The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (86 page)

 

 

Cynthia quickly called Anne, who looked up surprised, and then grasped
the situation. She called Ruth Willis, a woman they had hired a few days
before, and turned the remainder of the interviewing over to her.

 

 

As they guided Liz into their office at the back of the barn, Liz asked
them when Yale would be back. Cynthia, frightened, wondering whether Liz
was going to create a scene, or deliver a blistering attack on the evils
of bigamy, told her that Yale wouldn't be back until three or four o'clock.

 

 

Liz told them it was just as well. She sat down in the chair that Anne
offered her and fumbled in her bag for matches and a cigarette. She
finally found them, and slowly lighted one. She blinked back tears of
anger. Anne suddenly realized that Liz was close to hysteria.

 

 

"So this is Anne and Cynthia." Liz's voice was tense. She had regained
her perspective. For a moment she had thought these were, after all,
just young girls who apparently cared for her son. Now she knew it wasn't
so. She hated them. In her distaste she could visualize them cheap and
shoddy. Women who traded in sex.

 

 

"Do you think you are going to get away with it?" she demanded.
"You have destroyed my family. First you took Yale . . . then Barbara
moved in with you. Yesterday my husband had a heart attack." Liz was
pleased with the shocked expression on Anne's and Cynthia's faces. "Yes
. . . you did it . . . the three of you. He's had a bad heart for several
years . . . now he's flat on his back . . . put there by a rotten son
and his two whores." Liz started to sob wildly. She told them almost
incoherently how Pat had wanted to have Yale come back from the Army and
help him. Now Yale was obviously trying to destroy his father's life.
"Oh, God . . . dear God . . . where is it all going to end?"

 

 

Liz took several typewritten pages out of her pocketbook. With tears
running down her cheeks, she handed them to Cynthia. "Both of you . . .
read that! Don't think you'll stop Pat Marratt. He dictated that over
the phone to his secretary. It will be in the
Midhaven Herald
tomorrow."

 

 

Through a haze of tears, her hand shaking so that Anne had to grasp her
wrist to hold the paper steady so that she could read along with her,
Cynthia swiftly read:

 

 

Copy for a full page advertisement in the Midhaven Herald.

 

 

KNOW THE MAN WHO LEADS YOU!

 

 

Ten years ago the international union that now represents the
employees of the Marratt Corporation sent an organizer named Harry
Cohen to Midhaven, Connecticut. While it is not the policy of the
Marratt Corporation to engage in denunciatory tactics (we agree that
our employees have the right to organize, bargain, and if necessary
strike) we feel that all employees should be acquainted with the kind
of man who leads them. Harry Cohen is a dangerous man. His connections
and his beliefs should be questioned by each and every one of you. Ask
your leader, Harry Cohen, who is demanding a ruinous wage scale for
the Marratt Corporation, to explain these things to you.

 

 

 

 

ASK HARRY COHEN WHO JACK LEONARD IS?

 

 

Ask him if Leonard who was once a correspondent for the Communist
Daily Worker was in constant communication with him, visiting with
him at his home? Ask Harry Cohen when Leonard was discharged from the
faculty of Midhaven College if he admitted freely to the President of
Midhaven College that he had been sent to Midhaven to "contact" Harry
Cohen? Ask Harry Cohen whether Jack Leonard is now in jail serving an
extended term for conspiracy against the United States?

 

 

 

 

ASK HARRY COHEN IF HE IS A PRACTICING NUDIST?

 

 

Ask him if he has ever entertained people in his home completely naked?
Ask him if he exposed his wife and daughter naked to the eyes of any and
all male guests?

 

 

 

 

ASK HARRY COHEN IF HE IS A FRIEND OF YALE MARRATT?

 

 

Ask him what his connection is with the orgiastic cult that has been
started at the old Langley place, now called Challenge Farm? Ask Harry
Cohen if he and his wife have swum naked with other dubious citizens of
this city, in company with a strange woman known as Anne Meredith Wilson
Marratt, and a woman who calls herself Cynthia Carnell Chilling Marratt,
born Cynthia Carnetsky? Ask Harry Cohen what goes on in this place? Ask
him why his close friend is a man denounced by his father? Ask Harry
Cohen if this close friend of his isn't actually a bigamist and a man
who is promoting a cult that denies the existence of God?

