The Evening of the Good Samaritan

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  Winthrop waited, hoping vainly he would answer that question for himself also. Then he said, “He’s the professor of economics at the University who’s been in the news lately.”

  Dr. Bergner nodded a vigorous understanding. “Oh, yes, yes, that one. I remember.”

  Winthrop said: “I hope you won’t hold that against the son.”

  Bergner lifted his head and squinted at him, unable at the moment to get hold of his glasses. “On the contrary.”

  They did not speak much more of Marcus Hogan that evening. Winthrop promised to provide Bergner with information on him. When he rose to leave, the old man asked, “Are you having that usual March madness of yours this year?”

  Winthrop knew he referred to the ball he traditionally gave on the first of March. “Especially this year, Doctor Albert.”

  “Tell you what you do: invite young Hogan. I shall come and look him over.”

  11

  WINTHROP’S PARTIES WERE ALWAYS lavish. Knowing that he would be criticized by the matrons of North Shore society in any case, he chose to err on the side of opulence: it might not stop them from talking, but neither did it stop them from attending. He could tell from the jewelry out that night, a number of legended pieces, that he rated a high place on the season’s calendar. Some people were away for the winter, of course, but it so happened that this was one of the greatest years in the history of Traders City opera, and one of the customs demanded of fashion was its support.

  Winthrop received alone. One of the virtues of bachelorhood was that by it he was in an ancient tradition remembered only, but distinctly, by the family dowagers. They never failed to tell him on such occasions of the fine unattached gentlemen, now seemingly a vanished breed, who had made romantic their own youths. Winthrop supposed it due in part to the permanence of attachment in those days. Even now, however, divorce was not common in Lakewood.

  Now and then a man arriving would murmur surreptitious congratulations on his candidacy. He did not expect a numerous vote from among his guests: a few might cross the line in the primary since the Republican was running unopposed, but what he did find gratifying was the attitude that even Traders City politics might, by grace of men like him, become respectable. He guarded himself against reading too much into a cordiality that might be founded on mere boredom.

  One old gentleman, who shouted because he was himself deaf, pulled Winthrop down to where his ear was next to the old man’s lips and then said loudly enough to draw good-humored applause from half a dozen people standing nearby: “I’m going to vote for you to help you break that damned machine.”

  Winthrop smiled and pressed the man’s hand, and thought the while that, unfortunate though it might be, he could not win without some damned machine. The governor was full force behind him; but he was haunted by the probable truth in one of the Dispatch’s venomous cartoons: it described Mike Shea as a lean and hungry tiger ready to leap, but undecided which of the lambs he wanted, the incumbent mayor or the challenger. Winthrop had found it humiliating to be cartooned as a lamb. But as George Bergner said: “Politics are humiliating.”

  He waited. He could not deny to himself the eagerness with which he waited a first glimpse of Elizabeth. She saw him now only in her own home with Walter present or on such an occasion as this. And yet he waited. Other guests arrived. The women went up the south stairs to powder and dressing rooms. The gentlemen were provided a private drinking lounge up the north stairs, which Winthrop called the Trophy Room. There were certain of their number who did not believe it proper to drink whisky in the presence of ladies. Or, to put it more exactly, they did not believe ladies should be allowed in the presence of gentlemen drinking whisky. Balance in all things, Winthrop thought, observing the dichotomy. A string orchestra was playing in the drawing room all but unattended. Balance in all things; life is a budget. The ridiculous phrase ran through his mind all evening thereafter.

  Winthrop’s estate, Tamarack, named after the great tall trees, sparse and stately guardians of the lawns, ran from Deerpath Road to the lake, almost the distance of a mile. The mansion was a pale pink stone fashioned after a Roman villa and built early in the twentieth century; it sat on the bluffs high above the water’s edge. In the afternoon a fresh snow had fallen upon the four-inch layer crusted beneath by a sudden freeze. The air was stinging sharp, clear and dry, so that the snow sifted gently like sand. The sky was electric with stars.

