Women and Thomas Harrow

by John P. Marquand

  XIV

  Good Night, Monte Cristo

  Having dealt for most of his life with thoughts and motivations, he was not bad at constructing an imaginary scene. Over the years he had often diverted himself at odd moments by making a construction of what the Brownes had said when Rhoda had told them that he was coming to call to take her to the pictures the evening after he and she had met on Dock Street. He knew not only Rhoda but the Brownes so well that he hardly needed to draw upon imagination. As his Aunt Edith had said, when he had mentioned Rhoda Browne, she knew nothing whatsoever about them except that they attended the South Church and were strangers to everybody, and that Mr. Browne had come to town to manage the agency for the Ford Motor Company. She was sure that they amounted to nothing or she would have heard more about them.

  “After all,” she had said, “he’s little more than an automobile salesman, and I think I know as well as you what automobile salesmen must be like, having read the way they talk in automobile advertisements. I am sure that the Judge would not have allowed an automobile salesman in his house, not that I believe he had to deal with them in his day.”

  There were many occasions on which he had wished that Mrs. Hudson Browne could have overheard his aunt’s remark, but it was just as well she had not because each had always been frigidly patronizing to the other. His Aunt Edith, being the Judge’s daughter, was descended from an old family which included in its tree a Colonial governor. In fact, if she had wanted, Aunt Edith could have been a Colonial Dame of America—not that this made any impression on Mrs. Browne.

  As Mrs. Browne would have said, his Aunt Edith was not a Rhyelle of Baltimore, and Mrs. Browne had been Estelle Rhyelle of Baltimore, and even if you were only mildly interested, she could show you the photograph of the old Rhyelle mansion in whose ballroom she had been introduced to Baltimore society—a house which unfortunately had been torn down due to the enlargement of the city, and was now, like the Rhyelle fortune, a mere memory—the fortune having been dissipated by her careless brother at the horse races. Her brother had blown out his brains shortly after the dissipation and thus except for Mrs. Browne and Rhoda and the photograph, the Rhyelles of Baltimore were extinct.

  Tom had never, in his saddest moments, derided Mrs. Browne. On the contrary, he had always listened with rapt attention to the histories of the Rhyelles of Baltimore, and had often asked questions to encourage Mrs. Browne, until on one occasion he had found Rhoda in tears. He had never intended to be unkind to Mrs. Browne, and, in fact, he had been fond of her and there was no doubt she had come from Baltimore; and there was no doubt she had married Hudson Browne, the son of a successful farmer in the vicinity of Salisbury, Maryland, who had received a college education and finally a legacy of fifty thousand dollars. There was no doubt about the legacy because Rhoda had once heard of it, but it had pretty well run out.

  “Father,” as Rhoda had often said, “should never have tried to be a businessman. It would have been so much better, wouldn’t it, if he had tried harder and harder to do nothing?”

  It was a good line and he had laughed at it.

  “Don’t,” she said. “I’m not trying to be funny. You just don’t understand. You never kept trying to be something and then failing, and trying and failing.”

  But, knowing Rhoda, he had understood enough to guess what the Brownes must have said before he came to call for her that first evening. The Brownes, when he had met Rhoda, had been living in one of those small and rundown houses on Harrison Street which now were rediscovered, their primitive quaintness fully restored by repainting and synthetic remodeling. However, Harrison Street did not amount to much in the days when Tom had met Rhoda, and the furnishings of the Brownes, battered from frequent movings, did not fit well into the small front parlor; the tapestried upholstered suite and the Brussels carpet clashed with the old woodwork and the wallpaper of the previous tenant. Still, the setting was perfect for what must have taken place. It would be late afternoon and Mr. Browne would have returned from the Ford agency, a florid, balding man in his late forties, in a sharply pressed brown double-breasted suit.

  “What’s there for supper tonight, Estelle?” he would have asked.

  Mrs. Browne had been very pretty once and Tom was reasonably sure that Mr. Browne had married her because of beauty and not the Rhyelle name.

