The So Blue Marble (3 page)

    Her sister always sounded a little distressed, just as if she weren’t surrounded by servants and all care-lifting attentions.

    Griselda said, “That’s not so late. What inspired you to be up at this hour?”

    Ann was humorless. “You know I take my lemon juice and coffee at nine-twenty every morning, Griselda, and see the children before they go to the park. And there’s the menu to be gone over and the thousand things to do when you keep house-”

    Griselda found a cigarette and held the phone by her shoulder while she lit it. She interrupted then, “I know.” She asked lazily, “Anyway, what’s so important about waking me before eleven?”

    Ann spoke brittlely, “I have a wireless from Missy.”

    Griselda leaped up from her elbow. “You have what?” she shouted and heard Bette’s work stop surprised.

    Ann said, “You needn’t yell. She is arriving today. Her boat docks at three.”

    Griselda spoke quickly, “I can’t take her in with me. There isn’t room. Besides these are bachelor apartments and I’m just borrowing Con’s and he-”

    This time her sister interrupted. “I’m not asking you to take her, Griselda, but you know I haven’t an inch of room here. If I had I’d have asked you to stay with us although you didn’t suggest it or even let me know you were planning a trip to New York. But I’d want you here if I had room-”

    Griselda inserted, “I know it, darling-but Missy-what on earth inspired Maman to send her here, do you imagine?”

    “I don’t know. Maybe she just came. Didn’t ask-”

    They would meet for lunch at one at Maillard’s, decide then what to do about the youngest. Griselda replaced the phone and put out her cigarette. Missy had always been a problem, a brat, to speak frankly, even if she was their own sister. She’d been solved by living abroad with their mother, likewise a brat, and the Italian prince stepfather. For how long? Six or seven years; Missy must be about sixteen now, eight years younger than Griselda, ten younger than Ann. Coming to New York, alone, evidently-they hoped alone. And what to do with her? Ann wouldn’t take her, not Ann upset her well-ordered existence. And Griselda couldn’t.

    “And I won’t,” she said cheerfully, aloud.

    Maybe Missy would like to go to camp in Maine, or there was always poor, dear, long-suffering Aunt Charlotte in Pasadena, Father’s sister, and her equally long-suffering husband.

    Griselda wrapped herself in her tweed and went into the living room. Bette was polishing at windows. She said, “Good morning,” in her slight accented voice and her shy smile. “I bring the papers in, Miss Satterlee.”

    ”Thank” you, Bette.” She opened the refrigerator, took out the glass of orange juice, iced now, which the maid had fixed. She didn’t close the box then. She stood with one hand holding it. On top were three ash trays, set out by Bette to be cleaned. And in two were white stubs with small gold D’s engraved on them. Last night was real again. She let the box door swing from her hand. She took the percolator from the tiny gas range, poured black coffee, carried it and the juice to the bedroom. She returned for the papers,
Times,
Tribune, Mirror
and
News,
and her amber-rimmed glasses on the mantel. An orgy of papers was part of New York. She climbed into bed again, her breakfast on the table beside her. Plenty of time, Maillard’s was only a few blocks down Madison, and Ann’s one meant one-thirty.

    Last night couldn’t have been real. Yet in the ash tray… If she could only write Con. But she didn’t know where, and if she did know, he might think she was trying to make up to him. She lit a match noisily, her cheeks reddened. She would not write Con even if she knew where. It was good of him to offer the apartment. Yes. But what had he said? Impersonal as a cricket. She knew it by heart.

    “Sweet,” he had started. That was sarcasm, or it meant nothing. He called all girls by endearments.

    

    

    Read in the papers that the great Hollywood designer known in private life as Griselda Cameron Satterlee (that Satterlee’s a nice touch) is planning a two months’ visit to her former home in New York, the first in four years. You’re welcome to my apartment if you want it. I’ll be on the border for that long, commenting on the situation there. I’ll leave the keys with the superintendent Get them if you want.

    Con.

