Root of His Evil (21 page)

Harris, and before many days were out even get rid of the name itself. When he saw I was not to be shaken in my decision he stopped arguing and got down to other matters he had to straighten out, chiefly concerning the large balance I was carrying with him and what he was to do with it.

However, we were interrupted by the entrance of the secretary, who told him Mrs. Jerome was waiting to see him, and he excused himself a minute. When he came back he was laughing. “Baby, are you a sensation! When that woman found out you were in here she just camped down, and a fat chance I can get rid of her until she shakes your money-clutching paw.”

“I don’t want to meet her.”

“You
did
meet her, at my house.”

“Oh—yes, I remember her. I can’t see her! I’m not in the humor! I—this thing has upset me and I don’t want to see
anybody!”

“Carrie! Just for a minute—then I’ll ride you uptown in the car and we’ll wind up our business at lunch. Listen! This woman means dough to me.”

So he brought her in. She was a big fat woman with gray hair and I remembered her from Mrs. Hunt’s cocktail party. She began gushing over me and inviting me to spend the weekend at her place on Long Island. I said I had made engagements for the weekend. She became so insistent that, to get her out of there, Mr. Hunt said he wanted to show us his shop as he called it. I said I had to go, but he reminded me he was driving uptown and there was nothing I could do but tag along with them, though what there would be to see I couldn’t for the life of me imagine. As he went out the glass door I looked toward Grant’s desk but he was gone.

There was a big electrical board in the place but that was an old story to me now and I sat on the edge of a desk while he explained it to her. It was a desk belonging to a “customer’s man,” as they call it in the brokerage offices. The board is a great big affair which occupies one whole wall and has all the stocks listed, with the numbers winking on and off in lights as the sales are made. Some distance out from the board are chairs where people sit and watch the quotations, but directly in front of it is the battery of customers’ men, each with a separate desk on which are two telephones, one for incoming calls and the other direct to the floor of the Exchange. As the orders come in these men accept them, then phone them to the floor man at the Exchange, who executes them. There were four desks in front of this board and at three of them men were busy at their phones. However, the man on whose desk I was sitting had gone off somewhere. A secretary came up, looked around, then tucked a yellow slip into the blotting pad. I don’t remember being curious about it and must have glanced at it mechanically. But I felt my mouth go hot from fury at what I saw.

It was a “sell” order—a printed blank with spaces for name, date, stock, number of shares, etc. In lead pencil at the top was the name “Mrs. Harwood Harris,” and the Harwood was underscored three times. That was evidently to keep Mrs. Harwood Harris separate from the other Mrs. Harris, who was myself. The order was for 1,000 shares of Penn-Duquesne, and off on the side in compliance with the SEC rule was written the word “Short.”

Anybody could see that what Mr. Hunt had done was tip Mrs. Harris off to what I was doing in stocks, for it was only yesterday morning that I had phoned him from Pittsburgh to sell a small block of this stock for me. And while I was really a sort of friendly enemy with him, I couldn’t help feeling that this was a pretty dirty trick. So when he drifted over for a minute while Mrs. Jerome was examining one of the tickers I pointed to the “sell” order and said: “I don’t think that was very nice of you.”

“Listen, baby, her affairs had got to a certain point. Do you know what I mean? Something had to be done.”

“I would think you could have found some other way to do it.”

“I’d been trying for a year to find other ways and there weren’t any...I certainly hope you’re riding a winner again. She’s in deep. That’s only one little hunk of it.”

He went back to Mrs. Jerome. And then suddenly a perfectly fiendish idea entered my mind to get back at Mrs. Harris. If there were some way I could persuade Mr. Holden to leave Penn-Duquesne alone instead of calling a strike the stock wouldn’t go down. It would go up—and my lovely mother-in-law would be ruined.

Suddenly I became very sweet and interested in everything, particularly Mrs. Jerome. I joined her at the ticker and said: “I’ve been thinking over my engagements, Mrs. Jerome, and I believe I could fit you in. If the invitation is still open I’d love to spend the weekend with you.” For I thought: If everything goes the way I hope, a weekend with Society is exactly the way I’ll want to celebrate.

