Love & Mrs. Sargent Read online

  VII.

  The clock in the hallway was striking four when Dicky let himself into the house. Otherwise the place was dim and silent. A lamp burned on the table in the hall. The hall table was called the Bulletin Board. It was more or less the official place for telephone messages and communications to and from various members of the household. Sheila, who always liked to make her whereabouts known, had left the only note.

  Allison and I getting hair, nails done—Maison Mario. Home 5:30. Howard Malvern coming for drinks 6-ish & dinner. All hands on deck.

  Love,

  Mother

  Dicky read the note and laid it back down on the table. He knew that if there was one thing he couldn’t stand this evening it would be Uncle Howard’s heartiness over cocktails, over the dinner table, over drinks afterward. He liked Mr. Malvern, but to listen to the old boy going on about Dicky the great novelist, Allison the belle, would be just too much.

  As an eligible single male of twenty, Dicky received a lot of invitations to parties. He rarely accepted any of them and this was usually condoned because Dicky was Creating. But still the invitations poured in. Tonight he’d use one of them as an excuse. He vaguely remembered that some girl had asked him to a dinner dance tonight some weeks back and had been politely refused. At any rate, it would be an excuse to clear out to be by himself this evening. He patted his pocket for a pen and then remembered that he’d forgotten his own and had been forced to use one of the impossible pens chained to a counter at the bank. Looking for a pencil and a scrap of paper, he made his way to the empty office.

  Dicky went to the desk where Mrs. Flood had stacked the outgoing mail, the paid bills. He took a pencil from the jar of freshly sharpened pencils and, hunting for a sheet of paper, opened the drawer. There he saw copies of Time, Newsweek, The Saturday Review and a page torn from the Chicago Daily News, All of them concerned him. Very calmly he opened each of them and read the murderous reviews of his novel. He then piled them neatly on top of the desk. As he did so, his eye wandered to the bill from The Main Street Book Store. What he saw neatly typed on the bill was:

  100 copies Bitter Laughter @ $3.95$395.00

  10 copies to Passavant Hospital

  10 copies to Wesley Mem. Hospital

  10 copies to St. Luke’s Hospital

  10 copies to. . . .

  Dicky turned over the bill and looked at the next. It was from Kroch’s & Brentano’s. It indicated that Sheila had recently bought a copy of The Leopard at $4.50, an inexpensive edition of A Room With a View and one hundred and fifty copies of Bitter Laughter, which had been sent—in bunches of ten—to local hospitals. Beneath that was the bill from Marshall Field’s. It ran to better than three thousand dollars. Dicky patiently went through the itemized bill. Allison’s fur jacket had Been a considerable item. There were slips and skirts and dresses and blouses, two dozen hemstitched sheets, six pairs of shoes, and then a whopper from the book department. Two hundred copies of Bitter Laughter had been ordered by Mrs. Richard Sargent to be sent, in packages of ten, to twenty charitable institutions around the city.

  Here were the three Chicago bookstores that reported their sales to the Tribunes book section. Systematically, Dicky checked the dates. Now it was all clear. In the space of one day his mother had bought and disposed of enough copies of Bitter Laughter to force it onto the best-seller list. It had taken almost eighteen hundred dollars and, if Sheila had shopped with her usual brisk efficiency, just about eighteen minutes.

  Dicky put the bills and the unsigned checks back onto their pile. He gathered up the magazines and went out to the hallway. Taylor was moving silently about, lighting lamps and drawing curtains.

  “Mr. Dicky,” Taylor said, “Miz Sargent say that Mr. Malvern is coming tonight and for you to. . . .”

  “Tell her I won’t be here for dinner,” Dicky said. And then he went out to the tool shed. He put the magazines down on the sofa, poured a long, straight vodka and lay down to read very carefully the reviews of Bitter Laughter.

  Peter pushed back from the desk in his room, stood up and lit a cigarette. The piece on Sheila was not going well. After all, how could you make love to a woman—be in love with her—and then sit down and write objectively about her? He hadn’t originally planned to be very objective, but it was easier to dislike someone and make the article seem caustic, witty and fair than to love someone and make the whole thing sound completely neutral. It had been three days now and he’d only done the lead paragraph—not that it was even literate.

