her. Now that he was sure of her, did he take too much for granted?
Could she be, deep down, the same snob which Julia was so brazenly portraying? Was she thrilled by the nobly connected visitor from England, the test pilot who made headlines, and flattered when he selected her from the crowd of eager girls who surrounded him at the Club? Was it that which had drawn her to him—and not true love? Was the thrill beginning to wear off and—
Cynthia’s heart tripped, then raced on. “Of course it isn’t that!” she whispered, relaxing her clenched hands. “I do love Eric and that crack-up has me all shook up!”
Into her reverie burst Aunt Julia, talking as she came.
“Don’t tell me it wasn’t all your fault, Cynthia Farley! Eric is being very chivalrous, swearing that he was at the controls. Could anything be more ridiculous! An experienced pilot such as he, smashing up a plane—!”
“There was a wheel off, remember?” Cynthia informed her crisply. Then changed the subject hastily, anxious to plunge at once into what she knew would be a nerve-racking scene. The sooner begun, the sooner ended. “I have some exciting news for you, Aunt Julia. Eric doesn’t want to wait for the June wedding we planned. In spite of all the arrangements you’ve made he wants to be married at once.”
II
The organ lifted its muted voice in the first soaring notes of the wedding march. Cynthia dug her fingers into Uncle Joe Darcy’s solid arm and drew a long breath to quiet her fluttering heart. Good grief! If she was as nervous as this at a mere rehearsal, what would be her mental state tomorrow during the ceremony?
For a moment she wondered if she were tempting fate by ignoring the age-old taboo against a bride’s taking part in the rehearsal. But Aunt Julia scoffed at such an antiquated idea; the latest authorities agreed that girls no longer cared, and Aunt Julia was running this wedding. Deprived of the social splendor of the huge June ceremony she had planned, Julia threatened hysterics until Cynthia agreed to cater to every whim in this abbreviated version.
The bridesmaids and ushers began their measured march toward the chancel. Uncle Joe, perspiring and puffing with nervousness, started to follow too soon, shuffled back and performed a little soft-shoe dance of impatience while he waited. Cynthia patted his hand comfortingly, staring ahead into the dim tunnel-like church.
More friends than she expected had chosen to watch the rehearsal, the pews lining the aisle were dotted with pale blotches of staring faces. Cynthia didn’t mind. The more now, the less awe-inspiring the crowd tomorrow would seem. Except that she did wish Debbie Winfield could have had a previous engagement to keep her away. Debbie had never forgiven her for snaring the desirable Eric Crane, probably never would forgive her. That was Debbie’s way, with her face of a cherub and tongue of a serpent—
Uncle Joe stepped forward, sure of himself this time, and dragged Cynthia with him. Far down the aisle she saw the commanding figure of Aunt Julia overshadowing the short and rotund clergyman as she beat ponderous time with upraised purse. Cynthia’s impulse to laugh was short-lived; beside Doctor Gresham stood Eric Crane and her brother, Alonzo. Bless Lon, she thought devoutly, for smothering his disapproval and agreeing to act as best man when Eric’s selection came down with the flu.
