Winnie Childs by C. N. Williamson

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

She stopped, panting a little, her colour coming and going She had not
meant this at first. It was far removed from smiling civility,
this--tirade! But, as Sadie Kirk would say, "He had asked for it."

He was looking at her with his straight, level gaze. He was
astonished, maybe, but not angry. And she did not know whether to be
glad or sorry that she had not been able to rouse him to rage. His
look into her eyes was no longer that of a young man for a young
woman who means much to him. That light had died while the stream of
her words poured out.

For a moment, when she had ceased, they stared at each other in
silence, his face very grave, hers flushed and suggesting a
superficial repentance.

"Forgive me," she plumped two words into the pause, as if pumping air
into a vacuum. "I oughtn't to have said all that. It was rude."

"But true? You think it's true?"

"Yes."

"You have been working here in my father's store for months, and you
say I could do more good by righting the wrongs here than anywhere
else in the world. That sounds pretty serious."

"It is serious. Whether I ought to have spoken or not."

_"I_ tell you, you ought to have spoken. It was--brave of you. That's
the way I always think of you, Miss Child, being brave--whatever
happens. And laughing."

"I don't laugh now."

"Not at other people's troubles--I know. But you would at your own."

"I'm not thinking of my own. To-day of all days!"

He wondered what she meant. His mind flashed swiftly back to last
night and all that had happened. He could have kissed the hem of her
black dress to see her here, safe and vital enough to fling reproaches
at him for his sins--of omission. Yet he must stand coldly discussing
grievances. No, "coldly" was not the word. No word could have been
less appropriate to the boiling emotions under Peter Rolls's grave,
composed manner.

He let the baffling sentence go--a sentence which framed thoughts of
Sadie Kirk.

"I should like to hear from you the specific wrongs you want righted,"
he said. "I know a girl of your sort wouldn't speak vaguely. You _do_
mean something specific."

"Yes--I do."

"Then tell me--now."

"You came to buy a cloak for your mother."

"I didn't come for that, and you know it. I came for you. But you put
a shield between us to keep me off. When you have emptied your heart
of some of these grievances that are making it hot--against me, maybe
you won't have to put me at the same distance. Maybe you'll let me be
your friend again, if I can deserve it."

"I don't want to talk or think of ourselves at all!" she broke out.

"I don't ask you to. All that--and my mother's cloak, too--you needn't
be getting down that box!--can wait. If you won't be my friend, anyhow
show me how to help your friends."

"Oh, if you would do that!" Win cried.

"I will. Give me the chance."

Despite his injunction, she had taken from its neat oak shelf a box of
summer wraps and placed it on the counter behind which she stood. Now,
not knowing what she did, she lifted the cardboard cover and seemed to
peep in at the folds of chiffon and silk.

Peter looked not at the box, but at her pitiful, reddened hands on the
lid. The blood mounted slowly to his temples and he bit his lip. He,
too, was standing, though any one of several green velvet-covered
stools was at his service. He turned away, leaning so much weight on
the bamboo stick he held that it bent and rather surprised him.

Suddenly the scene struck him as very strange, almost unreal--Winifred
Child, his lost dryad, found in his father's store, separated from him
by a dignified barrier of oak and many other things invisible! This
talk going on between them--after last night! The hum of women's
voices in the distance (they kept their distance in this vast
department because he was Peter Rolls, Jr., as all the employees by
this time knew) and the heavy heat and the smell of oak seemed to add
to the unreality of what was going on. Fresias would have helped. But
there was nothing here that suggested help--unless you wanted advice
about a cloak.

Win had been marshalling her ideas like an army hastily assembled to
fight in the dark.

"That is a favour I couldn't refuse to take from you, even if I
would," she said in a low voice, "to help my friends."

"It is no favour. You'll be doing me that."

She went on as if he had not spoken.

"I don't know about any shops in New York except this one--only things
I've heard. Some of the girls I've met here have worked in other
department stores. They say--this is one of the worst. I have to tell
you that--now I've begun. There's no use keeping it back--or you won't
understand how I feel. There are real abuses. The Hands don't break
the laws--that's all. About hours--we close at the right time, but the
salespeople are kept late, often very late, looking over stock. Not
every night for the same people, but several times a week. We have
seats, but we mustn't use them. It would look as if we were lazy--or
business were bad. We 'lend' the management half the time we're
allowed for meals on busy days--and never have it given back. The
meals themselves served in the restaurant--the dreadful
restaurant--seem cheap, but they ought to be cheaper, for they're
almost uneatable. Those of us who can't go out get ptomain poisoning
and appendicitis. I know of cases. Hardly any of us can afford enough
to eat on our salaries. I should think our blood must be almost white!

