The Hired Girl(76)

It was so hurtful, the way he said you, as if I were altogether insignificant. I said lamely, “I took a vow.”

“A vow? What on earth are you talking about?”

I tried to defend myself. “Because you were kind to me. Because you saved me from the streets. Mimi told me you were in love with Nora, and I vowed I would do anything I could to make you happy —”

“You thought I would be happy”— oh, his sarcasm made me flinch! —“if you read my private papers, and passed on a half-finished, badly written sonnet?”

“Yes, because faint heart never won —”

“I don’t have a faint heart!” he shouted. “If I wanted to marry Nora Himmelrich — who has been in agonies since you gave her that sonnet, because she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings — I would go and tell her so! But I haven’t, because I don’t. I wrote that idiotic scrap of verse a year ago — a whole year! Since then, I’ve fallen head over heels in love with another girl!” I gasped. “And Nora, who is a ninny if there ever was one, was so upset by my proposal of marriage, my unwelcome proposal of marriage, that she went to another girl for advice, and it so happens that girl is the girl I love! And Nora showed her that poem!” He paused so that I could take this in. “Now the girl I planned to make my wife has read the sonnet I wrote to Nora Himmelrich! God knows what she must think of me!” He smacked the crumpled sonnet against the back of the chair. It was just paper against wood, but it made a louder noise than I would have believed possible. I jumped.

“Now do you see what you’ve done? At the very least, I’ve been made to look like a fool; at the worst, I will lose the girl I love — all because of your meddling! Who knows how many other girls Nora may have confided in? She swore it was only Ruth, but I don’t know if I believe her — and what in hell am I going to say to Ruth?”

I wept very copiously. He had every right to be angry with me, even to swear at me, but oh, I felt so awful! I recalled with shame how excited I’d felt, being part of a love affair. I’d thought I’d done it for him, but now that he was shouting at me I realized that I’d done it partly for myself, because I wanted some romance in my life. But I never meant any harm — I wanted to help. And if I lost my job, I had nowhere to go, and I knew Mrs. Rosenbach would never write me a good reference, not after she heard what I’d done. I was sobbing, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” when the door opened and Mr. Rosenbach came in.

I reckon it was a shock to us both, him coming in like that. Mr. Solomon and I were so het up that it hadn’t occurred to us that anyone could come in. Mr. Rosenbach seemed out of place; he was so cool and collected. Well, not cool, exactly, because he never takes the streetcar and always walks home, so his shirt was wilted. He’d taken off his hat, and also his necktie, which he’d wrapped around his hand like a bandage. But even though he was hot and damp, the room seemed cooler after he came in. He glanced from me to Mr. Solomon and said, “Solly? What on earth are you saying to her?”

Mr. Solomon was speechless. I couldn’t blame him. “What have I said to her?” he echoed, while I wailed, “No, he’s right to shout at me!”

Mr. Rosenbach set his hat down on the desk. He freed his hand from the curled-up tie and set the tie down next to his hat. Then he pulled out a chair and told me to sit. He found a clean handkerchief in his breast pocket and gave it to me. He strolled over to the decanter and poured two glasses of whiskey, a little one for him and a larger one for Mr. Solomon. “Sit, sit,” he urged us, until Mr. Solomon and I sat down. “Now, Janet. Tell me what’s the matter.”

He spoke so kindly that I had to tell him. I wasn’t very clear at first, because my words were blurred by sobs. “Go on, go on,” Mr. Rosenbach encouraged me, and I told him how Mr. Solomon had been kind to me, and I’d made a secret vow to help him win Nora Himmelrich. And I hadn’t pried, or looked through his private papers; I’d honestly found the sonnet, and I thought it was so beautiful that if Nora could only read it, her romantic heart would surely be touched. But after that there wasn’t much I could say in my defense, because it was meddling to give that sonnet to Nora, and I’d made trouble. Of course, it had never occurred to me that Mr. Solomon might have finished being in love with his fragile nymph, but men are not constant the way women are, and I guess I ought to have thought of that.

Mr. Rosenbach turned to his son and said, “Well?” and Mr. Solomon began to tell his side of the story. I think drinking the whiskey calmed him because he wasn’t raging; he was just resentful and disapproving. At one point, Mr. Rosenbach inquired, “Am I to learn the name of this girl you wish to marry?” and Mr. Solomon turned red and said, “I’m sorry, Papa,” in a way that made him sound years younger. “I know you and Mama won’t like it, and I haven’t asked her yet. I mean to ask her, or I meant to, until this —”