THE HONOR GIRL (4 page)

She looked dubiously down at her pretty dress as she hauled the roll of carpet about. However, it couldn’t be helped now and it would wash. That was a consolation.

Her vigorous efforts soon subdued the closet so that everything was neatly hung up and the door shut. A few old summer hats and coats she put in a pile on the stairs to take up when she went, and standing back, surveyed her work, well pleased. If only the old rug were swept and the edges of the floor wiped around with oil! But she could not stop for everything. They could hire a servant to do that.

She was about to go upstairs when the dining-room asserted itself. Of what use to clean up the hall with a great open doorway into a place like that? The side-board at least must be tidied.

Doubling her speed, she flew around in the dining-room straightening and dusting, the pile of things to go upstairs growing larger and larger. She hesitated at the dining table after removing with uplifted nose and disdainful lips the soiled dishes. Could she leave that dirty tablecloth on? It was stiff with egg and ham gravy, stained with watermelon and peaches and berries, besides being grimy with dust and full of holes. A search in the sideboard revealed two others in like stages of decline. With a sudden set of her lips she bundled them all three together, and put them out in one of the laundry tubs. At least, a bare table was better than dirt.

She dusted everything. The old china-closet with its glass sides and shelves appealed to her strangely. It was almost empty of china and silver and glass. Nearly every dish the house contained seemed to be piled in the kitchen dirty. This china-closet must once have been something of which her mother was proud. A kind of pity for the decadent, inanimate articles of furniture took possession of her as she worked. Somehow she seemed to come nearer to the thought of her mother than she had been since the day of the funeral.

The dining room at last was set to rights, and she turned to fly upstairs. Two cars had already made their passage cityward since she began, and she must hurry or there would be no time at all for lunch before the concert. But from the dining-room door she had a full view of the unhappy parlor in its grim loneliness, and her heart forbade her to leave it. She must put some semblance of decency into it before she left. Perhaps it would be better to do the parlor and let Jack’s room go this time.

She sped to work once more, and soon had straightened the pictures and ornaments on the mantel, removed the hats and coats to places in the hall closet, picked up the papers, placed the chairs invitingly, and dusted. The whole vista was now much more serene than when she had entered the house, but still it was not at all what it ought to be.

“It needs a thorough good housecleaning!” she said aloud. “And I declare I’d like to do it if I had time! But of course that’s out of the question.”

She hastened upstairs, passing resolutely by the second story, on up to Jack’s room. Somehow the thought of her younger brother had taken strong hold upon her.

She looked about this second time with a kind of determined despair. Where should she start? How could she accomplish anything? The whole place needed to be shoveled out, and cleaned, and started over again. Why hadn’t he taken her room instead of keeping up here where she knew he hated it?

A sudden instinct revealed to her that her room had been left a kind of shrine that kept the desolated home together. Had they hoped she would sometime come back to them, and left her room as it had been for her! It was a gloomy little room, old-fashioned and small and inconvenient, with nothing valuable in it; but it had been let alone, and her things remained untouched even when the rest of the family had been in need. The thought pierced into her conscience, and stirred it uneasily from its long contented sleep. Was there, then, a possibility that she ought to have come home, at least sometimes, and been a daughter to the house?

She put the thought ungraciously, half defiantly aside and sailed into that room.

She had to begin at the very entrance, for the floor was literally covered with garments and other articles. She systematically sorted them out. Soiled shirts, cuffs, socks, old shoes and new shoes, overcoats and cast-off neckties galore, of every possible combination of all the colors of the rainbow, old automobile-tires, a book on electrical engineering, several on chemistry, some sporting-papers, a football uniform, a pair of overalls, moth-eaten suits of clothes tumbled down anywhere! It was appalling! And
everywhere
were cigarette-ends and burnt matches. The wonder was the house had not been set on fire. There were several candle-ends on the floor and the chest of drawers, and a good many photographs of football and baseball teams scattered about.

