Complete Stories (33 page)

Read Complete Stories Online

Authors: Dorothy Parker,Colleen Bresse,Regina Barreca

BOOK: Complete Stories
2.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
He did not dislike Miss Wilmarth; he only resented her. He had no bad wish in the world for her, but he waited with longing the day she would leave. She was so skilled and rhythmic in her work that she disrupted the household but little. Nevertheless, her presence was an onus. There was that thing of dining with her every evening. It was a chore for him, certainly, and one that did not ease with repetition, but there was no choice. Everyone had always heard of trained nurses’ bristling insistence that they be not treated as servants; Miss Wilmarth could not be asked to dine with the maids. He would not have dinner out; be away from
Camilla
? It was too much to expect the maids to institute a second dinner service or to carry trays, other than Camilla’s, up and down the stairs. There were only three servants and they had work enough.
“Those children,” Camilla’s mother was wont to say, chuckling. “Those two kids. The independence of them! Struggling along on cheese and kisses. Why, they hardly let me pay for the trained nurse. And it was all we could do, last Christmas, to make Camilla take the Packard and the chauffeur.”
So Gerald dined each night with Miss Wilmarth. The small dread of his hour with her struck suddenly at him in the afternoon. He would forget it for stretches of minutes, only to be smitten sharper as the time drew near. On his way home from his office, he found grim entertainment in rehearsing his table talk, and plotting desperate innovations to it.
Cruger’s Compulsory Conversations: Lesson I, a Dinner with a Miss Wilmarth, a Trained Nurse. Good evening, Miss Wilmarth. Well! And how were the patients all day? That’s good, that’s fine. Well! The baby gained two ounces, did she? That’s fine. Yes, that’s right, she will be before we know it. That’s right. Well! Mrs. Cruger seems to be getting stronger every day, doesn’t she? That’s good, that’s fine. That’s right, up and about before we know it. Yes, she certainly will. Well! Any visitors today? That’s good. Didn’t stay too long, did they? That’s fine. Well! No, no, no, Miss Wilmarth
—you
go ahead. I wasn’t going to say anything at all, really. No, really. Well! Well! I see where they found those two aviators after all. Yes, they certainly do run risks. That’s right. Yes. Well! I see where they’ve been having a regular old-fashioned blizzard out west. Yes, we certainly have had a mild winter. That’s right. Well! I see where they held up that jeweler’s shop right in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue. Yes, I certainly don’t know what we’re coming to. That’s right. Well! I see the cat. Do you see the cat? The cat is on the mat. It certainly is. Well! Pardon me, Miss Wilmarth, but must you look so much like a horse? Do you like to look like a horse, Miss Wilmarth? That’s good, Miss Wilmarth, that’s fine. You certainly do, Miss Wilmarth. That’s right. Well! Will you for God’s sake finish your oats, Miss Wilmarth, and let me get out of this?
Every evening he reached the dining-room before Miss Wilmarth and stared gloomily at silver and candle-flame until she was upon him. No sound of footfall heralded her coming, for her ample canvas oxfords were soled with rubber; there would be a protest of parquet, a trembling of ornaments, a creak, a rustle, and the authoritative smell of stiff linen; and there she would be, set for her ritual of evening cheer.
“Well, Mary,” she would cry to the waitress, “you know what they say—better late than never!”
But no smile would mellow Mary’s lips, no light her eyes. Mary, in converse with the cook, habitually referred to Miss Wilmarth as “that one.” She wished no truck with Miss Wilmarth or any of the others of her guild; always in and out of a person’s pantry.
Once or twice Gerald saw a strange expression upon Miss Wilmarth’s face as she witnessed the failure of her adage with the maid. He could not quite classify it. Though he did not know, it was the look she sometimes had when she opened the shiny white boxes and lifted the exquisite, scentless blossoms that were sent to Camilla. Anyway, whatever it was, it increased her equine resemblance to such a point that he thought of proffering her an apple.
But she always had her big smile turned toward him when she sat down. Then she would look at the thick watch strapped to her wrist and give a little squeal that brought the edges of his teeth together.
“Mercy!” she would say. “My good mercy! Why, I had no more idea it was so late. Well, you mustn’t blame me, Mr. Cruger. Don’t you scold
me
. You’ll just have to blame that daughter of yours. She’s the one that keeps us all busy.”
