Partners (2 page)

She ate a piece of apple pie because it came with the stew and rolls and coffee. There was an infinitesimal scrap of cheese with the pie, the only really tasty bite about the meal, and she dutifully swallowed everything. She could not afford to pay even thirty cents for a meal that she didn't eat. She would need the strength it gave, even if it wasn't appetizing.

Then she began to plan for the next few minutes. She would have to go back to the Baker home, of course. Her bags were there, and her trunk, and she would have to say good-bye to Mrs. Baker. But all that ought not to take long. She had packed everything before she left to come down to the office that morning. That is everything except her comb and brush and toothbrush and a few things she had left hanging in her closet. But that wouldn't take but a second, just to slip those in her overnight bag. If she only knew where she could get a room she could take a taxi and drive her things right to it, but getting a room she could afford would take time. If they had given her the hundred and twenty-five she would have ventured on that pleasant little room in the new apartment house. It was new and clean, and had a tiny radiator, besides elevator service. It was awfully small, and the price was higher than she ought to pay, but that extra twenty-five would have helped out on the first three or four weeks, and after that she would have time to look around and get something cheaper. Or, it might be she would be able by that time to land a really good job. And it would have been such a comfort to get into a clean new spot where her soul wouldn't have to shrink from everything she hadn't actually cleansed with her own hands. Just to get rested calm. How blessed that would be!

Then she considered the possibility of being allowed to sleep in the Baker house that night and not start out to hunt a home until morning. Perhaps Mrs. Baker would at least grant that request, in case her conscience did not prompt her to pay her anything more. It was queer she hadn't suggested it. Perhaps she would want her to stay there a few days until the movers came to take her furniture.

Dale was quite accustomed to entering an empty house; during the last few days Mrs. Baker had been out most of the time, staying with the kind neighbors who had invited her.

She mounted the steps of the old brownstone house, the sixth in the row from the corner, and inserted her key into the lock, but even as she swung the door open and fumbled for the switch of the hall light, the chill of great emptiness came out and smote her with startling keenness.

She stood still for an instant to get used to the strange sensation, and then she snapped on the light in the long hall and then the light for the front room, and stood there staring. The front room, designated by Mrs. Baker as "the parlor" was absolutely empty, and so was the hall. The old hall hat rack was gone, with its mirror and its skewy brass hooks with their three prongs. The parlor table was gone, and the old threadbare Brussels rug that never did quite reach to the dilapidated sofa whose internal works were always protruding. The four chairs of different denominations were gone, and the corner whatnot with its pink china shepherdess, its three pink-lined shells with humps on their backs, its hideous red and blue and gilt vases, and the red glass one on top, with its plumes of pampas grass. They were all gone!

Gone was the old-fashioned combination bookcase and secretary that Mrs. Baker used to say belonged to her great-grandfather; and all the musty old books that gloomed forth behind the grimy glass doors. Even the two faded photographs of deceased parents, framed in gilded pinecones, were gone. They used to swing on red worsted cords, and when the wind blew in at the front window it would waft around them till they made a scratchy sound on the old ugly red wallpaper that was faded to a dull magenta in spots. They were all gone, and the rooms were dusty and empty!

In sudden panic Dale started up the stairs.

What had become of her trunk and bags? Where were the few little things she had left hanging in her closet? Her good coat and hat to replace the little jacket and knitted cap she was wearing to her work? Surely,
surely
they wouldn't carry off her things? What would she do if they had? How in the world had the house been cleared of everything so quickly? When she left that morning Mrs. Baker told her that the moving van was not coming for at least two days, and she had planned to get her own things away before they came. What could have happened?

As she flew up the stairs, breathless, she caught a glimpse of the empty dining room, its golden oak table and sideboard, and chairs that were no longer golden, only dirty oak, were gone, too, and through the open door into the kitchen she could see that there was nothing left there but the gas range, which was built in. No pots and pans hanging about, no old chairs, no gingham apron hanging on the back door.

She dashed into her own room and found it as empty as all the rest of the house.

