The Dark Lady

by Louis Auchincloss

  "Oh, Julius, you must admit she's wonderful!"

  "Elesina? Must I?"

  The name brought its reaction at last. "Elesina! Then she's Clarissa! Of course!"

  "Clarissa? Who's Clarissa?"

  "The woman in Eliot Clarkson's book. The woman David Stein was in love with. Oh, my God, she was his stepmother!"

  Julius' brown eyes seemed for a moment to glimmer. "Perhaps I had better read that book. Clarkson? Wasn't he a communist?"

  "But you wouldn't use it in the campaign!"

  "That she had a thing with her stepson? No, I think not. Sex is a notorious boomerang. But I think I'm still going to read Clarkson's book. Yes, my dear Giles, I think that you may have given me an excellent idea."

  "But what, Julius? I wouldn't want to hurt Mrs. Stein."

  "Never mind, dear boy. It will not be you who does it. It will not even be your responsibility. But I think, if things work out, it may net you a small gift. What would you say to a set of moonstone evening studs?"

  Giles reflected that Julius must never have heard about him and Eliot Clarkson. He decided that the less said about it the better.

  3

  Ivy Trask loved offices, and now she had them to her heart's content. She had an office at Broadlawns, just off the library, hung in black and gold Chinese lacquer panels, from which she ran the house and gardens; she had another in Rye, at Elesina's campaign headquarters, hung in banners and posters, and she had a third in New York, at Tone, a small yellow box of a room with green curtains and yellow walls from which, as the owner's vicereine, she supervised the operations of the magazine.

  Some weeks after the evening at Mrs. Blake's, when the fight for the Republican nomination was in full fray, Ivy came in to the city to spend a quiet day at Tone. She needed to get away from the racket of the Rye telephone and the intrusion of political callers to the unrelated and relatively restful world of fashion. Nothing stimulated her mind like contrast. After twenty minutes of solitude, during which she perused the mockup for the forthcoming issue, she sent for the assistant feature editor.

  "I like your piece on greenhouses," she told Giles Bennett, pointing to it, when he hurried in. "Anyone might think you could build this one for twenty G's, but you and I know it would cost forty. A luxury economy must be based on the stimulation of envy and discontent."

  "Do you tell that to your voters, Miss Trask?"

  Ivy looked up in surprise. "Perhaps I'd better watch my tongue before a friend of Julius Schell's!"

  "Oh, I don't get into that. And even if I did, how could I not be for the divine Elesina?"

  "Is that what you call Mrs. Stein?"

  "Well, not to her face, of course. But how can anyone so beautiful interest herself in grimy politics?"

  "They're not so much grimier than fashions. And don't forget Elesina was an actress. She's seen her share of sordid things."

  "But there was always the goal above the grime! She could be Hedda Gabler. Or Juliet! How can she descend after all that to such dingy things as rent control and sales taxes?"

  "Precisely because she's an actress. Elesina never forgets that she's still in the entertainment business. And she entertains! That's her secret."

  Ivy did not go on to say how instrumental she had been in persuading Elesina to this approach. But she paused to look back now with wry amusement on the day when she had found Elesina in the library in tears over the complexities of the federal pension law and had taken the heavy statute book to fling it in the scrap basket. "What's your money for, angel? Get researchers. And good ones!" Oh, yes, it had worked well enough, then, and Elesina had been such a quick and willing student. But how rapidly she had mastered the art! And now, already, she had less need of Ivy. Worse, far worse, she was beginning to be bored with Ivy.

  "Miss Trask! You look as if you were in pain. Can I help you?"

  "Call me Ivy. Everyone at Tone does."

  "Ivy. I like that! Are you all right, Ivy?"

  "Oh, I'm all right. It's old age, that's all. I never thought I'd have to worry about old age because I was born old. But that's nonsense. Everyone has to worry about old age. And my temper gets worse. I tell myself, Ivy Trask, you're going to have to watch that temper of yours..." She broke off. "Why should I tell you this?"

  "Because I care!"

  Ivy stared at him in astonishment. "You're really a nice child. And you like Elesina, too?"

  "I'm in love with Elesina!"

