Root of His Evil (16 page)

I put on my hat again and went gaily out. I felt better than I had felt in a month. I walked down to the St. Regis, went into the King Cole Room and had a martini cocktail. Then I went into the dining room and had a fine lunch. It cost three dollars without the tip, and it was worth it. I walked over to the Music Hall, saw a picture. When I got back to the apartment there was a wire notice and when I called it was from Mr. Hunt, asking me to call him. This made me feel in the humor for a nice dinner, with pleasant talk about grand opera, and literature and the capitals of Europe. I called Mr. Holden.

Next morning I was awakened by the phone ringing. I was afraid to answer for fear it would be Mr. Hunt and that they had put him through without finding out whether I wanted to talk. So I just let it ring. Then I bathed and dressed quickly and made myself some breakfast. Two or three times the phone rang and I didn’t answer, but I thought it advisable to stay in. It was a long wait, but shortly after lunch here came the ring on the buzzer and when I opened the door he was there. I had rubbed all the rouge off my face so I looked very white, and acted very sad. Also, I acted quite absent-minded, and waited at least five minutes before remembering to fix him a drink. He began practically where he had left off, telling me to take the money, that I would have to get a divorce eventually and that I was a fool to let this opportunity slip by to cash in on it for whatever I could. I listened in a very melancholy way, and then, as he got well warmed up, I buried my head in a sofa pillow and began to weep, at any rate as well as I could, though I was afraid to let him see my face for fear there wouldn’t be any tears in my eyes. But when I could feel them running down my cheeks I straightened up and let him put his arm around me and pat me and wipe them away with his handkerchief. Then I began to talk in a very desperate way about the six sleeping tablets I took last night so I didn’t wake up until one o’clock this afternoon and how I was going to take more and how if they didn’t work I was going to throw myself from the window, and then I wept very loud and said: “After all she’s done to me—and she thinks—she can—get rid of me—for twenty-five thousand bucks.”

He made no reply to this but I could feel him sitting there beside me on the sofa and he was silent so long I decided to peep and see what was the matter with him. He was looking at me with one eye shut and the other eye open, in so comical a way that I had to burst out crying again to keep from laughing. He got up, stood in front of me for a moment, then kicked my foot. “Carrie, every time I see you I like you better...I’ll borrow your bath for a moment.”

He disappeared, then came back. “Funny thing, I couldn’t find any sleeping tablets in that cabinet.”

“I feel just terrible.”

“In other words, they’ve got to up it?”

In reply to this I merely moaned, “Twenty-five thousand bucks!”

He drained his highball, picked up his hat, said, “I’ll see what I can do,” and walked out. I neglected to fasten the door after him, so it was most unfortunate when he popped back in again, to get his stick, and found me doing cartwheels in the middle of the floor. He came over to me, gave me a little kiss on one cheek, winked, and left.

Next day he was back, and I wept and bawled a great deal louder, and I let him take a bottle of sleeping tablets away from me just as I was about to swallow them all. He argued with me a great deal, but came up to $30,000. But I still held out.

The next day I had a very bright idea, which was to sue Mrs. Harris for $1,000,000, charging alienation of Grant’s affections. I thought if I got a lawyer and actually did this it might be a pretty good weapon against her and that if she settled I could withdraw the suit afterwards. But that would mean more newspaper publicity, for which I felt nothing but horror. So when Mr. Hunt came I contented myself with talking about it. I howled that I had changed my mind about killing myself, that I only wanted justice and that I was going to air the whole thing in court and tell all about her designs on Muriel, as well as everything else I knew about her. And in addition to that, I was going to sell the signed story of my life to the newspapers which had made me offers. He argued with me just as solemnly as he had before, but the next day when he came back he was up to $40,000. It went on for two or three days after that and he roared at me just as though he was my bitter enemy, and I roared back in the same way, and all this I am sure was so he could go back to Mrs. Harris with a full account of what had been said. But when he got up to $50,000, and we were roaring louder than we ever had before, he suddenly put his arms around me, lifted the hair from over my ear with one finger and whispered: “Take it.”

“Is it the most I can get?”

