Too Much Too Soon Read online

  The ensuing silence was punctuated by Curt’s cracking of a walnut. Honora, in her confusion, looked directly at him. He evinced no surprise.

  “You mean live here?” Crystal asked. During her months in San Francisco her voice had undergone a metamorphosis to the looser American dipthongs, but now she spoke with her precise English intonation.

  “More than that. This would be your home, but also I’d take care of your clothes, bills, tuitions, allowances, items like that.”

  Langley had lurched to his feet, a vein beating at his temple. “We might be associated in business, Talbott,” he cried, “but I’ll thank you to remember that my daughters are my concern!”

  Gideon glared up at his tall, swaying brother-in-law. Gratitude for his generosities might embarrass him, still, he wasn’t accustomed to having his good deeds flung back at him. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Langley’s clenched fist slammed on the table. The small silver baskets of the epergne bobbled and an almond fell. ‘’Having been married to poor Matilda gives you no entrée to my family concerns!”

  “You should lay off the bottle, Sylvander,” Gideon said sternly. “You’ve had far too much.”

  “What else could I do? You Americans!”

  “Daddy,” Honora murmured. “Please?”

  Langley ignored her. “Money, money, money, that’s all you talk about, even at the dinner table.”

  Gideon’s shoulders hunched like a bull’s. The light from the enormous chandelier picked out the sweat beading on his forehead. “I have no intention of letting Crystal follow her sister’s footsteps. She will not be a waitress.”

  Honora wished that the inlaid parquet would part beneath her straight-backed Gothic chair to hurtle her into the basement. She shot a look of anguished reproach at Curt. He, a study in ironic control, gazed back. So this was his method of playing Sir Galahad! Honora twined her napkin in her lap, her hands shaking. Oh God, she thought. How I’ve let poor Daddy down.

  “A waitress?” Joscelyn, beyond Langley, twisted in her chair to get a better view of her idolized sister. “Gideon you have it all wrong.”

  “Absolutely most ridiculous lie I ever heard.” Langley turned to Honora, his full mouth oddly petulant. “Honora, kindly tell this man that you work at a highly respected brokerage house.”

  “I . . . Daddy, I, well, I was ashamed, so I, well . . . I invented the receptionist job.”

  “A Sylvander a waitress?” His mouth opened as if he had been shot in the chest by his tender favorite.

  Honora looked down at her cup, afraid yesterday’s devastating tears would return.

  “Honora works at Stroud’s,” Curt put in smoothly. “As I told Mr. Talbott, the place is no dive. The flower of the financial district eat at Stroud’s. Working there’s hardly a reason to put on sackcloth and ashes. Honora told me you need the money. But you yourself agree she’s college material. She ought to be at Berkeley—”

  “She will be,” Langley broke in.

  “When?” Curt asked.

  “This autumn.”

  “I’ll be American and bring up the subject of money again,” Curt said. “Have you enough put away?”

  “You know which side your bread is buttered on, don’t you, Ivory?”

  “No need to see insult where there is none,” Gideon said. “Curt is only trying to point out that she won’t be working and she will have minor tuition fees and other expenses.”

  “Hahh!”

  “I want what’s best for the girls. Here in San Francisco there’s a woman, Mrs. Ekberg, she handled Imogene Burdetts’ coming out party. She’s promised to move in.”

  “I’ll never live in this damn house!”

  Crystal’s eyes had gleamed at the mention of Mrs. Ekberg, facilitator of debuts. “Daddy,” she said sweetly, “Gideon’s offer is something the family should discuss privately.”

  9

  Curt volunteered to drive them home.

  Langley slumped in the back seat, not speaking. The convertible was a two door and when they reached Lombard Street, he hauled himself out with difficulty, ignoring Curt’s outstretched hand, staggering from the running board.

  Crystal and Joscelyn had scurried through the entry tunnel, but Honora waited on the sidewalk for her father.

  “You,” he snarled at her. “A Sylvander selling yourself for a few filthy pennies.”

  “Daddy, please . . . .”

