To be honest with myself (a momentary and, with me, morbid pastime), I was jealous of Jacky’s progress in the arts. I proposed to leave school and take up commercial art and commercial writing, in order to plunge into life and to beat Jacky to it. She had a cheap sketchbook already full of park and subway sketches, in a manner that had begun to be her own. Some day soon, I thought, she’ll sell one of them and there’s something lucky about her, she’ll at once begin to make good. She won’t be satisfied to be a filler-in for a recognized comic-strip artist.
My parents, Mathilde and Solander, were bitterly opposed to my leaving college. Both agreed that if I did so, I had no hope of getting my grandmother’s money, until I married for good and all. I was a wastrel, a tramp, bum, ne’er-do-well, in their opinion; I received quite a trouncing on this occasion. I went back to college, sulkily, saw how I was received by the demi-virgins and the pimpled youths, and went straight back to Solander to tell him I could not stomach that society any more.
“Say what you will, Papa,” said I, “you may call me a loafer, I am, but I am not a giggling, hard-boiled virgin; and I have lived with a man, I am a woman. I have got to get out of this cookie shop they call a university. It never would suit me. I’ve met the products of this renowned bakery, and they are not as smart as I am right now; you know yourself what the general opinion is of the prof and the teacher? Donkeys, things with long ears. And what’s the end-all of their teaching, to make me like themselves? Have I got to spend four years at the university trying to educate my teachers? I’ve done enough of that at high school. I promise that if I’m left high and dry by life, and nothing else happens along that is better, I’ll go back to school at a later age; but to a decent school, mind you, not to what is called a university, jammed with adolescents, most of whom don’t even know how the sexual act is performed. For that, with work and child-getting, and mental creation, is, Papa, the chief adult activity; and believe me, they don’t know what any of those four are, not even this simple and delightful one.”
“Well, what will you do, you bum?” asked my father, laughing.
“I’ll write,” said I. “I’ll get things in the New Yorker, then I’ll write a book, and then they’ll take me in Hollywood. I’m young, I’m good-looking, and I’m smart. I can learn any technique. I’ll forge ahead there. You’ll soon see me at one thousand dollars a week.”
“Don’t take my breath away with your idealism,” said Solander, laughing heartily.
“Papa!”
“All right, you no-good. You can try it. But if you make this an excuse to be a girl about town, I’ll be after you and throw you right back to the universities. Also, remember, you have to make your living; that’s the purpose of all this, I understand.”
“Oh, Papa! I already know two men on the New Yorker! One wants to marry me but I don’t like him, poor fellow; it’s his friend I like; and he, naturally, is married, and doesn’t want to leave his wife.”
Persia laughed, saying, “I thought there was something too abstract in this proposition, but now it has come down to recognizable Lettish terms.”
I grinned sourly. Perhaps there was something true in what she said; but it was Amos and my foolish weakness for him, and my pangs of motherhood, as well as the man on the New Yorker. However, it had been the New Yorker fellow who had given me the ideas about Hollywood.
As soon as I was free of college, I asked my father for the money he would have had to spend on me, in the first quarter, to get myself established. He gave me a little of it. I then started going to Jacky’s art class. I felt I could easily beat her. Here I met her teacher, the celebrated Lucy Headlong.
32
Lucy Headlong was then a woman of about forty, lanky, handsome, with visible jointings, like an old Dutch doll, with graying bronze hair and the skin of a sundried windfall. She was dashing, with a strident voice and expensive arty clothes. She was said to have been a raving beauty as a girl; and even now, her small face, formed on a delicate regular skull (which was beginning to be visible), and her large sea-blue eyes, wonderfully shaped and set, gave her days of beauty. When I first saw her, I mentioned my father and his lively circle. She appeared to take no notice of my conversation, but carried on in the outrageously rude, almost insane manner of an acknowledged chieftain. Yet she directed her wild airs at Jacky and me. It soon became evident that she preferred us to all the others in her class. She had puzzling ways, however, that could cut you to the heart. She was capricious; and just as you fancied yourself her friend, she would swerve blithely, even blatantly, to another member of the class, male or female. I could not place her and had great distaste for her. My gentle Jacky had almost fallen in love with her. “A woman of genius!” Jacky cried joyfully. As for me, I could not help thinking of certain airs adopted in England by girls bred to the upper classes—the high-pitched brutality of voice, the elegant sweetness always at call, the selfish caprice. “She loves no one on earth,” I said to myself, “but her husband and crazy family.”
