Youngblood hawke, p.19
Youngblood Hawke, page 19
Hawke's first copy of Alms for Oblivion arrived in the mail on a morning in June, a few weeks before publication day. The volume seemed to fill his hot squalid loft room with light. He sat at his desk, staring and staring at it, enjoying his once-in-a-lifetime thrill. Then the question arose, what to do with the book? Hovey morality called on him to send it to his mother. Rationally, the person entitled to the book was Jeanne Green. She had been of the greatest help in preparing the manuscript for the press. Now she was working steadily on the chapters of Chain of Command as they came from his pen.
He and Jeanne had become warm comrades. He was in love with her, or he thought he was. He found her magnetically appealing. Yet he never tried to make love to her. The best reason he could discern for this was his knowledge that she would yield, and he would find himself a married man; married to a clever, lovely, but somewhat forbidding young woman. Jeanne's strictness seemed less a matter of conventional morality than of her own nature. She allowed no fooling around in her work, she tolerated nothing loose or second-rate in his manuscripts, and in the same way, he knew, she would require that he be a faithful husband. He was willing to be a faithful husband—indeed a faithful husband to Jeanne Green, he believed; only not quite yet!
The real trouble was that the incredible Christmas Day episode with Mrs. Winter haunted him. He had not heard from her again. He knew from the gossip columns that she had returned to New York months ago. She had made no effort to track him down. At first he had told himself that she was being discreet, that in due course a letter or a wire would come to his telephoneless lair. None came. His pride became irked. He could not bring himself to call her, yet he felt balked of an exciting experience. How could a woman make love to him once in that wild way, and then ignore his existence? He was determined that somehow or other she would acknowledge his existence again, and that the suspense in his mind would be resolved, even if it took only one more innocuous meeting.
So when the volume of Alms for Oblivion came to his hand, what he did in the end was to send it to Mrs. Winter. He wasted half a day writing and rewriting a letter to go with it: a letter that defied his efforts to edit out an injured, high-flown note. He knew he was doing an ill-considered thing; and because of Jeanne, an unjust thing; and perhaps for that reason he could not get the letter to sound right. Also, there was the problem that her husband might read it! Finally he typed it up and mailed it off with his precious volume.
Mrs. Winter had quite definite ideas about what she wanted in life, and about how things should be done for her. For instance, she loved to be awakened about ten in the morning, and no earlier. At ten her husband was gone to his Broad Street office; at ten the chauffeur had taken the two girls off to their private school, and little Paul to his school; at ten the mail had arrived; and at ten the sun had risen far enough over the midtown towers of New York, even in the dead of winter, to dapple the treetops of the park, which she could see when she sat propped in bed. At ten, moreover, fresh flowers had come from the florist, so that the maid would bring them in with the newspapers, the mail, and the tea. Mrs. Winter had an acute sense of the sweetness of life and the preciousness of the passing moment. Her existence was ordered so that each moment, day by day, was as pleasant as possible. Fresh flowers in one's bedroom in the morning was a slight pleasure, but an easy and unfailing one.
It was early in June, so the flowers were lilacs, huge fragrant bunches. The day was sunny. The mail was heavy and looked interesting. She had had a good weekend of tennis and talk at her home in Connecticut. Last night the opening of the play she had attended had been a failure; a special treat, since the producer was a woman she disliked, a mannish bore who tended to wax theological about the drama. She had had her semi-annual physical checkup a few days ago, and the doctor—who, old as he was, treated her with a debonair goatishness that she rather liked—had said that she was in the best shape ever, a real wonder. That too, was not randomly achieved. Mrs. Winter worked at staying healthy. People who dissipated, who burned the candle at both ends, she considered fools. The candle was invaluable, it was one's single sure possession. Properly trimmed and cared for it gave plenty of charming light from one end, for a long long time.
