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| - From The Best Stories of Wilbur Daniel Steele 1946 Marty Martello was a pianist. Her luck was always running out. She got a job playing in a Bronx picture house, but then the neighborhoods went talkie and that ran out. She looked all set with Moe Kaplin's Racketeers at the Pantheon, but Moe's brother Cyril quit law school and took up the ivories, so that ran out. The Goldstone Agency threw occasional fill-ins her way; they were very occasional indeed after the depression came. August was always the tight month. Her life-insurance premium fell due the seventh of July, thirty-four dollars and forty cents. August sixth ended the thirty days of grace, and she had to make it somehow; she had a kid to think of. Agents have to be patient. But this time when she came up Ben Goldstone's patience was about all gone. "Broke, and gotta eat, is that your story?" No, Marty wasn't broke. She showed him two tens and some silver. But she had to have fifteen more to put with it by tomorrow or else her insurance would go to hell. She kept repeating that over and over dully. It was hot. It was ninety-eight in the office. She put her fingers under her hair and held it out so as to let some air up through it. Fifteen dollars by tomorrow or else her insurance would go to hell. "I'm making it your problem, brother." It was too hot to ask a fat man to laugh. Goldstone got up and picked his clothing away from him. He went out into the outer office and came back with a card in his hand. While he talked he fiddled with it, rapping it against his other knuckles. Marty never took her eyes off that card. "How old are you, Marty? " She told him thirty. "What have you got for me there?" "Thirty. You oughtn't to let yourself go. You need a wave." "Don't make me laugh." Goldstone didn't intend to. He let go. People didn't like her, the people she had to work with. Give and take, they liked a sport. "Look at Pearl Fisher; she hasn't got the stuff you have even, yet she gets by." "Oh yeah?" Marty never took her eyes off the card he was fiddling with. "Oh yeah is right, dearie. These pluggers know she's willing to be friendly, that's why. If they feel like going over to Child's after work for some cakes and coffee, or over to Stein's or somewhere, Pearl's there with bells on." Marty flung a shoulder. "When did I ever turn down a chance to eat?" "So they tell me. Only there's this about Pearl; after she's through eating she isn't all of a sudden tired." "You're telling me I'm tired! God! Mr. Goldstone, I've got a kid. I can't sleep all day the way they do. I've got a kid." "I'm only telling you." Goldstone looked at the card. "You know Ed Fine? Here's a six-piece job for three nights down at the old Turner Hall in East Twenty-ninth. Ed's short a pianist. There's five a night in it, fifteen big dollars. I don't know if you can talk Ed into the advance, but he might. Ed's a good fellow. That's up to you." It was some sort of a Legion thing, shows, chances, and dancing. Marty worked for all she was worth in the heat, "breaking" till her neck ached and sweat ran off her wrists. Ed Fine had a reputation as a funny man. Dull as Marty's head felt she didn't let a single fast one get by her, kept her eyes snapping and her laugh on tap, till Ed wondered why he'd never used her more. He had a pint with him. He and the saxophone and Marty put it away between them in the free ginger ale the management sent around. It was a godsend to • Marty. It got toward the end. "Now come on, this last one, boys and girls!" Ed wiped out his collar. "Let's get hot!" "Oh yeah?" Marty gave him an eye. He had to laugh; he hadn't realized till then what he had pulled. "You're all right, sister. Why don't you work with me more?" "I don't know. Why don't I? Ed, listen, ordinarily I wouldn't think of it, but I've got to meet my insurance tomorrow, and I'm fifteen short. How's chances for an advance?" "Oh, I don't know. I've been known to, dearie. Le' me think it over. . . . Come on, boys, wake up!" Tap, tap, tap, tap! Ed had an arrangement of "Home, Sweet Home" that kept Marty on the jump and left her a rag. Ed went and got his money and came back. He asked Poritch, the saxophone, "Where are we, Twentyninth? What do you say to a bowl of chili around at the Santa Cruz? Marty and I are going around." It was only a block and a half, but it seemed a mile to Marty. Her clothes were plastered to her; her feet hit the walk at each step long before they ought to. This wouldn't do. She hummed brightly. She asked Poritch if that wasn't a swell arrangement of "Home, Sweet Home" Ed had. Ed took her arm. "On top of the world, aren't you, Marty, tonight!" When they got to the Santa Cruz and she discovered they had stairs to climb, Marty just leaned against the jamb of the entrance door. It struck her funny. "What's the laugh?" Ed asked. She was in a hole; she didn't know what to say. Then she