The Rose Garden Page 11

  “Over she goes and stands in front of the fire. ‘Mmm,’ she says. ‘Delicious! Harry and I nearly froze in that open car. I’m afraid I’m not dressed for the country,’ she says, and she looks at what the other two have on, and you can see she’s right satisfied with herself. Mrs. Lamb has blossomed out in a pair of light-gray velveteen slacks and a yellow pullover like a boy’s pullover, and Mrs. Tillbright is wearing the same as she was wearing before—that great big skirt she has, her fireside skirt, she calls it, and a little white baby blouse. That Miss Carter doesn’t know when to shut up, or she doesn’t want to shut up, I don’t know which. ‘I’d let myself go terribly if I lived in the country,’ she says, looking at the other two. ‘I don’t wonder that people go to pieces out here. I mean the whole thing is to keep warm, isn’t it? It must be so demoralizing—for women, especially.’ ‘I don’t live in the country,’ Mrs. Lamb says, very sharp altogether. ‘Oh, I know that,’ says Miss Carter. ‘Even if Harry hadn’t told me all about you on the way up here, I’d know by your clothes. They have that wonderfully considered look, as though you’d really thought about what would look best on you. I bet I know why you chose that particular pullover,’ she says, with a big nod. ‘Why did I choose it, pray tell?’ says Mrs. Lamb, getting all red.

  “Mrs. Tillbright speaks up, trying to be a hostess. ‘I hope you have a ride back to the city tonight,’ she says to Miss Carter. ‘I hope Mr. Tillbright—Harry—explained to you that Mrs. Lamb is staying with us, and we have only one guest room.’ Miss Carter gives a great squawk, as if she had a pain. ‘Heavens, Mrs. Tillbright!’ she says. ‘It’s too sweet of you, but you know, I wouldn’t spend a night in the country to save my life. I can’t stand the country! I simply can’t imagine how you live out here, although I think your house is just as sweet as can be. I mean I can see you’ve worked over it. Goodness, no, I’m not staying. I have to be at a party at eleven, for one thing. Harry and I were having a drink, and he suggested that I run out here for dinner and see the house, and all. And of course I jumped at the chance to meet you and see where Harry lives. He’s told me so much about it I feel as though I knew every room. What did you decide about the new furniture for the patio? Harry says you want rough, woodsy stuff, but I think wrought iron has so much more chic, don’t you?’

  “‘Where the hell is Harry?’ says Mrs. Lamb, and just at that exact moment Mr. Tillbright comes running down the stairs, two at a time, with a big white woolen shirt on him and a red scarf tucked in at the neck. Miss Carter lets out another squawk. ‘Harry,’ she shouts, ‘you look scrumptious!’ And she looks at Mrs. Tillbright. ‘If you don’t get that outfit copied,’ she says, ‘I will. Harry darling, you look so chic. Honestly, men have the most wonderful clothes. If all the men out here dress like that, I think I’ll take your sweet wife up on her weekend invitation.’ ‘Oh, that would be fine, fine,’ says Harry, and you can see he’s beginning to wonder what he’s got himself into. ‘Not this weekend, darling,’ Mrs. Tillbright says to him. ‘We’re full up this weekend. And in any case, Miss Carter says she has to get back to town to some party. I hope you’ve arranged a ride for her.’ ‘Somebody’s bound to be driving in,’ Harry says, and makes himself a drink and one for Miss Carter. ‘Who?’ says Mrs. Tillbright. ‘I don’t know of anyone who’s driving in. The weekend people won’t be leaving till tomorrow or Monday. I don’t know of anyone who’s driving in tonight who would be willing to take Miss Carter.’ ‘Oh, hell,’ says Mr. Tillbright, ‘I’ll drive her in myself, get her to her party, and be back before you can count to a hundred. Nothing to it.’ ‘Oh, grand,’ says Miss Carter. ‘That’s settled then.’ ‘It’s not settled at all,’ says Mrs. Tillbright. ‘Stasia, what on earth do you want?’

  “‘I wanted to know what time you wanted the dinner, Ma’am,’ I said, all quiet and polite—which she was not being. ‘It’s all ready, Ma’am, only to put on the steak.’ ‘Steak!’ says Miss Carter. ‘Oh, goody, I’m starved!’

