Possession (Bromfield)/Chapter 18
IT was not until ten o'clock that Mrs. Tolliver began to grow uneasy. There had been, after all, nothing to cause alarm. An hour before supper Ellen had come in from skating with a countenance fresh and almost happy. True, Gramp Tolliver had returned late from one of his expeditions—the second that day—and was noisier and more impatient than usual in his room above stairs. Indeed his uproar continued even after feeding time, until long after Ellen, saying that she was to spend the evening at the Setons', had gone out into the rising wind. If there was anything which alarmed Mrs. Tolliver it was the mutterings of the volcano overhead; so great was the variety of its manifestations that she remarked upon it to her husband.
"You know," she said, "Gramp is restless again . . . worse than ever . . . worse than he was at election time."
From his refuge on the great threadbare sofa her husband mumbled a reply, indistinct yet understandable because it was a speech he made so frequently when his wife insisted upon conversation.
"You're worrying again. . . . There's nothing to worry about."
But she knew that she was right. It was a feeling which was almost physical, an intuition, an instinct which her husband, in the way of fathers (which at best were but poor things), did not share. After all he came by his conclusions in a logical fashion, not without the aid of a peculiar and individual philosophy, and therefore, by omitting the human equation, he gave his wife the opportunity more than once of saying, "I told you so."
Though Mrs. Tolliver rocked and darned placidly enough, she was not, even out of respect for her husband's love of slumber and forgetfulness, to be kept silent. When Ellen was out and there was no flow of music to bind together the comfort of the evening, it was necessary to talk; otherwise the peace became mere stillness, and the contentment a barren boredom. For Mrs. Tolliver needed constant evidence of happiness or cordiality. It was a thing not to be taken easily and for granted; one must make a show of it.
"He behaved like this, only not as bad, when Judge Weissman—the dirty scoundrel—bought the last election."
This time the only reply from the sofa was an engulfing silence, broken now and then by the aggravating sound of heavy breathing.
"Why don't you say something?" she said at last in exasperation. "Why don't you talk to me? I work all day and then when evening comes, all you do is to sleep."
The blanket on the sofa heaved a little and Charles Tolliver changed his position, muttering at the same time, "What shall I say? What do you want me to say?" And then after a pregnant silence, "If Gramp is ranting around, I don't see what we can do about it."
He spoke thus of his father in the most natural fashion. It was as if the old man were something of a stranger to him, a vague figure entirely outside the circle of the family existence.
After another long silence, Mrs. Tolliver observed, "It's nearly eleven o'clock and Ellen hasn't come in yet." Then she leaned forward to address her sons who lay sprawled on the floor, the older one reading as usual, the other lying on his back staring in his sulky way at the ceiling. "You boys must go to bed now. I'll come up with you and see that you're tucked in properly. It's a cold night."
The three departed and after a time, during which the hall clock sounded the hour of eleven, she descended from the neat upper regions and went into the kitchen to see that the door was locked, that the dog was on his mat, that the tap was not dripping, indeed, to oversee all the minutiæ of the household that were the very breath of her existence. When at last she reëntered the living room there was in her manner every evidence of agitation. She approached her husband and shook him from his comfortable oblivion.
"I don't understand about Ellen," she said. "It's very late. Maybe you'd better go over to the Setons' and see what has happened to her."
But her spouse only groaned and muttered. "Wait a while. . . . Like as not she's in bed asleep."
"That couldn't be . . . not without my knowing it."
What she would have done next was a matter for speculation, but before she had opportunity to act there rang through the silent house the sound of the doorbell being pushed violently and with annoying energy. It rang in a series of staccato periods, broken now and then with a single long and violent clamor. At the sound Mrs. Tolliver ran, and, as she approached the door, she cried out, "Yes! . . . Yes! . . . I'm coming. You needn't wear out the battery!"
On opening it she discovered on the outside that source of all evil, Jimmy Seton. Even at sight of her he was unable to relinquish the pleasure of ringing the bell. Indeed he kept his hand upon the button until she knocked it loose by a sudden slap on the wrist.
"What do you mean by ringing like that?"
Jimmy, unabashed, faced her. "Ma," he began, in his shrill voice, "wants to know if Mr. Murdock is over here. He ain't been at our house since before supper. He said he was going to the barber shop and he never came back."
For an instant, Mrs. Tolliver, wisely, held her tongue. The old instinct, working rapidly, told her that she must protect Ellen. It was clear then that the girl had not gone to the Setons'. Where could she be? Where was Mr. Murdock? Within the space of a second unspeakable catastrophes framed themselves in her mind. But she managed to answer. "He's not here. He hasn't been here. I don't know anything about him."
