So Little Time (43 page)

“No,” Jeffrey said, “no, dear, I never put money in a Breakwater.”

“Oh, dear,” Madge said, “now you'll have to start on something else. How was Marianna Miller? It must be hard on Marianna, after taking it off and putting it on again and taking it off again.”

“Marianna—” Jeffrey said—“oh, Marianna was all right.”

He was quite sure that it was not his imagination which made him think that both her voice and his voice had changed. They had often discussed Marianna before as they discussed all those other acquaintances who moved in and out of their daily lives, but now something had set Marianna apart, and Jeffrey resented that change because there was absolutely no reason for it.

“Madge,” he said, “I wish you wouldn't put such emphasis on Marianna.”

“Why, Jeffrey,” Madge answered, “I was just asking how she was.”

“Well, I hope you haven't got the idea,” Jeffrey said, “that Marianna—” and then he stopped. “There isn't anything to it, Madge.”

“Why, darling,” Madge answered, “did I ever say there was?”

“I know you don't like her,” Jeffrey said, “but I can't help it if she has a part in something I'm working on.”

“Jeffrey,” Madge said, “don't be silly.”

“I'm not,” Jeffrey said, “I just don't want you to be.”

Then he knew that the whole thing was ending up in nothing.

“Oh, Jeff,” Madge said, “I'm awfully glad you're back. Of course, I've been having all the people here that you don't want to see and doing all the things that you don't want to do. I always think it's going to be fun, and it isn't. Did you miss me?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I missed you.”

“Did you see the living room?” Madge asked. “Did you notice?”

“Why, no,” Jeffrey said, “what about it?”

“I had the secretary moved to the other side, the way you said you wanted it, and I had the piano turned around and that little upholsterer brought back the two chairs. They pep the whole place up.”

He wished that she would not use the word “pep.” Madge was never still, she was always moving things around.

“I didn't notice,” Jeffrey said. “It's funny, I didn't.”

“This is the nicest apartment we've ever had,” Madge said. “You like it, don't you, Jeff?”

“Why, yes,” Jeffrey said, “I like it.”

“I wish you'd say whether you like things or not,” Madge said. “You know I want things just the way you want them. I don't think we've ever had a place where the furniture and everything fit so well. You do like it, don't you, Jeff?”

“Yes,” he answered, “I said I liked it.”

“It all makes me feel so secure,” Madge said. “Jeff, did you see Jim?”

It was a conversation that seemed to touch everything.

“What was he wearing?” Madge asked. “Did he look handsome? Did he look tired?” She was like every mother, reaching hopelessly toward the hidden life of a son who had left her.

“He looked very well,” Jeffrey said. “Jim's all right.”

“That's what you always say,” Madge said. “Jeffrey, did he say anything about that girl? You know, the one he's been so crazy about, the one called Sally Sales.”

Somehow her question made him careful, almost hostile—though Jim was just as much her son as his.

“Yes,” he said, “he did, but that's Jim's business, Madge.”

“Oh, dear,” Madge said, “you don't think it's serious, do you?”

“Now, listen,” Jeffrey said, “it doesn't do any good to worry about Jim.”

“I'm not worrying,” Madge said. “I don't know why you and Jim always think I do, but you can't see him the way a woman does. He's—well, Jim's very physically attractive. He's just the sort of boy that a girl might lose her head over. You saw the Saleses up at Fred's and Beckie's.”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I know, I saw them.”

“You saw what they were like,” Madge said. “She really talked to me in the most take-it-for-granted way—as though they were engaged.”

“Well,” Jeffrey answered, “I don't know—suppose they are?”

“Oh, Jeff,” Madge said, “I wish you wouldn't try to make a joke of it. You saw the Saleses and you know they don't amount to anything. Don't say that I'm being Freudian or jealous. I love Jim to have girls, but he's too young to have just one girl. It—it just simply isn't normal, and Jeffrey, you can tell from the Saleses what she must be like.”

Jeffrey sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the wall. He could hear the dim noises of the city.