  “‘Oh, we’re not in a hurry,’ says Mrs. Tillbright. ‘Take your time, Stasia.’ ‘Harry, aren’t you going to take me down to see your kitchen?’ says Miss Carter. ‘I hear you have the most divine old-fashioned kitchen,’ she says then, to Mrs. Tillbright. ‘Take the little girl to see the kitchen, Harry,’ says Mrs. Tillbright, ‘But see that she doesn’t burn her little fingers,’ says Mrs. Lamb. ‘You should know about burnt fingers, Norma dear,’ says Mrs. Tillbright, very nasty. ‘Oh, poor sweet!’ says Mrs. Lamb. ‘It’s just the same old dreary story, isn’t it? And you put up such a brave front all evening, positively gallant. I do admire you so, dear.’ ‘Oh, cut it out, you two,’ says Mr. Tillbright. ‘Mind your own business,’ says Mrs. Tillbright. ‘Your pants are too tight, Norma,’ she says. ‘You look perfectly awful, and the reason is you are awful. Not interesting awful,’ she says, ‘just dreary, sad, pathetic awful. Do you know what? I feel sorry for you.’ And she gives a great giggle.

  “Mr. Tillbright is getting to look very sorry for himself. ‘Debbie,’ he says, ‘why don’t you go upstairs and lie down a while? Get a little rest, why don’t you?’ ‘Some women just cannot drink,’ says Mrs. Lamb, and tosses off her own martini, trying to hold in her stomach at the same time.

  “‘I’ll let you know when to put the steak on, Stasia,’ says Mrs. Tillbright, and I march off to the kitchen, wondering what’ll happen next, since it’s plain they’re all well over the edge. Well, they all come after me, Mr. Tillbright and Miss Carter and the other two. Miss Carter is singing a little song, whispering like, and Mrs. Lamb said, ‘Your kitchen used to be divine, Harry. We had such happy times here in the old days, you and Berenice and I. I hope you haven’t changed it much.’

  “‘Well, it looks just like any other kitchen,’ says Miss Carter, when they’re inside the door. ‘I mean it’s bigger, and there are the beams in the ceiling and all, but it’s not really so terribly unusual, is it?’ ‘What did you expect—a wishing well?’ says Mrs. Lamb. ‘Well, a fireplace, anyway,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I mean the whole point of having a kitchen in the country is that you have a fireplace, isn’t it? I mean why live in the country at all when you can live in the city.’ ‘But, Harry, where is the fireplace?’ says Mrs. Lamb, all astonished. ‘Let’s get back to the drinks and leave Stasia in peace,’ says Mr. Tillbright, very sudden and nervous. ‘But, Harry, tell me,’ says Mrs. Lamb, ‘what happened to the fireplace? There used to be a divine fireplace right there,’ she says to Mrs. Tillbright. ‘Didn’t Harry even tell you it was there? Harry, you are naughty.’ ‘You’re out of your mind, Norma,’ says Harry. ‘You’re thinking of some of the other kitchens around here. Some of them have fireplaces. Come on, let’s go have a drink. What are we standing here for?’ ‘Oh, I suppose you and Berenice had it bricked up, Harry,’ Mrs. Lamb said, ‘but I do think it was mean of you not to tell Debbie about it. You know how she adores fireplaces.’

  “‘Harry,’ says Mrs. Tillbright, ‘if there’s a fireplace there, I want it.’ ‘Damn it all,’ says Mr. Tillbright, ‘I had it bricked up—Berenice and I had to have it bricked up, because we needed that wall for space when we were breaking that door through to the patio. Stop being a silly little fool, Debbie.’ ‘But it used to be so cozy, Harry,’ says Mrs. Lamb. ‘Silly to have a kitchen without a fireplace,’ says Miss Carter.

  “‘Harry,’ says Mrs. Tillbright, ‘I want that fireplace, and I want it now.’ ‘Oh, come on, now, Debbie,’ he says. ‘Come on yourself,’ she says. ‘Get moving. Where is it?’ ‘Now, honey,’ he says, ‘let’s all go get a nice fresh martini and talk it over.’ ‘I’m not moving out of this spot,’ she says. ‘All right,’ he says, ‘I’ll bring the drinks down here.’ And he goes off, and when he comes back with the martini shaker, she’s got the hammer and she’s tapping all along the wall, above the stove and the sink and all.

