Genius Page 9

  The pounding and clanging began at one o’clock.

  My wife switched on the light, pummeled me into wakefulness, and said, “Are you expecting anyone, dear?”

  “Naturally,” I said, “I’ve invited Dr. and Miz Priddy, Bunty Maitland-Grim, and President Lopez Mateos in to make fudge. I always entertain at this hour.”

  “Very funny. But are you going down to the door or must I?”

  “Why should either of us bother? We’re not expecting anybody. It’s just some drunk. He’ll go away eventually.”

  Still the pounding on the great carved door, the pealing of the iron bell.

  “It could be a telegram,” my wife said. “Perhaps something’s happened to one of the children.”

  “Nonsense, I’ve told both schools never to telegraph, always to call long distance.”

  “Well, something could have happened to Mother.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  The racket still kept on.

  “Well, if you’re not going to see who it is, I am.”

  “Oh, all right!” I got crossly out of bed, put on my robe—inside out—shuffled into my sandals, and began the long trek to the front door.

  “All right, all right, all right,” I said, struggling with the sixteenth-century bolts and bars and latches and with the twentieth-century Yale lock. Finally I got the door open, and a beautiful brunette threw herself into my arms and cried “Daddy!” After I’d been soundly kissed, she disengaged herself, stood back, and drank me in. “Oh, Daddy, I knew I’d recognize you anyplace—even with your beard.”

  “Well, young lady,” I said, “that’s more than I can say for you—even without yours.”

  “Just put my bags inside, please,” she said to a seedy-looking cab driver. Then she consulted her Berlitz phrase book and said, “Las maletas aquí, por favor. Daddy do you have any Mexican money to pay the driver? My plane was so late that the money-changing place at the airport was closed. And I waited for you for more than an hour. Didn’t you get my telegram, Daddy?”

  “Nobody ever gets a telegram in Mexico and will you please stop calling me Daddy.”

  “Don’t dream of stopping, young woman,” my wife said, appearing from nowhere in a black negligee that makes her look like a kept woman. “In fact, go right on. I find this ve-ry interesting.”

  “Daddy! Is that your . . . your mistress? Mummy said you . . .”

  “We’ve been sleeping together for the past fifteen years, and now if you’ll be so kind as to get the hell out of here, we can go right back to bed together. We’re insatiable—when it comes to getting a decent night’s sleep, that is.”

  “Daddy!” Her lip trembled, and tears welled up in her enormous eyes. Very pretty.

  “Now listen to me, young lady, a joke’s a joke, but I’ve had a long, taxing day, and it is late and . . .”

  “Excuse me,” she said, “but aren’t you Leander Starr?”

  “Leander Starr? I’ve been accused of some terrible things in my life but never of . . . My God!” Suddenly everything fell into place. The dark prettiness of the girl, the slight Philadelphia accent, the marked resemblance to the icy Caroline Morris of twenty years ago. “You’re not . . .”

  “My name is Emily Starr. I’m Leander Starr’s daughter.”

  V

  “Well,” my wife said the next morning after Guadalupe had slapped a trayload of coffee onto our bed and shuffled out, “aren’t we going to have a nice surprise for our neighbor today. Yesterday an ex-wife, today a long-lost daughter.”

  “That’s us, chock-full of tricks and treats, every day in every way getting better and better. Where will it end?”

  “I think I was right to make her spend the night here. Who knows what time Starr got in, or in what condition?”

  “Or with whom. I think perhaps I’d better go over and prepare the old maniac for a great big, grown-up daughter.”

  “And I think that perhaps I’d better stay here and prepare that great big, grown-up daughter for a great big baby of a father.”

  “They’ve never met?”

  “Not, according to Emily, since she was a baby in the heart of the pygmy country. So her impressions of him can’t be very vivid.”

  “Don’t worry, they will be. What’s she doing down here anyhow, after all these years?”

  “Well, I don’t quite know. She was so exhausted last night that she wasn’t making much sense. Dozed off two or three times while I made up her bed. But I gather that she’s had some disagreement with her mother and stepfather over some boy back in Philadelphia. So she’s taken it into her head to rush down to Daddy for moral support.”

