Читать книгу People Like That - Kate Langley Bosher - Страница 9

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Hands in her pockets, Bettina looked at me disappointedly. "It's very cold," she said. "Why don't you wear your fur coat?"

"I like this one better. It's warm and not so heavy."

"Your fur coat is the only one in Scarborough Square. A sure-enough fur one, I mean. There're plenty of imitations. Mrs. Crimm's got an imitation. You look awful grand in that fur coat—look like a princess person. Grannie says you don't want to seem different from the people down here. How are you going to help it?"

"I don't know. I mean—" It was silly that my face should flush before Bettina's unblinking scrutiny, but flush it did. "I don't want to seem different. People are much more alike than they imagine. If we didn't think so much of our differences—"

"Bound to think of them when they're right in your face. You don't suppose you're anything like Evie May Poore, do you? or Roberta Wicks, or Mrs. Clay Burt? Every time I see Evie May Poore I wish I was an Indian so I could tomahawk her hair. Most of her money goes in hair and chewing-gum. Mr. Crimm says he thinks girls who dress like Roberta Wicks ought to be run in, but there ain't any law which lets him do it. Mr. Crimm's going to a big wedding to-night. Did you know it?"

I shook my head. In my mouth were the pins with which my veil was to be fastened. Hands on my hat, I straightened the latter before putting on the veil.

"Well, he is. Funny, ain't it, that all these swells have to have a plain-clothes man at weddings so the people what come to 'em won't take any of the presents? That's Mr. Crimm's chief business nowadays, looking out for high-class crooks. He says you ain't as strong-colored as some the ladies he sees up-town, but he never did see a face with more sense and soul in it than what yours has got. At the last wedding he went to he told grannie some the ladies didn't have on clothes enough to wad a gun. Are you ready? It gets dark by five o'clock."

"I'm ready." Taking up my muff, I followed Bettina down the steps and into the street to the corner, on which was the little shop wherein were sold goldfish and canary-birds, and fox-terriers and white rabbits; and from there we turned in the direction which led to Mrs. Gibbons's. The day was cold and clear, but the ground was slippery with sleet, and, holding on to my arm, Bettina made valiant effort to pilot me aright.

As we walked she talked, and the names of the occupants of various houses passed were told to me, together with the particular kind of work in which they were engaged, and the amount of wages which were earned by different members of the household. The information given me had been gained from her schoolmates, and what at first had seemed appalling frankness and freedom, I soon learned was a community custom, and a comparison of earnings a favorite subject of discussion among children of all ages. Recess, it appears, is the usual time for an exchange of facts concerning family affairs.

"Myra Blunt, who sits in front of me, says she's going in the pickle-factory as soon as she's fourteen." Bettina slipped, but caught herself, and held my arm more firmly.

"She's our ashman's daughter, and she's got a mole right on the end of her nose. It's a little on one side, but it looks awful funny, and Jimmie Rice says she'll stay in that pickle-factory all her life if she don't have that mole taken off. A boy won't have a girl for a sweetheart if her nose has got a mole on it, will he? Myra is afraid it will hurt to have it come off. She's an awful coward. This is the place. This is Ninety-two."

Mrs. Gibbons's residence was one of several small and shabby houses which huddled together as if for protection, and as we went up the steps of the shaky porch a head from the second-story window was thrust out—a head wrapped in a red crocheted shawl.

"You-all want to see Mrs. Gibbons? Well, she ain't to home. That is, I don't think she is. She told me this morning she was going down to the 'firmary to get some medicine for that misery in her back what struck her yesterday. If she ain't to home, you-all kin come up here and rest yourself if you want to. It's awful cold, ain't it?"

Before we could express our appreciation of the hospitality offered, the door at which we had knocked was opened cautiously, and at its aperture a head was seen. There was a moment's hesitancy and then the door opened more widely.

"Is this Mrs. Gibbons?"

Bettina asked the question, and at its answer called to the woman still leaning out of the upstairs window, "She's home." Then she introduced me.

"This is Miss Heath. Miss Dandridge Heath, Mrs. Gibbons; and I'm

Bettina Woll. We've come to see you. Can we come in?"

Mrs. Gibbons, who had nodded imperceptibly in my direction as Bettina called my name, motioned limply toward a room on my right, and as I entered it I looked at her and saw at once that she, too, belonged to the unqualified and unfit. She must once have been a pretty woman, but her hair and eyes were now a dusty black, her skin the color of putty, and her mouth a drooping curve that gave to her face the expression of one who was about to cry. Life had apparently for some time been more than she was equal to, and, incapable of battling further with it, she radiated a helplessness that was pitiable and yet irritating. Thin and flat-chested, her uncorseted figure in its rusty black dress straightened for half a minute, then again it relaxed.

"Take a seat, won't you?" Her voice was as listless as her eyes. "It's warmer in the kitchen. Maybe you'd better come back there. My little girl's in there. She's sick."

As we turned to leave the room I glanced around it. The windows were down, the shutters closed, but by the light which came through the broken slats and cheap lace curtains, whose ends were spread expansively on the bare floor, I saw its furnishings. A bed, covered with a white spread and with pillow-shams embroidered in red cotton, was against the side of the wall facing the windows, and close to it was a table on which lay a switch of coarse black hair. A crepe-paper lambrequin decorated the mantel-shelf, whose ornaments were a cup and saucer, a shaving-set, and a pair of conch-shells; while between the windows was a wash-stand obviously kept for ornamental purposes, as there was no water in the pitcher and the basin was cracked. Pinned on the soft plastering of the walls were florid advertisements of various necessities and luxuries of life, together with highly colored Scripture texts, and over the mantel hung a crayon of the once head of the house. The room was cold and damp. The air in it had not been changed for some time, and as Mrs. Gibbons stopped and picked up the baby, who at the sound of voices had crawled into the room, I did not wonder at its croupy cough.

Down the dark and narrow passageway Bettina and I followed our hostess, and at its end I would have stumbled over a step had I not been warned in time. The noise made by a box overturned by Bettina gave the latter opportunity to give me one more injunction.

"Don't promise to do too much right off." The whisper was uncomfortably clear. "She's the kind who's like a sifter. You have to be right hard with people like that—Take care! There's another step!"