Let Me Tell You (9 page)

“What
do
you do all day?” asked Mrs. Morgan maliciously. “I mean, to get so tired?”

“More than you do.” His voice rose to its familiar argumentative tone. “If you think—” he began.

“I think,” Mrs. Morgan cut in smoothly, “that you are speaking to me as though I were one of your secretaries or some such thing. Remember,” she pointed out icily, “you are not my—” She stopped abruptly.

“Well, you can't boss—” he began, and then he, too, stopped speaking. His face went crimson, and Mrs. Morgan, her own face reddening, stared back at him. “You can't boss me,” he finished weakly. His mouth stayed open as he stared at his wife.

“
You,
” Mrs. Morgan said helplessly, “can't boss
me,
” and then they both began to laugh, guiltily at first, and unwilling to look at each other, but then, finally, holding on to each other weakly while the tears rolled down their cheeks, until they were no longer able to laugh out loud but could only gasp.

“Arthur,” Mrs. Morgan said finally, barely able to speak. “Oh, Arthur.”

Mr. Morgan wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “And your clothes!” he said, “Agnes, your clothes!” Together they burst into laughter again.

The new maid, peering through the swinging door between the dining room and the kitchen, watched the couple for a quick minute, and then, grinning, returned to her dishwashing. From upstairs, the voices of the children drifted down to her through the open windows.

“And when you're right on top, in the little tiny branches”—Andy's voice rose—“you can swing, and hold on tight, and swing way out over the ground!”

Anne giggled softly. “I had five cookie crumbs and a grape,” she said. “You know the little cups in the little tiny china closet? Well, they leak. Everything leaks out of the bottoms of them. And the beds look soft, but really they're not.”

“And the ground looks so far far far away,” Andy went on dreamily, “and you have to hold on tight.”

“And I rode on the little fire engine,” Anne said. “She wound it up for me and I rode around and around and around the playroom, and it's miles and miles and miles…” Her voice faded.

“Swinging back and forth, up in the sky,” Andy said. His voice softened abruptly. “Up in the sky,” he said once more, and then all was quiet.

The new maid finished her washing, took the untouched soup bowls off the table in the dining room, and glanced into the living room, where Mr. and Mrs. Morgan sat on the couch holding hands and talking earnestly, and still laughing occasionally.

When the kitchen was clean and tidy, the new maid took off her apron and hung it up with a sigh. She went upstairs soundlessly, stopping at the room where Anne and Andy slept in identical positions. When she covered them, Anne said
“Graa?”
inquiringly, and Andy reassured her,
“Wssh.”

Then the new maid went back downstairs, still without sound on her small feet, to the room Mrs. Morgan had assigned her and, stopping now and then to smile wickedly to herself, began to pack.

She came in very quietly, standing in the darkness of the huge polished room until I noticed her. She was very small, and her dark curls were tied up in a red bow. When she walked, the bow shook back and forth on her head.

“Hello,” I said to her politely.

“What do you want here?” she asked.

“I've come to see your mama.”

“My
mother
”—the emphasis was very marked—“is still dressing.”

“I know. I'm waiting for her.”

“Have you come about a charity?”

“No. I used to know your mother a long time ago, and now I've come to see her.”

“Did she invite you?”

“No.”

The red bow shook vigorously. “My mother doesn't talk to people unless she invites them here.”

I was annoyed. “Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that your mother will be down to see me in a minute.”

“Oh.” Large dark eyes regarded me steadily. “Why do you want to see my mother?”

“I used to know her a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Oh…ten years. Before you were born.”

“I'm eight.”

“I've known your mother since she was a little girl.”

The topic seemed to bore my companion. She stood perfectly still, her eyes looking over my shoulder. When I finished speaking, she looked at me again and said: “I've got a boyfriend.”

I didn't laugh. “Aren't you rather young?” I asked.

“No.”

I tried again. “What's his name?”

“John. He drives a car.”

“How old is he?” I was a little startled.

“Thirty-three.” She nodded vigorously. “He drives me around.”

“That's very convenient.”

“I need someone to drive me around,” she said, looking at me.

“Where do you have to go?”

“Everywhere.” She made a vague gesture with her hand. “I have to go around everywhere.”

A sudden thought struck me. “I suppose you have a great deal of charity work to do, like your mother.”

Her voice took on a heavy lifelessness. “It's such a bore,” she sighed.

“But tell me about your boyfriend,” I said. “What else does he do besides drive you around?”

“He delivers ice,” she said.

I kept my face sober. “That must be very interesting.”

“Sometimes it is,” she said. “Sometimes it's inconsistent.”

I thought. “Do you mean inconvenient?” I asked.

“Inconsistent,” she said firmly.

“Oh. Well, are you going to marry your boyfriend?”

“What?” she said blankly.

“No. Well…what does your mother think of him?”

“She thinks it's good for me.”

“What, your having a boyfriend?”

“She says she used to ride on ice wagons when she was a girl.”

“She did,” I said. “I used to ride on them with her. But I don't recall our having any boyfriends among the drivers. We always felt that they were a little…well…old. I recall that we preferred younger men…say, the boys we met in school.”

