CHAPTER VI

A WORD AS TO HETTY

Peter Gergue wrote to Amos that Wint had gone home; and Amos got a letter from Wint with the same news, the same day. Wint’s letter was straightforward, a little embarrassed. “I want you to know,” he wrote, “that my father and I have fixed things up. I am living at home again. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your kindness. But I thought I ought to go home if they were willing to have me, and they were.”

Peter wrote more at length. Gergue, uncouth to look upon and rude of speech, was nevertheless an educated man, and a well-read man. There was nothing bizarre about his letters. He wrote that Wint and his father had come together. “From what I hear, Wint went home and told Chase he was sorry, and so on,” Gergue continued. “I guess Chase took on some, at that; but he came around. He’s wrapped up in Wint, you know, and always was. This has been a good thing for him. He’s human now. He’s not such a darned fool. Chase, I mean. If you don’t look out, Chase will give you a run for your money yet.

“Wint’s all right, too. Hasn’t touched a drop, far as I can find out, since you left. He’s studying law with old Hoover, and working at the job of being Mayor. Not setting the world on fire, either. Just the routine. Town’s as wet as ever, and looks like it will go on being. I guess Wint is worried for fear folks will laugh at him if he starts a clean-up. Or maybe he doesn’t want to. Or maybe he hasn’t thought about it.

“He and Routt don’t run around together much. Jack’s been away. I wrote you about that. He’s back now. Acts same as ever. Mary Dale told me he was in to see old Kite one day, and Kite went up in the air. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. She thinks Jack is made and handed down. Maybe he is. I wonder what he wanted to go and see old V. R. Kite for?

“Kite was sore at you, right after election. Some one told him you was going to have Wint clean up the town. He made talk that he’d hang your hide if you did. But he got over that. He’s lying quiet. Doing a good business, too, I should say. There were seven drunks in Wint’s court last week.

“I asked Chase if he figured to run against you next fall. He said he was out of active politics. Active, he said.

“Guess you’ve seen about the new city government law. Means we’ll have to vote for Mayor again, this fall, instead of a year from now. You figure to run Wint? I guess he’d take it. I guess he’s just getting rightly interested in the job.

“See the session’s likely to end along in May. You figure to come home then?”

Amos read these letters, read Wint’s twice, and smiled at it; then re-read Peter Gergue’s. That night at their hotel he told Agnes that Wint had gone to his own home. “Guess you’d better go back and keep Maria company,” he said.

He half expected her to protest. Agnes seemed to be having a good time in Washington; she was very gay and much abroad. Jack Routt had stopped off for three or four days, during his absence from Hardiston, and she and Jack had been constantly together while he was in town. Also, there had been other amiable young men, before and after Jack. So Amos thought Agnes was enjoying herself, and hesitated to suggest her going home. But he made up his mind, before he spoke, that she should go. Amos never got into an argument unless he intended to win. This habit had established for him a certain reputation for infallibility.

But--Agnes did not protest. “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m sick of this stupid old place.”

Amos, head on one side, squinted at her humorously. “Well, there are some stupid things done here, anyways,” he agreed. “When’ll you put out for Hardiston?”

She planned to get some clothes. “I’ll be along in May,” Amos told her. “Guess you and Maria can go it alone till then.”

Agnes was sure they could.

* * * * *

In Hardiston, Wint’s home-going was a nine days’ wonder. People made comments according to their own hearts. Some were glad, some were amused, some were caustic. The only one to whom Wint offered any explanation was old Maria Hale. The old negress loved him like a son; she was sorry to see him go. There were tears in her eyes when she told him so; they ran down her black cheeks, like drops of ink upon that blackness. It is easy to speak openly of simple, human emotions to such folks as old Maria. Wint said to her: “I want to go home to my father and mother. And they want me. I’m going to make it up to them for some of the things I’ve done.” He would not have said as much as that to any other person in the world. But there was no sense of strangeness in saying it to the old colored woman.

She bobbed her withered head, and smiled through her tears, and cried:

“Da’s right, Miste’ Wint. Yore mammy ’nd pappy shore got to be proud o’ you, boy.”

