The Iron Woman Part 54

"Mighty easy--if you lean too hard on the gunwale," he said, good-naturedly.

"Does it take very long?"

"To drown? I never tried it, but I believe not; though I understand that it's unpleasant while it lasts." He watched her wistfully; if he could only make her smile!

"I suppose dying is generally unpleasant," she said, and glanced down into the black oily water with a shiver.

It was quite dark by this time, and Blair was keeping close to the sh.o.r.e to avoid the current narrowing between the piers of the old bridge. When they reached Mrs. Todd's wharf Elizabeth was still staring into the water.

"It is so black here, so dirty! I wouldn't like to have it touch me. It's cleaner down at Willis's," she said, thoughtfully.

Blair, making fast at the landing, agreed: "Yes, if I wanted a watery grave I'd prefer the river at Willis's to this." Then he offered her a pleading hand; but she sat looking at the water.

"How clean the ocean is, compared to a river," she said; then noticed his hand. She took it calmly enough, and stepped out of the boat. She had forgotten, he thought, her displeasure about the money; there was only the usual detachment. When he said it was too early to go to Nannie's,--"it isn't seven yet, and Mrs.

Richie won't leave the house until a quarter past;" she agreed that they had better go to the hotel.

"What do you say to the theater to-night?" he asked. But she shook her head.

"You go; I would rather be alone."

"I hear there's a good play in town?"

She was silent.

Blair said something under his breath with angry hopelessness.

This was always the way so far as any personal relation between them went; she did not seem to see him; she did not even hear what he was saying. "You always want to be alone, so far as I am concerned," he said. She made no answer. After dinner he took himself off. "She doesn't want me round, so I'll clear out," he said, sullenly; he had not the heart even to go to Nannie's.

"I'll drop into the theater, or perhaps I'll just walk," he thought, drearily. He wandered out into the street, but the sky had clouded over and there was a soft drizzle of rain, so he turned into the first glaring entrance that yawned at him from the pavement.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

When Blair came home, a little after eleven, she had gone.

At first he did not grasp the significance of her absence. He called to her from their parlor: "I want to tell you about the play; perfect trash!" No answer. He glanced through the open door of her bedroom; not there. He hurried to his own room, crying: "Elizabeth! Where are you?" Then stood blankly waiting. Had she gone down-stairs? He went out into the hall and, leaning over the banisters, listened to the stillness--that unhuman stillness of a hotel corridor; but there was no bang of an iron door, no clanking rumble of an ascending elevator. Had she gone out? He looked at his watch, and his heart came up into his throat; out-- at this hour! But perhaps after he had left her, she had suddenly decided to spend the night at her uncle's or Nannie's. In that case she would have left word in the office. He was thrusting his arms into his overcoat and settling his hat on his head, even while he was dashing downstairs to inquire:

"Has Mrs. Maitland left any message for me?"

The clerk looked vague: "We didn't see her go out, sir. But I suppose she went by the ladies' entrance. No; she didn't leave any message, sir."

Blair suddenly knew that he was frightened. He could not have said why. Certainly he was not conscious of any reason for fright; but some blind instinct sent a wave of alarm all through him. His knees felt cold; there was a sinking sensation just below his breast-bone.

"What an a.s.s I am!" he said to himself; "she has gone to her uncle's, of course." He said something of the kind, with elaborate carelessness, to the clerk; "if she comes back before I do, just say I have gone out on an errand." He was frightened, but not to the extent of letting that inquisitive idiot behind the counter know it. "If he had been attending to his business,"

he thought, angrily, "he would have seen her go, and he could have told me when it was. I'll go to Mr. Ferguson's. Of course she's there."

He stood on the curb-stone for a minute, looking for a carriage; but the street was deserted. He could not take the time to go to the livery-stable. He started hurriedly; once he broke into a run, then checked himself with the reminder that he was a fool.

As he drew near her uncle's house, he began to defend himself against disappointment: "She's at Nannie's. Why did I waste time coming here? I know she is at Nannie's!"

Robert Ferguson's house was dark, except for streaks of light under the blinds of the library windows. Blair, springing up the front steps, rang; then held his breath to listen for some one coming through the hall; his heart seemed smothering in his throat. "I _know_ she isn't here; she's at Nannie's," he told himself. He was acutely conscious of the dank smell of the frosted honeysuckle clinging limply to the old iron trellis that inclosed the veranda; but when the door opened he was casual enough--except for a slight breathlessness.

