The Sea Star

by Nash, Jean

  Jay continued to look at his son. “That’s impossible to answer, Susanna. Besides, I never think about the past.”

  But Susanna knew otherwise. Jay thought too much about the past, far more than he should or was good for him.

  They named the child Courtney, which had been Jay’s mother’s maiden name, and which rather surprised Susanna.

  “Don’t you want to name him after your father?” she asked Jay when their son was a few days old.

  “My father’s name was Reginald,” Jay said. “That’s too pompous a name for this little fellow. Courtney Grainger has a nice ring to it. It will look grand in both the society and financial pages of the newspapers.”

  As each day passed, as Courtney grew bigger and as beautiful as both his parents, the concept of fatherhood became more of a reality to Jay. He changed before Susanna’s eyes. Where before he’d been restless, driven, he now seemed completely at peace with himself, as if the gods had bestowed on him a priceless gift which he’d never even thought to desire.

  Augusta noticed the change in him.

  “What’s come over that husband of yours?” she asked Susanna in July, on the day of the christening. “I’ve never seen a man so wrapped up in a child. I had thought that nothing could take first place over Jay’s hotels, but I see I was mistaken.”

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Susanna said, gazing with love at her husband across the room.

  They were in one of the Excelsior’s large private dining rooms, following the church ceremony. Many of Jay’s friends and business associates had traveled from points up and down the Eastern Seaboard to celebrate the happy occasion. There were Vanderbilts present, and Astors and van Rensselaers. Even Robert Weston, pale, thin almost to the point of emaciation, had put in an appearance with his wife.

  Jay’s sisters and their families were there, too. At the church, Cornelia in her shrewish way had made it a point to comment on Courtney’s early arrival. Augusta had retorted, “What difference does it make when he was born? He’s your brother’s son. That’s all that should concern you.”

  Susanna had felt vindicated by the look of indignant shock on Cornelia’s face. And now, Augusta’s comments about Jay’s devotion to his son crowned her enjoyment of the day.

  “This is what he needs, Mother,” she went on, “a family of his own. Jay’s been driving himself for years to attain money and success, but I think he was really striving to restore the continuity that was broken when his mother and brother died.”

  “That’s too deep for me, darling,” Augusta said. “All I know is, Jay has finally become the sort of son-in-law I’ve always hoped I’d have.”

  “I love you.” Susanna squeezed her mother’s hand.

  Augusta’s eyes misted. She said in a tremulous voice, “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that.”

  “Too long,” Susanna said ruefully. “I was beastly to you when you first came home, Mother, and for a long time afterwards. Now I realize that each person has his own private hell. It’s easy to condemn what one doesn’t understand.”

  “Oh, my dearest!” Augusta embraced her tightly. “I’ve always loved you. For years I wished that I had died before ever hurting you as I did.”

  “Mother, don’t.”

  Guiltily, Susanna moved out of her embrace. If any wrong had been committed, she felt that she was as equally at fault as her mother. She had the strongest urge to say that she knew now of her father’s brutality. She knew why Augusta had been forced to leave home. But she felt that this was not the time to talk of such matters. And more, she felt that Augusta might be embarrassed that Susanna knew of her shame.

  “Let’s forget about the bad times,” she said gently. “Our relationship begins from this moment. Whatever happened in the past has no place in our future.”

  “How wise you are, Susanna.” Augusta pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “‘To err is human. To forgive is divine.’”

  “Erring” and “forgiving” raised an unpleasant memory for Susanna. “Mother,” she said, “is Ford still angry with Jay? They were cordial when they greeted each other today, but I’m wondering if they only behaved that way for form’s sake.”

  “I honestly don’t know, Susanna. Ford was very angry with Jay for a time. Now...well, he doesn’t talk about him much.”

  Augusta seemed to want to say more, but did not.

  “Mother, go on. You were going to say something else.”

