XII

“If You Can Dream and Not Make Dreams Your Master …”

Melville Goodwin’s words came to a standstill—for no artistic reason. His attempts to describe his life and his family had been prolix, humorless and dull; yet when he stopped speaking, I could feel not only the stark outlines of Hallowell but something of its depths and lights and shades. At any rate, his personality, or perhaps his utter lack of narrative skill, made Hallowell and young Mel Goodwin much more real to me at the moment than anything at Savin Hill. He was standing on firmer ground than all the rest of us.

Perhaps the others were thinking as I was—that compared to Melville Goodwin we were febrile and superficial, driven easily by light motivations and ambitions. Phil Bentley wore the rapt expression of someone who loves music listening to the last notes of a symphony. Miss Fineholt sat motionless behind the desk gazing at the General in a way that made me wonder for a second whether she could be thinking of herself as another Muriel Reece. Colonel Flax’s expression was slightly different. He had obviously prepared himself as a good officer should for an interminable military lecture that had turned out to be something else, and he was plainly puzzled by the result.

We were still right there with Melville Goodwin when he moved his arm and looked at his wrist watch.

“Only nine-fifty-five,” he said. “I thought it was later than that.” Somehow, like Dr. Einstein, he had proved that time was variable. “Well, I guess it was that summer that I went to a Sunday school picnic. I guess I remember it because it was the last one of those functions I ever attended. All our crowd was getting a little old for Sunday school picnics. There was a grove and a lake halfway to Nashua. We went there in the trolley car—but maybe it isn’t important. Maybe everybody would like to get up and stretch.”

“Oh, no,” Phil Bentley said, “let’s hear about the picnic.”

“Well,” the General said, “there always was one of those things every summer.”

A gentle knock on the library door cut the General’s sentence short. It was Oscar in his fawn-colored alpaca coat. He did not belong in Hallowell or on the Hallowell trolley. His presence was a jarring note and created a guilty sort of silence.

“Pardon my interrupting,” Oscar said, “but Mr. Frary wanted to know if he could speak to Mr. Skelton for a few minutes. He’s upstairs in his room.”

I had completely forgotten that Gilbert Frary was still with us.

“Go ahead, Sid,” the General said, “it’s all right, I can get along.”

“Well, I hate not to hear this,” I began, “but I imagine Mr. Frary’s going to town.”

“Come back when you’re finished,” Phil Bentley said. “Now what about the picnic, sir?”

“Well,” the General said, “there was a lake and a pine grove on the trolley line about five miles outside of Nashua, called Rodney’s Grove. It was owned by the trolley company, I guess. There were a few rowboats and some swings and tables and benches.…”

Then as I closed the library door behind me, I heard him say, “But none of this has any real bearing on anything.”

When I saw Helen in the upstairs hall, she was carrying a pad of paper and a pencil, which indicated that she was on her way to the kitchen to plan meals and her intent look showed that she was dealing with some complicated problem.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

When I told her that Gilbert Frary had sent for me, she nodded toward the door of our dressing room.

“Come in here for a minute first,” she said, “and tell me what we’re going to do for the rest of the day.”

I followed her, not with any great alacrity, because I never could seem to see domestic problems through Helen’s eyes.

“I woke up this morning,” she said when she closed the door, “to realize we’re running a sort of hotel. At least, I know now how people must feel who take in paying guests at a dude ranch or somewhere. Everyone is so—so extraneous.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “The only difference is, ours aren’t paying.”

“Well, don’t be so aloof from it,” Helen said. “You asked them here.”

“You know I had to ask them here or at least I thought I did,” I told her.

We were speaking fixed lines, going through a routine of dialogue that other husbands and other wives had spoken a million times before, and neither of us, if we had tried, could have avoided a single line.

“I wish you weren’t always so indefinite, dear,” Helen said. “You mean Gilbert Frary made you ask them?… Oh, Gilbert and his publicity!”

“Well, maybe he did partly,” I said, “but I don’t see how I could be more definite.”

“You could have put your foot down,” Helen said.

“I didn’t want to put my foot down,” I told her. “There was nothing to put it on—that is, nothing in particular.”

