Chapter XI

Moving to the Drive, the Roses made the final change in their name. Mannie, usually quiet, was the one to propose it.

“Rose is so—so peculiar,” said Mannie. “Any one could tell it had been something else, Rosen or worse. I’m eighteen and go to College this fall. I’m not going to have a name so—so ordinary. Let’s change it to Ross. That’s not distinctive but it isn’t queer or foreign. I’m changing my first name just a little, too. I’ve never been called Emanuel, anyhow. Mannie isn’t a name at all. I’m going to register at College as Manning Ross.”

There was no letter-box to announce the change, but the elevator man knew the new occupants of Apartment 31—he wrote the names down with a blurring stub of a pencil to be sure to remember them—were Mr. and Mrs. A. Lincoln Ross, the two Misses Ross and two young men, Irving and Manning.

The family had liked Rose—but there might be something in what Manning said. But no more changes. Mr. Ross put his foot down, this time. He was meeting important men in business, Gentiles, and he didn’t want any more monkey-business about names. Ross was all right and Ross it would have to stay. And it did.

Mrs. Ross took great delight in getting her new servants. It made her feel superior and important, driving up to an employment agent and interviewing prospective retainers. She took Carolyn along for advice and counsel—Carolyn went out a lot and knew about such things.

Carolyn would have liked a retinue, but Ross rebelled—expenses were awful and each servant was another mouth to feed. The old “girl” had got married so they finally chose a cook who was not above helping with other things, a waitress who could combine housework with waiting, and a chauffeur. Besides, the washerwoman would still come for two days each week.

Soon after the family was settled, Mr. Ross bought a big limousine, American made, but one that Carolyn thought looked really expensive. The chauffeur was in uniform, of course. He happened to be a young Irish boy and it seemed to Carolyn, sometimes, that he smiled a bit sarcastically and annoyingly as he held the door open for them, especially after her mother had spoken with an accent or her old sing-song.

Mr. Ross didn’t object to the new luxuries. It was much more comfortable driving to the office in the limousine than waiting for Irving or one of the girls to take him or depending on less comfortable modes of transportation. He had more room to himself, too. He liked the way the new cook prepared things—he was getting indigestion and had to be careful about what he ate—though he still remembered with real emotion the pot-roasts and fish and stuffed goose that Grandma had delighted to prepare. These new dishes—salads and things like that—everything served separately—you could get used to it—it didn’t make much difference—here he was, used to a maid in cap and apron, waiting on table—and Minnie used to it, too, excepting when she forgot and talked to her or reached across the table for things. Still, Minnie meant well, a good woman, rather fat these last years, but a good woman who loved her family—none of this new foolishness some of the women had, he’d noticed—

Mr. Ross didn’t pay much attention to women. He never had. He saw what fine girls his daughters were, that was about all. He couldn’t have recognized half a dozen of their best friends, whom he saw constantly at his home, if he had passed them on the street.

His business—that was something. Still, even that didn’t keep him busy, the way it used to. This new arrangement, the offices and the factory separated—of course it was for the best. He could always go over to the factory when he wanted to, though there wasn’t much need—machinery he didn’t understand, everything in such order—with a head for every little department, not to mention the big ones. And, with three partners you couldn’t say things as if it were your own business. Mr. Ross was fifty-three, but it hadn’t been an easy fifty-three years and things had gone along rather rapidly for a while. Not that he was an old man—far from it. Still, things that had passed seemed pleasanter than they had seemed in the passing—and things to come lacked lustre.

This wasn’t age,—certainly not—he felt as well as he had twenty years ago, practically. Give him some real work to do, you’d find out. But there was so little to do, now. You’d go down to the office about ten and dictate a few letters and potter around with things. You’d examine “swatches” and find that an expert had already given them a chemical analysis. You’d go to luncheon and be careful about what you ate. After luncheon, a little sleepily, you’d dictate more letters, if there were any more and see a few men on business, young upstarts, most likely, or Gentiles who wanted something for nothing—or consult with your partners. Then, you’d drive home after a while and read the paper or listen to Carolyn play on the new player piano or talk with Dorothea, though there wasn’t much to talk about. Dinner then, and a game with Adams, though he had rheumatism these last years and wasn’t the man he had been. Or Moss would drive over. There was a club, even, if you cared to go to it—a lot of strange men who didn’t care anything about you—a club—at least they were of your own race—Dorothea was always asking questions about why the family didn’t mix with other people—such notions a child gets—

The Rex Suit Company was still progressing. The great factories were outside New York, but the business offices occupied a whole floor of an office building, each partner with his own mahogany furnished office, with its rows of bells and its private stenographers. There was an expert to decide each thing. MacDougal was in the sales department and Maurice, the younger Adams boy, was advertising manager—a big advertising agent had charge of all of the advertising, of course. And what advertising the firm did, too! Double pages in the popular weeklies at thousands of dollars a page. Every one was familiar with the “Kingly Men.” Girls cut them out and mounted them for their rooms. “America’s Kings in Kingly Suits” had been familiar enough to get applause at a musical comedy when it was used to introduce two juveniles. “Every Inch a King for the Kings of Creation” and other well-known slogans ran in letters four feet high above the artist’s conception of the “Kingly Man” on the billboards.

