Waltz Into Darkness (8 page)

By
the time he had reached her, Aunt Sarah had already opened the cage
wicket, reached a hand in with elephantine caution, and brought the
bird out. It made no attempt to flutter, lay there almost
inanimately.

They
both bent their heads over it, with an intentness that,
unintentionally, had a touch of the ludicrous to it.

"Why,
it starving. Why, 'pears like it ain't had nothing to eat in days.
Nothing left of it under its feathers at all. Feel here. Look at
that. Seed dish plumb empty. No water neither."

It
continued to blink up at them, apparently clinging to its life by a
thread.

"Come
to think of it, I ain't heard it singing in two, three days now. Not
singing right, anyhow."

Durant,
reminded by her remark, now recalled that he hadn't either.

"Miss
Julia's going to have a fit," the old lady predicted, with an
ominous headshake.

"But
who's been feeding it, you or she?"

She
gave him a look of blank bewilderment. "Why, I--I 'spected she
was. She never said nothing to me. She never told me to. It b'long
to her, I thought maybe she don't want nobody but herself to feed
it."

"She
must have thought you were," he frowned, puzzled. "But
funny she didn't ask if you were. I'll hold it in my hand. Go get
it some water."

They
had it back in the cage, somewhat revived, and were still busy
watching it, when Julia came into the room, the long-winded toilette
that had been occupying her, apparently at last concluded.

She
came toward him, tilted up her face, and kissed him dutifully. "I'm
going shopping, Lou dear. Can you spare me for an hour or so?"
Then without waiting for the permission, she went on toward the op..
posite door.

"Oh,
by the way, Julia--" he had to call after her, to halt her.

She
stopped and turned, sweetly patient. "Yes, dear ?"

"We
found Dicky Bird nearly dead just now, Aunt Sarah and I."

He
thought that would bring her back toward the cage at least, if only
for a brief glance. She remained where she was, apparently begrudging
the delay, though brooking it for his sake.

"He
going to be all right, honey," Aunt Sarah quickly interjected.
"They ain't nothing, man or beast or bird, Aunt Sarah can't
nurse back to health. You just watch, he going to be all right."

"Is
he ?" she said somewhat shortly. There was almost a quirk of
annoyance expressed in the way she said it, but that of course, he
told himself, was wholly imaginary on his part.

She
began to mould her glove to her hand with an air of hauteur.
Unnoticeably the subject had changed. "I do hope I don't have a
hard time finding a carriage. Always, just when you want them,
there's not one to be had--"

Aunt
Sarah, among other harmless idiosyncrasies, had a habit of being
behindhand in changing subjects, of dwelling on a subject, once
current, for several minutes after everyone else had quitted it.

"He
be singing again just as good as ever in a day or two, honey."

Julia's
eyes gave a flick of impatience. "Sometimes that singing of his
can be too much of a good thing," she said tartly. "It's
been a blessed relief to--" She moistened her lips correctively,
turned her attention to Durand again. "There's a hat I saw in
Ottley's window I simply must have. I hope somebody hasn't already
taken it away from there. May I?"

He
glowed at this flattering deference of seeking his permission. "Of
course! Have it by all means, bless your heart."

She
gave a gay little flounce toward the door, swept it open. "Ta
ta, lovey mine." She blew him a kiss, up the tilted flat of her
hand and over the top of it, from the open doorway.

The
door closed, and the room dimmed again somewhat.

Aunt
Sarah was still standing beside the cage. "I sure enough
'spected she'd come over and take a look at him," she said
perplexedly. "Reckon she ain't so fond of him no more."

"She
must be. She brought him all the way down from St. Louis with her,"
Durand answered inattentively, eyes buried in his newspaper once
more.

"Maybe
she done change, don't care 'bout him no more."

This
monologue was for her own benefit, however, not her employer's. He
just happened to be there to overhear it.

She
left the room.

A
moment passed. Several, in fact. Durand's attention remained focused
on the printed sheet before him.

Then
suddenly he stopped reading.

His
eyes left the paper abruptly, stared over its top.

Not
at anything in particular, just in abstract thought.

11

Her
trunk was recalled to his mind one day by the very act of his own
sitting on it. It was no longer recognizable at sight for a trunk, it
had a gaily printed slip cover over it to disguise it, and stood
there over against the wall.

It
was a Sunday, and though they did not go to church, they never
failed, in common with all other good citizens, to dress up in their
Sunday finest and take their Sunday morning promenade; to see and be
seen, to bow and nod and perhaps exchange a few amiable words with
this one and that of their acquaintances in passing. It was an
established custom, the Sunday morning promenade, in all the cities
of the land.

He
was waiting for her to be ready, and he had sat down upon this
nondescript surface without looking to see what it was, satisfied
merely that it was level and firm enough to take him.

She
was slowed, at the last moment, by difficulties.

"I
wore this last week, remember? They'll see it again."

She
discarded it.

"And
this--I don't know about this--" She curled her lip slightly.
"I'm not very taken with it."

She
discarded it as well.

"That
looks attractive," he offered cheerfully, pointing at random.

She
shrugged off his ignorance. "But this is a weekday dress, not a
Sunday one."

