“Oh, no,” Dottie said, “let Helen. You make them, darling.”
“Sidney,” Helen said, “you make them, Sidney.”
Both girls were sitting up straight with hands folded in their laps and ankles crossed, like girls in dancing school waiting for a partner. They both looked austerely charming and very pretty, but I thought that Dottie’s face looked drawn. The gray light from the north windows was not flattering, and she did not look as happy as she should have, considering everything. I was tempted to cut roughly through her talk and ask her what the news was, as I would have if we had been alone, but then there was Helen, and the amenities. Just as I started with the cocktails, Farouche came in. He was brushed and he had a new bowknot on the top of his cranium, but like Dottie he seemed worried and distrait.
“Oh,” Dottie said, “where did you ever come from, you lovely handsome man? Oh, woozums, woozums, woozums!” And she sank down on her knees and threw her arms around Farouche.
Though Farouche submitted to Dottie’s embrace like a gentleman, he knew instinctively that her behavior was not genuine, and so did I. Dottie would not have gone overboard in such a manner if she had not been under some sort of tension. I was growing very tired of the feminine character, and I was thinking how many valid reasons there were for men’s bars and men’s clubs. Helen and I looked at each other, and she raised her eyebrows slightly. Some impulse made me take her hand, and we stood for a moment watching this erratic exhibition between Dottie and Farouche.
“Sid,” she said, “hurry with those cocktails. I think we’d all better have a drink.”
Such anxiety was not like Helen, who never did approve of cocktails in the middle of the day.
“All right,” I said, “all right,” and somehow everything was all right. It was as if I had been telling her that I liked everything she had done and that she was not like Dottie Peale. Helen was a neater, sweeter maiden from a cleaner, greener land.
The embrace was over. Dottie was back in her chair again and “Woozums” was wandering about the room distractedly, like an old man looking for his glasses.
“What is he doing?” Dottie asked. “Does he want to go out, Sidney?”
“I think he’s looking for his rubber ring,” I said.
“Oh, God,” Dottie said, “I wish everyone weren’t always looking for something. Is he happy when he gets it?”
“Yes,” I said, “he seems to be.”
“Oh, God,” Dottie said, “I wish I could settle for a rubber ring.”
For the first time since Dottie’s appearance her voice was kind and natural, but her remark was surprising, because it seemed to me that she had finally settled for a rubber ring herself.
“Sid,” Helen said, “don’t keep stirring. They’re cold enough.”
I had been exposed to all of Dottie’s moods. I could even classify them cold-bloodedly, and she knew I could, and perhaps she both disliked and liked me for it. As I watched her now, she was looking coyly into her Martini. She could hold a glass as carelessly and gracefully as one of those improbable girls in a Sargent portrait handled a handkerchief or fan. I do not mean by this that she drank too much. She despised people who could not manage liquor, especially women. She was just posing as The Girl with the Martini.
“Sid,” she said, “did you tell Helen about Gilbert Frary?”
“Yes,” I said, “and I won’t forget what you did for me, Dot.”
“Darling,” Dottie said, “anything I did was for Helen, too. It wasn’t much—just calling up some people. There’s so little anyone can do for anyone else basically.… And Helen … in case you don’t know it, Sid’s a very good guy.”
“I always had the same idea,” Helen answered, “but it’s nice to have it confirmed.”
The shift in conversation made me wince.
“I’m wonderful,” I said, “but don’t be so patronizing about it.”
Dottie took a delicate sip of her Martini.
“I knew you’d have the subtlety but I didn’t know you’d have the guts to do what you did with Frary,” she said.
“I couldn’t let the home team down,” I told her. “If you want to know, I’ve learned a lot about guts from General Goodwin.”
This seemed like a graceful way of bringing Melville Goodwin into the conversation. Even if I did not approve of what had happened, I wanted Dottie to know that my loyalty lay with her and Mel if the chips were down.
