by Herman Wouk
Graveled by the new shadows on his fortune, Andrew Reale dropped into an armchair and considered the situation. Was the fruit of scheme and sacrifice, he wondered, to prove a Dead Sea apple, crumbling to an ash when he touched it? Deposed, Marquis was hardly an advantageous father-in-law; on the contrary, to be linked to a fallen tyrant meant to acquire the odor of his disrepute, and who could say how rich or poor the unstable soap man might prove to be, once deprived of his shaky power as the head of a large corporation? His handsome city and country homes, his lavish style of living; might these not be the shell of a rotted credit? Andrew decided dourly that in his present plight, shorn of his job and his beloved–his former beloved–only one role remained to him, the least tasteful he had ever acted: that of bellows to the dimming fire of Marquis. His hopes turned on the preservation of the sponsor’s authority. Let his friends in radio, artists, technicians, and executives alike, rejoice at the nearing downfall! Andrew Reale must whip his brains for a way to rescue his future father-in-law.
As he sat in the darkness and thought over the pass he was at, our hero suddenly felt as though a bulwark in his mind had given way, and through the breach came pouring a turbid torrent of thoughts, memories, scents, sounds, images, and sensations relating wholly to his old sweetheart, Honey Beaton–a flood which clogged his brain and halted all rational traffic through it. In vain did he try to stem the intrusion, and focus his faculties again on the ugly problem at hand. Motions of her hands and head, forgotten dresses she had worn but once long ago, strange dishes they had tasted together, little phrases of hers which when uttered had seemed to disappear into the air like light smoke–such things presented themselves to him in a luridly colored vividness and in dizzying succession. He groaned and pressed his hand to his forehead, and, looking out through the glass, he saw the studio audience with their heads bent in the customary thirty seconds of silent prayer before Father Stanfield’s benediction.
“Oh, Lord,” said Andrew Reale aloud in the gloom, “You don’t owe me a thing, and I suppose I don’t really believe in You, but I’m in this business deep and I’m in it for good, and I need help. If ever I’m to get a favor from You, this is the time. Send me a way to save Marquis from his just punishment! That’s all Andy Reale has left to pray for.”
He felt ashamed of the outburst as soon as it was uttered, for a strict upbringing had given him a sense of decorum, if nothing more positive, in the presence of the Unknown. All at once it appeared to him that he could not put off for another ten minutes his visit to Laura’s bedside–for no other purpose, of course, than to express his sympathy and give her his good wishes for recovery. Jumping up from his armchair, he strode out of the sponsor’s booth and stood in the brightly illuminated green hallway, somewhat dazed by the light.
An old proverb says, “Beware of what you ask of Heaven, lest it be granted,” but readers who incline to see more in what follows than a remarkable coincidence, are warned that they will incur the odium of being regarded as superstitious. Your own minister will tell you that requests for temporal aid are a misuse of prayer and that only spiritual gifts can properly be asked for. When Andrew Reale told these things to the historian many years later, he remembered this curious twist of sequence, the prayer and the accidental meeting with Mrs. Smollett immediately thereafter; and as he narrated it, so is it faithfully set down; by no means as a proof, however, of what a well-known agnostic coldly terms, “the animistic idea of an extra-causal propensity in events.”
There came walking up to Andrew, at any rate, as he stood outside the door of the sponsor’s box, a plump little brown-haired lady, bright of eye and nimble of gait, wearing an elaborately made brown silk-and-velvet dress several inches too long to pass as fashionable, a queerly shaped feather-topped hat, rings and bracelets with big stones, and a double string of coral beads which hung to her waist. More than anything she resembled a fortyish female servant dressed up for a family holiday, except that she had an erect, merry bearing that did not argue a lifetime of drudgery. Her first words did much to explain the outlandish picture, for her accent was British, indeed not unlike the standard comic Cockney which Andrew had heard to weariness at auditions of hopeful actors.
“There’s a good lad,” she said as she approached, “and could you tell me if I might see Father Stanfield back ’ere somewhere after the shaow? I don’t want to get lost in the mob again like I did before. ’E knaows I’m comin’–’E’s expectin’ me.”