“If you get a lawyer you can blackjack a bigger settlement. But how much she pays and when she pays it and how much the lawyer takes, I wouldn’t like to say. And remember, the lawyer gets his first. This is cash, and it’s all yours—$50,000, clear of your expenses to Reno, court costs, and whatever the lawyers charge for the divorce.”

“I’ll take it.”

So then I made him a drink and I had a little one, and we laughed and he said unquestionably it was the best bargain I could have made, looking at it from what I would get out of it. From what he had let drop about the family finances I thought it was too, and anyway, I had said yes, so there was no use wondering any more.

It astonished me how quickly it was all arranged once the main bargain had been made. I met Mr. Hunt in a lawyer’s office in the RKO Building and we went all over it. I was to get $25,000 cash, have all my expenses paid to Reno and back, as well as my hotel bill while I was there, and all costs of the divorce suit which I was to bring against Grant on the ground of desertion or whatever the lawyers in Reno should advise. Another $25,000 was to be placed in trust for me with the lawyers in Reno, and paid me as soon as the divorce was granted. Two or three days later I went there again to sign papers and as soon as this was over Mr. Hunt picked up Mrs. Harris’s check for $25,000 and handed it to me. It startled me to see her handwriting on the check, very small and neat, and to learn that her first name was Agnes. It seemed too sweet a name for such a viper.

I deposited the check on my checking account, for I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to do with the money. When I got home I tried to feel pleased that I was worth over $26,000 now, an amount I would have regarded as a fortune less than a year before, and that I would be worth more than $50,000 in another few weeks. But I couldn’t seem to enjoy the realization as much as I had expected to. At first I told myself it was because the silly battle with Mr. Hunt was all over and the excitement had died down. But what I kept thinking about was that neat little “Agnes Harris” at the bottom of that check, and I knew that what I had been afraid of had come to pass: I had done something I wished I hadn’t done. Whether I had her $25,000 or not, the victory was hers, not mine, and I hated her all the more.

Two or three days after that Mr. Hunt took me to the plane, driving the car himself. Going over the Williamsburg bridge was when it swept over me that I was cutting all ties with Grant, so by the time the plane went down the field and then came wheeling up to the gate to take me away I was fighting back tears, and they were real ones this time, not the phony ones I had been shedding the last two or three weeks. He must have sensed the state I was in, for he kept talking very rapidly about the fine accommodations I would have aboard the plane, but at the same time giving my hand little quick squeezes. At last I could stand it no longer, and had to ask him what was really on my mind. “Did you—have you any messages for me?”

His face hardened and he sounded quite savage when he spoke. “I told you, Grant’s a fool. No, I have no messages. I haven’t seen him, as a matter of fact. He’s not in town. He’s up in the country, recuperating from all he’s been through—I hope you get that. From all
he’s
been through.”

They opened the gate then and I started for the plane. He caught me in his arms, gave me a quick hug and a little kiss. “Listen, I’m a Harvard man too, but it didn’t have any effect. Everything I’ve said to you about how much I think of you still stands. So when you get back I want to see you.”

“Me, too.”

He took my shoulders and jerked them back, then tilted my face up very high. “Chin up.”

It seemed amazing to me that we reached Kansas City by ten o’clock that night, for Kansas City had always seemed very far away and not at all a part of my life. And yet I was there. I had watched half the United States slip by under me, had flown over St. Louis, had seen the Mississippi River, like a dark snake twisting through the lights, had set my Watch back an hour, and even in New York it was only eleven o’clock. I had a cup of coffee in the airport restaurant, got back on the plane again, fastened my seat belt and in another minute we were off.

I could have had a berth but had asked Mr. Hunt not to take one, as I wanted to look. About one o’clock the moon came up and around two or three o’clock we began flying over the Rocky Mountains. It was early November but even at that season of the year some of the peaks had snow on them, and it looked very white and still down there and terribly wild. Then it began to get light and I could see still better, and I got some idea of how big the United States really is. Then off to the left, and a little behind me, appeared a light in the sky. I thought it was some kind of plane beacon at first and then I thought it was a light on a plane I couldn’t see. But finally I realized it was the morning star, and I felt sad and depressed again, for it was behind me.

