Story Of Julia Page

Kathleen Norris

Description

Set in early-twentieth-century San Francisco, The Story of Julia Page offers a fascinating glimpse into women's lives in that time and place. The heroine of the title is faced with tough circumstances, but manages to make her way in the world with hard work and spunk. Will she be able to find true love along the way?

Sujets

• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775562863
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE
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KATHLEEN NORRIS
 
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The Story Of Julia Page First published in 1915 ISBN 978-1-77556-286-3 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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PART I Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII PART II Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX
PART I
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Chapter I
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To Emeline, wife of George Page, there came slowly, in her thirtiethyear, a sullen conviction that life was monstrously unfair. From aresentful realization that she was not happy in her marriage, Emeline'smind went back to the days of her pert, precocious childhood and herrestless and discontented girlhood, and she felt, with a sort ofsmouldering fury, that she had never been happy, had never had a fairchance, at all!
It took Mrs. Page some years to come to this conclusion, for, if she wasshrewd and sharp among the women she knew, she was, in essential things,an unintelligent woman, and mental effort of any sort was strange toher. Throughout her entire life, her mind had never been truly awakened.She had scrambled through Grammar School, and had followed it with fiveyears as saleswoman in a millinery store, in that district of SanFrancisco known as the Mission, marrying George Page at twenty-three,and up to that time well enough pleased with herself and her life.
But that was eight years ago. Now Emeline could see that she hadreached—more, she had passed—her prime. She began to see that themoods of those early years, however violent and changing, had been fedupon secret springs of hope, hope vague and baseless enough, but strongto colour a girl's life with all the brightness of a thousand dawns.There had been rare potentialities in those days, anything might happen,something would happen. The little Emeline Cox, moving between thedreary discomfort of home and the hated routine of school, mightsurprise all these dull seniors and school-mates some day! She mightbecome an actress, she might become a great singer, she might make abrilliant marriage.
As she grew older and grew prettier, these vague, bright dreamsstrengthened. Emeline's mother was an overworked and shrill-voicedwoman, whose personality drove from the Shotwell Street house whateversmall comfort poverty and overcrowding and dirt left in it. She had nopersonal message for Emeline. The older woman had never learned the careof herself, her children, her husband, or her house. She had naturallynothing to teach her daughter. Emeline's father occasionally thundered afurious warning to his daughters as to certain primitive moral laws. Hedid not tell Emeline and her sisters why they might some day consent toabandon the path of virtue, nor when, nor how. He never dreamed ofwinning their affection and confidence, or of selecting their friends,and making home a place to which these friends might occasionally come.But he was fond of shouting, when Emeline, May, or Stella pinned ontheir flimsy little hats for an evening walk, that if ever a girl of hismade a fool of herself and got into trouble, she need never come nearhis door again! Perhaps Emeline and May and Stella felt that thevirtuous course, as exemplified by their parents, was not all of roses,either, but they never said so, and always shuddered dutifully at thepaternal warning.
School also failed with the education of the inner Emeline, although shemoved successfully from a process known as "diagramming" sentences to aserious literary analysis of "Snow-Bound" and "Evangeline," and passedterrifying examinations in ancient history, geography, and advancedproblems in arithmetic. By the time she left school she was a tall,giggling, black-eyed creature, to be found walking up and down MissionStreet, and gossiping and chewing gum on almost any sunny afternoon.Between her mother's whining and her father's bullying, home life wasnot very pleasant, but at least there was nothing unusual in thesituation; among all the girls that Emeline knew there was not one whocould go back to a clean room, a hospitable dining-room, a well-cookedand nourishing meal. All her friends did as she did: wheedled money fornew veils and new shoes from their fathers, helped their mothersreluctantly and scornfully when they must, slipped away to the street asoften as possible, and when they were at home, added their complaintsand protests to the general unpleasantness.
