CHAPTER III
June sunshine streamed in through the open windows in an avalanche of golden light and lay in bright parallelograms on the floor. Jeannette was making the bed. She was in the gayest of spirits and sang as she punched the pillows to rid them of lumpiness, and smoothed them flat. She spread the brilliant cretonne cover, with its gaudy design of pheasants, over the bed, turned it neatly back two feet from the head-board, laid the pillows in place, and folded the cretonne over them, tucking it in gently at the top. The bed-cover was not as long as it should have been, and it required nice adjustment to make it lap over the pillows. It was the Wanamaker man’s fault, Jeannette always thought, when she reached this point in her morning’s housework; she had told him with the utmost pains how she wished the cretonne to go, and it was his mistake that it was not long enough. Short as it was, it could be made to reach by allowing only a scant inch or two at the bottom. She had put the same material at the windows in narrow strips of outside curtaining, and there was a gathered valance across the top. The bedroom was “sweet,”—charming and beautifully appointed like the rest of her domain. Her mother and Alice had “raved” about everything. Martin liked it, too, though his wife wishedhe could find the same amount of pleasure in their little home that she did. Martin was like most men: he did not notice things, never commented upon her ideas and clever arrangements.
To her the apartment was perfection. It was situated in a building that had just been erected in the West Eighties, halfway between Broadway and the Drive. It had five rooms and the rent was fifty dollars a month, more perhaps than they ought to be paying, but Martin had argued that ten dollars one way or another did not make any particular difference and if it suited Jeannette, he was for signing the lease. So he had put his name to the formidable-looking legal document, and the young Devlins had agreed to pay the big rent and to live there for a year. They could remain in it for life, Jeannette declared, as far as she was concerned; she could not imagine ever wanting a more beautiful or a more satisfactory home.
The apartment contained all the latest improvements: electric lights, steam heat, a house telephone. The woodwork was chastely white throughout; the electrolier in the dining-room a plain dull brass; the fixtures in all the rooms were of the same lusterless metal; between dining-and living-rooms were glass doors, the panes set in squares; the bathroom floor was solid marquetry of small octagonal tiles embedded in cement, and glossy tiling rose about the walls to the height of the shoulder; the room glistened with shining nickel and flawless porcelain; the bathtub was sumptuous and had a shower arrangement with a rubber sheeting on rings to envelop the bather. Martin had grinned when his eye took in these details. Heswore in his enthusiasm: by God, he certainly would enjoy a bathroom like that; it certainly would be great. But Jeannette was more intrigued with the kitchen. Here were white-painted cupboards, fragrantly smelling of new wood, and a marvellous pantry full of neat contrivances, drawers, bins and lockers. In one of them Jeannette discovered a little sawdust and a few carpenter’s shavings; they spoke eloquently of the newness and cleanliness of everything. There was a shining gas-stove, too, with a roomy oven that had an enamelled door and a bright nickel knob to it. There was even a gas heater connected with the boiler; all one had to do was to touch a match to the burner,—the renting agent explained,—and presto! the flame came up, heated the coil of copper pipe and in a moment,—oh, yes, indeed, much less than a minute!—there was the hot water!
It had seemed so miraculous to Jeannette that she had not believed it would work, but it did, perfectly. No fault was to be found with anything connected with the wonderful establishment.
There had been plenty of money with which to furnish it just as Jeannette pleased. The publishing company had presented her with a check for two hundred and fifty dollars as a wedding gift in appreciation of her faithful services, and Mr. Corey had supplemented this with one of his own for a like amount.
“No,—no,—don’t thank me,—please, Miss Sturgis,” he had said almost impatiently as he handed it to her. “I feel so badly about your going, and I can never pay you for all you’ve done for me. This is a poor evidence of my gratitude and esteem. I wish I might make it thousands instead of hundreds.”
In addition, he had sent her on the day she was married a tall silver flower vase that must have cost, Jeannette and Martin decided, almost as much as the amount of his check.
Her mother had borrowed five hundred upon the old paid-up policy, asserting that she had done so for Alice, and the older daughter was entitled to a like amount upon getting married. And besides all this, Martin had turned over to his wife on the day the lease had been signed, several hundreds more.
It appeared that a year before, about the very time he had met Jeannette, his mother died. She had lived in Watertown, New York, where Martin was born, and where she had an interest in a small grocery business. Martin’s father,—dead for sixteen years,—had been a grocer and had run a “back-room” in connection with his store, where Milwaukee beer had been dispensed but never “hard” liquor. Jeannette did not give her mother these facts when she learned them; it was nobody’s business, she contended; everybody when he came to America was a pioneer and began in a humble way. Paul Devlin’s old partner, Con Donovan, who had come over from Ballaghaderreen with him in ’73, had carried on the business after his demise, and there had been money enough to send Martin to school and to support the boy and Paul’s widow. But when his mother had followed his father to the grave, Martin had no longer any interest in groceries, and he gladly accepted the three thousand dollars Con Donovan offered him for his inherited share of the business. It hadn’t been enough to do anything with, Martin explained to his wife; so he had just “blown” it. It accounted for the theatre tickets, the presents,the entertainments with which he had backed his wooing. There was nearly a thousand dollars left after the honeymoon to Atlantic City, and Martin had gone to his bank and transferred the whole account to his wife’s name upon their return, telling her to go ahead and furnish the new home in any way she fancied.
