Chapter XIII

The idea of a home appealed to Mr. Ross. He felt, now, that he had always wanted a real home. Dorothea called for him in the car and they explored the streets east of Fifth Avenue. Finally, without consulting the rest of the family, Ross bought a five-story house in East Sixty-fifth Street, just off Fifth Avenue.

“Mother will think this is terrible,” Dorothea said as she kissed him, “but you and I like it, don’t we? I know it cost an awful lot, Dad, but you can see it’s really an investment. After it’s made over a bit inside it will do for a family home for years. Imagine you—after all you’ve done—not having a family home.”

Ross really liked the house. It seemed almost—home-like. The rest of the family were not pleased. The married daughters—of course it was not their affair—but, they wondered if it was just the right thing. Of course nice people lived in houses, but none of their friends.

“That’s why we bought it,” said Dorothea.

Irwin “guessed it was all right.” Manning was indifferent.

Mrs. Ross held up bejewelled hands and wailed.

“Oh, Dorothea, just as I’m beginning to get into things and can ask people here to a fine apartment on the Drive—an address I can be proud of—and here you buy an old house—I thought a young girl like you would want things swell—here we’ve got servants and all—”

“Don’t you worry,” said Dorothea, “it will be ‘swell’ enough—awful word. And as for servants—”

The family moved to the East Sixty-fifth Street house a few months later. Dorothea didn’t run around after furniture as those of her family who had chosen furniture before her had done. She turned the whole house over to Miss Lessing, in Madison Avenue. Miss Lessing’s corps of exquisitely minded young men came in, looked around, made sketches, brought drapery material and wood finishes, all of which Dorothea examined critically.

“At last we’ll have some place we can ask our friends,” she said.

The house in East Sixty-fifth Street was rather nice. It was done in English things, mostly, painted walls and rather soft taffetas. There were some big easy chairs that could be pulled around, comfortably, in front of the fireplace. Perhaps because of its seeming simplicity and the plainness of the walls and carpets Mr. Ross liked it more than any home he had ever had. He felt it belonged to him. Mrs. Ross never liked it.

“It’s too plain,” she said, “nothing to it. No one would believe how much it cost you, Papa. Mrs. Sinsheimer has got an apartment on Park Avenue, just a block from Carolyn. Fourteen rooms. She had a decorator, too, but he got different things than this—gold furniture. It looks like something. We had a fine place on Riverside Drive and Dorothea drags us here, where there ain’t even lights enough to see by, at night.”

Still, Mrs. Ross found out, from what people said, that there must be something desirable about the new home. She even acquired a bit of the patter Dorothea used, pointing, with something like pride, to “a real Chippendale escritoire, one of the nicest examples in America,” and “some Wedgewood plaques, three, from an original set of four, you know,” and “of course, we are getting old and it’s nice we can have a home where we can gather the sort of things we like, as a background.”

Irwin didn’t “think much of the place, myself,” but it was a good idea, the old folks having a home ... he was glad he didn’t have to be ashamed of it, though, for his part ... now, that country place Dorothea was talking about....

Yes, Dorothea had been talking about a country place. After they were settled in the new home, she continued to talk. They had five servants now—they wouldn’t even need two sets—Dad could see how it took that many to run any kind of a house—and they could just shut up the town house in Spring and open it in Fall. All the family could be there, too, Yvette and the new baby, and Carolyn and their husbands ... “a real family together. Dad, a permanent family like ours ought to have a decent country place.”

The country place was on Long Island, finally. Dorothea picked it out and put the decorations in the hands of the same firm of decorators, who did rather startling things with coloured wicker, chintz and tiled floors.

It was near a famous country club and Dorothea knew, as did the rest of them, that none of the men of her family could ever be admitted. It didn’t seem fair to her, of course, and yet ... Dad was a great one—there oughtn’t to be any place Dad couldn’t get into. But Dad didn’t care. Though, from things he said, Dorothea knew he had felt things ... expected them. He hadn’t even hoped this much of life. Irwin didn’t like being left out of things ... and yet, Dorothea, looking at Irwin, hearing him argue in his rather nasal tone, gesturing with his long amber cigarette holder, couldn’t blame members of the club, exactly.... It wasn’t because of Irwin’s race ... maybe the members, themselves, weren’t so wonderful ... and yet there were her two brothers-in-law, one rather fat, both slow-minded, card-playing, a bit loud and blatant, always bringing money into the conversation ... Yvette, loud, laughing, so heavy, mentally, Carolyn, with her cheap talk of money and spending ... her mother ... it wasn’t fair to criticize her, her mother’d had a hard time of it when she was young, and yet....

Dorothea knew that, somehow, the men she liked didn’t belong to her race. Hamilton Fournier, now ... of course, if she’d marry him, there would be an awful talk, lots of crying and going on about religion ... that sort of thing. She could hear her mother ... she remembered when Freda Moss married,—“He’ll throw it up to you.” Yet, if you are proud of your race ... doesn’t that ... can you have a thing “thrown up to you” that you are proud of? It was a big problem, too big for Dorothea. She felt that she’d always had everything she wanted ... she could keep on having....

The family settled down comfortably in the new home, Manning with them. He was going to school in town, now.

Mrs. Ross was getting to like the new home better ... it wasn’t Riverside Drive, of course, but people didn’t look down on her here. She was even getting in with Mrs. Rosenblatt—now that she lived near her. That crowd—she didn’t have their education, but what of it, she was richer than most of them. Who were they, to be so exclusive? Maybe, by next year, if she donated to their Orphans’ Nursery Fund....

Mr. Ross’s indigestion seemed a little worse. The doctor came to see him several times each week and he had to be more careful with his diet. There seemed to be less to do at the office. He could retire, of course, but that would take away the only interesting thing he had—the few hours at the office. He even tried outdoor exercise, but after one attempt, he gave up golf as impossible. He gave to organized charities rather liberally and was even appointed on a committee which he never attended—he knew it was his money they wanted. He would sit, as he had always sat in the evening, falling asleep over his paper, or, bundled up beyond the necessity of the weather, he would climb into the car and spend a few hours with an old friend, or some one would come to see him, playing cards, as always. But a few of the old friends had died, another had moved away ... there had never been many of them. He was just an old man, and lonesome, with nothing interesting to do or think about....