He woke violently, for Seymour had slammed the door. Randall leaped from his chair. Seymour was standing in the middle of the room, slowly swaying to and fro. Randall looked from his brother’s white, exhausted face, the eyes narrowed, the mouth locked bitterly, to the mantel clock, and then at Seymour again. It was nearly half past three. Seymour still wore his hat, pushed back on his slightly balding forehead, and Randall had not removed the long woollen muffler from his neck. They gave one another contemptuous looks.
“Nishe shight we are, eh?” Seymour’s voice was snarling and he reeked. Randall shuddered.
“You’re drunk,” he said.
“Shpoken like man of the world.”
“I might have known. Gad, that was a rotten thing you did.”
“Mished party. Made you mish party. Both mished party. Shit!”
“Seymour!” Tears of outrage stood in Randall’s eyes. “Keep your filth for your—” he choked.
“Thash right. She doeshn’t care. Never care. Never care about a goddam thing.” He lifted the hat from his head and slung it across the floor. “Never care, shee? You either.”
“Then why don’t you leave me in peace? Go and make a pig of yourself. But leave me alone.”
“Pig, hah! Bl—bl—PIG!” Seymour doubled over with a choking noise and hid his face in his hands. Randall went close to him, flinching and grimacing at the stench of alcohol. But he put his hand on Seymour’s shoulder.
“You’re ill,” he said, concerned in spite of himself. “Let me help you to bed.”
“Help, hell. Hold my liquor. Hold anything. Not like you.” He swung away, throwing off Randall’s hand.
“Well, hold it then.” Randall felt angry again. “See you don’t make a monkey of me when you do it, though.”
” ‘Sh too eashy. Monkey. No Aush’rian woman make monkey of me.”
“Shut up!”
“Sh’up yourshelf. Grow up too. Li’l Randall, li‘1 goody. Mama’sh li‘1—”
“You stop that!” Randall winced at the sound of his own voice, shrill and almost tearful. He took a long breath and forced his voice down in his chest and said, “Stop talking like that. Leave Mama out of it. You got me in this mess, with your lies and your selfishness, dumping the whole thing on me. Get out of here and go to bed. You’re drunk and you stink.”
“Thash sho,” said Seymour slowly. He turned unsteadily and made his way across the room. Randall stood watching him with anger and disgust. Seymour paused at the door and jerked his chin at Randall and said, “Poor Randall.” He shook his head several times. “Poor Sheymour. Know what I mean? Poor Sheymour …” He stumbled down the hall to his room.
Late that afternoon, Seymour Holt had come slowly down the steps of a brownstone house on Murray Hill. His face was almost hidden between the fur collar of his overcoat, wrapped high against the bitter cold, and his Homburg pulled over his forehead. He walked down Madison Avenue, watching for a hansom. He had none too much time to get home to dress for dinner at the Wellington MacRaes’, who had also invited Randall. Later the party was going on to the Van Dreesen ball. Seymour had had a struggle with Randall to induce him to go. Randall was afraid of Society, he was shy, he said he would have no conversation for the dinner and no dancing for the ball. Seymour dismissed his arguments. Randall need only see himself in the eyes of hostesses, to whom a couple of years in Imperial Vienna would seem the final touch of lustre upon that desirable pearl, a fresh young bachelor.
“Yes,” said Randall gloomily. “A couple of years in a back street and one ball where I—”
“Never mind. I said I’d bring you and you’re going.”
There was not a hansom in sight and the air was so cold that it pinched Seymour’s nostrils. He would have to take the Madison Avenue street car to Twenty-third street and there the crosstown car to get home. And he would be very late. It was too bad about Randall, who would be upset, but at the moment that had not much urgency to Seymour. Nothing seemed real except the total blackness of the room he had just left, the soundlessness of the dark, the loud breathing of the man who sat so close to him, knees almost touching, eye-to-eye but for the barrier of clicking black instruments. Because his hands lay clasped in his lap Seymour had chanced to feel his own wildly irregular pulse. This is nothing new, he told himself, you know all about it by now, don’t be surprised, don’t let him take you by surprise. That’s not the way to meet it. Don’t let yourself be surprised.
