A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  Grant looked over his shoulder questioningly. The older woman was looking hard at them, lips apart, showing false teeth. She smiled. The blonde said, “Mrs. Hutchison, my friend Mr. Grant.”

  “How is your mother, Barbara?”

  “Mother is quite well, thank you—a little rheumatism. But she does not complain. She hates to give me anxiety.”

  “Sorry, sorry! Give her my compliments. Must come and bring her some of my special coffee and some candy.”

  “She won’t return the compliment. She never got over the way you treated me. She does not understand that kind of thing. She was so indignant, she said to me, ‘I am glad we have seen the last of such a disagreeable man, common business man, no gentleman.’ She could not understand anyone not keeping his word.”

  Grant looked nervously over his shoulder. The rouged Mrs. Hutchison continued to smile at them with porcelain teeth.

  “Mrs. Hutchison is Mother’s friend, but she’s seen more of the world, she’s more liberal. She knows all about you, Robert! She has seen my mental agony. I could not sleep for months. I would wake up in a sweat, wanting to scream. I felt I had no resource. You let me down. I thought, I’ll never trust a man again. There was such a trouble in my heart—I felt I never could love again.”

  Grant turned and looked at the older woman. He murmured, “No idea at all; no idea of all that. You left me, Barb; I didn’t leave you. One morning I ring up, one fine morning, I think I’ll go over and kiss Barb good morning as usual and—gone, flown, no trace. What about the chauffeur? You got married!”

  “After you left me, I had nothing. I had to look after myself in my own way.”

  He could not bring himself to say, under the eye of the grinning vulture, that he had given her money for the divorce. He only said, “Let bygones be bygones, then. Or we’ll talk this all out later. If you’ve anything against me, I only want it brought out into the light of day and I’ll put it right. I’ll make good now, if I can. If it’s not just imagination. I’m sorry you suffered, Barb. You know me, sweet. I want you to be happy. And I want to be happy. Let’s go somewhere. I’ve got something to say,” and he looked significantly at the older woman.

  Mrs. Kent too nodded at Mrs. Hutchison, who said in a voice startling in its brutality, “I won’t sit in on your conference. Why move? It’s all right here. Good-bye,” and in leaving she violently aped the manners of society.

  They spoke only of idle things. Grant, after taking two more brandies, forgot all he had meant to say and taking her hand, implored her, “I want you to take me back. I can’t live without you. I haven’t been faithful, but your record isn’t clean either. We’ve got nothing to settle up—too much accounting. Between us, no accounts. We’ve both been in the mud together. All right. You had mental agony; I had mental agony. I hurt you—you hurt me. You went crazy and ran away from a man like me. I went crazy and two-timed a woman—a woman—I two-timed, I admit it. But there’s a vacancy in my heart. I want to marry you. Come back to me. I want to get rid of that cow in Boston and settle down. What I want now is a sister, a mother, a friend, a sweetheart, and a wife. Three women in one. The last year has been a desert. When I saw you just now, I was dry and thirsty. ‘There’s my oasis,’ I said. Let’s go to the hotel, I want to telephone. You come along with me.”

  But the blonde woman refused. She had to go home to her mother; and she explained that it would be difficult for her to see Grant. Her mother must never know. “She has received a severe shock; she doesn’t trust you any more. She was brought up so differently. She doesn’t know that world has gone forever.”

  “Please come to dinner with me tomorrow night and I’ll explain everything to you. I want your advice, too. You’re always right. What you said about Alfred—Goodwin—worked out. He’s crazy, that man. Talks like a Napoleon, a Mussolini. You were right. Let me come into your life again and I’ll come with clean hands and clean heart—I’ll take myself to the cleaner’s—”

  She laughed. “Telephone me about five; I think Mother is going out then with Mrs. Hutchison.”

  “Who is she? Don’t like the looks of her!”

  “She’s just a divorcee who makes money by reading palms.”

  “I’d like her to read mine and tell me if you’re going to forgive me.”

  The blondine was not at home on the three succeeding days. Grant, who had been going to dismiss Bentwink the next day, kept him on. Bentwink had nothing to report, and Grant felt that she had been at home all the time. He telegraphed her, sent her flowers, and wrote a note to beg her to meet his son Gilbert, now in town. “I want Gilbert to meet you. He’s a great judge of character and if he likes you and you like him, I’ll be settled in my mind about both of you!”

