The Late Clara Beame (5 page)

She knew she was making a fool of herself. Henry was embarrassed; she could tell by the way he sipped rapidly at his drink. And then, in the silence, she saw David and John Carr exchange a swift glance. It was like a flash between them, an alert signal. They knew each other! She was positive of it. Feeling the silence growing heavier, she spoke in a higher voice: “I know you all think I’m silly, or something. But I do remember faces. Alice. David. Haven’t you seen John Carr somewhere before?”

“Not I,” Alice said, her voice expressing her distaste for Laura’s outburst.

“David?”

“Well, Laura, as our friend has said, you’ll see thousands just like him, and us, on every street in any city. The molded-plastic type. Almost invisible.”

“Laura,” Henry cautioned her in a low voice, and she blushed again. I’m embarrassing him, she thought miserably.

“Please forgive me,” she apologized. “I probably know someone who looks like John. Dinner’s ready. I hear Edith banging the bell very hard.”

They could hear the storm during Mrs. Daley’s excellent dinner, but Laura was, in spite of her uneasiness, pleased that Alice appeared to be enjoying the roast beef and red wine. Alice’s interest in John Carr seemed to be increasing and although she had never exhibited any particular fondness for Henry before, smiled at him occasionally and even told a joke which had ribald overtones.

John sat at Laura’s right. She couldn’t help wondering why he was lying about their having met. And, he knew David. She couldn’t forget the sharp glance they had exchanged.

She tried to become interested in the conversation. Alice was speaking, controlled and precise. “I have to go to publishers’ cocktail parties. You have no idea how weird writers are, John.”

“I went to one, once,” John told them. “About three years ago. I never knew that so many people could be jammed into one place at one time. You couldn’t lift your arm to drink. You won’t believe it, but I found myself drinking out of someone else’s glass. Hundreds of people. But the lady writer was the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, almost. They gave away enamel cigarette cases with her profile on them. What did she write, that sold so fabulously?”

“I know!” Alice exclaimed. “
Hidden Secret!
That was Janice Entrett. Were you really there? David and I were, too.” She turned to Laura. “And so were you and Henry. Don’t you remember?”

Laura was relieved, and laughed delightedly. “So, John, that’s where we met!”

“We couldn’t have,” John said, shaking his head solemnly. “Nobody met anybody. It was just a mob scene.”

“We were there, all right,” Henry said, critically examining a slice of meat meant for David. “I wore my best gray flannel suit, and the sleeve was ripped out. Sam was there, too. How did we all get to be invited, anyway?”

Alice was serious now. “I’d sent a sketch for a book jacket, to my agent in New York. It was a prize contest. I’d given up my profession, if you’ll be kind enough to call it that, when Sam and I were married, and we moved to Chicago. But then I saw the notice about the book jacket in the New York
Times
. I had nothing to lose, so I designed one. There was a synopsis, very coy, about the book, and its fascinating heroine. Jade, I think she was called. I sent my entry, and though it didn’t get the first prize, it did get the second. Two hundred dollars. And an invitation to meet the adorable author, Janice Entrett, all expenses paid for two in New York, for three days. There was a lot of publicity. Sam insisted we accept, and we did.” Alice looked down at her plate, remembering. “He was so happy and excited.”

Laura found herself thinking, “I’ve never given much thought to whether or not Alice loved Sam. But, of course, she did.”

“I still have the cigarette case, somewhere,” John told them.

“What were you doing there?” Alice asked him.

“Well, a friend of mine had an invitation, and he took me along. I wanted to see the sweet uses of publicity at first hand, just to see if I’d like it. I did.”

“Too bad,” David said. “What was your racket before advertising?”

“You wouldn’t believe it, considering that I was graduated from the Harvard School of Business Administration, but I sold race horses.”

“Oh, no!” Laura was enchanted. “I thought only Hollywood Southerners did that, in the movies.”

“Sometimes Hollywood isn’t too far off,” John smiled at her over his wine glass. “I honestly did sell race horses. My own, in fact. Nothing on a big scale. Not the kind that make the big derbys; just the harness races. Nice, jogging, half-witted horses, with absolutely no character. I felt like a murderer. I have a soft heart. I knew where they’d finally end up. But dogs have to eat, too.”

“No more meat for me,” Alice said, laughing. “Not after that.”

“It took me all over the country. I know every hamlet, village, town and city in the hinterlands.”

“Where was your farm?” Henry wanted to know.

“You won’t believe this either,” John answered. “It was in Maine. Not far from Portland. And had a mortgage as big as a house. I finally sold it just to get rid of the mortgage. It had the original name of Horse Fair.”

“What were you doing so far from Baltimore?” David inquired.

