Evelina's marriage took place on the appointed day. It was celebrated
in the evening, in the chantry of the church which the sisters attended,
and after it was over the few guests who had been present repaired to
the Bunner Sisters' basement, where a wedding supper awaited them. Ann
Eliza, aided by Miss Mellins and Mrs. Hawkins, and consciously supported
by the sentimental interest of the whole street, had expended her utmost
energy on the decoration of the shop and the back room. On the table a
vase of white chrysanthemums stood between a dish of oranges and bananas
and an iced wedding-cake wreathed with orange-blossoms of the bride's
own making. Autumn leaves studded with paper roses festooned the
what-not and the chromo of the Rock of Ages, and a wreath of yellow
immortelles was twined about the clock which Evelina revered as the
mysterious agent of her happiness.
At the table sat Miss Mellins, profusely spangled and bangled, her head
sewing-girl, a pale young thing who had helped with Evelina's outfit,
Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, with Johnny, their eldest boy, and Mrs. Hochmuller
and her daughter.
Mrs. Hochmuller's large blonde personality seemed to pervade the room
to the effacement of the less amply-proportioned guests. It was rendered
more impressive by a dress of crimson poplin that stood out from her in
organ-like folds; and Linda, whom Ann Eliza had remembered as an
uncouth child with a sly look about the eyes, surprised her by a sudden
blossoming into feminine grace such as sometimes follows on a gawky
girlhood. The Hochmullers, in fact, struck the dominant note in the
entertainment. Beside them Evelina, unusually pale in her grey cashmere
and white bonnet, looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant
chromo; and Mr. Ramy, doomed to the traditional insignificance of the
bridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation.
Even Miss Mellins sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow of
Mrs. Hochmuller's crimson bulk; and Ann Eliza, with a sense of vague
foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centred about the two guests she
had most wished to exclude from it. What was said or done while they
all sat about the table she never afterward recalled: the long hours
remained in her memory as a whirl of high colours and loud voices, from
which the pale presence of Evelina now and then emerged like a drowned
face on a sunset-dabbled sea.
The next morning Mr. Ramy and his wife started for St. Louis, and Ann
Eliza was left alone. Outwardly the first strain of parting was tempered
by the arrival of Miss Mellins, Mrs. Hawkins and Johnny, who dropped in
to help in the ungarlanding and tidying up of the back room. Ann Eliza
was duly grateful for their kindness, but the “talking over” on which
they had evidently counted was Dead Sea fruit on her lips; and just
beyond the familiar warmth of their presences she saw the form of
Solitude at her door.
Ann Eliza was but a small person to harbour so great a guest, and a
trembling sense of insufficiency possessed her. She had no high musings
to offer to the new companion of her hearth. Every one of her thoughts
had hitherto turned to Evelina and shaped itself in homely easy words;
of the mighty speech of silence she knew not the earliest syllable.
Everything in the back room and the shop, on the second day after
Evelina's going, seemed to have grown coldly unfamiliar. The whole
aspect of the place had changed with the changed conditions of Ann
Eliza's life. The first customer who opened the shop-door startled her
like a ghost; and all night she lay tossing on her side of the bed,
sinking now and then into an uncertain doze from which she would
suddenly wake to reach out her hand for Evelina. In the new silence
surrounding her the walls and furniture found voice, frightening her
at dusk and midnight with strange sighs and stealthy whispers. Ghostly
hands shook the window shutters or rattled at the outer latch, and once
she grew cold at the sound of a step like Evelina's stealing through the
dark shop to die out on the threshold. In time, of course, she found
an explanation for these noises, telling herself that the bedstead was
warping, that Miss Mellins trod heavily overhead, or that the thunder of
passing beer-waggons shook the door-latch; but the hours leading up to
these conclusions were full of the floating terrors that harden into
fixed foreboding. Worst of all were the solitary meals, when she
absently continued to set aside the largest slice of pie for Evelina,
and to let the tea grow cold while she waited for her sister to help
herself to the first cup. Miss Mellins, coming in on one of these sad
repasts, suggested the acquisition of a cat; but Ann Eliza shook
her head. She had never been used to animals, and she felt the vague
shrinking of the pious from creatures divided from her by the abyss of
soullessness.