"Mr. Ferguson! is Elizabeth here?"

"No," Robert Ferguson said, surprised, "was she coming here?"

"She was to be here, or--or at Nannie's," Blair said, carelessly, "I didn't know which. I'll go and get her there." His own words rea.s.sured him, and he apologized lightly. "Sorry to have disturbed you, sir. Good-night!" And he was gone before another question could be asked. But out in the street he found himself running. "Of course she's at Nannie's!" he said, panting. He even had a twinge of anger at Elizabeth for giving him all this trouble. "She ought to have left word," he thought, crossly. It was a relief to be cross; nothing very serious can have happened to a person who merely makes you cross. The faint drizzle of the early evening had turned to rain, which added to his irritation.

"She's all right; and it's confoundedly unpleasant to get soaking wet," he reflected. Yes; he was honestly cross. Yet in spite of the rea.s.surances of his mind and his temper, his body was still frightened; he was hurrying; his breath came quickly. He dashed on, so absorbed in denying his alarm that on one of the crossings only a quick leap kept him from being knocked down by a carriage full of revelers. "Here, you! Look out! What's the matter with you?" the cab-driver yelled, pulling his horses back and sidewise, but not before the pole of the hack had grazed Blair's shoulder. There was a screech of laughter, a woman's vociferating fright, a whiff of cigar smoke, and a good-natured curse: "Say, darn you, you're too happy to be out alone, sonny!" Blair did not hear them. Shantytown, black and silent and wet, huddled before him; from the smokestacks of the Works banners of flame flared out into the rain, and against them his mother's house loomed up, dark in the darkness. At the sight of it all his panic returned, and again he tried to discount his disappointment: "She isn't here, of course; she has gone to the hotel. Why didn't I wait for her there? What a fool I am!" But back in his mind, as he banged the iron gate and rushed up the steps, he was saying: "If she _isn't_ here--?"

The house was absolutely dark; the fan-light over the great door was black; there was no faintest glimmer of light anywhere.

Everybody was asleep. Blair rang violently, and pounded on the panels of the door with both hands. "Nannie! Elizabeth! Harris!-- confound the old idiot! why doesn't he answer the bell? Nannie--"

A window opened on the floor above. "What is it?" demanded a quavering feminine voice. "Who's there?"

"Nannie! Darn it, why doesn't somebody answer the bell in this house? Is Elizabeth--" His voice died in his throat.

"Oh, Blair! Is that you? You scared me to death," Nannie called down. "What on earth is the matter?"

"Is--is Elizabeth here?"

"Elizabeth? No; of course not! Where is she?"

"If I knew, would I be asking you?" Blair called back furiously; "she must be here!"

"Wait. I'll come down and let you in," Nannie said; he heard a m.u.f.fled colloquy back in the room, and then the window closed sharply. Far off, a church clock struck one. Blair stood with a hand on the doork.n.o.b; through the leaded side-windows he saw a light wavering down through the house; a moment later Nannie, lamp in hand, shivering in her thin dressing-gown, opened the door.

"Has she been here this evening?"

"Blair! You scare me to death! No; she hasn't been here. What is the matter? Your coat is all wet! Is it raining?"

"She isn't at the hotel, and I don't know where she is."

"Why, she's at Mr. Ferguson's, of course!"

"No, she isn't. I've been there."

"She may be at home by this time," Nannie faltered, and Blair, a.s.senting, was just turning to rush away, when another voice said, with calm peremptoriness:

"What is the matter?"

Blair turned to see Mrs. Richie. She had come quietly down- stairs, and was standing beside Nannie. Even in his scared preoccupation, the sight of David's mother shook him. "I--I thought," he stammered, "that you had gone home, Mrs. Richie."

"She had a little cold, and I would not let her go until to- morrow morning," Nannie said; "you always take more cold on those horrid sleeping-cars." Nannie had no consciousness of the situation; she was far too alarmed to be embarra.s.sed. Blair cringed; he was scarlet to his temples; yet under his shame, he had the feeling that he had when, a little boy, he clung to David's pretty mother for protection.

"Oh, Mrs. Richie," he said, "I am so worried about Elizabeth!"

"What about her?"

"She said something this afternoon that frightened me."

"What?"