A Time to Be Born, page 19
“But you love me, Ken!” she said. “You know you love me!”
“No,” said Ken.
He stood up, trying to push her aside.
“You’d better go,” he said.
“You can’t treat me this way, Ken!” Now she was even saying things that surprised herself, pulling at his folded arms, trying to press her face to his. “You’ve no right to make me meet you this way and then send me away—you know you haven’t! I can’t stand it!”
Why, I’m actually crying, she thought, feeling a warm tear on her cheek.
“You’re the only person, Ken, you know that—”There were even more of these unexpected words tumbling from her. “I am the only person you’ve ever loved, you know that, Ken, you’ve got to say it. I can’t bear anyone else to touch me—I—”
He forced himself free of her and stood gripping the table.
“You don’t want me or anyone else to touch you,” he said bitterly. “You’ve only kept me on all this time because you got a kick out of seeing how much it meant to me. If you can keep me under your feet just by letting me make love to you once in a while, you’re willing to endure it. That’s all. And it’s not good enough for me, my dear. Do you hear me? It’s not damn good enough for me!”
Amanda again felt the curious wave of excitement at seeing this show of feeling. She wanted to fling herself in his arms, surrender desperately to love, somehow capture for herself this luxury of feeling. It was oddly agreeable to have these little sympathetic tremors going down her spine, and it was a new sensation not to be repelled by seeing a man lose control of himself, in fact to be curiously captivated by it, wanting more and more of it, wanting—yet not daring to be wanting—tears, surrender, collapse complete. In her elation Amanda grew flushed and breathless. She stood on tiptoe, head thrown back, eyes closed, waiting to be kissed, demanding to be kissed.
“No go,” Ken said. “It’s no go, old dear. I can’t bear it anymore. I can’t I tell you.”
Amanda stepped back, drawing a long breath. Ken would not look at her. Awkwardly he picked up his hat, and walked toward the door, still not looking or else not daring to look at her.
“I’d better go first,” he mumbled.
The door closed behind him.
Amanda stared incredulously at the door as if this object was somehow to blame, as if the door must be lying, it had not closed, it had not shut out this person she wanted. It could not be. If anyone was to do any denying, surely it should have been she. She sat down, holding her hot temples tightly, wondering what had happened to her, how this tumult had unloosed itself in her brain, so that she couldn’t remember what it was she had planned for the next hour. It was unthinkable that there was anything she wanted as much as she wanted Ken Saunders, that she could not have. It was wicked that she should be denied, denied in the very way she denied Julian. She began combing her hair very carefully, as if this external tidying up would serve some inner purpose as well. She thought if Ken had gone home to his apartment she would go there, too, wait in the hall till he got there. It didn’t matter who saw her. Nothing mattered but getting him back, forcing him to give in to her. She would promise anything, she thought. If he wanted promises, he could have them. Why, she thought, I’m talking out loud. Which was true. She must be going crazy. She went on combing her hair, carefully. Her lipstick was still a smooth rich cherry line. He hadn’t kissed her once. Not once. That ought to bring back her senses, she told herself. She put on her hat and then her gloves. She went out, closing the door quietly behind her, and in the street she did not allow herself to look westward to see if he might be still in sight, but climbed into a taxicab very calmly. It occurred to her that she might run into Julian when she got home, and he might notice that she was nervous.
“As if he would notice anything but himself!” Amanda answered herself sarcastically. She wondered what it would be like if she got home and found that Julian had dropped dead. Things like that happened in books. It was only fair that they should happen in real life, too. By the time she reached her door Amanda was fully composed, having occupied herself pleasantly with the definitely attractive possibilities of Julian being dead.
“It’s not as if I made it a wish,” she told herself, a little shocked at how far the idea had carried her. “It’s just that I can’t get the idea out of my head!”
