Priceless Pearl — Chapter I Part 2

And so Pearl began once again to go the round of agencies, to interview or be interviewed by office managers, and hear that if she came back in October there might be a chance.

But October was three months away, and she could not live three months on something less than a hundred dollars.

She even began to scan the columns of the newspapers--from clerks, through stenographers, ushers, and finally winders--she never found out what winders were.

If her dear friend and sage adviser, Augusta Exeter, had been in town she could have shared her room; but Augusta was in Vermont, visiting the family of the man she was going to marry.

At least, Augusta's last letter had been from Vermont; but as a matter of fact, three days after Pearl left the Encyclopedia's employ Augusta came back to New York.

She had had a letter from the agency where her name was registered practically offering a position which sounded too good to refuse.

Besides, Augusta did not really like farm life in Vermont, and the Baynes family, for some reason which she could not explain, gave her a composite picture of Horace, her fiancé, which tended to make her love him less.

Even New York in midsummer was preferable.

Therefore it happened that as Pearl wandered, lonely as a cloud, from office to office, longing for her friend's wisdom, Augusta herself was sitting in the outer office of a company, looking for a job.

Though the office was that of the Finlay-Wood Engineering Co. , the position which Miss Augusta Exeter was considering was that of a governess.

She was not at all sure that she wanted the place.

College women are not well disposed toward positions as governesses; yet as Miss Exeter sat there in the busy outer office and watched the office boys coming in and out, and the impassive young woman at the switchboard, enunciating again and again, "Finlay-Wood Company," "Hold the wire," she went over the advantages of this offer--a high salary, the two hottest months of the summer at Southampton, and the fact that as she was to be married in October, she could not take a long-time position in any case.

Mr. Wood's secretary, with whom so far all the negotiations had been carried on, had impressed upon her the necessity of being punctual--"eleven precisely," he had said, for it seemed Mr. Wood was going to Mexico that afternoon.

And so Augusta, who was punctual by nature, had found herself in the office ten minutes ahead of time.

She sat listening to the telephone girl and watching a door which bore the simple inscription, "Mr. Wood."

And just behind that door a tall sunburned man in the neighborhood of thirty was standing, slapping the pockets of his blue serge clothes and saying, "Griggs, I have a feeling I've forgotten something.

What is it I've forgotten, Griggs?"

The desk was as bare as a desk ought to be when its owner is going away for two months.

Griggs ran his eye proudly over it.

"No, Mr. Wood," he said.

"I don't think anything has been forgotten.

Nothing was left except the letter to the President, the Spanish dictionary and the Mexican currency.

All that has been attended to."

He consulted a list held in the palm of his hand.

"It was something of my own," said Wood, and he eyed his secretary with an air that might have appeared stern but was merely concentrated, when the door opened and the office boy came in and said, "Miss Stone says she's notified him that there's a lady there to see him, and will we let her in to him?"

"A lady?"

said Griggs severely.

"That's it," said Wood.

"It's the governess for my sister.

Think of my nearly forgetting that!"

"You ought not be worried about such things," said Griggs, as if he were very bitter about it, "with all your responsibilities."

Wood smiled.

It wasn't true, but it was the way one's secretary ought to feel.

"I'd have a lot more to worry me," he said, "if I were married myself."

"You certainly would," answered Griggs, who was married.

"But will we let her in to him?"

said the office boy, who clung to this formula, although the head clerk was trying to break him of it.

"You may let her come in," said Griggs, as if he would perish rather than allow his chief to hold verbal communication with anything so low as an office boy, and as he spoke he silently gave Wood a pale-blue card--one of a dozen on which in beautiful block letters he had written down the names, degrees, past experience, with notes on personal appearance, of all the candidates for position of governess in the household of Wood's sister, Mrs. Conway.

"This is the best of them?"

said Wood, and he ran his eye rapidly over the card, which read: "Augusta Exeter, A. B.

Rutland College; Ph.

D.

, Columbia University, specialized in mathematics and household management."

He looked up.

"Queer combination, isn't it?"

"I thought it was just what you wanted," answered Griggs reproachfully.

"Nothing queerer than that," said Wood, and went on: "Six-month dietary expert--one year training--appearance, pleasing."

He glanced at his secretary.

It amused him to think of the discreet Griggs appraising the appearance of these young women.

"What system did you mark them on, Griggs?"

he asked, but got no further, for the door opened and Miss Exeter entered, and Griggs, with his unfailing discretion, left.