Jeannette had nearly seventeen hundred dollars in the bank when she began. She had no thought of spending so much, but it melted away in the most surprising fashion. Martin, in a way, was responsible for this: whenever she consulted him, he was always in favor of the more expensive course. She would have been quite satisfied with a two-hundred-and-twenty-dollar dining-room set, but he decided in favor of the one that cost three hundred and fifty. When she said she would be contented with the simple white-painted wooden bed, he had chosen a brass one and ordered the box-spring mattress that had cost nearly a hundred dollars more. He had also persuaded her against her judgment in the matter of the big davenport and the upholstered chairs that went with it for the living-room. Then there had been the matter of the two oil paintings in ornate gold frames upon which they had chanced in Macy’s while on a shopping tour. Jeannette had grave doubts about the oils; she did not know whether they were good or bad. Her misgivings in regard to them may have sprung from the fact that they hung in Macy’s art gallery; but there could be no questioning the handsomeness and impressiveness of the gold frames.
“Why sure, let’s have ’em,” Martin said, eyeing them judicially as he and his wife stood together consideringthe purchase; “they look like a million dollars, and anything I hate are bare walls! You want to have the place lookin’—oh, you know—artistic and classy.”
“The autumn coloring in this one is most lifelike,” the eager young salesman ventured. “It seems to me they both have a great deal of depth and quality,—don’t you think?—and while, of course, the size has nothing to do with the art, still I really think you ought to take into consideration the fact that this canvas is thirty-six by twenty-seven, and the other one is nearly as large. Now for twenty-five and thirty dollars....”
“Sure, let’s have ’em,” Martin decided in his lordly, arbitrary way, “and if I find out they’re no good,” he added to the beaming salesman, “I’ll come back here and slap Mrs. Macy on the wrist!”
This last was most appreciated, and the very next day, in much excelsior and paper wrappings, the two heavily framed paintings arrived and now hung facing one another in the front room. Jeannette used to study them, finger on lip, wondering if they had merit or were nothing but daubs. They appeared all right; there was nothing to criticize about them as far as she could see, but she knew they would never mean anything to her as long as she remembered they had been bought at Macy’s. Her mother warmly shared her husband’s enthusiasm.
“Why, dearie, they look perfectly beautiful,” she told her daughter, “and they give your home such an air of distinction. I wouldn’t worry my head about where they came from, as long as they give you pleasure.”
But if Jeannette had misgivings about the pictures, she had no doubts about anything else her perfect little home contained. It was complete as far as she could make it, from the service of plated flat silver her old associates at the office had clubbed together and given her, to the carpet sweeper that had a little closet of its own to stand in along with the extra leaves of the dining-room table. There were towels, sheets, table linen, chairs, pictures and rugs. She had indulged her fancy somewhat in curtaining, had decided on plain net at the windows with narrow strips of some brightly colored material on either side. She had picked out a salmon-tinted, satin-finished drapery at Wanamaker’s for the living-room, and gay cretonne for her bedroom, and she had had these curtains made at the store.
“I’d be forever doing the work,” she had said in justifying this extravagance to Martin, “and we want to get settled some time!”
“Sure,—have ’em made,” he had agreed genially.
The dining-room had puzzled Jeannette for a long time, but after the dark blue carpet had been selected and made into a rug to fit the room, she had found a blue madras that just matched its tone. It cost a great deal more than she felt she ought to pay, but she had bought the twelve yards she needed, nevertheless, and had determined she could save something by cutting and hemming the curtains herself; she could take them out to Alice’s and use her sewing-machine.
It was all finished now, Jeannette reflected, pushing the big brass bed into place against the wall. They had been a little reckless perhaps, but now they were ready to settle down, begin to live quietly and to save.They owed about two hundred dollars at Wanamaker’s but would soon manage to pay that off.
She went on calculating expenses as she ran the carpet sweeper about the room. Martin liked a good deal of meat, so she doubted if she could manage the table on less than twelve or maybe, thirteen dollars a week; that would take half of what he gave her on Saturdays. She needed so much for this, so much for that, and she would have to get herself some kind of a silk dress for the hot weather; still she thought she could save five or six dollars a week and Martin ought to be able to do the same; they would have the Wanamaker bill paid in a few months. As she went on running the sweeper under the bed and pushing it gingerly into corners so as not to mar the paint of the baseboards, she reflected that, as a matter of fact, Martin had really no right to expect her to pay anything out of her weekly money on what they owed Wanamaker; every cent of that bill had been for house furnishing, and it had been clearly understood between them that her money was for the table and herself. Still it had been she who had wanted the curtains; she ought to help pay for them.
