"See that the poor thing gets some breakfast," had been Allerton's
parting command, and having finished the room, Steptoe went down the
flight of stairs to carry out this injunction.
He was on the third step from the landing when the door of the back
room opened, and a little, gray figure, hatted and jacketed, crept out
stealthily. She was plainly ready for the street, an intention
understood by Beppo, the late Mrs. Allerton's red cocker spaniel, who
was capering about her in the hope of sharing the promenade.
As Steptoe came to a halt, the girl ran toward him.
"Oh, mister, I gotta get out of this swell dump. Show me the way, for
God's sake!"
To say that Steptoe was thinking rapidly would be to describe his
mental processes incorrectly. He never thought; he received
illuminations. Some such enlightenment came to him now, inducing him
to say, ceremoniously, "Madam can't go without 'er breakfast."
"I don't want any breakfast," she protested, breathlessly. "All I want
is to get away. I'm frightened."
"I assure madam that there's nothink to be afryde of in this 'ouse.
Mr. Allerton is the most honorable--" he pronounced the initial
_h_--"young man that hever was born. I valeted 'is father before 'im
and know that 'e wouldn't 'urt a fly. If madam'll trust me--Besides,
Mr. Allerton left word with me as you was to be sure to 'ave your
breakfast, and I shouldn't know how to fyce 'im if 'e was to know that
you'd gone awye without so much as a hegg."
She wrung her hands. "I don't want to see him. I couldn't."
"Madam won't see 'im. 'E's gone for the dye. 'E don't so often heat at
'ome--'ardly never."
Of the courses before her Letty saw that yielding was the easiest.
Besides, it would give her her breakfast, which was a consideration.
Though she had nominally dined on the previous evening, she had not
been able to eat; she had been too terrified. Never would she forget
the things that had happened after she had given her consent in the
Park.
Not that outwardly they had been otherwise than commonplace. It was
going through them at all! The man was as nearly "off his chump"--the
expression was hers--as a human being could be without laying himself
open to arrest. After calling the taxi in Fifth Avenue he had walked
up and down, compelling her to walk by his side, for a good fifteen
minutes before making her get in and springing in beside her. At the
house opposite he had stared and stared, as if hoping that some one
would look out. During the drive to the place where they got the
license, and later to the minister's house, he spoke not a word. In
the restaurant to which he took her afterward, the most glorious place
she had ever been in, he ordered a feast suited to a queen, but she
could hardly do more than taste it. She felt that the waiter was
looking at them strangely, and she didn't know the uses of the knives
and forks. The man she had married offered her no help, neither
speaking to her nor giving her a glance. He himself ate but little,
lost in some mental maze to which she had no clue.
After dinner he had proposed the theatre, but she had refused. She
couldn't go anywhere else with him. Wherever they moved, a thousand
eyes were turned in amazement at the extraordinary pair. He saw
nothing, but she was alive to it all--more conscious of her hat and
suit than even in the street scene in "The Man with the Emerald Eye."
Once and for all she became aware that the first standard for human
valuation is in clothes.
In the end they had got into another taxi, to be driven round and
round the Park and out along the river bank, till he decided that they
might go home. During all this time he hardly noticed her. Once he
asked her if she was warm enough, and once if she would like to get
out and take a walk along the parapet above the river, but otherwise
he was withdrawn into a world which he kept shut and locked against
her. That left her alone. She had never felt so much alone in her
life, not even in the days which followed her mother's death. It was
as if she had been snatched away from everything with which she was
familiar, to find herself stranded in a country of fantastic dreams.
Then there was the house and the little back room. By the use of his
latchkey they had entered a palace huge and dark. Letty didn't know
that people lived with so much space around them. Only a hall light
burned in a many-colored oriental lamp, and in the half-gloom the
rooms on each side of the entry were cavernous. There was not a
servant, not a sound. The only living thing was a little dog which
pattered out of the obscurity and, raising his paws against her skirt,
adopted her instantaneously.
