Mrs. Gunn gathered, in spite of the strange accents, that they wanted to see the house. She had no objections. It wasn’t that she was actually hoping for anything: she was only at the stage of thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
There were seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, and four other rooms—a large living-room, an ample dining-room, a study (old Mr. Brent’s refuge from his wife’s innumerable guests), and a very small sitting-room with a glass-enclosed porch and a view of the mountains that silenced Mrs. Peel completely. Miss Bly remarked that Mrs. Brent had put out not only a lot of money on the house, but taste and thought as well. “Those were the days,” Mrs. Gunn said, and startled her visitors into wondering if she were a mind-reader. But Mrs. Gunn wasn’t thinking about money so much, for she added, “And they could come back again if only this house had the right mistress.”
As they returned to the old-fashioned kitchen Sarah Bly said, “It seems strange—” She stopped, realising her tactlessness. She cleared her throat, ignored the smile in Margaret’s quick brown eyes, and changed her course. “How attractive your kitchen is!”
“I like it,” Mrs. Gunn agreed heartily. “It’s not like the new kitchen, thank goodness.” She opened a door and showed them a narrow white room with streamlined equipment for cooking and washing.
“That looks very efficient,” Miss Bly said, with renewed interest. “It would be very easy to have guests, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Gunn said grudgingly, “but it still looks like a hospital to me.” She led the way back to the cheerful wood stove and the comfortable rocking-chair. As she made them a cup of tea there were other questions to be answered: the little guest-cabin by the creek, the quarters for the help, the electric plant that hadn’t been used for some time, water running hot as well as very cold. “It all costs a mint of money,” Mrs. Gunn said truthfully and sadly. However, the ladies accepted another doughnut and praised Mrs. Gunn’s light hand and when they went upstairs to rest for a little (altitude or old age, Mrs. Peel wondered again) Mrs. Gunn decided that really they were as nice as could be, even if they did use an awful lot of extra words. No wonder they tired so easily.
* * *
“I can’t quite believe it,” Mrs. Peel said. But whether she was referring to the house or to the two doughnuts which had tempted her so successfully, or to the invitation to supper (relayed by Mrs. Gunn) with the master of the house in the dining-room tonight, Sarah Bly wasn’t sure.
For a while they were silent. And, although they felt exhausted, they were too excited to sleep.
Then, “I wonder if you are thinking what I am thinking?” Mrs. Peel asked.
Sarah stared at her, and then laughed. “We are idiots,” she said. “We decided only a month ago that we had reached retiring age, remember?” She rose from her bed and went over to the windows and opened them wide. The steady murmur of the creek, the rustling of the cottonwood-trees, the notes of a robin singing two lines of a song, came drifting into the room.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Peel said brusquely. “That’s what it was. This idea is just the sort of thing I need to keep me alive. If we are idiots, then we are idiots with a good idea, and just enough money—which is equally important.”
“Unless the price of this house were too high.”
“We could always lease it, of course.”
“That wouldn’t be the kind of money he needs. Besides, he might not like our idea at all.” Sarah Bly remembered Jim Brent’s determined jaw-line and decidedly firm mouth. The eyes too were uncompromising. He might want to keep the house as his own, even if it were a white elephant. Men were like that.
“Well, we are having dinner with him, aren’t we? Let’s be thankful the electricity isn’t on, and that candlelight has a softening effect.”
“He will think we are crazy,” Sarah said. “And how on earth do we get anywhere near the subject?”
“Leave that to me,” Mrs. Peel said. She was already in her most persuasive mood as she began to brush her hair. “After all, think of the benefactor he would be if he sold us this house— why, he might be responsible for a completely new phase in his country’s literature.”
* * *
The future benefactor was at that moment changing into a clean pair of well-faded, well-shrunk jeans. As he stamped his way into his best high-heeled boots he was cursing Ma Gunn’s idea of hospitality. What had made her suggest that the guests should have supper in the dining-room tonight, and that he ought to be host? They had accepted before he had been given the chance to make a polite excuse. They were nice enough women, he supposed, but he had a hell of a lot of paper work to do in his office tonight. And where the hell was that clean shirt? He cursed everything within reach in turn before he managed to leave his cabin.
