“What do you want?”
“Before I tell you what I want, I want you to understand my position.”
“Before you take up any of my time,” Bertha stated firmly, “I want you to understand mine.”
“What is it?”
“I work for money. Money talks in this business. Sympathy I give outside office hours. I can’t take a hard-luck story down to the bank, write my name across the back of it, shove it through the window and get a deposit entered to my account.”
“I understand that perfectly.”
“If this is a hard-luck story, I’m not interested. I just didn’t want to have any misapprehension on your part.”
“There is none, Mrs. Cool.”
“All right, go ahead.”
“It is absolutely imperative that you understand my position and the reasons behind it.”
“You said that before.”
“I can’t overemphasize it.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re a rather competent, capable woman, Mrs. Cool. One feels a little embarrassed in discussing— Well, the businesslike atmosphere of your office is hardly conducive to a discussion of romantic details.”
Bertha said, “By the time romance gets to this shop it’s sordid as hell. Wives want evidence, women want damages, men want out.”
“I can understand.”
“I suppose,” Bertha went on, “you want to tell me something about the dashing personality of the gay seducer who was Carlotta’s father.”
A faint half-smile touched the lips of her visitor, a sardonic travesty on mirth. “I was the seducer.”
“You interest me.”
“I didn’t come here to hide behind any falsehoods.”
“That’s just as well.”
“In my youth I was wild. Ever since I can remember I’ve been an untamed, rebellious soul. I rebelled against schoolrooms. I rebelled against convention. I called my mother a liar when she tried to tell me things about Santa Claus. She never explained the facts of life to me. By the time she thought I was ready, I could have told her things she never knew. Gradually, she came to a realization of that. I guess it broke her heart.”
Bertha made no comment.
“It’s important,” the woman went on, “that you get just that picture in its proper perspective.”
“Okay, I’ve got it.”
“I doubt if you have, Mrs. Cool. I wasn’t the boy-struck young adolescent, nor was I an over-sexed, under-disciplined personality. I was simply a young body with the inquiring mind of an adult. I was impatient of hypocrisy and the false modesty which seemed to shroud the actions of older people. I loved to take chances. That made for excitement, and I thrived on excitement. In fact, Mrs. Cool, it was excitement and change that I craved. I was impatient to plunge into all the life there was to live, and to see what it was like. And then there was Carlotta.”
“I wasn’t frightened when I realized. I wasn’t particularly ashamed. I was curious, and a little startled that such things could happen to me. I left home and went to work in another state. Before Carlotta’s birth I put myself in touch with an institution. I refused to sign certain waivers and legal papers so that my child could be properly adopted. My baby was mine. I knew that I couldn’t keep her, but I had a fierce sense of possession. She was mine. She would always be mine, no matter where we were. Remember, Mrs. Cool, this was after the First World War when conditions were in a chaotic state of upheaval. Soldiers were pouring back from abroad and waiting, many times in vain, to be absorbed into the economic life of the nation. Jobs weren’t easy. There were times when I went hungry.”
“I’ve been hungry,” Bertha said simply.
“And now, Mrs. Cool, I’m going to say something on behalf of the conventions. I still think they’re founded on hypocrisy and self-deceit, but they are the conventional pattern of life. They represent the rules under which the game is played. Once you violate those rules, you are cheating on civilization, and when you begin to cheat you soon lose your attitude of proud defiance and begin cutting corners here and there. You cheat on one thing, pretty soon you cheat on another. You start covering up. Slowly, imperceptibly, you lose your proud independence. You become an opportunist, you get on the defensive, and, after that, you develop a furtive side to your nature.”
Bertha said impatiently, “Listen, if you’re trying to justify yourself to me, don’t do it. You don’t need to. If you’ve got the money and I’ve got the time, I’ll do anything you want. If you haven’t got money, I haven’t got the time. You apparently overlooked the fact that I’ve had my own ups and downs, and I’ve lived something of a life myself.”
“It isn’t that, Mrs. Cool. It’s the fact that you must realize the situation.”
“I understand that all right, but how did Mrs. Goldring adopt your daughter if you didn’t sign the proper releases?”
“That is the thing I am trying to explain to you.”
“Well, for God’s sake go ahead and explain it then.”
“Mrs. Goldring, even twenty years ago, was a very scheming, persistent person.”
“I can understand that.”
“She went to the institution where babies were left for adoption. There was more demand than there were babies to fill that demand. Mrs. Goldring had had one child — the woman who is now Mrs. Belder. She couldn’t have any more. Later on she wanted a younger sister for that child. She found she would have to wait for some time. Then she saw Carlotta. She became attracted to her. The persons in charge of the institution told her that I had been paying for Carlotta’s board, that recently payments had stopped, but that I still wouldn’t sign a release. They were very much concerned about the whole situation.”
“Go on,” Bertha said, “what did Mrs. Goldring do?”
“Mrs. Goldring either got them to violate one of the rules of the institution, or what is more likely, won their confidence and took advantage of it to steal their records concerning Carlotta.”
“She would do that,” Bertha said.
“And so she came to me and forced me to sign a release!”
“Forced!”
“Yes.”
“How did she do that?”
The black eyes stared defiantly at Bertha. “I told you that once a person started defying conventions, there was no telling just where he’d stop you—”
“Don’t bother with all that stuff. Just tell me why you signed.”
“And,” the woman went on, heedless of Bertha’s interruption, “one person can’t fight the world. It makes no difference whether public opinion is right or wrong. No character is big enough or strong enough to stand out against public opinion without getting bruised, without— Have you ever struggled with a great big fat man, Mrs. Cool?”
Bertha Cool frowned as she probed her recollection. “No-o-o,” she said at length, “Well, if I have, I can’t remember it right now.”
“I have,” her visitor said. “And fighting against public opinion is like fighting with a big fat man who simply puts his weight on you and smothers you. He doesn’t need to do anything, you simply can’t fight against that oppressing weight.”
“All right,” Bertha said impatiently, “you couldn’t fight against public opinion. You’ve told me that four or five times.”
Her visitor said, “It explains why Mrs. Goldring got me to sign that release. I was in the penitentiary when she found me.”
“Oh, oh!”
“You can understand the position in which she put me. She did it very nicely. It was a beautiful form of blackmail. In prison I was without funds. I couldn’t support my daughter. Mrs. Goldring was in a position to give her a good home. Whatever dreams I might have had of waiting until my child had grown to a point where she could understand her mother, and then having a reunion with her, or of being able to provide a home for her while she was still so young that she wouldn’t remember about the institution — all those dreams had evaporated. I was in for a five-year stretch. I didn’t serve it all, but at that time I didn’t know I wouldn’t have to.”