THE TEST OF CHARACTER
The sardine's ears must have been sharp, for although the lion tamer
was between her and Win (like a thick chunk of ham in a thin
sandwich), she had heard something of the conversation at the
superintendent's window.
"Try the basement bargain counters for your dress; you'll get it
cheaper," she flung after the tall Effect in a shrill whisper as the
newly engaged hand flashed by.
There wasn't a second, or even half a second to lose, yet Win
slackened her pace to say "Thank you. I do hope we shall meet again."
Even the lion tamer threw her a look, though already he had taken his
turn at the window; but Win did not see the admiring glance. She was
flying down the stairs she had come up so slowly, and did not pause
for breath until she was in the basement. There it was so crowded and
so hot, though the store had been open to customers not quite an hour,
that there seemed little air to breathe, even had there been time.
Win could see no means of ventilation in the immense room, which was
brightly and crudely lit by pulsing white globes of electricity. There
were no partitions to divide one department from another, and it
seemed as if samples of every article in the world were being sold on
these rows upon rows of heaped-up tables.
Taking her for a customer, a floorwalker saved the bewildered girl
from wasting more than a minute of her valuable time. The thermometer
of his manner fell a degree when he learned that she was an employee;
nevertheless, he directed her to the bargain counter where black dress
skirts were being sold. There was another nearby which offered black
silk and satin blouses. The man asked if she had been told that extra
hands, if on probation, must give money down for anything above the
first week's wage, and looked impressed when the tall girl answered
that she preferred to pay cash for the whole.
"Princess, queen!" he murmured _sotto voce_, and Win might have had
the privilege of exchanging a smile with him on the strength of the
joke, but thought it might be wiser not to have heard.
Luckily black skirts and blouses were not the craze of the moment.
Women were besieging a beehive of corsets and a hotbed of petticoats,
reduced (so said huge red letters overhead) to one third of their
original price. In less than five minutes Win had secured a costume
with the right measurements, and for the two portions of which it
consisted, had paid exactly one week's salary.
With an unwrapped parcel rolled under one arm, she battled her way
back to the staircase she had descended (not daring to squeeze her
unworthy body into a crowded elevator), and toiled up to the eighth
floor. There, she had been told, were dressing-rooms as well as
lockers; a rest room (converted into a schoolroom from the hour of
eight until ten), and the restaurant for women employees.
Lightning change act first! Black Effect to take the place of brown,
a rush for the dressing-room, vague impression of near marble basins
and rows of mirrors; tall, slim girl in front of one, quite the proper
"saleslady" air, in new, six-dollar black skirt and silk blouse
lightened with sewed-in frills of white, fit not noticeably bad; dash
along corridor again for locker room, but sudden wavering pause at
sight of confused group: half-fainting girl in black being handed over
to capped and aproned nurse by two youths at an open door, glimpse of
iron bedsteads etched in black against varnished white wall, door shut
with slap; youths marching light heartedly away, keeping time to the
subdued whistle of "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee."
Girls sometimes faint here, then, before ten o'clock in the morning!
And quite a matter of course to shed them in the hospital room,
otherwise one wouldn't try one's tango steps going away. But never
mind; laugh first, or the world will! Life easier for Peter Rolls's
hands as well as other people if they can live it in ragtime. Your
turn to fall to-day. Mine to-morrow. "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee!"
And whatever you may think, don't lose a minute.
Winifred did not. Perhaps she, too, was beginning to think in ragtime.
She was telling her number to the doorkeeper of the locker room as the
slap of the hospital door ceased to vibrate through the long corridor
on the eighth story.
The locker room had countless rows of narrow cells with iron gratings
for doors; and the gimlet gaze of two stalwart young females pierced
each newcomer. It was their business to see that Peter Rolls's hands
did not pilfer each other's belongings. The gimlet eyes must note the
outdoor clothing each girl wore on arrival, in order to be sure that
she did not go forth at evening clad in the property of a comrade.
