Mr. Hunt had disappeared, and now came up from downstairs and hurried over to his wife. “What do we do now?”
“What is it, Bernie?”
“The reporters and photographers. They’re lined up outside of the house three deep trying to get in and Gus is having a hard time to keep them out.”
“You’d better call an officer.”
He thought a moment, then said: “I wonder...”
She looked at him very intently and he rubbed his chin and thought a few moments. Then he said: “If that angelic mother of yours could be induced to pose for a few pictures with Grant and Carrie I have an idea this thing could be washed up right now.”
“That’ll never work.”
“What the hell? Are you going to keep it up forever? She’s married to him, she’s been a perfectly delightful guest, she’s all right. The thing to do is to tap this newspaper stuff and let some of the pressure off. Having all three of their pictures taken will turn the trick and then these headlines will die off so fast it’ll amaze you.”
Mrs. Hunt rather absent-mindedly put her arm around me and shook her head. “I’m not thinking about her. She’s been fine, and I take back all I said about her and—” with a little pat to me — “to her. But you can’t trust mother. She’ll pull something—”
“What can she pull?”
“She can pull nonsense you and I could never think of, and I’m warning you, you may be starting something that’ll be dreadful before you get through with it.”
“In these things I have a gift.”
He went over to Mrs. Harris, who by now had decided to be in a gay mood again, and said something to her. She turned and came over to me, her arms outstretched, which seemed to be her regular way of approaching anybody. “But, darling, I’d simply love to. Why, of course — I had no idea the photographers were out there or I would have suggested it myself.”
So Mr. Hunt went downstairs and next thing the photographers and reporters were trooping in, all very noisy and impudent, and a buzz of excited talk was going around the room and Mr. Hunt was asking everybody to stand back a little to give the photographers a chance. So then Grant came over and put his arm around his mother and had tears in his eyes and I didn’t believe for a second that she was as sweet as she pretended to be, but I was like Mr. Hunt: even if she didn’t like me, having the picture taken would probably end all these terrible things in the newspapers, because if she accepted me, at any rate publicly, there couldn’t be much left for the newspapers to say.
So we all lined up. At first the photographers wanted me in the middle, then they changed their minds and put Mrs. Harris in the middle, and then finally they decided it would be better with Grant in the middle, his arm around each of us. So then they told us to smile and yelled “hold it,” and I was standing there with the grin pasted patiently on my face, when all of a sudden there was the most awful crash and everybody jumped and looked around.
It seemed a year before my mind could comprehend that who I was looking at was Lula Schultz, the girl who had shared the room with me at the Hotel Hutton and who had disappeared after we had the big quarrel over my staying out with Grant. She was the maid who had arrived late, and I found out later that after she quit her job at Karb’s she had taken a place as a servant with Mrs. Norris. However, I didn’t know any of that then, and all I was aware of was the mess on the floor and Lula staring at me and all the rest of them staring at the two of us. Then a reporter seemed to sense something, for he held up his hand to the photographers and for a moment there was absolute silence. Then Lula contributed her brilliant remark: “Well, for crying out loud, Carrie, where did you come from?”
Then the photographers woke up and for a minute or more it was like a madhouse, with the cameras clicking first at Lula, standing there with the tray, the glasses all over the floor in front of her, then at me, then at Mrs. Harris and Grant, and it later turned out that one or two of them had got over into a corner to shoot the whole scene. All while they were taking pictures they were yelling at us in the most disrespectful way. Then Mr. Humt tried to take command and get Lula out of there and the mess cleared away, but all she would do was stand and gape and gabble at me that she seen all about it in the papers but she hoped she’d drop dead if she had any idea it was the same party she had been sent over to work at. She spoke terrible grammar, which is something I have always tried to avoid.
I was furious enough to break the tray over her head, but there was only one thing for me to do and I gritted my teeth and did it. I went over and shook hands with her as calmly as though it were nothing at all. That was when Mrs. Harris screeched: “Isn’t she simply a dear! And mustn’t she be thrilled! Imagine — an old friend from the slums and meeting her here! It’s such a small world!”
Somehow, by asking a number of his friends to help and practically using main force, Mr. Hunt got the photographers and reporters out and Mrs. Hunt must have dealt with Lula for she wasn’t there any more, and then for fifteen or twenty minutes everybody stood around and talked about it, except that when I approached they hurriedly began to talk about something else. Then they all went, shaking hands with me very hurriedly, and then I found myself alone in the living room, as Grant, his three sisters and his mother having gone somewhere else. But in a moment Mr. Hunt came in, made two highballs and said: “Let’s go in here — it’s not so public.”
He took me into a small library and closed the door. We sat down and sipped our drinks and he kept rubbing the moisture on his glass with his thumb. Then he said: “I’m not sure, but I think that sinks you.”
“You mean Lula?”
“Couldn’t you have pretended it was a case of mistaken identity or something?”
“If I were sick or needed somebody she’s the one person on earth that I could call on.”
“I suppose there was nothing else you could do, but if you think the noble Grant is going to take a broad attitude toward it, you’re very optimistic.”
“Grant is not a complete fool.”
“No, but he’s a complete snob, and that’s serious.”
“I haven’t seen any signs of it.”
“Did you ever hear of the silver cord?”
“What’s that?”
“An intangible but terrible bond, that sometimes exists between mother and son, and invariably spells trouble for them both. Not one thing about Grant is on the up-and-up except his interest in Indians. His phony radicalism, his rebellion against Uncle George, his nutty talk about breaking the system, and all the rest of it merely represent his feeble effort to break the silver cord, and whether he can do it I wouldn’t like to say. But I know this much: Lula will give Mama a club over him that he’ll feel from morning to night. And don’t make any mistake about it: Grant is the worst snob of the lot.”
“He married me. That doesn’t look much like a snob.”
“Masochism.”
“...What did you say?”
“Torturing himself, going out in the back yard and eating worms so Mama will feel ashamed of herself, for trying to make him marry Muriel.”
“Why, by the way, did she try to make him do that?”
“Money, partly. With those two fortunes blended many things would be possible. But mainly because Muriel is a dull cluck of a girl that Mama wouldn’t have to be jealous of that Grant hates. The silver cord binds two ways.”
“Why does she oppose the Indians?”
“Sadism.”
“You’re using words I’m not familiar with.”