Old Sinners Never Die (2 page)

The old gentleman shaped his soft hat and put it on carefully. “Curious, how often we can stand hearing ourselves tell the same story, and go stark mad at the repetition of someone else. I promise I’ll watch myself, boy.”

“We’ll devise a set of signals,” Jimmie said. “Good-night, Father.”

The General turned around at the door. “I don’t think we should start off being too damned congenial. Let’s leave a bit of open ground between us, so we can improve our positions, shall we?”

It was amazing, Jimmie thought, contemplating his affairs in the wake of his father’s visit, how complicated a man’s life could become despite his best efforts to keep it simple. One would suppose, for example, that his remaining a bachelor would ensure no household entanglements. But here he was, having suddenly to reorganize a whole ménage. He had no business bringing Mrs. Norris to Washington at all; so much of his time would have to be spent among his constituents, at home she quite belonged there. But without her, frankly, he did not think he could cope with his father, especially in this hour of the old man’s discontent.

How, he wondered, was Mrs. Norris going to take to Tom Hennessy? Hennessy was a young man no farther from Ireland than his first citizenship papers, a natural-born politician, a lad with good looks and talent and far more political ambition than the man who had hired him. He was in the kitchen now, studying the finer points of parliamentarianism in case Jimmie had occasion to consult him. He was, if Jimmie had to give a name to his position, a sort of chauffeur-valet, although Jimmie had overheard him once (on the telephone) identify himself as “the congressman’s press secretary”.

Jimmie decided to speak to him now about Mrs. Norris.

“Sure, we’ll get along fine, sir, as long as she’s older than me. If it was a young one you were bringing in now …”

“God forbid,” Jimmie said.

“It’ll be simple,” Tom said. “I’ll do for you and she’ll do for me.”

“It’s the General we shall all have to look out for,” Jimmie said, knowing very well that Mrs. Norris would soon teach young Tom who was going to do for whom.

“He’s a bit lively for his age, is he?”

“Yes,” Jimmie said quietly, “I guess that’s as good a word for it as any.”

T
WO DAYS AFTER JIMMIE’S
call, Mrs. Norris managed to reach Washington. The General had already moved in. It was a day that all of them expected would be busy. And the night promised to be busy also, and very gay, for it was the occasion of the Beaux Arts Ball. But no one had any notion at all of just how busy their next twenty-four hours was to be.

Mrs. Norris arrived by early train. There was nothing she liked better than to be sent for. She was, therefore, slightly put out that Mr. James was not able to meet her himself. He had always managed it, no matter how busy, on other occasions. She looked up at the tall young man who gathered both her bags from her scarcely a moment after she stepped from the carriage.

“I’m Tom Hennessy, ma’am,” he said with a smile that opened his face on a beautiful set of teeth. “I’m Mr. Jarvis’ personal.”

“His personal what?”

“He’ll have to tell you that himself, Mrs. Norris, for he hasn’t made up his mind yet.”

Mrs. Norris allowed herself to be led into and through the station and out to the car. Mr. James had sent that for her anyway. “How did you know me?”

“Mr. Jarvis described you—pert and perky,” the young man said with more tact than she’d ordinarily have credited the Irish.

“I’ll give odds it was my hat he described.”

“He might have mentioned it,” the young man said, throwing open the back door of the car to her. “But we’re awful glad, all of us here, to see it tossed into the ring.”

“I’ll ride in the front seat with you,” Mrs. Norris said, giving an authoritative nod of her head, and unsmiling. She had no intention of committing herself on first acquaintance to any man, be he squire or servant, youth or dotard.

C
ONGRESSMAN JARVIS WAS AT
that moment as happily engaged as he was ever likely to be in the line of duty. Amongst the obscure committees to which he, a freshman in the House, might have been assigned was one on parks and monuments. Jimmie drew a seat on it, perhaps because in that particular session he was one of the few men in Congress able to distinguish between Pocahontas and Venus de Milo. It was altogether within the province of his office, therefore, that he met the plane on which Helene Joyce arrived in Washington that morning. Very briefly, he toyed with the notion of striped trousers and morning coat. But one never knew what he was likely to be requisitioned into at the airport in that guise.