Being paid to cultivate suspicion had soured the guardian angels'
tempers. One had a novel by Laura Jean Libbey, the other an
old-fashioned tale by Mary J. Holmes, to while away odd minutes of
leisure; but it appealed to the imagination of neither that any or all
of the girls flitting in and out might be eligible heroines for their
favourite authors, stolen at birth from parent millionaires,
qualifying through pathetic struggles with poverty to become the
brides of other millionaires, or, perhaps, to win an earl or duke.
All the regularly engaged hands had long ago shut up their hats and
cloaks in prison and gone about their business. It was only the extras
who were arriving at this late hour to show their numbers and claim
their lockers. There were comparatively few amateurs. Most of the
girls had had shop experience, but greenhorns betrayed ignorance as
they entered. To them, shortly and succinctly, were explained the
rules: the system of "stubs" dealt out to newcomers as they gave their
numbers and had lockers assigned them--stubs to be religiously kept
for the protection of property from false claimants; the working of a
slot machine, in which must be slipped a card, and the moment of the
morning and midday arrival thus recorded with ruthless exactitude
(twenty-five cents docked off your pay if you were late), and other
odds and ends of routine information, such as the hours at which
lockers might or might not be opened without the presentation of
special passes.
As Win fitted her key into the grated door which would in future
pertain to No. 2884, into the locker room bounced the sardine.
"Hello, Lady Ermyntrude!" said she. "I thought I'd pick you up some
place. Just a jiffy, and we can skip to the schoolroom together, if
your ladyship pleases."
"I am glad!" said Win, and as they went out side by side she ventured
to add: "Please do tell me why you call me Lady Ermyntrude. I hope I'm
not like anything so awful as that?"
"Oh, there's always a Lady Ermyntrude in every English book you read,
and you look as if you'd walked out of one. I don't know why, but you
do. I kind of like you, though."
"So do I you," said Win, but did not tell her that she was a sardine.
This might be a worse epithet in a foreign language even than Lady
Ermyntrude.
"I'm for the toy department. What are you?" rapped out the clear
little voice that matched the clear little personality--a personality
which, at the top of its pompadour, did not reach the tip of Win's
ear.
"Mine is called a two-hour bargain sale---"
"Heaven help you! Basement?"
"No, ground floor."
"Thank your stars. That's a cut above. Most amatoors start in the
basement bargain sales. If they live through the first day of
that--_well!_ But you're all right. You've got the look of the ones
who win."
"That's my name--'Win'--Winifred Child."
"If you ain't the Champion Giant Kid! I'm Sadie Kirk. Here's the
schoolroom. When it ain't that, it calls itself the rest room, you
know. I'm here only because there's a little difference in Rolls's
check system from Bimgel's, where I worked till the grippe laid me low
and my place was filled. I thought I'd try the Hands for a change,
though they say it's the _limit_ and down the other side. So me for
the school! We'll sit together, and if I can help you I will."
"You're a dear," whispered Win.
"You're another. Go there yourself," was the swift retort.
The rest room was really very nice, if there were ever a chance to
rest in it--which, Miss Kirk whispered, was not likely to be the case.
There were wall bookcases with glass doors, a few oak-framed
engravings with a pale-green, "distempered" background, several
chintz-covered sofas with cushions, and plenty of easy chairs.
On small tables lay very back numbers of illustrated papers and
magazines. The high windows had green curtains which softened their
glare and (said Sadie) prevented dust from showing. The brown-painted
floor had decorative intervals of rugs, like flowery oases. Altogether
the room would have been an excellent "show place" if any influential
millionairess began stirring up public interest in "conditions of
shop-girl life."
