The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1942-12-18
CHAPTER vi

The hours went by; chill daylight
came into the room. She got up
jaded and weary, bathed and
brushed her thick hair and somehow
was at breakfast with Emma as
usual at eight o'clock. Emma gave
her a sharp look as if she thought
that even last nights activities
should not have left such traces,
but she said nothing; both women
rustled the morning papers and
drank their coffee almost in silence.
The customary miracle of service
was going on in the house, was ac-
complished when Cherry walked
through the downstairs rooms at
noon after full, fire-warmed morn
ing in Mrs. Porter's apartment, the
ordinary procedure of letters and
compliments and telephone calls.
The great house had reassuned its
aspect of luxurious mausoleum.
Cherry felt stifled. She told Emma
she did not want any lunch; she
took long walk instead, for Mrs.
Porter, all cheerful restoration and
amazing vitality at breakfast, had
admitted in mid-morning that she
felt sleepy-not one bit tired, but
sleepy. So the machinery of the day
had been stopped. Cherry was free
until late in the afternoon.
She walked toward the Preside
and down its narrow eucalyptus
shaded paths to the cliffs, and SO
along by the bay shore. Right
across the bay, under the arch OF
the long red bridge, was Sausalito,
and somewhere there was Kelly's
studio, "Topcote."
Cherry sat down on a wall and
stared wistfully at the hills as if her
thoughts could cross the miles, and
somehow find him and somehow let
him know how eager she was to
make her apologies. "Topcote"
could easily be reached on long
afternoons walk; it would be but a
short half-dozen miles in all. Her
fancy began to play.
Some day-her next all-free day
she would start early and walk
straight across the bridge, and when
she reached the great ramps on the
Marin County side, she would ask
someone where Spanish Farm Road
was, and follow it to some gate or
fence that said, "Topcote."
Emma, quiet and stern-faced and
impersonal, had to concede herself
sufficiently like the rest of human
kind to succumb to a heavy chest
cold when changeable March wealth
err was vexing the city, and for a
few days the household was serious
ly alarmed about her. Her old en-
ployer was ill too, and a nurse who
had often cared for Mrs. Porter was
installed in the rooms of the mis-
tress; there was second nurse as
well to relieve the first.
For the little time that Mrs. Por-
ter needed diversion, her nurses
read to her or chatted with her and
Cherry formed the habit of spend
ing the early evening hours with
Emma, as Emma grew GONZALES
cent. Although the older woman
never acknowledged in words that
she liked her companion or missed
her or waited for her, Cherry grew
to enjoy these evenings, and sus-
pected that Emma did, too.
Emma was about fifty, but she
might have been any age between
thirty and seventy. Her face was
thin, narrow and marked by stern
ness and reserve. Her grazing hair
she wore coronet fashion in tight
braids in which never a hair was
awry.
A strange, cold, depressed wom-
an, Cherry used to think, as Emma,
belted into gray wrapper, sat back
painting against her pillows and at
tackled the days bills, menus, re-
ports. Cherry brought up a lamp
that illumined the ceiling and sent a
soft light down for the invalid's
eyes, brought up a glass bowl Of
crocus blossoms and set it on the
table, put Chinese plate of brown
bulbs in the sunshiny south window
where Emma could employ times of
languor in watching their almost
hourly change. And finally, shyly.
she brought Emma a tiny kitten, a
bundle of wet, wailing fur that she
had found by the Preside wall.
Emma laughed a short, scornful
laugh at this last contribution. She
never could stand cats, she said.
But Cherry, noting the confidence
with which the small stray, newly
warmed and fed, was advancing to-
ward Emma's languid hand. prom