The Gold Shoe

Chapter IAnastasia Endicott shivered and drew her velvet evening wrap closer about her shoulders, as she sat forward in the Pullman chair and tried to look through the snow-blotched window at her side. The train seemed to be crawling, like a baffled invalid that gained a few inches and then stopped to cough. It had been going on that way for an hour, and did not seem to be getting anywhere. It was outrageous, such service! A ride of only thirty-five miles taking all this time! What would her friends think of her? They would be waiting in their car at the station, and in such a storm! But surely the train must be almost there! She glanced down anxiously at the little trifle of platinum and diamonds on her wrist that stood for a time piece, and then out the baffling window again; but no friendly light outside illumined the blanket of snow that covered the glass, and she shivered again. How cold it was! She leaned down and touched the heat pipes that ran along under the window, and drew back with a shudder. They were cold as stone. The heat had gone out! How unpardonable in the railroad company to let a thing like that happen on such a cold stormy night! She leaned forward and summoned the official who was passing rapidly through the car, speaking in a tone of accusation as if the fault belonged to him personally. “Yes, Miss,” he said, “fire’s out. She’s broke. We’re trying to patch her up, but we can’t make much headway. Something wrong with her connections. This ain’t the only car is cold, Miss; the whole train is in the same fix.” She felt the lack of sympathy in his cold blue eyes as he started on again. She resented his suggestion that others were suffering. What had that to do with her? “When are we going to get to Stonington?” she asked sharply. “We’ve been an hour and a quarter already from the city and this train is scheduled to do it in fifty-five minutes.” “Not on a night like this, Miss,” said the brakeman. “Schedules ain’t in it. The snow plow is ahead of us, and it’s stuck in a drift high as a house. We got twelve men out there shoveling an’ the wind blowin’ forty knots a minute.” “But I’m going to a dance!” said the girl stupidly. “I shall be late!” Her voice was most impatient. “And I’m freezing!” she added and shivered again visibly. The brakeman grinned. “Better have yer dance in here then an’ keep warm!” he advised. “There’s a man in the next car goin’ to his dyin’ child!” His tone was significant, and he passed out of the car and slammed the door. She was alone in the parlor car. The only other occupant had gone out to help with the shoveling. She drew her velvets closer and shuddered back into the plush of the chair, drawing her feet up and tucking one under her to get it warm. Then she remembered her delicate dance frock and put it quickly down again. Dying child! What did he want to tell her that for? How horrid of him when he knew she was going to a dance. A dance and a dying child did not fit together. Oh, how cold it was! Why had she not brought her fur coat? But she had counted on driving back in the Lymans’ limousine with her friend Adrienne, and there were always plenty of fur robes in the Lymans’ car. She had not dreamed of being cold. She had come to the station in a taxi from her overheated home; there had been heat in the taxi. The parlor car was always warm enough in her experience and she felt ill-used that it had suddenly failed her. She was expecting to be met at her journey’s end by a heated limousine and conveyed to the country house some five miles from the station, where the dance was to be held. There really had been no need for a fur coat, for her evening wrap was lined with rich silk and warmly interlined. She glanced helplessly about her. She had no hand baggage save a delicate beaded bag containing her compact, handkerchief, and gloves. She had arrived home from a trip to Washington but that afternoon, to find awaiting her this invitation to a dance at a friend’s magnificent country estate; had telephoned her friend Adrienne Lyman who was also an invited guest and arranged to return with her, and her friends; had dressed hurriedly, been driven to this train just in time, and here she was! Shivering! Snow banks on every side! It began to occur to her that the return trip might not be so easy even in Adrienne’s big limousine. Why, if a great iron train on a railroad track found it difficult going, how could an automobile manage? But then, railroads were different of course. Railroads had drifts on them. They went out in the country through queer places where there were winds that blew a lot and made a very little snow seem much. Of course a track got clogged up sooner than just a road where cars were going back and forth all the time. And the road between Stonington and the city was a main highway, with a great deal of traffic. Of course there wouldn’t be any trouble in getting home. She took her delicate handkerchief and mopped away at the window pane, breathing on the glass, trying to melt the clogging feathers and see through to the storm, but everything seemed a blot of impenetrable whiteness. She settled back disconsolately into her cold chair and felt more like crying than she had since she was a child and broke her