The Group (21 page)

A week later, in Cleveland, Mrs. Davison looked up from yesterday’s New York
Times
. She was sitting in her morning room, in the corner she called the ingle, to which she always repaired with the mail after the postman’s visit. The
Times
came a day late, but Mrs. Davison did not mind this, since she only read it for “background.” The room was done in blue and violet and white chintzes and English furniture; it had a small-paned Tudor bow window of the kind that had made Helena, as a schoolgirl, imagine Sir Walter Raleigh writing on it with a diamond. There was a handsome Queen Anne secretary, with pigeonholes and a secret drawer, where Mrs. Davison tended to her correspondence; her collection of patch boxes held stamps of various denominations, like colored treasures; on a sturdy Jacobean table stood the month’s periodicals, arranged in stacks, as in a school library. On the paneled wall above the secretary hung Mrs. Davison’s “lares and penates”—faded late-Victorian photographs of the family seat in Somerset, “a plain gentleman’s manor” which her ancestor, a clergyman, had left for Canada. The fireplace was tiled in a pretty blue-and-white heraldic pattern, and next to it sat Mrs. Davison in her easy chair, glancing over the newspaper, her porcelain-handled letter opener in her large polka-dotted lap. “Helena!” she called in her sonorous windy voice, like the foghorn of a majestic Cunarder. Helena appeared in the doorway. “Harald has been arrested!” “My stars!” said Helena. “For fighting with some private detectives, it appears,” continued her mother, rapping on the paper with the letter opener. “He and a man named Putnam Blake. Do you know who that would be?”

Helena blanched. “Let me see it, Mother!” she implored, bolting across the room as though to wrench the newspaper and the awful information it contained from her mother’s custody. Harald and Norine must have been surprised again in their illicit embraces, and the prospect of submitting to her mother’s cross-examination on the subject made her gold freckles stand out dark on her cheekbones. Her mother, always tantalizing, fended her off. “You’ll muss it, Helena!” she chided, slowly folding the paper. In the midst of her concern, it struck Helena as peculiar that Mrs. Davison did not appear to be as shocked as she should have been; rather, her attitude was, if that were possible, one of comfortable and dignified alarm. “I’ll read it out to you,” Mrs. Davison said. “Here it is, on page five. And there’s a picture too. These newspaper photographs are so
blurry
.” Helena put her small sandy head next to her mother’s large grey one, her cheek grazing the hairnet that restrained Mrs. Davison’s “puffs.” “I don’t see where you mean,” she said, her eye running apprehensively down the headlines, which all concerned labor disputes. “There!” said her mother. “‘Guests Walk Out in Waiters’ Strike, Two Held.’” Helena’s teeth caught her lip; she gulped down her astonishment and sank onto a footstool, prepared to listen to her mother’s reading. “I don’t know, Helena, whether you’re aware that a group of waiters has been striking in some of the leading New York hotels. Daddy and I have been interested because of the Savoy Plaza. Daddy’s breakfast waiter told him, only last week—” “Please, Mother,” Helena interrupted. “Let’s hear about Harald.” Thereupon, Mrs. Davison commenced to read, with her customary stresses and pauses:

“The striking waiters at the Hotel Carlton Cavendish received support last night from an unexpected quarter. A sympathy strike of guests led by Putman Blake, publicist, 24, was staged in the candlelit Rose Room while the band played. The striking guests wore evening dress and included, besides Mr. Blake, who was taken to the East 51st Street station house, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, and other literary celebrities. The signal for the walkout was a speech by Mr. Blake, urging the seated guests to demonstrate in sympathy with the waiters, whose union was picketing outside the hotel. Service was disrupted for three-quarters of an hour. Mr. Blake was charged with disorderly conduct on a complaint by Frank Hart, assistant manager of the Carlton Cavendish; also held on disorderly conduct charges was Harald Petersen, 27, a playwright. Both men, appearing in night court, were released in temporary bail of $25 each. Mr. Blake told reporters that he and Mr. Petersen intended to prefer charges against Mr. Hart and two house detectives employed by the Carlton Cavendish Corporation, who, he said, had ‘roughed them up’ and attempted to hold them prisoners in the hotel basement. Mr. Petersen charged that brass knuckles were used. Mr. Blake asserted that he and his party were exercising their rights in leaving the Rose Room when they discovered that they were to be served by non-union waiters, and that Mr. Hart and the two detectives had acted to restrain them from leaving peaceably. Mr. Hart stated that the ‘group of troublemakers’ had ordered drinks and other refreshments and left without paying. Mr. Blake and Mr. Petersen denied this; all their party, they said, which consisted of about thirty persons, scattered at individual tables in the luxurious, newly decorated Rose Room, had left ‘adequate compensation’ for the beverages they had consumed before embarking on the walkout; they had, however, refrained from tipping. It was possible, Mr. Blake added, that other guests had quitted the dining room without paying, in the confusion that ensued when he and Mr. Petersen were allegedly attacked by a ‘flying squad’ of non-union waiters and detectives. In night court, Mr. Blake and Mr. Petersen were accompanied by their wives, smartly dressed in evening gowns, and by a group of friends in silk hats and tail coats. Their trial will be held March 23. The ‘strikers,’ it was said, included a number of Vassar girls. A similar walkout was staged a few weeks ago at the lunch hour in the Hotel Algonquin, led by Heywood Broun, newspaper columnist. On that occasion, no arrests were made.”

