Kept Woman/Chapter 14

Mary Jackson discovered one day early in January that she was going to have another baby. The discovery provoked tears and deep gloom. More money would be involved than she could afford. The uptowners, except in most extreme cases, do not avail themselves of public charities.

Mary took herself, her troubles, and little Bobby to see Lillian. After all, Mary reasoned, it wouldn't do any harm to tell a prosperous friend just how worried she was. Hubert was at home when Mary called. She had not been expected, and Hubert and Lillian were lounging about in bathrobes. It was noon and they had just finished breakfast.

Mary deposited Bobby on the floor and Lillian presented him with the top of her powder box to play with. It was red cardboard trimmed with gold and very attractive even after Bobby had sucked most of the gold off. Mary herself sat miserably on the edge of her chair. She wore a shabby, rose-colored cloche and a brown coat with a narrow fur collar. The coat was worn and almost shapeless, and Mary, to offset her garments' shortcomings, had carefully powdered her face and rouged it heavily. Even her eyelashes had been mascaraed as though she were still Mary McDonough who ran a switchboard and had no worries.

​"Take off your things," Lillian said.

Mary sighed. "I have to be getting back," she said. "I can't stay."

"Well, undo your collar. You'll catch cold."

Mary obeyed, sighing again. "Oh, I hardly care what becomes of me," she said.

"What's the matter? You and George have a fight?"

Mary smiled sadly as though Lillian had called to mind some sweet moments out of a dim past. "No," she said. "But what do you think? I'm going to have another baby."

"No kidding?"

"Yes, isn't it awful?"

Mary looked first at Lillian and then at Hubert to see if they were appreciating the full horror of her position. They looked politely sympathetic but not deeply impressed.

"I don't know what I'll do," she went on. "I can't possibly afford a confinement so soon again. The doctor and the sanitarium and extra things and all."

"Tough, all right," said Lillian.

"Not only that, but look," she pointed contemptuously at Bobby; "he's still a baby. It'll be great, taking care of two of them. And I'm not so strong. I get dizzy spells and I'm losing weight. Gee, it's awful."

"Sure is," said Lillian.

"Huh," said Hubert, "women years ago could have a dozen kids without making the fuss over it that you girls make over one or two. What do you expect when you get married?"

"Oh, go on, Hubert," Lillian said, "we're different ​today than women were years ago. They didn't have nothing to do then but have kids."

"Well, what's Mary got to do beside having kids? She ain't running a business or having a career or anything, is she? She's married, and women have to expect kids when they're married."

Mary was silent for a moment while she thought over all Hubert had said. Then she began anew.

"I love children," she said, "and I believe women ought to have lots of them if they're well enough. I don't mind caring for them, but I am so weak and sickly. Why, I'm absolutely fagged out if I do the least thing."

Hubert said, "You'll feel better in another month or two, I'll bet." He got up and stretched his arms, yawning widely. "Think I'll go get dressed, Lil."

After he had gone Mary grew more detailed on the subject of why she should not have a baby. Lillian listened thoughtfully. Had Hubert withdrawn so that she could speak to Mary in private and offer suggestions and perhaps financial aid? She'd never known him to do that. She really was sorry for Mary and certainly Hubert must be sorry too. She wished she knew whether he intended to help Mary or not. She thought it all over while Mary was speaking and decided not to commit herself. If Hubert wanted to help her they could call on Mary tomorrow and tell her so. If he didn't want to he would be sore if Lillian had promised Mary help.

Mary finished her recital, picked up her baby, and departed. It was clear that she had come merely to set certain facts before Lillian. Lillian went to the bed​room. Hubert was sitting in the pink chair looking at a magazine.

"She gone?" he whispered.

"Yes."

"What the hell does she think this is? A clinic?"

"Oh, I felt sorry for her, didn't you?"

"No. What the hell. Two kids isn't such a raft, you know. She ought to be willing to have two."

"But she isn't well."

"Bunk. She just doesn't want two kids to wash for."