“They're so puerile,” she said.

I jumped. “I suppose they are,” I said faintly.

“It's nice having a
man
around,” she added.

“Has your mother met him?”

“No,” she said, looking at me. “You don't deliver ice to the front door.”

“Where do you go to school?” I asked desperately.

“I go to a private school,” she said. Her voice took on that lifelessness again. “School is such a bore,” she said.

“What do you learn there?”

“French. And music.”

“Do you like French? I remember I used to hate it, in college.”

She looked at me severely. “French is the mark of a true lady.”

“Your mother doesn't speak French. Is she a true lady?”

“My mother does so speak French. She learned when we were in Paris after her divorce. She said she would have to know a few words anyway. You don't need more than that.”

“And music?” I said.

The opening of the door interrupted her, and we both turned to see her mother entering. The little girl held out her hand to me, and I shook it weakly, and then, smiling at her mother, she went to the door, stopping to say: “Mother, this lady and I have had such a nice chat, while we were waiting for you.” Then she smiled again at me, and closed the door quietly behind her.

“Such a sweet child,” I said.

“And so clever, too,” murmured her mother. And then to me, gaily: “But,
you,
my dear! How are
you
?”

Although she went first of all to the hill beyond the old cemetery, it was too wet to sit on the ground and there were children walking sedately up the hill in a long line, following one another in solemn procession; five of them. She put her scarf on a rock and sat down, realizing it would be difficult to sit there for even as much as the few minutes she owed the hill, seeing already as she sat down the uneasy perching, her feet braced in the mud, and the ungraceful rising, with the hem of her dress caught in the grass, her self-conscious duty completed, nothing solved.

I've got to think, she had told herself; decide what to do. Go somewhere and sit down quietly and think sweetly and logically and come home at peace. Not, however, on this wet, windy hill with children eyeing her cautiously in a long row against the sky. Five of them, three boys and a girl and a small, unidentifiable one; she disliked getting up from the rock while they watched her.

Now, she thought, putting her shoulder up to hide the children. Now what are we going to do? There was nothing to do, turning to see if the children were still watching, nothing to do but what she was going to do anyway. “Might as well go ahead, then,” she said aloud, and stood up quickly, realizing when she was standing that the children were watching and her skirt was swinging mud against her stockings. “Nothing to do,” she said as loud as she dared, and started down the hill, hurrying, as she felt the children moving down slowly to inspect the rock where she had been sitting, possibly shouting something unkind after her.

She knew how to go, and where, but she minded going with her hair uncombed and mud on her clothes. “They'll have to get used to it,” she said, and felt her footsteps going slower on the pavement. There was no one around she knew; she might be going to call on someone in the city, or to the American consul in a strange country. The houses passed by her quickly; they registered faintly against her mind, trying to delay her. She had been inside many of these houses in three years; as she passed them, her mind swiftly set up a partial interior for each: one had heavy walnut furniture and antiques in a dark room; another was just a hall, with a copy of
Life
on a table; one was a room cleared for a fraternity dance, a punchbowl set on a bench against large windows, and lights around the walls.

On the corner was the house she was going to, smaller than the others, but her mind refused this one, stopping obstinately with a picture of the front door set back in its narrow white frame, solidly closed around the familiar rooms within. “It will all be different now,” she said, and hesitated at the foot of the path across the lawn. No one had seen her; she could walk right on past, except then where would she go? Not back to the hill, and she felt the five children following her, so vividly that she turned and looked behind her, but there was nothing but the row of houses she had been in.

I'll look like a fool now unless I do, she thought, and walked up to the door, stopping to admire the front of the house as though she had never seen it before, had not come here many times in wonderful fear and excitement. In the small panes of glass on either side of the door she saw halves of herself; her untidy hair clouded her glimpse of the hall within, but the oak umbrella stand was still there. (“It makes me look academic,” he had told her once; they were reading Keats.) I'll say I've been out walking, she thought, and rang the bell.

He opened the door himself and she said “Hello, Mr. Harrison,” very timidly, not knowing if he would feel right about letting her in; realizing, suddenly, that she had come alone.

He was pleased to see her, he said, happy she had come; they had returned only a week ago, he said, had she come only today? Ashamed to say that she was here to see them her first day back, she let him lead her into the living room, too quickly for her to be prepared to meet his wife again.

Barbara was just getting up from the couch; she was wearing an unfamiliar blue dress. (Back in the dormitory, only last year, she had worn a tweed skirt and a sweater; she used to have a black dinner dress with a full net skirt.) “Gloria,” she said, “I'm so glad you came.” They had been reading; his book was open on the arm of his chair, and Barbara was putting her magazine down on the table. “You've no idea how happy I am to see you,” Barbara said. She looked at her husband, and then said, “Sit down, won't you, Gloria?”

For a minute it was easy to say, “I wanted to be the first to congratulate you. And welcome you back,” and then he was pushing a chair up to her and she sat down, suddenly, and there was a long silence.

Barbara said, “I was hoping you'd come right away. I've been so eager to see all of you. But Stephen said…” And she stopped.

“I was eager to come,” Gloria said. I sat on that hill wondering if I ought to, her mind went on.

