“Nice party, wasn’t it?” Arthur asked, and after a minute she said, “Lovely. But I’m tired.”
“Poor Ellen,” he said. “You worked so hard arranging everything.”
I would like, she thought with the great clarity of weariness, to arrange Marjorie Acton right out of this town. And then she thought, how perfectly beastly of her, how foul.
Half a dozen times, during the ride home and after Arthur had come back from taking the sitter home and while they were having a glass of milk companionably together in the cool kitchen and then when they were getting ready for bed, Ellen came close to saying, bluntly and without warning, “Dear, Marjorie and John Forrest—I only knew, tonight, but I think I’ve felt it for a long time—Marjorie and John Forrest—” Each time she deliberately stopped herself from speaking, thinking that she had to be loyal to Marjorie, that Marjorie was her friend, that there was no imaginable word she could bring herself to use to her husband that would describe what she thought about Marjorie.
She did not realize how clearly she knew all the truth of it until the next morning when she met Marjorie in the grocery, and, saying, “Good morning, Marjorie,” and hearing Marjorie say, “Ellen, hello,” she found herself strongly wanting not to remember, and then saw last night’s speculative fear still in Marjorie’s eyes.
“How are you this morning?” Marjorie asked, and the words had a special weight, as though they should be translated (“I suppose you told Arthur?”) before they could be entirely understood.
“Very well. And you?” (“No, of course not; how could I tell anyone?”)
“See you soon,” Marjorie said as they separated.
It was, however, a day or two before the complete destructiveness of her knowledge came to Ellen. Here we were, she realized suddenly, sitting one morning at her kitchen table with the coffeepot and the morning paper waiting for her, here we were, a little group of friends, playing bridge, dancing, dining, swimming together, and then two among us fall out of step and introduce a new pattern, frightening and dreadful, into our well-filled lives. Good Lord, Ellen thought. I’ve known Marjorie for twenty-two years. Always so much prettier than the rest of us, we thought she’d do so well for herself, but I got Arthur. I have been lucky. Sitting peacefully at her kitchen table in the morning sunlight, she thought, without warning, but could I be wrong? Am I, perhaps, the only one who hasn’t been in step; is everyone like Marjorie, like John, perhaps laughing at innocent Ellen: has Arthur…? “No, no” she said aloud, pushing violently at her coffee cup, “this business has me all upset.”
Although she tried to avoid seeing Marjorie, and succeeded, she believed, in largely forgetting that there had been any noticeable break in the deepest foundations of all their lives, she found that she had become an unwilling observer; it was almost as though Marjorie and John, reconciled to her awareness, felt a kind of relief at having one person they need not trouble to deceive. There was an evening not more than a week after the country club dance when Ellen, turning to light a cigarette at a cocktail party, saw John Forrest rise and walk casually out onto the terrace; after a minute Marjorie, meeting Ellen’s eyes and even smiling a little, went quietly and without other notice after him. “I enjoyed his first play much more,” Ellen said easily without more than a second’s pause in the conversation in which she had been engaged. “I think this one is somehow too—pretentious.”
“And did you see—” someone went on, and Ellen was thinking, it’s as though I were doing it; I feel guilty. They ought to be punished, she thought.
Then there was a moment when, sitting quietly across a bridge table from her husband, with Charles Acton on her left and Marjorie on her right, safe with her own home around her, Ellen turned politely to Charles, waiting for him to bid, and he said, arranging his cards, “You girls enjoy your lunch today?”
“Lunch?” Ellen said, comprehending almost at once, and angry; she had lunched alone and not agreeably on a bowl of vegetable soup at home. The king of hearts winked at her from her hand; irrepressibly she thought of some private little restaurant, where the waiter was quiet and unobtrusive and perhaps recognized them (the handsome young lovers, they came every week), and Marjorie speaking softly, leaning forward, and music, perhaps, in the background, and the conversation of romance, of undying devotion. “Of course,” she said half to herself, and Marjorie at the same time cut in swiftly, speaking ostensibly to Arthur, “Ellen and I went out to lunch together in town today. As though we were a couple of debutantes.”
