MRS1 The Under Dogs (12 page)

And indeed when Jessie's eyes had turned to her, the smile which overspread that respectable face was as false as hell; the watchful gray eyes had no part in it; nor had the dripping tones which issued out of it any connection with the tightly-controlled mouth.

She said: "You must think it's funny, deary, my seeing you up here. But it's all right. You're among friends."

Jessie had already adopted the part she was to play. She shrugged sullenly. "I can't afford to be particular," she said.

"How handsome you are, deary!" the woman went on unctuously; "even in the ugly prison dress. It's a shame to put a fine girl like you in solitary confinement. Prisons are wicked places anyway. It's the officials and the keepers that ought to be put behind the bars. I say—excusing your presence, Mrs. Smith."

"Oh, that's all right, Mother Simonds," returned Smitty, with a horrid grin. "I know you."

"What a precious pair of rogues!" thought Jessie. Yet she could very well understand how the despairing and rebellious girls from the cells would find this oily flattery a healing balm to the spirit.

"I can see, too, that you're a bold girl," she went on. "They can't break your spirit. When you get started, you don't care what you do. But I knew that already, having read of your arrest and trial in the newspapers. My! what nerve! Eh, Mrs. Smith?"

"It certainly was a nerve, Mother Simonds. When I read that in the paper, I says, 'I hope that girl gets away.' Although I am a prison keeper, I got my feelings."

"You're too good for the job, Mrs. Smith. I've said it often before, and I say it now."

"Well, sometimes I get a chance to do a bit of kindness to the poor girls," said Smitty modestly. Here it must have occurred to her that this was hardly in line with certain earlier incidents between her and Jessie, for she added: "But I got a lot to put up with. There's some of those half-wits down there would try the patience of a saint. And my temper do get a little hasty."

"That's only natural, only natural," said Mother Simonds heartily. She returned her attention to Jessie. "And I say when I read that, there's a girl I'd like to do something for. You know, I'm dead against prisons and everything they stand for, and sometimes, with the help of this good woman here, I get a chance to befriend a particular girl. It's an awful risk, of course; I don't know what they'd do to me, if they ever found it out. But I can't help that. It's the way I get my pleasure. I don't make no boast about it. It's just the way I am."

"Liar!" thought Jessie; "your eyes are as cruel as gray seas!"

"On'y listen to her!" put in Smitty. "One would think that Mother Simonds wasn't the biggest-heartedest woman in the whole State!"

"You mustn't say that, Mrs. Smith," said the praised one rebukingly. "I'm a very ordinary woman. It's just that I've got a weakness for a bold and plucky girl. I'd do anything for her!" To Jessie, she went on: "I've brought you some candy in my bag, deary; for a girl's sweet tooth is cheated on prison-fare. Also some cigarettes, for I know you girls will smoke them. Let's sit down over there and have a good talk.... Smith, you stay by the trap and listen." In those words the commanding nature peeped out for a moment.

They crossed the floor which was of wood, though the prison was supposed to be fireproof. Jobbery under the eaves, no doubt. The rambling, ill-lighted place seemed to extend to unimagined distances; with its unexpected angles and innumerable corners it had a mysterious furtive look. So far-reaching a place and so empty! Anything might have happened there; anything might have appeared around one of the distant corners. Under a dormer window, which had the yellow scum of years upon it, there was a long pine box which bore a suspicious resemblance to a coffin case—ordered for some occasion, perhaps, and not used. Mother Simonds sat down upon it, and patted the place beside her.

"My poor girl!" she said. "You don't have to tell me what you have been through. I know. I know. It must be terrible on one of your free nature. You will find Mother Simonds your true friend. You can tell her everything."

Jessie had resolved to say as little as possible. She must not appear to fall for "Mother Simonds" too quickly. A sullen savage dumbness would be the best assumption for her. "Give me the candy," she said.

It was expensive candy, and Jessie munched upon it with a very real satisfaction.

"Do you want me to take any messages out to your friends, deary?" asked Mother Simonds.

"Ain't got no friends," said Jessie.

"What, no friends!"

"None that matter. People are all right to jolly with, but that's all I want of them. Friends mean nottin' to me. A new lot ev'y time I change my job. That's me."

