Madico

ALL HER LIFE MRS FOSTER had had an almost pathological fear of missing a train, a plane, a boat, or even a theatre curtain. In other respects, she was not a particularly nervous woman, but the mere thought of being late on occasions like these would throw her into such a state of nerves that she would begin to twitch. It was nothing much just a tiny vellicating muscle in the corner of the lefteye, like a secret wink but the annoying thing was that it refused to disappear until an hour or so after the train or plane or whatever it was had been safely caught.
It was really extraordinary how in certain people a simple apprehension about a thing like catching a train can grow into a serious obsession. At least half an hour before it was time to leave the house for the station, Mrs Fosterwould step out of the elevator all ready to go, with hat and coat and gloves, and then, being quite unable to sit down, she would flutter and fidget about from room to room until her husband, who must have been well aware of her state, finally emerged from his privacy and suggested in a cool dry voice that perhaps they had better get going now, had they not?
Mr Foster may possibly have had aright to be irritated by this foolishness of his wife's, but he could have had no excuse for increasing her misery by keeping her waiting unnecessarily. Mind you, it is by no means certain that this is what he did, yet whenever they were to go somewhere, his timing was so accurate just a minute or two late, you understand and his manner so bland that it was hard to believe he wasn't purposelyinflicting a nasty private little torture of his own on the unhappy lady. And one thing he must have known that she would never dare to call out and tell him to hurry. He had disciplined her too well for that. He must also have known that if he was prepared to wait even beyond the last moment of safety, he could drive her nearly into hysterics. On one or two special occasions in the later years oftheir married life, it seemed almost as though he had wanted to miss the train simply in order to intensify the poor woman's suffering.
Assuming (though one cannot be sure) that the husband was guilty, what made his attitude doubly unreasonable was the fact that, with the exception of this one small irrepressible foible, Mrs Foster was and always had been a good and loving wife. For over thirtyyears, she had served him loyally and well. There was no doubt about this. Even she, a very modest woman, was aware of it, and although she had for years refused to let herself believe that Mr Foster would ever consciously torment her, there had been times recently when she had caught herself beginning to wonder.
Mr Eugene Foster, who was nearly seventy years old lived with his wife in a largesixstorey house in New York City, on East Sixtysecond Street, and they had four servants. It was a gloomy place, and few people came to visit them. But on this particular morning in January, the house had come alive and there was a great deal of bustling about. One maid was distributing bundles of dust sheets to every room, while another was draping them over the furniture. The butler was bringing downsuitcases and putting them in the hall. The cook kept popping up from the kitchen to have a word with the butler, and Mrs Foster herself, in an oldfashioned fur coat and with a black hat on the top of her head, was flying from room to room and pretending to supervise these operations. Actually, she was thinking of nothing at all except that she was going to miss her plane if her husband didn'tcome out of his study soon and get ready.
'What time is it, Walker?' she said to the butler as she passed him.
'It's ten minutes past nine, Madam.'
'And has the car come?'
'Yes, Madam it's waiting. I'm just going to put the luggage in now.' 'It takes an hour to get to Idlewild' she said. `My plane leaves at eleven. I have to be there half an hour beforehand for the formalities. I shall be late....