We Ride the Gale, page 1
WE RIDE
THE GALE!
Emilie Loring
First published by Bantam Books, Inc. in 1934
Copyright © Emilie Loring 1934
This edition published in 2020 by Lume Books
30 Great Guildford Street,
Borough, SE1 0HS
The right of Emilie Loring to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
To CLARA ENDICOTT SEARS
Whose Stirring Poems and Buoyant Spirit
Have Helped Many a Storm-Tossed Mariner
RIDE THE GALE!
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter I
The door of the outer office opened cautiously. A head appeared.
“Is the going smooth or do I enter at my own risk?” inquired a theatrically hoarse voice.
Two women looked up from their work. The one at the desk settled her bone-rimmed spectacles with a nervous hand, brushed back sparse gray hair above a puckered brow, tightened thin lips and answered acidly:
“Depends on what you call risk, Mr. Guy. He’s pulled the feathers out of everyone who’s been near him since lunch.”
Guy Farr whistled, a contemplative whistle, as he closed the door softly behind him. His eyes, above a suggestion of purple eye-shadow in the wrong place, were blue as ice under a sapphire sky. The slight droop of the left lid gave a devil-may-care touch to a face which had a rakish charm. His smooth hair was almost yellow; his full lips below a wisp of reddish gold mustache were as crimson as if rouged. He glanced at the woman in the covert-gray dress at the desk, then smiled at the Titian-haired girl in the slim frock of navy, with its sheer white collar and cuffs. He adjusted the red carnation in the lapel of his gray coat.
“Safe for me to enter the king’s countinghouse, Miss Hale?”
Little flames flickered in the girl’s brown eyes.
“Sure, it’s safe. Sara Grimm is low in her mind. She’s been mixing papers again and got what was coming to her. You don’t mind losing a few feathers, do you? A great big explorer like you.”
Guy Farr’s eyes sharpened. He pulled out a cigarette and snapped a lighter.
“Cut that out! You know that the king—you see, I’ve picked up your nickname for your brother—doesn’t like smoking in the office. If you happen to want a favor of him—of course you don’t—you’d better consider his wishes.”
“Linda!” protested Sara Grimm in a shocked whisper. “You forget whom you’re talking to.” She looked apologetically at Guy Farr, but his amused eyes with a hint of appraisal in their depths were on the red-haired girl.
“Don’t think much of me, do you?”
Linda Hale shrugged and adjusted a sheet of paper in the typewriter.
“You must be psychic.” She glanced at a pad beside the machine. “If you want to talk with your brother you’d better hustle. He has a date in ten minutes. Shall I tell him you are here?”
“Thanks so much, but I prefer to do my own announcing.” Hand on the knob of the door to the inner office, he turned. His eyes were cold, still. “During the ten minutes you’ve allowed me, Hale, I’ll take time to suggest that he give his red-headed secretary the air. She’s too fresh to his callers. Think it over. This isn’t the year I would select for being fired.”
Michael Farr looked up from behind his broad desk in the richly paneled office as his brother slammed the door behind him. The brows above his gray eyes contracted, his clean-cut mouth tightened. The early June breeze dancing in through the open window on a ray of reflected sunlight brought in its train the faint far roar of traffic, the whir of a propeller. A petal fell from a rose in a slender crystal vase. It lay like a miniature crimson pool on the green blotter.
“Here I am, Michael, m’lad. All dressed up and somewhere to go. Got my cheque?”
Guy Farr’s confident greeting eased the tension. He dropped into a chair opposite his brother who picked up a slip of pink paper from the desk.
“Sure you want this, Guy? Fifty thousand dollars is a whale of a lot of money. Twice as hard to get hold of now as when Father made his will. The estate has taken some terrific losses, it is worth barely half of what it was five years ago. Tenants are demanding reduced rents, mortgagors are defaulting on interest payments—in some cases we have had to take over the property. Can you do as well with investments as the trustees?”
Guy Farr snatched the cheque from his brother’s reluctant fingers, glanced at it and with a satisfied nod slipped it into his breast pocket.
“Nothing doing in the investment line of yours truly, Mike, certainly not after the tale of woe you have just spilled. What’s the big idea piling up more money for our heirs—your heirs? No woman will ever slip the ball-and-chain on me. When I reach thirty—I’ve reached it, worse luck—according to Father’s will I’m to be paid fifty thousand bucks.”
“If you wanted it.”
“Of course I want it. I’ll always have an income from the trust fund, won’t I? Kingscourt, house and land, was left to you. Don’t think I’m kicking about that; I don’t want a blade of grass on it. Too much care. Too much expense. Why don’t you shut it up? I’ll answer why—sentiment. And sentiment is the most expensive indulgence in the world. Not any in mine. I’m hopping off in a couple of hours to South America with an exploring party. Haven’t told you before. Knew you’d put up a holler.”
