FRIEDA THE ANGEL
"Please help me!" cried the woman hoarsely. "My God! What shall I do?"
It was, as I had surmised, the Murillo-faced occupant of the room on the
other side of the landing. In my dismay the desperate thought came to me
that a lonely bachelor was the last individual she should have sought
aid from. But her look of haggardness, the teeth pressed into her lips,
the clenched hands, the chin carried forward in an expression of
agonized supplication rebuked my egotism.
"I--I don't know," I confessed humbly.
She turned half way around, seized the balustrade and stared at me
vacantly.
"Allow me to help you back to your room," I suggested shakily. "Then
I'll run downstairs and get Mrs. Milliken."
She went with me, haltingly, and threw herself upon the decrepit
horsehair sofa, as I abandoned her and ran downstairs, nearly breaking
my neck on account of my slovenly old slippers. At the landlady's door
I pounded till I chanced to remember she had informed me that she
expected to spend the night at her married daughter's, in Fort Lee. In
despond I bethought myself of the young women who sold candy. No! Such
problems were not of their solving. Of course there was the negro cook,
hidden in some ancillary cavern of the basement, but cowardice prevented
me from penetrating such darkness, and I ran out of the house, coatless.
Half way down the block were two doctors' signs. One shining in the
freshness of new nickelling; the other an old thing of battered tin,
with faded gold letters.
"This," I decided, "is a case requiring the mature experience of age,"
and I rang furiously, awaiting the appearance of the venerable owner of
the ancient sign. A shock-headed and red-haired youth opened the door,
clad in pajamas and rubbing his eyes.
"Yes," he said pleasantly.
"I need the doctor's services at once," I informed him. "Hustle him up
immediately, my good fellow. Please be quick, it may be a matter of life
and death."
"Oh! I'm the doctor," he said, "and I'll be with you in a few seconds.
Sit right down."
He left me in the darkness of the hallway and I sank down on a wooden
seat, upon a palm leaf fan that crackled dismally beneath my slender
weight. Faintly, in the back, I discerned a ghostly folding bed and
heard the swishing of garments flying across the room. In spite of my
feverish impatience the doctor came out again as fast as if he had been
clothed by some magic art.
"What kind of a case?" he asked.
"I believe you are wanted to help increase and multiply," I answered.
"Should have told me at once. Got the wrong bag!" he reproved me,
disappearing. At once he returned. I went out first, and he followed me,
slamming the door with a sound that reverberated through the quiet
street, and we sprinted off. I used the key with a shaking hand.
"Top floor," I informed him.
"All my patients seem to live on top floors," he replied.
At the woman's door I knocked.
"I--I have brought you assistance," I told her. "This--this young
gentleman knows all about such things; he's a doctor. I--I'll be in the
next room, if there's anything else I can do for you."
"Is there no woman in the place?" inquired the young man.
"No. Only some girls who know nothing save the price of caramels and the
intricacies of tango. But I can find one inside of twenty minutes; I'll
go and get her."
"That's good," he assented cheerfully, going to his patient, who looked
at him in some fear.
But I reflected that the doctor seemed kindly, and by no means
overwhelmed by the responsibility thrust upon him, so that I took the
time to slip on my boots, after which I ran to Eleventh Street, where
Frieda Long burrows in a small flat. Her studio, shared with another
woman, is farther uptown. Finally she opened the door, clad in a hoary
dressing-gown and blinking, for she had not been able to find her
spectacles.
"Who is it?" she demanded placidly, as if being awakened at two fifteen
in the morning had been a common incident of her life.
"It's Dave, just Dave Cole," I answered. "I want you, Frieda--that is to
say, a woman wants you badly, at my house--taking her share of the
primal curse. Don't know who she is, but Mrs. Milliken's away. She's
alone with a little half-hatched doctor, and--and----"
"Come in. Sit there in the front room. Cigarettes on that table. I'll
close the door and be with you in five minutes," she assured me
tranquilly.
I tried to smoke, but the thing tasted like Dead Sea fruit and I pitched
it out of the open window. An amazingly short time afterwards Frieda was
ready, bespectacled and wearing an awful hat. I think she generally
picks them out of rag bags.
