Old Sinners Never Die (3 page)

Tom ran his tongue around his lips. “There’s one I call ‘Never sally if you can dally’.”

“Tom, you’re a villain,” she said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He was very handsome.

“Well, I work part time at it,” he said, and grinned.

“You worked part time at this, too,” she said, giving him a serving fork to polish over.

“Would you know this Mrs. Joyce the boss is taking to the ball tonight?”

“I do and I don’t,” she said, not wanting to admit to him she had never met the woman.

“She’s a fine looker, she is—lean as a colt, and I’ll bet she could lead a man a wild chase.”

“You’ve not the right to be talking like that, shame,” Mrs. Norris said, burring the “r” in “right”. “And when did you see her?”

“When I took round the flowers for himself a while ago.”

“You were supposed to have them sent.”

“Aw, you can’t depend on the delivery service on a day like this, Mrs. Norris. I wasn’t going to take any chance on them never arriving.”

“You’re a villain true, and I hope Mr. James puts you in your place before you’re too big for it.”

“I’m glad I went around all the same,” Tom said. “The boss isn’t the only one she has on the string.”

“No?” Mrs. Norris said, wanting to keep him going without encouraging him.

“There was some French fella there just waiting to see my heels. But she wasn’t in any hurry to push me out, I’ll say that for her. Or maybe it’s for myself I should say it. You know, she introduced me—me, mind you—to this Frenchman. I wish I could think of his name. It’s something that rhymes with Dan, but not quite. My father’s name was Dan, God rest him.”

“She wanted you to carry the tale home, that’s all,” Mrs. Norris said.

“To make the boss jealous?”

“I wouldn’t say just that,” Mrs. Norris said, “but after all, Mr. James is a man of many interests, too.”

Tom squinted up at her. “Is he now? You wouldn’t be jealous yourself in your fashion?”

“I would not. You’ll have the pattern rubbed off the fork there. Give it to me.”

And at that moment a sudden blast of wind flushed the curtains, the drapes, Mrs. Norris’ apron and hair, and a great booming voice halloed through the house.

“The General is home,” she said. “I must wash my hands.”

But he was into the pantry before she could more than wipe them in her apron. “Well, and how’s my bonnie lass?” he cried.

Mrs. Norris gave a bob of a curtsey. “I’m fine, sir thank you, and you look very well if I may say so.”

He nodded, smiling, and began removing the buckles from his blouse. “By God, it’s nice to be in a house that’s a home,” he said.

Tom snickered, and the General glanced round at him. “Did you speak?”

“No, sir. I was breathing.”

“Then go out and breathe in the kitchen. I want to talk to Mrs. Norris.” When the young man was gone, he said, “Shall we conspire against him, you and I? The place is so damned cluttered with help you can’t say a word. Well, I daresay you could handle a regiment, and it’s none of my business. We’ll have a drink, shall we? Does he keep a decent bottle in the pantry?”

“If he does, he won’t for long,” Mrs. Norris said. “I’ll see to that.”

“Ah-ha! That fellow’s Irish, isn’t he?” the General said, finding a bottle of whisky and two glasses.

“But do you know, sir, he doesn’t drink? He’s taken the pledge.”

The General grunted. “Sometimes I think there’s something to what they say about this damned bomb turning the world inside out. Think of that: an Irishman who doesn’t drink.” He lifted his glass. “Cheers, old girl.”

“Your health, sir, and your happiness.” Mrs. Norris took her whisky as neat as did the General, but not so often.

“Happiness,” the General repeated morosely. “Well, I’ll go up and have my bath and a bit of a nap before dressing. You and I will have to renew our acquaintanceship. They’re retiring me soon, you know. It will be into your custody probably.”

“God ha’ mercy, sir!” she clapped her hand to her mouth. It was the drink that spoke, not she.

The General laughed and went to the door. “Is it true, Mrs. Joyce is down for the ball?”

“I understand she is, sir.”

“Do you know he never let on to me she was coming? Well. That makes me feel better at least, he’s afraid of my competition.”

“Are you going with someone important yourself, sir?”

The General peered into her face. “Whomever I go with shall be important, Mrs. Norris.”

