Letty Fox (21 page)

“No; why should I tell her how I'm living and the situation I'm in. She never liked me.”

“In cases like this, women always stand together,” said Grandmother seriously; “sit down and write a letter to her, Mattie, asking after her health and say Sol is so anxious to see her. Besides, you should. She's your mother-in-law. I don't believe in family quarrels. Families should stand together. You see, also,” she said, twinkling, “you could find out something, maybe! Write! Wire! You're anemic, I think. No sense of business at all. You were right to try to be an actress.”

“I was a failure,” said my mother.

“Oh—” cried Grandmother, blowing out her cheeks and taking a few strides up the carpet, “fiddlesticks! Everyone's a failure till he succeeds. If you die before you're married, you're an old maid too. Ha-ha! Fiddlesticks! Write to her; send her my love. Say I'm anxious to have her at my new hotel in the White Mountains the very minute it's opened. I have a special room for her, little white curtains, a tree right outside the window, ground floor; she doesn't have to climb. Everything nice. Running hot, cold. She can have a bathroom to herself if she wants it, tell her. I don't have to make good if I don't open the hotel, do I? What do I care? I'm doing it for you. Tell her there's going to be a swell crowd there, all furs, diamonds, roast chickens, apartments with bathrooms. Ha-ha! Tell her anything. I'll make good if you get that boy back, Mattie; I'll give you a
suit
of furniture. Now, catch the mail. Wait, I'll go down to Montrose's office and ask him to send a cable for me. I'll tell him, never mind. I'll manage it—give me her address. I'll cable, cable. She'll be tickled pink. You write. Now, mind! I've got to run. Good-bye! Write! Write! Give her my love. I always think of her. How's her arthritis?”

Grandmother rushed out, a flurry of skirts, furs, and a breeze of heavy, expensive perfume, a strong satin prow, and a strong satin stern.

Since Grandmother started her own love affairs so late, it's unlikely that she found out the value of her peculiarities. By that time her figure though tightly bound was besieged and taken by middle-aged flesh, strong, irreducible.

There is a lot of superstition about what is beautiful in a woman; only a grown woman, with considerable experience of men, knows what is really attractive. I saw a model in an art class, a white girl, with the figure considered ideal in our America, and in fact, in this year, she had been chosen the most beautiful model. She had a silly, pink face with her nose in the air and a wax smile. Quite naked, she was safe from rape or desire, while a fat coarse dragon in her tight satin made the men stir and laugh. I have noticed this, too, looking at myself, standing without stockings, in a short slip, with my hair down, before going to bed in a strange place where I have not brought my nightdress. Perhaps some men enjoy my maturity in prospect, while I am still young enough for them. They think of all kinds of things, most unpleasant and dishonest; that is what they call knowing women. I used to be very unhappy.

Who said, “Love is prostitution of self ?”—Baudelaire. He went to whores and so he thought thus. For these men, too, whores are the most romance they'll get out of life, and if they meet a girl who is not wanton, they wantonize her in their minds. Yes, but I cannot think it of them when I love them. But there are dull moments when I ask myself what I am to love such wantons. Is this what he meant?

But the time when I learned all this was when I was eighteen and nineteen. Now I am not a woman to be generally handled by this type of man. At this time I was speaking of, though, when I first noticed Grandmother's figure and observed that I was a little like her, my idea of love was not fleshly. I merely thought I would be a little queen and pulverize them, ruin them, make them cut their throats, tread on their bleeding hearts, kick them, laugh (as Jacky and I often laughed out hard, mirthful cackles), and fall swooning in the arms of some matinee idol.

None of my daydreams was secret. In one of them which I told very often, regiments of men stood before me, dreaming of my favors. I went down the line, selecting one, throwing out another. All kinds of reasons occurred to me. I loaded them with blistering insults. They fell on their faces and howled, or fell backwards and mangled themselves in some juicy way.