  He realized now how lonely he’d always been. He wanted a drink and company—someone to talk to. But the house was deserted. Sheila had taken Allison off to one of those mysterious rites women seem to undergo at hairdressers every now and again, promising to be home by half past five. But that was more than an hour away.

  He went into the adjoining sitting room and tapped on Dicky’s door. There was no reply. He opened the door and stuck his head into Dicky’s bedroom. It was a kind of Jefrersonian chamber, neat as a pin and all too obviously empty. Then he remembered about the tool shed, put on his jacket and went out to call on Richard Sargent, junior.

  On the trip down the breezeways Peter told himself that this visit was purely business. Dicky was Sheila’s son and a new novelist. How could he write fully about Sheila and not know Dicky? He had become better at self-deception in the past couple of days. Even the tweed jacket he was wearing, bought just two hours ago at a chi-chi haberdasher in a town—well, more of a place really—known as Old Orchard, It had cost more than most of his suits, but Sheila had admired it and Peter had told himself that he needed something like this jacket and that had inspired him to need a couple of costly ties and a new hat. All told, he had blown better than a week’s salary, not counting the luncheon he’d bought Sheila at a frightfully expensive and not especially good restaurant On the other hand, he’d never before had anything to do with his money that was as much fun.

  He felt a little cheerier when he saw that the tool shed was lighted. Peter didn’t have a very clear picture of Sheila’s children; found himself almost resenting them. Dicky struck him as an arch-neurotic, spooky and withdrawn and—Peter hadn’t lost complete grasp on his sanity—untalented. As for Allison, he found her vacillating between being a colorless mouse and a prickly rebel. And he felt that both of them were pampered ingrates, heedless of the sacrifices their mother had made for them. Even so, he was lonely and he wanted to know and try to like Sheila’s children. He reached the door of the tool shed, paused for a moment and then knocked.

  Dicky lay stretched out on the sofa surrounded by reviews of his book. He had drunk just enough to reach a sort of numb state of anesthesia. He looked up when he heard the knocking at the door and automatically checked the room. An empty, odorless glass was at his side. The bar shutters were closed. If his mother should be paying a call—her first this week—everything would look all right. And then he decided that he really didn’t care. He hoped that the intruder would be Sheila so that he could confront her with the hidden magazines, the wholesale buying of his book. At least they could get everything out in the open and put an end to the travesty of his literary career.

  “Come in,” he said, rising. “Oh. It’s you,” he added, not unpleasantly, when he discovered that Peter Johnson was his caller.

  “Hi,” Peter said. “You told me to come out any time I felt like it. And I’m taking you at your word. If I’m interrupting your writing. . . .”

  “Not my writing. My reading. Sit down. Can I fix you a drink?”

  “Well, not unless you’re. . . .”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Swaying slightly, he made his way to the bar. “Unless you want something like a Blue Lady, I can give you almost anything. Anything except vodka,” There were just about two drinks left in his ration and Dicky was damned if he was going to share them.

  “Scotch will be fine. Scotch and water.” While Dicky made noises with ice and glasses, Peter gazed around the room. It remin
ded him of a model executive suite on display in some office furniture showroom. It was too perfect, too decorated—the only thing on the whole Sargent place that seemed out of key.

  “Nice place you’ve got out here. Snug.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  “Design it yourself?”

  “God no! Mother and some decorator did it as a surprise. And it certainly was. Here you are. Strong enough?”

  “Plenty,” Peter said, choking. His scotch and water was the color of tea, “You mix quite a drink. What’s that you’re having?”

  “Just ice water. I never drink before five.” Sitting down, Dicky nearly missed the sofa. The drink splashed crazily.

  “Well, you’ve got about fifteen or twenty minutes to go. Working on something new?”

  “I think I’ve finished it. I’ve just been reading your review of Bitchy Ha-Ha—my brilliant first novel. It was damned nice of you to say that it was toxic, I appreciate that, Johnson.”

  “What?”

  “Your review of my book. Here in the new Worldwide.” He tossed the magazine, fluttering insanely, across the room to Johnson.

