Letty Fox (48 page)

Jacky thought this was splendid, and began to take my side. (She now regarded me as a party girl.) Clays said, “In little more than a year you'll be eighteen, and legally a woman then. What I'm saying is queer, but not underhand, because it's for your mother to hear. We can't pretend we're in the nineteenth century. If I live with you, I'll marry you. We'll be bound. But I won't promise to marry you, if you don't live with me; not because I have other intentions now, but because I know the world, men, women, and myself. If you live with some other man, you'll marry him; and I'll be in Madrid, but out of your life; and the same with me. This is the truth about passion, though you don't know it, Letty, and, probably, Mrs. Fox doesn't like to admit it. I wouldn't say such things normally, but our whole lives are being decided here and now, and we'd better be clean about it.”

“This is impossible,” said my mother; “I'm not a prude, but I don't care for such speaking in front of my daughter.”

“There are old standbys,” said Clays, not unkindly, but in his superior way, “which don't help us at all.”

“Whatever I say, no one will listen; everyone will do just what suits them,” said Mathilde.

“Very well, then; it's left to you and me,” said Clays to me. “We will go out to talk this over. I am sorry to cause you any anxiety,” he continued to my mother; “but as you are unable to come to any decision, we must do it ourselves. We will see Letty's father.”

“I am left to myself in a moment like this,” said Mathilde.

My sister Jacky came forward, a flush flooding her pale, serious, but fleshy face; her eyes flashed. She took Clays's hand, not mine, though she looked at me friendly, and she said, in German (from Heine's poem
Der Asra
),

“And the slave said: I am called

Mohamet; I am from Yemen

And my family are those of Asra

Who love, and die of love.”

He held her plump, white, and rather pretty hand too long, patting it. Then he came away, saying, as he jammed on his journalist's hat, “She's going to be sweet, too, Letty. One of the bemused. Of course she'll be unhappy, I should think. Depends on the lucky chap!”

“Why? There's a chance she'll go to Paris and study art. That's all she wants, and the Great Lover!”

“Not much! Not much at all! Is she strong? Not any trouble?”

“She fancies she has. But that's only dreaming. She's always reading old stories where women always had tuberculosis.”

“Yes, but that long neck—and her complexion—white and quite lovely; transparent, waxy, clear as possible—”

“You must now forget other women, your Steepleship!”

“I can't forget them. But I won't betray them, or you. I'll get you some Parma violets—I adore them, don't you?”

“No; but they will do.”

“How saucy!”

“I'm not going to be meek with my husband.”

“Your husband—now, that's just what we've got to talk about!” We went to a Stewart's Cafeteria near Fourteenth Street. This was a stolen trip and Clays had to be back in Washington. Could I go with him? He could put me up, perhaps; he didn't know. I had never spent a night away from home at the famous “girl friend's,” and knew that my father would not forgive this, either. He gave me every liberty, but would despise this kind of trickery.

“Well,” said Clays, “then I must come to you, but can you arrange a night away somewhere; for don't you see, once we are—man and wife, to be frank—they'll allow you to go with me, to France, anywhere; and it isn't exactly rape.”

“It's screwy,” I said, hesitating, wanting, after all, a wedding with parents in their frills, and champagne cocktails at that Longchamps near City Hall.

“I've got to run,” said he. “Look, Hebe, I'll send you a telegram and you fix up that girl friend, for you know I'll have to be in and out like this, and if we can get married, I'll fix up the boat ride; and if not, you must come after me, but we won't be separated. Fate weel naut zeparate zem. Gracious,” he said, in that lovely way he must have got from a charming, foolish mother, “I must fly.” And he flew.

Ten days later came the telegram. I got it just before school, cut classes, and rushed off to buy myself a wedding dress. I used one of Grandmother's accounts, for I had nothing left of the $150 (I had lent a lot to Clays and Father had refused to give me any more); I bought an ocher chiffon, with some colored satin ribbons wound round the waist, and rushed home to bathe.

