B.F.’s Daughter, page 31
“They have everything in Georgetown,” Mildred said. “Do come tomorrow afternoon. I wish Bob were here.”
“I wish he were too,” Polly said. “I just heard he’s away.”
It was obvious that Mildred could have had no news to disturb her.
“Yes,” Mildred said. “He went about a month ago into the blue the way he does sometimes. He said it was perfectly safe because he was on a Staff. They say his party should be back any time now, and Bob’s always on time, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Polly said, “he always is.”
“Couldn’t you come for tea tomorrow,” Mildred asked, “sometime around five o’clock? Just you and me. We’ll have so much to talk about. Polly, I was so sorry—”
She could not think for a second why Mildred should be sorry.
“About your father, dear. Bob was always so fond of him.”
“He was talking about Bob,” Polly said, “one of the last days I saw him.”
The coffee and liqueurs were coming in, and everyone was sitting down. They each took a small coffee cup of Japanese lacquer, though Mrs. Smedley said she called it “Chinese” lacquer now, and a spoonful of granulated sugar because lump sugar was so hard to find. When Mildred sat down with her little cup, she had an exasperating composure. If Bob had been her husband, Polly would at least have realized that any trip to the Pacific was dangerous. If any husband of hers had given her any such sense of fulfillment, she would at least have worried about him. There was something almost indecent in that serenity of Mildred Tasmin’s. Without intending it, women in the midst of a successful marriage always conveyed a sort of rebuke to other people, implying that if they could do it why couldn’t everyone else. Besides, contentment made women so blind. Polly wondered how much Bob Tasmin had ever told Mildred about her. Admitted that Mildred was really just the right person for Bob, and that Polly was really very glad of it, still it was a little ludicrous that Mildred so completely ignored the past.
“You were just the right person for Bob,” Polly said.
It was even irritating to have Mildred tacitly admit it.
“And you were just the right person for Tom,” Mildred said. “It’s nice when things work out.”
There was no insinuation, nothing between the lines. Contented women were always so colorless.
“It must be more comfortable being married to Bob,” Polly said. “I mean Bob must always get home when he says he will and keep the checkbooks balanced, and pack things the right way in the automobile. Now Tom, well, Tom …”
She stopped. She was not going to discuss Tom, and Mildred laughed.
“You can’t ever have a dull moment with Tom.”
“That’s what people always say,” Polly answered, and she laughed too. “It’s trying, but never dull.”
“Of course, Bob and I are both on the dull side,” Mildred said. “Perhaps that’s why we get on. Bob’s awfully easy to live with.”
“It’s nice to think of a marriage being easy,” Polly said.
“I know,” Mildred answered. “When I read all those books and marriage manuals, I feel guilty sometimes, as though Bob and I were missing something. We never have those troubles you read about, not even as many as Mr. and Mrs. have in the Sunday paper.”
“What paper is that?” Polly asked.
“You know, in the Tribune,” Mildred said.
“Oh,” Polly answered. “I haven’t seen the Tribune for ages.”
“Bob doesn’t like the Post or PM,” Mildred said. “Sometimes I wonder whether there’s anything wrong with us.”
“I wouldn’t let it bother you too much, dear,” Polly answered, “not enough to let it keep you awake.”
Mildred put down her coffee cup on a little table. She looked like a Sargent portrait. The men were coming back, and it was time for them to move away from each other as women should when the men appeared.
“If you haven’t got a car,” Mildred said, “I can drive you home.”
“Oh, no thanks,” Polly told her. “The Smedleys want us to stay for a few minutes afterwards.”
“Irene Smedley’s such a dear, isn’t she?” Mildred said. “It was so sweet of her to ask me here without Bob.”
It was not strictly true that the Smedleys had asked them to stay afterwards, but Polly was going to find out about Georgetown before she went home that night.
