Soaring Home. Christine Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ tsked her disapproval. “He’s perfectly charming. And educated. There aren’t many opportunities to meet eligible men, so if you want to catch one—”

      “I don’t.”

      Beatrice planted a hand on her hip. “Darcy, you must be reasonable. You’re twenty-three. People are starting to talk. The war can only be an excuse for so long.”

      “I’m not using the war as an excuse. I don’t want to marry. Ever.” She shuddered at the drudgery of children and housework. “Better to fight for women’s rights.”

      “Are you still following Prudy and her lot of suffragists? You’ll get a bad reputation. Felicity says some people already wonder if you’re one of those man-haters.”

      Darcy didn’t care two pins what Felicity Kensington said, and she didn’t see why Beatrice placed such stock in her uppity future sister-in-law. “I don’t hate men. I just don’t want to marry. I have things to do.” Such as flying. She scanned the sky for the plane. Gone.

      “Just meet him and talk a little.”

      “No.”

      “It’s just a picnic, not marriage.”

      A faint drone froze Darcy. The aeroplane. Within seconds she located it low in the eastern sky, heading toward them.

      “What is that sound?” Beatrice looked everywhere but up.

      The plane dipped and veered toward town. It was landing. It had to be. No plane would fly that low if it wasn’t landing. If only she could be onboard. If only she could fly. Darcy danced across the road.

      “Where are you going?” Beatrice called. “We’re already late from the nickel show. Your mother will be furious.”

      “No she won’t.” Which wasn’t quite true.

      “She’ll make us roll extra bandages.”

      Darcy motioned for her to wait. “Just one moment longer.”

      The hum intensified until it sounded like a whole hive of bees. An aeroplane. Darcy hung transfixed at the edge of the field. She couldn’t leave now. She hadn’t seen an aeroplane since the 1911 Chicago air exhibition, the day she knew God intended her to fly. In the air, women flew alongside men as equals. That’s where she belonged, not in lowly Pearlman, where not even the scent of an aeroplane could be found.

      Until now. The biplane wobbled slightly as it descended, the left wing dipping before the pilot righted it at the last minute. It did not resemble the planes she’d seen in Chicago. This pilot sat farther back, below the upper wing, in a partially enclosed cockpit. The engine was located forward, giving the machine a sleek, fast appearance.

      Beatrice shaded her eyes. “What is it?”

      “The answer to my prayers.”

      The aeroplane headed straight toward them at low altitude. Beatrice shrieked and clutched at her impossibly flowered hat as the plane zoomed overhead and banked to make a run down the length of the empty field. The grass bent flat under the roar, and the turbulence sent Darcy’s hair swirling. The plane swooped onto the field, bouncing once before mowing a wide swath through the grass.

      “Whooee!” Darcy ran after it, and then, seeing as Beattie was still hunched on the ground, came back. “An aeroplane. Here, in Pearlman. Imagine.” God had sent Darcy’s dream on canvas-covered wings.

      “Tell me it’s gone,” Beatrice whimpered.

      “Of course it’s not gone.” Darcy peeled Beattie’s gloved hands off her ears. “It stopped by old man Baker’s empty barn.” Already, Hendrick Simmons from the automobile garage and Dennis Allington from the train depot raced down the road on their motorbikes, twin trails of dust rising in the dry September air. “I wonder if something’s wrong.”

      “I don’t care, and neither should you.” Beatrice smoothed down her dress. “I thought that horrible thing would kill us.”

      “It wasn’t going to kill us. The pilot knew where he—or she—was going. Imagine! It could be a woman pilot.” Darcy had to meet her somehow.

      The beep of a motorcar horn sent them scurrying to the edge of the road. Frank Devlin, editor of The Pearlman Prognosticator, chugged past in his dusty Model T touring car. That was the answer. The newspaper. She could write a story on the plane and talk the pilot into giving her a ride.

      “I need to talk to the pilot, Beattie.” Darcy squeezed her friend’s hand. “This story will make the front page, and I’m going to be the one to write it. Tell Mum I’ll be late.”

      “We’re already late. Your mother won’t like it. She’ll say your duty is to the Red Cross.”

      “My duty is to the people of Pearlman. Tell her I’ll roll double the bandages tomorrow.” Darcy itched to run. A plane. A pilot. Everything she’d dreamed the past seven years had come directly to her. She had to see it.

      Beatrice clutched her arm. “Don’t do anything foolish. Promise?”

      Darcy pulled away and bounded down the road. “I’m going to ask the pilot to give me a ride.”

      “A ride?” came the cry from behind her. “You’re going into the air in that thing? Stop, stop.” Beattie panted, struggling to run in her hobble skirt and heeled shoes.

      As much as Darcy loved her, Beattie was such a perfect Jane, all frills and lace. She’d faint from this much exertion. Darcy went back to her. “What are you doing? I said I’d meet you at the grange.”

      “You could die,” Beatrice insisted breathlessly, “like that heroine of yours. What’s her name? Harriet Quincy?”

      “Quimby, and it was an accident. The passenger moved suddenly and threw the plane off balance. That’s not going to happen here.”

      The pilot, dressed in knee boots and leather jacket, climbed out of the plane. A man. Too bad.

      “How do you know disaster won’t happen?” Beatrice insisted. “She fell a hundred feet.”

      A thousand, actually, but Darcy didn’t correct her. Though silent now, the plane beckoned to her. The smell of burnt oil hung in the air. A sizeable crowd had gathered around the plane, and opportunity was slipping away. If the pilot had only stopped to fuel, he might be gone within the hour.

      “Sorry, Beattie, but I have to go.”

      “But, your father. He won’t like it,” Beatrice huffed. “What will he say?”

      Darcy knew exactly what Papa would say. No, with a capital N. Respectable young ladies don’t fly aeroplanes.

      But they did. They did.

      “He doesn’t need to know,” Darcy insisted.

      “He’s your father.”

      “I’m a grown woman.” Nothing and no one would keep her from her dream. “And if he doesn’t know, he won’t be hurt. Promise me, Beattie.”

      Across СКАЧАТЬ