John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

“Oh, of course I am, dear, but, gracious, I can’t make you out.” “Well, you won’t have to see her again, though I could tell by her manner that she thought you were lovely.”

Walking from the Elevated station to the Hutchinses it was more like old times again. Eleanor told about the hard feelings that were growing between Mr. Spotmann and Mrs. Potter and how they both wanted her to be on their side, and made Eveline laugh, and Eveline confessed that on the Kroonland coming back she had fallen very much in love with a man from Salt Lake City, such a relief after all those foreigners, and Eleanor teased her about it and said he was probably a Mormon and Eveline laughed and said, No, he was a judge, and admitted that he was married already. “You see,” said Eleanor, “of course he’s a Mormon.” But Eveline said that she knew he wasn’t and that if he’d divorce his wife she’d marry him in a minute. Then Eleanor said she didn’t believe in divorce and if they hadn’t gotten to the door they would have started quarrelling.

That winter she didn’t see much of Eveline. Eveline had many beaux and went out a great deal to parties and Eleanor used to read about her on the society page Sunday mornings. She was very busy and often too tired at night even to go to the theater with Miss Perkins. The row between Mrs. Potter and Mr. Spotmann had come to a head and the management had moved Mrs. Potter to another department and she had let herself plunk into an old Spanish chair and had broken down and cried right in front of the customers and Eleanor had had to take her to the dressing room and borrow smelling salts for her and help her do up her peroxide hair into the big pompadour again and consoled her by saying that she would probably like it much better over in the other building anyway. After that Mr. Spotmann was very goodnatured for several months. He occasionally took Eleanor out to lunch with him and they had a little joke that they laughed about together about Mrs. Potter’s pompadour wobbling when she’d cried in front of the customers. He sent Eleanor out on many little errands to wealthy homes, and the customers liked her because she was so refined and sympathetic and the other employees in the department hated her and nicknamed her “teacher’s pet.” Mr. Spotmann even said that he’d try to get her a percentage on commissions and talked often about giving her that raise to twenty-five a week.

Then one day Eleanor got home late to supper and the old clerk at the hotel told her that Miss Perkins had been stricken with heartfailure while eating steak and kidney pie for lunch and had died right in the hotel dining room and that the body had been removed to the Irving Funeral Chapel and asked her if she knew any of her relatives that should be notified. Eleanor knew nothing except that her financial business was handled by the Corn Exchange Bank and that she thought that she had nieces in Mound City, but didn’t know their names. Their clerk was very worried about who would pay for the removal of the body and the doctor and a week’s unpaid hotel bill and said that all her things would be held under seal until some qualified person appeared to claim them. He seemed to think Miss Perkins had died especially to spite the hotel management.

Eleanor went up to her room and locked the door and threw herself on the bed and cried a little, because she’d been fond of Miss Perkins.

Then a thought crept into her mind that made her heart beat fast. Suppose Miss Perkins had left her a fortune in her will. Things like that happened. Young men who opened church pews, coachman who picked up a handbag; old ladies were always leaving their fortunes to people like that.

She could see it in headlines MARSHALL FIELD EMPLOYEE INHERITS MILLION.

She couldn’t sleep all night and in the morning she found the manager of the hotel and offered to do anything she could. She called up Mr. Spotmann and coaxed him to give her the day off, explaining that she was virtually prostrated by Miss Perkins’s death. Then she called up the Corn Exchange Bank and talked to a Mr. Smith who had been in charge of the Perkins estate. He assured her that the bank would do everything in its power to protect the heirs and the residuary legatees and said that the will was in Miss Perkins’s safe deposit box and that he was sure everything was in proper legal form.

Eleanor had nothing to do all day, so she got hold of Eveline for lunch and afterwards they went to Keith’s together. She felt it wasn’t just proper to go to the theater with her old friend still lying at the undertaker’s, but she was so nervous and hysterical she had to do something to take her mind off this horrible shock. Eveline was very sympathetic and they felt closer than they had since the Hutchinses had gone abroad. Eleanor didn’t say anything about her hopes.

At the funeral there were only Eleanor and the Irish chambermaid at the hotel, an old woman who sniffled and crossed herself a great deal, and Mr. Smith and a Mr. Sullivan who was representing the Mound City relatives. Eleanor wore black and the undertaker came up to her and said, “Excuse me, miss, but I can’t refrain from remarking how lovely you look, just like a Bermuda lily.” It wasn’t as bad as she had expected and afterwards Eleanor and Mr. Smith and Mr. Sullivan, the representative of the law firm who had charge of the interests of the relatives, were quite jolly together coming out of the crematorium.

It was a sparkling October day and everybody agreed that October was the best month in the year and that the minister had read the funeral service very beautifully. Mr. Smith asked Eleanor wouldn’t she eat lunch with them as she was mentioned in the will, and Eleanor’s heart almost stopped beating and she cast down her eyes and said she’d be very pleased.

They all got into a taxi. Mr. Sullivan said it was pleasant to roll away from the funeral chapel and such gloomy thoughts. They went to lunch at de Yonghe’s and Eleanor made them laugh telling them about how they’d acted at the hotel and what a scurry everybody had been in, but when they handed her the menu said that she couldn’t eat a thing. Still when she saw the planked whitefish she said that she’d take just a little to pick to pieces on her plate. It turned out that the windy October air had made them all hungry and the long ride in the taxi. Eleanor enjoyed her lunch very much and after the whitefish she ate a little Waldorf salad and then a peach melba.

The gentlemen asked her whether she would mind if they smoked cigars and Mr. Smith put on a rakish look and said would she have a cigarette and she blushed and said no, she never smoked and Mr. Sullivan said he’d never respect a woman who smoked and Mr. Smith said some of the girls of the best families in Chicago smoked and as for himself he didn’t see the harm in it if they didn’t make chimneys of themselves. After lunch they walked across the street and went up in the elevator to Mr. Sullivan’s office and there they sat down in big leather chairs and Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Smith put on solemn faces and Mr. Smith cleared his throat and began to read the will. Eleanor couldn’t make it out at first and Mr. Smith had to explain to her that the bulk of the fortune of three million dollars was left to the Florence Crittenton home for wayward girls, but that the sum of one thousand dollars each was to the three nieces in Mound City and that a handsome diamond brooch in the form of a locomotive was left to Eleanor Stoddard and, “If you call at the Corn Exchange Bank some time tomorrow, Miss Stoddard,” said Mr. Smith, “I shall be very glad to deliver it to you.”

Eleanor burst out crying.

They both were very sympathetic and so touched that Miss Stoddard should be so touched by the remembrance of her old friend. As she left the office, promising to call for the brooch tomorrow, Mr. Sullivan was just saying in the friendliest voice, “Mr. Smith, you understand that I shall have to endeavor to break that will in the interests of the Mound City Perkinses,” and Mr. Smith said in the friendliest voice, “I suppose so, Mr. Sullivan, but I don’t see that you can get very far with it. It’s an ironclad, copper-riveted document if I do say so as shouldn’t, because I drew it up myself.”