 

 

 

 

ASK YOURSELF whether you want this Harry Cohen to negotiate for you? Ask
yourself if you wouldn't be better off to throw out this Harry Cohen and
his union, and negotiate directly with the company which has offered
you steady employment at good wages for thirty years. Elect your own
group. NOW. And have your own honest representatives contact me.

 

 

The last page of the paper was signed Patrick Marratt, President.

 

 

When Cynthia finished reading she looked at Liz in horror, unable to speak.

 

 

Anne took the pages from her, and said, "Mrs. Marratt, this is shocking!
I don't understand what kind of man would do this to his son, or fight
even an enemy with such underhanded tactics."

 

 

"Everything he says is true . . . you know it is," Liz said in a flat
voice. "Cynthia knows it is. She knows about Jack Leonard. Both of you
know that you have been flaunting yourself around here, naked and cheap.
You even have the nerve to publish a book to tell the world what you
have done . . . while both of you calmly go around and call yourself
Mrs. Marratt . . ."

 

 

Cynthia nodded. It's true, she thought bitterly. Everything that we have
done in love and happiness with a few twists of words becomes ugly and
hateful.

 

 

"You're right, Mrs. Marratt." Cynthia sobbed, "I'm a dirty Jewess. If
Yale hadn't met me . . . none of this would have happened. Oh, my God
. . ." Cynthia ran out of the office, heedless of Anne who begged her
to wait. Through the office window they saw her running pathetically
toward the house.

 

 

Anne stared grimly at Liz who was visibly shaken by Cynthia's response.
Holding back her own tears, Anne said softly, "You may not know what I
mean, Mrs. Marratt, but I love Cynthia. She's as fine a person as you
will ever know. Whether you or your husband understand it or not, Yale
is crusading against just this kind of stupid hatred. But I'm not so good
as Yale. I can only respond with hatred to anyone who wants to hurt us."
Anne looked at her silently for a moment, and then she smiled. Her manner
changed so swiftly that Liz looked at her, astonished.

 

 

"You know something, Liz . . . I'm going to call you by your son's name,"
Anne said, grinning. "When I first saw you out there I thought, golly,
Liz has come to us because she wants to be friends. I thought maybe it
would be the beginning of a reconciliation."

 

 

"You mean that you have the nerve to think that I would accept you into
my home? Two women living with my son?" Liz looked at her with blazing
eyes. This woman, she thought, is worse than the Jewish one.

 

 

Anne looked at her without rancor. "Your daughter, Bobby, and I have
become very good friends, Liz. She told me a long story about you and
a certain Frank Middleton. . . ."

 

 

Liz stared at Anne, dismayed. She was silent.

 

 

"It's dwindled a bit in the past few years, hasn't it, Liz?" Anne continued.
"But there was a time when you were calmly sleeping with two men . . . and
yet you were accepted into the best homes in Midhaven." Anne took Liz's
arm. "You know something, I think what you were doing is somewhat worse
. . . because you had to do it without faith in either Pat or Frank
Middleton. Come on, Liz, I want you to come up to our house and have a
cup of coffee and break bread with us. I want you to make the biggest
effort you ever made in your life. . . ." Anne's fingers tightened on
Liz's arm. She smiled at her. "The only price I ask for my silence is
just the attempt at understanding on your part."

 

 

 

 

Anne was having a Manhattan with Barbara when Yale and Agatha came back
from the Shipyards. Anne hugged him, and then looked in his face. She
could tell by his expression that he had heard about the advertisement.
He told her that Peoples McGroaty had called him at Latham's. He had
stopped in Peoples' office on the way back. Anne waited for him to
say something about the advertisement, but instead he asked her where
Cynthia was. Anne told him that she was upstairs with a pretty bad
headache. "I think we accomplished something this afternoon," Anne told
him, happily. "Your mother was here!"

