Love & Mrs. Sargent (6 page)

X.

“
We’re not doing badly at all for time,” Mr. Malvern said as the car shot up Sheridan Road.

“Really?” Johnson said.

“No trick at all to get out to the North Shore now that they’ve extended the Drive all the way up to De-von.” In the manner peculiar only to Chicago, he pronounced Devon to rhyme with Yvonne.

“Where?”

“De-von. You know, like a county in England.”

“Oh! Devon,” Peter said, pronouncing it to rhyme with Seven, as people in Devonshire and all other parts of the world pronounce it.

Mr. Malvern worried for fear he was guilty of another gaffe. “Right you are,” he said with an unconvincing chuckle. “Funny
about local customs. I mean the way people in New York pro
nounce Houston Street House-ton and in Atlanta they say Punsedlian for Ponce de Leon and as for the streets in London.
. . .” He let it drop there. He didn’t want to appear to be flaunting his erudition.

The very act of transporting this Johnson from Chicago to
Lake Forest had caused Mr. Malvern several sleepless nights. As
the representative of an important national magazine writing an important story on the most important of the Famous Features columnists, protocol might well have demanded that this Johnson be met at the airport by the Famous Features company Cadillac and chauffeur. Or it might have seemed more gracious for Sheila, as interviewee and hostess, to have sent her car and Taylor down to meet him. But Sheila had turned thumbs down on that. It was far too grande dame, she said, and besides she needed the car herself. The solution finally arrived at, with the help of his secretary, the redoubtable Miss Roseberry, was that Johnson could get into town on his own and then Mr. Malvern could drive him out in his car. Miss Roseberry had allowed—and Mr. Malvern was usually inclined to accept her advice on
things social—that this arrangement would seem both casual and
friendly, giving the men a chance for a Good Long Talk and yet
not giving this Johnson the impression that Famous Features had
been scared into treating him like a visiting potentate.

Now Mr. Malvern wondered if it might not have been wiser to have sent this Johnson out to Lake Forest quite alone in the company car. It would have been easier on both of them—
especially on Mr. Malvern. The Good Long Talk had been going
on since one o’clock in the Tavern Club bar. It was now just after four and the conversation had run rather thin. Howard Malvern only liked to talk business and business was one topic to steer clear of with a reporter from
Worldwide Weekly,
His fund of small talk was indeed small and whenever he did pass an innocent remark he worried it into a mortal insult.

There was this car, for example. It was a black Imperial convertible—his first sporty gesture after a long series of Buick sedans. Until today he had been inordinately proud of it and had rather planned to woo Sheila with it over a series of bucolic jaunts. But when Johnson had asked what kind of a car it was, Mr. Malvern had said “An Imperial—Chrysler, you know—next year’s model.”

“Nice,” Johnson had said.

Leaping at the bait, Mr. Malvern had envisaged a lengthy
interchange devoted to carburetors and transmissions, fuel con
sumption and trade-in values. “What kind of car do you drive?”

“None. You couldn’t give me one,” Johnson had said. “Not in New York.”

Now Mr. Malvern wondered whether his talk about next year’s model hadn’t seemed woefully ostentatious, whether Johnson, the big New York wheel, considered him a small town sport or, worse, an elderly playboy.

When Malvern had pointed out the apartment hotel where he lived, Johnson had said “Very elegant.” Then, just to prove that he wasn’t ostentatious at all, Malvern had said, “It’s not really elegant. I just live in a bachelor apartment with Duke.”

“Duke?” Johnson had asked,

“My doberman. You see I’m divorced.”

“I see,” the inscrutable Mr. Johnson had muttered.

Now just what could he have meant by
that?
Could this Johnson have suspected that there could have been, well, an
unnatural
relationship between Malvern and Duke? That is, could he have thought that they were more to one another than
simply owner and pet? By having mentioned divorce so close on the heels, as it were, of Duke, could this Johnson have imagined
that Alice Malvern—now a Mrs. Livingston residing in San
Francisco—had named Duke as a rival for her affections in the divorce suit? Why, that was all more than twenty years ago. Ali
ce’s mother, Queenie, hadn’t even been born then. Alice had
divorced him for mental cruelty and a hundred-thousand-dollar settlement and then married Mr. Livingston that very afternoon. Malvern wondered if he shouldn’t explain all this to Johnson.
But he’d probably just make things look worse. Poor old Duke!

