“Oh well,” Winnie advanced uneasily, “I acknowledge that we were
talking about Eva’s affairs.”
“With both of them present--of course?”
“Eva didn’t object,” said Winnie with relief. “You know her. Spence
came in about that time, and said--you know, Spence, you can be counted
on to say it!--that she was something-or-other-delicate and rare, and
she positively purred. She was taken by the idea of having attributed
to her an unapproachable perfection.”
Spencer Mapes said: “How do you know I don’t believe it?”
New York has a sliding scale of hours for cocktails. It was still
early in the afternoon, although candles were lit in the neighbours’
living-rooms. The soft light of these numerous candles streamed through
the windows on to the trees outside; for this row of houses had been
remodelled and now faced the river. The branches of the trees leaned
towards the windows, and almost brushed the panes, and where they came
within the candlelight they were tipped with gold so beckoning as to
be unearthly. The river ran at the foot of the garden, separating it
from Welfare Island where recalcitrant women saw the error of their
ways; and lights began flaring from the windows of the prison, for the
sun, if one could have seen it, had moved over the Hudson. There would
have been peace except for this suggestion of imprisoned suffering, and
quiet except for the radios. The loud speakers of other people’s radios
held New York in a deadened thrall. Our small company of necessity
raised their voices, and above what we said rolled and bellowed what
persons from all America said. Words clacked against our eardrums,
songs assailed our taste; and this discordance so persistently knocked
against me--as if someone were hitting me--that I wondered for how long
a time I could hold out. I wanted to scream.
They were saying things--as people on the air were saying
things--useless things. Florence said: “The only good thing about him
is that he can make no use in his buildings of what I may chance to
say in his hearing. I mean--it doesn’t pay to run around town saying
absolutely good things; the first you know, you read your good things
in other people’s books. That--” she concluded with her smile that
directed her barbs to all in the room--“that is the reason authors are
so stupid in conversation.”
“Meaning--?” suggested Pomeroy with interest.
“--That I may be planning a brilliant line on Eva’s husband. He
irritates me.”
Pomeroy said: “I adore his mother. And let me tell you that men have
adored old ladies for less worthy reasons than mine for my passion for
Mrs. Van Suydam. She tells me that she’s disappointed in Eva’s books
because they haven’t the rich meaty flavour of Moll Flanders. She’s
added to the rich meaty flavour of my life. You should talk to her,
Dinah.”
Everyone then told me what I should do. Florence said: “I tell you
frankly, Dinah, that knowing your influence over Eva I felt sure you’d
want to do something about it and asked you here in order to decide on
something.” My influence over Eva being a new idea, and the last thing
they would have acknowledged if they had believed it, she flung at me a
guarded look. They felt, she said now, that I would see the seriousness
of the situation so soon as they had fully gone into it with me.
“And then?” I prompted.
Florence shrugged. She said that she was making no suggestions; for,
after all, how could she? She held to the notion that for Eva a divorce
would be a disastrous thing. “But she’ll ditch herself yet,” she
thought.
“Look here, my girl,” I called myself to account, “why can’t you make
up your mind that an American is never happy? We’re a chronically
dissatisfied race. You know that if any of us were happy we’d lose
our celebrated feverish energy--we’d not be forced by a substratum of
uneasiness to push ourselves--push, push, push ourselves--to an end
that often we can’t see. It’s our dissatisfaction with life that makes
us push. It isn’t going to injure Eva’s work, that she’s unhappily
married--if she is.”
Pomeroy announced that I had been talking to myself for the last five
minutes. “Have you ever thought, Dinah darling, of using yourself in
a novel? But of course you wouldn’t use what really counts; no woman
would.”