I and My True Love

  Kate came to life, and noticed Amy. “Sit down, Amy. I’ll get everything.” It’s your turn to take charge, she told herself. She would wait until lunch was finished before she broke Bob’s news. Or should she tell it, at all? Better think that over, she decided.

  “Hallo, Sylvia,” she said, as her cousin came into the room. Her smile was as normal as her voice, and there was no emotionalism to emphasise the strained look on Sylvia’s face. “Come and help me with lunch,” she said.

  Amy, watching them both, took a deep breath of relief. Thank God, when Martin got back from that meeting at his office, he’d find three sane women planning Sylvia’s journey to California instead of three wailing females fluttering around with tear-stained faces and embarrassing confidences. Dramatics were all very well, but life had a practical way of refusing to stop to admire them. And confidences were truths told in a moment but regretted for years.

  * * *

  When Martin Clark returned he found Sylvia and Kate still sitting over their last cup of coffee at the table, Amy resting comfortably on the couch, and all of them talking. At least, Kate and his wife were making the conversation, but Sylvia was sharing it as she listened.

  He hung up his hat in the small hall, surprised and relieved. For a moment, as he straightened his tie in the mirror, he remembered this morning at half-past six when he had stood in this hall, drawing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas, his hair still ruffled from the warm pillow, grumbling to himself, “My God, can’t a man get an hour’s more sleep?” And then he had opened the door angrily and found Sylvia, cold, shivering, almost hysterical, shrinking from his touch.

  He hesitated for another moment, looking at the neatly folded newspaper which he had brought in with him. He laid it on the hall table. Better postpone breaking its news. Perhaps he’d better conceal it entirely. And yet, Sylvia would have to know. She’d learn the gossip soon enough, and it might be better told when her emotions were numb, as they were now. Better, too, to learn it among friends. Still undecided, he picked the newspaper up, and carried it into the living-room. As a compromise, he threw it down casually on the coffee table.

  Sylvia rose. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Martin?”

  Amy, noticing the expression on his face as he threw down the paper, said, “Was it a bad day, darling?”

  He bent over the couch to kiss her. “Just about what you’d expect,” he said. “Yes, I’d love a cup of coffee. Hallo, Kate.”

  “Is that the afternoon edition of the Echo?” Kate asked.

  “Yes.” He looked at her, wondering if she knew. But she lifted a cigarette and looked round for a match.

  “I wouldn’t take its advice on apartments,” Amy said. “It’s only reliable on gossip.” She laughed and explained, “We’ve been discussing Kate’s prospects in room-hunting, Martin. I’ve told her to stay here for tonight, anyway, and she can walk around tomorrow and see the field.”

  Martin nodded.

  “What’s the situation about air travel?” Amy asked. “Sylvia wants to leave Washington today.”

  “Yes,” Sylvia said. “I may as well.”

  “No space on any planes today,” Martin said. “There’s a good train, though, leaving in a couple of hours.”

  “My efficient husband,” Amy said proudly.

  “Your husband’s efficient secretary,” Martin said with a smile. “And I got some money, too.” Enough for the journey, his eyes told his wife.

  “So did I—at the drugstore, bless Mr. Leibowitz,” Amy said. “Sylvia, if you’d rather travel by air, you can sleep here tonight and catch the plane tomorrow. You and Kate will have to share the couch, though.”

  Sylvia looked uncertain for a moment. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “All of you.” Then she added something about fresh coffee, and went into the kitchen.

  Martin looked after her.

  “She’s all right,” his wife reassured him. “It’s quite natural for a woman to feel like crying when she’s shown a little kindness.”

  “How strong is she?” Martin asked, dropping his voice.

  “She’s all right,” Amy repeated, almost sharply.

  “Yes,” Kate said quietly. “I think she ought to be told, Martin.” She looked over towards the folded newspaper.

  “Who told you?” he asked quickly.

  “Bob Turner warned me. Baker—that’s one of the men working with him—began talking about it over the lunch table.”

  “What is it? What is it?” Amy asked, and reached for the newspaper. “Gossip column, I suppose? Which one, which one, Martin?”