For a while conversation had been sparse at best, but by the time they had reached Wilmette, Johnson had brought up the
subject of the late Richard Sargent. He had seemed truly respect
ful, well informed and curious to know more. Here was a topic where Malvern was considered something of an authority. He had even been cited as a prime source of information on the acknowledgments page of
The Dick Sargent Story
by the grateful biographer, for it was Malvern who had given Sargent his
first job as a boy out of Yale. And for quite a time Malvern had
spoken of Sargent warmly and naturally—until, that is, he had said, “I was best man at Sheila’s and Dick’s wedding.”

At that he clammed up in an agony of embarrassment. Now he had given this Johnson a chance to think that he was a social climber. True, Malvern had been older than Sargent. True, he had been Sargent’s employer with the power to hire or fire him, make or break him. But Malvern had begun life as
a poor boy from Berwyn, gone straight from high school to the lowliest of jobs at Famous Features, Whereas the Sargent family—
well, anybody who was anybody in Chicago could tell you who
the Sargents were. Mr. Malvern’s marriage to the daughter of a podiatrist in Oak Park, had seemed to him a dizzying ascent on the social ladder. But when Dick Sargent had asked him to be best man at a genuine Society wedding, Mr. Malvern had been too stunned even to answer. Subsequent honors such as
dinners for famous people at Sheila’s famous table, weekend invitations to Lake Forest, standing godfather at Allison’s christening, serving as honorary pall bearer, as executor of Sargent’s estate and—over the past fifteen years—indulging himself in a pleasant and profitable business relationship with Sargent’s widow, had more or less put Mr. Malvern at his ease with the Sargent family. More at ease than he was, say, in some of his clubs, at the smarter Chicago restaurants and private parties. But he was still very conscious of the differences between the West Side and the North Shore. The conversation stopped dead.

Peter Johnson squirmed in the deafening silence that followed
Mr. Malvern’s announcement that he had been Dick Sargent’s best man. “I was best man at Sheila’s and Dick’s wedding.” He had said it just like that and then stopped. Not another mumbling word. Nothing about the weather that day, the wedding cake, the quality of the champagne. Just a flat statement and that was that. God-damned society snob, Peter fumed, probably considers the sacrament too exquisite and exclusive to confide to a rube reporter like me. Peter had met these fine old society types before. They were all alike. All charm and courtly manners, ask you right into the vestibule and then slam the door in your face and send you around to the service entrance with a simple statement of fact. “Chauncey and I were roommates at Groton.” “Nicky was on our polo team.” “I got crabs from Schuyler’s great aunt.” And when you got right down to it,
American society men were even bitchier than the women. They
stuck together like dikes in the WACs—affable up to a point but then all firm-jawed and silent and noble about experiences that were too beautiful to be shared with anyone else.

In a vicious fantasy Peter pictured J. Howard Malvern—J. Howard indeed!—as a sniveling little boy with sausage curls and Lord Fauntleroy suit kissing Mrs. Potter Palmer’s diamond encrusted hand. He could see him as a Yank at Eton with Colonel McCormick. He pictured him as a young Arrow Collar ad saying, “No, Governor, I don’t want to go into the family business. Let my brother, Q. Horace, do that. I want to go into journalism—like Bertie and Randy Hearst,” He probably lived with his damned doberman pinscher because the dog was the last living creature in Chicago well bred enough to share J. Howard Malvern’s bachelor flat.

“Some lovely homes out here,” Malvern said inanely. Anything to end the silence. Then he realized that Nice People didn’t say Lovely Homes, they said Nice Houses.

“Mm-hmm,” Peter said. I suppose that J. Howard is going to point to that limestone palace and tell me that he only uses it for weekends.

Again they rode in silence, each growing angrier and more
miserable. Why the hell did
Worldwide
have to send
me
out to write up this broad, Peter wondered. No room at the Neatsfoot Inn, or whatever the hell the Lake Forest hotel was called. “Mrs. Sargent would be delighted to have your reporter stay with her.” Sure, so he can make a damned fool of himself with the wrong fork and wash his socks in the finger bowl. Why me? Why couldn’t
Worldwide
have sent that fair-haired boy from Princeton who talked as though he were having a hard movement?