John sighed. “I know you’ll think I’m making this up, but I won the horse farm at poker. After I came out of the Navy. Or, rather, the very day I was demobilized. The captain owned it, and I won it from him. I’ve had an eventful life.”

“Wonderful as a background for the advertising business,” David added.

At that moment the lights blinked on and off, and then went off with a complete finality. Only the candles illuminated the big, walnut-paneled dining room, and glimmered on the old tapestry that hung over the immense mahogany buffet. As if by prearranged signal, the thundering of the storm came closer, and the rumbling furnaces halted. There were annoyed cries from the kitchen.

“That does it,” Henry told them. “We’ve had it.”

“Just like old times,” Alice said. “We’ll probably be living in blankets for days now. Not only that, but we’ll be snowbound. This house is three miles from the main road, on its own private road. Do you still have a plow, Hank?”

“Yes, but it’s not big enough to do a three-mile job. Don’t worry, Alice. We have freezers. . . .” He stopped. “I forgot. The freezers will be off, too. There’s nothing for it but that Evelyn and I will have to take up a lot of the meat and things and put them in the woodshed. No later than tomorrow morning. Any volunteers?”

“You mean this can go on for days?” John Carr sounded surprised. “No electricity?”

“It went on for two weeks one time,” Alice said. “You remember, Laura. But we weren’t so dependent on the utilities as we are now.”

“Alice is teasing you.” Laura smiled at John’s dismay. “Just as soon as the storm stops, the electricity people will be out putting up the lines again. After all, we don’t live too far from the village. Henry, don’t you think you should call?”

“I will.” He went into the hall to telephone.

“You never did put in an auxiliary system, did you,” Alice pointed out accusingly.

“Well, no. It didn’t seem necessary. This is the first time the lines have been down for a long while. They always got around to putting them up again, usually in just a few hours. It isn’t as it was when we were children, Alice.”

Henry returned gloomily. “I should have thought about it. The phone’s gone, too.”

“Yes, indeed,” Alice reiterated. “It isn’t as it was when we were children.”

Her rudeness caused a sudden hiatus in the dining room. The words had been nothing, but the tone had been contemptuous and insulting. Laura rose. “Let’s have our coffee in the living room.” She hurried out, and Henry, raising his eyebrows, followed with Alice.

David and John Carr found themselves alone. “That was close,” David muttered.

“Not too close. It was a good thing I was at that damned party, though,” John said. “But let’s be more careful; keep it impersonal. He’ll check, of course. He’s that kind. All lawyers are.”

“Alice came in at just the right time, almost as if she had been coached,” David recalled. “I thought of letting her in on all this, but it’s better if she doesn’t know about you. As for Frazier, the phone’s down, and he’s not going any place.”

“Which adds complications,” John Carr commented. “Because neither are we.”

Later, when they were in their bedroom, Henry said to Laura: “It wasn’t like you, honey, to be so persistent about having seen that Carr somewhere before. You almost called him a liar when he said he’d never met you.”

“I don’t like mysteries, darling, and there didn’t seem to be any reason why he should refuse to acknowledge we’d met. But it’s all settled now. We met him at that party, in spite of the crush. I never forget a face.”

The old stone house was still warm. Tomorrow it would begin to chill rapidly. The oil lamps were being reserved for downstairs, as long as there was kerosene, and Laura was creaming her pretty face by the soft candlelight. Her bright hair curled about her head like a halo, and her lovely figure was swathed in yards of filmy material. Henry put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her reflection in the mirror. “You look like a Christmas angel.”

“Not tomorrow night,” she laughed, her dark eyes full of love. “I’ll be wearing flannel pajamas, and so will you.”

There had been such a scarcity of love in her life, she mused. There had been gruff old Aunt Clara, and finally Henry. One at a time. Never two or three together. Only one at a time. Perhaps, if God were good to her, there would be children, several of them, a ring of tenderness about her, protecting her.

“Henry, don’t ever leave me,” she murmured, with an intensity that surprised her husband.

“Why should I?” he asked indulgently. “I’m strong and healthy. I’ll be here for days, never out of your sight. You mustn’t get morbid.” He sat on the edge of the double bed, lit a cigarette, and then asked: “Are you sure it was at that cocktail party that we met Carr? I know you pride yourself on your photographic memory. But I was watching you. You looked as if you were about to burst out in recognition. Were you introduced to him? I can’t remember any formal introductions at all.”

Laura frowned in the mirror. “Everybody introduced himself to everybody else, if there was time. He probably did, too. Hundreds of people.”

“But he didn’t remember you, himself. And nobody could forget you, darling.”

“Oh, you,” Laura said fondly. “But there were scores of other pretty women there; Alice, for instance. Yet he’d never seen her before, according to them both.”

