There were plenty of new minds in the place, however; enough to start Diantha with seven full orders and five partial ones.
Her work at the club was now much easier, thanks to her mother’s assistance, to the smoother running of all the machinery with the passing of time, and further to the fact that most of her girls were now working at summer resorts, for shorter hours and higher wages. They paid for their rooms at the club still, but the work of the house was so much lightened that each of the employees was given two weeks of vacation — on full pay.
The lunch department kept on a pretty regular basis from the patronage of resident business men, and the young manager — in her ambitious moments — planned for enlarging it in the winter. But during the summer her whole energies went to perfecting the menus and the service of her food delivery.
Mrs. Porne was the very first to order. She had been waiting impatiently for a chance to try the plan, and, with her husband, had the firmest faith in Diantha’s capacity to carry it through.
“We don’t save much in money,” she explained to the eager Mrs. Ree, who hovered, fascinated, over the dangerous topic, “but we do in comfort, I can tell you. You see I had two girls, paid them $12 a week; now I keep just the one, for $6. My food and fuel for the four of us (I don’t count the babies either time — they remain as before), was all of $16, often more. That made $28 a week. Now I pay for three meals a day, delivered, for three of us, $15 a week — with the nurse’s wages, $21. Then I pay a laundress one day, $2, and her two meals, $.50, making $23.50. Then I have two maids, for an hour a day, to clean; $.50 a day for six days, $3, and one maid Sunday, $.25. $26.75 in all. So we only make $1.25. But! there’s another room! We have the cook’s room for an extra guest; I use it most for a sewing room, though and the kitchen is a sort of day nursery now. The house seems as big again!”
“But the food?” eagerly inquired Mrs. Ree. “Is it as good as your own? Is it hot and tempting?”
Mrs. Ree was fascinated by the new heresy. As a staunch adherent of the old Home and Culture Club, and its older ideals, she disapproved of the undertaking, but her curiosity was keen about it.
Mrs. Porne smiled patiently. “You remember Diantha Bell’s cooking I am sure, Mrs. Ree,” she said. “And Julianna used to cook for dinner parties — when one could get her. My Swede was a very ordinary cook, as most of these untrained girls are. Do take off your hat and have dinner with us, — I’ll show you,” urged Mrs. Porne.
“I — O I mustn’t,” fluttered the little woman. “They’ll expect me at home — and — surely your — supply — doesn’t allow for guests?”
“We’ll arrange all that by ‘phone,” her hostess explained; and she promptly sent word to the Ree household, then called up Union House and ordered one extra dinner.
“Is it — I’m dreadfully rude I know, but I’m so interested! Is it — expensive?”
Mrs. Porne smiled. “Haven’t you seen the little circular? Here’s one, ‘Extra meals to regular patrons 25 cents.’ And no more trouble to order than to tell a maid.”
Mrs. Ree had a lively sense of paltering with Satan as she sat down to the Porne’s dinner table. She had seen the delivery wagon drive to the door, had heard the man deposit something heavy on the back porch, and was now confronted by a butler’s tray at Mrs. Porne’s left, whereon stood a neat square shining object with silvery panels and bamboo trimmings.
“It’s not at all bad looking, is it?” she ventured.
“Not bad enough to spoil one’s appetite,” Mr. Porne cheerily agreed.
“Open, Sesame! Now you know the worst.”
Mrs. Porne opened it, and an inner front was shown, with various small doors and drawers.
“Do you know what is in it?” asked the guest.
“No, thank goodness, I don’t,” replied her hostess. “If there’s anything tiresome it is to order meals and always know what’s coming! That’s what men get so tired of at restaurants; what they hate so when their wives ask them what they want for dinner. Now I can enjoy my dinner at my own table, just as if I was a guest.”
“It is — a tax — sometimes,” Mrs. Ree admitted, adding hastily, “But one is glad to do it — to make home attractive.”
Mr. Porne’s eyes sought his wife’s, and love and contentment flashed between them, as she quietly set upon the table three silvery plates.