The boys were lined up outside the Roost to encourage him with a cheer. Bert, caked with mud from the afternoon’s work, volunteered to come and serve them cocktails. There were numerous other suggestions too, including Ned’s guitar-playing, Robb’s recitations, and old Chuck as the Singing Cowboy. And Jackson, they thought, could pick flowers for the table.
But Jackson was sitting on his cot upstairs in the Wranglers’ Roost, thinking dolefully that every one else sounded much too happy. His hands itched and burned with red blotches that had spread up his arms and, since he had wiped the honest sweat off his brow several times in the course of this hot day’s work, were now appearing on his face. He rose to look in the small, cracked mirror hanging beside Robb’s cot. He closed his eyes to blot out the horrible sight. Before he came to Wyoming, he thought gloomily, he had been a handsome man—his taste ran to square-shaped jaw, heavy eyebrows above large brown eyes, and thick black hair. But now his eyes were puffed into slits; his nose had swollen and spread. He was no longer the Hungarian émigré or the Paris boulevardier or the smart New York chauffeur. He was a Tibetan pig. He sat down on his cot and wondered doubtfully if Atlantic City would ever look at him again.
5
ACTION...
Jim Brent found he was enjoying himself, after all. That was something of a surprise, for he had entered the dining-room in a definitely bad-tempered mood. By way of apology he set out to be a good host; he listened sympathetically, and he even talked a good deal more than he usually did with women. He was admitting to himself that he had jumped to several wrong conclusions about them. And so they found him a much easier companion than they had expected. They couldn’t guess from his face that his opinion of them (and they had never guessed that, either) was undergoing a complete revision. They weren’t as silly as he had thought: perhaps it was only natural for women to be as upset as they had been last night by the loss of their Paris hats. People, when they were badly shaken, often made more fuss over a trifle than over the real danger. And they weren’t as useless as he had thought: they might joke about their life abroad (often turning the joke against themselves, which was the best kind of joke, anyway), but it took a lot of organisation to get a printing-press going; and it took a bit of courage to carry it on hidden from the Germans, while it printed Resistance leaflets instead of poetry.
“I had the most wonderful time,” Mrs. Peel was saying. “I wrote the editorials, you see. They were only ten lines, of course, for we were strictly a one-page affair. But that was awfully good discipline, I’m sure.”
“For writing telegrams,” Miss Bly suggested, with a smile. “But our useful days ended in December 1941.”
“When we became officially enemies of the Reich.”
“And so we were smuggled out of France by friends. By way of Marseilles.”
“But we ran into a storm—you know, it really can blow in the Mediterranean—and we found ourselves in Sicily of all places. Still it was an interesting month in a way.”
“Thirty-three days, Sarah. They are written on my heart. Then we got resmuggled, fortunately. People can be very kind.”
Brent managed to get three words in. “And where then?” He didn’t usually ask people questions about the
mselves, but this one seemed worth asking.
“To North Africa,” Mrs. Peel said lightly. “Wasn’t that lucky? We had never managed to get around to North Africa in any of our summer holidays.”
And that was all they would say, apart from a bare little remark by Miss Bly that they had spent the last years of the War in London doing some work with the Free French. But, as he hadn’t mentioned his incursion into Europe by much their same route, only in reverse, with Italy as a digression between Sicily and Marseilles, they all came out about even.
It was just in this most vulnerable of all masculine moments, when he was admitting to himself that he had been mistaken about them, that Mrs. Peel made a frontal assault.
“Mr. Brent, have you ever thought of renting or selling this house?”
He could only stare at her.
She went on, “It stands on its own little island, quite apart from the ranch and your own cabin, so really you wouldn’t be troubled by people.”
He was too amazed to reply. As a matter of fact, he had thought of trying to raise money by selling the house. But, unless he liked the people who bought it, he would be better off leaving it unsold. Sometimes he wondered if it were a problem he kept postponing just because he didn’t really want to solve it. Yet it had to be solved soon.