Wood looked at her and saw that Griggs as usual had been exactly right--she was neither more nor less than pleasing--a small, slim, pale girl, whose unremarkable brown eyes radiated a steady intelligence.

Wood had employed labor in many parts of the world, from Chile to China, and he had a routine about it--a preliminary intelligence test, which he applied.

"Sit down, Miss Exeter," he said.

"I think it will save us both time if you will tell me all that you know about this position"--this was the test--"and then I'll fill in."

Augusta sat down.

She found herself a trifle nervous.

This man impressed her, for since her childhood she had cherished a secret romantic admiration for men who exercised any form of power--kings and generals and men of great affairs.

It was a feeling that had nothing to do with real life and represented no disloyalty to her fiancé, Horace Bayne, who exercised no power of any kind.

One reason why it had had no relation to life was that she had not met any men of this type.

Even in the outer office she had been impressed by the sense of a man waited on and protected by secretaries and office boys as an Eastern princess is waited upon by slaves.

And now when she saw him she saw that he had exactly the type of looks she admired most--tall, a little too thin, his face tanned to that shade of _café au lait_ that the blond Anglo-Saxon acquires under the sun--those piercing bright-blue eyes--that large handsome hand, which, with the thumb in his waistcoat pocket, was so clearly outlined against the blue serge of his clothes.

She said rather uncertainly, "I know that Mrs. Conway is a widow with three children----" Even this much was wrong.

"Not, a widow," he said; "divorced."

"----with three children," Augusta went on; "a girl of seventeen, a boy of fifteen and a little girl of eleven.

I know that during your absence you want someone to take the care and responsibility of the children off your sister's shoulders."

He smiled--his teeth seemed to have the extraordinary whiteness that is the compensation of a dark skin.

"I see," he said, "that Griggs has been discreet again."

He glanced at his watch.

"I'm going to Mexico in a few hours, Miss Exeter.

I

have just twenty-five minutes.

If in that time I am not thoroughly indiscreet I can't look to you for any help.

The situation is this: My sister married Gordon Conway when she was very young--eighteen; he turned out to be a gambler.

I don't know whether you've ever known any gamblers"--Miss Exeter never had--"but they are a peculiar breed--the real ones--charming--friendly--gay--open-handed when they are winning;

they become the most inhuman devils in the world when they are losing.

Never get tied up to a gambler.

During my poor sister's romance and marriage Conway was winning--large sums--on the races.

But that stopped a month or so after their marriage, and ever since then, as far as I know, he has lost--in stocks, at Monte Carlo, and finally at every little gambling casino in Europe.

After about six years of it we managed to get her a divorce.

She has entire control of the children, of course.

Conway has sunk out of sight.

Oh, once in a while he turns up and tries to get a little money from her, but fortunately what little she inherited from my father came to her after her divorce, or otherwise he'd have managed to get it away from her.

She's very generous--weak--whichever you call it.

One of the things I'm going to ask you to do is to prevent her seeing him at all, and certainly prevent her letting him have any money.

Though it isn't likely to happen.

I believe he's abroad.

"The great point is the children.

I'm sorry to say that it seems to me my sister is ruining three naturally fine children as rapidly as a devoted mother can.

Of course, many parents are over indulgent, but my sister not only indulges her children but gives them at the same time the conviction that they are such interesting and special types that none of the ordinary rules apply to them.

The elder girl, Dorothy, is a pretty, commonplace American girl--no fault to find with her except that her mother treats her as if she were an empress.

If, for instance, her mother keeps her waiting five minutes she behaves as if she were an exiled queen faced by treachery among her dependents--won't speak to her mother perhaps for a day.

And if I say--which I oughtn't to do, for it's no use--'Isn't Dorothy a trifle insolent?'

my sister answers, 'I'm so delighted to see that she isn't growing up with the inferiority complex that I had as a girl.'

The boy is a perfectly straight manly boy, but he smokes constantly--at fifteen--and when I criticize him my sister says before him, 'Well, Anthony, you know you smoke yourself.

I

can't very well tell Durland it's a crime.

Besides, I have the theory that if he smokes enough now he'll be tired of it by the time he grows up.'

" "But that isn't sound," said Miss Exeter, quite shocked at the sketch she was hearing.

"Habits formed in youth----" "Of course it isn't sound," said Wood.

"And as a matter of fact, my sister never thought of it until I objected.

She evolves these theories merely for the sake of protecting her children.

Oddly enough, she not only doesn't want to change them herself but she doesn't want any one else to change them.

