“I am Mrs. Hunt.”
“I’m the new Mrs. Harris, and I think you must be Grant’s sister. I’ve heard him speak of you a number of times.”
I held out my hand and she took it, and then introduced the other two, whose names were Elsie and Jane, but I was careful to address them as “Miss Harris.” Mrs. Hunt’s name turned out to be Ruth, but again I called her Mrs. Hunt. By that time I had got them into the living room and all four of us had said we were so glad to meet each other, which certainly was not true on my part and I don’t think it was true on theirs, but I had tried to get them into a position where there was nothing else they could say. I asked them to sit down but at once Mrs. Hunt turned to me and burst out: “But how is poor Grant? My dear, don’t tell me it’s made him — really ill?”
“Oh, he’s all right. I’ll tell him you’re here. I only said he was indisposed so you’d have to call on me instead of him.”
That one landed between her eyes just where I aimed it. She blinked, then laid her hand on my arm. “My dear — of course, of course! But the papers said something about your being employed, and it didn’t occur to me you’d be home.”
That one landed between my eyes, and I half admired the fast way in which she had come back at me. But I laughed very gaily and said: “Oh, I’m employed, but we’re on strike.”
“Oh, how thrilling!”
It come like a chorus from all three of them and on that we sat down. I had an awful second when I didn’t know what I was going to talk about next, but my eye happened to catch the arrowheads and I began to gabble as fast as I could about the strange Indian collection I had come to live with, and this had a most unexpected result. They all chimed in about how stupid the Indian idea was and how I had to cure Grant of it, and this was not at all what I thought, but I thought it advisable to say it was all so unfamiliar to me I didn’t know how I felt about it, and about that time Grant came in.
They all jumped up and I think they had expected to throw their arms around him and offer condolences for the terrible thing that had happened in his life, but as he looked just as big and healthy as ever and merely said hello, without any particular fuss, they sat down again and it was a little flat. So I thought perhaps as I had put them in their places a little, at least to my own satisfaction. I had better set out a little hospitality. I got up and asked: “May I give you some tea?”
“Oh no, my dear, don’t even think of it. We’ll have to be going in a few minutes anyway. We just stopped by to—”
“—Call on the bride—”
“Certainly! But don’t even consider going to any trouble about us.”
That was Mrs. Hunt, and the other two chorused along with her. Grant got up and went out. I did some more babbling about the Indians and in a few minutes he was back, carrying a tray with a bottle of Scotch on it, a seltzer siphon, some glasses and a bowl of ice. “Tea is a little out of date, Carrie. I think we’ll offer them something more modern.”
I got up, took the bottle of Scotch and, as gracefully as I could, pitched it out the window. It seemed the longest time before it broke in the court beside the apartment house. When I heard it crash I turned to him. “That’s for correcting my manners. I am offering them tea.”
There was a long and extremely dismal silence. Then Mrs. Hunt wriggled in her chair a little, “I guess we take tea.”
“I guess you do.”
I went out and fixed tea and canapes, which turned out very well, considering what was there to make them with, for I had had no chance to go out and do any marketing at all. Then on the tray I put a bottle of rye and a bottle of brandy and went back in the living room. “Now we have tea, rye and brandy. Which can I give you?”
Mrs. Hunt smiled sourly. “Tea, darling.”
But the taller one, Elsie, jumped and said: “Oh, the hell with it! We’ve got to say it, so why keep this up? Give me a slug of rye, will you, dear sister-in-law, so I can really fight? Make it double, it’ll save time.”
The other one, Jane, closed in on the liquor tray and grabbed the bottle. “Two.”
“Three,” said Mrs. Hunt.
Grant got up. “Oh, hell — let’s all have a slug of rye.”
So we all began to laugh and they got up and grabbed canapes without waiting for me to pass them, began wolfing them down and grunting that they were pretty good. Then we all had a slug of rye, including myself, a most inadvisable step on my part, as I found out afterwards, for while my restaurant work had made me very expert at serving liquor, I hadn’t much experience drinking it. But it all seemed so comical at the time, us hating each other the way we did and at the same time sociably having a drink so we could fight, that I wanted to be a good sport, and so gagged mine down too. Then we all sat down and Grant hooked one knee over his chair and growled: “Well, get at it.”
Mrs. Hunt got at it without any further encouragement. She jumped up, charged over to Grant and shook her finger right under his nose. “You big slob! What do you mean by doing a thing like this? Haven’t you any regard for us? Haven’t you any regard for her? Don’t you know you’ve ruined her life?”
That was where I jumped up, for the liquor was reacting on me in a most unexpected way and leading me to do something I practically never do, which is lose my temper. “Who asked you to take up for me? You can confine yourself to your own ruined life or you’ll get something that will be a big surprise! I may look small, but I’m perfectly able to throw all three of you down every flight of stairs, in this apartment house, and if there’s any more of that kind of talk out of you I’ll do it.”
“Where did you get all that muscle — carrying trays?”
“Yes! And milking cows on my stepfather’s farm, and a whole lot of other things you never did.”
“Set ’em up in the next alley,” said Grant. “Let’s all have another drink.”
So we all had another drink, and this time when Mrs. Hunt started in, it was on me. “Oh, you needn’t be so tough. We’ve all got to arbitrate, you know.”
I wanted to yell at her some more, but all of a sudden it seemed to be too much trouble, and also my tongue felt woolly and thick, so all I said was: “Whass arbitrate?”
“Now we’re gett’n somewhere,” said Jane, and her tongue seemed to be thick too.
“Arbitrate,” said Mrs. Hunt in a very waspish way, “means that for the sake of appearances you have to take us to your bosom and pretend to like us, and we have to take you to our bosoms and pretend we like you, although we don’t at all. We’d like that distinctly understood. We think you’re terrible.”