“You English underplay everything, but I can’t see any reason to downgrade my good points.”
“Modesty isn’t among them, I see.”
Honora’s repartee came as a surprise to her, and she could feel her heart beating. In the past her nonthreatening gentleness had drawn the awkward boys and humorless swots—grinds they were called in America. It seemed that all one needed to be witty was a lively partner. She wondered whether the hair on his chest was the same flaxen shade of his outer eyebrows or the darker shade of his hair. Her eyelashes fluttered and she flushed at thinking of his nakedness.
Smiling, he was giving her the once-over, a leisurely examination that made her skin tingle and the blood rise up to her face. He looked again into her eyes, which were the warm, dark shade of good sherry. (“My Portuguese,” her father had fancifully nicknamed her.)
“Tell me,” he asked, “since you don’t consider originality part of success, how do you define it?” He glanced down the long vista to the somberly dressed group in the rear drawing room. “Of course they’d all deny it to the death, but their yardstick is cold cash.”
“I dare say that’s a jolly good ingredient, being comfortably off,” she retorted.
“Bull. You don’t have an avaricious bone in your body.”
“Oh don’t I just! How lovely it would be not to have to go out looking for work.”
He gave her a quick glance. “Looking for work? You hardly seem the career girl type.”
“I’m trying.” Her low, soft voice wavered. Never in a life not overly abundant in self-confidence had she felt more inadequate than when facing across the desk of the Golden Gate Job Placement Agency.
“What’s your field?”
She recovered. “Woolgathering.”
“Try putting that on an application,” he chuckled. “Anyway, you can’t convince me you’re interested in money, not with those dark, nonacquisitive eyes, Monica Sylvander.”
He knew who she was! Her blinding sense of betrayal must have shown.
“I should have introduced myself first,” he said with a small, mocking bow. “I’m Curt Ivory.” He ran his finger on the keyboard, a rippling of sound. “Ivory, like these.”
“It’s Honora,” she murmured.
“What?”
“It’s not Monica, it’s Honora.”
“Honora, I work for Mr. Talbott. He asked me to let you know that his car’ll be around in a few minutes to take you and your sister home.”
Filled with shame at her mistaken assumption of his interest, she replied in a clipped tone, “That’s most unnecessary.”
“You’re angry.”
“I didn’t mean to chatter on.”
He was peering at her. “No, you’re not mad. You’re embarrassed.”
She guessed her face was crimson. “It’s most kind of Uncle Gideon, but my sister and I planned to walk home.”
“There’s no point arguing. He wants you driven home. And what Mr. Talbott wants, Mr. Talbott gets.” There was irony in Curt’s tone, and also deep affection. He touched a harp string, drawing a long, plangent note. “I figured Langley was laying it on a bit thick about his daughters, but now I see he wasn’t.”
“You know Dad—you know my father?”
“I told you I’m an engineer.”
“I’m sorry. How silly of me. Naturally you know him.”
“He’s a peacock about his girls, calls you his three graces—”
“Curt,” interrupted a female drawl. “Oh, Curt.”
An exceptionally thin young woman was leaning against the jamb of the sliding door. Her long-sleeved gray silk dress fitted her narrow, near breastless torso, flaring out in a gored skirt that reached to just above her sharply boned ankles. Her brown hair was swept back into a severe knot and she held a cigarette between two long fingers. She wasn’t pretty at all—indeed, with her hollow cheeks and visible jawbones, she resembled a young Duchess of Windsor. And like the Duchess, she possessed a unique chic.
“Well, well,” Curt drawled. “So you finally made it.”
“I had a tea, darling, another tea. What a bore. But Mother informs me you only put in an appearance a few minutes ago.” Her voice was magically American, especially when she emphasized certain words. Honora felt herself dwindle.
“I was at the Oakland field office,” Curt said. “Imogene, this is Mrs. Talbott’s niece. Honora Sylvander, Imogene Burdetts.”
“I’m so terribly sorry about your aunt,” Imogene Burdetts said rapidly.
“Thank you.”
“Honora just arrived from jolly old England,” Curt said.
