Chapter VI: Part IV (2)

When Haworth went in to say a few words to Findlay the morning after the latter’s revolver had been taken from him and flung through the window, he found the fellow silent and sullen. His ideas as to what had occurred during the night were hazy in the extreme, but these few quiet words from Haworth cleared his atmosphere in the space of a few seconds, and put him in the way of distinct realization of where he stood. He had threatened his wife with a gun (he remembered having intended to do so) and the weapon had been taken from him. He had been locked in his room (he was already aware of this from having made efforts to get out) and as the Haworth fellow gave it to him, not only was Mrs. Findlay to have a separate sleeping room, but she was to occupy it without interference or disturbance from him.

As for Haworth himself, he would sleep downstairs on a cot in his drafting room, as he had often done before. This would give them the entire floor to themselves. If, however, he started any of his rowdyism again, or mistreated his wife, or threatened her with mistreatment, he would be turned over to the police and locked up. That was all. Good morning.

It was the matter of his wife being given a room by herself that put a knife in him. A dull but furious jealousy began to rage somewhere in his interior. Though he had a horror of losing these comfortable and cost-free quarters, that aversion was as nothing beside the rabid fury generated by his suddenly aroused suspicion. The mere thought of what might be—when he allowed himself to project his imaginings on the subject as far as that—threw him into a fit of murderous passion. He’d keep his eyes open! He’d get on to it pretty damned quick if any funny business was going on. And if it was —— ——

From that time and for more than a week it could have been noticed—and probably was by Hulda—that Mr. Findlay went in to Boston with much less frequency than formerly, and that when he did so he arrived back at most unexpected times,—once coming in quite hurriedly by one of the rear entrances fifteen minutes after he had left the house at the front door, apparently departing for the day.

It so happened, though, that neither of the two people Findlay was endeavoring to surprise in some sort of misdemeanor, was in the slightest degree aware of his violent spasm of watchfulness. They were both fighting desperately to struggle out of the torrent that had swept them off their feet, and couldn’t be expected to take notice of other things. Naturally, under the circumstances, Augustus discovered nothing. There _was_ nothing. Even when they met alone, only a few commonplace words, if any, passed between them. He never once overheard the least thing that was out of the way when it happened that they were alone together and he could manage to listen, and when they both went out, as they did nearly every afternoon—Haworth for long walks on the railroad track, Edith to trudge about the suburban roads or sometimes to go in to Boston—and he followed one or the other of them, he never found that they met anywhere or came within miles of meeting.

As he was unable to gather fuel for his jealousy, it began to burn with diminished ferocity, and it wasn’t long before he revived his briefly interrupted custom of returning late at night from his alleged business trips to the city, bringing with him a heavy load of whatever intoxicant he could buy with the money he borrowed from Haworth. For a while, however, his subconscious department succeeded in keeping uppermost in his mind the idea that it would be well to control himself when he came in, and to get into bed as quietly as possible.

* * * * *

Something over a fortnight after the revolver episode and the night together by the open fire, the two unfortunates, caught in the merciless grip of a love trap and struggling with all the strength they could command to extricate themselves from it, had come very close to reaching the limit of what they could do. Was anything else to be expected? Completely out of their normal minds—mad—even quietly delirious—living there together in the same house—left to themselves most of the time, and trying to carry on as if they were casual acquaintances—wouldn’t that wear out the strength of anyone, or, to be more accurate, any two?

Haworth, one day along this time, came in from a tramp at dinner time and learned from Hulda that Mr. Findlay hadn’t come in. He and Edith would be alone together. It had happened several times lately, but to-night he had the feeling that he couldn’t manage to behave as an ordinary friend might; he didn’t think he could carry it through.

“When Mrs. Findlay comes down, ask her please to have dinner without me. I’ve got some important work to do—very important.”

When Hulda went into the hall she saw Edith near the top of the stairs and going up. She had come down and stopped near the door as she heard Haworth speaking, and couldn’t help hearing what he said. Upon which she fled up the stairs again, and a moment after the maid had caught sight of her she was back in her room with the door closed.

