Boston Adventure

by Jean Stafford

  Philip had not waited even long enough for a cup of tea, but had only come to arrange to call for me at dinner-time. We were going later to the Countess’. The business had been transacted within earshot of Miss Pride intentionally, and while she made no alternative suggestion, she said with great displeasure, “I hoped you would have dinner with me. Now I shall be all alone.” Philip gave her a smile. “She needs a change of air every now and again, you know.”

  The younger Mrs. McAllister had been Christmas shopping and declared when she came in that the only thing which had relieved the tedium of the task was the prospect of a “reviving chat with Lucy Pride.” She had, however, after a perfunctory, albeit effusive, salutation to her hostess, immediately sought out Amy Brooks and the two of them had sat, heads together, on the sofa where Amy was in the habit of holding court for Mr. James and Mr. Pingrey. Philip paid his brief compliments to his mother and left the room. I went to the window and saw him for a moment hesitating before he went down the street. I was surprised to see that he was wearing a bowler today and that he carried a stick, for usually his dress was of the most casual. I experienced a moment of peculiar distaste for him as I watched his grotesquely military bearing in which, it seemed to me, I had sensed a new element.

  Half an hour after he had gone, Hopestill made an entrance into the drawing-room, pausing as she had done the first time I saw her, at the tulip wood commode to reconnoiter and to determine which of the guests after her aunt deserved her first greeting. She was dressed in green moiré, the severity of which did not check her flaming beauty but struggled with it in a magnificent combat, so that her sudden appearance in the doorway, unexpected, was like a chivalric, plangent war brought to our quiet gathering.

  “Why, Hope!” cried Miss Pride. “I didn’t expect you for ten days.”

  “I know,” laughed her niece. “It was to be a surprise, Auntie. You’re glad, I trust?”

  Because she had never before “surprised” her aunt with a visit, the old lady looked questioningly at her, but smiled and said, “Delighted.”

  When she had kissed Miss Pride and the Admiral, Hopestill crossed the room to Philip’s mother who, on seeing her, cried out, “Oh, how glad I am I dropped in today! I never dreamed you’d be here. Philip will be wild when he knows he missed you. He just this minute left.”

  “It’s nice of you to say that he’ll be ‘wild,’ Mrs. McAllister. But since Amy was here I imagine he had quite a full enough afternoon without me.”

  Mrs. McAllister bit her lip in vexation. Philip had only nodded to Amy. Moreover, Amy had dropped a few remarks that had intimated at a romantic attachment to Edward Pingrey. I had heard Mrs. McAllister say, “But, Amy, he’s not really your sort of person, do you think so? I’m extremely taken with Edward, as we all are, but he has never really belonged to your set . . . to yours and Philip’s, that is.” Amy ingenuously replied, “Why, Philip and I don’t belong to the same set at all. I believe he thinks I’m unconventional.” Her giggles commenced and drowned out the older woman’s next speech.

  Now, unwittingly nettling Mrs. McAllister, she said to Hopestill, “He snubbed me completely. He only came to make a rendezvous with Sonie.”

  “Ah,” said Hope, glancing in my direction. But she turned again to her cousin. “I like your dress, Amy.” She could not suppress a smile for Amy, who had no judgment about clothes, was wearing bright red wool, most unbecoming to her colorless face to which she had clumsily applied orange lip rouge and excessive mascara.

  “It’s terribly red, isn’t it?” cried Amy, beside herself with her strange nervousness. “Edward likes it! Hope! I have read Freud since I saw you last!”

  Hopestill smiled condescendingly and turned to Philip’s mother. “I hope your mother will still let me dress at her house.”

  “Will you ride in this weather?” cried Mrs. McAllister.

  “It’s just the kind I like. The colder, the better.”

  “Well, you know you’re always welcome, my dear. You haven’t changed your mind about coming to my house instead? But perhaps you wouldn’t like to feel indebted to Philip for I should give you his old playroom and he’s most sentimental about it. I don’t blame you: I shouldn’t like to owe that young man a thing. Tell me truthfully, Hope, don’t you think he has a heartless nature?”

