Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney

by Edna Ferber

  VII

  UNDERNEATH THE HIGH-CUT VEST

  We all carry with us into the one-night-stand country called Sleepland,a practical working nightmare that we use again and again, no matter howvaried the theme or setting of our dream-drama. Your surgeon, tossinguneasily on his bed, sees himself cutting to remove an appendix, onlyto discover that that unpopular portion of his patient's anatomy alreadybobs in alcoholic glee in a bottle on the top shelf of the laboratoryof a more alert professional brother. Your civil engineer constructsimaginary bridges which slump and fall as quickly as they are completed.Your stage favorite, in the throes of a post-lobster nightmare, has ahorrid vision of herself "resting" in January. But when he who sellsgoods on the road groans and tosses in the clutches of a dreadfuldream, it is, strangely enough, never of canceled orders, maniacaltrain schedules, lumpy mattresses, or vilely cooked food. These everydaythings he accepts with a philosopher's cheerfulness. No--his nightmareis always a vision of himself, sick on the road, at a country hotel inthe middle of a Spring season.

  On the third day that she looked with more than ordinary indifferenceupon hotel and dining-car food Mrs. Emma McChesney, representing the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, wondered if, perhaps, she did notneed a bottle of bitter tonic. On the fifth day she noticed that therewere chills chasing up and down her spine, and back and forth fromlegs to shoulder-blades when other people were wiping their chins andforeheads with bedraggled-looking handkerchiefs, and demanding to knowhow long this heat was going to last, anyway. On the sixth day she lostall interest in T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats. And then she knewthat something was seriously wrong. On the seventh day, when the blondeand nasal waitress approached her in the dining-room of the little hotelat Glen Rock, Minnesota, Emma McChesney's mind somehow failed to graspthe meaning of the all too obvious string of questions which were put toher--questions ending in the inevitable "Tea, coffee 'r milk?" At thatjuncture Emma McChesney had looked up into the girl's face in a puzzled,uncomprehending way, had passed one hand dazedly over her hot forehead,and replied, with great earnestness:

  "Yours of the twelfth at hand and contents noted ... the greatest littleskirt on the market ... he's going to be a son to be proud of, God blesshim ... Want to leave a call for seven sharp--"

  The lank waitress's face took on an added blankness. One of the twotraveling men at the same table started to laugh, but the other put outhis hand quickly, rose, and said, "Shut up, you blamed fool! Can't yousee the lady's sick?" And started in the direction of her chair.

  Even then there came into Emma McChesney's ordinarily well-ordered,alert mind the uncomfortable thought that she was talking nonsense. Shemade a last effort to order her brain into its usual sane clearness,failed, and saw the coarse white table-cloth rising swiftly andslantingly to meet her head.

  "'Shut up, you blamed fool! Can't you see the lady'ssick?'"]

  It speaks well for Emma McChesney's balance that when she found herselfin bed, two strange women, and one strange man, and an all-too-familiarbell-boy in the room, she did not say, "Where am I? What happened?"Instead she told herself that the amazingly and unbelievably handsomeyoung man bending over her with a stethoscope was a doctor; thatthe plump, bleached blonde in the white shirtwaist was the hotelhousekeeper; that the lank ditto was a waitress; and that the expressionon the face of each was that of apprehension, tinged with a pleasurableexcitement. So she sat up, dislodging the stethoscope, and ignoring thepurpose of the thermometer which had reposed under her tongue.

  "Look here!" she said, addressing the doctor in a high, queer voice. "Ican't be sick, young man. Haven't time. Not just now. Put it off untilAugust and I'll be as sick as you like. Why, man, this is the middle ofJune, and I'm due in Minneapolis now."

  "Lie down, please," said the handsome young doctor, "and don't dareremove this thermometer again until I tell you to. This can't be put offuntil August. You're sick right now."

  Mrs. McChesney shut her lips over the little glass tube, and watchedthe young doctor's impassive face (it takes them no time to learn thattrick) and, woman-wise, jumped to her own conclusion.

  "How sick?" she demanded, the thermometer read.

  "Oh, it won't be so bad," said the very young doctor, with aprofessionally cheerful smile.

  Emma McChesney sat up in bed with a jerk. "You mean--sick! Not ill,or grippy, or run down, but sick! Trained-nurse sick! Hospital sick!Doctor-twice-a-day sick! Table-by-the-bedside-with-bottles-on-it sick!"

  "Well--a--" hesitated the doctor, and then took shelter behind abristling hedge of Latin phrases. Emma McChesney hurdled it at a leap.