At length, after ten empty days, Evelina's first letter came.
“My dear Sister,” she wrote, in her pinched Spencerian hand, “it seems
strange to be in this great City so far from home alone with him I have
chosen for life, but marriage has its solemn duties which those who are
not can never hope to understand, and happier perhaps for this reason,
life for them has only simple tasks and pleasures, but those who must
take thought for others must be prepared to do their duty in whatever
station it has pleased the Almighty to call them. Not that I have cause
to complain, my dear Husband is all love and devotion, but being absent
all day at his business how can I help but feel lonesome at times, as
the poet says it is hard for they that love to live apart, and I often
wonder, my dear Sister, how you are getting along alone in the store,
may you never experience the feelings of solitude I have underwent since
I came here. We are boarding now, but soon expect to find rooms and
change our place of Residence, then I shall have all the care of a
household to bear, but such is the fate of those who join their Lot with
others, they cannot hope to escape from the burdens of Life, nor would
I ask it, I would not live alway but while I live would always pray for
strength to do my duty. This city is not near as large or handsome as
New York, but had my lot been cast in a Wilderness I hope I should
not repine, such never was my nature, and they who exchange their
independence for the sweet name of Wife must be prepared to find all is
not gold that glitters, nor I would not expect like you to drift down
the stream of Life unfettered and serene as a Summer cloud, such is
not my fate, but come what may will always find in me a resigned and
prayerful Spirit, and hoping this finds you as well as it leaves me, I
remain, my dear Sister,
“Yours truly,
“EVELINA B. RAMY.”
Ann Eliza had always secretly admired the oratorical and impersonal tone
of Evelina's letters; but the few she had previously read, having been
addressed to school-mates or distant relatives, had appeared in the
light of literary compositions rather than as records of personal
experience. Now she could not but wish that Evelina had laid aside her
swelling periods for a style more suited to the chronicling of homely
incidents. She read the letter again and again, seeking for a clue to
what her sister was really doing and thinking; but after each reading
she emerged impressed but unenlightened from the labyrinth of Evelina's
eloquence.
During the early winter she received two or three more letters of the
same kind, each enclosing in its loose husk of rhetoric a smaller kernel
of fact. By dint of patient interlinear study, Ann Eliza gathered from
them that Evelina and her husband, after various costly experiments in
boarding, had been reduced to a tenement-house flat; that living in St.
Louis was more expensive than they had supposed, and that Mr. Ramy was
kept out late at night (why, at a jeweller's, Ann Eliza wondered?) and
found his position less satisfactory than he had been led to expect.
Toward February the letters fell off; and finally they ceased to come.
At first Ann Eliza wrote, shyly but persistently, entreating for more
frequent news; then, as one appeal after another was swallowed up in the
mystery of Evelina's protracted silence, vague fears began to assail the
elder sister. Perhaps Evelina was ill, and with no one to nurse her but
a man who could not even make himself a cup of tea! Ann Eliza recalled
the layer of dust in Mr. Ramy's shop, and pictures of domestic disorder
mingled with the more poignant vision of her sister's illness. But
surely if Evelina were ill Mr. Ramy would have written. He wrote a
small neat hand, and epistolary communication was not an insuperable
embarrassment to him. The too probable alternative was that both
the unhappy pair had been prostrated by some disease which left them
powerless to summon her--for summon her they surely would, Ann Eliza
with unconscious cynicism reflected, if she or her small economies could
be of use to them! The more she strained her eyes into the mystery, the
darker it grew; and her lack of initiative, her inability to imagine
what steps might be taken to trace the lost in distant places, left her
benumbed and helpless.
At last there floated up from some depth of troubled memory the name
of the firm of St. Louis jewellers by whom Mr. Ramy was employed. After
much hesitation, and considerable effort, she addressed to them a timid
request for news of her brother-in-law; and sooner than she could have
hoped the answer reached her.