Helene came down the ramp, a lovely mixture of furs and smiles, a hand extended, Jimmie thought to him, but just as she touched foot to ground, a gentleman in striped trousers stepped forward and caught the outstretched hand, lifted it to his lips, and showed no inclination to let it go. Helene’s eyes were dancing with mischief.

“Jimmie, how nice to see you!” she cried, peering over the stranger’s shoulder, and quite as though she had come on him by chance instead of arrangement. “May I present Dr. Henri d’Inde of the National Museum?”

Dr. d’Inde turned and clicked his heels, a French Impressionist no doubt, Jimmie thought glumly. Helene said, “Representative James Jarvis, Doctor.”

D’Inde smiled optimistically. “Ahha! Your congressman, Madame, no?”

“Only in a manner of speaking, Doctor,” Helene said in that deep-throated, sensuous tone that touched Jimmie to the marrow, and disengaging her one hand from the doctor’s, she gave it and her other to Jimmie. Everything was going to be just fine.

“My dear, you look wonderful,” she said and kissed his cheek. “Those campaign circles are gone from under your eyes.”

“I have no trouble sleeping now,” he said, “night or day. In fact, I have trouble in the daytime keeping awake.”

Helene laughed.

“May we drop you somewhere, Congressman?” the museum man asked.

Jimmie assumed he had some such place as the Potomac River in mind, but he smiled and said, “I was about to ask you the same thing, Doctor.”

Helene intervened, “Dr. d’Inde, I had no idea you would do me this honour, so I’d asked Jimmie to meet me, you see. Would you mind very much if I were just to come in to your office later this morning?”

“But, of course, Madame Joyce,” he said pleasantly, again bowing.

He was the sort, Jimmie thought, who could turn a moment’s gallantry into a lifetime advantage.

“He boasts of having seven children,” Helene said placatingly as d’Inde took his departure. “He’s a family man.”

“I should hope so, with seven children,” Jimmie said.

“I think he’s very good looking, don’t you?”

“Exquisite,” Jimmie said.

“I’m touched even if you’re pretending,” Helene said, and laid her hand on his arm. “Aren’t you proud of me to have got the commission? That’s why d’Inde came to meet me, you know.”

Jimmie squeezed her hand against him. “I’m very proud, and more than that, dear.” He gave her luggage ticket to a porter, and asked for a cab. To Helene he said, “Mrs. Norris comes down by train this morning. With her here you could have been our house guest quite decently.”

“The old hotel is better for me, but thank you, Jimmie.”

“Likely you’re right. Father’s decided to move in with me now.”

“Oh, dear. Your life is complicated.”

“All I need is a wife,” Jimmie said slyly.

“And what would Mrs. Norris do then, poor thing?”

“You two have never met, have you?”

“No, but I agree, Jimmie. Discretion is the better part of valour. Will you excuse me a moment, dear? There’s a hat box I want to make sure our man doesn’t miss.”

She had a great habit of agreeing with him on something he hadn’t said whenever he brought the subject of matrimony anywhere near the conversation, thereby deflecting him while making it seem he had saved himself. Helene had been married very young—in her Greenwich Village days, the days when she was herself a student of sculpture and a model—and the marriage had smashed very soon and very painfully for her whether by death, annulment, or possibly desertion: Jimmie had heard rumours of all of them, and considerably more of gossip about Mrs. Joyce. But even if she did some day consent to marry him, Jimmie was the sort who would not pry beyond her wish to confide. She had once said of him, he was far too tolerant for a man with political ambition. They had met only a few years ago at Helene’s first major exhibition. Now she had fame. She wore it quite as well as the beauty she had preserved through a youth of struggle. She must be about his own age, Jimmie thought, the late thirties, and if she were an example of what came out of the school of hard knocks, he might wish he had had a scholarship to it himself.

In the car riding along Massachusetts Avenue, Jimmie said, “I hope that dandy d’Inde hasn’t planned to take you to the Beaux Arts Ball.”

“Isn’t it wonderful that there’s to be a Beaux Arts Ball in Washington?” Helene again diverted him. “I’m very pleased to have been asked.”

“Without you there could be no Arts Ball—for me anyway,” he said.

Helene cast him a sidelong glance; her expression was one of amused affection. “It must be a dreadful chore to have to make up the guest list for such affairs, everybody expecting to be invited.”

