And he truly
hadn’t
done it for selfish reasons. He had already made so much money through Sheila Sargent that he wouldn’t have cared if she stopped writing altogether. He had done it because he loved Sheila and because he loved her children and because he thought the award would make her happy. Mr. Malvern planned his strategy for just a second and then he began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Peter asked.
“You know, Johnson,” Malvern said, “I ought to be mad at you. But I’m not. I have no idea just what kind of a woman
you’re expecting. But whatever it is, you’re wrong. You just don’t
know Sheila.”
“I’ve read enough of her stuff.”
“Then you should be able to tell that she’s intelligent, that she’s honest and that she’s a lady.” Johnson grimaced; here was Society again. “She’s made herself one of the most beloved women in the country. She’s raised two children all by herself and she’s raised them beautifully. Her daughter Allison is coming out this year. . . .”
“That’s some achievement!”
“And, as you know, Dicky has published his first novel at twenty.”
“Maybe coming out
is
better.”
“But things like being a famous woman and winning honors like Mother of the Year aren’t important to Sheila. She’s a real person and a real mother.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“Oh—and Johnson—you won’t mention this Mother of the Year thing. It’s too bad Floodie had to spill the beans. But nobody knows it. Not even Sheila’s children. She’s saving the banquet as a surprise for them. Of course you can say all you want about it in your article, since it won’t be on the stands until after the announcement. But. . . .”
He heard the front door slam.
“Howard?” Sheila called. “Did you think I’d never get here?”
Sheila burst into the room with a kind of luminosity that quite floored Peter. “Howard,” she said. “I’m
so
sorry. I wanted to get home in time to do the Sowers. But I had to go down to Evans-
ton to perform at this enormous ladies’ luncheon. You know-
sweetbreads in butterscotch sauce and minty little avocado baskets filled with marshmallow fluff; Madam Chairman, gavel
and all. Well, I guess I couldn’t have been
too
bad. They kept me standing on my poor feet answering questions until
almost
four o’clock. I’m so hoarse I can hardly croak. Then I got waylaid at the door by this poor woman with the most awful problems, to
hear her tell it. And then we got stuck in the traffic which was a blessing, in a way, because just sitting there and fuming, my eye caught this divine dress that’s the kind of blue only Allison can wear.” She stopped for breath and saw Taylor standing in the hall with her packages. “Oh, Taylor, just dump those things out in the hall. And thank you so much. It’s been quite day for both of us. Then, Howard, by the time I’d bought that, I lost Taylor and the car because the police made him move on. And . . . well, anyhow, here I am. And I’m
dying
for a drink!”
Quite an entrance speech, Peter thought, as he stood uncomfortably.
Malvern crossed the room and kissed Sheila. It was exactly the same sort of kiss he had delivered to her on meeting and parting ever since he had kissed her as a bride at her wedding and as far as he’d ever dared to go. But now he felt that he shouldn’t have done it. Not with this inhuman Johnson in the room. What would Johnson think?
Oh, God, Johnson thought, the chaste greeting of the chosen few. He had known effete little groups in New York who were forever exchanging sexless kisses at parties, on the street, in theater lobbies and restaurants. He often wondered why they didn’t rub noses or share in secret handclasps instead of these brother-to-sister busses.
“Sheila, my dear,” Malvern said, “here’s the man who’s going to expose you all over the next issue of
Worldwide Weekly.
May I present Mr. Peter Johnson?”
“How do you do, Mr. Johnson,” Sheila said, giving him a
firm handshake.
Johnson was surprised. Johnson thought she might expect him to kiss her, too. I guess I’m just not in the Right Set, he said to himself. “How do you do,” he said.
“I do hope someone was here to do the honors when you got here. But then I suppose it’s only right that you should see us in our usual state of squalor and confusion.”
“Oh,
here
you are, Mrs. Sargent.” Mrs. Flood staggered into the room unsteadily bearing a tray loaded with beer bottles.
