The Story of Julia Page Part 3

She sat down before a dresser with a triple mirror, which had lately been added to the bedroom furniture, and began to ruffle the coa.r.s.e puffs of her black hair with slim, ringed fingers.

"You've got something better to do, of course!" George said.

"Don't go to a matinee, Mother!" said Julia, coming to lean coaxingly against her mother's arm. Emeline looked down at the pale, intelligent little face, and gave the child a sudden kiss.

"Mama isn't going to a matinee, doll baby. But papa ain't as crazy for her to go to the Park as you are!" she said, with an oblique and challenging glance at George.

"Oh, come on!" George urged impatiently. "Only don't wear that rotten hat," he added. "It don't look like a respectable woman!"

Emeline's expression did not change, but fury seethed within her.

"Don't wait for me," she said levelly. "I'm not going."

"Well, put the kid's hat on then," George suggested, settling his own with some care at the mantel mirror.

"Get your hand-embroidered dress out of your drawer, Julia," said her mother, "and the hat Aunt Maybelle gave you!"

"I'm going to Ca.s.s's to telephone, and I need some cigarettes," George announced from the door. "I'll be back in five minutes for Julie."

"Don't forget to get a drink while you're in Ca.s.s's," Emeline reminded him, as she flung an embroidered dress over Julia's limp little draggled petticoats. George's answer was a violent slamming of the hall door.

Julia's little face was radiant as her mother tied on a soiled white straw bonnet covered with roses, and put a cologne-soaked handkerchief into the pocket of her blue velvet coat. The little girl did not have many pleasures; there were very few children in the neighbourhood, and Julia was not very strong; she easily caught colds in dark O'Farrell Street, or in the draughty hall. All winter long she had been hanging over the coal fire in the front room, or leaning against the window watching the busy street below--but today was spring! Sunlight glorified even the dreary aspect from the windows above "J. Ca.s.sidy's" saloon, and the glorious singing freshness of the breeze, the heavenly warmth of the blue air, had reached Julia's little heart.

When she was quite dressed, and was standing at the window patiently watching for her father, Emeline came and stood beside her.

"I'll tell you what!" said Emeline suddenly. "I'll go, too! It's too grand to be indoors today; we'll just go out to the Park and take in the whole show! And then perhaps papa'll take us somewhere to dinner!"

She began swiftly to dress, pinning on a hat that George liked, and working on long gray kid gloves as a complement to a gray gown. Then she came to stand behind Julia again, and both watched the street.

"I guess he's waiting for his change?" suggested Julia, and Emeline laughed.

"We'll walk over and take the Geary Street car," said she. "We'll go right to the fountain, and get dummy seats. And we could have dinner at the Poodle Dog--"

"Here he comes!" Julia cried. And indeed George was to be seen for a moment, between two friends, standing on the corner.

A long wait ensued. Then steps came up the stairs. Emeline, followed by Julia, went to the door. It was not George, but a note from George, delivered by Henny, of Ca.s.sidy's saloon.

"Dear Em," Emeline read, "a couple of the fellows want me to go to Emeryville, have dinner at Tony's, and sit in a little game afterward.

Tell Julie I will take her to the Park to-morrow--and buy her anything she wants. George."

"Thanks, Henny," Emeline said, without visible emotion. But Julia's lip quivered, and she burst into bitter crying. Six-years-old knows no tomorrows, and Julia tasted the bitterness of despair. She cried quietly, her little body screwed into a big armchair, her face hidden in the crook of a thin little arm. Emeline stood it as long as she could, then she slapped and shook Julia to stop her, and Julia strangled and shrieked hysterically.

Peace was presently restored, and Julia was asked if she would like to go see her Auntie Mame, and a.s.sented with a hiccough. So her mottled little face was wiped with a soggy gray towel, and her bonnet straightened, and they set out.

Mrs. Povey was so sympathetic that Emeline stayed with her for dinner, a casual meal which Myrtle Montague and a sister actress came in to share.

Julia sat with them at table, and stuffed solemnly on fresh bread and cheese, crab salad and smoked beef, hot tomato sauce and delicious coffee. The coffee came to table in a battered tin pot, and the cream was poured into the cups from the little dairy bottle, with its metal top, but Julia saw these things as little as any one else--as little as she saw the disorderly welter of theatrical effects in the Poveys'

neglected rooms, the paint on the women's faces, the ugly violence and coa.r.s.eness of their talk.

But she did see that they were an impulsive, warm-hearted, generous set.

n.o.body ever spoke crossly to her, she was given the freedom of their rooms, she listened to their chatter, she was often caught up for embraces heavy with cologne; they loved to dress her up in preposterous costumes, and shouted with laughter at the sight of her in Dolly Varden bonnets, Scotch kilts, or spectacles and wigs. "Baby doll," "Lovey," and "Honey Babe" were Julia's names here, and she was a child hungry for love and eager to earn it. To-night she ate her supper in that silence so grateful to grown people, and afterward found some stage jewellery and played with it until her head was too heavy to hold up any longer.