  Martin looked at her unhappily. “Keep quiet, Amy. Don’t get into an uproar. It’s only gossip, anyway.” But he knew that the small paragraph couldn’t be as easily dismissed as that. Too many people, like the talkative Baker, read the Echo early afternoon edition. Too many people, who pretended to dislike sensational chit-chat, found they secretly enjoyed a little inside information.

  “I’ve found it,” Amy said. “It’s in Bill Weisler’s column.”

  “I’d like to see it, too,” Kate said. Perhaps it wasn’t as obvious as she had feared. Perhaps she had magnified it, simply because Bob had tried to pretend it was nothing. But if he thought it nothing, why had he telephoned her?

  “I don’t believe it,” Amy said. And yet she looked anxiously at Martin. Bill Weisler usually wrote a fairly accurate column: he had the reputation of not printing rumours unless they came from reliable sources.

  Kate was studying the paragraph, too, her face worried and tense. “It’s worse than I feared,” she admitted.

  “Well?” Martin asked her. He nodded towards the kitchen.

  “I still think Sylvia ought to know. It’s better—to know everything. Then you see just what you have to face.”

  Everything? Martin wondered. No, he couldn’t tell Sylvia everything, nor Kate nor Amy either. He hoped to God that the newspapers didn’t get hold of everything. “All right,” he said, “I’ll show her this.” He picked up the newspaper, folding it back gloomily, looking once more at the pitiless words.

  Sylvia wasn’t mentioned by name, although her description as “one of the three famous Virginian beauties who used to startle Washington in the early forties,” and as “wife of a high-placed Government official whose confidential work deals with the humdrum secrets of international trade, perhaps as a balance to the charm and elegance of his famous Georgetown house,” would certainly mark her down for those who knew the Pleydells. But Jan Brovic was mentioned by name; and the question was raised why he and Sylvia should have been meeting each other so secretly. It wasn’t answered, the inference being left for the readers to draw.

  Sylvia came back into the room carrying the coffee-pot. “Yes,” she said evenly, “show me whatever it is.” She put the coffee-pot on the table, carefully, unhurriedly. And then she held out her hand for the newspaper. She read the Weisler column. “Did you find this for yourself?” she asked Martin.

  “No. I heard about it.”

  “At the office?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m—I’m sorry. Then Payton will know too, and he will really believe that I set out to destroy him. Yes, that’s what he told me last night. I had chosen Jan Brovic to fall in love with so as to destroy Payton completely.” She shook her head. “It really wasn’t true. Believe me, you can’t calculate love.”

  Amy said, “Look, where did Weisler get all these lies?”

  Sylvia turned to her quietly, “But they aren’t lies, Amy.” She dropped the paper and began to pour some coffee for Martin.

  “I’ll do it,” he said quickly, marvelling at her calmness, yet thankful for it, too. He spilled the cream in his own attempt to seem nonchalant.

  Sylvia pushed the paper aside with her foot as she walked over to a chair.

  “This is the kind of thing that I had to expect,” she said. “It’s strange: when you worry about trouble, half expect it, it isn’t such a shock when it does come. It’s the unex
pected attack, the unbelievable that—” She bit her lip and frowned for a moment, her hand travelling nervously to the scarf she had twisted around her throat to disguise the marks of violence. “That is so hard to take,” she finished. Then she forced her thoughts back to the newspaper report. “I think I’d better leave here today. I’ll take that train, Martin.”

  “I’ll get you to the station,” he said. He had lost all interest in the coffee, but he went on drinking it.

  “I don’t think you should,” Sylvia said. “After all, that newspaper paragraph wasn’t only interested in a love story. It was interested in the political angle, wasn’t it? If Jan hadn’t been attached to a Czechoslovakian mission, Mr. Weisler probably wouldn’t have bothered writing about us.”

  “Darling, you’re adding complications,” Amy burst out. “It’s unfortunate, yes, that Jan’s—”

  “I’ll get you to the station,” Martin Clark cut in. He placed his coffee cup on the table. He felt as if every muscle in his stomach had twisted into one hard knot.

  “You shouldn’t be seen with me,” Sylvia objected.

  “Is it wise?” Amy asked, suddenly seeing Sylvia’s point of view. She looked at her husband anxiously.

