Roy wanted to be married; he wanted Jeannette to set the date; he wanted her to make up her mind where she preferred to live, and to start making plans accordingly. Just before Christmas his salary was raised five dollars a week and the last barrier—for him—to the wedding was removed. There was nothing to prevent their being married at once. Everyone agreed, even Jeannette herself, that a hundred dollars a month would be sufficient for their needs the first year. With a mysterious air, Mrs. Sturgis hinted at responsibilities that might come to them, but Roy’s salary would undoubtedly be raised more than once by that time. She liked her daughter’s promised husband; he had such an honest, clean face, his eyes were so clear and blue. He made her think of her Ralph. She felt she could with safety entrust Jeannette’s happiness to him. Alice was frankly a warm admirer of her prospective brother-in-law. She agreed with everything he said and always sided with him in an argument. Mother, sister and future husband shared the opinion that the marriage must soon take place; there was no sense in Jeannette’s wearing herself to death down there at that office; she took it all too seriously; she was undermining her health.
Jeannette, with vague misgivings, agreed. It was too bad; she liked the business life so much. But marriage was the thing; she must make up her mind to be married and settle down in a little house with Roy over in Brooklyn,—presumably. She thought of the dish-washing, bed-making, carpet-sweeping, cooking, and shuddered. She hated domesticity. Alice would have loved it; but she was different from Alice.
Roy? ... Oh, she loved Roy, she guessed, but not with the fluttering pulse and quickened breath he had once occasioned. She liked him; he was sweet and companionable. Sometimes she felt very motherly toward him, liked to brush his stuck-up hair and rest her cheek against his. She could see herself happy with him, knowing she would always dominate him and he was disarmingly amiable. Sometimes she thought about babies. She wouldn’t mind having them. She had always imagined she would like one some day, to dandle about and cuddle close to her. Roy was sure to be a sweet-tempered father. But she sighed when she thought of the office, the progress she was making there, her popularity, and particularly the five dollars a week that was her own to spend just as she pleased. She loved that five dollars; once she touched the soft greenback to her lips.
She agreed to be married on the second of April.
It was shortly after the beginning of the new year that the news went around the office that Mr. Smith was going;—fired, everyone decided. No one knew how the rumor got about, but there was universal and secret rejoicing. It was whispered that, as Mr. Corey’s secretary, he had been indiscreet.
There were to be other changes in the office. Miss Travers was to take Smith’s place, Mr. Holme was to be put in complete charge of the Book Sales department, Van Alstyne was leaving, and Miss Holland was to go downstairs to assist Mr. Kipps.
Jeannette, excited by these readjustments, surmised that her own news of resignation would create its particular stir. How interested everyone would be to learn that she and Roy Beardsley of the Advertising Department were to be married! There would be a lot of rejoicing and good wishes. The office would consider it a happy match. Her going would be regretted,—she knew that she was valued,—but all would be glad nevertheless that she and young Beardsley were going to be man and wife. An ideal couple!—Happy romance!—Miss Sturgis and Mr. Beardsley! How delightful! Well—well!
If everyone was sure to think so well of her marriage, why should she have any doubts about it?
She was pondering on this, one day, while mechanically folding her letters and putting them into their proper envelopes, when there came a summons from Mr. Corey. She found him idly thumbing the pages of an advance dummy of one of the magazines. When she had seated herself and flapped back her note-book for his dictation, he asked her without preamble how she would like the idea of being his secretary. He elaborated upon what he should expect of her: there would be plenty of hard work, long hours sometimes, she might have to come back occasionally in the evenings, and there must be no gossiping with other employees of the company or outside of the office.
“What goes on in here, what you learn from my letters or see from my correspondence, what you come to know of my business or private life, must be kept strictly to yourself. Nothing must be repeated,—not even what may seem to you a trivial, insignificant fact. I wish to have no secrets from my secretary, and I do not wish my affairs discussed with anyone, not even with members of the firm, such as Mr. Kipps, or Mr. Featherstone. Understand? Miss Holland thinks you’re qualified to fill the position,—recommends you warmly,—and Mr. Kipps has a good word for you. Personally I have a feeling you will do very well, and that I can trust you. If you think you can do the work, we will start you at twenty-five a week.... What do you say?”