"Gee, I kinda thought you'd help her out."

"You didn't tell her I would, did you?"

"No."

"That's good, because I'm not going to. She's no sicker than I am. She's just lazy."

Lillian didn't understand at all until she recalled that after all Mary was one of the crowd and Hubert had grown tired of doing favors for them.

He had forgiven the Sullivans and the Fishers for their treatment of Lillian. He hadn't meant to, but they had all called on New Year's Day and he found it hard to hold a grudge when they sang "For he's a jolly good fellow."

So they'd been as intimate as ever. Lillian was glad. Friends were friends in her simple calculations.

Billy was going to broadcast again. He was getting a more prominent position than he had ever had before. He was getting promoted to 11.15 a.m., and Louise said there was no standing it with the high opinion he had of himself.

"What I'm hoping," Billy explained to his friends, ​"is that some firm, you know, like Palmolive Soap or Ipana Toothpaste or Wrigley's gum, will hear me and hire me to advertise their product. You know, like the Happiness Boys advertise Happiness Candy. I could pull down a lot of money that way and the firm wouldn't be losing anything either. See, I thought for instance if a toothpaste firm took me I'd call myself Smiling Billy. See, meaning that I could smile because I wasn't ashamed of my teeth because I'd been using Whatsit Toothpaste. I thought, too, I'd use for a signing-off song 'When you come to the end of a perfect day.' See? I'd change the words around and tell them not to go to bed without brushing their teeth at the end of a perfect day. See? Gee, it would be a wow."

Anna giggled appreciatively. Billy was encouraged.

"I thought, too, that maybe if like a candy firm would hire me, I'd call myself Sweet William. See, that's a flower. And I'd use for a signing-off song 'Sweet Sixteen,' meaning the sweet sixteen ounces to a pound of their candy, see?"

"Gee, that's good," said Lillian, completely over-awed at facing some one who had thought of something.

Billy executed a neat "break" with his nimble feet. "Say," he said, "I got those two ideas and a lot more too humorous to mention."

"They're clever all right," Hubert agreed.

On the strength of Hubert's applause Billy motioned him away from the others and filed an application for a little loan of fifty dollars. He was broke. The paint-selling hadn't been going so well, and besides Billy had had to take a lot of time off to get new songs from the ​publishers and to rehearse them. Fifty dollars, he said, would just help him out swell. Hubert turned him down flat. Billy reduced his appeal to twenty dollars, but Hubert was adamant. To less than twenty dollars Billy refused to stoop.

He told his story to Lillian in the kitchen, whither they two had gone to make coffee.

"Hubert has taken a fierce dislike to me," he ended up. "I guess we hadn't better come around any more."

Lillian wanted to tell him that Hubert believed that he had given away enough money, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Billy was so like a disappointed child. She racked her brain for something that would appease him and put Hubert in a better light.

"The truth is," she whispered, feeling very delighted with her power of imagination, "Hubert is a little pressed for cash. That's it," she went on, growing positively excited over her creative genius. "He's in a bit of a hole."

"Well, what are you so happy about?" Billy asked. "Happy?"

"Sure. You're giggling about it as though it was sweet news."

"Well, I try to be cheerful no matter what happens," she told him.

She wanted to tell Hubert about the wrong steer she had given Billy, but remembered in time that she couldn't. He would be sore at Billy for carrying the story to Lillian and he would be sore at her for not telling Billy the plain fact that he was tired of handing money out. The more she thought over the situation, ​however, the more she felt that she did have something to tell Hubert.

When they were alone that night she said to him, "Say, I saw Billy get you in a corner tonight and do a lot of sweet and low gabbing. Was he making a touch?"

"Trying to."

"How much?"

"Twenty reduced from fifty."

"Did you give it to him?"

"Sure."

"You did!" Lillian's astonishment came forth in a sharp exclamation. Who was lying? Billy or Hubert? And for what reason?

Hubert took the high, bewildered pitch of her voice to mean only one thing. She was vexed that he had loaned money to Billy after refusing to aid Mary Jackson.

