Love & Mrs. Sargent Read online

  Mrs. Flood rallied her forces. “Woo-hoo! Mr. Malvern. Here in the office. Oh, Bertha, would you please take Mr. uh . . . the gentleman’s suitcase?”

  Mr. Malvern and an indistinct figure peered in from the lighted hallway. “Where are you, Floodie?” Malvern said. I can’t see you.”

  “Oh, goodness! Isn’t it dark in here?” Mrs. Flood reached out for a lamp and tripped over the coffee table.”

  “I’ll see to the lamps, Mrs. Flood,” Bertha said patiently. In a moment the curtains were drawn, the lamps lighted.

  “Well, Floodie,” Malvern said with false jocularity, “looking younger and prettier every day.”

  “Oh, Mr. Malvern! Do sit down. I can’t imagine what’s keeping Mrs. Sargent she should have been back by. . . .”

  “Mrs. Flood, I’d like to present Peter Johnson from Worldwide Weekly. Mrs. Flood is Mrs. Sargent’s Girl Friday.”

  “Oh, how do you do,” Mrs. Flood simpered. She had to admit to a certain amount of disappointment. Romance still burned bright in Mrs. Flood’s soul and she had rather hoped that this reporter would be very blond and very dashing. Leslie Howard, Gene Raymond, Douglass Montgomery, Nelson Eddy and Phillips Holmes had all been great favorites of hers. This young man was not the pale god she had anticipated and she considered his suit very badly cut.

  “I suppose you’re the one who really does all the work,” Peter said.

  “Wh-what?” Mrs. Flood asked blankly.

  “I say I suppose you’re the one who really tells all those lovelorn dames how to solve their problems.”

  “Oh, good heavens no’” Mrs. Flood gasped. “Mrs. Sargent answers every letter herself. I type them, of course, and lick the stamps—hahahahaha! We feel that stamps are more personal than a postage meter,” she confided. Anything as complicated as a postage meter would have driven Mrs. Flood to gibbering lunacy. She felt now a fierce loyalty to her employer that torture itself could not budge. And she also imagined that she was giving the press an interesting insight into Sheila’s working habits. “But Mrs. Sargent reads every letter, answers every letter and even signs them.”

  “Signs them does she? Imagine!” Peter hadn’t meant to be quite this sarcastic. The house had been something of a letdown. His animosity had created for Sheik Sargent an establishment larger and grander than the Peterhoff, equally wrested from the sweat of serfs. This house was simply large, handsome and comfortable. Still he couldn’t forgive these people. Just playing the money down, he thought, damned snobs.

  Summoning up every platitude she could manage, Mrs. Flood then set about to serve as auxiliary hostess. “I really don’t know what can be making Mrs. Sargent so late. She especially wanted to be here to welcome Mr. . . uh, Johnson, The traffic, I suppose. Do sit down and let me give you both a drink. Poor Mrs. Sargent, lecturing in Evanston today and so busy what with all her projects and being elected Mother of the Year.”

  Peter’s eyebrows shot up. Mr. Malvern groaned audibly from his chair.

  Oblivious to them, Mrs. Flood raced on, overwhelmed by the sheer force of her polite banter. “I should have lighted the lamps earlier the days are getting so short but I do love this time of year don’t you I mean the fall colors and the nip in the air Mrs. Sargent’s grounds are lovely some of the most beautiful on the whole North Shore well worth the trip from New York just to see them Mr. Johnson of course it’s grown so dark that you can’t right now but there’s always tomorrow isn’t there in fact you’ll be with us all week I believe I do hope this nice weather keeps are you sure you wouldn’t like to go up to your room and wash Mrs. Sargent chose an especially nice room for you quiet so you can work can I get you gentlemen a drink I don’t know where Mrs. Sargent can. . .”

  Malvern stood up and laughed. “Floodie, settle down.” He was more at ease in crowds than in twosomes and Mrs. Flood with her fluttering and twittering, her moues and gestures, constituted what was almost a mob scene. Besides, if Malvern could speak up now and do it quickly, Mrs. Flood’s unfortunate slip about Sheila’s being nominated Mother of the Year might possibly be overlooked. “The world isn’t coming to an end just because Sheila’s not home yet Meanwhile, I’ll tend bar. What would you like, Floodie?”

