Remembering those remarks, her lined and tinted face beamed radiantly. Sometimes she wished she had had a son or a daughter, to make happy. Well, it goes to show. Some has them, mostly the poor, and some don’t, like herself. It all comes out in the wash anyway. You never know.
Then, suddenly, she was aware that all the time there had been a presence in the room with her, that someone was behind that curtain. But why hadn’t he spoken? Could he have come in the back door? She cleared her throat musically. “Good evening,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. They say you have all the time there is. That’s awful good of you. I’m Maude Finch, a widow, fifty years old, and young for my age if I admit it myself.”
The gentlest sensation came to her, as if someone had smiled understandingly. She was so touched that she said heartily, “Oh, you shouldn’t tell the doctor lies! I’m really sixty-five! But, would you believe it?”
No one spoke, but later she could have sworn that some man had said, “No, I don’t believe it! You are only a young girl.” She would remember that always, always.
Even now there were sudden acrid tears in her eyes. She opened her bag and took out her handkerchief, scented with Turkish Night, and blew her nose.
“It says, over the door, the man who listens. That’s you.” Her voice was subdued. “But there must have been other doctors or such over the years, not just you. How could one man have been here all this time? Of course, that’s impossible. There’ve been different guys—I mean doctors. Excuse me.”
Yet she had the incredible impression that the man had dissented, that he had implied to her that he, and only he, had been here over the years and no one else. “Honest?” she said, wonderingly, and now her voice was not raucous but fluting like a girl who was just past puberty. “Honest?” she repeated and did not know why she should feel so relieved.
After a little she said, in a coquettishly awkward tone, “I honestly don’t know why I came here. It’s just this tiredness; from last night. No, no, I got to tell the truth. Over a long time, maybe a couple of years. And I’m sort of sick to my stomach, sometimes. Sometimes I can’t eat. It’s kind of lonely eating by yourself, even if you’ve got a good cook in your kitchen, serving up them French menus; I get Realitès, you know, with all them French receipts, and Denise, that’s her name, always tries them out. You know what she did a month ago? She sent me looking, on Saturday, a day I had off, to look for saffron! Why, it costs as much as gold! I bought an ounce and Denise says, ‘Oh, Mrs. Finch, I only needed a soopsong’—that’s French, too. She meant a little. But she needed it for rice to serve with the Chicken Mornie. Yes, it’s awful lonesome, eating them fine meals by your own self, with a nice bottle of chilled wine. Chautoo Two, that was the brand. I keep my wines in the cellar, like the way the Rothschilds do. Locked up. There’s other tenants in the apartment house where I live, and you never know. Sometimes the ones who look the most rich are the poorest. It makes me laugh sometimes. But I never let them hear me. I was brought up right. Dear Mama and Papa!” She sighed.
“Well, I shouldn’t complain,” she went on more briskly. “And I really shouldn’t be here, taking up your time with all those poor souls waiting to tell you real troubles. Not like me. They say you shouldn’t brag, knock wood. But I’ve had everything I ever wanted all my life. Born with a gold spoon in my mouth. Ate on gold plate, too, no, I don’t mean exactly that, I mean it was Servus china with a gold border, like I saw in Vogue once. Not in my nursery, of course, where I had white and blue English bone china. But in the dining room, on holidays, to celebrate my birthdays and Christmas. Mama and Papa, though, used to use it all the time, with Mama’s silver, heavy as iron, which her godmother gave her. Did I tell you my parents were English? Came from England before I was born; my father got in some kind of trouble with that English Congress, and they didn’t like what he said. No, I guess they don’t call it Congress like us; House of Lords.
“Papa wasn’t a lord, though he was right there in it. Well, anyway, I’m not bragging. What’s gone is gone. We didn’t live here in this city, though, when I was a kid, or even afterward. I’ve been here only thirty years, after Jerry and me got married. He was from New York. But, look, you didn’t come in here to listen to me brag, for heaven’s sake. You just want to know why I got this tiredness all of a sudden, and this queasy stomach, and why I can’t sleep sometimes. I dunno.” She flicked her wrist. “Say la guarr. That means that’s how things are. French. I can speak French like a native, and not even the hoy-pollie can speak it as well. Hoy-pollie, you know, means big shots. We get them all the time in our saloon.”
