CHAPTER VIII, THE ADVENTURE OF LADY MAUDE
I have dealt at length with our adventures at Fifth Avenue auctionhouses when we were amassing the furnishings for our Italian rooms andour Italian hallway. But I forgot to make mention of the many friends weencountered at the salesrooms--people who always before had seemed to usentirely normal, but now were plainly to be recognized for devotees ofthe same passion for bidding-in which had lain its insidious clutchesupon us. I recall one victim in particular, a young woman whom I shallcall Maude because that happens to be her name.
Theretofore this Maude lady had impressed mo as being one of the sanest,most competent females of my entire acquaintance--good-looking, wittyand with a fine sense of proportion. Yet behold, here she was, balancedon the edge of a folding chair in an overheated, overcrowded room, hereyes feverish with a fanatical light, a printed catalogue clutched inher left hand and her right ready to go up in signal to the hypnoticgentleman on the auctioneer's block. At a glance we knew the symptomsbecause in them we saw duplicated our own. We knew exactly what ailedher: She was bidding on various articles, not because she particularlywanted them, but because she feared unless she bought them some strangermight.
After the sale had ended and her excitement--and ours--had abated weexchanged confidences touching on our besetting mania.
"Just coming and buying something that I wish afterward I hadn't boughtisn't the worst of it," she owned. "That is destructive only to myspending allowance. My chief trouble is that I've gotten so I can't bearto think of spending my afternoons anywhere except at this place or oneof the places like it. And if there happen to be two sales going thesame day at different shops I'm perfectly miserable. All the time I'msitting in one I'm distracted by the thought that possibly I'm missingsome perfectly wonderful bargain at the other. Sometimes I suspect thatmy intellect is beginning to give way under the strain, and then againI'm sure I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. My husband has his owndiagnosis. He says I'm just plain nutty, as he vulgarly expresses it. Hehas taken to calling me Nutchita, which he says is Spanish for a littlenut. You know since Scott came back from South America he just adores toshow off the Spanish he learned. He loves to tell how he went to abull fight down there and saw the gallant mandatory stab the chargingparabola to the heart with his shining bolero or whatever you call it.
"He says there is no hope of curing me and he appreciates the fact thatteams of horses couldn't drag me away from these auction rooms, but hesuggested that maybe we might be saved from spending our last days atthe almshouse if before I started out on my mad career each afternoonI'd get somebody to muffle me and tie my arms fast so I couldn't bid onanything. But even if I couldn't speak or gesticulate I could stillnod, so I suppose that wouldn't help. Besides, as I said to him, I wouldprobably attract a good deal of attention riding down Fifth Avenue withmy hands tied behind my back and a gag in my mouth. But he says he'dmuch rather I were made conspicuous now than that I should be evenmore conspicuous later on at a feeble-minded institute; he says they'dprobably keep me in a strait-jacket anyhow after I reached the violentstage and that I might as well begin getting used to the feeling now.
"All joking aside, though, I really did have a frightful experience lastwinter," she continued. "There was a sale of desirable household effectsadvertised to take place up at Blank's on West Forty-fifth Street and ofcourse I went. I've spent so much of my time at Blank's these lastfew months I suppose people are beginning to think I live there. Well,anyway, I was one of the first arrivals and just as I got settled theauctioneer put up a basket; a huge, fiat, curious-looking, wickerworkaffair, it was. You never in all your life saw such a basket! It wastoo big for a soiled-clothes hamper and besides wasn't the right shape.And it was too flat to store things in and it didn't have any top on iteither. I suppose you would just call it a kind of a basket.
"Well, the man put it up and asked for bids on it, but nobody bid; andthen the auctioneer looked right at me in an appealing sort of way--Ifeel that everybody connected with the shop is an old friend of mine bynow, and especially the auctioneer--so when he looked in my directionwith that yearning expression in his eye I bid a dollar just to startit off for him. And what do you think? Before you could say scat he'dknocked it down to me for a dollar. I just hate people who catch youup suddenly that way! It discouraged me so that after that the sale waspractically spoiled for me. I didn't have the courage to bid on anotherthing the whole afternoon.
"When the sale was over I went back to the packing room to get a goodlook at what I'd bought. And, my dear, what do you suppose? I hadn'tbought a single basket--that would have been bad enough--but no. I'dbought a job lot, comprising the original basket and its twin sisterthat was exactly like it, only homelier if anything, and on top of thatan enormous square wooden box painted a bright green with a great lockfastening the lid down. That wretch of an auctioneer had deliberatelytaken a shameful advantage of me. How was I to know I was bidding in awhole wagonload of trash? Obtaining money under false pretenses, that'swhat I call it.
"Well, I stood aghast--or perhaps I should say I leaned aghast, becausethe shock was so great I felt I had to prop myself up against something.Why, the box alone must have weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. Itdidn't seem to be the sort of box you could put anything in either. Itwouldn't do for a wood box or a coal box or a dog house or anything. Itwas just as useless as the baskets were, and they were nothing more norless than two orders of willow-ware on the half shell. Even if theyhad been of any earthly use, what could I do with them in the tinythree-room apartment that we were occupying last winter? Isn't itperfectly shameful the way these auction-room people impose on thepublic? They don't make any exceptions either. Here was I, a regularcustomer, and just see what they had done to me, all because I'm sogood-natured and sympathetic. I declare sometimes I'm ready to take asolemn oath I'll never do another favor for anybody so long as I live.It's the selfish ones who get along in this world!
