Rest and Be Thankful, Page 6

  Mrs. Peel was able to talk at great length to Jackson too, for the Wranglers’ Roost had miraculously emptied as she was seen timidly approaching the corral. It was fortunate that Jackson never did say very much, for she had so much to reassure him about. He was much better today in every way. He was dressed in his neat blue chauffeur’s uniform, and his black hair was expertly combed into place. He was pleased by the haircut which Chuck had given him, and he was delighted by the tattered copies of Western stories, with plenty of pictures, which Ned had heaped on his cot. Yes, he was definitely much better today; yesterday there had been a gleam of mutiny in his eyes. Perhaps the thought of spending the summer at Rest and be Thankful was beginning to seem less strange. To make quite sure, Mrs. Peel talked about his eventual trip to Atlantic City as a definite promise, and offered three weeks instead of two. As for California—well, that would be a pleasant exploration for the winter months when Rest and be Thankful would be closed. (Mrs. Peel believed in the pioneer spirit up to a point: beyond twelve inches of snow, no.) She left him, feeling slightly more happy about him, and hoping he was more reassured.

  He was—much more than she had guessed. The men who shared the large room with him were friendlier than he had first thought. Whenever they paid you an insult it was a compliment. Whenever they kept their faces solemn it was a joke. So all he had to do, when they mentioned flowers, was to smile as if he were enjoying himself. That had had amazing results. Bert had even searched for a bottle of Dr. White’s Poison-ivy Lotion in the bottom of the small wooden chest, where he kept special things like mateless socks and buttons and letters and broken knives and bits of wood to carve into ornaments. He also found some Sure-cure Snakebite and Sore-tail Ointment, and he presented these to Jackson too. Just in case, as he confided in Ned, the Hungarian Cowboy was going to show them all how to ride. Ned agreed that this was the kind of guy that always caught trouble; kind of helpless; made you think of a roped calf just at the moment it stopped kicking and turned its big brown eyes up at you. Robb suggested that—when you got right down to it—they might act just as helpless in a place as peculiar as that Hungary. This remark was followed by a period of silence. Chuck nodded his head: he never had any objections to this foreign fellow—best listener he had found in years.

  So Mrs. Peel returned to Mrs. Gunn’s kitchen, where she was given a nice cup of coffee to reassure her still more. “We couldn’t do without Jackson,” she explained, rocking herself gently in Mrs. Gunn’s chair. “Which is funny... At first, you know, he was so dependent on us. He couldn’t even speak much French when we met him. He was earning a pittance in a Paris garage doing odd jobs. He had been a refugee, you see, from Bela Kun.”

  Mrs. Gunn didn’t see, but she waited hopefully.

  “The Communist,” Mrs. Peel went on. “Jackson’s father was a farmer. Although I don’t quite understand how Communists will go around shooting farmers who disagree with them, and then blame their famines on countries that don’t shoot their farmers.”

  Mrs. Gunn said it seemed kind of unreasonable to her, at that.

  “He was so lost in Paris, poor Jackson. His name was Tisza Szénchenyi in those days, which complicated life considerably, I’m sure. And he was so proud, he wouldn’t admit he was lost. We engaged him one summer to drive us through Provence— we wanted someone who didn’t know the way, so annoying to be taken on a tour—and he has been with us ever since. Now it is we who would be lost without Jackson. That’s why I’m so relieved to feel he will probably stay at Rest and be Thankful. I noticed, for instance, just as I was leaving him, that Robb came in before going to Sweetwater to measure him with string for some suitable ranch clothes. So clever the way Robb put knots in it. I was fascinated. But how does he remember which knot is which? Or has he a system? Which reminds me, what should I wear out here, Mrs. Gunn? I don’t feel quite right in these clothes somehow.” Besides, it was silly to wear good clothes, even of pre-War Paris vintage, where they were never noticed.

  “The ladies over at the dude ranches dress just like cowboys,” Mrs. Gunn said, and smoothed her flowered apron over her neat blue dress.

  “Oh, dear!” Mrs. Peel said, thinking of her hip-line. “But I am not a cowboy. Wouldn’t it look rather silly to pretend I was? Perhaps I’ll send Miss Bly another telegram, though. Abercrombie and Fitch must know what we ought to wear out West.”

