John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

The Tingleys had a good many friends and they liked Janey and included her in everything and she felt that she was living the way she’d like to live. It was exciting too that winter with rumors of war all the time. They had a big map of Europe hung up on the livingroom wall and marked the positions of the Allied armies with little flags. They were heart and soul for the Allies and names like Verdun or Chemin des Dames started little shivers running down their spines. Eliza wanted to travel and made Janey tell her over and over again every detail of her trip to Mexico; they began to plan a trip abroad together when the war was over and Janey began to save money for it. When Alice wrote from Washington that maybe she would pull up stakes in Washington and go down to New York, Janey wrote saying that it was so hard for a girl to get a job in New York just at present and that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.

All that fall J. Ward’s face looked white and drawn. He got in the habit of coming into the office Sunday afternoons and Janey was only too glad to run around there after dinner to help him out. They’d talk over the events of the week in the office and J. Ward would dictate a lot of private letters to her and tell her she was a treasure and leave her there typing away happily. Janey was worried too. Although new accounts came in all the time the firm wasn’t in a very good financial condition. J. Ward had made some unfortunate plunges in the Street and was having a hard time holding things together. He was anxious to buy out the large interest still held by old Mrs. Staple and talked of notes his wife had gotten hold of and that he was afraid his wife would use unwisely. Janey could see that his wife was a disagreeable peevish woman trying to use her mother’s money as a means of keeping a hold on J. Ward. She never said anything to the Tingleys about J. Ward personally, but she talked a great deal about the business and they agreed with her that the work was so interesting. She was looking forward to this Christmas because J. Ward had hinted that he would give her a raise.

A rainy Sunday afternoon she was typing off a confidential letter to Judge Planet inclosing a pamphlet from a detective agency describing the activities of labor agitators among the Colorado miners, and J. Ward was walking up and down in front of the desk staring with bent brows at the polished toes of his shoes when there was a knock on the outer office door. “I wonder who that could be?” said J. Ward. There was something puzzled and nervous about the way he spoke. “It may be Mr. Robbins forgotten his key,” said Janey. She went to see. When she opened the door Mrs. Moorehouse brushed past her. She wore a wet slicker and carried an umbrella, her face was pale and her nostrils were twitching. Janey closed the door gently and went to her own desk and sat down. She was worried. She took up a pencil and started drawing scrolls round the edge of a piece of typewriter paper. She couldn’t help hearing what was going on in J. Ward’s private office. Mrs. Moorehouse had shot in slamming the groundglass door behind her. “Ward, I can’t stand it… I won’t stand it another minute,” she was screaming at the top of her voice. Janey’s heart started beating very fast. She heard J. Ward’s voice low and conciliatory, then Mrs. Moorehouse’s. “I won’t be treated like that, I tell you. I’m not a child to be treated like that… You’re taking advantage of my condition. My health won’t stand being treated like that.”

“Now look here, Gertrude, on my honor as a gentleman,” J. Ward was saying. “There’s nothing in it, Gertrude. You lie there in bed imagining things and you shouldn’t break in like this. I’m a very busy man. I have important transactions that demand my complete attention.”

Of course it’s outrageous, Janey was saying to herself.

“You’d still be in Pittsburgh working for Bessemer Products, Ward, if it wasn’t for me and you know it… You may despise me but you don’t despise dad’s money… but I’m through, I tell you. I’m going to start divorce…” “But, Gertrude, you know very well there’s no other woman in my life.” “How about this woman you’re seen round with all the time… what’s her name… Stoddard? You see, I know more than you think… I’m not the kind of woman you think I am, Ward. You can’t make a fool of me, do you hear?”

Mrs. Moorehouse’s voice rose into a rasping shriek. Then she seemed to break down and Janey could hear her sobbing. “Now, Gertrude,” came Ward’s voice soothingly, “you’ve gotten yourself all wrought up over nothing… Eleanor Stoddard and I have had a few business dealings… She’s a bright woman and I find her stimulating… intellectually, you understand… We’ve occasionally eaten dinner together, usually with mutual friends, and that’s absolutely…” Then his voice sunk so low that Janey couldn’t hear what he was saying. She began to think she ought to slip out. She didn’t know what to do.

She’d half gotten to her feet when Mrs. Moorehouse’s voice soared to a hysterical shriek again. “Oh, you’re cold as a fish… You’re just a fish. I’d like you better if it was true, if you were having an affair with her… But I don’t care; I won’t be used as a tool to use dad’s money.” The door of the private office opened and Mrs. Moorehouse came out, gave Janey a bitter glare as if she suspected her relations with J. Ward too, and went out. Janey sat down at her desk again trying to look unconcerned. Inside the private office she could hear J. Ward striding up and down with a heavy step. When he called her his voice sounded weak:

“Miss Williams.”

She got up and went into the private office with her pencil and pad in one hand. J. Ward started to dictate as if nothing had happened but half way through a letter to the president of the Ansonia Carbide Corporation he suddenly said, “Oh, hell,” and gave the wastebasket a kick that sent it spinning against the wall.

“Excuse me, Miss Williams; I’m very much worried… Miss Williams, I’m sure I can trust you not to mention it to a soul… You understand, my wife is not quite herself; she’s been ill… the last baby… you know those things sometimes happen to women.”

Janey looked up at him. Tears had started into her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Moorehouse, how can you think I’d not understand?… Oh, it must be dreadful for you, and this is a great work and so interesting.” She couldn’t say any more. Her lips couldn’t form any words. “Miss Williams,” J. Ward was saying, “I… er… appreciate… er.” Then he picked up the wastepaper basket. Janey jumped up and helped him pick up the crumpled papers and trash that had scattered over the floor. His face was flushed from stooping. “Grave responsibilities… Irresponsible woman may do a hell of a lot of damage, you understand.” Janey nodded and nodded. “Well, where were we? Let’s finish up and get out of here.”

They set the wastebasket under the desk and started in on the letters again.

All the way home to Chelsea, picking her way through the slush and pools of water on the streets, Janey was thinking of what she’d liked to have said to J. Ward to make him understand that everybody in the office would stand by him whatever happened.

When she got in the apartment, Eliza Tingley said a man had called her up. “Sounded like a rather rough type; wouldn’t give his name; just said to say Joe had called up and that he’d call up again.” Janey felt Eliza’s eyes on her inquisitively.

“That’s my brother Joe, I guess… He’s a… he’s in the merchant marine.”

Some friends of the Tingleys came in, they had two tables of bridge and were having a very jolly evening when the telephone rang again, and it was Joe. Janey felt herself blushing as she talked to him. She couldn’t ask him up and still she wanted to see him. The others were calling to her to play her hand. He said he had just got in and that he had some presents for her and he’d been clear out to Flatbush and that the yids there had told him she lived in Chelsea now and he was in the cigar store at the corner of Eighth Avenue. The others were calling to her to play her hand. She found herself saying that she was very busy doing some work and wouldn’t he meet her at five tomorrow at the office building where she worked. She asked him again how he was and he said, “Fine,” but he sounded disappointed. When she went back to her table they all kidded her about the boyfriend and she laughed and blushed, but inside she felt mean because she hadn’t asked him to come up.