Adrian Headlong was a columnist, well known for his pure style and his empty head. He was of good social origin, harked back to some hero of our history, like old Chisholm, or the original Chicago porkpacker; and though broken by years, was still quite a figure of a man, sculptured head, long back and legs, broad shoulders, and the proud swinging arms of a gorilla. He had fierce blue eyes, and when he entered a room and stared genially, one felt a presence; “I am Sir Oracle, and when I speak, let no dog bark.” Yes, alas, there was too much of that about Adrian Headlong. Mrs. Lucy adored her husband in a highspirited way.
I soon saw that Mrs. Headlong liked to show us off to the rest of the pupils; she caused us to chatter about England, France, and our foreign schools. We were, for her, young women of her class. As she had at first been attracted to Jacky, but was irritated by Jacky’s natural coldness, I set myself to win her; and soon, with my fire, yielding charm, and verve, was able to do so. We both received an invitation to spend a long week end at Arnhem, her country place in Westchester; but as Jacky had a chance to go to the Museum of Modern Art on the Saturday with the man she still adored, Peter Varnish, she refused and I, with enthusiasm, set out from Grand Central to visit my teacher alone.
Arnhem is near Croton, and over the Fall Line marked by the Hudson. Without imagination you can see the ice age there. My father had seen me off, and at the station adjacent to Arnhem on the New York Central line I was met by Lucy Headlong, with her car.
At first you mount a long way from the river steeply up to a plateau which holds woods, clustered hillocks, a lake and a road from which slope away bare wild fields downhill on one side, with winding paths leading to hidden dwellings; and on the other are upward slopes with houses, cabins or palaces visible, sheltering behind the crest of the rise. These were declivities like parts of Normandy that I had seen as a child; and orchards which keep falling through appleloam to unseen valleys.
We were now far away from the river. Miles away, it appeared, at intervals, pushed off beyond hill bottoms and over paddocks. Now we were below the crest, in the woods on a mamelon. Now we dropped over this and came into a low country that must have once been marshy. We had come down from the high grounds on switchback roads and the houses on each side had changed in value. First, there were shacks and cottages in a town, then villas; then the houses of artists, stone farmhouses with attached studios and wooden cabins, just as surely home and studio combined. Beyond this, country houses and then the massing of trees as we proceeded toward the low grounds; behind these trees hints of great houses; and visible, in slashes, ancient natural ponds.
On an undulating road at a dangerous turn, a driveway opened and a little wooden arrow, rustic style, said—A. S. HEADLONG. A few hundred yards back we had passed one of the large ponds, nicely banked and surrounded by fine trees.
Lucy Headlong was a fast, nervous driver. She took the dangerous curve and the turn-in neatly, however, and coasted into a private park, beyond a lawn set with birches, a
turfed hill, and a Japanese garden with a rivulet and bridge, to a great house, the flagged driveway running two ways in a heart shape, toward the door. A third road ran off into the trees, to stables.
She brought the car to a stop before a side door, in a wing off-shot from the great Norman house. All around were planted thickets. The house stood on a mound which fell away steeply to lawns, tennis courts, and the pond.
“This is your place?”
“This is Arnhem,” she said very offhand. Then she laughed, “I built it!”
It was impossible to praise it. It was magnificent. We went in through the door and saw, through an arch, a great Norman hall. At the other end, windows and doors, all in glass, in steel frames, blazed out across mound and lake. White walls, beams of great size, an open roof, a fireplace, a staircase and a gallery, and long tapestries of a very dull yellow. It seemed to me that this heroes’ hall bore some living quarters on its upper deck, like cabins. The rest of my life flew past me as if I were in an express train; it went glittering past and dwindled in the distance. Joy and love sprang up in me, ambition. I had known how to deserve and win Arnhem! Now, at this moment, my real life was beginning.
