VERNONIA EAGLE, VERNONIA, OREGON
MAID KN V O Y A G E
Copyright, Kathleen Norris.
KATHLEEN NORRIS
CHAPTER I
HILE she waited, Antoinette
W
remained standing; she was
nervous and excited, and it seemed
easier to stand. Except for her
self, there was nobody In the place.
There had been an inky, shabby,
cold-looking boy In a suit too small
for him Idling at the battered, and
Inky desk, spearing vainly at files
with an old pen. But he had dis
appeared through the glass-topped
splintered door marked “Editor.
Private," to tell Mr. Lawrence Bell
amy, editor of the San Francisco
Journal of Commerce and Business,
that Miss Antoinette Taft was wait
ing to see him.
Rain was falling In gray sheets.
Traffic crashed and honked on
Montgomery Street.
The boy returned; Mr. Bellamy
would be free In a minute. An
toinette sat down, her heart beating
fast, and perforce looked about the
waiting room of the Journal.
Antoinette was seeking for a job.
“You kin go in now,” the boy
said.
There was a fat young man
In a cafe-au-lalt raincoat In the re
volving chair opposite that of Mr.
Lawrence Bellamy.
“I wish you’d let me send yon
our figures?" said this Individual
engagingly rising as Antoinette
came In.
“I won't!” said Mr. Bellamy.
"May I leave you my card?” asked
the visitor.
“Sure!” the editor agreed. The
young man took out his fountain
pen and wrote on the card, and An
toinette took the vacated chair. She
saw the older man, lolling In his
seat, glance at her card. “Miss
Taft?" he asked. "Funny thing—
my mother’s brother was Taft Bald
win,” he said.
“They’re both good New Eng
land names,” Antoinette said, with
a slight effort to seem friendly and
at ease.
“Your people from Boston?”
“My father’s family was. But his
father came round the Horn
In 'Forty-nine? Antoinette went
through the usual little story, smil
ingly
The edltoi was dark, his brown
face thin; his aquiline large nose
gave a sort of autocratic signifi
cance to his face. His hands were
big and lean, bls mouth large, his
dark thick hair was In an untidy
tumble and he wore glasses.
“Job, eb?” he began. Antoinette
only smiled deprecatiugly. “What
experience have you had?”
"Not much—on newspapers. I did
the social column for the Bulletin
for two weeks. Then Margaret Rus
sell—my friend, who had got me
Into It—came back from her va
cation.”
“That was the only work you
ever did?"
“Oh, no." Antoinette smiled rue
fully. “I’ve done lots of other
things,” she confessed. “I was In
the Mercantile library for a year,
and then in Younger’s bookstore,
helping my older sister.”
“I know Paul Younger well,” Mr.
Bellamy said, with what appeared
to be characteristic musing Irrele
vance. “Nice feller—dreamer, but
that’s all right Your sister work
there?"
"You’d Identify her because she’s
tall and dark, and she wears her
hair—” Antoinette made a gesture.
One always made this gesture in
describing Brenda’s crown of
braids.
“I know: young girl, rather pret
ty, wears turned-down collars;
'bout twenty-four or -five?”
“That’s Brenda. She’s really—a
little older than that.”
“Just the two of you?"
"Two brothers, Cliff and Bruce."
“Mother and father?"
“No, we lost them years ago. But
WNU Service.
along the narrow streets of China
town.
Somehow she was still
smarting over the recent Interview
with the handsome, aristocratic ed
ltor of the Journal. While they
had been talking, he had told her
something of his own history. He
had graduated very young from
Harvard, and after some experi
ence on college periodicals had be
come associated with a financial
journal in New York, had married
almost immediately, had continued
In newspaper work ever since. The
present venture in San Francisco
was new but already was marked
with success. He was only thirty-
one or -two, Antoinette judged,
probably less than ten years older
than herself, he was pleased with
life, sure of himself and his job!
It was "his idea" to do this, and
“his Innovation" to do that; he
could smile down, he could depre-
catlngly shake away her poor lit
tle suggestions; he was full of sug
gestions and Ideas himself.
After all she would go home to
lunch. She climbed into a car on
Market street Presently she en
tered the doorway of a dilapidated
building that contained eight five-
room flats on four floor levels.
Steep wooden steps, peeling and
paintless, led up from the street
that ran for blocks between the
shabbiest and least interesting of
the city's dwellings. Almost all the
windows had little signs on them,
little confessions of poverty and
failure. “Modes,’ “Violin Studio,"
“Rooms," “Home Board,” said the
signs, patient and fly-specked, year
after year.
