Letty Fox

by Christina Stead

  “Of course he sleeps with her,” said I, who was reading a book in the corner; “they have only one bed, and he doesn’t sleep with us, and he stays here until two in the morning.”

  Grandmother smiled and patted my head. She gave me a tenshilling note and told me to go down to the sweets counter in the hotel and buy myself anything I liked, a box of chocolates, a big doll. As soon as she thought I had gone, or even before I had closed the door, she said squarely to my mother, “Well, Mathilde, he’s yours; he’ll never go back to her if you have sense.”

  “Oh, heavens,” said Mother, “it’s so dreadful.”

  Grandmother said firmly, “Women are supposed to have children anyhow. What are you doing in life? She hasn’t had the sense to have a baby yet. Until she does he’ll never marry her. He’s too poor to keep more than one family. Wear him down. And the other thing.”

  “He’ll say I’ve trapped him.”

  “You are supposed to. Why do you think laws were made? Otherwise all our fine feathered friends would be running out on us all the time. Your father, you know, Mattie, had some cutie or other the whole time as far as I know. I simply took no notice. Men invented the tourist business. We can’t take notice of that. The only trouble with modern women is they take it to heart. Forget it. You marry a man. You expect him to keep on bringing you candy and flowers. Forget it. You can’t get men to wear their home address on their—collar. Never mind, though dogs they are! Don’t be a fool! You’ve got to get yourself another baby. Wear him out. If you don’t take this chance, I can’t do anything more for you. I can’t worry about you at my time of life. I’ve got Phyllis to get off; I’d like to marry that old maid of mine. What am I doing with an old maid?” She laughed, and moved her chair “You must be anemic, Mathilde, and Stella’s too tough, too bossy.” After a moment, she added, “But Stella had bites, don’t fear, she had her chances, but she’s difficult to please. Now Sol himself—”

  My mother said, “Oh, don’t rake that up. I didn’t take Sol from Stella. That’s her imagination.”

  “Suppose you did? I wouldn’t blame him. You’re better looking and you used to dress lovely. Not now. You ought to brighten yourself up a bit. Get yourself a new hat—I’ll pay for it—”

  “Oh, Mother, surely you don’t—a hat! What’s the use!”

  “I know what I’m talking about. You get yourself a new costume and a new hat and put on a bit of powder, and don’t forget—the other thing—”

  “Oh, I don’t see what all this is. I want a man to love me. I love him.”

  “You talk like a high-school girl. That’s all over, for the time being. Wait till you’re an old woman like me.” She laughed knowingly, “Right now, Mattie, you’ve got to think about your future and getting some security for the little girls. You don’t want them to be insecure? It’s your duty. I have no sympathy with this about love between decent, married people, with children to bring up. I want to see you with a good rent-payer, a good provider, a man to keep you in nice clothes and send the children to nice schools, and give them nice clothes too, so they can meet the right boys. It’s selfish to keep crying about love, love. Look at Sol. He talks about love, love. Do you care about that? You see? You don’t care about his love, love.”

  She laughed solidly, “I’m the one who can afford it, love, love. I can pay for it. I’ve got the time and money. I wouldn’t be so crazy— knock my head against a stone wall before I had money in the bank?” She laughed aloud, “Go on, wake up, you crazy fool, you’re just a kid. When you’re forty or forty-five, it’ll be time to think about necking and—” her voice softened—“love—and men—and all that. But you’ve got to get Sol back right now and that’s the whole problem. Leave the rest to God. He’ll take care of a decent woman, who takes care of her family life.”

  “Then I’m to have no life of my own!”

  “You must sacrifice yourself for Tootsy and Jacky,” said Grandmother heroically. “I swear to you, Mattie, I never had anything serious to do with a man till all you children were grown up. I had a sense of duty.”