  “He just thought I was another friend of Cynthia Ellis,” Mrs. Browne had told Tom once. “Hudson never realized until later that I was Estelle Rhyelle.”

  She still had beautiful hands, and she still sat up very straight, and she still put on an afternoon dress of faded purplish silk that had the same faded quality as her hair, which she still wore in an outmoded pompadour.

  “We’re having soup and canned salmon and peas, Hudson,” she must have said. “It’s Friday, you know.”

  “Can’t we have fresh fish, now we’re near the ocean?” Mr. Browne asked. “Estie, do you remember those soft-shell crabs back in Baltimore?”

  “Hudson,” she said, “you have grime around your fingernails.”

  “It’s the grease,” Mr. Browne said. “The cars are greasy even in the showroom.”

  “That’s all the more reason for you to keep clean,” Mrs. Browne said. “The first thing I notice whenever I buy anything at the grocery is whether the man’s hands are clean.”

  “My God, Estie,” Mr. Browne said, “I’m not in the grocery business.”

  “Hudson,” Mrs. Browne said, “please go upstairs—there’s plenty of hot water—and scrub your hands with a nailbrush. Don’t make me do everything about appearances, Hudson.”

  It must have been at just such a moment that Rhoda came into the room. He knew exactly how she was dressed because he had never forgotten the clothes she wore in those first days, and it was strange when he cast his mind back to realize how peculiar they would have looked in a later era. Their entertainment value was already being recognized in modern comedies that dealt with the roaring twenties. This was only a little later than the era of the skirt above the knee and the rolled stocking, and though skirts were a trifle longer, the spirit of exposure still prevailed. It could be said without danger of contradiction that women had never been more awkwardly or farcically dressed than they had been at the end of the Twenties, but when you were living in the age itself the impression was wholly different. There was also the vitality of youth, and anyone like Rhoda, looking like Rhoda, and being nineteen as Rhoda was then, would have looked wonderfully dressed in anything, or, for that matter, out of anything. He could still remember her pepper-and-salt ready-made coat and skirt, and her lisle stockings. She had no money for a silk pair then, except for evening and Sunday, and nylons lay unknown beyond the furthest horizons of the foreseeable future. She would have been wearing a bell-shaped hat, jammed like an inverted bucket over the boyish bob that the town’s first hairdresser, who did not bother to call herself “Annette” or “Chez Marie” in those days, was currently offering the local youth. Aesthetically the effect must have been agonizing, and yet the whole effect had been more full of allure for him than anything he had seen since; but then, no woman had ever worn a hat with more verve than Rhoda in those days when hats were still part of a convention. She could rip off her hat in a seemingly slovenly manner and toss it on a chair or table, but her hair would seldom be rumpled in the process, or if it was, a shake of her head would bring it back in place. No one could put on a hat like Rhoda; there was no trouble, no standing in front of a mirror for feminine adjustments. She simply jammed it on and there it was, its angle perfect, setting forth her features in just the way its creator had planned. Yet perhaps hats had never mattered, because there was Rhoda’s hair, reminiscent of Hepburn, but of course it was not Hepburn’s, and the gloss and the vitality of the last years of her teens eventually left it. Its color was something he never could describe, not red, not gold, not auburn, and after all, when you saw it, description made no difference. When you first saw a girl you loved, she created an impressi
on that nothing could ever change.

  “How did you know right away that I had a good figure?” she asked him once.

  And that was a difficult one to answer. With those clothes of hers, there had been no way of making an estimate regarding her figure visually except that her legs were long and spectacular; but somehow you knew all the answers without knowing how.

  It was easy to imagine how she must have looked among the overstuffed upholstery, and fortunately he had given the Brownes better furniture later for their bungalow at Daytona Beach.

  “Hello, Mother,” Rhoda must have said, and there was a bell-like quality in her voice, reminding one of the Tennysonian line about echoes dying, dying. “Hello, Pa.”

  Often when he thought of the American male as a figure of fun, in the days before he was finalized by Lindsay and Crouse, Tom would picture Mr. Browne as ideal for the role.

