Octopus — Book II, Chapter 8, Part 4
She walked on.
An hour passed.
She lost her sense of direction, became confused, knew not where she was going, turned corners and went up by-streets without knowing why, anything to keep moving, for she fancied that so soon as she stood still, the rat in the pit of her stomach gnawed more eagerly.
At last, she entered what seemed to be, if not a park, at least some sort of public enclosure.
There were many trees; the place was beautiful; well-kept roads and walks led sinuously and invitingly underneath the shade.
Through the trees upon the other side of a wide expanse of turf, brown and sear under the summer sun, she caught a glimpse of tall buildings and a flagstaff.
The whole place had a vaguely public, educational appearance, and Minna guessed, from certain notices affixed to the trees, warning the public against the picking of flowers, that she had found her way into the grounds of the State University.
She went on a little further.
The path she was following led her, at length, into a grove of gigantic live oaks, whose lower branches all but swept the ground.
Here the grass was green, the few flowers in bloom, the shade very thick.
A more lovely spot she had seldom seen.
Near at hand was a bench, built around the trunk of the largest live oak, and here, at length, weak from hunger, exhausted to the limits of her endurance, despairing, abandoned, Minna Hooven sat down to enquire of herself what next she could do.
But once seated, the demands of the animal--so she could believe--became more clamorous, more insistent.
To eat, to rest, to be safely housed against another night, above all else, these were the things she craved;
and the craving within her grew so mighty that she crisped her poor, starved hands into little fists, in an agony of desire, while the tears ran from her eyes, and the sobs rose thick from her breast and struggled and strangled in her aching throat.
But in a few moments Minna was aware that a woman, apparently of some thirty years of age, had twice passed along the walk in front of the bench where she sat, and now, as she took more notice of her, she remembered that she had seen her on the ferry-boat coming over from the city.
The woman was gowned in silk, tightly corseted, and wore a hat of rather ostentatious smartness.
Minna became convinced that the person was watching her, but before she had a chance to act upon this conviction she was surprised out of all countenance by the stranger coming up to where she sat and speaking to her.
“Here is a coincidence,” exclaimed the new-comer, as she sat down;
“surely you are the young girl who sat opposite me on the boat.
Strange I should come across you again.
I've had you in mind ever since.
” On this nearer view Minna observed that the woman's face bore rather more than a trace of enamel and that the atmosphere about was impregnated with sachet.
She was not otherwise conspicuous, but there was a certain hardness about her mouth and a certain droop of fatigue in her eyelids which, combined with an indefinite self-confidence of manner, held Minna's attention.
“Do you know,” continued the woman, “I believe you are in trouble.
I
thought so when I saw you on the boat, and I think so now.
Are you?
Are you in trouble?
You're from the country, ain't you?
” Minna, glad to find a sympathiser, even in this chance acquaintance, admitted that she was in distress; that she had become separated from her mother, and that she was indeed from the country.
“I've been trying to find a situation,” she hazarded in conclusion, “but I don't seem to succeed.
I've never been in a city before, except Bonneville.
” “Well, it IS a coincidence,” said the other.
“I know I wasn't drawn to you for nothing.
I am looking for just such a young girl as you.
You see, I live alone a good deal and I've been wanting to find a nice, bright, sociable girl who will be a sort of COMPANION to me.
Understand?
And there's something about you that I like.
I took to you the moment I saw you on the boat.
Now shall we talk this over?
” Towards the end of the week, one afternoon, as Presley was returning from his club, he came suddenly face to face with Minna upon a street corner.
“Ah,” he cried, coming toward her joyfully.
“Upon my word, I had almost given you up.
I've been looking everywhere for you.
I was afraid you might not be getting along, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do.
How are your mother and Hilda?
Where are you stopping?
Have you got a good place?
” “I don't know where mamma is,” answered Minna.
“We got separated, and I never have been able to find her again.
” Meanwhile, Presley had been taking in with a quick eye the details of Minna's silk dress, with its garniture of lace, its edging of velvet, its silver belt-buckle.
Her hair was arranged in a new way and on her head was a wide hat with a flare to one side, set off with a gilt buckle and a puff of bright blue plush.
He glanced at her sharply.
“Well, but--but how are you getting on?
” he demanded.
Minna laughed scornfully.
“I?
” she cried.
“Oh, I'VE gone to hell.
It was either that or starvation.
” Presley regained his room at the club, white and trembling.
Worse than the worst he had feared had happened.