Don’t he ever say a word? she asked herself. Well, I’m sure he said something. I’ll remember later, when I’m not so tired.
“I don’t know how old you are,” she said, “but if you’ve been here all these years you must be as old as God. And maybe as tired.” She laughed apologetically. “They say you’re a minister too, as well as a psychiatrist, and I hope I ain’t—I mean haven’t—insulted you. But sometimes I say just what pops up in my mind; everybody says I always say what I think and mean. Well, you’ve got to be open, don’t you, and not a hypocrite? I don’t believe in saying things that aren’t true.”
Suddenly her face wrinkled in scores of deep lines and squeezed together and tears burst into her eyes again. “Oh!” she cried, “I just get sick, remembering my wonderful wonderful life, with Mama and Papa—that’s what they call their parents in England—not Mum and Pop, like American kids do. I keep thinking of my marvelous life with Jerry, too. There was never anybody like Jerry, honest. Gave me everything, though I didn’t need it. My parents left me plenty. Plenty! But they died when I was eight, no, seven. And me, and everything I had, was made guardian to my aunt and uncle. Aunt Sim, that’s what I called her. I guess her name was Simplicity, those old-fashioned names, you know? And Uncle Ned. He was a big stockbroker in another city, it don’t matter where, for I’m living here now.
“I sure would like to tell you all about my childhood! Can I, please?”
Had she heard, “Yes?” She was sure of it. She smiled lovingly at the alcove. She arched her head. “Maybe you’re rich, too, so you’ll understand. I can remember clear, just like yesterday. Our house had a big lawn all around it, like a park. With gates; I used to swing on them. Kind of like gates of rich houses I see in Vogue and Town & Country all the time, and Harper’s Bazaar. I never can get enough, just looking at all those wonderful, wonderful houses and gardens, like I had when I was a kid, before Mama and Papa died. And absolutely fabulous rooms inside, with white walls and gold trimmings, just like the Rothschilds, and drapes! Papa brought them from France and Italy. You know? Those brocade things, bed ropes, I mean bell ropes, brocade too, like the drapes. And we had the funniest little old man for a gardener; I read about his kind once, in an English story in a magazine. ‘Madam,’ he’d say, ‘you just don’t touch my roses!’ As if I would! Mama would have killed me!
“I read a book one time—I don’t have much time for books, with my social obligations—and it was called West Lynne. Or maybe it was East Lynne. Anyhow, the heroine, it says, always smelled so sweet and good, like bath salts. Well, that’s the way Mama, and our whole house smelled, and Papa used to smell like the tobacco they advertise in Esquire. Manly, and tweeds. Dear Papa! He used to take me out in the dog-cart for rides around the grounds and sometimes to visit Aunt Sim and Uncle Ned. Lovely, lovely. And we’d come back for tea, on Sunday, with all the bells ringing, and I’d eat with my nurse.
“Well, that was a good part, but I liked school best. Mama wanted me to go to a private school, but Papa was democratic, after all those lords, you know? So I went to the best public school in the city, and were the kids jealous of my wonderful clothes! I didn’t mind. Oh, God!” she cried in a desperate, ringing voice, “I didn’t mind! Not really, not really! What did it matter? It was just that it hurt so much, all the kids laughing—”
She stopped
appalled. She put her fingers to her shaking mouth and stared at the alcove. But nothing stirred behind the curtain. The man listened. She knew he understood, all those jealous kids, because she had such pretty golden hair. Like a princess. Like that little Princess Anne in England, with a ribbon over the smooth front.