As we walked along, she entertained me with her latest idea for a
picture. It would be a belted Orion pursuing the daughters of Pleione,
who would be changing into stars. She explained some of the difficulties
and beauties of the subject, and her conception of it, while I looked at
her in wonder. I must say that, from her stubby, capable fingers, there
flow pure poetry of thought and exquisiteness of coloring. Her form,
reminding one of a pillow tied none too tightly in the middle, her
tousled head containing a brain masculine in power and feminine in
tenderness, her deep contralto, might be appanages of some
back-to-the-earth female with an uncomfortable mission. But she's simply
the best woman in the world.
She panted to the top floor and, at my desire, followed me into my room,
where I had left the door open and the gas burning. She gave a swift
glance around the place, and her eyes manifested disapproval.
"I wonder how you can ever find anything on that desk," she reproved me,
as I searched in a bureau drawer. To my utter terror she began to put
some papers in order.
"Here's an unopened letter from _Paisley's Magazine_," she announced.
I pounced upon it and tore it open, to discover a check for eighty
dollars.
"Good!" I exclaimed. "I'd forgotten that story. It was called 'Cynthia's
Mule'; I wonder what possessed me to write about a mule? Don't know
anything about them."
"That's why it sold, most likely," said Frieda. "The public prefers
poetry to truth in its prose. What are you wasting time for, fooling in
that drawer?"
"I have it. It's a twenty-dollar bill," I told her. "I put it among my
socks so that I shouldn't spend it. Might be very handy, you know. She
might need something, and you could go out and buy it."
"Can you afford it, Dave?" she asked me.
"Of course, and you forget the check I've just received. Mrs. Milliken
will cash it for me at her butcher's. He's very obliging."
Just then we heard something. Frieda stuffed the bill in some part of
her ample bosom and ran away. I heard her knock at the door and go in.
There was nothing for me to do but to look at the nearly finished page
that was still in the embrace of my typewriter. For some silly reason my
gorge rose at the idea of the virtuous dog, but I remembered, as I was
about to pull out and lacerate the paper, that my mind sometimes plays
me scurvy tricks. When I am interrupted in the beginning of a story, and
look over it again, it always seems deplorably bad. Another day I will
look at it more indulgently. Moreover, what was the use of thinking
about such trivialities when the world's great problem was unfolding
itself, just seven steps away over the worn strip of Brussels on the
landing.
So I settled down in my old Morris chair to ponder over the matter of
babies coming to the just and the unjust, provided with silver spoons or
lucky to be wrapped up in an ancient flannel petticoat. The most
beautiful gift of a kindly Nature or its sorriest practical joke,
welcome or otherwise, the arriving infant is entitled to respect and
commiseration. I wondered what might be the fate of this one. In a few
hours it will be frowned down upon by Mrs. Milliken, who will consider
it as an insult to the genus landlady. The mother, naturally, will smile
upon the poor little thing; she will dote upon it as women do on the
ordinarily useless articles they purchase with money or pain at the
bargain counter of life. This wee white and pink mite, since its daddy's
away fighting and the mother is poor, must prove a tragedy, I am afraid.
It will be a little vampire, pretending to feed on milk but really
gorging itself on a heart's blood.
My cogitations were interrupted by the rattle of a thousand milk cans,
more or less, clattering through the street, on top of a huge, white
motor truck. I took off my coat, instinctively thinking that it was time
to go to bed, and put it on again because my door was open and it
behooved me to keep awake, since I might be required to run other
errands. The question of sleep thus disposed of, I brought out my
percolator.
For a wonder there was alcohol in the lamp, and I found the coffee in a
can I discovered in my cardboard hat-box. Two months before, my sister
Jane had told me that a silk hat was proper for the following of one's
mother to the grave, and I obeyed her. Poor darling! It was the least
and last thing I could do for her.
The lamp was alight and the steam coming, when the doctor came out,
looking rather spectral in a white gown.
"Thank goodness!" I exclaimed, dropping some pulverized bean on the
floor. "So it is all over!"
"Not yet," he informed me, smiling, "but so far everything goes well.
The big, fat Providence in gig-lamps is sitting by the patient.
Sometimes three make poor company. The solid dame came in and called her
'my dear' and rummaged things out of the trunk and fixed up the bed, and
tears began to flow. It must be a wonderful thing for a woman, who feels
abandoned of God and man, to have such a big brave creature come in to
pound the pillows and make one feel that there is yet corn in Egypt. I
left them with their heads together. The poor thing was crying a bit and
beginning to tell the story of her past life. Yes, thanks! I'll be glad
of a cup, with three lumps of sugar. Great little machine, that! And so
I thought I'd walk in here for a minute. Some things a woman tells
another must be pretty sacred, don't you think?"
