Parnassus on Wheels - Christopher Morley (books you need to read TXT) 📗

our wire. In imagination I could see the telephone against the wall in the old hallway at Sabine Farm. I could see the soiled patch of plaster where Andrew rests his elbow when he talks into the phone, and the place where he jots numbers down in pencil and I rub them off with bread crumbs. I could see Andrew coming out of the sitting room to answer the bell. And then the operator said carelessly, “Doesn’t answer.” My forehead was wet as I came out of the booth.

I hope I may never have to relive the horrors of the next hour. In spite of my bluff and hearty ways, in times of trouble I am as reticent as a clam. I was determined to hide my agony and anxiety from the well meaning people of the Moose Hotel. I hurried to the railway station to send a telegram to the Professor’s address in Brooklyn, but found the place closed. A boy told me it would not be open until the afternoon. From a drugstore I called “information” in Willdon, and finally got connected with some undertaker to whom the Willdon operator referred me. A horrible, condoling voice (have you ever talked to an undertaker over the telephone?) answered me that no one by the name of Mifflin had been among the dead, but admitted that there was one body still unidentified. He used one ghastly word that made me shudder⁠—unrecognizable. I rang off.

I knew then for the first time the horror of loneliness. I thought of the poor little man’s notebook that I had seen. I thought of his fearless and lovable ways⁠—of his pathetic little tweed cap, of the missing button of his jacket, of the bungling darns on his frayed sleeve. It seemed to me that heaven could mean nothing more than to roll creaking along country roads, in Parnassus, with the Professor beside me on the seat. What if I had known him only⁠—how long was it? He had brought the splendour of an ideal into my humdrum life. And now⁠—had I lost it forever? Andrew and the farm seemed faint and far away. I was a homely old woman, mortally lonely and helpless. In my perplexity I walked to the outskirts of the village and burst into tears.

Finally I got a grip on myself again. I am not ashamed to say that I now admitted frankly what I had been hiding from myself. I was in love⁠—in love with a little, red-bearded bookseller who seemed to me more splendid than Sir Galahad. And I vowed that if he would have me, I would follow him to the other end of nowhere.

I walked back to the hotel. I thought I would make one more try to get Andrew on the telephone. My whole soul quivered when at last I heard the receiver click.

“Hello?” said Andrew’s voice.

“Oh, Andrew,” I said, “this is Helen.”

“Where are you?” (His voice sounded cross.)

“Andrew, is there any⁠—any message from Mr. Mifflin? That wreck yesterday⁠—he might have been on that train⁠—I’ve been so frightened; do you think he was⁠—hurt?”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Andrew. “If you want to know about Mifflin, he’s in jail in Port Vigor.”

And then I think Andrew must have been surprised. I began to laugh and cry simultaneously, and in my agitation I set down the receiver.

XIII

My first impulse was to hide myself in some obscure corner where I could vent my feelings without fear or favour. I composed my face as well as I could before leaving the phone booth; then I sidled across the lobby and slipped out of the side door. I found my way into the stable, where good old Peg was munching in her stall. The fine, homely smell of horseflesh and long-worn harness leather went right to my heart, and while Bock frisked at my knees I laid my head on Peg’s neck and cried. I think that fat old mare understood me. She was as tubby and prosaic and middle-aged as I⁠—but she loved the Professor.

Suddenly Andrew’s words echoed again in my mind. I had barely heeded them before, in the great joy of my relief, but now their significance came to me. “In jail.” The Professor in jail! That was the meaning of his strange disappearance at Woodbridge. That little brute of a man Shirley must have telephoned from Redfield, and when the Professor came to the Woodbridge bank to cash that check they had arrested him. That was why they had shoved me into that mahogany sitting room. Andrew must be behind this. The besotted old fool! My face burned with anger and humiliation.

I never knew before what it means to be really infuriated. I could feel my brain tingle. The Professor in jail! The gallant, chivalrous little man, penned up with hoboes and sneak thieves suspected of being a crook⁠ ⁠… as if I couldn’t take care of myself! What did they think he was, anyway? A kidnapper?

Instantly I decided I would hurry back to Port Vigor without delay. If Andrew had had the Professor locked up, it could only be on the charge of defrauding me. Certainly it couldn’t be for giving him a bloody nose on the road from Shelby. And if I appeared to deny the charge, surely they would have to let Mr. Mifflin go.

I believe I must have been talking to myself in Peg’s stall⁠—at any rate, just at this moment the stableman appeared and looked very bewildered when he saw me, with flushed face and in obvious excitement, talking to the horse. I asked him when was the next train to Port Vigor.

“Well, ma’am,” he said, “they say that all the local trains is held up till the wreck at Willdon’s cleared away. This being Sunday, I don’t think you’ll get anything from here until tomorrow morning.”

I reflected. It wasn’t so awfully far back to Port Vigor. A flivver from the local garage could spin me back there in a couple