The stillness became unbearable. Desperately Peter said, “Read any good books lately?”

“Well, uh, I love books and I have an awful lot of them,” Malvern said, “but I don’t get. much chance to read.”

“That must be tough,” Peter said, visualizing Malvern’s great, bleak, galleried library with its rows of first editions.

What Mr. Malvern said was perfectly true. He had
The Syntopicon
and the six volumes of Churchill’s war memoirs. He had never opened one of them but he meant to. More than a little conscious of the lapses in his formal education, Malvern had instructed the editor of
The Weekend Bookworm
at Famous Features to make up a regular reading list for him. The editor had not failed. He covered the best seller list and tossed in—
with unerring accuracy—whatever titles he felt would be fashion
able or discussed in Mr. Malvern’s social circles. Kroch’s & Brentano’s delivered the goods every Friday, along with a brief critique
from the
Bookworm
editor on the last seven days’ contributions to
belles lettres.
Mr. Malvern read the critique, the jacket blurbs, and even began some of the books. He hadn’t finished a book since
The Caine Mutiny
and he hadn’t much liked the ending of that. But, if one didn’t plumb too deeply, J. Howard Malvern gave the impression of being quite well read.

“Are you fond of Ivy Compton-Burnett?” Malvern asked.

“Not especially.”

Neither was Mr. Malvern. “Bernard Malamud? James Purdy? Lawrence Ferlinghetti? Joyce?” There, that was a showy collection—and a catholic one.

“I don’t have much time for reading either,” Peter said bitterly. So this Malvern was an intellectual snob, too.

“
What has interested you lately?” Malvern asked with what he hoped was suavity.

“Well, coming out on the plane I commenced
Bitter Laughter,
by Richard Sargent, junior.”

“Oh?” Malvern said. “Quite a boy, Dicky. I plan to get around to that this week. Sheila’s been very concerned, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Peter said. “My God, couldn’t she have
stopped
him?”

The car swerved wildly.
“What?”’
Mr. Malvern said.

“Well, I mean I started reading it only out of duty to
Worldwide Weekly.
But after ten pages or so I was so fascinated that . . .”

“You mean it’s got the old Sargent touch?”

“I mean it’s the worst tripe I ever picked up in my life. Dull, pedantic, pedestrian and derivative of every other book about a prep school ever written. But why his mother couldn’t have. . . .”

“Well, after all, Dicky’s only twenty.”

“That’s no excuse. He should have waited until he had something to say.”

“Well, it takes all sorts of opinions. Perhaps some people will like it as much as you dislike it. Mind you, I haven’t read it myself. But a lot of novels are controversial. That makes for reader interest.”

“There’s nothing in this book to be controversial about. It’s just a badly written bore.”

“Hmmm,” Mr. Malvern said. Then, on a cheerier note, he added, “Well, here we are!”

XI.

Sheila stepped out of the shop laden with parcels. Having found one dress for Allison, she found another and then another. Then she’d been entranced by a belt and two blouses and a cardigan and a suede coat. She’d held them all up to herself and was pleased with the general effect. Sheila felt that what was good on her would be just fine on her daughter.

The car was gone and Sheila was fit to be tied before it appeared.

“
I thought I asked you to wait, Taylor,” she said evenly.

“Cop wouldn’t let me wait any more, Miz Sargent,” he said, piling the parcels onto the front seat. “I driven around the block ten, twelve times.”

“Dear, it
is
late,” Sheila said. “Here, Taylor. You get in back. I’ll drive. You’re always afraid of getting a ticket.” She threw her sables into the rear with Taylor and took the wheel. “We’ll be home by five. I’ll bet you anything.”

XII.

Mrs. Flood was in a perfect pet. It had been more than an hour since Miss Roseberry had called to announce Mr. Malvern’s imminent arrival and there wasn’t a soul here yet. No Mr. Malvern, no reporter and—even worse—no Mrs. Sargent.

Mrs. Flood had scampered around the office lighting lamps and plumping pillows, moving ashtrays an inch this way and an inch that way. She had drawn the curtains and then decided that the setting sun was too pretty to hide. So she had opened the curtains once more and extinguished all the lights, plumped the cushions again, tidied the desk and then—deciding that it looked too tidy to be real—messed it up a bit.