I spent an hour brushing my hair and looking anxiously at the short white wool coat I had to wear with the dress. I never was one for doing things in advance, and had not one thing ready. I told Mother simply that Clays was coming, and perhaps would marry me that afternoon.

Clays jumped off one of the first cars at the station and came striding toward me with that forked, humped, and undulating gait of the very tall. I was dumb with my feelings; no doubt even my color went. I stood quite still. He flooded me; the dam broke; I trembled all over.

“A cab!” said he.

We got in, and I still had not said a word. He looked at the string of beads.

“Nice,” said he; “the old boy was decent—let me off. I told him I had hooked a beauteous New York society girl. You look lovely in that faeces color. I'm so excited. Isn't this all preposterous? As soon as we get a ha'penny between us, promise me you'll always have a faeces-colored dress. But I forgot, we're going to live on the hop, rather, aren't we? Not even time for a toothbrush between plane and machine-gun shots—have to learn to do like the blacks you know; they have wonderful teeth; rub them on a bit of fiber when they do anything; they chew up caterpillars, I think. Worth it, to have their teeth—I mean the Aruntas. And we'll have to learn to manage like birds you know, wipe our beaks on fences.”

I said nothing.

“What's wrong? You're supposed to repent at leisure, after you're married. Good God! You're not starting to repent now? You've got the entire future of the world to repent in. Your child and grandchild and great-great—they can all hear the story of how you ran off, to your cost, with that preposterous Clays Manning; but now, now is too soon, my darling.”

I laughed now, “I'm coming out of it. Too much excitement. Are we going to get married? This is my wedding dress, Clays.”

“Oh, charming,” he said, flurried. “Well, we're going to run off, my dear, if you want it; but we must tell Pappy and Mammy, odd as it all sounds. My divorce has not come through yet, and we haven't time, and I've got to go—you'll have to trust a Briton—”

“You know, now we have the united front—”

“Yes!”

“Politically, I mean.”

“Even with George III? With The Man with the Umbrella?” Saying this, he stopped the taxi at an address in Bleecker Street, before an old tenement, newly brick-faced and made up into high-priced flats for artists. I had been here once or twice to visit friends in college.

“Let's go in here,” he said.

He had a key, and we got into a flat on the ground floor, with one very large living room, and a series of three closets in a dark passageway, run up out of thin partition board. Curtains were hung here and there; everything was old, and covered with scaling paint. There was a name on the door, one I knew and respected, a writer who was now in Spain.

“He sublet this to Joe,” said Clays, mentioning another well-known character, “and Joe is in the country at present, staying at Jake's. Jake and his wife are in Hollywood and cannot sublet on account of bad times, so they gave him the place free just to keep it up, and I can have this place for week ends free, until Joe finds a sublease, or himself returns.”

“This is new,” said I.

“Yes; I told him my predicament; ours. And now all we have to do is go and lay down terms of surrender to the previous generation.”

“Or present them with a
fait accompli
,” said I.

“We'll visit Mamma,” said he; “no representation without rights. I'll brush up first.”

After brushing up, he bought me wine gloves and red roses, and some carnations for Mamma. We telephoned her from the bar where we had drinks and spoke to Pauline, who was with her, giving sage advice about me. Clays bought a bouquet for Pauline. He kept me firmly in one hand, and all these flowers in the other arm as we reached the house. I was quite small to “His Steepleship!” I found myself within the old doorway with a tumult of feelings. A discreet old gentleman who lived in the house, and was always going out to affairs or concerts, passed us and smiled. I heard my father's voice. He had come from work, too.

Clays was very gay with all, and quite chattily discussed his matrimonial tangles. It was “preposterous.” He might not be out of them for a year—longer. He would be away; “I lead a risky life. You may think of her as the airman's bride. You give her in me a love which she may never have again; and you may have the pleasure of seeing her a beautiful widow of seventeen or eighteen. Perhaps I shall hop this mortal twig in short order. I may say I consider it quite proper.”

They argued it up and down. It was naturally hard for even the most liberal of the four (Dora Morgan was there still) to agree to free love. Finally, Clays took me out to walk and to eat.