  Mrs. Gunn looked puzzled, recovered, and said, “If it’s clothes you need, the stores in Sweetwater have some nice things. This dress cost me only seven forty-nine.”

  Mrs. Peel smiled vaguely. “We must drive in sometime and have a look at the shops.” And then she went away to battle with the telephone, so that the telegram could be sent off at once to New York.

  * * *

  The news about Rest and be Thankful spread very quickly in New York too, even if there were plenty of worrying headlines to read in the newspapers. It only took one morning for all last winter’s visitors to Maggie’s Saloon to get on to the ’phone to each other, as soon as Prender Atherton Jones had called them and read the telegram he had received from Rest and be Thankful, Wyoming.

  “Can you imagine?”

  “So very rugged, my dear.”

  “Sounds fun. Do you know, I’ve never seen the West. Did they say how many bedrooms?”

  “Are they setting up a printing-press too, along with free beer and pretzels?”

  “They are crazy.”

  “I’m almost an unknown author. Do you think I’d qualify?”

  “She must be weighted down with money. Did you say old man Peel was a millionaire? And she never told us.”

  “Do they need any lecturers?”

  * * *

  Some might laugh, some might sneer, but the idea caught many people’s fancy—especially those who hadn’t yet arranged how to spend the summer. Even Dewey Schmetterling, who had been unable to resist coining “Maggie’s Saloon,” felt the urge to re-establish friendly relations with Margaret Peel. After a minor triumph in securing her full address from Prender he telegraphed his congratulations, beginning, “Oh, Pioneers!” He would have been furious if he had known Sarah Bly was, even at that moment, arriving in town. A luncheon at the Ritz or, as a last resort, a dinner at Twenty-one would have ensured an invitation to spend a week or two on the ranch. He would have mentioned casually that he was about to leave to visit friends on the West Coast (what an amazing coincidence!); and Sarah would have smiled with pleasure and said, “Well, do come and see us on your way.” Sarah and Maggie were good-hearted girls, if a trifle odd. Take this Rest and be Thankful. Probably bought the place to have that address on their note-paper, with Telephone Sweetwater Seven Seven on the side. Maggie would be quaint even if it killed her. He had to see her in cowboy clothes... Maggie Oakley... That would be a gem for his collection.

  But Prender Atherton Jones hadn’t been too explicit about the telegram. He was planning to give Sarah dinner at Twenty-one himself.

  So Sarah’s arrival in New York went unannounced, and she could spend an explanatory morning with Mr. Quick, their lawyer; and another equally wearing morning with Mr. Jobson, their pet banker; and an afternoon with her hairdresser; and in between she scored items off long lists in bookshops, music-shops, garden-shops, and gadget-shops. Thanks to Prender Atherton Jones’s discretion, there were no friendly interruptions.

  Her days were complicated enough, anyway, by the quick succession of telegrams from Wyoming.

  “Get blue jeans bleached and pre-shrunk as advertised New Yorker. Plenty of shirts laundry difficult. No satin definitely no satin.”

  “Medicines we know and trust. Don’t forget poison-ivy rattlesnakes flies moths calamine lotion sunshade flannel nightgowns hot-water bottles.”

  “Boots half-size larger and start breaking them in. Socks too.”

  The last telegram did full justice to Margaret’s ten-line editorialising: “Skiing underwear.” This put Sarah in a better humour, even while shopping in New York’s most blistering mood, w
hen the sight of wool was enough to cause a third-degree burn. Some Telemark undervests and Schneider crouch panties, please. Her private joke was abandoned, however, before the eighth store had lifted its eyebrows at such an unseasonable request, but managed to retrieve some wool objects for her from its bargain basement. They looked tent-like, but they would shrink: you could depend on wool. She scored off the last memorandum on her crumpled shopping-lists, and prayed that she would be safely in the ’plane for Wyoming before the next telegram arrived.

