Hereafter, night after night, the wondering Ridge beheld the deserted husband, disreputably attired, sitting upon his piazza steps or pacing up and down the narrow walk, keeping guard like a faithful dog who has been left to watch. Every evening, some man, urged thereto by his wife, strolled over to keep him company, though the rambling conversation always harked back to Mrs. Ranney through every masculine theme. The street grew to feel a distinct proprietorship that gave a sense of daily responsibility, and it grew even stronger, when, as time went on, he became gradually taciturn and moody, with a manner that said plainly that he preferred his own company to that of any friends, however well-meaning.
“Well, I’m glad Mrs. Ranney is coming home next week,” said Mrs. Spicer feelingly, as she and Mrs. Laurence stopped on a street corner in the village for a heart-to-heart talk. “I don’t know what would become of that poor man if she stayed away much longer. How much we will have to tell her!”
“Minda says he hardly eats a thing,” said Mrs. Laurence.
“He ate a little of the pudding I sent over last night. His devotion is really beautiful, but I don’t quite like his state of mind, it makes me anxious, and his appearance is so——” Mrs. Spicer paused uncomfortably. “I wish he’d shave! Ernest Spicer says he hates to be seen in the street with him.”
“Well, she’ll be home soon,” said Mrs. Laurence.
That was a fearsome night indeed, and one long to be remembered, the night before Mrs. Ranney was expected home. A wild September gale sent the deluge of rain aslant through the darkness, swirling it over lawns and among the trees into a river-torrent that carried all before it. It was a shrieking gale that tore up the houses with maniac fingers, wresting off shutters and chimney tops, dragging down trees in its giant fury, howling and whining between the shrieks like a forest of spectral wolves rushing ever faster and faster upon their prey. The rain beat in through window-casing and foundation, front doors flew open wide at the hand of the tempest. The steeple of the church came crashing down; the orphan asylum was unroofed; the affrighted fancy soared into realms of terror with the far-clanging sound of the fire-bell, caught and lost again amid the clamour of the storm.
No one slept on the Ridge that night; mothers sat by the bedside of their little children, fathers patrolled the house to see that timbers held, and the fire was kept low. There was not a household near the Ranneys’ in which some member had not said awesomely to another:
“And she is out on the ocean!” Imagination pictured the husband (as indeed Minda described him afterwards), walking up and down, up and down, up and down, with savage, miserable eyes, all night long, desperately fighting with agonized thoughts.
But, with the first sullen rays of the morning light he was gone. The tempest had abated into a fog-filled, engulfing rain, that washed all the landscape into a dirty yellow. The street on the Ridge was flooded from end to end, so that a canoe might paddle down it; but the women who lived on the same side of the way ventured with rain-coats and overshoes into each others’ houses to compare notes of the night, and to commune tearfully on the news of the morning papers. It was rumoured that the Patriot had foundered with all on board. “That girl with her two babies”—suppose she could never know. All that day men and women stood in line by the offices of the Nor-Coast Steamship Company, waiting, waiting, waiting for the word that meant life, or the losing of it. The “extras” with scare-lines about the Patriot with letters a foot long, were thrust before the eyes, or called in the ears of that waiting throng that thinned and fluctuated and filled up again. The extras even reached the Ridge. But at five o’clock Mr. Laurence brought home word that the Patriot’s passengers had been transferred from the sinking steamer to the ship of another line, and were expected in by seven.
It was something after ten when the travellers arrived in one of the station cabs. The dwellers in the different houses had been excitedly on the lookout ever since dinner, congregating in Mrs. Laurence’s drawing-room, the women overflowing with excited sentiment, and the men, excited too, discussing the different aspects of the disaster. Minda had been overwhelmed with offers of help, and numberless dishes sent over to her for the refreshment of the wayfarers—jellies, creamed chicken, biscuit and layer cake, and many instructions given.