The Man Who Loved Children (60 page)

At four o’clock sharp, the children were lined up for the ice cream that Sam had just sent for in pails, ranged from the biggest to smallest and the smallest first. What a pleasure that was for the toddling Doreen Monks, who lived in the cottage at the end of Second Street, and how irritated Red Lomasne was to come last! When they had been round once, Butch Brewer, looking in the pail, asked if he could take some home to his little brother, at which all the girls cried, “Ooh!” and shushed and giggled, themselves looking hungrily at the pails, while the Pollit children stood a little apart, somewhat grim, hoping there would be a bit left over for them after; but Sam at once made them all march round again and gave them all a lick-and-a-half, so that all was fair. …

Meanwhile Louie was inside, rubbing up the silver and peeling the vegetables, while Henny went upstairs to change her dress: and Ernie came inside, as soon as “the kids” began to straggle off (some of them disappointed that they hadn’t received any presents, for they were confused about whose birthday party it was). Ernie hovered around Louie, much to her delight, asking a hundred questions: where was Miss Aiden now? (At the teashop with another teacher.) Louie began to set the table at sunset with her satellite Ernie. First came the threadbare damask cloth (Henny still thought all colored cloths vulgar and when she could, renewed her Irish damask). The cloth was much darned, yet in holes, and coffee-stained. Over the stains Louie adeptly fixed the cruets (they were not assorted, and one pair was a gift pair got with coupons), and the butter dish. There was one clean napkin for Miss Aiden. The water jug had been broken only the week before and so for water they used a large milk jug. Now Louie noticed, for the first time, that they had only one glass for water. She hunted high and low and found nothing but peanut-butter jars and the like. It dawned upon her that they had had no glasses for a long time; and then she called to mind a slow dwindling in goods, over years. She remembered that once they had had dozens of engraved water glasses, always of the same design, a Greek-key pattern, which had been with them for years, and then had come plain glasses got at the ten-cent stores (Henny despised the florid ones), and then gift glasses got with packets of tea, until now they had only one in the world. But she was enraptured by the dinner that was to come, too rapt to be ashamed, and went on with her work, now noticing that they were really poor, but not caring, for, she thought to herself, “Miss Aiden is above caring whether we have things or not” (but she thought Miss Aiden would observe that they had a wonderful water frontage and would probably think they were “temporarily distressed”). Like Henny, she had too much to do to be able to moon over details.

But Ernie was different. He went to look at the table and count the places, see that all was there, spoons, forks, knives, when he saw the glass, sitting solitary as a lighthouse on an atoll. He poked round, seeking the other glasses, and had to admit there were no more. This caused him to look at the vase, containing Little-Sam’s wallflowers, which was an ugly thick tube from the ten-cent store; in a moment he was climbing the stairs, his rosy face most serious, and was in Henny’s room (where she was taking an aspirin), asking, “Mother, where’s the big silver vase; we had two big silver vases?” Henny cried, “Stop snooping, will you? It’s put away.” “But, Mother, can’t we have it for dinner tonight?” “Oh, who is she, for the love of Mike,” cried Henny, “is it Eleanor Roosevelt that’s coming to dinner? I put all the silver away in Aunt Hassie’s vault.” “But why, Mother, why did you?” “You scoot; I’ve got a headache.”

Ernie was dismayed. He sat down thoughtfully on Henny’s old carpet hassock, and as his eye roved round the room, a fearful truth burst on him—there was nothing there, nothing that had been in the old house, nothing that had delighted his babyhood. He jumped up, “Mother, where are all your things from the dressing table?” “What’s the matter with you tonight? Surely you’re not in love with the wonderful woman, too. You’re like a flea.” “But, Mother, you had thirty-seven silver things—” He went, quite distracted, to the dressing table, where in the old days the three beveled mirrors had reflected brushes and combs in a silver tray, jewel case and pin trays, scent bottles and every conceivable tool and utensil for a lady’s dressing table, all tooled silver. Now, here was a bakelite brush, comb, and mirror and one pinbox. The cut-glass smelling bottles and even the beautiful little self-winding clock had disappeared. “Mother, why did you put them all in the vault?” he asked, coming to her chair. “Did you put your rings there, too?” “Yes,” she replied sullenly; “everything.”

