The Man from the Bitter Roots

by Caroline Lockhart

  XII

  THORNS--AND A FEW ROSES

  Helen Dunbar was exercising that doubtful economy, walking to savecar-fare, when she saw Mae Smith with her eyes fixed upon her in deadlypurpose making a bee-line across the street. If there was any one thingmore needed to complete her depression it was a meeting with Mae Smith.

  She stopped and waited, trying to think what it was Mae Smith resembledwhen she hurried like that. A penguin! that was it--Mae Smith walkedexactly like a penguin. But Helen did not smile at the comparison,instead, she continued to look somberly and critically at the woman whoapproached. When Helen was low spirited, as now, Mae Smith always rosebefore her like a spectre. She saw herself at forty another such passenewspaper woman trudging from one indifferent editor to another peddling"space." And why not? Mae Smith had been young and good-looking once,also a local celebrity in her way when she had signed a column in adaily. But she had grown stale with the grind, and having no specialtalent or personality had been easily replaced when a new ManagingEditor came. Now, though chipper as a sparrow, she was always in need ofa small loan.

  As Helen stood on the corner, in her tailor-made, which was the lastword in simplicity and good lines, the time looked very remote when she,too, would be peddling space in a $15 gown, that had faded in streaks,but Helen had no hallucinations concerning her own ability. She knewthat she had no great aptitude for her work and realized that hersuccess was due more often to the fact that she was young, well-dressed,and attractive than to any special talent. This was all very well now,while she got results, but what about the day when _her_ shoes spreadover the soles and turned over at the heels, and she bought _her_ blouse"off the pile?" When her dollar gloves were shabby and would not buttonat the wrist? What about the day when she was too dispirited to dressher hair becomingly, but combed it straight up at the back, so that her"scolding locks" hung down upon her coat-collar, and her home-trimmedhat rode carelessly on one ear?

  All these things were characteristic of Mae Smith, who personifiedunsuccessful, anxious middle-age. But there was one thing, she toldherself as she returned Mae Smith's effusive greeting, that never,never, no matter how sordid her lot became, should there emanate fromher that indefinable odor of poverty--cooking, cabbage, lack ofventilation, bad air--not if she had to hang her clothing out the windowby a string!

  "I've been over to the _Chronicle_ office," Mae Smith chattered. "Leftsome fashion notes for the Sunday--good stuff--but I don't know whetherhe'll use 'em; that kid that's holdin' down McGennigle's job don't buymuch space. He's got it in for me anyhow. I beat him on a conventionstory when he was a cub. I was just goin' down to your office."

  "Yes? I'm on the way to the doctor's."

  "You don't look well, that's a fact. Sick?"

  Helen smiled, faintly. "I do feel miserable. Like every one else I gota drenching at the Thanksgiving Game."

  "That's too bad," Mae Smith murmured absently. What was a cold comparedto the fact that she needed two dollars and a half? "Say, I wonder if Icould get a little loan for a few days? You know I bought this suit onthe installment plan and I'm two weeks behind on it. The collector wasaround yesterday and said he'd have to take it back. I can't go aroundgettin' fashion notes in my kimono, and the milkman wouldn't leave anymilk until I paid for the last ticket. I'm up against it and I thoughtmaybe--"

  "How much do you want?"

  "About two dollars and a half." The tense look faded instantly from MissSmith's face.

  Helen did not mention, as she laid that amount in her eager hand, thatit was part of the money she had saved to buy a pair of long gloves.

  "Thank you"--gaily--"ever so much obliged! I've got a corking idea in myhead for a Sunday special and just as soon as I write it and get paid--"

  "No hurry," Helen answered with a quizzical smile, and she watched MaeSmith clamber joyously on a street car to ride two blocks and spend thefare that Helen had walked eight blocks to save.

  The girl's spirits were low and her face showed depression when shemounted the broad stone steps of the physician's city office andresidence, but when she came down the look had changed to a kind offrozen fright.

  She had not felt like herself for weeks, but she did not dream that itwas anything which time and a little medicine would not cure. Now, hehad told her that she must leave the city--stop her work at once.

  He advised the South or West--particularly the West--some place where itwas high and dry. How lovely--and so simple! Just stop work and start!Why didn't he say St. Petersburg or the Arctic circle. With no incomesave what she earned from week to week they were equally impossible.

  She had come in time, he had assured her, but she must not delay. Filledwith consternation, sick with dread and horror of what she saw beforeher, Helen walked slowly to her hotel, the shabby place where she hadfound board and lodging within her means. She loathed it, everythingabout it--its faded tawdry splendor, the flashy, egotistical theatricalfolk who frequented it, the salaried mediocrities who were "permanent"like herself, the pretentious, badly cooked food; but as she climbed theyellowish marble steps she thought despairingly that even this would bebeyond her reach some day.

