I saw Bill’s head turn toward her quickly, and then he laughed.
I was thinking about Marvin Myles. She would be going back on the midnight and I was wondering too, for almost the first time, where we would go from here.
It must have been on Tuesday evening—or close to Tuesday evening—that the telephone rang. Mary and I were having coffee in the parlor after dinner and Hugh came in to say that it was Miss Motford who wanted to speak to Miss Mary.
“What did Kay want?” I asked when Mary came back.
“She wanted Bill’s address,” Mary answered.
“It’s funny she didn’t ask me for it,” I said. “I wonder what she wants it for.”
“She said she’d promised to send him the title of a book that she couldn’t remember,” Mary said.
“That’s funny,” I said. “I didn’t know that Kay read much,” but it all seemed dull. Everything was very dull after Marvin and Bill had gone.
It must have been about Friday when Joe called up and said he wanted to see me about something. I told him to come around to the house and we would have a cocktail. When he got there he said he wanted to see me alone, so of course we went up to the library. I could tell right away that Joe was in trouble. He sat down and rubbed his hands together and lighted a cigarette and threw it into the fire.
“Listen, I’ve got to talk to somebody,” he said, “and you’re my best friend. I think I’m going crazy. Do you know what’s happened?”
“No,” I said.
Joe got up and walked to the window.
“I don’t know how to tell you—I didn’t know these things happened. Kay’s broken her engagement.”
“What?” I said.
“You heard me. She’s broken her engagement. It happened yesterday.”
“You mean, you had a fight about something?” I asked.
“No,” Joe answered. “She just said she began to realize I couldn’t give her the things she wanted.”
“But what does she want?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Joe said, “what anybody wants. I was just thinking everything was all right. You don’t suppose—something just came into my mind—it couldn’t be anything about Bill King?”
“Bill King?” I said. “Why, Kay hardly knows him.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “that’s right and what would anybody see in Bill King? I know he’s a friend of yours, but frankly I’ve always thought that Bill is just a long, cold drink of water.”
“Just get that out of your head about Bill King,” I said, and then I told him how much better it was if Kay really felt that way to have it all called off. I told him that it showed a good deal of courage on Kay’s part. It wasn’t anyone’s fault if two people did not get on and it was better to know it then instead of later.
“Some day you’ll be glad of it,” I said. “You get over these things, Joe. Some day you’ll find someone else.”
I was just repeating what I had heard other people say. The queer thing is that what other people say is so often true, or partly true. If you are young, they say, sooner or later you get over it. They don’t say that everything hurts more when you are young. I like to think of that when I hear people talk about lost youth. I am glad that I am through with it and won’t be young again.
I never realized that I would say to myself all the things that I had said to Joe and that I would know exactly how they must have sounded to him. When you give advice and consolation it very seldom occurs to you that it may come back to you some day, mockingly, like an echo.
“You’re going to stay here,” Marvin had said.
I could catch the exact inflection of her voice, again and again, after she was gone. It might have been easier for us both if Marvin had never mentioned it, easier but not any better.
I always like to go over the rest of it quickly, to put it out of my mind, even now, or to scurry around it when it comes up. I feel toward all the rest of it as you sometimes do when you have made a tactless remark or have behaved outrageously in public. You say to yourself afterwards that you have exaggerated the effect, that it was not really as bad as you thought it was. Yet all the time you know that you are only fooling yourself. Nothing that has ever happened to me was ever worse than what happened with Marvin Myles.
I knew when she went away that I wanted to have her always. That was why I went to see her in New York—because I wanted to have her always.
When I called her up after all the times I had thought of calling, I was afraid that she might be away somewhere, until I heard her voice. I sat in the library with the door closed, and I thought while I was waiting that it might have been better if I had made the call from the Smith and Wilding office, in case Hugh might be listening on the extension downstairs, and then I realized that I did not care who might be listening, that it made no difference any longer.
“Marvin,” I said, “is that you?”
“Who did you think it was?” she asked. “Harry, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s awfully cold here. The thermometer is down to twenty.”
I heard her laugh and then she said, “You’d better put on that sweater, even if it itches.”
“Marvin,” I said, “how are you?”
“I’m bearing up.”
“Marvin, I want to see you.”
“Then pack your bag,” she said. “Come on right away.”
“I am,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the office this afternoon.”
There was a silence long enough so that I thought she was off the wire.
“Hello,” I said.
“Harry,” she said, and stopped.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Never mind,” she said. “Hurry, won’t you? Harry—”
“What?”
“How’s Hugh?” she asked.
I could not understand why she asked about him until I remembered that she always did.
“Hugh’s all right,” I said.
“Darling,” Marvin said, “don’t forget to rinse the glasses.”
People who live there keep saying that the great thing about New York is that you can do anything you like there and no one cares. I once told Bill King, when he made that remark, that you could carry the argument further, that no one cared whether you were there or not. When I went back home after having been away for a long while, everything was waiting for me just as though I had not been away, but when I came back to New York nothing had waited.