“I kept thinking of Mel,” I went on, “when I was slugging it out with Gilbert and the boys. You know the way Mel puts it.” I was an old friend of Melville Goodwin’s now that I had swallowed a Martini. I had almost been with him in the Silver Leaf Armored—almost. “You estimate the situation and then you act.” I filled Dottie’s glass and filled my own again. “Well, here’s to Mel.”
It seemed a very handsome thing to say, but Dottie looked at me as though I had been crudely clumsy, and then she blushed. I had not seen Dottie blush for years.
“No, no,” she said, “never mind about Mel now. Helen, darling, here’s to Sid. I’m awfully glad you’ve done so much for Sid.”
I always disliked sentiment, and the whole thing seemed to be getting out of hand. I saw Helen’s eyes open wide in her astonishment.
“God damn it,” Dottie said chokingly, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“Oh, Dottie,” I heard Helen say.
First there had been that scene with Farouche, and now Dottie was dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said again. “God damn it, don’t say anything.”
Fortunately I knew exactly what to say.
“Come on,” I said, “and pull your socks up, Dot.”
“God damn it,” Dottie said, “I’m all right now. Give me another drink, Sid.”
Her teeth glittered in her most impeccable smile. “Don’t look so worried,” she said. “It’s not alcohol—just nerves, combined with all this sanitary Chippendale. Excuse me, Helen darling.”
It was like pulling a rabbit from a hat. It was hard to believe that anything had upset Dottie.
“Why, here’s Camilla,” I heard Helen saying. “Come in, dear, and shake hands with Mrs. Peale and don’t forget to curtsy.”
I was singularly moved by the sight of Camilla, out of her riding clothes and all prepared by Helen, like the house, for the visitation of Dottie Peale. She looked so very shy and so small in her patent-leather slippers and her smocked dress of Liberty silk, that for once I seriously felt that I was responsible for her. What might happen to me did not have much value as long as I had done something for Camilla. It was like arriving somewhere safely.
“Why, darling,” Dottie Peale said, “how sweet you look. Won’t you give me a big kiss, darling?”
Dottie had often told me that she did not like small children and she knew even less than I about how to get along with them. I felt acutely embarrassed, both for her and Camilla, because I was afraid we were going to have a repetition of that exhibition with Farouche. Of course Camilla did not want to give her a big kiss, but I was proud of Camilla and of all the teachings of Helen and Miss Otts. She complied politely and restrainedly and then with the unerring instinct of a child she firmly disengaged herself from Dottie Peale.
“Oh, Helen,” Dottie was saying, “she is so sweet, just a pocket edition of you, dear.”
Then Camilla moved to where I was sitting and stood leaning lightly against me. I had never thought that she would want to be near me at such a time. I put my arm around her and held her tight.
“Yes,” I said, “Camilla does look quite a lot like Helen.”
I have often wondered what we all were thinking. I am sure we were all thinking of ourselves in our different ways, because of Camilla.
“I’ve always wanted to have a little girl,” Dottie said.
She always wanted something, but it was not like her to drop all barriers in this way. I had never seen her so insecure, and I
could think of nothing to say to fill the embarrassed gap of silence. No one spoke until Dottie spoke again.
“And I don’t suppose I ever will,” she said, “but then, maybe I wouldn’t be very good at it.”
By now there was no doubt that Dottie was deeply worried about something, and obviously it was something which she did not wish to discuss in front of Helen. She ate very little all through luncheon, although she said several times how delicious everything tasted. In the living room afterwards she did not touch her coffee, though she had been careful to ask if she could have some saccharine instead of sugar. And I remember her saying how strange it was—once she was always hungry and once she could eat and eat without gaining a single pound, but it was different now. She seemed to be putting off an inevitable moment, while Helen and I both waited. It was like the old story of the man who had dropped one shoe noisily and the man in the room below sending up word to him for heaven’s sake to drop the other.
