Six

And so there were to be eight of them for dinner that night: himself, his mother and father, Aunt Reba and her playwright, Edrita, Titi, and Austin Callender. And it was going to be a little awkward, his mother said as she stood in the dining-room surveying the arrangement of tiny, silver-framed place cards on the table, because it was five men and only three women. But perhaps it would be all right, she said, if you counted Titi as a lady. After all, he could be either-or.

The guests started coming at half past seven and the first to arrive, not surprisingly, was Austin Callender, right on the clock stroke, anxious to impress his future parents-in-law with his punctuality.

“Austin, my angel!” Hugh’s mother cried as she hurried towards him and kissed him first on one cheek, then on the other. She was in a pink velvet dinner dress with a chinchilla collar and deep chinchilla cuffs and, at her throat and wrists, large pink crystal beads that rattled as she moved. Watching her to-night, Hugh decided it was a good thing that he had not seen her during the day; it had spared them both the need for mentioning the scene in her room the night before. And now, with the chinchilla and the beads, she was wearing her best party manner.

“Good evening, ma’am,” Austin Callender said. “Hope I’m not late.”

“But you’re right on time, Austin!” she said.

“Good evening, sir,” he said to Hugh’s father, shaking hands.

“Good to see you again, sir.”

“And this is our Hugh, Austin,” his mother said. “Hugh, this is Austin Callender.”

“How do you do, Hugh?” Austin said. “Gosh, but it’s good to meet you.” They shook hands energetically. Austin was a good-looking boy, tall and slender, with a straight-nosed, earnest face and blue eyes.

“Good to meet you, Austin,” Hugh said.

“Well, gosh, but it’s good to meet you, Hugh,” Austin said again. “I mean Pryor’s told me all about you. Pryor talks about you a lot, and it’s good to finally meet you, Hugh.”

“Oh, do you call her Pryor?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” Austin said. “Don’t you?”

“Well, I guess we’ve always called her Pansy. It’s just a silly nickname.”

“Oh, yes,” Austin said, “Pryor’s mentioned that—how the family always calls her Pansy. She’s told me all about the family. I feel I know the whole family very well.”

“Well, don’t let them throw you,” Hugh said.

“Oh, they don’t throw me, Hugh,” Austin said, looking embarrassed. “They don’t throw me at all.” Then, eager to change the conversation, he turned to Hugh’s mother and said, “Say, Mrs. Carey, you’ve done this room over, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Do you like it, Austin? Please be brutally frank with me, Austin. Be dreadfully candid.”

“Gosh, but I like it, Mrs. Carey,” he said.

“Oh, do you? Oh, I’m so relieved, Austin!”

“Yes, I really do.”

“Pappy!” his mother cried. “Cocktails, Pappy! Cocktails for us all, darling. Hurry!”

The next to arrive were his Aunt Reba and her playwright, whose name turned out to be Tom McGinnis. Though he had been described as young, he did not really look young. His hair was thin on top and greying at the temples, and the tuxedo that encased his thin, spare frame looked as if it had been cut for some different, somewhat heavier person. Still, he was at least ten years younger than Reba, who, by contrast, was wearing one of her most extreme dresses—of gold lamé, cut deep in the back, and on her head was a turban, twisted of the same gold fabric, that towered above her like a Grecian warrior’s helmet and that made her easily the tallest figure in the room. “We came up from New York by coach,” she was saying to her sister, “because Tom’s frantically poor and can’t afford a car. In fact, he doesn’t even know how to drive one, darling.”

“Oh, I know how to drive a car,” McGinnis said.

“And just as we were getting to the station here in town, Tom said in this marvellous loud voice that simply everybody could hear, ‘What a perfect place for a derailment.’ It spread absolute panic through the whole car! Isn’t Tom marvellous? He’s one of the most exciting new voices in the modern theatre, aren’t you, Tom?”

“I’m enchanted to meet you,” Hugh’s mother said.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Carey.”

“You’ve got to call her Sandy,” Reba said. “Everyone must call her Sandy. I’m her baby sister and I ought to know. Don’t you think we look alike?” She stood beside Hugh’s mother. “Can you see the resemblance? We were always being mistaken for twins, weren’t we, Sandy? They used to call us the Chinless Charmers.”