  I heard my mother crying, and ran off downstairs. As there was a doll there which cost twelve-and-sixpence, I gave the woman seven-and-sixpence for it, telling her Grandmother would pay for the rest. When she gave me the change, I bought some bull’s-eyes, licorice, and a pair of Irish crocheted gloves, just my size. When I ran upstairs and showed these to my grandmother, impudently laughing and cuddling her solid thighs, she stared a moment. Then her clear, brown eyes smiled. She turned to my mother who was looking forlornly at me, and said, “Mathilde, just look at this kid! Come on, kiss Grandma, you little monkey. What’ll you be now? An embezzler, a counterfeiter? Signing my name to checks? You’d better not, you little devil. I’ll warm your little tail for you. Don’t you do so any more, do you hear? Mathilde, I wish your kid was in your place for a week or two. She’d get her daddy back, wouldn’t you, Letty?”

  “He will come back,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Grandmother asked.

  “He’s sick of Persia,” I said, noticing how keenly this hurt my mother, and laughing somewhat. “She nearly had a baby and she was sick, but he didn’t want the baby, so he’ll leave her now.”

  “Little imp of mischief,” said my mother, breathing hard, staring at me. “How do you know this? Who is Persia?”

  “Someone told me,” I said.

  “Who, who told you?”

  “I heard Lily telling Grandma Fox in New York.”

  “By the way,” said Grandmother Morgan thoughtfully, turning to my mother, “have you heard from Mrs. Fox?”

  “No; why should I tell her how I’m living and the situation I’m in. She never liked me.”

  “In cases like this, women always stand together,” said Grandmother seriously; “sit down and write a letter to her, Mattie, asking after her health and say Sol is so anxious to see her. Besides, you should. She’s your mother-in-law. I don’t believe in family quarrels. Families should stand together. You see, also,” she said, twinkling, “you could find out something, maybe! Write! Wire! You’re anemic, I think. No sense of business at all. You were right to try to be an actress.”

  “I was a failure,” said my mother.

  “Oh—” cried Grandmother, blowing out her cheeks and taking a few strides up the carpet, “fiddlesticks! Everyone’s a failure till he succeeds. If you die before you’re married, you’re an old maid too. Ha-ha! Fiddlesticks! Write to her; send her my love. Say I’m anxious to have her at my new hotel in the White Mountains the very minute it’s opened. I have a special room for her, little white curtains, a tree right outside the window, ground floor; she doesn’t have to climb. Everything nice. Running hot, cold. She can have a bathroom to herself if she wants it, tell her. I don’t have to make good if I don’t open the hotel, do I? What do I care? I’m doing it for you. Tell her there’s going to be a swell crowd there, all furs, diamonds, roast chickens, apartments with bathrooms. Ha-ha! Tell her anything. I’ll make good if you get that boy back, Mattie; I’ll give you a suit of furniture. Now, catch the mail. Wait, I’ll go down to Montrose’s office and ask him to send a cable for me. I’ll tell him, never mind. I’ll manage it—give me her address. I’ll cable, cable. She’ll be tickled pink. You write. Now, mind! I’ve got to run. Good-bye! Write! Write! Give her my love. I always think of her. How’s her arthritis?”

  Grandmother rushed out, a flurry of skirts, furs, and a breeze of heavy, expensive perfume, a strong satin prow, and a strong satin stern.

  Since Grandmother started her own love affairs so late, it’s unlikely that she found out the value of her peculiarities. By that time her figure though tightly bound was besieged and taken by middle-aged flesh, strong, irreducible.

  There is a lot of superstition about what is beautiful in a woman; only a grown woman, with considerable experience of men, knows what is really attractive. I saw a model in an art class, a white girl, with the figure considered ideal in our America, and in fa
ct, in this year, she had been chosen the most beautiful model. She had a silly, pink face with her nose in the air and a wax smile. Quite naked, she was safe from rape or desire, while a fat coarse dragon in her tight satin made the men stir and laugh. I have noticed this, too, looking at myself, standing without stockings, in a short slip, with my hair down, before going to bed in a strange place where I have not brought my nightdress. Perhaps some men enjoy my maturity in prospect, while I am still young enough for them. They think of all kinds of things, most unpleasant and dishonest; that is what they call knowing women. I used to be very unhappy.

