Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI. THE TIGER IN HIS LAIR The next house to that of the French people was larger and more pretentious than theirs. It had more of a garden, there were two stories instead of one, and the roof was surmounted by a tiny tower.
The outside of the tiger's den was highly satisfactory, and Tilda Jane smiled in weary stoical humour. Now to find the particular corner in which the tiger himself abode. The house was dark, except for one feeble glimmer of light on the ground floor. She had rapped at the front door, she had rapped at the back door without getting any
response, and now she returned for the latter to see if perchance it had been left unfastened. It had, and lifting the latch cautiously she went in. She knew Mr. Dillson was an old man. She knew he was lame, and possibly he heard her, but could not come to her rescue. Passing through a small porch where she stumbled against some heaped-up pans, she turned the
first doorknob she touched in passing her hand along the dark wall. She found herself in a kitchen. The table in the middle of the floor, the chairs, the dresser, were all illuminated by a feeble dying glow in a small cooking stove, and by the beams of a candle struggling through an open door.
Poacher and Gippi crept after her as she proceeded slowly in the direction of this light. They felt that there was something mysterious afoot. Tilda Jane paused at the bedroom door. Here was the lair of the tiger, and there was the tiger himself, an old man with white
red eyes and a nightcap. A candle was on a shelf by the head of the bed, and a pair of crutches was within reaching distance, and the old man was lifting his head from the pillow in astonishment. Tilda Jane could not help laughing aloud in her relief. This was not a very dangerous-looking person.
He seemed more amazed than vexed, and she laughed again as she noted his clutch of the bedclothes and the queer poise of his white head. "'Scuse me, sir,' she said humbly, "'for coming this time a night, but I thought you'd like me to report first thing. I hope you've heard from your son I was coming.'
The old man said nothing. He was still open-mouthed and dumb, but something in his face assured Tilda Jane that he had heard. He had received some news of her apart from the telegram sent by Mr. Jack. "'I've had lots of experiences,' she said with a tired gesture.
"'I'll tell him some other time. I just wanted to announce my rival and tell you I'm going to wait on you good. I guess I'll go to bed, if you'll tell me where to get a candle and where I am to sleep.' He would tell her nothing. He simply lay and glared at her, and by no means disposed to seek a quarrel with him,
She made her way back to the kitchen, opened the stove door, and, lighting a piece of paper, searched the room until she found the closet where the candles were kept. The old man lay motionless in his bed. He heard her searching, heard the dogs pattering after her, and a violent perspiration broke out upon him.
Roth sometimes gave him unwonted fluency of speech. Tonight it rendered him speechless. He did not wish this beggar's brat to wait on him. Hank had not asked his permission to send her, had simply announced that she was coming. He was treated as if he were a baby, an idiot, and this was his own house.
Hank had nothing to do with it. He didn't care if Hank did pay her. He had money enough of his own to hire a housekeeper, but he didn't want one. He wanted to wait on himself. He hated to have women cluttering around, and he lay and perspired and inwardly raged
and obtained not one wink of sleep, while Tilda Jane, having obtained what she wished, peacefully composed herself to rest. First though, she calmly bade him good night, told him to holler if he wanted anything, and calling her dogs, went off in search of a bed for herself. Beyond the kitchen was a front hall, cold, dusty, and comfortless.
Upstairs were four rooms, two unfurnished, one having the appearance of a spare room left long unoccupied, the other smelling of tobacco, exceedingly untidy, littered with old clothes, fishing rods, bats, cartridges, shells, and other boyish and manly belongings. This must be Hank's room. Suddenly it had been occupied later than the other, and the bed would not be so damp.
She would sleep here, and she turned down the clothes. Good land, she murmured. I wonder how long since those blankets have been washed. And she turned them back again, and going to the other room, obtained two coverlets that she spread over herself after she lay down on the outside of the bed.
The dogs had already curled themselves up on a heap of clothes on the floor, and in a few minutes the three worn-out travellers were fast asleep. When Tilda Jane lifted her head from her very shady pillow the next morning, her ears were saluted by the gentle patter of rain. The atmosphere was milder.
