by Helen McCloy
How could he demonstrate his strength of will to himself or others if he never dared to take one single drink again as long as he lived? But if he took one drink now and then stopped for the rest of the day and the rest of the year and all the years to come—that would show them. His first drink in three years would be his last drink for all the rest of his life.
The phrase lingered in his mind: his last drink for all the rest of his life…. Better make it a good one.
Amos smiled up at Tom Archer. ‘‘I’ll have a double Scotch on the rocks like my wife.”
Vera was startled. “Amos, do you think…?”
“Don’t worry.” He was furious. “I can handle it now.”
“But you’re driving and there’s slush and I…”
“Look here, Vera, there’s something you’ll have to understand: I am going to be my own master in every way from now on.”
Vera, aware of Tom Archer’s gaze across the room, managed a sweet smile. “Of course you are, darling, but…”
“But what?”
“I never thought—when we came in here…”
“You never think. Period.”
Tom Archer came back with the drinks. Genial, smiling, he lifted his own glass. “Here’s to your reconciliation—or shouldn’t I believe all I see in the papers?”
Vera managed to look shy. “It’s true, isn’t it, Amos?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
“May I print that?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Amos took a deep draught of whiskey. The taste was acrid and hateful to him as it had always been, but in a moment he felt the singing in his blood, the curious, luxurious loosening in his brain tissue, the lift, the glow, the blessed release, blessed ecstasy. I go out. Out of what? Out of myself, of course. Out of my wretched, little, finite self into the painless infinite where anything and everything is possible.
He smiled across the table at Vera and Tom Archer and muttered his favorite quotation at such moments:
Drinking this, I shall see
Far Chaos talk with me.
Kings unborn shall walk with me
And hear the poor grass plot and plan
What it will do when it is Man….
Vera tittered in a ladylike way. “You can print that, too.”
Tom said: “If I can get permission from the copyright holder…”
Amos laughed. “Don’t those modern schools teach you brats anything that was published before 1914? That’s been in the public domain a long time.” He drained his glass, muttered something about “the belly of the grape” and then shouted: “How about one more for the road? And this round is on me!”
CHAPTER SIX
Gisela Willing looked out her big bedroom window at four o’clock and saw that the leaden sky was darkening. Beyond the grape arbor, sentinel ranks of leafless willows stood beside the brook, hunched under mantles of snow. They looked desperate and forsaken and chilled to the marrow, like pictures of Napoleon’s soldiers retreating from Moscow. It was a night to stay at home, relaxing around a brisk fire with a glass of mulled wine, and here they were committed to adventure on dark, rough roads, coated with ice, for the sake of a silly supper party. She thought longingly of Manhattan, its paved, level streets, brightly lighted and snowplowed, its buses and taxis, even its subways. Why did sensible people, like Basil and herself, ever decide to live in the country in winter?
But she knew her husband’s old-fashioned Baltimorean sense of obligation where hospitality was concerned. Nothing short of serious illness was a valid excuse for repudiating an accepted invitation. To renege at the last moment, because the weather was bad or you were tired or you had just got a more interesting invitation, was something he never inflicted on a host and found hard to forgive in a guest….
Basil Willing stood in the lower hall listening to the keening of the icy wind as it swept around the corners of the house. Sunday evenings should be a time for slacks and sweaters and comfortable old shoes, a light supper and an early bedtime to store up energy for the week ahead. But somehow, in a moment of inattention, he had said yes to the invitation from the Kanes relayed through Gisela and now they would have to take the long, hilly road to Weston on one of the bitterest nights of the year and spend an evening among strangers who would probably be deadly bores.
He was sorely tempted to ask Gisela to telephone their hostess at this last moment and plead a diplomatic illness, but he knew what Gisela would think of such rudeness. Austrian-born, she had a European’s sense of the sanctity of social duties. He admired this trait and, tired as he was after a day of tedious hospital paper work in his study, he was not going to let her down.