  “Oh, nothing for me, thank you.”

  “What about you, Johnson? Scotch, rye, bourbon? I mix a mean martini.”

  “Have you any beer?” Johnson said aggressively, the man of the people. He secretly hoped that there was no beer, as he vastly preferred scotch. But it was his understanding that the rich rarely stocked anything as commonplace as beer and he wanted to embarrass them.

  “What?” Mrs. Flood said.

  “Beer,” Johnson said.

  “Beer? W-well, I’ll see. Do excuse me.” Mrs. Flood simpered at the room at large and scampered off to the pantry.

  “Flighty, isn’t she?” Johnson said.

  “Mrs. Flood,” Malvern chuckled. “Salt of the earth. She’s been a godsend to Sheila—and vice-versa. Just like one of the family.”

  “That’s what they all say “

  “I beg your pardon,” Malvern said uneasily.

  “I said, That’s what they all say,” Peter said. “Every time I do a story on some big shot it’s the same thing. If it’s an actress, she’s got a maid who’s ‘Just like one of the family.’ If it’s a four-star general, his orderly is ‘Just like one of the family.’ If it’s. . . .”

  “Well, you won’t find this family like those others,” Malvern said. “Sheila’s done a grand job on them.”

  “And is that why Sheila Sargent, of all people, has been selected as Mother of the Year?”

  “What’s that?” Malvern said blandly, affecting not to have heard.

  “It seems that her secretary just let that amazing fact drop. It can’t come as much of a surprise to you.”

  “Well, now that you mention it,” Malvern said, choosing his words carefully, “Sheila’s always been a splendid mother. Pity Dick died before she could have more children.”

  “How did you swing it?”

  “Swing what?” Malvern said, flustered.

  “How did you swing having Sheila Sargent chosen?”

  “Now see here, Johnson, I had nothing to do with the selection. This is the first I’ve heard of it. But it doesn’t really surprise me. Sheila’s an important woman—one of the most important in America.”

  “Sure, Mr. Malvern. And you’re an important man—the head of the biggest feature syndicate in America. And Sheila Sargent is your biggest property. Don’t tell me that Famous Features didn’t have something to do with it.”

  “I can assure you,” Malvern said portentously, “that Sheila needs no help from Famous Features or from me. She’s a well-known woman around here and always has been. I guess you people east of the Hudson River may not appreciate that. She’s written three big books, she lectures, she’s considering a television offer and she’s syndicated in more than nine hundred papers.”

  “And. . . .”

  “Yes?” Malvern asked with frosty dignity.

  “And with some trumped-up title like Mother of the Year, your syndicate could sell her to a thousand more papers. Don’t try to kid me. I’ve been in this business too long to. . . .”

  Malvern laughed uneasily. He was nervous and frightened. This overly bright, intense young man from the enemy camp terrified him. This Johnson seemed blessed with second sight, Mr. Malvern felt. He could look right inside Malvern and read his innermost thoughts. Hadn’t he been doing it all afternoon? And what worried Malvern even more was that there was a germ of truth in what he was saying right now.

  This Mother of the Year thing, for example, had originated not with Mr. Malvern but within his empire. A decade ago a Famous Features gossip columnist awoke one morning with a racking hangover and a dearth of big names to drop. In desperation, he had devoted his whole column to a totally fictitious woman in a nonexistent town in California who, he claimed, had raised sixteen children singlehanded and put them all through
medical school on her earnings as a laundress. The columnist had pulled out all the stops, turned on the tears and dubbed his Galatea “Mother of the Year.” No one at Famous Features had paid it much heed. The column was read by the home office only with an eye to libel anyhow. But two days later Famous Features was inundated with letters and telegrams, offers of washing machines and mangles, checks and dirty currency to help this noble heroine. No one questioned why the sixteen physicians she had supposedly spawned didn’t chip in to buy the old lady a Bendix. No one—not even Californians—seemed to know or care that there was no such place as San Absurdio, California. It was only a week later, when the fuss had died down and Mr. Malvern had casually inquired as to where to send the windfall, that the columnist confessed to him that the whole thing had been a hoax. The contributions were passed along to the Chicago Community Chest on the q.t. and J. Howard Malvern was admitted to Passavant Hospital with hemorrhaging ulcers.

