BOOK III
BREADCHAPTER I
The cat was crying to get in. Jeannette, deep in slumber, was irritated by persistent mewings. Every once in awhile the outside screen door at the back of the apartment shut with a small clap as the animal, sinking its claws into the wire mesh, tried to pull it open. The noise awoke Jeannette finally and she sat up with a start.
It was morning. Gray light filled the room. She peered at the alarm clock, blinking her eyes, and saw there were still twenty minutes before she had to get up. In the next room, the sound of a closing window announced that Beatrice Alexander was already astir.
“She’s put Mitzi out,” thought Jeannette, drawing the bed clothes over an exposed shoulder. “I wish she’d remember to leave the door ajar.”
Presently Beatrice’s steps passed in the hall and in another moment the annoyance ceased. Jeannette dropped gratefully back to sleep. But it seemed she had hardly lost consciousness when the whirring clock bell aroused her again. Though still drowsy, she immediately got up; she never permitted herself to remainin bed after the moment arrived for rising; indulgence of this kind was weakness of character, and she despised weakness in herself or in others. As she dressed, she heard Beatrice in the kitchen busy with breakfast preparations. From the window a glimpse of the street showed the sun’s first rays striking obliquely through the haze of early morning.
The apartment in Waverly Place had now been her home for seven years; she and Beatrice Alexander had taken it together a month after her mother’s death, and life for the two women as time rolled on had become undeviating in its routine. There was small variation in their days.
It was Beatrice’s business to prepare breakfast. She rose at seven; Jeannette half-an-hour later. The meal was always the same: fruit, boiled eggs, four pieces of toast, and a substitute for coffee,—cubes of a prepared vegetable material dissolved in hot water. Beatrice set the table daintily, with a small Japanese lunch cloth and a yellow bowl filled with bright red apples in its center. Knives, forks and spoons were nicely arranged and she never neglected to put tumblers of drinking water beside the triangularly folded, fringed napkins, and finger-bowls at each place with a bit of peel sliced from the bottoms of the grapefruits or oranges which began the breakfast. Beatrice was a fastidious person, Jeannette often thought gratefully; she liked “things nice.”
While her friend was busy in kitchen and dining-room, Jeannette dressed with her usual scrupulous carefulness. She gave but meager attention to household affairs; these were Beatrice’s province; it was Beatrice who did the ordering, paid the bills and managedthe small establishment. Jeannette’s companion was much like Alice and these duties came naturally to her. Besides, during the years Mrs. Sturgis and her daughter had lived together, it had been her mother who attended to such matters; Jeannette had grown accustomed to leaving household details to someone else. She took pains to explain this to Beatrice when they discussed the project of an apartment together and the latter had assured her it would be quite satisfactory. There had never been the slightest friction between the two women; Beatrice Alexander, with her soft, whispery voice and shy manner, was one of the sweetest-tempered persons in the world.
The years had dealt not unkindly with Jeannette. At forty-three, she was still a handsome woman,—no longer graceful and willowy, perhaps,—but erect, aggressive, substantial-looking. There was a solidarity about her now; her arms were big and round, her shoulders broad and plump, her bosom well-developed; she was thirty pounds heavier, and walked with a sturdy tread. There was gray in her hair, too, and a certain settled expression about her mouth that proclaimed middle age, but she was a fine looking woman with clear eyes and skin, an impressive carriage, and much that was commanding in poise. She dressed smartly and was always meticulously neat. Every morning she donned a fresh shirtwaist, crisply laundered. It was a matter of concern to her that this should set so snugly and correctly where it joined the plain dark tailored skirt that closely fitted her back, the effect should be of the skirt holding the blouse trimly in place. When she had completed her toilet, she was the embodiment of trigness and trimness, from herdark lusterless hair with its streaks of gray, which she now wore in a smooth sweep encircling her head like a bird’s unruffled wing, to her tan-booted feet in sheer brown silk stockings. She always had taken a great deal of pains in the matter of attire, and her hats, shoes and garments were of the latest approved styles and the best materials, and came from the most exclusive shops in New York. She still observed the strictest simplicity in the matter of clothes when she dressed for the office.
She surveyed herself now in the mirror with approval, and as she noted her fine tall figure, the breadth of her shoulders, the round, neat, firm waist line, her calm, strong face,—shrewd, capable, resourceful,—she could understand the awe and respect with which the girls in her department regarded her. A hint of a smile touched her resolute lips as she thought that to them she must appear a super-woman, a sort of queen, the fount of all wisdom, justice and power. She liked the idea.
She flung back the covers to let her bed air during the day, and righted the flagrant disorder in her room with a few effective movements. As she opened her closet door or bureau drawers, the scrupulous neatness of their contents pleased her; the row of dresses in the closet suggested the orderliness of a company of soldiers; her shoes and slippers, each pair equipped punctiliously with boot-trees, ranged themselves on a shelf in effective array, her lingerie was carefully be-ribboned, folded in piles, and a scent of sachet arose from its lacy whiteness.
As she busied herself she came upon a muss of face powder that had been spilled upon the glass top ofher bureau. A small sound of annoyance escaped her. She crossed the hall to the bathroom, returned with the moistened end of a soiled towel, resurrected from the laundry basket, and wiped up the offending litter vigorously.
About to quit the room she paused a moment with her hand on the door-knob for a final inspection, and turned back to make sure the lower bureau drawer was locked and that she had put the key in its hiding place under the rug; she raised the window an inch higher; a white thread on the floor attracted her eye and she picked it up with thumb and finger to deposit in the waste-basket before she joined Beatrice Alexander in the dining-room. A glance at her wrist watch assured her she was on time to the minute.
