MRS1 The Under Dogs (26 page)

But she had him half convinced. She had won the attention of all the men. They listened to her, biting their fingers, their eyes full of a sombre resentment.

"Why is it we're like a pack of slaves, jumpin' at the crack of the whip?" Jessie went on. "If you look into these here rules we hear so much about, you can see that the whole idea of them is to break us up and keep us apart, so he can handle us one at a time. He treats us like dogs now, because he thinks he can. Well, we're no better than dogs if we're goin' to stand for it!"

"She's right!" Abell suddenly broke in, in a low, tense voice. "And I'm with her, for one. These people are hounding me to my death just as surely as if I was bound for the chair. Well, I might as well have a run for my money. I'm in on this!"

"How about you, Mr. Helder?" asked Jessie. "You got the best head in the crowd. We can't do anything without you."

"A-ah! this is just young people's talk," snarled Tim. "I heard it all before. Ain't nothin' in it at all!"

"Are you satisfied with what you get out of it?" asked Jessie.

"Satisfied!" he cried, jumping out of his chair in his agitation; "They robbed me of my rightful share. I ain't got a penny, not a penny! And I'm sixty-three year old. Pretty soon I'll be past this work. What then? Sent back to rot behind the bars, I suppose."

"Well then," said Jessie, "stand out with us for a fair division, and decent treatment."

"Maybe I would if I thought you'd stick," he grumbled. "But you can't depend on the young."

"We'll satisfy you as to that," said Jessie. "How about you, Bill?"

Bill was chiefly concerned about Jessie's danger. "Where you get all such ideas?" he demanded. "An ignorant girl like you."

"Anybody can fight for their rights," said Jessie.

"God! if they heard what you said!" Bill said with a fearful glance towards the hall door. "God! they'd snuff you out so quick! That girl upstairs, what she did was nothin' to this!"

Said Jessie: "They couldn't touch me, Bill, if you and the others stood behind me. If we made our slogan: 'One for all; and all for one!' they'd have to listen to us."

"I couldn't let 'em hurt you," said Bill, whom emotion made sullen, "whatever the rights of the case was. If you got to go against the boss, I got to go too, though I believe he'll pulverise us all."

Fingy did not wait to be asked. "Me, too," he said, coming forward. "I already told you I'd stand by you, Fuzzy-Wuz, not thinking anything like this. But it goes, see? One for all, and all for one, I says."

"How about you, Pap?" asked Jessie.

"Oh, leave me out! leave me out!" cried Pap, wild with agitation. "I'm on'y the cook. It don't matter about me!"

"You matter just the same as any other," said Jessie. "For look; if you lined up with Kate and Sam, that would make it five to three, see? It looks almost like an even break. But if you came with us it would be six to two. Or three times as many."

The other men glanced at each other; their look said: "That girl has a head on her!"

"I'm not the man I was!" wailed Pap. "I couldn't go through with a thing like this. I on'y want to be left alone."

"You ain't got nothin' to do," said Jessie, "except stand with us."

"Well, I suppose I got to!" groaned Pap, wringing his hands. "You're a terrible girl!"

"I'm not the leader," said the cunning Jessie. "I just brought the matter up. Mr. Helder will tell us all what to do."

"If we're goin' to act, let's act quick!" muttered Abell.

"But not too quick," said Jessie, who having dropped her seed, now wished to give it time to sprout. "We'll talk about this again. We got to be sure the time is ripe before we act. A handclasp, boys, to seal the bargain."

In the middle of the kitchen, they made a wheel, their clasped hands forming the hub.

"Now, all together," whispered Jessie.

In low tones they repeated in unison: "One for all, and all for one!" And separated with slightly exalted breasts.

Presently Bill said, harking back to what had happened earlier: "It wouldn't surprise me if the orders was on the way for the kid to do a job. That's why they wanted to throw a scare into her this evening."

"So much the better!" said Jessie quickly. "If it's an important job, and I pull it off in good style, look how it will strengthen our organisation. For then I'll be a person to reckon with, see? They need a woman operative, and need her bad."

