Her Boss
By Willa Cather
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I
Paul Wanning opened the front door of his house in
Orange, closed it softly behind him, and stood looking
about the hall as he drew off his gloves.
Nothing was changed there since last night, and yet he
stood gazing about him with an interest which a long-married
man does not often feel in his own reception hall. The rugs,
the two pillars, the Spanish tapestry chairs, were all the same.
The Venus di Medici stood on her column as usual and there,
at the end of the hall (opposite the front door), was the full-length
portrait of Mrs. Wanning, maturely blooming forth in
an evening gown, signed with the name of a French painter
who seemed purposely to have made his signature indistinct.
Though the signature was largely what one paid for, one
couldnt ask him to do it over.
In the dining room the colored man was moving about
the table set for dinner, under the electric cluster. The candles
had not yet been lighted. Wanning watched him with a
homesick feeling in his heart. They had had Sam a long
while, twelve years, now. His warm hall, the lighted dining-room,
the drawing room where only the flicker of the wood
fire played upon the shining surfaces of many objectsthey
seemed to Wanning like a haven of refuge. It had never
occurred to him that his house was too full of things. He
often said, and he believed, that the women of his household
had perfect taste. He had paid for these objects, sometimes
with difficulty, but always with pride. He carried a
heavy life-insurance and permitted himself to spend most of
the income from a good law practise. He wished, during his
life-time, to enjoy the benefits of his wifes discriminating
extravagance.
Yesterday Wannings doctor had sent him to a specialist.
Today the specialist, after various laboratory tests, had told
him most disconcerting things about the state of very necessary,
but hitherto wholly uninteresting, organs of his body.
The information pointed to something incredible; insinuated
that his residence in this house was only temporary; that
he, whose time was so full, might have to leave not only his
house and his office and his club, but a world with which he
was extremely well satisfiedthe only world he knew anything
about.
Wanning unbuttoned his overcoat, but did not take it off.
He stood folding his muffler slowly and carefully. What he
did not understand was, how he could go while other people
stayed. Sam would be moving about the table like this, Mrs.
Wanning and her daughters would be dressing upstairs, when
he would not be coming home to dinner any more; when he
would not, indeed, be dining anywhere.
Sam, coming to turn on the parlor lights, saw Wanning and
stepped behind him to take his coat.
Good evening, Mr. Wanning, sah, excuse me. You entahed
so quietly, sah, I didnt heah you.
The master of the house slipped out of his coat and went
languidly upstairs.
He tapped at the door of his wifes room, which stood
ajar.
Come in, Paul, she called from her dressing table.
She was seated, in a violet dressing gown, giving the last
touches to her coiffure, both arms lifted. They were firm and
white, like her neck and shoulders. She was a handsome
woman of fifty-five,still a woman, not an old person, Wanning
told himself, as he kissed her cheek. She was heavy in
figure, to be sure, but she had kept, on the whole, presentable
outlines. Her complexion was good, and she wore less false
hair than either of her daughters.
Wanning himself was five years older, but his sandy hair did
not show the gray in it, and since his mustache had begun to
grow white he kept it clipped so short that it was unobtrusive.
His fresh skin made him look younger than he was. Not
long ago he had overheard the stenographers in his law office
discussing the ages of their employers. They had put him
down at fifty, agreeing that his two partners must be considerably
older than hewhich was not the case. Wanning had
an especially kindly feeling for the little new girl, a copyist,
who had exclaimed that Mr. Wanning couldnt be fifty; he
seemed so boyish!
Wanning lingered behind his wife, looking at her in the
mirror.
Well, did you tell the girls, Julia? he asked, trying to speak
casually.
Mrs. Wanning looked up and met his eyes in the glass.
The girls?
She noticed a strange expression come over his face.
About your health, you mean? Yes, dear, but I tried not to
alarm them. They feel dreadfully. Im going to have a talk
with Dr. Seares myself. These specialists are all alarmists, and
Ive often heard of his frightening people.
She rose and took her husbands arm, drawing him toward
the fireplace.
You are not going to let this upset you, Paul? If you take
care of yourself, everything will come out all right. You have
always been so strong. One has only to look at you.
Did you, Wanning asked, say anything to Harold?
Yes, of course. I saw him in town today, and he agrees
with me that Seares draws the worst conclusions possible. He
says even the young men are always being told the most terrifying
things. Usually they laugh at the doctors and do as
they please. You certainly dont look like a sick man, and you
dont feel like one, do you?
She patted his shoulder, smiled at him encouragingly, and
rang for the maid to come and hook her dress.
When the maid appeared at the door, Wanning went out
through the bathroom to his own sleeping chamber. He was
too much dispirited to put on a dinner coat, though such
remissness was always noticed. He sat down and waited for
the sound of the gong, leaving his door open, on the chance
that perhaps one of his daughters would come in.
When Wanning went down to dinner he found his wife
already at her chair, and the table laid for four.
Harold, she explained, is not coming home. He has to
attend a first night in town.
