The Nymph and the Lamp (10 page)

She was wet to the skin, with her hair dripping and falling out of its pins, when she ran up the stairs to her room. She slipped off the wet garments quickly and put on a silk wrapper. On the stairs and along the halls she could hear the feet of other lodgers running, voices exclaiming over the storm, doors opening and slamming. The thunder had ceased but a deluge still poured from the gutterspouts into the back court.

What I want most
,
she thought, is a good hot bath
.
When the last footsteps had retreated down the stairs towards the restaurant, she slipped along the hall. Experience had taught her this propitious time. At the supper hour Mrs. Paradee's indifferent hot water supply was at its best. Soon after, when one or two of the more fastidious lodgers had bathed for an evening out, the taps would run lukewarm and by bedtime the water would be frigid. Also, at this hour when the inmates had emerged from their lairs like some savage tribe in search of food, she had an undisputed possession of the bathroom that enabled her to soap and sponge as much as she pleased, to relax in lazy enjoyment, and to speculate on what she would have for tea.

She returned to her room with that pleasant feeling of wellbeing which is only to be found in the bath. The air in the bedroom was humid and oppressive and she decided not to dress until the last possible moment. She tossed off the wrapper and sat before the mirror brushing her hair. The house now was silent except for a scrape of chairs in Mrs. Paradee's apartment just below her room; but in a few moments she heard a lone tread on the stairs. It sounded like the ponderous step of Mr. Klaus, who was foreman of a wharf on Water Street. The footsteps came slowly along the hall, and halted. Her doorknob rattled. She barely had time to pick up the flimsy wrapper and catch it about herself when the door sprang open.

It was Klaus, with his huge red face and barrel shoulders, swaying as if moved by mysterious gales. He was known to the lodgers as a widower in middle age, a polite and silent creature rarely to be seen except at morning, when he tramped stolidly to work, and at evening when he dined in Feder's Grill after a long day on the waterfront. She knew the man tippled; it was common gossip in that house where everyone knew the other's foibles; but usually he drank quietly in his room and smuggled out his empty bottles with a ponderous air of innocence that made everybody smile. He had been one of the “regulars” long before Miss Jardine's time, and he went in great awe of the gorgon downstairs.

Klaus lurched into the room and shut the door with a slam that echoed through the house. Miss Jardine kept her composure.

“Mr. Klaus,” she said quietly, “this is not your room.”

He did not seem to hear. Indeed he seemed oblivious of the slim shape standing by the mirror with a hairbrush, inadequate weapon, clutched against its breast. Like most of his stevedores in the summer heat Klaus worked in trousers, singlet and boots, and ordinarily when he returned to his lodgings he resumed the gray flannel shirt, the draggled red tie and the somewhat frayed blue jacket that seemed to be his only other clothes.

Today however he had simply pulled on an oilskin coat against the rain. This he now removed, with violence, as if the thing oppressed him, and he flung it on the floor. He sat heavily on Miss Jardine's bed, propping himself erect with a pair of large tattooed arms. He had lost his hat and the grizzled fringe of hair that so emphasized his baldness had been turned to absurd little wisps by the downpour in the streets. A bottle stuck out of his hip pocket.

“Phoo!” he ejaculated, shaking his head and peering in a vaguely puzzled way at one of Miss Jardine's pencil sketches, framed and hung on the opposite wall. She put down the brush and stepped forward, clasping the wisp of silk about her as if it were armor of some sort.

“Mr. Klaus! Your room's across the hall. Go there, please!”

He turned his head cautiously, as if quick movement gave him pain. His blurred gaze considered her for a moment, looked away, and came back to her with sudden interest.

“How'd you git in here?” he demanded belligerently.

“This is my room. Please get out.”

He considered that a moment. Then, flatly, “Out yourself.”

