Chapter X: Part 10

The woman directed them upstairs while she stayed down to fix breakfast. The soles of Bemrose’s shoes stuck to the corrugated matting of the steep oak steps, and he steadied himself on the polished stair rail. Upstairs in the small, sunny room there was only one chair; so Arthur sat on the bed. He reached into his coat pocket for the Judge’s letters and studied a faded sketch in one of them. “That’s where the commode must have stood.” He pointed to the North wall. “His desk was here at the window, and----”

“I wonder where he put the bed. Maybe just where they have it.” Larry studied the crude drawing from over Arthur’s shoulder.

“No electricity, of course. He must have worked by kerosene lamp.”

“What do you figure this was? A book shelf?” Larry indicated a line on one of the sketches.

“I imagine so. It must have been here, above the bed.” Arthur studied the plaster. “They knocked it down and painted over the wall. Look.”

“Just a minute.” Larry ran his fingers over lumps in the plaster. “Here, do you suppose?”

Arthur shrugged. “How could he stand it without heat in winter?”

“He probably used wood or kerosene.”

“It must have been a cold cubbyhole,” said Bemrose, shuddering.

“It’s warm today, and there’s no heat on.” Larry felt the radiator. “This is still February.”

“It was cold and small and mean, but it didn’t prevent him from writing that noble prose of his. They were better men in those days. I don’t know how they did it.”

The woman appeared with two cups of coffee on a tray. “I thought you might like some.”

“Why, that’s very kind of you.” Arthur reached for the coffee. “I hope you don’t mind my sitting on your bed after you went to the trouble of making it.”

A powerfully built Negro in a khaki windbreaker put his head through the door. The woman introduced him as her husband. After chatting for a few minutes Bemrose showed them the Judge’s sketches.

She had heard of Judge Haynes and wanted to know more about him. Arthur described what he looked like. The Judge knew every inch of Georgetown by seeing it on foot, Arthur explained. He could tell you where all the well-known lawyers had lived--Gautt, Morsell, Durlop, the Coxes, Ould, and Caperton. He loved books, he had written a series of famous letters, and had been a distinguished lawyer before he sat on the bench.

“I’ve often wondered--was he really a liberal?” the man wanted to know.

“His decisions made him look like a liberal,” Arthur qualified. “He usually decided in favor of the fellow who was down, but in his heart I don’t think he honestly believed that all men are free or equal. I think he felt that they might have been born that way, but education gave some a tremendous jump on others.”

“Wasn’t he right!” The man grinned. “We sure go along with him there, don’t we, Martha?”

“We worked our way through Howard,” she explained.

“Specializing in anything?” Arthur asked.

“I took a major in statistics. I work at the Department of Commerce,” the man volunteered. “Martha was a home economics major.”

“I have a job as assistant housekeeper at a medium-sized hotel.”

The Negro sat down heavily on the bed next to Bemrose. “Going to college helps, but it’s a long way from being equal,” he said. “During the War they’ll make exceptions and take anyone for the job, but wait until peace breaks out-- We’ll be the first to go. That’s the way it was during the Depression, and conditions haven’t changed. Not fundamentally they haven’t.”

“We can’t let ourselves think that way,” Larry protested. “We’re trying to put an end to that kind of discrimination. Isn’t that one of the reasons we’re fighting? I don’t say we’re going to succeed. And of course I’m biased. I have a personal stake in the outcome, like you have. I make myself believe it’s going to get better.”

The man looked dubious. “I wish I could go along with you.”

“Have you a picture of Judge Haynes?” Martha asked.

Bemrose looked through his wallet. “I must have left it in another billfold. I’ll write home for one. Would you like to have copies of some of these letters?”

The man nodded. “We would appreciate it if you could spare them.”

“I’ll send them to you,” Arthur promised. He thanked the couple for the visit and the coffee and got up to go. The man motioned Larry aside and helped Bemrose with his powerful hands, almost lifting him down the stairs on his broad palms.

“I gather you folks must have walked over. Would you like a taxi?” he offered.

But Bemrose preferred to make it back to Janice’s on foot.

The couple waved goodbye to them from the front porch, and when Larry turned around for a last look at the faded, yellow house, he saw the man walk through the gate, probably back to his gardening.

After a silent few blocks Arthur said, “There was one of those letters I wanted them to see, but they’d better read it themselves. When he was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, the Judge wrote his family from Washington. I’ll try to quote, ‘You don’t see much outward sign of equality between colored and whites. If they are equal, as Jefferson said, it must be a state of mind, and true equality a way of feeling inside.’”

“More of them might have the feeling, if people treated them as you do.”

“Those two helped me get things straight a little,” Arthur said. “I’m glad we found them living there.”

“Did you notice? You didn’t try to give them any advice, not even when they began worrying about after the War,” Larry remarked.

“And I’m not looking for advice any more. Not even from him,” Arthur said of the Old Man.

Larry nodded. “Seems to me you’ve straightened things out with him pretty well. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve just about freed yourself.”

Larry looked up at the clouds, which appeared whiter than usual because the sky was such a deep blue, and noted that they moved impersonally through the heavens.

_Chapter 26_

Lucy had gone back to her old job at the Green Network, and Larry dropped around at her office to take her to tea a few days after he returned to New York. It was a dirty February afternoon, too slushy to look for a restaurant outside; so they went down to the drugstore in the building. A woman who conducted a successful household program, a radio comedian, and the M.C. of a quiz show occupied stools at the fountain.