Of course, Irene Smedley said, she would never have dreamed of saying a word if Polly had not asked her, but she loved Polly. She always had. Polly was almost like her daughter. She would never have dreamed of saying a word, and perhaps she should not now. She was very fond of Tom too, and everything of this sort was always grotesquely exaggerated. Yet at the same time, frankly, there was talk. So many men were at loose ends in Washington, so many men under strain. It probably meant nothing and Mrs. Smedley did not want to say anything.
“Go ahead,” Polly said. “He’s tired of me. Why don’t you say it?”
But Mrs. Smedley did not want to say it. It was a time to be understanding and very patient, she said, and everything would turn out all right. If Polly were older, she would realize how often such things happened, and how many women had to bear them. Mrs. Smedley had seen the girl and she was a pretty little thing.
“You say you saw her?” Polly asked.
Irene Smedley had only seen her once across a room. You could never tell what it was that might attract a man. She was pretty with a trig sort of prettiness, and she had that high rating Civil Service look that all girls acquired after a few years of working for the government, particularly during the war. It was a look and a manner that must have come from having been thrown all the time with so many busy, intelligent men, and from having those men so dependent on them.
“You don’t mind my being curious?” Polly said. “I can’t help being.”
“Of course not, dear,” Irene answered. “I’m ever so glad that you’ve come to me.”
They were sitting in the little room where Irene Smedley had her desk and her telephone and address books, and the Social Register and both the British and American Who’s Who and Burke’s Peerage. Tom and Mr. Smedley were having a highball in the library, and Polly could hear the footsteps of the servants in the dining room. She asked Irene Smedley to be absolutely frank, but she was not sure Irene would be.
“But who is she?” Polly asked.
“My dear, I don’t know who she is,” Irene Smedley answered. “No one knows any more with everyone coming down here like air filling a vacuum.”
“But everyone comes from some place originally,” Polly said.
“Yes, but their antecedents leave them in the queerest way,” Irene answered. “They develop a veneer after they’ve rattled around here for a year or two, particularly those ‘government gals.’”
The word “gals” sounded like an artificial effort to make that conversation unspectacular.
“I think the Navy brought her in,” Irene Smedley was saying “Naval officers collect more different gals from different places than any other group. One of them, the dearest little commander, called the other day with a wife from Pago Pago.”
“I suppose they travel more,” Polly said.
“They have more varied tastes than the Army,” Irene said. “Have you noticed they’re a great deal more susceptible? Even the admiral tonight. The poor things are always away at sea.”
“Let’s not worry about the poor things,” Polly said. “Please go on about her.”
“I’m afraid I’m underlining it and making it more than it really is,” Irene said. “It’s so easy to exaggerate. And in the end, what happens? You’ll hold it against me, and we won’t be friends.”
“Is she married?” Polly asked.
Irene Smedley sighed and arranged some papers on her desk. It was not late because those dinners always ended early, but it seemed late. It reminded Polly of what they used to say early in the war, “later than you think,” “too little and too late.”
“They say she was,” Irene said. “He’s off somewhere. Navy, I think.”
“Do you know her name?” Polly asked.
“Why do you want to know, dear?”
Though Irene Smedley was older, there was no reason why she should be so diplomatic and so careful, and besides, Tom would be growing fidgety in the library. He would be sure to ask what they were talking about if they stayed much longer.
“Because I want to see her,” Polly said. “I’m not going to be in the dark when everyone—” Irene Smedley leaned forward and took her hand.
“Oh, dear,” she said, “it isn’t the thing to do, it simply isn’t. Just let it pass.” She took her hand away and sat looking at Polly. “Everything breaks so easily, dear.”
Polly shook her head and clasped her vanity bag tightly on her lap.
“Then let it break,” she said. “If you think …”
She stopped because she knew that she must not let herself go.
“It’s so much better to be patient,” Irene Smedley said, “so much better to try to understand. My dear, I could tell you—I know how it sounds—but you must give yourself time.”
