Angela's Business Part 9

But later he stood at his window, staring silently down into the lamplit street. A rare depression had suddenly closed over him. Oddly enough, it seemed to have little to do with his great repulse as a writer. After all, "Bondwomen," good though he felt it to be, did not represent his best thought now; moreover, that the next publisher would jump at it still seemed to him as certain as Judgment Day. The young man's deep dissatisfactions were with all the terms and conditions of his writer's life.

Long ago he had said to a friend once, "I can't afford to give my time to making money," and the remark, being repeated, had gained him the reputation of a fool's wit, none recognizing that he had practically bagged it outright from a fellow of the name of Aga.s.siz. And there (he was thinking) was the measure of the degree to which he had withdrawn from the accepted ways of men, from all the currents of stimulating life. Making money, after all, was the "battle of life," and he--he had thought it often before now--had placed himself with the noncombatants.

All day, downtown there, vigorous beings met and fought, crossed wills, locked minds, pitted strength against strength; while he, Charles, spent his days with women and children and his nights alone in this room, palely pondering over ethical subtleties. He remembered something Mary Wing had said to him one day last winter: "You're a great deal more like a woman than a man; don't you know it?" On the whole, Mary had meant that as a compliment, but the word had stuck in him like a knife.

He had bent his life to be a writer--and for what? Merely that those who knew him best might view him, tolerantly, as a member of the Third s.e.x.

"A writer ought to go out once a month and do something cruel," he thought moodily. "a.s.sault and battery.... Blood in rivers...."

He was disgusted with tutoring and writing, with Woman and all womanish ways.

Nevertheless, the instant supper was over, he was found seated at his writing-table, "Notes on Women" open before him. In fact, the bee had stung this young man deep, whether he liked it or not. In sum, the unimagined rebuff to his princ.i.p.al _opus_ did not diminish, but intensified the literary pa.s.sion. Now he embarked upon his first attempt to plot out a definite scenario for his new novel, "Bondwomen's" subtle and superior successor. And it must have been that the novel thoughts generated at the Redmantle Club had rapidly crystallized through the days succeeding. For now it seemed to be quite clear in the author's mind that he would take, as the central figure in his greater work, an extreme specimen of lawless Egoette, against whom he would set, in subtle but most telling contrast, the best type of Home-Maker.

VI

It was one of those slack hours in the domestic day when even the most tireless hands can find no task to do. Miss Angela Flower sat by the single window of her bedroom, the window that gave, over two sets of back-yards, a sectional view of Was.h.i.+ngton Street. On the ledge beside her stood the opera-gla.s.ses, employed sometimes for long-distance vision. They were old gla.s.ses, somewhat shabby now, and the case to them was long since lost.

To be transplanted is hard on the young, as Charles Garrott had once said, and to be a normal girl is to desire that pleasant happenings shall occur. This was Angela's favorite seat in the house, because it brought her nearest to the happenings of the Street of the Blessed: nearest to them, while she was yet farthest away. Often in the early weeks she had, indeed, felt quite forlorn as she sat here; she was a stranger and friendless, of a poor family and with small opportunity.

Since the Redmantle Club meeting, however, the view from the window had become more personally interesting, more touched with the sense of partic.i.p.ation. Here Angela had seen Mr. Garrott on his way to lunch; here she had twice glimpsed Mr. Manford, striding along from his office just at dark; here she had even made out Mr. Tilletts, whom once she had mistaken for somebody's uncle, whirling by in a great automobile.

And this afternoon, in her leisure hour, Angela did not feel forlorn or out of things at all, nor did she so much as glance out of the window, with a naked eye. She had sheets of note-paper upon a magazine in her lap, and on one of the sheets she was writing blithely:--

Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge Thursday evening.

As the Redmantle Club had been her first party in the city, so the young girl, with real pleasure, now planned for a second, this one to be her very own. It had occurred to her, more for fun than anything else, to write out a little notice of her party for the social columns of the "Post." Not being as experienced at writing as Mr. Garrott, she took some time to get the wording of the notice just to her liking; but it was a very happy sort of time.

