At Home with the Jardines Part 5

There was a paper saying so fastened to the bell. We walked down five flights of stairs, occasionally looking at each other ominously. My headache vanished as if by magic. I felt strong and murderous.

On the table in the hall lay a dozen letters, which had arrived during the day, a telegram from Uncle John, asking us to dine at the Waldorf and share their box to see Irving and Terry and to sup with them at Sherry's that night. It was then a quarter to nine. We were not dressed, and we were half an hour from the theatre. There was also a note from Mrs. Scofield's daughter saying that they had come at half-past twelve, but found no hall-boy, no janitor, and the elevator not running, so, after vainly trying to communicate with us, they had been obliged to go home again.

I simply wept with rage and mortification. Aubrey started for the bas.e.m.e.nt with me at his heels. I felt that the Angel could not cope alone with such a situation. We found Mrs. Harris pale, trembling, and apologetic. She said her husband was not there.

Aubrey turned away breathing vengeance.

"Aubrey," I said, firmly, "Harris is in that room."

"No, no, Mrs. Jardine! Indeed he is not!" insisted the little woman.

"I am sorry for you, Mrs. Harris," I said, "but you must allow me to see for myself." And with that I made as if to pa.s.s her, but Aubrey held me back.

"I'll go," he said.

He went and found Harris calmly reading the newspaper, with his feet on the mantel.

"Why isn't the elevator running?" demanded Aubrey.

"Because the hall-boy left this morning, and there was n.o.body to run it," said the man, impudently keeping his seat, with his hat on, and not even putting his feet on the floor.

"Is it broken?" asked my husband.

"It is not. I turned the power off, that's all."

"Why didn't you run it yourself?" asked Aubrey.

"It isn't my business. That's why, young feller. Now you know, don't you!"

"Don't you dare speak to my husband in that manner," I broke in.

Aubrey shook his head at me. It was cruel of him, for I do love a fight.

"You come out this minute and start that elevator," said Aubrey.

"I'll do nothing of the sort. You'll walk up those five nights of stairs this night," said the janitor. Oh, how I wished I had that fee back!

Mrs. Harris plucked imploringly at my skirt.

"Harris, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I said. "Look at your poor wife just out of bed, and you have lost this good place by this day's work. You and your family will not know where to lay your heads within a week."

"And how do you know that? I'll keep this place as long as I please.

_I_ stand in with the agent. I suppose you think because you've been good to the children that you can run me, but let me tell you that you've not done half that you should! So you just shut up and go back where you belong."

Aubrey made a leap for him, but Mrs. Harris threw herself between them and I fastened myself to Aubrey's coat-tails. This was more than I had bargained for.

"No, Aubrey, come. Let us once for all declare our independence. For some time I have suspected that there was collusion between janitors and agents. Now let's get to the bottom of it."

By holding out such a prospect to him, I got the Angel up-stairs, where we poured forth our souls in a letter to the agent.

He called, listened to us with polite incredulity, and said he would hear Harris's side, as if he wished to judge impartially between two criminals.

We held on to ourselves while he consulted the gentleman below stairs.

When he came back he said:

"Harris denies everything. Now who am I to believe?"

For once the Angel rose to the occasion.

"Mr. Jepson, you may believe whom you please if you have no more decency than to put the word of a gentleman against that of a drunken servant. You have violated the terms of our lease, and unless Harris is dismissed inside of a week our apartment is at your disposal."

"Very well, Mr. Jardine," said Jepson, "if you insist on our dismissing a janitor for his first offence without even giving him a second chance, then there is nothing to do but to agree to your demand."

Aubrey bowed in a truly haughty manner. The Angel!

"I so insist," he said. The agent left us.

"Aubrey," I said, thoughtfully, "we have gained a gallant victory over the janitor, but I fear the battle with the agent will be the bloodiest of our campaign."

But we looked forward hopefully. Like all man-eating monsters, having once tasted human blood, we thirsted for more.

CHAPTER IV

THE ANGEL AND THE AGENT

At the risk of causing the gentle reader to despise us, I feel in duty bound to set forth the joys and sorrows of our first housekeeping about as they occurred. By that I mean that I intend to take the keen edge from our griefs for kindness' sake and to illuminate our joys a little beyond the stern realities as we found them, in order to permit the reader to understand the colour of the Paradise that the Angel and I found in each other. If, therefore, I do not burst into tears at the moment when any well-regulated woman would, lay it, O gentle reader, at the door of the Angel, whose deep-seeing understanding not only could comprehend such a grief as that of parting with my dog, but which also was capable of sympathizing with suitable violence over a gown which did not fit or the polite malice of an afternoon visitor.

If I add that when I went into a fury over nothing at all the Angel never attempted to stop me or to pooh-pooh the cause, but permitted me to mangle the whole subject until it lay a disorganized, dismembered, wholly unrecognizable ma.s.s at my triumphant feet, I feel reasonably sure that I shall have proved to every woman his right to his t.i.tle.

The knowing ones will naturally scorn the method of reasoning by which we arrived at conclusions, but I have found that nothing is more diverting or delightful than to go blundering into absurd predicaments, mentally hand in hand, for the Angel never says "I told you so." That sting being removed and all three in this happy family, Mary, the Angel, and I, all being rather handsomely endowed with a sense of humour, it is a constant source of enjoyment to look back and consider the virulence and contagion of our ignorance and to count the bruises by which we became wise.

One evening at ten o'clock we came in from making a call and found the elevator-boy in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves was.h.i.+ng the hall floor. I asked him if it wasn't a little early to be doing such a thing, as people were still going and coming, and he said he was acting under Mr. Jepson's orders.

Jepson was the agent.

We said we would remonstrate, and we wrote a letter to Jepson asking him to have the hall cleaned after twelve o'clock at night and before six o'clock in the morning. He wrote back that, after consulting the convenience of all the people in the house, he had decided on eight in the morning and ten at night, as everybody was at breakfast at the first hour and that ten was the freest hour for the halls at night. He added that the gentleman on the first floor went fis.h.i.+ng at six every morning, and had complained of having the halls washed at that hour, as he was inconvenienced thereby.

A few days later we met Jepson on the street, and Aubrey stopped him and said:

"There are several matters about the house I wish you would look into, Mr. Jepson."

"Now look here, Mr. Jardine, if you expect me to run that whole apartment-house to suit you, you are going to be mistaken."

"For whose comfort and convenience is it run?" I broke in before Aubrey could stop me.

"For mine, madam! I arrange everything outside of your four walls."

"Then we have no rights as to entrance, elevator, and our upper hall?"