  "Never mind," she said. "I know." She looked at the faces of those fourstrangers. Sympathy--real, human sympathy--was uppermost in each. Shesmiled a faint and friendly little smile at the group. And at that thehousekeeper began tucking in the covers at the foot of the bed, and thelank waitress walked to the window and pulled down the shade, and thebell-boy muttered something about ice-water. The doctor patted her wristlightly and reassuringly.

  "You're all awfully good," said Emma McChesney, her eyes glowing withsomething other than fever. "I've something to say. It's just this.If I'm going to be sick I'd prefer to be sick right here, unless it'ssomething catching. No hospital. Don't ask me why. I don't know. Wepeople on the road are all alike. Wire T. A. Buck, Junior, of theFeatherloom Petticoat Company, New York. You'll find plenty of cleannightgowns in the left-hand tray of my trunk, covered with white tissuepaper. Get a nurse that doesn't sniffle, or talk about the palace shenursed in last, where they treated her like a queen and waited on herhand and foot. For goodness' sake, put my switch where nothing willhappen to it, and if I die and they run my picture in the _Dry GoodsReview_ under the caption, 'Veteran Traveling Saleswoman Succumbs atGlen Rock,' I'll haunt the editor." She paused a moment.

  "Everything will be all right," said the housekeeper, soothingly."You'll think you're right at home, it'll be so comfortable. Was thereanything else, now?"

  "Yes," said Emma McChesney. "The most important of all. My son, JockMcChesney, is fishing up in the Canadian woods. A telegram may not reachhim for three weeks. They're shifting about from camp to camp. Try toget him, but don't scare him too much. You'll find the address under J.in my address book in my handbag. Poor kid. Perhaps it's just as well hedoesn't know."

  Perhaps it was. At any rate it was true that had the tribeof McChesney been as the leaves of the trees, and had itheld a family reunion in Emma McChesney's little hotel bedroom,it would have mattered not at all to her. For she _was_sick--doctor-three-times-a-day-trained-nurse-bottles-by-the-bedsidesick, her head, with its bright hair rumpled and dry with the fever,tossing from side to side on the lumpy hotel pillow, or lying terriblysilent and inert against the gray-white of the bed linen. She neverquite knew how narrowly she escaped that picture in the _Dry GoodsReview_.

  Then one day the fever began to recede, slowly, whence fevers come,and the indefinable air of suspense and repression that lingers abouta sick-room at such a crisis began to lift imperceptibly. There came atime when Emma McChesney asked in a weak but sane voice:

  "Did Jock come? Did they cut off my hair?"

  "Not yet, dear," the nurse had answered to the first, "but we'll hear ina day or so, I'm sure." And, "Your lovely hair! Well, not if I know it!"to the second.

  The spirit of small-town kindliness took Emma McChesney in its arms. Thedingy little hotel room glowed with flowers. The story of the sick womanfighting there alone in the terrors of delirium had gone up and downabout the town. Housewives with a fine contempt for hotel soups sentbroths of chicken and beef. The local members of the U. C. T. sent rosesenough to tax every vase and wash-pitcher that the hotel could muster,and asked their wives to call at the hotel and see what they could do.The wives came, obediently, but with suspicion and distrust in theireyes, and remained to pat Emma McChesney's arm, ask to read aloud toher, and to indulge generally in that process known as "cheering herup." Every traveling man who stopped at the little hotel on h
is way toMinneapolis added to the heaped-up offerings at Emma McChesney's shrine.Books and magazines assumed the proportions of a library. One could seethe hand of T. A. Buck, Junior, in the cases of mineral water, quartsof wine, cunning cordials and tiny bottles of liqueur that stood inconvivial rows on the closet shelf and floor. There came letters, too,and telegrams with such phrases as "let nothing be left undone" and"spare no expense" under T. A. Buck, Junior's, signature.

  So Emma McChesney climbed the long, weary hill of illness and pain,reached the top, panting and almost spent, rested there, and began theeasy descent on the other side that led to recovery and strength.But something was lacking. That sunny optimism that had been EmmaMcChesney's most valuable asset was absent. The blue eyes had lost theirbrave laughter. A despondent droop lingered in the corners of the mouththat had been such a rare mixture of firmness and tenderness. Even theadvent of Fat Ed Meyers, her keenest competitor, and representative ofthe Strauss Sans-silk Company, failed to awaken in her the proper spiritof antagonism. Fat Ed Meyers sent a bunch of violets that devastatedthe violet beds at the local greenhouse. Emma McChesney regarded themlistlessly when the nurse lifted them out of their tissue wrappings. Butthe name on the card brought a tiny smile to her lips.

  "He says he'd like to see you, if you feel able," said Miss Haney, thenurse, when she came up from dinner.

