menu_book Chapter 10

Book 1, Chapter 5, Sections 3-5 of Bread. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Wild Shimmering Path. Bread by Charles G. Norris. Book 1, Chapter 5, Sections 3-5.

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, Janie. You can do anything. I wish I was good enough for you, that's all. Poor old CB. 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 Jeanette's status. Her manner toward 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 defense 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. Jeanette 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. Jeanette knew they envied her. She knew that, for the time being, they even hated her.

But their assumed pleasure in her good fortune was nonetheless agreeable. Miss Rubens 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. Jeanette 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 the 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, Jeanette 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. Jeanette 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 Stevens 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 Rubens 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? Jeanette knew, as it happened, what Miss Rubens wished to interview Mr. Corey about. Miss Rubens 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, Jeanette knew Miss Rubens 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. Olmsted 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. 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 spent 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 once 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 so officious. Jeanette 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, bearing 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 okayed it, and she was aware that Mr. Olmsted 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. 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

Jeanette 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 true so to buy, they argued, and this was Jeanette'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. Jeanette allowed herself to be persuaded, and Saturday afternoon became 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 14th 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 reveled in the glory of it. It was exciting, wonderful, marvelous. 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 on Flatbush, which could be rented for $20 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 $22 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 Jeanette'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, Jeanette noticed a large, fat woman in a shabby negligee, 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 Jeanette.

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 $25 a week.

She was getting $25 a week. Why couldn't they go on working together in the same office and have a joint income of $50 a week? $200 a month! The idea fired her. But she found no one to share her enthusiasm. Alice pressed a dubious fingertip 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, Miss Sturgis came to sit on the edge of Jeanette'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 they, if they, 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 Jeanette 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 CB would like it. I don't think he would want to have a secretary who was married to somebody in the same office. Jeanette 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 CB's okay, 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 2nd 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 89th Street about six o'clock, and Dr. 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 Jeanette 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 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 car fare, what was she, Jeanette, 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 car fare 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 matinee 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 would require a lot more saving before they could properly furnish a little house or an apartment. It was much wiser for them to start in right. In a few months they could have two or three hundred dollars. She presented the matter to him in a rush of words one evening, and, as she had foreseen,

he was overborn by her vehemence. Roy was sweet-tempered. He was amiable. He was always willing to give way in an argument. Often she had felt impatient with him for this easy tractability. He didn't have enough backbone. Even now his readiness to concede what she asked disappointed her. Something within her clamored for an indignant rejection of her proposal. She wanted him to insist with an oath that their marriage must take place at once, that she must make good her promise

without further to do. He lost something very definite in her regard at that moment. He never meant quite so much to her again. It was the pivotal point in their relationship. Alice let her hands and sewing fall into her lap when her sister told her the marriage was to be postponed and said anxiously, Oh, Jannie, I'm awfully sorry, but her mother unexpectedly approved. There's no need of your rushing into all the troubles and worries of marriage, dearie, until

you're quite, quite prepared. I think you're very wise to wait a little while. It's right and proper. You and Roy are showing a lot of real common sense. You'll have some capital to start in with, and you can take your time about finding just the right kind of a place to live in, and then it means I'm going to have my darling all summer.

Only, she added with a reproachful glance at the girl and a pout of lips and cheeks, I wish you'd give up that horrid old office and stay at home with your mother and sister and have a few months to yourself before you fly away to be a bride. What a relief to know she had escaped for a time at least the net that had been spread for her. With head held high and a free heart, with eager step and a pulse tuning to the joy of living,

Jeanette plunged on with her work. End of Book One, Chapter Five, Sections Three through Five