Letty Fox (19 page)

The cigarette girl said, “This is crazy; haven't you a drink, Mrs. Fox? Can I raid your cellar or something? I don't know this neighborhood at all or I wouldn't be so fresh. This calls for something special though. Naturally, I will wait for Philip.”

The schoolteacher said nothing, but with a calm face sat in the armchair. She would not meet the glances of the others, however.

Next came Grandmother Morgan with Mr. Porlock, her grocery-lover, to deposit him while she went to do some shopping for Phyllis; then several last-minute callers, and Philip himself. He came in whistling and stopped, knocked sideways by the sight of the girls. Then he said, “Hello, Letty and Jacky,” and once more looked at the girls. He could hardly speak; he whispered, “What is it, girls? Berenice—”

“Well, you double-crossing so-and-so,” said Berenice, with a dry laugh, “if I don't lift my left leg and go whoops upon you, son, it's because of my sex and not my feelings. Cheer up, you disintegrated old milkshake, I'm not going to drag you through breach of promise for this, but I can't answer for the suffragette sorority, and I wouldn't if I could. I have been sitting here this half hour, my boy, since I found out all about my honey, just to see how you would act in such an emergency.”

She rose gracefully from her left leg, which had been curled under her, and going to Uncle Philip, kissed him on his soft, new jowl. She turned from him to the girls, gave an odd ha-ha, winked and said, “Well, go get him, sisters!”

“Well!” said the cigarette girl, sourly, “so I got a circular letter and I attended the meeting. But I'm a wrong kind of stockholder, Philip Morgan. I'm the kind that takes a train and a country bus out to Billycock, Ohio, just to put in a mean minority vote. And if no one else will have you, I will, and I'll take the trip to Europe with you or without you, but certainly with the tickets. I wouldn't marry you, on a bet, but I want to get a long way away from a place where you can abound.”

Philip said, “Maisie, dear, I don't understand at all, I didn't say anything that could have led you to believe, or rather, probably as a joke, I said—”

The schoolteacherish girl took off her hat, showing her hair, lifted her eyes brightly to him, “Philip, is it true, or isn't it, that we are going to London on the
Samaria
? I gave up my job and I have got my clothes together, because it was all settled. I don't see how I could retrace my steps.”

Before Philip could answer, the doorbell rang. With joy he ran to open it, and then was slow returning. When he returned a woman was with him, but this was a woman I knew, Eleanor Blackfield, who had been with her valise out to The Wreck. This time, too, she had her valise, only one, and an expensive dressing case which Jacky and I looked at first, for we had talked so much about a fitted dressing case. Phyllis had one; Mathilde and we did not.

“Well, hello, darling,” said the new woman, throwing her arms without preamble around Philip's neck; “and now for the great adventure. Oh, God! Phil, it's a gorgeous day, isn't it? I said to myself coming along in the taxi, God never made a more wonderful day and it's for Philip and me, and for you, too, Mrs. Fox,” she said and looked at us, but without adding our names; “I know, of course—and I do hope your trip will have a happy outcome. Are these all your friends come to see you off? Why, hello—Berenice—”

“You don't seem to appreciate a simple, but arresting fact,” said Berenice. “Like many basic facts this one will throw a monkey wrench in the donkey engine. Philip, Eleanor, is in the white-slave trade. We are on the road to Buenos Aires.”

Eleanor laughed. “Why not? There have been times when to me to be a white slave seemed an unattainable ideal. I wondered how people did it.”

Berenice took out her tortoise-shell cigarette case with its gold monogram, the whole thing a studied public insult—offered this studied public insult to all present, and said, “Oh, sure. Very neat. But are you paying for your ticket yourself? Can Philip pay for us all? For he has offered, apparently, I judge recklessly from appearances, to take us all to England on the
Samaria
! And I think a brawl is due. I for one—”

During the brawl that followed, my mother ran to the phone which was in the entry. The entry, fortunately, could be reached by a door into the kitchen which was whitewashed and usually kept bolted. She telephoned the first person that came into her head. That was Balan Froggart, an old friend, an actor who had risen to fame, who had sent her a bouquet this same morning. He said he would come at once, taking a taxi because he had a benefit performance in the evening and had to sleep a little.

