“Oh!” Diana caught her breath. “But where did she move? Is it far away?”
“Quite a ways,” said the girl complacently. “They say it takes about two hours on the bus. My father went up there once to see her about the house settlement. He said she was fixed real nice.”
“Oh,” said Diana, a troubled look coming into her eyes. “Do you have the address?”
“My father has. But he isn’t home today. He went off fishing with a friend. He won’t be home till late tonight. And my mother isn’t here, either. She’s gone up in the country to nurse my aunt. She’s real sick. Just I and my brothers are here, and they wouldn’t know the address, either. But you wouldn’t have any trouble finding it. It’s a Home, you know. One of those where you put in all the money you have and you get a nice big room to live no matter how old and sick you get. My father says her room is peachy, and she’s got it fixed up lovely with what furniture she saved from this house. It’s up to a place called Wynnewood. You could hire a taxi, I suppose, to take you, but it would cost an awful lot.”
“Oh!” said Diana again in a growing dismay, giving a glance of trepidation around the grubby-looking front yard with a sudden relief that she didn’t have to stay here, even for a day.
But—! Where was she going?
She turned back to the girl. “Do you know how long she has been gone from here?”
“Sure!” said the girl. “It’s just a year ago last Saturday that we moved in. My father was talking about it last Sunday.”
Diana gave another troubled look into nowhere. “Well—I suppose I might as well go on, then… The words trailed off uncertainly.
“You can come in if you want,” said the girl, casting a hesitant glance at the pile of baggage.
“Oh no,” said Diana quickly. There was no point in going in. “But”—she paused and looked down the road—“I’m sorry I let the taxi go until I was sure whether this was the right place.”
“Oh, I can call him for you,” offered the girl brightly. “He’s only up the road a piece. You see, he’s engaged to my cousin, and he takes every chance he can to stop at the house when he gets up this way. I can send my kid brother over to call him if you want.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Diana, strangely grateful for this offer. But what was she going to do next?
The girl offered her a chair on the porch while she went to send the little brother on his errand, and Diana sat down and looked across the street at the ugly, pretentious house that her mother did not marry into all those long years ago and thought of the lovely mansion she had left last night—the rolling lawns, the groups of century-old trees, the picturesque stone cottage by the gate, and the flowers that had lain there in the shadow on the grass so mysteriously—and sudden tears sprang to her eyes.
But the girl was coming back carrying a glass of water.
“I thought perhaps you were thirsty,” she said, handing over the glass and quite frankly settling herself in an old porch rocker to examine her guest. “Ted’ll be back in a minute,” she added. “It’s only up the road a little piece.”
“Is that house across the way owned by a Mr. Eldridge?” asked Diana with sudden interest.
“Why yes!” said the girl. “How did you know? Did you ever live in this town?”
“No,” said Diana with a little shiver—she was glad she had never lived around here—“but my mother did for a little while. She used to tell me about some Eldridges across the road from her aunt’s.”
“Oh!” said the girl, giving her another speculative glance and then looking across the way to the ugly old Eldridge house, trying to harmonize house and girl. Then her eyes came back to Diana.
“He’s real old,” she explained, “Mr. Eldridge. He’s just buried his third wife, and they say it might be he’ll marry Miss Hurst, the nurse that’s taking care of him. He’s sick, you know, and not expecting to get well, and he’s mad with all his children, so he has nobody to leave his property to. My! I wish he’d leave it to me! I’d know what to do with it.” The girl’s face took on a wistful look. “They say his children was all mad at him when he married this last time and tried to put him in the insane asylum, but he was too smart for them, and now he has disinherited all of them.”
The girl reeled the story off as if it were a fairy tale, and Diana sat up sharply and drew a deep breath. Marrying! Marrying! It was everywhere! Why couldn’t people be true to their first marriage? And here were other children suffering as she was! She felt a fellow feeling for them.
“Where are they all, the children?” she asked suddenly, wondering if their state would throw any light on her problem.
“Oh, different places, I guess. There’s one daughter over in the next town teaching school; she’s the oldest. They call her an old maid, and she’s been teaching a good many years. The next girl married a farmer, but they’re awful poor. He’s got a big mortgage on his farm, and he might lose it this fall. The youngest girl ran off with a fella and they don’t know where she is, and the boy’s been in jail twice already.”
The girl told it off as indifferently as if she were detailing the fate of a lot of squirrels, but Diana stared at the ugly old house aghast! Her life had always been so guarded! She had not realized how hard life was for many! So, she was not the only one who suffered! She had emerged out of her haven into a world where suffering and sordidness were on every hand!
“It’s awful when parents get married again!” announced the girl quite irrelevantly and apathetically.
“It is!” said Diana, rising suddenly as she saw the taxi careening down the road in the distance.
“I’ll help ya down with the bags,” said the girl, taking up a shining suitcase admiringly. “Ted’s in a hurry, I guess. It’s almost train time again, and he has to be back on time or he’ll lose his job.”