He had not been soon enough to help.
He had failed again.
A superstitious fear assailed him that he was, in a manner, marked; that he was foredoomed to fail.
Minna had come--had been driven to this; and he, acting too late upon his tardy resolve, had not been able to prevent it.
Were the horrors, then, never to end?
Was the grisly spectre of consequence to forever dance in his vision?
Were the results, the far-reaching results of that battle at the irrigating ditch to cross his path forever?
When would the affair be terminated, the incident closed?
Where was that spot to which the tentacle of the monster could not reach?
By now, he was sick with the dread of it all.
He wanted to get away, to be free from that endless misery, so that he might not see what he could no longer help.
Cowardly he now knew himself to be.
He thought of himself only with loathing.
Bitterly self-contemptuous that he could bring himself to a participation in such trivialities, he began to dress to keep his engagement to dine with the Cedarquists.
He arrived at the house nearly half an hour late, but before he could take off his overcoat, Mrs. Cedarquist appeared in the doorway of the drawing-room at the end of the hall.
She was dressed as if to go out.
“My DEAR Presley,” she exclaimed, her stout, over-dressed body bustling toward him with a great rustle of silk.
“I never was so glad.
You poor, dear poet, you are thin as a ghost.
You need a better dinner than I can give you, and that is just what you are to have.
” “Have I blundered?
” Presley hastened to exclaim.
“Did not Mr. Cedarquist mention Friday evening?
” “No, no, no,” she cried; “it was he who blundered.
YOU blundering in a social amenity!
Preposterous!
No; Mr. Cedarquist forgot that we were dining out ourselves to-night, and when he told me he had asked you here for the same evening, I fell upon the man, my dear, I did actually, tooth and nail.
But I wouldn't hear of his wiring you.
I just dropped a note to our hostess, asking if I could not bring you, and when I told her who you WERE, she received the idea with, oh, empressement.
So, there it is, all settled.
Cedarquist and the girls are gone on ahead, and you are to take the old lady like a dear, dear poet.
I believe I hear the carriage.
Allons!
En voiture!
” Once settled in the cool gloom of the coupe, odorous of leather and upholstery, Mrs. Cedarquist exclaimed: “And I've never told you who you were to dine with; oh, a personage, really.
Fancy, you will be in the camp of your dearest foes.
You are to dine with the Gerard people, one of the Vice-Presidents of your bete noir, the P. and S. W.
Railroad.
” Presley started, his fists clenching so abruptly as to all but split his white gloves.
He was not conscious of what he said in reply, and Mrs. Cedarquist was so taken up with her own endless stream of talk that she did not observe his confusion.
“Their daughter Honora is going to Europe next week; her mother is to take her, and Mrs. Gerard is to have just a few people to dinner--very informal, you know--ourselves, you and, oh, I don't know, two or three others.
Have you ever seen Honora?
The prettiest little thing, and will she be rich?
Millions, I would not dare say how many.
Tiens.
Nous voici.
” The coupe drew up to the curb, and Presley followed Mrs. Cedarquist up the steps to the massive doors of the great house.
In a confused daze, he allowed one of the footmen to relieve him of his hat and coat; in a daze he rejoined Mrs. Cedarquist in a room with a glass roof, hung with pictures, the art gallery, no doubt, and in a daze heard their names announced at the entrance of another room, the doors of which were hung with thick, blue curtains.
He entered, collecting his wits for the introductions and presentations that he foresaw impended.
The room was very large, and of excessive loftiness.
Flat, rectagonal pillars of a rose-tinted, variegated marble, rose from the floor almost flush with the walls, finishing off at the top with gilded capitals of a Corinthian design, which supported the ceiling.
The ceiling itself, instead of joining the walls at right angles, curved to meet them, a device that produced a sort of dome-like effect.
This ceiling was a maze of golden involutions in very high relief, that adjusted themselves to form a massive framing for a great picture, nymphs and goddesses, white doves, golden chariots and the like, all wreathed about with clouds and garlands of roses.
Between the pillars around the sides of the room were hangings of silk, the design--of a Louis Quinze type--of beautiful simplicity and faultless taste.
The fireplace was a marvel.
It reached from floor to ceiling; the lower parts, black marble, carved into crouching Atlases, with great muscles that upbore the superstructure.
The design of this latter, of a kind of purple marble, shot through with white veinings, was in the same style as the design of the silk hangings.
In its midst was a bronze escutcheon, bearing an undecipherable monogram and a Latin motto.
