Part 5

It was strange what a difference her departure seemed to make at once in the aspect of the little house; a shadow had fallen over it, a visible grayness of desolation touched it, mistlike; the embowering vines drooped like the adjuncts of a cemetery; there was a curious deadness about the very hang of the curtains, one could see from without, and the half-lowered shades. The very fact of the front doors being closed set the seal of strangeness upon it. A spirit, so vitally sweet, so informing that even inanimate objects reflected it, had departed and left only the cold and empty shell behind, not alone to the intimate heart, but to even the casual observer.

“Really, I hate to look over there,” confided Mrs. Spicer to Mrs. Stone. “Minda came into our kitchen a while ago, she said she could hardly stay in the place, she felt just as if Mrs. Ranney and the children were dead. I’m sorry she felt that way. I had the most peculiar feeling myself when I saw her go. Forebodings are so—— Well, of course, you don’t believe in them, but you don’t like them. I’ve just taken some of my nerve tonic. I can hardly blame Mr. Ranney if he stays out till all hours now.”

The watching neighbourhood could hardly believe it when eight o’clock struck—half-past eight—and no Mr. Ranney walked jauntily down the street, immaculately attired, with his gold-banded yachting cap on the side of his head. He was known to have come home to his dinner, and afterwards the smoke of his pipe had risen from the verandah. Laurence, urged thereto by his wife, lounged finally up to the door-step to find Ranney sitting there in a disreputable pongee coat, with an old, gray felt basin on his head, smoking, with his shoulders hunched forward and his eyes fixed sombrely before him. He only nodded at Laurence’s greeting, and made room on the steps beside him.

“There’s a chair up there, if you want it.”

“No, this does well enough,” said Laurence. “How is the election going on?”

“The election?” Mr. Ranney’s eyes sought for a connecting clue. “Oh, yes, of course, the Club election. I don’t know how it’s getting on, I don’t care a hang how it goes. Did you see the weather report to-night, Laurence? They say there’s a storm brewing up the coast, where my wife’s gone. Those steamers are nothing but rotten old tubs; it’s only a question when they’ll go to Davy Jones if a storm hits them. The _Peerless_ foundered three years back, you remember. When I think of that girl and her two babies out there to-night in that old _Patriot_, with nothing but a plank between them and the bottom—I tell you I’ll be glad to get a wire to-morrow night and know they’re all right. I’ve gone all to pieces thinking of it; lost my nerve completely.”

“Couldn’t they have gone by rail?” asked Mr. Laurence practically.

“Oh, yes, they could, but—they’d have to stop off on the way, and then—— Well, I _wanted_ her to, but she thought it took too much money.”

“But if you insisted on her taking it?”

“Insisted on her taking it! Why, man alive, she has it all, that’s the trouble; I hand all the funds over to that rascal, else we’d never have a penny. Oh, there’s always plenty for me when I want it, but she won’t spend it on herself. I can’t make her. But I’ll get even with her some day, you see if I don’t. I’ll plunge her into extravagance. What’s that shutter slamming for? I tell you I don’t like the way the wind is rising. When I think of that girl and her two babies——”

“Why don’t you come over on our piazza and sit awhile?” suggested the visitor; to keep rolling over and over on a wheel of marital sympathy embarrassed him.

“No, I thank you, I rather think I’ll turn in early,” said Ranney, rising as the other had done. Mr. Laurence hurried home to his wife, childishly eager to startle her with his piece of news. Ranney was going to bed at nine-of-the-clock.

“Well, I’m glad he’s missed her for one evening,” she retorted viciously. “It won’t last, though.”

But the next night when she happened to stroll over to the dividing fence in the half gloom, she discerned a figure sitting on the steps. He rose and came slowly forward, as she spoke, removing the old felt basin from his head perfunctorily.

“It looks very lonely over here without Mrs. Ranney and the children,” she said.

“Yes, it does,” answered Mr. Ranney. He knocked his pipe ruminatively on the top rail. “I didn’t realize before what a helpless being a man is without his wife; I never can remember where she keeps the clean towels.”

“I suppose she felt that she needed the change,” suggested Mrs. Laurence, a little stiffly.

