“Never mind about me,” I said. “Mary, you don’t want people to talk, do you?”
“Darling,” Mary said, “sit down. What are people talking about now?”
“It isn’t really anything,” I said. “I don’t think anybody really has, but don’t you think you’re seeing a little too much of Rigal? I mean, it’s fine you’re going to the Riding School, but you’re always sort of riding with him, aren’t you?”
I had only seen her angry once or twice. At such times her face would lose all its expression and become “dead pan,” as the current phrase has it. Now it was like a bad photograph. She sat absolutely still, staring at the fireplace, and I was afraid that she was going to put a lot of words into my mouth that I had never said or intended.
“Mary,” I said, “don’t get mad. Of course there isn’t anything in it.”
Then her cheeks grew red. She looked all right again, but she had difficulty speaking. She started to speak and stopped and cleared her throat.
“I wish you weren’t always so damned decent,” she said. “You’ve always been so sweet to me.”
It did not seem to me that I was being either decent or sweet, saying something which hurt her.
“I’m not mad,” she said. “I don’t mind telling you. There is something in it.”
“Good God,” I said. “Why, Mary!”
I tried to remember what Rigal looked like. I tried to tell myself that I must not be stuffy and provincial.
“Mary,” I began, “you haven’t—” I felt that I was blushing.
“Slept with him?” Mary asked.
“Good Lord, Mary!” I told her. “I never said anything like that.”
“Well, I haven’t, dear,” Mary said. “Now are you feeling better?”
I told myself that it was unfair to feel so completely relieved.
“It wasn’t what I meant at all,” I said. “I was just going to ask if you’d told Jim.”
“Told Jim?” Mary repeated.
“Well,” I said, “perhaps you ought to.”
“Well, I haven’t,” Mary said, “and I won’t.”
Perhaps she should have, but I was glad she hadn’t.
“As long as it’s this way, you ought not to see so much of him, Mary.”
Mary looked a good deal the way Kay had sometimes after I had said something that I had not intended to be amusing.
“Sometimes,” Mary said, “I seem so much older than you.”
“It doesn’t do any good to start on that,” I answered. “There are some things that people like you and me don’t do—that’s all.”
“Darling,” Mary asked me, “what do you know about what people do?”
“I know that a girl like you—a nice girl—shouldn’t be playing around with Rigal.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” Mary asked, “that married people can’t just stay in love with each other always?”
“You’ve got to cut it out with Rigal,” I said. “He isn’t even a gentleman.”
“That’s just it. Maybe I’ve seen too many gentlemen,” and she began to smile. “Rig doesn’t need me, but he wants me. Did you ever hear anyone say that a woman’s desire is to be desired?”
“Look here, Mary. Don’t say things like that.”
“I’ll tell you something else about Rig,” Mary said. “He doesn’t collect dinosaurs. He collects women, and it’s mighty pleasant for a change.”
“I always knew he wasn’t a gentleman,” I said.
“That’s what I mean. If you could ever stop being a gentleman and if I could ever stop being a lady—but we haven’t got the guts to be anything else, have we? Darling, we were overtrained.”
She stopped. She seemed to be curious as to what I would answer, and I answered nothing.
“That’s it.” She put her hand on my knee. “We haven’t got the guts. We won’t do anything that’s really wrong, because our inhibitions will stop us, darling. You don’t have to worry about me and anyone like Rig. It’s all too late. If I had the guts I’d run off with him and see what it was like, but don’t worry. All I’ll do is to think about it. And when Rig makes too big a pass I’ll ask him how he could ever have thought such a thing and I’ll cut him dead.”
“Mary,” I said, “it doesn’t do any good to go on.”
She threw her head back and laughed. Mary was essentially an awfully nice person.
“You feel better about it now, don’t you?”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way,” I said.
“But you do feel better. You had a moment’s doubt. I’m awfully glad you had. Harry, I wish you’d tell me something, just between you and me. Harry,”—she smiled at me,—“did you ever sleep with anyone besides Kay?”