"He was my mother's dog," Allerton explained briefly. "He likes women,
but not men, though he's never taken to the women in the house. He'll
probably like you. His name is Beppo. I'll show you up at once."
The grandeur of the staircase was overpowering, and the little back
spare-room of a magnificence beyond all her experience outside of
movie-sets. The flowers on the chintz coverings were prettier than
real ones, and there was a private bath. Letty had heard of private
baths, but no picture she had ever painted equaled this dainty
apartment in which everything was of spotless white except where a
flight of blue-gray gulls skimmed over a blue summer sea.
The objects in the bedroom were too lovely to live with. On the toilet
table were boxes and trays which Letty supposed must be priceless, and
a set of brushes with silver backs. She couldn't brush her hair with a
brush with a silver back, because it would be journeying too far
beyond real life into that of fairy princesses. On opening the closet
to hang up her jacket the very hangers were puffed and covered with
the "sweetest flowered silks," so she hung her jacket on a peg.
But she wasn't comfortable, she wasn't happy. Alice had traveled too
far into Wonderland, and too suddenly. Unwillingly she lay down in a
bed too clean and soft for the human form, but she couldn't sleep in
it. She could only tremble and toss and lie awake and wish for the
morning. With the dawn she would be up and off, before any one caught
sight of her.
For Allerton had used words which had terrified her more than anything
that had yet happened or been said--"the other women in the house!"
Not till then had she sufficiently visualized the life into which he
was taking her to understand that there would be other women there.
Now that she knew it, she couldn't face them. She could have faced
men. Men, after all, were simple creatures with only a rudimentary
power of judgment. But women! God! She pulled the eiderdown about her
head so as not to cry out so loudly that she would be heard. What mad
thing had she done? What had she let herself in for? She didn't ask
what kind of women they would be--members of his family or servants.
She didn't care. All women were alike. The woman was not born who
wouldn't view a girl in her unconventional situation, "and especially
in that rig"--once more the expression was her own--without a
condemnation which Letty could not and would not submit herself to. So
she would get up and steal away with the first gleam of light.
She got up with the first gleam of light, but she couldn't steal away.
Once more she was afraid. Unlocking the door, she dared not venture
out. Who knew where, in that palace of cavernous apartments, she might
meet a woman, or what the woman would say to her? When Nettie walked
in later, humming a street air, Letty almost died from shame. For one
thing, she hadn't yet put on her shirtwaist, which in itself was poor
enough, and as she stood exposed without it, any other of her sex
could see.... She had once been on the studio lot when a girl of about
her own age, a "supe" like herself, was arrested for thieving in the
women's dressing-rooms. Letty had never forgotten the look in that
girl's face as she passed out through the crowd of her colleagues. In
Nettie's presence she felt like that girl's look.
She had no means of telling the time, but when she could no longer
endure the imprisonment she decided to make a bolt for it. She hadn't
been thieving, and so they couldn't do anything to her--and there was
a chance at least that she might get away. Opening the door
cautiously, she stole out on the landing, and there was, not a woman,
but a man!
Joy! A man would listen to her appeal. He would see that she was poor,
common, unequal to a dump so swell, and would be human and tender. He
was a nice looking old man too--she was able to notice that--with a
long, kindly face on which there were two spots of bloom as if he had
been rouged. So she capitulated to his plea, making only the condition
that if she took the hegg--she pronounced the word as he did, not
being sure as to what it meant--she should be free to go.
"Certainly, if madam wishes it. I'm sure the last thing Mr. Allerton
would desire would be to detain madam against 'er will."
She allowed herself to be ushered down the monumental stairs and into
the dining-room, which awed her with the solemnity of a church. She
knew at once that she wouldn't be able to eat amid this stateliness
any more than in the glitter of last evening's restaurant. She had
yielded, however, and there was nothing for it but to sit down at the
head of the table in the chair which Steptoe drew out for her.
Guessing at her most immediate embarrassment, he showed her what to do
by unfolding the napkin and laying it in her lap.
