The Good Life (41 page)

The weather was beautiful. The mistral, the vicious north wind that occurred in multiples of three — usually three on, three off — up to twelve days running, blew in for a steady six days while they stayed in port. It was said that no murderer was ever convicted if the crime was committed while the wind was blowing.

Marlene was gone. The prince didn't risk showing his face. Billy was angrier than ever. A gentleman would apologize. Perry wondered how you could apologize to a man whose daughter you seduced.

After the mistral Billy received a letter from the headmistress of Bet's school. Billy read it to them on deck one day. It reviewed the contingency plans the school had made in event of war. Students from neutral nations — presumably including Americans — could remain safely at school, protected by Switzerland's strict neutrality. As their terms ended, there would be neutral shipping to get them home. Appropriate plans were being made for the others. The school didn't anticipate any major upheaval. Under the circumstances, they didn't feel liable for making any refunds of board and tuition already paid.

“That's lovely of them,” Bet said crossly. “We're supposed to stay and get bombed so that they can sit on their bank account. Let me come to New York, Daddy.” She looked at Perry with an appeal for help.

“What do you think, Billy?” he asked. “What if the States gets into it? Would even neutral ships be safe for her?”

“I should think so. I'm trying to remember last time. It seems to me people went on traveling in a more or less normal way.”

“But listen to Perry,” Bet persisted. “Everybody here expects Roosevelt to come in with the allies. I don't want to get stuck here for the whole war. You can't leave me.”

“It's difficult,” Billy said as if he hadn't thought about the issue seriously before. “If it happened tomorrow, I'd be tempted to cast off and sail to Spain. Everybody seems to think Franco will be neutral, at least technically. We could take on plenty of provisions and go on by the southern route. There's still time to miss the equinoctial storms. It's out of the question, but the captain's already told me he'd like to try it.”

“Then let's,” said Bet, her face glowing. “How exciting! I don't want to leave you.” She said this to Billy, but her eyes darted to Perry. He refrained from putting a hand out to her; he didn't want to encourage her in an idea that she must know her mother would never permit.

“It's fun to think about it, but I guess we'd have to be pretty desperate to really attempt it,” Perry said.

Billy looked at him approvingly. “Desperate to the point of insanity. A month at sea on this little boat could be a nightmare. She's not equipped for it. I might let the captain try it if it were the only way to get her away from the Nazis, but he's a sailor.”

Having established himself as the voice of reason, Perry picked up the point that Billy might take seriously. “All the same, Billy, you probably should think carefully about leaving her. Nobody knows what might happen. What's left of her schooling doesn't sound terribly important. Something
could
happen that would make it impossible for her to get home. I should think that would bother her mother.”

Billy looked uncertainly at the letter he was holding. Perry took the opportunity to wink at Bet. Billy shook his head. “This woman sounds very sensible. She obviously doesn't think there's any need for alarm. If we let ourselves be frightened by everything we see in the papers these days, we'd never lead a normal life again.”

“But honestly, Daddy, she wouldn't care if the world came to an end, so long as she can keep that old school going.”

“She must have advice from people who understand what a big responsibility school is. It would ruin her if anything regrettable happened to the girls through her bad judgment.”

“I think the least you can do is write Arlene quickly,” Perry urged. “They might not realize in the States how bad it looks here. I didn't till we came. We still have almost a month to change things. The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of leaving her. If you agree, you should tell Arlene. On top of everything else, she'll be with Monique. There's nothing safely neutral about her. She's French, isn't she?”

“Yes, but an underage female hardly counts as an enemy threat. I'm not worried about that.”

“Okay. I just thought I'd mention it. You'd better write Arlene right away and warn her that she might regret not bringing her home.”

“Very well. That would at least leave my conscience clear. I'm not really as worried as you are. I don't think this war is going to burst out of the blue like the last time. They've been building up to it for years. There'll have to be another big showdown over Poland before anybody makes a move. We'll see it coming in plenty of time.”

“But it's about Poland that the British and French say they'll fight,” Perry protested.

“They've said it before about other places. They might actually do it but not before everybody's had a chance to say it all over again.”

“Hitler doesn't fool around, Billy. When he's ready, he takes what he wants.”

“I agree up to a point, but the political leaders always leave themselves an out so they can claim they meant something quite different from what they said. I'll go write and get it off my mind.” He stood and touched Bet's hair as he paused in front of her. “You see? Your chaps want to keep you.”

When he had left, she looked at Perry, and they laughed excitedly. “Oh, darling,” she exclaimed. “It might work. You were wonderful. You sounded so cool and detached. At first I wasn't sure whose side you were on.”

“That's my family-friend act. Don't get your hopes up, but it might have an effect. May be not soon enough for you to come with us, but with a little help from Hitler, we might get you back before Christmas. I'll keep working on him. I think he's already worried enough for it to wear off on your mother when he sees her. If we succeed, where will you stay?”

“With Mummy, I expect. The Lombardy can probably give me a room adjoining her suite. We've talked about it. Daddy's been in a rented place. Have you seen it?”

“Sure. It's a duplex. There's plenty of room for you there, but he probably wants it all to himself. Anyway, I don't think he knows how long he's going to stay. I'll have a little place of my own.”

“Isn't it thrilling? I'll be in New York with you. It's fate. War may be awful, but it can come in handy.”

“There's been a shortage of fortunes in New York recently, but times are getting better. You may be lucky.”

“I have to be. Daddy stopped me from being the queen of Sweden. There were a few fortunes in Cannes, but the titles weren't much. Miss Elliott wouldn't have approved. You'll get me by default if I don't watch out.”

“My heart's breaking.”

Having had a taste of the glittering ostentation of Cannes, Perry appreciated more the easygoing charm of Saint-Tropez. The judgments he'd made in London seemed to hold elsewhere. He had begun to learn even in New York that great riches weren't always synonymous with style and elegance.

