_ CHAPTER XIV
By the next day she had made up her mind to look for another apartment. The move had several points in its favour. It would not only take her away from this place where she felt the spell so strong; it would also give her something to do. "And I need it, heaven knows!" she thought. And besides it would provide an excuse for not seeing Amy's friends. "I'll be worn out every evening," she decided with grim satisfaction.
She found Joe more than ready for the change. He himself had suggested it, some weeks before, and Ethel made the most of that. "I've been thinking over your idea of moving," she began one night. And in the talk which followed, the intent little glances she threw at him made her sure that in her husband's mind was a half conscious deep relief at the idea of getting away from these rooms and their memories.
"Poor dear," she reflected tenderly, "what a place for a tired business man--a home with two assorted wives waiting for him every night."
But when it came to looking about, to her surprise Ethel found it hard, on her own account, to make the move. For with all its faults and drawbacks, this was the place where she had struggled, groped and dreamed, had married Joe and discovered him in hours she would never forget, and here her baby had been born. The place had grown familiar. Even the huge building, for all its appearance of being exactly like every other on the street, had in some curious fashion taken on for Ethel a special atmosphere of its own; and coming back from a bleak succession of apartments she had inspected, this did at least seem more like a home.
Joe came to her rescue. He was a part owner here, and with delight she learned from him that a large and sunny apartment at the top of the building was to be free the first of May. Ethel went up to see it at once. And the arrangement of the rooms, and the way the sun flooded into each one, made her exclaim with pleasure.
The present tenants were a young widow and her companion, a most respectable elderly dame. The widow was about Ethel's age and excessively pretty and stylish, and in her low sweet voice and her manner was a peculiar attractiveness that Ethel could not analyse. She explained that she was going abroad, possibly to be gone a year, or she never would have given up this gem of an apartment. She seemed more than glad to show Ethel about, and displayed a friendly interest in her visitor's eager planning. When Ethel left at the end of an hour, the widow smiled at her and said, with a charming little hesitation:
"I don't think you have my name. It's Mrs. Grewe. I do hope you'll come up whenever you like, and let me help you all I can. I shall so love to feel when I go that you and your kiddies will be here. I've noticed them so often, down-stairs and in the elevator. And they're both such darlings."
And at that, with a thrill of pride, Ethel felt almost as though she had found a friend in the city at last.
They saw each other frequently, for Ethel was always running in to look through the various rooms and puzzle and decide on curtains, rugs and portieres. In this she was aided more than she knew by the taste displayed in the furnishings, rich, subdued and yet so gay, that young Mrs. Grewe had collected here. The two had animated talks, and once when her new acquaintance suggested, "I'd be so glad if I could be of some help in your shopping," Ethel replied, "Oh, you could! I'd love to have you!" And they started in that day.
And yet how curious, even here. For whenever Ethel endeavoured to get the conversation upon a little more intimate terms, Mrs. Grewe would almost instantly become evasive and remote. And once when Ethel asked her to "drop down and have dinner with us some night," she declined almost with a start, as though she were saying, "Ha! Look out! I'm in danger of letting you be a real friend!" And thinking this over, Ethel reflected, "The only New Yorker I've met so far, whom I'd like to know, is nice to me simply because she is going abroad in a month and so it's safe! Has she offered to introduce me to a single friend of hers? Well, then, don't! Keep your old friends! I don't want to eat them!" And for days together she would leave the young widow alone.
But the latter would make pleasant advances, and soon they would be shopping again. This acquaintance was one of the few bright spots in a season which for Ethel was full of anxious worries. For it was by no means easy. Amy had been a shopper who simply could not resist pretty things, and so her apartment was crowded with furniture and bric-a-brac. "How much can I get rid of without offending Joe?" asked Ethel. He was the kind of man who says nothing. He would not object, but he would feel hurt. It took the most careful probing to find how far she could safely go. And she was tempted by the shops. In her smart town car, with plenty of money and with young Mrs. Grewe at her side, it was almost impossible to resist the adorable things she discovered. "No wonder Amy bought too much." But there they were, all Amy's belongings, and to be rid of each table, each chair, each rug, meant the most careful thinking.