  “We’ll leave in a few minutes,” he told Sylvia.

  There was a pause.

  “There’s one thing I’d like to know,” Kate said. “Who gave the columnist this information?”

  “Does that matter?” Sylvia asked. “The damage is done.”

  “Someone he trusts a good deal, I’d imagine,” Amy said.

  “But who?” Kate insisted. “It wasn’t Bob Turner. And I didn’t do it. Was it Stewart Hallis?”

  Sylvia was silent.

  “Hallis?” Amy’s grey eyes were startled. “Oh now, Kate,” she said, “you can’t go around slinging suspicions at people. Not that I like Stewart Hallis—he talks so nobly about politics and he makes too much money at the same time. I’m always leary of that type. But to try and hurt Sylvia—why, he’s always liked Sylvia.”

  “Does Hallis know this columnist?” Kate asked, unpersuaded. She was thinking of this morning: Hallis’s apology had been too exaggerated. What had troubled his conscience so much, so unexpectedly?

  Amy looked blankly at her husband.

  “Yes,” he said, “but so do a thousand other people.”

  “Is Weisler small and thin, with hunched shoulders, bald head, and horn-rimmed glasses?” Kate asked.

  Clark turned to stare at her.

  “Last night, at Miriam’s party,” Kate said to Sylvia, “he went up to speak to Hallis. It was just as you and I came back into the room from the terrace.”

  “Weisler talks to everyone,” Amy said. She looked again at her husband. “Kate,” she added unbelievingly, “how can you think that even Hallis would spread such a story?”

  Kate flushed. “He had been hurt. He wanted to claw right back. And Weisler caught him at that moment when he couldn’t resist a scathing remark. Afterwards—this morning—when he had calmed down—he regretted it.” With masses of flowers and a glib excuse, she thought angrily.

  “Well, the damage is done,” Clark said quietly, “whoever caused it.” If Kate really started probing into Mr. Hallis’s subconscious, she’d be still more horrified: Hallis was the probable successor to Payton Pleydell’s job. Yes, there were more deeply hidden urges to Hallis’s action than Kate had ever dreamed of, urges that Hallis himself might not even recognise consciously. Joseph Conrad had phrased it neatly: an island is but the top of a mountain. And, in that respect, a man wasn’t so different from an island.

  Clark glanced at his watch. “Time, Sylvia.”

  Sylvia nodded and took Kate’s hand. “Don’t worry about a gossip paragraph,” she said gently. “There will be scandal, but it doesn’t matter.” She drew Kate with her towards the bedroom. “Kate,” she said, her voice tense, “will you do one thing for me? Please? Tell Jan where I’ve gone. Give him the Santa Rosita address.”

  “But how?”

  “He will telephone you. He may have a message to give you for me. Oh, Kate, please help us.”

  “But—” Kate began uncertainly.

  “Jan doesn’t deserve your contempt,” Sylvia said quickly. “Believe me, Kate. Please. He isn’t what you think.” She paused, her blue eyes pleading, her face expectant. “I can’t tell you any more now, Kate. You’ll have to take us on trust. Will you help us?”

  Kate nodded.

  “And before I forget.” Sylvia opened her handbag and took out a cheque-book and fountain pen. Quickly she wrote out a cheque and then handed it to Kate. “Will you cash this on Monday and give it to Amy? That will cover all the Clarks have lent me, won’t it?”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “But—”

  “I didn’t want to use any more of Payton’s money; but I can’t use Martin’s either. He and Amy can’t afford all that they’ve done for me.”

  “But will they take this cheque? They know you’ll need—”

  “They won’t take it directly,” Sylvia said quickly. “But if you cash it, then there’s no more to argue about, is there?”

  There was nothing left to argue about: Kate realised that from Sylvia’s voice. She folded the cheque and placed it carefully in the pocket of her skirt.

  “The trouble about grand gestures,” Sylvia was saying half-bitterly, “is that someone else is always left to pay for them.” She gave a little sigh.

  “When shall I see you again?” Kate asked quickly.

