Experiment in Springtime

Chapter 13

Mrs. Shaw was peeling a tangerine. It was not a very important task but she gave it all her attention. Important things were no longer demanded or expected of her, and this state of affairs suited her. It left her free to concentrate on little things; she could waste a whole hour, if she wanted to, on peeling a tangerine, separating the sections with delicate precision, and laying them in a row to count. Ten, of course. There always seemed to be ten sections. So orderly, tangerines were. Except for the pits. The number of pits varied. Still, that didn’t matter much. It would have been nice, though, if they hadn’t, so she could say to someone, “Guess how many pits a tangerine has?”

She ate each section slowly, relishing not the fruit itself, for it was dry and fibrous, but the exquisite sensation of having nothing more to do after it was eaten than to eat another. A wonderful feeling. How Harry would have enjoyed it if he were still living. They had both worked so hard, harder than other ordinary people, because they were both muddlers and they’d had to work that much harder just to get along.

She was never bored alone in her room, though the girls often told her she must be. They were continually urging her to go out for a walk, to see the shops, to take in a movie. They didn’t understand that she was not idle up in her own room. She thought things. She plucked threads from the past, a grey one here, a red there, and wove them together. She had had a full and happy life, but it had never seemed, while she was living it, to have a pattern. Now, of course, she saw that it had. The grey and red threads blended, harmonized. Rather like a tangerine, she thought, always ten sections but an unknown number of pits.

She felt pleased with herself, as if she had, without help from anyone, discovered an important scientific truth. Maybe some day she would say to someone, “Guess what scientific truth I discovered today?”

No, it would probably be better not to say it. It would shock the girls. They would think she was losing her mind. They were both, really, incapable of appreciating the importance of a tangerine, and what was still odder, they were easily shocked. Especially by me, she thought. They made up their minds years ago what I was like, and if they found I wasn’t like that after all, they would be shocked, or perhaps even hurt.

One must be very careful with such decisive, positive people. They were so vulnerable. Like glass, they couldn’t bend.

But it was nice that they were cleverer than Harry or herself. Harry had been clever enough, but he wasted it on little things. Once he’d invented something to stop windows from rattling, a wedge-shaped piece of rubber with a handle. It worked very nicely, but Harry lost interest in it because he said if people could afford to buy something to stop windows from rattling, they could probably afford to have their windows re-fitted. It was one of the few times in his life that Harry had sounded bitter. He had taken all the wedges and thrown them into the trash box. Without them, the windows rattled a great deal, but she was too wise to bring the subject up. They rattled for ten years and she became quite used to the sound eventually.

She finished the last section of fruit and scooped up all the pits in her hand. Twenty-one. She was reluctant to throw them away, recognizing dimly that in some way these pits were alive and capable of growth. So of course they wouldn’t like to be thrown away. In the end, she removed, from its red velvet box, the diamond clip Martha had given her and put the pits in it instead. Then she placed the box carefully in one of her bureau drawers. If there had been a pen handy, she might have labeled the box, “Pits. The day I discovered number of sections in tangerines. June 10.”

But the label wasn’t necessary. She wouldn’t forget. The bureau was cluttered with boxes, odds and ends of ribbon and colored bits of wool, two robins’ eggs (hardboiled, as a preservative), pressed flowers and waxed maple leaves, and empty match folders. Each of these meant something to her, each was a patch of brightness, a thread of color from her life. She didn’t want to cast any of them aside; she couldn’t see the necessity for it. It was such a big house, there was so much room, why should it not be used?

“But it’s so untidy,” Martha had said.

Her mother hadn’t replied because the only reply she could think of was the truth, that untidiness didn’t bother her, she rather enjoyed it.

She closed the bureau drawer and moved toward her lounge. She was already settled on it before she remembered that she hadn’t put the diamond clip away. She should, of course, get up and do it right away. But she felt no interest in it. The clip was hers, Martha had given it to her, but it didn’t belong to her in the sense that the tangerine pits did. It even pleased her to see it lying there neglected on the table, while the pits lay snugly in the red velvet box.

But imagine trying to explain that to Martha! Dear me. Imagine, for that matter, trying to make Martha understand that she didn’t want expensive gifts from her, that she felt guilty about accepting them because the money was not Martha’s, but Charles’s.

She remembered the day Martha had given her the pearl earrings. She’d never owned or wanted to own earrings, but Martha insisted that she wear them down to dinner to show Charles, and to save trouble, she did.