I took my hands out of my pockets and rubbed them carefully on my knees.
“That’s none of your business,” I said, “and I refuse to answer it one way or the other.”
“There!” Mary said. “That means you have. When was it? Please, please, tell me, Harry.”
“It had nothing whatsoever to do with Kay,” I said, “and I refuse to answer it one way or the other.”
“Harry, I’m awfully glad.”
“Now, look here, Mary,” I said, and I got up. “I’ve never looked at anyone since I’ve married Kay.”
“No,” Mary said, “I didn’t say that. Who was it? I’m going to guess.”
“No, you’re not. I’m going now.”
“Oh, please don’t,” Mary said, “just when we’ve begun to have a good time. What about Kay? Has Kay ever looked at anyone else?”
“Kay?” I said, and the idea made me laugh.
For a moment Mary did not see the humor of it.
“What about Bill King?” she asked.
“Why, Bill King’s my best friend. Don’t be so silly, Mary.”
Then Mary was laughing too, and she threw her arms around me.
“Oh, Harry,” she said, “I hope you’ll always stay like this. I hope to God you will.”
I got home at a quarter before one, in time to find George throwing a tennis ball up on the roof and catching it when it came back. Kay was in the living room with a pad and pencil.
“Hello,” she called. “I’m beginning to think about putting things away. I’m going to take down some of the curtains tomorrow and you and Jerry can wrap them up. Harry, where have you been?”
“Just over to see Mary,” I said.
“Why?” Kay asked, and her voice had a little edge to it. “What did Mary want to see you about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just dropped over to see her. Are we going anywhere to lunch?”
“No,” Kay said. “Harry, I’ve just been telephoning. I’m going down on the tenth. I’ve got the cleaning women—and you can leave on the morning of the thirteenth. Is that all right?”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ve got to be back at the office on the fourteenth.” And then I went up to my dressing room to listen to the news broadcast before lunch.
XXXI
Yoicks—and Away
It was a busy time as it always was—getting ready to go away. It was the time when one came most in contact with those people whom we called the “natives.” Since North Harbor had been a summer resort for almost two generations the natives now lived off all the rest of us in many different ways. Father had always made it a point, and so had I, to be friendly with them and to make that friendship a part of the summer life. When it came time to go away, I had to have a number of talks with Mr. Alfred Boost, who was our general contractor. Everyone used to say that Mr. Boost was a fine Down East character who could turn his hand to everything, and this was true if you personally checked everything to which he turned his hand. It was necessary to show Mr. Boost all the valves for turning off the water. Then I found myself climbing up on the roof with him to show him about new flashings and how to get the dead leaves out of the gutter. Then Mr. Boost brought in Mr. Meigs, the painter, who called me “Harry” because he used to know me a
s a boy.
Mr. Meigs told me that he had once read in a trade magazine that it was the duty of a good house painter to tell his clients frankly just what work needed to be done; and so Mr. Meigs told me frankly that the whole exterior of the house should be repainted for three hundred and fifty dollars if I wanted to save any of it. He knew it was a lot of money, but it was better than having the whole house rot away. When I pointed out to him that he had painted the whole outside of the house two years before, Mr. Meigs said that no matter what quality of paint was used the salt air would peel it. I could see for myself how it was peeling already.
Mr. Boost said that Mr. Meigs was perfectly right about the salt air. If you lived by the sea you had to pay for it. In Mr. Boost’s opinion all the chimneys should be repointed and it was about time to put on a whole new roof. Of course the present roof could be patched up, but we would always run the risk—Mr. Boost usually got down to the collective pronoun—of having ugly inside leaks, and then where would we be? I knew what had happened to Mr. Frear’s house last winter, didn’t I? Now, Mr. Frear was a fine man and he wouldn’t say anything against him, but I knew and he knew that Mr. Frear was tight with his money. As a result Mr. Frear had lost two ceilings and a wall, although Mr. Boost had warned him. Now Mr. Boost knew very well that Mrs. Pulham and I were not that kind of people. We were the kind of people who wanted our house tight and shipshape. He and Mr. Meigs had been having a talk about it. Mr. Boost hadn’t wanted to say that we needed a new roof, because he was afraid that I would think he was looking for business. Mr. Meigs told Mr. Boost that it was only friendly to tell me about it and he wanted to be friends with the summer people. New roofing would cost five hundred dollars.