Miss Jardine was indignant. She moved on swift white legs to the door and flung it wide, crying imperiously, “Mr. Klaus, for heaven's sake get out before somebody comes!” He did not move. She went to him and put a firm hand on his shoulder, as if by the sheer force of her anger she could hurl this drunken sweating creature out of her presence. The response of Klaus was rude and sudden. He was not accustomed to being hustled, even when sober, and now he arose with a bellow, thrusting out a fist. Fortunately he was in no condition to gauge the distance of Miss Jardine or even to keep his balance. The blow missed her completely and it carried Klaus off his feet. He fell with the force of two hundred and twenty pounds not merely dropped but thrown. His huge body seemed to bounce on the bedroom floor. From his pocket the bottle shot a dark stream over Miss Jardine's worn carpet.

Here was a chance to escape, but escape was far from her mind. She was still more angry than frightened, and all that was stubborn in her Scotch blood resented this intrusion into what was, after all, her home. This was her citadel, the repository of her small possessions, the refuge to which she fled after each day's work, to read, to knit, to practice the sketching lessons she received two evenings a week at the School of Art. She would not give it up to this fuddled animal even for a moment.

It was of no use to cry for help. The whole floor was deserted. In any case she could not call attention to this ridiculous scene. In her sensitive mind already she could hear the titters and sly wit of the lodgers, male and female, who resented her aloofness, her books, her solitary walks, who would regard this spectacle of Bacchus and the prude as a wonderful bit of comic justice, to be retailed with gusto on both floors and over the tables in Feder's Grill. With the fervency of prayer she hoped that no one would come up the stairs until Klaus had regained his senses and his room.

The man was now on hands and knees, swearing softly and thickly. The fall had shaken him. He muttered, “Who left off that hatch?” in a tone of indignant wonder, and Miss Jardine had a hysterical urge to laugh. A stench of raw Demerara rum crept about the room. She went over to him and, this time in a most gingerly way, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. Klaus!”

“Eh!”

“You're in the wrong room.”

“So?” He swung his head from side to side like a dazed bull. Her bare feet caught his attention and he inspected them. With some difficulty he raised his head and perceived a pair of shapely marble columns attached to them; but the effort hurt his neck. He returned his attention to her feet.

“That ain't you, Babe?” he said dubiously.

“It's Miss Jardine,” she returned impatiently. “Get up, do!” She placed her hand under his arm and pulled. Obediently Klaus heaved himself upward. He came to his feet swaying dangerously and throwing a heavy arm about her shoulders for support. Encouraged, Miss Jardine moved forward, pressing him towards the open door and watching his feet with anxiety, for if he stumbled the whole absurd performance must be repeated. They were in this attitude, approaching the doorway, with Miss Jardine's eyes downcast, watchful and absorbed, when Klaus came to a halt.

“Jeest!” he said.

She glanced at his face and saw the bleared eyes fixed on something in the hall. Swiftly she looked at the doorway. At once she cried in a relieved voice, “Oh, Mrs. Paradee, I'm so glad it's you and no one else. You see…”

“I see,” Mrs. Paradee said.

Miss Jardine withdrew her arm. The sodden Klaus tottered and sat down upon the bed.

“Jeest!” he said again.

The landlady's gaze swept past him contemptuously to the overturned chair before the mirror, the scatter of garments just where Miss Jardine had flung them off, the dark stain on the carpet. She sniffed, and turned to examine Miss Jardine from head to foot.

“Well?” she snapped.

Miss Jardine leaned against the wall, astonished, and suddenly afraid. That old nightmare scene in the upper hall flooded into her mind. Her tumbled hair framed a face naturally pale and now the face of a ghost. One hand clutched the thin faded stuff of the wrapper about her person, as if anything could shut out that hard black stare which already had discovered and condemned her nakedness.

“How long,” Mrs. Paradee said, “has this been going on?”

“You don't understand,” Miss Jardine gasped.

“I'm afraid I do. Klaus, get out!”

The man arose from the bed as if stung, and lurched towards the door. Mrs. Paradee moved aside to let him pass. They heard him go down the hall, fumbling at all the doors.

“He came into my room,” Miss Jardine began in a low voice.

