Читать книгу North of Fifty-Three - Bertrand W. Sinclair - Страница 10

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When Jack Barrow called again, which happened to be that very evening, Hazel told him simply that she had left Harrington & Bush, without entering into any explanation except the general one that she had found it impossible to get on with Mr. Bush in her new position. And Jack, being more concerned with her than with her work, gave the matter scant consideration.

This was on a Friday. The next forenoon Hazel went downtown. When she returned, a little before eleven, the maid of all work was putting the last touches to her room. The girl pointed to an oblong package on a chair.

"That came for you a little while ago, Miss Weir," she said. "Mr. Bush's carriage brought it."

"Mr. Bush's carriage!" Hazel echoed.

"Yes'm. Regular swell turnout, with a footman in brown livery. My, you could see the girls peeking all along the square when it stopped at our door. It quite flustered the missus."

The girl lingered a second, curiosity writ large on her countenance. Plainly she wished to discover what Miss Hazel Weir would be getting in a package that was delivered in so aristocratic a manner. But Hazel was in no mood to gratify any one's curiosity. She was angry at the presumption of Mr. Andrew Bush. It was an excellent way of subjecting her to remark. And it did not soothe her to recollect that he had threatened that very thing.

She drew off her gloves, and, laying aside her hat, picked up a newspaper, and began to read. The girl, with no excuse for lingering, reluctantly gathered up her broom and dustpan, and departed. When she was gone, and not till then, Miss Weir investigated the parcel.

Roses—two dozen long-stemmed La Frances—filled the room with their delicate odor when she removed the pasteboard cover. And set edgewise among the stems she found his card. Miss Weir turned up her small nose.

"I wonder if he sends these as a sort of peace offering?" she snorted. "I wonder if a few hours of reflection has made him realize just how exceedingly caddish he acted? Well, Mr. Bush, I'll return your unwelcome gift—though they are beautiful flowers."

And she did forthwith, squandering forty cents on a messenger boy to deliver them to Mr. Bush at his office. She wished him to labor under no misapprehension as to her attitude.

The next day—Sunday—she spent with Jack Barrow on a visit to his cousin in a near-by town. They parted, as was their custom, at the door. It was still early in the evening—eight-thirty, or thereabout—and Hazel went into the parlor on the first floor. Mr. Stout and one of her boarders sat there chatting, and at Hazel's entrance the landlady greeted her with a startling bit of news:

"Evenin', Miss Weir. 'Ave you 'eard about Mr. Bush, pore gentleman?" Mrs. Stout was very English.

"Mr. Bush? No. What about him?" Hazel resented Mr. Bush, his name, and his affairs being brought to her attention at every turn. She desired nothing so much since that scene in the office as to ignore his existence.

"'E was 'urt shockin' bad this awft'noon," Mrs. Stout related. "Out 'orseback ridin', and 'is 'orse ran away with 'im, and fell on 'im. Fell all of a 'eap, they say. Terrible—terrible! The pore man isn't expected to live. 'Is back's broke, they say. W'at a pity! Shockin' accident, indeed."

Miss Weir voiced perfunctory sympathy, as was expected of her, seeing that she was an employee of the firm—or had been lately. But close upon that she escaped to her own room. She did not relish sitting there discussing Mr. Andrew Bush. Hazel lacked nothing of womanly sympathy, but he had forfeited that from her.

Nevertheless she kept thinking of him long after she went to bed. She was not at all vindictive, and his misfortune, the fact—if the report were true—that he was facing his end, stirred her pity. She could guess that he would suffer more than some men; he would rebel bitterly against anything savoring of extinction. And she reflected that his love for her was very likely gone by the board now that he was elected to go the way of all flesh.

The report of his injury was verified in the morning papers. By evening it had pretty well passed out of Hazel's mind. She had more pleasant concerns. Jack Barrow dropped in about six-thirty to ask if she wanted to go with him to a concert during the week. They were sitting in the parlor, by a front window, chattering to each other, but not so engrossed that they failed to notice a carriage drawn by two splendid grays pull up at the front gate. The footman, in brown livery, got down and came to the door. Hazel knew the carriage. She had seen Mr. Andrew Bush abroad in it many a time. She wondered if there was some further annoyance in store for her, and frowned at the prospect.