“Jeff,” he heard Madge say, “I wish you'd talk to Jim. It's something a man can do much better than a woman; it's what a father's for. He'll listen to you, Jeff.”

They were speaking lines which had been used again and again. They were not like individuals just then, but like types, the wife and husband, the father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. America. He knew exactly what Madge meant. When he had talked to Mrs. Sales, he had thought himself that Jim was too good for any such combination. He had thought of all the economic and social and intellectual complications. He seemed to have developed two personalities when he thought of Jim. Madge could not identify herself with Jim, as he could, or live life over in Jim again as he did.

“You know, we were pretty young ourselves,” he said.

She brushed her hair back from her forehead and drew her silk kimono more closely over her shoulders.

“It wasn't the same thing at all,” she answered, “you—you always looked older than Jim. Besides, you were almost twenty-four.”

“Listen, Madge,” he said, “if Jim is having a good time—”

“A good time,” Madge repeated. Her voice had changed. “Jeffrey, you don't think he—” and her voice changed again—“he's—living with her?”

The polite phrase was always jarring. He could not see why Madge had leaped at the conclusion, and it was not fair to Jim.

“Listen, Madge,” he said, “we don't know anything about it. Maybe she's a very nice girl. Jim has to start living his own life sometime, and it doesn't help to monkey with other people's lives. Just remember, Jim's grown-up.”

“Darling,” Madge said, “won't you please try to be sensible and not so emotional about it? No one Jim's age knows what he's doing. It's—it's simply biological.”

Jeffrey stood up and walked to the window.

“I don't suppose,” Jeffrey said, “you knew what you were doing?”

“No,” Madge answered, “not very well. Did you?”

Jeffrey walked back across the room, and then he heard Madge laugh.

“Jeffrey,” she said, “Jim has everything ahead of him. Everyone his age has.”

“No,” Jeffrey said, “not always.” He saw Madge look up at him, startled. “I knew a good many people Jim's age who didn't.”

“Why, Jeff,” Madge began, and then she stopped as though they both had said something they should not have. “You don't think that we're going to get into the war now, do you?”

He drew a deep breath. It was the way it had been in Jim's room, as though something were just behind him.

“It doesn't do any good for you or me to think,” he said.

“Jeff,” she began. Then someone was knocking on the bedroom door.

“Yes,” Madge called, “what is it?”

That was the way it always was. When you were married and had children, you changed from one mood to another, passing, each day, through a gamut of moods. It was Gwen dressed ready for school.

“Oh,” Gwen called, “oh, Daddy, darling.”

Now he was a lovable, broken-down old gaffer again, and Gwen was kissing him, just as she knew a girl of sixteen should kiss a dear old father. “Daddy darling, your breakfast is ready in the study. You must be awfully hungry.”

“Why, Jeff,” Madge said. “Haven't you had breakfast, dear? I didn't mean to keep you talking.”

“No, I haven't,” Jeffrey answered. “I should have got a cup of coffee when I got off the train.”

“But Jeff,” Madge said, “why didn't you?”

He stood there looking at Gwen with her little brown hat and short skirt, his daughter, who thought he was a lovable old darling and of whom he did not know what to think, and at Madge with her new kimono with white storks on it. It occurred to him that the decorations were inappropriate. There had been too many storks.

“You see, I wanted to get home,” he said.

He thought that Madge looked happy, and so did Gwen.

“Daddy,” Gwen said, “you like us, don't you, Daddy?”

“God, yes,” Jeffrey said. “I like you.”

There they were, and there he was, tied together by that sort of accident that makes a family, tied inescapably, no matter what apartment they might live in, no matter whether the servants left, no matter whether everything split wide-open, but he was thinking about Jim. Jim might as well have been there. He wished they had not guessed that he was not entirely happy.…

27

The World of Tomorrow

At first Jeffrey told himself that he had always respected the privacy of other people and that he surely should respect his son's. Nevertheless, Jim had asked him to see Sally Sales. When he wrote the letter, all sorts of hesitations and trepidations emerged from his past. He seemed to be Jim's age or younger when he wrote it. In the first place he did not know whether to call her “Sally” or “Miss Sales,” and there was no book of usage to help him.

