Night had come. Grant knew nothing of this part of town and was casting round for some little bar, an Italian restaurant for about $1.50 where he could feed her, look her over, and make up his mind about her. He started to talk over restaurants of a cheap order with Miss Grimm, who presently said she had an appointment but would take the taxi uptown with them. Grant became angry with her. They got into the taxi, the blonde silent.
The lights fell on her face, plain fair hair, and neck rising nobly from the low-cut dress. After Miss Grimm had left them with a very dry farewell, Grant said quickly, “Where did you meet Peter Hoag?”
“He stopped his car and picked me up on the sidewalk.”
“You had trouble, eh, little girl?”
She was silent for a while, then, negligently, “Hard luck hit me.”
“There’s always some man behind it, when a woman’s in trouble.” He moved against her.
“I have nothing against men; men have been good to me.”
He cast up in his mind, judging by her appearance and type, what she must be used to and what small sums she must have accepted. She was quiet, did what he wanted, all without skirmishing. He felt he would spend an hour or two with her, put off a cocktail appointment, see Goodwin’s wife, Betty, with whom he was having an affair, later in the evening. It would teach Betty a lesson which she needed. Betty Goodwin was a spoiled British libertine who drank too much. He redirected the taxi to his hotel, saying, with his hand on her knee, “Long-distance call I’m expecting from Jigago, business—”
He then lived just off Fifth Avenue, in the lower Fifties, in a big old hotel with a gay lobby, but pleasant, old-fashioned suites. The pair went upstairs, taking with them the small paper valise. Grant was completely indifferent to the looks cast at Mrs. Kent’s dress and valise. She appeared to be also.
The bedroom was white, paneled, with tasseled lamps; there was a lounge with mustard velvet cushions, armchairs similarly upholstered, a yellow satin coverlet on the bed. His bed had been turned down for the night. As soon as she had put down the valise, he took her to the lounge, being always a brief and hasty man. Her hair came down, and when he came back into the room, she was twisting it up again, in a beautiful pose. Her hair, her dress, fitted the lounge; suddenly he felt shame at seeing her in such a poor dress. Although it bored him to do so, he offered her a Martini, getting out the bottle which was marked with inkmarks to see no servant stole. Then, feeling the glow of the drink, took her out to the cheap Italian restaurant he had first thought of.
They sat behind the restaurant, in an old flagged yard, full of dirt and overlooking an excavated lot, in which garbage was dumped. Some lights were strung across the yard at rare intervals, and a dim crowd of midtowners were drinking wine cocktails, the specialty of the place. Grant did not invite her to have any, since he had already given her a Martini, but presently softened and bought her a glass of wine. It was a pleasant night, the stars were shining, and they could see the clean check curtains and tablecloth in the home of the Italian superintendent of the apartment house next door. A young woman in black lingered by Grant’s table to say hello to him, but he did not introduce the woman. Later, he told Mrs. Kent about her—Gussy, the wife of an American who had fought in the International Brigade and been killed in Spain. She always wore mourning, and was doing very badly; he, Grant, helped her out. She tried to make commissions by shopping in antiques for friends furnishing apartments. She was a brave little woman. He said he was against Franco, and Franco would fall; he heard from another woman he knew, who was also on the right side, that the British were dropping supplies and soldiers and ammunition by parachute into Navarra: “Mark my words, the British know which way the wind is blowing.”
The blonde Mrs. Kent said she was a liberal, she would be a radical, only she had come to think of these things too late. She said it was a credit to a man like Grant to be so liberal. They had brandy and instead of sending her home as he had meant to do, Grant took her back to the hotel again, and leaving her in the sitting room, telephoned from his bedroom, putting off Mrs. Goodwin until next day.
This time she undressed and he saw her strong and well-proportioned body. When he asked for her address, she gave him one far uptown, where her friend, Miss Paula Russell, lived.
Grant dismissed the blonde about ten and did not think he would ever see her again. He felt he had made a mistake in bringing her back the second time. He went to bed as soon as she had left, as he always got up at six-thirty.
