This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Dec. 14, 1940.
Miss Minnis knew that the girls in the office talked about her. She even knew the nickname they had given her and did not resent it.
Indeed, she thought it had some degree of aptness. They were clever, these shrill youngsters, with their much-curled hair and scarlet fingernails, but she had made up her mind not to try to be friendly any more since the day they had made it so plain they didn’t want her.
Her face burned with the memory. She had gone to one of their luncheons, though she could not very well afford the 75 cents it cost. It was their custom to make a 10 cent pool with everyone’s name put in the box.
When the lucky name was called, it was hers, Minerva Minnis, but there was not a handclap, just a gasp of surprise. No one told her that they were glad she had won it.
Her first impulse was to refuse the money, but she decided to turn it over to the Red Cross. For the two following days, she did without her lunch to make up her loss.
And so Miss Minnis kept to her own desk during working hours, ate her lunch alone and went to her cold little room at night, where, well wrapped in shawls, she did Red Cross knitting until 9, then filled her hot water bottle at the tap in the hall, thankful if the hot water was even “catwarm,” and so to sleep.
It was not much of a life for Minerva Minnis, who had been educated at Bishop Strachan’s School in Toronto, confirmed by the Bishop of Columbia in the Cathedral, and was still the owner of the old Minnis house in Esquimalt.
With the coming of Christmas Miss Minnis felt more and more lonely. One fine, bright day, when the sparkles on the sea made her eyes wink behind her thick glasses, she walked by her inheritance. It was not often she could get up her courage to enter her old home. Some new sacrilege was sure to meet her eye.
On this day, she went in and found one of her tenants scrubbing the back steps, with a needlepoint cushion for a kneeling pad. She recognized it as one of her childhood treasures, rescued it and brought it back to her room. It was a Christmas cushion, with Santa Claus and his reindeer in gay colours, riding down a snowy road, with a full moon above the pine trees. Incredibly dirty, wet with scrub water, the pattern dulled, it seemed an allegory of her own life.
It had been a great mistake to rent her house furnished, allowing the beautiful things her parents had cherished to be used by people who did not know their value.
Miss Minnis collected the rents herself, or at least she tried to, but none of her tenants paid regularly and it became hard for her to raise the $600 for taxes. There was always a fear in her heart that she would fall sick and the house would go to complete ruin.
Up to the present she had kept the taxes paid, but it cut deeply into the $75 a month that she received from the department store where she worked.
“It is neither a pleasure nor a profit to me,” Miss Minnis said one day as she finished her work. She had stayed behind to do some extra work and there was no one with her in the office but Billy, the junior clerk. His desk was next to hers and he looked up in surprise.
“Did you speak to me, Miss Minnis?”
Miss Minnis blushed.
“I’m afraid I was talking to myself, Billy,” she stammered. “It’s a bad sign and I’m ashamed to admit it.”
“Gosh, Miss Minnis,” Billy said timidly, “I wish you would talk to me. I work here beside you every day and you never even look at me. I began to wonder if you were thinking I should be in the army.”
“Oh Billy,” she answered, “I’m not a bit like that. I’m too lonely and miserable to sit in judgment of anyone. I was just feeling so sorry for myself I could break down and cry. I’m like a poor old grey horse on a treadmill. I can’t stop and there’s no fun in going on.”
The new clerk stared at her in surprise.
“Why should you feel like this, Miss Minnis? What have you got to worry about?”
“For one thing,” she said, “you must know that the girls here do not like me. They leave me out of everything — their games, their presents, their problems — everything. They call me ‘Pale and Proud.’ I hear them and they don’t care if I do.
“I’ve worked here for five years and I haven’t a friend, and no one can live without friends. I’ve found that out.”
Then she stopped in confusion.
“I don’t know why I unload my grief on you, Billy. It must be just because you have a friendly face. I haven’t talked this much for a month.”
“You have a nice face yourself, Miss Minnis,” Billy said gallantly, “if you would only smile once in a while. Now, I want to tell you that I’ve been reading a book about people who get in a rut, and this book says the way to get out of it is to do something different — take a ride on a new bus somewhere, give someone a present, get a new hat, redden your fingernails, but do something new.
“It says that you can start a whole new series of influences to work that may change your life. You should try that, Miss Minnis.”
Billy was called away then and Miss Minnis went on invoicing. But that night she thought of what Billy had said. She certainly couldn’t spare the money to get a new hat, and as a matter of principle she wouldn’t redden her fingernails, but she could give a present, to the only people to whom a present could be given without explanation.
The Christmas cushion could be washed and put on a new form — there was not a hole in it. She had intended to wash it anyway, for it had been done by her grandmother and was a beautiful piece of work. She would give it to the Red Cross secretary when she turned in her knitting.
When the cushion was completed, with new cord and a new back, Miss Minnis was proud of her salvage work. The colours had come back wonderfully. She even bought a little bottle of lavender to sprinkle it, and white tissue paper and silver ribbon for its wrapping and a Christmas card to go with it.
The Christmas cushion was received with enthusiasm by Mrs. Yardley at the Red Cross.
“I’ll put it in the window,” she said, “to attract customers. It’s just the thing to catch the eye of the Christmas shoppers. But how can you part with it when it was your grandmother’s work? If I had a grandmother who could make as pretty a picture as this I’d be so proud there’d be no living with me. Have you more of her work?”
Before Miss Minnis knew it, she had told Mrs. Yardley the whole story — all about the old house, the tenants who would not pay, who left in the night, the people who let their wash basin overflow, the plumbers’ bills, the desperate struggle to keep the taxes and insurance paid.
“But the worst of it all is that the girls where I work do not like me. They never speak to me if they can help it. I know I am old. I’ll be 40 next month — I wear thick glasses and dull clothes, but I am so poor, what else can I do? I live on less than $20 a month. People in jail are happier than I am. They have companions.”
Mrs. Yardley reached over and took her hand.
“Miss Minnis,” she said, “I know you now. My girl works in the same office. Do you know the one with a boyish bob and black eyes, called Anne Yardley? It’s true that the girls call you ‘Pale and Proud’ and they also call you the ‘Heiress.’
“They think you do not need a job. They wonder why you do not spend more on yourself. They believe that you own many houses in Esquimalt and that you have plenty of money. They say that you do not want to associate with them — they are too young to know that many a person appears aloof when they are only lonely.
“Now I want you to come home with me. I want you and Anne to know each other. I want to hear more about you, and I would love to see your mother’s paintings.”
When Miss Minnis came in to work Monday morning she went over to speak to Billy. She was wearing a new hat.
“It works, Billy,” she said, smiling. “I gave the present, and a whole new set of forces began to work just as you said. One of my tenants paid his arrears of rent. I even think I’m going to be able to sell my house. I’ll be a new woman if I can get out from under that burden — I’m a new woman now. Today feels like Christmas Eve.
“And look, Billy, just to show you that I’ve carried out all the directions.” She spread her hands towards him, every nail glowing like a neon sign on a rainy night.
