The Bookkeepers Wife
By Willa Cather
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Nobody but the janitor was stirring about the offices of
the Remsen Paper Company, and still Percy Bixby sat at
his desk, crouched on his high stool and staring out at the
tops of the tall buildings flushed with the winter sunset, at the
hundreds of windows, so many rectangles of white electric
light, flashing against the broad waves of violet that ebbed
across the sky. His ledgers were all in their places, his desk
was in order, his office coat on its peg, and yet Percys
smooth, thin face wore the look of anxiety and strain which
usually meant that he was behind in his work. He was trying
to persuade himself to accept a loan from the company without
the companys knowledge. As a matter of fact, he had
already accepted it. His books were fixed, the money, in
a black-leather bill-book, was already inside his waistcoat
pocket.
He had still time to change his mind, to rectify the false
figures in his ledger, and to tell Stella Brown that they
couldnt possibly get married next month. There he always
halted in his reasoning, and went back to the beginning.
The Remsen Paper Company was a very wealthy concern,
with easy, old-fashioned working methods. They did a longtime
credit business with safe customers, who never thought
of paying up very close on their large indebtedness. From the
payments on these large accounts Percy had taken a hundred
dollars here and two hundred there until he had made up the
thousand he needed. So long as he stayed by the books himself
and attended to the mail-orders he couldnt possibly be
found out. He could move these little shortages about from
account to account indefinitely. He could have all the time he
needed to pay back the deficit, and more time than he needed.
Although he was so far along in one course of action, his
mind still clung resolutely to the other. He did not believe he
was going to do it. He was the least of a sharper in the world.
Being scrupulously honest even in the most trifling matters
was a pleasure to him. He was the sort of young man that
Socialists hate more than they hate capitalists. He loved his
desk, he loved his books, which had no handwriting in them
but his own. He never thought of resenting the fact that he
had written away in those books the good red years between
twenty-one and twenty-seven. He would have hated to let any
one else put so much as a pen-scratch in them. He liked all
the boys about the office; his desk, worn smooth by the
sleeves of his alpaca coat; his rulers and inks and pens and
calendars. He had a great pride in working economics, and he
always got so far ahead when supplies were distributed that
he had drawers full of pencils and pens and rubber bands
against a rainy day.
Percy liked regularity: to get his work done on time, to
have his half-day off every Saturday, to go to the theater Saturday
night, to buy a new necktie twice a month, to appear in
a new straw hat on the right day in May, and to know what
was going on in New York. He read the morning and evening
papers coming and going on the elevated, and preferred journals
of approximate reliability. He got excited about ballgames
and elections and business failures, was not above an
interest in murders and divorce scandals, and he checked the
news off as neatly as he checked his mail-orders. In short,
Percy Bixby was like the model pupil who is satisfied with his
lessons and his teachers and his holidays, and who would
gladly go to school all his life. He had never wanted anything
outside his routine until he wanted Stella Brown to marry
him, and that had upset everything.
It wasnt, he told himself for the hundredth time, that she
was extravagant. Not a bit of it. She was like all girls. Moreover,
she made good money, and why should she marry unless
she could better herself? The trouble was that he had lied
to her about his salary. There were a lot of fellows rushing
Mrs. Browns five daughters, and they all seemed to have fixed
on Stella as first choice and this or that one of the sisters as
second. Mrs. Brown thought it proper to drop an occasional
hint in the presence of these young men to the effect that she
expected Stella to do well. It went without saying that hair
and complexion like Stellas could scarcely be expected to
do poorly. Most of the boys who went to the house and took
the girls out in a bunch to dances and movies seemed to realize
this. They merely wanted a whirl with Stella before they
settled down to one of her sisters. It was tacitly understood
that she came too high for them. Percy had sensed all this
through those slumbering instincts which awake in us all to
befriend us in love or in danger.
But there was one of his rivals, he knew, who was a man to
be reckoned with. Charley Greengay was a young salesman
who wore tailor-made clothes and spotted waistcoats, and
had a necktie for every day in the month. His air was that of a
young man who is out for things that come high and who is
going to get them. Mrs. Brown was ever and again dropping
a word before Percy about how the girl that took Charley
would have her flat furnished by the best furniture people,
and her china-closet stocked with the best ware, and would
have nothing to worry about but nicks and scratches. It was
because he felt himself pitted against this pulling power of
Greengays that Percy had brazenly lied to Mrs. Brown, and
told her that his salary had been raised to fifty a week, and
that now he wanted to get married.