“Morning, Beat,” she said saluting her companion. “What was the matter with Mitzi this morning?”
“I let her out early; she was clawing the carpet and growling. She wouldn’t stop, so I just had to get up and put her out.”
“Strange,” commented Jeannette, eyeing the cat who blinked at her comfortably from beside an empty soup plate that had held her bread and milk. She began to talk baby talk to the pet:
“Mitzi-witzi! Yes, oo was,—oo went out to see a feller,—ess oo did....”
The two women sat down to the breakfast table together. Jeannette spread herWorldout before her; Beatrice propped theTimesagainst a water pitcher. They picked at their fruit, raised egg spoons to their lips delicately, broke off bits of toast and inserted them in their mouths, sipped their coffee with little fingers extended. Silence reigned except for thesmall noises of cup and spoon, and the crackle of newspapers.
“Idothink France ought to be more lenient with Germany,” Beatrice remarked at length, adjusting her eye-glasses.
“I’d make her pay to the last mark she’s got,” asserted Jeannette. She folded back her newspaper carefully to another page.
“They had quite an accident in the subway,” Beatrice observed.
“So I see.... Does seem to me the papers are awfully hard on the Interborough. I should think they ought to be permitted to charge an eight-cent fare; everything else is going up in price.”
“Do you suppose that Hennessy woman will get off?” asked Beatrice after an interval.
“Well, I’d like to see her.”
“Senator Knowles died, they think, from drinking whiskey that had wood alcohol in it.”
“Served him right. I wish they all would.”
At twenty minutes past eight, Jeannette put on her hat carefully before the mirror, drew about her shoulders her tipped fox scarf, jerked her hands vigorously into stout tan gloves, and proceeded down the two flights of stairs to the street. As she descended she noted with customary pleasure the effect of the cream-painted woodwork in the halls, the width of the stairs, and the flood of light from the skylight above the stair-well which effectively illuminated the interior of the house. She and Beatrice had indeed been fortunate infinding a home in such a pleasant, well-arranged building. It was the same apartment Miss Holland and Mrs. O’Brien had occupied for so many years, until the latter married again, and the former went to live with her nephew, Jerry,—who was a Commander now, had a wife and babies, and was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The trend of Jeannette’s thoughts reminded her she had not been to see Miss Holland for nearly two months; she resolved upon a visit in the immediate future.
The street was filled with morning sunshine as Jeannette stepped out upon the stone flagging of the lower hall, closed the inner door behind her, and felt in her purse with gloved fingers for the key to the mail-box.
She found two letters for herself: one from Alice saying that Etta was going to town on Saturday, would love to lunch with Aunt Jeannette and be eternally grateful to her if she’d help her pick out the dress; the other was a circular from Wanamaker’s. It was the latter rather than the former communication that started the train of thought which occupied Jeannette’s mind as she firmly stepped along the Avenue. Her walk to the office took twenty-three minutes and as she passed Fourteenth Street she noted by a clock in front of a jeweller’s store that she was a minute ahead of time. The Wanamaker circular set forth the advantages of a sale of women’s suits, yet it was not the attractive prices nor the smart models that occasioned Jeannette’s thoughts. The envelope containing the circular was addressed to “Mrs. Martin Devlin.” No one called her by that name any more. When she went back to work as Mr. Corey’s secretary, she had been welcomed as “Miss Sturgis.” “MissSturgis” had meant something in the affairs of the Chandler B. Corey Company; no significance was attached to “Mrs. Devlin.” It seemed wiser to drop her married name,—and after the break with Martin, she had no desire to keep it.
Odd to have been a man’s wife, to have belonged to someone! It would be hard to think of herself as a “Mrs.” again, to call herself “Mrs. Martin Devlin.” How many years ago had it been? Fifteen? Sixteen? Something like that. Had there really ever been an interval of four years in her life when she had been a married woman? It seemed to her she had always been part of the Chandler B. Corey Company,—or the Corey Publishing Company as it now was called,—part of it without a break since those days of long ago when it had occupied three floors in a clumsy old office building and had looked out, with Schirmer’s Music Store and Tiffany’s, upon Union Square. What a slim, tall, ignorant, ill-equipped young thing she had been that day she went eagerly to meet Roy at the office and had watched Miss Reubens looking at photographs in the reception room! Jeannette smiled now at the memory of herself. It strained the imagination to believe that the present Miss Sturgis of the Mail Order Department had been that awkward girl so long ago.
