Why shouldnt she? Shed be mad if she didnt.
I dont know, said Mr Lippincott. I should say it would be extraordinary if she did not accept, and they will remain on terms of friendship, of course.
You think what do you think?
I would like to see her influence over Ellie broken, said Mr Lippincott. He got up. You will, I hope, assist me and do everything you can to further that end?
You bet I will, I said. The last thing I want is to have Greta in our pockets all the time.
You might change your mind when you see her, said Mr Lippincott.
I dont think so, I said. I dont like managing females, however efficient and even handsome they are.
Thank you, Michael, for listening to me so patiently. I hope you will give me the pleasure of dining with me, both of you. Possibly next Tuesday evening? Cora van Stuyvesant and Frank Barton will probably be in London by that time.
And Ive got to meet them, I suppose?
Oh yes, that will be quite inevitable. He smiled at me and this time his smile seemed more genuine than it had before. You mustnt mind too much, he said. Cora, I expect, will be very rude to you. Frank will be merely tactless. Reuben wont be over just at present.
I didnt know who Reuben was another relation I supposed.
I went across to the connecting doors and opened them. Come on, Ellie, I said, the grilling is over.
She came back in the room and looked quickly from Lippincott to myself, then she went across and kissed him.
Dear Uncle Andrew, she said. I can see youve been nice to Michael.
Well, my dear, if I werent nice to your husband you wouldnt have much use for me in the future, would you? I do reserve the right to give a few words of advice now and then. Youre very young you know, both of you.
All right, said Ellie, well listen patiently.
Now, my dear, Id like to have a word with you if I may.
My turn to be odd man out, I said, and I too went into the bedroom.
I shut the two double doors ostentatiously but I opened the inner one again after I got inside. I hadnt been as well brought up as Ellie so I felt a bit anxious to find out how double-faced Mr Lippincott might turn out to be. But actually there was nothing I need have listened to. He gave Ellie one or two wise words of advice. He said she must realize that I might find it difficult to be a poor man married to a rich wife and then he went on to sound her about making a settlement on Greta. She agreed to it eagerly and said shed been going to ask him that herself. He also suggested that she should make an additional settlement on Cora van Stuyvesant.
There is no earthly need that you should do so, he said. She has been very well provided for in the matter of alimony from several husbands. And she is as you know paid an income, though not a very big one, from the trust fund left by your grandfather.
But you think I ought to give her more still?
I think there is no legal or moral obligation to do so. What I think is that you will find her far less tiresome and shall I say catty if you do so. I should make it in the form of an increased income, which you could revoke at any time. If you find that she has been spreading malicious rumours[46] about Michael or yourself or your life together, the knowledge that you can do that will keep her tongue free of those more poisonous barbs[47] that she so well knows how to plant.
Cora has always hated me, said Ellie. Ive known that. She added rather shyly, You do like Mike, dont you, Uncle Andrew?
I think hes an extremely attractive young man, said Mr Lippincott. And I can quite see how you came to marry him.
That, I suppose, was as good as I could expect. I wasnt really his type and I knew it. I eased the door gently to and in a minute or two Ellie came to fetch me.
We were both standing saying goodbye to Lippincott when there was a knock on the door and a page boy came in with a telegram. Ellie took it and opened it. She gave a little surprised cry of pleasure.
Its Greta, she said, shes arriving in London tonight and shell be coming to see us tomorrow. How lovely. She looked at us both. Isnt it? she said.
She saw two sour faces and heard two polite voices saying, one: Yes indeed, my dear, the other one, Of course.