That finished, Angela turned again to the more practical aspects of the party. Who were to be the guests at it, in fine? As yet she had only herself and Mr. Garrott.

Now, calling out suddenly to her mother in the front room, she learned to her surprise that it was almost half-past four o'clock; whereon she sprang up at once, and began to dress quickly for the street. About quarter of five, after talking a little with her mother in the front room, Angela set out to call on her cousin, Mary Wing.

Now Angela knew that something rather unpleasant was going on in connection with her Cousin Mary at this time. Being a well-brought-up young girl, she was, of course, not allowed to hear bold, improper talk, but still she knew that there was _something_. Mrs. Flower, though very fond of Mrs. Wing, who was her double first-cousin, had, indeed, felt obliged to forbid Angela to cultivate any undue intimacy with Mary; which Angela, considering the differences between the two girls, was hardly likely to do in any case. Nevertheless, relations were still pleasant, and Mrs. Flower had agreed that, under the circ.u.mstances, Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford should be invited to the bridge-party. It was the cousinly thing to do, and besides, as Mrs. Flower had pointed out, she could not very well invite Mr. Manford without inviting Cousin Mary, too.

The Wings lived in a pleasant house on Olive Street, four doors from Was.h.i.+ngton and overlooking the Green Park. The house was bigger than it looked, because of a two-story extension that ran out behind, converting an ordinary dwelling into two quite nice flats. Building that extension was the very first thing that Mary had done when she took charge of the family. In the upper flat dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Crowther, who could sometimes be heard recriminating each other in embittered tones. In the lower flat Mrs. and Miss Wing were very comfortable, with four rooms, bath, kitchenette, tiny back yard and patent clothes-dryer. The fourth room, which had been Donald Manford's till he outgrew ap.r.o.n-strings, was a convertible affair, now a dining-room, now a bedroom, according as the Wings dined at home, on the one hand, or were receiving a visit from f.a.n.n.y Warder--Mary's younger but married sister--on the other. At present the latter condition prevailed, and f.a.n.n.y's two babies possessed the room, the flat, and the world besides.

Angela entered upon three generations, scattered widely over the sitting-room floor. f.a.n.n.y was out, but her place in the line was ably taken by Aunt Mary, whose modernity did not stick out so much in these purely domestic moments. Angela, watching her cousin explain to Paulie Warder why the best little boys never, _never_ ate green paint, thought with a kind of surprise: "She really looks very nice." She was duly presented to Paulie and Neddy-Weddy, who were coaxed to show off their store of tricks for the Pretty Lady, and she did her best to shower those eulogies which the relatives in the case invariably expect. But Neddy-Weddy, for his part, appeared altogether too sleepy to care what strangers might think of him, and it may be that to a coolly impartial eye Paulie appeared more soiled than cute at this particular moment.

Angela really wasn't sorry when the babies' grandmother gathered them and their belongings to her bosom and withdrew to an inner chamber.

But when she broached the matter of the bridge-party on Thursday, Cousin Mary said at once:--

"My dear, it's very sweet of you, but I couldn't--possibly. I can't dream of taking an evening off--oh, this side of Christmas!"

Cousin Mary had a great stack of examination papers to mark, it seemed; she pointed to them on her open desk in the corner. She also had ten thousand leaflets to distribute for that Education League of hers; they lay in bales in another corner, behind the sofa. Further, she had three articles to write at once for the League's magazine: for it had a special magazine all its own, it seemed. As for Donald Manford, she said she could not speak. But Cousin Mary did mention, in a discouraging way, that Donald also was doing a good deal of rush-work just now, clearing his desk for his trip to Wyoming.

"And besides, my dear," she concluded, "to the best of my knowledge, Donald can't play bridge at all."

"I could teach him, Cousin Mary--it's awfully easy! I remember, I taught a man in Mitch.e.l.lton to play once, in twenty minutes! Besides--why, of course, it wouldn't make any difference!"

Mary Wing, no doubt, desired to play fair. She could not say now, as of old, that Donald never went out; for she knew that Donald was going out that very evening, escorting Miss Helen Carson to the theater, in short.

Mary knew this, because she had arranged the matter herself, and personally bought the tickets for Donald's account.