"But nobody here cares how we live out of business hours, so long as
we're 'smart' and look nice. When we _aren't_ smart--because we're
ill, perhaps--and can't any longer look nice--because we're getting
older or are too tired to care--why, then we have to go; poor,
worn-out machines--fit for the junk shop, not for a department store!
Even here, in Mantles, where we get a commission, the weak ones go to
the wall. We must be like wolves to make anything we can save for a
rainy day. But any girl or man who'll consent to act the spy on
others--_there's_ a way to earn money, lots of it. A few are tempted.
They must degenerate more and more, I think! And there are other
things that drive some of us--the women, I mean--to desperation. But I
can't tell you about them. You must find out for yourself--if you
care."

"If I care!" echoed Peter.

"If you do, why haven't you found out all these things, and more, long
ago?" she almost taunted him, carried away once again by the thought
of those she championed--the "friends" she had not come to in her
story yet.

"Because--my father made it a point that I should keep my hands off
the Hands. That was the way he put it. I must justify myself far
enough to tell you that."

"But--if one's in earnest, need one take no for an answer?"

"I suppose I wasn't in earnest enough. I thought I was. But I couldn't
have been. You're making me see that now."

"I haven't told you half!"

"Then--go on."

"You really wish it?"

"Yes."

"The floorwalkers and others above them have power that gives them the
chance to be horribly unjust and tyrannical if they like. There are
lots of fine ones. But there are cruel and bad ones, too. And then--I
can't tell you what life is like for the under dog! And cheating goes
on that we all see and have to share in--sales of worthless things
advertised to attract women. We get a premium for working off 'dead
stock.' Each department must be made to pay, separately and on its own
account, you see, whatever happens! And that's why each one is its own
sweatshop---"

"I swear to you this isn't my father's fault," involuntarily Peter
broke in. "He's not young any more, you see, and he worked so hard in
his early years that he's not strong enough to keep at it now. Not
since I can remember has he been able to take a personal interest in
the store, except from a distance. He leaves it to others, men he
believes that he can trust. Not coming here himself, he---"

"Why, he comes nearly every day!" Win cried out, then stopped
suddenly at sight of Peter's face.

"I--am sure you're mistaken about that one thing, Miss Child," he
said. "You must have been misinformed. They must have told you some
one else was he---"

The girl was silent, but Peter's eyes held hers, and the look she gave
him told that she was not convinced. "You don't believe me?" he asked.

"I believe you don't know. He does come. It's always been toward the
closing hour when I've seen him. The first time he was pointed out to
me was by a floorwalker on Christmas Eve. I was in the toy department
then. He was with Mr. Croft. How strange you didn't know!"

"If it was father--perhaps I can guess why he didn't want us to find
out. But even now I--well, I shall go home and ask him if he realizes
what is happening here. Somehow I shall help your friends, Miss
Child."

"I haven't told you about them yet," Win said. "It was really one
friend who was in my mind. There may be ever so many others just as
sad as she. But I love her. I can't bear to have her die just because
she's poor and unimportant--except to God. Dr. Marlow thinks she's
curable. Only--the things she needs she can't afford to get, and I
haven't any money left to buy them for her; just my salary, and no
more. There's one thing I can do, though! I'll learn to be a wolf,
like some of the others, and snatch commissions."

"Don't do that!" Peter smiled at her sadly. "I shouldn't like to think
of you turning into a wolf. Your friend is sick---"

"She was told by the doctor yesterday that it was a case of
consumption. I had a letter from her this morning--bidding me
good-bye. You see, she was discharged on the spot, with only a week's
wages."

"Beastly!" exclaimed Peter. "There ought to be some kind of a
convalescent home in connection with this store--or two, rather, one
for contagious sort of things and the other not. I---"

"She wrote in her letter that she'd heard of a place where
consumptives were taken in and treated free," Win went on when he
paused. "But she wouldn't tell me where it was. And Dr. Marlow says
there is nothing of the sort---"

"Oh, he can't have read the newspapers these last few days. It's been
open a week."

