by Lorrie Moore
Death-bed promises should be broken as lightly as they are seriously made. The dead have no right to lay their clammy fingers upon the living.
“Joey,” she had said, in her high, thin voice, “take care of the girls.”
“I will, ma,” Jo had choked.
“Joey,” and the voice was weaker, “promise me you won’t marry till the girls are all provided for.” Then as Jo had hesitated, appalled: “Joey, it’s my dying wish. Promise!”
“I promise, ma,” he had said.
Whereupon his mother had died, comfortably, leaving him with a completely ruined life.
They were not bad-looking girls, and they had a certain style, too. That is, Stell and Eva had. Carrie, the middle one, taught school over on the West Side. In those days it took her almost two hours each way. She said the kind of costume she required should have been corrugated steel. But all three knew what was being worn, and they wore it—or fairly faithful copies of it. Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needle knack. She could skim the State Street windows and come away with a mental photograph of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon. Heads of departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and she went home and reproduced them with the aid of a two-dollar-a-day seamstress. Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. They called her Babe. She wasn’t really a beauty, but some one had once told her that she looked like Janice Meredith (it was when that work of fiction was at the height of its popularity). For years afterward, whenever she went to parties, she affected a single, fat curl over her right shoulder, with a rose stuck through it.
Twenty-three years ago one’s sisters did not strain at the household leash, nor crave a career. Carrie taught school, and hated it. Eva kept house expertly and complainingly. Babe’s profession was being the family beauty, and it took all her spare time. Eva always let her sleep until ten.
This was Jo’s household, and he was the nominal head of it. But it was an empty title. The three women dominated his life. They weren’t consciously selfish. If you had called them cruel they would have put you down as mad. When you are the lone brother of three sisters, it means that you must constantly be calling for, escorting, or dropping one of them somewhere. Most men of Jo’s age were standing before their mirror of a Saturday night, whistling blithely and abstractedly while they discarded a blue polka-dot for a maroon tie, whipped off the maroon for a shot-silk, and at the last moment decided against the shot-silk in favor of a plain black-and-white, because she had once said she preferred quiet ties. Jo, when he should have been preening his feathers for conquest, was saying:
“Well, my God, I am hurrying! Give a man time, can’t you? I just got home. You girls have been laying around the house all day. No wonder you’re ready.”
He took a certain pride in seeing his sisters well dressed, at a time when he should have been reveling in fancy waistcoats and brilliant-hued socks, according to the style of that day, and the inalienable right of any unwed male under thirty, in any day. On those rare occasions when his business necessitated an out-of-town trip, he would spend half a day floundering about the shops selecting handkerchiefs, or stockings, or feathers, or fans, or gloves for the girls. They always turned out to be the wrong kind, judging by their reception.
From Carrie, “What in the world do I want of a fan!”
“I thought you didn’t have one,” Jo would say.
“I haven’t. I never go to dances.”
Jo would pass a futile hand over the top of his head, as was his way when disturbed. “I just thought you’d like one. I thought every girl liked a fan. Just,” feebly, “just to—to have.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake!”
And from Eva or Babe, “I’ve got silk stockings, Jo.” Or, “You brought me handkerchiefs the last time.”
There was something selfish in his giving, as there always is in any gift freely and joyfully made. They never suspected the exquisite pleasure it gave him to select these things; these fine, soft, silken things. There were many things about this slow-going, amiable brother of theirs that they never suspected. If you had told them he was a dreamer of dreams, for example, they would have been amused. Sometimes, dead-tired by nine o’clock, after a hard day downtown, he would doze over the evening paper. At intervals he would wake, red-eyed, to a snatch of conversation such as, “Yes, but if you get a blue you can wear it anywhere. It’s dressy, and at the same time it’s quiet, too.” Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed old smoking-jacket had banished them all from the room long ago; had banished himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o’clock spelled evening clothes. The kind of a man who can lean up against a mantel, or propose a toast, or give an order to a man-servant, or whisper a gallant speech in a lady’s ear with equal ease. The shabby old house on Calumet Avenue was transformed into a brocaded and chandeliered rendezvous for the brilliance of the city. Beauty was there, and wit. But none so beautiful and witty as She. Mrs.—er—Jo Hertz. There was wine, of course; but no vulgar display. There was music; the soft sheen of satin; laughter. And he the gracious, tactful host, king of his own domain—
“Jo, for heaven’s sake, if you’re going to snore go to bed!”
