on my own work, for that’s what she was—just what I’d read into her and brought out in her. That’s the story—” He broke off suddenly and rose; tottering to his feet, his voice rose and rang through the deserted grill.
“I read history with a new viewpoint since I had known Cleopatra and Messaline and Montespan,”—he started toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked in alarm.
“We’re going upstairs to meet the lady. She’s a widow now for awhile so you must say Mrs.—see—Mrs.”
We went upstairs, I carefully behind with hands ready to be outstretched should he fall. I felt particularly unhappy. The hardest man in the world to handle is one who is too sober to be vacillating and too drunk to be persuaded; and I had, strange to say, an idea that my Uncle was eminently a person to be followed.
We entered a large room. I couldn’t describe it if my life depended on it. Uncle George nodded and beckoned to a woman at a bridge four across the room. She nodded and rising from the table walked slowly over. I started—naturally—
Here is my impression—a woman of thirty or a little under, dark, with intense physical magnetism and a most expressive mouth capable as I soon found out of the most remarkable change of expression by the slightest variance in facial geography. It was a mouth to be written to, but, though it could never have been called large, it could never have been crowded into a sonnet—I confess I have tried. Sonnet indeed! It contained the emotions of a drama and the history, I presume, of an epic. It was, as near as I can fathom, the eternal mouth. There were eyes also, brown, and a high warm coloring; but oh the mouth…
I felt like a character in a Victorian romance. The little living groups scattered around seemed to move in small spotlights around us who were acting out a comedy “down stage.” I was self-conscious about myself but purely physically so; I was merely a property; but I was very self-conscious for my Uncle. I dreaded the moment when he should lift his voice or overturn the table or kiss Mrs. Fulham bent dramatically back over his arm while the groups would start and stare. It was enormously unreal. I was introduced in a mumble and then forgotten.
“Tight again,” remarked Mrs. Fulham.
My Uncle made no answer.
“Well, I’m having a heavy bridge game and we’re ever so much behind. You can just have my dummy time. Aren’t you flattered?” She turned to me. “Your Uncle probably told you all about himself and me. He’s behaving so badly this year. He used to be such a pathetic, innocent little boy and such a devil with the debutantes.”
My Uncle broke in quickly with a rather grandiose air:
“That’s sufficient I think Myra, for you.”
“You’re going to blame me again?” she asked in feigned astonishment. “As if I—”
“Don’t—Don’t,” said my Uncle thickly. “Let one poor damn fool alone.”
Here I found myself suddenly appreciating a sudden contrast. My Uncle’s personality had dropped off him like a cloak. He was not the romantic figure of the grill, but a less sure, less attractive and somewhat contemptible individual. I had never seen personalities act like that before. Usually you either had one or you didn’t. I wonder if I mean personality or temperament or perhaps that brunette alto tenor mood that lies on the borderland … At any rate my Uncle’s mood was now that of a naughty boy to a stern aunt, almost that of a dog to his master.
“You know,” said Mrs. Fulham, “your Uncle is the only interesting thing in town. He’s such a perfect fool.”
Uncle George bowed his head and regarded the floor in a speculative manner. He smiled politely, if unhappily.
“That’s your idea.”
“He takes all his spite out on me.”
My Uncle nodded, Mrs. Fulham’s pardners called over to her that they had lost again and that the game was breaking up. She got rather angry.
“You know,” she said coldly to Uncle George, “you stand there like a trained spaniel letting me say anything I want to you—Do you know what a pitiful thing you are?”
My Uncle had gone a dark red. Mrs. Fulham turned again to me.
“I’ve been talking to him like this for ten years—like this or not at all. He’s my little lap dog. Here George, bring me my tea, write a book about me; you’re snippy, Georgie, but interesting.” Mrs. Fulham was rather carried away by the dramatic intensity of her own words and angered by George’s unmovable acceptance. So she lost her head.
“You know,” she said tensely, “my husband often wanted to horsewhip you but I’ve begged you off. He was very handy in the kennels and always said he could handle any kind of dog!”
Something had snapped. My Uncle rose, his eyes blazing. The shift of burden from her to her husband had lifted a weight from his shoulders. His eyes flashed but the words stored up for ten years came slow and measured.
“Your husband—Do you mean that crooked broker who kept you for five years. Horsewhip me! That was the prattle he may have used around the fireside to keep you under his dirty thumb. By God, I’ll horsewhip your next husband myself.” His voice had risen and the people were beginning to look up. A hush had fallen on the room and his words echoed from fireplace to fireplace.
“He’s the damn thief that robbed me of everything in this hellish world.”
He was shouting now. A few men drew near. Women shrank to the corners. Mrs. Fulham stood perfectly still. Her face had gone white but she was still sneering openly at him.
“What’s this?” he picked up her hand. She tried to snatch it away but he tightened his grip and twisting the wedding ring off her finger he threw it on the floor and stamped it into a beaten button of gold.
In a minute I had his arms held. She screamed and held up her broken finger. The crowd closed around us.
In five minutes Uncle George and I were speeding homeward in a taxi. Neither of us spoke; he sat staring straight before him, his green eyes glittering in the dark. I left next morning after breakfast.
***
The story ought to end here. My Uncle George should remain with Mark Anthony and De Musset as a rather tragic semi-genius, ruined by a woman. Unfortunately the play continues into an inartistic sixth act where it topples over and descends like Uncle George himself in one of his more inebriated states, contrary to all the rules of dramatic literature. One month afterward Uncle George and Mrs. Fulham eloped in the most childish and romantic manner the night before her marriage to the Honorable Howard Bixby was to have taken place. Uncle George never drank again, nor did he ever write or in fact do anything except play a middling amount of golf and get comfortably bored with his wife.
Mother still doubts and predicts gruesome fates for his wife, Father is frankly astonished and not too pleased. In fact I rather believe he enjoyed having an author in the family, even if his books did look a bit decadent on the library table. From time to time I receive subscription lists and invitations from Uncle George. I keep them for use in my new book on Theories of Genius. You see I claim that if Dante had ever won—but a hypothetical sixth act is just as untechnical as a real one.