"Now, if madam will excuse me, I'll slip awye and tell Jyne."
But telling Jyne was not so simple a matter as it looked. The council
in the kitchen, which at first had been a council and no more, was now
a council of war. As Steptoe entered, Mrs. Courage was saying:
"I shall go to Mr. Rashleigh 'imself and tell 'im that hunder the syme
roof with a baggage none of us will stye."
"You can syve yourself the trouble, Mrs. Courage," Steptoe informed
her. "Mr. Rash 'as just gone out. Besides, I've good news for all of
you." He waited for each to take an appropriate expression, Mrs.
Courage determined, Jane with face eager and alight, Nettie tittering
behind her hand. "Miss Walbrook, which all of us 'as dreaded, is not
a-comin' to our midst. The young lydy Nettie see in the back
spare-room is Mr. Rashleigh's wife."
"Wife!" Mrs. Courage threw up her hands and staggered backward. "'Im
that 'is mother left to me! 'Courage,' says she, 'when I'm gone----'"
Jane crept forward, horrified, stunned. "Them things can't be,
Steptoe."
"Mr. Rash told me so 'imself. I don't know what more we want than
that." Steptoe was not without his diplomacy. "It's a fine thing for
us, girls. This sweet young lydy is not goin' to myke us no trouble
like what the other one would, and belongs right in our own class."
"'Enery Steptoe, speak for yourself," Mrs. Courage said, severely.
"There's no baggages in my class, nor never was, nor never will be."
Jane began to cry. "I'm sure I try to think the best of everyone, but
when such awful things 'appens and 'omes is broken up----"
"Jynie," Steptoe said with authority, "the young missus is wytin' for
'er breakfast. 'Ave the goodness to tyke 'er in 'er grypefruit."
"Jyne Cakebread," Mrs. Courage declared, with an authority even
greater than Steptoe's, "the first as tykes a grypefruit into that
dinin'-room, to set before them as I shouldn't demean myself to nyme,
comes hunder my displeasure."
"I couldn't, Steptoe," Jane pleaded helplessly. "All my life I've
wyted on lydies. 'Ow can you expect me to turn over a new leaf at my
time o' life?"
"Nettie?" Steptoe made the appeal magisterially.
"Oh, I'll do it," Nettie giggled. "'Appy to get another look at 'er. I
sye, she's a sight!"
But Mrs. Courage barred the way. "My niece will wyte on people of
doubtful conduck over my dead corpse."
"Very well, then, Mrs. Courage," Steptoe reasoned. "If you won't serve
the new missus, Mr. Rashleigh, will 'ave to get some one else who
will."
"Mr. Rashleigh will 'ave to do that very selfsame thing. Not another
night will none of us sleep hunder this paternal roof with them that
their very presence is a houtrage. 'Enery Steptoe was always a
time-server, and a time-server 'e will be, but as for us women, we
shall see the new missus in goin' in to give 'er notice. Not a month's
notice, it won't be. This range as I've cooked at for nearly thirty
years I shall cook at no more, not so much as for lunch. Oh, dear! Oh,
dear! What's the world comin' to?"
In spite of her strength of character Mrs. Courage threw her apron
over her head and burst into tears. Jane was weeping already.
"There, there, aunt," Nettie begged, patting her relative between the
shoulders. "What's the good o' goin' on like that just because a silly
ass 'as married beneath 'im?"
Mrs. Courage pulled her apron from her face to cry out with passion:
"If 'e was goin' to disgryce 'imself like that, why couldn't 'e 'a
taken you?"
So Steptoe waited on Letty himself, bringing in the grapefruit, the
coffee, the egg, and the toast, and seeing that she knew how to deal
with each in the proper forms. He was so brooding, so yearning, so
tactful, as he bent over her, that she was never at a loss as to the
fork or spoon she ought to use, or the minute at which to use it.
Under his protection Letty ate. She ate, first because she was young
and hungry, and then because she felt him standing between her and all
vague terrors. By the time she had finished, he moved in front of her,
where he could speak as one human being to another.
