Katie

  Philo knew that Mrs. Maitland now regretted having brought her to this house – the daughter and granddaughter of the vic­tims of murder, a penniless girl who worked in a dollar store that was but two steps higher than a house of assignation, a wanton who had picked up her son on the street and attempted to in­volve him in her plight, a suspected criminal who couldn’t cross the North River for fear she would be arrested once she had stepped onto New Jersey soil. Philo rose from the sofa, intending to leave.

  “Philomela!” cried Mrs. Maitland, looking suddenly round with tears in her eyes. “You poor monkey!”

  The dining table was white, as were the chairs that surrounded it, the china that was set upon it, the carpet that was beneath it, the frames around the mirrors that reflected it, the ceiling that looked down upon it, the paper on the walls that wrapped it round. Two tall windows at the back looked out over a little shady garden with a cast-iron fountain and statuary.

  Mrs. Maitland asked many questions of Philo concerning her life in New Egypt, the death of Richard Parrock, and the loss of her fortune. She did not speak and even delicately cast away her eyes when Philo told of the murder of her mother by Katie Slape. Philo did not seek to hide the fact that she was suspected of murder; rather, she even emphasized the point, so that she might never have to reproach herself with having attempted to de­ceive Henry’s mother. Of all her story she glossed over only Jacob Varley’s attempt to cheat her with the sale of her home and her discovery of the real nature of the dollar store.

  But of this last, Mrs. Maitland evidently had some inkling. At any rate she seized upon Philo’s current predicament – almost penni­less and without certain prospects for betterment – as the cheerfullest portion of a history not distinguished by its cheer.

  “Philomela,” she said, “we must see something done for you.”

  “You have returned my five cents,” said Philo with a smile.

  “I mean to do somewhat more than that,” said Mrs. Maitland, and rose from the table.

  In the parlor again Mrs. Maitland asked Philo to sit at her desk and copy out two paragraphs in a book.

  When Philo had accomplished this apparently meaningless task, Mrs. Maitland took the page, examined it, and nodded.

  “This will do very nicely,” she said.

  “For what?” Philo asked curiously.

  “For my secretary’s hand,” she said, and cocked her head and smiled.

  Chapter 33

  NEW PROSPERITY

  Philo began once more to trust her optimism – and her instincts. When things had seemed blackest to her, Mrs. Maitland had descended like an angel of light onto the Broadway stage. And Philo realized with a shudder that if she had returned to the dollar store on Thursday morning, she would never have taken the Broadway stage, never met Henry’s mother, never secured employment in the fine brownstone on West Twenty-sixth Street.

  Nedda Maitland’s intentions were not entirely charitable in regard to Philo Drax. At the first of course, hearing Philo’s story and knowing what an interest her son had taken in her (though he had never told his mother the unfortunate girl’s name), Nedda had cast about for a way of helping her. And having felt the need of late for someone to assist her with correspondence and accounts, to run errands, and to put off those whom she did not wish to see, she peered at Philomela Drax in the light of an applicant for that position. Philo was neat, courteous, unafraid, unsimpering, and she wrote a fine hand – so she was hired on the spot.

  She was to be paid, Nedda told her, ten dollars a week.

  “That is too much!” exclaimed Philo, who knew the wages of the other girls in Mrs. Classon’s house.

  “It is more than most young women of your age and experience could expect, I admit,” said Nedda Maitland. “But I will not give you less. In the first place, it gives me pleasure to be of assistance to you. In the second place, Henry would wish it. In the third place, well – it is simply one of the conditions that I place upon hiring you, Philomela. Now,” Nedda went on, “open the top drawer of the desk with this key and give me the wallet that is inside.”

  Philo did so, and Nedda Maitland opened the wallet, drew out five crisp ten-dollar bank notes, and handed them to Philo.

