by Peggy Gaddis
She was awakened by the heartening smell of coffee perking merrily, and when she sat up, puzzled to find herself in the living room instead of in bed in her own room, it was to see Anice setting the table beside the window.
Anice was crisp and fresh in a checked gingham dress and a coquettish little apron, every shining golden hair in place, her complexion fresh and glowing without the slightest artifice.
“Good morning,” she caroled gaily when she saw that Phyllis was awake. “Breakfast will be ready as soon as you are—isn’t it a gorgeous morning?”
Phyllis passed a hand across a forehead that ached a little and was conscious of an unpleasant taste in her mouth.
“Is it?” she asked dryly.
Anice looked prettily concerned.
“I’m afraid it’s because you had too much to drink last night, Cousin Phyllis. You’ve got a bit of a hangover,” she said sweetly.
Phyllis smothered the retort that rose to her lips and stumbled into the bath. A brisk shower made her feel better. The bedroom was in shining order; illogically enough, that added to her feeling of irritation. When she came back into the living room, dressed for the office, Anice was putting crispy golden toast and ajar of jam on the table.
“I brought you some of Granny’s strawberry jam,” she said brightly. “I remembered how much you liked it. And Grannie had such a wonderful lot of canned things, and I knew they’d be hard to buy here.”
She turned toward the kitchenette and paused to ask, “How do you like your eggs, Cousin Phyllis?”
Phyllis barely restrained a shudder at the thought as she swallowed freshly squeezed, properly iced orange juice. Anice smiled and shook her head. A little later she came back with her own plate on which there were two tiny sausages browned to a turn and scrambled eggs which she attacked with gusto.
Phyllis managed coffee and orange juice and toast and was glad when she could gather up her gloves and bag, and depart for the office.
“What time will you want dinner, Cousin Phyllis?” asked Anice, following her to the door with a housewifely air that ruffled Phyllis a little, even though she knew her attitude was completely unreasonable.
“I won’t be home for dinner,” she said brusquely. “I’m taking my Spanish lesson—I probably won’t be home until late. Sorry I didn’t know you were coming, so I could make plans.”
Anice was sweetly understanding.
“Oh, but you mustn’t worry about me, Cousin Phyllis,” she protested eagerly. “I don’t want to be the slightest bother to you. I’ll pick up something to eat before I come home.”
Phyllis said something she hoped sounded pleasant and escaped. She could not know that as the door closed behind her, Anice stood quite still, an odd expression on her lovely little heart-shaped face.
“Now why, when she’s got this great big place,” said Anice thoughtfully to herself, “should I bother running around trying to find a place that would cost me two or three hundred dollars a month? With housing conditions so acute, Cousin Phyllis shouldn’t mind sharing her place. And I’m sure she won’t—not when she has time to think it over. Of course, I know it bothers her a little, not being able to have Terry here to spend the night when she wants him. But after all, if my being here keeps her from committing a sin—well, then surely it’s my duty to stay! And maybe I can shame her into stopping drinking. And she smokes too much, too—a nasty, filthy habit.”
She moved about the apartment, setting everything in order, and when she had finished she nodded to herself.
“Yes, it’s nothing less than my duty to stay here and help Cousin Phyllis to mend her morals,” she said at last, and grinned impishly, and added, “Besides, it ought to be fun!”
Her carefully trained conscience whispered that she had lied about the price she had secured for Grannie’s shabby little down-at-heels cottage. But it was never hard for Anice to soothe that seldom aroused conscience.
“After all,” she reminded it, “I didn’t say I only got a thousand dollars—I just said I got a thousand dollars, and didn’t mention that it was a thousand dollars and more! So it wasn’t a lie, at all.”
After which she felt much better and got herself lovingly and carefully into one of her smart new frocks, tilted a silly little hat over one eye, and gathered up her bag and gloves, assuring herself that her shiny new checkbook was in place. She was a little disappointed that none of Phyllis’ clothes fit her; she liked one of Phyllis’ hats, but decided that her own was new and more becoming. And, too, it was soothing to know that her own clothes were of better quality than Phyllis’.
