Letty Fox (13 page)

I was with my father, in the office he occupied with Joseph Montrose in Thirty-fourth Street, when Grandmother Morgan visited him at three in the afternoon, bringing with her Phyllis. Grandmother admired my father's business connections; Joseph Montrose knew many rich men, here and abroad; men were getting richer every day, and Grandmother wanted to place Phyllis to the best advantage. For two years Phyllis had lived with Stella and been sweet and good in the house, while she was attending high school in the city, but she had not been at home one night in those years; and now she needed a guardian, the best guardian, a husband.

Grandmother kissed and hugged me, patted Solander's hand, and regretted that Mr. Montrose was out.

“I want him to meet Phyllis, he might introduce her to someone,” she said, smiling broadly and patting my father's hand again. “Phyllis won't be hard to get off,” laughed Solander.

Phyllis sat on the window seat and looked out the window, smiling to herself.

“I won't say anything about my poor Mathilde,” said Grandmother. “I want you to do something for her, though; go back to her, patch it up, my dear Sol. I know she isn't cheerful, she doesn't know what to do with a man, she isn't a smart girl—but she's a good girl, pretty, and she loves you, Sol. Go back to her, dear boy; I'm very fond of you, you've always been my favorite in-law, you're almost a son to me, and I've a mother's feelings. I didn't do well by you when you were married; if you go back to her, I'll give you a suit of bedroom furniture—and, h'm—when you're settled down, I'll see about it—I'll see about the table silver. You never had anything out of me, I just overlooked it, dear Sol. Mind you, dear boy, I don't blame you. I know my daughter, she's the kind who is born a has-been—I wish you'd got Phyllis; Phyl is quite a different kind of girl, she knows what she's about and she has a very affectionate nature. But you preferred the quiet one. I've had serious talks with Mattie. I'm sure she'll try to improve. Living with her is not like going to the circus, I know; but she's the mother of your children—she's a mother, Sol.”

My father smiled at his mother-in-law and said, “I went back to her, you know I tried, Mamma Morgan; but it didn't work out.”

“Now, my dear Sol, a little practical sense,” said Mamma Morgan. “I don't say get rid of this other girl, do I? But keep her in a nice place where you can visit her. I hear she's a nice girl. Mattie need never know; it's just for appearance' sake, for organization— and for the children. Letty's a bright child, Sol, the image of you, dearie, and she'll need her father, for Mattie will never be able to keep her straight. That child's full of the devil, look at the way her eyes dance: she's going to be a frisky filly, Letty is; and she needs a father's hand. I can't look after her, dearie, I've too much to do and I've got to get Phyl married. Now, Sol, you fix up a nice place for Mattie and you leave this girl behind—I hear she's a very nice girl, quite ladylike, I understand no one's ever heard her say a vulgar thing, that's what Dora Dunn tells me—and you fix this girl up and when you come back, you'll find it isn't so hard to go back to Mattie. And I promise I'll give my daughter a shaking up; I'll tell her straight: ‘You've got to make a home for a man and keep it running, and be a smart dresser, or you deserve that a man should run out on you.' I'll look after you, Sol, and I'll keep Mathilde up to the mark. Why, I'm doing it for myself; I don't want a grass widow as well as an old maid. I can't look out for three more men! Not for other women at any rate.” Solidly she laughed, Grandmother Morgan, kissing my father again and reiterating her promise about the suit of furniture, but leaving out about the silver.

As my grandmother finished her speech to my father, Joseph Montrose entered, looked sharply around, perceived Phyllis and went toward her saying, “Yes, little lady,” but he turned at once toward Solander, who introduced Grandmother, now sitting there, like a great lady, beaming, holding out her hand, and flattering Montrose. Montrose acknowledged the introduction in an abstracted way, but suddenly said, “Well, Sol, this is your beautiful sister-in-law Phyllis, then? You didn't lie, Sol. Mrs. Morgan, let me tell you your daughter is a beauty.”

“Oh, Phyllis is a knock-out,” said Sol gaily, “but, Joe—” Montrose had now reached Phyllis again, was shaking hands with her and eyeing her, with a fierce bright parrot laugh. Then he shook hands with her politely, turned to Mrs. Morgan and said, “Too bad I'm married! You should have told me!”

