Maiden Flight

by Harry Haskell

  Katharine

  The wild, heart-stopping ride I took that never-to-be-forgotten weekend started out tamely enough. I arrived in Oberlin on Thursday for the trustees’ meeting and checked in as usual at the Park Hotel. No sooner had I begun unpacking my bags when the telephone rang. The operator had Harry on the line from Kansas City. He was all at sixes and sevens—some hopelessly twisted story about a letter he had written but had had second thoughts about sending. It wasn’t like him to be so addled. I thought at first that I had touched something deeper than I had intended on the “vidders” situation and that was what had set him off. But then I saw that it was something else altogether—something much, much deeper—and all of a sudden I didn’t know how to talk to him.

  What, I asked myself, could have happened to make Harry feel so differently toward me? I dimly remember saying that I wished we could go on just as we had always been. Then I got the telegram saying that he had mailed an “important letter” and two more by special delivery. And—this was the kicker—he proposed that we spend Sunday morning alone together at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago talking things over! I was with my friend Kate Leonard, having a nice, quiet chat—and just like that my whole world was turned topsy-turvy. There I sat, rooted to the spot, with Kate sitting in my room while I opened and read the telegram about coming to Chicago. With my heart standing still, I tossed it over onto the dresser and said, in answer to Kate’s kindly anxiety, that I might have to leave before I had planned, but that it was nothing serious. I was getting to be a gifted fibber already!

  Telling a little white lie for Kate’s benefit was one thing, but the thought of not being completely straight with Little Brother was more than I could bear. I couldn’t bring myself to go to Chicago to meet Harry when I would have had to do it in an absolutely secret way. Mind you, there was nothing wrong with a pair of old friends meeting like that—but if it had ever come out, Orv simply wouldn’t have understood. He never interfered with what I did, but I always liked to tell him, just as he told me all such things. I knew I couldn’t live with a secret of that kind preying on my mind. Orv didn’t know anything about what Harry and I had been writing to each other, and he would have thought I had been very unwise to do what I had done. Only I didn’t know I was doing what I had done!

  On Friday afternoon, after the trustees’ meeting, Frannie Lord and I popped into Tobin’s drugstore for an ice cream. We had been making small talk for five or ten minutes when suddenly she blurted out, “Katharine, I have been thinking—you will forgive me, won’t you dear—but I have been wondering why you can’t do something about Harry. You and he and Orville belong together some way or other!” Well, I never batted an eye, even though I had already had Harry’s letter telling about the unsent letter—the contents of which I had partly guessed, though it didn’t come till the next morning, but I had had the telegram saying it was coming, and so on. What could I possibly say that wouldn’t give the game away? So I just kissed Frannie to assure her that she hadn’t offended me by speaking so freely.

  Sure enough, all three of Harry’s letters arrived as promised on Saturday morning. I collected them at the front desk of the hotel just as I was about to sit down with Mr. Stetson to have a long talk about Orv’s “situation” with the Smithsonian. Then who should show up but Harry’s missionary sister! Quick as a wink, I stuffed his letters into my pocketbook, where nobody could spot the telltale handwriting, and tried to compose myself. Whereupon Mary proceeded to take a letter out of her handbag—a letter from Harry’s son, who had spent the past year studying abroad. And there we sat, the Prof and I, two most interested people—one of whom was struggling valiantly to keep her thoughts from wandering—listening to an account of young Henry’s adventures in Europe!

  After her reading was over, Mary got up and excused herself, and Mr. Stetson and I were finally free to broach the subject that was on both our minds. Because I wasn’t sure how much Harry had already told him about our friendship, I made a guarded comment about how strange it was that Harry still didn’t seem to be getting settled down, nearly two years after his wife’s death. The Prof replied that he didn’t think it strange in the least—from which I naturally deduced that he knew a good deal more than he was letting on. I was slightly self-conscious to begin with because I knew the letters buried in my handbag were sure to tell why Harry hadn’t settled down. I consider my sitting there calmly with his sister and Mr. Stetson as positively heroic. And all the time there was poor Harry in Kansas City waiting anxiously for a telegram that wasn’t being sent!

