I went to dinner with Ronnie that night. Only Ronnie and Jean and Angie were there.
“Basil’s started a new book already, old boy. When he’s working, he never goes anywhere. Neither do Norah or Phyllis. Phyllis supplies inspiration; Norah supplies cups of tea.” Ronnie had certainly been “waving his magic wand”. Jean was staggeringly smart in a black dress and a set of matching emeralds which would have made even Cartier’s wince. She was hardly recognizable. Splendor seemed to have rubbed off the primrose bloom. She might almost have been any rich, pretty Long Island debutante. And, although she must have realized that I, as Ronnie’s best friend, was a guest worth a little effort, she scarcely spoke. Angie, of course, was silent as always. Quite soon after dinner, she announced she was going to bed. And to my surprise, Jean rose too, saying she was tired.
I started to leave, but Ronnie insisted on my staying and, after he had kissed his wife a long good night, we went into the library for a couple of drinks. For the first time, he talked freely about the Laceys and at last I found out how he had met them. He’d been staying at Claridge’s, browsing through the London Theater, when one afternoon Mrs. Lacey had come to see him.
“Never met her, old boy. Never even heard of her or Basil. There she was. She was sitting in the lobby at Claridge’s, looking like a charlady or a duchess. You can never tell them apart in those places. She came up to me, blushing right to her hair. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I know this is terribly pushing. But you are Ronald Sheldon, aren’t you? I think we can help each other. You see, my husband’s a genius.’ ”
Ronnie had been intrigued enough to ask her up to his suite. She had had Basil’s three books with her. She’d left them with Ronnie, saying: ‘If you like them, perhaps you’d come and visit us. We live very simply, I’m afraid, but Basil would be so pleased. He admires you so much, you know, for publishing Gwendolyn Sneighley.’
“Of course I went mad for the books, old boy,” said Ronnie. “And, of course, I went down to Shropshire. And do you know—Norah had done that all on her own. Basil hadn’t had the faintest idea. Later she said to me: ‘It really was the most courageous thing I’d done in my life. You see, I took all the egg-money for the fare. If you hadn’t liked the books, we wouldn’t have had enough to buy Basil’s writing-paper! ’ ” Ronnie’s description of the Lacey household in Shropshire was vivid and rather painful because he talked about it all as if he had discovered some fascinating primitive tribe in the upper reaches of the Amazon. The Laceys had literally been living on Phyllis’s tiny income and on a couple of hundred chickens. Jean had taken care of the chickens. Norah had run the dilapidated cottage, making all the women’s clothes, somehow scraping together enough food to cook and, most important of all, nursing, with passionate dedication, Basil’s genius. Phyllis apparently just sat and inspired.
“If ever there was only one chop, Basil got it. If there was only a bucket of coal, Basil got it for his study. His study, needless to say, was the best room in the cottage. And the family silver—that had never been pawned because Basil liked his tea served from it. It was fantastic, completely fantastic. And, in the middle of it all—Jean.”
Ronnie was purring with pleasure. “I’ll always be madly in love with Claridge’s. Maybe I’ll endow it permanently in my will.”
It was fairly late by then. When I got up to go home, he put his arm round my shoulders.
“You know, old boy, these last few days I’ve been thinking a lot about you. You ought to get married again.”
Ronnie hadn’t referred to Felicia for years. Because I was so sensitive on the subject, I had grown to imagine that everyone, particularly Ronnie, realized that the topic was taboo. He had mentioned it so unexpectedly that I was quite off my balance. Then he added:
“You know, Jake, I guess we can say it now. Felicia was never really good enough for you.”
I felt unreasonable anger. Let him be smug about Jean if he wanted to. But what right did he have to talk about Felicia? What had Ronnie ever known about Felicia anyway?
He was smiling at me with the warmest, most untroubled good will. Suddenly I was ashamed of myself and grateful. It was time I realized that the past was the past. It was typical of Ronnie, too, that he should be the one who had dared to give me the hint.
A couple of days later, I was surprised when Maggie came into my office and said:
“Mrs. Lacey’s outside. She wants to see you.”