9
T WAS SHEER LUCK that Amos Cheever’s lady friend from London was unexpectedly granted entry into the United States, a matter which kept the rebellious man in a state of dazed calm while Julian Evans pulled his forces together. As Mr. Cheever had a wife in America, there were complications to be ironed out, all very much to the advantage of the foreign visitor inasmuch as she was much stronger, younger and newer than Mrs. Cheever. She had, furthermore, the whip hand of a surprise attack, and the good sense to know that it was now or never with Cheever. Mrs. Cheever, whose domestic nagging had made Cheever what he was, a fine foreign correspondent, was stunned into a divorce agreement and Cheever catapulted into a permanent arrangement with his Dody, something he had never really craved. Dody’s firm intention was to stay in the States for good, and so Cheever found himself in the embarrassing position of backing down in his demands on Julian Evans, as gracefully as he dared, and hinting at a permanent New York post.
Evans’s staff was well aware of Cheever’s personal predicament and kept the master informed on its nice points, and presently Julian came to feel that it was his own brilliant strategy that had adjusted his difficulties with Cheever. As long as Cheever had London, there would be complications with Amanda, complications that would expose Julian to ridicule as an editor and as a tame husband. It worked out much better for him to shift his former Geneva man to London. The latter was happy to have the new post and for a while would not know just how his material was being plucked by Amanda. It was, perhaps, rather a pity that his work was greatly inferior to his predecessors, so that Amanda’s weekly articles were forced to suffer. But this circumstance was not really remarked on for some time, and meanwhile Amanda was distracted by other matters. This period was the beginning of the faintest possible cleavage between Julian’s interests and his wife’s career. Amanda was still obsessed by the Wagnerian spectacle of the world in flames and herself leading the warriors into Valhalla. Julian’s shrewd eye was turning homeward more and more. Exploiting American problems for circulation purposes was a publishing gamble that did not interest Amanda since there was no star role in it for her, so Julian, with his new game all to himself, was all the more engrossed.
Julian had two New York papers, one for the Big Man, and one for the Little Man. The paper for the Big Man had been slowly in retreat since its unattractive stand during the Spanish War, but the paper for the Little Man had been snowballing to what seemed unlimited success. Julian himself was astonished one day to look over the figures of its meteoric rise, and at once decided to make a big change in the management of it, since its appointed editor had had the bad grace to take credit to himself for the achievement. Obviously Cheever was the man for this work. Cheever was not sure of himself on home ground and would therefore permit Julian’s dictation, and besides, Cheever was in a spot. It was all most fortunate, or as Julian believed, most clever of himself to have manipulated Destiny in this fashion.
The Little Man now became Julian’s obsession. You would have thought the Little Man was a wonderful new boy doll to hear Julian’s fond talk of him. No toy steamboat, no pet pony, no firstborn child, even, was ever as cherished by Julian as was his dear entrancing Little Man, a wistful little chap about two feet high looking appealingly like Paul Dombey, perhaps, a little on the tubercular side, very underprivileged, very underhoused, very dependent on Big Man Julian for spiritual guidance. The Little Man’s newspaper cost two cents more than the Big Man’s newspaper, but this was because there was so many of him, and it was true that the reporters on the Little Man’s paper received higher wages than the Big Man’s reporters. For a slightly less wage Amos Cheever was glad to help Julian lead the Little Man out of darkness and to pamper him with platitudes, vague fight talk, and somewhat defeatist exhortations to be proud of being a Little Man or a Little Man’s wife or a Little Man’s family.
There was one trouble Julian found in his Little American. That was the irritating habit some little men had of not admitting they were little men, of acting and even proclaiming that they were big men, on their way up out of Julian’s jurisdiction. This did not happen often, but it made Julian’s blood boil to have a taxi driver speak with lofty complacency of his independent business and his patronizing pity for the underdog, the little fellow.
“You’re a little fellow, yourself!” Julian wanted to shout angrily, because there’s no reasoning with a man who doesn’t know he’s an underprivileged, underhoused, underdog, but then Julian would think the taxi driver might look over his five-foot-six of fare and make some insulting comeback. So he confined his wisdom to the printed page and glowed over his clippings as tenderly as if they were a set of Dolly Dimple paper dolls.
