Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) (6 page)

“Yes. Peggy’s talking to him, and he seems happy. Don’t worry.”

“He’ll read me a lecture about being late.” Scott spoke in fun, but Rona didn’t feel like enjoying the joke. Why pretend his father behaved in a way he never behaved?

“We’ve got an extra guest, Scott.” We’ve several, actually, but there’s only one I’m beginning to worry about, she thought. She told him quickly about Paul Haydn.

Scott stared at her. “Paul Haydn? Why on earth did you ask him?” He was angry.

“Don’t, darling. It’s all right. You know that.” She kissed him. “Be polite to him. That’s the best way to stop any gossip, isn’t it? After all, he’s going to be around New York now, and we’ll keep meeting him.”

Scott looked relieved. “Was that why you asked him?” It wasn’t a bad idea. Treat Haydn naturally, and anyone inclined to a little malicious speculation would be disappointed. Rona had ended gossip before it could start. He pulled her into his arms again, kissed her violently and quickly. “Glad I’m jealous?” he asked.

“Delighted,” she said. But she was as surprised as he was by his emotion. She caught his hand and coaxed him toward the room. “I need hardly say he’s the one in uniform,” she added in a low voice.

“I’ll have a drink first,” Scott said, catching sight of the uniform beside Mary Fyne’s red hair. “And I’ll have to say hello to Dad, too.” He looked away from the uniform: that was a hell of a way to come dressed to a party, proud of the ribbons no doubt. “Sorry about having to miss lunch, Rona. Just one of those awful days when your life isn’t your own.” He pushed a soft curl behind her ear and admired the effect.

“Why didn’t you tell me last night?” she asked, half-puzzled.

“I meant to. But I forgot. I always forget the unpleasant things.” He pressed her hand, gave her a smile that made her happy, and then went toward the tray of drinks, saying hello to their friends, making the usual comments. His father, he noted, was over by the window talking earnestly to Peggy Tyson. Scott waved and smiled, and then poured himself a drink. Rona was talking now to a dark-haired man in a blue suit—something in television, he remembered. Another of her “old friends,” but more harmless than Haydn. Rona had been at the impressionable age when she met Haydn; after that, there had been several men hanging around her, but nothing definite, not until Scott had found her. I’ll have a second drink, Scott told himself, before I go and shake Haydn by his hand; or perhaps I’ll be honest and knock his teeth in.

* * *

Over by the window, Peggy Tyson was saying to William Ettley, “I think Paul Haydn needs rescuing. He is getting that slightly glazed look, just like Jon when he is trapped.”

But William Ettley, still watching Scott and Rona talking together at the door, said, “They look so happy together. I can’t make out why she doesn’t fix the date. When Rona invited me to this party. I was hoping they’d choose this day to announce the wedding.”

Peggy’s attention came back to William Ettley, and she looked at his seemingly placid face. His quiet eyes behind their round glasses were worried. He was a man nearly sixty, short, energetic, heavily built, white-faced, white-haired. He was quick to smile, and his voice was deep, decided, pleasant. Most people, meeting him for the first time, were amazed that this mild-mannered man was William Ettley. Not
the
William Ettley? Not the man who had built up the
Clarion
to be one of the best-informed, most reliable, and completely trustworthy newspapers on the Eastern seaboard? True, the
Clarion
was a small paper, a country newspaper, but it carried both punch and weight. Ettley was the Republican who voted for Roosevelt when his conscience told him to. Ettley was the man who fought ward politics at home, despised pressure groups, believed in bipartisan policy abroad. You could trust his editorials. However you might disagree at the moment, you’d find yourself amazed some months later by the solid good sense that had kept him from jumping to false conclusions.

Peggy said, “Shall I bring Paul Haydn over here? He’s been doing counter-propaganda in Germany or something like that.”

“I’d like to meet him,” William Ettley said. His eyes watched her face. “Peggy, why isn’t Rona marrying Scott?”

“But she is!” Peggy stared at him in amazement. “She’d marry him tomorrow if only he could manage it.”

“I lunched with Scott last week. I got the impression...” William Ettley didn’t finish his sentence. He looked around the room a little unhappily. Rona was successful, Scott had said gloomily: how could he ask her to give up her career and only offer her the salary he had? “Why don’t they just get married, anyway?” William Ettley asked irritably.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Peggy said. Then, recalling his affection for Rona, she restrained her own annoyance. “But Rona can’t arrange the date by herself, Mr. Ettley. It’s up to the man to decide that, isn’t it?” And if I didn’t like William Ettley, she thought, I’d tell him that I’m angrier than he is with his precious son.

