Calvary Alley
Copyright© 2024 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 24: Back at Clarke’s
The promotion of Uncle Jed from the bed to a pair of crutches brought about two important changes in the house of Snawdor. First, a financial panic caused by the withdrawal of his insurance money, and, second, a lightening of Nance’s home duties that sent her once more into the world to seek a living.
By one of those little ironies in which life seems to delight, the only opportunity that presented itself lay directly in the path of temptation. A few days after her interview with Monte Pearce, Dan came to her with an offer to do some office work at the bottle factory. The regular stenographer was off on a vacation, and a substitute was wanted for the month of September.
“Why, I thought you’d be keen about it,” said Dan, surprised at her hesitation.
“Oh! I’d like it all right, but—”
“You needn’t be afraid to tackle it,” Dan urged. “Mr. Clarke’s not as fierce as he looks; he’d let you go a bit slow at first.”
“He wouldn’t have to! I bet I’ve got as much speed now as the girl he’s had. It’s not the work.”
“I know how you feel about the factory,” said Dan, “and I wouldn’t want you to go back in the finishing room. The office is different. You take my word for it; it’s as nice a place as you could find.”
They were standing on the doorless threshold of Number One, under the fan-shaped arch through which the light had failed to shine for twenty years. From the room on the left came the squeak of Mr. Demry’s fiddle and the sound of pattering feet, synchronizing oddly with the lugubrious hymn in which Mrs. Smelts, in the room opposite, was giving vent to her melancholy.
Nance, eager for her chance, yearning for financial independence, obsessed by the desire to escape from the dirt and disorder and confusion about her, still hesitated.
“If you’re afraid I’m going to worry you,” said Dan, fumbling with his cap, “I can keep out of your way all right.”
In an instant her impulsive hand was on his arm.
“You shut up, Dan Lewis!” she said sharply. “What makes me want to take the job most is our coming home together every night like we used to.”
Dan’s eyes, averted until now, lifted with sudden hope.
“But I got a good reason for not coming,” she went on stubbornly. “It hasn’t got anything to do with you or the work.”
“Can’t you tell me, Nance?”
The flicker of hope died out of his face as she shook her head. He looked down the alley for a moment; then he turned toward her with decision:
“See here, Nance,” he said earnestly, “I don’t know what your reason is, but I know that this is one chance in a hundred. I want you to take this job. If I come by for you to-morrow morning, will you be ready?”
Still she hesitated.
“Let me decide it for you,” he insisted, “will you, Nance?”
She looked up into his earnest eyes, steadfast and serious as a collie’s.
“All right!” she said recklessly, “have it your own way!”
The first day in Mr. Clarke’s office was one of high tension. Added to the trepidation of putting her newly acquired business knowledge to a practical test, was the much more disturbing possibility that at any moment Mac might happen upon the scene. Just what she was going to do and say in such a contingency she did not know. Once when she heard the door open cautiously, she was afraid to lift her eyes. When she did, surprise took the place of fear.
“Why, Mrs. Smelts!” she cried. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Birdie’s mother, faded and anxious, and looking unfamiliar in bonnet and cape, was evidently embarrassed by Nance’s unexpected presence.
“He sent for me,” she said, nervously, twitching at the fringe on her cape. “I wrote to his wife, but he sent word fer me to come here an’ see him at ten o’clock. Is it ten yet?”
“Mr. Clarke sent for you?” Nance began incredulously; then remembering that a stenographer’s first business is to attend to her own, she crossed the room with quite a professional manner and tapped lightly on the door of the inner office.
For half an hour the usually inaccessible president of the bottle factory and the scrub woman from Calvary Alley held mysterious conclave; then the door opened again, and Mrs. Smelts melted into the outer passage as silently as she had come.
Nance, while frankly curious, had little time to indulge in idle surmise. All her faculties were bent on mastering the big modern type-writer that presented such different problems from the ancient machine on which she had pounded out her lessons. She didn’t like this sensitive, temperamental affair that went off half-cocked at her slightest touch, and did things on its own account that she was in the habit of doing herself.
Her first dictation left her numb with terror. She heard Mr. Clarke repeating with lightning rapidity phrases which she scarcely comprehended: “Enclose check for amount agreed upon.” “Matter settled once and for all.” “Any further annoyance to be punished to full extent of the law.”
“Shall I address an envelope?” she asked, glancing at the “Dear Madam” at the top of the page.
“No,” said Mr. Clarke, sharply, “I’ll attend to that.”
Other letters followed, and she was soon taking them with considerable speed. When mistakes occurred they could usually be attributed to the graded school which, during its brief chance at Nance, had been more concerned in teaching her the names and the lengths of the rivers of South America than in teaching her spelling.
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