They met at the Marlowe garage. When Mary Louise saw Claybrook and Joe
Hooper standing together in absorbed conversation, leaning each with
one foot propped on the running board of a big shiny new car in the
display room, she suddenly knew she had no business there. She saw
them through the big plate-glass window as she came along. It would be
hard to make her arrival seem casual. And when Joe Hooper raised his
head as she entered the doorway--he was wearing that gaudy suit--she
was confused.
But he did not seem to notice and greeted her cordially. He was
looking a bit thin, with a high colour and a restless snap in his
eyes. There was an alertness about him that was new to her and a
something in his manner that was quite different. She stole a look at
him while he and Claybrook were discussing lubrication and wondered in
what way he had changed. A sureness? A steadiness? A bit of reserve
that sat well upon him? All of these, surely. She had never seen him
show to better advantage. Once he turned to her and asked her opinion
about the leather. There was an air of quiet deference in the way he
put the question. It was a trivial question and she was thinking of
the impersonal note in his tone, just as though she might have been a
total stranger to whom he owed courtesy, and she was wishing he had
asked her something about herself. Her uneasiness about the
unconventionality of her being there vanished, so completely were the
two men absorbed in technical discussion. She noted the contrast:
Claybrook rather beefy and a bit too red of face; Joe, on the other
hand, quite slim and taut. His new clothes fitted him better; he had
lost that raw-boned look.
Joe asked her if she would not like to go for a ride.
She looked up into his eyes from the chair which he had got for her
and felt a childish pleasure, just as though he had shown her a
personal attention.
"I'd love to," she said.
They waited at the curb for the demonstrating car to be brought around
and she had a chance to ask him how things were at home.
"I haven't been back this summer," he replied, and looked away.
Once, when she and Claybrook were standing a little apart, she caught
Joe looking at them, she imagined, under lowered brows, and she had an
impulse to go to him and tell him that she was bringing him this
business, putting in a word for him. She did not hear what Claybrook
was saying to her at all. And then the car came rolling up and
stopped, and her chance was gone.
She and Claybrook sat down in the back seat together, while Joe took
the wheel. In about thirty minutes they were climbing a steep hill
that lead out of Fenimore Park to one of the back lanes.
"Takes the grade all right," commented Claybrook to her, and she
wished that he would not continue to include her in the discussion.
She strove to counteract the impression that might be formed by
calling attention to the clouds that were gathering in the southwest.
Dark and sombre they came rolling, like great billows of smoke,
although the green of the park meadows was flooded with golden
sunlight. At the crest of the hill Joe partly turned in his seat and
with one arm thrown along the back of it pointed to the outline of a
massive stone bridge that was being built across the creek far below
them. The greenish brown blended subtly with the golden-green shadows
of the trees and the dark pools of water beneath.
"New bridge," he said. "Man that's buildin' it knows a thing or two
about colour tones."
Mary Louise bent eagerly forward to look. It seemed as though he were
speaking directly to her. Claybrook remained leaning back in the
corner. They turned a curve and the bridge passed out of view below.
They gained the macadam of the lane that led out from the park gate
into the country. Claybrook turned and asked her how she liked the
car. His low, direct tone and intent gaze made her uncomfortable, made
her nerves ruffle up in a most irritating manner. But she controlled
herself and answered lightly, "Oh, ever so much."
He looked as though he might say something more, but changed his mind
and sank back against the cushions. For a time they rode on in
silence. Claybrook had been strangely quiet ever since they had left
the garage. She could feel him watching her and she tried not to
notice it. So absorbed was she in trying to appear unconcerned that
she did not see the approach of the storm; in fact, there was a
supercharge of restraint on all three of them, and it startlingly
broke upon them in a clap of thunder that sounded as if it had smashed
a tree not fifty feet away.
Joe stopped the car and scrambled back into the tonneau to adjust the
side curtains. He murmured an apology as he brushed against her--just
like a stranger. Quite sharply she felt the change that had come over
their relations. When everything had been adjusted he resumed his seat
and called over his shoulder, "Guess we had better go back, hadn't we?
I'm sorry this rain had to come and spoil things."
They turned slowly around in the narrow road and when they again
faced the west, the rain came beating furiously down against the
wind-shield so that the road ahead was barely visible. Never had she
seen such blinding sheets of water. It tore at the roof, it whipped
about the curtains, it threatened to engulf them all in a torrential
flood. The car was moving slowly forward--she could see Joe's outline
bent slightly over the wheel--and in spite of his care the rear wheels
would slew gently from side to side. As she peered ahead she could see
a yellow flood of water rushing down the road before them so that it
did not look like a road at all but like an angry, muddy stream upon
which they were floating. Once Claybrook leaned forward, his eyes
narrowing. He had been as silent as a mummy.
"Got any chains?" he asked suddenly.
"Think I have," replied Joe. "Under the seat."
"Better put 'em on, don't you think?"
Mary Louise started. "Oh, John! In this rain?"
"Guess I had at that," interposed Joe quickly.
He stopped the car and lifted the cushion on which he was sitting.
Directly he pulled forth a long, tangled confusion of links, opened
the door, and stepped forth. As he thrust out his head Mary Louise
called:
"Haven't you any coat?" and his answer came back cheerily from the
outside, "Never mind me. It'll all come out in the wash."
She looked at Claybrook reproachfully. He sat stolidly in the corner
but there was a look of discomfort in his face.
"Don't want us to slide off one of these hills into the creek, do
you?"
And she felt there was nothing more she could say.
They sat in awkward silence, listening to the downpour and the wind.
The thunder crashed incessantly and the air was alive with the
lightning playing about them in livid flares. They could feel one side
of the car lift slightly as Joe adjusted the chain, and then the other
side; could dimly hear him struggling with the wheel jack. It seemed
criminal to be exposed to such a rain. A wave of cold resentment
against Claybrook came over her and she sat staring straight in front
of her, lips tightly compressed, waiting.
It seemed an interminable time; in reality, in about ten minutes Joe's
head appeared at the door of the car and he climbed stiffly in.
Drenched he was from top to toe. The water streaked down his checks in
little streams; his clothes flapped and clung to him as though he had
been flung into the river; his cap was a sodden, pulpy mass. But he
chuckled as he slid over in behind the wheel.
"Guess I'll remember to bring my coat along next time."
She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder but she sat in stony
silence. And she noticed that he no longer drove with the same care as
before. She saw that he was giving little involuntary shivers,
watched the water drip with silent monotony from his cap on to the
back of the seat, making a slick, shiny spot there.
And then Claybrook broke the silence. "How will you split commission
with me if I take one of these cars?" He spoke heartily, as though he
wished to be friendly and cheerful.
Joe made no reply for a moment and when he did, his voice trembled
just a little. "We're not allowed to make that kind of a deal."
"Oh, I know that, and all that sort of thing. But they all _do_, just
the same." He reached over and gave Mary Louise a little shove on the
elbow, from which she recoiled.
Joe made no further reply; they waited for what he might say. And
directly Claybrook tried again:
"And how about my old car? Take that in, I suppose?"
"We'll take it and do the best we can to sell it for you," said Joe,
without looking back. The water still dripped from his cap on to the
cushion.
"Hum," muttered Claybrook, "Independent." And louder: "Two or three
other concerns will allow me good money on my car."
Joe made no reply.
When they arrived at the garage again, the rain had about stopped and
they drove in at the main entrance back into the general storage room.
Joe stood holding the tonneau door open for them, a ludicrous object
in his bedraggled clothes. He made no effort to assist Mary Louise but
stood there holding the door with an abstracted look on his face. All
the dash, all the sleekness was out of him. They both thanked him and
then Claybrook led the way to his own car which someone had brought in
out of the rain.
He turned to Joe once more--"I'll see you later"--thanked him again,
and started his motor.
Mary Louise satisfied herself with waving her hand to him as they
started. His aloofness forbade her to do anything more, though she
would have liked to go to him and tell him how sorry she was and to be
sure and hurry and put on some dry clothes. But she didn't and she saw
him standing in the centre of the passage, a forlorn figure. It struck
her as they rolled out on to the street that he had made no effort
whatever to sell the car.