“Floodie! You look just like Miss Rheingold. What are you doing with all that beer?”
“Mr. Johnson thought he’d like beer. I
do
hope it’s cold enough.”
“And a splendid idea, Mr. Johnson,” Sheila said. “I think I’ll join you. Although I probably shouldn’t,” she added, smoothing a waist that was as slim as a girl’s.
Angry at not being angry with this show woman, this professional hostess and blatant charmer, Peter got to work with the beer.
“
Where are the children, Floodie?” Sheila asked.
“Dicky’s out in his studio working and Allison is upstairs dressing.”
“Oh, dear. Floodie,
would
you be an angel and fetch poor
Dicky out of the tool shed? He’ll get sick again working so hard.
And don’t take No for an answer. Tell him it’s five o’clock and the office is closing for the day.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Sargent,” Mrs. Flood said, bustling out through the garden doors.
“Beer all right, Mr. Johnson? We keep it mostly for the children’s friends. If you prefer some other brand, I can always order it at. . . .”
“It’s fine. Just fine. Th-thank you,” Peter said.
Then Sheila noticed Peter’s suitcase standing out in the hall. “Good heavens, Mr. Johnson,” she said, “hasn’t anyone even
shown you to your room? You
must
think we’re odd.” She pressed
a bell.
Here comes the fourth footman, I suppose, Johnson thought,
but not with very much conviction. Taylor reappeared in a white
houseman’s jacket—no plum knee breeches, no powdered hair, none of the things Johnson wanted to hate about this woman and her household,
“I’ll ask Taylor to take your bag right up in case you want to wash up or change before dinner.”
“Oh,” Johnson said triumphantly. “Do we dress for dinner here? If so, I’m out of luck. I don’t happen to own a. . . .”
“Of course we don’t,” Sheila said matter-of-factly. “I think Allison may look rather diaphanous this evening because she’s going to a dance. Otherwise we’re just like anybody else. Oh, Taylor,” she said, “would you take Mr. Johnson’s bag up and show him his room? Mr. Johnson, I’m putting you in the masculine—or
quiet—
end of the house. Your bathroom is to the left
as you go in and there’s a sort of little sitting room to the right.
That is, if you don’t mind sharing the sitting room with my son. He’s hardly ever in it. And if there’s anything you want and you don’t see, please ask for it.”
“Th-thank you. I’ll be right down,” Johnson said.
“Yes, do hurry so we can have another beer together. Meanwhile, I’ll try to round up my offspring for you.”
XIII.
Still feeling a little belligerent and cross because he had no valid reason to do so, Peter followed the Sargent’s houseman up
a wide, curving stairway and along the considerable length of a
broad upstairs hall. No porphyry, no gilt, no malachite were in evidence to outrage him. There were some faintly formal looking chairs, a couple of chests he guessed, correctly, to be some sort of American Chippendale, a series of Piranesi engravings all framed alike and quite a lot of flowers.
I wonder if I’m supposed to toss Uncle Tom here a quarter, Peter asked himself. He knew that he was not.
Taylor turned to the right and started down another corridor almost as long. It featured a campaign chest, a pair of Adam
chairs, a set of gouaches and a lot more flowers. “Christ, I’ll need
a ball of yarn to find my way back to the Minotaur,” Peter muttered.
“That’s right, sir,” Taylor said affably. “Miz Sargent put you ‘way back here, next to Mr. Dicky.” He opened a door at the end of the hall and stood aside waiting for Peter to enter. There seemed little else to do but to enter. Taylor put the suitcase on a luggage rack, opened the door to the bathroom and the door to the sitting room and bowed his way out.
