Читать книгу White Banners - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 5

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Marcia had gone early to bed after showing Hannah where she was to sleep—"just for to-night"—and taking pains to specify that their hospitality was offered because of the very bad weather. She had admitted to herself—and, a bit reluctantly, to Paul also—that it was a welcome relief to be temporarily free from kitchen drudgery. Now that her burdens had been eased for a few hours, she realized the weight of them.

Having finished his pipe and the newspaper, and observing that a light still burned in the kitchen, Paul strolled out to see what Hannah was up to now. She had been reorganizing the contents of the refrigerator with a view to their consolidation. The neighbouring cupboard ledge bore evidence to the number and variety of articles which she seemed to consider superfluous. He watched her for a while in interested silence as she sat squatting on her heels intent on her occupation.

"A refrigerator," he said at length in the declamatory tone of one reciting the Commandments, "is a nasty thing."

Hannah looked up over her shoulder and nodded approval of this sentiment. "It seems to me," she said slowly, "that whoever thought up a refrigerator might have had brains enough to give the thing legs, so you wouldn't have to sit on the floor or stand on your head to see what's in it."

"Funny nobody ever thought of that," ruminated Paul, reloading his pipe.

"Pooh—I'll bet every woman has. It's plain to see that it was a man planned it. It's too bad women aren't able to invent things." Hannah's regret over the uninventiveness of her sex sounded sincere, and Paul puffed thoughtfully as he considered this curious biological fact. She rose with a wince from her tiresome posture and showed that she had something on her mind. "If you are at liberty for a few minutes, Mr Ward, I wish you would go down in the basement for me. I want to do something about that to-morrow."

"I thought you were going away to-morrow," he reminded her gently.

"That's why we have to decide to-night what ought to be done down there."

He could think of no reasonable objection to this, so they descended the dark stairs, Hannah remarking en route that the electric lamp in the unfurnished storeroom on the second floor would be of more service than there, and Paul consenting, not very convincingly, that he would see to it.

"How long has it been," she inquired, "since you used that desk?"

Welcoming any distraction from the threat of an unpleasant job, Mr Ward scratched his head thoughtfully for the exact date while Hannah's fingers flexed restlessly. His averted eyes and oblique mouth predicted a reminiscence.

"Must have been 1908. It has been idle since we came here. My uncle gave me the desk when I received my doctorate."

"Doctor it?"

"The degree, you know. Doctor of Philosophy."

"Oh—do they have to doctor philosophy? I don't know much about such things."

He eyed her narrowly for an instant and then nodded slowly, feeling that the query, whether asked in playful satire or honest ignorance, could properly be answered in the affirmative. Then he added, "The desk is of no use to us. My office at the university is equipped with everything."

"Is that what you do?" inquired Hannah compassionately. "You're a professor?"

He nodded, tugging at the spluttering pipe.

"Well—I guess you know I'm sorry," she said penitently, "for talking to you the way I did. I was a little annoyed with you for being so helpless, but of course I didn't know what your business was. You'll excuse me, won't you?"

Paul laughed heartily and said she was priceless, but Hannah remained so contritely straight-faced that his laughter sounded to himself as if it had just a trace of incipient madness in it, and he suddenly sobered, blinking rapidly. If this woman was ragging him, she was making a good job of it, he reflected. He had visions of himself reporting the incident at luncheon to-morrow at the University Club. Then it occurred to him that it would be an awkward sort of story to tell—even to Fritz Manheim or Sandy Laughton. They wouldn't understand.

"So—you probably wouldn't miss the desk," Hannah was saying, "if you came down some morning and it wasn't here." And when he admitted that this might easily be the case, Hannah pointed to the bicycle. "Ever ride it?" she asked. He shook his head. "It isn't in bad condition," she observed, "if the tyres were mended. It's too good to sit here and rust. How about that filing-case?"

"I'll not be using it any more—at least so far as I know."

"Well—that's far enough," drawled Hannah, "when you're cleaning junk out of a cellar. I suppose it's full of old papers and letters and things."

Paul said he shared that supposition and promised to go through it, one of these days, when he had a spare minute; should have done so, he confessed, long ago.

Hannah shook her head and regarded him with one of her unanswerable grins. "You—and your spare minutes," she scoffed. "What's the matter with right now? You're not doing anything else, are you?" Then, while he was trying to contrive an excuse for postponement of the unpleasant job, she told him to go up and find a couple of good lamps. Returning, rather glumly, he found that she had cleared a space around the cabinet and was wiping off the soot.

"It's just as we thought," she announced, as if the two of them were conspirators engaged in dealing with the disorderly clutter of a house they had unfortunately fallen heir to; "the thing is full. Better empty all the drawers into that big clothes-basket, Professor, and then you can sort out the stuff—and decide how much you want to keep."

