The Fifth Wheel (Prouty)/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII
VAN DE VERE'S
VAN DE VERE'S was a unique shop. It had grown from a single ill-lighted sort of studio into a very smart and beautifully equipped establishment, conveniently located in the shopping district. It looked like a private house, had been, originally. There were no show windows. The door-plate bore simply the sign V. de V's. A maid in black and white met you at the door (you had to ring), and while she went to summon Miss Van de Vere or her assistant, you were asked to be seated in a reception-room, done in black and white stripes.
Virginia Van de Vere was as unique as her shop. She wore long, loose clinging gowns, with heavy, silver chains clanking about her neck or waist. She wore an enormous ring on her forefinger. Her hair, done very low and parted, covered both her ears. It was black, so were her eyes. She hadn't any color. She led a smart and fashionable life outside business hours, going out to dinner a good deal (I had seen her once at Mrs. Sewall's) and making an impression with free and daring speech. She lived in a gorgeous apartment of her own, and for diversion had adopted a little curly-headed Greek boy, for whom she engaged the services of a French nurse. She was very temperamental.
Mrs. Scot-Williams had found Virginia Van de Vere some half dozen years before, languishing in the ill-lighted studio, on the verge of shutting up shop and going home for want of patronage. It was just that kind of talented girl that Mrs. Scot-Williams liked to help and encourage. She established Virginia Van de Vere.
Mrs. Scot-Williams is a philanthropic woman, and enormously wealthy. Her pet charity is what she calls "the little-business woman." New York is filled with small industries run by women, in this loft, or that shop—clever women, too, talented, many of them, and it is to that class that Mrs. Scot-Williams devotes herself. She takes keen delight in studying the tricks and secrets of business success. When some young woman to whom she has lent capital to start a cake and candy shop complains of dull trade, or a little French corsetier finds her customers falling off, Mrs. Scot-Williams likes to investigate the difficulties and suggest remedies—more advertising, a better location, a new superintendent in the workshop, one thing or another—perhaps even a little more capital, which, if she lends and loses it, she simply puts down under the head of charity in her distribution of expenses.
I had occurred to Mrs. Scot-Williams as a possible means for improving conditions at Van de Vere's. Miss Van de Vere possessed so highly a developed artistic temperament that her manner sometimes antagonized. Her assistant's duty, therefore, would be that of a cleverly constructed fly, concealing beneath tact and pretty manners ("and pretty gowns, my dear," added Mrs. Scot-Williams) a hook to catch reluctant customers.
I was fitted for such a position. I had been used as bait before, for other kind of fish. I purchased my fine feathers. Within a fortnight after my interview with Mrs. Scot-Williams, I was cast upon the waters.
There was no jealousy between Virginia Van de Vere and me. Beauty to her was something pulsing and alive. If any one suggested marring it, it tortured her. I was not so sensitive. The result was, I took charge of the customers who mentioned leatherette dens and Moorish libraries, and Virginia's genius was spared injury. She loved me for it. We worked beautifully together.
Van de Vere's was my great chance. It was indeed my pot of gold. I had always loved beautiful things, and here I was in the midst of their creating! Heaven had been kind. The joy of waking in the morning to a day of congenial work, setting forth to labor that was constructing for me a trade of my own, was like a daily tonic. I was very happy, full of ambition. I used to lie awake nights planning how I could make myself able and efficient. I discovered a course I could take evenings in Design and Interior Architecture, and I took advantage of it. I read volumes at the library on period furniture and decorating. I haunted antique shops. I perused articles on good salesmanship. Mornings I was up with the birds (the pigeons, that is) and half-way to my place of business by eight o'clock. It agreed with me. I grew fat on it. I regained the pounds of flesh that I had lost at the hospital with prodigious speed. Color came back to my cheeks, song to my lips.
Esther's book actually towered. It wasn't necessary for her to keep her position in the publishing house any longer. It wasn't necessary for her to conceal from me the price of our room. My salary was generous, and with Esther's little income we were rich indeed. We could drink all the egg-nogs we wanted to. We could even fare on chicken and green vegetables occasionally. We could buy one of Rosa's paintings for twenty-five dollars, and lend fifteen, now and then, if one of the girls was in a tight place. We could afford to canvass for suffrage for nothing. We could engage a bungalow for two or three weeks at the sea next year.
As soon as I felt that my success at Van de Vere's was assured, I wrote to my family and asked them to drop in and see me. The first of the family to arrive was Edith, one day in February. Isabel, the maid, announced Mrs. Alexander Vars to me. I sent down for her to come up.
The second floor of Van de Vere's looks almost like a private house—a dining-room with a fine old sideboard, bedroom hung with English chintz, a living-room with books and low lamps—sample rooms, of course, all of them, but with very little of the atmosphere of shop or warehouse.
I met Edith in the living-room.
"Hello, Edith," I said. She looked just the same, very modish, in some brand-new New York clothes, I suppose.
"Toots!" she exclaimed, and put both arms about me and kissed me. Then to cover up a little sign of mistiness in her eyes that would show, she exclaimed, "You're just as good-looking as ever. I declare you are!"
"So are you, too, Edith!" I said, misty-eyed, too, for some reason. I had fought, bled and died with Edith once.
"Oh, no, I'm not. I've got a streak of gray right up the front."
"Really? Well, it doesn't show one bit," I quavered, and then, "It's terribly good to see some one from home."
Edith got out her handkerchief.
