Out of the Air Part 11

"It's my state of mind, Glorious Lutie," she apprised the miniature.

"It's this weight that's on my spirit. It's fear. Just as soon as I can get my mind off--I mean just as soon as I become convinced that I'm never going to be bothered again, it will go, I'm sure. Of course I can't help feeling as I do. But I ought not to. I'm perfectly safe now.

In a few days those crooks won't trouble about me any more. It will be too late. And I know it."

She reiterated those last two sentences as though Glorious Lutie were a difficult person to convince. The next morning, however, came diversion.

Work--roofing--began on the shed just under her window. Susannah watched the workmen with an interest that held, at first, an element of determined concentration. The roofers, an elderly man and a younger one, incredibly dirty in their blackened overalls, which were soon matched by face and hands, were very conscious at first of the brilliant tawny head just above. Once, m.u.f.fled by the window, she caught an allusion to white horses. But Susannah ignored this; continued to watch them disappearing and emerging through the open skylight, setting up their melting-pot, arranging their sheets of tin.

Before she was out of bed next morning they were making a metallic clatter with their hammers. In her normal state, Susannah was a creature almost without nerves. She even retained a little of the child's enjoyment of a racket for its own sake. But now--the din annoyed her, annoyed her unspeakably. She crept languidly out of bed, peeped through the edge of the curtain. They were just beginning work. It would keep up all day.

"I can't stand this!" said Susannah aloud; and then began one of her wordless addresses to the miniature.

"I guess the time has come, anyhow, to strike into pastures new. Behold, Glorious Lutie, your Glorious Susie descending from the high and mighty position of pampered secretary to that of driven slave. Tomorrow morn I apply for a job as second girl. If it weren't for this headache, I'd do it today."

However, the hammering only intensified her headache; she must get outside. So when the landlady arrived with her breakfast, Susannah inquired for the address of the nearest employment office. She dressed, and descended to the street. As always, of late, she had a shrinking as she stepped out into the open world of men and women. When she had controlled this, she moved with a curious apathy to the old, battered ground-floor office with yellow signs over its front windows, where girls found work at domestic service. Presently, she was registered, was sitting on a long bench with a row of women ranging from slatternly to cheaply smart. She scarcely observed them. That apathy was settling deeper about her spirits; her only sensation was her dull headache.

Somehow, when she sat still it was not wholly an unpleasant headache.

Then the voice of the sharp-faced woman at the desk in the corner called her name. It tore the veil, woke her as though from sleep. She rose, to face her first chance--a thin, severe woman with a mouth like a steel trap.

This first chance furnished no opening, however; neither, as the morning wore away, did several other chances. The process of getting a second maid's job was at the same time more difficult and less difficult than she had thought. Susannah had forgotten that people always ask servants for references. She had supposed her carefully worked out explanation would cover that situation--that she had been a stenographer in Providence; that she had come to New York soon after the Armistice was signed, hoping for a bigger outlook; that the returning soldiers were snapping up all the jobs; that she had tried again and again for a position; that her money was fast going; that she had been advised to enter domestic service. Housekeepers from rich establishments and the mistresses of small ones interviewed her; but the lack of references laid an impa.s.sable barrier. In the afternoon, however, luck changed. A suburbanite from Jamaica, a round, grizzled, middle-aged woman, desperately in need of a second girl, cut through all the red-tape that had held the others up. "You're perfectly honest," she said meditatively, "about admitting you've had no experience, and you _look_ trustworthy."

"I a.s.sure you, madam,"--Susannah was eager, but wary; not too eager. She even laughed a little--"I am honest--so honest that it hurts."

"The only thing is," her interlocutor went on hesitatingly; "you must pardon me for putting it so bluntly; but we might as well be open with each other. I'm afraid you'll feel a little above your position."

"Well," Susannah responded honestly, "to be straightforward with _you_, I suppose I shall. But I give you my word, I'll never _show_ it. And that's the only thing that counts, isn't it?"

