Theophilus North (11 page)

You can imagine my surprise when on leaving she approached me with extended hand and said: “You are Mr. North, I believe. I've long wanted to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Edward Darley.—Might I sit down for a moment?”

She took her time, seating herself, her eyes resting on mine in happy recognition of something. I remembered hearing that the first thing a young actress is taught in dramatic school is to sit down without lowering her eyes.

“Perhaps you might know me better under my
nom de plume
. I am Flora Deland.”

I had lived a sheltered academic life. I was one of the meager thirty million Americans who had never heard of Flora Deland. Most of the others in this thirty million had never been taught to read anything. I made appreciative noises, however.

“Are you enjoying life in Newport, Mr. North?”

“Yes—very much indeed.”

“You certainly
do
get about! You are everywhere—reading aloud to Dr. Bosworth all those fascinating things about Bishop Berkeley; and reading the
Fables
of La Fontaine with the Skeel gairl. What a learned man you must be at your age! And so very clever, too—I mean resourceful. The way you managed the foolish elopement of Diana Bell—think of that! Diana is a sort of cousin of mine through the Haverlys. Such a headstrong gairl. It must have been perfectly marvelous the way you persuaded her not to make a fool of herself. Do tell me
how
you did it.”

Now I have never been a handsome man. All I've got is what was bequeathed to me by my ancestors, together with that Scottish jaw and those Wisconsin teeth. Elegant women have never crossed a room to strike up an acquaintance with me. I wondered what was behind these amiabilities—then, suddenly, it struck me: Flora Deland was a smearer, a newspaper chatterbox. With her I was in the Eighth City—the parasitic camp-followers.

I said, “Mrs. Darley—how do you like to be called, ma'am?”

“Oh, call me Miss Deland,” adding lightly, “You may call me Flora—I'm a working woman.”

“Flora, I have not a word to say about Miss Bell. I have given my promise.”

“Oh, Mr. North, I didn't mean for
publication!
I'm simply interested in cleverness and resourcefulness. I like people who use their wits. I'm a frustrated novelist, I suppose. Do let's say that we're friends. May we?” I nodded. “I lead a whole other life that has nothing to do with the newspapers. I have a cottage at Narragansett Pier where I love to entertain at the weekend. I have a guest cottage and can put you up. We all need a change from time to time, don't we?” She rose and again extended her hand. “Can I call you up at the Y.M.C.A.?”

“Yes . . . yes.”

“And what may I call you—Theophilus?”

“Teddie. I prefer being called Teddie.”

“You must tell me about Dr. Bosworth and Bishop Berkeley, Teddie. What a household that is at the ‘Nine Gables'! Goodbye again, Teddie, and do accept an invitation to come to my dear little ‘Sandpiper' for swimming and tennis and cards.”

A working girl with a hundred and twenty million readers and a figure like Nita Naldi's and a speaking voice of smoked velvet like Ethel Barrymore's. . . . Oh, my Journal!

This was not a matter to submit to Mrs. Cranston. This was for a man among men. “Henry,” I said, as we were chalking our cues at Herman's, “who are some of the smearers that hang around town?”

“Funny, you asked me that,” he said and went on with the game. When we'd finished the set he beckoned me to the remotest table and ordered our usual.

“Funny, you asked me that. I saw Flora Deland on the street yesterday.”

“Who's she?”

In all barbershops and billiard parlors there are tables and shelves bearing old and new reading matter for the customers to glance at while waiting to be called. Henry went to a pile and unerringly pulled out the Sunday supplement of a Boston paper. He opened it and spread it wide before me: “
NEW YORK JUDGE BLAMES MOTHERS FOR INCREASING DIVORCE RATE AMONG THE FOUR HUNDRED
,
By our special correspondent Flora Deland
.”

I read it. Terrible situation. No names mentioned; certain hints that would be clearer to more experienced readers than myself.