She was delighted, gave me directions for getting down to Great Neck, and said she would meet me at the train and that I was to bring “rough, outdoorsy” things. She went then, and Mr. Hunt took me around to his bank and introduced me. I signed the necessary cards and they started an account in my name with the credit I had with him. We then went to lunch at a little restaurant down near the Battery and then he drove me uptown. He kept laughing over my social eminence. “Carrie, I’m proud of you! Monday you’ll be on the Society page. She
always
consents—graciously, of course, and only after the newspapers call
her—
to reveal her week-end activities. Are you a success!”

But all I could think of was that I had to get hold of Mr. Holden.

I didn’t even wait to take off my mink coat and hang it up before I called him at his hotel in Pittsburgh. The report came back that he was out. I left word that he was to call me and gave the hotel number. Then I sat there and waited. Then I sent down for some magazines, to get my mind off it, but when they came up I threw them aside and began walking around, for I still didn’t know what I was going to say to him, even when he called. Then after awhile I realized that I
did
know what I was going to say to him, and had known all along. I was going to say I was lonesome for him, and try to entice him away from Pittsburgh by practically promising myself to him. For I knew the labor situation very well by then, and I was pretty sure if he didn’t conduct the Penn-Duquesne strike there was no other leader who would be able to. As soon as I admitted this to myself a struggle began inside of me. I kept telling myself I would be starting something I might be sorry for afterwards and that the ruination of Mrs. Harris, after all, was hardly a sufficient reason and certainly not a very creditable reason, for taking a step which might affect my whole life. It didn’t do any good. She had become a mania with me now, and now that she was so nearly within my grasp there was nothing I would stop at to satisfy what I felt against her.

The phone rang and I fairly leaped for it. It was the Pittsburgh operator to tell me that on the call to a Mr. Evan Holden, Mr. Holden had not yet returned to his hotel but that they would keep after him. That went on all afternoon and part of the night. Then along toward midnight I realized it had been a couple of hours since the last report. I picked up the phone and put the call in again. I had hardly begun to march around when the phone rang and it was the Pittsburgh operator. “On that call to Mr. Evan Holden, Mr. Holden has checked out of the hotel without leaving any address where he can be reached.”

It was nearly ten o’clock when I woke up the next morning. I hurriedly bathed and dressed, and then to save time I ordered my breakfast sent up. But just as it arrived the desk called to say Mr. Hunt was downstairs. I had the waiter wheel it in the bedroom and leave it there, so I would not have to ask Mr. Hunt to sit there and watch while I gulped down coffee and eggs. Besides, I suddenly didn’t feel like eating anything.

He came in, shook hands, and at once opened a large briefcase which he carried with him and took out a long sealed envelope to which a receipt was attached with a rubber band. He held it out to me. “Here is the money-fifty one-thousand-dollar bills. Now Carrie, I want to ask you once more: Are you sure you want to do this? Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. Some day you may need it. You can still change your mind if you want to. She doesn’t know why you’ve sent for her. I merely told her to be here and said it was important. I guess I deliberately misled her a little. I let her think you’re meditating some kind of legal action—”

“That’s impossible. The agreement took care of that.”

“Of course, but the way is still clear for you to rant and rave a little and pretend that’s what you wanted—and still say nothing about the money. If you think anything of my advice you’ll keep it.”

“I don’t know what I want to do.” Because after the chance I had seen yesterday to get back at her, merely handing the money back didn’t seem any satisfaction at all. And the envelope, all stuffed full of money, looked so thick and lovely I hated the idea of giving it to her. And yet I had sent for her and had to have it out with her or go insane, and the money seemed the only possible excuse for what I had to say.

I slid the receipt out from under the rubber band. “Do I sign here?”

He handed me his fountain pen. I signed and handed him the pen and the receipt. Then I quickly pitched the envelope up on the mantelpiece.

“You’d better count it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Because I knew if I ever felt that money between my fingers I couldn’t bear to part with it.

He put the receipt in his briefcase and just then the phone rang. He looked at his watch. “That may be Grant. I meant to tell you. She insisted that he be here.”

“That’s all right.”

