For several moments Philo and Mrs. Maitland stood opposite one another, stock still and staring; then Nedda held out her arms, and Philo fell into them, sobbing.
Chapter 44
THE WEST SHORE LINE
Philo remained sequestered with Nedda Maitland an hour more, by which time she had regained her composure. They breakfasted with Henry, assisted the maids in packing, made one final promenade up and down Broadway, and departed that afternoon on one of seven scheduled trains on the West Shore Line to New York. Besides three English cars with private compartments, there were four regular passenger cars for the accommodation of those whose drive toward economy, necessitated by a month spent at Saratoga, began immediately upon leaving the place. An extra car for baggage had been added to the train. And despite the fact that the cars were filled with persons acquainted with one another, who had perhaps even been intimate at the Springs, there was little conviviality. It was always a sadness to leave Saratoga and a depression to return to the city. Yet even on this day of departure the custom of the place prevailed, and individuals wore their best – though by the end of the journey dresses were sure to be soiled and creased, suits rumpled and stained, and at the New York station the crowd would appear but a tawdry assemblage.
But if their fellow passengers seemed preoccupied – businessmen thought of their businesses and their wives of servants and provisions, and even children were subdued in remembering how quickly they must return to school – Philo and Henry and Nedda were cheerful enough.
They sat together in a comfortable compartment in the second English coach. Just after the cars had stopped at Albany to let off a band of legislators who had gone up for the last few days of races, Nedda declared her intention of visiting a friend whom she had glimpsed at the other end of the car. After squeezing Philo’s hand, she opened the doors of the compartment and made her way down the narrow corridor. Philo was left alone with Henry.
She affected to watch the scenery, but she was very much aware of Henry’s proximity. He leaned forward.
“Philo,” he said, “I want to thank you for taking such care of Mother.”
“There is nothing to thank me for. Mrs. Maitland took me in when I had no other recourse.”
“She has no regrets, she tells me.”
“I hope not.”
“And I hope you will never leave her.”
“She will have to chase me away with a broom.”
He leaned back and seemed to consider for a moment.
“I have rooms on Stuyvesant Square,” he said.
“I have heard so.”
“They are dull. The square is noisy. I am thinking of giving them up and returning to Mother’s house.”
Philo blushed. “She would be very pleased to have you there, I know.”
“Cousin Jewel,” he said, “would not think it proper for you and me to live beneath the same roof.”
Philo blushed deeper, but said nothing.
“Do you think it would be inappropriate?”
“I could very easily return to Mrs. Classon’s,” said Philo hesitantly. “I would not like to offend your family. . . .”
“Ah, but you couldn’t return to Mrs. Classon’s,” said Henry. “I was just there on Friday, and Mrs. Classon told me herself that all her chambers were let. You must remain with mother.”
Philo looked out the window a few moments.
“I am bound to say,” said Henry, “that I also think it might be inappropriate. You are a pretty girl. It might lead to talk in the city.”
Philo tried to hide her disappointment in him. Though it was a scruple she no doubt would have felt herself, it was a consideration that seemed mean in him. Certainly it was mean for him to speak the matter so boldly to her.
“There is a way around the difficulty, of course,” he went on after a moment. She wished his beard weren’t so thick, so that sometimes she could see the expression of his mouth behind it; his eyes were too well trained to give him away. “So that you can remain with Mother – I hardly think she can do without you now – and so that I may have a quieter place and better food than may be had on Stuyvesant Square.”
“Yes?” asked Philo, watching the gleam of the Hudson River as it appeared now and then through the trees that flew by.
“You will have to marry me.”
Philo jerked around.
“You are joking with me, Mr. Maitland,” she said hotly.
He shrugged. “It is a solution. Even Jewel could hardly object to my remaining under the same roof with my wife. And besides, I’m very much in love with you.”
His smile was so broad that even beneath his beard she could see it. And his eyes no longer hid their laughter.
But Philo couldn’t laugh at all. “I can’t marry you,” she said.
“Why not?” Henry asked. “Have you entered upon a previous engagement? Do you object to sunburnt skin?”
“I owe too much to your mother,” said Philo.
“Well,” said Henry, “here is a way of discharging part of that debt – by taking me off her hands. I must warn you however, she is not likely to give you up – even if you did marry me. You’ll end up taking care of both of us.”
At this Philo did smile. She could not help but remember how she had always thought of herself as “taking care” of her mother – and of how she had hated the thought. And now she wondered what she wouldn’t give to be in just such a place of responsibility toward Henry and Mrs. Maitland, although Henry’s plea of helplessness was as spurious as Nedda’s.
“I cannot go against your mother’s wishes.”
“How do you know what my mother’s wishes are?”
“She cannot want her son to marry a penniless girl. I have nothing but what Mrs. Maitland has given me.”