  She answered him the next time he telephoned and agreed to meet Gilbert. The couple would meet before, over cocktails for a little chat. They met in the White Bar, which had been the scene of so many of their rendezvous. Grant showed the woman all his letters, from his family, his wife, his business acquaintances, asked her opinion on a deal just going through, complained about Flack and his son, received her advice remorsefully and humbly, kissing her repeatedly, and pouring out his loneliness. “Talk your mother over, sweetsie; we’re going to make it up. You don’t look very well and I feel blue. Let’s think what to say to her.” He promised her a good housekeeping allowance and comforts, and told her a good deal of what he had done against her since last year.

  “You treat me like a criminal.”

  “You weren’t quite honest with me.”

  “Wherever I try to lay my head, you hunt me.”

  “The main thing is, we’re together. I want you to give me your opinion on what to say to my wife. I’m through with that ’ooman. She won’t get any money out of me. We’re together! Laura’s relatives are dead and I’m going to tell her, ‘I’ve been kind, a friend. Now you ought to take country air.’ I’ve done enough for her. She hurt me. When the war’s over, I’ll get the house back on the Pinchem Hill and we’ll go there, take a trip, that’ll be our home if you like it. I’ll buy you a big house in Canada, got a man working on it. You’ll have two or three servants. Place upstairs for your mother. Or maybe another house is better. Ha-ha! We’ll entertain and if you like we’ll go into politics. Laura always wanted to have a salon, go into politics. What do you say? You seemed to take a great fancy to Washington. Or should we go to my farm in Picardy, make big cheeses and little cheeses? You’ve got the complexion of a milkmaid. Liverpool’s a fine, busy city, too, chance to do something, but no entertainment—well, out with it. That bit of cheese can stay in Boston but we’ll enjoy life. The new life. Build up, not sleep our life away. I’ve got enough Presbyterian in me for that. You and I rolled in the mud together, not our fault, a bit of the gypsy in us, a bit of hobo, street-singer, eh? Serenading for a living, eh? You and me, singing serenades, slumber songs. I don’t mean to offend. Dust gets in your eyes. I whistle and the dollars roll into your pocket. Don’t mean to offend. It’s our being together again, makes me a bit of a poet. Know a man who writes poetry and he got two beautiful women; I never knew women went for poetry until then. Never mind, never mind. Now we can start to reconstruct. I’ve been looking for the right woman and now I’m putting my money on you, sweets. I missed you. Never expected to. Must be a love story.”

  She would not go home with him “for a long-distance call” before he met his son.

  “My experience has made me cynical. You have to prove it to me, Robbie.”

  “I swear, on my word of honor.”

  “Once bit, twice shy. You won’t get me again with that honey.”

  At that, he laughed, and she smiled so innocently that he did not know where to look; but she continued, “You know, Robbie, I think I am learning to hate men.”

  “No woman can hate me.”

  “I wouldn’t put money on that.”

  “If I hurt them, they hurt me. No matter what I do, they turn on me. Like Flack, I helped him for twenty y
ears, kept him when I didn’t need him, he’s nervous, got no stamina, and he put the idea in my head you’re no good, he made me get a detective. They’re no good. I ought to take your advice.”

  She said, “What do you want all those mental and moral cripples round you for? It’s to flatter your ego. They only want a handout.”

  He murmured, “I got to do a good action sometimes, it’s my nature. I need you to run me. I need love. If you’re with me, I swear I’ll make a clean sweep of the whole crowd.”

  “You hand out good money to those lunch-detectives, but you don’t think of me.”

  “The fact is, Barb, they make me a profit, they pay a dividend: if I buy them a cup of coffee, you can bet they’ve earned it.” He spoke earnestly and grabbed her elbow, continuing softly, “Trust me, Barb, I don’t waste a cent on them. They pay me 1,000 per cent one way or another. Some paid a lot more than that,” and his clear, sweet laugh rang out.

  “And that’s what you think of me too. Well, don’t count my dividend in yet. You’ll have to pave the way with five-dollar bills before I forgive you after what I know.”

  “I love you, my sweet; I’ll do anything you say. You’ve got me and now is your chance to take me over.”