“They ought to bring the tourists here after they’ve been to _Superman_,” Larry remarked. “They would find out more about radio than in those glass cages they have for visitors upstairs.”

Lucy smiled indulgently. She laid her black suède gloves on the plastic table and smoothed the fingers. “Arthur always liked this drugstore. How is he?” she asked.

“I think he’s fairly well found himself down there. Better off than he seemed to be practicing law in New York.” Larry found himself imitating her cool detachment.

She confided in her gloves, stroking the fingers as she talked. “I’m glad. Is he working hard?”

“I think he puts in a reasonably full day. He may have even dropped a few pounds----”

Her face clouded with maternal concern.

“Oh, he’s in good shape,” Larry reassured her.

“And Janice?”

“You know Janice. Going strong.”

“Did he tell you she took him to a specialist at Johns Hopkins, a doctor who’s a friend of hers?” Lucy asked.

“I didn’t have time to hear the medical details,” Larry admitted. “There was too much going on--a big party on Saturday and people around most of the weekend.”

“Arthur always liked big parties.”

Larry noticed that a minute ago Lucy had said: “Arthur always liked this drugstore.” Apparently he was the past tense. It gave Larry a twinge to hear her talk about him in that way.

“Is he getting over the feeling of being an invalid?” Lucy asked, dribbling lemon into her tea. The wedge slipped from her slender fingers. “I think he needed a change. If I had gone down to Washington with him, it would have been taking his nurse along. I think he had to do it alone.”

Lucy sighed. “She’s good for him, Larry. That’s what I really want to say.”

Good for him. Larry thought of the sleek dark head which had havocked the last few years of his life, tormenting and taunting him, trampling his sleeping and his waking----

“It’s what he always wanted, Larry. It’s what he really wanted when he married me.” Lucy’s shallow eyes turned on him. Only now he could not be certain of their lack of depth.

“Why did he marry you then?” Larry asked her.

“I suppose it was kind of a business deal. For both of us. He wanted a home and a wife he could dominate, and I wanted what I thought was security. There’s nothing wrong with a business deal that doesn’t work out,” she added, echoing an old conviction of Larry’s.

“I’m glad she found room for him at her house where it’s comfortable,” Lucy continued after a moment. “I’m glad she invites her friends over. They’re probably his friends already.”

Larry reached for her coat which had dropped over the low chair and was trailing the rubber flooring. He draped it gently over her shoulders.

“That’s all right, Larry.” Her smile faded. “It has to do with something inside of him. Something that wants to find whatever’s exceptional about his work or his friends. Or even at home. I was brought up to be unexceptional. My mother would have called it showing off if we ever tried to be different.”

Larry found himself admiring, of all qualities, Lucy’s good manners. The neutral quiet which had always shrouded her seemed to become a positive, tangible asset.

“He talked while I was down there about _not_ wanting to be exceptional,” Larry said. “He claims that he’s happiest as a group man, working with other people. He claims that he doesn’t want to stand out in any way.”

“Maybe he talks that way, but Arthur can’t help being exceptional.” She paused. “It would be like changing the color of his skin for him to try. I used to think he needed someone plain around him for balance. Someone like me.”

“With your face?” Larry protested.

“I talked myself into thinking that no house was big enough to hold two exceptional people, but I wasn’t really honest about it,” Lucy said. “Now he can see the difference. Now that he’s around someone who can give him the kind of life he wants.”

“So that’s how you have it figured out. When did you start thinking so?” Larry asked.

“When he first asked me to marry him, I guess. You know how you do at first. You figure it out with your mind. Your common sense tells you that’s how it is. But you don’t honestly believe it. You don’t really feel it-- You know it’s not what you really think.”

“But you finally did begin to think so?” he asked.

“When he took sick,” Lucy explained. “I wanted him to get well. That’s all I seemed to care about. I wanted it so hard that I would have settled for anything-- I was willing to forget about myself--just so he got back on his feet. Don’t think I was trying to be wonderful or have him thank me. I guess I was just scared. I prayed for him. When I saw him on crutches the first time, I didn’t want to live unless he could get well.”

“I wouldn’t want you to think I’m a fool, Larry,” she added. “But I was almost glad when he came home with you that afternoon and said he’d like to move to Washington. I knew what it meant. I knew it was his chance to get away----”

“And you didn’t mind?” he asked her. “You were willing to have him get away?”

Miserably the gray eyes assented. “It was my chance, too. It hasn’t been easy on me. It’s been a strain. Sometimes I think marriages for practical reasons aren’t much good. People should feel more than we do if they’re going to stay married. I worry that if Arthur and I go on as we are, I’ll wake up someday and find my real feelings shriveled up. I want to keep on feeling alive, Larry, and how can I if we try to go on living the way we are?”

“You know I encouraged him to take the job in Washington,” Larry acknowledged, none too pleased with himself at the moment.

“I know.”

“I wasn’t sure you were enough woman for him. Right from the beginning I was afraid of it. I don’t think I was fair to you. You’re plenty of woman, or you wouldn’t be willing to put his interests first.” He refilled her tea cup from a green china pot, anxious through some small act to make it up to her.

“Even if you’re willing to go on with him, I think it’ll backfire,” Larry told her.

“How?”

“You’ll get tired of it. You’ll be giving up your life for his, and in the long run you’ll expect payment. Even if you think you won’t. He’ll never be able to give it to you, of course, not ever enough, anyway, and in the end you’ll feel cheated.”

