The Dwelling Place of Light | Page 7

flower shop. Afterwards,
when she became a saleslady in the Bagatelle, that flamboyant
department store in Faber Street, she earned four dollars and a half a
week. Two of these were supposed to go into the common fund, but
there were clothes to buy; Lise loved finery, and Hannah had not every
week the heart to insist. Even when, on an occasional Saturday night
the girl somewhat consciously and defiantly flung down the money on
the dining-room table she pretended not to notice it. But Janet, who was
earning six dollars as a stenographer in the office of the Chippering
Mill, regularly gave half of hers.
The girls could have made more money as operatives, but strangely
enough in the Bumpus family social hopes were not yet extinct.
Sharply, rudely, the cold stillness of the winter mornings was broken
by agitating waves of sound, penetrating the souls of sleepers. Janet

would stir, her mind still lingering on some dream, soon to fade into the
inexpressible, in which she had been near to the fulfilment of a heart's
desire. Each morning, as the clamour grew louder, there was an interval
of bewilderment, of revulsion, until the realization came of mill bells
swinging in high cupolas above the river,--one rousing another. She
could even distinguish the bells: the deep-toned, penetrating one
belonged to the Patuxent Mill, over on the west side, while the Arundel
had a high, ominous reverberation like a fire bell. When at last the
clangings had ceased she would lie listening to the overtones throbbing
in the air, high and low, high and low; lie shrinking, awaiting the
second summons that never failed to terrify, the siren of the Chippering
Mill,--to her the cry of an insistent, hungry monster demanding its daily
food, the symbol of a stern, ugly, and unrelenting necessity.
Beside her in the bed she could feel the soft body of her younger sister
cuddling up to her in fright. In such rare moments as this her heart
melted towards Lise, and she would fling a protecting arm about her. A
sense of Lise's need of protection invaded her, a sharp conviction, like a
pang, that Lise was destined to wander: Janet was never so conscious of
the feeling as in this dark hour, though it came to her at other times,
when they were not quarreling. Quarreling seemed to be the normal
reaction between them.
It was Janet, presently, who would get up, shivering, close the window,
and light the gas, revealing the room which the two girls shared
together. Against the middle of one wall was the bed, opposite this a
travel-dented walnut bureau with a marble top, with an oval mirror into
which were stuck numerous magazine portraits of the masculine and
feminine talent adorning the American stage, a preponderance of the
music hall variety. There were pictures of other artists whom the
recondite would have recognized as "movie" stars, amazing yet veridic
stories of whose wealth Lise read in the daily press: all possessed
limousines--an infallible proof, to Lise, of the measure of artistic
greatness. Between one of these movie millionaires and an
ex-legitimate lady who now found vaudeville profitable was wedged
the likeness of a popular idol whose connection with the footlights
would doubtless be contingent upon a triumphant acquittal at the hands

of a jury of her countrymen, and whose trial for murder, in Chicago,
was chronicled daily in thousands of newspapers and followed by Lise
with breathless interest and sympathy. She was wont to stare at this
lady while dressing and exclaim:--
"Say, I hope they put it all over that district attorney!"
To such sentiments, though deeply felt by her sister, Janet remained
cold, though she was, as will be seen, capable of enthusiasms. Lise was
a truer daughter of her time and country in that she had the national
contempt for law, was imbued with the American hero-worship of
criminals that caused the bombardment of Cora Wellman's jail with
candy, fruit and flowers and impassioned letters. Janet recalled there
had been others before Mrs. Wellman, caught within the meshes of the
law, who had incited in her sister a similar partisanship.
It was Lise who had given the note of ornamentation to the bedroom.
Against the cheap faded lilac and gold wall-paper were tacked
photo-engravings that had taken the younger sister's fancy: a young
man and woman, clad in scanty bathing suits, seated side by side in a
careening sail boat,--the work of a popular illustrator whose manly and
womanly "types" had become national ideals.
There were other drawings, if not all by the same hand, at least by the
same school; one, sketched in bold strokes, of a dinner party in a stately
neo-classic dining-room, the table laden with flowers and silver, the
bare-throated women with jewels. A