When the bathroom was cleaned, Martin’s bath towel spread along the rim of the tub to dry, his dirty shirt and collar put into the laundry basket, his shoes set neatly on the floor of the closet, the ash receiver in the living-room emptied and the cushions on the davenport straightened, Jeannette settled herself in a rocking-chair at the window, her basket of sewing in her lap. She hated sewing; the basket was in tangledconfusion, but it was always that way. Spools and yarn, papers of needles, pins, buttons, threads, tape, and scraps of material were all mixed up together in a fine snarl. She found a certain degree of satisfaction in its confusion. To-day she had a run in one of her silk stockings to draw together, and a button to sew on Martin’s coat.
She caught the coat up first and as she held it in her hands, the song that she had been humming all morning died upon her lips. She looked at the garment with softening eyes; then she raised its rough texture to her cheek and kissed it. It smelled of its owner,—a smell that was fragrance to her,—an odor scented faintly with cigars but even more redolent of the man, himself; it was strong, it was masculine, it was Martin. There was no smell like it in the world or one half so sweet.
She mused as she searched for a black silk thread, needle and thimble. When Alice had extolled to her the wonderful happiness of marriage, how right she had been! Jeannette pitied all unmarried women now. There was a Freemasonry among wives, and all spinsters, old and young, were debarred from the mystic circle. She wondered what made the difference. Unmarried women were all buds that had never opened to the full beauty of the mature flower. They were of the uninitiated and as long as they remained so would never attain their full powers. Miss Holland, now, was a fine woman, efficient, capable, executive, but how much more able and efficient and remarkable if she had married! She might be divorced, she might be a widow. That did not make a difference, it seemed to Jeannette in the full bloom of her own wifehood; it wasmarrying that counted; it was that “Mrs.” before a woman’s name, that gave her standing, poise, position in the world, broadened her sympathies, increased her capabilities.
She thought her own marriage perfection; she considered herself the happiest, most fortunate of wives; her pretty home enchanted her, and Martin was the most satisfactory of adoring husbands. He had his faults, she presumed, and she, no doubt, had hers, but there were never woman and man so happy together, so ideally congenial. She thought of her honeymoon,—the few days at Atlantic City. She had never learned to swim, but Martin was an expert. He had looked stunning in his bathing-suit,—straight, clean-limbed, with his big chest and shoulders and his slim waist,—the figure of an athlete, as she indeed discovered him to be when he struck out into the sea with the freedom of a seal, flinging the water from his black mop of hair with a quick head-toss now and then, his arms working like flails. They had plunged through the breakers together, and Martin had held her high up as the curling water crashed down upon them. It had been cold but exhilarating, and a group had gathered on the boardwalk and down on the beach to watch the two battling with the waves. Then there had been the quiet rolling up and down the boardwalk in the big chair while the tide of Easter visitors sauntered past them in all their gay clothing. The weather had been warm, the sunshine glorious. She thought of their room at the hotel and the intimate times of dressing and undressing in each other’s presence. It had been emotional, exciting, a little frightening, but there had been the discovery of perfect comradeship, and allthe other phases of marriage,—pleasant and unpleasant,—had been forgotten. Companionship,—wholehearted, unreserved, constant,—that was the outstanding feature of marriage for Jeannette.
Her mind carried her on to contemplate the future and what it held in store for them. Her marriage with Martin must be a success. There must be no quarrelling, no disagreements, no bickerings. There must never, never be any talk of divorce between them.... Ah, how she hated the word divorce now! She had never given the subject any particular consideration heretofore; it was merely an accepted proceeding by which unhappily married people won back their freedom. But how differently she felt about it to-day! She would die rather than ever consent to a divorce from Martin! She’d forgive him anything! He was a little spoiled, perhaps; he liked to have his own way, and he hated anything unpleasant. It must be her duty to humor and educate him; she must give a little, exact a little. A successful marriage, she believed, depended upon that. A husband and wife must become adjusted to one another. If necessary, she resolved, she would give more than she received. Oh, yes, she would give and give andgive!
Martin had only one serious fault, and that was he too much liked having a good time. It seemed to her he was never satisfied with anything less than an epicure’s dinner; he must have the best all the time. He loved cocktails and wine and good cigars, a “snappy” show, a little bite of something afterwards, a gay place to dine, lively music, lights, color. He wanted “to go places where there was something doing,” and he didn’t want “to go places where therewas nothing doing.” These were familiar expressions on his lips. His wife told herself she liked a good time, too; she loved the theatre and to dress well, and she liked a gay restaurant, good food and music, but she didn’t want them all the time; she wasn’t as dependent upon them as Martin was. A husband and wife, she considered, should not indulge in too much of that kind of frivolous living, and no later than last evening she had had a talk with Martin about it.
“Aw,—sure my dear,—you’re dead right,” he had assured her. “I know. We must settle down, and stay at home nights, but we’re still having our honeymoon, and I can’t get used to the idea that you’re my wife. It just seems to me we ought to celebrate all the time.”
