Polly found she had agreed to marry Jim without ever being aware of saying Yes. That night they had dinner and danced, and he took her home. They kissed a long time in his car in front of her apartment. When she went upstairs, finally, she still did not know whether she loved him or not. It had all happened too quickly. But she was relieved that she was going to marry him, and she wondered whether this was immoral. In the old days, people used to say that gratitude could turn to love—could that be true? She had liked kissing him, but that might be just sex. Sex, Polly had concluded, was not a reliable test of love. What bothered her most was the thought that she and Jim had so little in common—a phrase she kept repeating anxiously to herself. Outside the hospital, they had not a single common acquaintance. And as for those old friends, the characters in books—King Arthur and Sir Lancelot and Mr. Micawber and Mr. Collins and Vronsky and darling Prince Andrei, who were like members of the family—why, Jim seemed hardly to recall them. When she mentioned Dr. Lydgate tonight, he confessed he had never read Middlemarch—only Silas Marner in school, which he hated. He could not read novels, he said, and he had no preference between Hector and Achilles. At least both Jim and she knew the Bible and they both had been science majors, but was that enough? He was more intelligent than she was, but he had not had a Vassar education. And she was insular, like all the Andrews. Why else would they have kept marrying their cousins if not to share the same jokes, the same memories, the same grandparents or great-grandparents even? What would Jim talk about with her brothers, who were only interested in farming now and either discussed feeds and beef-cattle prices or swapped lines from Virgil’s Georgics, the way other bumpkins swapped dirty stories? They would have bored Polly stiff if she had not known them all her life. And then there were all the old cousins and second cousins who would come out of their holes for her wedding at the smell of champagne. Not that she would have champagne; Aunt Julia’s greatest “sacrifice” had been dumping the champagne she had been saving for Polly’s wedding. What would a psychiatrist make of the whole Andrews clan? Polly’s mother still described her feelings on meeting them as a young bride from New York. “Your father and I,” she now said, “have never been compatible. I was too normal for Henry.” But no one would guess that, seeing her on the farm dressed in overalls with a finger wave in her majestic coiffure. These thoughts had never troubled Polly when she had dreamed of marriage with Gus, which proved, perhaps, she decided, that she had never believed in that marriage. This time, she was trying to be realistic.
When she came in, her father, who was a night owl, was still awake. She felt sure he would notice the change in her, though she had combed her hair and put on lipstick in the car, and she was reluctant to confess to him that she had got engaged in a single night. Luckily, his mind was elsewhere. He had been waiting for her to come home to tell her, as he said, an important piece of news. “He’s going to get married,” she exclaimed to herself. But no; he had got a job. In a thrift shop on Lexington Avenue, where he was going to be assistant to the manageress, who ran it for a charity. The pay was not much, but he had only to sit in the shop afternoons and talk to customers; he would have his mornings to himself.
“Why, that’s wonderful, Father!” said Polly. “How did you ever get it?” “Julia arranged it,” he said. “Julia’s on the board. The position’s usually kept for ‘reduced gentlewomen,’ but she lobbied me through. I believe I’m being exchanged for a club membership. ‘Henry knows wood’ was her slogan.” “That’s wonderful,” Polly repeated. “When do you start?” “Tomorrow. This afternoon the manageress explained my duties to me and itemized the stock. A preponderance of white elephants. The stuff is all donated.” “Is it all bric-a-brac?” said Polly. “By no means. We have second-hand furs, children’s clothes, old dinner jackets, maids’ and butlers’ uniforms. A great many of those, thanks to the late unpleasantness.” This was his name for the depression. Polly frowned; she did not like the thought of her father selling old clothes. “They come from the best houses,” he said. “And there are amusing French dolls and music boxes. Armoires, étagères, jardinieres. Whatnots, umbrella stands, marble-topped commodes. Gilt chairs for musicales. Gold-headed canes, fawn gloves, opera hats, fans, Spanish combs, mantillas, a harp. Horsehair sofas. An instructive inventory of the passé.”
