Joan Thursday: A Novel

"You betcha life you'll leave me. I knew that before you come into this room!"

"And I'm sorry I didn't go long ago – "

"The hell you are!" In a gust of uncontrollable frenzy, Quard struck her sharply over the mouth. "You go – d'you hear? – you damn' – "

In blind fury Joan flung herself upon him, sobbing, biting, scratching, kicking. He reeled back before that unexpected assault, then, sobered a trifle by its viciousness, caught her wrists, held her helpless for an instant, and threw her violently from him. She fell to her knees, lurched over on her side…

The door slammed: he was gone.

She knew the man too well not to know he would make instantly for the nearest bar; the only question was what guise intoxication would assume in him, this time. It was possible that he would drink himself raving mad and return fit for murder.

She must make her escape with all possible expedition…

Instantly Joan sat up, dried her eyes, convulsively swallowed her sobs, and felt of her bruised mouth.

Before her on the carpet the diamond ring winked sardonically in the sunset light.

She pondered savagely the wide and deep damnation it had wrought in her life.

It seemed impossible that only a few minutes had elapsed since she had entered this room, an affectionate, patient, and not unhappy wife. Now she sifted her heart and found in it not one grain of the love it had once held for Quard. This alone would have rendered irrevocable her decision to leave him.

The thing was over – settled – finished.

She gave a gesture of finality.

With all her heart she hoped that the sketch would go to the devil without her…

Rising, she went to the mirror, to stare incredulously at the face it presented for her inspection, a cruel caricature, lined, distorted, blowsy, stained with tears. At this vision, hysteria threatened again.

With a great effort she fought it down, and controlled and smoothed out the muscles of her face. Now she was more recognizable. Even her mouth was not seriously disfigured; he had struck with the flat of his hand only; her lips were sore and slightly but not markedly swollen. A veil would disguise them completely.

At the wash-stand she devoted some very valuable moments to sopping her face with cold water, and particularly her mouth and eyes. The treatment toned down the inflammation of weeping, rendered her flesh firm and cool once more, and left her with a feeling of spiritual refreshment, with nerves again under control and her will even more inalterably fixed than before.

Rouge and powder completed her rejuvenescence.

Turning to her trunk, she took out the tray – and paused with a low cry of consternation. From the tumbled and disordered state of its contents, it was plain that, having discovered the ring, Quard had searched diligently for further confirmation of his suspicions.

With quickening breath, the girl dropped to her knees and hastily but thoroughly ransacked and turned out upon the floor all her belongings. Within a brief period she satisfied herself of one appalling fact: Quard had not only insulted and struck her and cast her off – he had stooped to rob her. Her hands were tied: she had not money enough to leave him.

Probably, with the low cunning and fallacious reasoning of dipsomania, he had pouched her savings with that very thought in mind. Meaning to break with her, to have his scene and satisfy his lust for brutality, he had also planned to prevent Joan's leaving the cast of "The Lie" until a successor could be found and broken in. Penniless (he had argued) she would be obliged to play on, at least until Saturday, to earn her fare back East.

It was Quard's practice to carry his money in large bills folded in a belt of oiled silk which he wore buckled round his waist, beneath his underclothing – with a smaller fund for running expenses in a leather bill-fold more accessibly disposed. But Joan (finding a money-belt uncomfortable because of her corsets) had adopted the shiftless plan of secreting her savings in a pocket contrived for that purpose in an old underskirt. And since she had always held her husband rigidly to account for her individual fifty dollars per week, she had managed thus to set aside about three hundred dollars. Unfortunately, it had been their habit to carry duplicate keys to one another's luggage by way of provision against loss.

So that now she was left with less than twenty dollars in her pocket-book.

She paced the floor in wrathful meditation, pondering means and expedients. Once or twice she noticed the ring, but passed it several times before she paused, picked it up, and abstractedly placed it on her finger.

It did not once occur to her that she could raise money by hypothecating the jewel at a pawn-shop: by hook or crook she was determined to regain her own money. She was wondering what good it would do her to threaten Quard with arrest. Had a wife any right to her earnings, under the law?

After a time, she opened her handbag, found her personal bunch of keys, and unlocked her husband's trunk. Her pains, however, went for nothing; she investigated diligently every pocket of his clothing without discovering a piece of money of any description. But one thing she did find to make her thoughtful – Quard's revolver…

Removing this last, she relocked the trunk and rang for a bell-boy. Then she put the weapon on the bureau and covered it with her hat.

The youth who answered had an intelligent look. Joan appraised him narrowly before trusting him. She opened negotiations with a dollar tip.

"I want you to find my husband for me," she said. "If he's anywhere around the hotel, he'll probably be in the bar. But look everywhere, and then come and tell me. You needn't say anything to him. I just want to know where he is. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'm."

"You'd know him if you saw him – Mr. Quard, the actor?"

"Yes, ma'm."

"That's all. Hurry."

As soon as the boy was gone she turned again to her luggage, selecting indispensable garments and toilet articles and packing them in a suit-case. By the time a knock sounded again upon the door, she had the case strapped and locked.

"He ain't nowhere about the house, ma'm," the bell-boy reported. "He was in the bar a while, but he's went out."

Joan nodded, was dumb in thought.

"Do you want as I should go look for him, ma'am?"

"Can you leave the hotel?" Joan asked quickly.

"I'm just going off-duty now, ma'm; the night shift came on about ten minutes ago, at six o'clock."

"And you think you could possibly find him?"

"He took a cab, ma'm. The driver's stand is in front of the hotel. If I can find him, I can find where your husband went. Anyhow, it ain't hard to follow up a gentleman as – "

"As drunk!" Joan put in when the boy hesitated.

"Yes, ma'm."

Joan weighed the chance distrustfully; but it was at least a chance, and this was no time to be careful. Taking a five-dollar gold-piece from her scanty store, she gave it to the boy.

"Go find him," she said. "And if he seems to know what he's doing – just hang around until he doesn't: he won't keep you waiting long. Then bring him to me. But first take this suit-case down to the Union Ferry house, check it in the baggage-room, and give me the check when you bring him back. And – don't say anything to anybody."

"Yes, ma'm – no, ma'm."

Supperless, she sat down to wait, Quard's revolver ready to her hand.

Twilight waned; night fell; hours passed. Motionless and imperturbable, Joan waited on, the tensity of her mood betrayed only by the burning of her baleful, dangerous eyes.

At half-past nine a noise of scuffling feet, gruff voices and heavy breathing in the hallway, following the clash of an elevator gate, brought her to her feet. Going to the bureau, she opened a drawer and put the revolver away.

There would be no need of that, now.