THE tide was coming in. Gita realized that she was cold and rather tired. She ran along the beach to quicken her blood, then took a trolley to the mainland. As she walked up the avenue of the manor she saw a motor standing before the door of the house and hoped she would be able to slip upstairs to her room unseen. The elderly and middle-aged daughters of her grandmother’s contemporaries did not interest her and she was inclined to pay little heed to the old lady’s adhortations to lose no time making friends in her new life. She had been at the manor a month and not met anyone of her own age. Few of any other. She saw her grandmother in brief interviews only, for the nurse maintained that this alien relative excited the invalid.
As she was stepping carefully over the old rugs of the hall she sniffed a familiar aroma, and then observed that the door of the drawing-room was open, and that a blind had evidently been raised. She had entered this room only once, on the day after her arrival, when curiosity had led her to explore the cradle of her ancestors. She had felt no inclination to visit it again. It was immense and dark and dreary, paneled with mahogany to the ceiling and crowded with ill-assorted furniture representing every period from 1660 to 1880. She assumed that her grandmother’s funeral would be held in its musty grandeur and after that it would be less inviting than ever.
She heard a light movement. For whom could the drawing-room have been opened today? Mrs. Carteret’s friends were escorted directly upstairs by Topper. Curiosity overcame her and she tiptoed to the door and looked through the crack. Then her heart gave a leap. A girl was standing in the middle of the room wrinkling her nose. Gita forgot that she hated everybody and remembered the unfailing kindness of her friends in California. She had not loved any of them and was too self-centered for intimacies, but they had given her what little tolerance of life she had ever known.
This girl looked rather jolly. She wore a very smart tailored suit that gave her the proper geometrical outline, and the prevailing hat of a shape once identified only with sport. Her face looked out triumphantly from its austere setting, for it was a really beautiful face, with its flower-like eyes and regular features. The bright fair hair was shingled and a cigarette projected from a mouth like pink coral. There was a touch of orange in the costume and Gita noted vagrantly that it clashed with the lips.
Gita hoped she was not married. It was as impossible to tell a young married woman from a girl as a smart déclassée from a woman of fashion, and Gita was not interested in babies and housekeeping. But a girl!
However, there was but one way to find out.
She entered the cold drawing-room and held out her hand with a smile.
“I am Gita Carteret,” she said. “I hope you have come to see me.”
The other girl removed her cigarette and shook hands heartily.
“Have I? Rather. I’m Polly Pleyden, and as you’ve rescued me from melancholia I’m that much more glad to see you. Was just thinking of laying myself out to see what it would feel like.”
Gita’s eyes sparkled with appreciation. “Isn’t it—just? And we can’t talk in a mausoleum. Come up to my room.”
“Good! I’ve been walking about to keep myself from freezing to death. Topping old house, though. Not many of them left. Most of the old houses about here were built of wood and have vanished long since. Luckily for me the rats monopolized our old barn before I was born and granny moved out to Chelsea. Not much tradition there but plenty of light and modern furniture. Glory! Do you sleep in that?”
They had entered Gita’s bedroom. Large as it was a four-poster seemed to take up fully a third of it, and highboys, chests, an immense wardrobe, heavy chairs and sofas, covered with horsehair, left little space for movement. The windows looked out into the wood. Gita had jerked off the bed-hangings on the night of her arrival.
“Well,” pursued the irreverent Miss Pleyden, “if you ever get hard up you can sell this old junk. There are imbeciles that will pay any price for mahogany and black old oak. I’d pass out if I had to sleep in this room.”
“I only do sleep in it! Take this chair. I’ve tried them all and it’s not quite as hard as the others. Have one of mine?”
“Thanks. I prefer Happy Stars. Debased taste. One of the fell results of the war. Jolly old war. Did us a good turn.”
Both girls smoked in silence for a moment, secretly appraising each other. Miss Pleyden wriggled until she made herself comfortable and Gita seated herself on the one unbroken spring of a sofa.
“Going to stay with us long?” asked Polly. “I hope so. I must give you a party and have you meet our crowd. We do our little best to amuse ourselves.”
“You look as if you amused yourself,” said Gita, smiling. “But I can’t go anywhere at present. My grandmother won’t live much longer, I’m afraid, and I must remain on tap.”