The arrogant old sinner, Mrs. Norris thought. All the same, there was something about him that could charm the heart of a wheelbarrow.

A
GREAT MANY DINNER
parties preceded the Arts Ball. One of the better-kept secrets of Washington was the manner in which hostesses on such occasions arrived at a fair and equitable distribution of very important people, important people, and people who had to be invited because they were important to the very important people.

It was a fine art in itself, the General thought, shaking hands with his host, to pair off an ageing stag like himself with someone it was hoped he might see to the ball afterwards. Ed Chatterton, an under secretary of state, was an old friend of the General’s, a career diplomat. With a wealthy wife, he mused, observing the gold plate as he passed the dining room door on his way to the study. There were damn few posts in the service of the United States government to which a wealthy wife was not a man’s very great asset. Fancy that: a man’s patriotic duty to marry money! Hurrah for democracy!

In the study where the drinks were set out, the General found two gentlemen in the interesting position of examining the labels on the bottles without disturbing the bottles—in other words, with their own bottoms up. Ambassador Cru came erect like a mechanized toy, which in some ways he resembled, his clothes, his mustachios—with eyebrows matching them, sheenly black—impeccable, a jewelled sash across his breast. Another poor boy who had made good, the General thought wryly, taking a hand weighted with a diamond ring. Cru represented a Latin American country which still bore strong traces of French influence, and Cru himself was a curious mixture. The General thought him pompous, antiquated and interesting only as money interested one. Which it did this one. The other gentleman wore more sheen on the highly polished bottom of his dress suit than anywhere else. The General recognized him, however, Joshua Katz, the violinist, and introduced himself.

“You’re playing here next Thursday, aren’t you?”

Katz shot his cuffs out from his coat sleeves. “I am.”

“Sold out, I understand,” the General said. “We’re not all philistines, by God. It makes a man perk up to hear that when he’s just about had it up to the apple.”

“So I have,” Katz said, assuming ridiculously that the General was being solicitous of him.

“In my country,” the Latin American said ponderously, “we are partial to the piano.”

It was on the tip of the General’s tongue to say that in his country they were also partial to the nut, but he forebore. He poured himself a glass of sherry, a tribute to the wines his host would serve at dinner.

“I’ll have a man’s drink,” Katz said, and hooked into the Scotch.

“I hope it suffices,” the General said, and moved on toward the great parlour as the violinist turned and glowered after him. He surveyed the rest of the guests from the doorway.

His host came up and pressed his elbow in gentle persuasion. “You’re going to be well taken care of at dinner, Ransom.”

“I trust by women,” the General said, looking up from under his brows. It was his habit to lower his head when he felt bullish. And obviously, when he felt it, he looked it.

His host nodded gravely. “A virtual harem to attend you.”

If it was to be drawn from those present, the General thought, he might as well be a eunuch.

Senator Grace Chisholm was here. She stood head and shoulders above most men in the Senate, a frightening thought. Also present was an ageing opera singer, Maria Candido. He had heard once that she had the most extensive repertoire of bawdy songs in America. But to have to deliver them in a coloratura soprano the General thought downright indecent. The ambassador’s wife flapped her eyelashes at him like Venetian blinds every time he glanced her way. He was reasonably certain nothing was going on behind them, and even more certain that he was not going to find out. And then there was Madam Secretary Elizabeth Jennings of the presidential cabinet. She was the only woman present the General had not spoken to, but she seemed at the moment to have caught for herself the only animate creature in the room, a very slim young man who seemed, from the distance at which the General explored him, a trifle seedy; “quaint” might be the word, for he wore his hair long, in a style known some years before as a pompadour, and the collar of his dress shirt was high.

The General elbowed his host. “Who’s the young chap?”

“Talking to Madam Jennings?” the General nodded. “Young man about town,” Chatterton said off-handedly. “His name is Montaigne—or something like that.”

Chatterton was trying to be matter-of-fact, trying too hard, the General thought, and his curiosity was but the more whetted. He leaned toward his host. “Does he belong to anyone I know?”

Chatterton was not amused. “He’s what you might call social provender, Ransom. An acquaintance of Laura’s, and several others of tonight’s guests.”