  “I want you to go out this afternoon and purchase the begin­nings of a new wardrobe. You—”

  Philo handed back the bills with alacrity. “No, Mrs. Maitland, you’ve already been too kind to—”

  Nedda Maitland shook her head in warning. “Please don’t in­ter­rupt. This is necessary, I think. It will be required of you some­times to make trips to Wall Street in my interest, and I wish your appearance to reflect credit on me.” She scanned Philo’s dress. “I think you are neatly done up, dear, but the materials might be richer without any harm. You will give interviews in my stead at times, and as my representative, you will need to appear to best advantage. And recall, Philomela, I am rich, and you are not. This money means very little to me and a great deal to you. I could get no greater pleasure from it than handing it over to you now.” And she folded the bills in Philo’s hand.

  “What are my duties to be, Mrs. Maitland?” asked Philo.

  “Many and various. I am a lazy woman, I fear, and I like to do as little as possible.”

  At this Philo smiled. Nedda Maitland, though stately and calm, did not give any impression of laziness such as was prominent in the character of Caroline Varley, her sister-in-law.

  “I subscribe to a number of charities and am frequently called upon to attend meetings. Some meetings take place in this house, and I would ask you in some cases to take minutes of them. Many individual applicants for charity apply directly to me, and I am not always successful in winnowing the deserving from those who seek only to cheat me. I think you have a discerning eye, Philomela, and between us I think we can distinguish the shirkers.”

  “When shall I begin?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes!” cried Philo, eager to show Mrs. Maitland her gratitude.

  “Then I will write a letter—”

  Philo raised her hand in protest.

  “I will have you write a letter,” smiled Nedda, “and I will sign it. It will be directed to the manager of the store where I shopped this morning. You will go back down on the Broadway stage and see if you can recover the porte-monnaie that I so foolishly left behind.”

  The letter, of Philo’s own composition, was written, read over by Nedda, signed, and transported downtown. The porte-monnaie, which had been left on the counter of an honest em­ployee, had been taken to the manager. When he was satisfied that it did indeed belong to Nedda Maitland, a good customer of his, and that Philo was her acknowledged representative, he handed over the purse.

  Philo returned to Twenty-sixth Street in triumph. The success of her first mission augured well for her new career.

  Mrs. Maitland, who had no other pressing work for her that afternoon, dismissed Philo with the injunction that she ought to spend as much of the fifty dollars as she could. Philo took the kind woman at her word and returned to West Thirteenth Street laden with packages.

  Each morning thereafter Philo left the rooming house in the company of the other young women on their way to their places of employment, and walked uptown to Mrs. Maitland’s. She opened the early-morning mail, attached notes to the missives – the begging letters sometimes ran to twelve pages or more – which denoted what action was requested or seemed appro­pri­ate, Philo’s opinion of the writer, and so forth. Mrs. Maitland went over these letters immediately, and Philo began the corres­pondence. In most cases, Nedda had only to tell Philo in a few words the nature of the reply, and Philo composed the letter her­self; it was read over by Nedda and signed. Nedda and Philo took luncheon together, and in the early afternoon Philo went on errands for Mrs. Maitland or accompanied her employer on shopping expeditions. On the latter occasions, Philo’s wardrobe never went unaugmented.

  Perhaps the most difficult lesson for Philo to learn was to ac­cept graciously M
rs. Maitland’s gifts. After a time, Philo came to see that she really was of some considerable use to Mrs. Mait­land and that charity had become only a small part of Nedda’s motivation.

  Philo did not move in with Ella LaFavour. She was pleased to be able to keep the single chamber at seven dollars a week. Though this consumed the greatest part of her wages, she was not at a loss for money. Her meals were normally taken either at Mrs. Classon’s or on Twenty-sixth Street, and if Philo were out with Mrs. Maitland, Nedda always paid. Other than rent, Philo’s sole expenditure was for entertainment, for sometimes in the evening Philo would go to the theater or one of the variety halls with Ella. Nellie Stanwood played half a dozen roles, each of a minor character, at the Union Square Theatre, and for each of these performances, several of Mrs. Classon’s young ladies pooled their quarters and purchased a box for the evening – a giggling extravagance. When Philo had first come to New York, she had been burdened with trepidations of beginning a life whose success or failure was dependent entirely upon her own exertions; will-she nill-she Philo was grown up. But in this, the pleasantest spring she had ever known, Philo felt a young girl again, with few cares and many simple pleasures.

