Letty Fox

by Christina Stead

  It’s late. Excuse the heart-throbs. Write me a letter and I’ll be very pleased. It’s frightful here. Have a good time.

  JACKY F.

  Tear up this scrawl! I am not writing for posterity right at this minute.

  31

  I had too much to do to write to Jacky; none of my affairs could be written to anyone. I arrived in town at the end of August, knowing what the first feelings of motherhood were. There was no doubt about it. My friend Amos took it very calmly; and on my asking for it, gave me money to come to town and make certain arrangements; but he said he was too poor, that he was obliged to pay for his wife’s divorce and a previous alimony and that I must return the money. He knew, of course, that I had my grandmother’s money. (I told everyone!) My poor mother would certainly have lectured me bitterly about my wasted life and many follies, and her weak and tender nature would have suffered intensely from this misadventure. There was the fact, too, that I deceived her about Clays and then about Amos. I therefore came to Solander, who put me with a friend of his, and in every respect was cordial, cheerful.

  I found letters from Madrid awaiting me, and at the very same time I had in my body the child of another man, the only man I had really loved, to speak the truth, up till then; I did not want to lose the child, but I did not want to marry its father. I was not afraid of my future. My parents were kind, and I had money of my own. I had determined to have done with school, and if I had been very strong about it, I could have had this baby. I am too slothful by nature and never can buck public opinion; or rather, never can do anything eccentric. It was odd to feel myself not really myself, for I had at once changed completely in nature and felt superb, wonderful. When anyone spoke to me, I swung like a big bronze gong, it seemed to me, and rang triumphantly as if the person had struck my rim and an immense joyful sound like a shout of laughter came inside; and it wasn’t that I, only, heard it.

  I met my old pal, Bobby Thompson, in Topps’, Fourteenth Street, while I was trying to make up my mind about my and the baby’s future; and he said, “Well, Letty, you’ve changed completely, you’re just kibitzing me, you’re razzing me, I’ve never seen you like this, I’d like to see you like this all the time, you’re absolutely tops this way.” He went on to say it must be my summer; and I fancied, then, he must have heard something. However, I knew it was not the summer, but Amos’s child. It was the triumph of life. I didn’t merely live; I rang and rang; and I had almost no feeling for the man who was the cause of it. Naturally, no one wanted me to have this child. At bottom, I knew it would be a folly; and I had plenty on my score.

  The day I was operated upon, I received a letter from Amos, as follows:

  DEAR KID,

  Your Ma-ma! Ma-ma! has me worried! She sent this enclosed letter which I opened, and I sent her a telegram taking your name in vane. I hope she will let it rest there. In any case, you had better ship a letter out here for me to send to her from camp. I will not be able to hold the fort endifinitely. Life here is as usual, except for your sad absence, for which they try to console me but cannot. Sleeping (alone) (!) disagrees with me. I was ill yesterday. Tell me about what has happened to you. Have you had enough of this dump? There is nothing to write about from here. Charley and Bob say send you their love. (Platonic, of course.)

  AFFTELY, AMOS.

  A day later. Nels Belles, I forgot to mail this. Just got your letter. Will write later.

  A little later, I was in a different mood; and so weak as to cry when I saw little children on the streets. It was too bad; and I even regretted “my child.” I was anxious about Amos, of whom I thought persistently. I thought of him as lonely, sick; and fancied he was worried about me. After a week or two he wrote me another letter.