  “How could you?” His ranting voice was almost unrecognizable.

  “Daddy, the work isn’t really so awful . . . it was the only job I could get . . .”

  “You’re common!” He repeated it like the foulest curse, a few flecks of saliva flying. “Common!”

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  Muttering, “Common . . . common . . . liar,” he lurched toward the entry.

  She started to follow, but Curt took her arm. “Honora, hold on a minute. We have to talk.”

  “What about?” she asked leadenly.

  “It’s freezing,” he said. “Come on back in the car.”

  She sat with her arm pressed against the door.

  “Okay,” Curt said, lighting a cigarette. “You’re ready to throw me off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “You promised to keep Stroud’s between us.”

  “Look, I knew Mr. Talbott wanted to make life easier for you girls and couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

  “So he insulted Daddy.”

  “He’s trying to help,” Curt said, adding in a low voice, “Take it from one who knows, my boss is a very generous guy.”

  “All right,” she said dully.

  “He’s told me quite a few times that having a family brings light into the old house—and he does get in fine fettle when the Sylvander sisters arrive.”

  Honora rested the back of her head against the comfortless glass.

  “He didn’t know exactly how rough things’ve been since you came over, but he’s discussed ways to set you up more comfortably. He considered giving your father a raise, but then decided against it because it might encourage his drinking.”

  “I don’t see what all of this has to do with your breaking your word.” Her voice rose.

  “That’s better. Now you’re mad.”

  “Of course I am. Can you imagine how it was for Daddy, finding out this way? Or don’t you care?”

  “Honora, a couple of minutes ago I cared so much I could happily have throttled him. Christ, who does he think he is, King George? He flubs the dub supporting his family and then flays you because you do it for him.”

  “I do not support the family,” she said. “I help out a bit, that’s all.”

  “Like hell. I know his takehome, I know what it costs to get loaded in a bar.”

  “We were managing before I got the job.”

  “I’ll bet. What does he do, wear blinkers? Or hasn’t he noticed that his family’s eating, wearing new clothes—going to the dentist?”

  It was the same brutal anger as the previous night.

  She could scarcely whisper. “It was an awful thing for him to have my job thrown at him. He’s very sensitive.”

  “I’ve a pet theory that sensitive people are only sensitive about their own thin skins. Look at the way he just lashed out at you.”

  “He’s had a bit too much wine—”

  “Wine, hell. He was potted before he got to the house.” Curt pulled out the ashtray, crushing his unsmoked cigarette slowly, as if grinding out his anger. “Honora,” he said quietly, “I know you won’t believe this, but when he’s sober, and doesn’t have a sliver up his ass, I find him a very likable guy. If it’s any comfort, breaking the promise hurt me more than it did him. Or do you suppose I get my kicks seeing that kind of betrayal on your face?”

  She needed Curt to admit that her father hadn’t been at fault. “To support us he took a job that’s beneath him, and he’s always been so proud—”

  Curt placed a silencing finger across her lips. “Let’s
not talk about it. You’re too gentle for the world, and I don’t care to see the people you love screw you.”

  He was rubbing his fingertip on the tiny ridge that divided the sides of her full upper lip, and she could feel herself melting. With a fleeting sense of filial disloyalty, she abandoned her arguments. He tuned the radio, halting the luminous line at the number that played classical music.

  “Tchaikowsky’s Fifth,” she whispered.

  “I think you’ve got me witched,” he said, his arm drawing her to his side, breathing against her ear. “Why else would I make up my mind definitely not to do this, then keep doing it.” He kissed her lightly.

  “Curt . . . .”

  “What, sweet?”

  “Curt . . . . I just like saying your name . . .”

  “I like the way you say it. Your uncle won’t approve of us dating.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t share his moral standards.”

  “You sleep with girls?”

  “And do other things with them, yes.”

  “I hate them all.”

  He kissed her properly. She felt a languorous underwater creature, as if the Buick were submerged in the depths of the Bay, her body liquid, pressing against his, his tongue in its element of her mouth, and when he unbuttoned her coat and lightly rubbed his thumb on the rayon over her nipple, she felt an exquisite, drowning surge of wetness between her legs.