When he threw out this challenge to Mother Brown, Percy
was getting thirty-five dollars a week, and he knew well
enough that there were several hundred thousand young men
in New York who would do his work as well as he did for
thirty.
These were the factors in Percys present situation. He
went over them again and again as he sat stooping on his tall
stool. He had quite lost track of time when he heard the janitor
call good night to the watchman. Without thinking what
he was doing, he slid into his overcoat, caught his hat, and
rushed out to the elevator, which was waiting for the janitor.
The moment the car dropped, it occurred to him that the
thing was decided without his having made up his mind at all.
The familiar floors passed him, ten, nine, eight, seven. By the
time he reached the fifth, there was no possibility of going
back; the click of the drop-lever seemed to settle that. The
money was in his pocket. Now, he told himself as he hurried
out into the exciting clamor of the street, he was not going to
worry about it any more.
When Percy reached the Browns flat on 123d Street that
evening he felt just the slightest chill in Stellas greeting. He
could make that all right, he told himself, as he kissed her
lightly in the dark three-by-four entrance-hall. Percys courting
had been prosecuted mainly in the Bronx or in winged
pursuit of a Broadway car. When he entered the crowded
sitting-room he greeted Mrs. Brown respectfully and the four
girls playfully. They were all piled on one couch, reading the
continued story in the evening paper, and they didnt think it
necessary to assume more formal attitudes for Percy. They
looked up over the smeary pink sheets of paper, and handed
him, as Percy said, the same old jolly:
Hullo, Perc! Come to see me, aint you? So flattered!
Any sweet goods on you, Perc? Anything doing in the
bong-bong line to-night?
Look at his new neckwear! Say, Perc, remember me. That
tie would go lovely with my new tailored waist.
Quit your kiddin, girls! called Mrs. Brown, who was
drying shirt-waists on the dining-room radiator. And, Percy,
mind the rugs when youre steppin round among them gum-drops.
Percy fired his last shot at the recumbent figures, and
followed Stella into the dining-room, where the table and
two large easy-chairs formed, in Mrs. Browns estimation, a
proper background for a serious suitor.
I say, Stell, he began as he walked about the table with
his hands in his pockets, seems to me we ought to begin
buying our stuff. She brightened perceptibly. Ah, Percy
thought, so that was the trouble! To-morrows Saturday;
why cant we make an afternoon of it? he went on cheerfully.
Shop till were tired, then go to Houtins for dinner, and
end up at the theater.
As they bent over the lists she had made of things needed,
Percy glanced at her face. She was very much out of her sisters
class and out of his, and he kept congratulating himself
on his nerve. He was going in for something much too handsome
and expensive and distinguished for him, he felt, and it
took courage to be a plunger. To begin with, Stella was the
sort of girl who had to be well dressed. She had pale primrose
hair, with bluish tones in it, very soft and fine, so that it lay
smooth however she dressed it, and pale-blue eyes, with
blond eyebrows and long, dark lashes. She would have been a
little too remote and languid even for the fastidious Percy had
it not been for her hard, practical mouth, with lips that always
kept their pink even when the rest of her face was pale. Her
employers, who at first might be struck by her indifference,
understood that anybody with that sort of mouth would get
through the work.
After the shopping-lists had been gone over, Percy took up
the question of the honeymoon. Stella said she had been
thinking of Atlantic City. Percy met her with firmness. Whatever
happened, he couldnt leave his books now.
I want to do my traveling right here on Forty-second
Street, with a high-price show every night, he declared. He
made out an itinerary, punctuated by theaters and restaurants,
which Stella consented to accept as a substitute for Atlantic
City.
They give your fellows a week off when theyre married,
dont they? she asked.
Yes, but Ill want to drop into the office every morning to
look after my mail. Thats only businesslike.
Id like to have you treated as well as the others, though.
Stella turned the rings about on her pale hand and looked at
her polished finger-tips.
Ill look out for that. What do you say to a little walk,
Stell? Percy put the question coaxingly. When Stella was
pleased with him she went to walk with him, since that was
the only way in which Percy could ever see her alone. When
she was displeased, she said she was too tired to go out. To-night
she smiled at him incredulously, and went to put on her
hat and gray fur piece.