“I should hope not! Over eighty, isn’t she? Well, you’ll molder if you have to live here much longer. Mother says she’s leaving everything to you, and I hope you’ll sell this old tomb and buy something over in Chelsea—no, I take that back. Even I’d keep this house if I had it. All it needs is new furniture and not so much woods.” She took off her hat and threw it on the floor. Gita, now that this fashionable extinguisher was removed, saw how completely beautiful she was. Such locks as had been spared by the shears curled naturally about her face. She had a charming little head alertly poised; her forehead was low and full, her delicate nose a straight line, her curved mouth soft and pink, with happy corners. She looked sweet and innocent and utterly charming and as cool and pure as an arum lily; but Gita was wary of judging by Nature’s irrelevancies. And she had heard her San Francisco friends discuss these Eastern girls. “Hard-boiled, my dear, doesn’t express it. They’d turn nails green. We’re little ba-bas beside ’em.”
“Surely you go out occasionally?” asked Miss Pleyden anxiously.
“Oh, yes, I go for a long walk every day. The salt marshes fascinate me, and I never saw anything like the Boardwalk. It is rather amusing.”
“Amusing is the word for it until you’re tired of looking at people you never see anywhere else. Ever see the Digue at Ostend?”
“Oh . . . yes!” But Gita scowled. She had particularly unpleasant memories of Ostend. Her father had gambled away his last sou in the Kursaal, and been obliged to sneak out in the night as he could not meet his I.O.U’s. And one of his friends! Gentlemen! Carterets!
“Well, don’t look so tragic about it—I’m going to call you Gita and you must call me Polly—at once. Time was, I’m told, when we Atlantans were cold and formal, but that’s ancient history. Our poor parents try to keep it up, but they’ve given us up. And then you are one of us,” she added, sincerely casual. “Are you engaged?”
“No!”
“That’s right. Plenty of time. We don’t have to marry these days for the sake of freedom, and life’s one long dream when you haven’t a responsibility and can do as you please. Thank heaven I was born twenty years ago, not forty. Moreover, I’m waiting until the men get over prohibition and stop acting like naughty boys. I hate the sight of a hip-pocket. Some of the girls drink because they think it’s funny or think the men think they like it. But I’m afraid I’d go blind or something or come out in a rash. Believe in keeping one’s head, too.”
“Rather! Life’s hard enough without looking round for ways to make it harder.”
“Oh, come now, life’s a jolly nice proposition. I’ve heard you’ve had a lot of trouble and I’m damn sorry. Trouble never was meant for youth. We’ll change all that when—ah—you’re free. No use blinking facts. Old people have to die and not such a bad idea at that. My granny was a real affliction. We had to kiss her twice a day and she wouldn’t wear her false teeth. I was always afraid I’d fall in. What’s your type?”
“Type?”
“Men.”
“Oh!” Gita’s black brows met. “I don’t like any type.”
“Wow! Wow! That’ll never do. I haven’t the least respect for men, but life would be a desert without them. When I’ve exhausted the girl racket and am ready to satisfy my curiosity about those things our parents never mention before us, I’ll pick out a New Yorker—father’s one, thank heaven, and we spend our winters there—with a few millions, dark good looks, and a pastmastership in the art of love-making. About thirty, say. It takes an American that long to acquire any sort of technique. Then when that phase has run its course, he’ll know enough to let me go my own way. I certainly shall let him go his. Meanwhile a boy and a girl, blonde and brunette. That’s the perfect life.”
Gita laughed for the first time since she had left San Mateo for the desert. “Wonderful if life were as simple as that! Why are you so sure you are going to have your own way in everything?”
“If you know what you want and go for it you get it.” Miss Pleyden had a crisp metallic voice, which, Gita inferred, expressed her ego more veritably than her lovely shell.
“That may be,” said Gita. “All things being equal. Life has always dandled you on her lap and fondled your golden curls. But when she kicks instead of kisses and you have to fight her every inch of the way, you don’t get what you want, not by a damn sight.”
Polly Pleyden gave her a long stare. “Now, that is the last thing I should have expected you to say,” she remarked. “You look high-spirited and courageous. You don’t mean to tell me you’ve given up——”
“No!” Gita spat out the word. “I’ll fight till I die. But I’ve no illusions. I’m not one of life’s pets.”