  * * *

  On the last evening Sarah was to have dinner with Prender Atherton Jones. She had her third cold shower, changed her clothes again, and put on her hat and lipstick most carefully for Twenty-one. Just as she was almost ready to leave Prender ’phoned to say that they might have dinner instead in a little French restaurant around the corner: it was so much easier to talk there. Poor Prender, his intentions for dinner were always good, but they invariably flinched two hours before the bill was presented. Now, if she hadn’t answered that telephone call! But she stopped feeling amused as she entered the hot street, and felt the warm waves of air surge up from the sidewalk. The little French restaurant “just around the corner” was too near to justify a taxi, too far for pleasant walking in this weather. It would probably be having difficulties with its air-conditioning.

  It was, for it relied on a fan. Prender’s face, she was glad to see, was already having its difficulties too. This would be a dripping, oozing, brow-mopping evening.

  “How well you look!” he said truthfully, and then he added a trifle too truthfully, “Years younger! What have you been doing to your hair? Most attractive that way.” He guided her to the tight little seat behind a small table with a checked cloth. “Isn’t this very Left Bank? Reminds me of the days when I used to visit you in Paris.” His voice became suddenly practical. “And what’s this new adventure you have engineered? We are all dying of curiosity. My ’phone has been ringing for the last three days.”

  There was no need to answer his question, for Margaret Peel’s telegram to Prender had been remarkably explanatory. So Sarah smiled and said, “Thank you for sending me the list of writers who might be interested in coming to Wyoming. I’ve spent today telephoning the names you marked specially.”

  “I made that list as soon as I got the telegram,” he assured her. “I know how desperately urgent it was for you.”

  Sarah felt her eyes widen. Somehow she had thought the predicament of the unhoused writers would have been a desperately urgent problem for Prender. He might even have said thank you to Margaret Peel. But at this moment, as he ordered red caviar and madrilène, to be followed by sole amandine (flounder with nuts on), it was obvious that he was Margaret’s benefactor. He finished his assault on the French language with a little domestic wine suitable for a lady, and then remembered that Sarah Bly had an excellent palate. He covered his confusion by firing off questions, amusingly phrased, in his crisp way. He had great charm, and used it as expertly as he managed his excellent hands. They pulled information out of you, Sarah thought: she was amazed at her own power of describing Rest and be Thankful.

  “It sounds delightful,” he said. “I think we shall have a most enjoyable holiday. What other lecturers have you decided to ask? I’ll give ‘The Subconscious in the Novel.’ Or perhaps ‘The Approach to Kafka’?”

  Sarah’s smile faded. “We hadn’t planned any lectures.”

  He was incredulously amused. “But you must have lecturers, Sarah!”

  “Frankly, we cannot afford their fees. This is an expensive undertaking—much more so than we had imagined, I’m afraid. Wages and prices in America are so much higher than in Europe, you know.”

  Ridiculous nonsense, he thought. Margaret Peel could easily have afforded to finance his Literary Festival; and she could certainly now offer her Rest and be Thankful to him for the summer. Instead she had financed her own idea and stolen his writers. He was deeply wounded. He passed his hand over his thick white hair, lightly enough not to disarrange its carefully encouraged wave. This was a sign of distress. His light grey eyes, rather too closely set together in an otherwise handsome face, looked at Sarah reproachfully. “My own summer was all built around the writers,” he said.

  Sarah tried to murmur something about accommodation being limited, but he waved that aside.

  “If you aren’t having lecturers”—he looked at her unbelievingly—“what are you providing for my writers?”

  “Wyoming,” Sarah said. She was angry now.

  He noticed the expression on her face. He counter-attacked. “You know, Sarah,” he said, with a smile, “it isn’t exactly fair to ask writers to be your guests so that you can have intelligent companions to brighten your evenings. Is it?”

  She was silenced. He made it sound so painfully true. He had certainly succeeded in killing her enthusiasm. She wished she had never heard of those writers, never seen Wyoming. She wondered suddenly how someone like Jim Brent would handle this situation. And surprisingly she regained her courage.

  She said quietly but decidedly, “We aren’t trying to take away your writers, Prender. If you feel we are, then let’s call the whole thing off.”

  He hadn’t quite expected that. He passed his hand over his hair once more, straightened his dark blue tie, and took a sip of his Californian Chablis. He had never seen Sarah in such a difficult mood. She was usually very amenable. It had been a grave mistake to cancel the table at Twenty-one. “Now, Sarah,” he said, even managing a smile, “that would be very disappointing for the writers, wouldn’t it?”