“Oh, I persuaded her to go. She didn’t want to leave me, but a girl has to see her family sometimes; it’s only right.” He took a long breath. “It’s only _right_. When the letter came I said she ought to go, I said: ‘Jean, _I_ can get along; your place this summer is with your father and mother.’ She’s only been home once since I took her away—her family don’t like it very much. I had a hard time to get the scamp—regular stern-chase; but a man thinks a good bit more of a girl when he has to work to get her.”

“Yes, indeed,” responded Mrs. Laurence, though she didn’t think so at all—she adored the dear knowledge that she and Will had loved within five minutes by the watch. And to marry a woman and never care like this until she was gone! The thought gave her a shiver, as she confided later to her own husband, with her hand in his. Suppose Mr. Ranney’s appreciation of his little lonely wife had come too late?

Hereafter, night after night, the wondering Ridge beheld the deserted husband, disreputably attired, sitting upon his piazza steps or pacing up and down the narrow walk, keeping guard like a faithful dog who has been left to watch. Every evening, some man, urged thereto by his wife, strolled over to keep him company, though the rambling conversation always harked back to Mrs. Ranney through every masculine theme. The street grew to feel a distinct proprietorship that gave a sense of daily responsibility, and it grew even stronger, when, as time went on, he became gradually taciturn and moody, with a manner that said plainly that he preferred his own company to that of any friends, however well-meaning.

“Well, I’m glad Mrs. Ranney is coming home next week,” said Mrs. Spicer feelingly, as she and Mrs. Laurence stopped on a street corner in the village for a heart-to-heart talk. “I don’t know what would become of that poor man if she stayed away much longer. How much we will have to tell her!”

“Minda says he hardly eats a thing,” said Mrs. Laurence.

“He ate a little of the pudding I sent over last night. His devotion is really beautiful, but I don’t quite like his state of mind, it makes me anxious, and his appearance is so——” Mrs. Spicer paused uncomfortably. “I wish he’d shave! Ernest Spicer says he hates to be seen in the street with him.”

“Well, she’ll be home soon,” said Mrs. Laurence.

That was a fearsome night indeed, and one long to be remembered, the night before Mrs. Ranney was expected home. A wild September gale sent the deluge of rain aslant through the darkness, swirling it over lawns and among the trees into a river-torrent that carried all before it. It was a shrieking gale that tore up the houses with maniac fingers, wresting off shutters and chimney tops, dragging down trees in its giant fury, howling and whining between the shrieks like a forest of spectral wolves rushing ever faster and faster upon their prey. The rain beat in through window-casing and foundation, front doors flew open wide at the hand of the tempest. The steeple of the church came crashing down; the orphan asylum was unroofed; the affrighted fancy soared into realms of terror with the far-clanging sound of the fire-bell, caught and lost again amid the clamour of the storm.

No one slept on the Ridge that night; mothers sat by the bedside of their little children, fathers patrolled the house to see that timbers held, and the fire was kept low. There was not a household near the Ranneys’ in which some member had not said awesomely to another:

“And she is out on the ocean!” Imagination pictured the husband (as indeed Minda described him afterwards), walking up and down, up and down, up and down, with savage, miserable eyes, all night long, desperately fighting with agonized thoughts.

But, with the first sullen rays of the morning light he was gone. The tempest had abated into a fog-filled, engulfing rain, that washed all the landscape into a dirty yellow. The street on the Ridge was flooded from end to end, so that a canoe might paddle down it; but the women who lived on the same side of the way ventured with rain-coats and overshoes into each others’ houses to compare notes of the night, and to commune tearfully on the news of the morning papers. It was rumoured that the _Patriot_ had foundered with all on board. “That girl with her two babies”—suppose she could never know. All that day men and women stood in line by the offices of the Nor-Coast Steamship Company, waiting, waiting, waiting for the word that meant life, or the losing of it. The “extras” with scare-lines about the _Patriot_ with letters a foot long, were thrust before the eyes, or called in the ears of that waiting throng that thinned and fluctuated and filled up again. The extras even reached the Ridge. But at five o’clock Mr. Laurence brought home word that the _Patriot’s_ passengers had been transferred from the sinking steamer to the ship of another line, and were expected in by seven.

