Letty Fox

by Christina Stead

  Phyl needs a stage manager. If she were in Hollywood she’d have an agent, and she’d have to go out and meet men, wouldn’t she? We are strangers in Paris and Phyllis can’t get any notices in the paper. Maybe Paris is no good for Phyllis. Ask Pauline yourself. I am asking her too, when I send her the check she asks for, whether she doesn’t know any journalists. Why can’t Dave do what Pauline suggests and get Phyllis on for a turn in a musical? You must invite him to tea, Mathilde. It is all a question of business risk, after all, and then he likes her. My God! You got to market peaches in the season. Why the Society people don’t put their girls up for more than two-three seasons, and then they put their pictures in the paper with Chesterfield and Pond’s. Even Miss America has to be put over with personal appearances, Hollywood contracts, and a slap-up Atlantic City advertising-men’s pow-wow. Then what do they get? Well, some get a man the same as you and me. It isn’t easy to get a girl to meet the right man You got my word, I won’t forget anyone who does a little teamwork. She’s all that’s left to me, Mattie. I love my little Queen. My God, Mattie, you want your sister to let her chance slip by? A woman’s only got one.

  My mother wrote to Solander and asked him to approach his partner Montrose about clothes and a stage career for Phyllis, just so that she could meet the right men, and so that her beauty could be seen by as many as possible. Solander wrote back, “Montrose isn’t exactly against the idea; he says, ‘The secret of success in sex is exposure.’ ”

  My father promised a letter from Montrose. The letter came with a small amount of money. Montrose said he, himself, would be over in a few days, also, and would help with his acquaintances in Paris; “I like Phyllis’s idea of earning her own living. This is a fine thing for a young girl. Later, she knows how to take care of her husband’s savings, and of course, I know she doesn’t intend to go in for a music-hall career.” He wrote to my mother, “Just the same I think we ought to all put our heads together and write to Mamma, and think about little Phyllis getting married. She must at least be married a first time very soon; she is too susceptible and doesn’t know how to make the best of her opportunities.”

  Meanwhile her friend Dave had come to Paris in response to letters from Pauline, and was taking her around, introducing her to cabaret managers. Phyllis made many conquests, but few were willing to give her a try-out. They thought of it as a joke, and she got no engagement, except for a single night. One cabaret owner, an Armenian, forty-five, had fallen in love with Phyllis and would marry her. He had wanted her as a mistress and would have had her, but for Pauline’s management (said Dave) and now was ready to do anything, go the limit for Phyllis. At any rate, Pauline and Phyllis could eat and drink every night in the cabaret, without paying, and were always to be seen at the bar. We were all very glad at this news, even my mother, who forgot her troubles and thought that some woman, her own sister, in fact, could make a success of life. She wrote a cheerful letter to my father and asked him to come to Paris to advise her, Phyllis and Pauline. My father was hard pressed for money. Montrose, naturally, expected him to pay for his traveling expenses. He had, as well, to pay for a home for Grandmother Fox and for Lily Spontini, who had not yet found a job. Lily had at once dug up a young man who would marry her if Solander Fox would advance him three hundred pounds for a toy business in Bevis Marks. He also needed a little money to clear a misunderstanding with the police in Paris. There were the expenses for Mother and ourselves. Joseph Montrose had asked him to reimburse certain extra sums that he had been obliged to pay out for Pauline and Phyllis during the establishment of their home in the garçonnière, and which Grandmother Morgan had so far refused to pay on account of the situation in the U.S.A. More than that, Uncle Philip had written him a private letter asking for money. He had gone to Brittany and was stranded there with his girl, Dora. Moreover, Dora was pregnant and had to come to Paris to see a midwife. Solander wrote:

  Philip asked me not to mention this to you as he is afraid you will scold him, and I am only mentioning it so that you will realize it is almost physically impossible for me to visit you, much as I should like to do so, my dear Mathilde. You know, also, that I must live, and I live quite poorly. I am thinking what I can do to cut down my expenses, which have mounted incredibly, and in ways no one could have foreseen. It almost seems as if everyone who had nothing to do in the U.S.A. has come here and put himself on my payroll. And what do I get out of it? Very little! I haven’t been to the movies in ever so long. I assure you I am wearing an old hat that someone in the office gave me. Don’t think I am complaining. I just want you to know since you are still getting a large part of my salary, and we still have the children to look after (that is, I am your husband), that I am hard pressed, and I don’t want you to write me a letter of blame.