“DEAR MADAM,
“In reply to yours of the 29th ult. we beg to state the party you refer
to was discharged from our employ a month ago. We are sorry we are
unable to furnish you wish his address.
“Yours Respectfully,
“LUDWIG AND HAMMERBUSCH.”
Ann Eliza read and re-read the curt statement in a stupor of distress.
She had lost her last trace of Evelina. All that night she lay awake,
revolving the stupendous project of going to St. Louis in search of her
sister; but though she pieced together her few financial possibilities
with the ingenuity of a brain used to fitting odd scraps into patch-work
quilts, she woke to the cold daylight fact that she could not raise the
money for her fare. Her wedding gift to Evelina had left her without any
resources beyond her daily earnings, and these had steadily dwindled as
the winter passed. She had long since renounced her weekly visit to the
butcher, and had reduced her other expenses to the narrowest measure;
but the most systematic frugality had not enabled her to put by any
money. In spite of her dogged efforts to maintain the prosperity of the
little shop, her sister's absence had already told on its business.
Now that Ann Eliza had to carry the bundles to the dyer's herself, the
customers who called in her absence, finding the shop locked, too often
went elsewhere. Moreover, after several stern but unavailing efforts,
she had had to give up the trimming of bonnets, which in Evelina's hands
had been the most lucrative as well as the most interesting part of the
business. This change, to the passing female eye, robbed the shop window
of its chief attraction; and when painful experience had convinced the
regular customers of the Bunner Sisters of Ann Eliza's lack of millinery
skill they began to lose faith in her ability to curl a feather or even
“freshen up” a bunch of flowers. The time came when Ann Eliza had almost
made up her mind to speak to the lady with puffed sleeves, who had
always looked at her so kindly, and had once ordered a hat of Evelina.
Perhaps the lady with puffed sleeves would be able to get her a little
plain sewing to do; or she might recommend the shop to friends. Ann
Eliza, with this possibility in view, rummaged out of a drawer the
fly-blown remainder of the business cards which the sisters had ordered
in the first flush of their commercial adventure; but when the lady with
puffed sleeves finally appeared she was in deep mourning, and wore
so sad a look that Ann Eliza dared not speak. She came in to buy some
spools of black thread and silk, and in the doorway she turned back to
say: “I am going away to-morrow for a long time. I hope you will have a
pleasant winter.” And the door shut on her.
One day not long after this it occurred to Ann Eliza to go to Hoboken in
quest of Mrs. Hochmuller. Much as she shrank from pouring her distress
into that particular ear, her anxiety had carried her beyond such
reluctance; but when she began to think the matter over she was faced by
a new difficulty. On the occasion of her only visit to Mrs. Hochmuller,
she and Evelina had suffered themselves to be led there by Mr. Ramy;
and Ann Eliza now perceived that she did not even know the name of the
laundress's suburb, much less that of the street in which she lived.
But she must have news of Evelina, and no obstacle was great enough to
thwart her.
Though she longed to turn to some one for advice she disliked to expose
her situation to Miss Mellins's searching eye, and at first she could
think of no other confidant. Then she remembered Mrs. Hawkins, or
rather her husband, who, though Ann Eliza had always thought him a
dull uneducated man, was probably gifted with the mysterious masculine
faculty of finding out people's addresses. It went hard with Ann Eliza
to trust her secret even to the mild ear of Mrs. Hawkins, but at least
she was spared the cross-examination to which the dress-maker would
have subjected her. The accumulating pressure of domestic cares had so
crushed in Mrs. Hawkins any curiosity concerning the affairs of others
that she received her visitor's confidence with an almost masculine
indifference, while she rocked her teething baby on one arm and with the
other tried to check the acrobatic impulses of the next in age.
“My, my,” she simply said as Ann Eliza ended. “Keep still now, Arthur:
Miss Bunner don't want you to jump up and down on her foot to-day. And
what are you gaping at, Johnny? Run right off and play,” she added,
turning sternly to her eldest, who, because he was the least naughty,
usually bore the brunt of her wrath against the others.