Norah Lacey came in and sat down. She was wearing an inconspicuous but neat suit which, I imagined, was the result of a compromise between Ronnie’s generosity and her diffidence. She didn’t somehow seem to be in Manhattan at all. Sitting there, taking off her gloves, smiling that rather hesitant, very appealing smile, she was like what I supposed an English vicar’s wife was like coming to call on a new arrival in the village.
“I do hope I’m not disturbing you, but I was walking down —Lexington Avenue, is it? Anyway, I was nearby and I did think—well, you’re Ronnie’s best friend and it does seem that we should get to know each other better. I was wondering whether you wouldn’t perhaps come to tea one day?”
I was on my guard with her because I was on my guard with all Laceys, but I could see, more clearly perhaps than Ronnie himself, just why he had succumbed to Mrs. Lacey’s onslaught at Claridge’s. She was almost formal, utterly without intention to charm, but the effect was most subtly charming. Almost before I realized it, I said I’d be delighted to come to tea.
“I’m so glad.” She got up. “Well—I won’t keep you.”
“I’m not busy,” I said.
Her sudden “rose” flush came. “How kind of you to say so. Americans always seem to be so kind. That was the first thing I thought about Ronnie.” She paused and then, rather precipitately, added: “Sometimes I don’t see how it’s possible ever to be grateful enough to him for all he’s done. And it happened so suddenly—like a cyclone. But…” She broke off again. “But—I suppose that’s American, too, isn’t it?”
In spite of the diffidence in her voice, I could tell there was an underlying layer of anxiety and I realized that, whether she knew it herself or not, she had dropped into my office seeking reassurance.
I said cautiously: “Well, Americans are supposed to be cyclones, but Ronnie’s a little more cyclonic than most.”
“I can’t tell you how wonderful he was. Saying all the things about Basil’s books that Basil had always hoped someone would say. And then, well, Jean. … At first I wondered. I mean, she’s so young and Basil, of course, has to be so wrapped up in his work. He isn’t at all practical. I …” She hesitated. “But it is all right, isn’t it?”
There it was, out in the open now—the direct plea for reassurance. It was ironic that she should be worrying about Ronnie as a son-in-law when I was so definitely worried about the Laceys in Ronnie’s life. But I believed in her worry. This woman, who had so courageously brought everything about with the egg-money, was certainly no schemer and she gave me a different and less sinister picture of the Shropshire episode. It was more than likely that Basil and, for all I knew, Phyllis had been all too ready to barter Jean for the fleshpots. But hadn’t it perhaps been my own rather ignoble jealousy which had made me suspicious of Jean? Why shouldn’t this woman’s daughter have fallen in love with Ronnie without any ulterior motive? Ronnie, in spite of his age, was certainly far more dazzling and exciting than any other male the chicken farm could have attracted.
By some magic, Mrs. Lacey had almost succeeded in allaying my anxieties, and I said: “I don’t imagine there’s anything to worry about.”
“You don’t?” She smiled vividly. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. Well, I must go now. Would tomorrow do for tea?”
“Fine,” I said.
As I went with her to the door, she said: “I’ve absolutely insisted that we see the minimum of Ronnie and Jean. It isn’t fair to them to have us around their necks. So”—she paused at the threshold and held out her hand—“we don’t see
anyone really. It’ll be nice for us all to have a new friend.”
I went to tea with the Laceys the next afternoon. The penthouse apartment had been an independent unit for a long time. Ronnie’s ancient Aunt Lydia had resided there with a companion until her death, several years before, which had netted Ronnie a couple more millions. It had a separate entrance and a lift. It was as large and grand as Ronnie’s section of the house, although in a more stately Victorian manner, Norah Lacey opened the door for me and took me into the living-room, which was paneled in white painted wood and had a fine view. There were flowers everywhere—great, very Ronnie-ish florist bouquets. It made the Shropshire cottage seem extremely remote.