I poured out the coffee appreciatively.
"The person whom you call the solid dame," I told him, "is no less a
woman than Frieda Long, the poet in pigments."
"Keeps a Beauty Shop?" he inquired.
"If you mean to ask whether she shampoos and manicures females and
supplies them with hair," I answered, "your guess is utterly wrong. She
paints women, and men too, on canvas, and any ordinary individual, such
as you and I, ought to grovel before her."
"Just say the word," he answered, "and I'll make a start. She's the best
old girl I've come across in many a long day."
"Frieda Long is hardly thirty-eight," I told him, "and, to change the
subject for a moment, I will acknowledge that I deemed such cases best
attended by the sere and ancient. I rang you up because your sign
suggested long experience."
"Not half bad, is it?" he replied. "I aged it by setting it up in the
backyard and firing brickbats at it. Old Cummerly, next door to me, had
his replated."
He swallowed his coffee, without winking, though I thought it was
boiling hot, and left me hurriedly again. I took greater leisure in my
own beverage and leaned back in my chair. This young fellow appealed to
me. The man of tact is born, not made. What serves him for a soul
possesses refinement to dictate his leaving, for a few minutes, while
one woman poured out her heart to another. I think he is considerate and
kindly; he is probably destined to make many friends and little money.
I rose and looked out of the window. The dawn was beginning and promised
another stifling, red-hot day. A very _decollete_ baker had come out of
a cave beneath the bread and cake shop, opposite, and sponged off his
forehead with the back of his hand. An Italian woman, clad in violent
colors, passed with a hundredweight or so of broken laths poised on her
head. At the corner the policeman was conversing with a low-browed
individual, issued from the saloon with a mop. New York was awakening,
and I decided I might as well shave, to pass away the time. Taking my
strop and razor I sat down to give the latter a thorough overhauling. I
suppose I fell asleep during the process.
"Contemplating suicide?" I heard Frieda ask suddenly.
I jumped up, startled, with the weapon in my hand.
"Put that thing down," she ordered me. "It makes me nervous. She's
sleeping quietly, and the doctor's gone. An awfully nice fellow. It's a
boy with brown hair."
"Not the doctor," I objected, somewhat dazed.
"No, the baby, you silly! The doctor is very nice. I am going out to get
my washerwoman's sister to come and stay with Madame Dupont--might as
well say Mrs. Dupont. Her husband's French, but she comes from Rhode
Island. You can go with me. Never mind about shaving now, you can stop
at a barber's later on. Your hair needs cutting. Put on a clean collar.
After I get that woman, we'll stop at the flat; the milk will be there
and I'll give you some breakfast. Come along!"
Frieda is a woman of the compelling kind, but it's a joy to obey her.
After I had adjusted my collar and tie we started, but when we reached
the door opposite she opened it, very quietly, while I waited, and
tiptoed in.
"She's awake," she said, again opening the door. "She says she would
like to thank you for your kindness. She knows she would have died, if
you had not sought help for her."
"Stuff and nonsense," I said, quite low. "You don't expect me to go in
there, do you?"
"I certainly do, because she wishes it. Don't be stupid!"
So I entered, rather embarrassed, thinking to see the face of a woman
crucified. But her smile was the sweetest thing I had ever beheld, I'm
very sure. I could hardly recognize her after that memory of haggard and
tortured features. She put out her hand to me, weakly.
"I--I want to thank you--ever so much," she said. "It was so awfully
kind of you, and--and you sent me an angel."
"Oh, yes," said Frieda, grinning. "I see myself with wings sprouting
from my shoulder-blades. Good-by for a short time, my dear. You'll only
be alone for a few minutes. Yes, the baby will be all right; don't you
worry. No, he won't be hungry for a long time, the doctor said, and you
are to let him sleep and do the same yourself. Now come along, David."
I was delighted to have Frieda's escort, as I scented danger below. Her
support gave me boundless joy when, at the foot of the stairs, I saw
Mrs. Milliken, returned on some frightfully early ferryboat. She looked
at us with amazement and suspicion.