"Cold-blooded crowd," broke out Claybrook at length as they hurried
on.
"I do hope he won't be sick," she replied.
He grunted. "In the army, wasn't he? Guess he can stand a little
water. Used to worse than that."
And after apparently waiting for her to break the silence, he again
ventured,
"I like the car. Think I'll have to see if I can't make some sort of
deal with them. They'll probably come down a little off their perch."
His tone seemed to invite her opinion, but she offered none.
They came into the stiff little parlour lobby of Mary Louise's
apartment. It was quite dark as they got out of the automobile, and
the stuffy room was dimly lit by a few feeble incandescent lamps in
loose-jointed and rather forlorn gilt wall brackets. They made their
way over to the elevator. The lobby was empty; even the blonde was
absent from her post.
As they passed the faded plush divan Claybrook laid a detaining hand
on her arm: "Sit down here a minute. I want to talk to you." His voice
sounded rather gentle and subdued.
She turned and looked at him, wondering, and then obeyed.
"Listen," he began, and laid his hand quietly on hers. "Don't get sore
at me because I was the cause of your friend's getting wet. It won't
hurt him--just a little clothes-pressing bill--and I'd much rather he
had that than for that car to slide off the cliff--especially when you
were in it."
She felt somewhat mollified. "Was that what you wanted to say to me?"
She looked at his face and saw there an odd expression--a sort of
dogged shamefacedness.
"No. I was just getting to it." He was silent a moment, staring at his
foot. Suddenly he looked up at her--she had withdrawn her hand.
"When," he began, "when are we going to call this thing a game?"
"I don't understand what you mean."
He halted. "Well," he said. "How--when are you going to marry me?" He
was looking into her face with that same queer, stubborn expression.
Her heart stopped momentarily. "Why," she faltered, "I hadn't thought
of it."
They sat there in the hushed lobby as remote from the world as though
shipwrecked on a desert island. It was Mary Louise who now looked at
the floor. She could feel Claybrook's eyes upon her. He was waiting
for her to speak, but she could not collect her thoughts. It had come
upon her baldly, without preparation. She scarcely realized the import
of his words.
"Well," he was saying, "think of it now."
Another pause.
She raised her eyes and looked at him squarely in spite of the
trembling in her limbs. His face loomed big and blank before her,
though his voice was very kind.
"I don't know," she heard herself saying. "You--I--it's come on me
rather quickly."
For a moment he made no reply. A street car thundered past and made
the windows rattle.
"Well, you're going to, aren't you? When?"
She could not trust herself to look at him. Again he waited on her
words. She could feel him edging a hit nearer.
"I don't know." The words choked in her throat. She felt cornered,
hemmed in. She could not clear the tumult in her brain. A short time
before she had felt tremendously irritated at him. Now she did not
know how she felt. He was hammering at her with his insistence.
"That can't be," he broke in on her confusion. "I'm not a stranger,
you know. You've known me for over a year and, I think, seen enough of
me to know what sort I am. We are not a couple of kids just out of
school." His voice broke in a ridiculous quaver that somehow tempted
her to laugh hysterically, but he mastered it and went on: "When shall
it be? Next month? I'll buy that big car and we'll drive to
California."
He was groping for her hand.
"I don't know," she said again. "I can't think. Can't we let things
run on as they are?" She ventured a look at him, appealingly.
He drew away just a little and she could see a grim little line
gathering about his mouth and a frown about his eyes.
"I don't see any use in waiting to make up your mind. That's not the
way _I_ do business. What is it?" He went on quietly and firmly, "Yes
or no?" and then more gently, "I think you can see I am willing to do
things for you. It hasn't been one-sided, has it?"
His words crystallized the turbulence in her mind. She was suddenly
sure of herself. She looked up quickly. She could see the little folds
of flesh about his collar, the fine little purplish lines in his
cheeks, could hear his thick breathing, and yet his eyes were looking
steadily and gravely into hers.
"You're right," she said. "There's no use waiting. I'm sorry. I
can't."
Something faded from his face. He looked at her fixedly for a moment
and then rose to his feet. "I wonder if you've fooled yourself as
thoroughly as you have me," he said.
She made no reply, though she cringed slightly at the inference, and
sat there watching him.
He lifted his shoulders and let them sink heavily, and then he cast a
look about the deserted lobby. Then he turned to her again and
imperceptibly inclined his head. He did not offer his hand.
"Good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye," she echoed, her lips barely moving.
She watched his broad, stolid back move slowly across the room, saw
him pause for a moment at the door and then plunge resolutely through
it, and then she was alone. Not a sound came to her ears. The desk by
the switchboard was deserted. A bracket lamp on the wall opposite was
crooked; one of the crystal pendants beneath it was broken short off.
Someone had dropped a burnt match on the floor in front of the desk
and it lay there in mute sacrilege. All at once the silence seemed
fraught with a tumult of hateful suggestions, and, without ringing for
the elevator, she sprang to her feet, rushed for the steps, and fled
up to her room.
She switched on the light and stood for a moment by the table
fingering an ivory paper cutter. Then she went to the window and
peered out. Not a sound came to her, not a single, friendly sound.
Below her the leafy branches stretched out, inert, indifferent; and
below them, darkness.
"And this is the man," she thought, "from whom I have borrowed all
that money."
PART III
BLOOMFIELD
CHAPTER XVII
Fate smiled. An itinerant Swiss became interested in the tea room.
There were a few days of sharp bargaining and on October the
fourteenth it was sold to him. The price just barely covered the
indebtedness. Mary Louise made haste to send Claybrook a check for the
fifteen hundred dollars plus the interest. Two days later she got the
notes through the mail with no comment and she tremblingly tore them
into bits and scattered the bits from her window. Then she went to the
bank and took up the note for the six hundred dollars she had
originally borrowed. It left her nothing, but she was free. She had
lived the summer and was where she had started. A little wan, feeling
a little empty, she caught the train for Bloomfield. All during the
trip she gazed from the window, dizzily conscious of the shifting
landscape, dimly aware of her retreat....
Miss Susan McCallum looked up from her rocking chair as Mary Louise
entered the sitting room. There was no surprise in her greeting, and
she suffered her cheek to be kissed in silence. Old Landy stuck his
grizzled head in at the door at the unusual commotion and Mary
Louise, unaccountably and suddenly touched by something subtly
familiar and friendly, trilled:
"I've come to look after you, Aunt Susie. Just couldn't stay away any
longer. The countryside was perfectly beautiful as I came up this
morning in the train. It's the loveliest October I've ever seen. Think
of being cooped up in the city this time of year."
Landy grinned and came shambling in with a greeting. Miss Susie's
eyebrows went up and there was a suspicion of moisture on the lashes.
"Well, you needn't have done it. Landy and I have been managing very
well. But _you_ look a little peaked." She turned and laid her
knitting on the table by her side.
"Little Missy's a sight fo' so' eyes," interjected Landy and then
withdrew. Directly they could hear him authoritatively ordering
someone about.
Miss Susie sighed and looked at Mary Louise. The latter was taking off
her hat but she caught a hidden appeal in the pinched, weazened face
that she had never before noticed. It made a sharp little tug at her
heart, and throwing her hat on the table, she came over and sat on the
stool at the older woman's feet.
"How long will you be with us this time?"
She reached up and took the hand and was startled at finding how hot
it was. "Why--for all the time. Didn't you understand? I'm not going
back at all."
A strange expression came over Miss Susie's face. It was as though she
all of a sudden let down. She stared into Mary Louise's eyes and the
latter waited for some characteristic outburst. But none came.
Directly the old lady reached over for her knitting again and busied
herself with it, bending her head over it. Mary Louise, watching her,
saw her throat contract, saw her moisten her lips softly with the tip
of her tongue.
Without, looking up, "What about your business? You're not leaving it
for someone else to look after for you?" The tone was very low and the
voice so husky that she finished the sentence with a little clearing
of the throat.
"I've given it up--given it up entirely. Not a thing in the world to
keep me," replied Mary Louise.
