Homing

by Grace Livingston Hill

  At noon she sought out the floor manager.

  “Mr. Clark,” she said a little breathlessly, “I came about that broken clasp. I didn’t break it and neither did Hilda, but if anybody’s got to stand for it, I will, not Hilda. She can’t! She’s got a sick mother and a little brother to support and she’s half starved herself.”

  “Somebody broke that clasp, Miss Scarlett,” said the cold, hard tones of Clark. He was new in the department and trying to show what good discipline he could establish. “Somebody has to pay for it.”

  “Yes,” said Jane with that almost imperceptible lifting of her chin that gave her a patrician look, “somebody evidently broke it, but it was not broken when I gave the package to Mrs. LeClaire. I know that, for I stood beside Hilda while she inspected each one. The lady was in a rush as she always is, and I waited to take it right to her. And I know those clasps were every one perfect when they left this store. But Hilda shan’t stand the blame, anyway. She’s crying her heart out this minute and won’t be fit to work tomorrow if this goes on. And she can’t afford to stay at home!”

  The cold, hard eyes of the floor manager studied her sharply and the tight line of his lips relaxed a trifle.

  “Very well, Miss Scarlett, I’ll speak to Mr. Windle about it. You understand that Mrs. LeClaire is a very important customer. But of course somebody has to pay for that clasp.”

  Jane gave Mr. Clark a despairing look and bowed, trying to choke back her rising indignation.

  “Very well, Mr. Clark. In that case, I’ll pay for it!”

  She turned away quickly lest the telltale tears would appear in her eyes, and hurried off, leaving him looking after her, wondering over her erect carriage, the patrician way in which she held her shoulders. Somehow she impressed him even more than the irate customer whom he had to humor because of her millions. Still, if Jane Scarlett broke that buckle, she ought to suffer for it.

  So Jane went out and bought a five-cent package of peanut butter sandwiches, although she loathed them because she had eaten so many of them exclusive of other fare, and took a good draught of ice water afterward, and determined to eat five-cent lunches for a couple of weeks to make up for the price of that crystal clasp.

  But there were too many tears in Jane’s throat to make a dry lunch like that very palatable just now, and Jane, after a bite or two, slipped her package in her little cheap handbag and went around on what she called a window-shopping expedition, just to take her mind off the unpleasant things.

  She went to the coat section and took another look at the green coat with the brown beaver fur collar that she so hoped to be able to buy before it was gone. She wouldn’t get on very fast saving for it at this rate, not with paying for expensive crystal clasps. There! She must forget that. Why in the world couldn’t she put it out of her mind entirely and just be comfortable?

  It was just then she realized that there was something else on her mind besides that broken clasp. She searched probingly for it and found it was the visit of that young man searching for statistics about the Scarlett family. The more she thought about it the more she became alarmed at the thought that he might be coming after her again. Why hadn’t she made it plain that she had told him everything she knew about the family? Oh, what else could he possibly be wanting? Was there something dark and sinister in the history of the family, and were they trying to pin it to her branch? Were they possibly trying to pin something upon herself?

  Her mind went quickly back over her brief life since her mother died. Was it conceivable that somebody at the school or the boardinghouse where she had worked had missed something valuable and fixed upon her as the one who had taken it?

  But how ridiculous! It was just because of that unpleasant happening about the clasp. She must be all wrought up, to get ideas like that. And that pleasant young man hadn’t suggested any such thing, either. What had he said, anyway? Something about collecting statistics about the Scarletts. But a lawyer’s firm wouldn’t be putting together a family tree, would they? Oh, it was all a mix-up. And what could she do about it?

  She turned languidly away from the lovely green coat. Why had she thought it so desirable anyway? How hot the cloth looked! And fur around one’s neck! Ugh! She closed her eyes and drew a deep quivering breath. Suddenly she seemed to have reached her limit. Everything had gone against her. If only her mother were living and she could go home and put her head down in her lap and cry it out, and tell her everything!

  Well, of course it was idle to think of that! It only meant she would be unnerved for her afternoon’s work. Oh, how her head ached and how faint she felt! She must manage to eat another bite or two of those crackers, or drink some more water, or something.