  “Curt . . . I love you . . .”

  “This is called the hots.”

  “Not for me.”

  “These are so pretty,” he said, cupping his hands around her breasts.

  She was caressing the musculature of his shoulders, the deep indentation of his spine. “I do love you.”

  “Good, because it’s not just the hots for me, either.”

  “Darling . . . .”

  * * *

  Neither of them saw Langley emerge. He glanced at the car, saw his daughter hugging and making up to that smirking, insufferable Ivory who everybody at Talbott’s knew was Don Juan in modern dress, treating women as his private preserves of prostitution. That Honora, his dreamy heart’s child, not only had disgraced the Sylvander line but was also in the man’s clutches reached into the deep pocket of Langley’s despair.

  He trudged unevenly down Lombard Street on his way to the Crowned Head.

  * * *

  “Wake up, Honora.” Crystal was shaking her shoulder.

  Honora, who had been dreaming vividly of Curt, blinked at the thin line of sunlight coming through the lengthwise rip in the ecru canvas blind.

  Crystal said worriedly, “Daddy’s bed hasn’t been slept in.”

  “And it’s half past nine,” Joscelyn wailed.

  Honora pushed up on her elbow. “You mean he’s been gone all night?” This was an unprecedented occurrence.

  “That’s what we’re trying to tell you.” Joscelyn jumped on Honora’s narrow bed, burying her head in the softness of her older sister’s pajama top. “Something dreadful’s happened.”

  “Joss, let me get dressed,” Honora said. “We must go to the police.”

  The child gripped both sisters’ hands, jabbering constantly as they trotted to the wooden station house near Fisherman’s Wharf. The desk sergeant, a large-nosed man in his thirties, smiled indulgently as Honora explained their father’s disappearance.

  “Listen, girls, I was over in your country during the war, and I can tell you it’s the same here as there. If you put out a missing person on every man who stayed out all night, us Dick Tracys’d never have time to chase criminals.” He winked at Crystal.

  “But our father’s never done this before,” Honora said.

  “Maybe your kid sister doesn’t understand things like this, but you know how it is. Sometimes us men have a special lady we like spending time with.”

  “I hardly think our father would do that, especially without warning us,” Honora said.

  “Sometimes these things just happen.”

  “We don’t live far from Chinatown. How do you know he hasn’t been hurt in some tong violence?” Joscelyn demanded.

  The cop shrugged. “If he’s still missing after a couple of days, check back.”

  * * *

  They usually attended church, but that Sunday they searched the neighborhood. When Langley hadn’t retured by midnight, they went to bed, each dozing fitfully, listening for his step outside the window.

  Black guilt engulfed Honora as she trudged to work. When Al saw the delicate smudges under her eyes, he ordered her home. “You’re still sick, Honora.”

  Back at the flat, Joscelyn was dithering whether or not to go to summer school—in the end she decided that she couldn’t ruin her perfect attendance record. Crystal telephoned Talbott’s with an excuse of illness for Langley. She and Honora stayed home.

  “It was a terrible mistake, not telling him,” Honora said.

  They had gone over this ground a hundred times.

  “Honora, what’s the use of blaming yourself?”

  “Maybe I could have stopped him. If only I hadn’t stayed out in the car!”

  “Is Curt a good neck?”

  “Oh, Crystal.”

  “I know, I know, Honorable Honora wouldn’t discuss her loverboy’s lusts and lewdnesses.” Crystal began walking up and down the kitchen, her small, high arched feet hitting the worn linoleum sharply.

  “Do sit down, Crys.”

  “I wanted what was best for all of us—I never dreamed it would turn out so hideously.”

  “Now who’s blaming herself?”

  “It’s not like me, is it?”

  Honora drew a long, shuddery breath. “Where do you think San Francisco’s morgue is?”

  “Stop it, stop it!” Crystal resumed her pacing.