“Not silver, surely!” said Mrs. Ree, lifting hers, “Oh, aluminum.”
“Aluminum, silver plated,” said Mr. Porne. “They’ve learned how to do it at last. It’s a problem of weight, you see, and breakage. Aluminum isn’t pretty, glass and silver are heavy, but we all love silver, and there’s a pleasant sense of gorgeousness in this outfit.”
It did look rather impressive; silver tumblers, silver dishes, the whole dainty service — and so surprisingly light.
“You see she knows that it is very important to please the eye as well as the palate,” said Mr. Porne. “Now speaking of palates, let us all keep silent and taste this soup.” They did keep silent in supreme contentment while the soup lasted. Mrs. Ree laid down her spoon with the air of one roused from a lovely dream.
“Why — why — it’s like Paris,” she said in an awed tone.
“Isn’t it?” Mr. Porne agreed, “and not twice alike in a month, I think.”
“Why, there aren’t thirty kinds of soup, are there?” she urged.
“I never thought there were when we kept servants,” said he. “Three was about their limit, and greasy, at that.”
Mrs. Porne slipped the soup plates back in their place and served the meat.
“She does not give a fish course, does she?” Mrs. Ree observed.
“Not at the table d’hote price,” Mrs. Porne answered. “We never pretended to have a fish course ourselves — do you?” Mrs. Ree did not, and eagerly disclaimed any desire for fish. The meat was roast beef, thinly sliced, hot and juicy.
“Don’t you miss the carving, Mr. Porne?” asked the visitor. “I do so love to see a man at the head of his own table, carving.”
“I do miss it, Mrs. Ree. I miss it every day of my life with devout thankfulness. I never was a good carver, so it was no pleasure to me to show off; and to tell you the truth, when I come to the table, I like to eat — not saw wood.” And Mr. Porne ate with every appearance of satisfaction.
“We never get roast beef like this I’m sure,” Mrs. Ree admitted, “we can’t get it small enough for our family.”
“And a little roast is always spoiled in the cooking. Yes this is far better than we used to have,” agreed her hostess.
Mrs. Ree enjoyed every mouthful of her meal. The soup was hot. The salad was crisp and the ice cream hard. There was sponge cake, thick, light, with sugar freckles on the dark crust. The coffee was perfect and almost burned the tongue.
“I don’t understand about the heat and cold,” she said; and they showed her the asbestos-lined compartments and perfectly fitting places for each dish and plate. Everything went back out of sight; small leavings in a special drawer, knives and forks held firmly by rubber fittings, nothing that shook or rattled. And the case was set back by the door where the man called for it at eight o’clock.
“She doesn’t furnish table linen?”
“No, there are Japanese napkins at the top here. We like our own napkins, and we didn’t use a cloth, anyway.”
“And how about silver?”
“We put ours away. This plated ware they furnish is perfectly good. We could use ours of course if we wanted to wash it. Some do that and some have their own case marked, and their own silver in it, but it’s a good deal of risk, I think, though they are extremely careful.”
Mrs. Ree experienced peculiarly mixed feelings. As far as food went, she had never eaten a better dinner. But her sense of Domestic Aesthetics was jarred.
“It certainly tastes good,” she said. “Delicious, in fact. I am extremely obliged to you, Mrs. Porne, I’d no idea it could be sent so far and be so good. And only five
dollars a week, you say?”
“For each person, yes.”
“I don’t see how she does it. All those cases and dishes, and the delivery wagon!”
That was the universal comment in Orchardina circles as the months passed and Union House continued in existence— “I don’t see how she does it!”
CHAPTER XII. LIKE A BANYAN TREE
The Earth-Plants spring up from beneath,
The Air-Plants swing down from above,
But the Banyan trees grow
Both above and below,
And one makes a prosperous grove.
In the fleeting opportunities offered by the Caffeteria, and in longer moments, rather neatly planned for, with some remnants of an earlier ingenuity, Mr. Thaddler contrived to become acquainted with Mrs. Bell. Diantha never quite liked him, but he won her mother’s heart by frank praise of the girl and her ventures.