Jeannette’s throat went dry, her temples throbbed, her face burned. Visions swift, tormenting, rose before her: she saw Roy, her mother, sister!—she saw herself a bride, a wife, with hair hanging about her face, bending over a steaming pan full of dirty dishes; she saw herself sitting where Mr. Smith had sat, moving about the office, respected, looked up to, feared and conciliated. She thought of the number of times she had said that Smith was of small help to his chief, and the number of times, in her secret soul, she had pictured herself in some such post as his, helping, protecting, serving as she knew she could help, protect and serve. She gazed at the kind face with its crown of silvery white, and into the dark eyes studying her, as she felt rising up strong within her the consciousness of how she could work for this man, and be to him all he could ever expect in a secretary. The sadness that surrounded him, the big fight he was waging to make his business a success touched her imagination. She sensed his need of her,—his great need of her,—and she saw in the dim future how dependent he would grow to be on her. She would have a part in his struggle; she could help him achieve his ambition as he could help her achieve hers. Suddenly Roy’s stricken face interposed again. Rebellion rose passionately! ... But it was too late. She was going to be married; she was going to be Roy’s wife.... Yet how desperately she longed to be this big man’s secretary! She thought of the sensation the promotion would cause, how it would stagger Miss Foster, Miss Bixby, the other girls,—how it would impress her mother, Alice, —Roy!
Her strained, hard expression brought a puzzled look to her employer’s face. She tried to speak; her lips only moved soundlessly.
“Well, well,—you don’t have to make up your mind at once,” Mr. Corey said. “Suppose you try it for a month or two. I don’t think you’ll find it as hard as you anticipate. I am away for some months every year,—I go abroad in the spring,—and while that does not mean a vacation for you, the work is naturally easier. I would greatly appreciate loyalty and conscientiousness. I think you have just the qualities. Try it, as I suggest, until, say the first of March, and then we’ll see how we get along together and whether you think the work too hard.”
She could not bring herself to tell him she was going to be married, that she was thinking of resigning in a few weeks; she could not dash from his hand the cup, brimming with all her ambitions realized, which he held out to her so persuasively. No,—not just yet. He suggested she try the position until the first of March. There was nothing to hinder her from doing that! The glory would be hers, even if she were to enjoy it but for six weeks. She would be “Mr. Corey’s secretary” before the office; everyone would know of it, her mother, Alice, Roy,—all of them would see how she had succeeded. On the first of March,—went her swift mind,—she could talk it over with Mr. Corey, tell him the work was beyond her strength, that she didn’t like it,—or that she was going to be married! It wouldn’t matter then.
“Well,—what do you say?” Mr. Corey leaned forward slightly, his shrewd eyes watching her.
She swallowed hard, and met his steady gaze.
“Yes,—I’ll try it. I—I think I can do it.”
“Good. Then we’ll start in to-morrow. Mr. Smith leaves us Saturday. He can show you about my private filing system and some of the ropes before he goes.”
Quietly she told the news to her mother and sister that evening. At once there was a hubbub; they were lavish with kisses, hugs and congratulations. Alice, clapping palms, exclaimed:
“That will give you seventy-five—ninety dollars more to spend on your trousseau! ... Oh, what will you do with it, Janny?”
“It’s more than Roy gets,” Mrs. Sturgis commented proudly with an elegant gesture of her hand.
“No, he was raised just before Christmas.”
“Well, it’s as much anyway. Think of it: twenty-five dollars a week! ... For a girl! ... Why, your father never earned much more!”
Roy was delighted, too.
“By golly!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “I told you, didn’t I? I guess I can tell a good stenographer when I see one. You were worrying—remember?—when you first went down there whether you were going to make good or not.... Well,—say,—isn’t that great! ... I guess I’ve got a pretty smart girl picked out for a wife; hey, old darling? You’re just a wonder, Janny! You can do anything. I wish I was good enough for you, that’s all.... Poor old C. B.! He’ll be disappointed as the deuce when you quit!”
Nevertheless, within the next few days Roy wondered if he altogether liked the change in Jeannette’s status. Her manner towards him became different. She no longer would gossip about office matters, and during business hours she treated him with cold formality. There had always been a pleased light in her eyes at a chance encounter with him and sometimes he would find a little note on his desk she had left there. But now she held him at a distance rather pompously, he thought. She answered “I don’t know,” or “Mr. Corey didn’t say,” when he asked some casual question about business. She had become close-mouthed, and gave herself an air as she went about her work.