Had there been anything different before her eyes, who knows what plansfor domestic reform might have taken shape in the girl's plastic brain?Emeline had never seen one example of real affection and cooperationbetween mother and daughters, of work quickly and skilfully done andforgotten, of a clean bright house and a blossoming garden; she hadnever heard a theory otherwise than that she was poor, her friends werepoor, her parents were poor, and that born under the wheels of amonstrous social injustice, she might just as well be dirty anddiscouraged and discontented at once and have done with it, for in theend she must be so. Why should she question the abiding belief? Emelineknew that, with her father's good pay and the excellent salaries earnedby her hard-handed, patient-eyed, stupid young brothers, the familyincome ran well up toward three hundred dollars a month: her fatherworked steadily at five dollars a day, George was a roofer's assistantand earned eighty dollars a month, and Chester worked in a plumber'sshop, and at eighteen was paid sixty-five dollars. Emeline could onlyconclude that three hundred dollars a month was insufficient to preventdirt, crowding, scolding, miserable meals, and an incessant atmosphereof warm soapsuds.
Presently she outraged her father by going into "Delphine's" millinerystore. Delphine was really a stout, bleached woman named Lizzie Clarke,whose reputation was not quite good, although nobody knew anythingdefinite against her. She had a double store on Market Street nearEleventh, a dreary place, with dusty models in the windows, tornNottingham curtains draped behind them, and "Delphine" scrawled in goldacross the dusty windows in front. Emeline used to wonder, in the dayswhen she and her giggling associates passed "Delphine's" window, whoever bought the dreadful hats in the left-hand window, although theyadmitted a certain attraction on the right. Here would be a sign: "AnyHat in this Window, Two Dollars," surrounded by cheap, dust-grainedfelts, gaudily trimmed, or coarse straws wreathed with cotton flowers.Once or twice Emeline and her friends went in, and one day when a cardin the window informed the passers-by that an experienced saleslady waswanted, the girl, sick of the situation at home and longing for novelty,boldly applied for the position. Miss Clarke engaged her at once.
Emeline met, as she had expected, a storm at home, but she weathered it,and kept her position. It was hard work, and poorly paid, but the girl'sdreams gilded everything, and she loved the excitement of making sales,came eagerly to the gossip and joking of her fellow-workers everymorning, and really felt herself to be in the current of life at last.
Miss Clarke was no better than her reputation, and would have willinglyhelped her young saleswoman into a different sort of life. But Emeline'slittle streak of shrewd selfishness saved her. Emeline indulged in ahundred little coarsenesses and indiscretions, but take the final steptoward ruin she would not. Nobody was going to get the better of her,she boasted. She used rouge and lip red. She "met fellers" under flaminggas jets, and went to dance halls with them, and to the Sunday picnicsthat were her father's especial abomination; she shyly told vile storiesand timidly used strong words, but there it ended. Perhaps some tatteredremnant of the golden dream still hung before her eyes; perhaps shestill clung to the hope of a dim, wonderful time to come.
More than that, the boys she knew were not a vicious lot; the Jimmiesand Johnnies, the Dans and Eds, were for the most part neighbours, nomore anxious to antagonize Emeline's father than she was. They mightkiss her good-night at her door, they might deliberately try to get thegirls to miss the last train home from the picnic, but their spirit wasof idle mischief rather than malice, and a stinging slap from Emeline'shand afforded them, as it did her, a certain shamed satisfaction.
George Page came into "Delphine's" on a windy summer afternoon whenEmeline had been there for nearly five years. He was a salesman for somelines of tailored hats, a San Franciscan, but employed by a New Yorkwholesale house. Emeline chanced to be alone in the place, for MissClarke was sick in bed, and the other saleswoman away on her vacation.The trimmers, glancing out through a plush curtain at the rear, saw MissCox and the "drummer" absorbed in a three hours' conversation. From twoto five o'clock they talked; the drummer watching her in obviousadmiration when an occasional customer interrupted, and when Miss Coxwent home the drummer escorted her. Emeline had left the parental roofsome two years before; she was rooming, now, with a mild and virtuousgirl named Regina Lynch, in Howard Street. Regina was the sort of girlfrequently selected by a girl of Emeline's type for confidante andcompanion: timid, conventional, always ready to laugh and admire. Reginaconsented to go to dinner with Emeline and Mr. Page, and as she laterrefused to go to the