Finally she spread out the morning paper that she had brought with her and sat down on the floor, overwhelmed with the stinging tears that rushed into her eyes. Oh, would that moving van never come?
It was half past ten before it arrived, and Diana still sat there waiting when the landlady knocked at the door to announce it. She had taken out the poor little flowers from her bag and sat with them coolly against her burning eyelids, trying to imagine herself back home among the shadows on the grass picking them up one by one, and remembering how she had walked with Bobby there that night and had seen one flower and how that stranger’s voice had interfered when Bobby grew offensive. She was wondering about that voice for the thousandth time and had almost lost her sense of her sordid surroundings.
But she sprang up quickly to unlock her door and saw with relief two men standing there, each with a chair in his arms.
They put the chairs down and hurried back downstairs, and Diana thanked the grim landlady and tried not to see the contemptuous glances of envy that she cast at the rich covering of the upholstery. After she had gone downstairs, Diana stood back and looked at her beloved chairs almost apologetically. If they could feel, what would they think of her for putting them into such surroundings? She felt like asking their pardon. And one was her mother’s big wing chair. She could see her sitting in it now, and she put her hands softly over the covering like a caress. She was still holding the precious flowers in her hand, and she put her face down on her arms over the back of the chair and gave a little heartsick moan. It seemed as if already she had been away from her home for weeks, and the sight of the dear, familiar objects filled her with exquisite joy, almost as if they had been alive.
But the men were coming up with another load, and Diana moved the chairs where they would be out of the way and went over by the window to watch.
They had brought their arms full of small articles now that had probably been stowed in the van at the last. Diana met each object with a lingering glance of welcome and mentally began to arrange a spot where each should stand. Already the room seemed peopled, but she imagined the things stood there astonished to be brought to such a place! Yet, oh, she was glad to have them!
And now the bed was coming in sections, and two more men behind were bringing springs and mattress. How quickly they set it up and the room took on the look of habitation. Then her bureau and her desk. It was good the room was large. The landlady had said she might put her barrels of dishes in the hall by her door. She was planning to put a curtain across in front of them. Some boxes of books could go there, too.
Everything was up at last, how pitifully few when you thought of home! But they elbowed one another, and it would take some contriving to assemble them into living order.
Then men opened some boxes for her, unstrapped a trunk or two that would go in the hall eventually, and drove two or three nails to hang the few pictures she had brought. The bureau and the wardrobe filled the widest wall spaces, with the bed in the far corner, the gate-leg table in the middle. Now, when the window was washed and a curtain up, it wouldn’t be so bad, and she could perhaps hang one of the superfluous curtains across that other corner and make a closet out of it.
The men stood back and surveyed it before they went.
“Ain’t so bad,” said one, looking from floor to ceiling.
“She wants paperin’ and paintin’ bad,” said the other.
Then they were gone, and Diana stood alone in her new home, realizing that there was work to be done.
She took out the linen sheets, her mother’s with the lovely monograms, smelling of lavender, and smooth and fine. There was another problem. Laundry! That would be yet another expense. Oh, to have Maggie along on this exile! But, of course, that was out of the question. She could never afford Maggie. She would have to learn to wash for herself. But where and how? In that terrible bathroom down a flight? Never! She shuddered at the memory of the unspeakable tin tub grimy with the dirt of the ages.
But when the bed was made, with its pretty spread that matched the curtains, when the bureau was dusted and its ruffled cover in place, a feeling of comfort began to steal into the room, and Diana looked up to the lovely portrait of her mother with thankfulness, at least, if not of joy.
The landlady came up after a time and stood looking around.
“H’m!” she remarked grimly. “I guess you’re rich!”
“Oh no,” said Diana quickly, “not anymore. I am really very poor, and—I’m going out to get a job. These are things from my old home.”
“Ain’t your mother living?”
“No,” said Diana with a tremble in her voice.
Mrs. Lundy looked up to the portrait.
“That her?” she asked, taking in everything with hurried eagle eye.
“Yes,” said Diana softly, trying to control the trembling of her lips.
“Well, it’s plain to be seen you won’t stay long,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “If I’d knowed what kind you was I shouldn’t uv took you. But now you’re here we may as well make the best of it, only I’d oughtta uv charged you a dollar more.”
“I couldn’t have paid it,” said Diana, lifting honest eyes.
“Well, I’m poor, too, an’ I can’t afford to let my rooms for nothin’. I’ll want my pay good and regular.”
“Of course!” said Diana, shrinking inwardly. Oh, to have to deal with coarse-grained people like this. How could she ever stand it under the same roof with a woman like that?