His ambitions were being reshaped. He wanted to be a gentleman even though he still didn't quite know what that meant. It was the opposite of vulgar. Billy insisted that he was a natural-born gentleman but that he wasn't good enough for Bet. That was a matter of money, but he didn't feel that people in Europe were under any great pressure to be rich. Everybody wanted to live pleasantly, but that was all.

Seeing Billy here, Perry realized that he had seemed sort of deflated and wilted in New York. People had no time for an unemployed dilettante, even a rich one. Here, he was in his element.

Perry didn't understand why Billy didn't encourage Bet to forget about a rich marriage and have the relatively modest life he wanted for himself. Even in New York they would have enough to get by if they didn't spend every night at the Stork Club. They were young and attractive and open to invitations. He was well on his way to passing for a gentleman. After this summer he would feel at ease in fine houses with the rich and distinguished of all varieties. He could take an ex-king and a future king in his stride.

He dressed well. He knew more than most about ordering wine. He couldn't remedy the holes in his education overnight, but he was picking up a smattering of superficial knowledge that would help him through a conversation, and he knew when to shut up. He behaved irreproachably in public. Not bad for a rush job. If there were any other requisites for being a gentleman, he could learn about them.

Billy had been right about the social value of bridge. Perry found several of their chums, including Alexis and Hilda, who were eager to recruit a fourth, and he played quite often. He won more regularly than he lost and began to accumulate a nice little sum for splurging in Paris. He liked the opportunity to show off his big gold ring once he'd learned how to handle the deck like a cardsharper, and he liked keeping track of every play and calculating who held which cards. He was amazed by the mistakes people made. They deserved to lose. He became an addict when he began to see it as a pleasant source of supplemental income.

More and more, people spoke anxiously about leaving early. A number of Frenchmen said they should get back to Paris, where they could take care of sudden business emergencies and be on easier call for their regiments. Transport would be chaotic if anything happened.

There were increasing rumors of a Hitler-Stalin deal. Having adjusted to the constant panics and alerts of the last few years, people began to see something ominous in the lull in international crises. Perry and Bet worried about not hearing from Arlene, although Billy assured them that for an exchange of letters you had to count two weeks minimum, and that was possible only by a fluke of timing that would get a letter to the airport just as the mail was being prepared.

“It doesn't look too promising,” Perry admitted to Bet when almost two weeks had passed since Billy had written. “I was sort of hoping she'd cable. She probably would if Billy frightened her, but he probably wouldn't for fear of making himself look careless. He shouldn't have let it go till the last minute.”

He took her hand and was shocked by the sudden realization that he might be without her for months to come. He didn't know how he'd let so much time pass so carelessly. The need for public deception and the playful, teasing manner they had adopted from the beginning created a slight distance between them. They didn't act like people in love.

He wanted to get beneath all her surfaces and find her secret reality, but as long as she kept her options open she remained elusive. How could he feel that she was his if she was free to look for somebody more suitable? He wanted them to exchange promises and commitments that neither of them was in a position to make.

His grip tightened on her as he backed her into a private nook formed by the projection of the bookcase in the little-used living room. “
I'm
frightened all of a sudden,” he exclaimed. “It seems almost criminal to leave you behind if there's any danger at all. Obviously there isn't, or they wouldn't do it. I've always thought of war as like a curtain dropping, everything just sort of coming to an end. Billy talks about it as if we'd hardly notice it unless we have the bad luck to be put in uniform. Whatever it's like, it won't affect you. That's all I'm thinking about at the moment.”

“Oh, please let it affect me. I want to be bundled onto the first boat sailing for New York. I'll be a refugee.”

“I wonder what we
will
get you on if your mother says okay, but it's not a problem if she lets us act quickly. Billy can always arrange for you to share his suite.”

“Don't say it. It's bad luck. It would be too good to be true. Imagine. Arriving with you. I'd sleep in a lifeboat if I had to.”

“We'll take turns. Ah, honey,” he sighed. Her slim body felt irresistibly naked under her light cotton dress. “Honest to God, I think I'm losing my mind. How
can
you go back to school after what we've had this summer?”

“That's what I've been saying all along,” Bet said with despair. “It's utterly pointless.”

“Do you realize we haven't much more than a week left? It's too awful. You're tired of school, but I'm thinking about a life together. Are you ready to take that seriously now?”

“Oh, darling. It
is
serious. It's the most serious thing in life.”

“When did you discover that?”

“In Cannes, May be, when Maxine Elliott was telling me how to manage my life. She sounded so cold-blooded. I don't want to be like that. I want to be mad with you.”

He couldn't believe his ears. She'd been able to stand up to Miss Elliott's overwhelming authority and make up her mind for herself. She was beginning to find out what being in love was like. They had something at last to build on.

“I'm stunned,” he said as their hands searched for new ways to thrill each other. He should have known that anybody who loved his cock so much wouldn't last long as a fortune hunter. “If it takes the threat of being separated to make you settle for the breadline with me, I guess nothing is all bad.”

“There goes my fortune. Oh, darling, you feel so lovely.”

“We can't pretend any more that it's just a pleasant affair, can we?”

“No. It's happened. I suppose we'll have to get married. How funny.”

“Hilarious,” he said, almost gasping with the shock of it. The fact that they were no closer to solving the practical problems of when and where helped him contain his joy within rational limits, but she said it. May be she would even stop using fortune hunting as an excuse for being tempted by other guys.

In spite of all the obstacles that remained to be overcome, it was the happiest moment in his life. He didn't want to make too much of it until she said it without sounding as if she were playing with him. “We seem to be headed in that direction. But did I really hear something about marriage?”