The years—the years! The changes they had wrought! Jeannette thought of her last painful interview with Martin and the shadow of a frown came to her brow. She had gone over every detail of it a million times. It had indeed been harrowing. Poor Martin! He had pleaded so hard for her to come back to him, he had offered to do anything she wanted, butit was too late then; she couldn’t make him see it. She reminded him again and again that he had talked just the same way when he begged her to marry him; she had doubtfully agreed then, had consented to give their union a trial, and it had turned out a failure,—a hopeless failure. No, she didn’t blame him; she told him so over and over and admitted it was as much her fault as his; she was no more fitted to be a wife than he a husband; many people were constituted that way; they weren’t suited to married life. She pointed out to him that unless a marriage was happy, it was a mistake, and neither he nor she had been happy as man and wife. Why, she had never been for one minute as happy married to Martin Devlin as she had been since she became her own mistress again! She loved her independence, she told him, too much to surrender it to any man. And he? Well, it had been clearly demonstrated that he liked the society of men and enjoyed outdoor sports more than he did being a husband. She tried hard not to reproach him, had even said she saw no reason why they, two, could not go on being friends, occasionally seeing one another, but at that point Martin got angry,—a sort of madness seemed to take hold of him and he had said all sorts of terrible things to her, even called her names,—unforgettable ones. It had ended in a dreadful scene, a terrible scene,—dreadful and terrible because in spite of the fury and bitterness that gripped them, they knew love still remained. Jeannette would never forget the storm of tears, the abject grief that had come to her at their parting. Love Martin though she did, she realized she loved her re-won independence more, and she would not,—couldnot return to him. Mr. Coreyhad taken her in; she had promised to work for him for a while at least, and it was utterly impossible for her to tell him, after he had discharged his other secretary, that she was going back to her husband again. If Martin had only given her a year or two she might have been willing to be his wife once more, and she had told him as much, but Martin refused to listen; he had thrown down his challenge and forced her then and there to choose between her job and himself. There was nothing else for her to do; she had made her decision, and Martin had gone his way. She had never regretted it, she said to herself now; she was far better off to-day, far happier and more contented than she ever would have been as Mrs. Martin Devlin. As his wife she would have had ties and known sickness; she and he would have quarrelled and there would have been everlasting recriminations; she would have lost her looks, and her clothes would have become shabby; she would have grown familiar with poverty and have had to fight for herself and family the way Alice did,—poor, deserving, hard-working Alice, with her five children and unsuccessful husband! No doubt she, Jeannette, had missed much in life, but hers had been the safe course, the prudent and sure one. She was now in charge of the Mail Order Department of the Corey Publishing Company, she was earning fifty dollars a week, had five Liberty bonds all paid for, and was beholden to no one.... Of Martin she had not heard for years. On a visit to Alice at Cohasset Beach, she had one Sunday encountered ’Stel Teschemacher and that lady had informed her that Zeb Kline, while on a brief visit to Philadelphia, had seen Martin, and Martin had an agency for a motor-car there and wasdoing quite well. Jeannette would have liked to hear more, but she did not care to have ’Stel Teschemacher suspect she was interested.
It was ’Stel’s husband who sold the Beardsleys their home at Cohasset Beach. The purchase had followed the death of Roy’s father and the return of Roy and his family to New York. Dr. Beardsley had not lived long enough to make a writer’s career for his son possible. His death had sadly broken up the small home in Mill Valley, and Roy and Alice had deemed it wiser to put the little money the clergyman left them into a home of their own than spend it in paying rent, butchers’ and grocers’ bills on the chance that Roy’s pen might some day earn a livelihood sufficient for their needs. He had been only moderately successful as an author. His dog story had been published and he had placed several short stories but these had been few and far between and then little Frank had come to add his chubby countenance to the family circle and his parents decided a writer’s career was too precarious for a man with a family. A job on a newspaper or magazine would insure a steady income. So with grief over their bereavement and disappointment in their hearts for the abandoned profession, Roy and his wife returned to New York and then in quick succession had come the finding of his position on theQuart-z-Arts Reviewwhich carried with it a moderate salary, the purchase of the house at Cohasset Beach, and in time the arrival of the small Jeannette,—’Nettie she was called to distinguish her from her aunt,—and Baby Roy, who was seven years old now and had recently asserted his manhood by resenting the identifying adjective by which he had been knownsince birth. Jeannette paused a moment in her retrospective thoughts to calculate: Twenty-two years! Yes,—Alice and Roy had been married twenty-two years! They were an old married couple now.
She realized abruptly she had reached the office. Men and women, up and down the street, were converging in their courses toward the doors of the publishing company. The great concrete block of eight stories, crowded now to the limit of its capacity, with the thundering presses on the lower floors, had often seemed to her a monster that sucked in through its tiny mouth each morning a small army of workers, mulled them about all day between its ruminating jaws, fed on their juices and spewed them forth at evening to go their ways and gather new strength during the night to feed its hungry maw again upon the morrow.
Though the picture was grim and repellent, she cherished no hostility toward the institution that employed her. With the exception of the four-year interlude of adventuring in matrimony, she had been an employee of the self-same concern since she was eighteen; for nearly twenty years her name had appeared upon its pay-roll; in November she could make that very boast. More than any building in the world this block of steel and concrete was bound up with her destiny; she had spent most of the days of her life within it; she had seen its beginnings, had watched it spring into being, had had a hand in altering and adapting it to the needs of business, had observed its almost barren floors slowly fill year after year withhuman activity until now the use of every square foot of space was a matter of debate; she was one of the half dozen still gleaning a livelihood within its walls to-day who could speak of a time before its existence had even been conceived.
Most of those early associates on Union Square were gone now,—dead or following other lines of endeavor. Old Kipps still pottered about in the manufacturing department, Mr. Cavendish white-haired, gray-moustached and rosy, still editedCorey’s Commentary; Miss Travers, her merry face now lined with many criss-crossed wrinkles, had succeeded Mr. Olmstead and while not accorded the title of Auditor, which he had enjoyed, was known as the Cashier. Then there was Sidney Frank Allister, who, while he did not date back to the Union Square days, was still to be reckoned among those early associated with the fortunes of the publishing company, and now very much identified with them since he had become President and sat in the seat of Chandler B. Corey.
For Mr. Corey was dead. He had died the year Jeannette lost her mother and had followed his son, Willis, to the grave after a few months. Mrs. Corey had left him a widower many years before. There remained only his daughter, Babs, in an Adirondack sanitarium for the insane, to inherit his wealth and fifty-one per cent of the stock of the business he had created. He died a rich man and his will provided that his worldly possessions should be divided equally between his two children, their heirs and assigns, and of these last there were none, for Willis had never married and Babs could not. Jeannette often used to muse upon the futility of human ambition when shethought of the man she had served so long as secretary. She knew it had been the great desire of his life to found a publishing house that should become identified with the growth of American literature and pass on down the years in the hands of the Corey family, father and son succeeding one another after the fashion of some of the great English houses.
