Those Harper Women

by Stephen Birmingham

  There were other changes in the Harper household during that summer. Mademoiselle Laric, who had been, in her time, one of Edith’s few confidantes, had resigned with the surprising announcement that, at the age of fifty-two, she intended to be married. A sturdy German girl, Fraülein Heidi Schiller, had been engaged as governess and tutor for the boys. And, by the end of July when they were ready to sail for America again, there had been added to this international retinue of employees (based on Meredith Harper’s notion that the English made good nurses and the Germans good disciplinarians for small children) a French couple, Louis and Monique Bertin. By the time of that summer crossing, the function of the Bertins was not clear to Edith. She assumed, though, that it was inferior, since they were traveling in second class. She had not set eyes on either of them. When they were referred to at all, it was as “the Frenchman and his wife.”

  And now, all at once, there was her father standing, looking almost contrite, in the doorway of her stateroom on the Mauretania—watching her as she lifted a pearl necklace from a Cartier box.

  “I don’t want them. I don’t want anything from you—now or ever. Take them back.”

  “They are for your birthday, Edith. From me.”

  “My birthday was eight weeks ago!”

  “The clasp was specially designed. It had to be set.”

  The pearls were surprisingly hard to break. Tough little knots separated the individual beads. But pulling at the necklace, folding it and refolding it and twisting it in her fists and tugging it apart, she flung the broken necklace on the floor, and pearls rolled about the carpet of the stateroom, this way and that.

  Meredith Harper looked at her with curious interest. “Why did you do that?” he asked finally, and knelt, on his hands and knees, and began picking up the pearls.

  “Why don’t you pay attention to Mama, who needs you, and leave me alone? I like it when you leave me alone.” And the sight of him, crawling about on the floor picking up the pieces of the broken necklace, struck her suddenly as so absurd and uncharacteristic of him that she laughed out loud. “You look exactly like a ragpicker, Papa!” she said.

  He stood up then, his face full of fury. “I’ve always taken care of your mother. I married her, didn’t I? When she came to me, sniveling and begging and saying that she was four months pregnant with you, didn’t I marry her? You ought to be thankful to me that you’ve even got a name!”

  Down the corridor, in her own stateroom, Edith’s mother was lying on her chaise, having tea with Mary Miles. There was a hospital odor now, a smell of remedies, that traveled with Dolly Harper wherever she went—the smell of the stomachics and antiseptics, syrups and salts that reposed on the table by the chaise in bottles and jars, stoppered and unstoppered. Seeing Edith at the door, Dolly Harper’s thin hand flew to her mouth, and the sleeve of her rose-colored gown cascaded down her bare arm. “What happened?” she cried. Edith threw herself across her mother’s legs and sobbed, “He gave me pearls! I broke them!” And Mary Miles, as though accustomed to having such passionate outbursts take place in her presence, picked up her knitting. Her needles clicked while Edith wept.

  Under the deep folds of the gown, Dolly Harper’s knees stirred and shifted. “I had a dream,” she began in her quivering voice. “That one of the boys fell overboard! I thought that was what you came to tell me!” With one hand she touched Edith’s head and neck and shoulders with small, restless ministrations. “Go to your papa.… Tell him you’re sorry.”

  “I hate him!”

  “Beautiful pearls,” Dolly Harper said. “I saw them. He wants to … forgive. He was going to take you to dinner tonight. Just you and he.”

  “He said terrible things! Terrible things!”

  “You hurt him. Just remember … he can hurt you … even more.”

  “He can never hurt me any more, Mama!”

  “Just do—” Dolly Harper began, suddenly choking on her words, “—what he wants!” She put her head back on the pillows of the chaise, her hands falling to her sides, and began to cough—deep, rattling, terrible coughs that shook her whole body and brought tears to her eyes. “No … solution,” she said between gasps. “Happy again … in Morristown.…” Quietly, Mary Miles arose and poured red syrup into a spoon. “Here you are, lady,” she said. She supported Dolly Harper’s shoulders while Dolly struggled to accept the spoon in her gulping mouth. Then, the coughing over, there was silence. Mary Miles threw Edith a critical look and picked up her needles again.