“Well, I don’t mind especially,” Helen said, “and I know this is the first time you’ve ever had your friends here, except they’re not strictly your friends.”

“That isn’t exactly so,” I told her. “Mel Goodwin’s a sort of a friend of mine.”

“I know,” Helen said. “General Goodwin’s awfully sweet. He couldn’t be sweeter.”

“What’s that?” I asked her.

“He couldn’t be sweeter,” Helen said again. “Gilbert is in his room using the telephone so I can’t use it, and Mrs. Goodwin is in the living room crocheting a washcloth.”

“Is she really crocheting a washcloth?” I asked.

“She’s making a whole set of them,” Helen said. “She finished one last night after dinner, and now she’s on another. How long do you think this is going to last?”

“I don’t exactly know,” I said, “but it won’t be so long.”

“I can’t seem to make any plans,” Helen said. “Please try to say something definite, Sid. Will they be here for another day, or for two days and two nights? How far is the General in his life?”

“When I left him he was just fifteen,” I said. “He was taking Muriel to a Sunday school picnic. They were high school sweethearts.”

“Do you mean to say,” Helen asked, “that after all this he’s only fifteen?”

I could think of the General unrolling himself like a film against a fixed time limit.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “at the rate he’s going, he’ll be much older by evening. Who knows—he may be twenty-five or thirty.”

“All right,” Helen said, “how old is he now?”

“He’s fifteen—I told you.”

“No, no,” Helen said. “I mean how old is he really?”

“Oh,” I said, “somewhere around fifty.”

“And you mean he’ll only be twenty-five or thirty by evening?” Helen said. “Sidney, can’t we get this straight?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t know how we can. It’s going to take him time to get older.”

“Well, if he only gets to be thirty by evening,” Helen said, “perhaps he’ll only be forty tomorrow. Darling, what am I going to do with Mrs. Goodwin until he gets to be fifty?”

“Listen, Helen,” I said, and I really wanted to be helpful, “the best thing to do is to relax—and besides, just remember that everyone’s busy.”

“Mrs. Goodwin isn’t busy,” Helen said.

“Well, take her for a drive,” I said, “take her to do the marketing. She’d be interested in that.”

“Williams is driving Gilbert back to town in the Cadillac,” Helen said.

Somehow most of our recent conversations ended with the problem of transportation.

“Well, take her in the station wagon,” I answered.

“Miss Otts will need the station wagon later to bring Camilla home from school,” Helen said.

“Well, all right,” I said, “there’s still the Packard runabout.”

“That’s true,” Helen said, “I’d forgotten about the Packard.”

We looked at each other for a moment and then we both began to laugh.

“Darling,” Helen said, “we do have a good time, don’t we?”

“Yes,” I said, “always, Mrs. Winlock.”

Somehow the whole situation was eased simply because Helen had forgotten about the Packard.

At intervals during the last few weeks Gilbert Frary had been suggesting that he and I should get away somewhere and have a good long talk, or, as he liked to call it, “an exchange of ideas.” He had been vague, I remembered, when I had asked him what sort of ideas he wanted to exchange. He had said they were not ideas, essentially, but merely a few thoughts that he had been storing in the back of his mind, none of which had any immediacy. He did not mean that we were to hold a conference. All he wanted was to think aloud with me along a few lines, to get my frank reaction to a few thoughts that were still nebulous. He could not tell me what these thoughts were until he thought them aloud with me.

I wondered again where these thoughts might lead as I made my way to Gilbert’s room. As he liked to say himself, he was a very clever negotiator, and at the end of a long talk, if you were not careful, you were apt to find that you had been moved through unexpected mazes, like a ball in one of those glass-covered puzzles, until you found yourself in some unanticipated position. It was necessary not only to follow the eloquent, even flow of Gilbert’s words but to search for implications, without being confused by the clichés of the moment with which Gilbert always adorned his comments. With some people perhaps he was devious, but not with me, he always said. With me it was like talking to his own brother Cedric, except that my mind was more incisive than Cedric’s and utterly devoid of ambiguity. He sometimes thought, just between us both, that his brother Cedric, whom he had set up personally in the producing business, was lacking in a species of integrity, and I always had integrity, and there was nothing that he valued more than integrity. He and I could talk without make-believe because we were devoted to each other and devoted to the same objective. There was nothing he enjoyed more than sitting with me and having a good exchange of ideas. I was relieved by Helen’s news that Gilbert wished to return to town in the Cadillac during the morning, since this would mean that the thought exchange would not be as complicated as it might have been otherwise.