“Two spades,” Charles said.
“As though we had no responsibilities at all,” Ellen said, looking at Marjorie.
“Good idea,” Arthur said, nodding. “Ellen ought to get around more. Always doing something for other people,” he told Charles, “all this planning bazaars, and concerts, and whatnot.”
“Marjorie, too,” Charles said vaguely. “I bid two spades.”
“Ellen,” Marjorie said with all appearance of sincerity, “you look so pretty tonight.”
No, no, oh, no, Ellen thought, she can’t pay off like that, and, almost without thinking of what she was saying, she said to her husband, “Marjorie has offered to take the boys this weekend so we can go skiing. I thought we might go back to that nice place by the lake.”
“But I—” Marjorie began, and Ellen cut in smoothly, “I saw John Forrest for a minute today in the bank,” she said to Arthur. “That’s what made me think of skiing, actually—he was talking about it. And then when Marjorie offered to take the boys…” She smiled affectionately on Marjorie.
“Two no trump,” Marjorie said, her voice sullen, and Charles glanced up reprovingly and said, “Not your turn to bid, dear.”
Skiing at the lake was wonderful, and Ellen, who had at the last moment decided to borrow Marjorie’s new scarlet snowsuit, had never enjoyed herself more; for two days she successfully forgot the precarious defense she and Marjorie held against catastrophe. Driving home from the lake, luxuriously tired and warm in her fur coat, she leaned her head back against the seat, thinking, I have been taking this too seriously, and asked, “Arthur, did you ever love anyone but me?”
“Millions of girls,” he said obligingly. “Movie stars, and Oriental princesses, and beautiful international spies, and—”
“What would you do if I fell madly in love with some other man?”
“Make him pay for your birthday present,” Arthur said without hesitation. “Why, have you got an offer?”
Ellen laughed happily, and fell asleep.
The boys welcomed them with enthusiasm, and Ellen, thanking Marjorie, found herself speaking and laughing with almost the old friendship. “It was marvelous,” she said. “You’ve simply got to—”
“I want to hear all about it,” Marjorie said, “at lunch tomorrow.” And she glanced briefly past Ellen to Charles, and then back at Ellen again.
Ellen, holding on to a hand of each of her sons, turned toward the door at once and said flatly, “Of course, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She was weak with anger and helplessness, seeing how this small fiction had been eased past her; she and Marjorie now lunched together regularly in town because dear Ellen needed more gadding about, and she recognized that her lonely lunch at home might give her more discomfort in deception and guilt than Marjorie’s clandestine appointment. She is asking too much of loyalty, Ellen thought; she is charging right ahead and expecting to sweep me before her: she thinks I can be handled easily. “Marjorie,” she said on the phone the next morning, “I’ve decided that you can manage the flower show this year. I’ve done it for three years and I’m tired of it.”
“But I can’t manage anything—you know I’m not any—”
“But of course you’ll do it,” Ellen said lightly. “Unless it interferes with your various social entanglements?”
“Ellen, look—”
“Shall we discuss it today at lunch?” Ellen said, and hung up. The flower show would be abominable under Marjorie’s ma
nagement, but then, she thought wryly, Marjorie managed everything so badly.
It was more difficult to persuade Marjorie to give up little Joan’s dancing class in order to take Ellen’s boys into town to a matinee, but Ellen, who disliked unpleasant words and avoided unpleasant scenes, found that by now she and Marjorie had developed a private language where comparatively harmless words substituted for the disagreeable ones the rest of the world was required to use: “Cloakroom,” for instance, was a word of such threatening import to Marjorie that it might easily have meant “exposure” or “scandal,” and even such a trivial phrase as “lunch in town” had come to mean something close to “liar” or “hypocrite.” And yet, even though it was Marjorie whose world was endangered, it was Ellen who seemed to suffer for it; when Marjorie and John, driving together to the Golfers’ Dinner at the club, arrived half an hour late, only Ellen came, worried, to meet them at the door. “Did you get lost?” she asked, “Don’t tell me the two of you lost your way?”