  Before I got a chance to call the Western Union, I had another cable from Harry suggesting that he spend part of the following week with me in Dayton. This was a new fly in the ointment. Quick thinking was clearly in order. Orv, I knew, was due to receive an honorary degree that week from the University of Pennsylvania. He planned to leave for Philadelphia on Tuesday for Wednesday, the day of the award ceremony. From there he would go on to Washington for a meeting and return home Friday morning. That gave us our window of opportunity. To be absolutely safe, I told Harry to come to Dayton Tuesday evening and stay only through Wednesday. It wasn’t like me to keep things from Orv, but I had no choice. I wouldn’t for anything have worried him so just then. I was a bit unsettled myself, I fear!

  The worst was Sunday morning, when I came in from commencement exercises and found that heartbreaking telegram from Harry—“It’s all right. Please don’t worry,” and so on. Of course it wasn’t all right, and of course I would worry. So I sent an answer and again asked him to come—but I didn’t know myself to what I had asked him to come. I felt I had done something horribly wrong in letting the situation get out of hand. I had given Harry so much advice about not getting involved in entanglements that I, in my superior wisdom, thought he wasn’t quite ready to go through with. Why hadn’t somebody given me a little advice? Everything I had tried to be and do my whole life seemed to be tumbling down around me. I felt doubly to blame because I couldn’t change my feeling for Harry—but it would have been even worse if I could!

  It was all so unreal, like a waking nightmare. I scarcely recognized the person who was walking around Oberlin in my shoes. Harry seemed almost like a stranger to me as well. All of a sudden he had become a different person, with this overwhelming feeling for me that I hadn’t suspected. That curious sense of unreality about him was one of the most paralyzing things about the whole experience. Not until I got back home Monday night and had a chance to take a good long look at his photograph in the privacy of my own room did he become his old familiar self again. I could have shouted for joy! There he was, gazing calmly at me out of the picture frame, the same as he had always been. Out of my wild desperation, out of all the fog and commotion of the past few days, I suddenly found a certain measure of clearness and peace. I was myself again too—for a brief spell, at least.

  Orville

  Kate generally was dog tired when she got back from one of her trustees’ meetings. This time, though, she seemed uncommonly listless and fidgety. I couldn’t put my finger on the problem—she just couldn’t settle down. Naturally, I assumed it was the Smithsonian’s latest piece of chicanery that had upset her. They had offered another half-baked proposal for changing the label on the Langley machine without coming straight out and admitting that it was physically incapable of ever getting off the ground. That so-called compromise was unacceptable to me, of course, and I needed Katharine’s advice on a statement to give out to the newspapers. Then there was the article the editor of Liberty magazine had written about me, which I had asked him to submit for her approval. What with one thing and another, it was close to midnight by the time we went up to bed.

  First thing the next morning, while we were sitting at breakfast, Carrie came into the kitchen and said the Western Union was on the line with a telegram for Katharine. She got up and went into the telephone closet to take the call. When she got back, she announced casually that Harry would be coming the next night.

/>   “He is?” I said. “How does that happen?”

  “Going east,” she said.

  “Going to Washington?” I asked, thinking I might arrange to meet him there.

  “No,” Katharine answered, a little too eagerly, I thought. “New York.”

  My curiosity was piqued. Still, Harry did do a good deal of traveling in connection with his newspaper work, and he had gotten into the habit every so often of dropping in to see us on short notice. Despite Kate’s peculiar behavior, there was nothing out of the ordinary about his visit as far as I could tell. I was about to leave for Philadelphia and wouldn’t be home until the end of the week. So I said I was sorry I couldn’t stay to greet our guest and went back to reading the morning paper.