  But the following year the same columnist, sensing a good thing, had found a valiant little Texas lady with twelve exemplary children and pictures to prove it. This Mother of the Year was about to lose her ranch and the reader response was so great that she not only paid off the mortgage but bought the adjoining land and later struck oil on it. The year after that he unearthed a Negress in Spartanburg, South Carolina who had acquired not only twenty children but also two cataracts. A group of public spirited citizens in Chicago got up a purse to bring the unfortunate woman north for an eye operation and, upon recovery, a modest testimonial dinner. Even the Chicago Tribune, jealous and skeptical in the past, got into the act and ran a front page editorial on the Big Beating Heart of Chicagoland. At their next convention the Magnanimous American Mothers’ Association had the columnist unanimously declared an honorary woman. Manufacturers began offering dinettes and dishwashers to the annual martyr in the selfless interests of motherhood and sweet publicity. The Mother of the Year had not only become an actuality, she had become a national event, usually winding up with a fortune in booty and—if at all presentable—with a television contract and an invitation to dine at the White House.

  In recent years, however, the brood mare had made way for the Woman of Accomplishment. A lady biologist, a movie actress and a congresswoman, averaging only 3.66 children apiece, had made the grade. It had become a dignified and respectable thing to do, equaled only by the legion d’honneur and the Victoria Cross. This year a panel of five irreproachable judges, including three Famous Features columnists, had decided in secret conclave that the honor would go to Sheila Sargent—a fact that would be kept a dark secret until the Mother of the Year Banquet at the end of the week.

  To give Mr. Malvern his due, he had always refused to have anything to do with this Mother of the Year nonsense. He had been too frightened after the first year ever to want to. But now that the project had achieved some stature, now that it had been lifted above the level of a breeding contest or a give-away show, freed of ballyhoo and publicity tie-ins, Mr. Malvern did just once—yes, he had to admit it—he did just once let drop to some of this year’s judges that he would not be entirely displeased if Mrs. Sargent—an exemplary woman and mother, as everyone knew—were to be considered. Now Mr. Malvern winced, recalling that evening in a private dining room at the Chicago Club when, spurred on by Jack Daniel and Chateauneuf du Pape, he had made just some sort of suggestion to three of the five impartial judges.

  And he truly hadn’t done it for selfish reasons. He had already made so much money through Sheila Sargent that he wouldn’t have cared if she stopped writing altogether. He had done it because he loved Sheila and because he loved her children and because he thought the award would make her happy. Mr. Malvern planned his strategy for just a second and then he began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Peter asked.

  “You know, Johnson,” Malvern said, “I ought to be mad at you. But I’m not. I have no idea just what kind of a woman you’re expecting. But whatever it is, you’re wrong. You just don’t know Sheila.”

  “I’ve read enough of her stuff.”

  “Then you should be able to tell that she’s intelligent, that she’s honest and that she’s a lady.” Johnson grimaced; here was Society again. “She’s made herself one of the most beloved women in the country. She’s raised two children all by herself and she’s raised them beautifully. Her daughter Allison is coming out this year. . . .”

  “That’s some achievement!”

  “And, as you know, Dicky has published his first novel at twenty.”

  “Maybe coming out is better.”

  “But things like being a famous woman and winning honors like Mother of the Year aren’t important to Sheila. She’s a real person and a real mother.”

  “Mm-hmmm.”

  “Oh—and Johnson—you won’t mention this Mother of the Year thing. It’s too bad Floodie had to spill the beans. But nobody knows it. Not even Sheila’s children. She’s saving the banquet as a surprise for them. Of course you can say all you want about it in your article, since it won’t be on the stands until after the announcement. But. . . .”

  He heard the front door slam.

  “Howard?” Sheila called. “Did you think I’d never get here?”