And it was no surprise. He heard what he had been told before; was the last time four months ago? Six months the time before? Don’t be surprised! A year ago. God damn you, he had cursed himself, don’t you give a sign. He can’t surprise you. He could not, indeed, for his words were only continuations of what he had said all those times before. “Progressive … some change in condition, Mr. Holt, but not as I had hoped… . very desirable to eliminate precision focussing … strongly advise you … result of consultation … Germany if you wish, but …”
“Have you any way of knowing how long?” Seymour asked. His voice was firm and cold.
“That depends largely upon you. If you could change your work entirely, eliminate all close application—indefinite time, possibly. Quite possibly.”
And what, Seymour could have cried aloud had he not sealed the channels of expression, am I to do? What shall I become? I know the devil who is part of me, who will not hang meek upon this cross. What will he do when you take away my work and leave me idle in that house? Must I explain—how shall I explain—to my weak and helpless ones? He walked faster, bending his head to break the impact of the freezing air. He forgot to look for a cab and he forgot too that he had meant to take the street car. Presently he forgot that he had meant to go home. He walked very fast, stepping off each curb to cross the street without a glance in either direction. At Thirtieth Street he paused and turned eastward and walked until he came to the lights and the warm sour smell and raucous laughter of a corner saloon.
After his third whisky he asked the bartender if there was a boy about who could run an errand. There was, and Seymour scribbled a note on a leaf from his pocket notebook.
“Here,” he said, giving the boy half a dollar, “take this to Lexington Avenue. Montagu Apartments, Miss Florrie La Brea. Personally, understand?” He leaned on the bar again.
Mrs. Gerrity more than anyone kept up the pretense about Randall, because it kept her patient occupied. Only the vaguest suggestion sufficed to satisfy Lily and start her off on a time-consuming fantasy woven round Randall’s increasing distinction and importance, the number of his engagements, and the scope of his repertoire. Lily asked very few direct questions. A hint that Randall had out-of-town engagements postponed for a long time the question of when he would play in New York. Randall worried because he knew the question could not be kept forever suspended. He had become rather adroit at satisfying his mother without telling her anything, and when he felt matters approaching the danger-line he appealed to Seymour who always seemed to have some expedient to tide them over.
When Lily began to fuss in the belief that Randall would make his New York début at a Carnegie Hall recital before the season was over, Mrs. Gerrity diverted her attention by interesting her in clothes. Sure, she must be getting her wardrobe ready if she was to start going to concerts! Mrs. Gerrity brought in an old seamstress who was a friend of hers, in whose wake there came dressmakers’ dummies, fashionplate albums, and other paraphernalia. Since Lily had never in her life thrown anything away, trunks were found full of her débutante and bridal finery, the remodelling of which was strung out for many weeks. This absorbed her as the making of new clothes could never have done. For a time she was quite content. When Randall or Seymour stopped in for a moment, they found her surrounded by billows of faded, musty clothes, shaking out and caressing the ruffles, smoothing the satin bodices which still fitted her emaciated figure, posturing before the pier-glass in a way which made her haggard face and strings of dust-colored hair ghastly by contrast. It was
a frightening thing, heavy with the portent of an ominous ending, but the brothers did not know what else to do. Randall sensed that the worst had happened when Seymour, after several evenings of evasive and brooding silence broke the bad news.
“She’s been insisting that her clothes are ready,” he said. “And when she listens to you practising downstairs she sits with a pencil and paper saying she’s helping you make up your programme.”
“It’s queer that she’s never once asked me to play for her on that piano she moved up to her room.”
“Oh, I know. She’s like that. If you let her have her way about a thing she sort of forgets and lets it slide. That was why we didn’t oppose her about the piano before you got home. But now- ” Seymour stroked his moustache doubtfully. “I don’t know, I’m so afraid of doing the wrong thing.”
