The Playwright and the Lady/Chapter 6
VI.
Some time between midnight and dawn he awoke to a great noise like a salvo of guns. A thunderstorm was in progress, and flash and report followed each other on the instant. Sleepily he watched the windows across the room light with sudden glare and disappear again, while the thunder crashed and reverberated and was echoed back from the hills. And between the mighty bursts of sound the rain lashed the beeches and pelted the windows.
Duty at last drove Roger from bed, and he stumbled across the floor and stood with his bare feet in miniature puddles while he pulled the windows partly down. After that, having fully awakened, he lay for some time listening to the fury of the tempest and thinking of his neighbor at the Hall. He wondered whether she was alarmed; most women, he knew, were mortally afraid of thunder and lightning. He remembered that as a boy he had stubbornly glued his face to the windows during thunderstorms until forcibly torn away by his mother or nurse; and this not because he had been freer of fear—on the contrary, every flash and peal sent his heart into his mouth and caused cold chills to chase up and down his spine—but because his sister, one year younger than he, had once accused him of being as much afraid as she was. He smiled as he remembered.
A crash louder than any that had gone before shook the house and rattled off into the south. The door opened quietly and a gray form entered.
“That you, Alfred?” asked Roger.
“Yes, sir. I came to attend to the windows, sir.”
“They’re all right. I closed them.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“All right. A bad storm, Alfred.”
“Hindeed yes, sir.”
“Not quite as bad as the night on the Onyx, though, eh?”
“The Lord forbid, sir!” exclaimed Alfred, vehemently. Roger grinned in the darkness.
“Find me a cigarette, Alfred, and throw something over you. I want to talk,”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, Alfred, that was a storm as was a storm,” said Roger, reminiscently, when his cigarette was making a tiny red glow in the darkness. “Started about eight, didn’t it?”
“Has I recollect, sir, it was between one and two bells, sir. And I pray as how I’ll never know hanother like it, sir.”
“Amen, Alfred! Though it had its fascination, you'll not deny that?”
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Gale,” answered the other, firmly, “Hi never saw hany fascination, sir.”
“Nonsense, man! Think of the way those waves looked when the lightning flashed; yards high they were, and tumbled up like a pile of jackstraws. Recollect the way the sloop smashed through ’em and came up staggering every time?”
“Hi'd rather not, sir,” said Alfred, apologetically.
“I can shut my eyes now and hear the creaking of her timbers, Alfred, and the everlasting rattle of china in the cabin. Fascination? Why, man alive, life’s been a hundred times better worth living ever since! We thought every time she dug her nose under, she’d forget to bring it up again; but she always did, God bless her!”
Alfred stirred uneasily where, with Roger’s gown about him, he sat on the edge of the couch.
“Under bare poles we were,” continued Roger, “rushing like the devil for Larchmont Harbor—as we thought. And then, first thing we knew, there was a flash of lightning, and Corbin shouted: ‘Breakers, man, breakers! We're on the rocks!’ And I jammed the wheel around, slipping and stumbling in the wash, and—waited. Well, that moment wasn’t pleasant, I’ll grant you, Alfred. Did you say anything?”
“N-no, sir.”
“You'd better put something heavier on; your teeth are knocking together like castanets. And then there was a bump and the Onyx stopped dead short; and so did our hearts, Alfred. And then a wave broke over the side and she lifted up and slipped off and went hiking on again through the darkness. And when the next flash came we looked behind and saw a hundred yards of churning white foam and dashing spray. Well, that was worth going through, Alfred—afterward. When all is said”
There was a sudden blinding glare followed by a crash of thunder, and Alfred, uttering a shriek, bounded from his seat.
“Hello! What's the matter?” asked Roger.
It was a moment or two before Alfred found his voice. Then:
“Begging your pardon, sir, the recollection of that hoccasion, sir, halways hupsets my nervous system, sir.”
“Really? That's odd, Alfred, for you were the coolest of the lot that night. I—er—I don’t recall hearing you make a single remark.”
“Mr. Gale, sir,” was the reproachful reply, “Hi was so near dead with terror, sir, has you know, has not to be hable, sir, to say a word. Hi didn’t rightly know, sir, what Hi was doing.”
“Ah, that explains your evident intention of leaving the boat and walking home. It was a risky thing to try, Alfred; the walking was so bad.”
“You seized me just has Hi was going hoff, sir.”