“My word!” said Helena. “Do you suppose Kay’s in the picture? Let’s see!” The photograph showed a milling scene in the hotel dining room; a table and some chairs had been overturned. But unfortunately, as Mrs. Davison said, it was blurry. They could not find Kay, but they thought they spotted Harald, pale and shadowy in a dinner jacket, an arm raised aloft as a corps of waiters bore down on him. While her mother searched for Dorothy Parker (“She was convent-bred, Helena; did you know that?”), Helena identified Norine, in the center of the picture, facing the camera, wearing what appeared to be a low white satin evening dress and a jeweled tiara, as though she were in a box at the opera; she had on long white gloves, presumably
glacé
kid, with the hands rolled back over her wrists. A small inset showed Putnam as he was arraigned in night court; it was hard to tell whether the print was smudged or whether he had a black eye; he was dressed in a tail coat, apparently, but his white tie was missing.

Mrs. Davison laid down the paper. “That big photo shows you, Helena,” she observed trenchantly, “that the whole affair was
staged
.” “Of course it was staged, Mother,” retorted Helena impatiently. “That was the point. To get publicity for the waiters’ grievances.” “It was
engineered
, Helena,” said her mother. “They must have tipped off the newspaper to send a camera-man. Yet that Putnam Blake says in his statement that they left ‘when they
discovered
that they were to be served by non-union waiters.’ Notice the inconsistency.” “That’s only
pro forma
, Mother. Probably his lawyers advised him to say that. Otherwise, he might be charged with conspiracy or something. It’s not meant, really, to fool anybody.” “I’m going to call Daddy at the office,” said Mrs. Davison. “He may have missed the story. It’s just as his breakfast waiter at the Savoy Plaza told him; outside elements have got hold of the waiters and are
manipulating
them. I’m afraid Harald may be in for some very serious trouble. Letting himself be a party to a charade like that. Do you think you should put in a call for Kay?” Helena shook her head. She did not want to talk to Kay with her mother standing by. “Not now,” she said. “She’ll be at work, Mother.” “Well, at least,” returned Mrs. Davison, “they didn’t put her in the paper. And Petersen is a common name. It’s a wonder to me, by the bye, that the
Times
spelled it correctly. We can only hope that Macy’s doesn’t find out about this; I should hate to have Kay lose her position.”

She rose to go to the telephone, which was on a table in the corner. “Run along now,” she said, “while I talk to Daddy.” Mrs. Davison’s communications with Davy Davison, even on the most trivial matters, always took place
in camera
. In a little while, Helena was summoned back. “Daddy knows about it already. He’s sent out for today’s edition. If it’s come yet. And for yesterday’s
Tribune
and the yellow press. Daddy wonders whether the New York office could help Harald out of this scrape. Find him a reputable lawyer. Who is this Putnam Blake? I never heard Harald speak of him. Neither has Daddy.” She spoke in tones of mild affront; Helena did not remind her that she had not seen Harald for many months. “He went to Williams,” she said patiently. “He and another boy run an organization called Common Causes—to help raise money for the ‘forgotten man’ in labor cases. He’s married to Norine Schmittlapp, in our class. She’s the one in the tiara and long gloves. She was always leading demonstrations at college.” “Exactly,” said Mrs. Davison. “I knew it! ‘
Cherchez la femme
,’ I said to Davy Davison. ‘You mark my words; you’ll find there’s a woman behind this.’” Helena was taken aback by her mother’s astuteness. “What do you mean, exactly, Mother?” she inquired cautiously.

