There Is Confusion/Chapter 9

She played her cards with an odd mixture of deliberation and spontaneity.

"Maggie adores you, Sylvia," said Joanna.

"I think she does," Sylvia replied modestly. "I don't know why, I'm sure. She certainly is nice to me."

Maggie's obvious admiration and Sylvia's naïve acceptance made the way easy. It is hard not to be nice to someone who shows plainly that you are her ideal, your company her supreme satisfaction. Maggie wore her hair like Sylvia's, she copied when she could her manner of dressing, she spent half her time at the Marshall house.

She saw the value of absolute honesty. No need to pose when telling the exact truth brought what one wanted without the strain of living up to a false position. The Marshalls soon knew of Maggie's poverty, of the quick wit and determination which had brought them from that "dump-heap"—Maggie's word—to the respectable and comfortable if still cheap boarding-house. Sylvia used to talk to her mother about it. Mrs. Marshall suggested that she hand over to Maggie one or two of her perfectly good but discarded dresses.

But Sylvia objected with a very real delicacy. "She goes to the same school I go to and to Sunday-School. I wouldn't want the other children to see her in my things, she'd feel so badly."

Her mother saw the justice of that. "I suppose I have one or two things. There's that old brown Henrietta of ​mine and the silk poplin. How'll she get them made over though, Sylvia? Now don't expect me to help."

"Oh, mamma, you darling! You really are a brick! That poplin is old rose, isn't it? She ought to look lovely in it. I can fix them. You know how I love to fix things over and Maggie knows how to sew on the machine. If she stayed here three or four days, the rest of this week, we could finish them."

Mrs. Marshall agreed, Maggie's mother was consulted, Maggie came in an ecstasy. Her first sojourn away from home! And what a sojourn! Naturally neat though she was, she learned of toilet mysteries, of rites of which she had never dreamed. Nightly hair-brushings and the discovery that of course each one had her own brush and comb! Frequent washings of both, talcum powders! Joanna the ascetic used scentless ones, but Sylvia's were highly fragrant. These Maggie preferred. A bath every night.

"If you don't mind," said Sylvia, "I'll take mine first and then you can stay in as long as you like. I hope that pig Joanna hasn't used up all the hot water!"

Delicacies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Dinner at six instead of the middle of the day! Mrs. Marshall complained of a headache Saturday morning and Joanna took her breakfast up to her on a silver tray. Mr. Marshall kept box on box of cigars in his den. Sandy and Philip wore superlatively blackened shoes.

Maggie looked, listened, stored in her memory. The dresses were a success. The rose poplin, being the prettier, was finished first; Sylvia had longed so to get her hands on it. Maggie put it on Saturday morning and stood in front of the cheval mirror in Mrs. Marshall's room admiring her own and Sylvia's handiwork, and herself with it.

"It's too pretty to wear in the house. Oh, don't let's have ​to wait till to-morrow. Mamma, couldn't the boys take us to the matinée? Maggie, have you seen Peter Pan?"

Maggie, it transpired, had seen nothing, had never been inside a theater.

"What fun!" Sylvia's native delicacy hit on the right expression. "Fancy going to your first matinée. Can you spare us, Mother dear?"

The party could be arranged. Philip and Alexander expressed their willingness. Joanna did not care to go, to Maggie's astonishment, which increased when she saw how wonderful the theater was. But there were other things. The girl never forgot the thrill that came over her as Philip took her arm and led her over dangerous crossings, arranged her seat and program for her, took off her coat. He held it during the performance and wrinkled it shamelessly. Sylvia scolded him.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Phil."

"It doesn't matter," Maggie interposed happily. She was beginning to have her good time like other people. Oh, God bless John Howe!

The acquaintanceship progressed. All through the high school the two were nearly inseparable. It is true, Maggie sought Sylvia more than Sylvia sought her, but on the other hand Maggie's presence was taken as a matter of course by the Marshalls and their friends. Maggie went to parties with Sylvia, the two escorted by Brian Spencer and Philip. Often she slept at her house after the parties and at Christmas time and week-ends. Once, when Mrs. Marshall took Joanna to visit relatives in Philadelphia, Maggie stayed with Sylvia a whole month.