He turned to the tallboy (which had once held his father’s clothes), and searched on it too, for the things that had stood there, but it was bare except for a dusty linen cover and a neglected envelope. Henny watched him grimly, saying nothing. Ernie went impulsively to her wardrobe and pulled open the place where her hats usually were—where were the hats, the three black ostrich plumes got from her cousin, the silk opera cloak, ten years old, that she had once worn? Where was the collection of postcards, with stamps from all over the world, that had been there once—though he could not remember when he last played with them (it was a long time ago). He came back to her chair and looked down at her, while she looked up smiling grimly, into dark eyes like her own. “Mother, why did you put everything away? Did you put the hats and feathers and everything in the vault?” “No,” Henny smirked, “they are at Uncle’s.” “At Uncle Barry’s?” “Oh, leave me alone—” Henny broke off and got up. She went to the dressing table and brushed her hair, now almost entirely gray. “Mother, won’t you get them back again? Why can’t we have them?” She turned round desperately,

“Look, my son, don’t pester Mother: I sold them! Now, don’t you dare tell anyone, for if you do I’ll break your neck. If you want your father howling after me, all you’ve got to do is to tell him, that’s all: the Great I-Am is too damned full of himself to notice what’s going on; that’s why I don’t listen to his raving about margarine and beans and such trash: I’m paying for the dinners, and I’ll have what I like. If he knew—” She stopped, listened to the scattered, evening shouts of the children still playing round the place. “He can buy ice cream for all the dirty kids in the neighborhood!” She looked down at her tall twelve-year-old son, who was transfixed on the worn carpet, halfway to her, between the armchair and the table. “Ernie-boy,” she continued sharply, “Mother has had to sell everything she ever owned that she could: I’ve sold the clothes off my back. I only can’t sell this furniture and this carpet because they are too big, and he would notice that. Who knows?” she asked Ernie abruptly, “perhaps I’m a Goddamn fool! Perhaps he notices everything and is willing to let me bust my bones over his grocery bills, as long as he has swill to put in his belly; he’s more of a child than you are, you poor little wretch. What luck have I? I don’t suppose you’ll be anything but a cheap little accountant yourself—you haven’t any chance to make money with a father like that. And who is going to pay for your education? Listen, Ernie-boy, Mother would have committed suicide a thousand times before now, if it hadn’t been for you, because I thought the Big-Mouth would get a job and give you a start and you’d be able to make money for Mother. When I saw you were a boy, I didn’t care so much, although I went through hell before I ever saw your face, my boy: because, I thought, my baby boy will be growing up with me and when he’s big enough I’ll go off with him and perhaps—well, never mind: I don’t want to start whining like the Man of Sorrows. Ernie-boy, don’t you listen to anything you hear about your mother: you stick to me, baby-boy, or I’ll just go and jump in the creek. I haven’t any money for you or for anyone. He’s taken everything, him and his eternal babies that he’s got out of me. I don’t know what to do, Ernie. Wait till she sees what I’m going to give her fine schoolmarm tonight. Irish stew and bread pudding. Perhaps she won’t notice. She’s going about foaming at the mouth with biggity ideas and snobbery such as I never heard, like her beautiful father; they’re like as two peas in a pod: she probably won’t notice what she’s eating. (I wish her stupid crank of a father would notice what a silly stew she’s getting into.) Do you hear? What I’ve got for dinner tonight, with a visitor coming, a fine lady who gets as much in a week as I get in a year, is Irish stew! You—”

“Mother, and there’s only one glass.”

“Don’t I know it? Because we can’t pay for a rotten little maid, a kid that’s going to trades school, or even Lomasne’s little kid, I have to let that great big slummicker wash the dishes and smash every glass and plate in the house; and you kids are no better, with him jigging and singing and you all gaping with your mouths open when you’re drying the dishes and dropping everything. Do you wonder I have to scream at you children? Every rag is in shreds, and every dish is smashed to smithereens. What does he care? As long as he can gas and gab and plume himself on his success in life.”

