The Fifth Wheel: A Novel

by Olive Higgins Prouty

VAN DE VERE'S was a unique shop. It had grown from a single ill-lighted sort of studio into a very smart and beautifully equipped establishment, conveniently located in the shopping district. It looked like a private house, had been, originally. There were no show windows. The door-plate bore simply the sign V. de V's. A maid in black and white met you at the door (you had to ring), and while she went to summon Miss Van de Vere or her assistant, you were asked to be seated in a reception-room, done in black and white stripes.

Virginia Van de Vere was as unique as her shop. She wore long, loose clinging gowns, with heavy, silver chains clanking about her neck or waist. She wore an enormous ring on her forefinger. Her hair, done very low and parted, covered both her ears. It was black, so were her eyes. She hadn't any color. She led a smart and fashionable life outside business hours, going out to dinner a good deal (I had seen her once at Mrs. Sewall's) and making an impression with free and daring speech. She lived in a gorgeous apartment of her own, and for diversion had adopted a little curly-headed Greek boy, for whom she engaged the services of a French nurse. She was very temperamental.

Mrs. Scot-Williams had found Virginia Van de Vere some half dozen years before, languishing in the ill-lighted studio, on the verge of shutting up shop and going home for want of patronage. It was just that kind of talented girl that Mrs. Scot-Williams liked to help and encourage. She established Virginia Van de Vere.

Mrs. Scot-Williams is a philanthropic woman, and enormously wealthy. Her pet charity is what she calls "the little-business woman." New York is filled with small industries run by women, in this loft, or that shop—clever women, too, talented, many of them, and it is to that class that Mrs. Scot-Williams devotes herself. She takes keen delight in studying the tricks and secrets of business success. When some young woman to whom she has lent capital to start a cake and candy shop complains of dull trade, or a little French corsetier finds her customers falling off, Mrs. Scot-Williams likes to investigate the difficulties and suggest remedies—more advertising, a better location, a new superintendent in the workshop, one thing or another—perhaps even a little more capital, which, if she lends and loses it, she simply puts down under the head of charity in her distribution of expenses.

I had occurred to Mrs. Scot-Williams as a possible means for improving conditions at Van de Vere's. Miss Van de Vere possessed so highly a developed artistic temperament that her manner sometimes antagonized. Her assistant's duty, therefore, would be that of a cleverly constructed fly, concealing beneath tact and pretty manners ("and pretty gowns, my dear," added Mrs. Scot-Williams) a hook to catch reluctant customers.

I was fitted for such a position. I had been used as bait before, for other kind of fish. I purchased my fine feathers. Within a fortnight after my interview with Mrs. Scot-Williams, I was cast upon the waters.

There was no jealousy between Virginia Van de Vere and me. Beauty to her was something pulsing and alive. If any one suggested marring it, it tortured her. I was not so sensitive. The result was, I took charge of the customers who mentioned leatherette dens and Moorish libraries, and Virginia's genius was spared injury. She loved me for it. We worked beautifully together.

Van de Vere's was my great chance. It was indeed my pot of gold. I had always loved beautiful things, and here I was in the midst of their creating! Heaven had been kind. The joy of waking in the morning to a day of congenial work, setting forth to labor that was constructing for me a trade of my own, was like a daily tonic. I was very happy, full of ambition. I used to lie awake nights planning how I could make myself able and efficient. I discovered a course I could take evenings in Design and Interior Architecture, and I took advantage of it. I read volumes at the library on period furniture and decorating. I haunted antique shops. I perused articles on good salesmanship. Mornings I was up with the birds (the pigeons, that is) and half-way to my place of business by eight o'clock. It agreed with me. I grew fat on it. I regained the pounds of flesh that I had lost at the hospital with prodigious speed. Color came back to my cheeks, song to my lips.

Esther's book actually towered. It wasn't necessary for her to keep her position in the publishing house any longer. It wasn't necessary for her to conceal from me the price of our room. My salary was generous, and with Esther's little income we were rich indeed. We could drink all the egg-nogs we wanted to. We could even fare on chicken and green vegetables occasionally. We could buy one of Rosa's paintings for twenty-five dollars, and lend fifteen, now and then, if one of the girls was in a tight place. We could afford to canvass for suffrage for nothing. We could engage a bungalow for two or three weeks at the sea next year.

As soon as I felt that my success at Van de Vere's was assured, I wrote to my family and asked them to drop in and see me. The first of the family to arrive was Edith, one day in February. Isabel, the maid, announced Mrs. Alexander Vars to me. I sent down for her to come up.