Kept Woman/Chapter 8

At first Hubert Scott used to go home every night. No matter if it was 4 a.m. when he was ready to leave Lillian, home he would go. Then one night he fell asleep in Lillian's apartment. It was noon when they awakened.

It was after one when he reached his own house and it was with fear and trepidation that he let himself in. Helen was out. Gone to attend a bridge luncheon, Nellie told him. Hubert wished that she had been home so that he could make his explanations and go back to Lillian. He didn't dare leave without seeing her. It would be harder to explain when next they met.

"Will she be home for dinner, Nellie?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Scott. She'll be home for dinner."

So Hubert spent the afternoon in Helen's chair dozing. When she came in, he awakened with a start. He was sorry that he had fallen asleep. She had the advantage now. He was a trifle befuddled. She would be smart enough, too, to see her advantage and fire her questions at him before he had time to collect his thoughts. Damn these clever wives. Especially clever jealous wives.

But Helen merely looked into the living-room, nodded to him, and walked upstairs. Gee, she was sore. Sore as a boil. He ought to have brought her something. ​He was still wondering what he could have brought her when she came downstairs again. She was wearing a severely plain black satin dress with a narrow band of gold mesh at the neck and sleeves. He smiled to himself. Gee, couldn't Lillian and Louise give her some pointers on clothes though? He didn't know what Helen had paid for the dress, but whatever the price he'd bet that Lillian or Louise could have gotten three times that much gold mesh for the money.

"Hello," he said. "Suppose you've been worried about where I was last night."

He thought that an expression of surprise flitted across her face. He wasn't sure. Couldn't have been surprise though. Must have been anger.

"Well, I'll tell you, Helen. You know Steve Flynn?"

"Who?"

"Steve Flynn. You know the fellow who owns the big markets."

"Oh, yes," Helen said unconvincingly. "I know who you mean."

"Well, I ran into him just as I was on my way home to dinner yesterday. Hadn't seen him in a dog's age, you know. Well, Steve and I have always been good friends and he was glad to see me. He'd heard that I'd retired and he was all for getting me to take a job with him. He's just lost a man that he valued a lot and has had a deuce of a time replacing him. Begged me to take the job. I said no, of course. Made me go to dinner with him to talk things over. We got drinking. You know how fellows will do, and the first thing you know, Steve passes out cold. Well, I had to take Steve home ​and he gets those suicide ideas, you know, when he's drunk. All the fellows know that about him. Yeh, always tries to kill himself when he's drunk. I had to stay with him, of course. Gee, I'd never forgive myself if he jumped out of a window or something. I was with him till noon today."

"Quite an adventure," Helen remarked. "I suppose his wife was out of town."

"Yes, visiting some relatives in Buffalo. It was terrible."

"I'll bet it was."

She was sitting on the couch smoking idly. Hubert dared to look at her. The expression on her face was one of complete serenity. She believed him then. Wives could be fooled if a fellow went about it right.

"Were you worried?" he asked.

"Well, to tell the truth, Hubert, I wasn't here. I chaperoned a group of young people last night for theater and dancing afterward. It was after three o'clock when Hubert and I got in. I never dreamed that you weren't in your bed. Then I slept late this morning and naturally supposed that you had already gone out."

"Oh, you did? Well, can you imagine that. Yeh, I was taking care of Stevie. He always gets those suicide ideas when he's drunk."

"Do you think you'll take that job he offered you?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Well, I was thinking that if you did, you'd probably see quite a lot of him and that would mean that you'd have to cope with his mania frequently."

"Yes, I guess it would. Oh, I won't take the job un​less, of course, he can't get anybody else. I wouldn't leave a friend in a hole. Responsible men are hard to find. Of course if he can't get anybody else I'll have to take the job. I suppose I will have to finally."

"I thought so," murmured Helen.

After that Hubert rarely came home at night. What was the use of going home for a few hours' sleep and then rushing back to Lillian? Of course if Helen didn't believe his stories then he'd have to go home, because he was a fellow who hated trouble. But Helen believed him. She accepted his stories contentedly and without question.

"In fact," as he told Lillian, "she, not meaning to, gave me the greatest idea. She said that if I was to take the job with Steve Flynn I'd see a lot of him and have to stay away a lot taking care of him. So of course I told her the next day that I took the job with him. It explains everything and, boy, my actions need some explaining. If she ever gets on to it, she'll brain me."

"Well, you're being careful, ain't you?"

"Sure. I told her that owing to the job being vacant a month that a lot of work has piled up and I work night and day on it besides having to cope with Steve Flynn's drunkenness."