“The fact is,” Mrs. Peel went on, while Miss Bly kept her eyes fixed on her coffee-cup, “we are enchanted by Rest and be Thankful. We would like to lease it, or to buy it just as it stands. We aren’t speculators, Mr. Brent. We just like the house, the situation, and the scenery.”
Brent looked at both of them. His tanned face was quite expressionless, and only its mounting flush gave the ladies any clue to his feelings. And that was very little, for Mrs. Peel felt she had embarrassed him, and her cheeks flushed too. Miss Bly flinched and thought, he is angry. They both looked so upset that he found he couldn’t tell them that they were idiots. “I think you shouldn’t make up your mind too quickly about that,” he had been about to say.
Instead, “This house is too big for two people,” he said.
“I agree,” Mrs. Peel said. “I think it would also be very selfish for two women to keep Rest and be Thankful all for themselves.”
Sarah Bly said, “Our idea was that we would invite a small group of unknown writers to spend a few weeks here, where they could look at hills and mountains and sky, where they could relax and talk and work. The sense of peace is so wonderful. Out here, in this quiet valley, they could think and imagine. It is all so different, and yet so real.”
Mrs. Peel agreed so vehemently that the white curls on top of her head slightly lost their symmetry. “You would be a real benefactor to writers if you let us have this house, Mr. Brent.”
“Me?” He was dumbfounded for a moment. “Now this is all your idea, Mrs. Peel. I’ve nothing to do with it.” He looked at them gravely, feeling suddenly sorry for them. Just two women who had inherited a lot of money, who had too much time on their hands.
Mrs. Peel said, “Writers are really such nice people, and the unknown ones have such a difficult time.”
“I always figured writers had a pretty soft life. Any of the boys here would think so.”
“Oh, no! Not today. Once—well you wrote a terrific success, and the money rolled in from every country, and the taxes were low. So a successful writer could invest his earnings and live very comfortably on them. Some, with good business sense—investments, you know—became really quite wealthy. Actually—” Mrs. Peel hesitated. She blushed. Then she went on—“I was one of those.”
Sarah Bly stared at her friend in amazement: Margaret must be really determined to persuade Mr. Brent to let them have the house, or she would never have given away that secret. No one, except her publisher, her literary agent, and Sarah Bly knew about Margaret Peel. By Margaret Peel’s own very definite request.
“Of course,” Mrs. Peel was saying, “this is between us, Mr. Brent. Did you ever hear of Elizabeth Whiffleton?”
Mr. Brent hadn’t.
Mrs. Peel seemed relieved. “Well, I was she.”
“Was?” asked Jim Brent.
“Definitely,” Mrs. Peel answered with considerable force. “Never, never again. Elizabeth Whiffleton spent two years of my life in writing a book. Just one book. And it made money. Well, that was very nice because I needed money. My husband had died; he was really a darling, but the world’s worst businessman. So Elizabeth Whiffleton sat down and wrote a story to keep me alive. It was published in 1925. And do you know what happened? It sold and sold, and I found I was quite well off. Then, because my husband had never been able to manage our finances when he was alive, I was fascinated by the stock market. I began to buy when the market was low and sell when it was high. It is so simple, really. I doubled and then trebled my capital, and by 1928 I was too rich to feel honest. So I stopped then. Fortunately, as it turned out. Now you see how I feel every sympathy for young writers, and try to help if I can.”
“Try to teach them to play the stock market?”
Mrs. Peel laughed. “No. I mean—if they have to write for money, often they can’t write what they want to write. I know. You see, I always wanted to write a book, but not the Elizabeth Whiffleton kind. I wanted to write a book, a very serious one, that the very best critics would acclaim.”
“And which few people would read, probably,” Sarah said, with a smile. “And you certainly wouldn’t have had the fun you’ve had out of life, Margaret.”