"I'd rather you didn't call me 'Professor'," he said testily, dumping the contents of the top drawer into the basket.

"Sorry," murmured Hannah. "I didn't know you were sensitive about it."

He had felt himself growing more and more surly over the nasty task she had badgered him into, but Hannah's ingenuous remark was quite too absurd to be received irascibly. He laughed in spite of his irritation and pursued the disgusting assignment without further grousing. In sober truth, these things should have been attended to long ago. If this odd creature wanted to help, why not humour her?

"Better see if the desk isn't full, too," advised Hannah. "I've a notion, from all that's on top of it, there wasn't any room left inside.... Are those rugs worth keeping?... Does this lawn-mower work?... Is that garden hose any good?... Then what's the wheelbarrow for, if you haven't a garden? You easily could have a nice garden, you know."

It was long after midnight when they finished classifying the basement's grimy hoard. The few papers which Paul thought might have some future value had been tied up in neat packages for temporary storage in a box Hannah had found in the attic. Every scrap of paper that had been rejected she had stowed in a big burlap bag along with the old magazines. "It won't bring very much," she admitted, "but it's better business to sell it than to hire somebody to cart it away."

"You'd better go to bed now," suggested Paul wearily. "You must be very tired."

"Bet your life I'm tired!" She rubbed back her damp, disordered hair with her forearm. "And I never was so dirty before."

He scowled a little at that and reminded her that nobody had asked her to do it. "In fact," he pursued stiffly, "I can't understand why you did. You certainly don't owe us anything."

"I owe the town something," said Hannah. "I have been a charity case in the University Hospital for three weeks."

"That isn't owing the town," growled Paul punctiliously. "That's the state."

"It's about the same thing. I don't even live in the state—if it comes to that. You are citizens and pay taxes. Perhaps I can square up a little if I do something for you.... I'm going to bed now. What time do you want your breakfast, and how do you like your eggs?"

"Er—poached, please, about half-past seven; but, look here, do you want me to believe that you actually feel under some sort of obligation to the town—or the state? Almost nobody does, you know. I'm mighty sure I don't!"

"Why not? The government of the town and the state is made up of the people, isn't it? I'm owing people. It's the same as any other debt, isn't it?" Hannah had one foot on the lower step, poised to go.

"Ummm—so you're paying back your debt to the state by helping the Ward family out of a scrape. Suppose the Ward family doesn't want you to. What then?"

She was thoughtful for a moment and a sudden inspiration came to the rescue. "But the hospital did a lot of things to me that I didn't like either; though I suppose it was for my good."

"So, you're intending to help us whether we like it or not. Is that it? You're just a little bit crazy, aren't you?"

"Perhaps," confessed Hannah, mounting the stairs. "You ought to know." This last comment sounded saucier than she had intended, so she added respectfully, "—You being a professor," which still left the colloquy lacking a satisfactory last line. To remedy this she said "Good night" almost tenderly.

When she was at the top he called to her in a voice full of amusement under heavy compression.

"Hannah—would it be too much bother if you tried to sell this old stuff to a second-hand man? I don't know much about such business."

"Yes, sir—I had expected to, to-morrow. You didn't think I'd go to all this trouble and then not finish it, did you?"

"I suppose," he reflected, "you could get more for it than I."

Hannah chuckled a little, and then, suddenly deferential, replied, "Yes, sir. I know that."

"Well—you may sell it for us on one condition." Paul was quite the man of the house, now, taking no nonsense from anybody. "You are to keep ten per cent for your own. That is no more than fair. If you do not want to handle this job on these terms, you are not to do it at all. Understand? We are temporarily hard pressed here, but we are not paupers."

"Thanks—and may I spend the ninety per cent on the house? I'm pretty good at making a dollar go a long way."

"I dare say you are. Do what you please with it—in consultation with Mrs Ward, of course."

"Yes, sir. Don't forget to turn out the lights before you come up."

Paul regarded his grimy hands with distaste and snapped off one of the lights. Then he turned it on again and ambled over to the empty fruit-cellar. For a long time he stood looking up at the raw joists under the pantry floor, speculating on a spot where a hole might be bored to let the seepage through from the icebox. What a clumsy arrangement; what an unsanitary, thoroughly objectionable apparatus it would be at its very best.

Why did people consent to the housing of such an abomination as a refrigerator, anyway? He fell into a brown study then and leaned against the wall, disregarding its coating of soot. After a while he sat down on a dusty box and slowly refilled his pipe.

The big packing-houses made their own ice: why shouldn't it be possible for private homes to have their own refrigeration plants? It might be worth looking into.

Stiff in every joint and dirty beyond description, he went up to bed at two o'clock, his head whirling with a new idea. This was the best hunch he'd ever had. He was determined to have a go at it, anyway. If it amounted to nothing—well, he wouldn't be any worse off, would he?