“I can’t act differently towards you than I do towards anybody else,” she said in her defence when he complained. “Don’t you see, Roy, I’ve got to be a kind of machine now. I’ve got to treat everybody alike. Mr. Corey wouldn’t like it if he thought I was intimate with you.”
“But we’re engaged to be married!”
“Yes, of course,—but he doesn’t know it. And I want to make good, even if it’s only for a few weeks. You understand, don’t you, Roy?”
Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn’t. Jeannette did not concern herself. She was absorbed in adequately filling this coveted job which satisfied her heart and soul and brain.
The hour of triumph when the news went abroad of her promotion was as gratifying as she could possibly have wished. The girls crowded about her, congratulating her, wringing her hands; Miss Foster impulsively kissed her. Jeannette knew they envied her; she knew that, for the time being, they even hated her; but their assumed pleasure in her good fortune was none-the-less agreeable. Miss Reubens complained sourly that the general office had lost its only efficient stenographer; Mr. Cavendish charmingly expressed his personal satisfaction in her advancement and gave her hand a warm pressure of friendliness; Mr. Kipps and Mr. Featherstone both complimented her with hearty enthusiasm. Jeannette was not cynical but she believed she put a proper value on these felicitations,—particularly those of these last two gentlemen. Mr. Corey was indeed the dominant power behind them all; their destinies lay largely in his hands, and she was now the go-between, the avenue of approach between the underlings and leader. As they had feared and disliked Smith, so they would fear and perhaps dislike her. She hoped they would learn to like her in time, but it was natural they should feel a great respect for President Corey’s secretary, and be anxious to gain her favor, hoping that to each of them she might prove a “friend at court.” Still they were not wholly insincere. Miss Holland, Jeannette felt, was genuinely pleased. The older woman held both her hands and told her how happy the news had made her; her eyes shone with the light of real pleasure. The girl felt her to be indeed a friend.
Jeannette took her new work with the utmost seriousness. She determined at the outset to treat everyone in the office with absolute impartiality, to carry whatever anybody entrusted to her to the President’s attention with an equal measure of fidelity, to see to it that Mr. Kipps or Horatio Stephens would fare the same at her hands. She planned to execute her secretarial duties automatically, disinterestedly, with the impersonal functioning of a machine.
But she discovered the futility of this scheme of conduct within the first few days. Miss Reubens wished to speak to Mr. Corey. Was Mr. Corey busy? Would Miss Sturgis be so good as to tell her when she might see him for a few minutes? Jeannette knew, as it happened, what Miss Reubens wished to interview Mr. Corey about; Miss Reubens had already discussed it with him, and he had already advised her. It would be merely adding to his troubled day to go over the matter again; nothing more would be accomplished. Besides, Jeannette knew Miss Reubens bored Mr. Corey just as she bored everybody else. The interview did not take place.
Again, Mr. Cavendish had promised a check to a distinguished contributor to Corey’s Commentary; he had assured the author-statesman it would be in the mail that afternoon without fail; would Miss Sturgis manage to get Mr. Corey to sign it at once? Miss Sturgis could and did, but a check to an engraving company, which Mr. Olmstead wished to be sent the same day, waited until next morning for the hour which Mr. Corey set apart for check-signing.
Her first concern was for Mr. Corey himself. She had guessed he was harassed and harried, but had no idea how greatly harassed and harried until she came to work at close quarters with him. He had tremendous capacity, was an indefatigable worker, but she had not observed his methods a week before she noted he did far too much that was unnecessary. Insignificant things engaged and held his attention; he frittered away his time upon trivialities. She set herself to save him what she could and began by keeping the office force from troubling him. Mr. Corey had a delightful personality, was a charming and stimulating talker, a most pleasing companion; his secretary understood quite clearly why every member of the staff liked to sit in an easy chair in his office and spend half-an-hour with him, chatting about details. He was too ready to squander his precious moments on anyone who came to him. It was difficult to sidetrack these time-wasters but in some measure she succeeded. Memorandums that came addressed to him, she dared answer herself; she even went so far as to lift papers from his desk and return them whence they came with a typed note attached: “Mr. Corey thinks you had better handle this. J. S.” Her daring frightened her sometimes. It was inevitable she should run into difficulties.