Martin was always so reasonable, thought Jeannette, recalling his words. She decided she would have a specially nice dinner for him that night to show him how much she appreciated his sweetness. She paused a moment over the decision, as she recalled that something vague had been said to her mother about coming to dine with them. She knew Martin would prefer to be alone and she wanted to encourage the idea of his spending the evenings quietly with her. She would go to see her mother and explain matters; she would have lunch with her; at Kratzmer’s she would stop and get some salad, and she’d buy some crumpets at Henri’s and take them along with her.
Abruptly, she determined to let the run in her stocking wait. She wound the silk several times about the button on Martin’s coat, pushed the needle through the fabric twice, and snapped the thread close to the cloth with an incisive bite of her teeth. Then she carried thework to her room, hanging Martin’s coat on a hanger in the closet.
As she proceeded to dress carefully, she considered each detail of her costume. Her wardrobe was delightfully complete; she had plenty of clothes, a suitable garment for any demand. While an office worker, she had always dressed with certain soberness, an eye to business decorum. But as a married woman, a young matron who lived at the Dexter Court Apartments, she felt she could allow herself more latitude. She ran her eye appraisingly over the file of dresses that hung neatly in her closet; their number gratified her; she was even satisfied with her hats. Now she lifted down her blue broadcloth tailor suit, covered handsomely with braid, and selected a soft white silk shirtwaist that had a V-neck and a pleated ruffled collar; she drew on fine brown silk stockings and fitted her feet into tan Oxfords. Her ankles were trim and shapely. She never had appeared so smartly dressed; her appearance delighted her. But she was in doubt about the hat for the day, and finally selected the Lichtenberg model: a silvered straw, with a flaring brim, trimmed in gray velvet and a curling gray cock’s feather. As she pulled her hands into tan gloves and gave a final glance at herself in the long mirror of the bathroom door she decided that was the costume she would wear when she went to the offices of the Chandler B. Corey Company to pay her old friends a visit.
Mrs. Sturgis had declared after Jeannette’s marriage she preferred to remain in the old apartmentwhere she had been comfortable for so many years. To be sure the rent was thirty dollars a month, but she said she could manage that. She had her music lessons,—four or five hours a day,—and there were other pupils to be had if she needed the income. But it did not appear necessary. Elsa Newman’s cousin, Cora Newman, who had been studying with Bellini for two years, had developed a truly remarkable mezzo, and she preferred Mrs. Sturgis to any other accompanist. The very week Jeannette was married Cora Newman had given her first public recital, and Mrs. Sturgis had been at the piano. She had had a very beautiful black dressmadefor the occasion and the affair had been a great success. The critics had praised Miss Newman’s voice and theTribunehad given a special line to the player: “The singer was sympathetically accompanied at the piano by Mrs. Henrietta Spaulding Sturgis.” Now both Elsa and Cora wanted her whenever either of them sang, and there were plans ahead for a concert tour to Quebec and Montreal. If that turned out successfully, they were talking of an up-state trip in the fall through Rochester, Syracuse, as far as Buffalo.
“You know whatIeat, lovies,” Mrs. Sturgis had explained to her daughters when keeping the apartment was being discussed among them, “is microscopic, and it won’t cost me five a week. I can always get whatever I need at Kratzmer’s and a little tea and toast is often all I want.”
“But that’s justit!” Jeannette had expostulated. “You don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive, anyhow, and if you live by yourself, you won’t eatthat!”
Mrs. Sturgis had assured them she would take good care of herself.
“You can’t imagine me happy in a boarding-house,” she had challenged, “and I wouldn’t be able to have a piano there or give lessons!” There had been no answer to this; boarding in one place and renting a studio in another would be even more expensive than keeping the apartment.
To-day Jeannette heard the familiar finger exercises as she neared the top of the long stair-flight of her old home: ta-ta-ta-ta-de-da-da-da-da—ta-ta-ta-ta-de-da-da-da-da, and as she noiselessly opened the back door kitchenward, her mother’s voice from the studio: “One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and....”
She took off her hat and gloves, laid them on her mother’s bed and went to peek in the cupboard; there was a piece of bakery pie and a few eggs. She decided to make an omelette and with the toasted crumpets and tea, a little jar of marmalade and the potato salad she had brought with her, she and her mother would lunch royally. It was ten minutes to twelve; the lesson would soon be over.
They lingered over their repast until nearly two. Mrs. Sturgis had lessons from four to six,—the after-school hours,—but until then she was free. She had had half a notion, she confessed, of going down to Union Square that afternoon to look at some new piano pieces for beginners at Schirmer’s. Jeannette told her she would go with her,—she wanted to get an alligator pear for Martin’s dinner,—but neither of them appeared inclined to terminate the little luncheonat the kitchen table. They had finished the crumpets, but there was still marmalade left, and Mrs. Sturgis produced some pieces of cold left-over toast with which to finish it.