  Ivy grunted. "Everyone is. Even the boys. Oh, sweetie, I didn't mean to be nasty. But life can be hard. I see myself getting quarrelsome and vindictive, and I tell myself: 'Now, Ivy, you must be lovely to Elesina, because Elesina wants people to be lovely to her, and she doesn't have to put up with people who aren't, not for a single, solitary second, why should she?' And yet, oh, Giles, the temptation to be nasty, to remind people of their obligations, the urge to take them down a peg, becomes a kind of compulsion, not to be resisted. Why are we all driven to suicide? Or why am I? What would I be without Elesina? A nothing! A gnarled old hag, a witch. And yet, I simply cannot do the things I ought to do. There's the yearning, the deep yearning, to spit in the face of all I love and care about. Do you know, Giles, there are moments when Elesina seems to be my old aunt whom I resented so in Washington?"

  "Who was your aunt, Ivy?"

  The question helped Ivy to pull herself together. She stared coldly at him.

  "What business is that of yours, I'd like to know? I must see Sam Gorman."

  She brushed past the young man, who appeared to take her abrupt change of mood as an entirely natural phenomenon, and made her way down the narrow corridor to Sam's office. He was dictating, but he dismissed his secretary at once and rose to close the door behind Elesina's friend and counselor.

  "I am honored, distinguished Ivy! Will you sit?"

  "No, I like to wander." Ivy paused at the window, her back to Sam. "Little Giles seems to be doing very well. You must be proud of him. And I gather the great Julius has lost his heart. If he has one."

  "Surely you don't begrudge him Giles. What could you or I or Elesina do with Giles? Besides, the boys never vote."

  "You think that's all we care about now? Votes?"

  "Until you've got them. Then you'll care about something else."

  Ivy prowled around the office, which looked more like a decorator's shop than an editorial center. She squinted at the signed photographs of persons famous in cosmetics. But she knew everything in the room, and Sam knew she knew it. He watched her suspiciously.

  "If you had to bet between Elesina and Julius, Sam, how would you bet?"

  "On Julius."

  "Because he has more money?"

  "No. Elesina has quite enough, and enough is as good as a feast. That is not where Julius' edge lies. He has a male asset."

  Ivy sniffed. "Not so you'd notice it."

  "Not so you'd notice it, but enough to make the difference. You see, as women, he and Elesina are evenly matched: same realism, same ruthlessness, same bitchiness."

  "Sam! I won't take that!"

  "Oh, calm down, Ivy. Who introduced you to Elesina, after all? I know her, and you know I know her. What she lacks is Julius' sense of the forest. A woman's danger is looking too closely at trees."

  "She may find something under them," Ivy retorted grimly. "Particularly after Julius, speaking of bitchiness, has lifted his dainty leg. But why does Julius have to be bitchy? Didn't God endow him with enough?"

  "Do you remember the Shakespeare evenings in the old days at Broadlawns? And how Pemberton used to hold forth on Richard the Third? Because he had a hunchback, he had to seize the crown."

  "But Julius has no hunchback. His appearance, if anything, is moderately pleasing."

  "True. His hump is within. He cannot love women, and he dares not love men. So he must have the world. Even if he has to take it away from Elesina."

  Ivy came abruptly back to Sam's desk at this and sat down, ready for business. "They tell me he's going to use t
he Red smear. But how can he? How can he use that against Elesina?"

  Sam's eyes showed his amusement. "Guess."

  "Because the Steins are Jewish? International conspiracy?"

  "Do you think he's out of his mind? Do you think he wants to commit political hara-kari?"

  "Well, it might do for a whispering campaign in anti-Semitic circles."

  "He's got those on his side, anyway. No, Ivy, he has more direct ammunition. But I learned it in confidence."

  "You mean you won't tell me? Your oldest friend?"

  "See if you can guess. Then I won't be betraying a confidence."

  Ivy reflected. "It has something to do with Giles Bennett."

  "Warm. Very warm."

  "But where do I go from there? What connection is there between Elesina and Giles?"

  "Think, Ivy." After a pause, he offered her a hint. "Who introduced Giles to Tone?"

