Letty Fox

by Christina Stead

  Grandmother’s homespun plot came to light at length. One day I heard some strange conversation in the kitchen, and after that I observed Grandmother and her friends closely. In the first place, Grandmother was proud of her friends, but never let them meet each other. Then, though she talked of their affairs continually, she laughed at them. If they stayed away, she worried, and thought of them with greed, but once they returned to her, she satirized them. If they invited her out, she was flattered, pressed her dress and mended her gloves, but she fretted, saying, “What does she want with me; what do I want with her?” She was witty, cultivated; she saw their faults. Yet Grandmother felt humiliated if she lost any of her friends, however poor or ugly. She prepared for hours for every visit, arranging her room, running up and down to the kitchen a hundred times, muttering to herself. She was always ready too early, and sat on a chair waiting, with her hands in her lap, like a little girl in a picture, waiting for a party.

  There was an end room, built like a tower, looking over two sides of London. This was the largest of all, and my room. I stayed there quietly reading my comics and girls’ annuals.

  One day Miss Slattery came. She was a healthy, unmarried woman of about forty-five. She lived with her brother and his wife and told tales about them which irritated Grandmother, who only cared to know how many children people had, how many rooms, and how much money: wishing to know their social status, not caring about their sorrows, their cat-and-dog life. This time, Grandmother entertained in her bedroom. Tea time came, and Miss Slattery said loudly: “I’ll ask the girl to make tea for us.”

  She went to the door of the room where Persia was lying reading on the divan covered with an Indian weave, and made her request; but Persia said, “I don’t take tea, thank you.” Confused, poor Miss Slattery repeated her request, which met with the same reply. The big, ungainly woman scurried to my grandmother and told what had happened, but Grandmother, whose ears were sharp, knew already. She muttered, “Later, later! I’ll make tea. Poor thing, she’s tired.”

  They conversed in undertones. Miss Slattery said twice, “She’s lying down. She’s lying down on the divan in there!”

  Grandmother reassured her. Then I heard, “She is tired. She is tired. She works. Very hard.”

  “What at?”

  Grandmother’s pride rose. “She’s learning library work; it’s very hard. You have no idea.”

  “Really! In the evenings?”

  “In the evenings—in the daytime.”

  “Really? You give her time off? You’re kind to her!”

  “Why not? Why not? A nice young girl—”

  “Very kind!”

  “She is very clever, very clever—”

  On the way to the kitchen to get the tea, Miss Slattery paused in the open doorway (the door had been taken off long ago), and looked effusively at Persia sprawling on the divan, “I hear you’re very clever at library work, evening study. I admire that! Trying to improve oneself is always the best thing.”

  “Yes,” said Persia.

  “Do they pay well for library work?”

  “Not so very well, but it gets you a permanent position. The work takes three years or more.”

  “Oh, then you must be very clever to do that when you’re working as well.”

  Persia looked at her strangely. The old woman rattled on impertinently. She lowered her voice, “You don’t want to do some extra cleaning, do you?” she enquired, like a conspirator.

  Persia put her legs on the floor, “What do you mean?”

  “I know someone—my sister-in-law—needs someone, just for a few hours a week, and I see you have extra time. They’re easygoing.” She nodded toward the kitchen.

  Persia grinned. “I don’t intend to make extra money doing house-cleaning,” she said, and suddenly put her hands across her belly and hooted with laughter. She fell back on the divan, swiveling her eyes up at Miss Slattery. Miss Slattery seemed offended, “I just thought I’d put a little extra money in your way, and naturally—”

  Grandmother stood in the kitchen door, her ear cocked, and with a grave, crestfallen air. I burst out laughing, “Miss Slattery wants Persia to go and clean her sister’s house!”

  Miss Slattery turned an unfriendly face to me and then went with dignity toward the kitchen. She said to my grandmother, “I said, if she had time to spare. I see she has time on her hands. I was not trying to take her away from you.”

  Grandmother scolded, “She has no time for such things! She is doing library work, I told you.”