The workers in radio studios are numb to surprise at the nature of visitors, no matter how strange; it will soon be acknowledged by geographers that the lobbies of American broadcasting companies have replaced the streets of Constantinople as the world’s crossroads, Said Andrew politely, “Madam, the public is not permitted to use this hallway, and I’m afraid there may be trouble–”
“I’m not the public,” said the little lady firmly, taking an envelope from her pocket. “I’ve a naote from Cal right ’ere askin’ me to meet ’im tonight ’ere at the shaow. ’E wraote it three weeks agao. I’m a very special friend, I am. Look ’ere, you can read it.”
Andrew took the letter and glanced at it. The writing was Stanfield’s, the salutation was “Dearest Gracie,” the signature was, “Faithfully always, Cal”; it consisted of affectionate greetings and brief directions telling “Gracie” to meet Stanfield at the studio on this night, before the program. Andrew perceived that Stanfield had planned the appointment before the tempest over the advertising sermon; small wonder that the rendezvous had failed, He glanced sharply at the British lady, who returned the look with a beam of pride at the contents of the note. A thrill of interest shot through Andrew Reale.
“Did you say that you were a special friend of Father Stanfield’s?” he asked, handing back the envelope.
“A very special friend,” said the Englishwoman with an expression almost roguish enough to be a wink. “I’m Gracie Smollett– Mrs. Gracie Smollett. When Cal knew me, I was Gracie Kenny. I ’aven’t seen nor written to ’im for nineteen years, but, as you can see, ’e’s glad to ’ear from me. I tried to meet ’im by the revolving door, like it says in the naote, but dear me, what a mob! I couldn’t do it.”
“My dear Mrs. Smollett,” said Andy, taking her arm and beginning to talk rapidly and easily, “I’m happy to be of service to you. My name is Andrew Reale, and I am in charge of Father Stanfield’s radio arrangements. I’m afraid you won’t be able to see him now, because the crowd will overwhelm him after the show; but if you’ll let me take charge of you, I promise to arrange for you to meet him later tonight, or first thing in the morning.”
“Why, that’s lovely of you, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Smollett, following docilely as Andrew led her to a small private elevator. “I knaow ’e’ll be lookin’ for me.”
“Meantime,” said Andrew, “a guest of the Faithful Shepherd deserves the best of everything. It’s a hot night. Permit me to buy you a drink.”
“I am saow warm with standin’ and pushin’,” said the little lady gratefully, stepping with Reale into the car, “I’ll he aowbliged.”
The door closed, and the elevator whined softly toward the street.
It is not necessary to follow our hero in his descent; all too soon will we see what use he made of Mrs. Smollett. The reader is again cautioned, however, against getting down on his knees, on the basis of evidence in this chapter, and praying for some material good which he desperately needs. This life is evidently not arranged to operate that way, and nearly all theologians agree that it better so. For my part, friend, would that each of us could have his heart’s tomorrow, and try the result for himself, without having to take the word of theologians.
CHAPTER 25
In which our hero believes he has reached bottom.
THE MIDDLE-AGED BACHELOR of your acquaintance will tell you that one particular lost maiden of his youth dominates his dreams, and appears over and over during his lonely slumbers to comfort him with the bright ghost of love. It must have bee
n such a celibate thinker, in the early days of psychological theory, who advanced the dogma that we sleep not because we need rest but because we require the psychic fulfillment that comes from dreaming. This majestic proposition has now fallen into neglect, while others of its sort have gained such wide currency as to pass for plain fact even among the educated; which only shows that fashion is not absent from the chaste field of science; but the idea will yet have its day, and its handiest empirical proof will be found in the dreams of middle-aged bachelors.
The fact that Father Stanfield dreamed about Gracie Kenny was no distinguished compliment to the lady, inasmuch as their three-week romance in London in 1918 had been the solitary love-interlude in the Faithful Shepherd’s life. His efforts to trace her after the war had been to no avail, and the years had insensibly stretched into decades, bringing him no warmer solace than the persistence of a winsome young British phantom in the illusions of the night. Spectral sweethearts have this advantage over too, too solidly fleshed wives, that they do not age; and for what it was worth, Calvin Stanfield in long, cold years had earned the consolation so sweetly addressed to the swain on the urn: “For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair.”
