Those Harper Women (20 page)

She has just had an interesting thought. It is a new thought, a new plan of action. Now that her mother has turned her down (not even turned her down but, more typically Mother, has simply laughed at Leona's request), suppose she asked Arch Purdy if he would be interested in financing her gallery? If he is as rich as Eddie Winslow says he is, the amount Leona needs certainly wouldn't be any hardship to him. And besides, he even suggested it, didn't he? Kiddingly, perhaps, but still he did mention becoming her angel. She has never thought of approaching a man and asking him for money—especially a man she knows so slightly as Arch Purdy. And yet he is a businessman. If she were to approach him on a straightforward, businesslike basis.…

“Arch,” she says to the mirror, “I'd like to prove to you how serious I am about the gallery. How determined I am to make it a success. If you will lend me—” Is
lend
the right word? “If you will buy stock in my company … If you will help me with the financing …” It will be strictly a business loan. She will repay him, with interest. Six per cent.

She snaps off the hair-dryer and lights a cigarette. Why not? There is nothing to be lost in simply
asking
him—in putting the proposition to him. Nothing ventured, after all, is nothing gained. Then why not? Besides, she thinks, who else is there to ask at the moment?

There is Granny. But could she ever bring herself to ask Granny for something like that—for
money?
She confronts her face in the mirror, still-damp hair hanging in little wiggling strands, and thinks: I certainly can't ask her for anything at all, not now—not after the things I said to her this afternoon. And how could I say such ugly, cruel things to her?

“
Oh, how could you!
” she says aloud to her reflection. Then she turns away, making a small fist of her left hand, jamming the knuckles into her mouth, biting the knuckles till they hurt.

“Hello, sweetie!” Sibbie cries, leaping up and giving Edith her bear hug, her grinning face wrinkled and leathery from years in the sun. Edith gives Sibbie's cheek a little peck and murmurs a greeting. She goes to the cellaret and sets out glasses, ice, cocktail shaker. “I like your outfit, Sibbie,” Edith says, fixing their drinks.

“Do you? I made it myself,” Sibbie says, twirling around in it. She has encompassed her formidable frame, tonight, in a giant dirndl—the kind that always seems to dip down in the back—and a peasant blouse with red ribbons run through the puffed sleeves and across the even puffier bosom. Sibbie Sanderson's dresses have made her a landmark on the island—the dresses, the sandals, the clanking copper bracelets, and the big copper hoops which always suspend from her pierced ears.

Carrying her drink to her, Edith says, “Well, what've you been up to, Sibbie?”

“Oh, busy, sweetie, busy! Painting, painting. I'm working on a big picture now, a really important picture. But I can't seem to get
into
it. The damn thing keeps resisting me, fighting back at me. Where's Leona?”

“I rather doubt Leona will be joining us after all,” Edith says. “We had one of our battles royal, I'm afraid.”

“Mmm,” Sibbie says, “this is a yummy Manhattan, sweetie. You're the best bartender on this island, that's what I tell everybody. What was the tiff with Leona about?”

“She thinks I know absolutely nothing about anything. The point is, I do. I know a little about some things.” Edith sips her whisky. “She seems terribly unhappy, Sibbie, and I just can't seem to reach her.”

Sibbie's laughter booms across the room, and she gives her knee a whack. “The wisdom of one generation passed on to the next? Oh, come
on
, sweetie! Besides, who's happy? Everybody talks happy-happy-happy, and it doesn't mean a damn thing. I'm miserable ninety-five per cent of the time, and
I'm
happy. Hell, I'd rather be a Harper. Rich.”

“I suppose that's the only thing we ever have been,” Edith says quietly. “Rich.”

“Cheer up. Life's too short.”

“That's why I don't want Leona to make any more mistakes.”

“How can you stop her? How can anybody stop anybody from making mistakes? Life's a party. Join the fun.”

“Life is
not
a party. Sibbie, do you know anything about the history of the St. Croix Indians—before Sir Walter Raleigh came?”

“Huh? What about the St. Croix Indians?”

