Chapter 13
For the dinner he arranged with Lucy and Janice, Larry picked the Orangerie at the Astor where the atmosphere would be weighted on Lucy’s side. At a more exclusive spot like the Marguery, Janice would hold the aces, and Lucy, who was likely to be self-conscious anyway around Janice, might blur out.
The Astor was a slice of small-and-big town America, the crowded front porch of Broadway. It was the city’s cracker barrel on the main stem where all were welcome to gather round. They came by cab, on foot, in trolleys and busses, through the ample doors into a murky plush lobby where they waited. The timid shrank gratefully against camouflaging columns. The bold kept a hawk’s eye on the door, alert to select their prey from the damp, moving stream at the entrance.
The fickle March evening had alternated between rain and snow, and Larry called for Lucy. She had been living at the Daughertys’ the past six weeks. He hoped on the way over that the weather wouldn’t button her into those ugly tweeds Bemrose had selected for her in the fall, and was glad to see that she had the good sense to wear a well-cut black coat instead. It formed a solid pedestal for her gray-blonde softness.
Janice was too busy to be called for. He had tried to arrange for the dinner two weeks ago, but Janice was in Washington, and until six o’clock tonight, wasn’t sure of being able to make it. Everett’s had assigned her to do a profile of a Major-General who shifted his headquarters every few days. Yes, she’d love to meet Larry for dinner if she could leave right afterward. If Arthur’s wife weren’t formal and would understand. If—well, Steve Holmes might join them later and see that she got to the General’s. If Larry were sure he didn’t mind about Steve. If he understood that her evenings weren’t her own, and she had to work. If she could come just as she was without going home to change. If he really thought it was a good idea for her to meet Mrs. Bemrose. If he’d buy her a couple of drinks before dinner because she was going to need them, and if he didn’t mind her cough. She had caught it on an air-conditioned train, and her voice sounded awful.
Larry told her he’d like to have her come.
With Lucy beside him he waited a damp twenty minutes in the Astor lobby, bone chilled from a draft that blew through the doorway. Janice arrived at last dripping ten dollars worth of Schiaparelli’s Shocking and a new mink coat. Her blonde suède gloves were crushed at the forearms. Her hair was fresh from Elizabeth Arden’s, and the scratchy throat had evidently been restored by an otolaryngologist. Larry was glad to see her. He forgot the crick in his neck from watching people walk through the door, and patiently auditioned her excuses. Quite a few other people waiting for late dates seemed glad to see her too.
Upstairs in the citrus lighted dining room Larry saw at once it was the wrong tone for Janice’s mustard-colored dress but did nice things for Lucy’s skin. The Orangerie transformed her from the slender, inconspicuous woman who had followed Janice’s minks up the marble stairway to her own soft blonde harmony. When she slipped out of her coat, a simple black dress with draped neckline set off the pallor of her gray eyes.
Janice, evading Lucy at first and hesitating to take a real look at her, chatted to Larry of her troubles with the General’s public relations officer and complained about the dullness as a rule of military men. No first-class writer should be assigned to them, she maintained. While Janice pecked her harmless complaints at Larry, a clear, clean light seemed to emanate from Lucy. It was like viewing a morning glory which had just opened.
Janice turned toward her. “How does Arthur like the Army? I’ve been meaning to write and congratulate him on his commission.”
The quiet confidence growing in Lucy sent color to her cheeks. “He’s going to Miami Beach to help organize an Air Force Training Center, one of the biggest new schools in the country for officers.”
“What do you think of that?” Larry asked with the respect of a civilian for someone who does well in the Army. “He’s only been in a few weeks. How did he manage——?”
“He’s been promised a promotion so that they can make him director of one of the schools,” Lucy added.
The skin tightened across the bridge of Janice’s nose, and the dark eyes went cold.
“He says they can’t make him director of the school unless they do promote him,” Lucy explained.
“The T.O. must call for a lieutenant colonel,” Janice said.
“T.O.?” Larry asked.
“Table of organization. It tells an outfit how many officers of each rank it’s entitled to have,” Janice explained. “This officer I have to interview got a second star because his new post calls for a Major-General. If not for that, he would probably still be a one star general.”