had an inspiration. On the walk outside was a drunk, trying to fill a pipe from a tobacco tin he'd forgotten to open. He kept shaking and looking and shaking. Marty pointed. "The Pied Piper." She started up the stairs. She had made about ten of them before Ed, who was coming up right behind her, got it. "Pied Piper! Kid, you're good!" He reached up and gave her a delighted pinch in the back of the thigh. Next thing he knew he was seeing stars. It wasn't anything Marty could help. Once done, it wasn't anything she could pass off. It wasn't a slap; it was a solid haymaker with a doubled fist. Ed was back against the handrail, holding on to his ear and calling her a name. She got by him and by Poritch, down and out to the walk. Poritch came down. "You'd better beat it," he warned her. But Ed was out by that, still holding his ear. "Yes, and don't come back." He repeated the name. "You're through." Marty stood. "Where's my money?" Ed looked fit to holler. He started to turn away, but then thought. He took out a five-dollar bill and threw it on the walk. "Otherwise I might have to see her again," he said to Poritch. Marty picked up the bill and walked away. At Third Avenue she hesitated, then went to Twenty-eighth and climbed the stairs to the Elevated. What difference did a nickel make now? She had always wondered how she would feel if ever the day came when she actually couldn't meet the insurance. She felt clumsy and drowsy, that was all. The blocks going past the train windows almost put her to sleep. When she got home to Fifty-ninth she had three flights to climb. Everybody in the building was asleep. Slagger, on the second floor, had rigged a screen in the hall door to get a draft through; Marty could hear the whole family snoring. At the Kolacks', on the third, she rapped on the door, waited, rapped again. By and by Mrs. Kolack came bare-footed, in her nightgown, Sandro asleep over her fat shoulder. She looked sulky. Marty stood. "I'm going to pay you what I owe for minding Sandro in a few days now. I've got a job playing for the Legion." It was the easiest lie Marty could think of. The woman looked skeptical. She eased the child loose for Marty to take. Marty just stood. "Please— look— this once— would you carry him up the stairs?" One would have expected Marty to lie awake, but she didn't, she passed right out. She had four good hours before the dread began. It could get her even in her dreams. In her dreams now she thought it was only the familiar daily dread of that moment, along about eight, when she would no longer be able not to hear Sandro's suckings and blowings. He had been taught not to cry or whimper or move around, and he was very good. But he would make sounds with his mouth, sucking in and blowing out by the hour; either he couldn't remember or he couldn't help. This morning Marty fought it even in her sleep, tossed and mumbled, "Please, please!" Finally she woke up. Then she remembered what the matter was. She dressed Sandro while the cereal was cooking. It's an ill wind —he could still get on with the same old rompers, for though he was seven he hadn't grown any, except his head size, since he was three. Sometimes he didn't seem three, even. He was blind, besides, and that made it worse; Marty had to feed him every spoonful and wipe his mouth. There was no letup in the heat: it was hotter than yesterday if anything. After breakfast she gave up for a while. She took off everything and just sat, staring out of the window at the houses opposite. There was a box with geraniums in it on one of the fire escapes. It meant that much work for somebody, and what was the use? What use was anything? What was the use of picking up her stockings from the floor, or her hat from the chair, or bothering to wash up or sweep up, or anything? Sandro was in the other room. He was making a noise he liked by scraping on a screen with a fingernail. If it was the left-hand window, that screen was loose. If he was on a chair and the screen went, he might go too. It wasn't the left-hand window, so she had gotten up for nothing. On her way back Marty picked up the stockings, took them into the bathroom, hung them with their feet in the bowl and turned some water on them. Presently she would soap them. She sat with the soap in her hand. She tried to make herself think. Was there anything she had overlooked she could possibly pawn? She had cleared the place out of personal things. Once she tried to get away with a piece of furniture, she knew well enough that Voltaire, the block janitor, would see her. Then everything would go for nothing, for the rent. She gave up trying to think. By and by she would soap the stocking feet. By and by, though, Mrs. Kolack came up to get her. They had a telephone, and somebody wanted Marty. When Marty heard Ben Goldstone's secretary on the wire she asked Mrs. Kolack for a chair, she felt so light. But then Goldstone took the phone, and he was