  "Oh. Eliot Clarkson. And Eliot's a communist. Or was a communist. I see. And Eliot wrote a book about David Stein. But it still seems remote from Elesina."

  "Oh, Ivy."

  "What?"

  "You can't bluff me. I know. I didn't know till Giles told me, though I'd always suspected it. Clarissa is Elesina."

  Ivy jumped up, as if in response to the eruption of her wrath. "The filthy swine! He plans to use that? Well, I shall open a campaign against him, whispering or shouting, that will blow him right out of the polls!"

  "You'd better watch your step, Ivy. There are laws of libel. Julius has batteries of expensive counsel. And you can't prove a thing. What is there to prove?"

  "That's just what you're going to tell me, Sam Gorman, before I leave this room! I want to know just what Julius has done and who can prove it. You know, because you know everything."

  As Sam took in her meaning and her seriousness, he became suddenly grave. "You can't ask me to betray friends, Ivy."

  "Why not? Who's betraying mine? Your friends won't have anything to worry about. All I need is a few names to keep Julius from suing."

  "I can't!" There was a note of shrill distress in his voice as he began to take in the full measure of her determination and advantage.

  "You know who owns Tone. You won't have a job tomorrow morning if you don't give me what I need! Just reflect how easy it will be to get another job at your age. Think of it, old man! And don't kid yourself we can't replace you. We've got Giles!"

  "Ivy, you're a fiend!"

  "Never mind my fiendishness. Are you ready for questions?"

  "How do you know I won't make up the answers?"

  "Because you won't dare, Sam Gorman. I have your career in my hands, and I'll break you in two if you betray me. I repeat: are you ready?"

  Sam turned sullenly away from her, facing the wall. "Go ahead, then. But I warn you: I'll never forget this."

  "I don't mean you to! Now to begin with, is there any chance of running down proof of an affair between Julius and another man?"

  "Very little."

  "Any?"

  "I don't know. I can't help you there."

  "Does he go to brothels to get whipped or to peek at others?"

  "Possibly. I don't know."

  "What do you know?"

  "You ask the questions, Ivy. I'll try to answer."

  "Very well. Have you ever known him to expose himself in public?"

  "What do you mean by public?"

  "In front of other people."

  "Well, there was an art class where he once posed as a model."

  Ivy's eyes fairly glittered. "In the nude?"

  "Of course, in the nude."

  "What sort of a class was it? Mixed? Boys and girls?"

  "Actually, it was an all-male class. But that may have been a coincidence."

  "Did he do this frequently?"

  "I should say a dozen times. At least in the winter when I attended the class."

  "But why would they want Julius for a model? He can't have been all that pretty."

  "It was a life class. They wanted a middle-aged male."

  "I don't believe it! They always want young models."

  "Not always, Ivy."

  "And why would he be a model, anyway? Not, God knows, for the money. Oh, that gives it to me! I've got it!" Ivy sprang to her feet. "He paid to be the model. He paid for the privilege of all those men seeing him. That's his thrill and joy!"

  "Ivy, you really are a fiend."

  "So I've got it! Good. And now you may write down for me the name of the art class and its director and when this all happened."

  As Sam reluctantly proceeded to write down the information, Ivy once again paced his office, talking triumphantly to herself as she did so:

  "Well, it's not much, but I guess I can make do with it. Posing in the nude to art students! Yes, it's something. And I'm sure I can find one little whipping incident. One usually can in these cases. Of course, we haven't got him in an act of pederasty, but this ought to do. Oh, yes, it ought to do. But what a strange man to want people to sketch his bare ass!"

  "Everybody's strange," Sam retorted bitterly as he watched her pounce on the paper he had written. "Even, methinks, Ivy Trask. Who knows what fantasies move you? It seems to me an unworthy thing to go about collecting the oddities of others."

  "Only when they attack Elesina! Julius could show his ass to the President and Congress assembled for all I care, but when he calls Elesina a communist, I'll have his heart. I will, Sam! You can warn him if you like!"

  "Warn him? And tell him what I've told you? He'd have my heart."

  "That's your lookout," said Ivy with a sniff, as she left his office. She was ready to go back to Rye, but a sudden recollection directed her steps to Giles's office.