One day while sitting in his office intent upon affairs of business, his head dropped forward and banged on the hard surface of his desk before him, and he was dead. His heart had suddenly grown tired of its work. Even before he was laid away at Woodlawn, there had begun the mad scramble for the control of stock which would elect his successor. Jeannette never learned how Mr. Allister succeeded in obtaining it, but Mr. Featherstone had shortly been eliminated entirely from the affairs of the company and it was whispered that Mr. Kipps had played a double game. However that may have been, Sidney Frank Allister was by far the best man to fill Corey’s place, in Jeannette’s opinion. He was not so shrewd nor so far-seeing, but he had certain literary qualifications which fitted him for the position. Mr. Featherstone, Jeannette had early come to regard as a blustering blow-hard, while Mr. Kipps was hardly grammatical in speech or in letters, and had grown into a fussy old man. Francis Holm or Walt Chase might have proven themselves even better material, but three years prior to Mr. Corey’s death, both these young men had broken away from the old organization; Holm had launched forth into the publishing business for himself, and Walt Chase had gone to Sears, Roebuck & Co. in Chicago at a salary, it was rumored,of ten thousand a year, and Jeannette had succeeded him as head of the Mail Order Department.
Much as she had enjoyed being secretary to Mr. Corey, she was forced to realize as the years rolled by, that the position held no future for her. She would always be the president’s secretary as long as Mr. Corey lived but against the congenial work and easy rôle her ambition had protested. Recollections of early resolutions she had made on entering the business world returned to disturb her complacency. She remembered vowing then she would go to the very top and some day become herself an executive instead of a secretary. She saw no reason why she should not follow in Walt Chase’s footsteps and be worth ten thousand a year, if not to the Corey Company then to some other. She had great confidence in herself, felt especially qualified to do mail order work, and was sure she could increase sales and manage the department better than Walt Chase. It was a pet idea of hers that women, not men, bought books by mail, and she was confident that attacks directed at women, written from a feminine standpoint, would show results. When the offer from Chicago came and Chase announced he was going, she determined suddenly to seize the opportunity and asked Mr. Corey for Chase’s place; she had played secretary long enough, she told him,—she wanted her chance at bigger work.
There had been a great deal of demurring and discussion before she was allowed to try her hand. Mr. Kipps and Mr. Featherstone had vigorously opposed the plan, arguing that while Miss Sturgis had proven herself an incomparable secretary, there was no indication she would be equally successful in charge ofthe Mail Order Department. Walt Chase had built up a steady sale for the company’s publications, and had been, doing many thousands of dollars’ worth of business a year. Mr. Kipps and Mr. Featherstone shared the opinion that a woman was not competent to manage affairs involving so much money,—they were too large for the feminine mind to grasp. They contended, too, that she had had no experience in mail order affairs, and that a young man, named Owens, who had been Chase’s assistant for over a year, was his logical successor, and had been led to expect the promotion; it was doubtful, they said, whether he and Mr. Sparks, and old Mr. Harris and the one or two other men who had been under Walt Chase would consent to remain if a woman was placed in charge of them; this particular branch of the business had become exceedingly profitable and it was pointed out to Mr. Corey that he was in great danger of demoralizing it by permitting a girl to assume its management.
Jeannette had stood firm and resolutely pressed her request in the face of opposition which she considered stupid and which angered her. Mr. Corey finally agreed to give her a trial although it was clear he had his misgivings. But during the nine years in which Jeannette had filled the coveted position, she had amply demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction her faith in herself to be warranted, and this in spite of the fact that Owens and Sparks had promptly resigned as predicted by Mr. Featherstone and Mr. Kipps, and for a time the work had been demoralized indeed.
Yet she triumphed, as she knew she would, and the ideas she had long cherished for conducting mail order campaigns had borne fruit. Last year she had thesatisfaction of stating in her annual report that the business of her department had doubled in size since she had taken it in charge. It had been a long struggle fraught with interference and constant criticism of her methods. It had been particularly hard at first when Mr. Kipps supervised everything she did and vetoed some of her pet projects. He had hampered her in every way he could, not because he had any personal feeling against her but because she was a woman and he had no faith in a woman’s judgment. That was the way he had always treated Miss Holland; but now since Miss Holland had resigned and gone to live with her nephew in Brooklyn, he was willing at any minute to wax eloquent in praise of her extraordinary ability: ah, yes,—yes, indeed,—Miss Holland was a remarkable woman,—fitted in every way for business,—brain like a man’s,—wonderfully clear-sighted, excellent judgment; they didn’t “make” many women like Miss Holland,—she was the exception, one in a million!
Jeannette had to contend against such prejudice for the first year or two, but eventually she overcame it. Mr. Corey helped her whenever possible. She strove to keep the affairs of her department to herself and when forced to seek higher authority, made a practice of going directly to the President who had been the first to be convinced of her ability. As time went on, Kipps and the other members of the firm inclined to question her gradually allowed her to go her way. It had taken nearly a decade to win their confidence but there was satisfaction in the thought that at last it was hers, the victory was complete. Of course old Mr. Kipps would always purse his lips and frown dubiously aboutanything she proposed for he would never be completely convinced of her ability until she followed in Miss Holland’s footsteps, but Kipps was stooped and aged now and little attention was paid to what he said or did. The Board of Directors was satisfied with the generalship of Miss Sturgis whose monthly reports of sales and profits confirmed their confidence. When some other department reported a loss, or when business in general was poor, the Mail Order Department could be depended upon to show a consoling profit.