“I hope so, Maria,” he told her, and she patted his shoulder.

“‘Deed and dey will.”

When he left the house, she came to the door and told him he must come, now and then, and let her cook him a good supper; and he must come and see her. She would be lonely, in that big house, without no white folks around, she said. Wint promised to come; and she waved her blue gingham apron after him as he went down the street.

Muldoon was with him, scampering around him and about; and old Maria, watching Wint and the dog, said to herself as they disappeared:

“Shore will miss dat boy; but ol’ M’ria ain’t going to pester herself about not seeing dat dog.”

She objected to Muldoon because he shed hairs on the rugs. But she had tolerated him for Wint’s sake. Muldoon thoroughly understood her feelings; he used to sit with his head on one side and bark at her while she brushed up those tawny hairs and scolded at him. She declared he was laughing at her. More than once, Wint had been forced to make peace between them.

Muldoon did not seem surprised that they were going home; he took it quite as a matter of course. In fact, it is doubtful whether he noticed the change at all. Home, to Muldoon, was where Wint was. For that is the way of the dog.

So Wint went home, and Hardiston talked it over. V. R. Kite was glad to hear it. It meant, he decided, that Wint had shifted allegiance from Amos to his father; and while Kite had always mistrusted the elder Chase, he felt they had a common bond in their mutual antagonism toward Amos. Kite, in the last few months, had conceived a new respect for Winthrop Chase, Senior. “Chase,” he was accustomed to say, “is a man of sense. Yes, sir; a man of sense.”

Joan was glad; she found occasion to tell Wint so, simply and without elaboration. Wint said awkwardly: “Yes, I’m glad too. I guess it’s better.” And they never mentioned the change again. James T. Hollow, the little man whom Caretall had put up for Mayor against Chase, resented Wint’s move. “It’s desertion,” he told Peter Gergue. “He is deserting Congressman Caretall; and after all the Congressman has done for him. It’s not the right thing to do, Peter.”

Gergue spat, and rummaged through his hair. “Can’t always do what’s right,” he said.

“I’m afraid Amos will resent this,” Hollow went on. Peter said he shouldn’t wonder.

“If he does object, guess he’ll know how to show it,” he remarked. And Hollow agreed, and added admiringly that Amos always seemed to know just the right thing to do.

The _Hardiston Sun_ and the _Journal_ were both friendly to Winthrop Chase, Senior; so Skinner and B. B. Beecham made no comment on Wint’s change of residence. But the semi-weekly _Herald_, which was an outcast with its hand against every man, politically speaking, said, under a headline: “The Prodigal Returns,” that Wint, “whose break with the elder Chase dates from the election, when Senior was made a laughingstock before the state, has returned to the parental rooftree. Please omit fatted calves.”

Sam O’Brien, the fat restaurant man, told Ned Bentley it was a good thing. “Young Wint’s a fine lad,” he said. “And he’s on the right track. Does no good, never, to break with your blood and kin.”

Thus each took his own point of view. It was a poor citizen of Hardiston who had nothing to say about the matter, except that those most concerned had nothing to say at all.

The actual home-coming was simple and undramatic. Wint sent his trunk out during the day after his talk with his father. In the late afternoon of that day, he happened to drop in at the Post Office for the late mail, and met his father there. They greeted each other casually; and Wint asked:

“On your way home?”

“I have to stop at the bakery.”

“I’ll go along,” said Wint. And he did, while people stared with all their eyes. Old Mrs. Mueller, the comfortable little woman who owned the bakery, and who was always associated in Wint’s mind with the delicious fragrance of newly baked bread, lifted both hands at sight of them together, then dropped her hands abruptly and wiped them on her apron and served them without a word. Before the door closed behind them, they heard her, behind the screen in the rear of the shop, volubly telling some one the news.

Wint and his father walked home without speaking once upon the way. They were both acutely embarrassed and uncomfortable. It was a relief to them both when they got to the house and Mrs. Chase met them in the hall. Chase dropped his hand on his son’s shoulder--the involuntary touch, like a caress, brought the tears to Wint’s eyes--and he said:

“Here’s Wint, mother.”

