Love & Mrs. Sargent (13 page)

III.

It was just a quarter of nine when the wetter chords of George
Frederick Handel’s “Water Music,” emanating from station WFMT in Chicago, awakened Allison. She listened for a moment, decided that years of
The Messiah
had put her off Handel forever, turned off the clock-radio and got out of bed.

Allison could have done with a few hours’ more sleep. It had been after three when she got home last night. Breakfast at the Sargents’ was served punctually at nine and it was served down in the dining room. Only sickness or Sunday provided any excuse for lolling about in bed. Allison
could
have remained in her room until noon, however, ringing for a tray whenever she felt the desire for one. As this was her Year Out, the year when she would be at parties and dances nearly every night, Sheila had pardoned Allison from the strict regimen she set for Dicky and herself. Still, with a reporter living in the house, Allison felt that it was the part of wisdom to show up for meals, to back Mother up when she needed the support of her children. And also Allison would have felt guilty about sleeping an extra minute because last night had been devoted to pleasure and not to the business of being a debutante.

Yesterday had been perfect. Allison had spent almost every minute of it up here in her room working. Working? Well, no. Having fun. Right after breakfast she had got out her battered
old box of water colors and whiled away the day doing illustrations for an imaginary children’s book. Allison was a no-nonsense painter, fast but fastidious, fanciful but faithful to the shapes and sizes of life around her. And her sense of color was
considerable. By the time she had finished there was just time to
dress and drive into town for dinner.

And dinner had been wonderful. Well, actually, it had been
frightful—undercooked spaghetti in overcooked sauce with some
rather stale Italian bread and acid chianti. But it was a welcome change from the scrambled eggs and sausages, the chicken hash
served at other girls’ dances. Allison’s host—you could hardly call
him a beau—was a boy she had met three years ago at a Saturday art class Sheila had permitted her to attend as an alternative to pigging sodas and sitting through trashy double features. Sheila had been very kind about Allison’s artwork, tepidly encouraging, politely receptive to the instructors who raved about the girl’s talent. “They are, after all,” Sheila had said tactfully, “interested in the tuition as well as your talent. But,” as Sheila often pointed out, “art is hardly a career for anyone—least of all a female. You can count on the fingers of one hand
the famous women painters of history: Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun,
Rosa Bonheur—if you could count
her
at all—Mary Cassatt, Marie Laurencin . . . well, you don’t even
need
a whole hand.”

Some of the things Allison had done at Roycemore and at
the Saturday classes had been exceptionally lovely, Sheila had
readily admitted, and to prove it she had even had some of the better examples framed and hung in her dressing room. “Every married woman,” Sheila said, “needs an Outside Interest and Allison’s Gift will prove both absorbing and useful when she is running a home of her own—pastels of her children, murals for their nursery, a knowledge of interior decoration, amusing and
original Christmas cards . . . well, the possibilities are endless.”
Mother was probably right, she always was, but Allison just couldn’t help taking her work a little more seriously.

Yesterday Allison had dressed in a rush, crammed her water-
colors into a manila envelope and raced down to the Ontario Street studio of her friend from the art classes. As a man or an artist he did not attract Allison. He was short, pimply and probably homosexual. He eked out a tiny living by teaching lettering at a commercial art school three days each week. The remaining four days and nights were spent in pitching great globs at huge canvases with a Johnny Mop and calling the finished results things like
Etude Troisieme, Brown Study
and
Silent Tears.
His sales—and, Allison suspected, his talent—were nil, but at least his conversation and his friends were stimulating.

There had been two other guests. One, a large-nosed, rather grumpy drama student at the Goodman Theatre who had resented Allison as being better looking, better dressed, better mannered and better heeled than she was. The girl had been intensely interested in The Method and talked a lot about
feeling
Candida. The other had been a mousy man in his fifties
unforgettably named Gustave G. Gustave. Allison hadn’t asked what the G. was for. Mr. Gustave, it had developed, ran a large
art studio in New York, known as “my stable,” in which a room
ful of young artists turned out everything from portraits and
murals to truss ads and religious chromos at astonishingly high
prices. Magazine illustrations, book jackets, greeting cards, fash
ion sketches, catalogues, drawings for every known kind of
commercial product—anything was grist for the mill of Gustave
G. Gustave and Staff.