Phyllis laughed modestly, “But I am not going to get married yet, Mr. Montrose. We only came to ask you about my voice—I want to go on with my music. Mathilde was on the stage, and Mother thought—” She fell silent, charmingly, and looked at her mother.

Grandmother then unpacked the scheme she had thought up to interest Montrose. Phyllis had a sweet, clear voice of good range, and was an excellent pianist; her teacher said she could go on the concert platform with either. But could Phyllis sing
Lieder
, or Grand Opera, had she the strength of voice and body, and so forth —Mrs. Morgan was almost a home woman, lost in her affairs out at Green Acres and at the Long Island place, with another place she was thinking of setting up down south somewhere, for the winters, in Florida, perhaps. She had no time, although it was a shame to say it, for her darling youngest daughter; Sol would not mind if Mrs. Morgan confessed that Phyllis was the apple of her eye. Grandmother wiped her fine eyes and said Sol had mentioned that Mr. Montrose had friends in Paris, London, Berlin, and Vienna and could perhaps give her advice about teachers, and the cost; and more, a very important thing, where a young and lovely girl could live away from home.

“Even in New York,” said Mrs. Morgan, “Phyllis must now have companionship and even a chaperone, if she is going to study.”

“Certainly,” said Joseph Montrose, “most important,” and he took on a serious air, thumbing his chin. “A young girl,” said Montrose, looking at Phyllis in a peculiar, sidelong, underhand and serious way, like a jewel thief looking at the crown jewels during a public tour and thinking, “It's a wonder the police don't look after these better.” “Leave it to me,” said Montrose; “young girls can't live alone—too many—h'm—we aren't all that we should be,” and his lip and eye shone, he chuckled. “Yes, leave it to me, Mrs. Morgan.” Grandmother then took him aside and told him that privately she did not so much care whether Phyllis sang or not; a girl's duty was to get married and if Montrose could arrange a match sooner or later, she would always be grateful to him. She had no money at hand to give away with the girl, but perhaps something could be arranged between them for one of Montrose's friends, for a nice businessman with a future, not even too rich at present; a good, solid, young man who could give her girl a nice home, fur coats, automobiles, nice furniture, she would do what she could toward helping the young man, and perhaps Montrose and his wife would accept the hospitality of the Long Island hotel, a modern one, if he felt like it, once the marriage was arranged.

Montrose appeared to accept all this with enthusiasm and already looked upon himself as a kind of papa of Phyllis. He went over, took her arm firmly, smiled at her seriously, said, “Leave it to me, I'll—do what I can—I'll—look around. And all I'll ask,” and he repeated it, “will be to kiss the bride—when she marries, of course. But tell me,” he said, “why such a pretty girl wants to work? Pretty girls like you don't want to go on the stage.”

As soon as Grandmother had gone, taking with her plump and large-eyed Phyllis, my father took leave of Montrose and went out with me, holding me by the hand and arranging my curls on my shoulder with unusual attention. He took me to have an ice cream soda, and when we were seated at the table, said to me, “Now, Letty, I'm going to take you to see a lady; it's my girl, Persia. I don't want you to tell Mummy, because she wouldn't like it. But you're my daughter too, and I want you to get to know Persia; she's a very nice girl. I know you can hold your tongue. You understand that? It is not that it is wrong. I am quite open about it; I have no secret life. But here is where your mother and I see things differently. You are my daughter and I want you to see my new girl.”

I said, “Can I have another strawberry sundae?”

“I'm in a hurry; afterwards,” he said.

This put me in a bad mood and I thought at first I would tell Mother; but I had sense enough to see that nothing but unpleasantness would come to me personally if I did this, and I gradually became excited. My father babbled on and seemed very cheerful.

“Did you hear what Grandmother said?” he asked me. “She's not a bad old girl. I've always liked the old duck. I've never had anything against your Grandmother Morgan, only I think she sucked all the life out of the rest of the family. Your poor old grandfather is now a worn-out rag, and as for the rest of the family—I do not blame your mother, she is a sweet enough girl, but her mother took all the life out of her. You heard what your grandmother said about Persia? She said, ‘No one has ever said a word against her,' that she was a perfect lady. Well, that decided me, Letty. I thought, now I will take Letty to see her and she will see she is no monster. For I've no doubt they've been filling your ears with rubbish about her.”

