Читать книгу The Salamander - Owen Johnson - Страница 11

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The morning was well spent when Doré awoke, after a gray return from the cabaret party where, in a revulsion of emotions, she had flirted scandalously. But the men with whom she had danced, laughed and fenced, provokingly were lost in a mist. They had only served to eat up the intervening time; she had not even a thought for them.

The busy bubbling whistle of a coffee-pot in fragrant operation sounded from the table. She opened one eye with difficulty, peering out the window at her friend, the clock. It was already thirty-five minutes past ten—what might be called a dawn breakfast in Salamanderland.

Snyder, moving about the table with a watchful eye, came to her immediately.

"Take it easy, Petty! Don't wake up unless you feel like it!"

She stood at the foot of the bed, and the smile of fond solicitude with which she bent over Dodo, lightly touching her hair, seemed like another soul looking through the tired mask of Lottie Snyder.

"You're an angel, Snyder! You spoil me!" said Dodo, rubbing her eyes and twisting her body in lazy feline stretches.

"Me an angel? Huh!" said Snyder, grinding on her heel.

She went to the improvised kitchen with the free gliding grace of the trained dancer, and lifting the top of the coffee-pot, dropped in two eggs.

Breakfast at Miss Pim's was an inviolable institution ending at eight-thirty sharp. Wherefore, as the Salamanders would as soon have thought of getting up to see the sun rise, coffee was always an improvisation and eggs a visitation of Providence. Besides, the Salamanders, for the most part, made their arrangements for lodgings only, trusting in the faithful legion of props, but supplementing that trust by an economical planning of the schedule ahead. In a week, it was rare that a Salamander was forced to a recourse on her purse for more than one luncheon—dinner never.

"Did you hear me come in?" said Doré, raising her gleaming white arms in the air and letting the silken sleeves slip rustling to her shoulders.

"Me? No!" said Snyder, who had not closed her eyes until the return. "Here's the mail."

Doré raised herself eagerly on one elbow.

"How many? What! only four?" she said, taking the letters from Snyder.

She frowned at the instant perception of Miss Pim's familiar straight up and down, sharp and thin writing, concealing the dreaded summons quickly below the others, that Snyder, who paid nothing, might not see.

Two she recognized; the third was unfamiliar. She turned it over, studying it, characteristically reserving the mystery until the last. But, as she put it down on the white counterpane, she had a feeling of expectant certitude that it was from Massingale.

"Well, let's see what my dear old patriarch says!" she said, settling back in the pillows and taking up a stamped envelope, typewritten, with a business address in the corner.

"Dear Miss Baxter:

"Will be in town to-morrow, Friday, the twenty-second. It would give me great pleasure if you could lunch with me at twelve-thirty. Will send my car for you at twelve-twenty. I trust you are following my advice and giving attention to your health.

"Very sincerely yours,

"Orlando B. Peavey.

"P. S. Am called to important business appointment at one-thirty sharp, but take this brief opportunity to see you again. Telephone my office only in case you can not come.

"O. B. P."

"Sweetest old thing!" she said, smiling at the postscript characteristically initialed. "So thoughtful—kindest person in the world!"

Snyder brought her coffee and an egg broken and seasoned in a tooth-mug. Doré glanced at it suspiciously, seeking to discover if the division had been fair.

"My! Eggs are a luxury," she said, applying the tip of her tongue to the tip of the spoon; and she added meditatively: "I wish Stacey went in for chickens!"

She took up the unknown letter, turned it over once more, and laid it slowly aside in favor of the second, a fat envelope covered with the boyish scrawl of the prop in disgrace. She spread the letter, frowning determinedly. Joe Gilday was difficult to manage, too alert to be long kept in the prop squad. It began without preliminaries and a fine independence of punctuation:

"Look here, Do—what's the use of rubbing it in on a fellow? You've made me miserable as an Esquimo in Africa, and why? What have I done? Supposing I did slip fifty in your bureau honest to God Do you don't think I'd do anything to jar your feelings do you? Lord, I'll lay down and let you use me for a door mat for a week if it'll help any. Kid you've got me going bad. I'm miserable. I'm all shot to pieces—insult you, why Do, I'd Turkey Trot on my Granny's grave first. Won't you let up—see a fellow won't you? I'll be around at noon if you don't see me I swear I'll warm the door-step until the neighbors come out and feed me for charity: that's straight too! Now be a good sort Do and give me a chance to explain.

"Down in the dumps,

"J. J. (Just Joe.)"

