Pretty Mrs. Smith
Summary
A porcelain-pretty heiress, stifled by the hush of velvet drawing rooms, flees to the Congo on the arm of a marble-browed missionary whose idea of paradise is hymnals at dawn and malaria as penance; the jungle’s green roar swallows her laughter, replaces it with insect-bite scars and the taste of cassava ashes. Back in Manhattan she collides with a reed-thin poet who smells of salt ink and bankrupt bookshops—together they play house in a skylit garret until the garret leaks rent and the poet leaks away, leaving only a suicide note flapping like a gull’s broken wing. Enter the third Mr. Smith: polo-muscled, cuff-linked, prone to jealousy that burns as blue as his cigarette smoke. One divorce petition later, the widow-thrice-over checks into a seaside resort seeking silence; instead the past arrives in triplicate—husband uno miraculously unsunk, husband duo inconveniently un-drowned, husband tres contrite and clutching orchids. One suite, three spousal claims, a single monogrammed suitcase: the math is deliciously illegal.
Synopsis
To escape the dreary formality of her born life, Drucilla marries a missionary, Ferdinand Smith, and goes with him to Africa. Here her life proves anything but happy. Denied the pleasures enjoyed by most girls of her age, she endures her husband's cold severity as long as possible and then leaves him, returning to America, where she visits her old school friend, Letitia Proudfoot. It is while attending a reception with Letitia that she meets the poet, Forrest Smith, whose attentions are welcome after the austerity of the frigid Ferdinand. A friendship springs up between them which soon ripens into love. On the news that Ferdinand has been lost at sea, she and the poet marry. Love in a cottage is hardly more satisfactory to pretty Drucilla than life among the heathen. Forrest is not a good provider, and when she threatens a suit for non-support, he disappears, leaving a note of farewell pinned to his coat, which is found at the edge of the sea. Free again, Drucilla for the first time really falls in love, this time with Frank Smith, a wealthy club man, athletically inclined. Frank turns out to possess a very jealous nature. Drucilla puts up with his doubts and suspicions patiently, but before long a climax arrives which precipitates a suit for divorce. Drucilla welcomes this conclusion to her unhappy domestic affairs with relief and sets off with Letitia in search of repose. Now it happens that Ferdinand was not lost at sea, and Forrest did not commit suicide, and each develops a desire to be reunited with his wife. Forthwith they set out in search of her, and eventually meet at the same hotel. Here also comes Frank, who, too, has undergone a change of heart. Thus instead of finding repose, as she hoped, Drucilla is plunged deeper than ever into marital tribulations. Her tender heart prompts her to make up with Frank. But no sooner is this done than Forrest puts in an appearance and makes his claim. Drucilla cries, "I am a bigamist," but belated Ferdinand, entering the scene, answers, "No, you are a trigamist." Which one of the husbands will Drucilla take, and how will she evade the law? This is the question. The clever authors have so arranged that this will be a guess until the very last, and then it ends just right for everybody.