“We had to stop for gas,” John said easily, moving already toward their party in the dining room.
“By the way,” Ellen said to Marjorie, “I want you to take me to that auction tomorrow, over in East Sundale.”
“But tomorrow—” Marjorie began, glancing after John.
“Are you busy tomorrow? Something you can’t break?”
“No, of course not,” Marjorie said, and turned to follow John, pulling away from Ellen’s hand on her arm.
Ellen came up to the long table with them, saying loudly, “Well, here they are, everybody; made it at last.”
She slid into her own place next to Charles Acton, and said, “Honestly, how they could get lost around here,” and smiled down the table at Marjorie.
It was not always difficult for Ellen. “I’m going into town to the theater,” she told Marjorie one morning over the phone. “With my own husband, of course. And I’d like to borrow the pearls Charles gave you last Christmas; will you run over with them later?” Or, lightly at the meat counter in the mornings, “Marjorie, I’ve such a headache today; suppose you could bake the cakes for the club luncheon?” And always, if Marjorie protested, or refused, or looked sulky, Ellen could say with affectionate solicitude, “Poor Marjorie, you do look worn out. I’m really tempted to speak to Charles about you—you’re doing too much. I’m going to tell that husband of yours that he has to keep more of an eye on you.” And, with a gentle laugh, “Why don’t you just run over to the florist’s for me this afternoon? The flowers for the school, you know. I’ve got so much else to do… unless you’re too busy?”
It was finally with a kind of amusement that Ellen recognized Marjorie’s decision to give up the humiliating affair. It’s a shame, Ellen thought, regarding Marjorie amiably over a cup of tea, always the weakest way; poor Marjorie, she was always so much prettier than the rest of us. “You do look exhausted these days,” Ellen said, setting down her cup.
Marjorie looked up at her, and then down again. She’s afraid of me, Ellen thought, leaning back comfortably, and we’ve been friends for twenty-two years. They were in Marjorie’s living room, alone together of an afternoon for an intimate cup of tea. Unpleasantly, it occurred to Ellen that John Forrest must often have come here, secretly, afraid of the neighbors, and she made a little face of disgust and sat up, drawing away from the back and arms of the chair. “How beastly you are,” she said, and it was the first time since she had known that she had mentioned, directly, her knowledge.
Marjorie looked up again, steadily this time. “I think you’re jealous of me,” she said.
“Good Lord.” Ellen laughed, a little shocked laugh. “After all,” she said with a gesture of distaste, “don’t try to drag me down with you.”
“That’s what John says—he says you’re only jealous.” A little thrill of fury went up Ellen’s back at the light, familiar naming of John. “I’d really rather not talk about it, I think,” she said.
“There’s just one thing you ought to know, though,” Marjorie said. “There’s not going to be any more. It’s all through. Over with.”
“Marjorie, my dear.” Ellen got up and came across the room to sit down next to her friend. “I’m really glad; you’ve no idea how worried I’ve been.”
“So I’ll tell Charles myself,” Marjorie said. “You needn’t bother.”
Ellen gasped. “Marjorie!” she said, almost crying. “Did you think I would tell Charles? I? Why, I’m your oldest friend and I—”
“How lucky I am,” Marjorie said evenly, “that it was my oldest friend who found out and not,” she went on, smiling at Ellen, “one of my enemies.”
“Margie,” Ellen said, her voice tender, “you are taking this hard. Look—put it this way. You got yourself caught up in a kind of romantic adolescent dream, and it just wasn’t till you began to see it through my eyes that you realized that it wasn’t a great rosy love at all, but just something kind of cheap and nasty. After all,” she added, touching Marjorie’s cheek gently with one finger, “we’ve always been pretty honest, you and I.”
“More tea?” Marjorie asked. She moved away from Ellen and lifted the teapot.
