Neither Five Nor Three Page 10

  Jon said, “No! No one could invent such a petty piece of filth.”

  “Someone has,” said Paul. “It’s got the smell of a man called Murray who saw me at Rona’s party. I’m sure that added the second part to the story—‘just in time for my return.’”

  “I’ll smash his—” Jon recovered himself.

  “I felt the same way. But that isn’t the way to fight this.”

  “I know it isn’t,” Jon said savagely. “But what can we do?”

  Paul ruffled his hair again. “And. I thought I could let down my guard once I was back in the States. I guess I was in the nineteenth-century state of mind when I was crossing the Atlantic.”

  “But that story is so damned petty,” Jon said, worriedly. “It’s the Communists’ way of getting back at Rona, is it?”

  “Yes. Character assassination, they call it. It’s generally petty. If they can’t find out anything against a man, they invent it. Some of the things I’ve heard in my one week home have been unbelievably petty—things you and I would laugh at, if they weren’t all part of a big pattern. A tragic pattern for us, if we don’t become aware of it.”

  Jon said, “They may get away with a lot of things, but in the end people will damned well see through them. You can’t fool all the people all of the time.”

  “That was a wise remark—for the nineteenth century,” Paul said. “But would Lincoln make it now, seeing totalitarian propaganda as clearly as he would see it? What’s the good of realising you’ve been fooled, if it’s too late to do anything except be a yes-man or a refugee or a concentration camp victim?”

  “Or fight.”

  “A pity if being fooled in the twentieth century means the bloodiest civil war on record. State against state—oh, yes, ten or fifteen years of efficient propaganda would boil up imagined grievances—and class against class, groups against groups. No Communist army would need to invade the United States by force. They could walk in after the propagandists had done their work.”

  “Do the men who are working for Communist propaganda know just what they are getting into?”

  “It’s obvious some haven’t thought everything out: they are following a daydream. But those who are power-grabbers know quite well what they are doing: they don’t care what happens as long as they can feel they’re the Big Bosses.”

  “But the dreamers are just as guilty as the power-grabbers, for the results will be the same.”

  “Is Nicholas Orpen a power-grabber, or is he a dreamer?” Paul asked suddenly.

  “Orpen?”

  “He interests me. Few people I’ve met today can tell me anything about him. Weidler happened to remember him. And you did. But that’s all I’ve found, so far. The rest of us have forgotten him completely. Is that what he’s been aiming for? You know, I couldn’t even find a photograph of him in the newspaper files I looked up this afternoon. I spent dinner reading his article in Trend. He’s clever—the subtlest of the bunch that Blackworth steered into print. What do you know about him, Jon?”

  “Well, as far as I remember—”

  “As far as that, honey?” asked Peggy, as she and Rona came into the room.

  Rona smiled and said, “Hello, Paul, you’re looking awfully serious, both of you. What on earth were you discussing?”

  Paul said, “Jon was telling me about a man called Orpen.”

  Rona’s smile froze. “Nicholas Orpen?” she asked slowly. “Do you know him?”

  “I met him once, long ago. But I’ve often wondered about him.”

  Paul looked at her for a moment. “All right, let’s hear about Orpen, Jon.”

  “I’ll pour some beer, first,” Jon said. “Or would you rather have rye, Paul?”

  “Beer’s fine. I like this room, Peggy.” He made easy conversation with the two women while Jon went into the kitchen. Peggy was pleased with his compliment. She liked the room too. It had been simply awful, she told him proudly, when they had first come to the apartment. But Rona had helped her paint the woodwork, and all the hideous standpipes running up the walls had been covered with asbestos and then disguised by the curtains, and Jon had fixed the bookcases. As for the furniture...well, it was frankly bits and pieces; but even if it couldn’t claim a Period, sandpapering and waxing had revived a lot of unexpected charm.

  “Once the children are older,” Peggy said, “we can get a room the way we want it. But now, I come in here and find a tricycle beside the waste-basket, or a rag doll put to bed on a couch, or a brick castle under the coffee table. I’ve asked Rona what style of interior decoration you could call that, but she’s no help.” She smiled to Rona, trying to draw her into the conversation without any success. “Are you still living in a hotel, Paul?” What’s gone wrong with Rona? she worried.

