Letty Fox (28 page)

I wrote Jacky a nasty reply, in which I boasted of my London school, of how good I was in French (better than the English children), and that I, too, was going to a special school, down in the country, run by a Lord and philosopher. This was not true. I had just heard it mentioned. I told her about a play that I had written; I was in the school quarterly with a poem.

Solander went to work in the City, and seemed happy, if quiet. He took me out a good deal and had a good effect upon me. I was a spoiled child, and no one had taught me manners but Pauline. In Paris I had become an elegant child, and now knew how to behave, but in London I had to drop some of these manners, which were there artificial in a girl of ten or so. I was supposed to be simple, frank, and not too clever. I easily picked up these ways. In Paris, on the one hand, they had sternly repressed any fantasy, exaggeration, or show in my composition. I was supposed to describe what I saw like a scientist, an anatomist; whereas, here in England, all that they required was “an original note”; that meant something you perceived that no one else had perceived. I easily changed my ways in this, too. Once more I had the pleasure of being a novelty, a prize pupil.

My mother wrote to Solander frequently from the United States now—she had not done so before. She seemed confident that he was coming home to her soon, and I believe his letters told her so.
Die Konkubine
behaved in her usual casual style and even brought an admirer to the house, a young Welshman, of blue-black coloring, something like herself. Grandmother Fox encouraged the budding infidelity; but I heard my father and Persia laughing about Grandmother Fox's schemings. Grandmother Fox was outraged and complained to everyone about her son and his paramour. “What do they do?” people enquired. “They laugh,” she said; “they laugh,” she wailed; “all day, all night, jokes, fun. Is that what life is for?” “They laugh at what?” “God in His Heaven knows what they can find to laugh at all day and night.”

Mother told my father that the separation was doing my sister a lot of good. There was no one to compete with and she was encouraged to bring out her individual talents. The price of the private school, about six hundred dollars yearly, was nothing when you realized how well Jacky was getting on. The simple fact that she did not have to compete with me was enough; she now had no sense of inferiority. On the other hand, my mother said, English education was so far behind American, that she thought my father ought to give me some special tuition, too, to make up for what I lost in home influence. “If the child feels she is getting special treatment, that some fuss is being made over her, she will not feel so humiliated at living with an old woman, and being apparently abandoned by father and mother.”

My father replied that the taxes in the City of New York paid for tuition for children in the public schools. He received some indignant letters from various members of the family, and even Grandmother spoke to him anxiously, knotting her old fingers round a letter she had just received from America about “the poor children, who need love.” I had a sense of injustice and behaved badly, doing just what pleased me; but I sided with no one, being equally insulted by all.

Presently, Mathilde said that she was coming over with Grandmother Morgan in the spring to London to see me, show me my little sister, and probably to take me home, and she felt I was being neglected. “An old woman can do nothing for her, and Letty was always spoiled and headstrong.”

Grandmother became very excited. She had a letter from Mathilde. She said the household must be broken up, for she and I must not be found living with Solander and Persia. My father put off the separation from day to day. Grandmother slept badly, pleaded with him, and wept to herself. “What will I say?” she kept asking. “I'm too old for this. It is madness to speak of happiness. Happiness comes too late; there is no happiness. Oh, what will we all do?”

Though I was in good health and well treated, I was once more becoming a wild, thoughtless little girl.

Meanwhile, Grandmother prepared the way as best she could, at home. Grandmother, lively and talkative in streets and parks, soon picked up friends. We began to hear accounts of her conversations with them, and the incidents of their lives which always fascinated and surprised her.

“Miss Slattery, you know my friend, the old maid, whose brother is a policeman on Ludgate Hill, a policeman, pooh! I don't care about that—” “What do you think? Today, my friend Edie, you know Edie, she works in Swan and Edgar's. Swan and Edgar's, what a name! I always say to her, Swan and Goose. She laughs.”

