Dark Angel (101 page)

“What, Constance?”

“Oh, nothing. But you can be a little direct, you know—for a woman. You’re much too trusting—you always were. You will pour out your heart to people—”

“Do I? I wouldn’t have said that.”

“When you like them you do. And when you love them, you certainly do. And it’s very charming, and I admire it—but you should remember, with men it’s not always a good idea. They like the thrill of the chase. They like to
pursue
a woman. Don’t let this man of yours be too sure of you, too quickly—”

“I want him to be sure of me.”

“Oh, very well, very well. But you’re making a mistake—if you want to marry him.”

I blushed. Constance at once was repentant.

She gave me a kiss and an embrace.

“Darling Vicky, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I always rush ahead much too fast. Now, not another word! I’m going to plan this lunch. Come on—let’s consult Steenie and Wexton.”

“Frank!” A tiny figure, an impetuous rush across that large and exquisite drawing room. Flowers on every table; the light refracted from mirrors; small high-heeled shoes pattering across the garlands of an Aubusson carpet. An eddying scent of ferns, with a hungrier undertone. Constance in a dress of verdant green, eyes sparkling, hands gesturing.

First meeting: she clasped his hand, laughed as she looked up at him. She reached just to his heart. She looked searchingly at his face, then drew him down so she could kiss first his right cheek, then the left one.

“Frank,” she said again. “Oh, I’m so very glad to meet you at last. I began to think I never should—and now you are here. Let me look at you. Do you know, I feel we are friends already? Victoria has told me
everything.
Oh, I feel we met long ago! I feel quite uncertain—should I call you Frank, or Franz-Jacob?”

Frank took this with an equanimity that surprised me. Constance, twirling that matador’s cape of her charm, either dazed men or discomfited them. Frank, however, gave no sign of being ruffled. If he did not embrace her in return, he did not flinch from her embrace either. His reply to her final question was an even one.

“Most people,” he said, with great politeness, “call me Frank.”

“Not Francis?” Constance still hung on his arm, looking up at him.

“No, never Francis, so far as I recall.”

“Oh, what a shame! I rather like that name. One of Victoria’s uncles was called Francis, you know. His nickname was Boy, and he hated it. So I always called him by his proper name. We were such friends, that Francis and I. He’s dead now, of course.” Constance scarcely paused for breath. “Now,” she continued, drawing him forward, “you’ll know everyone, I think? You don’t? Well now, this is Conrad Vickers—”

“Ah, yes. We met briefly once, in Venice.”

“Of course you did! And that is Steenie, over there, skulking by the brandy bottle. Bobsy van Dynem I know you’ve met—this is Bobsy. On the other hand, it might be Bick. Now, who else …”

There were other guests present that day, but you will get the picture, I think. Constance had, as she put it, dredged up some other friends and acquaintances of hers who, she claimed, might be interesting for Frank to meet. There was, I remember, an ancient Grafin von something, one of Constance’s erstwhile aristocrats, a sweet woman who happened to be profoundly deaf, and who was placed next to Frank at lunch. There were one or two New York socialites, who looked bewildered to be present and who regarded this young scientist in a wary way. Yes, there were other guests, but they are unimportant; the starring roles had been assigned to Vickers and the Van Dynem twins, the three men of Constance’s acquaintance guaranteed to cause Frank most unrest.

Why didn’t I stop this? you will say. Surely it would have been easy to prevent?

The answer is that until I walked into that drawing room, ten minutes before Frank arrived, I had no idea who was invited. Constance, planning this lunch, which had been postponed and postponed again (Frank seemed reluctant to attend it), behaved just as she had done all those years before, assembling the library for the Winterscombe books: “A surprise!”

At the time, when I walked in and saw who was present, I felt dismay, yes, but nothing more. I had said nothing to Constance of Frank’s dislikes—she knew nothing of his reaction in Venice to Vickers or the Van Dynems. At least, I believed that then. So, as that appalling first meeting began, and then continued over an equally appalling, embarrassing, ostentatious lunch—a lunch in which everything, from table settings to food, was of luxuriant vulgarity—I believed that my godmother, in her anxiety to make a good impression, had made a painful, almost pitiable faux pas.