She was full of news and her affairs. In the first place, Alice and Roy were going to Freeport on Long Island for the summer. They had found a very nice place where they could board for eighteen dollars a week,—oh, yes, both of them and the baby, too,—Roy was going to commute every day, and the Bronx flat was to be closed,—just turn the key in the door and leave it until they were ready to come back. Then there was great talk about the concert tour. Bellini, who had sailed only the day before yesterday for Italy, had thought Miss Elsa and Miss Cora had better study another winter before attempting it, but a most encouraging letter had been received from Montreal, and both the girls were eager to try the experiment. They were in doubt as to whether they should take a violinist with them or not; of course a violinist would be a drawing-card, but they would have his salary and all his expenses to pay, which would cut down the profits—if there were any! Jeannette’s mother did not think it was in the least necessary, but if they didn’t take one, Miss Elsa had said Mrs. Sturgis had better be prepared to do some solo numbers, and that meant she’d have to do some real hard practising as she hadn’t done anything like that for years! She did not know whether to work up the MendelssohnCapriciosoor the ChopinFantaisie Impromptu; what did Jeannette think? Of course there was thatMeditation....
But as her mother rambled on, Jeannette’s mindwandered. Her thoughts were with Martin. She wondered what he was doing at that moment; with whom he had lunched; how she could entertain him in the evenings and keep him from wanting to go out. He must have some friends whom she could invite to dinner. There was Beatrice Alexander, of course, and she had heard him speak pleasantly of Herbert Gibbs,—the younger of the two Gibbs brothers. He was married, she remembered; his wife had a baby and they lived somewhere down on Long Island. She herself would have liked to have asked Miss Holland, but she was hardly the type that would interest Martin. There was Tommy Livingston,—but Tommy was really too young. Her mind rested on Sandy MacGregor! He was a widower,—his wife had been dead for over a year,—she knew he would love to come to them, and Martin was sure to like him. The thought elated her: Sandy and Beatrice Alexander would make an excellent combination.
She accompanied her mother downtown in gay spirits, full of determination to put this plan immediately into effect.
The dinner-party, when it took place, was not altogether a success; still it was far from being a failure. Sandy unquestionably had a good time, for he and Martin took a great liking to each other. Beatrice had proven the unfortunate element. She had always been diffident and the eye-glasses hopelessly disfigured her. Martin liked her because he knew her so well,—one had to know Beatrice to appreciate her,—but Sandy had been merely polite and amiable. He enjoyed Martinand Martin’s cocktails, however,—they had one or two before dinner,—and each time they raised their glasses, Sandy said: “Saloon!” which had amused Martin vastly. The dinner itself was delicious,—even Jeannette felt satisfied. The baked onions stuffed with minced ham,—Alice had suggested that and shown her how to do them,—had been enthusiastically praised, the chicken had been tender and the iced pudding, ordered at Henri’s, could not have been more delicious.
After dinner they played auction bridge; Martin loved cards in any form and he undertook to teach Jeannette; Sandy was an old hand at the game, but Beatrice Alexander was but a timid player. After three or four rubbers, the men abandoned the cards, which, Jeannette could see, bored them with such partners, and began matching quarters, and Martin had won eighteen dollars. The last match had been for “double or nothing” and Jeannette was hardly able to stifle the quick breath of relief that came to her lips when Martin won. She had always known Sandy to be liberal-handed and he paid his losses good-humoredly, telling Jeannette in a way that made her believe he meant what he said, that he had had a wonderful evening, and would telephone shortly to ask the Devlins to dinner with him. He generously offered to take Beatrice Alexander home, and Jeannette returned from the elevator, where she and Martin had bidden good-night to their departing guests, to the disorder and smoky atmosphere of their little home with the feeling that it had all been worth while.
“My Lord!” Martin said that night as he lay in bed waiting for her to wind the clock, open the window, snap out the lights and join him, “I wish you had agirl out there in the kitchen to help you with all that mess. Damned if I like the idea of my wife doing all those dirty dishes, and having to clean up everything to-morrow. It will take you all day.”
“Well,” Jeannette answered, “I’ll hate it to-morrow myself. But I really don’t mind very much. I love the idea of entertaining our friends. But we can’t have a girl yet. I’ve got to do my own work for awhile at any rate. You see, Martin, I was figuring it out....”
She had crawled in beside him and at once his arms were about her and she had nestled close to him, her head on his hard shoulder.
“Your friend Sandy’s a corker,” he said, kissing her hair and ignoring her plan of figures and economy. “I like that guy fine. You can have all that eighteen dollars I won from him.”
“Oh, Martin!”
“Sure,—of course.”
“I’ll put it in the till.”
The till was a small round canister intended for tea but converted into a savings bank.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Martin told her. “You blow it in on yourself, or for something nice for the house.”
“But, Mart,” she remonstrated, “I want to pay off that Wanamaker’s bill! We can’t have a girl in the kitchen until we don’t owe a cent.”
“Aw, don’t worry so, Jan. You’re always scared we’re going to go bust or something. I’ll get a raise as soon as summer’s over. Gibbs is bound to come through ’cause he knows I’ll quit if he don’t. I bring in a lot of fine business to that outfit, and all my customersare dandy friends of mine. I’ll not be working for him at fifty per much longer.”
