Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

Miss Goering invited Miss Gamelon to dine with her. She found her soothing and agreeable to be with. Miss Gamelon was very much impressed with the fact that Miss Goering was so nervous. Just as they were about to sit down, Miss Goering said that she couldn’t face eating in the dining-room and she asked the servant to lay the table in the parlor instead. She spent a great deal of time switching the lights off and on.

“I know how you feel,” Miss Gamelon said to her.

“I don’t particularly enjoy it,” said Miss Goering, “but I expect in the future to be under control.”

Over wine at dinner Miss Gamelon told Miss Goering that it was only correct that she should be thus. “What do you expect, dear,” she said, “coming from the kind of family you come from? You’re all tuned high, all of you. You’ve got to allow yourself things that other people haven’t any right to allow themselves.”

Miss Goering began to feel a little tipsy. She looked dreamily at Miss Gamelon, who was eating her second helping of chicken cooked in wine. There was a little spot of grease in the corner of her mouth.

“I love to drink,” said Miss Gamelon, “but there isn’t much point to it when you have to work. It’s fine enough when you have plenty of leisure time. I have a lot of leisure time now.”

“Have you a guardian angel?” asked Miss Goering.

“Well, I have a dead aunt, maybe that’s what you mean; she might be watching over me.”

“That is not what I mean — I mean something quite different.”

“Well, of course…” said Miss Gamelon.

“A guardian angel comes when you are very young, and gives you special dispensation.”

“From what?”

“From the world. Yours might be luck; mine is money. Most people have a guardian angel; that’s why they move slowly.”

“That’s an imaginative way of talking about guardian angels. I guess my guardian angel is what I told you about heeding my warnings. I think maybe she could warn me about both of us. In that way I could keep you out of trouble. Of course, with your consent,” she added, looking a little confused.

Miss Goering had a definite feeling at that moment that Miss Gamelon was not in the least a nice woman, but she refused to face this because she got too much enjoyment from the sensation of being nursed and pampered. She told herself that it would do no harm for a little while.

“Miss Gamelon,” said Miss Goering, “I think it would be a very fine idea if you were to make this your home — for the time being, at least. I don’t think you have any pressing business that would oblige you to remain elsewhere, have you?”

“No, I haven’t any business,” said Miss Gamelon. “I don’t see why I couldn’t stay here — I’d have to get my things at my sister’s house. Outside of that I don’t know of anything else.”

“What things?” asked Miss Goering impatiently. “Don’t go back at all. We can get things at the stores.” She got up and walked quickly up and down the room.

“Well,” said Miss Gamelon, “I think I had better get my things.”

“But not tonight,” said Miss Goering, “tomorrow — tomorrow in the car.”

“Tomorrow in the car,” repeated Miss Gamelon after her.

Miss Goering made arrangements to give Miss Gamelon a room near her own, to which she led her shortly after dinner was over.

“This room,” said Miss Goering, “has one of the finest views in the entire house.” She drew the curtains apart. “You’ve got your moon and your stars tonight, Miss Gamelon, and a very nice silhouette of trees against the sky.”

Miss Gamelon was standing in semi-darkness near the dressing-table. She was fingering the brooch on her blouse. She wished that Miss Goering would leave so that she could think about the house and Miss Goering’s offer, in her own way.

There was a sudden scrambling in the bushes below the window. Miss Goering jumped.

“What’s that?” Her face was very white and she put her hand to her forehead. “My heart hurts so for such a long time afterwards whenever I’m frightened,” she said in a small voice.

“I think I’d better go to bed now and go to sleep,” said Miss Gamelon. She was suddenly overcome by all the wine that she had drunk. Miss Goering took her leave reluctantly. She had been prepared to talk half the night. The following morning Miss Gamelon went home to collect her things and give her sister her new address.

Three months later Miss Goering knew little more about Miss Gamelon’s ideas than she had on the first night that they had dined together. She had learned quite a lot about Miss Gamelon’s personal characteristics, however, through careful observation. When Miss Gamelon had first arrived she had spoken a great deal about her love of luxury and beautiful objects, but Miss Goering had since then taken her on innumerable shopping trips; and she had never seemed interested in anything more than the simplest necessities.

She was quiet, even a little sullen, but she seemed to be fairly contented. She enjoyed dining out at large, expensive restaurants, particularly if dinner music accompanied the meal. She did not seem to like the theater. Very often Miss Goering would buy tickets for a play, and at the last moment Miss Gamelon would decline to go.

“I feel so lazy,” she would say, “that bed seems to be the most beautiful thing in the world at this moment.”

When she did go to the theater, she was easily bored. Whenever the action of the play was not swift, Miss Goering would catch her looking down into her lap and playing with her fingers.

She seemed now to feel more violently about Miss Goering’s activities than she did about her own, although she did not listen so sympathetically to Miss Goering’s explanations of herself as she had in the beginning.

On Wednesday afternoon Miss Gamelon and Miss Goering were sitting underneath the trees in front of the house. Miss Goering was drinking whisky and Miss Gamelon was reading. The maid came out and announced to Miss Goering that she was wanted on the telephone.

The call was from Miss Goering’s old friend Anna, who invited her to a party the following night. Miss Goering came back out on the lawn, very excited.

“I’m going to a party tomorrow night,” she said, “but I don’t see how I can wait until then — I look forward to going to parties so much and I am invited to so few that I scarcely know how to behave about them. What will we do to make the hours pass until then?” She took both Miss Gamelon’s hands in her own.

It was getting a little chilly. Miss Goering shivered and smiled. “Do you enjoy our little life?” she asked Miss Gamelon.

“I’m always content,” said Miss Gamelon, “because I know what to take and what to leave, but you are always at the mercy.”

Miss Goering arrived at Anna’s looking flushed and a little overdressed. She was wearing velvet and Miss Gamelon had fastened some flowers in her hair.

The men, most of whom were middle-aged, were standing together in one corner of the room, smoking and listening to each other attentively. The ladies, freshly powdered, were seated around the room, talking very little. Anna seemed to be a little tense, although she was smiling. She wore a hostess gown adapted from a central European peasant costume.

“You will have drinks in a minute,” she announced to her guests, and then, seeing Miss Goering, she went over to her and led her to a chair next to Mrs. Copperfield’s without saying a word.

Mrs. Copperfield had a sharp little face and very dark hair. She was unusually small and thin. She was nervously rubbing her bare arms and looking around the room when Miss Goering seated herself in the chair beside her. They had met for many years at Anna’s parties and they occasionally had tea with each other.