"I see," murmured Mother Simonds. "One of those strong, self-sufficient natures.... Is there no fellow, though?"

"Fellas, huh!" said Jessie. "What do they care after the moment's past? I don't care neither."

"That's right, too. A girl ought to keep from getting tied up. But not many can. Not when they got your looks."

"Oh, I can handle the fellas all right," said Jessie. "Because I don't give a darn."

"How about your family?"

"Ain't got no family."

"How come that?"

"Well, my mot'er died when I was a baby. My fat'er, he gave me to his sister to mind, and he went away with anot'er woman. I don' know where he is. His sister got sore 'cause he sent nottin', and she treated me bad. I wouldn't stand for that, and I run away from her pretty near as soon as I could talk good. The Society took me up, but I made out I was simple, and couldn't tell nottin', so they sent me to a home for feeble-minded kids. By-and-by they found out I wasn't so simple, so they transferred me to a regular orphanage. I stayed there a good piece, then I ran away again. That time I made tracks for the country where there wasn't no Society. A farmer's wife took me in, and I gave her a song and dance. I made out to get a letter from my folks saying I could stop with her. She treated me pretty good. But after awhile I sickened for the city and I lit out again. Since then I allus been on my own. One job and anot'er; I took what come. I was allus big, and passed for older than I was."

Mother Simonds proceeded to put Jessie through a subtle and searching cross-examination. Believing that she had the girl going now, she unmasked those strange eyes, which were the colour of newly cast iron. While her tongue soothed and dripped with unction, she made the terrible lightnings of her eyes play about the head of her intended victim, seeking to charm her as a snake charms a bird. In this case she had more than an impressible bird to deal with. Behind the veiled eyes of the seemingly ignorant and sullen girl, lurked a power even more terrible. The cat, seeking to play with its victim, was being played with. I need not attempt to give you the whole of Jessie's answers, since they were all designed to carry out the effect already indicated.

"Do you find it pretty hard in solitary?" asked Mother Simonds.

"Hard!" cried Jessie. "Oh, my God! I could beat my head against those stones! I could rattle that gate, and screech the whole night through—but they'd only keep me there longer. All I can do is walk—three steps each way, and pull my hair! A few days more of it, and I'd go clean off my nut!"

"Yes," said Mother Simonds thoughtfully, "it's like that with your kind. They'll break you before you get out of here."

Jessie relapsed into sullenness. "Well, I won't break up quiet," she said. "I'll have a run for my money. I'll get me a knife one way or another, and stick it in a keeper."

"If you got a chance," said Mother Simonds softly, "have you got nerve enough to make a break for it?"

Jessie's eyes widened; she trembled violently, and clasped her hands. She appeared to be about to fall at the older woman's feet. "On'y try me!" she stammered. "On'y try me! Oh, my God! do you mean it? Don't say such a thing unless there's something in it!"

"Well, I been able to help one or two girls in the past," said Mother Simonds with a deprecating air. "I'm dead against prisons, I am. I'd do what I could to get a girl out, if I liked her."

"When? When?" cried Jessie imploringly.

"Oh, we got to wait our chance," said Mother Simonds. "Rome wasn't built in a day. The first thing is to get you out of solitary. You got to be a good patient girl, and obey all the rules. It won't be so hard, will it, if you got something to look forward to?"

"I'd do anything!" cried Jessie. "I'd risk my neck on the smallest chance!"

"Cut that!" said Mother Simonds, with an imperious flash of the gray eyes. "You don't want to take any chances. You just do what you're told, see?"

"Oh, sure!" said Jessie, humbled immediately.

"You came from a laundry, didn't you?" said Mother Simonds, "maybe I can fix it to have you put to work in the prison laundry. I got influence in certain quarters—though the big officials don't suspect it. The laundry's in the outer yard. That would be fairly easy.... I'll dope out a plan, and let you know through Smitty. She's safe as long as you don't get her in wrong with her bosses."

Little by little Mother Simonds was dropping the pretence of respectability, and by that Jessie knew she had made good.

