A STRANGE JOURNEY
Mayne answered Stephen's telephone call with his usual abounding
cordiality. He was glad to hear Stephen's voice and he had been
thinking about running up to spend the night. Yes he could come very
soon--and bring Dr. Good?
"And bring Dr. Good," he repeated. "Did I understand you correctly?"
"Yes."
"You wish Good to come professionally?"
"Yes, as soon as possible."
Mayne understood the significance of the invitation. He was not
prepared to meet this emergency, forewarned though he had always been.
He mopped his brow. His hair was now entirely gray, but he was still
ruddy of complexion and possessed a boy's vigor of body. A chill fear
passed over him, not only for Hilda, but for himself.
"Lanfair has requested me to bring you to Harrisburg," he explained
to Dr. Good. "I anticipate some serious development. I had begun to
believe my fears to be groundless." He mopped his forehead again. "It
is distressing. I judge there has been some acute crisis, but when I
called her to announce our prospective visit--I suggested to Lanfair
that I do that--her voice sounded natural."
He had a moment with Stephen upon their arrival and reported the result
of his interview to Dr. Good--whispered it, though they were alone in
Good's bedroom with the door closed. His alarm grew hourly stronger.
One of his aunts had become violent, had lived for several years in an
asylum, and had at last put an end to her life.
"It seems that Hilda has taken an intense dislike to a half-blind,
middle-aged woman in Lanfair's office and resented the fact that he
felt it professionally necessary to remain here to watch this woman's
eyes when she wished him to accompany her away. She is known to have
taken ammonia from the household supplies the day before ammonia was
put into this Miss MacVane's eye-wash. The woman is a harmless lonely
soul whom Lanfair saved from blindness."
Dr. Good shook his head. He was a small man remarkable for his bright
eyes, his large steel-rimmed spectacles, and a strong Pennsylvania
German accent which he would never lose.
"If a homicidal mania is developing, as frequently happens in such
cases," he said, "she should be confined at once. Lanfair should be
persuaded of the necessity for it. She should be got quietly to the
King Sanatorium."
Dr. Good was secretly glad that the problem of transportation was not
his. He remembered that Lanfair had been comparatively a poor man--he
had paid dearly for his riches!
The problem of transportation proved to be, however, quite simple.
Hilda greeted her guests at dinner. It was a season when dress patterns
were scant and she wore little, but her slender body appeared to be
inadequate to sustain even her bright, filmy dress and her string of
pearls. She seemed to be becoming as ethereal as the smoke of the
cigarettes which she so constantly used. Dr. Good was quick to observe
that she was suspicious and uneasy, that she seemed to be under great
tension. It was by no means improbable that a crisis was at hand.
Poor Hilda welcomed her uncle. She was miserably conscious of the
turmoil within, and she felt that his presence would steady her.
Several times she put out her hand toward him across the corner of the
table and he covered it with his own.
"But your hand is cold!" cried Hilda. "What is the matter?"
"Nothing is the matter," answered Mayne with a nervous cough. He felt
that they surrounded her, three great men, like enemies, a fluttering,
helpless creature in her own house. She should not be confined unless
there were no other way. She was, as far as he could see, wholly
normal. While Good talked to Stephen about a problem with which both
ophthalmists and psychiatrists were concerned, he clasped Hilda's hand
a little more closely.
It may have been that his ill-concealed anxiety and alarm roused her
suspicions, or that the cunning plan which she believed that she was
carrying out excited her beyond the point of safety; it may have
been merely that her disease advanced rapidly to a climax. Suddenly
she felt that he--that they all--were against her. It was no longer
possible for her to restrain herself. She began to stammer and to point
her forefinger at Stephen. Hers was the dreadful gaze of a bird at a
snake or a prisoner at a hated jailer.
"Uncle," she said earnestly in her clear, high voice, "he's not true to
me." The three men heard; so did Ellen, impressed into service by the
absence of the waitress, and so did Fetzer in the pantry. "I can tell
you about the many, many women. I can--"
"As I was saying, ..." went on Dr. Good.
"Hilda, I have something to tell you," said Mayne, desperately.
But Hilda would not be silenced. She rose, pushing away from her the
silver tray with its coffee service and its delicate cups. A flask of
cognac which was not well balanced fell with a light crash upon a piece
of fragile china; then her hands, spread suddenly apart in a frantic
gesture, sent her pearls in all directions.
"You'll listen while I tell you everything! You'll--"
A terrified, watchful Fetzer came a little beyond the screen which
stood before the pantry door. She knew the purpose of their coming--did
they understand that Hilda was really mad, and did they know that
madness was cunning and quick and dangerous?
Hilda turned her head and looked at Fetzer, her hatred leaping to her
eyes.
"There is one of them, Uncle!" As Mayne rose she threw herself into his
arms. "I want to go home with you!"
