“Your father’s so goofy, if he suspects anything he might get on the first train and come up here,” Cecelia warned her.
She could take a room somewhere for the period of the holidays, but that might only make matters worse; if a letter or telegram arrived at the apartment she should be there to answer it at once. It would be better to stay.
“Promise you’ll be back sure the day after New Year’s,” Lora implored, the morning Cecelia left.
“You bet I will, I wouldn’t miss it for anything. If anything happens too soon don’t forget the doctor’s phone number is on the pad on the bureau, and send me a telegram and I’ll come at once. If you have it while I’m away I’ll never forgive you.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t if I can help it,” Lora promised. She let Cecelia go to the station alone, for Before the Baby Comes said that all rapid and violent movements should be avoided, and she didn’t want to risk the jolting of a taxicab.
The next day was Sunday, and she lay abed till late — a habit carried over from the switchboard days. The apartment seemed silent and very empty with Cecelia gone, and in spite of herself she was tormented by a vague feeling of restlessness and uneasiness. In the bath she did not as usual find a leisurely delight in letting the tepid water from the shower trickle over her smooth shoulders and arms and the round magnificent protrusion of her middle, turning into little rivulets down her legs; she was irritated by a baseless and unreasonable impulse to hurry through with it and get her clothes on. After breakfast she tried both sewing and reading, but couldn’t get settled to either one; a walk was out of the question, for outdoors the first real blizzard of the season was howling down the street and around the corners, with great gusts of snow and sleet, straight from the bleak northwest, serving notice on anyone who ventured to peek out that this was a day for those who had walls and roofs to use them and not try any funny business. Sometime after noon Lora was seated by a window surveying the turbulent scene with an idle and indifferent gaze, with a closed book in her lap, thinking that it was about time to prepare something for lunch, when the doorbell rang.
It rang objectively the way it always rang, whether for the iceman or for Stubby Mallinson or for Cecelia when she had forgotten her keys, but Lora was so startled that she jumped to her feet like a shot, letting the book fall to the floor. She stood there trembling all over. That was no iceman or Stubby Mallinson or Cecelia; she knew it.
It’s him, she said to herself. He caught the eight o’clock morning train, and that’s him. He bullied Cecelia, and she told him.
She stood without breathing. All at once the bell rang again, and she quivered as though the wire had been connected directly to her and had sent a shock throughout her body. She decided that the only thing to do was to open the door. It was useless and senseless not to; somehow, sometime, he would get in; he would get in all right if it took a year; open the door and get it over with. But she did not move, until suddenly her legs gave way under her and she sank back into the chair. She sat there gazing at the little button on the wall with which the lower door was opened, and as she did so the bell rang once more; this time it had no effect, she continued to gaze unmoving at the button. After another and longer interval the bell rang again, and this time it seemed it never would end; it clanged, insistent, loudly peremptory, until she thought she couldn’t stand it another second; finally it stopped, and the ensuing silence was more terrible than the clangor had been. Still she sat motionless for a long time, every nerve on edge against another assault, but it didn’t come. Many minutes passed; that was all, apparently, for that time.
Fool, she thought, I should have gone to the window and looked out to make sure. It might have been almost anyone...
Oh, no, it might not. Oh, no. She was just a plain ordinary coward. She had been too scared even to think, she told herself; still was, for that matter. Absolutely scared stiff. Brave little woman... But what can you expect? After all it wasn’t so simple; one could hardly call it simple. Damn Cece anyway, damn her little soul — but no, that wasn’t fair, not at all fair. She would hate to have had the job of standing up to her father and going through with a straight hard lie. Poor Cece. Where was he now? Had he gone? Was he standing below in the vestibule this minute, waiting? Down there so close he could hear her if she yelled out of the window or if she opened the hall door and called down to him, just one flight. Well. He couldn’t stay there forever.
At any rate she must eat. She went to the kitchen and made some toast and fried a piece of ham. The eggs should be coddled, the chapter on diet said, so she heated a pot of water to the boiling point and then turned out the gas, put the eggs in with a spoon, and replaced the lid. She had just taken them out and got them opened and scraped into a cup, and dropped a piece of butter on top, when the telephone began to ring. It startled her a little, but her hand was perfectly steady as she picked up a spoon and stirred the butter into the steaming egg meat so it would melt quickly. The phone rang on; she took the toast from the oven and arranged everything on the tray and carried it in to the table in the front room. “Not at home,” she said aloud to the corner of the mantel where the telephone stood; and sat down to eat. She ate slowly and methodically, and finished every crumb.
If her restlessness of the morning had made sewing or reading difficult, they were now impossible. But the deuce of it was that nothing was possible. It was out of the question to attempt to fly; it was impossible to remain. She had decided to let the unanswerable questions answer themselves; they were setting about it with a vengeance. She was cornered. Cornered? By what? Her mind slipped away from that question; but back in it somewhere, not permitted to get into words, was a conviction that if her father got his hands on her he would kill her. There was no justification in history for that conviction; after all it is a considerable step from kicking a cat to assaulting murderously your only child; but that belief and dread were in her. She had not known how profound and intense a fear of her father had been buried in her heart; even now it did not come clear and full into her consciousness, but it was close, right at the door, ringing a bell of alarm and warning, just as he had brought her out of her chair, trembling to her feet, with the jangle of the bell screwed there on the wall.
When the bell on the wall finally rang again the early winter dusk had come. Inside the apartment it was so dark that the outlines of the furniture could barely be discerned, but Lora did not turn on the light. The luncheon tray still rested on the table, and she still sat in her chair beside it, waiting. All afternoon she had sat there. She had taken no measures and made no decisions, but she knew what had to be done — or rather, what had to be borne. It was a blessing, she thought, that Pete had gone beyond all hope, for if he had been within reach the temptation to fly to him would have been irresistible, and it was just as well not to know what might have come of that. Assuredly anything is preferable to death, granted that the alternative leaves it thinkable to go on living; but that’s just the trouble, it may merely remove death a bit in time and space while it renders it more painful and hideous in quality.
When the bell rang again at the end of twilight she went at once to the button and pressed it several times, then switched on the light and opened the hall door. She recognized his footsteps on the stairs. He appeared on the landing and came down the hall to where she waited at the open door and stood there looking at her, offering no greeting, his hands in the pockets of his heavy woolen ulster, which was turned up and buttoned around his throat and covered with snow.