The Puzzleheaded Girl Page 6

  “I know you can’t resist lame ducks. I spoke to this girl in the park. That kind of talk is better done outdoors. She sat awhile watching David play. She seemed to like that. She listened to me and then she smiled, shook hands and wandered away, just as if she had not understood. I did what I could but I very soon came to the conclusion that she knows nothing at all of the physical side of love, to give it a name.” “Do you think that’s possible?” “It seems indefeasible,” she said: her eyes searched the room anxiously. “Unlikely?” She stiffened. “It doesn’t seem likely, but it’s the result of a subconscious taboo. It’s a real part of feminine nature, Gus. Such girls exist everywhere. I understand it. What have the coarse facts about men and women to do with nice manners, a soft voice, correct speech, polite ways, feminine delicacy? A girl is pretty and sweet and naturally chaste; people tell her she’s charming. How should she know it’s all a masquerade?” “But she spends her evenings in Greenwich Village.” “Oh, she listens and doesn’t hear. If you haven’t the key! A woman doesn’t want to spoil another woman’s life. She may be lucky; she may never get tangled with a man. There are plenty of happy bachelor girls: it’s a good life.”

  Debrett said nothing. Beatrice concluded, “Men can’t understand it, even the best of them. Women are terrified not to get married; everyone’s at them; and then they get married to eat and have a child; and so they find themselves shackled like an imbecile in a little room, with no money and no freedom.” “It sounds a pretty miserable world for women,” said Debrett. Beatrice sat down in an armchair with a tragic face.

  Five days later, in the afternoon, the doorbell rang at the Debretts’. Beatrice went, stood back from the door, crying, “Oh!” Honor Lawrence was there, untidy, hardly decent; she looked as if she had been running through the streets. “I want to tell you something: let me come in!” She walked in, stood in the middle of the hall, looked around. “You had better sit down.” “No.” Beatrice looked at her without sympathy. In spite of their words about her, she thought the girl an awkward booby. It was herself she had pity for she was unhappy, in a trap. She had not wanted to marry, but to live like brother and sister with Debrett. When that became intolerable, she had agreed to an ordinary marriage, to avoid the disgrace of a break-up; but she could not endure married life, could not shut her eyes to the boredom and unfairness. “You don’t like me,” said the girl, “but that is nothing. Your husband is kind to me and is my friend; and I want you to tell him what happened to me. He warned me.” “Well, go and tell him yourself,” said Beatrice. “I’m sorry you find me so unresponsive, but I have my own troubles; I am not as absorbed in your problems as you are.” “Surely, you must be a very selfish woman,” said Honor, “but you can’t imagine what happened to me, or you would want to help me. Don’t you know that things are happening all the time that are never mentioned anywhere? All newspapers and all written things are lies, because they don’t tell what really happens.” “Well, sit down and tell me. I suppose I must listen. I don’t sleep. I’m exhausted. I’m walking in a dream; but I know I can’t escape this story of yours. Sit down, sit down.” The woman who was to help her had treated Honor as a mad woman, and more cruelly, perhaps, than she dared to treat the patients. Honor had escaped by her suddenness, simply running out of the room in the state she was in; and had fixed herself up somehow on the way to town.

  “Where did you get the clothes?”

  “I took some clothes out of the nurses’ room.” Near the end of her tale, Honor seemed overcome by her sufferings. She got up. “Let me go now; I can’t stay here any longer.” Beatrice tried to keep her; she gave her a half-worn coat. The girl set out, doubtless on one of her long inexplicable wanderings, her multitude of painful visits to all the strangers she called her friends. “I suppose she calls me her friend, too,” said Beatrice to herself; “I ought to be; I am. I wish I had her naiveté.”

  At home, that night, the wife slightly warmed now by thinking over Honor’s miseries, retold the story. “I’m not surprised. The matron is a sadist who thought she had to do with a weak shade of lunatic; and I think she is one,” said Debrett. “Saul Scott was always very sweet and tender with her because he held she was insane. Let’s not worry about her. She’s unfortunate; and in the end they’ll have to gather her in.” “That remark isn’t like you and should never be made. She is just a repressed girl who is hunted by lechers, criminals and hags. And the only protection she has from life is that in herself she concentrates all the horror and misery which is life itself. She frightens off the dark side of life.” “That is a morbid view, Beatrice.” “I am morbid because I see.” “I can’t see life like that: I can see hope, especially for us.”