A moment later their two daughters entered, obviously
dressed. They both wore earrings and masses of hair. The
daughters names were Roma and Florence,Roma, Firenze,
one of the young men who came to the house often, but
not often enough, had called them. Tonight they were going
to a rehearsal of The Dances of the Nations,a benefit
performance in which Miss Roma was to lead the Spanish
dances, her sister the Grecian.
The elder daughter had often been told that her name
suited her admirably. She looked, indeed, as we are apt to
think the unrestrained beauties of later Rome must have
looked,but as their portrait busts emphatically declare they
did not. Her head was massive, her lips full and crimson,
her eyes large and heavy-lidded, her forehead low. At costume
balls and in living pictures she was always Semiramis,
or Poppea, or Theodora. Barbaric accessories brought out
something cruel and even rather brutal in her handsome
face. The men who were attracted to her were somehow
afraid of her.
Florence was slender, with a long, graceful neck, a restless
head, and a flexible mouthdiscontent lurked about the corners
of it. Her shoulders were pretty, but her neck and arms
were too thin. Roma was always struggling to keep within a
certain weighther chin and upper arms grew persistently
more solidand Florence was always striving to attain a certain
weight. Wanning used sometimes to wonder why these
disconcerting fluctuations could not go the other way; why
Roma could not melt away as easily as did her sister, who had
to be sent to Palm Beach to save the precious pounds.
I dont see why you ever put Rickie Allen in charge of the
English country dances, Florence said to her sister, as they
sat down. He knows the figures, of course, but he has no
real style.
Roma looked annoyed. Rickie Allen was one of the men
who came to the house almost often enough.
He is absolutely to be depended upon, thats why, she
said firmly.
I think he is just right for it, Florence, put in Mrs. Wanning.
Its remarkable he should feel that he can give up the
time; such a busy man. He must be very much interested in
the movement.
Florences lip curled drolly under her soup spoon. She shot
an amused glance at her mothers dignity.
Nothing doing, her keen eyes seemed to say.
Though Florence was nearly thirty and her sister a little
beyond, there was, seriously, nothing doing. With so many
charms and so much preparation, they never, as Florence vulgarly
said, quite pulled it off. They had been rushed, time and
again, and Mrs. Wanning had repeatedly steeled herself to
bear the blow. But the young men went to follow a career in
Mexico or the Philippines, or moved to Yonkers, and escaped
without a mortal wound.
Roma turned graciously to her father.
I met Mr. Lane at the Holland House today, where I was
lunching with the Burtons, father. He asked about you, and
when I told him you were not so well as usual, he said he
would call you up. He wants to tell you about some doctor he
discovered in Iowa, who cures everything with massage and
hot water. It sounds freakish, but Mr. Lane is a very clever
man, isnt he?
Very, assented Wanning.
I should think he must be! sighed Mrs. Wanning. How
in the world did he make all that money, Paul? He didnt
seem especially promising years ago, when we used to see so
much of them.
Corporation business. Hes attorney for the P. L. and G.,
murmured her husband.
What a pile he must have! Florence watched the old negros
slow movements with restless eyes. Here is Jenny, a
Contessa, with a glorious palace in Genoa that her father
must have bought her. Surely Aldrini had nothing. Have you
seen the baby counts pictures, Roma? Theyre very cunning.
I should think youd go to Genoa and visit Jenny.
We must arrange that, Roma. Its such an opportunity.
Though Mrs. Wanning addressed her daughter, she looked at
her husband. You would get on so well among their friends.
When Count Aldrini was here you spoke Italian much better
than poor Jenny. I remember when we entertained him, he
could scarcely say anything to her at all.
Florence tried to call up an answering flicker of amusement
upon her sisters calm, well-bred face. She thought her
mother was rather outdoing herself tonight,since Aldrini
had at least managed to say the one important thing to Jenny,
somehow, somewhere. Jenny Lane had been Romas friend
and schoolmate, and the Count was an ephemeral hope in
Orange. Mrs. Wanning was one of the first matrons to declare
that she had no prejudices against foreigners, and at the dinners
that were given for the Count, Roma was always put
next him to act as interpreter.
Roma again turned to her father.
If I were you, dear, I would let Mr. Lane tell me about his
doctor. New discoveries are often made by queer people.
Romas voice was low and sympathetic; she never lost her
dignity.
Florence asked if she might have her coffee in her room,
while she dashed off a note, and she ran upstairs humming
Bright Lights and wondering how she was going to stand
her family until the summer scattering. Why could Roma
never throw off her elegant reserve and call things by their
names? She sometimes thought she might like her sister, if
she would only come out in the open and howl about her
disappointments.
Roma, drinking her coffee deliberately, asked her father if
they might have the car early, as they wanted to pick up Mr.
Allen and Mr. Rydberg on their way to rehearsal.
Wanning said certainly. Heaven knew he was not stingy
about his car, though he could never quite forget that in his
day it was the young men who used to call for the girls when
they went to rehearsals.
You are going with us, Mother? Roma asked as they
rose.
I think so dear. Your father will want to go to bed early,
and I shall sleep better if I go out. I am going to town tomorrow
to pour tea for Harold. We must get him some new
silver, Paul. I am quite ashamed of his spoons.
Harold, the only son, was a playwrightas yet unproducedand
he had a studio in Washington Square.
