Читать книгу The Salamander - Owen Johnson - Страница 6

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The day was Thursday; the month, October, rushing to its close; and the battered alarm-clock on the red mantel stood at precisely one o'clock. The room was enormous, high and generally dim, the third floor front of Miss Pim's boarding-house on lower Madison Avenue. Of its four windows, two, those at the side, had been blinded by the uprising of an ugly brick wall, which seemed to impend over the room, crowding into it, depriving it of air. The two windows fronting on the avenue let in two shafts of oblique sunlight. The musty violet paper on the walls, blistered in spots, was capped by a frieze of atrocious pink and blue roses. The window-shades, which had been pulled down to shut out the view of the wall, failed to reach the bottom. The curtain-rods were distorted, the globes on the gas fixtures bitten and smoked. At the back, an alcove held a small bed, concealed under a covering of painted eastern material. An elongated gilt mirror, twelve feet in height, leaned against the corner. Trunks were scattered about, two open and newly ransacked. A folding-bed transformed into a couch, heaped with cushions, was between the blind windows: opposite, a ponderous rococo dressing-table, the mirror stuffed with visiting-cards, photographs and mementoes. Half a dozen vases of flowers—brilliant chrysanthemums, heavily scented violets, American Beauty roses, slender and nodding—fought bravely against the pervading dinginess. On the large central table stood a basket of champagne, newly arrived, a case of assorted perfumes, a box of white evening gloves and two five-pound boxes of candy in fancy baskets.

Before the mirrored dressing-table, tiptoe on a trunk, a slender girlish figure was studying solicitously the effect of gold stockings and low russet shoes with buckles of green enamel. She was in a short skirt and Russian blouse, rich and velvety in material, of a creamy rose-gold luster. The sunlight which struck at her ankles seemed to rise about her body, suffusing it with the glow of joy and youth. The neck was bare; the low, broad, rolling silk collar, which followed the graceful lines of the shoulders beneath, was softened by a full trailing bow of black silk at the throat. A mass of tumbling, tomboy, golden hair, breaking in luxuriant tangles over the clear temples, crowned the head with a garland. Just past twenty-two, her figure was the figure of eighteen, by every descending line, even to the little ankles and feet, finely molded.

She had elected to call herself, according to the custom of the Salamanders, Doré Baxter. The two names, incongruously opposed, were like the past and the present of her wandering history: the first, brilliant, daring, alive with the imperious zest and surprise of youth; the second baldly realistic, bleak, like a distant threatening uprise of mountains.

On the couch, languidly lost among the cushions, Winona Horning (likewise a nom de guerre) was abandoned in lazy attention. In the embrasure of one window, camped tailor fashion in a large armchair, a woman was studying a rôle, beating time with one finger, mumbling occasionally:

"Tum-tum-ti-tumpety-tum-tum-tum! I breakfast in diamonds, I bathe in cream. What's the use? What's the use?"

Snyder—she called herself Miss, but passed for being divorced—was not of the fraternity of the Salamanders. Doré Baxter had found her in ill health, out of a position, discouraged and desperate; and in a characteristic impulse, against all remonstrances, had opened her room to her until better days. The other Salamanders did not notice her presence or admit her equality. She seemed not to perceive their hostility, never joining in their conversation, going and coming silently.

The sharp shaft of the sun, bearing down like a spot-light, brought into half relief the mature lines of the body and the agreeable, if serious, features. The brown head, with a defiance of coquetry, was simply dressed, braided about with stiff rapid coils. The dress was black, the waist unrelieved—the costume of the woman who works. What made the effect seem all the more severe was that there was more than a trace of beauty in the face and form—a prettiness evidently disdained and repressed. One shoe, projecting into the light, was noticeably worn at the heel.

"What do you really think?"

All at once, without turning, the girl on the trunk, twisting anxiously before the mirror, exclaimed:

"Winona, what do you really think?"

"It doesn't show from here."

"How can you see from there? Come over nearer!"

Winona Horning, taller, more thoughtful in her movements, rose reluctantly, fixing a strand of jet-black hair which had strayed, and seated herself according to the command of a little finger. Her complexion was very pale against the black of her hair, her eyes were very large, given to violent and sudden contrasts, more intense and more restless than her companion's.

"And now?" said Doré, lifting the glowing skirt the fraction of an inch.

"Still all right."

"Really?"

"Really!"

"And now?"

"Um-m—yes, now it shows!"

On the golden ankle a mischievous streak of white had appeared—a seam outrageously rent.

