My curiosity overcame my doubts. “All right,” I said. “That would be very nice. Thank you.”
It was only half an hour later after my second cup of coffee that I started to wonder what on earth was going on.
III
He was about Paul’s height but without Paul’s grace of movement. He had some dark hair, thinning at the crown but thick in front, and a pair of eyes which were a peculiarly glacial shade of green. It was difficult to guess his age, but I assumed he was in his midthirties. Like many Americans he had wonderful teeth, very white and even, and when he smiled the taut muscles of his face relaxed enough to make him look attractive. I was just wondering why I had never previously thought him attractive when I realized I had never before seen him smile.
Even off duty he was flawlessly efficient. As soon as we stepped out of the Plaza a taxi was waiting and his voice was saying firmly to the driver, “The Village, please. Thompson and Bleecker.” He held open the door for me, and the next moment the taxi was bouncing down Fifth Avenue past the shop windows which by that time were as familiar to me as old friends.
It was to be my last night at the Plaza. Alan, Mary and I were due to move into a two-bedroom suite in an apartment hotel a block away, and we were all looking forward to the independence afforded by the tiny kitchen. A disadvantage was that the apartment was on the tenth floor, but since it was the only disadvantage I resolved I would have to overcome my fear of lifts. I did wish the Americans had curbed their mania for tall buildings when they had been running wild in Manhattan.
“How are you getting on in New York, Miss Slade?”
“Very well, thank you. Mr. Mayers has found us this nice flat …”
It was almost a week since I had arrived in New York. I missed the English newspapers and the English voices on the wireless and the ritual of afternoon tea. I missed the twisting London streets and the placid parks and the Georgian elegance of Mayfair. Most of all I missed the skies of Norfolk, the long vistas over water and reeds to the whirling windmills, flint walls and ragged lawns of my home.
“And how do you like New York, Miss Slade?”
“Oh, I love it! I love the Metropolitan Museum and the Woolworth Building and the ready-to-wear department at Bergdorf Goodman and all those gorgeous ice-cream sundaes at Schrafft’s and Alice Foote MacDougall’s coffeehouse and the Cascades on the roof of the Biltmore and the endless avenues and the elevated railways and the Broadway lights. It’s all so new and exciting! I’m trying to persuade Paul to take me to a cab-joint, but he won’t.”
“I should think not! There are different kinds of speakeasies, you know, and besides, someone in Mr. Van Zale’s position doesn’t have to go to a speakeasy to get liquor. He can buy the privilege of having it wherever he wants. … Have you been down to Greenwich Village yet? You haven’t? Well, I thought we’d dine at Mori’s and go on afterward to Barney’s, which is the biggest and smartest nightclub in town—they’re both in the Village and off Mr. Van Zale’s usual track. He likes the midtown restaurants and is old enough to believe the Village has become unpleasantly decadent.”
I had seen Paul every day, although sometimes he had been too rushed to pause for more than a few minutes. But he had taken me to the theater to see Pomeroy’s Past—a very relevant comedy about a girl who had a child out of wedlock—and the following week he had promised to take me to a much praised revival of Iolanthe at the Plymouth. The Metropolitan Opera had closed for the summer, but he could hardly have taken me there without causing widespread comment and anyway I did not share his passion for opera. I was more interested in learning to dance the newest tango, but Paul abhorred all modern dancing and continued to react to the word “Charleston” as if it were merely a town in South Carolina. However I soon forgot these nineteenth-century foibles of his whenever we shared intimate dinners at our Plaza suite, and afterwards in bed I was soon able to recognize the man I had loved at Mallingham.
Nothing else mattered except that.
“And how do you find Mr. Van Zale?” asked Terence O’Reilly pleasantly as we reached Washington Square.
“Fascinating as ever—the brute!” I said, making him laugh, and I suddenly realized I had never heard O’Reilly laugh before either. It did occur to me to wonder why he was making such a typically efficient effort to be a charming escort, but I was enjoying myself by that time and could no longer bother to be suspicious.