mad. "First time you're down this way, Marty, drop in with my piece of that five dollars. That closes you and I out." Marty wondered if Mrs. Kolack heard him. She was terrified. She tried to sound cheerfully excited. "Oh yes, Mr. Goldstone, and I want to have a talk with you; I'll be right down." She gave Sandro his noon cereal before she went. "I don't know whether I can come back before I work or not; anyway I'm paying you tomorrow," she told Mrs. Kolack when she left him. People in the streets were saying there was bound to be a thunderstorm before long, the way it felt. She walked to West Forty-second Street first. The insurance agency was there, and she had to try one forlorn hope. She wanted to see Mr. Byram himself, but couldn't, unless she wanted to wait a couple of hours. She started to wait, then thought of Goldstone and grew nervous. She appealed to the man at the desk. She explained she knew it was her last day to pay. "I wanted to know if Mr. Byram wouldn't make an exception and take the money tomorrow. Please!" The man wasn't excited. He said she never could tell. "Sometimes he'll do it; all according to the way he feels." That was enough for Marty. She hit the sky. She tried to push the twenty-five she had into the man's hand, saying, "If he'll take this much on it now!" But the man pushed it back. "Nothing doing, sister; this is a business." He told her to bring the whole of it in the first thing in the morning and try it on. People were talking more than ever about a storm. It had grown dark over Jersey. The heat was something thick enough to wade through. At Sixth, Marty went into the drugstore and had a coffee malted. She'd hardly touched breakfast, and had no lunch, and now that she was going up to Goldstone's it was all or nothing. It was dark in the Goldstone waiting room. Once there was lightning, but no thunder. The secretary wanted the half dollar Marty owed them. Right out before three others who were waiting she told Marty that Mr. Goldstone wouldn't see her, and no use thinking he would. He did, though, in the end, after the others were gone. "I know the whole story," he said, before she could speak. "Ed was in here this morning." He gave her a look of disgust. "My God!" He stripped off his shirt and sat in his mesh undershirt. If it bothered Marty she knew what she could do; she would come in. She let him talk himself out. She was like a mule with her ears back. "Give you half a dollar? Don't make me laugh," she said. "I still need ten— eight-ninety if I don't eat— and you've got to find it for me by nine tomorrow morning. You've got to, Goldstone! Got to!" Goldstone's jaw hung. "Me find it! Didn't I just finish telling you — " "You've got to find it for me somehow. You don't realize— if anything happened to me— you don't know about my kid." "Such a cunning boy and you love him so much— I know the line." "I loathe him, Mr. Goldstone." The man's jaw really hung this time. He didn't know how to handle this. He got up and stood looking out of the window, wishing to God it would rain. He almost whined. "Yet you won't do anything to make things go, Marty. Here's Ed last night, just trying to be friendly. My God, Marty, Ed's married." "I'll do anything." "The trouble with you " "I'll do anything." Goldstone slopped back into his chair. He didn't know how to handle this. He didn't want her, if that was what she meant. And if he began advancing her money he knew where that would end. "I'll do anything, I tell you!" He had a sudden idea. "You will?" He spoke into his secretary's phone. "Get Bendigo; find out if he's got anybody." He slapped his thigh. He gave Marty a leer. She'd asked for it. He felt like being cruel. "You will? Well now, we'll see. Do you know Bert Bendigo? I mean, does he know you?" "I should say not. You mean, at the Jack o' Diamonds?" "Bendigo's raking the town for a hot piano. His own's in hospital with a broken arm, and his fill-in's gone to Detroit. Bendigo's up against it." "But listen— my God, Goldstone— that's Harlem." "So you just thought you'd do anything, you forgot you draw the color line." The phone buzzed. Goldstone listened in, nodded, hung up. Marty looked everywhere to avoid his mocking grin. "No," she said, "but they do." "How would they know? Don't kid yourself; they've got dinges up there blonder'n you are, dearie. Don't let 'em see your fingernails too close, that's all; put on plenty of perfume and call Bendigo 'Mister'." Goldstone enjoyed himself. He thought he'd called her bluff. "Well, you asked for it!" It didn't rain after all. The storm veered away up the Hudson and the sun came out worse than ever. Marty would have given a year of her life for a bath, but she hadn't time to go home. She bought a bottle of perfume at a Woolworth store and took the Elevated for Harlem. Bendigo made her work. He was a pale olive-skinned man without any fooling about him; she needn't have been nervous; he was sore enough