Lacouture’s fingers were rolling little balls of bread. He looked straight at the air commodore. “Well,” he said, “nobody’s comparing the British and the Nazis as people, as civilizations. You people have been fine, and I’ll tell you, possibly we should be hearing a bit more of this stuff up on the hill.”
Lord Burne-Wilke, with a humble little bow that made the party laugh, said, “I’m available.”
While the others had dessert, Victor Henry changed into his dress uniform. The guests were wrapping up to brave the snow when he rejoined them. He helped Pamela Tudsbury into her coat, scenting perfume that stirred his memory.
She said over her shoulder, “There’s news of Ted.”
For a moment Victor Henry didn’t understand. On the Bremen she had slipped across the joke about Hitler in just that swift quiet way. “Oh? Really? Good or bad?”
“Won’t you telephone me?”
“Yes.”
“Do. Please do. Do.”
The party separated into three cars, with Pug driving the British guests. He said to the air commodore, as they stopped on Massachusetts Avenue at a red light that made a cherry-colored halo in the falling snow, “You scored some points with Senator Lacouture.”
“Words over wine,” said the air commodore, shrugging.
“Well! Nobody’s seen Constitution Hall looking like this before,” Rhoda said, “or ever will again, maybe. It’s fantastic.”
Every seat was filled. All the men in the orchestra, and many up the long side slopes wore full dress suits or gold-crusted military uniforms. The women made a sea of uncovered skin, bright colors, and winking gems. Great American and British flags draped the stage. Rhoda had taken for herself two boxes nearest to the President’s. The Lacoutures with Janice, the air commodore, and Alistair Tudsbury were ensconced in the choicer one, and she and Pamela sat at the rail in the other, with Pug and Kirby behind them, and Madeline in the rear.
A commotion arose in the aisle behind them among police guards and latecomers. A murmur washed across the auditorium, and the Vice President and his wife stepped into the presidential box, into a blue-white spotlight. The audience stood and applauded. Henry Wallace responded with a self-conscious smile and a brief wave. He looked like an intelligent farmer, unhappily wearing full dress for some anniversary. The orchestra struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and then “God Save the King.” The British anthem, with the nearness of Pamela Tudsbury’s bare white shoulders, awakened the London days and nights in Victor Henry’s mind. As the audience settled in its seats and the violins began the slow introduction of a Haydn symphony, Pug’s thoughts wandered through the blitz, the bombing run over Berlin, the German capital showing yellow in the night under the flare of the exploding gas, Pamela flinging herself at him as he came into his apartment. The music broke into a dancing allegro and brought him back to the present. Pug studied the profile of his wife, sitting in her usual concertgoing pose—back straight, hands folded in lap, head tilted to suggest attentive pleasure. He thought how charming she could be and how splendidly she had carried off the dinner. A wisp of guilt touched him for the affection he felt for Pamela Tudsbury. Victor Henry was inexpert at self-excuse, having done too few things in his life of which he disapproved.
Rhoda herself couldn’t have been more at ease. The music of Haydn delighted her. She loved being highly visible in her new silver dress in a box so near the Vice President. She was pleased that the concert was a sellout. She looked forward to the supper-dance afterward. All this splendid fun was actually work in the noblest of causes, and her name stood high on the committee list. How could things be better? Only Palmer Kirby’s news that he was going to England troubled her a bit. She meant to ask him more questions about that.
No doubt Dr. Kirby had his thoughts, and Pamela hers. The two intruders on the long marriage, with the husband and wife, looked much like dozens of other foursomes in boxes along both sides of the cavernous hall: attractive people, elegantly clad, calmly listening to music. Kirby was sitting behind Rhoda, Pug in back of Pamela Tudsbury. A stranger might have guessed that the tall people were one pair, the short ones another, except that the smaller woman seemed young for the naval officer with the weathered face and heavy eyebrows.
During the intermission crush, Victor Henry and Dr. Kirby were left together by the ladies in an overheated lobby foul with smoke. Pug said, “How’s for a breath of air? Looks like the snow’s stopped.”
“You’re on.”