"Well, to tell the truth, Lil, I didn't."

"What did you say you did for, then?"

"Oh, I don't know. Guess I was thinking of something else. What did you want to holler at me that way just now for?"

"When?" asked Lillian. She knew very well when.

"When? Why, just now when you said, 'You did!' Cripes, it sounded as though I'd just said I'd murdered somebody."

"I don't know. Maybe I was thinking of something else too. So you didn't let Billy have the money, huh? Why not?"

Hubert looked at her with a hurt expression on his ​red face. "Why not? Jees, don't you think I've dealt out enough jack to that guy?"

"Yes and no."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, he ought to be man enough to stop begging you for money by now. But you know, you told him a long time ago that he could depend on you to help him out while he's fooling around with the radio business."

Hubert sullenly picked at the cuticle of his thumb nail.

"Gee, do I have to stake him forever?" he asked.

"Well, I thought the idea was that you were going to help him till he landed something that paid money on the radio."

"That might be when I'm in my grave."

"Of course," said Lillian, "it's none of my business. The affair is between you and Billy."

"Well, he ain't mad," Hubert said. "I just explained to him in a nice way that I thought I had given enough help now and that it was time he stood on his own feet. He saw my point and said it was fair enough."

Lillian stared at Hubert, quite unable to move her eyes from him. This was something new. A lie. Why had he lied? She thought over all that Billy had said to her and felt relieved. After all, perhaps Hubert hadn't lied to her. He had probably told Billy just what he claimed to have told him, but perhaps Billy, hoping to get the loan from Lillian, had purposely omitted Hubert's contention.

That was the way it must have been, but still she was forced to admit that Hubert was different recently. ​He was irritable frequently now and he never seemed to be having a good time any more. She asked herself if he was tired of her. Well, if he was he had only to go. But he might think that would be a dirty trick. He might stay even though he had gotten so that he couldn't bear her. She resolved to ask him and have at least that much threshed out.

"Hubert," she asked, "how'd you like to give this place up?"

"What?" he asked. His tone was uneasy and he looked at her strangely.

"What did I do? Sneak right up on your thoughts?" she asked.

"No, I was thinking of—of Billy's broadcasting ideas."

"Oh. Well, think about this for a while. How would you like to give this apartment the air?"

"Where would we go?"

"Why, you'd go to Helen and I'd go—" she made a little, fluttering gesture with her hand—"back to the handkerchiefs."

She was certain that she saw fear and a shocked surprise in his eyes. Then he didn't want her to go. Or was he dismayed that she had read his thoughts so well?

"Gee, Lil, you wouldn't do that, would you?"

"Sure. Does that make you feel better? When you're ready to say au revoir, just say it, big boy. Don't worry about me."

"Gosh, I'd never be ready to say au revoir to you. You're great, Lil. Don't leave me ever, will you?"

"Not if you want to keep me."

​"What do you mean, 'keep you'?"

"Not if you want me to stay."

"Oh. You had me worried, Lil. I thought you wanted to go."

"No, I don't, because you've acted so strange lately."

"You mean because I didn't give the money to Billy?"

"Oh, no. To hell with Billy. Only, I don't know, you haven't been yourself."

"Sure, I have."

"No, you haven't."

He came over and sat beside her on the sofa. He put his arm about her and pulled her near. She struggled a little to get away from him. Love-making was Hubert's favorite way of terminating annoying discussions.

"Stop. Let's talk this all over," she begged.

"Oh, talk is cheap and it don't mean much and now you're acting funny. You don't even want me to kiss you."

"Sure I do, but not when I'm trying to talk to you. For Heaven's sake, Hubert, let me alone and answer me—what's been the matter with you recently?"

"Now who's irritable?"

"Oh, I am, I suppose."

"Sure you are, and talking got you that way."

"It did not."

"Sure it did. Now let's be quiet for a while."