“She certainly is,” he would say. “That’s right.”
He would think, and with small pleasure, of the infant Diane, pink and undistinguished and angry, among the ruffles and
choux
of her bassinet. It was her doing that Camilla had stayed so long away from him in the odorous limbo of the hospital, her doing that Camilla lay all day upon her apricot satin chaise-longue. “We must take our time,” the doctor said, “just ta-a-ake our ti-yem.” Yes; well, that would all be because of young Diane. It was because of her, indeed, that night upon night he must face Miss Wilmarth and comb up conversation. All right, young Diane, there you are and nothing to do about it. But you’ll be an only child, young woman, that’s what you’ll be.
Always Miss Wilmarth followed her opening pleasantry about the baby with a companion piece. Gerald had come to know it so well he could have said it in duet with her.
“You wait,” she would say. “Just you wait. You’re the one that’s going to be kept busy when the beaux start coming around. You’ll see. That young lady’s going to be a heart-breaker if ever I saw one.”
“I guess that’s right,” Gerald would say, and he would essay a small laugh and fail at it. It made him uncomfortable, somehow embarrassed him to hear Miss Wilmarth banter of swains and conquest. It was unseemly, as rouge would have been unseemly on her long mouth and perfume on her flat bosom.
He would hurry her over to her own ground. “Well!” he would say. “Well! And how were the patients all day?”
But that, even with the baby’s weight and the list of the day’s visitors, seldom lasted past the soup.
“Doesn’t that woman ever go out?” he asked Camilla. “Doesn’t our Horsie ever rate a night off?”
“Where would she want to go?” Camilla said. Her low, lazy words had always the trick of seeming a little weary of their subject.
“Well,” Gerald said, “she might take herself a moonlight canter around the park.”
“Oh, she doubtless gets a thrill out of dining with you,” Camilla said. “You’re a man, they tell me, and she can’t have seen many. Poor old horse. She’s not a bad soul.”
“Yes,” he said. “And what a round of pleasure it is, having dinner every night with Not a Bad Soul.”
“What makes you think,” Camilla said, “that I am caught up in any whirl of gaiety, lying here?”
“Oh, darling,” he said. “Oh, my poor darling. I didn’t mean it, honestly I didn’t. Oh,
lord,
I didn’t mean it. How could I complain, after all you’ve been through, and I haven’t done a thing? Please, sweet, please. Ah, Camilla, say you know I didn’t mean it.”
“After all,” Camilla said, “you just have her at dinner. I have her around all day.”
“Sweetheart, please,” he said. “Oh, poor angel.”
He dropped to his knees by the chaise-longue and crushed her limp, fragrant hand against his mouth. Then he remembered about being very, very gentle. He ran little apologetic kisses up and down her fingers and murmured of gardenias and lilies and thus exhausted his knowledge of white flowers.
Her visitors said that Camilla looked lovelier than ever, but they were mistaken. She was only as lovely as she had always been. They spoke in hushed voices of the new look in her eyes since her motherhood; but it was the same far brightness that had always lain there. They said how white she was and how lifted above other people; they forgot that she had always been pale as moonlight and had always worn a delicate disdain, as light as the lace that covered her breast. Her doctor cautioned tenderly against hurry, besought her to take recovery slowly—Camilla, who had never done anything quickly in her life. Her friends gathered, adoring, about the apricot satin chaise-longue where Camilla lay and moved her hands as if they hung heavy from her wrists; they had been wont before to gather and adore at the white satin sofa in the drawing-room where Camilla reclined, her hands like heavy lilies in a languid breeze. Every night, when Gerald crossed the threshold of her fragrant room, his heart leaped and his words caught in his throat; but those things had always befallen him at the sight of her. Motherhood had not brought perfection to Camilla’s loveliness. She had had that before.
Gerald came home early enough, each evening, to have a while with her before dinner. He made his cocktails in her room, and watched her as she slowly drank one. Miss Wilmarth was in and out, touching flowers, patting pillows. Sometimes she brought Diane in on display, and those would be minutes of real discomfort for Gerald. He could not bear to watch her with the baby in her arms, so acute was his vicarious embarrassment at her behavior. She would bring her long head down close to Diane’s tiny, stern face and toss it back again high on her rangy neck, all the while that strange words, in a strange high voice, came from her.
