Then she heard Dr. Stephens’s pleasant voice.
“Oh yes, I know Miss Ransom. She’s a charming girl, belongs to a fine old Virginia family. A girl of great ability and good sense, I should say. Oh, certainly I could recommend her fully to do anything that she was willing to undertake. She is quite an unusual girl. I should say that anyone who had her for a helper would be fortunate.”
Romayne’s face flushed with relief and pride. Even before this strange elderly woman it was good to have someone saying things like that about her.
“Well,” said the woman, looking up to see if she had heard, “that sounds pretty good. You’re lucky he was there, because I simply couldn’t have sent you to this place without a recommend. They’re very particular people. I’ve supplied them with cooks and governesses before sometimes, and they pay well and treat you well. Now, I’ll have to call up and see if they’ve got anybody. They’ve been phoning everywhere for somebody. But you’ll have to be ready to go right away. Hello! Hello! Yes, this is Quality Agency! Is this Miss Whitman? Well, have you got anybody yet? No? Well, I’ve found a girl. She has great references! What’s that? Oh, how soon? Wait, I’ll see an hour and a half! That’s short notice.”
The woman looked up.
“You’d have to go right away. You wouldn’t have more than an hour and a half. Can you make it? They’re leaving at five o’clock sharp, and they’ll come right here for you. It’s an out-of-town job, you know.”
“But—who are they?” asked Romayne, her startled eyes full of anxiety.
“Oh, they’re nice people,” said the woman impatiently. “I don’t have any others. The name is Whitman, and they have a lot of money and do things in style. You’ll be well treated. It’s good pay.” And she named a sum that fairly took the worried girl’s breath away.
“I’ll go,” said Romayne, catching her breath.
“Yes, Miss Whitman, she’ll be ready. All right! I’ll have her here at five o’clock sharp!” and the woman hung up the receiver.
“Well, you’d better step lively,” said the woman. “Have you far to go? Here, sign your name and address before you leave. Oh, you needn’t pay till you get back. I don’t take money till I’m sure my people get together all right. Now hurry! They can’t wait if you’re late! So it’s up to you.”
A moment more and Romayne was flying down the street toward the elevated train station, trying to remember as she went whether there were enough things in her suitcase that she had packed for that house party to last her till she could get her trunk.
She did not see a high-power racing car that passed her as she was mounting the steps, nor notice that Kearney Krupper was driving it, and that he had marked the door she came from as she left the agency. She was intent only on getting the next eastbound elevated train and reaching Maple Street in the shortest possible time.
Chapter 21
As the train flew along, Romayne began to count up the things she must remember to look after before she came back. She counted them out on her fingers. She must tell the people in the house and ask them to send word to Nurse Bronson and Chris that she had a job and would write as soon as possible.
She must write a check to pay for her room, and another to pay her washwoman, who would come with some clothes that day.
She must gather up the things on her bureau and in the drawers and closet and sweep them somehow into her trunk so that no one else would have much trouble in case she had to send for her trunk.
Her suitcase was just as it was when she came home from that house party. Each day she had thought she ought to take the things out and hang them up lest they be crushed beyond repair, but each day she had put it off, dreading to see the things that had been prepared with so much joy before her crushing sorrow came. But now it would be all right. She would just stuff one or two plain things in her handbag to supplement them for everyday work, and then she would surely be prepared for all emergencies. At least she would not be looked down upon for her wardrobe, and it was just as well to make a good impression even if she did not like the place well enough to remain. Anyhow, it was all she could do at such short notice.
Then she would have to change her dress and fix her hair. It would never do to present herself as social secretary in a faded gingham. She could wear the little spring suit that had gone so blithely to the house party. She had not had it on since that day. She hoped it wasn’t too rumpled, but then it had hung in the closet, and the wrinkles might have come out. Anyhow, it would have to do.
