Read Ebook: Angela's Business by Harrison Henry Sydnor Gruger Frederic Rodrigo Illustrator

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Ebook has 1516 lines and 80907 words, and 31 pages

"Well, I don't remember your asking anything about it."

"No, because I supposed it was virtually settled--"

"Oh, no, indeed. In fact--oh, it was just a mad dream for me, of course! I'll live and die a Grammar School teacher."

But the male protectorship, he should have known well, scarcely thrived in this atmosphere. Mary tied a package of papers, gave him a look and smile, and dropped it efficiently into the suitcase at her feet.

"Well, that's on the knees of the gods as yet. Meanwhile--there's no use crying over spilt milk."

It was on the tip of his tongue to confide to her then, for her comfort, the third plan he had for her, a plan more circuitous and elaborate than either of his others, but yet, given time, his personal favorite from the beginning. However, Mary's little laugh checked him. The laugh may have been the best cover she had for feelings deeply bruised, after all, perhaps: but the breath of it chilled the young man's ardors effectually.

"I'm afraid you must, though! This milk--"

"I decline. Trust me, I say. I intend to help you here."

But her reply was to put into words of one syllable, at last, what her manner had been saying plainly from the beginning:--

She added, quietly snapping on a light: "Don't worry your head about it any more, please. Whatever, can be done,--I can and will do it, you may be sure."

It was odd how completely this silenced the young man. It was as if she had suddenly blown up the whole line of their communication.

The conversation between the two old friends thus abruptly thinned out. It became almost desultory on his part, not untouched with dignity. And as they so chatted of Lee Grammar School and its unfavorable location, he, the authority, was eyeing Mary Wing askance, unmistakably reacting.... Was hardness, then, the necessary corollary of "independence"? Was it true, exactly as Old Tories said, that a woman could not grapple long with actuality without rubbing away that natural sweetness and charm of hers which, it might be, the grim world needed more than duplicate Careers? Certainly there was no charm for him in this slip of a girl's self-assertion: "I'm a better man than you, don't you know it?" Splendid, indeed, was her Spartan calm in a defeat serious in every way, and with the peculiar sting conferred by Miss Trevenna's fame. Why was it that he would have warmed to her so infinitely more, have felt quite a new depth of affection for her, if, rather, she had turned to him helpless and wildly weeping, "Help me! Help me, friend, or I perish!"

"And at least you'll get out much earlier in the afternoons," he was observing courteously....

But his secret thought continued to engross him, this fantastic thought of Mary weeping. Now he remembered Miss Angela's girlish outburst last night, after the bridge-party; and he saw that there was something subtly fitting, engaging on the whole, in a woman's weeping over her troubles. But Mary, of course, could not weep; she simply didn't have the plant, as you might put it. No--you could picture Mary asking you to sit on the sofa and look at her ring, more easily than weeping.

And then, becoming aware of a teacher hovering about in the corridor near the door,--a fellow named Hartwell it was, who had long seemed rather attentive to Mary,--Charles Garrott rose to go, a mere polite caller.

"Isn't it time you were knocking off?"

"I think I'd better clear up a little more of this, now that I'm at it."

"I wonder if I couldn't help you with some of that?"

"Oh, no, thank you." "Nobody could understand it but me. But I've--appreciated your visit."

He wished her a good-afternoon. In a stately silence, he traversed the spacious corridor, stalked down the handsome stairways. For the moment, he could not get his thought back to the concrete; the sting of defeat possessed him, the bitterness that is the portion of the friend of women. And then, in this mood, shaking the dust of the High School from his feet, he encountered, of all inopportune people under the sun, Miss Flora Trevenna.

He came upon the unhappy girl standing in a corner of the outer vestibule, beyond the great bronze doors; she stood alone, looking off down the twilight street. Her head turned at the sound of Charles's feet; recognition came hesitatingly into her glance, and she bowed, smiling remotely in the absent or reserved way which seemed to be characteristic of her. It was clearly on a second thought that she spoke suddenly, in her fluty voice:--

"Oh!--could you tell me whether Miss Wing is still in the building?"

Pausing, his hat stiffly raised, the young man said that Miss Wing was. "You'll find her in her office--on the third floor at the front, you know."

"Thank you."

But, as he bowed and passed on, the Badwoman made no move to enter and ascend. She stood as he had found her, waiting, aside: a solitary and withdrawn figure, for the moment to the perceiving eye not untouched with pathos.

