DUSKIN (16 page)

Carol slipped in and looked around her. Even in the one day since she had been there she recognized changes—handsome bronze grillwork had been set up around the first floor elevator shaft, and although the doors were not in yet, it began to take on the semblance of what it would be. Also there were finished outlets in the walls where the day before there had been only protruding wires. Well, her coming had at least hurried up some things. What a pity someone had not come on from the office sooner.

She had closed the door behind her, for she was almost afraid Mrs. Arthwait might insist on coming up with her, or appear on the scene unannounced, or worse still, send Paisley.

She took a step or two forward into the hall expecting to hear the janitor come forward, and then she would ask him to go after Mr. Duskin. When no one appeared, she finally called out several times, but there was no response, and the echoes of her voice died away into seemingly realm upon realm above. It gave her a weird feeling to be alone in this great, empty, unfinished building. In a finished building one knew what to count upon, but here there seemed to be pitfalls on every side. Nevertheless she did not intend to give up. She must see Duskin before morning. There was no knowing what might happen to the job, now that Delaplaine had declined to come, if she let Duskin go. For Duskin was at least a figurehead. Men would not work without someone who stood for boss. She must keep him until she found out what else to do.

Finally, though she shuddered inwardly, she went forward to the elevator shaft and peered up. Far, far above, like a moon above a deep, deep well, she saw a dim square of light and heard echoes of voices, but when she tried to call again her voice came back like a rubber ball that had hit against the wall.

Then she resolutely turned back and went to the stairs. Dared she go up that way? How many flights would it be? Schlessinger and Blintz had climbed up once. If they could, surely she could. Suppose she should meet someone in the dark on the stairs? Suppose she should meet Schlessinger and Blintz! Even the eager Arthwaits could not help her for they would never hear her cry for help. Her voice would be drowned in that great marble-lined tunnel. Nevertheless she meant to go.

She crept on up higher, and the dim light from below failed entirely. Then she snapped on her flashlight and held it above her head, climbing, climbing, millions of steps, turning around another hallway, and more steps again. She had lost count of the stories. It seemed like the very tower of Babel, and her limbs were trembling and almost numb. Her heart seemed to be pumping her breath from away down in the foundations of the building somewhere, and once or twice she sat down on a step to rest.

The last time she sat down she heard voices, and turning off her flashlight, she perceived that there was a dim radiance from the story above. Her climb was almost over. But she must sit still a moment and get her breath. She did not wish to appear before Duskin entirely winded. He would think her a fool. Perhaps she was, but she did not want to appear like one.

Then, as she rested halfway up the next and last flight, she heard voices again, more distinctly now, just above the turn of the stair it seemed. They were talking in subdued tones, but the words came distinctly down the marble stairwell in which she sat.

“Naw, don’t wake him, Charlie. I don’t give a hang if you did promise. We can get his part of the work done between us easy. I tell ya, Charlie, he’s all in. He ain’t had any sleep for five nights, and if that lady boss comes around bothering him like a hornet t’morra, no telling where he’ll be.”

“Yes, but he’s had a sleep, Ted, and he said two hours was all he’d allow. You know as well as I do Dusky cares more about getting this here shack done on the tap than he does if he ever gets any more sleep. You know what he is. And I tell you he’ll never trust me again if I don’t come in time. Besides, Ted, he’s gotta get this done before t’morra. Nobody else could fix this layout the way it oughtta be, and there’s no telling what that flip little Jane will do when she gets here. I ain’t expecting her to be anything but a consarned nuisance of course. When they get skirts on a job like this you gotta expect trouble. ‘Course Dusky don’t mind that part. He’s usedta gnats and hornets and things. But I tell ya what I’m pretty well convinced of myself: I donno whether the boss has thought of it or not, but I’ll bet my bottom dollar that little dame is in with the ring and going to get her take out of this here grab game outta that forfeit money. She looked ta me like a cute one. And those two dirty crooks that’s running this here gag business ain’t going to waste any time getting her bought over, I’ll tell the world.”

“She didn’t look to me exactly that kind,” demurred Ted. “I think she was
just dumb.
“

“Aw, don’t be an
infant,
Teddy. Where’s she get all them fancy cloes? It takes money to buy cloes like that, son, and she’ll be only too glad to grab all she can get. I tell you, son, Dusky is the only man I know outside-a this here outfit of his that won’t turn a hair when they offer him a kingdom. You’d oughtta seen his face the day old Schless made an offer of his third of the forfeit! Oh boy! I was workin’ up in the ceiling above his head, and the hole where the chandelier was goin’ was plenty big to give me a pretty good bird’s-eye view of the scene. Good night! I thought that rotten old crook was goin’ to fall all the way downstairs, the way he lit out when Dusky took him by the collar and shook him over the stairs. Oh boy! If that little dame that thinks she can boss him had a’been present at that scene she wouldn’t ‘a come around here in her jazzy cloes and her high-heeled shoes with shiny buckles holding her chin so high and mighty! The dirty little crook! I don’t care if she is a girl! She’s a dirty little crook or she would care enough to know there ain’t anyone this side of glory as good as our boss. She ain’t fit to let him wipe his good, honest shoes on her. She’s a dirty little crook or my name ain’t Charlie McMurray.”

Cautiously, stealthily, when she had gathered breath and could still the trembling of her limbs, Carol crept back down the long, long flights; painfully, breathlessly, listening fearfully now and again to a sound from above.

She did not dare turn on her flashlight but crept along the walls by feeling, and down upon her hands and knees found the next set of steps. Once her flashlight slipped from her shaking fingers and rolled down two steps before she could get it again, and she stood with bated breath and listened to see if anyone had heard.