  I did not grasp it, but it was funny. The women conversed in murmurs. Miss Slattery seemed angry. Persia sat on the divan with a nasty smile which reached to her ears.

  When Miss Slattery had gone, in a bad temper, Grandmother came to the door of the dining room and began a very agreeable conversation with Persia, first praising Miss Slattery, and then laughing at the squabble in her brother’s household. I said, “Miss Slattery thinks Persia wants to go out cleaning.”

  A silence followed this. Grandmother, with a humiliated expression, ran into her room. She came back presently with a petticoat, to Persia, “Oh, my dear, you are so clever, such clever fingers. I do not know how to take up this hem—it hangs, whatever shall I do?”

  “Sew it up!”

  “But, my dear, I am old, crippled by rheumatism—”

  In the end Persia unwillingly agreed to do it for her. Miss Slattery did not return for some weeks and Grandmother worried endlessly, at last writing her a letter. But she had been away to Folkestone. She must have talked things over with her family, for this time she treated Persia with more respect, and though my grandmother tried not to leave her alone, she managed to get a moment to speak to Persia, “You have a maid in to do the work, don’t you?”

  “Once a week,” said Persia.

  “Yes,” Miss Slattery nodded; “you must have thought me stupid the other time. I didn’t realize you were the housekeeper. I think you’re very nice to her, the old lady—” she nodded again, with a smile, “a bit difficult?”

  Persia did not answer; and Miss Slattery, after hovering distractedly, went back to her friend. This time Persia walked up and down the corridor while the ladies were having their tea in the kitchen. I laughed to myself, to think what would happen when my father came home. Nothing happened. Persia said nothing I would not have been so patient, or would not have been able to bide my time, whichever it was.

  In the summer my mother came back to England with our newborn baby sister, and visited us, as she had said. Solander was out, but the three of us were at home. My mother came unannounced and alone. When Persia opened the door, my mother stood there looking very beautiful in a new dress and hat. She said, “I suppose you think I’m an intruder?”

  “You’re always welcome,” said Persia, and showed her in.

  Grandmother, with a pale face, came running, quite out of breath. I threw myself into my mother’s arms. We all three went and sat in the kitchen, Grandmother’s reception room, and Persia went off as usual, to her books. There were long conversations that evening, in which Persia took no part. She behaved as if nothing had happened. I was taken away that night to stay with my mother, and saw my little sister Andrea. I thought the baby was delicious. I thought my father would be sure to love her. I held her in my arms for hours; oh, a little baby in my family! I chuckled with happiness.

  But it turned out that Dora Morgan had come to London with Mathilde and proposed to go back to the United States at the end of the summer with my mother, if she went alone. Dora Morgan was again with child; Philip Morgan was again unfaithful. The intrigues began again, but this time I listened to their plots with a certain reserve. I was anxious to keep Andrea with me in London, if possible; Dora Morgan helped me at first by getting up a household with Mathilde and the baby Andrea.

  Dora Morgan had persuaded Joseph Montrose to give her money for the trip, on the promise that she would bring Phyllis with her. Phyllis was dissatisfied with her young husband,
a poor money-maker. But Phyllis, since tempted by a new prospect in the matrimonial market, had not sailed. To my indignation, my father provided the money for us, and went off to Scotland with Persia. Yes, he was selfish. Mother and I took the baby to see Grandmother frequently. The cat was out of the bag; but Mother ignored the cat. She pretended to us that Persia did not exist. Grandmother was not left alone, for Edie, the girl who worked at “Swan and Goose,” went to sleep in the apartment at night and was promised a fine present when the wandering couple returned.

  Joseph Montrose, Pauline, all the old crowd visited my mother and me, and one day Montrose brought with him a young nephew of his who had just started to practice medicine. He declared that Mathilde needed medical care, and at once. With the help of everyone, my mother sat down to write a fatal letter to my father. He had said he would return at the end of a week, but this was a lie, he too was feeble. Everyone was feeble. My mother sent four closewritten pages. The words were more Dora’s than hers, and she, on Dora’s advice, addressed it to Persia. It said, “You cannot kill me as you tried to kill my child,” and so on. We thought it very dramatic and expected this letter to do the trick.