When she came back to the room Philip had disappeared, for with a dramatic talent suitable for this kind of situation only he had, after stamping about, holding his hands to his ears, kissing all the girls in turn, offering to help them with their valises to the taxis, turning his pockets inside out (to show that he had no money and no tickets), and pulling out his handkerchief to wipe his sweating forehead, this attractive young fellow had suddenly rushed to the door, pulled it open, said, “Fight it out amongst yourselves,” pulled the door to, and disappeared. The girls had too much sense to follow him and were seating themselves to have a good cry when Mother came in. She opened a package of chocolates, most acceptable always, and saw them disappear under her eyes.

Scarcely fifteen minutes later, while she was herself helping them to an understanding of her brother Philip, the prepotent, irresistible, beetle-browed figure of Balan Froggart appeared. He got them around him, like a crowd of autograph-hounds, kissed my mother, offered them drinks in his apaitment and free theater tickets, told them to be good girls, told them that if they had been good girls, they would never have got into this jam, sang the “Jamb on Jerry's Rocks,” told them he was himself an eligible, if unreliable bachelor, and rushed them out of the apartment into a taxi which he declared was waiting, and left a last message for his friend, Solander, which was, “Tell Sol, Philip had the right idea; only ladies should live under a king. Come on, girls.”

M
y father was at the boat, and for one night took us to the Strand Palace Hotel, a resort of Americans in London, where you could then get bed and breakfast for nine-and-sixpence a night, baths free and breakfast up till eleven in the morning. Breakfast consisted of about eight courses; those taking it were able to economize by doing without lunch. There were three or four hotels run on this attractive system by the same concern.

My father had engaged, for the week only, board and lodging at a respectable red brick pension near Hampstead Heath. The air, he said, would be good for my mother and for us. Mother cried at being left there like a widow or divorcée, and asked how she would ever explain it, saying they would think she was a mistress or a deserted wife. Father said that he had already explained to the woman that he worked permanently in London, lived in chambers, and that Mathilde Fox, his wife, had shortly to return to the U.S.A. for the opening of school. “And that is true, Mattie, isn't it?” he asked; “I cannot afford this living in separate quarters and do not want the children educated here.”

At first he would not tell my mother where he was living, but then gave an address and asked her not to call upon him there. There was no telephone and never anyone there in the daytime.

“She is there,” said my mother.

My father at first denied this, but afterwards agreed that Persia was there.

“Why do you do nothing but lie to me?” cried my poor mother. “It is all built on sand; I have no one to turn to.”

“I lied to you to save you pain.”

“I have no one in the world to turn to,” said my mother, pacing up and down. “You brought this girl over here, but not me. You don't give me a chance.”

“She is looking about for another job. She's very ambitious and is studying to go to France or Belgium to work. Montrose offered her a job here with me.”

“Montrose! He said nothing about it to me; he told me— everyone is against me! As soon as her husband leaves her, everyone insults a woman and lies to her; they seem to think she's a two-year-old child. Really, they don't care—she is dead to them. What a position to be in! Dead to society! How can a dead woman like me bring up your children? Soon you'll want to give them to that woman. She's a concubine, but she's alive. People are interested in her. She has power. That's what they're interested in. I understand everything, but too late! But I never had any luck!”

My mother, crying, sat in a corner of the room on a straight chair, placed there beside a tall green and yellow pottery vase, painted and fluted like a waterlily. It was about three feet high and held a stick and an umbrella. Everything in the room was, to us, beautiful and strange: the Nottingham lace curtains, starched stiffly so that they almost stood up by themselves; the lace doilies on chair-heads and armrests; the two hassocks, one lemon-colored velvet, one red plush with a basket of flowers; the marble clock with gold pillars holding up a dome upon which a Cupid stood on tiptoe. China ladies and gentlemen in flowered clothes stood beside it. There was a tall mirror reaching to the ceiling, and the mantelpiece, broad as a reredos and very much like one, had carvings, shelves, niches, openwork; and in a glass corner cabinet was a collection of fine, tiny things in china.

