The trouble in Thor

by Armstrong Charlotte

  Was he actually reading? How in the roar and tumult could eye tell brain!

  "Old Man Hooper's got to shoot his dog, I see," drawled Henry.

  "What?"

  "Dog's been killing chickens . . ,"

  This too seemed so inept, so fantastically apart, that she almost laughed.

  Why, the sky had opened. Water fell out in lumps. There could be no air to breathe outside these walls. Nothing could be less pertinent, less interesting than the trouble about the dog and the chickens.

  Still she began to talk very fast with great animation. 'TBut think of the dog," she cried, "poor beast! Don't you suppose

  he tried to do what the man wanted? He must have thought he understood and was understood. He tliought he and the man were friends, didn't he?"

  Henry was hstening.

  "Then one day, he does something thoroughly doggy, just what he ought to do, according to his ideas. And the man never told him not to. Never could. And his friend kills him for that. It must be such a shock and a confusion. He didn't know it was in the bargain."

  She became aware that Henry was listening verv intently indeed. What had she been saying? Some fanciful stuff about a dog's feelings.

  "Oh, well, I don't know . . ." she broke off.

  "Quite a shock to be shot, certainly," said Henry drolly.

  Lightning struck close, and then the instantaneous tearing, cracking, rending came a second time. Left them alive.

  "Henry, you don't quite see what I mean."

  "You mean a man and a dog can't make a bargain."

  "There was no contract," she said, shrilly hanging to a thin cord of communication between mind and mind, a saving thing. "Once I heard a lawyer say . . ."

  (The descending water was less solid. Maybe it was lessening, maybe it would soon be over. And the phones were silent. So cling to the thin thread, Libby, and make the brain turn to remember that lean young law^'er, so keen on his calling, extending and expanding against her father's gentle questions that could nudge out a subject as her mother's rolling pin nudged out the piecrust. Oh the talk, the good talk at home.)

  "Did you know this, Henry, about the law? If two parties sign a contract and later it develops that they'd misunderstood—they'd had different meanings for words, say, in the contract, or they somehow hadn't meant the same thing or realized what they'd bound themselves to do—well, if they can prove this, why, in law there is no contract. Did you know that?"

  Henry was still.

  "I never did, until he told us. Did you?"

  That phone was going to ring, she knew, and the thunder guffawed.

  "No I didn't know that/' Henry said slowly. "But it seems very fair. I didn't know that."

  "So what chance has a poor dog?" she murmured. She was proud to have come back to the dog. It was an intellectual feat, in the circumstances. She thought, I'm doing pretty well. I really am.

  Henr}' stretched out his legs. "No contract," he murmured as if he liked that. Libby stared at him. She did not know what he was thinking. Or what she had been saying. The thread was broken. And the phone rang.

  Two longs and a short, and Henry was at it in one of his fluid motions.

  "Duncane . . , Do you know where? I'll have a crew out right away . . . Stay on, I'll ring Stanley. . . ." So he cranked and he spoke, and cranked and spoke again, and his crisp words began to go out, attacking a problem.

  Libby saw only the lightning flashing around his head. Then the phone cracked in his hand and was dead. He raced to the other phone which had not failed yet. Lightning whizzed and the storm shook the whole world in its teeth.

  The lights went out. Henry dropped the phone and lit matches. Huddling where she sat, in the dark, she heard him make his way without stumbling to the cellar door, go down, find the switch. He threw it and the lights came on, for this house had two kinds of current. Company current and town current. Not that any light was going to last. Everything was going to go tonight.

  Henry thought so too.

  "Better find the candles," he warned. He was back already and opening the closet. What he took out was his raincoat.

  She wailed.

  "You'll be all right." Putting boots on, he looked up. His eyes were surprised, she thought. They seemed to be saying, "Why, Libby, you aren't serious!"

  "The baby," she said feebly. "What if the baby starts? Henry, I don't think it's good for me to be alone."

  He replied, "Doctor's right next door, easy to call."

  "I know but ... I know but . . ."

  His face was blank.

  "Oh, you can't understand!" she cried, "You just don't! You never can."