  Sylvia stood for a moment, her brows drawn together in a slight frown. She shook her head slowly, shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Then she lifted her hat and faced the mirror while she pulled it on. “Strange,” she said, watching her own calm face, “strange how indefinite it all is and yet—irrevocable.” Then she turned quickly to face the girl who was watching her anxiously. “Dear Kate,” she said gently and kissed her.

  “I’m coming to the station.”

  “No. Stay here with Amy. Let me just slip out of Washington. That’s best, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  In the living-room, as they waited, the Clarks talked in low voices.

  “Martin, something’s wrong.”

  “It isn’t a pleasant day, honey.”

  “But more wrong than this.” She pointed to the paper.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I can’t talk about it. I’m hoping the whole story can be kept quiet and doesn’t get into the newspapers. Especially now, with this bit of gossip on its travels.”

  “Martin,” she said, “is Jan Brovic really working for the Communists?”

  He stared at her, amazed as he often was by Amy’s native shrewdness. Or was it just sheer chance that so often she’d take his thoughts and hand them back to him in words?

  Amy said, “Would it solve your problem if you knew that? Ask Sylvia. She’ll tell you.” She looked so delighted with her solution that he leaned over and kissed her. She caught his head and held his cheek against hers.

  “I thought of giving Sylvia a blank cheque,” he said. “She’ll need it.”

  “Yes.” The smile faded. The drugstore cheque, the cheque for the fare that Martin had already cashed. She tried not to add them together.

  “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll see the bank manager on Monday and get a loan if necessary.”

  “And on Monday I’ll go round to Joppa Lane and make Walter count out all that jewellery and wrap it in front of my eyes and I’ll give him a receipt and I’ll register it to Sylvia— imagine leaving everything behind her, it’s hers, isn’t it?”

  “Well, don’t make yourself breathless over it. What will Pleydell say to all that, anyway?”

  “He will never even look at her jewellery. He’s quite above that!” Her mouth twisted with distaste.

  Martin kissed her again to watch the smile come back. “How are you feeling, old girl?” he asked quietly.

  “Storm-tossed. They’re practically upsetting the boat. See for yourself.” She press
ed his hand to her waist. “Lusty types, I’m afraid. Like their father.” She was laughing, now. And even Sylvia, coming into the room with Kate, was almost smiling.

  “We’ll be late,” he said, not quite truthfully, waiting with Sylvia’s suitcase at the open doorway. A quick goodbye could be kept a quiet one.

  “Good luck, darling,” Amy called after them. Martin Clark glanced at Sylvia as he took her arm. She’ll need it, he thought grimly, she’ll need all the luck she can get.

  21

  It was eleven o’clock that evening. Amy had been persuaded to go to sleep; Martin Clark was struggling with the problem of a couch that refused to be converted into a bed, or, indeed, into anything recognisable; Kate was watching the battle, tactfully silent. And then the doorbell rang. “Who the hell’s that?” Clark asked.

  He looked startled when he opened the door and found Whiteshaw outside. But, “Come in,” he said, and tried to smooth his ruffled hair and temper. He pointed to the half-yawning couch. “Do you happen to know how this damned thing works?”

  Whiteshaw seemed equally relieved that the recalcitrant couch made such an easy opening for conversation. “Isn’t there a button you push or a lever you pull? Or have you tried electronics?”

  “I was thinking of a well-placed kick. Persuasion failing.”

  “It’s being temperamental,” Kate said. “Let’s put it back the way it was and ignore it, meanwhile.”

  “Kate’s staying here overnight,” Clark explained.

  “Oh,” Whiteshaw said. He seemed hesitant, as if he had come to the end of his conversation. He glanced warily at Kate.

  Now, which one of Pleydell’s friends was this? Kate wondered. Fair hair: Whiteshaw, probably. But was Whiteshaw the one in the Foreign Service, the one with a wife and two children? Or was he the one who had resigned from the State Department as a high-minded protest? He was certainly older than she had imagined. Tonight, he had lost the youthfulness that had accompanied him on his visits to Pleydell’s house. Tonight, his face looked thin, austere, worried. He was restless, perhaps nervous, for he pulled at his waistcoat, fingered the knot of his tie, and then passed his hand over the short bristling cut of his light fair hair.