that she was a woman. He kept her at the piano in the airless hall till nearly eight, making her play through some of his arrangements a dozen times. "Play nigger! " he kept hammering at her. He quit. He walked up and down, polishing his nails. "The trouble with you is, somebody's told you you ought to go over, you could pass anywhere. Well, forget it here. You're nigger here, baby, and you're going to play nigger!" He came back and sat down, put a hand around her, rocked her body to the measure of the break he wanted her to get. "Now come on, baby, get this!" They had lighted up, and waiters were laying the tables. A big black buck wandered in from behind, said "Hy" to Bendigo, and stood and looked Marty over. Presently he sat down among the instruments. He tried softly with the heel of his hand the hides of three funny-looking, long-barreled drums. He was Bendigo's big ace. A pure-blooded Gullah from the Carolina sea islands, Cato hadn't the sense for the snare and traps, which were played by a regular drummer. He handled only his own three prehistoric tympani. He made Marty nervous. Even in this heat he wore heavy clothes, a double-breasted brown broadcloth with a plush collar, beige flannels, and spats. Cato didn't mind sweating; he liked it; it made him feel glossy. He had broad white teeth and bluish gums, which he showed when he caught Marty peeping at him. Out of nothing, during a rest, he said: "I lub yalluh gals." Bendigo whirled on him. "Shut up, ape!" He had to handle Cato that way, like a tamer with his whip always ready. A few minutes later when Marty went to the girls' dressing room out back for a wash-up, she saw how it was. She had pulled her dress off and was soaping one of the bowls. Of the fifteen show girls changing there, half were stark naked, bodies ranging from cocoa to old ivory. Suddenly they began to yell, some jeering, some swearing. Cato had walked in, unconcerned. He had a large tongue sandwich in his hand. Recognizing Marty when she turned, he came forward, holding it out. "You mustn't go hungry, yalluh gal." But Bendigo was in the doorway by that. "Get the hell outa here, you big ape! How many times!" Cato looked muddled and went. Marty put her dress back on without washing. Getting into privacy, she emptied the whole tencent bottle of perfume over her. It was a slack evening at the Jack o' Diamonds, on account of the weather. There were a couple of colored parties, but the rest were whites. One of these was an elderly man, alone at a table next the orchestra. He couldn't have been less than sixty-five, stoop-shouldered, spare, with a small fat paunch. He wore young clothes though, a coat with square shoulders, and had his hair cut high over his ears. Tipsy when he arrived, he drank steadily, gin and ginger. He could never be at rest. When the girls did their Alligator River, his eyes were in a panic for fear of missing something. They darted from one body to another, flew to another, got the good of none. He tried to get the waiter to take a note to the peach-colored star after her solo act, but the waiter wouldn't do it. Finally he discovered Marty. Marty couldn't keep her eyes always on Bendigo, especially after he noticed it. But if she didn't, if she turned one way, there was Cato, or if the other, there was the old boy waiting to jiggle and wink. There came a time though, once when she did look, that her heart gave a jump. The man had his pocketbook out. He handed something to the waiter and pointed at Marty. All the while it was being brought to her, he waved, wagged, winked, clapped in dumb show, jiggled up and down like a child. It was a ten-dollar bill. Once she had it in her hand, Marty was scared. All she wanted now was to get away. She looked around her at the Negroes hemming her in. There was only one more number before closing, but that was one too many; she wanted to get away, get away. Bendigo was already tapping his stand. It was no use. Quickly she pushed the bill down her neck, clipped a corner under her brassiere. She didn't know how she got through that number. She hadn't any instrument to put up afterwards. She got away. She was a fool to have gone for her hat. She knew it too late, in the dressing room. All of a sudden she knew what would happen. Cato would be in the hall when she went out. He was, but so was Bendigo. It was Bendigo grabbed her wrist. "What's the matter, sweetheart, what's the rush?" "Give me my pay— I've got to get home." "Yeah? . . . First, though, how about coming across? Where's that ten?" "That ten?" Marty choked, she fought. "He gave it to me; it's mine!" "About ninety cents is. We pool here, baby; you ought to know that." Cato was happy, laughed with his big mouth. "Yalluh gal do lub money. I gots a lotta money, yalluh gal." Bendigo gave him a shove, without letting go of Marty. "Beat it!" Cato retreated to lean against the wall. Bendigo said to Marty: "All right, if you can't find