So she said: "You must ask him, Angela--do! Use my telephone there, why don't you, and catch him now before he leaves the office?"

But no, that was just what Angela felt she could not do, for, while she had enjoyed two short walks with Mr. Manford, the truth was that he had never called. Mr. Garrott, on the other hand, besides everything else, had called, the day she lent him the book.

"I thought _you_ might ask him, Cousin Mary. I thought you might just bring him with you, informally. It's going to be very informal," said Angela.

"But as I can't go myself, Angela, you see ..."

Angela concealed her disappointment as best she could. She was a sweet-natured girl; moreover, Cousin Mary, after all, was the only person who had tried to do anything for her. Nevertheless, her disappointment was keen, and touched with a little irritation at Cousin Mary's att.i.tude. Her cousin, Mr. Garrott, Mr. Manford, and herself--they made a natural table of bridge, a little coterie of friends and relatives who instinctively met together now and then for congenial diversion. It did seem rather hard that Cousin Mary should spoil it all, with this firm stand against all social enjoyment. Only she and Mr.

Garrott, it seemed, cared for a little wholesome pleasure.

And undoubtedly this att.i.tude of Cousin Mary's did reduce the bridge-party to a rather precarious position. Of course Jennie Finchman could be secured for the other girl, or even f.a.n.n.y Warder; but as for the man to fill Mr. Manford's place, that was a more difficult matter.

"I'm awfully sorry _you_ can't come, Cousin Mary," she was saying in her soft voice. "Mr. Garrott'll be _so_ disappointed. He admires you so much--indeed, he does! He told me so only yesterday."

"Oh!" said Mary Wing; and added, as if it were a part of the same sentence--"yesterday! You're seeing a good deal of him now?"

"Oh, yes! We have a walk or something nearly every day."

"He's quite attractive, don't you think?"

The girl answered without self-consciousness: "Oh, I do--he's the nicest thing! And so cunning-looking, too!--isn't he?"

"I've always been intrigued, I admit," said the school-teacher, "by the three brown freckles on his nose."

She was looking with admiration at her cousin's fresh youthfulness, so unmarked by experience, so innocent of knowledge of fierce conflicting ideas. And Mary looked with a kind of compunction, too. She had honestly wished and tried to "do something" for Angela; but, alas, she herself had been so long and completely out of things that few connections remained to her now, such as would a.s.sist to launch a somewhat belated debut. She had her hands full enough trying to do something of that sort with Donald, an eligible man. Still--

"Oh, Angela, here's a thought!" she said, suddenly. "If you'll only make a decently long visit, you'll be almost certain to see Donald here! He drops in nearly every afternoon to see the babies, you know--"

"Oh!--does he?"

"You never imagined such a goose as he is over them. And then you could ask him to the party, in--in a casual way."

Angela cheered up at once. Of course, if she could meet and ask Mr.

Manford in a casual way, it would be different. And it must be admitted that Mr. Tilletts, who had hovered in the background of her mind, did seem a rather remote possibility.

So the talk pa.s.sed easily from the bridge-party to f.a.n.n.y Warder, and other lesser matters.

Mary Wing moved about as she talked. She was picking up fire-engines and pieces of cake, overlooked by the grandmother in the suddenness of departure. Angela's eyes followed her over the room, and she felt a touch of envy. It was really a pretty room, much prettier than anything in the Flowers' little house, large, light, attractively furnished, most comfortable and livable. But, of course, it was a simple matter to have pretty things if you had the money to buy them; which, in brief, was just what the Flowers didn't have. It suddenly came over Angela that her advanced cousin was, comparatively speaking, a _rich_ woman.

She said something of the sort aloud presently. Mary Wing replied that she worked pretty hard for all she had.

"Our furniture is so old and awful I can't do a thing with it,"

continued Angela. "I rub and scrub and polish, but it just seems to get worse. And then the parlor is that long, narrow shape, like a sleeping-car, and needs papering so dreadfully! You know, Cousin Mary,"

said the girl, with a rueful laugh, "we were never so poor in all our lives! You don't know how hard it is to accomplish _anything_, when you literally haven't a cent to spend."