In her junior year in the high school she had a long talk with Mr. Marshall. Of course they were still poor, the house just kept them in comfort. Maggie had become addicted to the wearing of good clothes. Her mother was getting older. ​They needed help from time to time. If Mr. Marshall would assist her in getting some work. She was young and strong and willing.

"No, no, Mr. Marshall!" she objected as Joel—they were sitting in his office—spoke of a loan and reached for his checkbook. "Not that! When could I ever pay you back? No, I mean work, real work. I could take orders, count the silver, look after the napery, pay off the men if you'd care to trust me."

Perhaps a man of another race might have stopped to consider such a proposition coming from the lips of a young and dainty girl. He might have been suspicious and realized that his younger son was working in the business with him just then and the boy and girl would be bound to be thrown together. But colored men of old Joel's type are obsessed with the idea of a progressing younger generation. "They must advance," thinks the older man, "I must do all in my power to help them. This is my contribution to mine own."

Joel taught her his simple system of bookkeeping and installed her. She proved herself efficient, willing, and—her mother's teachings spoke here—absolutely honest. Her energy and interest were surprising. "You might think it was her own business," said Joel. He had no desire to see either her or any of his children become caterers, but he did like to see a job well done. Philip was the only one who had evinced any interest in the business, and that was only during his last year before entering college. He had to make some extra money somehow—both he and Sandy had a healthy dislike of burdening their father with their college expenses—and since he had to work he preferred to spend his time and energy in his father's interests.

His chief work consisted in directing his father's various squads of waiters. He met them at the house where Joel was catering, started them off, checked over necessities, looked ​after the thousand details which lent to Joel's service the perfection that so justly brought him fame. Maggie often accompanied Philip on these trips. Sometimes she went to one house and he to another, and he would call for her and take her home. She pondered deeply over the possibility of these meetings.

He was usually jolly, unsentimental, almost brotherly. Maggie took care to follow his lead. But to her great surprise she was beginning to be conscious of a deep affection for him. At first she had only yearned for respectability and comfort, and Philip represented such a convenient short cut to her heart's desire. But now things were different.

Sometimes when they came home quite late he would take her arm and the two would walk slowly and silently down the strangely quiet streets. A curious little sense of intimacy used to brood over them at times like these. Philip would laugh a little nervously.

"Awfully jolly being out late like this by ourselves, isn't it, Maggie?"

She would nod him a smiling yes. "Some day," she thought, "he must say more."

Her studies, her work and these trips with Philip took up most of her time just now. She and Sylvia of course still saw a great deal of each other and once in a while went out together. She went to the theater still more rarely, or to a church festival with Henderson Neal, one of her mother's boarders. A mysterious tall brown figure of a man, twenty years older than Maggie and a thousand years older in experience, he caught and not infrequently held her attention. He had lived with them two years, paid his bills regularly, asked no questions and vouchsafed no explanations.

Maggie wondered what he did. Whatever his occupation, it certainly paid him well. More than once she had seen him display without ostentation a huge roll of bills, which ap​parently was static in bulk. His speech was often ungrammatical, but so deliberate that one thought he must be speaking correctly. He had a rather grand air, and listened to both Mrs. Ellersley and her daughter with a somewhat ponderous attention. Maggie thought he was rather interesting for such an old man—he must be nearly forty! She was a little afraid of him, though, and decided it would be rather unpleasant for any one who chanced to make him angry.

Once he met Sylvia and Maggie on the street and offered to take them to the matinée. His interest was clearly in Maggie but he politely included her friend. Sylvia later told Philip about it.

"I hope you didn't go," he replied quickly.

"No, I didn't, Maggie didn't, either. But there's no reason why I shouldn't have. She goes with him sometimes."

"But that's different. Maggie's known different people from any you've ever known. She can take care of herself."

"What's the matter?" Joanna asked, putting her head in the door. "What's old Phil so excited about?"

"You might just as well hear this, too, Jan. I won't have you and Sylvia going about with a man like Henderson Neal. Maggie can go with men that my sisters can't afford to associate with."