He lifted his eyes as he heard her step on the stair. Her dark hair was a black cloud shadowing her pale face and brilliant eyes. Her dress, long and straight, was the odd shade of off-black with a bluish cast that they called gunmetal, cut low to show off the whiteness of her shoulders and arms. The high heels of her gunmetal slippers were paved with smoky mother-of-pearl and around her throat was a strand of dusky, black pearls. She wore no other ornament but her wedding ring, a band of small diamonds. She was smiling as she came down the stairs, the long skirt moving fluidly around her ankles, and she seemed the very essence of the romantic feminine—a gentle swish of silk, the faintest fragrance of violets—or was it mignonette?—dignity in her step, grace in her carriage and sweetness in her smile. Why did the mature American woman strive so often today to dress and look like a hoydenish high school girl? Gisela was something much more subtle and interesting—a woman—and he silently thanked the gods for it.
Little Gisela ran downstairs after her, already wearing pyjamas and robe and furry bedroom slippers. She leapt from the bottom step into her father’s arms. “Do you have to go out tonight?”
“I’m afraid we do. And right away. We’re late already.”
“Wait till I give Emma the telephone number.” Gisela hurried into the kitchen. “We’re going to be at a Mr. Anthony Kane’s” she told the motherly Negro cook. “A Weston number. I’ve written it down. But we should be home early. Ten at the very latest.”
Basil’s old factotum, Juniper, had long since retired to his family in Baltimore and his granddaughter, Emma, had taken over the household when it moved to Connecticut.
“Don’t you worry about us, ma’am,” said Emma. “We’ll have a nice chicken and waffle supper and be in bed by seven-thirty.”
Gisela slipped on carriage boots, shrugged her shoulders into a fur cape, snatched up gloves and a black lace scarf and caught a last kiss from small warm lips; then hurried out to the car where Basil was already scraping ice off the windshield.
He eyed her in the light of the lamp on the gatepost. “You look just like the popular idea of a young Russian princess, vintage 1914.”
She laughed. “And, of course, the real young Russian princess of that vintage dressed most of the time just like her English governess.”
The car wheels spun for a moment on the ice that lay treacherously hidden under a thin coating of snow. Then the snow tires found traction and Basil eased the car gingerly into the road. The heater hummed and they sat in snug warmth while their headlights bored a tunnel of light through the darkness. No other cars on this road tonight. They might have been alone in some Alaskan or Siberian waste. But it was intimate and pleasant in the car, and the bitter night gave them just a little spice of adventure.
“What sort of party will this be?” asked Gisela. “Everyone talking about Art and Letters in capitals?”
“The publishers will talk about Art and Letters,” returned Basil. “But the artists and writers will talk about subsidiary rights and the termination clause in somebody’s contract, and did you know that Tom Jones, who used to be with Lippincott’s, has gone to Simon and Schuster, and Mary Jones is getting a divorce in Las Vegas so she can marry Bill Smith who used to be Tom’s agent?”
“Unconventional?”
“Not at all. No one is more convent
ional than your well-heeled Bohemian—a new species produced by the twentieth century.”
The road dipped into a valley and now the headlights showed only fog, gray, churning, impenetrable as heavy smoke. The light was trapped and diffused in its various thicknesses. Impossible to see anything more than four or five feet ahead. The car slowed to a crawl.
She didn’t distract him with further talk. She sat in companionable silence and counted her blessings. Basil himself and little Gisela, Emma and the nice house and even the party ahead of her. It might not be as boring as they feared.
Twenty minutes later they were in Weston scanning the names on letter boxes. “I called Tony for directions while you were dressing,” remarked Basil. “He said the third box after the second traffic light after you leave the Wilton road.”
“Tony? I didn’t know you knew him that well.”
“I saw quite a lot of him when my book was in galleys. Even if I hadn’t, the theatre habit of first names has spread to all the other arts.”
“What do I call his wife?”
“Gosh, what was her name? That’s the worst part of this artificial intimacy. It’s easy to remember ‘Mrs. Kane’ but—Isobel? No. Francesca? I think not…. We’ll have to listen to what the others say and play it by ear.”