Dear Sally [he wrote]:

I hope you'll excuse my calling you by your first name, but I think of you that way because Jim has told me so much about you.

Then he threw the letter away. He seemed to be building himself up into a character in a Barrie play, or worse still, becoming like the hero of a drama in which Ruth Chatterton once starred. He could almost hear Sally Sales saying, “Oh, I'm going to call you ‘Daddy Long-Legs.'” The trouble was, he did not know what Sally Sales was like; all he could do was to picture her from his limited experience with girls he had known in his youth, or from the works of Scott Fitzgerald, from a few short stories in the
Saturday Evening Post
, and from his observation of his daughter Gwen who was younger. There was his niece, Ethel's child, in West Springfield—but he was sure that Sally would not be like her. Gloria wore glasses and her chin receded and her parents were saving money to send her to Wellesley College.

Dear Sally [he wrote again]:

Jim has told me so much about you that it seems strange to me that I have never seen you. I wish we could have lunch together someday, if you ever find yourself in town, only because any friend of Jim's is a friend of mine—no other reason.

He wanted to make it very definite that there was no other reason. There were any number of restaurants in New York, but each one had a certain quality. If he took her to Twenty-One, he would see people he knew who would ask him later who the little girl was. It was the sort of thing anyone would make a joke of, and later Madge would hear about it.

I sometimes have lunch at the Echelon [he wrote], a little place on 56th Street on the right-hand side, between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, going from Fifth. I don't remember the number, but you'll see the name outside on a canopy. If you could let me know some day when you'll be in town, I'll meet you there. I suppose I might be wearing a carnation in my buttonhole, but I won't.

He crossed the last sentence out, because it sounded too cute, too much like “Daddy Long-Legs.”

You won't know what I look like, but if you ask any of the waiters for me, they'll point me out. They say I used to look just like Jim, but I don't believe that the resemblance would impress you. I do hope that you can arrange to come.

Sincerely yours,…

He understood that he could not expect an answer immediately, but on the second day when none came he wondered whether there had been anything wrong with his letter; whether she had been frightened, or whether she had shown it to her parents, or what had happened. On the third day, when Madge was sorting out the mail at breakfast, he saw her holding a letter addressed to him. There was always something unconcealable about a young girl's handwriting, something conscientious, confident and sprawling.

“Why, Jeff,” Madge said, “here's a letter from a little girl.”

He wished that Madge would hand it to him and not keep examining it. He felt the way Jim must have felt when Madge looked at his letters.

“What makes you think so?” Jeffrey asked.

“I don't know,” Madge answered. “You can always tell. They look like the letters Jim gets, not yours. Why Jeffrey, I think it's that Sales girl's writing.”

It never occurred to him that of course she might know the writing, having seen it before on envelopes addressed to Jim.

“They all look alike,” Jeffrey said. “It's probably an advertisement. They get debutantes to address them so you'll open them, you know.”

When he opened it with Madge still watching him, he felt exactly as though Madge were his mother or his aunt, and that he had dropped a rung in the generations.

Dear Mr. Wilson [he read]:

It's simply grand of you to ask me to lunch and at the Echelon. If I don't hear from you, will Thursday at one be all right? I'll know what you look like and I'll adore having lunch, and thank you.

Sincerely,

S
ALLY
S
ALES

“Is it an advertisement?” he heard Madge ask.

“Yes,” he said, and he thought he was quite clever. “It's a restaurant. The Echelon restaurant.”

There was one thing certain, he did not want Madge to know, and Madge had come very close to guessing.

When he examined the letter later, it did not tell him much about Sally Sales. The paper came from that place in Peru, Indiana, with her name on the top, “Sally Sales,” and her address. He found himself examining it exactly as though he were Jim, trying to read between the lines to discover whether she was glad that he had asked or not. He imagined that any girl in those days “adored” to go to lunch and that it was “simply grand” to be asked. He wondered whether she had simply dashed off that note or had written it as many times as the one he had written her.