  One might pray for such a night if he were host, Marcus thought, but it was rough on a man who didn’t know his way. He had to stop twice to adjust the chains on the back wheels of the car, driving out from the city, and he suspected the Lakewood streets to have been deliberately laid out to confuse strangers. Actually, they followed for the most part the topography of the ravines. When he reached the stone gates of Tamarack and turned in after a chauffeured limousine, he patted the steering wheel and said aloud, “You and I are going to be the only Chevrolets present tonight.” In front of the house he gave it up to a red-cheeked Irishman in a fur cap with whom he thought the car at least might have a rapport.

  Listening to his name announced, he tried to remember when last he had heard himself called out from a crowd. On a Saturday night in the barber shop. Winthrop shook his hand and suggested that he go up and have a quick whisky to warm him.

  Marcus thanked him, but alone, he stood a moment admiring the foyer in all its ornate grandeur. The staircases, describing roughly the shape of a horseshoe, were pure Italian marble, the balustrade running up one side, round the balcony, and down the other with each baluster an individual carving. He could not resist putting his hand to a cupid’s buttocks, for there is a sensuousness to marble akin to that of delicate flesh. Nothing he could do would conceal the fact that he was out of place, so Marcus stood and stared, almost defiantly. He could feel the constriction of a dress suit that no longer fitted him well. He was just at the point of belligerent self-consciousness when a lean-necked, jeweled woman, nearing forty, he supposed, goodlooking in a horse-womanish way, came up to him and said,

  “You look like someone I ought to know.”

  “I feel like someone somebody ought to know,” Marcus said, and introduced himself.

  “I’m Sylvia Fields. You’re not one of the governor’s bright young men, are you?”

  “I voted for him, if that’s what you mean.”

  “How vulgar of you to use that word,” Miss Fields said mockingly. Marcus knew who she was: an heiress with leftist politics, a maverick if not a horsewoman. “Come in next to the fire,” she said, again with a trace of mischief. She drew him toward the drawing room, a servant opening the double doors as they approached. It was from here, Marcus realized, the music had been coming. A few people were listening, as the quartet deserved, but most of them were gathered in small groups at either end of the room. Miss Fields’ rather metallic voice carried above the music and the murmur of conversation. “I’ve just had a fabulous conversation I’m dying to repeat to someone. I don’t suppose you know Eleanor Gluck?”

  “No. The opera singer?”

  “That’s Alma Gluck. No relation, I’m sure. But the place is swimming in opera stars.”

  “Floating, don’t you mean?” Marcus said, for he had observed several buxom and dramatic-looking women.

  Miss Fields laughed. “What were we saying? My conversation with Eleanor. I shan’t even try to describe her to you except that she’s got an upper lip that’s pure gristle. D’you know what I mean?” She stiffened her own by way of illustration.

  Marcus nodded and smiled.

  “‘Oh, Sylvia,’ she said to me,” and Sylvia swished two imitative fingers on Marcus’s sleeve, “‘what are you and I doing here at all, will you tell me, in the house of a man campaigning to be mayor? You, of course, do do extraordinary things—but nothing common.’ I said something about the office of mayor not having to be common, and she said, ‘Oh, but it does. It’s like the House of Representatives. They all seem to me so uncouth.’ I said, �
��Abraham Lincoln was in the House of Representatives.’ And she said, ‘That’s exactly what I mean, darling.’”

  Marcus laughed. “I wonder what would happen if I were to shout: ‘Three cheers for Roosevelt!’“

  “You’d be killed,” she said amiably. “Shall we have a drink?”

  “Right now I’d give half the night for one,” Marcus said.

  “Don’t be profligate. You may find something worth saving it for.” She looked at him frankly, in such open appraisal that Marcus could feel a tingle in the back of his neck. Then she said, “I know who you are! You’re Jonathan Hogan’s son.”

  Marcus nodded.

  She hooked a bony hand through his arm. “I adore that man.” She led him across the drawing room to a small bar camouflaged among the potted plants. There she introduced him to her brother, Anthony, two other young men, and then to George Bergner and his wife who joined them at that moment.