“You don’t have to find excuses, Larry,” she comforted him. “You didn’t break us up. He never would have gotten through his trouble without you; I don’t think he would have wanted to make the effort if you hadn’t been around giving him a boost. I don’t think any friend could have done more. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

Lucy’s fingers trailed tentatively along his sleeve. “You helped me, too. I want you to know about it. Do you remember before he got sick? I always thought it was my fault. I didn’t understand, and he frightened me. You never said anything, but you were around, and I knew I could count on you. You mustn’t blame yourself, Larry. You’ve helped both of us.”

“You understand about it now, I suppose,” he told her. “You know that it wasn’t you he was fighting in those days, it was himself.”

“I just happened to be the nearest person,” she agreed. “I was there, and when he was angry with himself----”

“That’s it. He took it out on you.”

“Janice had more sense, don’t you think so?”

“Why?”

“Because she went away. She wasn’t around. He couldn’t blame her when he was in trouble. He couldn’t possibly. He couldn’t even pretend she was to blame.”

“Maybe she didn’t care for him enough to hang around,” Larry suggested. “Maybe it didn’t mean enough to Janice. She didn’t want to try and help him.”

“I think she cared, Larry. I think she’s in love with him.” Lucy’s hands lay white and unstarched in her lap, as if in resignation.

“Love’s a big word,” Larry warned. “Right now, I’ll admit that she’s sorry for him. She sees that he’s sick and having a tough time, and she wants to do everything to make him comfortable. She’s lucky that she has a big house, and can. And don’t forget. She has a fine time when Arthur’s around. She’s not being any martyr. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were pretty selfish----”

“Does Arthur think so?” Lucy immobilized him with her calm, gray eyes. “Did he say she was selfish?”

“He’d never bring it up,” Larry said. “You know Arthur about things like that. You can get as much conversation out of him as out of a tomb. He did tell me to be sure and report to you first hand that he was getting along fine, and he gave me another message--” Larry unpinned the wilted carnation in his lapel and put it on the red leather seat of an empty chair next to her. “He wants to know when you’re planning to come down. Is Marge well enough for you to leave?”

The spoon trembled in Lucy’s hand. She might be fairly objective in discussing Arthur, but Marge’s name set off a different set of emotions. Marge must be mother to Lucy, Larry figured. Throughout her tempestuous marriage to Arthur, Marge had remained the dependable hearth, the secure shelter. Maybe when she married Arthur, Lucy had expected him to supply the parental love and security. But of course he hadn’t. She had never been able to count on his approval. At best he was kindly and tolerant. He had refused to be her father, her mother, and in any deeply emotional sense, her husband. Meanwhile, the bond with Marge held. Larry could see that any danger Marge might be in would upset her. She could talk calmly about Janice because the tie with Arthur was, in a sense, secondary, not her basic drive or consideration.

“You know yourself what it means to have a first baby at forty-two,” Lucy said. “The doctor keeps saying she’ll get along all right, but she’s been wretched. Simply wretched. Do you remember how she used to giggle?”

The hysterical cackle that broadcast Marge’s unfulfillment with Ed rang now in Larry’s ear.

“She never does any more. She doesn’t even smile.”

“Wait until the baby comes. She’ll feel better. By the way, how’s Ed?”

“Having labor pains,” Lucy smiled. “He hasn’t slept eight hours any night in months.”

“He’ll lose his jitters outside the delivery room. When is the baby due?”

“In a few more weeks. The doctor doesn’t know exactly. I can’t leave her. You see why, don’t you, Larry?”

“I see some things,” he admitted cautiously. “How about Phil? Does he look after you?”

She fondled the rim of the thick white cup with her finger. “He trots me over to Marge’s every night, and on weekends he makes me get away and go to the movies.”

“He’s been around for a long time. He must mean it. Nice boy, Phil.” Larry hadn’t intended the remark to sound patronizing. A nice boy was what Lucy needed, someone to be young with.

“What do you think I should do, Larry? If Arthur decides to stay down there? You’re _his_ friend, of course, and it isn’t fair to ask your advice, but I can’t go to Marge and Ed. They’re too upset right now, and anyway I’m not sure they would understand.” Lucy dropped her hands limply into her lap. “It’s a strange thing, Larry, considering how he used to act around them, but do you know they’re fond of him? Ever since Arthur took sick and started to be a little more considerate. When I spoke to Marge this morning, she asked me if I’d had a letter from Washington. She asks me almost every day. I think Arthur means a great deal to her.”

“Don’t they care for Phil?”

“They take him for granted. You see, to them, he’s not special like Arthur. Just because he’s nice to all of us and never raises a fuss--” She paused thoughtfully. “Arthur takes him for granted, too. Phil’s that kind of a person, easy going, no trouble to be with.”

“You don’t take him for granted, do you?”

“I feel comfortable with him, and you were right before, Larry. I’m tired. I’d like to forget problems and fussing. If I could sit somewhere quietly with someone who likes me for myself----”

Larry looked at the gray-blonde lashes, quiet on her cheek, and felt at peace, the way he had a year ago at the funeral of a friend. It was as if he had witnessed the death of her turmoil and sharp emotions. It was a kind of amen to the small, ignoble discords between the Bemroses.

“Phil can’t advise me. He’s too mixed up in it. Tell me what you think,” Lucy urged.