The jump from the mind of Melville Goodwin to the mind of Gilbert Frary was as long as a passage by plane across an ocean. It was like moving from a temperate to a tropic zone, and it was no help, as I was preparing for the meeting, to encounter Farouche bounding toward me on the green carpet of the upstairs hallway. His smoke-gray coat was unsnarled and magnificent, and a bright new bow gathered the fur together on the top of his cranium. His dark eyes were limpid and thoughtful, and when he saw I was not interested in his ring, he accepted my reaction in a gentlemanly way and stood quietly beside me as I knocked on Gilbert’s door. Inside I could hear Gilbert shut off his portable radio.

“Come in, come in,” he called, and when Farouche and I entered he smiled at us. “Oh, excuse me, Sidney,” he said, and he rose hastily from an easy chair. “I didn’t know it was you. I thought it was Oscar. That makes a very pretty entrance, you and the poodle. It makes me want to pinch myself to be sure that I’m awake.”

“He often makes me want to pinch myself, too,” I said. “Did you have a good night, Gilbert?”

“A very restful night as always, in your home, Sidney,” he answered, “though frankly I am not a country person and I miss the street noises—but I took half a grain of Luminal, not that I believe in sedatives, and then I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, until I was awakened by the sunlight on these delightful chintzes. It’s an adventure, waking up in a strange and lovely room. All of this seems such a part of you and Helen, Sidney, that I cannot help but love it.”

Except for his coat, Gilbert was fully dressed, but he still wore his silk dressing gown. His pigskin fitted suitcase on its stand by the foot of his bed, though open, was already packed. He only had to remove the dressing gown and fold it, put on his pin-striped coat, leave a bill on the bedside table, and there would be no trace of him left in the guest room except for the odor of his shaving and hair lotions.

“Why do you have to go to town?” I asked.

“I wish I might stay longer,” Gilbert said. “There is nothing I would like better than to sit here all day dreaming dreams as I have this morning. I’ve been lounging in this easy chair since eight o’clock, toying with my breakfast, mulling over the papers and turning the radio dial. Have we time to sit down for a moment? I don’t have to leave for another half hour, and we haven’t had a talk for a long while. No, you sit in the comfortable chair.”

“No, you sit in it,” I told him. “This house is full of comfortable chairs,” and I pulled a chintz chair closer to his. “What have you been dreaming about, Gilbert?”

Gilbert sighed and sat down in his armchair again and placed the tips of his long fingers together.

“Frankly,” he said, “I’ve been dreaming a little about you, Sidney, not actively, just letting my mind run vaguely.”

“I hope they were sweet dreams, Gilbert,” I said.

Gilbert smiled at me affectionately.

“That dry humor of yours always pulls me together, Sidney,” he said. “Frankly, without the least ambiguity, it makes me very happy to think that you and I are both here and both in a position where we can love people without being relentless. Come here, you smart doggie.” He snapped his fingers playfully at Farouche. “Does it want to play with its ring?”

Farouche moved toward him in a dignified, impersonal manner. I liked to think that Farouche was somewhat bored and that he preferred me to Gilbert, though I could not be sure of this—but I also liked to think that Farouche, along with Gilbert and me, knew where his bread was buttered.

“All right,” I said, “what were you dreaming about, Gilbert?”

“Nothing definite,” Gilbert said, “but frankly I was dreaming somewhat about the program and a stray remark that George Burtheimer passed the other day and about a slight reservation of George’s, not adult, just a stray remark. George is whimsical sometimes.”

Gilbert shook his head and smiled at his memory of the whimsey, but I felt a slight uneasiness. There was obviously something definite on Gilbert’s mind which he knew I would not like and which he desired to present to me in a sugar-coated way.

“Go ahead, Gilbert,” I said. “What is it about the program?”

I felt the gentle impact of something being dropped on the toe of my shoe. It was Farouche’s rubber ring, and I gave the ring a kick and Farouche bounded after it, and Gilbert laughed.