"Suppose she ever meets Flynn?"

"She wouldn't speak to him if she did. You don't know Helen. High hat and cold, that's her. If a person doesn't play bridge, speak French, and just adore antiques they're out with her."

"But she might meet him and speak to him."

"She wouldn't, honest, Lil; you don't know Helen. ​Anybody who's a friend of mine is poison to start with. She'd go to Times Square by way of China to avoid having to walk on the same block with a friend of mine."

Lillian frowned and walked to the kitchen. He had called her Lil. He knew she hated that. As a matter of fact she hated Lillian, too. She had had her Christmas cards engraved "Lili Cory" and that was the name she gave now whenever it was necessary for her to give her name.

"What's for dinner?" Hubert asked, following her to the kitchen.

"I don't know yet. Louise is going to bring the dinner things in."

"I don't like her to do that. They haven't much money."

"Oh, I gave her five dollars last night to get the things with. I thought it would save me from going out."

"Does she know Anna is here?"

"Sure."

"Anna didn't want her to know about—"

"Oh, I told Billy and Louise that Anna had grippe like she told me to. But they won't believe me. They're not fools."

"When will she be able to go home?"

"Tomorrow, I guess. Poor kid, that was a filthy trick Fred played on her. I wonder where he went? Gee, what would have become of her if it wasn't for you, Hubert?"

"For you, you mean. I only laid out the hundred ​bucks that the thing cost. You took her down there, you brought her back, you telephoned her mother and asked if she could stay with you for a while, you called the store and said she was sick. You've waited on her hand and foot. You treated that girl like she was your sister."

"Don't tell anybody, Hubert, about her trouble. If they suspect, that's not our fault, but don't let them hear it from us."

"Oh, I wouldn't. Say, Lil, I think I'll take a little nap till dinner is ready. Do you mind?"

"Well, Anna's still in the bed. Could you take it on the couch?"

"Sure."

Hubert went to the living-room and Lillian remained seated on the green chair at the green table in the kitchen. She sort of wished that Anna wasn't there. She felt sleepy, too. If Anna was somewhere else now she and Hubert could nap till, say, six-thirty; then they could have dinner at a restaurant and perhaps go to a show. It would be easy to call Louise and tell her not to come. But Anna was there and soon dinner would have to be prepared for five people. Lillian glanced out the window and saw her new Nash roadster coming up the street. She shuddered. Billy had just missed bumping its fender against that parked truck.

"Hubert, here's Billy and Louise."

"All right."

"You weren't asleep yet, were you?"

"No such luck."

​Billy and Louise arrived. Billy was in a bad humor and Louise hadn't brought dinner things.

"I forgot them," she explained. "Billy's got yelling at me about something and I forgot. Can't we go out for dinner?"

"No," said Lillian. "I told you that Anna was here sick. We can't leave her alone."

"What's the matter with her?" Billy asked.

"Grippe, I told you."

"If I believe that, you'll tell me another."

"I don't care whether you believe it or not. She has grippe."

Even Billy knew when not to fool with Lillian. He saw that she was peevish about something. Hell, what did she have to be sore about? If she said one more thing he didn't like, he'd take Louise and they'd go home.

"You have your things on, Lou. Go to the store, will you?" Lillian asked.

"Oh, I'm tired, Lillian. Honest I am. Can't you phone?"

"It's too late. If I phoned now, we'd never get the stuff."

"I'll go," said Hubert.

"All right. Get three and a half pounds of sirloin steak and a can of corn—better get two cans and a cake of some kind and butter, and don't forget bread."

"All right."

Hubert went out and Billy sat down in the living-room to read his paper. Louise stood in the kitchen talking while Lillian peeled the potatoes.

​"What's the matter with Anna, anyway?" she whispered.

Lillian turned angry gray eyes upon Louise. "Grippe, I told you," she said. "How many more times must I tell you?"

"What are you so sore about?"

"Nothing, I'm just in a nasty humor, I suppose."

"Well, I guess we'd better go."

"Don't be foolish. I sent Hubert for three and a half pounds of steak. We can't eat it alone."

Louise went to the other room and sat down beside Billy. "She saw the way you came down the street with her car," she whispered.

"Go on. She's sore because you didn't get the things for dinner. Cripes, she thinks you're a servant girl."

Nothing was further from Lillian's mind than the thought that Louise was a servant girl. She was peeling the twelfth potato when Hubert returned.

"Get everything?" she asked.

"I hope so."