“I can see the resemblance,” Tom said.

“Sandy,” Reba said, “get Tom a drink. The poor devil’s tongue has been hanging out ever since we left Grand Central.”

“Pappy!” Hugh’s mother called.

There was, between the two women, certainly a strong resemblance. But an interesting thing that Hugh had always noticed was that Reba, in a number of ways, copied his mother. Of the two, his mother had always been the dominant one in any decisions, and Reba had been the follower. Reba’s manner was distinctly based on her sister’s and, for some reason, with Reba it had never been quite as successful. There was always something about Reba’s that rang queerly a little false. And, Hugh supposed, it was because if, for some reason, you wished to consider his mother the genuine article, Reba was only an imitation.

He was shaking hands with Tom McGinnis now, and McGinnis suddenly seemed to have nothing at all to say.

“Titi!” he heard his mother’s voice cry out. “Oh, here you are, my little rabbit, my little bird!”

And Hugh had his first sight of Titi, who was very dark, very diminutive, very young—no more than twenty-five certainly—and very shiny in a black velvet tuxedo, which was so astonishingly tailored that it clung to him like adhesive. He bowed low and grandly and kissed Alexandra Carey’s hand.

“My darling girl,” Titi said.

“My true, true love,” said Alexandra Carey.

And now Hugh saw Edrita coming into the room, looking very pretty in a simple black cocktail dress.

“Edrita, darling,” he heard his mother say, “how wonderful you look. And your hair—it looks lovely, and so clean.”

Hugh made his way across the room to her.

“Hallo,” he said.

“Hallo, Hugh.”

“All the menagerie is here,” he said.

She smiled. “So I see,” she said.

“I’m glad you came.”

She nodded. “Who’s that young man?” she asked him.

“That’s Austin Callender. Pansy’s engaged to him.”

“Pansy’s engaged?”

“Yes.”

“He looks scared, doesn’t he?” she said. “He looks terrified. Poor guy. He’s wondering what he’s got into. He looks nice.”

“He looks about sixteen,” Hugh said.

The cocktails continued, in great profusion under his mother’s customary direction, for about an hour. Titi had discovered Tom McGinnis and, in two chairs in the corner of the room, they were talking—at least Titi was—with great enthusiasm about the theatre. Titi had a cigarette perched between his fingers which he shook rapidly back and forth as he made his points, and McGinnis did seem to be interested. “Of course I think Gadge Kazan is the greatest director in the world,” Titi was saying. “Oh, of course, he’s slick and of course he’s facile, but he is truly great, truly great. As I was saying to Gadge—”

“Oh, do you know Gadge?” McGinnis asked.

“Oh, of course I know Gadge,” Titi said. And then, “Of course one of my greatest dreams, a really holy dream of mine, Tom, is to do some designing some day for the theatre—stage design. Really, it’s a kind of grail I have, a perfectly shining thing that simply burns inside me and that must get out some day, because I have this desire, this burning desire that simply must be expressed—it eats my insides like a kind of cancer, like a kind of—”

Austin Callender came up to Hugh now and said, “Gosh, Hugh, I really feel I know you already. After all Pryor’s told me. She admires you a lot. Hugh,” he said earnestly, “I just want to tell you—I don’t quite know how to tell you—how much I love Pryor.”

“Do you, Austin?” Hugh asked.

“Oh, yes,” Austin said, nodding vigorously. “Oh, yes. You know, Hugh, she’s different from any girl I’ve ever met. She’s so—she’s so dainty, and so sweet, and—well, as you can probably imagine I’ve known a lot of different girls,” and he lowered his eyelids modestly. “But Pryor’s different from any of them. She’s got this sweet and tender quality about her that’s rare in a girl, don’t you think, and so unusual? And it’s funny—and maybe you’ll find this hard to believe, Hugh—but the first time I met her, the first time I saw her, I knew, Hugh, that this was it. That this was the real thing. That this was the most important moment of my entire life. And it was the kind of love—love at first sight—that I’d always read about and, Hugh, you may find this hard to believe, but it was such a pure feeling that I had, such a deep thing that—well, what I’m trying to say is that sex didn’t even enter into it, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, Austin,” he said.

