The Girl at Central. Bonner Geraldine
Molly, I'd have missed it," he said, looking into my face in that sweet wistful way sickly kids have, "and it's the last time they'll be round this year."
I kissed him and put him down and told the men as I squeezed out to keep him in the front or they'd hear from me. Then I walked off toward the woods thinking.
It was a funny idea I'd got into my head. I'd once read in a paper that when people looked like animals they resembled the animals in their dispositions – and I was wondering was Dr. Fowler like a bear, grouchy and when you crossed him savage. Maybe it was because I'd been so worried, but it gave me a kind of chill. My thoughts went back to Mapleshade and I got one of those queer glimpses (like a curtain was lifted for a second and you could see things in the future) of trouble there – something dark – I don't know how to explain it, but it was as if I got a new line on the Doctor, as if the bear had made me see through the surface clear into him.
I tried to shake it off for I wanted to enjoy my afternoon in the woods. They are beautiful at that season, the trees full of colored leaves, and all quiet except for the rustlings of little animals round the roots. There's a road that winds along under the branches, and trails, soft under foot with fallen leaves and moss, that you can follow for miles.
I was coming down one of these, making no more noise than the squirrels, when just before it crossed the road I saw something and stopped. There, sitting side by side on a log, were Sylvia Hesketh and a man. Close to them, run off to the side, was a motor and near it tied to a tree a horse with a lady's saddle. Sylvia was in her riding dress, looking a picture, her eyes on the ground and slapping softly with her whip on the side of her boot. The man was leaning toward her, talking low and earnest and staring hard into her face.
To my knowledge I'd never seen him before, and it gave me a start – me saying, surprised to myself, "Hullo! here's another one?" He was a big, powerful chap, with a square, healthy looking face and wide shoulders on him like a prize fighter. He was dressed in a loose coat and knickerbockers and as he talked he had his hands spread out, one on each knee, great brown hands with hair on them. I was close enough to see that, but he was speaking so low and I was so scared that they'd see me and think I was spying, that I didn't hear what he was saying. The only one that saw me was the horse. It looked up sudden with its ears pricked, staring surprised with its soft gentle eyes.
I stole away like a robber, not making a speck of noise. All the joy I'd been taking in the walk under the colored leaves was gone. I felt kind of shriveled up inside – the way you feel when someone you love is sick. I couldn't bear to think that Jack Reddy was giving his heart to a girl who'd meet another man out in the woods and listen to him so coy and yet so interested.
As far as I can remember, that was a little over a month from the fatal day. All the rest of October and through the first part of November things went along quiet and peaceful. And then, suddenly, everything came together – quick like a blow.
III
For two days it had been raining, heavy straight rain. From my window at Galway's I could see the fields round the village full of pools and zigzags of water as if they'd been covered with a shiny gray veil that was suddenly pulled off and had caught in the stubble and been torn to rags. Saturday morning the weather broke. But the sky was still overcast and the air had that sort of warm, muggy breathlessness that comes after rain. That was November the twentieth.
It was eleven o'clock and I was sitting at the switchboard looking out at the streets, all puddles and ruts, when I got a call from the Dalzells' – a place near the Junction – for Mapleshade.
Now you needn't get preachy and tell me it's against the rules to listen – suspension and maybe discharge. I know that better than most. Didn't the roof over my head and the food in my mouth depend on me doing my work according to orders? But the fact is that at this time I was keyed up so high I'd got past being cautious. When a call came for Mapleshade I listened, listened hard, with all my ears. What did I expect to hear? I don't know exactly. It might have been Jack Reddy and it might have been Sylvia – oh, never mind what it was – just say I was curious and let it go at that.
So I lifted up the cam and took in the conversation.
It was a woman's voice – Mrs. Dalzell's, I knew it well – and Dr. Fowler's. Hers was trembly and excited:
"Oh, Dr. Fowler, is that you? It's Mrs. Dalzell, yes, near the Junction. My husband's very sick. We've had Dr. Graham and he says it's appendicitis and there ought to be an operation – now, as soon as possible. Do you hear me?"
Then Dr. Fowler, very calm and polite:
"Perfectly, madam."
"Oh, I'm so glad – I've been so terribly worried. It's so unexpected. Mr. Dalzell's never had so much as a cramp before and now – "
"Just wait a minute, Mrs. Dalzell," came the Doctor. "Let me understand. Graham recommends an operation, you say?"
"Yes, Dr. Fowler, as soon as possible; something awful may happen if it's not done. And Dr. Graham suggested you if you'd be so kind. I know it's a favor but I must have the best for my husband. Won't you come? Please, to oblige me."
Dr. Fowler asked some questions which I needn't put down and said he'd come and if necessary operate. Then they talked about the best way for him to get there, the Doctor wanting to know if the main line to the Junction wouldn't be the quickest. But Mrs. Dalzell said she'd been consulting the time tables and there'd be no train from Longwood to the Junction before two and if he wouldn't mind and would come in his auto by the Firehill Road he'd get there several hours sooner. He agreed to that and it wasn't fifteen minutes after he'd hung up that I saw him swing past my window in his car, driving himself.
Later on in the afternoon I got another call from the Dalzells' for Mapleshade and heard the Doctor tell Mrs. Fowler that the operation had been a serious one and that he would stay there for the night and probably all the next day.
Before that second call, about two hours after the first one, there came another message for Mapleshade that before a week was out was in most every paper in the country and that lifted me right into the middle of the Hesketh mystery.
It was near one o'clock, an hour when work's slack round Longwood, everybody being either at their dinner or getting ready for it. The call was from a public pay station and was in a man's voice – a voice I didn't know, but that, because of my curiosity, I listened to as sharp as if it was my lover's asking me to marry him.
The man wanted to see Miss Sylvia and, after a short wait, I heard her answer, very gay and cordial and evidently knowing him at once without any questions. If she'd said one word to show who he was things afterward would have been very different, but there wasn't a single phrase that you could identify him by – all anyone could have caught was that they seemed to know each other very well.
He began by telling her it was a long time since he'd seen her and wanting to know if she'd come to town on Monday and take lunch with him at Sherry's and afterward go to a concert.
"Monday," she said very slow and soft, "the day after to-morrow? No, I can't make any engagement for Monday."
"Why not?" he asked.
She didn't answer right off and when she did, though her voice was so sweet, there was something sly and secret about it.
"I've something else to do."
"Can't you postpone it?"
She laughed at that, a little soft laugh that came bubbling through her words:
"No, I'm afraid not."
"Must be something very interesting."
"Um – maybe so."
"You're very mysterious – can't I be told what it is?"
"Why should you be told?"
That riled him, I could hear it in his voice.
"As a friend, or if I don't come under that head, as a fellow who's got the frosty mit and wants to know why."
"I don't think that's any reason. I have no engagement with you and I have with – someone else."
"Just