He was a cotton trader, had made his money in cotton. His mother, a tough, coarse old woman with an incomprehensible accent, had worked as a girl in Lancashire mills. He knew cotton from boyhood. He dabbled in numerous items on the produce exchange but not for his sole account. In these ventures he allowed numerous acquaintances, as Goodwin and Delafield, to sign the documents. He always had the impression that these adventurers would make a mistake and that whoever lost—the seller, the shipper, the purchaser—he would be able to wangle a profit out of it for himself.
3
One day the following week, the woman called Paula Russell telephoned Grant at his office and asked for an appointment with him, “I must tell you something you don’t know about my friend Barbara Kent; but it depends upon the kind of man you are.”
Grant feared a conspiracy or holdup and refused to see her. The woman interested him. On the telephone she had a made-up voice which suggested the easy woman, fruity and dragging, underneath hard, tingling. Grant thought one day he would see her to size her up. That day he saw Martha Anderson, the fur-loft blonde who hoped to get into modeling, or Hollywood, and who had some test photographs to show him. They went to his rooms for “a chat and a little tea”; and then with Miss Anderson, he met Alfred and Betty Goodwin, Betty’s sister and brother-in-law, and Delafield for cocktails. Later, the other men having a business dinner, he took the two sisters home, and they entertained themselves, with drinks and various extravagances, before they went to dinner. He thought the sisters corrupt girls, a bit wild, but friendly to him, honest in a way. They would often tell him what their husbands said about him behind his back: they “thought it was a shame and we defended you.” They agreed with his political ideas, though their husbands did not, said they hated fascists, sympathized with Jews, thought Negroes should have political equality, though they should not be allowed in uptown restaurants (the women were more liberal on this than Grant), and said it was a pity about Spain. They called themselves “fellow-travelers.” Grant said he wouldn’t go as far as that, but he had always been a radical, and for the people, that was because his mother was a millworker. He told them not to read the best-selling trash but to get hold of Bellamy’s Looking Backward; it had been his bible when he had been a lad.
Grant returned the wives to their husbands after dinner; and then met Gussy, the widow, whose lingering at his table had rather touched him on the previous night. He took her out with Miss Grimm, the brunette-blonde, to the Casino, a fashionable cheap night club. They ate steaks, fried potatoes, French salad, drank black coffee and brandy, saw the usual Russian night club routine. Grant was a little nervous because the Russians sang a Red Army song. The girls were delighted and clapped heartily. They spent a dull time repeating a lot of radical bywords, and Miss Grimm asked Grant to contribute to some Communist fund. Grant laughed and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow for tea and a little chat about this, Celia; I don’t like to rush into things, I want to know more about it from you.” Presently he rushed Gussy to the sidewalk, thinking he would spend the evening with Miss Grimm, but Miss Grimm took him to the Golden Tassel and there introduced him to a Negro musician, who sat at their table. Grant felt ashamed and kept shifting about awkwardly and turned very red when Miss Grimm danced with the musician. He carried it off by dancing with her himself, but he could not help speaking to her about it: “I’m a socialist, but you don’t want to lose your head; I don’t doubt you, a sweet, nice girl, so serious about your ideas, feel friendly toward this colore
d fella, but think what it looks like.”
Miss Grimm told him he was backward. They had an unpleasant talk about it, and he saw her into a taxi without getting a fresh appointment from her. When he got home he telephoned Miss Paula Russell and asked her to have a cocktail with him next day at the King Cole Room at the St. Regis. He identified himself by saying, “I am a man of about fifty, blond hair, not too much of it, large head, big build, five-foot-ten. I’ll wear a light gray suit and carry The Nation and the New York Post.”