We reached Mori’s, which stood at the foot of an old-fashioned little street, and walked in past the columned facade to a dignified interior. The plain walls, lightened by an occasional grilled opening, formed an atmosphere which the menu confirmed was Italian.
O’Reilly ordered soda water, and when it arrived with a bucket of ice he produced a hip flask. “Scotch?” he offered as I watched round-eyed.
I repressed the memory of my father intoning that no decent woman would be seen dead drinking whisky. When in Rome it would be shortsighted not to do as the Romans did, particularly since there appeared to be nothing else to drink.
“Jolly nice,” I said. “Thanks.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t come from Scotland, but it’s quite drinkable. I was going to mix some martinis, but I wasn’t sure that you’d like them. They’re strong stuff.”
At first I thought the whisky was revolting, but by the time I had finished it I discovered to my surprise that I was anxious for another. We looked at the menus, ordered a first course of pasta followed by lobster in a spicy Italian sauce, and chatted sociably about current affairs. We had just decided that there would be a general strike in England but probably not a revolution when our first course arrived and I realized I was feeling exceptionally mellow and content.
“All right, Mr. O’Reilly,” I said, sinking my fork into the fettucine, “open your Pandora’s box. Why are you so anxious to encourage my affair with Paul?”
“Because I think you’re the only woman who can persuade him to leave his wife.”
“But what’s that got to do with you?”
“I want his wife.”
Fettucine slithered off my fork and sprawled across my plate. “Good God!” I said. “Does he know?”
“Sure he knows. That’s why I was promoted out of his house.”
“But why on earth should he continue to employ you?”
“I’m indispensable,” said O’Reilly placidly.
“But, Mr. O’Reilly—”
“You’d better call me Terence since we’ve turned out to be fellow conspirators.”
“—Terence, what does she feel about you?”
“She’d like me well enough if he wasn’t around.”
“You mean she’s infatuated with him?”
“He’s got her just where he wants her.”
“Where’s that?” I said nervously, but he laughed.
“No, he doesn’t want her there. Not anymore.”
“What makes you so sure?’
“Because my successor in the Van Zale household, Bart Mayers, tells me everything I need to know.”
I felt as if some huge weight had been lifted from my mind, and in the enormity of my relief I gobbled down the rest of my whisky-and-soda. Terence promptly poured me another.
“Relax, Dinah,” he said easily. “You’ve got a winning hand. He’s ripe for an early retirement to Europe, and if you remind him of Mallingham skillfully enough he’ll quit on New York before the summer’s through. Has he mentioned to you that he’s been ill?”
“Yes, he said he’d been suffering from exhaustion.”
“Exactly. That was all it was. Now you may hear all kinds of rumors about his illness, but pay no attention to them. The real truth of the matter is that he can’t do as much as he used to do, and that’s why I think he’ll be tempted to take an early retirement”
“Of course. Yes, I see. Heavens, that’s marvelous news–better than I’d hoped.”
“I thought you’d be pleased. Now whatever you do don’t mention his illness to him, will you? He h
ates being reminded he had a nervous breakdown. He’s sensitive about it.”
“Oh, I do understand! Poor Paul. … What’s Sylvia like?”
“You don’t really want to hear me tell you she’s the most wonderful woman in the world, do you?” he said with irony. “If I could discuss Sylvia with detachment I wouldn’t be here now, suggesting we keep in touch and offering to be friends.”
Since I knew almost nothing about this new friend of mine I felt obliged to ask him some questions about himself, and within minutes I was hearing about his downtrodden mother, his tyrannical obnoxious father and half a dozen other equally detestable relatives. I learned about the Boston Irish and summers spent on a farm with Swedish cousins in Minnesota and everyone being “trapped in their ethnic heritage” and nobody understanding “real life.” I heard how he had run away from home at sixteen and found “real life” so awful that it was a relief afterwards to enter a seminary and study for the priesthood.
