Rest and Be Thankful (13 page)

“Let me lend you my little edition of Demosthenes to reread, Prender,” Mrs. Peel said.

He looked at them in turn. “I never knew you were both so politically minded,” he said, and dismissed them with a smile. “It’s hardly your line, is it?”

“Last year, in Paris,” Mrs. Peel said indignantly, “we—”

“Wyoming must do something to women,” Dewey said. “That’s why they got the vote here in 1869. In London and New York they were still chaining themselves to policemen as late as 1919, but all they had to do in Wyoming was to argue. My dear Sarah, your flights of fancy have given me a hell of a thirst. Or did the women in Wyoming use their vote to make it a dry state too?”

Sally rose to find the Scotch and open it. Mrs. Peel added two logs to the fire, and went to find soda and ice. Mimi removed the fruit-plate from the rug at her feet, and handed it to Prender to set down on the mantelpiece. Dewey stretched his legs comfortably, watched them all, and found much to amuse him.

When Mrs. Peel returned with the news that Sally had used all the available ice for her Spanish fruit bowl the conversation had definitely lost its social significance. She calmed her feelings, which had gone on ruffling themselves in the kitchen, but she still felt despondent. Political subtleties were painful enough in Europe, but to find them rearing their ugly heads in New York and coming to invade the peace of Wyoming was unbearable. (If the Atlantic were of any use at all it was to give people here a breathing-space to learn. Some nations in Europe had never been given the chance of that breathing-space: they were plunged into disaster before they even started arguing.) She had found Wyoming an escape into a place of reason, where politics meant discussions on the merits and failings of either Republicans or Democrats, where such hideous things as concentration camps for political opponents weren’t even imagined.

Prender was now launching into his experiences on the journey westward. He seemed to have forgotten the bitterness that had been stirred up. So Mrs. Peel sat down with relief beside Mimi Bassinbrook, listened, and tried to stop being despondent.

“Thank you, Sarah,” Dewey said, and took the tall glass which she brought over to him. “Or is it F. Nightingale mixed with Joan of Arc? You do surprise your friends, Sarah.”

“Not Sarah Sally,” she said gently.

“In heaven’s name, why?” He noted she kept a special kind of smile for him.

“Because I like it.”

“And if I call you Sarah?”

“I won’t hear what you say.”

“Efficient,” he admitted. Yes, there was always California and Liz Beaton, who was the nice awed type that Sally used to be. Still, a day or two here might be rewarding. Mimi, for one thing. And, for another, the arrival of the Great Unpublished. And Prender, for a third. For instance, poor Maggie had been trying to tell them, too, about some of her experiences on her journey here; but at the moment she was only able to add less than half a sentence at a time while Prender’s saga unfolded. Prender was swinging into full stride now, with all the makings of a most successful addition to his lecture season. In spite of his protests about calories, he had eaten enormously of the sandwiches, and as he stood in front of the fireplace, looking down at the half-circle of faces turned towards him, his eloquence was as limitless as the country over which he had travelled. An impressive if somewhat boring performance, Dewey thought; like St Paul’s Cathedral, fog-capped.

“I am delighted,” Sally said at last, when Prender paused for a drink. “Because it proves we were right, and that happens so rarely.”

“Proves?” Prender asked, a trifle shaken...”

“Yes. Remember Margaret and I suggested last winter—I think it was at one of your parties actually—that it was odd how so many of us knew New York and Connecticut, but how few ever travelled west of Chicago or Cincinnati? Apart from reaching California in an air-conditioned train, of course. Well, if we hadn’t decided to travel leisurely across the continent we wouldn’t have found Rest and be Thankful. And if we hadn’t found Rest and be Thankful you wouldn’t have travelled across the continent either. So I am delighted, for you are obviously impressed by your own country for the first time in your life. Perhaps the rest of our guests will share your enthusiasm. That was what we hoped for. It makes all the trouble we’ve had well worth-while.”

“Trouble?” Prender was more perplexed.

“My dear, you don’t imagine that you can set up housekeeping for nine people”—she glanced at Dewey—“for ten people, twenty-five miles from the nearest store, thirty-five from the railway and a decent road, without a lot of planning? Things just don’t create themselves, you know. Everything is made so easy for us in the cities that we forget how much energy and time it takes to arrange the minimum necessities in life.”

Prender nodded, memorising that idea. He had to admit he was amazed that he had travelled as far as from Paris to Istanbul to reach Sweetwater from New York.