Once they were outside, Percy turned into a shadowy side
street that was only partly built up, a dreary waste of derricks
and foundation holes, but comparatively solitary. Stella liked
Percys steady, sympathetic silences; she was not a chatterbox
herself. She often wondered why she was going to marry
Bixby instead of Charley Greengay. She knew that Charley
would go further in the world. Indeed, she had often coolly
told herself that Percy would never go very far. But, as she
admitted with a shrug, she was weak to Percy. In the capable
New York stenographer, who estimated values coldly and
got the most for the least outlay, there was something left
that belonged to another kind of womansomething that
liked the very things in Percy that were not good business
assets. However much she dwelt upon the effectiveness of
Greengays dash and color and assurance, her mind always
came back to Percys neat little head, his clean-cut face, and
warm, clear, gray eyes, and she liked them better than Charleys
fullness and blurred floridness. Having reckoned up their
respective chances with no doubtful result, she opposed a
mild obstinacy to her own good sense. I guess Ill take
Percy, anyway, she said simply, and that was all the good her
clever business brain did her.
Percy spent a night of torment, lying tense on his bed in the
dark, and figuring out how long it would take him to pay
back the money he was advancing to himself. Any fool could
do it in five years, he reasoned, but he was going to do it in
three. The trouble was that his expensive courtship had taken
every penny of his salary. With competitors like Charley
Greengay, you had to spend money or drop out. Certain
birds, he reflected ruefully, are supplied with more attractive
plumage when they are courting, but nature hadnt been so
thoughtful for men. When Percy reached the office in the
morning he climbed on his tall stool and leaned his arms on
his ledger. He was so glad to feel it there that he was faint
and weak-kneed.
Oliver Remsen, Junior, had brought new blood into the
Remsen Paper Company. He married shortly after Percy
Bixby did, and in the five succeeding years he had considerably
enlarged the companys business and profits. He had
been particularly successful in encouraging efficiency and loyalty
in the employees. From the time he came into the office
he had stood for shorter hours, longer holidays, and a generous
consideration of mens necessities. He came out of college
on the wave of economic reform, and he continued to read
and think a good deal about how the machinery of labor is
operated. He knew more about the men who worked for him
than their mere office records.
Young Remsen was troubled about Percy Bixby because he
took no summer vacationsalways asked for the two weeks
extra pay instead. Other men in the office had skipped a vacation
now and then, but Percy had stuck to his desk for five
years, had tottered to his stool through attacks of grippe and
tonsilitis. He seemed to have grown fast to his ledger, and it
was to this that Oliver objected. He liked his men to stay
men, to look like men and live like men. He remembered how
alert and wide-awake Bixby had seemed to him when he himself
first came into the office. He had picked Bixby out as the
most intelligent and interested of his fathers employees, and
since then had often wondered why he never seemed to see
chances to forge ahead. Promotions, of course, went to the
men who went after them. When Percys baby died, he went
to the funeral, and asked Percy to call on him if he needed
money. Once when he chanced to sit down by Bixby on the
elevated and found him reading Bryces American Commonwealth,
he asked him to make use of his own large office
library. Percy thanked him, but he never came for any books.
Oliver wondered whether his bookkeeper really tried to avoid
him.
One evening Oliver met the Bixbys in the lobby of a theater.
He introduced Mrs. Remsen to them, and held them for
some moments in conversation. When they got into their motor,
Mrs. Remsen said:
Is that little man afraid of you, Oliver? He looked like a
scared rabbit.
Oliver snapped the door, and said with a shade of irritation:
I dont know whats the matter with him. Hes the fellow
Ive told you about who never takes a vacation. I half believe
its his wife. She looks pitiless enough for anything.
Shes very pretty of her kind, mused Mrs. Remsen, but
rather chilling. One can see that she has ideas about elegance.
Rather unfortunate ones for a bookkeepers wife. I surmise
that Percy felt she was overdressed, and that made him
awkward with me. Ive always suspected that fellow of good
taste.
After that, when Remsen passed the counting-room and
saw Percy screwed up over his ledger, he often remembered
Mrs. Bixby, with her cold, pale eyes and long lashes, and her
expression that was something between indifference and discontent.
She rose behind Percys bent shoulders like an apparition.
One spring afternoon Remsen was closeted in his private
office with his lawyer until a late hour. As he came down the
long hall in the dusk he glanced through the glass partition
into the counting-room, and saw Percy Bixby huddled up on
his tall stool, though it was too dark to work. Indeed, Bixbys
ledger was closed, and he sat with his two arms resting on the
brown cover. He did not move a muscle when young Remsen
entered.
You are late, Bixby, and so am I, Oliver began genially as
he crossed to the front of the room and looked out at the
lighted windows of other tall buildings. The fact is, Ive
been doing something that men have a foolish way of putting
off. Ive been making my will.