As she reached her station, she glanced at her watch and found that twenty minutes of her precious hour and a half was gone. Forty minutes was all she really had, allowing for her return, and that would be a half hour by the time she got to the house and told the people.
They helped her, those two good women with whom she was living. They sent the children out in the backyard to play and folded her garments for packing; they cleared out bureau drawers, using rare good sense in handing her little things they thought she ought to have with her.
They drew water for her bath and pressed out her suit, even rubbing out a spot they found on the front of the blouse. They wrote down her directions and pinned her checks to them. They helped her fasten her collar. They telephoned for a taxi. They stuffed the last handkerchief from the wash in her handbag, locked her trunk, put the key in her purse, made a sandwich and cut it in tiny uncrummy mouthfuls and put it in a candy bag in the handbag for her to eat if she got hungry on the way, and they kissed her good-bye and stood on the step to wave her out of sight, without ever questioning her decision in the matter of going.
Romayne sat back in the taxi and tried to relax. She felt as if she had been catapulted through the universe at a terrible tension and she would never, never get her breath again. The top of her head was throbbing, and her cheeks were blazing, but she was here, clothed in her pretty suit, her hair combed, her bag presumably packed with the necessary things, and her suitcase at her feet just as it had been packed weeks ago. She almost laughed when she thought of it, a sick little hysterical laugh, all alone there in the taxi, rushing toward the agency, to think how different it all was from the time that the suitcase was prepared. Then she had been going off for a happy good time. Now she was going forth to meet utter strangers and go with them to an unknown destination, without ever having inquired anything about that agency or the people with whom she was going. Nurse Bronson would be horrified. She must write her at once as soon as she got somewhere and let her know it was all right.
But how did she know it was all right? She had only the word of the agency woman, and how did she know who she was? She had only the word of little painted Frances.
Well, she was a working woman now, and working people had to take chances. She must take hers with the rest. She could not be guarded anymore as her father and mother had guarded her. There was no one to guard her. Only Chris!
And then she giggled again, that sad little hysterical giggle that showed she was tired to the soul and needed to be taken care of, worse than ever in her life before.
As the taxi lurched along, she watched the meter and her watch alternately. There were only ten minutes left of the precious time, and suppose, after all, she should fail! Well, she had done her best. There was nothing she could have come without.
How thirsty she was, and how hot! She would have given anything for a drink of water. The traffic was congested as they marked time at the main thoroughfare. Suppose she should not reach there in time! The thought recurred like a chorus at each crossing, till at last they reached the park and flew around the circle of it, bringing up before the door three minutes after a great high-power limousine drew up, just two minutes to five!
A young woman in a sport suit of the lastest model, with a little close hat and bobbed hair, was standing in the open doorway of the agency with the proprietor, alternately glancing at her wristwatch of platinum and diamonds and looking up the street toward the elevated train station.
“
We can’t wait a minute longer,” the girl was saying. “My brother is very particular about keeping his appointments, and with traffic at this hour we couldn’t possibly make it a minute later. She’ll have to come on the train, I suppose, and that is so unsatisfactory. Besides, she might not come! They’re always afraid of a strange place. I thought she promised to be here.”
“She said she would. I think she meant it. There’s another L train coming now from her direction.”
“Well, if she doesn’t come on that, we’ll have to go,” sighed Miss Whitman with an impatient frown. “It’s just two minutes of five. How tiresome! And I was so pleased to have accomplished what Mamma had tried and failed! Well, they all told me she wouldn’t go on such short notice. I wish you had offered her more money.”
But the gray-haired proprietor was watching the slim girl in the pretty suit who was paying the taxi driver. Was that—? It could not be! But she held herself the same way.
Miss Whitman was annoyed that the proprietor’s attention should be turned away for a moment, and took in the graceful girl from the crown of her attractive little hat to the tip of her pretty patent leather shoes, shiny suitcase, irreproachable handbag, wrist ruffled gloves, and all. There really was no fault to be found with her, and she walked gracefully and carried herself with poise. Sophisticated as Miss Whitman was, she could not help giving a glance of approbation as she would have done to any stylish gown, or pretty face, that conformed to the passing mode. Then she turned back with a frown to Madame.