Inside Lady Phyllis Brent was sitting in a large easy chair, reading, holding up to her nose a haughty, splendidly outdated lorgnette. She was wearing a very expensive black suit which was just as “Ronnie” as the flowers. She was also wearing a string of pearls. Since she was sitting, I couldn’t see whether or not Ronnie had conquered “the English hips”, but he had certainly conquered any reluctance the earl’s daughter might have felt at accepting gifts. When we came in, she looked up and dropped the lorgnette on a table. Her ugly, intelligent face made no effort to conceal its irritation and surprise.
“So Mr. Duluth has dropped in.”
Surprisingly Norah flushed: “I invited him, Phyllis.”
“You did? Basil was going to read me his chapter at tea-time. It’s most important for Basil. But-” She shrugged.
“It can be done later, I suppose. You’d better get tea started. He said he’d probably be finished by four-thirty.”
As Norah slipped out of the room, I was less astonished by Phyllis Brent’s rudeness to me than by her arrogant bullying of Norah and by Norah’s apparent acceptance of it. Had this cuckoo entrenched herself so solidly that Norah hadn’t even dared to break the news that she had invited a tea-guest? My annoyance must have shown, for Phyllis Brent snapped: “When Basil’s working, Mr. Duluth, his rhythm comes before everything.”
“Yes,” I said. “We wouldn’t want his rhythm to falter.”
She glared that remark out of existence. After a long, critical look of appraisal, she said: “You haven’t told us what you thought about the play.”
“No,” I said.
“Or about the books.”
“I think it’s more Ronnie’s concern than mine.”
“Why? You’re his partner, aren’t you? Or are you in fact just some underling? One never seems to know in America. Underlings are given such impressive titles. Junior Executive. Heaven knows what.”
I decided it was absurd to get angry. Instead I marveled at her immense self-complacency, wondering whether it sprang from her earl’s daughterdom or from her well-entrenched position as the genius’s hand-maiden. From then on, I let her conduct the conversation as she thought best. She was like a caricature of a grand literary agent. She demanded to know what royalties we would pay on the three novels; she investigated the rest of our list to assure herself, presumably, that they were worthy enough company for Lacey. She expressed, unasked, her opinion that Peter and Iris were much too commercial to be entrusted with the play. At length she glanced at her watch and rose abruptly.
“I’d better warn Basil. It would never do to spring you on him.”
When she disappeared through a door into the room which had been old Miss Sheldon’s library, I was delighted to notice that the English hips had not been conquered.
By skillful stage management, tea and Basil arrived simultaneously. The change in Basil’s appearance was even more striking than that of Phyllis. All traces of the literary eccentric, except the goatee, were gone. He was wearing a suit much more expensive than any I could afford, a silk shirt and a Bronzini necktie. He positively reeked of prosperity and distinction. And, as Norah, in silent meekness, dispensed tea from old Miss Sheldon’s silver service and Phyllis lapsed into obvious boredom, he graciously entertained me.
He was witty and deft and elaborately adequate. And yet every moment I was conscious of how honored I was supposed to be. He might have been Thomas Hardy granting an interview to a cub reporter. No one, who didn’t know, would have dreamed of suspecting that this was a penniless author, with three failures behind him, accidentally bolstered by a millionaire’s whimsical charity.
In his stream of talk, there was no hint that his life had ever been different; there was never even the faintest expression of gratitude to Ronnie, although he spoke with the utmost smugness about Ronnie’s intended production of the play and his anxieties that an American could not be trusted to grasp all the finer points. To him, just as to Phyllis and, I supposed, to Norah, he was The Basil Lacey whose destiny was as inevitable as the course of a comet.
In time, in spite of myself, I became impressed with him. Perhaps they were all right. Perhaps he was a genius. But, genius or not, I knew one thing. I was heartily glad that I was not his wife, his daughter, his earl’s daughter—or his son-in-law.
When I left, Norah took me out into the hall.
“It was so nice of you to come, Mr. Duluth.”
“On the contrary,” I said. “But next time I’d like more of a chance to talk to you.”
“To me?” She looked a little confused. “Oh, I do hope Phyllis wasn’t short with you. She’s terribly shy, you know.”
“Is that what she is?” I asked.