So Wint took his mother in his arms, and she hugged him, hard. “I knew you’d c-c-c-come home, Wint,” she told him, through her sobs. “I was telling Mrs. Hullis, only the other day, that I’d--that I was just sure you’d come home some--”

“I’ve come, mother,” said Wint.

“I knew you’d come, too. I told father there wasn’t anything in you that would--I told him you’d be sorry, that you’d come and tell him so. Your father’s a good man, Wint. He’s tried to--”

Chase broke in. People who wished to say anything to her always had to break in on Mrs. Chase. He said: “Is supper ready, mother? Wint’s hungry, and so am I.”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “It’s all ready. Hetty’s made two big pies, Wint. Apples, with cinnamon in them. Thick, the way you like them. Some of our apples, from the big Sheep’s Nose tree in the back yard. They’ve kept wonderful this winter. We haven’t lost hardly any; and they’re as juicy--”

“Lead me to ’em,” said Wint cheerfully. “Is Hetty a good cook?”

“She’s fine,” his mother assured him. “Hetty’s a fine girl. I never had a harder worker. She don’t seem right happy, sometimes; but she does her work, and that’s all a body has a right to ask. She--”

Hetty herself came to the dining-room door, then, and told them that supper was ready. Wint said: “Hello, Hetty,” and shook hands with her. She said:

“Hello, Wint.” The old note of reckless courage and good nature was gone from her voice; and when he saw her more clearly, in the lighted dining room, he saw his mother was right. Hetty did not look happy. Her eyes were tired; and there were shadows beneath them. Her face was thinner, too. He thought she did not look well. During supper, while she waited upon them, he told her so. “You’ve been working too hard, Hetty. You don’t look like yourself.”

She said, with a twisted smile, that she was all right. There was a harsh note in her voice. It disturbed Wint; but he said no more. During the succeeding days and weeks, he grew accustomed to her changed appearance. He no longer thought of it.

In mid-April, Jack Routt came out to the house one night to see Wint. The visit seemed casual enough. He said he had thought he would drop in for a smoke and a talk. He came early, only a few minutes after supper, and Hetty was clearing away the supper dishes. When she heard his voice in the hall, she stood very still for a moment, looking that way. Wint did not see her. Routt laid aside his hat, and then he saw Hetty, and he called to her:

“Hello, Hetty.”

She said evenly: “Hello, Jack.”

Then Routt and Wint went up to Wint’s room, and Hetty stood very still where she was for a little time, before she went on with her work.

Upstairs, Routt was saying: “I’d forgotten Hetty was working for you.”

“Yes,” said Wint.

Routt lighted a cigarette. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

Wint nodded. “Not as pretty as she was in school. Remember what a picture she used to be, hair in a braid, and those cream-red cheeks of hers?”

“Guess I do,” Routt agreed warmly. He looked at Wint and grinned. “Don’t know that I’d want her living in the same house with me,” he said.

“Why not?” Wint asked.

“Damned bad for my peace of mind.”

Wint flushed. He was a curiously clean, innocent chap in some ways. He felt a little ashamed by the mere existence of the thought which had prompted Routt’s covert suggestion. “I’m glad you dropped in, Jack,” he said. “Good to see you here again. Like old times.”

If he had been less busy with the work of his office, and with his study, Wint might have thought more about Hetty during the next few weeks. But--he didn’t. They saw each other daily, and once or twice he realized that she was not as good-natured as she had been. There were times when she was sullen.... For the most part, however, he did not think of her at all.

Now and then he had short letters from Amos. Dry, friendly letters, with some impersonal advice sprinkled through them. In the third week in May, Amos wrote that he would come home, arriving the Thursday following. Wint was glad he was going to see Amos again. He had gone to Amos’s house once or twice for the suppers Maria loved to cook for him, but when Agnes came home, he gave that up. Agnes bored him. She was too vivacious. Joan was quieter, calmer, infinitely strengthening and strong.... Jack Routt was seeing a good deal of Agnes, he knew. Routt seemed no longer bent on the wooing of Joan, though he had told Wint, months ago, that he meant to go in and win. Wint joked him, one day, about this, and Routt said frankly:

“You and she have made up. I’m not the sort of a chap that trespasses. When I see I’ve no chance, I know how to make the best of things.”