Grandmother invented excuses for giving them tea in the kitchen, but her secret reason was that she felt the rest of the house belonged to the grand people, that was to Father, Persia, and me. But, poor thing, when Persia's young male friend visited them, she showed him into the best room, and was so youthful, pink, happy, imagining she was saving the family, and that we would all soon be reunited, that she forgot who Persia was (perhaps she sympathized with her—who knows this?), called her “My dear,” and told him how clever Persia was about the house. She told everyone that her young companion, Persia, had a nice young man paying attention to her. Naturally, this fascinated our visitors; they asked her about “her friends.” Persia grinned. Grandmother at once became inextricably tangled in a web of conflicting romances. She was so proud of the Morgans that she loved to brag about their social life, money, properties, and grand connections, like the Hoggs. People asked me about my mother. My answers did not match hers, no doubt, and I, too, was a prudent liar. I had too much to think of to brood over the little indecisions of my parents. I was glad to be free of Jacky for a while and I was so busy trying to argue my father into sending me to the exclusive experimental school, run by a famous Lord and philosopher, that I let things run their own way.

Grandmother's homespun plot came to light at length. One day I heard some strange conversation in the kitchen, and after that I observed Grandmother and her friends closely. In the first place, Grandmother was proud of her friends, but never let them meet each other. Then, though she talked of their affairs continually, she laughed at them. If they stayed away, she worried, and thought of them with greed, but once they returned to her, she satirized them. If they invited her out, she was flattered, pressed her dress and mended her gloves, but she fretted, saying, “What does she want with me; what do I want with her?” She was witty, cultivated; she saw their faults. Yet Grandmother felt humiliated if she lost any of her friends, however poor or ugly. She prepared for hours for every visit, arranging her room, running up and down to the kitchen a hundred times, muttering to herself. She was always ready too early, and sat on a chair waiting, with her hands in her lap, like a little girl in a picture, waiting for a party.

There was an end room, built like a tower, looking over two sides of London. This was the largest of all, and my room. I stayed there quietly reading my comics and girls' annuals.

One day Miss Slattery came. She was a healthy, unmarried woman of about forty-five. She lived with her brother and his wife and told tales about them which irritated Grandmother, who only cared to know how many children people had, how many rooms, and how much money: wishing to know their social status, not caring about their sorrows, their cat-and-dog life. This time, Grandmother entertained in her bedroom. Tea time came, and Miss Slattery said loudly: “I'll ask the girl to make tea for us.”

She went to the door of the room where Persia was lying reading on the divan covered with an Indian weave, and made her request; but Persia said, “I don't take tea, thank you.” Confused, poor Miss Slattery repeated her request, which met with the same reply. The big, ungainly woman scurried to my grandmother and told what had happened, but Grandmother, whose ears were sharp, knew already. She muttered, “Later, later! I'll make tea. Poor thing, she's tired.”

They conversed in undertones. Miss Slattery said twice, “She's lying down. She's lying down on the divan in there!”

Grandmother reassured her. Then I heard, “She is tired. She is tired. She works. Very hard.”

“What at?”

Grandmother's pride rose. “She's learning library work; it's very hard. You have no idea.”

“Really! In the evenings?”

“In the evenings—in the daytime.”

“Really? You give her time off? You're kind to her!”

“Why not? Why not? A nice young girl—”

“Very kind!”

“She is very clever, very clever—”

On the way to the kitchen to get the tea, Miss Slattery paused in the open doorway (the door had been taken off long ago), and looked effusively at Persia sprawling on the divan, “I hear you're very clever at library work, evening study. I admire that! Trying to improve oneself is always the best thing.”

“Yes,” said Persia.

“Do they pay well for library work?”

“Not so very well, but it gets you a permanent position. The work takes three years or more.”

“Oh, then you must be very clever to do that when you're working as well.”

Persia looked at her strangely. The old woman rattled on impertinently. She lowered her voice, “You don't want to do some extra cleaning, do you?” she enquired, like a conspirator.

Persia put her legs on the floor, “What do you mean?”

“I know someone—my sister-in-law—needs someone, just for a few hours a week, and I see you have extra time. They're easygoing.” She nodded toward the kitchen.