“That wasn’t what real life was all about either,” he added, “but after that I met Mr. Van Zale and then I knew what kind of life was real to me.”
“But wasn’t it very unreal being Paul’s flunky?”
“I might have started out as a flunky, but I sure as hell haven’t ended up as one. When I eventually marry Sylvia and quit Van Zale’s I think I’ll apply for the job of chief of police in some dictatorship. God knows I’ve got all the necessary experience.”
“And seriously?”
“Seriously I’d like to try ranching. Owning several thousand acres in Texas can’t be so very different from being boss of some small state in Europe.”
“I think you’re mad as a hatter,” I said frankly, “but I suppose in your own way you’re no more ambitious than I am.” And I began to tell him about my business.
By the time we emerged from the restaurant he had forgotten his promise to take me to the most glamorous nightclub in New York and was suggesting we have a drink at his apartment down the road.
“Sweet of you,” I said, remembering the London Lotharios and giving him a long hard look. “Don’t think I don’t sympathize with your situation—you’d be even madder than a hatter if you’d spent all these years yearning for Sylvia in celibate frustration—but it’s as much as I can do to cope with Paul and I don’t see how I could possibly take on you as well. What was the name of that nightclub you mentioned earlier?”
“Barney’s.” He sighed, looked around for a taxi and then linked his arm through mine. “Let’s walk. It’s not far.”
We wove our way north to West Third Street while he told me about Barney’s—“just like a transplanted bit of uptown, not bizarre at all, just bright and smart and imaginative”—and I asked questions about the entertainment we could expect to find there. Terence said Barney’s offered everything the heart desired. It sounded like a cross between the Savoy Grill and the west pier at Brighton.
However I never saw the inside of Barney’s, for as we reached the entrance half a dozen people in full evening dress and various stages of drunkenness reeled out, almost sweeping us into the gutter. Fortunately Terence scooped me out of the way before I could be mown down, but I was still fuming at such an animal display of behavior when one of the men bellowed, “Jesus, it’s Terence O’Reilly! Whoa there, Terence! Who’s the gorgeous gal?”
“Christ!” muttered Terence.
A very tall man had detached himself from the revelers and was bounding over to us. He had a large amount of curly brown hair, the build of a heavyweight boxer and a small white scar on one cheekbone. I wondered enthralled if he was a bootlegger.
“So you do have a private life after all, Terence!” exclaimed the stranger, looking me up and down as if I were meat on a butcher’s slab. “I always thought you did! Does the little lady have a name?”
I detest men who leer at me as if I had no clothes on. “Not as far as you’re concerned,” I retorted coldly. “Terence, shall we go?”
“Oh my, she’s English! Honey, I just love that cute little English accent! Say that all over again, Lady Buckingham-Palace!”
“Terence,” I said, thoroughly enraged by this time, “who is this awful man?”
Terence, whose expression could only be described as confused, decided to make the best of a very bad job. “Dinah Slade—Steven Sullivan,” he said at top speed. “Steven Sullivan—Dinah Slade. Let’s go, Dinah. So long, Steve.”
“Jesus Christ!” said Steven Sullivan. “Are you that English girl friend of Paul’s?”
“Good God!” I said. “You surely can’t be Paul’s favorite partner!”
We gazed at each other in horror and then both saw the funny side of the situation at exactly the same moment He roared with laughter and so did I.
“We’d really better go, Dinah,” said Terence, making a second effort to draw me away.
“Not so fast!” drawled Steven Sullivan. The lascivious expression had faded from his very blue eyes, but he still looked greatly amused. “What are you doing out on the town with Paul’s girl?”
“I met Dinah by chance on Fifth Avenue today,” said Terence so smoothly that I did not at first realize he was lying, “and when I remembered that Mr. Van Zale was out of town I asked her to have a drink with me tonight. She’s only recently arrived in New York and I’m one of the few people she knows.”