“How can I understand if I don’t see her?” Polly asked. Though she wanted to be reasonable, she knew that she was being unattractive. “If you don’t tell me, you know that I’ll find out, Irene.”
Irene told her. The name was James, she thought, Winifred James.
“What can you possibly say to her, dear,” Irene asked, “that won’t make a scene? If you love Tom—and you do love Tom, don’t you?—it will be all right in the end. You mustn’t let everything break, dear, just because momentarily he’s lost his head.”
“Damn his head,” Polly said.
“Hush, dear,” Irene said. “They’re coming. Please see me tomorrow before you do anything. Please, tomorrow.”
Polly could hear footsteps and Tom’s voice.
“If we don’t break it up, Poll will be in there all night,” Tom was saying.
Polly glanced quickly at Irene Smedley, and Irene shook her head.
“Pierre will drive you back in the car,” she said. “Now, Polly, please—”
There was no reason why anyone should think that she was going to do anything that was silly or extreme. Actually, she felt better than she had all day, completely cool and competent. Mr. Smedley was twisting his mustache, as men always do who have waxed mustaches. After all, no one knew the gal, as Irene called her, but if Tom was stepping out, he might at least have paid her the compliment of selecting someone who amounted to something.
“I hope we’re not interrupting, dear,” Mr. Smedley said. “Is the post-mortem nearly over?”
The word had a jarring sound. Tom was looking at her curiously, and she wondered whether her face showed anything.
“In case you don’t know it,” Tom said, “there’s a war on. I’ve got to be at the office tomorrow at eight, Poll.”
“Yes,” Polly said, “there’s a war on.”
“What have you two been talking about?” Tom asked.
“Post-mortems, darling,” Polly said. “You’re sure it isn’t too much to ask Pierre to drive us, Irene? Tom can run out and find a taxi cab. He’s wonderful with taxis now that there’s a war on.”
As they sat in the Smedleys’ limousine, and goodness knows where the Smedleys got the gas to drive it unless they took it from the tractors on their farm, Tom did not appear to have the least suspicion that anything was wrong; he leaned back with his hat over his eyes. He was always making fun of limousines, but she knew no one who could make himself more comfortable once he got inside one. He pulled the monogrammed fur rug over his knees and yawned.
Polly sat grimly thinking of herself and Tom in terms of the stock characters in those sophisticated, triangular, drawing-room comedies, which were usually vehicles for an actress like Katharine Cornell. They were the plays that the critics called a refreshing breeze in a turgid Broadway season, plays in which the husband, talented and whimsical, would become foolishly enamored of Another Woman, and Katharine Cornell as the wife would view this aberration with sweet, tolerant, restrained amusement—merely the prank of a little boy. Those husbands, though very scintillating, were always little boys at heart, and the wives were invariably—adult.
In the second act the wife and the Other Woman would confront each other. In some sequences of adroit and laughable repartee, the wife would point out that she merely wanted to do what was best for Charles, and of course the Other Woman, a blind, selfish little thing, did not know what was best. Then Charles would see the tinsel and the sham, and in the third act Katharine Cornell would give him an aspirin, and the hallucination would be over. Polly wanted to be like Katharine Cornell, but she found it very hard to hold on to herself with Tom beside her dozing. It was a help to think that she and Tom were in a play. If you kept it like a play, it was much more adult, but still she could not help wondering how it had ever happened and what she had done to make it happen.
When a married person became involved with someone else, everyone always said that the marriage had not worked, and that it was both their faults equally, but when Polly tried to think over the ways in which she might have failed she found herself growing furiously angry, and she could not keep anything straight. Of course, he did not love her. That was what was clearest in her mind, and she was sure that she did not love him any longer, or almost sure. She wished that she did not keep hearing Mildred Tasmin’s voice, so nicely modulated, one of those New York girls’-school voices.
Of course, Bob and I are on the dull side.… When I read all those books … I feel guilty sometimes, as though Bob and I were missing something. We never seem to have those troubles you read about … And once she used to feel just that way about Tom.