Chauffeurs were stamping by their limousines on the fresh snow. It was bitter cold. A few young music lovers from the rearmost seats, in sweaters and parkas, chatted with smoking breaths on the slushy steps of the hall.
Pug said, “Anything very new on uranium?”
The scientist looked at him with head aslant. “What’s uranium?”
“Are you that far along?” Pug grinned.
Kirby slowly shook his head, making a discouraged mouth.
“Are the Germans going to beat us to it?”
The answer was a shrug.
“As you know, I’m in War Plans,” Victor Henry said curtly. “I’m pushing you on this because we ought to have the dope, and we can’t get it. If this other thing is really in the works, maybe we’re just playing tic-tac-toe in our shop.”
Kirby stuffed his pipe and lit it. “You’re not playing tic-tac-toe. It’s not that close. Not on our side.”
“Could we be doing more about it?”
“One hell of a lot more. I’m going to England on this. They’re apparently far ahead of us.”
“They’ve been ahead on other things,” Pug said. “That’s something nobody mentions in this brainless Lend-Lease dogfight. We have to be goddamned glad we’ve got the British scientists on our side, and we better break our necks to keep them there.”
“I tend to agree. But we’re ahead of them in many things too.” Kirby puffed his pipe, squinting at Pug. “Are you happy to be home?”
“Happy?” Pug scooped up snow and packed a snowball. The crunching snow in his warm hands always gave him an agreeable flash of childhood. “I’m too busy to think about it. Yes, I guess I’m happy.” He pegged the snowball over the cars into the empty street. “Rhoda was sick of Berlin, and being there by myself was certainly grim.”
“She’s a superb hostess, Rhoda,” said Kirby. “I’ve never attended better dinner parties than hers. That was something, the way she rescued that tureen.” The pipe in his teeth, Kirby uttered a harsh laugh. “Really something.”
“Among her other talents,” said Pug, “Rhoda’s always been a born juggler.”
Kirby wrinkled his whole face. “It’s pretty sharp out here at that, eh? Let’s go back.”
At the top of the stairs they encountered Madeline hurrying out, her white fox coat wrapped close around her long dress, a red shawl on her hair tied under her chin.
“Where are you off to?” her father said.
“I told Mom I wouldn’t be able to stay through. Mr. Cleveland’s back from Quantico. I have to see him.”
“Will you come to the dance afterward?”
Madeline sneezed. “I’m not sure, Dad.”
“Take care of that cold. You look fierce.”
The two men went inside. Madeline clung to the wooden rail, hastening down the slippery steps.
A waiter with a sandwich and a double martini on a tray was knocking at the door of Hugh Cleveland’s suite when Madeline got there. The rich familiar voice sounded peevish. “It’s open, it’s open, come on in.”
Her employer, wearing an unbecoming purple silk robe, sat with his stocking feet up on an imitation antique desk, talking into a telephone and making pencil notes on a racing form. “What about Hialeah?” he was saying. “Got anything good there for tomorrow?” He waved at her, putting his hand for a moment over the mouthpiece. “Hey Matty! I thought you weren’t going to make it. Sign that. Give him a buck.”
The waiter, a small dull-eyed youngster, hovered in the room, staring
with a vacuous grin as Cleveland talked to the bookmaker. “Mr. Cleveland, I just want to tell you I’m a big fan of yours,” he blurted when Cleveland hung up. “I really think you’re terrific. So does my whole family. We never miss the amateur hour.”
“Thanks,” Cleveland rumbled with a heavy-lidded look, fingering his sandy hair. “Want anything, Matty?”
“A drink, thanks. I’ve got a cold.”
“Bring her another double,” said Cleveland, with a sudden charming smile at the waiter. “And get me three Havana cigars. Monte Cristos, if there are any. See how fast you can do it.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Cleveland.”
“How was Quantico?” Madeline threw her coat on a chair and sat down, blowing her nose.
“The stage’ll work fine. The commandant’s all excited. He thinks it’s a wonderful recruiting stunt.” Yawning, Cleveland lit a cigar and explained the arrangements for the broadcast that he had made with the commandant. “He showed me all over the camp. I saw a real combat exercise. Jesus, those marines shoot live ammunition over each other’s heads! I’ll be deaf for a week,” he said, rubbing his ears. “I guess they won’t put you through that.”