She gave up the idea of trying to talk to him. What was the use? He hadn't lied to her about Billy and he wasn't trying to separate from her. There was nothing then to worry about. Lillian lulled her doubts to sleep.

​The day of Billy's broadcast came, and directly after it he went to see Lillian and Hubert. He put no stock in Louise's comments, and Lillian and Hubert were the only other people he knew who listened to it. Louise was with them, having been there for the program. The batteries on her set were run down.

The three were extremely enthusiastic in their praise. Even Louise thought he had put on a good fifteen minutes. Billy felt that they were all beginning to get wise to themselves and recognize real talent when they heard it.

"But I flatted a little on the ballad," he said generously.

The admiring trio pronounced him a liar. They wouldn't believe it. Him flat, they should say not.

"It was swell," Louise said. "I didn't know you had it in you, dear."

"You don't know anything," he answered crushingly.

Lillian said she would make some waffles and the others followed to the kitchen to watch her do it. She had some difficulty in locating her big agate spoon. Now where had it gone? Lost. Must have been bundled up with the garbage by mistake and sent down on the dumb-waiter.

"I'll have to get another spoon," she said. "I need a little potato knife and a coffee-strainer, too. I always forget to get those things."

"I get them in the five-and-ten-cent store," Louise said. "They're just as good and they're cheaper. I love to go through the five-and-tens, too. I get an awful kick out of it."

​"So do I," said Lillian. "I haven't been in lately, though. And there's two now. One on Dyckman Street and one on Two Hundred and Seventh."

"I need some baby ribbon for my underwear," Louise remembered. "Let's go out after we eat and go shopping in Woolworth's."

"All right," Lillian agreed. "We'll each take a dollar and we'll need a truck to bring home what we bought."

"A dollar is all Louise will get," Billy said.

They ate and left the dishes standing on the table in the kitchen. Lillian went to the bedroom to get her hat and coat. Hubert followed her in.

"Got any money?" he asked.

"Now where would I get any money?" she returned. "A poor girl like me who hasn't had her allowance yet this month and is still waiting for twenty dollars she's owed from buying Christmas presents. When are you going to pay me, young man?"

"In the sweet bye-and-bye, kid. Here." He fumbled in his pocket and held a bill out to her. She reached for it and was placing it in her pocketbook when she noticed the denomination of it. It was a one-dollar bill.

"Isn't that what you said you and Louise would each take?" he asked. His tone was low and almost pleading.

She looked up at him and saw his eyes anxiously fixed upon her. "Yes, sure," she said. "That's all right." She stuffed the dollar in her pocket and murmured again, "Yes, sure. That's all right."

He could only spare a dollar. She walked to the foyer to join Louise. A dollar he had given her. Her heart was shaking within her in queer little hot flutters. ​Hubert had given her a dollar. One dollar. What did that mean? She put the question to herself, fully aware that she knew the answer. Oh, see the dollar? Who has given the lady the dollar? Only in the school book it had been flower instead of dollar.

On the right as you go in there's the ribbon counter. To the left stationery. Directly in front novelty jewelry. Louise went to the right and asked Lillian's opinion on two shades of narrow pink ribbon. Lillian said the lighter shade was prettier. Louise said she preferred the darker.

Lillian said, "Then what the hell did you want to bother me about it for?"

Louise bought ribbon, a comb, and a card of hooks and eyes. She played with the idea of buying some glasses but changed her mind. They came to the counter where kitchen utensils were sold, and Louise pointed to agate spoons and gave Lillian the right of way.

"Oh, I don't think I'll bother," Lillian said.

"Why not?"

"It's so hard to get waited on."

"No, I'll get you a girl."

"Don't bother, Louise. I don't want to be annoyed with it."

"You're crazy."

"So is your old man."

On the way out Louise bought a little pocket mirror, a powder puff, a yard of elastic, and a string of green glass beads.

