As far as I could see, her background did not fit her for her present efforts any better than my own. When I had known Helen first, she had shared a two-room apartment in New York with a heavy, red-faced girl whom she had known at Bryn Mawr, and they had cooked casserole dishes on a hot plate in the bathroom. There was nothing in her home environment either that could account for her decorative skill unless it was revolt.
The house occupied by her parents in Wilmington, Delaware, was a smallish brick structure in one of those blocks to the west of the Du Pont Hotel. It had been constructed near the turn of the century, before everyone connected with the Du Pont Company had found it advisable to move farther into the country. Helen’s father had not been connected with the Du Pont Company, and neither had her brother, and now they were not connected with anything at all except with Helen and me. I remembered my first glimpse of their house on the occasion when Helen introduced me to her family in Wilmington. I remembered the gas fixtures wired for electricity and the narrow dark front hall in which there stood a combination hat rack and umbrella stand of golden oak with a mirror at its back and a commodelike seat that you lifted up for rubbers. I remembered the golden oak balustrade and the crimson stair carpet with Paris green leaves upon it and the golden oak of the sitting room and dining room and the two Tiffany lamps, also wired like the chandeliers for electricity. There was even, believe it or not, a china cuspidor decorated with glazed roses in the parlor by a rubber tree. Nothing about that house in Delaware afforded an explanation for Helen’s ability to cope successfully with her present surroundings. She would have been a very good adventuress. In fact, perhaps she was an adventuress.
“What did you and Camilla talk about?” she asked.
“About when I was a little boy,” I said, “and then she said her prayers.”
“But she had said them already. I always hear her prayers.”
“Well, she repeated them,” I said. “Lots of people do, now that I think of it.”
“Darling,” Helen said, “I wish you would look more natural. Why don’t you ring for Oscar and get your slippers and your smoking jacket?”
Helen had been trying in various ways for a long while to get me into that smoking jacket. It was a wine-colored velvet garment with quilted cuffs and lapels which she had bought for me shortly after she had done over the room.
“Well,” I said, because I did not want to hurt her feelings, “all right, Helen, I’ll settle for the smoking jacket but not the slippers. Why do you think it makes me look natural?”
“It doesn’t,” Helen said, “but it ought to,” and she looked at me as though she were doing me over. “It might if you kept wearing it.”
I did not ring for Oscar to bring me the smoking jacket and I don’t believe that Helen expected that I would. One of the best things about her was that she was never nagging or insistent. I was never conscious of any sense of struggle or any battle between the sexes when Helen and I were alone together. Instead of ringing for Oscar, I picked up a copy of the New York Times, unbuttoned my double-breasted coat and loosened my tie and sat down at one end of the davenport. Helen picked up the piece of petit point embroidery on which she had been working. There was no sound in the room but the occasional snapping of the oak logs in the fireplace at which we would both look up simultaneously to be sure that no spark fell on the beautiful round hooked rug which Helen had bought from some deceased collector’s collection. Then we would look back again, I to the last paragraph of the lead editorial of the New York Times on the British monetary situation, and Helen to her embroidery, but neither of us would speak. Helen had always understood the value of silence.
Somewhere down the hall I heard the gentle opening and closing of a door.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh,” Helen said, “it’s Oscar sending in Farouche to say good night.”
Farouche was the gray poodle that Helen had bought because, as she said, I had spoken about a dog, and she had always wanted a poodle. Farouche was trimmed in the modern Airedale manner, and the fur on top of his cranium was tied together by a fresh red bow. Nevertheless Farouche did not look silly. He entered the room in a dignified manner without bouncing or slobbering, carrying a rubber ring in his mouth. He glanced at us both, pleasantly and expectantly, and assumed an alert sitting position in front of us.
“Hello, Farouche, darling,” Helen said.
Farouche edged nearer, still holding his rubber ring.
“Aren’t you going to play with him?” Helen asked.
Farouche had a one-track mind, and the ring was his obsession. When I got up from the davenport and approached him, he dropped it carelessly, but he always snatched it again before I could pick it up, and he was delighted by my clumsiness. In the end, Farouche was very generous with me. He deliberately allowed me to get the ring so that I could toss it across the room. I was very glad to do so because it gave Farouche great pleasure, but I could not go on with this indefinitely, and Farouche understood when I was tired.
“He’s very gracious tonight,” I said, “and I like his new bow.”
“He isn’t gracious,” Helen said. “He loves us. Don’t you love us, Farouche?”
I never understood why people take a dog’s love for granted. Farouche’s mind was on his rubber ring. He knew that I had given up, but there was always hope that I would try to snatch his ring again.
“My God,” I said, “we seem to be a long way from anywhere tonight.”
Helen looked up at me quickly, but she did not give the appearance of adjusting herself patiently to one of my moods.
“Where’s anywhere?” she asked.
“Anywhere is where we used to be,” I said.
Helen raised her eyebrows and smiled.