  Sheila burst into the room with a kind of luminosity that quite floored Peter. “Howard,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to get home in time to do the Sowers. But I had to go down to Evans-ton to perform at this enormous ladies’ luncheon. You know-sweetbreads in butterscotch sauce and minty little avocado baskets filled with marshmallow fluff; Madam Chairman, gavel and all. Well, I guess I couldn’t have been too bad. They kept me standing on my poor feet answering questions until almost four o’clock. I’m so hoarse I can hardly croak. Then I got waylaid at the door by this poor woman with the most awful problems, to hear her tell it. And then we got stuck in the traffic which was a blessing, in a way, because just sitting there and fuming, my eye caught this divine dress that’s the kind of blue only Allison can wear.” She stopped for breath and saw Taylor standing in the hall with her packages. “Oh, Taylor, just dump those things out in the hall. And thank you so much. It’s been quite day for both of us. Then, Howard, by the time I’d bought that, I lost Taylor and the car because the police made him move on. And . . . well, anyhow, here I am. And I’m dying for a drink!”

  Quite an entrance speech, Peter thought, as he stood uncomfortably.

  Malvern crossed the room and kissed Sheila. It was exactly the same sort of kiss he had delivered to her on meeting and parting ever since he had kissed her as a bride at her wedding and as far as he’d ever dared to go. But now he felt that he shouldn’t have done it. Not with this inhuman Johnson in the room. What would Johnson think?

  Oh, God, Johnson thought, the chaste greeting of the chosen few. He had known effete little groups in New York who were forever exchanging sexless kisses at parties, on the street, in theater lobbies and restaurants. He often wondered why they didn’t rub noses or share in secret handclasps instead of these brother-to-sister busses.

  “Sheila, my dear,” Malvern said, “here’s the man who’s going to expose you all over the next issue of Worldwide Weekly. May I present Mr. Peter Johnson?”

  “How do you do, Mr. Johnson,” Sheila said, giving him a firm handshake.

  Johnson was surprised. Johnson thought she might expect him to kiss her, too. I guess I’m just not in the Right Set, he said to himself. “How do you do,” he said.

  “I do hope someone was here to do the honors when you got here. But then I suppose it’s only right that you should see us in our usual state of squalor and confusion.”

  “Oh, here you are, Mrs. Sargent.” Mrs. Flood staggered into the room unsteadily bearing a tray loaded with beer bottles.

  “Floodie! You look just like Miss Rheingold. What are you doing with all that beer?”

  “Mr. Johnson thought he’d like beer. I do hope it’s cold enough.”

  “And a splendid idea, Mr. Johnson,” Sheila said. “I
think I’ll join you. Although I probably shouldn’t,” she added, smoothing a waist that was as slim as a girl’s.

  Angry at not being angry with this show woman, this professional hostess and blatant charmer, Peter got to work with the beer.

  “Where are the children, Floodie?” Sheila asked.

  “Dicky’s out in his studio working and Allison is upstairs dressing.”

  “Oh, dear. Floodie, would you be an angel and fetch poor Dicky out of the tool shed? He’ll get sick again working so hard. And don’t take No for an answer. Tell him it’s five o’clock and the office is closing for the day.”

  “Certainly, Mrs. Sargent,” Mrs. Flood said, bustling out through the garden doors.

  “Beer all right, Mr. Johnson? We keep it mostly for the children’s friends. If you prefer some other brand, I can always order it at. . . .”

  “It’s fine. Just fine. Th-thank you,” Peter said.

  Then Sheila noticed Peter’s suitcase standing out in the hall. “Good heavens, Mr. Johnson,” she said, “hasn’t anyone even shown you to your room? You must think we’re odd.” She pressed a bell.

  Here comes the fourth footman, I suppose, Johnson thought, but not with very much conviction. Taylor reappeared in a white houseman’s jacket—no plum knee breeches, no powdered hair, none of the things Johnson wanted to hate about this woman and her household,

  “I’ll ask Taylor to take your bag right up in case you want to wash up or change before dinner.”

  “Oh,” Johnson said triumphantly. “Do we dress for dinner here? If so, I’m out of luck. I don’t happen to own a. . . .”

  “Of course we don’t,” Sheila said matter-of-factly. “I think Allison may look rather diaphanous this evening because she’s going to a dance. Otherwise we’re just like anybody else. Oh, Taylor,” she said, “would you take Mr. Johnson’s bag up and show him his room? Mr. Johnson, I’m putting you in the masculine—or quiet—end of the house. Your bathroom is to the left as you go in and there’s a sort of little sitting room to the right. That is, if you don’t mind sharing the sitting room with my son. He’s hardly ever in it. And if there’s anything you want and you don’t see, please ask for it.”