The Magician's Wife Part 7

"Clay!" cried a shrill, overbred, domineering voice. "I'm expecting Pat Grant tomorrow! At twelve-thirty! For lunch! Do you hear?" Before he could answer, it went on: "He must come without fail, tell him! I'm asking quite a few people, and as he's to be guest of honor, I'll not have any excuses-no last-minute changes of mind, no politely wired regrets, with flowers. He's to come without fail, without fail, WITHOUT FAIL!" And, apparently as an afterthought, she added: "And of course you're included, dear Clay-I expect you to bring him yourself."

"But, Bunny," he broke in at last, after several tries, "Pat's not here! He's in Mankato! And I don't quite see how-"

"He's here! He's here in Channel City!"

"Whatever you say-but he's not."

"And you will bring him, Clay? Without fail?"

"I'll do what I can, of course."

Hanging up, he groused to Miss Helm about "the society mind-it's as brittle as cut gla.s.s." But as she laughed and turned to go, Mr. Grant himself walked in, a blocky, good-looking man in his thirties, in gabardines and beret. Blowing Miss Helm a kiss, he held out his hand to Clay, chirping: "Dr. Lockwood, I presume?"

"O.K., Stanley, it's me," said Clay, giving the hand a not-too-friendly jerk. "But what's the big idea? Spreading it all around. So everybody knows except me?"

"Who's everybody?"

"Bunny Granlund, for one."

"I haven't seen Bunny Granlund."

"She knows. She's invited you-to lunch."

"Well, Clay? Hotel coffee shop's a Portico thing, isn't it? Maybe they have a grapevine. Maybe I was seen by someone she knows. Maybe she's like a condor and knows without knowing how. Or maybe-"

"I'm mollified, forget it. I guess I am."

"Well, look, I bring a big surprise, and how can I do that and let you know all at the same time?"

"Then-let's have the surprise."

"Hey! Not yet! Red-carpet me!"

"Red carpets, please," Clay told Miss Helm, who was still standing there, smiling. "Our best Corona-Coronas." And to Pat: "I keep 'em with the meat, to have that exact humidity."

"No better place for cigars."

When the coronas had been brought, and Mrs. Granlund had been called, by Pat, with a pleasant, gracious acceptance, Clay again pressed for the surprise, but Pat seemed strangely diffident, and they went out to have dinner. On the way to the club they stopped at the apartment, where Pat played Bach and admired Clay's pictures, now back from Mr. Gumpertz and in place again. At dinner, out on the balcony, he talked and talked and talked without coming to the point-about Clay's baseball-park triumph, over his bad-hot-dog compet.i.tor, about the crab cakes they were having, about Chteau Yquem with apple pie, "a combo so queer it's weird, but the strange part is, it's good." And as Clay began to fidget he suddenly burst out: "Hey! This is the worst night of my life! So let me enjoy it, will you?"

"What's so bad about it?"

"For once I'm owning up to the truth."

"That I'm fired? Is that it? That's the surprise?"

"What makes you think so, Clay?"

"We're in for upward of fifteen grand on these beach commitments of mine-but I endorsed those drafts myself. They stand as my personal chits. So-"

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"Backing those beach corporations."

"Well, why not? We should have done it before."

"Well, get to it. What is this, Pat?"

"... You're not fired-I am."

"You? You own the G.o.ddam outfit-don't you?"

"Well, yeah-but what's to own, Clay, without somebody runs it that knows what to do with meat-besides eat it?"

"So? Don't you?"

"Stop being funny, Clay."

"So O.K., you went to Harvard. But Svenson knows."

"Yes, but Sven's turning seventy this week."

"No. I didn't realize he was that far along."

"So he has to retire, and at long last, Clay, I'm relinquishing him the t.i.tle-president. Moving on to board chairman, putting an end to this comedy I've been playing, of being a big meat packer, of pretending that's what I am, when all the time I'm just third-generation rich, that can play Bach on your Steinway, honor Bunny with my presence, so all her friends will know I knew her at Bar Harbor, before her shoes got run down and she had to marry Steve, and talk about Chteau Yquem. Or in other words, I'll quit being a fake. As of next week, Sven will be president, and as of the first of the year, he'll be our beloved emeritus."

"Pat, it's d.a.m.ned decent of you."

"Been decenter ten years ago."

"Yet I don't mind saying, it gives me some concern."

"In what way, gives you concern, Clay?"

"Who's to follow Sven?"