The woman smiled.

"I must confess I like you," she burst out impulsively. "But how am I going to know that you're--all right?"

Susannah sighed. "I understand your situation perfectly. I don't know how you're to know I'm all right--morally or just in the matter of mere honesty. For there's n.o.body but me to tell you that I'm moral and honest. And of course I'm prejudiced."

"Well, anyway I'm going to risk it. I'm engaging you now. It is understood--ten dollars a week; and alternate Thursdays and Sundays out.

I don't want you until tomorrow because I want my former maid out of the house before you come. Now will you promise me that you'll take the nine train tomorrow?"

"I promise," Susannah agreed.

"But that reminds me," the woman came on another difficulty, "what's to guarantee that you'll stay with me?"

"I guarantee," Susannah said steadily, "that if you keep to your end of the agreement, I'll stay with you at least three months."

The woman sparkled. "All right, I'll expect you tomorrow on the nine train. I'll be there with the Ford to meet you. Here are the directions." She scribbled busily on a card.

Susannah walked home as one who treads on air. The veil of apathy had broken. And in spite of her headache, which caught her by fits and starts, her mood broke into a joy so wild that it sent her pirouetting about the room. "Glorious Lutie, I never felt so happy in my life. So gayly, grandly, gorgeously, gor-gloriously happy! All my troubles are over. I'm safe." And on the strength of that security, she washed and ironed her lavender linen suit. Her headache was better again. Perhaps if she went out now to an early dinner, it might disappear altogether.

But how languorous she felt, how indisposed to effort. She would sit and read a while. She opened _Pickwick Papers_ on its last pages. She had almost finished the book.

"I suppose it will be a long time before I have a chance to do any more reading," she meditated. "So I think I'll finish this. You've helped me through a hard pa.s.sage in my life, Charles d.i.c.kens, and I thank you with all my heart."

But she could not read. As soon as she sat down by the window and settled her eyes on the book, the headache returned. The men were still at work on the roof, hammering away at one corner. Every blow seemed to strike her skull. Midway of the roof, the skylight yawned open; their extra tools were laid out beside it. At five o'clock they would quit for the day. Usually she disliked to have them go. In spite of their noise, she felt that still. They gave her a kind of warm, human sense of companionship. And they had become accustomed to her appearances at the window. Their flirtatious first glances had ceased for want of encouragement. They scarcely seemed to see her when they looked up. But now--that hammering at her skull! Susannah suddenly rose and closed the window, hot though the day was, against this torrent of sound. As though its futile shield would give added protection, she drew the curtain. In the dimmed light she sat rocking, her head in her hands. Her face was fire-hot--why, she wondered-- The hammering stopped. They were soldering now. They were always doing that; beating the tin sheets into place and stopping to solder them. There would be silence for a time. In a moment, she would open the window for a breath of air on her burning face....

She started at a knock on her door, low, quick, but abrupt. Before she could answer, it opened. His face shadowed in the three-quarters light, but his form perfectly outlined, instantly recognizable--stood Warner.

Behind Warner was Byan, and behind Byan, O'Hearn.

All the blood of her heart seemed to strike in one wave on Susannah's aching head, and then to recede. She knew both the tingling of terror and the numbness of horror. p.r.i.c.kling, stinging darts volleyed her face, her hands, her feet; and yet she seemed to be freezing to stone.

They came into the room before anyone spoke--Warner first. Byan lolled to a place in the corner; the three-quarters light, filtering through the thin fabric of the flimsy, yellow curtain, revealed his clean profile, his mysterious half-smile. O'Hearn stood just at the entrance.

He did not continue to look at her. His eyes sought the floor.

Warner was speaking now:

"Good-evening, Miss Ayer. We have come to finish up that little piece of business with you. It has been delayed as long as it can be. Pardon us for breaking in upon you like this. Your landlady tried to prevent us, but we a.s.sured her that you would want to see us. As I think you will when you come to your senses and hear what I have to say."