“Thanks, no,” Ellen said, and then, after a minute, “I must rush. Million things to do.”
“Incidentally,” Marjorie said, rising, “I won’t be able to pick up your groceries for you this afternoon. I’ll be busy.”
The coward, Ellen thought, stamping homeward through the snow: I would have fought tooth and nail, and she laughed, walking by herself, at the thought of poor Marjorie scratching and biting. Oh, poor Marjorie, she thought, and John thinks I’m jealous.
It was like an entirely new kind of freedom, somehow, knowing that she need no longer watch Marjorie. The sun the next day was bright on the snow, and the thought of spring coming inevitably was exhilarating.
“John,” she said, sitting in his banker’s office looking up at him prettily, “I’ve done a dreadful thing,” and then laughed without being able to help it at the panic that showed immediately in his eyes. “No, no,” she said, laughing, “not that bad.” The man’s poor conscience, she thought; outside the broad window of the bank the snow seemed cleaner with the sun on it, and Ellen knew that people passing in the street might look in and see her, a pretty woman, talking and laughing with Mr. Forrest in his private office, her furs thrown back over her chair and her head bent charmingly forward to accept a light for her cigarette. “If you’re going to jump at every word I say…” she said, and shook her head sadly. “All I’ve really done is overdraw my account.”
He smiled, relieved. “New dress?” he asked.
“Hardly. I’m not as wicked as you think I am. No, it’s some things I got for my boys—clothes, and a bicycle for Jimmie—and I just didn’t realize how it mounted up, and then when I came to figure it out—” She stopped, and made a face. “The thing is, I don’t dare tell Arthur,” she said. “You know all wives keep some things from their husbands.”
“How much does it come to?” John asked.
Ellen thought. “Not more than forty dollars, I’m sure. Probably even less than that. But say fifty to be sure.”
“I see,” said John.
“If you could…” She was embarrassed, but she went on bravely. “Well… sort of cover it for me, and I could get it to you the first of the month.”
“Yes,” John said without expression. “Of course.”
“I don’t usually ask men to lend me money,” Ellen said, laughing, “but of course with you it’s different. That is, I never mind borrowing from a banker.”
“It’s part of the business of a bank,” John said, “lending money.”
“Is it part of the business of a banker,” she asked, almost flirtatiously, “to take his clients to lunch? I’ve been waiting for you to ask me.”
He looked at her, perplexed, and she went on mockingly. “I wouldn’t want to force you into it: perhaps you—”
“Not at all,” John said, “I’ve been waiting f
or you to ask me.”
They laughed together then, and she said, “But I want you to be sure to figure out the right interest on my loan. This is an honest business transaction.”
“Of course,” John said, still laughing.
“And,” she went on, rising and taking up her gloves and her furs. “I’ll surely get it to you on the first of the month. Or, at the very latest, the month after.” Then, aware that she was a pretty woman and that her half smile made her look even prettier, she turned toward the door and waited for him to open it for her.
ALONE IN A DEN OF CUBS
Woman’s Day, December 1953
ALTHOUGH I KNOW PERFECTLY well that I am by nature trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, I do not flatter myself that I am therefore true-steel material for a Cub Scout Den Mother. Up until the time my older son Laurie became a Cub Scout, I had always pictured a Den Mother as a woman of iron, with a clear head and a strong right arm, and I still do, I still do.
And yet, although Den Four had no relief maps, knot displays, model villages, homemade fudge, or amateur radio sets to show at the annual meeting, I congratulate myself secretly on having introduced a revolutionary disciplinary technique into the movement, which had a marked effect on the six Cub Scouts with whom I came in contact, and may indeed influence the whole future course of American manhood.
When Laurie asked me if I would be a Den Mother for the group of Cub Scouts he belonged to, I did not have to pause for any reflection before I said no. “I’m too busy,” I told him. “Much too busy.”
“At what?” Laurie wanted to know.
“At all sorts of things,” I said firmly. “Learning to pitch horseshoes with your father, and all sorts of things.”
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Page 36