A half-hour later, Wanning was alone in his library. He
would not permit himself to feel aggrieved. What was more
commendable than a mothers interest in her childrens pleasures?
Moreover, it was his wifes way of following things up,
of never letting die grass grow under her feet, that had helped
to push him along in the world. She was more ambitious than
he,that had been good for him. He was naturally indolent,
and Julias childlike desire to possess material objects, to buy
what other people were buying, had been the spur that made
him go after business. It had, moreover, made his house the
attractive place he believed it to be.
Suppose, his wife sometimes said to him when the bills
came in from Celeste or Mme. Blanche, suppose you had
homely daughters; how would you like that?
He wouldnt have liked it. When he went anywhere with
his three ladies, Wanning always felt very well done by. He
had no complaint to make about them, or about anything.
That was why it seemed so unreasonableHe felt along his
back incredulously with his hand. Harold, of course, was a
trial; but among all his business friends, he knew scarcely one
who had a promising boy.
The house was so still that Wanning could hear a faint, metallic
tinkle from the butlers pantry. Old Sam was washing
up the silver, which he put away himself every night.
Wanning rose and walked aimlessly down the hall and out
through the dining-room.
Any Apollinaris on ice, Sam? Im not feeling very well tonight.
The old colored man dried his hands.
Yessah, Mistah Wanning. Have a little rye with it, sah?
No, thank you, Sam. Thats one of the things I cant do
any more. Ive been to see a big doctor in the city, and he tells
me theres something seriously wrong with me. My kidneys
have sort of gone back on me.
It was a satisfaction to Wanning to name the organ that had
betrayed him, while all the rest of him was so sound.
Sam was immediately interested. He shook his grizzled
head and looked full of wisdom.
Dont seem like a genleman of such a temperate life ought
to have anything wrong thar, sah.
No, it doesnt, does it?
Wanning leaned against the china closet and talked to Sam
for nearly half an hour. The specialist who condemned him
hadnt seemed half so much interested. There was not a detail
about the examination and the laboratory tests in which Sam
did not show the deepest concern. He kept asking Wanning if
he could remember straining himself when he was a young
man.
Ive knowed a strain like that to sleep in a man for yeahs
and yeahs, and then come back on him, deed I have, he said,
mysteriously. An again, it might be you got a floatin kidney,
sah. Aftah dey once teah loose, dey sometimes dont
make no trouble for quite a while.
When Wanning went to his room he did not go to bed. He
sat up until he heard the voices of his wife and daughters in
the hall below. His own bed somehow frightened him. In all
the years he had lived in this house he had never before
looked about his room, at that bed, with the thought that he
might one day be trapped there, and might not get out again.
He had been ill, of course, but his room had seemed a particularly
pleasant place for a sick man; sunlight, flowers,agreeable,
well-dressed women coming in and out.
Now there was something sinister about the bed itself,
about its position, and its relation to the rest of the furniture.
II
The next morning, on his way downtown, Wanning got off
the subway train at Astor Place and walked over to Washington
Square. He climbed three flights of stairs and knocked at
his sons studio. Harold, dressed, with his stick and gloves in
his hand, opened the door. He was just going over to the
Brevoort for breakfast. He greeted his father with the cordial
familiarity practised by all the boys of his set, clapped him
on the shoulder and said in his light, tonsilitis voice:
Come in, Governor, how delightful! I havent had a call
from you in a long time.
He threw his hat and gloves on the writing table. He was a
perfect gentleman, even with his father.
Florence said the matter with Harold was that he had heard
people say he looked like Byron, and stood for it.
What Harold would stand for in such matters was, indeed,
the best definition of him. When he read his play The Street
Walker in drawing rooms and one lady told him it had the
poetic symbolism of Tchekhov, and another said that it suggested
the biting realism of Brieux, he never, in his most secret
thoughts, questioned the acumen of either lady. Harolds
speech, even if you heard it in the next room and could not
see him, told you that he had no sense of the absurd,a
throaty staccato, with never a downward inflection, trustfully
striving to please.
Just going out? his father asked. I wont keep you. Your
mother told you I had a discouraging session with Seares?
So awfully sorry youve had this bother, Governor; just as
sorry as I can be. No question about its coming out all right,
but its a downright nuisance, your having to diet and that
sort of thing. And I suppose you ought to follow directions,
just to make us all feel comfortable, oughtnt you? Harold
spoke with fluent sympathy.
Wanning sat down on the arm of a chair and shook his
head. Yes, they do recommend a diet, but they dont promise
much from it.
Harold laughed precipitately. Delicious! All doctors are,
arent they? So profound and oracular! The medicine-man;
its quite the same idea, you see; with tom-toms.
Wanning knew that Harold meant something subtle,one
of the subtleties which he said were only spoiled by being
explainedso he came bluntly to one of the issues he had in
mind.
I would like to see you settled before I quit the harness,
Harold.
Harold was absolutely tolerant.
He took out his cigarette case and burnished it with his
handkerchief.
