Her Infinite Variety (6 page)

"But those things aren't jobs for a lady like you."

"What makes you so sure that I'm a lady like me?"

"Why it sticks out all over you! Not that it's hard to look at, I'll grant you that. But I'm supposing you're one of those rich society gals who's had everything tossed in her lap without even having to ask for it. And now you're bored. You're smart enough to be bored. I'll grant you that, too. So you start peering over the back yard fence to see what sort of animals are playing out there."

"Isn't that rather brave talk for one of your own privileged background, Mr. O'Connor? I seem to remember someone pointing out to me, on a weekend in East Hampton, a big vulgar villa that had once belonged to a political judge of your name."

Ah,
that
was the note! He smiled, almost sheepishly. "So you've tracked me down! Yes, that was Grandpa. But we're still not far from the Irish bogs. He came over from County Cork, aged seventeen, with two gold pieces in his pocket and put one in the plate on his first Sunday in New York. And then went on to make a fortune—let's not inquire too closely just how. He also lost it, for he was always a gambler, but not before he had erected that palace on the dunes, which you rightly describe as vulgar, and married three of his pretty daughters to Episcopalian socialites. The Hamptons back then represented the soft underbelly of the blue bloods; the Murrays and MacDonalds got their start there, too."

"So he left you nothing? Not even the other gold piece?"

"You know it's just what he
did
leave me? He had kept it as a good-luck token. I used to imagine it might have been what I brought my better scoops as a reporter on the
Morning Star.
"

"And what may bring you victory in November!"

"Well, that's a tough one. It's a Republican stronghold, you know. But who can tell? My opponent made an awful gaffe the other day, when he criticized the cardinal."

"You're a Catholic, of course."

"When I'm not being an atheist." Polly now appeared with his drink, and Clara rose. But he seemed to want to hold her. "Tell me, Mrs. Hoyt, would you really like to do some chores in my campaign headquarters?"

"Do you mean it? I'll be there tomorrow!"

***

Clara came home the next day from the O'Connor campaign headquarters on lower Madison Avenue prepared for the battle of her life. She had agreed to start work for the Democratic candidate the very next morning; she would be a part-time receptionist and part-time secretary; she had learned typing and shorthand at Vassar and was ready for any task meted out. But the Hoyts, she was beginning to learn, were not a family to be easily evaluated. She was almost disappointed at the mildness of opposition to which she now realized she had been almost looking forward.

"You know," Trevor announced, after listening to her without interruption, "it might be a great experience for you. It really might. This election is airing a lot of issues that haven't been thought out by the voters. To be in the thick of it and find out just what makes a guy like O'Connor tick could be a liberal education in itself."

"Well, I'm not planning to be a spy in the enemy's camp if that's what you mean."

"No, of course not. What an idea! Work your tail off for him. That's the game."

"Do you say that because you're so sure he'll lose?"

"I'm sure he'll lose, yes. But that's not why I say it. If I should ever get into the political arena myself, it would be a great asset to have a savvy spouse. Go to it, kid."

Which was the same note that his parents struck. They were almost proud, it seemed, to be able to point to a daughter-in-law so strikingly, so interestingly, independent. And Rory O'Connor, after all, was no wild-eyed red. He was a brilliant and able orator whose aunts were known to society. One of them was even something of a friend of Mrs. Hoyt; she had attached herself flatteringly to the wife of the great banker. And besides, he was bound to lose. He might even, like Norman Thomas, receive some right-wing protest votes from those who were weary of the long-term Republican incumbent.

If Rory himself seemed at first to have little to do with his new office worker, Clara soon discovered he still had an eye on her, for one day he brought his midday sandwich over to eat it at her desk and congratulate her on her good work.

"I didn't know you were even aware I was here," she observed.

"I wanted to be sure you were serious."

"And not just 'a girl like me'?"

"Can you blame me? We've had our share of kooky volunteers from the Social Register. How would you like to take some of my dictation?"

