The Late John Marquand (20 page)

I love and love and love you—and I love John.

Always
,

Carl

Chapter Sixteen

The America First Committee, formed as an attempt to keep the United States out of the Second World War, had, as soon as America entered the war, immediately collapsed of its own weight, and Adelaide Marquand found herself once more at loose ends, without a crusade or a cause. Though she had, when she first married John, a modest income of about $7,500 a year, her mother had died and she had inherited several millions of Ferry Seed Company money and stock. When the Marquands were thrust into a loftier tax bracket, the Boston firm of Welch & Forbes, which for a number of years had served as John's business managers, came up with a plan designed to conserve some of the Marquands' tax dollars. Welch & Forbes suggested that Mrs. Marquand be considered a “collaborator” or “assistant” to her husband in his literary efforts so that certain deductions for travel, entertaining, and office expenses could be taken that might otherwise be lost if she remained Mrs. John P. Marquand, Housewife.

This idea delighted Adelaide, who had always liked to think that
she was, in a real sense, a true aide to her husband in the production of his books. Though both John and Alfred McIntyre had tried to confine Adelaide to the restricted role of copy editor, she was simply too energetic and enthusiastic a woman to be held down. She
had
to make editorial suggestions, and she was compulsively critical; she could not keep her fingers out of the novelistic pies, and of course this led to arguments—and to much worse than arguments. To formalize the tax setup, Welsh & Forbes proposed that the books be jointly copyrighted by John and Adelaide, that royalties be divided between them, and that letters be passed between John and Little, Brown acknowledging the degree of Adelaide's assistance. Little, Brown was at first hesitant about this arrangement but eventually agreed, and John agreed also—though somewhat grudgingly, since the agreement had the appearance of giving Adelaide more credit than she deserved.
H. M. Pulham, Esquire
was the first Marquand novel to bear the joint copyright. Adelaide was overjoyed.

Actually she had done a certain amount of work on the book. John was not a particularly good title man—as, indeed, many novelists are not. The titles for most of his books had been selected by Little, Brown. John had originally wanted to call the Pulham book “Reunion,” since it is a twenty-fifth reunion of his class at Harvard that sends Harry Pulham's thoughts off into the long central flashback. John had then toyed with the title “The Wild Echoes Flying,” and an even worse one, “Golden Lads and Lassies Must.” In the
McCall's
serial, the book had been called “Gone Tomorrow.” Little, Brown had just about settled on the title “H. Pulham, Esq.,” without a middle initial, when Adelaide had a suggestion to make. It seemed to her that people didn't usually write “Esquire” after a name with just one initial. John's letters, she pointed out, usually came addressed to John Marquand, Esq.,” or “J. P. Marquand, Esq.,” but never “J. Marquand, Esq.” Somehow “H. Pulham, Esq.” just didn't sound like a Boston name. Little, Brown thought enough of her comment to give Henry Pulham the middle name of Moulton.

The sales of
Pulham
were somewhat better than those of
Wickford Point
, which encouraged John, who liked to worry about such matters. Published in February, 1941, the book was high on the best-seller list by mid-March and by the middle of May had sold
47,290 copies in the United States. By June, it had sold 49,011, and by August the sales had leveled out to just over 51,000 copies. It had been a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and in that less expensive edition had sold 156,800 copies. John had every reason for good cheer. But in the spring of that year an incident took place that was as exasperating as it was comic. At an April meeting of the Boston City Council, that august body voted unanimously to ban
H. M. Pulham, Esquire
in Boston. The book, the Council stated, constituted a “slur on Boston womanhood” with its depiction of the adulterous Kay Pulham.