But Charles, proceeding, could see in this figure only the witting cause of all the trouble. He had spoken kindly enough to Miss Trevenna: now suddenly all his accumulated and complex resentment seemed to gather and pour out. Couldn't the woman leave Mary alone, even on this day? But no--of course she couldn't! She who had claimed her Happiness over her mother's heart would see nothing amiss in seeking to scramble back to good repute by the same general route. It was her Higher Law to throw her blight over all who might assist her: over her friend, Mary Wing, no more than over her own young sisters, from whom people were already silently dropping away, now that it was known that the "free" Miss Flora came sometimes to the house.

On the corner the young man halted, shook himself slightly, and glanced up and down. A brief anxiousness crossed his face, followed by an air of irresolution.

This street, Albemarle, was three blocks from Washington, and certainly not a street that a pleasure-walker, like Miss Angela, would be likely to pick out. Charles's legs seemed to thirst for exercise. But it was clear to him that it would not do to run any superfluous risks; especially just now, when it was all so fresh and new. Therefore, after a moment of struggle, the authority once more set his face ingloriously toward the street-cars.

And as he went he began to think again, more intently than he had thought in all the thoughtful day. He had taken that challenge of Mary's full in the face, as it were. She had said, as if in final summary of their relations, that he was incapable of helping her. Very well; he had a clear field now to show her, once and for all, whether or not that was true.

That third plan of his was nothing less than to roll up such a body of Public Opinion as would overwhelm the School Board--a body somewhat sensitive to Opinion--forcing it to reverse itself. This could not be done in a day, of course. To gather momentum enough to rouse the local papers would mean to start far back. So Charles's mind had fastened at once on his old idea of a thoroughgoing eulogistic "write-up" of Mary, to begin with, in some national magazine of the highest standing. Only now his soaring ambition was to "plant" three such write-ups at least--cunningly differentiated in matter and manner, and signed with different names. Nor did this seem by any means a dream. From the periodicals themselves, he saw that there was a demand for just such "stuff" nowadays, just such little smartly-written sketches of "people who were doing things." Mary did things, without a doubt. And once he got the write-ups in print,--even two write-ups, or one,--he had a powerful bludgeon to swing at the local editors. "Look here," he would say to them, "why do we have to go away from home to learn the news? Are you fellows going to sit still and say nothing while some live city gets this woman for Superintendent of Schools? Why don't you ..."

The imaginary exhortation ended there. Round the corner ahead of Charles a man came swinging just then, rapidly drawing near. And all small plottings were catapulted from the mind of Mary's friend as he looked into the face of Mr. Mysinger.

The principal of the High School approached with a native swagger, on much "shined" shoes. He was what is called a careful dresser; a heavily built man, fair and not ill-looking. Ten steps away, his eye fell on Charles, and, while his lips assumed a gracious smile, the eye in question seemed to lighten with a flash of triumph. And the sight of Miss Trevenna was nothing to that sight. All the blood in the young man's body seemed suddenly to be pounding in his head.

"Well, Garrott! How goes it to-day?"

It had not occurred to him to "cut" Mysinger, but so the matter seemed to be written in the stars. In silence, the passing author looked the principal through and through. And his head grew hotter, and the pit of his stomach icier, as he saw Mysinger's smile become fixed, saw it waver doubtfully and die, saw open hostility slide into the hated eye. So Mary Wing's conqueror and her unhelpful friend went by at half a foot.

The unliterary words were ejected, it seemed, by a demon within. But no sooner had they fallen on the ear of Charles than all the rest of him leapt upon and seized them, as one recognizing a long-felt want, an unconquerable need. And thus his writer's imagination was off upon yet another plan, the last and the best.

Yes, that was what he wanted, needed now, more than anything else. He would humiliate this swaggering Teuton past all endurance; he would go and kick him till his weary legs refused the office; he would batter him till his own wife passed him by for a stranger. Lord, what a plan! And then, the moment he could leave the hospital, Mysinger would crawl around to Olive Street, hat in hand. "Miss Wing, I'm petitioning the Board to invite you back to the High School at once," he would say. "I humbly beg you to come, and try to forgive me for my contemptible conduct in the past. I don't know why I've always acted like such a dirty dog" . "It's just my low, base nature, I guess." And Mary, starting up in surprise , would say: "But this is astounding, Mr. Mysinger! How come you here, saying these things to me?" And that insolent fellow, whiter than death, would mumble through swollen lips, "It's Mr. Garrott's orders, miss."