“But at least I could have told my friends I was an author,” Mrs. Peel said, with unexpected spirit. “Now I have to sit quietly, as I’ve done for twenty-three years, while they discuss their books. It would be very frustrating if it weren’t so funny.”
Brent said, “I would think you’d tell them about the book you wrote.”
“About The Lady in White Gloves?” She was too shocked to answer.
“Was it banned?” he asked, looking curiously at the earnest, kindly brown eyes. He couldn’t imagine this white-haired, serene-faced woman writing dirt. He didn’t like the idea, either.
Sarah Bly sensed his thoughts. She said quickly, “No. It wasn’t that kind of book. In fact, I’m afraid it wouldn’t have enough sex interest for a smash hit today. What was daring in 1925 is schoolroom reading now.”
“The truth was,” Mrs. Peel said sadly, “that all my particular friends considered the book to be tripe. They are very literary, you see.”
“They disliked it simply because it sold,” Sarah said in swift defence. “They never really gave it a chance.” She won an admiring look from Jim Brent. He might not be able to understand why anyone should be ashamed of a book just because a lot of people bought it, but he did understand loyalty.
“Prender Atherton Jones must have read it,” Mrs. Peel said, defending her friends in turn. “He reviewed it. Shatteringly. He was one of our group in Paris,” she explained to Brent. “He had considerable reputation as the reviewer for New Dimensions.” Mrs. Peel spoke the name with such awe that Jim Brent raised his eyebrows.
“Four book reviews a year, and thought he was being slave-driven,” Sarah Bly said, and won another look from her host.
“Now, Sarah, I have to admit it wasn’t the kind of book I wanted to write. But I was desperate for money. I had exactly two dollars and thirty-seven cents in my pocket when I received the advance on signature. That is,” (with a kindly look to a bewildered Brent) “the money advanced to me by my publisher as soon as I signed the contract on the completed manuscript.”
“Well, that was all of twenty-three years ago,” Jim Brent said. “Why don’t you plan to write a novel this summer instead of taking up your time with a lot of other people?”
Mrs. Peel looked embarrassed.
Sarah said quietly, “You’ve been much too busy all these years. That’s the true answer.” But she knew, as Margaret knew, that being busy with people was one way of postponing the fearful day of having your pencils sharpened or your typewriter newly ribboned, of sit
ting down to stare at a white sheet of paper. She thought, too, of her own efforts at serious literature. Poetry. That was what she had been going to write when she arrived in Paris in 1930. She had been nineteen, the stuff that dreams are made on. And they had all gone sour. No one published her poems except Margaret. And to keep herself independent, so that later she might travel with Margaret with a free conscience, she had begun writing cook-books. They sold, and were still selling. And, even if she tried to tell Margaret that she was wrong to worry about what people like Prender Atherton Jones thought, she herself had published the cookery recipes under another name. And she had never mentioned them to Prender or any of the rest of their little group.
Jim Brent looked at the two downcast faces. That was just like women, he thought, to have imaginary troubles if they couldn’t find real ones. He said, quite frankly, “I don’t understand it. Why hide what you’ve done, Mrs. Peel? If it is these literary friends you are afraid of, then what kind of friends are they?”
His question certainly had results, for they stopped looking so gloomy, and they stared at each other for a moment. Miss Bly even laughed.
Mrs. Peel said, “We told you all this, Mr. Brent, because you ought to know what we are and who we are. Of course, you will want references. Would my publisher be sufficient? There’s our lawyer too.”
“Just a minute,” Jim Brent said, conscious that Mrs. Peel had passed mysteriously from the romantic mood to the realistic. “Just a minute, Mrs. Peel... We’re going ahead pretty fast.”
“But we have to,” Miss Bly told him earnestly, and gave him one of her warmest smiles. “We shan’t see you tomorrow morning, and when we leave—well, we’ve gone for good, haven’t we? And this idea of ours would be lost forever. Which would be a pity for it might benefit us all.”
“All of us?” he asked, his eyes smiling. “I’m thinking of you two,” he explained. “Do you know the writers personally?”
Rest and Be Thankful Page 4