"I hope so, too. Go in and see if Anna wants anything, will you? I haven't had a chance to go in."

"Oh, I don't like to go in. She's always bawling. Get Louise to go in."

"Here, stick the steak under the light, will you? I'll go in."

Lillian went in. Anna was bawling. She was lying back against the pillows daubing at her eyes with one of Lillian's handkerchiefs.

"Oh, come on, Anna, turn off the weeps. Billy and ​Louise are here. You don't want them to hear you crying, do you?"

"I was crying quietly," said Anna with dignity. Her tone accused Lillian of trying to snatch her simplest pleasure from her.

"Well, cheer up. The little blue bird of happiness isn't very far off now. Just around the next corner. April showers bring May flowers and besides it's raining violets."

"I know you're trying to cheer me up, Lillian, but please don't be silly. I don't feel like it."

"I'm cooking a gorge' dinner. A big, thick steak and French fried potatoes. Will you eat a lot?"

"Just some chicken broth, please."

"Oh, have some steak."

"It would catch in my throat, Lillian. Please, just some chicken broth."

Lillian went out, closing the door behind her. In the living-room she motioned to Hubert and he followed her to the kitchen.

"You'll have to go out again," she said. "Anna wants some chicken broth."

"All right."

"I hope you don't mind."

He was in the living-room putting on his coat. "No, I'll take the roadster this time," he called in to her.

"It's just about out of gas," Billy remarked. "It won't take you farther than around the corner to the garage."

"Oh," said Hubert.

Dinner was at a quarter of seven. Anna had her broth ​brought to her in bed. She didn't feel like going to the table. Billy and Louise were very hungry and they ate in silence. After five minutes of eating as though he had a train to catch, Hubert fell asleep. Lillian wasn't hungry. She smoked and flicked ashes on her portion of steak.

"That's disgusting, to waste food like that," Louise remarked. "Think of the people right here in New York who are hungry tonight."

"You think of them, I'm too tired," Lillian said.

"What have you got to be tired about?" Louise asked. "I've been traipsing all over New York looking for a job and you've just been sitting here."

"Yeh, Lou, a lot of job-hunting you did," Billy put in.

"Well, I did some and I hate it. I wish I hadn't stayed off to help you furnish this place, Lillian. I'd never have done it if I'd 'a' known that they'd 'a' fired me."

"What do you want to work for?" Lillian asked.

Her question was a slight reminder that after all Louise was getting along as well as she ever did. Lillian looked meaningly at the dress Louise was wearing. It was black crêpe de Chine and it was piped with emerald green. The skirt flared and had scallops around the bottom. Lillian had bought the dress on a day when she had taken Louise shopping with her. It had cost fourteen dollars and ninety-five cents. Hubert had given her a hundred dollars to get some dresses with, and in a shop on Dyckman Street the orgy had been staged. Lillian had bought five dresses for herself and that one ​for Louise because she had pitied Louise's frank envy.

"I don't want to work," said Louise, "but he wants me to. I don't see no sense in it, because we're going to be married soon and then I won't work."

"Who told you?" Billy asked.

"I know I won't work. I ain't going to work after we're married and that's settled. And we're going to be married next month."

"Why?" asked Lillian. "Why don't you wait a year yet?"

"Well, because I don't want to. You know how it is with Billy and me. Everybody knows how it is and I feel so cheap and common."

"Well, there you are," said Lillian, rising briskly and beginning to clear the table. "That's the way the world goes. Come on, Hubert, wake up. I'll have to go in and get that tray from Anna. Is that rain?"

She walked to the window and stood silent for many minutes, gazing out at the rain-swept court. A strange sense of loneliness had come suddenly upon her. She wished Hubert would awaken. She needed his booming voice to assure her of her importance and her security. Billy and Louise were strangers, hostile strangers at that moment. She knew that presently she would turn around and that there would be her living-room and all the beloved familiar objects and old Billy with his line of wisecracks and Louise who was well-meaning but thoughtless and above all else her friend.

She turned, but there was nobody there to assure her. Hubert still slept. Billy read his paper and Louise powdered her face and frowned critically at herself.

​A stanza of a poem that Lillian had learned in the lower grades of school returned to her.

Yes, it did make you feel sad to look at the lights through the rain. Sad and something else. You got a feeling that you wanted to go somewhere or do something. You couldn't bear quiet and dullness when you looked at the lights through the rain. There wasn't any connection or meaning, but you wanted to go.

"Hubert, Hubert, will you for God's sake wake up? Put a record on the Victrola, Billy, will you? Come on, Louise, let's get the dishes done."

