Part 13 (1/2)

”Mud in your eye,” she said.

They drank. He put down his gla.s.s and took up the heavy suitcases.

”Got to get a train around six,” he said.

She followed him down the hall. There was a song, a song that Mrs. Martin played doggedly on the phonograph, running loudly through her mind. She had never liked the thing.

”Night and daytime.

Always playtime.

Ain't we got fun?”

At the door he put down the bags and faced her.

”Well,” he said. ”Well, take care of yourself. You'll be all right, will you?”

”Oh, sure,” she said.

He opened the door, then came back to her, holding out his hand.

” 'By, Haze,” he said. ”Good luck to you.”

She took his hand and shook it.

”Pardon my wet glove,” she said.

When the door had closed behind him, she went back to the pantry.

She was flushed and lively when she went in to Mrs. Martin's that evening. The Boys were there, Ed among them. He was glad to be in town, frisky and loud and full of jokes. But she spoke quietly to him for a minute.

”Herbie blew today,” she said. ”Going to live out west.”

”That so?” he said. He looked at her and played with the fountain pen clipped to his waistcoat pocket.

”Think he's gone for good, do you?” he asked.

”Yeah,” she said. ”I know he is. I know. Yeah.”

”You going to live on across the hall just the same?” he said. ”Know what you're going to do?”

”Gee, I don't know,” she said. ”I don't give much of a d.a.m.n.”

”Oh, come on, that's no way to talk,” he told her. ”What you need-you need a little snifter. How about it?”

”Yeah,” she said. ”Just straight.”

She won forty-three dollars at poker. When the game broke up, Ed took her back to her apartment.

”Got a little kiss for me?” he asked.

He wrapped her in his big arms and kissed her violently. She was entirely pa.s.sive. He held her away and looked at her.

”Little tight, honey?” he asked, anxiously. ”Not going to be sick, are you?”

”Me?” she said. ”I'm swell.”

II.

When Ed left in the morning, he took her photograph with him. He said he wanted her picture to look at, up in Utica. ”You can have that one on the bureau,” she said.

She put Herbie's picture in a drawer, out of her sight. When she could look at it, she meant to tear it up. She was fairly successful in keeping her mind from racing around him. Whisky slowed it for her. She was almost peaceful, in her mist.

She accepted her relations.h.i.+p with Ed without question or enthusiasm. When he was away, she seldom thought definitely of him. He was good to her; he gave her frequent presents and a regular allowance. She was even able to save. She did not plan ahead of any day, but her wants were few, and you might as well put money in the bank as have it lying around.

When the lease of her apartment neared its end, it was Ed who suggested moving. His friends.h.i.+p with Mrs. Martin and Joe had become strained over a dispute at poker; a feud was impending.

”Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here,” Ed said. ”What I want you to have is a place near the Grand Central. Make it easier for me.”

So she took a little flat in the Forties. A colored maid came in every day to clean and to make coffee for her-she was ”through with that housekeeping stuff,” she said, and Ed, twenty years married to a pa.s.sionately domestic woman, admired this romantic uselessness and felt doubly a man of the world in abetting it.

The coffee was all she had until she went out to dinner, but alcohol kept her fat. Prohibition she regarded only as a basis for jokes. You could always get all you wanted. She was never noticeably drunk and seldom nearly sober. It required a larger daily allowance to keep her misty-minded. Too little, and she was achingly melancholy.

Ed brought her to Jimmy's. He was proud, with the pride of the transient who would be mistaken for a native, in his knowledge of small, recent restaurants occupying the lower floors of shabby brownstone houses; places where, upon mentioning the name of an habitue friend, might be obtained strange whisky and fresh gin in many of their ramifications. Jimmy's place was the favorite of his acquaintances.

There, through Ed, Mrs. Morse met many men and women, formed quick friends.h.i.+ps. The men often took her out when Ed was in Utica. He was proud of her popularity.

She fell into the habit of going to Jimmy's alone when she had no engagement. She was certain to meet some people she knew, and join them. It was a club for her friends, both men and women.

The women at Jimmy's looked remarkably alike, and this was curious, for, through feuds, removals, and opportunities of more profitable contacts, the personnel of the group changed constantly. Yet always the newcomers resembled those whom they replaced. They were all big women and stout, broad of shoulder and abundantly breasted, with faces thickly clothed in soft, high-colored flesh. They laughed loud and often, showing opaque and l.u.s.terless teeth like squares of crockery. There was about them the health of the big, yet a slight, unwholesome suggestion of stubborn preservation. They might have been thirty-six or forty-five or anywhere between.

They composed their t.i.tles of their own first names with their husbands' surnames-Mrs. Florence Miller, Mrs. Vera Riley, Mrs. Lilian Block. This gave at the same time the solidity of marriage and the glamour of freedom. Yet only one or two were actually divorced. Most of them never referred to their dimmed spouses; some, a shorter time separated, described them in terms of great biological interest. Several were mothers, each of an only child-a boy at school somewhere, or a girl being cared for by a grandmother. Often, well on towards morning, there would be displays of kodak portraits and of tears.

They were comfortable women, cordial and friendly and irrepressibly matronly. Theirs was the quality of ease. Become fatalistic, especially about money matters, they were unworried. Whenever their funds dropped alarmingly, a new donor appeared; this had always happened. The aim of each was to have one man, permanently, to pay all her bills, in return for which she would have immediately given up other admirers and probably would have become exceedingly fond of him; for the affections of all of them were, by now, unexacting, tranquil, and easily arranged. This end, however, grew increasingly difficult yearly. Mrs. Morse was regarded as fortunate.

Ed had a good year, increased her allowance and gave her a sealskin coat. But she had to be careful of her moods with him. He insisted upon gaiety. He would not listen to admissions of aches or weariness.

”Hey, listen,” he would say, ”I got worries of my own, and plenty. n.o.body wants to hear other people's troubles, sweetie. What you got to do, you got to be a sport and forget it. See? Well, slip us a little smile, then. That's my girl.”

She never had enough interest to quarrel with him as she had with Herbie, but she wanted the privilege of occasional admitted sadness. It was strange. The other women she saw did not have to fight their moods. There was Mrs. Florence Miller who got regular crying jags, and the men sought only to cheer and comfort her. The others spent whole evenings in grieved recitals of worries and ills; their escorts paid them deep sympathy. But she was instantly undesirable when she was low in spirits. Once, at Jimmy's, when she could not make herself lively, Ed had walked out and left her.

”Why the h.e.l.l don't you stay home and not go spoiling everybody's evening?” he had roared.

Even her slightest acquaintances seemed irritated if she were not conspicuously light-hearted.

”What's the matter with you, anyway?” they would say. ”Be your age, why don't you? Have a little drink and snap out of it.”