This note, inspired with the slang of Broadway, would have made Doré laugh the day before, but the experiences of the last twenty-four hours had given her a standard of comparison. Between Joseph Gilday, Junior, and the men she had met there was a whole social voyage. Nevertheless, props were necessary, and undecided, she laid the scrawl on Mr. Peavey's neat invitation, postponing decisions. She opened the third, drawing out a neat oblong card, neatly inscribed in a minuscule graceful handwriting, slightly scented:

"My dear Miss Baxter:

"I shall call this afternoon at two o'clock.

"A. E. Sassoon."

She was not surprised at the signature nor the pasha-like brevity.

"Harrigan Blood won't take chances; he'll telephone," she thought. At the bottom she was pleased at this insistence of Sassoon's; it worked well with the plan she had determined on for his disciplining. "You're sure that's all?" she said aloud, wondering what Massingale would do.

"Yes."

"Wonder why he called so soon?" she thought pensively; and then, remembering the warring cards of Blood and Sassoon, added: "To warn me, perhaps?"

She smiled at this possibility, sure of herself, knowing well how weak the strongest man is before the weakest of her sex, when he comes with a certain challenge in his eyes.

"So Sassoon is coming, is he? Good!" she said musingly, a little far-off mockery in her smile; and to herself she rehearsed again the scene she had prepared, coddling her cheek against her bare soft arm, dreamily awake.

She would receive him with carefully simulated cordiality there below in the dusky boarding-house parlor; she could even lead him to believe that he might dare anything; and suddenly, when she had led him to indiscretions, she would say suddenly, as if the thought had just suggested itself:

"What! you have no flowers. You shall wear mine!"

She smiled a little more maliciously at the thought of the look that would come into those heavy foolish eyes at this. Then, taking a few violets from her corsage, she would fix them in his buttonhole, saying:

"No, no; look up at the ceiling while I fix them nicely—so!"

And, when she had coaxed him into a ridiculous craning of his neck, she would deftly pin the hundred-dollar bill on the lapel under the little cluster of purple, and turning him toward the mirror, say, with a mocking farewell courtesy:

"Mr. Albert Edward Sassoon, I have the pleasure of returning your visiting-card!"

She was so content with this bit of romance that she laughed aloud.

"Hello! what's up?" said Snyder, taking away the tooth-mug.

Dodo could not restrain her admiration.

"You know, Snyder," she said seriously, "I am really very clever!"

But she did not particularize. She had a feeling that Snyder, who watched over her in a faithful, adoring, dog-like way, might not quite approve. She did not know quite what made her feel this, for they had not exchanged intimacies; yet she felt occasionally in Snyder's glance, when she met it unawares, a dormant uneasy apprehension.

"Now for it!" she thought, and taking up the last note, unstamped, she tore it open.

"Miss Doré Baxter, Dr.

"To Miss Evangelica Pim

"Four weeks' lodging, third floor double room front at $10 per week ...............................................$40

"Kindly call to see me as to above account."

"Four—impossible!" exclaimed Doré, bolt upright, now thoroughly awake. But instantly she repressed her emotions, lest Snyder might guess the cause. She made a rapid calculation, and discovered that in fact she had to face four deficiencies instead of three. But finances never long dismayed her.

"Anyhow," she thought, "I can turn over the champagne. If only Winona raised something on the orchids! There are a dozen ways, but I must give it some attention!"

Suddenly she remembered Harrigan Blood's estimate of the cost of yesterday's luncheon, and of what she had herself turned over with her fork. She thought of what Sassoon spent so carelessly, and of what he might squander were he once awakened, really interested.... Not that there was the slightest temptation,—no—but it did amuse her to consider thus the irony of her present dilemma. Well, there certainly were funny things in life!

Snyder had silently cleared away breakfast, and seated herself with a book by the window. Now, glancing at the clock, she rose.

"Ready for tub, Petty? I'll start it up."

"Snyder, you're too good to me!" said Doré, rousing herself from her reveries.

"Huh! Wish I could! Hot or cold?"

But Doré, catching her wrist, detained her, her curiosity excited.

"You're the queerest thing I ever knew!" she said, looking at her fixedly.

"That's right, too!"

"Why do you insist upon my calling you Snyder?"

"Don't like to get fond of people," said the other shortly.

"Why not?"

"Too long a story."

She sought to detach her wrist, but Doré held it firmly.

"And aren't you fond of me?"

Snyder hesitated, frowning at thus being forced to talk.