Ordinarily, in publishing, it is considered something of a blessing to have a book banned in Boston, since the publicity that such an action generates more than compensates for any loss in sales. But in the case of
Pulham
there was—to John—the galling fact that sitting on the City Council at the time was none other than Mr. Henry Shattuck, described in the newspapers as “Acting President of Harvard University,” who had voted for the ban. Mr. Shattuck's vote not only gave the ban a certain academic cachet but gave it from an institution that was world famous for its liberality and was Marquand's own alma mater. To make matters even more grotesque, John had had, just a few weeks before the Council's action, a letter from Mr. K. D. Metcalf, Librarian of Harvard University, asking in the most gracious sort of way whether Mr. Marquand would consider donating the manuscripts of both
The Late George Apley
and
H. M. Pulham, Esquire
to the library where, Mr. Metcalf assured him, they would be placed in the “New Treasure Room.”

Marquand was indignant. It seemed to him that if Mr. Shattuck's attitude reflected that of the university, Marquand's own manuscripts would be more happily housed in some institution that did not tolerate censorship, and he told Metcalf so. It was pointed out to John that Shattuck was not really acting president of Harvard but that he had merely presided over faculty meetings in President Conant's absence. This struck John as a very minor technical difference, especially since Shattuck had refused either to apologize or to discuss the matter with the press. All of John's old bitterness and mixed feelings about Harvard, and what he felt had been his rejection there, came back, and he could not help feeling that
Harvard had managed somehow to snub him all over again. Quietly and with great determination, he packed up all his manuscripts and shipped them to Yale, in whose library they presently repose.

Elsewhere than in Boston,
H. M. Pulham, Esquire
had been received with good notices, and by the end of 1941 he had begun somewhat wistfully to think the novel might earn him a second Pulitzer Prize. He had mentioned this to Alfred McIntyre, suggesting that there might be ways in which Little, Brown could get it prominently placed before the Pulitzer Prize Committee. In his personal evaluation of his books, John considered
Wickford Point
better than
The Late George Apley
, and
H. M. Pulham, Esquire
better than
Wickford Point
, and there were prominent critics who agreed with him.
Pulham
was a good candidate for the Pulitzer, which is awarded by a committee that never reveals what books are under consideration. But the fiction prize for 1942 went to Ellen Glasgow for her novel,
In This Our Life
.

John was disappointed, but he took his disappointment gracefully. He liked Ellen Glasgow as a writer. He remarked that she had long deserved the prize, and that at least it hadn't gone to a “punk” such as T. S. Stribling, who had won it for
The Store
in 1933. Privately he admitted that the prize should probably not be awarded twice to any one novelist, since there were so many good ones around. In the theater, on the other hand, where the supply of talent seemed poorer, it seemed to him permissible that both Eugene O'Neill and Robert E. Sherwood had at that point each collected three Pulitzers, and George S. Kaufman had won two.

Adelaide, meanwhile, had become convinced that her husband was being unfaithful to her with another woman or, perhaps, with several other women. When she had come into her inheritance, it had seemed to John logical enough that she could now be treated as a more or less independent person and therefore—in a sense—ignored. She had her own money, could go where she wished and buy what she wished; there would be no more financial arguments. But to Adelaide this was not enough. She wanted nothing less than to be a complete wife and could not accept the somewhat arm's-length relationship which John preferred with all his women. One of the great attractions of Carol Brandt was certainly her lack of dependence on him and her lack of possessiveness. She was a
successful businesswoman with a career of her own. After marrying Carl she had left the literary-agency business—it represented a conflict of interests—and had gone to work for Louis B. Mayer of M-G-M as his East Coast story scout, with a contract that provided her with $50,000 a year and a chauffeur-driven car. Also, John had always wanted a woman who could organize his life for him and keep track of the small details that were always distracting him, such as appointments and hotel reservations and servants' pay checks. In terms of sloppiness, Adelaide was even worse than Christina; she simply could not organize anything. There was also the annoying problem of her perpetual lateness. She was never ready on time, and friends learned not to be surprised when the Marquands showed up hours late for a dinner party—or failed to show up at all. This infuriated John, who admired punctuality and order. Once, he and Adelaide were to meet at Pennsylvania Station to take a train to Florida, and when, at the last minute, Adelaide had not appeared, John simply boarded the train and went off to Florida without her.

