A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  “I think I need a little air, my head aches.”

  Grant looked at her queerly, and said in a low tone, “All right, all right—but get them off for me before three, like a good woman.”

  Miss Robbins said to Gilbert, “You don’t know what he’s like. I’d have resigned years ago, only that he’s rarely here.”

  Gilbert looked genial, asked, “Is it new—with the women—?”

  Miss Robbins let out a peal of laughter, and was restored to good humor, “It is time you knew your father: you don’t know how he made your money nor how he wastes it. It’s a shame how he wastes what we work so hard to make, that’s all—but he would say it’s his. I suppose it is.”

  Grant came to the door and looked at them suspiciously.

  Miss Robbins went off to a cheap restaurant and Grant and Gilbert to “the Italian’s.”

  31

  There, Grant fell into a shallow, shameful strain and told Gilbert of his love affair with Laura and what he had done for her—the bonds, the farm, the house in Rome; how she had repaid him by public disgrace. Nothing she could give him would make up. About Mrs. Kent (Downs) he only said that he had liked her very much but she had turned out to have no character, which, with all her beauty, put him off; and then she had married, and now what could he do? But in order to pay him out, perhaps, she was now trying to frighten him “with a few innocent letters and photographs—and I don’t want to paint her in colors too dark, perhaps she loves me and wants to get me back, but now it is too late,” and so forth: “Livy Wright is a good woman and I like her well enough, but I don’t want to give your mother any pain, she’s an angel and I perhaps didn’t always play the part of a good husband. I fell in love with Livy and thought she would make me three women in one. But she’s very spendthrift and I don’t want to make another serious mistake.”

  Then he chuckled and said perhaps he had been out once or twice with lovely women, who could blame him? Changing his note, he became romantic, serious, with clear open eyes and a fresh expression, and he declared, “I am your father and cannot tell tales out of school; but strange things happened to me, I suppose because I’m a romantic. If you believe in love, you find love. Only I never found it. But who knows—let me tell you a strange thing that happened. Once long ago, I was coming in a train from Naples to Rome and saw a beautiful girl in the train. I spoke to her and took her to lunch in Rome. She told me she was the mistress of a priest, she came from a wealthy family and had given up everything for him. But this fellow was a rascal, met too many women in his calling and she couldn’t bear it. Now she was living alone in a pension. She gave me her address. But I did not go—I don’t know why. I had Laura; and then I didn’t know—the story was peculiar, perhaps I was afraid. One day I saw a woman in a restaurant like her and I thought, I’ll go and see Mrs. Coppelius—that was her name—Maria—Coppelius—Signora—and the pension was called Pergolesi—there was a blonde girl there I knew once, in the same pension. I had a good impulse and went to see this Signora Maria Coppelius, and I went in and said, ‘Is Signora Coppelius still living here?’ And they said to me, ‘What bad luck! An accident has just occurred!’ It turned out that Mrs. Coppelius had just thrown herself out of the window of the fifth story into the courtyard. She died instantly. She did not leave any note and no one knew why it was, but it must have been that priest fellow.”

  Gilbert was surprised. He looked at his father, murmured, “What a shame!”

  Grant added, “The anti-fascists commandeered a car from her, secondhand car she had paid for out of her own money. She never got it back. She couldn’t afford it. Perhaps that helped. You see she had helped the anti-fascists and the Government was suspicious of her, and the anti-fascists, too, thought she was a bonne bourgeoise, no one trusted her.”

  Gilbert said, “She was a victim of our times, wasn’t she? If you could have got there in time, you might have saved her.”

  Grant scowled thoughtfully. He tore a letter from his breast pocket and showed it to Gilbert, “What do you make of that, eh? Read it, give me your opinion.”

  He stared at the young man impatiently as he read, putting forth his hand to twitch it out of his fingers, restraining himself. He rolled back his head, stared, and snapped his finger for the waiter, “More wine!”

  And to his son, “I’m enjoying myself; we’ll have some fun. What do you think, eh?”

  The son laughed, “I think she’s fond of you!”