She could finally speak in a trembling voice, “My life was just like a fairy tale, you know? No need to talk about it so much, I guess. Nothing but happiness, and sunshine, and such loving parents. Mama was a dainty queen. She’d sit most of the time on her chase-long, with a wrap over her feet, like I read about in a romance when I was a kid. But love! No kid ever had so much love as I did! And such fun! You should have seen our Christmasses! Tree right up to our nine-foot roof, and all spangles and angels and gold balls, like I saw through a hotel window once when they was having a private party for some debbutante. I tell you, I just stood there in the snow and dreamed about how it was when I was a little girl, with all those presents from everybody, a big white rocking-horse, too, and a gold locket with a diamond in it, like I saw in a jewelry store once, and a little white dog. I called him Tim. He was all fuzzy.” She sighed. “He got lost one day. Papa offered hundreds and hundreds for him, but he was a high breed dog and they kept him. He wasn’t a poodle, like you see in Harper’s. Something a lot better. He had a collar with rhinestones in it, and it was made of silver.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her face shining like a child’s and with wonder and delight. “You got no idea of what it was like when I was a kid! So peaceful, so loving, so rich, so right! Like a dream, like heaven. All those kisses I got; Mama and Papa’d just grab me away from each other; they was jealous, you know? Look. I got a scar, a nasty big one, right on the flesh near the elbow, like a burn. They pulled so hard I fell into the fire, and did they scream and kiss it! I had an extra nurse for a month. Sure, it’s a burn scar, not what the doctor said, a sort of ragged wound from ‘some instrument.’ He wasn’t very bright. I used to read a lot when I was a kid,” she said abruptly. And her face changed. “Mama loved romances, all kinds, she was sentimental, you see? And we had such a big library. All full of romances—and I guess history and poems for Papa. I read all kinds of things, but mostly stories of people like us, rich and loving and kind and smelling nice, and big old green gardens full of flowers, and people in pretty clothes—voiles and China silks and taffetas like they had—just like ours. And great big old furs to wrap around you when you went out in the sleds in winter, and to skate on the little lake nearby.
“Sometimes,” she cried despairingly, “I can’t bear to think about it. Dear, dear, merciful God, I can’t bear to think about it!”
She put her face in her hands and she sobbed as if something had broken in her. She groaned, over and over. “I can’t bear to think of it!”
She sobbed until she was exhausted. There were no windows in the room; the light that bathed the white walls became softer and softer and more consoling. Her sobbing slowed; eventually she was able to wipe her swollen eyes. Her face was old, the paint and the powder gone, the lines accentuated, the slack mouth trembling. “I can’t bear to think of it!” she said, in a quieter tone. “I was only eight years old. That’s when Papa and Mama died. They never told me. I think it was skiing. I never did find out. And then I went to live with Auntie Sim and Uncle Ned.
“I’m not complaining. Of course, I cried a lot at first. But they was just like my own parents to me.” She gulped. “And rich, or richer, than Papa. They didn’t have no children of their own. They adopted me. And my life became just like my life at home.” Her hands clenched on the arms of the chair. “Like my life at home!”
“Yes,” said the man sorrowfully—did she hear him, honestly?—“just like your life at home.”
She nodded eagerly, and with a fierce and terrible smile. “Yes, yes. Just like my life at home!”
Silence. Profound silence. After a time she put her hand quickly to her temples. “I get a headache, an awful headache, sometimes, when things get mixed up in my mind. A queer kind of headache; I don’t mean ‘queer’ like people say these days.” She tried to laugh. “Funny, though. Everything mixed up, running together, and I get scared. I just say to myself, ‘Now Maude, cool it. You got to face things. You don’t live with Aunt Sim and Uncle Ned any more. You live right here, in your nice, lovely apartment, with all the antiques, and the silver, and you got a lot to be thankful for, even if your job ain’t so much. It’s a living, isn’t it?’”
Again, she flung her hands over her mouth, and dark color run over her face. “I—I don’t know what I say, sometimes. Things pour out; I mean, they never poured out like this before. That’s because you’re listening. But you’ve got to excuse me. I’m kind of not talking straight. You’ve got to have patience.