One afternoon the “buzzer” at her desk summoned her; it sounded more peremptory than usual.
“Miss Sturgis,” Mr. Corey addressed her, “Mr. Kipps left some information about our insurance on my desk a day or two ago; have you seen it?”
“Yes, sir, I returned it to him early this morning and suggested that he take care of the matter for you.” As she spoke she felt the color rushing to her face.
Corey’s black brows came together in an annoyed frown. He cleared his throat with a little impatient cough, and jerked at his mustache.
“I wish, Miss Sturgis,—I wish you would not be quite so officious.”
Jeannette squared herself to the criticism, and stood very erect, returning his look.
“I thought Mr. Kipps could take care of the matter, without bothering you further,” she said, beginning to tremble.
There was silence in the room. The girl’s defiant figure, tall and straight, confronted the man at the desk, and the dark frown that bore down upon her. She was very beautiful as she stood there, with the warm color tinging her olive-hued cheeks, her eyes clear and unwavering, her head flung back, her small hands shut, resolute, unflinching. Perhaps Corey saw it, perhaps it occurred to him that she showed a fine courage, bearding him in this fashion, facing him with such spirit, acknowledging her high-handedness yet defending it. As he considered the matter, it came to him that she was right. Kipps was perfectly capable of taking care of this insurance business himself.
What was passing in the man’s mind the girl never knew. Slowly she saw the scowl drift away, the stern face relax. He swung his chair toward the window and contemplated the horizon. The sun was setting over the Jersey shore, and the glow of a red sky was reflected on his face.
“Very well,” he said at last. It was ungracious, it was curt, but there was nothing more. There was no dismissal. The girl waited a few minutes longer, then turned and quitted the room.
There were errors—serious errors—for which she was accountable. She incorrectly addressed envelopes in the hurry of dispatching them, she mixed letters and sent them to the wrong people, she mislaid certain correspondence that upset the whole office, and she kept the great Zeit Heitmüller, painter and sculptor,—of whom she had never heard,—waiting for more than an hour in the reception room, though Mr. Corey had begged him to call. Mr. Featherstone criticized her sharply when she neglected sending off some advertising copy after Mr. Corey had O.K.’d it, and she was aware that Mr. Olmstead complained of her in great annoyance when she returned to him an inventory he had prepared after it had lain four days on Mr. Corey’s desk. At times she felt herself an absolute failure, and at others knew she was steadily gaining ground in the confidence and regard of the man she served. There were hard days, days when everything went wrong, when everybody was cross, when it was close and suffocating in the office, and whatever one touched felt gritty with the grime of the dusty wind that swept the streets. There were days when Corey was short and critical, when whatever Jeannette did, seemed to irritate him. A dozen times during a morning or afternoon she might be near to tears and would rehearse in her mind the words in which she would tell him that since she could not do the work to satisfy him, he had better find someone else to take her place. There were other days when he chatted with her in the merriest of moods, asked how she was getting along, inquired about herself and her family, looked up smilingly when she stood before his desk to interrupt him, and thanked her for having protected him from some trifling annoyance.
Her heart swelled with pride and satisfaction the first Saturday she tore off a narrow strip from the neat, fat little envelope Miss Travers handed her, and found folded therein two ten-and one five-dollar bills. Twenty-five dollars a week! She rolled the words under her tongue; she liked to hear herself whisper it. “Twenty-five dollars a week!” There were hundreds and hundreds of men who didn’t earn so much, and a vastly larger number of women!
Her mother, warmly seconded by Alice, refused to allow her to contribute more than ten dollars toward the household expenses. She had her trousseau to buy, they argued, and this was Jeannette’s own money and she ought to spend it just as she chose and for what she chose. Finances at the moment were much less of a problem than they had been for the little household. A wealthy pupil of Signor Bellini with a fine contralto voice had engaged Mrs. Sturgis as her regular accompanist, and paid her ten dollars every time she played for her at an evening concert.