Once more the men looked at each other, as much as to say: "What a girl she is!" Or they might just as well have said: "What a fellow!" For Jessie had at last succeeded in forcing them to accept her on a basis which had nothing to do with her sex.

As soon as I saw Jessie Seipp's companion in the Erie Station, I guessed that it must be the mistress of the house on Varick Street. I didn't then know her name; a handsome dark woman of fifty, very well preserved; dressed in a rich, respectable, slightly old-fashioned style.

After Jessie and I greeted each other as friends who had not met for some time, Jessie introduced the woman to me. "Meet my friend, Mrs. Simonds," said she, "or Mother Simonds, as we gen'ally calls her.... This is my pal, Canada Annie Watkin, Mother."

I could see that my mistress's tongue was in her cheek, but the other woman could not. This "Mother Simonds" set out to be very agreeable to me—too much so; her tongue dripped treacle.

"Pleased to meet you, dearie. It's real nice you can go with Jessie for a few days. Be a pleasant outing for you. All your expenses paid, and three dollars a day for yourself."

I murmured my gratification. I dared not look at my mistress, for I was certain there was a twinkle concealed in her eye at the humour of the situation. That three dollars a day was the crowning touch!

"What are my duties?" I asked.

"There ain't any," said Mother Simonds. Lowering her voice to a confidential whisper, she went on: "You see, dearie, I run a little detective agency, very private and exclusive, see? and Jessie's got a bit of work to do for me in Tuxedo. Well, she can get away with it better if she has a companion, see? two decent, respectable working girls taking a bit of a vacation in the country, see? All you got to do is be her companion."

We made our way to the train gates, and Mother Simonds handed us our tickets. Her unchanging smile looked as if it was painted on her face.

"Well, good-bye, girls," she said. "Be good, and you'll be happy"—this with a roguish wag of her forefinger. "When you get back, Annie, make Jessie bring you round to see me some time. Me and you ought to be better acquainted." So we left her, looking after us.

Walking down the platform together, Jessie said: "You wouldn't think, would you, that at home she was an unchained she-devil, and that the greatest satisfaction she could get in life would be in sticking a knife between my ribs."

"Good heavens, why?" I asked.

"It's a long story," she said. "I'll have a chance to tell you now.... Think of it! three or four days together in the country! And with the full permission of my masters! Isn't it wonderful?"

"Isn't it going to be dangerous?" I asked anxiously.

"Not until later."

When we found seats in the train, Jessie told me how the situation had come about.

"Yesterday," she said, "orders came through for Jessie Seipp to go to Tuxedo Park and stop at a certain modest hotel, in the character of a respectable working girl taking her vacation. In the evenings I was told to attend a certain little country dance hall frequented by the servants of the rich people in the neighbourhood. Here I am to scrape acquaintance with one Alfred Booker, who is valet to Mr. Walbridge Sterry, the multi-millionaire. I am supposed to fascinate Booker (who is a great lady-killer in his own circle) to gain his confidence, and to learn from him the prospective movements of his employers during the coming week."

"Then what?" I asked.

"That I have not been told," she said. "These orders came to me through that woman you just saw—Black Kate, we call her, much against her will, for she would rather put me back behind the bars in Woburn than give me a job. As soon as I heard what I was to do I asked if I could have a companion.

"'No,' she said.

"'But it says I must be a respectable working girl,' I objected, 'and they always travel in couples. That's how they advertise their respectability. A girl stopping alone in a country hotel would be fair game for all men. How could I keep the others off while I waited for the one I am sent after?'

"Black Kate shut me up. 'All you got to do is follow your instructions,' she said. She wants to see me fall down on my first job, of course. I took the matter to Bill. He managed somehow to get word through to headquarters, and in the afternoon word came back that I was to be provided with a companion. Naturally, that didn't make Black Kate feel any better towards me.... So there's the situation, my dear. We will advise together as to the proper way of fascinating a valet."