“You always used to say you didn’t care where you were,” she said. “Remember?”
“That’s true,” I said, “but that’s when I was anywhere, not somewhere.”
“Darling, what got your mind on this?” Helen said. “You were just playing with Farouche.”
“That’s exactly it,” I said. “I never thought I’d own a poodle with a bowknot on his head.”
“He doesn’t have to wear a ribbon.”
“Even without a ribbon,” I said, “even with a crew cut.”
“I wish you wouldn’t try to make him into a symbol,” Helen said. “Don’t you like him?”
Of course, I said, I liked him. I had not intended to discuss any phases of our life together, but there we were. Helen was sitting up straighter and she was speaking more carefully.
“Well, darling,” she said, “you got us here. I didn’t. We ought to put that on the record, and we have to be somewhere like this.”
“All right,” I said. “I know. It just happened, but I can’t help feeling queer.”
“Now, Sid,” Helen said, “of course we’re strangers here and we’re new, but all the neighbors have come to call on us. They’re all very nice, and we’re being taken into the Country Club.”
“They’re all different,” I said.
Farouche picked up his rubber ring and edged closer to me.
“Darling,” Helen said, and there was a catch in her voice, “don’t you like anything you’re doing?”
It was impossible to answer yes or no to her question. There were aspects to the radio program that I did not like at all, but there were also compensating factors. I liked to use my editorial judgment on Art’s script and to work myself over the dispatches from the newsroom, but at the same time I hated the show business side of it. I did not like having been discovered and turned suddenly into an overnight wonder like a Hollywood star. I could laugh with my old friends about my situation and they could laugh back, but it was not the old give-and-take of other days. There was always bound to be that element of envy which one cannot help feeling toward some contemporary who has suddenly hit the jackpot. It was uncomfortable being accidentally successful for no sound or adequate reason.
“I lik
e it all right,” I said, “as long as I know what I’m doing, but let’s not try to fool ourselves.”
“It makes me awfully angry when you take that point of view,” Helen began, “and start running yourself down.”
“It’s all right,” I said, “as long as you just admit there’s money in it, and you don’t try to make me think I’m an artist. We’re just two people trying to get along.”
“Well, it only takes you a few minutes every evening,” she said, “and you were wonderful tonight.”
“That’s the way to look at it,” I said. “Just a few mad minutes.”
“Darling,” Helen said, “whatever you do, you’re wonderful, and I like being a long way from anywhere as long as you’re around.”
“All right,” I said, “only let me know when you’re tired—that’s all.” And I kissed her.
There was a cough in the hall. It was Oscar, who was always discreet. I always felt like a guest when he coughed.
“Hello,” I said. “What’s the problem, Oscar?”
“I came to take Farouche to bed, sir,” Oscar said, “and there’s the same gentleman on the telephone again from Washington, a Colonel Flax, Colonel Edward Flax.”
It took me a moment to remember the urgent call from Washington.
“He’s from the office of Army Public Relations,” Oscar said.
A number of telephone extensions in the house left me a wide choice as to where I could best talk to Colonel Flax, whether in the hall, the library, or the office where Art and the studio staff worked whenever we prepared the script in the country.
“Don’t you want me to take the message for you?” Helen asked. She was always convinced that I would bungle any conversation on the telephone.
“Oh, no, I’ll speak to him,” I said. “I’ll take it in the library.”
“Well, don’t let him make you do something you don’t want to do,” Helen said. “You never can say no over the telephone.”
Oscar and Farouche accompanied me to that room of my own, the library. The telephone stood on the tooled-leather surface of the Old English desk on which I was to do some writing some day and on which the microphones were set up when I went on the air at home. I walked across to it as gingerly as though I were apologetically taking a call in someone else’s house. I was still sure that I did not know anyone named Flax and I could not imagine why anyone should want to talk to me about Melville Goodwin at ten o’clock at night. Consequently I used my best voice, full of the integrity that Gilbert Frary so greatly admired.
“Hello,” I said. “This is Mr. Skelton speaking.”
I was answered by a worried voice which I could place as belonging to someone accustomed to giving orders and who, instead, was obliged to be ingratiating.
“Good evening, Mr. Skelton. This is Colonel Flax. I am sorry to trouble you so late at night. I’m in Public Relations at the Pentagon—General Todd’s office—your former chief.”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
People invariably felt that it built them up to say that they were speaking from the Pentagon, and I had to admit I had done the same thing often enough myself when I was in there during the war.
“The General would have called you himself,” Colonel Flax said, “—he was anxious to speak to you personally—but unfortunately he is delivering an address before the American Legion tonight. He did want me, though, to send you his warmest regards. He speaks of you very often and about the old days in Paris.”
“Well, now, that’s very kind of him,” I said. “If you happen to think of it, tell the General I think of him often, too. I hope he doesn’t still suffer from indigestion.”
I looked at the leather-bound rows of British novelists and poets in front of me. I did think of the General sometimes, largely because he had not been good at Public Relations. He had come from the Point at a time when no one had ever heard of Public Relations.