“Well, perhaps Mr. Hawkins can help you,” Mrs. Hawkins continued
meditatively, while the children, after scattering at her bidding,
returned to their previous pursuits like flies settling down on the
spot from which an exasperated hand has swept them. “I'll send him right
round the minute he comes in, and you can tell him the whole story. I
wouldn't wonder but what he can find that Mrs. Hochmuller's address in
the d'rectory. I know they've got one where he works.”
“I'd be real thankful if he could,” Ann Eliza murmured, rising from her
seat with the factitious sense of lightness that comes from imparting a
long-hidden dread.
X
Mr. Hawkins proved himself worthy of his wife's faith in his capacity.
He learned from Ann Eliza as much as she could tell him about Mrs.
Hochmuller and returned the next evening with a scrap of paper bearing
her address, beneath which Johnny (the family scribe) had written in a
large round hand the names of the streets that led there from the ferry.
Ann Eliza lay awake all that night, repeating over and over again the
directions Mr. Hawkins had given her. He was a kind man, and she knew
he would willingly have gone with her to Hoboken; indeed she read in his
timid eye the half-formed intention of offering to accompany her--but on
such an errand she preferred to go alone.
The next Sunday, accordingly, she set out early, and without much
trouble found her way to the ferry. Nearly a year had passed since her
previous visit to Mrs. Hochmuller, and a chilly April breeze smote her
face as she stepped on the boat. Most of the passengers were huddled
together in the cabin, and Ann Eliza shrank into its obscurest corner,
shivering under the thin black mantle which had seemed so hot in July.
She began to feel a little bewildered as she stepped ashore, but a
paternal policeman put her into the right car, and as in a dream she
found herself retracing the way to Mrs. Hochmuller's door. She had told
the conductor the name of the street at which she wished to get out,
and presently she stood in the biting wind at the corner near the
beer-saloon, where the sun had once beat down on her so fiercely. At
length an empty car appeared, its yellow flank emblazoned with the name
of Mrs. Hochmuller's suburb, and Ann Eliza was presently jolting past
the narrow brick houses islanded between vacant lots like giant piles in
a desolate lagoon. When the car reached the end of its journey she got
out and stood for some time trying to remember which turn Mr. Ramy had
taken. She had just made up her mind to ask the car-driver when he shook
the reins on the backs of his lean horses, and the car, still empty,
jogged away toward Hoboken.
Ann Eliza, left alone by the roadside, began to move cautiously
forward, looking about for a small red house with a gable overhung by an
elm-tree; but everything about her seemed unfamiliar and forbidding. One
or two surly looking men slouched past with inquisitive glances, and she
could not make up her mind to stop and speak to them.
At length a tow-headed boy came out of a swinging door suggestive of
illicit conviviality, and to him Ann Eliza ventured to confide
her difficulty. The offer of five cents fired him with an instant
willingness to lead her to Mrs. Hochmuller, and he was soon trotting
past the stone-cutter's yard with Ann Eliza in his wake.
Another turn in the road brought them to the little red house, and
having rewarded her guide Ann Eliza unlatched the gate and walked up to
the door. Her heart was beating violently, and she had to lean against
the door-post to compose her twitching lips: she had not known till that
moment how much it was going to hurt her to speak of Evelina to Mrs.
Hochmuller. As her agitation subsided she began to notice how much the
appearance of the house had changed. It was not only that winter had
stripped the elm, and blackened the flower-borders: the house itself had
a debased and deserted air. The window-panes were cracked and dirty, and
one or two shutters swung dismally on loosened hinges.
She rang several times before the door was opened. At length an Irish
woman with a shawl over her head and a baby in her arms appeared on the
threshold, and glancing past her into the narrow passage Ann Eliza saw
that Mrs. Hochmuller's neat abode had deteriorated as much within as
without.
At the mention of the name the woman stared. “Mrs. who, did ye say?”
“Mrs. Hochmuller. This is surely her house?”
“No, it ain't neither,” said the woman turning away.
