The Lady of Situations (26 page)

"Go ahead. I can take it."

"Then here it is. You've married a born loser. I've known my cousin considerably longer than you have, and I've observed him. If you see things his way, you're going to lose along with him. Now you may say, what the hell, I'm rich, aren't I? I'll always have the good things of life. But that's where you're wrong. Everything Stephen has is in an iron-bound trust that will go to his children when he dies, and if he has none, back to the Hills, in equal shares, as the lawyers say,
per stirpes.
Not a bloody cent to the widow! That's how the Hills do things."

"But that's not true of my mother-in-law," Natica protested, appalled. "She has money of her own. I know, because she bought us our apartment. And she's always telling me how poor the Kips were."

"In Aunt Angelica's day they still made marriage settlements. But if one was made for you, my dear, Tyler Bennett is ignorant of it, and Tyler Bennett is ignorant of precious few things that go on in this office."

"No, I'm sure none was made. They couldn't have done it without my knowing, could they?"

"And wouldn't, believe me. Of course, Uncle Angus, who owns what he has outright, could make any disposition of it he wants. But what will he want where you're concerned? I'm not telling any secrets out of court when I tell you how bitter he was about the whole Barnes divorce business. And he has pretty much the same opinion of his son, Stephen, that I have. He's never going to leave him anything out of trust. No, Natica, you'd be wrong to count on a fortune or even a decent maintenance, if you survive Stephen. The only way you'd ever see a penny of Uncle Angus's dough is through your children. So if you don't come to work with me and make your own fortune, you'd better start filling that nursery!"

"Well, that's certainly putting it straight on the line."

"Which is where I like to put things."

Natica put Tyler's offer—without, of course, his warning—to Stephen that very night. It went even worse than she had anticipated. She had waited until he had finished his first cocktail before outlining the proposal. She had considerably softened the edges of it, implying that most of her work could be done at home and that she would really be acting as a kind of supplement to himself. But Stephen's face had at once contracted into the white stare she had first seen in the restaurant the night of her miscarriage.

"So Tyler's taken you over, too."

"Too?"

"First Mother, then he. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to turn you into the Hill they've despaired of making › me.

"Would you mind telling me what you're talking about?"

"Oh, they're smart, the pair of them. One's all rosily female and the other all dryly male. But they know just what they're about, and what a crushing team they are! They'd just about given me up. A dreamer, an idler, a half-man who babbled about books and pictures. And who finally went into teaching, the ultimate refuge of those who can't 'do.' And then, to top it all off, he gets himself involved in a stinking scandal and is fired from a school of which his own father is a trustee! It's the end, isn't it? But wait a moment. Hold your horses. Isn't it just possible that something can be salvaged from the bloody mess? Hills don't lightly give up anything. Witness those textile factories you were talking about. So let's have a look. Just who
is
this scarlet woman who seduced our weakling? Could there be anything to her? Well, for heaven's sake, if she doesn't have a brain! And some force of character, to boot.
Considerable
force of character, wouldn't you say? Maybe the Angus Hills have a man in their branch of the family after all."

Natica felt her throat beginning to constrict with an ominous wrath. "Keep it up, Prince Hamlet. It's a fine monologue."

"Is that all you can say? Well, riddle me this. When you start working for Tyler, is there any point my continuing to go to the office? Or shall I stay home and play bridge with Janine and Susan?"

"It's better than going to the movies."

He stared. "The movies?"

"Isn't that where you were today? Grant said you might be."

"You were down in the office?"

"Of course I was. That's where I had my talk with Tyler. I came down to see the lobby of the Standard Oil Building. To see the names of the original partners carved up there in all their glory. With Ezra Hill among them. I was so proud! And then I came over to see if his grandson, my beloved husband, could spare an hour to take me to lunch. And where was he? Off to the Marx Brothers. If it had been to read Karl, that might at least have been worthy of Ezra. The pioneer of one generation can be the rebel of the next. But to chuckle at Groucho!"

