A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  She was there, with her mother and Miss Russell. He had to sit through three hours of cocktails and dinner with the three women at Manetti’s, and then conduct them back to the Charles Wagoner. At the door of the hotel, he simply took Barbara by the elbow, led her aside, saying, “Something I’ve got to ask Barb,” and as soon as they were out of earshot he poured out a flood of words, with, “Let me get you an apartment. I want to come and see you. I’ll do what you say. Here you’re either not in, or you’ve got your eternal bodyguard. I have to talk to you. It’s important, important for you. Something I found out about you. Someone I know went of his own accord to the police and made inquiries about you. It’s to your own interest to hear it. A certain party. I must see you. Will you think over the apartment?”

  “What are you talking about? I can’t make decisions like this! Why do you rush at me like this, after abandoning me and treating me like a criminal for months? You have been brutal, cruel, to me. How can I trust you? You must make me believe in you.”

  She made as if to break away from him, she looked at a man who was coming up the steps.

  “When will you see me?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said, after a moment.

  “And all alone for once.”

  “Telephone me about two. I’ll try to arrange for Mother to have tea with Mrs. Hutchison. If not, I can’t leave her alone here in the afternoon. We’re so much together; and I can’t tell her I’m seeing you alone.”

  “No, no,” he murmured.

  “Please don’t let us stand talking in the lobby. I detest that. Telephone me at two. And let me tell you, you talk too much to too many people.”

  He swore he would not talk to anyone about her any more, “I’ve done you wrong, I’ll make it up to you.”

  “The whole town says I’m a spy—that’s you!”

  “I swear it isn’t. I swear it!”

  19

  At lunch he met Hugo March and pressed him for every detail of the Canadian story. He felt sure, he said, there were things he had not told David Flack—and so it proved. Was it smuggling, currency, furs? Yes. It was furs, diamonds, currency, drugs; she could have been jailed long ago, if not that she always gave them a valuable lead as a collector of men. They only had to follow her to get many names.

  “That’s not quite fair—she has innocent friends, myself for example.”

  “Tell that to the judge.”

  Through some misunderstanding, or because they wished to warn March, his Canadian correspondents had sent in another report to him, the cost of this one, $1,000. March advised Grant, when he grumbled, not to get himself in wrong with the R.C.M.P.: “You’re a friend of this beauty, and so you’re on their watch-list. You’d better keep on the safe side. If you don’t want any more information, I’ll tell them to hold it.”

  “I know enough now to sink a ship. I’m getting rid of this blamed woman, you can tell them that.”

  “Speaking of sinking ships—aren’t you doing ship-chartering and ship-reconditioning these days?”

  Grant stared at him.

  “It might be said that she is getting information from you!”

  “Im-possible.”

  “What more likely? Your only way to clear yourself would be to show that you’ve tried to clear up the mystery of the woman.”

  “I can show that!”

  “If you get any more information on her, you ought to turn it in!”

  “That’s going too far. Let them give it to me, not me to them. Besides, I don’t see how she can do it all. I never knew her to work.”

  “She wouldn’t have to work hard to get information from you. Suppose they think she got it from you. They don’t have to be dainty about putting two and two together to make five.”

  Grant turned red.

  Flack said she might have been part of the Schellenberg ring: “The Countess Exe—”

  “Might be a good tip.”

  He took nothing to the Charles Wagoner, thinking that they had got enough out of him. When he went upstairs, he met the old lady, Mrs. Jones, alone. Seeing his stare of displeasure, she said that Barb would soon be there, but she had found out “their little plot” and she wanted to talk to him first, about his plans. Barb had mentioned an apartment. Did he seriously mean to separate mother and daughter? And for what? For what sort of an arrangement? She wanted Barb to marry again and settle down for good, it was high time. She did not believe that Grant would leave his wife, nor would she be willing to consider it for a moment, “I believe in the sanctity of the marriage tie; but as Barb was so pressing, I agreed to let her have an interview with you here, because I respect an honest feeling. We are only human, all-too-human, we cannot help our feelings.”