  Each morning she walked through Madison Square on her way to Mrs. Maitland’s and watched the progress of the flowers and trees. In the tiny, neat garden behind the house on Twenty-sixth Street, Philo and Mrs. Maitland would sit in the early after­noon when the sun had come round, take coffee, and listen to the plash of water in the cast-iron dolphin fountain. Philo had money – far more of her own than she had ever possessed in New Egypt; she had congenial employment; she had friends her own age at Mrs. Classon’s and an even finer friend in Mrs. Mait­land. It was difficult for Philo to believe that her mother was so recently dead. When she thought of Mary Drax, the image that was brought to Philo’s mind was of a statue she had seen at the Academy of Arts with Mrs. Maitland, of Niobe weeping for her slaughtered children. Mary Drax, it seemed to Philo now, had always been weeping.

  After a few weeks of being in the employ of Mrs. Maitland, Philo fulfilled a duty she had neglected: she wrote to Mr. Killip in Goshen and apprised him of her whereabouts and newfound situation. Until this new good fortune had come upon her, she had been reluctant to trouble the lawyer at all; but now that she could write hopefully, she was willing enough to tell him of her troubles in New Egypt and New York. She begged him to inform her how things progressed with the case for the recovery of the farm, and whether she were still suspected of her grandfather’s murder, and whether anything at all had been heard of the Slapes. Philo wrote in conclusion:

  Though I am well and (through the generosity of Mrs. Maitland) provided for, I will not be able to rest easy on my pillow a single night until the murderous Slapes have been apprehended, charged with their crimes, and punished. It is as if they had disappeared from the face of the earth, yet I know they are at this moment somewhere, doing some­thing – but unassailed, unpunished, and uncaring of the dif­fi­culties and sorrow they have caused me. They have mur­dered my family, and they have stolen my fortune. I believe the family have no conscience, and would feel remorse only if remorse were woven into a gallows rope and tied round their necks. I can never forget or forgive what they have done to me. If I hate anything at all in this fair world, I hate the Slapes.

  Chapter 34

  JEWEL’S DISCOMFITURE

  One week late in June, after Philo had been employed on Twenty-sixth Street for somewhat more than six weeks, she arrived at Mrs. Maitland’s door at half past eight o’clock, her usual hour. The servant admitting her bore a troubled expression, but be­fore Philo had the time to wonder if anything were amiss within, she had stepped into the parlor and seen, sitting upon the sofa, none other than Jewel Varley. She wore a forest-green morn­ing dress, embroidered round the skirt and up the front in two wide flounces, one hanging over the other, with sleeves and cuffs fashioned to match.

  She sat there stiffly, as if the Queen of England, on a portable throne, were in the next room and Jewel only waited for her name to be called by a herald, to enter and be presented.

  Philo smiled, remembering how little communication there was between Nedda Maitland and her brother’s family in New Egypt. It was unlikely that the Varleys knew of her appointment as Mrs. Maitland’s secretary.

  Hearing a step upon the threshold, Jewel looked up and cried, after a moment of amazement: “Lord! It’s the murderess!” She shrunk into the corner of the couch and timorously demanded, “Do you intend to kill us all?”

  “Jewel Varley,” said Philo impatiently, “you know very well that I’ve never murdered anybody.”

  “It’s said you did!”

  “You know very well I didn’t.”

  Jewel, though reassured of her safety, rose charily from the couch. “Then what on earth are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I am here to see your aunt,” replied Philo. She would have been less than human had she not enjoyed Jewel’s evident dis­comfiture.

  Jewel looked over Philo’s dress: a Swiss muslin skirt in white with a light blue bodice with white spots. It was of much finer quality than any outfit Jewel had ever seen on Philo.

  “Well,” said Jewel, attempting still to get over the unpleasant astonishment of seeing Philo there, “you would have done better to wear something less ostentatious.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because,” replied Jewel, “my aunt is hardly likely to give charity to anyone so well-dressed as you are this morning. I would have thought that by this time, Miss Philo, you would have been well versed in the tactics of . . .” She paused to find a bitter word. “. . . genteel beggary. But perhaps, if I tell Aunt Nedda how needy your case is, she will overlook the opulence of your dress.”