But the woman went away, and Diana put her things in order as best she could, washed her one window with unskilled hands, wondering how she was ever to get it clean on the outside, and finally managed to tack up her curtain temporarily. After that she lay down and took a long nap, and when she woke up it was dark. She hadn’t had any lunch or dinner, but she shrank inexpressibly from going out alone in that region at night. Perhaps by and by she would grow more accustomed to the place and not be afraid. But this night, at least, she would rather go hungry than go out alone and find her way to a restaurant. There was a box of crackers on the windowsill. She would eat those and go to bed.
So, quite in the dark except for weird flickers of light that came in at the window fitfully playing over the floor now and then, she groped her way to the crackers and sat in her big chair, sadly munching them and wondering if life was always to be like this. She might have turned on the garish bulb waving disconsolately in the air above her, but she shrank inexpressibly tonight from a stark unshaded glare above the dear home things. She just couldn’t bear to meet the painted eyes of her mother’s portrait, here, alone, tonight.
Oh, some of those girls in dismal hall bedrooms, washing out their bits of finery and their one pair of stockings and sleeping on a hard, lumpy cot, would have thought her room a palace and her lot heavenly if they could have exchanged with Diana. But to Diana it was as if she and a few of her precious things had wandered into an alien desert land of squalor, where they were prisoners.
It was a comfort, however, the next morning to wake with familiar objects around her, and as she dressed she tried to keep back the desire for tears and just be thankful that she was in a place at last where she could have her own things, even though the place itself was anything but desirable.
After eating a few more crackers and drinking her pint of milk for which she had left an order the day before and which she found outside her door, she sat down to count her resources. There had been a few trifling expenses connected with the moving, which she had not taken into account when she calculated—fees to the men and a larger charge for the moving than she had anticipated. It had cut down her money supply tremendously, and the end of another week was approaching. If she did not get a job this week, she might have to go on starvation rations. Perhaps it would be as well to visit the bank and see if it would be possible for her to get the interest on the money her mother left to her a few days ahead of its usual time. It was customary for her father to look after such matters fo
r her, though during his absence she had sometimes gone into the city bank herself. The bank president knew her, so it wouldn’t be necessary for her to explain anything to him. He wouldn’t know what had happened. And, of course, the money was hers; it was only a matter of a week to the end of the month and her usual installment. If she had been at home, she would have called him up and told him she wanted to draw a check a few days ahead of time, and that would be all there would be to it. The money was hers without question.
So, when she went out on her usual hunt that morning, she stopped at the bank with a check she had made out for a small sum more than she knew was left in her checking account. She explained to the cashier to whom she handed it and asked if it would be all right, as she wanted to use the money right away. He knew her from having seen her with her father and he met her request with courtesy.
“Just a moment, Miss Disston,” he said, a trifle uncertainly. “I presume it will be quite all right, but I’ll have to see.”
He came back in a moment telling her that the president would like to speak with her in his office.
Diana went back with a little trepidation. Was there some cut-and-dried law that made it necessary for her to wait the five days before she could use this money that was her own?
The president met her gravely, gave her a chair, and when he had seated himself with a little more formality than usual he said, “Miss Disston, I’m very sorry, but we have received a request from your father not to pay you any more of your interest without permission from him. Being a trustee of your funds, of course, he has the right to do this. I understand he has been very much disturbed by your absence from home and has telegraphed to a number of places where he thought you might be, without finding you. He therefore has taken this method to get in touch with you. He naturally reasoned that if you had no money you would have to get in touch with him at once.”
Diana sat staring at Mr. Dunham, her eyes very large and wide, and her face suddenly flaming crimson. The great man sat in his chair of authority with his elbows on its arms and the tips of his long white fingers touching one another, surveying her speculatively. He had not been prepared for the consternation that had come into her face, and he was puzzled by her sweet, quiet manner. This was no wild young thing having her fling. This looked like a conscientious girl. But he had to obey his client’s orders, of course. However, he felt uncomfortable under the clear, steady gaze of her big eyes. Also, the color had receded as suddenly as it had come and left her face a dead white. There was some deep feeling behind all this. Was Disston perhaps a little hard on his child? Yet he had seemed to cherish her as the very apple of his eye. He felt almost disconcerted as she continued to sit quietly looking at him.
“I’m sorry to have to refuse your request,” he said half embarrassed, “but, of course, you see how it is, and I’m sure you will accede to your father’s request to go home at once and all will be right. It’s probably just some little misunderstanding, and with your father’s permission, we shall be glad to favor you with the advance money at any time, of course.”
Still Diana did not answer. Her sweet face dropped for an instant and then lifted with a serious gaze as she half rose, steadying herself with the tips of her fingers lightly touching his desk.
Then she spoke, and her patrician chin was lifted just the least little bit with gentle dignity.