Adelaide had started consulting a psychiatrist. She had also started drinking heavily. There were terrible scenes. Like many alcoholics, she would not admit that she was one and was very defensive about her drinking. She did, in a sense, try to control it by going for long periods without alcohol. But then she would begin to drink; when drunk, she became assertive and opinionated and would make extravagant statements—praising or detracting another writer's work, for example—that she would then find herself having to defend when sober. The Marquand household, wherever it happened to be, had become one that was hardly ever settled or relaxed. Adelaide had taken to eavesdropping on his telephone calls, and John once discovered that she had been steaming open his letters.

And yet, at the same time, there were moments of tenderness between them, and times when John seemed genuinely to feel guilty about the offhand way he treated Adelaide. One evening, for example, guests at 1 Beekman Place were startled to see the host appear wearing what was for him a very uncharacteristic pink shirt, and the hostess wearing a skirt made of the same pink fabric. It was a rather touching attempt at a show of unity.

John was also a heavy drinker, and had been since the 1930s. But drinking had never managed to affect John's professional or social life. He kept to a very strict working schedule, starting punctually in the morning with his dictation of whatever story or novel was in progress. He would dictate for about four hours, or until lunchtime, and then the tray of martinis would appear. John rather enjoyed it if whichever secretary was working for him joined him in the martinis. He did not enjoy drinking alone and liked to consider the pre-luncheon cocktail hour as a time for social conversation and, perhaps, discussion of the morning's work. If the secretary declined the drink, this annoyed him, and as a rule that secretary would not remain long in his employ. Then, in the afternoons, he would work over and edit material that had been dictated into the typewriter that morning. Martinis would not reappear until the customary pre-dinner hour. One rarely saw John Marquand drunk. With Adelaide, alas, that was not the case.

And so Carol, who shared John's passion for order and routine, came into his life and helped him make it follow a plan. The little details of living with which, according to himself, he could never quite seem to cope—getting checks cashed, letters mailed, shirts to the laundry, coats back from the dry cleaner—she could, in her smooth and efficient way and with the help of an accomplished secretary, handle for him. Her office could make hotel and plane and rail reservations for him, see that he was met at his destinations by the proper cars, send him reminders for his social calendar, and even do some personal shopping for him. She helped him put together, by remote control, his summer retreat at Kent's Island, and her shopping lists included his linen, towels, china, glass, and electric blankets. All this, since Carol was the methodical person she was, she managed as though by sleight of hand. He gave her credit for performing miracles. Actually, of course, the little services Carol Brandt helped do for him amounted to rather little time or effort on her part. But she, intuitive woman that she was, was wise enough never to let him know it.

“And,” as Carol Brandt says, “I amused him. He enjoyed watching the way I worked. I'd be with him, and I'd also be in the process of working out a movie deal—either for him, or for another client. I'd be back and forth with calls to the Coast, bargaining for terms
and escalator clauses, and when I'd finished he'd smile at me and shake his head and say, ‘It'll be a long time before Buster'—meaning my son—‘will be able to do
that!
'”

Adelaide, with her interest in music, had become fascinated with the development of Aspen, Colorado, which was started by Chicago's Walter Paepcke as a center for its music festival long before it became famous as a ski resort. As she usually did when she discovered a spot she liked, she bought a house there. Adelaide fell in love with Aspen. John announced that he detested Aspen. When Adelaide begged to know what it was that he disliked about Aspen, John replied that her Aspen house provided him with no studio in which to work. So Adelaide bought another house in Aspen, to be used as John's studio. This move did nothing to change John's feelings about the Rocky Mountain resort, which he began vociferously referring to as “my Ass-pen.” Adelaide continued to try to stimulate John's interest in music; she had even had him placed on the Music Committee of the 1939–40 New York World's Fair—John, who could not sing a note, and whose musical tastes had never gone farther than a handful of rather raffish barroom ballads.