  Persia and Solander did not return for two months. Later I found out from this Edie what had happened. With Grandmother running anxiously up and down the corridor (she, of course, knew all about the letter), Persia read the letter, gave it to my father, who read it, handed it back, and looked to the young girl, waiting for his future to be pronounced, so to speak. Persia took the letter without a word and enclosed it in her hairpin drawer. After a long silence, my father said, “You must answer her.”

  “Why?” asked Persia. “I don’t answer letters.”

  Later in the day my grandmother heard her ridiculing Mathilde in an airy way. “She says, one who gives life is sacred—well, well, so every hen and sow is sacred.” She laughed. My father agreed, “Of course, it’s a ridiculous way of talking. You, too, could have had a child by this, but you stood by me.”

  Apparently Persia said not a word about his having betrayed her with Mathilde, during Mathilde’s stay in Paris. She only laughed, “Children, ha-ha. We can all have one once a month. How can they be sacred? Plums aren’t sacred to the plumtree.”

  We all waited for some time; no one had doubted the outcome. This was Mother’s last card. It was all quite hopeless. She had lost. My mother, desperate, sent a message to Persia that she would shoot her. Persia sent back, “Tell her I will shoot her too!”

  “Did you tell her you would go back to the United States with her?” asked Persia.

  “Yes,” said my father dispiritedly.

  “Well,” said the girl, “I know; your mother told me.” She laughed. “Never mind; it’s all over.”

  It was all over. My mother returned with Dora Morgan to the U.S.A. and took up her place in the ranks of unhappy, futureless, abandoned women. Her role was one more written out for her, slicked over, acceptable. Once this agony was over, she became quieter. She never tried to do anything again, except demand support, which also was an honest employment for women.

  Meanwhile, Dora Morgan went to Mexico to have her new baby, because her uncle, Mr. McRae, had gone there for a visit. Everyone now knew he wasn’t dead after all; but no one had seen him, or her son. McRae was an oil finder, and made a lot of money prospecting in California and Texas, very often in old and abandoned fields. He was now an old man. He had lots of nieces who expected money from him. Graduates of Sandhurst and Dartmouth were hanky-pankying with these nieces, waiting for the old man to die to see if the girls would be rich, and Mr. McRae felt a responsibility toward the girls, who were all sickly in love. Dora explained all this, and said that if she did not show herself, and her lovely child-to-be, and tell her sad story to McRae, her own dear children would be deprived of her expectations. She was a tigress mother, Dora explained. She had become one of Mrs. Morgan’s favorites. She had visited Philip’s first wife, begging her to go to work and turn back the alimony, not to jail Philip, as she threatened to do. She had been kicked down the stairs by the former wife’s lover. All manner of cruel things had happened. Now she went to Mexico, had her baby, which she named Cissie after Grandmother Morgan, and came away, leaving the baby there to nurse. She explained that since fate and society were so hard toward mothers and their young, she must be deprived of her offspring until she could make sufficient for them all to live on; Mr. McRae had found a wet nurse for little Cissie Morgan.

  She persuaded Grandmother Morgan to give her money for her business, which she started up again in Lexington Avenue, with the further help of her friends (the Gropers); and with money begged from Montrose (to whom she had promised Phyllis the very next spring at the latest), she kept the home going. Philip was said to be in misery. He had told her, when he married her to give the child a name, that each would live his own life; there would be no prison-marriage with them, modern people. To this Dora had agreed. But now she said this was nonsense. Then she had not known what marriage was, nor what motherhood was. Society was based on work, decorous living, respectable principles. Philip only worked occasionally. When a girl winked at him, he went to her. Dora found shocking, foolish, boyish letters in his pockets.

  “Eleanor, my lust for you is as great as my love! I am no different from the old days, and at the mere thought of you I can’t eat or sleep, and my …”

  Here he spoke of the sexual prodigies he would perform if he lived with her. He proposed to run off with her, “I have made a great mistake.”

