U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [317]
"Eleanor Stoddard, you jump right up and come to Char-tres with us." After a while Eleanor's face appeared, cool and white and col ected, in the crack of the door above a stunning blue negligée.
" Eleanor, we've got just a' half an hour to catch the train for Chartres, the taxi has ful steam up outside and if you don't come we'l al regret it to our dying day."
"But I'm not dressed . . . it's so early."
"You look charming enough to go just as you are." Freddy pushed through the door and grabbed her in his arms. "Eleanor, you've got to come . . . I'm off for the Near East tomorrow night."
Eveline fol owed them into the salon. Passing the
half open door of the bedroom, she glanced in and found herself looking J.W. ful in the face. He was sitting bolt upright in the bed, wearing pyjamias with a bright blue stripe. His blue eyes looked straight through her. Some impulse made Eveline pul the door to. Eleanor noticed her gesture. "Thank you, darling," she said cool y, "it's so untidy in there."
"Oh, do come, Eleanor . . . after al you can't have forgotten old times the way hardhearted Hannah there seems to have," said Freddy in a cajoling whine.
"Let me think," said Eleanor, tapping her chin with
-320-the sharp pointed nail of a white forefinger, "I'l tel you what we'l do, darlings, you two go out on the poky old train as you're ready and I'l run out as soon as I'm dressed and cal up J.W. at the Cril on and see if he won't drive me out. Then we can al come back together. How's that?"
"That would be lovely, Eleanor dear," said Eveline in a singsong voice. "Splendid, oh, I knew you'd come . . . wel , we've got to be off. If we miss each other we'l be in front of the cathedral at noon . . . Is that al right?" Eveline went downstairs in a daze. Al the way out to Chartres Freddy was accusing her bitterly of being ab-sentminded and not liking her old friends any more. By the time they got to Chartres it was raining hard. They spent a gloomy day there. The stained glass that had been taken away for safety during the war hadn't been put back yet. The tal twelfthcentury saints had a wet, slimy look in the driving rain. Freddy said that the sight of the black virgin surrounded by candles in the crypt was worth al the trouble of the trip for him, but it wasn't for Eveline. Eleanor and J.W. didn't turn up; "Of course not in this rain," said Freddy. It was a kind of relief to Eveline to find that she'd caught cold and would have to go to bed as soon as she got home. Freddy took her to her door in a taxi but she wouldn't let him come up for fear he'd find Don there.
Don was there, and was very sympathetic about her
cold and tucked her in bed and made her a hot lemonade with cognac in it. He had his pockets ful of money, as held just sold some articles, and had gotten a job to go to Vienna for the Daily Herald of London. He was pul ing out as soon after May 1 as he could . . . "unless some-thing breaks here," he said impressively. He went away that evening to a hotel, thanking her for putting him up like a good comrade even if she didn't love him any more. The place felt empty after he'd gone. She almost wished
-321-she'd made him stay. She lay in bed feeling feverishly miserable, and final y went to sleep feeling sick and scared and lonely.
The morning of the first of May, Paul Johnson came
around before she was up. He was in civilian clothes and looked young and slender and nice and lighthaired and handsome. He said Don Stevens had gotten him al wrought up about what was going to happen what with the general strike and al that; he'd come to stick around if Eveline didn't mind. "I thought I'd better not be in uniform, so I borrowed this suit from a fel er," he said.
"I think I'l strike too," said Eveline. "I'm so sick of that Red Cross office I could scream."
"Gee, that ud be wonderful, Eveline. We can walk around and see the excitement. . . .