I perfectly understand your point of view, dear Governor,
but perhaps you dont altogether get mine. Isnt it so? I am
settled. What you mean by being settled, would unsettle me,
completely. Im cut out for just such an existence as this; to
live four floors up in an attic, get my own breakfast, and have
a charwoman to do for me. I should be awfully bored with an
establishment. Im quite content with a little diggings like
this.
Wannings eyes fell. Somebody had to pay the rent of even
such modest quarters as contented Harold, but to say so
would be rude, and Harold himself was never rude. Wanning
did not, this morning, feel equal to hearing a statement of his
sons uncommercial ideals.
I know, he said hastily. But now were up against hard
facts, my boy. I did not want to alarm your mother, but Ive
had a time limit put on me, and its not a very long one.
Harold threw away the cigarette he had just lighted in a
burst of indignation.
Thats the sort of thing I consider criminal, Father, absolutely
criminal! What doctor has a right to suggest such a
thing? Seares himself may be knocked out tomorrow. What
have laboratory tests got to do with a mans will to live? The
force of that depends upon his entire personality, not on any
organ or pair of organs.
Harold thrust his hands in his pockets and walked up and
down, very much stirred. Really, I have a very poor opinion
of scientists. They ought to be made serve an apprenticeship
in art, to get some conception of the power of human motives.
Such brutality!
Harolds plays dealt with the grimmest and most depressing
matters, but he himself was always agreeable, and he insisted
upon high cheerfulness as the correct tone of human
intercourse.
Wanning rose and turned to go. There was, in Harold, simply
no reality, to which one could break through. The young
man took up his hat and gloves.
Must you go? Let me step along with you to the sub. The
walk will do me good.
Harold talked agreeably all the way to Astor Place. His
father heard little of what he said, but he rather liked his
company and his wish to be pleasant.
Wanning went to his club for luncheon, meaning to spend
the afternoon with some of his friends who had retired from
business and who read the papers there in the empty hours
between two and seven. He got no satisfaction, however.
When he tried to tell these men of his present predicament,
they began to describe ills of their own in which he could not
feel interested. Each one of them had a treacherous organ of
which he spoke with animation, almost with pride, as if it
were a crafty business competitor whom he was constantly
outwitting. Each had a doctor, too, for whom he was ardently
soliciting business. They wanted either to telephone
their doctor and make an appointment for Wanning, or to
take him then and there to the consulting room. When he did
not accept these invitations, they lost interest in him and remembered
engagements. He called a taxi and returned to the
offices of McQuiston, Wade, and Wanning.
Settled at his desk, Wanning decided that he would not
go home to dinner, but would stay at the office and dictate
a long letter to an old college friend who lived in Wyoming.
He could tell Douglas Brown things that he had not
succeeded in getting to any one else. Brown, out in the
Wind River mountains, couldnt defend himself, couldnt
slap Wanning on the back and tell him to gather up the sunbeams.
He called up his house in Orange to say that he would not
be home until late. Roma answered the telephone. He spoke
mournfully, but she was not disturbed by it.
Very well, Father. Dont get too tired, she said in her well
modulated voice.
When Wanning was ready to dictate his letter, he looked
out from his private office into the reception room and saw
that his stenographer in her hat and gloves, and furs of the
newest cut, was just leaving.
Goodnight, Mr. Wanning, she said, drawing down her
dotted veil.
Had there been important business letters to be got off on
the night mail, he would have felt that he could detain her,
but not for anything personal. Miss Doane was an expert
legal stenographer, and she knew her value. The slightest
delay in dispatching office business annoyed her. Letters that
were not signed until the next morning awoke her deepest
contempt. She was scrupulous in professional etiquette, and
Wanning felt that their relations, though pleasant, were
scarcely cordial.
As Miss Doanes trim figure disappeared through the outer
door, little Annie Wooley, the copyist, came in from the stenographers
room. Her hat was pinned over one ear, and she
was scrambling into her coat as she came, holding her gloves
in her teeth and her battered handbag in the fist that was
already through a sleeve.
Annie, I wanted to dictate a letter. You were just leaving,
werent you?
Oh, I dont mind! she answered cheerfully, and pulling
off her old coat, threw it on a chair. Ill get my book.
She followed him into his room and sat down by a table,though
she wrote with her book on her knee.
Wanning had several times kept her after office hours to
take his private letters for him, and she had always been good-natured
about it. On each occasion, when he gave her a dollar
to get her dinner, she protested, laughing, and saying that she
could never eat so much as that.
She seemed a happy sort of little creature, didnt pout when
she was scolded, and giggled about her own mistakes in spelling.
She was plump and undersized, always dodging under
the elbows of taller people and clattering about on high heels,
much run over. She had bright black eyes and fuzzy black hair
in which, despite Miss Doanes reprimands, she often stuck
her pencil. She was the girl who couldnt believe that Wanning
was fifty, and he had liked her ever since he overheard
that conversation.
Tilting back his chairhe never assumed this position
when he dictated to Miss DoaneWanning began: To Mr.
D. E. Brown, South Forks, Wyoming.
He shaded his eyes with his hand and talked off a long
letter to this man who would be sorry that his mortal frame
was breaking up. He recalled to him certain fine months they
had spent together on the Wind River when they were young
men, and said he sometimes wished that like D. E. Brown, he
had claimed his freedom in a big country where the wheels
did not grind a man as hard as they did in New York. He had
spent all these years hustling about and getting ready to live
the way he wanted to live, and now he had a puncture the
doctors couldnt mend. What was the use of it?