  He tore the letter out of his son’s hand and looked at it all through, without reading it, then, “I thought so myself. Interesting case. Never touched her! Interesting story. She was married two years ago, a bit on the late side, thirty-two, married a bachelor and I was invited to the wedding, had to send a present, didn’t want to go, but went. Afterwards there was a reception and at the reception she said, ‘Come and see us sometime for sherry.’ I said yes. Why not? Never intended to go, wasn’t attracted—nice-looking woman, but wasn’t attracted. Married woman, wife of a friend…Three months later I get an invitation and I walk in, see her in a tea gown, nice room, very comfortable, and she gives me sherry. I swear I did nothing, didn’t even kiss her. She sat close to me and said I must come to lunch some day. What do you make of that? Love at first sight, can’t be, eh? Don’t believe in it. She invited me for lunch and he wasn’t there, and then she wrote me these letters—read them all—have some wine, let’s have a good time, for once—read them all—”

  He pressed the letters into his son’s hand. There were only three, short and vapid notes on small paper. The first began, “Dear Robert,” the second, “Dearest Robert,” and the third, “My Very Dear Robert,” with suitable endings. The third, which once more mentioned the sherry parties, made Gilbert ask, “You only went once for sherry?”

  “Oh, several times—but I took no notice.”

  The third letter was a bald appeal for affection, “I was so happy when I saw you at our first sherry party, and later, life took on a new meaning. When will I see you again? You said our sherry was very good. I got one even better for you; and now you have not been here for weeks. Did I say something to keep you away?”

  Grant was saying gaily, “Eh? What do you say? She likes me?”

  Gilbert discussed the affair at length, seeing how pleased his father was at each new suggestion. Grant ordered brandies and went on to further tales: a lovely widow, Gussie, all in black that he had taken to dinner but never touched, because her husband had fallen in the International Brigade; things of this sort.

  Gilbert stared at his father, nodded and smiled. His thoughts were vague. He could not attend and yet did not wish them to fall back into his daze of the morning. The older man’s face had become serious and its large blue caverns had appeared. Also his bronze beard was beginning to show and he had drunk too much: his eyeballs were white, bloodshot. He had a slenderly curved rosy mouth and smiled gently, Gilbert saw; what a nose! it was frilled and twitched with its peculiar thoughts. Could a man with such a nose—after all—be the frivolous but timid old fellow that Gilbert had till this moment supposed? Gilbert had put his father’s affairs with women down as “wishful”; the father, sallow and drawn as he was with his immense searching, wide-flanged nose, charming mouth, and blue eyes which showed the whites beneath. A suspicion came to Gilbert and at once became a certainty—it was certain that his father went with women, perhaps one or two—perhaps Mrs. Kent? Perhaps “Violetta, Bernice, Helen—” But when he returned to his father’s confessions, he heard something quite different.

  “People said it was my fault, they said so, how did I know? The fella came to me here in New York and said, in New Orleans I promised to help him out, a friend of Laura’s. He wanted five hundred dollars and he told me, ‘If I don’t get it I have nowhere to turn.’ Told me some long story, I thought it was a tearjerker to get something out of me. He said I promised him aid at any time, to come to me. Not likely. He was with me for years. I paid him, eh? He said his wife was here and sick, he couldn
’t make good unless he had five hundred dollars. I told him, ‘My dear friend, I knew you in Rome and there you were a successful business man. I would have helped you out whether I promised or not. Here it is wartime, exchanges are against me, my money is blocked, my hands are tied. Go fight City Hall! Don’t blame me. You could have made your peace with Mussolini, there were no principles involved; you came to the U.S.A. because you thought gold grew in the gutters, I didn’t invite you. I’m sorry, my dear fellow.’ I turned him down. Next week he shoots himself! Is it my fault? Now people are going about saying it’s my fault. Only a neurotic man would have depended on a last chance like that—six hundred dollars—can it make or break a man?”

  “Six hundred, or five hundred dollars?”

  “I don’t remember—maybe I promised the poor fellow six hundred dollars—but that was in New Orleans and twenty years ago: they got too long memories! I’m not a refuge for the mentally and morally crippled.”

  “The man was a neurotic.”

  “A neurotic. Like Davie Flack. I’m quite fond of him, though I don’t like his daughter, but he can’t stick at anything. He’s turned down job after job. He wants to hang round me, can’t live out of my sight. I hear he turned down a good job in Cleveland and he can’t go to Washington to work because he’s a radical. Bad company for me. Mental and moral cripples. They think I have health, they think I have money, they think I have houses, they think I have farms and factories—so I have, my boy; but not for them! What claim have they on me?”