“You have the coral I brought from Brazil.”
“And that would be the extent of my dowry. Mr. Maitland, I am your mother’s employee, and I—”
“If you possessed your carpetbagful of bank notes the Slapes stole from you, would you consent to marry me?”
Philo stopped, confused. She couldn’t truthfully answer no, and a yes would only get her deeper into this discussion, which was already embarrassing and might become painful.
“I see,” said Henry after a moment. “You know, Philo, you are doing my mother a disservice.”
“How?”
“By not giving her the opportunity to express her opinion.”
“Please don’t speak of this to her,” Philo pleaded.
“My opinion of what?” asked Nedda Maitland, pulling farther apart the doors of the compartment.
“Mother,” said Henry, “I’ve asked Philo to marry me, and she refuses on account of you.”
“On account of me!” said Nedda in surprise, sitting down beside Philo. She took Philo’s hand. “Is this true?”
“Mrs. Maitland, I—” She had no idea what to say.
“I realize,” said Nedda, “that Henry is not good enough for you, but for that you mustn’t blame me too much. He will go his own way.”
Philo looked at Mrs. Maitland in astonishment.
“Mother, Philo took it upon herself to make objections in your name.”
“What objections do I have, Philomela, to your marrying my son, pray?”
Philo was too confused to answer.
“Mother, Philo says that you say she is penniless, and you feel that if she married me she would be no better than a female fortune hunter.”
Nedda laughed. “Philomela, is this true? Is this your low opinion of me?”
Between mother and son, Philo was lost, and could make no reply at all.
“Philomela, why should it possibly matter that you have no money? Haven’t Henry and I between us enough to satisfy you?”
“Yes!” cried Philo. “Oh, but that’s not what I meant, I—”
“Now that we have disposed of my objection to the match, I suppose we ought to get over your own. I can’t suppose that you actually lov
e Henry – I think only a mother could love him – but you might see your way, as a favor to me, or even considering it part of your secretarial duties, to take him off my hands.”
“My very words,” said Henry.
Defeated, Philo smiled.
“I do love him though,” she said softly.
“Good!” cried Henry. “Now how quickly can we be married?”
“Wait, Henry,” said Nedda, “there is the marriage settlement still to be agreed upon.”
“Settlement?” asked Philo.
“Ah, yes,” said Nedda, “as you are an orphan, I suppose I must stand in for your parents. And I must have recompense for giving you up – you are a daughter to me, you know. . . .”
“How much do you want, Mother?”
“More than you have, Henry.”
“Well, then, I suppose I can’t afford her. Can’t you be persuaded simply to give her over to me?”
“No,” said Nedda.
“Then,” said Henry, “you will have to continue to live with Mother, Philo. I suppose I’ll join you, if Mother doesn’t charge an exorbitant chamber-rent.”
“I’m a reasonable woman,” said Nedda.
“Then we’re all to be together?” asked Philo incredulously.
“Well,” said Henry, “neither Mother nor I will give you up, so it must be that way, I suppose.”
“Now for the wedding,” said Nedda.
“As quickly as possible,” said Henry.
“Perhaps I should ask the conductor if there is a minister aboard the cars.” Henry and Philo smiled. “But if you will wait a little longer,” Nedda went on, “I will help Philomela to purchase her trousseau and arrange for the wedding.”
“Shall we have Cousin Jewel for a bridesmaid?” asked Henry mischievously.
“She might not accept the honor,” said Philo, and could not repress a smile at her rival’s expense.
Mrs. Maitland had brought a small case with her onto the cars which had been placed beneath Philo’s seat. Mrs. Maitland requested her to bring it out now.
As she opened it, Nedda said, “Philomela dear, I don’t know yet what your dress will be like, but when you’re married, I want you to wear these.” She held up the diamonds that Henry had brought from South America. “If Henry doesn’t mind my giving them away so quickly, I’d like to make them my wedding gift to you.”
“No, they are too valuable, Mrs. Maitland!”
“Philomela, when I die you and Henry will have everything I own. Please let me have the pleasure of giving these to you now.”
Philo humbly thanked Mrs. Maitland for her gift. The diamonds were put back into the case, which contained the rest of Mrs. Maitland’s valuable jewelry, and the case replaced beneath the seat.
The next hour was taken up in a continuation of the conversation. Philo discovered that Henry’s proposal had come as no surprise at all to his mother, who had quickly found out the secret of his affection, taxed him with it, encouraged him in his decision to marry Philo, and had even left the compartment on purpose to give him the opportunity of speaking to her alone.
The cars had just passed through Highland – after Albany the train had become an express – and they were two-thirds of the way back to New York. It was dark outside, and the lamp inside the compartment had been lighted by an obliging trainboy, who had also left them sandwiches. It seemed to Philo that the greatest part of the happiness she had experienced in the entire of her life had been concentrated into this single railway journey. She wished it never to end.
