Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [120]
"We never had that New Year's party yet."
"Oh didn't we?"
"And we don't have to go to Laguna. . . I love you in a dinner coat, Monty. If you'll put one on, and then drive over with me while I put on my mockery of elegance, we can step out. We can celebrate our engagement. That is, if we really are engaged."
"All right, let's do it."
She spanked him on his lean rump, hustled him out of bed, and jumped out after him. She was quite charming in such moments, when she took absurd liberties with him, and for one flash his face lit up, and he' kissed her before they started to dress. But he was sombre again when they arrived at her house. She put out whiskey, ice, and seltzer, and he made himself a drink. While she was dressing he wandered restlessly about, and then put his head in her bedroom and asked if he could put a telegram on her phone. "I'd like Mother to know."
"Would you like to talk to her?"
"It's a Philadelphia call."
"Well my goodness, you act as if it was Europe. Certainly call her up. And you can tell her it's all settled about the house, at thirty thousand, without any foolish deductions of five hundred and twenty dollars, or whatever it was. If that's what's been worrying her, tell her not to' worry any more."
"I'd certainly love to."
He went to the den, and she went on with her dressing. The blue evening dress was long since outmoded, but she had another one, a black one, that she liked very well, and she had just laid it out when he appeared at the door. "She wants to speak to you."
"Who?"
"Mother."
In spite of success, money, and long experience at dealing with people, a qualm shot through Mildred as she sat down to the phone, in a hastily-donned kimono, to talk to this woman she had never met. But when she picked up the receiver and uttered a quavery hello, the cultured voice that spoke to her was friendship itself. "Mrs. Pierce?"
"Yes, Mrs. Beragon."
"Or perhaps you'd like me to call you Mildred?"
"I'd love it, Mrs. Beragon."
"I just wanted to say that Monty has told me about your plan to be married, and I think it splendid. I've never met you, but from all I've heard, from so many, many people I always felt you were the one wife for Monty, and I secretly hoped, as mothers often do, that one day it might come to pass."
"Well that's terribly nice of you, Mrs. Beragon. Did Monty tell you about the house?"
"He did, and I do want you to be happy there, and I'm sure you will. Monty is so attached to it, and he tells me you like it too-and that's a big step toward happiness isn't it?"
"I would certainly think so. And I do hope that some time you'll pay us a visit there, and, and—"
"I'll be delighted. And how is darling Veda?"
"She's just fine. She's singing, you know."
"My dear, I heard her, and I was astonished—not really of course, because I always felt that Veda had big things in her. But even allowing for all that, she quite bowled me over. You have a very gifted daughter, Mildred."
"I'm certainly glad you think so, Mrs. Beragon."
"You'll remember me to her?"
"I certainly will, Mrs. Beragon."
She hung up flushed, beaming, sure she had done very well, but Monty's face had such an odd look that she asked: "What's the matter?"
"Where is Veda?"
"She—took an apartment by herself, a few months ago. It bothered her to have all the neighbors listening while she vocalized."
"That must have been messy."
"It was—terrible."
Within a week, the Beragon mansion looked as though it had been hit by bombs. The main idea of the alterations, which were under the supervision of Monty, was to restore what had been a large but pleasant house to what it had been before it was transformed into a small but hideous mansion. To