"Sure! Couldn't help it, could I?"

Doré smiled, pleased at this admission.

"And yet, you have such a funny way of watching me!"

"Me? How so?"

"Yes, you have! I often wonder what's back of a certain queer look you get—"

"What I'm thinking?"

"Yes!"

"I want to see you married and settled, girlie!"

No more unexpected answer could have been given.

"Heaven forbid!" said Doré, sitting up in astonishment. For this commonplace solution to all the romantic possibilities she imagined always infuriated her. But at this moment Ida Summers came, after a little rippling knock, a grapefruit in hand.

The new arrival was in bedroom slippers and pink peignoir, her disordered hair concealed under a tasseled negligee cap. She was a bit roly-poly, but piquant, merry, still new to Salamanderland, hugely enjoying each little excitement.

"Breakfasted already?" she said in astonishment. "Heavens! Dodo, how do you get up in the middle of the night?"

She began to laugh before she finished the sentence, she laughed so hard as she said it that it was almost incomprehensible, and she continued laughing long after Doré had ceased. She could hardly ever relate an incident without being overcome with laughter, but the sound was pleasantly musical, infectious even, and the blue devils went out the window as she came in the door.

"Heavens!... thought I had a swap for a cup of coffee," she said, beginning to laugh again at the thought of her exploded stratagem.

"There ought to be some left," said Doré, venturing one rosy foot from under the covers in search of a warm slipper. She was still thinking of Snyder's strange speech.

Having teased from the coffee-pot a bare cup of coffee, Ida camped down on the couch, and while waiting for the coffee to cool, applied the end of her forefinger to the tip of her nose in the way to uplift it contrary to the gift of nature.

"Ida, do leave that nose alone," said Doré.

"I must have a retroussé nose," said the girl merrily. "This doesn't go with my style of laughter. All the artist-men tell me so. Ah, this nose!" And she gave it a vicious jolt, in her indignation. Her coloring was gorgeous, her lines were delicate, her expressions vivacious and quick with natural coquetry. Wherefore she was in great demand among the illustrators, who had reproduced her tomboy smile on the covers of a million magazines. She was in great demand, but she was capricious in her engagements—like all Salamanders, sacrificing everything to pleasure.

Winona Horning, aroused by the sounds of laughter, appeared through the connecting door, in a green and black negligee, rubbing her eyes, quite indignant.

"Heavens, child! No one can sleep when you're round! Hello, Snyder. Morning, Dodo!"

She said the last words in a tone that made Snyder look up at her, surprised. There was a note of reluctance, even of apprehension.

"Ida's drunk up the coffee; make her give you a grapefruit," said Dodo, nodding and departing.

When she darted in twenty minutes later, tingling and alert for the day, Snyder had gone and Ida Summers, curled like an Angora cat on the couch, was chatting to Winona, who stood in the doorway, undecidedly, turning a cigarette in her fingers, watching Dodo from under her long eyelashes.

"You certainly made the big hit last night, Win," said Ida rapidly. "Do, you should have seen her. She gets the men with that quiet waiting manner of hers. I can't do it to save my life. I have to rush in, barking like a white fluffy dog, to get noticed."

"Where were you?" said Doré, opening all the trunks and ransacking the bureaus. When she dressed, the room had always the look of a sudden descent by the police.

"Up at Vaughan Chandler's studio," said Ida, giving the name of one of the popular illustrators, who catered to the sentimental yearnings of the multitude. "Quite some party, too, celebrities and swells. I say, Do, why don't you go in for head and shoulders? They're perfect gentlemen, you know ... flirty, of course, ... but it pays well, and they'd go daffy over you."

"Don't know ... hadn't thought of it," said Doré, who, having decided to see Gilday and lunch with Peavey, was in a reverie over the subject of the dramatic costume. "By the way, Winona, raise anything on the orchids?"

"Only eight bones—hard enough getting that," said Winona slowly.

"Old brute! Pouffé would have given double," said Doré indignantly. "By the way, Joe's coming at noon. I must dress the stage up for him. What flowers have you girls got?"

"Three vases," said Ida joyfully. "Couple of southern millionaires are getting quite demonstrative over little me. What's up?... Going to coax the Kitty?" she added,—meaning in Salamanderish, "Are you going to encourage him to make presents?"

"Must raise something on this confounded rent," said Doré briefly. "Then, there are other reasons."