“How can you be sure what to do? Washington may not work out,” Larry reminded her. “In a month or so--” He shrugged. “There may be a blow-up. You can’t tell about a woman like Janice.”

If they clashed, it would be a good, earthy blow-up that let off steam, Larry knew, not a nagging quarrel, but because Arthur and Janice cared enough for it to matter. The thought comforted Larry.

“All right.” Lucy sighed. “I know you can’t be sure, and anyway you don’t want things spoiled for him. You’re afraid someday he’ll want to come home, and you think the place should be there waiting for him. There’s no rush about deciding, and of course it always will be there.” She tidied the wisps of hair under her nursemaid bonnet of blue ribbon. “I better go. I promised Ed that I’d help fix Marge’s supper.”

On the way to the Broadway car she promised to go to Washington, since Arthur insisted, as soon as Marge was out of the woods. Although Larry knew it wouldn’t repair the frayed moorings of their marriage, he felt better for having obtained her word. Bemrose was almost certain to question him.

The trolley was a good four or five blocks away, and they stomped on the corner to keep warm. “Does Phil want babies?” Larry asked her.

“Why?”

“You ought to have some. You’d be good for them.”

She touched the back of his thick, lined glove. “Poor Larry,” she sympathized.

* * * * *

While he was brushing his teeth that evening, he realized what she had meant. Poor Larry. No kids of his own. Poor Larry, an inveterate father hen with no babies. Poor Larry, fussing over Bemrose because there was no one else to fuss over.

_Chapter 27_

The day Larry picked to see the O.P.A. in Washington was the day after a Federal grand jury indicted the twenty Nazi sympathizers Arthur had been investigating. In the New York morning papers the story was front page. Larry had never gathered from talking about the case to Bemrose that they were sensational enough to be featured in the paper. Arthur had apparently established the fact that the crowd under indictment organized Nazi groups and distributed subversive literature, but he hadn’t been able to uncover definite acts of espionage. Since war news crowded the front page, and the story hardly seemed headline material, it was surprising that both papers gave it a feature box with more than a column carry-over. The _Tribune_ even ran Bemrose’s picture. The story wasn’t page one. It must be Arthur’s connection with the case which made it news.

At the railway station a stockingless girl with waved platinum bangs teetered past Larry on strapped, platform soles, and he smiled at her. The greenish platinum face spat her annoyance-- Papa-out-for-a-Pickup. He didn’t care about the girl, although she was pretty enough in the artificial new way of the young. He was grinning because Bemrose--damn it, you couldn’t keep him anonymous--had hit the jackpot again. So he was going to hold an inconspicuous place in Tom’s office, a number, not a name any more, a forgotten bureaucrat, a group man. This pat idea of disposing of the old Bemrose had lasted--how long?--about three months, and today he was back on page one. Maybe it was going to be more difficult to live down the Haynes tradition of individualism than Bemrose thought.

For humid minutes Larry hopped from island to island on the ramp outside the station trying to squeeze into a cab headed Northwest, and at last was assigned to one. He talked steak with a Navy man just back from Guadal, turned down the driver’s offer of an old Ingersoll for twenty-five dollars, grabbed his briefcase as they pulled up in front of the Department of Justice building, and shoving a generous tip into the driver’s hand, made a dash for Bemrose’s office.

Larry used his elbows to get through an impatient crowd of reporters and photographers spilling from the door. He found the Dale Carnegie secretary who remembered his name and face from the last trip, and was promptly shown in.

Arthur had on a conventional blue business suit that fitted him. The absence of his loose, conspicuous tweeds jolted Larry. In smooth cloth which hugged his shoulders, neck, and waist, Arthur looked like a drawing in crisp line instead of crayon, a man unblurred by the loose evasiveness of the tweeds.

Seated next to his desk, Larry saw Davis Shore nervously raveling the corner of a used envelope. Shore jumped to his feet. “Why, Mr.----”

“Frank,” Larry assisted. “How you doing?” he asked Bemrose.

“Frank. Frank. My memory for names--” Shore sat down, confused. “I wish you’d give the boy a try,” he said to Arthur.

“We have a strict rule in the Department,” Bemrose explained. “We don’t hire sons, relatives, or friends of friends. If you start that kind of thing in Washington, there’s no end to it, Davis. A man comes along with the right experience, someone you really want to hire, and there’s no line for him in the budget.”

“But the boy has a fine record. He was in the Corporation Counsel’s office for three years. He did an outstanding job and has wonderful letters----”

“4F?”

Shore nodded. “He’d like to be closer to the War. His mother says it’s having a bad effect on him, seeing all his friends in uniform. She’s my only sister, and----”

“Too bad he’s your nephew, Davis,” Arthur said. “He sounds like we might be able to use him.”

“You can’t hold that against him,” Shore protested.

“Strict rule of the Department. If he wants to come to Washington, I’ll give him a card to Don Richberg. There’s a shortage of good young lawyers down here in the private shops.” He took a card out of his wallet and scribbled on it. “There, that will get him in to Richberg.”

“That’s the third time I’ve turned him down,” Arthur said, when Shore had left. “This time I hope he stays turned down.”

“He looked like his grandmother kicked him in the stomach.”

“---- his 4F nephew.”

“I remember when you used to crawl for the guy.”

“I’m trying to forget it,” Arthur said. “How’s Bessie?”