"Then _you_ know about it?"

"Yes. You see--it's a sort of--friend of mine who's started the
scheme. The house is not very big yet. But he'll enlarge it if it
makes a success."

"Quite free?"

"Yes. Anybody can come and be examined by the doctor. No case will be
refused while there's room. I--my friend lost his dearest friend years
ago--a boy of his own age then--from consumption. It almost broke his
heart. And he made up his mind that when he grew up and had a little
money of his own, he'd start one of those open-air places in the
country free."

"I believe you're speaking of yourself!" exclaimed Win, her face
lighting. Then Ena Rolls's brother couldn't be all bad!

"Well, I'm in the business, too. This must be the place the girl is
going to. She shall be cured, I promise you. And when she's well she
shall have work in the country to keep her strong and make her happy.
Will that please you?"

"Yes," Win answered. "But--it doesn't please me to feel you're doing
it for that reason."

"I'm not. Only partly, at least. I'm thankful for the chance to help.
And this shan't be all. There'll be other ways. Please don't think too
badly of me, Miss Child. I trusted my father, as he wished. And he
trusts Mr. Croft--too completely, I fear."

Again Win was silent. She had heard things about Peter Rolls, Sr.,
which made her fancy that he was not a man to trust any one but
himself. And she did not yet dare to trust his son. The look was
coming back into his eyes which made her remember that he was a man
like other men. Yet it was hard not to trust him! And because it was
so hard she grew afraid.

"Give me the address of that convalescent home," she broke her own
silence by saying. "I want to write to my friend, Sadie Kirk--and go
to see her--if she's really there. Mr. Rolls, I shall bless you if she
is cured."

Petro had taken out his cardcase and was writing.

"Then, sooner or later, I shall have my blessing," he said quietly.
"Couldn't you give me just a small first instalment of it now?
Couldn't you tell me what changed you toward me on the ship? Had it
anything to do with my family--any gossip you heard?"

"In a way, yes. But I can't possibly tell you. Please don't ask me."

"I won't. But give me some hope that I can live it down. You see, I
can't spare you out of my life. I had you in it only a few days. Yet
those days have made all the difference."

Win stiffened.

"I can't let you talk to me like that," she said almost sharply, if
her creamy voice could be sharp. "I hate it. You'll make me wish--for
my own sake--if it weren't for my friend, I mean--that you hadn't
found me here. I thought--I don't see why I shouldn't say it!--when I
asked for work in your father's store that none of the family would
ever come near the place. I was told they never did. But it wasn't
true. You all come!"

"You mean my father and I?"

"And Miss Rolls, too---"

"She came?"

"Yes, with Lord Raygan, and--and I think you and Lady Eileen were
here, too."

"We were," Peter said. "And so--you were in the store even then?
Nobody told me."

"I hoped they wouldn't."

It was his turn to be silent, understanding Eileen's dream. Raygan
must have talked to her about the girl. But there would have been
nothing to say, if Ena had not said it first. Ena had "explained
things" to Raygan, perhaps--and then---

An old impression came back to Peter. He remembered Ena's protest
against his friendship for a "dressmaker," and her kindness later. He
remembered asking himself on the dock if Ena could have made mischief.
He had put the thought away as treacherous, not once, but many times.
Now he did not put it away. He faced it, and wondered if he could
ever forgive his sister. It seemed at that moment that he never could.

"Will you choose the cloak for Mrs. Rolls?" Win was asking in the
professional tone of the obliging young saleswoman.

"I--er--yes, I suppose so. Which one do you suggest?"

"Any of these would be charming for--the lady you've described. She'd
like it better, I'm sure, if you chose it yourself."

"No, I want you to choose, please. I've already told her about you. If
it hadn't been for her I shouldn't have found you so soon. She advised
me to try the Hands. No matter what you may think of me, there's only
one opinion to have of mother. And you can't object to meeting her.
You choose the cloak and I'll bring her to see you--in it."

Win kept her eyes on the assortment of silk motoring and dust coats
which she had arranged on the broad counter for Mr. Rolls's
inspection. Suddenly a great weight was lifted from her head, as if
kind hands had gently removed a tight helmet.

