by Willa Cather
XV
LATE IN AUGUST the Cutters went to Omaha for a few days, leaving Antoniain charge of the house. Since the scandal about the Swedish girl, WickCutter could never get his wife to stir out of Black Hawk without him.
The day after the Cutters left, Antonia came over to see us. Grandmothernoticed that she seemed troubled and distracted. 'You've got somethingon your mind, Antonia,' she said anxiously.
'Yes, Mrs. Burden. I couldn't sleep much last night.' She hesitated, andthen told us how strangely Mr. Cutter had behaved before he went away.He put all the silver in a basket and placed it under her bed, and withit a box of papers which he told her were valuable. He made her promisethat she would not sleep away from the house, or be out late in theevening, while he was gone. He strictly forbade her to ask any of thegirls she knew to stay with her at night. She would be perfectly safe,he said, as he had just put a new Yale lock on the front door.
Cutter had been so insistent in regard to these details that now shefelt uncomfortable about staying there alone. She hadn't liked the wayhe kept coming into the kitchen to instruct her, or the way he looked ather. 'I feel as if he is up to some of his tricks again, and is going totry to scare me, somehow.'
Grandmother was apprehensive at once. 'I don't think it's right for youto stay there, feeling that way. I suppose it wouldn't be right foryou to leave the place alone, either, after giving your word. Maybe Jimwould be willing to go over there and sleep, and you could come herenights. I'd feel safer, knowing you were under my own roof. I guessJim could take care of their silver and old usury notes as well as youcould.'
Antonia turned to me eagerly. 'Oh, would you, Jim? I'd make up my bednice and fresh for you. It's a real cool room, and the bed's right nextthe window. I was afraid to leave the window open last night.'
I liked my own room, and I didn't like the Cutters' house under anycircumstances; but Tony looked so troubled that I consented to try thisarrangement. I found that I slept there as well as anywhere, and when Igot home in the morning, Tony had a good breakfast waiting for me. Afterprayers she sat down at the table with us, and it was like old times inthe country.
The third night I spent at the Cutters', I awoke suddenly with theimpression that I had heard a door open and shut. Everything was still,however, and I must have gone to sleep again immediately.
The next thing I knew, I felt someone sit down on the edge of the bed.I was only half awake, but I decided that he might take the Cutters'silver, whoever he was. Perhaps if I did not move, he would find it andget out without troubling me. I held my breath and lay absolutely still.A hand closed softly on my shoulder, and at the same moment I feltsomething hairy and cologne-scented brushing my face. If the room hadsuddenly been flooded with electric light, I couldn't have seen moreclearly the detestable bearded countenance that I knew was bending overme. I caught a handful of whiskers and pulled, shouting something. Thehand that held my shoulder was instantly at my throat. The man becameinsane; he stood over me, choking me with one fist and beating me in theface with the other, hissing and chuckling and letting out a flood ofabuse.
'So this is what she's up to when I'm away, is it? Where is she, younasty whelp, where is she? Under the bed, are you, hussy? I know yourtricks! Wait till I get at you! I'll fix this rat you've got in here.He's caught, all right!'
So long as Cutter had me by the throat, there was no chance for me atall. I got hold of his thumb and bent it back, until he let go with ayell. In a bound, I was on my feet, and easily sent him sprawling to thefloor. Then I made a dive for the open window, struck the wire screen,knocked it out, and tumbled after it into the yard.
Suddenly I found myself running across the north end of Black Hawk inmy night-shirt, just as one sometimes finds one's self behaving inbad dreams. When I got home, I climbed in at the kitchen window. Iwas covered with blood from my nose and lip, but I was too sick to doanything about it. I found a shawl and an overcoat on the hat-rack, laydown on the parlour sofa, and in spite of my hurts, went to sleep.
