Always Be Kind To a Woman

The Touching Story of One Who, At Any Rate, Paid The Price!

DOMINIC B. WYNDHAM LEWIS

THE scene is the Chinese drawing-room at Mrs. Van Schuytensack's house on Long Island. Mrs. Van Schuytensack (formerly Mrs. George Absalom McCann, before that Mrs. Da Cosra, antecedently the Countess de Puy-Carvailhac, previously Airs. Homer P. Schultz, and originally Aids Hermione Tanker) is young, expensively decorated and upholstered in the Flamboyant Style, and a blonde. She is the leader of the extreme Left Wing of the speediest section of the swiftest detachment of the Fast Set, and her best time so far, speaking matrimonially, is eight months, three weeks, two days, 9 1/2 hours; but during that time the Count was away in France on a three months' visit to his family.

The time is after dinner on an evening in the early Fall. A fire of cedar-logs burns on the open hearth. At the 40 h.p. pianola George Lathom is playing a Hungarian dance by Brahms in the quickest tempo possible. George is perfectly dressed, as handsome as a cover of the Saturday Evening Post, and in his spare time an admirer of Mrs. Van Schuytensack's; and when she can remember his Christian name she frequently spends a moment or two in his embrace, on her way from the conservatory to the sunken garden, or vice-versa. There is nobody else in the drawingroom at the moment except Wilbur Van Schuytensack, about whom there is nothing to say, except that he wanders about the house and is alluded to in conversation as "him". Mrs. Van Schuytensack has been known to stroke his head en passant in mistake tor somebody else but for the most part he just wanders about.

As George Lathom moves the speed-lever higher and higher in the effort to get a move on Brahms Airs. I an Schuytensack comes in, wearing a shimmering silver frock and pearls. She is followed by a slim, graceful girl in rose-colour—a dark-eyed girl with a face like a flower, exquisitely poised and rather bored. This is Mrs. Lacre. Margaret Lacre (then Margaret Case) was at school with Hermione Van Schuytensack, and this is the second time they have met in eight years.

As they enter Mrs. Van Schuytensack goes over to George and taps him on the head with her fan. George looks round, smiles his famous smile, throws in the clutch, and slows down Brahms to nearly normal. Mrs. Van Schuytensack turns to find Wilbur, but he has already wandered out.

MRS. VAN S: George.

GEORGE: Hermione.

MRS. VAN S: Stop that hellish noise.

GEORGE: Certainly.

(He puts on the brake and brings the music to a standstill.)

MRS. VAN S: And go away.

GEORGE: Certainly, Hermione.

MRS. VAN S: Because I allow vou to hold me in your arms occasionally when the room is practically deserted you mustn't think vou can deafen everybody with jazz just when you like.

GEORGE (moodily): It's Brahms.

MRS. VAN S: Well, go right away and take something for it. Don't make that noise. That won't do it any good.

GEORGE: Very well.

(He gets up and leans tenderly over her chair.)

I shall be found in the library.

MARGARET LACRE: Be very careful, Mr. Lathom.

GEORGE: Oh, books never do me much harm. They don't unless you read 'em.

(He goes out humming a tune.)

MRS. VAN S: Margaret, did I call him George?

MARGARET: Yes.

MRS. VAN S. (sighing): I'm getting much better, then. Do you know how I remembered his name? (Closing her eyes) I met Gloria Goofing on the stairs just before dinner. Gloria reminds me of dope, dope reminds me of movie-actors, movie-actors remind me of bugs, bugs remind me of gardens, gardens remind me of graveyards, graveyards remind me of cypresses, cypresses remind me of Italy, Italy reminds me of Sorrento, and Sorrento is where George . . . George . . . George Lathom thinks I am going with him this winter. (Opening her eyes) Isn't that just clever? I took a course of memory training a month ago.

MARGARET: Does it take long in practice?

MRS. VAN S: Not long. The men think you arc all dazed with emotion, but actually you're repeating the chain system to get at their Christian name.

(She rises and sits on a low settee next to Margaret Lacre, then rises and switches off the nearest cluster of lights so that only the light of the cedar-logs on the marble hearth falls on them both. Then Hermione Van Schuytensack offers Margaret a cigarette from a silver box, lights one herself, and sits dozen beside Margaret on the settee.)

MRS. VAN S: But that wasn't what we came here to talk about.

MARGARET:(lifts her eyebrows languidly).

MRS. VAN S: My dear child, we've known each other long enough for me to speak to you quite frankly, haven't we?

MARGARET: What is the mystery, Hermione?

MRS. VAN S: Margaret, people are talking.

MARGARET: About what?

MRS. VAN S: About you.

(A silence. Margaret, smoking thoughtfully, gazes into the fire. Hermione throws her cigarette into the fames and pensively watches it burn.)