"Oh, are you going to do them tonight? I thought we'd just pile them up in the kitchen and then I'd come over in the morning and we'd get them out of the way."

"Anna's calling you," Billy said.

"Coming," called Lillian. She found Anna sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on her stockings.

"I can't stay in here any more. I'm going crazy. I'm coming outside with you folks."

"All right, I'll help you dress."

It took fifteen minutes to get Anna outside. Louise had not cleared the table. Lillian scraped the plates and began to carry them out. Anna sat by the window looking at the rain and weeping softly.

"You'll make your grippe worse sitting by the window," Louise said sweetly. "There might be a draught."

​"I'm all right," said Anna.

"Is Fred coming up to see you?" Louise pursued.

"No. He's—he's busy."

"Oh, I see."

Louise went then to help stack the dishes on the tubs. She observed with regret that there was a roach on the wall in Lillian's kitchen. It was beyond her how people allowed roaches to get into their apartments. And Lillian was so immaculate about her person, too.

Till ten o'clock Louise and Billy danced to the Victrola music while Anna cried and Hubert slept. Lillian sat watching her friends dance. Billy didn't ask her to dance but she didn't care. She was a rotten dancer anyhow. She smoked innumerable cigarettes and thought her thoughts. She looked at Hubert. He was still in the red tapestry chair. Then she looked at Anna with her elbows on the window sill, her streaming eyes staring out at the streaming weather. Funny how Hubert and Anna didn't care that there were other people around. Could you call them immodest? Lillian searched her mind for a record of herself ever crying or sleeping in public. Probably everybody, she concluded, had a few things that they just couldn't do.

Louise dropped exhausted on the couch.

"All tired out?" Lillian asked unnecessarily.

Louise nodded. Billy stood waiting for her to resume the dance.

"Maybe Lillian would like to dance," Louise suggested. "Or Anna."

"We're too old," Lillian put in quickly. "Too old for that sort of thing."

​Anna rose and fled to the bedroom. Lillian followed.

"Cripes," Billy said, "it's like a morgue around here. What do you say? Shall we go?"

"Wait a minute. Lillian will be right back."

"What'll that get us? She's as lively as a stuffed dog herself. Let's shove off."

They were getting into their coats when Lillian came back.

"Oh, don't go yet," she said.

"Yeh, we got to. I've got a tough day ahead of me tomorrow." Billy adjusted the little green feather in the band of his hat and looked expectantly at Lillian.

He could look as expectant as he liked, she thought. She might need the car herself tomorrow. Hubert was going home for dinner and she'd be without a car. After all, it was hers. Gee, if you loaned a thing once to some people they thought they owned it.

"Yep, I'll have a tough day tomorrow."

"Suppose you will," Lillian said agreeably.

"You ought to buy yourself a bicycle, Billy," Louise suggested, "so that half your day wouldn't be taken up getting out to Jamaica."

"Yeh, I'd look cute on a bicycle."

Lillian laughed pleasantly. Billy and Louise waited with their eyes fixed anxiously upon her. A silence during which Louise searched her purse for a handkerchief. The other two watched her interestedly.

"I think maybe I'll buy a little Ford," Billy said at length. "I can't stand this train business much longer."

"Yes, I would if I were you." Lillian moved two inches nearer the door as she spoke.

​Billy and Louise stood rooted to the spot.

"Just imagine you with two cars and me without even a bicycle," Billy mourned.

"Yep, it's a sad world," said Lillian.

Billy saw that he would have to take the plunge. Some people are so dumb that it's a waste of time to use finesse on them.

"You don't care if I take your car, do you, Lillian?" he asked casually. "I'll have it back here by five-thirty."

"No, go ahead," she said weakly. "I won't be needing it."

Oh, well, what the hell. It was easier to give it to him than refuse. And she probably wouldn't be needing it. She did hope though that he'd be careful.

"Well, good night, Lillian." Billy was briskly shepherding Louise across the foyer. "Tell Hubert we said good night."

"I will. Listen, what time will I see you tomorrow?"

"Around five-thirty," Billy said.

"I meant Louise."

"Oh," Louise puckered her brow thoughtfully.

"Well, I'll be looking for a job all day and I'll meet Billy at Fifty-Ninth Street like I did today and we'll be up together. That'll be around five-thirty."

"I see," said Lillian. "Hubert won't be here for dinner tomorrow and I guess Anna will be gone. I'll be alone. Can you have dinner with me?"

"Sure. I'll bring things in. Honest, I won't forget them tomorrow."