"All right," said Jimmy. "I'll tell her."
He made a faint gesture toward the button of the doorbell but Mrs. Tolliver thrust her powerful body between him and the object of his temptation, so that Jimmy, with a baffled air, turned and sped away into the darkness. When he had vanished she closed the door slowly, and stood for an instant leaning against it. Then, before she moved away, she raised her voice in a summons.
"Papa!" she called, "Papa! Something has happened. Ellen wasn't at the Setons' and Mr. Murdock is missing."
In the moment or two while she stood thus with her hand resting on the knob of the door, there passed quickly through her mind in a series of isolated fragments all the events and the forebodings of the past few weeks. Gradually these fitted into a pattern. She understood well enough what had happened; she knew that Ellen had gone. Yet she refused to admit this, as if by refusing to acknowledge the fact it might come gradually to have no existence. She understood Gramp Tolliver's ominous outburst of restlessness, Ellen's strange look of triumph, the air almost of happiness which had come over the girl. Only one thing she could not understand. . . . Clarence Murdock! After all, Ellen had mocked him as something quite beneath her consideration. Why had she chosen him?
In that single brief moment she was hurt more deeply than she was ever hurt again. Those things which came afterward were not so cruel because she came in time to be used to them. But this . . . this was so sudden, so cruel. She had no defenses ready, not even the defense which the less primitive have—a capacity for putting themselves into the shoes of the other fellow, of understanding why he should have acted thus and so. No, there was nothing, save only a sudden sharp physical pain and that which was far greater—a fear for a child who was gone suddenly from her protection.
When she reëntered the warm living room, she found her husband sitting on the edge of his sofa. Because he was a man who enjoyed his sleep and was reluctant to shake it off, he was not altogether awake.
"You say," he murmured drowsily, "that Ellen has run off with that Murdock?"
"They are both gone. . . . They must have gone together."
This the husband considered for a moment. Foolishly exalting logic above intuition, he asked, "How do you know?" To which his wife retorted, "Know! Know! Because I do know! I'm sure of it. . . . What are we going to do?" Suddenly she leaned forward and shook him violently. "Why, they're not even married. They can't have been and they've gone off together. Anything might happen."
The husband, out of the depths of knowledge which arose not from instinct or profound love but from long speculation upon the human race answered, "Don't worry about that. Ellen's no fool! She's not in love with him!"
"When you talk like that, you're like your father!" Nothing could have signified in clearer fashion the gravity of the situation, for this was a retort which Mrs. Tolliver used only upon occasions of profound disaster. It was, she believed, the most cruel thing she could say. This time she did not wait for him to reply.
"What train have they taken? . . . They're bound to go east. Perhaps you can stop them. Come! Get up. . . . If you don't go I will!"
With exasperating slowness her husband gained his feet. "There's a train a little after eleven." He regarded his watch. "We might be able to catch them, though I don't think I can make it."
Already his wife stood before him with the coat she had taken from the living room closet. "Here!" she said. "And wrap your throat well. It's a bitter night." Then she herself helped him into his coat and fastened his muffler with great care. Before she had finished, he asked, "What sort of a person is this Murdock?"
"It's no time to ask that. . . . Go! Hurry!"
Barely had these speeding words fallen from her lips when from overhead there came with the suddenness of an explosion the sound of a terrific crash, as if some part of the house had suddenly collapsed. The sound distinctly came from the rear. The volcano at last had burst forth!
In a breathless instant, the pair faced each other. It was Mrs. Tolliver who spoke first.
"What has he done now?" And with a fierce emphasis she added, "I think the Devil himself has gotten into him." Then she recovered herself quickly. "Go! Go! Catch Ellen. I'll take care of Gramp."
He argued for a moment—one precious moment—and losing as usual, was sped on his way by his powerful wife.
When her husband had vanished sleepily into the darkness, Mrs. Tolliver made her way up the back stairs to the room under the tin roof. As she opened the door, there rose before her in the flickering light of the kerosene lamp a room which had the appearance of a place wrecked by a cyclone. One of the vast bookcases lay overturned, the worn leather volumes sprawled in a wild confusion about the floor. Bits of paper covered with bird track handwriting lay scattered like fallen leaves and at one side, a little removed from the path of the catastrophe, lay stretched at full length the brittle body of Gramp Tolliver, still and apparently unconscious. There was in its rigidity something ghastly. Only a miracle had saved him from being buried under his own books, battered and broken perhaps by his own beloved Decline and Fall.
Climbing over the wreckage, Mrs. Tolliver leaned down and took the body of the old man in her arms. Thus a truce was declared, and when the one enemy had made certain that the other was still alive, she went downstairs, wrapped a shawl about her and fetched a doctor.