“Yes, I can tell by the accent.” Imogene didn’t look at Honora. “Curt, Mother wants to talk to you. It’s an invitation, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Duty calls, then,” he said. He turned toward Honora with one of his satirical grins. “The odds are we’ll be bumping into each other.”
Honora watched the couple cross the length of the rooms to the couch where the three ladies still sat, then move to stand alone by the prune-colored drapes. Curt’s back was to Honora, but she could see by the expression on Imogene’s face that he was engaged in the same kind of insulting banter that she had found exhilarating.
She was bleakly staring at them when a gray-haired maid clumped in to tell her that the car was waiting.
3
As the limousine eased from under the glass-encased porte cochere, Crystal rubbed a hand across the luxurious seat. “Oh, lovely, lovely, the leather’s like silk. Honora, how good of Uncle Gideon to send us home in style—though I must say I don’t see generosity as his line.”
“Crystal!” Honora murmured, staring meaningfully at the opened glass between them and the elderly Filipino, who had donned a peaked cap for his role as chauffeur.
“He’s all business.” Crystal refused to be silenced, but she did lower her voice. “Talk about being overcome by grief! I found out that Aunt Matilda was housebound for ages. I’m positive Uncle Gideon has a mistress.”
Honora, praying that the hum of the motor covered their voices, pinched Crystal’s wrist.
Crystal rubbed at the skin, too pleased with herself to pinch back. “He was married to an invalid,” she continued. “And everybody knows rich men need ‘it’ more. The drive.”
“He’s not the type at all.” Honora whispered her defense of her uncle.
“He does have a poker up his bottom, doesn’t he?” Crystal stroked the seat again, her beautiful mouth smug. “If he was angry that we showed up, he’s obviously forgiven us.”
“He just doesn’t want his friends to see us tramping about San Francisco. Mr. Ivory as much as said so.”
Crystal turned in surprise. “Mr. Ivory?”
“Curt Ivory. He works for Uncle Gideon.”
“That most fearfully divine man in the gorgeous pale gray suit that you snagged off alone into the music room, is Curt Ivory? Of course he’s at Talbott’s. He’s Uncle Gideon’s right-hand man. That skinny Imogene was playing up to him like mad. Her dress, it’s the New Look. Maybe a Dior original—can you imagine how divine it’d be to wear originals? Well, why not? With her family.”
“Are they so important?”
“Oh, honestly, Honora. How you can be so clever at literature and books and such an idiot at remembering every single thing that counts in real life? Remember? Daddy told us that Mr. Burdetts and Uncle Gideon are involved in something called a joint venture to build that freeway in Oakland. What’s he like, Curt Ivory?”
“He’s Imogene Burdett’s young man.”
“You sound disappointed. I’ll bet anything she’s not a virgin.”
“Crystal, this whole conversation is so—”
“I know, I know. Daddy would say it’s common and Sylvanders don’t giggle over young men like scullery maids. But what’s so wonderful about being a Sylvander? Do you suppose any of those rich old cows has an attractive, eligible son?”
“You’re only seventeen.”
“They get serious much younger here. Remember what they said in the war? Yanks are oversexed.”
“We’re going home to England the minute Daddy’s on his feet again.”
“Which means, Honora dear, that we’re staying here forever and ever, amen.”
Honora forgot the aged chauffeur and her voice rose, shaking. “What a filthy thing to say!”
“I love Daddy as much as you do, Honora, but you’re just not realistic about him. He’s not cut out to be a business success. So we have to look out for ourselves.” The energy and determination in Crystal’s expression, rather than tarnishing her beauty, made her yet more irresistible. “We have to find rich husbands.”
“I could never get married like that, for money.”
Shrugging, Crystal said, “At least we have Uncle Gideon behind us.”
“Now who isn’t being realistic? He didn’t even remember our names.”
“Well, we’ve met him and that’s the first step.” Crystal’s eyes turned a darker blue. “He has to take an interest in us. I’ll be meeting the right kind of young men. And if you aren’t so keen on marriage, at least you won’t have to grub at some filthy job, you’ll be at university. Joscelyn can go to a decent school where everyone isn’t Chinese or Italian. Daddy won’t drink so much—”
“Crystal!” Honora’s whisper trembled with intensity.