“They used to sail to Puerto Rico for wood for their canoes. But they were cannibals, Sibbie, and it was more than wood they wanted. They wanted meals. And once, on one of their trips, the Borinquen chief in Puerto Rico demanded seven hostages from the St. Croix, as insurance against future raids. The St. Croix were the most savage and vicious of all the West Indian tribes—”

“What in the world has this got to do with the price of eggs?”

“Let me finish, let me make my point. Do you know what the Borinquen chief did with the seven hostages? Killed them instantly, of course. And when the St. Croix came back and found that their tribesmen had all been murdered, what do you suppose
they
did? Why, they cut the chief and all his family into tiny pieces and ate them all—and then made torches, firebrands, out of their bones, and carried the torches back to the wives of the hostages as proof that their men had been revenged.”

“Charming predinner conversation, sweetie. Just charming.”

“But don't you
see
, Sibbie? When I was young, I was just like that. Always trying to leave hostages, parts of myself, with other people. But my poor hostages were always being murdered, and I was always charging out red-eyed for my revenge.”

“And being left with a pile of bones,” Sibbie says. “Sure, I know what you mean. You mean never trust a cannibal.”

“The
Harpers
were cannibals. But don't you think—in three generations—some tiny inch of progress has been made? We don't always have to be headhunters, do we, Sibbie? Isn't it time we became civilized? Isn't it time? We'll always be a tribe, I suppose, but can't we be a civilized one at last? Can't I try to explain this to Leona?”

“Isn't Leona civilized? Does she eat people?”

“Three marriages? Sibbie, don't you see? She's following the old pattern, the same pattern as the rest of us—rushing out, full of fury, with blood in her eye, trying to get
even
with life.”

“Oh, balls!”

And now there is considerable disconcernment between the two women because, almost exactly coincident with Sibbie's last explosive comment, Leona has appeared in the doorway, all in white, smiling, her hair brushed shiny. “Well, Leona!” Edith says. “You remember Sibbie Sanderson?”

“Of course. Hello, Miss Sanderson.” And then, “Don't get up, Granny. I'll fix myself a drink.” She goes to the cellaret and drops ice cubes into a glass. “You know,” she says, “I could have sworn that when I came through the door I heard someone say, ‘Oh, balls.'” She turns and smiles at Edith.

“Your grandmother was debating whether to tell you about her Frenchman,” Sibbie says.

This, of course, is hardly the remark Edith was hoping Sibbie would make, nor is it quite true. “We were having a little argument, Sibbie and I,” she says, with a glare at Sibbie.

Leona sits down sideways on a sofa opposite them.

“I wasn't sure you'd be joining us, Leona,” Edith says.

Leona gives her a private look. “I was looking forward to it, Granny.”

“A little package came in the mail for you. Did you find it?”

Sipping her drink, Leona nods. “Yes. Shall I show you what was in it? I'm terribly excited, Granny, because I've been waiting for these for weeks.” She puts down her glass and jumps to her feet. Reaching in the pocket of her skirt, she pulls out a number of small black cellophane squares. “Just look, Granny!” she says, handing them to Edith.

“What in the world are these?”

“Hold them up to the light!”

Edith sees that they are transparencies of colored photographs and, as she holds the first one up to the lamplight, sees that it contains a colored design of some sort, small blotches and blobs of different shades. She starts to remove the transparency from its cellophane jacket, but Leona cries, “Oh, don't do that! You'll get greasy fingerprints all over it!”

“My fingers aren't greasy. What are these photographs of, anyway?”

“That's Rovensky,” Leona says eagerly. “Martin Rovensky. And now look at this one. Try to imagine it as it is—huge! Ten feet tall and nine feet wide.”

“You mean these are
paintings
, Leona?”

“Oh, such paintings, Granny! Rovensky is the most exciting painter working in New York today,
I
think! And he's only beginning to come into his own. He's only twenty-four.”

She hands Edith another, of green and blue. “Well!” Edith says.

“Now, there are three painters here,” Leona says, sorting out the thirty or forty photographs into three small piles. “Rovensky, Hans Knecht, and Suzy Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick I'm not sure about, frankly. She's too—
fluffy
, somehow. A little pretentious? But Rovensky! And
Knecht!
Here's Knecht, Granny—this is a very tiny picture, but, oh God, look what he's got going on inside it!”