One end wall of the long, narrow room was almost entirely covered by
an immense blackboard, supposed to represent a check book. In front of
this stood a pale young man with a timid air, who coughed and cleared
his throat a good deal as he explained to a group of girls Peter
Rolls's specially simplified, modernly improved system of adding up
the prices of purchased "goods" in the quickest and most scientific
manner. Win listened intently, easily catching the idea, but wondering
if she should get "rattled" when she had to put it into practice in
the coming "two-hour bargain sale." Miss Kirk, however, soon saw that
the difference between this and other systems was not complicated
enough to trouble her, and let her wits wander from one subject to
another.
"That's a salesman teaching," she whispered up to her tall protégée.
"He's new to the job, I guess, and scared of us guyls; but I bet he
bullies men when he gets the chance! He'll tuyn out another Father."
Win, not having forgotten her curiosity concerning the red-haired
girl's mysterious murmur to the superintendent, longed to question the
sardine, who had the air of knowing everything she ought and ought not
to know. But the newcomer could not afford to lose a word that dropped
from the nervous teacher's lips. "Do tell me about it later," she
pleaded. "I must listen to this."
"All right. Are you lunching in or out?"
"Oh, in, I suppose."
"So will I, then, though I hear it's filthy and the grub vile. We'll
try and make a date."
Win dared not answer. With difficulty she caught the last part of the
lecture. Then her fifteen minutes of schooling were over and the real
battle of life as one of Peter Rolls's hands was to begin.
No time for the luxury of luncheon appointments. The two girls must
meet or not, as luck ordained. The toy department was on the sixth
floor, so the parting came almost at once, and Win went down to meet
her fate alone.
A floorwalker, or "aisle manager," showed her the place where the
"great two-hour bargain sale of coloured blouses, sashes, and ladies'
fancy neckwear" was advertised to begin at ten-thirty. As he steered
the girl through the crowd he looked at her with interest, and she
would have looked with interest at him could she have done so without
his knowing it. She had vaguely heard that shopwalkers in England
could make or break the salespeople. Probably floorwalkers in America
were the same, or more powerful, because everybody in this free
country who had any power at all seemed to have more than he could
possibly have anywhere else.
This man was extremely handsome she saw in the one quick, veiled
glance which can tell a girl as much as a boy is able to take in with
a long stare. He was tall and dark and clean shaven, with polished
black hair like a jet helmet, and brown eyes. Few princes could hope
to be as well dressed, and if he had been an actor, only to see his
shoulders would have made a matinée girl long to lay her head upon
one. _Why_ wasn't he an actor, then, at many dollars a week, instead
of a floorwalker at a few? It must be that his fairy godmother had
forgotten to endow him with some essential talent.
Seeing that he looked at her sympathetically with his rather sad, dark
eyes, Win ventured with all respect to beg a little enlightenment as
to a two-hour bargain sale.
"It means that certain things are marked down for two hours," he
explained, "and after that anything left of the lot goes up to the old
price again. It's a pretty hard test for one who's new to the whole
business. The superintendent, Mr. Meggison, has put you on to a pretty
stiff thing," he added. And then again, after an instant's pause:
"You're going to land in a wasps' nest over there. There's some
electricity in the atmosphere this morning. But keep your head and
you'll be all right."
They came within sight of a hollow square formed by four long
counters. Above it was a placard with red and black lettering which
announced the sale to begin at half-past ten; everything to be sold at
bargain price till twelve-thirty. Within were six saleswomen, two for
each side of the square; and the question flashed through Win's head:
Why had she been imported to make an odd number? It was an exciting
question, taken in connection with the floorwalker's warning.
Until sale time these counters were out of the congested region; and
the six saleswomen were taking advantage of the lull before the storm
to put finishing touches on the arrangement of the stock. The instant
that Win was inside the square it was as if she had been suddenly
swallowed up in a thunder cloud. The head saleswoman (she must be
that, Win thought, judging from the attention paid her by the rest)
was in a black rage--a beautiful Jewess, older than the others, and
growing overplump, but magnificently browed, and hardly thirty yet.