Peter had hoped that the bedroom would be sybaritically decadent—all satin and flounces and swags—so that he could
loathe it. It was not. It was Empire, but not aggressively Empire,
the furniture obviously old and carefully tended. That gave
Peter the fleeting hope that Sheila Sargent might he one of the niggardly rich—rich because she’d never parted with her first
nickel. The wish was stillborn. Try as he would, he could find no
fault with his quarters. It was a big, four-square room ideal for
a visiting bachelor. Peter prodded the bed, a massive mahogany
affair, longer and wider than most, its mattress yielding but firm.
The table beside it held a large lamp, a large ashtray, cigarettes,
matches, three recent books—two of which Peter had been meaning to read—some more or less male-directed magazines, a carafe of ice water and a telephone with an on-and-off switch. A glossy
chest of drawers, surmounted by a huge mirror, offered up all the
things a man could possibly need—comb, nail file, shoe horn, hand glass, brushes for head and clothing—plus a lot of things he would never need—button hook, powder box, scent bottle, pin tray—in gleaming silver. The drawers did not stick and they smelled good. A massive desk was stocked with pen, pencils, ink and letter paper engraved with the address and telephone number of the house. An easy chair with ottoman was placed
between a window and a table with another no-nonsense lamp, ashtray, cigarette box, lighter and some more reading material.
Other niceties were a fireplace, a bull’s-eye looking glass, a very
silent and deadly accurate clock, three bowls of flowers and an Aubusson bell-pull. Peter looked for some ancestral portraits to
despise. There were none. What he found, instead, were some fairly comical tinted engravings of London in the early nineteenth century. The rug he decided, with a certain satisfaction, was kind of old. It was. It was a Savonnerie of the Charles X period.
Displeasure now became almost an ambition for Peter. With an eagle eye for any needless extravagance or for any miserly defect he marched into
the
bathroom, hoping for a tap that
dripped, a toilet that gurgled or—failing that—everything alabaster with solid gold faucets. He was disappointed again. It was just about like his own bathroom back home in London Terrace but bigger and a lot cleaner than his daily woman usually left it. There were towels in three sizes, an electric razor,
a first aid kit, aspirin, mouthwash, dental floss, a new toothbrush
in a glass cylinder and a small tube of toothpaste. Peter was grateful for this last item, having used up his last quarter inch that morning and forgotten to buy more at the airport.
Snapping open his suitcase, Peter hoped that there would be no closet or that it would be small and crammed with somebody’s summer clothes. A light went on when he opened the
door. The closet was large and empty, fitted out with shelves,
drawers, shoe racks and shirt trays. A laundry hamper and fittings
for six hats were built in, Peter’s two suits and extra jacket
looked lost and forlorn hanging there alone. A glimpse at himself
in the three-way mirror and Peter decided that he possibly could do with a new suit, that this one looked pretty crummy, what with traveling all day, and that he might just change into the blue for dinner. His shirt seemed a little grimy, too.
Then he said, “What the hell, I might just as well take a shower and even try out that electric razor.”
After all, social conscience or no social conscience, there was no point in being downright offensive.
XIV.
J. Howard Malvern sat down on the sofa next to Sheila and took her hand clumsily. “You know I love you very, uh, much, don’t you?”
“Dear Howard,” Sheila said. Her worst enemy—not that she had an enemy—couldn’t have accused Sheila of lacking poise, but she always felt her composure crumbling in the presence of Malvern. Sheila didn’t know exactly when Malvern’s role had switched from Old Family Friend, the “Uncle” Howard who
administered the estate, advised on stocks and bonds, took the
children off to circuses and suitable matinees, to inarticulate beau. The change had been so gradual, so subtle, that Sheila had not recognized it—at least not in time to put a stop to it. Howard was now a permanent fixture. He took her out an
evening or two every week; whenever she gave a dinner party—
which was often—Howard invariably played host; people who had once dug up dashing extra men to escort the fabulous Sheila Sargent to their parties, now relaxed and just invited old Howard. They were getting to be treated like a couple. It would be only a matter of time, Sheila knew, before Howard got up enough courage to ask her to marry him and she supposed that she would say Yes. Howard was a habit, but a habit that made her rather uncomfortable.