  “I always said, Dad, you had the wrong people around you.”

  “Now, Gilbert, you’ll look round a while and then you and I will go to Rome or to France when this war is over, and help to reconstruct the country. We won’t live like neurotics, wasting our time and other people’s. You leave it to me.”

  Grant drooped, pouted, and continued, “Now Mrs. Kent, misunderstanding, now she’s angry with me, now she wants to go through my pockets. How can I marry her? I don’t want her. She’s beautiful but no character. I said to her, ‘I’m looking for a woman with character.’ She’s taking her revenge. I had another shock this morning. This fella Spatchwood writes to me, sends me bills for services rendered. I asked him, look over this house on Owl Island, can I buy it or not, in what condition is it? He misunderstands, he gets in architects, plumbers, painters, he gets estimates, he gets plans drawn up, he probably thinks of living there himself—I don’t know what possessed the fella—and now he’s got it all ready and I get bills for seven hundred dollars. I got no exchange and I’m not indebted. Now Spatchwood is angry. I don’t know the fella! He was a cotton speculator, and waited too long in Germany for his health. His grandmother was Jewish, his father British, and he came to Canada, but he’s ruined now. I promised him two—three hundred dollars and asked him to do this little job for me. Now I find the bloody fool has let me in for seven hundred dollars and I don’t want the house, it’s like a menagerie, it’s like the fun-castle. You have to put in a bell to tell the police when someone, some burglar, is climbing into your bedroom. No one would live in it. It’s cold in winter. You and I, my boy, want the sun; we’re going where the sun shines all the year round even if it’s Chile or the Sahara! That’s where we’re going. No murder castles on the St. Lawrence. I tell a woman, ‘Make me happy,’ and she takes me seriously, she comes to visit me, I don’t want that. I tell Hilbertson, ‘Count on me for five hundred dollars,’ and his brother comes and says, ‘You’re a murderer.’ A man comes to me, ‘I’m dying, my wife is starving, six hundred dollars will save me’—must I believe him? Once I had a little chat with him, said, ‘If you’re in trouble come to me, I don’t mean after twenty years, for six hundred dollars.’ He commits suicide. Everyone is looking for someone to blame. Say his wife or his brother-in-law blames me! I can’t help myself. A man, Uzzazuzz, wants my blood, he’s crazy, he comes to me in Owl Island, he says, ‘There’s a man with a big house, bags of money, and I’m going crazy for five hundred dollars, I’ll hold him up’—a hijacker. No good, I’m all alone. I pull a bell, too late. Christmas! He’s got a rope round my ear. Ugh! What do I want with that Chamber of Horrors? I wrote to Spatchwood, ‘Pay it out of your own pocket or let them sue you, it’s not my affair.’ He has no letter from me. Let him go in partnership with Davie Flack. They take advantage of me. If you misunderstood me, it’s no fault of mine. I’m not interested in the place. I say, don’t pay two, three hundred dollars when there’s no business. Sell the house if you can, I’m out of it. That was last week. He sends me letters, he says—no matter what he says, he’s a ruined man and he’s neurotic too. I have other things to think of. Spatchwood’s invested in the Murder Castle—a man without five cents to his name—he lives in a cold-water flat in Ottawa. I say, ‘Smell it out, act for me, think of my interests,’ and he tries to involve me—probably wanted to have an interest in it himself; and the whole correspondence was written by David Flack, I am not a party to it. Flack had his hand out, too. Wanted to live there himself, with Edda. Wanted to live on Largo Farm, too. Let him pay for his own dream castles. Probably seven hundred dollars will bankrupt that couple of cripples.”