Steadily she progressed into the room until she came to the bed and the snarl of queer bedclothes. Then without any warning at all a great lump came to her throat, and the tears rained down her cheeks. To think that her brother should be sleeping in a bed like this, without sufficient clothing to keep him warm and clean, and with no one to care for things and make them comfortable for him after he had been working hard all day!

“For all the world like a drunkard’s home!” she said aloud, and choked over the words. Could it be that that was the matter? Could it be that her father really drank much?

She could remember the young brother when she was a little girl, how proud she had been of him. He had had round red cheeks and long golden curls. Her mother had cried when they had to be cut off, and cherished them in a little box put away somewhere now in her own bureau drawer in the little room downstairs. Somehow these remembrances did not serve to stop her tears.

There literally was not any way to make that bed respectable with the material at hand. The old plaid blanket shawl was thin, worn, and torn. The old honeycomb spread that served for an upper sheet was gray with age. The pillow was impossible, and the sheet was in actual shreds. It was fit for nothing but a bonfire. Elsie gathered all in reluctant fingers, trying to think what to do about that bed. She could not put that sheet on again, and she must make up that bed somehow. It would not do for her to take away the only bed Jack had and give him nothing in its place.

At last she had the room in tolerable order, all but the bed. There was a large bundle of soiled things done up for the laundry; the few clean shirts and collars she had found among the debris were arranged neatly in the bureau drawers; the things she did not know what to do with were on the top of the chest of drawers, which was dusted; the books were piled in an orderly row against the wall; and the old clothes that needed to be thrown away were collected and put into the empty back room. There was at least clear space to step about it now, and there remained but to make up some kind of a bed. Then she must go.

She looked at her watch. It was five minutes after one. If she could find something downstairs for the bed, she might get it made up in time to catch the car at twenty-five minutes after one. She could at least get home in time to dress for the concert.

She hurried downstairs, carrying at arm’s length a bundle of things which she intended to burn in the back yard; and having set them on fire, she went upstairs again to hunt for sheets and bedclothes.

But the frantic search revealed only more lack in the household fittings. Her father’s bed was supplemented by two old coats and a bath-robe. Eugene’s had the blankets doubled, and apparently he used only one side of the bed. Several old quilts badly torn and soiled were all she could find in the way of extra bedding, and these were so dilapidated that she put them at once out of the question.

She stood dismayed in the middle of her father’s room, and looked about again. How could she go back to her aunt’s and sleep in the pretty brass bed that was hers, with its rose blankets, its fine sheets and pillow-cases, its dainty blue silk elder down quilt that had been a recent birthday present from her aunt, and think of her father and brothers lying in squalor and discomfort? She simply could not do it! She could never live with herself again until her conscience had been set at rest about this. She must do something about it.

Investigation in her own former room revealed the fact that there were no sheets or blankets there, only the meagre ancient spread that had once been white, kept there to hold the semblance of a bed for her.

What could have become of all the bedding? Could bedding wear utterly out like that, and disappear? Or could it be that Rebecca or some other servant had carried things off little by little? Well, whatever was the explanation, the things were gone, and others must somehow be provided, or there would be no more peace for her. Moreover, she had discovered that she could no longer be satisfied with clearing up Jack’s room, she must also make her father’s and Gene’s rooms decent before she left. She must, in fact, put the whole of that house into some sort of order, or she could never be happy again; and she must find a way to make those three beds comfortable before night, symphony concert notwithstanding.

Downstairs in her hand-bag was thirty dollars saved from her last birthday present. She had intended using it to have her photograph taken at a famous photographer’s. She had meant to indulge in a really artistic photograph, and had saved up for the purpose. But now the money suddenly seemed of more value than the pictures.