There were no signs on the Taft
windows; they were top-floor win
dows, anyway, above the eyes of
the crowd. On the right of the
narrow entrance hall there was the
doorway of a dark bedroom, An
toinette's and Brenda’s room, where
one must always snap on a light.
Lighted, however, It was a pleasant
room enough, with a great window
“And You Think You’d Like a Job that was always open, on an air
on a Newspaper?”
shaft, and an oblique upward view
into that line,” Lawrence Bel of the sky.
Next to this bedroom was the
lamy told her.
"You don't?” Life was bitter In bathroom, dark and dank. Then
her mouth, but she could seem In came Aunt Meg’s room; the best
bedroom in the house, small but
terested, could manage to smile.
"No! But we've got to put on bright, for It looked out across the
more advertising before we— Let southern city and Twin Peaks, and
me explain the whole thing to you,” shared with the sitting room next
the editor said. He proceeded to to It the only exposed side of the
explain It, Illustrating figures with apartment On the left side of
a pencil. Antoinette listened re the hall, was a small black hole
spectfully, because she had no originally Intended for an occasion
al servant, and now occupied con
choice.
“Now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, tentedly enough by seventeen-year-
Miss Taft,” Lawrence Bellamy said old Bruce, who had a very treas
finally. “I’ve put a new man on ure house of broken cameras, nails,
here to rustle me up ads—only had tools, radio equipment, guns and
him two weeks, and I don’t know cartridges on table, window ledge,
how he’s going to turn out , I’ll bureau, mingling In casually with
give him another week, and then his shirts and collars. The other
why don’t you get In on this? I’ll was a fair-sized kitchen with a
let him keep whatever he’s got, skylight upon whose dusty face the
and I'll tell him that you’re going rain was hammering and dancing
after the department stores and again, as Antoinette came In.
the milliners and the tea rooms,
The kitchen clock said twenty
how’s that? You get forty per cent minutes past two. Antoinette made
of what you bring in.
herself a luxurious meal of brown
“And meanwhile—” they were toast and tea. There was a sau
standing now—"meanwhile I'll ask cer of stewed tomatoes In the fee
Mrs. Bellamy what she thinks of box; one sardine. She grilled the
any woman’s stuff In the Journal," sardine, scrambled an egg in the
the editor said, guiding her toward tomato sauce, and presently carried
the door
“She gives me pretty an epicurean tray In to the sitting
room window; found her book. The
good steers sometimes 1”
Antoinette bowed a smiling fare rain, the discouraging editors, the
well, went out Into the dark, wood- condition of the family budget were
eny, Inky hall, and walked down all forgot: Antoinette was In Lon
two flights to the street.
The I don streets. In London clubs and
whole morning bad been an utter studios, following a shabby cassock
through strange and dramatic ad
waste of time.
Rain was still falling heavily; ventures.
After a while the food was gone,
there was no use going home; no
body was there. Aunt Meggy would and the rain had disappeared, too.
be at the sewing society meeting, Antoinette put her head down on
Bruce was in school. Cliff at the her arms and sat motionless for
some fifteen minutes. Then sud
office, Brenda at the store.
Antoinette wandered past the denly she sprang up, her book
Hall of Justice and the little park coasting to the floor, and snatch
whose green leaves were tossing In ing up the tray fled rather than
the warm sticky rain, and went idly walked with It to the kitchen. Cup,
my aunt. Miss Bruce, lives with
us.”
"And you think you’d like a job
on a newspaper? No social stuff
on this paper, you know."
“I know. I know it’s a commer
cial paper. This Is what I was
thinking, Mr. Bellamy, why
shouldn't the Journal have one
page of society news and of things
interesting to women, recipes and
fashions and a puzzle or two?”
Her voice was dying Into a suffo
cated silence under the effect of his
narrowed smiling look and slowly
shaking bead She struggled on:
“It might mean that men would
take It home to their wives—”
“I don't think we want to go
Bpoons, plate Into the dishpan, hot
water, tray tipped up on the dress
er again, teapot rinsed and turned
upside down—
Antoinette worked as If whips
were driving her. She went Into
the bedroom and came out with
two waists and several pairs of
stockings, took a basin from the
damp, vegetable-scented back porch,
rinsed and soaped busily.
Meanwhile, with characteristic
fatal determination to be thor
ough, Antoinette was starting sev
eral other things and planning In
her busy brain to do more. She
hung the waists daintly on hang
ers in the sitting room, put the
dish towels on to boil, took out the
stove tray and slid It Into the sink
to give it a thorough cleaning,
brought her sewing materials Into
the kitchen to catch up a run In
one stocking and the split heel of
another, and poured a bag of peas
into a pan.