“Have you done anything? Or what have you done?”
“Well—” Seymour looked up uneasily, filling his pipe while he spoke. “You understand, Ran—she pushed me awfully hard and I did ask Doctor Slade what I’d better say.”
“I guess I know what’s coming.” Randall sank down dejectedly in his chair.
“Slade said there was nothing else to do. He told me to tell her you will play at Carnegie Hall and let her muddle along thinking she’s getting ready for it.”
“Lord almighty, what a mess.”
“I hope not. It’s very hard on you and I’m sorry— but we’ve just got to hope we can get by with it.”
“Did you have to tell her a date?”
“Yes. She got pretty excited and insistent, that’s always the danger line. So I told her the twenty-sixth of February—I don’t know why. I just plunged.”
“About three weeks from now. My God,” said Randall, feeling a sick twinge. “This is worse than if it were really so.”
“You’re awfully good about it, Kid.” Seymour gave him a pathetic smile. “I feel as if—as if I’ve got an awful lot to make up to you for. I’m sorry about that night, Ran. I’ve felt like a dog about it.”
“Oh, that’s nothing, Brother.” Randall’s blue eyes glistened suddenly. “Forget it.” He forced a small laugh. “I never did want to go to those parties. But it’s too bad about you and all those people.”
Seymour made a face. “They’re bores, mostly. It’s just not having anything better to do at times.”
“I really am worried about Mama, though,” said Randall. “She’ll probably insist on making all sorts of plans.”
“Oh, she will. Slade says that. He’s got other cases very like this one. He told me about old Mrs. Mattingley up on Fifth Avenue. She still gives her annual ball and her series of dinners, just as she used to do before she—before her mind failed. They go through all the preparations and arrangements—only of course nothing really gets done. They just treat her the way we do Mama.”
Only because he knew this could Randall endure watching his mother’s preparations for his “recital”. She spent days on end choosing the guests who were to sit in her box. Two of the five were dead, but Lily had no idea of it. When at last she had written and copied and recopied the notes of invitation, she gave them to Seymour to post and he locked them away in his desk. Over and over she repeated her other wishes to Seymour: exactly what sort of carriage and what color horses she wanted from Grogan’s Livery Stables (which had been gone from Ninth Avenue for years). She decided upon every part of her costume, but each day she changed her mind and had the question to decide all over again. It was when she began to talk about a small reception for Randall after the concert that Seymour became so alarmed that he consulted Doctor Slade once more.
“That’s not the most difficult part,” said the doctor. “Let her go as far as she likes about arrangements, provided you can intercept them. Let her get all ready the evening of the ‘concert’. Give her her head. When she is ready to go out—I think it more than possible that she may go into a maze at that point and actually refuse to leave her room.”
“Are you counting on that?” asked Seymour sharply.
“No, that would be rash. I only think it might happen. But if it does not, and she really insists on going out, then Mrs. Gerrity is to give her a warm tonic drink, telling her she needs it to keep up her strength for the evening. Of course the ‘tonic’—” he raised his eyebrows significantly. “You need not worry about that, Mr. Holt. The sedative will be fastacting as well as strong. When she wakes up the next day she will not remember any details at all. In fact she will probably be very happy, full of pride about the concert. It will keep her content for a long time.”
Randall was miserable when the moment came actually to put on his loathed full-dress clothes and go through the ghastly farce of saying good night to his mother before “leaving for Carnegie Hall. You must be early, darling, not too early, but in plenty of time to warm your hands.” Lily tried to press upon him an old sealskin muff in which to put his hands while driving uptown. “Nobody would see it,” she pleaded, stroking his arm. “Please, darling.” Randall thought it more realistic to refuse, but Seymour coming into the room gave him the flick of an eye, and Randall took the moth-eaten old thing and, under excuse of nervousness about the concert, cut his good night short. His mother clung to him and Randall had to force himself to kiss her “one last time, for luck.” He had never known so dreadful a sense of depression and self-depreciation. All his efforts to justify the innocent deception as right and necessary disappeared in a gulf of revulsion from the strain and the lies and the fear of some dreadful unforeseen consequence. He escaped at last from the room and by prearrangement with Seymour went straight downstairs. His mother would listen for every sound he made until he was out of the house, but she would never go to a window to watch him drive away; the deepest-fixed of all her obsessions was her refusal ever to uncover a window or look out of one.