  “Indeed I do,” replied the girl. “And that’s the reason we’ve always got on so famously, for I’m heartless too.”

  “What a fib! No one has a warmer heart than you.”

  Hopestill, outraged because Mrs. McAllister had raised her voice so that everyone in the room could hear her, took her leave but not before she had said icily, “It’s kind of you to compliment me so, but I’m bound to disappoint you if you really think I’m warm-hearted.”

  They embraced tenderly and the older woman said, “You could never disappoint me, Hopestill Mather.”

  I had been on the point of going upstairs for I had a few letters to type out for Miss Pride, but Hopestill intercepted me and taking me by the arm, led me back to the love-seat in the bay window. As we sat down, I saw that she was shockingly altered from the last time she had been here: the violet glades were deep beneath her glaring eyes and as deep were the new hollows in her pale cheeks which had lost their luster and had the gray opacity of fatigue. And as she talked, hysteria expanded her nostrils and shook her lips.

  “Where did Philip go? To the hospital?”

  I told her I thought he had gone home to dress for dinner.

  “I’ll telephone him then. I’m awfully anxious to see him. I don’t suppose he told you what his plans were for the evening?”

  “Why, yes. I’m having dinner with him and afterwards we’re going to the Countess’.”

  She raised her eyebrows in a faked surprise. “Oh! I didn’t know you actually dined with him.”

  “Yes. I often do.”

  She repeated, “I didn’t know you actually dined with him. But it’s of no importance. I dare say he didn’t know I was coming on today. I wrote but perhaps the letter was delayed. I should have wired.”

  “You wrote?” My alarmed question was involuntary. Then, flustered by her lofty imperturbability, I said, “I’ve got some letters to go off. I’d better go up now.”

  “Will you look in on me when you’ve dressed, Sonie?”

  I rose and started across the room as Hopestill went to sit beside Admiral Nephews. Miss Pride, who had left the room just after her niece arrived, was returning and I confronted her in the hall. “I trust you’re going back to the letters. They’re urgent and must go off tonight by air.” I promised that I would not fail to get them in the post and moved past her. “One thing more, Sonie,” she said, laying her hand on my arm. “I cannot condone—and I certainly cannot overlook—your behavior with Dr. McAllister. Two people remarked to me today that you seemed to be flirting with him. For your sake, I denied the accusation though I regret to say that in doing so I was also denying the evidence my eyes furnished me. I speak only for your own good, believe me, Sonie. I don’t blame you. What was more natural than for you to go to Berthe von Happel’s little parties with him? But it shouldn’t have gone beyond that, my dear. It’s been imprudent of Philip to encourage you in this infatuation. If I had been he and saw what was coming over you, I would have left you strictly alone. Why, Sonie, you’re too sensible a girl to hitch your wagon to a star like that. Surely you must have heard what sort of person he is—one can’t count the girls he’s trifled with.”

  “Oh, you needn’t worry about me, Miss Pride,” I told her. “I have my feet on the ground.”

  “That’s the way to talk! I knew you had good sense. Well, we all must take our foolish holidays, mustn’t we? But now, since you know people have talked—unjustly I do believe—you’ll take care not to let them talk again, won’t you? Run along now and don’t forget the letters. Isn’t it nice that Hopestill came back just in tim
e?”

  “In time for what?” I inquired dully.

  “Why, in time for Berthe’s party. This is her most elaborate one of the year.”

  It was still early when I went to Hopestill’s room, but she was already dressed and was seated before her fire engaged in wrapping a Christmas present. Her small sitting-room was confused with suitcases and unopened parcels and in the window stood a locked wardrobe trunk. “As you see,” she said, following my eyes, “I’ve come back for good. When I’ve tied this knot, let’s have a glass of sherry. Can you believe it, I had the fortitude to take a bottle of Aunt Lucy’s private stock.” I said I would have none. “Oh, do!” She dropped her package and took hold of my wrist, digging her enameled talons into my skin, as if my abstention from the stolen sherry threatened a catastrophe. She filled two glasses and gave me one. “Here, take it. You’ve never tasted anything like it.”

