Francie Comes Home (16 page)

“You've got to know your stuff before you go into a relatively cheap place and start buying, or you'll run into trouble,” said the other man. “You know about borax, don't you? Borax is what we call the really shoddy jobs. Sofas and tables made out of wood that ought to have gone into orange crates, chairs with their seats held on by thumbtacks. That kind of thing. In the picture it may look good, but it isn't. You see it illustrated in the give-away ads; two hundred soap coupons gets you a lovely bedroom suite absolutely stark, staring free—that kind of thing. That's borax.”

“I'll try to remember,” said Francie.

They moved on to a smaller department where Bruce introduced Francie to Mrs. Redfern, a tall, elegant gray-haired lady who evidently knew him well.

“My dears, if you'd only been in a few minutes ago!” said this lady vivaciously. “I've just been playing hostess to a couple of sweet old dears with a permit to sight-see, and they were incredible. You see this display?” She indicated a corner of the showroom where a refectory table in pale birchwood was laid with mats, china, and glass. Two chairs were drawn up to the imaginery meal, and they didn't match, though the color of the wood blended pleasingly. “One often arranges dining-room furniture like that,” Mrs. Redfern explained to Francie. “It saves space to use only one chair of a set instead of four or six, and to show two or three different types of chair. You'd think anybody could figure that out—but no. One of these ladies was staring around in an awed way, and when she noticed those chairs she said, ‘Oh, is that what they're doing now?' She was so pleased at discovering a new style that I didn't have the heart to disillusion her, and she's probably on her way home now to throw out all her matching chairs. They take everything you say for gospel if you're a decorator. Sometimes the responsibility frightens me.”

“That's a good-looking piece,” said Bruce suddenly. Francie, following his gaze, saw a tall, broad desk standing open and revealing several rows of tiny, brass-handled drawers.

“Not bad,” admitted Mrs. Redfern. “I haven't had any genuine requests for it, though. People aren't educated to that standard.”

Bruce said curiously, “Since when have you been selling antiques?”

“It's not. You're fooled by the work,” said Mrs. Redfern triumphantly. “That's a reproduction. William and Mary, you know.”

Bruce said he knew, and he walked over to study it at close range. Francie came along. It was indeed a pretty piece of furniture, standing more than five-feet high. “Give you three guesses what I'm thinking,” he said in low voice.

Francie said promptly, “Act One: Jack's study.”

“That's it,” said Lucky. “It's just right. Mrs. Redfern,” he said, raising his voice, “what would be the cost of a thing like this in the trade?”

Mrs. Redfern said, “Why Bruce, you don't want that. Mrs. Fredericks won't touch reproductions.”

To Francie's surprise, Bruce replied, “I'm not asking on my account, but Miss Nelson's. She thinks she can use it, and don't forget, she's one of us. So how much?”

“I'd have to figure it more closely when I look at the books, but it would be around three hundred,” said Mrs. Redfern.

Lucky turned to Francie and said, “You want to think it over, don't you? You don't want to decide now.” Puzzled, she said good-by and thanks to Mrs. Redfern, and let herself be shown out of the showroom.

“What was the idea?” she demanded as they walked away.

He said, “I'm not quite sure if I can work it out, but I think if we play our cards right, we can get that desk for the play.”

“But you let her think I was in the desk-selling business. Why?”

Bruce said, “Just one of the conventions, Baby. Now you leave it to me, Francie. You still have a lot to learn.”

Oh well. As long as she didn't really have to pay for anything, she thought, it would probably be all right. No doubt they had both seen the last of the William and Mary desk, and Bruce was quite right: she did have a lot to learn. Anyway, now he was talking about something different, and it was time to start looking at things again.

