The Cup of Fury Part 42

He noted that she sat down stenographically--very concisely. She perched her notebook on the desk of one crossed knee and perked her eyes up as alertly as a sparrow.

All this professionalism sat so quaintly on the two Marie Louises he had known that he roared with laughter as at a child dressed up.

She smiled patiently at his uproar till it subsided. Then he sobered and began to dictate:

"Ready? 'Miss Mamise'--cross that out--'Miss Marie Louise Webling'--you know the address; I don't. 'Dear--My dear'--no, just 'Dear Miss Webling. Reference is had to your order of recent date that this house engage you as amanuensis.' Dictionary in the bookcase outside--comma--no, period. 'In reply I would--I wish to--I beg to--we beg to say that we should--I should just as soon engage Mona Lisa for a stenographer as you.' Period and paragraph.

"'We have,'--comma,--'however,'--comma,--'another position to offer you,'--comma,--'that is, as wife to the senior member of this firm.'

Period. 'The best wages we can--we can offer you are--is the use of one large,'--comma,--'slightly damaged heart and a million thanks a minute.' Period. 'Trusting that we may be favored with a prompt and favorable reply, we am--I are--am--yours very sincerely, truly yours,'--no, just say 'yours,' and I'll sign it. By the way, do you know what the answer will be?"

"Yes."

"Do you mean it?"

"I mean that I know the answer."

"Let me have it."

"Can't you guess?"

"'Yes'?"

"No."

"Oh!"

A long glum pause till she said, "Am I fired?"

"Of course not."

More pause. She intervened in his silence.

"What do I do next, please?"

He said, of habit, "Why, sail on, and on, and on."

He reached for his basket of unanswered mail. He said:

"I've given you a sample of my style, now you give me a sample of yours, and then I'll see if I can afford to keep you as a stenographer instead of a wife."

She nodded, went to a typewriter in a corner of his office, and seated herself at the musicless instrument. Her heart pit-a-patted as fast as her fingers, but she drew up the letter in a handsome style while he sat and stared at her and mused upon the strange radiance she brought into the office in a kind of aureole.

He grew abruptly serious when Miss Gabus, his regular stenographer, entered and stared at the interloper with amazement, comma, suspicion, comma, and hostility, period. She murmured a very rasping "I beg your pardon," and stepped out, as Marie Louise rose from the writing-machine and brought him an extraordinarily accurate version of his letter.

And now he had two women on his hands and one on his heart. He dared not oust Miss Gabus for the sake of Miss Webling. He dared not show his devotion to Marie Louise, though as a matter of fact it made him glow like a lighthouse.

He put Mamise to work in the chief clerk's office. It was noted that he made many more trips to that office than ever before. Instead of pressing the buzzer for a boy or a stenographer, he usually came out himself on all sorts of errands. His buzzer did not buzz, but the gossip did.

Mamise was vaguely aware of it, and it distressed her till she grew furious. She was so furious at Davidge for not being deft enough to conceal his affection that she began to resent it as an offense and not a compliment.

The impossible Mamise insisted on taking up her residence in one of the shanties. When he took the liberty of urging her to live at a hotel or at some of the more comfortable homes she snubbed him bluntly. When he desperately urged her to take lunch or dinner with him she drew herself up and mocked the virtuous scorn of a movie stenographer and said:

"Sir! I may be only a poor typist, but no wicked capitalist shall loor me to lunch with him. You'd probably drug the wine."

"Then will you--"

"No, I will not go motoring with you. How dare you!"

"May I call, then?"

More as a punishment than a hospitality, she said:

"Yessir--the fourteenth house on the left side of the road is me."

The days were still long and the dark tardy when he marched up the street. It was a gantlet of eyes and whispers. He felt inane to an imbecility. The whole village was eying the boss on his way to spark a stenog. His little love-affair was as clandestine as Lady G.o.diva's famous bareback ride.

He cut his call short after an age-long half-hour of enduring the ridicule twinkling in Mamise's eyes. He stayed just late enough for it to get dark enough to conceal his return through that street. He was furious at the situation and at Mamise for teasing him so. But she became all the dearer for her elusiveness.

CHAPTER IV

After the novelty of the joke wore off Mamise grew as uncomfortable as he. She was beginning to love him more and her job less. But she was determined not to throw away her independence. Pride was her duenna, and a ruthless one. She tried to feed her pride on her ambition and on an occasional visit to the s.h.i.+p that was to wear her name.

She met Sutton, the prima donna riveter. He was always clattering away like a hungry woodp.e.c.k.e.r, but he always had time to stop and discuss his art with her.

Once or twice he let her try the riveter--the "gun," he called it; but her thumb was not strong enough to hold the trigger against that hundred-and-fifty-pound pressure per square inch.

One day Marie Louise came on Jake Nuddle and Sutton in a wrangle. She caught enough of the parley to know that Jake was sneering at Sutton's waste of energy and enthusiasm, his long hours and low pay. Sutton earned a very substantial income, but all pay was low pay to Jake, who was spreading the gospel of sabotage through the s.h.i.+pyard.

Meanwhile the good s.h.i.+p _Clara_, weaned from the dock, floated in the basin and received her equipment. And at last the day came when she was ready for her trial trip.

That morning the smoke rolled from her funnels in a twisted skein.

What had once been ore in many a mine, and trees in many a forest, had become an individual, as what has been vegetables and fruits and the flesh of animals becomes at last a child with a soul, a name, a fate.

It was impossible to think now that the _Clara_ was merely an iron box with an engine to push it about. _Clara_ was somebody, a personality, a lovable, whimsical, powerful creature. She was "she" to everybody.

And at last one morning she kicked up her heels and took a long white bone in her teeth and went her ways.

The next day _Clara_ came back. There was something about her manner of sweeping into the bay, about the proud look of her as she came to a halt, that convinced all the watchers in the s.h.i.+pyard of her success.

When they learned that she had exceeded all her contract stipulations there was a tumult of rejoicing; for her success was the success of every man and lad in the company's employ--at least so thought all who had any instinct of team-play and collective pride. A few soreheads were glum, or sneered at the enthusiasm of the others. It was strange that Jake Nuddle was a.s.sociated with all of these groups.

_Clara_ was not permitted to linger and rest on her laurels. She had work to do. Every s.h.i.+p in the world was working overtime except the German Kiel Ca.n.a.l boats. _Clara_ was gone from the view the next morning. Mamise missed her as she looked from the office window. She mentioned this to Davidge, for fear he might not know. Somebody might have stolen her. He explained:

"She's going down to Norfolk to take on a cargo of food for England--wheat for the Allies. I'm glad she's going to take breadstuffs to people. My mother used to be always going about to hungry folks with a basket of food on her arm."

Mamise had Jake and Abbie in to dinner that night. She was all agog about the success of _Clara_, and hoped that _Mamise_ would one day do as well.