"Nevertheless," she told herself. "That apartment upstairs is to be my own home."
In the meantime her new occupation was working out wonderfully as an excuse for not going about in the evenings. She was so dead tired every night. No need to feign fatigue, it was real. She even had to call in her physician, in the first "draggy" days of Spring; and he warned her that she was doing too much, it was too soon after the birth of her child. She was glad when Joe happened to come in and overhear the doctor. He became the same old dear to her that he had I been a year ago. And with eagerness, tired though she was, she took pains every evening to dress in ways that she knew he liked. And at times it was almost like a second honeymoon they were having. She used the baby, too, and Susette; she often persuaded Joe to come home in time for Susette's supper, or better still for the baby's bath. And all this was so successful that even when her spring fever was gone she still stayed at home in the evenings.
But in the meantime, what about friends? "I'm lazy," she thought, "I'm not facing it! I'm just putting it off--and it's dangerous!" For Joe was out so much at night. Over half the time he did not get home until the children were in bed, and often after a hurried dinner he would leave by eight o'clock--for business appointments, he told her, at some club or some cafe. He was putting through another big deal. At times, despite her efforts, angry suspicions would arise. He was dealing with some men from the West. No doubt they had to be entertained. She had heard a little of such entertaining from travelling men she had known at home. "Oh, Ethel Lanier, don't be so disgusting!" But after all, a man so tense all day in his office needed some gaiety at night.
She began to suggest going out in the evenings. They went to "Butterfly" and "Louise," and each evening was a great success. But within a few days Fanny Carr called up and asked them to dinner and the play. Ethel made some excuse and declined. She did not mention it to Joe, but that night he said gruffly, "Sorry you turned Fanny down." And Ethel looked at him with a start. So Joe was seeing her these days!
"I haven't been feeling very strong, Joe," she said in an unnatural tone.
"You've been to the opera twice this week," was her husband's grim rejoinder.
And this was only one little instance of many that made Ethel sure that Fanny Carr was still about. She was getting at Joe through his business side, going to his office. She had asked him to sell her house on Long Island, and through this transaction she had tangled him into her affairs. A lone woman, defenceless in business, needing the aid and advice of a man. "Oh, I can almost hear her lay it on--her helplessness!" And Ethel fairly ground her teeth. For Fanny, only the day before, having called and noticed that a sofa and a rug were missing, had asked to what dealer Ethel had sold them. "Now," thought Ethel, "she'll buy them herself, and then she'll ask Joe to drop in for tea at her hotel apartment--'on business,' of course-but the rug and sofa will be there! Poor Amy's things! Oh, yes, indeed, Fanny is clever enough! If only she would take his money--and get out and leave us alone!" Ethel had some lonely grapples with life. She was right, she angrily told herself, in wanting to go slowly until she could discover real friends; but on the other hand she admitted that Joe had reason for being impatient. At thirty-seven it is hard for a man to change his habits, and Amy had accustomed Joe to crave excitement every night. Even Ethel herself, in some of her moods, felt restless to go about and be gay. And again and again the youth in her rebelled against the trap into which she had fallen.
"The minute I even propose a play, I show him I'm well enough to go out. And then he asks, 'Why not Amy's friends?' And he remembers the mean little things that Fanny Carr must have told him--the beast!--and so he says, 'I see it all. Ethel is only bluffing. Now that I'm rich she's trying to make me drop the friends and the memory of the wife who stood by me when I was poor.'"
Ethel even went out twice to their detestable parties, in the faint hope of finding one woman at least she would care to know. But if there had been any such, Fanny was careful to leave them out.
Friends, friends, friends of her own! Where to find them? On the streets, as she went about at her shopping, she saw so many attractive people, and she drew their glances, too. She had developed since her marriage; she had a distinctive beauty, and she had learned how to foster that. Almost always she felt the hungry eyes of men, good, bad and indifferent, rich men, beggars, Christians, Jews. But that of course was only annoying. Ethel wanted women friends. On the street, from her elegant little car, she could see women who were walking glance at her with envy, just as she herself had done in her first year in the city. The thought brought a humorous smile to her lips. And looking at the constant stream of motors passing, she inquired, "How many of us are there, in this imposing procession, who haven't a single friend in town?" How they all passed on. How coolly indifferent, self-absorbed! Was there no entering wedge to their lives?