  Who said, “Love is prostitution of self ?”—Baudelaire. He went to whores and so he thought thus. For these men, too, whores are the most romance they’ll get out of life, and if they meet a girl who is not wanton, they wantonize her in their minds. Yes, but I cannot think it of them when I love them. But there are dull moments when I ask myself what I am to love such wantons. Is this what he meant?

  But the time when I learned all this was when I was eighteen and nineteen. Now I am not a woman to be generally handled by this type of man. At this time I was speaking of, though, when I first noticed Grandmother’s figure and observed that I was a little like her, my idea of love was not fleshly. I merely thought I would be a little queen and pulverize them, ruin them, make them cut their throats, tread on their bleeding hearts, kick them, laugh (as Jacky and I often laughed out hard, mirthful cackles), and fall swooning in the arms of some matinee idol.

  None of my daydreams was secret. In one of them which I told very often, regiments of men stood before me, dreaming of my favors. I went down the line, selecting one, throwing out another. All kinds of reasons occurred to me. I loaded them with blistering insults. They fell on their faces and howled, or fell backwards and mangled themselves in some juicy way.

  The questions of love and marriage, which appeared to be the only questions in the feminine society we lived in, now began to form the conversation my sister and I had. There was room for speculation. Our female friends did not know the answers to most of their own questions and this entertained them, too, enormously. They had always plenty to talk about. For example, they never knew what attracted a man to a given girl. They could discuss this for days. The reasons they gave were very instructive for us. Jacky would sit, very attentive, with her eyes wide open, trying to picture the girls they spoke about; thus,

  “It’s because she was fresh; had no one before—because she knows how to handle men—knows the tricks of the trade—has that baby stare—is so naive, he feels ashamed—is a blonde; has those great, dark eyes; knows so much; knows nothing—started to have a baby—did not saddle him with a baby—”

  Impossible to become corrupt in this school for girls, for no one had the recipe for anything. Even Grandmother’s recipe for getting Solander back had not yet worked, and Grandmother didn’t seem to care much.

  My father and mother went away with us for a week end to Folkestone. They roomed together, but this didn’t cure their separation. When I reached London, my parents went to their different addresses. On the way down Mother had expressed a delicate reluctance to sleep with my father when he had come straight from the arms of “that woman”; and then she had cried bitterly nearly all the way to Folkestone, that it was so degrading, and it was this, perhaps, that changed their week end. My father then told my mother that he was not actually living with Persia any more, while Mathilde was in London, and out of respect for her feelings they had both thought it better to live separately. And Persia had gone on a trip to Antwerp for Montrose. She would work there for Montrose.

  “And will continue to do so while I am here?” said my mother, astonished.

  “Yes,” said Solander.

  My mother made no reply, and cried no more. Even toward the end of the day she began to laugh and pull our ears playfully.

  My father told a joke and she laughed; at Folkestone they went straight up to their room.

  My mother was quite pleasant on the way back, though she clouded over as London approached. Outside, she hailed a taxi and said to my father, “Let’s go straight home, I want to change the girls’ dresses. Then I’ll put them to bed and we can go to the movies.”

  “I am not coming with you,” said Sol. “This was a little vacation for us.”

  Mother, almost without taking thought, groaned, “Oh,” and flung herself on my father. People looked, we both went red, and Jacky began to cry. My father comforted Mathilde and then said, “That’s enough, my dear, now get into the taxi.”

  My mother bawled out, in a strange, affecting contralto, “Oh, don’t leave me; don’t leave me!”

  After a few more words, Solander tried to put her into the taxi, telling us to jump in, and we anxiously scurried in, but my mother, brave in her desolation, cried out to the taxi driver, “Oh, don’t go yet, my husband’s leaving me. He’s sending me off while he goes to another woman. My husband’s left me. What shall I do? Oh, don’t go away till I make him come home with me.”

  And she turned to the people passing out of the station, saying, with her eyes full of tears, “Help me! Help me! My husband’s leaving me.”