"I really ought to find an old
sheet and re-cover that Ironing
board—we'll only burn the blan
ket right through at this rate—1
wonder if there’s an old sheet In
Aunt Meggy’s room?”
She went into her aunt's room
and gave a dramatic shriek.
The window had been left open,
and Jingle had performed his fa
vorite trick of coming along the
hack porch and over the roof and
down the fire escape, and so mak
ing a leap into his favorite spot, In
the center of Aunt Meggy’s bed.
His paws had, of course, been thick
with soot and mud.
“Yes, and you know you're a
bad cat!” Antoinette said grimly,
as he leaped gayly past her to the
kitchen. She repaired the dam
age gingerly: her own hands were
far from clean. Presently she went
into the bathroom to wash them
and was In there when Brenda
came home a moment later.
“Hell-oo I”
"Brenda, my darling, you’re
early!” Antoinette kissed her sis
ter affectionately. “Darling, what
time Is It?” she asked, going on
with the wiping of her hands.
“It Isn’t five yet. But It was so
dark, and going to rain again,
and appraisers or accountants were
there, or something. Anyway, Paul,”
said Brenda, who usually spoke of
her employer thus familiarly, "told
us we all could go home 1”
She was as tall as Antoinette,
but more slender, with a certain
fastidious delicacy of build and ex
pression.
“Oh, It’s good to get home!” she
exclaimed. Presently she followed
Antoinette to the kitchen, to find
her In a whirl of activities.
"What on earth are you up to?"
“I did the stockings — oh, and
both waists, too—and then I got
Into the vegetable box.”
“And you’re cleaning the stove
too.”
“Sit down. Bendy, and rest.
Here, do the peas. I’ll get out of
all this!” Antoinette brought to
the confusion her own swift en
ergy and concentration, and was
wringing out the hot clean dish
towels when her aunt came in.
Little Miss Bruce was cramped
with the cold; her gloves and boots
and shoulders were damp; she fair
ly shuddered with pleasure as she
came Into the comfortable warm
kitchen.
“You got caught In It, Aunt Meg
gy!”'
"Caught in It, I should say I
did!” scolded Miss Bruce, with a
pretty little petulant manner that
had remained with her since long
ago days of popularity and youth
and prettiness. “I do believe we
could have a fire in the sitting
room tonight Oh, later, later.
There’s Jingle — Jingle, you bad
cat where were you all morning?”
“Bad cat Is right!" said Antoi
nette. “He was out on the roof
again, and he leaped in your win
dow. And I wish you could see
your quilt I”
Miss Bruce, small, gray, fuzzy-
headed In her mackintosh and tied
small hat stood rooted with hor
ror to the spot
“He didn’t! I left—alackaday! I
left that window open at the bot
tom; I’m always forgetting that!"
lamented the older woman. “Yes,
rub yourself against my legs now,”
she reproached the cat “Cliffy
home tonight, darling?"
“Nope. Gone to Sacramento.”
“That looks as if Barney Kerr
was half as Important as Cliff 1"
Miss Bruce said triumphantly,
scornfully.
“Maybe they need Barney here,”
Antoinette, who for reasons of her
own did not quite like to have Bar
ney depreciated, even for the ag
grandizement of Cliff, offered mildly.
“Boo-boo home?"
“He went to the water polo."
“I don't think, after his pneu
monia, that he ought to play water
polo."
“I don't believe he’s playing, but
or course he had to go yell tor his
team."
Brenda sat at the kitchen table
In a contented dream of pea shell
ing; Antoinette finished up the oth
er odds and ends of work with the
familiarity of long practice. Miss
Bruce, returning in a practical al
paca gown of many seasons’ wear
and a large checked apron, inspect
ed the kitchen alertly. Present
ly Antoinette spoke musingly:
"I wonder If queens—or let's say
movie queens, there are so few of
the other sort left—I wonder If
movie queens ever do anything as
pleasant at the end of a bleak wet
afternoon as to come out to a nice
warm kitchen and have the sort of
dinner they like to cook!”
This affected Miss Bruce emo
tionally.
Her back was to the
kitchen, as she filled the kettle at
the sink, but her voice was thick
with sudden tears.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
TONY TAFT was
a swell reporter, an
expert at gathering
social news for a
big San Francisco
newspaper, but she
couldn’t manage her
love ...
And thereby hangs
the tale that is told
so delightfully by
the most famous of
American women
authors
Kathleen
Norris
▼
Read this opening
installment of
“ Maiden
Voyage”
and you will not
want to miss a single
sentence of this ab
sorbing story of love
behind the news.