“They call her
Die Konkubine
,” I said.

“Who said that?” pricking up his ears. “My mother, I suppose. It sounds like her.”

“No,” I said rapidly. “No, it was someone else, I can't remember.” However, he was right; it had been Grandmother Fox, who used to be a governess in Germany, with a family at Bismarck-Schoenhausen.

I will tell about Persia later. After the visit to the small dark flat he lived in, with Persia, uptown, in Claremont Avenue (far away from us and all our relatives), Father took me home to my mother. They were coldly pleasant to each other, and my mother had a soft distant manner which surprised me.

As soon as my father had gone, Mother asked me what he had said to me and where we had gone. I said, “We went to the Central Park Zoo.” My mother hated animals and would ask no questions about such a spot. “I had two strawberry sundaes,” I told her.

“You're getting too fat,” said my mother; “your father spoils you and I have the trouble of—”

Presently Dora Dunn came in. She had taught my mother to gossip, for she sympathized with her. Whenever she went away my mother had a nervous crisis, and said she felt malice in the woman, though it was hard to point out. This day my mother was cheerful and like a girl. She said joyfully, “He is coming back to me when he returns from England.”

“How do you know?”

“Mother told me.”

At once Dora drew it all from her, that Grandmother Morgan had positively assured her that Solander, not a bad boy at all, had promised to live with us again, as soon as his job in England was over, “only a few months; and while he is away he is dismissing that girl and she is going away from town to get a new job. He has already arranged for her to leave town.”

I was surprised and indignant that my father had not told me all this; and then I laughed, for it occurred to me that he was afraid I would tell the girl, Persia. All this was being schemed for her, by others of whom probably she had never heard. I began to laugh in my room; they heard me and stopped talking for a moment.

Then my mother said, “She's too quick; we were talking too loud”; but Dora Dunn came into the room, opened her fat arms to me, pushed me against her chest, and called out, “Her daddy's coming back to her; oh, goody, goody! Why, you know it is very bad for a child to feel itself rejected: it can make it quite neurotic. It can develop an inferiority complex. Now she's already a nervous enough child—”

I began to feel quite low and unhappy. Dora dropped me back among my cut-out dolls and went back to tell Mathilde about Philip and his crimes. “I must give him up; he says he's leaving her and then he goes to her. He uses one and then the other just to suit himself. I owe it to myself—”

“Philip's never had less than four or five women, to my knowledge,” said my mother.

After a brief silence, Dora said briskly, “He's inhibited; he must keep proving to himself that he's attractive to women. If he had real self-confidence, he'd be satisfied with one, but such a man never knows love, because it is his own ego he's centering around and what worries him is a sense of inferiority, arising no doubt in his mother's sex history, for all we know—”

My mother got up, walked about the room, and in a cold voicetold Dora Dunn that she felt ill and must lie down.

Dora Dunn continued, “And you too, darling Mattie! I've seen this Persia—”

“You have,” said my mother. “How did that happen?”

“Oh, you know, I'm a friend of both parties, so it seems, but onlyas your friend: I thought I'd see what she is like and let you know.”

“I can look after myself,” said Mathilde; “and I don't care—since it's all arranged that she is to go—”

“You must shake yourself out of this torpor; it's refusal to face life,” cried Dora Dunn. “A man looks for life. Now this girl isn't a coquette, and she hasn't sex-appeal, she isn't even what you'd call pretty—but she's bitchy, she's a pokerface and a razor-edge psyche, and he's probably been afraid to leave her; she has no doubts about herself, whereas you give in without a murmur. Did you even fight for him? Now, a man likes to be fought for! Did you ever see a man's open grin when he sees two women fighting about him? Why, Philip loves it. I yell and screech when I see another of his girls, just to please him. He thinks it's a compliment. Now if you were to pull a few scenes, when he's around, and—”

“I couldn't,” said Mathilde, sinking into a chair again. “What's the use? I don't believe in myself. I'd have to work it up for weeks. I don't know the words. If someone would write the words for me, I could do it, but as it is—I never could invent. It costs too much nervous energy. I would be a wreck. Look at your muscles. You've got muscles like a—a coal-heaver, a weight-lifter. You haven't any nerves—I know you're right.”