Wannings thoughts were fixed on the trout streams and
the great silver-firs in the canyons of the Wind River Mountains,
when he was disturbed by a soft, repeated sniffling. He
looked out between his fingers. Little Annie, carried away by
his eloquence, was fairly panting to make dots and dashes fast
enough, and she was sopping her eyes with an unpresentable,
end-of-the-day handkerchief.
Wanning rambled on in his dictation. Why was she crying?
What did it matter to her? He was a man who said good-morning
to her, who sometimes took an hour of the precious
few she had left at the end of the day and then complained
about her bad spelling. When the letter was finished, he
handed her a new two dollar bill.
I havent got any change tonight; and anyhow, Id like
you to eat a whole lot. Im on a diet, and I want to see everybody
else eat.
Annie tucked her notebook under her arm and stood looking
at the bill which she had not taken up from the table.
I dont like to be paid for taking letters to your friends,
Mr. Wanning, she said impulsively. I can run personal letters
off between times. It aint as if I needed the money, she
added carelessly.
Get along with you! Anybody who is eighteen years old
and has a sweet tooth needs money, all they can get.
Annie giggled and darted out with the bill in her hand.
Wanning strolled aimlessly after her into the reception
room.
Let me have that letter before lunch tomorrow, please,
and be sure that nobody sees it. He stopped and frowned. I
dont look very sick, do I?
I should say you dont! Annie got her coat on after considerable
tugging. Why dont you call in a specialist? My
mother called a specialist for my father before he died.
Oh, is your father dead?
I should say he is! He was a painter by trade, and he fell
off a seventy-foot stack into the East River. Mother couldnt
get anything out of the company, because he wasnt buckled.
He lingered for four months, so I know all about taking care
of sick people. I was attending business college then, and sick
as he was, he used to give me dictation for practise. He made
us all go into professions; the girls, too. He didnt like us to
just run.
Wanning would have liked to keep Annie and hear more
about her family, but it was nearly seven oclock, and he knew
he ought, in mercy, to let her go. She was the only person to
whom he had talked about his illness who had been frank and
honest with him, who had looked at him with eyes that concealed
nothing. When he broke the news of his condition to
his partners that morning, they shut him off as if he were
uttering indecent ravings. All day they had met him with a
hurried, abstracted manner. McQuiston and Wade went out
to lunch together, and he knew what they were thinking, perhaps
talking, about. Wanning had brought into the firm valuable
business, but he was less enterprising than either of his
partners.
III
In the early summer Wannings family scattered. Roma
swallowed her pride and sailed for Genoa to visit the Contessa
Jenny. Harold went to Cornish to be in an artistic atmosphere.
Mrs. Wanning and Florence took a cottage at York
Harbor where Wanning was supposed to join them whenever
he could get away from town. He did not often get away. He
felt most at ease among his accustomed surroundings. He
kept his car in the city and went back and forth from his office
to the club where he was living. Old Sam, his butler, came in
from Orange every night to put his clothes in order and make
him comfortable.
Wanning began to feel that he would not tire of his office in
a hundred years. Although he did very little work, it was
pleasant to go down town every morning when the streets
were crowded, the sky clear, and the sunshine bright. From
the windows of his private office he could see the harbor and
watch the ocean liners come down the North River and go
out to sea.
While he read his mail, he often looked out and wondered
why he had been so long indifferent to that extraordinary
scene of human activity and hopefulness. How had a short-lived
race of beings the energy and courage valiantly to begin
enterprises which they could follow for only a few years; to
throw up towers and build sea-monsters and found great
businesses, when the frailest of the materials with which they
worked, the paper upon which they wrote, the ink upon their
pens, had more permanence in this world than they? All this
material rubbish lasted. The linen clothing and cosmetics of
the Egyptians had lasted. It was only the human flame that
certainly, certainly went out. Other things had a fighting
chance; they might meet with mishap and be destroyed, they
might not. But the human creature who gathered and shaped
and hoarded and foolishly loved these things, he had no
chanceabsolutely none. Wannings cane, his hat, his topcoat,
might go from beggar to beggar and knock about in this
world for another fifty years or so; but not he.
In the late afternoon he never hurried to leave his office
now. Wonderful sunsets burned over the North River, wonderful
stars trembled up among the towers; more wonderful
than anything he could hurry away to. One of his windows
looked directly down upon the spire of Old Trinity, with the
green churchyard and the pale sycamores far below. Wanning
often dropped into the church when he was going out to
lunch; not because he was trying to make his peace with
Heaven, but because the church was old and restful and familiar,
because it and its gravestones had sat in the same place for
a long while. He bought flowers from the street boys and
kept them on his desk, which his partners thought strange
behavior, and which Miss Doane considered a sign that he
was failing.
But there were graver things than bouquets for Miss Doane
and the senior partner to ponder over.