“I’m sorry to have troubled you,” she said, with a fleeting distant semblance of a smile. Her voice was soft and a shade husky, but she had good control of herself.
“Not at all, not at all!” said the banker, almost cordially. “I—! You—! You understand how it is? And if you are short of funds for getting to your home from the city, why I understand there is a trifling sum, a matter of something like five dollars, perhaps, in your checking account, which you are, of course, at liberty to withdraw at any time. If you’ll sit down a minute, I’ll write you an order to that effect and you can make out a check and cash it at once. That will, I am sure, cover your fare to the suburbs.”
Diana swept him a glance of haughtiness.
“Thank you,” she said coolly, “that will not be necessary.” And she walked from the room without looking at him again.
It was just as the door was swinging closed behind her that he came to himself and started forward.
“Miss Disston,” he said, raising his voice, “I hope that you will go straight to your home. I assure you your father is very anxious!” He was almost shouting with the last word. But Diana was gone, and the big mahogany door had closed noiselessly.
What a fool he was! He ought to have gotten her address! Her father would blame him if she didn’t go home at once. But of course she would! What was it about her that made him feel she did not intend to? He strode forward and swung the door open, looking down the passage toward the main part of the bank, but Diana was not there. There was a side entrance opposite his office door for his own private use. He opened the door and looked down the street, but there was no sign of her anywhere. How could she have gotten away so quickly? She was embarrassed, stung to the quick, of course, one could see that. He stepped into the bank and looked carefully at everyone, but she was not there. Diana was gone!
Chapter 14
At first Diana did not realize where she was going. Her only object was to get out of that bank and away from Mr. Dunham. That she was hurt to the quick was manifest in the way she walked, with long fleeing strides, and the ground seemed fairly to fly under her feet. She walked as if she were going to some direct appointment, and people watched her, turned to look after her, and marveled at her graceful movements. She made her way through a crowded street, and it seemed almost as if the crowds divided at her coming. She slid through breathlessly, crossing streets without noticing where she was, rushing on like something wound up and not able to stop.
But her mind was smarting as if a whip were lashing it. Her father had done this to her! He had stopped her money and brought her to shame before his acquaintance! His banker knew she was gone, without knowing the reason! Oh, how could she ever live this down? To her inflamed mind the whole thing grew in proportion until it seemed that the worst humiliation there could be had been put upon her. So far from feeling sorry for her, her father was only anxious to get her back and bend her to his will, wishing to punish her for having refused to try to live in the same house with Helen! Her lips were quivering as she walked, and large tears swelled out and threatened to fall; yet she held them back and went on. Her soul was bursting with sorrow. Her father had so far descended as to use her little income as a whiplash to force her back to him.
Well, never would she go back to get money, even if she starved!
And that brought her to the next thing. She must get a job at once!
She had walked until she was breathless and weary, though she did not realize it, but suddenly she came to the end of things. A river ahead with no bridge and only a sharp turn to the left if she wanted still to go on.
She paused an instant. The river winked and beckoned to her, in bright sunny sparkles between the shipping craft and wharfs, and suddenly she came to herself and gave a sane brave little laugh. She was Diana Disston, and tragedy was not to be carried on by her. If other people did crazy things, she couldn’t help it, but she could help it if she let them drive her to do more of them. Somehow she had to work this thing out, to get rid of the pain in her heart and find a way to exist, without money, if necessary, but not by doing anything wild.
There were few people around when she gave that laugh, just some men standing about the door of a warehouse, one or two lounging on steps, watching a tug slowly pulling a barge out into the river. They were not looking at her, and she gave no thought to them as she took that sharp turn to the left and walked over one block, turning back on the next street and starting toward the center of the city again.
But one man turned and looked her full in the face as she sped by, watching her until she turned the corner and went on out of sight. He w
as one of those who slouched low on the step, his gaunt, ill-strung length stretched to its utmost, his gawky limbs lying absolutely relaxed, his lazy arms anchored by hands in his pockets. He had a weak chin and an irresponsible manner. It had taken the distance of a block for him to get a full recognition across to himself, and even then he wasn’t quite sure. As much as he allowed his lazy mind to think, he turned the matter over once or twice and then decided it didn’t matter, anyway, and went on sunning himself on the step. If she was the girl who often used to pass his mother’s cottage when he was a child, what business of his was it, anyway? She wouldn’t recognize Bill Sharpe, of course. It likely wasn’t the same girl, and why should he care? He would have smoked a cigarette on it if he had had one to smoke, but he hadn’t. That was why he was here, to see if he could pick up a job. He needed some money badly. His mother was dead and could no longer earn it for him doing fine sewing. He sat still and soon forgot that he might possibly have seen a daughter of the Disston House go by in this most unexpected place.