It added a new sparkle to her eyes to realize that if she stayed on there in Phyllis’ apartment, she would save herself a good deal of money that could go to the further adornment of her person.
“Of course—” she smacked down the faint conscience the moment it tried to raise its head “—I’ll pay my share by doing the housework and keeping her clothes in order and doing the cooking. I like to cook, and I’m a good housekeeper, and there’s very little work to keeping a place like this nice!”
She barely restrained a little skip as she went to the door, and paused to look back at the big living room with its flowery prints and its hand-blocked linen floor-length draperies.
“It’s a darling place!” she told herself happily. “I’m going to love living here!”
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR A WEEK, PHYLLIS CAME HOME each evening to find an exhausted Anice deploring the lack of available apartments in New York. An Anice who explained almost tearfully how she had simply walked and walked and walked, and nobody had anything at all to rent. And Phyllis, who had been doing a good bit of searching on her own account, was beginning to be a little desperate.
It was again her turn to sleep on the living room couch, and as she prepared for bed, Anice turned to her and said with an air of sudden inspiration, “Cousin Phyllis, why couldn’t we get rid of this double bed, and buy a pair of twin beds, and then we could both sleep in here?”
Phyllis stiffened slightly.
“Are you planning to stay here permanently, Anice?” she demanded flatly.
The hot color burned in Anice’s lovely little heart-shaped face and the expression of her blue eyes made Phyllis feel as though she had kicked a baby.
“You hate having me here, don’t you, Cousin Phyllis?” She barely kept the tears out of her small, shaking voice.
“It isn’t that, Anice—it’s just that I’m used to being alone. I work hard all day and when I come home, I like to—well, I like privacy.” Phyllis tried to fight down an almost irresistible urge to strike out at the annoying little person.
The tears slid from Anice’s eyes and, though she did not brush them away, she tried hard to steady her voice as she said, “I’m terribly sorry that I’m so unwelcome, Cousin Phyllis. I thought that if I did all the work—and looked after your clothes and did everything I could to make you c-c-comfortable, you mightn’t mind my being here.”
“Look, Anice, there’s nothing personal in it. And I have a very good maid—a jewel of a maid, really. I was very lucky to get her—” Phyllis began.
“But … oh, Cousin Phyllis, I thought you knew,” said Anice wide-eyed and stricken. “I let her go last week.”
“What?”
“But there wasn’t anything for her to do. I love cooking and housework and sewing, and I don’t have much to occupy me, so it seemed foolish to go on paying her twenty dollars a week just to come for an hour or two every day.” Anice’s voice stumbled to a stricken silence beneath the look on Phyllis’ white, angry face.
“Why, you—you meddling little—” Phyllis barely managed to click her teeth shut before she said more. After a moment she said stiffly, “I’ve had Mrs. Perkins for three years, Anice, and she was a prize. I know dozens of people who’d have been tickled to death to snap her up.”
“That’s what she told me, Cousin Phyllis,” said Anice eagerly. “That was why I didn’t feel badly about letting her g
o, now that you have me and aren’t—don’t need her anymore. She said she had a waiting list of ‘clients’.”
Phyllis said sharply, “Well, of course she has. Maids are scarcer than apartments—good ones.”
Anice dissolved in tears.
“I’m very sorry, Cousin Phyllis.” She wept like a heartbroken child. “I thought I was—well, earning my board and keep by letting her go. I’d be so glad to do everything she did, and more, too, if only you’d let me.”
Phyllis sighed wearily.
“Oh, all right, Anice—stop crying,” she said at last. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. It’s just that you took me so by surprise, and I was very fond of Mrs. Perkins. She was completely honest and entirely trustworthy.”
Anice’s tears had dried as by magic.
“Well, so am I, Cousin Phyllis. And you’ve been so good to me, taking me in like this—there’s just nothing I wouldn’t do to help you. And the twenty dollars a week you were paying Mrs. Perkins can be my board money!” she said eagerly, all bright-eyed and smiling, as though everything were quite wonderful in the best of all worlds. “And shall I shop for twin beds? I’d just love to!”