  Peter glanced at the review and knew immediately that the lantern-jawed old spinster in the book department at Worldwide had sent one of her stable hatchet men after Richard Sargent, junior. The Worldwide book review editor, a disappointed failure as a creative writer, spoke of herself as a Liberal. Like many of the staff of the magazine—even a little like Peter himself, he realized—she bore a smoldering grudge against everyone who possessed the things she never had or would possess: looks, charm, cultivation, gaiety, talent and success. She had obviously sniffed out wealth and position from the very dust jacket of Dicky’s book and was giving it the works. Not, Peter reminded himself, that the book was any good at all, but Worldwide had really overstepped the bounds of decency in this review.

  “Why bother to read it?” Dicky asked. “Didn’t you write it?”

  “Certainly not,” Peter said. “I have nothing to do with the back of the book. I don’t even see the art and movie and theater criticisms until after the magazine is printed. But it’s kind of a loaded review. Damned bitch.”

  “You mean you haven’t even read my brilliant first novel?”

  “I started it on the plane,” Peter said uncomfortably.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what did you think?”

  Trapped and embarrassed, Peter said, “I don’t read much fiction. Haven’t the time. So I’m no judge.” He couldn’t deny that the book was terrible, but he hated himself for having said so to Malvern. “But, hell, you can’t expect everybody to love you. It’s only one review.”

  “Try these on for size,” Dicky said. He gathered up the other magazines and rose unsteadily, then took a step toward Peter and then fell flat.

  “Hey,” Peter said. “Careful, you’ll. . . .” He jumped up to help the boy to his feet and, for the first time, he realized what was the matter, “Dick,” he said. “Here, sit down. I suppose you know that you’re pissy-eyed drunk. Do you think that’s going to help anything?”

  “It always has.”

  Peter felt a surge of anger. The spoiled little weakling! “If you don’t care anything about yourself,” he said, almost prissily, “you might at least think of your mother. I don’t think she’d like to see.. . .”

  “Oh, I think of her all the time. Sheila Sargent, the lady bountiful, the unseen friend, the patroness of the arts, the brilliant writer. She writes even more than you and I suspect. Here, read this. Of course you’ve heard of the famous international literary critic Shelley Sands.”

  “No,” Peter said, taking the review from the Weekend Bookworm. “I can’t say that I have.”

  “Figure it out for yourself. It might jazz up your article. Sheila Sargent equals Shelley Sands. Get it, S.S. and S.S.? And right in the middle of Famous Features—a glowing review of an illiterate novel. How could I have been so dumb? Mother could write Fanny Hill and Uncle Howard wouldn’t dare not to print it. She’s a big behind-the-scenes operator. She cons me into writing a book, she cons Berdell into publishing it, she writes this gassy, overblown review of it and cons Uncle Howard into printing it and—oh, get out your notebook for this one—she even goes around to the big Chicago bookstores buying up enough copies to con it right onto the best-seller list. How’s that for mother love?” He struggled to his feet and took a deep breath. He told Peter how he had been forced to follow his father and how he had failed; of the schools he had been kicked out of; how Sheila had plotted his writing career, outlining the chapters, going over the text, making arrangements with her own publisher. It was quite a story.

  “Dick, you’re drunk. You don’t mean what you’re saying and I hope your mother won’t see you this way. It would. . . .”

  “Right. I’m drunk and I’m going to get drunker. Right again. She won’t. Do forgive me if I drink and run,” With amazing agility, Dicky was out of the door. He crashed through the shrubbery and disappeared in the dusk.

  “Dick!” Peter called. He went to the door and tried to see Dicky, to hear his footsteps along the breezeway. In his confusion he took the wrong turning. All he heard was the sound of an engine starting. All he saw were the red tail lights of Dicky’s car racing down the driveway. He went back to the tool shed, and sat down to read Dicky’s reviews—especially the one by Shelley Sands.

  VIII.

  Sheila turned the car into the driveway, rounded the curve and glided flawlessly into the stable. She noticed that the stall for Dicky’s car was empty.

  “Hmmm, Dicky still gone. Have you any idea what he does with himself every Wednesday, Allison?”

  “No, I haven’t, Mother.”

  “It really shouldn’t take more than half an hour to get his hair cut and here it is nearly six. Heavens! I’ve got to rush. Howard Malvern’s coming around tonight. As usual. Come along, Allison, stop mooning.”

  Getting out of the car, Sheila wished that she had never allowed Howard to get into this nearly-every-Wednesday-evening routine. It wasn’t exactly a standing date but then it almost was. And this was one Wednesday she could have happily done without Mr. Malvern.