But her youth would rise with a sudden rush in her warm body, so smartly dressed, so tingling with ardent health, and glancing into the glass in her car and making a little face at herself, she would exclaim:
"Oh, fiddlesticks! All this is going to have a nice fine happy ending! Nothing awful is to happen to me!"
At one such time, as though interrupted, she leaned quickly and graciously forward, as she had seen women do in the Park, and bowed with a cordial little smile--to a vacant lot--and then turning back to the imagined friend at her side, she said sweetly, "Excuse me, dear. What were you saying? Why yes, we'd love to. Thursday night? What time do you dine?" A lump rose in her throat. "Now, Ethel, Ethel, you soft little fool--you're only twenty-five, you know. And of all the adorable babies waiting in a nursery--"
One day she found Fifth Avenue crammed and jammed with a huge parade. She had her chauffeur get as close as he could, and with intent and curious eyes she watched the suffragists march by. What hosts and hosts of women, how jolly and how friendly. Oh, what a lark they were having together! Why not join them, then and there? For an instant she thought of leaving her car and falling right in with some marching group. "But how do I know they won't turn me down?" She waited and lost courage. Soon she saw marching ahead of one section a smartly dressed woman whose photograph she had often seen in the papers. At this Ethel's courage oozed again, and with a pang of envy she thought:
"Oh, yes, this is all very fine for you! You're so safe and settled here; you've got position--everything!"
In a moment she felt this was small and mean. The envy and the bitterness passed. She watched other women, such confident, easy, bright-looking creatures--not at all like Amy's set--who looked as though they could preside at big meetings or at their own tables at home, and be gracious and say witty things to the clever men at their sides. Behind them came whole regiments of women and girls of a simpler kind. Some of them earned their own living, no doubt--yes, and had to work hard to do it.
"Wouldn't they do? Look at that one! Wouldn't I like her for a friend?"
In a flash Ethel remembered the little history "prof" at home, who had begged her girls to live and grow.
"Now, Ethel Lanier, you're going to get right out of this car and fall into line--friends or no friends!"
In a moment, scowling to keep up her nerve, she was pushing through the standers-by right out into the Avenue; and feeling like a public sight, she tried quickly to get into line.
"You can't march here! Our line is full!" a voice said sharply. Ethel gasped and reddened, turned blindly to the file behind.
"Do you want to march with us?" somebody asked.
"Yes! Oh, thank you!"
"Fall right in. That's right, my dear--here, take one of my flags."
"You're awfully kind!"
"Hooray for the vote!"
Through eyes a little misty Ethel saw striding along at her side a sturdy little old lady in black. And she blessed her fervently. It was a thrilling marvellous time. In less than ten minutes she felt herself boon companions with every one in her line. But then, before she realized what it was that had happened, her group had reached the end of their march and had melted suddenly into a throng of chattering laughing women. Ethel stared about her blindly.
"Never mind," she decided, "I'm going to see more of this!"
And the next day she presented herself at suffrage headquarters.
"I want to work," she said to a girl at a desk. The girl looked up at her busily.
"All right, go to that table," she answered. And at a long oak table, one of a dozen women and girls, Ethel folded envelopes and addressed them for about three hours. Down at the end, two girl companions chatted and laughed at their labour. But the rest were just busy. "Hand me those envelopes, if you please." And so it was all through the room. She came back the next morning and the next; and as she worked, her expression was grim. "It isn't their fault," she decided. "They want the vote, they don't want me."
And she turned forlornly back to the work of moving up to her new apartment.
