Read Online The Parting Glass by Elisabeth Grace Foley - Free Book Online

 

The Parting Glass
     
    And all I’ve done for want of wit
    To memory now I can’t recall…
    “ The Parting Glass”
(traditional)
     
    It was afternoon, and the upper floor of the
Colonial Hotel was still. Mrs. Meade sat in a rocking-chair in the
square of sunlight that fell through her bedroom window, reading
and rocking gently back and forth.
    Mrs. Meade’s migration to the Colonial was
temporary, and had occurred on short notice. Two weeks before, her
landlady, Mrs. Henney, had received word that her sister in Boulder
was ill and required her presence. Mrs. Henney had no time to find
someone who could run her little boarding-house satisfactorily in
her absence, so she had decided to close it up, her ladies and
gentleman consenting to be thrown on the hospitality of other
establishments or friends for a week or two. Several of them had
seen Mrs. Henney off at the station, even more flustered and
near-hysterical than usual, laden with shawls, bonnet, carpetbag,
parcels, umbrella—everything, in fact, but a pair of snowshoes—and
finally, in a burst of tearful magnanimity as the train was about
to pull out, offering to refund their rent for the days they would
be in exile.
    Mrs. Meade had therefore taken up residence
at the Colonial Hotel, where she found much to interest her. Being
a woman who all her life had found enjoyment in observing and
interacting with people, she made the most of her opportunities for
such in the company of the summer boarders and travelers who
gathered around the dinner-tables at the Colonial. She had made
several new friends, her room was neat, clean and convenient, and
altogether her stay was less an exile than a pleasant
interlude.
    As Mrs. Meade turned over a page in her book,
the silence was broken by three light muffled taps, as though at
another door in the upstairs hallway. Mrs. Meade lifted her head
and listened for a moment, but there was no further sound, so she
dismissed it from her mind and returned her attention to her
reading. The only sound to be heard in the room was the faint hum
of insects from outdoors, and the blundering of one persistent fly
around the top of the window.
    Then suddenly there was an outburst of noises
from beyond the closed door—somewhere just across the hall the bang
of a door against a wall, a woman’s shriek, and a man’s loud angry
voice mixed with a series of confused bumps and thuds. Mrs. Meade
dropped her book and rose quickly. The whole floor of the hotel had
come alive in a moment, with the sounds of doors opening and
people’s footsteps and questioning voices in the corridors.
    There was already a knot of people in the
hallway when Mrs. Meade opened her door, but she was still able to
catch a distinct glimpse of what had caused the disturbance. The
door of the room immediately opposite hers was open, and in the
middle of the room a short, stocky, black-moustached man in an
overcoat had hold of the collar of a much taller young man, who
appeared somewhat dazed and confused, and was shaking and cuffing
him vigorously. Behind them on the edge of the bed, shrinking back
against the headboard as if she had been pushed or had stumbled and
fallen there, was a fair-haired young girl.
    “You young scoundrel!” exclaimed the stocky
man, with another indignant jerk. “You drunken young cuss, I’ll
learn you to insult a lady! Get along, there! Move!”
    He alternately pushed and dragged the young
man through the door into the hall, where he was immediately
assisted by the hands of several other people who had no idea what
they were helping with, but were no less eager to help than if they
had. The two of them were borne away down the hall in a crowd. In
the commotion Mrs. Meade slipped from her doorway and crossed into
the other room, where the girl leaning back limply at the head of
the bed seemed to have been almost forgotten.
    “Are you all right, my dear?” she asked,
bending to lay a hand on her shoulder.
    The girl looked up at her, and