Larry offered to clear out and make room for the reporters, but Arthur was wound up. He wanted to talk about the indictments. Janice’s old suspect, Richter, had given him the clue which helped crack the cases. Bemrose had sent to the F.B.I. for the art dealer’s file, and on a hunch, wired him to come down. Sure enough. Before the War, Goering’s agent in Berlin had ordered Richter to negotiate for a Titian. Richter located the painting but lost money on the exchange. This must have turned him against the Nazi gang in Germany, and he had been looking for a chance to get even. During the thirties he had met some of their sympathizers in this country, and knew where many of them hung out. Nervous because the F.B.I. had a file on him, Richter was willing to tell what he could and clear himself.

Bemrose promised him immunity if he talked, and immediately put a staff to work on the leads he gave them. In a couple of months they had rounded up enough facts for the indictments, and the rest was window dressing, building the evidence into a story.

“So Janice was on the right track all the time when she suspected Richter,” Larry said.

“I don’t think he had any paintings with him on the boat that time,” Arthur said. “Once the War started he was too smart to be caught. But he’s a bad egg. She was right about that.”

The buzzer sounded, and it was Newton on the phone, asking Arthur to see the reporters. Bemrose insisted to Tom that he was the chief and ought to see them, but Newton argued that the case belonged to Arthur. Since he had the details, he ought to hand out the story.

“What’s the use, Tom? There aren’t any new angles,” Bemrose protested. “I gave them a complete release.”

Newton, from what Larry could gather, must have urged him to see the photographers, even if he wouldn’t bother with the reporters.

“How about that picture in this morning’s _Tribune_?” Arthur objected. “Just a minute, Larry’s saying something.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

“Refusing fees again. Don’t spend the rest of your life refusing fees,” Larry repeated.

Arthur uncovered the receiver. “Okay, Tom. I’ll see them.”

“I thought I was through with that baby stuff,” he told Larry.

“I suppose you want Tom to be grateful to you the rest of his life.”

“Putting myself in solid,” Arthur admitted.

He sent word to his secretary to let the photographers in, and asked Larry to stick around. “They’ll fuss with the lights for a while. We’ll have time to talk.”

Luckily the man Larry was supposed to see at the O.P.A. agreed to put off his appointment. Arthur seemed relieved that he could stay. While the photographers slid their plates into position and changed their flash bulbs, he inquired about Lucy.

“Fine,” Larry assured him. “Better looking than ever.”

Tensely Bemrose rubbed his palms along the leather arms of his chair. “Did she say anything about coming down?”

“As soon as Marge is straightened out.”

“Is Phil around?”

Larry nodded toward the photographers who were getting ready to shoot.

When they finished, a kid with fresh blue eyes turned as he was leaving, and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Thanks, Mr. Next-Attorney-General.”

“The rumor mill,” Bemrose explained. “They have Tom running for the Senate, and they have me his successor. I doubt if the voters in Tom’s district know about it.”

“Mr. Attorney-General. Wouldn’t Janice like that.”

A flash of red came through the door, and Janice stood astride before them, both hands planted in the patch pockets of her bright coat. “What would I like?”

Larry nodded toward Bemrose. “The next Attorney-General.”

“Not according to my sources. That’s a job for a good party man.”

“Why can’t I go into politics without a party?” Arthur asked.

Larry appealed to Janice. “He’s been telling me to get out of politics for twenty years, and now he wants to know why he can’t get in. A few months ago he was going to be a cog in a machine----”

“What machine?” She rocked on her heels. “Tom Newton’s? Ed Flynn’s?”

“Not a political machine,” Larry explained. “One of Henry Ford’s. He was going to be one of those pistons that go up and down like every other piston, doing a job, not bothering the other pistons----”

“When was all this?” The straight mouth broke in a dozen delighted places.

“And today when I walked in here, the Nobody had locked out a crowd of reporters and was fighting to keep his name out of the papers.” Larry shrugged. “I don’t know what it proves. Maybe that you can’t keep a good piston down.”

Arthur faked his distaste. “Let’s get out of here, Jan, before he starts making bad puns.”

“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t go into politics, even if some smart reporter did make a crack. He can’t be the next Attorney-General because the incumbent has been picked, but how about making him a Judge? What’s wrong with that?” Janice bore down on her pockets, balancing on the soles of her feet.

“A fine group activity for a group man,” Larry scoffed. “Our friend, Bemrose, alone behind the bench, and the group out in front pleading for justice.”

“Shut up, both of you. Hand me my crutches, and let’s get out of here.” He hooked Janice affectionately by the neck when she came over to help him. “We’ll take him along. He came down to see the O.P.A. and put off his appointment for us. We’ll have to do something nice for him. How about the car? Did Jim fix you up with gas?”

“He left a press car in front, and I’ll get a ticket if we don’t hurry. Come on, Larry.”

She had arranged a consultation for Bemrose with a new specialist at Johns Hopkins. The ride to Baltimore, impregnated with their happiness, with Arthur’s recent success, and with the warmth of late May, offered reprieve for an hour from the anxieties, frustrations, and inconveniences of wartime. Larry leaned back and enjoyed the luxury of riding again in a private car. Most of his friends’ automobiles were in storage. The taxis were rattletraps. Riding in something that had a decent pair of springs was a pre-War treat. Larry withdrew to a corner of the back seat and let the spring afternoon chatter to him. He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, the car had stopped and Janice was climbing over him to help Arthur get out.