Grandmother found me there in the morning. Her cry of fright awakenedme. Truly, I was a battered object. As she helped me to my room, Icaught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My lip was cut and stoodout like a snout. My nose looked like a big blue plum, and one eye wasswollen shut and hideously discoloured. Grandmother said we must havethe doctor at once, but I implored her, as I had never begged foranything before, not to send for him. I could stand anything, I toldher, so long as nobody saw me or knew what had happened to me. Ientreated her not to let grandfather, even, come into my room. Sheseemed to understand, though I was too faint and miserable to go intoexplanations. When she took off my night-shirt, she found such bruiseson my chest and shoulders that she began to cry. She spent the wholemorning bathing and poulticing me, and rubbing me with arnica. I heardAntonia sobbing outside my door, but I asked grandmother to send heraway. I felt that I never wanted to see her again. I hated her almost asmuch as I hated Cutter. She had let me in for all this disgustingness.Grandmother kept saying how thankful we ought to be that I had beenthere instead of Antonia. But I lay with my disfigured face to the walland felt no particular gratitude. My one concern was that grandmothershould keep everyone away from me. If the story once got abroad, I wouldnever hear the last of it. I could well imagine what the old men down atthe drugstore would do with such a theme.
While grandmother was trying to make me comfortable, grandfather wentto the depot and learned that Wick Cutter had come home on the nightexpress from the east, and had left again on the six o'clock trainfor Denver that morning. The agent said his face was striped withcourt-plaster, and he carried his left hand in a sling. He looked soused up, that the agent asked him what had happened to him since teno'clock the night before; whereat Cutter began to swear at him and saidhe would have him discharged for incivility.
That afternoon, while I was asleep, Antonia took grandmother with her,and went over to the Cutters' to pack her trunk. They found the placelocked up, and they had to break the window to get into Antonia'sbedroom. There everything was in shocking disorder. Her clothes hadbeen taken out of her closet, thrown into the middle of the room, andtrampled and torn. My own garments had been treated so badly that Inever saw them again; grandmother burned them in the Cutters' kitchenrange.
While Antonia was packing her trunk and putting her room in order,to leave it, the front doorbell rang violently. There stood Mrs.Cutter--locked out, for she had no key to the new lock--her headtrembling with rage. 'I advised her to control herself, or she wouldhave a stroke,' grandmother said afterward.
Grandmother would not let her see Antonia at all, but made her sit downin the parlour while she related to her just what had occurred the nightbefore. Antonia was frightened, and was going home to stay for a while,she told Mrs. Cutter; it would be useless to interrogate the girl, forshe knew nothing of what had happened.
Then Mrs. Cutter told her story. She and her husband had started homefrom Omaha together the morning before. They had to stop over severalhours at Waymore Junction to catch the Black Hawk train. During thewait, Cutter left her at the depot and went to the Waymore bank toattend to some business. When he returned, he told her that he wouldhave to stay overnight there, but she could go on home. He bought herticket and put her on the train. She saw him slip a twenty-dollar billinto her handbag with her ticket. That bill, she said, should havearoused her suspicions at once--but did not.
The trains are never called at little junction towns; everybody knowswhen they come in. Mr. Cutter showed his wife's ticket to the conductor,and settled her in her seat before the train moved off. It was not untilnearly nightfall that she discovered she was on the express bound forKansas City, that her ticket was made out to that point, and that Cuttermust have planned it so. The conductor told her the Black Hawk train wasdue at Waymore twelve minutes after the Kansas City train left. She sawat once that her husband had played this trick in order to get back toBlack Hawk without her. She had no choice but to go on to Kansas Cityand take the firs
t fast train for home.
Cutter could have got home a day earlier than his wife by any one of adozen simpler devices; he could have left her in the Omaha hotel, andsaid he was going on to Chicago for a few days. But apparently it waspart of his fun to outrage her feelings as much as possible.
'Mr. Cutter will pay for this, Mrs. Burden. He will pay!' Mrs. Cutteravouched, nodding her horse-like head and rolling her eyes.
Grandmother said she hadn't a doubt of it.
Certainly Cutter liked to have his wife think him a devil. In someway he depended upon the excitement He could arouse in her hystericalnature. Perhaps he got the feeling of being a rake more from his wife'srage and amazement than from any experiences of his own. His zestin debauchery might wane, but never Mrs. Cutter's belief in it. Thereckoning with his wife at the end of an escapade was something hecounted on--like the last powerful liqueur after a long dinner. Theone excitement he really couldn't do without was quarrelling with Mrs.Cutter!
BOOK III. Lena Lingard