People Like That Part 4

For the first time since I came to Scarborough Square, Mrs. Mundy has not been to-day her chatty self. She does not seem to want to talk--that is of the girl I want to talk about. When, in my sitting-room this morning, I asked her the girl's name she said she did not know it, did not know where she lived, or what had happened to her, and at my look of incomprehension at her seeming disregard, she had turned away and busied herself in dusting the books on the well-filled table.

"She was pretty nervous." Mrs. Mundy's usually cheerful voice was troubled. "To talk to her, ask her questions, would just have made her more so. They won't tell you anything if they can help it--girls like that--and I didn't try to make her tell. I gave her something to quiet her and stayed with her until she was asleep, but when I went in the room this morning she was gone. Bettina said she heard some one unbolt the door very softly, but she thought 'twas me."

"Do you suppose she lives in this neighborhood? Her people must have been very anxious."

Mrs. Mundy turned and looked at me queerly. She has tremendous admiration for what she calls my book-learning, and sees no incongruity in my ignorance of many things with which she is familiar. My ignorance, indeed, she thinks it her duty to conserve, and already we have had some differences of opinion as to what I should know and not know of the life about us. There are a good many things I have got to make Mrs. Mundy take in more definitely. She thinks of me still as a girl. I am not. I am a woman twenty-six years old.

"Half the girls you've seen coming home from work, half who live around the Square, haven't any people here. What they have is a room in somebody's house. Many are from the country or from small towns.

Over sixteen thousand work in the factories alone. You don't suppose they all have homes, do you?--have some one who waits up for them at night, some one who cares when they come in?"

Before I could answer she stopped her dusting and, head on the side and hands on her hips, listened. "There's the iceman at the kitchen door," she said, relievedly. "I'll have to go and let him in."

It is this I cannot understand, this unusual evasiveness on Mrs.

Mundy's part. She is the least mysterious of persons, is, indeed, as open as the day, and it is unlike her to act as she has done. From childhood I have known her. Up to the time of Aunt Matilda's marriage to Mr. Chesmond she made my clothes, and for years, in all times of domestic complications has been our dependence. When I decided to live for a while in the house once owned by my grandfather, I turned to her in confidence that she would care not only for my material needs, but that from her I could get what no one else could give me--an insight into scenes and situations commonly concealed from surface sight.

Her knowledge of life is wide and varied. With unfailing faith and cheerful courage and a habit of seeing the humorous side of tragic catastrophes, she has done her work among the sick and forsaken, with no appeal to others save a certain few; and only those who have been steadied by her strong hands, and heartened by her buoyant spirit, and fed from her scant store, have knowledge or understanding of what she means to the section of the city where the poor and lowly live.

Bit by bit I am learning, but even yet it is difficult to make her tell me all she does, or how and when she does it.

It was partly because of certain talks with her that I decided to come to Scarborough Square. If I could make but a few understand what she understands--so understand that the sending of a check would not sufficiently relieve them from obligation, from responsibility.

But how can I make clear to others what is not clear to me?

It will not be Bettina's fault if I do not become acquainted with my new neighbors in Scarborough Square. By the calendar's accounting Bettina's years are only thirteen, but in shrewdness of penetration, in swiftness of conclusion, and in acceptance of the fact that most people are queer she is amazingly mature. Her readiness to go with me anywhere I wish to go is unfailing, but save on Sat.u.r.days and Sundays we can only pay our visits in the afternoon. It is late when she gets from school, and dark soon after we start, but with Bettina I am safe.

Outside and inside of the house our roles are reversed. Concerning my books and my pictures, concerning the people who ride in their own automobiles, who go to the theatre whenever they wish, to the fine churches with beautiful music and paid pews; the people who give parties and wear gorgeous clothes and eat mushrooms and terrapin--which she considered inexplicable taste--she will ask me countless questions; but outside of the house she becomes the teacher and I the taught. Just what I am learning she hardly understands.

Much that is new to me is commonplace to her; and she does not dream that I often cannot sleep at night for remembering what the day has shown me. To-morrow we are going to see a Mrs. Gibbons, whose little boy, eleven years of age, is the head of his mother's house--the support of her family.

CHAPTER VII

Hands in her pockets, Bettina looked at me disappointedly. "It's very cold," she said. "Why don't you wear your fur coat?"

"I like this one better. It's warm and not so heavy."