For a few moments complete silence settled down upon the room, with
only the ticking of the clock on the mantel. It was dark and cool and
sweet-smelling, a sort of "goodsy" smell. A blue-bottle fly began to
buzz and bump against the glass of the window and now and then he
would circle about the room, filling its silence with his droning. The
sunlight came creeping slowly across the rag carpet, a widening orange
pool, as the sun slipped around to the westward. Mary Louise could see
the edge of it without turning her head. She felt suddenly guilty, as
though she were in some way parading in false colours. There was an
impenetrableness in the reserve.
"I just couldn't stand it any longer," she burst out. "I want to be
with my people and stay with my people, and look after you and live my
life as it was intended." Somehow it was not exactly what she wanted
to say, not the whole truth, but as if in explanation she began to
stroke her aunt's knee very softly.
"What do you plan to do?" Miss Susie looked up again and there was the
same old look of withered sharpness. "There's nothing in Bloomfield,
you know."
"Oh, I know. Nothing, if you mean opportunity. But everything in the
way of living. We'll just rock along. I'll find something to do.
Something to keep me out of mischief," she laughed. "Mr. Orpell ought
to have somebody in his drug store. His soft-drink counter is
atrocious. Then I can make preserves and sell 'em. I know where I can
sell a lot--in the city. I just don't want to think--just rest a bit
and let this blessed peace get a good hold of me again." Her voice
rose sharp and eager and Miss Susie smiled a quizzical smile and the
old order was again restored. A door slammed and Landy's voice came to
them, this time in a wailing gospel hymn, and Mary Louise sprang to
her feet. "I'll have to go get Zeke Thompson and have him fetch my
trunk. There was nobody to bring it over from Guests and I didn't
want to wait to hunt for someone."
She skipped over to the table and picked up her hat again. Already she
felt better--warmed and comforted. She paused for a moment, standing
in front of Miss Susie, looking down at her as she sat there knitting
placidly away with the fine firm lines about her mouth. "You won't
mind if I go with him, will you? There's an excess baggage charge that
I can't trust Zeke with, and I'll not be long."
"No, of course not. Since when have I been that I couldn't be left
alone?" But she smiled and Mary Louise, rushing to her, kissed her
again, rapturously upon the cheek, turned and whirled toward the door
where she paused for a wave of the hand before plunging forth on her
errand.
The sound of the door closing behind her sobered her for a moment.
Here she was, gone again. Would she never be content to settle down?
But the wine of the autumnal weather came mounting to her head and as
she opened the front gate and struck out up the street she raised her
face, drinking it in.
The rows of maples had been touched by the frost and were flaming
scarlet and crimson. Over beyond, across the street, between the
houses where a pasture land stretched down to the creek, the beeches
were golden and rustling and shimmering in the mellow sunlight. There
was a delicious tang in the air one moment and a soft mellow touch of
indolent fruition the next. An automobile went scuttling across Main
Street at the intersection, seeking its way westward, leaving a cloud
of dust that hung lazily golden ere it settled. Even the dust was
fragrant. The old tavern was quite deserted; the same green shutter
hung by one hinge, and as she passed the town hall or meeting house
she could hear the click of a typewriter through an open window, an
incongruous touch of modernity in an otherwise immaculate antique
setting. The sun was warm and came filtering through the shade to
splotch the uneven brick pavement, bringing out its homely roughness
in minute detail. She felt as if she recognized each upturned brick,
and the worn patch of yellow earth where a grass plot was meant to be,
up to the edge of the gnarled root of the oak stump that had been
struck by lightning, was just as it had always been. She and Joe
Hooper had played marbles there until he had grown too big to be
playing marbles with girls. Queer little ecstatic sensations they
were.
She crossed the square. A solitary man was walking on the other side
of the street, away from her. He was carrying three long poles over
his shoulder and he walked stiffly and with a slight limp. He wore a
suit of dusty blue "unionalls" and a battered felt hat. Curious that
she should notice such things. A "Ford" backed away from the curbing,
wheeled and went rattling around the corner down the road toward
Guests. And then the street and the square and the whole town were
quiet again, as deserted as a street or a town on canvas.
She walked swiftly, but not too swiftly to catch up every sign of
home. Her mind was aflood with impressions. What a narrow escape she
had had. An exultant thought like a song arose in her. She had
ventured forth, had had her taste, and it had cost her nothing. The
city had not caught her even though it had reached forth strong,
prehensile fingers. She knew now what she wanted, had the strength,
the zest. And it was October and fair, and smiling.
Suddenly she ran almost headlong into Mrs. Mosby. That good lady came
precipitately out of Orpell's Drug Store, and she was wearing her
white ruching and her bangles and a trim little widow's bonnet with a
semi-circle of black veil hanging down behind and accentuating the
prim whiteness of her face.
Mrs. Mosby's was not a face to betray emotion; it was a well-behaved,
studiously composed face. And her voice was level as she took Mary
Louise by both hands.
"Well, my dear," she said. "What brings you here? I've heard you're an
awfully busy woman. Hope there's nothing wrong at home."
"No," replied Mary Louise. Somehow she could never get it out of her
head whenever she spoke to Mrs. Mosby that it was not still as a
little girl to a personage--a personage to whom restraint and
deference were due. "I'm not so busy as all that."
"Oh, but you are. I've heard all about you. We're very proud of you,
my dear. Very. You've been doing so well--oh, I've heard--and your
striking out into business quite alone was about the most courageous
thing I know of. Why, the mere thought of such a thing takes my breath
away."
"But I'm not doing it any more. And there's nothing courageous in
that," smiled Mary Louise.
Mrs. Mosby looked puzzled.
"It's a fact. I've given it all up. Just got home to-day. And I'm
going to settle down again with you all and be just folks."
The mask again slipped over Mrs. Mosby's countenance. "Quite as
courageous a thing to do as the other," she went on evenly. "Just to
give up your splendid opportunity to come back and accept your duties
here--well, I think it highly commendable." She was not to be robbed
of her chance to be agreeable. "Your aunt Susan is, I trust, not
unwell?"
"Oh, about the same, thank you, Mrs. Mosby." She wanted to ask about
Joe, something in the rapprochement giving rise to thoughts of him,
but she realized that Mrs. Mosby was doubtless entirely out of touch
with her graceless nephew and would invent some mere plausibility. So
she inquired instead after Mr. Fawcette.
"Brother is not so well. Poor soul, he suffers terribly with his
rheumatism." Mrs. Mosby lapsed into thoughtfulness and Mary Louise
murmured her sympathy.
A moment of this and Mrs. Mosby recovered herself and held out her
hand again.
"You must come and see me now--real often. I'm so much alone. Such a
lot you must have to tell me and I want to hear it all." She took her
prim, precise departure conscious of her graciousness.
On her way, in the opposite direction, Mary Louise suffered another
qualm, a feeling of insincerity. She was gathering credit that really
was undeserved. Her return would doubtless be labelled in Bloomfield
as a bit of pretty sacrifice. And the place was a very refuge. The sun
dipped as she walked along, so that the tip of it reddened the ridge
poles of the houses and the sky was as blue as indigo. She passed an
open lot where weeds abounded and in the weeds the blackbirds were
chattering noisily. At her approach they flew up in a black swarm to
refuge in an old apple tree in the rear of the lot. On the ground near
the sidewalk was an old wagon bed that had been there for years--she
tried to remember how long. There were decided compensations in coming
home.
She found Zeke sitting on his doorstep, his chin on his hands, busily
strengthening his restful philosophy. She quickly bargained with him
and he hurried away to get out his old carry-all. When he found that
she followed him, and found in addition that she intended accompanying
him, his pleasure was quite evident.
"Wait, Mis' Ma'y, ontil I gits a rag and wipes off de seat," he said
at the door of the shed.
She could not help feeling a bit self-conscious as she sat by Zeke's
side and went rattling along the street, down into the square, into
the very centre of Bloomfield life. But she held her head jauntily
aloft and wondered if she were being noticed and being talked about.
They met no one. They took the open road and the afternoon settled
down upon her like a blessing. On either side of the road great
patches of red and yellow streaked the hills, and the fields were
taking on a soft golden brown, and soft purple mists gathered in the
valleys blending in subtle fashion with the foreground. In spite of
the riot of colour, the land was wrapped in a calm dignity. It wore
its glories well. In the bits of woodland, through which the road
occasionally digressed, there was a strong odour of beech and buckeye
and there was a fragrant dampness rising.
