Love & Mrs. Sargent Page 22

  Last night Sheila had gone quietly up to her room before the servants could see her in her disheveled condition, locked her door and sat down before her mirror to have a frank, heart-to-heart talk with her reflection. She was constantly urging her readers to look deep within themselves and to answer, unashamedly, such embarrassing questions as “Was I wrong!?” “Have I been fair?” “Is this a real emotion or is it simply vanity?” Sheila was proud of being ruthlessly honest with herself no matter how much it hurt. She had written more than a few times—in her column and in her books—that the troubles of the world could be cut in half if only everybody would subject himself to periodic bouts of introspection, casting out pride and self-deception for honesty and genuine reappraisal.

  She had felt almost like beginning with “Mirror, mirror on the wall.” But, having got a good look at herself, she had decided to postpone the Inner Sheila for just long enough to do something about the Outer One. Her face and hair had been a perfect mess. At some time during the past week she had added, item by item, rouge, mascara and a kohl-ish sort of eye pencil to her modest toilette. Tonight none of them had quite lived up to the manufacturers’ claims of waterproofness nor, for that matter, their promises of irresistibility. And Mr. Mario had really given her kind of a bad steer on her new hair-do. Oh, all very soft and loose and youthful when just out from under Mario’s final flick of the comb, but altogether too wildly fly-away and—well, yes—fright wiggish after a night of anything more active than lying rigid in bed, the cranium unalluringly swathed in nets. Mr. Mario would simply have to set her hair all over again in a more manageable style for the do-it-yourself practitioner.

  And the dress! Frightful! Cretin that she was, Mrs. Flood had been absolutely right in referring to it as “girlish.” Too lacy of bodice, too fluttery of skirts, too short and too bare-armed, “girlish” was the perfect word. Pure Mrs. Mill sort of thing. Sheila had seemed to recall voicing just such reservations in the fitting room at Blum’s. Her first impulse last night had been to rip it off right down the front, but self-control (and the grim recollection of its sobering price tag) had triumphed. After hoisting the dress over her tousled head, Sheila had folded it carefully and placed it in her wastebasket where Bertha could reclaim it for that niece at Roosevelt College. The dress would have been All Wrong for Allison and God forbid that it should fall into Mrs. Flood’s hands. Floodie would have worn it!

  Having washed her face, applied a modicum of fresh make-up, brushed her hair into a more suitable and becoming arrangement, Sheila had put on her peignoir and returned to the mirror braced for Absolute Truth.

  “Well, now,” the Other Sheila had said out loud to the Actual Sheila reflected prettily in front of her, “just what do you think was the reason for that rather silly outburst downstairs?” In all of her Good Straight Talks with herself, Sheila started out gently and got a lot tougher as the interrogation went deeper. Sheila the Inquisitor generally ranged from Best Pal to Kindly Uncle to Family Doctor to Liberal Priest to Tolerant Psychoanalyst to School Marm to Stern Parent to G-Man to Cotton Mather to Tomas Torquemada.

  “Well,” Sheila the victim had said, hedging ever so slightly, “I mean after all who wouldn’t cry? It’s been a damned exhausting week.”

  “And don’t think I don’t know why. God knows you’ve been getting to bed early enough these past few nights, you hussy!”

  “Oh, now stop it! We went into all that days ago. This Peter thing is just temporary. We both know that. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Are you so absolutely sure, darling?” Many, many times in the past Sheila had caught herself calling herself “darling.” With calm objectivity, she had delved into that peculiar trait and had come up with the perfectly satisfactory answer that it was just a habit acquired from calling the children “Darling.” The problem had been abandoned, as solved, then and there, and neither of the Sheilas had been bothered again by the constant bandying of the endearment.

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Very well, then, darling, let’s probe a little deeper, I was asking, as I recall, just why you chose tonight to turn on the waterworks.” Oh, but she could be stern with herself!

  “Well, as I said, it’s been a perfectly beastly, exasperating, nerve-racking week. In the first place, this Worldwide interview has been frightfully unsettling.”

  “Ye-e-e-ah?” Cynically. And then, “Go on.”

  “And then how would you like it if some crazy waitress came bursting into the room and tried to shoot you dead?”

  “Oh, don’t give me that jazz, darling. You knew damned well that Pearl Pulaski never fired a gun before in her life and wouldn’t have today if Peter hadn’t jarred her arm. Even if she had, she was aiming way to your right and you knew it!”

  “One can’t ever be absolutely certain—not at such close range.”

  “Give it up, darling. That noble Barbara Frietchie routine, ‘Shoot if you must this old gray head’ . . . and speaking of gray hairs, haven’t you plucked a couple recently?”

  “Never mind, I’ll get to that in my own good time. As I was saying, those mock heroics may have fractured the yokels today, but they didn’t impress me one little bit. Remember, darling, I was tagging along during those girlhood summers out West, the pistol practice at the Evanston police station, that house party in Scotland where you had to flub every other shot so as not to make the men look like boobs. However, I will hand it to you, darling. You did make attempted murder so damned soigné that everybody will be trying it next year.”

