The sight of the French flag excited her always or when a band played Tipperary; and one evening when they were going to see The Yellow Jacket for the third time, she had on a new fur coat that she was wondering how she was going to pay for, and she thought of all the bills at her office and the house on Sutton Place she was remodeling on a speculation and wanted to ask J.W. about a thousand he’d said he’d invested for her and wondered if there’d been any turnover yet. They’d been talking about the air raids and poison gas and the effect of the war news downtown and the Bowmen of Mons and the Maid of Orleans and she said she believed in the supernatural, and J.W. was hinting something about reverses on the Street and his face looked drawn and worried; but they were crossing Times Square through the eight o’clock crowds and the skysigns flashing on and off. The fine little triangular men were doing exercises on the Wrigley sign and suddenly a grindorgan began to play The Marseillaise and it was too beautiful; she burst into tears and they talked about Sacrifice and Dedication and J.W. held her arm tight through the fur coat and gave the organgrinder man a dollar. When they got to the theater Eleanor hurried down to the ladies’ room to see if her eyes had got red. But when she looked in the mirror they weren’t red at all and there was a flash of heartfelt feeling in her eyes, so she just freshened up her face and went back up to the lobby, where J.W. was waiting for her with the tickets in his hand; her gray eyes were flashing and had tears in them.
Then one evening J.W. looked very worried indeed and said when he was taking her home from the opera where they’d seen Manon that his wife didn’t understand their relations and was making scenes and threatening to divorce him. Eleanor was indignant and said she must have a very coarse nature not to understand that their relations were pure as driven snow. J.W. said she had and that he was very worried and he explained that most of the capital invested in his agency was his mother-in-law’s and that she could bankrupt him if she wanted to, which was much worse than a divorce. At that Eleanor felt very cold and crisp and said that she would rather go out of his life entirely than break up his home and that he owed something to his lovely children. J.W. said she was his inspiration and he had to have her in his life and when they got back to Eighth Street they walked back and forth in Eleanor’s white glittering drawingroom in the heavy smell of lilies wondering what could be done. They smoked many cigarettes but they couldn’t seem to come to any decision. When J.W. left he said with a sigh, “She may have detectives shadowing me this very minute,” and he went away very despondent.
After he’d gone Eleanor walked back and forth in front of the long Venetian mirror between the windows. She didn’t know what to do. The decorating business was barely breaking even. She had the amortization to pay off on the house on Sutton Place. The rent of her apartment was two months overdue and there was her fur coat to pay for. She’d counted on the thousand dollars’ worth of shares J.W. had said would be hers if he made the killing he expected in that Venezuela Oil stock. Something must have gone wrong or else he would have spoken of it. When Eleanor went to bed she didn’t sleep. She felt very miserable and lonely. She’d have to go back to the drudgery of a department store. She was losing her looks and her friends and now if she had to give up J.W. it would be terrible. She thought of her colored maid Augustine with her unfortunate loves that she always told Eleanor about and she wished she’d been like that. Maybe she’d been wrong from the start to want everything so justright and beautiful. She didn’t cry but she lay all night with her eyes wide and smarting staring at the flowered molding round the ceiling that she could see in the light that filtered in from the street through her lavender tulle curtains.
A couple of days later at the office she was looking at some antique Spanish chairs an old furniture dealer was trying to sell her when a telegram came: DISAGREEABLE DEVELOPMENTS MUST SEE YOU INADVISABLE USE TELEPHONE MEET ME TEA FIVE OCLOCK PRINCE GEORGE HOTEL It wasn’t signed. She told the man to leave the chairs and when he’d gone stood a long time looking down at a pot of lavender crocuses with yellow pistils she had on her desk. She was wondering if it would do any good if she went out to Great Neck and talked to Gertrude Moorehouse. She called Miss Lee who was making up some curtains in the other room and asked her to take charge of the office and that she’d phone during the afternoon.
She got into a taxi and went up to the Pennsylvania Station. It was a premature Spring day. People were walking along the street with their overcoats unbuttoned. The sky was a soft mauve with frail clouds like milkweed floss. In the smell of furs and overcoats and exhausts and bundledup bodies came an unexpected scent of birchbark. Eleanor sat bolt upright in the back of the taxi driving her sharp nails into the palms of her graygloved hands. She hated these treacherous days when winter felt like Spring. They made the lines come out on her face, made everything seem to crumble about her, there seemed to be no firm footing any more. She’d go out and talk to Gertrude Moorehouse as one woman to another. A scandal would ruin everything. If she talked to her a while she’d make her realize that there had never been anything between her and J.W. A divorce scandal would ruin everything. She’d lose her clients and have to go into bankruptcy and the only thing to do would be to go back to Pullman to live with her uncle and aunt.
She paid the taximan and went down the stairs to the Long Island Railroad. Her knees were shaky and she felt desperately tired as she pushed her way through the crowd to the information desk. No, she couldn’t get a train to Great Neck till 2:13. She stood in line a long time for a ticket. A man stepped on her foot. The line of people moved maddeningly slowly past the ticketwindow. When she got to the window it was several seconds before she could remember the name of the place she wanted a ticket for. The man looked at her through the window, with peevish shoebutton eyes. He wore a green eyeshade and his lips were too red for his pale face. The people behind were getting impatient. A man with a tweed coat and a heavy suitcase was already trying to brush past her. “Great Neck and return.” As soon as she’d bought the ticket the thought came to her that she wouldn’t have time to get out there and back by five o’clock. She put the ticket in her gray silk purse that had a little design in jet on it. She thought of killing herself. She would take the subway downtown and go up in the elevator to the top of the Woolworth Building and throw herself off.
Instead she went out to the taxistation. Russet sunlight was pouring through the gray colonnade, the blue smoke of exhausts rose into it crinkled like watered silk. She got into a taxi and told the driver to take her round Central Park. Some of the twigs were red and there was a glint on the long buds of beeches but the grass was still brown and there were piles of dirty snow in the gutters. A shivery raw wind blew across the ponds. The taximan kept talking to her. She couldn’t catch what he said and got tired of making random answers and told him to leave her at the Metropolitan Art Museum. While she was paying him a newsboy ran by crying “Extra!” Eleanor bought a paper for a nickel and the taximan bought a paper. “I’ll be a sonova…” she heard the taximan exclaim, but she ran up the steps fast for fear she’d have to talk to him. When she got in the quiet silvery light of the museum she opened up the paper. A rancid smell of printer’s ink came from it; the ink was still sticky and came off on her gloves.
DECLARATION OF WAR
A matter of hours now Washington Observers declare.