Would such a man as Ena Rolls had sketched in her shadow portrait of a
brother bring his mother to meet a shop girl whom he fancied? It
seemed not. Yet men of that type were the cleverest, as she already
knew. Maybe he didn't really mean to bring Mrs. Rolls. It would be
easy, from time to time, to postpone her visit. And Win was very
proud. She thought of Ena's annoyance at happening upon her in the
elevator, and how reluctantly Miss Rolls had taken up the cue of
cordiality from Lord Raygan. Oh, it was best--in any case--it was the
only way to keep personalities out of her intercourse with the man who
had once been Mr. Balm of Gilead.

"This silver gray is one of the prettiest of the new wraps," she
glibly advertised her wares.

"Very well, if you like it, I'll marry--I mean, I'll take it. Tell me
how you hurt your hands."

"There's nothing to tell," she put him off again, visibly freezing--an
intellectual feat in such weather. "And--really, as I said before, I
don't care to talk about myself."

Her look, even more than her words, shut Peter up. The cloak saved the
situation during a few frigid seconds. But as a situation it had
become strained. The only hope for the future was to go now. And Peter
went. He went straight back to Sea Gull Manor and to his father.

CHAPTER XXVI

WHEN THE SECRET CAME OUT

Father was in the library when Peter got home. One did not open the
door and walk straight into this sacred room. One knocked, and if
father happened to be engaged in any pursuit which he did not wish the
family eye to see, he had time to smuggle it away and take up a
newspaper, or even a book, before calling out "Come in."

To-day, not being well, he was allowing himself the luxury of a
jig-saw puzzle, but as he considered the amusement frivolous for a man
of his position, at the sound of his son's voice he hustled the board
containing the half-finished picture into a drawer of his roll-top
desk. In order to be doing something, he caught up a paper. It was
_Town Tales_, and his eye, searching instinctively for the name of
Rolls, saw that of the Marchese di Rivoli coupled with it and a
slighting allusion. A wave of physical weakness surged over the
withered man as he asked himself if he had done wrong in sanctioning
his daughter's engagement to the Italian.

"What do you want?" he greeted Petro testily.

He was invariably testy when indigestion had him in its claw, and his
tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting
with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of
putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly careful in his tactics.

"I want to talk with you, Father, if you don't mind," he began
pleasantly. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important?"

"I am supposed to be left to myself in the mornings," said Peter
senior, martyrized. "Though I don't go to the store, I must read
Croft's reports and keep in touch with things."

"It's about the store I'd like to talk." Peter was thankful for this
opening. He perched hesitatingly on the arm of an adipose easy chair,
not having been specifically invited to sit.

"Why, what have you got to say about the Hands?" Defiance underlay
tone and look.

"It was in this very room I promised you I'd keep my hands off the
Hands," Peter quoted. "But I want you to let me take the promise
back."

"I'll do nothing of the sort!" shrilled Peter senior. "What do you
mean?"

"I need to work. I've tried other things, but my thoughts always come
back to the Hands. I'm proud of your success you know. I want to--to
batten on it. And I want to carry it on. I have ideas of my own."

"I bet you have, and damned poor ideas, too," snapped the old man.
"I'm not going to have them tried in my place while I'm alive."

"Let me tell you what some of them are, won't you, before you condemn
them?" his son pleaded, refusing to be ruffled.

"No. I won't have my time wasted on any such childishness," growled
Peter senior. "You ought to know better than to trouble me with every
silly, trifling idea you get into your head."

"To me this is not trifling," Peter argued. "It's so serious that if
you refuse to take me into your business--I don't care how humble a
position you start me--I shall begin to make my own way in the world.
I can't go on as I am, living on you, with an allowance that comes out
of the Hands, unless you give me some hope that I can soon work up to
having a voice in the management."

"I suppose what you are really hinting at is a bigger allowance under
a different name," sneered old Peter. "Now you're turning
socialist--oh, you don't suppose I'm blind when I come to your name
and your quixotic schemes in the newspapers! You don't like the
red-hot chaps raving about 'unearned increment,' or whatever they call
it."

"No, it isn't that," Peter said simply. "I don't much care what people
say, so long as I can help things along a bit; though, of course, I'd
rather it would be with my money than yours, no matter how generous
you are about giving and asking no questions. I don't ask for more, or
want it. But I do want to feel that--forgive me, Father!--I do want to
feel that on the money I handle there's no sweat wrung out of men's
bodies or tears from women's eyes."