“Oh, but wait, please,” Ann Eliza entreated. “I can't be mistaken. I
mean the Mrs. Hochmuller who takes in washing. I came out to see her
last June.”
“Oh, the Dutch washerwoman is it--her that used to live here? She's been
gone two months and more. It's Mike McNulty lives here now. Whisht!” to
the baby, who had squared his mouth for a howl.
Ann Eliza's knees grew weak. “Mrs. Hochmuller gone? But where has she
gone? She must be somewhere round here. Can't you tell me?”
“Sure an' I can't,” said the woman. “She wint away before iver we come.”
“Dalia Geoghegan, will ye bring the choild in out av the cowld?” cried
an irate voice from within.
“Please wait--oh, please wait,” Ann Eliza insisted. “You see I must find
Mrs. Hochmuller.”
“Why don't ye go and look for her thin?” the woman returned, slamming
the door in her face.
She stood motionless on the door-step, dazed by the immensity of her
disappointment, till a burst of loud voices inside the house drove her
down the path and out of the gate.
Even then she could not grasp what had happened, and pausing in the road
she looked back at the house, half hoping that Mrs. Hochmuller's once
detested face might appear at one of the grimy windows.
She was roused by an icy wind that seemed to spring up suddenly from the
desolate scene, piercing her thin dress like gauze; and turning away she
began to retrace her steps. She thought of enquiring for Mrs. Hochmuller
at some of the neighbouring houses, but their look was so unfriendly
that she walked on without making up her mind at which door to ring.
When she reached the horse-car terminus a car was just moving off toward
Hoboken, and for nearly an hour she had to wait on the corner in the
bitter wind. Her hands and feet were stiff with cold when the car at
length loomed into sight again, and she thought of stopping somewhere
on the way to the ferry for a cup of tea; but before the region of
lunch-rooms was reached she had grown so sick and dizzy that the thought
of food was repulsive. At length she found herself on the ferry-boat, in
the soothing stuffiness of the crowded cabin; then came another interval
of shivering on a street-corner, another long jolting journey in a
“cross-town” car that smelt of damp straw and tobacco; and lastly, in
the cold spring dusk, she unlocked her door and groped her way through
the shop to her fireless bedroom.
The next morning Mrs. Hawkins, dropping in to hear the result of the
trip, found Ann Eliza sitting behind the counter wrapped in an old
shawl.
“Why, Miss Bunner, you're sick! You must have fever--your face is just
as red!”
“It's nothing. I guess I caught cold yesterday on the ferry-boat,” Ann
Eliza acknowledged.
“And it's jest like a vault in here!” Mrs. Hawkins rebuked her. “Let me
feel your hand--it's burning. Now, Miss Bunner, you've got to go right
to bed this very minute.”
“Oh, but I can't, Mrs. Hawkins.” Ann Eliza attempted a wan smile. “You
forget there ain't nobody but me to tend the store.”
“I guess you won't tend it long neither, if you ain't careful,” Mrs.
Hawkins grimly rejoined. Beneath her placid exterior she cherished
a morbid passion for disease and death, and the sight of Ann Eliza's
suffering had roused her from her habitual indifference. “There ain't
so many folks comes to the store anyhow,” she went on with unconscious
cruelty, “and I'll go right up and see if Miss Mellins can't spare one
of her girls.”
Ann Eliza, too weary to resist, allowed Mrs. Hawkins to put her to
bed and make a cup of tea over the stove, while Miss Mellins, always
good-naturedly responsive to any appeal for help, sent down the
weak-eyed little girl to deal with hypothetical customers.
Ann Eliza, having so far abdicated her independence, sank into sudden
apathy. As far as she could remember, it was the first time in her life
that she had been taken care of instead of taking care, and there was
a momentary relief in the surrender. She swallowed the tea like an
obedient child, allowed a poultice to be applied to her aching chest and
uttered no protest when a fire was kindled in the rarely used grate; but
as Mrs. Hawkins bent over to “settle” her pillows she raised herself on
her elbow to whisper: “Oh, Mrs. Hawkins, Mrs. Hochmuller warn't there.”