Hulda followed and knocked softly.

“Can’t I bring you up something, Mrs. Findlay?”

“No, nothing—_please_.”

Hulda left a tray on Haworth’s drawing table, before which he was sitting absently. But she knew, as soon as she saw him, that he wouldn’t touch anything.

It was a wicked evening for them both. Haworth sat in a corner of his workroom and stared before him, seeing nothing. Edith lay on her bed with her head pushed in among the pillows.

With her it was simpler—just plain misery, and longing, and hunger and thirst for him. But Haworth, while having all these feelings for her, was at the same time feverishly hunting for some way out, all the while knowing that nothing could be done without money, of which he was by this time nearly destitute. If he had had the means at hand, there isn’t the slightest doubt he’d have fled with her. But he hadn’t nearly enough for that, nor had he anything on which he could raise it. The amount that old Mr. Cripps had left to him (being probably the remains of the money obtained on the mortgage) had virtually disappeared.

Haworth wasn’t in the habit of thinking of these things; he’d always let them go until something happened. For himself what did it matter? But now ... Edith. And he went over the problem again and again, hoping each time to arrive at a better result.

It was very much later in the evening when Hulda came down and tapped at his door. After she had knocked three times he heard her.

“Come in,” he said, huskily.

“Mrs. Findlay asked me to say could she speak to you for a minute.”

“Yes—yes.” Haworth roused himself and cleared his throat. “Tell her I’ll go up there and—and see what she wants.”

“Yes sir.”

A moment later he knocked at Edith’s door and she opened it. They stood silent. Suddenly he snatched both her hands and held them pressed against him.

“Oh!” she breathed—a sort of whispered groan—and turned her head away for God knows what—perhaps a last feeble effort to avert the catastrophe she knew was coming. Soon she turned to him again and spoke unsteadily, almost whispering.

“This was what I—what I wanted to tell you,” she said. “I’ve been thinking it over, and now—you see—you see the way things are—I can’t——Don’t you see I’ll have to go?”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“I couldn’t let you! How could I when I love you so!”

She was looking up in his face and her lips moved. Though no sound came from them, he could feel what she was trying to say—knew it almost before she began—and had her close in his arms, kissing her madly, blindly, impetuously; whispering brokenly the few words of endearment he knew.

It seemed hardly a moment, but it was in reality a large number of them, before the violent closing of the front door recalled Edith and Haworth to the surface of the earth. Not only were they made acquainted by this with the circumstance of Findlay’s return, but the demonstration following said closing gave a fairly reliable indication of his condition, consisting as it did of a burst of song and a bit of incoherent monologue.

“I’m going to lock you in,” Haworth whispered in Edith’s ear.

“Yes.”

He locked the door from the outside and put the key in his pocket. Then he went along the corridor to the rear of the house, down the servants’ staircase, and through the passage into the main hall.

Augustus was preparing to negotiate the stairs.

“Well, how-dy-do!” he said, supporting himself by one of the newel posts. “You see before you, Misser Haworth, a shinin’ ezample of the pernishus influences of too mush happinish!”

Haworth stood silently regarding him.

“I’m shorry,” he went on. “Deeply an’ shincerely—e—sinsherely shorry. But it was on account o’ shelibrashun! Yes, sir—shelibration! You’ll be d’lighted to hear th’ glad tidings that I got a posishun. Yes, sir—though I say it myself they took me on to-day at the Boshun Nalb’ny freight yards. You know men are very scarce!”

“They must be,” said Haworth; and turning away he went into the living room. From there he could hear Augustus finally accomplish the (for him) considerable feat of ascending the stairs, and from the summit of the same negotiate the short distance to his room. In a moment he heard him come out again and walk heavily down the corridor to the room occupied by Mrs. Findlay.

Haworth could hear his loud pounding on her door and boisterous demands to be let in, together with the shouted information as to his having been taken on by the railroad company and his urgent desire for further celebration of that event. This he kept up interminably, varying it with whining and begging that she open the door. But he eventually became tired of it and went shambling back to his room.

