SHE played her cards with an odd mixture of deliberation and
spontaneity.
“Maggie adores you, Sylvia,” said Joanna.
“I think she does,” Sylvia replied modestly. “I don’t know why, I’m
sure. She certainly is nice to me.”
Maggie’s obvious admiration and Sylvia’s naïve acceptance made the way
easy. It is hard not to be nice to someone who shows plainly that you
are her ideal, your company her supreme satisfaction. Maggie wore her
hair like Sylvia’s, she copied when she could her manner of dressing,
she spent half her time at the Marshall house.
She saw the value of absolute honesty. No need to pose when telling the
exact truth brought what one wanted without the strain of living up to a
false position. The Marshalls soon knew of Maggie’s poverty, of the
quick wit and determination which had brought them from that
“dump-heap”—Maggie’s word—to the respectable and comfortable if still
cheap boarding-house. Sylvia used to talk to her mother about it. Mrs.
Marshall suggested that she hand over to Maggie one or two of her
perfectly good but discarded dresses.
But Sylvia objected with a very real delicacy. “She goes to the same
school I go to and to Sunday-School. I wouldn’t want the other children
to see her in my things, she’d feel so badly.”
Her mother saw the justice of that. “I suppose I have one or two things.
There’s that old brown Henrietta of mine and the silk poplin. How’ll she
get them made over though, Sylvia? Now don’t expect me to help.”
“Oh, mamma, you darling! You really are a brick! That poplin is old
rose, isn’t it? She ought to look lovely in it. I can fix them. You know
how I love to fix things over and Maggie knows how to sew on the
machine. If she stayed here three or four days, the rest of this week,
we could finish them.”
Mrs. Marshall agreed, Maggie’s mother was consulted, Maggie came in an
ecstasy. Her first sojourn away from home! And what a sojourn! Naturally
neat though she was, she learned of toilet mysteries, of rites of which
she had never dreamed. Nightly hair-brushings and the discovery that of
course each one had her own brush and comb! Frequent washings of both,
talcum powders! Joanna the ascetic used scentless ones, but Sylvia’s
were highly fragrant. These Maggie preferred. A bath every night.
“If you don’t mind,” said Sylvia, “I’ll take mine first and then you can
stay in as long as you like. I hope that pig Joanna hasn’t used up all
the hot water!”
Delicacies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Dinner at six instead of
the middle of the day! Mrs. Marshall complained of a headache Saturday
morning and Joanna took her breakfast up to her on a silver tray. Mr.
Marshall kept box on box of cigars in his den. Sandy and Philip wore
superlatively blackened shoes.
Maggie looked, listened, stored in her memory. The dresses were a
success. The rose poplin, being the prettier, was finished first; Sylvia
had longed so to get her hands on it. Maggie put it on Saturday morning
and stood in front of the cheval mirror in Mrs. Marshall’s room admiring
her own and Sylvia’s handiwork, and herself with it.
“It’s too pretty to wear in the house. Oh, don’t let’s have to wait till
to-morrow. Mamma, couldn’t the boys take us to the matinée? Maggie, have
you seen Peter Pan?”
Maggie, it transpired, had seen nothing, had never been inside a
theater.
“What fun!” Sylvia’s native delicacy hit on the right expression. “Fancy
going to your first matinée. Can you spare us, Mother dear?”
The party could be arranged. Philip and Alexander expressed their
willingness. Joanna did not care to go, to Maggie’s astonishment, which
increased when she saw how wonderful the theater was. But there were
other things. The girl never forgot the thrill that came over her as
Philip took her arm and led her over dangerous crossings, arranged her
seat and program for her, took off her coat. He held it during the
performance and wrinkled it shamelessly. Sylvia scolded him.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Phil.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Maggie interposed happily. She was beginning to
have her good time like other people. Oh, God bless John Howe!
The acquaintanceship progressed. All through the high school the two
were nearly inseparable. It is true, Maggie sought Sylvia more than
Sylvia sought her, but on the other hand Maggie’s presence was taken as
a matter of course by the Marshalls and their friends. Maggie went to
parties with Sylvia, the two escorted by Brian Spencer and Philip. Often
she slept at her house after the parties and at Christmas time and
week-ends. Once, when Mrs. Marshall took Joanna to visit relatives in
Philadelphia, Maggie stayed with Sylvia a whole month.
