Love & Mrs. Sargent (19 page)

“Yes, Sheila. You
have
forgotten. Dicky’s writing is a blind spot with you. You want him to succeed so badly that you’ve lost all of your critical faculties—at least as far as your own son is concerned. It’s not your fault. I’ve seen it happen before. I’ve seen actors fight to get walk-ons for their daughters and think the kids are Katharine Cornell when the poor girls can hardly put one foot in front of the other. It happens in business too; the chairman of the board pushing junior. Well, wishing
won’t
make it so.”

“Oh, yes, yes, Peter,” Sheila said with a controlled impatience, “I know all that. But you forget one important thing, darling, and that is that I am a
professional.
I know all the ins and outs. I can spot bad writing at a hundred. . . .”

“You didn’t spot it when it was right under your nose, Sheila. This is really bad stuff. Read the reviews.”

“Oh, Peter! Can’t you see that those reviews were all rigged?
They were just out to get my child. You’re talking like a fool.”

“And
you’re
talking like a paranoiac. If you’re such a pro, you can’t honestly believe that the critics on five big weeklies
would all go into cahoots to gang up on an obscure first novelist
just because of his dead father—who was worshiped by the whole working press. They’d all lean over backward to say something nice, if they could. It’s just that
you
want so desperately for him to succeed as a writer that you can’t—or
won’t—
realize that. . . .”

“You’re damned right I want him to be a success!” Sheila flared. “Is that so wrong, so immoral, so abnormal?”

“Sheila,” Peter said calmly, “your son Dicky staggered out of this room at five o’clock last night. He was so drunk he could hardly walk. He was in his car and down the drive before I could stop him. He hasn’t come back yet. I think that a natural,
adoring mother would be a hell of a lot more concerned about
whether he’s dead or alive than where he stands on the bestseller list.”

“Oh, my God!” Sheila gasped. “Oh, but of course. Oh, but really, darling, I
am
worried. So worried, in fact, that I didn’t even stop to think of the
real
issue. I’ll call the police right away. The chief is an old pal of mine. He’ll do everything.” Sheila went to the tortoise-shell telephone. She paused for a second and then turned to Peter. “Darling,” she said, “do you need a drink as desperately as I do?”

Twenty minutes had elapsed since Sheila’s calm, charming conversation with the police department. Peter squirmed wretchedly in his chair, rattling the ice in his empty glass and watching Sheila as she smoked and sipped her drink with maddening poise. Pretty cool, he kept thinking, pret-ty cool.

The telephone rang and he leaped to his feet. “I’ll get it, darling,” Sheila said. She let the telephone ring a second time and then she picked up the receiver. “Hello? . . . This is she. . . .
Oh, yes, Captain. . . . Oh, that’s wonderful! . . . No car of that
description in any trouble
anywhere
nearby? How very efficient
you are, Captain. . . . Of course. . . . He probably bunked in with some friend and didn’t bother to call me. You know how thoughtless young people are. . . . Well, thank you again, Captain. Good-by.” She rang off and turned to Peter. “Don’t you loathe people who say ‘Good-by, now’?”

“What did he say about Dicky?”

“There, darling, you see, it’s nothing. Not a car anything like Dicky’s in any kind of accident from Chicago right up to the Wisconsin border. Aren’t you relieved?”

“Yes. Aren’t you?”

“Why, of course I am. Now let’s go out for lunch some place and then come back and take a walk. I love it when there are lots of whitecaps on the lake. I mean, it’s so
exciting
when a storm is brewing.”

“All right,” he said listlessly.

“And Peter?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking about Dicky’s writing. And what’s more, I think you’re absolutely correct. I
have
been blind. I’ve shut my
eyes to Dicky’s real trouble. On the
next
book, I’m going to stand
right over him and help him with every word.”

II.

