The Richer, the Poorer Page 11

  He said wearily, “My mother came between Adrienne and me. My mother made me give her up.”

  Lottie looked resigned. George was going to lay bare his heart. It was a pity he could not have waited until after dinner. But a man’s ego popped up in the most unexpected places. If George was going to explore his soul, there was nothing to do but hear him out.

  “Your mother knew best,” she said patiently.

  “You’d think so,” George cried jealously. “You got me. My mother pushed you in my way. She made me dependent on you. She made me believe you would be a better wife than Adrienne.”

  “I was a better wife for you,” said Lottie quietly. George’s head jerked up in protest. Lottie’s smile was gently ironic. “Because I am heavy and slow and stout. Your mother’s shoes were a perfect fit. Adrienne would have swum in them.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” George said stiffly.

  Lottie passed George the plate of hot rolls. He carefully selected the largest two.

  “Adrienne was head and shoulders above you.”

  George stared at Lottie as if she had lost her mind. His open mouth closed on a bit of roll, and it turned to straw. He could not swallow it.

  Lottie said evenly, “That’s what your mother told me.”

  He found himself shrieking, “That’s a lie. You made it up. My mother never said that. I was her idol.”

  Lottie bit into her own roll. Her face lit up with pleasure. “Excellent, aren’t they?”

  “You can sit there and eat,” George cried wildly, “after trying to destroy my memory of my mother. My happiness was her whole life. You can never make me believe otherwise.”

  “Your happiness was her whole life. She would have sacrificed Adrienne to you if that would have made you happy. But she knew that it would not.”

  George leaned forward. His fleshy cheeks quivered.

  “Adrienne and I were made for each other. In a moment of weakness I let my mother persuade me that we were not. She told me that Adrienne did not belong in my world. That she would be restless and discontent. That she would destroy my way of life.” His voice was urgently imploring. “You’ve twisted my mother’s words. She meant that Adrienne lived in the clouds. That she would have been a poor housekeeper. She never meant that Adrienne was my superior.”

  Lottie said agreeably, “Yes, you can look at it like that.”

  George got up and stalked to the door. He turned to deliver a parting shot. “I’ve been your tame cat a long time. But don’t forget a cat has claws.”

  He marched upstairs to his room. He felt that he waddled a little, and it added to his sense of injury. He reached the landing and entered his room, closing his door with a bang. He crossed to his bed and sat down. His legs were suddenly water, and his hands did not belong to him. With ten numb fingers he opened the letter and spread it across his knees.

  My dear Mr. Henty, he read, I am Adrienne Hollister Baxter. I am named for my mother whom you knew before her marriage. You may not know that she became a writer. She wrote under the name of A. H. Baxter.

  My father has a mounting stack of requests for a biography about my mother. Father is Clinton Baxter of the publishing house of Baxter and Barrett.

  I remember that Mother spoke of you very often. I believe that you gave her her inspiration to write. She often said if it had not been for you, she might never have become a writer.

  You may remember many little anecdotes about my mother. I know that my father will be more than grateful for any material you may send him, if you have the time and inclination….

  George read the letter to its end and quietly tore it into shreds. He shivered and crossed the room and put the minute bits into the wastebasket. He felt suddenly old and futile, and he needed reassuring.

  He went downstairs and into the living room. Lottie was listening to the radio. On her comfortable lap was a box of candy. George sat down in his favorite chair. He stretched his feet toward the fireplace.

  “Lottie,” he said, “I apologize.”

  “You didn’t wait for your dessert,” said Lottie severely. “I took a lot of pains with that pie. All this nonsense about being fat.”

  “Am I all right as I am?” he asked earnestly.

  “I like a good stout man,” said Lottie. “Looks like his wife takes care of him.”

  “My mother was right about Adrienne Hollister,” George said slowly. “I’ve heard she became a writer. A home and husband are career enough for any woman. Adrienne would have made a very poor wife.”

  FLUFF AND MR. RIPLEY

  When Mr. Ripley began to stay late at the shop, because each new draft depleted the personnel, and those who were left had to double and triple their work, Mrs. Ripley decided not to believe her husband on the increasingly frequent occasions when he phoned to say that business was keeping him downtown.