“Oh, oh,” Gilbert said, “you might think it was a rat or something. I wish I might have a dog, but they hardly fit at the St. Regis, although I do encounter them occasionally in the elevators.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “What’s the matter with the program?”

“Now, Sidney,” Gilbert said, “if I have disturbed you, please forgive me. It’s only a whimsical idea of George’s. You and I know there’s nothing the matter with the program, and I told George, quite caustically, to look at the rating—but you know a sponsor’s line of thought, and the little restivenesses they sometimes have when they sign the checks for a million-dollar appropriation.”

I found myself dropping automatically into Gilbert’s own vernacular.

“And if they have, so what?” I said.

“It’s just a little matter,” Gilbert said, “but I have been dreaming over it for several days, and this morning at nine I checked myself by turning on ‘Alan Featherbee and the News,’ because George has been mentioning him a little wistfully lately. There may be something in the voice that has escaped me up to now, not that it compares with yours for an instant, Sidney, but frankly I was impressed by Alan.”

One of the reasons I have always hated show business is the jealousy that it engenders; and now, when Gilbert mentioned another commentator named Alan Featherbee, I actually felt a sharp, half-hysterical twinge of anxiety. Subtly, indirectly, this unknown Featherbee was rising as a threat to my existence, merely because he had been noticed by my sponsor and because he had attracted Gilbert’s attention. It did no good to tell myself that morning commentators, especially nine-o’clock ones, were worth nobody’s attention. I still knew that Gilbert would not have mentioned Featherbee without a definite purpose. I was sure of it when I noticed Gilbert’s hard and studious look. He was mentally comparing me with this Mr. Featherbee, weighing us in his mind as competing pieces of property.

“Well …” I said, “what the hell about him?”

Gilbert laughed in a merry, controlled way, as though we had been telling each other droll stories.

“Oh, oh,” he said, “Sidney, don’t tell me you’re acting like a prima donna.”

“Well, what the hell about him?” I asked again.

“Absolutely nothing about him,” Gilbert answered, “and please believe I’m being candid. He has no future, no build-up possibilities at all, and no color or stature, as I explained to George very definitely and unambiguously. Yet he does do one thing which is conceivably interesting, and that was all that George was speaking about.”

“What does he do,” I asked, “bird calls?”

“Sidney,” Gilbert said, “please understand me and please forgive me, without showing pique or employing persiflage.”

“God damn it,” I said, “let’s get on with the situation, Gilbert!”

Gilbert made an eloquent soothing gesture with both hands.

“There is but no situation,” he said, “or only the merest touch of a situation. George is merely wondering about the high price of the program, the same old conventional complaint.”

“Well, the customers listen to it, don’t they?” I asked.

“Of course they listen to it,” Gilbert said, and his voice had a wounded note, “but do they buy the product after listening? That’s what seems to be worrying George, and he has simply advanced an idea, very tentatively, and humbly.”

“My God,” I said, “are you and he going to start monkeying with the program again?”

Gilbert moved his hands upward this time, in a comical manner, as though warding off an unexpected blow, and then he pulled his flowered dressing gown into place.

“Sidney,” he said, “I know you know me well enough to be sure I’ll never let you down, with loyalty the keystone of our relationship. I am with you in the final decision, Sidney, but I honestly think we should entertain a sponsor’s suggestion. I was speaking of it to Art Hertz yesterday, and Art thinks we should entertain it.”

He intended his remark to be deliberately disturbing: he should not have spoken to the script-writer about the program before discussing it with me. I was almost sure that his speech contained a hint that I was not wholly indispensable, and I found myself speaking more carefully.

“All right,” I said, “what is it you want me to entertain?”

“Well,” Gilbert said, and his words also were more measured, “it falls into the commercial category. It is no reflection on your work. Everyone is immensely happy with your work. George himself was speaking of your mail only yesterday, but there is frankly a little feeling in the sponsor’s office that not quite enough emphasis is being placed upon the commercial side of the program.”

“God damn it,” I said, “we’ve been through all that before. If they had their way they’d put the whole fifteen minutes into advertising.”