  When the hands of the clock with the cracked face—the glass had broken in shipping—pointed to ten to two, Crystal said, “It’s time for the Crowned Head to open. I’ll go on over and ask if anybody’s seen him.”

  Thus, Honora was alone at the kitchen table when Langley unlocked the front door.

  In her swelling rush of relief, she could not speak. Pushing to her feet, she stared down the corridor. Her father’s derby was gone and also his tie, his collar button was undone and a long, brownish stain ran down his rumpled trousers. What disturbed her most, though, was the graying stubble on his cheeks and jaw—in her life she had never seen her father with more than a day’s growth of beard.

  “Hello.” He gave her a rueful little smile and came unsteadily into the kitchen.

  “Oh, Daddy, thank heavens you’re here.” She hugged him. He smelled vile, but there was no hint of perfume. “We’ve been so crazy.”

  “I should have telephoned,” he said, playing the silver link up and down in his soiled cuff. “That chap, remember, I told you about him, the fellow who wants to make an investment, he kept me discussing the ins and outs of publishing. I lost track of time.”

  Two interminable days and nights.

  An idol had fallen in Honora’s mind, and from the shards was rising a sweet, vulnerable, middle-aged child whom she must love and protect.

  “He sounds very keen,” she said, entering into a complicity to protect his pride.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” said Langley with pathetic eagerness. “He’s going to start his own press—small publishing houses are quite the thing in San Francisco, you know. He wants yours truly on his payroll, as of now.”

  He spoke too quickly and Honora wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not, but she cried, “Daddy, how marvelous! You’ll be working in your own line again.”

  “More than that. I’ll be editor in chief.”

  “It’s like a dream! Daddy, why don’t you have a bath while I put the kettle on? We’ll celebrate with a cup of tea.”

  Langley, shaved and wearing a fresh shirt under his old cardigan, hungrily devoured anchovy paste sandwiches. Between bites he expounded on the trust placed in him by his new emplo
yer, avoiding any mention of the work that his job would entail.

  Joscelyn came up the steps with Crystal—they had met on Columbus and Lombard.

  Before they could blurt out questions, Honora cried, “Daddy has some wonderful news. He’s back in publishing.”

  Kissing his younger daughters, he explained about his new job in that rapid staccato.

  Congratulations all around.

  “Crystal, Honora, you sit here,” he said, pointing at the chairs to his left and right. “Joss, get on my lap.” When the thin little body was snuggled against his, he said, “We have something important to go over.”

  “It’s all right, Daddy,” Crystal said. “It’s obvious why you were gone so long. You were all tied up.”

  “Yes,” Joscelyn said, taking off her glasses to rub them on his sweater. “Let’s not get boring about it, Daddy.”

  “It’s your uncle’s offer we need to discuss.” A tension showed around Langley’s mouth. “I’ve been giving it serious thought.”

  “You want us all to move into the mausoleum?” Joscelyn asked.

  “No, pet, I meant that your pater needs to put his total energy behind his new position. Starting a top-notch publishing house is quite tricky. Until it’s safely on its feet, you three will stay with your uncle.”

  “Without you?” Joscelyn whimpered.

  “I’ll need all my wits about me,” Langley said.

  “Daddy, we won’t be a drain.” Honora paused. “I’ll keep on working.”

  Langley shuddered. “University’s the job for you.”

  “But we’ll be separated.” Joscelyn’s eye was twitching.

  “How I loathed it during the war,” Crystal burst out. “Please, Daddy, don’t break up the family. I can get a green card.”

  “Why’re you girls carrying on so? I won’t be in Reykjavik. My pets, I’ll see you every Sunday. But it’s of the utmost importance to me to know you’re being taken care of properly. Otherwise how will I keep my mind on my great adventure?” Although his long, thin-featured face was very pale he spoke humorously.

  “Daddy, we’re not going to Gideon’s without you and that’s that.” Crystal’s eyes were glittering with tears. She had schemed for Gideon and his wealth to do great things for her family: now confusion and self-recrimination filled her.