  “Susanna, Ford was terribly bitter about Bobby. Do you see how ghastly he looks?” She inclined her head in Robert Weston’s direction. He stood talking to Jay across the room. “I don’t know how he made the trip, poor fellow. He looks as if he can hardly stand upright. In any case, Ford blamed Jay for Bobby’s drinking. He said to me once, ‘When my brother dies, Jay had better not come to the funeral. He saw Bobby buried once. There’s no need for him to see it a second time.’”

  “Oh, Mother,” Susanna said compassionately.

  “Ford was rabid on the subject for a long time,” Augusta said. “Lately, though, he seems to have come to terms with Bobby’s problem. Maybe that’s a good sign, Susanna. Maybe, like you and I, Jay and Ford will put the past behind them.”

  Susanna hoped that would prove true, but she doubted it. Ford and Augusta and Robert Weston and his wife spent a few days in Atlantic City after the christening. While Robert, a touchingly gentle man, apparently bore Jay no ill will, it was obvious to Susanna that Ford’s amiability toward his former friend and employer was a facade.

  One sultry morning, the three couples were strolling on the Boardwalk, when they came in sight of Captain John L. Young’s new seven-story apartment house on Tennessee Avenue.

  “What do you think of that?” Jay asked the two men, fanning his flushed face with his straw boater. “An apartment house right on the Boardwalk. Every one of the 112 units was leased before the building was even completed. And I hear that Young is charging astronomical monthly rents. Perhaps I should think of diversifying.”

  “You should!” Robert said enthusiastically. In the cruel light of day, his pale face looked like a sun-bleached skull. “If anyone can make a success of it, Jay, you can.”

  “Yes,” Ford agreed lightly, though his eyes were hard as flint. “Why don’t you form a partnership with Young, Jay? If I know you, in no time at all, the place will be solely yours.”

  Jay laughed and said he would think about it.

  But that night, alone with Susanna in their suite at the Excelsior, he said to her in a fury, “God damn him to hell for all eternity.”

  “Who?” Susanna asked, afraid he was speaking of Dallas.

  “Who else?” he said impatiently. “Ford. He behaves as if he’d never in his life strayed from the path of virtue. I could tell you things about that man—“ He broke off with a muttered oath and reached into his coat pocket.

  “What things, Jay?”

  He didn’t answer. He searched through his pockets.

  “Jay, what are you looking for?”

  “My cigarette case. I must have left it in the restaurant.”

  He went to the telephone and clicked the switch hook twice. “O’Brien? Did anyone turn in a cigarette case tonight? Well, take a look around, would you? Yes, it’s mine. There’s an inscription inside, some lines of poetry. If you find it, send someone up with it. I’ll be home all evening.”

  He replaced the receiver and turned back to Susanna. “What were we talking about?”

  “Ford.”

  “Ah, yes.” His tone was bitter. “Ford.”

  He went to the window, drew back the curtain, and looked out on the shimmering ocean. Susanna rose from the fireside chair and went to him.

  “Jay, you never did tell me why you and Ford parted.”

  “Forgive me, Susanna, but I’d rather not discuss it.”

  She was hurt, but she said nothing. There were some things about her husband she was going to have to learn to live with.

  B
ut then, the hurt she felt quickly turned into pique. Why must she forever bend to his will? What of her will? What of her needs, her wishes? Must she abnegate them always in deference to his?

  “Jay,” she said abruptly, “I want a house.”

  “A house? What are you talking about?”

  “A house, Jay. A place where families live alone, not with concierges and bellboys and housemaids and waiters. Four walls and a roof, with a yard and garden, where we can have some privacy for once in our lives. Where we can raise our son like a normal human being. That’s what a house is, and that’s where I want to live.”

  “What brought this on all of a sudden?”

  “It’s not all of a sudden. I’ve been thinking about it for months.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “I was afraid to mention it,” she said, but she blamed herself more for her cowardice than she did him. “Can you imagine that, Jay? A wife afraid to confide in her husband?”

  The question surprised him. “I don’t see that I’ve ever given you cause to fear confiding in me.”