“Why—did I fall asleep?”
“You haven’t been doing anything else all evening. A person would think you were fifty instead of thirty.”
And Jo Hertz was again just the dull, gray, commonplace brother of three well-meaning sisters.
Babe used to say petulantly, “Jo, why don’t you ever bring home any of your men friends? A girl might as well not have any brother, all the good you do.”
Jo, conscience-stricken, did his best to make amends. But a man who has been petticoat-ridden for years loses the knack, somehow, of comradeship with men. He acquires, too, a knowledge of women, and a distaste for them, equaled only, perhaps, by that of an elevator-starter in a department store.
Which brings us to one Sunday in May. Jo came home from a late Sunday afternoon walk to find company for supper. Carrie often had in one of her school-teacher friends, or Babe one of her frivolous intimates, or even Eva a staid guest of the old-girl type. There was always a Sunday night supper of potato salad, and cold meat, and coffee, and perhaps a fresh cake. Jo rather enjoyed it, being a hospitable soul. But he regarded the guests with the undazzled eyes of a man to whom they were just so many petticoats, timid of the night streets and requiring escort home. If you had suggested to him that some of his sisters’ popularity was due to his own presence, or if you had hinted that the more kittenish of these visitors were palpably making eyes at him, he would have stared in amazement and unbelief.
This Sunday night it turned out to be one of Carrie’s friends.
“Emily,” said Carrie, “this is my brother, Jo.” Jo had learned what to expect in Carrie’s friends.
Drab-looking women in the late thirties, whose facial lines all slanted downward.
“Happy to meet you,” said Jo, and looked down at a different sort altogether. A most surprisingly different sort, for one of Carrie’s friends. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy, and blue-eyed, and sort of—well, crinkly looking. You know. The corners of her mouth when she smiled, and her eyes when she looked up at you, and her hair, which was brown, but had the miraculous effect, somehow, of being golden.
Jo shook hands with her. Her hand was incredibly small, and soft, so that you were afraid of crushing it, until you discovered she had a firm little grip all her own. It surprised and amused you, that grip, as does a baby’s unexpected clutch on your patronizing forefinger. As Jo felt it in his own big clasp, the strangest thing happened to him. Something inside Jo Hertz stopped working for a moment, then lurched sickeningly, then thumped like mad. It was his heart. He stood staring down at her, and she up at him, until the others laughed. Then their hands fell apart, lingeringly.
“Are you a school-te
acher, Emily?” he said.
“Kindergarten. It’s my first year. And don’t call me Emily, please.”
“Why not? It’s your name. I think it’s the prettiest name in the world.” Which he hadn’t meant to say at all. In fact, he was perfectly aghast to find himself saying it. But he meant it.
At supper he passed her things, and stared, until everybody laughed again, and Eva said acidly, “Why don’t you feed her?”
It wasn’t that Emily had an air of helplessness. She just made you feel you wanted her to be helpless, so that you could help her.
Jo took her home, and from that Sunday night he began to strain at the leash. He took his sisters out, dutifully, but he would suggest, with a carelessness that deceived no one, “Don’t you want one of your girl friends to come along? That little What’s-her-name—Emily, or something. So long’s I’ve got three of you, I might as well have a full squad.”