“
Well, Mr. Malvern,” she said brightly.
“
Well?”
“
Well, I must say that you’ve been neglecting me dreadfully. I haven’t seen you for more than a week.”
“Sheila, darling, I’ve been busy.”
“I see. Too busy for we?”
“Busy
with
you! Setting up all the details for this Mother of the Year Award. . . .”
“Oh, that!”
“Thinking about your television show. Getting you even wider
syndication for next year. This cover story for
Worldwide. . . .
”
“Worldwide
indeed! Trashy little smart-aleck so-called news magazine. I’d just as soon be on the cover of the
Police Gazette.
I wonder if that talented portrait artist of yours might not paint me all bosoms and a rhinestone g-string.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Sheila.
Worldwide
may be trash to you but it’s gospel to four million subscribers fifty-two weeks a year.”
“Don’t I have more readers than that, Howard?”
“Many more, but it’s not quite the same thing. That’s why I brought this Johnson out here myself.”
“And why is that?”
“I wanted to speak to you about him. I don’t like the way he’s going at this story. He’s come out here loaded for bear. He sounds like a Communist to me.”
“Dear Howard!” Sheila laughed. “A Communist! And
you
sound like a newspaper publishers’ convention. He’s just a writer of the Surly School. It’s fashionable nowadays.”
“Well, I still don’t like his attitude. It’s downright belligerent. And that’s why I want to warn you, my dear. Be very, very careful with him.”
“Careful?”
“Very careful about what you tell him.”
“Tell him?
Can you mention one thing about my life—any one
incident—that couldn’t be printed on the front page of every newspaper in America?”
“There’s us.”
“
What about us?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be especially pleasant—or especially good—
for either of us to have our, ahem, relationship raked over the coals.”
“Howard Malvern, you’re too priceless.” Sheila laughed and hugged him. “In the first place, you and I do not have any
ahem,
relationship.
In the second place, we are middle-aged people, I’ve
been a widow for fifteen years and you’ve been divorced for more than twenty. I hardly think it’s an outrage to the public morality if you take me to the Cape Cod Room for a plate of scallops now and then. The readers of
Worldwide
seem to be far more interested in how large my income is; whether I pick my teeth at dinner parties; how much I spend for my underwear and what size it is. You know—important facts.”
“Still the same old Sheila,” Malvern said, squeezing her awkwardly. “But remember, this boy’s bearing a grudge of some sort. Turn on the charm. I know you can do it.”
“Of course I can do it. Any fool can. But I’m not going to.”
“Sheila! This could mean. . . .”
“I’ve never tried to kid myself or anyone else, Howard, and I’m too old to start now. I’ll treat this sullen Mr. Johnson just
as I’d treat any other guest in my house. If he likes me, fine. If he
doesn’t, then he can write whatever he. . . .”
“Floodie said you wanted me, Mother,” Dicky said, entering from the garden. “Oh, hello, Uncle Howard.” With a monumental effort, Dicky had endured the stinging cold shower,
downed the black coffee. He was feeling a little better—not much,
but a little. His ears rang slightly from the large dosage of Ritalin.
“Dicky, I haven’t seen you all day. Now what have you written this afternoon besides
Tom Jones, Vanity Fair, The Brothers
Karamazov
and
Les Miserables?”
She threw her arms around him. “Darling, your hair’s all wet.”
“I just combed it,” Dicky said.
“There’s a good, neat boy. Kiss Mother. Hmmm, You’ve been
wolfing peppermints out there. Just like your father. Howard, do you remember how Big Dick used to lock himself into that room over the garage with about ten dollars’ worth of penny candy? So what did you do with chapter three, darling?”
“Nothing. Not a mumbling word. I just sat there staring at the pad.”
“What’s the matter?” Malvern said. “Muse not courting you today?”
“Not today or any other day. I can’t write and I know it. And you know it and Mother knows it and. . . .”