  And after that he set out to charm. Dinner ended on a friendly note with a dissection of their acquaintances in New York, Paris, and London. Everyone knew Prender, if they were celebrated enough; and he knew them—if they were especially celebrated—by their pet names. Twiddles, Dickie, Booboo, and Bibi came slipping into the conversation as easily as allusions to Tom Wolfe, Lorenzo, Gertrude, and Alice. Sarah’s alarm subsided. She even began to feel a little ashamed of herself for her suspicions.

  But when they parted, “I’ll write and let you know when to expect me,” he said. “I’ll draw up a programme for you. I know Merrick Maclehose would lecture without a fee if I asked him. He’s due for a Pulitzer Prize any year now. And Aubrey Brimstone—he’s starting a new magazine, didn’t you know?— he would be another good man to have. We ought to have a publisher, and perhaps a literary agent, to visit us too. Good for morale. Of course, we need only have them for a few days.”

  * * *

  But Prender Atherton Jones would stay all of August and more, Sarah Bly thought dejectedly, as she walked back to her hotel. And he would plan everything, unless she saw that he didn’t. And that would be unpleasant too.

  She looked at the rows of lighted windows, shining high above her in the warm dark sky. The tall narrow silhouettes of the mid-town skyscrapers were outlined clearly by the glow from the bright canyons at their feet. But even the view of New York by night couldn’t comfort her. By next winter Rest and be Thankful would be another of Prender’s discoveries. Next summer it would even be his Literary Festival. Forever and ever.

  “We’ll see about that,” she told herself grimly, by the time she reached her room. Then her words startled her. Few rebelled against Prender, and they were cast into the wilderness of the unmentioned. She could hear Prender pronounce her own obituary: “Poor Sarah, of course, always did have reactionary tendencies.” Reactionary, the damning word. The word that implied that new ideas must always be better than old, that progressive thinking—good in itself—couldn’t have bad results. How easily we can be blackmailed by a word, she thought.

  She undressed quickly, had her fourth shower, climbed into bed, drew a sheet over her, threw it off again, and settled patiently to endure a sleepless night. She began to compose a letter to Prender which would make everything quite definite. No fees. No lecturers. No guests except the writers. And Prender? She could hardly refuse him, after all.

  S
he stared up at the shadowed ceiling, circled by dim bands of light as the procession of taxis and cars came from the closing theatres. She listened to the street noises, to the hum of engines, the roar of an accelerator, the protesting scream of brakes, the ebb and flow of rushing wheels as the traffic lights changed. Her irritation increased. She became angry with her own weakness.

  She found herself wishing she had Jim Brent’s independence: he didn’t give a damn for anyone. Then she found herself smiling as she thought of his probable comment on some of the prize exhibits in Prender’s circle. That cheered her up considerably. In a way it would be amusing to see Prender Atherton Jones trying to dominate Wyoming.

  7

  ONE TO GET READY, TWO TO GET STEADY...

  Everything, Mrs. Peel decided, was most satisfactory. She hadn’t had so many arrangements to make since her summer on the Dalmation coast in 1938. The house was almost ready for the invasion. The invitations had been sent out, and six writers had definitely accepted them. Additional help had been engaged. Friendly relations had been established with the storekeepers in Sweetwater, who were relieved to hear that the new owners of Rest and be Thankful weren’t going to order staples from Omaha or Chicago. A Mr. Milton Jerks had announced he could provide gasoline, a car, souvenirs of Sweetwater, a laundry, a Piper Cub, and movies changed once a week without fail. And all Sarah’s purchases in New York had turned out well, except the skiing underwear, which preferred to stretch. The new books were added to the shelves in the study, which now could be called the library. The radio-phonograph and records were installed in the large living-room for the use of their guests. The small sitting-room with the glass-enclosed porch would be their own retreat. (Even in her exuberance Mrs. Peel felt that retreat might sometimes be the better part of valour.)

  Prender Atherton Jones had not yet announced his arrival. In fact, he had not even answered Sarah’s letter, sent by special delivery just before she left New York.