He
wondered privately, and with a soundless little chuckle, how one told
the first from the second, but refrained from asking her.

She
sat down now, still further delaying their Start. "I don't know
what I'll do. I haven't a thing fit to be seen in." This, taken
in conjunction with the fact that the room was already littered with
dresses, struck him as so funny that he could no longer control
himself, but burst out laughing, and as he did so, swung his arm down
against the surface he was sitting on, in a clap of emphasis. He
felt, through the covering, the unmistakable shape of a pear-shaped
metal trunk lock. And at that moment, he first realized it was her
trunk he was sitting upon. The one she had brought from St. Louis.
She had never, it suddenly struck him as well, opened it since her
arrival.

"What
about this?" he asked. And stood up and stripped the cover off.
The initialled "J.R.," just below the lock in blood-red
paint, stood out conspicuously. "Haven't you anything in here? I
should think you would, a trunk this size." And meaning only to
be helpful to her, pasted his hand against the top of it in
indication.

She
was suddenly looking, with an almost taut scrutiny, at one of the
dresses, holding it upraised before her. As closely, as arrestedly,
as if she were nearsighted or were seeking to find some microscopic
flaw in its texture.

"Oh
no," she said. "Nothing. Only rags."

"How
is it I've never seen you open it? You never have, have you?"

She
continued to peer at this thing in her hands. "No," she
said. "I never have."

"I
should imagine you would unpack. You intend to stay, don't you?"
He was trying to be humorous, nothing more.

She
didn't answer this time. She blinked her eyes, at the second of the
two phrases, but it might have had nothing to do with that; it might
simply have occurred simultaneously to it.

"Why
not?" he persisted. "Why haven't you?" But with no
intent whatever, simply to have an answer.

This
time she took note of the question. "I--I can't," she said,
somewhat unsurely.

She
seemed to intend no further explanation, at least unsolicited, so he
asked her: "Why?"

She
waited a moment. "It's the--key. It's--ah, missing. I haven't
got it. I lost it on the boat."

She
had come over to the trunk while she was speaking, and was rather
hastily trying to rearrange the slip cover over it, almost as if
nettled because it had been disarrayed. Though this might have been
an illusion due simply to the nervous quickness of her hands.

"Why
didn't you tell me ?" he protested heartily, thinking merely he
was doing her a service. "I'll have a locksmith come in and make
you a new one. It won't take any time at all. Wait a minute, let me
look at it--"

He
drew the slip cover partly back again, while she almost seemed to be
trying to hold it in place in opposition. Again the vivid "J.R."
peered forth, but only momentarily.

He
thumbed the pear-shaped brass plaque. "That should be easy
enough. It's a fairly simple type of lock."

The
slip cover, in her hands, swept across it like a curtain a moment
later, blotting out lock and initials alike.

"I'll
go out and fetch one in right now," he offered, and started
forthwith for the door. "He can take the impression, and have
the job done by the time we return from our--"

"You
can't," she called after him with unexpected harshness of voice,
that might simply have been due to the fact of her having to raise it
slightly to reach him.

"Why
not ?" he asked, and stopped where he was.

She
let her breath out audibly. "It's Sunday."

He
turned in the doorway and came slowly back again, frustrated. "That's
true," he admitted. "I forgot."

"I
did too, for a moment," she said. And again exhaled deeply. In a
way that, though it was probably no more than an expression of
annoyance at the delay, might almost have been mistaken for
unutterable relief, so misleadingly like it did it sound.

12

The
rite of the bath was in progress, or at least in preparation,
somewhere in the background. He could tell by the sounds reaching
him, though he was removed from any actual view of what was going on,
being two rooms away, in the sitting room attached to their bedroom,
engrossed in his newspaper. He could hear buckets of hot water,
brought up in relays from the top of the kitchen stove downstairs by
Aunt Sarah, being emptied into the tub with a hollow drumlike sound.
Then a great stirring-up, so that it would blend properly with the
cold water allowed to flow into it in its natural state from the tap.
Then the testing, which was done with one carefully pointed foot, and
usually followed by abrupt withdrawals and squeals of "Too
cold!" or "Too hot!" as well as loud contradictions on
the part of the assistant, Aunt Sarah: "No it ain't! Don't be
such a baby ! Leave it in a minute, how you going to tell, you snatch
it back like that? Your husban's sitting right out there; ain't you
ashamed to have him know what a scairdy-cat you is ?"

"Well,
he doesn't have to get in it, I do," came the plaintive answer.

Over
and above this watery commotion, and cued by its semimusical tone,
the canary, Dicky Bird, was singing jauntily, from the room midway
between, the bedroom.

Aunt
Sarah passed through the room where he sat, an empty waterbucket in
each hand.

"She
sure a pretty little thing," she commented. "White as milk
and soft as honey. Got a fo'm like--unh-umh !"

His
face suddenly suffused with color. It took quite some time for the
heightened tide to descend again. He pretended the remark had not
been addressed to himself, took no note of it.

She
went down the stairs.

The
canary's bravura efforts rose to a triumphant, sustained, almost
earsplitting trill, then suddenly broke off short. That had been,
even he had to admit to himself, quite a considerable amount of noise
for so small a bird to emit, just then.