For a long time he didn’t know what was the matter with him. He only knew he was miserable, and yet happy. Sometimes his heart seemed to ache with an actual physical ache. He realized that he wanted to do things for Emily. He wanted to buy things for Emily—useless, pretty, expensive things that he couldn’t afford. He wanted to buy everything that Emily needed, and everything that Emily desired. He wanted to marry Emily. That was it. He discovered that one day, with a shock, in the midst of a transaction in the harness business. He stared at the man with whom he was dealing until that startled person grew uncomfortable.
“What’s the matter, Hertz?”
“Matter?”
“You look as if you’d seen a ghost or found a gold mine. I don’t know which.”
“Gold mine,” said Jo. And then, “No. Ghost.”
For he remembered that high, thin voice, and his promise. And the harness business was slithering downhill with dreadful rapidity, as the automobile business began its amazing climb. Jo tried to stop it. But he was not that kind of business man. It never occurred to him to jump out of the down-going vehicle and catch the up-going one. He stayed on, vainly applying brakes that refused to work.
“You know, Emily, I couldn’t support two households now. Not the way things are. But if you’ll wait. If you’ll only wait. The girls might—that is, Babe and Carrie—”
She was a sensible little thing, Emily. “Of course I’ll wait. But we mustn’t just sit back and let the years go by. We’ve got to help.”
She went about it as if she were already a little matchmaking matron. She corralled all the men she had ever known and introduced them to Babe, Carrie, and Eva separately, in pairs, and en masse. She arranged parties at which Babe could display the curl. She got up picnics. She stayed home while Jo took the three about. When she was present she tried to look as plain and obscure as possible, so that the sisters should show up to advantage. She schemed, and planned, and contrived, and hoped; and smiled into Jo’s despairing eyes.
And three years went by. Three precious years. Carrie still taught school, and hated it. Eva kept house, more and more complainingly as prices advanced and allowance retreated. Stell was still Babe, the family beauty; but even she knew that the time was past for curls. Emily’s hair, somehow, lost its glint and began to look just plain brown. Her crinkliness began to iron out.
“Now, look here!” Jo argued, desperately, one night. “We could be happy, anyway. There’s plenty of room at the house. Lots of people begin that way. Of course, I couldn’t give you all I’d like to at first. But maybe, after a while—”
No dreams of salons, and brocade, and velvet-footed servitors, and satin damask now. Just two rooms, all their own, all alone, and Emily to work for. That was his dream. But it seemed less possible than that other absurd one had been.
You know that Emily was as practical a little thing as she looked fluffy. She knew women. Especially did she know Eva, and Carrie, and Babe. She tried to imagine herself taking the household affairs and the housekeeping pocketbook out of Eva’s expert hands. Eva had once displayed to her a sheaf of aigrettes she had bought with what she saved out of the housekeeping money. So then she tried to picture herself allowing the reins of Jo’s house to remain in Eva’s hands. And everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she’d want to put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it. She was that kind of woman. She knew she’d want to do her own delightful haggling with butcher and vegetable peddler. She knew she’d want to muss Jo’s hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if necessary, without the awareness of three ever-present pairs of maiden eyes and ears.
“No! No! We’d only be miserable. I know. Even if they didn’t object. And they would, Jo. Wouldn’t they?”
His silence was miserable assent. Then, “But you do love me, don’t you, Emily?”
“I do, Jo. I love you—and love you—and love you. But, Jo, I—can’t.”
“I know it, dear. I knew it all the time, really. I just thought, maybe, somehow—”
The two sat staring for a moment into space, their hands clasped. Then they both shut their eyes, with a little shudder, as though what they saw was terrible to look upon. Emily’s hand, the tiny hand that was so unexpectedly firm, tightened its hold on his, and his crushed the absurd fingers until she winced with pain.
That was the beginning of the end, and they knew it.
Emily wasn’t the kind of girl who would be left to pine. There are too many Jo’s in the world whose hearts are prone to lurch and then thump at the feel of a soft, fluttering, incredibly small hand in their grip. One year later Emily was married to a young man whose father owned a large, pie-shaped slice of the prosperous state of Michigan.