  Yes, meanwhile, Paul explained. He was hoping, however, to sub-let a furnished apartment from a friend of his. It all depended, of course, on where he’d find a job.

  “You aren’t thinking of leaving New York?” Peggy asked in amazement, glancing involuntarily at Rona. But Rona, fortunately, wasn’t listening, and the doorbell rang at that moment to save Peggy’s own embarrassment. She hurried into the hall to welcome the new arrivals.

  Rona was thinking of Orpen. What was it that had made Jon and Paul so serious? She felt cold, suddenly. She rose to close one of the windows. Paul went to help her, and for a moment or two they stood beside each other. “Paul—” she began and then stopped. Then she shook her head, pretending to smile and forget what she had been going to say. I’ve been exaggerating all my worries recently, she thought. Better stop it, Rona. And you can’t turn to Paul for advice either. She moved quickly away from the window and faced the door. The other guests were arriving. Introductions, light remarks, smiles, laughter.

  Perhaps it wasn’t anything too serious about Orpen, Rona thought, as she watched Jon being an excellent host and Paul a helpful guest. At this moment, it looked as if Jon and Paul hadn’t a care in the world.

  7

  It seemed now as if there were an enormous crowd in the Tysons’ living-room, for it was quite full. But there were only ten people altogether. Robert Cash, Milton Leitner and Joseph Locastro were all third-year students. Cash was a small fair-haired man with a thin white face, a serious mouth, and glasses. Milton Leitner was dark-haired, with heavy eyebrows, a prominent nose, exceptionally fine eyes, shoulders too broad for his height, and a watchful expression. Joseph Locastro was also dark-haired with a thin aquiline nose, a broad smile, and long legs which were a bit of a nuisance to him as he sat on the floor. But he put up with the discomfort of a coffee table pressing against his shinbone, for his girl, Edith, was sitting on the floor beside him. She had come down to New York from Vassar for the week-end, and he had brought her specially to meet Peggy Tyson.

  Peggy was delighted with the compliment, and as she listened to Edith (Peggy hadn’t been able to catch the second name, as usual) she admired her fair hair and excellent skin. Peggy was always happy when one of her husband’s pupils fell in love with a girl who was both pretty and good-natured as well as intelligent. She had been worried in case Joe’s girl would turn out to be one of those dreary hairy-legged creatures, breathing an atmosphere of boiled milk and women’s wrongs. So Edith (proud of Joe) and Joe (proud of Edith) and Peggy (proud of both of them) were having a hilarious session beside the coffee table as they discussed the ballet, the price of restaurants, Edith’s term paper on Petronius, apartments, Cape Cod, Joe’s term paper on the Federalists, Maurois’ new book on Marcel Proust, and painted furniture.

  The other two guests were the Burleighs, a young instructor from the English Department and his wife. Frank Burleigh, heavily built to match his name, was sitting in one of the armchairs. Opposite him, leaning forward anxiously, was Robert Cash who was asking him about Kafka in his serious, determined way. Burleigh’s eyes were closed, as if he were thinking of his answer to the long question. (Actually, he was wondering how he could get his hero talking again: Moira had dragg
ed him away from the novel he was writing in order to come to the Tysons’ party, and although it was always pleasant to come to the Tysons’, he was left with his hero’s mouth opened at the top of a blank page.)

  “Well, in Kafka,” Burleigh said, rousing himself, “you’ve got to remember his environment. His form of personal uncertainty is something that belonged to his particular milieu. No, I don’t think anyone else should attempt to model himself on Kafka. Unless he lived as Kafka in Kafka’s way. And then, it would only be an echo.” Robert Cash, who intended to write a novel some day, didn’t believe it. He began to show Burleigh where he was wrong.