“End of the second chukker,” said Clays, “and no score yet.”

“Oh, Clays, why did you start all this? It's just a mess.”

“Then what's your idea?”

“Let's run away, now. Not go back.”

“My own decision, Hebe. But I want you to be sure. I had visions of you making up your vacillations too late and following me, on the spur of the moment, all round Spain; while I, obedient to the whims of Mars, chasing the canards of Rumpus, left you far behind. I saw you sleeping alone under the Spanish stars, and I, not alone, but in caravans, trains, coaches, motorbuses, inns, water cellars, barns, ditches, ruts and caves, attics, and hiding underbeds, kissing the wormeaten boards and flagstones in lieu of Letty; and tempted by those black eyes and those high pouting busts—”

“Clays!”

“You must be inured to the truth.”

“What makes you think I'd do all that for you?”

“My ex-wife would have done it. She was that sort. She's quite a grand girl; but of course, you're better, so you would have.”

This cast a gloom over me. I didn't think I would have, but on the instant became persuaded. I murmured, “What you are is such an olio of romance and rococo sentiment, pathos and vaudeville, that really I must believe in my knowledge of human nature to take you at your word, Clays. Don't kid me, I'm going to cry again any minute”; and I declared I was ready to throw myself into the land of fire for him. Let him just get the passport. He became hotter and hotter, interspersing his declarations with regrets for wasted time, gladness that I was born no later (for then I would have been much too young for him), and making allusions, so raw, to the night coming, that I felt something like sharp knives in me. He kept referring to my virginity, and to how little I knew (for all my supposed, but innocent wildness) of life and love; and how exalted and at the same time sordid and bad love could be, till I felt more than drunk.

“I'm tired, worn out, Clays. I must go home.”

“All right. Here's a cab. Home, James!”

In the taxi he squeezed my hand and said, “How you love me! It's wonderful! You've really got me!”

This made me angry. He seemed stupid and animal. But I felt so sick that I was determined to bring things to a finish, so that I should know where I stood, both with him and with other men, always afterwards; “so that they cannot tease me,” I thought to myself. I had nothing to wear to bed; but so suddenly to bare myself to a stranger did not upset me, for I was in a coarse, glum mood, and hardly counted him. His eyes were glued to me, and I saw myself as he must see me, a stumpy, young female, whose legs came out like columns from my white shirt. We got into bed, and I threw myself into his arms quickly. It was just as if I had done it every night of my life.

What a surprise! We rolled there, smoking and uneasy for some time, when Clays, with shocking calm, told me that his excessive love had made him impotent and that we would have to get up and sit talking for awhile. I was abashed. I sat with downcast eyes, blushing. Suddenly it occurred to me that I must telephone my parents. He looked after me anxiously. I told my parents I had gone out dancing. At once, he brought me back to bed and, taking my hand, showed me where to put it; and then he declared that he had been up five nights in succession, with only three hours' sleep a night, and had been beating up the town to get his papers for Spain, and anxious about his divorce and me; and that all this had an effect even on a young, strong man in love; I must forgive him. Many were the apologies he made, but in a manly tone; and laying his head on my breast, he went to sleep. We got up at seven in the morning, hungry, disquieted, and worn out.

Clays was supposed to return that day to Washington, but said he would risk another night. His friends in the office would stall for time and let him know immediately if he was wanted.

From the cafe where we breakfasted, I rang Mother again, and found that Pauline had stayed the whole night with her. It was Pauline who came on the phone and told me I had better come home at once with “the man” and see them.

When we got there, it was ten-thirty in the morning. Mother was asleep, having been put to bed by Pauline; Jacky was home from school, but Andrea, my little sister, had been packed off to Grandmother Morgan's with Dora Morgan, till the scandal should have been mopped up.

Pauline was delighted to see us; “So you spent the night with him, naughty girl! You thought you would pull a fast one, wicked child! Well, darling, I am really your friend, and you must rely on me. But Mother, naturally, is horribly upset. You cannot understand that, you are only a naughty child. But he is the one to blame,” and so on.