She would like to see Mildred Tasmin coping with this, because at least it would make her more human. She could not understand how Bob Tasmin stood her complacence, but if Bob had ever gone off the deep end, he would not have done it with his secretary. He would have known it was not good taste, because he was a gentleman, and Tom was not a gentleman. He wasn’t anything at all. Once this had been a blessed relief, but still Tom could have done with some instincts along those lines.
“Tom,” she said, and she nudged him with her elbow.
“What is it?” he asked. “Are we there?”
“Almost. Have you got something to give Pierre?”
Tom wriggled and began thrusting his hands in his pockets and pulled out a bill.
“Have you got a dollar?” he asked. “I’ve only got five dollars.”
“No, I haven’t,” Polly said. “Give it to him.”
“Good God,” Tom said. “I’m not the Rockefeller Foundation.”
Tom delivered his customary editorial on losing the respect of people if you gave them too much.
“Perhaps he doesn’t respect you anyway,” Polly said.
“Well, the Smedleys pay him, don’t they?” Tom said. “Look at his neck. He’s overweight. He ought to be in a defense job.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Polly said. “Don’t try to run the world.”
“I was quiet,” Tom said. “Why did you wake me up to face a problem?”
“Darling,” Polly said, “it’s about time you faced something.”
Certain aspects of the situation were almost amusing. She was going to make him face it as soon as she was ready and not before. The car had stopped in front of the marquee of the hotel and Tom was holding the five dollars in the secretive way you did when you tipped other people’s chauffeurs. He was being gracious about it because he was a democrat and all men were brothers.
“Thanks ever so much, Pierre,” he said. “I’m sorry we kept you up so late.” And then Polly heard him mutter as they entered the revolving doors. “Damned old capon.” Tom always hated chauffeurs.
The hotel was beginning to grow brisk and businesslike now that Sunday was nearly over. The lights looked brighter and vacuum cleaners were buzzing in the lobby making it clean for another wartime week. If only she and Tom had been going home, back among all their possessions, it would have been much easier, but instead they were returning to that modernistic sitting room which would still smell of alcohol, antiseptic and tobacco, and the thought of it made her almost ill. For a moment she thought of going to the desk and asking for a room of her own, but she pulled herself together.
“Good evening, Mr. Brett,” the night clerk said. “It’s nice to have Mrs. Brett with us. Are you keeping the suite through tomorrow?”
Polly smiled her brightest smile.
“Yes, through tomorrow and the next day, I think,” she said. “There’s so much going on in Washington.” When she glanced at Tom his face looked very blank.
At least someone had hoed out the sitting room. It was all as neat as though they had never been there, as impersonal as that tent in The Rubáiyát prepared for another guest. It was like a clean page in one of those New Year diaries which she used to buy when she was younger, in which she always grew tired of writing after January tenth.
“Don’t you have to be home by tomorrow?” Tom asked her. “That’s what you said.”
“Why, darling,” she answered. “You don’t mind my staying for a while, do you? There’s no real reason for me to get back.”
She hung her mink coat in the closet because she did not want to look at him.
“But I thought you said—” she heard him saying. “I thought the lawyers needed you to sign those papers.”
She did not want to look at him.
“You don’t mind my staying, do you?” she asked again.
“Why, of course I don’t,” he said. “It’s swell, Poll, but I’m all tied up next week.”
“I thought you were planning to come home on Tuesday afternoon,” she said. “That was your last plan.”
“I know, but I’m all tied up, Poll,” he said. “It’s swell you’re going to stay, but you mustn’t feel hurt if I’m not around. You mustn’t expect too much of me.”
“I don’t,” she answered. “I don’t expect anything at all. Just do whatever you were going to do.”
It sounded rather well when she said it, and she turned quickly from the closet, but Tom was not aware of any hidden meaning. He was taking off his dinner coat. She did wish he would not always take his coat off the moment he came into the sitting room, and he would not have done it in New York.