The tears rolled down her cheeks.
“She warn't there? Has she moved?”
“Over two months ago--and they don't know where she's gone. Oh what'll I
do, Mrs. Hawkins?”
“There, there, Miss Bunner. You lay still and don't fret. I'll ask Mr.
Hawkins soon as ever he comes home.”
Ann Eliza murmured her gratitude, and Mrs. Hawkins, bending down, kissed
her on the forehead. “Don't you fret,” she repeated, in the voice with
which she soothed her children.
For over a week Ann Eliza lay in bed, faithfully nursed by her two
neighbours, while the weak-eyed child, and the pale sewing girl who
had helped to finish Evelina's wedding dress, took turns in minding the
shop. Every morning, when her friends appeared, Ann Eliza lifted her
head to ask: “Is there a letter?” and at their gentle negative sank back
in silence. Mrs. Hawkins, for several days, spoke no more of her promise
to consult her husband as to the best way of tracing Mrs. Hochmuller;
and dread of fresh disappointment kept Ann Eliza from bringing up the
subject.
But the following Sunday evening, as she sat for the first time
bolstered up in her rocking-chair near the stove, while Miss Mellins
studied the Police Gazette beneath the lamp, there came a knock on the
shop-door and Mr. Hawkins entered.
Ann Eliza's first glance at his plain friendly face showed her he had
news to give, but though she no longer attempted to hide her anxiety
from Miss Mellins, her lips trembled too much to let her speak.
“Good evening, Miss Bunner,” said Mr. Hawkins in his dragging voice.
“I've been over to Hoboken all day looking round for Mrs. Hochmuller.”
“Oh, Mr. Hawkins--you HAVE?”
“I made a thorough search, but I'm sorry to say it was no use. She's
left Hoboken--moved clear away, and nobody seems to know where.”
“It was real good of you, Mr. Hawkins.” Ann Eliza's voice struggled up
in a faint whisper through the submerging tide of her disappointment.
Mr. Hawkins, in his embarrassed sense of being the bringer of bad news,
stood before her uncertainly; then he turned to go. “No trouble at all,”
he paused to assure her from the doorway.
She wanted to speak again, to detain him, to ask him to advise her; but
the words caught in her throat and she lay back silent.
The next day she got up early, and dressed and bonneted herself with
twitching fingers. She waited till the weak-eyed child appeared, and
having laid on her minute instructions as to the care of the shop, she
slipped out into the street. It had occurred to her in one of the weary
watches of the previous night that she might go to Tiffany's and make
enquiries about Ramy's past. Possibly in that way she might obtain some
information that would suggest a new way of reaching Evelina. She was
guiltily aware that Mrs. Hawkins and Miss Mellins would be angry with
her for venturing out of doors, but she knew she should never feel any
better till she had news of Evelina.
The morning air was sharp, and as she turned to face the wind she felt
so weak and unsteady that she wondered if she should ever get as far
as Union Square; but by walking very slowly, and standing still now and
then when she could do so without being noticed, she found herself at
last before the jeweller's great glass doors.
It was still so early that there were no purchasers in the shop, and
she felt herself the centre of innumerable unemployed eyes as she moved
forward between long lines of show-cases glittering with diamonds and
silver.
She was glancing about in the hope of finding the clock-department
without having to approach one of the impressive gentlemen who paced
the empty aisles, when she attracted the attention of one of the most
impressive of the number.
The formidable benevolence with which he enquired what he could do
for her made her almost despair of explaining herself; but she finally
disentangled from a flurry of wrong beginnings the request to be shown
to the clock-department.
The gentleman considered her thoughtfully. “May I ask what style of
clock you are looking for? Would it be for a wedding-present, or--?”
The irony of the allusion filled Ann Eliza's veins with sudden strength.
“I don't want to buy a clock at all. I want to see the head of the
department.”
“Mr. Loomis?” His stare still weighed her--then he seemed to brush aside
the problem she presented as beneath his notice. “Oh, certainly. Take
the elevator to the second floor. Next aisle to the left.” He waved her
down the endless perspective of show-cases.