"I, for one, just hate squabbles," she announced.
And "So do I," I agreed.
Later we sat down together on the sofa. She looked around curiously.
"What sort of a place is this, anyhow?" she asked in old, characteristic frankness. "I didn't know what I was getting into. It seems sort of—I don't know—not quite—not quite—I feel as if I might be shut up in here and not let out."
I laughed. Later I took her up to our showrooms on the top floor.
"Good heavens, do you sell people things, Ruth?" she demanded.
"Of course I do," I assured her.
"Just the same as over a counter almost?"
"Yes—not much difference."
"But don't you feel—oh, dear—that seems so queer—what is your social position?"
"Oh, I don't know. I've cut loose from all that."
"I know, but still you've got to think about the future. For instance, how would we feel if Malcolm wrote he was going to marry a clerk—or somebody like that—or a manicurist?"
"If she had education to match his—I should think it was very nice."
"Oh, no, you wouldn't. That's talk. Most people wouldn't anyhow. You are awfully queer, Ruth. You aren't a bit like anybody I know. Don't you sometimes feel hungry for relations with people of your own class? Friendly relations, I mean? Something different from the relations of a clerk to a customer? I would. You are just queer." Then suddenly she exclaimed, "Who's that?"
Virginia had passed through the room.
"Oh, that's Virginia. That's Miss Van de Vere."
"My dear," said Edith, impressed, "she was a guest at Mrs. Sewall's once, when you were out West. She's so striking! I saw her at the station when she arrived—Van de Vere—yes, that was the name. It was in the paper. They spoke of her as a talented artist. Everybody was just crazy about her in Hilton. She was at Mrs. Sewall's two weeks. She was reported engaged to a duke Mrs. Sewall had hanging around. I remember distinctly. What is she doing around here?"
"Why, she and I run this establishment," I announced.
"Good heavens! Does she sell people things?"
"Why, of course, Edith, why not?"
"Well—of all things! I don't know what we're coming to. I should think England would call us barbarians. Why, in England, even a man who is in trade has a hard time getting into society. But do introduce me to her if there's a chance before I go."
Later Edith exclaimed, "By the way, my dear, you'll be interested to know I've turned suffrage."
"How did that happen?"
"Of course I wouldn't march or anything like that, and I think militancy is simply awful, but you'd be surprised how popular suffrage is getting at home. I gave a bridge in interest of it. Lots of prominent people are taking it up. Look here," she broke off abruptly, "when can you come up for a Sunday? I'm just crazy to get hold of you and have a good old talk."
"Oh, almost any time. I'm anxious to see nice old Hilton again."
"Well, we must plan it. How would you like to bring that Miss Van de Vere? In the spring when the summer people get here. She has quite a number of admirers among them. I'd just love to give you a little tea or something."
Same old Edith! A wave of tenderness swept over me for her—faults and all. "Of course we'll come," I laughed. "I'll arrange it."
I knew in a flash that I should never quarrel with my sister-in-law again. She was no more to blame than a child with a taste for sweets. Why feel bitterness and rancor? She was only a victim of her environment after all. My tenderness—was a revelation. I hadn't realized that tolerance had been part of my soul's growth—tolerance even toward the principles from which I had once fled in righteous indignation.
Tom dropped in at Van de Vere's some time in the spring.
"Looks like a woman's business," he almost sneered, critically surveying the striped walls of the reception-room; and later, "Impractical and affected, I call it," he said. "If I was building a house I'd steer clear of any such place as this."
"Wait a minute," I replied pleasantly. "Come with me," and I took Tom into the well-lighted rooms at the rear, where our workers were engaged, at the time, on a rush order. "Does that look affected, Tom?" I asked. "Every one of those girls is living a decent and self-respecting life, many of them are helping in their family finances; and besides, the few stockholders of Van de Vere's are going to get a ten per cent dividend on their holdings next year. Does that strike you as impractical and affected, too?"
Tom looked at me, shut his mouth very tight, and shook his head. "I suppose all this takes the place of babies in your life. It wouldn't satisfy some women ten minutes. Elise wouldn't give up one of her babies for a business paying thirty per cent."
"But Tom," I replied calmly. "We all can't marry. Some of us"
"You could have. This is not natural. 'Tisn't according to nature. No, sir. Abnormal. Down here in New York living like a man. What do you want to copy men for? Why don't you devote yourself to becoming an ideal woman, Ruth? That's what I want to know. I don't approve of this sort of thing at all."
I felt no anger. I felt no impulse to strike back. I had reached such an elevation on my mountain of Self-discovery, as Esther would have put it, that I commanded vision at last. Tom and his ideas did not obstruct my progress, like the huge blow-down that he had once been in my way, against which I had blindly beaten my fists raw. I had found my way around Tom. I could look down now and see him in correct proportion to other objects in the world about me. I saw from my height that such obstructions as Tom could be circumvented—a path worn around him, as more and more girls pursued the way I had chosen. I looked down and perceived, already, girls trooping after me. There was no use hacking away at Tom any more. Nature herself removes blow-downs on mountain-trails in time, by a process of slow rot and disintegration. When time accomplishes the same with the Toms of the world then we shan't need even to walk around. We can walk over!
So, "I know you don't approve, Tom," I replied almost gently, "and there's truth in what you say—that women are made to run homes and families, instead of businesses, most of them. Of course Elise wouldn't give up one of her babies! She's one of the 'most-of-them.' How are the babies anyway?"