Austin’s face reddened. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, Hugh. I mean, I think that sex has its place in a marriage. But what I mean is that this feeling I have towards Pryor is such a different sort of thing. It’s sort of everything, I mean. I mean it’s both things, all things. I’m not expressing it very well.”

“I know what you mean,” Hugh said.

“Well, what I really mean is—well, I suppose with all the other girls the main thing on my mind had been—well, sex. But this was different.”

“I understand.”

“I mean, you don’t mind me talking this way, do you? I mean, we can sort of talk this way, can’t we—man to man?”

“Of course we can,” Hugh said. “I’m glad you love her, Austin.”

“Oh, I love her so much—” he began, and then broke off, afraid perhaps that what he had been going to say would sound foolish. “I mean she’s such a sweet girl that what I really want to do with her is put her way up on a pillar somewhere. Oh, I’ll take awfully good care of Pryor, Hugh, I really will. I’ve got a good job and I have a fair-sized private income too. I’ll take good care of your sister, Hugh, I can promise you that.”

“I’m sure you will, Austin,” Hugh said. “And I’m very happy. I think you’re a fine fellow and I congratulate you both.” He shook Austin’s hand again.

“Thanks, Hugh,” Austin said, his eyes looking so misty and grateful that it seemed touch and go whether or not he might cry. “Gosh, I do thank you,” he said.

“Get yourself another drink,” Hugh said.

“And I think,” Austin went on, “well, I think that Pryor’s got the most wonderful family in the world.”

“Thanks, Austin.”

“I don’t know a god-damned thing about the theatre,” he heard his father saying.

Hugh was standing next to Edrita now, and she was twirling the ice cube in her highball glass with the curved tip of her finger. “I’ve got to watch myself or I’m going to get tight,” she said. “This is my third. Your mother’s such a forceful hostess.”

“I know,” he said. “Watch out for Sandy.”

“I wonder why she does it?”

“God knows,” he said. “Did you meet Titi?”

“Isn’t he incredible?” she said. “I really can’t quite believe he’s real.”

“He’s not real,” he said. “I got a good look at him and he’s made out of plastic.”

“How does he get in and out of those pants, I wonder?” she said. “I think they must have little zippers running down the inside of the legs.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he’s pretty good at getting in and out of his pants,” he said.

“Not for me he wouldn’t do it,” she said.

“No, I’m afraid not,” he said. “Poor Reba—she’s been trying to get to talk to Titi all evening and he’ll have nothing to do with her.”

“Do you know something?” she said in a quiet voice, looking down at her glass and twirling the ice cube slowly with her finger. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’ve had two drinks and so I’m going to. Do you know the only thing that bothers me about my husband, about Bob?”

“No, what is it?” he asked her.

“This is going to sound awfully silly when I say it,” she said.

“Say it.”

“Well, do you—or rather did you, when you were working in New York—did you ever take your lunch to work in a paper bag?”

He laughed. “No,” he said. “Never.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said thoughtfully. “I didn’t think you ever would. You’d eat in a restaurant, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, or have something sent in if I was busy.”

“Yes,” she said, “I thought that was what most New York business men did.”

“What does Bob do?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” she said. “He takes his lunch to work in a paper bag. I mean he only does it because he has to. There are no restaurants anywhere near the plant, and the plant doesn’t have any cafeteria. So he has to, really. Everybody who works there does. His father always did it and so did his grandfather before that.”

“Well, what’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, really, I guess. Before we had a maid I used to have to pack Bob’s lunch, and now the maid usually does it. But still there’s something about it, something about seeing him go off to work, walking down the front walk to the car with his paper bag of sandwiches that makes me—I don’t know—I guess it makes me wish I hadn’t married a man who has to take his lunch in a paper bag.”

“You called me stuffy yesterday,” he said, smiling. “Now you’re sounding a little bit stuffy.”

“I know it’s silly. I told you it would sound silly. And maybe it is stuffy. I probably shouldn’t have told you. It probably sounds disloyal. And there’s the other thing, about his shirts.”

“What about his shirts?”