"All right. Good night."

​They went then and Lillian walked back to the living-room. She kicked Hubert gently in the shin.

"I'm awake," he said. "Tell Billy to put another record on."

"They're gone. Wake up, will you? I'm lonesome."

Hubert held his eyes open long enough to scan the living-room and be assured that she wasn't fooling him. His eyes closed again as he murmured, "They're gone, huh? What time is it?"

"About ten-thirty."

"I have to go put your car in the garage."

"Billy took it."

Hubert's eyes flew open, this time without an effort. "Again?" he asked.

"Yes. You don't mind, do you? I felt sorry for him. He does work awfully hard, you know. He didn't want to take it. I had to almost force it on him. I knew you wouldn't care. He's careful with it." After all Billy and Louise were her friends.

"Oh, sure, it's all right. They're good kids."

"Now, for heaven's sake, don't go to sleep again. Oh, my God."

Sleep had claimed Hubert once more. Lillian went to the kitchen and started on the dishes. No soap-flakes and no yellow soap. Hell. How was it that she never could remember to get things like that? Plenty of hot water anyhow. That was one good thing. She'd have to use bathroom soap and just pray that the plates and cups didn't get a sweet lavender scent. The dishes had to be done tonight. It was an awful thing to get up in ​the morning and have a load of dirty dishes staring you in the face.

It took forty-five minutes to tidy the kitchen and even then she had slighted the coffee pot and the broiler. At least a gallon of greasy water had spilled on the front of her dress. She didn't own an apron. Never could remember to buy one. It was an accordion-pleated dress and would cost at least two dollars and seventy-five cents to restore it to its original beauty. She turned her diamond and sapphire ring inward. Maybe that would remind her to get soap and aprons tomorrow.

She went back to the living-room. "Come on, Hubert, wake up. What the hell's the matter? Are you dead?"

Hubert grunted reassuringly.

Lillian tugged at the couch coaxingly. She wanted it to open and make a "surprisingly comfortable not to say luxurious bed."

"Wait a minute," Hubert said, "and I'll help you."

Lillian got it open and went to the hall closet for sheets and blankets. She made the bed and put two cretonne-covered pillows from the couch upon it. Anna was using the regular bed pillows.

"Now," she said, "for heaven's sake, climb in."

"My pajamas are in the bedroom," he objected.

Lillian went to get them. Anna was undressed and sitting stiffly in the pink upholstered chair. She wasn't crying and Lillian became alarmed.

"What's the matter?"

Anna rested reproachful eyes upon Lillian. "What's the matter!" she exclaimed.

​"Well, I thought something new was the matter. Get into bed."

"I will. I was just sitting here thinking."

"Don't do it. It's bad for you. You'll bust a blood vessel."

Lillian got Hubert's pajamas and her own nightgown out of the closet. "Good night," she said. "Get some sleep."

Hubert had condescended to awaken. He was prowling around the living-room with his tie off and his shirt open and draping gracefully over the top of his trousers.

"Yep, good kids, Louise and Billy," he said as though he were thus pleasantly terminating a lengthy conversation concerning them.

Lillian flung his pajamas at him. "Surround yourself with these," she said.

"I don't feel like going to bed. I'm wide awake."

The look which Lillian gave him needed no accompanying words. She undressed silently and got into bed. Hubert did likewise and he was asleep in a minute's time.

Lillian tossed restlessly on the small cretonne pillow for nearly an hour but at last felt sleep drawing near. She closed her eyes and lay waiting to drop into a doze. She heard her bedroom door open and the pit-pat of Anna's slippers in the hall. She was not disturbed till she heard the clinking of bottles being moved about on the glass shelves of the medicine chest. Good God, there was iodine there and lysol and a liniment that was probably poison. Would Anna be such a fool?

​With a sudden leap Lillian was out of bed and at the door of the bathroom.

"Anna, are you all right?"

"Yes, why?"

"I heard you moving things about in the medicine chest and I thought maybe you—"

Anna's voice was a polite minging of oil and ice. "I wanted an aspirin tablet. Of course I didn't know I would wake everybody up. Do you mind my rummaging in here?"

"Of course not, you fool. I just thought I could help you."

"I'm all right. Good night."

"Good night."

Lillian went back to her half of the couch. She dreamed that night that she was again living with the Friedrichs and working hard. She awakened while it was still dark and lay thinking over the dream. Working! Ugh. Only two months ago that dream had been reality. She raised herself up on one elbow and quietly bent over and kissed Hubert on the forehead. He had changed everything.