Routledge rides alone

by Will Levington Comfort

The picture she meant to put into words came clearly with Routledge listening.

“Once, when I was so little that I couldn’t talk plainly—so little that you might have balanced me in your hand—a woman came to the tiny room where I lay. It was in the midst of the night. Father was in Asia somewhere. I was awake, I think, because I heard the woman fumbling at the door. She was a big, hysterical thing and suddenly screamed that my mother was dead—then rushed away, leaving me alone in the dark!... It was at a lonely English country-house in winter. I remember the snow and the winds and the gray, tossing sky and the nights. I had to stay there alone until father came home. For more than a month I was in that great house, with naked, sighing trees all around—trees close to the walls of the house. They cut the wind into ribbons and made a constant moaning. And, oh, the nights were eternal! I was in a broad, cold room in the great, creaking house—and always I could hear hard-breathing from somewhere. Alone, I wore out all my fears there—until at last I had no fears, only dreams of the night that lived with me all through the day. I have never gone near that country-place since father came. How terrible he looked! It left me strange and different—so that I was never like a little child afterward.... Routledge-san, why do I tell you all these things? Not in years have I talked so much in one day.”

“Nor have I listened so raptly, Noreen.”

“I wouldn’t have tried to tell you so much—except that you are to be back in India within a year.... It has come to me, Routledge-san, that you are to go very quickly!”

There was a creak of a wicker-chair in the shadows of the engine-room air-shafts behind them. Noreen grasped his arm impulsively. It was not that she had said anything which the world might not hear, but her concentration had been intense, and the little story she had told had been so intimately personal to her that no woman, and only this man, had ever called it forth. There was quick cruelty in the thought of it being overheard by a stranger. In any case, the spell was broken. Routledge was irritated. The recall from the world of the woman, and the feeling of oneness with her which the strange little confidence had inspired, was pure unpleasantness.

“I’ll go to my state-room now,” she whispered. “There is only a little while to rest.... Good-night, Routledge-san. I’ll be abroad early.”

He knew that she would not have thought of her cabin yet, even though the hour was late, had it not been for the intrusion of the creaking chair. Routledge took her hand and spoke a brisk good-night. Returning to the deck-chair between the air-shafts, he sat down and arose again carefully. The sound was the same. He tested the chair thoroughly and found that in no possible way could the wind have caused the creak.... They had stood long within eight or nine feet of the chair. A gentleman would have given some notice that he was within hearing, or, better still, would have gone his way—unless asleep. This last was unlikely, because the deck was searched by a keen winter wind. In the smoking-room was an individual whose face had become familiar to Routledge since he had taken the Paris train at Marseilles the night before—a middle-aged man, strongly featured, wearing a white mustache. This traveller had also stopped at the Seville. He glanced up from a game of solitaire as Routledge entered. There were a bridge-party and one or two others in the apartment. Routledge chose a cigar very carefully, and managed to whisper to the attendant in a light, humorous way:

“Let me look at that cordial-flask a moment, and tell me how long that man at solitaire has been here.”

The other handed him the package and whispered, “Just about five minutes.”

Routledge purchased the cordial and passed out. It happened that he glanced into the smoking-room through a half-curtained window, and met the eyes of the White Mustache fully.... It was a little thing—scarcely a coincidence—for one to cross France by the same stages in twenty-four hours and break the journey at the same hotel in Paris. Moreover, because the stranger was not in the smoking-room fifteen minutes before did not establish the fact that it was his weight that had made the chair creak.... Routledge was disinclined to rest. The day had revolutionized his systems of being. He longed for daylight again, quite forgetting his usual patience with the natural passing of hours and events. The day itself had been unspeakably fine, but there was a disturbing reaction now and a premonitive shadow that would not be smoked nor reasoned out of mind.