And it was pitiable, to me then. When the champagne was poured and Constance boasted loudly of the vintage; when the caviar was brought in, in a silver bowl the size of a bucket; when the caviar was succeeded by foie gras and Constance made some terrible remark about Strasbourg (“Oh, but of course you were there, Frank, weren’t you, during the war? Did you see the famous geese? Poor little geese!”); when she did all these things, I might have wanted to die from shame and mortification, but I pitied her.

For the first time I could ever remember, she was showing her age. She had applied too much makeup; the scarlet lipstick was garish. Her dress might be couture, but it was far too elaborate for a luncheon. Constance, to make such a mistake, to deck an already unflattering gown with too many overlarge brooches, when her fame was to be understated—yes, I pitied her for all this. I pitied her for the terrible, bright, and artificial way in which she spoke, for the vapidity of her comments, the triviality of her subject matter. No sign, that day, of Constance’s abrasive wit. An aging woman, once a beauty, she presided over her table, whipping the conversation along without tact or sensitivity, interrupting, not listening—oh, I was ashamed, but I still pitied this.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” Constance would say to me later that day. “What a disaster! I was so nervous, you see, so determined to make him like me. The more I tried, the worse it was. Oh, Victoria, did he hate me, do you think?”

“Of course not, Constance,” I said, as robustly as I could. “He understood. I’m sure Frank was nervous too—”

“He wasn’t! He wasn’t! He took it all in his stride. He’s amusing, Victoria, and he can be charming—I never expected that! Somehow, you made him sound … I don’t know, reserved, a little unapproachable, but he was so good to the dreadful old Grafin. Deaf as a post! You see, I thought they might talk about Germany—how was I to know she’d come without her hearing aid?”

“Constance, she never had a hearing aid.”

“Nonsense. I’m sure she does. It’s large and plastic and very pink—I remember it distinctly. In any case, it doesn’t matter, because your Frank handled her brilliantly. She adored him! Helping her into her coat, going down to her car with her, listening to all those incomprehensible and utterly boring stories of hers—”

“It’s all
right,
Constance. Frank
liked
her. He didn’t find her boring in the least.”

“But the others!” Constance gave a small wail. “I feel sure he loathed them. Vickers scattering those awful
dah-lings
of his like confetti. Bobsy making those asinine remarks about the Russians and Hungary—you realize he hasn’t the slightest idea where Hungary is? And then Bick—oh, God, what on earth persuaded me to invite Bick? How could I have done such a stupid, stupid thing? I hadn’t realized how bad the drinking had got. Do you remember”—a mischievous look came into her face—“after lunch, that terrible moment when he went to sit down, and missed the sofa? He seemed to go on falling forever and ever—and I wanted so much to laugh. Eyes as round as an owl—it
was
funny, but it was also absolutely ghastly—”

“Constance, truly, you don’t need to worry. Frank has seen drunks before. We all have.”

“Well, that’s it. Bick’s never coming here again—and neither is Bobsy. I’ve had more than enough of both of them. In fact, after this I may well cease to entertain altogether. You can tell Frank, I adore him but I shall never inflict another luncheon on him again. He shall come to tea—just the three of us, Victoria—and I’ll try to make amends.”

“Constance, you don’t need to worry. He liked you. I’m sure he liked you—”

“Did he say that?” Constance replied, somewhat quickly.

I considered what had happened after we left. I had said, in the lobby:

“Frank, can you forget that lunch? Every ghastly minute of it? Constance was so anxious to impress you—that was why it all went wrong. She wants so much for you to like her, you see.”

“Really? I thought the reverse. I thought she set out to make me
dislike
her.”

It was said drily; given the circumstances, I interpreted it as a joke.

Not, however, a joke that it would be tactful to pass on to Constance now.

“He told me … you more than lived up to your reputation—”

“
Did
he?” Constance said, becoming quiet and looking thoughtful. “Well, I like him too. I see now—he’s a very clever man, your Frank Gerhard.”

“Tell me, Frank,” I had said after we escaped from that lunch. “Please tell me—what did you think of her?”

“She more than lives up to her reputation,” he replied, and increased his pace, so I half ran to keep up with those long and, as Steenie put it, immoderate strides. We were walking across town, to an undisclosed location.

