Irving was a lawyer now. He had a nice office in one of the newer
buildings devoted to professional men, but not much practice. His
father found it just as convenient to give him some of the smaller
business of the firm as to increase his allowance. When anything
important came up Mr. Ross agreed with his partners that it was best to
let a better-established lawyer handle the case.
Irving—who became Irwin about this time—could have joined a large
firm as a junior member, but he preferred independence. He didn’t
like to work hard or long and he had heard of the tasks performed by
the younger members of big firms. He liked to waste time, browsing
around book-stores, walking through the lobbies of hotels, calling on
friends. He had a large acquaintance with women and had as many dinner
invitations as he could accept. Wasn’t he a great catch, a young lawyer
with a rich father? And good company.
At twenty-five, Irwin still loved an argument. Although never a great
reader, he liked to pose as one, quoting well-known authorities,
reading and talking about authors unknown to his hearers. His hair was
always immaculately sleeked, though it had just a perceptible wave. He
had his favourite manicurist at one of the larger hotels. He smoked an
expensive brand of cigarettes, carrying them in an elaborate silver
and gold case and fitting each one carefully into an extremely long
amber cigarette holder before smoking it. He used affected gestures,
pounding on a table to emphasize a point he was making. He still wore
nose-glasses, now large lensed and tortoise rimmed, and from habit he
held his head too high.
Irwin was proud of his acquaintance with half a dozen actresses of
minor importance. These he took to teas, dinners and suppers, talking
later as if the engagement had had special significance. He was careful
about his acquaintance with other women, choosing those that were,
to him, of social importance. He had the same distrust his parents
had for those outside of his own race. He never attended services at
a synagogue, but to him religion and race were intermingled and he
did not attempt to differentiate between them. Since boyhood he had
suffered from prejudice far more than his sisters. He was proud to
associate with “outsiders,” liked to think he looked and spoke and
acted like one of them. But he would never have married a Gentile.
Carolyn was now the liveliest member of the Riverside Drive household.
She didn’t think much of race and creed. She envied other women in some
things, but she thought herself all that was desirable and attractive.
She liked best the people of her own race, but she preferred them
with American or English accents, appearance and accomplishments. She
liked to associate only with people of great wealth. Always gowned a
bit ahead of fashion, perfectly groomed, silky, smooth, crisp, she went
to the theatre, evenings and matinées, to luncheons and to parties,
giggling and laughing, quite moderately, of course, and had a gay time.
She loved musical comedy and after-theatre suppers. She didn’t care for
the opera, but even the most serious drama could give her something to
giggle about afterwards. Her hair and eyes were dark with something
of the Orient about them, but her skin was fairer and clearer than
her mother’s or Yvette’s, her round little nose was always white with
powder and her eyebrows narrow and smooth, her lips and cheeks pinkly
attractive.
You could see Carolyn almost any fair afternoon on the Avenue with
Eloise or Helen or Mary Louise, stopping in at one little shop for
a bit of lingerie, at another for flowers. They spent money with no
thought of its value. Most of them could not remember poverty. Those
who could found spending the best method of forgetting. Occasionally
they met several of “the boys” for tea. When they didn’t they bought
tea for themselves at Maillard’s, usually, or the Plaza. There was
always a car waiting and they wore low pumps or slippers and the
thinnest of stockings even when the snow was on the ground.
Carolyn “went with” Jack Morton, Eloise’s brother. She had met Eloise
at the Riverside Drive School. Jack was at Harvard, then, but he was
graduated a year later and was “catching on” nicely in his father’s box
factory. The Mortons thought the Rosses a step below them socially,
for the Mortons were a little farther removed from “the old country.”
Outside of that, they liked Carolyn. So no one was surprised, when, in
1914, when Carolyn was twenty-three, she announced her engagement to
Jack. The Rosses thought Carolyn had “done well,” as indeed she had,
for Jack Morton was a likeable fellow, full of practical jokes and fond
of poker playing, but on the whole quite a desirable husband.
Ross gave his daughter a diamond lavalliere for an engagement present,
and as Carolyn picked it out herself it was quite glittering. He
promised her the furniture for her new apartment as a wedding present.
The Mortons gave Carolyn a small car, green, with cushions to match,
which she pronounced “a young wonder.” They had an engagement “at home”
and were married a few months later at one of the newer hotels. Carolyn
hoped that it was quite evident to the friends of both families that
they were both very wealthy.
The young couple took a three weeks’ trip to Florida—Jack couldn’t stay
away from the business longer than that. Then they went to the Astor,
but Carolyn wanted to entertain her friends and a hotel does keep you
cooped up so. She and Jack finally decided on a small apartment in a
high-priced new building in Park Avenue. They had only one maid to
start with for they both preferred eating at restaurants. With the car
you could eat at a different place and go to a show or some place every
night.
Without Carolyn the Riverside Drive apartment seemed quiet. Manning
went to Harvard for a year, dissatisfied with the unexclusiveness of
Columbia.