  Honor was at the Wall Street office the next day. Still untidy and unclean, she brushed past people in the outer office to see the president of the firm, a man she did not know. He was indignant and wanted to force her out. She did not resist it. She said in a low purring voice, “I came to see Mr. Debrett, but he can’t give me advice; he hasn’t the information; and I thought you could help me.” She smiled at him. He was a kindly man who did not mind those who did not get in his way. “Is it about an account?” “Oh, no, nothing to do with money. I don’t need money. I have plenty.” He was disarmed. “Come here, sit down and tell me what I can do for you.” “No, there is nothing you can do for me. I am going now.” She shook hands; and she went. A week later, Tom Zero met her on 42nd Street. She was flushed, her frayed skirt slipping, and buttons missing from her blouse. Zero was a clean, ultra-fashionable dresser. This looked like utter distress and abandon. “When did you get back from Italy?” She muttered something of her story. “I don’t know what to do. I never guessed women were so horrible.” “Didn’t you know? I thought you always knew,” and he laughed a little. She turned to run. He took a step and came close without touching her. “Be a sensible girl; I’ll help you, but be sensible.” “Oh, that word: sensible! She said that; be sensible. Everyone says it to me. Why? What do they mean? I don’t know what they mean.” She put a hand up to her face—real tears had started. She left him, went on her wanderings, and the time passed.

  Debrett sent his wife and child to Nice, where they lived in a poor pension; and when he had the money, he himself started for Europe, living at first on milk and cheese dishes, to save. His mother and a cousin, hearing of his move, also wished him to bring them abroad. Debrett worked in London and then in Berlin. He was at the Hotel Adlon and in his lonely style was walking up and down the room, working out business problems, when he received a late long-distance call from his correspondent in London, from a certain Abraham Duncan, born in the East End and now, by his own efforts, a rich man. “How in the world did you know I was here, Duncan? Even my wife has not got my address yet.” “Listen, dear boy, time’s short; there’s a Mrs. Hewett here: she says you know her very well.” The voice was discreet, peremptory, a little gay. “She says she’s living in a room in Islington—that’s a poor district—” “Yes, yes, I know.” “She says she’s starving and, by gum, she looks it; she wants ten pounds and she says you’ll guarantee her. What shall I do, my boy?” “Hewett? Is she a woman about fifty: there was one had a ground-floor apartment in my house in New York—” “No, no, this one’s maybe twenty-five, thirty, hard to tell: looks downtrodden, beat. Here, she says her name was Lawrence.” “Honor Lawrence!” “Hurry up, my boy: you do know her? What shall I do?” “My goodness, I suppose give her the money. Ask her how she traced me.” “No time now. All right. I’ll call you at the office tomorrow. Lucky I was in the office—she got here at ten at night!” “That certainly is Honor Lawrence.” Debrett sat down and sweated a cold salt sweat. He started to write to his wife and changed his mind. “The gadfly of fate,” she had said once, an unimaginative woman, too; but an oppressed and persecuted woman, hunted by fate, or so she felt. She was now unhappy in her pension, the child boarded out, Beatrice leading an aimless, poor life. “Mrs. Hewett?” He thought she must have found out his old ho
use, simply borrowed the name of the ground-floor tenant. Mrs. Hewett had sent her maid to clean his rooms when Beatrice was away at Morristown; and had kept his keys. He told Beatrice nothing about it.