Three years ago I engaged in a life-and-death struggle with her to get Durland--the boy--to boarding school.

She advanced the following arguments against it: First, that he was a perfectly normal, manly boy and did not need to go; second, that he was of a peculiar, artistic, sensitive temperament and would be wrecked by being made to conform to boarding-school standards; third, that none of the successful men of the country had gone to boarding school;

fourth, that success was the last thing she desired for any son of hers; fifth, that she did not wish to remove him from the benefits of my daily influence; and sixth, that I was a person of no judgment and absolutely wrong about its being wise for a boy to go to school."

"And is he at school?"

Miss Exeter inquired politely.

"Oh, yes," answered Wood, without seeing anything amusing in her question.

"Although my sister does a good deal to counteract the effect--by making fun of the teachers and the rules, and always bringing him, when she goes to visit him, whatever is specially forbidden, like candy and cigarettes and extra pocket money.

You see, that's where it's going to be hard for you.

She not only doesn't want to discipline them herself but she's against any person or institution that tries to do it for her.

As soon as you begin to accomplish anything with the children--as I'm sure you will do--she'll be against you; she'll want you to go."

"That makes it pretty hopeless, doesn't it?"

said Miss Exeter.

He shook his head briskly.

"No," he said; "for I have made her promise that she won't send you away, no matter what happens, until I get back.

I know what was in her mind when she gave the promise--that she could make it so unpleasant for you that you'd go of your own accord.

So, Miss Exeter, I want you to promise me that you won't go, no matter how disagreeable she makes it----" "Oh, Mr. Wood, I couldn't do that," said Augusta.

"There's no use in going at all otherwise," he said.

"Oh, come, be a sport!

I'll make it worth while.

I'll give you a bonus of five hundred dollars if you're still on the job when I get back--or I'll bring you a turquoise--I'm going down to inspect the best mine in the world.

You see, I feel this means the whole future of those children--to be with a woman like you.

I know you could do with them just what I want done."

"You may be mistaken about that, Mr. Wood."

"I may be, but I'm not."

The blue eyes fixed themselves on her.

She said to herself that it was the five hundred dollars--so desirable for a trousseau--that turned the scale, but the blue eyes and the compliment had something to do with her decision.

"It seems a reckless thing to promise," she murmured with a weak laugh.

"No, not at all.

I wouldn't let you do anything reckless."

He spoke as a kindly grandfather might speak.

"And now we have ten minutes left, and I want to talk to you about the little one--Antonia."

His face softened, and after a slight struggle he yielded to a smile.

"The truth is," he said, "that she's much my favorite.

She's intelligent and honest, and the justest person of any age or sex that I ever knew in my life."

He paused a second.

"Perhaps it is because I'm fonder of her than of the other two, but it seems to me my sister is particularly unwise about Antonia."

His mind went back to his parting the evening before with this small niece.

He and his sister had been sitting on the piazza of the house they had taken at Southampton--at least she had taken it and he had paid for it.

Only a few yards away the Atlantic, in one of its placid lakelike moods, was hissing slowly up and down on the sand.

The struggle about a governess had been going on for several weeks.

So far Mrs. Conway had won, for this was his last evening and none had been engaged.

She had a wonderful method for dealing with her brother--a method to be commended to all weak people trying to get the maximum of interest and the minimum of control from stronger natures.

She listened to everything he said as if she were wholly convinced by his words and intended to follow his advice to the last detail, and then she went away and did just what she had always meant to do.

If he reproached her she looked at him wonderingly and said: "But, Anthony dear, I did agree with you at the time; but afterward, when I came to think----" Oh, how well he knew that dread phrase, "afterward, when I came to think!"

By these methods she had managed to fend off action for three weeks, agreeing with him most cordially that the children ought to have a governess, but thinking, after he had gone to New York for the week, that it would be nice for them to take French lessons with that charming French lady in the village, or that perhaps the Abernathys' governess would come over for an hour a day---- And now on his last evening he had outmaneuvered her by announcing that he was interviewing candidates the next morning before he took his train, and would send her the best.

"I'm sure it's very kind of you to take all this trouble, Tony," she said.

"Don't send me anyone too hideous, will you?"

"Griggs describes the young woman I have in mind as of pleasing appearance."

"That means perfectly hideous."

"You wouldn't want a prize beauty, would you?"

"Certainly I would.

I like to have lovely things about me.

I suppose you think that's idiotic."

He assured her that he never thought her idiotic--at least not unintentionally--and went on to obtain the famous pledge--the promise that she would keep the governess he sent her until his return in September.