  Just then she came face-to-face with the young head of the stocking department, and his greeting was most effusive.

  “Now, look who’s here!” he exclaimed. “Could anything be more delightful! I was just looking for a companion to help me while away my noon hour.”

  “Sorry,” said Jane in her most businesslike tone, “I’m just finishing mine. You’ll have to look further.”

  “But surely I saw you just leaving the button counter not five minutes ago!” protested the young man.

  “Are you quite sure you know me from the others?” asked Jane impishly as she turned and slid into an elevator.

  As the elevator slipped smoothly down out of sight Jane made a mental resolve to watch herself when homing time came at night, and not be in this young man’s way. She didn’t want her life further complicated at this stage by this doubtful stranger. She wasn’t at all sure she would care to have him around at any time.

  So she entrenched herself behind her counter and kept her eyes strictly on her customers, of whom there were plenty. She didn’t even see young Gaylord when he arrived back at his precinct. She was trying her best to keep so busy that she would not think nor puzzle over her perplexities.

  “Oh, are you back already?” welcomed the next girl whose turn it was to take lunchtime. “Why, you haven’t had your full time.”

  “I wasn’t hungry,” said Jane evasively. “Yes, madam, we have crystal buttons. What size?”

  “Oh, do you really mean it?” questioned the other girl in a whisper. “I was just counting the minutes. A friend of mine has something to tell me and she was afraid her noon hour would be over before mine began. Do you mind if I go now?”

  “Go on,” said Jane with a satisfaction in her voice that would easily pass for a smile. Jane had forgotten to take the second bite of those neat, dry crackers. The faintness that was enveloping her now and then was something primitive, something to be fought and kept under. After all, why should she miss one little meal? She had often gone without several without feeling it much. One got used to going without food. “Yes, madam, we have a smaller size of the same button.”

  The customers were coming in droves, it seemed to her. Why did everybody want buttons on such a hot day? She tried to focus her eyes on a woman who was questioning her, and realized that she was dizzy. What was the matter with her? She wasn’t ever dizzy. Was everything getting her? Was she going soft so that she’d be unable to cope with life as it presented itself to her day by day? Of course, she hadn’t eaten much that morning—that sickening smell of spoiled codfish over everything! Ugh! She could smell it now! Or was that the lobster she had glimpsed on the chef’s long table by the tearoom door a little while ago? If she were up in that tearoom now as a shopper selecting her fare from the menu, what would she choose? Not lobster! Not codfish! Not even ice cream! She was beyond all that. Just something hot and thin and heartening. The kind of lunch her mother used to bring her when she was a little girl, and sick. Fragrant toast from homemade bread, buttered and salted and wet with boiling water, and then a steaming cup of tea that smelled like roses. That was what she wanted and nothing else. Could a body be sustained by the thought of the right food when one couldn’t actually get it?

  She smiled to herself at the odd train of thou
ght of her troubled mind. If her customers could read her thoughts they would think she was crazy. If her floor manager could know what was passing through her mind she would lose her job.

  But her mind continued to function steadily on, her fingers worked accustomedly, and the buttons were marshaled into ranks and went out into the world to appear on garments. But Jane was growing fainter and fainter, and the heat grew more and more unbearable to her till it came to seem as if she could not breathe another breath. Yet she went on, answering the questions lifelessly that were put to her.

  It was growing late in the afternoon. She could just see the clock from one end of the counter, but somehow suddenly its figures did not mean a thing to her when she looked at them. She put a hand dazedly to her forehead and tried to take a deep breath, but something failed within her, and all at once she crumpled into a little heap on the floor behind the counter.

  She had just handed a customer a package, and the woman had turned away. The other two girls were busy, one at either end of the counter, and did not notice Jane for a full minute after it happened, and she lay there quite still till one of them coming in haste to look for wooden buttons almost fell over her, and gave a quiet alarm to the floor manager.

  The wrapper in her little alcove abandoned her wrapping and was down on her knees beside Jane with a glass of water she had slipped into her cage, and a bit of a handkerchief, bathing Jane’s face, when Mr. Clark came blustering to see what was the matter, his faultfinding frown upon his face as if he would be ready to blame Jane for not foreseeing this possibility and guarding against it.