“Cowboy,” he continued (Henry presumed that Wisconsin was in the center of the Wild West), “Flora Deland comes from the oldest and most respected families of New York and Newport. None of that railroad and mining stuff—the real Old Guard. Related to everybody. Very high-spirited—‘fast,' like they say. Made a few mistakes. It's all right to break up a family or two, but don't break up a family where the money's broken up, too. She ran out of her allowance of
pardonable
mistakes. Got a man disinherited. Flora's relations wouldn't see her. Are you following me, old cully? What's the poor girl to do? Can't even borrow money from Aunt Henrietta. She'd 'ad it. So she takes to pen and paper; becomes a smearer—real stuff from the inside. Like . . . like . . . many wives overspend their allowance; don't dare tell their husbands; where do you pawn your diamond tiara? In Wisconsin they eat it up. Now the stuff she writes under the name of Deland is fairly under control; but
we
know that she writes under other names too. She's got a feature called ‘What Suzanne Whispered to Me,' signed ‘Belinda.' Makes your eyes pop. Must make a lot of money, one way or another. Goes on lecture tours, too; ‘A Newport Girlhood.' Funny stories about how we're all monkeys here.”

“Does she spend the whole summer in Newport, Henry?”

“Where'd she go? The La Forge Cottages wouldn't consider it. The Muenchinger-King makes it a rule—or says it's a rule—that no guest can stay over three nights. She has a place at Narragansett Pier. The Pier is livelier than Newport—better beaches, younger set, better hideaways, clubs where you can play—all that.”

“Where does she get her information from?”

“Nobody knows. Probably has plants—nurses in hospitals, for example. Patients will talk. Lots of talk goes on in beauty parlors. Servants, almost never.”

“Is she beautiful, Henry?”

“Beautiful? Beautiful! She's got a face like a horse.”

My invitation to visit “The Sandpiper” came through. Saturday for dinner until Monday morning: “I have plenty of swimsuits for you here. You'd only need one in the day. We often go in
au naturel
at midnight to cool off.” To freeze, I suppose; the New England waters are not even tolerable until August.

I was going on the trip to enlist Flora Deland in my
PLAN
relative to the Wyckoff House; Flora Deland had invited me because she wished to obtain some information from me. I foresaw some form of negotiation. I had a service to ask of her. I did not take seriously the possibility that there might be a little romancing involved; I had never been in that kind of business with a woman almost fifteen years older than myself, but as the old hymn says: “Where duty call or danger, Be never lacking there.”

It was on my mind that I wished to get off the island with my bicycle without being observed by the police and others. Luck came to my aid. As I waited at the first of the two ferry slips (in those days it required two ferry rides to get to Narragansett, as the reader may recall) I heard my name called from a standing car.

“Herr North!”

“Herr Baron!”

“Can I carry you anywhere? I'm going to Narragansett Pier.”

“So am I. Have you room for my bicycle, too?”

“Naturally.”

This was the Baron Egon Bodo von Stams whom I had met many times at the Casino and who used to enjoy conversations in my enthusiastic hit-and-miss German. He was known as “Bodo” to everyone except Bill Wentworth and myself. He was an attaché at the Austrian Embassy in Washington on early leave for his second summer at Newport; a house-guest of the Venables at “Surf Point,” even in the absence of the owners. He was the most likable fellow in the world. Two years older than I, endowed with a forthrightness and candor that approached naïveté. I climbed in and we shook hands.

He said, “I've been invited for the weekend by Miss Flora Deland—do you know her?”

“I've been invited there too.”

“That's fine! I didn't know who I'd meet there.”

We talked of this and that. On the second ferry boat, I asked: “Where did you meet Miss Deland,
Herr Baron?
”

He laughed. “Well, she came up to me and introduced herself at that bazaar for crippled children at the church on Spring Street.”

I held my tongue for half an hour. When we approached the driveway of our hostess's cottage I said, “
Herr Baron
, stop the car a moment. I want to be sure that you understand where you're going.”

He stopped the car and looked at me questioningly.

“You are a diplomat and a diplomat should always know exactly what is going on around him. What do you know about Miss Deland and what she's interested in?”

“Why, nothing much, old man” (Bodo had been to Eton), “but that she's a cousin of the Venables and she's a writer, too—novels and things like that.”