“Mart,” Jeannette said suddenly, “wouldn’t it be a good plan to have Herbert Gibbs and his wife to dinner some night and show them how nice we are and how nice we live and what a good dinner we can give them? You know it might help; he tells his brother everything, Beatrice says.”
“Great! Say, that’s a bully idea!” Martin was at once enthusiastic. “Herb would like it fine and so would Mrs. Herb. I’ll get some good old Burgundy and pour it into him and feed him some Corona-Coronas and he’ll just expand like a night-blooming cereus.”
And on this happy plan, still with an arm about her, her head pillowed on his shoulder, they drifted off to sleep.
Some six weeks after her return to New York from Atlantic City, Jeannette arrayed herself in her braided broadcloth tailor suit, drew on her tan silk stockings and tan shoes, set the gray hat at a smart angle upon her head, added the touch of a fine meshed veil that brought the curling gray cock’s feather close to her hair, and paid her long-deferred visit to the office.
As she turned in at the familiar portals she was astonished at the difference between her present feelings and those of old. A year before she had entered the building with a hurried step, a preoccupied manner, her mind busy as she hastened to her work with ways of attacking and dispatching it. She had been conscious then that she was the “president’s secretary,”and had borne herself accordingly as she made her way through the groups of gossiping girls, aware they thought her haughty and unapproachable. To-day, she was Mrs. Martin Devlin,—a matron, smartly dressed,—come to pay a visit to the publishing house with the air of a lady who had perhaps arrived to select a book in the retail department or to enter a subscription. The dusty office atmosphere was alien to her now; the bustling, eager clerks, intent upon their affairs, seemed pettily employed; there was something ridiculous about it all to her. Yet less than three months ago this had been her world; all the vital interests of her life had been centered within these square walls. She still loved it, loved the building, the cold cement floors, the bare ceilings studded with sprinkler valves, loved what evidences of her own handiwork she recognized: the window-boxes, and the miniature close-clipped trees that stood in the entrance, the name of the house in neat gold lettering on the street windows.
Ellis, the colored elevator man, was the first to recognize her; he grinned, flashing his white teeth out of his black face, chuckling largely.
“Well, it certainly is good to see you; it certainly is like old times to see you ’round,” he said, rolling back the clanging door.
She stepped out upon the familiar fourth floor. It was the same—no different: the old racket, the old hum and confusion. A minute or two passed before she was seen; then there was a general whispering, machines stopped clicking, heads turned; there were smiles and nods from all parts of the big room. Mrs. O’Brien, Mr. Kipps’ stenographer, rose and came togreet her; Miss Sylvester and Miss Kate Smith followed suit. Presently there was a small crowd around her with questions, laughter, little cooing cries of pleasure, a feminine chatter. She caught Mr. Allister’s eye as he was leaving Mr. Corey’s office.
“’Pon my word!” She could not hear him say it, but she saw his lips form the phrase and noted his pleased surprise. He came forward at once, smiling broadly, pushing his way through the women who gave place to him.
“Glad to see you, Miss Sturgis,” he said beaming. “Only, by Jove, you’re not ‘Miss Sturgis’ any more! ... ‘Devlin,’ isn’t it? ... Does Mr. Corey know you’re here? He’ll be delighted, I know. Wants to see you badly. Two or three matters have come up he’d like to ask you about; nobody ’round here seems to know a thing about them.... Come in; he’ll be mighty glad to see you.”
He pulled back the swing gate in the counter and walked with her towards Mr. Corey’s office.
As Jeannette passed within a few feet of Miss Holland’s desk and as their eyes met she mouthed:
“See you in just a minute.”
“Here’s an old friend of ours,” said Mr. Allister, opening Mr. Corey’s door.
The white head came up, and immediately a pleased flush spread over the face of the man at the desk.
“Well—well—well,” he said, getting to his feet and coming to take both her hands. “Miss Sturgis! It’s good to see you again.”
“She’s not Miss Sturgis any more,” laughed Mr. Allister.
“That’s so—that’s so; it’s ‘Devlin’ of course. Well,Mrs. Devlin, you surely look as though marriage agreed with you.”
They were all laughing in good spirits. A few moments of inconsequential remarks, and then Allister withdrew while Mr. Corey made Jeannette sit down.
“Oh, I must have a talk,” he insisted, “and hear all about you.”
The door opened, and young Tommy Livingston came in with a question on his lips. His eyes lighted as he recognized the caller.
“My new secretary,” said Corey smiling.
“Oh, is thatso?” Jeannette was pleased; the boy had always been a protégé of hers. “Well, Tommy, thisisa step up for you!”
“Yes, indeed,” he said grinning. “I’m doing the best I know how....”
“Tommy does very well,” approved Mr. Corey.
“I didn’t know you understood dictation,” said Jeannette.
“I don’t very well. I’ve got a stenographer in my office,—’member Miss Bates?—and I’m going to night school and learning shorthand; I can run a machine fairly decently now.”
“Well, isn’t that splendid!”
Presently she was alone with Mr. Corey again. He asked about her, about Martin, about her married life. She was frank with her answers.
