Aurora Dawn (5 page)

“Well, I hardly blame her for disclaiming the resemblance to Woodrow Wilson,” said English. “Still, I think I see what you
mean about her eyes.” Whereupon he availed himself of the opportunity to gaze so deeply into the fair Honey’s orbs, that the
girl felt no more blood could possibly crowd its way into her face.

“Of course, just look at them,” said Mrs. Beaton (which suggestion was superfluous). “Reverend Beaton and I had decided before
she was born to name her Woodrow; but wouldn’t you know, she came along and fooled us,” she added with an arch giggle.

“This conversation is embarrassing me very much,” protested Laura truthfully, but not looking terribly displeased, as she
sipped her wine.

“Well, you two young people had just better run along then,” replied Mrs. Beaton with mock severity. “I’m sure Mr. English
has other ideas than to sit around all night talking to an old lady. Although it was very thoughtful to pay me a visit,” she
said, glancing demurely at the guest.

“I am thoroughly enjoying myself,” he returned, emptying his glass and settling back on the sofa. “Tell me more about Laura,
Mrs. Beaton. Was she a pretty baby?”

“Well,” began the mother, drawing a long breath, “you won’t believe it, but for the first two months she was ugly as a monkey.
Dear me, I’ll never forget her Uncle Tom saying–” But here she was interrupted by Laura, who jumped to her feet, exclaiming,
“We
had
better go. I am not going to agonize through the stories of my childhood.”

English rose with her. “Some other time, I’d like to hear what Uncle Tom said,” he smiled at Mrs. Beaton. “Thank you for the
wine. I’m glad Laura brought me up for a moment.”

“Do come again,” said the mother, as English helped Laura with her coat and then donned his own. “You have no idea how seldom
I have visitors. I don’t know anybody in New York, and Laura almost never brings anyone here. Oh, a girl friend occasionally,
but she’s such a homebody she usually prefers just to set with her old mother; of course I like it that way myself. As for
young men, she simply never lets them cross the threshold. I can’t remember when I’ve seen one–well, I’m sorry you must go,”
she broke off, seeing Laura pull open the front door with noisy haste. “Good-by, Mr. English. Good-by, dear.”

“Good-by, Mother,” said Laura, with a wrathful overtone that escaped English but not her fond parent. English graciously repeated
his thanks and Mrs. Beaton her invitation; and the door closed on the young people.

In silence they rode down the elevator, walked out into the street and stepped into a heavy Cadillac limousine. English gave
the chauffeur the name of a little French restaurant built on the New Jersey palisades; the car nosed its way through the
downtown traffic until it reached the Henry Hudson Parkway, then it moved smoothly along the black river strung with lights.
Neither had spoken a word for perhaps ten minutes when Honey suddenly turned and looked at the reposeful English with determination.
That gentleman was apparently deriving great pleasure from the spectacle of the George Washington Bridge, flung across the
gorge of the Hudson like a great cobweb spangled with luminous dew.

“Mr. English.” He turned eyes of genial inquiry upon her. “Why did you ask me to bring you up to meet my mother?”

English smiled at her, a pleasant smile conveying no information at all. “I don’t know,” he said. Then, as he saw her look
vexed: “I liked her very much, and I like you. I’m delighted that we’re having dinner together.” And he looked at her in such
an entirely friendly manner that Honey’s mistrust subsided. She nestled back in the cushions and gave herself up to the beauty
of the drive. The vision of Andy flashed upon her mind, but she was not tuned to a mood of self-reproach. She argued impatiently
to herself that it was inconceivable for her to do anything untrue to Andy; and since she was doing this, it followed that
there was nothing wrong with it. The vision of Andy did not look particularly satisfied with the line of reasoning, but nevertheless
faded quickly.

Philosophers, ancient and modern, unite in disparagement of the character of woman. This has not materially lessened the popularity
of the sex through the ages. Women, on the other hand, have had very little to say against philosophers–or for them, to be
sure. In fact, except in rare instances beyond the aid of the cosmetic art, women under forty generally pay no attention whatever
to philosophers. This may shed some small light on the nature of philosophic opinion concerning them. Be that as it may, the
author recounts with a heavy heart the spectacle of a girl like Laura, really a heroine of rare simplicity and virtue in a
modern novel, beginning to behave in consonance with all the wry apothegms on womankind. Let us quickly return to our hero,
and see if he is doing anything that may retrieve the situation.

Satisfying the reader’s curiosity in some respects

but provoking it in others, and introducing

that remarkable character,

Father Calvin Stanfield, the Faithful Shepherd.

A
URORA
D
AWN!

The time has come, reader, for you to know the meaning of the title of this true and moral tale, and at the same time to learn
the secret of Andrew Reale’s mission to the Fold of the Faithful Shepherd. Learn, then, that “Aurora Dawn” was the name of
a soap; a pink, pleasant-smelling article distributed throughout the land and modestly advertised as the “fastest-selling”
soap in America. Whether this meant that sales were transacted more rapidly with Aurora Dawn soap than with any other, the
customer snatching it out of the druggist’s hand with impolite haste, flinging down a coin and dashing from the store, or
whether the slogan was trying to say that its sales were increasing more quickly than the sales of any other cleansing bar;
this is not known. Advertising has restored an Elizabethan elasticity to our drying English prose, often sacrificing explicitness
for rich color.

