MOLLY TELLS THE STORY
The day after the Harland inquest I meant to go down and see Iola and
find out if she’d heard anything from Miss Whitehall. But that day I got
sidetracked some way or other and the next it rained.
Usually I don’t mind rain, but this was the real wet, straight kind that
would get in at you if you wore a diver’s suit. As I stood at the parlor
window, looking down at the street all pools and puddles, with the walls
shining under a thin glaze of water, and the umbrellas like wet, black
mushrooms, I got faint-hearted. I could just as well phone, and if
anything had transpired (it was the business I was uneasy about) go down
and help Iola through the fit of blind staggers she’d be bound to have.
So presently it was:
"Hello, Iola, I was coming down today but it’s too moistuous."
Then Iola’s voice, sort of groaning:
"Oh, Molly, is that you? I _do_ wish it had been fine and you’d have
come."
"Why—anything wrong?"
"Oh, yes, everything. Miss Whitehall isn’t back yet, and Mr. Ford’s
hardly been in at all and has such a gloom on him you wouldn’t know him,
and I’m awful discouraged."
"Have you tried to see Miss Whitehall?"
"No, I can’t seem to get up enough spunk."
"Why don’t you phone her?"
"Well, I don’t know, I’m sort of scared of what I’ll hear. I thought I’d
better sit around and wait, and then I thought I ought to find out, and
between the two—Oh, dear, _what’s the use_!"
That was just like Iola. The only way you can be sure she’s got a mind
at all is the trouble she has making it up. If it’s true that men like
the helpless kind she ought to have a string of lovers as long as the
line at the box office when Caruso sings _Pagliacci_. I wonder _I_ ever
got married!
"Tell you what, girlie," I said, "you come up tonight and dine with me.
Himself is going to be late and we two bandits will steal out after
dinner and make a raid on Miss Whitehall’s."
Even then she hung back. I had to coax and urge and it was only me
promising I’d see her through and if necessary ask the questions, made
her finally agree.
The rain held on all day and it was teeming when we started out. Miss
Whitehall’s flat was on the other side of town—the East Sixties—and we
had to go round the Park, crowding on and off cars, fighting our way
through packs of people, Iola clawing at my back and catching her
umbrella in men’s hats and women’s hair till you’d think she did it on
purpose. When we got to the street we turned east, walking from Madison
Avenue over Park with its great huge apartment houses, and then on a
ways—not far, but far enough to make you feel Miss Whitehall’s home
wasn’t as stylishly located as her office. Iola was that nervous I was
afraid she’d forget the number, but we found it, on a corner over a drug
store, where there were large, glassy bottles in the window and
advertisements of ladies offering pills and candy with such glad,
inviting smiles you’d know it was damaged stock.
The entrance was round on the side, and as we stood in the vestibule,
dimly lit, with a line of letter boxes on each side, I couldn’t help but
whisper:
"You’d never think from her offices she’d live over a store."
And Iola answered, pushing the button under a letter box marked "Mrs.
Serena Whitehall."
"It’s a shock to me. I’d no more connect her with a push-button than I
would you with a glass-topped entrance and a man in knee pants."
The door clicked and we went up the stairs, one feeble little electric
bulb furnishing the light. There was a smell in the air like one of the
tenants had had lamb stew for dinner and another was smoking the kind of
cigar that tells you it’s strong and hearty half a block off. The
first-floor landing was hers—a card in a frame by the door told us
so—and we pressed on the bell, hearing it give a loud, whirring ring
inside.
The door was opened by a young girl, very neat in a black dress and
white apron. She was sure we couldn’t speak to Miss Whitehall, but
perhaps Mrs. Whitehall would see us and she showed us up the tiny little
hall into the dining-room. I’d never have believed a room furnished so
plain could be so elegant. There was a square of brown carpet on the
floor and ecru linen curtains—no lace, just hemstitched—at the windows
and on the side table some silver; yet it had a refined, classy look.