  Bergner corrected her introduction from Mr. Hogan to Dr. Hogan, which gave Marcus the satisfaction of being identified on his own. He had assumed there was purpose to this invitation: he knew inquiries had been made about him, but so far as direct communication from Winthrop after the January interview, he had had none. Also, so far as his career was concerned, he had put the name Bergner out of his mind. Now he began to pick up all sorts of fantasies. A man he might safely assume to be the surgeon’s son had recognized him. He kept trying to think where he had heard of George Bergner himself.

  “Fellows, let’s invite Sylvia and the doctor,” young Tony Fields cried. “You, too, Bergners.”

  “To what?” Sylvia said. “Whenever I’m included in Tony’s plans it means I’ve got to take the blame.”

  Fields was a handsome boy, many years younger than his sister. “We want to borrow the Wileys’ sleigh and horses. They won’t call dinner for an hour. Wouldn’t you love a gallop along the lake?”

  She shuddered. “No!”

  “Come on, Syl. You’re getting old.”

  “Some day I’ll admit it. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Get permission.” Tony smiled ingratiatingly.

  “What do I say to him? ‘Excuse me, Wiley, my brother and I would like the keys to your horse’?” To the bartender she said, “A large scotch and a little water, please.” When they were served, she touched her glass to Marcus’s and then went off in search of the owner of the sleigh.

  Marcus was aware the while of being under Bergner’s scrutiny. Finally Bergner said to him, “Have you met my father yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “He’s here,” Bergner said, a remark that seemed to put Marcus right back on his own again.

  It was some moments later, when Bergner said, “I met your father in Washington, Hogan,” that Marcus realized his present political job: Winthrop’s campaign manager. “It’s too bad he didn’t stick it out. They needed him.”

  “He didn’t think so,” Marcus said.

  “The only way you know you’re needed down there is when they refuse to accept your resignation. I’m on a sort of reverse loan myself just now.” He volunteered the latter information, Marcus supposed, lest it be thought his own resignation had been accepted.

  “To elect Winthrop?” Marcus said.

  “It’ll be a feather in my cap if I do.” Bergner gave a short laugh. “And I’ll be up to my ass in tar if I don’t.”

  His wife was the only woman within earshot, and she seemed not to have heard. She smiled when Marcus glanced her way. He thought she wanted terribly to be included.

  “Tally-ho,” Sylvia said, returning.

  Marcus had no desire to go sleigh-riding. It was something one did with a girl when both were very young. He was himself between ages, neither envying youth nor finding in it yet a challenge, as apparently Sylvia Fields did.

  “You’ll have to be my date for the time being, Dr. Hogan. Utterly safe. I’ve promised to drive the horses. But somebody’s got to remember—I always forget—‘gee’ is for left and ‘haw’ is for right, isn’t it?”

  “The Gees and the Haws,” Marcus said, “stand up and be counted. What side are you on?”

  “Marvelous!” Sylvia cried. “The Gees and the Haws.”

  “Actually,” Marcus said, “it’s the Haws and the Haw-nots.”

  He was groaned over and howled upon and carried off, going far more willingly than he had anticipated a few moments before.

  The sleighing party careened off the driveway and across the lawn at the approach of an automobile. Everyone shouted, “Gee!” and then in the car’s wake, “Haw,” although it was the hand on the reins to which the horses responded.

  Within the car, Martha Fitzgerald looked out the back window after the sleighers, a little sad that they were going away. She was pleased to have been invited to the ball, and surprised, considering her flare-up at Dr. Winthrop when last she had seen him. Everyone at school was envious, the nuns disapproving because it was Lent, all of which had but spiced the anticipation. Now, however, her natural shyness was tempering the pleasure.

  Dr. Winthrop came across the foyer to meet them. Martha could hear the clack of his heels on the marble floor. She had never seen such elegance although her mother had told her of this house. It belonged, Martha felt, somewhere back in history, say, the days of the Congress of Vienna. There was even chamber music playing somewhere nearby.