At the stop light Billy Kennedy dug into a pocket for his handkerchief and again wiped the sweat from his palms, then
from his brow and then from the crease where his chin joined his
neck. He told himself for the tenth time that he wasn’t nervous
at all, that it was just a damned hot day—unseasonable. Actually,
it wasn’t. Great clouds swept across the sun changing the day from bright to glum and then back again to clear. And, deny
it though he would, Billy
was
nervous. Having decided last night
that Allison meant what she said and that she was, finally and irrevocably, finished with him, he had been almost relieved. He had driven away with a smart quip, a sneer on his lips, his reputation as a rakehell intact. But this morning, when Allison had telephoned just after one of Billy’s sullen breakfast table scenes with his mother, Billy almost wished that he’d been nicer to Ma, had agreed to go down to De Paul this very afternoon to sign up for some evening courses in business administration.
Instead he had, as usual, sent his mother off to her facial in tears,
saying that she didn’t know What Was Going to Become of him. He had been considering going back to bed when the maid summoned him to the telephone. The message was short and it should have been sweet. But it wasn’t.

“Billy,” the voice had said crisply, “it’s Allison. I can’t talk long, so listen carefully. You said last night that if I ever changed my mind to give you a ring. I’m calling now. . . .”

“H-hey, Allison. . . .”

“Mother and her. . . . Mother’s gone out for lunch. You can pick me up at two.”

“But Allison, where c-could we. . . .”

“I know the place. I’ll tell you where to meet me. . . .”

Billy had been in a panic, but could a gentleman do anything less than accept? He had shaved twice, his hand trembling so violently that he nicked himself both times. He had clipped his
toenails and taken a second shower, rolled Trig onto all the places
where he
thought
he might perspire and splashed 4711—too
much 4711?—onto his chest and stomach, his forehead and the
back of his neck. He had dressed very carefully in tweeds, a button-down shirt and loafers, leaving off his underwear—an
omission he now regretted. He had taken a restorative drink and then gargled; then another drink. He wished now that he had brought some mouth wash with him. He prayed, silently, to no specific Power that he’d do things right. Messing around in the back of a car was one thing; visiting a couple of dogs like Shirley and Almeda was another; but having a girl like Allison Sargent call up and order you like a . . . yes, like a chop suey dinner. . . . Well, that was something else again. Billy jammed on the brakes. Here was the place. No mistaking it. He turned the car carefully into the overgrown driveway.

Allison waited tensely in a rotting rustic gazebo. Rustic in the worst sense of the word, built of multicolored stones, peeling
birchbark and leaky thatch, the summerhouse was a splintery tribute to every arts-and-crafts movement since William Morris. It was but one of many hideous parts of the old estate adjoining the Sargent place.

Allison had chosen the neighboring property as a meeting place because it was totally deserted. As three realtors’ signs announced
to anyone who could read through the rust, this desirable prop
erty—riparian rights and all—was for sale, as it had been since
Allison could toddle. The hideous old gothic villa with its ver
andas and turrets, its bays and dormers, its mansard roof, its ornamental ironwork, its fifty dark master rooms—plus twenty
darker ones for servants—its overgrown gardens and mossy statu
ary couldn’t even be
given
away. The Trappists, the Carmelites, the Poor Clares, the Sisters of Charity, and a dozen other religious orders had been polite but firm in their refusals. And so it decayed, untended and unmourned by its owner who was
finishing out her days in Reduced Circumstances, but at a favorable rate of exchange among other deposed rulers in Estoril.

Allison looked at her watch and noticed that Billy was already
four minutes late. She did not notice that she had picked off all of her nail enamel. She was glad that she had had neither breakfast nor luncheon because she felt that she might be sick. Her stomach rumbled slightly and she tried to will it to stop.
Gas would not be glamorous at an assignation—especially one’s
first. She had bathed carefully, put on a new wool dress, her new suede coat and too much make-up. She felt that there was something else that should have been done, but she didn’t know exactly what it was. Billy would take care of—well—
that.
At
least Allison hoped he would. But right now she didn’t care very
much. She didn’t care about anything.