It turned out that a reservation had already been made for me at the Riverside and I went up to look at my apartment. It was a pleasant suite with a bedroom, sitting room and bath. I suppose Mr. Hunt had seen to that, and done whatever had to be done to permit me to keep it the necessary six weeks. When I raised the question of price I found out the bill was to be sent to Hollowell & Hyde, the lawyers I had been referred to, so I never found out what it cost. However, it was very nice and I at once unpacked, hung up my things, had a bath and changed my dress. Then I went down and had breakfast and looked up Mr. Hyde, who was located in an office building nearby. Walking over there I could not but admire the clean, fresh look that Reno had, with mountains in the distance and the Truckee River running through the center of the town within a few steps of the hotel. At least they call it the Truckee River, but it was not a river like the Hudson, or any river I had ever seen. It was nothing but a rapid stream you could throw a stone across, but the water was clear and green and boiled along in a picturesque way.

My talk with Mr. Hyde was very brief. He asked me a few questions, then said the simplest thing would be for me to charge cruelty, and he would go over the details with me when the time came. He warned me not to register at any hotels outside the state during this period when I would be establishing my residence in Nevada. However, he said it would be all right for me to take automobile trips into California, or wherever I wanted, provided I got back to Reno the same night. So within an hour I was back at the hotel with nothing to do but wait.

During my negotiations with Mr. Hunt I hadn’t said a word to Mr. Holden about what I expected to do, for I was afraid if he found out I was leaving for Reno he would arrange to leave with me, and this I didn’t want. I didn’t even call him up to say goodbye. So now I sent him a telegram explaining why I had left, then went to bed and got some much-needed sleep. Whether it was the high altitude or the letdown from the strain I had been under I don’t know, but I slept most of that day and the next and had my meals sent up from room service. So it seemed surprising that around four o’clock the next afternoon the phone rang and the desk said he was downstairs. I told them to have him wait, then dressed as quickly as I could and had him sent up.

He only had about two hours, as he was going to San Francisco, and he was rather different from what he had been any other time I had seen him. He was usually rather flowery in his talk and had a lot of jokes, but now he had very little to say and it was quite brief and to the point. I was to stay here and get my divorce. Where he would be during that time he didn’t know, as it was a waterfront strike he was to take charge of and he would be constantly on the move from Seattle clear down to Los Angeles and possibly even San Diego. But whenever he could he would slip over to see me and now and then we would have an evening together. As soon as I was free we would be married and then leave for wherever his work called. I made no objection to any of this, and yet it all seemed remote and not at all in line with my life.

Within two or three days after he had left I discovered that passing six weeks in Reno was going to be very tiresome. I met several people around the hotel, most of them ladies who were also waiting for their divorces. They apparently slept all day and toured the clubs all night and they invited me to come with them, so one night I made the rounds. There were many places in town and I think we went to them all, but they didn’t interest me much as I never gamble and I didn’t care to go any more. I decided I wanted a car, for there were many places I wanted to see in the vicinity and particularly I wanted to visit Goldfield, on account of the stories Pa Selden had told me about the great days of 1908 when it was booming and he was there. The discovery that I could have a car and still make hardly any impression on my bank account was probably my first realization of how much $25,000 really was.

After looking around I decided on a small used coupe which I could get for $900. I didn’t regard it as an extravagance, for when I left Reno I could resell it for almost what I paid for it, so I would not be out much. It was light blue, with very smart lines, and I thought I looked very well in it. So they gave me driving lessons and by the end of a day I could do everything very confidently, even back. So by the end of two or three days I was ready for my trip to Goldfield.

It was a very long drive, nearly two hundred miles, and I have to confess that a large part of the way I was quite frightened. The road was built over a flat plain covered with gray alkali dust, with only a few tufts of dry grass showing, and this plain extended for miles and miles. Only once in awhile would I meet a car, and except for them and an occasional rabbit that would hop across the road I couldn’t see a living thing or any sign of human habitation. It was my first close contact with desert land and it was like rattling madly through space that didn’t mean anything.