The Bird’s Nest (30 page)

“Heaven save me,” said Morgen, “I will go mad if I watch you scrub your feet again. Couldn't you give up your bath just this one night?”

“No, oh, no,” said Betsy, “what would the rest of them think?”

“I thought,” Morgen said with curiosity, pausing on her way to the bathroom door, “I thought Bess always knew all that the rest of you were doing?”

Betsy shook her head, her look of ironic amusement fading before a kind of puzzlement. “She used to, most of the time,” Betsy said. “The last few days, though, she hasn't been any better than the rest of us. That's why she's so scared, too,” and Betsy capered on the wet floor.

“Betsy,” Morgen said slowly, “what did you have to do with all that mud?”

“Mud?” said Betsy, “what mud?” She looked complacently down at her naked body. “No mud on
me,
” she said.

“Yeah,” said Morgen. “I'll be downstairs, kiddo. Get nice and clean.”

As she went down the stairs toward the living room the bathroom door behind her opened and Betsy shouted, “Say, Morg—you mind if I use the rest of your bath salts? There's only a little left.”

 • • •

Morgen awakened the next morning out of sorts and worn with a weakness which she finally identified as hunger; for a minute she lay in bed, thinking that she had not eaten anything at all the day before, that someone had once told her that brandy contained all the necessary minerals and vitamins to sustain life for an indefinite length of time, that she might, had she been born somehow differently, been at this moment awakening into the boudoir of Madame de Pompadour, a jeweled page kneeling beside her bed proffering chocolate. She rose, fancying herself among turquoise satin hangings, and asked herself, whistling, whether milady would wear the ruby tiara or the pearl stomacher. Dressed at last, in the corduroy housecoat she always wore in the mornings, her hair combed and her feet in splendidly comfortable old sheepskin slippers, she went, still whistling, down the hall to the bathroom, amused at the thought that her niece might be still in the tub, and washed her face and hands and took up her toothbrush, which she held under the running water to wash the mud out of it. Then she dropped it, and moved back and held her hands, trembling, against the lock of the door and wanted to cry and heard herself whimpering, “I'm an old woman.”

“No more, no more, no more,” she said at last, and unlocked the door, leaving her toothbrush where it lay in the basin, and went stamping downstairs to the kitchen. She looked carefully into the coffeepot and rinsed it out thoroughly before starting the coffee, and during the time the coffee was cooking she stayed in the kitchen all the time, and did not touch anything without looking at it twice. When the coffee was done she poured herself a cupful, after washing the cup, and drew out a chair at the table and looked carefully at the seat of the chair and at the floor under the table before she sat down. Then, in a clean chair with a clean cup of coffee, she leaned her head down to let the hot clean fragrance come freshly to her, and tried to think.

First of all, it didn't matter, not at all, whether it was Elizabeth or Bess or Beth or Betsy fouling her, dirtying everything she touched; it wasn't important, because the whole pack of them were leaving. For the first time Morgen isolated and looked clearly at what she now knew she intended to do; she had, in the back of her mind, a confused and terrible picture of what she called an “institution,” which had until this minute revolted her because of a medieval uneasiness about chains and barred windows and dark wormy food; now that the Richmond fortune had been brought into such prominence, it seemed an equivocal thing for an aunt to send her only niece off to be bound in chains in darkness, and continue to live alone with that niece's money. For the moment there was no mud anywhere in sight, however, and Aunt Morgen endeavored to see the question impartially. There are places, she thought, I've certainly heard of places like country clubs, where they live in luxury and get the best of care and food, and places like that cost plenty, too, so she'd be getting her share of the money after all. I'd probably have to cut down here considerably, as a matter of fact, to keep her in a place like that, and no one could say . . . We could both go, Morgen thought wryly; one more mouthful of mud and I'd be ready; maybe I could leave her here and go myself, and get the best of care and food. She laughed, thinking of what people would say then: of course, Morgen got the money and all, and there she is, off in that loony-bin, living on the fat of the land, and her poor crazy niece half-starving at home. . . .