  She took a sip from her glass and picking up the fallen ribbon and the shears, turned to her work again. “Sonie,” she said, “would you mind awfully if I went to dinner tonight with Philip?”

  I drank before I answered her. “Did your aunt tell you to ask me?”

  “Auntie? Of course she didn’t. What business would it be of hers?”

  “I only wondered.”

  “Well, she didn’t. It was my own idea. I knew you wouldn’t mind and you don’t, do you? Did he by any chance,” she said, looking up from her package, “send you those camellias you’re wearing?”

  I said he had. “They’re lovely on your dress and what a lovely dress it is, too.” I could not return her smile. She went on matter-of-factly, “Look here, Sonie, you’re not in love with him, are you? Because if you are, I’m devilishly sorry. I’m afraid I rather put ideas in your head.”

  “Oh, I assure you you didn’t.”

  “Sonie, I simply couldn’t stick New York any longer!” she burst out. “I don’t think I’ll ever leave Boston again. It’s more than flesh can bear to be separated from the only thing in the world one gives a tinker’s damn about.”

  “What do you mean? This house?”

  “You know perfectly well I mean Philip.” She gave me a quick, bright smile intended to tell me that I was the first to be let in on her secret. “By the way, would you rather have your Christmas present now or wait? You know this year, for the first time in my life, I’m actually looking forward to Aunt Lucy’s Christmas tree even though there is something really revolting about the way she hauls the servants up and gives them ridiculous presents. Do you know that once she gave Ethel two decks of cards in a monogrammed leather case for Whist parties?”

  Wishing to have these pointless preliminaries finished, I said, “I’d like to have my present now.”

  “Oh, darling! How impossible of me! I just remembered it won’t be here until tomorrow. It’s a phonograph and several albums of records.”

  I was touched by her generosity and when I thanked her, she said, “After all, it was the least I could do, wasn’t it?” The remark erased the kindness from her gift, told me with its frank interrogation that it was even less than solace but was the payment of a bribe the necessity of which she had anticipated, even though she had declared a little while before that she was not aware I dined with Philip. Hearing then her condescending negotiations, I was like the child who is told that he may not go to the picnic but for his supper may have a cream-puff. In his grief he believes he is offered a choice and cries, “But I don’t want a cream-puff!” and cannot believe that his franchise is specious, nor can he persuade the governor of the nursery that while he likes cream-puffs and any other night would welcome them for supper, this is not the night; he wants only the hard-boiled eggs and the cold chicken that are to be on the menu of the picnic. I did not want the phonograph although for several months I had been wishing for one, and while I could not say, like the disappointed child, that I did not, I could, like him, point out certain drawbacks in the gift. The child would say, “I don’t want a cream-puff and it’s silly because nurse told me we were having steamed pudding for supper and we can’t have both and I think they’re horrid anyway,” and I said, “But I wish you hadn’t bought me any records because our taste is probably not the same at all.”

  “Oh, Sonie, I’m sorry!” I had really distressed her and thought I even saw signs of tears in her exhausted eyes. She said, “I’ve tried so hard!” and thinking that she meant she had tried so hard to please me and my ingratitude was more than she could bear, I quickly said, “Oh, don’t! I’ve really longed for a phonograph, and I’ve no doubt the records can be exchanged if I don’t like them.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant I had tried so hard in other ways. Well, it was all lost a long time ago and it’s useless to try to regain it. I mean my balance was lost, my integrity, whatever it is in the name of God that keeps one together.”

