Miss Mell and Miss Bainbridge were in that state of exhaustion in which
any sort of rest or pause is fatal. They had agreed to go on working
until they were really “settled,” with everything unpacked and neat.
Enthusiasm had entirely gone now; they were working doggedly, and,
secretly, without much hope of ever being done. Miss Bainbridge was on
her knees before a packing case filled with papers, drawings, music, and
that mass of letters, bills, and receipts one feels obliged to keep.
Miss Mell was feebly cleaning out the hearth, which was quite full of
the debris of the former tenants.
There was a knock at the door, and they both called out, “Come in!” but
without interest.
It was Miss Waters and Rosaleen. Miss Waters beckoned mysteriously to
Miss Mell, and they vanished into the back room.
“Have you got your third person for the studio yet?” Miss Waters
enquired, anxiously.
Miss Mell shook her head.
“Then you can have Rosaleen!” cried Miss Waters, with triumph. “I’m so
glad, for your sake, and for her sake. It’s an _ideal_ arrangement!”
And, seeing that Miss Mell looked only polite and not enthusiastic, she
went on:
“You will just love that child! She has the disposition of an angel.
Never a cross or disagreeable word. And after all she’s been through!”
“Yes,” said Miss Mell. “She seems very nice. We’ll be glad to have her.”
“You see,” Miss Waters went on, in a whisper. “Yesterday, not an hour
after you’d left the house, a letter came for her from that beastly
woman I told you about--that Amy Humbert. And in it, my dear, was a
cheque for _five hundred_ dollars. It seems that the _nice_ sister had
told her on her deathbed to give that to Rosaleen when she was
twenty-one. She wrote--this Amy woman, I mean--that she wasn’t legally
obliged to give it to Rosaleen, but that she felt it was a moral
obligation, and that she always tried to do what was right, and more
like that. _You_ know the sort of person, Dodo! Well!... The poor child
was wild with joy.... And I advised her to come with you, if it could be
done. Five hundred dollars will keep her for a long time, if she’s
careful, and she ought to be earning a good living long before it’s
gone. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, I should think so,” said Miss Mell, thoughtfully.
“Then I’ll tell her!” said Miss Waters, and hastened into the big room,
where Rosaleen stood, looking sheepishly about her. Miss Bainbridge had
discouraged her attempts at conversation with no great gentleness and
the chairs were all filled with things, so that she couldn’t even sit
down.
“It’s all right!” cried Miss Waters. “I _am_ so glad!”
“Look round and see how you like it,” said Miss Mell, and they did.
The place seemed to them the very ideal of a studio. It was a dark old
room on the south side of the Square, thoroughly dirty and almost past
cleaning. There were plenty of mice and other more intolerable vermin,
and a musty smell that no airing could banish. But, to compensate, more
than to compensate, was the View, the Outlook, the sight of scrawny
little Washington Square Park and a glimpse up Fifth Avenue through the
Arch. Every visitor they ever had later on admired this view.
It had just the right sort of furnishings, too, left intact by the two
former girl artists who were subletting it. Big wicker chairs and little
feeble tables, a rug, small, dingy and expensive, a screen, a battered
and stained drawing table, candles with “quaint” shades striped purple
and yellow. And pieces of hammered brass which should have gleamed from
corners but which did not gleam because they were too dirty and the
corners were so very dark that nothing within them was visible. The
place had altogether an aimless air, a look of being one part work room
and three parts play room; it was frivolous in a solemn, pretentious
sort of way, neither pretty nor convenient.
But to Rosaleen an enchanted spot, something which seemed to her more
like home, dearer to her than any other place in the world. She loved
it!
“I’d like to help,” she said. “What shall I do first?”
“The back room,” said Enid. “Otherwise we’ll never get to bed to-night.”
Rosaleen lifted the curtain and went into the back room where they were
all to sleep and to do their cooking. A forlorn place, overrun with
roaches, and containing two cots, a filthy gas stove, an old sink red
with rust, and a dreadful mouldy little thing that had once been an
ice-box. There was no window, no light except the gas high overhead. It
was depressing, hideous, highly unwholesome, with an air of abandoned
domesticity terribly distressing to Rosaleen. She couldn’t endure the
thought of food being prepared and cooked in that dark and dirty place.
But the others didn’t care at all.
They had got themselves some sort of lunch there before Rosaleen’s
arrival; the greasy plates still stood by the sink.
“I’ll make you some tea,” she said, pitying their grimy and
back-breaking labour.