 

 

Yale looked at her, astonished. "Well, the old saying is that it never
rains but it pours . . . what did Liz want?"

 

 

Anne told him what had happened. "You won't believe it, but after the
fireworks were over . . . all four of us had a nice talk. We know all
about your father's advertisement . . . that's why she came."

 

 

While Yale ran upstairs to see Cynthia, Anne made a Scotch and soda for
him. Aunt Agatha decided that she could use a weak one, too. In a few
minutes Yale came back with Cynthia, looking a little pale, dressed in
a housecoat. She told them that she was feeling much better.

 

 

Yale took his drink and toasted them. "Here's to four of the nicest women
in the world," he said, enjoying their different beauty, and the evident,
different femininity of Barbara, Anne, and Cynthia contrasting with the
china-doll fragility of Aunt Agatha. "Okay, I'm listening . . . what
happened?"

 

 

"Oh, Yale, I wish I wouldn't get so terribly frightened," Cynthia said.
"I thought my head would burst. Anne saved the day. You know what your
mother simply couldn't understand?"

 

 

Yale shook his head.

 

 

"She couldn't believe that we both could love you so much and not hate
each other. Anne explained to her that it wasn't always easy." Cynthia
chuckled. "She told Liz that sometimes she felt like giving me a good
crack on the fanny."

 

 

"I meant it, too," Anne warned her. "When you let your fears run away
with you I get pretty mad at you. Will you just get it out of your head,
Cindar, that your being Jewish has caused all our problems."

 

 

"I'm the cause of your problems," Yale said, delighting in their
conversation. "The day I learn to stop beating my head against the wall,
I guess we won't have any."

 

 

Barbara listened silently as Cynthia and Anne reviewed the afternoon for
Yale. Barbara had been shocked when she saw Cynthia rush into the house,
sobbing her heart out. While she was trying to soothe her into telling
a comprehensible story, Anne had walked in with Liz.

 

 

"We are all going to take our hair down and have a good girlish confession
hour," Anne said quietly. And that was just what they did. Amidst tears
Liz admitted to Cynthia that she had been cruel. She was dreadfully sorry
for what Pat had done that day in his office. It was worse because she
could have crossed Pat and told Yale. If she had, none of this would
have happened. It would have been better if she and Pat had had a closer
relationship. But she didn't know how to talk with Pat, somehow. He was
so completely in possession. She never had strong opinions on anything
that might not coincide with Pat's. She guessed that was how she had come
to like Frank Middleton. He listened to her. He just liked to hear her
talk about anything . . . her fears and worries and hopes . . . things
that Pat was always too busy for. It was wrong, but it hadn't hurt Pat.

 

 

As she listened to Liz, Barbara wondered about herself and Tom Eames.
But that was another life ago. Yale had probably been right: she should
have gone back to him. Maybe it had been her fault in some ways. Maybe
a woman shouldn't try to "own" a man's physical love. Maybe you loved
a person not because he loved you . . . but just because you loved
him. Maybe Yale had discovered something in the seeds of this crazy
religion. For some reason, as she listened, she thought of Bob Coleman,
and she wondered what he thought of her. She regretted the silliness with
Paul Downing. She sighed. No doubt Bob would think it a great deal worse
than silliness. Would he judge her as a loose woman . . . a playgirl
the way the newspapers had? Probably.

 

 

When Anne and Cynthia had apprehensively shown Liz the babies, and
Cynthia had carefully pointed out that Ricky actually was her grandson,
they wondered what Liz's reaction would be.

 

 

"She was delighted with them," Cynthia told Yale, laughing. "I'll bet
when she thinks about it she'll blush. You know what she asked us, Yale?"

 

 

Yale shook his head, still unable to comprehend the change that had come
over his mother.

 

 

"She asked us how many babies we were going to have!"

 

 

"She looked disappointed," Anne said, "when I told her that you had set
a limit. Not more than three each."

 

 

"What did she say she was going to tell Pat?" Yale asked.

 

 

Cynthia and Anne looked at each other blankly, and Anne said, "Yale . . .
I don't think she'll even tell your father that she was here. She's quite
afraid of him."