"Your fur coat is the only one in Scarborough Square. A sure-enough fur one, I mean. There're plenty of imitations. Mrs. Crimm's got an imitation. You look awful grand in that fur coat--look like a princess person. Grannie says you don't want to seem different from the people down here. How are you going to help it?"

"I don't know. I mean--" It was silly that my face should flush before Bettina's unblinking scrutiny, but flush it did. "I don't want to seem different. People are much more alike than they imagine. If we didn't think so much of our differences--"

"Bound to think of them when they're right in your face. You don't suppose you're anything like Evie May Poore, do you? or Roberta Wicks, or Mrs. Clay Burt? Every time I see Evie May Poore I wish I was an Indian so I could tomahawk her hair. Most of her money goes in hair and chewing-gum. Mr. Crimm says he thinks girls who dress like Roberta Wicks ought to be run in, but there ain't any law which lets him do it. Mr. Crimm's going to a big wedding to-night. Did you know it?"

I shook my head. In my mouth were the pins with which my veil was to be fastened. Hands on my hat, I straightened the latter before putting on the veil.

"Well, he is. Funny, ain't it, that all these swells have to have a plain-clothes man at weddings so the people what come to 'em won't take any of the presents? That's Mr. Crimm's chief business nowadays, looking out for high-cla.s.s crooks. He says you ain't as strong-colored as some the ladies he sees up-town, but he never did see a face with more sense and soul in it than what yours has got.

At the last wedding he went to he told grannie some the ladies didn't have on clothes enough to wad a gun. Are you ready? It gets dark by five o'clock."

"I'm ready." Taking up my m.u.f.f, I followed Bettina down the steps and into the street to the corner, on which was the little shop wherein were sold goldfish and canary-birds, and fox-terriers and white rabbits; and from there we turned in the direction which led to Mrs. Gibbons's. The day was cold and clear, but the ground was slippery with sleet, and, holding on to my arm, Bettina made valiant effort to pilot me aright.

As we walked she talked, and the names of the occupants of various houses pa.s.sed were told to me, together with the particular kind of work in which they were engaged, and the amount of wages which were earned by different members of the household. The information given me had been gained from her schoolmates, and what at first had seemed appalling frankness and freedom, I soon learned was a community custom, and a comparison of earnings a favorite subject of discussion among children of all ages. Recess, it appears, is the usual time for an exchange of facts concerning family affairs.

"Myra Blunt, who sits in front of me, says she's going in the pickle-factory as soon as she's fourteen." Bettina slipped, but caught herself, and held my arm more firmly.

"She's our ashman's daughter, and she's got a mole right on the end of her nose. It's a little on one side, but it looks awful funny, and Jimmie Rice says she'll stay in that pickle-factory all her life if she don't have that mole taken off. A boy won't have a girl for a sweetheart if her nose has got a mole on it, will he? Myra is afraid it will hurt to have it come off. She's an awful coward. This is the place. This is Ninety-two."

Mrs. Gibbons's residence was one of several small and shabby houses which huddled together as if for protection, and as we went up the steps of the shaky porch a head from the second-story window was thrust out--a head wrapped in a red crocheted shawl.

"You-all want to see Mrs. Gibbons? Well, she ain't to home. That is, I don't think she is. She told me this morning she was going down to the 'firmary to get some medicine for that misery in her back what struck her yesterday. If she ain't to home, you-all kin come up here and rest yourself if you want to. It's awful cold, ain't it?"

Before we could express our appreciation of the hospitality offered, the door at which we had knocked was opened cautiously, and at its aperture a head was seen. There was a moment's hesitancy and then the door opened more widely.

"Is this Mrs. Gibbons?"

Bettina asked the question, and at its answer called to the woman still leaning out of the upstairs window, "She's home." Then she introduced me.

"This is Miss Heath. Miss Dandridge Heath, Mrs. Gibbons; and I'm Bettina Woll. We've come to see you. Can we come in?"

Mrs. Gibbons, who had nodded imperceptibly in my direction as Bettina called my name, motioned limply toward a room on my right, and as I entered it I looked at her and saw at once that she, too, belonged to the unqualified and unfit. She must once have been a pretty woman, but her hair and eyes were now a dusty black, her skin the color of putty, and her mouth a drooping curve that gave to her face the expression of one who was about to cry. Life had apparently for some time been more than she was equal to, and, incapable of battling further with it, she radiated a helplessness that was pitiable and yet irritating. Thin and flat-chested, her uncorseted figure in its rusty black dress straightened for half a minute, then again it relaxed.