  My mother reread this letter many times, and let others read it. She was happy because he spoke of their relation, husband and wife, and because Solander had so much money to pay out. She foresaw that he would soon be so harassed that he would have to pack off most of his dependents and partial dependents to the U.S.A. and would have to return to us in order to make both ends meet. She wrote him a serious, short, friendly, and tender letter which she also read to Pauline (now become her confidante), in which she asked him not to worry, told him what economies we made. We were very badly dressed and quite a disgrace at school, and she herself was ashamed to sit in a café because no one believed she was an American, but a Frenchwoman, with her restricted wardrobe, and also she was the victim of improper advances; she begged him to send his mother and Lily Spontini back home. What were they doing in London? They could not enjoy Europe! She also asked him to send a check to Philip and Dora Dunn so that they could return to Paris. As soon as they did, she would ask Pauline to look after Dora Dunn and she would speak to Philip. But she felt my father himself ought to come to Paris to straighten out all this; that the money so spent would be a saving in the end. She asked my father if his trip abroad had really been worth while, for here he was saddled with these parasites, of which she admitted she herself was one; but what could a married woman do under this system? Perhaps under socialism she would not be such a burden, a ne’er-do-well, a failure and a parasite. Perhaps the best thing was for them all to return, together, or severally, to the U.S.A. However bad things were there now, she had heard that you could get an apartment for nothing, and that the landlord would paint and redecorate, even without rent, because he feared to have no tenants at all; and he was willing to wait for the rent till things should pick up.

  Looked at in one way this is a bargain for us; we need little; and perhaps now you have suffered so much you have got over your obsession. At any rate, I insist upon your coming to Paris. There is much to talk over. And if you think of me at all, and I suppose you must, you owe it to me, Sol. I am so uncomfortable here. I have no one to turn to and am in the midst of all this uncertainty. I am most uncomfortable in the quarters in which I am now living. I never was any good at managing the children, who need a man, especially now, and especially Letty who is beginning to know things and realizes that her own father has abandoned her. She will probably always have a sense of inferiority about men, not only because I am such a failure and can’t teach her anything, but because her Grandmother is so showy, and so Letty would tend to retreat. Also, of course, because she will say to herself that she has been abandoned by her own father. You know how the father-image is the first manimage in a girl’s life. I don’t know what effect this will have on the children.

  In a P.S. my mother said that I was sick and needed special care; that French dentists were notoriously bad, and she had heard from her mother, Grandmother Morgan, that a dentist in New York related to the family, would treat my teeth; that is to say, put on braces and look after me in a visit once a month at only one hundred dollars a month.

  Since the child is in a sense an abandoned child, I feel we ought to do all we can to improve her health and physical appearance, as well as to educate her properly so that
she will not have too much feeling of inferiority. I realize I have lost out. But I am a mother, and must think of my children’s health and I think you should too. You cannot be so obsessed with your personal happiness that you have not a moment for your children.

  This was the essence of the letter that my poor mother wrote with much pen-nibbling, and many tears and much feminine advice, to my father. It happened that my mother was at a disadvantage all this time. She was acting almost alone, for she had only the advice of Phyllis, who did not care, and Pauline, who was always in a hurry. Meanwhile, these two girls and my Uncle Philip were writing to my father, sponging on him, usually with no mention at all of my mother or us. Yet what was their relation to him except through us?