  If only Freddie were alive! There was a lump in her throat as sheremoved her hat and looked at her pale face in the old-fashioned bureaumirror in her room. She might have gone to him in such an emergency asthis--she had saved money enough to have managed that. He had been a badson and an utterly indifferent brother, but surely he would not haveturned her out.

  Her shoulders drooped and two tears slipped from beneath her lashes asshe sat on the edge of her narrow bed with her hands lying passively inher lap. Tears were so weak and futile in a world where only actioncounted that it was seldom they ever reached her eyes, though theysometimes came close.

  Practical as Helen's life had made her in most things, she was stillyoung enough to build high hopes on a romantic improbability. Andnothing was more improbable than that "Slim" Naudain, even if he hadlived, ever would have returned to make amends.

  But she had thrown the glamour of romance about her scapegrace brotherfrom the day he had flung out of the house in ignominy, boasting withthe arrogance of inexperience that he would succeed and come backtriumphant, to fill them with envy and chagrin. She never had heard fromhim directly since, but she had kept her childish, unreasoning faiththat he would make good his boast and compensate her for her share ofthe fortune which it had cost to save him from his evil deeds.

  She had not realized until Sprudell had told her of his death howstrongly she had counted upon him. He was the only one left to her ofher own blood, and had been the single means of escape that she couldsee from the exhausting, uncongenial grind and the long, lonely hours inthe shabby hotel when her work was done. If the future had looked darkand hopeless before, how much worse it seemed with illness staring herin the face!

  The money Freddie had left her would have gone a long way toward thevacation after she had used the larger part of it to pay off along-standing obligation which her mother had incurred. The thought ofthe money reminded her of the letter and photograph. She brushed her wetcheeks with her hand and getting up took the soiled and yellowingenvelope from the bureau drawer, wondering again why his murderer hadsent it back.

  The quick tears came once more as she read the ingenuous scrawl! Whatcenturies ago it seemed since she had written that! She bit her lip hardbut in spite of herself she cried--for her lost illusions--for hermother--for that optimistic outlook upon life which never would comeback. She had learned much since that smiling "pitcher" was taken--what"mortgages" mean, for instance--that poverty has more depressing depthsthan the lack of servants and horses, and that "marrying well," as sheinterpreted a successful marriage then, is seldom--outside of "fictionand Pittsburgh"--for the girl who earns her own living. Young men whoinherit incomes or older men of affairs do not look in shops and officesfor their wives. Helen Dunbar had no hallucinations on this score.

  Propinquity, clothes, social backing, the necessary adjunc
ts to"marrying well," had not been among her advantages for many years. Thereremained on her horizon only the friendly youths of mediocre attainmentsthat she met in her daily life. She liked them individually andcollectively in business, but socially, outside of the office, they madeno appeal.

  Ill-health was a misfortune she never had considered. It was a newspectre, the worst of all. If one were well one could always dosomething even without much talent, but helpless, dependent--the dreadwhich filled her as she walked up and down the narrow confines of herroom was different from the vague fears of the inexperienced. Hers camefrom actual knowledge and observation obtained in the wide scope of hernewspaper life. The sordid straits which reduce existence to a matter offood and a roof, the ceaseless anxiety destroying every vestige ofpersonal charm, the necessity of asking for loans that both borrowerand lender know to be gifts--grudgingly given--accepted in mingledbitterness and relief--Helen Dunbar had seen it all. The pictures whichrose before her were real. In her nervous state she imagined herselfsome day envying even Mae Smith, who at least had health andirrepressible spirits.

  But there must be no more tears, she told herself at last. They were aconfession of weakness, they dissipated courage; and the handkerchiefwhich had been a moist ball dried in her hot hand. She said aloud to herflushed reflection in the glass:

  "Well," determinedly, "I've never thought myself a coward and I won'tact like one now. There's been many a thousand before me gone throughthis experience without whining and I guess I can do the same. Until I'ma sure enough down-and-outer I'll do the best I can. I must find acheaper room and buy an oil-stove. Ugh! the first step on the downgrade."

  There was a rap upon the door and she lowered the shade a little so thatthe bell-boy with her evening paper should not see her reddened eyes.Instead of the paper he carried a long pasteboard box.

  Flowers? How extraordinary--perhaps Peters; no, not Peters, as she readthe name of a side street florist on the box, he was not to be suspectedof any such economy as that. Roses--a dozen--a little too full blown tolast very long but lovely. T. Victor Sprudell's card fell out as shetook them from the box.