She heard Mrs. Stout answer the bell in person. There was a low mumble of voices. Then the landlady appeared in the parlor doorway, the footman behind her.

"This is the lady." Mrs. Stout indicated Hazel. "A message for you, Miss Weir."

The liveried person bowed and extended an envelope. "I was instructed to deliver this to you personally," he said, and lingered as if he looked for further instructions.

Hazel looked at the envelope. She could not understand why, under the circumstances, any message should come to her through such a medium. But there was her name inscribed. She glanced up. Mrs. Stout gazed past the footman with an air of frank anticipation. Jack also was looking. But the landlady caught Hazel's glance and backed out the door, and Hazel opened the letter.

The note was brief and to the point:

MISS WEIR: Mr. Bush, being seriously injured and unable to write, bids me say that he is very anxious to see you. He sends his carriage to convey you here. His physicians fear that he will not survive the night, hence he begs of you to come. Very truly,

ETHEL B. WATSON, Nurse in Waiting.

"The idea! Of course I won't! I wouldn't think of such a thing!" Hazel exclaimed.

"Just a second," she said to the footman.

Over on the parlor mantel lay some sheets of paper and envelopes. She borrowed a pencil from Barrow and scribbled a brief refusal. The footman departed with her answer. Hazel turned to find Jack staring his puzzlement.

"What did he want?" Barrow asked bluntly. "That was the Bush turnout, wasn't it?"

"You heard about Mr. Bush getting hurt, didn't you?" she inquired.

"Saw it in the paper. Why?"

"Nothing, except that he is supposed to be dying—and he wanted to see me. At least—well, read the note," Hazel answered.

Barrow glanced over the missive and frowned.

"What do you suppose he wanted to see you for?" he asked.

"How should I know?" Hazel evaded.

She felt a reluctance to enter into any explanations. That would necessitate telling the whole story, and she felt some delicacy about relating it when the man involved lay near to death. Furthermore, Jack might misunderstand, might blame her. He was inclined to jealousy on slight grounds, she had discovered before now. Perhaps that, the natural desire to avoid anything disagreeable coming up between them, helped constrain her to silence.

"Seems funny," he remarked slowly.

"Oh, let's forget it." Hazel came and sat down on the couch by him. "I don't know of any reason why he should want to see me. I wouldn't go merely out of curiosity to find out. It was certainly a peculiar request for him to make. But that's no reason why we should let it bother us. If he's really so badly hurt, the chances are he's out of his head. Don't scowl at that bit of paper so, Johnnie-boy."

Barrow laughed and kissed her, and the subject was dropped forthwith. Later they went out for a short walk. In an hour or so Barrow left for home, promising to have the concert tickets for Thursday night.

Hazel took the note out of her belt and read it again when she reached her room. Why should he want to see her? She wondered at the man's persistence. He had insulted her, according to her view of it—doubly insulted her with threats and an enforced caress. Perhaps he merely wanted to beg her pardon; she had heard of men doing such things in their last moments. But she could not conceive of Mr. Andrew Bush being sorry for anything he did. Her estimate of him was that his only regret would be over failure to achieve his own ends. He struck her as being an individual whose own personal desires were paramount. She had heard vague stories of his tenacity of purpose, his disregard of anything and everybody but himself. The gossip she had heard and half forgotten had been recalled and confirmed by her own recent experience with him.

Nevertheless, she considered that particular episode closed. She believed that she had convinced him of that. And so she could not grasp the reason for that eleventh-hour summons. But she could see that a repetition of such incidents might put her in a queer light. Other folk might begin to wonder and inquire why Mr. Andrew Bush took such an "interest" in her—a mere stenographer. Well, she told herself, she did not care—so long as Jack Barrow's ears were not assailed by talk. She smiled at that, for she could picture the reception any scandal peddler would get from him.

The next day's papers contained the obituary of Mr. Andrew Bush. He had died shortly after midnight. And despite the fact that she held no grudge, Hazel felt a sense of relief. He was powerless to annoy or persecute her, and she could not escape the conviction that he would have attempted both had he lived.

She had now been idle a matter of days. Nearly three months were yet to elapse before her wedding. She and Barrow had compromised on that after a deal of discussion. Manlike, he had wished to be married as soon as she accepted him, and she had held out far a date that would permit her to accumulate a trousseau according to her means.