No, Morgen thought suddenly and firmly. She's infected me; I can't even think about what's best to do for her without beginning to wonder what people will say about the money; this is not intelligent of me. No one
needs
it, she thought, no one
cares,
only Bess, and then the minute she mentioned the money we all stopped being able to think about good things like eating and drinking and being well, and just started squabbling; I'll give her a big bag of silver dollars, Morgen thought; she can take it in her suitcase when she goes. I'll tell her she's got it all. No,
no,
Morgen thought, I will decide this without ever once thinking again about that money. Now. In order to take any steps at all in even locating the proper place—one near enough for visiting, where Morgen might, personally, inspect at regular intervals the quality of the food, the cleanliness of the floors, the servility of the attendants, one where the lawns were green and the tennis courts well rolled, where Bess could stroll and Betsy could romp; where, to put it most distinctly, Morgen might visit without feeling uncomfortably under restraint—in order to find such a place, it was distressingly necessary to apply to Doctor Wright; Harold Ryan would know, too, of course, but to Doctor Wright Morgen's decision would seem fair, without justification or explanation, might even seem humorously overdue. Harold Ryan would have to have too much talking done at him, and it was important, Morgen thought, to get moving at once on a thing like this; if 'twere done, she thought, surprising herself, 'twere well it were done quickly.

She laughed, tasting her coffee, and began aloud, declaiming “—that struts and frets his little hour upon the stage; it is a tale—”

“Good morning, Morgen,” said Bess, from the kitchen doorway. “You praying or something?”

“Good morning,” Morgen said, thinking, I know now that she is going soon; done quickly.

“Did you make coffee? Fine.” Bess poured herself a cup of coffee and came to sit down at the table. “Before I forget,” she said, looking delicately at her spread fingers, “I want you to pay for some things I ordered sent home. They'll probably be coming today.”

“What?”

“Some clothes. A few things for my room. Nothing that really need concern
you.
”

“They don't concern me at all,” Morgen said, “because I won't pay for them.”

Bess smiled. “Morgen,
dear,
” she said, “
I
am paying for them. You just give the man the money.”

“I won't
do
it,” Morgen said flatly, and then rage caught her again and she slammed her hand down onto the table and opened her mouth to shout, and then was quiet at Bess' smile. “If I get sore,” Morgen said, “you'll run away. And if I can't get sore, what
can
I do?”

“Try to behave like a lady, dear,” said Bess. “Try to behave like
me.
”

“Tell you what I'll do,” Morgen said, controlling herself and thinking: how soon she will be gone, “We'll compromise. Some of the things you ordered—” (the ones you can take with you, she was thinking) “—you can keep, and the others we'll send back. That way, each of us is giving in to the other, and we can both be satisfied.”

Bess thought. “All right,” she said at last, “but
I
do the deciding.”

“We'll make a list of everything,” Morgen said. She left the table and went to her desk in the living room to get a pencil and paper; when she came back Elizabeth was heating herself some milk at the stove and Morgen's coffee was suspiciously thick and dark; without tasting it Morgen made a mouth of disgust and set the cup in the sink. “How'd
you
get here?” she asked Elizabeth.

“Good morning, Aunt Morgen,” Elizabeth said. “I had a wonderful sleep last night.”

“Fine,” Morgen said, “fine.” She hesitated, not knowing how to say it, and then began carefully, “Elizabeth, I hope you'll try to understand when you know what I'm doing. If I didn't think that it was the only possible way—”

Elizabeth poured her hot milk into a cup and sat down at the table, and said, looking wistfully at her milk, “I wish just once they'd let me stay long enough to eat something
I
like.”

“Why not try?” Morgen asked with interest. “I mean—when they push at you, push back.”

“I guess so,” Elizabeth said vaguely; “I wish you wouldn't keep
meddling,
” she said. “I'm perfectly all right.”

“I'm waiting for you to tell me what you ordered,” Morgen said. “We'll have to send back anything too expensive, because we simply can't afford it.”