“There she is now,” said Madame with relief in her voice. She was thinking of the goodly fee the Whitmans always paid without a murmur when they were satisfied.
“What!” The Whitman girl looked up and down the street.
“I don’t see anyone coming. No one came down the stairs after the train stopped.”
“No, but here,” sighed the woman as Romayne turned from the driver and preceded him as he carried her suitcase up the steps. It was evident from his difference that he took her for a client of the place and not an applicant.
“This!” murmured the Whitman girl in amazement. “You don’t mean—how did you ever do it?”
And then Romayne lifted wistful brown eyes to her face in a brief glance and addressed the elder woman.
“Am I in time? It’s been rather a rush, and we got in traffic over on the avenue.”
“Just on time to the minute!” answered the proprietor with satisfaction. “Miss Whitman, this is Miss Ransom. I hope the arrangement will prove satisfactory.”
Romayne gave the other girl a quick, shy glance of inspection.
“We haven’t had much chance to think about it, have we?” she smiled naively. “I hope it’s all right. I don’t know that I understand exactly what my duties will be, but I’ll do my best.”
“I guess you’ll do,” said the other girl almost rudely after a second longer of prolonged inspection, her chin just the least bit haughty. This girl was just a shad too familiar. She must be put in her place. “You’re here, that’s the main thing. I suppose you can write a good clear hand, can’t you?”
“Oh yes,” smiled Romayne with relief.
“Then come on! Here, I’ll pay your fee. Don’t bother, I’ve to settle my own account. Now, Madame, you’ll be looking up that cook before we come home. You know, Mother said she didn’t want the other one; she’s too impudent. If you can just get Sarah, everything will be all right. Now, Miss Ransom, if you’ll just go right out to the car. James, take this baggage!”
They put Romayne in the front seat with the chauffeur. There was another girl and a young man in the backseat. Romayne was not introduced to them. It appeared she would have no part in the group at all. She was merely an outsider. It was her first experience in being among the working class. It rather amused her. She was glad on the whole that she had nothing to do—she was so mortally tired. Now at last she could relax a little and get rid of that terrible beating and trembling all over her weary body as if she had been clubbed. She was here, and she had a job. She might as well enjoy herself. She was going to have a ride at least, and she did not have to walk anywhere on her tired feet! Just be thankful, and wait for what came next.
Then they rounded the park and swung into the broad parkway with the fountain purling in white feathered beauty ahead, and tall buildings looming at right and left as if reluctant to have the city give way to the beauties of nature.
And there, right before her on the left, loomed the Earnheim Building, with great letters on the side accusing her, as she was whirled away into a world of which she knew nothing.
And then, and not till then, did Romayne remember her appointment with Kearney Krupper.
She grasped the side of the car, caught her breath, and all but exclaimed, till she realized that nobody was paying the slightest attention to her, and that this was no time to mention forgotten dates. She must bear the consequences unless she wished to lose this obviously good job, the chance of a lifetime probably.
A second only it seemed, and the Earnheim Building was far in the distance behind her, and a belated clock somewhere was tolling out five clear strokes, as if to mock her. She had left her brother and gone to seek her fortune! She had done just what he had done and was living for herself and forgetting him!
Those were the first thoughts that the enemy found to fling at her weary young soul. And for a few dreadful minutes her conscience ran frantically around in her tired little being and kicked up a terrible time.
Then suddenly they rode smoothly out of the rush and traffic of the parkway into the great cool park itself, where rocks loomed and towered, covered with dripping moss and vines, and a deep stream flowed silently and unhurried with trees arched overhead. It was almost twilight there, with a fresh green smell after the dust of the city.