The thought of Claybrook came into her mind. She could not quite make
up her mind about Claybrook. She felt momentarily sorry for him,
regretted that their friendship had come to its abrupt close. And yet
there was no reason why she should feel sorry for him, he had so much
of everything. But he and his world were woven out of different
fabric from this world about her. She could not keep one and still
have the other. Anyway, she had made up her mind. She had escaped; her
feeling was one of definite escape. She banished the thought of him.
She got her trunk and Zeke loaded it upon the car where it threatened
to crush its way through bottom, springs, frame, and all. She observed
it skeptically but Zeke was quite brisk and cheerful about it. She
bought a "Courier" from the station agent and with it in her hand
climbed back into her seat and felt content, now that she had her
goods about her and was about to go home again.
Zeke started to crank the car when he took one reassuring look about
to see if everything was all right. Not being quite satisfied with the
way the trunk was riding, he departed to look for a bit of rope with
which to lash it into place. While she waited, she opened up the paper
in her lap and looked idly at the first page.
Instantly something caught her eye; she started and then felt suddenly
weak. She read on for a moment and then closed the paper and let it
fall into her lap and stared off at the blue hills that rimmed the
horizon. The station at Guests was about a half mile from the town and
the road was quite deserted, with only the sound of someone moving a
trunk around in the baggage room behind her. A flock of birds went
winging across the sky and dipped down into a patch of red-and-gold
woodland. She picked up the paper again and read some more.
The "Courier" made no specialty of scare headlines or red type. Its
most sensational news rarely ever rated more than single-column type,
or at most two columns. The article that caught her attention was the
usual one concerning misappropriation of public funds, malfeasance of
office, bribery, and the like--a drab sort of story. The public had
been "bilked" again. It sounded quite matter of fact. Involved were
the city engineer and one J. K. Thompson, Contractor, and J. F.
Claybrook, lumber man and dealer, all in collusion. All this was in
the headlines--in neat, modest type. Below came the bald facts stating
the amounts of money involved which somehow she did not notice and a
somewhat cynically weary paragraph at the end remarking that the
people were having quite too much of this sort of thing and that the
courts should recognize their full duty.
So that was where the new car and the trip to California was to come
from. Perhaps that was where the fifteen hundred dollars had come
from, too. But she had paid it back. She had just barely shaken the
bird-catcher's lime from her wings. She shivered and closed the paper
again.
When Zeke returned with the rope she smiled at him.
"Let's hurry back," she said.
On the way back to Bloomfield she had no eyes for the beauties of the
fast-falling October evening. But in a little while she began to feel
warmer inside. At least she had shaken the dust of the city from her
feet, the city where everyone wore a mask--of honesty and sobriety and
right living--and lived otherwise. No wonder they called it a melting
pot. She would be content from henceforth to live where the air and
the living were cleaner and purer.
So absorbed was she that she did not realize that Zeke had taken
another route home. When she noticed, she remarked on it.
"Hit's a shoht cut," explained Zeke. "You said you wanted to get home
quick."
She smiled at his responsiveness.
They came suddenly around a bend in the road upon a gang of men, road
mending. There was a huge concrete mixer and she wondered at the sight
of it, a new sign of progress for Bloomfield. There was a stretch of
loose rock and a wooden bar blocking the road. Zeke muttered his
dismay but did not stop. They rolled right up to the barrier. A man in
khaki breeches and flannel shirt and high lace boots came and waved
them back.
"You'll have to turn around," he called out cheerily, and she saw that
it was Joe Hooper. As though in answer to the obvious question he
added, as he in turn recognized her, "Like a bad penny--I'm turning up
again."
She looked at him and stared. His face was very red and somehow he
looked quite natural, more so than in his city clothes.
"What in the world?" she said.
He had come quite close and she could see he was smiling. That
baffling, uncertain look had left his face and there was something
open about it.
"Got a man's job again," he said, still smiling.
"And you're going to be in this part of the country?"
"Till the job's finished," he replied. "And there's quite a lot of it,
too. County's got a prosperous streak on. Means to have some real
roads. It's about time."
Zeke was slowly backing the car preparatory to turning around.
"I'm back home now, myself," she called and reddened at once at her
unnecessary confidence. What did he care where she was? But as they
turned slowly in the narrow road she added, "Come and see me," and
waved to him and wondered if he would.
It was growing dusk as they came again to Bloomfield and a chill was
settling down. The lights in the windows glowed cheerily against the
purple twilight and in one kitchen someone was frying potato cakes.
The odour was symbolical of hot suppers, and summer's passing, and
home, and warmth, and cheer.
She tipped Zeke a quarter even before he lugged her trunk through the
kitchen door, and then she went briskly in.
"Supper ready, Zenie?" she called.
Zenie turned slowly around and looked at her from the biscuit board.
She smiled wearily. "No'm. Not jes' yet it ain'. Terectly."
Mary Louise looked at her watch. It was a quarter past six. She came
to a sudden decision.
"Zenie," she said.
Zenie looked up hopefully.
"I guess we'll not be needing you any more after this week."
A slow, incredulous look met her. "Yas'm?"
"You can go back and look after that husband of yours."
"Yas'm? He gettin' erlong all right."
"I don't know, Zenie. You never can tell," Mary Louise went on,
maliciously enjoying the havoc she was spreading. "I'll pay you for
the week. You can leave whenever you want to. But let's have supper
right away." And she walked resolutely through the kitchen into a
darkened house, burning her bridges behind her.
CHAPTER XVIII
It was seven o'clock on Main Street. A very faint glow still lingered
in the western sky and above it cool points of stars pricked a
gray-blue curtain. Over to the left the moon was peeping above a
gambrel roof and the near side was steely blue up to the shadow of the
purple chimney. Joe walked along shuffling with his feet in the little
hollows of dry leaves. They crunched cheerily, sending up a faint, dry
fragrance. Up ahead was a dying fire with only here and there a tiny
flame tongue; the rest, a black and smoking crust underlaid with dull
embers. The smoke that curled upward from the fire was pale blue-gray
and mixed with tiny dust particles, and it hung in thin motionless
strata or came curling in feathery wisps almost invisible in the
shadow but heavy laden with magic scent. Up slid the moon, till Main
Street was a phantom cloister, the maple boles huge columns casting
purple shadows on a milky floor. Fairy lights winked in hooded windows
like deep-set eyes, and a soft warm haze lapped round him dreamily,
lulling his senses.
Joe had left the road-camp and tramped three miles into town. In the
dusk he had come upon it unawares; it seemed quite deserted. Very
quietly he had come through the back lanes, and now it lay before him,
its heart open in a sort of whispered confidence. Crude, inert,
makeshift sort of place it might betray itself to be in daylight, it
now lay snug and warm and breathing in its cluster of trees. It had
gathered its brood to it, its warm lights blinking red, and above,
clear liquid moonlight. Joe walked along slowly, an outsider, and yet
feeling himself slipping somehow into the warmth and protection of the
street. The odour of the burning leaves was heady, a superdistillate
of memories. October and moonlight and burning leaves! It meant nuts
and wine-sap apples, lingering in the dusk, watching the bull-bats
rise. It meant hot supper and a ravenous appetite and a slow roasting
before an open fire. Sharp little pictures flashed before his eyes as
he walked along, and he fancied he could hear the soft crunch of buggy
wheels in the dried leaves and the pad-pad of hoofs. It all seemed
wrapped up in the same parcel with his childhood, stored away
somewhere in musty archives. You couldn't pull out one without
stirring up all the others. He half closed his eyes and peered through
his lashes down a sharp black line of roofs like a knife edge against
a liquid, shimmering sky, down a broad ghostly band of silver white
that was the road, all flecked and mottled with leaf shadows that
moved slowly to and fro. He paused a moment. He scarcely dared breathe
lest the whole thing vanish. A fairy touch on his arm, light as
thistle-down, a subtle sense of warmth and a dim, intangible
fragrance, and he started, blinking, and then walked on. Something was
dry and dusty in his throat. "Golly, the old place sorta gets next to
you on a night like this," he thought. "Guess I'd better get in.