“You would be surprised how many in this town won’t risk being seen at affairs like this just now.”

“You
are
joking, Jimmie?”

“Not entirely. I’ll tell you this, Helene: there will be people there tonight keeping careful watch to see whom other people talk to.”

“Aren’t there always at such functions?” she said lightly.

“Yes, but the possibilities have rarely been so lethal.”

She looked at him. “Politically, you mean?”

He nodded. “And in Washington. Therefore, economically, socially.”

She sat in silence a moment, thinking. “Do you plan to do anything about it—in Congress?”

“What can I do? I’m a freshman—too young, except to vote.”

“And are all the rest too old?”

Jimmie said nothing. He did not like what was called “the temper of the times” or “the climate of Washington” in that year of 1953, and he was well aware that his own background of conservatism all but delivered him from inquisition. It was a situation for which he felt very nearly apologetic among friends like Helene.

“Wouldn’t it have been a fine idea,” she said, deliberately trying to be light about it now, “to have made the ball a masquerade? Then everyone might have been safe talking to anybody.”

“It was planned that way actually,” Jimmie answered. “Then Senator Fagan inquired why. ‘Why a masquerade?’ he said. ‘What are you trying to pull?’.”

“And that’s why you changed it,” Helene said incredulously, “because he inquired?”

“It was thought better by the committee,” Jimmie said carefully, “that none of us seem to hide our faces from him.” Even as he told it he realized the fallacy of the position: they, the committee of which he was a member, had thought themselves quite brave in the decision; what now seemed apparent was their self-deception: all they had done was mask their capitulation to the senator.

Helene drew up the collar of her fur jacket and yet it was a warm spring day. “Is it too early for you to have a drink, Jimmie?”

“No, though I’d prefer it not in a public place.”

“I’ve taken a suite,” she said. “It will be all right there.”

“So I understand,” he said, “that you have a suite.”

“I thought I should have a parlour into which I might invite you. Also, I’ve arranged to show some of my work—a few pieces to some special people.”

“Like dandy d’Inde, I suppose.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Jimmie, and just a little nasty.”

“I feel nasty. Weren’t you touched by his turning out to meet you in striped trousers?”

“Amused slightly. But rather shaken that an artist should take the time to go in for such nonsense.”

Jimmie mumbled a guilty agreement, and felt even nastier, but with himself.

M
RS. NORRIS APPROVED OF
the house, a three-storey brick building, Georgian, and modernized by a woman, she decided. She was to have more of a staff here than at home: a cook and a cleaning woman, a laundress, and whatever the Irishman called himself, she had chosen to make him a butler. He was a willing student, not, she soon discovered, because he fancied himself serving at table, but because he fancied himself sitting at table and wanted to know as much of what to do with “the instruments” as he could learn as a butler.

“It will take more than a ken of the instruments, my lad, to make you musical,” Mrs. Norris advised on the afternoon of her arrival.

“You know, m’lady, your coming will bring me a devil of a lot more work into the house,” Hennessy said finally, having failed in twenty ways of trying to please her throughout the day.

“It’d be a great pity to see you idle when it takes no more to keep you in work. Have you laid out Mr. James’ clothes for the evening?”

“I have. And his batman is up doing the same for the old gentleman now.”

“Batman,” Mrs. Norris repeated. “I haven’t heard that word since the old country. They call them something else here.”

“Orderly. M’lorderly’s orderly. That takes a twist of the tongue, don’t it?” Hennessy sat down and watched Mrs. Norris where she was inspecting the silver he had polished. “Don’t you wish you were going to the ball tonight? What’ud a fella have to do to get invited, d’you suppose, if he wasn’t elected to something? I wrote a few poems once to a girl. That’d be art enough, wouldn’t it?”

“Did you have them put in a book?” Mrs. Norris asked, liking a bit of romantic verse now and then herself.

“Her father burned most of them, bad luck to him, but I rescued a few. Would you like to see them?”

“I would, some time.”

“I’ll fetch them right now and you can read them at leisure.”

He was off at a gallop and soon was back with a well-thumbed envelope. “I can recite them if you like and save your eyesight.”

“I’ve nothing better to save it for,” she said, and tucked the envelope into the pocket of her second-best dress which she was still wearing beneath the tea apron.