Wide Courses Part 22

She was turning the wick of the lamp high and then low, and high again, and Jan was vexed to think he had not offered to light the lamp for her in the first place, especially as he now recognized in her the same sad-eyed woman who had showed him his room the evening before. It was twilight then, too, but she had lit no lamp in the hall or in the room, and Jan guessed why and did not blame her for it. The furnishings here, as in his room, were shabby.

Jan began to feel a pity for her. There was that in the curve of her back which caused him to address her with unwonted gentleness--and ordinarily Jan was gentle enough for anybody's taste. Yes, she was the same woman; but if he had met her anywhere else he would not have known her. She was now all tidied up. Her clothes were fresh, her shoulders had lost their droop. Her face was less pale and a glow was coming into her eyes.

Jan's room was on the second floor and now he ascended the stairs to go there. At the top of the stairs he glanced back; but catching her looking at him he looked quickly away. From the darkness of the second-floor hallway, however, he could peer down and she could not see him. She was still there, standing under the lamp which was now at full blaze. One arm had been raised high in regulation of the wick and now she raised the other to steady the lamp, which was swinging. Her figure was in the shadow from the waist down, but her bust, her neck, face and long, slim hands were in full light.

"I'd never took her for the same woman--never!" thought Jan.

Next evening Jan saw her again, this time in the narrow second-floor hallway near the stairs. She shrank against the stair-rail to let him pa.s.s. Jan drew up against the wall. She mutely indicated that he should pa.s.s.

"After you, ma'am," said Jan, and resolutely waited.

"Thank you," she said, and pa.s.sed on. At the head of the flight of stairs she turned her head. Jan was still there.

"Is your room all right?" She asked the question hurriedly, awkwardly.

"All right, ma'am."

"And not too noisy for you here?--the bas.e.m.e.nt noise, I mean."

"A ship-carpenter, ma'am--he soon gets used to noise."

"Of course." She glanced furtively at him. "Good-night." She hurried downstairs.

That night when Jan, who read romantic fiction to relieve his loneliness, laid down his stirring mediaeval tale to go to bed, he did not follow up the intention with immediate action, as usual.

By and by he raised the window-sash, and the cool, damp sea-air feeling good, he leaned out to enjoy it. It was a cloudy night, with a touch of coming snow in the air; but for all that a night to enjoy, only for the racket ascending from the pool-room.

"I don't think much of those people down there," thought Jan as he lowered the sash to all but six or eight inches for fresh air and picked up the alarm clock from the rickety dresser. "I wonder if she's one of that crowd?" And he began to wind the clock. "But sure she ain't--sure not."

Jan had been holding the clock absently in his hand. Suddenly he set it down and scolded himself--"Jan Tingloff, remember you has to be up at six in the morning!"--and undressed, blew out the light and slid into bed, and tried to go to sleep. And he did after a while; but his last thought before he fell into slumber was: "Who'd ever think one day a woman could grow so young-looking the next day?"

Many an evening after that Jan met the landlady on the stairs or in the hall, and always she stopped to ask him how he was coming on with his ship; but never any more than that or a brief word as to the weather and his comfort, though there were times when Jan felt he would like to become better acquainted--times when he even had a feeling that if he had asked her to sit down somewhere for a talk she would be willing. Jan had learned, however, that she was married. It had been a shock to learn that. It had come about by his noticing after three or four days the plain gold ring on the wedding finger. He had kept staring at it until she could not help remarking it; and by and by, in a casual sort of way, she had told him she was married.

"And is your husband living, ma'am?" asked Jan.

"He's living--yes," she answered slowly.

That made a difference. Even though a man didn't know anybody in the city except the men he worked with and it was terribly lonesome of evenings--even so, her being married made all the difference. And she must have been a wonderfully pretty girl once--and was pretty yet, now he had a chance to look good at her. Pretty--yes; but--well, Jan didn't know what it was, except that she was all right. Jan knew he didn't know much about women, especially strange women--and he knew, too, that he never would; but he would never believe she wasn't all right--never!

Yes, it was pretty lonesome at times; and there was the girl who roomed on the top floor. Jan was thrilled by alluring glimpses of her in the half-dark recesses of the back halls, but the glimpses remained only glimpses after he saw her one Sunday by daylight. Only then was Jan convinced that she painted. She was a little too much and he took to dodging her. Yet it was a pity--oh, a pity! and Jan, still thinking what a pity, was going out for a lonesome walk one night, when who should meet him on the front stoop but that same top-floor girl! And no sliding by her this time. She nipped the lapel of his coat with a dexterous thumb and forefinger.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, cap! Where yuh goin'?"

"Nowheres."

"Then you got time, ain't you, to buy a girl a gla.s.s o'--" She stopped and winked sportively.

"Gla.s.s o' what?"

"Why, ginger ale!" She laughed at his surprise. "You thought I was goin'

to say beer, or maybe somethin' stronger, didn't yuh? But I don't drink no hard stuff. No. An' I was dyin' for a drink o' somethin' when yuh pops out that door. An' I know yuh ain't any hinge."

"How do you know I ain't a hinge?"

"Oh, don't I? Leave it to me to pick a sport from a piker."

"But I'm no sport either."

"You could if yuh wanted ter. An' yuh ain't any hinge, even if they do say you're a square-head. Come on an' let's go in back an' have a couple o' bottles o' ginger ale in Hen's place."

And Jan followed her into the private room beyond the pool-room--the room to which, as he had gathered before this, the street girls of that section steered drunken sailors. The ginger ale was brought in by the proprietor himself. Jan threw down a ten-dollar bill. Jan had a good many bills with him that evening--his month's wages; and seeing it was the fashion round there to show your money when you paid for anything, why, he'd show them--even if he was a square-head--that he could carry a wad too.

"Say, cap, but yuh must be drawin' down good coin?"

"Oh, a boss ship-carpenter gets pretty good wages." And with one splendid sweep Jan emptied his gla.s.s.

"I should say yes. An' there's tinhorners round here that if they had half your wad Hen'd have to ring in the fire alarm to put 'em out--they'd feel themselves such warm rags. But what d'yuh say to another ginger ale?"

"Sure," said Jan, and called aloud for them. And again Hen brought in the ginger ale in two long gla.s.ses, but also with two empty bottles to show Jan by the labels that it was the real imported and no phony stuff; and Jan said, "I know! I know!" as he paid and waved Hen away.

A door led from this back room into the lower back hall of the house, and in the shadow of the back hall Jan thought for an instant that he saw the landlady's figure; but he wasn't sure. Two minutes--or it may have been five minutes--later, a boy whom Jan had noticed round the house came into the room by way of that same door and said to the girl:

"Mrs. Goles wants to see you a minute."

"Tell her I got no minute to spare--not now."

The boy went out and quickly came back.

"Mrs. Goles says for you to come out and see her or she'll have the policeman in off the beat. He's at the corner now."

The girl went out.

"Who's Mrs. Goles?" asked Jan of the boy.

"Why, she's the landlady."

"Oh!" said Jan. So that was her husband, the handsome proprietor with the evil eyes. "Poor woman!" muttered Jan, and absent-mindedly drank his ginger ale.

The boy was still there. "Where is Mrs. Goles now?" asked Jan.

The boy jerked his head. "Out there on the back stairs."

Jan stood up. "Here!" He handed the boy a quarter. "A wonder a boy like you hangs out round here!"

"I run Mrs. Goles's errands. I been runnin' 'em since I was a kid. My mother used to work for her mother. She was a lady."

Jan was heading for the side door, the door which led into the alley.