“Sidney,” Gilbert said, “I love it when you speak your mind, but after all, we live by the program, Sidney. We live by it, and so does the doggie here. What is your name, Doggie?” and Gilbert snapped his fingers. “You know that I love everything about you, Sidney—you and Helen and Camilla and your intemperateness. They don’t want more commercial time, Sidney. George has merely advanced a little thought, and I promised that you would consider it. It is suggested that you should speak the commercials yourself, weaving them in with the news, as Alan Featherbee does.”

“My God,” I began—“wait a minute, Gilbert!”—but Gilbert interrupted me, speaking very quickly.

“Now, Sidney,” Gilbert said, “you and I possess exactly the same variety of integrity. It shocked my integrity just as it does yours when I first faced it. In fact, I was almost rude to George; but as you consider the suggestion, Sidney, in an unbiased way, it is not so bad, basically. Please give me just a moment. I’ve made a few notes … oh, here they are.” Gilbert picked up a piece of paper from the breakfast tray. “You see, Alan Featherbee does this commercial thing and he does it very adroitly with a real ring of conviction. Will you please, Sidney, not assume a nauseated look until I have finished? These notes are merely a little dream, not in your words but merely in mine. But just suppose you were to open this way.…”

Gilbert cleared his throat, drew a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles from his waistcoat pocket even more ponderously heavy than those of Philip Bentley, and began to read:

“Good evening, everybody. The news is very important and very critical tonight, but first, before I give it to you, let me tell you a little personal adventure of mine that was news to me. Sitting in my Connecticut home this evening, I was faced with a plate of onion soup. Its very aroma reminded me of the restaurant near the Rue de la Paix where I love to dine when I am gathering news in Paris. Its taste conjured up the vision of old Pierre, the chef, whom I had congratulated on his onion soup when I was last in Paris at the time of the breakup of the cabinet. Its stock had that same full-bodied, that same invigorating authority.…”

Gilbert took off his glasses and put them back in his pocket and waved the sheet of paper in an expansive fanlike motion.

“That’s my dream, Sidney,” he said, “a commercial with news action in it. It needs hours of careful thought, but you understand it, don’t you?”

I could understand it and I sat for a moment without speaking. At least I was considering it. I was considering roughly what I had lived for and what everything had meant and when it was time to start and when it was time to stop.

“How serious are you about that, Gilbert?” I asked.

“Why, not serious at all,” Gilbert said. “I was merely advancing the idea.”

“Well,” I said, “why don’t you get Alan Featherbee to do it?”

“Now, Sid,” Gilbert said, “don’t take it that way. It was merely a suggestion—but there is Clause 28 in the contract.”

“What the hell is Clause 28?” I asked.

“George considers it an escape clause,” Gilbert said, “though frankly I consider this legally debatable.”

“Well,” I said, “then why do you bring it up, Gilbert?”

Savin Hill and my present situation had never seemed so ephemeral. I could imagine the house and everything being carted away in box cars as I sat there contemplating Gilbert Frary. He was like a magician holding an object in his hand. It had been there for one instant and now it had completely vanished and you could not be sure whether it had ever really been there. I had felt that Gilbert Frary and I had been about to reach the cleavage point that we probably would reach someday, but now magically there was no cleavage point and no tension between us. It was all very confusing, but then, Gilbert always loved confusion.

“Sidney,” he said, “I have brought up absolutely nothing.”

There had been something and now there was nothing. Gilbert looked hurt and reproachful, and I even had a feeling of remorse. I realized again that he was fond of me in a certain way.

“Gilbert,” I said, “I don’t understand all this.”

“Sidney,” Gilbert said, “I have to say something very humbly. I have been very devious with my very best friend. Forgive me, please forgive me, Sidney.”

It was still hard for me to tell exactly where we were, and I could never be as good as Gilbert at playing out a scene.

“I don’t see that there’s anything to forgive,” I said.

There were tears in Gilbert’s eyes and Gilbert cleared his throat, and I had a sickening dread that Gilbert was going to cry.

“Sidney,” he said, “I should have known before I started what your reaction would be. I should have known that this was a suggestion that could have never stood before integrity. Forgive me and let’s forget it, Sidney.”

