Those Harper Women

by Stephen Birmingham

  They rode homeward in silence. Edith held her horse back to let Charles’ take the lead. Watching his back as she rode behind him under the pine trees, she was glad that he couldn’t see her face.

  That night, after he had left for New York, Edith was feverish. Mary Miles, fearing influenza, had doctored her with many pills and potions from her large supply. And Edith, listening to Mary’s instructions, had wanted badly to ask Mary something about a woman’s desires. But how could she ever ask questions like that of someone named Miss Mary Miles?

  Two days later, Edith’s mother said to her, “Do you remember our little wager, dear? Well, now I’m not sure who’s won the dollar, you or I.”

  “Why, Mama?”

  “Before I’d even had a chance to invite her to tea, Mrs. Blakewell has invited us—you and me! On Friday, at four, at her house on Fifth Avenue! Isn’t that exciting? Didn’t I tell you she’d see me? Don’t you think that dollar rightfully belongs to me?”

  On Friday, when they were preparing to leave the house, while the chauffeur and Daimler waited to drive them to the city, Dolly Harper’s nerves were in a highly disordered state. She kept plucking at Edith’s dress, and at her own, asking questions: “Do I look all right? Is this hat right? Do you think she’ll ask me to call her Nancy?”

  They went out the door and got into the car. They started down the drive. In the back seat of the car, Dolly Harper kept rubbing Edith’s gloved fingers between her own. “If some of those St. Thomas women could see me now!” she crowed.

  They passed through the gate, and her mother said, “That was the Frenchman. He waved at us.”

  “What?” Edith said. And then, “Oh. I didn’t notice him.” Which was true.

  Edith Blakewell’s reverie is interrupted now by the sound of footsteps running up the stairs. She snaps on her bedside light. “Leona, is that you?” she calls.

  “Yes!”

  “Is something the matter?”

  “Nothing! Good night!” Leona’s footsteps run down the hall and into her room.

  Edith gets out of bed, puts on her slippers and robe, and goes out into the hall, where Leona’s door stands open. “Leona …”

  But Leona is in the bathroom, and the door is closed, and Edith can hear water running. Edith waits, and finally the bathroom door opens and Leona stands in the doorway, looking very strange, her hand on her forehead, her face damp. In her other hand she holds a wet washcloth.

  “Oh, Granny …”

  “What’s happened? Are you sick?”

  Leona walks slowly to her dressing table and stands in front of it. She sways slightly. Then she rubs her face hard with the washcloth.

  “I’ll bet you’ve got the bug the tourists get.”

  Leona shakes her head. “Direct appeals,” she says. “Direct appeals are always useless.” She laughs shortly. “Ask a favor and make a foe. Wouldn’t you think I’d learn that little rule?” She goes now to her bed and sits down heavily on it. She opens her purse and fumbles, Edith thinks, for a cigarette. But then there is a sudden long, choking sob, and Edith sees that Leona has her transparencies in her hands, pulling at them as if to rip them apart. “What are you doing?” Edith cries, rushing to her. “Stop it!” Clutching at Leona’s hands, she tries to force them apart and for a moment or two they struggle there at the edge of the bed. “Stop this!” Edith says. “Behave yourself! Stop being hysterical!” Leona’s hands fly apart and, released, the transparencies scatter across the bed. “Now stop this, Leona!” Edith repeats. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  Leona has fallen now, sobbing, across the bed.

  “Harpers are not put together with flour paste and water!” Edith says. “Behave yourself! Sit up! Tell me what’s the matter!” Edith collects the transparencies, one by one. “Your beautiful pictures,” she mutters. “What’s to be accomplished by tearing them to pieces?”

  “Oh, Granny! He’s … he was so … damned … mean. Why are people so damned—mean!”

  “Self-indulgence!” Edith snaps. “Who are you talking about? Your short-necked man? I told you I didn’t like his looks!”

  Leona says nothing for a moment. Then she sits up on one arm. She fishes in her purse again, this time for a handkerchief. She blows her nose noisily. “Sorry, Granny,” she says. “You’re right. Self-indulgence.”