  Dora had heard by now, of the four girls with the eight valises; of all the girls who had preceded her in temporary wifehood; she was righteously bitter. But after the first moments when she disliked Philip and thought of divorce, she hardened with her victory over these other women; and with her motherhood; she decided to go her own way. She’d chain him to the kitchen table before she let him go to his fancy women.

  “What he wants from them, I can give him, and he must give me, and the children that come of it he must work for. The law allows me and the law forces him—he married me.”

  My mother loathed her, and yet thought of her with wonder; “a terrible woman,” said she.

  Grandmother Morgan said, “Poor woman; Philip is not all that he should be, and she knows how to manage him, which is more than I can say for the others. She’s a good business woman.”

  I went for about three months to an expensive private school in Devonshire, the one I had pestered my father about. We had scientists, writers, philosophers of standing to teach us, and there was no odor of the schoolroom in it. We lived in “life,” in the laboratory, in the theater, and in the private life of adults. There was not only a sense of free love, but much ethics of a free, liberal, idealist sort in the school. The owner of the school carried on the ideals of Shelley and Wollstonecraft when it came to love and married life, and the teachers were young, gifted, austere, and fond of youth. There were few pupils; they were of both sexes, and as I was now reaching puberty, I knew a different world. We talked about love and the marriages, free love and legally recognized, of our teachers. We fell in love with each other, and lay on the beds or lawns in pairs, miming a full adult life yet far away from us.

  In accordance with the English tradition, we were supposed to experiment in all things, write, dramatize; in all ways, create. As I was experienced at this, I did very well, but no better than many of the others. They were mostly children of divorce, or of separation, or of free-love unions; there were some by-blows of celebrated persons. The school teemed with talent, with a devil-may-care insolence and gaiety, intelligence, and youthful, timely maturity which was different from anything else in my life; from either the wildness of middle-class American private schools, with the senseless union of “co-operation” and “lack of inhibition”; or the routine pressure of French schools.

  In one year I had almost forgotten my sisters and only thought of Mathilde in connection with the man question. This made her interesting. I no longer believe
d in Aunt Dora’s principles. Sometimes I thought I would never see Jacky again, and sometimes I hoped I would not, for Jacky had changed very much. She had become a new personality. I feared her. I had lost my one subject. In my school all were carefree, haughty, spoiled, self-indulgent, ambitious, and yet uncertain of their future. Yet we were happy. We didn’t feel our age, or any problems. The children lived in an intelligent, open community, with a touch of luxury, a Utopia which severed us from the community. We were aristocrats. In the small town near by, people drove trades or belonged to the working-classes. We were above everyone in the world, including our parents. We were the creators, also the critics, we learned that creators, critics alone may be.

  I wrote a play which was performed. This was ignorantly Rabelaisian and was, in a nutshell, the vision of the medieval church held by Protestant youth; its name Muns and Nuncs. This, a pageant in verse, my first, began with the Muns groaning in their solitude, followed by the joyful announcement of the Primus and Secundus that the Abbess was approaching with her Nuncs, for a long visit. Followed a cheerful scene of the Muns furbishing up the old place, the entry of the Nuncs, and some indecorous scenes of feasting. It ended with the gay clerics pairing off, rounding the great hall and mounting the staircase; finally, the farewell to the Nuncs, with some of their offspring. The Muns kept the boys, the Nuncs went home with the girls.

  This was not ill-intentioned. It was supposed to be libelous, outrageous, shocking, but not insulting. We all believed that this was how things were, more or less, conducted in, say, Chaucerian times, and that this was how, at least in part, the ecclesiastical houses were recruited, with bastards, rips, superfluous heirs, and unmarried women; and that men like Erasmus sprang from such loins. A Rabelaisian time, my masters! But such was the adult world to us— every day of the week.

  18

  Solander expected much from me. He already happily arranged, in his head, a marriage between me and a young duke at the school, who was only one year older than myself. I fell in love with this duke; we made young, ribald love; and for a year or two after leaving, I wanted to go back, as I really dreamed of marrying him, for he was the boy of highest rank at the school. Every girl there had this dream.