When I stepped out of the elevator the girl at Bullard’s seemed puzzled for a second. She seemed to be thumbing backward through the catalogue of her mind before she retrieved my face from among others she had thrown into the discard.
“Why, hello, Mr. Pulham,” she said. “Where are you working now?”
Her manner told me that I was through, through with it all for good. I was nothing but an uninteresting stranger.
“Go right in,” she said.
I walked in past the media department and past the closed door of Mr. Bullard’s office. It was as though I had been away for years and years. I seemed to have forgotten most of it already, the way you forget an illness and all its details, when you have returned to health.
Back in that room where I used to work Bill was sitting at his desk, looking at some layouts of suspenders, but Marvin was not there. Bill got up and we shook hands, but I could see that he was thinking of something else.
“Where’s Marvin?” I asked.
“Out,” Bill said. “She left a note. Sit down and don’t talk for a minute.” I sat down at Marvin’s desk and picked up an envelope and Bill began pacing up and down behind me.
Come up to the apartment, darling [she had written]. The butler will let you in. It’s nicer than the office.
Bill was still pacing up and down behind me.
“Swansdown—Ocean Breeze. It’s got to be virile—Flyweight—Seafoam.… Wait a minute,” he said. “What’s the name of that club you were in at Harvard?”
“The Zephyr Club,” I said.
“That’s it,” said Bill. “There you are. The Zephyr Brace—as chafeless on the shoulders as a summer breeze. That’s all right now. How are you, boy?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“What are you doing for dinner?”
“I guess I’ll have dinner with Marvin,” I said.
He was just asking. He knew that I would want to see her.
“All right,” Bill said. “They’re running me ragged here. I’ve got to see Bullard. Call me up tomorrow.”
“All right,” I said, and I picked up my hat.
“Wait a minute,” Bill called. “Have you seen Kay Motford?”
“Oh, I forgot,” I said. “Kay and Joe—that’s all over.”
“What?”
For a second he looked completely blank.
“Joe told me,” I said, “but it isn’t any secret. Kay broke it off.”
I thought that Bill looked worried, but it was only for a second.
“Now, what did she do that for?” Bill asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess they didn’t get along.”
“But what did she say to Joe?”
“She just said it wouldn’t work,” I told him.
Bill drew a deep breath and smiled.
“Oh,” he said, “so that’s all?”
“Of course that’s all,” I said. “What else should there be?”
I was not much interested. I wanted to see Marvin Myles.
“Nothing,” Bill said, “nothing. I guess it’s just as well. Call me up tomorrow, will you?”
He had turned away already and was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at his desk. Bill always hated to be interrupted when he was in the middle of an idea.
Her dress was new, though I can not recall a single detail of it. Marvin was always more important than her clothes. There was a book on the couch where she had been sitting, but I knew she had not been reading it. There was a bottle of champagne and two glasses, on the low table by the couch, standing on a little silver tray which I had never seen before. I don’t know how long it was before we said anything, because words did not make much difference as long as she was glad to see me, and everything was all right as long as she was near me.
“Let’s have some of the champagne,” she said. “I got it down at Tony’s.”
“It’s a waste,” I said. “You and I don’t need champagne. We don’t need anything.”
But there is no use going into what we said. When you are in love with someone, so much you say loses its meaning afterwards, and it always remains a secret that can not be brought back to life.
“He called the suspenders Zephyrs,” I was saying.
I worked the cork out of the bottle very carefully while she sat with her fingers on her ears, because she never did like sudden noises.
“So he’s going to call them Zephyrs,” she said. “Did you see Mr. Bullard?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, that’s all right. You can see him tomorrow.”
“No,” I said. “We’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Why, darling,” she said, “we haven’t any place to live.”
“There’ll be room,” I said, “until we find some place.”
“Where?” she asked. “In a hotel?”
I don’t know why I never saw. It all came down like the ceiling above our heads. It all came down like rain.
“Not a hotel,” I said. “There’s plenty of room at home.” I heard her catch her breath sharply; it was just as though a light went out.
“I couldn’t,” she said. “You belong to me, but I couldn’t.”
“It would only be for a little while,” I said, “until we got a house.”
Then she threw her arms around me and I could feel her trembling all over. I could hear the roar of the elevated on Third Avenue.
“Why, Marvin dear, there’s nothing to cry about,” I said, “just as long as you love me.”
“It wouldn’t work,” she said. “We only belong to each other here. You’ve got to come back to me here.”
Then before I could answer she was saying all sorts of things that hurt me. I was such a fool that I had thought that she liked it at home and instead she was saying that she hated it, that there wouldn’t be anything left of her. She was saying that I would be ruined, that I wouldn’t be the person she had known, that we would end by despising each other. She wanted me to stay here, right here, where she could take care of me, because I could never take care of myself.
“Darling, I could make you like it. If you only gave me the chance I could make you want to stay.”
