Mary McCarthy

by Mary McCarthy

  “Perhaps I could give him something now, Miles,” Helen intervened. “No,” said Warren. Hectic spots burned in his cheeks. “A couple of hundred won’t do.”

  Miles cinched in his robe. Under Warren’s fascinated gaze, a change began to take place in him. He swelled, as if inflating with air, like a balloon slowly distending. As he swelled, his cheeks got redder and his eyes, two green gimlets, receded into their fleshy upholstery. “Why, you’re off your chump, man,” he said. “Nobody buys pictures that way. Ask any dealer. They sell them on tick. Don’t you know that much about your own trade? I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you.” “Hush, darling,” said Helen anxiously. “You mustn’t let yourself get excited. Warren doesn’t mean—” “Hush, yourself,” said Miles, in a strange, rough voice. “Don’t try to run me. Go on downstairs, to your child. Tend to your knitting.” Helen retreated, with her pad, smiling fixedly at Warren, as if apologizing for herself. She did not go all the way down. Warren heard her footsteps pause, somewhere in the middle; she was listening. Tears stood in Warren’s eyes; he wanted to punch Miles and make his crooked nose bleed, for the way he behaved toward women. “I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you, Coe,” Miles repeated. “Your head’s got too big for your hat. You’re suffering from delusions of grandeur. I ought to have expected this. When Helen told me the price you were trying to put on that painting, I set it down to temporary insanity. I was sorry for you. Here, I said, is a decent, modest little chap who’s so starved for recognition that his first sale unhinges him. ‘Don’t argue,’ I said. ‘Just keep the painting and let him come to his senses. The price is merely symbolic; he’s too much of a gentleman to play a friend for a sucker.’ Frankly, I thought you’d consider yourself lucky to collect on the quarter-dollar. He needs ego-satisfaction, I said to myself, and I drummed up this magazine piece for you. Sandy thought I was bats when I first put the idea up to him.” He paused to let this sink in; his thin lips were set in that narrow, cruel line they had when he was drunk. Warren, across the desk, accepted blow after blow to his vanity without flinching; the only thing that hurt him, really, was to be called “Coe.”

  He did not mind what Miles thought of him as an artist; it was his friendship that was bleeding away, in this eyrie, while the silent bird swung in its cage and the gold lettering of the books shone. “Mind you,” Miles continued, in even tones, “none of this affects my attitude toward your work. I can see you for what you are, as a man, without losing faith in your picture, downstairs. As a human being, you’re a wretched little rentier and a leech. I’ve put up with you for ten years, having you pick my brains whenever you and your frau invite me over to put on the feedbag. But you’re a damned fine draughtsman. I always said so. I say it again. And I’m going to pay you for the picture. Don’t think I’m going to default on it. I’ll pay you what I think it’s worth, in my own sweet time. If you don’t like that, you can sue me. Now, go on, peddle your papers.”

  He took up a book and pencil and swung sideways in his swivel chair. Warren did not move. Miles finally looked up, as if casually, and discovered him still there. “Well?” said Miles. “Give me my money or I’ll take the picture back,” said a low, threatening voice issuing from Warren. He was re-testing the theory, which had not proved true in boarding school, that all bullies are cowards. Miles leapt up. “Helen,” he yelled. “Come up here, damn it! Get this bill-collector out of my study.” Warren’s fists, which had doubled up in self-protection, did a little dance. “Helen!” Miles bellowed. “Coming,” a faint voice answered. They heard her footsteps on the stairs. Warren’s fists fell; his shoulders slumped. He could not hit Miles in front of his wife. And Miles would probably refuse if Warren invited him to step outside. “I’ll take back the picture,” he declared wildly, as he cast a last vengeful look at Miles and started to run down the stairs, nearly bumping into Helen, who swerved aside to let him pass. He came pounding into the gymnasium and rushed up to the portrait, which seemed to look askance at him with its curving ironical smile. His threat, he recognized, had been perfectly idle. He could no more remove the picture than he could beat up Miles. It was too big.