"Heavens, what a fix! I've just got to wear them!" said Doré, dropping her skirts with a movement of impatience.

"Estelle has a pair—"

"She needs them at three. We can't connect!"

"Bah! Dazzle with the left leg, then, Dodo," replied Winona, giving her her pet name.

Doré accepted the suggestion with a burst of laughter, and springing lightly down, seated herself on the trunk.

"Yes—yes, it can be done," she said presently, after a moment's practising. "If I don't forget!"

"You won't," said Winona, with a smile.

Snyder rose from her seat, and without paying the slightest attention to this serious comedy, crossed the room and returned to her post, bringing a pencil, with which she began eagerly to jot down a few notes.

"Like the effect?" said Doré, leaving the mirror with a last glance, the tip of her tongue appearing a moment through the sharp white rows of teeth, in the abstraction of her gaze.

She turned, and for the first time her eyes raised themselves expectantly. They were of a deep ultramarine blue, an unusual cloudy shade which gave an unexpected accent of perplexity to the fugitive white and pink of the cheek.

"Perfectly dandy, Dodo; but—"

At this moment from the little ante-chamber outside the door came the irritable silvery ring of the telephone.

"See who it is," said Doré quickly. "Remember! you don't know if I'm in—find out first."

As Winona crossed toward the back, Doré turned with a mute interrogation toward the figure in the window, and extending her arms, pirouetted slowly twice. Lottie Snyder responded with a sudden smile that lighted up her features with a flash of beauty. She nodded twice emphatically, continuing to gaze with kindness and affection. Then she took up her rôle bruskly as Winona returned.

"It's a Mr. Chester—Cheshire? What shall I say?"

"Chesterton," said Doré. "I'll go."

She consumed a moment searching among the overflow of gloves on the trunk-tray, and went to the telephone, without closing the door. Winona, not to speak to Snyder, began to manicure her hands. From the hall came the sounds of broken conversation:

"Hello? Who is it?... Yes, this is Miss Baxter.... Who?... Huntington?... Oh, yes, Chesterton ... of course I remember.... How do you do?... I'm just up.... Yes, splendid dance!... What?... To-night?... No-o.... Who else is in the party?... Just us two?... No, I guess not!... Aren't you a little sudden, Mr. Chesterton?... Not with you alone.... Oh, yes; but I'm very formal! That's where you make your mistake.... Certainly, I'd go with a good many men, but not with you.... Not till I really know you.... Now, I'm going to tell you something, Mr. Chesterton. I'm not like other girls, I play fair. I expect men to make mistakes—one mistake. I always forgive once, and I always give one warning—just one! You understand? All right! I won't say any more!... No, I'm not offended.... I'm quite used to such mistakes: they sort of follow dances, don't they?... Well, that's nice; I'm glad you understand me.... Some men don't, you know!... That's very flattering!... If what?... If it's made a party of four?... That would be different, yes.... Try—telephone me about six and I'll let you know.... No, I couldn't say definitely now; I'll have to try and get out of another party.... No, I haven't seen that play yet.... Phone at six.... Oh, dear me! How easily you repeat that!... Why, yes, I liked you; I thought you danced the Hesitation perfectly dandy...." (A laugh.) "Well, that's enough.... I can't promise.... Phone, anyhow.... Good-by.... Yes, oh, yes.... Good-by.... Not offended! Oh, no!... Good-by!"

She came back, and extending her fingers above her head, said:

"So high!" She brought her hands close together: "So thin! A monocle—badly tamed—a ladylike mustache—all I remember! Oh, yes, he said he had two automobiles—most important!" She shrugged her shoulders and added maliciously: "We'll put him down, anyhow—last call for dinner!... So you don't like my costume?"

"That isn't it!" said Winona. She turned, hesitating: "Only, for an orgy of old Sassoon's."

"Orgy," in the lexicon of the Salamanders, is a banquet in the superlative of lavishness; on the other hand, a dinner or a luncheon that has the slightest taint of economy is derogatorily known as a "tea-party."

"It's my style—it's me!" said Doré, with a confident bob of her head.

"Those girls will come all Gussied up for Sassoon," persisted Winona. "Staggering, under the war-paint!"

"Let me alone," said Dodo; "I know what I'm doing!"

She knew she had made no blunder. The costume exhaled a perfume of freshness and artless charm, from the daintiness with which the throat was revealed, from the slight youthful bust delicately defined under the informality of the blouse, to the long descending clinging of the coat, which followed, half-way to the knee, lines of young and slender grace which can not be counterfeited.