Most flattering of all, Mr. Gustave had taken a real interest in Allison—and not the kind of interest Billy Kennedy took,
either. He had looked at her watercolors, admired them, pointed
out what was good and what was bad. She had driven him back to his hotel and he had casually inquired as to Allison’s future plans. She had been too embarrassed to tell him that her immediate schedule included a dance tonight, some kind of dinner
Mother had got involved in on Friday, a lunch for provisional
members of the Junior League, a cocktail party and peddling programs at a charity ball on Saturday. Even so Mr. Gustave had thrust his card at her when he said good night.

Yes, even with the spaghetti and the young actress feeling Candida, last night had been fun. Allison felt she could almost endure Billy Kennedy and the Chicago Season if she could have
a night like yesterday’s just once a week. She picked up the card
from her dressing table. There it was:

GUSTAVE G. GUSTAVE & STAFF
COMPLETE ART SERVICE
1333
Second Avenue
BUtterfield 8-4848 New York 21

“Wouldn’t it be fun?” Allison said. Then she put the card down again. Of course the whole notion was too silly for words.

IV.

Dicky bolted down the rest of his coffee, crumbled half a piece of toast onto his plate so that it would look as though he had eaten some breakfast. If Mother wasn’t always urging him
to eat more, Mrs. Flood was. Dicky figured that if he’d had five
dollars for every time he’d heard Mrs. Flood describe her father and what he’d gourmandized every morning he’d be financially fixed for life. The only thing good about breakfasting with Mrs. Flood is that he didn’t have to say anything more than “Good morning” and “Excuse me.” Mrs. Flood filled in all the conversation that came in between, expecting not even so much as
an “Oh, really?” a “You don’t say?” a “Do tell!” Mother always
talked about
him,
and that required both concentration and co-operation.

He could tell by the approaching footsteps that it was Mrs. Flood. This morning she was wearing the Lake Forest Uniform—a shirtwaist dress, pearls, the cashmere cardigan Allison had given her last Christmas and Sensible Heels. Dicky rose. “Good morning,” he said, pulling out her chair.

“Good morning Dicky oh thank you dear my but you look well this morning really rested I must say that I have just the teeny-tiniest little bit of a hangover today really a beautiful dinner party last night at my dear old friends the McGraws surely you know their house the big Norman one down in the ravine in Hubbard Woods millions my dear really rolling in money I’m so glad for poor Carol McGraw when we were girls
her people had nothing very nice and all that but I mean penniless well she’s really hit it big now and I for one am delighted it was a small dinner and I really like that so much better just the Benjamin Curtises she was a Wells and a very attractive business associate of Harvey’s from Minneapolis married of course I don’t mean to say that he was a beau of mine or anything like that I was just helping dear Carol to fill out the table I mean that’s what the old friends are for isn’t it but a very nice man all the same well first we had some delicious caviar the big gray kind that I love so in the drawing room and some excellent smoked salmon but it does give me such a thirst good morning Taylor just my usual please and then Carol has done her dining room over in the most heavenly shade of. . .”

Dicky glanced surreptitiously at the front page of the
Chicago
Tribune.
There was a colored cartoon about egg heads and a headline about an ax murder in Waukegan.

“. . . and the most delicious quail that Carol’s sister sent her from her estate in Aiken she married very well too I’m so glad for both of them because they were darling girls even if they were poor as churchmice and then endive salad and for dessert the most exquisite creme brûlée you know how I love it and that
reminds me Dicky you really should eat more goodness you don’t
eat enough to keep a bird alive thank you Taylor I remember my father Mr. Otis he was a great big man six foot tall two hundred pounds and he always said a man couldn’t do a day’s honest work if he cheated his stomach at breakfast isn’t that amusing well we had this big house down on Drexel Boulevard with the dining room on the garden the lot was two hundred
and fifty feet deep so you can imagine the size of the lawn out in
back for a town house well that lawn was my father’s pride and joy just like green velvet and every morning my father pulled
back the curtains so he could see his golf links that’s what he called it and he’d start out with a whole grapefruit and then a big bowl of hot porridge no matter whether it was winter or summer and then two eggs usually fried but sometimes baked or poached we were the first family on Drexel Boulevard ever
to serve baked eggs people thought we were crazy but my father
was a great gourmet and then always a steak and creamed potatoes. . . .”

Dicky felt his stomach churning. “Would you like to see the morning paper, Floodie?” he said, pushing the
Tribune
toward Mrs. Flood.