Andrew’s purpose was nothing less than to bring Father Stanfield and his Fold of the Faithful Shepherd on a nationwide radio
program to make the fastest-selling soap in America sell even faster, Andrew was not employed by the soap company, but by
the Republic Broadcasting Company, a vast free enterprise rivaled only by the United States Broadcasting System, another private
property. These two huge corporations monopolized the radio facilities of the land in a state of healthy competition with
each other, and drew their lifeblood from rich advertising fees which assured the public an uninterrupted flow of entertainment
by the highest priced comedians, jazz singers, musicians, news analysts, and vaudeville novelties in the land–a gratifying
contrast to the dreary round of classical music and educational programs which gave government-owned radio chains such a dowdy
reputation in other countries. This is not to imply that the ingredient of culture was lacking in the American radio brew;
for, in addition to exquisite opera and symphonic music broadcast on weekend afternoons–surveys having proved that more people
listened at night, this time was naturally reserved for paying customers like coffee and toothpaste companies–there were numerous
programs engendered and paid for by the radio companies themselves, called “sustainers,” and having no other purpose than
the uplifting of the nation’s cultural tone. These bore such titles as “The American Forum,” “You Can Love Music,” “The Half
Hour of Immortals,” “Philosopher’s Round Table,” “God Behind the News,” and so forth; occasionally, to everyone’s surprise,
one of these items gathered such a popular following that it attained commercial sponsorship, thus making culture useful as
well as cultural.

Andrew was in the sales department of the Republic Broadcasting Company, and his job was to see that cordiality was maintained
between the sponsors who paid such large sums for radio time, the network which gave them its gargantuan technical facilities
in return, and the advertising agencies which acted as middlemen. He was assigned the supervision of several programs and
kept a watchful eye on the hothouse blossom of personal relations in each of them, moistening and fertilizing as necessary.
The requirements of his task were nine parts likableness to one part intelligence; if a young man began to exceed the proportion
in favor of intelligence he was on his way to dismissal or an executive post, depending on how well his superiors enjoyed
his company.

Andrew’s affability and discretion, his expert golf game (which he had acquired, together with a high regard for the privileges
of wealth, in years of caddying at the Colorado Springs course), his engaging smile, and a lucky capacity for swallowing large
amounts of hard liquor without visible change in his manner, had endeared him to the powerful head of his department, the
sales manager, Wilhelm Van Wirt. This chunkily built, hard-drinking gentleman, who spent his waking hours in alternation between
gracious submission to the eccentricities of sponsors and heavy tyranny over his office force, suddenly conceived a deep,
sentimental liking for Andy and took every means to be close with him. Starting with occasional lunches together, their intimacy
broadened to include weekends at Van Wirt’s home in Nutley, New Jersey, in company with his nervous, overdressed wife and
a bulbously unattractive daughter of thirteen. Gradually dropping caution, the sales manager admitted Andy to the inner recesses
of his life by making him a companion at the expensive and extremely private parties he occasionally arranged for the pleasure
of certain clients who expected such hospitality as an informal rebate on large contracts.

The author, who is concealing nothing in this truthful narrative except the operation of his hero’s stream of consciousness,
is forced to admit that Andrew did not hold himself aloof from the questionable merriment, and indeed derived an extraordinary
excitement and pleasure from this first encounter with the snaring luxuries of this world. I groan to tell you of the pretty
but careless girls with whom he formed passing connections entirely unredeemed by spiritual values, and of the gallons of
European wines and mellow whiskies which passed down his healthy throat with ease. There must be among my readers well-reared
young men in their early twenties who have not despised instruction, who have avoided these pitfalls, and who have the sense
to he horrified at these revelations. Let them close the book at once and pick up something more advanced and profitable–Pascal’s
Pensées
, or the poetry of Milton–they have no need of the simple moral which this story will teach.

–An informal rebate on large contracts–

Things were at this stage when Mr. Talmadge Marquis, president of the company which manufactured Aurora Dawn toilet products
and easily the most peculiar curmudgeon of all Van Wirt’s whimsical clients, conceived the brilliant notion of putting Father
Calvin Stanfield on a commercial program. Stanfield was just then acquiring notoriety in professional radio circles by dint
of having cut down the popularity of the colossal Ziff Soup Jamboree four and five-tenths percent in the West Virginia area.
The Jamboree, including among its stars a movie hero, a stage heroine, a Metropolitan opera singer, and a burlesque comedian,
as well as two miscellaneous guest stars each week, had so blanketed the hour from nine to ten on Saturday night for USBS,
that the rival RBC had been unable to sell the time to any sponsor, and had given the hour back to its chain stations to fill
in as best they could with cultural sustainers. Many of these local broadcasters, obliged to maintain a steady flow of intelligible
sound during the hour at their own expense, had turned in their difficulty to religion, enhancing their credit in the community
and padding the hour full of talk and music fairly cheaply–not very sparkling stuff, to be sure, but then they were reasonably
certain that nobody was listening.

Father Stanfield had surprised everyone in the radio business. The managers of the RBC station in Wheeling knew little about
him except that he was a lay preacher who ran a sort of community farm in the back hills of West Virginia and held revival
meetings every Saturday night. After a brief survey of the field they offered him the time, and he accepted it willingly.
They counted on an innocuous hour of revival singing and preaching, but they were unaware of the main feature of Father Stanfield’s
personal brand of religion, which was regular public confession by the sinners of the community. These were not necessarily
members of the Fold: anybody who felt the need of cleansing his soul could come to Father Stanfield, tell his story, and request
the privilege of standing up at his revival meeting to unburden his sins. A colorful ceremony attended the confession period
which took up the last half hour of Stanfield’s broadcast. On the left side of the raised platform of the Tabernacle sat the
penitent sinners on low wooden stools, clad in gray sackcloth robes. One by one they came to the microphone and narrated their
transgressions, and when they had concluded with the proper words of repentance Father Stanfield pronounced them pardoned
and exchanged the sackcloth robes for snowy silken ones, whereupon they seated themselves on the right side of the stage on
a gilt, plush-upholstered pew, while the congregation burst into a hymn of praise and joy.