At home in a little jewel case locked into her bureau drawer were five twenty-dollar gold pieces she had been saving for a long time to purchase an evening cloak. She longed for a really fine one with a handsome fur collar and satin lining. She was going to pick it out the very next week, when aunt had leisure to go with her and help select it. Suddenly that evening cloak rose and mocked her. Could she wear a festive evening cloak with white fox collar when her own father and brothers had no blankets on their beds?

It is true that they ought to be able to purchase their own blankets, probably were, and would very likely refund any money she would spend on putting the house to rights; at the same time, she must realize that, if she took the responsibility of ordering things without consulting them, she must be ready to pay for them in case they did not approve. There was, moreover, a misgiving about her father’s ability to pay for things. What if he had lost his position? What if he had reached a point where he did not care about things? All these things were quite possible when she thought of the state the house had been allowed to get into. Of course she was not responsible, and no one could hold her to blame for the way things had gone; and yet she simply could not go and buy that evening cloak, and know that those beds were in that condition.

She was a girl accustomed to think rapidly and come to quick decisions; and now, as she descended the stairs to the hall, she made her plans.

She washed her hands, locked the door, and went down the street in the direction of the stores. The sight of a black woman coming toward her gave her another idea. When the woman came near, she stopped her with a question.

“Can you tell me where I can get a couple of women to work for me this afternoon?”

The woman paused, and eyed her reflectively from faultless shoe to dainty hat. Then she shifted to the other hip a bundle of soiled linen which she carried, and replied tentatively: “Yes’m, I reckon my daughter ’n’ I might. Where to?”

Elsie indicated the house.

There was a surprised rolling of the whites of the old woman’s eyes as she swept a quick, comprehensive glance at the house and then back over the girl from top to toe again.

“That’s Mister Hathaway’s house?” she said with an upward suspicious inflection.

“Yes,” said the girl with dignity.

“What all you want done?”

“Oh, cleaning and putting to rights—”

The woman looked her over with a meaningful grunt, growing comprehension in her eyes. Finally she agreed to come and bring her daughter at half past two.

Elsie was hastening on her way when the woman called after her.

“Say, aren’t you Elsie Hathaway? ’Cause I worked for your mother once. She was a mighty nice lady, Mis’ Hathaway.”

Something warm and disturbing sprang up in the girl’s heart and made her smile an assent at the old woman as she hurried on her way again. She seemed to have dropped back years and to be made suddenly aware of the personality of her own dear mother. For a little her life in the city at her aunt’s and at the school fell away from her, and she became a child again, interested in this spot that her mother had left. The symphony concert was entirely forgotten now. She had but one object to attain, and that was to put that dreary house into some sort of homelike state before its inhabitants should return. To that end she sought a telephone booth and called up a friend of her aunt’s in a large department store.

“Mr. Belknap,” she said, “I don’t want to make you any trouble, but I’m having a rather strenuous day, and I can’t carry out my plans without some help. I’m out at my father’s in Morningside, putting the house in order; and I find that a number of things need replenishing since my last visit. Father isn’t here, and I haven’t much money with me. I’m wondering if you can manage it for me that they can be sent out special and let me pay on Monday? I could send the money to you as soon as I get home this evening.”

“Sure!” came the hearty response. “I can fix that up for you, Miss Elsie. You want the things out this afternoon before you leave? I see. Well, I’ll have them run out for you. Just tell me what you want. Blankets, sheets, pillowcases, bedspreads, towels, tablecloths, napkins. Well, now suppose I just look up what we have and report to you in fifteen minutes, say. How will that do? You give me the number of your phone, and I’ll let you know styles and prices. Oh, it’s no trouble whatever. I’ll send the buyer around. She’ll fix you up all right. You say you don’t want very expensive things, just plain, good, substantial. All right. You stay where you are, 364 Morningside, you say. I’ll call you up in about fifteen minutes.”

Elsie hung up the receiver, and emerged into the outer world from the telephone booth, looking around her almost dazed. Life had gone so rapidly the last three hours that she seemed to have been whirled through things without any ability to stop or think. Now she suddenly realized she was tired and hungry.