  15

  They arrived early at the Little Bar where Grant had invited company to meet his son. Mrs. Kent at once went to the lounge to telephone and was away a very long time.

  It was a small bar below ground level, out of a large lobby with a staircase, glass doors, palms.

  Grant’s first new guest was Mrs. Lawrence, a small, showily built business woman in her forties. A delicate nose veil had a design which cut her cheeks and nose into strips, like scars, a startling illusion. Her melancholy eyes now beamed at Grant, as she held out her hand: “It’s wonderful to see you again. Your Chicago friends miss you. We are always saying, ‘When is Robbie coming back to make life gay?’”

  Although she was a successful dress buyer, ran a fashionable dress shop in Chicago, had been married twice and had two children, she impressed one as a kind, awkward, single woman. She might also have changed clothes with some ancestor, a black-eyed peasant woman of the hard-working, unhappy type who never leaves her stone kitchen. She was never at ease and never perfectly dressed. Part of her dress was dowager, part flirt, part saleswoman. The general effect, at first, was that she loved to be genteel. She was a busy woman yet she felt bound, out of business, to act the home woman who does not understand. This gave her the air of a woman who knows nothing about men. After work, she lisped and simpered spiritually. She drew back, revolted at coarse discussion, never laughed loudly, dropped her eye as sadly as a dog when she was unnoticed: everything rebuffed her. Everyone felt obliged to chant: “Sally Lawrence is a charming, good woman, an excellent mother”; and this was exactly what Grant kept saying to himself, as he looked at her. But she had more flavor than that for him, because she owned two apartment houses and there was some romantic story about her private life, she was not entirely the white lamb.

  Grant saw her attention was wandering. He grasped her hand and drew it across the table, “I like you, Sally! Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you come to see me, as you said you would? I’ve been all alone here and no one to cheer me up. Let’s have a drink and be merry, eh? When are we going to have tea and a little chat by ourselves? Eh? You let me down, sweetsie; I expected you, I waited, and you did not come.”

  She hesitated, looking into his face, then smiled and was warmer, more abandoned, “I’ve been very busy; and I wasn’t sure you meant it, Robbie.”

  He cried indignantly, “Mean it! I told everyone, you ask my friend David Flack, I told everyone, I found in Chicago my ideal woman, suited to me exactly: good business woman, owns houses, runs everything with a profit, handsome, a good dresser and nearly my age, a bit younger, of course, and that’s what I want now—three women in one, the sweetheart, the wife, and the mother. Women are always older than men in one thing—they have more heart.”

  He shifted his chair and fondled her hand, keeping his eye on the lounge exit. He went on, “You like me a bit, too, don’t you, Sally? You’re the woman for me. As soon as I saw you, last year, I said to myself, ‘There’s my woman; I like her. She’s honest, she has character, and she’s handsome too.’ You know me, Sally. I’m crazy, I’m unsettled, but it’s not my fault. It’s that shiftless—er—woman in Boston. She did nothing for me. Disgusted me with home life. I thought I wasn’t made to be a married man. Then I saw you and I said to myself, ‘If I’d met her twenty years ago, it would have been a different story. I’d have whistled a different tune all my life.’ Supposing I had had that luck! I made my way: I’ve got what I want—in some things, but not in love. All I want is a woman. Then I’ve got nothing to wish for! If you would have me we could give up work and go and live somewhere. I’ve got a beautiful house on the Pinchem in Rome, a summer cottage on Lake Como. What do you say, little girl, do you want to get married again?”

  Mrs. Lawrence became beautiful and almost voluptuous; but she looked puzzled and at length said, in her made-up voice, “We should have to get to know each other better.”

  He leaned back, looked round for the waiter, saying calmly, “I’ll take you at your word.”

  He snapped for the waiter. Before their drinks came, she said nervously, “Robbie, I asked one of my friends to come along, I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Delighted, delighted!”

  “It’s a woman, Livy Wright, Miss Olivia Wright. She’s fascinating to talk to; she knows all the real estate in New Jersey. She’s an agent.”

  Grant broke in with, “What do you say, what do you say, little girl? Think it over, think over my proposition. See if you can make me happy: that’s all I want. Then we’ll stop work, let the world go hang, and just enjoy ourselves! Give me your opinion. When can I meet you? Tomorrow, next day—tomorrow I can’t—next day, yes, five o’clock. The White—no, noisy place—Manetti’s. Five.”