She scrubbed out a rusty little kettle and set it on to boil; then she
began to wash the dishes and to clean the cluttered, dusty shelf and to
set out on it the provisions lying about in bags and boxes. She opened
the little ice-box, devoid of ice and smelling most vilely, and saw in
there a loaf of bread and an opened tin of milk.
“I wouldn’t _use_ that ice-box if I were you!” she called out,
anxiously. “It doesn’t seem--nice.”
“All right!” Miss Mell answered, soothingly.
She made tea and brought it in on the lid of a box for a tray. But it
was very poor, cheap tea and it smelt like straw.
“I don’t think it’s a very good brand,” said Rosaleen. “Why don’t you
try Noxey’s?”
Miss Bainbridge looked up from her third cup.
“Look here!” she said. “My idea is that you should do all that sort of
thing. We can’t and won’t. Mell, give her the money and let her buy
everything.... And you’ll see we always have everything we need, won’t
you? Things for breakfast, and so on? Dinner I suppose we’ll take
outside. I will, anyway. You’d better go out now, I think. First look
and see what we need, coffee, rolls, all the proper things. And wood: it
would be nice to start a fire here this evening. We didn’t know where to
get any.”
Rosaleen went, but she was not too well pleased with the tone of her new
companion. And still less did she like her contemptuous indifference to
Miss Waters, when she popped in later on to see if she could help. She
was by nature resigned and patient, and her training had accentuated
this; on her own behalf she would have endured a great deal from Miss
Bainbridge. But she had a loyalty for her friends that was fanatical.
Her heart had ached for her poor old friend, with her well-meaning
sprightliness quashed. When she had gone, when she had called a
quavering and gay “Au revoir!” from the foot of the stairs, Rosaleen had
turned and resolutely faced the arrogant Miss Bainbridge.
“I----” she began. “I’ll ask you please--not to talk like that to Miss
Waters.”
Her mouth was set grimly; she looked at that moment rather like her
mother.
“Why?” asked Miss Bainbridge, coolly.
“She’s--she’s old, for one thing.”
“Old enough to die. No, Miss-What’s-Your-Name, I can’t be sentimental
about your rather awful old friend. And we don’t want her bothering us
here. The sooner she finds it out, the better. If you won’t give her a
hint, I will.”
“No,” said Rosaleen, “I won’t.... And I won’t let you.”
“What!” cried Miss Bainbridge. “You won’t let me? Is that what you said?
How do you propose to stop me?”
“Well,” said Rosaleen. “I--I suppose I _can’t_ stop you. But I can go
away and not hear you. And I will.”
“Good-bye!” said Miss Bainbridge.
Miss Mell intervened.
“See here, Enid, my child, this won’t do! You mustn’t offend Rosaleen.
Don’t be too much of a genius!”
“There’s no reason for her to be offended. She’s not personally
responsible for Miss Waters. I’ve simply put my foot down about the old
imbecile----”
“_But_ the studio belongs to all three of us,” said Miss Mell. “And
Rosaleen and I want Miss Waters. It’s two against one.”
Miss Bainbridge had got up and was looking at them with an ugly,
narrowed glance. But Miss Mell continued her unpacking, and Rosaleen,
instead of quailing, met her look quite calmly. She couldn’t do much
with _them_....
She made a real effort to control that unbridled temper, to subdue that
fierce pride that could endure no slightest contradiction. She saw, as
she could always see, where her own best interest lay; that if she
wished to get on with these comrades, she must make concessions.
“Very well,” she said. “Have her, if you want.”
Rosaleen was not to be outdone in magnanimity.
“I don’t want you to be bothered,” she said. “I’ll try to keep her from
interrupting your work the least bit. It’s only--if you please won’t be
rude to her.... Because she’s really very nice.”
“But can’t you _see_!” cried Miss Bainbridge, with a sort of despair.
“I’m not like you. If I’m surrounded by mushy, stupid, jabbering people,
it--harms me! If I were kind to people like that, I’d ruin myself. You
hear about people being killed with kindness. Well, a great many more
people are killed--or destroyed--by _being_ kind. No one who amounts to
anything can be so damn _kind_. It’s often necessary to be cruel; and
it’s _always_ necessary to be indifferent. My job is to paint--to the
very best of my ability. It doesn’t matter how Miss Waters feels. The
world isn’t going to be any better or any worse for _her_ feelings.”
Rosaleen reflected for some time. Then she spoke, thoughtfully and
firmly:
“I guess Art isn’t as important as all that!” she said.