  “She’s chosen a frail reed at best.”

  “I wonder what the mother can be like.”

  “Simply beautiful. A perfect mannequin.”

  “You mean she was a model?”

  “Good God, no. Caroline Morris would never do anything so common as kick her train around the Philadelphia branch of Bonwit Teller’s. She’s very Main Line, very Bryn Mawr, very Assembly. When I say mannequin, I mean that Caroline has the same beauty, the same warmth, and the same intelligence as a window dummy. At least that’s how she was twenty years ago, and I think she was too set in her ways to change.”

  “How in the world did a girl like that ever get mixed up with a man like Starr?”

  “You’ve come to the right place to ask. Actually, I introduced them. Just count on the Patrick Dennis Lonely Hearts Introduction Service—‘Someone for Everyone,’ that’s our motto. May I have about half a cup more of that molten lava?”

  “You can take the whole pot for all of me. But how could a sheltered, gently reared girl from Philadelphia ever wind up with a madman like Starr?”

  “Well, you’re a sheltered, gently reared girl from New York, and you thought he was pretty special.”

  “But I didn’t marry him.”

  “He didn’t ask you to. And Caroline didn’t stay married to him for very long.”

  “She’s now a Mrs. Strawbridge living somewhere between Paoli and hell.”

  “That’s more the Caroline Morris speed—the Academy of Music, the Merion Cricket Club, the flower show, and doing good works in a Peck & Peck suit with tweed hat to match.”

  “I once had a very pretty suit from Peck & Peck. You always said you liked it.”

  “Well, I think I’ll throw on my Peck & Peck suit and go over to warn Starr.”

  “At eight o’clock in the morning? Emily won’t be up for hours. She was half dead when I tucked her in last night.”

  “I think that Starr may need more preparation than most. He’s never been exactly what progressive schools call a ‘participating Daddy,’ you know.”

  “If you go over there now he’ll kill you, and I wouldn’t blame him.”

  “My first exclusive may kill him. It’s nip and tuck.”

  I waited until a little after ten when I saw St. Regis fussing around the patio cleaning up after Starr’s party of the night before and trying to pump just one day’s more life into the bowl of rotting gladiolus.

  “I guess I’ll go over and beard the old goat now,” I said to my wife.

  “I think you’d better. I hear just the faintest stirrings up in Emily’s bedroom.”

  “Here I go. This is going to be the corniest script since Daddy Longlegs.”

  “Good luck,” she said.

  St. Regis had just executed a dainty little pirouette, landed a bit unsteadily, and was standing more or less in the third position of ballet over the remains of the bowl of guacamole.

  “Good morning, St. Regis,” I said.

  “Oh! Oh, good morning, sir. Isn’t it a lovely day. A real bueno dee-o, as the Spanish say.”

  “Enjoy the picture last night? The Sins of the Father?”

  “La Pecado de uno Madre,” he corrected more sternly than accurately. “Oh, it was beautyful, Mr. Dennis. Miss del Río was marvelous and just like a young girl. Amazing. It’s about this lady that is inv
olved in an accident and goes right ahead and has a daughter . . .”

  It seemed as good an opening as any. “Speaking of daughters, is Mr. Starr in?”

  He looked quite stricken. “Oh, good heavens, no, Mr. Dennis.”

  “You mean he’s not back from dinner yet?”

  “Oh, goodness, I mean he’s back but . . .”

  “Would you please tell Mr. Starr I’d like a word with him.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that, sir, my imployer would be most disturbed.”

  “Not nearly as disturbed as when he hears what I’ve got to tell him. Just inform him that his daughter Emily is asleep in our apartment.”

  St. Regis’ lower jaw dropped dramatically, a pearly upper plate following a split second later. With a little click, he hastily closed the whole aperture, setting the flawless dental work back into position. “His daughter, sir? She’s just a baby.”

  “She’s eighteen, she’s no baby, and she’s right here waiting for dear old dad. Now do you want me to go in there and tell him or will you?”