“Well, her wuzza booful dirl. Ess, her wuzza. Her wuzza, wuzza, wuzza. Ess, her
wuzz
.” She would bring the baby over to him. “See, Daddy. Isn’t us a gate, bid dirl? Isn’t us booful? Say ‘nigh-nigh,’ Daddy. Us doe teepy-bye, now. Say ‘nigh-nigh.’ ”
Oh, God.
Then she would bring the baby to Camilla. “Say ‘nigh-nigh,’ ” she would cry. “ ‘Nigh-nigh,’ Mummy.”
“If that brat ever calls you ‘Mummy,’ ” he told Camilla once, fiercely, “I’ll turn her out in the snow.”
Camilla would look at the baby, amusement in her slow glance. “Good night, useless,” she would say. She would hold out a finger, for Diane’s pink hand to curl around. And Gerald’s heart would quicken, and his eyes sting and shine.
Once he tore his gaze from Camilla to look at Miss Wilmarth, surprised by the sudden cessation of her falsetto. She was no longer lowering her head and tossing it back. She was standing quite still, looking at him over the baby; she looked away quickly, but not before he had seen that curious expression on her face again. It puzzled him, made him vaguely uneasy. That night, she made no further exhortations to Diane’s parents to utter the phrase “nigh-nigh.” In silence she carried the baby out of the room and back to the nursery.
One evening, Gerald brought two men home with him; lean, easily dressed young men, good at golf and squash rackets, his companions through his college and in his clubs. They had cocktails in Camilla’s room, grouped about the chaise-longue. Miss Wilmarth, standing in the nursery adjoining, testing the temperature of the baby’s milk against her wrist, could hear them all talking lightly and swiftly, tossing their sentences into the air to hang there unfinished. Now and again she could distinguish Camilla’s lazy voice; the others stopped immediately when she spoke, and when she was done there were long peals of laughter. Miss Wilmarth pictured her lying there, in golden chiffon and deep lace, her light figure turned always a little away from those about her, so that she must move her head and speak her slow words over her shoulder to them. The trained nurse’s face was astoundingly equine as she looked at the wall that separated them.
They stayed in Camilla’s room a long time, and there was always more laughter. The door from the nursery into the hall was open, and presently she heard the door of Camilla’s room being opened, too. She had been able to hear only voices before, but now she could distinguish Gerald’s words as he called back from the threshold; they had no meaning to her.
“Only wait, fellers,” he said. “Wait till you see Seabiscuit.”
He came to the nursery door. He held a cocktail shaker in one hand and a filled glass in the other.
“Oh, Miss Wilmarth,” he said. “Oh, good evening, Miss Wilmarth. Why, I didn’t know this door was open—I mean, I hope we haven’t been disturbing you.”
“Oh, not the least little bit,” she said. “Goodness.”
“Well!” he said. “I—we were wondering if you wouldn’t have a little cocktail. Won’t you please?” He held out the glass to her.
“Mercy,” she said, taking it. “Why, thank you ever so much. Thank you, Mr. Cruger.”
“And, oh, Miss Wilmarth,” he said, “would you tell Mary there’ll be two more to dinner? And ask her not to have it before half an hour or so, will you? Would you mind?”
“Not the least little bit,” she said. “Of course I will.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Well! Thank you, Miss Wilmarth. Well! See you at dinner.”
“Thank
you
,” she said. “I’m the one that ought to thank
you
. For the lovely little cockytail.”
“Oh,” he said, and failed at an easy laugh. He went back into Camilla’s room and closed the door behind him.
Miss Wilmarth set her cocktail upon a table, and went down to inform Mary of the impending guests. She felt light and quick, and she told Mary gaily, awaiting a flash of gaiety in response. But Mary received the news impassively, made a grunt but no words, and slammed out through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Miss Wilmarth stood looking after her. Somehow servants never seemed to—She should have become used to it.
Even though the dinner hour was delayed, Miss Wilmarth was a little late. The three young men were standing in the dining-room, talking all at once and laughing all together. They stopped their noise when Miss Wilmarth entered, and Gerald moved forward to perform introductions. He looked at her, and then looked away. Prickling embarrassment tormented him. He introduced the young men, with his eyes away from her.

Other books

Claiming Their Maiden by Sue Lyndon
Seed No Evil by Kate Collins
The Killer Inside by Lindsay Ashford
The Pack by Donna Flynn
The Devil You Know by K. J. Parker
Maine Squeeze by Catherine Clark
Fire, The by Heldt, John A.