48
PARTISAN REVIEW
no ailequate use exists any more except that of Rooms. As usual, the com·
manding presence was that of the Mrs., though as usual the Mr. was per–
mitted to proffer the guest book and take the money ($1 per head). Some–
times the Mr. will help bring in your suitcases, but it was evident that
Mr.
Q.
was above that. He had a tiny earphone with a black ribbon, which
added to his distinguished, disgruntled appearance.
In the course of our after-dinner conversation with Mrs.
Q.
(Mr.
Q.
took out early and silently) it appeared that they owned two cars, that
their son-in-law was High Up in the Masons and often brought big parties
of men to dinner there. The dining room was listed in Douglas Hines.
Mrs.
Q.
talked to us without pause for nearly three hours, covering the
history of her family, her marriage, her adventures and her opinions. She
was Dutch, robust, white-haired, with a clear, rolling brown eye and a
shrewd, final way of shutting her mouth, when she did so. She told us that
she wasn't afraid of anything. "No, sir, I'm not," which was not as gratuit–
ous as it might seem. The house was lonely, and it was on the highroad
between two tough cities. Professional stick-up men had twice given it
their attentions. Mr.
Q.,
she told us, had a mild appearance but was ter–
rible when aroused. What was more illuminating was her remark, with
dropped, placid voice, that every year they drove to Boston to visit "mother
Church." I had never heard it referred to as such before.
There was nothing hoodooed about Mrs.
Q.
Her son-in-law was for
Willkie, but she knew her mind on that subject. "Why, he's just like a
little boy,'' she said. "This is no time to get those South Americans mad at
us." She winked, and then both her eyelids came down like an umpire's
hands saying "Safe." She hunted up the day's paper, which we had not
seen, and showed us the shot of Willkie and the calves and the sign reading
THIS IS
NOT
ARGENTINE BEEF.
The pictures on the walls of tourist homes are often enough of a low
and God-awful order. In our room here there was one of a different qual–
ity. Faded to a ghostly silver-sepia, it had apparently been an illustration
in one of the literary magazines, Harper's or Scribner's, of some year in
the '90s or early 1900s. We could barely see but could not decipher the
signature. At the foot of a rich staircase a ringletted, smiling child gazed
up and to the right, lifting its arms. Behind, and several steps up the stairs,
a girl of say twelve, her dark hair worn in a semi-adult knot and a bow,
dressed in a white middy with a stock or bib, stood proudly and seriously
facing out and warding back against the stair wall at her side another little
girl of the same age, this one golden-haired and giggly.
Animation, mystery and good drawing, like an adumbrated moment in
Henry James. Sentimental, too ; yet now in 1940 one could see the light–
ness and an effect something like irony. Perhaps it was the fadedness.
Even for that period, which was certainly the happiest in American illus–
tration, this seemed extraordinary work.