It was something after ten when the travellers arrived in one of the station cabs. The dwellers in the different houses had been excitedly on the lookout ever since dinner, congregating in Mrs. Laurence’s drawing-room, the women overflowing with excited sentiment, and the men, excited too, discussing the different aspects of the disaster. Minda had been overwhelmed with offers of help, and numberless dishes sent over to her for the refreshment of the wayfarers—jellies, creamed chicken, biscuit and layer cake, and many instructions given.

“Be sure and have the coffee just ready to put on,” Mrs. Stone had directed, in the very kitchen itself. “Mr. Ranney will feel the need of it as well as Mrs. Ranney after all the strain he has been through; and be sure and keep the two kettles boiling. I have sent for my rubber water-bags, as well as Mrs. Spicer’s, so that in case of chill or collapse we may have enough. One cannot tell what the effect of all that terrible exposure may have been. People have had their arms and legs frozen off in a shipwreck,” said Mrs. Stone, with a slight confusion as to the time of year.

The house was alight and welcoming as the carriage, its lamps leering mistily through the fog, lurched to a halt in the splashing flood by the curb; half a dozen hands were reached out to carry the sleeping children, and the luggage, and help the travellers.

“Why, how kind of you all to be here!” said Mrs. Ranney’s sweet, low voice, in gentle surprise. She looked younger than one remembered as they all crowded into the little drawing-room; though her beautiful hair was slightly dishevelled under her hat, and her face was pale, her brow was as serene as ever.

“Oh, we’re _so_ glad to have you back again,” cried Mrs. Spicer, with hysterical inflection, embracing the newcomer. “I don’t know what Mr. Ranney would have _done_ if you’d stayed away another day!”

“Oh, no trouble about _me_,” disclaimed Mr. Ranney loftily. He deposited a bundle of shawls in the centre of the room as he spoke and took them up again restlessly. “Where do you want these put, Jean?—I told Mrs. Ranney that I could have got along without her just as well as not for another two weeks, but she wanted to get home.”

“Yes, I thought I’d better,” assented Mrs. Ranney.

“You’ve been through so _much_,” said Mrs. Laurence pitifully. Her hand and Mrs. Ranney’s gripped, unseen. “To be in that storm on that sinking ship, with those two babies—I can’t begin to tell you how we’ve felt about it; how anxious——” her voice broke.

“Now, now, now, a little blow like that amounts to nothing,” said Mr. Ranney, with irritating contemptuousness. He had the offensive quarter-deck manner. “The passengers were transferred from one steamer to another simply for convenience in transportation. There was not the slightest danger at any time; nothing in the _world_ to be excited about!”

“No indeed,” corroborated Mrs. Ranney. She followed the group of women who hovered towards the kitchen a moment later, her large, flower-blue eyes bent earnestly upon them. “What is it you were just saying, Mrs. Spicer? No, I don’t think you’d better undress the children. I’ll just let them sleep as they are, after slipping off their shoes; they’re so tired. Mr. Ranney and Minda will carry them up-stairs. Please, Mrs. Stone, don’t get any coffee for us—it’s just as _kind_—I appreciate all the trouble you’ve taken, but we had dinner at the Astor House before we came out; we couldn’t eat a thing now. And would you mind not saying anything more about the voyage? My husband doesn’t like to talk about it. I think a good night’s rest is what we all need.”

“Well, it’s evident they’ve no more use for _us_,” said Mrs. Stone with a sigh of acquiescence as the sympathizers stood once more without the portals; the position was felt to be symbolic, yet after the first bewildered drop from exaltation there was only a faint offense left. Mrs. Stone voiced the general sentiment as she continued:

“There’s one thing certain, Mr. Ranney will never forget these last six weeks; I don’t care how he _talks_, he can’t keep his eyes off her face. He has found out what his wife is, at last.”

So deep was this feeling of certainty, that almost an electric, shuddering wave of horror passed over the Ridge the next evening when Mr. Ranney, natty and immaculate, his gold-banded yachting cap on the side of his head, pipe in hand, swung jauntily out of his front gate into the broad, white moonlight that lay along the street. Only Mrs. Laurence, from the contradictory evidence of her own deep love, had a sudden, sweet, half-smile-and-tearful divination, that he hadn’t had the heart for freedom before, with his wife away. Her dear presence now was so pervasive that the whole town seemed like home to him because she was in it.