  “‘Oh, for God’s sake, Debbie,’ he says, ‘will you stop it. It’s behind the stove, if you want to know.’ ‘That’s what I thought,’ says Mrs. Lamb. Miss Carter
sat down by the kitchen table and started to cry. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘men are so awful! Imagine hiding the fireplace. Harry, how could you be so mean to your dear sweet little wife?’ ‘Move the stove, Harry,’ says Mrs. Tillbright. ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,’ he says. ‘All right, then, I’ll move it,’ she says. ‘I’d better turn the oven off, so,’ I said, and I went over and turned it off and took off the kettle I always keep hot there. Mrs. Tillbright goes over and starts pushing and pulling, trying to move the stove.

  “Miss Carter gave another of her screeches. ‘Harry,’ she says, ‘she’ll strain herself trying to move that thing. You do it for her.’ ‘Oh, don’t you do it, Harry,’ says Mrs. Lamb. ‘You know what might happen. Harry isn’t as strong as he looks,’ she says to Miss Carter. Well, Mr. Tillbright gave Mrs. Lamb a look, I can tell you.

  “‘I’m going to have another drink,’ he says, and they all have a drink—Miss Carter and Mrs. Lamb all excited, and Mrs. Tillbright just boiling with temper.

  “‘I hope you’re not going to regret this, Debbie,’ says Mr. Tillbright when he’s finished his drink, but by that time he doesn’t care much about anything. He goes over and gives the stove a wrench, and it comes away and stands lopsided and rocking—you know those old crooked floors, one leg of the stove had been made short to fit against the wall. And there’s a terrible clatter from inside the oven.

  “‘Aw, Mr. Tillbright,’ I said, ‘I wish you’d told me you were going to do that, and I could have taken the dinner out.’ He grabbed open the door, and the eggplant casserole and the cherry pie and all that I was keeping hot all come tumbling out, and the good dinner plates and the little bit of chicken I was keeping for meself—I was mortified that they saw it. All that good food.

  “‘Well, there goes your dinner,’ says Mr. Tillbright to Mrs. Tillbright. ‘Oh, damn the dinner,’ she says. ‘Let’s get the wall opened up.’

  “Well, girls, they got every sharp thing in the house—chisels and screwdrivers and shears, all the carpentry stuff out of the basement, even the good poker out of the living room—and they began to loosen the bricks. Well, that’s all, except a bit of the ceiling came down—not very much. And every bit of electricity in the house is dead, of course, and who can put it back together again I don’t know, or what will be done. When the hole was big enough to suit them, they took the steak and carried it up to the living room, holding it up over their heads as if it was a football player. They said they were going to cook it in the fireplace—”

  “All the electricity gone,” said big Bridie, the bully, sprawled in her usual seat, which ran all the way across the back of the bus.

  “Oh, they don’t know that yet,” Stasia said.

  “Wait till he starts to shave himself,” Delia said.

  “He won’t even be able to take a bath,” Stasia said. “None of them will. The pump works by electricity.”

  “The radio!” Molly Ronan said, with horror.

  “And the dishwasher,” said Josie, the youngest maid.

  “And the toaster and the rotisserie and the—everything,” Delia said. “And with no water at all in the house.”

  “Not to mention the deep freeze,” Bridie said.

  The deep freeze. They had all forgotten the deep freeze.

  “Trust you to think of that, Bridie,” Stasia said, awed.

  “All that reindeer meat,” Bridie said. “All the reindeer meat, all gone, unless they finish it up today.”

  “And the pheasants, and all,” Lily Rooney said. “Remember how pleased they all were, coming back with their pheasants and their trout and their salmon, and all.”

  “But the deer meat,” Stasia said pleasurably. “Mr. Tillbright was so set up with that little red hunting hat of his.”

  “Oh, they’re all great hunters,” Delia said. “A rabbit would put the fear of God into any one of them, if they weren’t carrying their gun.”

  “Aw, Lord, I forgot to tell you about the steak on the rug!” Stasia cried, seeing that the bus was stopping in front of the church. “And Mrs. Tillbright hiding the car keys, and Mr. Tillbright trying to sneak out this morning.”

  “We’re late,” Delia said. “The bell has stopped ringing. We’ll hear it all on the way back, Stasia.”

  “And Miss Carter on the sofa,” Stasia wailed. “I forgot all the best parts.”