  “Elizabeth,” Dr. Winthrop said and took her mother’s hand.

  “You look well, Alexander.”

  “Now I am,” he said, and Martha wondered if he had been ill. He extended his hand to her. “And so you’ve come at last to visit me, Martha.”

  She put her hand in his. He released it at once for which she was grateful and a little ashamed for being so. He spoke as though she had been avoiding his house, and, of course, she had been, but she did not think he knew it. She could feel the tightness of the skin upon her forehead and knew the vein was showing in the middle. “Thank you for inviting me, Dr. Winthrop.”

  He turned to her father. “Walter, at least a dozen ladies have been asking where you were. I’ve promised you to all of them. Get out of that, my friend.”

  “Wouldn’t I be the great fool to try?” Fitzgerald said, making the others laugh. Martha felt proud of him.

  Her mother was speaking with friends whom Martha did not know. Nor did she sense any special welcome for her and her father. They were probably musical people. She and her father went into the drawing room, her mother waving after them. A manservant passing an enormous tray of champagne stopped before them.

  “May I, papa?”

  He nodded and they both took glasses. “Have you not had champagne before?”

  “Not out of a glass of my own,” she said.

  He toasted: “To my daughter, who is as beautiful as any woman present tonight.”

  Martha smiled broadly, and then, self-conscious, cast her eyes down and sipped the wine. She supposed she was rather pretty. She wore a new formal gown, green silk taffeta, tight-bodiced, the skirt wide and a little noisy when she walked. Now and then she glanced at her father over the rim of her glass. His eyes were searching around the room, presumably for some of the ladies of whom Dr. Winthrop had spoken. No one came up to them, and she supposed he was handicapped by her presence. She could never think of anything to say at the moment conversation seemed most necessary. She sipped again from the bubbly glass.

  Then she said, “Did you ever read Handy Andy, papa?”

  “Never.”

  It was a book Annie had read aloud to her over and over, often at Martha’s request, Annie laughing until she had tears in her eyes which had made Martha laugh more at her even than at the book.

  “There’s a very funny passage where he opens a bottle of champagne and puts all the candles out with it.”

  “And hits the lord and master in the eye with the cork, does he?”

  “Yes,” Martha said. “How did you know?”

  “I know how they write an Irish fool,” he
said coldly.

  “But it was written by an Irishman, I think,” she said after a moment’s thought.

  “I’m sure it was, more’s the shame.”

  Something has discomfited him, and whatever it was, she had unintentionally aggravated it. He was always open to hurt but never to consolation. She had been rebuffed too often to try now to discover him. They stood for what seemed a very long time silent and privately miserable. In a way they were like prisoners bound to each other by invisible chains—at once resentful and sympathetic of the other’s plight, loving and abhorring.

  Martha broke the bond, her voice too loud: “I want to speak to mother. You don’t mind, do you, papa?”

  “Of course, I don’t mind. I think I’ll go up to the Trophy Room myself.”

  He was gone from the drawing room before ever she found her mother so that she did not need to carry out the pretense. Instead she found a chair apart and listened to the music.

  The sleighriders returned just as the announcement was made that dinner was about to be served. They dispersed to repair the disorders of the wind and reassembled in the hall as other people began to converge there, moving toward the dining hall. Marcus had assumed the sleighing party would dine together, supposing he would go in with Sylvia Fields, but something happened which he did not understand until some time later. At the moment he was about to speak to her, Sylvia turned and called out, “Tony!”

  Her brother grinned and shrugged a little, waited, and gave his arm to his sister. To Marcus she said, “I expect you to ask me to dance later. You will, won’t you?”

  He said, “I’ll ask, but you’d be well advised to refuse.”

  “I am reckless in many things, Marcus.” And her eyes lingered a moment on his as though she craved understanding of the unexplained.

  She and her brother proceeded toward the dining room. Marcus glanced at Bergner, who was watching them, a tight, wry grin on his lips.

  “I feel as though I’d been jilted,” Marcus said.