  His eye, rising, spotted a vigorous, dark young woman standing in the door and looking the place over. Grant stared pointedly. She stared back at him, observed Mrs. Lawrence, and rushed forward.

  Grant beamed. His manner changed entirely. He rustled and shone with his softest expression in eyes and lips.

  “Sally told me about you but she didn’t tell half the story. She didn’t say her friend was bonnie, very bonnie. You’re a beauty—what’s your name?”

  After a startled moment, Olivia smiled, then laughed outright. “You’re the fastest worker I ever met.”

  “It’s my lucky day. Sally was the first. She brought me luck. Then she brought me you. My boy’s coming. I want you both to size him up. Sally’s a mother, got children herself, knows children. I’ll take her word, and I want to know what you think; a woman’s view.”

  “How old is he?” said Livy.

  “Twenty-four, twenty-five,” he muttered.

  “Hard for a father to admit he has a grown-up son? Just like a woman! You must be a terrible wolf. I can see it in your eye.”

  He was astonished by her method, cocked his head, screwed up his eye, but kept smiling at her, and his eye was very light. He flushed slightly, “Nothing like that, not at all. I mean it. Mother takes no interest; I’ve had to mother him myself. Don’t know if I’ve done a good job. Do everything for the boy—get him socks, shirts, see he gets his hair cut, send him chocolate. Want to know if you like his manners. A bit worried about him. Too stiff-necked. No give and take.”

  “Did you bring along your Mother Hubbard? I’d love to see you in a cooking apron though. I’ll bet you beat up little hot biscuits in the morning,” jeered the young virago.

  Grant jerked his eyes upon her, looked sullen, stared, but she stared back. He melted into a grin. But he turned at once to Mrs. Lawrence and sinking his fingers into her plump arm, he cried, “She brought me luck! I had a big shock, Sally; and you brought me consolation. Chicago’s a dull town, not my idea of a town, and I didn’t see
a woman there, for weeks, that appealed to me. Then I met Sally. My life was a desert, and then I find this oasis. What do you think of her, Livy? Is she an oasis or isn’t she? I asked her, ‘What can you do for me? Can you cheer me up?’ But she let me down: she promised to come to New York to see me and she didn’t. I don’t know what to make of it. Didn’t make enough impression, I suppose. You can’t always succeed. She’s gone back on me; let me down.”

  “I phoned you at the office yesterday and the secretary said you were out of town,” she said in a wise voice.

  “Yes, yes, little business, great shock—” he muttered.

  “I called at your hotel and they said you had just gone out.” She was earnest, the false glamor gone.

  He raised himself, looked over her shoulder, stared round the bar at the other women, said coolly, “Well, my dear girl, you know me, I work hard. I don’t work like I used to but hard, and Ben—” and he plunged into a bewildering business story, in which the phrases—foreign exchange commission, blocked currency, trust funds, French estate, sequestered properties, German occupation—alone emerged from a surge of mutter.

  She listened to this with a calm face. Livy thrust her bust forward and cried, “What the hell is he saying? Your Romeo sounds like a solid fourflusher. It’s as clear as mud. What the hell is it all about? Don’t tell me.”

  Grant ceased. He had kept throwing glances at Mrs. Lawrence, and seeing that the story had not sunk in, he now leaned forward, patted her hand and said, “Well, begone, dull care. I’m here, and I can see you. That’s enough. All’s well that ends well.”

  At this moment his other guests arrived, Alfred and Betty Goodwin. He got up and bustled over to them, whispering to Goodwin, “Glad you came. The bloody woman has been checking up on me, eh?” He laughed outright and kissed Betty on both cheeks.

  Betty looked the sharp, wire-haired New Yorker of about thirty, gaily dressed, with an air of uncertain, uneven money. Goodwin, now forty-two, fleshy, paunched, nearly six feet, expensively dressed but in the more vulgar Wall Street way. He had heavy black eyes, a well-shaped dark head, but a surly manner. He tossed his head, surveyed the public, smiled loftily. Mrs. Goodwin started some flip conversation, Grant repeated his standby about being rushed to death, business in and out of town. Betty said quickly, at this point, “How was Philadelphia?”