"For speeches? Of course, I'd love it!"

"And I'll want your comments and suggestions, too."

"You mean I'm to be a speechwriter?"

"Not quite. But you can tell your friends that."

"You mean I can tell my father-in-law?"

"You read my mind."

After that they were thoroughly congenial. Clara sometimes now took her own sandwich to his office, and they would eat together. She
did
offer him some suggestions for his speeches, but only because he had asked for them. She knew he didn't really want them. She knew perfectly what the source of his attraction was. And he was still, at thirty-three, a bachelor. What she might do about this, what she
could
do about this ... but she had no plans and needed none. The present was just fine, tinged with a pleasant sense that she had at last started something.

He surprised her, however, by saying that he would like to meet her husband, and despite a full program, he made a point of dropping by her apartment one evening for a cocktail with Trevor. The latter was at his most attractive; they discussed different ways of financing a proposed bridge over the Narrows, going into details that left the ignorant Clara completely out.

"What a clear head your husband has," O'Connor remarked, pausing at her desk the next morning. "He's a man we'll have to deal with in the future."

"You mean he stands in your way?"

"Unless he finds it to his advantage to join us."

"That he'll never do. From where he sits, Louis Fourteenth was a Marxist."

"Don't underestimate him, Clara. That man will go far."

For some reason she felt put down. "It may interest you to know he doesn't think you have a Chinaman's chance of winning."

"He's right there."

"Don't even think it!" She glanced nervously around to be sure no one could hear them. No one could. Rory was never caught out. "Why did you get into this fight if you thought you had no chance?"

"Because the party picked me to be the standard-bearer. They'll owe me one, so long as I don't make too bad a showing. They don't forget."

"I see. Everything has its quid pro quo."

"Everything has to. That's life."

"Maybe you'll be the one who joins Trevor. Seeing that you admire him so."

He chuckled. "I seem to have got your goat."

"Well, yes, you have. It irks me that you seem to value a conservative male a good deal more than you do a liberal female. It puts me in my place, doesn't it? As no doubt it was meant to."

"Is it overvaluing a conservative male to size him up? He's what we have to face, isn't he? He's the real thing."

"And not just a silly parlor pink like me, is that it?"

"Oh, you're not really anything quite yet, my friend. But that isn't saying you won't be. Not by a long shot. And don't worry. I'm not about to join your handsome spouse."

***

O'Connor lost the election, to nobody's surprise, but he did better than expected, and he was by no means as despondent as the sad troop of his dispirited workers in the shabby crowded old hotel ballroom where he made his midnight concession of defeat. On his way to a private room where friends and relatives were waiting with drinks, he spotted Clara and went over to her.

"Come and imbibe with us," he invited her.

"Thanks, but I'm due home."

"To hear your husband crow?"

"Oh, he'd never do that."

"Then tell him something from me. Tell him you're coming to work for me. On the
Morning Star.
"

"Really? What'll I be? Editor in chief?"

"How about starting as a cub reporter?"

"Do you mean it?"

"Have I ever said anything I didn't mean? Even in the heat of the campaign?"

And he strode on, followed by his little crowd.

Clara knew that she should wait until the morrow before putting this new proposition to her husband, that she should wait until she had had a chance to discuss the matter coolly with her proposed new boss and find out exactly what the job entailed. But she was too excited for that; she wanted to embark upon a new life that very night, even when she found Trevor at home waiting up for her, at two in the morning and obviously the worse for the consumption of several scotches.

"Your man conceded at midnight," he observed sourly. "What have you been doing? Holding a wake?"

"Oh, Trevor, listen to me! I've got the most wonderful opportunity!"

And she told him about the
Morning Star.