  “Stop it, you big bully!”

  “I’ll stop just as soon as we dig down and get the right answer. Awfully meaching and evasive this evening, aren’t you, darling? Don’t worry, I’ve got all night.”

  “We’ve got at least until Peter comes home. . . . I mean. . . .”

  “Oho! That is interesting! Want to elaborate on that a bit? Do you think there might be some vague connection with his going off in an absolute tissue of lies—and such bad lies, nothing like the ones you can tell—and your hauling off and slugging poor old Flood?”

  “Floodie can be very irritating. I’ve discovered that she’s a frightfully stupid woman.”

  “You didn’t think she was Dr. Edith Hamilton when you hired her, did you?”

  “No,” the Actual Sheila had giggled, “but she’s almost old enough.”

  “Oh, that’s too, too funny,” Sheila the Inquisitor had said witheringly. “Just as witty and warm as Alexander King. What’s keeping you off the Jack Paar Show, your kidneys?”

  “I know, I know, I know. And I am sorry. But it was just more than I could bear to have her throw that dreary old German proverb at me when I was. . .”

  “Floodie didn’t invent it. She doesn’t know enough German to order weiner schnitzel. She picked that lemon off your tree, liebchen.”

  “All right, I said I was sorry, didn’t I? And I’ll make it up to her.”

  “How, darling? By letting her slap you; call you a fool?”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “Damned right she wouldn’t—poor, destitute old thing.”

  “Please. I said I’d make it up to Floodie. I’ll apologize—humbly apologize. I’ll give her a raise, not that she isn’t already overpaid. I’ll. . . I’ll give her some clothes too—that suit I was wearing

  today. . . .”

  “The one that’s too matronly for you, Lolita?”

  “The color’s wrong. It would be good on Floodie. And . . . and I’ll tell you what, I’ll give her that moleskin coat of mine.”

  “The one you never liked? Got any plans for your old Kleenex?”

  “Floodie will forgive me. I know she will.”

  “Of course she will. She damned well has to, unless she plans to stop eating. Forgive or forego, eh, Greatheart?”

  “And I’ll take Floodie to London with me next summer. That’s what I’ll do. She’ll adore that.”

  “Coo lumme! So it’s off to Blighty, is it? Th
is is news. Seems to me I heard the Boy Reporter mention that he’d be there next June to do a feature on Edith SitwelL Well, she’ll seem pretty tame after an interview—in depth—with you. There’s nothing like a Dame, eh?”

  “Oh, you’re dreadful!”

  “Remember how you always tell your millions of loyal fans to look deep within themselves? Remember how good you are at it—frank and forthright, no niggling little self-delusions. All rightie, next question! Allison.”

  “Well, I mean you can imagine the shock when I opened the door of the beach house and saw Allison there . . . I mean not dressed and . . . and doing. . . .”

  “I certainly can imagine. Doing just what you wanted to be doing there.”

  “Yes, yes. But it did give me a start.”

  “Oh, didn’t it just! And you were a perfect picture! That’s two times today you’ve flown off the handle. Better get a grip on yourself, darling. These scenes aren’t like you—without being rehearsed, that is.”

  “Oh, it’s all very well for you to be hardboiled and detached. But think of me—a mother—seeing my own daughter out there. . . . After all, I’ve brought Allison up with certain standards, a certain moral code. . . .”

  “As you were saying downstairs this afternoon. Oh, darling, it was pure Judith Anderson! Biggest camp since Medea! Well, I’ll admit that you were awfully good, just extemporizing without even a run-through. Although you did get tripped up on some of your facts.”

  “Well, how was I to know that Allison had done anything so underhanded as to steal into my room and. . . .”

  “Allison explained that and—I thought—perfectly plausibly. Trust you to overplay, ham it up and leave yourself wide open. And did she get off the dig dirty of the day! Hoo-hoo-hoo! I wish you could have seen your face! If that Pearl Pulaski hadn’t come roaring in with the artillery you really would have been up the well-known creek.”

  “I’ll admit that Miss Pulaski’s entrance was not entirely untimely. Although it was frightfully embarrassing to have her family involved in that murder on the very day I advised her not to. . . .”

  “And while we’re on the subject of Miss Pulaski, darling, I wonder from time to time just how many thousands of other—um—embarrassments you’ve left strewn in your wake since you set yourself up as the Dowager Empress of Human Emotions.”

  “I. . . I don’t quite understand what you mean,” the Actual Sheila mumbled, glancing away.

  “Indeed? Well, I’ll try to be more explicit, darling. You said this afternoon—rather tastelessly, I thought, considering the circumstances—that perhaps in Pearl Pulaski’s case your ‘bird’ had picked the wrong fortune.”

  “That was just a joke—ill-advised, perhaps.”