  She would never get their attention all the way back again. They’d be crowding around and chattering and interrupting her, getting the story all wrong.

  The Servants’ Dance

  On Saturday morning, Charles Runyon awoke in a mood of rapturous gaiety. This day, this evening, this weekend, promised—no, guaranteed—a triumph so complete, both in secret and in public, that it must surely, Charles felt, become one of the succession of platforms that marked his progress through life, each platform raising him higher, the better to survey the world and the men and women in it. My stage and my actors, he said to himself; my arena. Charles was a literary gentleman whose main interest was the theater. He lived alone in a single room in an old and famous hotel in the Murray Hill district. He never entertained, having, as he laughingly explained, no facilities for doing so, but he went out a great deal, and had a reputation, undefined but definite, as a wit and an epigrammatist. His weekends were spent at Herbert’s Retreat, thirty miles from New York on the east side of the Hudson, and always at Leona Harkey’s, where one bedroom was sacred to him.

  Now, lying in his narrow, canopied four-poster there, he stretched his stringy little arms and his long stringy neck, and yawned. Then he got out of bed, pattered over to his writing table, and snatched up a large notebook, in which, the night before, as every night, he had recorded his impressions of the evening. The notes had been very enjoyable to write. They were copious and would be memorable. Edward Tarnac, Charles’s old enemy, the one member of this river community who had ever been able to get under his skin, had returned to the Retreat after five years’ absence, and he had returned a ruined man. Ruined at thirty-eight, Charles thought, with a tender side glance for his own unmarred years, which numbered fifty-four.

  He pulled open the curtains. Leona’s lawn, starting immediately beneath this window, slanted smoothly down to the river’s edge, two hundred yards away. It was a lovely view, a sunny day, a glorious prospect, and still only ten o’clock in the morning. Charles rang for his café au lait and sat down in the great chintz-covered armchair that Leona had thoughtfully placed near the window but not so near that Charles, thinking or reading, could be seen from the garden. He still had his notebook in his hand, and he glanced at a passage here and there.

  Bridie (Charles liked to refer to her as “that splendid Irishwoman of Leona’s”) clumped in with the tray. The glare of pure hatred that was her characteristic expression descended in full force on Charles’s silky gray head, but he was indifferent and she was silent, respectfully handing him his orange juice, pouring his coffee and his hot milk (Sye-mull-tane-eusssly, Bridie, she said to herself, the coffee and the milk sye-mull-tane-eusssly), and departing.

  Sipping his coffee, he began to read over his notes, but very soon he set both coffee and notes aside and lay back in his chair, to savor—not the sweetness of this present triumph, because, after all, he had that now, but the bitterness of the long grudge he had cherished against Edward Tarnac. The grudge was partly inexplicable to him, and this intensified it. Edward had been well-to-do, free, charming, happy, handsome, attractive, and athletic, but still, when one came right down to it, how many did not have those qualities? It was the literate, cultured, aloof fellows like himself, the true gentlemen, who were the exception. Indeed, it was curious that Edward had always succeeded so in irritating him, at times beyond endurance.

  And then Tarnac had always been so self-confident, so sure that everybody liked him. Why, quite often he had even spoken to Charles as a friend, chatted with him as a friend, completely forgetting the times he had slighted Charles, the gibes, the smart little mockeries that rankled in Charles�
�s mind and glowed there, polished daily until they had the brilliance of jewels. No more, though. This weekend would wipe all that out. Last night was almost enough. Oh, Charles thought, the satisfaction of seeing someone brought down who has been riding high! Well, Tarnac had been thoroughly humiliated, somewhere, somehow, since leaving the Retreat. That much was obvious. The apologetic air of him now, where once he had been so—cocky was the only word for what he had been. He no longer took it for granted that people liked him. Quite the other way around now. Odd, to see him and Lewis Maitland together now. They were bosom friends in the old days, and so much alike that they might have been brothers, with Edward always shining just a little the brighter. Edward had always patronized Lewis—unconsciously, perhaps, but Lewis had felt it. Charles had seen to that. Now the shoe was on the other foot.

  Oh, I’m not the only one enjoying this weekend, Charles thought. Whether Lewis knew it or not, he must have been waiting for the opportunity for years. And then to run into Edward on the street like that was sheer good luck. And apparently Edward was delighted to come up for the weekend. Thinking we’d all be glad to see him. The appalling nerve some people have.