A Charmed Life (35 page)

“Money?” Miles exclaimed, immediately looking up. “What money?” Warren blurted out that he had come to be paid for the picture. Miles stared. Helen’s hand went out impulsively to a checkbook that Warren could see lying on the table. She started to look for a pen. “Of course,” she murmured. “Right away.” Miles raised a hand. He was smiling. “Just a minute,” he said. “Jane told Helen there was plenty of time. I don’t know that we can swing it this month.” He glanced affably at Warren. “Why don’t you leave me your bill?” he proposed. “Then Helen can take care of it when she does the accounts next month.” Warren swallowed. Owing to Martha’s condition, the word,
month,
had acquired a terrible significance for him. He did not know what to say. Miles was looking at him in such a friendly, unconcerned way, as though the subject were closed. “But I need it now, this month,” Warren declared, in a thin, squeaky voice, turning humbly to Helen. Helen’s long thin hand went out again, capably, for the checkbook. “Nonsense, old man,” Miles interrupted, with a slightly irritable laugh. “You and Jane are rolling in it. I’m a poor man, comparatively, with a lot of expenses. I’ve still got the car to finish paying for and I’m still buying books for my work.” A testy note came into his voice; he fitted a cigarette into his holder. “You can see for yourself,” he went on, flourishing the holder. “I’ve had to advertise for most of this stuff. I’ve got a couple of rare-book dealers running things down for me.”

Warren felt like a moneychanger as his eyes, following Miles’s gesture, took in the array of books on the shelves, most of them in foreign languages, Greek, German, French, Latin, Italian, rare editions, doubtless, and all in fine bindings. These books must have cost Miles a fortune. And they were necessary to Miles’s work, for which Warren still felt a keen respect. His eye lit on a tiny volume of Kierkegaard:
“De omne dubitandum esse,”
he read. His loyalty to Martha wavered for an instant. He remembered how good Miles had been to him, how generous he had been with his library. Jane was a bit stingy about books. They were dust-catchers, she said. It was cheaper, according to her, to join a library that would send you any book you wanted. But she always forgot to send them back, so that Warren was ashamed to use their memberships. He yearned to borrow that Kierkegaard. If he asked for it, Miles would press it on him. People said Miles was mean about paying his bills, but perhaps he was really strapped, as he was saying now. Warren’s gaze went wistfully to Helen. “But if Warren needs it, dearest,” she murmured.

Miles pulled up his dressing gown and put his hands on his hips. “Why would he be needing it?” he said, with a suggestion of a brogue. Warren blinked. He had not been prepared for Miles to ask him his reasons. “I have a lot of expenses too,” he said gamely, “in connection with my mother’s estate. My uncle needs cash to settle it. He doesn’t want to sell now, with the market down.” He felt a momentary pride in this story, the first he had ever invented; it had just the right amount of truth in it, he considered. “Why don’t you ask Jane?” inquired Miles, sensibly. Warren gulped. Now that he thought of it, it seemed a logical question. “I can’t,” he said wretchedly. “I can’t ask her to sell stocks, either, till the market comes up again. She’s done so much for me.” “She married you,” said Miles. “Why should you turn to me instead of her?” “Because you owe it to me,” Warren brought out faintly, blushing up to his eyes. He could see Miles’s point of view perfectly. From Miles’s point of view, he looked a real son of a bitch, yes, a son of a bitch, coming down here to dun Miles, just to save a few filthy dollars on the stock market. He would not blame Miles if he never spoke to him again.

A nerve began to twitch in Miles’s shaved pink cheek. His foot came forward in its bootie and kicked the heater off. “Look here, Warren,” he went on, still patiently. “You’re going to make a lot of money thanks to Helen buying that portrait. Sandy’s article is going to put you on the map. As soon as that piece comes out, dealers will be beating a path to your door. Wait and see. I know how these things work. Why, man, you ought to pay Helen for her vision in buying that picture. A picture of Martha, mind you, my former wife. It took generosity for Helen to do that.” “I know that, Miles,” put in Warren, sadly. His fifty summers turned to fifty winters; he was withered with shame at his importunacy. He could see that he was putting Miles’s back up every time he spoke. “By the way, how
is
Martha?” he heard Miles say in his most Jovian tones. “She’s fine,” said Warren, coloring again. All at once, he remembered that it was Miles who ought to be blushing. This thought, when he concentrated on it, brought his blood to a boil. “Why, yes, you might say,” Miles continued, winking, “that you owed Helen money. It’s the turning point of your career. Now don’t get excited,” he added, pacifically, noticing that Warren’s fists had clenched. “I don’t mean that Helen isn’t going to pay you. That was just a
jeu d’esprit.
Let’s say she gives you a couple of hundred next month and a couple of hundred the month after. That’ll see to your Christmas stocking.” “No,” said Warren.

“Perhaps I could give him something now, Miles,” Helen intervened. “No,” said Warren. Hectic spots burned in his cheeks. “A couple of hundred won’t do.”