“I shall never thank you enough,” she said, “for persuading me to accept Mr. Devlin. I never would have married if you hadn’t made me, and I never would have known what I missed. I guess I’d’ve been here for the rest of my days.”
She was eager for his news, too.
Yes, he and Mrs. Corey were quite reconciled. She was very sorry she had maligned Jeannette. He was going to England in ten days and was taking her with him. Babs was about the same; she would never be any better; they had an excellent trained nurse for her and she was to spend the rest of the summer at a camp in the Adirondacks. Willis had written a most interesting letter from Johannesburg; he and Ericsson were trekking north through Matabeleland and Bulawayo; Mr. Corey did not expect to hear from him again for three months. Affairs at the office were about as usual; they expected to publish a big novel in the fall by Hobart Haüser; Garritt Farrington Trent had left his former publishers and come over to them; advertising was bad; there was some talk of a printers’ strike;The Ladies’ Fortunehad been selling excellently on the stands; the pattern business was booming.
There were one or two matters he wanted to ask her about: What was the arrangement with Hardy as to the dramatic rights ofHarnessed? No record could be found of the agreement. And did she recall from what concern they had bought that last stock of special kraft wrapper? And the folder containing all the correspondence with the Electrical Manufacturing Company had disappeared. What could have become of it? She answered as best she could. When she got up to go, he accompanied her to the door of his office.
“I can’t begin to tell you how we all miss you here,” he said gravely, “and how muchIdo especially. It’s been hard sledding without you. I’ve thought a hundred times,—oh, athousandtimes!—of how much you did for me to make the work easier and how much youlifted from my shoulders. I got used to it, I’m afraid, and took a good deal for granted.... But I’m glad you’re married; that’s where you belong: making a home for yourself and leading your own life.”
There was moisture in Jeannette’s eyes as she turned away. She loved Chandler Corey, she said to herself; he was a wonderful man; she knew she was the only person in the world who truly appreciated him; and she knew he loved her, too. It was this glimpse of his affection for her that moved her. Theirs had been a rare comradeship, a fine communion, a beautiful relationship. It was ended; it was past and done; they could no longer be together or even find an excuse to see one another without having their actions misinterpreted. It had been the business, the common interest, that had wrought the tie between them, and now that there was no longer any office, the intimacy and companionship was at an end, the bond sundered,—soon they would have but a casual interest in one another!—and she had been closer to him than anyone else in the world, like a daughter, and he a father to her. It was sad; a matter to be mourned; each going a different way, only memories of a splendid coöperation and friendship remaining to remind them of happy years together.
Jeannette stopped at Miss Holland’s desk and made her promise to take lunch with her at the noon hour when they could have a good talk.
As she left the scene of her former activities, her progress through the aisles between the desks wasonce again a succession of hand-clasps, congratulations, well-wishes, nods and smiles. It touched her deeply; she had no idea she had been so well liked: everyone there seemed to be her friend.
Miss Holland joined her at half past twelve in the lobby of the Park Avenue Hotel, and they had a delightful luncheon together at one of the little tables edging the balcony about the court. News was exchanged eagerly. Jeannette’s was scant, but her companion had endless gossip to retail. Miss Holland’s nephew, Jerry Sedgwick, was a midshipman now, and on his summer cruise in Cuban waters aboard a big battleship. She and Mrs. O’Brien had a little apartment down on Waverly Place and managed quite comfortably. The office was getting dreadfully on Miss Holland’s nerves; it was so different from what it used to be; in the old days everyone had done the best that was in him or her to make the business a success; no one had cared what the returns were to be; the idea of doing more and better work had been the thought actuating all. Now that the Corey Company had become one of the largest and most prosperous publishing houses in the country, the spirit had changed; everyone thought about “profits.” They had conferences of all the heads of departments each week and no one was interested in learning what was going on in the different branches of the business; what commanded their attention was how much “profit” was to be shown. It disgusted Miss Holland; there was no “Get Together Club” any more. Mr. Kipps was becoming more and more critical and fault-finding; he had headaches all the time; Miss Holland believed he was a sick man; he never tookany exercise. The pattern business had grown enormously; Mr. Cruikshanks had done wonders with it; they had had to lease a whole big building over on Tenth Avenue to take care of it;The Ladies’ Fortunehad a circulation of nearly half a million; Horatio Stephens had had a very substantial raise, and had grown awfully opinionated and disagreeable.
There was more gossip of lesser significance. Miss Hoggenheimer of the mailing department had gone on the stage, and had a part now inIt Happened in Nordland, while Miss Gleason had married that big George Robinson of the Press Room, and Tommy Livingston would soon be engaged,—if he wasn’t already,—to Mrs. O’Brien’s little sister, Agnes, who worked in the Mail Order Department.... Oh, yes! and had Jeannette heard what had happened to Van Alstyne? It was terrible! He was in the penitentiary at Atlanta for using the United States mail for fraudulent purposes; he had become involved with some unscrupulous men who advertised worthless stock and the Federal authorities had put them all in jail.... And poor Mrs. Inness was dead; she died at her brother’s house in Weehawken.