"Well, when I realized what a scandalous trick had been played on me Iwas seized with a wild desire to get away. I decided I would try to slipout. But the manager had his eye on me. You know the rule they have:'Claim all purchases and arrange for their removal before leavingpremises, otherwise goods will be stored at owner's risk and cost.' Andhe called me back and told me my belongings were ready to be taken awayand would I kindly get them out of the house at once because they tookup so much room. Room? They took up all the room there was. You had tostep into one of the baskets to get into the place and climb over thebox to get out again.
"I asked him how I was going to get those things up to my address andhe suggested a taxi. I told him I would just run out and find a taxi,meaning, of course, to forget to come back. But he told me not to botherbecause there was a taxi at the door that had been ordered to come forsomebody else and then wasn't needed. And before I could think up anyother excuse to escape he'd called the taxi driver in. And the taximan took one look at my collection of junk and then he asked us if wethought he was driving a moving van or a Noah's ark and laughed in alow-bred way and went out.
"At that I had a faint ray of hope that maybe after all I might besaved, because I had made up my mind to tell the manager I would juststep outside and arrange to hire a delivery wagon or something, and thatwould give me a chance to escape; but I think he must have suspectedsomething from my manner because already he was calling in another taxidriver from off the street, and there I was, trapped. And the driverof the second taxi was more accommodating than the other one had been,though goodness knows his goodness of heart was no treat to me. I shouldhave regarded it as a personal kindness on his part if he had behavedas the first driver had done. But no, nothing would do but that he mustload that ghastly monstrosity of a box up alongside him on the rackwhere they carry trunks, and two of the packing-room men tied it on withropes so it couldn't fall off and get lost. I suppose they thought bythat they were doing me a favor! And then I got in the cab feeling likeMarie Antoinette on her way to be beheaded, and th
ey piled those twobaskets in on top of me and the end of one of them stuck out so far thatthey couldn't get the door shut but had to leave it open. And then werode home, only I didn't feel like Marie Antoinette any more; I feltlike something that was being delivered in a crate and had come partlyundone on the way.
"And when we got up to Eighty-ninth Street that bare-faced robber ofa taxicab driver charged me two extra fares--just think of such thingsbeing permitted to go on in a city where the police are supposed toprotect people! And then he unloaded all that mess on the sidewalk infront of the apartment house and drove off and left me there standingguard over it--probably the forlornest, most helpless object in all NewYork at that moment.
"I got one of the hallboys to call the janitor up from the basementand I asked him if he would be good enough to store my box and my twobaskets in the storeroom where the tenants keep their trunks. And hesaid not on my life he wouldn't, because there wasn't any room to sparein the trunk room and then he asked me what I was going to do with allthat truck anyway, and though it was none of his business I thought itwould be tactful to make a polite answer and I told him I hadn't exactlydecided yet and that I certainly would appreciate his kindness if hecould just tuck my things away in some odd corner somewhere until I hadfully made up my mind. While I was saying that I was giving him one ofmy most winning smiles, though it hurt like the toothache to smile underthe circumstances and considering what I'd already been through.
"But all he said was: 'Huh, lady, you couldn't tuck them things awayat Times Square and Forty-third Street and that's the biggest corner Iknows of in this town.'
"The impudent scoundrel wouldn't relent a mite either, until I'd givenhim a dollar for a tip, and then he did agree to keep the baskets inthe coal cellar for a couple of days but no longer. But he absolutelyrefused to take the box along too, so I had to have it sent upstairs tothe apartment and put in the bedroom because it was too big to go inthe hall. And when the men got it in the bedroom I could hardly get inmyself to take off my hat. And after that I sat down and cried a little,because really I was frightfully upset, and moreover I had a feelingthat when Scott came home he would be sure to try to be funny. You knowhow husbands are, being one yourself!
"Sure enough, when he came in the first thing he saw was that box. Hecouldn't very well help seeing it because he practically fell over itas he stepped in the door. He said: 'What's this?' and I said: 'It's abox'--just like that. And he said: 'What kind of a box?' And I didn'tlike his tone and I said: 'A green box. I should think anybody wouldknow that much.' And he said: 'Ah, indeed,' several times in a mostaggravating way and walked round it. He couldn't walk all the way roundit on account of the wall being in the way; but as far round it as hecould walk without bumping into the wall. And he looked at it and feltit with his hand and kicked it once or twice and then he sniffed andsaid: 'And what's it for?' And I said: 'To put things in.' And he said:'For instance, what?'