In her nervousness she had smoked half a dozen cigarettes, spilling ashes onto the carpet and then trying to erase their
traces with ineffectual shufflings of her pseudo-alligator pumps.
She had pulled her girdle down so many times that her stockings
had begun to droop, calling for immediate repair work with the
garters. Now she could hardly walk for the discomfort.

She had fluffed her bangs until she looked like an old sheep
dog and chewed off two coats of lipstick. Still she held the fort
alone. It was now twenty minutes past four, if her wristwatch, the cartel clock on the wall, the mantel clock in the drawing
room, the case clock in the hall, the carriage clock in the library,
the bracket clock in the dining room, the electric clock in the
kitchen and the telephone company—all of which Mrs. Flood had
consulted—could be believed, and still no sign of Mr. Malvern
or Mrs. Sargent. She considered calling the police to report two
ghastly automobile accidents but thought better of it, not knowing the exact location of either wreckage.

“My heart just can’t stand this sort of suspense,” Mrs. Flood whimpered. Actually, she had the constitution of an ox, but
Mrs. Flood harked back to a period when good health was con
sidered vulgar, a delicate constitution patrician. “I’ll simply have to calm myself.” Stealthily, she reached out through the gloom for the brandy decanter. (That pretty setting sun had now disappeared entirely, leaving the office as dark as a cave, but Mrs. Flood was too distraught to notice.) Just as her hand found the faceted stopper the doorbell rang. With a clanging of Waterford glass Mrs. Flood jumped to her feet.

“Bertha! Bertha’” she cawed. “The doorbell.”

“I hear it, Mrs. Flood,” Bertha said, walking down the hall.

Cowering in the office, Mrs. Flood could hear J. Howard Malvern being unconvincingly hearty. “Well, here we are, Johnson. Good evening, Bertha.”

Mrs. Flood rallied her forces. “Woo-hoo! Mr. Malvern. Here
in the office. Oh, Bertha, would you please take Mr. uh
. . .
the
gentleman’s suitcase?”

Mr. Malvern and an indistinct figure peered in from the lighted hallway. “Where are you, Floodie?” Malvern said. I can’t see you.”

“Oh, goodness!
Isn’t
it dark in here?” Mrs. Flood reached out for a lamp and tripped over the coffee table.”

“I’ll see to the lamps, Mrs. Flood,” Bertha said patiently. In a moment the curtains were drawn, the lamps lighted.

“Well, Floodie,” Malvern said with false jocularity, “looking
younger and prettier every day.”

“Oh, Mr. Malvern! Do sit down. I can’t imagine what’s keeping Mrs. Sargent she should have been back by. . . .”

“Mrs. Flood, I’d like to present Peter Johnson from
Worldwide Weekly.
Mrs. Flood is Mrs. Sargent’s Girl Friday.”

“Oh, how do you do,” Mrs. Flood simpered. She had to admit to a certain amount of disappointment. Romance still burned bright in Mrs. Flood’s soul and she had rather hoped that this reporter would be very blond and very dashing. Leslie Howard, Gene Raymond, Douglass Montgomery, Nelson Eddy and Phillips Holmes had all been great favorites of hers. This young man was not the pale god she had anticipated and she considered his suit very badly cut.

“I suppose you’re the one who really does all the work,” Peter
said.

“Wh-what?” Mrs. Flood asked blankly.

“I say I suppose you’re the one who really tells all those love
lorn dames how to solve their problems.”

“Oh, good heavens no’” Mrs. Flood gasped. “Mrs. Sargent
answers every letter herself. I type them, of course, and lick the
stamps—hahahahaha! We feel that stamps are more
personal
than a postage meter,” she confided. Anything as complicated as a postage meter would have driven Mrs. Flood to gibbering
lunacy. She felt now a fierce loyalty to her employer that torture
itself could not budge. And she also imagined that she was giving the press an interesting insight into Sheila’s working
habits. “But Mrs. Sargent reads
every
letter, answers every letter
and even
signs
them.”

