Brecky made an effort to be light, careless, superior. He whistled as he
went upstairs to the two rooms they used on the floor above--one as a
bedroom, the other as a sort of office, where Brecky “saw people.” He
had plenty of material to occupy himself with here--letters and
catalogues and estimates and so on. A little gas stove was burning in
one corner, and the room was as neat, cheerful, and comfortable as it
could be made by Kathleen’s benevolent genius.
He had scarcely set foot over the threshold before a pang of remorse
assailed him. Wherever his glance fell, there was something to speak of
Kathleen and her care for him. He was by no means imaginative, but he
was suddenly able to imagine his young wife alone all day in this huge,
cold place. He began to have some idea of what her life must be.
“By gosh!” he thought. “After all, I don’t know that I blame the poor
girl for landing on me!”
And all at once the pathos of the thing overcame him--that poor little
bit of a thing flying out at him like that--at him, who could have
picked her up and shaken her like a kitten. He shouldn’t have teased
her. After all, there was more to her than her cooking. He hadn’t fallen
in love with her for that.
His impulse was to hurry downstairs and make it up; but he didn’t see
how one could make up a quarrel with a woman without giving her a
present. It wasn’t decent. Moreover, it would be too difficult. A
present relieved a man from the necessity of making any sort of
explanation, or of talking at all. You give the present, with a kiss,
and it’s done.
He walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, haunted by
the image of Kathleen angry and Kathleen gay. The more he reflected, the
more mysterious and oppressive was his sense of guilt, the more contrite
and tender his heart. In the end he came to a decision extraordinary in
one so stiff-necked. He resolved to go downstairs and say, quite
frankly, that he was sorry, and that he loved her and didn’t care
whether she cooked or not.
The house seemed blacker and colder than ever as he descended the
stairs. He wondered if she was crying in there, or scornfully washing
the dishes. He unlocked the door, opened it, and entered.
He couldn’t see her at all. He stared about the huge kitchen, which was
well lighted. There were the dishes, just as he had last seen them, but
no human being. Kathleen had gone!
He couldn’t believe it at first. She couldn’t have got out by the
windows, for the heavy shutters were locked on the outside. There was no
possible means of egress from that room except an incredible one; and
yet, as she wasn’t in the room, she must have got out that way. She must
have gone down the flight of rickety wooden steps and through the
cellar.
She had always been in mortal fear of the cellar, because there were
rats in it. Brecky had always brought up the coal for her when she
wanted some. In order to pass through it at night, she must have been in
a desperate mood, he thought.
He was more disturbed than he cared to admit. Where could the girl go,
alone, on a night like this, with a regular hurricane blowing? There
was nothing for it but to put on his cap and overcoat and go in search
of her.
The wrath of a woman had in it something peculiarly alarming and
mysterious for Brecky. He felt that Kathleen was capable of the most
amazing deeds, that she was not bound by any of his rules or scruples.
He couldn’t imagine what she would do. He was completely lost.
He opened the front door and stepped out into the tumultuous night.
Fortunately there was only one direction in which to go, unless one
wished to walk into the sea, and he didn’t think that even an enraged
wife would do that. There was nothing suicidal about Kathleen, anyhow.
She was too sane, too solid, too honestly fond of life.
He was also aware that she was well able to withstand this weather.
Where he could go, sturdy as he was, she could go, too. She was vigorous
and resolute.
The wind was at his back now. He went with fierce impetus along the
empty streets, and he went, inevitably, to the railway station. He
entered the warm little waiting room, where a white-bearded agent dozed
in his ticket booth.
The man looked up and nodded at Brecky.
“Too late!” he said. “She’s gone!”
This might mean either a train or a wife.
“Ten minutes ago,” the agent went on, full of the secret triumph he
always felt at the spectacle of a thwarted traveler. “You’ll have to
wait two hours, and mebbe more.”
Brecky sat down near the stove and set to work to frame a question which
should in no way compromise his wife. He wished to seem aware of all her
doings. He couldn’t ask whether she had been at the station; but the
agent assisted him.
“Your missus would ’a’ lost the nine o’clock train herself, if it hadn’t
’a’ been near half an hour late.”
“I’m glad she caught it, anyway,” replied Brecky. “It’s a case of
serious illness. I told her to hurry along, and I’d follow as soon as I
could.”
“Your phone out of order?” asked the agent.
“Yes,” said the quick-witted Brecky. “Did she telephone here?”
“Yep--said to meet the train when it got to the station.”
“I wonder who she got on the phone!” said Brecky. “Probably her aunt or
her cousin.”
Splendid improvisation, for Kathleen hadn’t a single relative in the
city, to his knowledge!
“It just happens I heard the name,” said the agent. “‘Charley,’ she
says, ‘I’m coming in unexpected, and you must come and meet me!’”
“I didn’t know Charley was in New York,” said Brecky thoughtfully.
“She didn’t phone New York,” said the agent. “I just happened to hear.
It was New Chelsea.”
“I see!” said Brecky.