“But what made Aunt Julia think of finding you a job?” “I asked her for money. This spurred her to find work for me so that, as she nicely phrased it, I ‘would not have to beg.’ Had I asked her to look out for a job for me, she would have told me I was too old.” “Was this one of your deep-laid plots?” “Quite the reverse. But now that it’s happened, I find myself pleased to be a breadwinner. I’ve joined the working class. And of course Julia plans to exploit me.” “How?” “Well, ‘Henry knows wood.’ I’m to keep a sharp eye out in the event that a bit of Sheraton or Hepplewhite pops in from an attic. Then I’m to set it aside for her quietly.” “You can’t do that!” said Polly firmly. “That would be cheating the charity.” “Exactly my sister’s design. As she confided to me, ‘Some of our younger members have no notion of the value of old furniture.’ Through another of her charities, she says, she picked up a rare Aubusson for a song.” Polly made a shocked noise. “But where is it?” Mr. Andrews laughed. “In her storeroom. She’s waiting for its former owner to die. It might be embarrassing for Julia if the lady dropped in to call and found the rug underfoot.” “But why would anyone give a rare Aubusson away?” “The revolution in taste,” said Mr. Andrews. “It’s the only revolution they’re aware of, these ladies. Their daughters persuade them that they must do the house over in the modern manner. Or they say, ‘Mother, why don’t you buy a flat in River House and get rid of some of this junk? I warn you, John and I won’t take a stick of it when you die.’”
It occurred to Polly while he was talking that if she had known this afternoon that he had found work, she might not have sold her blood at the hospital, and in that case she would not be engaged at this moment. It was another of those kinks in time or failures to overlap, like the one that was responsible for her father’s being here now. The idea that she had nearly missed being engaged terrified her, as though that, not this, were her real fate, which she had circumvented by accident, like those people who ought to have gone down on the Titanic and for some reason at the last minute did not sail. This fear showed her that already she must be in love.
The announcement of Polly’s engagement did not surprise any of her friends. They had always known, they said, that there was “somebody” at the hospital. It was only logical that Polly should marry one of the young doctors. “We were counting on it for you, my dear,” said Libby. “We all had our fingers crossed.” It was as if her friends wanted to rob her of the extraordinariness of her love. The implication was that, if it had not been Jim, it would have been Dr. X in obstetrics or Dr. Y in general surgery. And it could never have been anybody else. She had made the great discovery that Jim was good, and this filled her with wonder—most good people were rather elderly. Yet when she tried to communicate this to others, they seemed bewildered, as if she were talking a foreign language. Even her mother did not appear to understand. “Why, yes, Polly, he’s very attractive. And intelligent, I expect. You’re very well suited to each other.” “That’s not what I mean, Mother.” “I suppose you mean he’s a bit of an idealist. But you were bound to marry someone like that. A worldly man wouldn’t have attracted you.”
Only Mr. Schneider and the iceman seemed to feel as she did. The iceman wanted to be assured that her fidanzato was “a good man.” Mr. Schneider went further. “I understand what you are feeling,” he said. “As Socrates showed, love cannot be anything else but the love of the good. But to find the good is very rare. That is why love is rare, in spite of what people think. It happens to one in a thousand, and to that one it is a revelation. No wonder he cannot communicate with the other nine hundred and ninety-nine.”
What did surprise Polly’s friends—though not Mr.
Schneider—was that Mr. Andrews was going to live with the young couple. One by one, her group mates appeared to advise her against this—Pokey Beauchamp made a special trip by plane up from Princeton. Dottie, who was in town with her husband for the theatres and staying at the Plaza, went so far as to talk to Polly’s mother. Even Helena Davison drawled a warning over cocktails in the Vassar Club lounge. Priss Crockett came to lunch in the coffee shop at the hospital. As a pediatrician, Sloan, she said, was terribly opposed. “When you have children, you will have to think of them. Supposing your f-father—?” “Goes mad again,” said Polly. “Would that be so terrible for them, Priss? He was mad off and on when we were children, my brothers and I.” That was different, Priss allowed; in those days, people did not know any better than to expose young children to mental illness—Polly and her brothers had been lucky, that was all. But even if Mr. Andrews were normal, Polly’s friends thought she would be making a terrible mistake—a mistake that this generation, at least, had learned to avoid. You did not have your relations to live with you if you wanted your marriage to succeed; it was the one thing on which you put your foot down. Opinion was unanimous on the point. If Polly wanted to fly in the face of experience, she was practically dooming her marriage from the start.