“Thank you dear I always like the fashions and popovers and then he always had what he called his dessert buckwheat cakes and real Vermont maple syrup just half a cup please Taylor yes
Dicky he always called it his dessert Image he’d say he’d always
call me his image because my name was Imogene after his mother he’d say no meal complete without a sweet and five or six cups of coffee especially roasted in New Orleans as he was
in the grocery business wholesale of course not a little shop or
anything like that well that’s what he had every morning of his life until he died the poor darling passed away at fifty but he was one of the finest handsomest healthiest men I ever. . . .”

“Good morning,” Peter said.

“Oh!”
Mrs. Flood said, dropping a spoon with a noisy splash into her cup. “G-good morning. I was
just
about to
plunge
into the paper.” With a thunderous rattling she disappeared behind the folds of the
Tribune.

“Good morning,” Dicky said, rising. Now that he was on his feet he could think of no reason to sit down again and be inundated by Mrs. Flood’s total remembrance of things past. He
was fond of the old girl, but not first thing in the morning, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some work I have to do.”

“Oh! Not going already, Dicky?” Mrs. Flood said. After what
she knew—or at least had good reason to suspect—about this Mr.
Johnson it embarrassed her terribly to be left in a room alone with him. She couldn’t quite explain why. It was bad enough with yet another person present, but to be all
alone
with this man! She pitched in again almost desperately. “I always tell Dicky Mr. Johnson goodness I say you don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive a little coffee not even cream or sugar in it and a
piece of toast goodness I don’t know how any man especially a
writer can do creative work on a miserable little meal like. . . .”

“Yes sir?” Taylor said.

“Just black coffee, please,” Peter said. He wished that Dicky
wouldn’t go. Mrs. Flood would be no trouble. Undoubtedly she would remain hidden behind the newspapers until Sheila or Allison came down. It was simply that he felt that he didn’t
know
Dicky and now that he and Sheila were. . . . Well, he wanted to make friends of her children. “Uh, can’t you stay for
another cup of coffee? You always duck away and that’s the last
that’s ever seen of you for the whole day.”

“Well, I really ought to get going today. There’s something I want to get down on paper before I forget it.”

“I’ll come out and pay a visit, if you don’t mind,” Peter said. “Your hideout is the only place in the house I haven’t been.”

There was a strangulated noise from behind the
Tribune.

“Sure. Come on out. Any time. Just follow the breezeways until you can’t go any farther. That’s the tool shed.”

In a last-ditch fight to hold Dicky and the conversation, Mrs.
Flood launched into another monologue. “Yes this is Wednesday
and that’s what we call Dicky’s afternoon off he always collects
his pay from me at lunchtime and gets his hair cut and then what he. . .”

“Good morning, Floodie, Dicky, Mr. Johnson.” Mrs. Flood had been spared. Allison had landed.

Putting down the newspaper, Mrs. Flood engulfed Allison. “Goodness how pretty and relaxed you look this morning Allison dear was it a lovely party last night I honestly don’t know how these young debutantes do it Mr. Johnson up all hours dancing hundreds of miles night after night and still able to look so fresh and rested every morning of course when I was a girl we had dances and balls too but nothing like the way young people tear around nowadays and they don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive I remember my father Mr. Otis he was a great big man and every morning for breakfast. . . .”

Dicky tiptoed out of the room and headed for the tool shed.

Dicky’s novel,
The Grand Tour,
wasn’t going well. On Monday he’d achieved thirteen words. Yesterday he had been able to get his characters through French customs, onto a bus from Orly Field into les Invalides and established in an unnamed hotel in the rue St. Honoré. He’d even got in a couple of laughs, he hoped, about the wonder his Yale hero had expressed upon seeing his first bidet. Then the writing had broken down completely. It had only amounted to a page and a half at that.