The package that came from Youngblood Hawke did not catch her attention at first. The shape was a familiar one, a cardboard book carton. Publishers were always sending new books to Mrs. Winter. She knew most of them, and she was a free member of the inner circle of New York celebrities whose talk could get a book started like nothing else. As usual, she telephoned her office while she drank her first cup of tea. The wistful, soft, bald young bachelor who had been her secretary for half a dozen years had only one bit of news; The Doctor's Dilemma had played the night before to a house of twenty-three hundred dollars. She knew without checking that this was a fall-off of two hundred odd dollars from the previous Monday. The show was slipping, and at this rate would not break even, unless the actors' contracts were renegotiated. "Call Jock Maas. Keep calling him till you get him. You know how he is in the morning. Tell him that I want him to meet me at four at the office," she said.
She opened the newspapers to the theatrical pages and glanced at the first and last paragraphs of the reviews, to be sure that the play had failed. (It had, most satisfyingly.) Then she noticed that the book package was addressed by hand. That was unusual. She picked it off the blue silk quilt and held it close to her nearsighted eyes: From A. Youngblood Hawke, 345 W. 28th St. She opened it quickly, pulled out the book, and a folded letter fell on the quilt.
Dear Mrs. Winter:
I send you herewith the first copy off the press of my first novel, Alms for Oblivion. I could make this letter one long string of apologies: for the crudity of my book, for my presumption in sending it to you, for certain things which you may or may not remember. I am not even sure you remember me! You were kind enough to make your library available to me on Christmas Day last year. Unlike you, I remember our encounter well. I am half in the business of remembering. And I recall that you said to me, on two different occasions, "Never, never apologize." So I won't.
Why do I select you for the doubtful honor of receiving this book, which means so much in my life, and can mean so little in yours? Why do I burden you with a favor which to you may be no favor, but an embarrassment and a bore? Because you were once kind to a young man alone in New York, and because kindness is not an outstanding trait of the people in the city.
I came to the city as so many young men have done before me, in order to make my way. You called me a determined young man, and I think I am one. I wish I could believe that, with this book, I have broken into the identity that I believe will be mine some day. But looking at it now, at the first copy off the press, a month or so before the critics will pass judgment, I find my work not up to the mark. It is no use listing my mistakes; a woman of taste like yourself will see them all too clearly. But I will say this. As long as I live I do not think I will be ashamed of Alms for Oblivion as a first effort. So I send you this gift, faulty as it is, with a good conscience.
I am not seeking to renew our acquaintance, or to force myself on you. That would be a paltry use of a volume which may be meaningless to anyone else, but which looked to me, when I first drew it out of the box it came in, like the Holy Grail. You live in a world to which I will always be a stranger. In time I think I will be a welcome and respected stranger, an Othello in your Venice. Until your world seeks me out, whether to reward me for this young and botched first novel, or to acknowledge my gifts when I have made a better demonstration of them—as I shall—I am content to drudge along in obscurity. I have not even moved from the room without a telephone, though I have a little money now.
So please accept this tribute, dear Mrs. Winter, in the spirit in which I send it. And as for this stilted and inarticulate letter, understand it for what it is. I allow myself two luxuries that I have not yet earned—Havana cigars, and the excessive pride of an artist.
I cannot forget the breakfast you gave me, out of your kindness, on Christmas Day in your grand home on Fifth Avenue. I have been a little delayed in thanking you properly. Now here is Alms for Oblivion.
Sincerely yours,
ARTHUR HAWKE.
It is not given to many women to get such a letter. Mrs. Winter did not even glance at the book until she had picked up the telephone and fired off a telegram to Youngblood Hawke. Then she did examine it curiously, especially the picture of the young man on the back of the jacket, a broad-shouldered fellow who needed a haircut, scowling ferociously into the camera, his chin resting on a clenched fist. A small smile came and went on Mrs. Winter's face.