On the morning after his triumph over Marquis, the preacher lay asleep in a bedroom in his favorite mid-Manhattan hotel. Refreshed by eight hours of deep sleep, Stanfield tossed now in the last moments of light dozing before waking, and dreamed of Gracie, who had been more than ever in his thoughts since the brief, amazing telephone call from her three weeks before. As always, he clasped her in his arms, but this time she did not dissolve in air, but turned into a big unfriendly white dog that squirmed in his grasp and snarled and snarled at him with a snarl remarkably like the ring of a telephone … the Shepherd opened his eyes, raised himself on an elbow and picked up the telephone by his bedside in a hand that made the instrument look toy-like. “Hello,” he said. “Who? Andrew Reale? Where are you, son? Why, I reckon so, seein’ it’s urgent. Come right up.”
When our hero arrived at Stanfield’s suite of rooms a few moments later he found the outer door ajar and, stepping inside hesitantly, he saw the Shepherd, dressed in trousers and a bathrobe, sitting in an armchair with his hand over his eyes. Andrew stood silent, waiting. After a minute or two the preacher looked up, smiled apologetically, motioned Andrew to a chair, and resumed his abstracted meditation for what seemed a tormentingly long time to the tense radio executive. Finally he sat back and said cheerfully, “I like to git in a prayer or two afore startin’ the day’s business. Want some breakfast, son? You look like you ain’t been sleepin’ or eatin’ a whole lot.”
Andrew declined the invitation nervously.
“Well,” said the Shepherd, “then let’s git the urgent business a-rollin’.”
The young man dug into his breast pocket and brought out a folded sheet of white paper which he opened and passed to the clergyman. There were several typed paragraphs on it.
“I assure you the matter is urgent,” he said. “Will you be good enough to sign this?”
As Stanfield glanced over the paper, Andrew drummed his fingers on the side of his leg, pressed his lips tightly together and stared with tired, reddened eyes.
This was what the preacher read:
“For the purpose of clarifying recent unfortunate incidents in connection with my broadcasts under the sponsorship of the Marquis Company, makers of Aurora Dawn products, and to correct unfair and misleading impressions now current, I, Father Calvin Stanfield, wish to make the following statements:
“First, that throughout my association with Mr. Talmadge Marquis I have found him always courteous, tolerant, understanding and liberal, and that he displayed all these qualities unfailingly in his attitude toward my sermon, ‘The Hog in the House’;
“Second, that wild and irresponsible newspaper gossip, not Mr. Marquis, was solely responsible for the deplorable turmoil regarding that sermon;
“Third, that I freely extend to the Marquis Company permission to use these-statements in newspaper advertisements or in any way they choose, for the express purpose of preventing further injustice to Mr. Marquis, whom I regard with the highest respect and esteem.
“Calvin Stanfield.”
“Whew!” exclaimed the Shepherd, and let the paper fall to his lap. He looked inquiringly at Andrew, who returned the look with an impassive expression. “I don’t rightly know what yer game is, son,” said the clergyman at last. “You know I ain’t gonna sign this. You knowed it when you come here.”
“I think you will sign,” said the hero of this history, “after I explain a few things to you.”
“Nothin’s impossible, I reckon,” said Stanfield, “but that’ll be some blue-ribbon explainin’.”
“You may not know,” said Andy, “that Marquis is in very difficult circumstances as a result of your sermon. He has to face an inquiry by his board of directors, and they have the power to throw him out. You won the fight. Be generous. Sign that paper, so that he can produce it at the meeting. It will save him. Otherwise he will probably be ruined.”
Stanfield regarded him soberly. “I’m sorry fer Marquis, but they is more hope fer a fool than fer a man wise in his own wisdom. I ain’t ruinin’ him; he ruined hisself. It ain’t fer me to save him, ’specially with no outrageous lie.”
Andrew, paler and more haggard than ever, said, “I regret you feel that way.” With this he reached into the breast pocket again and handed to the cleric his letter to Gracie Smollett, saying, “I have some information about Mrs. Smollett for you.”
The preacher’s eyes widened as he took the note; then he smiled. “You seen her afore I did, eh? I figgered I’d lose her in the crowd. What’s she like?”
“A little British lady—very sweet,” said Andrew. “Quite pretty. Hair just has a touch of gray. She’s at the Buchanan Hotel now.”