I paused, then said, “The Venables haven't asked her to their house for at least fifteen years. They might be deeply offended if they knew you had visited hers. She was born into their class and circle; but she lost it. Do not ask me how; I don't know. She earns her living by writing thousands of words every week about what is called ‘society.' Have you such journalists in Vienna?”

“Oh, in politics we have! They are very rude.”

“Well, Miss Deland is very rude about the private lives of men and women.”

“Will she write rude things about me?”

“I think not, but she will say that you were a guest in her home and that will give an air of authenticity to stories she tells about other people—the Venables, for instance.”

“But that is terrible! . . . Thank you, thank you for telling me. I think I should drop you at her house and go back to Newport and telephone her that I have the influenza.”

“
Herr Baron
, I think that would be wise. You represent your country.”

He turned about in his seat and said to me directly: “Then why do
you
come to her house? If what she does is as bad as that, why do
you
come here?”

“Oh,
Herr Baron
—”

“Don't call me
Herr Baron!
Call me Bodo. If you are kind enough to open my eyes to this mistake, you can be kind enough to call me Bodo.”

“Thank you. I shall call you Bodo
only
in this car. I am an employee at the Casino. I am a schoolmaster on a bicycle who gets paid by the hour.”

“But we are in
America
, Theophilus. (What a beautiful name that is!) Here everybody calls everybody else by their given names after five minutes.”

“No, we are not in America. We are in a little extraterritorial province that is more class-conscious than Versailles.”

He laughed, then again solemnly asked, “Why are
you
here?”

“Well, I'll tell you another time.” I pointed to the house before us. “This is a part of Newport's
demimonde
. Miss Deland is what you would call a
déclassée
. She has been ostracized, but during the summer all she thinks about is Newport—her Paradise Lost. I do not know what other guests will be at her house tonight, but the outcasts huddle together, just as you toffs do.”

“I'm coming with you. I don't care what she writes about me.” He started the engine, but I stopped him.

“I am interested in Flora Deland. She is a real pariah. She knows that she's engaged in a degrading business, but she has a kind of bravery about it. Do you think she's beautiful?”

“Very beautiful. She's like a Flemish ivory madonna. We own one. Theophilus, damn it, I've got to see this, too. You're quite right: I live in a little arena, like a dancing horse. I ought to know some outcasts too. If the Venables hear about it, I'll apologize to them. I'll apologize to them before they hear about it. I'll say I'm a foreigner and I didn't know any better.”

“But, Bodo, your ambassador might hear about it. Tonight the guests will certainly get drunk; they'll break glass. Anything might happen. Flora intimated that we all might go swimming
mutter-nackt
. The neighbors would report it and the police would haul us off to the hoosegow. That would be a black mark for you,
Herr Baron
—Bodo, I mean.”

He sat silent a minute. “But I've got to see it. Theophilus, let me come to dinner. Then I'll tell her I'm expecting a call from Washington and must return to Newport.”

“All right, tell her the minute you go in the door. On Saturday night the last ferry boat leaves at twelve.”

He slapped my back joyously.
“Du bist ein ganzer Kerl! Vorwärts.”

“The Sandpiper” was a pretty little seaside cottage from one's grandmother's time—Gothic gingerbread scrollwork, pointed window frames—a jewel. A butler directed us to the guest house where a maid welcomed us and showed us to our rooms. Bodo whistled: silver-backed hairbrushes, kimonos and Japanese sandals for bathing. Toulouse-Lautrec posters on the walls, copies of the
Social Register
and
The Great Gatsby
on the bedside tables. The maid said, “Cocktails at seven, sirs.”

He appeared at the door. “Theophilus—”

“
Herr Baron
, just because we are where we are I want to be called Mr. North. What is it you want to know?”

“Tell me again whom we may be meeting at dinner.”

“Some Newport men install their mistresses over here for the summer—let's hope there'll be one or two of them. There'll be no jewel thieves, but there may be some detectives who've been placed here by insurance companies to catch them. There are always some young men about who are trying to get one foot in the door of ‘society'—fortune hunters, in other words.”