"Now I despise for people to be so technical round me, and besides,of all the words in the English language I most abhor those words 'forinstance'; but I kept my temper even if I was boiling inside and I said:'It's to put things in that you haven't any other place to put themin.' Which was ungrammatical, I admit, but the best I could do underthe prevalent conditions. And then he looked at me until I could havescreamed, and he said: 'Maude, where did you get that damned thing?'And I said it wasn't a damned thing but a perfectly good box made out ofwood and painted green and everything; and that I'd got it at an auctionsale for a dollar and that I considered it a real bargain. I didn't feelcalled on to tell him about the two baskets down in the coal cellar justyet. So I didn't mention them; and anyhow, heaven knows I was sick andtired of the whole subject and ready to drop it, but he kept on lookingat it and sniffing and asking questions. Some people have no idea howa great strong brute of a man can nag a weak defenseless woman todesperation when he deliberately sets out to do it.
"Finally I said: 'Well, even if you don't like the box I think it'sa perfectly splendid box, and look what a good strong lock it has onit--surely that's worth something.' And he said: 'Well, let's see aboutthat--where's the key?' And, my dear, then it dawned on me that I didn'thave any key!
"Well, a person can stand just so much and no more. I'm a patientlong-suffering woman and I've always been told that I had a wonderfuldisposition, but there are limits. And when he burst out laughing andwouldn't stop laughing but kept right on and laughed and laughed andleaned up against something and laughed some more until you could haveheard him in the next block--why then, all of a sudden something seemedto give way inside of me and I burst out crying--I couldn't hold inanother second--and I told him that I'd never speak to him again thelongest day he lived and that he could go to Halifax or some other placebeginning with the same initial and take the old box with him for all Icared; and just as I burst out of the room I heard him say: 'No, madam,when I married you I agreed to support you, but I didn't engage to takecare of any air-tight, burglar-proof, pea-green box the size of a circuscage!' And I suppose he thought that was being funny, too. A pervertedsense of humor is an awful cross to bear--in a husband!
"So I went and lay down on the living-room couch with a raging,splitting, sick headache and I didn't care whether I lived or died, buton the whole rather preferred dying. After a little he came in, tryingto hold his face straight, and begged my pardon. And I told him I wouldforgive him if he would do just two things. And he asked me what thosetwo things were and I told him one was to quit snickering like an idiotevery few moments and the other was never to mention boxes to me againas long as he lived. And he promised on his solemn word of honor hewouldn't, but he said I must bear with him if he smiled a little bitonce in a while as the evening wore on, because when he did that hewould be thinking about something very funny that had happened at theoffice that day and not thinking about what I would probably think hewas thinking about at all. And then he said how about running down tothe Plaza for a nice little dinner and I said yes, and after dinner Ifelt braced up and strong enough to break the news to him about the twobaskets.
"And he didn't laugh; in justice to him I must say that much for him.He didn't laugh. Only he choked or something, and had a very severecoughing spell. And then we went home and while he was undressing hefell over the box and barked his shins on it, and though it must havebeen a strain on him he behaved like a gentleman and swore only alittle.
"But, my dear, the worst was yet to come! The next day I had to arrangeto send the whole lot to storage because we simply couldn't go on livingwith that box in the only bedroom we had; and the bill for cartage cameto two dollars and a quarter. After I had seen them off to the storagewarehouse I tried to forget all about them. As a matter of fact theynever crossed my mind again until we moved out to the country in Apriland then I suddenly remembered about them--getting a bill for threemonths' storage at two dollars a month may have had something to do withbringing them forcibly to my memory--and I telephoned in and asked themanager of the storage warehouse if he please wouldn't give them tosomebody and he said he didn't know anybody who would have all that junkas a gift. So it seemed to me the best thing and the most economicalthing to do would be to pay the bill to date and bring them on out tothe place.
"But, as it turned out, that was a financial mistake, too. Because whatwith sending the truck all the way into town, thirty-eight miles andback again, and the wear and tear on the tires and the gasoline and theman's time who drove the truck and what Scott calls the overhead--thoughI don't see what he means by that because it is an open truck withoutany top to it at all--we figure, or rather Scott does, that the cost ofgetting them out to the country came to fourteen dollars.
"And we still have them, and if you should happen to know of anybodyor should meet anybody who'd like to have two very large roomy wickerbaskets and a very well-made wooden box painted in all-over design ina very good shade of green and which may contain something valuable,because I haven't been able to open it yet to find out what's inside,and with a
lock that goes with it, I wish you'd tell them that they cansend up to our place and get them any time that is convenient to them.Or if they don't live too far away I'd be very glad to send the thingsover to them. Only I'd like for them to decide as soon as possiblebecause the gardener, who is Swedish and awfully fussy, keeps coming inevery few days and complaining about them and asking why I don't havethem moved out of the greenhouse, which is where we are keeping themfor the present, and put some other place where they won't be forevergetting in his way. Only there doesn't seem to be any other suitableplace to keep them in unless we build a shed especially for thatpurpose. Isn't it curious that sometimes on a hundred-acre farm thereshould be so little spare room? I should hate to go to the added expenseof building that shed, and so, as I was saying just now, if you shouldhappen upon any one who could use those baskets and that box pleasedon't forget to tell them about my offer."
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