“All right,” I said, “let’s forget it, Gilbert.”

“The cheapness of it …” Gilbert said. “I feel indignant about it myself. When I get to the office I shall call up George and tell him so personally. I’m completely with you, Sidney.”

“Well, that’s fine,” I said.

“Sidney,” Gilbert said, “I won’t be devious again.”

“That’s all right,” I said, “you can’t help it, Gilbert.”

“I always feel better when we’ve had a talk,” Gilbert said, “and you do forgive my crudeness, Sidney?”

“Don’t ever worry about being crude, Gilbert,” I told him.

“When you and I are together,” Gilbert said, “I have no sense of time. It’s actually a quarter before eleven. I must be leaving, Sidney, and please let me steal downstairs—without fanfare—and give my love and thanks to Helen, and I’ll be in touch with you later in the day.”

Gilbert whipped off his silk dressing gown and snatched up his pin-striped coat.

“No, no,” he said, “I’ll fold the dressing gown. Isn’t it a nice piece of silk? I’ll have one like it made up for you if you think Helen would appreciate it. By the way, how is everything going with the General?”

“They’re working on him downstairs. I suppose I’d better go back,” I said.

“Well, don’t waste too much time,” Gilbert said, “although it is nice to keep in well with the magazines. I think we ought to go to the Coast next month, but we can chat about it later—and, Sidney—”

“Yes?” I said.

He held out his hand and we shook hands.

“Don’t worry about Clause 28. There’s absolutely nothing in it. George only mentioned it playfully.”

“I’m not worried about it as long as you’re not,” I said.

“And you feel happy about everything?”

“Yes,” I said, “absolutely happy.”

Gilbert snapped his suitcase shut and picked it up before I could reach it.

“Oh,” he said, “I nearly forgot. Here’s a little something for Oscar,” and he dropped a five-dollar bill upon the bedside table.

I felt weary when I stood outside the house watching the Cadillac leave with Gilbert for the city, though our talk had been no more disturbing than other talks with Gilbert. I was a valuable piece of property and in a sense a negotiable security, and a contretemps like this was all a part of the climate in which I lived.

When he was gone I remembered Melville A. Goodwin in the library, but returning to him seemed to involve a considerable effort, including the process of getting rid of Gilbert Frary mentally, now that he was gone physically, and to manage this I needed a few minutes to myself. It was this need that made me wander into the living room. I had forgotten that Mrs. Goodwin might be there, and I had already walked past her when I heard her voice behind me.

“Good morning, Mr. Skelton,” she said.

She was sitting on the corner of the long sofa crocheting a washcloth, just as Helen had said. She was wearing her useful traveling suit minus the orchids. Her soft, plump hands moved deftly and noiselessly.

“Oh,” I said, “good morning, Mrs. Goodwin. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t see you.”

“Were you looking for something?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “I was just walking around.”

“Perhaps you are thinking of something to write about,” she said.

“No,” I said, “I was just seeing Mr. Frary off and then I was walking around. The General is in the library.”

“How is everything going?” she asked. “I hope the General isn’t saying things he shouldn’t.”

“Oh, no,” I said, “everything’s going very well,” and then I sat beside her on the sofa. “He was telling us how you handed him a bayonet, when the militia took his father’s Ford.”

“Oh,” she said, “that was a silly thing for him to tell.”

She frowned, but her needles still moved steadily. Her hair was blue-gray now, no longer the color of pulled molasses candy.

“I don’t see why Mel should have remembered that,” she said. “Mel and I haven’t spoken about it for years. He always had a stubborn streak, and I was afraid the man was going to strike him, and then I saw that thing lying on top of a pile of knapsacks. Our son Robert has that same stubborn streak. When he was fifteen he looked very much as Mel did.”

“How did he look?” I asked.

“Oh, like any towheaded boy of fifteen,” she said. “He’s taller than Mel and he has his father’s features, but he has my eyes. He’s stubborn but I’m afraid he hasn’t his father’s character. The General has a strong character and he’s difficult when he’s restless. It’s queer he should think of that afternoon at Blair. Of course we never told about the trouble when we got home. That was Mel’s and my secret.” She looked at me and smiled. “I was glad to have some sort of secret with him.”