  "What is it, Ivy? You look like a figure of doom!"

  "Well, if I am, it's to offer you a refuge. Remember, my friend, you'll always be welcome at Broadlawns."

  "Am I to be sacked at Tone?"

  "Oh, no. But I'm doing things today which may have repercussions. Remember that I like you. And that Elesina likes you."

  "Ivy, you darling!" He rose and went to the doorway to kiss her.

  "How's my old cheek? The girls in stenographic say I insist on a private john because I have to shave. They think I don't hear them, but I do."

  "You listen to those bitches?"

  "Oh, I listen to everyone!"

  "Well, listen to me. I adore you. Even if I know you only want to add me as another piece of tinsel to Elesina's Christmas tree!"

  "Does Sam say that?"

  "Indeed he does."

  "He's wrong. I want you on mine!" And Ivy gave him a swat on the seat as she turned to hurry off.

  4

  Elesina had discovered in politics her ultimate role. She suffered no longer from her old hankering for the stage. She had discovered the joy of being applauded by an audience which had not paid her to perform, by people who had no reason to clap except for their hope that the speaker might be able to effect an improvement in their lives. How shallow by contrast seemed the small, strutting role of the actress, uttering made-up lines about made-up people, catering to dreams and fantasies, hypnotizing the pit to believe for an hour that the great dull world outside did not exist! Watching herself on television she learned how to correct each note, each gesture, each dress. She saw that she was best in black, with a hat that was no more than a beret to dramatize her tallness, her pallor, her eloquence. She would rehearse sudden changes of mood, shifting from the nobly sublime to the familiarly ridiculous, joining her listeners in their hesitant but soon uncontrollable laughter at a bit of daring wit with a fine, infectious low chuckle. She could soar, but she must not forget how to stoop, to perch, even on occasion, all smiling and happy, to waddle.

  Ivy taught her to emulate Franklin Roosevelt in never condescending to her electors, never allowing the least note of folksiness to mar her speech. She had to be always what they knew she was, the great lady of Broadlawns who had transformed a vast estate into a museum and park for the pe
ople and who now felt that her duty obliged her to offer herself as well to the service of her district. But if she would never insult her hearers by pretending to be other than she was, she had still to remember that in a democracy class lines must always be made to seem easily crossable, and she would illustrate her own knowledge of poverty and despair by a reference to the Depression years when she had spent dull days waiting for bit parts. She would even imply, with a slight shrug, a half smile and a brief sideways glance, that as a single woman she had had to master every aspect of the art of surviving in a city of sin.

  If Elesina, the actress, had learned not to play the proletarian, she had learned also not to play the man. She relied boldly on her beauty and her femininity, and never allowed her speeches to be dull. Her aides learned how to make tangled topics clear. Elesina would demand a single page on each issue, stating the principal arguments pro and con. She never allowed her attention to be squandered on details. She made a merit of superficiality by giving the impression of always going straight to the main point. It was frequently the only one she knew.

  Because of her looks, her social position and her speaking ability, she had achieved a public recognition far above what any ordinary state assemblyman could have expected. Her picture was carried in Time, in Life, in Newsweek, and she faced her first congressional primary as a cosmopolitan figure, whereas Julius Schell, the favorite of the ultraconservatives, was hardly known outside Westchester County. But Elesina had disadvantages, too. She was a woman, she had been twice divorced; she had been on the stage. Ivy proposed to make up for these liabilities with a whispering campaign to spread three responses: that Julius Schell was not really a man; that if he had never been divorced it was only because he had never been married; and that he, too, was known for his enthusiasm for the stage, and in particular for handsome, young actors.

  "I want a clean campaign, Ivy," Elesina warned her sternly when she heard these suggestions.

  Ivy abruptly changed the subject. It was always difficult to tie Ivy down. Elesina suspected that she rigidly separated the morality of the candidate from that of the campaign manager. It was all very well for the former to proclaim a belief in ideals; it was even acceptable that this belief should be sincere—so long as the manager had a free hand in the sewers. Elesina was determined, however, to bring matters to a showdown. She was perfectly aware of all that she owed her friend, but she knew, too, that gratitude was the cause of half the sinning in public life.