“Look here, Gita Carteret, I’m not going to pretend I don’t know a lot of what you’ve been through. All your grandmother’s friends, including my mother, have talked of nothing else since you got here. Uncle Bill spent half his time in Paris before the war, and we cork-screwed the whole rotten story out of him. Mrs. Gaunt, mother’s crony, ran across your mother once, some time after your father’s death. Met her in some provincial town or other and carried her off to lunch—she had met your mother when she was visiting here, just after she had married, and admired her immensely; said she was the loveliest thing she ever looked at, and far too good for Gerald Carteret, who seems to have been the last word. Well, she got a few things out of your mother, who was too glad to talk to a woman of her own sort once more to keep up her natural attempt at reserve. It wasn’t difficult to find out she was poor and living in horrid pensions on a pittance from some relative. But she made Mrs. Gaunt vow she’d never tell Mrs. Carteret, and she never did. You’ve had a rotten life and I don’t wonder you’re bitter. But—how old are you?”
“Twenty-two.” Gita, angry at first, had softened at the tribute to her mother.
“Well—that’s old in one sense, these days. Jane Bull had had three affairs, married and settled down to a baby before she was twenty-three. But on the other hand it’s only a bit over three and one-tenth of the allotted span—less if this rejuvenation thing pans out. Between our new way of looking at life, and science, we can be young about thirty years longer than any generation that’s preceded us. What’s more, your troubles of one sort, at least, are over. You’ll have an independent income when the old lady shuffles off. For all you know life may have done her worst by you at the start and have relented for keeps. Don’t go on making faces at her. That old saying about man’s being his own worst enemy isn’t such a cliché as most. First thing you know you’ll be down and out again. Come now. You’re young enough to put all you’ve been through out of your mind and begin over. And you’ve ripping looks, if you don’t mind just one personal remark!”
“You are very kind,” said Gita, almost humbly. “But I don’t think it is possible to forget—the impressions of one’s plastic years are indelible. It is easier, I fancy, to forget at forty than at twenty.”
“I believe the will can do anything—in spite of Coué. Fancy that’s what’s the matter with you! Too much imagination, plus habit.”
“Perhaps. But I assure you I have no intention of brooding too much and making matters worse than they are. Now that I have the chance of ruling my own life—as far as anyone may—I intend to get something out of it. But men will play no part in it. Although I’ll be glad to talk to any intelligent ones I may meet. I haven’t met many so far.”
“I think I can guess the reason for your hatred of men,” said Miss Pleyden, who appeared to be disconcertingly shrewd. “But that will wear off, now that you are in a position where they no longer can take advantage of you. As I told you, I haven’t any respect for the lot I run with, but there must be men somewhere that have glamour enough to make a girl feel she’s head over. And what you want is a thumping love-affair.”
“That sounds almost romantic.” The subject was distasteful, but Gita was forced to smile.
“Not romantic. Merely undiluted nature. Fancy we all get it sooner or later, although nothing’s worrying me less at present. But what I haven’t seen I could inscribe on my thumb-nail. You’re built for it. Just you refurnish this old barrack and leave the rest to me.”
“Oh, I’ll refurnish it if there’s money enough—air it, anyway. But I’ll stay here for a time and read——”
“For God’s sake don’t tell me you’re intellectual!”
“Far from it. Been too busy. But there are many things I ought to read.”
“Don’t you dare queer my little game! Or if you will read tomey books keep it dark. It’s what you don’t know that gets you there. Life’s the Book, anyhow, when you’re young. . . . There’s no hope this summer, but you’ll visit me in New York next winter if I have to kidnap you. I haven’t been so interested in anyone before in all my young life. Wish I’d called before, but mother said you were inhuman and I kept putting it off. So did the other girls, but they’ll be along soon now. I’m Columbus, however, and shan’t let them forget it. That means I must go—mother’s been calling on Mrs. Carteret—but I’ll be over again in a day or two.”
A motor-horn had sounded discreetly. Miss Pleyden caught her hat on the point of her swagger-stick, tossed it to the other hand, settled it carefully on her head, opened her vanity-case and applied her lip-stick. Then she sprang to her feet and laid her hand on Gita’s shoulder. “You’re all right,” she said emphatically. “I had an idea you weren’t——Well, never mind what I mean,” as Gita jerked up her head. “In some things, I fancy, you’re as green as mint. Dear old Dr. Freud would say you were heading straight for the rocks, but there’s a thing or two he didn’t know when he set to work on the sub. Fancy you’ve been saved by a sound endocrine constitution. You see I know a thing or two myself, even if I never let on, owing to a perfect policy. There’s another toot. We’ll have to go down.”