  “Wait right here, sir, please. Don’t go away.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  St. Regis swayed weakly into Starr’s apartment while I, thoroughly enjoying myself, stretched out in the sun to wait. Nor was there much delay between St. Regis’ disappearance and the fireworks. Suddenly a roar issued through Starr’s bedroom window that sent Loro flapping hysterically up into the jacaranda tree. “St. Regis,” Starr bellowed, “how many times have I told you not to enter my room until I ring for you. You have embarrassed a . . .” There was stillness for a tiny moment and then Starr’s stentorian “What?” Another short silence and then Starr on again, stronger than ever. “Will you get out of here you fat sow! Now, St. Regis, start in again.”

  Hardly a second had elapsed before Catalina Ximinez scuttled wildly out of Starr’s apartment, hair awry, wearing the white-fox coat, bare feet thrust into her pumps with a few bits of last night’s rumpled ice-blue finery tossed over one arm.

  “Buenos días, Señorita Ximinez,” I said.

  She cast a wild hunted look in my direction and then rushed stumbling to her own quarters.

  A moment later Starr appeared on the balcony above me, buttoning himself into some silk pajamas. “Mr. Dennis,” he said, but the voice had lost quite a lot of its Shakespearean boom, “would you be good enough to come up here and explain the exact nature of this . . . this gigantic hoax? I fear that my valet has taken leave of his senses.”

  “All righty-roo, Leander,” I said.

  Starr’s apartment, while not comprising as many rooms as ours, was even larger. I entered a living room as dim and vast as Howe Caverns, made a wrong turning into a kitchen, where I saw an ironing board set up with half a dozen of Starr’s suits waiting to be pressed and a copy of The Joy of Cooking.

  “Will you hurry, man!” Starr shouted from the upper reaches.

  Accustomed to the gloom at last, I found a great, meandering stone staircase and started climbing it. Halfway to the top I saw an ice-blue garter belt, which I picked up and draped over one shoulder like Miz Priddy’s dyed squirrel scarf. In the upper hallway there were three vast studded doors. One was open and I could see Starr, supine on a great, carved walnut bed, like a dying infante, having his wrists chafed by St. Regis. “In here, man, in here. And be quick about it. And what in the name of God is that truss you’re wearing?”

  “This?” I said, holding Madame X’s garter belt up daintily. “I found it on the stairs. Is it yours or does it belong to St. Regis? No matter. It’s terribly pretty.”

  “Put it down, for God’s sake. You don’t know where it’s been.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet I do.”

  St. Regis giggled, and Starr shot him a malign glance. “Now, Dennis, my valet here tells me that some creature who claims—mind, I say claims—who claims to be my child has, in my absence, taken advantage of both your hospitality and your gullibility. It’s obviously some opportunist who’s after my money.”

  “After your what?”

  “Just who does this . . . this girl claim to be?”

  “She claims to be Emily Starr out of the former Caroline Morris Starr who is now a Mrs. Strawbridge residing in some verdant banlieue of Philadelphia. And I see no reason to doubt it. She’s the image of Caroline.”

  Starr shuddered. “That impossible woman. Tell me, dear boy, is . . . is Emily as pretty as her unfortunate mother?”

  “Prettier, I should say. More yielding.”

  Starr shuddered again. “She could hardly be less so. About how old?”

  “Eighteen she says.”

  Starr ruminated on the age, consulted with St. Regis who counted up on his fingers. “Yes, that would be just about right. What a colicky baby she was and plain as plain.”

  “She had lovely hair, Mr. Starr,” St. Regis said. “I used to arrange it myself.”

  “She still has,” I said. “In fact she has lovely everything.”

  “But what, in the name of God,” Starr said, “does she want of me? Surely not money. Her mother’s people were very well off, although there was some talk of disinheriting Caroline when she married me.”

  “I wonder why,” I said.

  “Very provincial people, the Morrises. Although I never had the dubious pleasure of meeting them. But why, after all these years, does this child descend upon me?”

  “I don’t quite know the details, Leander, but she seems to have had a falling-out with her mother, and she’s come to you for the advice of a wise father. God knows why.”