Michael noted the puffiness under his brother’s eyes, the unsteadiness of his hand. Apparently he had spent the night celebrating his departure.
“Is that last crack an apology or an explanation? Sure that it is my holler from which you are gunshoeing? I did considerable mopping up for you after you started on your last safari, remember.”
Guy Farr’s color deepened, his eyes shifted. It was a look Michael had learned to translate. What mess was he sidestepping now? He didn’t like the laugh with which his brother acknowledged the reminder.
“My life’s an open book from now on, fella. Don’t take the world so seriously. Just because a girl threw you over, you’re as hard as an ice-floe and about as warming. Oh, all right! Don’t glare. I’ll quit. Sorry I mentioned it; my mistake. Should have known better. They told me outside that you had been making the feathers fly since lunch.”
“Who told you that?”
“The twitchy Sara. Gosh, I should think that female would drive you wild!”
“She does, but she was Father’s loyal secretary for years.”
“Allah be prasied that she wasn’t included as an asset in the trust fund! Trouble with you, Mike, is, you’re too soft—in spots. You’re an easy mark till you get your teeth set in an idea, then granite is putty in comparison. Your Congressional campaign is an example. With a veteran running against you, what chance have you in the fight? Take your fool idea of making the issue of your campaign the reduction of crime. In this district, too. I ask you, has the crazy stunt ever been tried before?”
“All the more reason to try it now. It is one of the big movements in Washington. I want to hop on the Federal band-wagon. Think back on the atrocious things which have been done in the last year or two, the perpetrators of which never have been found, to say nothing of having been brought to justice. I may get licked, but I’ll have the other candidate in a sweat shirt.”
“You’ll get more than licked, you may get put on the spot.”
“Cheerful Charlie, aren’t you?”
“Someone’s got to make you stop, look, listen. What do the sleek, well-fed citizens in this district care about the reduction of crime? They are too secure. You’ve got to kick a voter on his own shin before he’ll take an interest in conditions. ‘Let George do it,’ is the burden of his cry.”
“Where did you get your knowledge of the psychology of the voter?”
“I have friends among the politicians—wait and see. Sara Grimm is another of your soft spots. Pension her and put the skids under her. Neatest trick in the world.”
“Quite—if one doesn’t feel responsible for the effect on her when she is out of a job. Off in two hours?”
“Yep.”
“Been to Kingscourt to say good-bye to Aunt Serena?”
“No. Why the dickens did you take her in?”
“Where could she go with her reduced income? I don’t know how I could have helped her falling into the jaws of that investment wolf who ate up a big slice of her fortune, but I feel in a way responsible. It looks as if I might salvage something from the wreck; then she will be off on her travels again—unless Doctor Jim Neville’s wife dies. That would stop her globe-trotting. I am glad to have her at Kingscourt. You’d better stay at home a
“And listen to Serena tell me what a bad boy I am and what a noble martyr you—”
“Cut it!”
“You are ready to bite, aren’t you? Here’s my address in case of emergency—but there ain’t going to be no such animal. It will take weeks to reach us after we get into the wilds. I’ve cleaned up everything. Get me? Everything. For Pete’s sake, don’t let anyone put anything across on you this time!”
Michael Farr picked up the slip of paper his brother dropped to the desk.
“I’ll be a solid chunk of granite. If you have cleaned up, why the fervent rejoicing that you can’t be reached? You are the only person who puts things across on me.”
Standing behind him, Guy Farr gripped his shoulders.
“You’re a prince. No one would believe that you are four years older than I. There is nothing for you to worry about, honest. You have power of attorney. Here’s the key to my safety-deposit box. My will is there. If I pass out—bet your life I have no intention of doing it—everything goes to you. No claims on it. No strings. You will dispose of the money better than I could. Besides, you are the only person on God’s earth for whom I really care.”
He cleared his voice. “Chuck this political stuff. You need a change of scene. Get away; then when you come home, start over.”
“Get away! Just like that! Even if I gave up the Congressional fight—which I won’t—how can I go with such uncertainties in the business world? With this new deal with its codes and its changes? I’ve got to be here, to stand between some of these panicky, frightened men and the estate trustees. Many of them are desperate, old, tired, ready to give up the struggle. If I can help them hold on, they will get on their feet again and fight, and if I stand by, they won’t feel that they are fighting alone. Some days the very air seems thick with tragedy. Get away! That’s a joke.”
“Joke or not, I say, get out for a time. Why should you carry the burdens of a lot of men who mean nothing to you? Take your ponies across the water, get in some practice with the Englishmen. You’re the best bet of your team here. Put the ocean between you and this office, Aunt Serena, and—”
He picked up the brass-framed calender from the desk. He appeared intently interested in the black figures as he asked:
“Have you heard that your late bride-to-be, Phyllis, and husband Bill, the newly-wed D’Arcys, have bought The Cedars?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Ran into a man who knows them. He said that as The Cedars adjoined our estate, thought of course I would know.”