"My dear Mrs. Milliken," I began, in my most ingratiating tones, "a new
boarder has arrived during the night. I can assure you the young man
would not have intruded had he possessed greater experience of life. We
will have to forgive him on account of his tender youth."
"They must be packed off at once," cried the woman. "How could you?"
"I beg to observe that it was not my tender heart but yours that gave
her shelter," I said. "My own responsibility is extremely limited, and
my part in the affair a most subsidiary one."
"And besides, Mrs. Milliken," put in Frieda, "no one but David Cole
lives on that floor. If he makes no complaint, no others are very likely
to, and then it would be inhuman to put the poor thing out now. In a few
days she will be able to move. I am going to send a woman immediately,
and you won't have the slightest trouble."
"For any little matter of extra expense, Mrs. Milliken, I will see that
you are properly compensated," I added.
Had I been alone, Mrs. Milliken would probably have argued the matter
for an hour, at the end of which I should have retired in defeat. But I
think Frieda's size overawed her. She only stammered rather weakly that
she knew it would all end badly.
"Don't mind her, David," said my friend, as we went out. "You can't
expect the keeper of a cheap boarding-house to be an optimist. Her
prediction may or not come true, but no one thinks that the bit of
humanity upstairs can turn the world topsy-turvy for some time."
I felt greatly relieved and followed her towards the river, where, just
west of Ninth Avenue, we found a tenement on the fourth floor of which
there was a sort of rabbit-hutch where dwelt two women and a bevy of
infants. I remained on the landing, while Frieda went in. Some of the
children came out and contemplated me, all with fingers in their mouths.
Remembering that I had changed a nickel on the previous evening, while
waiting for Gordon, in order to obtain a cent's worth of assorted
misinformation from my favorite paper, I pulled out the four remaining
pennies and distributed them. By the infants my action was accepted as
gentlemanly and urbane, I think, for they no longer considered me as a
suspicious character and the gravity of their expressions changed into a
look of unstinted approval.
"It's all right," said Frieda, coming out in a cloud of soapy steam.
"She'll go at once. Putting her hat on now. Come along. I'm hungry as a
hyena."
So I breakfasted with her at her flat. She had certainly worked much
harder than I, during the night, and taken a great deal more out of
herself, but she insisted on my sitting down while she juggled with a
gas-stove and bacon and eggs and a pot of jam. Her coffee, I thought,
was better than mine. At eight o'clock we parted at the corner of the
street.
"I must hurry along," she said. "I have an appointment with a man who
can pose as Orion."
I had time but for a few words of heartfelt thanks before she was in the
middle of the avenue, waving a hand to the motorman of her car. She
scrambled aboard, smiling at me cheerfully from the step, and I was
alone, wondering at the luck of a chap who could pose as Orion for
Frieda. I would rather have her think well of me than any one I know of,
I am very sure, and I regretted that my lank form and ill-thatched head
were so unsuited to the make-up of a Greek demigod. Never mind, I know
that when my next book comes out she will send for me, hurriedly, and
make me feel for some minutes as if I were really worthy of tying her
big, ugly, sensible shoes. She has read every one of my stories and
possesses all the books I ever perpetrated, bless her soul! It is good
indeed for a man to be able to look up to a woman, to know in his heart
of hearts that she deserves it, and that she doesn't want to marry him,
and he doesn't want to marry her. It is fine to think they are a pair of
great friends just because they're capable of friendship, a much rarer
accomplishment than most people are aware of.
So I returned to the scene of the night's invasion and climbed up the
stairs, rather wearily. I had the morning paper, three circulars and a
fresh box of cigarettes. Upon my landing I met a large female with a
moustache and decided it must be the washerwoman's sister. She smiled
pleasantly at me and I returned the courtesy.
In such words as I remembered from my erstwhile residence in Paris I
asked how the mother and child were doing.
The lady, she informed me, was doing ever so well. As for the infant, it
had beautiful eyes and was a cherished little cabbage.
Wondering upon the philosophy of endearments as attained by foreign
nations I entered my room, closing the door carefully, and looked over
those pages about the virtuous dog. They were promising, I thought.
After putting them down, I took up my razor, for I hate a barber's
scraping, and indulged in the luxury of a shave.
The instrument, I thought, possessed a splendid edge. Who knows, some
day I might bequeath it to a cherished cabbage.