Two doors opened from it, one into the hall hung with a blue portière
and double ones that I guessed led into the parlor. We could hear voices
coming from there, low and murmuring.
By this time Iola was that nervous she was licking her lips with her
tongue like a baby that’s had a sugar stick. I was just edging round to
give her a dig and whisper, "Brace up," when the curtain into the hall
was lifted and a lady came in.
As she was well along in years—near to fifty I’d say—I knew she was Mrs.
Whitehall. She was very dignified and gentle, with black hair turning
gray and lots of lines on her forehead and round her eyes, which were
dark like her hair and had a sad, weary expression. I guessed she’d been
handsome once, but she looked as if she’d had her troubles, and when I
heard her voice, low and so quiet, there was something in it that made
me feel she was having them still.
I’d promised to be spokesman and not seeing any reason to waste time I
went straight to the point. Mrs. Whitehall stood listening, her hands
clasped on the back of a chair, her eyes on the little fern plant in the
center of the table.
"Perhaps it would be best," she said, in that soft, faded sort of voice,
"if Miss Barry were to see my daughter. I hardly know what to say to
her."
She turned and left the room by the hall door and Iola gasped at me:
"Oh, Molly, it’s true!"
"Don’t cross your bridges till you come to them," I said, but all the
same, I thought it looked bad.
"What’ll I do if the business shuts down?"
"Shut up till you know if it does," I whispered back.
The double doors rolled back and Mrs. Whitehall stood between them. She
looked at Iola.
"If you’ll come in here, Miss Barry," she said, "my daughter will see
you."
It was plain she didn’t expect me, so I stood by the table without
moving. As Mrs. Whitehall drew back and before Iola got to the doorway,
there was a moment when I saw into the room. It looked real artistic,
flowered cretonne curtains, wicker chairs with cushions and low
bookcases around the walls, the whole lit up by the yellow glow of
lamps. But I wasn’t interested in the furniture—what caught my eye was a
couch just opposite the open door, on which a woman was lying.
There was a lamp on a stand beside her and its light fell full over her.
If I hadn’t known Carol Whitehall was there I’d have guessed right off
it was she from the likeness to her mother. She had just the same hair
and deep, rich-looking eyes except in her the hair was black as night
and the eyes were young. She had a newspaper in her hand and as the
doors opened she’d looked up, intent and questioning, and I saw she was
beautiful. She was like a picture, leaning forward with that inquiring
expression, her features clear in the flood of soft light. I got an
impression of her then that I’ve never forgotten—of force and strength.
It didn’t come from anything especial in her face, but from something in
her general makeup, something vivid and warm, like she was alive
straight through.
They stayed in the room some time while I sat waiting. I’d sized up
everything in sight, especially two little glass lamps on the sideboard
that I thought would be a nice present for Babbitts to give me on my
next birthday, when the doors slid back and Iola came in. She didn’t say
anything and seemed in a hurry to be off. Mrs. Whitehall showed us out,
very polite but depressed, and when the door was shut on us and we stole
down the stairs, I felt the worst had come. In the vestibule I looked at
Iola and said: "Well?"
She was struggling with her umbrella, her face bent over it.
"Fired!" she answered in a husky voice.
The rain was coming down in torrents, and wanting to cuddle up
comforting against her, I didn’t raise my umbrella and we walked up the
street, squeezed together, with the downpour spattering around us.
Believe me, the water fell under Iola’s umbrella pretty nearly as heavy
as it did outside it. Miss Whitehall was broke. Mr. Harland _had_ been
her financial backer and now she was ruined and the business would
close. The surprise and horror of the whole thing had prostrated her and
as soon as she was better she’d wind up the Azalea Woods Estates and try
and sublet her offices, on which she had still a six months’ lease.
"She was awful sweet," Iola sobbed. "She gave me a full month’s salary
and said she’d meant to keep me forever. Oh, Molly, why did it have to
happen?"