They'll think I'm nuts, mooning around on the street all night."
He came to a long stretch of wooden picket fence, beyond it a silver
plaque of moon-splashed grass, the house all hollow-eyed and gaunt,
like a thing watching. As he approached the gate a man came hurrying
out, his head hunched forward on his shoulders. Joe stood aside to let
him pass. The man peered sharply at him from under his hat brim,
grunted, and then passed on. It was Mr. Burrus. Joe had a sense of
being too late. Over the house hung the stillness of death, and a
thing like Burrus leaving! It was an ugly thought. He walked up to the
porch and knocked softly on the door.
A moment's silence and then it slowly opened. Someone stood in the
doorway. A voice said, "Well?" in a low vibrant tone. There was
blended in it the soft mistiness of the night, something of regret,
something of purple shadows, something of stirring memories. He
moistened his lips with his tongue.
"Is it you?" the voice went on, and then Mary Louise came out.
"I just heard to-day that Miss Susie had had another spell," he
explained.
She stood beside him on the porch and looked up into his face. He
could see she was shivering a little.
"Not to amount to anything," she said. "Aunt Susie has 'em
periodically. She'll be all right in a day or two."
Joe stood in indecision. There had come a high-pitched, nervous
tension into her tone, an eagerness that he did not like. The other
thing had vanished.
"Won't you sit down?" said Mary Louise. "I'd ask you in, but Aunt
Susie's asleep and the sound of our voices might disturb her. She
hasn't had much sleep the last few nights."
Joe fingered his hat.
"Aren't you going to stay and tell me about yourself?" she urged.
"It's been ages since we had a talk. Let's go down to the
summerhouse."
He felt doubtful. Already a chill was gathering in the air, and he
fancied she spoke through set teeth. The charm was melting away and
the moon, rising above the tops of the maples, seemed cheerless and
cold. But he could not be unfriendly; she had had a lot to upset her.
He had read about Claybrook in the paper and while the news had caused
him no discomfort--if anything quite the contrary--still, it was
different now. She was alone in that bleak, staring house, alone with
a sick woman. So he followed her awkwardly across the grass that was
already gathering dew.
They sat facing each other in the summerhouse, sat on the edges of the
chairs, bending slightly forward. Mary Louise was softly chafing her
hands.
"So you've really come back," she began.
"Well, three miles from 'back,'" he replied. She was making a pretty
brave show; her voice sounded bright and cheery. If only she would
stop rubbing her hands together--be still for a moment.
"I expect we're meant for this place, Joe."
"Yes? How do you mean?"
"Oh, if you bend a twig young enough, the tree will grow that way."
She laughed softly and he gave her a quick look.
For a few moments they sat in silence.
"How did you happen to make another change, Joe?" she asked at length,
very quietly.
He paused before replying. "Well," he began, "you see I've never had
any real preparation for anything I was doin'. I never could have got
anywhere. Those jobs I had in town--I just drifted into 'em. Anybody
could have filled 'em. I--what was the use of 'em?" He paused and was
silent.
She nodded slowly. "I think you said something like that once before.
I begin to see where you were right."
He made no reply. Why did she want to talk about such things? He hoped
she wouldn't bring in Claybrook and her relations with him. He did not
feel in the mood for raking over ashes.
"Has Miss Susie been in bed?" He carefully headed on another tack.
"Oh, up and down. She's always that way. You cannot imagine how
surprised I was to see you with that road gang. I was riding along
with Zeke, all wrapped up in my thoughts, and suddenly I looked up and
saw you there----" She trailed off and sat thinking.
Again he was uneasy. Apparently the uncomfortable topic was not
entirely buried yet. It might rise up exhumed, in its shroud, any
moment.
"Yes," he said. "I'm used to that sort of thing--managin' niggers. Had
'em doin' most every sort of rough work in my time, diggin' ditches,
mendin' roads, cuttin' fence posts--all that sort of thing. Guess it's
about all I'm fit for." The effort died lugubriously and he sat,
waiting. He hated personal confidences and there hung a most
particularly uncomfortable one in the offing.
The silence was like a living thing. It crushed down upon the
summerhouse with huge, downy black wings. A very faint rustling
started up in the dry leaves of the creeper on the roof and clammy
little draughts of air came twisting through the cracks. All the
languorous glamour of the night had passed. It was merely autumn
moonlight, and too late in the year to be sitting out in a summerhouse
mouthing inconsequentialities--two people who were old enough to know
better. Joe stirred restlessly. Surely she must be convinced that he
meant to be friendly. He leaned back and looked up at the sky.
"What do you mean to do, Joe?" Mary Louise began again.
"Huh?" He recovered with a start. "Oh, I don't know. Think sometimes I
will come back and try my hand at farmin'. Think maybe I'll be more of
a real person doing that than anything else I know. But this road
business is a necessary thing. Bloomfield needs a good road--all the
way into the city. Something to put her on the map. Maybe with a good
road we can get somewhere." Speaking out the idea seemed to
crystallize it. He began to enthuse a little over it inwardly.
"Mightn't be so bad. Might buy back the old place even, some day.
Jenkins is not makin' too much speed with it, I hear."
Mary Louise leaned forward toward him.
"Oh, Joe, I wish you would," she said. "I've been thinking a lot here
lately and it seems to me it's just as essential for real men to
settle and live in places like Bloomfield as anywhere else. Big people
should spread their influence. Why should they all cluster in little
knots and bunches like the cities? I think there's a better chance to
grow--here. I really do." She turned away and sat with her chin on her
hands, her face averted.
Joe, carried momentarily away with the thought, did not notice her
agitation; moreover, it was quite dark in the summerhouse, with only
odds and ends of moonlight slipping through the roof. And he did not
answer her, but sat thinking.
"I'm going to," she continued after a bit, her voice sounding somewhat
broken and muffled against her open hand.
"Goin' to what?"
"Going to stay here and see what I can make out of it."
She was groping for his friendship and he did not know it. A new line
of thought had been stimulated and it brought up very pleasing
pictures. After all, what could be better than a respectable life on a
farm producing things, seeing the direct results of the work of his
own hands, establishing his very own identity? By contrast, how much
better than working for someone else, furnishing the effort while
someone else worked out the plans, losing his identity completely in
an economic machine? He could start modestly, pay off as he went, out
of the profits. And meantime, he could be living--real life. Only
first he must get a little money to make a start on.
He realized Mary Louise had spoken, paused in his thought and then
remembered. "Oh--yeah. Don't know but what it's about the best thing
to do. Might try it myself--soon's I can get enough money together."
She made no reply and he watched her dim profile. Her head drooped
quite dejectedly. There was a little splash of moonlight on her cheek;
tendrils of her hair curled about the line of her neck. "She's had a
pretty heavy bump," he thought.
He briskly rose to his feet. "Must be on my way," he said and stood
looking down at the shadow of her. "It's three miles or more out to
the camp. We get up at six."
For a moment she did not move, and then heavily she stood up. She made
no protest and he could not see her face. If only he might get away,
now that he had started, she might not be tempted to make any
allusions to her affair. He shunned it instinctively as a dark closet
containing a few unburied bones of his own skeleton.
Accordingly he walked slowly out upon the lawn and headed for the
front gate. He could feel the dew lapping about his ankles through his
socks and his shadow was clear cut and black on the grass, Mary Louise
came and walked the short distance by his side, neither saying a word.
They came to the gate and stood there in silence. Not a sound could be
heard, the street stretching along before them a broad white ribbon,
with splotches of mottled shade along the edges, the dark line of
houses across the street like mysterious creatures crouching in the
shadow.
As they stood there, each occupied with his own thoughts, there came a
distant sound, low and yet distinct, like the sound of one metal
striking upon another. It was clear and somewhat musical, lingering in
the air with a dying cadence. As the waves of sound died slowly away
there came silence and then the soft rustle of the leaves overhead.
"What was that?" she whispered.
"Don't know. Sounded like the closin' of a door."
Both stood listening intently, but the sound was not repeated.
"Well, good-bye," he said, holding out his hand. "See you again
sometime."
She took the hand and held it for a moment. "Joe," she began, "let's
be friends." She was forcing herself to talk. "I've made some mistakes
but--I want everybody to like me here--especially you. You understand
things, and you will overlook some of the things that have happened?"