A Symphony in Coal

A Symphony in Coal

“Did you order the coal for the furnace yesterday?”

“No, by George! I forgot it.” Mr. Laurence half paused, his tall figure arrested in the act of putting on his overcoat in the front hall, to which his wife had followed him, napkin in hand, from the breakfast table.

“Oh, _Will_! and I told you the day before, so that you’d have plenty of time.” Mrs. Laurence’s brows expressed tragic disappointment, her tone, if affectionate, was despairing. “I never saw any one like you, you never remember a thing I ask you to, any more. You don’t seem to have a mind for anything but that old law business. You’ll _have_ to order the coal this morning.”

“But, Nan”—Mr. Laurence, with his overcoat on and hat in hand, bent his fine, thin face over his watch. “I don’t see how I can, possibly; I’ve an appointment in town, and I must go around by Herkimer Street on my way to the station to see if Lalor’s got the papers he promised me.”

“I thought you were going there to-night.” Mrs. Laurence held the door-knob fast.

“I am, but I want the papers first. Couldn’t you send one of the maids to order the coal?”

“Yes, I could, but I won’t,” said his wife. Her dark eyes flashed, her tone had the conscious defiance of the loved woman, who can trade on her charm enough to be belligerent if she feels like it. “It’s got to the place where I see to every single article we eat or wear or use in this house _but_ the coal! And I just won’t order that. I told you about it three days ago and we _must_ have it this morning, with all this snow on the ground, whether it makes you late for your appointment or not.”

“Then let me go now,” said Mr. Laurence tersely, putting aside the arms with which she sought to encircle him as he swooped hastily over to kiss her on his way out. The open door let in a rush of cold air, as almost visibly keen and sparkling as a scimitar, that clove the lungs for a moment, before it was closed behind him, and his wife went back to the breakfast table where her ten-year-old son awaited her to glean the information about his history lesson which he should have looked up for himself the day before. It was, perhaps, the trouble with Mrs. Laurence that her brightness and her intelligence served to help only by taking the whole burden of a thing upon herself; it might be indeed the reason why Mr. Laurence’s official duties in the household had dwindled down to the ordering of coal, and the minor courtesy of getting a glass of water for her himself before she went to bed; it might be because she had never been able to see him do anything without doing it too. In the days when he had ostensibly locked up for the night she always followed around after him to see that the windows and doors were really bolted, so that gradually he left it all to her; if he poked the fire she snatched up the poker from where he had laid it to do the work over again. If he were sitting down she carried her own chair near the lamp rather than draw his attention to her need. Yet, sometimes, she had begun to have a little hurt feeling that he let her do so much. As to this matter of the coal—she could have sent Teresa to Harner’s, of course—it was before that revelling era of house-to-house telephoning on the Ridge—yet even at the thought she stiffened a little. There are certain unnoticed beams and girders that hold up an edifice; if one of these is out of plumb the whole building sags.

If Will really refused to order the coal he couldn’t be quite her Will any more.

Mr. Laurence, leaving the house, had debated momently in which of two opposite directions he should proceed, then he turned up Herkimer Street; to get the papers from Lalor was part of that “business” which, to a man, comes first. The air did not mellow after that initial plunge into it, it became almost unbearably keen not only in the blue shadows that lay along the freezing snow, but even where the sunshine set it glittering. Half of the walks were shovelled to make a narrow, icy pathway, but where there were unoccupied lots the drifts lay white and high, broken only by the deep leg-prints of commuters. As he strode swiftly on men shot from several houses; a very fat man, a tall one, a short one, their black figures sprinting madly in line across the white expanse towards the sound of a train slowing into the station.