Helplessly, feeling herself completely out-generaled, knowing she was being a fool, yet not quite certain how she could be anything else, Phyllis said, “I suppose you might as well.”
Anice moved about the room cautiously, as though not quite sure yet just how far she dared go beyond the point she had gained. And then, flushed, confused, she said shyly, “There’s just one thing more, Cousin Phyllis.”
Phyllis looked up, suspicious, wary.
“What now, little gal?” she asked dryly.
“It’s just that I know Terry McLean is—well, that you’d like to have him up now and then,” said Anice awkwardly. “And I wanted you to k-k-know that any time you want him, I’ll go to a movie—a late one—and come home any time you say. Or I’ll go to a hotel for the whole night.”
Phyllis was very still for a moment, for she did not trust herself to speak. She had never in her life so yearned for a hairbrush, a strong right arm and Anice in exactly the right position across her knees. There was something unbearably insulting in Anice’s gently voiced, shyly spoken promise to absent herself while Phyllis dallied with her lover. Somehow, the offer made Phyllis feel that her affair with Terry—an affair that had been gay, lighthearted, even sweet—had become a dirty, filthy matter of a room in a five-dollar red-light house.
When at last she could control her voice, she said icily, “That won’t be necessary, Anice—I assure you it won’t.”
As she went through the doorway into the living room, to her uncomfortable bed, Anice said gently, “I just wanted to be helpful. I didn’t want you to think I was narrow-minded, just because I couldn’t dream of ever taking a lover myself.”
Phyllis said thinly, her voice dripping sarcasm, “Oh, so you’re saving yourself for your husband—Mr. Right?”
“No,” said Anice, wide-eyed and sweet. “I’m saving myself for—me.”
And that, thought Phyllis, closing the door with what was just barely not a slam, was as good an exit line as she could think up; though she felt sure that given a few moments, Anice could—and would!—have improved on it….
It was several days later that Anice dropped in at the office to beg Phyllis to have lunch with her. Phyllis was startled, not too pleasantly, but there seemed no point in objecting. So she gave Anice a seat in her office, while she took some papers in to Kenyon. A few minutes later, just as she was ready to leave, Kenyon came in.
“This Anson deal, Miss Gordon—” he suggested, and then his eyes fell on Anice, and widened a little with pleasure. He said quickly, “Oh, I’m sorry—I thought you were alone.”
He waited expectantly and Phyllis said quietly, “My cousin, Miss Mayhew, Mr. Rutledge.”
“Oh, I’m so pleased, Mr. Rutledge—Cousin Phyllis has told me such wonderful things about you.” Anice glowed sweetly.
She looked fresh and cool in a summer sheer of black; a tiny white hat, lost somewhere in her golden curls; a gardenia tucked against her shoulder and gloves, spotlessly white.
She was artlessly delighted, child-like in her innocent pleasure, and Kenyon, being essentially male even if a bit of a “stuffed shirt,” as Terry insisted, expanded visibly.
“Well, well, that was very kind of Cousin Phyllis,” he said, and included Phyllis in his pleased, admiring amusement at the pretty child. “We couldn’t possibly manage around here without her, I can assure you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you couldn’t!” Anice agreed with him. “I think Cousin Phyllis is just marvelous—so clever and efficient and all.”
“I quite agree with you,” Kenyon told her. He turned to Phyllis, got the information he wanted on the Anson deal, and took himself off.
Anice watched the door through which he had vanished, and after a moment she breathed youthfully, “Gosh, Cousin Phyllis! I don’t wonder you like working here! He’s—why, he’s simply marvelous! Like—oh, like Walter Pidgeon, only lots younger and ever so much better-looking!”
Phyllis was adjusting her hat in front of the mirror above the bookcase, and she said nothing, merely watched in the mirror the oddly speculative look in Anice’s eyes. For Anice believed herself unobserved and for the moment her usual perfectly fitting mask was not in place.
“I suppose he’s married, of course,” said Anice at last. “All the grand-looking men are.”