  “Back so soon, dear?” Mrs. Browne might have asked. “I thought you were going to do some typing practice after the school had closed.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Rhoda said. “Some of the girls went out to get a soda, Mother.”

  “Rhoda, dear,” Mrs. Browne must have said, “I do hope you’re taking your shorthand and typing seriously,” and she sighed in a repressed way that was always poignant. “I wish my own dear mother had thought of giving me typing and shorthand lessons, instead of harp lessons, and then I might be more useful than I am now. A girl can never tell, Rhoda, when it may be necessary for her to earn her own living honorably. Hudson, please put your paper down. Isn’t it true what I’ve been telling Rhoda?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Browne said, “I think your mother’s put it accurately, Rhoda. There are ups and downs in life.”

  Mrs. Browne would then have looked brighter. There was always a silver lining and no one could say that she had not always searched for it in a very gallant way.

  “Besides, dear,” she said, “your typing is only for this summer, because the agency for the Ford Company is bound to be a success and you’ll be going to Wellesley College in the fall. Hudson, please put down your paper. Won’t Rhoda be going to Wellesley in the fall?”

  “Rhoda can go anywhere she wants in the fall.”

  Rhoda must have smiled. Unlike most girls her own age, she was not continually grinning and showing her even white teeth; she never had been a smily girl, which may have given her smile its value.

  “Thanks, Pa,” she said, “thanks a million.”

  When Mr. Browne smiled back at her, you could have seen from whom she had inherited the smile. In fact, smiling was about the only graceful thing the old man ever did. “Thanks a million” was a new phrase then and Mrs. Browne would have been quick to catch it.

  “Where did you learn that expression, Rhoda dear?”

  “Oh, from some of the girls at typing school, I guess.”

  “I wish so many common girls didn’t take up typewriting,” Mrs. Browne would have said.

  “Mother, what time’s supper? Can we have supper early?”

  “Why, yes, dear, as long as this is Friday, but why do you want supper early, Rhoda?”

  “Because a boy’s going to call for me to take me to the 6:30 movie,” Rhoda must have said. “It has to be 6:30 because you don’t like me to go to the 8:30 show.”

  “A boy?”

  “Why, yes, Mother, I guess you’d call him a boy.”

  “But I thought you were saying only yesterday that you hadn’t met any boys around here that you’d be seen with,” Mrs. Browne said.

  “That was yesterday,” Rhoda said. “I’ve met one now, and he’s coming to take me to the half-past-six picture. I’ll start helping with the supper, Mother, but I want to put on my green silk dress with the red dots on it.”

  At this point Mr. Browne must have put down his newspaper.

  “Say,” he said, “who is this boy, Rhoda?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Rhoda said. “I never saw him around here until today, but he says he has an aunt who lives here or something.”

  “Rhoda,” her mother asked, “are you sure that he’s a nice boy?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Rhoda said, and she smiled again, “but maybe I will, after the picture show.”

  There was always one thing about Rhoda, she always told the truth when she was asked a question. Mr. Browne must have laughed, and it was hard to blame him because it was always difficult not to laugh when Rhoda wished it.

  “I don’t think that’s humorous, Hudson,” Mrs. Browne must have said. “Of course if he’s a nice young man, I think it’s very nice, but at the same time, dear, you are different from the girls at the typing school, and if he’s a friend of theirs, I don’t know. Where did you meet him, Rhoda?”

  “Out on the main street,” Rhoda said, “the one that’s called Dock Street, just after I had that soda and was going back to do more typing.”

  “But how did you meet him, dear?” Mrs. Browne asked.

  Rhoda must have smiled again.

  “Why, I guess he picked me up. I guess that’s what they call it, Mother.”

  “Hudson,” Mrs. Browne said, “please let me speak. How could he have picked you up there in the street if you hadn’t wanted him to?”

  “Well, maybe I did want him to,” Rhoda said.

  Rhoda always did tell the truth when she was asked a question.

  “But what did he do?” Mrs. Browne asked.