that bill, I can." It was no bluff, he was going to do it. He started to do it. Marty was quick enough then. "Stop! Wait! There, take it, you— you " Bendigo took the bill and kept the hand. "You ought to get mad oftener," he said. She tried to jerk her hand away. "Give me my pay and let me get out of here." She was so mad she sobbed it. Bendigo began to enjoy this, now he was through work. "Well, well, well!" He stroked the fingers, squeezed blue as milk in his own olive ones. "Well, well, what a pretty little hand!" Of a sudden he bent closer over it. He pinched one of the nails hard. He straightened, gave her a funny look, and felt of her hair before she could duck her head away. He glanced around to see if Cato was still there. He lowered his voice. "Come into the office and get your pay." He let go of her and went ahead; it was only a few steps. He wasn't the same man. He was excited and miserably eager. He fumbled the door open into the office, pawed and pawed before he found the light. "Come in, come in, miss." "All right, but leave the door open. Where's my money?" "Yes, sure, in a minute. I want to talk with you a minute." "Yes, but don't shut the door." "I'm light, you've got to give me that. Light enough for anybody. I pass any time. I go anywhere I want to. I can talk " "Don't shut that door, I tell you!" "I can talk Spanish— pass for a South American anywhere. Now listen — " "DonH shut that door!" Again it wasn't anything Marty could help. It was her muscles; a rat's are the same way. She jumped for what was left of the opening, banged a shoulder, scraped through, ran. She ran and ran. Even when she was out in the open air of the alley she still ran. She ran out into a street. It was almost deserted; dawn was near. Fifty yards away a drunk held up an area railing. At the curb a colored taxi driver sat on his running board watching and waiting, patient as a buzzard. When he saw Marty, however, he got in, started his engine, and rolled rapidly backwards toward her, calling, "Taxi, lady?" She stood and looked at him. She frowned. She passed a hand over her eyes, turned and looked back at the alley. "How silly!" A funny titter got away from her. "Because, of course, I've got to go back in there." But now the drunk had got clear of the railing. The sidewalk brought him. It was the same old boy. He fell against Marty. She tried to shake him off, but he clung to her arm. "Thought you never come— where been— Creo' belle?" "Taxi, lady? Taxi, sir?" The man stopped clinging, began to tug. "Tha's right— taxi— Creo' belle." Marty looked at the alley. She looked at the taxi. "I've got to have ten dollars; they took the other away." When they were in the taxi the driver looked back and waited. "Anywhere," said Marty. "Just drive." The fellow hesitated, frowned, grinned, touched his cap. "I know a place." "Mind your business and drive!" Marty leaned forward and pushed the glass slide shut. The starting of the car threw her back against the drunk. He would have been asleep in another moment, but that brought him to, and he began to grab. Marty started to pry him off, but then thought, "No, I mustn't." He got an arm around her neck. "I've got to have ten dollars," she said. "They took the other away." "Are you an oct'roon?" "I've got to have ten dollars. Oh, give me ten dollars." "Now don't you worry, dear— are you what they call oct'roon?" "Give it to me now in my hands." He jiggled and jittered. "I'm no sucker. Think I'm drunk? How would I know?" "How would— how would 7 know?" Relenting, he pulled out his billfold. "Gi' me a kiss then, li'l kiss." Marty had to help it this time. With an abrupt turn and a quick evasion she bumped her mouth against his cheekbone. He began to yammer. "Tha's no kiss! Real kiss!" She temporized. "What do you want?" She had to think of right words. "What I mean is, don't be silly, the— the night is young." To her surprise he broke out weeping. The arm around her shoulders sagged and slid. His head went down between her elbow and the back cushion. His body shook with his blurry blubberings. It was the first time he had ever gone with a nigger. What would his boy say? His boy was a big lawyer in Cleveland. Streets went by. Marty sat forward, and his weight went down behind her. Little by little the blubbering ceased. A snore half strangled but failed to wake the sleeper. He had plenty of money; there must have been fifty dollars in the billfold. Marty took one ten. She put the rest back, poked it into one of his coat pockets, leaned forward and rapped on the glass. When the cab swerved to the curb she opened the door and got out. She put on an act. "Passed out, the dirty bum! Whadda y'u know if that ain't just my luck!" The last she saw, from half a block away, the driver was on the sidewalk, prodding into the cab. It was pink dawn when she got home. She went up quietly, tiptoeing past the Kolacks' door; she didn't want Sandro yet. Upstairs she