He stopped, as though awaiting her reply. But Susannah made no answer.

She had dropped her eyes now; her hands lay limp in her lap. And in this pause, a curious piece of byplay pa.s.sed between Warner and O'Hearn. The master of this trio caught the glance of his a.s.sistant and, with a swift motion of three fingers toward the lapel of his coat, gave him that "office" in the underworld sign manual--which means "look things over."

O'Hearn, moving so lightly that Susannah scarcely noted his pa.s.sage, stepped to the window, lifted the edge of the curtain. He took a swift, intent look outside and returned to Warner. His back to Susannah, he spoke with his lips, scarcely vocalizing the words.

"No getaway there, Boss--straight drop--" he said.

Warner was speaking again.

"Your landlady says we may have her parlor for our conference. Wouldn't you prefer to make yourself presentable for the street and then join us there--in about ten minutes, say?"

Ten minutes--this gave her a chance to play for time--the only chance she had. She looked up. Nothing on the clean-cut, pearl-white exterior of her face gave a clue to the anarchy within; nothing, even, in her black-fringed, blue gaze the tautly-held scarlet lips. Her fire-bright head lifted a little higher and she gazed steadily into Warner's eyes, as she spoke in a voice which seemed to her to belong to someone else:

"I can give you a few minutes, but I have not changed my determination."

"But I think you will," said Warner. "I really think you will. Before we go, I might remind you that we have been extremely gentle and patient with you, Miss Ayer. I might also remind you that you have never succeeded in giving us the slip. You were very clever when you escaped from your last lodging. We don't know yet exactly how you did it.

Perhaps you will tell us in the course of our little talk this afternoon. But you were not quite clever enough. You did not figure that with such important matters pending, we would have the outside of the house watched as well as the inside. So that you may not think our meeting this afternoon is accidental, let me remind you that you have an engagement for tomorrow afternoon in Jamaica--to take a job as second maid. What we have to offer you this afternoon will probably be so attractive that you will overlook that engagement."

He paused.

"I will be with you in ten minutes," said Susannah. She was conscious of no emotion now--only that her head ached, and that the faded roses in the old carpet were entwined with forget-me-nots--a thing she had never noticed before.

"Thank you." Warner made her a gallant little bow. "Mr. Byan and I will wait in the parlor. Until we come to an understanding, we shall have to continue the old arrangement. It will therefore be necessary for Mr.

O'Hearn to watch in the hall. If you do not arrive in ten minutes--this room will probably do as well as the parlor. Until then, Miss Ayer!"

He opened the door, pa.s.sed out. Byan retreated after him, flashing one of his pathetically sweet, floating smiles. Susannah looked up now, followed their movements as the felon must follow the movements of the man with the rope. O'Hearn had been standing close to Susannah, his veiling lashes down. He fell in behind the other two. But before he joined the file, those lashes came up in a quick glance which stabbed Susannah. His hand came up too. He was pointing to the window. And then he spoke two words in a whisper so low that they carried only to the ears of Susannah, scarce three feet away--so low that she could not have made them out but for the exaggerated, expressive movement of his lips.

"Skylight--quick--" he said. He made for the door in the wake of the other two.

For the fraction of an instant Susannah did not comprehend. And then suddenly one of those little intuitive blows which she was always receiving and ignoring gave, on the hard surface of her mind, a faint tap. This time, she was conscious of it. This time, she trusted it instantly. This time, it told her what to do.

"I'll be with you as soon as I get dolled up," she called.

"That's right," came the suave voice of Warner from the hall.

She closed the door. She listened while two sets of footsteps descended the stairs. She heard a third set, which must be O'Hearn's, retreat for a few paces and then stop. She fell swiftly to work. She put on her hat and cape. She took the miniature, thumbtack and all, from the wall, and put it in her wrist bag. "Help me, Glorious Lutie," she called from the depths of her soul. "Help me! Help me! Help me! I'm lost if you don't help me! I can't do it any more alone."