“It’s wonderful recognition for Bemrose,” Larry said. “Wonderful.”
“Order me a drink, will you, Larry?” Janice asked.
He called a waiter. “Did Arthur say when he will leave Maxwell Field for Miami?” he asked Lucy.
“Tonight or tomorrow. Before the end of the week.”
“Not a bad spot, Miami. You can count on Arthur to pick the right place.” He looked at Janice. “Sounds all right, doesn’t it?”
“It’s all right,” Janice conceded. “It’s certainly good for the Air Force. They’re getting rid of the brass hats and that’s a good sign. Arthur’s going to be good for the Air Force, all right.” Her fingermarks showed on her water goblet where she had gripped it. “He’ll earn every cent they pay him. He’d earn it if they decided to make him a lieutenant general instead of a lieutenant colonel.”
“What’s the matter then? Isn’t it going to be good for him?” Larry asked.
Janice looked tentatively at Lucy. “I don’t know. What do you think, Mrs. Bemrose? A lot of men couldn’t take all the success he’s had. Now in six weeks a military success and all kinds of authority—it takes a strong man to stand up to that.” She shrugged. “Maybe Arthur can swing it.”
Lucy meticulously sipped her clear consommé, her eyelids steady.
A party brushed past their table and as Janice watched them cross the room, she recognized someone with a birdlike forty-year-old face under snowy hair. Excusing herself, she followed them. “That’s Ward Oliver of the State Department,” she explained hastily. “He’s just back from China after being away for years. I missed him in Washington. He’s one of my oldest and best friends.” A look of affectionate warmth came into her eyes.
Larry sent Janice’s soup to the kitchen until she returned, and kept watch at the same time on Lucy. She lifted the dark eyebrows that made her eyes look paler, and a question shadowed them. “Have they known each other long?” she asked.
“Not very long.”
“But well.”
“She’s been around,” Larry agreed. “She knows how to hurry through the preliminaries. Have some more soup while we’re waiting?”
Lucy shook her head. “Do you think this new job—” The gray eyes appealed to Larry.
“Janice always worries about people being able to handle power when they get it,” Larry explained. “I don’t think she’s particularly concerned about Arthur, but—well, she worries. She’s scared to death that when this country has pitched in and won the War, we’ll come out drunk with power and start throwing our weight around. We won’t be satisfied to let other people go back and live their own way. That’s the kind of thing she’s afraid of.”
Lucy listened audibly. It was her gift. “So is Arthur afraid of people misusing power,” she said.
“Janice goes way beyond him,” Larry explained. “I don’t think she would trust any man with power. Not unless he were elected to it, and could have it voted away. She’s particularly against personal power, the kind that doesn’t show.”
“They should have gotten along,” Lucy said. “If they think alike——”
“They’re both suspicious by nature. I’m not sure Arthur trusted her any more than she would trust him.”
“She acted as if there were something wrong about Arthur being promoted. He didn’t ask to be promoted.”
“Of course not. And he didn’t pull strings to get his commission. Anyone else with his record on Lend-Lease— I can’t see it hurting him or inflating him too much. If I were you, I’d forget what she said.”
Janice slipped back into her chair. “Ward Oliver feels pretty black about the picture out there. He says there’s no hope of saving Java.” Her mouth was rigid. “The Indies are as good as gone, too, and the Australians are scared to death of an invasion. Ward stopped in Melbourne on his way home. There’s not much for us to do right now except take it. We can’t fight Hitler and move an Army out there at the same time. Ward says—” Janice stopped short, and her lips thinned to a knife edge. “Sorry, it may have been confidential—I’d better not repeat it.”
“Everybody’s pushing for us to pitch in,” Larry complained. “Strike here. Strike there. That’s all they know.” He motioned the waiter to serve Janice her dinner.
“Uncle Ed keeps saying we ought to take it easy and feel our way gradually,” Lucy said.
“The only trouble with that is, it won’t win the War,” Janice replied. “Someone high up in the State Department seems to be pushing for an offensive on the Continent right away,” she added. “There’s one group that thinks we’re prepared and could get away with it.”