Peter senior had sat only half turned from his desk, as if suggesting
to Peter junior that the sooner he was allowed to get back to work,
the better. But at these last words, unexpected as a blow, he swung
violently round in his revolving chair to glare at the young man.

"Well, I'm damned!" he ejaculated.

Peter sincerely hoped not, but felt that silence was safer than
putting his hopes into words.

"This comes of turning socialist! You insult your father who supports
you in luxury---"

"I don't mean to insult you, Father, and I don't want to be supported
in luxury. I want to work for every cent I have. I want to work hard."

"I never thought," Peter senior reflected aloud, abruptly changing his
tone, "to hear a son of mine spout this sort of cheap folderol, and I
never thought that any one of my blood would be weak enough to come
crawling and begging to break a solemn promise."

"It means strength, not weakness, to break some promises--the kind
that never ought to have been made," Peter junior defended himself.
"I'd break it without crawling or begging if I thought you'd prefer,
except that it would be no use. Unless I had your permission, I
couldn't get taken into the Hands."

"Well, you don't get it. See?" retorted the head of the Hands as
rudely as he could ever have spoken in old days to his humblest
subordinate.

"Then, Father, if that's your last word on the subject," said Petro,
rising, "this means for you and me, where business is concerned, the
parting of the ways."

The old man's sallow face was slowly, darkly suffused with red.
"You're trying to bully me," he grunted. "But I'm not taking any
bluff."

"You misjudge me." Petro still kept his temper. "I'd be a disgusting
cad to try on such a game with you, and I don't think I am that. I'm
more thankful than I can tell you for all you've done for me. You've
had a hard life yourself, and you've secured me an easy one. You never
had time to see the world, but you let me see it because I longed
to--when I saw you had no use for me in the business. You let me give
money away and, thanks to your generosity, one or two schemes I had at
heart are in working order already. There's enough saved out of my
allowance for the last few years to see them through, if I never take
another cent from you. And I never will, from this day on, Father,
while you run the Hands on present lines."

"You're a blank idiot!" snarled the old man; but a strained, almost
frightened look was stretched in queer lines on his yellow face. He
was thinking of Ena and of the newspapers. He could hear the dogs
yapping round his feet.

"Young Peter Rolls breaks away from home. Earns his living with his
own hands, not father's Hands. What he says about his principles"--or
some such rot as that would certainly appear in big, black headlines
just when Ena and her magnificent _marchese_ were searching the
columns for gush over the forthcoming marriage. It would spoil the
girl's pleasure in her wedding.

Old Peter was furious with young Peter, but began angrily to realize
that the matter was indeed serious. He desired to be violent, but fear
of Ena dashed cold water on the fire of his rage. Against his will and
against his nature he began to temporize, meaning later to revenge his
present humiliation upon his son.

"Who the devil has been upsetting you with lies about the Hands?" he
spluttered.

"I'm afraid we must take for granted that what has 'upset' me isn't
lies." Peter let his sadness show in face and voice. "I don't wonder
you're surprised and perhaps angry at my coming to you and suddenly
throwing out some sort of accusations, when year after year I've been
receiving money from the Hands as meek as a lamb without a word or
question. I don't defend myself for lack of interest in the past or
for too much now. Maybe I'm to blame both ways. But please remember,
Father, you said that unless I distrusted you, I was to stand aside.
After that I was so anxious to prove I trusted you all right, that I
hurried to promise before I'd stopped to think. Since then I've been
made to think--furiously to think--and---"

"I was brought up to believe there was _no_ excuse for breaking a
promise," Peter senior cut him short severely. There was Petro's
chance to score, and--right or wrong--he took it.

"Then things have changed since the days when you were being brought
up," he said, with one of those straight, clear looks old Peter had
always disliked as between son and father. "Because, you know you
promised Ena you would give up going to the store except for important
business meetings once or twice a year. And you haven't given it up.
You go there nearly every night."

Peter senior physically quailed. His great secret was found out! No
use to bluster. Somehow young Peter had got hold of the long-hidden
truth. He was, in a way, at the fellow's mercy. If Petro chose to tell
Ena this thing she would fancy that every one except the family knew
how old Peter's grubbing habits had never been shaken off; that with
him once a shopkeeper, always a shopkeeper, and that behind her back
people must be laughing at the difference between her aristocratic
airs and her father's commonness.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21