  Even as he tugged at one corner of it, he admitted defeat. The picture began to teeter. Carefully, Warren set it straight. He was afraid that if it fell, in the heavy frame Miles had put on it, the crash would disturb the baby. He smiled wanly at the little creature, wiggled his ears, and softly took his departure. His heart was downcast, because he had failed Martha, but he could not help feeling a mite of satisfaction. Just for one minute, Miles, with his dumbbells and his Indian clubs, had been afraid of him.

  He sat, conscientiously warming the motor, in the Murphys’ driveway. He was not thinking, yet, of the terrible things Miles had said to him, which made him feel sorrier for Miles, almost, than he did for himself. He was concentrating on the money. And all at once he saw, very simply, how he could get it.

  Thirteen

  YET NOTHING connected with money was easy, Warren discovered. When he drove up to the bank in Digby to try to borrow on his mother’s estate, he found that Jane’s signature would be needed. The best thing, he decided reluctantly, was to call up his aunt’s husband in Savannah. The old man, as the executor, was still pottering around, paying the debts and the taxes, but he certainly ought to be able to advance Warren something on his share of the principal. Warren got a pocketful of change and settled himself in the payphone booth in the Digby drugstore. As usual, the circuits were busy, and the first connection was bad. Then his aunt’s husband, when Warren could finally hear him, was not much nicer than Miles. In his mock-courteous Southern style, his uncle wondered that Warren should be in such a hurry to get his mother’s little bit of money, when he had not troubled to hurry to her funeral. Warren, his uncle observed, was quick enough to use the long-distance today, but when his mother died, a little old night letter had been good enough.

  Warren had grown up on his aunt’s husband’s obscure sarcasms, which had been aimed at his artistic tendencies, and he now felt like a boy again, charged with crimes he was not aware of having committed. “Night letter?” he cried, over the humming of the wires. “I don’t know what you mean, Uncle Chet.” He ransacked his memory. “Jane sent a telegram.” “Your aunt got a night letter,” Warren’s uncle retorted. “Seemed to us you might have telephoned, instead of waiting all that time.” “There must have been a mistake,” yelled Warren. He would have to ask Jane about it when he got home. But then he remembered that he could not ask her: he could not let her know that he had talked with his uncle. “Why didn’t Aunt May mention this when I was down there?” he piteously wanted to know. He was fond of his aunt, and it desolated him to think that she had been harboring a grudge against him. “She didn’t want words at the funeral,” replied his uncle. “Tell her there was a mistake,” pleaded Warren. These misunderstandings had been typical of his boyhood, as the only child of a widowed lady, with cousins and in-laws ceaselessly putting their oar in to trouble the waters. It was this very uncle, childless himself, who had decreed that Warren should go to military school. These memories, of bafflement and helplessness, made Warren nearly drop in the phone booth.

  “Uncle Chet,” he cried. “Listen. Forget about that, just for a minute. I have to have some money, right away.” “What you need it for?” his uncle’s voice came sharply. It was the same trigger-tone that Warren could remember, from thirty-five years ago, when Warren had asked his mother for extra pocket-money to buy, it was revealed, drawing materials. He had lacked the gall to lie and say he wanted a baseball mitt or any of the manly articles that his in-law would have approved of. “I can’t tell you,” he said now. “But it’s awfully important. A matter of life and death, just about.” His uncle made a dissatisfied sound. “You’ll have to give me more than that to go on, Warren,” he said grudgingly. “I’ve got my duty to the estate. I’m not going to go and sell shares just to please you.” “You could borrow from the bank,” argued Warren. “You got banks up there
, I suppose,” said his uncle, satirically. “Your mother always claimed you married a wealthy woman.” “I can’t tell Jane,” said Warren, instinctively lowering his voice. “What’s that?” said his uncle. “I can’t tell Jane,” repeated Warren, as loudly as he dared. “It’s a private matter. There’s a girl up here, a friend of mine, in trouble.”