“There’s the box—A. F. Kane, Jr.”
“Anthony Francis.” The car swerved between fieldstone gateposts. “Uphill. I hope it’s sanded.”
It was. They stopped in front of a stone house with mullioned windows, all bright with interior light. In the misty night it seemed unreal—a play house cut out of cardboard with a candle flame behind waxed-paper windows. Basil rang the bell and they waited, shivering in the open after the warmth of the car.
The door was opened by Washington Lincoln, the county’s most popular caterer who provided service as well as food on such occasions. He greeted them with that perfect blend of natural dignity and deference that only a Negro butler seems able to achieve. Disposal of wraps was a faultless ceremony, a ritual dance—hadn’t Lincoln been doing this almost every day for the last thirty years?
A few moments later they found themselves in a large modern drawing room, sixty feet of polished oak under foot, a beamed ceiling twenty feet high, white walls on three sides, glass on the garden side. A goldfish pool was sunk in the center of the floor with trailing green vines planted around it in a circular copper trough. Chairs and sofas were covered with perverse shades of mauve and magenta that echoed the violet undertones in a collection of antique lustre, ranging from lavender to the roseate brown of certain pigeons. Ornament was used sparingly. The general effect was one of airy spaces and immaculate housekeeping. Gisela thought: if only there were just one thing out of place—a book on the arm of a chair, a child’s toy on the white hearth rug or an open pack of cigarettes on one of the low tables. But there were no books and no sign of children and all the cigarettes were in a large handsome silver box lined with cedar and initialed AFK.
Tony Kane and two other men stood near (he goldfish pool, oddly aloof from the others as if they were huddled together in conspiracy. Three women and a fourth man were scattered at the other end of the room in rather loose juxtaposition as if some awkwardness had inhibited their sociability. One of these women came forward now, followed by the solitary man. Her chin was high, her step firm, but her very rigidity suggested hysteria, hardly controlled.
You must be Gisela Willing. So glad you could come. I’m Philippa Kane.” She stood several inches taller than Gisela and her eyes seemed as green as her emeralds. “Basil, it’s been ages. Much too long. Do you know Maurice Lepton?”
The man beside Philippa was small and swarthy with a pleasant smile.
“I know your writing,” said Basil. “Or rather my wife does. She reads the Thursday Review every week.”
“Especially the essays by Maurice Lepton,” said Gisela.
“My dear Mrs. Willing, I’m all in a pretty confusion,” said Lepton. “For one thing, you said ‘essays,’ not ‘reviews.’ For another…”
Basil, seeing that his wife as usual could take care of herself, drifted toward his host. Tony was a little stouter, a little grayer, but he still had the comely face and candid smile that had once helped him to become the boy prodigy of the publishing world. “Now you’re settled in the country, you must have more time for writing,” he told Basil. “How about another book? How about the Psychopathology of Treason? You know, a rehash of Fuchs and Hiss, Burgess and McLean, with a lot of stuff about the subconscious thrown in.”
When Basil shook his head, Tony introduced the other two. “I think you’ve met Gus Vesey before. And this is Amos Cottle.”
Gus Vesey was obviously younger than Tony, in years and in spirit. There was a simplicity about him that engaged Basil’s sympathy immediately. More slowly, Basil turned toward Amos Cottle and suddenly saw the reason for the conspiratorial grouping around the pool. The celebrated novelist was royally drunk. His agent and publisher had formed a little bodyguard around him with the obvious intention of seeing that he didn’t make a fool of himself if they could prevent it.
Amos was doing his best. Though his bloodshot eyes looked quite without focus, he stood erect and spoke with unnatural precision. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Dr. Willing. I read your book years ago when it first came out. I am one of your—admirers.” The last word slurred a little sluggishly. Amos closed his eyes for a moment and swayed on his feet.