  “Well, it was in front of the drugstore,” Rhoda must have said, “when I was just coming out, and he smiled at me and took off his hat, a sort of city hat, and then he said hello. He didn’t do anything else.”

  “Well, I’d say he did plenty,” Mr. Browne could have said, “and I don’t know as I like it, either.”

  “Hudson,” Mrs. Browne said, “please. When he did that, what did you do, Rhoda?”

  “Why, I smiled back and said hello, too,” Rhoda said.

  “Rhoda dear,” Mrs. Browne said, “why did you do that?”

  “I guess I sort of liked him,” Rhoda said. “He’s the only worthwhile-looking boy I’ve seen in this town, and besides, with all the other girls around, I didn’t want them to think he was trying to pick me up. It would have been embarrassing, Mother.”

  “But Rhoda, your father and I don’t know anything about him.”

  “Well, we don’t know anything about anyone else, either,” Rhoda said. “Mother, please don’t go and spoil it all, and nothing ever happens at a half-past-six o’clock picture show. At least nothing has ever happened to me before, much, and I’ve been out to lots of places at three different high schools.”

  “Oh, Rhoda!” her mother said. “As though your father and I haven’t wanted to give you everything! But you do say he’s attractive?”

  Mrs. Browne still could look for a silver lining.

  “He’s the only boy in this town who doesn’t look like a crumb,” Rhoda said.

  (Out of all the imaginary dialogue this speech was certainly correct, because Rhoda herself had repeated it to him that same evening.)

  “I wish you wouldn’t use slang,” Mrs. Browne said, “when I’ve tried so hard to teach you good vocabulary. I don’t know the word, but I hope you mean he’s nicely dressed and nice appearing.”

  “I wouldn’t have said hello if he was a crumb,” Rhoda said, “and he says he comes from New York City, and I think he’s a college man.”

  “Young fellows are always showing off,” Mr. Browne said, “and pretending to be something they’re not in order to make a good impression.”

  “Did he tell you the name of his aunt or whoever it is he says he’s visiting?” Mrs. Browne asked.

  “Oh, Mother,” Rhoda said, “I have to change my dress, and I can’t stay answering questions.”

  “We’re only being careful of our little girl,” Mrs. Browne said, “aren’t we, Hudson?”

  “Yes, but let’s not worry until we see him,” Mr. Browne said. “If he doesn’t add up, Rhoda will stay home.”

  Rh
oda must have been annoyed, but it was always hard to gauge the degree because annoyance always made her cool instead of flustered.

  “I’ve added him,” Rhoda said. “Any girl’s got to watch herself with a boy.”

  Her feet beat a swift clatter up the stairs, and Mrs. Browne sighed her eloquent, stifled sigh.

  “Right in front of the drugstore,” Mrs. Browne said, “and she smiled and said hello.”

  That June night was still a time of fantasy, and now it was impossible to discover where things began or where they ended. It was a relief to recall that Shakespeare himself had been confused under similar circumstances.

  “Tell me, where is fancy bred,” he had asked, “in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished?”

  Nothing could be wholly accurate about that time, but his Aunt Edith had been unaffected by it, and his interview with his aunt was one he could draw from memory instead of imagination.

  “I hope we’re having supper early, Aunt Edith,” he had said. “I’m taking a girl to the 6:30 picture show. She wouldn’t go to the 8:30 one.”

  “Is she one of your old schoolmates, Thomas?” his aunt asked.

  “No,” he said, “they all seem to be married now—all the good ones.”

  “I’m very glad you outgrew so many,” his aunt said. “But then, I’ve always trusted the Fowler heritage, in spite of your poor father’s frivolity. If she isn’t a schoolmate, who is she?”

  “She’s a new girl, I think,” he said. “I happened to run into her on Dock Street when you sent me down for the afternoon mail.”

  “Were you introduced to her by running into her?” hire talking abouts aunt asked.

  She was one of the few women he had known who was able to understand nearly everything from the basis of almost no appreciable experience.