“Bob always goes to work in his shirt-sleeves. It’s sort of a tradition of his family’s, the men have always done it in his family. It’s supposed—I guess it’s supposed to make the workers at the plant feel that their boss is, you know, sort of one of them, working right along with them. Of course it has to be a white shirt that Bob wears. That’s supposed to be the big distinction, you see, between him and them. They, the others, all wear blue shirts or any old shirts. But the bosses, Bob and his brother, always wear white shirts, open at the collar—no ties. Clean white shirts. God help me if there ever wasn’t a clean white shirt in his drawer some morning! And, I don’t know, there’s just something about it all that looks so odd.”

“Looks odd to whom?”

“To me,” she said. “Just to me. It’s funny, and I know it sounds silly and sounds as if I’m a snob, but you see I’ve learned to take the other things. I’ve learned to take Chicago, and the way we live, and the kind of friends we have to have—the company friends—and the kind of parties we have to give. I’ve learned to take all that, and so it seems funny that these little things would bother me—his having to wear the clean white shirts, and having the maid pack a lunch for him every morning.”

“I hope she always packs it with a pickle,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, smiling grimly and taking a swallow of her drink. “We always pack a pickle.”

Dinner was being announced now, and Alexandra Carey was herding her guests into the dining-room.

“This is quite a house,” Tom McGinnis was saying to her.

“Oh, do you like it?” she asked. “Please be utterly honest.”

He looked around the room appraisingly. “Well, it’s kind of like a museum, isn’t it?” he said. “And you’re kind of a museum piece yourself.”

Hugh looked quickly at his mother to see how she was going to take this. You never could tell, when something was said like this, how she would react.

“I think you’re very rude,” she said.

“I wasn’t trying to be rude,” he said. “Just utterly honest.”

“Reba, dear,” his mother said, “you told me that this was a terribly exciting new voice in the modern theatre, didn’t you? I’m interested. Just where, in which theatres, has this exciting new voice been heard?”

“I’ve never been produced,” McGinnis said with a smile, and, Hugh thought, you had to hand it to him for saying that.

“I rather thought not,” she said. “You don’t look produced.”

“Don’t mind Sandy, Tommy,” Reba said quickly. “She’s just trying to be amusing, darling.”

“She is amusing.”

And they went in to dinner.

As a little gleeful touch of malice—or perhaps it was just an accident—Hugh discovered that his mother had seated him beside Titi at the dinner table. And, as Pappy began to serve the dinner, Titi leaned towards Hugh and whispered to him, “Isn’t Pappy the most marvellous name for a butler?”

“His name is Palpal-Latoc,” Hugh said. “Pappy is just a nickname.

“And I’ll bet anything that she thought it up for him!” Titi said.

“Yes, I guess she did.”

“She’s delicious, isn’t she? I adore your mother.”

“I like her,” Hugh said.

“She has the most exquisite taste,” Titi said. “Do you like what she and I have done to the drawing-room?”

“I think it’s—just splendid.”

“Oh, I’m so glad,” Titi said. “I’m so happy you like it. She was very concerned, you know, while we were doing it—worried whether you’d like it or not. I’m so glad you do.”

“I like it,” he said. “Especially the pearls on Venus.”

“Oh!” he said. “Do you like that little touch? Oh, I’m just tickled to death you like that. I think it makes the whole house.”

“I think that was your master stroke,” he said.

“Oh, goodness, it wasn’t mine,” Titi said. “No-no-no-no-no-no. That was her idea entirely.”

“Well, she gives you full credit for it,” Hugh said dryly.

“She’s just being sweet,” he said. “She’s just being modest and generous and sweet.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, probably.”

“What I was trying to capture,” Titi said, “what I was trying to capture in the drawing-room was the absolute essence of your mother. I was trying to convey, to get at the very core of her—of all her many interests and all the marvellous facets of her unique personality. Your mother, of course, is a woman who is terribly and vitally interested in so many different things—in books and paintings and tapestries and sculpture, and in ancient civilisations and cultures, and music, the opera and ballet, and in the problems of living, as well as in politics, economics and education and the human sciences. She’s such a well-rounded person, and I was trying to capture, to re-create, that sort of feeling in her drawing-room.”

That, Hugh thought, must certainly be ranked as one of the most inaccurate descriptions of his mother he had ever heard. But he said, “Well, you’ve done it nobly. Just nobly.”

