I worked for five weeks in the stock-yards before I could make up the
deficit in my hundred dollars caused by those first three weeks of
idleness and the consequent expenses of my board. I am very bad at
figures. I still calculate with my fingers. Every night, however, I
counted my little hoard, and I had it all reckoned up on paper how soon
I would have that hundred intact again.
Out of my fifteen a week I had to allow five dollars for my board, and
so much for luncheon, car-fare, and the little articles I added to my
wardrobe. I used about eight dollars a week on myself and I sent home
two. That left me only five a week, and as I had used twenty-five of
the hundred before I got my position, it took me over five weeks to
make it up. As each week my little pile grew larger, the more excited I
became in anticipation of that moment when I could write!
I would lie awake composing the wonderful letter that would accompany
that hundred dollars, but when the sixth Saturday (pay-day) actually
came, and I had at last the money, I found myself unable to pen the
glowing letter of my dreams. This was the letter I finally sent, and
unless he read between the lines, goodness knows it was a model of
businesslike brevity, showing the undoubted influence of the Smith &
Co. approved type of correspondence:
Y. W. C. A.
Chicago, Ill., Aug. 8-19.
Roger Avery Hamilton, Esq.
_Dear Sir_:
I send you herewith inclosed the sum of one hundred dollars, being
in full the amount recently lent by you to,
Very faithfully yours,
NORA ASCOUGH.
It was with a bursting heart that I folded that cold and brief epistle.
Then I laid it on top of that eloquent pile of bills--"dirty money."
Just before I did up the package, the ache within me grew so intense
that I wrote on the envelop:
"Please come to see me now."
I made a tight little package of the money and letter, and I sent it
off by registered mail. I knew nothing about post-office orders or
checks. So the money went to him just like that.
Now my life really changed. On the surface things went on as ever.
I progressed with my type-writing. I "made good" at the office. The
routine of the daily work in the yards was brightened by various little
humorous incidents that occurred there. For instance, one of the firm,
a darling old man of seventy, took a great fancy to me, and every day
he would come down the main aisle of the office with a fresh flower
in his hand, and lay it on my desk as he passed. Not bad for an old
"pork-packer," was it? Every one teased me about him, and so did he
himself. He called me "black-eyes," and said I was his "girl." Other
men gave me flowers, too, but I prized that one of Mr. Smith's more
than the others. Also I had enough candy given to me, upon my word, to
feed me, and I could have "gone out" every night in the week, had I
wanted to; but, as I have said, this was only part of my life now--my
outer life. The life that I conjured up within me was about to come to
reality, and no one knew anything about it, not even Lolly.
She had been very much engaged in "educating" Hermann, who was madly in
love with her. Lolly accepted his adoration with amused delight. She
considered him a "character," but she never took him seriously.
As the days passed away, the fever within me never waned. Though I went
about my work as ever, my mind was away, and I was like one whose ear
is to the ground, waiting, waiting.
But he did not come, and the weeks rolled away, and two months passed.
One night a man from Lolly's home came to call upon her. His name was
Marshall Chambers. He was one of those big-shouldered, smooth-faced,
athletic-looking men who make a powerful impression upon girls.
According to Lolly, he was a wealthy banker whom she had known during
her father's administration as mayor of her home town. I knew as soon
as I saw them together that my poor Lolly was deeply in love with him,
and I felt at once a sense of overwhelming antagonism and dislike
toward him. I cannot explain this, for he was specially attentive to
me, and although Lolly and he had not seen each other for some time, he
insisted that I should accompany them to dinner at R----'s.
When we went to our rooms to dress, Lolly asked me what I thought of
this man, and I said:
"I like Hermann better. _He's_ honest."
That remark in ordinary circumstances would have sent Lolly into one of
her merry peals of laughter,--she always laughed about Hermann,--but
she gave me a queer look now, her cigarette suspended in her hand.
Her face was flushed, and her eyes were so brilliant they looked like
turquoises.
"You're dead right," she said solemnly.
But a moment later she was her old self again. I was putting on a
little white dress when Lolly swung me round and examined me.
"Here, you can't go to R----'s in duds like these," she said. "Wait a
minute."
She disappeared into her own room, and came back with her arms full
of dresses; Lolly had beautiful clothes. I suppose her tailored
suits would have looked ludicrous, as she was larger than I, but a
little cream-colored chiffon frock, trimmed with pearl beads, was
very becoming to me. She also lent me an evening cap, and a red rose
(artificial) for my waist.