“He did! Why was he in such a hurry to tell you, then?”
Michael Farr crossed to the window. Guy followed him and closed his hand tight about his brother’s arm. His debonair voice roughened:
“Don’t you mind, m’lad. Don’t you mind. There’s the buzzer. A hint from the efficient and acid-tongued Hale that my time is up. If I weren’t going away, something tells me that that red-headed maedchen might prove interesting; she needs disciplining.”
Michael wheeled from the window.
“Don’t look so black. I said ‘if,’ didn’t I? There’s that buzz again. I’m going. I’ll be one load from your shoulders, Mike. I’ve got your number, even if I’m not your kind. Guess I inherited the first Michael Farr’s temperament along with his drooping eyelid. If deponeth saith truly, he was one grand playboy besides being a cursing, fighting old sea-dog.”
The diamond sunk in a broad gold ring on his finger caught the light and glistened like a brilliant eye. Michael motioned toward it.
“Going to wear that in the wilds?”
“Wouldn’t go without; it’s my talisman. Need it all the more now that I am making a break for freedom, for a place where there are no conventions to keep one toeing the mark.”
“Where’s the mark you’ve toed to date?”
“One in the eye for me. Bye-bye, old fella.” He gripped his brother’s hand tight and released it.
“I’ll picture you in this cool shaded office, or at the Club unfolding at breakfast your morning paper, when I’m in the midst of hot strange jungles, with a black storm blowing up under a swift tropical wind. I’ll picture the king in his countinghouse counting out his money. Watch out that filthy lucre doesn’t get you in its grip.”
He stopped with his hand on the knob of the door.
“Think you ought to know that I was told also that the fickle Phyllis is boasting that you will forgive her, pronto, that she will have you eating out of her hand again. That’s about her size. Watch your step, m’lad. Watch your step. Don’t let the protection complex catch you again. So long! I’ll be seeing you!”
The door closed. Hands hard in his pockets, Michael Farr turned to the window. He could see far off dots, scows dumping debris, crawling like shark fins on drab water. From among neighboring skyscrapers loomed a mooring mast for airships. When his father had moved into the office in which he stood, it had been in the tallest building in Manhattan. Now it was a pigmy among giants.
Eyes on a plane skimming through a cloud which looked like a scarf of violet malines swathed about the Empire State tower, his thoughts returned to his brother’s news about Phyllis D’Arcy. His heart smarted and stung as if it had been scraped raw. It was not because of disappointment in love, but the realization that he had been such an easy mark that rankled. He squared his shoulders. He deserved all that had come to him of humiliation and embarrassment. Ever since prep school days he had had an ideal of the sort of girl he would love and marry, and then, because year after year had passed and he had not found her, he had concluded that he was expecting too much of the modern girl, had compromised with his soul and had taken second best. Phyllis had proved to be not even that. She was boasting that she would have him back! Would she? He would show her what New England granite could be.
What should he do? Get out of the neighborhood for a time? That would mean giving up the Congressional fight. Not for a million dollars. He was in that to the finish. Two fights on his hands. Phyllis and his political opponent. Unless he missed his guess, the latter would keep him from dwelling too much on the former. Donald Brandt, because he was a veteran of the World War, would be hard to beat. What the dickens had prompted the man to buy a place in the county three years ago? Political or social ambition—or did he think it a good background for his real estate operations? For an instant, Guy had made him wonder if he were wasting time and energy trying for election. Guy! Why be influenced by a man for whose philosophy of life he had no respect?
How like him to thrust at Linda Hale. His entrance into any situation had the effect of stirring up antipathy and complication. It had been so since boyhood. A game might be under way peaceably and merrily; let Guy step into it and immediately everyone went haywire.
He hadn’t liked the shifting of his brother’s eyes when he had declared that his life was an open book. The present leaf might be clean, but the preceding pages would make snappy reading, or he would miss his guess. Neither had he liked his reference to his secretary. Perhaps she was attractive. She had a fine mind, it worked logically. That wouldn’t count with Guy. Only the bodies and faces of women interested him, their minds and souls not at all. What was the use spending a moment’s thought on him? He would do as he liked, regardless of the result to himself or others, regardless of the fact that sometime for something payment would have to be made—in full. During his father’s lifetime he had been cautious, afraid of the consequences if he angered him, but now that he was secure in his inheritance he had blown the lid off what he called “life.”
He touched a bell. As promptly as if she had been waiting outside the door, Linda Hale entered. He looked at the pad on his desk.
“You rang. Have I forgotten a date?”
“Usually you ride at this time. I thought you shouldn’t miss it today. It must be beautiful in the Park.”
A laugh brightened Michael Farr’s grave eyes, erased the crease like a cut between his brows, widened his fine mouth.
“Have I been so bad as that? My brother said he was warned.”
“You did hurt Sara’s feelings.”
“Then why in thunder does she touch my correspondence? It’s your job.”