In the hospital waiting room, while Arthur was in with the doctor, Janice had a chance to talk to Larry. An ugly niche at one end of the white corridor, some hard chairs, and the inevitable tired plant that lives in public rooms at hospitals, supplied the setting. Larry had noticed before that people waiting in hospitals, drawn together by the proximity of pain, felt free to unburden themselves as Janice did now.

“His real sickness is over,” she asserted. “This other is inconvenient and makes it hard for him to get around, but it’s not as serious. Inside he has started to heal. The cancer that used to eat into him seems to be under control.” She hesitated. “At least I think it is. I think he’s over that crazy desire to own other people. I hope I’m right, Larry, and don’t wake up someday to find myself in a trap he has camouflaged to catch me in. I don’t want to be hopelessly--” She walked to the window, and the structure of her profile had the strength of an ancient coin. Larry tried to imagine a trap powerful enough to hold her.

“It’s been hopelessly for a long time, hasn’t it?” He rested his hands next to hers on the high white sill. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the change being temporary if I were you,” Larry cautioned. “I don’t think it was a cancer. A cancer spreads. Call it a tumor that’s been removed. I’d go ahead and make some plans now.”

She had been staring, trancelike, at the clouded window glass, but now her head tilted toward him. “Make personal plans today? How can we? They’d have to be changed a thousand times. I can’t think of any plans, including some of Eisenhower’s, that will stand up. There’s too much in the air that’s unpredictable. Of all the times in history to make plans for the future----”

“War maneuvers are unpredictable,” Larry agreed. “But people don’t have to be.”

“That’s heretical. It’s absolutely against the belief of our times,” Janice protested. “Don’t you know it’s things, _things_ that don’t change? We haven’t faith in human beings. It’s things that stand up.”

“All right, but I’d make some plans just the same,” Larry insisted. “Soon. While he’s down here and happy with his job.”

“What about New York? What about her?” Janice asked.

“It’s okay with her. I’ve talked to her and I’m sure.”

Janice slipped her hand into the loose sleeve of her coat and pulled down her heavy bracelet. “The man you told me about?”

“Yes. He seems more for her. If she married him, they’d have children by now. I don’t think he’s rushing her into anything. He seems to understand about Arthur. But just the same I guess he’d be happy if she made up her mind.”

Janice rested a foot on the radiator pipe and turned away from Larry.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s the matter? Scared?”

“He hasn’t asked me. I can’t even tell whether he wants to.” She twisted away. “He talks about Lucy coming down. When I tell him I may have to go overseas, he doesn’t object. He probably doesn’t want to commit himself.”

“Maybe he thinks you know your mind, and when you’re ready, you’ll say so,” Larry suggested. “It’s one of the prices you pay for being independent. He’s probably waiting for some sign from you.”

Her jaw set stubbornly. “I don’t want to crowd him. I want him to be sure about us. As long as there’s a war, I don’t know how he can be. It’s like planning a future home in a trailer. I may feel permanent about Arthur and he may feel a little like that about me, but these aren’t permanent times.” She dug her soles into the rubber-matted floor. “We’re feeling the blast of blockbusters that are three thousand miles away. The ground is shifting under us. Washington, New York and Des Moines are as thoroughly bombed as London. Not that many people realize it now----”

Larry shook his head.

“You can put buildings together again, but you don’t hear of any post-War plans for restoring hopes,” Janice continued. “All you see and feel is the disintegration. If Arthur doesn’t want to pretend a permanence he can’t feel, I don’t blame him. He tried to use marriage for ballast once, when he was restless before the War, and what happened? The ballast turned into dead weight. That mustn’t happen to him again. I won’t let it. I’ve waited all this time, and I can wait another few years to see what comes out of the mess. If he and I have anything in the way of happiness that will help give it meaning-- Meaning!” She shrugged. “That’s too much to expect. Survival is what I’m trying to say. Freedom to enjoy parts of some days, the feeling that it’s good to be together, and when we’re apart it stays good--I’ll settle for that. He doesn’t have to sign any papers.”

“But you have waited,” Larry insisted. “Supposing you _do_ make plans and have to tear them up. You’d have the satisfaction now of making them. I wouldn’t let things ride. I’d have a talk with him,” he told her.

“I’m going to wait and I’m going to be patient,” she decided. “This time there’s something to wait for. This time, if he’ll have me----”

She flung herself on Larry, sobbing, and an elderly woman with a line-ridden face, who slumped heavily in her chair across the room, leaned forward startled. He stroked Janice’s smooth dark head, mumbling comfort into her hair. When she lifted her face, he dried her off with a fresh handkerchief. The tears stopped, and she brightened. “This time I’m going to hold out for the big thing. I want him to marry me.”

The elderly lady had returned to her own brooding, and they were sitting quietly on a wicker sofa near the door when Dr. Turnbull’s nurse called them.

In a room at the end of the hall they found the spare, balding physician who had been a research man on antibiotics at the Rockefeller Institute before he accepted the post at Hopkins.

“Well, I’ve completed the examination,” Dr. Turnbull reported.

Arthur interrupted him. “I’m straight garden variety, not even interesting material for the medical journals.” Complacently he puffed a cigarette.

“Fortunately no unusual complications,” Turnbull continued. “But some new things we’ll be able to try someday. Miss Baldwin spoke to me about penicillin. I can’t see that penicillin notatum, the kind we work with now, will do much good. I thought of suggesting streptomycin, but that’s off the track.” He turned to Janice. “I may be wrong, of course. There hasn’t been enough work done to exhaust the possibilities of any of these newer drugs.”