  About this time my father had an opportunity to come to Paris to work with a correspondent of J. Montrose in the international shipping business for a certain time; and he came in order to save the trips backward and forward, and to see us more. For my mother, being ill at ease, had put us both to board in a pension with an aging French woman named Gouraud, a peasant, who was very saving and very exacting. From her we learned French, manners, and in her house we became slim and neat. This was a good thing at a time when I was growing into a bouncing, successful girl, with a figure like a barrel. Pauline used to pay me a visit twice a week and became a great friend of Mme. Gouraud. She learned at once all the French recipes. Pauline had been brought up in a convent in Canada. She was an excellent housewife, not only according to French ideas, but because she was naturally so. Mme. Gouraud, when Pauline was in the house, brought to her our stockings, pinafores, and dresses. Pauline mended them, embroidered them, made new cuts in old dresses so that Jacky and I were now quite in the fashion, although poor in clothes. This was a thing my poor mother was unable to do and Mother often left Pauline as her deputy in all these things. If we were sick, Mother came, naturally, but, feeling herself to be such a failure, she thought she was doing us a greater service by putting us in more competent hands. Pauline spoke excellent French and soon had a Paris accent. She improved the accent we learned from Mme. Gouraud. She insisted upon taking us out with Phyllis and my mother, and taught us all how to order things, how to eat them, and how to drink dinner wines; how to speak to waiters, to chauffeurs and attendants in theaters, and girls in shops. She gave us rules for acquaintance and friendship. She had no knowledge at all of literature or art, but knew a good deal about what was current and fashionable, and had picked up dozens of friends already in the lively arts, journalism, stage, dancing, radio, cinema, publicity, agencies, and the like. She saw our different natures at once, and characterized us:

  “Letty will be a success and is, in fact, unable to endure defeat. Jacky is a romantic and will live for a great passion even when she hasn’t one. Neither of these girls is suitable for American life, for Letty’s good looks are not dollar-beauty, and Jacky’s ideas are not dollar-talent. You would both become, down there, just ordinary neurotics, but, of course, that’s a bit of an ideal over there, isn’t it? The neurotic is fashionable.”

  The bills she ran up for our sober, decorous clothes, were sent to my father, as were the debts Pauline encouraged my mother to incur, for house linens, house silver, and the like. As my father had often said: “If I had had a real home with you, Mathilde, I would not have left you and the girls—” Pauline reasoned that my mother would be doing best for herself and us if she spent a good deal of money. My father had deposited twenty thousand francs out of his salary, to provide funds in emergencies, and to make my mother feel more secure in Paris. Pauline’s view was that he intended her to spend this for the establishment of a home. She also borrowed some for the wants of Phyllis and herself. Only my mother held back, out of timidity, “I’d look so stupid waiting there with a house full of furniture and two children and a French servant, and no man. What would the servant and the concierge think of me?”

  “My God!” said Pauline, holding her hands in a French manner. “My God! Is that what they teach you women in America?”

  “Listen, Pauline,” said my mother, “you’ve been in America. Don’t do that. I wish I were back home and had no responsibility. That’s the unfairness of it; all this responsibility with no one to help me, and everyone suspects at once what is wrong, the French are so quick.”

  She wrote some of this to my father, even about the silver and linen she was going to buy; for my mother was one of the feeble, and Pauline was gradually getting her way. My father at once wrote back to say that he was indeed moving to Paris, that he was bringing his mother to live with us, he thought, and perhaps something could be arranged, and he begged my mother to make a home for us all. He said that he could not bear the expense any more; even his personal happiness was as nothing compared with this awful burden. He added that he had sent the money to Uncle Philip and that he wanted my mother to find them a cheap lodging, and to look for a midwife who would get an abortion for the woman. “At least do this for me, Mathilde, if you have any interest in me.”

  My mother became distracted, “My Heavens! He makes conditions for returning to me. I must look after Philip’s women, and have that old woman here giving advice.”

  And she was very forthright about Philip’s behavior. He must have doubts of his sexual powers, she said, if he had to prove his charms so often to himself. He must fear he was impotent if he had to get up the bellies of so many women. However, with much grumbling, she went out and found a place for the couple, but this time, together; for, she said, she certainly would not look after the woman in her false confinement, and Solander would no doubt expect this of her; “I hate that copperheaded frow, she elbowed her way into my confidence.”