Mrs. Headlong had already gone out to some domestic quarters behind a small door on another level. At that end of the gallery was a coffee room, perhaps, looking toward the birch lawn. I did not want to seem to be staring. I pulled off my gloves and went to the glass doors. When Mrs. Headlong returned, I said serenely, “Oh, how lovely your lake is in this light!”
Mrs. Headlong seemed pleased with me. She took my hand, “We’ll go swimming there tomorrow, if you like, or we can row; but it’s badly overgrown with weeds just at present, and the boys ask a dollar an hour to weed.”
We entered a corridor in which were several guest rooms of different sizes, with bathrooms. At the end of this, three doors; one, leading outside, one, to a linen closet, and the middle one opening upon a winding staircase. Mrs. Headlong smiled and took me by the arm, “This will be your room, I think. Do you like it? You can have any one. We will be all alone, for Adrian is in Boston. I had two prepared, one for you, and one for Jacky; so choose. You will be all alone in this wing, but that staircase you just discovered,” and she smiled, “leads into a dressing room, off my room.”
At this I could not restrain myself, and went off into mirthful, but respectfully enthusiastic admiration.
“Shall I show you the way? If you are restless, you have only to unbolt the door and come upstairs. The switch is here; and you can have Adrian’s room, which is off mine.”
I said, flinging myself in an armchair, “I love a big place; I was always happy at Green Acres.”
“What is Green Acres?”
I saw everything in a flash. Jacky must have met Mrs. Headlong through Solander, who probably knew Adrian Headlong. I answered negligently, “It’s a place my grandmother has in Connecticut.”
“Has she other places, too?”
“Oh, yes. One in Long Island—a small place in Florida.”
Mrs. Headlong seemed pleased. She gave me a frank smile for the first time and said, “Now, little Letty, do you want to change? We are all alone. I am tired and have invited no one for the week end; though, if you are lonely, we can visit anywhere you like. I have friends, just across the way, everywhere. We can wear slacks and sweaters. I’ve got things that would fit you, if you want other things. I’ve got seersuckers and even a land-girl costume that would fit you.”
“I don’t think it would,” I said, indicating my figure.
She did not like to be contradicted; I saw that. I looked at her with sweet appeal. She smiled slightly and said, “They are old, you needn’t bother about them. They belong to a friend of mine. My friends leave their old things here, so they can pop out for the week end, if I’m having a quiet time.”
She then showed me my bathroom, next door to the bedroom: a room in green tiles, with green silk curtains, a design of water lilies. On the wall above the bath, as a splash board, was a fresco painted by herself. It was, like all her works of that kind, frank, bold, hasty, trite—girls, swans, lotuses.
“It’s so nice,” I said, naively.
This seemed to please her well, and I felt my timing was excellent that afternoon. I was like a cat on hot bricks, however; my skin prickled as in extreme heat, for I had never heard that Lucy Headlong had such a place. Why did she teach in the great tumbledown studio on Sixth Avenue? Evidently, not for the money. Her advertisement was modest, and her prices very low. Ninetythree cents took in one lesson, with model, paper, and charcoal provided. Mrs. Headlong excused herself to order dinner and speak to “Washington” she said. Washington was the gardener.
“We’ll pick our dinner tomorrow, ourselves; but now we must have what is in the kitchen.”
I sighed. I hate to pick my dinner, but rich people fancy it’s either curiously rustic—or economical. I did not risk a remark, but smiled. She left.
No one appeared for a very long time. I climbed the outside stairs to the gallery, found a summer library, a niche for table games, and then the apartment of the Headlongs; bedrooms, showers, dressing rooms, and a long sitting room, glassed in on all sides, overlooking a wood on the next rise, the tennis courts, and the boat house. This was a solitary room. One could live there and forget the world. I came downstairs by the spiral staircase.