“Helen, dear,” she said at last, “would you mind if I took Sid away somewhere for a little while? I don’t mind his repeating everything I say, but I don’t seem to be able to say it to you both at once.”
From the bright way Helen answered, I knew that she was as glad as I that the suspense was over. Why didn’t we go into the library, she suggested. She seemed to be turning me over to Dottie very willingly.
“And keep him as long as you like,” she said, “and we can all have tea later.”
I listened very carefully, but I could find no sharpness in Helen’s words, and I had a sense that this disappointed Dottie.
As soon as we reached the library, I knew exactly what Dottie thought of the whole layout, and it placed an undue strain on my loyalty to see her gazing superciliously at the English gentleman’s books. All at once she put her arm through mine as though we both were lonely.
“Oh, my God,” she said, “poor Sid.”
I could not think of an appropriate answer. I wanted to be loyal to Helen, who had tried so hard with that library, but I felt my own self-pity.
“Poor Sid,” she said again. “This isn’t what you ever wanted, is it, darling?”
“Not exactly,” I answered, “but it doesn’t really matter. It’s a minor detail, Dot.”
I might not have had everything, but I had more than she would ever have, and at least I knew that you had to give up some part of yourself to get anything you wanted.
“I know it is,” she said. “Sid, I’m awfully glad for you, I really am.… And the patter of little feet. This won’t be such a bad place for the children’s hour.”
I wished she did not see everything and know everything. There was never any intellectual privacy when I was with her.
“All right,” I said, “that’s one way to put it, Dot.”
“Damn you,” she said, “don’t try to be slick about it. All right, I’m jealous of you. God, all this burns me up. I hate you and still I’m glad for you. How the hell did it ever work this way? Oh, God, I’m so unhappy, darling.”
Then she threw her arms around me and pressed her head against my shoulder—but not the way she had with Farouche. It was an excellent thing that Helen was not there.
“Oh, Sid,” she sobbed, “oh, God!”
“Don’t,” I said, “don’t, Dot.”
It was useless to say “don’t.” There was that destructive driving force inside her. No man, nothing, would ever answer her desire, and unfortunately we both knew it.
“Sid,” she said, “please hold me for just a minute. You’ve got to help me, Sid.”
“Help you about what, Dot?” I asked.
She pushed herself away from me, but she continued to hold my hand.
“All right,” she said, “all right. Of course you know what.… That God-damned brass-hat general of yours, Major General Melville A. Goodwin, and to hell with him! Do you know what he wants? He wants me to marry him and now the whole damned Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington are beginning to expect me to. Oh, Sidney, I can’t. You’ve got to help me, Sid.”
I had never seen her look so empty or defeated. Her words had all her old speciousness, but they had taken a lot out of her. She turned away from me and took a few unsteady steps toward the armchair by the library fireplace, and curiously enough it was the chair that Melville Goodwin had always used. She slumped into it heavily, with none of her beguiling schoolgirl manner. There was no swift moving of the skirt, no crossing of the ankles. Her jacket, so carefully cut to show the arrogant boyish slimness of her figure, was a mass of untidy wrinkles. Her skirt had ridden up above one knee, showing the edge of her slip with its meticulously embroidered border, and nothing could have confirmed her wretchedness more eloquently. For once in her life for a few moments Dottie did not care how she looked. I might have been alone there, surrounded by an aura of Chanel Five and my own disordered thoughts. It was strange how trivial some of them were. Really, I was thinking, Dottie should pull down her dress. She had beautiful legs, but now they were sprawling and inartistic. Really, I was thinking, she ought to sit up, and I sounded aloof and unsympathetic when I answered her, although I did not intend to be.
“Didn’t it ever occur to you,” I said, “that he might have honorable intentions?”
I should have been beside her with my arm around her, consoling poor Dottie, whom I had known so long, but I did not seem able to throw myself into it.
“Oh, Sid,” she said, “please don’t. Please say you’re fond of me.”
“All right,” I said, “I’m fond of you, but stop showing your slip.”