  “In trouble?” exclaimed his uncle. “You mean . . . ?” “Yes,” desperately cried Warren. There was a silence. Then a dry chuckle came from the other end of the line. “Well, well,” said his uncle. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Warren. I guess you’ve reached the dangerous age.” “It’s not me, Uncle Chet,” protested Warren. “No, no,” chuckled his uncle. “It was two other fellows, I suppose. No call to apologize. I won’t let on to your aunt. How much do you need?” Warren reflected. It was up to him, he saw, to accept his uncle’s mistake. “Five hundred dollars,” he said bravely. “You better make it seven.” “Sounds like you’re being blackmailed,” commented his uncle. “No,” said Warren. “Oh, no. This girl is what you’d call a lady, Uncle Chet. Things are more expensive up here—doctors and all that.” “How far gone is she?” inquired the old man. “About six weeks,” said Warren. “Maybe seven. I’m not sure.” He whitened as he saw the implication: did his uncle realize that Warren’s mother had died just over six weeks ago? “Umm,” said his aunt’s husband. “You’re in a hurry then. How shall I get the money to you?” Uncle Chet’s savoir faire stunned Warren; he had never thought of this difficulty himself. Any letter that came, Jane would open as a matter of course, if she found it in the post-office box. “Golly,” sighed Warren. “I don’t know what to tell you. This is an awfully small place.” “I could send a bank check,” ruminated his uncle, “in a plain envelope, addressed to some friend of yours. You got any bachelor friends?” Warren canvassed his circle of acquaintances. There was Paul, he decided. Paul was supposed to be trustworthy; Jane said he knew everybody’s secrets. “Paul de Harnonville,” he spelled out the vicomte’s name for his uncle. “Airmail, registered?” said the old man. Warren hesitated. If it were registered, they would notice it at the post office. But they might notice it anyway. Still, what if Jane were to come by while Paul was signing for it? “Better plain air mail,” counseled his uncle. “I’ll try to get it off this afternoon.” “You’ve been a prince, Uncle Chet,” said Warren, warmly. “Don’t mention it,” said the old man. “You should have told me right off, instead of beating about the bush.”

  Warren was wringing wet when he emerged from the phone booth. His knees wobbled as he came out into the sunlight and started to cross the street. In the distance, he recognized Harriet Huber, with a shopping bag, and he ducked behind a telephone pole. He was afraid to be seen coming out of the Digby drugstore; it might be guessed that he had been making a telephone call there. He felt that his complicity with Martha was written all over him, and he attributed unusual insight to every native he saw. He was not known in Digby, but this very fact, he feared, would imprint him, as a stranger, on the minds of the Digby population. They would all remember that a small gray man in corduroy had been in the drugstore an exceedingly long time.

  It was only one o’clock when he parked in front of the New Leeds liquor store. Warren felt he had lived centuries since he had got up in the morning. His experience with Miles, just by itself, would take him a lifetime to digest. Miles had told him some home truths in the course of his tirade. Was he really a leech and a brain-sucker? He supposed he was, as a matter of fact. Martha had implied something like that, though in a politer way. But Miles had killed a precious part of him—the nerve of intellectual curiosity. He would never be able to ask a serious question again. Some time, much later, he would talk all this over with Jane. She would be bound to find out, before long, that he had tried to collect for the painting. And he would have to produce some reason to explain his behavior, without implicating Martha. The number of lies he was already committed to made him question his sanity. Was this he, he asked himself wonderingly. He wanted to call up Martha, to tell her what had happened, but if John answered the phone, he would have to prevaricate again. If he called here, from the drugstore, the girl at the fountain would hear him, while if he called from home, when Jane was in the village, there were the neighbors on the party line. Yet he was not sorry for what he had undertaken. It was worth it, to know the truth, worth it, to help Martha. He felt honored that she had asked him.

  Paul was out to lunch. Warren found him in the grille and indicated that he would like to speak to him, alone, when he was finished. Warren was too excited to eat anything himself. The vicomte nodded and handed him a rusty key. “Meet me in the shop.” Waiting in the dark antique shop, amid the dust of marble and the smell of worm-eaten old furniture and moldy upholstery, Warren felt very adventurous, though a little queasy inside. The shop, he thought, had a secretive, almost criminal atmosphere, as though any shady deal could take place here. It occurred to him, suddenly, that the vicomte would know where to find an abortionist.