"Oh, that-yes, I see what you mean and I'm glad you brought it up. I've given it considerable thought, and as I see it, we need a commanding type, a guy with a loud voice, a fist like a Grant gold-medal ham, a thick neck, an aggressive way with the clients, and a mania for selling meat in eighteen different ways that never were thought of before, most of them vulgar, pushing, and rude. Or in other words, Clay, you."

"... Me?"

"Now you know. That's the surprise."

"Revive me, please. I think I just fainted."

Pat talked on, about the rigors of being a fake and the shame of "living a lie," apparently seeing himself as a tragic figure, but sounding more like a playboy, somewhat loquacious from wine, crying into his gla.s.s. Clay hardly heard him. He stared out at the pink of the sunset, the blue of the bay, and the white of the dipping sails, until everything blended together into a polychromatic euphoria, indescribably romantic and almost unbearably beautiful. His mood persisted after they reached the apartment, where they went for a sociable nightcap, as Pat's did too, he playing Bach again, and then switching to Gershwin's Rhapsody, whose opening he called "a real p.r.o.nouncement on life-it's laugh-clown-laugh, blow-blow-thou-winter-wind, and bye-bye-blackbird all rolled into one." Clay agreed, and Pat finished the Rhapsody, then went on to "I Got Rhythm" and "Lady Be Good." Then a call came, and when Clay answered, The Pilot city desk told him they had heard a rumor, "a tip from Mankato, Minnesota, that you're to be president of Grant's. Anything to it?" Pat talked, to confirm, and soon a reporter came, accompanied by a photographer, when Clay took the floor, suddenly very important. "There's a revolution in meat," he proclaimed, as though making a speech to Rotary, though pausing every so often so the reporter could catch up with his notes. "We've come a long way since Grant's was founded in the northwest Land o' Lakes, because that's where the ice was, just as it was at Chicago, that they cut in winter, stored till summer, and chilled the meat with. Now there's ice all over, but the revolution goes on-in storing, cutting, packing, and, most of all, distributing. And so far as Grant's is concerned, we don't follow that revolution-we lead it. We're in the forefront of it-have been, are still, and will be."

The photographer hustled out to develop his film, and then the reporter left. Pat brooded, finally remarking: "That proves it, Clay, what I was saying before. Because while you seized the opportunity and said what the moment called for, what was I doing? Looking at your pictures and grappling with the problem of who's to paint your portrait. All Grant's, Inc., presidents are done in oil for the board room, with fingers suitably stuck into their coat lapel: my grandfather, like Washington crossing the Rubicon; my father, like Lincoln at Valley Forge, and me, like Napoleon at Appomattox. I'll get to Sven next, but that still is going to leave you. However, G.o.d willing, I hope-"

"Suppose I had a candidate?"

"Well, now, that would be a help. Who is he?"

"So happens, it's a she."

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

"For this job how much do you pay?"

"Four-figure money, I think."

"Consider your problem solved."

He could hardly wait, when Pat took a cab to the hotel, to call Grace. She seemed a bit sleepy, even a bit grumpy, but eagerly he poured out the news of his luck. "Maybe I shouldn't have waked you up," he admitted, "but I wanted to tell you myself, before you saw the papers-and this is the first chance I've had. Pat has just gone home."

"Well! I'm certainly glad."

"But, Grace, that isn't all there is to tell!"

Bubbling with excitement, he told about the picture, saying: "Of course, we know it's done, but they don't-Grant's, I mean. And, Grace, they'll pay! Four-figure money, he said, which is at least a thousand dollars. Is that worth waking up for? Is it?"

"... I imagine it better wait."

"Wait? For what?"

"Till you've straightened things out with Sally."

"Sally? What does she have to do with it?"

"Haven't you told her?"

"No, and I don't intend to!"

"Clay, you'd better."

"Are you starting that over again? Why?"

"For the same old reason: you're in love with her. And, for another reason, Clay: she's going to be at the party!"

"... You mean-Bunny's?"

"I picked out her dress this afternoon."

"I'm sorry I woke you, Grace."

"You stay away from that party, dumbbell. Did you hear what I said? Let Pat go there alone-send Bunny three dozen roses, five dozen, ten. Don't go, don't go, don't go!"

11.