She heard the sound of tires on the weedy gravel. She stepped
out of the gazebo and tried to smile. Billy stopped the car and got out. He wondered what the exact etiquette was for such an occasion. Should he kiss Allison passionately? He supposed so and made an attempt. Somehow their four arms, their two mouths and noses just hadn’t fitted.

“Not now,” Allison said.

“Gee, Allison,” Billy said, “are
. . .
are we going to do it
here?”

“No. I have the place. I just didn’t want Mother to see your car in our driveway,” Allison said. “Not that she’d be likely to notice it,” she added bitterly. “We’re going to the beach house. Nobody ever goes near it at this time of year.”

“Oh,” Billy said. He felt his heart sink, his stomach churn. He was sweating again.

“Well, come on.”

The beach house wasn’t exactly a house and then it wasn’t
exactly
not
a house. With its peaked roof and outer walls painted
with jaunty stripes, it looked like an outsize sentry box or like a gay pavilion set up for a tournament of jousting when knighthood was in flower. (The architect had rather wanted to go Japanese, but Sheila had turned thumbs down on
that.)
It con
tained dressing rooms for males and females; showers and toilets
for each (now turned off); a fireplace (never once lighted)
where marshmallows could be incinerated and expensive cuts of
meat quite badly charred; a large refrigerator (also turned off); two sailcloth divans and quite a lot of assorted beach furniture stacked in the center of the room. The screened front of the structure had been boarded up for the winter with siding that wasn’t in the least jaunty or gay. Allison went purposefully to the door, undid the padlock and removed it. “Well, come in,” she said.

“Are . . . are you sure nobody will come down here?” Billy said. He was cold now.

“Why would they? I’d say the bathing season was just about over. It’s nearly November.”

The inside was dark and musty, smelling faintly of damp towels and bathing suits. Allison went in, removed her coat and
sat primly on the edge of one of the divans. “Sit down,” she said.

“Uh, mind if I, uh, take a leak?” Billy quavered.

“Help yourself,” Allison said. “Gentlemen to the right, ladies to the left. Not that it makes much difference.”

“Th-thanks,” Billy said. The door of the men’s dressing room
had warped and wouldn’t quite close. Allison tried not to listen. She undid the top three buttons of her dress. As she did so, a shaft of furtive sunlight burst through one of the side windows
and focused on a small gray mouse frantically trying to move her
litter of four pink babies to cover. Allison gave a little shriek.

“Wh-what?” Billy called.

“Nothing,” Allison said, shuddering.

There was a strangulated, choking sound from the toilet.
“Damn!” Billy said. Allison remembered now that the water had
been turned off for the winter. Gritting her teeth, she kicked off her shoes, tucked her feet up under her and leaned back uncom
fortably. She wondered tensely if Billy would bound through the
not-entirely-closed door stark naked and ready for action. She felt rather foggy about the exact protocol of illicit affairs. But she hoped that at least he’d be quick about it.

With a ferocious tugging at the warped door, Billy burst out
of the bathroom. He was fully clad. Assiduously not looking at
Allison, he lighted a cigarette and succumbed to a pitiable coughing spasm. Then he took off his jacket, loosened his tie and sat down on the divan quite far from Allison, carefully studying the tip of his cigarette.

“Aren’t—aren’t you supposed to make love to me or some
thing:
¹
” Allison asked. “You know, seduce me?”

“Well, here we are! Home at last,” Sheila said brightly, stopping her car at the door. Peter said nothing. “Not a frightfully good lunch, I’m afraid. In fact, it was downright dreadful,” Sheila continued.