  It’s sure, then, thought Grant, that the old witch does not know about my relations with her daughter. He muttered about “—sincere feelings of respect, Barb used to like me a little bit, I thought at one time, even loved me a little bit, and then she avoided me—I was brokenhearted, I didn’t know where to turn. I must see her. She isn’t fair to me. I’m only a man. I’m suffering.”

  The old woman smiled and said that this was what had influenced her.

  “I’ll marry her, I’ll get a divorce and marry her. I’ll take her to Rome and we’ll all live in a house I have there.”

  “Not so loud, please, walls have ears.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My daughter never saw any signs of your making good, to use a vulgarism.”

  “She let me down too.”

  “Unfortunately, my daughter was not brought up to work and so she must be provided for. I say nothing about myself. Barb would never let me starve.”

  “My dear good woman, I offered Barb an apartment yesterday.”

  “She can’t live alone.”

  “I want her to. Otherwise, she can live here and forget it! I won’t pay for any circus. No expense accounts, no duennas. No girl friends. No shutting me out.”

  “I’ll put it to Barb the way you put it, Mr. Grant,” said the old woman sourly.

  “Those are my terms. All or nothing.”

  Grant waited a long time, but Mrs. Kent did not return. At last, her mother said he ought to go, that she was tired and must rest. Grant spent some time in the hotel lobby, and then waited across the street, but saw nothing of the woman. He regretted that he had dismissed Bentwink—he could have sat in the car.

  The next day, Mrs. Kent telephoned him at twelve. She had been unable to get a taxi and so had had dinner uptown. Grant shouted, “Why didn’t you take the subway?”

  Mrs. Kent merely asked him if he wanted to see her that afternoon. She promised to be there and to send her mother out, “I’m afraid Mother took things into her own hands yesterday. I have scolded her for it. But she doesn’t know how things are between us, Robbie, and you will simply have to forgive her.”

  “If you see me—”

  “Bring me a bottle of that Origan perfume, if you can find one that the storekeepers haven’t made all water, and two bottles of Coca-Cola.”

  He put down the phone and burst out laughing, “I’ll get that and I’ll get more. She’s checked up and found I brought nothing with me yesterday.” He walked up and down the office, slapping his pocket and laughing.

  She seemed to be alone. He craned his neck, whispered, “Where’s Mamma, eh?”

  “She went out shopping with Mrs. Hutchison.”

  She had gone back to the couch and was now stretched there in a négligé, with a Shetland wool blanket under her feet. There was a lamb’s wool mat by the couch. She had her white fur kitten on her pillow. She looked charming, her hair in a loose knot on her neck, her neck still round as a pillar in this posture. He put down his hat, stick, parcels, and sighed, “Barb, you are as fair as fair can be.”

  “Wheel the tea tray over here, Robbie. I am lazy today, I don’t want to do a thing. Forgive me.”

  His face fell. He flushed. He did as he was told, bending down, unfolding his parcels,
showing them to her, and bringing a chair to her couch. The telephone rang. He said, “Let it ring.”

  “It might be Mother.”

  It was her mother. While they spoke, the blondine looked at Grant with her bright, interested eyes. When she put down the phone, she said, “Mother is anxious and says I must be very careful, she is not sure she trusts you. However—I am going to obey my own impulses, not Mother’s whims.”

  Grant at first could hardly speak, for satisfaction. In an instant it flashed through his head that it was the mother who had engineered everything and that the daughter had no grudge against him. Nevertheless, she disappointed him.

  20

  The next day March had it conveyed to Grant that the blonde woman was in fact a part of “the Schellenberg ring”—this was part of the secret information his Washington informants had not wanted to let out at first. Flack became excited at this, and shouted, “A fine mess you’re in! See if his informant associates her with the Baron von Dangen-Steinkeller—write down, wait, I’ll write them down—here, see if she had anything to do with Von Papen, Ernest Haack, Lydia Oswald—I’ll get a list here and you just shove it at him and tell him his Washington informants, for the money you’ve paid, have to tell you whether she has been in cahoots with these, any one—and if so, my dear boy, I’m going to ship you east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, or to Cuba, or to Mexico City, or anywhere else for a vacation, you dumb ox. A woman has a loop of blond hair and he has to follow her into the middle of a spy ring! Why didn’t you take a warning long ago? You lost the wretched harpy; now you’ve moved heaven and earth to get her back—and at the last moment, when it’s too late, I find you in touch with Von Papen, with all the rascals in the universe.”