The questions of love and marriage, which appeared to be the only questions in the feminine society we lived in, now began to form the conversation my sister and I had. There was room for speculation. Our female friends did not know the answers to most of their own questions and this entertained them, too, enormously. They had always plenty to talk about. For example, they never knew what attracted a man to a given girl. They could discuss this for days. The reasons they gave were very instructive for us. Jacky would sit, very attentive, with her eyes wide open, trying to picture the girls they spoke about; thus,

“It's because she was fresh; had no one before—because she knows how to handle men—knows the tricks of the trade—has that baby stare—is so naive, he feels ashamed—is a blonde; has those great, dark eyes; knows so much; knows nothing—started to have a baby—did not saddle him with a baby—”

Impossible to become corrupt in this school for girls, for no one had the recipe for anything. Even Grandmother's recipe for getting Solander back had not yet worked, and Grandmother didn't seem to care much.

My father and mother went away with us for a week end to Folkestone. They roomed together, but this didn't cure their separation. When I reached London, my parents went to their different addresses. On the way down Mother had expressed a delicate reluctance to sleep with my father when he had come straight from the arms of “that woman”; and then she had cried bitterly nearly all the way to Folkestone, that it was so degrading, and it was this, perhaps, that changed their week end. My father then told my mother that he was not actually living with Persia any more, while Mathilde was in London, and out of respect for her feelings they had both thought it better to live separately. And Persia had gone on a trip to Antwerp for Montrose. She would work there for Montrose.

“And will continue to do so while I am here?” said my mother, astonished.

“Yes,” said Solander.

My mother made no reply, and cried no more. Even toward the end of the day she began to laugh and pull our ears playfully.

My father told a joke and she laughed; at Folkestone they went straight up to their room.

My mother was quite pleasant on the way back, though she clouded over as London approached. Outside, she hailed a taxi and said to my father, “Let's go straight home, I want to change the girls' dresses. Then I'll put them to bed and we can go to the movies.”

“I am not coming with you,” said Sol. “This was a little vacation for us.”

Mother, almost without taking thought, groaned, “Oh,” and flung herself on my father. People looked, we both went red, and Jacky began to cry. My father comforted Mathilde and then said, “That's enough, my dear, now get into the taxi.”

My mother bawled out, in a strange, affecting contralto, “Oh, don't leave me; don't leave me!”

After a few more words, Solander tried to put her into the taxi, telling us to jump in, and we anxiously scurried in, but my mother, brave in her desolation, cried out to the taxi driver, “Oh, don't go yet, my husband's leaving me. He's sending me off while he goes to another woman. My husband's left me. What shall I do? Oh, don't go away till I make him come home with me.”

And she turned to the people passing out of the station, saying, with her eyes full of tears, “Help me! Help me! My husband's leaving me.”

The men hurried past with eyes full of shame and curiosity; the women went even faster, blowing, waddling, with wooden faces. No one came to help my mother. She looked wonderfully handsome, with her face all black and white, smudged with tears, and her brown, curly hair loose on her shoulders, so I could see looking out of the taxi door, but I was deeply ashamed and said, “Mother, Mother, everyone's looking!”

“I'll come to the hotel with you, but this must be the end,” said my father. Mother at once bowed her thin shoulders and stooped in among us, while my father gravely gave the address to the driver. Night was falling. My father sat with a convulsed face, staring ahead; tears were in his eyes.

“Your happiness is built on my ruin,” said Mother in a low voice.

“Do you think I am happy?”

“And you are ruining your children for that woman. What future have they?”

“I don't know what I'm doing,” said my father.

“She is only one; we are four. What is love now? We're too old for love,” and my mother began crying again.

When we reached the hotel, my father said quickly, “I'll pay the driver and take Letty for a walk. I want to get her her comics. Jacky, go up with your mother, I'll be back later.”

Then he began walking quickly away, while I ran and panted to keep up with him. He said to me, “Letty, I can't explain things to you because you can't understand the lives of adults. I'm just going to have to do what seems the right thing and trust that you'll understand years later—if they don't poison you against me. That's the wrong word. I don't mean poison. I mean your mother is very unhappy and she sees only her troubles!”