Down upon her dropped a calm. Reason took the helm. She realized that she had not decided whether she was going to meet Krupper or not, and that it had been taken entirely out of her hands and made impossible for her to do. She could not very well make these people turn back to rectify something she had forgotten, when she knew they were in a hurry.
As she grew calmer, she began to thank God in her heart that she had been saved from going to the eleventh floor in a lonely office to meet Kearney Krupper, alone. It seemed, at this perspective, quite an impossible thing to have done, and for a mile or two she sat and planned how she would write him a note and say that she was suddenly called out of town, making it impossible to keep the appointment, and that he might with perfect safety write the address in a sealed envelope and mail or leave it at Maple Street, and she would get it on her return. She wondered why she had not thought of that before. But after a few more miles of beautiful roads, even that dropped away, and she was just thankful to be here. Whatever was at the end of the journey, this part of it was good, and she was glad for it.
They stopped a little after six at a suburban town and picked up Miss Whitman’s brother, whom they addressed as Jack, and proceeded on their way out smooth highways into the country.
Romayne had had little opportunity for automobiling, and she was enjoying every moment of the way. The sun went down like a fire opal behind the hills, leaving little flecks of coral and gold on the clear sea-blue and amber of the sky, and then darkness fell softly like a perfumed curtain around them, and a single star looked out like an eye that watched and saw them all.
She did not care that they did not introduce her, that she was apart from their fun and noisy laughter in the backseat. She was glad, glad that she might just sit still and fly along this lovely road. It was good to feel the night around her and not have any obligation to talk to anyone. Her troubles and her burdens fell away like a garment and left her soul there to revel in the silence all around, in the little sweet sounds of crickets, rusty-throated, along the edges of the road, the tree toads chirruping down in the valley, the distant lowing of a cow, a long sweet whistle from a boy coming home from his work, happy strains from a victrola
in a little house up on the hillside as they passed, the laughter of children at bedtime, male voices droning in a quartette on a dusky front porch at some friendly gathering. They were all like beautiful fragments of a world that was not hers anymore but that rested her just to know it was there again as it used to be before she had suffered so. She wondered why it was that God wanted her to stay here all alone this way and keep on living with this behind her and nothing ahead but pain.
And then she remembered that that sweet Aunt Patty had said that the God who could forgive would also comfort and go with her and guide her, and she put up a little inaudible prayer that she might be remembered.
She began to feel the pangs of hunger by and by when the shadows at the side of the road grew velvet black and deep, and she wondered if she dared try a bite of that delectable sandwich that Grandma Bronson had put in her bag, but decided against it on account of the hawk-eyed James, who drove like a robot, and who all-too-evidently missed nothing that went on. She wished to fade out of the picture as much as possible and not draw attention to herself, so she sat motionless and watched the wonderful night go by and forgot to be hungry.
They got out a flask in the back of the car and grew merry. With sudden friendly impulse, they passed it to her, and, all unthinking, she turned to accept, for she was very thirsty, but she caught the fumes of liquor and drew back with almost a gasp. She had thought in her simpleness that it might be lemonade.
She managed to cover her awkwardness with a gentle “Thank you. No!” and turned back to her scenery again, thirstier than ever, and the Whitman girl drew back with a cold: “Oh, don’t you care for it?” and a shrug of her shoulder. But long after the party in the backseat had forgotten the incident, Romayne sat, with white face coming out of the darkness still and sad, and thought about it.
It was as if she had suddenly found her deadliest enemy riding in the seat beside her. The smell of that liquor carried her straight down into the cellar of her home, to the secret room, where she had gone with the officer that early morning and seen the rows of bottles and the machinery for rebottling, and smelled the whiffs of rank alcohol and read the labels and knew her shame to be real. Never again would she smell that odor of fermentation without being carried back to that cellar and the day of her first great sorrow. For now she could look back on her mother’s death as a glad thing—rather than with sadness. She was glad that her mother had not lived to suffer all that she was suffering.