The Lady of Situations (27 page)

He waited with an air of near defiance for her to ask what the charge was. She decided that it would be more interesting not to. "And you want a job in the meantime?"

"Well, my old man won't give me a dime."

"I see." It was still early; there were no customers in the shop. She asked him some questions about current books and found him succinct, sharp and astonishingly well informed in his answers. What could she lose?

"Can I talk to my husband and get back to you?"

"Tell him I'd like to work for him. He was one of the decent guys at Averhill. There weren't many."

Stephen was concerned when she related the matter. "A morals charge! That's apt to mean buggery. Some form of inversion, anyway. Poor Giles. How like him to tell you more than he had to."

"Shall I take him on?"

"Why not? I'd like to help him. But imagine my not having heard about his suspension. It shows how careful people are not to discuss Averhill topics when I'm around."

"Did he have that kind of trouble at school?"

"At school it wasn't considered trouble. By the students, anyhow."

"I see. Boys will be boys. Well, it certainly won't be noticed in the book business."

Giles was just as good as she had hoped. He was the first to arrive in the morning and opened the store. He arranged the new books and even decorated the shop window. He rapidly learned the names and tastes of the principal customers, and knew which had charge accounts, so that prices and addresses did not need to be mentioned. A lady walking out of the store with two books under her arm almost felt as if she had been given a present, and complimented ^n her literary acumen to boot. He was scrupulously polite to Natica, whose orders he executed promptly, but she continued to feel a guarded impertinence in his manner, as if he knew a good deal more about her than he chose to tell. And of course it was impossible that he did not know every detail of her career at Averhill. But did she care? He gave her a curious sense of being an ally.

He was different with Stephen, whom he evidently admired. She supposed that if Stephen's theory of the reason for Giles's college suspension was true, the youth might well have a crush on her handsome husband, even one that had started at school. She had no objection to this, which should simply add to the efficiency of her new employee, but she didn't like Giles's constant volunteering to take jobs off Stephen's hands, which had the result of the latter's taking off more time from the shop to spend in the bar or squash courts of the Racquet Club. However, she could only take care of so many things at once. Her present job was to get the store on its feet.

One afternoon, when she and Stephen were in the back office opening book packages, Giles burst in to announce the approach of a presumably unwelcome visitor.

"It's old lady Knight! She's flying over Madison Avenue and preparing to land here."

"Flying?"

"Well, she's on a broomstick."

Natica found a moment to wonder if he even knew everything about her and Estelle. "What do you suppose she's doing in New York?"

"Maybe she's founding another poetry class. Isn't that what she did at school? Shall we pray for a recklessly speeding bus?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Giles. Stephen, shall we ask her to lunch?"

"In God's name, no! Don't even tell her I'm here."

Natica went towards the door to greet her former friend. The poetess looked even older and more raddled under a large shiny black straw hat. She stretched both hands out to Natica and crooned:

"My my,
my!
"

"My, my, what, Estelle?" Natica rather coolly took one of the offered extremities.

"My, my,
my,
aren't you the clever one?"

"Clever?"

"To have achieved not only a beautiful husband with a thumping bank account, but to have set up the most popular bookstore in town!"

Natica did not mind Stephen overhearing this—it served him right for cowering in the office—but she didn't like the presence of the grinning Giles, whom Estelle of course did not recognize, having had no contact with students. She pointed to a browsing customer, and Giles left. "What happy chance brings you to town, Estelle?"

"Well, you know I have to have my breathing spells, and Wilbur made me sell my Boston flat."

"
Made
you? Wilbur?"

"Oh, he was very stern. Not at all like his usual self. He said that he would never set foot in it again. I decided I'd better humor him. And anyway, I like coming to New York. But he went on like a madman at the idea of my taking another apartment, so I'm staying at the St. Regis. I suppose he doesn't trust me with flats. Dear me, maybe I should be mum about all that." Here she glanced conspiratorially about the little shop.

"I don't see any reason that you and I should not discuss apartments, Estelle."