  Philo was nearly angry, but she did not allow that anger to show. “Your dress is considerably finer than mine, Jewel.”

  “Of course it is! But I have a position to maintain in this house­hold. Of course I wear a fine dress!”

  “But I have a position to maintain in this household as well,” said Philo, and seated herself – to Jewel’s even greater astonish­ment – at the secretary against the wall. Philo unlocked the desk and pulled down the writing board.

  “Philo,” cried Jewel, “leave my aunt’s things alone!”

  Philo turned slowly around and said, “Good morning, Mrs. Maitland.”

  Nedda Maitland stood in the doorway of the parlor.

  “Good morning, Philomela,” said Nedda. “Jewel, it had com­­pletely slipped my mind that you two young women were already acquainted.”

  “Aunt Nedda,” Jewel spluttered, “Philo was going through your desk!”

  “Of course she was,” replied Nedda imperturbably. “Philo­mela is very industrious.”

  Jewel turned back to Philo with an eye of horror.

  “I am your aunt’s secretary,” Philo explained.

  “Her secretary!”

  “And my companion,” said Nedda Maitland. “Philomela has kept me excellent company while Henry has been away. I don’t know what I should have done without her.”

  “She is being hunted down in New Jersey as a murderess!” cried Jewel.

  “All the more reason for her to remain with me,” replied Nedda calmly.

  “You knew that she killed her grandfather?”

  “Jewel!” said Nedda sternly.

  “But Aunt Nedda,” Jewel protested, taking another tack. “I would have been happy to come to stay with you. You need only to have asked. I could have written all your letters and done whatever it is that Philo does. And you wouldn’t have had to pay me, I would have done it for nothing!”

  Nedda smiled and said, “I didn’t want to deprive New Egypt of your sunshine, Jewel.”

  Jewel frowned. “New Egypt is a poky old place. I’d much rather be here in New York.”

  “I’m a cruel mistress,” said Nedda. “I run poor Philomela ragged.”

  “She doesn’t look ragged! How much do
you pay her, Aunt Nedda?”

  “Not a portion of what she’s worth to me,” said Nedda, and smiled at Philo, who blushed.

  “Well,” said Jewel peevishly – she was not getting the best of any of this conversation—“I’m certain Miss Philo will be sorry to see us leave for Saratoga. I wonder what she’ll do then.”

  Philo was indeed alarmed – this was the first that she had heard of Mrs. Maitland’s intended journey upstate. She had known of course that the Varleys spent time at the watering place every year but had not known that Mr. Varley’s sister accompanied them. She did not look up at Mrs. Maitland, for she did not wish her em­ployer to think that she expected anything more than she had already received at that kind woman’s hand.

  “She will help me to prepare for the journey,” said Nedda Maitland, “and when she goes to the terminal, she will purchase three tickets – one for you, one for me, and one for herself.”

  “You are taking Philo with you to Saratoga!” cried Jewel, but Philo was just as surprised.

  “Of course,” replied Nedda, who had seated herself in a velvet fauteuil and inclined her face into the warming rays of the sun through the front window. “Philomela – unfortunately for herself – has become indispensable to me. She will have to submit to being dragged off to Saratoga if she wishes to remain in my employ.”

  “I think I can bear up,” remarked Philo softly.

  Jewel protested, “But Philo is your secretary. She helps you with your work. At Saratoga she’ll just be extra baggage!”

  Nedda Maitland replied as if she did not understand Jewel’s motive in thus deprecating Philo’s usefulness. “There are letters to be written at Saratoga as well as in New York. My broker telegraphs me there as well as here. I’ll want someone to buy the morning papers and purchase tickets to the concerts for me. I’ll still want conversation at Saratoga, Jewel.”

  “Philo’s paid to do those things,” sneered Jewel. “She’s in your employ. I’d be doing it for love of you, Aunt Nedda. Besides – and I know Philo won’t mind my saying so – she’ll be dreadfully out of place among so much of the fashionable world. She couldn’t be comfortable there. Suppose someone found out about her past!”