Stephen had covered his face. Behind his hands he seemed to be stifling a sob. "Oh, Natica, don't! I didn't know you could be so cruel. Poor Tommy!"

She gasped. "You call
me
cruel! Why, I never..." And then she knew she had to stop. Her world was teetering. She had the will and the fury to say irreparable things. She might even have the power to destroy him. She clenched her fists and took several deep breaths. "Look, Stephen. Let's quit this. I'm not going to work for Tyler. We're going on the way we've been going."

"Go ahead," he moaned. "Go ahead and work for him. You might just as well, now."

"Never. The discussion is over."

And she meant it. She refused to say another word on the subject. They ate their dinner in silence, and afterwards, as he sat moodily on the sofa drinking scotch after scotch, she pretended to read a novel as she contemplated their future.

***

The next day at noon she lunched with Aunt Ruth in a corner of the Clinton school cafeteria, as far away as they could get from the chattering girls.

"I thought you should hear the last scene in the melodrama to which I have so long treated you," she concluded to her soberly listening relative. "But it's not just for your entertainment, if indeed, poor Auntie, you find any in it. I've got to have another point of view. I can't afford another mess in my life. At least not yet. I'm only twenty-four. Almost the age when Keats died, already among the English poets.'"

"Let's leave Keats out of this. Has this really changed your feelings about Stephen?"

"I don't know. I have an awful sense that those feelings may be somewhere between anger and contempt. How
dare
he be so unhappy with all he's got?"

Aunt Ruth's smile was a bit grim. "Meaning yourself, dear?"

"No! I mean his money, damn it all, his social position, his serried family, his good looks, his
opportunities.
Think of those things, Aunt Ruth. And he has the nerve to mope!"

"God sends manna to those who have no teeth. Maybe it's his way of hinting what those things are really worth."

"Oh, of course I know there's no point in berating him for not having my tastes. The real point is that somehow I've got to pull him through. It's not just a question of moral obligation, though I suppose that may exist."

"I'm glad you admit that."

"Now don't get stuffy with me, please, Auntie. It's too serious for that. My only use for morality is if it makes for the good life. And it certainly isn't the good life to be always making people unhappy. I've failed with one husband, and it's far too soon to fail with another. What am I going to
do
about Stephen?"

"How long do you suppose it will be before he can get the kind of school job he had at Averhill?"

"Who knows? And there's even a question in my mind whether he really wants to teach anywhere
but
Averhill. He seems to have a fixation about the place. It was there he found God and there he lost him. He may imagine it's the only place he can find him again. An Eden he's been kicked out of."

Aunt Ruth reflected. "I suppose the war might take care of the problem. If we get into it, that is."

"Yes, a nice short war where he could be very brave and not be killed might be just the thing. It could make him feel manly and superior to Tyler Bennett, who would be sure to wiggle out of military service. But wars aren't made to order, are they? And even if they were, one wouldn't dare order one, for he just might be killed."

"Which would never do?"

"Oh, Auntie, you really
do
think I'm a fiend. But of course it would never do. I suppose we could travel. South America is still available. But I don't want to strike the note of the honeymoon again."

"How about a farm?"

"Can you see me on one?"

"I think, my dear, I can see you any place you put your mind on. But I have a better idea. Why don't you buy a bookstore? You could run it together."

Natica's first reaction was that it was surprising she hadn't thought of this herself. "Really, Auntie, you're like the Lady from Philadelphia in
The Peterkin Papers.
What can you do when you've put salt instead of sugar in your coffee? Pour another cup of coffee! A bookstore might be just the thing. You don't happen to know of one for sale, do you?"

"As a matter of fact, that's why I thought of it. Lily Warner and her sister want to sell their shop on Madison Avenue and Sixtieth. They're getting on and it's a bit too much for them. And they have a wonderful clientele. I think they dictate what half the social register reads."

"I know that store. It's one of those places that makes you want to read. And they welcome browsers. I wonder what they're asking for it."