Ernie looked at Henny, from his rounded eyes, with his face drooping. He trailed slowly off to the door and, as soon as he was clear, began to search the house from top to bottom; all, all things valuable had disappeared. Pottering dolefully to the room he shared with the twins, Ernie pried up the loose board (loosened by him) under which he kept his money box and sat down with it in his hand, wondering and occasionally shaking it a little. There were still in it two dollars and seventy-eight cents. Still thinking, he began to shake and poke at it to take out one of the coins, and presently one fell out into his hand. He stared. It was brassy; and then he wondered if it were a dream, for here was no American money, but the one-franc piece that he had often fingered in his mother’s collection of foreign coins. In one of the open drawers of her dressing table, she had had, long ago, a heavy collection of old foreign coins. A silver groat, a giant old-fashioned English penny, heavy as four modern ones, a sixpence, some Roman and Chinese coins, a one-franc and a two-franc piece, in all worth very little. (It had been one of Ernie’s dreams that here was a treasury worth much in exchange, but Sam had laughed and told him it was “Aunt Tabitha’s weeping-willow brooch,” which meant that it would bring nothing at all in the market.) Ernie shook again with agitation and this time succeeded in getting a rain of little coins, a few cents, the groat, a three-penny-bit; he shivered, thinking a horrible joke had been practiced on him by fairies or ghosts: and then came yawning into his head the picture of the empty drawer below, and he turned cold with fear—perhaps someone (Henny?) had changed his good money for this trash money. He shook and shook, in a frenzy, but with all the rattling, only the dream money came out, and as he shook out the last coin and heard that the light box made no sound but shook light as a feather, he became pale. He spread the money out before him and looked it over anxiously to see if there was any good money but the few cents, but there was not. He heard a sound, made a quick dart to cover the money, and looking up, with a blush, saw his mother. With great hollow eyes she stood looking at him. Her old red dressing gown, now tattered and dirty, was wrapped round her. Henny’s eyes traveled, with a shocked expression, over the coins laid out on the floor. Ernie looked at them again and suddenly his eyes filled with tears; he began to choke, “Mother, someone—” and broke down into miserable sobs. Henny looked at him, with hollow cheeks and desperate eyes, and in a moment sank to her knees, plunged her face into her hands and began to utter cries, “Ugh-ugh.” Ernie took no notice but sat amongst the ruin of his money box, scrabbling the coins with his finger, and crying accusingly. Henny took away her hands and, still sobbing windily, crawled over to him and began to collect the money that she put into the palm of her hand. Ernie held out his hand for it without looking, then feeling nothing but air in his hand, stopped in the middle of a hiccough and looked at her. “Ernie-boy,” said Henny unctuously, “don’t cry: Mother will put all the money back.”

“Will you,” he insisted, “will you?”

“Yes, dear; yes, dear.”

“When?”

“When I get money: next week.”

“What did you put that money in my box for, Mother?”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed, darling.”

He got up and watched her stumble to her feet, tearing the gown again. She was carrying away the false coins with her. On the floor was the empty red money box. He could not understand what she meant: for to see the empty box there was like the end of his world: the difference between having his “bottom dollar” there and having nothing was the same to him as waking in a dark hour of the night, hearing no clock and no cricket and no sigh, and not knowing whether it was the first or fifth hour of the night. At those times he would break into a sweat and wonder if the sun would rise again, at the appointed hour, ideas that he knew were silly but made him long for the ticking of the clock, which is the whole of life. Mother thought she would trick him with the worthless money, without knowing that she had smashed everything he had. He heard her trailing downstairs. He picked up the money box and put it back again under the board; and then he realized that Mother had found the board, pried it up, stolen his money, put in the bad money, and put the box back, all with the intention of fooling him. He felt sick, but as he did not know what had happened to him, he looked out the window to see the last of the neighbors’ children chasing each other round the Wishing Tree and then went downstairs in a vacant mood and, hearing his father’s whistle, answered at once, “Yes, Dad!” but all the evening, all through his father’s chatter, he was thinking something strange: he did not know what it was.

At five o’clock Sam tied the Stars and Stripes to the Wishing Tree: this was the sign agreed upon, by which Miss Aiden was to know Spa House, when she looked from the end of Eastport Bridge. Louie, looking every minute from the front windows, saw her as soon as she came to the boathouse at the end of Duke of Gloucester Street, and shrieking, “Mother, she’s coming,” rushed madly round the house down the drive and along the street towards the bridge. At the gas station she slowed down, but too late, for her face was already scarlet. She had left behind her a pandemonium of brotherly laughs, fatherly witticisms, wondering children, staring neighbors and barking dogs, but when she reached the Eastport end of the bridge and looked towards Spa House, for one minute, to see the flag, she saw all her family, except Henny, lined up along the front grass, staring eagerly at the bridge. Very self-consciously she strutted along the bridge, looking everywhere, up, down, at Bancroft Hall, up the creek, at the boathouse, at the ferry, while the fat grin on her face swelled and swelled until she felt as if she must tumble into her own mouth. Miss Aiden was standing at the other end of the bridge, leaning graciously on the rail, taking in the scenery and waiting for her.