let the bath run, but only at a trickle so they wouldn't hear it below. She was starved. She ate a handful of cereal flakes dry out of the package. The next time she remembered the bath it was full and gurgling in the waste pipe. She started to take off her clothes. But then she thought, "I've just eaten." It wasn't really that. It was simply that a bath didn't seem to matter enough. Besides, she hadn't the time. She had to keep hurrying. She went out and sat on the stairs, halfway down. It was at least an hour before Mrs. Kolack opened the door to see if anybody might have brought the milk up. There was a chance Sandro was awake inside; Marty beckoned her up and spoke in a whisper. She had to go down to the Whitehorn Building to pay her insurance, she explained, but she didn't want Sandro till she came back. Mrs. Kolack had been going to blow up, but the Whitehorn Building put her off, because her husband used to work there sometimes. He'd worked there as late as the middle of June; it was a nice building. Marty walked. It was only seven. She looked in windows. Three times she went and sat in the Grand Central waiting room awhile; it was darker there and the day was going to be another scorcher. She was up in the hall in the Whitehorn Building half an hour before the first clerk opened Byram's office. Mr. Byram arrived about half past nine. Marty got up from her chair in the outer office and put a smile on. Mr. Byram had a man with him, though, and passed on through. The clock went to ten, then to a quarter past. Marty broke out against the man at the desk. "You told me I could see him first thing this morning. You told me!" The man was busy on his phone, arguing, protesting to somebody, "What the hell— this is a big building— there's other insurance people." He tried to wave Marty off, but she wouldn't wave off. "You told me nine sharp! You told me!" He looked up at her suddenly. "You don't happen to be a Mrs. Martello, do you?" He saw by her expression. "Wait, here's the party," he said into the phone. He handed her the receiver. "Some dame's excited." Marty listened a second. She spoke then on a high note. "I told you never to let him on the street with the children. Why?" She listened. She began to go white. The man at the desk studied her face, then turned and beckoned one of the girl stenographers to come. From white, Marty turned green. The receiver clattered to the desk. Marty's mouth fell open. Sobbing laughter came out. The girl stenographer and another got her into a chair, but they couldn't hush her hysteria. "There was a manhole. They were working in the sewer. He fell in the sewer and broke his neck." Three days later, Marty was on a train, in the rear coach. Though there were plenty of vacant seats she stood and looked out of the open half of the rear door. Trees, fences, crossings, houses, everything, rushed back from either side, closed up small, and, curve by curve, were obliterated. Near Southbrook she had her first momentary glimpse of the water. There was a marsh that ran about a quarter of a mile, beyond that a beach, lifted like a dike, and beyond that the sea. It was just at sunset; the flat light reddened the sands and the lines of whitecaps rolling under a southeast wind. It was dark when she got down at the Little Great Point station. She needed no help with baggage, for she had none, not so much as a handbag, not even a purse, only a crumpled handkerchief. She was the only one for there; it was a weekday. An elderly man dragged a mail sack along the platform toward an elderly Chevrolet. He peered, hesitated, stopped, peered again. "Ain't you Martha Matthews?" "Yes, Mr. Ring." "I vow! Been away some while, ain't you? I'd've thought your father " "Father's here, is he?" "I vow! Well, I'll be glad to ride you far's the Point road anyways." She thanked him. She thanked him again when she got down after nearly a mile. He went on along the tar toward town and she turned into the gravel leading down the Point under a tunnel of trees. The first house was the Greers'. There were lights in the living room and out the kitchen way, cigarette points in the deep of the veranda. A voice called out, "Hy, Terry, is that you?" She wondered if it meant Terry Brinker as she walked on. The second house was the Brinkers'. After that there was a fence of white rails at the left. Martha heard a whicker. A shadow wheeled beyond. On impulse she turned aside, leaned with her hand out over the top rail and called, "Mac?" Only after she saw in the starlight that this colt had two white stockings in place of four did she realize how foolish she'd been to think it might be Mac. She dabbed a finger on the satiny, inquiring nose, turned again and went on. The last house was under the last of the big elms, before the grassy end of the Point ran down. The living-room windows were yellow; the black pillars of the veranda marched across them as she moved. She came up on