"Well, you
are
a cool one. Perhaps I'd better buy a book. What do you recommend?"

"You don't have to buy a book. Tell me the news. How are all our friends at Averhill?"

"Friends? I don't know that I number many such in that benighted institution. Do
you?
"

"Well, there's one I may no longer be able to call a friend, but whose welfare I shall always care about. And that, of course, is Tommy Barnes. How is he?" "You never hear from him?"

"Never. And that's only natural. I don't expect him to write. But have you seen him?"

"I haven't. Wilbur has. Indeed, Wilbur and he have become rather thick. My righteous spouse may be trying to make up for that Boston business. Whoops! There I go again. Mum's the word. Anyway, Barnes is leaving at the end of this school year."

"Oh. Lockwood was ruthless about that?"

"My dear, what did you expect?"

"A miracle. And their day is over. Do you happen to know what Tommy is planning to do next?"

"I think Wilbur said something about his getting a parish in the South. The Deep South, I believe. In a Negro neighborhood."

"Oh, Estelle!"

"Well, they have souls, too, I suppose."

Natica was hardly aware of what either of them said after this. When Estelle took her leave at last, she hurried to the back office where she found Stephen pale and tense.

"I must go up and see Tommy," he announced grimly.

"Oh, my dear, what can you possibly accomplish?"

"That's just what I'm going to have to find out."

T
HE BIG
three chambers of the
piano nobile
of the pink palazzo had been cleared for Angelica's spring ball, an annual event for her and her children's friends. The library with its tall tiers of ancient volumes, never read but reputedly valuable, a bibliophile's collection purchased to fit the room, was used for the buffet, the dining hall, with its stately blue and green marble walls and its vast hunting scene tapestry, being more suited to dancing. In the conservatory, by the central fountain of a bathing dryad, under a Tiepolo ceiling, Angelica and her elder daughter received the guests.

Natica sat on the stairway, halfway up, with Edith Bennett, drinking champagne and looking down on the passing show.

"Do you remember the first time I came to your family's house in Smithport? I made the most awful scene."

"But we were awful to you, Natica! You had on some ghastly dress you'd hooked out of your mother's closet. And none of us would even talk to you. Aren't children horrors?"

"They show what we've learned to conceal. But I had it coming to me. I was pushing myself in where I wasn't wanted." She took in Edith's sidelong glance. "And you're thinking I'm still doing it, aren't you?"

Her friend was hardly bothered by the imputation. "But you've arrived, my dear. You're a
succès fou.
Far more than I am, anyway."

"I don't know that I'm so
fou
with Stephen. He hasn't really found his niche."

"Well, maybe that's just as well with a man. Tyler's found his, God knows, and he's the most awful bore about it. His mother's always after me to get him to relax and take an interest in something besides business. She can't get it into her fat head that he's utterly immune to female influence."

"Are you happy, Edith?"

"What a question! I haven't really thought about it. But yes, I suppose I am. Tyler and I are hardly Romeo and Juliet, but I have a lot of things I want."

"Would you ever think of having an affair?"

"Really, Natica, what a funny mood you're in tonight."

"I suddenly feel I can be absolutely frank with you. Maybe it's because you saw me way back. You saw how much I wanted all this." Her gaze took in the floor below.

"And does it make you happy, now you have it?"

"Isn't it odd? Yes, it does."

"I thought those shiny things in the store window always looked a bit shabby when you got them home."

"Oh, they do. But what's happened is that I don't mind their shabbiness. I know, for example, that the Tiepolo above us is a copy, and a bad one at that, but it's successfully decorative. I know the family couldn't read half the books in the library, even if they wanted to. They're in Italian or Latin. And I know that my father-in-law would be just as happy living in some Victorian horror. He wouldn't notice the difference. And I know he dislikes me."

"Oh, Natica!"

