“Oh, Miss Kate, here’s the pore milk boy.”
“Bring him right up here, Jo, this minute.”
The maid led me upstairs, then down a hall and to the madam’s room. She was in the midst of dressing for the evening, but when I appeared in the door she stopped, kicked a bunch of clothes to one side, came over and, putting her arm around me, led me into the room.
“Well, you poor boy,” she patted my back. “We are ashamed to face you after going off and forgetting you in jail. Julia thought of you about nine o’clock that night, and I sent down word right away about you. They said you were out and gone home. We never expected to see you again. You must have dinner with us. It’s ready now, and Julia wants to apologize to you. Not that it was her fault,” she added quickly. “It was just something that couldn’t be helped. Those men from the country are always—ah—misplacing their money. We are continually having trouble with them.”
She was so charming and friendly and natural, so different from the crabby widow at my boarding house, the only woman I had any contact with, that I found myself wondering if George had not been too severe in judging them.
She went on with her dressing, and I looked about the room curiously. I had a dim recollection of my mother’s room—a plain bed, a bureau, a big rocking-chair, and a rag carpet. I had looked into the widow’s room at the boarding house, too. That was plainer than my mother’s. It had a cheap, single bed; a packing case covered with a sheet, and a cracked mirror propped against the wall served as a bureau. There was a hard-looking chair at the head of the bed. There was no carpet on the widow’s floor.
Madam Singleton’s room had carpets an inch thick, and the biggest, softest bed and the fattest pillows you could imagine. Her bureau was half as large as the bed, but seemed too small for the things piled on it—boxes, bottles, brushes, combs, pieces of jewelry, and a hundred other articles I had never seen and could not guess the use of. Mirrors were everywhere; from where I sat I could see my face, my profile, or my back. A huge trunk, as big as a bungalow it looked, was in a corner. Its top was thrown back and the tray was on the floor. It was piled high with letters and cards and photos of men. The trunk was overflowing with stockings, garters, ribbons, feathers, and soft, silky-looking garments. My eyes strayed into the open door of a closet. It was full of coats and cloaks, long and short, some of fur of different colors, and others of expensive cloth. Wide rimmed and feathered hats hung everywhere, and the carpet was half covered with shoes, slippers, sandals, gloves, and silk dresses. Over everything hung the odor of perfume. Years after I heard Madam Singleton described as a very beautiful woman. When she turned from her mirror, I thought she looked as a queen ought to look.
Tall, straight, dark-haired with big, brave black eyes; warm, full of color, glowing; a dominating woman.
I heard a small bell tinkling downstairs.
“That means dinner, young man. Come with me.”