After a week or so of the new atmosphere of the tiny library she summed
up her life as follows, and was able to state that the routine of her
days never varied: She rose at seven and dressed. George’s train went
at eight, and she sat with him at table through a breakfast of hot
bread, meat, potatoes and coffee. Then her husband put on his coat
and hat and took his leave without even bidding her good-by. She felt
lonely when the butcher and the grocer had gone. When she had given her
directions to Eliza, it was never more than ten o’clock. In days past
she had been used to walk out to the library and get a book, or wander
into a neighbor’s “and sit a while,” but of late there commenced from
the early morning a period of rocking and reading in the library. In
the evening George returned from New York only in time to come to the
table without the formality of washing his hands.
These were her interests. Too timid to go to Town Club meetings, too
simple-minded to be of any great importance in the different Slocum
circles, she kept to herself. Her sole interest would naturally be her
husband; him she saw from seven P. M. to seven A. M.; or, rather, she
slept beside him during these hours--for directly after dinner he would
throw himself down on the lounge in his library and smoke and read till
at nine o’clock she roused him and sent him to bed in their common
bedroom, in their common bed.
George, tired and devitalized by his strenuous life, absorbed by his
own and his employer’s affairs, fell asleep at once. But his companion,
more alive than she knew, would lie awake until long past midnight, her
body unfatigued, her mind restless, her wakeful eyes staring into the
dark which had for her no emotion and no mystery.
One afternoon she found she had read through a whole book without
stopping, and for the first time in her life had been absorbed. She got
up and turned off the steam heat and opened the window.
“It must be ninety here with these radiators! You either freeze or
stew.”
The air came in bluffly, its unfriendly edges met her cheeks; before
they could be refreshed she was cold in her thin muslin shirt-waist.
She had risen in expression of a sudden need of air, a sudden sense of
suffocation, but she thought only that she was “nervous,” and would
go out and take a walk. A little later, a golf cape over a short
coat of material known as “covert”--short-skirted, a gray felt hat on
her head--Mrs. George Warrener was seen by her neighbors to be going
“uptown.”
Not until she had left the village, keeping steady pace up the hill
toward the Golf Club, did she feel that she had “let off steam.” The
quick motion set free the tension of her nerves, and she almost forgot
the acute sensation that drove her from the house. At the golf links
she approached the course and stood by the fence, near to one of the
last bunkers.
The field was sparsely dotted with the golfers. A red dash in the
distance, a green dash, indicated the players who bent in bright
sweaters over their sticks. Two men came across the ground close to
her--strangers--she saw that instantly, and regarded them with the
curiosity of a resident. The man who was playing, his club swung over
his shoulder, his driver in his hand, was short and stout, with smooth,
red cheeks and bright eyes under shaggy brows. His shoes were large and
heavy, his golf stockings thick, and his fustian clothes rough and well
made. His companion, a younger man in a loose-sleeved overcoat, had a
soft felt hat on his head and a lighted cigar in his hand. The older
man said to him, laughing:
“There you are, old man! If you’re really caddying for me, you’ll have
to ferret the ball out of that ditch by the fence. I saw it roll down.”
The other lazily nodded, took a puff at his cigar and came over in the
direction indicated. Mrs. Warrener leaned on the fence watching the
gentleman, who poked about in the grass with his cane.
“Let me give you a fresh ball out of my pocket; I’ve got three left,”
he called.
The older man laughed. “Oh, go on, look for it; it’s right under your
nose. You’ve given me a ‘fresh ball out of your pocket’ every time one
has rolled fifteen yards!”
Mrs. Warrener stooped down; she saw the golf ball on the other side of
the fence. She put her hand under through the railing and picked it up;
she handed it to the gentleman.
“I think this is your ball.”
He took it with a swift, quick look at her, lifted his hat with cane
and cigar in the same hand and thanked her. Taking the ball, he
returned to his friend.
Mrs. Warrener watched the older gentleman prepare to drive--then the
two men follow the direction indicated by the sharp, momentary flight
of the little white ball, the golfer tripping briskly along, the other
dark figure following slowly. She had never seen either of them before;
who were they? The distant rattle of an incoming train--the one before
her husband’s--warned her of the time. She would barely reach home
before George came in. “Although,” she reflected, “I may just as well
be late, for all _he_ will notice, he is so tired, anyway.”
She walked, nevertheless, mechanically toward home, so slowly that when
she reached the village street George’s train had been in some time.