"You understand it's up to you to get yourself out according to a plan furnished by me. Outside I'll have friends waiting for you with a car, and they'll bring you to my house, where you can lie low till they're tired looking for you. If anything goes wrong you got to keep your mouth shut about me."

"Torture wouldn't drag it out of me," murmured Jessie.

"Well, if you did let it out, you wouldn't get another chance later," said Mother Simonds coolly.

Jessie sought to give a convincing picture of the stubborn soul humbled at last. She fondled the older woman's plump and shapely hand. "What makes you so good to me?" she murmured. "I'm nottin' to you. What you doing it for?"

"Oh, I took a fancy to you," said Mother Simonds, scarcely troubling to hide the cynical leer now. "I like a girl of spirit.... And I'm getting on. I want companionship. I keep a lodging house for men only, and I thought I'd like a girl around me. If you don't want to live with me as my daughter, you only got to say the word."

"It's more than I could a hoped for," said Jessie.

"Look at me!" said Mother Simonds in quite a different voice. Jessie raised her humble head, and the terrible gray eyes blazed on her. "Listen to me, girl! You're clever and game, and there's no height to which you may not rise—with the help of me and my friends. But you're also a passionate, ignorant fool, and without me you'd be back in your cell within a month. Girls like you are easy meat for the bulls. I stand for organisation and power, and safety. The whole world is yours if you want it. But remember: I am everything to you, and you are next to nothing to me, because there are thousands more like you. Work
with
me and I'll make you; work
against
me, and I'll leave you to break of yourself."

Jessie's head went down, and she spread out her hands. "Do what you want with me," she murmured.

Mother Simonds touched the bushy blonde head with two fingers, as it were to confer the accolade, and jumped up quite cheerfully.

"Very well, we understand each other then. You'd best beat it back to your cell, or they'll be blowing the sirens for you and Smitty."

"How will you get out?" asked Jessie solicitously.

Mother Simonds and Smitty both laughed with frank cynicism. "Don't you worry, deary," said the former, jocosely. "I got a magic wand. I can go straight through a two-foot stone wall. For me:

"Stone walls do not a prison make
Or iron bars a cage."

She lifted the heavy trap easily.

The laundry at Woburn was housed in the basement of one of the industrial buildings in the outer prison yard. At midday in July it was, naturally, the hottest spot within the whole circuit of the walls. The greater part of the big rectangle was taken up by the steam laundry which washed the prisoners' clothes, but towards the front of the building where the stairs went up, there was a row of girls engaged on hand work for the household of the Warden, and other prison officials. Conspicuous among them was the tall figure of Jessie Seipp, with her great bush of blonde hair. Since make-up was frowned upon within the prison, she was unable to contrive the same brilliant appearance she had made at her trial; nevertheless, she had smuggled in certain articles of make-up, and she still bore but little resemblance to the self that Nature intended.

The girls had their dinner in the laundry, since it was easier to bring it to them than to march them back to the main prison under guard, and then back to work again. They appreciated the privilege while they ate and talked, even though there were several keepers present, they were able to feel like laundry workers outside. As usual, tall Jessie was the life of the party.

To have work to do, no matter how hard and how disagreeable, with fellow workers to talk to; to take part in the general life of the prison; and to have a cell that was like a stateroom de luxe by comparison with the first hole in the wall, this was a great improvement upon solitary. There was rich material, too, for the student of human nature, Nevertheless, Jessie could not be said to be easy in mind, in spite of her seeming high spirits. She was in the position of one who expects a decisive stroke of fate, but does not know when, nor from what direction. It is hard on the nerves. Jessie had had nothing from Mother Simonds except a single terse message via Smitty:

"Be ready to hop it whenever the word comes through."

One of the hand-workers, a dumpling of a girl called Doll Turner, had part of a newspaper. She said: "Gee! guyls, we're goin' t' have comp'ny. A bunch of them refawmers. Gawd, how I hate the breed!"

"Read it out," said another.

Said Doll in a sing-song: "The Patroon Club, the exclusive upper West Side organisation of women, has taken up the study of prison life in a serious way, and to-morrow (this is yestiddy's papeh) the members are going in a body to inspect Woburn prison, under guidance of Katherine Couteau Cloke..."