All the time Eugene was sitting opposite her eating with fair heartiness. If the trouble about the letter had not come out so favorably he would have been without appetite, but now he felt at ease. Angela said she was not hungry and could not eat. She passed him the bread, the butter, the hashed brown potatoes, the tea, and he ate cheerfully.
“I think I am going to try and get out of that shop over there,” he volunteered affably.
“Why?” asked Angela mechanically.
“I’m tired of it. The men are not so interesting to me now. I’m tired of them. I think Mr. Haverford will transfer me if I write to him. He said he would. I’d rather be outside with some section gang if I could. It’s going to be very dreary in the shop when they close it up.”
“Well, if you’re tired you’d better,” replied Angela. “Your mind needs diversion, I know that. Why don’t you write to Mr. Haverford?”
“I will,” he said, but he did not immediately. He went into the front room and lit the gas eventually, reading a paper, then a book, then yawning wearily. Angela came in after a time and sat down pale and tired. She went and secured a little workbasket in which were socks undarned and other odds and ends and began on those, but she revolted at the thought of doing anything for him and put them up. She got out a skirt of hers which she was making. Eugene watched her a little while lazily, his artistic eye measuring the various dimensions of her features. She had a well-balanced face, he finally concluded. He noted the effect of the light on her hair—the peculiar hue it gave it—and wondered if he could get that in oil. Night scenes were harder than those of full daylight. Shadows were so very treacherous. He got up finally.
“Well, I’m going to turn in,” he said. “I’m tired. I have to get up at six. Oh, dear, this darn day labor business gives me a pain. I wish it were over.”
Angela did not trust herself to speak. She was so full of pain and despair that she thought if she spoke she would cry. He went out, saying: “Coming soon?” She nodded her head. When he was gone the storm burst and she broke into a blinding flood of tears. They were not only tears of sorrow, but of rage and helplessness. She went out on a little balcony which was there and cried alone, the night lights shining wistfully about. After the first storm she began to harden and dry up again, for helpless tears were foreign to her in a rage. She dried her eyes and became white-faced and desperate as before.
The dog, the scoundrel, the brute, the hound! she thought. How could she ever have loved him? How could she love him now? Oh, the horror of life, its injustice, its cruelty, its shame! That she should be dragged through the mire with a man like this. The pity of it! The shame! If this was art, death take it! And yet hate him as she might—hate this hellish man-trap who signed herself “Ashes of Roses”—she loved him, too. She could not help it. She knew she loved him. Oh, to be crossed by two fevers like this! Why might she not die? Why not die, right now?
Chapter 28
The hells of love are bitter and complete. There were days after that when she watched him, followed him down the pleasant lane from the house to the water’s edge, slipping out unceremoniously after he had gone not more than eight hundred feet. She watched the bridge at Riverwood at one and six, expecting that Eugene and his paramour might meet there. It just happened that Carlotta was compelled to leave town for ten days with her husband, and so Eugene was safe. On two occasions he went downtown—into the heart of the great city, anxious to get a breath of the old life that so fascinated him, and Angela followed him only to lose track of him quickly. He did nothing evil, however, merely walked, wondering what Miriam Finch and Christina Channing and Norma Whitmore were doing these days and what they were thinking of him in his long absence. Of all the people he had known, he had only seen Norma Whitmore once and that was not long after he returned to New York. He had given her a garbled explanation of his illness, stated that he was going to work now and proposed to come and see her. He did his best to avoid observation, however, for he dreaded explaining the reason of his non-productive condition. Miriam Finch was almost glad that he had failed, since he had treated her so badly. Christina Channing was in opera, as he quickly discovered, for he saw her name blazoned one day the following November in the newspapers. She was a star of whose talent great hopes were entertained, and was interested almost exclusively in her career. She was to sing in “Bohème” and “Rigoletto.”
Another thing, fortunate for Eugene at this time, was that he changed his work. There came to the shop one day an Irish foreman, Timothy Deegan, master of a score of “guineas,” as he called the Italian day laborers who worked for him, who took Eugene’s fancy greatly. He was of medium height, thick of body and neck, with a cheerful, healthy red face, a keen, twinkling gray eye, and stiff, closely cropped gray hair and mustache. He had come to lay the foundation for a small dynamo in the engine room at Speonk, which was to supply the plant with light in case of night work, and a car of his had been backed in, a tool car, full of boards, barrows, mortar boards, picks and shovels. Eugene was amused and astonished at his insistent, defiant attitude and the brisk manner in which he was handing out orders to his men.
“Come, Matt! Come, Jimmie! Get the shovels now! Get the picks!” he heard him shout. “Bring some sand here! Bring some stone! Where’s the cement now? Where’s the cement? Jasus Christ! I must have some cement. What arre ye all doing? Hurry now, hurry! Bring the cement.”
“Well, he knows how to give orders,” commented Eugene to Big John, who was standing near. “He certainly does,” replied the latter.
To himself Eugene observed, hearing only the calls at first, “the Irish brute.” Later he discovered a subtle twinkle in Deegan’s eyes as he stood brazenly in the door, looking defiantly about. There was no brutality in it, only self-confidence and a hearty Irish insistence on the necessity of the hour.
“Well, you’re a dandy!” commented Eugene boldly after a time, and laughed.
“Ha! ha! ha!” mocked Deegan in return. “If you had to work as harred as these men you wouldn’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing at them. I’m laughing at you,” explained Eugene.
“Laugh,” said Deegan. “Shure you’re as funny to me as I am to you.”
Eugene laughed again. The Irishman agreed with himself that there was humor in it. He laughed too. Eugene patted his big rough shoulder with his hands and they were friends immediately. It did not take Deegan long to find out from Big John why he was there and what he was doing.
“An arrtist!” he commented. “Shewer he’d better be outside than in. The loikes of him packin’ shavin’s and him laughin’ at me.”
Big John smiled.
“I believe he wants to get outside,” he said.
“Why don’t he come with me, then? He’d have a foine time workin’ with the guineas. Shewer ‘twould make a man av him—a few months of that”—and he pointed to Angelo Esposito shoveling clay.
Big John thought this worth reporting to Eugene. He did not think that he wanted to work with the guineas, but he might like to be with Deegan. Eugene saw his opportunity. He liked Deegan.
“Would you like to have an artist who’s looking for health come and work for you, Deegan?” Eugene asked genially. He thought Deegan might refuse, but it didn’t matter. It was worth the trial.
“Shewer!” replied the latter.
“Will I have to work with the Italians?”
“There’ll be plenty av work for ye to do without ever layin’ yer hand to pick or shovel unless ye want to. Shewer that’s no work fer a white man to do.”
“And what do you call them, Deegan? Aren’t they white?”
“Shewer they’re naat.”
“What are they, then? They’re not black.”
“Nagurs, of coorse.”
“But they’re not negroes.”
“Will, begad, they’re naat white. Any man kin tell that be lookin’ at thim.”
Eugene smiled. He understood at once the solid Irish temperament which could draw this hearty conclusion. There was no malice in it. Deegan did not underestimate these Italians. He liked his men, but they weren’t white. He didn’t know what they were exactly, but they weren’t white. He was standing over them a moment later shouting, “Up with it! Up with it! Down with it! Down with it!” as though his whole soul were intent on driving the last scrap of strength out of these poor underlings, when as a matter of fact they were not working very hard at all. His glance was roving about in a general way as he yelled and they paid little attention to him. Once in a while he would interpolate a “Come, Matt!” in a softer key—a key so soft that it was entirely out of keeping with his other voice. Eugene saw it all clearly. He understood Deegan.