“Antibiotics are your field. You’re the one person who _would_ know the possibilities.” Janice’s active, bony fingers reached toward him.

He had been constrained at first, but now he unbent. “The longer you work in a field, the less you are sure of anything. Every country doctor today knows more than I do about penicillin. He’ll tell you just what to use it for and how much to give----

“A year ago we were working on a mold that is close to streptomycin in some of its effects but has one characteristic which makes it a possibility-- I’m not saying it will work, but in multiple sclerosis it’s certainly worth a trial,” the doctor continued. “The project has stopped during the War, but as soon as personnel becomes available and we can reorganize, I’ll have some material for experimental purposes. If Mr. Bemrose will keep in touch with me----”

The doctor shook hands. “Try to be patient,” he admonished Bemrose. “Give us six months from V-J Day. Until then we’ll have to be patient and wait.”

Janice had said it a few minutes ago, and Dr. Turnbull was saying it now, Larry realized. Wait. Patience. Until the War is over. Until the War ends. It was like waiting for the millennium, or a small child on the eve of his birthday expecting to be three inches taller the next day. There was something wrong about believing that peace would bring abrupt improvements, and the day the War ended, plans and projects would get under way. That wasn’t the order of things. The chaos, the restlessness, the shifting values of now would carry over. The seeds for peace were already being sown. Peace would be a phase of war, not a separate state, as convalescence is a continued phase of illness. That’s why Larry disliked the postponements of the present time, the almost universal reliance on “when the War is over” as a solution for present problems. Peace would be no dead end, but a cross-country thoroughfare marked by the same old anxieties.

Outside the hospital Larry said, “I know one thing we can do without waiting for the War to be over. We can go to Reilly’s and have the finest shore dinner in Baltimore.”

He sat in front of the car with Janice to direct her to the restaurant. It was near the railway terminal, and had been recommended to Larry years ago by Bessie’s brother who ran a chain of clothing stores in Baltimore.

“I don’t think Turnbull would have promised to try the drug unless he thought it was going to work, do you?” she asked quietly so as not to disturb Bemrose who was stretched out on the back seat resting.

“Turnbull doesn’t know. How can he know until he tries it?”

“You could let me hope,” she said crossly.

“I thought Turnbull was very encouraging.” Larry patted her knee. “After going over the case, he seemed to think that _with_ crutches Arthur’s in good shape. He doesn’t have to be completely well, does he? Who is completely well?”

She stroked the steering wheel thoughtfully. “I’m not.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I should have thought of that myself,” she said. “Look up there.”

She pointed to a star in the early evening sky, and Larry felt her happiness rocket to meet it.

* * * * *

Reilly, the restaurant proprietor, remembered Larry and brought the steamed clams to the table himself. They washed them down with a pungent sea broth, and later drank a dry white table wine with their lobster. The French bread was fresh and crusty, and as a special treat, Reilly produced a good _fine_ with the coffee. Arthur who dissected the lobster with a steady hand, swapped Irish stories with Reilly, and while they ate they laughed, all three of them, not two paired against the third. Larry thought of it later as the best dinner of his life, and whenever friends took him to a favorite seafood restaurant, he remembered the vividness of Janice in her red jacket and the pleasure of Bemrose as he watched her from across the table.

After dinner Larry offered to drive the car back to Washington. The painted white line of the highway had grown dim with the War, and Larry became involved in the unfamiliar mechanics of steering and shifting. As they stopped for a light near Washington, he turned around and saw that Janice was asleep on Arthur’s shoulder.

“Pooped,” Bemrose said, cradling her head in his arm. “She dropped off right away.”

“I suppose Turnbull was right,” he added later. “No use doing anything in any department until the War is over. I have to make up my mind to wait. Helluva nice guy, Turnbull. It must be great to work with stuff like penicillin.”

“Turnbull was only talking about that new drug when he told you to wait. He didn’t mean to wait for other things. Conditions aren’t going to change that much with the end of the War. If you go ahead and make plans now----”

“It’s easier not to look ahead,” Arthur said. “I thought HAYNES and BEMROSE would go on forever. I thought when I married Lucy-- What’s the good of planning?”

“You have to plan,” Larry insisted. “Things outside change and get messed up. Inside you have to have a blueprint. Then something is left when the outside falls to pieces.”

“I see what you’re driving at,” Arthur agreed. “The trouble is, I guess, I’ve lost faith in some of my blueprints.”

Janice’s voice came through the darkened tonneau. “Who’s building a house?”

“Arthur. I’m trying to talk him into building one,” Larry said.

“Is he going to ask us to live in it?” she inquired sleepily.

Blood and heart seemed to make more sense at the moment than a meticulous ten-year plan, and Arthur, answering her in the dark, demonstrated that he knew it.

_Chapter 28_

By June of ’43 when Larry went down to spend another weekend with Arthur in Washington, the output of heavy bombers was beginning to outnumber submarine sinkings; Eisenhower had met in Algiers with De Gaulle; the military establishment at Pantelleria had been bombed out, and Italy’s supply system in the South was cracking. Invasion was expected any day, and people waited, content to read about B-17s grounded by weather in England, tolerant of the coal strike at home, sure that Jimmy Byrnes, head of the new O.W.M., and kingpin of Washington production czars, would soon have materials rolling to the invasion troops.