  She poured herself another glass of sherry. “Do you want to hear an ugly yarn?” she said. “I haven’t been ‘studying’ in New York at all, as Auntie knew and everyone must have suspected. I was going to a psycho-analyst and paying out fifteen dollars an hour for his nasty mumbo-jumbo. He had shaded lamps and old copies of the New Yorker and big divans in his waiting room where we all sat, so scornful of one another, pretending, every damned one of us, that we weren’t there on business but had just come to pay a social call or had just dropped in to rest our feet. He had two Siamese cats that I grew to hate so violently that the doctor declared I had a cat complex, and he was beside himself with triumph when I volunteered, merely to pass the time, that Aunt Lucy had a cat that she kept locked up in her bedroom. He really said ‘Eureka!’ as though the whole problem were settled and it would only be a matter of minutes to find the cure. It’s exactly like a dream and I can’t really believe that he advised me that day to go out and buy a cat, not, mind you, a Siamese but a Persian tortoise shell like Mercy although I kept telling him that I had no objection to Mercy and it was his own wretched animals that I detested. He said I had come to substitute himself for my aunt! I kept going back because it quickly became a habit and at the same time I was doing just the same things I’d always done before because now I had confessed my sins they didn’t seem very bad. He told me I wasn’t co-operating and I got the notion that I was getting by with something because I was deceiving him the way I used to deceive the teachers at school and then Aunt Lucy and I enjoyed it all the more with him because he was powerless. I took the keenest pleasure in doing all the things I pretended I hated. His name was Dr. Ragsdale and I would tell him my dreams in which it was changed to ‘Dr. Ratsbane.’ He was pigeon-breasted and so evil I always knew he was homosexual and alcoholic as well as clinically insane.”

  “But why . . .” I began.

  “Why, indeed? I kept thinking, I suppose, that I’d develop such a horror of my nature and the way he mauled it that I would at last be able to change. But I didn’t. And so I have come back to Boston. Here maybe I can. There’s probably a devil in me, one straight from hell like those in the Salem witches my ancestors used to burn.”

  She was sincere. A silence followed her words in which that evil she believed in and urged me to believe in was like a third person in the room; or it was like an innovation in the furnishings which was felt but not immediately perceived. I remembered, in that quiet, a series of small incidents which had puzzled me but which I had put out of my mind: once, the year before, when we were on our friendliest terms, she had brought me a present of a chartreuse evening gown which she had bought for herself and had afterwards discovered was too large. Chartreuse was a color I could not possibly wear as there were tints in my skin inimical to any variations of green or yellow, and since Hopestill and I had discussed this very misfortune sometime before when we had been shopping, I was naturally surprised at her gift. But in order to please her I put it on and went down to the sitting-room. Hopestill and her aunt were both there. “For heaven’s sake!” cried Miss Pride. “W
here did you get that frightful dress, child? You’re the color of bile! Run back up this minute and change to that pretty blue of yours.” “Yes, do, Sonie,” agreed Hopestill, “it’s awful.” I was glad enough to change and went out, but stopping in the hall a minute to glance over a pile of letters I had put on the table to make sure they were all stamped, I chanced to hear Hopestill say, “I can’t think what got into me when I bought it for her. I was so proud of myself to remember her size, but imagine my forgetting that she couldn’t wear that color,” so that I knew she had not bought it for herself as she had told me. Another time, she had told me that she wanted me to meet a very distinguished cousin of hers who had married an Oxford don and was visiting for a few weeks in Milton. She said she had arranged a small dinner party and particularly wanted me to come because she thought I would find Lady So and So very amusing. And yet, when the day arrived and I warned her that I might be a few minutes late as I had to run an errand for Miss Pride in Cambridge, she said, “As a matter of fact, Sonie, Aunt Lucy asked me to tell you to stay at the Cock Horse for dinner and she’ll send Mac around for you at nine. We’re having a little dinner party for a cousin of mine who’s a great bore and a stickler for family and that kind of thing.”

  Her malice was conscious, but its genesis was abrupt and unplanned, or seemed to be, though actually it must have been calculated painstakingly in the craters of her subconscious mind, so that probably she had intended to buy the dress for herself but a sudden impulse had made her select my size rather than her own and she had forgotten, in her guilt, the story she had told me and had told her aunt quite another. Now, having discovered the diathesis predisposing her to these brutalities I looked upon her with detachment, and thinking that what she wanted tonight was not to be with Philip but to spoil my evening (a desire which came from the same mischief that had prompted her to give me the dress), I resolved to keep my appointment with him.