the veranda, found the door knocker and let it fall. Presently the light came on overhead, the door was opened, and a bent man peered at her myopically. "May I speak with Mr. Matthews?" "Mr. Matthews is out for the moment. Whom shall I say — " It scared her. "Why, Seifer, it's Martha, can't you see?" The long-bent shoulders actually unbent. The wrinkled patterns in the old face changed shape. "My gracious!" Water sprang to the eyes. Seifer opened the door wide. "I'll ring the Greers, Miss Martha; your father stepped over. . . . Aren't you— aren't you coming in?" "Not yet. Seifer, will you do something for me? Get me a bath towel?" When he came back, perplexed, she took the towel and turned away down the steps. "I'll be back in a little while." Out on the grass of the Point she stood still a moment. She listened to the sounds the wind made, the trees threshing above and behind her, the water threshing on either hand below. She took off her hat, shook out her hair, and went on down. She stripped with a few quick motions and walked into the black water. A low shadow grew high, grew higher, toppled and fell. She took it on the breast, didn't fight, let it carry her backwards, looselimbed, over and over in foam and sand. Cast on the beach she lay a moment to get her breath, then arose and walked back in. Three times more she did this; three times the rollers rolled her out again, foam-lathered, weed-whipped, sand-scoured. A fourth time she got up from the washboard. But this time she ran in, rather than walked, dived when the comber came, swam strongly under the water till she could feel the suck of the shore no longer, turned over on her back and lay still. How deep she lay she neither knew nor cared. She spread out her arms and legs, felt the power of the tide turn her slowly over, first from side to side, then heels over head. She moved her head and felt it dragging at her hair roots. She opened her eyes and let the black salt wash the eyeballs and the lids, opened her mouth and let it wash the gums and teeth and tongue. After what seemed a great while then she stroked, came to the surface and saw the stars. "That's that," she said aloud. On the one broad rock on the shore she stood and rubbed and rubbed herself with the towel, rubbed her hair as dry as she could, set it on end with combing fingers, and put on her clothes. She saw a figure standing at the foot of the veranda steps when she came back under the trees. She stopped when she had come within half a dozen paces. "It's me, Father. I'm here." The cleanly chiseled head was inclined an inch, in silhouette. "I've been for a swim, Father. . . . Father, are you glad to see me?" "Have you left Martello?" That startled her so she nearly laughed. She could only nod. "Divorce?" "No. He died seven years ago, in Bellevue." Level as he kept his voice, there was yet bewilderment and a question in his echo. "Seven years!" "I had a child— a boy. I buried him yesterday." There was a moment's silence. Then: "I lost your mother seven years ago." "I know." Another silence, his eyes on the ground in front of him, hers on the ground in front of her. She lifted her head at the same moment he lifted his. "You're looking well, Father. Except that you've grayed a little—" But he broke in sharply. "You're not looking well, Martha. You're thin!" He studied her with his quick, characteristic glance. His impatience always had sounded like anger. "Martha, you're hungry! You haven't dined!" "I had something earlier— about five I had a — " "Don't be an ass!" All of a sudden he was sitting on the gravel. She ran to him, caught hold of his hands, shook them roughly, crying, "Father! Father! " He shut his eyes, opened them, looked at the veranda light, shut them again, looked at the gravel beyond his knees. "It has been lonely." Knowing him, she knew he didn't know he said it. When she cried, "I'm going to call Seifer," he came around, a crease between his brows. "I tell you, don't be an ass. I turned my ankle, that's all. Give me a hand up." She gave him one. He brushed the gravel from his trouser leg. "Why are you standing there, Martha? Good God! Come in!" Left for a moment in the hall, she heard him in the dining room, speaking to Seifer. "Miss Martha will dine in half an hour. Thin soup, chops, and a salad. Cress in the salad. She's fond of cress, you'll remember." Martha looked in the other way, across the living room. She saw the broad table in its place, with red and brown books between the book ends, and the back of the deep couch beneath and beyond it, and beyond that the piano, as at a great distance, with the rust-brown 'cello case leaning against it at the hollowed side, and still beyond these things the sheer white curtains in the windows, bellying. And she remembered that she had remembered more vividly than anything else how the curtains in the windows moved with the sea wind.
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