Titi’s brown eyes lolled towards him. “I can see you have her same exquisite taste,” he said.

“Do you have any other name beside ‘Titi,’ Titi?” Hugh asked.

“It’s very long and French and hard to remember,” Titi said, and he reached in the pocket of his velvet jacket and pulled out a small black-lacquered card case. “Here’s my card,” he said, and he extracted a slim enamelled card from the case.

Hugh took the card and put it beside his plate. “Thanks,” he said.

“Call me up some time,” Titi said with a little breathless smile. “I’m almost always home.”

“Well, I wouldn’t count on it if I were you,” Hugh said.

Pappy was pouring champagne now, and his mother lifted her glass. “A toast!” she said. “A toast to the darling boy on my right, Austin Callender, who’s going to carry off my beautiful daughter to his castle. To my lucky daughter, and my lucky Austin!”

Austin reddened and smiled at his napkin. “Gosh, thanks, Mrs. Carey,” he said. “Thanks a whole lot.”

“To Pansy and Austin,” Hugh’s father said.

Hugh looked at his father. His father lifted his glass and stared at it and, as he stared, the glass tipped slightly and a little of the liquid in it spilled and ran down across his fingers. His father put the glass slowly and very carefully down on the table again and frowned at it with concentration, and Hugh realised, with a small pang of sorrow, that his father was a little drunk. But then, after so many cocktails, it was probable that everyone at the table was now a little drunk except his mother. His father was going to try to lift the champagne glass once more. Quickly Hugh took his eyes away.

“I’m a dreadfully lucky woman,” his mother was saying to everyone. “I have two wonderful and fortunate children. My wonderful Pansy and my wonderful Hugh—the two happiest and best-adjusted children in the world. I want a toast now to my precious Hugh, who’s come home successful and rich after having taken New York by storm!”

“You’re quite the professional little mother, aren’t you?” Tom McGinnis said.

Ignoring him, she went on. “Of course I take absolutely all the credit for my wonderful children. They’d be absolutely nothing if it weren’t for me. I had a theory about raising them, you see. I never believed in letting there be any silver cord.”

“Oh, you’re so lucky, darling,” Reba said.

“Edrita knows this, don’t you, Edrita darling? You practically grew up with my children, didn’t you? You were practically one of the family, weren’t you, Edrita?”

“Yes, I was,” she said.

“You’re quite a mother. I can tell that,” McGinnis said.

“I’ve never believed,” she began, “in letting there be any—” She stopped and let the sentence hang, as a look of distress, perceptible only to Hugh, passed quickly across her face and departed. “Never believed in that sort of thing,” she finished.

But he knew what she had been about to say. She had been about to repeat herself and to say again, “I’ve never believed in letting there be any silver cord.” She had finished the sentence lamely, perhaps. But at least she had not repeated herself. She was always careful to be perfect. As she talked, he knew, she continuously edited herself, always careful not to let a word or phrase appear that would not be bright or witty or amusing, in keeping with her characterisation. She was always cautious of the cliché, always conscious of her performance, and always aware of the impression she was making. She analysed the moods and faces and reactions of others, in which she saw herself somehow reflected. After all, weren’t the battlegrounds on which her poise and conversation and manner were judged some of her most crucial testing-places? After all, wasn’t she one of the charming Pryor sisters? Wasn’t this, after all, the story of her life? Hugh sipped his champagne, the toast that was to have been for him.

After dinner they went into the library for brandy and mirabelle, and Hugh heard his mother saying quietly to her sister, “Reba, for God’s sake, get rid of that dreadful man. He’s drunk and he’s boring, and I don’t want him around another minute. You may not have him here for the night. Give him a cup of coffee and send him on his way.”

They stood, with their glasses, in the library, and the mood of everyone had somehow grown heavy and hesitant and awkward. Titi had cornered Austin now and was saying to him, “I’m terribly, vitally interested in stocks and bonds. I need to buy some, you see. I have all sorts of cash just lying around in banks, and I do need advice on how to invest it from some good person like you.”

“Well,” Austin was saying soberly, “I don’t think you can do any better than I.B.M. right now, I really don’t. There’s been a split and I expect the price to jump way up in the next few weeks. So my very best advice to you would be to buy some I.B.M.”