  “He’s ready,” Dolly Harper said at last, “to let bygones be … bygones. Oh!” Her head went back into the pillows again. She looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, how long must I be expected to suffer?”

  “Now, lady!” said Mary Miles.

  Edith sat very still, staring at her mother.

  “Don’t you understand?” her mother said. “Go to him! He’ll only punish me if you don’t!”

  “What do you mean, Mama?”

  Dolly Harper’s hand reached out and gripped the sleeve of Edith’s dress, twisting the cloth hard against her arm. “Do as I say,” she said. “Go to him. Tell him you’re sorry. Have dinner with him. Pearls can be restrung.”

  Still Edith said nothing.

  “Do it for me! Think of me for once: Not just yourself!” Then her mother leaned close to her, her breath hot in Edith’s ear. “Now tell the steward to bring me a glass of sherry!”

  But Mary Miles was between them now, her hands pushing them apart. “Now we’ll have none of that, lady!” she said. “I’m the one who’s here to do any little favors for you!” She glared at Edith. “Run along,” she said. “You’ve upset her enough. Run along and speak to your father.”

  Edith stood up. As she left the room she heard her mother’s voice saying softly to Mary Miles, “Why are you so cruel?” And then, “Where is my life?… What’s happened?”

  That night, going into the ship’s grand saloon, her father had taken her arm. “We’re getting admiring looks from people at other tables, Edith,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘Who is that attractive couple?’” She said nothing. Violins were playing. At the table, her father ordered champagne. When he asked her to dance with him, she did not refuse. They danced through a wide avenue of potted palms.

  On the dance floor a man paused, smiled at her father, and bowed to Edith. “Mr. Julius Keen, the banker,” her father whispered in her ear. And, when they were seated at their table again, her father said, “Look—Julius Keen is coming over to speak to us. Best behavior, princess!” The man was crossing the room, and with him was another, younger, white-tied man.

  “How are you, Julius?” her father said.

  “Excellent. Meredith, may I present my nephew, Charles Blakewell? Charles, this is Meredith Harper.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Blakewell.” They shook hands.

  Julius Keen and her father went on talking for several minutes while Edith sat awkwardly wondering why her father did not introduce her. And finally Mr. Keen had said, “Aren’t you going to present me to your lovely daughter, Meredith?”

  “Daughter?” her father said, looking surprised. “Surely you don’t think me old enough to have a daughter this age, Julius. No, this is a young lady friend of mine—une petite amie,” and he pinched her arm. Edith blushed violently.

  Charles Blakewell was smiling. “May I ask if the young lady would care to dance?”

  “Certainly,” her father said.

  Charles Blakewell turned to Edith. “Would you care to dance?”

  On the dance floor, Blakewell laughed and said, “Are you really Meredith Harper’s mistress?”

  “No! I’m his daughter Edith.”

  “So I thought.” He was twenty-five then, and his hair was dark and curly, his eyes were brown, almost black, and his nose was long and straight and thin.

  “Have you been in Europe long, Mr. Blakewell?”

  “Six months.”

  “Traveling with your uncle?”

  “And with my moth
er. My father died last winter.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “This trip was Uncle Julius’ idea. It’s done her a lot of good.” Then he said, “You, I’m sure, have just closed your house in Paris, and now you are on your way to your house in Morristown, where you spend the rest of the summer.”

  “How do you know all this?” she asked him.

  He was still smiling at her, a little mockingly. “Your father is a famous man. So is his manner of living. They say he’s been buying up all the steel mills in France and Germany, and that now he’s on his way to buy up anything Mr. Carnegie has for sale.”

  “Does the steel business interest you, Mr. Blakewell?” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  “Nor does it interest me.”

  He had seemed to find this remark suddenly very funny because he had laughed and, taking her arm, had said, “Come—there’s someone I want you to meet.” And he led her, between the dancers, to a table where a thin, white-haired woman sat. “Mother, may I present Miss Edith Harper?” he said. “Miss Harper, this is my mother, Mrs. Blakewell.”

  The woman looked at Edith very coolly and appraisingly. “Meredith Harper’s daughter,” she said in an odd, husky voice. “I’d heard he was on the boat.”