“You’ve been very kind,” said Diana gratefully, picking up a smaller bag and finding it taken from her hand by the grimy fingers of a ten-year-old who had likely gone after the taxi.
As the taxi swung up to the sidewalk, Diana summoned a smile and handed out a bit of money to the boy and then, shyly, gave the girl a bill.
“Just to remember me by,” she said brightly and got in, thankful that she did not have to stay in that dismal spot overnight.
“Where to?” asked the driver, and Diana suddenly was brought face-to-face with her future again. Where should she go next?
“Wantta go back ta the station?” persisted the driver, thinking she had not heard him.
“Oh yes,” said Diana, coming out of her daze. “Certainly.”
“Which train ya takin’?” asked the driver.
“Oh, why, I have to inquire about trains. I’m not sure yet.”
The young man, Ted, appeared to want to converse, but Diana answered him coolly and was glad when the station came in sight again.
“Goin’ back south again?” he asked.
“That depends,” said Diana sweetly, “I’m not sure yet.”
Diana went and sat in the station for two long hours trying to think out what she should do. She wrote out a list of all her friends whom it would be possible for her to visit and weighed each possibility carefully, deciding at last that it would be utterly out of the question for her to visit anyone in her present state of mind. She couldn’t bring herself to the telling of what had happened to her, not to mere casual acquaintances, and that was what most of her friends had become in the last three years. No, she had to get herself more in hand, get more balance, work out a philosophy of living that would keep her from shivering and bursting into tears at everything that reminded her of her calamity before she mingled again with people who thought they had a right to question her.
Having decided against any visits, she weighed, just briefly, the possibility of marrying any of the men she knew who would be likely to want to marry her and found the idea so unpleasant that she quickly put that thought away as not to be further considered.
Then what should she
do?
If she had to provide a home for herself permanently, could she do it on her own small income? She would never ask her father for money since she had left his home and shelter. And if she did, she felt quite sure Helen would counsel him not to give her anything. Naturally he might think that would be a way to bring her back home, for she knew in her heart that he would miss her. No matter how much he might care for his new wife, he loved her, and naturally he would want her to return. She put her head wearily back against the station wall and thought about that. Perhaps she ought to have stayed a while just to convince him that it would not be a happy thing for anybody if she did. But no, Helen would only have made it appear that she was always at fault. It was better as it was, only what was she going to do with herself? She was not wanted anywhere, except, of course, by her father, and what would be the point in convincing him that she could not stay at home? It was too late for that now. And she was tired, oh, so deadly tired. She wished everything were at an end. Yet one couldn’t jump off a bridge or wade out in a stream and drown. She had to live on and somehow go on alone! Alone! What a terrible word that was!
Well, she had to do it, and the sooner she started, the better. Why not begin right here in this strange town? The first thing would be to find a room somewhere. Not a boarding place. That would entail other people who had a right to inquire into one’s business, and she was just now like a hurt animal that wanted to crawl away from all its kind and lick its wounds in secret.
So she checked her baggage and started out.
Chapter 11
It was almost noon, and as she passed a restaurant she realized that she could not go on long without something to eat, so she stopped and ordered a cup of coffee and toyed with a buttered roll. She drank the coffee, but somehow the food did not attract her. It was the first time in her life that she had ever eaten in a cheap restaurant, but she felt that that did not matter. Any food in any restaurant would have been as uninteresting.
Then she went on her way up one street and down another aimlessly, wondering where to begin. She had never hunted rooms in a city before. She had no idea where to look for rooming houses. Finally she bought a paper and stood on a corner studying advertisements and then went on again in search of a place to lay her head for the night.
It is safe to say that Diana never had dreamed that there were such places as some of those she saw that afternoon, following that newspaper column of advertised apartments. They were not all bad, of course. Some were really attractive, but then the price soared beyond her modest income and frightened her with the cost of life.
Her search narrowed down at last to two—one on the third floor of a walk-up rooming house, its windows overlooking the roofs in the theatrical district. An ill-smelling bathroom down the hall would have to be shared with the occupants of the entire floor. It was stifling hot and filled with the din of the city rising in a roar from the streets below. The other one was small, ornate, with built-in cupboards, cheap mirrors, and a tiny, uncertain automatic elevator to the fifth floor. A fire siren screeched all the time she was looking at it, and Diana imagined a night with the building on fire and that inadequate elevator gone below and staying there! Diana fled from the spot but a half hour later returned and forced herself to consider the details, because it had seemed the only approach to anything like the life to which she had been accustomed. She looked out the windows and saw an undertaking establishment across the street, a neat sign of coffins hung next door, and she fled again. Back in the station she considered both places and did some figuring and then rested her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, wishing that life was over and she did not have to consider any more possibilities. When she thought of those apartments she seemed to see herself lying alone, unknown, in a coffin.