“Don't be silly,” Bess said. “I can afford anything I want.”

“Yeah,” Morgen said.

“Well, a little radio,” Bess said. “It's coming from that big store. I had lunch there,” she said, “and there's a fountain in the restaurant, and goldfish.”

“Arnold's,” said Morgen, writing. “Radio. I thought you had a radio?”

“This was smaller than mine,” Bess said. “And I ordered a coat, dark green with a fur collar, leopard, and a little hat to match.”

“Green's not a good color on you, anyway,” Morgen said.

“And some stockings and underwear and gloves . . . I don't know. I went around picking out things and the girl was going to put them all in a package together and send them.”

“And I'll keep them all in a package together and send them back,” Morgen said.

“And some costume jewelry. I even ordered a necklace for
you,
Morgen. Little shells.”

“Great,” Morgen said. “So I could hear the sound of the sea?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind. Is that everything?”

“Yes,” said Bess, looking away.

Morgen put the pencil down and sat back, looking at the list. “Not too bad,” she said. “You don't need the radio and you can't have the coat. I don't want the jewelry, and you have more underwear and stockings and gloves now than you can wear. We'll send it all back.”

“If you expect any favors from me,” Bess said, “you'd better be careful now.”

“What favors?” Morgen laughed rudely.

“I was going to let you go on living here,” Bess said. “Last night, when you promised to treat me better, I half-decided to give you an allowance.”

“Generous of you,” Morgen said. “That's more than I'd do for
you.
”

Bess took up Morgen's pencil and pointed it dangerously across the table. “Someday,” she said, “you are going to come crying to me, and then—”

“All right,” Morgen said agreeably. “When I come crying to you for a dark green coat with a leopard collar and a little hat to match, you may take great pleasure in denying it me. As,” she said, “I am doing to you.”

“Morgen,” Bess said, “if you won't let me get what I want today, then tomorrow I'll go again and order the same things sent all over again, and if I can't get them from the same store I'll get them somewhere else, because I plan to have what is due me, and I'm just going to go on and on buying whatever I please with my money.”

“So long as it keeps you happy,” Morgen said, watching Bess' hand and the pencil and paper. While Bess was talking her hand had added, not neatly but clearly, “wristwatch,” “cigarette case,” “pocketbook” to the list of items Bess had bought, and Morgen began to laugh. Bess looked down and saw her hand writing, and scowled.

“Stop,” she said in a whisper, and tried to unclench her fingers from the pencil; while Morgen, sitting back, watched without expression, Bess tried with her left hand to twist the fingers of her right hand away from the pencil, tried to lift her arm from the table, whispering, “Stop, stop, I won't
let
you.”

“hahaha,” Bess' right hand wrote, the letters scrawling across the page as Bess tried to drag her hand away.

“Morgen,” Bess said in appeal.

“
I
won't help you,” Morgen said, and grinned. “After you changed your mind about my allowance?”

Bess abandoned her struggle with her hand to look long and angrily at Morgen. “I suppose you think this is going to work out fine for you,” she said, and her hand wrote freely; Morgen looked away from Bess' hand, sickened at seeing the thing released and capering off in pursuit of its own mad ends; “I can't make it stop,” Bess said, looking at her hand.

Morgen rose and came around the table to lean over Bess' shoulder and read what Bess' hand was writing. “It's beastly,” Bess said.

“It's loathsome,” Morgen said. The hand had written: “poor cinderella bess poor cinderbess no pumpkin coat no ball”

“It never writes anything but nonsense,” Bess said.

“cinderbess sitting in ashes and mud up to neck.”

“Mud up to the neck,” Morgen said. “That's funny.” She smiled down at the back of Bess' head. “
I
say that,” she said.

“cruel sisters,” said the hand, and made a kind of final heavy line, as though a telling point had been made.

“Someone,” said Bess, very carelessly, “keeps a suitcase all packed in my room. I don't know who it belongs to, but it looks like someone is planning to sneak away some night. Again,” she finished.