  “The fear,” she retorted, “was that you’d say no.”

  He gave her a puzzled look, reached automatically into his coat pocket for his cigarette case, then swore softly when he remembered it was gone.

  “There’s a packet of cigarettes in the bedroom,” Susanna said testily. “After you fetch them, I’d like to know what you think about owning a house.”

  “Susanna,” he said, thoroughly baffled, “you’ve lived in a hotel all your life. It was my understanding that it suited you to do so.”

  “That was before, Jay. We’re married now. We have a child. You can’t expect us to live like transients.”

  “Transients?” he laughed and gestured at the opulent surroundings. “Look around you, Susanna. Any transient in the world would give his right arm to be able to call this place home.”

  “It’s not a home!” she cried. “It’s a hotel suite. Jay, why can’t we have a house? You have plenty of money.”

  In an attempt to avert a quarrel, he reached into his trouser pocket and brought out some crumpled bills. “At the moment,” he joked,” I have less than five dollars to my name.”

  “And how much do you have in your bank accounts?”

  “Not nearly enough to buy the kind of house I’d want for you and Courtney. Good Lord, Susanna, have you forgotten the expenses that go hand-in-hand with hotel profits?”

  “Jay, don’t treat me like a child. The money you spent on that diamond comb could have purchased two fine houses, maybe three. The money you gave Dallas could have bought another.”

  Now Jay was angry. “Would you rather I had let Charley Smith break your brother’s legs? Believe me, that was my first preference when you asked me to give Dallas the money.”

  Susanna could have bitten her tongue. How idiotic of her to have brought up the money Jay gave Dallas. If they’d been dueling on a field of honor, she might just as well have loaded her weapon, marched off the ten paces, then raised the pistol to her own temple and pulled the trigger.

  “You never liked Dallas!” she blazed in frustration. “I knew it from the beginning, when you bilked him out of his half of the Sea Star.”

  “By heaven!” Jay exploded. “I didn’t bilk him. I paid off his markers and gave him fifteen thousand dollars for that dilapidated pile of shingles you love so much.”

  “You didn’t!” she cried, torn between believing him and smarting with insult at his slur against the Sea Star. “Dallas would have told me if you did.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” His face was hard with anger and with another emotion Susanna didn’t try to discern.

  “If you persist in saying you gave him the money when you didn’t, yes.”

  “Damn you!” he said fiercely. “Damn you, your profligate brother, your harridan of a mother, and that treacherous stepfather of yours. I wish I’d never set eyes on the lot of you. And you, you’re the worst. I’ve had nothing but ill luck since the first day I met you.”

  “And I’ve had nothing but heartache since I met you!”

  “Good. Fine. We’re agreed, then,” he said hotly. “I had my doubts about marrying you, and my instinct proved true. I’m packing my things, taking Courtney, and leaving Atlantic City once and for all.”

  “You’ll take Courtney over my dead body.”

  “Don’t tempt me, woman.” His voice shook with fury. “If I put my hands on you, I won’t let go of you until the last breath leaves your body.”

  Susanna had never seen him like this—his face white, his eyes dark with rage. Was he capable of murder? At this moment, she thought he was.

  But still she defied him, though her heart pounded violently. “Save your threats, Jay. You may have cheated me out of the Sea Star, but you’ll never take my son.”

  Jay did leave Atlantic City, but he didn’t take Courtney. The next morning, after having stormed out of the suite the night before, he returned and said to Susanna, “I’m going away for a month or so. While I’m gone, you’d better think about whether or not you wish to continue this marriage.”

  “Of course I do!” she said at once, her voice raspy from a tortured, sleepless night.

  Jay’s heavily shadowed eyes betrayed a sleepless night of his own, but he had never looked more attractive to Susanna, more desirable, nor more hopelessly unattainable.

  “That’s not the impression I got last night, Susanna.”

  “We quarreled,” she said, aching to make peace, but too proud, too confused to do so. “That doesn’t mean we should get a divorce.”