The night before Larry left New York, Bessie complained about his going. “I hope you don’t have to make many more trips down there,” she said petulantly.

Larry let it pass. Liz Brett had come in for a drink during the evening to tell them about her new husband, a forty-five year old captain in the Marines. Liz, imitating the kids, had met him one week when he was home on leave and married him the next. She wanted to get out to Pearl Harbor where he was stationed, and had almost talked a theatrical producer into sending her. In return she promised him a set for a play he was doing about the Pacific. There was so much trouble, though, in clearing her papers and passport that the producer was forced finally to rely on Navy photographs for his data. While she was telling this to Larry and Bess, Liz looked around the living room and noticed a tear in one of the slipcovers. She advised Bessie not to try and order new ones until the War ended and some decent fabrics again became available.

After Liz went home, Bess’s spirits took a nosedive. She walked around the room fingering rips, faulty zippers, missing snap fasteners, and threadbare spots in the chintz covers as if each were a badge of disgrace. Larry, jubilant because he had found a pair of black shoes on his expiring Number Seventeen ration coupon, tried to cheer her by saying that it might be his last trip to Washington to see Bemrose.

“I hope it is,” Bess said. “You can’t pick up and leave your practice every time he’s lonesome and wants to see you.”

“But he referred most of the practice to me.”

Her purple lips puckered. “The clients like you for yourself. You know they do.”

“They’ve really been coming in lately,” Larry admitted. “First thing you know I won’t be able to stay one of those Little Shots you admire.”

“You’ve worked hard for it, Larry. He did his friends a favor, recommending a good lawyer to them.” Her dark lips parted with curiosity. “What makes you think it’s the last weekend you’ll have to go down?”

“I have a hunch he’s going to start to get along without me. It took him years to shake off the Old Man, but he finally managed it. Next, I think he’s going to let Lucy go. That leaves me.” Larry stroked her neck, under the dark curls in back. “You’ll have more of me on your hands,” he threatened.

Bessie’s eyes petulantly refused to be glad. “Maybe he won’t need you, but that doesn’t mean anything. He likes you. He’ll want to see you.”

“Sure, once in a while. But not because he has to have another crutch to lean on. Once he stops depending on me----”

“Why don’t you wear your new tie, Larry?” she asked. “It goes much better with that suit.”

He fingered the small patterned maroon tie which harmonized with the dark red pin stripe in his sharkskin. “What’s the matter with this one? It’s a perfect match.”

“I suppose he’s going to marry Miss Baldwin,” she said. “But how can he if she’s overseas? Didn’t you say she went over for the invasion? I suppose the invasion’s important, but why did she go away and leave him by himself in that big house?”

“She left him with a good housekeeper. He’s getting along all right.”

“Maybe if he misses her enough, he’ll make up his mind. You’d think he would know by now. Didn’t you say someone named Holmes, an artist, used to be crazy about her?” Bessie asked. “I saved something from the paper about him.” She searched in the drawer of her desk for a clipping. “If it’s the same Holmes,” she said, handing it to him.

Apparently Steve had been out in Australia working on a series of paintings for a drug manufacturer and had been hurt in a jeep accident. He had been taken to a hospital with head injuries, Larry read, but they were believed minor, and he was expected to recover.

“She might hear about the accident and go to see him,” Bessie suggested.

“Where did you dream up a romantic idea like that? From England to Australia?”

“I don’t see why not. She could fly to Australia,” Bessie insisted.

“I’ve been trying to tell you she likes Bemrose. She’s not going to fly out to see Holmes. It’s Bemrose she’s crazy about.”

“If she’s so crazy about him, why did she go overseas?” Bessie stared stolidly ahead. “What’ll you do with the extra time, Larry? After they’re married?”

“I can work hard and become one of those corporation lawyers.” He stuck out his stomach.

“Silly.” She pushed it down. “How old was her aunt, the one who had the baby?”

“Whose? Lucy’s?”

“The aunt with the husband.”

“I should hope so.”

She frowned. “No, how old?”

“Forty-one, maybe forty-two. I don’t know exactly.”

Her eyes questioned him.

“You mean us?” he asked.

“I’m not saying we have to, Larry. I guess you’ve never wanted to very much, but you’re doing better now at the office and I thought-- You’re taking a topcoat to Washington with you, aren’t you?”

He considered it on the train the next day. Maybe Bessie was right. They had never given it enough thought. In the hand-to-mouth struggle for a living since they were married, they hadn’t considered seriously the idea of having a family. Did he want one? And if he didn’t want children, what did he want? Not more clients. He had enough, the way things were going, to keep him busy at the office. Not a more active career in politics. He was sick and tired of the political scramble. Maybe a family. Maybe he ought to make a few plans of his own. Maybe he ought to take some of the advice that he had been busy dishing out to Bemrose.

* * * * *

When Larry arrived in Georgetown the next day, he found Fred Maxwell, an old beau of Janice’s, drinking brandy in the study with Arthur.

“Fred phoned around dinner time and said he was free tonight,” Bemrose explained. “You haven’t seen Washington until you’ve met Fred. He’s a landmark, like the Washington monument----”

“Old and dead,” Maxwell interrupted.

“Not according to Janice,” Arthur protested.

“She hasn’t been out with me for ten years. She wouldn’t know. By the way, I spoke to her today. She phoned in a story from London.”

“How is she?” Arthur sat forward in his chair.