In her junior year in the high school she had a long talk with Mr.
Marshall. Of course they were still poor, the house just kept them in
comfort. Maggie had become addicted to the wearing of good clothes. Her
mother was getting older. They needed help from time to time. If Mr.
Marshall would assist her in getting some work. She was young and strong
and willing.
“No, no, Mr. Marshall!” she objected as Joel—they were sitting in his
office—spoke of a loan and reached for his check-book. “Not that! When
could I ever pay you back? No, I mean work, real work. I could take
orders, count the silver, look after the napery, pay off the men if
you’d care to trust me.”
Perhaps a man of another race might have stopped to consider such a
proposition coming from the lips of a young and dainty girl. He might
have been suspicious and realized that his younger son was working in
the business with him just then and the boy and girl would be bound to
be thrown together. But colored men of old Joel’s type are obsessed with
the idea of a progressing younger generation. “They must advance,”
thinks the older man, “I must do all in my power to help them. This is
my contribution to mine own.”
Joel taught her his simple system of bookkeeping and installed her. She
proved herself efficient, willing, and—her mother’s teachings spoke
here—absolutely honest. Her energy and interest were surprising. “You
might think it was her own business,” said Joel. He had no desire to see
either her or any of his children become caterers, but he did like to
see a job well done. Philip was the only one who had evinced any
interest in the business, and that was only during his last year before
entering college. He had to make some extra money somehow—both he and
Sandy had a healthy dislike of burdening their father with their college
expenses—and since he had to work he preferred to spend his time and
energy in his father’s interests.
His chief work consisted in directing his father’s various squads of
waiters. He met them at the house where Joel was catering, started them
off, checked over necessities, looked after the thousand details which
lent to Joel’s service the perfection that so justly brought him fame.
Maggie often accompanied Philip on these trips. Sometimes she went to
one house and he to another, and he would call for her and take her
home. She pondered deeply over the possibility of these meetings.
He was usually jolly, unsentimental, almost brotherly. Maggie took care
to follow his lead. But to her great surprise she was beginning to be
conscious of a deep affection for him. At first she had only yearned for
respectability and comfort, and Philip represented such a convenient
short cut to her heart’s desire. But now things were different.
Sometimes when they came home quite late he would take her arm and the
two would walk slowly and silently down the strangely quiet streets. A
curious little sense of intimacy used to brood over them at times like
these. Philip would laugh a little nervously.
“Awfully jolly being out late like this by ourselves, isn’t it, Maggie?”
She would nod him a smiling yes. “Some day,” she thought, “he must say
more.”
Her studies, her work and these trips with Philip took up most of her
time just now. She and Sylvia of course still saw a great deal of each
other and once in a while went out together. She went to the theater
still more rarely, or to a church festival with Henderson Neal, one of
her mother’s boarders. A mysterious tall brown figure of a man, twenty
years older than Maggie and a thousand years older in experience, he
caught and not infrequently held her attention. He had lived with them
two years, paid his bills regularly, asked no questions and vouchsafed
no explanations.
Maggie wondered what he did. Whatever his occupation, it certainly paid
him well. More than once she had seen him display without ostentation a
huge roll of bills, which apparently was static in bulk. His speech was
often ungrammatical, but so deliberate that one thought he must be
speaking correctly. He had a rather grand air, and listened to both Mrs.
Ellersley and her daughter with a somewhat ponderous attention. Maggie
thought he was rather interesting for such an old man—he must be nearly
forty! She was a little afraid of him, though, and decided it would be
rather unpleasant for any one who chanced to make him angry.
Once he met Sylvia and Maggie on the street and offered to take them to
the matinée. His interest was clearly in Maggie but he politely included
her friend. Sylvia later told Philip about it.
“I hope you didn’t go,” he replied quickly.
“No, I didn’t, Maggie didn’t, either. But there’s no reason why I
shouldn’t have. She goes with him sometimes.”
“But that’s different. Maggie’s known different people from any you’ve
ever known. She can take care of herself.”
“What’s the matter?” Joanna asked, putting her head in the door. “What’s
old Phil so excited about?”
“You might just as well hear this, too, Jan. I won’t have you and Sylvia
going about with a man like Henderson Neal. Maggie can go with men that
my sisters can’t afford to associate with.”
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