“I.B.M.,” Titi repeated. “You see, that’s just the sort of advice I need.”

Hugh wondered if somehow he ought to rescue Austin.

Edrita came up to him again. “Are you having a good time?” she asked him.

“Yes. Are you?” he asked her.

“I’m having a lovely time,” she said, with a little smile.

“You’re such a funny girl.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” And suddenly he said, “Let’s meet to-morrow.”

“All right,” she said, and they separated.

Reba had Tom McGinnis by the arm, getting him ready to go.

“Good night, Reba darling,” his mother was saying. “I’m so sorry your dear little man has to rush off so soon.”

And, as Hugh stepped forward to say good night to McGinnis, Austin Callender came over to him and touched his sleeve. “Say, Hugh,” he whispered, his face crossed with worry. “I hate to mention this, Hugh, but I think that fellow Titi’s queer.”

And then, after all the good nights he was the last one to go up the stairs, turning off the lights from the many switches as he went.

Outside his mother’s room he stopped and stepped back into the darkness. Her door was open and, in the pink light, she and Titi were sitting on the bed, like conspirators, over her open jewel case. She was wearing the new hat. She had been modelling it for him.

“But what about the jewels with it?” she was saying. “I just can’t decide.”

Titi held up a large, glittering pin and held it next to her. “No, no, no,” he said. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.” He replaced the pin. “Pearls and sapphires, darling,” he said. “Pearls and sapphires are all you should ever wear, Sandy.”

“Do you really think so, Titi?” She reached in the case. “I have these emerald ear-rings,” she said, holding them up.

“Sandy, you must never wear emeralds,” he said.

“Really, Titi?” she said. “Oh, let’s see how they look on you, Titi,” and she reached across to him and clipped a brilliant stone to each of his ears. “Oh, they look marvellous on you, Titi!” she said.

Wearing the ear-rings, Titi said, “Sandy, I’ve got the most wonderful love-seat picked out for you for the drawing-room. Can you come down to New York to-morrow to look at it?”

“Why, of course, I’d love to, Titi,” she said.

Hugh went on down the hall to his father’s room. His father was sitting in his chair, still dressed, a glass of brandy in his hand.

“Come on in, Hugh,” his father said. “Come on in and sit down. Come on in and let’s talk.”

He came into the room. “Don’t you think you’d better turn in, Dad?” he asked him.

“No. Let’s talk. I want to talk. There’s nobody else in the whole god-damned house that I can talk to. Nobody but you.”

“All right, Dad.”

“Pour yourself some brandy. Decanter’s on the dresser there. Let’s talk, Hugh. There’s nobody else in the whole god-damned house that I can talk to any more. Nobody. Only you.”

He went to the dresser and poured himself a brandy from the decanter. But when he returned to his father’s chair, he saw that his father had fallen asleep, breathing deeply, his head across his chest, the glass still in his hand.

Hugh removed the glass. The bed had been turned down, but Hugh went to it and pulled the covers back farther. Then he crossed the room again to where his father sat, and gently said, “Come on, Dad. Come on, old trooper.” He placed his hands in his father’s armpits and lifted him—he was a heavy man and, asleep and unwilling, he was difficult to move—and, as he did, he realised that for some idiotic reason tears were running down his cheeks. “Come on, Dad,” he whispered. “Come on, Dad.”

He got him to the bed and laid him across it. Then, careful to disturb him as little as possible, he began undressing him, carrying each article, as he removed it, to the closet and hanging it neatly where it belonged. Then, when he had finished, he pulled the covers up around him, tucked them in, and went to the window and opened it a little way. He turned off the lamps, one by one.

Suddenly he realised that his mother was standing at the open door, watching him.

“Is he asleep?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

She stepped across the room towards her sleeping husband. He lay with his face buried in the crook of one arm. She stood, smiling down at him.

“He looks as if he’s praying, doesn’t he?” she said. Then she said, “‘Hush, hush, whisper who dares. Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.’”

Still smiling, she turned and went quickly out of the room.

Hugh turned off the last light. At the door, he said softly, “Good night, Dad,” to the darkness, and went out, pulling the door closed behind him.