The desk said Mr. Harris was in the lobby and I told them to send him up. He came in with a hunted, hangdog look that I hated. We all sat there for a few minutes looking at our watches until I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked them if I could fix them something to drink. Mr. Hunt shook his head, Grant didn’t even answer. Then he looked at me for the first time since he had been there and almost spit at me: “What’s between mother and this man Holden, anyway?”

“Why—I don’t know, I’m sure.”

“I think you do. And what’s between him and you, by the way, too?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I’m warning you now that I’ve taken about all off that guy I’m going to take.”

“Very well, but I wish you’d make up your mind what you have against him. Because your mother is one thing, I’m something else.”

“Not necessarily.”

At this moment Mr. Hunt said, “Children, children,” and we became silent again. The significance of the threats about Mr. Holden did not dawn on me then, but in a minute or two I was to find out what lay back of them. The desk called promptly at eleven and said a Mrs. Harris was in the lobby, and I told them to send her up.

But when she knocked and I opened the door to let her in who should be with her but Mr. Holden.

I was so surprised that when she took me in her arms and kissed me I let her, although I had fully intended to refuse even to shake hands. He patted my arm, and apparently was not aware there was anything unusual going on. When I brought them in, though, and he saw Grant, he was on his guard at once. He spoke affably but I could see his quick glance shoot around at all of us. Grant nodded to him coldly, and then I introduced him to Mr. Hunt, who seemed as much surprised at his presence there as I was. Then we all sat down and he took out a cigarette and began tapping it on his finger. Then he looked at me and said: “Well. I had no idea I was going to wind up here when Mrs. Harris called me this morning, Carrie.”

“Oh, you’re back at the Wakefield?”

“M’m. For a day or two.”

“I didn’t know that.”

I was just saying things that meant nothing. I wanted to ask him how he could leave Penn-Duquesne, and what he was doing here, and what she had said to him, and a lot of other things, but I couldn’t do it before all the others, and I couldn’t quite make myself ask him to step into the bedroom. It was all going differently from the way I had planned, and I had some panicky instinct that she had got the jump on me, but there was nothing I could do but begin. I turned to her. “Mrs. Harris, I’ve asked you here to discuss a little matter of business.”

“Yes, Carrie? I love to talk business.”

Her voice was like honey, but her eyes had the old familiar glassy look, and I wanted to back down, to say never mind, that it was nothing important and I preferred not to mention it. But I knew I had to go on. “But before we get to the business part there are one or two matters I want to take up with you.”

“Why, certainly, Carrie. Speak freely. After all, you’re among friends...What matters?”

“...How you broke up my marriage, for instance.”

I sounded all muffled and frightened, and she laughed. “Now, Carrie, you’re joking.”

“No, I’m not joking.”

My voice came back when I said that, and I ripped it out as though I meant it, and stood up facing her. And she came back the same way, shrill and loud, the way she always talked when she got angry. “That’ll be enough of that, young woman. I’ve been expecting it, I know just what you’re up to—”

“You don’t know what I’m up to!”

“Yes, I do, and I warn you that anything of that kind that you attempt is going to have most unpleasant consequences.” She stood up, then, and faced me, and the two of us were in the center of the room like a pair of fighting hens. Grant said something quickly, but she paid no attention to him, and went on, shaking her finger at me. “I’m all ready for you. I’m quite prepared to prove that you never had a marriage to break up, that you deceived and betrayed my son even on his wedding day and before. I’ve taken good care to bring your paramour with me—and we’ll let
him
tell who broke up your marriage.”

She turned dramatically to Mr. Holden, and I don’t know what she thought he was going to say, but he just laughed. “Be your age, Agnes, if that’s why you insisted I come here with you. I broke up no marriage. And I’m not her paramour—worse luck.”

At this Grant jumped up, his fists clenching and unclenching. “That’s a lie, Holden. You’ve been traveling around the country with her. stopping at the same hotels—”

Mr. Holden looked up then, with such a queer look on his face that Grant stopped. “Mr. Harris, I understand your anger, but I don’t respect it. Only two people can break up a marriage, the husband and the wife. I can speak for the wife, in this case. I tried with every ounce that was in me to get her to come with me, to leave you, because I loved her and I thought you were no good. I tried without avail. She didn’t break up the marriage. That leaves you. Am I right?”