“A mystery tour,” Frank had said when we left Constance’s apartment building.

It was a clear day, late spring, with a cold wind. Frank had turned up the collar of his coat; he faced into the wind, which caught his hair and made around his face a black halo. His grip on my arm was tight.

Now that we had escaped from the apartment, the details of that dreadful meal seemed less important. Even at the table they had been made bearable by Frank, whose ease of manner had astonished me, and whose eyes—at the worst moments—had met mine with a look of dry and amused encouragement. Social debacles of that kind were survivable, provided we could laugh at them together. We had reached the far side of the park and turned north. As we passed the Dakota apartment building, and I was admiring those gothic pinnacles outlined against a cold blue sky, Frank said abruptly:

“I know her husband. I haven’t mentioned this.”

I stopped in astonishment. “Constance’s husband? You know Montague Stern?”

“Yes. I’ve known him some time.”

“You can’t! Why didn’t you say? Frank, what is he like?”

“One, I don’t see why I can’t know him. Two, it didn’t seem relevant—I don’t know him that well. Three, as to what he’s like, I’m not sure. He’s … a formidable man.” He paused. “I love it when you ask questions in threes, do you know that? All at once, in a rush. Now why should that be? Not logical at all. You see what you’ve done? A man of reason, vanquished.”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” I said as we walked on. “How do you know him? When did you meet him?”

“I met him first about four years ago. Through the Scripps-Foster Foundation. There was a project I was working on at Yale, and they funded it. Stern is one of their trustees—and a major benefactor. I was being head-hunted. I met him then.”

“And you’ve met him since?”

“Yes, several times. I suspect he may have been behind my appointment at the Institute.”

“You mean, the research department they’re giving you—he was behind that?”

“He was one of the board members who interviewed me. I expected them to appoint an older man. He’s interested in my work.” He shrugged. “He may have had a hand in it. The decision wouldn’t have been one man’s in any case—”

“They
all
wanted you. Of course they did. A unanimous decision—they couldn’t have done anything else.”

“Darling, you’re very partisan, but things don’t work quite like. that. Anyway, the point is: I don’t know, and Stern would certainly never bring it up. He keeps his own counsel. I like him—very much.”

“And you see him, apart from your work?”

“From time to time. Not often. We have dinner once in a while.”

“Where does he live? Not in New York, surely?”

“No, outside the city somewhere—”

“Connecticut? Constance said he lived there.”

“No, not Connecticut—at least, I don’t think so. Nearer the city, I think. When he’s here, he stays at the Pierre. He keeps a suite there. If we have dinner, it’s there in his rooms, served very formally by his own manservant. It’s very odd indeed, very slow, very, very dignified. Like being in a men’s club. With the clock stopped around 1930.”

“1930?” I halted. “Does he … ever talk about Constance?”

The wind gusted; Frank braced himself. He drew me closer to him and increased his pace.

“God, it’s cold. Let’s hurry. It’s not far now. Constance? No, he doesn’t—never, so far as I recall.”

I had the sense that this might not be entirely true, and that Frank was keeping something back from me. The next minute I forgot all that. Frank had come to a halt outside a shabby apartment building, between Amsterdam and Columbus.

“Anyway,” he said, “you can meet him sometime if you want. I’ll arrange it—but never mind that. Can you face the stairs? There is an elevator, but it usually doesn’t work.”

Do you remember that apartment—the one I revisited, when I was searching for Constance, the one that had a fire escape and washing hanging on a line, the one I looked up at, thinking
They live there now, some other couple?

It was that apartment. A bedroom, a living room, a tiny bathroom, and a kitchen. It was clean, empty, and had been painted white. From the window you could watch Manhattan by day or night.

When we entered it, I could see that Frank, having brought us here at that fast pace, now seemed tense. A look had come over his face that I grew to recognize: a closed look. The formality of his manner and his speech at once increased.

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, Frank, I do.” I hesitated, mystified. “I like … the view. The view is wonderful.”

“It’s very small. I know this.”

“This room isn’t so small. And the kitchen—the kitchen is ingenious. It’s very neat.”