“And you mean to say your doctor accepts it?” the young matrons of Polly’s circle cried, shocked. “Yes,” said Polly. This astonishing news planted a grave doubt in her friends’ minds. “If he really loves you,” argued Kay, “I should think he would want to be alone with you. Wild horses wouldn’t have persuaded Harald to share me.” Polly did not reply that rumor had it that she and Harald were on the verge of breaking up. “What would you suggest I do with my father?” she demanded quietly instead. “Why can’t he live with your aunt Julia?” “He doesn’t like her,” said Polly. “But she has a huge apartment,” said Kay. “He could have his own quarters. And servants to look after him. He’d be much better off than crowded in with you. What are you going to do with him when you entertain? At your aunt’s he could have a tray.” In her ignorance, Polly had thought that you “lived happily ever after,” unless your husband was unfaithful, but the Class of ’33 seemed to feel that you could not relax for a minute in your drive to make your marriage “go.” Polly was quite willing to make sacrifices, having learned to do so in a big family, but that was not what her classmates meant. It was very important, they thought, for a woman to preserve her individuality; otherwise she might not hold her husband. “At least,” remarked Libby, “you’re not going to take him with you on your honeymoon?” “Of course not,” said Polly impatiently. But soon Polly’s mother wrote, anxiously, wanting to know whether it was true that Henry was going to accompany them on the honeymoon—Louisa Hartshorn had heard it at the Cosmopolitan Club.
The only person who was deaf to the general concern was Mr. Andrews, who had taken it for granted from the outset that he would live with the newlyweds. For him, the problem was architectural: finding an apartment that would house the three of them and not cost too much to fix over. He was looking at railroad apartments on the upper East Side, near Jim’s laboratory; he had seen one on the top floor of an old-law tenement where it would be possible to make skylights to introduce light into the inner rooms. They were going to be married in the spring—on the farm, the plan was; Jim’s parents would come from Ohio, and his father would perform the ceremony. It was Dottie’s hope that Mr. and Mrs. Andrews might be reconciled by the occasion and make it a double wedding. “Your father could be Jim’s best man, and your mother could be your matron of honor. And then vice versa. Terribly original.” She twinkled. “Don’t you love the thought, Polly?”
When Jim heard this, he told Polly that they had better be married right away at City Hall and get it over with. Polly agreed. So as not to hurt anybody’s feelings, they did not even take her father as a witness. They were married by a magistrate, and that night they went to Key West for their honeymoon, sharing a lower berth. From the station they sent telegrams announcing what they had done. Polly’s friends were greatly disappointed that they had not had a chance to give her a shower or any kind of send-off. But they understood that a gay wedding, under the circumstances, would have been more than she could bear. The group was awfully sorry for Polly and would have sent her a floral tribute by telegram if only they had known her address. But naturally she and Jim were lying low, enjoying the last days the two of them would have alone together ever, probably, in their lives. In Dottie’s suite at the Plaza, a few of the girls and their husbands drank a toast to her in absentia. “To her happiness!” they said loyally, clicking glasses. She deserved it if anyone did, the girls affirmed. The men’s sympathies went to Jim Ridgeley, whom they did not know, but as Brook, Dottie’s husband, continued to refill the champagne glasses, they concurred among themselves that he must be an odd gent to take a situation like that lying down.
Thirteen
EARLY ONE MORNING IN March Polly appeared at the Payne Whitney Clinic, Woman’s Division, to give a metabolism test to a mental patient who had been admitted the night before. When she came back from her honeymoon, she had stayed on at the hospital; she hoped she might be pregnant, since they had taken no precautions. If that were the case (and it was still too early to be sure), there would be no point in starting a new job that she would have to leave in October. Jim came to the hospital every day and had lunch with her in the staff dining room, where they held hands under the table. In the evenings Polly’s classmates were busy separating them at a series of “fork suppers” given in their honor. Having joined the ranks of the married, Polly and Jim were not permitted to sit together, but had to balance plates on their laps at opposite ends of a room. These parties, at which everyone was half a couple and lived in an elevator building, gave Polly a vast sense of distance. All the husbands, it went without saying, were “doing awfully well” in fire insurance or banking or magazine work, and her classmates, except for a few rebels, who were not necessarily the same rebels as in college, were “taking their place in society.” Yet there were nights when Polly felt, watching them and listening, that she must be the only girl in the Class of ’33 who was happy.