It was a light, sunny afternoon. He was a little before the hour, as always. He liked to look the women over and perhaps make an appointment or get a telephone number before his companion arrived. A well-dressed, short, sinewy brunette went up the steps before him. He looked her over with ferocity. She was young but harsh. Her figure was made of two hard triangles, the padded shoulders square and the hips appearing not quite so broad, and squarish, the waist small-appearing. She looked about and sat down. Her eyes, black, were almond-shaped but set in a hard, straight line and in clefts. She had a square forehead with a peak of black hair, and her glance already exploited him. He smiled.
He took a table near. She asked for a light. It took them a few minutes to find out that he was Robert Grant and she, Paula Russell. Mrs. Kent had led him to a profit after all. He thought, I hope this isn’t my fate; I hope this isn’t another Laura.
She began to talk about herself at once. He liked this, for it gave him a quick, personal approach to her. She was French, born in Algeria, and brought up in Marseilles, where her family kept a pension.
Said he, “You look as if you had some Arab blood; my great-grandmother was half Spanish, so we’re both half-breeds.” She protested that by accident she looked partly Arab, she was as white as could be. “Perhaps I have an Arab temperament.”
He invited her to his own hotel, to hear a news commentator, Quincy Howe, at 6 P.M.; he never missed, he said. On the way there, they both praised the news commentator, and both said they were leftists: Miss Russell was a friend of Soviet Russia, Mr. Grant also. The U.S.S.R. could extend her influence in the Far East to the neighbors on her borders; on the other hand, she should not go too far, to excite the envy and hate of Western Europe: she must know her limits—“There’s a limit to all things, especially in politics,” said Grant. Miss Russell said she thought Russia should get out Hitler and Franco and writes notes to the U.S.A. about the treatment of Negroes, who were not even immigrants, real Americans and how talented, but treated like dogs. Grant frowned very much at this; and said, “Yes, but she knows her limits: she’s an international power, she can’t meddle in our affairs; she has too much sense.” They talked about war, depression. Miss Russell knew a great number of headline personalities in South America, Cuba, France, and elsewhere, though not the U.S.A. or England. She was engaged to a man in the hotel business in France, and had come here on a holiday before settling down.
Grant listened to his radio news, gave the girl a drink, and had what he always called a party with her. After the party, he still thought a great deal of her, was shocked at her corruption, but could not help seeing that she had not the slightest feeling or respect for him: she remained just as she had been. It intrigued him. She was more a man than a woman, he said to himself. He took her to dinner, putting off an appointment with Mrs. Betty Goodwin, who pestered him with telephone calls. “It will do her good,” he said to Paula Russell. “But I got no time for her. She gave me a tie, very sweet; but there’s too much of her psychologically.”
At dinner he asked her about Barbara. Paula’s relationship with the drab blonde was a pleasing riddle. Here she, Paula, was a figure in the world, knew publishers, undersecretaries, and business men richer than Grant and March, knew well-known German and French writers. “But what sort of a friend? You said you wanted to warn me against her. No need, I assure you. Now if you had told me you wanted to warn me against yourself—that would have been in order. I got to watch out for you.”
“I won’t bother you.”
He said hastily, “It’s very sweet and kind of you to take this interest in a woman down on her luck. I wouldn’t have given you the credit for it. But you’re like me—you’re like me—I’m supposed to be a typical Scot, a cashbox for a heart, and I’m helping out two friends of mine, the Flacks. I’m looking after them. Why not? Some day I’ll ask myself, ‘What did I do good in the world?’ Eh?”
“Barb’s a dangerous woman.”
“I do not see the danger, but I’ll ring her up and look her over. Give me a chance to see you again.”
She gave him her number, and added, “Barb’s gone away to Florida with a man who is very fond of her, an old man.”
“How old?”
“Fifty-nine.”
He frowned, “That’s not so old.”
“Old enough to appreciate Barb.”
“How did she get to know him? I thought she was down on her luck.”
“Hoag introduced them: Barb can do a lot with a fur cape on her back.”
“Don’t see it, don’t see it!”
“Barb’s quite lovely, but I don’t think you know much about women.”