“Then what’s wrong with Scott? The boy’s in love with her. That I know.” Then he shook his head sadly. “I don’t seem to understand him very well in anything.”

Peggy was silent. What was the good of criticising Scott Ettley even to herself? She would only end by losing Rona if she didn’t fight against this dislike of Scott. She heard herself saying, almost placatingly, “Don’t worry, Mr. Ettley. Scott has his own ideas, you know that. But he and Rona will get married soon. And I shouldn’t be surprised if he changes his mind about joining your paper. I’m sure he will, some day, when he feels he has declared his independence sufficiently.”

Ettley said quickly, with a touch of pride, “I like his sense of independence. I like the way he wants to make his own name. If he chooses to work on a paper in New York instead of getting his experience on the
Clarion
, well—I can understand that. I’m
not
trying to run his life for him. Only, I don’t feel he is happy. Not altogether. Happy with Rona, yes. But in his job? You can’t blame me for wanting to see my only son enjoying a useful happy life, can you?” He tried to smile over this sudden display of sentiment.

“No,” Peggy said gently, “that’s what we all want to see.” She thought of Bobby, aged five. When Bobby was twenty-five would he resent advice and help? Probably. I did too, she thought guiltily. Ah, well, once Scott was married and had some children to worry about he would begin to understand his father better. She looked at William Ettley, now silent and tight-lipped. “I’ll go and rescue Paul Haydn,” she said, and made her way adeptly through the tight little crowd.

“Paul!” she said, drawing him away from Mary Fyne and her skiing stories. “Or did you want to stay with the redhead?” she asked him laughingly as they edged their way back towards the window. “Tactless of me. But don’t worry, she’ll be around. She likes strong men with inscrutable faces.”

“What’s been happening to women’s eyes?” Paul asked.

“You mean the Eastern touch with black pencil? It makes them alluring, the magazines say. I’m afraid they look to me like the wolf dressed as Grandma... All the better to see you with.”

“Reminds me of the circus. All they need is some flat whitewash over their faces.”

“You’ve become a cynic, Paul. Why, once you—”

“Sure. Once is a long time ago.”

“Yes,” she said. And she looked at him speculatively. “I’m taking you to meet William Ettley,” she said. “Remember the
Clarion
?”

“Why, of course.” He was suddenly pleased. “Is he still the real old-fashioned American liberal?” He was more than pleased. He was excited. And William Ettley, turning to meet the young man (from Mr. Ettley’s point of view, Paul Haydn was very young), felt something of the good will that was offered him. He began talking, quietly, intelligently. And, like Jon Tyson, he knew how to ask questions. Paul answered them straight, admitting frankly when he didn’t actually know about this zone in Germany or that problem of military government. William Ettley liked the way he answered, and his questions became more particular. His interest was now more than that of politeness.

Peggy Tyson waited for a few minutes, and then managed to slip away. She had to rescue Jon, this time. He always seemed to get stuck with the most predatory bores, generally women who were dashingly unattractive. Once in their clutches, he stayed caught: he was too polite to ease himself away as the other men did. No wonder that Jon disliked cocktail parties. Now he gave Peggy a look of heartfelt thanks as she arrived beside him. “Paul is looking for you, darling,” she said, smiling excusingly to the weirdly dressed woman beside him. If you were to take all the front pictures in the last six copies of
Vogue
, Peggy thought, and jumble them together, you might possibly arrive at this woman’s idea of what the best-dressed woman could wear. Long earrings, heavily pencilled eyes; a velvet band round her ageing throat caught with a diamond and emerald pin; a nipped-in waistline that resisted hard; stiff taffeta that crinkled and crackled with each movement.

But the woman didn’t let Jon go so easily. The hat with large clusters of grapes drooping over each ear, emphasising the downward lines of her face, shook with regret and emphasis. “I simply must enrol at Columbia and come to your husband’s lectures,” she said, all of sweet nineteen in her own mind. “He’s such fun, Mrs. Tyson, such fun! I never could be bothered with history at school, but I’m
sure
he could teach me anything.”