They saw hundreds of carpets. They examined lamps until Francie felt she couldn't possibly ever look at another lamp again with anything like a seeing eye. Bruce said that buyers often had a similar experience. “As a matter of fact, it's led to a new way of merchandising that isn't so tiresome as this. Even old hands at buying have found out they get a better idea of what is likely to catch on with the public when they see a lamp in place, as it were—sitting on a table or a stand with a window behind it, and curtains, and a room around it. When they are arranged row on row, it's awfully hard to get the idea. One company I know just happened to put a few lamps in their display, though actually they weren't interested in lamps; they sold dining-room furniture and nothing else but. But so many buyers fell for the lamps they'd picked out—buyers who must have seen the same thing a dozen times in the regular lamp places on the other floors, you understand—that the manager decided to branch out and make it a regular part of his stock, and his sale of lamps alone nowadays, quite apart from the rest of the turnover, amounts to ten thousand dollars. Just a little side item like that. He said it more than pays the electricity bill.”

“Well, for goodness' sake, I should think it would!” The careless way Bruce was slinging such figures about took Francie's breath away. She longed for Pop's presence:
he
would know how to talk about money to these people. It was stimulating, though, and she was enjoying herself. If she hadn't been growing increasingly conscious of the height of her heels, she would have enjoyed it still more. As it was, she was very glad indeed when Bruce called a halt and turned her over to Florence Ryan in a sumptuous but rather underlit restaurant on the ground floor.

“Well, Francie,” said Mrs. Ryan, “do you know all there is to know now about the decorating business?”

She sounded jauntier than she looked. From her appearance, Francie guessed that her employer had spent at least as strenuous a morning as she herself had. Her hair streaked down into her eyes under her hat, and her mouth drooped in weariness, but her eyes were still bright. Two club sandwiches soon put everything into proper focus again for both of them.

“I did mean to take you out tonight to a movie or somewhere, but something's come up,” said Mrs. Ryan apologetically as she took three spoonfuls of sugar in her coffee. “One of the girls I've known for years, one of my dearest friends, is in town and she asked me to come and have a bite with her at her hotel, and it's important that I talk to her. Of course I told her about you, and she has invited you to come along if you like. But I warn you, it's liable to be dull, just two old women chewing over business, so if you'd rather stay at the hotel and put your feet up, I'll understand. You don't have to make up your mind yet. We still have hours to go right here in the Mart.”

Francie said, “I sort of think I'll be all right tonight, Mrs. Ryan. Bruce Munson suggested I go out with him, and though I didn't think it would be very nice to leave you alone, and turned him down, his offer still stands, most likely.”

“Land sakes, child, you needn't have put him off on my account. You're on your own here as much as you like,” said Florence Ryan. “Well then, that's all right.”

They ordered their dessert and looked around curiously at the other tables in the restaurant. It might well have been a super sort of room in any of the better-class hotels, Francie thought, but Mrs. Ryan explained that every person in the place had something to do with house decoration. There were buyers there who represented enormous concerns, she said, and there were famous decorators and wholesalers too. It was a really exclusive trade club, she added impressively.

“And it's all grown up in the last few years,” she said. “It seems like only yesterday that we people who came up for big buying sprees were like so many insects, swarming around the wholesale-furniture district, each one going his own way and using up goodness knows how much time in getting there. There's no doubt this system is a great time-saver. Just the same, something's gone out of life now that it's all so easy.”

Francie said, “One of the women I met this morning says she isn't so sure everybody likes it this way. She says in the old days a woman like her, or you, or me even, looked forward to the week's buying trip because it was such a change from the old home town. You mixed a lot of personal shopping in with your business, and you got a chance to see the store windows and look at the latest styles, see some plays and buy a hat now and then, and all that. The way it is now, she says, you're never away from work. You might as well not be in Chicago at all, for all you see of it.”

Florence Ryan said, “There's a good deal in that. Still, the Mart
is
a lot more convenient and there's no doubt we'll all be used to it after a few more seasons.”

“I wanted to tell her there's no law against setting a few hours aside for your own business,” Francie said. “And there's still the theater at night, and so on.”

“We must have our little grumple in this world, I guess.” Mrs. Ryan took the check and peered at it dubiously in the gloom. “Well, are you ready for the fray again? This afternoon you'd better come along with me and learn how to pick out novelties. There's one floor completely full of the most terrible junk you ever saw in your life.”