Yes, sir. Percy brought it out with a deep breath.
Glad to be through with it, Oliver went on. Mr. Melton
will bring the paper back to-morrow, and Id like to ask you
to be one of the witnesses.
Id be very proud, Mr. Remsen.
Thank you, Bixby. Good night. Remsen took up his hat
just as Percy slid down from his stool.
Mr. Remsen, Im told youre going to have the books
gone over.
Why, yes, Bixby. Dont let that trouble you. Im taking in
a new partner, you know, an old college friend. Just because
he is a friend, I insist upon all the usual formalities. But it is a
formality, and Ill guarantee the expert wont make a scratch
on your books. Good night. Youd better be coming, too.
Remsen had reached the door when he heard Mr. Remsen!
in a desperate voice behind him. He turned, and saw Bixby
standing uncertainly at one end of the desk, his hand still on
his ledger, his uneven shoulders drooping forward and his
head hanging as if he were seasick. Remsen came back and
stood at the other end of the long desk. It was too dark to see
Bixbys face clearly.
What is it, Bixby?
Mr. Remsen, five years ago, just before I was married, I
falsified the books a thousand dollars, and I used the money.
Percy leaned forward against his desk, which took him just
across the chest.
Whats that, Bixby? Young Remsen spoke in a tone of
polite surprise. He felt painfully embarrassed.
Yes, sir. I thought Id get it all paid back before this. Ive
put back three hundred, but the books are still seven hundred
out of true. Ive played the shortages about from account to
account these five years, but an expert would find em in
twenty-four hours.
I dont just understand how Oliver stopped and shook
his head.
I held it out of the Western remittances, Mr. Remsen.
They were coming in heavy just then. I was up against it. I
hadnt saved anything to marry on, and my wife thought I
was getting more money than I was. Since weve been married,
Ive never had the nerve to tell her. I could have paid it
all back if it hadnt been for the unforeseen expenses.
Remsen sighed.
Being married is largely unforeseen expenses, Percy.
Theres only one way to fix this up: Ill give you seven hundred
dollars in cash to-morrow, and you can give me your
personal note, with the understanding that I hold ten dollars
a week out of your pay-check until it is paid. I think you
ought to tell your wife exactly how you are fixed, though. You
cant expect her to help you much when she doesnt know.
That night Mrs. Bixby was sitting in their flat, waiting for
her husband. She was dressed for a bridge party, and often
looked with impatience from her paper to the Mission clock,
as big as a coffin and with nothing but two weights dangling
in its hollow framework. Percy had been loath to buy the
clock when they got their furniture, and he had hated it ever
since. Stella had changed very little since she came into the
flat a bride. Then she wore her hair in a Floradora pompadour;
now she wore it hooded close about her head like a
scarf, in a rather smeary manner, like an Impressionists
brush-work. She heard her husband come in and close the
door softly. While he was taking off his hat in the narrow
tunnel of a hall, she called to him:
I hope youve had something to eat down-town. Youll
have to dress right away. Percy came in and sat down. She
looked up from the evening paper she was reading. Youve
no time to sit down. We must start in fifteen minutes.
He shaded his eyes from the glaring overhead light.
Im afraid I cant go anywhere to-night. Im all in.
Mrs. Bixby rattled her paper, and turned from the theatrical
page to the fashions.
Youll feel better after you dress. We wont stay late.
Her even persistence usually conquered her husband. She
never forgot anything she had once decided to do. Her
manner of following it up grew more chilly, but never
weaker. To-night there was no spring in Percy. He closed his
eyes and replied without moving:
I cant go. You had better telephone the Burks we arent
coming. I have to tell you something disagreeable.
Stella rose.
I certainly am not going to disappoint the Burks and stay
at home to talk about anything disagreeable.
Youre not very sympathetic, Stella.
She turned away.
If I were, youd soon settle down into a pretty dull proposition.
Wed have no social life now if I didnt keep at you.
Percy roused himself a little.
Social life? Well, well have to trim that pretty close for a
while. Im in debt to the company. Weve been living beyond
our means ever since we were married.
We cant live on less than we do, Stella said quietly. No
use in taking that up again.
Percy sat up, clutching the arms of his chair.
Well have to take it up. Im seven hundred dollars short,
and the books are to be audited to-morrow. I told young
Remsen and hes going to take my note and hold the money
out of my pay-checks. He could send me to jail, of course.
Stella turned and looked down at him with a gleam of
interest.