  Emma McChesney thought a minute. "Better tell him it's catching," shesaid.

  "He knows it isn't," returned Miss Haney. "But if you don't want him,why--"

  "Tell him to come up," interrupted Emma McChesney, suddenly.

  A faint gleam of the old humor lighted up her face when Fat Ed Meyerspainfully tip-toed in, brown derby in hand, his red face properlydoleful, brown shoes squeaking. His figure loomed mountainous in alight-brown summer suit.

  "Ain't you ashamed of yourself?" he began, heavily humorous. "Couldn'tyou find anything better to do in the middle of the season? Say, on thesquare, girlie, I'm dead sorry. Hard luck, by gosh! Young T. A. himselfwent out with a line in your territory, didn't he? I didn't think thatguy had it in him, darned if I did."

  "It was sweet of you to send all those violets, Mr. Meyers. I hopeyou're not disappointed that they couldn't have been worked in the formof a pillow, with 'At Rest' done in white curlycues."

  "Mrs. McChesney!" Ed Meyers' round face expressed righteous reproof,pain, and surprise. "You and I may have had a word, now and then, and Iwill say that you dealt me a couple of low-down tricks on the road, butthat's all in the game. I never held it up against you. Say, nobody everadmired you or appreciated you more than I did--"

  "Look out!" said Emma McChesney. "You're speaking in the past tense.Please don't. It makes me nervous."

  Ed Meyers laughed, uncomfortably, and glanced yearningly toward thedoor. He seemed at a loss to account for something he failed to find inthe manner and conversation of Mrs. McChesney.

  "Son here with you, I suppose," he asked, cheerily, sure that he was onsafe ground at last.

  Emma McChesney closed her eyes. The little room became very still. In apanic Ed Meyers looked helplessly from the white face, with its hollowcheeks and closed eyelids to the nurse who sat at the window. Thatdiscreet damsel put her finger swiftly to her lips, and shook her head.Ed Meyers rose, hastily, his face a shade redder than usual.

  "Well, I guess I gotta be running along. I'm tickled to death to findyou looking so fat and sassy. I got an idea you were just stalling fora rest, that's all. Say, Mrs. McChesney, there's a swell little dame inthe house named Riordon. She's on the road, too. I don't know what herline is, but she's a friendly kid, with a bunch of talk. A woman alwayslikes to have another woman fussin' around when she's sick. I told herabout you, and how I'd bet you'd be crazy to get a chance to talkshop and Featherlooms again. I guess you ain't lost your interest inFeatherlooms, eh, what?"

  Emma McChesney's face indicated not the faintest knowledge ofFeatherloom Petticoats. Ed Meyers stared, aghast. And as he staredthere came a little knock at the door--a series of staccato raps, withfeminine knuckles back of them. The nurse went to the door, disapprovalon her face. At the turning of the knob there bounced into the room avision in an Alice-blue suit, plumes to match, pearl earrings, elaboratecoiffure of reddish-gold and a complexion that showed an unbelievabletrust in the credulity of mankind.

  "How-do, dearie!" exclaimed the vision. "You poor kid, you! I heard youwas sick, and I says, 'I'm going up to cheer her up if I have to missmy train out to do it.' Say, I was laid up two years ago in Idaho Falls,Idaho, and believe me, I'll never forget it. I don't know how sick Iwas, but I don't even want to remember how lonesome I was. I just clungto the chamber-maid like she was my own sister. If your nurse wants togo out for an airing I'll sit with you. Glad to."

  "That's a grand little idea," agreed Ed Meyers. "I told 'em you'dbrighten things up. Well, I'll be going. You'll be as good as new in aweek, Mrs. McChesney, don't you worry. So long." And he closed the doorafter himself with apparent relief.

  Miss Haney, the nurse, was already preparing to go out. It was herregular hour for exercise. Mrs. McChesney watched her go with a sinkingheart.

  "Now!" said Miss Riordon, comfortably, "we girls can have a real,old-fashioned talk. A nurse isn't human. The one I had in Idaho Fallswas strictly prophylactic, and antiseptic, and she certainly couldgive the swell alcohol rubs, but you can't get chummy with a humandisinfectant. Your line's skirts, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "Land, I've heard an awful lot about you. The boys on the road certainlyspeak something grand of you. I'm really jealous. Say, I'd love to showyou some of my samples for this season. They're just great. I'll justrun down the hall to my room--"

  She was gone. Emma McChesney shut her eyes, wearily. Her nerves weretwitching. Her thoughts were far, far away from samples and samplecases. So he had turned out to be his worthless father's son after all!He must have got some news of her by now. And he ignored it. He wascontent to amuse himself up there in the Canadian woods, while hismother--

  Miss Riordon, flushed, and panting a little, burst into the room again,sample-case in hand.

