Geraldine Bonner

“ He went slowly down the stairs, knowing his fate. As he passed the door of No. 15 it opened a little, and one of Lucilla's large and lambent blue eyes was applied to the crack. His appearance filled her with apprehensions, and when Freddie returned an hour later he found her silent and preoccupied.
A few nights after this there was a full moon. Claude, returning late from a night sitting, lingered on the steps of the third section, watching the moonlight glide down the walls. The shadows of the houses lay like silhouettes on the street, dense and inky in the thin, silvery radiance. ”

“ With the guilty trepidation of a pair of burglars, they opened the glass door and stole into the kitchen. Lucilla set the lamp on the stationary wash-tub, and by its pale light gazed about. In the small bare room, smelling of soap-suds, and with lines of pewter dish covers resting against the whitewashed walls, Mr. Judkins, in his neatly creased clothes, presented an incongruous appearance. His rigid face, lightened by an embarrassed smile, when his roving eyes encountered Lucilla's alarmed glance, proclaimed him uneasy and yet determined. ”

“ Bred in the severe life of the farther West, she knew the value of money, and her beautiful Claude, with seven thousand a year and a well-dressed, well-mannered husband, seemed to her the most natural and desirable dénoûement. Moreover, she felt Mr. Judkins's superiority. His clothes, so well cut, so fresh, so neatly creased, his reserved and dignified manners, his gleaming gold watch, given him by his grateful employers when he was a clerk, all impressed her deeply. He was not amusing, she had unwillingly admitted to Freddie one night. ”

“ He was good-looking, she could see that; and once, when driven to bay by Claude, who, sitting tailor fashion on the floor, had insisted on an answer as she played with the baby, had admitted that his eyes were the tenderest and deepest brown eyes in all the world.
"But one can't marry on eyes," observed the cunning Lucilla, holding off the button-hole she was making, and staring at it with her head on one side. At which Claude, with a furious exclamation, had flung out of the room with her chin in the air. ”

“ As if in answer to the sound, Claude rose and gathered up her hat and gloves.
"That's mother," she said, carelessly, extending her hand in farewell: "when she wants me to come up, she knocks on the floor; that means bedtime. We had to institute some such rule, because one night I staid down here so late that mother fell asleep with the door of No. 17 locked. I had to come down here, and go up in the dumb-waiter. You can't imagine how nicely I fitted in. Lucilla pulled me up. ”

“ A half-formulated idea of springing suddenly out upon Claude, like a jack-in-the-box, had been in his mind when he started, but now for the first time it occurred to him that Claude was probably in the front room, and though he jumped out with the suddenness and lightness of a panther, if there was nobody to see him it would be very flat. ”

“ No fear that Mr. Judkins would ever commit a gaucherie, ever wear his hat at an unpopular angle, or ever, under the most exhilarating circumstances, make a pun. In the Haworth he was regarded with respectful curiosity as a creature of another sphere, a gilded butterfly, a dazzling embodiment of the social code. It was with conscious pride that Mrs. Kelly presented him, and with a feeling of fluttered embarrassment that Lucilla welcomed beneath her humble roof so distinguished a guest. ”

“ Cold, nervous, and wakeful, she now retired. As she dropped off her slippers, the whistle shrieked again with startling suddenness. For a moment Lucilla stood irresolute, nervously pinching her underlip with a chill thumb and forefinger. Then, brave in her newly acquired knowledge of the janitor, the dumb-waiter, and the tubes, she stole, cautious and soft-footed, back to the kitchen. ”

“ She paused here, and Lucilla, with a melancholy premonition of what was coming, watched the rare faint color rise in her face.
"What you going to go away for?"
"What you going to go away for?" asked Lucilla, bluntly, feeling she was expected to say something.
"I'm not going far," came the answer, rather faintly; and she drew the baby to her, and began kissing its velvet neck under its ear. "I was going to ask you if you'd let the baby be the bridesmaid, and if you would be a proxy for Steve's family, because he hasn't got any." ”

“ What's the matter?"
"There's a man—a burglar—in the dumb-waiter. I heard him!"
"Mother! In the dumb-waiter? You must be crazy!"
"I heard him, I tell you. He told me to let him out. Oh, Claude, love, what shall we do? Let's call Mr. Adams."
This suggestion acted like an electric shock on the prisoner, who, in the excitement of the last few moments, forgot that Freddie was from home. Trying to make his voice ingratiating and jovial, he cried: "Don't be afraid; it's only me. It's nothing but a joke."
Another silence followed. Then the women whispered together, to Judkins's alarm. ”

“ The laughter of the waiting ice-man, to whom these remarks were audible, now became uncontrollable. Lucilla, fearful that the tenderness with which Freddie would console her would be also heard by these unhallowed ears, hurried to the dumb-waiter door, and without now considering the best form of address, cried, loudly: "That's all right. You will do. You may come every morning." ”

“ The maiden aunt would have been regarded as entirely mythical had not Mrs. Kelly, on one of those tours of visits to which she occasionally subjected the Haworth in the character of common mother, unwarily opened a door and come upon an aged lady darkling in the dim interior, who there was no reason for believing was not the illusive maiden aunt brought to bay. Mrs. Kelly, who in common with the rest of the Haworth had regarded Miss Merry's protectress as a fiction, shut the door in trepidation, and made no sign that she had discovered Miss Merry's cache. ”