The senior partner, McQuiston, in spite of his silvery hair
and mustache and his important church connections, had rich
natural taste for scandal.After Mr. Wade went away for his
vacation, in May, Wanning took Annie Wooley out of the
copying room, put her at a desk in his private office, and
raised her pay to eighteen dollars a week, explaining to McQuiston
that for the summer months he would need a secretary.
This explanation satisfied neither McQuiston nor Miss
Doane.
Annie was also paid for overtime, and although Wanning
attended to very little of the office business now, there was a
great deal of overtime. Miss Doane was, of course, above
questioning a chit like Annie; but what was he doing with his
time and his new secretary, she wanted to know?
If anyone had told her that Wanning was writing a book,
she would have said bitterly that it was just like him. In his
youth Wanning had hankered for the pen. When he studied
law, he had intended to combine that profession with some
tempting form of authorship. Had he remained a bachelor, he
would have been an unenterprising literary lawyer to the end
of his days. It was his wifes restlessness and her practical turn
of mind that had made him a money-getter. His illness
seemed to bring back to him the illusions with which he left
college.
As soon as his family were out of the way and he shut up
the Orange house, he began to dictate his autobiography to
Annie Wooley. It was not only the story of his life, but an
expression of all his theories and opinions, and a commentary
on the fifty years of events which he could remember.
Fortunately, he was able to take great interest in this undertaking.
He had the happiest convictions about the clear-cut
style he was developing and his increasing felicity in phrasing.
He meant to publish the work handsomely, at his own expense
and under his own name. He rather enjoyed the
thought of how greatly disturbed Harold would be. He and
Harold differed in their estimates of books. All the solid
works which made up Wannings library, Harold considered
beneath contempt. Anybody, he said, could do that sort of
thing.
When Wanning could not sleep at night, he turned on the
light beside his bed and made notes on the chapter he meant
to dictate the next day.
When he returned to the office after lunch, he gave instructions
that he was not to be interrupted by telephone calls, and
shut himself up with his secretary.
After he had opened all the windows and taken off his coat,
he fell to dictating. He found it a delightful occupation, the
solace of each day. Often he had sudden fits of tiredness; then
he would lie down on the leather sofa and drop asleep, while
Annie read The Leopards Spots until he awoke.
Like many another business man Wanning had relied so
long on stenographers that the operation of writing with a
pen had become laborious to him. When he undertook it, he
wanted to cut everything short. But walking up and down his
private office, with the strong afternoon sun pouring in at his
windows, a fresh air stirring, all the people and boats moving
restlessly down there, he could say things he wanted to say. It
was like living his life over again.
He did not miss his wife or his daughters. He had become
again the mild, contemplative youth he was in college, before
he had a profession and a family to grind for, before the two
needs which shape our destiny had made of him pretty much
what they make of every man.
At five oclock Wanning sometimes went out for a cup of
tea and took Annie along. He felt dull and discouraged as
soon as he was alone. So long as Annie was with him, he
could keep a grip on his own thoughts. They talked about
what he had just been dictating to her. She found that he
liked to be questioned, and she tried to be greatly interested
in it all.
After tea, they went back to the office. Occasionally Wanning
lost track of time and kept Annie until it grew dark. He
knew he had old McQuiston guessing, but he didnt care.
One day the senior partner came to him with a reproving air.
I am afraid Miss Doane is leaving us, Paul. She feels that
Miss Wooleys promotion is irregular.
How is that any business of hers, Id like to know? She has
all my legal work. She is always disagreeable enough about
doing anything else.
McQuistons puffy red face went a shade darker.
Miss Doane has a certain professional pride; a strong feeling
for office organization. She doesnt care to fill an equivocal
position. I dont know that I blame her. She feels that
there is something not quite regular about the confidence you
seem to place in this inexperienced young woman.
Wanning pushed back his chair.
I dont care a hang about Miss Doanes sense of propriety.
I need a stenographer who will carry out my instructions. Ive
carried out Miss Doanes long enough. Ive let that schoolmaam
hector me for years. She can go when she pleases.
That night McQuiston wrote to his partner that things
were in a bad way, and they would have to keep an eye on
Wanning. He had been seen at the theatre with his new
stenographer.
That was true. Wanning had several times taken Annie to
the Palace on Saturday afternoon. When all his acquaintances
were off motoring or playing golf, when the down-town offices
and even the streets were deserted, it amused him to
watch a foolish show with a delighted, cheerful little person
beside him.
Beyond her generosity, Annie had no shining merits of
character, but she had the gift of thinking well of everything,
and wishing well. When she was there Wanning felt as if there
were someone who cared whether this was a good or a bad
day with him. Old Sam, too, was like that. While the old
black man put him to bed and made him comfortable, Wanning
could talk to him as he talked to little Annie. Even if he
dwelt upon his illness, in plain terms, in detail, he did not feel
as if he were imposing on them.
People like Sam and Annie admitted misfortune,admitted
it almost cheerfully. Annie and her family did not consider
illness or any of its hard facts vulgar or indecent. It had its
place in their scheme of life, as it had not in that of Wannings
friends.
