Part 22 (1/2)
”I promise not to lecture on Nature, if that's what's worrying you.” He took her hand in a parting grip. ”Bring some sandwiches, will you? Quite a lot of 'em. I'll have some other stuff in my rucksack. And wear some clothes you don't mind wrecking. I suppose you haven't got a red tam o'
shanter?”
”Heavens, no!”
”I just thought it might help to keep me humble.” He was at the door, and so was she, somehow, her hand still in his. ”Eight o'clock. How do you stand it in this place, Fan? Oh, well--I'll find that out to-morrow.
Good-by.”
f.a.n.n.y went back to her desk and papers. The room seemed all at once impossibly stuffy, her papers and letters dry, meaningless things. In the next office, separated from her by a part.i.tion half gla.s.s, half wood, she saw the top of Slosson's bald head as he stood up to shut his old-fas.h.i.+oned roll-top desk. He was leaving. She looked out of the window. Ella Monahan, in hat and suit, pa.s.sed and came back to poke her head in the door.
”Run along!” she said. ”It's Sat.u.r.day afternoon. You'll work overtime enough when the Christmas rush begins. Come on, child, and call it a day!”
And f.a.n.n.y gathered papers, figures, catalogue proofs into a glorious heap, thrust them into a drawer, locked the drawer, pushed back her chair, and came.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
f.a.n.n.y told herself, before she went to bed Sat.u.r.day night, that she hoped it would rain Sunday morning from seven to twelve. But when Princess woke her at seven-thirty, as per instructions left in penciled scrawl on the kitchen table, she turned to the window at once, and was glad, somehow, to find it sun-flooded. Princess, if you're mystified, was royal in name only--a biscuit-tinted lady, with a very black and no-account husband whose habits made it necessary for Princess to let herself into f.a.n.n.y's four-room flat at seven every morning, and let herself out at eight every evening. She had an incredibly soft and musical voice, had Princess, and a cooking hand. She kept f.a.n.n.y mended, fed and comfortable, and her only cross was that f.a.n.n.y's taste in blouses (ultimately her property) ran to the severe and tailored.
”Mawnin', Miss f.a.n.n.y. There's a gep'mun waitin' to see yo'.”
f.a.n.n.y choked on a yawn. ”A what!”
”Gep'mun. Says yo-all goin' picnickin'. He's in the settin' room, a-lookin' at yo' pictchah papahs. Will Ah fry yo' up a li'l chicken to pack along? San'wiches ain't no eatin' fo' Sunday.”
f.a.n.n.y flung back her covers, swung around to the side of the bed, and stood up, all, seemingly, in one sweeping movement. ”Do you mean to tell me he's in there, now?”
From the sitting room. ”I think I ought to tell you I can hear everything you're saying. Say. f.a.n.n.y, those sketches of yours are----Why, Gee Whiz! I didn't know you did that kind of thing. This one here, with that girl's face in the crowd----”
”For heaven's sake!” f.a.n.n.y demanded, ”what are you doing here at seven-thirty? And I don't allow people to look at those sketches. You said eight-thirty.”
”I was afraid you'd change your mind, or something. Besides, it's now twenty-two minutes to eight. And will you tell the lady that's a wonderful idea about the chicken? Only she'd better start now.”
Goaded by time bulletins shouted through the closed door, f.a.n.n.y found herself tubbed, clothed, and ready for breakfast by eight-ten. When she opened the door Clarence was standing in the center of her little sitting room, waiting, a sheaf of loose sketches in his hand.
”Say, look here! These are the real thing. Why, they're great! They get you. This old geezer with the beard, selling fish and looking like one of the Disciples. And this. What the devil are you doing in a mail order house, or whatever it is? Tell me that! When you can draw like this!”
”Good morning,” said f.a.n.n.y, calmly. ”And I'll tell you nothing before breakfast. The one thing that interests me this moment is hot coffee.
Will you have some breakfast? Oh, well, a second one won't hurt you.
You must have got up at three, or thereabouts.” She went toward the tiny kitchen. ”Never mind, Princess. I'll wait on myself. You go on with that chicken.”
Princess was the kind of person who can fry a chicken, wrap it in cool, crisp lettuce leaves, box it, cut sandwiches, and come out of the process with an unruffled temper and an immaculate kitchen. Thanks to her, f.a.n.n.y and Heyl found themselves on the eight fifty-three train, bound for the dunes.
Clarence swung his rucksack up to the bundle rack. He took off his cap, and stuffed it into his pocket. He was grinning like a schoolboy. f.a.n.n.y turned from the window and smiled at what she saw in his face. At that he gave an absurd little bounce in his place, like an overgrown child, and reached over and patted her hand.
”I've dreamed of this for years.”
”You're just fourteen, going on fifteen,” f.a.n.n.y reproved him.
”I know it. And it's great! Won't you be, too? Forget you're a fair financier, or whatever they call it. Forget you earn more in a month than I do in six. Relax. Unbend. Loosen up. Don't a.s.sume that hardsh.e.l.l air with me. Just remember that I knew you when the frill of your panties showed below your skirt.”