“Dicky!” Sheila said. “Honestly, darling, if I closed my eyes just then I’d have sworn it was your father talking. Do you remember, Howard, how every time Richard would start in on a big article or a book or something really important like that he’d say exactly the same thing. And then, bang! Out would come another Pulitzer Prize.”
“But he really could write and I can’t. It’s no use, Mother, I. . . .”
“Dicky, dear, you’re tired. Tomorrow I’ll come out to the tool shed and we’ll put our heads together and see if we can’t. . . .”
“Good God,” Malvern said, “I almost forgot. Here’s an advance
proof of the Chicago Trie’s best seller list for Sunday. Just look
where your book is, Dicky.”
Sheila snatched it from him. “Howard, you dog! You’ve been
sitting here all this time and didn’t even tell me! Oh, Dicky, just look. Number Five.
Bitter Laughter
by Richard Sargent, junior.
Isn’t that tremendous! Your hook not even out for a week and already ‘way up on the best seller list.”
Dicky, whose grasp on reality was tenuous at best, took the proof and shook his head. “I—I cant believe it,” he said. “Is—is there a review as well?”
“Uh, they didn’t say,” Malvern said uneasily. “They just sent
this one clipping around.” Mr. Malvern had been worrying about
ten or fifteen far more important matters that morning when his secretary Miss Roseberry had been on the telephone to Miss Goodwin at the Chicago
Tribune,
Miss Roseberry was quite a talker and, over the years, Mr. Malvern had acquired the knack of tuning her out while seeming to listen. In that way each could pursue a favorite pastime: he could go right on worrying while Miss Roseberry went right on talking. But now, in the light of Peter Johnson’s appraisal of
Bitter Laughter,
Malvern dimly recalled Miss Roseberry’s quoting something to the effect that if the
Trihune
couldn’t say something nice about a Chicago Sargent, it preferred to say nothing at all. “I’ll call Robert Cromie at the
Trib
tomorrow and find out. And here, as a matter of fact, is a proof of the
Weekend Bookworm.
Very favorable notice, I’d say. They gave you a full column.”
“Oh, read it, Dicky,” Sheila said.
With unsteady hands, Dicky took the large, smudgy proof sheet. “ ‘Brilliant Novel of Prep School Life, Reviewed by Shelley Sands.’ Who is Shelley Sands?”
“Why,” Malvern commenced, “she’s a . . . .”
“He’s a very famous critic,” Sheila said quickly. “I’m surprised
you’ve never heard of him. You know—
The New Republic
and all of those highbrow magazines. But
read
it.”
“’Bitter Laughter,’”
Dicky read, “’a first novel by Richard Sargent, junior, son of the late correspondent and Pulitzer Prize
winner, is one of the most sensitive, penetrating pieces of writing
to have reached this reviewer’s desk in many a moon.’ He doesn’t
sound
very highbrow.”
“Dicky, get on with it,” Sheila said tensely.
“ ‘The story concerns an intelligent, well-bred youngster from
Chicago’s North Shore and his struggles to find himself in an Eastern preparatory school of the. . .’ “
“Dicky, I know what the book’s about,” Sheila said. “Get on with the actual criticism. You know, the adjectives.”
“Okay. Fifteen-year-old Roger Ross. . .’ Blah, blah, blah. ‘Seeking, to find his identity in an alien milieu . . .’ Blah, blah, blah. ‘Homosexual French teacher . . . Blah, blah, blah. Vivid account of a weekend in a seedy Boston hotel. . .’ He certainly doesn’t miss any of the details. In fact he seems to. . . .”
“Here,” Sheila said, snatching the sheet from him. “Let me. Ah. ‘Deftly and delicately, young Mr. Sargent dissects his char
acters, stripping them of every last pretense and conceit. Blessed
with a sharp eye for situation and setting, a keen ear for dialogue and dialect, Sargent is that
rara avis. . . .”
“That
what?”
Malvern said.