That being safely accomplished, there was something grimly humorous in the trend taken by affairs in the old house on Calumet. For Eva married. Of all people, Eva! Married well, too, though he was a great deal older than she. She went off in a hat she had copied from a French model at Fields’s, and a suit she had contrived with a home dressmaker, aided by pressing on the part of the little tailor in the basement over on Thirty-first Street. It was the last of that, though. The next time they saw her, she had on a hat that even she would have despaired of copying, and a suit that sort of melted into your gaze. She moved to the North Side (trust Eva for that), and Babe assumed the management of the household on Calumet Avenue. It was rather a pinched little household now, for the harness business shrank and shrank.
“I don’t see how you can expect me to keep house decently on this!” Babe would say contemptuously. Babe’s nose, always a little inclined to sharpness, had whittled down to a point of late. “If you knew what Ben gives Eva.”
“It’s the best I can do, Sis. Business is something rotten.”
“Ben says if you had the least bit of—” Ben was Eva’s husband, and quotable, as are all successful men.
“I don’t care what Ben says,” shouted Jo, goaded into rage. “I’m sick of your everlasting Ben. Go and get a Ben of your own, why don’t you, if you’re so stuck on the way he does things.”
And Babe did. She made a last desperate drive, aided by Eva, and she captured a rather surprised young man in the brokerage way, who had made up his mind not to marry for years and years. Eva wanted to give her her wedding things, but at that Jo broke into sudden rebellion.
“No, sir! No Ben is going to buy my sister’s wedding clothes, understand? I guess I’m not broke—yet. I’ll furnish the money for her things, and there’ll be enough of them, too.”
Babe had as useless a trousseau, and as filled with extravagant pink-and-blue and lacy and frilly things as any daughter of doting parents. Jo seemed to find a grim pleasure in providing them. But it left him pretty well pinched. After Babe’s marriage (she insisted that they call her Estelle now) Jo sold the house on Calumet. He and Carrie took one of those little flats that were springing up, seemingly over night, all through Chicago’s South Side.
There was nothing domestic about Carrie. She had given up teaching two years before, and had gone i
nto Social Service work on the West Side. She had what is known as a legal mind, hard, clear, orderly, and she made a great success of it. Her dream was to live at the Settlement House and give all her time to the work. Upon the little household she bestowed a certain amount of grim, capable attention. It was the same kind of attention she would have given a piece of machinery whose oiling and running had been entrusted to her care. She hated it, and didn’t hesitate to say so.
Jo took to prowling about department store basements, and household goods sections. He was always sending home a bargain in a ham, or a sack of potatoes, or fifty pounds of sugar, or a window clamp, or a new kind of paring knife. He was forever doing odd little jobs that the janitor should have done. It was the domestic in him claiming its own.
Then, one night, Carrie came home with a dull glow in her leathery cheeks, and her eyes alight with resolve. They had what she called a plain talk.
“Listen, Jo. They’ve offered me the job of first assistant resident worker. And I’m going to take it. Take it! I know fifty other girls who’d give their ears for it. I go in next month.”
They were at dinner. Jo looked up from his plate, dully. Then he glanced around the little dining-room, with its ugly tan walls and its heavy dark furniture (the Calumet Street pieces fitted cumbersomely into the five-room flat).
“Away? Away from here, you mean—to live?”
Carrie laid down her fork. “Well, really, Jo! After all that explanation.”
“But to go over there to live! Why, that neighborhood’s full of dirt, and disease, and crime, and the Lord knows what all. I can’t let you do that, Carrie.”
Carrie’s chin came up. She laughed a short little laugh. “Let me! That’s eighteenth-century talk, Jo. My life’s my own to live. I’m going.”
And she went. Jo stayed on in the apartment until the lease was up. Then he sold what furniture he could, stored or gave away the rest, and took a room on Michigan Avenue in one of the old stone mansions whose decayed splendor was being put to such purpose.