Taking an empty plate from the table to put it on the sideboard, he
said: "I 'ope madam is chyngin' 'er mind about leavin' us."
Letty glanced up shyly in spite of being somewhat reassured. "What'ud
be the good of my changin' my mind when--when I'm not fit to stay?"
"Madam means not fit in the sense that----"
"I'm not a lady."
Resting one hand on the table, he looked down into her eyes with an
expression such as Letty had never before seen in a human face.
"I could myke a lydy of madam."
At the sound of these quiet words, so confidently spoken, something
passed through Letty's frame to be described only by the hard-worked
word, a thrill. It was a double current of vibration, partly of
upleaping hope, partly of the desperate sense of her own limitations.
A hundred points of gold dust were aflame in her irises as she said:
"You mean that you'd put me wise? Oh, but I'd never learn!"
"On the contrary, I think madam would pick up very quick."
"And I'd never be able to talk the right----"
"I could learn madam to talk just as good as me."
It seemed too much. She clasped her hands. It was the nearest point
she had ever reached to ecstasy. "Oh, do you think you could? You talk
somethin' beautiful, you do!"
He smiled modestly. "I've always lived with the best people, and I
suppose I ketch their wyes. I know what a gentleman is--and a lydy. I
know all a lydy's little 'abits, and before two or three months was
over madam 'ud 'ave them as natural as natural, if she wouldn't think
me overbold."
"When 'ud you begin?"
The bright spot deepened in each cheek. "I've begun already, if madam
won't think me steppin' out o' my plyce to sye so, in showin' madam
the spoons and forks for the different----"
Letty colored, too. "Yes, I saw that. I take it as very kind. But--"
she looked at him with a puzzled knitting of the brows--"but what
makes you take all this trouble for me?"
"I've two reasons, madam, but I'll only tell you one of 'em just now.
The other'll keep. I'll myke it known to you if--if all goes as I
'ope." He straightened himself up. "I don't often speak o' this," he
continued, "because among us butlers and valets it wouldn't be
understood. Most of us is what's known as conservative, all for the
big families and the old wyes. Well, so am I--to a point. But----"
He moved a number of objects on the table before he could go on. "I
wasn't born to the plyce I 'old now," he explained after getting his
material at command. "I wasn't born to nothink. I was what they calls
in England a foundlin'--a byby what's found--what 'is parents 'ave
thrown awye. I don't know who my father and mother was, or what was my
real nyme. 'Enery Steptoe is just a nyme they give me at the
Horphanage. But I won't go into that. I'm just tryin' to tell madam
that my life was a 'ard one, quite a 'ard one, till I come to New York
as footman for Mr. Allerton's father, and afterward worked up to be
'is valet and butler."
He cleared his throat. Expressing ideals was not easy. "I 'ope madam
will forgive me if I sye that what it learned me was a fellow-feelin'
with my own sort--with the poor. I've often wished as I could go out
among the poor and ryse them up. I ain't a socialist--a little bit of
a anarchist perhaps, but nothink extreme--and yet--Well, if Mr.
Rashleigh had married a rich girl, I would 'a tyken it as natural and
done my best for 'im, but since 'e 'asn't--Oh, can't madam see?
It's--it's a kind o' pride with me to find some one like--like what I
was when I was 'er age--out in the cold like--and bring 'er in--and
'elp 'er to tryne 'erself--so--so as--some day--to beat the best--them
as 'as 'ad all the chances----"
He was interrupted by the tinkle of the telephone. It was a relief. He
had said all he needed to say, all he knew how to say. Whether madam
understood it or not he couldn't tell, since she didn't seize ideas
quickly.
"If madam will excuse me now, I'll go and answer that call."
But Letty sprang up in alarm. "Oh, don't leave me. Some of them women
will blow in----"
"None of them women will _come_--" he threw a delicate emphasis on the
word--"if madam'll just sit down. They don't mean to come. I'll
explyne that to madam when I come back, if she'll only not leave this
room."