Edith looks and sees more or less a spiral of yellow, orange, and white.

“And here's Knecht working big. Knecht works either very big or very small. Isn't that interesting? Tell me what you think of this.”

“Leona, this sort of thing just isn't my cup of tea.”

“Now here—no, sorry, that's Kirkpatrick. Here's the one I wanted—Rovensky being really explosive. Look at that. Isn't that a wonderful big goddamn burst of
joy?
”

“It means nothing to me. I don't understand it.”

She shows Edith a large brown concoction. “And here he is again—in a somber mood.”

“At least it won't show the dirt.”

“They laughed at the Impressionists too, Granny.”

“The Impressionists? Why, there's no comparison, Leona. The Impressionists created things of beauty—things of loveliness and light. A Renoir, a Monet, a Degas—they painted pictures that shimmered, that lifted the soul. Isn't that what art is, Leona—something that exalts? Not just blobs. It seems strange to me that you, of all people—”

Leona's eyes are thoughtful. “I may look to you like Degas,” she says, “but inside I'm a pure abstraction, Granny.”

“I can't believe that inside you look like one of your funny-named people. Like Mr. Picasso.”

Leona laughs. “Picasso? Oh, Granny!”

“Well, isn't he one of your people?”

“I'll just have to educate you.”

Sibbie Sanderson has been so silent through all this that Edith has almost forgotten she is there. She turns to her now and says, “Sibbie, you're a painter. What do you think?”

Slowly Sibbie lifts her lorgnette from where it hangs hidden, suspended on a chain in the cleavage of her breasts, and snaps it open. Adjusting the glasses to her eyes, she examines first one transparency, then another, frowning. Finally she says, “Well, of course.” And then, “It's the neo-objectivist thing again, you see. I'm afraid—well, one has seen so much of this stuff before. One almost wishes—”

Leona has sat down, rather abruptly, on the small sofa again. She holds her cocktail glass tightly pressed between her hands, staring at it. “One almost wishes what, Miss Sanderson?” she says in a quiet voice.

“Oh, one
wonders,
” Sibbie says, with a disparaging little laugh and wave of her hand, “how long these queer little fads will last.”

Leona sits very still. “These three painters,” she says, “are important. Vital. Many people feel that they represent the best of the current New York School.”

“Of
course!
” Sibbie says, warming to the argument. “A
school
. When one has schools of painting, one has comformity. No individuality. Sameness.”

“School is simply a term.”

“Well, I'm afraid,” Sibbie begins. She lowers her lorgnette and gives Leona a fond smile. “No, my dear.”

Leona slowly looks up at Sibbie. “What sort of things do you think an artist should paint, Miss Sanderson?” she asks.

“Beauty!” Sibbie cries. “The sea! The sun in the palm trees! Nature! Life!”

“Life,” Leona echoes.

The silence then becomes triangular, each of them at a point of it. It is broken, mercifully, by Nellie announcing dinner.

“Come!” Edith says in her most cheerful voice. “Bring your drinks to table if you'd like,” standing up, urging them into the dining room.

At tables as elaborate as Edith Blakewell's, in a dining room as imposing as hers, it is difficult to rescue a dinner party once it has begun to sink. The sinking parallel is almost too exact, Edith thinks, because certainly her party tonight has struck an uncharted iceberg, and is going down with
Titanic
inexorability. As captain, at the head of her table, she has thus far refused to abandon ship, but her two guests have already betaken themselves to separate lifeboats where they seem to have nothing at all to do but watch as the huge mahogany board, glittering with the false gaiety of polished silver, china, glassware, and fresh flowers, continues on its doomed course.

Finally, Edith says to Leona, “Are these paintings you're thinking of buying, dear?”

“No. They're paintings I'm thinking of selling, Granny. I'm going to open an art gallery.”

“An art gallery? And deal in paintings like those?”

“Yes. And don't say
paintings like those
so sniffily, Granny. Remember—” and her eyes move briefly to Sibbie, “—that you haven't had your education.”

“Well, I think it's a—a very interesting idea.”