THE GRANLUND HOUSE, KNOWN as "Calvert Hall," was a fine specimen of old Maryland architecture, as well as an object lesson in the difference between things as they are and things as they seem, if adroitly distorted. From Queen Caroline Street, seen at a distance, screened by shrubbery and dwarfed by stately trees, it seemed modest in size, even small. It was of brick painted white, and in five sections: a center hall, two wings a short distance off, and two "hyphens" connecting. Its lines were thus broken, in the form of a careless sprawl, or what appeared to be a sprawl. Close up, however, from the rose garden out front, the illusion of happenstance, of small informality, vanished, and reality appeared, in the form of a stately, full-fashioned mansion. Ordinarily Clay loved it, though just as ironical as anyone at the regency of the Granlund tenure, and he often stood admiring it, perhaps imagining himself as owning it or some place not too unlike it some time in the future. Today, however, as he pulled up on the oyster-sh.e.l.l drive, all he could see was Sally's coupe parked near the door. It was the only car out there, as Pat had reminded Clay that he was the guest of honor, and as such bound to come early, "as a grand entrance later just louses the hostess up." So no one else had come, and Clay was even more nervous than he had been at the office, during a hectic morning hour of shaking hands with everyone.

And sure enough, once a colored functionary had let them in, she met them in the hall, trim in a black silk print with red poinsettias, holding her hand out to Pat. "Mr. Grant," she said prettily, "welcome to Calvert Hall-I'm Mrs. Alexis, and I'll present you to the Granlunds." Then, turning to Clay: "Mr. Lockwood, so nice of you to come, so nice to see you again." She didn't shake hands with him, and he made no effort to. Holding up a finger to wait, she went to the great arch of the east hyphen and stood as though waiting for some signal. "Clay," whispered Pat, "I see good manners aplenty-it's all you do see nowadays. I don't see easy manners-but that girl has 'em." Clay agreed, fighting off pride in her. Then she nodded to someone, came over, took Pat's arm, and led through the hyphen, a bower of green things in boxes, to the great drawing room beyond. There the Granlunds were drawn up in the middle of the floor: Mrs. Bunny Granlund, a large woman of forty, who proclaimed every whim, endearment, confidence, joke, and considered opinion at the top of her lungs, as though all within earshot were deaf; Mr. Steve Granlund, a tall, dour man, with the icy affability that seems to be the interchangeable mark of grand dukes, bishops, and headwaiters. He greeted Pat cordially and congratulated Clay on his promotion, which he had read about in The Pilot. Mrs. Granlund fell on Pat's neck, then put her arms around Clay, calling him "Dear boy" and "Our own Clay."

When she had placed Pat beside her, where the guests could be presented, Clay wandered off to a corner, relieved that nothing special seemed to be expected of him. There Sally followed, telling him: "Bunny asked me to take you in, as your partner, for lunch-and I said I would. Was that all right?"

"Why, yes," he said, sounding queer. "Sure."

"Well, you don't act very pleased."

"I'm surprised, that's all, that you'd want to take somebody in that had mock-orange juice in his veins."

"Mock-orange love is what I got-I'll say it was quite a letdown. But who am I to complain? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

"Now, what's that supposed to mean?"

"You'd like to know, I bet."

Her look had guile in it, and he tried to growl something, but nothing seemed to come. Then, lamely, he said: "So-I guess we're partners."

"O.K.-wait for me."

The guests, when they began arriving, were mainly men, bringing regrets from wives all over the earth, the sea, the mountains, and Europe. But a few women came too, heavily sunburned, in silk, cotton, and linen suits, all eager to help Mrs. Granlund prove her distinguished origin, before she invested it in restaurant millions. Service, at tables for four in the big dining room, was by a Washington caterer, with elegant Negro help, and not by the Portico staff, which for such an affair was a bit on the folksy side. But Sally had a table for two by the wall near the kitchen door, and from this post of vantage steered things with sharp efficiency. Under these conditions not much could be said, and Clay made no effort to say it, retiring into silence and resuming the sulk that had slipped without his meaning it to. But presently, during a lull, Sally asked in a casual way: "When is he going back? Your most likable Mr. Grant."

"He's taking the four-o'clock plane."

"You mean, today?"

"From Friendship. I'm riding him there myself."

"Then you could be free tonight?"

He looked up to find her staring at him in an arch, innocent way. "I could be," he answered gruffly. "I am. Why?"

"I could pay you a visit. I still have my key."

He was too shaken for some moments to trust himself to look at her. Then he did, and told her: "I'm sure you could, but you're not going to until quite a few things are explained."

"If you mean what I did to your place," she whispered, leaning close, "I'm not sorry for that-I'm glad. Listen, when I go to you, in the frame of mind I was in, and you-"

"There's also that piece in the paper!"

"What piece in the paper?"