  “Yes—” Edith began, but the woman turned to her son and said, “Charles, it’s grown a little chilly. Will you run down to my cabin and get my little seal jacket?” She opened the silk reticule on her lap and handed him a key. “It’s on the chair by the window, dear.”

  Charles had stood very still. “But I asked Miss Harper to dance,” he said.

  “But Charles, I’m chilly. Do get my seal.” Then turning to Edith, the woman said, “I’m sure Miss Harper can find her way back to her table without an escort. Good evening, Miss Harper.” She turned her head away.

  Later that night, Edith’s mother stepped quickly into Edith’s stateroom and closed the door, her finger to her lips. She was still in her long rose-colored gown, and her eyes were glittering. “I just heard!” she whispered. “You danced with young Charles Blakewell!”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Oh, Edith! Aren’t you excited? Do you know who he is? He’s related to the Keens! His mother was Nancy Keen!”

  “I met his mother,” Edith said.

  “Did you? Oh, Edith! How wonderful!” Then her hands fluttered up to her face. “Oh, if only I could pull myself together a little bit, I could meet her. Cultivate her a little bit. If I could only just get myself pulled together—”

  “Oh, Mama,” Edith had said. “Mama dear.”

  “What do you mean ‘Mama dear’? Are you implying that I’m not good enough to meet Mrs. Blakewell?”

  But just then the door opened, and it was Mary Miles.

  “Oh, there you are, lady!” Mary Miles said. “I thought I’d lost you. It’s bedtime. Come now.” And she steered Dolly Harper out of the room.

  The next morning there was delivered to Edith’s cabin a note which said

  Perhaps you think that what happened was something I intended to have happen. Believe me, it truly was not.

  Respectfully,

  C. M. Blakewell

  There did not seem to be any answer required. She did not answer it. She did not see him again until four nights later, the last night out, at the Captain’s Dinner, when he came to a large table where she was sitting with a group of other people and said, “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I haven’t. Not really.”

  “You didn’t answer my note. I’m sorry it happened. If I’d argued with her, she would only have made it worse.”

  “I quite understand.”

  “Then I gather you’re used to that sort of thing.”

  “What? Used to being insulted by arrogant old women? You’re trying to say that you’re sorry for me being who I am, aren’t you? Well, please don’t be. Excuse me,” and she had turned abruptly to the man on her left, who happened to be the prince of something, an unimportant prince, a ridiculous prince, but her look at him had been so intense that he had offered her a Murad cigarette from a gold-and-enamel case and she had accepted it. He asked her to dance, and she accepted that—waltzing with the prince, holding that outrageous lighted cigarette while everyone stared. (“My God, that’s Meredith Harper’s daughter—dancing and smoking!” she heard someone exclaim; well, it was more like brandishing it than smoking it, as she remembers the Murad now.) The waltz was “Artist’s Life.” The prince held her too tightly. “I’d like to have a—how you say?—an adventure with you,” he whispered through grinning yellow teeth. She had laughed and given him a bold look. He held her even tighter, and she thought: If there were a convenient and discreet place to have this adventure, your highness, I would probably say yes, even with you, with pleasure. I’m ready for an adventure or two.

  “And I’m sure she cheats on Perry,” Leona is saying. “I have no proof that she does, but I know Mother. And I’m also sure she cheated on Daddy with Perry before the divorce.”

  “Now wait a minute,” he says, “who’s Perry?”

  “Perry Gardiner, my stepfather, Mother’s present husband. Why am I sure she cheats on him? Because Mother’s a cheater by nature, that’s why. She cheats on everybody—on me, on the men in her life. Cheating is the secret of her success. Her one and only talent.” (Dear God, I’m on a talkathon, she tells herself—but what can I do when he just sits there, smiling, urging me to go on. “And so Leona Ware continued volubly.…”)

  The bartender winks at her. “Straight rum for you, Miss Harper?”

  “Ha ha. No, just another of the same, thanks. And it’s Mrs. Para-Diaz now, Tommy.”

  “Paradise?”