    

    

    And the postscripts:

    

    

    1. Sometimes the elevator sticks. Use the back door in that case.

    2. You’ll have to take Bette with the apartment. She’s a nice gal; chars for me and Gig. Six dollars per week.

    3. Gig bunks across the hall. You know, J. (for Joseph) Antwerp Gigland, professor of Persian Art at Columbia. Maybe you don’t know. He’s since your time. But if you want anything, holler.”

    

    

    That was all. It was nice to have the apartment, privacy, comfort, convenience-she hated hotels. And she wouldn’t try to get in touch with him. Not if he had an apartment full of blue marbles and strange twins running in and out at all hours.

    She sipped the strong coffee, read Winchell, Hellinger, Skolsky. She turned the pages idly and
their
picture stared into her face, one dark, one light. The headline said, “The Montefierrow twins at El Morocco last night.” The outlines said, “Danver Montefierrow (l),” that was the light one, “and his twin brother, Davidant Montefierrow (r),” with his black hair and eyes, “at gay El Morocco last night.”

    She read the gossipy social column. “The Montefierrow brothers returned to Manhattan yesterday after twelve years’ residence on the continent.” There was nonsense about the loss to London night life and Paris and Rome, and of course the Riviera. She didn’t pay much attention to it. They were real. And they weren’t sinister. They were sons of the late William Danver Montefierrow, one-time senator, one-time governor, one-time head of the Madison National Bank, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and two stickfuls more. They were also sons of the late Marie Davidant Montefierrow whose tragic death in Paris three years ago from an overdose of sleeping tablets, and so forth and so on.

    Marie Davidant had been a friend of her mother’s. And much like her mother, too-fluttery, too often married. The twins were normal. Last night was a joke, something of Con’s, or her mother’s idea of an introduction.

    She dressed now, in her red rust tweeds, the coat lined in beaver. March was always bitter in New York and today’s sun after yesterday’s rain meant additional chill. Not like California. She wouldn’t be frightened any more, not of any Montefierrows. She wouldn’t bother Gig again.

    She left the door open while she rang for the creeping elevator. There was a moment when she was encased in it. But she wasn’t frightened now. Nothing to be afraid of.

    

    

    Ann was late. Griselda sat in a high-backed chair in the safety of the restaurant, there in front on the Madison side. Maillard’s always smelled of chocolate and looked of dignified dowagers and correct children. She smoked her cigarette and was hungry.

    Ann was so perfect, in black as was always most of smart New York, her gloves white as April orchards. Ann always wore white gloves. She had height and the right face.

    She said, “I’m sorry to be late, Griselda,” as they went up the few steps into the vast room of tables. Everyone looked at Ann, not openly but wishfully. She was perfection. There was art in the removing of her gloves, lifting the menu. There was art in everything Ann did with her hands. It was too bad she was irritating.

    “Is the brook trout nice, Paul? And a mixed green salad and tea. And some of your lemon ice later, mixed with pineapple sherbet.”

    Griselda ordered tomato soup, lobster salad and coffee and felt like a clod. She repeated what she had thought out.

    “I cannot take Missy in, Ann. After all it is mere accident that I’m here. In California-yes, I’d see to her. But this is your home. You are head of the family here.” You had to be final with Ann. Even then you weren’t sure of getting your own way.

    Ann said, “If I had room…”

    No use telling her to move the children into one nursery, or turn Arthur’s dressing room into a temporary guest room. Ann did not disturb her setting.

    Griselda was determined for once. She suggested, not as solution, but because the soup vapor was good to smell. “We might wait until she gets here. Maybe she has ideas of her own. After all she’s sixteen.” She did not add, “I was hardly older when I married.” Her past marriage wasn’t a favorite subject with Ann. Ann had done it right: St. Thomas’, with pews of money and family.

    Ann agreed. “Maybe she’s improved.”

    They both remembered that fat too curly face, all white fur and muff, leaning against the deck rail. Nasty little Missy.

    Ann touched napkin to lips and tasted her dessert. She said, “I can’t go with you to the boat, Griselda.”

    She had known Ann would get her own way. She spoke hotly, “That isn’t fair!” and bitterly, “but you’ve never been fair.”