  Grant felt very nervous. He had already confessed everything to Flack.

  Presently, March sent a note over by an office boy, “My informants say that this party is connected with the parties mentioned. Names, dates check. Einam and Brinon through Von D.-S. They are pleased with confirmation through you. Do you know more? M.”

  Flack tore the note from him in excitement. Grant’s head whirled. His headache was so severe that he could not see the walls of his office. Flack shut the office, helped him into a taxi, made him some soup, put him to bed, drew the blinds.

  Grant murmured, “I can’t talk it out now, come to me at five this afternoon. I have an appointment with the blonde, put it off, tell her I’m sick. What a fool I have been! There never was such an imbecile. You’re right about me. I’m a sucker. There are plenty of women. I have to pick out what’s dangerous. It’s my mixed blood—my Spanish ancestor; the Spaniards loved danger.”

  “Never mind those family portraits, she must be a good fooler if they gave her the job; you’re not the only one she fooled. Don’t blame yourself. You’re the hundredth man she sold her line to. Hundredth—a thousand, nay, fifty thousand! Never mind. Sex has no eyes. Only feelers. Forget it. Go to sleep, old boy.”

  When he came back, he found Grant up again and shaved. He was meanwhile looking at a bit of paper, which he now showed Flack, “This is the list we sent to March. It’s your copy to check. All the names check. I don’t dare ask him any more. This is the end! To whatever I ask he finds the answer. The answer’s yes. She must be one of the worst and the cleverest women in the world. You wouldn’t credit it if you saw her there with her white cat. And yet—” he looked sorrowfully at Flack—“you don’t know how she is at night, curled up like a little girl, her knees up, on her side, her hair in braids or just tied plain with a big blue ribbon, and white nightgowns, not always those pink, lacy things, but lawn, tucks. She says she wore them at school, French things, little lace, just like a young girl. She looks so young sometimes, with her hair spread out. She has a white Angora toy cat that she can’t sleep without. It’s like one she had that was deaf. She cries about it, because it made such a noise one night. She hit it, and she never knew it was deaf till afterwards. It cried because it couldn’t hear her and couldn’t see her. She kicked it; she says she had on a satin mule, but just the same—that worries her, years after! I can’t believe it, my boy. If there are women like that, why, those women are monsters! I saw one of them in a shop once; she wanted me to buy it, I wouldn’t have the little thing near me, it scratches—and blue eyes like she has—” He shook his head.

  “So innocent, naïve-looking, and such depravity, degeneracy—it’s possible, I’m not an imbecile, but still—why does she want me? Eh? I’m no spy. It doesn’t make sense. She must like me, anyhow! That’s my conclusion. She must want someone decent, serious man, eh? I’ve tried to work it out all the afternoon.”

  Flack said, “This list we gave March and his information check.”

  “I know.”

  “They check a bit too well, it seems to me,” said Flack after a while, in a sprightly tone.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Keep your shirt on! I’ve been thinking this thing over these last few hours. I saw the state you were in. You love her.”

  “Go on, go on.”

  “Keep your shirt on and let’s go over this in cool collectedness. Doesn’t it strike you that since the beginning we got the information we asked for? And wanted? Whenever we said, ‘Does she know Freylinghausen?’ she knew Freylinghausen. When we say, ‘Does she know Von Dangen-etc.?’ she knows V.D. Does she know Baroness von Einam?—yes; Von Papen?—check; Yves Troland? Yes! But we never get this information before we hand it out. We never hear a name till we mention it? Odd! Furthermore, if the R.C.M.P. have sold you information, they can hardly blackmail you into giving them information. The whole story doesn’t hold any water but our own.”

