«I feel it a great privilege, Mrs. Vanderpant.»
«And of course, all our dear young people came in '29. Their poor papas jumped from skyscrapers.»
I did a great deal of bowing and whistling. The introductions took a long time. Who would have thought so many people lived in Bracey's?
«And here at last is Ella with my broth.»
It was then I noticed that the young people were not so young after all, in spite of their smiles, their little ways, their ingénue dress. Ella was in her teens. Clad only in something from the shop-soiled counter, she nevertheless had the appearance of a living flower in a French cemetery, or a mermaid among polyps.
«Come, you stupid thing!»
«Mrs. Vanderpant is waiting.»
Her pallor was not like theirs; not like the pallor of something that glistens or scuttles when you turn over a stone. Hers was that of a pearl.
Ella! Pearl of this remotest, most fantastic cave! Little mermaid, brushed over, pressed down by objects of a deadlier white — tentacles — ! I can write no more.
MARCH 28 Well, I am rapidly becoming used to my new and half-lit world, to my strange company. I am learning the intricate laws of silence and camouflage which dominate the apparently casual strollings and gatherings of the midnight clan. How they detest the night-watchman, whose existence imposes these laws on their idle festivals!
«Odious, vulgar creature! He reeks of the coarse sun!»
Actually, he is quite a personable young man, very young for a night-watchman, so young that I think he must have been wounded in the war. But they would like to tear him to pieces.
They are very pleasant to me, though. They are pleased that a poet should have come among them. Yet I cannot like them entirely. My blood is a little chilled by the uncanny ease with which even the old ladies can clamber spider-like from balcony to balcony. Or is it because they are unkind to Ella?
Yesterday we had a bridge party. Tonight, Mrs. Bilbee's little play, Love in Shadowland, is going to be presented. Would you believe it? — another colony, from Wanamaker's, is coming over en masse to attend. Apparently people live in all the great stores. This visit is considered a great honour, for there is an intense snobbery in these creatures. They speak with horror of a social outcast who left a high-class Madison Avenue establishment, and now leads a wallowing, beachcomberish life in a delicatessen. And they relate with tragic emotion the story of a man in Altman's, who conceived such a passion for a model plaid dressing jacket that he emerged and wrested it from the hands of a purchaser. It seems that all the Altman colony, dreading an investigation, were forced to remove beyond the social pale, into a five-and-dime. Well, I must get ready to attend the play.
APRIL 14 I have found an opportunity to speak to Ella. I dared not before; here one has a sense always of pale eyes secretly watching. But last night, at the play, I developed a fit of hiccups. I was somewhat sternly told to go and secrete myself in the basement, among the garbage cans, where the watchman never comes.
There, in the rat-haunted darkness, I heard a stifled sob. «What's that? Is it you? Is it Ella? What ails you, child? Why do you cry?»
«They wouldn't even let me see the play.»
«Is that all? Let me console you.»
«I am so unhappy.»
She told me her tragic little story. What do you think? When she was a child, a little tiny child of only six, she strayed away and fell asleep behind a counter, while her mother tried on a new hat. When she woke, the store was in darkness.
«And I cried, and they all came around, and took hold of me. 'She will tell, if we let her go,' they said. Some said, 'Call in the Dark Men.' 'Let her stay here,' said Mrs. Vanderpant. 'She will make me a nice little maid.'»
«Who are these Dark Men, Ella? They spoke of them when I came here.»
«Don't you know? Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible!»
«Tell me, Ella. Let us share it.»
She trembled. «You know the morticians, 'Journey's End,' who go to houses when people die?»
«Yes, Ella.»
«Well, in that shop, just like here, and at Gimbel's, and at Bloomingdale's, there are people living, people like these.»
«How disgusting! But what can they live upon, Ella, in a funeral home?»
«Don't ask me! Dead people are sent there, to be embalmed. Oh, they are terrible creatures! Even the people here are terrified of them. But if anyone dies, or if some poor burglar breaks in, and sees these people, and might tell —»
«Yes? Go on.»
«Then they send for the others, the Dark Men.»
«Good heavens!»
«Yes, and they put the body in Surgical Supplies — or the burglar, all tied up, if it's a burglar — and they send for these others, and then they all hide, and in they come, the others — Oh! they're like pieces of blackness. I saw them once. It was terrible.»
«And then?»
«They go in, to where the dead person is, or the poor burglar. And they have wax there — and all sorts of things. And when they're gone there's just one of these wax models left, on the table. And then our people put a dress on it, or a bathing suit, and they mix it up with all the others, and nobody ever knows.»
«But aren't they heavier than the others, these wax models? You would think they'd be heavier.»
«No. They're not heavier. I think there's a lot of them — gone.»
«Oh, dear! So they were going to do that to you, when you were a little child?»
«Yes, only Mrs. Vanderpant said I was to be her maid.»
«I don't like these people, Ella.»
«Nor do I. I wish I could see a bird.»
«Why don't you go into the pet-shop?»
«It wouldn't be the same. I want to see it on a twig, with leaves.»
«Ella, let us meet often. Let us creep away down here and meet. I will tell you about birds, and twigs and leaves.»
MAY 1 For the last few nights the store has been feverish with the shivering whisper of a huge crush at Bloomingdale's. Tonight was the night.
«Not changed yet? We leave on the stroke of two.» Roscoe has appointed himself, or been appointed, my guide or my guard.
«Roscoe, I am still a greenhorn. I dread the streets.»
«Nonsense! There's nothing to it. We slip out by two's and three's, stand on the sidewalk, pick up a taxi. Were you never out late in the old days? If so, you must have seen us, many a time.»
«Good heavens, I believe I have! And often wondered where you came from. And it was from here! But, Roscoe, my brow is burning. I find it hard to breathe. I fear a cold.»
«In that case you must certainly remain behind. Our whole party would be disgraced in the unfortunate event of a sneeze.»
I had relied on their rigid etiquette, so largely based on fear of discovery, and I was right. Soon they were gone, drifting out like leaves aslant on the wind. At once I dressed in flannel slacks, canvas shoes, and a tasteful sport shirt, all new in stock today. I found a quiet spot, safely off the track beaten by the night-watchman. There, in a model's lifted hand, I set a wide fern frond culled from the florist's shop, and at once had a young, spring tree. The carpet was sandy, sandy as a lake-side beach. A snowy napkin; two cakes, each with a cherry on it; I had only to imagine the lake and to find Ella.
«Why, Charles, what's this?»
«I'm a poet, Ella, and when a poet meets a girl like you he thinks of a day in the country. Do you see this tree? Let's call it our tree. There's the lake — the prettiest lake imaginable. Here is grass, and there are flowers. There are birds, too, Ella. You told me you like birds.»