The first of May was drawing near, and she saw signs of restlessness, as thousands of New Yorkers prepared to change their quarters. Moving, always moving. Did they never stop in one place and make it a home? The big building in which Ethel lived took on an impersonal air, as though saying, "What do I care? I'm all concrete, with good hard steel inside of that." What a queer place for people's homes! People moving in and out! Curiously she probed into its life. She had long ago made friends with the wife of the superintendent, and through her Ethel collected bits about these many families so close together and yet so apart; all troubles kept strictly out of sight, with the freight elevator for funerals, cool looks and never a word of greeting. "Keep off," writ clear on every face.
"It isn't real, this living! It can't last!" she exclaimed to herself. "They'll have to work out something better than this--something, oh, much homier!" She thought of the old frame house in Ohio. "That's gone," she declared, with a swallow.
Her acquaintance with young Mrs. Grewe was still the one bright spot at such times. When Ethel felt blue she would go upstairs to the sunny new home that was to be hers; and there the blithe welcome she received restored her own belief in herself. Mrs. Grewe would often lead her to talk of her home in Ohio, the eager dreams and plans of her girlhood; and on her side, the young widow gave pictures of life in London and Paris as she had seen it so many times. They still shopped together occasionally.
But one afternoon about six o'clock, as Ethel's car drew up at the door and she and her one friend got out, Joe came along--and with one quick angry look he hurried into the building. Quite furious and ashamed for him, Ethel turned to her companion--but Mrs. Grewe smiled queerly and held out her small gloved hand.
"Good-bye, my dear, it has been so nice--this afternoon and all the others." Her tone was a curious mixture of amused defiance and real regret. Ethel stammered something, but in a moment her friend was gone.
Upstairs she met Joe with an angry frown, but to her indignant reproaches he replied by a quizzical smile.
"Look here, Ethel." He took her arm, in a kind protecting sort of way which made her fairly boil. "Look here. I can't let you go about with a shady little person like that. I didn't know you'd picked her up. Now, now--I understand, of course--you met her up there in the new apartment. What a fool I was not to have thought of it."
"Thought of what? For goodness sake!"
"She won't do, that's all."
"Why won't she?" Ethel's colour was suddenly high and her brown eyes had a dangerous gleam. Joe looked at her, hesitating.
"Yes," he said, "you're the kind of a girl who has to be told the truth now and then. She's the mistress of one of our big millionaires."
Ethel stared at him blankly.
"I don't believe it!" she cried. "Her taste! The way she dresses! Her--her voice--the things she says!"
"I know, I know," he answered. "That sort is rare and they come high. I've talked to her--"
"Oh, you have, have you! Then why shouldn't I?"
"Because, my dear, I'm one of the owners of this building. My talks were brief--just business."
"What business had you letting her in?"
"Because times were bad three years ago and tenants weren't so easy to find. What harm has she done? This isn't a social club, you know--"
"I know it isn't! Nobody speaks--or even smiles!" A lump rose in Ethel's throat. "And she was so nice and friendly!"
"I'll bet she was--"
"I won't believe it!" Now her face was reddening with self-mortification. "Do you mean to tell me--living like that--with a companion, even--a prim old maid who looks as though she had left Boston only last night--"
A twinkle came into her husband's eyes: "My dear, the friend of a big millionaire always keeps some one from Boston close by." His arm went around her. "Poor little girl. I guess I won't have to say any more--"
"Perhaps you will and perhaps you won't!" Now again she was nearly choking with rage and with hurt vanity. Her one and only companion! The only woman she had been clever enough to find! That kind! Oh-h! Suddenly she turned to Joe to tell him that if he could give her no friends she'd pick and choose just where she liked! But quickly she remembered that he would answer, "Haven't I tried?" She turned away, broke into tears and left the room.
Out of the little storm that followed, she emerged at last with the thought, "Well, I must see her, anyway, in the work of moving into her apartment. And am I sorry? Not at all! She was good to me--at least she was that! And besides," reflected Ethel, with the same caution and relief which she had so despised in New Yorkers, "she's going soon. It's safe enough."
The talk occurred the next morning, up in the new apartment. There were no awkward preliminaries, for Mrs. Grewe's whole manner had changed. Quite a bit of its careful refinement was gone, and in its place was a rather bitter frankness.
