The House of All Sorts

Men Called Her Jane

NICE-LOOKING couple. He had a courtesy that was slightly foreign. She blushed readily and was gentle, had dainty smartness from shoes to the chic little hat that looked to have flown to the top of her head and perched there at just the right angle.

In my garden she bent and sniffed, "May I have a flower?"

Was he dead? I could not take my eyes off that still huddle on the pavement. By-and-by a groan--he crawled on hands and knees to the door--beat upon it with his fists.

There were three voices, two men's and a woman's. Desperate fury was in them all--low, bestial, fighting hatred. I trembled violently, not knowing what to do. The rest of the flats were rented to women--women who expected to live here quietly, decently. It was a quiet, respectable district! How was I going to face them tomorrow, burning with shame for my house?

There was no sound from Lower East. All day blinds remained close drawn. The gas man came, asking that I let him into that silence to read the meter.

Their blinds never went up till noon was well past. He claimed that work brought him home late at night--very late.

The fighting stopped--terrible quiet--I could hear my clock ticking, or perhaps it was my heart. I went to bed hating tenants.

The express came and took away a trunk. At dusk the woman limped down the street sagging under the weight of a heavy suitcase.

The door below was torn open. Bump, bump, bump! A man was ejected, thudding on each step, finally lying in a huddle on the cement walk. The door slammed. The man and the woman inside resumed their screaming and snarling.

One morning, between two and three o'clock, all the house wrapped in sleep, shriek after shriek came from the Petries' flat. Crockery smashed. There were screams and bangs, dull murderous thuds. I jumped out of bed, ran to the room above their flat, leaned out the window.

One day I had occasion to take "madame" some things. Her door stood open. I kept to one side while I knocked. There was no answer. I stepped forward, meaning to lay the things inside the door and go away. I saw that "madame" was in the room, arms folded across the back of a chair, head bowed, crying bitterly. I put the things down, came away.

Next morning Petrie swaggered up to my flat, asked to use my telephone. I trembled, wondering what I was going to say to him. He 'phoned a rush order to a dry-cleaner, also for an express to take a trunk to the boat.

My flat was just above the Petries'. Sometimes I thought I heard crying. Again, there would be long monotonous sounds as of someone pleading unanswered; sometimes for days everything would be deadly still.

I took a pass key and went down. The place was in wild disorder. There were dozens of liquor bottles. In an attempt to be funny they had been arranged ridiculously as ornaments. Things were soiled with spilled liquor. The place smelled disgusting. The bedding was stripped from the bed. The laundry man returned it later and told me it had been soaked with blood. My carving knife belonging to the flat was missing.

I saw an envelope at my feet. In the dusk I could see the name was not Petrie, but a short name like my own. I tore it open, supposing it mine.

I gave the letter back to the Postman.

Holding out a handful of carefully selected pants' buttons that he took from the meter, the gas man said, "That is what the Gas Company got. How about you, got your rent?"

Everybody said they were an attractive-looking couple. The name he gave was "Petrie."

"Your tenant ordered his final reading this morning."

"You wish to serve me notice?"

"You going away?" I asked.

"Yes, advance."

"The madame likes flowers. You could spare her a little corner of your earth? This bit by our door, perhaps?"

"The madame is--we've quarrelled in fact."

"The flat is still occupied, far as I know."

"Rose, my baby, my dear, why don't you write? If you did not get the job, come home, we will manage somehow. No work for Pa yet, he is sick--so am I--anxiety mostly --Rosie, come home--Mother."

"Law does not require that such tenants be given notice."

"Jane! Jane! Listen, Jane! Let me in. Oh, Jane! Jane!" They were making such a noise they did not hear. He leant against the door, mopping his face. I could see dark stains spreading on his white handkerchief. After a long, long while he stumbled down the street.

"It was shameful... my tenants...." The man shrugged.

"I will plant sweet peas to climb on the fence," she said happily.

"I suspected," said the Postman. "Her name wasn't his name--nice-looking couple they was too... well... New to this rentin' bizness, eh? You'll larn--tough yerself to it."

"I opened it in the dusk by mistake; there was no forwarding address."

"Good," he said kindly... "job enough getting the liquor stains cleaned up."

His look was kind.