Root of His Evil (13 page)

I told him never mind, and the horrible story kept running and running, and when it got to the point of my marriage with Grant it revealed shockingly intimate details of our life together, until I thought I would go insane from reading it. Yet all I could do was sit every morning and every evening with Lula and listen to her gabble about how badly Grant treated me and what she would do if she were in my place.

One day around lunch time Grant came in with his mother. She made herself very agreeable, and I said nothing to indicate there had been any unpleasantness between us. I remembered that she liked an old-fashioned with Scotch, got out the tray and made her one, gave Grant a rye highball, and waited for her to say what she wanted. She came to the point very quickly. Smiling at me so that her eyes didn’t look like glass at all, she said: “I hear a little situation has developed in connection with the young lady who is staying here.”

My first impulse was to look surprised and act as though I couldn’t imagine what situation she meant, but on second thought I decided that frankness would probably be the better policy. So I said: “Yes, I’m afraid that’s true.”

“You feel some sense of loyalty to the girl, Grant tells me.”

“I feel some sense of that, and I also feel that she represents something I have to make an issue over with Grant. If I back down on Lula I’ve lost everything. I’ve renounced what I was, I can’t change myself into something else, and that will leave me being exactly nothing at all. I won’t be that.”

“In your place I wouldn’t either.”

She smiled then and turned to Waldo. “It’s just as I told you—a question of pride. Not stubbornness, not stupidity, not capriciousness. It’s pride, pure and simple, and you have to respect it.”

“I respect it, but I don’t respect Lula.”

She sipped her cocktail, smiled at me again and, although I knew I couldn’t for a second trust her, I felt myself yielding to the charm she could turn on when she wanted. “May I call you Carrie?”

“Certainly, Mrs. Harris.”

“Then, Carrie, why don’t you let me step in with a plan that might relieve the whole difficulty?”

“I would be delighted if you could.”

“The girl, as I understand it, is out of work. Very well, then I’ll give her a job.”

I didn’t know what to say about this. It didn’t meet the issue I had spoken of, and yet I was so sick of Lula and so miserable about the point I had come to with Grant, that I only wished to wash my hands of the whole mess and start over again, if that was possible. She must have sensed what was in my mind, because she quickly went on to admit that it didn’t quite settle anything, but pointed out that it wasn’t exactly a clear issue since Grant’s objections to the girl were more personal than social, and that the main thing was that he and his family see my point of view, and that this was what she was trying to do. So then I weakly sidestepped the whole thing by saying it wasn’t really up to me at all, it was up to Lula. So then they both looked at each other and she said of course that was it, and there was nothing I could do but call Lula. She came out, and I had one crumb of satisfaction, that she didn’t even try to sit down in the presence of Mrs. Harris, but stood there, first on one foot and then on the other, saying yes ma’am and no ma’am in a frightened way that showed her up for the servant girl she really was.

Mrs. Harris had nothing to say to her of what we had been talking about but merely offered her a job and told her the pay and a few other things about it. But when Lula got it through her head what was meant she at once acted very shifty and confused, and said she would have to think it over before she could give her answer. Mrs. Harris said if there was something she wanted to talk to
me
about privately—and she very carefully called me “Mrs. Harris” in Lula’s presence—she would be very glad to wait. But Lula said it wasn’t that. She had the offer of a job somewhere, but she wouldn’t know until late this afternoon when she returned from Brooklyn, where she had to go to see about it.

I had heard nothing up to then about any job that she had, but almost before Mrs. Harris had got through saying she would stop by again later in the afternoon Lula was gone. She disappeared, grabbed her hat and streaked out of the apartment without saying a word to me or anybody. Grant, however, acted as though a great load had been lifted from his mind and proposed that all three of us go to lunch, and this we did, walking up to the Plaza. Many people came up and spoke to us, and Mrs. Harris presented them to me in the most respectful way, and yet all the time we were eating I kept having an uneasy feeling that something lurked back of it and that I didn’t know what it was.

