A Charmed Life by Mary McCarthy Read Free Book Online

never been Christianized properly, except the people in the Rhineland, where Jane’s family came from.
    Like all the outstanding people Warren had ever known, Miles was inconsistent. Today he might suddenly stand up and shake himself and tell his wife they were going home. Or he might come to the studio, where Zarathustra was laid out, and talk for the rest of the day. And the wife and baby would have to wait till he was ready to go, even if it was the middle of the night. One night, last winter in New York, the Coes had heard, the baby had nearly been smothered under the overcoats on a bed at a wild party. Miles had a theory about children; he thought you should treat them rough until they reached the age of reason, which he set at eight or nine, the year the child was able to learn its catechism and prepare for its first communion. This theory, Warren admitted, made him see red. And Miles meant it furthermore; he was not just talking through his hat. For a hard-boiled unbeliever, Miles had a strange admiration for the rules and observances of the church; Mother Church, he said, was a great little psychologist—look at the confessional. And he thought Spare the Rod was sound psychology too, up to the age of reason.
    The baby, at present, was lying on a blanket, sucking a chicken wing. Helen Murphy had carried him down the beach on her back, in a sort of fishnet bag that Miles had designed for her. Miles did not believe in sitters, and they had never been able to keep a servant—not for lack of money, for Helen had plenty, but because of Miles’s tempers and drinking habits. Warren sat looking at the baby; he loved children and he and Jane were childless. The two women were talking in low voices; Miles had sunk into abstraction. Warren undid the white handkerchief he wore around his head, like a housemaid’s dust cap, to protect his brain from the sun. He leaned over to the baby and, smiling, began to wiggle his ears. He knew Miles was watching him, sardonically, from narrowed, slightly bloodshot eyes, but in such matters as these Warren was a fearless traditionalist. The baby, to his joy, smiled back. At this moment, Jane chose to mention the Sinnotts. Warren’s heart sank; he slumped into the sand. He felt, as he said later, about as big as a minute. Jane’s curiosity, brimming out of her big round eyes, gave the show away. He was cross as the dickens. He and Jane had compacted not to mention Martha unless Miles or Helen did it first, but when it came to gossip Jane was weak and disloyal, like a bad little girl. She was now looking rather shamefaced, her eyes cast down and a tentative grin twitching her wide red mouth; later she would say that Miles would surely have thought it funny if she had not mentioned Martha.
    Miles sat up, chewing on a spear of beach grass. “How are they getting along?” he inquired, with evident interest. Warren felt terrifically relieved to find that he had been wrong, as usual. There was a slight pause; the Coes eyed each other. “You haven’t seen her?” said Jane, looking at Miles curiously. Miles shook his head. “I’ve never seen her,” mused Helen. “Of course, I feel I know her from what Miles has said.” She said this in a simple, deferential tone that made a great impression on Warren. This tall placid brunette girl simply worshipped Miles, which was what Miles had always needed. Everything about him, apparently, was sacred to her, including his ex-wives; she sounded almost as if Martha were a holy relic of Miles’s past, like his first baby shoes. Warren was amazed; he felt he was getting to know Helen finally. “That’s funny,” he said, sliding over to her, brightly, with his winning smile. “That you haven’t seen her, I mean. You’d think you would have run into each other at the Stop and Shop or the Arena Theater or meeting the train or something. It’s almost like a reverse coincidence. Mathematically—wouldn’t you say, Miles?—the chances would be all