“ With absorbed eyes he saw the color spread and glow, tint the gleaming roofs, turn to pink the scrap of sluggish river with its lazy sails, visible at the end of the street's narrowing vista, then creep warmly down the crowding walls, striking silver from the window-panes, and spots of sudden color from the scarlet geranium blossoms in the window-boxes, sinking gradually lower and lower into the chilly street. ”

“ Finally she said, nonchalantly, sauntering to the door of No. 17, "Well, good-by!" As the door opened and she went in, she called over her shoulder: "I hope you're getting on well with your work. Good-by!"
She walked slowly through the parlor, exchanging a greeting with her mother, strolled into her own room, humming an opéra bouffe air, softly closed the door, bolted it, threw herself on the bed, and burying her face on the pillow, sobbed till the bed shook. Morrill, after staring dully at the closed door, clattered down the stairs, sick at heart. ”

“ At the same time a suppressed but audible outburst of masculine laughter echoed sonorously up the shaft. Lucilla, emboldened by desperation, looked severely down through the crack, to perceive, leaning against the door-frame, half inside the shaft, a burly ice-man, his iron pincers dangling from his hand, and his bronzed face deeply creased with his irrepressible mirth. Lucilla felt that hesitation was loss of dignity. ”

“ Freddie stopped filling his pipe, and looked anxiously at his wife over a lighted match. "It depends a good deal what I'm whistling for," he answered. "When I'm whistling for a car and whistling for a dog, the results are different."
Lucilla, roused and blushing, explained; and once more the buttons and tubes were extricated from their tangle.
It was early the next morning; the faint, gray light was filtering down the well, and the rattling of an occasional cart echoed sonorously through the empty street, when a long, shrieking, windy sound broke the silence of No. 15. ”

“ Kelly protrude her underlip and raise her brows musingly, as she continued to gaze at the baby.
"She's a very healthy child," said Lucilla, feeling that this was a commonplace and vulgar recommendation, as opposed to that glittering assortment of ills which from babyhood had distinguished the young Kellys beyond their fellows. ”

“ There was the man with the erratic employment, who sometimes worked till twelve o'clock at night, and sometimes had nothing to do all day long. And then there was Morrill, whom they all knew slightly, liked very much, and pitied a little because he was the victim of an unfortunate ambition, was so poor, so unlucky, and had finally crowned his misfortunes by falling in love. Morrill and his loves interested the Haworth almost as much as Miss Merry and her aunt. ”

“ The intruder was silent for a space; then his youthful husky voice, distinctly exasperated and yet imploring, rose from the depths below: "Won't "yer pleze tell me how much milk yer want, and send down yer can?"
"Milk!" cried Lucilla, with sudden vivacity; and then added, confidingly and with the joyousness of dawning comprehension, "Oh, yes, milk!"
The curiosity of the visitor was aroused. He leaned forward and gazed up the shaft for a glimpse of his interlocutor. Then he said, slowly: "Yes, milk. It's a thing you drink. I'd 'vise yer never to take too much, 't might go to yer head. ”

“ That glance on the stairs had been followed by other glances of the same nature, which had confirmed her suspicions of Morrill, and Morrill was henceforward proscribed as a stumbling-block in her path. Lucilla was naturally trim and precise, and noted with a disapproving eye that the young man's cuffs were frayed, his coat worn on the seams, his trousers not unfrequently streaked with paint, and his brown beard untrimmed. She disapproved of his companions in No. 18, the man with the black hands being especially offensive to her nice sense. Then Morrill's manner was not fine enough for Claude. ”

“ Kelly paid her second call at No. 15. It was in the evening, and Lucilla and Freddie already had a visitor—Claude, in her old black dress. Claude and Lucilla, having the common bonds of youth and health and good looks, had formed a friendship. Miss Merry felt that she had been deprived of a lawful perquisite, when, called to her door by strange bumping sounds on the stairs, she beheld Claude and the janitor carrying Lucilla's sewing-machine up stairs. On her way to and from the studios the model frequently paused at the door of No. ”

“ Above all the keen, clear light made a luminous glow of the skylight. Claude almost held her breath as she crept upward, trying to step lightly with her tired feet, and listening to the eerie whisperings which fill a sleeping house. At length she reached the last landing, and gazing up at the shining skylight, noiselessly ascended the last flight. Gaining the top, she gave a long, quivering sigh of relief, then started back against the banister as she saw a man bending down fitting a key into the door of No. ”

“ She gave Judkins a coquettish glance, and bid the others good-night. At the door she turned, and, standing with a hand on either side of the doorway, said, with a bewitching smile which included the company: "I should love to have you all come and see me; and as we live under the roof and have no elevator, I can recommend the dumb-waiter. It's a little cramped for space, but it's much better than the stairs, and Lucilla—she's the elevator boy—can pull you up. Good-night," and she ran up the stairs laughing.
Lucilla's evenings became popular after this. Claude was a constant visitor, and Mr. ”