MRS. VAN S: YOU don't mind my saying this to you?

MARGARET (lazily): Not a bit.

MRS. VAN S: You may have noticed that people are a bit queer when vou arc there. Nothing openly hostile, of course; but there's just that something. (Tensely) It's hell for a woman to be looked at like that.

The other night at Jane Fischer's hasheesh party somebody mentioned your name, and there was a curious silence at once. Even Monty Gimel, who was practically unconscious, raised his eyelids to show his disapproval of you.

MARGARET (flushing slightly): Think I care?

MRS. VAN S. (soothingly): Of course we've all got the right to live our own lives, but when people like Jane and Monty point their finger at you—Gee, I'd quit my way of living and—

(She stops and gazes into the fire for a moment, then resumes in a soothing manner.)

I'd hate to think there was anything abnormal about you, Margaret. People are beginning to whisper there is. I don't say you aren't a mixer. You can take your dope or your shot of bootleg with any average nice girl, but what people are beginning to say about you is that you're not normal.

(Margaret shrugs her shoulders. Hermione rises and lights another cigarette. She smokes in silence for a moment or so, then turns impulsively to the girl on the settee.)

MRS. VAN S: Margaret! Tell me! Let me help you!

MARGARET(chin in hand): You can't do anything, Hermione.

MRS. VAN S. (with womanly pity): Don't say that. I'm your oldest friend, Margaret. Tell me everything.

(The girl twists the scarab ring on a finger of her left hand and shrugs her shoulders again, with a tinge of weariness and a tinge of defiance. Mrs. Van Schuytensack stands zvith one beautiful white arm resting on the mantelpiece and the fire illumining her charming face—the same attitude in which she zvas photographed for Vogue's famous series of the season's loveliest divorcees—and looks dozen at her.)

MRS. VAN S. (at length): Margaret, you married Stetson Lacre for love?

MARGARET (flushing): Yes.

(A silence.)

MRS. VAN S: Dear Margaret, I am going to ask you a difficult question—perhaps the most difficult one woman can ask another.

(In a low, tense voice) Tell me the truth. Whisper it, if you like.

(She looks steadily, yet zvith dawning pity in her violet eyes, at the girl zvhose secret she is about to probe. Margaret is gazing into the fire zvith her chin still resting on her hand. When at last Hermione knows, will she spurn the girl—or will a womanly yearning make her take the outcast to her. breast? She does not know—yet.)

MARGARET (lookmg up): I love—

MRS. VAN S. (appalled, she whispers): Mv God!

(She had expected something unusual, but this confession of morbidity and degradation shocks her in spite of herself. So they were right when they whispered that Margaret . . .! She catches desperately at a ray of hope.)

MRS. VAN S: Perhaps you've been unluckv in getting—

MARGARET(calmly): I haven't wanted to.

(Mrs. Van S., quite pale now, stands looking dozen at the girl as if turned into stone. Hozo can she continue to receive under her roof, among her intimate friends, one who so cynically flouts the conventions of decent society ? She turns away atid sits in a chair slowly, trying to realize what has happened to the girl who for years she has cherished as a friend. She shades her eyes zvith her hand, thinking, thinking. . . .

(There is a burst of laughter, and half a dozen men and girls, handsome, healthy, frank young specimens of all that is best in post-war youth, troop into the drawing room. A clean cut young man playfully threatens a laughing girl with a hypodermic. At the sight of their hostess, pale and distraught on a chair, and Margaret Lacre gazing steadily into the fire, they stop and turn as if to go out quietly. But Hermione has looked up and seen them, and she rises slowly.)

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MRS. VAN S (in a strange voice): No! Don't go! I have something to say to you—to everybody!

(A benevolent clergyman, Dr. Woozle, who is staying at the house and is a friend of the family, steps in on tiptoe. All the guests stand expectant in a half circle, gazing at Mrs. Van S. and Margaret.)

MRS. VAN S(with a supreme effort, pointing to Margaret, who does not flinch) -. This woman—Margaret Lacre—my friend—this girl has been—married—to one man— for—(she takes a deep breath, flings back her head, resolved to sitter the shameful message at any cost, and says in a ringing voice)—for— FIVE—YEARS!

(Exclamations of incredulous horror, disgust, contempt, and fear from every guest. Then, as they are gazing at each other, trying to read some mutual comfort in each other's eyes, the Rev. Dr. Woozle steps forward and coughing slightly, speaks.)

DR. WOOZLF. (closing his eyes): It is, alas, no new symptom in the unhappy state of society as we see it to-day that in the restless, feverish search for new sensation, new titillation of the jaded nerves and senses, new—so to speak—

But the room is now empty, save for the figure of Margaret Lacre, who crouches in a corner with her face hidden in her hands.