"Take a seat, won't you?" Her voice was as listless as her eyes.

"It's warmer in the kitchen. Maybe you'd better come back there. My little girl's in there. She's sick."

As we turned to leave the room I glanced around it. The windows were down, the shutters closed, but by the light which came through the broken slats and cheap lace curtains, whose ends were spread expansively on the bare floor, I saw its furnis.h.i.+ngs. A bed, covered with a white spread and with pillow-shams embroidered in red cotton, was against the side of the wall facing the windows, and close to it was a table on which lay a switch of coa.r.s.e black hair. A crepe-paper lambrequin decorated the mantel-shelf, whose ornaments were a cup and saucer, a shaving-set, and a pair of conch-sh.e.l.ls; while between the windows was a wash-stand obviously kept for ornamental purposes, as there was no water in the pitcher and the basin was cracked. Pinned on the soft plastering of the walls were florid advertis.e.m.e.nts of various necessities and luxuries of life, together with highly colored Scripture texts, and over the mantel hung a crayon of the once head of the house. The room was cold and damp. The air in it had not been changed for some time, and as Mrs.

Gibbons stopped and picked up the baby, who at the sound of voices had crawled into the room, I did not wonder at its croupy cough.

Down the dark and narrow pa.s.sageway Bettina and I followed our hostess, and at its end I would have stumbled over a step had I not been warned in time. The noise made by a box overturned by Bettina gave the latter opportunity to give me one more injunction.

"Don't promise to do too much right off." The whisper was uncomfortably clear. "She's the kind who's like a sifter. You have to be right hard with people like that-- Take care! There's another step!"

CHAPTER VIII

As we entered the kitchen, a tiny room with one window in it, I glanced around it as I had done at the front room, the two seeming to complete the suite occupied by Mrs. Gibbons. My survey was quick and cautious, but not too much so for mental noting of the conservation of time and s.p.a.ce and labor represented by an arrangement of household effects I had never seen before. Health and comfort were the princ.i.p.al omissions.

In one corner of the room was a bed covered with a calico quilt of many colors, and under it a pallet, tucked away for convenience in the daytime, but obviously out at night. Close to the bed was a large stove in which a good fire was burning, and from the blue-and-white saucepan on the top came forth odor of a soup with which I was not familiar. The door of the oven was partly open, and in the latter could be seen a pan of heavy-looking biscuits which apparently awaited their devouring at any time that suited the desire of the devourer. Bettina looked at them and then at me, but she said nothing--that is, nothing out loud.

"Set down." Mrs. Gibbons, the baby still in her arms, made effort to dust one of the two chairs in the room with the gingham ap.r.o.n she was wearing, and, after failing, motioned me to take it. The other one she pushed toward Bettina with her foot. On the bed was a little girl of six or seven, and as we took our seats a boy, who barely looked ten, came from behind a couple of wash-tubs in an opposite corner of the room and wiped his hands on a towel hanging from a hook in the wall. To ask something concerning this boy was the purpose of our visit.

"Speak to the lady, Jimmy. Anybody would think you didn't have no manners! No, you can't have your supper yet."

Mrs. Gibbons waved her hand weakly at her son, who, smiling at us, had gone to a corner cupboard with perforated tins of diamond pattern in its doors, and taken therefrom a soup-plate and cup and saucer.

Paying no attention to his mother's reference to a delayed meal, he ladled out of the big saucepan, with a cracked cup, a plate of the steaming soup, and carried it carefully to an oilcloth-covered table, on which was a lamp and gla.s.s pitcher, some unwashed dishes left from the last meal, a broken doll, and a child's shoe. Putting down the plate of soup, he came back to the stove and poured out a cup of feeble-looking coffee.

"Goin' to be extras out to-night and I mightn't get back till after ten." Again his gay little smile lighted his thin face. "Ifen I don't eat now I mightn't eat at all. Have one?"

He poked a plate of the health-destroying biscuits at Bettina with a merry little movement, and bravely she took one, bravely made effort to eat it. "What's your name?" I heard him ask her, and then I turned to Mrs. Gibbons.

"It is about your little boy I've come to see you." I moved my chair as far as possible from the red-hot stove and opened my coat. "He is too young to be at work. He isn't twelve, is he?"