Ann Eliza followed the line of his lordly gesture, and a swift ascent
brought her to a great hall full of the buzzing and booming of thousands
of clocks. Whichever way she looked, clocks stretched away from her in
glittering interminable vistas: clocks of all sizes and voices, from the
bell-throated giant of the hallway to the chirping dressing-table toy;
tall clocks of mahogany and brass with cathedral chimes; clocks
of bronze, glass, porcelain, of every possible size, voice and
configuration; and between their serried ranks, along the polished
floor of the aisles, moved the languid forms of other gentlemanly
floor-walkers, waiting for their duties to begin.
One of them soon approached, and Ann Eliza repeated her request. He
received it affably.
“Mr. Loomis? Go right down to the office at the other end.” He pointed
to a kind of box of ground glass and highly polished panelling.
As she thanked him he turned to one of his companions and said something
in which she caught the name of Mr. Loomis, and which was received with
an appreciative chuckle. She suspected herself of being the object of
the pleasantry, and straightened her thin shoulders under her mantle.
The door of the office stood open, and within sat a gray-bearded man at
a desk. He looked up kindly, and again she asked for Mr. Loomis.
“I'm Mr. Loomis. What can I do for you?”
He was much less portentous than the others, though she guessed him
to be above them in authority; and encouraged by his tone she seated
herself on the edge of the chair he waved her to.
“I hope you'll excuse my troubling you, sir. I came to ask if you could
tell me anything about Mr. Herman Ramy. He was employed here in the
clock-department two or three years ago.”
Mr. Loomis showed no recognition of the name.
“Ramy? When was he discharged?”
“I don't har'ly know. He was very sick, and when he got well his place
had been filled. He married my sister last October and they went to St.
Louis, I ain't had any news of them for over two months, and she's my
only sister, and I'm most crazy worrying about her.”
“I see.” Mr. Loomis reflected. “In what capacity was Ramy employed
here?” he asked after a moment.
“He--he told us that he was one of the heads of the clock-department,”
Ann Eliza stammered, overswept by a sudden doubt.
“That was probably a slight exaggeration. But I can tell you about him
by referring to our books. The name again?”
“Ramy--Herman Ramy.”
There ensued a long silence, broken only by the flutter of leaves as
Mr. Loomis turned over his ledgers. Presently he looked up, keeping his
finger between the pages.
“Here it is--Herman Ramy. He was one of our ordinary workmen, and left
us three years and a half ago last June.”
“On account of sickness?” Ann Eliza faltered.
Mr. Loomis appeared to hesitate; then he said: “I see no mention of
sickness.” Ann Eliza felt his compassionate eyes on her again. “Perhaps
I'd better tell you the truth. He was discharged for drug-taking. A
capable workman, but we couldn't keep him straight. I'm sorry to have to
tell you this, but it seems fairer, since you say you're anxious about
your sister.”
The polished sides of the office vanished from Ann Eliza's sight, and
the cackle of the innumerable clocks came to her like the yell of waves
in a storm. She tried to speak but could not; tried to get to her feet,
but the floor was gone.
“I'm very sorry,” Mr. Loomis repeated, closing the ledger. “I remember
the man perfectly now. He used to disappear every now and then, and turn
up again in a state that made him useless for days.”
As she listened, Ann Eliza recalled the day when she had come on Mr.
Ramy sitting in abject dejection behind his counter. She saw again the
blurred unrecognizing eyes he had raised to her, the layer of dust
over everything in the shop, and the green bronze clock in the window
representing a Newfoundland dog with his paw on a book. She stood up
slowly.
“Thank you. I'm sorry to have troubled you.”
“It was no trouble. You say Ramy married your sister last October?”
“Yes, sir; and they went to St. Louis right afterward. I don't know how
to find her. I thought maybe somebody here might know about him.”
“Well, possibly some of the workmen might. Leave me your name and I'll
send you word if I get on his track.”
He handed her a pencil, and she wrote down her address; then she walked
away blindly between the clocks.