  He looked at her.

  There had to be power. Henry knew this but he did not consider how some men's hves and some men's money could hang in the balance for, even if they did not, there would be power if he could manage it. That was the job. First came the facts, then the decisions, then the orders. These had to be reconsidered in the light of any new facts, new decisions, and all pushed through until the job was done. He was compelled to go. It was simply necessary. And he was drawn by a deep desire, something she didn't seem to know about. She could afford to huddle and wait. But he must keep his purposes and his functions alive.

  Sometimes she didn't seem to know what he was doing. True, he went away each day and came back with money, but that wasn't what he was doing.

  For him the storm had no malice. The careless loosening of destruction was not, if he could help it, going to interfere with what he had been doing. That was all. But that was nearly everything.

  'Td please you if I could," he said lightly, stamping foot into boot, "but I guess this is just one of the doggy things I do."

  Libby understood him perfectly. She cried out at once, "But you knew I was a woman. I never told you I wasn't a woman."

  He took her by the shoulders, "Guessed it, Libby, long ago." He grinned. "Look, you know there's no more real danger if I've gone. Do what you did at home. Worry it through."

  "You'll drown," she shrieked.

  But he was gone. He had not heard. He was gone.

  She was alone. There was no sign of Celestina (who was a heap on the floor of her sanctuary upstairs). The thought of her barely crossed Libby's frantic mind.

  She was as good as alone in the dark now. For these lights would go out, too, very soon, and she could never find the

  candles quickly enough, she could not do anything quickly any more.

  She made her way clumsily to the streetside windows and peered around the blind. Henry's car splashed out and tore off in the wet. Yes, he was gone. Were the arc lights burning? She could not tell. The storm roared down. She could see two mellow yellow squares across the street at Mrs. Tres-trial's.

  She teetered into the hall and to the coat closet to find Henry's big winter coat. The rain might spot it. But it was big enough. That was the point. She was going to run away from being alone. It would not do for her to be alone in the dark. Henry was wrong to leave her.

  Someone must help her to be brave the only way she knew how to be brave. Someone must exchange with her the hopeful fibs and prophecies by which fear was not expunged but tricked and avoided, by which one coaxed oneself to endure it by saying that the worst was past. Soon over now . . . the shower that clears . . . always darkest before dawn.

  And she would run away from the telephone, too. It wouldn't be good for her to have a telephone crack in her hand as the one had cracked in Henry's.

  She was not going to the Hodges' next door, to the doctor and his medically minded wife, for she was in no mood to be thought of as a bundle of misbehaving glands. She was not going to the Gilchrists' either, so bedraggled and panic-stricken.

  Libby had given only neighborly nods to the Cornish landlady across the street, a character in the town. They had never really been introduced. But just the same, she was going straight across to those lights where there was a woman, an eccentric old woman who did as she pleased and didn't care what people
said.

  She let herself out into the wild wind and whipping rain.

  Her heart beat too hard. It couldn't be good for the baby. Henry was wrong.

  "Land, child," said Mrs. Trestrial, "come you inside."

  The arch to Mrs. Trestrial's sitting room was scalloped with velvet. The room itself was a mossy cave dripping with tidies and fringed scarves. A kerosene lamp with a glass chim-

  ney was already lit in there as if Fred Davies and young Mr. Weber, the principal of the high school, who were playing checkers there, did not intend to be interrupted when the electric lights invariably went out.

  But Mrs. Trestrial whisked Libby past the opening to that cozy scene and the turn of two startled faces with an air of instant decision on the proprieties of the occasion.

  "Come you with me."

  Libby's soaked feet stumbled into the kitchen.

  The kitchen was mossy too. There were calendars everywhere and pot-holders, whisk brooms, fly-swatters—all manner of small objects hanging handy everywhere on the walls. But the blinds were drawn very tight. Another kerosene lamp was burning in readiness and it was a cave, saffron-scented, a deep dry cave and a fortress.

  "My husband had to go out," stammered Libby. "I was alone. The house is so big ... I saw your light . . ."