  Paul Haydn and Milton Leitner were discussing Germany with Jon. That left Rona sitting on the couch beside Moira Burleigh. She was a cheerful young woman with a hearty complexion, forgotten hair, a slap-dash manner, and a way of expressing herself which she always called “frank.” Rona was doing her best to listen to Mrs. Burleigh, but the room was small enough to let parts of the other conversations drift in, too, and somehow they all seemed more interesting. She had to pull herself away from summer theatre at Cape Cod, from Kafka’s insecurities, from concentration camp psychology, back to Mrs. Burleigh’s stream of consciousness. Rona had already been informed that the Burleighs lived upstairs, that they had twins almost two years old—just Barbara’s age, that a sitter had been engaged until half-past ten, that Mrs. B hated the city, that she had been a college president’s daughter, that her husband taught English at Columbia, that her husband was writing a novel. “And don’t be worried if he calls you Jane,” Mrs. Burleigh rattled on, “he’s got a heroine called Jane who looks just like you. He’s always doing that, calling people by names in his book almost as if his imagined world were more real than this one. I tell him he isn’t really being very flattering to people, but he goes on doing it. Tell me, how’s Scott Ettley?”

  “Scott Ettley?” Rona lost all interest in the other conversations.

  “I’m so sorry he couldn’t be here tonight. I was looking forward to seeing him after all those years. I hear he’s changed. I’m so glad. He really was an awful brat.”

  Rona said, “Scott? Did you know Scott?”

  “Why, of course! We grew up together. My father was president of Monroe College and that’s just on the outskirts of Staunton. Do you know it at all?”

  “Yes, I’ve been to Staunton to visit Mr. Ettley. And then, Scott went to Monroe.”

  “Did you know about Monroe?—It isn’t named after Doctrine Monroe at all. It was Obadiah Monroe who founded it. He made his money out of the East Indies and then built a college, just to keep up with old Elihu Yale.”

  Rona said that was interesting. And there was a slight pause. Then Mrs. Burleigh darted back to Scott again. “So you’re engaged to young Ettley? Well, I’m glad he has got someone reliable.”

  Rona smiled politely and hoped it was a compliment.

  “He really had such a miserable time when he was young,” Mrs. Burleigh went on.

  “Scott?” Rona asked in amazement. She was remembering the Ettleys’ comfortable house and large garden with the woods and hills rolling westward. In front of Scott’s home, there was a winding river edged with trees and farmland. And to the east, only five miles away, were Staunton’s church spires and busy streets and small factories, for it was one of those typical New England towns where light industries are set squarely down in rural countryside.

  “Yes indeed!” Mrs. Burleigh took a deep breath and plunged on, delighted to tell everything. “You see, he really was such a brat. When we were to be taken to visit his house, we used to pretend we were ill so we needn’t go. Imagine! I think it was his mother’s fault: he had to have the best of everything, nothing too good for her little boy. His toys! But he’d never let us touch them unless we let him boss us around. So we’d fight. After all, when he was brought to visit us, he used to commandeer all the best toys we had. And at school—he used to get a black eye at least once a week. Sometimes, I’d be almost sorry for him. And then he’d do something to me that made me wish he had gotten two black eyes.” She laughed merrily, and looked at Rona as if she were expected to be amused also. Rona was too busy being thankful that Scott wasn’t here tonight, after all.

  Rona said to Jon, who was passing some sandwiches around the groups, “Let me help!”

  But Jon said, “That’s all right, Rona. Milton is giving me a hand.”

  So there was nothing else to be done except to sit on the couch. And although you might try not to listen, it was difficult to shut out Moira Burleigh’s insistent voice.

  It was saying: “Then I was sent away to boarding school, so I didn’t see much of Scott after that except for Christmas parties. He was awfully handsome in a pretty-pretty way. And proud. He couldn’t dance very well. But instead of letting us teach him, he’d stand at the doorway and watch us disdainfully. I’m sure he wished he had a limp and could pretend he was Lord Byron.”

  “We all have our little attitudes,” Rona said, smothering her anger and trying to laugh. Poor Scott, surrounded by girls like Mrs. Burleigh. “Scott did awfully well at college,” she added defensively.

  “Brilliantly. And he seemed to be very happy, too. I told you he changed completely, didn’t I?” Mrs. Burleigh said delightedly.

  This time, Rona returned the smile.