A thaw had set in. She sprang up and went to the dogs who were still snoring in their corner. Wake up, she said, touching them with her foot. She started, but something in the expression of Poacher's eloquent eyes told her that, although he had been apparently sound asleep, he knew perfectly well what was going on about
him. Let's go and see Mr. Dilson, she exclaimed, and picking up Gippi she ran downstairs with Poacher at her heels. It ain't cold. It's just pleasant, she muttered, turning the key with difficulty in the front door
and throwing it open. Oh, how pretty! She clasped her hands in delight. Across the road was the deep hollow of the river. She was in one of a line of cottages following its bank, and across the river were fields
and hills, now a soft, hazy picture in the rain. But the sun would shine, fine days would come, what an ideal place for a home, and her heart swelled with thankfulness, and she forgot the cross-old man in the room behind her. The cross-old man would have given the world to have turned her out of his house at that very minute, but his night of sleeplessness and raging temper had given him a fierce headache,
a bad taste in his mouth, and such a helplessness of limbs that he could not turn in bed. Tilda Jane fortunately did not know that if he could have commanded his tongue he would have ordered her into the street, but she saw that there was something wrong with him, and as she stood in his doorway she said pityingly, I guess you're sick, I'll make you some breakfast, and she vanished in the direction of the wood
shed. He heard her chopping sticks, he heard the brisk snapping of the fire and the singing of the tea kettle, he heard her breaking eggs, two eggs when he never cooked more than one at a time. He opened his mouth to protest, but only gave utterance to a roar that brought Poacher,
who happened to be the only one in the kitchen, into his room to stare gravely and curiously at him. She made an omelette, she toasted bread, she steeped him a cup of tea, this slip of a girl, she had evidently been taught to cook, but he hated her nonetheless as she brought in a tray and set it beside his bed.
He would not touch the food, and he gave her a look from his angry eyes that sent her speedily from the room and made her close the door behind her. I guess he'd like to give me a crack with them crutches, she reflected soberly, I'd better keep out of his way till he's over it, reminds me of the matron's little spells. If she had been a petted darling from some loving home, she would have fled from the
cottage in dismay. As it was, although she suffered, it was not with the keenness of despair. All her life she had been on the defensive. Someone had always found fault with her, someone was always ready to punish her. Unstinted kindness would have melted her, but the anger always increased her natural
obstinacy. She had been sent here to take care of this old man, and she was going to do it. She was too unconventional and too ignorant to reflect that her protective attitude would have been better changed for a suppliant one in entering the old man's domain. However, if she had meekly begged the privilege of taking care of him, he would have sent
her away. And as she was given neither to hair splitting nor introspection, but rather to the practical concerns of life, she calmly proceeded with her task of tidying the house without reference to future possibilities. The kitchen was the first place to be attacked, and she carefully examined the stove.
It smoked a little. It needed cleaning. And girding on some old apron she found in the porch, she let the fire out and then brushed and rubbed and poked at the stove until it was almost as clean outside as it was inside. Her next proceeding was to take everything off the walls and wipe them down with a cloth-bedraped
broom. Then she moved all the dishes off the dresser, washed the chairs, and scrubbed the floor. Then, and not until then, that she re-opened the door into the old man's room. Now he could see what a clean kitchen she had and how merrily the fire was burning in the stove.
It was also twelve o'clock, and she must look about for something more to eat. Mr. Dilson had not touched his breakfast, so she ate it herself, made him fresh toast, a cup of tea, and a tiny meat hash, then went upstairs to tidy her bedroom. The hash was well seasoned, and the odor of onions greeted the old man's nostrils tantalizingly. He was really hungry now.
His wrath had burned down for the lack of fuel, and some power had come back to his limbs. He ate his dinner, got out of bed, dressed himself, and limped out to the kitchen. When he had dropped in his big rocking chair, he gazed around the room. The girl had done more in one morning than all the women he had ever employed had done
in three. Perhaps it would be economy to keep her. He was certainly growing more feeble, and a tear of self-pity stood in his eye. There she was now, coming from the French woman's house. She had been over there to borrow sheets, and a flash of impotent rage swept over him.
He tried to have no dealings with those foreigners. He hated them, and they hated him. This girl must go. He could not stand her. The back of his rocking chair was padded, and before he realized what was happening,
his state of fuming passed into one of sleepiness. He was off, soundly and unmistakingly announcing in plain terms, through throat and nose, to of the kitchen, that he was making up for lost time last night. When he opened his eyes, it was late afternoon, and Tilda Jane, sitting at a safe distance from him, was knitting an unfinished sock of his left by his dead wife some ten years
ago. He blinked at her in non-committal silence. She gave him one shrewd glance, with her toe pushed Gippi's recumbent body nearer her own chair, and went on with her work. If he wanted to hear her talk, he could ask questions.
The afternoon wore away, and evening came, when it grew quite dark, till Tilda Jane got up, lighted a lamp, put on the tea kettle, and with the slender materials at hand prepared a meal that she set before the uncommunicative old man. He ate it, rolling his eyes around the clean kitchen meanwhile, but not saying a word. Tilda Jane kept at a safe distance from him until he had finished and had limped into
bed. She then approached the table and ate a few morsels herself, muttering as she did so, I ain't hungry but I must eat enough to help me square up that poor old crossy. She was, however, too tired to enjoy her supper, and soon leaving it, she washed her dishes and went upstairs.