“Signs them does she? Imagine!” Peter hadn’t meant to be
quite this sarcastic. The house had been something of a letdown.
His animosity had created for Sheik Sargent an establishment larger and grander than the Peterhoff, equally wrested from the
sweat of serfs. This house was simply large, handsome and com
fortable. Still he couldn’t forgive these people. Just playing the money down, he thought, damned snobs.

Summoning up every platitude she could manage, Mrs. Flood
then set about to serve as auxiliary hostess. “I really don’t know
what
can be making Mrs. Sargent so late. She especially wanted to be here to welcome Mr. . . uh, Johnson, The traffic, I suppose.
Do sit down and let me give you both a drink. Poor Mrs. Sargent,
lecturing in Evanston today and so busy what with all her projects and being elected Mother of the Year.”

Peter’s eyebrows shot up. Mr. Malvern groaned audibly from his chair.

Oblivious to them, Mrs. Flood raced on, overwhelmed by the sheer force of her polite banter. “I should have lighted the lamps earlier the days are getting so short but I do love this time of year don’t you I mean the fall colors and the nip in the air Mrs. Sargent’s grounds are lovely some of the most beautiful on the whole North Shore well worth the trip from New York just to see them Mr. Johnson of course it’s grown so dark that you can’t right now but there’s always tomorrow isn’t there in fact you’ll be with us all week I believe I do hope this nice weather keeps are you sure you wouldn’t like to go up to your room and wash
Mrs. Sargent chose an especially nice room for you quiet so you
can work can I get you gentlemen a drink I don’t know
where
Mrs. Sargent can. . .”

Malvern stood up and laughed. “Floodie, settle down.” He was more at ease in crowds than in twosomes and Mrs. Flood with her fluttering and twittering, her moues and gestures, con
stituted what was almost a mob scene. Besides, if Malvern could
speak up now and do it quickly, Mrs. Flood’s unfortunate slip about Sheila’s being nominated Mother of the Year might possibly be overlooked. “The world isn’t coming to an end just because Sheila’s not home yet Meanwhile, I’ll tend bar. What would you like, Floodie?”

“Oh, nothing for
me,
thank you.”

“What about you, Johnson? Scotch, rye, bourbon? I mix a mean martini.”

“Have you any beer?” Johnson said aggressively, the man of the people. He secretly hoped that there was no beer, as he vastly preferred scotch. But it was his understanding that the rich rarely stocked anything as commonplace as beer and he wanted to embarrass them.

“What?” Mrs. Flood said.

“Beer,” Johnson said.

“Beer?
W-well, I’ll
see.
Do excuse me.” Mrs. Flood simpered at the room at large and scampered off to the pantry.

“Flighty, isn’t she?” Johnson said.

“Mrs. Flood,” Malvern chuckled. “Salt of the earth. She’s been
a godsend to Sheila—and vice-versa. Just like one of the family.”

“That’s what they all say “

“I beg your pardon,” Malvern said uneasily.

“I said, That’s what they all say,” Peter said. “Every time I do a story on some big shot it’s the same thing. If it’s an actress,
she’s got a maid who’s ‘Just like one of the family.’ If it’s a four-star general, his orderly is ‘Just like one of the family.’ If it’s. . . .”

“
Well, you won’t find
this
family like those others,” Malvern said. “Sheila’s done a grand job on them.”

“And is that why Sheila Sargent, of all people, has been selected as Mother of the Year?”

“What’s that?” Malvern said blandly, affecting not to have heard.

“It seems that her secretary just let that amazing fact drop. It can’t come as much of a surprise to you.”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Malvern said, choosing his words carefully, “Sheila’s always been a splendid mother. Pity Dick died before she could have
more
children.”

“How did you swing it?”

“Swing what?” Malvern said, flustered.

“How did you swing having Sheila Sargent chosen?”

“Now see here, Johnson, I had nothing to do with the selection. This is the first I’ve heard of it. But it doesn’t really surprise me. Sheila’s an important woman—one of the most important in America.”

“Sure, Mr. Malvern. And you’re an important man—the head of the biggest feature syndicate in America. And Sheila Sargent is your biggest property. Don’t tell me that Famous Features didn’t have something to do with it.”