"It's individual—it's me," she repeated, running her little hands caressingly down the slim undulation of the waist, caught in by the trim green belt.

The telephone rang a second time.

"Joe Gilday," said Winona presently, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

"Say I'm in," said Doré hastily, in a half whisper. "Now go back and say I'm out!"

"What's wrong?" said Winona, opening her eyes.

"Needs disciplining."

"He knows you're here—says he must speak to you," said the emissary, reappearing.

"Tell him I am, and won't," said Doré mercilessly.

Snyder, with a sudden recognition of the clock, rose, and going to a trunk, pounced on a sailor hat, slapping it on her head without looking in the mirror. She came and planted herself before Doré, who had watched her, laughing.

"Beating it up to Blainey's," she said. The voice was low, but with a slur that accused ordinary antecedents. "Say, he's dipped on you; got a fat part salted away—if you ever turn up! Why don't you see him?"

"I will—I will."

"Look here. You're not going to let everything slip this season, too, are you?"

"How do I know what I'll do to-morrow?" said Doré, laughing.

"Aren't you ever going to settle down?"

"Yes, indeed; in a year!"

"It's a real fat part; you're crazy to lose the chance!"

"Tell Blainey to be patient; I'm going to be serious—soon!"

"See him!"

"I will—I will!"

"When?"

"To-morrow—perhaps."

She took Snyder by the shoulders, readjusting the hat.

"Aren't you ashamed to treat yourself this way! You can be real pretty, if you want to."

"When I want to, I am," said Snyder, shrugging her shoulders, but opposing no resistance to the rearrangement of her costume.

"Snyder, you do it on purpose!" said Doré, vexed at the hang of the skirt, which resisted her efforts.

Winona reentered. She had heard the conversation with one ear, while extending comfort to the frantic Gilday in disgrace. Snyder, with the entrée to Blainey, manager for the Lipswitch and Berger Circuit, aroused her respect with her envy.

"Snyder, what do you do all the time?" she said in a conciliatory tone.

"Meaning what?"

"You never go out—never amuse yourself!"

"I amuse myself much more than you!"

"What!" exclaimed Winona.

"Much more. I work!"

Saying which, she flung into her jacket like a schoolboy, and went out without further adieus.

"Pleasant creature!" said Winona acidly.

"It's you who are wrong," said Doré warmly. "Why patronize her?"

"There is a difference between us, I think," said Winona coldly. "Really, Dodo, I don't understand how you can—"

"Let Snyder alone," said Doré, with a flash of anger. "No harm comes from being decent to some one who's down. Don't be so hard—you never know what may happen to you!" Seeing the flush on Winona's face, she softened her tone and, her habitual good humor returning, added: "If you knew her struggle— There! Let's drop it!"

Fortunately, the telephone broke in on the tension. Another followed, even before she had left the anteroom. The first was an invitation from Roderigo Sanderson, one of Broadway's favorite leading men, to a dress rehearsal of a new comic opera that promised to be the rage of the season. While secretly delighted at the prospect, Doré answered, in a tone of subdued suffering, that she was in bed with a frightful head-ache—that, though it seemed to be improving, she couldn't tell how she would feel later, and adjourned a decision until six, at which hour he was to telephone. She gave the same reply to the second invitation, a proposition from Donald Bacon, a broker, who was organizing a party for a cabaret dance later in the evening.

"Hurray! Now I can have a choice," she said, tripping gaily back and pirouetting twice on her left foot. Suddenly she stopped, folding her arms savagely.

"Winona!"

"What?"

"I'm bored!"

"Since when?"

"Don't laugh! Really, I am unhappy! If something exciting would happen—if I could fall in love!"

"You will be when you come back!"

"Yes—that's the trouble!" said Doré, laughing. "But it never lasts!"

"And day before yesterday?"

"What about it?"

"That wonderful Italian you came home raving about?"

"Ah, yes! that was a great disappointment!" She repeated, in a tone of discouragement: "A great disappointment! It's the second meeting that's so awful! Men are so stupid, it's no fun any more!" All at once she noticed her friend's attitude. "What's the matter? You're not angry!"

"No, not that!" Winona rose, flinging down the manicuring sticks, drawing a deep breath. "Only, when I see you throwing over a chance like that from Blainey—"

"What! You want the job?" exclaimed Doré, struck by the thought.

"Want it?" cried the girl bitterly. "I'd go up Broadway on my knees to get it!"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Ah! this has got to end sometime," said the girl, locking and unlocking her fingers. "Snyder was right. It's work—work! She's lucky!"