One section of the sixth floor was Jeannette’s domain. She had tried for years to have her department walled off by partitions but the best she had been able to obtain for herself and her girls was a line of screens and bookcases. She had twenty-four clerks under her now, although the number fluctuated, particularly during October when the fall campaign was in progress. Then her force often swelled to over a hundred and the extra help was quartered temporarily in neighboring vacant lofts and offices, rented for a few weeks. She then had her lieutenants to superintend the work, which for the most part consisted merely of folding and inserting circulars in envelopes, sealing and stamping.
Her department was well organized; the work had been so systematized that it now moved with perfect smoothness. Old Sam Harris,—who represented all that was left of Walt Chase’s régime,—supervised the card catalogues; Miss Stenicke was in charge of the girls; the “inquiries” were checked and answered byMrs. M’Ardle, while orders were entered and forwarded to the stock room for filling by little Miss Lacy. Jeannette devoted herself to the preparation of copy for letters, circulars and advertisement. This was the most important part of the work, and she believed her time and brains could not be better employed. She kept huge scrap-books in which she pasted circulars and letters issued by other mail order houses and spent hours poring over them.
Her desk stood on a low platform and from this vantage-point she could overlook her department as a school teacher surveys her schoolroom. She prided herself she could tell at a glance what any particular girl ought to be doing; if ever in doubt she promptly summoned Mrs. M’Ardle to her desk and inquired. All the girls respected and admired her; they knew her to be fair-dealing and straightforward, though swift in censure where merited. She liked to have them think of her in this way and cultivated the idea.
“You’re conscientious and you try hard,” she would say in admonishing some unfortunate bungler. “I want to be just to you. In conducting the affairs of this department, I want to be as lenient as I can. I strive to forget personalities and think only of my assistants,—or perhaps I had better say ‘associates,’—as co-helpers in a big machine, each one functioning to the best of her ability at her particular piece of work. I’ve explained my ideas to Mr. Allister repeatedly. I want the girls in the Mail Order Departmentto be every one her own boss, to come and go as she pleases, and feel responsible—not to me but to the work.... I want to be a ‘big sister’ to every girl under me. I’m placed here to help, advise and direct, not to scold. But if you fail to perform properly the work assigned you, if you’re clumsy and careless and haphazard in your methods, then it is my duty to call the fact to your attention.... I want to be fair to everyone; I have no favorites....”
The lecture might continue at some length particularly if Miss Stenicke, Mrs. M’Ardle or little Miss Lacy was within earshot.
For a long time this Mail Order branch of the business of which she was the head had called forth Jeannette’s great pride. She had felt it was all hers,—her work. But of late, she had been stirred less and less. After all what had been accomplished? For nearly ten years she had bent her energies to making this phase of the activities of the Corey Publishing Company aboundingly successful. There no longer remained any question as to whether or not she had achieved her purpose. A year or two ago a recalcitrant spirit among her girls had immediately aroused in her a determination to break it; the discovery of an error at once had challenged her to trace it to its source; the questioning of her authority or trespassing upon her prerogatives had stirred her upon the instant to battle. One of the keenest pleasures of her days had been to draft laws that should govern her girls and to see that these were enforced. She had begun to detect in herself within the last year or two an increasing indifference to all such things,—she did not care as she once had cared. She was no longerhampered or troubled by those “downstairs”; her assistants and her girls gave her small occasion for supervision; the work of the department ran on well-oiled wheels. With opposition eliminated, the task of organization perfected, the maximum volume of business attained, there remained nothing to fire her spirit or brain, to stimulate fresh effort. And she was distressed by a suspicion that more and more persistently obtruded itself upon her consciousness that perhaps she was getting old, that the indifference to what went on about her and to her work was merely a sign of approaching age!
She rebelled at the idea; she put it from her vigorously; she refused to entertain it. Why, she was only forty-three! She was in the heyday of her powers. Her judgment, her mind, her capacities were never so keen as now. She was equal to far more exacting, more difficult work. Disturbed by this fear, she decided to look about her for fresh fields of endeavor. There was no higher position in the Corey Publishing Company open to her; more important places were all filled by members of the firm, and it was not likely that any one of them would step aside and give her a chance at his work. No,—though proud of her long years of service and her record with the publishing company,—she decided that neither was of sufficient importance to keep her indefinitely on its pay-roll until she was ready to follow in Miss Holland’s footsteps. She let it be known in mail order circles that she was looking for a job.
Of Walt Chase she continued to think enviously. She had heard he was now one of the big men in Sears, Roebuck & Company, a fact that exasperated her,because she felt herself to be cleverer than he, more able in every respect. He was getting ten thousand—twelve thousand—fifteen thousand,—whatever it was,—a year and climbing the ladder of success rung after rung, while she was doing the work he had left behind him at the Corey Publishing Company in a far more efficient, economical, and profitable way and was being paid fifty dollars a week!
One day she learned of a vacancy in the American Suit & Cloak Company, where they were looking for someone familiar with mail order work. She wrote and applied for the position. A conference with the General Manager followed. It developed he was in search of a man,—a woman, it was feared, was not qualified to do the work,—but the Manager admitted he knew Miss Sturgis by reputation and would be glad to make a place for her in his organization if she was dissatisfied where she was,—and he could promise her,—well, he could pay her thirty-five dollars a week. Jeannette declined and eased her mind by writing a coldly worded letter of thanks and regret; the General Manager of the American Suit & Cloak Company must have a poor opinion of her sense of values, if he expected her to resign from a position where she was the head of a department and receiving fifty dollars a week to accept an underling’s place at a smaller salary! But fifty dollars a week from the Corey Publishing Company was far below what she was worth, Jeannette considered. It infuriated her to think that while Mr. Allister and those “downstairs” were glib with their commendation of her work, there was never any talk of expressing this appreciation by a raise in salary.