  “We did more than quarrel,” he contradicted her. “It became clear to me last night that the marriage—that I—am a disappointment to you.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “You’re the one who said you had doubts about marrying me. I never had any doubts, never!”

  “Oh, no? Did you never have doubts about marrying the man who had ‘bilked’ your brother?”

  “Jay, I—”

  “Did you never have doubts about marrying the man who ‘cheated’ you out of the Sea Star?”

  “Jay, listen to me, please.”

  “I listened last night.” His voice vibrated with injury. “I listened very carefully to what you said and the way you said it. I thought you were joking about buying a house, until you started hurling accusations at me. Do you recall a conversation we once had? Do you remember my asking you if you didn’t want more out of life than being married to a confirmed workhorse like me? I was so afraid of depriving you of all the things you women hold dear—a social life, balls, teas, galas. So I asked you, I made a point of it. And do you remember what you said, Susanna? You said, ‘All I want is you.’”

  “That hasn’t changed,” she insisted. “I still want you, Jay. But having Courtney has made me see that our lives have to change now. We’re a family. We must have a home to call our own.”

  “Susanna, you say you want a home because our situation has changed. I say you seek change itself because the marriage hasn’t turned out to your satisfaction.”

  “That’s just not true, Jay. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “The way you believed me when I told you about the fifteen thousand dollars?”

  “You’re not being fair,” she said miserably.

  “Whenever did you think I was fair, Susanna?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he walked out of the suite. Stunned and torn with confusion, Susanna didn’t follow him.

  As soon as Jay left Atlantic City, Susanna took her son and moved back to the Sea Star, as if the place of her birth could afford her the sense of security that had vanished with her husband. Grace Pascal and Nina Watkins, the nursemaid, accompanied her, but Nina, the young, pretty daughter of the Sea Star’s concierge, had little to do. Thanks to Colin Baxter’s efficiency, the Sea Star was managing very well without Susanna’s help. Thus, she spent most of her days caring for Courtney, bathing him, dressing him, f
eeding him, and walking him on the Boardwalk in his regal perambulator.

  He was such a dear little baby. Every morning when Susanna bent over his cradle, he would be wide awake, waiting patiently for her to lift him in her arms. She would tickle his button nose with a lock of her hair. A toothless smile would greet her, and a gurgle of enjoyment. Courtney’s eyes, bluish green, would crinkle with delight. He would raise his chubby arms, as if saying, “Hold me, Mama, hold me.” Susanna would sweep him up and kiss his dimpled neck, while he crowed with pleasure and nuzzled closer in her embrace.

  But the joy of having Jay’s son was marred by Jay’s absence and by the chasm of alienation that now yawned between them. How could Susanna be completely happy with her child when his father was absent? Moreover, Jay hadn’t told her where he was going, and Susanna had been too proud to ask him.

  As his absence lengthened, Susanna alternately missed him and was angry with him. She was heart-sore, she was indignant. There were days when she was determined to begin divorce proceedings, but that resolve would peter out the instant she picked up his son. Divorce this darling’s father? Never! It was unthinkable. Then she would spend the rest of the day missing Jay so much that she could barely utter a word without wanting to burst into tears.

  As if she didn’t have enough to contend with, Dallas started borrowing money again. It wasn’t much at first, twenty or thirty dollars, but by the end of the summer, he was asking her for hundreds. Her bank balance, which had grown to a respectable amount when Teddy was managing the Sea Star, was fast being depleted.

  “Dallas, what are you doing with your money?” she asked him in September. “You’re not still stealing from Charley?”

  “I don’t like that word, Sunny,” he said airily. “I borrowed from Charley. I always replaced the money.”

  “You mean Jay replaced it. Dallas, you promised you’d stop what you were doing. Have you gone back on your word?”

  “Let me alone!” he snapped. And Susanna noticed that his fingernails, always so fastidiously maintained, were bitten to the quick. “You’re not my mother, you know.”