For almost the first time in their marriage he really blew up. "That
rag!
Are you out of your mind? Do you realize that's the red sheet that dragged my poor father over the coals five years ago? That accused him of tax fraud and cheating his stockholders and falsifying his balance sheets and I don't know what other God damn libels? Holy Moses, I had a bad enough time with Dad when he learned that O'Connor was connected with the
Star,
persuading him that it didn't matter because he only wrote a
column
for the damn paper and wasn't even on it at the time! But this! He'd throw me out of the damn bank if my wife worked for the
Star!
"

"But I wouldn't have anything to do with any old matter like that! I'd be on my own, Trevor, writing up my own things!"

"Clara, we're not even going to discuss it! It's out of the question! Utterly and entirely out of the question!"

"And if I decide to do it anyway?"

"You won't! You can't! Now go to bed!"

Trevor meant it about going to bed, and in the morning he left for the office after shaving, without his breakfast, in the obvious determination not to hear any more of the matter until she had had a chance to let his resolution sink in.

At ten o'clock she went to the offices of the
Morning Star
and was finally received, though only with considerable difficulty, for he was fighting off the press, by the defeated candidate. Rory looked very tired and seemed almost bored by her questions.

"Did your paper malign Mr. Hoyt?" she wanted to know.

"I don't think it did. The full story never came out. There were files that curiously disappeared. The charges against your father-in-law were dropped in the end by the U.S. Attorney, but I doubt that they would have been if the whole truth had been known."

"But he was vindicated. That's a fact?"

"In the eyes of his colleagues. And on the record."

"Doesn't that give his family some right to a grudge against your paper?"

"A grudge, no. Even if he had been innocent, it was the job of a free press to investigate the charges that were launched and the considerable evidence that then seemed to support them. If we never looked into any matters except those where the accused were found guilty beyond a doubt we might as well shut the press down now."

"I see." She nodded gravely. "Of course, that must be so. But what about Clarabel Hoyt? Where does that leave her?"

"So long as you ask me, I think it leaves her with a job on the
Morning
Star.
"

"And I should tell my husband that?"

"In so many words."

"And dish my marriage?"

"I can hardly believe it would do that. And if it did, what would that marriage be worth?"

"Oh,
you
can say that."

"I can say it and do. It's like that old hymn they made even us Catholic boys sing at Andover: 'Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide.'"

"To every
man.
" Was his smile mocking her?

"You're making too much of it, Clara. Trevor Hoyt's too smart a guy to let you go over a newspaper job."

"Too smart? Thanks a heap!"

"All right, too loving, then. Make it as smarmy as you like."

"I don't think I want it to be a bit smarmy. Good day, Mr. O'Connor."

Her mother was in town for the day, and she had agreed to meet Clara for lunch at the Colony Club. Violet listened, silent and intent, while her daughter in bitter, clipped tones, recited the tale of the job offer and the reaction of her son-in-law. Her first comment was directed, shrewdly enough, to an inquiry as to O'Connor's advice. She nodded with a kind of grim satisfaction when she learned what it was.

"He wants to use you, my dear. What a feather in his cap to have Mrs. Trevor Hoyt on his radical sheet!"

"You think that's all it is?"

"Well not all, no. He's smart enough to know you'd be a damn good reporter. But he can lay his hands on plenty of good reporters who aren't related to the Hoyts and Trevors. And never forget he's sin Irishman."

"That means he's on the make?"

"Well, let's put it that they're great ones for having their cake and eating it too. An Irishman, for example, would have no trouble marrying for money
and
for love. Both at the same time and in perfect sincerity!"

"Well, if he marries me, he won't get any money. Trevor will see to that."

"Holy God, what are you talking about?"

"I'm joking, mother."

"Well, please don't. I take it, anyway, there's no idea now of your accepting that job on his journal?"

"There
was
such an idea. Very much so. But I guess there isn't now. And largely, no doubt, because of the things you've just said. Which were, of course, already in my mind. That Rory is using me. Or at least was planning to. I guess I have a lot more learning to do before I make any drastic changes in my life. And I think in the meanwhile I'm going right back to my old job on
Style!
"