Haworth gave him about half an hour. At the expiration of that time he went upstairs and listened at his door. Loud breathing and raucous nasal reverberations were the only sounds that could be heard from within. The key was at his hand on the outside. He grasped it firmly so there should be as little rattling as possible, and slowly turned it in the lock. After listening a moment to make sure the slight click hadn’t disturbed the sleeper within, he turned and walked down the corridor, taking the other key out of his pocket as he went.

* * * * *

It proved to be the truth that Augustus had got a job at the Exeter Street freight yards. Whether to hustle boxes and barrels about or sit on a high stool and work at bills of lading he never told. But whatever it was, it obliged him to rise every morning at five-thirty and have breakfast at six.

After three mornings of this, Alma, the cook, appeared before Haworth and made the solemn declaration that she wouldn’t be staying there to get up and cook a special breakfast “for the likes o’ him.” Haworth, much disturbed, inquired of Hulda what he’d better do, and she told him that the only way to settle it was to turn that Findlay man out of the house and get rid of him “for good an’ all.” But of course if he did that Augustus would take Edith with him. No way to prevent it that he could see. He puzzled quite distractedly over the matter for some time, and then bethought him of an old woman who came in from somewhere once a week to clean. Mrs. Temple was her name, and several times in the past when she’d been working in the basement he had called her into his shop and got her to help him about something that needed an extra pair of hands; and twice since Michael Cripps’s death—there being no one else to do it—she had gone in to Boston to manage the matter of replacing servants for him. It now occurred to him to ask her what had better be done about Mr. Findlay’s new breakfast requirements.

Mrs. Temple was entirely equal to the occasion. She herself went to Mr. Findlay and notified him in not the politest terms, that if he wanted his breakfast before eight o’clock in the morning he’d have to get it somewhere else. There was no more trouble; Findlay got his breakfast somewhere else. And beginning about then Haworth came more and more to rely on the old woman for advice and assistance. She was a wise one, too, and had a perfectly clear idea of what she was about, which was particularly fortunate just at this period, for the young inventor was in a daze—a dream—an enchantment.

About this time the market where they bought provisions notified Haworth that it could not extend further credit because of unpaid bills. Following shortly, a grocery establishment did the same thing. And Haworth, having no idea what to do about it, as it appeared on investigation that he had very little money left—certainly not enough to pay what was owing—turned the matter over to the old woman, asking her please to attend to it in whatever way she thought best. This she forthwith did by opening accounts elsewhere. This would carry them along for a time at least, and after that “we’ll see.” Put that in quotes, because it was Mrs. Temple’s philosophy to do what she could at the time, and as to the future, “we’ll see.”

Where this old woman came from or when she came, no one seemed to know. Haworth himself hadn’t the faintest idea. She spoke very seldom and never about herself. Where she lived was also in the nature of a mystery. Of course it could have been solved if anyone cared to follow her, but no one did. And no one noticed it, either, when she began coming in twice a week instead of once as formerly. Nobody had asked her to, and she said nothing to anyone about an increase in wages.

* * * * *

Haworth and Edith Findlay were now making little or no effort to conceal the fact from Augustus—or for that matter from anyone—that they were together for the greater part of the time. They were in every way so utterly and completely taken up with each other that nothing else appeared to them of the slightest consequence. They talked and read together, and took long tramps in woods and fields and along country roads.

Findlay usually got home from his work about half-past five or six, often in plenty of time to see the two come in from an afternoon’s tramp, or to find them working in the old flower garden together, or something like that. And it was entirely open to observation—when anyone was there to observe it—that in the evening they were by themselves somewhere, reading together or engaged over chess or cribbage.

While all this, as I’ve said, could be seen without effort, Augustus had all the appearance of being unaware of it. But he had seen and heard enough in the course of a week or so, to rouse his most malignant passions. Without appearing to do so, he was watching every move they made.

When he first began work at the yards, Findlay had felt too tired on getting home at the end of the day, to go back to town again after dinner—or even to nearer places—for alcoholic consolation. This resulted in a much clearer mind than was normal with him. And once his overpowering suspicion was awakened the thought of drinking never crossed his mind.