Each year there was an ornate catalogue of the styles, “for the Prep Youth,” “for the College Man,” “for the Younger Set,” “for the Older Fellow.” Hundreds of merchants all over the country displayed King Brand signs and carried King Brand suits. The Rex Company had invented half sizes, adjustable models and the giving with each suit of an extra bit of the goods and two extra buttons for mending. There wasn’t much you could plan about for the Rex Company. Likely as not, some one else would have thought of it first, anyway.

Mr. Ross was accustomed to meeting men, now. He liked to meet them, in business. He would listen, weigh what they said, learn from them. He never talked much. He always retained his look of severity. He was known as “a crackerjack of a business man,” “a man you couldn’t put anything over on,” but the other partners were good business men, too. There was nothing for Mr. Ross to work for.

Outside of business he had little. His family still seemed apart, yet he would have done anything to have saved them trouble or pain. He liked Yvette because she was frank and lively, but these last years he liked Dorothea, too, though there was nothing against Carolyn, a fine girl, if she did like to spend money. Minnie was all right—the boys would be, too, when they got a little older and settled down.

Mr. Ross didn’t mind listening to the mechanical piano or the Victrola at home, but he did not care for other kinds of music. Concerts made him miserable and fidgety. He saw nothing in them and after several for charity and one visit to the opera he refused to partake of music outside of the home. He had never learned to like reading. He was still content with the daily papers and glanced, occasionally, at a weekly devoted to current events. He knew nothing about art and said so. He didn’t want to be bothered with “such notions.” Drama of all kinds bored him and even musical comedies entertained him only for a little while. Usually he got to thinking of business in the midst of things and lost all consciousness of what was going on.

Mr. Ross had no social ambitions, so, with no business worries and no outside interests, his days began to drag unpleasantly. He thought often of other days, of “the other side”; when he had been planning to come to America—he was glad that was over—of MacDougal Street, the hard work he had done there, the long hours, the over-time, the little economies so both ends would meet, then the newer tenement, with things a little easier, the beginnings of the factory—those had been real days—staying awake planning to meet bills, figuring to the dollar how to get money to pay the “help” and have enough left for living expenses, then Harlem and now Riverside. It was good to have planned and worked. Still, now he was used to his comforts. He liked space and quiet and the car—but, with nothing to do—

Mrs. Ross had long since relaxed her anxiety over her husband. He had never talked business and he seemed just like always, willing to listen to her stories of how she had spent the day. Mrs. Ross was quite content with the Drive. The aloofness of the neighbours, that had been disagreeable to her in Harlem, became one of her own characteristics now. She became more and more aware of her own importance. She had disliked the way “outsiders” and Gentiles had treated her, years before. Now, her last vestige of humbleness gone, she felt herself more than “as good as any one.” Wasn’t she Mrs. A. Lincoln Ross, wife of Ross of the Rex Suit Company, a real figure in New York? Didn’t she get her picture in the paper when she gave money to charity? Didn’t people treat her with respect as soon as they found out who she was? She was frankly fat, but she didn’t mind. She had expensive dressmakers and tailors and she thought the results of her toilet satisfactory. After all, she was nearly fifty.

Her voice had toned down, during the years, as had Yvette’s. When talking with those she considered important, she even tried to put an elegant swing into her sentences. Usually, though, her voice was accented, ordinary, uninteresting. She still made errors and sometimes quite a lot of sing-song crept in.

In the morning Mrs. Ross attended to her household affairs, giving directions to the servants, ordering her own provisions over the telephone, even planning meals. She looked into the ice-box to see what provisions remained, rubbed fingers across furniture for dust, examined linens. She was a good housekeeper. In the afternoon, with Yvette, whom she found most congenial, or an acquaintance, she went for a drive or shopped. She dropped most of her old friends who had not progressed and she had no sentimental regrets concerning them. A few earlier friends she kept up with, asking them for luncheon or for a drive, with a hint of patronage. Through her daughters she met other women of her own age and circumstances. To these she tried to be pleasant, using her best language and manners. She had no intimacies with these women.

During the second year of the family’s residence on the Drive, Mrs. Ross was asked to belong to several committees of important charitable organizations. She joined these gladly and gave generous sums. She liked the society of her own race. She did not feel at home with “outsiders” nor know what to say to them—she felt that they were constantly criticizing her. She had decided social ambitions, however, and wanted Mr. Ross to join a well-known club composed of members of his people. She was proud to know women who, a few years ago, or even now, were she less wealthy, would have ignored her. To the arts she was as indifferent as her husband.