Oh, youve been playing solitaire with the books, have
you? And hes found you out! I hope Ill never see that man
again. Sugar face! She said this with intense acrimony. Her
forehead flushed delicately, and her eyes were full of hate.
Young Remsen was not her idea of a business man.
Stella went into the other room. When she came back she
wore her evening coat and carried long gloves and a black
scarf. This she began to arrange over her hair before the mirror
above the false fireplace. Percy lay inert in the Morris chair
and watched her. Yes, he understood; it was very difficult for
a woman with hair like that to be shabby and to go without
things. Her hair made her conspicuous, and it had to be lived
up to. It had been the deciding factor in his fate.
Stella caught the lace over one ear with a large gold hairpin.
She repeated this until she got a good effect. Then turning
to Percy, she began to draw on her gloves.
Im not worrying any, because Im going back into business,
she said firmly. I meant to, anyway, if you didnt get a
raise the first of the year. I have the offer of a good position,
and we can live in an apartment hotel.
Percy was on his feet in an instant.
I wont have you grinding in any office. Thats flat.
Stellas lower lip quivered in a commiserating smile. Oh, I
wont lose my health. Charley Greengays a partner in his
concern now, and he wants a private secretary.
Percy drew back.
You cant work for Greengay. Hes got too bad a reputation.
Youve more pride than that, Stella.
The thin sweep of color he knew so well went over Stellas
face.
His business reputation seems to be all right, she commented,
working the kid on with her left hand.
What if it is? Percy broke out. Hes the cheapest kind of
a skate. He gets into scrapes with the girls in his own office.
The last one got into the newspapers, and he had to pay the
girl a wad.
He dont get into scrapes with his books, anyway, and he
seems to be able to stand getting into the papers. I excuse
Charley. His wifes a pill.
I suppose you think hed have been all right if hed married
you, said Percy, bitterly.
Yes, I do. Stella buttoned her glove with an air of
finishing something, and then looked at Percy without animosity.
Charley and I both have sporty tastes, and we like
excitement. You might as well live in Newark if youre going
to sit at home in the evening. You oughtnt to have married a
business woman; you need somebody domestic. Theres
nothing in this sort of life for either of us.
That means, I suppose, that youre going around with
Greengay and his crowd?
Yes, thats my sort of crowd, and you never did fit into it.
Youre too intellectual. Ive always been proud of you, Percy.
Youre better style than Charley, but that gets tiresome. You
will never burn much red fire in New York, now, will you?
Percy did not reply. He sat looking at the minute-hand of
the eviscerated Mission clock. His wife almost never took the
trouble to argue with him.
Youre old style, Percy, she went on. Of course everybody
marries and wishes they hadnt, but nowadays people
get over it. Some women go ahead on the quiet, but Im
giving it to you straight. Im going to work for Greengay. I
like his line of business, and I meet people well. Now Im
going to the Burks.
Percy dropped his hands limply between his knees.
I suppose, he brought out, the real trouble is that
youve decided my earning power is not very great.
Thats part of it, and part of it is youre old-fashioned.
Stella paused at the door and looked back. What made you
rush me, anyway, Percy? she asked indulgently. What did
you go and pretend to be a spender and get tied up with me
for?
I guess everybody wants to be a spender when hes in
love, Percy replied.
Stella shook her head mournfully.
No, youre a spender or youre not. Greengay has been
broke three times, fired, down and out, black-listed. But hes
always come back, and he always will. You will never be fired,
but youll always be poor. She turned and looked back again
before she went out.
Six months later Bixby came to young Oliver Remsen one
afternoon and said he would like to have twenty dollars a
week held out of his pay until his debt was cleared off.
Oliver looked up at his sallow employee and asked him
how he could spare as much as that.
My expenses are lighter, Bixby replied. My wife has
gone into business with a ready-to-wear firm. She is not living
with me any more.
Oliver looked annoyed, and asked him if nothing could be
done to readjust his domestic affairs. Bixby said no; they
would probably remain as they were.
But where are you living, Bixby? How have you arranged
things? the young man asked impatiently.
Im very comfortable. I live in a boarding-house and have
my own furniture. There are several fellows there who are
fixed the same way. Their wives went back into business, and
they drifted apart.
With a baffled expression Remsen stared at the uneven
shoulders under the skin-fitting alpaca desk coat as his bookkeeper
went out. He had meant to do something for Percy,
but somehow, he reflected, one never did do anything for a
fellow who had been stung as hard as that.
Century, May 1916
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