I understood then that it was over, that it had always been impossible.
“I have to live where I belong,” I said.
And then we were talking again, interrupting each other. I remember how our voices rose and fell, with neither of us listening to the other, even when there was nothing left to say.
I sat up straight and rubbed the back of my hand across my forehead.
“Perhaps,” Marvin said, “it’s just as well. You took up a lot of my time.”
“You took a good deal of mine,” I said.
“Let’s not fight any more,” she said, and she kissed me, but it was just as though neither of us were there.
Then I got up and put on my coat. I’m glad to think that I behaved myself. It would have been ugly, always getting worse, if I had not.
“Anyway,” said Marvin, “it’s something to remember.”
“I’d better go now,” I said.
“Harry,” she called, “wait. I want to tell you something. No matter what happens, no matter how long it is—” Her voice broke and she began to cry—“I’ll always be waiting for you, if you want to come back—from that damned place where you’re going.”
“Good-by, Marvin,” I said, and then I opened the door.
“Harry,” she called. “Harry,” she called again, but I knew there was no use going back. The trouble is you can’t go back, and besides we had told each other everything. Then the street door was closing behind me, although I had no recollection of having walked down the flights of stairs. I was out on the street alone, and I felt sick and absolutely empty, as empty as that bottle of champagne. It was like her to have champagne.
XXII
Kiss and Don’t Tell
I have never talked with anyone about it, because I have never, as Kay sometimes has told me, been able to express emotion. Moreover it was entirely my own business, mine and Marvin Myles’s. I was born just early enough to be inculcated with the doctrine of the kiss-and-don’t-tell school, a system of manners which I have often heard is entirely out of date. I was taught that telling was one of the things a gentleman did not do, and I still agree. I was also brought up in the intolerant school that has a contempt for crybabies.
This sort of training could lead to only two results: You either got used to taking what was coming to you in a conventional way which troubled nobody—like a gentleman, as the Skipper used to say at School—or else you revolted from it entirely and became what we used to call, among other things, a “mess.” You became a Socialist, for instance, the way Bob Carroll finally did, or else you just went around hating everyone and seeing queer people. When I was hurt so badly that sometimes life did not seem worth living I did not want anyone to know it, or even to take it up with myself. That was the reason for a lot I did that winter.
I took the night train home and the next morning when I arrived I went to Smith and Wilding. Mr. Wilding was taking off his hat and overshoes and I told him that I had been down to New York and that I was not going back there again.
“Oh,” said Mr. Wilding, “so you’re all through with that?”
I always have wondered how much he knew.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m all through with that.” For once I felt perfectly able to talk to him, because it really made no difference what happened to me that morning.
“My boy,” said Mr. Wilding, “no one wants to, but that’s the way we live.”
“If I were a customer here,” I said, “do you know what I’d want? I’d want to have somebody who could give me impartial advice about my holdings. There isn’t any department here that keeps watch on investment lists.”
“No,” Mr. Wilding said, “there isn’t. I’ll see you at half-past three this afternoon.”
If I had not worked for Mr. Bullard and listened so often to Bill King’s projects, I should never have had such an idea; but a series of little accidents is what leads you into almost everything. I had never heard of an investment counsel service when I went in to see Mr. Wilding that morning, but by the end of the week the partners were discussing it; and it did not matter how hard the work was as long as it kept my mind occupied. I entered the bumping tournament at the Squash Club and began playing regularly for an hour each afternoon so that I would be too tired to think in the evening. I made myself go out and see people, because I never wanted to be by myself.
They say that you can get over anything in time. I don’t believe you can, but given enough time you can put it where it belongs—back in your mind beneath the present. All that winter I must have been running away from the shadow of Marvin Myles, and if for a moment I stopped running she would catch up to me. I would wake up in the dark and find myself thinking about her. Those were the worst times—when there was no one else to talk to, and no distraction. All that winter I seemed to be only half alive. I went to the winter dinner of the Zephyr Club and I went to the Motfords’ house in the country for a week end and it surprised me on such occasions how smoothly everyone else’s life went. Since that time I have always believed that there is nothing worse than being too much involved in yourself.
During that week end with Kay in Concord, where the Motfords had kept their spring and autumn house open through the winter, I was interested, almost for the first time, in another person. I thought that she might be going through some sort of experience like mine, but if she was having an unpleasant time she certainly did not show it. She looked as though something wonderful had happened—or was about to happen. We went out to dinner Saturday night and on Sunday morning we went skating, and we took a long walk on Sunday afternoon. We had one tiling in common—we did not want to talk about ourselves. Most of the time we talked about our friends—about who was crazy about whom and whether I thought so-and-so was attractive—and after that we talked about Bolshevism and social problems on which our ideas were as vague as my ideas are now, and then we talked about the illness of President Wilson and about what we thought of President-elect Harding. When we took up the subject of Europe I told her frankly that I could not understand the war debts or exactly why we had fought the war.
H. M. Pulham, Esquire Page 25