"I quite understand--you needn't explain," she said at once. "Your husband has made a fuss, hasn't he? And this is good-bye. Too bad, isn't it?"
"Yes--it is." Ethel hesitated, then all at once she beamed on her friend. "I want you to know," she stoutly declared, "that neither is my husband my boss nor am I a prig! Back in school, we girls--we used to talk--and read and discuss things--Bernard Shaw--" Her hostess smiled:
"Oh, Shaw, my dear, is a dear, witty man--and he's so funny and so fair. But to live with him--ugh!--rather icy!" She laughed. "See here. No matter what you have read, you've never met me until now. I mean the big Me that thrills all girls--who speak about me in whispers. Well, then, just for a minute, meet me--look at me and see what I am." On her piquante little face was a look of friendly challenge. "We've had such fine little shopping bees, and I'd like you not to be sorry. And what I want to say is this:
"I was just like you. I came from a small town--I had my dreams--I reached New York--I married." She smiled. "Not once but twice. I was divorced. And my second was a love of a man, and we had such a blissful honeymoon. It lasted a year and a half, and then--he got taking things--dope--and that made it hard. It ended in another divorce. The next man didn't marry me. Meant to, you know, but hadn't time. Then he passed on--" with a wave of her hand--"and now I'm here." A humorous smile came over her face. "And for the life of me I can't see how changed it is from when I was married. The same sort of apartment, only it's nicer--the same ocean liners and hotels--the same cafes where one can dance exactly as one did before." Again she wrinkled up her brows. "The only real difference I can see is that when I was married like you, my husband only told me the truth once in a while--as yours did last night--while now they tell it all the time. Oh, I'm wise, I'm wise, my dear--for one so young. I'm twenty-eight. How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-five."
"Three years behind. Well, on the whole I guess I'd stay married if I were you. It's so nice, if he's still in love with you. But the minute he isn't, or makes any fuss, or gets ugly or mean, remember this." And her sweet, clear voice grew impressive. "Remember then you can never be sure what he's really doing in this town. I know--because they tell me--and most of them are married men. And second, and last and always--remember, my dear, that with your figure and your face and your lovely hair which you do so well, you don't have to put up with any man! You can get right out whenever you please! And the only trouble will be to choose your next from all the others who will come crowding about you! And whether you make him marry you--well--I honestly think there's not much choice." She rose and said, with a strange little smile.
"Now that I've had my little revenge on your beast of a husband for spoiling it all, when I wasn't doing the least bit of harm and was leaving anyhow this week--let's say good-bye and each get to our packing."
"She was once like me. I could be like her," thought Ethel late that night. She had been lying awake for hours. "I could be--but I won't!" she declared. "She had read Shaw. How funny! . . . I think it's a mighty big mistake to let young girls read Bernard Shaw. Susette certainly shan't!" Her lips compressed. In a moment she was frowning.
"How easily Joe changed about from loving Amy to loving me. Here he lies asleep at my side. Where was he today? What do I know? . . . Oh, Ethel Lanier, don't be a fool and let every cheap little woman you meet get you thinking things! Such silly things! . . . I do wish that odious Fanny Carr would get out of my life and stay out! . . . You'd better be very careful, Joe." She had risen on her elbow now, and by the dim light from the window she could just see her husband's face. "Because if you're not very good to me--remember that a person whom you yourself consider one of the very best of her kind--told me that I--"
She dropped back. All at once her face was burning.
"Oh, how I loathe all this!" she thought. "And how silly and untrue! Do you want to know where you and I are different, little Mrs. Grewe? I'll tell you! I have a baby! And when he grows up he's going to have this same man still for a father! So there! I'm not sure about anything, even God, any more in this town--it's all a whirl! But I've got a baby, and Susette, and for them I'm going to have a real home--keep wide awake, make friends I'll love--and grow and learn and march in parades--and go to the opera in a box--and go to concerts, go abroad, shop in Paris--love my husband--be very gay--make friends, friends--I will, I will--I won't be downed--I'll beat this cat of a city--
"However. Now I'll go to sleep-." _