Then, quite suddenly and without premonition, there was a terrible jolt. Their exclamations of surprise were swallowed by a second, even greater jolt, and then they were thrown from their seats with a terrible crash. The lamp was extinguished, and the car was tilted sideways. Philo fell heavily against Nedda Maitland, whose soft moan she heard beneath her.
In the midst of the appalling darkness, she heard the roar of rushing steam escaping from the boilers of the engines ahead, and an instant afterward, the heat from the furnaces permeated the compartment.
Then she heard Henry’s agonized voice, “Mother! Philo! For God’s sake, let’s get out of here before we burn up!”
Chapter 45
THE OVERTURNED COACH
The engine Bristol lay on its side at the bottom of the deep ditch that ran parallel to the track. Its headlights still flared dreamily into the dark landscape ahead. The burning coal of its boiler had spilled out into the ditch, and all the brush there had caught fire. The steam from the broken pipes hissed toward heaven.
Directly behind the engine, the baggage car was only splinters. Here and there a burst trunk or case spilled Saratoga finery in the mud. The right side of the first English coach had been shirred off in the impact, and within there could be no one left alive. The second and third English coaches had been knocked together at an angle, then overturned into the ditch. One of them had caught fire, and the flames at one end of it were a fitful orange.
Passengers in the latter coaches, shaken and bruised and hysterical, were not otherwise injured.
Beneath the panoply of night, with the black Hudson moving silently and deep on the one side, and the dense Catskill forest on the other, the wrecked train gave more than a suggestion of Pandemonium. The white glare of the locomotive lamp, the fitful orange light of the smouldering fires, the will-o’-the-wispish gleams of the trainmen’s lanterns as they searched out the injured and the dead provided a gloomy illumination. To the groaning and shrieking cries of the wounded, the bereaved added their own wailing anguish and convulsive hysteria.
Inside the compartment that had been occupied by Philo, Henry Maitland and his mother, all was dark. The coach leaned precariously to one side. Nedda and Philo, who had sat beside one another, were slid along the cushions and fell against the door of the compartment. The panes of ground glass in this door had shattered in the second jolt.
“Mother, are you all right?” Henry called anxiously. He had kept his place on the opposite side of the compartment.
“I’m here,” said Mrs. Maitland, “but I think I’ve cut myself on some glass.”
“Take my hand,” said Philo, and reached through the pitchy darkness. “I’m going to pull you away from the door.”
Philo felt her hand taken, but Nedda’s grasp was weak; and when Philo inched upward on the seat, intending to pull Nedda away from the door, Nedda cried out in terrible sudden pain.
“Mother!”
“I think I’ve broken a bone in my leg,” she said weakly. “Philomela, please don’t pull me.”
“Mother,” said Henry, “we’re going to have to get you out of this coach. Do you feel the heat? I’m afraid that the stove at the front of the car may have overturned.”
“Henry,” said Philo, calling him by that name for the first time, “try to open the doors.”
She heard Henry begin to move about, but just as he did so there was another jolt and shaking of the car. It was tilted even farther on its side. Nedda was again precipitated against the door, and she shrieked in agony when her leg was caught beneath the seat.
“Mrs. Maitland!”
Philo reached out and took Nedda’s arm.
“The coach is sinking deeper into the ditch,” said Henry anxiously. “If the stove overturns completely, the car is certain to catch fire.”
“Try the windows,” said Philo.
But before Henry could do any more, the coach shifted once again. Now there was a terrible cracking and splintering of wood. Philo felt a great whooosh within inches of her head, and she realized that the roof of the car had buckled and broken. One of the timbers had fallen into the interior of their compartment. And with that release, the coach settled entirely on its side. The corridor that ran along the side of the coach had been torn away, and now the door of the compartment lay against the bottom of the ditch. The windows of the car looked directly up into the sky, and the roof was wedged against the muddy embankment.
“Mo
ther!” called Henry, but now Nedda did not answer even with a groan.
By taking hold of the rack on which some of their luggage had been placed and swinging from it as she might have swung from the branch of a tree, Philo succeeded in getting her feet out of the hole that had been opened in the roof. Her feet were pressed into the mud of the embankment, but the aperture, dimly illumined from outside, was not large enough for her to get through.
With her feet still planted through it, and retaining her hold on the rack with one hand, she tore out more boards in the roof, and finally succeeded in squeezing herself out of the coach. She lay for several moments in the wedged space between the muddy embankment and the torn roof of the car. Within she could hear Henry moving about, reassuring an unresponsive Nedda; and about her on all sides, she heard the groans and pleadings of the injured. In that moment of dense confusion, when she wasn’t sure where she was and hadn’t any idea at all what she should do next, the moon rose over the lip of the embankment and shone down full upon her face.
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