Jeannette allowed herself to be persuaded, and Saturday afternoons became for her orgies of shopping. She priced everything; she ransacked the department stores. She knew what was being asked for a certain type and finish of tailor suit on Fifth Avenue, and what “identically the same thing” could be bought for on Fourteenth Street. She got the tailor suit, and a new hat, a pair of smart, low walking pumps, some half-silk stockings, be-ribboned underwear, a taffeta petticoat, everything she wanted. She lunched at the St. Denis in what she felt to be regal luxury, and indulged herself in a bag of chocolate caramels afterwards. The joy of having money to spend intoxicated her; she revelled in the glory of it; it was exciting, wonderful, marvellous. Not one of the things she bought would she allow herself to wear; everything was to be saved until she was married, and became Mrs. Roy Beardsley.
Her future husband took her one Sunday to inspect the small brick house in Flatbush which could be rented for twenty dollars a month. The weather was unduly warm,—an exquisite day with a golden sun,—one of those foretastes of spring that are so beguilingly deceptive. From the janitor, who showed them over it, they learned that the house would cost them twenty-two dollars a month. It was one of a solid, unrelieved row of fourteen others exactly like it, all warmed by a central heating system, and supplied similarly with water and gas. It was dark, the floors were worn and splintery, the windows dingy; the whole place smelled of old carpets and damp plaster. Still it had three bedrooms upstairs, and a living-room, a really pleasant dining-room, and a kitchen on the ground floor. Roy watched Jeannette’s face eagerly as they stepped from room to room, but he failed to detect any sign of enthusiasm. It impressed the girl as anything but cheerful. She saw herself day after day alone in this place, sweeping, dusting, making beds, washing dishes, getting herself a plate of pick-up lunch and eating it at the end of the kitchen table, trying to read, trying to sew, trying to amuse herself during the empty afternoons until it was time to start dinner and wait for her husband to come home. After the bustle and excitement of the office, it would be insufferably dull.
As they waited a moment on the front steps for the janitor to lock up after them, Jeannette noticed a large, fat woman in a shabby negligée, watching them from the upper window of the adjoining house, her plump, pink elbows resting on a pillow, as she leaned out upon the sill, enjoying the mellowness of the afternoon. On the ground floor behind the looped lace curtains of a front window, her husband was asleep in a large upholstered armchair, Sunday newspapers scattered about him, the comic section across his round, fat abdomen.
“These would be the kind of neighbors she would have!” thought Jeannette. Oh, it wasn’t what she wanted! It wasn’t her kind of a life—at all! She would be lonely, lonely, lonely.
Roy was getting twenty-five dollars a week; she was getting twenty-five dollars a week. Why couldn’t they go on working together in the same office and have a joint income of fifty dollars a week,—two hundred dollars a month! The idea fired her.
But she found no one to share her enthusiasm. Alice pressed a dubious finger-tip against her lips; Roy frowned and said frankly he didn’t think it was the right way for a couple to start in when they got married; her mother indulged in firm little shakes of her head that set her round cheeks quivering. When the heated discussion of the evening was over and Roy had taken himself home, Mrs. Sturgis came to sit on the edge of Jeannette’s bed after the girl had retired, and in the darkness discoursed upon certain delicate matters which evidently her dear daughter hadn’t considered.
“I hope my girl won’t have responsibilities come upon her too soon after she’s married,” she said, after a few gentle clearings of her throat, “but, dearie, you know about babies, and you’ll want to have one, and it’s right and proper that you should. But where would you be if a—if a—you found you were going to have one,—and you were working in an office? You must consider these things. Roy’s perfectly right in not wanting his wife at a dirty old desk all day.... And then, dearie, there are certain decencies, certain proprieties. A bride cannot be too careful; she must always be modest. Suppose you actually tried this—this wild scheme of yours, and after your happy honeymoon, went back to the office among your old associates, the men and women with whom you’ve grown familiar; imagine how it would seem to them, and what dreadful thoughts they might think about you and Roy! One of the lovely things about marriage, Janny, is the dear little home waiting to shield the young bride.”
“Oh, but Mama ...” began Jeannette in weary protest. But she stopped there. What use was it to argue? None of them understood her; none of them was able to grasp her point of view.
Roy voiced the only argument that had weight with her.
“I don’t think C. B. would like it; I don’t think he would want to have a secretary who was married to somebody in the same office.”
Jeannette felt that this would be a fact. No matter how well she might please Mr. Corey, a secretary who was married to another employee of the company would not be satisfactory. It was highly probable that in the event of her marriage he would be unwilling for her to continue with him.