  Starr got off the bed and strode to the window where he posed dramatically gazing out over the patio. It was perhaps a mistake as the light coming through his sheer pajamas silhouetted a considerable fullness at the waist.

  I was about to say something unkind about his gaining weight when my attention was caught by something on the bedside table. There were some blue-glass earrings that I remembered as having been especially tasteless when worn by Catalina Ximinez the night before. Next to the earrings was a small bit of black fur about as big around as a silver dollar. It seemed to correspond exactly with the tiny bald spot now visible on the crown of Starr’s head. I quickly put on both earrings and slapped the hairpiece onto the middle of my forehead, where it clung precariously thanks to a residue of spirit gum. There was a horrified squeal from St. Regis. Starr spun around.

  “Me Yucatán girl,” I said. “Is this fur piece yours, or did Miss Ximinez leave her merkin?” St. Regis bent double in a gale of giggles and, almost on all fours, left the room.

  “Now see here, Mis-ter Dennis,” Starr fumed, “if you think I intend to be insulted by a third-rate gag writer like you when I am beset by trouble and aggravation, you are mistaken. I shall thank you to vacate my quarters forthwith.”

  “Okay, Leander,” I said, removing his toupee from my forehead. “Here’s your yamilke. Where shall I deliver the body?”

  “No. Wait. You’ve got to help me. After all, you’re a father, too.”

  “Like to see some photographs?” I asked. “I just happen to have . . .”

  “No. I’m serious. What shall I wear?”

  “Your rose taffeta with the green sash perhaps.”

  “No. Really. I’m new at this father sort of thing. I want to make a good impression.”

  “Well, that’s going to take more than a toupee and tailoring. Face reality for once. The girl hasn’t come to a fashion show. She’s got a problem, and she wants a father to help her.”

  “Yes, yes, yes. But how do you think I ought to play it. Robert Young? Lewis Stone? Paul Scofield? Should I let myself go gray at the temples?”

  “They’ve been like the driven snow under that shoeblacking for years. But why do you have to play it as anything? I suggest that if you just be yourself the poor girl will be so let down that she’ll go home on the next plane.”

  “Dennis, dear boy, I beseech you—as one father to another . . .”

  “Don’t give me th
at jazz, Leander. At least I’ve had more practice at the father act. I’ll bet you’ve never sent your poor daughter a birthday gift or even a post card since the day she was born.”

  “I’m a very busy man.”

  “Busy at what, dodging the bailiff?”

  “Amelia was torn from my arms—literally.”

  “Her name is Emily. She’s waiting next door to see you for what amounts to the first time in her life. Now get into your King Lear costume and come on over. Don’t worry. You’ll manage to ham your way through somehow. My sympathies aren’t with you, they’re with her.” With that, I marched haughtily down the stairs, leaving Starr to his plight.

  I was so angry with Starr for his obtuseness, his terrible vanity, his bone-selfishness, his complete lack of feeling for his only child, that I kept thinking of my own daughter in the same plight as Starr’s and resolved to be especially paternal and tender when I saw Emily. For some reason I envisioned her as looking small and crushed in a suit of Dr. Denton pajamas and just possibly a hair ribbon. My heart all but bled for this innocent, trusting, fatherless child, soon to come face to face with a bogus old monster like Leander Starr who would obviously make her life a living hell, rob her piggy bank, and abandon her.

  But when I got into our apartment I saw quite a change. My wife had been able to force her way through the teeming humanity in our kitchen, find a silver coffeepot that was almost shiny, cook up an omelet that was not swimming in Casa oil, and serve it all up prettily on a tray along with a clean napkin and some kind of local exotic flower leaning a bit top-heavily from a bud vase. Daintiest thing she’d done since I had pneumonia in 1950. However, I could tell by a certain tell-tale whiteness around her lips that all was not going well with our guest.

  If Emily, from fear, bewilderment, and exhaustion, had seemed the little lost lamb a few hours before, a good night’s sleep, breakfast, and the knowledge that help was on the way had quite restored her to one of the most positive, prim, and unpleasant young women I had ever met. If there is anything I dislike more than gaucherie in the young, it is total self-confidence—and Emily had it.