"Oh, he despises me, of course. I don't mind. Just so long as he doesn't say so. And I think Stephen's mother is the most beautiful and romantic figure in the world, even when I know she's an amiable, self-indulgent egotist who is beginning to put on too much weight. And his sisters are dears but such sillies."

"Have you a kind word for anyone tonight?"

"But for all of them, of course! Don't you see that I
am
kind? The fact that my eye isn't clouded doesn't make any difference to my heart. I love them all! Even Mr. Hill. It's because, for the first time in my life, I feel I
belong.
You can't imagine what that's like, Edith. You have to have spent your life on the outside looking in."

She had been talking to amuse herself, but she suddenly realized it was true. The feeling that bubbled up so richly inside her, filling her, drowning her, exhilarating her, had to be happiness! She had an impulse to tell Edith about a reissued novel of Trollope she had been reading in the store that morning, but Edith never read anything. Trollope had understood as no other novelist the ecstasy of belonging. No doubt it was why so many intellectuals despised him.

"So now you have everything." Edith looked bemused. "You wouldn't even need an affair."

Natica understood that she wanted to return to that theme. "No! What could an affair with the sexiest man in the world add to the joy I now feel?"

"I should think a good deal. I suppose I'm in a period of suspension. Between the early years of marriage and the time when a girl might like something ... well, something more exciting."

"And that time might come for you?"

"Mightn't it for anyone? Except for happy you, of course. And even happy you had a thing with Stephen before you married him. Don't try to kid me."

"I shouldn't dream of it. Of course we had an affair. But Tyler might be more tolerant than my 'ex' was. You and he might have some kind of civilized arrangement. The way we're always hearing the French do."

"Not he. He'd lay low until he had the goods on me and then divorce me without a settlement."

"Would you, Tyler?"

He was coming up the stairs towards them.

"Would I what?"

"Edith and I were discussing how husbands behave to wives who take a little fling. I said you'd be civilized about it."

He scowled at Edith. "That depends on how you define 'civilized.'"

"Well, if it means who makes the most money out of it, we'd know how you'd behave," his wife retorted.

"I came to ask my loving spouse to dance, but that changes my mind. Will you dance, Natica?"

On the floor she tried to follow his shuffling lead.

"Where's Stephen?"

"He had to go to Boston. He'll be here later."

"Business?"

"Not what
you'd
call business."

"If
you
call it that, I will. I hear your shop's going great guns. It was smart of you to remember what I said about Aunt Angelica's marriage settlement. You'd never have got the money out of Uncle Angus."

"Oh, I knew
that.
"

"He didn't like your going around him, though. Watch your step with him, Natica."

"What can he do to me?"

"There's no telling. My Hill uncles are all three alike. They can never get over the fact that it was their father and not they who made the money. They dole it out to their handsome wives and feckless offspring, but under a strict condition: that Daddy, however small and bald and silent, is always boss. That condition has not been met by a certain daughter-in-law."

"Even if my store is a success?"

"I'm not sure that doesn't make it worse. They're not like me, you know."

"No, with you success is the total answer."

"It's my credo. I've never denied it."

And then she saw Stephen. He was standing by himself in a corner of the conservatory, properly dressed in a tuxedo, watching her. Or rather staring at her. As they danced towards him, she saw that it was a baleful stare. He did not wave or even smile.

She excused herself to Tyler and went over to him.

"Is something wrong?"

"I must talk to you. Shall we go home?"

"What will we tell your mother? Can't we do it here?"

He glanced about the room and shrugged. "I don't care, if we can find a place."

He followed her up to the third floor where they found the family living room vacant. She took a chair by the unlit fire before which, after closing the door, he took a rather ominous stand.

"How did you find Tommy?"

"Unexpected." His tone was grating. "He said he had planned to stand me up, but that curiosity had got the better of him in the end."

"To learn what you proposed to do for him?"

"To learn how much I'd pay to clear my conscience."

She had never seen his eyes so hard. Whatever he had discovered, things were not going to be the same between them again. Very well, then, things would not be the same. She was beginning to be irritated. "What
did
you offer him?"