"Now look at yourself," said she, "and after this don't let me catch
you mooning in your room at night. Get out and show yourself. You'll
only be young once."
Lolly was in blue, the color of her eyes, and she looked, as always,
"stunning." Beside her, I'm afraid, I appeared very insignificant, for
Lolly was a real beauty. I never went anywhere with her but people--men
and women, too--would stare at her, and turn around for a second
look. People stared at me, too, but in a different sort of way, as
if I interested them or they were puzzled to know my nationality. I
would have given anything to look less foreign. My darkness marked and
crushed me, I who loved blondness like the sun.
Mr. Chambers did everything very splendidly. He had a carriage to take
us to dinner, and he was extremely gallant in his manner to both Lolly
and me, just as attentive, I thought wistfully, as if we were society
girls, and not poor girls of the Y. W. C. A. Lolly and he talked a good
deal in an undertone, and although they did not ignore me, I was left
out of most of their conversation. I did not mind this. I was happy to
lean back in that carriage, and indulge in my own fine dreams.
I should have enjoyed the dinner more if our host had been some one
other than this man Chambers. He made me uncomfortable and secretly
angry by looking at me in a meaning sort of way when Lolly did not see
him. I felt as if he were trying to establish some sort of intimacy
with me behind Lolly's back. He sat beside Lolly, and I opposite them,
and he would lean back in his seat, inclined toward Lolly, and over her
shoulder he would make his bold eyes at me. No, I did not like that
man, and I avoided his glances as much as I could. But Lolly, my poor
Lolly, seemed infatuated with him, and all her pretty banter and chaff
had departed. She scarcely ate anything, but played nervously with her
food, and she would look at him in such a way that I wanted both to
shake her and to cry for her.
But this is my story, not Lolly's, though hers perhaps would make a
better tale than mine.
Chambers said he could tell one's fortune from one's palm, and that he
would like to see mine. Lolly said:
"Nora carries her fortune in her head."
"And you," I said, "in your face."
He reached over the table for my hands, and Lolly said:
"Let him, Nora. Sometimes he makes pretty good guesses."
Chambers began to reel off a fine fairy-story, which he said was to be
my fortune. We were all laughing, Lolly leaning over, and making merry
and mocking interpolations, and I eagerly drinking in every word, and,
though I laughed, believing most of it, when suddenly I had a queer,
nervous feeling that some one other than ourselves was listening to us
and was watching my face. There is something in telepathy. I was afraid
to look up, and my heart began to beat in a frightened way, for I knew,
even before I had turned my head, that _he_ was somewhere there in the
room with us. And then I saw him directly behind Marshall Chambers.
Their chairs, back to back, were almost touching, but he had turned
about in his seat, so that he was looking directly at me, and I shall
never forget the expression of his face. It was as though he had made
some discovery that aroused both his amusement and contempt.
What had I done that he should look at me like that? I wanted to go
to him, to beg him to speak to me; but some one with him--a woman, I
think, for curiously enough, I was capable of seeing only him, and
noted not at all his companions--said something to him, and he moved
his chair till his back was turned toward me. I felt like some dumb
thing unjustly punished.
Lolly said:
"What's the matter, Nora? You look as if you had seen a ghost."
I suppose my face had blanched, for I was shivering, and I wanted to
cover my face with my hands and to cry and cry.
"Oh, Lolly," I said, "I want to go home!"
Chambers took me by the arm, and we passed, like people in a dream,
between the tables--ah! past where he was sitting, and out into the
street and then home!
The following morning I was passing languidly by the secretary's desk,
in the main office, when she called to me:
"Miss Ascough, you will have to ask your men visitors to call earlier
in the evening if they wish to see you. You know our rules."
"My men visitors?" I repeated stupidly.
"Yes," she returned sharply; "a gentleman called here last night at
nearly nine-thirty. Of course we refused to permit him to see you."
"Oh," I said faintly, for before I had looked at that little card I
knew who had at last come to see me. I went out with his card held
blindly in my hand, and all that day, whenever my work paused or
slackened, I found myself vaguely wondering why he had called so late,
and I felt a dumb sense of helpless rage toward that hateful secretary
who had turned him away.