  “I like what Mario did to your hair today, darling. It’s very smart. Really it is. You can wear extreme styles, Allison. I never could. When I was your age and everyone was putting their hair up I looked like somebody’s laundress all set for a heavy wash. And when they were doing pompadours—well, I looked just like a snow plow. And as for all those page boy things and glamor bobs, well. . . . Really, Allison,” Sheila said, staring at her by the light of the big lantern hanging over the doorway, “you’re such a pretty girl and you look so glum. Yes, just plain Sorrowing Sonia. Too Slavic for words. I wish you’d try to smile once in a while.”

  “About what?” Allison said.

  “About what? Well, I could suggest a reason or two. You’re young, you’re pretty, you’re popular, you’re coming out at a great big party, you’re meeting all the right young men, you’re. . . .”

  “Big deal.”

  “Now see here, Allison Sargent, all of this isn’t happening just because your hair is curly. I’ve broken an arm and a leg to see to it that you come out and you come out right. It isn’t enough in this day and age that your father was Richard Sargent and I was Sheila Forester. But the debutante season isn’t what it was when I was your age. Money talks and everybody with two one-thousand-dollar bills to rub together is trying to scream. Thank God I saw it coming the day we brought you home from the hospital. Why, I’ve been charm itself to a pack of old dragons I wouldn’t spit at if you hadn’t been my daughter. But getting you into the Cotillion, making sure you’d be invited to. . . . Do you have your latch key? I seem to have left mine in. . . .”

  “Here, Mother.”

  “Thank you, dear. But I mean today there are really only three ways to come out. You can sneak out like a rectory rat at some grim tea party. You can wobble through your cur
tsy with a dozen other girls at some charity do. Or you can have a really proper party—nothing showy, but no cheese paring, either—with good food, good champagne and a good orchestra. I mean, if you can’t do it right, why do it at all. . . .”

  “Exactly.”

  “What, darling?”

  “I said, if it’s so much trouble, why bother about it? I didn’t ask to come out. I don’t even want to. It’s all your idea.”

  “Really, Allison, if you could just listen to yourself you’d laugh. Every time you’re around that impossible portrait painter and those art school beatniks you begin to sound just as silly as they do.” Then in a more kindly tone she said, “Where do you think I met your father? Right at my own coming out party, that’s where. And it’s undoubtedly where you’ll meet the man you’re going to marry.”

  “Like Billy Kennedy?”

  “Well, yes, like Billy Kennedy, You could do a lot worse. I’ve known his mother since we were in Roycemore together. He’s good looking, pleasant and a gentleman. Dozens of girls would give their eye teeth to catch Billy. And speaking of Billy, you’d better hurry and dress.”

  “What would you like me to wear?”

  “Oh, Allison! Don’t be such a goose. What do I care what you wear? Put on the blue I bought Monday. And while you’re bathing, you might just wash your mouth out with soap. What is it, Taylor?”

  “Mr. Dicky ask me to tell you he won’t be in for dinner tonight, Miz Sargent.”

  “Thank you, Taylor,” she said wearily. Sheila trudged up the stairs feeling suddenly old and wondering why she had been cursed with such difficult children.

  On the tick of six, J. Howard Malvern braked his new car smartly in front of the house, turned off the ignition and climbed stiffly out. Mr. Malvern was tired. He would have liked to beg off this Wednesday night with Sheila. It had been a hectic week and every day of it involved, one way or another, with some member of the Sargent family. Monday he had had to deal with that character assassin, Peter Johnson, who was even now writing God only knew what about Sheila. Tuesday had been spent not only in learning the worst about Dicky’s novel, but—even worse—in having to read it. Today, according to instructions, he had killed the morning on the long distance calls bullying the Famous Features syndicated society columnists into doing lead articles describing the true importance of debutantes from the old guard of New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago—such as Allison Sargent—in an age of false values and tawdry glitter. Since one of the society columnists specialized in naming names involved in the racier divorce cases and the other felt that true aristocracy consisted only of the patrons of El Morocco, they hadn’t been any too happy to stumble into the alien land of Van Rensselaers and Biddies and Lodges. On the other hand, they knew where their bread was buttered. The rest of the day had been spent attending to the manifold details of the Mother of the Year Banquet for the coming Friday.