Chapter 11
I had been out shopping the next morning and I arrived back at the hotel rather later than I had meant. I found Ellie sitting in the central lounge and opposite her was a tall blonde young woman. In fact Greta. Both of them were talking nineteen to the dozen.[48]
Im never any hand at describing people but Ill have a shot at describing Greta. To begin with one couldnt deny that she was, as Ellie had said, very beautiful and also, as Mr Lippincott had reluctantly admitted, very handsome. The two things are not exactly the same. If you say a woman is handsome it does not mean that actually you yourself admire her. Mr Lippincott, I gathered, had not admired Greta. All the same when Greta walked across the lounge into a hotel or in a restaurant, mens heads turned to look at her. She was a Nordic type of blonde with pure gold-corn-coloured hair. She wore it piled high on her head in the fashion of the time, not falling straight down on each side of her face in the Chelsea tradition. She looked what she was, Swedish or north German. In fact, pin on a pair of wings and she could have gone to a fancy dress ball as a Valkyrie. Her eyes were a bright clear blue and her contours were admirable. Lets admit it. She was something!
I came along to where they were sitting and joined them, greeting them both in what I hope was a natural, friendly manner, though I couldnt help feeling a bit awkward. Im not always very good at acting a part. Ellie said immediately:
At last, Mike, this is Greta.
I said I guessed it might be, in a rather facetious, not very happy manner. I said:
Im very glad to meet you at last, Greta.
Ellie said:
As you know very well, if it hadnt been for Greta we would never have been able to get married.
All the same wed have managed it somehow, I said.
Not if the family had come down on us like a ton of coals. Theyd have broken it up somehow. Tell me, Greta, have they been very awful? Ellie asked. You havent written or said anything to me about that.
I know better, said Greta, than to write to a happy couple when theyre on their honeymoon.
But were they very angry with you?
Of course! What do you imagine? But I was prepared for that, I can assure you.
What have they said or done?
Everything they could, said Greta cheerfully. Starting with the sack naturally.
Yes, I suppose that was inevitable. But but what have you done? After all they cant refuse to give you references.
Of course they can. And after all, from their point of view I was placed in a position of trust and abused it shamefully. She added, Enjoyed abusing it too.
But what are you going to do now?
Oh Ive got a job ready to walk into.
In New York?
No. Here in London. Secretarial.
But are you all right?
Darling Ellie, said Greta, how can I not be all right with that lovely cheque you sent me in anticipation of what was going to happen when the balloon went up?
Her English was very good with hardly any trace of accent though she used a lot of colloquial terms which sometimes didnt run quite right.
Ive seen a bit of the world, fixed myself up in London and bought a good many things as well.
Mike and I have bought a lot of things too, said Ellie, smiling at the recollection.
It was true. Wed done ourselves pretty well with our continental shopping. It was really wonderful that we had dollars to spend, no niggling Treasury restrictions. Brocades and fabrics in Italy for the house. And wed bought pictures too, both in Italy and in Paris, paying what seemed fabulous sums for them. А whole world had opened up to me that Id never dreamt would have come my way.
You both look remarkably happy, said Greta.
You havent seen our house yet, said Ellie. Its going to be wonderful. Its going to be just like we dreamed it would be, isnt it, Mike?
I have seen it, said Greta. The first day I got back to England I hired a car and drove down there.
Well? said Ellie.
I said Well? too.
Well, said Greta consideringly. She shifted her head from side to side.
Ellie looked grief-stricken, horribly taken aback. But I wasnt taken in. I saw at once that Greta was having a bit of fun with us. If the thought of fun wasnt very kind, it hardly had time to take root. Greta burst out laughing, a high musical laugh that made people turn their heads and look at us.
You should have seen your faces, she said, especially yours, Ellie. I have to tease you just a little. Its a wonderful house, lovely. That mans a genius.
Yes, I said, hes something out of the ordinary. Wait till you meet him.
I have met him, said Greta. He was down there the day I went. Yes, hes an extraordinary person. Rather frightening, dont you think?
Frightening? I said, surprised. In what way?
Oh I dont know. Its as though he looks through you and well, sees right through to the other side. Thats always disconcerting. Then she added, He looks rather ill.
He is ill. Very ill, I said.
What a shame. Whats the matter with him, tuberculosis, something like that?
No, I said, I dont think its tuberculosis. I think its something to do with oh with blood.
Oh I see. Doctors can do almost anything nowadays, cant they, unless they kill you first while theyre trying to cure you. But dont lets think of that. Lets think of the house. When will it be finished?
