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Book 1Nine
Sebastian had been away nine days, and Lucy began to wonder whether he would ever need her again. He had sent her a cheque, without any word, in a note written to Auerbach. It was much too large, and made her feel as if she were being paid off. She hadn`t cashed it; it lay in her top bureau drawer.
She had been very busy; had managed to get in four lessons with Auerbach, besides giving the usual time to her pupils, and she had practised resolutely. But her heart was not in it. Probably he had found a pianist who suited him better, or perhaps James Mockford felt well enough to take up his work again. That day at the studio, when Mockford was standing behind her holding her coat, she had happened to glance at the mirror over the table and caught a strange smile flickering over his face; as if he had a safe card up his sleeve.
On the tenth morning of Sebastian`s absence Lucy awoke late because the room was dark. It was storming outside, and there was a snowdrift on her floor beneath the open window. She put on her dressing-gown, swept up the snow with a whisk-broom and a newspaper, turned on the heat, and got back into bed to wait until the room was warm. As she lay there thinking of nothing in particular, she was startled by a knock on her door, and a boy`s voice called: "Western Union!"
When the rubber-caped boy was gone, Lucy stood looking at the yellow envelope before she tore it open. She felt sure that it was from Sebastian, and it happened to be the first telegram she had ever received in her life.
Hope you can be at the studio Thursday morning usual hour. Greetings.
Sebastian
Thursday; that was tomorrow. Lucy stuck the telegram in her mirror and hurriedly began to dress. She was thinking that years from now, when she would probably be teaching piano to the neighbours` children in Haverford, nothing would recall this part of her life so vividly, or make it seem so real, as that slip of paper.
When she went down to the bakery Mrs. Schneff greeted her with a broad smile. "You eat a good breakfast today, I expect? The telegraph boy come in here to inquire, but I see you ain`t got no bad news anyway."
No, Lucy told her, it was something pleasant.
"Dat`s good. Now you eat a good breakfast. I don`t like to see you git worried like." She wiped off a table with her apron, and spread a clean napkin over it.
A little later Lucy put on her high overshoes and hurried to the bank to cash her cheque. Then she went to a department store and bought a new dress for the studio, a pretty one, with a silk blouse and embroidered jacket. As she walked home, carrying her parcels with her, she stopped at a flower shop and got a bunch of violets.
She spent the afternoon putting her clothes and bureau drawers in order. At four o`clock she went over to Auerbach`s studio to give a lesson. When she came back, her room was almost dark; the air was fresh from the window she had left a little open, and full of the smell of violets. Like spring, it was, to one coming in out of the wintry streets. She sat down in the dusk before the grey square of window-glass to rest.
Yesterday she had been like someone waiting in a doctor`s office; it was not living, it was time passing. There was a strange heaviness under whatever she did, as if she had swallowed lead. Today everything was soft, tranquil. There was a kindness in the air one breathed. Everyone in the shops had seemed kind. Life ought always to be like this.
Presently, when even the square of window was dark, she lit the gas and sat down at the piano, beginning to play over some songs from Die schone Mullerin, which Sebastian had been practising before he left. She was thinking that he must be already on his way home, settled in his stateroom and rushing through the great snowy country up there . . . full of forests and lakes, she had heard tell.
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