While this conversation was going on, Jacky and I were spread flat as weeds in an aquarium, against the glass of this cabinet. There was an old woman on a chair, a night stool, a guitar, none more than an inch long, and a collection of china dogs, all the size of fingernails; much more beside this. Our father came toward us, his pale face lighted up by his large, gentle eyes, and said, “It was on account of those little dogs and that child in the swing that I took this room, I tell you; I knew you kids would be nuts about them.”

We laughed loudly and tried to open the cabinet. My mother cried and said, “And you won't stay here even tonight, Sol?”

“I cannot; there is no room here,” he said in despair; “perhaps we will make some other arrangements before you go back, but you must go back soon, Mattie. I cannot keep you all over here. You know what I am getting. Montrose paid for my fare, but he took it off my salary and I ended up the first week twelve pounds in the hole. And now your trip—such a wild thing to do—why didn't you write to me? You take your mother's advice, Phyllis's advice, Pauline's advice, but they don't pay your fare, I notice.”

“I spent nothing,” said my mother, weeping; “as you see, the children have nothing new. I am ashamed to take them down to dinner.”

My father laughed, “I think they can compete with the English and so can you.”

“They all think Americans are so rich and we look like beggars.”

“Rich Americans don't stay here.”

“I do think Mrs. Montrose could have asked us out for just one night or two,” said my mother desolately; “she asked Phyllis and Pauline, but not me. It is ill-mannered. And as for Montrose, he came to see me several times and brought candy for the girls, and now I find that he was only interested in Phyllis. Probably that's the whole story!”

My father laughed, “Oh, Joe's not a bad fellow, but he expects some return for anything he puts out. That's the usual thing, you know. Your own mother, Mattie, is not far from that class herself.”

“I'm the Cinderella,” said my mother.

“No, you're married to a pauper not a prince,” said my father, tenderly. “Maybe Mother Morgan could do better next time.”

“It's no laughing matter.”

“Do your hair and fix your collar, Mattie. Go down to dinner and I'll come and see you for dinner tomorrow night. I'll arrange to have my dinners here.”

“Oh, what will they think, then, Sol? I had better say you're my brother.”

“What a poor thing,” said my father, coming to my mother and kissing her; “what a coward, and what a silly, timid woman.”

“I have no home, nowhere to turn,” said my mother, putting her head on his chest. “Sol, what will I do? You're all I had. You understood me and now you have left me. Life is so uncomfortable now.”

“I'll come back tomorrow for dinner,” said my father, suddenly.

He kissed Mother and then us, and smiling his great smile and making several codfish, salmon and toad faces for us at our request (for he was very good at frogs and fish), he left quickly, leaving with us an impression of black and white, a plump comforting waist, small coins in dark pockets, and love. If Sol did not love Mathilde, he loved us. I felt a faint disdain for my mother, no doubt. She often said we did, when she complained.

We stayed in this place for two weeks, and by that time Joseph Montrose had made the following proposition to my father: that Pauline, Mathilde, Phyllis, and the two little girls should take a large flat he had found. There was some furniture in the flat and he would provide more. Pauline and Phyllis were to have four of the six rooms, and we were to have two. When my mother returned to the U.S.A. Montrose would take over the whole flat and pay for it all, unless my father had any other suggestion. As my father would have very little rent to pay under this arrangement, my mother would do the housework and cooking, but as she would have company, and be able to receive visits from my father without having anything to explain, everyone agreed to the idea.

Mrs. Montrose felt it very respectable that the sisters should live together, and Mr. Montrose explained to her that he hoped to reconcile the separated husband and wife. He explained this to my mother, too. My mother was reconciled to Joseph Montrose, although she scolded him for having deceived her, “Why didn't you tell me, Joe, that woman was living with him in London?”

“Wasn't sure myself—didn't enquire—give you my word, Mattie, never knew for certain,” and he smiled, pressed her knee.