2
When he caught his first glimpse of her, coming toward him through the warm-weather strollers in the zoo—the old ladies, the nurses with baby carriages, the college boys and girls holding hands in snatched lunch-hour idylls—he was disappointed. There was nothing very feminine in her walk, it was a swingy no-nonsense stride, purse tucked under one arm and the other arm pumping back and forth. And she was so obviously an older woman! There wasn't a trace of girlishness in the blue-gray suit, the severe blue hat, the big plain blue leather purse. He was lounging against the rail before the lion's cage, where they had agreed to meet, when he noticed her. She saw him almost at the same instant. Her free hand shot up in a characteristic movement, a bend at the elbow and a brief sharp wriggle of her blue-gloved fingers. "Hello!" She shook hands firmly. "Gad, you're not half as tall as I remembered you. That's good. I thought of you as a sort of man mountain."
She was looking up at him with the nearsighted peer out of large gray eyes, with the downward tilt of the head, as though somehow she could see better out of the top part of her pupils. He had never felt so awkward, so empty of words. "We picked a nice day for it," he said, stammering on picked.
"Yes, didn't we? One of the few days of the year when the town isn't smelling like the inside of an old garage. . . . Good heavens, what's that, and why?" He had taken the florist's box from behind his back, where he had been holding it like a high school boy. She accepted the box and opened it at once. "Well! God knows how many years it's been since somebody gave me a flower! I mean when I wasn't chairlady of a committee or something—a white camellia! Bless your heart, I'm putting it on this minute. I should be giving you a flower, or some kind of a present anyway, for sending me that book." She pinned the camellia deftly to the lapel of her suit. "You're overwhelming me. There. How's that? Where shall we go?"
She was so completely at her ease, he thought; but he found himself cutting off every sentence that came to his tongue because it seemed to have a double meaning. He was looking silently at her, a big helpless yokel. She took his hand and pressed it, smiling. "Shall we just walk? Have you had your look at your larn?" When he had telephoned her, in response to her wire, and had suggested this meeting place, she had made a great joke of the way he said "lion." "He's not much to look at now, poor sleepy larn." The lion was curled in a corner of the cage. "I know where there are trees in bloom. Come! Then we'll go to the Margrave for lunch, okay? I eat there all the time. It's good."
"Any place is all right, Mrs. Winter."
As they strolled uptown through the park she said, "You're very thoughtful, aren't you? I looked in my library this morning and found you'd returned the books while I was in Europe. I hadn't forgotten you, Mr. Hawke, but I'd forgotten the books."
He could not find his tongue. What was the matter with him? "They were useful," he forced himself to say. "I was a little taken aback when I learned you'd gone to Europe."
"Well, you recall, I said I'd try to get some English actors for that Shakespeare festival. Which is coming along beautifully, by the way. It's no good writing to actors, they give the letters to their agents. No fine actor really gives a damn about business. They want heaps of money, sure, but mostly they want a part, and they want to be told they'll be marvellous in it. You have to talk to an actor. So there was nothing to do but get on the boat. . . . I've heard wonderful things about your book. Roberto Luzzatto bought it for Anne Karen, didn't he?"
"Yes. Luzzatto wanted me to write the screenplay, too, but I thought I'd better write another book. I'm more than halfway through."
"Another book already? My, you're a fast worker," she said.
At that moment he was looking down at her, and her eyes met his. It seemed they both thought at once of the double meaning. An uncertain embarrassed smile flickered on her face. Then they both broke into laughter, rollicking laughter, laughter that filled him with excitement, it acknowledged so much and promised so much. The intervening months dissolved; the spell of Mrs. Winter blazed up as it had on that amazing afternoon, and she looked as desirable, all at once, as she had in his fantasies. She was older than he, and that was beautiful; see the college girl sitting on the bench they were walking past, the lumpy adolescent with the unlined pretty face, the inexpert paint, holding hands with an empty-faced boy! This woman was his equal, free and strong as a man, yet radiant with allure. Her stride in the daylight was purposeful, headlong, and that was lovely; where was the charm in the languishing dawdling steps of a girl? There were no eyes in the world like Frieda Winter's, gray, huge, sometimes merry and sometimes sharply alert, but always disturbing as they peered up under the very high arch of her dark brows. As for Jeanne—well, he was having an adventure, why the hell not? He was only twenty-seven, and he was free.