"A girl only gets married once, Johnnie-boy," she had declared. "I don't want to get married so—so offhand, like going out and buying a pair of gloves or something. Even if I do love you ever so much."

She had gained her point after a lot of argument. There had been no thought then of her leaving Harrington & Bush so abruptly. Jack had wanted to get the license as soon as he learned that she had thrown up her job. But she refused to reset the date. They had made plans for October. There was so sense in altering those plans.

It seemed scarcely worth while to look for another position. She had enough money saved to do everything she wanted to do. It was not so much lack of money, the need to earn, as the monotony of idleness that irked her. She had acquired the habit of work, and that is a thing not lightly shaken off. But during that day she gathered together the different Granville papers, and went carefully over the "want" columns. Knowing the town as she did, she was enabled to eliminate the unlikely, undesirable places. Thus by evening she was armed with a list of firms and individuals requiring a stenographer. And in the morning she sallied forth.

Her quest ended with the first place she sought. The fact of two years' service with the biggest firm in Granville was ample recommendation; in addition to which the office manager, it developed in their conversation, had known her father in years gone by. So before ten o'clock Miss Hazel Weir was entered on the pay-roll of a furniture-manufacturing house. It was not a permanent position; one of their girls had been taken ill and was likely to take up her duties again in six weeks or two months. But that suited Hazel all the better. She could put in the time usefully, and have a breathing spell before her wedding.

At noon she telephoned Jack Barrow that she was at work again, and she went straight from lunch to the office grind.

Three days went by. Hazel attended the concert with Jack the evening of the day Mr. Andrew Bush received ostentatious burial. At ten the next morning the telephone girl called her.

"Some one wants you on the phone, Miss Weir," she said.

Hazel took up the dangling receiver.

"Hello!"

"That you, Hazel?"

She recognized the voice, half guessing it would be he, since no one but Jack Barrow would be likely to ring her up.

"Surely. Doesn't it sound like me?"

"Have you seen the morning papers?"

"No. What—"

"Look 'em over. Particularly the Gazette."

The harsh rattle of a receiver slammed back on its hook without even a "good-by" from him struck her like a slap in the face. She hung up slowly, and went back to her work. Never since their first meeting, and they had not been exempt from lovers' quarrels, had Jack Barrow ever spoken to her like that. Even through the telephone the resentful note in his voice grated on her and mystified her.

Something in the papers lay at the bottom of it, but she could comprehend nothing, absolutely nothing, she told herself hotly, that should make Jack snarl at her like that. His very manner of conveying the message was maddening, put her up in arms.

She was chained to her work—which, despite her agitation, she managed to wade through without any radical errors—until noon. The twelve-to-one intermission gave her opportunity to hurry up the street and buy a Gazette. Then, instead of going home to her luncheon, she entered the nearest restaurant. She wanted a chance to read, more than food. She did not unfold the paper until she was seated.

A column heading on the front page caught her eye. The caption ran: "Andrew Bush Leaves Money to Stenographer." And under it the subhead: "Wealthy Manufacturer Makes Peculiar Bequest to Miss Hazel Weir."

The story ran a full column, and had to do with the contents of the will, made public following his interment. There was a great deal of matter anent the principal beneficiaries. But that which formed the basis of the heading was a codicil appended to the will a few hours before his death, in which he did "give and bequeath to Hazel Weir, until lately in my employ, the sum of five thousand dollars in reparation for any wrong I may have done her."

The Gazette had copied that portion verbatim, and used it as a peg upon which to hang some adroitly worded speculation as to what manner of wrong Mr. Andrew Bush could have done Miss Hazel Weir. Mr. Bush was a widower of ten years' standing. He had no children. There was plenty of room in his life for romance. And wealthy business men who wrong pretty stenographers are not such an unfamiliar type. The Gazette inclined to the yellow side of journalism, and it overlooked nothing that promised a sensation.

Hazel stared at the sheet, and her face burned. She could understand now why Jack Barrow had hung up his receiver with a slam. She could picture him reading that suggestive article and gritting his teeth. Her hands clenched till the knuckles stood white under the smooth skin, and then quite abruptly she got up and left the restaurant even while a waiter hurried to take her order. If she had been a man, and versed in profanity, she could have cursed Andrew Bush till his soul shuddered on its journey through infinite space. Being a woman, she wished only a quiet place to cry.