As he became more and more aroused, at the same time gaining a stronger perception of the situation and harboring a more desperate desire to trap them, a scheme by which he could do so came into his mind, and he set to work to put it into practice. The first move was his failure to appear for dinner, which had not occurred since he got the job at the freight yards. Late that night he came in loaded—or apparently so. One would have supposed, if not too close an investigator, that the fellow was in a hopeless state of intoxication. And so, notwithstanding that his imitation of himself as a roistering inebriate was far from being a perfect one, it succeeded with the two people for whose benefit (and ultimate undoing) he was giving the performance; for, unfortunately, neither of them was in the mood to criticize it. He was enabled, therefore, eventually to stagger into his room with the impression successfully conveyed that he was drunk and disorderly to the furthest limit. Once there, and from the moment of his violently slamming shut the door, his vigil began.

He had tools with which to open the door should anyone lock him in, and the key was purposely left on the outside as a further blind. It was the fourth time that he set this trap before it closed on its victims.

* * * * *

Shortly before nine o’clock of the morning following the springing of the trap, Mr. Augustus Findlay drove up to the front portico of the mansion in a taxi, and with two small and exceedingly moderate-priced trunks set in front beside the driver. He’d gone out early and bought them at a place in Roslindale where they kept almost everything. The chauffeur lent a hand in taking them into the house, and about an hour later renewed the loan in bringing them out again.

Edith came slowly down the great stairway, pulling on her gloves. She wore the long fur coat that Haworth had given her; indeed, everything she had on came from him. She didn’t raise her eyes as she descended, seeming to be occupied with her gloves. The veil which was pulled down over her face failed to hide the paleness of it, which glimmered through like a small white cloud.

Haworth was standing back against the wall near the foot of the stairs, with the look of death upon him. It wasn’t so much the mortuary pallor of his countenance as the strained fixity of his staring yet unseeing eyes. He had gone to her room while Augustus was getting the taxi, and found it locked.

“Open the door! Open it quick!” he’d called to her in a half whisper as he knocked lightly, for to create a disturbance would defeat what he had made up his mind to do.

“Oh, I can’t!” she answered, coming as near to him as possible. “He’s taken away the key!”

Haworth turned and ran down the two flights of stairs to the basement, and was back in a moment with a heavy iron bar.

“Darling, are you there?”

“Oh yes—I’m right here—as near as I can get!”

“Well, stand away—stand away from the door. I’m going to break it in!”

“No no!—Please don’t! Oh wait Michael!”

“Get back by the window! You’re coming with me!”

“Stop! Michael—stop! _You’ll hurt me!_ I’m close to the door—right against it! Listen to me, dear—it’ll only make it worse! Yes, it will—whatever you do! He could stop us. There’d be police and, oh! reporters—and everything! I’m sure there would.”

Her low voice reached him clearly as she stood close against the door.

“What can we do?” he got out, hoarsely.

“Nothing now—nothing, dear, just now! I must go with him and you mustn’t do anything! Afterward, when it all quiets down, we’ll find some way!” This poor child was the wise and cool one through it all. Haworth was demented with the hurt of it and his helplessness.

“Don’t let him find you here!” she went on. “Let him have his way. Don’t say anything! Good-by, darling. I’ll be—I’ll be loving you always—always—and oh, so much!”

Haworth tried to speak, but couldn’t. After a time he moved slowly away.

And now she was coming down the stairs, buttoning one of her gloves and with her white face showing through the veil. He knew that she passed close to him and felt the thrill of her nearness. Then came the terrifying consciousness that she was going away from him. After that she was gone.

Findlay, waiting outside, saw her seated in the taxi; then he entered the house. Seeing Haworth near the stairway, he walked down the hall and got out between his teeth with a peculiar low-voiced malevolence: “You dirty loafer! You —— —— ——! Sometime—yes, by God! I’m going to get even with you.” Having delivered himself of which, he strode through the front door. A moment later the taxicab could be heard driving away.