  When he returned to London, his first call was on Duncan and, after business was settled, he asked for the ten pounds to be put on his account. “I’ve sent everything to Nice.” Duncan said, “I was very curious, in fact, inquisitive, my boy. It was late at night, a Saturday. I was working late, nearly ten. And she called on that day at that hour at a business office in the City. I was just going home. I don’t know how she found her way through the City at that time of night; no one about. My word, she looked bad; hungry and poor. She wouldn’t tell me where she lived and set off to walk home. I followed her, offered her a ride. Nothing doing. I lost her at Kensal Green, near the cemetery.” He laughed. “My word! I’m not superstitious, not very; but she went into the cemetery.” “You’re joking!” “No—there I lost her. Made me think of the ghosts of the city of Prague; ghouls. But ghouls don’t take money; proved she was human.” They burst out laughing, but uneasily. “What did you think of her?” said Debrett. “Thought she must be—someone—you knew in the States; but then I saw—wasn’t sex: touchy girl. Something you know at once. Or I know,” he said with a warm troubled laugh. “Saw she was a Presbyterian.” “She isn’t.” “Puritan,” he amended; “if you hadn’t said to give the money, I should have given it. She looked so miserable. A good deed.” “I am worried about her,” said Debrett; “she’s such a miserable wanderer, a sort of wraith. She gives Beatrice the willies. She worked for me once. But Beatrice understands.” “There’s a letter for you she left.” Debrett took it, looking at the envelope. “The Piccadilly Hotel! Was she staying there?” He read:

  Dear Mr. Debrett

  I had no notepaper and so I walked into this hotel to get some. I wish I could stay in a place like this. It is warm here and they have good clothes and are having food. This place is not for me. I am sorry to be going to do what I am. I know I owe you twenty dollars. But I am reduced to beggary and need ten pounds, not for myself. I am now Mrs. Hewett. I married Jay Hewett, who was at school with me. I wanted to come to Europe. So did he. He pretended he loved me and I married him; but he didn’t love me. I found that out now. I can’t imagine what his motives were. He’s a dreadful person. Do not speak to him if he comes to see you. I think he must be partly mad. I am afraid a lot of people are mad. I trust you, but I could never speak about this madness. I am afraid to tell what I have found out about people; I won’t be believed. They will think I am lying or even worse. I am in a terrible position. Don’t try to see me. I don’t know what I’ll do. It was a dream, a lie; the reality is monstrous; perhaps all things are monstrous. Perhaps this is hell.

  Honor Lawrence

  Duncan read the letter, asked her age and said, “It’s the marriage shock, she means. She looked innocent. If a woman doesn’t know, it must be an awful shock. I can understand a girl going out of her mind over it. We don’t think; it means nothing to us. She looked distraught. She told me she had just married. Who is she? Looked a nice enough girl.”

  Debrett told him about her. “Is her story true, do you think?” Duncan asked. “I’ve never known her to lie.” Duncan glanced at him, said, “Well, some girls don’t. Hard for them. Hard is life for those who can’t eat dirt.”

  Perhaps five years later, Debrett saw her one afternoon walking along the Boulevard du Montparnasse at some distance. She looked well and was stylishly dressed in a velvet dress, her hair loose and shining. She had a youthful figure and style.

  “Let’s go down the Rue Vavin,” he said to the woman he was with; “there is Honor Lawrence, a girl who used to work for me and who married and came to Europe when I did; but she may need money and I am short at present.”

  Debrett had now left his wife for this woman, a grey-eyed woman with loose brown hair: her name was Mari. “Astonishing how she keeps her youth and girlish beauty,” said Debrett. Mari looked and saw a plump, dark-haired woman, rakishly and carelessly dressed in green material, the blouse pulled down tightly between her full breasts, the skirt untidy. Mari had once been married to a dark thin young man who had led her a dance and in the end deserted her for an old school friend of his, who looked not unlike the woman in green. This woman in green, prancing and bounding along the pavement, looked a little mad, self-satisfied and singing to herself. “I heard that she married again and went to South Africa,” said Debrett. “I don’t know if it’s true. She came to Beatrice one afternoon some years ago. She found her out in Nice and when the door was opened, she threw twenty dollars at her, so that they lay inside the door. She said she owed it to me; so she did. I don’t want it, said Beatrice, why do you haunt me now? He’s left me, as you knew he would.” “Why did she say that?” “Beatrice never understood Honor’s simplicity and straightforward ways. She saw something eerie in them. She is honest herself, but never believed that Honor was truthful and pure.”

  A few years later Debrett and Mari were living in one room in a building in London let out in what are called one-room flats. Downstairs lived the busy, noisy, greedy but kindhearted landlady who was putting her three children through Oxford and Cambridge on her slum rents. Naturally generous, she would at times think of the condition of her tenants and try to fatten them up with a can of tomatoes, soup or oil bought wholesale.