Then Mr. Mack who ran the nursery came around. Mr. Mack said that he loved trees and that he knew I loved them. He had looked after our trees so long that they were like friends. Only God, he said, could make a tree, and he often thought that trees were God’s most perfect work. Mr. Mack wasn’t much on religion, but he felt that he was helping Our Creator when he and his boys were up in the trees getting the parasites out of the bark, and it made him feel good always, on long winter evenings, when he knew that the trees, his trees, were storing up health and energy out of a good dose of patented fertilizer inserted around their roots, and he knew I felt the same way about it, because the Pulhams loved their trees. He and the boys weren’t very busy now and they could fix every tree on the place for four hundred and fifty dollars. I may not have noticed the lawn either, Mr. Mack said; the sea air was awfully hard on turf. What the lawn needed was a good hand weeding and a fine lot of leaf mold rolled into it. Mr. Mack and the boys could do that too since they weren’t busy for only a hundred-dollar bill.
Then Mr. Boost took me aside, about another matter that he wanted to discuss in private, not in front of Mrs. Pulham. He had noticed that the toilet in the downstairs lavatory was getting noisy. He knew the way it was. He had children himself and children were hard on toilets. A whole new outfit installed by him and decorated by Mr. Meigs would only cost me two hundred and seventy-five dollars and now was the time to do it before it was too late. This all meant a long period of discussion since Kay wanted it one way and I wanted it another and Mr. Boost and Mr. Meigs and Mr. Mack had ideas of their own. As usual, Kay and I would start arguing in front of them and sometimes Mr. Mack took her side and Mr. Boost took mine and then before I knew it they would all shift around.
Then Kay and Ellen began getting together the essential articles which would have to go in the car when I drove it down, piling them up in the front hall. I pointed out that Jerry was bringing down a truck and Kay pointed out that there were some things that were too delicate to go in a truck and I said what I had often said—that the Packard was not a truck. Then Ellen brought out the ice-cream freezer. We had been dealing with the ice-cream freezer for the past five years. Kay said it was getting pretty rickety and Jerry would break it if he put it in the truck. I said it couldn’t go in die Packard with the children and the cook and the dog. I said we ought to have two freezers and if we didn’t have one in town that I would buy one. Kay said she was trying to save me money, that we weren’t millionaires, and at least we could save on an ice-cream freezer. I said it wasn’t any saving if the car was wrecked and Kay told me that we would have to start saving somewhere.
It was all building up to the sort of climax with which I was familiar. When Kay and Ellen left to open the house in town there was a lull, but it was like a lull before a storm. There was no place to sit, there was nothing to do when Kay was gone. A day seemed like a week and another day seemed like a month. I called her up each evening to ask how everything was going. The first evening Kay said that it was all right and dictated to me a list of things to do. The second evening Ellen answered the telephone and said that Kay was out.
I found myself trying to interpret Kay to Gladys and George, so that I seemed to be two people.
“Your mother wouldn’t want you to take those dungarees to town,” I told them.
Then George and Gladys would interpret Kay to me. It seemed that Kay had distinctly told them that they were to bring all the odds and ends in the house.
“You don’t understand,” George would say. “Mother distinctly told me.”
“Well, your mother isn’t here now,” I told George. “You’ll do what I say.”
“All right,” George said. “Just don’t blame me. That’s all. I can’t help it, can I, if Mother distinctly told me?”
The cook and the other maid and Mrs. Meigs and her daughter began wrapping the furniture in sheets on the last day, and rolling up the rugs and wrapping the andirons in newspapers and Jerry began loading the truck and I began loading the Packard. Kay had given me a list of what to leave out if it was absolutely necessary. Even when I added a good deal more to the list there was no room for the cook, so I arranged with a taxi to take her to the Junction for the evening train. George and Gladys and the dog and I would leave early in the morning—I told them so at supper. We were each having a chop and a glass of milk and a baked potato. That was all the food there was left in the house except a little something for breakfast.