These setbacks were minor, however, and Little American was lauded by the President himself for its fair play and foursquare talk, and many intellectual weeklies began referring to Julian as an intellectual equal because of his pity interviews with the Little People. The Little People were not, of course, the folks that poured down the mountain in pointed shoes at the stroke of midnight, but Julian’s conception of them was quite as extravagant.
Julian had, in fact, fallen in love with the superstition that any nontechnical worker or any uneducated human being was automatically endowed with a rare and incontrovertible well of wisdom. Everyday he ran interviews with truck drivers, cops, waiters, dock hands, busboys, janitors, and street cleaners, and their explanations of the government problems was God’s own word, unless they spoiled the effect by mentioning a book or some source of documentation. Julian did not like it at all if it developed that the simple sage had been corrupted by an average education, or if he betrayed a normal interest in reading. The subjects of his research must be one-syllable little men, not articulate literates, as if lying, confusion, bigotry and corruption never came in one syllables, and in book learning alone was there sin and woe. This reverence for ignorance was apparently so deep-seated in the public, as vouched for by Little American circulation, that it seems astonishing citizens continued to support colleges and schools. It would have been logical to assume that the serious parents would raise their children to be oracles of ignorance, uncorrupted by the nuances of language, able to couch their primitive impressions in as simple a form as “Ug.”
Mr. Cheever, uncertainly happy with his new Dody, tried to forget the more dignified privileges of a London correspondent in wartime, in delving with Julian into the world of Little People. Being more of an adventurer than Julian, he was able, to his own surprise, to work up considerable enthusiasm for the new world. The collaboration brought Julian and Cheever closer together than they had ever been, for in one way it was a conspiracy against Amanda. It was the first step Julian had taken since his marriage with Amanda’s profit in view. Each day that found Amanda still preoccupied with her own chosen fields gave Julian a sense of guilty elation. The Little Man was all his. Cheever had a little corner of him, maybe, but in name only. It was as exciting as a secret, which, in some ways it was, for Amanda did not quite realize the quiet rocketing to success of Julian’s venture. While it was not theatrical or international enough to appeal to her, she would very likely have found some means to spoil Julian’s pleasure. As it was, he spent less and less time at home, leaving Castor to fuss with the home correspondence, while the master hurried downtown, sometimes even by subway, to play with his new darling.
There was a change in Julian, too, observed even by his most indifferent associates. He now said good morning occasionally to the elevator man, and when he upbraided a waiter for bad service he spoke to the headwaiter, too, so that there was no discrimination.
“The test of a publishing genius, Cheever,” he said to his newly reconciled friend, “is the ability to keep ahead of the times, to change your whole set of standards, overnight, if need be.”
As he seemed pleased with this thought, it could only be deduced that Mr. Evans had passed his own test satisfactorily.
2
JULIAN HAD a secret from Amanda. He felt very guilty about this secret, but on the other hand it enabled him to shrug off Amanda’s little thrusts which had formerly kept him in a constant state of hopeless wrath. Amanda had noticed with relief that he was not so inquisitive about her every minute spent away from the house, nor did he insist on his usual long lectures on the conduct of her future. It must be his increasing devotion to his Little American, she thought, and was grateful.
Miss Bemel finally got on to the secret quite by accident, if you could call Miss Bemel’s methods ever accidental. Devoted as she was to Amanda’s interests, there were many times when she was jealous of Mr. Castor’s opportunities. He heard more gossip around the house, for one thing, and the servants were far too distrustful of Miss Bemel to share their little tidbits. In the three years she had worked for Amanda, she had taken great care not to let the staff think she was on their level; no, she was an official in the establishment, not a servant. In spite of her satisfaction in her position, it irked her that she was denied the duty of hiring and firing chauffeurs, cooks, and other dictatorial privileges enjoyed by little Mr. Castor for no reason except that he had done it for years before Amanda was on the scene. No one liked him, downstairs, but at least they were used to him and he was quiet.