Dewey said, “Do we trap or shoot our meat? Or do we use a nice old-fashioned hatchet?”

Sally smiled. “And what did Dewey think of the journey? How many neon-lighted hamburger stands lie between here and the Atlantic? I’m sure you counted them all. And how many fat women wearing shorts? How many Miss Tomato-of-the-year contests? How many funeral parlours designed as Corinthian temples? Dewey, you must have treasured them...”

Dewey rose to pour himself another drink.

Mimi Bassinbrook laughed. “Miss Bly,
how
did you guess? He just loved all of them.”

“There are so many different things to see, so many ways of life in America,” Mrs. Peel said, in her most understanding manner. She shot a warning look at Sally, who ignored it with a still brighter smile.

“Yes,” Sally said innocently, “and what you see depends on what you are determined to see.”

“Dewey
insisted
we spend last night at one of these drive-in places where you rent cabins,” Mimi went on.

“Was it called a Motel, Dewey?” Sally asked.

Prender Atherton Jones, now in excellent humour, said indeed it had been. Dewey had insisted on driving for an extra thirty minutes to reach a motel advertised as the Pop Inn.

Dewey, watching Sally with a new wariness, joined in the laughter, if only to turn it away from himself. “We slept,” he said, in the quiet, precise voice which he had carefully cultivated in England, “on beds that were described in Basic American as Kumfy Kots; and the lamps had the trade name of Brite Lite. It was a very pleasant evening.”

“I’m so glad, Dewey,” Sally said. “How horrible for you if you had had to sleep at an ordinary hotel with ordinary beds. Absolutely uninspiring. Which reminds me—where are we going to put you? In a tent?” She spoke lightly, gaily, as if it were a pleasant problem.

Mrs. Peel shook her head and restrained a smile.

Prender said quickly, “Dewey is only staying here for a night on his way to California. He’s going to visit Elizabeth Beaton.”

“How nice for Elizabeth,” Sally said. “Does she still keep her tame seal in the swimming-pool? Dewey, you can teach it tricks—tray-balancing, so that it will serve cocktails while you are floating peacefully among the wax water-lilies.”

Dewey smiled, poured himself a third drink, and tried to think of something to say. Usually he held the floor whenever Prender yielded it. But tonight Sally had kept him silent merely by talking about the kind of things he had been about to mention. She even was adopting his kind of phrases. He hadn’t been so angered or bored for many a month. Tomorrow, he thought, adding another jigger of Scotch to his glass, it will be California. But, as he drank to that, Mimi—who for the last hour had been giving Prender extra attention to calm his disturbed memories of today’s journey—rose and went over to the radio-phonograph.

“Music!” she said, so enchantingly that only a monster among men would have thought about her sure grasp of the obvious. She gave Dewey a small signal as she pulled out the record albums, and sat down on the floor to arrange them round her. Sally admired the entire arrangement as she wandered over to Mimi, too.

Sally was being damned annoying tonight, Dewey thought. In a way, he had to admit, she was also being useful; for Prender, after a quick frown towards the corner of the room where the phonograph stood, seemed reassured, and he sat down beside Mrs. Peel to start talking about Aubrey Brimstone’s new magazine which Prender might possibly edit, if he had time.

“Bach, Haydn, Beethoven,” Mimi said delightedly.

“Long hair,” said Dewey, although he fought for tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra just as determinedly as Mrs. Peel. He looked at Sally challengingly.

She accepted. “Sweet corn too for those who like to hum a tune. And here’s bebop for the initiated.” She picked up a record and studied the printed centre. “Tiberius Tantivy and his Fourtet. Now, Dewey, that’s another for your collection.”

Dewey seemed shocked by such sacrilege, for Basic American in advanced art must be taken seriously, unlike Basic American in advertising. He rejected Sally’s offering to pick a record of his own. “Stravinsky,” he said.

“The Bebop’s Bible,” Sally murmured. “What a pity we all read the
New Yorker,
isn’t it?”

Dewey stared at her, a man whose words have been stolen most blatantly right out of his mouth. Unforgivable.

* * *

“What is wrong with Sarah?” Dewey asked, as he and Prender went upstairs to bed. Mimi, from her bedroom door at the far end of the corridor, waved a plaintive good night.

Prender shrugged his shoulders. All that worried him was that Dewey, as soon as the writers arrived and if he stayed, would be moved into his room. That was completely unsatisfactory, not only from the point of view of sleep, but of pleasure. Sarah had been quite obdurate: the writers must each have a room to themselves, and neither pointed suggestion nor gentle sarcasm had been able to shift her from that most decided stand. There were two things on which he had determined: Dewey must leave for the ample charms of Liz Beaton and her psychopathic circle; and Sarah would be sorry next winter in New York.