Miles cinched in his robe. Under Warren’s fascinated gaze, a change began to take place in him. He swelled, as if inflating with air, like a balloon slowly distending. As he swelled, his cheeks got redder and his eyes, two green gimlets, receded into their fleshy upholstery. “Why, you’re off your chump, man,” he said. “Nobody buys pictures that way. Ask any dealer. They sell them on tick. Don’t you know that much about your own trade? I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you.” “Hush, darling,” said Helen anxiously. “You mustn’t let yourself get excited. Warren doesn’t mean—” “Hush, yourself,” said Miles, in a strange, rough voice. “Don’t try to run me. Go on downstairs, to your child. Tend to your knitting.” Helen retreated, with her pad, smiling fixedly at Warren, as if apologizing for herself. She did not go all the way down. Warren heard her footsteps pause, somewhere in the middle; she was listening. Tears stood in Warren’s eyes; he wanted to punch Miles and make his crooked nose bleed, for the way he behaved toward women. “I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you, Coe,” Miles repeated. “Your head’s got too big for your hat. You’re suffering from delusions of grandeur. I ought to have expected this. When Helen told me the price you were trying to put on that painting, I set it down to temporary insanity. I was sorry for you. Here, I said, is a decent, modest little chap who’s so starved for recognition that his first sale unhinges him. ‘Don’t argue,’ I said. ‘Just keep the painting and let him come to his senses. The price is merely symbolic; he’s too much of a gentleman to play a friend for a sucker.’ Frankly, I thought you’d consider yourself lucky to collect on the quarter-dollar. He needs ego-satisfaction, I said to myself, and I drummed up this magazine piece for you. Sandy thought I was bats when I first put the idea up to him.” He paused to let this sink in; his thin lips were set in that narrow, cruel line they had when he was drunk. Warren, across the desk, accepted blow after blow to his vanity without flinching; the only thing that hurt him, really, was to be called “Coe.”

He did not mind what Miles thought of him as an artist; it was his friendship that was bleeding away, in this eyrie, while the silent bird swung in its cage and the gold lettering of the books shone. “Mind you,” Miles continued, in even tones, “none of this affects my attitude toward your work. I can see you for what you are, as a man, without losing faith in your picture, downstairs. As a human being, you’re a wretched little
rentier
and a leech. I’ve put up with you for ten years, having you pick my brains whenever you and your frau invite me over to put on the feedbag. But you’re a damned fine draughtsman. I always said so. I say it again. And I’m going to pay you for the picture. Don’t think I’m going to default on it. I’ll pay you what I think it’s worth, in my own sweet time. If you don’t like that, you can sue me. Now, go on, peddle your papers.”

He took up a book and pencil and swung sideways in his swivel chair. Warren did not move. Miles finally looked up, as if casually, and discovered him still there. “Well?” said Miles. “Give me my money or I’ll take the picture back,” said a low, threatening voice issuing from Warren. He was re-testing the theory, which had not proved true in boarding school, that all bullies are cowards. Miles leapt up. “Helen,” he yelled. “Come up here, damn it! Get this
bill-collector
out of my study.” Warren’s fists, which had doubled up in self-protection, did a little dance. “Helen!” Miles bellowed. “Coming,” a faint voice answered. They heard her footsteps on the stairs. Warren’s fists fell; his shoulders slumped. He could not hit Miles in front of his wife. And Miles would probably refuse if Warren invited him to step outside. “I’ll take back the picture,” he declared wildly, as he cast a last vengeful look at Miles and started to run down the stairs, nearly bumping into Helen, who swerved aside to let him pass. He came pounding into the gymnasium and rushed up to the portrait, which seemed to look askance at him with its curving ironical smile. His threat, he recognized, had been perfectly idle. He could no more remove the picture than he could beat up Miles. It was too big.

Even as he tugged at one corner of it, he admitted defeat. The picture began to teeter. Carefully, Warren set it straight. He was afraid that if it fell, in the heavy frame Miles had put on it, the crash would disturb the baby. He smiled wanly at the little creature, wiggled his ears, and softly took his departure. His heart was downcast, because he had failed Martha, but he could not help feeling a mite of satisfaction. Just for one minute, Miles, with his dumbbells and his Indian clubs, had been afraid of him.

He sat, conscientiously warming the motor, in the Murphys’ driveway. He was not thinking, yet, of the terrible things Miles had said to him, which made him feel sorrier for Miles, almost, than he did for himself. He was concentrating on the money. And all at once he saw, very simply, how he could get it.