“Can't we offer our guest some tea?” he said abruptly. “I'd like to have tea.”

“Of course,” Barbara said, and stood up. “I'll get it right away.”

Gloria was beginning, slowly, to realize that the house was still the same: There was a bowl of asters on the mantel now, but the bookshelves still stood firmly on either side; the chairs were still wearing green-and-white chintz, although Barbara's black leather pocketbook now lay on one; the windows still looked over the lawn to the college street. “It's so nice to be here again,” she said, leaning back.

“I'm always glad to get back,” he said. “Summers are fine for a week or two. Always happy to get away from enthusiastic young students.” They both laughed. “But I'm glad to be back,” he said. “I was out west all summer wishing I were sitting here in my own house.”

“I thought Barbara would have this whole room changed around by now,” Gloria said.

“She always did like it this way.” He seemed surprised. “I don't know why it should be different.”

“I was writing you a letter this summer. Just before Barbara's letter came, with the news. Then I didn't know whether I ought to write you or not, so I kept the letter.”

“I'd like to see it,” he said. “What was it about? You could have sent it.”

“I finished my long poem,” she said, watching him to see if he remembered. “I wrote asking if I could send it to you, or if you'd rather have me wait and show it to you this fall. I wasn't sure what to do, so I kept the letter.”

“Barbara wrote you?” he said. “She didn't tell me.”

“She wrote all of us,” Gloria said. “We were all very close friends last year in the sorority, and she thought we'd like to know.”

“She should have told me,” he said. “So you finished the poem; when will I see it?”

Barbara was coming into the room managing a large tray awkwardly through the doorway. Gloria lifted the magazine and an ashtray from the coffee table and stood holding them while Barbara put the tray down. “I thought you were going to drop it,” she said.

Barbara, sliding onto the couch behind the table, nodded and said, “I thought I was too.” She began to pour the tea, eagerly, and as though she were very conscious of being a hostess. “Sugar?” she said, looking up at Gloria.

“Please,” Gloria said, and Barbara smiled.

“I remember, of course,” Barbara said. “Stephen?”

Gloria balanced her teacup carefully; it's important to Barbara now, she thought, remembering how they would put full cups on the floor of their room between books and ink bottles and never think about it, and she stirred her tea cautiously.

“In Arizona,” Barbara began gracefully, “we used to have cocktails every day on the balcony of our room, because it was the only cool place we could find. Stephen, wasn't that fun?”

“Lemon?” he said suddenly.

“How did you like Arizona?” Gloria asked. “Did you learn to ride a horse? Did she, Mr. Harrison?”

“She learned to ride quite well,” he said. “Lemon, Barbara?”

“I thought I brought some,” Barbara murmured, leaning forward to look over the tray. “I knew you wanted it, Stephen,” she said.

He hesitated and then said, “Never mind.”

“You got a beautiful tan,” Gloria said to Barbara. They both looked at him, pale against his dark hair, quiet, never dared by the sun. “Stephen never tans,” Barbara said gaily.

“I was on the beach all summer,” Gloria said, “and lost it all after a couple of weeks in New York.”

Barbara's hand moved nervously from the teapot handle to the spoon in her saucer, then up to her hair, smoothing it back over her ears. “We were in New York for a few days.”

He put his cup delicately on the table, and the small sound encouraged Gloria to put her cup down too, next to his. “I ought to be getting back. I haven't even unpacked.” I came here right away, she thought, before I opened my suitcase.

“Did you do any writing at all this summer?” Barbara asked. “We thought of you so often.”

She looked at her husband expectantly, and he said, “We haven't finished unpacking even after a week. Barbara shipped back boxes of junk from the west.”

“Souvenirs,” Barbara said. “Everything they sell tourists.”

Gloria stood up, feeling again the mud on her skirt, her hair still wild from the wind outside. “I went up and sat on the hill past the cemetery,” she said to Barbara. “It was cold and wet and horrible and a pack of kids chased me away.”

“You'll come to see me, won't you?” Barbara said. “I want all of you to come.”

She rose and followed Gloria into the hall, and stood waiting with her husband while Gloria hesitated, her hand on the door latch. “I'd love to come, if I may,” Gloria said. They looked incredibly married, she thought, standing there next to each other. “I'll see you in class Monday, Mr. Harrison?”

“Try to get to my office Monday afternoon,” he said, “and bring my letter. I worry,” he went on, “that Barbara is already afraid of being bored living as a faculty wife, out of touch with her old friends.”

“
Will
you come see me?” Barbara asked urgently.

“Of course,” Gloria said, smiling. “We all want to—Mrs. Harrison,” and realized as she said it how dreadful it sounded.

“You were so nice to come,” Barbara said.

Gloria felt the door close behind her; it doesn't matter anymore how I look, she thought, I can go unpack now. She thought of the children on the hill perhaps still waiting, expecting her back, and it pleased her to disappoint them by turning down the street toward the campus.

It doesn't make any difference at all, she thought, as she walked quickly away from a house that was a warm living room full of books, past a house that was a hallway and a copy of
Life
on a table; he hated having her ask about my writing.