“You’re a strange sort of woman, selling another woman, a rival, like that. Now if it was yourself you were trying to sell, I’d understand. Is he rich, your fiancé?”
Paula said coolly, “I don’t care for money, I’d rather marry a man who can do something, show me the world. Do I want to spend the rest of my life in a hotel?”
“That’s me. You know what I’m looking for? I’m a lonely man. My wife is a narrow-minded Boston girl. I’m looking for a well-bred charming lady who can run servants, run a farm, I’d buy her a big house, fix it up for her. She’s not a bad woman, my wife. Now I’m small-town, but I always had big ideas. In America, small-town is supposed to be a guaranty of romance, lifelong happiness. Two youngsters met on the stoop, married in the Presbyterian Church, got chained up to an icebox and a couple of lace mats and they lived happy ever after. My wife likes the country, but what she means by country is a country club. Sit around, drink whisky—not for me. I had a straitlaced upbringing. I like a fine life, not that gossip and swilling. They don’t hold me. She can’t hold me. She knows I slipped away and she’s hanging on, but it’s too late. And look at me, I want to go to Trieste, I want to go to Soviet Russia. Wish I could do something good in the world. She thinks people are laughing at us here in New York. She hates them. I don’t give a damn. They laugh. They don’t know you exist. That’s how I make my way. They’re so busy laughing you get to their pockets without being seen. And honestly, mind you, all honest. I had a straitlaced upbringing: I’m an honest man. Don’t like cheats. And then I’m a bit of a radical, and that’s what I like here, they’re all radicals. I’m not a Red, mind you, but a bit of a Marxist, good philosophy, helps you to see things in the right perspective. Made money for me, being a Marxist: I know what’s coming. The Reds go too far, dreamers, but a Marxist is practical.”
Paula spoke about idealism. She knew Red leaders in several fermenting countries, she said. They had different ideas, not so sordid, they wanted to organize the State.
Grant interrupted, “Organize, I could have done that, if I’d have been brought up in a different country where there was a law to stop me putting my hands in other people’s pockets. Now the best I can do is to keep my hands out of my own.” He laughed, and went on, “But never mind all that. I’m looking for someone to co-operate with me. My life’s empty. I feel frustrated; not in business, but in life, my heart is frustrated. That’s my problem; looking for consolation and not finding it—I waste my time in bars, going out with wrong ’ooman; I’m looking for a high-class girl.”
She flattered him a little, repeated her story about wanting a man who could show her things, said, “Women still want to be captives to corsairs,” and Grant said, “I’m looking for a high-class woman, with sex-appeal, too. Egyptian sakel!”
They made a date for the next day. Grant was
intrigued, thought he had met his match.
As soon as she had gone, he telephoned Betty Goodwin, who came to meet him in a bar, even at this late hour, and he told her, “I just met a woman, she’s my style, a bit too clever, though, and she thinks she’ll work me for a trip round the world.”
At this, he slapped his knee, and even his confidante, an anguished, loyal friend who was his mistress also, smiled. Grant went on, “She’s like me, a bit too much like me. I know I’m no angel. She knows all the answers. I don’t like that in a woman, eh? What do you advise, eh, lay off?”
She was unhappy and began to snarl and show her teeth.
He said, “You’re dangerous, too possessive. I couldn’t take up with you: you’d hurt me too much.”
She began to cry. He patted her arm, smiled, “I’m afraid of women; a woman nearly did for me once—one went after me with a revolver—an accident, a misunderstanding. Flack went to see her and explained it was all a misunderstanding.”
“You promised to marry her, of course.”
He gripped her arm and burst out laughing, “You’ll do, you’ll do.”
Betty said, “I know better than to hold you to what you say when you want to back out. You’re a welcher.”
He frowned and patted her arm. “I know you’re my friend, you never let me down. But what do you think of her, first she meets me, wants a trip round the world. I must look like a gold mine, eh? Or do you think she really took to me, eh? Give your advice!”
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A Little Tea, a Little Chat Page 3