Mrs. Davison patted her hairnet. “I said to your father that what this fracas reminded me of was the old suffragette demonstrations. Chaining themselves to lampposts, and that young woman, Inez Something Something, Vassar she was too, who rode a white horse down Fifth Avenue to demonstrate for the vote. Dressed to kill. It was all in the papers then, when you were a baby. They were very fond of getting themselves arrested. Your father would never let me take part in those shenanigans. Though there were many fine women—Mrs. McConnaughey and Mrs. Perkin, right here in Cleveland—who were active in the movement.” These two friends of Mrs. Davison’s, one a Smith woman, the other a Wellesley woman, figured frequently in her conversation and had loomed over Helena’s childhood like secular patron saints. Mrs. Davison sighed. “But those suffragette shindigs were all staged too,” she added in a more vigorous and cheerful voice, as though mastering her regrets. “With the press invited ahead of time. No, as soon as I saw that article”—she picked up the
Times
and tapped it significantly—“I said to myself: ‘No man ever planned this.’” “But why?” asked Helena. “No grown-up man,” said her mother, “will ever put on a tuxedo unless a woman makes him. No man, whatever his politics, Helena, is going to put on a tuxedo to go out and sympathy-strike, or whatever they call it, unless some artful woman is egging him on. To get her picture in the paper. Don’t tell me Harald did this for Putnam Blake’s blue eyes. No; she’s probably got Putnam Blake and Harald wound round her little finger. That tiara now—probably she wanted to wear that. And those gloves. It’s a marvel to me she didn’t have an ostrich-feather fan.” Helena laughed and patted her mother’s plump arm. “Why, you’d think, Helena,” Mrs. Davison continued umbrageously but clearly feeling herself to be in “good vein,” “she was in the receiving line at some charity ball. I’ll wager she bought the whole outfit for the occasion. Or did she find it in her grandmother’s trunk?” Helena laughed again; she could not help marveling at her mother’s inductive powers. “A publicity hound,” said Mrs. Davison, administering a final tap to the paper. “What was her field at college?” “English,” said Helena. “She did her main work for Miss Lockwood. Contemporary Press.” Mrs. Davison smote her forehead. “Oh, my prophetic soul!” she said, nodding.

Seven

I
N NEW YORK TWO
nights before (the story Mrs. Davison read had been reprinted from the previous day’s late edition), Hatton, the Protheros’ English butler, in his royal-purple wadded dressing gown of Chinese embroidered silk with
moiré
lapels, had been seated in a wing chair in his bedroom on the top floor of the Prothero town house, reading the
Herald Tribune
, his radio set turned on. He was smoking a pipe, and his feet, in silk socks and red leather slippers, were resting on a footstool. The dressing gown, the slippers, the wing chair, the radio set—all of Hatton’s costume and stage properties, except the pipe he was smoking—had been passed on to him by Mr. Prothero, a mature sporty fashion plate of Hatton’s age and build. Hatton was somewhat taller, more dignified, and less purple in the face; one of the footmen had overheard the Vassar young ladies, Miss Mary’s classmates, declare that the butler looked like Henry James, an American novelist and London diner-out, it seemed, who had moved in the best circles—facts that Hatton himself had unearthed on his day out, in the reference room of the Society Library, not trusting the chauffeur, who exchanged Mrs. Prothero’s crime story, picked for her every Friday by the head librarian, to do the job properly. (Mr. Prothero’s library, as Hatton observed to the younger footman, was more what you might call a gentleman’s library; it contained chiefly sporting books—histories of the thoroughbred, stud and yachting registers, memoirs of turf and field, bound in morocco and calfskin—and some volumes of pornography in dummy cases.)

The newspaper Hatton was conning had been glanced at by Mr. Prothero this morning and turned over to the butler in almost mint condition, like the dressing gown and the slippers, which scarcely showed signs of wear. Hatton, in fact, was a sort of double or slightly enlarged replica version of Mr. Prothero, and he was not displeased by this, feeling himself to be, on the whole, an improvement on his American master: Mr. Prothero’s suits showed to better advantage on him because of his greater height; he enjoyed his evening read of the newspaper more than Mr. Prothero did the morning’s brief, bloodshot stare at the stock-market pages. When valeting Mr. Prothero, he could not help seeing him sometimes, as he flicked the brush over his shoulders and adjusted the handkerchief in his pocket, as a sort of tailor’s dummy in relation to himself—a mere padded form of wire and cloth on which clothes and other accoutrements were tried in rough stitching by a fitter for the “man” who was their real and final destination. Mr. Prothero, you might even say, broke in his shoes for him. He not only succeeded to Mr. Prothero’s wardrobe, his chair, newspaper, and radio set, practically as good as new; he “stood in” for Mr. Prothero in household emergencies, such as fire alarms, for Mrs. Prothero, a huge, “delicate” lady, soft as a plump bolster or sofa cushion, had a great fear of fire, and Hatton, trained by her to “smell smoke,” often led the family and the footmen and the maids downstairs to safety in the middle of the night, while Mr. Prothero slept. To meet Hatton, like a big wattled purple bird, in the corridors or on the stairways of the tall house late at night (Mrs. Prothero also had a fear of “prowlers”) had often confused Miss Mary’s house guests, coming back from a ball somewhat the worse for champagne; Hatton was aware of the fact that, seeing him without his livery, they took him for Mr. Prothero, whom they might have met during the evening in an identical dressing gown helping himself from the decanter of whisky in the library. Hatton himself was a total abstainer.