  Mrs. Trestrial clucked in her throat and said the one thing Libby was longing to hear.

  "Now you ought not to be alone, child, on such a night, the shape you're in."

  Libby sat down. It didn't matter sO' much any more. She was almost willing to be alone now. Just so somebody recognized that she ought not to be. I was right, she thought. Yes, I was right. The tension in all her muscles was dissolving into a kind of buzz.

  Mrs. Trestrial made her take off her wet shoes and stockings and dry her feet. She bustled pleasantly. "We'll 'ave a cup of tay," said she, "and this will soon be past."

  "I'm so afraid of storms," Libby confessed, tears starting in her eyes. "They scare me all to pieces," she told Mrs. Trestrial. "I ought to be ashamed, but I can't help it."

  "We've 'ad some fine storms now, lately," said Mrs. Trestrial with grim relish. "There go the lights, as I expected. Oh, we've 'ad some dandies!"

  The storm was not here. No dark came down. The lamp burned quietly. The storm, in its place outside, was a dandy. Libby was pleased to think what a dandy it was.

  "You are so good to let me . . ."

  "Cover your toes," said Mrs. Trestrial. "Now tell me, when does the doctor expect?"

  Libby blushed. "The end of next week."

  " 'Twill be sooner," said Mrs. Trestrial, bobbing her long face wisely, "or later, either one."

  The tea was hot. The rocker creaked.

  "Oh, do you think so?"

  "Wishin' for a boy? Or a gel, eh?"

  Libby began to explain that she could not really care. There was so much to be said for a son—or a daughter. She was quite nobly resolved to leave this to Heaven.

  Mrs. Trestrial's long face kept nodding, her chair kept creaking, but she was not fooled. She knew that Libby, so far, cared only for the birth to be safely over. She was not shocked either, "Comes later," she thought, "all the rest,"

  "And where's yer mother?" said she aloud,

  Libby's fingers pushed at her damp hair. She told Mrs, Trestrial how far away her mother must stay.

  "But, you see, my father needs her," she finished bravely.

  Mrs. Trestrial wasn't fooled. She looked into the girl's big, frightened eyes, "Ah, you'll be surprised,"

  "I suppose , , ." the eyes shone. "I will?"

  Mrs. Trestrial chuckled. "Look ahead if you're a mind to . . ." she said, "but when you're looking back, you'll see , . . 'twas always surprisin'. 'Ard came easy and sometimes easy came 'ard. 'Twasn't what you feared that was on your 'eels. 'Twas another thing. Lies in h'ambush, it do." She sucked a long draught of the tea. She began to tell a tale packed with obstetrical detail.

  Libby forgot about the thunder and lightning.

  In a little while the storm began to die almost as if it missed the nourishment of anyone's attention.

  It was late when Mrs, Trestrial herself walked Libby back across the street. The young men in the parlor—for there was one more turn of two faces—might have volunteered, but Mrs. Trestrial knew what was proper.

  Behind the blinds the lights blazed again in Libby's house. Her bare feet cold in her sodden shoes, she stood at her front door in the sparkling fresh night air. As the smell of saffron vanished, so the warm intimacy seemed to blow away, and

  now her tongue stumbled giving thanks to a stranger. They kept sounding thinner and more false.

  Mrs. Trestrial had the old-fashioned habit of holding up her skirts at the side in one hand and so she gathered them.

  "No need to speak of it," she said tartly with a shrewd look in her eye. She was not fooled. Girl would feel shame to have run to an old woman, come morning. "I'll just step across 'ome," she announced and she did so.

  \nien Henry came in at last, Libby was tight in bed. The long, gossipy, informative session with Mrs. Trestrial had relaxed her. She felt enlightened but drowsy. Now she knew such a lot she had only been guessing about. Her mind was pried out of its rut of blind apprehension. At the very least, she had new and refreshing things to worry about. She even smiled to think she could worr}' more knowledgeably tomorrow. But for now, wanting to keep the deliciousness of being so drowsy in the quiet night, the sweet relief and luxury it was, she lay low.