He then said he was going home to his chambers to telephone, was taking me with him because he had little time, and that, therefore, I would see Persia.

“I lied to your mother to keep her happy, and I have lied to Persia to keep her happy. I'm in a mess of lies and I'm an honest man.”

“Why, Papa?”

“And you must lie, too, in order to keep your mother happy. You must not tell her what you see here in my home. Tell her nothing. Tell no one anything. You can do that. But I am taking you with me because I can't lie to you little girls, really. That's all.”

“Don't you want to live with us, Papa? Don't you love us any more?”

“Stop that,” he said angrily, “those aren't your words.”

I hung my head with shame and irritation. How clever he was! When we came to the chambers, in mid-London, we climbed three or four flights of stairs and reached a top floor. Under the attics was a furnished apartment with two or three rooms. It was hard to say whether two or three, for the bedroom was an ingle.

Persia, with her glossy hair loose, in a blue dress, kissed my father heartily and chattered away without any suspicion of scolding. I was surprised. As usual she took no more notice of me than if I had been an adult. She did not say, “Darling little Letty,” or “What lovely eyes,” or any of the things to which I was used. I sat and stared at her jealously. There was nothing special about her and she had not even good manners. She jerked about. Her voice went brittle or thin at odd moments. She grimaced and jumped in excitement. She seemed a schoolgirl. She used no endearments with my father, but it was, “Sol, Solly, Sol,” all the time. My father laughed, jumped about also, showed things to me, told jokes, and said it was a pity I could not stay for dinner. I looked very black.

When my father went in the bathroom and shut the door, I told Persia that all four of us had spent the week end at Folkestone and that my mother and father had slept in the same room.

“Did they?” she said, and looked at me steadily. I continued, “We had a lovely time, we went to everything, and we met people we knew in America and soon we're all going back, Papa said.”

Persia said nothing, but looked at me.

“Mummy and Papa—”

I was glad that Solander arrived at this moment, for I had run out of ideas, and I now wanted to see the fireworks. Persia went on talking as if nothing had happened. I was puzzled by this. For a moment I had a queer feeling that I had dreamed it all, that I hadn't opened my mouth. Presently, we went and, “Good-bye” said Persia, coldly. Probably, she never mentioned my revelations. It seemed strange to me that the first blow I had struck for Mother disappeared in this magical way. I could not tell anyone about it either. My father left me at the door of the hotel.

When I came upstairs, my mother merely looked gloomy, and said, “He must think I'm a child.”

I sat in full view trying to convey to Jacky by signs that I had again seen
Die Konkubine
. I wriggled and became mirthful, for Jacky had never seen the fabulous creature. At last Jacky came over from her book and I whispered, “I saw
Die Konkubine
.”

“Oh, you're a liar!”

“I'll tell Mother what you said.”

We were both sent to bed. We rushed off. I described exhaustively my short visit, but left out the piece of mischief I had done. This great deed I kept to myself. Jacky must have lain awake a long time with her eyes shining. She murmured, “I wish I could see her.”

“You'll never see her,” I said. “You can't tell lies and you would tell everyone and so you will never know anything.”

“I would never tell,” said Jacky sadly; “she must be glamorous.”

“She's just nothing. She's stupid. She doesn't know anything. Nuts to her,” I said jealously.

“I hope when I grow up I can entrap men. What must it feel like? I think I could feel like that! If with one glance from my enchanting black eyes—”

“You've got blue eyes. I've got black eyes.”

“My witching blue eyes. I, Letty! I wish I was Cleopatra. And walk along sinuously, with cloth of gold, covered with flashing gems, and I would come up to King Solomon—”

“You're mad! That's the Queen of Sheba.”

“What was her name?”

Although I was the infant wonder of our family, I did not yet know
Balkis
, so I ripped out,
Phylloxera
, which my father had been talking about, “Phylloxera was her name “

“No,” shouted Jacky, “Cleopatra—in a barge—yes—with cloth of gold trailing in the water and gems. She was in a barge, I remember. Solomon had a temple.”