But Henry was not satisfied. When Laura was asleep beside him, and all was silence except for the creaking of the old house and the moaning of the wind, he went over his own knowledge of John Carr. He had had lunch over two weeks before, in a restaurant he very seldom patronized, but which was a favorite of old Bancroft’s. Mr. Bancroft was sitting at his usual table, talking seriously with a man whom Henry had never seen before. Henry merely glanced at them both; as a junior partner, he had no intention of intruding on a senior partner who was never very cordial with his juniors at the best of times. The two men glanced at the menu tacked to the wall. In the mirror above it, Mr. Bancroft noticed Henry waiting for a table. Henry saw the old man hesitate, and politely looked away. He was just about to leave when the headwaiter came to tell him that Mr. Bancroft had suggested he join him at his table. Henry went at once.

“Henry,” Mr. Bancroft said in his powerful voice, “this is a new client of ours, John Carr. At least, I hope he’ll be. What will you have to drink?”

Henry, ever tactful, saw that the others were not ordering a second drink, so he refused, and noted that Mr. Bancroft was pleased. “We’re having the lentil soup and sauerbraten. How about you, Henry?” Henry hated sauerbraten, but as a junior in the firm he ordered heartily, “Same here.”

During the meal Mr. Bancroft explained that John Carr wanted the firm to look over proposed partnership papers. “I’m not satisfied with the fourth page and its provisions,” he said. His pale eyes suddenly became intent. “Henry, you handle that sort of thing well. How about you taking over? John, Henry’s up to all the tricks of other lawyers. I’m not. Want Henry to handle it?”

John Carr hesitated. He studied Henry, a man of his own age. “Well, if you’d rather have it that way, Mr. Bancroft.”

Mr. Bancroft’s wrinkled cheeks had colored slightly. “I’ve merely suggested it. If you’d rather I did — after all, you came to me, yourself, on recommendation — I’ll go ahead.”

John Carr had said nothing; he had looked offended, Henry remembered, and Mr. Bancroft changed the subject.

A few days later Mr. Bancroft had come down with influenza, and John Carr was assigned to young Hunt, Henry’s junior. Hunt had come to Henry. “I’m not familiar with all this about partnerships,” he had confessed. “I’m just creeping around in the dark. How about your taking over that guy Carr?”

“I don’t think he likes me,” Henry told him.

Young Hunt had grinned. “So I heard. Carr wants the papers rushed through before the end of the year. Probably a tax matter, too. At this rate, I won’t be finished for another year. How about it?”

“Why don’t you ask Carr?”

“I wanted to get your reaction first.”

“All right. If he agrees.”

Apparently he had not agreed immediately. It was two days before Henry saw him again, and he seemed to think Bancroft’s illness had been specially designed to thwart him. “If you don’t have confidence in my ability, you can go somewhere else,” Henry had pointed out, annoyed. “There are other concerns.”

Then John Carr had smiled. “I’m sorry. Old Bancroft knew my father, and I don’t know any other lawyers in New York. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

It had been as simple as that. Henry recalled every incident. Nothing at all out of the way. But why should there have been? He wouldn’t have given it another thought if Laura hadn’t been so insistent tonight, plus his own feeling that he had seen the man before.

Henry leaned on his elbow and looked at his sleeping wife.

Laura was dreaming. Her first sensation was of overwhelming fear. She dreamed she was standing on the threshold of the house in the dark winter night. Suddenly she heard Aunt Clara crying, “Run, run! Run as fast as you can, lovey! Hurry!”

The door was open behind her, and she saw someone standing there, someone who wanted to kill her. She couldn’t move. She screamed again and again in horror.

“Laura! Wake up, wake up!” Henry was shaking her, and she could hear his voice. But she could not drag herself immediately out of the dream world. She woke to find her husband standing over her, his hand on her mouth.

“You’ll wake up the whole house, Laura. You’ve had a nightmare! My God, your screams!”

She clung to him, shivering, unable to control herself. “I thought someone was in the house, trying to kill me! I dreamed Aunt Clara was telling me to run away! It was so real!”

“Hush, hush.” Henry held her tightly in his arms. “I’m here, darling. It was just a dream.”

But she had aroused at least part of the household. Alice had opened her door and crept into the hall to listen at the Fraziers’ door. There was silence again after Henry had calmed his wife, but Alice had heard every word. As she turned to go back to her room, she saw the door to John Carr’s room closing slowly.

She frowned, and then quickly ran to her brother as David’s door opened, pushing him forcibly into his room. “No. No light,” she whispered. “I’ve got to tell you something. Laura feels something. You were right, after all. You know, I never believed in that extrasensory perception thing, but I’ve got to admit that if there is such a thing, our little Laura has it. She always had. She used to make me creepy at times.”

“She just feels it,” David said, “she doesn’t know it. I’m sure of that. Have a cigarette.” They smoked for a moment.