A tender, wistful and melancholy light was in the Faithful Shepherd’s eyes. “A touch of gray, eh?” he repeated softly. “A touch of gray.”
Andrew picked his hat off the table where he had laid it, and turned it rapidly round and round in his hands. “I’m genuinely sorry, believe me, Father Stanfield,” he said in a low voice, looking at the moving hat, “that Mrs. Smollett stumbled into me and inadvertently disclosed as much of your private affairs as she did. She’s very simple, and not discreet.”
“Shucks, it don’t signify none what she told you,” said the Shepherd gently and absently. “It all belongs in the long ago.”
“Not quite,” said the dauntless lover of Carol Marquis. “It’s not right for me to tell you first, I suppose, but the fact is, sir, you have a son who was adopted by the man Smollett, and brought up as his own child. Father Stanfield,” he hurried on, as the preacher registered dumb amazement, “this interview is becoming more and more painful to me, and I must get to the point. Please believe that for reasons it would be useless to dwell upon, my situation is fully as desperate as Mr. Marquis’s because of what happened with ‘The Hog in the House.’ I must ask you again to sign that paper, or I will not keep the information about your past to myself. I will,” said our hero, keeping his eyes steadily away from the preacher’s face, “give it to Milton Jaeckel, with consequences to your reputation and the prosperity of your Fold which you can readily imagine.”
The preacher sat without sound or motion for a while, then said thoughtfully, “This boy—where’s he at?”
“Cape Town,” said Andrew. “The Smolletts went to South Africa to live in 1921. Mrs. Smollett became a widow last January. She came here for an operation on her eyes. But you probably know all that.”
“I didn’t know nuthin’,” said Stanfield, “’ceptin’ that Gracie was in Boston. Buchanan Hotel, eh? Reckon I’ll talk to her.”
As he reached for the telephone Andy said hastily, “I’m sure you don’t want me intruding any longer. If you’ll just be good enough to sign that paper and let me have it–”
“Oh, yes. The paper.” The Shepherd looked at the docu
ment in his lap as though it were a strange cat that had crept there. “You comin’ at me with too many things at once, son. How was all that about Milton Jaeckel? Guess I wasn’t payin’ no mind.”
Feeling as though he were making a second effort to ignite a sodden firework, Andrew repeated his proposal. The preacher regarded him with an increasingly quizzical, disturbing gaze.
“Son,” said Father Stanfield when he ended lamely in the middle of a sentence, “what is it in this world that you want so very bad?”
Our hero suddenly wished that he had slept and eaten before coming to this critical scene. Clearly, he was weak; Stanfield’s simple question affected him like a surprise blow to the stomach. Actually trembling in all limbs, he mustered language to say, “That’s beside the point. But if you must know, my whole happiness depends on this matter. That’s why I’ll seize any weapon.”
“Yer right in what you say,” answered the preacher, “but not the way you think. Yer whole happiness depends on lookin’ into yer soul and figgerin’ out what wrong notions got you crawlin’ so low. The first night you sat alongside o’ me at the Old House, eatin’ soup, Reale, I liked you. I ain’t never felt no different, spite o’ all the hocus-pocus I seen you mixed up in, but yer sick, boy, you got the sickest spirit I seen in a long time. This is one rotten big snowball of a sin you come rollin’ into my presence this mornin’. I reckon you been tumblebuggin’ her along fer quite a spell. She’s growed big, she’s jest about ready to take charge an’ roll away downhill with you thrashin’ around in the middle.”
Andrew murmured, “That may all be, but I’d still like you to sign that paper, if you please.”
“Or else we git this here big turrible exposure of me and my iniquity, eh? Why, go to it, son,” said the preacher. “I intend to make public confession before the Fold, but if yer newspaper friend will git extra good outta the story, why, give it to him. What I got to bear fer my sin I got to bear, but somehow I think I done my penance in twenty years of loneliness and they ain’t no harm gonna come of this turn. When the Lord hits, he hits like a hammer, and when he blesses, it’s a pleasant harvest time with no rain. He sends me Gracie, and he gives me a son. All will be well. Praise Him!” Father Stanfield looked out of the window and turned his face to the sky. Andrew Reale experienced a desire to slide under the carpet unperceived.