Annie came out of a typical poor family of New York. Of
eight children, only four lived to grow up. In such families
the stream of life is broad enough, but runs shallow. In the
children, vitality is exhausted early. The roots do not go down
into anything very strong. Illness and deaths and funerals, in
her own family and in those of her friends, had come at frequent
intervals in Annies life. Since they had to be, she and
her sisters made the best of them. There was something to be
got out of funerals, even, if they were managed right. They
kept people in touch with old friends who had moved uptown,
and revived kindly feelings.
Annie had often given up things she wanted because there
was sickness at home, and now she was patient with her boss.
What he paid her for overtime work by no means made up to
her what she lost.
Annie was not in the least thrifty, nor were any of her
sisters. She had to make a living, but she was not interested
in getting all she could for her time, or in laying up for
the future. Girls like Annie know that the future is a very uncertain
thing, and they feel no responsibility about it. The
present is what they haveand it is all they have. If Annie
missed a chance to go sailing with the plumbers son on Saturday
afternoon, why, she missed it. As for the two dollars
her boss gave her, she handed them over to her mother. Now
that Annie was getting more money, one of her sisters quit a
job she didnt like and was staying at home for a rest. That
was all promotion meant to Annie.
The first time Annies boss asked her to work on Saturday
afternoon, she could not hide her disappointment. He suggested
that they might knock off early and go to a show, or
take a run in his car, but she grew tearful and said it would be
hard to make her family understand. Wanning thought perhaps
he could explain to her mother. He called his motor and
took Annie home.
When his car stopped in front of the tenement house on
Eighth Avenue, heads came popping out of the windows for
six storys up, and all the neighbor women, in dressing sacks
and wrappers, gazed down at the machine and at the couple
alighting from it. A motor meant a wedding or the hospital.
The plumbers son, Willy Steen, came over from the corner
saloon to see what was going on, and Annie introduced him
at the doorstep.
Mrs. Wooley asked Wanning to come into the parlor and
invited him to have a chair of ceremony between the folding
bed and the piano.
Annie, nervous and tearful, escaped to the dining-roomthe
cheerful spot where the daughters visited with each other
and with their friends. The parlor was a masked sleeping
chamber and store room.
The plumbers son sat down on the sofa beside Mrs.
Wooley, as if he were accustomed to share in the family councils.
Mrs. Wooley waited expectant and kindly. She looked the
sensible, hard-working woman that she was, and one could
see she hadnt lived all her life on Eighth Avenue without
learning a great deal.
Wanning explained to her that he was writing a book which
he wanted to finish during the summer months when business
was not so heavy. He was ill and could not work regularly.
His secretary would have to take his dictation when he felt
able to give it; must, in short, be a sort of companion to him.
He would like to feel that she could go out in his car with
him, or even to the theater, when he felt like it. It might have
been better if he had engaged a young man for this work, but
since he had begun it with Annie, he would like to keep her if
her mother was willing.
Mrs. Wooley watched him with friendly, searching eyes.
She glanced at Willy Steen, who, wise in such distinctions,
had decided that there was nothing shady about Annies boss.
He nodded his sanction.
I dont want my girl to conduct herself in any such way as
will prejudice her, Mr. Wanning, she said thoughtfully. If
youve got daughters, you know how that is. Youve been liberal
with Annie, and its a good position for her. Its right
she should go to business every day, and I want her to do her
work right, but I like to have her home after working hours. I
always think a young girls time is her own after business
hours, and I try not to burden them when they come home.
Im willing she should do your work as suits you, if its her
wish; but I dont like to press her. The good times she misses
now, its not you nor me, sir, that can make them up to her.
These young things has their feelings.
Oh, I dont want to press her, either, Wanning said hastily.
I simply want to know that you understand the situation.
Ive made her a little present in my will as a recognition that
she is doing more for me than she is paid for.
Thats something above me, sir. Well hope there wont be
no question of wills for many years yet, Mrs. Wooley spoke
heartily. Im glad if my girl can be of any use to you, just so
she dont prejudice herself.
The plumbers son rose as if the interview were over.
Its all right, Mama Wooley, dont you worry, he said.
He picked up his canvas cap and turned to Wanning. You
see, Annie aint the sort of girl that would want to be spotted
circulating around with a monied party her folks didnt know
all about. Shed lose friends by it.
After this conversation Annie felt a great deal happier. She
was still shy and a trifle awkward with poor Wanning when
they were outside the office building, and she missed the old
freedom of her Saturday afternoons. But she did the best she
could, and Willy Steen tried to make it up to her.
In Annies absence he often came in of an afternoon to have
a cup of tea and a sugar-bun with Mrs. Wooley and the
daughter who was resting. As they sat at the dining-room
table, they discussed Annies employer, his peculiarities, his
health, and what he had told Mrs. Wooley about his will.
Mrs. Wooley said she sometimes felt afraid he might disinherit
his children, as rich people often did, and make talk; but
she hoped for the best. Whatever came to Annie, she prayed
it might not be in the form of taxable property.
IV
Late in September Wanning grew suddenly worse. His
family hurried home, and he was put to bed in his house
in Orange. He kept asking the doctors when he could get
back to the office, but he lived only eight days.
The morning after his fathers funeral, Harold went to the
office to consult Wannings partners and to read the will.