  It seems I wasn’t quite myself that day either. Upon boarding the afternoon train, I was chagrined to discover that I had come away from home without my tickets or my wallet. I didn’t even know who was supposed to meet me in Philadelphia. There was nothing to be done but get off at Xenia and turn back with my tail between my legs. I caught the next train back to Dayton and walked over to my office on North Broadway to finish up some work. From there I rang up our neighbors, the McCormicks, and they came to pick me up in their motorcar.

  Carrie had gone home for the day, and the refrigerator was empty. So Frank and Anne roused Katharine, who was upstairs napping, and the four of us headed out for a bite to eat. When we returned, the telephone was ringing off the hook, and Kate dashed down the hall to answer it. It was the Western Union again—two telegrams in one day!—this time with the message that Harry had postponed his trip and wouldn’t be coming the next day after all. To my surprise, Swes seemed more relieved than disappointed by the news. The thought crossed my mind that she had been playing me for a fool all day long. But it was such a preposterous idea that I put it out of my head.

  In any case, I had more pressing matters to deal with, what with the Smithsonian situation and the latest flap over the flying machine being sent out of the country. Harry would have been the least of my worries, even if I had realized what he and Kate were up to. A week or so later I was called to Washington for a meeting, and this time Swes took care to remind me to check my pockets. When I got back to Dayton, who should I find waiting for me but her future husband!

  Katharine

  Orv and I were at breakfast when the Western Union rang with Harry’s first telegram. It said if I still thought it “wise”—or some such foolish thing—he could come to Dayton the next night at six. As soon as Orv was safely out of the house, I wired back that I did want him to come. I dropped Little Brother off at the train station at three o’clock and came home to lie down—only to be awakened around five-thirty by a phone call from Anne McCormick. She told me Orv hadn’t gone to Philadelphia after all and was at his office waiting to be picked up. I was so scared I couldn’t say anything but “Hasn’t gone? Hasn’t gone?” I nearly had a fit—as soon as I was sure Orv was all right—for then I began to think how my one chance to talk to Harry was all knocked up.

  My first thought was to tell him that Orv hadn’t gone so he wouldn’t come all the way to Dayton for only the short talks we could get in between times. Before Orv and Frank came, the telephone rang again and Anne answered. “Western Union for you,” she called out. That was the message that said something—I was too excited to hear straight—about some other message being reported undelivered and saying Harry would come the next night. As soon as I could, I got to the telephone and called the Western Union. No answer. Called again. No answer. Called again. No answer. Then I tried the Postal. I got hold of a blockhead—man, of course!—who couldn’t understand anything. Finally I got the message through that Orv had missed his train—but I told Harry to come anyway if he would and that we could manage somehow.

  Talk about getting our wires crossed! It’s a marvel that Harry made any sense of those messages. I was so worn down I couldn’t say anything sensible to save my soul. To cap it off, later that night, after we got home from dinner with the McCormicks, there was another call from the Western Union saying that Harry wouldn’t be stopping in Dayton. So as casually as I could I told Orv he wasn’t coming after all. I felt as if Little Brother could see right through me in my new role of creative artist. Harry dear, the lies I told for you that day ought to be on your conscience. I regret to say they are not on mine!

  Now that the terrible strain of the last few hours had been lifted, I wanted to laugh out loud. And yet I couldn’t help feeling it was God’s judgment on us that Orv had missed that train. Truly, I never spent such a disturbed day in my life, except when someone was dangerously ill. Altogether, my world was in a state of great disquiet and uneasiness. It wasn’t just that I had begun to feel differently; I realized that I couldn’t keep from letting Harry know it any longer. I couldn’t tell him anything of what was inside me, but I had to try because it was so awful to let him think anything different from what I really felt—always s’posing I knew what I felt myself!

  Isn’t it funny trying to feel your feelings? What slippery, ill-mannered things they are! Just as I get them well settled, in a Punch and Judy box, so to speak, something touches a spring and up they jump. For years I had wanted to give Harry all the affection and sympathy I could muster, but I worried over the effect of having his feelings stirred up so. Where was that peaceful and splendid future I was trying to hold out to him? All I could tell him truthfully was that I had found something in my heart that might be love. I wasn’t even sure what love was. How could I tell where affection left off and love began? The thought of his loving me or my loving him was overwhelming. “Please, Harry,” I wanted to cry out, “don’t care so much—and please do!”

