Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (53 page)

Instantly she remembered that she had hoped to buy a few things for herself. She needed clothes. Her hat was not nice.

“What will twelve dollars do towards keeping up this flat?” she thought. “I can’t do it. Why doesn’t he get something to do?”

The important night of the first real performance came. She did not suggest to Hurstwood that he come and see. He did not think of going. It would only be money wasted. She had such a small part.

The advertisements were already in the papers; the posters upon the bill-boards. The leading lady and many members were cited. Carrie was nothing.

As in Chicago, she was seized with stage fright as the very first entrance of the ballet approached, but later she recovered. The apparent and painful insignificance of the part took fear away from her. She felt that she was so obscure it did not matter. Fortunately, she did not have to wear tights. A group of twelve were assigned pretty golden-hued skirts which came only to a line about an inch above the knee. Carrie happened to be one of the twelve.

In standing about the stage, marching, and occasionally lifting up her voice in the general chorus, she had a chance to observe the audience and to see the inauguration of a great hit. There was plenty of applause, but she could not help noting how poorly some of the women of alleged ability did.

“I could do better than that,” Carrie ventured to herself, in several instances. To do her justice, she was right.

After it was over she dressed quickly, and as the manager had scolded some others and passed her, she imagined she must have proved satisfactory. She wanted to get out quickly, because she knew but few, and the stars were gossiping. Outside were carriages and some correct youths in attractive clothing, waiting. Carrie saw that she was scanned closely. The flutter of an eyelash would have brought her a companion. That she did not give.

One experienced youth volunteered, anyhow.

“Not going home alone, are you?” he said.

Carrie merely hastened her steps and took the Sixth Avenue car. Her head was so full of the wonder of it that she had time for nothing else.

“Did you hear any more from the brewery?” she asked at the end of the week, hoping by the question to stir him on to action.

“No,” he answered, “they’re not quite ready yet. I think something will come of that, though.”

She said nothing more then, objecting to giving up her own money, and yet feeling that such would have to be the case. Hurstwood felt the crisis, and artfully decided to appeal to Carrie. He had long since realised how good-natured she was, how much she would stand. There was some little shame in him at the thought of doing so, but he justified himself with the thought that he really would get something. Rent day gave him his opportunity.

“Well,” he said, as he counted it out, “that’s about the last of my money. I’ll have to get something pretty soon.”

Carrie looked at him askance, half-suspicious of an appeal.

“If I could only hold out a little longer I think I could get something. Drake is sure to open a hotel here in September.”

“Is he?” said Carrie, thinking of the short month that still remained until that time.

“Would you mind helping me out until then?” he said appealingly. “I think I’ll be all right after that time.”

“No,” said Carrie, feeling sadly handicapped by fate.

“We can get along if we economise. I’ll pay you back all right.”

“Oh, I’ll help you,” said Carrie, feeling quite hard-hearted at thus forcing him to humbly appeal, and yet her desire for the benefit of her earnings wrung a faint protest from her.

“Why don’t you take anything, George, temporarily?” she said. “What difference does it make? Maybe, after a while, you’ll get something better.”

“I will take anything,” he said, relieved, and wincing under reproof. “I’d just as leave dig on the streets. Nobody knows me here.”

“Oh, you needn’t do that,” said Carrie, hurt by the pity of it. “But there must be other things.”

“I’ll get something!” he said, assuming determination.

Then he went back to his paper.

WHAT HURSTWOOD GOT AS the result of the determination was more self-assurance that each particular day was not the day. At the same time, Carrie passed through thirty days of mental distress.

Her need of clothes—to say nothing of her desire for ornaments—grew rapidly as the fact developed that for all her work she was not to have them. The sympathy she felt for Hurstwood at the time he asked her to tide him over, vanished with these newer urgings of decency. He was not always renewing his request but this love of good appearance was. It insisted, and Carrie wished to satisfy it, wished more and more that Hurstwood was not in the way.

Hurstwood reasoned, when he neared the last ten dollars, that he had better keep a little pocket change and not become wholly dependent for car-fare, shaves, and the like; so when this sum was still in his hand he announced himself as penniless.

“I’m clear out,” he said to Carrie one afternoon. “I paid for some coal this morning, and that took all but ten or fifteen cents.”

“I’ve got some money there in my purse.”

Hurstwood went to get it, starting for a can of tomatoes. Carrie scarcely noticed that this was the beginning of the new order. He took out fifteen cents and bought the can with it. Thereafter it was dribs and drabs of this sort, until one morning Carrie suddenly remembered that she would not be back until close to dinner time.

“We’re all out of flour,” she said; “you’d better get some this afternoon. We haven’t any meat, either. How would it do if we had liver and bacon?”

“Suits me,” said Hurstwood.

“Better get a half or three-quarters of a pound of that.”

“Half’ll be enough,” volunteered Hurstwood.

She opened her purse and laid down a half dollar. He pretended not to notice it.

Hurstwood bought the flour—which all grocers sold in 3
-pound packages—for thirteen cents and paid fifteen cents for a half-pound of liver and bacon. He left the packages, together with the balance of thirty-two cents, upon the kitchen table, where Carrie found it. It did not escape her that the change was accurate. There was something sad in realising that, after all, all that he wanted of her was something to eat. She felt as if hard thoughts were unjust. Maybe he would get something yet. He had no vices.