At this time of night a little crowd was gathered, as a rule, for the
trolley, and Mrs. Warrener decided to take the car and anticipate her
husband’s arrival by several minutes.
While she stood with the others who waited, the strangers of the Golf
Club joined the crowd. As the car appeared the gentleman in the black
coat helped her in and sat opposite her. When he threw back his coat
to get out his fare from his pocket, she observed that he wore a gray
waistcoat of soft material--it looked as though it were “knit,” she
thought, or “worked”--a bright red tie and--unusual elegance among the
men of Slocum--gloves--gray gloves, as soft in color as his waistcoat.
Very much struck by his dress, she ventured, with a certain timidity,
to look him in the face. The vivid color of his cravat made him seem
very dark; all she could observe was a dark face, dark mustache and
eyes, for he was looking at her, and she met his eyes directly. Their
interested curiosity rendered her uncomfortable, and she removed her
glance, which traveled down the line of colorless passengers, tired men
in dusty, careless dress; unbrushed derbys, linen far from immaculate,
gloveless hands. Each man had his bunch of evening papers, some carried
parcels from the city for suburban use. A woman she knew, an inveterate
shopper, nodded brightly to her.
“Been in New York all day. Just too tired. Never saw such a crowd in
the stores; why, I thought I never _would_ get waited on. Say----”
There was a vacant seat by Mrs. Warrener, and the lady came over and
took it, continuing a description of bargains, and a tirade against
crowds. “Been up this week, Gert?”
“No, I hardly ever go in.”
“Well, it’s a change, but I always say when we get to Slocum I’m glad I
don’t live in New York, it’s so wearing. Been up to the Golf Club?”
“Yes, but not to play.”
The conversationalist was conscious of a change in her well-known
neighbor’s tone, an accent, just what it was she could not imagine, but
it was sufficiently marked to give her food for thought.
As Mrs. Warrener left the car at her corner, Mrs. Turnbull puzzled over
her. Perhaps she was offended with her? But she had no reason for such
an idea! Perhaps George Warrener was losing money? As money to the
unsentimental, commercial American mind is the source of all bliss and
the cause of all unhappiness, the slide down which all spirits fall and
the height to which they rise, she reached a sad conclusion in this,
and dropped her wonderings.
* * * * *
Warrener and his wife arrived at the same moment on the steps of their
two-story frame house.
“Well!” he said. He took out his latchkey and entered the door. The
hall was hot and full of the smell of roasting meat and soup herbs. The
dinner puffed out to meet the diners with damp, pungent warmth. George
put his batch of papers down on the hall stand.
“Well,” he repeated, absently, took off his dusty derby, hung it up and
got out of his overcoat.
He looked for no response to his greeting. Mrs. Warrener understood
this, and made none.
Warrener went upstairs to his study.
“Gracious, Gert, some one’s left the window open in my den! It’s like
ice here!”
“It’ll get hot enough. Turn on the steam.”
Mrs. Warrener followed her husband upstairs into the cold little room.
The smell of stale smoke seemed to have frozen on the air, but over
it the smell of the cigar the gentleman had smoked, a peculiar aroma,
as new to her, as delicious, as would have been a priceless perfume,
came to her nostrils. She went to her chair where she had sat for hours
reading, and picked up her book, which she kept in her hand.
“What have you been doing all day, Gert?” he asked at dinner, after he
had eaten his tepid soup and drunk an entire glass of ice water.
“Oh, I don’t know--nothing much.”
“Nothin’ doin’? Well, you are in luck! I feel as if something was doin’
in every inch of my body. I’m tired out. Harkweather kept the clerks
down to-night--they won’t get out before nine o’clock; but I said ‘not
tonight for me. I’m goin’ home.’ And I’m goin’ right to bed. I guess
I’ll sleep twelve hours, all right!”
As they went upstairs, he first and she slowly following, she suggested:
“How would you like me to sleep in the spare room, if you’re so tired?”
“Why?” he asked, jocularly. “Do I snore so?”
“Yes, but that’s not it. It may feel good to have the whole bed to
yourself.”
“Well, I believe it would.”
In the spare room, close to the springs, on a narrow, single bed, Mrs.
Warrener crept alone. She drew the adjusting electric light close to
her and took her book up again to re-read, her elbow in the pillow and
her cheek on her hand. She followed the printed lines with dawning
interest on her face, and a growing intelligence, until all of a
sudden the dead stillness of the hour and time struck her. The fireless
room--for there was no steam heat in it--gave her a chill. She put out
the light and drew the coverlet about her and settled down to sleep.