It was delicious to walk with Frieda Winter along a lane of flowering trees. He told her that Luzzatto was after him again to do the screenplay, because Anne Karen had rejected a scenario prepared by a Hollywood writer; but that he intended to decline. "Why? Are you afraid Hollywood will corrupt you?" she said with amused irony.
"Not at all. It's a question of time. My feeling is that if I work every day as though I were being shot at sunrise tomorrow, I may barely get my main jobs done in twenty or thirty years. There's no room in the scheme for writing movies."
"There's the question of money."
"My needs are few."
"But an artist shouldn't live like a hermit or a beggar. I don't believe in that. It's cramping. And it cuts you off from the experiences you ought to have."
"I won't always live this way. I have an investment program that will slowly but surely make me independent."
Mrs. Winter looked up at him keenly, then laughed. "I see. Very fine, very fine!"
He was more at ease in elegant restaurants now. Often he took Jeanne to the places he read about in the columns, and now and then he went himself, and read a book, ignoring the waiters' stares, while he ate complicated and exquisite French dishes alone. He thought he gave a fair account of himself ordering the food and wine, though the deference of the captain was aimed at Mrs. Winter. The captain had greeted her by name, with a more than routine bow.
She said, "Tell me about this investment program of yours. That sounds decidedly long-headed for a young writer."
When he began describing Scotty Hoag she wrinkled her nose, very much like his mother. "Real estate is not for somebody like you."
"Well, all I can tell you is, I invested ten thousand dollars with him in January. In the middle of May he sold the property, before it was even completed, and returned twenty-two thousand dollars to me."
"You were lucky. What did you do with that money?"
"I invested half of it in another project of Scotty's, a housing development that has Federal support. I wanted to put all the money into it, but he insisted that I salt away half in government bonds."
"Did you?"
Hawke toyed with the stem of his martini glass, and looked at her with a sidewise grin. "No. I told him I did, but I bought some stocks, and some commodity futures." He laughed as she shook her head. "I knew you wouldn't like that. All the same I've made eleven hundred dollars on onions and lard contracts, if you'll believe me, in a few weeks of fooling around. Before I made a move I studied up on the subject. I made theoretical purchases and sales for a few months. If you watch yourself you go in and out fast and you can't really get hurt. It's interesting. What's more, it's fun."
"But why should you put your mind to that kind of thing? Onions and lard, indeed."
"Mrs. Winter, I sold the movie rights in Alms for Oblivion for thirty thousand dollars. When all the bites came out—agent, publisher, taxes—I was left with about eight or so. Eight thousand instead of thirty is quite a cut! If I'm to achieve independence by my own efforts—without living like a hermit which, I agree with you, is not for me—I'm going to have to manage my money."
Frieda Winter said with a few quick raps of her cigarette lighter, "Look here, if you want your money managed there are people who do that too, reliable people who make it their business."
"Sure. You come to them with half a million dollars and they'll do all kinds of smart things with it. They're not going to build eight thousand back up to thirty."
"My husband is as good an investment manager as any in the business. He's really good. He's written a book, and all that, and he's done pretty well for a couple of musicians and writers I've sent to him over the years. He won't put you in commodity futures, but whatever money you make and give to him you'll have, and it'll yield you something too."
Hawke said, sitting up, "Wait, is he the Winter of Willis and Winter? Rational Investing?"
"Yes."
"Why, I've read that book. It's very good. Aside from everything else, he can write, and he has a sense of humor. And he's your husband! Why didn't that occur to me?"
Mrs. Winter's smile was strange, a mere wrinkling of her mouth. "Paul is quite a person. You'll have to meet him. I think he could help you, and keep you out of a lot of trouble."
"Well, right now nearly all my surplus money is with Scotty Hoag, Mrs. Winter."
"Why don't you call me Frieda? I shouldn't be Mrs. Winter to you, should I?"
They were looking in each other's eyes, and her business-like glance changed into quite another look. Hawke cleared his throat. "I suppose not, Frieda."