Then she went to sleep upon an odorous couch piled deep with all sorts of odd garments, her feet thrust into a tangle of lifeless satin pillows, her head upon the fur lining of some old cape, a banjo prodding her uncomfortably whenever she stirred.

Julia--all pins and needles--was presently jerked up into a glare of lights, and tied into the rose-crowned bonnet, and b.u.t.toned into the velvet coat again. She had not been covered as she slept, and sneezed and shivered in the cold night air. Emeline walked along briskly, and Julia stumbled beside her. The child was in such an agony of fatigue and chill that every separate step toward bed was dreaded by this time. She fell against her mother, as Emeline tore off shoes and stockings, stretched blundering, blind little arms for her nightgown sleeves, and sank deliciously against her pillows, already more than half asleep.

But Emeline sat wide eyed, silent, waiting for George.

George did not come home at all that night. On the next afternoon--Sunday afternoon--Julia was playing in the street with two other small girls. Their game was simple. The three huddled into the deep doorway that led to Julia's home, clinging tight to each other, laughing and shouting. Then at a given signal they rushed screaming forth, charged across the street as if pursued by a thousand furies, and took shelter in a similar doorway, next to the saloon across the street.

This performance had been repeated, back and forth, perhaps a dozen times, when Julia found her father waylaying her.

"Where y' going?" asked Julia, noticing that he carried a hand bag.

George sat down on the dirty cement steps that connected his dwelling with the sidewalk, and drew Julia between his knees.

"I've got to go away, baby," said he soberly.

"And ain't choo going to take me to the Park--_never_?" asked Julia, with a trembling lip.

George freed a lock of her hair that had gotten caught in her collar, with clumsy, gentle fingers.

"Mama's mad at me, and I'm going away for a while, Babe," said he, clearing his throat. "But you be a good girl, and I'll come take you to the Park some day."

Something in the gravity of his tone impressed Julia.

"But I don't want you to go away," she said tearfully. George got up hastily.

"Come on, walk with Pop to the car," he commanded, and Julia trotted contentedly beside him to Market Street. There she gave him a child's soft, impersonal kiss, staring up at the buildings opposite as she did so. George jumped on a cable car, wedged his bag under his knees as he took a seat on the dummy, and looked back at the little figure that was moving toward the dingy opening of O'Farrell Street, and at the spring sunshine, bright on the child's hair.

CHAPTER II

In summer the rear parlour that was Mrs. Page's bedroom was a rather dim and dreary place; such light as it had fell through one long, high window that gave only upon a narrow air shaft; it was only in mid-July that the actual sunlight--a bright and fleeting triangle--touched the worn red carpet and the curly-maple bed. In winter the window gave almost no light at all. Julia dressed by gaslight ten months out of the year, and had to sit up in her warm blankets and stare at the clock on a certain January morning in her fifteenth year, to make sure whether it said twenty minutes of eleven or five minutes of eight o'clock. It was five minutes of eight--no mistake about it--but eight o'clock was early for the Pages, mother and daughter. Julia sighed, and cautiously stretched forth an arm, a bare, shapely little arm, with bangles on the round wrist and rings on the smooth fingers, and picked a book from the floor. Cautiously settling herself on the pillows she plunged into her novel, now and then pushing back a loose strand of hair, or bringing her pretty fingernails close to her eyes for an admiring and critical scrutiny.

An hour pa.s.sed--another hour. The clock in the front room struck a silvery ten. Then Julia slammed her book noisily together, and gave a sharp push to the rec.u.mbent form beside her.

"Ah--no--darling!" moaned Mrs. Page, tortured out of dreams.

"Don't--Julie--"

"Aw, wake up, Mama!" the daughter urged. Whereupon the older woman rolled on her back, yawned luxuriously, and said, quite composedly:

"h.e.l.lo, darling! What time is it?"

Emeline had aged in seven years; she looked hopelessly removed from youth and beauty now, but later in the day, when her hair would be taken out of its crimping kids, her sallow cheeks touched with rouge, and her veined neck covered by a high collar, a coral chain, and an ostrich-feather ruff, some traces of her former good looks might be visible. She still affected tight corsets, high heels, enormous hats.

But Emeline's interest in her own appearance was secondary now to her fierce pride and faith in Julia's beauty. Drifting along the line of least resistance, asking only to be comfortable and to have a good time, Emeline had come to a bitter att.i.tude of resentment toward George, toward the fate that had "forced" her to leave him. Now she began lazily to fasten upon Julia as the means of gratifying those hopes and ambitions that were vain for herself. Julia was beautiful, Julia would be a great success, and some day would repay her mother for the sacrifices she had made for her child.

Emeline dressed, went about, flirted, and gossiped still; she liked c.o.c.ktails and cards and restaurant dinners; she was an authority on all things theatrical; her favourite pose was that of the martyred mother.

"All I have left," Emeline would say, kissing her daughter effectively, before strangers. "And only G.o.d knows what it has cost me to keep my girlie with me!"