“Me? Am I going there?”
“Sure. Tomorrow.”
“What for?”
“Screen the performers, get the personal stuff on them, and all that. They’ve already got an amateur thing going there, it turns out. They call it the Happy Hour.”
Madeline said, “The Happy Hour’s an old custom all through the service.”
“Really? It was news to me. Anyhow, that makes it a cinch.” He described the arrangements for her interview at Quantico.
The doorbell rang. Blowing her nose, Madeline went to answer it. “I think I’ve got a fever. I don’t want to go and interview a lot of marines.”
A girl with dyed black hair stood simpering in the doorway, in a yellow coat and yellow snow boots, showing stained teeth in a thickly painted mouth. Her smile faded when Madeline opened the door.
“I was looking for Mr. Hugh Cleveland.”
“Right here, baby,” he called.
The girl came into the suite with uncertain steps, peering from Cleveland to Madeline.
“What is this?” she said.
“Wait in there,” he said, indicating the bedroom with his thumb. “I’ll be along.”
The girl closed the bedroom door behind her. Ignoring Cleveland’s embarrassed grin, Madeline snatched her coat and jerked on one sleeve and the other. “Good-night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“You’ve got a drink coming.”
“I don’t want it. I want to get to bed. I’m shivering.”
Cleveland came padding to her in stocking feet and put his hand on her forehead. She pushed it away.
“You have no fever.”
“Don’t touch me, please.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I just don’t like to be touched.”
The waiter knocked at the door and came in. “Double martini, sir, and the Monte Cristos.”
“Great. Thanks.” Cleveland offered the tray to Madeline when the waiter left. “Here. Take off your coat and drink up.”
Both hands jammed in her coat pockets, Madeline said, “It’s not fair to keep a prostitute waiting. All she has to sell is time.”
Hugh Cleveland slowly grinned, putting down the tray. “Why, Madeline Henry.”
“I’m sorry. I feel extremely lousy. Good-night.”
Cleveland strode to the bedroom. A murmur of voices, and the girl, tucking money in a shiny yellow purse, emerged from the room. She gave Madeline a tough unpleasant sad glance, and left the suite.
“Sit down and have your drink. Here’s all the dope on Quantico”—he flourished a manila envelope—“and who to see, and the list of the performers. If you’re still not feeling well tomorrow just call me, and I’ll have Nat or Arnold come down and take over.”
“Oh, I guess I’ll manage.” Madeline sat, throwing her coat back on her shoulders, and drank.
“How are your folks?”
“Fine.”
“Any interesting guests at dinner?”
“Alistair Tudsbury, for one.”
“Tudsbury! Say, there’s genius. There’s a man I’d like to meet. He’s got style, Tudsbury, and a superb radio voice. But he’d never come on Who’s in Town. Who else?”
“Air Commodore Burne-Wilke, of the RAF.”
“Is an air commodore somebody?”
“From what my father says, he more or less ran the Battle of Britain.”
Wrinkling his nose, Cleveland put his feet on the desk again. “Hmmm. Not bad. The Battle of Britain’s awfully tired, though, isn’t it? I don’t know if he’d mean anything today, Matty. The audience has had the Battle of Britain, up to here.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking him.”
“I would.” Hands clasped, two fingers pressed judiciously to his chin, Cleveland shook his head. “No. Dated. I say balls to the Battle of Britain.”
“There was Senator Lacouture.”
Her employer’s thick sandy eyebrows rose. “Now, he’s hot. That’s right, isn’t he an in-law of yours, or something?”
“His daughter married my brother.”
“The one on the submarine?”
“No. The aviator.”
“What do you think? Would Lacouture come to New York?”
“For the chance to attack Lend-Lease, I think he’d go to Seattle.”
“Well, Lend-Lease is front-page. Not that one person in forty knows what it’s all about. Let’s get Lacouture. Do you mind talking to him?”
“No.” Madeline finished her drink and stood.
“Fine. Set him up for Monday if you can. We’re kind of blah on Monday.”