I had given her an opportunity to let down her barriers and tell me how she really felt about her extraordinary house-guest, but I might have realized that Norah Lacey would never dream of enlisting a champion for her own rights. She merely said:
“Phyllis has been a wonderful friend. If it hadn’t been for her, heaven knows what would have happened to us.”
I said: “Well, things are fine now.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And they have you to thank for the change?”
“Me? What on earth did I have to do with it?”
If she didn’t want the egg-money brought up, I wasn’t going to mention it.
She put her hand on the door-knob. I noticed, for the first time, that it was rough and chapped. It had been years, in these days of soap-flakes and skin creams, since I had seen a woman’s hand ruined like that. I felt a quite unexpected, almost protective, tenderness. Anger flared up in me and envy of Basil Lacey for having such a wife.
She said: “Well, good-bye. Mr. Duluth. You will come again to see us, won’t you?”
The remark had been purely polite. I was sure that she would have spoken in just the same tone to anyone else who had happened to drop in. But suddenly I felt that wherever Norah Lacey was there would be a feeling of home and comfort.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to come again.”
I left and went back to the apartment. Leora opened the door for me. Her face was ominous.
“He’s come back,” she said. “Bill. He’s come back to stay.”
I found my son in the living-room, lying on a couch, smoking a cigarette. When he saw me, he scrambled up. I don’t exactly know what I expected, but, with my uneasy thoughts about Jean Sheldon and Rome, I was sure I was in for trouble.
I was delightfully surprised. Bill was awkward, a little shy, but he was almost unbelievably sweet. He said he’d been thinking for a couple of weeks and he’d figured out that the whole Rome idea had been crazy; he’d figured too that the separation from me, the apartment in the Village, all that, had been just about as crazy.
“I don’t know what got into me, Pop.” He grinned. “Sometimes, I guess, I really go off the deep end. It’s just that … I don’t know. I guess I get kind of mixed up, and I take it out on you. Honest, Pop, I don’t mean to be such a problem child. I… Hell, can’t we forget the whole works? I can write here as well as in the Village, better. After all, we’re all we’ve got. Pop. It’s pretty dumb to be fighting all the time, isn’t it?”
The front-door buzzer rang. I heard Leora going to answer it. This had all been so completely unexpected that I
had no time to feel anything but the first warm unreflecting joy.
Leora appeared and announced: “Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon.”
Ronnie and Jean came into the room. They were both in evening dress.
“Excuse us barging in like this, old boy, .but we’re on our way to some lugubrious party and I thought I’d drop in and tell you the disastrous news. Gwendolyn Sneighley’s just called from Georgia. She’s finally finished the new book. You know what that means.”
I knew all too well. Gwendolyn Sneighley took herself quite as seriously as, if not more so than, her critical admirers. To her, her word was a command. Always, when she finished a manuscript, Ronnie, with whom she was in love in some peculiar, celebrated way, had to rush down to Georgia and go over the great work, page by page. It was a ritual famous in the literary world and one which brought Ronnie his greatest prestige as an editor. Usually, the whole session took at least two weeks.
Ronnie was smiling ruefully. “You know how La Sneighley is, old boy. No taking pretty young wives down there. One look at Jean and she’d dash through the Spanish moss and switch to Harper’s. That’s what I’ve come about. It’s a bore, a terrible bore. Gwendolyn couldn’t have finished a book at a more inopportune moment. But there you are. Off I go to Georgia tomorrow morning alone.”
He put his hand caressingly on his wife’s arm and looked at Bill.
“Listen, Bill, Basil’s up to his eyes in the new book and that means Norah and Phyllis are working overtime too. I can’t bear to think of Jean moping around the house alone. What are you doing these days? Are you terribly busy? Or could you drop everything and show Jean the town?”
Bill was Ronnie’s godson; he was Jean’s age. In theory Ronnie’s suggestion was the most reasonable one in the world. But suddenly my feeling of foreboding was back. Bill and Jean were not looking at each other. In fact, I don’t think they had so much as exchanged a glance since the Sheldons had come into the room. But the faint flush on Jean’s face and the stiff, abstracted way in which Bill was examining his nails had brought a shocking suspicion to my mind.
My Son, the Murderer Page 4