Her first business in the mornings upon reaching her desk was to fasten a sheet of paper about each of her wrists and pin another to the front of her shirtwaist as a protection against dirt. It was almost impossible to go through half a day and keep one’s linen clean without these shields. Dust from the street filtered in through the windows, that must be kept open at the top for ventilation and occasionally little feathery balls of soot made their appearance. Contact with office furniture always held the risk of a smudge. Jeannette had her desk and chair thoroughly wiped off by one of her girls before she reached the office in the morning and again when she went to lunch but in an hour or two after these protective measures, she would begin to feel grit under the tips of her fingers and observe a fine gray layer on the surfaces of white paper.
She usually arrived five or ten minutes before nine o’clock at which hour the business of the day was supposed to begin. Never late herself, she had trained her girls to be equally punctual. It was a matter of pride with her that in the Mail Order Department work began promptly on the stroke of the hour. There was no formality about the way it commenced. Without sign or sound from Jeannette the girls set about their various duties with simultaneous accord, the noise of chatter and laughter died away, there was a general scraping of chair legs on the cement floor, and the buzz of typewriters, like the chirping of marsh frogs, began slowly to gather volume.
First Jeannette turned her attention to her “Incoming”basket, neatly stacked the clipped correspondence, memorandums and communications before her, and, armed with a thick blue pencil, began their disposal, marking certain letters and papers a vigorous “No” or “O.K.-J.S.”—pinning a sheet of scratch pad to others and scribbling thereon a brief direction or query. Most of the pile before her disappeared into her “Outgoing” basket, but in an upper corner of her desk was a folder inscribed: “Mr. Allister,” and into this she would occasionally slip a letter or memorandum. Its contents would go to him by boy later in the day; once in a while she carried some important matter to him herself but she troubled him as little as possible. She tried to keep the affairs of her department to herself; the less she attracted the attention of the Directors, the less they were likely to ask for reports or feel called upon to supervise or investigate her work; she preferred to let the monthly statements of sales speak for her.
By ten o’clock the “Incoming” basket would be empty, and she could begin the preparation of copy for an advertisement, a circular letter, or the arrangement of a leaflet setting forth the features of a new set of books. This was the work she loved best to do, knowing she was unusually good at it; there were daily evidences her copy “pulled,” that the touches she gave her advertisements were productive of sales. No one “downstairs” appreciated how clever she was, though there were the reports of sales to attest to her ability.
She often wished there was more of this particular kind of ad-writing and circular-preparing to be done, but the books of the Corey Publishing Company sold by mail, year after year, varied little in type: These werea standard dictionary, a Home Library of Living Literature, a set of handbooks for Garden and Kitchen, and then there were the dressmaking books issued in connection with the pattern department: “How to Sew,” “How to Knit,” “How to Embroider.” In addition to the circularizing for these was that for subscriptions to the magazines, offered in conjunction with some particular premium.
When a special letter had to be prepared, Jeannette preferred to write it at home or come back to the office at night when she could be alone and undisturbed. There was continual interruption during the day; she rarely enjoyed five minutes of consecutive thought. One source of distraction and a great annoyance was having personally to initial every request for supplies, no matter how trifling. This was one of Mr. Kipps’ schemes. He had made it a rule that heads of departments must O.K. all such requisitions. A paper of pins, a pot of paste, a pad of paper could not be issued by the stock clerk to any of her girls without Jeannette’s initials being affixed to the request. All day long she was interrupted by: “C’n I have a pencil, Miss Sturgis?” “Please O.K. my slip for some paper, Miss Sturgis.” “’Xcuse me for interruptin’ you, Miss Sturgis, but I need some pen points.” Mr. Kipps’ idea was to prevent waste, but Jeannette frequently realized with exasperation that her time was of a great deal more value to the company than pencils, pens or paper, and there was a far greater waste in interrupting a line of constructive thinking than in trying to conserve the supplies of the stock room.
The telephone at her desk was continually at her ear: the composing room wanted the cut for Job 648;the engraver didn’t have the “Ben Day” she had specified; Mr. Sanders, Mr. Kipps’ assistant, wished to know if she could use a Five-and-a-quarter envelope just as well as a Number Six; she had requisitioned five thousand two-cent stamps and they had not been delivered; she needed a hundred thousand more “Dictionary” circulars, and would like Stamper & Bachellor to submit her some “m.f. laid, 24 by 36” in various tints; the stencil machine was out of order and she wanted to borrow one from the mailing department.
One thing followed another all day long.
“If we insert that return postal, we can’t mail this attack under two-cent postage.”
“Hello, Miss Sturgis,—say,Eventscan only give us a half page; will you prepare new copy for the smaller space? They’re waiting to go to press.”
“Miss Sturgis, we’re running short on ‘How to Knit.’”
“Miss Sturgis, we’ll have to get in some extra girls if you want those letters signed by hand.”
“Miss Sturgis, do you want these mimeographed or printed?”
“Miss Sturgis, Mr. Allister’d like to see you.”
“Miss Sturgis, c’n I have some pins?”