“I never saw a smarter woman in my life,” he said; “and no airs. I tell you, ma’am, if there was more like her this world would be an easier place to live in, and I can see she owes it all to you, ma’am.”
This the mother would never admit for a moment, but expatiated loyally on the scientific mind of Mr. Henderson Bell, still of Jopalez.
“I don’t see how he can bear to let her out of his sight,” said Mr. Thaddler.
“Of course he hated to let her go,” replied the lady. “We both did. But he is very proud of her now.”
“I guess there’s somebody else who’s proud of her, too,” he suggested. “Excuse me, ma’am, I don’t mean to intrude, but we know there must be a good reason for your daughter keeping all Orchardina at a distance. Why, she could have married six times over in her first year here!”
“She does not wish to give up her work,” Mrs. Bell explained.
“Of course not; and why should she? Nice, womanly business, I am sure. I hope nobody’d expect a girl who can keep house for a whole township to settle down to bossing one man and a hired girl.”
In course of time he got a pretty clear notion of how matters stood, and meditated upon it, seriously rolling his big cigar about between pursed lips. Mr. Thaddler was a good deal of a gossip, but this he kept to himself, and did what he could to enlarge the patronage of Union House.
The business grew. It held its own in spite of fluctuations, and after a certain point began to spread steadily. Mrs. Bell’s coming and Mr. Eltwood’s ardent championship, together with Mr. Thaddler’s, quieted the dangerous slanders which had imperilled the place at one time. They lingered, subterraneously, of course. People never forget slanders. A score of years after there were to be found in Orchardina folk who still whispered about dark allegations concerning Union House; and the papers had done some pretty serious damage; but the fame of good food, good service, cheapness and efficiency made steady headway.
In view of the increase and of the plans still working in her mind, Diantha made certain propositions to Mr. Porne, and also to Mrs. Porne, in regard to a new, specially built club-house for the girls.
“I have proved what they can do, with me to manage them, and want now to prove that they can do it themselves, with any matron competent to follow my directions. The house need not be so expensive; one big dining-room, with turn-up tables like those ironing-board seat-tables, you know — then they can dance there. Small reception room and office, hall, kitchen and laundry, and thirty bedrooms, forty by thirty, with an “ell” for the laundry, ought to do it, oughtn’t it?”
Mrs. Porne agreed to make plans, and did so most successfully, and Mr. Porne found small difficulty in persuading an investor to put up such a house, which visibly could be used as a boarding-house or small hotel, if it failed in its first purpose.
It was built of concrete, a plain simple structure, but fine in proportions and pleasantly colored.
Diantha kept her plans to herself, as usual, but they grew so fast that she felt a species of terror sometimes, lest the ice break somewhere.
“Steady, now!” she would say. “This is real business, just plain business. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t succeed as well as Fred Harvey. I will succeed. I am succeeding.”
She kept well, she worked hard, she was more than glad to have her mother with her; but she wanted something else, which seemed farther off than ever. Her lover’s picture hung on the wall of her bedroom, stood on her bureau, and (but this was a secret) a small one was carried in her bosom.
Rather a grim looking young woman, Diantha, with the cares of the world of house-keepers upon her proud young shoulders; with all the stirring hopes to be kept within bounds, all the skulking fears to be resisted, and the growing burden of a large affair to be carried steadily.
But when she woke, in the brilliant California mornings, she would lie still a few moments looking at the face on the wall and the face on the bureau; would draw the little picture out from under her pillow and kiss it, would say to herself for the thousandth time, “It is for him, too.”
She missed him, always.
The very vigor of her general attitude, the continued strength with which she met the days and carried them, made it all the more needful for her to have some one with whom she could forget every care, every purpose, every effort; some one who would put strong arms around her and call her “Little Girl.” His letters were both a comfort and a pain. He was loyal, kind, loving, but always that wall of disapproval. He loved her, he did not love her work.
She read them over and over, hunting anew for the tender phrases, the things which seemed most to feed and comfort her. She suffered not only from her loneliness, but from his; and most keenly from his sternly suppressed longing for freedom and the work that belonged to him.
“Why can’t he see,” she would say to herself, “that if this succeeds, he can do his work; that I can make it possible for him? And he won’t let me. He won’t take it from me. Why are men so proud? Is there anything so ignominious about a woman that it is disgraceful to let one help you? And why can’t he think at all about the others? It’s not just us, it’s all people. If this works, men will have easier times, as well as women. Everybody can do their real work better with this old primitive business once set right.”
And then it was always time to get up, or time to go to bed, or time to attend to some of the numberless details of her affairs.
She and her mother had an early lunch before the caffeteria opened, and were glad of the afternoon tea, often held in a retired corner of the broad piazza. She sat there one hot, dusty afternoon, alone and unusually tired. The asphalted street was glaring and noisy, the cross street deep in soft dust, for months unwet.
Failure had not discouraged her, but increasing success with all its stimulus and satisfaction called for more and more power. Her mind was busy foreseeing, arranging, providing for emergencies; and then the whole thing slipped away from her, she dropped her head upon her arm for a moment, on the edge of the tea table, and wished for Ross.
From down the street and up the street at this moment, two men were coming; both young, both tall, both good looking, both apparently approaching Union House. One of them was the nearer, and his foot soon sounded on the wooden step. The other stopped and looked in a shop window.
Diantha started up, came forward, — it was Mr. Eltwood. She had a vague sense of disappointment, but received him cordially. He stood there, his hat off, holding her hand for a long moment, and gazing at her with evident admiration. They turned and sat down in the shadow of the reed-curtained corner.
The man at the shop window turned, too, and went away.
Mr. Eltwood had been a warm friend and cordial supporter from the epoch of the Club-splitting speech. He had helped materially in the slow, up-hill days of the girl’s effort, with faith and kind words. He had met the mother’s coming with most friendly advances, and Mrs. Bell found herself much at home in his liberal little church.
Diantha had grown to like and trust him much.
“What’s this about the new house, Miss Bell?
Your mother says I may know.”
“Why not?” she said. “You have followed this thing from the first. Sugar or lemon? You see I want to disentangle the undertakings, set them upon their own separate feet, and establish the practical working of each one.”
“I see,” he said, “and ‘day service’ is not ‘cooked food delivery.’”
“Nor yet ‘rooms for entertainment’,” she agreed. “We’ve got them all labelled, mother and I. There’s the ‘d. s.’ and ‘c. f. d.’ and ‘r. f. e.’ and the ‘p. p.’ That’s picnics and parties. And more coming.”
“What, more yet? You’ll kill yourself, Miss Bell. Don’t go too fast. You are doing a great work for humanity. Why not take a little more time?”
“I want to do it as quickly as I can, for reasons,” answered Diantha.
Mr. Eltwood looked at her with tender understanding. “I don’t want to intrude any further than you are willing to want me,” he said, “but sometimes I think that even you — strong as you are — would be better for some help.”
She did not contradict him. Her hands were in her lap, her eyes on the worn boards of the piazza floor. She did not see a man pass on the other side of the street, cast a searching glance across and walk quickly on again.
“If you were quite free to go on with your beautiful work,” said Mr. Eltwood slowly, “if you were offered heartiest appreciation, profound respect, as well as love, of course; would you object to marrying, Miss Bell?” asked in an even voice, as if it were a matter of metaphysical inquiry. Mrs. Porne had told him of her theory as to a lover in the home town, wishing to save him a long heart ache, but he was not sure of it, and he wanted to be.
Diantha glanced quickly at him, and felt the emotion under his quiet words. She withdrew her eyes, looking quite the other way.
“You are enough of a friend to know, Mr. Eltwood,” she said, “I rather thought you did know. I am engaged.”
“Thank you for telling me; some one is greatly to be congratulated,” he spoke sincerely, and talked quietly on about less personal matters, holding his tea untasted till it was cold.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 15