  He frowned and suddenly gave a frank laugh like a halloo. He patted Gilbert on the arm, “I can’t help laughing—oh, he-he-he—he lives in a cold-water flat in Ottawa in winter and has to buy his heating himself and he can’t go out with you because you’re giving him food and he can’t buy food for you—he-he-he—and now he’s got big ideas and because Davie Flack wrote him some letters with a bit of conversation we had once, he’s gone ahead and had carpenters and engineers and architects draw up plans for a Victorian mansion in the St. Lawrence—a house not built on sand but on water—eh? He-heh-he—a neurotic, eh? My boy—a neurotic. If it was a good proposition he could show it to me, I could say yes or no. But going ahead—eh? What do you think? Give me your advice! You’ve seen men in the Army. Megalomia—eh? Megalo-mania, something wrong, eh? Some mental disease, eh? Bad ’ooman, eh? Then he writes to me, ‘Dear Grant, My mother in New York wants to send me dollars, will you arrange for the transfer?’ Was I born yesterday? I told him, ‘No, no, don’t know what your engagements are, my boy—’ Why get involved? I don’t know what’s behind. Perhaps he’s angry, no reason by megalomia. Cut a loss, cut a loss. If you have to ask ‘Why?’ don’t do it. A poor man is a liability, he has ideas, no money, he’s got to stick you, no way out of poverty but sticking someone, eh? He eats, that costs, he drinks, that costs, he coughs, that costs, you must pay because you know him; he divorces, he wants to borrow, he has a sweetheart, he wants cheap perfume, he breathes, it’s your air he wants.

  “For argument’s sake, you’re both in a bomb shelter, you’ve both got to breathe, would he spare you? A poor man costs money. So out with Spatchwood; sue Flack, I’ll tell him, but you won’t get anything. Calm yourself and perhaps next year we’ll have a little business up there, I’ll tell him. I don’t like that. Thought he was my friend. I wrote to him, ‘I’ll have nothing to do with it, make your own arrangements’; I’ve had enough of him. A poor man is neurotic, has delusions of grandeur. I said, ‘The prices they quote are way above the market, they probably think you have to get a kickback.’ I wrote to them, ‘Make me a fair price and I’ll see, take it off your hands, but I don’t know Spatchwood except as a friend, he’s irresponsible.’ Thought this way I’d get them frightened and we’d both be better off—Spatchwood, for he can’t pay, be glad to see the thing settled, between you and me; and I, I might take on the house as a proposition. Well, Spatchwood didn’t know but he went to lawyers, but they said, ‘Show your claim, naturally.’ No sense, no manners, no business sense. He was once a friend of Laura, that—mur-mur—lady—murmr—Rome—she said to me once, ‘Look after him, he’s poor.’ But she doesn’t know human nature, kind, good woman. Sends me people, wants to get me back. Nothing doing; I got hurt too much. I learned a lesson.

  “If I cheated a little, my boy, I learned a lesson. I need you, my boy. You
see, I need you. You’ll run the day-old chicks. Get rid of Upton, sentimental, fool ideas about women, runs around, don’t like a libertine, signs things with his own name, irresponsible. Excuse me, my boy. I made mistakes, but I regret them. I’ll fix it up a bit, go over the accounts like you say, very surprised to hear Upton made deals with neighbors and black-marketeers, very shocked, we’ll clean it up, we’ll run a clean business. Never trusted Upton—man wants to get mixed up with a girl, says it’s his farm, weak, my boy, no character—In a year or two we’ll see what you can do. Never mind them films—no gate-crashers in the film business, wouldn’t risk my money. Stick to bees.”

  The young man answered equably, “Yes, yes,” and was thinking.

  32

  Later, when he was left alone, Gilbert found it hard to piece together the conversation, put it down to his father’s light-mindedness. He met Livy Wright at the Ritz at five and desired to tell her about Celia and how he loved her; but out of chastity and prudence did not. He had instead a long, tranquil talk with Livy about his father, who now needed organization; how he would not feel bitterness or shame at a divorce, but wanted a divorce for his parents and should not feel bad at seeing Livy his father’s second wife. He referred meanwhile to many things he supposed Livy knew, and was surprised to see her surprise. He painted a full-length portrait of The Great Affair (Laura) and how Grant, still all to be made over, had been enchanted by her: “Dad always says, ‘She walked all round me and made a magic circle; she made me a pervert, a gentleman and jealous—’”

  Grant had told everyone he was going to marry the woman, a rich woman, a sweet wife, and would have become a Roman for the tiny dark-haired belle.

  Livy shifted continually during this recital and at length burst out furiously, “So he was in love with her.”