The doorbell rang. A little woman in white lace with a froth of white hair came into the room, followed by a youth and an older man.’ The youth could have been an undergraduate at Yale or Harvard. The older man had a long, hard, wooden-looking face, and frosty gray eyes. He might have been one of the boy’s professors. Certainly there was nothing about him or the other two to explain the sudden look of horror in Tony’s eyes.
Philippa advanced again with that strained rigidity. “Mrs. Pusey, so good of you to come on such a night.”
“My dear Mrs. Kane, I wouldn’t have missed meeting Amos Cottle for anything!” Mrs. Pusey’s voice was high and metallic. It penetrated to every corner of the large room. “This is my son, Sidney, and … Well, dear Mrs. Kane, I hope you won’t mind, but, after all, it is only a buffet supper, so I took the liberty of bringing a neighbor. Mr. Avery. Emmett Avery. He writes, too.”
There was unheard thunder in the abrupt silence. It was like the hush after an explosion. Basil and Gisela exchanged bewildered glances across the width of the room. What had Mrs. Pusey said or done to create such a charged stillness? It was obvious that everyone else in the room was aware of catastrophe.
Philippa Kane threw back her shoulders and took a deep breath. “That’s perfectly all right, Mrs. Pusey.” Her voice was colorless and hard as stone.
“He writes, too,” repeated Mrs. Pusey, floundering a little. “I thought as long as it was a gathering of writers and publishers and so on…” Her voice trailed uncertainly.
Maurice Lepton sprang into the breach. “A very happy thought on your part, Mrs. Pusey. As a matter of fact, I believe most of the people in this room know Emmett Avery already, including myself. How are you, Emmett?”
“Very well, thank you, Leppy.” The two men eyed each other without shaking hands, but there seemed to be a curious sort of understanding between them, along with the hostility, as if they shared a common secret that gave them knowledge of each other without affection. Basil recalled how some Latin writer had claimed that when two augurs met by chance in the streets of Rome they winked at one another.
Mrs. Pusey had recovered her volubility. “And now I want to meet Mr. Cottle!” she announced, in the tone of a child saying, “And now I want that candy you promised me after dinner.”
Maurice Lepton detained Avery in conversation, while Philippa, moving like a sleepwalker, brought Mrs. Pusey over to the little group of refugees by the goldfish pool.
Mrs. Pusey beamed. “Mr. Cottle, I just want to tell you how tremendously I enj
oyed Never Call Retreat. My niece was a WAC in the Quartermaster’s Corps at Fort Monmouth in 1941, so I know all about war and I think you handled it beautifully. Just like War and Peace, only better, of course. And I do think the love story was touching. That’s the only word for it. Touching. I liked Sandra and I didn’t like Ida. I was so glad Sandra got him in the end, even though they couldn’t get married, but of course that’s realism. You know, Mr. Cottle, I thought Sandra was just a little bit like me—I mean the way I was a few years ago. There’s just one question I should like to ask you now, dear Mr. Cottle. Just how do you get your ideas? I mean, how do you begin to write a story? That’s the part I find so hard—the beginning. All my friends tell me that I write the most beautiful letters. They all say I ought to write for publication. But I just don’t seem to find the time and then I don’t know how to begin. I have lots to write about. I have had the most extraordinary experiences all my life. If you could hear about the way my stepmother tried to cheat me out of my inheritance-well, people like Proust and Faulkner would just give their eyeteeth to have a story like that to write.”
Amos had purred under the first part of her oration, but as soon as she shifted to her own ambitions, his eyes glazed.
“How do I get my ideas?” There was an uncomfortable note of ribaldry in his voice. “I’ll tell you, madam. I just…”
Gus intervened swiftly. “Amos, I’m sure that Tony has an extra copy of Never Call Retreat around the house. Wouldn’t it be a nice gesture if you autographed it for anyone who admires you as much as Mrs. Pusey?”
“Oh, Mr. Cottle, would you? You have no idea what that would mean to a poor little country woman like me! Why if you would actually write your own name in a copy of one of your books with a little inscription-best wishes to one of my most adoring fans, Peggy Pusey, why I—I really…”