The raw sea-cold chilled me despite ski pants, boots, and heavy mackinaw. I felt deprived of muscle and bone; I was a frozen amalgam of tissue, supported upright by solid ice particles within. I had to admit that the college doctor and the dean were correct in their insistence on a term-long convalescence. I had driven myself too hard at my studies, using them to dull my senses to the fact of my father’s death and my awareness of the loss of all familial relationship. I would rest now, hole up in the major’s lair, and come back for the summer term. It would be asinine to suffer the defeat of poor grades when I had made dean’s list every term so far.
I forced myself to ignore the exchange of platitudes between railroad officials until the baggage car was finally closed and I heard the conductor’s muffled “Ar board .”
Surprisingly, the train picked up speed between Hyannis and Chatham. And mirabile dictu there were only two crates to be unloaded at that small town. Either the threat of Nazi submarines had scared fishers inland to war plants or everyone was too poor to buy a thing. I didn’t really pursue the blessing.
“Ohleens, next,” the conductor intoned and I could see relief parade across the baggageman’s face. He even went so far as to assemble my battered bags at the rattling door to make it easier to speed his departing guest.
“That’s very kind of you,” I said so sweetly he didn’t get the sarcasm and mumbled a “You’re welcome.”
Merlin sensed the end of the journey and rose, stretching with majestic indolence. The baggageman made a strategic withdrawal to the far side of the car.
The train jolted to a stop, braked wheels spinning on the icy track. As the baggageman threw open the door, I slipped off the hateful muzzle and hand-signaled Merlin out of the car. The look of pure terror on the man’s face as Merlin, free, darted out, made up for some of the indignities we had endured according to the gospel of regulations. Merlin plunged around in the snow, tail lashing with pleasure at liberty. I jumped down from the lip of the baggage car, disdaining the help of the stationkeeper. I pushed him aside discourteously, lifting my bags down and staggering with them to the corner of the station which seemed somewhat protected from the winds. It was snowing heavily again and the wind gusted it like sand, hard and cold, into my face. I signaled Merlin to stay by the bags. I didn’t want him disappearing in a strange town on a stormy night no matter how much he needed some exercise.
The stationman and the baggagemaster were already deep in their endless trivia. The wind blew to fragments most of their sentences about soggy mailbags and frozen parcel posts. I peered up and down the platform, straining to see through the blown snow. In spite of my inner conversations, I knew I had counted heavily on the major meeting us. But there was no one in sight. As the wind tore at my legs, I felt the additional chill of disappointment.
A heavy woman, muffled in a Hudson Bay blanket coat of ancient vintage, struggled down the high steps of the single passenger car and trudged through the snow to the street. She ducked awkwardly under the roadguard and disappeared into the wind-driven snow and darkness.
Lights shown from a taxi office, a restaurant, and a stationery store lining the far side of the snowy street. Behind the station on my side of the road I could discern the cheerful snowclad rectangles and crosses of the town’s old cemetery. A lone truck stood outside the store but, as far as I could see in the darkness beyond, the street was empty of vehicles and pedestrians.
I swallowed against the pressure of more ridiculous tears. It would spoil my confrontation with the major completely if he were to find me weeping childishly. The sense of desolation and frightful loneliness was intense.
Merlin whined and rocked back and forth, yearning to break position. My gratitude for his company, much less his empathy, routed the tears. Merlin didn’t need explanations. Merlin was never away when I needed him. Yet had he been as wise as his namesake, he was still not a human and his wordless sympathy was not quite enough. Although he knows, I had no other.
So complete was the sense of abandonment that self-pity deserted me. I tried desperately to find excuses for the major’s absence. I had written him a week ago to confirm my coming. This morning I had wired him from South Station to expect me. I had to admit the train was a trifling matter of three hours and twenty-five minutes late but the weather was atrocious enough to account for a far longer delay. He would surely have had sense enough to call the station and check the e.t.a.
Well, I argued, he might not have a phone. He might have waited for hours and then gone home. It was past seven. No, he had gone home to eat and would be back. Home! How could I conceivably call the major’s house “home?” I was an army brat. Home was where my hat was, nowhere else. No, home was where Merlin was, I amended.
Perhaps the major didn’t have a car. I swung round toward the taxi stand. It was empty. Perhaps it had gone for him now the train was finally in. And if the major did have a car, it was possible, entirely probable, that he might have had engine trouble in this weather. Or got stuck in a drift on his way here. There were umpteen dozen reasons why the major was not here. None of them made much difference to the sick, cold, frightened lump in the pit of my empty, cold, churning stomach.
The train started up and pulled out of the station with metallic complaints about the effort required to pull its half-frozen cars along the icy rails. The roadguard went up. I peered into the gloom on the other side of the track and saw only the dark hulks of cars parked in the station lot. Just then I heard the station door open and shut with a bang. A figure came charging up to the stationmaster who was wrestling with the frozen mail sacks.
“Any passengers get off, Mr. Barnstable?” a muffled voice asked.
“List Miz Brewster, and a gal and a big dawg from the baggage car.” The stationman brushed by the figure with an apology, hurrying to get himself and his unwieldy sacks into the warmth.
The other man was the major. His stance was unmistakably military despite his bulky clothing. The relief I felt at knowing he had met the train was mingled unpleasantly with the distressing fact that he was not looking for a girl, or a girl with a dawg, and he was not happy.
“Damn young squirt’s missed the train after all.” His voice drifted towards me. He caught sight of me and hesitated, undecided by the sexless figure bundled in pants and mackinaw. Merlin whined and the major stamped back around the corner of the station. Just as he passed from my view, the flood of light from the window caught his face briefly. I was glad, then, that I was a distance from him, that the gusty wind covered my gasp of shock at the sight of his ruined face. Shrapnel, more than likely, had gouged through cheek and jaw. Raw heavy scar tissue drew the right eye down at the corner and twisted the mouth into a permanent half smile. No wonder he had never mentioned the nature of his wounds. No wonder he had not wanted to come to Cambridge to meet me. All plans for petty vengeance disappeared from my mind.
“Major Laird,” I cried, hurrying across the intervening space.
He stopped and turned, his hand already on the doorknob. This time I saw the other half of his face and experienced a second shock. It was obvious that the major had been a handsome man. Plastic surgery would repair most of the cruel scar on the right but that anyone, man or woman, should have to endure, however briefly, such disfigurement was the other side of enough.