She didn’t wait for Charles to notice them. She said at once, “Well, Charley, how do you like the earrings you just gave me?”

Charles smiled. “Fine. I have good taste, haven’t I?”

She was reassured by his smile. It was a little ironic but friendly, too, as if he couldn’t help the irony — that was for the whole world — but the friendliness was for her alone.

He caught her eye now and then throughout the evening. He seemed to know that the earrings pinched like the devil and gave her a headache. He always knew things like that. At first, she couldn’t understand how he did it but when she became better acquainted with him she realized that it was because he was extraordinarily sensitive. He was continually putting himself in someone else’s place. He understood other people’s triumphs and weaknesses and humiliations because they were his, too. He knew how she felt about the earrings because he knew how he, himself, would have felt under the circumstances.

Yes, Charles was a good man. It was easy to see why so many people were devoted to him. Yet it was easy, too, to see Martha’s side of the problem. Charles’s introspections bewildered her, his charm of manner made her feel graceless and awkward. She was impatient with his poor health and annoyed by his humor, because she believed that it was directed — and it usually was — against her.

There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Shaw slid off the couch with desperate agility, grabbed the diamond clip and said, “Come in.”

When Martha entered she was pleasantly surprised to find her mother taking an interest in things again, actually trying on the clip in front of the mirror.

“Do you really like it?” Martha said.

“It’s beautiful,” her mother replied, with truth.

“I’ll keep it for you in my wall safe. Where’s the box?”

“I thought we could wrap it in a silk handkerchief instead. I read somewhere that that was better.”

“Did you?”

“In a magazine.” Oh, dear me, she thought, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

She hoped that Martha wouldn’t pursue the subject, and Martha, for a change, didn’t.

She said instead, “Do we know anyone with young men in the family?”

“Young men?”

“Besides the Randolphs, I mean. The Randolph boy has buck teeth. Besides, he’s only fifteen. Laura wouldn’t be interested. It’s time she met some young men.”

“She does, doesn’t she? At school and places like that?”

“That’s different. We would give a party for her here if we knew whom to invite.”

“A party?”

“Don’t look so astonished. Other people give parties. There’s room in the drawing room for a small orchestra.”

“But...” Mrs. Shaw said, and stopped right there. No use saying “But” to Martha. If she decided on a party, a party was inevitable. It was also inevitable that in some way or other the party would go wrong. Martha would bustle around for days, shopping, cleaning, harrying the servants, coaxing the flowers, and then at the last minute, something essential would be missing.

“It would do Laura good,” Martha said. “It would take her mind off — things.”

“What things?”

“She’s been studying too hard.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Shaw said, surprised that Martha was taking the trouble to lie to her. It must be serious, she thought. What’s Laura been doing? Smoking on the sly? Drinking? Falling in love? That must be it, or Martha wouldn’t have talked about “young men.”

“A party would be nice,” she said.

“I think so, too. It’s such an ideal time to have it, when Charles is away. The noise might bother him.”

“I’m sure it would,” said Mrs. Shaw, knowing perfectly well that Charles didn’t mind noise.

“We could have Hunter’s do the catering. And what’s the name of those people who engrave invitations? Franklin’s, I think. I’ll have to ask Brown about orchestras.”

“Why don’t you ask Laura? She’d know more than Brown would.”

“I suppose so.”

Laura was, however, the last one in the house to hear about the party. Her mother told her when she went in to say good night.

“Martha’s giving you a party.”

Laura was at the vanity doing her hair up in pin curls. She held a bobby pin clenched between her teeth and it made her voice sound tight.

“Why?”

“She thought you’d like one. She’s going to a lot of trouble — an orchestra and engraved invitations...”

“Engraved invitations?” Laura turned violently. “I’d sooner die!”

“Well, my goodness!”

“I’d sooner plunge a knife into my heart! Is she trying to make a fool of me? That kind of party — my friends would howl. It’s a goon trap.”

“Oh.”

“When you’re an absolute goon, when you’re utterly, completely drippish, that’s the kind of party your family has to give for you because it’s the only way you’ll ever get anybody to dance with you. And I’m not a goon, I’m not!”

She turned back to the mirror to seek confirmation. Her image was not reassuring. Her hair was half up and half down, and the special anti-wrinkle cream she had spread around her eyes to stave off the onslaughts of old age was oozing down her cheeks like tears of oil.