  “Yes, I do blame Scott’s mother,” Mrs. Burleigh went on, not knowing when to leave well enough alone. “After all, his father isn’t the kind of man who would think that his boy was superior to all other children. When Mrs. Ettley died, his father took him in hand. But—” She shrugged her strong shoulders and sighed. The damage was done, she seemed to say.

  “But what?” Peggy Tyson asked from across the room. “You sound dismal, Moira.”

  “I was just telling your sister—”

  “How mothers can be disasters,” Rona said quickly.

  “Out of kindness,” Moira Burleigh added. She looked indignantly at Rona: did you think I was going to be tactless?

  “Marcel Proust, for instance?” Joe Locastro asked with his broad smile. “We’ve just been dissecting him. Professor Tyson, I didn’t know your wife was an authority on Proust.”

  “I’m not,” protested Peggy happily.

  Robert Cash looked up with interest, and left Dr. Burleigh. There was a shifting around of people, a loosening and reforming of groups. Only Joe Locastro and Edith stayed together, and he was holding her hand determinedly.

  Rona escaped thankfully in the direction of Milton Leitner, who asked her formally about Scott Ettley, whom he had met at other parties here. And then, once that politeness was over, he began talking about his plans for the summer—he wanted to go West, this year. There was a job in Cheyenne he’d like to have. It would be good to get away from the family and see how another part of the country lived.

  “There’s no doubt that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,” Mrs. Burleigh was informing a startled Paul Haydn. “Whatever ideas Mrs. Schicklgruber let Adolf get away with certainly changed a lot of lives. Whenever you see a man behaving antisocially, you may be sure his mother didn’t teach him how to conduct himself. Those delinquent children we worry about—shockingly bad mothers, that’s what they have.”

  “See, Peggy,” Jon said, “you’ve a big responsibility ahead of you. Moira doesn’t think that fathers count, so I’m out of this.”

  Frank Burleigh said, “St. Augustine wrote rather forcibly that all children were born sinful. Perhaps some just stay that way.”

  “Oh, no!” cried Edith and Rona together, and then there was a free-for-all argument, with everyone joining in. At its stormiest height, with politics and the Russian question edging in sideways, Milton Leitner looked toward the door. “Hey, Bobby!” he said. The room was silenced and everyone turned to look.

  Bobby was standing there, blinking in the light, his pyjama trousers slipping over his small hips. He was clutching his white cow-boy belt in one hand.

  “Why Bobby—” P
eggy said, coming forward. “Why—”

  “I had to go to the bathroom,” Bobby announced in his clear, light voice. Then he looked at his mother and then at Rona. “And someone took off my belt,” he said accusingly. He held it out.

  “Hi-ho, Silver,” Joe said. “That’s a fine belt, Bobby.”

  “Have a sandwich, Ranger,” Bob Cash said.

  “I’m not a ranger. I’m a sheriff. And someone took off my belt.” He looked at Rona, and then at his mother.

  Peggy started to step over Joe’s legs to reach Bobby. She glanced at the new cow-boy belt and then at Rona, quietly saying, “It seems that aunts can cause just as much trouble as mamas.”

  Rona reached Bobby first. She said, kneeling beside him, “I did, Bobby. You see, I suddenly remembered...” She caught Paul Haydn’s eyes watching her, and she halted.

  “What did you remember?” Bobby asked, standing very straight, still accusing, still unconvinced.

  “That a sheriff doesn’t hide his belt under the blankets. He hangs it up above his bed, and then everyone who sees it knows that it’s a sheriff who is sleeping there!”

  Bobby considered that.

  “I couldn’t tell you about it because you were asleep,” Rona added. His face suddenly lost its determined frown. He smiled.

  “That’s all right,” he said, in such an imitation of his father that Joe Locastro choked and had to fake a fit of coughing to cover his laughter. “But I was simply furious.”

  “A sandwich for the Sheriff?” Milton asked, giving as broad a smile as Locastro.

  “I’ll have a doubled egg,” the Sheriff said, having reconnoitred the possibilities in the refrigerator before he had gone to bed.

  Jon said. “We’ve finished the devilled eggs, Bobby.”

  “Oh!” He looked as if he might have expected this.