  “You mean, he’s holding out on us?”

  “We are the F.B.I., we are the State Department, and we are the R.C.M.P.!” said Flack solemnly.

  “Good God! We are! You’re right! What fools! She’s innocent.”

  Grant flushed, his eyes flashed, he lost his headache. He sat down heavily and said, “Let’s just check to make sure, not get carried away by a coincidence.”

  They went over it all from the beginning, with, “What did you say? What did I say? What did we say to March? Are you sure? Who else was in on this?” They worked through their notebooks and set up the dates of the checks paid to March.

  “Now I have another theory, a daring one, but we can try it; we can only lose.”

  “What is it?”

  “Calm yourself. It’s only a theory. It is this—how will we know if she knew even one of these people if we don’t make a test? We’ll plant a name on March!”

  “Do you suspect March? But the fella’s rich!”

  “I don’t say he did it. Perhaps he’s met someone who thinks he’s the sucker.”

  Grant frowned but after a moment became excited, “We should have thought of that in the first place: very good.”

  They went over and over it. Then they both started laughing and between them began to concoct a name. At last they hit on the name of a Belgian town, Schaerbeek, the Countess van Schaerbeek.

  “We’ll ask March to ask His Informants if she was connected with the notorious spy, the Countess Adele van Schaerbeek, who operated from—Lausanne?”

  “There’s no such person. He’d know that. Or his informants. After all, they have some files.”

  “What informants?”

  “By George,” said Grant, staring at Flack. There was a pause.

  “It’s impossible, im-possible, my boy,” said Grant.

  “Let’s try it, anyhow.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “We’ll say we were misinformed, printer’s error. Easiest thing in the world. Who are we? Are we police?”

  Grant got up and pranced around, “It’s a wonderful idea, my boy. And if—if—it turned out to be partly, totally—or in any way, a hoax, boy, oh, boy!—and you found it out—I’d kiss you, we can be in Fifth Avenue, Fifty-seventh Street—never mind, if it’s a sell—”

  He came up, ki
ssed Flack vehemently on the forehead, he jumped back, “I won’t howl, I won’t squeal, I’ll be joy-crazy; I’ll take you all out, I’ll take everyone but that damn crook—”

  He threw out his arms, laughed, threw back his head, opened his mouth, and laughed loudly, “That would be the end of my problem.”

  “Take it easy! You don’t know yet.”

  “It’s im-possible. Give me the note, quick. Adele van Schaerbeek. Lausanne. He’ll have it by special delivery tonight. Just found out from informant. We’ll have an informant, too. Wake him up. Two o’clock. I’ll say, ‘Don’t deliver it till two o’clock.’ Let him think I’m crazy, woman-struck, he called me. If it’s true—oh, boy, will he pay it all back, he’ll spend the next six months in a sweatbox.”

  “He’s dead to the world by this time; the last trump won’t wake him up. Save your money.”

  “We’ll send it over first thing. Where’s Edda! Call her, tell her to come up and rejoice with us. I want her. Call Edda.”

  Flack did this and this was a blessed night for Grant. He kissed them both over and over again. In the night, Grant scarcely slept at first, for he was piecing together dates, names, checks, hoping—and again seeing the woman at her worst. Her mother’s intrigues at times seemed the solution. “What if she is just a lazy, silly, harmless girl who wants to reform and thinks I let her down? She is sick of the life she leads. Poor Barb.”

  At another time he walked up and down with a scowl and finally came out with, “But what’s the meaning of this name, Hilbertson?”

  “Who the devil is Hilbertson?”

  “I was in on a deal with him, a long time ago.”

  “Is it a secret? They could get that name from anyone.”

  “You’re right, you’re right, h’m.”

  21

  The two conspirators could hardly wait for March’s regulation two days to hear the result of the test. They did not telephone him, for fear he would suspect something. In two days they had a note, brought by his office boy. It said, “My informant is told that X made several trips to Lausanne prior to your meeting; and was guest of Countess A. v. S. in her hotel in Paris.”