  “Ill-advised, darling? Oh, we were all but rolling on the floor with glee! I just wonder how many other sorry slobs got the wrong fortune when they bared their poor little souls to you. How many backs get broken because you have the arrogance and ignorance to say ‘God giveth the shoulder’? How many girls are as sex-starved and frustrated as you’ve been because you say ‘Oh, mercy me, don’t give yourself to a man without a wedding ring!’ Sex has been known to work outside marriage. I needn’t tell you that. What about the hick town harpies you scold for meddling in the problems of their friends while you sit behind a two-thousand-dollar English desk and get paid for mucking around with the lives of total strangers? How many unhappy unwanted bastard babies do you suppose there are being kicked around: because the saintly Sheila Sargent said. . . .”

  “Abortion is a crime. Everyone knows that!”

  “You seemed willing to become an accessory to one this afternoon.”

  “I was worried sick about Allison, Now I. . . .”

  “And now you know you don’t need to worry so Everybody Loves a Baby again.”

  “With Allison it’s slightly different. She’s young, inexperienced.”

  “What about those pregnant high school kids? Are they so elderly?”

  “It’s slightly different with those girls,” the Actual Sheila had said primly. “Allison comes from an entirely different background where. . . .”

  “Do forgive me, darling! I keep forgetting your glib little motto: ‘Common Sense for Common People.’ And of course nothing that you or your children do could ever be construed as anything but exquisite—shacking up with a young reporter, getting cockeyed and trying to enlist, being caught on the brink of seduction with a dirty little lecher like Billy Kennedy.”

  “Billy Kennedy and Allison will make a very good match. I’m quite pleased about it—now.”

  “Well don’t be, because it won’t happen. And speaking of Common People, Billy takes all prizes.”

  “What do you mean? His mother Kitty is my oldest friend.”

  “Your loyalty is admirable, darling, but let’s face it. On both sides of the family his grandfathers were shanty Irish hod-carriers who did well in the contracting business. Not a Vere de Vere in the pack. Yes, I’m afraid our Billy is common.”

  “Talk about snobbish!” the Actual Sheila had said indignantly. “A lot of great families have sprung from humble origins. I knew Kitty’s father and Eamon Kennedy’s father and there was nothing common about. . . .”

  “I didn’t say Billy’s grandfathers were common, darling. They were un-common—wily, hardworking old bog-jumpers with brains and guts. Billy’s the common one—the pretty playboy of the Middle Western world. Look at all those big, boozy broths of b’ys at 3240 Lake Shore Drive; look at the wild Irish roses propping up the bar in the Buttery on their grandfathers’ legacies. Erin go broke, darling, it’s shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations and Billy’s a prime example.”

  “Billy’s got—well—trouble with his inner ear.”

  “Darling, come off it! Trouble with your upper brain! You don’t believe poor Kitty’s convenient alibi for a minute—any more than she believes yours.”

  “Well mine happens to be true. Besides, Billy is very charming, ve-ry handsome. I’ve always adored him.”

  “I didn’t see you giving him an adoring embrace today, darling. Maybe you were taken in—up to now—by that cutie-pie face and those bogus manners. Besides, I couldn’t help noticing that he’s already getting a bit broad in the beam—hardly anyone could avoid noticing today.”

  “If Allison’s as smart as I think she is. . . .”

  “Careful, darling, she may be smarter than you think she is. Even smarter than you are, perhaps. You’re very much alike, you know.”

  “Oh everybody says that—’Just like sisters!’ Well, if Allison’s so much like me, then why isn’t she like me? I mean like . . . me?”

  “That’s a fascinating bit of sentence structure, darling, but what do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean here it is Allison’s debutante year. She has more money, more connections, more invitations to really fun things than she can ever possibly use. I break my neck getting her into things, buying her dresses, giving her a huge ball. And what does she do? She goes shlepping off to every party as though she thought it were a funeral.”

  “Maybe that’s what she does think.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. But think of the wonderful older men she could meet going to all those dances. Not little squirts like Billy Kennedy—there, I’ve said it and I hope you’re satisfied—but grown-up, interesting men. I did meet Dick at my coming-out party. And Allison. . . .”

  “And Allison, in this day and age, won’t meet anything but a pack of free-loaders under twenty-five as you, the gracious hostess, will discover at the cost of something like three thousand dollars an hour. Really, darling, sometimes I think Allison is smarter than you. And I think that you’re afraid of her. Any quick confessions?”

  “Oh, that’s enough about Allison.”

  “As you wish, darling. Where to next? Dicky?”

  “Yes,” the Actual Sheila had sighed, “I suppose one really must think a bit about poor Dicky.”

  “Good. Shall we beat around the
bush for a while or shall we get right down to the question at hand: Why did he go off on a tear?”

  “Well,” the Actual Sheila had begun squirming, “it might have been high youthful spirits. He is young. Exuberant.”

  “Now see here, darling, I have the patience of Job. We also have the whole night ahead of us with nothing more diverting, alas, than A Passage to India. But if you want to get this Deep Thinking thing over and done with, you’ll have to be a bit more candid. Dicky never had an exuberant minute. Was he one of those scabby-kneed, tree-climbing little boys? Was he the heart and soul of the glee club, the debating society, the year book, the football team? He was not!”

  “Dicky’s always been delicate.”

  “Dicky’s never had a sick day in his life. Thin, yes, but as strong as a bull and. . . .”