About a third of the way through the vodka bottle, Dicky had stretched out on the sofa in the tool shed and tuned
Memory Maine Matinee
in on the television set. It had been a better film than usual, one dating from about the year of Dicky’s birth with a tight plot and literate dialogue. The picture had involved Walter Pidgeon as a Good Guy and George Sanders as a mean Nazi agent. But best of all had been Joan Bennett as a cockney
streetwalker with a heart of gold. The idea had intrigued Dicky. Wouldn’t it be original to have a whore with a really kind heart?
Well, not
really
original since it had appeared in this one picture.
But Chapter Three was laid in Paris and what did Paris make people think of? Why, getting laid. She could be a French whore,
that
would be a switch! Halfway through the bottle it had occurred to Dicky that he’d had his first sexual experience in Paris and that had been, naturally, with a French girl. Another drink and Dicky had decided to dress and go to the Lake Forest Academy reunion dinner. Practically everybody in his old class had been sent abroad at one time or another for cultural reasons. He’d run into at least a dozen during his summer in Europe. Surely one or two of them would show up at the dinner. Dicky could compare notes.

But the only other person from Dicky’s old class who had been at the dinner was Billy Kennedy. All of the others were still in college or doing a stint in the army. Dicky hated Billy. He always had. Billy was a prick, but a popular prick withal. At the Academy Billy had been president of the class, captain of the football team, captain of the tennis team, captain of the
hockey team, on
the golf team and generally considered the boy
who would go the farthest. That had been great! In three years Billy had gone from Princeton, to Yale, to Williams, to Brown, to Trinity, to Duke and to Michigan. He was temporarily At
Liberty after two weeks at Northwestern. “Knocked up an Alpha
Phi,” was Billy’s explanation among The Boys. His mother now described it as Trouble with the Inner Ear. “We’ve decided to keep poor Billy out of school altogether until this Ear Condition clears up,” Kitty Kennedy had told Sheila. And Sheila had told Dicky and Allison that they must be Very Nice to Poor Billy. Dicky himself had been invited to leave Yale—but that
had been only one college and not until the middle of his junior
year. Yale’s reason had been Emotional Instability. Sheila, after
some heated correspondence with New Haven, had retreated from a losing battle, gave the Richard Sargent manuscripts to the
Harvard
library and had explained so thoroughly and so often that Dicky had been stifled as a creative writer at Yale that she quite believed it herself.

At any rate, Dicky and Billy had been the only two boys from
their class present last evening and naturally they had been thrown together among a lot of hearty, older types.

Billy had never gone to Europe and, from his anecdota, Dicky
had easily understood why the Kennedys preferred to keep him confined to the continental limits of the United States. A wasted evening, Dicky had thought, what would Billy know about a
whore with a heart of gold? Everyone he gets close to seems to
become one by sheer proximity.

His head ached but this morning, with the blank pad of paper staring him in the face, he forced himself to write:

Feeling a bit giddy from the champagne the comtesse had sent to
his table at Maxim’s, Christopher summoned the garçon for his
addition
. He left a generous
pourboire
and strolled out into the
pellucid Paris night, hoping to find his way to the Ritz.

It hadn’t actually been that way at all. Full of very bad French
beer and two glasses each of cheap rosé, Dicky’s foursome from
Yale and their hearty chaperone had run into five girls from Bennett Junior College and the physical education instructress who was shepherding
them
through Europe. There had been
noisy greetings, exchanges of schools, names, home towns, prep
schools, itineraries and impressions of European culture. The eleven of them, blocking the entire sidewalk, had sought in vain
for mutual acquaintances. The girls, with many interruptions and corrections, had told a hilarious story about the confusion arising between beer and Byrrh and suddenly they had all begun singing “The Whiffenpoof Song” on the steps of the Madeleine. It was then that Dickie had bolted. (For just such freakish conduct he had been branded Emotionally Unstable.) Dicky’s hotel had not been the Ritz but the France et Choi-seul, in the rue St. Honore, clean, respectable, inexpensive and
centrally located. From studying his map, Dicky had known that
there was a short cut to it by one of the little streets that ran behind the Ritz. The rue Cambon? The rue Duphot? The rue
Boissy-d’Something? No matter. He had only known that escape
was essential.

Stumbling and uncertain, Christopher chanced into one of the
many colorful little rues that teem with life behind the grands
boulevards of Paris. He never learned its name but it was charming.
Petits cafés
dotted its winding pavements, an
accordioniste
played “
Fleur de mon Coeur
” and lovers strolled dreamily to the
strains.

Dicky’s avenue of escape—it had been the rue Duphot—was as dark as a pocket. It was a place of poor shops and bars and—in its last stages of decay—Pruniers. Every shutter had been down. It had smelled of rotting vegetables and urine and the only sound had been the erotic yowling of two alley cats.