Until at last she reached the hall below and the dim light and fled to the front door and out, closing it noiselessly behind her.

Oh it was good to breathe the fresh night air again and to feel a breeze upon her hot forehead and burning cheeks. Would she ever forget the things those men had said?

She steadied herself an instant before going down the steps to the car. She was grateful to these strangers for waiting for her now, for she felt she could not have walked and had not wits enough left to call a taxi. She was glad it was dark and they could not see how agitated she was. She got into the car and tried to speak steadily, though her voice sounded a little strained.

“Now, if you would be kind enough to take me back to the hotel,” she said, “I’m suddenly very tired. I’ve had a hard day, and I think there’s another one ahead of me tomorrow, and I need some rest.”

They were most assiduous and eager. She thought how ungrateful she must be not to appreciate their kindness, but she simply longed to get away from them, and when at saying good-night they begged that they might be allowed to take her to dinner the next night and show her a good time somewhere, she, remembering Schlessinger and eager for some excuse to get away from him, accepted.

And so she was allowed at last to go to her room and shut herself in with the memory of her day—and evening!

When she snapped on her light and sat down to examine the mail she had brought up from the desk, she found two telegrams among them.

One from Caleb Fawcett:

C
ANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY
I
DO NOT HEAR FROM YOU.

W
IRE IMMEDIATELY GIVING FULLEST PARTICULARS.

The other from the doctor:

V
ERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KEEP
F
AWCETT EASY IN MIND.
T
HE RIGHT MEDICINE WILL PULL HIM THROUGH.
M
AKE IT PEPPY AND DAILY.
T
WICE A DAY IF POSSIBLE.

She sat staring at them after she had read them and felt as if this was the last straw in a day that had been all failure from beginning to end. She had utterly forgotten that some message should have gone to Fawcett that morning, or at least sometime during the day. Now she had a vision of the placid Mrs. Fawcett and an impeccably trained nurse endeavoring to quiet the irascible Caleb while he raved on demanding telegrams from the West. Her worn-out nerves broke into a laugh, which was almost on the verge of tears.

Of course she must send him a telegram before she slept, but what could she say? If she gave details as he asked it certainly would be “peppy” enough to suit the most exacting, but not, she imagined, the kind of “medicine” the doctor would care to have administered. She had sent a telegram from Chicago the morning after the banquet, describing in glowing words the good fellowship toward the company and telling of the speech she had tried to make, and how well it was received. It had been carefully studied to relieve her employer’s mind about the situation in Chicago and let him see that his absence had not been entirely fatal so far as his interests were concerned. She had also sent a telegram the afternoon she arrived in this town, giving her location and saying that she intended to see Duskin at once and get things moving rapidly, as she had learned several things in Chicago which she felt would materially help to solve difficulties.

But now she saw that Fawcett was no more in a frame of mind to accept such sugar-coated generalities than he was when he was actively in the office, swearing at everybody that crossed his purpose. She must be definite if she would help him get well, and yet she must tell him nothing to worry him. And her mother had brought her up to tell the truth. How were all three of those things possible? And yet it must be done.

Without waiting to remove her hat and coat she took a pencil and pad from her suitcase and began to scribble telegrams, tearing them up and consigning them to the wastebasket as fast as she wrote them. At last in despair she lay back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. She simply had to get things thrashed out in her mind before she went a step farther. The telegram would not be delivered in a hospital at that hour of the night anyway.

At two o’clock she finished the draft of her telegram and stirred up a sleepy night operator to get it off. It read:

After she had sent her telegram she read her mother’s letter enclosing one from Betty. They were both full of plaints and warnings and begged her to get done with her work as soon as possible, delegate it to someone else if she could, and come back home. There was still time to go to Maine. Jean had telegraphed that they wanted her even if it was only for a few days.

She sighed as she folded the letters and stuffed them under her pillow for company. How horrified her mother would have been if she could have known how she spent part of her evening. What would her mother have said if she could have heard the awful words those men had said, calling her daughter a “dirty little crook”? Carol’s cheeks burned anew with the memory of their contempt. No wonder her mother felt that she was not fit to go out alone in a world of men. Mothers knew what evil was in the world, as no one could know without experiencing it perhaps. Oh, but the experience was bitterly gained! She felt that she was permanently saddened by the view she had heard of herself in the words of those unspeakable men. To think that any man, no matter how bad he was, could think of her in that way! And yet, those men did not seem like bad men. They were evidently honest men themselves, or seemed to think they were.

Full of thoughts, she undressed and crept into her bed, tying to plan out tomorrow. Somehow she must get hold of Duskin at once in the morning and see that he went on with his work. Compel him to, whether he would or not.

No, that wouldn’t do. You couldn’t compel a man like Duskin. It might be that he would refuse after what she had said to him.

Toward morning she dreamed that she was having a long, hard fistfight with Duskin on the stairs of the new building—that she struck him with all her might, but it only sounded as if she were patting a cushion, and that he struck her softly as if he did not want to hurt her—but now and again the lights would go out in the building and they would roll down a few flights of stairs and then get up and go at it again. At last they reached the first floor, and he caught her and carried her into the room they used for an office, and tied her hands and feet with electric wire that lay in great coils on the floor, and threw her into a corner with his coat folded under her head for a pillow. He told her she must stay there until the last day of September when the building would be finished and she might go home. She was terribly worried about the telegrams that wouldn’t get sent to Fawcett, and when she told Duskin he only laughed and fed her mush and milk, using a piece of building paper for a spoon, and the milk ran down her chin.