Persia grinned. “I don't intend to make extra money doing house-cleaning,” she said, and suddenly put her hands across her belly and hooted with laughter. She fell back on the divan, swiveling her eyes up at Miss Slattery. Miss Slattery seemed offended, “I just thought I'd put a little extra money in your way, and naturally—”

Grandmother stood in the kitchen door, her ear cocked, and with a grave, crestfallen air. I burst out laughing, “Miss Slattery wants Persia to go and clean her sister's house!”

Miss Slattery turned an unfriendly face to me and then went with dignity toward the kitchen. She said to my grandmother, “I said, if she had time to spare. I see she has time on her hands. I was not trying to take her away from you.”

Grandmother scolded, “She has no time for such things! She is doing library work, I told you.”

I did not grasp it, but it was funny. The women conversed in murmurs. Miss Slattery seemed angry. Persia sat on the divan with a nasty smile which reached to her ears.

When Miss Slattery had gone, in a bad temper, Grandmother came to the door of the dining room and began a very agreeable conversation with Persia, first praising Miss Slattery, and then laughing at the squabble in her brother's household. I said, “Miss Slattery thinks Persia wants to go out cleaning.”

A silence followed this. Grandmother, with a humiliated expression, ran into her room. She came back presently with a petticoat, to Persia, “Oh, my dear, you are so clever, such clever fingers. I do not know how to take up this hem—it hangs, whatever shall I do?”

“Sew it up!”

“But, my dear, I am old, crippled by rheumatism—”

In the end Persia unwillingly agreed to do it for her. Miss Slattery did not return for some weeks and Grandmother worried endlessly, at last writing her a letter. But she had been away to Folkestone. She must have talked things over with her family, for this time she treated Persia with more respect, and though my grandmother tried not to leave her alone, she managed to get a moment to speak to Persia, “You have a maid in to do the work, don't you?”

“Once a week,” said Persia.

“Yes,” Miss Slattery nodded; “you must have thought me stupid the other time. I didn't realize you were the housekeeper. I think you're very nice to her, the old lady—” she nodded again, with a smile, “a bit difficult?”

Persia did not answer; and Miss Slattery, after hovering distractedly, went back to her friend. This time Persia walked up and down the corridor while the ladies were having their tea in the kitchen. I laughed to myself, to think what would happen when my father came home. Nothing happened. Persia said nothing I would not have been so patient, or would not have been able to bide my time, whichever it was.

In the summer my mother came back to England with our newborn baby sister, and visited us, as she had said. Solander was out, but the three of us were at home. My mother came unannounced and alone. When Persia opened the door, my mother stood there looking very beautiful in a new dress and hat. She said, “I suppose you think I'm an intruder?”

“You're always welcome,” said Persia, and showed her in.

Grandmother, with a pale face, came running, quite out of breath. I threw myself into my mother's arms. We all three went and sat in the kitchen, Grandmother's reception room, and Persia went off as usual, to her books. There were long conversations that evening, in which Persia took no part. She behaved as if nothing had happened. I was taken away that night to stay with my mother, and saw my little sister Andrea. I thought the baby was delicious. I thought my father would be sure to love her. I held her in my arms for hours; oh, a little baby in my family! I chuckled with happiness.

But it turned out that Dora Morgan had come to London with Mathilde and proposed to go back to the United States at the end of the summer with my mother, if she went alone. Dora Morgan was again with child; Philip Morgan was again unfaithful. The intrigues began again, but this time I listened to their plots with a certain reserve. I was anxious to keep Andrea with me in London, if possible; Dora Morgan helped me at first by getting up a household with Mathilde and the baby Andrea.

Dora Morgan had persuaded Joseph Montrose to give her money for the trip, on the promise that she would bring Phyllis with her. Phyllis was dissatisfied with her young husband, a poor money-maker. But Phyllis, since tempted by a new prospect in the matrimonial market, had not sailed. To my indignation, my father provided the money for us, and went off to Scotland with Persia. Yes, he was selfish. Mother and I took the baby to see Grandmother frequently. The cat was out of the bag; but Mother ignored the cat. She pretended to us that Persia did not exist. Grandmother was not left alone, for Edie, the girl who worked at “Swan and Goose,” went to sleep in the apartment at night and was promised a fine present when the wandering couple returned.