But I had to find out, if I could, so I suggested to Grant that he take his mother to a matinee, and off they went. I jumped in a cab, came home and called Mr. Hunt at his office. He knew nothing about Mrs. Harris’s scheme for Lula but at once warned me there must be something wrong with it. Then he thought for a moment or two and told me that his guess would be that Mrs. Harris would issue invitations to a large party in my honor, knowing all the time that with Lula in the house I would not dare attend. Then I would be put in the position with Grant of refusing to have anything to
do
with his mother. It dawned on me then the clever trick that Mrs. Harris was trying to play on me. For the result would be, so long as she had Lula in her house, that I would not dare go there and probably Grant wouldn’t either, for that matter. Thus, while getting credit in Grant’s eyes for doing something very gracious about Lula, she would be driving a wedge between me and Grant that could only sink deeper all the time.

I knew then that I had to do something about Lula, but I still didn’t want to put myself in the position of backing down on my point. If I could make it appear that Lula had got a job herself, and in that way I got rid of her, at any rate I had stood by my guns, and while Grant had also stood by his, he and the whole family had found out I was not to be trifled with.

A
S SOON AS MR.
Hunt hung up I called Mr. Holden. He was at his hotel, fortunately, and almost before I had time to take the cocktail tray out of the living room and put some fresh ice and glasses on it he was announced and then I let him in and he was walking around looking at everything in a very interested way and making comments on everything he saw. He seemed to know a great deal about American history and when he picked up one of the Aztec knives, told me I should read Prescott’s “Conquest of Mexico” and I would “find out how quick the ruling class can tear a man’s heart out,” as he put it. Some other time I would have been pleased to hear intelligent remarks about Grant’s work, but just then I didn’t care how the ruling classes tore out hearts. I told him about Lula, and when I got to the things in the bathroom he laughed loudly and didn’t wait to hear any more. “So you want somebody to take her off your hands?”

“Dead or alive.”

“That’s easy. Where’s your telephone?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Put in a call.”

I took him in the bedroom and stood there while he picked up the receiver, but he cocked his head on one side in a way that meant get out, so there was nothing for me to do but leave him there and close the door. I could hear him talking some little time, and started to make him a brandy and soda. Then 1 remembered he didn’t drink, and I had a cup of coffee waiting for him by the time he was through. He came back in the living room, sat down beside the coffee, thanked me for it and laughed. “It’s all arranged.”

“What did you do?”

“Found her a job.”

“Where?”

“Karb’s.”

“But they’re on strike. There’s no job for her there.”

“Oh, yes, there is. Strike-breaker.”

He said this as though it were an amusing piece of news, but I was greatly startled by it. “Do you mean to say that you, a union organizer, actually proposed that Karb’s take on a strike-breaker?”

“They’ve already taken on fifty—or so I heard. I haven’t been in close touch with the thing lately. One more won’t hurt.”

“But it’s—asking a favor of the enemy.”

“In all warfare there’s an occasional exchange of prisoners. It makes things simple.”

“I don’t believe you’re unfriendly with Karb’s at all.”

“I? Unfriendly with Karb’s? I should say not. Carrie, the wars are fought on the field. The treaties are signed on a table. But a table discussion should be carried on by gentlemen who understand each other. I always observe the courtesies of the field for the sake of the discussion at the table. Asking a harmless little favor with a wink in my eye—”

“They didn’t see the wink.”

“They felt it. It traveled over the wires by a rare form of television.”

“In other words, you’re a Welshman.”

“I am not. I am a naturalized American, 100%.”

He took a little American flag out of his pocket, made out of silk and attached to a pin, and stuck it in his lapel, and it was all so silly I couldn’t help but laugh. We sat and drank coffee and he talked about the labor movement and then Lula came in and he certainly made quick work of her. She didn’t want to take the job at first, said her Brooklyn opening would materialize in a week and until it did she wanted to stay with me. He brushed this aside at once and then she said she wouldn’t be a strike-breaker at Karb’s because this would make her a scab. He said in reality she wouldn’t be a strike-breaker at all but a union spy, “particularly noble and above reproach,” as he put it, and then he turned very hard and stern and in almost no time he made her pack and bundled her out of there so fast I hardly had time to slip her the ten dollars I had decided to give her. We were still laughing about how simple it all had been when the door opened, and Grant came in with his mother.