  "Lordy, that's heavy! It's a wonder I haven't killed myself before now,wrestling with those blamed things."

  Mrs. McChesney sat up on one elbow as Miss Riordon tugged at thesample-case cover. Then she leaned forward, interested in spite ofherself at sight of the pile of sheer, white, exquisitely embroideredand lacy garments that lay disclosed as the cover fell back.

  "Oh, lingerie! That's an ideal line for a woman. Let's see the yoke inthat first nightgown. It's a really wonderful design."

  Miss Riordon laughed and shook out the folds of the topmost garment."Nightgown!" she said, and laughed again. "Take another look."

  "Why, what--" began Emma McChesney.

  "Shrouds!" announced Miss Riordon complacently.

  "Shrouds!" shrieked Mrs. McChesney, and her elbow gave way. She fellback on the pillow.

  "Beautiful, ain't they?" Miss Riordon twirled the white garment in herhand. "They're the very newest thing. You'll notice they're made upslightly hobble, with a French back, and high waist-line in the front.Last season kimono sleeves was all the go, but they're not used thisseason. This one--"

  "Take them away!" screamed Emma McChesney hysterically. "Take them away!Take them away!" And buried her face in her trembling white hands.

  Miss Riordon stared. Then she slammed the cover of the case, rose, andstarted toward the door. But before she reached it, and while the sickwoman's sobs were still sounding hysterically the door flew open toadmit a tall, slim, miraculously well-dressed young man. The nextinstant Emma McChesney's lace nightgown was crushed against the top ofa correctly high-cut vest, and her tears coursed, unmolested, down thefolds of an exquisitely shaded lavender silk necktie.

  "Jock!" cried Emma McChesney; and then, "Oh, my son, my son, mybeautiful boy!" like a woman in a play.

  Jock was holding her tight, and patting her shoulder, and pressing hishealthy, glowing cheek close to hers that
was so gaunt and pale.

  "I got seven wires, all at the same time. They'd been chasing me fordays, up there in the woods. I thought I'd never get here."

  And at that a wonderful thing happened to Emma McChesney. She lifted herface, and showed dimples where lines had been, smiles where tears hadcoursed, a glow where there had been a grayish pallor. She leaned back abit to survey this son of hers.

  "Ugh! how black you are!" It was the old Emma McChesney that spoke. "Youyoung devil, you're actually growing a mustache! There's something hardin your left-hand vest pocket. If it's your fountain pen you'd betterrescue it, because I'm going to hug you again."

  But Jock McChesney was not smiling. He glanced around the stuffy littlehotel room. It looked stuffier and drearier than ever in contrastwith his radiant youth, his glowing freshness, his outdoor tan, hisimmaculate attire. He looked at the astonished Miss Riordon. At hisgaze that lady muttered something, and fled, sample-case banging ather knees. At the look in his eyes his mother hastened, woman-wise, toreassure him.

  "At his gaze that lady fled, sample-case banging at herknees"]

  "It wasn't so bad, Jock. Now that you're here, it's all right. Jock, Ididn't realize just what you meant to me until you didn't come. I didn'trealize--"

  Jock sat down at the edge of the bed, and slid one arm under hismother's head. There was a grim line about his mouth.

  "And I've been fishing," he said. "I've been sprawling under a tree infront of a darned fool stream and wondering whether to fry 'em for lunchnow, or to put my hat over my eyes and fall asleep."

  His mother reached up and patted his shoulder. But the line aroundJock's jaw did not soften. He turned his head to gaze down at hismother.

  "Two of those telegrams, and one letter, were from T. A. Buck, Junior,"he said. "He met me at Detroit. I never thought I'd stand from a totalstranger what I stood from that man."

  "Why, what do you mean?" Alarm, dismay, astonishment were in her eyes.

  "He said things. And he meant 'em. He showed me, in a perfectlywell-bred, cleancut, and most convincing way just what a miserable,selfish, low-down, worthless young hound I am."

  "He--dared!--"

  "You bet he dared. And then some. And I hadn't an argument to come backwith. I don't know just where he got all his information from, but itwas straight."

  He got up, strode to the window, and came back to the bed. Both handsthrust deep in his pockets, he announced his life plans, thus:

  "I'm eighteen years old. And I look twenty-three, and acttwenty-five--when I'm with twenty-five-year-olds. I've been as much helpand comfort to you as a pet alligator. You've always said that I was togo to college, and I've sort of trained myself to believe I was. Well,I'm not. I want to get into business, with a capital B. And I want tojump in now. This minute. I've started out to be a first-class slob,with you keeping me in pocket money, and clothes, and the Lord knowswhat all. Why, I--"

  "Jock McChesney," said that young man's bewildered mother, "just whatdid T. A. Buck, Junior, say to you anyway?"