  “That’s close enough.” She turns to Arch. “They’ll never learn my name was never Harper.” And then, “A cheater. Do you know what she did to Daddy once, way back when they were first married? To this day Daddy doesn’t know the truth about what happened, but Mother told me about it—terribly proud of what she did. They were married, you see, right at the height of the Depression, and Daddy’s family was very short of money, though they had been rich. She and Daddy had a great big fancy wedding in New York, St. James’s of course, which Mother paid for—which was all right because the bride always pays for the wedding. But when it came to the wedding trip, Mother wanted—naturally—to go around the world. If you have a giant wedding and reception you don’t top it off with a weekend in the Poconos is Mother’s theory. No, you go around the world—slowly,” and Leona makes a slow circle in the air with her finger. Arch grins at her. “I’m not boring you, am I, Arch?”

  “Not a bit,” he says. “Look—it’s like you’ve been all bottled up till now. And now somebody’s opened up a little valve, and everything that was bottled up is coming out. Go ahead—talk. I like it, and it’s good for you.”

  Leona smiles ruefully at the fresh drink that has been placed in front of her. “This, I’m afraid, is what’s opened the valve,” she says. “But anyway, she knew Daddy’d never let her pay for the trip—though she could have paid for it easily enough. So do you know what she did? She went to Granny, and asked Granny to give her the trip as a wedding present. Granny said all right. But, Mother pointed out to Granny, there was a slight hitch. Suppose Daddy was also too proud to take money from his wife’s mother? She knew darn well he would be! So she had it all worked out. The money was to come from a mysterious donor. The mystery man, it seems, was a man who worked years and years ago for my great-grandfather here in the West Indies. One night this man accidentally fell off the top of one of the watchtowers in the sugar fields—you’ve seen those towers. They’re about ten feet high and if you fell off one you couldn’t possibly do more than skin your knee. But this poor man, when he fell off, broke every bone in his body and lay there, at death’s door, for hours until my great-grandfather discovered him, and picked him up and carried him—piggy-back, I suppose—for miles and miles to a doctor and saved his life. As the years went by, the man
became very rich—as though anybody who worked for my great-grandfather ever got rich—but he never forgot old Meredith Harper and the piggy-back ride, that noble deed that long-ago night in the islands. And so, from time to time, that grateful man gives nice big presents to old Meredith Harper’s family. Like when someone gets married. A big cashier’s check comes from darling Mr. Anonymous. How do you like that, Arch? That’s my mother!”

  He shakes his head back and forth. “And this is the same mother who’s just turned you down on your gallery,” he says.

  “Yes. On a fifty-centime postcard. Well, I was probably wrong to try to turn to the family for financing. That’s why I’ve decided to raise the money from—outside sources.” She pauses, stirring her drink with its plastic twirler. “Poor dear, dumb, sweet Daddy fell for it hook, line, and sinker. ‘What a wonderful man your grandfather must have been, Diana!’ he said to Mother. I guess he said it all the way around the world. And meanwhile, poor Granny was paying for everything and getting none of the credit! That’s what my mother’s like, you see. Her whole marriage starts out on a cheat and a lie, and she’s tickled pink that her husband doesn’t know the difference. Mr. Grateful sent along another big check when they bought their first house. ‘Isn’t Mother clever?’ she said to me. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘a clever cheat.’ No, I didn’t say that, that’s not true—but I thought it, Arch. I couldn’t say it to her, but I thought it. And I thought how wrong it was of Granny to go along with such a thing, but then I guess Mother is Granny’s daughter, and Daddy was … Daddy is—Why do I speak of Daddy in the past tense? He is. A stupid, wonderful, dumb, nice man. He’s … I go to see him now and then; not too often any more. He’s married again, and has a whole slew of children whose names I get mixed up, and he said to me once—oh, it was long after he was rid of Mother—he said—” Leona hesitates, momentarily thinking she has forgotten the point, lost the thread. “He said, ‘I’ve simply never understood your mother, Leo.’ He calls me Leo, the only one who does. It’s because I was born in August, under the sign of Leo.” (Doctor Hardman’s hard voice rolls into her head: “Are you sure it isn’t because your father wanted a boy?” And her reply, “Oh, that’s too easy!”)