Nonetheless, Seymour had ordered a cab for Randall in case Lily should stand listening, which would be typical of her, for him to drive away. It had begun to snow heavily that morning, and now the streets were so thickly blanketed that a horse’s hoofs could not be heard. So Seymour decided that it was unnecessary to order a second carriage for his mother’s fictitious trip to Carnegie Hall. Once she was quiet for the night, he planned to pick up a hansom and hurry out to his club to join Randall for dinner.
The suspense became almost intolerable during the long hour that it took Lily and Mrs. Gerrity to get her dressed. Seymour paced the library, worrying about Randall, worrying about a slip in the doctor’s plan, worrying with a sudden panicky afterthought, what he should do if his mother in the morning should demand to see the newspapers with the critics’ reviews of Randall’s début. Why had he not thought of this sooner?—but what could he have done if he had? At that moment his mother’s door opened upstairs and she called in her high, whining voice, “Are you ready, Seymour? Is it time?”
He went out to the hall and looked up the stairs at his mother standing inside the open doorway of her room. God knows what she must have on, he thought, but it will be décolleté and I hope she doesn’t catch cold before Gerrity gets her to bed. He said, “Yes, Mama, I’m coming,” and went back to the library and poured a stiff drink and gulped it. Then he went upstairs.
“Is the carriage here, Seymour?” His mother was standing before her pier-glass, arranging and re-arranging an ostrich boa round her shoulders. Her face was twitching with strain and her eyes looked like pieces of cracked glass.
“In a minute, Mama. There’s lots of time, it’s really too early.”
He looked uneasily at Mrs. Gerrity, who was more expert than he at judging his mother’s condition and anticipating her actions. Would Lily want to leave her room at the end, or would she refuse? Mrs. Gerrity’s heavy face was set and forbidding. Apparently she had no doubt that his mother really meant to go out.
This would be his signal to slip away and wait in the library until Mrs. Gerrity should have induced his mother to drink her hot broth or milk or whatever it was, and soon
thereafter report that the drug had taken effect. “She’ll drink it more willin’, sir, if you’ve just told her it’s too soon to go out and you’ll be waitin’ awhile yet.”
The minutes crawled by. Seymour stood by the library door with his watch in his hand. Until the actual beginning of this evening’s horrible comedy he had felt it could be carried off. Now he was squeamish with apprehension. It was a cold night and the room certainly not overheated, but Seymour felt the sweat breaking out on his forehead and damping the palms of his hands. He swallowed again and again, listening miserably for some sound upstairs which would tell him how things were going. Then he became acutely uncomfortable. Tension and fear had their natural effect, and Seymour hurried to the water-closet at the far end of the hall, next door to the bathroom.
Upstairs Lily ran, weaving and fluttering, from her mirror to the door to the thickly curtained window where she listened for her arriving carriage, back to the door again. Actually to pass through the doorway and go out to the hall was the great obstacle which her confused mind had not yet rallied the resolution to surmount. Several times she put out her stick-like hand, shaking in its crumpled long glove, and touched the doorknob; then she drew back with a shiver. She had no notion of time and could not tell how long this suspense had dragged out; to her it seemed hours but actually it was only the few minutes while Mrs. Gerrity in the kitchenette waited for a small saucepan to boil. Lily had forgotten about her and the drink she was preparing. Suddenly Lily grasped the doorknob, turned it, and smothering a gasp of fright, forced herself to step out to the hall. She paused there. The library door stood open downstairs; she could see the light from the room. She called Seymour and heard no answer.
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