“Pity about Aubrey Brimstone and Merrick Maclehose,” Dewey Schmetterling said, suddenly more cheerful.

“Yes.”

“Too late to write them. When did you expect them to arrive?”

“On Monday.”

“Ah, well, there’s always Western Union. Good night.”

Dewey may have sounded almost gay, but he had his own particular problems. What did an author do when one of the ineffective, funny characters in his new satire had suddenly become chained with electricity? It wasn’t fair. He would have to kill her off somehow, and that could always be made clever-cruel and amusing. But a pity, nevertheless, for she had been good for several more laughs before the end of the book was reached. Thank God, Maggie had stayed in character. Almost. She talked less, but perhaps that was only a mood tonight.

It was a dispirited satirist who fell asleep. His room was cold. His bed had not been turned down. His suitcase had not been unpacked. And they had known how he hated sandwiches.

* * *

As they waited for the fire to burn low enough before they would leave it Mrs. Peel was much amused and a little shocked.

“Sally, I’ve never known you to be so inhospitable.”

“After making all these sandwiches? And dashing around with slices of lemon? And our precious bottle of Scotch all gone, and not another one to be found this side of Three Springs? Besides, do you want Dewey to stay?”

“I wouldn’t expire with grief if he left. But Prender—”

“Well, he should have remembered he didn’t own this place. I wrote him, you know, about lack of bedrooms for lecturers.”

“He suggested the writers could share rooms.” Mrs. Peel was almost half persuaded. It was hard to refuse Prender.

“They mustn’t! Not here. Prender imagines everyone who lives in New York is as comfortable as he is in his borrowed penthouse.”

“But Aubrey Brimstone—”

“Can afford several kinds of holidays.”

“But—”

“Margaret, let’s have our own way for once. Everything we start gets twisted out of shape by other people to suit themselves. Whose life are we living, anyway? Theirs or ours?”

They watched the fire die slowly.

“People
will
put one into such difficult positions,” Mrs. Peel said sadly. “They make it so hard for one
not
to look in the wrong even when one is more or less right.”

“A matter of technique. It’s about time we recognised it.”

The last charred log broke in two.

“It’s about time we went to sleep,” Mrs. Peel said. She rose and began collecting coffee-cups and plates in a vague way.

“Go up to bed. I’ll cope with this litter.” Sally looked with distaste at the cigarette-stubs in the saucers.

“Mrs. Gunn—”

“I know. She has only one pair of hands, and tomorrow is baking-day. I’ll leave the kitchen as we found it. Go to bed, Margaret.”

Mrs. Peel was too tired to refuse. When you were as tired as this it was pleasant to be persuaded into laziness.

Sally, as she dried the last glass in the kitchen, was reflecting that—thanks to the inventiveness of Lord Sandwich—she wasn’t scouring pots and pans at midnight.

* * *

Jim Brent, taking a restless walk after a dull evening of accounts and business matters, noticed the lighted kitchen. As he drew near he could see Sally. He stood in the shadow of a cottonwood-tree and watched her for a moment. On impulse he went over to the kitchen door and knocked. He smiled as he heard a glass fall and Sally’s description of herself.

The door was opened a bare three inches. “Need any help?” he asked.

Sally, still startled, could only shake her head. She opened the door fully, laughing at her own caution. “Give me time and I’ll get accustomed to this part of the country,” she said. “Do come in. I’ve just finished—by breaking a glass.” She held up the remains for him to admire.

“Too late for a walk?”

She shook her head. “I’ll get a coat.” She got rid of the broken glass, hung the drying-cloth on its rod, and then ran to the hall for her coat. He noticed the quick, decisive movements, and thought how typical of her they were. He wondered if the broken glass in her hand had been her idea of an improvised weapon. It would take some time, he thought, before she forgot France under the Nazi occupation. She had told him, when he had teased her about locking the front door to the house, that when she got back from Europe even as late as last year, she had found herself clutching her purse and her shopping packages as if they were about to be lifted out of her arms. She hadn’t been the only one to have formed that habit, either: everyone coming back from Europe would hardly trust a porter to take charge of a suitcase. It was one small result of the War: people, hungry and desperate, were quick to pilfer. “You don’t blame them, really,” she had said. “You just learn to be careful.”