Wint thought that was straightforward and decent in Routt.

Amos was to come home on the afternoon train, Thursday. Wednesday evening, Wint spent at home. Chase and Wint’s mother went upstairs early to bed, but Wint was busy with a case book from Hoover’s office, and remained downstairs, the book open on the table, the lamp beside him.

He did not realize that time was passing. Wint had a certain faculty for concentration; and the dead quiet of the sleeping house allowed him to enclose himself in the world of his thoughts. He heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing but the matter he was reading. He did not hear the clock strike midnight, and one o’clock.

But in the end he did hear some one come up on the back porch. That would be Hetty, coming home. He knew she had gone out for the evening. Listening to her step, he wondered what time it was, and looked at the clock and saw that it was within twenty minutes of two in the morning.

“Great Scott!” he said, half aloud. “As late as that?” And then, curiously, “What’s Hetty doing out this time of night?” He listened; and he could hear no more footsteps, but he did catch the murmur of a man’s voice. Indistinguishable.... Then Hetty’s in a harsh, mirthless laugh. He got up abruptly and went out toward the kitchen. He could not have told what impulse sent him.

When he opened the door, Hetty was standing on the porch, facing him. There was no one with her. Wint said: “Alone, Hetty? Time you were getting in.” He was good-natured.

She looked at him, and he saw that she was flushed, and her eyes were reddened, and her mouth was open. Her hair was a little dishevelled. She looked at him, and laughed, and said loosely:

“Oh, you Wint. Wint’s caught me. Joke on me.”

He saw that she had been drinking, and he was inexpressibly sorry and disturbed. Not that he was a stranger to drink; not that he frowned upon it from high, moral grounds. But--Hetty had been so beautiful, and so youthful, and so gay. She was so hideously soiled now. He was not disgusted; he was infinitely sorry for her.

Hetty laughed crackingly. “Poor ol’ Wint. ’Member when you came home so? Hetty put Wint t’ bed. Now Wint’ll have to put Hetty to bed. Mus’n’t let Chase know, Wint. He’s a moral man.”

Wint said gently: “Of course not, Hetty.” He took her arm. “Come in.”

She was unsteady on her feet; and it seemed hard for her to keep her eyes open. He was afraid she would drop in a sodden slumber before he could get her upstairs. This fear haunted him during the moments that followed; it marked them in his memory. He was never going to be able to forget this business of helping Hetty slowly up the back stairs, and up to her third-floor room. It was only a matter of minutes; but they were fearfully long. And he was afraid she would go to sleep; and he was afraid she would laugh. Once he heard the laughter coming, in her throat, in time to press his hand over her mouth; and he could never forget the feeling of her loose, working lips beneath his hand. He was sweating and sick.

He got her to her room without turning on the lights. He got her to the bed and she lay down and seemed instantly asleep. He started for the door; and she called him back.

“Shame, Wint,” she said mournfully. “Ain’t going to take off my shoes? I took off your shoes, Wint. I took off your shoes.”

She wore low shoes, little more than pumps. He thanked his fates for that, while his fingers fumbled for the laces. A tug loosed the knots, the slippers came off easily. Hetty was snoring before he was done, and he left her so.

He could hear her snoring, after he got out into the hall. It seemed to him his father, asleep in the front of the house on the second floor, must hear. He went down from the third floor to the second on tiptoe with excruciating care. And on down the back stairs to put out the lights, and put away his book, and come back up to his own bed.

He could not sleep for a long time. He was obsessed by a strange and persistent feeling of responsibility for Hetty. It was as though he felt himself to blame for this thing that had come to her.

Jack Routt would have laughed at such a state of mind; but it was very real to Wint.