Spectres of uncharitableness were disturbing her and she sought to be
shriven.
He thought she was alluding to Claybrook and moved uneasily so that
she dropped his hand.
"Surely. Surely I will. Good-night," he said again. Then he turned and
walked briskly away.
He had got but ten yards or so when out of the stillness came the
sound again. He paused there on the sidewalk and listened. A faint,
musical, metallic clang came surging toward him in clear beating
waves. It sounded as if it were miles away, and the echo lingered
pulsing on the silence. Slowly it died away to a whisper and then he
heard distant shouts and footsteps echoing hollow. Men were running
toward him down the brick sidewalk, their voices sounding nearer. At
the corner they turned and went, westward, the sound of them growing
fainter and fainter. He looked back, and at the gate he could see a
shadow standing there waiting. There was a faint nimbus about the head
and the face, turned toward him, was in the darkness.
He paused a moment in indecision and then turned and walked rapidly
down the street westward, toward the camp.
CHAPTER XIX
Mary Louise walked back to the house. At the side porch she paused and
looked behind her. High overhead sailed the moon, a day or two past
the first half. There was a tremulous movement in the leaves of the
maples along the sidewalk, producing an indistinct, vibratory shimmer
and shadow. By contrast the patches of darkness were jet black; the
overhanging portico of the house was as yawning as a cavern. She
listened, stood, her head bent slightly forward, listening. Not a
sound could be heard. The sharp, crisp clack of Joe's footsteps had
been swallowed up by the distance. She could hear the sound of her own
breathing. An uneasiness came gradually upon her, a vague sort of
dread of being left alone, entirely alone. How aloof he had seemed;
how aloof everything seemed, and unreal! Those sinister trees waving
there without a breath of wind; the lowering shadows of the
summerhouse and the barn; that greasy moonlight that came slipping up
to the very edge of the porch and lay there fearful and cold--were
they all remembering her scorn and coming back to mock her
loneliness?
Softly she opened the door and went inside. Something scurried off
into a corner and she fancied it turned about there and watched her in
the darkness. The room seemed hot and close and there was a rhythmic
rise and fall like the rising and falling of some vast invisible
bosom, oppressed. She tiptoed over to the far door and stood
listening. Not a sound could she hear. Old Landy was most probably
asleep in his bed in the room up over the stable. She balanced on her
feet and stood waiting, in indecision. She could not go back, so she
opened the door softly and peered in.
A glaring white patch caught her eye. The moonlight through the window
lay cold and bright upon the counterpane. Just above the patch was a
jumble of shadows, from which protruded, bare and yellow and weazened,
an arm. She caught her breath and fought down the sudden rising of her
heart. It was nothing--only lying there so detached in the moonlight,
thrust up out of the shadow out of nowhere, it did look gruesome, like
something dead, something completely and irrevocably dead. It lay
without a sign of movement, with the fingers slightly curled up under
the palm and clutching at the coverlet. Gradually, her calm returning,
she listened with her head thrust around the corner of the door, and
directly she caught the very faint sound of breathing, a far-away,
fine-drawn, eerie whisper. Slowly she backed away and closed the
door.
She groped over to a chair in the sitting room and sat down. Through
the squares of the window panes she could see the milky white patches
of moonlight flooding the world outside, and the silence came creeping
up all around until it seemed to squeeze the very walls inward.
"I wonder what's going on?" she thought. Because of its very
soundlessness, the universe about her seemed to be teeming with vague
suggestions. That distant clamour, the hurry of footsteps, and then
Joe, slipping away from her into the shadow. And now the deathlike
stillness.
She began to rock slowly to and fro. With an effort of the will she
forced herself to think of cheerful things, housework and cooking, and
sunlight and people. Suddenly she realized that there was no reason
for her sitting up. She might just as well go to bed. She started to
her feet, but something held her, something forced her back into her
chair. There had been footsteps fading off into the darkness. She must
wait until they came back again--out of the darkness. Something in the
idea strangely excited her, left her tense. In all this silence she
knew she could not sleep; she would be lying there waiting, waiting
for something, she knew not what. So she settled back and rocked and
waited, staring with wide-open eyes at the steel-blue patch that was
the door. And the night settled down and drew close to her with its
uncertainties.
Time passed.
Suddenly she was aware of sound. So gradually it had come that she
realized she had been hearing it for some time. It was coming back.
She riveted her gaze upon the door, watched it unblinking, waiting for
it to open upon her with its secret any moment.
Slowly she rocked to and fro. Gradually nearer and nearer came the
sound. Rolling upward, gathering round and round into a ball, it took
the shape of footsteps and a confused murmur of voices. On it swept.
They were passing the house, would pass it, away into the darkness and
silence again. Whither?
She rose to her feet and hurried to the door. She groped for the knob
and stumbled blindly out upon the porch. The sudden glare of the
moonlight dazzled her and she could only make out dimly a little knot
of black shadows moving along the pavement past the gate. There was a
confused murmur of voices as of several persons trying to make
themselves heard at once, and yet be quiet about it. As she watched,
tried to get her eyes to focus, the little group passed on and was
gone.
She walked slowly to the gate and stood there looking into the
darkness after it. Gradually she was recovering her sight; sounds
sprang up, little normal sounds, and she began to feel cold. She
turned and was about to go back to the house when the echo of
footsteps again caught her ear, and she waited.
It was a single person, apparently in a great hurry. She could hear
him shuffling and stumbling along. She peered down the street into the
darkness and directly could distinguish the shadow of a man hurrying
toward her. On he came. He passed the fence corner--now he had reached
the tree with the big fork--he was passing the gate. She saw it was
Zeke.
"What's going on?" she called to him.
He started, stopped, and then came over to the gate.
"Mist' Burrus's bahn done cave in," he said, the whites of his eyes
gleaming at her in the darkness.
The sound of his voice cheered her greatly. She felt suddenly so
relieved that it was with difficulty that she kept herself from
laughing out loud. "How do you mean? It didn't fall down of itself?"
"Yas'm, hit did. Hit's de waehouse. Folks say he done load hit up too
full and hit plum' give out." His voice sounded excited.
"Anybody hurt?" She was beginning to enjoy it all, feeling exhilarated
over the drama of it.
"Mist' Joe--Mist' Joe Hoopah. He done fell offen de bridge into de
ditch. Speck he done broke his laig."
She caught her breath.
"Dey done sen' me to git my cah. Said dey would lemme ketch up wid
'em. But Lawsy, de cah won' run."
"Was that him they were carrying past the house?" she managed to ask.
"Yas'm, I reckon. Dey aim to take him to Mis' Mosby's. Reckon I better
hurry on."
She reached over and seized him by the coat. "Was he much hurt? Did he
seem much hurt?"
"Well, yas'm. No'm. Leasewise, he say he ain'. But he cain't stan' up.
Hit's his laig. Dey done pull him outen de ditch, wid it dubble unner
him."
She let him go and listened to his retreating footsteps down the
street into the darkness. She felt suddenly faint and weak. She walked
back to the house, entered the sitting room, and lit a candle. Then
she went to Miss Susie's door and opened it.
Miss Susie's eyes were looking calmly at her from the bed as she
entered. "What's the matter?" said Miss Susie's voice.
"He was here just an hour ago. I saw him go down the street. And now
they're bringing him back, broken. Just an hour! God knows what
happened to him."
"Who do you mean, child?" Miss Susie moved forward and raised up a
little on her elbow.
"It just seems as if the hand of Fate was stretching out over this
place, reaching down over us. It makes no difference what we do--we're
helpless--all of us." She seemed to steady herself. She came over to
the bedside and laid her hand on Miss Susie's forehead.
"Don't you want me to bring you a drink of water?" she asked.
CHAPTER XX
Directly after breakfast she went to the Mosby place. The sunlight was
making glaring white patches on the pavement, of which she was but
dimly conscious as she walked along. The house looked very peaceful,
with the mellowness of respectable old age, that fresh October
morning. She climbed the steps to the front door, feeling a little
self-conscious as she stood and waited. It was possible that she was
borrowing trouble; the accident might not prove to have been a serious
one at all and she might seem too solicitous.