THIRTEEN

Y
ET NOTHING CONNECTED WITH
money was easy, Warren discovered. When he drove up to the bank in Digby to try to borrow on his mother’s estate, he found that Jane’s signature would be needed. The best thing, he decided reluctantly, was to call up his aunt’s husband in Savannah. The old man, as the executor, was still pottering around, paying the debts and the taxes, but he certainly ought to be able to advance Warren something on his share of the principal. Warren got a pocketful of change and settled himself in the pay-phone booth in the Digby drugstore. As usual, the circuits were busy, and the first connection was bad. Then his aunt’s husband, when Warren could finally hear him, was not much nicer than Miles. In his mock-courteous Southern style, his uncle wondered that Warren should be in such a hurry to get his mother’s little bit of money, when he had not troubled to hurry to her funeral. Warren, his uncle observed, was quick enough to use the long-distance today, but when his mother died, a little old night letter had been good enough.

Warren had grown up on his aunt’s husband’s obscure sarcasms, which had been aimed at his artistic tendencies, and he now felt like a boy again, charged with crimes he was not aware of having committed. “Night letter?” he cried, over the humming of the wires. “I don’t know what you mean, Uncle Chet.” He ransacked his memory. “Jane sent a telegram.” “Your aunt got a night letter,”’ Warren’s uncle retorted. “Seemed to us you might have telephoned, instead of waiting all that time.” “There must have been a mistake,” yelled Warren. He would have to ask Jane about it when he got home. But then he remembered that he could not ask her: he could not let her know that he had talked with his uncle. “Why didn’t Aunt May mention this when I was down there?” he piteously wanted to know. He was fond of his aunt, and it desolated him to think that she had been harboring a grudge against him. “She didn’t want words at the funeral,” replied his uncle. “Tell her there was a mistake,” pleaded Warren. These misunderstandings had been typical of his boyhood, as the only child of a widowed lady, with cousins and in-laws ceaselessly putting their oar in to trouble the waters. It was this very uncle, childless himself, who had decreed that Warren should go to military school. These memories, of bafflement and helplessness, made Warren nearly drop in the phone booth.

“Uncle Chet,” he cried. “Listen. Forget about that, just for a minute. I have to have some money, right away.” “What you need it for?” his uncle’s voice came sharply. It was the same trigger-tone that Warren could remember, from thirty-five years ago, when Warren had asked his mother for extra pocket-money to buy, it was revealed, drawing materials. He had lacked the gall to lie and say he wanted a baseball mitt or any of the manly articles that his in-law would have approved of. “I can’t tell you,” he said now. “But it’s awfully important. A matter of life and death, just about.” His uncle made a dissatisfied sound. “You’ll have to give me more than that to go on, Warren,” he said grudgingly. “I’ve got my duty to the estate. I’m not going to go and sell shares just to please you.” “You could borrow from the bank,” argued Warren. “You got banks up there, I suppose,” said his uncle, satirically. “Your mother always claimed you married a wealthy woman.” “I can’t tell Jane,” said Warren, instinctively lowering his voice. “What’s that?” said his uncle. “
I can’t tell Jane”
repeated Warren, as loudly as he dared. “It’s a private matter. There’s a girl up here, a friend of mine, in trouble.”

“In trouble?” exclaimed his uncle. “You mean …?” “Yes,” desperately cried Warren. There was a silence. Then a dry chuckle came from the other end of the line. “Well, well,” said his uncle. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Warren. I guess you’ve reached the dangerous age.” “It’s not me, Uncle Chet,” protested Warren. “No, no,” chuckled his uncle. “It was two other fellows, I suppose. No call to apologize. I won’t let on to your aunt. How much do you need?” Warren reflected. It was up to him, he saw, to accept his uncle’s mistake. “Five hundred dollars,” he said bravely. “You better make it seven.” “Sounds like you’re being blackmailed,” commented his uncle. “No,” said Warren. “Oh, no. This girl is what you’d call a lady, Uncle Chet. Things are more expensive up here—doctors and all that.” “How far gone is she?” inquired the old man. “About six weeks,” said Warren. “Maybe seven. I’m not sure.” He whitened as he saw the implication: did his uncle realize that Warren’s mother had died just over six weeks ago? “Umm,” said his aunt’s husband. “You’re in a hurry then. How shall I get the money to you?” Uncle Chet’s
savoir faire
stunned Warren; he had never thought of this difficulty himself. Any letter that came, Jane would open as a matter of course, if she found it in the post-office box. “Golly,” sighed Warren. “I don’t know what to tell you. This is an awfully small place.” “I could send a bank check,” ruminated his uncle, “in a plain envelope, addressed to some friend of yours. You got any bachelor friends?” Warren canvassed his circle of acquaintances. There was Paul, he decided. Paul was supposed to be trustworthy; Jane said he knew everybody’s secrets. “Paul de Harnonville,” he spelled out the vicomte’s name for his uncle. “Airmail, registered?” said the old man. Warren hesitated. If it were registered, they would notice it at the post office. But they might notice it anyway. Still, what if Jane were to come by while Paul was signing for it? “Better plain air mail,” counseled his uncle. “I’ll try to get it off this afternoon.” “You’ve been a prince, Uncle Chet,” said Warren, warmly. “Don’t mention it,” said the old man. “You should have told me right off, instead of beating about the bush.”