  Paul, when he came in, was not at all perturbed at being asked to serve as a letter-drop. “It is not the first time,” he said equably. “You would be surprised. This little shop is very convenient, for all kinds of business. You have a little affaire, I suppose, something you do not wish to tell Jane.” “Not exactly,” said Warren. “It’s more of a commission, you might say. Something a friend has asked me to take care of. I can’t tell you without betraying his confidence.” “Of course,” said the vicomte. “I have no wish to pry. It is very serious, this commission?” “Very,” said Warren, with feeling. “I see that,” said the vicomte. “A check will come in the mail,” explained Warren. “When it comes, will you call me up? We ought to have a signal, I suppose.” “Naturally,” said the vicomte. “That goes without saying. When the letter comes, I will telephone that I have a new shipment of wine I want you to try. I will have the letter in the liquor store.” “I don’t suppose you could get the check cashed,” said Warren. “It’ll be made out to me, a bank check.” The vicomte pondered. “If you indorse it, I could take it to Digby. Or Trowbridge, if you prefer.”

  “I’ll pay you for your trouble,” volunteered Warren. “If you wish,” said the vicomte. “It doesn’t matter. I am always glad to do a service for my friends. Living here, all alone, I can so seldom repay hospitality. How much is the check, if I may ask?” “Seven hundred dollars,” said Warren. The vicomte raised his fair eyebrows. “Someone is to get a present, perhaps?” Warren studied his sneakers. “Don’t tell me,” said the vicomte. “I prefer to guess. It has to do with a lady. Possibly a married lady who is to get an expensive present her husband doesn’t know of. That is Maupassant—a little out of fashion. Or possibly it is not a lady. Someone has stolen something, and restitution is to be made, on the q.t.” Warren said nothing. Paul, he perceived, really meant it when he said he did not wish to be told. He closed his blinking eyes, like a medium, and put a fat finger to his forehead, seeming to relish, voluptuously, the sense of mystery with which he himself was enveloping this request. “Or could it be a girl? An unmarried girl who finds herself in trouble, as we Americans say. Pauvre fille. I am sorry for her. Possibly I can help. There is a doctor, a refugee, in Boston, who will sometimes take such cases.” Paul took his wallet from his pocket and slowly thumbed through a grimy collection of business cards. “Here,” he said, handing one to Warren. “This is the man. A nice old fellow. A Jew. His father was physician to my family. The son cannot get a license to practice in this country; he is too old to pass the examinations.” Warren gave the card a gingerly inspection before handing it back to Paul; the doctor’s name and address were firmly stamped on his memory. “Thank you, Paul,” he said. “But it isn’t that kind of trouble, this time.” He gave a daring laugh. “Ah well,” said the vicomte, indifferently, “so much the better. I will not have a sin on my conscience. Blackmail, could it be?” He continued his ruminations. “Some little irregularity, a taste for young boys?” His round blue ey
es revolved over Warren, who had a painful sense of shock. Between his uncle and the vicomte, he stood convicted as a regular Cellini. What horrified him most was the way it was taken for granted that anything was possible, for a respectable married man. He thought of what Martha had said yesterday, about how everybody mistrusted appearances and yet no one really cared what the truth was. “Blackmail,” mused Paul, still studying Warren with an air of connoisseurship, “is rather rare here, in New Leeds. It is many years since we have had a case of it. Emotional blackmail, yes. The other kind, no. The community is so tolerant that a blackmailer could not make a living here. I’ve often thought of this, Warren, in a speculative way, to pass the time. I am ideally situated, you might say, to make a profession of blackmail here. As a Catholic, I receive many confessions; you atheists take me for a priest, though I cannot give absolution, naturally. Then there is my work in the liquor store and my work in A. A. When I go around to buy furniture for the shop, I see a good deal. But if I were to try to capitalize my knowledge, I would not make a penny.” He lifted his huge shoulders. “It is a community of glass houses. One can only sit by and watch. Now and then there is a soul to be saved.”