Crystal, glancing at the chauffeur, nodded, and said no more.
The car had left the fine homes behind. As they glided up Lombard Street between drab apartment buildings toward the steep hill topped by the gray, upraised finger of Coit Tower, Honora bent forward to tap the separating pane of glass. “This is our number,” she called politely.
The big sedan braked, passing a nearly invisible entry, a narrow arch that led below a block of flats. The brilliant afternoon sunlight exposed the leprous flaking of gray Navy-surplus paint.
A third-story window was flung open, and a man leaned on the window ledge, his thinning brown hair blowing around his long, pale features, his unknotted old school tie flapping.
“Oh, God, look at Daddy,” Crystal whispered.
“You two deserve a good hiding!” Langley Sylvander shouted. “Where in the devil have you been, all tarted up?”
“He’s really blotto,” Crystal muttered.
Honora, not waiting for the chauffeur to open the door, jumped from the car with a mumbled thank you. Crystal was right after her.
They dashed through the dark, narrow tunnel with its line of mailboxes, emerging in a sloping, cracked cement courtyard. Sheets and clothes billowed overhead on lines crisscrossing between two barrackslike frame structures.
They raced up three flights of exterior steps. Before Honora could use her key, the door swung open and Langley blocked their way.
The upper part of his face was strong and handsome, with a broad brow and deep-set eyes nearly as vivid a blue as Crystal’s. With his muscles loosened by drinking, however, the weakness of his chin and the self-indulgent petulance of his full, well-chiseled mouth showed.
“I won’t have the pair of you getting into trouble,” he bawled.
“Daddy, please let us in,” Honora said. “We can explain it all.”
“What were you doing, parading around in that gaudy American motorcar?”
Crystal raised her chin. “It belongs to Uncle Gideon.”
“That common upstart! What were you doing with him?”
“You told us to go to his house.”
Langley gave her a look of surprise. “I did? Ahh yes, that was to offer your condolences on your aunt’s death. Not to use his big, vulgar possessions!” His light-timbred voice had taken on resonance.
Honora pushed him inside and Crystal yanked the front door shut.
They were in a very narrow corridor. The door to their left opened to a small bedroom crowded by a Queen Anne-style double bed and a high-legged nightstand on which stood a glass and a whiskey bottle.
“Where’s my motherless babe? Is she out bagging for coins? Joscelyn. Joss.”
“Isn’t she in our room?” Honora asked, worried.
“Joss-e-lynnn!” bawled Langley.
The door to their right opened. A short, thin child wearing an English schoolgirl’s tunic stood clutching a book to her skinny chest. Her mousy brown hair was skinned back from her narrow face into one long braid—in England the girls had called it a plait—her pale blue eyes appeared watery behind thick lensed glasses, her upper teeth bucked out. Joscelyn Sylvander, a remarkably homely child, was an unlikely postscript to the handsome Sylvander family.
“What’s all the shouting about?” she asked with purposeful ignorance. “Is anything wrong?”
“As if you didn’t know,” Crystal interjected—she was not too old to bicker with her little sister.
“If I call, you’re to answer,” Langley shouted.
“Oh, when you’re inebriated you’re a hopeless case,” Joscelyn cried.
“You’re being cheeky, miss.”
Joscelyn barged back into the room, the brown-painted, plywood walls shivering as she slammed the door.
“These scenes!” Crystal stalked down the slit into the square room that served as kitchen and dining room, leaving Honora to soothe their father.
Honora took his arm. “Daddy, I’ll make a nice pot of tea.”
Langley shook off her hand, asking plaintively, “How could you have let that bounder do you a favor?”
“It was wrong of us—me. Daddy, it’s nearly four. Tea’ll buck you up.” Honora’s tone was pleading.
“You girls were reared to be ladies. It’s my fault, I never should have brought you to this insufferable country!” The thin walls shivered again as the second door slammed.