The door opened and a very old Negro woman in a stiff, white, starched
apron stood and peered forth at her.
"Mrs. Mosby in?" she asked.
The old woman ducked her head and held open the door. "I see." And
then she waddled off. Half-way down the dim hallway she turned, paused
a moment, and then came back. She went to a tall door, on the left
side of the hall, and pushed it open, casting up a furtive eye at Mary
Louise as she did so. A wave of clammy air rushed forth and there was
a faint crackling as of dried leaves back in the darkness. "Won' you
set down?" said the old woman.
Mary Louise realized how early she had come; she had quite disturbed
the usual order of things. "No, thank you," she said. "I'll just wait
here in the hall."
The woman waddled away again and disappeared through a back door which
wheezed shut with a sort of sucking noise, and the hall was left in
hushed silence. Mary Louise gazed up at the ceiling, then at the
stairway reaching far back and into the depths of upstairs hall. Even
in the soft light the place looked like a barn. It seemed to be
watching her sullenly as a small child watches an intruder. Odd little
crackings sounded in far corners, and a whispering, starting somewhere
in that upstairs hall, came slinking down the wainscoting, across the
hall carpet, and out beneath the front door. She wondered what might
be going on back in those silent, unexplored depths.
Then the door opened again and Mrs. Mosby came swishing forth, like an
echo of the whisper that had preceded her. She was wearing the same
ruching, the same bangles, the same everything--minus the bonnet with
the veil--that she had worn that previous afternoon. There was an
opaque flatness in her eyes.
Mary Louise rose to her feet. She was embarrassed as she met the older
woman's quiet gaze, but she quickly threw off the feeling.
"I just heard some indefinite but disturbing news about an accident
last night," she said anxiously.
Mrs. Mosby smiled a ghostly little smile and inclined her head. "We
had quite a time," she admitted. "Won't you sit down? Or won't you
come in the parlour?"
"No. I've not long to stay. I--I felt so worried. I wanted to come
first thing and find out, see if there was anything I could do." They
sat down at opposite ends of the horsehair sofa, each reflectively
watching the other.
Mrs. Mosby shook her head. "He's getting on as nicely as could be
expected. Fortunately, Dr. Withers was got hold of right away, last
night." She was gazing dreamily at Mary Louise as though the latter
were a creature of another world come vaguely intruding.
There was a curious atmosphere of restraint. Mary Louise sat waiting
for the other woman to speak, her hands in her lap, her fingers slowly
weaving in and out. After a momentary silence she asked in a politely
casual tone, "What really did happen, Mrs. Mosby? Was he much hurt?"
Mrs. Mosby continued staring for an instant before she replied: "It
really was the strangest thing. You know I did not even know that
Joseph was in this part of the country. And at ten o'clock last night
they came carrying him in. Of course, I was terribly excited and
upset, and I did not find out the particulars exactly." She paused
and took a delicate little shuddering breath. "You see, Mr. Burrus'
warehouse--the one down by the creek, you know? Well, something
happened--the bank on which it stood caved in, in some way, and the
rear wall collapsed, and from all I can understand there was quite a
wreck, quite a lot of damage, for he had it crammed full of winter
goods." She paused and looked intently at Mary Louise with eyes that
were visualizing the events of the night before. "Well, to continue.
It seems that someone with a lantern, investigating the place around
the back, ran across poor Joseph lying in the creek in the water, with
one leg doubled up under him. He told the man he had fallen off the
bridge. That was all he said. Just what he could have been doing there
at such a time I cannot imagine. It seems that he had been working
with a road-construction company about three miles out on the road to
Guests. I found that out from a perfect stranger." She paused again
and the line of her mouth took on a grimmer straightness. "One of the
men, who brought him in--a great rough boor he was--had the audacity
to suggest that Joseph was around there seeing what he could pick up.
I silenced him quickly enough. But can you imagine what brought him to
such a place at such a time?"
Mary Louise drew herself together in an odd little shiver. "Some
strange things can happen by coincidence, Mrs. Mosby. Was he badly
hurt?"
"Fractured his left leg just below the knee, Dr. Withers says--poor
Joseph! He's been an ambitious boy. So anxious to get ahead, and so
self-sufficient. I feel right guilty about Joseph." She shook her head
dolorously.
"But there's no real danger, is there?" broke in Mary Louise, her
heart momentarily sinking.
"No. I suppose not. He is terribly run down. Like a ghost he looked
when they carried him in last night, his eyes staring out before him
all dumb and suffering. He must have been in that ice-cold water
almost an hour before they found him. I might have been doing things
for him all this time--looking after him--but you know how things have
been in this house."
The cold wall of her reserve seemed to be gradually letting down.
Never before had she ever so much as alluded to the break in her
family's fortunes. Mary Louise felt an odd, lifting feeling of
hope--tremulous but dawning hope.
"Mrs. Mosby," she said. "Excuse me for speaking about something that
is not my affair, but"--she hesitated and gazed at the polished marble
slab of the hall tree--"it's only because I've known Joe so well, for
such a long time"--the polished slab was gleaming faintly from an
errant ray of sunshine that came through a dim, high-set hall
window--"that I perhaps know a little more about him." She paused
after this introduction, and having thus committed herself, plunged
in. "Why don't you give Joe the chance he really wants? You have a lot
of land here that is not being developed at all. Give Joe the chance
to work it out--some of it, at least, on shares." She paused,
breathless, and looked up timidly to see how her presumption fared.
A slow, fatuous smile spread over Mrs. Mosby's face. Mary Louise
watched it break--watched it play for a moment about her lips like a
shaft of winter sunshine. Then she spoke, shaking her head in
reminiscence:
"I'd thought of that, myself. In fact, I'd spoken of it to Joseph. But
he had other ideas. Many's the time I would have welcomed having
someone who really cared, on whom I could depend. It's been a
difficult time for me, my dear. Brother's so feeble. I couldn't call
on him. No. Joseph doesn't care for farming. You're mistaken there.
He's got an errant streak in him, like his father, I'm afraid." She
sighed, and the sibilance of it echoed with a strange lingering note
between those high gray walls. "Besides--though I've not let it be
generally known--I've sold the place--to a Mr. Walcott of New York.
He's very wealthy, I believe. He's taking it over the first of the
year. I'm just not strong enough to hold on any longer."
Mary Louise did not look up. The sunlight on the marble slab of the
hall tree faded slowly away.
"Don't you want to go up and see him, my dear?" Mrs. Mosby said at
length.
She started. "No," she replied. "I must be getting on. I've so many
things to do. Some other time, may I? Perhaps this afternoon." She
rose to her feet and walked slowly to the door. She opened it and
walked through, out on to the wide front porch, her thoughts in a
turmoil. Rising above everything was an inexplicable conviction that
Joe was closely akin to herself; in all the confusion of the world's
ways, a kindred creature.
She turned. Mrs. Mosby was standing in the open doorway watching her,
on her face a set, wistful smile, that was as hard as stone. They
exchanged good-byes and then the door slowly closed with its soft
sucking noise and she found herself in the graying light of a
gathering storm....
It was not until late the following afternoon that she found time
again to visit the Mosby home.
The same old Negro woman admitted her and she stepped into the hall
and stood waiting. Back in the shadow, in an open doorway, Mrs. Mosby
and a stout, thickset man with stubbly black hair were talking in low
tones. The Negro woman hurried past them back into the passage, and
they moved aside a little as she passed. The last words of the
conversation came faintly to Mary Louise's ears; the stout man was
talking:
"Must build him up," he was saying. "Keep the windows open, give him
plenty to eat, all he wants." Then Mrs. Mosby's sibilant but inaudible
reply. And then again, "He's used himself up. No reserve. Not prepared
for an emergency like this."
She sat dumbly wondering; it was most probably Dr. Withers, the new
doctor. The monotonous hum of their voices suddenly ceased and he was
walking past her toward the door, pursing his lips in an odd sort of
way. He looked at her as he passed, and reached for his hat. She did
not hear the door close after him. Mrs. Mosby was speaking to her with
a slight frown on her face.
"Just go on up, my dear. Ell bedroom, on the left. I'll be up
directly."