  Certainly, Dora Dunn, when she reappeared, seemed to have lost all her looks and assurance. Pale, pimply, fat and anxious, she sat on café terraces with my mother and Pauline; her blue eyes and red eyelashes were wet all the time. She said she was going to England to have her trouble or her baby. She had not made up her mind, and she did not want Philip to be forced to marry her, although he had promised to do so. She refused to go to medical friends of Pauline and left for London before my father arrived. Philip hoped every day to hear of the miscarriage and, meantime, held hands with American girls he met in the cafés. A good many of these were stranded, or had lived beyond their allowances, and expected him to help them pay their rent. One lived in the hotel in which Mother lived in the Rue St. Benoit, a reddish blonde, handsome, thin, well-dressed girl of about twenty-five who looked very prudish, the kind who is driven mad by this very look and is very raw in her ways of getting men.

  Philip was, of course, taken in by all women, and as well by this kind. He paid her month’s rent out of the money Father sent him for Dora Dunn. Mother was angry, but at length promised not to tell my father, if Philip would reform. Philip, meanwhile, was carrying on a fervent love affair by letter with Dora Dunn, whom he imagined as being in agony, spiritual and physical, through loss of her child. She wrote to him saying that she would spend a few months in England with the uncle who had brought her up, Mr. McRae, and who, she thought, was going to name her as sole heir of his business and lands in the Midlands. “The old gentleman looks older than I remember him, acts as if he already had a stroke, and I think I had better stay with the man who was more than a father to me.”

  Her writing was open, ornamented, loose, her spelling bad. Her manner was confidential to all.

  My father now paid a flying visit to Paris and stayed with my mother at the Hotel St. Benoit. Pauline, who kept Mme. Gouraud up-to-date in this affair, told her that, according to Pauline’s instructions, my mother “made every effort to show she could love him and even went too far, to such a degree that on the Monday morning Solander got up out of bed and said, Mathilde, you care nothing for me, only yourself. I must go back to London, I have business to do”; and my mother, clinging to his neck and begging him not to leave her, did not succeed in making him stay. Pauline did not speak of her own failure which I heard from my moth
er. Pauline had said, “Don’t let him see you looking such a frump, and the regulation woman with a grudge. Get a new hat and suit and silk stockings, and cross your knees high. Smoke a cigarette, order cocktails and let him see you’re a very attractive woman.”

  My mother weakly let herself be persuaded and went off to a coiffeur called Rodolphe, who had his own ideas about how to dress the hair of American women. He regarded them as flotsam among his customers, never expected to see them again, in fact, despised them as no ladies; and Mother came back looking very ordinary indeed. He had turned her into a Middle Western wife summering in Paris. Yet my mother was, as Solander said, “of all countries and ages and could as well have been a Japanese beauty or a Spaniard.”

  My mother then went to an address in the Rue St. Honore recommended by a businesslike American friend, one of the sort who fancies herself a buyer and likes to get commissions. She bought a blue suit of striped woolens, which made her slender and tall figure look fat and broad. It was not a regular French house at all, but one run only for Americans and English people. My mother did not know this, and her commission friends did not, either. At any rate, the whole thing, the coiffeur, the stockings, the shoes, the gloves, and the striped suit cost a lot of money, looked expensive, and made my mother out to be quite a different woman. We were young then; we were surprised and impressed; but we felt strange with this thickset young woman. No doubt my father felt the same. Furthermore, since he footed the bill, he made a criticism. “Why do you come to see your husband in this feather and fancy blouse? Do you think I can be brought back, Mathilde, by an expensive hat and a blouse with a frill?”

  My mother was embarrassed.

  “I’m not a lover,” said my father, “to be brought back by a new hat. That’s an idea women have, but it isn’t the kind of idea you usually have; and I think you have been listening to the usual female advice, or reading some magazines: How to Retain Your Husband’s Affection!”