Doré became suddenly thoughtful. Between Salamanders real confidences are rare. She knew nothing of the girl who was separated from her but by a wall, but there was no mistaking the pain in her voice.

"I'm sorry!" she said.

"Yes, I've come to the end of my rope," said Winona. "I'm older than you—I've played too long!"

"You shall have the job!"

"Oh, it's easy to—"

"I'll go to-morrow. I'll make Blainey give it to you."

"He won't!"

"He? Of course he will! That old walrus? He'll do anything I tell him! That's settled! I'll see him to-morrow!"

Winona turned, composing her passion.

"I'm a fool!" she said.

"Hard up?"

"Busted!"

"The deuce! So'm I! Never mind; we'll find some way—"

"Why don't you take the job yourself?"

"I? Never! I couldn't! It's too soon to be serious!" exclaimed Doré, laughing in order to relieve the tension. "When I'm twenty-three—in six months—not before! It's all decided."

"First time you've been to one of Sassoon's parties?" asked Winona abruptly.

"First time! I'm quite excited!"

"You've met him, then?"

"No, not yet! I'm going as a chorus girl."

"What?"

"He's entertaining the sextette of the Gay Prince—I'm to replace one. I got the bid through Adèle Vickers—you remember her? She's in the sextette."

"Adèle Vickers," said Winona, with a frown.

"It's on the quiet, naturally," said Doré, not noticing the expression. "I'm to be taken for a chorus girl, by old Sassoon too—complications, heaps of fun!"

"You're crazy! Some one'll recognize you!"

"Bah!"

"Sassoon doesn't play fair!" said Winona abruptly.

"Dangerous?"

"He doesn't play the game fair!" repeated Winona, with more insistence.

"I like precipices!" said Doré, smiling.

"How you express things, Dodo!"

"Why? Don't you like 'em?"

"Yes, naturally. But with Sassoon—"

"It's such fun!" said Doré, shaking her curls.

Her companion crossed her fingers and held them up in warning.

"Dodo, be careful!"

"I'll take care of myself!" said Doré scornfully, and a flash of excitement began to show in the dark blue shadows of her eyes.

"Different! Sassoon is on the black list, Dodo!"

Albert Edward Sassoon, whom two little Salamanders were thus discussing in a great barn of a room, third floor front of Miss Pim's boarding-house, was the head of the great family of Sassoon, which for three generations had stood, socially and financially, among the first powers of the city.

"Thanks for the warning. When you know, you know what to do!" said Doré carelessly. "Just let him try!"

The admonition troubled her not at all. She had met and scored others before who in the secret code of the Salamanders were written down unfair. The prospect of such an antagonist brought to her a little more animation. She bolted into a snug-fitting fur toque, brightened by a flight of feathers at the side, green with a touch of red.

"There!" she exclaimed merrily. "A bit of the throat, a bit of the ankle, and a slash of red—that's Dodo! What's the time?"

"Twenty past. Who's your prop?"

"Stacey."

"Prop," in the lexicon of the Salamanders, is a term obviously converted from the theatrical "property." A "prop," in Salamanderland, is a youth not too long out of the nest to be rebellious, possessed of an automobile—a sine qua non—and agitated by a patriotic craving to counteract the evil effects of the hoarding of gold. Each Salamander of good standing counts from three to a dozen props, carefully broken, kept in a state of expectant gratitude, genii of the telephone waiting a summons to fetch and carry, purchase tickets of all descriptions, lead the way to theater or opera, and, above all, to fill in those blank dates, or deferred engagements, which otherwise might become items of personal expense.

At this moment the curly brown head of Ida Summers, of the second floor back, bobbed in and out, saying in a stage whisper:

"Black Friday! Beware! The cat's loose—rampaging!"

It was a warning that Miss Pim, in a periodic spasm of alarm, was spreading dismay through the two houses in her progress in search of long-deferred rents.

"Horrors!" exclaimed Winona Horning. She sprang to the door which gave into her room, ready to use it as an escape from either attack.

"Twice this week. Um-m—means business!" said Doré solemnly. "I'm three weeks behind. How are you?"

"Five!"

"We must get busy," said Doré pensively. "I have just two dollars in sight!"

"Two? You're a millionaire!"

"The champagne will bring something," said Doré, fingering the basket, "but I can't let it go until Mr. Peavey—If he'd only call up for to-night! Zip might take the perfume, but I need it so! Worse luck, the flowers have all come from the wrong places. There's twenty dollars there, if it were only Pouffé. And look at this!"