"O-hh!" she gasped and found there were tears falling down her cheeks. Oh, she just couldn't afford to lose
everything
she had! Surely,
surely
Mrs. Baker wouldn't do that to her! Her mother's and father's photographs! The bits of precious family heirlooms, not very valuable perhaps, but wondrously precious. Little things her mother had made for her that it would break her heart to lose!

"Oh, God!" she quavered aloud. "Would you let them do that to me? Did I need that, somehow, to make me right for what you want of me?"

Then suddenly the doorbell pealed through the house and startled her almost out of her senses. It seemed almost like an answering voice to her prayer. Yet God wouldn't ring the doorbell!

Trembling in every fiber she hurried down to answer the ring. Probably only some beggar, or someone selling dishcloths and shoestrings, she thought.

But when she opened the door, her eyes wide with a kind of fear in them, she saw Mrs. Bartlett, the woman who lived in the house to the right of this one.

"Well, I thought I saw you come in, but I wasn't sure. You see, I've been watching for you more or less all the afternoon, ever since the truck went away. But you must have come while I was out in the kitchen looking at something I had baking in the oven. I guess you were surprised, weren't you, to find everything gone? Or did you know they were going today? Mrs. Baker was surprised herself. She was getting ready to go to Long Island today to say good-bye to some old friends over there. But it was a lucky thing she hadn't started. Her son drove over from Ohio and brought a moving van along with him. He said he could get one cheaper out near where he lives. And they went to work and got it packed up in no time. Then he took his mother in his own car and they went along, back of the truck."

"But--what did they do with
my
things?" asked Dale, wide-eyed, trouble in her voice. "I hadn't got everything packed yet. I meant to finish when I got back tonight, and then they kept me at the office so long today that I didn't even have time to eat until just now."

"Oh! I wondered!" said the unsympathetic voice of the neighbor. "I thought it wasn't very considerate of you not coming back to help poor Mrs. Baker off when she's done so much for you all these months. I don't see what right they had to keep you. You see, your not being here made a lot of trouble. The movers brought down all your things and got them in the van before Mrs. Baker thought to tell them that they weren't hers. They just carried your coat out, dragging the fur collar on the steps, and chucked it in the van. And it would have been there yet if I hadn't seen them carrying it across the sidewalk and dumping it in between the sideboard and table, like it was a cushion. I called right out to them that that was yours, and they brought it back, and then Mrs. Baker spoke to them and made them bring your best hat back. I recognized it, of course, because I've seen you go out on Sunday wearing it. I guess we got everything. Poor Mrs. Baker wasn't able to go out and climb into the van to see, but I went myself, and I took all your things and brought them in my house to keep for you. Mrs. Baker had the man bring your trunk over, too, and she said they only charged fifty cents, and you could pay me if you wanted to."

"Pay! For having my trunk taken into your house when I was coming in a little while to take it away myself in a taxi? That doesn't seem right, Mrs. Bartlett, does it? Mrs. Baker knew I had a key. I don't see why she didn't telephone me. I would have come right back and taken care of my own things."

"Why, the man came the first thing this morning and disconnected the telephone. She couldn't. You see, it's the end of the month and she didn't want to pay for next month."

"Oh!" said Dale with a kind of hopeless tone in her voice. "Well, I guess I'd better come in and see if all my things are there. I certainly wouldn't like to lose any of them, and there are some of them that I prize very much."

"Oh, well, I guess you'll find them all there. I'm sure we haven't done anything to them. I certainly went out of my way to keep the mover from carrying them all off to Ohio. But perhaps I should have minded my own business. You never get any thanks when you go out of your way to oblige."

"Oh! I'm sorry, Mrs. Bartlett. I didn't mean to be ungrateful. I am sure I thank you very much for looking after my things. Only, you see, I was startled when I didn't find them where I left them."

With her chin up offendedly Mrs. Bartlett led the way over to her house and pointed to a chair in her front room on which reposed Dale's best hat with her winter coat dumped on the top of it in a heap, and a small overnight bag dropped on top of that. On another chair nearby was her good dress lying in wrinkles, with a collection of articles from her bureau in a pile atop.