Everything in the will was as it should be. There were no
surprises except a codicil in the form of a letter to Mrs. Wanning,
dated July 8th, requesting that out of the estate she
should pay the sum of one thousand dollars to his stenographer,
Annie Wooley, in recognition of her faithful services.
I thought Miss Doane was my fathers stenographer,
Harold exclaimed.
Alec McQuiston looked embarrassed and spoke in a low,
guarded tone.
She was, for years. But this spring, he hesitated.
McQuiston loved a scandal. He leaned across his desk toward
Harold.
This spring your father put this little girl, Miss Wooley, a
copyist, utterly inexperienced, in Miss Doanes place. Miss
Doane was indignant and left us. The change made comment
here in the office. It was slightlyNo, I will be frank with
you, Harold, it was very irregular.
Harold also looked grave. What could my father have
meant by such a request as this to my mother?
The silver haired senior partner flushed and spoke as if he
were trying to break something gently.
I dont understand it, my boy. But I think, indeed I prefer
to think, that your father was not quite himself all this
summer. A man like your father does not, in his right senses,
find pleasure in the society of an ignorant, common little girl.
He does not make a practise of keeping her at the office after
hours, often until eight oclock, or take her to restaurants and
to the theater with him; not, at least, in a slanderous city like
New York.
Harold flinched before McQuistons meaning gaze and
turned aside in pained silence. He knew, as a dramatist, that
there are dark chapters in all mens lives, and this but too
clearly explained why his father had stayed in town all summer
instead of joining his family.
McQuiston asked if he should ring for Annie Wooley.
Harold drew himself up. No. Why should I see her? I
prefer not to. But with your permission, Mr. McQuiston, I
will take charge of this request to my mother. It could only
give her pain, and might awaken doubts in her mind.
We hardly know, murmured the senior partner, where
an investigation would lead us. Technically, of course, I cannot
agree with you. But if, as one of the executors of the will,
you wish to assume personal responsibility for this bequest,
under the circumstancesirregularities beget irregularities.
My first duty to my father, said Harold, is to protect my
mother.
That afternoon McQuiston called Annie Wooley into his
private office and told her that her services would not be
needed any longer, and that in lieu of notice the clerk would
give her two weeks salary.
Can I call up here for references? Annie asked.
Certainly. But you had better ask for me, personally. You
must know there has been some criticism of you here in the
office, Miss Wooley.
What about? Annie asked boldly.
Well, a young girl like you cannot render so much personal
service to her employer as you did to Mr. Wanning
without causing unfavorable comment. To be blunt with you,
for your own good, my dear young lady, your services to
your employer should terminate in the office, and at the close
of office hours. Mr. Wanning was a very sick man and his
judgment was at fault, but you should have known what a girl
in your station can do and what she cannot do.
The vague discomfort of months flashed up in little Annie.
She had no mind to stand by and be lectured without having
a word to say for herself.
Of course he was sick, poor man! she burst out. Not as
anybody seemed much upset about it. I wouldnt have given
up my half-holidays for anybody if they hadnt been sick, no
matter what they paid me. There wasnt anything in it for
me.
McQuiston raised his hand warningly.
That will do, young lady. But when you get another
place, remember this: it is never your duty to entertain or to
provide amusement for your employer.
He gave Annie a look which she did not clearly understand,
although she pronounced him a nasty old man as she hustled
on her hat and jacket.
When Annie reached home she found Willy Steen sitting
with her mother and sister at the dining-room table. This was
the first day that Annie had gone to the office since Wannings
death, and her family awaited her return with suspense.
Hello yourself, Annie called as she came in and threw her
handbag into an empty armchair.
Youre off early, Annie, said her mother gravely. Has the
will been read?
I guess so. Yes, I know it has. Miss Wilson got it out of
the safe for them. The son came in. Hes a pill.
Was nothing said to you, daughter?
Yes, a lot. Please give me some tea, mother. Annie felt
that her swagger was failing.
Dont tantalize us, Ann, her sister broke in. Didnt you
get anything?
I got the mit, all right. And some back talk from the old
man that Im awful sore about.
Annie dashed away the tears and gulped her tea.
Gradually her mother and Willy drew the story from her.
Willy offered at once to go to the office building and take his
stand outside the door and never leave it until he had
punched old Mr. McQuistons face. He rose as if to attend to
it at once, but Mrs. Wooley drew him to his chair again and
patted his arm.
It would only start talk and get the girl in trouble, Willy.
When its lawyers, folks in our station is helpless. I certainly
believed that man when he sat here; you heard him yourself.
Such a gentleman as he looked.
Willy thumped his great fist, still in punching position,
down on his knee.
Never you be fooled again, Mama Wooley. Youll never
get anything out of a rich guy that he aint signed up in the
courts for. Rich is tight. Theres no exceptions.
Annie shook her head.
I didnt want anything out of him. He was a nice, kind
man, and he had his troubles, I guess. He wasnt tight.
Still, said Mrs. Wooley sadly, Mr. Wanning had no call
to hold out promises. I hate to be disappointed in a gentleman.
Youve had confining work for some time, daughter; a
rest will do you good.
Smart Set, October 1919
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