doll. To think that she, Tasha Endicott, should be caught in a fix like this! And then, just as she was in despair the brakeman came back through the car, slamming the door after him and stamping off snow from his feet. He gave her a familiar grin as he passed her, and lurched on out at the other end, slamming that door too. She felt a helpless fury rise within her. The impertinence! For a man like that to presume to grin at her in that leering triumphant way! He ought to be reported and discharged. She would tell her father about it. He should be discharged! She got up and tried to walk up and down the aisle, stamping her gold slippered feet impatiently, trying to bring back life into them. It would be awful if she got her feet frost bitten. How could she dance? It was very painful to have frost bitten feet! Then, without warning, the train gave a great lurch which sent her in a little rustling heap of rose color and gold in the aisle. Angry and dishevelled she arose quickly, for a sudden draft of air told her that someone had opened the door; and looking anxiously she saw the grinning brakeman with a lantern in his hand, standing in the open door, a twinkle of merriment in his eyes. More furious than ever she essayed to be seated, with dignity, but just at that instant the train gave another tremendous lurch that precipitated her into her chair in a hurry and completely robbed the act of all dignity. In fact one gold slipper flew off in the aisle and she had to catch herself with inglorious haste to keep from sliding back onto the floor again. She did not look up at the brakeman again, but when she had rescued and donned her slipper she felt that the door was closed and she was alone. Also, she realized that the train was moving once more slowly, creakingly, but steadily with a pause now and then, and a lurch, but moving. They had gone perhaps a hundred yards or more when the train slowed down and stopped with something of its old decision, and the door opened and the brakeman called out: “Stonington! Stoooooo-ning-toooon! All out for Stonington!” Tasha arose hastily, excitedly, and made her shaky way down the aisle. She seemed somehow weak in the knees, and trembling. Perhaps it was the fall, or her anger. She came to the platform, and the obnoxious brakeman with his lantern stood on the bottom step looking as if he meant to assist her. She stiffened and threw her shoulders back. “Is this really Stonington?” she asked sharply, trying to peer into the blear of blanket whiteness that constituted the air. It had not been snowing like this in town when she started. At least she had not noticed that it was so thick. “Yep!” answered the brakeman. “Jump, an’ I’ll put you over where the snow ain’t so deep.” Tasha drew back. “Where is the porter?” she asked haughtily. “Out shovelin’!” said the brakeman. “Better jump quick ef you wanta git off. We ain’t stoppin’ long!” Tasha advanced to the steps and looked down into the sea of whiteness, then drew back again: “Why, this is outrageous!” she said crisply. “The railroad company has no right to stop in a place like this. Where is the platform? I’d rather go to the other end of the car.” “Say, Miss, ef you don’t git off here you git carried to Elkins station. We’re only ’commodation this far, and then we’re ’xpress. You sure you wanta git off at Stonington?” “I certainly do!” she said freezingly. “But I want you to go and get the porter for me!” A snort from the engine and a slight lurch of the train broke upon the conversation. “Nothin’ doin’!” said the brakeman. “Either you git off ur you don’t!” He gave a quick glance around, peering beyond the station into the white darkness. “Say, Miss, is anyone meeting you? Because this station is closed for the night.” “There certainly is someone meeting me,” said Tasha, still haughtily. The brakeman cast another uncertain glance about, and saw a tiny spark of light wavering toward them several rods away. “Oh, all right then!” he said with a relieved tone, “here you go! We ain’t got any more time for fooling!” and to her horror he caught her in his burly arm like a bundle of baggage and swung her across the steps and far out over the billows of whiteness, setting her down under what seemed like a great shadow, in comparative shelter, where only a few of the stinging snow-flakes cut into her unprotected face, and bit her lips and her eyes. And then he was gone, clinging to the lower step of the car, his lantern swinging out into the white storm, signaling to some force in the impenetrable whiteness beyond. She saw him moving slowly away from her, leaving her in sudden awful loneliness. It had all happened so quickly that she had not realized. The chill of the snow on her silken ankles seemed to enfold her as if she were in the grasp of a new and awful power. She realized that she was standing almost knee deep in snow, and she tried to take a step out of it, but nowhere was there a shallower place to put her foot. In new horror she cried out and tried to run toward the train that was slipping past her now with its lighted windows, the very window where her breath a few minutes before had melted a black circle on the pane, was leering mockingly down upon her now like a bright eye, and her soul suddenly knew