  But when he saw Jane’s white impassive face even his Clark-frown disappeared, and he blustered at all the others, giving orders right and left. The few customers left stood around staring and saying what awful weather it was, and stretching their necks to see which girl it was who had fainted. One lady produced a bottle of smelling salts. And after a time, which seemed a long time, Jane vaguely opened her eyes and closed them again with a sorrowful little trembling sigh, and all the ladies on that aisle looked and said “Oh!” in various stages of sympathy and interest and curiosity.

  A boy presently brought a wheeled chair, as even Mr. Clark could not seem to induce Jane to take an interest in walking, and they wheeled her off to the freight elevator, Nellie Forsythe walking importantly by her side with her hand on the chair, and Mr. Clark circling around it and giving directions, clearing the way with authoritative gestures.

  But the passing of Jane took but a brief instant and then the summer crowds closed in and the aisle was as full as usual, only that the ladies who wanted buttons tapped their impatient toes on the floor and wondered why the button counter was manned by a single girl.

  Young Gaylord in the stocking side of the main aisle looked tentatively over to the button counter several times late that afternoon, with a view to making a date with Jane, wholly because she had seemed so indifferent, but Jane was not in sight. She had meant to slip out through the counter behind the wrapping desk, and so make her way to a street door without his seeing her, but she had no need for diplomacy. It had all been managed nicely for her instead. Jane was lying in a little white soft bed in the first aid clinic of the store on the ninth floor, with a white-garbed nurse watching over her, and an electric fan cooling the air about her.

  The nurse was feeling her pulse.

  “When was your lunch hour?” she asked crisply.

  “Eleven thirty,” murmured Jane, wondering why she cared.

  “What did you have for lunch?” asked the nurse in a quiet, interested voice as if she were saying to a baby: “See the birdie?”

  “Why, I didn’t have much. It’s in my handbag somewhere,” said Jane feeling aimlessly around on the bed with one hand. “I didn’t eat but a bite. I wasn’t hungry.” Her voice was very weak.

  “I thought so,” said the nurse. She vanished into a tiny kitchen from which came presently an appetizing aroma, and then she was back with a cup of delicious chicken broth, which she fed to Jane.

  “There!” said the nurse when she had finished feeding her the soup. “Now, shut your eyes and take a good sleep. Then they’ll send you home in a taxi, and tomorrow morning if it is still hot, I’d stay in bed all day. They won’t expect you back. I’ll tell them you ought to have three days off at least.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t!” said Jane, roused at last. “I couldn’t afford to lose time.”

  “You have a right to three days’ sick leave, you know,” said the nurse. “I’ll tell them you should.”

  “Oh, I’ll be all right with a few minutes’ rest,” said Jane, and she drifted off into the most restful sleep she had had for months.

  The bugles were sounding the signal for closing when Jane woke up again, and the nurse fed her more soup and took her home in a taxi.

  “I hope you have a cool room,” she remarked hopefully as she glanced doubtfully up at the dismal-looking boardinghouse.

  “I haven’t,” said Jane decidedly. “You wouldn’t expect it in a house like that in this neighborhood, would you?”

  “No, I suppose not,” said the nurse regretfully. “But why do your people live here when there are so many nice little suburbs where you could live almost as cheaply, I should think? Do they have to be here? Do they own the house?”

  “I haven’t any family,” said Jane, trying to speak resignedly. “This is a boardinghouse. I suppose somebody owns it, but I don’t know why.”

  “Then why do you stay here?” asked the nurse. “I know a peach of a place. It’s eleven miles out and it isn’t expensive. It’s co-operative.”

  “There’d be the carfare in,” said Jane despondently. “It sounds nice, but I guess it’s not for me, yet. Not till I get a raise.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” said the nurse. “If I wasn’t going away for the weekend I’d invite you out to stay with me over Sunday. You need a change and a rest, or you’re due for a breakdown.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll be all right tomorrow,” said Jane determinedly. “I’ve got to be. Tomorrow’s pay day, and I’ve got to pay a dollar and a quarter for a crystal clasp a customer broker herself and then charged me with.”