She arranged things in a single indescribable motion. Suddenly the wrinkles of the jacket were gone and the slip was gone and the skirt and the nylon stockings were all synchronized again.
“For God’s sake, sit down yourself,” she said.
I thought I had built up a perfect tolerance to Dottie Peale. I should not have cared personally that she could not bring herself to marry a major general in the United States Army with whom I was acquainted. The step had nothing whatsoever to do with my life theoretically, and yet I cared. She had no right to ask for my sympathy, but still she had it.
“Darling,” she said, “it’s such an awful mess. You are always so right about everything.”
“So right about what?” I asked her.
“Oh, about the whole business,” she said. “You never did approve of it, did you? Not even back in Paris.”
“No,” I said, “of course I didn’t.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have told me more about him,” she said. “I never knew he would take everything so seriously. I honestly don’t see how I could have known it would go as far as this.”
Somehow it was getting to be my fault. Poor Mel Goodwin, I was thinking, who had laid everything he had at her feet. He was worth a thousand of her, but worth did not tip the scale. In the end, when he had given everything, she did not want what he had to offer. It was absolutely like her to draw back in the end. Instinct for survival was working, and Melville Goodwin could go overboard. In any shipwreck it was always women first.
“Didn’t you want him to be serious?” I asked.
“Sid, don’t you see how I feel?” she asked. “And won’t you please sit down and listen? I want to be fair, darling, absolutely fair. Of course I didn’t know it would come to this, and he was so unhappy and so completely maladjusted. Sid, I only wanted to make him happy.”
I sat down in the other armchair opposite her.
“And so you made him still more maladjusted,” I said.
“Darling,” she answered, “I wish you’d try to pull yourself together and understand. Of course I know he loves me, but I didn’t know he would love me in this way. He’s so undeviating, darling. Do you remember that poem he keeps reciting? ‘Push off and sitting well in order smite …’ I’ll scream if I hear it again. When the brass wears off there’s still more brass.” She stopped and looked at me sharply. “And did you ever see those damn clothes of his—that tweed
coat and his double-breasted suit?”
I did not answer, but they mattered. Disillusion always came from details.
“I don’t mean to be unkind,” she said, “and I know part of this is my fault, and I know men always blame women in the end. Of course I was carried away. I’ve been so lonely, Sid, and well, damn it, he’s a man.”
“I’ve heard you say that before,” I said.
“Sid,” she said, “I know that what I’m saying sounds awful. I still love him—in theory, but it’s all too much for me to manage. Sidney, please be kind.”
“All right,” I said, “I’m being kind.”
I could not unsnarl the raveled ends of her meaning. Her love was always limited, and perhaps she recognized this as she sat there wretchedly, twisting her hands nervously, pulling at the loose edges of her life.
“Darling,” she said, “it did seem possible at first. I want you please to believe that. I don’t suppose I ever thought things out clearly. I didn’t want to think, because I was happy. Everything would have been possible if he’d only been a little more like other people, more like you and me, but he’s so damned—so damned honest, darling.”
There was truth in all her sophistry, and her saving grace was that she could see it occasionally. Melville Goodwin was more honest than either of us could ever be.
“Darling,” she said, “I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming. Of course we did make plans, but I didn’t think he believed them any more than I did. Do you know what he actually wants now? He wants to retire from the service and for us to go away somewhere alone together. He wants us to take a little bungalow or something and live—in Carmel, California, darling.” Her voice ended on a higher note.
It was not the incongruity of Carmel, California, that had torn it—this was exactly the place that Melville Goodwin would want to live—and it was not the bungalow. It was the facing of a definite fact and all its implications, including the character of Mel Goodwin himself, in the cold north light.
“And that isn’t all,” she went on. “Darling, do you know what happened yesterday?” She did not expect me to answer, and it was doing her good to tell someone everything. “Darling, yesterday another general came, an old one. God, he was polite—something like a priest. Damn it, give me a cigarette.”
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