Stubble Part 17

She had thought she had known Maida, known her well enough to count on her. She had known she was lazy, known she was a bit slipshod and indifferent. To offset this she was good-natured and compliant. She had had the money, enough for her share in floating the venture. There had been no complexity in the problem at the start.

It was unfair for her to pan out so. Mary Louise felt in a way that she had been swindled. She had felt all along that she could dominate the tone of the establishment, and in fact she had done so. Maida was not made of the stuff to furnish opposition. That had been one of the considerations of the partnership. And in all the months of their a.s.sociation nothing positive had ever cropped out in her. Why, she did not have the strength to say "no." That was why--Mary Louise's thought checked itself sharply here and paused. For a while her mind wore itself out in short, futile meanderings of suppositions. Directly the dim headlines of the paper she had brought with her claimed her attention, and then tiring of that she dropped the paper and stared emptily out of the window. Why, she decided suddenly out of nowhere, she didn't even know the girl.

A swinging white finger of light came feeling across the sky in her window. She watched it grope for the bra.s.s ball on the peak of the spire, saw it slip off and fumble and come feeling again, settle with a determined grasp as if to say, "There, I've got you," and then go wandering off eastward across the sky. It was the searchlight from the new Odeon theatre, she remembered. And it might be barely possible that it was entirely an honourable affair. They might really care for each other, grotesque as it might seem. Mary Louise granted for the moment that she had been a detached, impersonal sort of companion and such a thing might well be possible without her knowledge. But if such were the case, Maida needs must be apprised at once of the proprieties. The tea room was a business proposition purely. She would wait a bit until the proper time and straighten out the kinks.

Somewhat relieved in mind, she leaned back in the chair and rocked slowly. She began to grow restless, and thought for a moment to switch on the light. But the room was a bare sort of thing, had nothing of her in it, and the thought of its bleak primness was repellent. She decided that a walk was what she needed, to clear out the cobwebs.

Slowly she arose to her feet and groping along the edge of the table, felt her way to the door. An hour's walk would be enough; she would not need her coat. Slowly and thoughtfully she opened the door.

Just beyond the threshold in the dim-lit hall stood Maida, fumbling in her bag for her key. She looked up in alarm as Mary Louise opened the door. It was ludicrous, the expression on the flat face. Behind her stood the cook--the man from the army. He turned away as Mary Louise stepped out and pretended to look out the hall window.

Mary Louise had decided on a more moderate course. She had decided to forget the matter for the time being. But the sight of the boy, there in the hall, was disconcerting. Nevertheless, it was with a forced cheeriness that she spoke:

"Don't need your key, after all. I was just going out for a little while." It was trite enough civility.

Maida looked up at her dully, and Mary Louise stepped to the left and was on the point of pa.s.sing on down the hall. As she walked away, the boy moved to the door, fingering his hat, and took one step across the threshold after Maida, who had preceded him, into the darkened room.

And then Mary Louise turned around. At her step he paused and looked quickly up.

"There's a chair by the window," she said, indicating a group of armchairs cl.u.s.tered there and a tall fern in a glazed pot on a pedestal. "You can wait there." She had spoken on the impulse, and her voice sounded strangely vibrant and remote even to herself, like the voice of a third person. She was trembling slightly.

The boy looked at her, flushed a little, seemed undecided.

The light switched on and Maida appeared at the door.

"Come on in, Tim," she said, looking strangely at Mary Louise.

An overpowering anger came swelling in the latter's veins. She walked back to the door and stood before the placid bovine figure of her room-mate. For a moment she could not trust herself to speak, she was trembling so.

"I said for him to wait outside--there," she repeated with quavering emphasis.

Maida's face looked flat and large and sober. There was a great, vast, pasty blank of cheek from her sombre eyes to the downcast corner of her mouth. "I heard you," she replied. "Come in, Tim."

Mary Louise felt impotent. She watched the face before her, stolid, immutable, expressionless. She felt suffocated for breath. She plucked at her skirts with her fingers. Finally she gasped out:

"Not--not into my room. If he does, I'm through with it--and you. You understand?"

Maida shrugged her shoulders, and a slight smile curled the corners of her lips. She turned away.

"That's your lookout, not mine. You're making an awful fool of yourself, McCallum."

And then she closed the door.

Mary Louise walked blindly down the hall. She stumbled into the elevator and did not answer when the elevator boy spoke to her. When she gained the street the rush of the night air against her face steadied her a bit. She turned off promptly north and struck out for the down-town district.

By the time she had walked a block her faculties were returning. It had all been preposterous, crude. She had blindly lost her temper.

Something kept crying out to her that she was an old maid. Perhaps she shouldn't have minded. She was finicky and squeamish. A girl had to have some privacy in the place she entertained her company. But Maida--and the cook! The thought of that flat, pasty, sullen face stirred in her a sudden repulsion.