  "Libby . . ." she heard him say very softly lest she be asleep. But one could always hear whatever Henr)' said.

  "My coat . . ." It puzzled him, so wet upon the chair.

  "I wore it across to Mrs. Trestrial's," she murmured. "Because I shouldn't stay alone. So I didntl"

  She lay snug in the clean quiet room.

  His legs were plastered with mud and water. The road to the Falls had been a slippery nightmare, and he had driven it four times.

  Lightning had struck a transformer and it had been burning at the top of its tall pole.

  One of his men had picked up one end of a severed and fallen wire and enough voltage had arced through the moisture alone to knock him twenty feet.

  But power was flowing. No one hurt. Damage repaired. Trouble licked. Henry home before dawn.

  After what seemed to her, and to him, too, a long silence, he said, "You're all right, then?" The syllables seemed to fall mercilessly.

  "Yes, I'm all right. Good night, Henry."

  She heard him moving about into the bathroom—undress-

  ing, washing, returning. She lay low. His precise light syllables fell again on her ear.

  "Is Celestina all right?"

  "I suppose so," she mumbled.

  Silence.

  Libby said sharply, "There was no more real danger because I went out."

  Silence.

  Henry said gravely, "No. Of course not."

  She buried her head.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Thursday was a pretty day, the sunshine so spanking hot, the shade so sharply cool, colors so clean. The pretty little town had never looked more charming. There was some traffic of white clouds, benevolent and mild as sheep across a crisp blue sky. On the damp earth remained the patterns of rivulets meeting and parting, but the flood was gone. Birds sang. There was no dust. The trees shone, every leaf was polished.

  Libby Duncane through her bay window could remark the shimmer of gold over the green of her lawn, winking off and on again as the cloud shadows chased across.

  "Oh, no more, my dear," said Mrs., Gilchrist.

  Libby went right on pouring tea.

  "Really, although it is delicious . . ."

  "One and cream?" said Libby, being daint)' with the sugar tongs.

  "Well," Mrs. Gilchrist succumbed and loosed her easy soprano laughter. She had something to say, yet. A new subject had come up. Her handsome face was animated. She narrowed her bright blue eyes.

  "Odd that she brought them to you,
you mean?"

  "Because I've met her only the one time," said Libby. "At church, you know. But I suppose she just happened to think of my empty garden. It does look so bad . . . right on the street. Everyone can see I have no tomato vines."

  "Well," said Mrs. Gilchrist and drank tea. She then leaned. "Elizabeth, do you mind if I say something?"

  Libby thought, I won't know until you say it. She hated the gambit. It usually meant that you certainly would mind. Definitely you weren't going to like it at all, as the questioner

  well knew, but you had to give a blanket promise to suppress this or suffer from thwarted curiosity forever after. So she answered cordially.

  "Of course not, Marianne."

  *Tou are a newcomer. That is, the newest comer. . . . You do know what I mean?"

  "I think so," said Libby. So new I don't know what it's all about, she translated in her mind.

  "And suppose Madeline Cole would . . . er . . . like very much to ... er ... be asked to certain places."

  "Yes," said Libby impatiently.

  "Well, you see, you are the one person who might, if she is very pleasant and friendly, ask her here."

  Might be dumb enough to ask her, translated Libby silently.

  "Do you see then? If she were seen here . . . why . . ."

  "I see."

  "Now it wouldn't occur to Mrs. McKeever, for instance, to include her. Yet if Mrs. McKeever were to meet her under your auspices ... for of course, my dear, you will have influence , . ."

  "In other words she is trying to use me," said Libby bluntly.

  "Well," this, was too blunt for Marianne Gilchrist although it was exactly what she meant.

  "I don't know about that. I don't think so . . ." said Libby doubtfully. "I don't know why she made such a gesture, but I just can't imagine . . ."

  "Well . . ." said Mrs. Gilchrist in another accent entirely. This time it meant: You are young and inexperienced and not on to these dodges.

  But Libby kept stubbornly to her own opinion.

  "She didn't seem to be making up to me a bit. I just don't think she cares that much about that sort of thing. . . ."