Quite soon, I should think, by the look of it. Id never imagined a house could go up so quickly, I said.
Oh, said Greta carelessly, thats money. Double shifts and bonuses all the rest of it. You dont really know yourself, Ellie, how wonderful it is to have all the money you have.
But I did know. I had been learning, learning a great deal in the last few weeks. Id stepped as a result of marriage into an entirely different world and it wasnt the sort of world Id imagined it to be from the outside. So far in my life, a lucky double[49] had been my highest knowledge of affluence. А whack of money[50]coming in, and spending it as fast as I could on the biggest blow-out I could find. Crude, of course. The crudeness of my class. But Ellies world was a different world. It wasnt what I should have thought it to be. Just more and more super luxury. It wasnt bigger bathrooms and larger houses and more electric light fittings and bigger meals and faster cars. It wasnt just spending for spendings sake and showing off to everyone in sight. Instead, it was curiously simple. The sort of simplicity that comes when you get beyond the point of splashing for splashings sake. You dont want three yachts or four cars and you cant eat more than three meals a day and if you buy a really top-price picture you dont want more than perhaps one of them in a room. Its as simple as that. Whatever you have is just the best of its kind, not so much because it is the best, but because there is no reason if you like or want any particular thing, why you shouldnt have it. There is no moment when you say, Im afraid I cant afford that one. So in a strange way it makes sometimes for such a curious simplicity that I couldnt understand it. We were considering a French Impressionist picture, a Cezanne, I think it was. I had to learn that name carefully. I always mixed it up with a tzigane which I gather is a gipsy orchestra. And then as we walked along the streets of Venice, Ellie stopped to look at some pavement artists. On the whole they were doing some terrible pictures for tourists which all looked the same. Portraits with great rows of shining teeth and usually blonde hair falling down their necks.
And then she bought quite a tiny picture, just a picture of a little glimpse through to a canal. The man who had painted it appraised the look of us and she bought it for £6 by English exchange. The funny thing was that I knew quite well that Ellie had just the same longing for that £6 picture that she had for the Cezanne.
It was the same way one day in Paris. Shed said to me suddenly:
What fun it would be lets get a really nice crisp French loaf of bread and have that with butter and one of those cheeses wrapped up in leaves.
So we did and Ellie I think enjoyed it more than the meal wed had the night before which had come to about £20 English. At first I couldnt understand it, then I began to see. The awkward thing was that I could see now that being married to Ellie wasnt just fun and games. You have to do your homework, you have to learn how to go into a restaurant and the sort of things to order and the right tips, and when for some reason you gave more than usual. You have to memorize what you drink with certain foods. I had to do most of it by observation. I couldnt ask Ellie because that was one of the things she wouldnt have understood. Shed have said But, darling Mike, you can have anything you like. What does it matter if waiters think you ought to have one particular wine with one particular thing? It wouldnt have mattered to her because she was born to it but it mattered to me because I couldnt do just as I liked. I wasnt simple enough. Clothes too. Ellie was more helpful there, for she could understand better. She just guided me to the right places and told me to let them have their head.
Of course I didnt look right and sound right yet. But that didnt matter much. Id got the hang of it, enough so that I could pass muster with people like old Lippincott, and shortly, presumably, when Ellies stepmother and uncles were around, but actually it wasnt going to matter in the future at all. When the house was finished and when wed moved in, we were going to be far away from everybody. It could be our kingdom. I looked at Greta sitting opposite me. I wondered what shed really thought of our house. Anyway, it was what I wanted. It satisfied me utterly. I wanted to drive down and go through a private path through the trees which led down to a small cove which would be our own beach which nobody could come to on the land side. It would be a thousand times better, I thought, plunging into the sea there. А thousand times better than a lido spread along a beach with hundreds of bodies lying there. I didnt want all the senseless rich things. I wanted there were the words again, my own particular words I want, I want I could feel all the feeling surging up in me. I wanted a wonderful woman and a wonderful house like nobody elses house and I wanted my wonderful house to be full of wonderful things. Things that belonged to me. Everything would belong to me.