No declared occupation, the General thought, and in a town where every man needed a title as much as he needed the job it came with. He did not, however, pursue the subject with his host. He could tell by the squint of Chatterton’s eye and a shadowy nervous twitching at its corner that something was aggravating an old disorder. “A bit off tonight, Ed? The old ulcer?”

Chatterton laughed, but without mirth. “To tell the God’s truth, Ransom, I can’t tell the old one from the new one these days.”

“Bad, bad,” the General murmured solicitously.

“No foundation all the way down the line,” Chatterton said in something like a confidential whisper.

The General could not remember what he was quoting, but he understood from its present context. There was no one in Chatterton’s branch of service with genuine authority who would stand firm, and everybody was swinging at the State Department, especially Senator Fagan.

“There’s a man, Fagan,” the General said, “who goes looking for the cracked bricks under a house. Pulls them out for all he’s worth. I hope he finds out that most of us have a little crack in us somewhere, and still manage to hold up our end. I hope he finds it out before he pulls the whole place down on top of us.”

Chatterton stood with the polite air of a man waiting for him to be done. Then he said, “I rang you up at the club today. Understand you’re living at home now.”

“It’s where they’ve got to take you in whether or not you’ve got the cash,” the General said. “Introduce me to Madam Jennings, will you, Ed?”

“Good God, forgive me. I hadn’t known you were not acquainted.”

“We met once, but it’s a long time ago and I don’t want to risk her not remembering.”

In truth, what the General wanted was to observe his host and the young fop together, to measure the depth of their familiarity if he could. He did not think of himself as a snob, but on the whole he thought this a bottom-drawer assortment of people to gather in this house. Secretary Jennings was the exception, and he supposed Senator Chisholm, although she was a bit wholesome for his tastes; and by God, he was an exception himself!

He was not to have the chance now to observe Montaigne and his host. The young man, seeing them approach, managed to wind up his talk with Secretary Jennings and spin off at precisely the instant before introductions would have been necessary.

Chatterton said, “Madam Secretary, may I present an old friend, Ransom Jarvis, major general, United States Army?”

“I believe we’ve met, General Jarvis.” She gave his hand a firm grasp. There was foundation there all the way down the line.

“You were a little girl in Newport when we first met. I was a West Point plebe, I think.”

“I didn’t know my memory was that long,” she said, and there was something rather sad in the way she said it that set the General to speculating on what he might have interrupted. His memory of her dated more recently than he had said: to some wartime mission in London when he had met her briefly—and in the company of many military men of several countries—and had thought her then a woman of enormous attractiveness. Ah, but circumstances were different now, and so was Elizabeth Jennings. She had grown plump and plain as a suet pudding.

“I hope I didn’t frighten the young man off,” the General said, looking round as though he expected him to be standing nearby.

“I doubt it,” Madam Jennings said.

“I seem to have that way about me lately—people run from me as from an old bull terrier for all that he may be nodding and toothless.”

“Do you know him?” The woman’s gaze was trailing after Montaigne as he crossed the room. She had not heard a word the General had said about himself.

“Certainly not.”

Madam Secretary lifted her head, a show of pride perhaps, and looked him straight in the eye. She was a woman of considerable social poise and long political experience, but, the General thought she could not hide her regret at his having interrupted the attentions of the younger man, and she refused to be ashamed of it. It made him feel sad himself, lugubrious, in fact.

“I wonder if we both couldn’t do with a drink? May I bring you something, Madam Secretary?”

“You’re very kind. I would like a sherry.” She smiled on him with the sudden joy of one reprieved.

His humour was restored, along with his confidence in himself as a judge of women. He found his best prospect of the evening so far to be the company of his own thoughts, a vigilant contemplation of the relationship between a young sport and a fifty-year-old spinster.

On the way to the bar he purposely brushed against the man. It forced them to introduce themselves. Looking into his eyes, the expression in which seemed deliberately covert, like a lascivious cleric’s, and further judging him by the deliberate droop of his shape, the languid pose, the General would now call him a young decadent. He hadn’t seen anything quite like him since European society just before World War I, and perhaps the American imitation of it after that war. He gave his name as Leo Montaigne. The General wondered out of what novel he had taken it.