At a quarter past twelve she went to lunch. She made a point of going promptly. There was a time, some years back, when she had fallen into the habit of letting her lunch hour lapse over into the afternoon, allowing the demands upon her further and further to postpone it, and it had been two o’clock, sometimes three before she went out. As a result, indigestion and headaches commenced seriously to trouble her, and the doctor advised a regular hour for lunch. Attwelve-fifteen, therefore, she compelled herself to drop whatever she had in hand and leave the office; one of the girls was instructed to call her attention to the time.
She always went to the Clover Tea Room for her luncheon. This was a little basement restaurant operated by two elderly sisters. It was prettily appointed with yellow lights, yellow candles, yellow embroidered table doilies and yellow painted furniture. Jeannette had her own special table daily reserved for her. Lunch cost sixty-five cents and consisted generally of a small fruit cocktail, a chop, a little fish, or an individual meat pie, with an accompanying dab of vegetable, and a dessert.
She was accustomed to enter the Tea Room at twelve-twenty almost to the minute: a tall, fine-figured, handsome woman in her dark tailor-made, her modish hat and fur scarf. She would proceed directly to her table, exchanging a smile and a word of greeting with the elder Miss Hanlon as she passed her desk. Unbuttoning her gloves and drawing them from her hands, she would study the handwritten menu:
Minnie would presently come for her order.
“Morning, Miss Sturgis; what’s it to-day? Stew looks good.”
“Good morning, Minnie. Well, if you say so, I’ll have the stew. And don’t forget to bring lemon with my tea.”
The Tea Room would be but partially filled when Jeannette entered, but as she waited for her lunch other people began to arrive. Ah, here was Miss Hogan of Lyman & Howell, and here was that pretty Miss Thompson of Altman’s; Mr. Crothers of theStationers’ Supply was late,—no, here he was; Mrs. Diggs had that funny looking hat on again; this person was a stranger and that couple, busily talking, were quite evidently shoppers. A gray-haired woman in the corner appeared at the Tea Room several times of late; Jeannette decided she must ask Miss Hanlon who she was, and find out where she was employed.
At quarter to one or perhaps ten minutes before the hour, Jeannette would pour a little drinking water from her tumbler over her finger-tips into her empty dessert saucer, moisten her lips, wipe them on the little yellow napkin, and draw on her gloves nicely. She always left ten cents for Minnie and paid her check at Miss Hanlon’s desk on her way out. Usually she had the better part of half-an-hour before it was time to return to the office. Between the Tea Room and the corner of the Avenue, she almost invariably encountered Miss Travers, the Cashier, who likewise patronized the little restaurant. They would nod and smile at one another as they passed but neither had time to pause for words. Jeannette frequently had a small errand to perform: gloves to get at the cleaners’, her shoes polished, a bit of shopping, a book to exchange at the library. When there was nothing specially pressing, she would pay a visit to a bustling Fifth Avenue store, where she would make her way through crowds of jostling women, and inspect counters, examining, even pricing the merchandise that attracted her. In the long years she had been an office-worker, she had spent many a luncheon hour in this fashion; she never grew tried of such visits, nor of acquainting herself with the new fads, novelties and latest styles in feminine apparel.
Just one hour after she had left it, she would be back at her desk, readjusting her paper cuffs, and re-pinning the sheet at her breast. At once the demands upon her would recommence:
“Miss Sturgis, while you were out, engravers ’phoned and said they can’t find that cut.”
“Miss Sturgis, Mr. Kipps wants to know how many copies ofGarden and Kitchenwe sold up to November first last.”
“Miss Sturgis, Miss Hilliker went home sick.”
“Miss Sturgis, will you sign my requisition for a box of clips?”
“Miss Sturgis, c’n I have a pencil?”
Thus it would continue for the rest of the day. The afternoon light would shine bleak and garish through the fireproofed windows with their meshed wire embedded in the glass, the dust would settle on desks and papers, the thundering presses on the lower floors would send fine vibrations through the building, typewriters would maintain a clicking droning, a buzz of small noises would harass the ear, there would be a continual flash of paper and of white hands at the folders’ tables, while pervading everything would be the thick sweet smell of ink emanating from stacks of new print matter fresh from the press-room.
Five o’clock always surprised Jeannette. Her work absorbed her; if she threw a hasty glance at the neat small mahogany-cased clock on her desk, it was to ascertain if there was time enough to complete one more task that day, or to begin preparations for a new one. The ringing gong that sounded “quitting time” invariably startled her into a blank sensation of discouragement. She would wish at that momentfor another hour to finish the matter in hand,—just a little longer and she would have it out of the way! The commotion among the girls which instantly followed the gong never failed to annoy her. In less than five minutes,—save for Mrs. M’Ardle, little Miss Lacy, Miss Stenicke, and old man Harris,—her department would be empty. These assistants remained a little later to clean up the day’s work and prepare for the morrow’s. In another quarter of an hour, they too would begin to bang desk drawers shut, and prepare to depart. Presently Jeannette would be alone. She usually was the last to leave. It was then that a feeling of fatigue, a weariness of soul, a distaste of life would begin to assert themselves. Reaction from the racing events of morning and afternoon would close down upon her and of a sudden her work, her days, her whole life, would seem drab, colorless, profitless. What did it matter if a few more copies of the Dictionary were sold, what difference did it make if the new attack was a success, whether or not little Miss Lacy was inclined to be careless, or that Mr. Kipps had attempted to interfere with her again? Of what importance was the Mail Order Department of the Corey Publishing Company anyway? Or the concern itself? Mr. Corey had worked hard all his life and then had died and left it behind him! What good had it ever done him? This racketing building represented such trivial enterprise after all! It seemed ridiculously trifling.... She would get to her feet with a great sigh of apathy, disgust for her work and life rising strong within her. Frequently with a sweep of an impatient hand she would scoop the papers beforeher into the top drawer of her desk, or thrust them back into her “Incoming” basket. They could wait until the morrow; to-night they bored her; she wanted to get away; to shut them out of her mind! ... Ah, it was all so petty! No one would thank her for working after hours! She was sick to death of it!