“Now, listen,” I said, “we’re going to do this right tomorrow morning. You, George, and you, Gladys, are both old enough to pack your own suitcases without bothering anyone. We’re all going to turn out at six. We’re going to get through before there’s any traffic. Remember, six in the morning.”
They looked at me blankly.
“Mother distinctly said that she didn’t want us to come too early,” George told me. “Six o’clock is awful early.”
“It will do you good,” I said. “Now, don’t argue.”
“Where are we going to have lunch?” Gladys asked.
“I don’t know,” I told her, “somewhere. You always get car-sick if you eat too much.”
“Gee, boss,” George said, “not six o’clock in the morning! Mother distinctly said—”
“Don’t argue,” I told him.
“Gee, boss,” George said, “there isn’t any reason to be sore.”
“I’m not sore,” I said. “I’m just telling you.”
“Well, it isn’t my fault,” George said.
That had been a favorite phrase of George’s for some time. I told him it was not anybody’s fault; it was just life. I told him I didn’t enjoy moving any more than he did, but sometime when he grew up he would have to do the same thing, provided there was any money left when he grew up. I told George and Gladys that they were pretty lucky, that lots of children were starving to death, and here they were going for a nice ride tomorrow to the city! It ought to be fun for them, it used to be fun for me when I was a kid. Then I wondered to myself if it had been.
When the children went to bed, I walked through the pantry and the kitchen, looking for an alarm clock. A tap on the laundry tubs was leaking, but it made no difference now, since Mr. Boost would turn off the water in the morning. I found a clock on the top of the
icebox and brought it upstairs to my room and I brought Bitsey up with me too and let him sleep on the foot of Kay’s bed. I turned on the radio while I was packing, but pretty soon I turned it off because the news was terrible. Then I opened the window and looked out. It was getting cloudy and a breeze was coming up from the northeast.
Then I got into bed and started in on The Education of Henry Adams. Instead of finishing it on my vacation as I had intended, what with one thing or another I had only done about twenty pages. Kay always seemed to interrupt me just when I was in the middle of a paragraph and now, without her, I seemed to expect I would be interrupted. I was wondering whether I had actually been weak with Mr. Boost in letting him rip out all the plumbing in the downstairs lavatory. Although it was all very well to give work to the natives in hard times, it occurred to me that Mr. Boost went down to Daytona Beach every winter with his wife and mother-in-law and two daughters, which was more than I ever did. I suddenly found, while I was thinking, that I had read five pages of Henry Adams without knowing what it was about. When I tried to begin again I was too sleepy to get on with it.
When I finally went to sleep, it was a sort of rest which did not do much good. In the back of my mind there must have been a feeling that tomorrow would be a trying day, that Gladys would stand more than an even chance of being overcome with nausea. The trouble with Gladys was that she would never say anything about it until it was too late. It would be up to me to watch her while I was driving the car, but maybe George could do it. All the other times that I had moved from North Harbor, from childhood on, gathered cloudily about me in a queer dreamlike confusion. I remembered the things Father had said when the lid of a trunk went down on his fingers and how Hugh had sat down hard when a trunk strap had broken. And when I went to sleep, the ice-cream freezer came into it. I dreamed that Kay was walking to Boston, carrying the ice-cream freezer on her head and saying that it was all right, that it was really economical.
Then the alarm clock was ringing. It was one of those clocks that started with a whisper and ended with what its maker called “a cheerful good-morning shout.” I had put it somewhere across the room so that I would be sure to get up to turn it off when it rang, and now I stumbled about trying to control it. It was dusky and cold and it was raining. I went into the hall and began knocking on the children’s doors. Gladys was up and dressed already with her hat and coat on. Her bag was closed and she was holding a candy box with holes punched in the top.
H. M. Pulham, Esquire Page 36