Luncheon had been dreadful in more ways than one. They had driven, rather too fast, through not very attractive country out toward Libertyville. Sheila had smoked a lot and talked even more. He had said almost nothing. Without any definite idea as to where they were going, Sheila had come upon a low rambling gray building with bright yellow shutters situated on a pretty pond. It had
looked
as though it ought to be a charming
wayside inn. It wasn’t. The place was deserted by all but the quarrelsome Italian family who owned it and they had seemed gloweringly resentful of the two customers who had arrived to put money into the till and to interrupt—even if only intermittently and ineffectually—a furious argument which, in two languages, was shouted through swinging doors, hissed across the bar and bellowed through the hatch. The place stocked none
of the brands of scotch Sheila liked and she had sent two glasses
back; one because of a jagged rim, the second because it was smeared with lipstick. None of the specialties on the menu had been available and finally Sheila had wound up with a plate of glutinous canned ravioli deep in tepid water while Peter had settled for a rubbery ham sandwich between two unbuttered slices of thick, spongy store bread. Peter fell deeper and deeper
into a moody silence while Sheila—accompanied by dark latinate
curses, clatterings of trays and crockery, crashings of pots and pans and a staccato rainfall of silverware from the pantry-
talked enough for two, growing a little louder and shriller against
the uproar issuing through the service door. They had run out
of cigarettes simultaneously and, after they had pooled sufficient
small change, found the vending machine to be out of order. The coffee, when it finally arrived, had been cold and it had taken nearly half an hour to get the check from the slatternly daughter of the house.

“Imperial House it ain’t,” Sheila had said with desperate gaiety, getting back into the car. Peter had said nothing. Then Sheila had snagged a stocking.

She had been even more voluble starting home, Peter less and less. The autumn colors, the racing clouds, the sky’s quick changes from mole gray to cobalt blue had done nothing to lighten his mood. He became grimmer by the minute, answering
only direct questions and then with little more than a grunt. Finally Sheila had given up. She had a frivolous froth of chitchat. She could argue either side of any question calmly, in
telligently and wittily. She could combat the most belligerent
opponent, draw out the most pathetically shy, deal patiently and kindly with the most unintelligible accents and speech impedi
ments. But she could not battle silence. By the time they returned
home she was spring-tense and it showed in her driving, the set of her mouth, the slight puckering of her brow.

“Ready for our hike, darling?” she asked, smiling brightly.

“Don’t you think you might inquire about Dicky first?” She sensed a certain disapproval.

“Oh. Well, of
course!
I just meant if you wanted to powder
your nose or something like that before we set off.” Sheila opened
the door of the house and strode toward her office. Passing the
mirror at the foot of the stairs, she cast a quick surreptitious glance at her reflection and hated what she saw. She had been of two minds about this expensive, heavy fall suit in the first place. Now she was certain. It was a harsh, debilitating color that made her complexion look sallow. Fuzzy to begin with, gored and padded, it made her look thick through the middle-shapeless. As for the hat, it was downright matronly. She pulled it off and tossed it onto the hall table, from which it slid and fell to the polished floor with a pathetic little splat.

Mrs. Flood was in the office poring over the new issue of
Vogue.
“Oh! Back so soon? I just wish you’d look at some of the
things they expect us poor women to do to our faces this year. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe these
ec-centric
colors will ev-er catch on. It reminds me of the. . . .”

“You look busy,” Sheila said pointedly.

“Everything you dictated this morning is done, Mrs. Sargent,”
Mrs. Flood said with an air of wounded righteousness. “There’s
plenty more any time you want to. . . .”

“It can wait. Any calls?”

“The production department from Famous Features telephoned. They say you’re nearly a week behind with your column and. . . .”

“To hell with them. Anything else?”

“
Well, the oddest woman. She wouldn’t give her name but she had a very
common
accent. She’s called several times and
insisted
on speaking with you.”

“How did she get the number?”

“Well, that’s the odd part. She didn’t. She called on the service phone and she was so
very
insistent each time that Bertha came in to get me. I
tried
to convince her that you were out to lunch but. . . .”