It was plain to Polly that many of her married classmates were disappointed in their husbands and envied the girls, like Helena, who had not got married. In June the class would have its fifth reunion and already it had its first divorcees. These hares were discussed wistfully by the tortoises of the class. It was felt that they at least had “done something.” Norine Blake’s divorce—she had gone to a ranch outside Reno and now called herself “Mrs. Schmittlapp Blake”—had earned her a place of renown in alumnae affairs equal to that of Connie Storey, who had become a model for Bergdorf, or of Lily Marvin, who dressed windows for Elizabeth Arden, and outranking poor Binkie Barnes, who was working as a C.I.O. organizer, and Bubbles Purdy, who was studying to be a preacher. Within the group itself, only Libby had made her mark. Kay, once so vital, had ceased to be a pace setter. Last year rumor had had it that she, who had been the first of the class to be married, would be the first to be divorced—quite a record. But she was still toiling at Macy’s as a junior executive in personnel, and Harald was still writing plays that were as yet un-produced. From time to time, he had a job as a stage manager or a director of a summer theatre, and Kay’s family was helping them in their hours of need. Opinion at the fork suppers was divided as to whether Kay was a drag on Harald or vice versa. No one had seen them recently, it seemed, except Dottie, who had made a point of it this winter, and Helena, who had had them to dinner at the Savoy Plaza when her parents were in town. The two of them, Dottie reported, were now running with a fast, poker-playing set, where she was known as “Mrs. Pete” and Harald as “Mr. Pete”; the women were older than Kay, had deep, drawling voices, and called all the men “Mr.,” including their own husbands. The game was dealer’s choice, and it cost a quarter to open; Harald was a real gambler, but Kay was just a greenhorn who held her cards so that anyone could see them a
nd had a craze for deuces-and-one-eyed-Jacks-wild. For her part, Helena told Polly that her mother, who was a great amateur diagnostician, had announced that Kay was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
“The patient is quite refractory,” the nurse warned Polly that morning in the corridor, as she unlocked the door. “She may not co-operate.” The woman in the bed was Kay. She had a huge black eye and contusions on her bare arms. At the sight of Polly in her starched white coat, she burst into copious tears. She was comparing their positions, Polly realized with sympathy, trying to remember whether she had ever seen Kay cry before. Rather than ask questions, which might have upset Kay more, Polly got a washcloth and bathed her swollen face. When she saw that Kay, contrary to what the nurse had said, did not offer any resistance, she found her pocketbook in a bureau drawer, took a comb from it, and gently combed her hair. She did not offer her a mirror because of the black eye. In a few moments, Kay’s sobs subsided; she sat up. “What are you going to do to me?” she asked curiously, eying Polly’s big cylindrical tank. “I’ve come to give you a basal metabolism test, that’s all,” answered Polly. “It doesn’t hurt.” “I know that,” said Kay impatiently. “But I haven’t had any breakfast!” This protest was so like Kay that Polly was reassured. To her surprise, except for her appearance, her friend seemed completely herself. “You’ll have your breakfast afterward,” she told her. “We give these tests on an empty stomach.” “Oh,” said Kay. “Heavens, I’m glad you’re here! You don’t know the terrible things they’ve been doing to me, Polly.” Last night the nurses had taken her belt away from her. “I can’t wear my dress without a belt.” They had taken her nightgown sash too (“Look!”) and they had tried to take her wedding ring, but she would not let them. “We had a frightful struggle, practically a wrestling match, but then the head nurse came and said to let me keep it for the night. Score one for me. After that, they made me open my mouth and looked in to see if I had any removable bridges, though I’d already told them I hadn’t. If I had had, they probably would have yanked them out. I must say, I was awfully tempted to bite them.” She gave her loud Western laugh. “I wish now I had.” She glanced quickly at Polly for approval—which Polly feared was a very bad symptom. Kay was proud of battling with the nurses, as if she thought she were still a student standing up to the Dean or Prexy. Did she not understand about straitjackets? It was almost as if she did not grasp where she was. Then it occurred to Polly that Kay was simply embarrassed. “I gather,” Kay went on in a different tone, “that they think I want to commit suicide. They keep peering at me through those slats in the door. Did they expect me to hang myself with my belt? And what was I supposed to do with my wedding ring?” “Swallow it.” Polly’s answer was prompt; she thought the nurses would have done better to explain to Kay. “That’s just routine,” she said, smiling. “They take away everybody’s belt and wedding ring. I’m surprised they let you keep yours. And all the rooms on this floor have peepholes.” “Like a jail,” said Kay. “‘Judases,’ don’t they call them?” Tears came into her eyes again. “Harald betrayed me. He put me in here and left me. He pretended it was the regular hospital.”
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