  “Leona,” Edith says, “I want to know what’s the matter.”

  “I’m broke,” she says. “That’s all. I’m broke, and so I’m scared.”

  “What are you talking about!”

  “Broke. Flat broke. I have thirty-two hundred dollars in the savings bank. When that’s gone, there’ll be nothing left. I’m scared.”

  “Thirty-two hundred dollars! Come now!”

  “That’s all. I figure it might last me six months in New York—maybe a little longer.” She pauses, twisting the handkerchief around her index finger. “Well,” she says in a flat voice. “Now you know. That’s it.”

  “That isn’t possible. What about—” But suddenly Edith does not know: What about what? She can’t remember, all at once, what it is Leona has. She has always had something, an income. How can she be broke when she has an income from—oh, yes, of course, the things she got from Edith’s mother’s estate. Leona was left a nice share of Mama’s things—didn’t someone tell her Leona would have at least ten thousand a year? And besides, there is Diana—who got such a giant share of Papa’s money, more than Edith herself. No, it is not possible.

  “You’re simply being dramatic,” Edith says. “You’re indulging in histrionics. What makes you think you have no money?”

  “I don’t think. I know, Granny.”

  “But what about the things you got from Mama? Mama’s—”

  “Gone. Sold.”

  “Mama’s Du Pont?”

  “Sold.”

  Her Du Pont stock was one of the things that supported Mama all those years after Papa died and left his money to Harold, Arthur, and Diana.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I sold it. All of it.”

  Edith’s reaction now is simple fury. “Who gave you permission to do this?” she demands. “What right have you got to sell—”

  “I owned it, and I sold it! I didn’t have to get permission from anybody, Granny!”

  Edith looks hard at her. “Edouardo?” she says softly.

  Leona nods.

  “The Spaniards,” she breathes. “Dear God, I thought it was only the earrings.” And then, angry again, “How could you let them do such a thing? Are you flour paste? Did you just lie there like a lump and let them rob you?”

  “I guess—at the time—I thought it was worth it, worth anything, to get out of it.”

  “Dear God. Dear God in heaven. That terrible man.”

  Leona buries her head, once more, in the coverlet. “Now please, Granny … go away and leave me alone. I feel awful enough.”

  But Edith sits there—too stunned, actually, to move at this point. “Does your mother know about this?”

  “Of course,” she says into the coverlet. “And what was her answer? It’s fun at the Ritz. Direct appeals—always useless.”

  “Ssh!” Edith says. “I’m trying to think. Obviously, we’ve got to do something. Three thousand in a bank—you can’t live on that.”

  Leona says nothing.

  “I suppose that’s why you were thinking of an art gallery,” she says. “But starting a gallery would cost money, I suppose.”

  “I asked Mother for fifty thousand dollars—just as a loan! For the gallery. I promised to pay her interest—everything.”

  “Well, I’d have known better than to do that,” Edith says. “Your mother only understands money when it’s going into her pocket, not out of it. Why didn’t you ask me, Leona?”

  Leona looks up at her again. “Granny, don’t you know I was ashamed of how I’d messed things up? I didn’t want you do know—ever.”

  “Well, now I know.”

  “I’m
such a flop at everything.”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself! After all, you are my heir. When I’m dead practically everything I have will go to you—you know that. So all this is, really, is a temporary crisis.”

  “Please don’t talk that way—”

  “Hush, I’m trying to think. Obviously, I’m going to take care of you. If Diana won’t, I will. So you’re not going to starve. I could put you on an allowance, or—why not? I could advance you the money for your gallery. I could even do that, I suppose …”

  “Granny—”

  “I don’t keep that kind of money lying around the house, naturally. It will take a little time. Or wait a minute—I’ve just thought of something. Why couldn’t I give you a share of your inheritance right now? My father did that—once—for me. My lawyer has been suggesting it himself—saying I should begin distributing things, little by little, so that everything my heirs inherit won’t be gobbled up by taxes …”

  “You’re only—entitled to one kind thing!” Now Leona is crying again. “This will make two—I can’t take two—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, I see no reason why we couldn’t work out something. I’ll contact Harold—”

  “If he knows it’s for me, he’ll never let you have anything.”