“I can assure you,” Malvern said portentously, “that Sheila needs no help from Famous Features or from me. She’s a well-known woman around here and always has been. I guess you people east of the Hudson River may not appreciate that. She’s written three big books, she lectures, she’s
considering
a television offer and she’s syndicated in more than nine hundred papers.”

“And.
. . .”

“Yes?” Malvern asked with frosty dignity.

“And with some trumped-up title like Mother of the Year, your syndicate could sell her to a thousand more papers. Don’t try to kid me. I’ve been in this business too long to. . . .”

Malvern laughed uneasily. He was nervous and frightened. This overly bright, intense young man from the enemy camp terrified him. This Johnson seemed blessed with second sight, Mr. Malvern felt. He could look right inside Malvern and read his innermost thoughts. Hadn’t he been doing it all afternoon?
And what worried Malvern even more was that there was a germ
of truth in what he was saying right now.

This Mother of the Year thing, for example, had originated not
with
Mr. Malvern but within his empire. A decade ago a
Famous Features gossip columnist awoke one morning with a
racking hangover and a dearth of big names to drop. In desperation, he had devoted his whole column to a totally fictitious woman in a nonexistent town in California who, he claimed, had raised sixteen children singlehanded and put them all through medical school on her earnings as a laundress. The columnist had pulled out all the stops, turned on the tears and dubbed his Galatea “Mother of the Year.” No one at Famous Features had paid it much heed. The column was read by the home office only with an eye to libel anyhow. But two days later Famous Features was inundated with letters and telegrams, offers of washing machines and mangles, checks and dirty currency to help this noble heroine. No one questioned why the sixteen physicians she had supposedly spawned didn’t chip in to buy the old lady a Bendix. No one—not even Californians—seemed to know or care that there was no such place as San Absurdio, California. It was only a week later, when the fuss had died
down and Mr. Malvern had casually inquired as to where to send the windfall, that the columnist confessed to him that the whole thing had been a hoax. The contributions were passed along to the Chicago Community Chest on the q.t. and J. Howard Malvern was admitted to Passavant Hospital with hemorrhaging ulcers.

But the following year the same columnist, sensing a good thing, had found a valiant little Texas lady with twelve exemplary children and pictures to prove it.
This
Mother of the Year was about to lose her ranch and the reader response was so great that she not only paid off the mortgage but bought the adjoining land and later struck oil on it. The year after that he unearthed a Negress in Spartanburg, South Carolina who had
acquired not only twenty children but also two cataracts. A group
of public spirited citizens in Chicago got up a purse to bring the unfortunate woman north for an eye operation and, upon recovery, a modest testimonial dinner. Even the Chicago
Tribune,
jealous and skeptical in the past, got into the act and ran a front page editorial on the Big Beating Heart of Chicagoland. At their next convention the Magnanimous American Mothers’
Association had the columnist unanimously declared an honorary
woman. Manufacturers began offering dinettes and dishwashers to the annual martyr in the selfless interests of motherhood and
sweet publicity. The Mother of the Year had not only become an
actuality, she had become a national event, usually winding up with a fortune in booty and—if at all presentable—with a television contract and an invitation to dine at the White House.

In recent years, however, the brood mare had made way for
the Woman of Accomplishment. A lady biologist, a movie actress
and a congresswoman, averaging only 3.66 children apiece, had
made the grade. It had become a dignified and respectable thing
to do, equaled only by the
legion d’honneur
and the Victoria Cross. This year a panel of five irreproachable judges, including three Famous Features columnists, had decided in secret conclave that the honor would go to Sheila Sargent—a fact that would be kept a dark secret until the Mother of the Year Banquet at the end of the week.

To give Mr. Malvern his due, he had always refused to have anything to do with this Mother of the Year nonsense. He had been too frightened after the first year ever to want to. But now that the project had achieved some stature, now that it had been
lifted above the level of a breeding contest or a give-away show,
freed of ballyhoo and publicity tie-ins, Mr. Malvern did just once—yes, he had to admit it—he did just once let drop to some of this year’s judges that he would not be entirely displeased if Mrs. Sargent—an exemplary woman and mother, as everyone knew—were to be considered. Now Mr. Malvern winced, recalling that evening in a private dining room at the Chicago Club when, spurred on by Jack Daniel and Chateauneuf du Pape, he had made just some sort of suggestion to three of the five impartial judges.