  "Plenty. Enough to make me see things. I used to think that I wanted toget into one of the professions. Professions! You talk about the romanceof a civil engineer's life! Why, to be a successful business man thesedays you've got to be a buccaneer, and a diplomat, and a detective, anda clairvoyant, and an expert mathematician, and a wizard. Business--justplain everyday business--is the gamiest, chanciest, most thrilling linethere is to-day, and I'm for it. Let the other guy hang out his shingleand wait for 'em. I'm going out and get mine."

  "Any particular line, or just planning to corner the business marketgenerally?" came a cool, not too amused voice from the bed.

  "Advertising," replied Jock crisply. "Magazine advertising, to startwith. I met a fellow up in the woods--named O'Rourke. He was a starfootball man at Yale. He's bucking the advertising line now for the_Mastodon Magazine_. He's crazy about it, and says it's the greatestgame ever. I want to get into it now--not four years from now."

  He stopped abruptly. Emma McChesney regarded him, eyes glowing. Thenshe gave a happy little laugh, reached for her kimono at the foot of thebed, and prepared to kick off the bedclothes.

  "Just run into the hall a second, son," she announced. "I'm going to getup."

  "Up! No, you're not!" shouted Jock, making a rush at her. Then, in theexuberance of his splendid young strength, he picked her up, swathedsnugly in a roll of sheeting and light blanket, carried her to the bigchair by the window, and seated himself, with his surprised and laughingmother in his arms.

  But Mrs. McChesney was serious again in a moment. She lay with her headagainst her boy's breast for a while. Then she spoke what was in hersane, far-seeing mind.

  "In the exuberance of his young strength, he picked herup"]

  "Jock, if I've ever wished you were a girl, I take it all back now. I'drather have heard what you just said than any piece of unbelievablegood fortune in the world. God bless you for it, dear. But, Jock, you'regoing to college. No--wait a minute. You'll have a chance to prove thethings you just said by getting through in three years instead of theusual four. If you're in earnest you can do it. I want my boy to startinto this business war equipped with every means of defense. Youcalled it a game. It's more than that--it's a battle. Compared to thesuccessful business man of to-day the Revolutionary Minute Men wereas keen and alert as the Seven Sleepers. I know that there are morenon-college men driving street-cars than there are college men. But thatdoesn't influence me. You could get a job now. Not much of a position,perhaps, but something self-respecting and fairly well-paying.It would teach you many things. You might get a knowledgeof human nature that no college could give you. But there'ssomething--poise--self-confidence--assurance--that nothing but collegecan give you. You will find yourself in those three years. After youfinish college you'll have difficulty in fitting into your proper niche,perhaps, and you'll want to curse the day on which you heeded my advice.It'll look as though you had simply wasted those three precious years.But in five or six years after, when your character has jelled, andyou've hit your pace, you'll bless me for it. As for a knowledge ofhumanity, and of business tricks--well, your mother is fairly familiarwith the busy marts of trade. If you want to learn folks you can spendyour summers selling Featherlooms with me."

  "But, mother, you don't understand just why--"

  "Yes, dear 'un, I do. After all, remember you're only eighteen. You'llprobably spend part of your time rushing around at class proms with ared ribbon in your coat lapel to show you're on the floor committee. Andyou'll be girl-fussing, too. But you'd be attracted to girls, in orout of college, and I'd rather, just now, that it would be some pretty,nice-thinking college girl in a white sweater and a blue serge skirt,whose worst thought was wondering if you could be cajoled into takingher to the Freshman-Sophomore basketball game, than some red-lipped,black-jet-earringed siren gazing at you across the table in somebasement cafe. And, goodness knows, Jock, you wear your clothes sobeautifully that even the haberdashers' salesmen eye you with respect.I've seen 'em. That's one course you needn't take at college."

  Jock sat silent, his face grave with thought. "But when I'm earningmoney--real money--it's off the road for you," he said, at last. "Idon't want this to sound like a scene from East Lynne, but, mother--"

  "Um-m-m-m--ye-ee-es," assented Emma McChesney, with no alarmingenthusiasm. "Jock dear, carry me back to bed again, will you? And thenopen the closet door and pull out that big sample-case to the side ofmy bed. The newest Fall Featherlooms are in it, and somehow, I've just awhimsy notion that I'd like to look 'em over."