She climbed the stairs in a maze. The silence was the most noticeable
thing about the place unless it was the clinging, indescribable odour.
She found the door without difficulty and softly pushed it open. A
draught of chill air greeted her, and there was a dim glow on the
carpet from an open-grate fire in the wall opposite. Behind the door
stood the bed, with its head against the wall, and in the bed lay Joe.
For a moment she could not realize it was he, the light was so dim,
the figure so indistinct, so swathed in its covers. He turned his head
at the sound of her footsteps and looked at her.
"Hullo," he said weakly.
All her reserves collapsed within her and she came and sat on the
edge of the bed. She looked down into his face and could not speak; a
change which she could not begin to detail had come over him. He
smiled, "Was wondering about you to-day," he said.
She reached out and took his hand. It was very hot. Two bright spots
burned in his cheeks and his eyes had that peculiar, hollow, sunken
look she had seen once or twice before. Two days had passed. The
realization that it was but two days shocked her.
"Funny," he was saying. "That night--you remember--I met old Burrus
coming out of your house. I wondered then what he could be doing.
Well--he was just on my trail. Fact."
"Yes," she said. "He brought Aunt Susie a hot-water bottle. But you
mustn't talk too much, Joe." She squeezed his hand very softly.
"Well," he went on, as though intensely interested in the idea, "you
know what he was for Uncle Buzz? Well, next he must put his jinx on
me." He chuckled softly. "His kind always have it in for--my kind. It
is funny. As I went down the road, after leaving your house, you
remember?"
She nodded.
"Well, I soon saw from the road that something had happened. I went
down across the field up to the fence. Things were scattered all over
the ground, and some of 'em floating down the creek--I could see in
the moonlight. 'Serves you right, you old skinflint,' I said to
myself. 'But it's none of your business.' So I turned about and went
back to the road. Couldn't help feeling kinda glad about it." He
paused and drew a deep, painful breath. "I guess it's all just
retribution. Shouldn't have enjoyed a man's misfortune. I missed the
edge of the road, slipped, and fell across the big eight by eight that
ties the bridge to the bank, and that's all I remember. Old Burrus
pulled me out of the creek himself."
He withdrew his hand and moved slightly in the bed, as if easing
himself somewhere. "It _was_ funny, wasn't it?"
She gazed into his face. Something was stirring within her over which
she seemed to have no control--a tenderness, a mothering instinct, a
vast hurt deep within herself. She suddenly realized that she could
have had him, although he had not offered himself. Nor had he ever
asked for anything, probably never would. The realization singularly
made him seem all the more her own. "You mustn't work yourself up,
Joe. Be quiet. I want you to get well." Just how fervently she wished
it, and with what anxiety, she suddenly knew. The sight of his peaked,
upturned face, staring at the ceiling, with the bright red spots on
his cheeks, was more than she could bear, and she rose to her feet and
walked over to the open window.
The sun was just sinking behind a broken bank of heavy, blue-gray
clouds. On the inner surfaces through which streamed its last rays
patches of blood-red lining showed. A lurid glow was thinly suffused
over the stretch of land between, against which were outlined the gray
top branches of trees, moving fitfully to and fro. She stood for a few
moments, waiting, listening for Mrs. Mosby. The shadows deepened and
lengthened; they came creeping over the grass toward her, in their van
the fading glow. All at once, as it were out of the twilight, the
sunlight settled momentarily on the field at the bottom of the hill
before her. Stark upright and in serried rows stretched the waste of
last year's cornfield, the withered stalks touched with a passing
glory, standing quite proudly erect and then--blue-gray darkness. A
mellow waste delivering a valedictory! Next year it would doubtless be
ploughed up--prepared for a crop. Over beyond the crest of hills
clouds were gathering like a smoke pall. She wondered if the factory
chimneys were sending their beacons that far. There were forty miles
between the two worlds.
A voice spoke behind her, a strange, unknown voice. She turned and
went back to the bedside. Joe lay staring straight before him and his
lips were moving stiffly. The words came muffled and indistinct: "Tell
you--got to have more money 'n that, Mr. Heston. 'Tisn't a question of
just gettin' by. A man's got to get ahead." And then there was an
unintelligible muttering. And then suddenly the voice rose, clear,
querulous, and high-pitched: "Well you can go to hell with it. Needn't
think you're doin' us a favour--payin' us a living--just because
you've got it all. No, sir! I can go back home. Can live there without
havin' to thank _you_!" The voice died away.
She hung on the echo, shaken to the depths of her. Like a disembodied
voice it had come out of the great silence. What was it all about? Who
was Mr. Heston?
Then in a flash it all came clear to her. The mists arose from the
past and before her stood envisioned all in the proper relationship:
herself, Claybrook, and Joe; Bloomfield, the city, all of mankind.
Life was, after all, but one shrewd bargain; success a process of
getting more than one gave; the survivors, shrewd bargainers,
shouldering, edging, metamorphosed by a modern Circe, their forefeet
and muzzles thrust eager and deep into the magic swill of her trough;
and the others--creatures like Joe--untouched by the sorcery, going
without and suffering discredit. Militant, her spirit rose in revolt.
Was there no escape from the dilemma? She felt dried up, parched,
athirst for something; her throat contracted in a burning ache.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. She sat in
silence with a great pain in her heart. Over beyond the window sill
the glow was dying, and the gathering pall was rising and coming
nearer. Like a blanket the relentless world the cog-world of personal
interests, regulations, and restrictions--was coming, gathering up its
wastage into its blue-gray depths.
Joe was speaking again. His voice was suddenly clearer.
"I wonder," he was saying, "if you'd mind goin' for Zeke Thompson and
sendin' him up to me? I want him to go somewhere for me. And will
you--will you call up Mr. Clausen of the Pulvia Company and tell him
I'll get back on the job soon's I can? To-morrow'll do to call him
up."
"Surely I will, Joe," she replied.
The door opened softly from the hall and Mrs. Mosby appeared, shading
a lamp with her hand. "Keep your seat." she exclaimed as Mary Louise
rose to her feet. "I'm just getting ready to bring him his supper."
Then she went back out again.
Mary Louise bent over the bed. The lamp was directly behind her and
she could not see for blurring.
"Do take care of yourself, Joe," she whispered. "I'll come back again
to-morrow," and then she slipped noiselessly from the room.
Directly Mrs. Mosby returned with a steaming tray which she set on the
little table by the bedside. "Has she gone?" she asked.
Joe turned and looked with indifference at the tray, with its white
napkins and egg-shell china. "Don't believe I want anything much, Aunt
Lorry," he said.
"Come now, Joseph. You must. I've a soft-boiled egg and some milk
toast and cocoa. Dr. Withers says you must keep up your strength."
He turned languidly away. "And Aunt Lorry," he added.
"Yes?"
"I don't need anything--specially this sympathy stuff." He paused and
frowned at the ceiling. "I don't--I don't want to have any company.
Reckon I can get along all right."
Ten minutes later she carried away the tray with the food on it but
scarcely touched. And he lay in the gathering darkness, watching the
ceiling, with the wavering circles from the open fire and the soft
whisper of the wind in the withered leaves outside the window. There
came a gentle patter of rain on the roof and night slipped down upon
Bloomfield. He sighed gently, turned his head, and fell asleep....
* * * * *
Some four blocks away a girl was walking--swiftly, her hands clenched
so that the knuckles were white. Bright spots burned in her cheeks and
her eyes were deep and starry with bright vision. A man, passing
close, turned and watched her curiously, saw her enter a wooden gate.
A few feet from a darkened porch she seemed to spring forward in her
haste. He saw her run up the steps and disappear into the house....
* * * * *
There was the sound of water being poured from one vessel into
another, in the downstairs back-hall, and then the shuffling of
retiring feet. Mrs. Mosby stood outlined in the high doorway, a
lighted candle in her hand, her eyes straining into the darkness.
"Come, brother Rob," she called and waited.
There was a muffled reply.
"It will certainly be good," she went on, half to herself and
pleasantly musing, "to have a real bathroom with hot water from a
spigot. The city's pleasant in winter. I'm sorry we're waiting until
January first. Come, brother Rob. The water's getting cold."