"Does it matter?"

"Oh, yes. Stephen, like all people who never think of money, spends all his income and more, and he can't touch the principal unless the bank consents, and it rarely does." And then she suddenly recalled what Tyler had said about the wives of the earlier generation receiving settlements. "But there's always Mrs. Hill, God bless her!"

She went straight from lunch to the pink palazzo and had the luck to find her mother-in-law in. When she came home that evening she not only had Angelica's promise; she had obtained a month's option to buy from the Warner sisters.

Stephen looked at her with astonishment.

"But I thought you wanted to work with stocks and bonds!"

"What I really want is to do something with you."

At this he actually hugged her, something he hadn't done in weeks. "I can't fight you both, darling. You
and
Mother. The bookstore it is!"

N
ATICA LOVED
the store from the beginning. Stephen's attitude was less enthusiastic, but he had no objection to her taking the lead in all the arrangements.

"The great thing about your mother's gift," she told him, "is that it will allow us to operate in the red until we've established the character of our shop. Once that's done I have no doubt we can attract a steady clientele. And in the meantime we are spared the agony of Christmas and birthday cards, and those overpriced little papier-mâché boxes, and prints of birds and flowers, and, above all, children's books. We'll provide a small, hospitable center for serious readers."

"What about best sellers?"

"We'll have
all
the best sellers. Only we won't put them in the window with a sign screaming they're that. Popular books will take their chance with the others."

"And detective stories?"

"But they appeal to the most serious readers of all! As a matter of fact I intend to make myself an expert in crime fiction."

And she did. In a few months' time Natica became known among browsers of the upper East Side as the attractive and intellectual young member of a famous clan who could discuss the latest book on the Axis powers and the newest whodunit, and who never showed impatience with a non-purchaser. She had always been a rapid reader, and with the added material of reviews and releases she found it easy enough to keep ahead of the neighborhood ladies who, as she put it to Stephen, "matronized" their tastefully redecorated little store.

Angelica Hill and her daughters were constant customers, and their friends and relations soon followed. Tyler Bennett's mother, Aunt Sally, as round and dimpled and friendly and breathless as her Hill brothers were lean and grim and dry—proof enough, as Natica took it, of the blander effect of inherited wealth on their sex—was a passionate lover of mysteries and came in almost daily.

"Tyler told me you had a head for business, my dear, which I suppose is why you do this so well. Of course, he doesn't consider a bookstore business, and he thinks you're throwing yourself away. Isn't that just like Tyler? But I tell him that his glorious 'downtown' isn't the only place in the universe, and that when he's made all the money in the world, what does he think he's going to do? He doesn't go in for cards or sports like his cousins, so he'll probably end up on a porch rocker reading thrillers like his poor old ma!"

Stephen soon began to feel and, much worse, to show impatience with the less intelligent and more demanding lady customers, and Natica tactfully suggested that he spend more of his time in the little back office, invisible to the public, taking care of ordering new titles. She kept him from interfering with their hard-working and efficient lady bookkeeper, who shared this space, by persuading him that such toil was beneath him and tried to salvage his pride by sending some of the more intellectual customers back to "consult" with him.

They had no need of additional help as yet, but one morning before Stephen had arrived (he rarely appeared before eleven) a young man of no more than nineteen came in to apply for a job as salesman. He immediately interested her. He was short, with thick black hair and bunched-up features rendered almost unnoticeable by cold gray penetrating eyes which stared at her with an impertinence sufficiently surprising in one seeking a position.

"You won't remember me, but I was a prefect last year in your husband's dorm in Averhill."

She glanced at his scanty résumé and then recalled the name: Giles Woodward. "I have certainly heard Stephen speak of you. But shouldn't you be in college?"

"I've been suspended for a year." The stare now seemed to put
her
on the defensive. "It was supposed to be for a drunken prank, but that was the front for a trumped-up morals charge they couldn't prove. They think I won't come back, but they have another think coming."