  Mrs. Ripley was forty-five and she did not wear her years with grace. She hated middle age more than she had ever hated anything in her life and did everything to disguise it. Her clothes were far too youthful, her voice was a poor imitation of a girl’s, her friends were constantly changing because she sought the companionship of a woman years her junior, who laughed behind her back and soon tired of her.

  When Mr. Ripley first married her she was plump and pretty and twenty. Mr. Ripley thought she would make an ideal wife and mother. Though he did not tell her so, he could see her in a wicker rocker with a round and dimpled baby in her arms, while he lay sprawled in the porch swing, reading the funnies to a three-year-old. The picture pleased him. He further embellished it with a nice old dog who would be stretched across the top step guarding his loved ones.

  Mrs. Ripley hadn’t wanted children. She had wept when her husband, after a year of love and kisses, delicately suggested that it would be nice to start a family. She knew she would look adorable with a baby, like a little girl with a big doll. But the tiresome thing about babies was that they grew. You couldn’t stick to twenty-five when your child turned ten. You couldn’t stay under forty when your selfish child made you a grandmother.

  Mrs. Ripley never had a child, and Mr. Ripley hid his disappointment. He supposed some women were afraid of dying in childbirth, or of losing their figures, or of having to share their husband’s love. If it was his bit of bad luck to be married to a woman with one of these fears, it was just a bit of bad luck and not a major tragedy. For his wife was really a child herself in all her charming ways. Watching her grow into maturity would be almost as much fun as watching a little girl’s growth.

  But Mrs. Ripley had not grown up, and with the years her determination to stay a wide-eyed child began to pall on Mr. Ripley. He grew lonely, because he grew tired of telling Mrs. Ripley that no, she hadn’t gained a pound when it was plain that she had gained six; that yes, she still looked twenty, when, of course, she didn’t; that certainly he wanted her to sit in his lap, she felt like a feather.

  Mr. Ripley decided to buy himself a dog. He wanted companionship, and he wasn’t getting it from Mrs. Ripley. He wanted a comfortable dog, not young, not frisky, not little and cute. He wanted a pal, who wouldn’t preen before him, or climb into his lap.

  Mr. Ripley found the dog he wanted, a gentle and dignified mastiff, out of puppyhood, who liked his new owner at once. He followed Mr. Ripley home from the kennel with no show-off tricks and no tiresome chitchat. Mrs. Ripley met them at the door and began to emit little squeals. She said she was afraid of that great big beast, and suppose he had fleas, and what did Mr. Ripley expect to do about him when he went to work?

  Mr. Ripley kept Pal by his side for the rest of that day, so that Mrs. Ripley could get used to him gradually, and not be frightened by coming upon him unguarded. But Mrs. Ripley grew very jealous at seeing the two so inseparable. This, she imagined, was the way it would be until Pal rolled over and died. Long before nightfall she worked herself up into a temper tantrum, declaring she would not sleep under the same roof with a dangerous dog.

  Mr. Riple
y took his new friend back to the kennel. Walking home alone down the lonely road, he had a sense of loss so great that sometimes the road blurred before him.

  The uneventful years passed. The war and the pressure of work gave Mr. Ripley the first real interest he had had in years.

  He labored late at his shop, and Mrs. Ripley decided that he was deceiving her. With somebody young, of course, who did not dye her hair. Mrs. Ripley’s jealousy of this unknown woman grew by leaps and bounds. And suddenly she had an overwhelming fear that her husband would ask her for a divorce and marry a girl who would give him a child.

  She was desperate, and cast about in her mind for some way to keep her husband at home. Then she remembered Pal, and that day of her husband’s devotion to him. Mr. Ripley was nearing fifty, many years her senior, Mrs. Ripley added hastily to herself. Surely at his age he was ready to settle down with a dog and a book. A dog would give him a new interest in his home and encourage him to stay in it.

  Mrs. Ripley went shopping for a pet as a surprise for her husband. She settled on a month-old handful of fluff, because there was nothing about it suggestive of a big horrid dog that might bite. That afternoon she had a lot of fun making a charming ribbon-tied bed out of a clothes basket. When Mr. Ripley reached home late that night, basket and Fluff were ensconced on the window seat in the bedroom.