“Oh, come, Miss Jardine, that's so old a tale!”

“But it's true! I'd just had a bath, and I was brushing my hair.”

Mrs. Paradee tossed her head and uttered a theatrical “Ha!” She had in her fashion a sense of humor. She had found more evil than good in her passage through a flinty world but it had given her a certain amount of cynical amusement along the way. The keeping of a lodginghouse in a seaport city had taught her all she cared to know about men and women, and what she had learned had filled her with contempt. She looked upon her lodgers as a species of animal, not to be loved or hated but simply to be preyed upon in the legitimate way of her trade. Her scorn for mankind was eased by the knowledge that they made tractable lodgers; but for women, by nature messy and deceitful creatures born to trouble, her contempt was supreme.

She had long known that the wharfinger drank, that he was in fact one of those dull beefy animals to whom alcohol is meat and drink and mistress all in one, quite harmless where women were concerned. And while she suspected Miss Jardine of being “deep”—a term that covered most of the sins in her Decalogue— she knew at heart that this cool and remote creature was not the kind to disport with a man like Klaus. Nevertheless the sight of the trembling young woman excited her. The silken wisp drawn so tightly about Miss Jardine betrayed a figure slender but well filled at the breast and hips, and it revealed to the landlady's gaze a pair of comely legs. She had not suspected the typist of such properties, indeed she had always thought of her as a plain and somewhat meager person who wore her clothes unfashionably long to hide the fact.

The sight of this shapely stranger not only excited Mrs. Paradee but aroused in her another emotion. The disdain in her gaze made way for something purely malicious. Like most of her lodgers she had seen in Miss Jardine a superior air that irritated her as much as it amused the others; but chiefly her malice sprang from an incident some months before that Miss Jardine herself had noticed only casually and had long forgotten.

On the occasion of one of those semiweekly evening visitations which so intrigued the lodgers, the man in the bowler, emerging from the Paradee apartment with his customary rush, had all but knocked down the typist on her way upstairs. Miss Jardine had paused and given the man a surprised glance, and over his shoulder she had caught a glimpse of the landlady about to close the door. Their eyes had met, and Miss Jardine had smiled and passed on. It was no more than that. Whether Mrs. Paradee's hair was up or down, how she was clad or if indeed was clad at all, and what sort of look she had on her face in that unguarded moment as she sped her parting guest, the young woman on the landing could not see or at any rate had failed to notice. But in her glance and smile the landlady had fancied every sort of surmise and condemnation. She was infuriated. For weeks she watched the girl's face, seeking a sign of what she knew or suspected or merely imagined. For months she had turned her ear to the fleeting gossip of the stairs and landings, hearing indeed nothing complimentary but nothing to confirm or dispel her doubts.

And now, magically, this superior person cringed before her, caught in a scene of utter disgrace! Mrs. Paradee was inclined to laugh by the sheer justice of the thing; and she was elated to find herself in the familiar roles of witness, prosecutor, judge and executioner, and in a position to return what she had come to regard as a monstrous slight on her own virtue. That the slight was no more tangible than the virtue did not matter a bit. With the wide eyes of a frightened child Miss Jardine beheld a rising menace in the thin line of the mouth, the tense nostrils and the glittering black gaze that confronted her from the doorway.

“Surely you don't think…” she gasped.

“What am I supposed to think? Look at this room! Look at your things, all thrown about. Look at my carpet—ruined! I must say I'm surprised. I hadn't expected such behavior in a respectable-looking person like you.”

“Oh, I'll pay for the carpet,” Miss Jardine said desperately, “and I'll tidy everything, Mrs. Paradee—only you must believe what I say.”

“Young lady, I've been too long in this business not to believe my own eyes. Look at yourself, practically nude. And with a man like Klaus—disgusting!” Mrs. Paradee uttered the word nude with a peculiar drawn-out emphasis that implied the worst.

“But how can you say such a thing! What have I ever done that you should think…why, it's outrageous!”