She crossed Broadway and turned west toward Fourth, walking rapidly.

Maida! Maida! The girl she had known for eighteen months in the Red Cross tea room! The girl who had sat through a year of war without ever changing the vacuity of her smile! Sat--that was it, positively sat. A woman with a figure like that had no right to a lover. And a cook! An ordinary cook, hired out by the week! His beady, close-set eyes and hair sleeked back. Like a rat! And _she_ was mixed directly up in it, _she_--Mary Louise McCallum, the daughter of Angus McCallum.

She shuddered and hurried on.

As she pa.s.sed Chestnut Street they were going into the "movie"

theatre. There was a long queue stringing out on the pavement. She was hardly aware of it but kept on walking straight north. More than one head was turned to watch her as she plunged resolutely on. Her apparent fixity of purpose was incongruous for that time of the evening.

The preposterousness of the whole affair kept hammering at her thoughts. To think that she had tied herself up with such a creature.

To think that she had been so blind to the coa.r.s.eness, the commonness that must have been there all along. What would Aunt Susie think about it? What would they all think? And in her own room! The brazen, callous nerve of the creature! Like a big, fat, lumbering ox. She trembled all over with sensitiveness.

Before she knew it she had come to Main Street. Beyond her dipped the hill that led to the river. The lamps were dim, and spa.r.s.ely lighted the alleyways and loading platforms of the dark, forbidding warehouses. She realized suddenly that she must make some decision.

She could not go back to the room. Slowly and thoughtfully she crossed the street and retraced her steps on the other side. What was she to do? She could not go back. Not under any circ.u.mstances. The friends she had were mere casual acquaintances; she could not call on them.

She pa.s.sed out into the more crowded district again. She began to be a little perturbed, forgot her anger; at least it was dimmed. Coming to Spruce Street she saw the usual crowd of men hanging about the door of the Ardmore. They always stood there, cl.u.s.tered about on the steps, with their cigarettes and their half-burned cigars and their flashy clothes and their burnt-out eyes and their appraising looks. For a moment she contemplated crossing the street to avoid running the gauntlet of their inspection. Where would she go then? Farther south it was darker and more unfriendly, with great stretches of shade and silence. She paused for a moment on the corner and watched the throng about the steps across the street. People were hurrying in and out; motors were humming; trolley gongs were clanging. She felt a sudden fear of it, that familiar neighbourhood with the tea room less than a block away. Hot, flushed, nervous, excited, she wanted to run somewhere, slink down into a cool, quiet shelter as had the cat she had seen from the window earlier in the evening. The world was a cruel place. One had to know how to get along in it. Every sc.r.a.p of a.s.surance seemed to have left her.

Suddenly she turned to the right and walked down Spruce Street. She came to the lobby of the Patterson and walked boldly in. With her pulses hammering she went up to the desk, took the pen, and signed her name to the register.

A level-eyed man with a very naked head came forward and considered her. His face was as cryptic as the outline on a mummy case. It was as easy to read his thoughts. He merely inclined his head and looked slightly away, suggesting that his ear was hers if she so desired.

"Single room with bath," faltered Mary Louise.

The clerk resumed his upright position. He looked at her gravely as though she had said, "What will you take for your hotel?" He looked past her into the vast stretches of the lobby and found there much for philosophic speculation. Thus absorbed, he asked vacantly, "Any luggage?"

"No," said Mary Louise. "I--it will be here in the morning."

He turned and stepped back into the sanctum of interwoven grilles and part.i.tions.

Mary Louise was desperately nervous. It seemed that a thousand eyes were watching her; her back felt peppered with them. She shifted one foot and leaned slightly against the desk. All about her men were pressing up for mail, keys, reservations, information. She dared not look around. There were no women in the constricted circle of her vision except the telephone operator over to her left.

The clerk was taking a long time. She was getting even more anxious.

Suddenly she heard her name called. It startled her even while it brought a tremendous sense of relief. She turned and Claybrook was standing by her elbow.

"How's tricks?" he inquired.

For a moment she could not answer, only look at him gratefully.

"I've been out of town. Just got back. Was going to call you up this evening, but I didn't have the chance," he went on.

She murmured something unintelligible.

"Waiting here for something?" At her nod of a.s.sent he came and stood beside her, leaning his elbow on the desk, his gaze idly and comfortably sweeping the lobby. "Hot to-night," he said.

The inscrutable clerk returned. Mary Louise felt his inspection before she actually saw him. She turned, expectant.

"Sorry," he murmured. "Can't do anything for you."

Mary Louise received the blow standing. "But," she faltered, "Later on?--I'm not in a hurry. Are you really all filled up?"

The clerk gravely smiled and shook his head.

She stared at him in desolate appeal. Her thoughts went rocketing off.

What was she going to do?