  “Now wait a minute, Leona. Harold does not control everything of mine. My trust from Papa, yes. But not the Harper stock I got from Mama. That’s mine, free and clear. Harold merely banks it for me.”

  Leona sits straight up now and looks at Edith. “Granny,” she says soberly, “rather than give me any money, please make it a loan. I want to start off on the right foot with this, you see. I want it to be businesslike. I want to pay you interest. I want—”

  “Oh, well,” Edith sighs, suddenly weary. “We’ll talk about the details tomorrow, Leona. It really doesn’t matter to me. The main thing is, we’ll work it out.” She stands up. “I take it you approached the short-necked man about your—financial problem,” she says.

  Leona lowers her eyes for a moment. Then she shrugs. “Someone told me he was rich,” she says.

  “Your great-grandfather may not have been a saint, Leona, but he was not flour paste, and he was not a nincompoop. He used to say, ‘Where money is concerned, stay within the family.’ It’s good advice. Remember it. Don’t go to outsiders for it, and don’t,” she adds with a significant look “go throwing it away to outsiders, either, without finding out who they are and what they want it for. Now get some sleep.” She turns to go.

  But Leona reaches out quickly and catches Edith’s arm. “Granny,” she says urgently, “just tell me one thing! Tell me you believe in my gallery! That’s terribly important for me to know! Not just that you’re going to help me with it.” And suddenly Leona’s voice quavers. “Because sometimes I’m not sure I believe in it myself! Say you believe in it, Granny!”

  Edith hesitates, looking down at her. “Why—why, of course I believe in it,” she says, but her tone is doubtful. “Of course—”

  Leona smiles. “Thank you, Granny.” She releases her arm.

  “Now, good night.” Edith goes toward the door.

  “Granny!” Leona calls. “I love you! I love you so!”

  Her hand on the door, Edith says, “And I love you too, Leona.”

  But all the way down the hall to her bedroom, Edith cannot rid her mind of the Spaniard—the painted Spaniard—of all people! Of all the people in the world to have gotten Leona’s money away from her—Mama’s Du Pont, Mama’s other things—this is the last, the least, the most despicable, the most horrible person who could have got it. And yet he got it, apparently, just like that! In the cold hall, Edith shivers, shudders with disgust. And the next thought is, of course, inevitable. After she dies, it is terrible to think it, but Edith can see it: all her own money being randomly distributed, little by little or large by large, to a long succession of Spaniards down the corridor of years.

  Eleven

  Two days have passed. It is Saturday afternoon, and Leona is off at the beach.

  Sibbie Sanderson’s new picture, which Sibbie thinks is not her Arbeit, has just arrived at Edith Blakewell’s house. Arbeit or not, it is certainly very large, and Edith has no idea where she is going to put it. “Just put it there, against the stairs,” she says to the native boy who has delivered it. “Goodness, it’s immense!”

  After he goes, she studies the picture. It is mostly green trees, with stretches of blue water between, but in the lower left-hand corner is a rather graceful reclining female nude. The nude is the best thing in the picture, Edith thinks, and she considers snipping that corner of the canvas out and framing it, throwing away the rest. She could do that but, of course, Sibbie would have umpteen fits.

  Edith returns to her desk where, for the last day and a half, she has been hard at work organizing things. Since dispatching her telegram to Harold with instructions to sell two thousand shares of her Harper stock, she has been determined to make her own base of operations, the desk, shipshape; if there is going to be a change in the order of things, there must first be order. The big desk contains packages of old letters bearing ancient, faded two-cent stamps commemorating such events as the Hudson-Fulton Celebration and the opening of the Panama Canal (Valuable stamps? she wonders; better save them, just in case); bank statements back as far as 1909; yellowed newspaper clippings; old theatre programs; dress patterns; hints, scissored from the pages of a woman’s magazine, on how to install a Turkish corner in one’s living room; an advertisement for orthopedic corsets; a cigar box full of old buttons; and much, much more. Astonishing, what a detritus of stuff descends upon one during one’s life. Edith becomes momentarily sidetracked by the discovery of an old photograph album in one of the drawers, and there they all are as they once were, in their ferrotype poses: herself, in a studio portrait, her hair in the style of a Harrison Fisher girl, sniffing a rose; and there are Arthur and Harold, Papa and Mama—Mama looking chic but haggard, standing stiffly in front of the Daimler, squinting at the camera, very much as she must have looked that afternoon they set off for tea together. Odd, she thinks, the way something seems to go out of a photograph of a person after the person has died; she is sure that a stranger could tell, looking at these pages, the living from the dead. There is even a photograph of Charles’ mother.…