  His mouth fell open. He stared at his wife, who had waked at his footsteps, and now sat up in her bed with her chin strap and curlers, looking very proud of her self.

  “What’s that over there?” Mr. Ripley asked almost harshly, hoping wildly that his wife would say someone had left a foundling on their doorstep.

  “Go and see,” she urged contentedly.

  Cautiously he approached the basket, walking on tiptoe, and feeling very big and awkward beside a small baby. He bent down to look and saw the sleeping puppy.

  “It’s a dog,” he said dully.

  All of her latent maternalism roused to its defense. “Well, what did you think it was?” she demanded sharply. “I thought you were so crazy about dogs. You were mighty crazy about that old Pal. You just don’t like Fluff because he’s mine.”

  The puppy waked at the sound of her strident voice and began to whimper. Mrs. Ripley jumped out of bed, streaked across the room, and cuddled the puppy in her arms.

  Mr. Ripley was tired from the long day. He had the crazy feeling that his wife was making sport of him. This was her revenge for her evenings alone. This tiny white dog would never be a fine big fellow like Pal. This was a woman’s pet that his wife had bought to show her contempt for him.

  The lack of understanding between Mr. and Mrs. Ripley grew enormously in the next few weeks. Business continued to bring Mr. Ripley home very late, and Mrs. Ripley lavished the best of her love on Fluff. Mr. Ripley saw his wife’s devotion to the little toy dog with sick eyes. He remembered how seriously his little sister had played house with her dolls, calling them her children, and pretending they were real. Fluff seemed symbolic of the whole unreality of his marriage.

  One night he came home with a feeling of deep sadness. The week before, his secretary, Mrs. Heath, a gentle, unobtrusive woman, a widow in her forties, had told him she had lost her only child, a son dying in uniform in Sicily. This day another groundswell of grief compelled her to speak his name again. Today would have been his twenty-first birthday. What good was he dead, no wife ever wed, no children ever born.

  Mrs. Heath had stayed after hours to work with Mr. Ripley, preferring to spend the evening away from home. At nine she and Mr. Ripley had left the office together. Mr. Ripley had watched her go in the opposite direction, and had had the impulse to follow her to keep her from brooding alone.

  Mrs. Ripley’s eyes were red-rimmed when she opened the door to her husband. They were swollen as if she had cried a long time. He came in quickly. “What happened?” His mind, already oppressed by Mrs. Heath’s grief, flew to his sister’s boys, both overseas.

  His entry started her tears again. She could not speak. He seized her shoulders and shook her hard.

  “Tell me,” he demanded fiercely.

  “Fluff,” she said between sobs. “I took him to the hospital today to have his tail cut. He cried so when I left him, and he was so quiet and scared when it was over. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself. And Fluff may never forgive me either.”

  The puppy came into view then. He was subdued, but very much alive. As a matter of fact he lifted his bandaged tail in greeting. “I’ll get you a bite and tell you all about it,” said Mrs. Ripley.

  Mr. Ripley rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Your dog lost his tail. Other women have lost their sons.” Suddenly he did not feel tired any more. “I’m going out again. But before I go, I’ll pack my bag. I’ll send for it tomorrow.”

  ODYSSEY OF AN EGG

  Porky Tynes came out of the cheap movie house and stood for a moment under the marquee, staring at the lurid stills of the picture he had just seen. He wet his lips a little. It had been a swell show. Gangsters, and gats, and gun molls. Tough guys giving the works to little scared guys. Big shots running rackets, making millions.

  Porky hitched his pants and lit a cigarette. Then he pulled his hat over one eye, thrust his legs apart, and drew his brows together in the menacing way the head guy had done in the movie. The passersby paid no attention. They scurried along the mean street like miserable rabbits. There wasn’t one who looked as if he had guts enough to shoot a gun. Porky spat derisively. You had to be tough to get on in this world.