"Oh!" she groaned softly and then set swiftly to work getting things to rights.

"Well! Are they all there?" asked the offended Mrs. Bartlett.

Dale was just shaking the wrinkles out of her best dress and brushing off the dust where the dress had trailed across the floor. She didn't answer at once.

"Is anything missing?" hissed the lady impatiently.

"Why, I don't know yet, Mrs. Bartlett. But of course you can't help it if there is. I'm just sorry I didn't know and get home in time to save you from taking so much trouble."

"Oh, I'm always glad to be helpful," said the woman defiantly.

Dale opened her suitcase and put in the garments she had just folded, then slipped the brushes and comb and other toiletry articles in place in her overnight bag, every movement she made watched scrupulously by the overseer.

"I wonder--did you happen to see my umbrella, Mrs. Bartlett?" Dale cast a quick look about.

"No, I didn't see any umbrella," said the woman. "Except Mrs. Baker's umbrella. She brought that over here when she stepped in to say good-bye."

"Oh," said Dale with relief in her voice. "There it is, standing in your hall rack."

"
What?
" said Mrs. Bartlett suspiciously. "Why, no, you're mistaken! That's Mrs. Baker's umbrella! She must have stood it there for a minute when she went to shake hands. Now I remember, I saw her set it there!"

"No, Mrs. Bartlett, that's my umbrella. She must have brought it over for me."

The small eyes gleamed at her maliciously.

"That's not your umbrella!" snapped the woman. It's Mrs. Baker's umbrella."

"Open it, Mrs. Bartlett. You'll find my name on the handle inside," said Dale calmly, taking a deep breath to keep her spirit in leash.

"I don't need to open it!" snapped Mrs. Bartlett. "I guess I know what I'm talking about, and you can't put anything like that over on me!"

Dale gave her a wide-eyed look of astonishment.

"I really don't understand you, Mrs. Bartlett, but if you don't care to open the umbrella I'll open it myself. It is just as well for you to see that I am telling the truth."

And then before the irate woman realized what she was doing, Dale unfurled the umbrella and raised it wide open, pointing to her name in clear, round letters painted halfway up the rod.

"There!" she said, turning so that the woman could see it.

But Mrs. Bartlett suddenly screamed out.

"Put that umbrella down at once!" she yelled. "Don't you know it's terribly bad luck to open an umbrella in the house? Don't you know it's a sign somebody in that house will die before the year is up, if you open an umbrella in the house?"

Dale looked at her in amazement and then burst into a ripple of laughter.

"How could a lifted umbrella in a house possibly have anything to do with death?" she asked, looking at Mrs. Bartlett with wonder.

"Put it
down
, I tell you!" screamed the woman. "Shut it this
instant
!" Mrs. Bartlett was fairly frantic. "Shut it
quick
! You've no right to come in here and bring death on my house!"

Dale closed the umbrella abruptly.

"But, my dear, what in the world do you mean? I haven't brought anything on your house. How could an umbrella have anything to do with death?"

The woman was almost in tears from fright.

"I don't know!" she cried, wringing her hands. "But I know it's true! Everybody knows it. I've heard it ever since I was a little child. My uncle opened his wet umbrella and stood it to dry in the kitchen the day my Aunt Gabrielle died, and when my mother found it she shut it down quick, and she said, 'Oh John, what have you done! Now Gabrielle's going ta die!' She shut it down quick, but that night my Aunt Gabrielle
died
! And I've always known it. It's an old saying. You mustn't ever open an umbrella in the house, not break a mirror, because somebody's sure to die."

"Oh, Mrs. Bartlett!" said Dale aghast. "Why, that's nothing but superstition! None of that
could
be true. It's against reason! I've opened umbrellas plenty of times in the house, and we've had broken mirrors, too."
"Well,
your
mother's dead, isn't she? And your father, too, I suppose!"

"But, Mrs. Bartlett, you don't suppose God has to wait till somebody opens an umbrella in the house, or breaks a mirror, before He can send for one of His children to come home to heaven, do you?"