But then something in me began to rebel. In the first place, I felt that if it had been I who had spent two nights in a park and she who was living in a comfortable apartment, there would be no question of getting me out of there at all. I would be taken in simply as a matter of course, and in spite of the complicated trick that she was playing on me, as it later turned out, I still believe that this much, at least, she would have done for me. And in the second place, as I had pointed out to Mr. Hunt, Lula was the one person, aside from Mr. Holden, perhaps, who had meant something to me before I married Grant, and in some instinctive way I knew that I must not give her up. I stood looking out into the bright sunlight, waiting for the water to boil, and there popped into my mind a recollection of the big waves racing past the boat while the sun was still shining that afternoon on the Sound, and I had the same tingling sensation that a storm was coming up. But this time, whether there would be a buoy to grab I wasn’t at all sure.
In addition to the coffee I made Lula soft-boiled eggs and toast and she began gobbling them down there in the living room. Later, in some connection, I learned that people who have not eaten for some time are not at all hungry and have to force themselves to eat. But at the time Lula’s appetite seemed wholly natural, and I left her there for a while to do what I had to do.
There was a den in the apartment that Grant used as a storage place for a lot more Indian stuff than there was space for in the living room. But there was a cot in there and this I made up with clean sheets, pillow cases and blankets. Among the things stored in there were a bundle of Navajo blankets. I cut the string on this and spread a couple of them on the floor so the room wouldn’t feel so bare. The rest of them, as well as the other things, I piled as neatly as I could in one corner of the room, draped a sheet over them and called Lula. She came in and I went into the living room and got her suitcase. When I came back she had lifted the sheet and was peeping at the Indian things. But she dropped it when she saw me and I pretended not to notice. Then I suggested that she go to bed and get some sleep. She didn’t want to, but I insisted and helped her undress. She had no clean pajamas in her suitcase but I got a suit of my own and pretty soon I had her tucked in. I pulled the shade to keep the sun out of her eyes and went in the living room to wait for Grant. It was nearly one o’clock when he came in and at once suggested that we go out somewhere for lunch. I still had this tingling sensation all over me, and my mouth felt dry and hot, because I knew I had to tell him about Lula, and yet I couldn’t seem to begin. So I said all right but I wasn’t hungry yet, and he went in the bedroom.
When he came out he lit a cigarette, inhaled it nervously three or four times, then squashed it out and looked at me. “May I make a request?”
“Certainly.”
“Well — there are certain little decencies around an apartment I like to observe. I realize that women have their own ways of doing things. Just the same — damn it, this is what I’m trying to say: do you mind in the future not using the bathroom for a laundry?”
I got up and went into the bathroom. It was the worst mess I had ever seen in my life, even worse than our bathroom at the Hutton used to be on the infrequent occasions when Lula had decided that her things were too dirty to wear any more and that she had to wash them. She had tied two or three strings across the room and they were full of stockings, brassieres, and everything else imaginable. The beautiful porcelain hand-basin was full of rings, dirt and soap where she hadn’t washed it out properly after she got done, and even the bathtub was draped with more of her things drying, such as girdles. And in addition to that, you could hardly breathe for the horrible stench of laundry drying.
I jerked down the strings, gathered everything up into one armful and went in to where she was lying in bed smoking a cigarette. I dumped the whole wet pile over her head, turned on my heel and walked out. Then I went back in the living room.
I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to begin. But all I could say was: “They weren’t my things.”
“Then whose were they?”
“...Lula’s.”
“Who is Lula?”
“The maid at the cocktail party.”
I think I have told you that Grant is very heavily sunburned and under that there is usually a touch of his mother’s high color. As he looked at me and realized the implication of what I had said I saw every bit of the color slowly leave his face until it was like gray chalk. “...You mean she’s here?”
“She got fired. She... had no place to stay. I took her in.”
“I... don’t want her here.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then what did you let her in for?”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“She would have done the same for me.”
“But good God, we can’t have her here. Why — I won’t have it! I—”
“I will have it.”
“You—? You’ll have it?”
“I invited her in. It’s my home.”
Afterwards I liked to remember that Grant did not get excited when I told him that or say that it was his home and I had only recently been brought into it, or anything like that. In these trying days Grant constantly seemed like a weak, spineless creature and helpless in the hands of his mother for reasons that he could not at that time help. But meanness was never a part of him. There was a generosity in him that I could always count on and this was one reason why, even when I had the most contempt for him, some little part of me was always proud of him and confident that he would never strike at me in some unfair way.
“I thought it was our home.”
That touched me and I started to cry. He bounded over, put his arms around me and pulled me close to him. “What have you got that bum here for, Carrie? We can’t have her come between us! To hell with her! We—”
I pushed him away and stood up. More than anything I wanted to be in his arms and getting myself clear left me weak and trembling. But I drove myself to say what I had to say. “Grant!”
“Yes, Carrie, what is it?”
“That girl has to stay here.”
“All right, Carrie. I don’t get it, it seems to me a little money would dispose of her case a whole lot better, but if you say she stays she stays. But — keep her out of sight, will you? I don’t want to see her. I—”
“I will not keep her out of sight.”
“I warn you, Carrie, you had better keep her away from me or I won’t be responsible for what I—”
“You are going to accept her.”
“That — servant girl?”
“That servant girl is going to live with us until she can find some other place, she is going to eat with us—”
“With you. You can count me out.”
“With us!”
I fairly screamed it. Understand, I wasn’t saying exactly what I meant. Because by this time I had made up my mind that as soon as he accepted Lula, Lula was going out the door as fast as her legs would carry her, and her wet wash along with her. But I was not going to tell him this until I had gained my point.
When I yelled at him he lit another cigarette, sat down and waited a few moments, evidently to regain some sort of calm. Then he looked at me, smiled in what was meant to be a friendly way, and said: “There’s something back of this, Carrie. All right — here I am. I’m acting reasonably, I hope. I’m not trying to stir up a fight. Now will you tell me what it is? In words of one syllable, so I understand it all?”