The idea of a home appealed to Mr. Ross. He felt, now, that he had
always wanted a real home. Dorothea called for him in the car and they
explored the streets east of Fifth Avenue. Finally, without consulting
the rest of the family, Ross bought a five-story house in East
Sixty-fifth Street, just off Fifth Avenue.
“Mother will think this is terrible,” Dorothea said as she kissed him,
“but you and I like it, don’t we? I know it cost an awful lot, Dad,
but you can see it’s really an investment. After it’s made over a bit
inside it will do for a family home for years. Imagine you—after all
you’ve done—not having a family home.”
Ross really liked the house. It seemed almost—home-like. The rest of
the family were not pleased. The married daughters—of course it was
not their affair—but, they wondered if it was just the right thing. Of
course nice people lived in houses, but none of their friends.
“That’s why we bought it,” said Dorothea.
Irwin “guessed it was all right.” Manning was indifferent.
Mrs. Ross held up bejewelled hands and wailed.
“Oh, Dorothea, just as I’m beginning to get into things and can ask
people here to a fine apartment on the Drive—an address I can be proud
of—and here you buy an old house—I thought a young girl like you would
want things swell—here we’ve got servants and all—”
“Don’t you worry,” said Dorothea, “it will be ‘swell’ enough—awful
word. And as for servants—”
The family moved to the East Sixty-fifth Street house a few months
later. Dorothea didn’t run around after furniture as those of her
family who had chosen furniture before her had done. She turned the
whole house over to Miss Lessing, in Madison Avenue. Miss Lessing’s
corps of exquisitely minded young men came in, looked around, made
sketches, brought drapery material and wood finishes, all of which
Dorothea examined critically.
“At last we’ll have some place we can ask our friends,” she said.
The house in East Sixty-fifth Street was rather nice. It was done in
English things, mostly, painted walls and rather soft taffetas. There
were some big easy chairs that could be pulled around, comfortably, in
front of the fireplace. Perhaps because of its seeming simplicity and
the plainness of the walls and carpets Mr. Ross liked it more than any
home he had ever had. He felt it belonged to him. Mrs. Ross never liked
it.
“It’s too plain,” she said, “nothing to it. No one would believe how
much it cost you, Papa. Mrs. Sinsheimer has got an apartment on Park
Avenue, just a block from Carolyn. Fourteen rooms. She had a decorator,
too, but he got different things than this—gold furniture. It looks
like something. We had a fine place on Riverside Drive and Dorothea
drags us here, where there ain’t even lights enough to see by, at
night.”
Still, Mrs. Ross found out, from what people said, that there must be
something desirable about the new home. She even acquired a bit of
the patter Dorothea used, pointing, with something like pride, to “a
real Chippendale escritoire, one of the nicest examples in America,”
and “some Wedgewood plaques, three, from an original set of four, you
know,” and “of course, we are getting old and it’s nice we can have a
home where we can gather the sort of things we like, as a background.”
Irwin didn’t “think much of the place, myself,” but it was a good
idea, the old folks having a home ... he was glad he didn’t have to
be ashamed of it, though, for his part ... now, that country place
Dorothea was talking about....
Yes, Dorothea had been talking about a country place. After they were
settled in the new home, she continued to talk. They had five servants
now—they wouldn’t even need two sets—Dad could see how it took that
many to run any kind of a house—and they could just shut up the town
house in Spring and open it in Fall. All the family could be there,
too, Yvette and the new baby, and Carolyn and their husbands ... “a
real family together. Dad, a permanent family like ours ought to have a
decent country place.”
The country place was on Long Island, finally. Dorothea picked it out
and put the decorations in the hands of the same firm of decorators,
who did rather startling things with coloured wicker, chintz and tiled
floors.
It was near a famous country club and Dorothea knew, as did the rest
of them, that none of the men of her family could ever be admitted.
It didn’t seem fair to her, of course, and yet ... Dad was a great
one—there oughtn’t to be any place Dad couldn’t get into. But Dad
didn’t care. Though, from things he said, Dorothea knew he had felt
things ... expected them. He hadn’t even hoped this much of life.
Irwin didn’t like being left out of things ... and yet, Dorothea,
looking at Irwin, hearing him argue in his rather nasal tone, gesturing
with his long amber cigarette holder, couldn’t blame members of the
club, exactly.... It wasn’t because of Irwin’s race ... maybe the
members, themselves, weren’t so wonderful ... and yet there were her
two brothers-in-law, one rather fat, both slow-minded, card-playing,
a bit loud and blatant, always bringing money into the conversation
... Yvette, loud, laughing, so heavy, mentally, Carolyn, with her
cheap talk of money and spending ... her mother ... it wasn’t fair to
criticize her, her mother’d had a hard time of it when she was young,
and yet....
Dorothea knew that, somehow, the men she liked didn’t belong to her
race. Hamilton Fournier, now ... of course, if she’d marry him, there
would be an awful talk, lots of crying and going on about religion ...
that sort of thing. She could hear her mother ... she remembered when
Freda Moss married,—“He’ll throw it up to you.” Yet, if you are proud
of your race ... doesn’t that ... can you have a thing “thrown up to
you” that you are proud of? It was a big problem, too big for Dorothea.
She felt that she’d always had everything she wanted ... she could keep
on having....
The family settled down comfortably in the new home, Manning with them.
He was going to school in town, now.
Mrs. Ross was getting to like the new home better ... it wasn’t
Riverside Drive, of course, but people didn’t look down on her here.
She was even getting in with Mrs. Rosenblatt—now that she lived near
her. That crowd—she didn’t have their education, but what of it, she
was richer than most of them. Who were they, to be so exclusive? Maybe,
by next year, if she donated to their Orphans’ Nursery Fund....
Mr. Ross’s indigestion seemed a little worse. The doctor came to see
him several times each week and he had to be more careful with his
diet. There seemed to be less to do at the office. He could retire, of
course, but that would take away the only interesting thing he had—the
few hours at the office. He even tried outdoor exercise, but after one
attempt, he gave up golf as impossible. He gave to organized charities
rather liberally and was even appointed on a committee which he never
attended—he knew it was his money they wanted. He would sit, as he had
always sat in the evening, falling asleep over his paper, or, bundled
up beyond the necessity of the weather, he would climb into the car and
spend a few hours with an old friend, or some one would come to see
him, playing cards, as always. But a few of the old friends had died,
another had moved away ... there had never been many of them. He was
just an old man, and lonesome, with nothing interesting to do or think
about....