In the dressing room I found, as indicated, the clothes Lucy Headlong wanted to lend me. I tried them on. They did, in fact, fit me, and were clean and new pressed.
Lucy Headlong seemed to me to be taking a long time. I wandered out in the Norman hall, dressed in some other woman’s outfit, a homemade dress imitating the Spanish, in yellow, white, black, red, a small design with a yellow ground. I stood in the wide, white arch and saw Lucy Headlong waiting at the fireplace on a school bench.
“Hello, there you are,” she said, cheerily waving her hand; “I’ve made drinks. Do you like Manhattans? If not, tell me what you like, and you shall have it.”
I preferred Scotch and soda, but did not say so. She had the Manhattans mixed in a large glass jug with ice floating in them. I detest this cocktail this way, but I was cheered to see about a quart of it.
“Do you expect someone?”
“No, this is for us. Didn’t you tell me you were a stout drinker?” “Oh, yes.”
She glanced at me as she busied herself with the glasses, “Yes, yes, it’s just what I thought, child. And tomorrow we’ll try the velvet slacks.”
I burst out laughing, “Papa says I look terrible in slacks.”
“Papa says? Well, perhaps you do.” She laughed. “We’ll see. But if he says so, no doubt you do. You’re very fond of Solander, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
She set her teeth together in an odd smile, quite savage. The night began to close in. I heard no sound from anywhere. I had not seen Washington, the gardener, nor any of the servants. We finished the drinks. We talked away, and Mrs. Headlong was friendly and courteous; but now a fit of embarrassment had seized me. I had been examining myself during the past hour or so, and I could not help asking, “What does she see in me? To tell the truth—I hate to do so—I’m quite an empty bladder, just a balloon full of air and dried peas, I rattle; but she’s a well-bred woman and a millionaire, it seems, not to mention having a reputation in her own right. This must all be a gross mistake. Was it Jacky she wanted? Jacky has quality; I am what I am, but no soulmate.” I sweated for half an hour.
I already foresaw the end, a dismal Monday morning, parting apologies and courtesies, the cold handclasps and the dislike on both sides. I jangled. There was a humming along my nerves. I said quite nervously, almost losing control: “Can we go out and look at the lake; look at the metallic luster?” and I continued to speak anxiously, “How primitive it looks; it’s been this way for ages I suppose, since the Ice Age; it looks like the Ice Age,” and I shivered. I went on feverishly, while she agreed with me and smiled kindly at me, “How chill it bec
omes! It’s Indian summer. How awfully, awfully still!”
She smiled, “We are alone. Don’t you like it?”
“It isn’t that. I’m not sensitive. I don’t infold at nightfall,” and laughing, I raised my eyes to hers and saw a strange, deep, beautiful look on her face. Her eyes were searching me. How good, sensitive she was. How much the grande dame! Yet, simple, industrious; trying to avoid the sloth of easy money.
I hurried on, “There’s an abnormal stillness in all this country, I’ve noticed. It is deathly. You feel the dead are round, and I don’t mean the recent dead, but, say, the Indian dead. People who died in the winter, in their tents; died of wintry hunger here. I suppose a lot died here, after all,” I said, looking around me anxiously.
The grass was, by now, almost black; the lustrous lake had turned from chemical greens and reds to olive, and now was slowly growing black.
“There are dead here,” I said.
“Minds die near here; there’s an asylum for the criminal insane near here.”
“I’d go mad stuck away from love, wouldn’t you?” I said.
A faint star showed. The sky was pale, tender. She smiled and said with consideration, “We’ll go in if you feel uneasy. You know the penitentiary is not far away; is that it? Would that make you afraid at night?”
“Oh, no!”
“Well, we will go in anyhow. Tomorrow morning, you will see it all in sunlight.”
We had dinner, a Spanish stew, on the oak table in the coffee room, to save steps for Josephine, said Mrs. Headlong. I saw Josephine now, a middle-aged, dark-haired, sober Irish woman, in the traditional cap and apron. With the stew we had a light, Spanish wine, which Mrs. Headlong got out of a cupboard herself, taking some keys from her room; we had black coffee, but no sweets.
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