As Ida went tripping off, her little white ankles gleaming, Winona entered with two jars of chrysanthemums which she placed, one on the table and one on the mantel, slowly, frowning. Then she turned and said, with a gesture like a blow:

"Do, I took it! I had to!"

"Took what?" Said Doré, startled.

"Joe's fifty!"

Doré sprang precipitately to the drawer and opened it.

"Winona, you—you didn't!"

"It was that or get out!" said Winona doggedly, her back against the wall. "The Duchess made a scene. I'll pay it back—sure!"

"But, Winona, what am I to do? Joe's coming. I must—I have to return it to him. What can I say?" said Doré in dismay, staring at the empty drawer. "You had no right! You should have asked me. I can't—oh, you've put me in an awful hole! It wasn't right!"

"Don't! Dodo—don't!"

The girl clasped her hands, extending them in supplication, and burst into tears.

Doré could not resist the spectacle of this misery. She sprang to her side, seizing her in her arms, all her anger gone.

"Never mind! I don't care! You poor child! It isn't the money—it isn't that! I'll find some way." All at once she remembered the hundred dollars of Sassoon's bouquet. "Stupid! Why, of course!" She recounted hastily the incident to Winona, smoothing her hair.

"But, Do, you can't take it. How can you?" said Winona, becoming more calm.

"Why not? It was a present to each."

"But what can you say to Sassoon?"

"Him? Let me alone; I'll invent something—he'll never know! Bah! I shall miss a fine scene, that's all!" she added with a dramatic regret. "Well, that's over! How much did you use?"

"Thirty-five."

"Keep the rest!"

"I'll pay."

"Bur-r—-shut up! I'm not lending. Borrowing breaks up friendships. It's yours—it's given!"

She looked at the distressed girl a moment and added apprehensively:

"Winona, you're losing your grip!"

"Losing? It's gone!"

"Decidedly, I must see Blainey this afternoon and get that job for you," said Doré pensively. She disliked these sudden bleak apparitions and hated long to consider them. "You'll see in a few days, all will be changed—all!"

Ida returned with long-stemmed chrysanthemums towering over her brown curls, and made a second trip for some hydrangeas which she had found at Estelle Monks' below. The room had now quite the effect of a conservatory.

"Why don't you work the birthday gag?" said Winona helpfully.

"Can't! November's my month for Joe," said Doré reluctantly.

Birthdays, needless to say, are legitimate perquisites in Salamanderland, and pretty certain to occur in the first or second months of each new acquaintance.

As the three Salamanders were thoughtfully considering this possibility, three knocks like the blow of a hammer sounded on the door, and the next moment the dreaded form of Miss Pim, yclept the Duchess, swept, or rather bounded, in.

"Humph! and what's this folderol mean?" she said, stopping short, sniffing and folding her hands over her stomach. "Very fine! Plenty of money for cabs, perfumes, silks, hats, flowers, luxuries—"

"You certainly don't object to my having plenty of money, do you, Miss Pim?" said Doré in a caressing voice, as she went to her purse before the landlady could make the demand direct. "You seem rather anxious about my little bill, I believe!"

"Little!" exclaimed Miss Pim, sitting down with the motion of a jack-knife shutting up.

Doré's calmness took away her breath, but a certain joy showed itself eagerly over her spectacled nose. She understood that such impudence meant pay. Nevertheless she sat stiffly and suspiciously, ready to pounce upon the slightest evasion.

Miss Pim's face advanced in three divisions—forehead, keen nose and sharpened chin. She wore a high false front, of a warmer brown than the slightly grizzled hair that she piled en turban on her head, a majestic note which had earned her the sobriquet of "the Duchess." She adhered to the toilets of the late seventies—flowing brown shotted silks, heavy medallions, hair bracelets, and on state occasions appeared in baby pinks, as if denying the passage of years. She had had a tragic romance—one only, for her nature was too determined to risk another, and at the age of fifty-four she still showed herself implacable to the male sex, although not unwilling to let it be known that she could choose one of three any day she selected. She carried a hand-bag, which jingled with the warning note of silver dollars. She was horribly avaricious, and the Salamanders who courted her favor paid her, whenever possible, in specie. Then she would open her bag, holding it between her knees, and drop into it, one by one, the shining round dollars, listening eagerly to the metallic shock.

"My dear Miss Pim," said Doré, returning with her pocketbook, in a tone of calm superiority that left the landlady dumfounded, "I've told you frequently that I prefer my bill monthly. These weekly rounds are exceedingly annoying. Please don't bother me again. I have nothing smaller than a hundred; can you change it?"