A Day's Lodging Page #3

"A Day's Lodging" is a compelling short story by Jack London that explores themes of poverty, survival, and the human spirit. Set against the backdrop of a harsh winter, the narrative follows a destitute man who seeks shelter for the night. As he navigates the challenges of his circumstances, London delves into the stark realities of life on the fringes of society, highlighting both the resilience and vulnerability of his characters. The story captures the essence of human struggle and the small acts of kindness that can provide solace amidst adversity.

								

curiosity. There was a sort of scandal in faculty circles some two or
three years ago. The wife of one of the English professors--er, if you
will pardon me, Mrs. Haythorne--disappeared with some San Francisco
doctor, I understood, though his name does not just now come to my
lips. Do you remember the incident?"

Haythorne nodded his head. "Made quite a stir at the time. His name
was Womble--Graham Womble. He had a magnificent practice. I knew him
somewhat."

"Well, what I was trying to get at was what had become of them. I was
wondering if you had heard. They left no trace, hide nor hair."

"He covered his tracks cunningly." Haythorne cleared his throat. "There
was rumor that they went to the South Seas--were lost on a trading
schooner in a typhoon, or something like that."

"I never heard that," Messner said. "You remember the case, Mrs.
Haythorne?"

"Perfectly," she answered, in a voice the control of which was in
amazing contrast to the anger that blazed in the face she turned aside
so that Haythorne might not see.

The latter was again on the verge of asking his name, when Messner
remarked:

"This Dr. Womble, I've heard he was very handsome, and--er--quite a
success, so to say, with the ladies."

"Well, if he was, he finished himself off by that affair," Haythorne
grumbled.

"And the woman was a termagant--at least so I've been told. It was
generally accepted in Berkeley that she made life--er--not exactly
paradise for her husband."

"I never heard that," Haythorne rejoined. "In San Francisco the talk
was all the other way."

"Woman sort of a martyr, eh?--crucified on the cross of matrimony?"

The doctor nodded. Messner's gray eyes were mildly curious as he went
on:

"That was to be expected--two sides to the shield. Living in Berkeley I
only got the one side. She was a great deal in San Francisco, it seems."

"Some coffee, please," Haythorne said.

The woman refilled his mug, at the same time breaking into light
laughter.

"You're gossiping like a pair of beldames," she chided them.

"It's so interesting," Messner smiled at her, then returned to
the doctor. "The husband seems then to have had a not very savory
reputation in San Francisco?"

"On the contrary, he was a moral prig," Haythorne blurted out, with
apparently undue warmth. "He was a little scholastic shrimp without a
drop of red blood in his body."

"Did you know him?"

"Never laid eyes on him. I never knocked about in university circles."

"One side of the shield again," Messner said, with an air of weighing
the matter judicially. "While he did not amount to much, it is
true--that is, physically--I'd hardly say he was as bad as all that.
He did take an active interest in student athletics. And he had some
talent. He once wrote a Nativity play that brought him quite a bit of
local appreciation. I have heard, also, that he was slated for the head
of the English department, only the affair happened and he resigned and
went away. It quite broke his career, or so it seemed. At any rate, on
our side the shield, it was considered a knock-out blow to him. It was
thought he cared a great deal for his wife."

Haythorne, finishing his mug of coffee, grunted uninterestedly and
lighted his pipe.

"It was fortunate they had no children," Messner continued.

But Haythorne, with a glance at the stove, pulled on his cap and
mittens.

"I'm going out to get some wood," he said. "Then I can take off my
moccasins and be comfortable."

The door slammed behind him. For a long minute there was silence. The
man continued in the same position on the bed. The woman sat on the
grub-box, facing him.

"What are you going to do?" she asked abruptly.

Messner looked at her with lazy indecision. "What do you think I ought
to do? Nothing scenic, I hope. You see I am stiff and trail-sore, and
this bunk is so restful."

She gnawed her lower lip and fumed dumbly.

"But--" she began vehemently, then clenched her hands and stopped.

"I hope you don't want me to kill Mr.--er--Haythorne," he said gently,
almost pleadingly. "It would be most distressing, and, I assure you,
really it is unnecessary."

"But you must do something," she cried.

"On the contrary, it is quite conceivable that I do not have to do
anything."

"You would stay here?"

He nodded.

She glanced desperately around the cabin and at the bed unrolled on the
other bunk. "Night is coming on. You can't stop here. You can't! I tell
you, you simply can't!"

"Of course I can. I might remind you that I found this cabin first and
that you are my guests."

Again her eyes travelled around the room, and the terror in them leaped
up at sight of the other bunk.

"Then we'll have to go," she announced decisively.

"Impossible. You have a dry, hacking cough--the sort Mr.--er--Haythorne
so aptly described. You've already slightly chilled your lungs.
Besides, he is a physician and knows. He would never permit it."

"Then what are you going to do?" she demanded again, with a tense,
quiet utterance that boded an outbreak.

Messner regarded her in a way that was almost paternal, what of the
profundity of pity and patience with which he contrived to suffuse it.

"My dear Theresa, as I told you before, I don't know. I really haven't
thought about it."

"Oh! You drive me mad!" She sprang to her feet, wringing her hands in
impotent wrath. "You never used to be this way."

"I used to be all softness and gentleness," he nodded concurrence. "Was
that why you left me?"

"You are so different, so dreadfully calm. You frighten me. I feel you
have something terrible planned all the while. But whatever you do,
don't do anything rash. Don't get excited--"

"I don't get excited any more," he interrupted. "Not since you went
away."

"You have improved--remarkably," she retorted.

He smiled acknowledgment. "While I am thinking about what I shall do,
I'll tell you what you will have to do--tell Mr.--er--Haythorne who I
am. It may make our stay in this cabin more--may I say, sociable?"

"Why have you followed me into this frightful country?" she asked
irrelevantly.

"Don't think I came here looking for you, Theresa. Your vanity shall
not be tickled by any such misapprehension. Our meeting is wholly
fortuitous. I broke with the life academic and I had to go somewhere.
To be honest, I came into the Klondike because I thought it the place
you were least liable to be in."

There was a fumbling at the latch, then the door swung in and Haythorne
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