Mayne's eyes filled with tears.
"Now?"
"Yes."
"Can you prepare to go at once?"
Hilda fixed her eyes upon Ellen who had neither pretensions to learning
nor connection with Stephen's hated work.
"She'll help me." She looked about wildly and Mayne and Ellen guided
her up the stairs.
"I'll give you some medicine to make you feel better, then this girl
will assist you." Mayne was trembling. It was, alas, not to his house
that they would take poor Hilda!
Ellen helped the shivering figure into a street dress. The medicine
began to have its effect; Hilda grew drowsy and lost control of her
tongue. When Mayne returned she pointed to Ellen.
"What is it, Hilda? Are you afraid of her?"
Hilda shook her head.
"Do you wish her to accompany you?" Even in moments like this Mayne
chose his words.
Hilda nodded and Mayne went to speak to Stephen. When he returned they
helped Hilda down the stairs. She became more drowsy and had difficulty
in finding the step of the throbbing motor. She laid her head on
Ellen's shoulder and Ellen steadied her with her arm. The car gave a
premonitory whirr, then it seemed to spring ahead. It did not move as
though guided by the expert hand of Fickes and Ellen realized that
Stephen was at the wheel and that Dr. Good sat beside him.
Once in the long journey Mayne asked a question.
"Isn't Mrs. Lanfair heavy against your shoulder?"
"No," answered Ellen.
Mayne's voice was thick and Ellen herself had shed tears.
At eleven o'clock the car stopped beneath a _porte-cochère_ and a
nurse and two orderlies came down the steps. They received poor Hilda
tenderly and with businesslike hopefulness. The three men followed the
little procession into the lighted doorway.
Until they reappeared, a space of time which seemed long, but which was
in reality short, Ellen looked up at the beautiful doorway and at the
dimly outlined ornamental shrubbery. A stranger had now joined Lanfair
and his companions and together they approached the car.
"She'll sleep till morning, Stephen, then I'll be here, and Good also.
We'll go into the city for the night."
Ellen heard a new voice, smooth, a little hesitating, and very kind.
Dr. King had new theories and indestructible enthusiasm, and his
experiments were being eagerly watched.
"I should advise against the patient seeing you at once, Dr. Lanfair."
"I understand," answered Stephen. He looked frowning at the car.
"That girl's got to be taken back. I may as well go home."
"She has comported herself admirably." Mayne raised his voice so that
Ellen might hear.
Stephen stepped into the car as one who feels his way. He looked at
Ellen as though her outline were dim.
"You'd better sit beside me. It will be rough riding there on the back
seat."
He did not speak again until the journey was almost over, when, in the
city limits, he slackened his speed.
"You've been of great service--" again he tried vainly to remember
Ellen's name.
Ellen wiped her eyes.
"I'm very sorry for her," she said.
"Yes," said Stephen heavily. His own eyes smarted, though he had never
expected to shed tears for Hilda.
Fetzer, hearing the motor, opened the door. She felt, it must be
confessed, a little jealousy--it was she who should have helped
Stephen! She climbed with Ellen the narrow stairway at the back of the
house, and Stephen went up the broader stairway to his dressing-room.
She sat with Ellen while she got ready for bed.
"It was God's will that the colored girl was out," she said devoutly.
"Nobody will know anything. Even those women in the office don't need
to know, ain't it so, Ellen?"
"I shan't tell them."
Fetzer rose and laid her hand across her cheek.
"Most people think he laid all this time on a bed of roses. But we
know."
Ellen lay down and pushed the pillow away and turned over on her face,
her cheek on her arm. Her heart throbbed, her cheek was flushed. The
strange journey, Stephen's eyes, his long, slim hand, the touch of his
arm against hers as she stepped to her place beside him, the darkness,
the swift, unbroken pace, once a deep breath--all passed through her
mind. She did not think coherently; she merely recalled each detail
with nervous excitement.
Stephen wheeled his bed to the bay-window from which he could look out
upon the river. Sleep was far from him. It was many years since he
had thought of Hilda with tenderness, but he thought of her tenderly
now. After a while he rose and went across to her rooms and sat down.
The low moon illuminated some of the luxurious furnishings and cast
others into shadow. He sat motionless, recalling the early days of his
devotion, the hours of dreaming before Edward Levis's meager fire,
Hilda's advances, his shy response, his rapture.
Then other recollections thronged, and face and heart burned. He rose
quickly. He would not think of her unkindly in this house, nor in this
hour, now that she was gone. No blame could be imputed to her; she was
a creature unfinished, spoiled, ill. He wished that he had been as
patient in his heart as he had been unfailingly kind in his behavior.
Now she was gone, she could trouble him no more, harass him no more,
embarrass, shame, terrify him no more. He went to his bed and to sleep.