“He brought up your name himself this evening,” Colonel Flax said. “When we were in conference with the Secretary, a certain matter came up, and it was the General’s idea, in which the Secretary concurred, that it ought to be handled informally. I imagine you can guess what it is, Mr. Skelton. We don’t want to pull too many strings from here, and the General was wondering, and the Secretary concurred, whether, because of your former connection and your fine record in the service and your continued interest in the army and also because of your closeness to General Melville Goodwin—er—whether you couldn’t help out personally on a little job of work, nothing difficult, you understand, but informal. I wish I could talk to you personally and not over the telephone. If it’s agreeable to you, I can come up to New York the first thing in the morning.”
The colonel was speaking with an anxiety which communicated itself to me. In spite of my distance from the Pentagon, I could tell that there would be trouble for the colonel if he did not get what he wanted.
“Well,” I said, speaking with integrity, “all these things you say make me feel very happy. You’re right—I have a warm spot in my heart for the army. I shall always feel I owe a great deal to my war experience. But exactly what is it that the General wants me to do for you?”
“Well, frankly,” Colonel Flax said, “it’s about Major General Goodwin. You’ve been in here with us so that you can understand, in view of recent news, that he presents a public relations problem that must be handled in just the right way. We’re right in here carrying the ball, and we don’t want to muff it, and since the war—quite frankly, the personnel here isn’t what it was during the war.”
“You mean there isn’t the same old versatility?” I said.
The colonel laughed as though we were old cronies sharing a sly, delightful joke. “That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “We haven’t the same old first team any more. They’re all with the Air Force and the Marines, and this time the Ground Forces are carrying the ball, and we need a touchdown.”
The colonel’s voice ended on a ringing note, and without seeing Colonel Flax I already knew everything about him.
“All right,” I said, “but I still don’t know why General Goodwin’s a problem.”
“This incident in Berlin,” the colonel said, “and the way the whole picture is placed before the public. General Goodwin’s flying back to the States tonight for press interviews and possibly for reassignment. He’ll be in Washington tomorrow morning to report at the Pentagon, but we are planning to send him up to New York directly. He should be at Mitchel Field at two tomorrow afternoon.”
It was a break for the army, with the Congress in session and with appropriations coming up, and it was natural that they should want to use the Goodwin episode for all it was worth, Colonel Flax was saying. There was a fine play already, and the news magazines wanted a definitive story. The General was a new personality, if I saw what he meant.
“We don’t want him to say the wrong thing,” Colonel Flax was saying. “We want someone to handle him, and we know how well you’ve handled a lot of the VIPs over in the ETO. If you could just manage to be with him to give him a little good advice, especially after those fine things you said about him in your broadcast tonight. His wife is riding up with him from Washington and all the sound reels will be there. We don’t want him saying the wrong thing to those news magazines. In the conference it was suggested that you might be willing to meet him at Mitchel.”
It all went to show what might happen if you spoke rashly on the air. Suddenly, because of a bright thought of mine that evening, I was the old friend of Melville Goodwin, the GI’s general, right in there with him pitching.
“Before going to you direct,” the colonel was saying, “we got in touch with the broadcasting company and we’ve been talking to Mr. Gilbert Frary, who concurs in the idea of your meeting General Goodwin at the field.”
“Now, just a minute,” I began. “I haven’t heard from Mr. Frary.”
“He said he would call you personally,” Colonel Flax went on, “and he has another good sugg
estion if you will concur in it. He suggests that you ask General and Mrs. Goodwin to be your guests for a day or two at your home in Connecticut. He seemed sure that you would be glad to have them, because of your friendship.”
I looked up from the telephone to find that Helen had entered the library, and from her expression I was sure that she had been listening over some extension.
“Now just a minute,” I said. “I haven’t heard a word from Mr. Frary, and I’m too busy tomorrow to go to Mitchel Field.”
There was a deflated silence, and I wished that Gilbert Frary would mind his own business—but perhaps it was his own business, since it was as necessary for me as it was for General Goodwin to be a seven days’ wonder.
“I’ll send my car for him,” I said, “and if they’re going to do a definitive piece about him, they can come out and work on it here, but I’m not going to meet him at Mitchel Field.”
“Tell him you don’t want them here either,” Helen whispered.
“You’re sure you can’t change your mind?” Colonel Flax was saying.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m sure. But I’m sure that Mr. Frary will be there.”
I should have said that I would have nothing to do with it. It was weak-minded of me, but I had begun to feel sorry for General Melville Goodwin, not that I knew him at all well, or that I had ever felt sorry for him previously.
“There you are,” Helen said. “You let yourself in for something invariably every time you go to the telephone.”
“So do you, almost invariably,” I said.
“Now, Sid,” she answered, “there was no earthly reason for you to ask him up here. At least you could have asked him without his wife.”
Melville Goodwin, USA Page 5