“Well, like I was saying. I didn’t go to any school when I lived with Aunt Sim and Uncle Ned. I had private tooters; the very best. Oh, I was like in a convent! Only the best girls came to see me, all girls going to be debbutantes, like me. And the nicest boys. I didn’t like the boys very much; they pulled my hair and they laughed at me. I was kinda shy all the time. Awful shy. It got worse and worse.” Now the words were tumbling out. “And when I was seventeen I met Jerry Finch. He was a—I mean a lawyer. Good position in a big firm, like Perry Mason, you know? Only more lawyers. He didn’t like Aunt Sim and Uncle Ned very much, and they sure didn’t like him! He wasn’t very rich, not like us, but a wonderful, wonderful family! They had acres and acres! But no one was ever like Jerry. We—we ran away and got married. I was still only seventeen. We lived awhile in that city, and then we come here. That was thirty years ago. A new start, Jerry said. He—he’d made so much money as a partner. Like that old lawyer I read about when I was in my twenties. Clarence Darrow! A mouthpiece. That’s what they called it in them days.”
She let the brilliant stone shine out into the room. She cried victoriously, “Look at my engagement ring! Jerry paid ten thousand dollars for it, and it was way back before the Depression! That’s the kind of man Jerry was, nothing too good for little Maudie, he’d say. That’s what he called me. Oh, Jerry drank quite a bit. He—he’d had a tragic childhood. I know all about this mental health thing. It’s all in your childhood. He was an orphan. He went to a—a—well, it was sort of a private boarding school for orphans, like Prince Charles of England, only Prince Charles isn’t an orphan, you know what I mean? But kind of rugged; that’s what Jerry said. It made him drink a lot; I didn’t mind too much. I was kind of grateful—I mean, I loved him. Nobody was ever like Jerry. I look at other women’s husbands, and they’re jerks, not like Jerry. Just clods, going to work every day and handing over their pay checks to their wives, and playing with their kids—I mean, all the time, on Sundays and at night. I see them a lot down the street; it’s what they call it a garden apartment, but it—I mean, it’s very nice like that, but not like my apartment, with Denise.”
She bent her head. She could not remember when she had taken off her gloves, both of them. But they were wet and wrinkled on her lap, and a little grimy. She’d have to wash them again, tonight, so they’d be right for tomorrow.
“Jerry,” she said, in a dull voice, “was kind of sensitive. He got to drinking more and more; you know, in the drinking department? Oh, it didn’t matter about the money part. We had plenty. I had Mama’s and Papa’s money after I was twenty-one. It wasn’t too bad. We didn’t have any kids—I was kind of thankful, in a way. Jerry didn’t like them, anyways, and Jerry was my life. I almost chewed his food for him. We was so devoted all our rich neighbors were jealous. How I used to laugh.” She laughed. “I was forty when he—well, he had a brainstorm, that’s what they used to call it. Softening of the brain, or something. And he died, after all those wonderful, wonderful years! Sometimes I can’t stand it!”
Her voice shattered. She cringed in her chair. She pulled the hair that now straggled over her ears. She rocked on her massive buttocks. “I can’t bear it,” she muttered. “I can’t bear
thinking about it, or about anything. I guess I’m going crazy. Maybe I’m going to throw up.”
“Be still,” said the man. She started violently. “What did you say? ‘Be still?’ No, I guess I’m imagining things again. Sometimes I imagine too much.”
She sighed, and this time the sound came like a long moaning from the depths of her agonized soul. Her lips felt numb and weak when she said, “But Jerry left me well fixed, wonderful. I shouldn’t complain. Insurance. It’s true I—I mean, I never thought about the insurance. Honest! I just wanted Jerry. He was like a kid to me; so helpless; I even forgave him when he’d—I mean, he’d get in a mood and he’d say cold things to me. But he didn’t mean them! Honest!
“And now I’m here, talking about all those things—I mean, I’m sixty-five now, and sometimes things gang up on you, and you can’t stop thinking, and you think what’s the use, and you can’t stop remembering—it wasn’t so bad when I was younger, and kind of hoped—but now I look at myself and I—I mean, things should’ve been so different but I guess they’re not for people like me—I just have to stand things.”
She jumped to her feet and threw out her arms and almost screamed, “But why did it have to be that way! Why couldn’t it have been different? Was I such a bad kid, such a mean, stinking kid, that it had to happen to me that way? What did I do? I think about that. I didn’t do one damned thing!”