  I wasn’t jealous of Harry’s friendships with other women—or if it was jealousy at the bottom of my concern, I didn’t know it. I think he more nearly diagnosed my feelings when he told Mr. Stetson that he appealed to my “mothering instincts.” I have a mighty big lot of those, to be sure! Back of everything was the feeling that I couldn’t fail Harry when he needed me most, any more than I could fail Orv. I was in such a tight box and saw no way out. I couldn’t even promise Harry that I would dare the great adventure anyway, if it came to that. When I was young the girls always laughed at me because I was so enthusiastic about other people getting married but was so thankful in each individual case that I was not the one involved. Now things looked very different—and it scared me so!

  As a rule I despise playing safe—nothing risked, nothing worth having won, I always say. My experience has not been such that I take much stock in the Freudian theory of suppressed desires. I believe William James is nearer the truth in saying that feeling grows with expression. I am sure it has been so in my life. I don’t mean that I have been able to control my feeling always, but I have found that unexpressed feeling usually gets weaker, especially if I don’t act on the impulse. If it hadn’t been for Orv, it wouldn’t have taken me one second to know what to do! I’d have run the risk of finding that I had affection instead of love for Harry. There is always a possibility of unhappiness in every friendship, of course, but not enough to justify one in avoiding every possible chance. Each one knows his own heart, which no one else can know.

  I believe one could live on the kind of feeling I had—and have—for Harry. I was proud of his love because it was a beautiful love, kept in his heart so many years but not allowed to prevent him from doing and being what he ought to do and be. It would have been a horrid, ugly thing if he had not treated it as he did. While I teased him by telling him he was good when he wanted me to tell him I loved him, still that was a fundamental part of all my feeling for him. It was because I saw him doing everything he ought to do always that I wanted to get in and help him. Of course, I didn’t know I was getting in quite so deep—but never mind!

  Truly, Harry gave me a great shock by telling me he had loved me from those far-off days in Oberlin. He had always been a special person to me, but only as an especially interesting friend
. I had no idea that he had any “thoughts” about me. If I had for one moment suspected his feeling for me, I wouldn’t have felt free to write to him as I did after Isabel died. I wouldn’t have dared to do it even if I could have gotten rid of my pesky conscience. I would have thought I was just making everything more difficult for him. There are half a dozen reasons why I wouldn’t have added fuel to the fire if I had known there was even a spark there. I couldn’t bear to think I had worked my way into his heart when he was in trouble and needed support and sympathy. I despise that. It is one of the commonest tricks of my sect.

  I always thought I was not an upsetting person. That was one reason why I allowed myself to be rather queer and unconventional. I fancied I could be as good friends as I wanted to be with men like Harry and Stef without involving a thing but common interests. Ha! I’ve learned my lesson! Harry was so dear and I had such a tender feeling about him, and still I had to be careful not to say anything I couldn’t stand by later. I wasn’t at all sure I really loved him, and yet I wanted desperately to tell him I loved him—if I did! Only one thing was absolutely clear to me: it was too late to go on a strictly “pre-explosion” program anymore. We were out of danger of the hazards of friendship and now had to consider the hazards of love.

  How tortured I was! I was sure almost everyone would think it right for me to leave Orv, when I knew it wasn’t. Harry kept insisting that I had the same rights to satisfy my own heart that Orv would have had, and that everybody would have thought it all right if he had married without considering me. But I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I left Orv in the lurch. We had been more to each other than many married couples. After Will died, he built Hawthorn Hill with the idea of my being there with him just as much as any husband builds a home for his wife. Everything was planned for the future with the idea that we would be together always. The very suggestion that I could ever leave him drove me nearly wild.