Read Online A Charmed Life by Mary McCarthy - Free Book Online Page A

for him. In fact, as Jane told him, he looked much more the artist in that soft material.
    The only thing that gave him anxiety was the thought of his mother’s funeral—what would he wear? She was past seventy-five now, living in a boardinghouse in Savannah; her sister wrote that she was getting very frail. He was resigned to the prospect of her dying, except for that one thing—the suit to follow her to her grave in; he still had his bowler hat, which Jane had overlooked. This absurd worry preyed on his mind sometimes during the night, even though he assured himself that when the fatal telegram came, Jane would think of something. She was awfully resourceful.
    He knew some people thought he was dominated by Jane. Miles, for instance, this minute, was saying to him in a grave undertone: “If it was my wife, Warren, she’d clean this place up.” Miles, of course, thought only about his own comfort; he ate and drank like an Elizabethan, dressed in a florid style, with loud shirts and tweeds and silk socks, never considering for a minute that it was a human being who waited on him and catered to him and kept his things in order, laying out on a silent valet—Jane had seen it—everything he was going to wear, right down to the handkerchief and the necktie, while she had the baby and all the housework to think of. There was a sound at the door, and Warren hurried to open it. Wrapped in a shawl, Jane stood there with a tray of ice and bottles and glasses. “Let me help you, dear,” smiled Warren, taking the tray from her and urging her into the warm room. He noticed that she had forgotten the fizzy water and he skipped out to the house to get it, before she could realize and try to go instead. And he was glad to do a little service like that to help her, for he knew blamed well that she had a lot to put up with from him; he was a selfish cuss to live with, preoccupied with his painting, abstracted, not dry behind the ears yet, intellectually. For a girl who had grown up in a big family and who could have married anybody she wanted—or a darn sight better anyway—it was not a normal life.
    And when Jane had married him he had not been nearly the person he hoped he was now, thanks to her. It tickled him to think of his outgrown self—a conventional, safe little water colorist and pen-and-ink man, doing the usual stiles and cottages and dilapidated mansions and wrought-iron gates and Paris roofs and doorways; he had liked architectural themes and hoped to be a modern Piranesi or Callot. He had had to unlearn all that, bit by bit, like tearing your skin off piecemeal-some job for a man over forty. He could never have done it if Jane and her family had not stood by, financially and morally.
    He came back into the room quietly, carrying a pitcher of water; they seemed to be out of fizzy. “Oh, Warren,” exclaimed Jane, who was putting wood in the stove, “you didn’t need to do that. I brought water.” And sure enough, to his embarrassment, there was water in another pitcher on the tray. He felt like two cents. “We’re out of soda,” said Jane, with an awkward laugh. “I guess that’s what Warren went for.” “I’m sorry, dear,” said Warren. “I thought you’d forgotten it.” “I did,” confessed Jane. “I forgot to order it at the store. I always forget something.” “Never mind, never mind,” said Miles, with an air of testy magnanimity. Jane poured the drinks and Warren got ready to show the portrait.
    It was a big picture, like all his recent work—six by eleven. He hauled it out, unwrapped the outer canvas, fixed the lights, and then stood back to see what they would say. “Oh,” said Helen, after a moment. “Ah,” said Miles. “Do you see anything of Martha in it?” queried Warren, looking up at the portrait. He himself saw nothing but Martha, refracted all over the canvas. He had been trying something new, a dispersed, explosive cubism, in dark, smoky colors, in which the sitter’s