  “What a shame!” said the nurse indignantly. “I think if you’d go to Mr. Windle he’d do something about that.”

  “I’d rather pay a dollar and a quarter than go to Mr. Windle. Good-bye. I thank you for all you’ve done for me! And for that wonderful soup. It seemed like soup my mother used to make!”

  “Well, my advice to you is to go home, wherever home is, and stay with your mother.”

  “Yes?” said Jane somewhat bitterly. “Well, perhaps I will. Who knows? She happens to be in heaven though, and one can’t just go to heaven when one feels like it. But meantime, I wish I had a lovely cool room with palms and ferns around it and a view of the ocean with cool breezes to invite you up to right now. I’d serve you with delectable cakes and ices and make you understand how grateful I am for what you’ve done for me.”

  The nurse smiled and squeezed her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said penitently. “I didn’t know, of course. Now don’t forget to run up to the clinic and call on me when you get back to the store. Good night. Be careful what you eat for a day or two, and no more starving, understand, or you’ll be worse off than you are now.”

  Jane smiled and went slowly into the house.

  How she dreaded to go up all those stairs. And there was ham for dinner. She knew by the smell. Ham and cabbage again! So she decided to subsist on the memory of chicken soup and go to sleep at once if the heat would let her.

  Up in her room she took off her dress and dropped down weakly upon the bed. Oh, if there were only a way to have a pleasant comfortable room and plain decent food! Well, if she lived through this she would try to manage a change as soon as possible.

  Then her thoughts reverted to the morning. The interview with the young lawyer. The man with the kind eyes. He would be somewhere now in a cool place she was sure.
He would be about to have a good dinner with pleasant people. He had the air of such a background. Any girl he knew would be well cared for and wouldn’t have to worry. He wasn’t the kind of young man who drank and was undependable. How she would enjoy to have a few friends like that who were decent and friendly and good fun. Well, she mustn’t expect anything like that, but if ever she got on at all she would have something to call home. A room in a pleasant house in a wide airy street, no matter if it wasn’t fashionable. Old fashions were best anyway. Brick perhaps, with high ceilings and vines on the house. Wide windows and pretty curtains. Cool in summer and warm in winter. A little fireplace somewhere with the brightness and comfort of firelight! A canary in a pretty gilt cage. But how could she have a canary if she stayed in the store? A canary would have to have someone to care for it.

  She would have a pretty rug. Perhaps not an Oriental, but one with soft colors. And a bookcase with books she loved. A desk to sit and write letters at, only she knew no one to write to, and a little table to have five o’clock tea on with frosted cakes, when her friends came in! Only she had no friends!

  But of course there would be friends if one had a place to invite them to.

  There would be deep chairs, too, with soft cushions, and a couch where one could drop down and read and get all the ache out of one’s bones. Home! It would be a home! Even if it were but one room, it could be home.

  Well, if one could make a home out of one room, why could she not make a semblance of home here in this third-story back?

  Here with the smell of cabbage and ancient ham? With the noises of the street, and the thunder of the railroad beyond the back fence? Well, why not? It had four walls. What if they were blackened with smoke, and stained from the years of service? They were clean, for she had washed them down herself when she first moved in. Here with only a box for a washstand and a tin pitcher and bowl that did not match. There was a calico curtain around it, for she had tacked it there herself, and underneath were her other pair of shoes that needed to be half-soled, and her shoe polish and her dust rag. And there was the ugly painted bureau with its paint half gone, and its warped, distorted mirror that needed resilvering. It had four drawers where she could keep her simple wardrobe. Some hall bedrooms hadn’t even that. And over there in the corner around the nails on which she hung her garments there was another calico curtain. She had bought it and hemmed it and put it up herself. She was thankful for that. It did make her room more like a habitation. Even if it was unbearably hot and smelly in summer and unbearably cold and lonely in winter. It had a touch all her own. Bur someday she would have a real home that she had made. That is, if she lived long enough to have one. It would take hard work. It would mean that she had to concentrate on a home and nothing else. So far, there was no one to make a home for her, and she was sure, sure she would never find a man she was willing to marry who would want to marry her, so why not have a home as a life ambition?