So Charles, halting on the corner for his car, shook himself once again, reined in his imagination, and remembered that he was a modern and civilized being. For the moment, the reminder seemed to accomplish little. The blood continued to pound in the sedentary temples, redly. Charles saw that the idea of primitive male combat, over a manly woman's Career, was unmodern and grotesque. But the idea lingered all the same.

Here his wandering glance fell presently upon this:--

Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge last evening at the residence of her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Oscar P. Flower. Miss Flower's guests included a limited number of the younger set.

At this description of himself and Fanny, Charles smiled, for almost the first time that day. But as he continued to gaze at that small hopeful item, his mirth faded, and soon he began to stroke the bridge of his nose, his look distinctly worried.

In the little house of the Flowers, Miss Angela sat forlorn at her favorite post. She entertained the younger set no more. It was the middle of December, and a cold rain poured. With a ragged bit of chamois, the old-fashioned girl polished her already comely nails. The window-curtain, shrunken and twisted with more than one washing, was hooked back on a convenient nail; now and then Angela picked up her shabby opera-glasses and peeped over into the fan-shaped sliver of Washington Street. But few pedestrians passed over there to-day, and the motor-cars of the Blessed slid by in curtains of waterproof.

It was the slack hour again, it seemed, leaving home-makers with idle hands. Even that subtle business to which but one modern authority gave a scientific rating, the Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm, was here at a complete standstill. The men of Angela's family, who must be refreshed and made joyful for their battlings in the world without, were at this hour out, battling. Mrs. Flower was lying down in her room, doing her own refreshing. As for the cook downstairs, she had her orders, and recked not of Charm. Angela, thus, had her strictly earned leisure; and, on the other hand, she had not those intenser occupations for leisure, reforms, fights, and attacks on Morals, such as engrossed the mind of her advanced Cousin Mary. As a womanly woman, she naturally thought a great deal about people, her friends, and as an unassisted stranger in the city, she really had very few friends to think about. Hence, it was the most natural thing imaginable if she was now wondering, for the thousandth time, what in the world had become of Mr. Garrott.

Angela could not understand about Mr. Garrott. He simply never seemed to walk any more. That she had hurt his feelings very badly that night after the bridge-party she had understood, from the start. But perhaps she had never meant to hurt them so badly as this; and that Mr. Garrott could vanish utterly from Washington Street had, indeed, not entered her thoughts. This, however, was precisely what Mr. Garrott had done, from the very day following the misunderstanding.

For so, in the lapse of days, had Angela generously come to think of the occurrence on the sofa. She and Mr. Garrott had had a terrible misunderstanding.

It was half-past four o'clock; the dreary day was shutting in. Angela looked down into her own back yard, which was small, mean-looking, not devoid of tin cans, and now running with dirty water. A dingy old shed or outhouse, where some previous tenant had thriftily stabled a horse, contributed not a little to the wintry desolateness of the scene. Beneath the window the cook, Luemma, emerged, a ragged print-skirt turned over her head, and emptied ashes into a broken wooden barrel. Angela yawned, and picked up a hand-glass.

A ring at the doorbell made Angela jump a little. While the Flowers had a small house, they had a loud bell. Though its clanging nowadays rarely meant anything exciting, the diversion, on the whole, was not unwelcome. The young housekeeper rose, went out into the hall, and listened down over the banisters.

Below, there was nothing to listen to. Receiving only twelve dollars a month, Luemma seemed to think she must take out the residue of her wages in inefficience and impudence, and did; sometimes she answered the bell, sometimes she "had her hands in the lightbread," etc. The present seemed to be one of the latter times. The bell pealed again; a voice from the front called, "Angela!--are you dressed?"--and Angela, replying to her mother, went down to the door herself, smoothing her hair and trimming her waist as she went.

The caller proved to be none other than her disgraced cousin, Mary Wing.

"Well, Angela, how are you?" said she, entering confidently, and kissed Angela's cheek. "I hope I didn't break into your nap, or anything unforgivable like that?"

"Oh, no, indeed, Cousin Mary. How d' you do? I wasn't asleep."

Cousin Mary was enveloped from neck to heels in a becoming gray raincoat. Beneath that were seen glimpses of a costume rather elaborate for bad weather and a workaday world. Nor did Cousin Mary's manner seem in the least crushed or subdued, as morals demanded that the manner of a disgraced person should be.

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