Francie was about to say jokingly that in such a case it was a good thing they didn't have Anne Clark along, but for some reason she didn't want to mention Mrs. Clark. Mrs. Ryan's remarks were still on her mind. That mind took a leap instead, rather mysteriously, and told her that she must put in a telephone call in the evening to reassure Pop and Aunt Norah as to her safe arrival.

It was after five before they paid off their taxi and walked, or rather limped, into the hotel lobby. Francie's eyes were blurred from the number of objects she had looked at during the afternoon. At the moment she was surfeited with home decoration, and for that matter, with hotel decoration too: she wouldn't have cared if the whole great structure had been denuded of curtains, lamps, and overstuffed chairs. All she wanted was to get into a hot bath, and if one judged from Mrs. Ryan's appearance, she was in the same state of mind.

A glimpse of herself in the elevator mirror added to Francie's dismay. She had what looked like a mustache of dust, and her blouse collar was grimy. Oh, never mind, she thought; a few minutes more would make a lot of difference when her shoes were off and the bathwater was running, and one comfort was that Florence Ryan, who looked even more shopworn if possible, didn't seem at all perturbed. Fortunately they were strangers, Francie reflected. Nobody who mattered could see her now.

“Francie! For crying out loud!”

Even before she recognized the voice, Francie thought savagely that this was what life was always doing to a girl. Scowling, she turned and looked at the youth standing behind her in the car. She had noted him subconsciously when they got in, a citified youth with a hat in his hand. It was Glenn.

There were exclamations and explanations. Glenn was going on to Jefferson the next day. It was a surprise visit; he had meant to telephone that very evening to warn his mother and Francie. There hadn't been time before.

“It's wonderful meeting you here,” he said. He beamed: it was apparent that dusty mustaches had no terrors for him. “Francie the breadwinner!” he said.

“Oh, shut up, Glenn.”

“You can have dinner with me, can't you? Both of you,” said Glenn.

Francie spoke quickly. “I'm terribly sorry but we've both got dates.” She was impatient with herself for feeling guilty at the disappointed expression on his face. Why were her feelings scattered so? It was just the shock of seeing Glenn when she was thinking of Bruce, she decided. She was sure she wanted to dine with Bruce if possible, and anyway he'd asked her first.…

They had stepped out on their floor, Glenn following. “Oh, all right,” he said, “but at least you can come on back downstairs to the bar and have a drink right now.”

“Glenn, I just can't go anywhere yet. I look terrible; I've got to have a bath,” Francie said plaintively.

“Nonsense.” Glenn rang the elevator bell firmly, catching the same car on its downward passage. “You look fine,” he said, taking her elbow. “You always look fine. She'll be back upstairs in a minute, Mrs. Ryan.” He pushed her into the open door and it slid shut. The car dropped. “I had to see you alone for a minute,” he said. “You can tell me all about everything over something long and cool.”

“What, especially?” asked Francie. She rummaged in her handbag for a comb.

“Why, your news,” said Glenn. “Tell me what's all this I hear about impending changes in the Nelson family.”

CHAPTER 12

The elevator slid to a stop. Francie gasped.

“Here,” said Glenn. “I shouldn't have said anything, and so suddenly, too. I'm a dope. I ought to have known.… Why, you poor kid, you're absolutely white.” He was frantically remorseful. Francie tried to reassure him.

“I don't feel—” she began, but he motioned to her with his finger at his lips, and with a solicitous hand under her elbow guided her out into the lobby as if she were an invalid.

“You come along with me and sit down somewhere,” he said. “I know; this way.”

She stopped and protested: “You're taking me into the bar. I don't want a drink—I mean, I'm really thirsty. Come into the drugstore; I want a Coke.”

Her matter-of-fact tone reassured him somewhat, but he still watched her anxiously as they found a table and sat down. “You sure you're all right?” he asked. “Not going to faint or anything?”