CHAPTER NINETEEN

Madeline Cole was down on her knees. With scarcely a thought of her dress and her stockings, she knelt on the cold, rough, wet ground. The car was tilted. No lightning came to help her see what lay under it. “Henry …” her voice trembled. Something pale, upturned, must be his face. “Are you all right? Are you all right?” Her hand touched broken glass. She thought, I must be careful not to cut myself.

He had come along so much sooner than she had expected. She had been startled to recognize his car. It was no wonder she had stirred convulsively from the shelter of the stone at the end of the bridge, where she had thought to spend another hour, at least, escaped from Cyril, hidden from the town, dreaming and waiting in the rain.

Now, she heard a brittle sound like giant soda crackers breaking.

And now somebody’s hard hands came, brutally strong, under her armpits and tugged upward. “For God’s sake, get out of here!” Her brother Cyril was panting in her very ear. “You fool! You can’t stay here! The saloon! Quick! Hurry! You can’t be seen!”

He dragged her and she was doubled backwards with her legs folded under her and she scraped her calves, dragging her legs on the road to get them unfolded. He lifted her to her feet and, taking her hand, yanked so violently that she nearly fell.

Now there was a spot of light somewhere in the wet dark world. There, there it was, yards away. She could hear men’s quick excited voices. That crackling sound had been a door opening. Men were about to pour out of the saloon. She could sense them peering from their lighted place into the dark and the wet.

“Come away,” cried Cyril in her ear. “You little fool!” He was dancing and pulling frantically. “They’ll find him. You can’t be here when they do. No business … Hurry! D’you want the whole bunch from the saloon to find him in your arms, and your husband where he is? Get walking. Get going.”

So she began to walk and then to run. Her brother drew her behind a row of bushes. They scurried along the road’s margin. There was no lightning to let them be seen. Nor could they be heard because the men’s voices were shouting, now. Cyril pulled her violently to the right. Softly, he worked the latch of a gate. There was a dark house on the little ridge that rose opposite the depot. It was the last one in a row of half a dozen. Cyril led her, stepping carefully, up a path and stealthily along the house wall, down through its yard the other side of the low ridge.

Then they were in an alley and well-hidden. They went on to a street that angled in. Between one of Thor’s double rows of identical houses, making a duet of her soft sobbing and the sob of his angry breath, they went hurrying northward in the rain. They hurried past the closed and silent town hall and through the circle of light at the corner. At last, soaked, pale and panting, they faced each other inside the little house of Arthur Cole.

“You didn’t dream you could get away from me,” he gasped. “Never. I knew. I was looking out for you.”

But now she remembered Henry Duncane. She put her hands to her wet head. She had not screamed yet but in a minute she would begin to scream.

Cyril slapped her. “Was he hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Did he see you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Did you speak to him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he answer?”

“No.”

“Maybe you’re lucky.”

“Lucky!” she shrieked. Her eyes looked black, not gray.

“All right. Don’t even remember it. Never let it get out that you were there. You didn’t go anywhere. I’ll swear. You’ll swear. Ah … why do I try?” Cyril fell into a chair. He put his arm across his face. “You made him lose control. You turned that car over.”

“Didn’t …” she swallowed. “How could I?”

“I saw it. How I’d laugh,” said Cyril viciously, “if Arthur gets out alive and it’s Duncane who dies.”

“No!” She recoiled and went staggering backwards away. “Oh, no!”

“What do you think? That isn’t possible?”

“You’re just … You’re trying to hurt me,” she gasped. “Better call. Be sure. Call the doctor.”

“You or I can’t call any doctor.”

They stared at each other.

Suddenly Cyril raised a clenched fist. “By God, you’re no good!” he shouted. “You’re rotten! Can’t you see you should have stayed there?”

“But …”

“You should have stood by him.”

“I … you …”

“Sure. I told you to come away. Sure, I could see what you were in for. Sure. But you shouldn’t have listened to me,” he raved. “If you had anything to you but a face and a pair of legs … Love! That’s love for you.”

“It was you,” she cried. “Why did you make me?”

“Nobody could have made you,” Cyril raved, “if you were anything.”

“There’s no pleasing you,” she cried. “I can never please you! It was your fault! Your fault!”