No, it was plain that if she married Roy, she must resign, she must let go her ambition, her hopes for success in business, and she must accept Flatbush, and the dismal little brick house, the unprepossessing neighbors, and the lonely, lonely days.
Well—suppose—suppose—suppose she didn’t marry!
The relief the idea brought was startling. But she couldn’t bring herself to give up Roy,—she couldn’t hurt him! She loved him,—she loved him dearly! Never in the last few months since he had come back to her from California had she been so sure she loved him as now. Those eager blue eyes of his, that unruly stuck-up hair, that quaint smile, that supple, boyish figure,—so sinuous and young and clean,—she couldn’t give them up!
A battle began within her. It was the old struggle,—the struggle of ambition and independence, against love and drudgery, for marriage meant that to her; she could think of it in no other way.
Daily in her work at the office, she felt a steady progress; daily, she beheld herself becoming increasingly efficient; daily, more and more important matters were entrusted to her.
“Thank you very much, Miss Sturgis.” “That’s fine, Miss Sturgis.” “Please arrange this, Miss Sturgis.” “Miss Sturgis, will you kindly attend to this matter yourself?”
These from Mr. Corey, and in the office she overheard:
“Well,—get Miss Sturgis to do that.” “Better ask Miss Sturgis.” “Miss Sturgis will know.” “If you want C. B.’s O.K., get Miss Sturgis to put it up to him.”
It was wine to her. She felt herself growing ever more confident, established, secure.
“Now, Janny,—what are you going to do about a house or an apartment or something where we can begin housekeeping? Gee, I hate the idea of boarding! We ought to have a place we can call our home. April second is only two weeks off, and I don’t suppose it’s possible to find anything now. We’ll have to go to a hotel or a boarding-house for a while until we can look ’round.... Do you realize, Miss Sturgis, you’re going to be Mrs. Roy Beardsley inside of a fortnight!”
“Roy—dear!” she exclaimed helplessly.
“But, my darling,—you’ve got to make up your mind.”
Make up her mind? She could not. She listened dumbly, miserably while her mother and sister discussed, with the man she had promised to marry, the details of the wedding, and what the young couple had better do until they could find a suitable place in which to start housekeeping.
“We’ll go over to the church on Eighty-ninth Street about six o’clock, and Doctor Fitzgibbons will perform the ceremony and then we’ll come back here for a happy wedding supper,” planned Mrs. Sturgis confidently.
On what was she expected to live? asked Jeannette, mutinously, of herself. Twenty-five dollars a week for both of them? It had seemed ample when they first discussed it. Her mother’s income for herself and two daughters had rarely been more and frequently less. Mrs. Sturgis paid thirty dollars a month rent for the apartment, and Alice was supposed to have ten dollars a week on which to run the table; in reality she provided the food that sustained the three of them at an expenditure of one dollar a day. But at forty dollars a month for food and twenty or twenty-five a month for rent and at least five dollars a week for Roy’s lunches and carfare, what was she, Jeannette, to have left to spend on clothes or amusement? She would be a prisoner in that dismal little Flatbush house, bound hand and foot to it for the lack of carfare across the river to indulge in a harmless inspection of shop windows! Now she was free,—now she could get herself a gay petticoat if she wanted one, or a new spring hat in time for Easter, or take Alice and herself to a Saturday matinée and nibble chocolates with her, hanging excitedly over the rail of the gallery from front row seats! And she was to relinquish all this liberty, which now was actually hers, actually her own to enjoy and delight in rightfully and lawfully, and manacle her hands, rivet chains about her ankles and enter this prison, whose door her mother, her sister and Roy held open for her, and where they expected her to remain contentedly and happily for the rest of her life!
It was too much! It was preposterous! It was inhuman! She didn’t love any man enough to make a sacrifice so great. She was self-supporting, independent,—beholden to no one,—she could take care of herself for life if necessary, and after her room and board were paid for, she would always have fifteen dollars a week—sixty dollars a month!—to spend as foolishly or as wisely as she chose with no one to call her to account. She hugged her little Saturday envelopes to her breast; they were hers, she had earned them, she would never give them up,—never—never—never!
She persuaded Roy to postpone the wedding. There was no special need for hurry. It woul