She agreed finally, partly because it was getting late and she was sleepy, partly because she reflected that there were more ways of getting rid of governesses than by sending them away.

"I'm so sleepy," she said, yawning, "and yet I don't quite like to go to bed until Antonia comes in."

"Antonia?"

said Wood.

"I thought she went to bed at nine."

It appeared that Antonia had formed the habit lately of sleeping on the beach--at least for the earlier part of the night--just digging a hole and curling up there.

Her mother thought it an interesting, primitive, healthy sort of instinct.

"And yet," she added thoughtfully, as if she knew she were a little finicky, "I don't like to lock up the house until she comes in."

"I think you're right," said her brother.

These were the things that terrified him so--a little girl out in the blackness of that beach in her pajamas.

How could he go to Mexico and leave her?

He rose and went to the edge of the piazza, which rested on the dunes.

He could see nothing but the stars.

"Shall I call her?"

he said.

"I hate to wake her; but--yes, just give a call."

He shouted, and in a few seconds a faint, cheerful hullo reached them, and a little figure appeared over the dunes.

"Were you asleep, darling?"

said her mother.

"No, I was swimming," said Antonia.

She stepped within the circle of light from the windows, and Wood could see that her dark curly hair was plastered to her head, and her pajamas clung to her like tissue paper.

"I love to swim at night," she said.

"It makes you feel like a spirit."

She shared her more important thoughts with her uncle.

Then, turning to her mother, she advanced toward her with outstretched arms as if to clasp her in a wet embrace.

"Look out for your mother's dress," said Wood, for Edna Conway was as usual perfectly dressed in white.

She smiled at him and took the child to her breast.

"Dear Anthony," she said, "if you were married you'd know that a woman loves her children better than her clothes."

He was silent, wondering if she knew how much she had had to do with the fact that he wasn't married.

He had no taste for masculine women, and yet Edna had made him distrustful of all femininity which sooner or later developed the sweet obstinacy, the clinging pig-headedness, the subtle ability, under the idiotic coyness of a kitten, to get its own way.

Well off and physically attractive, he had not been neglected by women, but always sooner or later it had seemed to him that he had seen the dread shadow of kittenishness.

Cattishness he could have borne, but the kitten in woman disgusted him.

"And, dearest," his sister was saying to her daughter, "you won't go to bed in your wet things, will you?"

Antonia shook her finger at her mother.

"Now don't begin to be fussy," she said, not impudently, but as one equal gives advice to another.

Yet even this mild suggestion of reproof was painful to Edna.

She turned to her brother and said passionately, "I'm not fussy, am I?

I don't see how you can say that, Antonia.

It's only that your uncle wouldn't close an eye if he thought you were sleeping in damp pajamas;

would you, Anthony?"

And she laughed gayly.

This was one of her most irritating ways--to pretend that she was just a wild thing like the children, but that to oblige some stuffy older person she was forced to ask the children to conform.

"I might close an eye, at that," said Anthony.

The whole incident had finally decided him to take the prospective governess entirely into his confidence.

He had thought at first it would be more honorable to let her discover the situation for herself, but now he saw that she would need not only all his knowledge of the situation but the full conviction that he was backing her, whatever she did.

He became convinced of this even before he saw Miss Exeter.

Having seen her, he had no further hesitation.

He thought her as sensible a person as he had ever met.

She sat there in the hard north light of his office, noting down now and then a few words in a little black notebook.

She was not only sensible--she was to be depended on.

"The truth is," he said, "that Antonia, not to put too fine a point on it, is not personally clean."

Miss Exeter smiled, for to her mind the tone of agony in his voice was exaggerated.

"But at a certain age no children are," she said.

"But most children are forced to be, and my sister lets this child run wild, so that people talk about it.

I suppose I oughtn't to mind so much," he said, looking at her rather wistfully; "but you can't imagine how I hate to think that people discuss Antonia's being dirty.

And all my sister says is that she's so glad the child isn't vain.

Oh, Miss Exeter, if you could get Antonia dressed like a nice, well brought up little girl I think I'd do anything in the world for you."

She promised that too.

In fact, by the time she finally left the office and was on her way uptown, late for an engagement she had with Horace Bayne, she was alarmed to remember how many things she had promised--not only to stay until he came back but to write to him every day, a long report of just what had happened in the family and what her impressions of it were.

"Not letters," he had said, "because I shan't answer them; but reports--reports on my family, as I am going to make a report on this mine."