A trainman slammed a metal sign into its frame over the station door, announcing a train back to her home city, and a great longing came over her to board it and return. Back to where she was at least known and knew her way around. Back where she could tell the sordid parts of town from the decent, respectable ones. If she must go into lodgings—and she was still determined she would not go to boarding—certainly it would be better to know what kind of place she was taking. Also, she had learned enough that afternoon to realize that she could get a room unfurnished cheaper than furnished, and by that means save the money she would be spending for storage. Also, if she was going to use her own furniture, it would cost a lot to move it here to this far city.
It suddenly seemed to her most preposterous to try to stay here, with no aunt in the vicinity and no point to the whole thing except to get as far away from Helen as possible. Surely she could hide nearer to home and not be found.
She remembered a woman’s hotel in her home city where a friend had once stayed a few days. Why could she not go there for a week and look around until she found the right place?
It was growing dark. The strange noisy station seemed aloof and unfriendly. The continual coming and going of trains began to weary her inexpressibly. Oh, to be at home in her own sweet room, to lie down and sleep until she was rested, until her heart did not ache so feebly. Ah! But there was no home! The room was stark and bare and her lovely things stored in a vast storage house! She had no home anymore! It was entirely up to her now to make a place in which to stay, and she had no desire whatever, no interest in it at all. She opened her handbag to get out a handkerchief and the faint perfume of the carnations stole out into the sooty atmosphere of the station and carried her back on a breath to the lawn of her father’s estate and the tall trees shadowing the spot where the mystery flowers had lain, and a longing filled her to go back. Perhaps this morning there had been another flower and she had not been there to find it! Perhaps another would find it! Could Helen? That would be just like Helen to steal her flowers, her few mystery flowers, after she had stolen her father and her home and everything that was worthwhile in her life. Ah! And perhaps tomorrow there would be another flower—that is, if no one else found them—but—surely by then the flower person would discover that she was gone—and that it was useless to drop any more. Would her note be found by the right one? Would it be read, and would it be understood?
What if Helen should find it? The thought seized her heart like the gripping of pain. Even there in the noisy station with the people jostling one another, she could hear that light mocking laugh that Helen would give should she find that note in the grass! Oh, why had she ever been silly enough to write that note?
Her cheeks burned red and hot at the thought. Oh, if she could only go in the night and hunt for it and find it and destroy it!
And suddenly Diana knew she was going back.
Not to her home, of course. But she must get back where she knew her way around. She must find a place somewhere where her soul belonged. She was lost, lost, lost, in a great world that knew her not nor cared. There was nobody who cared now, except her father, and he was angry at her.
She went in a sudden panic to the ticket window and asked a few questions. She bought a return ticket to her home city. She went to the lunch counter in the station and swallowed a few bites, drank a cup of coffee, and was ready, standing with her bags at her feet beside the gateway, waiting for her train, fifteen minutes before the scheduled time for its arrival.
She might have been sitting, resting on one of the station benches, for she was deadly weary, but she was too restless to rest. She had to be there, ready to go out the moment the gates were open. So she stood, tense, braced, and looking with unseeing eyes around on the vast, dusky room with its coming and going throngs. Why had she come out here? How had she hoped to find haven even with an aunt? For now she saw clearly that if the aunt had been there as she had expected, and she had been obliged to stay several days to explain her presence there at all, it would have been torture. What she wanted was to be alone in some little quiet place where she could rest and think and try to straighten out what this life meant that she was called upon to live, this life that s
he had no right to lay down and yet that seemed to have no solution to its problems. She had to find that out before she could go on any further. Aunts and friends or even strangers could only hinder a process like this. She must be alone to think. She must find a solution to life in order to endure it. She had always had someone to lean upon—first her darling mother and then her loving father. But now she had neither, and she had, in addition, an enemy! That was the situation. She had to work it out alone, alone!
The delicacy of her face, the rippling of her hair, the deep appeal of her eyes made her a noticeable figure as she stood there alone by the train gateway, surrounded by her luggage. More than one weary traveler waiting for a belated train or a wandering member of his household watched her idly as one would gaze upon a flower garden in the rain. But her eyes roved over them all restlessly, not seeing them at all.
She did not know that there were heavy lines graven in her soft face where only yesterday it was smooth and fine. She did not know that her eyes were full of anguish that anyone might read. She thought herself a quiet, patient figure, unobtrusively waiting for a train, and when she saw a slender figure rise from the bench across the room and come toward her she noticed her no more than if she had been the station janitor going around with his broom and long-handled pan to gather up the papers and the match ends.
But then the other girl paused beside her shyly, sweetly, with such a friendly look in her plain gray eyes, and spoke half hesitantly.
“I brought you this,” said the other girl. “I’ve been reading it, and I thought perhaps it would rest you to read it, too. I could see something has hurt you. I’m sorry. I understood because I’ve been hurt, too. But I found something that will heal the hurt, and you will, too, if you’ll read this and believe it.”
She handed out a tiny printed tract, just two miniature pages. There was a look in her eyes that could not anger anyone no matter how proud.