  He sauntered slowly down the street. He had nowhere to go. His mother had given him two bits that morning to go look for a job. Said his old man was tired of supporting him. They had a nerve, them two. Did they think he liked living in their lousy three rooms? Did they think he wouldn’t be gone in a minute if he ever got hold of a sweet hunk of dough?

  Where was a guy going to get a job? It wasn’t his fault he got kicked out of trade school before he could learn a trade. If it hadn’t been for Polecat, that pushface principal would never have known which one of the guys was stealing his stinking tools.

  Porky viciously kicked a tin can that a ragged kid was pulling along on a string. That ragged kid let out a yell and ran to show his cut hand to a burly man in a doorway. Porky walked away fast. No sense in getting in a fistfight over a lousy tin can.

  The can whizzed down the street and got itself tangled in the trailing skirts of a shriveled old woman. Porky slowed down as he came abreast. He snickered. The old hag looked as if she had been hit by a hurricane. If she didn’t fall flat on her face with fright, he’d be a son of a gun.

  Porky speeded up again. If this old sister was going to fall, he wanted to be far, far away. Getting beat up—that is, giving a guy a beating over a sniveling kid and a bunch of old rags—was beneath Porky’s dignity.

  A hand clutched his arm. He stood stock-still. Perspiration came out on his forehead. He closed his eyes and could almost feel the burly man’s fist connect with his chin.

  “I feel awful faint, son.”

  Porky opened his eyes and stared down at the frail veined hand on his arm. His glance slid up insolently to the ashen face. His lips lifted in a snarl. “So, what’s ’at to me?”

  The old woman spoke with difficulty. “Will you help me to my house, son? It ain’t far.”

  “What’s in it for me?” said Porky disdainfully. The nerve of this ragpicker, asking favors of guys. She leaned on him heavily, but he was afraid to pull away. The guy back there might be watching him.

  The old woman fumbled with her filthy handkerchief. “There’s a dime tied up in the corner, son. All I got in this world. You can take it.”

  A lousy dime for carting an old dame down the block. Gingerly he extracted it. He could get a hot pup and a cup of Java. Then he could go to another movie with the rest of the two bits his mother had given him.

  “You don’t got to lean so hard on a guy,” he complained. “Folks’ll think you’re drunk.”

/>   They shuffled off down the street, the old woman walking slowly and painfully, and Porky darting shamed glances around the street.

  Finally they halted before a run-down apartment house. The old woman spoke between gasps. “I live in the basement. Here’s the key.”

  He took the soiled handkerchief again and helped her down the stairs. He was mad as hops. The old bag of bones had a grip on his arm that was like a death hold. He couldn’t have gotten away without pasting her one. And if he did, she’d yell for the cops, and those lousy bums would conk him with their nightsticks.

  He opened the unlocked outer door, and they entered the dark interior. With a pale wavering finger the old woman pointed into the gloom.

  “It’s there. My door. For God’s sake, get me inside.”

  He cursed, and felt his spine prickle with his dislike of the dark. He fumbled for the lock, found it, and inserted the key that dangled from the soiled handkerchief. The door swung open. This was better. Sunlight filtered through the drawn shade.

  “Well, here y’ are, sister,” he said ungallantly, thrusting the handkerchief into her hand. The toughness was back in his voice now. In a minute he’d be outside again, heading for a beanery. It wasn’t a bad haul for a dime.

  The old woman took a few feeble steps on her own. Porky turned to go. Jeez, what a lousy hole. He blew out his lips in contempt.

  “Son,” came a desperate whisper, “please—my heart medicine—over there.”

  Porky saw red. What’d she want for a dime? A full-time flunky? He swung around to curse her.

  She was staring straight at him with glassy eyes. Both hands clawed the rags that covered her chest, jerking and pulling with their failing strength as if they would yank out the stone that was her heart.

  Porky stood rooted to the spot. The room was filled with the sickening sound of her tortured breathing. Porky’s knees turned to water. The old dame was dying. What a spot to be in for a crumby dime.

  She was falling! She was falling right toward him, her rags gaping open, and the rattle rasping out of her throat. Porky jumped to one side and felt the hair rise on his head. He’d never do another favor for anybody as long as he lived. What a lousy rotten trick to play on a guy.