Andirons of brass, nearly six feet high, flanked the hearthstone.
The windows of the room were heavily draped in sombre brocade and ecru lace, in which the initials of the family were very beautifully worked.
But directly opposite the fireplace, an extra window, lighted from the adjoining conservatory, threw a wonderful, rich light into the apartment.
It was a Gothic window of stained glass, very large, the centre figures being armed warriors, Parsifal and Lohengrin; the one with a banner, the other with a swan.
The effect was exquisite, the window a veritable masterpiece, glowing, flaming, and burning with a hundred tints and colours--opalescent, purple, wine-red, clouded pinks, royal blues, saffrons, violets so dark as to be almost black.
Under foot, the carpet had all the softness of texture of grass; skins (one of them of an enormous polar bear) and rugs of silk velvet were spread upon the floor.
A Renaissance cabinet of ebony, many feet taller than Presley's head, and inlaid with ivory and silver, occupied one corner of the room, while in its centre stood a vast table of Flemish oak, black, heavy as iron, massive.
A faint odour of sandalwood pervaded the air.
From the conservatory near-by, came the splashing of a fountain.
A row of electric bulbs let into the frieze of the walls between the golden capitals, and burning dimly behind hemispheres of clouded glass, threw a subdued light over the whole scene.
Mrs. Gerard came forward.
“This is Mr. Presley, of course, our new poet of whom we are all so proud.
I was so afraid you would be unable to come.
You have given me a real pleasure in allowing me to welcome you here.
” The footman appeared at her elbow.
“Dinner is served, madame,” he announced.
***** When Mrs. Hooven had left the boarding-house on Castro Street, she had taken up a position on a neighbouring corner, to wait for Minna's reappearance.
Little Hilda, at this time hardly more than six years of age, was with her, holding to her hand.
Mrs. Hooven was by no means an old woman, but hard work had aged her.
She no longer had any claim to good looks.
She no longer took much interest in her personal appearance.
At the time of her eviction from the Castro Street boarding-house, she wore a faded black bonnet, garnished with faded artificial flowers of dirty pink.
A plaid shawl was about her shoulders.
But this day of misfortune had set Mrs. Hooven adrift in even worse condition than her daughter.
Her purse, containing a miserable handful of dimes and nickels, was in her trunk, and her trunk was in the hands of the landlady.
Minna had been allowed such reprieve as her thirty-five cents would purchase.
The destitution of Mrs. Hooven and her little girl had begun from the very moment of her eviction.
While she waited for Minna, watching every street car and every approaching pedestrian, a policeman appeared, asked what she did, and, receiving no satisfactory reply, promptly moved her on.
Minna had had little assurance in facing the life struggle of the city.
Mrs. Hooven had absolutely none.
In her, grief, distress, the pinch of poverty, and, above all, the nameless fear of the turbulent, fierce life of the streets, had produced a numbness, an embruted, sodden, silent, speechless condition of dazed mind, and clogged, unintelligent speech.
She was dumb, bewildered, stupid, animated but by a single impulse.
She clung to life, and to the life of her little daughter Hilda, with the blind tenacity of purpose of a drowning cat.
Thus, when ordered to move on by the officer, she had silently obeyed, not even attempting to explain her situation.
She walked away to the next street-crossing.
Then, in a few moments returned, taking up her place on the corner near the boarding-house, spying upon the approaching cable cars, peeping anxiously down the length of the sidewalks.
Once more, the officer ordered her away, and once more, unprotesting, she complied.
But when for the third time the policeman found her on the forbidden spot, he had lost his temper.
This time when Mrs. Hooven departed, he had followed her, and when, bewildered, persistent, she had attempted to turn back, he caught her by the shoulder.
“Do you want to get arrested, hey?
” he demanded.
“Do you want me to lock you up?
Say, do you, speak up?
” The ominous words at length reached Mrs. Hooven's comprehension.
Arrested!
She was to be arrested.
The countrywoman's fear of the Jail nipped and bit eagerly at her unwilling heels.
She hurried off, thinking to return to her post after the policeman should have gone away.
But when, at length, turning back, she tried to find the boarding-house, she suddenly discovered that she was on an unfamiliar street.
Unwittingly, no doubt, she had turned a corner.
She could not retrace her steps.
She and Hilda were lost.
“Mammy, I'm tired,” Hilda complained.
Her mother picked her up.
“Mammy, where're we gowun, mammy?
”
