THE TENTS OF SHEM

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 105, 16 February 1950, Page 7

THE TENTS OF SHEM

luiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiimii^ ES By Grace Jones Morgan = s Serial Slory -

BMj E (Copyright) S

CHAPTER XXXIII. FANCHEE PAYS HER DEBT TO DICK God was far away, the Queen was dead. Shoot straight Shoot straight! The ivory elephant. What queer ideals came, jumbled and jostling, in the early morning. v The suit department manager was back from M. Rosfleur's office. “My dear, you go into that fitting room. Perhaps we could use you for a model, you seem such a good height, such good lines.” Thank Heaven 'she had decent underwear now. Not like that night she had gone with Dick, patched, quilted with mending. Now she knew why customers fussed about taking off everything but their vests, knew why their faces flushed and they were awkward. Standing like one of the waxheaded figures, Fanchee was draped, dressed, turned, sent to the hairdressing parlour, trained to walk about the aisles in leisurely, languid fashion, showing' off the loveliest of garments, sports frocks, afternoon dresses, evening gowns, street suits. Customers stood and stared, discussed what she wore frankly; touched her gowns, while she turned like a mechanical toy; one afternoon, turned to find Mr Louis Rosfleur regarding her with curiously intent eyes . “How are you getting along, Miss D’Arcy? I’ve been wondering if it would suit you to stay here a little longer,. Good models are rare. You have chic! Everything needed. What about those new evening dresses, Madame Marie, ask Miss D’Arcy to'try them.”

Parading in soft shimmering peacock irridescence, shining against her white arms and shoulders, trailing over the carpet, coiling about her satin-shod feet as she turned, and M. Louis regarded her with his earnest dark eyes, one hand touching his chin. “You belong to that dress, Miss D’Arcy. Not one woman in a thousand could wear it as you do. Try it again to-morrow in the late afternoon, please.” But that was when she had been modelling for two years, when she was no longer embarrassed, shy, conscious. It was after she had found her wages increased amazingly and she had fled from the little court apartment to an old house overlooking the great sweep of sea leading through rock portals of the Golden Gate.

She had fled from Nina. Better a long street car ride night and morning than the risk of Nina finding her again. She had searched the advertisements, gone evenings to look at rooms and climbed this hill. The old house had no other roomers. A Russian family owned it. They had once been wealthy, but things happened, they were particular Who occupied the upper front suite, but Fanchee had no trouble securing it. There she was- safe. It was a little like the D’Arcy place at home, fine old furnishings, worn shabby, but still gleaming softly with rubbing, quiet voices, the wavering light of candles in tall holders, open fires, and always tea brewing. They invited her for a cup of tea each time she came in the door, an old mother and father, a younger daughter whose marriage was a mistake, and who was working, a private secretary. Not even Mariette knew Fanchee’s address, and Mariette drew her own conclusions, in spite of Fanchee’s protesting. “I can’t have Nina, and if I tell you where I live you’d have to lie to her. She’ll ask you. Please don’t mind, Mariette.” Mariette sniffed. “I don’t- care. I’m shanty Irish myself and glad of it, but I figured you’d blow away once you got in with them suit queens. Nina doq’t scare me. I’ve known her ever since that morning that San Francisco fell on. its _knees and pulled a Sodom and Gomorrah. You don’t remember that, Dorsey, but some of us docs. Many of us distinctly noticed when we were tipped out of bed in the cold grey dawn and shoved under tall buildings, with maybe a kitchen sink on our chins and a neighbour’s husband' within reach of our lily-white hands. Nina was cast up alongside of me that day with a few thousand other survivors gathered together in case of a wholesale funeral. Many a lady from God knows where, including the red lights, beat the rats from down below ;that morning. And I got another slant on this idea of women being sisters under the complexions. You’re a fool if you don’t do something except twirl a Parchessi arrow all your evenings. And you’re lucky to be out of corsets and into five hundred dollar gowns. Honest, I hardly got spunk enough to let me stroll home from work in the evening.” Mariette did not know that Fanehee was getting one hundred dollars a month and commissions on sales. Nor that Fanchee had saved five hundred dollars and was sending a money order to Dick with a note:

“Dick. I hope this five hundred dollars will pay you for all I cost your mother and you. Francisca.” Mariette would have advised against that foolishness. She would have said:

“There goes another ivory elephant.” But Fanchee felt cleaner, lighter, more gallant. She did not hear of Dick Dell until one day she was walking clown the aisles of Maison Honore in a chinchilla cloak and hundred dollar hat, and met him face to face. She wheeled as if shot, flew to a fitting room, and stayed until closing time. Dick had not recognised her, but from that day she knew fear! That night she caught up with Mariette in the crowd of clerks pouring through the big doors. Suppose Dick had seen her and was waiting; what would she do?

“Mariette, will you have dinner with me somewhere to-night? Some queer place we’ve never been before

“Sure I will. What’s on your mind, Dorsey, beside that new hat. Leave it to you to pick a hat that makes you look like a million.”

(To be continued).