  DEAR KID,

  I’m glad everything’s O.K. by you. Here, not so good. I am very lonely and have been ill again. I was in bed three days with temp. 104 and missed your cooling hand. I thought you were coming back here. What happened? Same old routine here; and I don’t like being Kissless Amos; am not used to it. This is not a threat but the flesh is weak. About you I have fleshly pangs of course; and spiritual ones. I don’t like to get people into trouble; it ways on me. I have some very bad moments which I know you know about me. I wish we could get together now—tonight (!). My experience with women has not been happy and you understood me very well for the kid you are. You sent me a sweet letter—considering—considering what (!)? Better not say, eh? You will always be a dear comrade to me, even if you decide not to come back. Make up your own mind. Don’t feel badly. You had me, that is something. If I have enriched your life, let me know and I will not feel so bad; I think this was some sort of a real expearience for you. I am still not well and these things way on me. I have not a cent; and it has been only half a summer, you know why. You went away. I don’t want to mention such a thing, but I am badly in need of d-o-u-g-h, and if you did not use all that, please send me the remainder, and when you can of course—but I’ll try to make out till you can get all. Did you let your Papa and Ma-ma! into the secret in a young girl’s life? Now it’s all over, can tell? Tell Papa you had to borrow that money from someone. I seem to harp on it, you know it isn’t so. Write to me. I don’t sleep well, thinking about things.

  YOUR COMRADE, AMOS.

  This letter upset me. I thought it reflected a genuine distress of spirit—which perhaps it did, in Amos’s own way. I wrote a sympathetic answer saying I would get the money as soon as I could; but I thought it a bit injudicious to ask Papa for it right away as he would naturally think Amos ought to be concerned. I said, “Why don’t you come back to New York early so we can talk things over?”

  Amos at once wrote an even longer and more pathetic letter about his troubles and his poverty; and as I have, of course, alas, a remarkably kind and undignified soul, which knows few such notions as “pride, dignity, woman’s rights, resentment, righteous indignation,” I squashed whatever faint hints of such feelings I might have felt and was all for flying back, with whatever money I could scrape up, to console the inconsolable one. What prompted me, above all, to do this was the odd behavior of some boys and girls who were starting at the university that year with me, and whom I had already met in the streets. A lot of them had not been away at all. Their attitude to me had changed. The girls glittered toward me and had that sorority air; the boys were inexpressibly amiable and made improper advances. It did not occur to me that the grapevine telegraph might have been at work, or that Amos had betrayed me in a casual way; I had yet to learn that men always broadcast their conquests, and I walked in the oldest feminine illusion in the world, that men love, as naive women do, those whom they have met in the flesh.

  My most persistent admirer now was Bobby Thompson, who had reached his full height, about five feet ten, and was dark, pale, arrogant, nursing a small mustache, and was well-dressed, with fine, pathetic, yet ironic eyes. We talked about the value of college to people of our experience; should I keep on at college? Should he? But his father and uncles were doctors and he would be helped by them. Later on, when the young physician has so much difficulty, in the matter of setting up an office and in the getting of modern instruments, and pleasant, well-trained, pretty young nurses, his family could help him. Yes, college was dull but it was the way out: Bobby and I had known each other since play-school days; we had known each other’s riot, since Grandmother Morgan’s famous New Year’s party. We lived in the same circle, talked the same music, art, books—we ran in the same pack; within a few weeks, he had come with me to my father’s and my mother’s houses, and it was the old boy-meets-girl, as far as most of my friends and relatives were concerned. However, at college, where he was quite the cafeteriaking, the girls only laughed unpleasantly when we went by, talking eagerly, and all these sidelong sneers and snide sotto voces which came my way so needled me that I made a serious attempt to make Bobby mine. He was pleased at first, for he thought I would fall to him easily, after the summer-school episode. I had suffered great pain
when getting rid of my baby and intended not to risk that again; so I was more careful than I ever had been; and Bobby, putting it down, naturally, to coquetry or to the failure of his charm, made more vigorous attempts to get me to bed than he had supposed was necessary. Even when he left me alone for a few days, I did not get into a fever as I might have done, because I had other things to worry me. Amos was now back at college, but was short of cash. His previous wives and the present one were manhandling him for their allowances, lawyers were writing him letters, and the poor fellow was greatly in need of the money I owed him. I did write saying that he must wait some time for the full amount, and my natural weakness betrayed me to this extent, that I said in one letter: “You see I cannot tell anyone it is you I owe this money, Amos, since there are so many old-fashioned people who would think it so shabby—” but I am glad to think that this was all I said to Amos about the money. Amos wrote back quite a desperate, a whining letter, in which he said he had a chance to spend the week end in New York and that if I did not get the money, he must ask my mother if it could not be paid back. He wrote:

  I am so despirited and despirate that I cannot see my way clear to letting you have that money, Letty; I know we were good friends, but your people have the money and it keeps me awake at night thinking they have it and I need it. You know, I can put it to them this way, which will protect both of us, I can say, I do not know what that money was for; I lent it to you because we were such good friends, but now I am simply despirate and must have it back. I have three women on my neck. I am sorry I ever got myself into this mess; women talk about love and they do not mean it, they only wish to harress you. I will lose my position if they start to come to the Chairman of my Department which is what one of them threttens to do. You were always so understanding, so sweet for a kid and it was because you were such a kid I felt a kind of responsibility and I lent you the dough; but if you could see me now, the way I am, you would try to get that money. I am coming to New York the week end after this, can you have it by then. What about that dough your grandmother left you? If I had not known about that I would have known I could not get that dough back. I am in an awful jam. I will telephone you, at your mother’s place. Think of a good place to meet. Or will I pick you up at Columbia?

  AS EVER, AMOS.

  I suppose there was no reason now why poor Mother could not have known about my misadventure, but it was an accepted thing that she did not; and one lives so often and so curiously by accepted things. Again, I had sympathy for Amos, although I knew by now that he had not a strong character; and even the way he spelled “despirited” was so like him, brought him so much to mind, that I had not the heart to expose his weakness to my parents. But I was very pushed to think where I could get two hundred dollars. There was another reason with these—actually, by the kind offices of Solander’s friend, the whole wretched affair had only cost me one hundred dollars and I had used the other one hundred dollars partly to pay off a long outstanding bill at a city department store and partly for a fine suit of black marocain, which had set me back forty-five dollars. Whenever I had to explain such miraculous appearances in my wardrobe, it was easy to say I had the suit from Grandmother Morgan or Aunt Phyllis, both generous spendthrifts who would not give me away, in any case. My heart troubled me and I wished I could sell the suit. I telephoned Aunt Phyllis, but she, naturally, had several closets bulging with things she was waiting to discard and only wanted the very latest in clothes; she would not be seen wearing a suit that cost only forty-five dollars. She haunted a circle which knew accurately the price and origin of every suit and dress in town. I had a typewriter, and offered to do some typing for some of the boys; but they showed by their behavior, if not in words, that they expected me to be paid enough by their kisses, or more. When at last Amos came to town, and we met in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria, where we thought we would be safe from my family, and I sat down next to him at the table, with that strange feeling of middle-age and custom and tranquillity which came from our having started a child together, I felt my heart beat hard; for I supposed what I felt were wifely feelings and I was really afraid of what he would say when he found I had only amassed ten dollars for him. These I silently pushed over to him, across the round table. He took them up, stared and looked quite wrung; he said, “What am I to do? I came to New York for the two hundred dollars: I have wasted my fare.”

  “I have no money,” I said, bursting into tears.

  “We’ll have to take it up with Ma-ma,” he said gloomily; “she gets plenty of allowance from your father for you four; I know what divorced women get, and it goes up when the girls are going to college; she can spare it, probably, out of the next two months’ allowance.”

  “I suppose you think she’ll use every ounce of energy getting the cash for your ex-wives,” said I, wiping my eyes.

  “Is it my fault?” he asked gloomily. “Besides, I’ll put it this way to Mamma. I knew about the baby but couldn’t be sure it was mine; only, out of gallantry, I lent you the dough anyhow; I’ll say that. Besides—who really knows? Eh?”

  “You’re so cheesy,” I said, my heart sinking into my boots, not on account of the forthcoming interview, but because men seemed to me, at that moment, a cruel illusion. I had not only been loyal, but had confessed my girlish follies to him in loving nights with him.