Mr. Laurence’s brows contracted unconsciously—he ought to be on that train himself. If it were not for getting that paper from Lalor—the case was an important one, a good deal of Mr. Laurence’s future depended on it; he had taken it up rather against the advice of his closest friends, they thought it would be impossible to win it, but he had that little inner conviction, that intangible sense of mastery that often spells success. It gave him a nervous power that on occasion seemed to have no end, but just because it was a matter of highly strung nerves a tiny obstruction jarred them out of use; the tension was gone beyond immediate recall—it might take hours or days even to get the instrument back to that pitch—it might never get there. It was sometimes almost in the nature of self-preservation when he shut himself off from the minor pressure, the minor affairs. In this present instance, as he strode along his mind was bent on Lalor, whose former subordinate connection with the incriminated corporation seemed to have been forgotten by every one but himself. Lalor was a shifty, uncertain genius, not to be depended on, yet from whom some central facts would have to be wrested; the trouble was to keep hold of him; he required constant bolstering up.

“Why, Mrs. Lalor!”

Laurence stopped short as he nearly collided with a very slight woman, blown at him at the turn of the corner by a sweeping gale that devastated the sunshine. “Here, turn around for a moment until that blast is over.”

He steadied her where she stood panting and breathless, looking down at the top of her light-blue _chiffon_ hat, which had rather a pale and chilly early-morning effect in connection with a tight-fitting tan jacket. In lieu of furs she wore a white, pink-flowered silk scarf tied around her throat, the long fringed ends depending below her waist. Her figure was that of a young girl, but when she raised her small, long-chinned face you saw that she was considerably older; there were innumerable fine wrinkles around her pretty eyes—which had a soft haze over them, as if she had cried a great deal—and her abundant fair hair seemed a shade or two lighter than any nature could have intended it. She had an indescribable effect of artificiality counteracted rather appealingly by something bright and courageous in her gaze. Opinion halted about Mrs. Lalor, who, as a Southern woman was not only alien in habit to the Northern community to which she had lately come, but was also looked upon debatingly by the small society of Southerners in the place, usually hospitably ready to welcome any one from home.

It was unquestionable that she came of a good family, which counted for very much, but it was rumoured that she had married against the family wishes. No one knew anything of Mr. Lalor—who, in appearance, was a tall, handsome man with a drooping, reddish-brown mustache—except that he was unpleasingly dissipated and always in difficulties; it seemed to discredit his wife in some way that she lived with him. She had, besides a little flirting, attractive manner to men, a sort of an echo of past belleship, which might have been all right if she had a nice husband, but was felt to be a little stepping over the line when she hadn’t. A few women averred that there was something in her that they really liked, of whom tender-hearted little Mrs. Ramsey was one, and her neighbour, Mrs. Laurence another. The latter was by nature both generous and romantic, and with an unselfish, intelligent insight into lives that were different from her own.

There was a trustfulness in Mrs. Lalor’s attitude now which appealed to Laurence. He let go his hold of her as the wind subsided, to say:

“What are you out so early for this bitter morning? I’m just on my way to your house. Is Lalor in?”

“If you were going for those papers”—Mrs. Lalor began tugging at the breast of her jacket for a visible package—“My husband meant to bring them around last night, but he’s in bed—with a cold.” Every one knew what Mr. Lalor’s “colds” implied. “I thought you might need them to-day; I was so afraid I wouldn’t catch you in time.” She drew a sharp breath that showed how she had been hurrying.

“It was awfully good of you,” said Mr. Laurence warmly, as they turned down another street together. “Lalor will be well enough to be seen this evening, I hope?”

“Yes, I’m sure he will,” said Mrs. Lalor, in a tone that guaranteed it. “But I want to ask you, Mr. Laurence”—her face became suddenly fixed and expressionless—“in seeing that you get the evidence you want, my husband will not be—_prominent_ in any way?”

“His name need not appear at all,” said Laurence promptly. His arm hovered spasmodically near her as she went slipping and lurching alternately beside him—“_Take_ care! You’d better not walk any farther.”

“Oh, I have to go as far as Harner’s to order a ton of furnace coal.”

“I’ll stop and order it for you, if that’s all,” said Mr. Laurence. His eyes, lightly comprehensive, took note of the clock in the church tower. “I’ve got a good five minutes before my train. You go straight home, Mrs. Lalor.”

He looked down protectingly to meet her upward gaze, which was relieved and coquettish and yet, somehow, a little sad, as she answered: