by Zane Grey
“Bessy, have you?”
“Yes—but only just lately.”
“Thank you Bessy, for your—your frankness,” replied Miss Hill, drawing a long breath. “I’ll have another talk with you, after I see your mother. You may go now.”
It was an indication of Miss Hill’s mental perturbation that for once she broke her methodical routine. For many years she had carried a lunch-basket to and from school; for so many in fact that now on Saturdays when she went to town without it she carried her left hand forward in the same position that had grown habitual to her while holding it. But this afternoon, as she went out, she forgot the basket entirely.
“I’ll go to Mrs. Bell,” soliloquized the worried schoolteacher. “But how to explain what I can’t understand! Some people would call this thing just natural depravity. But I love these girls. As I think back, every year, in the early summer, I’ve always had something of this sort of thing to puzzle over. But the last few years it’s grown worse. The war made a difference. And since the war—how strange the girls are! They seem to feel more. They’re bolder. They break out oftener. They dress so immodestly. Yet they’re less deceitful. They have no shame. I can blind myself no longer to that. And this last is damning proof of—of wildness. Some of them have taken the fatal step!… Yet—yet I seem to feel somehow Bessy Bell isn’t bad. I wonder if my hope isn’t responsible for that feeling. I’m old-fashioned. This modern girl is beyond me. How clearly she spoke! She’s a wonderful, fearless, terrible girl. I never saw a girl so alive. I can’t—can’t understand her.”
In the swift swinging from one consideration of the perplexing question to another Miss Hill’s mind naturally reverted to her errand, and to her possible reception. Mrs. Bell was a proud woman. She had married against the wishes of her blue-blooded family, so rumor had it, and her husband was now Chief of Police in Middleville. Mrs. Bell had some money of her own and was slowly recovering her old position in society.
It was not without misgivings that Miss Hill presented herself at Mrs. Bell’s door and gave her card to a servant. The teacher had often made thankless and misunderstood calls upon the mothers of her pupils. She was admitted and shown to a living room where a woman of fair features and noble proportions greeted her.
“Bessy’s teacher, I presume?” she queried, graciously, yet with just that slight touch of hauteur which made Miss Hill feel her position.
“I am Bessy’s teacher,” she replied, with dignity. “Can you spare me a few minutes?”
“Assuredly. Please be seated. I’ve heard Bessy speak of you. By the way, the child hasn’t come home yet. How late she always is!”
Miss Hill realized, with a protest at the unfairness of the situation, that to face this elegant lady, so smiling, so suave, so worldly, so graciously superior, and to tell her some unpleasant truths about her daughter, was a task by no means easy, and one almost sure to prove futile. But Miss Hill never shirked her duty, and after all, her motive was a hope to help Bessy.
“Mrs. Bell, I’ve come on a matter of importance,” began Miss Hill. “But it is so delicate a one I don’t know how to broach it. I believe plain speaking best.”
Here Miss Hill went into detail, sparing not to call a spade a spade. But she held back the names of the young society gentlemen mentioned in the notes. Miss Hill was not sure of her ground there and her revelation was grave enough for any intelligent mother.
“Really, Miss Hill, you amaze me!” exclaimed Mrs. Bell. “Bessie has fallen into bad company. Oh, these public schools! I never attended one, but I’ve heard what they are.”
“The public schools are not to blame,” replied Miss Hill, bluntly.
Mrs. Bell gave her visitor a rather supercilious stare.
“May I ask you to explain?”
“I’m afraid I can’t explain,” replied Miss Hill, conscious of a little heat. “I’ve proofs of the condition. But as I can’t understand it, how can I explain? I have my own peculiar ideas, only, lately, I’ve begun to doubt them. A year or so ago I would have said girls had their own way too much—too much time to themselves—too much freedom. But now I seem to feel life isn’t like what it was a few years ago. Girls are bound to learn. And they never learn at home, that’s sure. The last thing a mother will do is to tell her daughter what she ought to know. There’s always been a shadow between most mothers and daughters. And in these days of jazz it has become a wall. Perhaps that’s why girls don’t confide in their mothers.… Mrs. Bell, I considered it my duty to acquaint you with the truth about these verses and notes, and what they imply. Would you care to read some of them?”
“Thank you, but they wouldn’t interest me in the least,” replied Mrs. Bell, coldly. “I wouldn’t insult Bessy or her girl friends. I imagine it’s all some risque suggestion overheard and made much of or a few verses mischievously plagiarized. I’m no prude, Miss Hill. I know enough not to be strict, which is apparently the fault of the school system. As for my own daughter I understand her perfectly and trust her implicitly. I know the blood in her. And I shall remove her from public school and place her in a private institution under a tutor, where she’ll no longer be exposed to contaminating influences.… I thank you for your intention, which I’m sure is kind—and, will you please excuse me? I must dress for my bridge party. Good afternoon, Miss Hill.”
The schoolteacher plodded homeward, her eyes downcast and sad. The snub given her by the mother had not hurt her as had the failure to help the daughter.
“I knew it—I knew it. I’ll never try again. That woman’s mind is a wilderness where her girl is concerned. How brainless these mothers are!… Yet if I’d ever had a girl—I wonder—would I have been blind? One’s own blood—that must be the reason. Pride. Could I have believed of my girl what I admitted of hers? Perhaps not till too late. That would be so human. But, oh! the mystery—the sadness of it—the fatality!”
Rose Clymer left the High School with the settled, indifferent bitterness of one used to trouble. Every desire she followed, turn what way she would, every impulse reaching to grasp some girlish gleam of happiness, resulted in the inevitable rebuke. And this time it had been disgrace. But Rose felt she did not care if she could only deceive her father. No cheerful task was it to face him. Shivering at the thought she resolved to elude the punishment he was sure to inflict if he learned why she had been expelled.
She had no twinge of conscience. She was used to slights and unkindness, and did not now reflect upon the justice of her dismissal. What little pleasure she got came from friendships with boys, and these her father had forbidden her to have. In the bitter web of her thought ran the threads that if she had pretty clothes like Helen, and a rich mother like Bessy, and a father who was not a drunkard, her lot in life would have been happy.
Rose lived with her stepfather in three dingy rooms in the mill section of Middleville. She never left the wide avenues and lawns and stately residences, which she had to pass on her way to and from school, without contrasting them with the dirty alleys and grimy walls and squalid quarters of the working-class. She had grown up in that class, but in her mind there was always a faint vague recollection of a time when her surroundings had been bright and cheerful, where there had been a mother who had taught her to love beautiful things. Today she climbed the rickety stairs to her home and pushed open the latchless door with a revolt brooding in her mind.
A man in his shirt sleeves sat by the little window.
“Why father—home so early?” she asked.
“Yes lass, home early,” he replied wearily. “I’m losing my place again.”
He had straggling gray hair, bleared eyes with an opaque, glazy look and a bluish cast of countenance. His chin was buried in the collar of his open shirt; his shoulders sagged, and he breathed heavily.
One glance assured Rose her father was not very much under the influence of drink. And fear left her. When even half-sober he was kind.
“So you’ve lost your place?” she asked.
“Yes. Old Swann is layin’ off.”
This was an untruth, Rose knew, because the mills had never been so full, and men never so in demand. Besides her father was an expert at his trade and could always have work.
“I’m sorry,” she said, slowly. “I’ve been thinking lately that I’ll give up school and go to work. In an office uptown or a department store.”
“Rose, that’d be good of you,” he replied. “You could help along a lot. I don’t do my work so well no more. But your poor mother won’t rest in her grave. She was so proud of you, always dreamin’.”
The lamp Rose lighted showed comfortless rooms, with but few articles of furniture. It was with the deft fingers of long practice that the girl spread the faded table-cloth, laid the dishes, ground the coffee, peeled the potatoes, and cut the bread. Then presently she called her father to the meal. He ate in silence, having relapsed once more into the dull gloom natural to him. When he had finished he took up his hat and with slow steps left the room.
“No more study for me,” mused Rose, and she felt both glad and sorry. “What will Bessy say? She won’t like it. I wonder what old Hill did to her. Let her off easy. I won’t get to see Bessy so much now. No more afternoons in the park. But I’ll have the evenings. Best of all, some nice clothes to wear. I might some day have a lovely gown like that Miss Maynard wore the night of the Prom.”
Rose washed and dried the dishes, put them away, and cleaned up the little kitchen in a way that spoke well for her. And she did it cheerfully, for in the interest of this new idea of work she forgot her trouble and discontent. Taking up the lamp she went to her room. It contained a narrow bed, a bureau, a small wardrobe and a rug. The walls held several pictures, and some touches of color in the way of ribbons, bright posters, and an orange-and-blue banner. A photograph of Bessy Bell stood on the bureau and the girl’s beauty seemed like a light in the dingy room.
Rose looked in the mirror and smiled and tossed her curly head. She studied the oval face framed in its mass of curls, the steady gray-blue eyes, the soft, wistful, tenderly curved lips. “Yes, I’m pretty,” she said. “And I’m going to buy nice things to wear.”
Suddenly she heard a pattering on the roof.
“Rain! What do you know about that? I’ve got to stay in. If I spoil that relic of a hat I’ll never have the nerve to go ask for a job.”
She prepared for bed, and placing the lamp on the edge of the bureau, she lay down to become absorbed in a paper-backed novel. The mill-clock was striking ten when she finished. There was a dreamy light in her eyes and a glow upon her face.
“How grand to be as beautiful as she was and turn out to be an heiress with blue blood, and a lovely mother, and handsome lovers dying for her!”
Then she flung the novel against the wall.
“It’s only a book. It’s not true.”
Rose blew out the lamp and went to sleep.
During the night she dreamed that the principal of the High School had called to see her father, and she awoke trembling.
The room was dark as pitch; the rain pattered on the roof; the wind moaned softly under the eaves. A rat somewhere in the wall made a creaking noise. Rose hated to awaken in the middle of the night. She listened for her father’s breathing, and failing to hear it, knew he had not yet come home. Often she was left alone until dawn. She tried bravely to go to sleep again but found it impossible; she lay there listening, sensitive to every little sound. The silence was almost more dreadful than the stealthy unknown noises of the night. Vague shapes seemed to hover over her bed. Somehow tonight she dreaded them more. She was sixteen years old, yet there abided with her the terror of the child in the dark.
She cried out in her heart—why was she alone? It was so dark, so silent. Mother! Mother!… She would never—never say her prayers again!
The brazen-tongued mill clock clanged the hour of two, when shuffling uncertain footsteps sounded on the hollow stairs. Rose raised her head to listen. With slow, weary, dragging steps her father came in. Then she lay back on the pillow with a sigh of relief.
CHAPTER X
In the following week Rose learned that work was not to be had for the asking. Her love of pretty things and a desire to be independent of her father had occupied her mind to the exclusion of a consideration of what might be demanded of a girl seeking a position. She had no knowledge of stenography or bookkeeping; her handwriting was poor. Moreover, references from former employers were required and as she had never been employed, she was asked for recommendations from the principal of her school. These, of course, she could not supply. The stores of the better class had nothing to offer her except to put her name on the waiting-list.
Finally Rose secured a place in a second-rate establishment on Main Street. The work was hard; it necessitated long hours and continual standing on her feet. Rose was not rugged enough to accustom herself to the work all at once, and she was discharged. This disheartened her, but she kept on trying to find other employment.
One day in the shopping district, someone accosted her. She looked up to see a young man, slim, elegant, with a curl of his lips she remembered. He raised his hat.
“How do you do, Mr. Swann,” she answered.
“Rose, are you on the way home?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go down this side street,” he said, throwing away his cigarette. “I’ve been looking for you.”
They turned the corner. Rose felt strange to be walking alone with him, but she was not embarrassed. He had danced with her once. And she knew his friend Hardy Mackay.
“What’re you crying about?” he said.
“I’m not.”
“You have been then. What for?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Come, tell me.”
“I—I’ve been disappointed.”
“What about?” He was persistent, and Rose felt that he must be used to having his own way.
“It was about a job I didn’t get,” replied Rose, trying to laugh.
“So you’re looking for a job. Heard you’d been fired by old Hill. Gail told me. I had her out last night in my new car.”
“I could go back to school. Miss Hill sent for me.… Was Bessy with you and Gail?”
“No. Gail and I were alone. We had a dandy time.… Rose, will you meet me some night and take a ride? It’ll be fine and cool.”
“Thank you, Mr. Swann. It’s very kind of you to ask me.”
“Well, will you go?” he queried, impatiently.
“No,” she replied, simply.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, that’s plain enough,” he said, changing his tone. “Say, Rose, you’re in Clark’s store, aren’t you?”
“I was. But I lost the place.”
“How’s that?”
“I couldn’t stand on my feet all day. I fainted. Then he fired me.”
“So you’re hunting for another job?” inquired Swann, thoughtfully.
“Yes.”
“Sorry. It’s too bad a sweet kid like you has to work. You’re not strong, Rose.… Well, I’ll turn off at this corner. You won’t meet me tonight?”
“No, thanks.”
Swann pulled a gold case from his pocket, and extracting a cigarette, tilted it in his lips as he struck a match. His face wore a careless smile Rose did not like. He was amiable, but he seemed so sure, so satisfied, almost as if he believed she would change her mind.
“Rose, you’re turning me down cold, then?”
“Take it any way you like, Mr. Swann,” she replied. “Good day.”
Rose forgot him almost the instant her back was turned. He had only annoyed her. And she had her stepfather to face, with news of her discharge from the store. Her fears were verified; he treated her brutally. Next day Rose went to work in a laundry.
And then, very soon it seemed, her school days, the merry times with the boys, and Bessy—all were far back in the past. She did not meet any one who knew her
, nor hear from any one. They had forgotten her. At night, after coming home from the laundry and doing the housework, she was so tired that she was glad to crawl into bed.
But one night a boy brought her a note. It was from Dick Swann. He asked her to go to Mendleson’s Hall to see the moving-pictures. She could meet him uptown at the entrance. Rose told the boy to tell Swann she would not come.
This invitation made her thoughtful. If Swann had been ashamed to be seen with her he would not have invited her to go there. Mendleson’s was a nice place; all the nice people of Middleville went there. Rose found herself thinking of the lights, the music, the well-dressed crowd, and then the pictures. She loved moving-pictures, especially those with swift horses and cowboys and a girl who could ride. All at once a wave of the old thrilling excitement rushed over her. Almost she regretted having sent back a refusal. But she would not go with Swann. And it was not because she knew what kind of a young man he was—what he wanted. Rose refused from dislike, not scruples.
Then came a Saturday night which seemed a climax of her troubles. She was told not to come back to work until further notice, and that was as bad as being discharged. How could she tell her stepfather? Of late he had been hard with her. She dared not tell him. The money she earned was little enough, but during his idleness it had served to keep them.
Rose had scarcely gone a block when she encountered Dick Swann. He stopped her—turned to walk with her. It was a melancholy gift of Rose’s that she could tell when men were even in the slightest under the influence of drink. Swann was not careless now or indifferent. He seemed excited and gay.
“Rose, you’re just the girl I’m looking for,” he said. “I really was going to your home. Got that job yet?”
“No,” she replied.
“I’ve got one for you. It’s at the Telephone Exchange. They need an operator. My dad owns the telephone company. I’ve got a pull. I’ll get you the place. You can learn it easy. Nice job—short hours—you sit down all the time—good pay. What do you say, Rose?”
“I—I don’t know—what to say,” she faltered. “Thanks for thinking of me.”