“All alone in New York?” said Steven Sullivan. “Well, we can’t have that! Terence, you’re coming out to our house next Saturday, aren’t you? Give Miss Slade a ride in your car!” He turned, sloughing off his aura of drunkenness as easily as I might have shrugged off my new knitted coat from Best’s, and gave me a wide winning smile. “We’re having a little party for about three hundred people out on Long Island,” he said easily. “Come and join in the fun and make some new friends! Hell, I’ll even introduce you to my wife! Oh, and bring your little boy. My son Tony’s about the same age and we can put up an extra bed in the nursery.”
“That’s very kind of you.” I felt bemused by such extravagant hospitality, but the prospect of meeting more people was appealing. “Thank you. Will Paul be there? Oh, no, I forgot He won’t be in town this weekend.”
“Yeah, he and Sylvia are going off somewhere together. All right, I’m coming!” he called to his friends, and added cheerfully to me over his shoulder, “See you Saturday!”
He was gone. I was left feeling numb and cold. A second later I realized that the quantity of whisky I had consumed at dinner was threatening to make me embarrassingly ill.
“Terence, I’m sorry but I’ve just got to go home.” How I managed to avoid vomiting I have no idea, but he helped me by finding a taxi without arguing.
As we reached the Plaza he said, “Remember that I told Steve our meeting was accidental. It’s better that way, I think. You’d better tell the same story to Mr. Van Zale.”
“Yes,” I said. “Before he goes off with his wife for the weekend.”
“Hell, Dinah, Steve just put that clumsily because he’d had too much to drink. The Van Zales are only going to visit some old friends in Connecticut. It’s no second honeymoon.”
“It’s not exactly a business trip to Philadelphia either!”
“Who said it was?”
“Paul!” I blurted out, wanting to burst into tears, and retreated to the Plaza for another sleepless night.
Four
I
“ARE YOU STILL GOING down to Philadelphia this weekend?” I said to Paul when he telephoned me the next morning. I had just finished telling him about my supposedly accidental meeting with Terence and my genuinely accidental encounter with Steven Sullivan.
“No, the Philadelphia visit has been postponed,” he said easily, “but I have to go to see some friends in Connecticut instead. It’s a nuisance and I’m hoping it’ll be canceled. What did you think of Steve?”
“I mistook him for a white slaver, but when he found out who I was he invited me out to Long Island to meet his wife. I even thought I’d go. It would be fun
to meet more people.” I was feeling better after his casual dismissal of the coming weekend, and had already decided I had once again been worrying over nothing.
“Well, I’d like you to meet more people, of course,” he said, “but to be honest I’d prefer it if you didn’t make a habit of seeing O’Reilly. I had some trouble with him a while back and our relationship’s become strained. What on earth did you find to talk to him about?”
“Religion. Oh, I do so enjoy lapsed Catholics! But don’t worry, darling, he’s not really my sort of person. However—” But before I could tell Paul that Terence was giving me a lift to the Sullivan house the next day he was interrupted by a call coming through for him on another line and we had to conclude our conversation in a hurry.
When he telephoned me again some hours later he was again in a hurry, but he arranged to have dinner with me after the weekend. I said I hoped he would enjoy his visit to Connecticut. He said he supposed he would once he got there, and after an affectionate goodbye we went our separate ways.
In an effort to avoid a second successive sleepless night I tried to think not of Paul but of Steven Sullivan with his free and easy manners and his hot bold blue eyes.
Terence telephoned the next morning at ten. “Dinah, something’s gone wrong with my car, but some friends of mine are giving us a ride out to Great Neck, where the Sullivans live. Can we call for you at six?”
“Yes, of course—thanks!” I said brightly, and immediately began to wish I weren’t going. I told myself it was a disgraceful attack of nerves, but as the morning went on and I became more depressed I realized I was thinking not of the ordeal of meeting unknown people but of Paul going away for the weekend with someone who had been described as the most wonderful woman in the world. I at once became determined to go to the party. It would be too demeaning to sit at home wondering if he could possibly be sleeping for eight hours entirely by himself.
The Rich Are Different Page 34
