Although it had been twilight in the house, the sea and the ice heaped up on the beach were red in the sunset as Josie ran down the sloping street toward the studio. A remembrance had come to her, filling her with horror, of how Diego had once said that the rafters in the studio would be convenient to hang oneself from. He had got a rope and thrown it across one as though in preparation for such a deed, and she had paid his teasing the homage of screaming and pretended fright—just as he had expected. That had been a year ago. But might not the thought have remained in his mind? She felt that he was strange, unaccountable, beyond her understanding.
In the untrampled snow of the little side street one set of footprints was easily discovered. She followed them, placing her own feet in the pure blue-white depth of each. They led to the door of the studio. But none led away. She opened the door softly and went inside. There was a dead dark chill there, and she could see heel-marks of snow on the stairs. She called in a shrill, trembling voice:
“Diego! Are you up there?”
There was no answer. Terror seized her and she hurried out of the studio, closing the door behind her. She went through the snow to the beach and stared up at the windows. Two gulls were flying above the skylight crying and peering down at it as though to see what was inside. The waves made a crunching sound against the broken ice.
She ran up the steep street, not following the tracks now but ploughing through the snow to her knees. She ran along the main street to the drug store and presented herself before Bond, in his dark corner, with a blanched face.
“Come with me to the studio!” she said, trembling all over. “Diego has done something to himself in there!”
Bond switched on the light. He had dropped asleep over a book of travel. Now he blinked under the glare and his pale yellow hair looked white.
“What’s he done?”
“I don’t know. Something awful, I’m sure. He and Fay quarrelled and he burst out of the shop, looking black. I went into the studio and called, but he didn’t answer. There are some gulls flying over the skylight as if there was something queer inside.”
Bond got his hat, and they hurried together to the studio. She had come upon him so suddenly and so distractedly that she had him almost as frightened as herself.
The snow on the steep side street lay in violet shadow, but the ice-covered rocks below the studio shone with a brighter radiance. The sun had disappeared, but the western clouds still discovered his power and spread it on the sea and rocks, giving the impression of a newly created world. Bond and Josie, snow to the knees, went into the studio, she clutching his sleeve as they climbed the stairs.
Above it was almost dark except for a red splash of light that revealed a half-finished study in the nude. A gust of fresh air icier than the dead chill of the room below met them. As they cautiously advanced they saw that the skylight was open and above it hovered the gulls crying loudly, their wings reddened by the afterglow.
Bond struck a match with a hand that trembled a little—there was a genuine sense of horror in the room—and looked about. . . . Diego was lying on the couch with all the quilts and blankets Josie had carefully folded away, heaped on top of him. He was sound asleep. . . . They bent over him and heard his comfortable breathing, smelled the odour of moth balls from the blankets. . . .
“Well, if this isn’t the limit!” said Bond. “He ought to be horsewhipped!” He dragged the bed-clothes off him and shook him. “Wake up, you young scoundrel! I should think you’d be ashamed! You’ve got your mother and Josie almost scared to death!”
“Not me!” cried Josie angrily, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Fay was, poor thing! But not me! I knew it was just bluff!” Her fascinated eyes were fixed on his face, on his fingers, as he rubbed his heavy eyelids. She felt the warmth of him come out to her from under the heavy quilts.
“I don’t know what it was all about,” said Bond, with an unreasoning feeling of compassion for Diego, “but he might have caught his death of cold. I’d better send around a dose of something for him.”
Diego got up and began to manipulate the rope that controlled the skylight. It closed with a noise that sent the gulls off screaming.
“What were they after?” asked Bond, staring up.
“I opened it to let in the sun. Then I threw them some stale rolls that were here.” He shivered audibly. “I’d rather have them about me than women.”
“Nevertheless home’s the place for you, my boy,” said Bond, “and go straight to bed. Josie, you come with me and I’ll give you a dose for him.”
Again they climbed the snowy incline to the main street and separated there, Diego, bareheaded, going in a loose jog-trot toward the bakery.
“He’s a queer boy,” said Bond as they hurried along the deserted street, their steps crunching the packed snow.
“I hate Jimmie sometimes,” answered Josie in a husky voice. “He’s so damned inhuman. He’s just like a cruel glossy cat. He cares for no one but himself. He purrs when he gets what he wants, and when he doesn’t get what he wants he lopes off to some dark hole and hides!”
“Well, there’s nothing very cruel about that, is there?” commented Bond.
“Oh, you don’t understand. He’s got an overpowering sort of personality. . . . Then he and Fay had an awful scrap. They talked at the tops of their voices, and old Mrs. Bell was just coming in and saw the money lying all over the floor.”
“So it was about money!”
She answered only by a small suffocated sound, and when they were in the light of the drug store he saw that she was crying. He brought her something in a small glass.
“Here,” he said, his blue eyes kind, “drink this. It will steady you.”
But she turned her head away and would not touch it. She began to sob loudly. Bond took his father’s watch from his pocket and looked at it. Time to close—and safer too, with Josie in this state. He locked the door and led her to his own corner. He was really distressed. He tried to force her to take the brandy. But she would not touch it. She caught his arm in her hands and held it. Her face was hidden against his shoulder. Bond was amazed, for she had always been distant with him. He looked down at her and saw the lovely colour flushing her cheek. Gently he took the little red knitted hat from her head and stroked her fine hair comfortingly. “Now, Josie—now, Josie,” he repeated, as though soothing a child.
She raised her face to his. Her eyes were wet, her lips looked hot and were trembling from sobs.
“Kiss me,” she breathed. “Kiss me. . . .” Her hands left his arm and were clasped behind his neck.
He could not believe it possible he would be so moved. He held her to him and kissed her—not once, but again and again. They stood together then, locked in each other’s arms, silent and motionless. They heard someone come to the door, try it and go away, the footsteps crunching packed snow.
At last she gave a deep sigh and withdrew herself. She took her hat from his hand and pulled it on her head well over the eyes. She picked up the glass then and drank the brandy.
“Good girl,” he said. “You’ll feel better now.”
He turned away embarrassed and began to prepare something for Diego.
“I suppose you think I’m a queer girl,” she said.
“No. You were just feeling overwrought. It was quite natural for you to . . .”
“I just had to! I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t mean anything—particular——”
He agitated the mixture he was preparing. “I know. I just happened to be on the spot.”
“You needn’t think,”