    Her sister’s fingers poised. “Fairness has nothing to do with it, Griselda. This is Allen’s day for his teeth and I have to take him. Cornelia has a slight cold and Nana has to stay with her.”

    Griselda repeated between set lips, “It isn’t fair. But I’ll bring her right to your apartment.”

    “Do. I’ve planned dinner for you, too. We can discuss plans with Missy then. Arthur will be there.”

    And he’s as bad as you are, Griselda didn’t say out loud. Only worse, for he goes your way.

    Ann put bills on the silver plate. Griselda didn’t protest. Let Ann pay for the lunch. She hated Ann. She had always hated her.

    “It’s almost three.” Ann’s wrist watch was smaller than a breath but more heavily diamonded. “You’d better take a cab.”

    Griselda said, “Yes.” You couldn’t say to Ann, “I’ve no intention of walking to the pier.” You could say it but it wouldn’t do any good.

    She repeated brutally, “As soon as I get Missy, we’ll come.” She wouldn’t let Ann shirk this. She had enough on her mind, marbles, Con, without a teen problem child.

    She hailed a cab. It crawled through crosstown traffic until it was past Broadway. Then it lurched. The
Queen Mary
was in dock. She took the elevator up to the pier. There were passengers and passengers and too much luggage. The customs men were braided between.

    She didn’t know Missy. She hadn’t thought of that before. Missy didn’t know her. Missy didn’t even know she was in New York.

    

    

    The two of them came galloping along the wooden pier. They were late, obviously late. They didn’t see her. She saw them first and she shrank into luggage and customs’ uniforms. They weren’t in tall hats now; their hats were brown, back on their heads; their suits were browny tan, Scotch woven, and their boots English brown. Their brown overcoats fled behind them. Their sticks were under their arms.

    They didn’t see her but she watched them until they came to a lovely girl. Blond Danny caught the girl up in his arms and kissed her five or six times, on cheeks and nose, chin and mouth, and the girl laughing with delight. Then dark David pushed Danny aside and held the girl too tightly and her tiny hands tight against his shoulders.

    She hadn’t noticed this one before; she’d been looking for school girls. This was exquisite, tiny, not as high by far as the twins’ shoulders. Her hair was the color of the lemon ice Ann had spooned at lunch, maybe a shade darker, but not much. It was cut off square as a Dutch doll’s, banged over dark arrow brows, square against pink cheeks. She wore a dark skullcap, like a Cardinal, on the back of her head. It was so far back, she looked hatless. Her mink coat was the darkest, the finest, Griselda had ever seen, even in movie star land. It was long and shawled, and beneath it you could see the exquisite frock, black with a touch of lemon ice at the throat.

    The twins spoke to her a moment, turned, and Griselda shrank again. They left the pier as quickly as they had come. Then she walked in the girl’s direction. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. But it was Ann’s nose and pointed chin, and the lemon hair tossed as Maman’s used to toss.

    The girl cried out joyfully, “Griselda!”

    She asked, not believing, “Are you Missy?”

    “But of course I’m Missy!” She flung her arms about her sister and kissed her on both cheeks. “And you’re Griselda.”

    Griselda was curious and she felt something strange within her, something cold. She asked, “How did you know me? I wouldn’t know you.”

    Missy had a tinkling laugh. “But of course. I have changed from child to woman. You are the same.” There was something foreign in her shoulders, her phrasing, maybe a faint accent. She had great eyes, dark as purple, long-lashed. Griselda hadn’t remembered violet eyes. But it was Missy. She remembered the teeth, the look behind the face.

    “If these customs men will but hurry.” She tapped over to them. She wore black satin pumps with such very high heels. And she had been embracing the Montefierrow twins. That cold something was a lump in Griselda’s stomach. It shouldn’t be there. Perhaps the twins were Missy’s joke.

    She returned, spreading her fingers,
“Allons!
It is done. We can go now, Griselda.”

    “But your luggage?”

    “It shall be sent me. At the hotel. I am stopping at the St. Regis.”

    That great hotel, on the corner across the street. They went into the elevator. “But you can’t stay at a hotel alone.”