“No doubt,” Peggy murmured, and left determinedly.

“In heaven’s name!” Jon said feelingly, once they were at a safe distance. “Where did Rona find that?”

“You do pick real beauties, Jon. Think of all the people in this room, and you had to choose her.”

“I didn’t pick her; she just happened,” Jon said, remembering the elderly claw that had laid itself on his arm as he had been talking to a little group of writers.
Oh, Dr. Tyson, I’ve been waiting to meet you for so long
... He had been turned to stone as if she were the Gorgon itself. No help from any other man, either; they knew when they were well out of it. What made people think that university professors liked being bored?

“Fantastic hat,” Peggy said. “Did the vintage grapes fascinate you?”

“All we needed was a wooden tub, and then we could have removed all our shoes and socks,” Jon said gloomily. Then he looked at his Peggy, recovered, and smiled. “Come along, old girl, home for us!”

“No one seems to be going home—just yet,” Peggy said slowly.

“No one here has a home to go to. Obviously.” Then he relented, seeing her disappointment, hiding his own. They didn’t get to so many parties nowadays, not with Bobby and Barbara aged five and two respectively.

“What about a really pretty girl for a change?” Peggy asked, looking in the direction of Mary Fyne’s red hair.

“I’ve got her,” Jon said quietly.

Peggy actually blushed, and her eyes laughed.

Rona’s voice said, “It’s supposed to be against the rules for a husband and wife to flirt in public. But don’t mind me. I like it.” Then her voice became serious. “Poor Jon... Did Thelma catch you? I tried to reach you, then I saw Peggy taking charge. No, don’t look at me like that. She’s totally uninvited. She just—”

“Happened?” Jon asked.

“Yes, that’s the word exactly. She arrived with Murray. That’s the round-faced man over in the corner. Talking politics, no doubt.”

Peggy said, “He’s the man who insisted on telling me about the social significance of the comic strip. Wait until Bobby hears that one! I must say you do pick up some odd friends, Rona.”

“Oh, he’s just one of Scott’s lame ducks.” Then her voice became worried. “I don’t think Scott has noticed Paul Haydn, yet.”

“Hasn’t he?” Jon asked with a smile.

“He’s going in that direction now,” Rona said with relief, as she watched Scott make his way leisurely over toward his father and Paul Haydn. “But what on earth made me ask Paul here?” she added, almost to herself.

“Don’t worry,” Peggy advised. “A little competition wouldn’t do Scott any harm. He’s much too inclined to think you’re his entire possession.” With that little truth she went off to talk to the television man, and Jon found that Mary Fyne wanted to know if he did much skiing nowadays.

Rona, still watching anxiously, saw Mr. Ettley leave Paul just as Scott approached them. Mr. Ettley, his back to Scott, hadn’t noticed him. But Scott will never believe that, Rona thought. He felt, and nothing could persuade him otherwise, that his father had never forgiven him for his revolt. And Scott, although he pretended he didn’t care, worried about it. He had a sense of guilt which he would never admit, but it made him—well, not exactly difficult, Rona thought loyally, not exactly difficult but—but a little, just a little unaccountable at times.

Now, watching Scott’s back stiffen as his father walked over to speak to another group, watching Scott reach Paul Haydn and hesitate, she felt all his unhappiness. Dinner will be awful, she thought in agony; and afterwards, when his father leaves us, I’ll have to face it alone. Then she told herself that even if you were really in love, deeply in love, there was always some measure of unhappiness to balance your happiness whole and unattacked; they lived in a world of their own. But how, she wondered sadly, how do you ever find that kind of world?

She said, smiling brightly to one of her guests, “Let me freshen this drink? No, I haven’t seen the
Ballet Russe
this season. How did you like it?”

* * *

Scott Ettley watched his father leave Paul Haydn, and his excuse for approaching was gone. Then Haydn, noticing his hesitation, said, “Have a cigarette?”

“No, thanks.”

“My name’s Haydn.”

“I know. Mine is Ettley.”

“Oh!” Paul looked away from the young man in the grey suit and dark blue tie towards William Ettley.

“Yes, I’m the son of the
Clarion
,” Scott said with a bitter smile. “But I don’t work on it.”

“No?” Paul was surprised by the sense of attack in the short phrase.

“No.” Scott was looking at Paul Haydn carefully. Imitation Cary Grant, he thought derisively.