Madeline tapped the envelope in her hand, regarding it absently. The drink was making her feel better. “There are Happy Hours at all the Navy bases, you know,” she said. “Practically on every ship. Probably in the Army camps, too. Couldn’t you do another show like this every now and then? It’s something different.”
Cleveland shook his head. “It’s a one-shot, Matty. Just a novelty. The regular amateurs are the meat and potatoes.”
“If we get in the war,” Madeline said, “they’ll start drafting talented people, won’t they? There’ll be camps all over the country.”
“Well, could be.” With his most engaging smile, he waved a thumb at the bedroom door. “Sorry about her, kid. I thought you weren’t coming tonight.”
“It doesn’t make the slightest difference to me, I assure you.”
“You really disapprove of me. I know you do. The way my wife does. You’ve had a good upbringing.”
“I hope so.”
“Well, see, I wasn’t that fortunate.”
“Good-night, Hugh.”
“Say, listen.” With an amused genial squint, Cleveland scratched his head. “There might be something in that Happy Hour thing at that, if we do get in the war. It might be a series in itself. Start a file on Wartime Ideas, Matty. Type up a memo on that and stash it away.”
“All right.”
“Your father’s an insider. Does he think we’ll get in the war?”
“He thinks we’re in it.”
Cleveland stretched and yawned. “Really? But the war’s sort of petering out, isn’t it? Nothing’s happening, except for the messing around in Greece and Africa.”
“The Germans are sinking a couple of hundred thousand tons a month in the Atlantic.”
“Is that a lot? It’s all relative, I’d imagine. I guess Hitler’s got it won, though.” Cleveland yawned again. “All right, Matty. See you back in New York.”
When the girl had gone, Cleveland picked up the telephone, yawning and yawning. “Bell captain… Cleveland. Oh, is that you, Eddy? Fine. Listen, Eddy, she looked all right but I was busy. I sent her down to the bar for a while. Black hair, yellow coat, yellow purse. Thanks, Eddy.”
The slow movement of a Brahms symphony
was putting Victor Henry in a doze, when a tap and a whisper roused him, “Captain Henry?” The girl usher appeared excited and awed. “The White House is on the telephone for you.”
He spoke a few words in his wife’s ear and departed. During applause after the symphony, Rhoda said, looking around at his still empty chair, “Pug’s evidently gone back to the White House.”
“Man’s life isn’t his own, is it?” Kirby said.
“When has it ever been?”
Pamela said, “Will he rejoin you at the dance?”
Rhoda made a helpless gesture.
An hour or so later, Victor Henry stood at the entrance to the grand ballroom of the Shoreham, glumly surveying the scene: the brilliantly dressed dancers crowding the floor; the stage festooned with American flags and Union Jacks; the huge spangled letters, BUNDLES FOR BRITAIN, arching over the brassy orchestra; and the long jolly queues at two enormous buffets laden with meats, salads, cheeses, and cakes. The naval aide at the White House had just told him, among other things, of thirty thousand tons sunk in the North Atlantic in the past two days.
Alistair Tudsbury came capering past him, with a blonde lady of forty or so quite naked from the bosom up except for a diamond necklace. The correspondent’s gold-chained paunch kept the lady at some distance, but her spirits seemed no less hilarious for that. He dragged his bad leg a bit as he danced, obviously determined to ignore it.
“Ah, there, Pug! You’re glaring like Savonarola, dear boy.”
“I’m looking for Rhoda.”
“She’s down at the other end. You know Irina Balsey?”
“Hello, Irina.” The blonde lady giggled, waving fingers at Henry. “Did Pamela come to the dance?”
“She went back to the office. The little prig’s doing the overworked patriot.”
Tudsbury twirled the blonde away with vigor ill-suited to his size and lameness. Crossing the dance floor, Victor Henry saw his wife at a little round side table with Palmer Kirby.
“Hello, dear!” she called. “So you escaped! Get yourself a plate and join us. The veal is marvellous.”
“I’ll bring you some,” said Kirby, hastily rising. “Sit down, Pug.”
“No, no, Fred. I have to run along.”