how safe and warm she had been inside and how fearfully perilous was her present position. She cried again and waved her arms toward the brakeman whose lantern was giving its final swing, as he jerked himself in out of the storm, but her voice was flung back upon the blanket stillness and frightened her the more. The tears were running down her cheeks and freezing as they fell, but she did not know it. She was stung to sudden panic and began to run after the train, but she fell in the first attempt and lay there helpless for a moment, her bare hands plunging elbow deep into the heavy snow, her face even going down into its smothering chill. Snow inside her flimsy inadequate garments, snow round her throat like icy fingers, snow in her eyes and her mouth and her hair, smothering, icy snow! One of her little gold slippers, the loose one that had come off before, came off again and was lost in the whiteness. The snow bit into the little gold silk foot that felt in vain for its covering. Tasha cried aloud and knew not what she said as she sobbed, but it seemed to come to her dimly through it all that there was no one by to help her and she must help herself. She had never had to help herself in any trying situation before, but now she must. There had always been servants, or persons whose business it was to care for her, close at hand, in any predicament before. Now she was alone! It was somebody’s fault of course that she was, and they should suffer for it when she got home, but now she must take care of herself. Home! Would she ever be home again? A fear gripped her! Snow killed people sometimes. They froze to death in it. Even now she could feel it would be easier to lie still and sink, sink, and forget it all. She was so cold! Oh, how her feet hurt! She wouldn’t be able to dance to-night! But that didn’t matter! Oh, why didn’t the chauffeur come after her? He must have seen her get off. Was he waiting around the other side of the station? She looked up and the dark shadow of a snow draped building loomed above her. She must get up and find that slipper. She must get around to the other side of the station quickly before the chauffeur decided she hadn’t come and went home without her. She must! She must! She called as she struggled to her feet: “Hello! Hello! I’m here! Wait! Wait! I’m coming!” But the wind caught her voice and flung it back into her own ears, and the snow flung a blanket over the echo too so that she knew she had not been heard. At last she got to her feet again, her poor insensate feet, and then with a mighty resolve, she clutched around in the snow with her bare hands until she came upon the little slipper. She drew it to her breast and hugged it with her bead purse as if it were something precious, and turned stumbling, cautious, moving slowly, with difficulty, toward the station till she almost fell against the stone wall, and her feet came unexpectedly upon shallower going. She stood for an instant to get her breath, leaning against the wall, and finding that the wind here did not swoop and search her quite so violently, as out by the tracks. Perhaps if she could get around to the other side it might be even more sheltered. Oh, why did they close stations in places like this! If she could only get inside the door! But when she reached the other side of the building and came unexpectedly in contact with a latch she found it would not open. She stood within the doorway, braced against it, one little gold slipper and her bead bag still pressed against her breast, one little icy foot drawn up against her cold cold knee. The other icy foot was trying to balance on a tiny gold spike of a heel, and one slender arm was frantically clutching the big bronze knob of the closed door for support as she tried to peer into the blank whiteness beyond. But nowhere could she see a sign of a car! It was all a level whiteness, earth and air and sky, all full of whirling whiteness, stinging and snatching and biting at her, and how long could she hold out? Suddenly out of the terrible white darkness before her a light danced, glared and danced away again, like a new menace. Was it the headlight of a car? It did not seem large enough for that and yet as she looked, there it was again, still larger, glaring into her eyes like some beast of prey. She shook off the new fear that took hold of her. Of course it was the car which was to have come for her, and she must make them know where she was. She lifted up her voice and shouted: “Here! Here! Here I am!” The wind flung her words down her throat. They could not get by the blanket that hung between her and all human kind. It was silly! It was nightmare! She must rouse herself and make them hear or they would go away again and leave her here all night. She doubted not she was in the first stages of freezing, else why could she not get her words across to that stupid chauffeur? She must! Down went the little cold gold chiffon-stockinged foot, into the feathery snow, almost comforted from the bitter cold above, and she caught her breath and called again: “Heee-rrrr!—” But she stopped suddenly as a tall dark figure loomed above her and one bright eye stared into her face, a great burning eye that seemed to be looking down into her very soul.