  The men hurried past with eyes full of shame and curiosity; the women went even faster, blowing, waddling, with wooden faces. No one came to help my mother. She looked wonderfully handsome, with her face all black and white, smudged with tears, and her brown, curly hair loose on her shoulders, so I could see looking out of the taxi door, but I was deeply ashamed and said, “Mother, Mother, everyone’s looking!”

  “I’ll come to the hotel with you, but this must be the end,” said my father. Mother at once bowed her thin shoulders and stooped in among us, while my father gravely gave the address to the driver. Night was falling. My father sat with a convulsed face, staring ahead; tears were in his eyes.

  “Your happiness is built on my ruin,” said Mother in a low voice.

  “Do you think I am happy?”

  “And you are ruining your children for that woman. What future have they?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” said my father.

  “She is only one; we are four. What is love now? We’re too old for love,” and my mother began crying again.

  When we reached the hotel, my father said quickly, “I’ll pay the driver and take Letty for a walk. I want to get her her comics. Jacky, go up with your mother, I’ll be back later.”

  Then he began walking quickly away, while I ran and panted to keep up with him. He said to me, “Letty, I can’t explain things to you because you can’t understand the lives of adults. I’m just going to have to do what seems the right thing and trust that you’ll understand years later—if they don’t poison you against me. That’s the wrong word. I don’t mean poison. I mean your mother is very unhappy and she sees only her troubles!”

  He then said he was going home to his chambers to telephone, was taking me with him because he had little time, and that, therefore, I would see Persia.

  “I lied to your mother to keep her happy, and I have lied to Persia to keep her happy. I’m in a mess of lies and I’m an honest man.”

  “Why, Papa?”

  “And you must lie, too, in order to keep your mother happy. You must not tell her what you see here in my home. Tell her nothing. Tell no one anything. You can do that. But I am taking you with me because I can’t lie to you little girls, really. That’s all.”

  “Don’t you want to live with us, Papa? Don’t you love us any more?”

  “Stop that,” he said angrily, “those aren’t your words.”

  I hung my head with shame and irritation. How clever he was! When we came to the chambers, in mid-London, we climbed three or four flights of stairs and reached a top floor. Under the attics was a furnished apartment with two or three rooms. It was hard to say whether two or three, for the bedroom was an ingle.

  Persia, with her glossy hair loose, in a blue dress, kissed my father heartily and chattered away without any suspicion of scolding
. I was surprised. As usual she took no more notice of me than if I had been an adult. She did not say, “Darling little Letty,” or “What lovely eyes,” or any of the things to which I was used. I sat and stared at her jealously. There was nothing special about her and she had not even good manners. She jerked about. Her voice went brittle or thin at odd moments. She grimaced and jumped in excitement. She seemed a schoolgirl. She used no endearments with my father, but it was, “Sol, Solly, Sol,” all the time. My father laughed, jumped about also, showed things to me, told jokes, and said it was a pity I could not stay for dinner. I looked very black.

  When my father went in the bathroom and shut the door, I told Persia that all four of us had spent the week end at Folkestone and that my mother and father had slept in the same room.

  “Did they?” she said, and looked at me steadily. I continued, “We had a lovely time, we went to everything, and we met people we knew in America and soon we’re all going back, Papa said.”

  Persia said nothing, but looked at me.

  “Mummy and Papa—”

  I was glad that Solander arrived at this moment, for I had run out of ideas, and I now wanted to see the fireworks. Persia went on talking as if nothing had happened. I was puzzled by this. For a moment I had a queer feeling that I had dreamed it all, that I hadn’t opened my mouth. Presently, we went and, “Good-bye” said Persia, coldly. Probably, she never mentioned my revelations. It seemed strange to me that the first blow I had struck for Mother disappeared in this magical way. I could not tell anyone about it either. My father left me at the door of the hotel.

  When I came upstairs, my mother merely looked gloomy, and said, “He must think I’m a child.”

  I sat in full view trying to convey to Jacky by signs that I had again seen Die Konkubine. I wriggled and became mirthful, for Jacky had never seen the fabulous creature. At last Jacky came over from her book and I whispered, “I saw Die Konkubine.”

  “Oh, you’re a liar!”