"It's damnable!" she panted, full breast heaving, throat swelling with
stifled sobs, "to put this onto me! Anybody with half an eye can see
through the trick. The Queen of England couldn't get rid of these
nasty rags at a charity bazaar."
She went on without noticing the newcomer, except to flash across
Win's face and figure a lightning, Judith glance which seemed to pitch
a creature unknown and unwanted into the bottomless pit where all was
vile. Her satin-smooth olive hands, with brilliantly polished coral
nails, trembled as, gesticulating, she waved them over the stock which
littered the four counters. She seemed to be throwing her curse upon
blouses, sashes, and ladies' neckwear; and had she been a witch, with
power of casting spells, the masses of silk and satin would have burst
into coloured flame.
"Oh, Miss Stein, don't feel that way about it," pleaded a thin girl
who looked utterly bloodless. "The things are marked down so low maybe
they'll go off."
"Look at them--_look_ at them!" broke out the Jewess. "Is there
anything you'd take for a present, one of you? They might as well have
sent me to the basement and be done with it. But I'll show _him_, and
her, too, how much I care before the day's out."
So fierce was the splendid creature's emotion that Win felt the hot
contagion of it. What had happened she did not know, though evidently
the others did and sympathized, or pretended to. But even she, a
stranger, could spring at a conclusion.
Miss Stein was called upon to sell things which she thought no
customers would buy. Somebody in power had put her in this position,
out of spite, to get her into trouble. There was another woman in the
case. There must be jealousy. This tigerish Judith was suffering as
keenly as a human creature could suffer, and all because of some
blouses, some sashes, and ladies' fancy neckwear, which certainly had
an unattractive appearance as they lay on the counters in confused
heaps.
"He says, 'it's up to you, Miss Stein!'" the quivering voice jerked
out in bitter mimicry. "Up to _me_, indeed! And he gives me this rag
bag!"
"It'll be nuts to _her_ if you're downed," remarked a girl with a
round, pink face.
"Don't you think I _know_ it?" Miss Stein demanded fiercely. Her eyes
filled with tears, which she angrily dried with a very dirty
handkerchief that looked strangely out of keeping in the manicured
hands. "There's nothing to do, or I'd do it, except to give him a
piece of my mind and throw up the job before they have the chance to
fire me."
"You wouldn't--just at this time!" cried the anemic girl.
"Wouldn't I? You'll see. I don't care a tinker's curse what becomes of
me after to-day."
Win's ears were burning as if they had been tweaked. The minutes were
passing. She could ask no help, no information concerning her duties.
If she put a question as to what she was to do she would be snubbed,
or worse. Could the far-away and almost omnipotent Mr. Meggison have
had secret knowledge of this lion's den into which he had thrown her?
He had said the bargain square and the two-hours' sale would be a test
of character. At this rate, she would fail ignominiously, and she did
not want to fail. But neither did she want the beautiful Jewess to
fail. Her anxiety was not all selfish. "A test of character!" Was
there nothing, _nothing_ she could do for her own and the general
good?
Suddenly her spirit flew back to the ship. Peter Rolls's face came
before her. She saw his good blue eyes. She heard him say: "If ever I
can help---"
How odd! Why should she have thought of him then? And no one could
help, least of all he, who had probably forgotten all about her by
this time, Miss Rolls having spoiled his horrid, deceitful game. She
must help herself Yet it was just as if Peter had come and suggested
an idea--really quite a good idea, if only she had the courage to
interrupt Miss Stein.
She and Peter had chatted one night on B deck about the Russian
dancers and Leon Bakst's designs. She had lectured Peter on the
amazing beauty of strangely combined colours, mixtures which would not
have been tolerated before the "Russian craze." Now Peter seemed to be
reminding her of what she had said then, a silly little boast she had
made, that with "nothing but a few rags and a Bakst inspiration" she
could put together a gorgeous costume for a fancy-dress ball.