She spoke again, more uncertainly. “I mean, when I’m all fixed up I’m not. And my new blue suit on.”

“My goodness, of course you’re not a goon.”

“She doesn’t have to catch any boys for me! Lots of boys think I’m a — pretty solid dish.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Not that I’m interested in boys. They’re too young for me. I was only proving a point.” She grabbed a strand of hair and twisted it viciously into a pin curl. “What’s more, Charley said I’m going to be just as good-looking as she is when I get older.”

“What have you got on your face, dear?”

“Stuff. For my crow’s feet. Guaranteed.” She leaned forward and somberly examined in the mirror the skin around her eyes where, according to the manufacturers of the cream, she might reasonably expect to find the first hideous signs of old age.

“Laura?”

“What?”

“It’s just that Martha doesn’t understand about — goon-traps. I didn’t myself, I never even heard about them before. But I see now what you mean. And if you explain it to Martha, I’m sure she’ll see, too.”

“Oh, will she? Maybe she won’t want to. Maybe there’s nothing she’d like better than to make me out a goon because she’s jealous.”

“Martha has no reason to be jealous of you.”

“Oh, hasn’t she?” Laura began picking up the rest of the bobby pins, one by one. She looked sober and self-contained again. “Well, let her give the party, if she wants to. But I won’t come. I just won’t be here, that’s all.” She would run away. Driven from her home by her jealous sister, she would flee into Steve’s arms where she would find peace. She wished she had had a few more chances to entice Steve, in order to make her reception more certain. Still, it couldn’t be helped. She might never get another excuse for fleeing, so flee she must. It was too bad she had to leave before her $2.95 dimple-making machine, guaranteed, arrived from New York. But you can’t have everything.

“Now wait, Laura,” her mother said.

“I’m going to bed.”

“Well, what kind of party would you like? Martha tries her best, but she can’t be expected to read minds, you know.”

“It’s damn lucky she can’t.”

“Don’t swear, dear. What is your idea of a party?”

“Well,” Laura hesitated. “Just a coke sesh. You know, the gang coming in and some new records and maybe hot dogs to eat.”

“Then that’s the way you’ll have it.”

“Honestly? And no chaperones? Please, no chaperones?”

“No chaperones,” Mrs. Shaw said with a conviction she did not feel.

“When? When can I have it?”

“Any time. Tomorrow night, if you like.”

The fleeing would have to be postponed, which was perhaps just as well. It would give her time to try her new suit on Steve, and maybe dimples, too, if the machine arrived tomorrow.

She dashed across the room and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Honestly, you’re quite human!”

“I’ve always taken that for granted,” Mrs. Shaw said, but she was very pleased. She realized that Laura and her friends used old words in a new way, and to be called “human” was a high compliment. “Now go to bed. I’ll see Martha right away.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Will you be firm, really firm?”

“I’ll be extremely firm.”

“You’re terrif,” Laura said, and went serenely off to bed.

Her mother found Martha downstairs in the drawing room. All the lamps in the room were lit, and Martha was standing off in one corner, studying each piece of furniture, each light, like a stage manager.

Mrs. Shaw hesitated in the doorway. Some of her boldness had already deserted her. It was not that she was afraid of Martha but that she felt sorry for her. For Martha was planning, there was no doubt of it. She was planning not merely the details of the party itself, but who should be there and where each of them would sit, and what questions would be asked and what answers given. And in her plans, everything was perfect. The girls were well-dressed and pretty, with Laura the prettiest, of course; the boys were handsome and attentive. Everyone was gay and laughing, with Laura the gayest, the best dancer, wearing the most exquisite dress and capturing the best-looking boy. Everything was perfect, in Martha’s plans.

Her mother watched her with pity. Only someone who was bitterly unhappy and dissatisfied could spend all her time planning perfection. If she loved Charley, Mrs. Shaw thought, if she had a life of her own...

“I was just wondering,” Martha said abruptly, “about Laura’s dress. It should have a high neckline. Her collarbones stick out too much.”

She had to tell her then. She explained, very soberly, about the hot dogs, the goon-traps, the new dance records and no chaperones.

Martha didn’t argue. “Why, of course. If that’s what Laura wants.” She didn’t even appear surprised, as if she’d known all along that her plans would never work out. “It’s getting late, isn’t it?” she said.

“Nearly eleven.”

“I think I’ll go to bed.” She turned out the lamps, one by one. Her voice came again through the darkness.

“I wonder how many hot dogs.”