Cyril said, “We might as well quit shouting about it and shut up and keep still and wait.…”

She sat down, sinking slowly. They stared at each other.

Libby Duncane noticed that the storm was dying, the night was quieting, for, except for the noises she made herself, the big bedroom where the lamp flickered was quiet, now. Mrs. Trestrial rocked nearby with a rhythm that was somehow sensitive and in accord. There was nothing nonchalant about it. There was, instead, calm and reassurance, as if nothing could be wrong while that homely rhythm continued.

The doctor was asleep.

This was not a thing Libby could have foreseen, that she could be where she was and as she was and watch his head lying on his arms on the chair back and hear his breathing and know he was asleep and understand it. He slept while he could and for her sake. And for the sake of other people who might need him yet tonight. It was not indifference and not neglect, but care. Instead of a show of care.

Funniest thing, she thought.

Mrs. Trestrial caught her eye and her comical old face twisted and her curls bounced like a signal or a wink. Libby smiled at her. The doctor stirred. He might almost have had a premonition or, in his sleep, heard the telephone clear its throat, for it rang. Mrs. Trestrial sailed into the sitting room to answer it.

May be Henry, Libby thought. She felt almost positive that it was Henry calling.

“Doctor. They want you.” The doctor was awake and on his feet and out of the room without any hesitating transition. It’s a skill, thought Libby admiringly, to sleep when you may and wake when you must. It’s his work, of course. He had to learn that. The shadows on the high white ceiling made a pretty play.

“I like lamplight,” Libby said dreamily. “It’s nice and old-fashioned.”

“’Tis cozy,” murmured Mrs. Trestrial. But her head was turned to look over her shoulder through the door.

“Dr. Hodge, here.”

“Say, Doc, this is Turner. Henry Duncane’s car turned over on the bridge down by the saloon. Listen, he’s under it and he’s out and bleeding bad. We’re scared to move him. Looks pretty bad. Can you come? We put a lot of towels in there but …”

“Don’t touch anything,” said the doctor sharply, “unless you know what you’re doing. What is it? Head?”

“No. We don’t think so. Looks like the glass … Listen, Doc, I dunno but I think you better make it fast.”

“Come as quick as I can.”

When the doctor came back through the door there was an air of lightning about him, of sharp alarm. He came swiftly close to Libby and said quietly, “Mrs. Duncane, I’m afraid there is an emergency.”

Her blue eyes, looking up into his face, opened very wide.

“May be a matter of life or death,” he said.

“Oh!” She knew, at once, he was going to ask a question.

“The chances are that you will have no trouble,” he went on gravely. (He stood as if he would fly. He was poised to go.) “But if I go, I might not get back before the baby comes, although I’d try.”

Life or death, she thought. Well, that was the emergency. It always was. Always meant life or death for somebody. That was the question that emerged, that came out of the event, suddenly. “Emergency,” she said aloud. “Is it one of the men?” For she thought, at once, of the trouble at the mine.

The doctor, eyes shrewd on her face, merely nodded.

“And you are needed?”

“Yes, right away.” (She gasped because she was made to gasp.) “If I go it’s got to be now.” He bent down, smelling clean. “Can’t be two places at once. I can only leave it to you. You are to say. Mrs. Trestrial knows what to do for you, of course. And I’ll hurry.”

“Of course she knows,” said Libby, as the power let her go. “Oh, doctor, I couldn’t keep you. I wouldn’t dare. Don’t let the man die.”

He said, “Good girl. I’ll hurry.” And, as if she had snapped a little thread that lightly held him, now he flew away.

Libby looked at the ceiling. She had taken no thought what she should say. That was in the Bible someplace, wasn’t it? Well, just the same, the answer was there. Just there. There was no other.

Mrs. Trestrial, concealing the name with which the doctor had stabbed her as he brushed by, came near and leaned over, and put her strong hand on the girl’s brow. “Us’ll ’ave to get on with it and surprise ’im,” she said gently.

“The three of us, eh?” grinned Libby Duncane. “You know, Mrs. Trestrial—” She stopped and screamed lustily and when it was over she took up the sentence. “—it was my ancestors who said that. Funniest thing.”

“I know ’oo ’twas,” said Mrs. Trestrial, bridling.