She would adjust her hat with her usual care before the mirror in the dressing-room, tucking her hair neatly beneath its brim, don fur and gloves, and proceed to the elevator.
On the way out she might encounter Mr. Kipps or Mr. Allister.
“Good-evening, Miss Sturgis.”
“Good-evening, Mr. Allister.”
The street would be blue with gathering dusk, and crowded with dark hurrying figures homeward bound. Lights here and there streamed from office windows, dabs of brilliant yellow in the purple scene. Motor trucks and delivery wagons backed to the curb were being piled with crates and packages by hustling, calling men and boys. The tide of workers let loose from desk and counter set strongly in conflicting currents. Long lines of traffic filled the congested thoroughfare and waited for the signal to move forward. A dull clamor, a pulsing bass note, a sound of feet, voices, motor horns, a banging and bawling, a thumping and hubbub, clatter and rumble, throbbed persistently. There was a sense of hurry and dispatch in the air. No one had any time to waste; it was the hour of home-going, the end of the day’s toil, the feeding time of the great army of workers.
Dinner had still to be prepared by the time Jeannette reached the apartment in Waverly Place. Beatrice, who was employed by a manufacturer of soaps and toilet waters a few blocks from where she lived, was usually in the kitchen when her friend arrived. Beatrice did the marketing at her lunch hour, or in going to and from her office. Mrs. Welch, who lived downstairs, obligingly took in packages and kept an eye on Mitzi, well qualified, however, to look after herself. The cat mysteriously disappeared during the day to present herself bright-eyed, hungry and affectionate the instant Jeannette’s or Beatrice’s steps sounded in the hall.
The dinners the two working women shared were usually simple. Very seldom they ate meat. Eggs in any form were popular and the evening meal,—nine times out of ten,—began with a canned soup served in cups. From the delicatessen on Sixth Avenue a variety of canned food was obtainable. Jeannette and Beatrice were particularly fond of canned chickená la King, which had merely to be heated, seasoned and poured over toast. Sometimes they made their dinner of soup, a can of asparagus tips, tea and crullers. The asparagus tips made frequent appearances. Beatrice kept in the ice-box a little jar of mayonnaise, which she usually whipped together on Sundays. Macaroni salad was another prime favorite, and there were also tuna fish, creamed or made into a salad, and fish balls whenever they could be obtained.
Once in a while on a Sunday or on one of those rare occasions when company was expected Beatricestruggled with meat and potatoes for a three-course meal, but in these ventures she received small encouragement from Jeannette. The latter was forever proclaiming she “despised” to cook and was therefore averse to betraying any interest in plans for an elaborate meal; the odor of meat cooking in the house smelled the place up horribly, she declared.
Punctiliously, however, she performed her share of the work in cleaning up after dinner. She dried the dishes, gathered the small luncheon cloth by its four corners and gave it a quick shake out of a rear window, put away the silverware, and restored to the sideboard drawer the two fringed napkins in their red lacquer rings, rearranged the table and pushed back the chairs against the wall. Beatrice meanwhile would be busy fussing in the kitchen, washing the one or two pans she had used, the tea-pot and few dishes, feeding Mitzi the remnants of the can of soup and perhaps a bit of fish or a little fried liver. By half past seven dinner would be a thing of the past and the little home in order again.
Jeannette made it a practice to spend the ensuing hour or two in the seclusion of her own room. In many ways, this was the happiest time of the day for her. She was alone finally and could count upon being unhurried and undisturbed. First she made her bed with care: the undersheet must be stretched tight and tucked well under the mattress, there must be no wrinkles and the covers must be folded in loosely at the bottom; she affected a baby pillow which twice a week must be slipped into a fresh embroidered case. Five minutes followed with the carpet sweeper; the room was tidied,—everything put in its right place. When all wasdone, she would feel free to turn her attention to herself. If there was mending, she next disposed of it; distasteful though sewing had always been to her, she had grown dexterous with her needle. She spent fifteen minutes manicuring her nails, and an equal time brushing her hair and rubbing a tonic into her scalp. The gray was very thick over the right temple and Beatrice had urged her to have it “touched up” but Jeannette rather liked it as it was; she considered it added a distinguished touch. There were other intimate offices she performed at this hour with great thoroughness, her vigorousness increasing as time carried her into middle age. Twice a week, sometimes oftener, she took a hot bath about nine o’clock. Great preparations were attached to this performance, and she indulged herself in perfumed bath salts, perfumed soap, and delicately scented powder. When Mehitable brought home the “wash” on Friday nights, Jeannette devoted half-an-hour to running pink satin ribbons through her chemises and brassières. The ribbons she carefully steamed herself once a month and pressed with the electric iron in the kitchen. But those nights on which she did not bathe, when her room was in order and her toilette completed, she would don a kimona, and, with hair hanging in pig-tails down her back, her feet in Japanese wicker sandals, shuffle her way to the front room, with a book under her arm, to join Beatrice for perhaps an hour’s chat or reading before finally retiring. Neither she nor her companion ever went to the movies, and seldom to the theatre. Saturday afternoons Jeannette spent in tours of shrewd and calculated shopping, and on Sundays she went to Cohasset Beach to spend the day with Alice and the children.