Yes, there were times when Miss Bemel regretted the pedestal on which she had planted herself, some feet below her mistress’s pedestal. Times when she went down to the kitchen with some instructions from Amanda and found the chef, the maids, chauffeur, and sometimes even Castor, laughing together over something, and then shutting up as soon as she entered. And then there were the times she asked for a cup of tea, knowing the others were having it around the kitchen stove in friendly fashion, and the butler would say, “You want it sent upstairs, of course, Miss Bemel.” If she wanted it upstairs it would have been simple enough to make it in her samovar, and drink it by herself. But even a Bemel had her moments of yearning for conviviality, exchanging a complaint or two, maybe, letting out a little steam. No one was going to be foolish enough to make complaints around Miss Bemel, however, for she was certain to carry them straight to Amanda. It was a matter of chagrin to the staff when the cat got out of the bag, the day Miss Bemel came down to discuss the evening’s dinner with the chef’s wife. The chef was Swiss and pretended not to understand, though Miss Bemel had reason to believe this was only to protect himself from the lectures she liked to administer, since he looked equally blank when she tried them in French or German. Mrs. Pons was her husband’s assistant and interpreter, her interpreting consisting of leveling a cool eye at Miss Bemel during her speech and keeping silent until the very end when she summed it up in one pithy word for her husband, the word invariably accompanied a disdainful shrug. Today Miss Bemel was a tiny bit lonesome; she would have liked to unbend just a little, to make a joking offer of opening some sherry for the kitchen, because she had scolded one day about their tippling. So she stood at the pantry doorway, slowly sipping a glass of water, wondering what the chauffeur had been telling them that talk must stop while she was there.
“When you come back from taking Mr. Evans to the station, will you drive me up to the Bronx to see my sister?” Miss Bemel asked of the chauffeur, cocking her head coyly at him, to show her request was woman to man rather than Private Secretary to Menial.
The chauffeur, a young Irishman, looked at her sulkily, and then bit into a thick sandwich he held in one gloved hand.
“Goodness, didn’t you have any lunch?” Miss Bemel laughed, pointing to his sandwich, a bit of joviality that brought only scowls to the others’ faces.
As the chauffeur, Robert, continued to be silent, and Miss Bemel’s face was slowly reddening, a sign of either embarrassment or future revenge, Mrs. Pons took it on herself to answer, with a minimum of grace.
“How can Robert drive to Hudson and back in time to take you uptown?”
“That’s right,” said Robert.
“Oh, I didn’t know Mr. Evans was driving to Hudson,” Miss Bemel murmured, confused for a moment, since she hated to have the staff think she was not informed on every little movement of the family. She recovered her poise by advising Mrs. Pons to change the dining-table centerpiece, and chided her, smilingly, not to let Robert have any beer before his long drive, and so was able to make a respectable exit. She heard a muffled titter as she left, but refused to be disconcerted.
Hudson, she thought! Why was Mr. Evans going to Hudson when he had indicated, through Mr. Castor, that he was taking the train to Albany on business? And then the answer came to her. Far Off Hills, the first Mrs. Evans’s estate, was somewhere around the town of Hudson, this side of Albany. Neither Mrs. Margaret Evans nor her two grown children were on friendly terms with Julian since he married Amanda. It was understood that their affairs were conducted completely through their lawyer, and that the two children harbored undying resentment toward their fat her. Miss Bemel pondered this matter on the way upstairs, and seeing Castor in the hallway decided to take the bull by the horns.
“Since when had he been visiting Number One?” she inquired, eyebrows beetling as if this ugly look would terrify the little man into a proper state of subordination. Mr. Castor, having for once the inside trace, was not to be conquered so easily, but threw back his little head and pursed up his lips proudly.
“Since when has our department been any concern of yours?” he nipped back, and could not resist adding as he took his important little tin letter file into the door of his own little cubbyhole, keeping it well behind his back as if the Bemel eye could bore through any metal. “Must Mr. Evans have written permission from you to visit his own family? Perhaps you want him to report to you when he gets back.”