“He’s not married—yet,” answered Phyllis dryly.
Anice said instantly, “Is he engaged?”
“Not officially—but I expect the announcement momentarily,” said Phyllis, a little amused at the girl’s behavior.
“Of course,” said Anice, and looked a little crestfallen.
Throughout the meal that followed, she was thoughtful and a little distracted.
Having had Anice for lunch, Phyllis felt she couldn’t possibly stand her for dinner, too. And so she had a solitary meal in a little tea room where, though there were five different meat dishes on the bill of fare, all of them tasted exactly alike.
She was not conscious of any processes of thought by which she reached a decision, but a little after eight o’ clock she was knocking at the door of an apartment in a shabby but still respectable apartment house on the West Side.
Terry swung open the door, and then stood stock-still, quite sure that he was seeing things. He was in shirtsleeves, and a pipe was clenched between his teeth.
“Hello, Terry,” said Phyllis, laughing a little. “Remember me? You said it was a standing invitation.”
Terry put out both hands and drew her into the small, shabby but very comfortable room. It was a completely masculine room, reasonably tidy, but obviously designed for comfort and not for luxury or beauty.
“It’s the darnedest thing,” he told her joyously. “My horoscope for the day said something wonderful was going to happen to me, but the poor thing couldn’t possibly realize how wonderful. Gosh, let me look at you. Why, you haven’t changed a bit! You’re not a year older than when I saw you last.”
“Amazing! Considering that the last time you saw me was the day before yesterday,” Phyllis reminded him.
“When we passed in the corridor, and I said, ‘Hiya, how’s every little thing?’ and you said, ‘Not so good—she’s still here,’ and that was that!” Terry recalled, and beamed at her. “I haven’t really seen you since that little bitch arrived.”
“Terry! Such language!” she protested in mock horror. “And I thought you were so impressed with her—her youth and beauty and everything!”
“And so I was,” Terry agreed frankly. “And so I was—the first time. And then the more I saw of her, the more I understood her. When she began digging her pretty little claws into you with every word she said, I gave up my plans to like her and decided to hate her, instead. And I’m getting along wonderfully at it, too!”
Phyllis dropped her hat, her bag and her gloves on a tab
le, and put her hands to her hair, loosening the thick dark waves that had been crushed a little by the small hat.
“Terry, am I a dirty so-and-so because I can’t stand her?” she burst out, turning to face him. “She’s such a nice girl, so willing, even anxious to look after me—only, damn it, I don’t want to be looked after. I was doing fine before she showed up!”
Terry chuckled and drew her unresisting into his arms, and held her closely. For a moment they were silent, and then Phyllis looked up at him and said, a little smile quirking her soft mouth, though there was hurt in her eyes, “She’s not only a nice girl, Terry—she’s a very understanding one. She offered to go to a hotel any time I wanted you to come up and spend the night with me.”
Terry said through his teeth, “Well, damn her big blue eyes. What does she think you are—a two-dollar call girl?”
“I’m afraid it’s something like that,” she admitted.
Terry’s face was grim and set, but after a little he said with a cheerfulness that was somewhat forced, “Well, cheer up, angel-face, she’ll soon be gone.”
“Oh, no, Terry—she’s going to be a permanent fixture,” Phyllis told him. “We’ve bought twin beds for the bedroom, on account of she simply can’t sleep with anyone, and she’s fired my maid and is doing the work herself, and she feels that the twenty dollars a week she saves me is ample to cover her room and board.”
“A thousand dollars a week wouldn’t pay for your lost privacy,” snorted Terry furiously, aghast at Anice’s behavior.
“I don’t think she feels that a desire for privacy is quite—well, quite respectable,” Phyllis told him wryly. “She’s convinced that I’m an incipient drunkard and a nymphomaniac, and that it is her Christian duty to save me from my sins!”
“It seems to me a little spot of murder is indicated,” said Terry grimly.
“I have the same feeling—except that murder is so messy,” said Phyllis, laughing a little in spite of her mood.
“There must be some way to get her out before she drives you to the booby-hatch,” said Terry. “Question is—what?”