Jeannette devoured these details. She sat absorbed, fascinated, listening to every word that came from her companion’s lips; she could not get enough of this chatter about her old associates; she was hungry for every scrap of information, fearful that Miss Holland might neglect to tell her everything.
She walked back with her friend to the office and would not let her go for another ten minutes until she had heard the final details of a violent quarrel between Miss Reubens and Mr. Cavendish.
Miss Holland promised to dine with her and Martin soon, and Jeannette promised in return to come with her husband to dinner with Miss Holland and Mrs. O’Brien in the Waverly Place apartment. They parted with many such assurances.
Jeannette walked all the way home in a daze of memories, thoughts of the old times crowding upon her brain, her interest in business affairs and personal happenings in the Chandler B. Corey Company awake again, stirring with all its former keenness.
The dinner to which Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Gibbs were invited and to which after various postponements they ultimately came was a dismal failure from Jeannette’s point of view. First of all, she was late with the meal itself, and in hurrying, spattered grease on her gown; the yeast powder biscuits would not rise, and the leg of lamb was underdone, the meat pink when Martin carved it. Then Martin, himself, was nervous and excited, and the cocktails he had with his guest before they sat down went to his head and made him talk and act sillily. Lastly, and most important, the Gibbses were hopeless! Herbert Gibbs was flat-headed and there was no curve at the back of his neck, while the hair grew down under his collar sparse and short; he had an expressionless, stupid face and it was impossible to tell whether he was being bored or amused at the attempt of young Mr. and Mrs. Devlin to entertain him and his wife. Mrs. Gibbs was even less prepossessing. She was a plump German girl, with thin yellow hair done up in a knob ontop of her head which frankly showed her white scalp through wide gaps. She was irritatingly voluble, had a piercing sharp nervous laugh, and exclaimed shrilly about whatever Jeannette said or did. She chatted unceasingly about her child, little “Herbie,” who, it seemed, was only ten months old but could already both walk and talk, and she embarrassed Jeannette by asking in a whisper how soon there was going to be a little Devlin. There was nothing spontaneous in the conversation during the whole evening, neither while they sat at table nor later in the living-room, where Mr. Gibbs sat stolidly puffing at cigars, sipping the red Burgundy with which Martin kept his glass filled, and Mrs. Gibbs rattled on about how they had found their home at Cohasset Beach on Long Island, and the involved circumstances connected with its eventual purchase. Mercifully they were obliged to take an early train home on account of “Herbie,” but did not depart until they had warned their young hosts they would soon be expected to spend a Sunday with them in the country.
That night, going to bed, Martin and Jeannette had their first quarrel. It left her shaken and unhappy all the next day. She ridiculed their guests and Martin defended them; she declared they were stupid and common; he, that she didn’t know them, that they were a very good-hearted sort, that she had been cold and patronizing with Mrs. Gibbs, that her husband had noticed it, and become awfully “sore”; it would have been a “damn sight better,” Martin concluded stormily, if they had never been asked.
“And after all the trouble I went to!” raged Jeannette to herself, hugging her side of the bed, rebellionstrong within her, “cooking all day long, planning everything out, going over to Columbus Avenue twice, getting flowers for the table, working myself dizzy and ruining my organdie, just so he could make a good impression on them and perhaps help himself a little at the office!”
A tear trickled down her nose, and she wiped it off with a finger-tip. She would never give in to him,—never! She would make him beg and beg and beg for her forgiveness! It would be a long, long time.... With head aching and trying to choke down a sniffle that threatened to betray her, she fell asleep.
There was an eager reconciliation the next night; promises, vows, assurances, harsh self-accusations, and Martin carried her off after dinner to two dollar seats at theBroadway, where Jeannette whispered penitently, hugging his arm in the dark of the theatre, that if the Gibbsesdidask them to visit them some Sunday, she would go and be her nicest to both.
The occasion when Sandy MacGregor had the young Devlins to dine with him in style on the roof garden of the new Astor Hotel was another affair that turned out unfortunately. The lady whom Sandy asked to be fourth in the party,—a Mrs. Fontella,—was not the type with whom Jeannette had been accustomed to associate. She was boldly handsome with great round black eyes, masses of auburn hair, a cavernous red mouth, and a large, prominent bust. She was noisy and coarse, and when she laughed she showed a great deal of gum and rows of glittering gold-filled teeth.Jeannette froze into her most rigid and uncommunicative self. Just before dessert was served, Martin and Sandy excused themselves from the table and disappeared, leaving her sitting for almost half-an-hour alone with her noisy and conspicuous companion. It was evident when the men returned they had been downstairs to the bar where they had had drinks and had been shaking dice. Jeannette was thoroughly incensed, and although Sandy had seats for the theatre, she complained she was ill and insisted upon going home.
There was another quarrel between her husband and herself that night, but before they went to sleep he won her forgiveness, abused himself for treating her shabbily, told her again and again he was sorry, and promised never to be guilty of neglecting her again.
He could be irresistibly winning when he wanted to be.