“People are restless. They want to get into action,” Larry pointed out. “It’s three months since Pearl Harbor, and we still don’t feel like we’re at war. People want to get going. To do something. If they could tighten their belts a notch, they’d feel better.”
“My friend, Oliver, is close to the Generalissimo,” Janice said.
Larry started at the mental jump from one war to another.
“The Generalissimo told him a month ago that he was going to appoint Stilwell.”
“It was only in the paper yesterday,” Lucy said, smoothing a fluff of hair from her cheek. “I miss Arthur. He used to tell me what was going on. I don’t get as much out of the papers when I have to read them alone and he isn’t around to answer questions for me.”
Inscrutably Janice studied her, and the skin seemed to tighten over her cheekbones.
Larry walked with Janice as far as the elevator at the St. Regis and tried to say goodnight. The evening had been somewhat of a strain. During coffee he looked at his watch several times, hoping that Janice would leave for her appointment with the General, or that Steve Holmes would arrive and take over, but instead she phoned the General’s aide and found they had put her off again.
Janice and Lucy seemed to bring out the worst in each other. It was like a grainy enlargement of a photograph which magnified every blemish. Larry knew something about photography, and had seen negatives develop grain no matter what developer was used. The scratches, the bits of dust that marred the film showed up worse than they should. The emulsion began to swell and add defects of its own to the picture. A similar chemical reaction seemed to take place between Janice and Lucy. He began to think it was a bad idea to have brought them together. He hoped Bemrose wouldn’t mind if Lucy wrote him about the evening. After all, Bemrose had wanted Larry to keep in touch with both of them, and if he had stayed in New York, he would have invited Janice to the house sooner or later. It was just as well for Lucy to meet her casually this way through him instead of through Arthur.
When they reached the lobby of the St. Regis where Janice was staying, she pulled Larry into the gold elevator car with her. They had dropped Lucy uptown.
In her hotel sitting room Janice poured two jiggers of Scotch and downed hers before she took off her hat. “What made him do it? I thought Steve Holmes was exaggerating. For Christ’s sake, what made him do it?” Janice plucked at the amethyst brooch that glowed dully against the brighter gold of her dress.
“She never says for Christ’s sake.” Larry sat down next to a table littered with typewritten pages and reference books on China.
Janice paced the room, her shoulders tilted forward. “You think he wanted someone he could depend on to have nice manners?”
Larry planted his stubby hands on her shoulders. “Take it easy. She’s not as bad as all that.”
He poured her another drink from the cut glass decanter on her desk. “If you want me to tell you why he married her, I can’t. I’m not smart enough. Besides, I like her.”
“There’s nothing to dislike about her,” Janice agreed.
“I’m not sure Arthur thinks so. Does that make you feel better?”
She slumped in the tapestry wing chair. “He wasn’t happy before he was married. I didn’t make him any happier.”
“Maybe he enjoyed his misery more.”
The tears rolled down her cheeks disconnected from her emotions like water pouring from a mechanical doll.
She pointed to the books about China on the table next to him. “I’m going out there to work. Everett’s has an assignment for me.”
Larry didn’t say anything this time about her running away.
“He’s going to Florida. Didn’t you hear his wife say he was?” She moved her shoulders hopelessly.
“Trains run to Miami. It’s not like trying to take a train back from China,” Larry said. “This war is going to be tough enough. I wouldn’t complicate things——”
“They’re simple now, aren’t they?” she asked bitterly. “What will I tell him? That I think he made a mistake?”
“Why not give him a chance to do the talking? You’re so used to running the show your way. You don’t give other people a chance.”
“How do I know my agent won’t ring me tomorrow and tell me I’m on my way out there?”
“Grow up, Jan! You’ve overworked that one.”
The steel-like structure of her chin gave way and her lips trembled.
“You’ll feel better after you see him,” Larry promised.
He was standing in front of her, and she took hold of her knees, pressing her head against his legs. “When you have an address, let me know. I’ll manage something,” she promised.
The muffled loneliness of her voice stayed with Larry all night and came back in the muted rhythm of the train that took him to Florida three weeks later.