Lillian stood a little apart from her and took no in​terest in her friend's purchases. Funny how it had all come to her in a flash when he handed her that dollar bill. Funny, too, that she hadn't guessed before. It was not like him to suggest small Christmas presents and refuse to help Mary Jackson and throw Billy down on a loan. And he'd been acting so irritable and strange. Gee, she was a nut not to have guessed the truth. Broke. She couldn't imagine it. It was easy to picture herself broke. She had been that way before. But Hubert—that was different. He liked to have money and he liked to spend it. He liked good food and long drives and buying things for people. How would he like being broke? And how had it happened? She had a vision of a fat, unprincipled Wall Street man who had crushed Hubert because he was jealous of him.

Lillian returned to the apartment with her dollar intact.

"What did you buy?" Hubert asked her.

"Nothing."

"Oh, you should have bought something."

Louise spread her bargains out upon the table for Billy to admire. "Lillian saw the five-and-ten's kitchen things and didn't think they were good enough for her."

"Oh, it wasn't that," Lillian said, quickly.

She hoped the Fishers would go soon. She wanted to talk to Hubert. But the Fishers stayed. The afternoon wore on. Billy talked about radio and Lillian sat by the window, looking down at the garden court. A woman was sunning her baby there. Wait till the janitor saw the carriage. There'd be a fight then. Women weren't allowed to sun their babies in the garden court. ​Baby carriages were considered very unsightly. Lillian wondered how much a carriage like that cost. Not that she ever expected to buy one, but it would be nice to know. How did married women who were tied down to a certain amount of money get along? They had to buy meat and groceries and baby carriages. They seemed to get along all right, too.

The janitor emerged from the basement into his beautiful garden court. He spied the baby carriage and a wrathful cloud passed over his face. He crept nearer and looked closely at the child.

"Mrs. Levine," he bellowed.

Mrs. Levine appeared at her kitchen window. "Yes."

"You'll have to take this carriage out of the court. You know we can't have this. Suppose every woman in the building put her carriage here? How would people walk through the court?"

"Well, I'll be right out."

"You'll have to take it away now."

"Don't you say 'have to' to me. I'll take him away when I'm ready."

"You'll take him now."

"When my husband comes home he'll tell you something."

"Yeh."

The janitor walked away. Lillian watched him as he returned to his underground hiding-place.

"Let's watch," Louise said. "I want to see if Mrs. Levine will take the baby out of there."

"You can have my place," Lillian said, getting up. "I don't want to watch. Anything like that gets my goat. ​This house is getting fine when they have arguments in the court."

"God, you're snooty," said Louise.

"No, but I don't think it's much of a place when things like that go on. I'm going to keep my eyes open for another apartment, I think."

The Fishers stayed till Lillian was forced to ask them to dinner. They talked the proposition over just as though there was a chance that they would go home. Finally they agreed to stay.

Lillian offered her dollar to Hubert and told him to get a pound and a half of chopped meat and a can of beets.

"I have money," he said, ignoring the bill. Once more Lillian tucked it away. It evidently wasn't the last dollar they had. That was some consolation.

It was midnight before Lillian and Hubert were alone again. The day had been the longest Lillian had ever known. She was anxious to find out what had happened to Hubert's fortune and what his plans and prospects were.

She saw the Fishers down the stairs and hurried back to the living-room. Hubert was yawning and taking off his shoes. "Well," he said, "I guess we might as well go to bed."

"Wait. I want to ask you something."

He looked at her questioningly, as though he hadn't the remotest notion what she would wish to discuss at this hour.

"It's about that dollar you gave me today. Was that all you could afford, Hubert? Are you short?"

​"No. I just hadn't gotten a check cashed." He bent over his shoes and yanked violently at the laces.

"Oh, horse-radish. You're strapped, aren't you? Is that why you wouldn't lend Billy or Mary Jackson any money?"

He straightened up and said, "Well, to tell you the truth, Lil, I am just a little bit short."

"How short?"

"Well, pretty short."

"How short?"

"Well, I can foot another month's rent here and feed us. Oh, I got about a hundred and seventy-five dollars."

"And two cars," Lillian reminded him. "You can always sell those."