  “I don’t mean you were unfaithful. I mean, it’s the best way out, to say we’ve been living in free love—then no one can get mad with no one. See? Isn’t that the best way, honey,” he asked me. “What can we do otherwise?” We talked it over for a long time. I went to his hotel room with him, for I could not at that moment resist him, and I fell once more, which made it quite impossible for me to argue against him. He, at last, went away with my ten dollars, saying that I must do the best I could. Some anger stirred me and I wrote him a letter that very night, saying that I could not understand his claim, for I had resolved to drag the whole thing out into the glare of family publicity, in order to get, out of pity, those dollars that he demanded; but he only wrote back coldly, saying that I was well known as a “party” girl and that he had no means of knowing the child was his. Nevertheless, in all this, I did not dare go to Solander, to expose what kind of man I had fallen in love with; and this shameful correspondence went on for months. At length, he did not answer one of my letters, and there for some time the matter rested. I was so sweet and yet chaste with Bobby Thompson all this time, that he became rather fond of me; we were always together. I, unfortunately, finding him so kind, fell in love with him; I needed a comforter of my own age so badly. To him, I would not have to explain my way of life, nor the way my studies were falling behind, nor my debts, nor anything.

  We all had them—the loves, the debts, the agonies: it was so wonderful to just walk with him in the dark, or sit with him in a drug store, or sit in the park, under the trees, and talk pompously or fliply and yet know we had the same troubles weighing us down. Dear Bobby! I longed to be married and in a safe harbor as some of my girl friends were. I felt, it is not far off, this year I will get married, too. Approaching marriage, as I thought, I felt as if I were approaching a splendid great white woman, blushing with youth, I felt quite warm with pleasure. Oh, to be married and understand what life was about; how magical, I thought.

  Bobby persuaded me that it would be better for me not to go on in college but to look about for a job. He said I’d get nothing more out of college. He really understood me, and he had no illusions about the academic game. What should I do though? I had to have some project before I dumped this idea in Solander’s lap. Should I start off in writing? I returned to my idea of the Whodunit; and inspired by another book (Verdict of Twelve by Raymond Postgate), I decided to write one called The Twelve Uncaught. Looking back on my secret life, I became troubled, wondered what kind of secrets everyone conceals. Everyone of the Twelve, I thought, in every jury, perhaps has an actual crime, or more than one, on Heaven’s true account. Has everyone? Has a good, laughing man
like my father? It seems impossible. And poor Mathilde? She cannot have committed a crime! But didn’t she steal Solander from her sister Stella? That is what Stella says; and perhaps it is true. These were terrible thoughts and I began to feel I was penetrating life’s heart of darkness. I did not see it like Edwige Lantar, my wicked young cousin, as Satan’s invisible world made visible. No, this life was flesh of my flesh, I knew; I was wicked just as other people were wicked, not more nor less. But what depths and flaws, even what a chaos in me, I now seemed to see! Life was a heavily smoked glass through which to look at the sun. But I never had any dreams of sainthood; I just felt, it was hard to be a model of virtue, in the lovely world of the flesh and the devil, which was, to me, the only true aspect of the world. I know my sister had a different view. But I could not accept it; and even now, when I am nearly twenty-five, the age of inevitable maturity, I cannot accept any view of the world but my own. The others seem disagreeably primitive to me, tentacular, feeble, like something Mesozoic, or H. G. Wellsian—he was much affected by the ancient emanations of the mud banks of the Thames!

  This book, Verdict of Twelve, I regard as a clue in getting through my labyrinth, for it was given to Jacky by her Prince at Santa Fe, and in it she had drawn a profile of one of her distinguished friends, a remarkable woman no doubt, a poet and painter, who had an adobe palace at Santa Fe and in New York had a studio on Sixth Avenue, where she gave art classes which Jacky attended at night and on Saturdays. Jacky at this time was working as hard as I had ever worked, but only at painting and at literature. She had not my effervescence, but went in stern pursuit of her hobby. She had become more caustic and spoiled in her ways than ever I was. Were we both spoiled brats, or is everyone like that? I suppose parents like it. I’d let my youngsters knock things to pieces if I thought it showed the tumult of invention.