During the rest of that railway journey Jessie related to me the incidents of her imprisonment, her escape, and the subsequent days in the house on Varick Street—part of it, that is, for it took many an hour for her to tell the whole. All of this I have already set down in its proper place chronologically. She talked in a whisper, and we were careful to preserve the outward appearance of the parts we were playing; for it was quite possible the gang might be having Jessie watched on first being sent out alone.

We found the village of Tuxedo Park a very undistinguished collection of houses. The fashionable life of the place centred around the little lake in the hills, which was invisible from the railway. We never did see it. The hotel we were sent to was a run-down place of a special character; that is to say, it catered to extra servants, servants in search of a job, and to all the queer hangers-on of the rich who were not desired, or for whom there was no room under the roofs of the big houses around the lake. Two working girls seeking a country vacation were quite in character there.

"This is seeing Tuxedo from below-stairs," Jessie whispered to me.

Within half an hour of our arrival, she could have had her pick of the half-dozen fellows hanging about the place—young men with an unwholesome, house-broken look; but we kept ourselves very much to ourselves, as befitted respectable girls.

After supper we walked up and down the single long street of the place, arm in arm, like many another couple of girls out prospecting. We had plenty of offers of company, too; at least, Jessie had. All the offers were turned down with expressions of the most rigorous virtue. We had a good deal of time to kill before it would be time to go to a dance. Finally we went into a candy store, and as we purchased chewing-gum, Jessie said to the clerk.

"We're just up from the city, me and my friend. Any excitement in this burg evenings?"

"Well, there's Foley's dance hall," he said.

"Where's that?"

"On the Ramapo road. You walk out of town in that direction, and when the road forks, keep to the right. You can't miss it."

"Much obliged," said Jessie. "We'll look it over."

"I'll see you there later," he called after us.

"Not if I see you first," said Jessie to me.

While we were still a quarter of a mile away from the place we could hear the moan of the saxophone. It was a hastily erected pavilion in a little grove beside the road. The sides were open to the evening breezes, and a deal of cheap bunting had been used to give it a festive look, now sadly washed and tattered by the summer rains and winds. It was crowded with perspiring couples doing all the most eccentric varieties of fox-trot. There were about as many styles of dancing as there were couples. We found a little table adjoining the dancing floor, and ordered two sarsaparillas. Jessie surveyed the scene like a conqueror.

"Have you got a description of the man we want?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Only that he comes here regularly, and that he's a devil for the girls. That will be enough."

"How on earth can you pick him out in this crowd?"

"You'll see," she said, with half a smile.

When the music started for the next dance, we took to the floor, and Jessie guided me around in a masterful fashion. To have seen her, you would have thought she had been frequenting cheap dance halls for years. She had, to the life, the haughty, touch-me-not manner of the girl who guides another girl, disdainful of men. I just let myself go within the firm compass of her guiding arm, without exactly knowing what my feet were doing. We seemed to get along all right. We were frequently hailed by the youths along the side lines, and pairs of them even tried to separate us, only to be haughtily pushed aside by the flat of Jessie's hand, as we sailed on.

In our slow gyrations, swinging up to one couple, and sheering off from another, Jessie, her bold, dark eyes roving about, missing nothing, kept up a curious line of conversation, presumably for my benefit, which ran something like this:

"She told me his name was Alfred Booker." (A pause to give time for one couple to go, and another to approach.) "Of all the fellows there they said the best dancer was Alfred Booker." (Pause.) "She was crazy about a fellow called Alfred Booker ... Alfred Booker ... Alfred Booker...." and so on. And so on.

When we returned to our table, more fellows came up, but Jessie remained obdurate. Her reply, delivered in the haughtiest manner, was always the same:

"We're waitin' for friends."

We danced again.

During the intermission that followed, there came to our table a young fellow who had more style than most of the swains present. With his wavy blond hair and incipient side-whiskers, his bold nose and predatory mouth, he would have been quite good-looking, had it not been for the pasty complexion, and the smirk of the house-servant off duty. His extremely fashionable clothes, which were yet somehow not quite the thing, stamped him for what he was; a gentleman's gentleman. The type does not change, though fashions do.

"Good-evening," he said, with all the assurance of one who is not accustomed to being turned down.