"When you want to set up for a rival to Nadine, I'll back you," Peter
had retorted, and they had both laughed.
Now, with the immense but impersonal "backing" of Peter Rolls, Sr.'s,
great shop, she had the Bakst inspiration and the tingling ambition to
set up (in a very small way) as a rival to Nadine.
"I beg your pardon," she stammered to Miss Stein, and hastened on as a
fierce, astonished look was fastened upon her from under a black cloud
of stormy brow. "I--I hope you'll excuse my interrupting, but I've
been a model of Nadine's, and--and I have an idea, if you'll allow
me--I mean, you don't seem to like these things we have to sell. I
believe we could make something of them if we hurried."
All through she had the feeling that if she could not hold Miss
Stein's eyes until she had compelled interest, hope was lost. She put
her whole self into the effort to hold the eyes, and she held them,
talking fast, pouring the magnetic force of her enthusiasm into the
angry, unhappy soul of the other.
"What do you mean?" asked Miss Stein, abruptly taking the sharp,
judicial air of the business woman. Half resentful, half contemptuous,
she could not afford to let slip the shadow of a chance.
"I'll show you, if I may," said Win.
She, the outsider, the intruder, suddenly dominated the situation. The
others, even Miss Stein herself, gave way before the Effect in black
as it came close to one of the counters and with quick, decided
touches began manipulating those blouses, sashes, and ladies' fancy
neckwear which the Queen of England could not sell at a charity
bazaar.
A box of steel pins of assorted sizes lay on a cleared corner of the
counter which Win had approached. It had been brought, perhaps, for
the pinning of labels onto the newly repriced stock. Win took a purple
sash and draped it round the waistline of a dull-looking, sky-blue
blouse. Quickly the draping was coaxed into shape and firmly held with
pins. Then under the collar was fastened a crimson bow ("ladies' fancy
neckwear!") which had been hideous in itself, but suddenly became
beautiful as a butterfly alighting on a flower.
"My!" exclaimed the anemic girl, and glanced cautiously from under her
eyelids to see whether approval or disgust were the popular line to
take.
But Miss Stein--still resentful, and now beginning to be jealous of a
green hand's originality and daring taste--was not an Oriental for
nothing. She didn't possess the initiative ability of a designer, but
she could appreciate the crashing music of gorgeous colours met
together on the right notes. Love of colour was in her Jewish blood,
and she was a shrewd business woman also, animated with too vital a
selfishness to let any opportunity of advancement go. She seized the
new girl's idea at a glance, realized its value and its possible
meaning for herself.
"That's queer, but it's smart," she pronounced, and five anxious faces
brightened. "I'd 'a' thought o' that if I hadn't been so awful
worried; my head feels stuffed full o' wadding. I don't seem to have
room for two ideas. Me and you can tell the guyls what to do, and
they'll do it. See here, as fast as we get those things fixed we'll
hang 'em up on the line and make a show. Gee! they'll draw the dames a
mile off, just out of curiosity and nothing else."
"And when we get them we'll get their money, too," Win prophesied
cheerfully. "We'll christen these things Pavlova Russian Sash-Blouses,
and say it's the latest dodge only to _pin_ them together so
purchasers can change the drapery to fit their figures. When we've
sold all we can finish before ten-thirty we'll make a point of pinning
on drapery and neckties in the customers' presence to suit their
taste. I can undertake that part, if you like."
"You do think you're _some_ girl, don't you?" was Miss Stein's only
comment. But Win saw that she meant to accept the scheme and "work it
for all it was worth."
A light of hope and the excitement of battle shone down the dull flame
of anger in her eyes. There was no gleam of gratitude there, and if
Win had wanted it she would have been disappointed; but just at this
moment she wanted nothing on earth save to push that beautiful Jewess
to a triumph over "_him and her_" and to make the two-hour sale of
Pavlova Russian Sash-Blouses a frantic, furious success.