They stood there looking at us and for a moment I didn’t know what to do and didn’t much care what I did, to tell the truth, as I was so happy over the great load that had been lifted from my mind, but Mr. Holden took charge in a most impressive way. He bowed as though he were in some royal palace, and without waiting for me to introduce him he recalled himself to Grant and there was nothing for Grant to do but introduce Mr. Holden to his mother, which he did very coldly. On their side it was all very stiff and snooty, but this didn’t feaze Mr. Holden a bit. He laughed and said: “We’re celebrating a deliverance.”

“Oh?”

Grant tried to sound casual but the quick way he turned his head showed he was quite curious.

“Yes, the lovely Lula has had an offer of employment, has accepted it, and taken her sad farewell. Not that it didn’t break her heart. But she went.”

Mrs. Harris sat down at this piece of news, stared at Mr. Holden and seemed to turn into a block of ice. But Grant, as it finally got through his head, started to laugh and said: “So. She took it. And I thought that Brooklyn job was a phony.”

“Oh, it wasn’t the Brooklyn job. My, my, the lady had all sorts of offers, didn’t she? All tributes to her sterling character, no doubt. No, this was still another job. I had the honor of being bearer of the happy tidings and now, having discharged my historic function, as Trotsky would have put it, I’ll be on my way.”

He got up, but Grant still stood between him and the door and didn’t move. They were facing each other for a moment, and then Grant laughed again. “Holden, I think you’re a liar.”

“Others have thought so but I’ve survived it.”

“I think Carrie called you up and asked you to get that nuisance out of here so she could sidestep all these imaginary issues she’s been raising. Right?”

“Since I’m already called a liar my testimony on that point would be worthless.”

“Anyway, thanks—and let’s have a drink.”

“More coffee would be fine.”

I felt so happy I almost forgot it was I who had to make the coffee, since what I had already served was cold by now, and then when I did go out in the kitchen I couldn’t remember where anything was and it all took me a long time. But when I finally did get back with the coffee, and an old-fashioned with Scotch for Mrs. Harris and rye and seltzer for Grant, things were very unpleasant in there. Mrs. Harris’s voice sounded shrill, as it had that afternoon at the cocktail party, and she was telling Grant that since she had gone to all this trouble to give the girl work she thought the least that was due her was that she be consulted before anything was done about Lula. Grant told her she was forgetting that the only person who had any real say in the matter was Lula and that it was a free country and that Lula had done what she wanted to do. I said nothing, but served the things I had brought, and was so glad I had turned the tables on her that I didn’t trust myself to say anything at all. Grant was happy too, although of course he never for a moment penetrated what his mother was up to, and wanted to smooth things down. He raised his glass to Mr. Holden, who raised his coffee cup. Then he raised his glass to me and I raised my coffee cup, but when he raised his glass to Mrs. Harris she made no move toward her old-fashioned but went right on with her tirade. Then Grant, Mr. Holden and myself sipped in silence while she talked, getting louder all the time, and then Grant got impatient with her and began to talk back, saying it was his home, not hers, and I sat back and wondered whether I could purr if I tried.

During all of this Mr. Holden said not a word but coldly studied her. She had got up by now and was yelling down at Grant, where he still sat taking quick gulps out of his highball and nervously drawing at a cigarette. Mr. Holden got up, went over to where they were and put his arms around her. She jerked around, raised her face to his, and her eyes were simply horrible to see. But he smiled down at her, laid his fingers on her cheek and patted it. “Now why get excited? They’re two misguided youngsters, wholly incapable of dealing with the simplest problem, but we don’t care, do we?”

“Oh, don’t
we?”

“No—let’s leave them to stew in their own juice, which is really what they want to do, for some reason beyond my comprehension. Let’s go and have dinner, you and me. I’ll forsake my principles and drink a bottle of wine with you, a pale white wine which will pick up the color of your hair...Yes?”