  For some time she had a stout, dark, stormy woman tenant who went in and out at odd hours, morosely; and at the end left quietly, owing four weeks’ rent. “She was hard up and looking for a job,” explained the landlady. “It is the first time I have let anyone run on like that; and see what has happened.” There was some talk about the defaulting lodger. “I often noticed her,” said Debrett to Mari, “because she reminded me of someone you don’t know; Honor Lawrence, a girl who worked for me.” “But I noticed her too, and she reminded me of your wife Beatrice.” “No, no, Honor Lawrence.”

  At the end of five weeks, the dark woman brought the rent. “I owe it to you and you must have it.” “You see, I knew,” said Debrett. “She is exactly like Honor Lawrence, the same woman, you might say.”

  And five years later, when they were living in the country, a visitor came to see them, Mari’s cousin Alice, a demure, self-contained girl of twenty-one, with long fair hair and a velvet skirt, who sat all day doing nothing and answered all questions after a pause. She was out of a job and looking for one. “If you had had a bed I could have stayed here, had a few days in the country,” she said looking around; “it would suit me. You see I have a job offered me in town, but I can’t take it; they want me to bind myself for three months. I could never do that. I must be free.”

  “I hope,” said Debrett, “that you won’t invite that girl Alice to stay with us. When I saw her coming up the stairs, I felt the hairs rise along my spine. She is so exactly like Honor Lawrence; it is the same girl. If she ever got in here, she’d never leave. I don’t want her here; let her go. Never invite her.”

  And Mari became uneasy, and discouraged the odd, charming, long-haired girl with the soft wooden face in which was a dimple.

  It was more than three years later than that, that Debrett was on a business visit to New York; and having half an hour to put in, he went towards the 42nd Street Public Library, which he had visited every afternoon in his youth and remembered fondly. On the first steps below the portico someone pulled his sleeve—Honor, the real Honor. She was now about thirty. But she looked much younger, he thought. Were his eyes getting worse? And he saw now that the others, the one on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, the one in the slum, and the young one, had not looked like her. Was she real, he thought for a moment. Did she shuttle between youth and age, inhabit and divest herself of other women’s forms? “The ghouls of the city of Prague.”

  “Mr. Debrett! I thought I would see you here.”

  “It’s almost a miracle that you do, Honor. I’ve just come back after many years away. I’ve come from London.
You were the last person I expected to see. How are you? Where are you living?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied quietly. “I have just come back from South Africa. I married a South African I met in an art gallery in Europe and went out with him.”

  “So you divorced Jay Hewett?”

  “I was never married to Jay Hewett. It was no marriage and I didn’t consider it one.” She still had charm, her self-centred, stiff-necked enigmatic manner, but she seemed less inhuman; no ghoul.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee, Honor?”

  “I should be glad of a sandwich and coffee. I’ve had nothing to eat all day. I have no money and no home yet. If you could lend me ten dollars I will pay it as soon as I get money from Derek.”

  “Where is your husband?” She did not answer. “Don’t tell me about your husband, if you don’t wish to.”

  In the cafeteria he brought her the food he knew she preferred. “I wrote you a letter in London,” she said; and told him his European addresses, those of his partners and of his wife. She continued, “I told you about Jay. I was unfair to Jay. It was all my fault. What he tried to do was natural; that’s what marriage is. One day I met a man in an art gallery. I was waiting for you there. I thought you’d be sure to know where I was. This man took me to lunch and gave me wine to drink. Then he took me to his hotel. I had more to drink and something happened. We went out to dinner and I had more to drink and we went back again, and I woke up the next morning with him and then I suddenly knew that that was marriage.” She looked into Debrett’s face. “So I was married to him. I went out to South Africa with him and I had his child, my child. It’s still there, but I don’t know where. The family wouldn’t have me. They deported me. They gave the child to an orphanage. They wouldn’t tell me where it was; and I went around everywhere knocking at doors. They had taken it away. They said it was a coloured child.” “Eh?” “They said that to get me deported. They were rich. They could do anything they liked. I was quite wrong about Jay. I thought we would get married and study modern art.”