  She is so absorbed in the photograph album that she does not hear Leona come in, and she is a little startled to hear Leona’s voice asking, behind her, “Were there any calls for me, Granny?”

  She turns. “Calls?” Leona’s face is bright from the beach. “No, no calls.”

  “Eddie … Winslow didn’t call, did he?”

  “No. What was the expression we used here during the war? Telephone silence, there has been telephone silence today. Were you—”

  Leona has turned toward the hall. “My God,” she says, pointing. “What’s that?”

  “What? Oh, it’s Sibbie’s new painting. She’s given it to me. I—I rather like it, don’t you?”

  “Lord! She can’t even draw!”

  Edith hesitates. “I thought the figure, the nude in the corner, was rather nice …”

  Leona laughs. “Well, I suppose it’s all right—if you’re a raging lesbian like the woman who painted it! Well, I’ve got to rush, Granny.”

  “Now just a minute, Leona!” Edith says sharply. “Sibbie is a very old and dear friend of mine. I won’t have you speaking like that about her. Sibbie’s just a little mannish, that’s all. Now come in here a minute and sit down. There’s something I want to discuss with you—an idea I have.”

  “Will it wait, Granny?” Leona says. “Please? I really want to go out now and start combing the town for Eddie Winslow. I’m worried. I haven’t heard from him. His hotel room doesn’t answer.”

  “What do you need to see him for? I thought that was all over.”

  Leona frowns. “It isn’t like him to leave without even calling me to say good-by. I’d just like to
find him, to say good-by.”

  “And end it on a pleasant note? Well, all right.”

  “I won’t be late, Granny. But it may be after dinner. We’ll talk then.”

  “All right,” Edith says.

  Leona pauses in the doorway. “You haven’t—changed your mind about the gallery, have you, Granny?”

  “No,” Edith says carefully. “No, it isn’t that.”

  “Well, I’ll see you later, then.” She blows Edith a kiss, and is gone.

  Edith returns to the album pages.

  “When Edith was a very little girl,” Edith remembers her mother saying as she held a shell-thin teacup, “I tried to explain to her why it was necessary for us to move to St. Thomas. How old were you then, dear? Seven or eight?” They sat in the drawing room of Mrs. Blakewell’s house, a brownstone on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 36th Street. It was not a large room, but it was elegantly furnished, all in pale cream and gold. Ailanthus leaves from the trees on the street outside dappled the windows and created a green shade.

  With her teacup poised, Dolly Harper mused. “Let’s see, my husband acquired his West Indian sugar interests in ninety-five, and it was a few months after that—yes, Edith would have been about seven, and I tried to explain to her why we had to go, and Edith kept saying, ‘But Mama, why do we have to move? Why do we have to go and live with the Indians?’ Indians! Imagine! And I said to her, ‘But Edith dear, your Papa has made a little money in rum, and so we must go to the West Indies to help him make his rum.’ And little Edith looked up at me and said—” Dolly Harper made a long face in imitation of the way Edith had looked at her “—and said, ‘Mama, what is rum?’ Oh, my! Isn’t that a funny story? ‘Mama, what is rum?’” Dolly Harper laughed gaily, and sipped her tea.

  Mrs. Thomas Blakewell smiled at Edith. “Poor little waif,” she said in her throaty voice, “you must not have known what to make of it.” Then, turning to Edith’s mother, she said, “Edith is your eldest child, Mrs. Harper?”