That very evening, however, on going into the theatre, one of the chorus girls passed her all newly arrayed in a pretty mottled tweed suit, which took Carrie’s eye. The young woman wore a fine bunch of violets and seemed in high spirits. She smiled at Carrie good-naturedly as she passed, showing pretty, even teeth, and Carrie smiled back.

“She can afford to dress well,” thought Carrie, “and so could I, if I could only keep my money. I haven’t a decent tie of any kind to wear.”

She put out her foot and looked at her shoe reflectively.

“I’ll get a pair of shoes Saturday, anyhow; I don’t care what happens.”

One of the sweetest and most sympathetic little chorus girls in the company made friends with her because in Carrie she found nothing to frighten her away. She was a gay little Manon,
^al
unwitting of society’s fierce conception of morality, but, nevertheless, good to her neighbour and charitable. Little license was allowed the chorus in the matter of conversation, but, nevertheless, some was indulged in.

“It’s warm to-night, isn’t it?” said this girl, arrayed in pink fleshings and an imitation golden helmet. She also carried a shining shield.

“Yes; it is,” said Carrie, pleased that some one should talk to her.

“I’m almost roasting,” said the girl.

Carrie looked into her pretty face, with its large blue eyes, and saw little beads of moisture.

“There’s more marching in this opera than ever I did before,” added the girl.

“Have you been in others?” asked Carrie, surprised at her experience.

“Lots of them,” said the girl; “haven’t you?”

“This is my first experience.”

“Oh, is it? I thought I saw you the time they ran ”The Queen’s Mate’ here.”

“No,” said Carrie, shaking her head; “not me.”

This conversation was interrupted by the blare of the orchestra and the sputtering of the calcium lights in the wings as the line was called to form for a new entrance. No further opportunity for conversation occurred, but the next evening, when they were getting ready for the stage, this girl appeared anew at her side.

“They say this show is going on the road next month.”

“Is it?” said Carrie.

“Yes; do you think you’ll go?”

“I don’t know; I guess so, if they’ll take me.”

“Oh, they’ll take you. I wouldn’t go. They won’t give you any more, and it will cost you everything you make to live. I never leave New York. There are too many shows going on here.”

“Can you always get in another show?”

“I always have. There’s one going on up at the Broadway this month. I’m going to try and get in that if this one really goes.”

Carrie heard this with aroused intelligence. Evidently it wasn’t so very difficult to get on. Maybe she also could get a place if this show went away.

“Do they all pay about the same?” she asked.

“Yes. Sometimes you get a little more. This show doesn’t pay very much.”

“I get twelve,” said Carrie.

“Do you?” said the girl. “They pay me fifteen, and you do more work than I do. I wouldn’t stand it if I were you. They’re just giving you less because they think you don’t know. You ought to be making fifteen.”

“Well, I’m not,” said Carrie.

“Well, you’ll get more at the next place if you want it,” went on the girl, who admired Carrie very much. “You do fine, and the manager knows it.”

To say the truth, Carrie did unconsciously move about with an air pleasing and somewhat distinctive. It was due wholly to her natural manner and total lack of self-consciousness.

“Do you suppose I could get more up at the Broadway?”
^am

“Of course you can,” answered the girl. “You come with me when I go. I’ll do the talking.”

Carrie heard this, flushing with thankfulness. She liked this little gaslight soldier. She seemed so experienced and self-reliant in her tinsel helmet and military accoutrements.

“My future must be assured if I can always get work this way,” thought Carrie.

Still, in the morning, when her household duties would infringe upon her and Hurstwood sat there, a perfect load to contemplate, her fate seemed dismal and unrelieved. It did not take so very much to feed them under Hurstwood’s close-measured buying, and there would possibly be enough for rent, but it left nothing else. Carrie bought the shoes and some other things, which complicated the rent problem very seriously. Suddenly, a week from the fatal day, Carrie realised that they were going to run short.

“I don’t believe,” she exclaimed, looking into her purse at breakfast, “that I’ll have enough to pay the rent.”

“How much have you?” inquired Hurstwood.

“Well, I’ve got twenty-two dollars, but there’s everything to be paid for this week yet, and if I use all I get Saturday to pay this, there won’t be any left for next week. Do you think your hotel man will open his hotel this month?”

“I think so,” returned Hurstwood. “He said he would.”

After a while, Hurstwood said:

“Don’t worry about it. Maybe the grocer will wait. He can do that. We’ve traded there long enough to make him trust us for a week or two.”

“Do you think he will?” she asked.

“I think so.”

On this account, Hurstwood, this very day, looked grocer Oeslogge clearly in the eye as he ordered a pound of coffee, and said:

“Do you mind carrying my account until the end of every week?”

“No, no, Mr. Wheeler,” said Mr. Oeslogge. “Dat iss all right.”

Hurstwood, still tactful in distress, added nothing to this. It seemed an easy thing. He looked out of the door, and then gathered up his coffee when ready and came away. The game of a desperate man had begun.

Rent was paid, and now came the grocer. Hurstwood managed by paying out of his own ten and collecting from Carrie at the end of the week. Then he delayed a day next time settling with the grocer, and so soon had his ten back, with Oeslogge getting his pay on this Thursday or Friday for last Saturday’s bill.

This entanglement made Carrie anxious for a change of some sort. Hurstwood did not seem to realise that she had a right to anything. He schemed to make what she earned cover all expenses, but seemed not to trouble over adding anything himself.

“He talks about worrying,” thought Carrie. “If he worried enough he couldn’t sit there and wait for me. He’d get something to do. No man could go seven months without finding something if he tried.”