She went to her bureau, and opening a little drawer, held up a bank-note.

"Fifty dollars!" exclaimed Winona, amazed.

"Ridiculous, isn't it?" said Doré, with a laugh, shutting it up again. "Joe Gilday had the impertinence to slip it in there, after I had refused a loan!"

"What! Angry for that?" said Winona, carried away by the famine the money had awakened in her.

"Certainly I am!" said Doré energetically. "Do you think I'd allow a man to give me money—like that?"

This ethical point might have been discussed, but at the moment a knock broke in upon the conversation. The two girls started, half expecting to behold Miss Pim's military figure advancing into the room.

"Who is it?" said Doré anxiously.

"It's Stacey," said a docile voice.

"Shall I go?" inquired Winona, with a gesture.

"No, no—stay! Always stay!" said Doré, hastily stuffing back the overflowing contents of a trunk and signaling Winona to close the lid nearest her.

Stacey Van Loan crowded into the room. He was a splendid grenadier type of man, with the smiling vacant face of a boy. He wore shoes for which he paid thirty dollars, a suit that cost a hundred, a great fur coat that cost eight times more, enormous fur gloves, and a large pearl pin in his cravat. On entering, he always blushed twice, the first as an apology and the second for having blushed before. The most captious Salamander would have accepted him at a glance as the beau ideal of a prop—a perfect blend of radiating expensiveness and docile timidity. Van Loan Senior, of the steel nobility of Pennsylvania, had insisted on his acquiring a profession after two unfortunate attempts at collegiate culture, and had exiled him to New York to study law, allotting him twenty thousand dollars a year to defray necessary expenses.

"Bingo! what a knock-out!" said Stacey, gazing open-mouthed, heels together, at the glowing figure that greeted him.

Doré, who had certain expectations as to his arrival, perceiving that he held one hand concealed behind his back, broke into smiles.

"You sly fellow, what are you hiding there?"

"All right?" said Van Loan, with an anxious gulp. "How about it?"

He thrust out an enormous bouquet of orchids, which, in his fear of appearing parsimonious, he had doubled beyond all reason. The sight of these flowers of luxury, the price of which would have gone a long way toward placating Miss Pim, brought a quick telegraphic glance of irony between the two girls.

"Isn't he a darling?" said Doré, taking the huge floral display and stealing a glance at the ribbon, which, alas, did not bear the legend Pouffé, who was approachable in time of need. "Stacey is really the most thoughtful boy, and everything he gets is in perfect taste. He never does anything by halves!"

As she said this in a careless manner, which made the young fellow redden to the ears with delight, she was secretly smothering a desire to laugh, and wondering how on earth she was to divide the monstrous display without discouraging future exhibitions of lavishness. She moved presently toward the back of the room, saying carelessly:

"Look at my last photographs, Stacey."

Then she quickly slipped a third of the bouquet behind a trunk, signaling Winona, and turning before the long mirror, affixed the orchids, spreading them loosely to conceal the defection.

"Quarter of. You'll be late!" said Winona, masking the trunk with her skirts.

"I want to be! I'm not going to have a lot of society women find me on the door-step!" said Doré, for the benefit of the prop. "Come on, Stacey; you can look at the photos another day!" She flung about her shoulders a white stole from the floor below, and buried her hands in a muff of the same provenance. "Good-by, dear. Back late. Go ahead, Stacey!"

A moment later she reentered hurriedly.

"Give me the others, quick!" she said, detaching those at her waist. "These are from Granard's. Take them there—tell them Estelle sent you; she has an arrangement with them. See what you can get. Tell them we'll send 'em custom."

She completed the transfer of the smaller bunch, carefully arranging the wide stole, which she pinned against accidents.

"Listen. If Joe telephones again, make him call me up at six—don't say I said it! It's possible Blainey may get it in his head to call up. I'll go with him, unless—unless Peavey wants me for dinner. I must see him before I dispose of the champagne—understand? You know what to answer the rest." She hesitated, looking at the orchids: "We ought to get fifteen out of them. Remember, promise them our custom; use Pouffé on them. Good-by, dear!"

"Be careful!"

"Yes—yes—yes!"

"Dangerous!"

"Bah! If they only were—but they're not!"

She rejoined Stacey, whose nose was sublimely at the wheel, crying:

"Let her go, Stacey. Up to Tenafly's. Break the speed law!"

She started to spring in, but suddenly remembering the offending stocking, stopped and ascended quietly—on the left foot.