“I believe I did. And also, if I recollect aright, I bumped your head on the deck and tossed you down the companion, to the marring of your beauty for several weeks.”
“You saved my life, sir,” said Alfred, softly. Roger chuckled.
“I nearly broke your head, that’s certain.”
“Hit was but the means to a hend, sir,” said Alfred, solemnly, like one reciting a well-learned. lesson. Roger, unseen, doubled up in laughter. It was Alfred’s invariable remark, and the humor of it was ever fresh to his master.
“It—was what?” asked the latter, in a shaking voice.
“The means to a hend, sir; has Hi ’ave halways said. Hi was crazed with the terror hof hit, sir, and was not responsible for my hactions, sir, has you know.” There was a pause, during which the rain beat loudly against the panes. Then: “Hi howe my life to you, Mr. Gale, hand Hi can’t forget that, sir. Hi halways prays hat night, sir, hit will be made hup to you—begging your pardon for the liberty taken, sir.”
Again there was a silence, save for the now more distant crashing of the thunder and the subsiding pelting of the rain.
“You're a good chap, Alfred,” said Roger, soberly. ‘And you've evened up that little score long ago by the way you’ve put up with my crankiness. But—I shall be much obliged if you'll keep on with the prayers. Now you'd better go to bed; it must be getting pretty late—or early.”
“Thank you, sir. Good-night, sir.”
“Good-night. Er—by the way, Alfred, is there anything you want?”
“No, sir, nothing has Hi knows hof, sir.”
“How about a day in the city? I can spare you any time you like.”
“Thank you, sir, but there his nothing of sufficient himport, sir, to take me from my duties.”
“Well, just as you like. Whenever you want a day in town let me know. Good-night, Alfred; sleep well.”
“Thank you, sir; Hi ’opes has ’ow you'll do the same, sir.”
The door closed softly, and Roger dropped his dead cigarette onto the tray beside the bed and settled down again under the covers. The thunder was dying away in the south with rumbling and muttering, the lightning had become pale and infrequent, and the rain had subsided to a gentle, pattering shower.
“Prays for me, does he?” thought Roger. “And I always supposed him impervious to sentiment. However, maybe he does it from a sense of duty, and is still the unfeeling machine I’ve always thought him.” But a recollection of the tremor in Alfred’s tones gave the lie to the theory, and Roger settled himself to sleep with a grateful warmth at his heart.
When next he opened his eyes it was to cast a glance at the windows. They were gray and running with rain-pearls, and from without came the ceaseless whispering of the shower amid the trees. A bird, swaying with uplifted head and swelling throat on a nearby branch, poured golden notes into the gray world, but Roger’s mood did not respond. Despite that the clock showed it to be half after seven, he uttered a disgusted “Damn!” and buried his head in the pillow again, pulling the clothes about him, for the hot spell was broken at last and the morning was chill with a brisk west wind that shook the drops from the beech leaves and fluttered the leaves of a magazine by an open window.
He arose late, and after breakfast excused himself from work to await the morning mail and newspapers. Twice he donned a raincoat and walked hopelessly down the dripping Beech Walk to gaze disconsolately through the gate and up the deserted stretch beyond. Try as he might, work was beyond him. His thoughts refused to stay where he sternly placed them, but scampered off to the Hall and the woman with the eyes of violet.
Long before luncheon time he gave up the attempt and frankly yielded himself to his truant thoughts. He wondered why she wished to conceal her identity, who she really was and—most important—whether there was a Mr. Huggins. And then he wondered how in the name of all things appropriate, a man with the name of Huggins had had the absolutely criminal impertinence to ask such a woman to marry him!
And suppose there wasn’t a Mr. Huggins? pursued his thoughts. What then? And Roger, with a sudden thumping of the heart and a not unpleasant momentary breathlessness, realized that in such a case he would do all in his power to change Mrs. Huggins’ name to Gale.
In short, for the very first time in thirty-five years of existence, Roger was seriously in love. He acknowledged the fact, at first fearfully, then bravely, then triumphantly. And the rest of the day passed with marvelous rapidity, made glorious by the knowledge of his passion. He smoked many more cigarettes than were good for him, and trifled with several Scotch-and- sodas, smiling fatuously and frowning savagely, by turns, at the soft-coal fire in the library grate. And toward evening he studied the sky anxiously, intently, for promises of clearing weather and a fair to-morrow.