He laughed loudly and shook his head. "Don't you worry, Lil," he said. "It won't come to that. We won't have to sell the cars."

"Why not?"

"Say, what do you think I am? A cripple? Kid, I can get a job tomorrow that will keep us sitting pretty for the rest of our lives."

"What happened to your money, Hubert? Did you—did you invest it badly?" That was an intelligent question. Showed she knew something and that he could talk to her freely.

"No, I invested it swell. We spent it."

"Spent it? How much did you have? What did we spend?"

He thought a moment. "Oh, about twenty-five thousand dollars," he said carelessly.

​"Oh, no, Hubert, honest? Did we really spend that much?"

"Sure. Don't look so sick. That ain't a terrible lot."

"It seems a terrible lot to me."

"Well, you haven't been in business. You haven't been used to large amounts like me. Sure, we spent around twenty-five thousand dollars."

Anyhow, he thought to himself, it was over fifteen thousand that they spent. Well over. He'd had twelve hundred dollars in his bank account when the McKay Brothers had paid him.

"I can hardly believe we spent that much," Lillian said. "It seems terrible."

"Now don't you worry about it. There'll be plenty more for us to spend. Only for a while we have to cut down, see?"

"Sure, I see. Didn't I pave the way for us today to move from this apartment without too many questions from the Fishers?"

"Well, Lil, I didn't think you did that so good. See, the way you did that, all about the baby carriage and the janitor and all, will make them think you're planning on moving to an even better apartment than this."

"Oh, I'll take care of that."

"All right. You take care of that and I'll take care of getting a job. Of course I won't be with you in the daytime then, but I've had a long enough vacation. Time I got back to doing something."

"Yes, maybe you will feel better if you are doing something. Well, I guess we might as well go to bed."

​She was surprised to hear herself suggesting bed. But a few minutes before she had imagined that they would be up all night discussing ways and means. Now it seemed natural to dismiss the whole affair lightly. His broad shoulders and smiling face were enough assurance for her. He was the kind of man who had no patience with poverty. Within a week he would be associated with some firm and everything would be running smoothly again. Any man who could spend twenty-five thousand dollars in a little more than a year was not of the stuff who knows want. Funny how she had gotten so panicky over Hubert's little setback. Why, Lillian was willing to bet that even Henry Ford has his money worries.

She felt, though, that he ought to have told her at the beginning that his money was running low. He had caused her a great deal of needless distress by his secrecy. Although he had, of course, been trying to save her worry. Well, everything was straightened out now. She yawned and stretched happily. Nothing was bad when you knew what it was all about.

Hubert was feeling light-hearted, too. Now that Lillian knew the facts of the case things were easier. Something great would turn up right away. He wasn't worried about that. He knew his ability. But it was nice in the meantime to have somebody going over bumpy roads with a fellow. She cheered him up right away by the calm way she took things. Gee, she must believe that he was the kind of a guy who made good; otherwise she wouldn't have taken the news so easy. That cheered him up a lot. If she wasn't worried that proved he ​really seemed like the sort who cleaned up big jack. He looked at her pretty face with its red lips and black eyelashes. She smiled at him and he felt that his future was assured. Women didn't smile that way at fellows who looked like flat tires.

"Come on," she said.

She picked up the clock, an ash tray, and a pack of cigarettes and started for the bedroom.

Hubert reached down and got his shoes from beneath the couch. He turned out the lights and followed her.

"You going to smoke in bed?" he asked her.

"Sure."

"Well, I'm going right to sleep. I'll be out early tomorrow. I'll just grab a cup of coffee. You needn't bother getting up. Just set the alarm for eight."

"Oh, sure. I'll get up and fix you waffles."

"Please don't."

"Why? What's the matter with my waffles?"

They both laughed. Hubert kissed her good night and was asleep almost as soon as he hit the pillow.

Lillian smoked her cigarette and turned out the light. She fell asleep without wasting a second on worry. It was the greatest compliment any one had ever paid Hubert.