I squeezed her and said:
"That’s all right, dearie. We’ll all hustle and get you another job. I
got lots of money and what’s mine’s yours—the way it always is between
good and true friends."
But Iola wouldn’t be comforted.
"I can’t take your money. I never took a cent yet. And I thought I was
fixed for life. I thought even if the business didn’t pan out big she’d
marry Mr. Barker and get a place for me."
"Marry Mr. Barker!" I cried out astonished.
"Yes—that’s what I thought was coming."
Believe _me_, I was surprised. She’d never dropped a hint of it.
"Why didn’t you tell me that before?" I asked.
"Because Tony Ford told me not to. He said I wasn’t to tell anybody—that
Barker being such a big bug it would get in the papers and that might
break it all up."
"But are you _sure_? Did he act like he was in love with her?"
We were passing one of those arc lights on Park Avenue, and the scornful
look she cast at me, tears and all, was plain.
"Wouldn’t you think a man was in love—even if he was a magnate—who’d buy
a house and lot just for an excuse to _see_ a lady?"
"Did you ever _hear_ him making love to her?"
"No—but I didn’t need to. I’ve been made love to enough myself to know
the signs without hearing. First it was all business, and I believed it
was only that. Then, one day when Mr. Ford was out, he came in and
lingered round making conversation. You know the way they do it, and for
all he was a magnate Mr. Barker was just the same as the errand boy.
That’s the way it is with men—they got no variety. He wanted to know
about her home and the farm and before that. Oh, Indiana, a fine state,
Indiana! It made me laugh to see him with his hook nose and gray hair
handing out the same line of talk that Billy Dunn gave me when I was in
the linen envelope place."
"Did _she_ seem to care for him?"
"Not at first. She was very formal, just a bow and then right off about
the bungalow. But _he_ had the symptoms from the start—looking at her
like he couldn’t take his eyes off and not caring whether the bungalow
was as small as a hencoop or as big as the Waldorf.
"They went along that way for a while then something happened—a fight, I
guess when Tony Ford and I weren’t there. Anyhow, after it she was so
cold and distant you’d wonder he had the nerve to come. Then one
afternoon he came in and asked her low—I heard him—if he could have a
few words with her in the private office. She hesitated but I guess she
couldn’t see her way to refusing, so in they went and had a long powwow.
Whatever it was they said to each other it smoothed out all the
wrinkles. After that she was as different to him as summer is to winter.
In my own mind I thought they were engaged, for she’d brighten up when
he came in and _smile_. I never saw her smile like that at anyone, and
once when they thought I couldn’t hear I heard him call her ’dear.’
They’d go into the private office and talk. Gee! how they talked! And
always low like they were afraid Tony Ford and I might overhear. And on
the top of all _that_ he disappears."
"Perhaps that’s why she’s been sick."
"Sure it is. It’s bad enough to lose your own money, but wouldn’t it
make you sick to lose millions, let alone the man you’re in love with,
even if he has a nose you could hang an umbrella on?"
"Poor thing!" I said, for I could see now what the lady lying on the
couch had been up against.
"We’re all poor things," said Iola, beginning to get sorry for herself
again. "Miss Whitehall, and the man that’s dead, and Tony Ford who’s
lost his job, and me, poor unfortunate me, that I thought was on velvet
for the rest of my days."
Babbitts didn’t get home till late that night, but I was so full of what
Iola had said that I waited up for him. When he did come, he hadn’t but
one kiss, when I pulled away from him and told him.
"Doesn’t it seem to you, Soapy," I said, "that that story ought to go
back to Mr. Whitney?"
He looked at me sideways with a sly, questioning glance.
"Why?" he asked.
"Why, if Barker’s in love with her don’t you think maybe he’ll try and
creep back or get in touch with her some way?"
He burst out laughing.
"Oh, Morningdew, there’s a lot of nice things about you, but one of the
nicest is that you never disappoint a fellow. I was wondering if you’d
see it. Go back to Mr. Whitney? It’ll go back the first thing tomorrow
morning and you’ll take it."