Dorothea liked school, too, and was now taking a few harmless courses
which gave her something to do, though they didn’t satisfy her. Nothing
quite pleased Dorothea. She hadn’t been satisfied with Carolyn’s
school—girls of only one creed went there, so narrow. Dorothea said
that school was a joke. She had chosen a more expensive school,
patronized by daughters of rich men generally. Her new study courses
were at Columbia and with private teachers. Mr. Ross didn’t like them.
“It isn’t as if she had to be a teacher,” he said. “A girl can have too
much book-learning.”
But Dorothea went. She had always been different. Her clothes,
for one thing. Couldn’t she have had anything she wanted? Look at
Carolyn—always dressed like a picture—the family had to admit that,
themselves. Even Yvette, though she liked bright colours, was a good
dresser. It wasn’t as if Dorothea was economical. She spent as much
as Carolyn did. Carolyn wore things that “looked expensive,” rich
broadcloth, elaborate furs—Dorothea preferred rough tweeds. She paid
extraordinary sums for little suits that Mrs. Ross thought looked as
if she’d got them for twenty dollars in Third Avenue. They were of
mixed weaves, in grey or tan, and she wore big tailored collars over
her coats, not mannish looking or freakish, just plain. She paid fifty
dollars for her little round velour hats. She wore heavy gloves and
shoes, even when she went out with Carolyn, sleek in white gloves, thin
pumps and furs. Dorothea paid huge prices for plain little evening
frocks which she bought at exclusive little places. Even then she was
not satisfied.
Dorothea wore a perpetual little pout—something had always just gone
wrong. She spent her time wondering what to do, dipping in “courses”
on a variety of subjects, at settlement work, “going with people
she didn’t have to associate with,” her mother thought. Clad in a
trim-fitting habit she rode whole mornings in Central Park. She
exhibited funny little Belgian Griffins at shows. She went to benefits
and tournaments. Yet she was always a trifle “put out,” a bit bored.
Things weren’t ever good enough, or quite what she had expected.
For her twentieth birthday Dorothea asked for and received a new car, a
good-looking foreign-made roadster. About time the family had more than
one car! She didn’t want a chauffeur. Hadn’t she been driving as long
as she could remember, learning on the old red one? She liked driving
the car best of all.
The family, the family’s friends, what any one said or did—all
displeased Dorothea. She made sport of Irwin’s pet affectations to his
face, to her mother’s horror. She called Yvette’s things “impossible”
and made fun of Carolyn’s diamonds. She treated her mother as a person
of no consequence, never asking her opinion about things. Although she
had nothing in common with her father, she made a great fuss over him
and he grew to like her better than any other member of his family.
She took him out in her car, though he didn’t quite enjoy the rides,
expecting to be tipped over at every corner. Dorothea drove perfectly,
with the recklessness of a racer.
Dorothea went with “outsiders.” She seemed as much at home with members
of other races as with her own. She’d bring in unexpected guests,
making the family feel ill at ease. While guests were there she’d bring
up bits of family history the rest were trying their hardest to keep
out of sight.
“Dad,” she’d say, “here’s some one that wants to meet you. He’s heard a
lot about you.... Can you believe that less than twenty-five years ago
Dad came to America with no money at all?” then, with a little gesture
and a smile, “and now look at him.” She’d throw an arm around her
father, who, ill at ease, would greet the stranger.
If Mr. Ross had been unsuccessful, he would have looked like any of a
thousand of his race whom you can see leaving the shops any evening
at the closing hour. But his wealth haloed him. It was impossible to
separate him from his money. Thin, stoop-shouldered, solemn, quiet and
accented of speech, he stood for success. To Dorothea her father was
immensely important. She was the first who had ever made much of him.
It embarrassed him—he was a simple old fellow in many ways—but he liked
it.
Mrs. Ross thought Dorothea didn’t appreciate her.
“It’s always her Dad, her Dad,” she’d say, “never a word about how
I worked when she was small or all I do for her—just Dad this, Dad
that—and Irwin don’t like it—that you’re always bringing up old
times, about Papa being a cutter. The other night when that fine Miss
Tannenheim was here, you said it, when you was talking to that big
blond fellow you brought in....”
“You’re a dear, Mother,” Dorothea would give her mother the tiniest
touch of a kiss on her broad cheek, “but Irv’s a mess and he knows it.
The Tannenheim person is a cheap old thing with a mean eye and she’ll
marry him some day, if he isn’t watching.”
“Dad,” said Dorothea, one day, “let’s move. You can’t guess how sick I
am of Riverside Drive.”
“What’s the matter? Haven’t you got things nice here?”
“Nice—on the Drive?”
“We’re always moving, it seems. Only four years ago....”
“I know, Dad. That’s just it. A man of your position ought to have
a home. Apartments are nothing. This one is simply awful. Riverside
Drive is fearfully ordinary, vulgar—don’t you think so? Such a cheap
collection of the newly rich. Dad, you ought to have your own home in
town, anyhow, and something permanent in the country.”