“That’s Latin for Rare Bird, Uncle Howard. Quite the cliché expert this Shelley Sands.”
“Be still,” Sheila said. “’. . . that
rara avis
the
born
writer.’ Well! ‘If Mr. Sargent isn’t the most promising writer of the decade, this reviewer will cheerfully eat all the first first novels of this year.’ “
“He’s safe there,” Dicky said.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Sheila said, turning the proof sheet.
“Was there . . . I mean, is there more?” Malvern asked.
“Yes,” Dicky said. “Are there any more bromides? Something
he’s overlooked?”
“Well,” Sheila said, her composure somehow deserting her. “That was, I mean I. . . well, it seems so sort of chopped off. You know. It seems to stop in mid-air.”
“Perhaps it had to be cut in the interests of space, Sheila,” Malvern said pointedly. “Heheheh. Lot of books being published around this time of year, I suppose.”
“
Yes,” Sheila said darkly. “Perhaps someone did cut it. Ra-ther
injudiciously. But anyhow,” she said on a gayer note, “it’s a rave review. Oh, Dicky, aren’t you pleased? Nobody ever gave one of my books a review like that. Here, take it upstairs and show Allison. And I know that Floodie will be thrilled. Oh, and get tidied up for dinner, darling. Remember, we are not alone.”
“Oh. That magazine reporter. Well, I’d better be very literary.”
“No, darling, just be yourself. That’s the nicest thing he could possibly hope for. Hurry now.”
Dicky left the room and Sheila waited silently until she heard his tread on the stairs. “Howard,” she said, “about that review in the
Weekend Bookworm,
I distinctly remember. . . .” She stopped. Bertha was standing in the doorway. “Yes, Bertha?”
“This afternoon’s
Daily News
is here, Mrs. Sargent,” Bertha said, producing the newspaper from under her apron. “I think
there’s something maybe you’ll want to see on the book page.”
“Mr. Dicky’s book?”
“Yessum.”
Feverishly Sheila riffled through the pages until she came to the book review. Malvern watched her as she read. He noticed her lips settle into a thin, grim line.
“Not good, Sheila?”
“Damn him,” Sheila said. “Of all the brutal, vicious, unfair. . . . Just who the hell does he think he. . . .”
“He’s considered to be a very distinguished critic, Sheila.”
“I don’t give a damn what he’s considered to be. Any man
who’ll take a young boy’s first book and. . . .” She ripped the
review out of the paper and put it in her desk drawer. “I’ll deal with this later. It’s something I don’t want Dicky to see. He’s
in no frame of mind for this sort of attack. Do you have a match,
Howard?” She crumpled the rest of the newspaper, stuffed it into the fireplace and touched a match to it. With a whoosh the Chicago
Daily News
went up in flames. “Don’t say anything
about this, please, Howard. Dicky’s so vague he won’t even think
of asking.”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Bloody
Daily News!”
Sheila growled. “When I think of the meals Frank Knox has eaten right here in my dining room. If Dick were here he’d go down there with a horsewhip and. . . .”
“Sheila! Colonel Knox didn’t write that review. He’s been dead since. . .”
“Shh.”
“Then you must be the man from
Worldwide,”
Allison was saying. “I’m Allison Sargent.”
“How do you do,” Peter said from somewhere out in the hall. “My name is Peter Johnson.”
“Oh, we’re right in here,” Sheila called gaily, “Come in and let Mother look at you.”
Allison came into the room with Peter. She was wearing a yellow evening dress and she’d done something becoming with
her hair. Johnson himself was considerably spruced up.
“Hello, Mother. Uncle Howard.” She kissed them both.
“Allison!” Sheila said, “How lovely you look. I see that you and Mr. Johnson have met.”
“
Well, on to the ball, Cinderella?” Malvern said. “Which Prince Charming has the honor this evening?”
“Nobody very exciting, Uncle Howard. Just plain old Billy
Kennedy.”