Honora’s full upper lip quivered. Practical Crystal and clever Joscelyn were able to handle Langley’s atypical outbursts, but his drunken rages always shook his oldest daughter to the depth of her vulnerable soul. She not only loved him—all three girls did—but she idolized him as well. She took a few deep, slow breaths, then went into the other bedroom, which had every inch of space jammed with a large fumed oak chest of drawers and three iron beds.
“I get blamed for everything,” Joscelyn whimpered. She was hunched on the farthest bed.
“Joss, you know how most dreadfully unhappy he is, having to work for Uncle.”
Joscelyn’s left eye blinked rapidly as she struck out. “Do you suppose I’m in a state of bliss? You’re lucky, you’re not in school! All those dreadful boys mimicking every word I say. I hate them—I wish I was back in Edinthorpe, where there’s only girls. Not that the girls here are any better. They’re absolute inbeciles.” Joscelyn, placed with children two years her senior, excelled them in almost every subject, and with her blind, intellectual arrogance let them know the full extent of her superiority. She had no more idea how to get along with her peers in San Francisco than she had in England.
Honora sighed. “On job interviews they always seem to be poking fun at me, too.” She edged along the narrow space to sit next to her little sister, kissing the top of the mousy hair, which gave off a faint odor of homemade toffee and Castile soap. “Still, it’s not all that terrible. We’re together. And we generally have a happy time, don’t we?”
“I suppose.” Joscelyn snuggled closer to her sister’s side, a nearly sly expression of contentment on her narrow face as she let her oldest sister, her surrogate mother, comfort her.
Later, while Honora stood at the sagging sink, inexpertly putting together the parts of the old-fashioned meat grinder to make a shepherd’s pie from pieces of gristly leftover lamb and leftover mashed potatoes, Crystal turned on the little radio that the previous tenants had left because the bakelite was cracked. After a moment, a swinging Tommy Dorsey version of “Buttons and Bows” filled the kitchen.
When the shepherd’s pie gave off savory aromas and the table was laid, they peered down the corridor, glancing apprehensively at one another. Honora went to
give Langley’s door a tentative tap. “Daddy, supper’s ready.”
“I’m not hungry.” His reply was slurred. “Go ahead without me.”
The girls ate quickly and went to bed early, even Crystal, who generally stayed up until all hours on the weekend.
Sunday morning, Honora woke first. She tiptoed from the bedroom so as not to disturb his sisters and went to the kitchen.
Langley sat at the table behind a white earthenware teapot with a brown scar.
He gave his favorite daughter a helpless little grin. “I couldn’t find the biscuits,” he said sheepishly.
She smiled back, padding in her slippers to the open shelves above the stove. “Here, Daddy,” she said, opening the tin.
The other two girls straggled out.
“Well, Joss,” said Langley, patting his youngest’s cheek. “What do you say to a visit to the Fleishhacker Zoo? Maybe we can persuade your sister to make a picnic.”
The Sylvanders readied themselves for the outing, laughing and teasing.
In spite of Langley’s profound selfishness and susceptibility to the bottle, Crystal’s vanity and ambitions, Joscelyn’s studied insolence and complete lack of beguilement, they had always been a happy family. In this transitional period, while they dangled like chrysalides in their shabby clothes between the old life and the new, they clung together yet closer.
At the zoo people smiled at the English group, the two charming older girls laughing as they lugged the brown bags, the handsome man wearing a derby and tapping his unnecessary umbrella on the cage bars as he pointed out an animal’s peculiarities to a thin, pigtailed child, a family obviously delighted in each other’s company.
4
The Sylvander family tree, while not as illustrious as Langley believed, had irrefutably sprung from gentlemanly soil: his spindly branch, however, was rotted through with poverty. His father, a humorless bank clerk, had scrimped to the meanest degree to send Langley to a mediocre public school although the London County Council gave a far better education gratis.
After matriculation he gravitated to the underpaid thoroughly respectable profession of publishing and was a junior editor at Cullomton House when he met Doris Kinnon. Six years his senior, on her first visit to Europe, Doris tumbled for Langley’s accent, his handsome profile, his whimsical charm. On Langley’s part, he fell for Doris’s wholehearted adoration of him and—though his conscious mind could never admit to this—for the ease she could bring him.
Too Much Too Soon Page 2